Booking through Thursday

Would you say that you read about the same amount now as when you were younger? More? Less? Why?

When I first read this question, I wondered...My goodness, how can I quantify my reading? Is "reading more" equal to finishing more books? Spending more time reading? Reading fatter books? Finishing more books?

I've always been a voracious and indelicate reader. I'll read almost anything except (and sorry, I don't mean to be a snob here, I just can't get into...) romances (and that says more about me than about the genre, trust me). I go through binges where I'll read nothing but biographies, or nothing but an entire series of paperback mysteries, or the entire works of Barbara Pym (for the 18th time, at least). Other times, I'll read poetry, or go through art books, or read Barbara Walker's stitch dictionaries as if they were cookbooks. (Actually, I don't read cookbooks. I don't cook.) I'll read Wilkie Collins, Stephen King (love his book on writing!), Charles de Lint, Alfred Bester, Louisa May Alcott...

Is this more or less than I read when I was younger? Well, obviously, I have a full-time job, and a full-time house, and a full-time husband... so I have less time to read. That doesn't mean I read less, and it doesn't mean that I don't get as engrossed in a book as I once did. If anything, I appreciate the time I grab for reading, knitting, and writing letters more than when I was young. (I appreciate everything more now, but that's another post.)

I think that's my answer. I can't really quantify whether I read more or less, but I appreciate my reading and time more.

melanie

Booking through Thursday

This week's question:

• I would enjoy reading a meme about people’s abandoned books. The books that you start but don’t finish say as much about you as the ones you actually read, sometimes because of the books themselves or because of the circumstances that prevent you from finishing. So . . . what books have you abandoned and why?

The book that comes to mind: Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. I became interested in it when Oprah announced it.

• No, I do not read all of Oprah's books. I don't even like Oprah. In fact, sometimes I really dislike Oprah. But that's another story. Oprah has chosen some fine books. The Reader, for example, and We Were the Mulvaneys. I read the translation of Anna Karenina she chose because it had been years since I'd read AK and I wanted to experience her through a newer sensibility than Constance Garnett's.

Another admission: sometimes I allow my feelings about an author to color my response to the book. If Joyce Carol Oates or Cynthia Ozick has written it, I'm predisposed to love it. In this case, the whole Franzen/Oprah flap predisposed me to disliking the book because, much as I don't like Oprah, I think that any author who chucks an opportunity to meet a huge and hungry audience is foolish.

And dislike it I did - on its lack of merit. I got through, maybe, 70 pages before I chucked it. I hated every character, I didn't care about what they were doing or where, and I found myself thinking that Franzen should have been very grateful indeed to have had such mass exposure.

melanie

Booking through Thursday

Okay . . . picture this (really) worst-case scenario: It’s cold and raining, your boyfriend/girlfriend has just dumped you, you’ve just been fired, the pile of unpaid bills is sky-high, your beloved pet has recently died, and you think you’re coming down with a cold. All you want to do (other than hiding under the covers) is to curl up with a good book, something warm and comforting that will make you feel better.

What do you read?

(Any bets on how quickly somebody says the Bible or some other religious text? A good choice, to be sure, but to be honest, I was thinking more along the lines of fiction…. Unless I laid it on a little strong in the string of catastrophes? Maybe I should have just stuck to catching a cold on a rainy day….)

This one is easy. I read Emily Dickinson. She has been through it all, and can see me through all. (Fiction Just Will Not Do!)

The soul has moments of Escape-
When bursting all the doors-
She dances like a Bomb, abroad-
And swings upon the Hours,

As do the Bee - delirious borne-
Long Dungeoned from his rose-
Touch Liberty- then know no more
But Noon, and Paradise -

melanie

book meme

Here's a meme I stole from Chris at Book-a-rama: go to the advanced book search on Amazon, type your first name into the Title field, and post the most interesting/amusing cover that shows up.













I've been meaning to read this book!
melanie

Booking through Thursday

Are you a Goldilocks kind of reader?

Do you need the light just right, the background noise just so loud but not too loud, the chair just right, the distractions at a minimum?

Or can you open a book at any time and dip right in, whether it’s for twenty seconds, while waiting for the kettle to boil, or indefinitely, like while waiting interminably at the hospital–as long as the book is open in front of your nose, you’re happy to read?

I am neither Goldilocks nor the Princess and the Pea. I can read anywhere, anytime, in any situation - unless the light is bad, in which case I become The Beast (only without his more attractive qualities...)

melanie

Booking through Thursday : Indoctrination

When growing up did your family share your love of books? If so, did one person get you into reading? And, do you have any family-oriented memories with books and reading? (Family trips to bookstore, reading the same book as a sibling or parent, etc.)

My family reads. Always read. Always will read. It's our nature to read. No matter what else we do or don't do, that remains constant.
My best family-oriented book memory is a trip to the big Barnes & Noble store on Fifth Avenue in the late 1950s. While my mother was looking for art books about The Floating World, I wandered around the used-book section, where I found a lovely Everyman's Library copy of Jane Eyre, bound in red cloth, and only a dollar or two. I had a dollar or two. Reader, I bought it, read it, and still read it.

melanie

Booking through Thursday

One book at a time? Or more than one? If more, are they different types/genres? Or similar?

(We’re talking recreational reading, here—books for work or school don’t really count since they’re not optional.)

Monogamy? HAH! No way. I have no discipline, no plan, almost no discernment. Whatever comes along, if it looks delectable, I will taste it.

As for what I read - No rhyme, no reason - No, that's not true, because I am apt to be reading poetry and non-fiction together, along with fiction, which can be anything from classics to children's books.

(In fact, I have just joined a read-and-knit-along for Anne of Green Gables, and I'm looking forward to it as I would look forward to curling up with ice water and peppermints... no, that's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I also want to reread...)

melanie

Booking through Thursday

Have you ever written an author a fan letter?
Did you get an answer?
Did it spark a conversation? A meeting?


I've written to a few authors, but only received three responses. Joseph Epstein, whose collection of essays, The Middle of My Tether, delighted me, sent a typed postcard thanking me for my comments. Laurie Colwin wrote a short note. And Joan Didion, to whom I sent a letter of condolence on the death of her husband, sent a personal note on her lovely blue stationery.

I've met authors, but not through letters, only at book signings: Joyce Carol Oates, Alexandra Stoddard, Dominick Dunne, Alan Dershowitz, Marvin Kitman...

(Have you read Carolyn See's Making a Literary Life? One of the suggestions she makes is to write letters to authors. I really should write one to her.)

teabird

Booking through Thursday

Who’s the worst fictional villain you can think of? As in, the one you hate the most, find the most evil, are happiest to see defeated? Not the cardboard, two-dimensional variety, but the most deliciously-written, most entertaining, best villain? Not necessarily the most “evil,” so much as the best-conceived on the part of the author…oh, you know what I mean!

The worst villain: Gilbert Osmond in The Portrait of a Lady. He devours innocence and freedom for sheer sport - ruining Isobel's life, Pansy's life - even Ralph Touchett's, in a way, as his sufferings are multiplied by his generosity. Osmond's delight in the trappings of wealth and culture makes his heartlessness even more ironic.

melanie

Booking through Thursday

Okay, love him or loathe him, you’d have to live under a rock not to know that J.K. Rowling’s final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, comes out on Saturday… Are you going to read it? This Ravenclaw will be reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows the moment it arrives from Amazon.uk. If I don't get it by Saturday, I'll have to hide in my closet to keep from being spoiled.

1. If so, right away? Or just, you know, eventually, when you get around to it? Are you attending any of the midnight parties? See above. I won't attend parties, but I will talk with my stuffed Hedwigs. It will be a comfort to us both.
   
2. If you’re not going to read it, why not?
3. And, for the record… what do you think? Will Harry survive the series? What are you most looking forward to? I am in the "Snape is a good guy" queue because I trust Dumbledore completely. I think he took Harry on the quest for the Horcrux as a rite of passage, to toughen him and to ensure that he could do anything necessary to vanquish (hiss) Voldemort. It was Harry's Bardo, facing what he feared, and he got through it.
   

teabird

Booking through Thursday

What with yesterday being the Fourth of July and all, I’m feeling a little patriotic, and so have a simple question:What, in your opinion, is the (mythical) Great American Novel? At least to date. A “classic,” or a current one–either would be fine. Mark Twain? J.D. Salinger? F. Scott Fitzgerald? Stephen King? Laura Ingalls Wilder?It doesn’t have to be your favorite book, mind you. “Citizen Kane” may be the “best” film, and I concede its merits, but it’s not my favorite. You don’t have to love something to know that it’s good.Now, I know that not all of you are American–but you can play, too! What I want from you is to know what you consider to the best novel of YOUR country. It might be someone the rest of us haven’t heard of and, frankly, I think we’d all like to get some new authors to read.In fact, while we’re at it–I’m curious about the geographical make-up of this meme. So, while you’re leaving your link to your post, tell us where in the world you are! (For the record, I’m in New Jersey, USA.)


My choice for the Great American Novel may not even be a novel ( it might be a novella): Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote. On one level, it's a light story about a golddigger who befriends a writer, moves into his apartment, and shows him the decidedly atypical slice of American life she has tried to enter.

Glam, bohemian parties present a background for a lonely, lovely woman who loves the glitter and freedom she found when she left her home, but fears attachments. She calls the men who give her the "tips" she lives on "rats," and she calls her cat "Cat" because a real name for the animal would represent too much of an attachment. Despite the patina of sophistication, she remains a naive, small-town girl who misses her brother and who allows herself to become an unwitting carrier of information for a jailed mobster.

I've always thought of Breakfast at Tiffany's as another iteration of the themes that F. Scott Fitzgerald iterated in The Great Gatsby. Like Jay Gatsby, Holly Golightly has come east to establish a glittering life for herself. Where Gatsby stared at the green light at the end of the pier where his unattainable Daisy lived and flung jewel-toned shirts to impress her, Holly stares at the unattainable jewels behind the windows of Tiffany's and tries to impress with witticisms. Both Holly and Gatsby are victims of the criminals and wastelands that underlie the glamour of New York.

(Incidentally, I love the film except for the gruesome, goggle-eyed, bucktoothed-gargoyle depiction of the Chinese landlord. Was such a depiction ever acceptable, or funny?)

I'm from Long Island, New York, which explains my affinity for both of Gatsby's Eggs and Holly's Manhattan.


posted by melanie

Booking through Thursday

What’s the most desperate thing you’ve read because it was the only available reading material?If it was longer than a cereal box or an advertisement, did it turn out to be worth your while?

Yes, it was. I was on vacation in Vermont, and there was almost nothing to read in the cabin. (It was bad enough being in the cabin, for reasons I rather would forget.) I'd brought along quite a few books, and I had read them all, so I started to examine the shelves, hoping I'd missed something readable amongst the fishing, hunting, and small-engine-repair manuals -- and I had : Island by Aldous Huxley. It was, as you can imagine, worth reading.
(It's been 27 years since I read it, and I have included it on my Dystopian Challenge for this summer, because it will be, as you can imagine, worth re-visiting -- especially since I won't be reading it while suffering through a my own, isolated dystopia.)
melanie

Booking through Thursday

Since school is out for the summer (in most places, at least), here’s a school-themed question for the week:

1. Do you have any old school books? Did you keep yours from college? Old textbooks from garage sales? Old workbooks from classes gone by?
2. How about your old notes, exams, papers? Do you save them? Or have they long since gone to the great Locker-in-the-sky?
   

Old school books - yes, I have some - a collection of Victorian prose, in case I want to dip into Carlyle and Pater again, a book about archetypes in literature for the course I took in Irish literature, a Donald Keene collection of Japanese fiction for a one-person seminar with a professor who was almost too grateful to have a captive student, The Riverside Shakespeare, and various science fiction novels written by women for a dissertation proposal. The novels are the only books I kept from my Masters, which some might find odd, since my Masters is in Library Science, and some might think the texts would have been useful. Some might be wrong wrong wrong.

Notes, exams, papers - some. I have a box of notebooks in the garage from my fifth undergrad stint. (No, I don't have five undergrad degrees. I took the long way.) Since I haven't opened the box since 1974, it's hard to know exactly what's in them, but I imagine I kept the notes from various lit courses, and from the only course I've ever taken that actually changed the way I think: biomedical ethics.

melanie

Booking through Thursday

1. Do you cheat and peek ahead at the end of your books? Or do you resolutely read in sequence, as the author intended?
2. And, if you don’t peek, do you ever feel tempted?

I'd like to say no, I don't cheat, because I'd like to honor the intent of the author. After all, she labored to put the words and sentences into a particular sequence to express her own particular and linear storyline, whether fictional or not.

However -

I do cheat, though not if I'm reading a mystery - what would be the point of spoiling the ending of a mystery?

I cheat a lot when I'm reading nonfiction - especially biographies - by attacking the index and plates before anything else. I make up for this egregious sin, however - I read every word of acknowledgements!

melanie

Booking through Thursday

Almost everyone can name at least one author that you would love just ONE more book from. Either because they’re dead, not being published any more, not writing more, not producing new work for whatever reason . . . or they’ve aged and aren’t writing to their old standards any more . . . For whatever reason, there just hasn’t been anything new (or worth reading) of theirs and isn’t likely to be.

If you could have just ONE more book from an author you love . . . a book that would be as good any of their best (while we’re dreaming) . . . something that would round out a series, or finish their last work, or just be something NEW . . . Who would the author be, and why? Jane Austen? Shakespeare? Laurie Colwin? Kurt Vonnegut?

Barbara Pym, absolutely. I never tire of her Austen-like, cool vision of people who usually get no press. She writes about distressed gentlewomen - the women who organize jumble sales, fantasize about their pastors or utterly unworthy academics, read Coventry Patmore while they drink tea, and take pleasure in lives that are, usually, unnoticed or unappreciated.

I've written before about Jane and Prudence - if I can't reread that book, I can't read anything, because it's in my pantheon of books that I need along with air (and tea). If you are new to Pym, start with Excellent Women, Jane and Prudence, or Quartet in Autumn - and if you do begin to read her, I'd love to know!

melanie

Booking through Thursday

It happens even to the best readers from time to time… you close the cover on the book you’re reading and discover, to your horror, that there’s nothing else to read. Either there’s nothing in the house, or nothing you’re in the mood for. Just, nothing that “clicks.” What do you do?? How do you get the reading wheels turning again?

Nothing to read in the house? Whose house is this? Certainly not mine. Maybe I'm visiting a non-reader's house? Even she would have something to read - a cookbook, a magazine, a newspaper -- Worst-case scenario: I take out my memo pad and a pen, and I write notes for aa poem, an essay, or a blog entry. I've even been known to write little letters in my little handwriting.

Nothing in my house that I'm in the mood for? See above... If I'm too depressed or anxious for sustained reading. I can always read a poem, an essay, or a novel by Barbara Pym. If I can't read Jane and Prudence, my brain must be well and truly fried!

melanie

Booking through Thursday
So, judging by last week’s answers, apparently the question I should have been asking was:
Where DON’T you read??

I do not read in the shower, in the dentist's chair, in the car (unless I have an audiobook), under anesthesia, in a movie theater once the film starts, in a restaurant if I'm eating with someone. Really, I can't come up with that many situations where I'd never read. Or breathe.

melanie

Booking through Thursday

Reading. In. Public. Do you do it? Why or why not?

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

Yes yes yes yes. I read in public, I read in private, I read unless I'm knitting or writing or sleeping. Gracious, what would I do if I weren't reading? I'd starve, I'd fade away, I'd become someone else, I'd stagnate.

melanie

Booking through Thursday

Does what you read vary by the season? For instance, Do you read different kinds of books in the summer than the winter?

Not really. I used to read one story every winter - "White nights" by Dostoevsky - but since I misplaced my copy of his short stories, I seem to have misplaced that ritual as well. Thinking of it now, I miss the story and the ritual.

The edition I used to read had his other stories as well ("Gentle creature," etc.) but "White nights" was special. The ritual began in high school amongst my friends, the literary misfits who would gather in the prop room behind the school auditorium. We would read aloud from Creely, or Ginsberg, or Rilke, or we would do a reading of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." (I was Honey, always. No one else wanted to play Honey. They all wanted to be Martha, and they anticipated the moment when they could bray "I DON'T BRAY!!!". It was, I'm afraid, better casting than I'd like to admit. I never could bray.) "White nights" was the nighttime gleam on the white snow as we would walk home - never discussed, but always there.

If so, do you break it down by genre, length of book, or...? .......

melanie

Dystopian challenge

Have you seen this?

Dystopian Challenge


Heaven help me, I just joined.
My selections:

P.D. James - Children of men
Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake
Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's cradle
Philip Dick - Do androids dream of electric sheep?

melanie