Staycation!
So....if you've noticed, I've been able to blog much more frequently this week. I'm home on a week's holiday with the kids. This is good for relaxing, playing in the sun, taking day trips, and very very very bad for getting anything read. I like that somehow staying home because we are getting windows replaced makes me trendy: "I'm staycationing this year, you know. Staying around Ottawa," and it's cool. I can't remember when that was cool, ever! I'm not the only one: Charlotte at Charlotte's Web is also staying home, her staycationpost is here, and has a post here on her staycation reads. She's got books set aside for her holidays! Why didn't I think of that? How did I not plan to read anything? Maybe because I knew what would happen: I would spend my day doing things with the kids, evening would roll around, and I'd be dozing as soon as they fell asleep.
I am cheered that I feel like reading in the mornings, and after carrying The Shorter Pepys (the edited journals of Samuel Pepys) around on my shelves for almost 20 years, it's time to read it! So every morning before the kids are truly awake, I've been able to read a little. A' little' is the key word here. Here is a link to what the book is about, since it's been re-released with a new title. I've gotten to March of 1660. It is very interesting reading - I like how he talks about where he goes every day, what they eat, the people he meets with. He moved in fairly high circles - he meets the king on occasion, but mostly deals with his Lord (**Added later: Edward Mountagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich) who is his patron (** also added later: Pepys first works as his secretary in 1655) - and seems to be worried about money alot. Not so much has changed over almost 400 years! He also comments on the weather, like a true Brit. If I finish this book - which comes in over 1,000 pages (and these are his EDITED journals!) - by Christmas, I will be very very happy. I wish I'd joined the Chunkster Challenge now!
I'm trying to get through Peter Robinson's Friend of the Devil, but haven't got very far - I'm not sure why, maybe it's not the book for now. I don't really have anything 'to read' for the rest of this week, like Charlotte did. Maybe I should have my own personal read-a-thon day! I'd like that! I'm not sure my children will, or my husband, he will think I'm running from chores and looking after the kids, and he'd be right!
Staycation events so far
So far, we have gone to the library on Monday (only time for books for the kids, not a book time for Mommy!), played at a local outdoor pool and saw a reptile show there on Tuesday - no spiders, hurray! and I like reptiles, so the turtles and snakes were awesome! On Wednesday, yesterday, we had one of the children's friends over for some water play with the water guns and the sprinkler, after which we recovered by renting Coraline and binging on junk food for a movie afternoon. Today we went to the National Museum of Science and Technology, followed by a shopping trip to Toys R Us for flutterboards for both kids for the local pool, and a special toy each (Nascar cars for Graham, Littlest Pet Shop for Holly-Anne), followed by everyone falling asleep either on the bus ride home, or at home (that was me dozing on the sofa!) We have our first heat wave of the summer this week, which is lovely except we are getting hotter and hotter as the week goes on! Tomorrow the kids have voted for swimming at the local outdoor pool with their new flutterboards. I am secretly hoping I can bring a book with me......I can hear you all laughing at me! I know, I have no real hope of getting anything read there, but I live in hope that I can grab some time to read this holiday!!!
Coraline the movie
Coraline was fabulous. I am so surprised at how much I loved the movie. I really thought, because of the commercials both last fall and even before the movie started, that it would be too bright and lose the dark quality that I love so much about the book. I am so relieved and delighted to say that the movie is as good as the book. Yes, I actually wrote that! It might be the first time in history that I think a movie based on a book is as good as the book. It's safe to say we'll be adding this movie to our collection shortly. Everything about it, from the music, to the set design, to Coraline herself, and the cat and those lovely Scottie dogs, and the weird strange neighbors, the good parents and the bad parents - just lovely and perfect. They don't take away from my reading of the book and my private vision of it, which is so rare for me to experience. So I really send a thank you to all the producers and artists of the movie, for staying so true to the spirit as well as the telling of the story.
So if anyone out there has hesitated like I did - please, go rent it and see for yourself. It really is very very good. Thank you bloggers, for persisting in telling me I could see it! I also have a very good friend who kept telling me I should, too.
Bad Bloggers journal
I don't have a picture of it yet, but I thought I would share with you how reading blogs has changed my book-buying habits: I have had to use a special journal that is now 7 1/2 pages filled with titles, authors, and the blogger I got the book from. I started it around April, after I realized I just couldn't keep track of all the books I wanted to read that I'd found on blogs. So thank you, my book blogging friends. You have brought so many new books and authors to my attention, and I know my reading has expanded unexpectedly since I began blogging. Soon to come: more bad blogger points, now that I am keeping track of you all! Someone somewhere is going to win a prize from me at the end of the year, for posting about books that made me want to read them.
The house is hot and sticky and we are all cooling off as best we can. I think I'm going to try to sneak some reading in while everyone is occuppied. Happy reading, everyone!! Happy summer!
Thursday, 13 August 2009
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
Fantasy -New Yorker article, 7 essential adult books
Thanks to Tanabata at In the Spring It is the Dawn, I came across a link on her sidebar to the New Yorker, which has a lovely little article on some good adult fantasy books to read, especially for those who are new to fantasy, or who have read all the good young adult series and want to graduate to adult fantasy (and yes, it does exist!). The New Yorker post is here. I read the article, thinking, "Oh, I've read them all." Well, surprise on me, there were two listed that I have seen everywhere, that I never got around to reading: Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind, and The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. Luckily, due to a rave review by a blogger recently (Nymeth, I think) I had just picked up Wizard's First Rule. So onto my TBR shelf it goes. Just because I have been reading fantasy ever since I was 15 or 16, doesn't mean I have read everything good yet! Sometimes I'm really glad I love books; it's hard to be jaded when there is always something new to read, or some forgotten treasure I've overlooked. And I have read most of the others on the list; the Steven Erickson I haven't, but I have read many good things about it. I think I am awed/a little overwhelmed at it having 10 books in the series, so I've been hesitant to start it. I agree with all the choices by the way, although the Scions of Shannara does raise my eyebrows - I did read the original Shannara series, and never got to the Scions series, thinking it was as cliche ridden as the Stones of Shannara were - very enjoyable, but very derivative of Tolkien, even I knew that at 18! So.....now I will have to give Scions of Shannara a try too, one day. Maybe reading keeps me a little humble too - I haven't read everything, and there is so many thousands of good books still to read!
By the way, Tanabata also discusses this week's Monday Musings, which is an interesting question: do you buy books because of the publishing house? In other words, do you look at publishing catalogues to buy books, and does the name on the spine of the book mean anything to you, or do you buy whatever edition of the book you come across? Please let her know; I left my comment there, but I thought it was a very interesting question, especially as a former bookstore clerk who used to deal with publishers, and so I know many books, titles and authors by who has published them.
By the way, Tanabata also discusses this week's Monday Musings, which is an interesting question: do you buy books because of the publishing house? In other words, do you look at publishing catalogues to buy books, and does the name on the spine of the book mean anything to you, or do you buy whatever edition of the book you come across? Please let her know; I left my comment there, but I thought it was a very interesting question, especially as a former bookstore clerk who used to deal with publishers, and so I know many books, titles and authors by who has published them.
Neil wins the Hugo!
As most you, my Gentle Readers, know, I am a huge Neil Gaiman fan. He just won the Hugo for The Graveyard Book. He won! The Guardian book site has this lovely post about Neil's win, here, entitled "The Myth-Making Genius of Neil" . Here is the actual Guardian article on the win, "Neil Gaiman wins Hugo", here. Link to Neil's own post on his blog about the win, here.
I need to find some Sandman to try! Everyone raves about it, including the writer of the myth-making genius of Neil article. I might be the very last person on the planet to find a Sandman to try!! My children have seen Coraline the movie, my daughter loving it and my youngest son talking about the mother with the button eyes: "there was a mother with BUTTON EYES" and then insisting he never saw the movie. A very good friend watched it alone and had to keep stopping it and doing something else for a bit, before coming back to the movie. I still haven't seen it. I think the book is one of the scariest, one of the most deliciously frightening books with the bravest heroine ever. I'm not sure why, but The Graveyard Book wasn't as scary to me (except the beginning part, which is truly frightening in any book) as Coraline was. It was more melancholic, and really lingers in mind still, a year after reading it. The Dance Macabre, the living in the cemetary, the various ghosts he met, and Silas his guardian - they are all memorable, and The Graveyard Book is like no other. I'm awed that it won the Hugo, and very very happy it did. Congratulations to Mr Gaiman. My children thank him too.
Here is the link to the Hugo site and all the award winners this year: here.
Also found on the Guardian Book site, a lovely quiz about summer holidays in children's books, here. I scored 9 out of 11. It pays to read Enid Blyton! She is not in the same league as Gaiman, but still; my love of mysteries I can attibute in part to the Adventurous Four, Famous Five and Secret Seven.....
I need to find some Sandman to try! Everyone raves about it, including the writer of the myth-making genius of Neil article. I might be the very last person on the planet to find a Sandman to try!! My children have seen Coraline the movie, my daughter loving it and my youngest son talking about the mother with the button eyes: "there was a mother with BUTTON EYES" and then insisting he never saw the movie. A very good friend watched it alone and had to keep stopping it and doing something else for a bit, before coming back to the movie. I still haven't seen it. I think the book is one of the scariest, one of the most deliciously frightening books with the bravest heroine ever. I'm not sure why, but The Graveyard Book wasn't as scary to me (except the beginning part, which is truly frightening in any book) as Coraline was. It was more melancholic, and really lingers in mind still, a year after reading it. The Dance Macabre, the living in the cemetary, the various ghosts he met, and Silas his guardian - they are all memorable, and The Graveyard Book is like no other. I'm awed that it won the Hugo, and very very happy it did. Congratulations to Mr Gaiman. My children thank him too.
Here is the link to the Hugo site and all the award winners this year: here.
Also found on the Guardian Book site, a lovely quiz about summer holidays in children's books, here. I scored 9 out of 11. It pays to read Enid Blyton! She is not in the same league as Gaiman, but still; my love of mysteries I can attibute in part to the Adventurous Four, Famous Five and Secret Seven.....
Monday, 10 August 2009
The Winter Sea - another Canadian book finished! and Canadian Book Meme
"Romantic Beach Read by Canadian Author" I think sums up The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley. I did think it had nice touches: the main character, Carolyn McClelland, is a writer, who goes to a distant Scottish town to visit her agent, and ends up in the very small village of Cruden, where she spends the winter writing what becomes the memories of her ancestor who once lived there during the Jacobite uprising of 1708. The history is well-done, and the story flips back and forth gently between the present time with Carrie and her writing, and the main story, which is the story she is writing of Sophia Paterson and John Moray. I have only been to Edinburgh, and very much one day would like to visit the rest of Scotland. So I read this book partly for the wintry Scottish atmosphere by the sea (the book IS titled The Winter Sea!) and partly because it was by a Canadian author, and because it is the book for my friend's bookclub meeting tonight, to which I am invited to attend.
To be fair, I read The Winter Sea in under 24 hours, and it is a light read - perfect for the beach, engaging, two love stories, fun characters - I like John Moray! and Graham Keith, and his uncle, and the older Jimmie Keith, plus Carrie and Sophia, and the Countess....there is political intrigue, but as Carrie is only a witness to the events leading up to the Jacobite uprising and its aftermath - it wasn't successful, as King James wasn't returned to the Scottish throne then - it surrounds and cushions the love story. I still and always will think Sophia's choice at the end of the book was the wrong one, but then I am speaking as a mother. I won't say here, so as to not spoil the plot. I do not often read romances because I read my fill when I was a teenager, but once in a while I am in the mood to read one, and this one was perfect for this very hot day. It is a very well-written book, fast-paced, and the characters are intelligent, and the setting beautiful, and the dialogue is good. So for anyone looking for a sweet beach read, this is a very good book to spend your time with.
And that's my second book read for the Canadian Challenge 3!!!
In honour of the Canadian Challenge, John at The Book Mine Set, the host of the Canadian Challenge, posted here on Aug 1 for all challengers to do. I found this via Kailana at The Written World, here. It is a challenge about Canadian books! So, to prove that I have not been an all bad-Canadian reader and have read some Canadian books, I accept the challenge (sound of gauntlet being thrown down):
Your Favourites:
1. Favourite Canadian author? Yikes. So many: Kathy Reichs, Thomas King, Charles de Lint, Tanya Huff, Louise Penny, Guy Gavriel Kay, Giles Blunt, L.M. Montgomery, Kelley Armstrong.....
2. Favourite Canadian novel? tie: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, and Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint
3. Favourite Canadian nonfiction? Fear of Frying - James Barber (cookbook); Some Canadian Ghosts - Sheila Hervey (first read when I was 10, and scared me so much that I got goosebumps! Still has that effect on me); Never Cry Wolf - Farley Mowat; The Whale Watcher's Handbook - Erich Hoyt; A History of Reading - Alberto Manguel
4. Favourite Canadian picture book? ? None come to mind, I'm sad to say.
5. Favourite Canadian YA or juvenile chapter book? Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
6. Favourite Canadian science fiction or fantasy book? 1)Moonheart; 2) Dreams Underfoot, by Charles de Lint; the Fionavar Tapestry (3 books) by Guy Gavriel Kay; Summon the Keeper - Tanya Huff
7. Favourite Canadian romantic fiction? The Emerald Necklace - Victoria Sheringham
8. Favourite Canadian mystery? Uh-oh - so many to chose from.....I can't go with one book, it has to be a series. It would have to be Giles Blunt's John Cardinal series. The first one, Forty Words for Sorrow, is one I gave to everyone the year I read it. There are 4 now in the series, and my mother and I are waiting breathlessly for the next one to come out.
9. Favourite Canadian graphic novel? Do we write them?
10. Favourite Canadian book blog? Kailana, Raidergirl3, BookZombie, John himself (see link above).
11. Favourite Canadian fictional character? Anne Shirley (childhood), Detective John Cardinal, RCMP Staff Sargeant Karl Ahlberg, any main character by Charles de Lint EXCEPT Imogene (but I still like her!), Emily Starr
12. Favourite movie based on a Canadian novel or story? The English Patient (based on Michael Oondatje's book of the same name)
13. Favourite Canadian short story? I'm going to cheat here. I don't have one favourite story, but my favourite short story collection is Dreams Underfoot, by Charles de Lint. I fell in love with Newford, and with so many characters and themes that he went on to write about; they all have their germination here. This is his first short-story collection based in Newford. There is an incredible array of stories here, from sad, to fantastical, to horror. This just builds and builds until Newford rises from the pages.
14. Favourite Canadian poet? I hadn't read any since my university courses until lately when I picked up Don McKay's book, so it isn't fair to answer this yet. I know a local poet, Rob Mclellan, whose work I like.
15. Favourite Canadian poem? The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service. Link here to an online copy of it.
16. Favourite Canadian play? Dry Lips Outa Move to Kapuskasing - Thomson Highway (I saw a Canadian Native production of this play in the mid-90's, starring Graham Greene, one of our most famous native actors. Very very funny and heartbreaking, too, as is anything by Thomson Highway)
17. Favourite novel by an established Canadian author? The Diviners by Margaret Laurence (a book I reread every decade. The heroine is a writer, and it's a lovely book about growing up in Canada and finding one's voice); Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery (because Anne is my heroine!); The Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood;
18. Favourite novel by an up-and-coming Canadian author? I just don't know any; I am making an attempt to read newer Canadian fiction now.
19. Favourite Canadian book award? Giller Prize
20. Favourite Canadian publisher? It was McLelland and Stewart!
21. Favourite Canadian humorous book? tie - The Boat Who Wouldn't Float - Farley Mowat, and How to Be Canadian - Will and Ian Ferguson
22. Favourite Canadian newspaper? The Ottawa Citizen
23. Favourite Canadian magazine or journal? Canadian Living
24. Favourite Canadian dystopian novel? I haven't read any. I don't like this kind of fiction!
25. Favourite Canadian epistolary novel? Annes' House of Dreams - L.M. Montgomery
So that's it. Not bad, I just have a lot of Canadian books to catch up on reading!
To be fair, I read The Winter Sea in under 24 hours, and it is a light read - perfect for the beach, engaging, two love stories, fun characters - I like John Moray! and Graham Keith, and his uncle, and the older Jimmie Keith, plus Carrie and Sophia, and the Countess....there is political intrigue, but as Carrie is only a witness to the events leading up to the Jacobite uprising and its aftermath - it wasn't successful, as King James wasn't returned to the Scottish throne then - it surrounds and cushions the love story. I still and always will think Sophia's choice at the end of the book was the wrong one, but then I am speaking as a mother. I won't say here, so as to not spoil the plot. I do not often read romances because I read my fill when I was a teenager, but once in a while I am in the mood to read one, and this one was perfect for this very hot day. It is a very well-written book, fast-paced, and the characters are intelligent, and the setting beautiful, and the dialogue is good. So for anyone looking for a sweet beach read, this is a very good book to spend your time with.
And that's my second book read for the Canadian Challenge 3!!!
In honour of the Canadian Challenge, John at The Book Mine Set, the host of the Canadian Challenge, posted here on Aug 1 for all challengers to do. I found this via Kailana at The Written World, here. It is a challenge about Canadian books! So, to prove that I have not been an all bad-Canadian reader and have read some Canadian books, I accept the challenge (sound of gauntlet being thrown down):
Your Favourites:
1. Favourite Canadian author? Yikes. So many: Kathy Reichs, Thomas King, Charles de Lint, Tanya Huff, Louise Penny, Guy Gavriel Kay, Giles Blunt, L.M. Montgomery, Kelley Armstrong.....
2. Favourite Canadian novel? tie: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, and Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint
3. Favourite Canadian nonfiction? Fear of Frying - James Barber (cookbook); Some Canadian Ghosts - Sheila Hervey (first read when I was 10, and scared me so much that I got goosebumps! Still has that effect on me); Never Cry Wolf - Farley Mowat; The Whale Watcher's Handbook - Erich Hoyt; A History of Reading - Alberto Manguel
4. Favourite Canadian picture book? ? None come to mind, I'm sad to say.
5. Favourite Canadian YA or juvenile chapter book? Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
6. Favourite Canadian science fiction or fantasy book? 1)Moonheart; 2) Dreams Underfoot, by Charles de Lint; the Fionavar Tapestry (3 books) by Guy Gavriel Kay; Summon the Keeper - Tanya Huff
7. Favourite Canadian romantic fiction? The Emerald Necklace - Victoria Sheringham
8. Favourite Canadian mystery? Uh-oh - so many to chose from.....I can't go with one book, it has to be a series. It would have to be Giles Blunt's John Cardinal series. The first one, Forty Words for Sorrow, is one I gave to everyone the year I read it. There are 4 now in the series, and my mother and I are waiting breathlessly for the next one to come out.
9. Favourite Canadian graphic novel? Do we write them?
10. Favourite Canadian book blog? Kailana, Raidergirl3, BookZombie, John himself (see link above).
11. Favourite Canadian fictional character? Anne Shirley (childhood), Detective John Cardinal, RCMP Staff Sargeant Karl Ahlberg, any main character by Charles de Lint EXCEPT Imogene (but I still like her!), Emily Starr
12. Favourite movie based on a Canadian novel or story? The English Patient (based on Michael Oondatje's book of the same name)
13. Favourite Canadian short story? I'm going to cheat here. I don't have one favourite story, but my favourite short story collection is Dreams Underfoot, by Charles de Lint. I fell in love with Newford, and with so many characters and themes that he went on to write about; they all have their germination here. This is his first short-story collection based in Newford. There is an incredible array of stories here, from sad, to fantastical, to horror. This just builds and builds until Newford rises from the pages.
14. Favourite Canadian poet? I hadn't read any since my university courses until lately when I picked up Don McKay's book, so it isn't fair to answer this yet. I know a local poet, Rob Mclellan, whose work I like.
15. Favourite Canadian poem? The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service. Link here to an online copy of it.
16. Favourite Canadian play? Dry Lips Outa Move to Kapuskasing - Thomson Highway (I saw a Canadian Native production of this play in the mid-90's, starring Graham Greene, one of our most famous native actors. Very very funny and heartbreaking, too, as is anything by Thomson Highway)
17. Favourite novel by an established Canadian author? The Diviners by Margaret Laurence (a book I reread every decade. The heroine is a writer, and it's a lovely book about growing up in Canada and finding one's voice); Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery (because Anne is my heroine!); The Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood;
18. Favourite novel by an up-and-coming Canadian author? I just don't know any; I am making an attempt to read newer Canadian fiction now.
19. Favourite Canadian book award? Giller Prize
20. Favourite Canadian publisher? It was McLelland and Stewart!
21. Favourite Canadian humorous book? tie - The Boat Who Wouldn't Float - Farley Mowat, and How to Be Canadian - Will and Ian Ferguson
22. Favourite Canadian newspaper? The Ottawa Citizen
23. Favourite Canadian magazine or journal? Canadian Living
24. Favourite Canadian dystopian novel? I haven't read any. I don't like this kind of fiction!
25. Favourite Canadian epistolary novel? Annes' House of Dreams - L.M. Montgomery
So that's it. Not bad, I just have a lot of Canadian books to catch up on reading!
Sunday, 9 August 2009
Sunday Salon: Julie & Julia - wonderful movie
One wonderful movie
I did go see 'Julie and Julia' yesterday. I loved it. We went to the theater and I was the youngest person there!! There was a whole crowd of white-haired ladies. It was wonderful to see that if the movie producers will make an intelligent movie (without guns, car chases and gratuitous sex) people will come. And this is an intelligent, funny movie. It's based on Julie Powell's book of the same title, Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, (retitled My Year of Cooking Dangerously on the paperback version. I think I need to read this now too!!) which came from a blog she started in 2002, which was about her year of following the recipes in Julia Child's cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. From beginning to end, this was a beautiful movie. My mother - who watched Julia Child on tv in the 1970's, so is familiar with her voice and mannerisms, said that Meryl Streep does a marvellous, perfect job recreating Julia Child in the movie. The wonderful actor Stanley Tucci plays her husband, Paul. Amy Adams plays Julie Powell, and she is also wonderful as the young woman who decides she needs a goal in her life, because she is nearing thirty and hasn't finished anything, since her first novel was unpublished.
I really loved this movie. It was also about writing, and getting published, and most of all, each part was about a person who was finding and doing what she loved. Julia Child always loved to eat, so she decided to go to Cordon Bleu while in Paris, to learn how to cook. Julie Powell loved to cook, and decided to challenge herself by following her favourite chef and master French cooking. The dialogue was really good -it was people talking to eachother, it was about marriages and love and cooking, and how life interferes - Paul was a diplomat, and kept getting posted to far-flung cities as Julia tried to finish her book. It took her 8 years to do Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and that wasn't the original title; her agent at Little, Brown came up with it. The acting - very very good. Dialogue - excellent. Sometimes things were hinted at, or left unsaid, which is how we do talk in real life. And best of all - there was so much humour, so much delightful wit and joy in this movie. Oh, and the real star was the the cooking. The food. The love of cooking, of preparing food that is delicious to eat.
And, as I expected, I came out of the movie wanting to buy a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. " It's time I learned," I said to my mother. She said she would leave me her copy.....
So today, I am thinking over the things I love to do, and I'm really glad I challenged myself to read 100 books this year. It may not sound like a lot of work or books read, but it is a challenge, and it is involving some lifestyle changes - less tv, less doing things that I don't want to do, in order for me to make more time to read.
Do you have something that you like to do, Gentle Reader, that you would like to do more of, or challenge yourself in some way?
Other reviews: Bibliohistoria
Saturday, 8 August 2009
A teeny tiny obsession with books, or, how I cope with life's stresses
I'm the first to admit that I like books. I'd expand that to LOVE books ( I can hear my family laughing hysterically in the background). There's no problem with that, at least between you and me, my dear Gentle Reader. However, this is turning into the year of Stress for me, and as I am beginning to understand in myself, when I am stressed, I turn to books. I visited Ottawa's best independent crime bookstore, Prime Crime, today, with my mother who is in town for a quick visit this weekend, and I thought I would buy a few books. This is what I actually came home with:
The Price of Darkness ((book 8 in Joe Faraday series) - Graham Hurley
The White Lioness - Henning Mankell (Kurt Wallander series)
Lean Mean Thirteen - Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum series) * Ranger! Morelli! Laughs a minute!!
Deadly Web - Barbara Nadel *is it good that this is my free book because I filled up the first whole row in my new card at the bookstore? I think it is, but my husband didn't look very cheery when I mentioned it, as in, "I bought (mumble mumble) books today and ONE WAS FREE!!"
Damage Control - J.A. Jance (Joanna Brady mystery)
This Night's Foul Work - Fred Vargas
A Beautiful Blue Death - Charles Finch *Bride of the Book God! this is because of you!
Deadlight - Graham Hurley (book 4 Joe Faraday series)
Death's Half Acre - Margaret Maron (Judge Deborah Knott series)
Lie Down With the Devil - Linda Barnes (the VERY LAST Carlotta Carlyle mystery!!! Both my mother and I bought a copy of this one.)
Maisie Dobbs - Jacqueline Winspear *somewhere out there is a blogger who reviewed Maisie Dobbs recently - Gentle Reader at Shelf LIfe? Molly at Molly's Book Nook? - and brought this to my attention. And it does look good.
The Grave Tattoo - Val McDermid
and the only non-mystery book :
The Daily Writer - Fred White (366 meditations for a writing life)
The Price of Darkness ((book 8 in Joe Faraday series) - Graham Hurley
The White Lioness - Henning Mankell (Kurt Wallander series)
Lean Mean Thirteen - Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum series) * Ranger! Morelli! Laughs a minute!!
Deadly Web - Barbara Nadel *is it good that this is my free book because I filled up the first whole row in my new card at the bookstore? I think it is, but my husband didn't look very cheery when I mentioned it, as in, "I bought (mumble mumble) books today and ONE WAS FREE!!"
Damage Control - J.A. Jance (Joanna Brady mystery)
This Night's Foul Work - Fred Vargas
A Beautiful Blue Death - Charles Finch *Bride of the Book God! this is because of you!
Deadlight - Graham Hurley (book 4 Joe Faraday series)
Death's Half Acre - Margaret Maron (Judge Deborah Knott series)
Lie Down With the Devil - Linda Barnes (the VERY LAST Carlotta Carlyle mystery!!! Both my mother and I bought a copy of this one.)
Maisie Dobbs - Jacqueline Winspear *somewhere out there is a blogger who reviewed Maisie Dobbs recently - Gentle Reader at Shelf LIfe? Molly at Molly's Book Nook? - and brought this to my attention. And it does look good.
The Grave Tattoo - Val McDermid
and the only non-mystery book :
The Daily Writer - Fred White (366 meditations for a writing life)
That's 13 books! And I put some back. And I ordered one, Raven Black by Ann Cleeves, the first in a series, and I asked about The Coffin Trail by Martin Edwards, which they don't have listed so is possibly out of print. And while I am very very happy with my purchases, I know it's not over.
Tomorrow my mother and I are going to try and see the new movie Julie and Julia, which features among many other fun things, one of which is Meryl Streep being Julia Child, a cookbook : Julia Child's first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I don't have it. And I completely, utterly expect that when I walk out of the theater tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to want to buy it.
So.......do you think I have a teeny obsession with books? I myself prefer to think I am just completely in love with them, and they make a wonderful shelter when life throws its challenges.
Happy reading!
Tomorrow my mother and I are going to try and see the new movie Julie and Julia, which features among many other fun things, one of which is Meryl Streep being Julia Child, a cookbook : Julia Child's first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I don't have it. And I completely, utterly expect that when I walk out of the theater tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to want to buy it.
So.......do you think I have a teeny obsession with books? I myself prefer to think I am just completely in love with them, and they make a wonderful shelter when life throws its challenges.
Happy reading!
Monday, 3 August 2009
Canada 3 Challenge - first book done!!
I am a
Fun! Not many people are like me, only .14%! Well, of those who took this quiz, anyway. I also made my list up, 43 Things To Do in My Life, it's on my sidebar now. Rhinoa at Rhinoa's Ramblings has had something similar up on her blog for quite some time now, and I'm in awe of everything she has accomplished, as well as what is on her list. As I do things,I will cross them off, though some are ongoing, for every year. Like read 100 books a year!
As to that, well, I've made it to 50! Hurray! I'm still behind, but after reading 12 books in July - this is an all-time high for me, I think! - it's not looking quite so bad now.
Canada 3 Challenge
It's about time I posted about the Canada 3 Challenge! Hosted by John at The Book Mine blog, this is the third year of this challenge which celebrates everything good about Canadian writing. This year I am taking a different attempt to get to 13 books - 13 because we have 13 provinces and territories that make up Canada - I am reading a wide variety of authors and kinds of writing that interest me. Thus, I already have poetry - Slip/Strike, by Don McKay, from Newfoundland; a play - The Rez Sisters, by Thomson Highway, and for the first time Aboriginal writers are represented - not because I haven't read any, but because I had wrote much of what had been in print already, and now there's new books come to my attention: Monkey Beach, by Eden Robinson, Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, and the aforesaid The Rez Sisters. The Rez Sisters is a reread for me, and I found it both hilarious and tragic the first time I read it, long ago in univerity. I have listed the books on my sidebar, and have left blank spaces for books to come to my attention this year. I might read some Lucy Maud Montgomery, or some Robert Munch with my kids, and catch up on Tanya Huff's fantasy series, as well as some books by Charles de Lint that I didn't get to last year.
Despite the fact I have not succeeded yet at this challenge, every year I am determined to, and this year is no different!
And to that end, I am very proud to say, I have already read one book!!! I am so delighted.
Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, by Anna Brownell Jameson
This is not my cover, as I found a used edition that is out of print now. It is the journal of a woman who came to Canada in Dec 1836 to Sept 1837, to join her husband the Attorney General of Upper Canada. Their marriage was not a happy one, and this was one of her attempts to make the marriage look good. When she went back to England, it was with a settlement from him; they never divorced, but their marriage was over. While she rarely refers to him - at least in this abridged version - there is an air of painful loneliness relieved by the friendly people she met on her travels. The journal wasn't written to him, and it is full of matter-of-fact observations of everything she saw around her. It is now an invaluable record of early pioneer life in Ontario, and a glimpse of what the largest cities first looked like.
For those of us in Canada, there are those who are from Toronto, and those who are not. I'm one who is not, and I really loathe it. I've been several times, and it's one of the most unremarkable cities in the world. I was so happy when I read the very first paragraph of Winter Studies:
"Toronto - such is now the sonorous name of this our sublime capital - was, thirty years ago, a wilderness, the haunt of the bear and deer, with a little ugly, inefficient fort, which, however, could not be more ugly or inefficient than the present one. Ten years ago Toronto was a village, with one brick house and four or five hundred inhabitants; five years ago it became a city, containing about five thousand inhabitants, and then bore the name of Little York; now it is Toronto, with an increasing trade, and a population of ten thousand people.
What Toronto may be in summer, I cannot tell; they say it is a pretty place. At present its appearance to me, a stranger, is most strangely mean and melancholy. A little ill-built town on low land, at the bottom of a frozen bay, with one very ugly church, without tower or steeple; some government offices, built of staring red brick, in the most tasteless, vulgar style imaginable; three feet of snow all around, and the gray, sullen, wintry lake, and the dark gloom of the pine forest bounding the prospect; such seems Toronto to me now. I did not expect much; but for this I was not prepared."
Two months later she writes:
"There is no society in Toronto", is what I hear repeated all around me - even by those who compose the only society we have. "But," you will say, "What could be expected in a remote town, which forty years ago was an uninhabited swamp, and twenty years ago only began to exist?" I really did not know what I expected, but I will tell you what i did not expect. i did not expect to find here in this new capital of a new country, with the boundless forest within half a mile of us on almost every side - concentrated as it were the worst evils of oour old and most artificial social system, with none of its agrements, and none of its advantages. Toronto is like a fourth- or fifth-rate provincial town with the pretentions of a capital city."
The bold last sentence is mine. Because, that pretty well describes Toronto ever since. Even after the capital of Canada was moved later to Ottawa - chosen by Queen Victoria when she was blindfolded and picked out the capital with a pin, or so one legend goes - the more real version is that Kingston was too close to the US, and so was Montreal, both of whom were more logical choices due to their water proximity, but we had just fought two separate battles with the US, (1812, and the Rebellion of 1837) so Ottawa, which was far enough away that it couldn't be attacked within a day's march or so after landing on Canadian soil - was picked. I do wonder what she would have made of Ottawa, but she never came back to Canada. And despite becoming the provincial capital of Ontario, Toronto still acts like it is the central body of Canada, the most important city, through which all news and views of Canada should come. There is Toronto, and then there is the rest of Canada. Of course, in every province, there is that feeling! But Toronto is proud of the TV and movie industry centrally located there, the stock market located there, the big Bay Street Firms, and still imagines itself the center of Canada. So the rest of Canada hates it.
There, a quick lesson in Canada! Back to the book:
Anna spends a long cold winter in Toronto. The first part of the book is entitled Winter Studies because from Dec to April it is, of course, winter in Canada, and she could not really travel far. She takes one trip to Niagara Falls, but other than that she is house- and city-bound until spring finally, at last, arrives. As soon as the first steam-boat arrives from St Catharines and the south side of Lake Ontario, she is off exploring more of Upper Canada, and this is where the books becomes an absolute wonder and joy to read. From darkest coldest depths of winter, Canada changes to hot, humid summer days with frequent storms. Anna is tormented by mosquitoes and black flies as she journeys down to London, to Windsor, Detroit, and then up to Fort Michillimack, Sault Ste Marie, Manitoulin Island, and back down again to Toronto. She did this in four amazing months of traveling, mostly by canoe. This was an extraordinary voyage. She is witness to meetings between Indian agents and different Aboriginal tribes, and records the speeches, what the different kinds of people wore - she noted that Cree were different from the Huron, and from the Chippewa. She made friends easily wherever she went, and she is interested in everything she saw, and tried to record it as accurately as she could.
This is an interesting record of Upper Canada in 1837, as it was still being settled. I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys history, who is curious about the early days of Canada, who likes reading journals, or enjoys travel books. It is filled with Canadian beauty - our forests, our rivers and lakes, our lovely islands in the Great Lakes that are synonymous with images of Canada, especially as painted by The Group of Seven, the most famous artists to come out of Canada.
And for those of us who love books, I was heartened to read that in the depths of her only winter in Canada, Anna Brownell Jameson turned to books to get her through the darkest and coldest days.
It's a holiday Monday here in Ottawa, and it is rarely, a sunny day! So I'm off to my garden before I do some more reading: Book #52: In the Woods, by Tana French. Over half-way to 100 books now!!
I leave you with one of my favourite passages from Winter Studies and Summer Ramblings:
"We breakfasted this morning on a little island of exceeding beauty, rising precipitately from the water. On front we had the open lake, lying blue, and bright, and serene, under the morning sky, and the eastern extremity of Manitoolin Island; and the islands all around as far as we could see. The feeling of remoteness, of the profound solitude, added to the sentiment of beauty......Our island abounded with beautiful shrubs, flowers, green mosses, and scarlet lichen.....
This day we had a most delightful run among hundreds of islands; sometimes darting through narrow rocky channels, so narrow that I could not see the water on either side of the canoe; and then emerging, we glided through vast fields of white water-lilies; it was perpetual variety, perpetual beauty, perpetual delight and enchantment, from hour to hour."
I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a
Spiritual Romantic Tree Hugger
Fun! Not many people are like me, only .14%! Well, of those who took this quiz, anyway. I also made my list up, 43 Things To Do in My Life, it's on my sidebar now. Rhinoa at Rhinoa's Ramblings has had something similar up on her blog for quite some time now, and I'm in awe of everything she has accomplished, as well as what is on her list. As I do things,I will cross them off, though some are ongoing, for every year. Like read 100 books a year!
As to that, well, I've made it to 50! Hurray! I'm still behind, but after reading 12 books in July - this is an all-time high for me, I think! - it's not looking quite so bad now.
Canada 3 Challenge
It's about time I posted about the Canada 3 Challenge! Hosted by John at The Book Mine blog, this is the third year of this challenge which celebrates everything good about Canadian writing. This year I am taking a different attempt to get to 13 books - 13 because we have 13 provinces and territories that make up Canada - I am reading a wide variety of authors and kinds of writing that interest me. Thus, I already have poetry - Slip/Strike, by Don McKay, from Newfoundland; a play - The Rez Sisters, by Thomson Highway, and for the first time Aboriginal writers are represented - not because I haven't read any, but because I had wrote much of what had been in print already, and now there's new books come to my attention: Monkey Beach, by Eden Robinson, Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, and the aforesaid The Rez Sisters. The Rez Sisters is a reread for me, and I found it both hilarious and tragic the first time I read it, long ago in univerity. I have listed the books on my sidebar, and have left blank spaces for books to come to my attention this year. I might read some Lucy Maud Montgomery, or some Robert Munch with my kids, and catch up on Tanya Huff's fantasy series, as well as some books by Charles de Lint that I didn't get to last year.
Despite the fact I have not succeeded yet at this challenge, every year I am determined to, and this year is no different!
And to that end, I am very proud to say, I have already read one book!!! I am so delighted.
Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, by Anna Brownell Jameson
This is not my cover, as I found a used edition that is out of print now. It is the journal of a woman who came to Canada in Dec 1836 to Sept 1837, to join her husband the Attorney General of Upper Canada. Their marriage was not a happy one, and this was one of her attempts to make the marriage look good. When she went back to England, it was with a settlement from him; they never divorced, but their marriage was over. While she rarely refers to him - at least in this abridged version - there is an air of painful loneliness relieved by the friendly people she met on her travels. The journal wasn't written to him, and it is full of matter-of-fact observations of everything she saw around her. It is now an invaluable record of early pioneer life in Ontario, and a glimpse of what the largest cities first looked like.
For those of us in Canada, there are those who are from Toronto, and those who are not. I'm one who is not, and I really loathe it. I've been several times, and it's one of the most unremarkable cities in the world. I was so happy when I read the very first paragraph of Winter Studies:
"Toronto - such is now the sonorous name of this our sublime capital - was, thirty years ago, a wilderness, the haunt of the bear and deer, with a little ugly, inefficient fort, which, however, could not be more ugly or inefficient than the present one. Ten years ago Toronto was a village, with one brick house and four or five hundred inhabitants; five years ago it became a city, containing about five thousand inhabitants, and then bore the name of Little York; now it is Toronto, with an increasing trade, and a population of ten thousand people.
What Toronto may be in summer, I cannot tell; they say it is a pretty place. At present its appearance to me, a stranger, is most strangely mean and melancholy. A little ill-built town on low land, at the bottom of a frozen bay, with one very ugly church, without tower or steeple; some government offices, built of staring red brick, in the most tasteless, vulgar style imaginable; three feet of snow all around, and the gray, sullen, wintry lake, and the dark gloom of the pine forest bounding the prospect; such seems Toronto to me now. I did not expect much; but for this I was not prepared."
Two months later she writes:
"There is no society in Toronto", is what I hear repeated all around me - even by those who compose the only society we have. "But," you will say, "What could be expected in a remote town, which forty years ago was an uninhabited swamp, and twenty years ago only began to exist?" I really did not know what I expected, but I will tell you what i did not expect. i did not expect to find here in this new capital of a new country, with the boundless forest within half a mile of us on almost every side - concentrated as it were the worst evils of oour old and most artificial social system, with none of its agrements, and none of its advantages. Toronto is like a fourth- or fifth-rate provincial town with the pretentions of a capital city."
The bold last sentence is mine. Because, that pretty well describes Toronto ever since. Even after the capital of Canada was moved later to Ottawa - chosen by Queen Victoria when she was blindfolded and picked out the capital with a pin, or so one legend goes - the more real version is that Kingston was too close to the US, and so was Montreal, both of whom were more logical choices due to their water proximity, but we had just fought two separate battles with the US, (1812, and the Rebellion of 1837) so Ottawa, which was far enough away that it couldn't be attacked within a day's march or so after landing on Canadian soil - was picked. I do wonder what she would have made of Ottawa, but she never came back to Canada. And despite becoming the provincial capital of Ontario, Toronto still acts like it is the central body of Canada, the most important city, through which all news and views of Canada should come. There is Toronto, and then there is the rest of Canada. Of course, in every province, there is that feeling! But Toronto is proud of the TV and movie industry centrally located there, the stock market located there, the big Bay Street Firms, and still imagines itself the center of Canada. So the rest of Canada hates it.
There, a quick lesson in Canada! Back to the book:
Anna spends a long cold winter in Toronto. The first part of the book is entitled Winter Studies because from Dec to April it is, of course, winter in Canada, and she could not really travel far. She takes one trip to Niagara Falls, but other than that she is house- and city-bound until spring finally, at last, arrives. As soon as the first steam-boat arrives from St Catharines and the south side of Lake Ontario, she is off exploring more of Upper Canada, and this is where the books becomes an absolute wonder and joy to read. From darkest coldest depths of winter, Canada changes to hot, humid summer days with frequent storms. Anna is tormented by mosquitoes and black flies as she journeys down to London, to Windsor, Detroit, and then up to Fort Michillimack, Sault Ste Marie, Manitoulin Island, and back down again to Toronto. She did this in four amazing months of traveling, mostly by canoe. This was an extraordinary voyage. She is witness to meetings between Indian agents and different Aboriginal tribes, and records the speeches, what the different kinds of people wore - she noted that Cree were different from the Huron, and from the Chippewa. She made friends easily wherever she went, and she is interested in everything she saw, and tried to record it as accurately as she could.
This is an interesting record of Upper Canada in 1837, as it was still being settled. I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys history, who is curious about the early days of Canada, who likes reading journals, or enjoys travel books. It is filled with Canadian beauty - our forests, our rivers and lakes, our lovely islands in the Great Lakes that are synonymous with images of Canada, especially as painted by The Group of Seven, the most famous artists to come out of Canada.
And for those of us who love books, I was heartened to read that in the depths of her only winter in Canada, Anna Brownell Jameson turned to books to get her through the darkest and coldest days.
It's a holiday Monday here in Ottawa, and it is rarely, a sunny day! So I'm off to my garden before I do some more reading: Book #52: In the Woods, by Tana French. Over half-way to 100 books now!!
I leave you with one of my favourite passages from Winter Studies and Summer Ramblings:
"We breakfasted this morning on a little island of exceeding beauty, rising precipitately from the water. On front we had the open lake, lying blue, and bright, and serene, under the morning sky, and the eastern extremity of Manitoolin Island; and the islands all around as far as we could see. The feeling of remoteness, of the profound solitude, added to the sentiment of beauty......Our island abounded with beautiful shrubs, flowers, green mosses, and scarlet lichen.....
This day we had a most delightful run among hundreds of islands; sometimes darting through narrow rocky channels, so narrow that I could not see the water on either side of the canoe; and then emerging, we glided through vast fields of white water-lilies; it was perpetual variety, perpetual beauty, perpetual delight and enchantment, from hour to hour."
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