This week Booking Through Thursday offers this quote from Sven Birkerts' The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age:“To read, when one does so of one's own free will, is to make a volitional statement, to cast a vote; it is to posit an elsewhere and set off toward it. And like any traveling, reading is at once a movement and a comment of sorts about the place one has left. To open a book voluntarily is at some level to remark the insufficiency either of one's life or one's orientation toward it.”And then BTT asks "To what extent does this describe you?"
A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Vicki at Reading At The Beach, and here are the guidelines:To join, here's all you have to do:
Go to your stack of books and find one whose title starts with the letter of the week.
Post:
1~ a photo of the book
2~ title and synopsis
3~ link(Amazon, Barnes and Noble etc.)
4~ Return to the host's blog and leave your link in the comments.
When Betsy Devonshire arrived in Excelsior, Minnesota, all she wanted was to visit her sister Margot and to get her life in order. She never dreamed her sister would give her a place to stay and a job at her needlecraft shop. In fact, things had never looked so good - until Margot was murdered…3. And a photo of the paperback edition (I'm not sure these books were ever issued in hard cover):
The art of needlecraft requires patience, discipline, and creativity. So, too, does the art of detection. Just ask Betsy - who's learning that life in a small-town needlecraft shop can reveal an unexpected knack for knitting … and a hidden talent for unraveling crime.
As usual, I've got several books going right now, so it took me a while to decide which one to use for this week's teaser. I settled on Hazel Holt's Mrs. Malory and Any Man's Death, one of a series of cozy mysteries that I'm hopelessly hooked on. I know this snippet is more than two lines, but I had to include the whole excerpt because it reminds me so much of a Persian cat I once had:Foss, my Siamese, in his endless quest for entertainment, has invented a new ploy. When I go upstairs he rushes past and lies across the stair in front of me. This means that I either have to step over him (difficult because they are steep cottage stairs) or pay him the attention he requires by stroking him. This continues all the way up the stairs (mercifully he doesn't do it for the downward journey). [p.14]Sheila Malory, the main character and amateur sleuth featured in the books, lives in a small English village, writes scholarly articles, teaches part-time, and solves murder mysteries as a sideline. She also has pets - several dogs, and her Siamese cat Foss. The books are full of village life and lots of dotty characters. The author, Hazel Holt, was a close friend and literary executor of novelist Barbara Pym, and her books are very Pym-ish in feeling, and Holt's sense of humor is similar to Pym's. I like to think if BP had written mysteries, they'd be much like the Mrs. Malory series; so it's almost (but not quite) as good as still having Dear Barbara around.
Written by Iain PearsThis is the first of a series of highly knowledgable detective novels by an art historian about the art world. Set in Rome, it features the perpetually beset General Bottando of the Italian National Aft Theft Squad; his glamorous assistant, Flavia di Stefano; and Jonathan Argyll, a British art historian.
When Jonathan is arrested for breaking into an obscure church in Rome, he claims that it contains a long-lost Raphael hidden under a painting by Mantini. Further investigation reveals that the painting has disappeared. Then it miraculously reappears in the hands of the top British art dealer, Edward Byrnes. How has Byrnes found out about the hidden masterpiece, and whom is he acting for? There is also the curious matter of the safety-deposit box full of sketches closely resembling certain features of the newly discovered painting. A hideous act of vandalism occurs, then murder. Bottando faces the most critical challenge of his career, and Jonathan and Flavia find themselves in unexpected physical danger.
Written by H.G. Wells
This week's BTT topic has an Olympic theme: You may have noticed - the Winter Olympics are going on. Is that affecting your reading time? Have you read any Olympics-themed books? What do you think about the Olympics in general?
Written by James McKeanMatt O’Brien has a quiet life: A painting restorer with a particular love of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance, he toils away millimeter by millimeter, bringing old oils to new light. But one day he happens upon a painting in the basement of the Metropolitan Museum that is thick with centuries of yellowed varnish and dust. As he uncovers the portrait of a mysterious, beautiful woman, he finds himself suffering from an urgent sense of déja vu coupled with the pain of falling in love with a person long dead. Meanwhile, strange things have been happening in the museum since the installation of a wood-paneled room from Gubbio called a studiolo. As Matt increasingly seeks refuge in this magical room from the pressures of having potentially discovered a Leonardo da Vinci, the centuries slip away and he finds himself in the center of a love triangle, with Anna on one side and the Machiavellian knight Leandro, fighting for her fortune, on the other.
Written by Nicholson BakerThe Anthologist is narrated by Paul Chowder – a once-in-a-while-published kind of poet who is writing the introduction to a new anthology of poetry. He's having a hard time getting started because his career is floundering, his girlfriend Roz has recently left him, and he is thinking about the great poets throughout history who have suffered far worse and deserve to feel sorry for themselves. He has also promised to reveal many wonderful secrets and tips and tricks about poetry, and it looks like the introduction will be a little longer than he'd thought.
What unfolds is a wholly entertaining and beguiling love story about poetry: from Tennyson, Swinburne, and Yeats to the moderns (Roethke, Bogan, Merwin) to the staff of The New Yorker, what Paul reveals is astonishing and makes one realize how incredibly important poetry is to our lives. At the same time, Paul barely manages to realize all of this himself, and the result is a tenderly romantic, hilarious, and inspired novel.
I'm not going to get all maudlin about why Roz moved on. She moved on, period. I know why. It's because I didn't write the introduction to my anthology. And I was morose at times with her, and I was shockingly messy. And I had irregular sleeping habits. And she was supporting us, and I was nine years older than she was. And I didn't want to walk the dog as much as I should have. And I got farty when we had Caesar salads. And I do miss her. (p. 27)I came to really love Paul Chowder, even with all his faults. He can be pedantic and crude, but also lovable and sensitive, and very funny. And he's the only other person I've ever come across (in fiction or in real life) who seems to feel the same way I feel about haiku:
This, children, is a kind of poetry that makes perfect, thrilling sense in Japanese, and makes no sense whatsover in English. . . . This form is completely out of step with the English language. And the person who foisted it on us – that person was a demon. (p.73)This isn't a book with a great deal of plot – not a lot of action. But there's a lot happening, all the same. I won't say any more about the story or how it works itself out, except that I found the ending very satisfying, if just slightly less than totally believable – it fit the story and the story-teller perfectly.
A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Vicki at Reading At The Beach, and here are the guidelines:To join, here's all you have to do:
Go to your stack of books and find one whose title starts with the letter of the week.
Post:
1~ a photo of the book
2~ title and synopsis
3~ link(Amazon, Barnes and Noble etc.)
4~ Return to the host's blog and leave your link in the comments.
Betsy and Tacy were two little five-year-olds, such inseparable friends that they were regarded almost as one. These stories of their friendship present a very real picture of young children living in the early 1900's. Each book features amusing illustrations by award-winning author/illustrator Lois Lenski.3. And a photo of the recent hard cover edition:
This week, my teaser lines come from People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. I'm about a third of the way into this one, and enjoying it so far. This excerpt is from the first section of the book, which sets up the framing story about Hannah, a professional book conservator from Australia, who's been called to Sarajevo and given a rare and beautiful ancient Hebrew manuscript to analyze and preserve. Here, Hannah is discussing the materials and routines used in conserving and restoring antique volumes:In the bright snow light, my hands looked even worse than usual, all ruddy and peeling from scouring the fat off cow gut with a pumice stone. When you live in Sydney, it's not the simplest thing in the world to get a meter of calf's intestine. [p.5]See, the calf's intestine is for using in the preparation of gold leaf - that is, if you're going to beat your own gold leaf the way a medieval bookbinder would have done it. Ah, well, conservation and archival work may not be the most glamorous undertaking I can think of, but I find it fascinating and always thought I'd missed my calling by not going into that field. But that bit about the cow gut is making me think I might not have been up to the task after all.
It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is now being hosted by Sheila at One Persons Journey Through a World of Books. If you want to let the world know what books you're going to be reading this week, head on over to her blog and leave your link.
Wow, whole careers have been built on answering today's BTT question ("How can you encourage a non-reading child to read?"). So I'm just going to say, up front, I'm really not at all qualified to say much on the subject – never having been a parent or a teacher. And the idea that I might have had to accept that my child "is a non-reader" brings a chill to my heart!A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Vicki at Reading At The Beach, and here are the guidelines:To join, here's all you have to do:
Go to your stack of books and find one whose title starts with the letter of the week.
Post:
1~ a photo of the book
2~ title and synopsis
3~ link(Amazon, Barnes and Noble etc.)
4~ Return to the host's blog and leave your link in the comments.
I'm assuming just about everyone is at least a little familiar with the story of the little girl who falls down a rabbit hole and has amazing adventures in Wonderland. If not, you should grab a copy and read it right now. But the Wikipedia entry has a very thorough synopsis.3. And a sampling of the many covers the book has sported over the years:
(Click on image to enlarge.)
All this snow and ice is beginning to addle my brain (not that it wasn't pretty much addled already, of course) - I completely forgot about today being Tuesday. Please, please tell me that spring is just around the corner!During the earlier years of this period, elegance of personal appearance was believed to rest more upon the texture of garments than upon their shaping. A silk dress needed no remodelling when it was a year or so old; it remained distinguished by merely remaining silk. [p.4]Timeless fashion? Would that that were true today. I could still be wearing those pretty little velvet mini-dresses I loved back in the 1970s. Or maybe not. Yours truly in a mini-dress is definitely a sight we can all live without, velvet or not.
This week's BTT topic is about seasonal reading habits: "The northern hemisphere, at least, is socked in by winter right now… So, on a cold, wintry day, when you want nothing more than to curl up with a good book on the couch … what kind of reading do you want to do?"The 22 authors on the Lost Man Booker Prize longlist have waited a long time to contend for the best novel published in 1970. . . .I haven't read any of the books listed, and several of them look really intriguing, so this is a bit of good news.The Guardian reported that the new award "aims to commemorate the works that 'fell through the net' in 1970 after changes to the Booker rules. In 1971, two years after the prize was first given, it ceased to be awarded retrospectively and became, as it is now, a prize for the best novel in the year of publication. The date on which the award was given was also moved from April to November, creating a gap when a wealth of 1970 fiction could not be eligible." The shortlist will be announced in March and the winner named in May. The longlist:
- The Hand Reared Boy by Brian Aldiss
- A Little of What You Fancy? by H.E. Bates
- The Birds on the Trees by Nina Bawden
- A Place in England by Melvyn Bragg
- Down All the Days by Christy Brown
- Bomber by Len Deighton
- Troubles by J.G. Farrell
- The Circle by Elaine Feinstein
- The Bay of Noon by Shirley Hazzard
- A Clubbable Woman by Reginald Hill
- I'm the King of the Castle by Susan Hill
- A Domestic Animal by Francis King
- The Fire Dwellers by Margaret Laurence
- Out of the Shelter by David Lodge
- A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch
- Fireflies by Shiva Naipaul
- Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
- Head to Toe by Joe Orton
- Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault
- A Guilty Thing Surprised by Ruth Rendell
- The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark
- The Vivisector by Patrick White
This week my teaser lines come from James McKean's debut novel Quattrocento, a strange tale of Renaissance art and time travel. I'm only a few chapters into it, but so far I'm enjoying it even though I'm not really sure exactly what's going on. This snippet is actually three sentences, and comes from page 185:
