Books #20 thru #33

What with beach travels and Erica visiting, I've been reading at a faster pace than normal and have gotten a bit "backblogged" so will be entering a few more than usual here without any attempt at tying them together in any kind of theme. Hopefully you like lists as much as I do!

#20
At last I've found a book of short stories I enjoy! Normally, short stories either bore me or depress me. They bore me because there's not enough time to really get attached to the characters and I can't seem to get invested. They bore me because they tend to be dark and depressing; how else do you make a short story punchy enough to carry any kind of message. Happy short stories seem to end up in one Chicken Soul book or another.

Changing Planes by Ursula K. LeGuin was fantastic. The premise being that, if trained, when you are bored and frustrated at an airport you can slip between dimensions and travel to other planes. Half travel book, half fantasty novel, the short stories each deal with a different world and approaches each descriptively or historically. Interesting, sad, funny; each world deals with issues very much present on Earth. This is the kind of short story book I'd like to write. I can imagine Ursula lying in bed, dreaming up histories of make-believe planets and those that didn't have potential for a full novel, got into this anthology. This novel was all the more potent since I was reading it on an airplane!

#21
An Uncomplicated Kindness by Miriam Toews was a difficult read for me. The story is told from the perspective of Nomi Nickel, a teenager whose mom and sister have both run away, leaving her and her dad trying to survive and understand what happened. Set in a small, Mennonite town in Manitoba, I thought that it would be very relevant to my perspective and understanding but I found the dark depressing tone and the lack of anything positive in regards to the Mennonite lifestyle rather jarring and at odds with my experience. I've seen a lot of negative things in the Mennonite world but I've also seen a lot of positive things such as the emphasis on family and good food and a holistic, frugal lifestyle that is akin to many hipsters today.

  Things that seemed eerily familiar from her book:
        - the whispers of shunnings that happened or might happen if you don't toe the line
        - the expression "oba yo!" (only understandable by Plat Deutsch speakers)
        - the idea of humility and "only God will judge" contrasted with rampant judgement and critisism of                    individuals and of the whole entire world
        - the use of "silly" as an uncontrolled and negative action (as opposed to "goofy")
        - cult-like leaders
        - the non-aggressive but un-socialized staring, rather like what babies and young children do but                       somehow continuing on to adulthood.

  Things that didn't resonate with me or remind me of my childhood:
       - the rampant drinking, drugs, cynicism (probably because I was seven when we left..would be interested to hear what my older siblings would have to say about this book)
      - the divorce (that just didn't happen!)
      - the ignoring of "worldly clothes". In the culture I grew up on, that was cause of shunning!
      - the tv (although she does mention that it was frowned upon; not cause for shunning however).

#22 Bossypants by Tina Fey
I've been wanting to read Bossypants by Tina Fey for a long time and perhaps the build up is partially to blame for my disappointment but, even though it was a quick entertaining read, I didn't think much of the book and will stick to her screen appearances from now on. Fey skirted away from any juicy content or new revelations, wasn't particularly funny, jumped around in a very organized fashion that made it hard to follow and wasn't at all inspiring.

#23 Strangers by Anita Brookner
I've really enjoyed Anita Brookner's books in the past, notably Hotel du Lac but I was disappointed in Strangers. I liked that it was set from the viewpoint of someone older, socially awkward, and introverted. It was a nice change from the normal young, beautiful protagonist.

#24 The Secret of Platform 13  by Eva Ibbotson
  This was a cute whimsical read full of fun new imaginary creatures, kind of like a modern-day Narnia. Would recommend to any kid or kid-at-heart.

#25 The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
    I LOVED this book. Perhaps a little heavy on the workings of the Canadian parliament for some people, it reminded me of my time working in the political system. I found it funny and nerdy and, surprisingly, touching.

#26  Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
This book was incredibly potent and within a few pages, I was completely hooked! I don't know that I would recommend it for everyone but the personal story of a young child with intersex conditions as well as the family history was fascinating.

#27 Pink Sugar by O. Douglas
   This was an old tattered book on my childhood bookshelf. A sweet story about a world weary woman who is delighted to settle into a small town and make a home for three children whose mother just died. This is exactly the kind of simple book that Scott always makes fun of my reading, since I'm such a city girl who would probably hate this kind of rural utopia, but there is something about this style that brings me back again and again to L. M. Montgomery and Jan Kaaron of the Mitford series and the Irish County Village series by Patrick Taylor. Sometimes, when life is stressful, you don't want your reading to be stressful as well.

#28 Geisha, A Life by Mineko Iwasaki
 Many people have read or seen the movie, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. The fact that a book about a long-standing and deeply honoured part of Japanese culture was written by a Western man who, in the process, betrayed sources that wished to be anonymous is offensive to many Japanese people. Geisha, A Life is an attempt at telling the true story and is written by one of the most sucessful Geisha of all time. Although perhaps not as entertaining or plot driven as The Life of Geisha, Mineko's telling is more authentic and realistic and therefore, worth reading.

#29, #30, #32 and #33
 I honestly and truly don't consider myself a book snob. I have books in almost every genre that I love and I don't read based on Oprah's list or the New York Times Bestseller list. I love simple books (See #27) and sci fi (#20) and family history (#26) and memoirs (#28) and self-help (#19) and children's books (#16) and random collections of intersting facts (#13) and many more. However, I do believe that some books will make you a better person and will inspire you and challenge you. Other books might not do more for you than a soap opera and I do try to avoid those.

Part of this list was to challenge myself to not read books that I'd be ashamed to post here. But sometimes, when you're at the beach, or when you're sick and you have a Kobo that has free books available you slip into an easy novel that doesn't require much thinking and I fell into this a bit the last week when I was both at the beach and subsequently, sick. So four books on this list, I'm not even going to bother talking about. They were all the same; they all had stereotypical gender roles and sickly happy endings and titles like "Melt with Me" and "Wedding Belles". (If you really want to know, you can head over to my Goodreads account)I'd like to say, I'm not even going to be ashamed...but despite my desire to not be a book snob, I can't help but be a little bit ashamed for wasting my time on these when I know there is much better material out there.

#31 The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro
  While some might deem this "light summer reading" I really enjoyed The Perfume Collector and, unlike my previous reads,  I'm not ashamed to post it here! Split into two different timelines, it is the story of two women from two different times joined by a mysterious will. Poignant, sad but with a classic touch of flying the coop: a mysterious benefactor sets things in place for one to leave a stagnant position and find freedom, joy and meaning in a new environment. Something I could really relate to and probably something most of us still desire: something more and something better!

Why I am writing a novel by Juniper

Why am I writing a novel? The answer is quite complex. The answer is also partially unclear and may, ultimately, depend on how it goes. I’m going to do my best to overview all of my reasons for doing so in this blog post!

I’ll start with the simplest reason. It’s someone I want to check off on my life’s ‘to do’ list. There are a lot of things I want to accomplish in my life but writing a novel has, for a long time, been near the top of that list. Simple, really. But it leads to another question: why now? Another relatively simple question to answer. Because I can! Yo and I have a lot of flexibility to explore what we want right now. Neither of us have had permanent jobs to tie us down. We don’t have kids. We aren’t wrapped up in advancing our educations. We are lucky enough to have enough money to dare not work for a short period of time. Now, all of these things could change in the near future, but for now we are in the privileged position of having time with which to do whatever we want.

I’ve chosen to use a chunk of mine to finish writing a novel.

Seriously though, why! You are probably asking. I am in full agreement with you. I ask myself why nearly every day, in many forms and ways.

Why are you writing a novel when it’s not going to earn you any money?

Chances are very high that writing will be nothing more than a hobby for me. Not working to write at the moment is a risk. I’m not deluding myself into thinking I’m going to become rich from my writing, although I wouldn’t begrudge that outcome if I’m so fortunate. I’ll likely be back to teaching in January!

Why are you writing a novel when there are more important things you can do with your time? This is one I wrestle with a lot. I know a lot of people who just aren’t that into reading. To them, there may be the odd book that will interest them and be worth their time, but in general reading isn’t as fun, or as entertaining, or as meaningful as all of the other things they do. There is also an argument to be made that in our modern world novels are becoming less and less impactful as we transition further into a world that runs on succinct and efficient information. I, however, am of the opinion that novels are incredibly important, maybe even more so as more and more of our lives are doled out in bite-sized chunks. I have read novels that have shaped who I am and who I want to be, that have lifted me out of dark times, have inspired me to become something better. I have also read plenty that were nothing more than amusing tales to pass the time!

Aren’t you a teacher? I’m pretty sure spending your time doing that will be more important and impactful than being a writer.

Probably! But not for sure. Maybe I’ll be a better writer than I am a teacher. Maybe writing for a while will help me be a better teacher when I come back to it. Maybe I can do both!

Granted, if you are an amazing writer than it’s probably a good idea to write. But are you?

No, I’m not. At least not yet. Will I be? I don’t know. But it’s very important to me to find out. And even if I’m not, there are still stories I want to tell. It would suck to tell them poorly – you’d likely be surprised if you knew how much inner turmoil I experience considering that outcome – but I think I’d rather tell them poorly than not.

That all sounds nice, but are you actually going to follow through with it?

This is the biggest challenge for me at the moment.

For most of my life, I have done well without every really dedicating myself to anything. I love learning new things, and more often than not I am quickly pretty competent at whatever I am learning. This has proven to be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that I have had opportunities and successes far more than I deserve. A curse in that I have often not had the weight of necessity driving me to improve.

A big part of me has never minded this all that much as my natural, insatiable curiosity pairs nicely with learning something competently and then quickly moving on to something else. It has also benefitted me professionally, enabling me to get teaching jobs covering all sorts of different fields when I otherwise may not have found a job at all.

I have often thought there has never been anything that I have deeply desired to master for a long period of time. I love watching hockey and would love to play at an NHL level, but knowing the amount of work it would take to become that often left me satisfied with my own capabilities. I love anything to do with space, but the thought of dedicating myself to decades of exhausting work for merely a chance at a single, short trip there helped my endeavours to become an astronaut dissipate.

I mentioned in a previous post the time about 8 years ago when I recorded in a blog my desire to write a novel. That moment was similar to many I have experienced; a sudden desire to accomplish something grand that soon faded away under the watchful gaze of practicality and realism. And yet among all of those grandiose wonderings, the desire to write a novel has resurfaced time and time again. Perhaps because it is a reasonable goal, perhaps because I interact with books a lot more than hockey players or astronauts, or perhaps, just maybe, could it be, because it is something I deeply desire to do?

I lived with and took care of my grandma in the months leading up to her death. When it was clear her time was short, every goodbye was burdened with finality, I suppose much like it would feel like to make the final edits on a transcript before sending it off to a publisher. There was something that compelled me to tell my grandma two things on what ended up being my penultimate farewell. I told her I was going to marry Yolanda and I told her I was going to become a writer.

Why did I tell her those things? Upon much reflection I think I have an answer. Part of it had to with the fact that she taught me to read and write, and I wanted to honor her with the thought that her efforts would amount to something meaningful in my life. But it was more than that, for I had yet to write anything of real import by then. It had to do with my failings.

Committing myself to another person for life was a daunting thought – still is, really. Yet I knew I had found the person I wanted to make that commitment with. I have skirted true commitment most of my life, perhaps most evidently in how often I jump around in what I am learning and practicing at any given time. I think I told my grandma I was going to marry Yo to, in a way, bind myself to my intentions to propose through that promise. Then, even if I succumbed to my own struggles with commitment, I would be unable to fail to do what, deep down, I knew was right because of what I told my grandma that day.

I think I did the same thing with writing. I am immensely hard on myself, quick to criticize and slow to accept self-praise. In most avenues I find it has helped me maintain my character, work ethic and humility. In writing, that nature is a proven adversary. For a long time, my own criticisms and doubts were impregnable, insurmountable barriers between my desire to write and actually writing. Thus, my statement to my grandma will prove to be one of two things: a broken promise foolishly spoken, or a pristine moment of intuition and wisdom whose promise helped propel me beyond my own insecurities to actually accomplish a dream.

Inspirational! So, uh, why are you writing this blog post and not your novel right now?

Ughhhh I know! If I’m honest, there are a number of reasons…

-I lack discipline

-I am still overly critical and doubt myself constantly

-I have unreasonable expectations for how much I can write or how well I can write at this point in time

-I have deeply ingrained habits of taking little breaks far too often that derail my momentum

-I really lack discipline

I don’t know if it’s coincidence or providence or something in between, but the lessons I feel I need to learn at this juncture of my life line up perfectly with my goal to write a novel. I need to be more disciplined. I need to learn to let go of the expectations that hinder me and start to accomplish my goals. I need to build new, healthier, more productive habits and get them to stick. Writing a novel challenges all of those things and, if I’m successful, may do more than any other activity to accomplish those goals in me.

So why am I writing a novel? Because I desperately need to. Will it be great? Will it be readable? Will it be published? Will it satisfy me? Will it lead me on a different path? Will it fulfill my promise?

Right now, it really doesn’t matter. I just know I need to do it.

Scott

The five senses of home

Sight: After basement suites and city apartments, my eyes are feasting on a bounty of sights. Our bedroom looks onto a coffee field bordered by trees and our kitchen looks onto a field of lambs with lush mountains behind them. All around us are stunning vistas of mountains and valleys, green fields and cities and we have a beautiful sunset delivered every night.

The view of our front yard (from the roof)

                                                      

Touch: Touch is a pretty dominant sense for me (as anyone who has ever gone shopping with me knows) but the most familiar, the one that transports me back in time, is the feel of cement and tile under my feet.Growing up in this communal property, there was no need to put on shoes to run over to the neighbourhood friends and family and the idea of shoes was constricting and annoying. So in the summers and any breaks, I was allowed to run wild and barefooted. However, please don't assume that this a quaint tradition of Costa Rican natives. In fact, Tica grandmothers always looked askance whenever they saw my barefeet and I bore a lot of scoffing, horror, and dark predictions of warts, strokes and much more to befall me if I didn't put on some shoes and socks immediately. I did become quite an expert at getting rid of warts (a necessary evil when frolicking barefoot around frogs and other animals) but my feet are otherwise still intact and my favourite thing about my body!

Taste: Naturally, the cornucopia of fruit, Canadian-Tico-Mennnonite feasts laid out by my family and all my childhood favorites create many tastes that make me feel at home. There are two that stand out.
One is manzanas de agua. Literally translated as water apples, this fruit has yet to make the journey north to my knowledge but I miss it constantly. Part pear, part apple and part dragon fruit, this fruit is shaped like an avocado with a snowy white centre and a beautiful, tender fuchsia skin (the only skin of a fruit I will happily eat). It is ever-so-juicy and sweet. One of the earliest memories is picking an enormous pile and stashing them in my playhouse to eat at my leisure.

The tree

                                              

 The second is Tronaditas, a corn chip covered in salt and lemon. By ten I'd perfected the method of eating them which I still do to this day. Step 1: lick all the salt and lemon off and set aside. Step 2: after stacking all the pre-licked chips, place in palm of your hand and mash between both palms. Step 3, eat all the broken bits. Step 4; bite into the dense middle of the stack. Repeat alternating with unlicked chips for variety.
    My obsession is so well known that when I arrive in Costa Rica, my nieces, Calisha and Danica, always have a stash waiting for me (along with adorable handwritten notes). This time, I found them in drawers, behind curtains, in the shower and taped to the ceiling.

                                          

Smell: Smell is probably my least developed sense and the one with the least amount of memories but my favourite smell is eucalyptus and it might be because our property here is riddled with eucaplyptus trees. As a child, I'd pick leaves, tear them and rub them on me to mimic perfume. A few years ago I found a eucalyptus perfume and I will rarely wear another scent.

Hearing: This one is easy. We live on the mountains and are blessed with beautiful winds! The trees close to my parents house sound likes waves. So much so, that I used to have beach or tidal wave nightmares only to wake up realizing it was the trees. I still loved the sound and would always sleep with my window open. On especially wild nights (or, a few doors down where we are living now in a more exposed knoll, EVERY night) the wind howls loudly and fiercely and it is glorious! I can't wait till rainy seasons hits hard and the howling is combined with thunder!

Costa Rica Impressions by Juniper

We have been in Costa Rica for almost a week now. It has, for the most part, been an easier transition that I had thought.

Other than relaxing, our days have been filled with family hang-outs. Somehow we skirted an intimidating gathering of every local family member (what would have been well over 20 people if my math is correct) and settled for almost every family member (it went well). My go-to at family gatherings over the years has been to quickly get wrapped up playing with the kids. This accomplished three things. One, it removes me from the responsibility of having to make small talk with adults for long stretches of time. Two, it buys me big points with the parents for spending so much time with their kids. Three, it’s usually the most fun thing to do! To my chagrin, the children grew up a bit since I last saw them! That, coupled with there simply being so many of them in one place, means playing with an uncle is much further down the totem pole of interesting activities.

And thus, I’ve spent what may well be an order of magnitude more time with my sisters and brothers in law than I have in the past.

But it’s been really great! I feel very comfortable around Yo’s family and they have made me feel exceptionally welcome. I may even go so far as to say I have enjoyed being very social so far. Those of you who know me well may desire to underline, italicize or bold (or, perhaps, all three) the ‘so far’ part of that sentence, but I digress!

My favorite thing about Costa Rica so far is the food. Man have we been spoiled. We have only eaten one dinner at home so far – tonight, in fact – but we ordered in pizza because we had a guest over and weren’t quite ready to host someone for a meal. The majority of our lunches have been with family, but those we’ve had at home have been comprised of fresh mango, papaya, pineapple, banana and oranges thrown together in different combinations. We haven’t yet gone out for breakfast with anyone, mostly due to the fact that we typically get up 3-4 hours after everyone else.

Every meal out has been delicious, although my personal favorite was a couple of nights ago when we joined our landlords (Yo’s sister and brother in law) and some other family for dinner. We had massive, juicy steaks for dinner, quite a number of glasses of wine for dessert, and then another steak for a late night snack. Yep, two steaks in one evening. I didn’t even know that was legal.

My efforts at learning Spanish have not yet arrived. I think they fell out of my luggage somewhere between our 2^nd and 3^rd flights. Hopefully they get here soon, because Luna is getting on my case about not understanding much of anything when we’re out and about.

The biggest challenge of the trip so far is meeting the goals I have placed on myself. My next post will be about said goals and also about how and why I am miserably failing at them.

For now, I am going to enjoy the last of my 5$ box of wine, perhaps pop out and play with the cute puppies that live in our backyard, attempt to understand a few words of what Yo and her friend are chattering away in Spanish about in the next room over and, hopefully, write a few hundred more words in my novel.

~Juniper~

Scott's First Post - In a Nutshell

I haven’t consistently written a blog since 2007. I joined a site called ‘Live Journal’ with some friends back in grade 12 and proceeded to chronicle the awkward struggles of my adolescent mind online for all to see. When I look back and try to reread my posts, I find I can never read more than a dozen or so. It gets uncomfortable and I have to stop. I wrote with a special kind of honesty back then – a desperate, soul searching honesty – that reflected the helplessness and confusion that came with trying to figure out who I was at the time.

At that point in my life I was completely incompetent at forming relationships. I had discovered creative writing earlier that year and had already written a number of poems. Most often, the poems were words and phrases that attempted to describe what I was feeling at the time. What blew my mind then – and still does now, really – was how I often only understood what I was feeling after I had written it down. The advent of online journals/blogs was portentous for me. I thought all I had to do was take these chronicled feelings, paste them to a site and relationships would blossom.

Turns out it worked, although the process was often painful.

My posts were often misinterpreted or misunderstood (both outcomes being completely frustrating at the time, but rereading my posts now were absolutely fair and logical). Fortunately for all teenagers, your peers tend to be roughly as incompetent as you are and thus a community of abstract, esoteric, and desperately reflective bloggers were born! In short, some of those classmates who also used the site became – and still are – some of my best friends, and we have all forgiven each other for what we put each other through in those glorious, awkward days of old.

As relationships began to form and I slowly learned how to communicate in person, my blogging became much more readable and, ironically, gradually dwindled away. I suppose history has shown that much of art (not to imply my blogging was art) comes out of times of extreme emotion, so perhaps that had something to do with it. Or perhaps the ending of my blogging coincided with my friends also stopping; I can’t really remember. What is really important to me is this: I don’t remember what prompted me to write this, but one of my final entries – dated July 29^th, 2006 – was “I think I’m going to write a novel”.  I made a couple more posts after that, mostly to keep my account active, but for all intents and purposes that was my final blog post.

I’m going to cover my motivations behind writing a novel in another post. For now, I simply wish to remember my blogging past and celebrate the fact that the goal I set when I was entirely ignorant of the challenge it would pose may soon be accomplished.

If you’re an old friend reading this, thanks for putting up with me on livejournal! I hope this blog is much more sensible, although I would accept just as meaningful.

If you’re a newer friend reading this, welcome. I hope you find meaning and/or entertainment in what it contains.

I would like to begin this new blogging endeavour with a simple, but personally profound statement.

I think I’m going to finish writing a novel.

#19

I don't read a lot of health books. I have lots of websites that I go to and get most of my nutritional information online but Must Have Been Something I Ate by Peggy Kotsopoulous was a great quick read. Health and lifestyle books are probably the only kinds that the "hey girlfriend" style wouldn't be annoying and it was nicely bullet-pointed and well-organized. She divides the book into various health topics and explains how different vitamins and supplements and nutrients affect that area. Kotsopoulos provides practical tips, points out many common vegetables to use for that particular health issue and explains some lesser known supplements that can be healthful. Her recipes are pretty mediocre but the rest of her information seems well researched and relevant and not as expensive or niche as some health books are. I'm pretty sure none of her recommended foods or supplements require a trek into the Amazon or has a 200$/oz price tag.

My co-worker lent me the book after I complained how much more energy she had than me! The energy chapter had lots of useful advice, some of which I followed. I am now hooked on chlorella, an algae supplement more common in Japan but making headways here. Cancer-fighting and energy and immune system boosting are only a few of its benefits. I can also testify to its efficacy for fighting hangovers when taken before your night out!

Thanks for the recommendation, Katie! May you always be bouncing off walls!

#18

If you are completely antagonistic to organized religion, this may not be the book for you. However, I hope that, even if you disagree with the tenants of Christianity, you could agree that there needs to be a shift towards equality and empowerment of women in Christian (and other religions) relationships and settings. A Year of Biblical Womanhood is a passionate advocate of Christian feminism which I really appreciated. She highlights strong women throughout the Bible who did not fit in the stereotypical roles of their society, who were outcasts or unconventional and who did powerful, society-changing deeds.

The premise of Rachel Held Evans' book is that she will take the commands of "Biblical Womanhood" literally and try to follow the rules as much as possible. This is the part where I feel she falls a little short. She picks and chooses which rules she will follow and it's not entirely cohesive. A.J. Jacobs The Year of Living Biblically is a lot more cohesive, detailed, comprehensive and funny. However, Held-Evans strengths lie in debunking myths about the roles of women in the Bible, passionately championing social justice, exhorting women to support and raise each other up, and mourning the tragedies that have befallen women simply for being women since the dawn of time all the while maintaining respect for the Bible and the love of Jesus and exploring ways to deepen that relationship in a more authentic way.

In short, this book is not for people who want reasons to eschew Christianity but for those who are looking for a more egalitarian, loving, just way of living through the lens of Jesus' teachings.




One wonderful year with this loving, just, patient, egalitarian man. Love you Juniper!

#16 and #17

After the witty banter of Pratchett and the beautiful descriptions of LeGuin, the next two books seemed a bit of a let down. 

Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan was a cute tale of a delinquent kid coming to live with an offbeat family of artists to be home schooled after being kicked out of every school in the region. It was a good premise for a young reader and an entertaining read but certainly not a classic. I grew up on Enid Blyton (Famous Five, Mallory Towers), C.S. Lewis (Narnia), L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables), Edith Nesbitt (The Railway Children), Astrid Lingred (Pippi Longstocking), Jean Webster (Daddy-Long-Legs),  and other writers that have developed their central characters much better. Take Edmund from Narnia or a myriad of naughty schoolchildren in Enid Blyton's books: the trajectory of unruly, selfish, self-centred troublesome kids to thoughtful and kind and "jolly" (jolly seeming to be a common British value) is represented well and you can see the characters develop and grow. I found Jake Semple a very unrealistic "bad boy" with no real explanation of how is moral character developed except that his bad deeds were ignored so he stopped doing them. I did however, like the character of E.D: the only non-artistic one of the family who often feels left out, misunderstood, and in the midst of chaos created by free thinking family of singers, dancers, hippies, painters, and actors, just longs for order and neatness which she accomplishes through creating lists for herself. It's kind of like being in the middle of a hipster-obsessed city. 

If Surviving the Applewhites had some redeeming factors, The Alto Wore Tweed has none. It's a half Agatha Christie mystery and half Mitford series, with the worst of both. The characters managed to be insipid and exaggerated and undeveloped all at the same time. The flawed hero is egotistical, misogynist and a bit of a womaniser; and the plot was boring. A choir director/detective who tries to write a novel while having a nice, peaceful small town life sounds like a book that would be right up my alley. It was not. The only thing I liked was a politically correct directive from the bishop that dictated that  "all  whole and half notes will from now on be referred to as "pigmentally impoverished," that 50% of all compositions will be made up of "notes of color," and no reference will be made to the stereotype that notes of color move faster and generally jump higher."

The other day on a walk, we stumbled across this delightful, free, community library! I just love the idea!!! 

#13

Home by Bill Bryson

A book about everyday things, Home is a detailed look into the history of items we encounter on a daily basis. Bill Bryson takes a walk through his parsonage in the countryside of England and delves into the past room by room. It is a series of fascinating facts about life in the past, life usually riddled by diseases and discomfort. Home isn't my favourite of Bryson's books. I found the facts unorganized and very loosely held together. He travelled back and forth through time, often referencing historical figures or events he'd mentioned a few chapters and 349 facts ago, rendering it impossible to keep track of the timeline. However, Bryson's strength has always been the intriguing, laughable, shocking or obscure facts that he has dug up and it was hard to not stop and interrupt Scott every other minute to share a new factoid such as:

- the average marriage in the 1700s lasted 10 years, not because of divorce, but because death was so common weather through disease, accident or childbirth.
- until the 1850s, condiment stands for the table where designed for oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, and a shaker whose use has completely faded into history. It's a mysterious missing condiment!
- every species in the animal kingdom can produce in their bodies Vitamin C except for humans and pigs.
- an ounce of corn flakes has more salt than an ounce of salted peanuts
- the architect who designed the interior skeleton of the Statue of Liberty is Alexandre Gustave Eiffel of Eiffel Tower fame.
- for a 150 years, men would shave their heads of comfortable hair to put on stuffy, scratchy, itchy wigs.
- Lobsters, now a luxury food, used to be so prolific that they were fed to prisoners and orphans.

For many more facts to pull out at dinner parties for years to come, read the book :)

#8 and 9#, #11, #12, #14 and #15

I know haven't posted since April but to be fair, in that time, I've had my 30th birthday, been part of  a wedding (and attended events for three different weddings), bought a one-way ticket to Costa Rica, and read 7 books, gone through a few medical crises, and almost gotten laid off to name a few things keeping me busy.

Six of those seven books were The Earthsea Chronicles: a stunningly beautiful series written by Ursula K. Le Guin. Simple and complex, surprising and deeply familiar, far ahead of its time in terms of gender roles and politics, this series blew my mind. I cried more than once and that is the highest praise I can give a book.

My favorite podcast, Stuff Mom Never Told You, (check it out if you are wanting to know anything about the wide, fascinating world of womenhood) did an episode on science fiction and the impact on social justice. I'd never made this connection before. I, and most people I know who love science fiction, read it primarily for the entertainment factor. It's fascinating to become immersed in an entirely new world, either dystopian and dark or fantastical and magical. However, science fiction and fantasy, usually stories about worlds completely different from Earth, can be powerful commentaries on social justice, contain passionate voices for change and present an idea of what a world COULD look like if we move towards a more egalitarian future or what it MIGHT look like if we continue to disregard the needs of our planet and the most marginalized on this planet.

When I read Brave New World in college, it rocked my world. The fact that a book written in 1931 could so accurately pinpoint the dangers of a materialistic world, just starting to really ramp up in Huxley's day, was chilling. 1984 was written in 1949: a few years before the cold war and the widespread fear of communism truly swept the western world. Both of these authors were masters and seeing where current trends could lead and provided important warnings.

Likewise, Ursula K. Le Guin has the power to compose stories that are stunning, mystical, heartbreaking, inspiring and thought-provoking all at once. The Dispossessed, which I read last year, was about twin planets: one living our anarchist ideals, abolishing all forms of government in a society set on brotherhood and cooperation. The other planet was given over to reckless materialism and classism. As one man sets on a journey from one planet to the other and finding himself lost in both, the reader is drawn into the problems and issues of both ideals. In her ground-breaking book, The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin explores a genderless world and the affect on this in society, on war and on domestic roles. The fact that this was written in the 60s, in a time of extreme societal upheaval, when the roles of race and class and gender were being strongly challenged, makes the discussion all the more potent.

The Earthsea Chronicles being written originally for young adult readers doesn't detract from the power of her message. Written between 1968 and 2001, the characters transition and grow along with their author and this gives the series depth and beauty. Most books are fairly simple with one or two main protagonists but their subject line is intricate, philosophical and written with beautiful turns of phrases and vivid imagery. Unexpected and powerful, showing the beauty and tenderness in men and the strength and power in women; flipping the dominant races and make white people the savage barbarians, this series makes me want to be a traveller, a mother and a dragon all in one!

                                            

Upcoming reads

Nothing like getting a box shipped to you with books smelling all musky and booky on the eve of a four day weekend! 

 My latest Powells order: 

Memoir, travel, Christian feminism, best-seller and small town mystery... Ya that's a really good cross-section of my interests!  

#10 (TIME TO GO, SIR TERRY)

In my last post I said I didn't have much left to say about Terry Pratchett. I'd decided that I'd leave Discworld for a time. Then news of the author's death arrived and it seemed like the best way of mourning would be to delve back into that world. So I paused the Earthsea Chronicles that I'm currently reading.  Reaper Man seemed a good choice to commemorate the death of the author; the main character being Mort (Death).

Brandon Sanderson, another well-known fantasy writer, once compared Terry Pratchett to Shakespeare. His main argument was that, unlike many other humorists, Pratchett can weave together a brilliant and captivating story that holds your attention. This makes sense to me: I love Bill Bryson, for instance, and have many laugh-out-loud moments with his books but they central storyline don't grip me and it often takes me months to finish one of his. Pratchett's use of literary allusion and memorable characters add to the general brilliance of his books. (For Sanderson's full article, click here)

I think the fact that he had this whole world laid out to explore and see through the eyes of many different characters is what kept me coming back. For the most part, the books don't need to be read in order (unless you want to follow a certain characters trajectory) and they cover everybody from Death to the Patrician (leader of the foulest cities of them all!), to guttersnipes and con-men and grandmother-witches, and trolls and dwarfs. There's lots of variety and when characters wander into other characters books it's like running into old friends. I'm not a fan of giant, epic series where you have to read 11 books to "know what happens". Discworld isn't like that, you can dip into it wherever you like and stay as long as you like! 

RIP Sir Terry

My top 3 Discworld books: 

1. Colour of Magic - best place to start in your Discworld journeys. 

2. Going Postal - a conman forced to make the world a better place

3. Guards! Guards! and all 8 books about the Ankk-Morpork City Watch (The police force). 

#7

After multiple Terry Pratchett books, I dont' much left to say about these books. One is pretty much like the next with a variety of characters that come and go. So instead of a review of Thief of Time, here are a few other things for you to look at instead.

- Along the book theme, check out this video of stunning book art.
- This goat can only say one word: "what what?"   
- This hypnotic time waster is neat! Actually the whole StumbleUpon website is really cool. You sign up for it and depending on what interests you indicate, it collects a random slew of interesting things for you to interact with.
- Meet the last five people born in the 1800s.
- Along the lines of adorable old people, check out what happens when you mix the oldest person in Australia and cold little penguins?
- This time-lapse of Dubai is epic!

#6

January is gone and with it my first flush of flush of resolution ideals. This happens every year which is why I aim high I order to meet at least a few of the goals. Health issues and general business has wreaked havoc with my workout, cooking and socializing goals but have played nicely into my reading desires. To my satisfaction, my Goodreads app informs me that I am 4 books ahead of schedule. Hopefully by the end of February, my Runkeeper and recipe apps will report similar progress.

I did celebrate February first with a burst of domesticity: Bethany Leng's delicious brownie recipe from her Page and Crumb website , apple crisp (compiled from a number of recipes to suit my needs) and a delicious, lentil beef stew slow cooker recipe entirely of my own invention!

My favourite book so far this year probably tops any book I read last year as well and sits solidly in my overall top ten non fiction list. 

Nothing to Envy is written by journalist Barbara Demick and gives a fascinating, in depth look at everyday life in North Korea. Although Demick made multiple trips to North Korea, the information is largely compiled from extensive interviews with defectors to South Korea, six of whose lives are chronicled in the book.

There are certainly aspects of the book that are heartbreaking and terrifying and chilling. However, because the book focuses on the day to day lives, it is intriguing simply in that one can see how life can be lived so much under the influence of propaganda and yet seem so normal. Family, relationships, jobs, food; all themes that influence every society on earth are just as present and real in the lives of these people who seem to be stripped of all choice, dignity, self-expression, and 99.99% of everything we take for granted.

This book will educate you, sadden you, inspire you and make you more grateful.

For another interesting read on North Korea from a foreigner's perspective, Tim Urban's account is both hilarious and disturbing. 

#5

When I was a little girl (from about ages 0-16), my sister Elsie would read to me for hours on end. The most memorable books I remember were Uncle Tom's Cabin and one about a boy who suffered through major abuse from his father; both when I was between 12-14. I know there were many others but those stood out. Looking back, I don't know how she did it. I dread reading out loud; I'm terrible at it and despite having plenty of little bookworms in my family, manage to avoid it for the most part. But here she was, reading books to me until I was WAY past having learned to read. The books we read were varied but usually a little more serious than I might have chosen. However, they pushed me to read beyond my level, to sit still (probably the only time I did sit still in those days), and helped form the love of books I still have today. For many years, I would lament the fact that I would probably never get that again.

Scroll forward a few years and here I sit, gazing lovingly at my husband reading to me from book 8 of a very long series of very long books. It's still a little bit unbelievable to me that I've found a man who will read to me for hours on end while I drive (or play tetris). Take that traditional gender roles!

Pillars of Creation, book 7 of the Sword of Truth series, was quite good. Not as good as the previous one in the series, Faith of the Fallen, but much much better than some of the other duds before it. My respect for Terry Goodkind's writing didn't go up though. There was too much repetition, reminding the reader about something he'd mentioned two paragraphs before in the exact same words. There is only some many times you can be reminded that "her red hair frightened people" before it becomes mockable. But there were some new characters introduced that I am interested in seeing how they will develop and Richard finally has found a non-murderous, non-psychotic family member that he doesn't have to end up killing. How refreshing!

#4

I'm not a big fan of long series' of books. Rather, I tend to go on an author trail where once I read one book that's on the good-to-fantastic scale, I will try quite a few of the authors books until I get distracted or run out. With Terry Pratchett, the latter is almost impossible to do as there seems to be a never-ending stream of Discworld adventures that, more or less, stand alone (although for Discworld novices, I highly recommend the Color of Magic as a starting point).
    I'm a solid Pratchett fan. Captain Vimes is my hero, I want to visit Death in his ever-so-cool-and-completely-useless home, Granny Weathersmith cracks me up, the Wizard university has more than one character that reminds me of my academic days and I'd rather go to The Mended Drum for a drink than any swanky cocktail bar I've ever seen. Having said that, I was not that enthralled with Soul Music. Chock full of cliches that weren't amusing and full of very forgettable characters. The only character that I enjoyed was Susan, the frumpy, no-nonsense, unlikely-named granddaughter of Death who temporarily takes over his role while he has an existential crisis. To my happiness, the next book I started featured her as well.

Harbour Centre. Good view for reading! 

#1, #2, #3

      Another spectacular failure. I managed to get in about 3 blog posts before coming to a screeching halt. The good news is, I did just about manage my book-a-week goal so I will probably renew it and try to blog accordingly . My goal is to read 50 books this year that I at least mention here. Ultimately, writing about the books is just my way of being accountable to A. Read instead of watch tv, B. Read good books that I'm not ashamed of posting here and C. Try to think critically about books and formulate opinions. If someone reading feels inspired to take on one of these, so much the better.

      My first book of 2015 I started reading at a New Year's Eve party. 

      Yup! I read at a party. Anyone who knew me as a kid or teenager won't be surprised but for the most part this was a guilty pleasure I've weaned myself off of ( see previous post about how I'm not an introvert). However in a moment of weakness I flipped it open and I couldn't put it down. I surfaced long enough for a midnight kiss, champagne and a ride home. I finished it before the end of January 1.

      I love reading a book that takes off with you.Divergent was a very easy adventure  read but with a nice flavouring of thought and ideas. Geared to the young adult reader, it nonetheless deals with difficult topics of identity, belonging (as so many YA books do), values and virtues, and politics in a dystopia society that runs based on factions. The factions are based on the personality strengths and weaknesses and dictate every aspect of life, from education, focus, career, friends and more. Although it is very easy to identify with at least one of the factions, ultimately the idea is that we all have multiple strengths and weaknesses and shouldn't be defined or valued based on one or two of them. I didn't enjoy the second and third books as much but of course, finished them off promptly!

Each faction has its own manifesto. The Abnegation faction eerily reminded me of some of the more conservative Mennonites and maybe that's why their manifesto (albeit not their personalities or focus) resonated with me.

"I will be my undoing If I become my obsession.

I will forget the ones I love If I do not serve them.

I will war with others If I refuse to see them.

Therefore I choose to turn away from my reflection,

To rely not on myself

But on my brothers and sisters,

To project always outward

Until I disappear.

And only God remains"

Good way to start 2015!

I promise I'm not an introvert

I'm a bit late this week because I finished my book with ten minutes to spare and I didn't feel like writing at 11:50 pm on the night before starting a new job.

I've historically never enjoyed anything apocalyptic. The Book of Revelations never held any fascination for me; the zombie craze is one that I find horrific and Children of Men is not a movie I'd willingly re-watch. However, Good Omens was a hilariously fun version of this: quippy, irreverent, philosophical and ironic. However, my trend of disliking the work of joint authors continues. I've very much enjoyed both Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's work before but I felt like both of their flavours were slightly lacking in the combination of their efforts. I don't think this book would rank very high on the (long) list of Terry Pratchett books I've read.

True to form, I attempted to read most of this book during lunch at work. I was not very successful as, annoyingly, I actually like my co-workers at the new campus and find myself talking to people during lunch instead of huddling in a corner and pretending not to see anyone else.

Can't beat the lunch room view though!

Truth and lists

         I'd like to think that the two books, a rollicking, comedic fantasy story and a memoir about a list of books, I read this week are a reflection of my eclectically good taste. However, that would sound too much like the author of the latter.
        So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading was quite the disappointment. Sara Nelson's memoir is about a year in which she undertakes reading one book a week and then writing about it. I love books; I love lists; I love challenges and goals. I love hearing about what other book-lovers are reading and enjoying. One would think this would be the perfect book to start off my own book-a-week journey.
        Unfortunately, I found this book extremely hard to plough through. It didn't feel like a book-lover's journal. It felt like someone who has to read for a living trying to buff up her resume by creating the most impressive and obscure book-list possible. While I did buy a few books from her list, many are out of print or so obscure and niche as to only serve to interest a small sliver of the population, let alone her readers. Her obsession with the covers and vacation books that will impress her fellow beach-goers is a bit repulsive to someone who loves books unabashedly. For an editor, I would hope she'd risen above such immaturity but it just reiterates that reading is a job to her and that, rather than analyse the merits of the books she is reading she would rather spoil the endings and then talk about her family making ever so tenuous a connection between the two. Because it is her job, she does make some good points about the content and got me thinking about how to better my own judgement and analysis of books and come away with a deeper understanding. However, she doesn't go deep enough into what is essentially the premise of her book; she is a pretentious snob who chooses her friends based on similar reading interest (how dismally boring) and her books on how impressive they seem. Adding insult to injury her list of books she read in the year is not comprehensive (probably because there are books she read that she is ashamed for her bosses to read about) and she sets too much store by her to-read list. If that counted for anything, I would be impressively well-read.

Thankfully, offsetting this, I had Terry Pratchett's The Truth. A hysterical fantasy novel and a great commentary on the newspaper business, this book had me in stitches. Terry Pratchett at his best and making me want more!

Another delightful act of serendipity was the fact that, at the start of my new reading challenge, I got to introduce Scott to my happy place, my personal mecca and the source of most of my books: Powell's. We came home with a delightful new stack of books some of which I'm sure I'll be writing about in the near future.

Prioritize and simplify

I feel like a fraud. I call myself a bookworm and talk about how I love to read and yet lately I've read about 3 books the two months and haven't cracked the pages of any on my book club list ( a new one; I've resigned myself to Scott's victory over the previous list). 

The wedding is over so the time I used browsing wedding websites, making lists, scouring second-hand stores and stressing is free for other things and unfortunately I'm seeing a pattern of tv filling that empty time way way too much. 

So I've come to the conclusion that something needs to change. Hence my new resolution: finish one book a week. 

I say finish because I have about ten  books started and finishing them will give me the same sense of accomplishment as starting from scratch. 

I fully expect to break this resolution most weeks. I hope not but at this stage I don't feel a lot of self-confidence in my discipline and preserverance. I feel like all I've accomplished this year was a wedding and I have so many regrets from that process that it makes me a bit wary if taking on new projects. However, reading is something I can do and an area where I know myself pretty well. I know what I like; I don't read to impress people; my taste is random and eclectic and has too large a share of children's lit and fantasy and sci-fi and self-help and chick-lit to make it on any laudable book list list. As long as I channel my taste reading is fun. 

I'm hoping to transfer a bit of that philosophy to other areas of my life. I was recently inspired by a wedding in which I was a bridesmaid. The couple did a great job prioritizing what was important and letting go of everything else regardless of people's expectations. The result was a simple affair that focused the attention on the beautiful couple, their love and their loved ones. 

So this is the plan for this fall 

1. Figure out my priorities. 

2. Simplify; weed out mine and others' unrealistic expectations. 

3. Find life-giving ways to focus on those priorities. 

Nikolski

Not my favourite book by a long shot but definitely up there for a translation. I find that the need to resolve plot lines and tie it all up with a pretty bow might be an English thing. Books from other cultures ( and yes, the francophone world of this book is another culture) seem to prefer hazier, perhaps more realistic and less predictable endings. The book's main characters were all somehow connected and related and their paths connected briefly but no joyous reunion was ever made and the mystery was never revealed; a bit frustrating to my mind which likes proper endings and nothing left hanging.
That being said, I did very much enjoy the process of the read. The descriptions were evocative and unexpectedly whimsical. My favourite character was Joyce: her eccentric fixation on becoming a pirate and the unorthodox ways she goes about it was amusing and surprisingly endearing.

Just not the same as lattes

Ducks blown off their feet by the wind

Is it mean that I think this is hilarious?

First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria by Eve Brown and five other books

I quiet enjoyed the account of life in a much less developed countries from the perspective of an aid worker instead of the more typical missionary tales. She is pretty candid about her difficulties with the deprivations and cultures. She's real enough to confess that there were issues and she didn't just glide into a paragon of a adaptability.

Today I also finish Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith. Ah the sleepy tales of normal people going around doing normal stuff at a very slow pace. Gotta love it!

I've not kept up at all with the books I've been reading so I'll do a short summary...

Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott- moralistic (one of the principal characters has bad habits, ends up dying young and tragically as a result) but a nice throw-back to my childhood.

Sword of Truth - Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind - Kept my heart racing with all the tension and action and drama. I would definitely not recommend his books for younger readers but they make a nice adventure story with twists and turns (including some even I can't predict).

The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith - I like Isabel Dalhousie. She is a bit frustrating at times when she uses philosophy to NOT get revenge or get even with someone who is cruel to her but I like the way she incorporates philosophy into the everyday and uses logic and thoughtfulness to make her decisions, usually leading to her taking the higher road.

Reread the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society again. Every time, it's so good!

Winter and Instagram

My favorite winter song 

SUSHI!!!!!!

Shopping!

Winter winter winter....snow, baking, toques, lattes and Survivor

Winter wonderland

First snow for Chania!