Random Photo Monday: Rebecca and John

Random Photo Monday has moved! It can now be found on my other blog, Joysweb. Hope you'll check it out.

The Sunday Salon: I Love a Mystery

Does anybody else remember the old radio show with that name? I'm not really even sure that I do – maybe it's one of those situations where I've heard so much about it that I just think I remember sitting there every night, in my father's favorite easy chair, with all my three- or four-year-old attention focused on our little RCA portable. Perhaps that might seem a tad too young to be tuning in to murder and mayhem every night, but in early 1950s Texas, you took your entertainment where you found it!

All of which has pretty much nothing to do with anything I was intending to write. But I've often wondered what it was that made me such a lover of mysteries and suspense stories. My mother was never a huge fan – she preferred romance novels. And I don't think my father ever opened a book after he finished school; but if he had, it probably would have been a western. So it's not genetic.

But I certainly do love a good mystery novel, and I've got several going at the moment. I'm almost a hundred pages into The Bookman's Wake – a Cliff Janeway mystery by John Dunning. Janeway is (rather implausibly – but hey, this is fiction, folks) an ex-cop turned rare-book dealer who lives and owns a bookshop in Denver, Colorado. The stories are a strangely appealing mixture of hard-boiled detective fiction and esoteric book lore. This is the third Janeway novel I've read – I really enjoyed the first two and this one looks to be the best of the lot. So as soon as I get done here, I'm heading right back to read a little more after dinner.

I'm also reading Flowers For His Funeral, by Ann Granger. What a contrast. This is one of the Meredith Mitchell/Alan Markby series, set in England. I haven't gotten very far into it, but I've liked all the other Mitchell-Markby novels I've read, so I expect to like this one, too (unrepentant Anglophile that I am).

The third whodunit I've got going at the moment is Wish You Were Here, by Rita Mae Brown (and her cat Sneaky Pie Brown). It's one of the Mrs. Murphy series (in fact, the first title in the series, I believe) – Mrs. Murphy being a cat who "owns" the other central character of the novels, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen. Harry is the postmistress of Crozet, Virginia, where the novels are set; and she and Mrs. Murphy, along with Harry's Welsh corgi Tee Tucker are constantly turning up one heinous crime after another among the fair citizens of Crozet. I've only read one other Mrs. Murphy book, but there are about fifteen or sixteen works in the series by now. Who knew the back roads of the Old Dominion led to such an alarming amount of nefarious shenanigans?

Of course, I have a few other books going right now, in addition to the mysteries. I seem to keep getting involved in almost every reading challenge that comes my way – so I'm in the midst of several challenge books, too. But it keeps me off the streets and away from the TV screen. And since there's no Jane Austen on PBS on Sunday nights anymore (at least not around here, darn it), I should have a nice long, mysterious evening to look forward to.

Happy Birthday, Bernie and Sir Arthur!

"Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."
--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (born May 22, 1859)

"And everywhere I look there's something to learn
A sliver of truth from every bridge we burn"
--Bernie Taupin (born May 22, 1950)

Booking Through Thursday: Books vs Movies

This week's BTT topic:
Books and films both tell stories, but what we want from a book can be different from what we want from a movie. Is this true for you? If so, what’s the difference between a book and a movie?

Well, of course, not all books or all films tell stories. But we all know that, so I won't elaborate.

This question was hard for me to answer because I really felt that comparing books and movies would be a little like comparing apples and aardvarks. They just seem like completely different life forms.

So I had to do a little considering. And after thinking about it for a while, I'm pretty sure that basically what I want from both books and movies is to be entertained and/or amused. Or, failing that, at least mentally engaged for a period of time. It's also nice if they affect me emotionally and ultimately leave me with a fresh perspective or way of thinking about the world, but that's asking a lot and doesn't happen very often.

As a "bookish" person, my first impulse was to say I much prefer books to movies, and feel they have greater potential for emotional and intellectual impact. But to be honest, a good film can affect me just as strongly as a good book can. So while I think of them as very different entities, I guess I'd have to say that what I expect from them is not really so dissimilar after all.

Tuesday Thingers: Discussion Groups

"Tuesday Thingers"? Really? Hmmmmm.

Well, for the second edition of Tuesday Thingers, Marie at Boston Bibliophile (and thanks, Marie, for taking this on) asks:

Discussion groups. Do you belong to any (besides Early Reviewers)? Approximately how many? Are there any in particular that you participate in more avidly? How often do you check?

I had to go to my profile and check my groups listing to answer this, so I guess I'd have to say I'm not really what you'd call an active participant in any LT groups. But I "belong" to eight, besides the Early Reviewer group: Blog the Book, Bloggers, Children's Fiction, Cozy Mysteries, Crime Thriller & Mystery, FantasyFans, Read YA Lit, and Science Fiction Fans.

I think some of these groups are pretty dormant right now, but then I haven't really checked most of them for quite a while. The only group I really keep up with is the Early Reviewer group, mostly to read what other people are saying – I'm a notorious "lurker."

But even though I probably use it more for its organizational value than for social networking, I have to say LibraryThing is seductive and quite addictive. And also relaxing in a strange way. Is there a Zen of cataloguing?

I've been spending more and more time listing our books – I've almost got 500 titles now, which is a mark I thought would take me years to reach! It gives me a strange sense of accomplishment to see my list growing, one book at a time. Makes me wish I hadn't left library school all those years ago.

Catch-up Reading

As I think I've said before somewhere on this blog (probably many times), I'm always doing catch-up reading. For some reason, I can't seem to keep up on anything like a timely basis with all the newspapers and magazines that come through here. So at least one day a week – frequently on Monday – I try to sit down and leaf through the back-up.

And this morning one article from last Thursday's (May 15) New York Times jumped out at me right away. In "A 30,000-Volume Window on the World," Alberto Manguel writes about his love of books and about the library he's spent his life accumulating. The collection now lives in a converted barn on his property in France – "an old stone presbytery" – which he chose primarily because it would be the perfect place for his books ("I knew that once the books found their place, I would find mine").

Manguel has written at length about libraries (his own included) in his recent book, The Library at Night, published last month by Yale University Press – a book I'm certain to read as soon as I can get my hands on a copy. As a book addict, I know Manguel is a kindred spirit. How could I not love a guy who buys a house with a barn big enough to accommodate his 30,000 books (that's thirty thousand books), and then admits even that's not enough space: "Barely seven years after setting it up, it has already spread into the main body of the house, which I had hoped to keep free of bookshelves."

Like Manguel, I really can't remember a time when I didn't have a library of my own – from that very first collection of board books and Little Goldens, I've always had a book collection. And, as he says, "In every place I settled, a library began to grow almost on its own." Years ago, my husband and I used to enjoy the wonderful privilege of spending the summers in England; and every year, by summer's finish, we'd end up with stacks of books decorating every surface in our room in the B&B, and taking up precious space in our suitcases on the journey home.

One thing in the article I can't really identify with, however. Manguel writes:

"These days, after my 60th birthday, I tend to seek the comfort of the books I’ve already read rather than set out to discover new ones. In my library, I revisit old acquaintances who will not distract me with superficial surprises."

I find that, for myself, just the opposite is true. The older I get, the more eager I am to sample new books and authors that I've never read before. I'm encouraged that at my advanced age, I seem to be ready for new discoveries and experiences, and new surprises. Well, the literary kind, anyway.

Random Photo Monday: Book Line-up

These are some (most, I think) of the books that have come into our place since the first of the year. I know the photo is a little blurry, but then I'm feeling a little blurry myself this morning.

The group doesn't include several Library of America editions we've received, and a few books M. bought and took to his office or filed away in his study.

Altogether about forty books, I believe. Not an unreasonable number, but way more than we should be acquiring right now. With M's retirement and a move back to Texas right around the corner, we really should be narrowing our library down - not adding to it. But books just seem to follow me home (honest they do!).

Booking Through Thursday: Manual Labor Redux

This week's BTT topic:
Following up last week’s question about reading writing/grammar guides, this week, we’re expanding the question….
Scenario: You’ve just bought some complicated gadget home . . . do you read the accompanying documentation? Or not?
Do you ever read manuals?
How-to books?
Self-help guides?
Anything at all?

Do I ever read manuals? Gee, I'm tempted just to say No and let it go at that! But that wouldn't be the whole truth, I suppose. In reality, it probably depends on how urgent the situation is (i.e., how quickly I need to use said gadget), and what language the instructions are in, and how long the instructions are, and whether or not I need to put my glasses on to see the print.

I generally only read instructions and the manuals that come with "gadgets" when I absolutely have to. That's usually when I can't get my hubby to read them first and then tell me what they say! I say "usually" because if it's something I'm really excited about, I might do the unusual and read the manual myself – I read the instruction booklet that came with my new digital camera, and discovered I really needed an instruction booklet to help me figure out the instructions in the instruction booklet.

How-to books? Again, if it's something I'm really jazzed about (can't think what that would be at the moment, but I know there must be something), I'd certainly look at a how-to book.

Self-help guides? OK, here I can definitely say No – I think the last self-help book I read was I'm OK, You're OK, back in the '70s. That was about the time I decided I was as OK as I was ever gonna get, and it was OK to give up on self-help books.

**********
Addendum: I noticed someone asked about cookbooks. Well, if you include cookbooks under the heading of instruction manuals, I'd have to say yes and no. I have been known to read an occasional recipe (although mostly for the amusement value, since cooking isn't one of my strong points). But the instructions on frozen food packets are absolutely some of my most frequent reading material!

Tuesdays at LibraryThing

Marie, an Early Reviewer for LibraryThing, has offered to host a weekly online get-together of LT book bloggers at her web site, The Boston Bibliophile. As she says, "anyone is welcome to participate but the idea is to catch up with each other on what's new in our LT libraries- new books, books just finished, thoughts, anything like that." To participate, simply write a post in your blog, then go to her entry ("Thinging Through Tuesday") and leave her a comment containing the link to your post.

Well, I've been hanging out at LibraryThing quite a lot lately, checking out the various discussion groups and cataloging a few more books in my personal library listing. I'm doing the cataloging in spurts – and at this rate, it's going to take me about 10 years to list all our books. I'm tremendously impressed with all those people who've listed thousands of titles. But I think if I had that much time on my hands, I'd be more likely to devote it to actually reading the books (or maybe blogging about them).

I recently signed up with the Early Reviewer group at LT, and received my first book in the April hand-out – The Lace Reader, by Brunonia Barry. You can read my review of it here.

My blog isn't exclusively a "book blog," but it is bookish. In fact, I've really been using the blog as a way of getting myself back into reading – something I'd let slide, over the last few years. I try to post reviews of most of the books I read, but I'm a very slow reader – so the reviews don't appear at a rapid rate, I'm afraid.

I have pretty eclectic tastes in reading matter – literary fiction, mysteries, sci-fi and fantasy, children's and young adult literature, humor, biography, history, cultural studies, even some poetry. Not really into romance novels, although I've read quite a few in the past. And I mostly try to stay away from what's known as "chick lit." Well, I think I'm a little too old to qualify as a chick anyway.

I'd like to say thanks very much to Marie for coming up with the idea and hosting. Hope to see a lot of LT bloggers participating.

Bookworms Carnival

Bookworms Carnival is a monthly online event organized by Dewey over at The Hidden Side of a Leaf. The Carnival's aim is "to build the community of book bloggers," but you don't need a dedicated book blog to participate. Each month a different theme is featured: This month's Carnival has "Contemporary/Urban Fantasy" as its theme. You can take a look at the latest edition here. Many thanks to Scott at Scooter Chronicles for hosting!

The next Carnival (Edition #12) is being hosted by Nymeth; the theme will be "Fairy Tales," and the deadline for submissions is June 13. Anyone interested in participating can find more information and guidelines by visiting Nymeth's 12th Bookworms Carnival Info page. And for a look at past Carnivals, see Dewey's Information for Carnival Participants.