Bluestalking

Post-Easter reading blitz and domestic disasters

 

Hope you all had a lovely Easter. Sorry I had nothing of note to post. It's difficult keeping our heads above water right now, what with my father-in-law battling cancer, our water heater breaking and leaking all over the basement floor and our upstairs bathtub deciding to join the party and drip into our living room.

Re: the water heater, that's been replaced and so far all's well (save the bill). The bathroom has been completely ripped out (it needed it, anyway, as the decor was decidely 70s modern - Far out!) and it's down to bare walls and plywood flooring. The potential, the potential, yes that's already going through my head. Eighteen years of looking at that dog vomit yellow were eighteen years too many but other, more crucial projects kept getting in the way. 

The family room needs painting as well but may just have to hold out a while longer since the kitchen is in more serious need, what with the scratches on the sliding door trim, courtest of a certain two dogs, who shall remain nameless. Then there are the marks on the wall, which happen to match up perfectly with the tops of the kitchen chairs. Sounds like a case for Sherlock Holmes.

Right now it's that sort of seafoam green I associate with Martha Stewart (in fact, it's from her line of paints) and goes beautifully with the cabinets (birch), countertops (dark granite) and appliances (stainless). It was all the rage in the early 2000s, before Martha was sent up river for insider training. Whatever I choose will probably lean toward pastel again. Maybe a blue? An updated yellow? The mind boggles.

Since we probably aren't going on vacation this year, between worry over leaving the area too long and the need to conserve money since my daughter's starting college this fall (scream here), I'm thinking about taking a week's worth of vacation to repaint the kitchen. What larks, Pip! And what a wonderful way to spend my time off.

I'm sort of a slob when it comes to painting. I lack the crucial "painting along the top of the wall/below the ceiling" gene.  I can do walls, around woodwork and other things. But that ceiling line... I have shaky hands naturally, probably related to the fact my fight or flight sensor is set to Code Red.  Every, single time I paint I get a ceiling line that looks like an EKG report without a single flatline.

But ne'er mind all that. Let's shift to what I'm reading, which is becoming completely out of control again, SURPRISE.

First, Anne Tyler's latest The Beginner's Goodbye. I'm not a Tyler fan and I've felt inadequate about it a long time. Yet, nearly every time she comes out with a new book I'm all over it. Such is my utter determination to like something she's written, dammit!

In the case of her latest, so far it's actually not so bad. Not great, but, as some critics are wont to say, "readable." A more back-handed compliment's hard to find but I guess they mean it well.

TBG is about a new widower who, in his great sorrow, is trying to get his life back in order after the loss of his wife. I know from reading the blurb he's going to start seeing his late wife everywhere, so that's no spoiler. Guess I haven't gotten that far quite yet, though I'm just over the mid-point. Anytime Tyler's ready to let that start happening is fine with me.

The book's character-driven and to my surprise I haven't found any of them irritatingly quirky, the word so often used to describe Ms. Tyler's characters. The husband's a bit wacky but I suppose that's to be allowed, considering his current situation. But one complaint I have is this same character acts and speaks so much older than he is. I keep forgetting he's a 30-something, from the way he speaks in general and about himself, even if he does has a disability. I felt vindicated when I located this from Ron Charles, saying the same basic thing in his own review:

"Nothing about him suggests we’re in the company of a 35-year-old in the early 21st century; he seems dustier than the 60-year-old in “Noah’s Compass.” “That tickled me no end,” he tells us when he hears Dorothy talking. Confronted by an angry colleague, he exclaims, “Goodness.” Seeing his dead wife standing in the street, he says, “Dorothy, my dear one. My only, only Dorothy.” "

The novel's occasionally quite funny and tells a story of universal appeal but beyond that it's really quite superficial. I'd classify it a "beach read," or at the least a summer or book group. I'll probably forget it as soon as I close the cover. As entertainment it's not a total waste of time. It does that quite well.

As Ron Charles said later in his review:

"Even die-hard fans of Tyler’s work should probably let this one float by."

Err... I'm not a fan to begin with. That's not very good news, now, is it.

 

 

 

Next, a very strange, shorter novel called Spurious by Lars Iyer. The whole thing's a sort  of dramatic monologue between the unnamed narrator and W., a man never at a loss for words. If you aren't into dark, philosophical sorts of  books run away from this one very quickly. I'm around halfway and wonder if I should continue on or just drop it. Though I tend to lean toward darker books, for some reason this one's making me feel slightly uncomfortable and squirmy. It isn't bad. Not at all. It's funny and reads very quickly but it gives me a sort of Russian Novel Depression Disorder. (RNDD):

 "Idiocy, that's what we have in common. Our friendship is founded upon our limitations, we agree, and doesn't travel far from them.

We're full of joy, W. says as we walk back from the supermarket, that's what saves us. Why do we find our failings so amusing? But it does save us, we agree on that; it's our gift to the world. We are content with very little: look at us, with a frozen chicken in a bag, and some herbs and spices, walking home in the sun. The gift of laughter, I say - 'The gift of idiocy,' says W."

 From Steven Poole from Guardian.uk:

"It is near to the end of days, shortly before the appearance of a "stupid Messiah". Two British men, employed somehow in academia, muse on their lack of success and incapacity for real thought while drinking too much gin. "We are Brod and Brod, we agree, and neither of us is Kafka." Sometimes they travel to a conference, and drink too much there instead. One of the friends insults the other with spectacular, relentless cruelty. The insultee also has to deal with a damp problem in his flat that gradually assumes apocalyptic proportions of sweating metaphor."

This is a very well-written book by an assured writer. It's just that I'm a depressive to begin with and nothing here makes me feel any better. Not that it should but, at the least, I'd like there to be a reason for all the downer, dark comedy and not just show-offy "look how smart I am" quips.

Maybe, as one commenter replied to Poole's review:

 "...not something that Americans generally appreciated. A lot of the American reviews seem to have missed the point!"

 I can't comment back to him either way, since comments on the post have already been closed, drat it. It's true we in the States often don't get British humoUr and vice versa I assume. I tend to adore it, that dry sort of wit, and in fact it's my own style. But even I run up against a wall now and then. Maybe I've done that here?

I'll give it another go before I throw my hands up in despair.

 

Quickies - In Progress:

 

Sister by Lupton:

Compelling, if a bit over-written at times.

Marriage Plot by Eugenides:

Late night, pre-sleep Kindle read. Funny, funny and more funny.

This Burns My Heart by Park:

Free Review Book for bookgroup moderation at BookBrowse.com.

1984 re-read:

Another Kindle read, for Classics Book Group discussion at my library.

Religion for Atheists by de Botton:

Free review book. Compelling ideas I, so far, agree with.

 

Reviews actively working on or just finished:

The Cove by Ron Rash for BookBrowse.com

Published 4/10/12 (today!)

 

(UK cover)

A Daughter's Tale: The Memoir of Winston Churchill's Youngest Child by Mary Soames

for Library Journal

Pub. 7/12

 

Carry on! As you were.

 

 

 

 

While trawling through the web one day...

Welcome to Tuesday, the week before my kids have Spring Break from school. And I don't. For what it's worth, my birthday (March 28) has always fallen the week of their break. When they were little I told them that's the purpose of their week off, to celebrate my birthday. For a while there I'm pretty sure they believed me.

Kids. It's so fun messing with their minds.

Here's some stuff I found on the interwebs. Hope you enjoy it.

 

This one may make you CRY. It did me, forcing me to face the fact I can't read all these gems:

http://www.worldhum.com/features/lists/the-100-most-celebrated-travel-books-list-20100427/

Have you read any you feel I simply cannot die without having read? Loads of them already on my wish list...

 

Amazingly wonderful and thoroughly considered blog post re: the current eBook battle between libraries and publishers:

http://librarianbyday.net/2012/03/07/should-libraries-get-out-of-the-ebook-business/

 

Essay on finding artistic inspiration:

http://www.themillions.com/2012/03/finding-inspiration-a-homework-assignment.html

 

A favorite quote:

"Like many novelists, I tend to experience an existential crisis every time I finish a book. Why bother? Why engage in such an intangible and self-involved vocation when I could be doing something more tangibly and socially useful? (i.e., stopping a pipeline, regrouting the bathroom.) Why write longform narrative in a world that prefers to live swiftly and episodically?"

- Kyo Maclear, from "The Beautiful Afterlife of Dead Books"

 

 

 

Lizzie Skurnick on 50 Shades of Grey: The new self-published eBook erotic thriller that's (inexplicably) shot to the top of the bestseller list.

Review and thoughts on the book from Smart Bitches Trashy Books

 

Book review lust:

 

http://www.cleveland.com/books/index.ssf/2012/03/howard_frank_moshers_the_great.html

 

Four First Novels Reviewed:

The Telegraph

 

 

 

 

And, finally, this Youtube Video: Super Mario Saves the Princess (á la The Family Guy):

 

 

 

 

Finally, first finished book of 2012!

Well, now. It's taken me eleven days but I have actually finished my first book of the year. I won't review it here, as it's slated for publication in Library Journal next month and I consider it theirs, but once it's up I'll link to it, I promise, though I've been woefully shameful about that. It's hard keeping up with it all but I am bound and determined to make 2012 THE YEAR LISA GETS IT TOGETHER. Or at least isn't quite so pathetic.

The book I finished is one I've been talking about here, A Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert, and the Death That Changed the British Monarchy by Helen Rappaport. Really great stuff, can't emphasize it enough. If you're a Victorian buff keep an eye out for it. It will be published sometime in March.

Think you know all there is to know about Victoria? Well, think again.

I feel a bit sheepish because I realized earlier today I've read another book co-authored by Ms. Rappaport, Dark Hearts of Chicago.

Description:

"When young, inexperienced but very ambitious female reporter Emily Strauss bluffs her way into newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer’s office, she comes away with a treacherous assignment: to find out what happened to Anna Zemeckis, one of many women who have disappeared during the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. With the support of a young man who is just venturing into the burgeoning trade of news photography, Emily soon finds herself in a race against time to save Anna’s life and to bring her story back to New York before Pulitzer’s tough deadline expires."

Really good novel, especially if you live in Chicago. It's still good even if you don't. I also like books with strong female characters in professions generally considered the realm of men. And in the 19th Century that was usually the case. Not always, but usually.

Harriet Martineau wrote some pretty brazen articles about the rights of women. Ditto Nellie Bly (pen name of Elizabeth Jane Cochran). So they were out there but not in huge numbers. Just wish I had the time to read a lot more by these determined women. Same for the suffragettes, one of whom, Mina Van Winkle, was very likely related to me since this side of my family originated in the NY/NJ area as did she. And it's not that common a name. I smell a research opportunity, another one I have no time to pursue. Sigh.

 

Next, three books I requested from Yale University Press:

Losing It: In Which An Aging Professor Laments His Shrinking Brain, Which He Flatters Himself Formerly Did Him Noble Service by William Ian Miller

A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton

Reading the 21st Century: Books of the Decade, 2000 - 2009 by Stan Persky

And, hiding beneath those, Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, the surprise, come from behind winner of the National Book Award. If you know my love of southern writing the attraction will make sense and this one's set in my native Mississippi.

 The Yale U.P.s are, unsurprisingly, VELLY academic in tone. Or at least the first I've started, Reading the 21st Century. They may be a bit slower going but I will fit them in somehow. Great titles, too, aren't they?

Salvage the Bones I've already started and it slammed me into Mississippi within the first couple of pages. I mean that in a good way, as far as sense of place. Her style is delicious: simple, not flowerly and it conveys both place and character masterfully. I have a feeling this is going to be a "read more quickly than I'd like" book, one I have to finish to know what happens and wish I had time to re-read.

But thank goodness I finally finished that first book of 2012. Not sure why that bothered me, but patience has never been a virtue of mine. Speaking of, a load of laundry stands between me and some reading. Catch you later.

 

Slow to the Finish, Though I Eats Me Spinach: January reading, etc...

I haven't finished one book yet in 2012. Not one. I've started a few, and made some good progress but I keep getting distracted by other books and can't finish a single one. It's getting a little frustrating, especially seeing so many other book bloggers joyously declaring they're ready to post their first - or even second, the over-achievers! - review of the year, then here's me - six days into Apocalypse 2012 without a single finish to call my own.

I hang my head in shame.

 

I'm just over halfway in A Long Long Way, Mr. Sebastian Barry's previous Booker nominee. It tells the tale of Willie Dunne, of the recurring Dunne family, and his experiences in WW I. Positively gut-wrenching stuff. The description of death by mustard gas was an agony to read. How could human beings be so cruel to each other?

It's not all horrific, thankfully, but much of it is dedicated to expressing the brutality - and frustrations - of war. Impossible not to love Willie Dunne and wish him anywhere but along the front lines. Also difficult not to feel enraged when his superior officer denigrates the Irish, putting them down as stupid for going and getting themselves killed. As if they'd done so on purpose? I could have slapped the man which goes to show you how Mr. Barry creates such emotion in - in this case - a more stripped-down example of his prose, a less-poetic book than On Canaan's Side but powerful nonetheless.

During Willie's visit home on leave it feels so easy identifying with the glory of being bathed for the first time in ages, though I've never been that dirty I assure you. Reading it made me feel the itch of the nits (I'm scratching my head as I type this!) and the relief after the scrub down by his father, while Willie stood in the tin tub shivering but enjoying the personal attention from the parent who'd always found him lacking before. Such a simple scene, really, though not simple at all from the standpoint of their fraught relationship. Having been tested and coming through one stage of the war raised the boy in the opinion of his father, disappointed as he'd been by his son's short stature and inability to prove himself strong and manly otherwise. Sad knowing it took so much to get his father's attention though Willie himself seems proud enough of the fact. 

 

In a nonfiction work for review it's the story of Victoria and Albert, specifically Victoria's obsession with death and mourning, contrasted with Albert's complete resignation he had no doubt he would die young. Many readers will find it eerie how accepting of death Albert was, though Rappaport does a brilliant job explaining reasons for it. For one, he was a German having to live away from his homeland and all his family. For another, when he married Victoria he was discriminated against for being foreign and also emasculated for his status as mere husband of the monarch, until made Prince Consort.

Ironically, it turns out he's the one who put the ramrod iron in Victoria's spine, disciplining her from a silly thing (Victoria?!) into a serious ruler. But even then he was every inch the king, though not in name. He answered official correspondence, heavily influencing the direction Britain took, necessarily using his persuasion on Victoria herself, as well.

My idea of the romance between Victoria and Albert was smashed by the reading of this book. Certainly, they loved each other, and when Albert died Victoria was devastated. Only, she was one for indulging herself in deep mourning, almost taking pleasure in its austerity, judging from her reactions to other deaths in the family. It's all riveting and shocking, not at all the story I was expecting. Fascinating stuff. During this year of the celebration of Dickens's 200th it's a wonderful addition to my reading, thanks to Library Journal!

And should you read an LJ blurb on the back of the finished U.S. edition that would be ME. The first time I saw a quotation from myself in the guise of Library Journal (individuals aren't credited) I was taken aback, I was so impressed. I told the person I was with, "I wrote this review, so I know I said this, but I don't remember it!"

So it goes as a review churner-outer. I expect I'm all over the place and don't know it. I'm too focused on what's next I seldom look back, though I may wish otherwise someday. Ah, but it will still be there now, won't it.

 

On to Dickens (happy birthday in a month and a day, old chap!) and Bleak House! It's a huge, huge book - weighing in between 900 + and 1,000 + pages depending on the edition - and I'm just past the middle reading it on my new Kindle Fire.

Until last night I was so proud I'd been keeping all 5,000 characters straight, then I hit a scene in which I had no concept on earth what had just happened, nor did I recognize to whom it did. I soldiered on, hoping it would come clear but then it never did after another 50 or so pages.

The remedy for that will be a quick look at Spark Notes or the equivalent, which I believe an excellent resource when you're actually reading - or have read - the primary work and have a question to be answered. Because falling behind in a Dickens novel is a serious thing, indeed.

This is at least my second read of BH, if not my third. I can't keep anything straight I live in such a muddle of books. I'm not as irritated with Esther Summerson this time around (reserving that feeling for Ada, the long-suffering fool), and far more annoyed with Richard Carstone. Mrs. Jellyby is still a nuisance of a thing I'd love to slap, and her Peepy adorable beyond words as a background character you can't help but love, the poor duck.

I just don't remember the covers of the book being so far apart,or the distance between mentions of Lady Dedlock separated so much. If this were a modern book I'd be screaming WHERE IS THE EDITOR?! but it's funny with Dickens I push through all the diversions.

But I honestly don't recall all these side-plots... The Smallweeds and granddaughter Judy, for one, though any scene featuring them is grimly hilarious. Old Smallweed is tossed around, as an elderly invalid, but the reader feels no sympathy at all for the calculating old coot. When he's pushed too close to the fire and his stockings begin to burn the reader almost wishes he'd been pushed a little closer.

 

Nasty old thing.

And here's a wonderful link with Bleak House illustrations in case you're looking for them and you hopefully will be someday, if not today.

So, having lots of fun with this but I'm getting a little nervous about finishing on time for the group discussion in another week or so. I read 'til I can't keep my eyes open every, single night and get through hundreds of pages but did I mention the book is VERY  LONG?

 

And don't even ask me what's up and coming or I'll slip into a coma. A publicist for Barry Unsworth sent me a note asking if I'll review his new one,  The Quality of Mercy, coming out January 10. Well, if I can I love to post a review right as a book's debuting and though this one's not so chunky as BH it's still over 300 pp. of thoughtful reading, with the Victoria and Albert review due January 8, no less.

Next week I'm attending a signing for Sara Levine (and three other writers but never mind that...), author of Treasure Island!!! with which I had mixed reading success. For her I'll be working up a review-y, maybe interview-y thing for local papers,  plus of course the blog. With photos, video if possible but don't hold your breath.

As if that's not enough to make a woman a raving lunatic, my library is hosting a TREMENDOUSLY PROLIFIC BIG NAME AUTHOR during National Library Month in April and I've, to date, read only one of her 20ish books. SO I WILL NEED TO REMEDY THAT. And she may be bringing along another writer, first book coming out in May, and I NEED TO LAY MY GRUBBY HANDS ON A COPY OF THAT AS WELL.

And no, that's not all that's between January and April, just all I'm willing to type.

I may not come up for air until June, during which I'll have roughly two weeks to cry piteously until time to gear up once again and read the works of NUMEROUS WRITERS I WILL BE MEETING AT BOOKTOPIA 2012 in Oxford, MS.

For all or  most of these writers my work will include much of my usual services. Of COURSE there's much joy and rapture in all my endeavors - or damned if I'd do it - but it makes my brain feel squeezy sometimes, you must understand. Occasionally it becomes so squeezy all the blood flees my brain, my head flops to the side and I stare at nothing for hours until someone comes along and pushes me over, allowing my blood to again flow freely. Then I eat chocolate and all is right with the world.

So all this is a very round-about way of saying, "Gosh I'm busy." You could have just read this last bit and avoided everything else. Makes you want to kick yourself, doesn't it?

 

2012 Books to look forward to: A Selection

A wealth of riches is anticipated in 2012, so much so it makes me feel positively ill there’s no way on earth I’ll get to all of them, much less be able to afford them. There is the library, yes, yes but sometimes I love having the books in-house, being able to pick them up when I feel like it and not rushing to finish before they’re due to be returned.

I am a horrid librarian.

Following are some of the tasty delights slated for publication this year, mostly the fiction as that interests me most. Some of these are UK publishing dates, I feel the need to warn you. So check Amazon US for pub dates here in the colonies:

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