I've been busy adding some of my favourite book blogs to my site. They are fun to read and excellent sources for books to read. I've also added three of the book reading challenges I have accepted to read so far.....what started me on having a blog in the first place, was all the challenges I saw that I wanted to join!!! So, look for book lists shortly; I already have a pile of 'firsts' that I pulled off my shelves last week, and now have to sort through - I have more than 12 firsts in a series that I haven't read yet! And I thought I was up to date with what I had on my shelves (sort of). I also am joining the Series Challenge, which allows me to finish or catch up in some series I am behind in (found plenty of those as well, and some new ones are coming out - Ian Rankin, Charles de Lint that I want to get for Christmas). Then there is the Shakespeare Challenge, since I have been thinking about reading some of his plays - I haven't looked at any since university, I am sad to say. And I think I will be joining the TBR challenge - To Be Read Challenge, since I found well over 20 on my shelves that I have now moved to my immediate to be read shelf. The big challenge is the 888 Challenge - 8 books each in 8 areas to be read in 2008, selection and interest of my own choosing. I am hoping some of my smaller challenges can be cross-referenced into this big one! Since reading 64 books is a challenge at the best of times these days with my young family.........
I am very happy to say that I have managed to cut down on some of my tv viewing time already, so that I can read more. It helps that most of the tv shows this year - the new ones - look boring, so I have my regular ones only to watch (House, The Office, the CSIs). I am really enjoying The Tudors, the BBC series running on CBC right now, about Henry the VIIIth's early years in charge. I'm not sure I am sold on the girl who plays Anne Boleyn though, she doesn't look nearly interesting enough to make a king part with the Church.
Gentle readers, feel free to look at the book blogs, I hope you find book readers you will enjoy reading about, and always, find new books to read!!!
I'm afraid to look at my list of books for Christmas that I want, there are so many......and I just saw that Nigella Lawson has another new cookbook out too.....
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
Monday, 8 October 2007
Thanksgiving
Well, after those two adorable photos, even though I am full of turkey and pumpkin pie, I have to write and say, Thank You! for a lovely day at home. It was the first day since last Tuesday that I hadn't been at work........I cooked all day, which I find now relaxes me, and we actually ate at 4, so Graham got to fall asleep right after eating! He tried the turkey, but the pieces were too big (he wouldn't let me cut them) and ate almost all the carrots with brown sugar, cucumber, and some rice. Holly-Anne ate TONS of turkey and skin, and some cranberries, and everything else under persuasion (no dessert if she didn't eat a few mouthfuls of rice and broccoli!). It was a lovely meal, and we all said something we were thankful for. Even though Toby isn't working, we have alot to be thankful for. We even had rain yesterday, for the first time in weeks, so the air smells of fall again. It has been so dry that on my walks, the leaves were crunchy and the air had none of the damp smell full of leaves slowly decomposing.....it sounds gross, but it's a smell I love, wet leaves and smoke drifting from other houses where it's finally cool enough to have a fire in the fireplace.....wood burning....
In between working overtime and cooking two thanksgiving meals this weekend - we had our very good family friends Patricia and Victor over on Saturday night for a non-turkey, pot roast Thanksgiving meal that was lots of fun and the kids behaved and ate at! - I managed to read The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, one of the books on my Hallowe'en reading list. I read it in 4 days, and had to force myself to put it down this morning in order to get the pumpkin pie baked, then start on the turkey.
It is a fascinating book! Almost unputdownable. It shows the best of what man can achieve - by all accounts the Chicago World's Fair was stunning, and moved those who went to it with the beauty of the buildings - and the worst, in the horrible hotel that HH Holmes built, the Castle of Terror, where he killed a still unknown number of people (mostly women). It is gripping reading, as you see the progress of the World's Fair being built against enormous obstacles and odds, compared with the procession of people coming into the Castle but not seen leaving it. A very good book. And suitably creepy for Hallowe'en, but not graphic.
I have just started The Lamplighter, which I forgot I had on my shelves when I made my original list in my first blog. The writing is definitely different from the Devil in the White City, I'll see how tomorrow goes. I may just be tired tonight. Though it doesn't seem very original, it is set in the era of Scotland's developing police force and their investigative techniques (1888), which is one of the reasons I bought the book.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you enjoyed your turkey and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie!
In between working overtime and cooking two thanksgiving meals this weekend - we had our very good family friends Patricia and Victor over on Saturday night for a non-turkey, pot roast Thanksgiving meal that was lots of fun and the kids behaved and ate at! - I managed to read The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, one of the books on my Hallowe'en reading list. I read it in 4 days, and had to force myself to put it down this morning in order to get the pumpkin pie baked, then start on the turkey.
It is a fascinating book! Almost unputdownable. It shows the best of what man can achieve - by all accounts the Chicago World's Fair was stunning, and moved those who went to it with the beauty of the buildings - and the worst, in the horrible hotel that HH Holmes built, the Castle of Terror, where he killed a still unknown number of people (mostly women). It is gripping reading, as you see the progress of the World's Fair being built against enormous obstacles and odds, compared with the procession of people coming into the Castle but not seen leaving it. A very good book. And suitably creepy for Hallowe'en, but not graphic.
I have just started The Lamplighter, which I forgot I had on my shelves when I made my original list in my first blog. The writing is definitely different from the Devil in the White City, I'll see how tomorrow goes. I may just be tired tonight. Though it doesn't seem very original, it is set in the era of Scotland's developing police force and their investigative techniques (1888), which is one of the reasons I bought the book.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you enjoyed your turkey and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie!
Thursday, 4 October 2007
Women and writing
I've been thinking alot about how women find time to write. I've read Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, and thoroughly agree that a woman needs a room of her own - not just to write, but to have her own space, so she can dream, create, just be herself. So much of every woman I know is taken up with children, taking care of the house, working, that there is so little time left over for creative time. I'm not saying that tired argument that we are overworked, stressed, etc, which anyone who has a family, is! that's a given. It's the effort to make creative time that seems to give women the most trouble. We leave it for last. Earlier this year, I discovered that leaving my writing for the end of the day, meant I would fall asleep on the computer. I would struggle to put sentences together because I would nod off between words. After a few months of this, I realized I couldn't keep up. so now I am trying something radical: I am getting up before dawn, to write. The house is quiet, it is dark outside, it is still. I have my cup of tea, I open up my computer, open up my file that holds my novel, and start writing. And it's working!!!!!
There are distractions, of course, the kids get up earlier because I'm up, my LSS (long- suffering spouse.....I buy books, he's given up asking when am I going to stop, and wonders now where the next shelf can go!) gets ready for work and turns the radio on in the kitchen.....I stay up too late the night before - I still struggle to get to bed before 11! - any number of things can distract me, but I try for a page of writing before the rest of my day begins.
So I began in May, and while I am still cranky (perimenopause, EVERYONE seems stupid these days!), that anxiety that used to weigh on me - why am I here? What am I doing with my life? What am I going to write, and WHEN am I going to write it? Those questions and that anxiety have disappeared. I am more peaceful inside me, much more loving my life because I am writing. It si the act of writing, of creating, that I need to do, to feel my life has meaning. I don't know why, it has been this way since I was 10 and realized I could write, I could tell funny stories and at least my teacher back then liked them! I knew then it was what I wanted to do. And after 40 years of some writing accomplishments - honorary mention in a poetry competition a zillion years ago, winning a short story competition at a science fiction convention - lots of stories begun and left - it just feels good to be writing.
I have a little room upstairs that is all my own, since the youngest kids want to share the bigger room at the moment. I am still setting up the room, but it is mine. I have my altar set up, two book shelves packed with books, writing binders, tarot card sets, magazines, my trunk with all my quilting supplies (another creative activity that I long to do), a tiny table to sit at and write.....no computer yet so I can't write there, but for my quiet time and space, it's there! A room of my own.
And so when I get pressured now and think of all things done and that I still have to do every day - which I am grateful for, by the way, I know how lucky I am in my life, how blessed and how rich (even if not in actual money!) - I remember that I've done my writing that day, the novel is coming along, and I relax. I am a great deal more peaceful with a room of my own.
I also remember what I read in Charlotte Gray's Sisters in the Wilderness, about Susannah Marsh and Catherine Parr Traill. They had to bake bread from scratch every morning, prepare all the meals based on their gardens, current supplies or what they could catch, do all the chores of running a household with 5 kids and husbands away to war often - and every evening, after the kids were in bed, they would sit up and by the candlelight, write furiously for an hour or two, because they always wanted to be authors, and they needed to bring in more money. This was in the 1820's to 1840's!!! In pioneer Canada, when all they had was the one room cottage for all the family members! Whenever I think I have it hard, I think of them and am very grateful I don't have to start baking bread first thing every day! And that they could stay up every night and write (well, every night they could)! I am awed. They are some of my writing heroines. They didn't have a room of their own, but they had determination, and they did it.
So what makes a woman want to write or paint or act when her life is already so full? I think it's because it's from within us. It's our own creativity, and no one else's. That's what makes it so hard for so many women to do, that it's not for anyone else, and often not with overt permission. It's like a treasure that we each have, but we have to dig for it - or as Stephen King says in The Art of Writing - dig for the bones. When we strip away our life, what is it for and what does it mean, if we have not lived a life that we have really been in? And we can only be in our lives really if we are creating, actively pursuing our passions while we raise the kids, work, clean the house, and do all the myriad things that compose our outer lives with others. We need an inner life, where our soul lives, where we find ourselves. And mine is in writing, and reading, and books. As well as gardening, nature, my goddess spirituality, my family, quilting, cooking.
So what do you think, do women need a room of their own to write? Do we need to create? Why? Just curious to know what others think and their experiences of creating.
Time to go finish The Well of Lost Plots so I can begin my horror reading month!
Luckily, when I finish this novel, I have at least 4 others lined up.
There are distractions, of course, the kids get up earlier because I'm up, my LSS (long- suffering spouse.....I buy books, he's given up asking when am I going to stop, and wonders now where the next shelf can go!) gets ready for work and turns the radio on in the kitchen.....I stay up too late the night before - I still struggle to get to bed before 11! - any number of things can distract me, but I try for a page of writing before the rest of my day begins.
So I began in May, and while I am still cranky (perimenopause, EVERYONE seems stupid these days!), that anxiety that used to weigh on me - why am I here? What am I doing with my life? What am I going to write, and WHEN am I going to write it? Those questions and that anxiety have disappeared. I am more peaceful inside me, much more loving my life because I am writing. It si the act of writing, of creating, that I need to do, to feel my life has meaning. I don't know why, it has been this way since I was 10 and realized I could write, I could tell funny stories and at least my teacher back then liked them! I knew then it was what I wanted to do. And after 40 years of some writing accomplishments - honorary mention in a poetry competition a zillion years ago, winning a short story competition at a science fiction convention - lots of stories begun and left - it just feels good to be writing.
I have a little room upstairs that is all my own, since the youngest kids want to share the bigger room at the moment. I am still setting up the room, but it is mine. I have my altar set up, two book shelves packed with books, writing binders, tarot card sets, magazines, my trunk with all my quilting supplies (another creative activity that I long to do), a tiny table to sit at and write.....no computer yet so I can't write there, but for my quiet time and space, it's there! A room of my own.
And so when I get pressured now and think of all things done and that I still have to do every day - which I am grateful for, by the way, I know how lucky I am in my life, how blessed and how rich (even if not in actual money!) - I remember that I've done my writing that day, the novel is coming along, and I relax. I am a great deal more peaceful with a room of my own.
I also remember what I read in Charlotte Gray's Sisters in the Wilderness, about Susannah Marsh and Catherine Parr Traill. They had to bake bread from scratch every morning, prepare all the meals based on their gardens, current supplies or what they could catch, do all the chores of running a household with 5 kids and husbands away to war often - and every evening, after the kids were in bed, they would sit up and by the candlelight, write furiously for an hour or two, because they always wanted to be authors, and they needed to bring in more money. This was in the 1820's to 1840's!!! In pioneer Canada, when all they had was the one room cottage for all the family members! Whenever I think I have it hard, I think of them and am very grateful I don't have to start baking bread first thing every day! And that they could stay up every night and write (well, every night they could)! I am awed. They are some of my writing heroines. They didn't have a room of their own, but they had determination, and they did it.
So what makes a woman want to write or paint or act when her life is already so full? I think it's because it's from within us. It's our own creativity, and no one else's. That's what makes it so hard for so many women to do, that it's not for anyone else, and often not with overt permission. It's like a treasure that we each have, but we have to dig for it - or as Stephen King says in The Art of Writing - dig for the bones. When we strip away our life, what is it for and what does it mean, if we have not lived a life that we have really been in? And we can only be in our lives really if we are creating, actively pursuing our passions while we raise the kids, work, clean the house, and do all the myriad things that compose our outer lives with others. We need an inner life, where our soul lives, where we find ourselves. And mine is in writing, and reading, and books. As well as gardening, nature, my goddess spirituality, my family, quilting, cooking.
So what do you think, do women need a room of their own to write? Do we need to create? Why? Just curious to know what others think and their experiences of creating.
Time to go finish The Well of Lost Plots so I can begin my horror reading month!
Luckily, when I finish this novel, I have at least 4 others lined up.
Monday, 1 October 2007
First time out........
Okay, this is scary, writing into the wide world of the internet. But if I'm going to join all the wonderful other bloggers writing about books, I guess it's time I get started! Since I have no idea how to add links yet, all the wonderful sites will have to wait for another day for me to add.....and the book reading challenges (and links to them) I've decided to join for 2008........I already have my piles of books ready......
For Hallowe'en this year, I decided to pick 4 books to read for October: Dan Simmons -A Winter Haunting, Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, re-read Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire, and poke through Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings. So if anyone else out there is reading for Hallowe'en, let me know what you are picking. This was all last minute, to get in the mood for Hallowe'en. I thought I had a copy of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, which is one of my all-time favourite frightening ghost stories to read, but I have lent it to a friend and it has not made it's way back to me yet.
I'm currently reading Jasper Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots. Having lots of fun with her ideas of hwo books are developed and given to authors, and how characters wander through books and some have to be stopped. Very clever. I have to finish it by this weekend or I'll never get through my horror reading! Working full time and raising kids (very young kids) means reading time is at a premium, and I've decided to cut back on my tv viewing, especially as it looks like I won't make my goal of 50 books read this year. My actual goal is 100, but I've never made it yet, in 10 + years of trying......though I've gotten close a few years.
I've just discovered Mary Oliver, which I found at my local favourite bookstore in Ottawa - Collected Works, an independent bookstore! - and am thoroughly enjoying reading Owls and Other Fantasies. I am also reading Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy (an English poet) on the go, as well as Walter Mosley's You Can Write a Book in A Year, which I have by the bed, to inspire me while I sleep (and help me get up at 5:30 so I can get my writing done.....)
I did it! My first blog!!! About books! O heavenly joy! (Ok, it's not so hard, but for the technically challenged, this is quite a feat. Now to see if this actually turns up on my blog as a post.......)
For Hallowe'en this year, I decided to pick 4 books to read for October: Dan Simmons -A Winter Haunting, Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, re-read Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire, and poke through Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings. So if anyone else out there is reading for Hallowe'en, let me know what you are picking. This was all last minute, to get in the mood for Hallowe'en. I thought I had a copy of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, which is one of my all-time favourite frightening ghost stories to read, but I have lent it to a friend and it has not made it's way back to me yet.
I'm currently reading Jasper Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots. Having lots of fun with her ideas of hwo books are developed and given to authors, and how characters wander through books and some have to be stopped. Very clever. I have to finish it by this weekend or I'll never get through my horror reading! Working full time and raising kids (very young kids) means reading time is at a premium, and I've decided to cut back on my tv viewing, especially as it looks like I won't make my goal of 50 books read this year. My actual goal is 100, but I've never made it yet, in 10 + years of trying......though I've gotten close a few years.
I've just discovered Mary Oliver, which I found at my local favourite bookstore in Ottawa - Collected Works, an independent bookstore! - and am thoroughly enjoying reading Owls and Other Fantasies. I am also reading Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy (an English poet) on the go, as well as Walter Mosley's You Can Write a Book in A Year, which I have by the bed, to inspire me while I sleep (and help me get up at 5:30 so I can get my writing done.....)
I did it! My first blog!!! About books! O heavenly joy! (Ok, it's not so hard, but for the technically challenged, this is quite a feat. Now to see if this actually turns up on my blog as a post.......)
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