The Wave in the Mind

Finished June 3

The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on The Writer, The Reader, and The Imagination by Ursula K. Le Guin

I've been reading this book slowly, savouring it. Le Guin was such a great writer, and this book has her not only writing, but talking about the process, the craft, and how reading is a relationship we have with a book. She also, naturally, talks about being a woman doing these things, and some of her writing in that area makes me think of Rebecca Solnit on that subject. 

The personal essays at the beginning of the book captured me and made me want to share them with a cousin that also enjoyed this author. She's so much funnier than I expected. The first piece, Introducing Myself, which was written to be performed, is absolutely wonderful. One quote: "As a matter of fact I think sex is even more boring as a spectator sport than all of the other spectator sports, even baseball."

Her second essay, Being Taken for Granite, has obvious humour right from the title and yet is thoughful and profound again right along with the humour. The next essay, Indian Uncles, gives some insight into her background and her parents, and the environment she grew up in. All of that is helpful in understanding in how she came to be the person she was. The essay My Libraries shows her feelings about libraries and what she values about them. She says a public library "must be available to all who need it, and that's everyone, when they need it, and that's always." The next piece is one she wrote for a magazine when she was asked to write about a favourite island. She had to think about it a while and finally chose Sauvie island on the Willamette river, where it enters the Columbia river. She gives some history of it, but talks about what makes it special and how it has, so far, defended itself against being spoiled in how it is used. The last essay in this section, called On the Frontier, was also written for a magazine, and talks about frontiers, physical and mental. 

The next section is called Reading and contains pieces about other writing, from Tolstoy to Borges to Mark Twain. I enjoyed her insights into these authors and their writing. There is also a very interesting piece in this section on rhythm in writing, both in poetry and in prose, and another about rhythmic patterns in the Lord of the Rings books. She also has a piece about reading poetry out loud, and I always like to read poetry out loud if I can, so that really connected with me. 

The third section of the book is called Discussions and Opinions. Many of the pieces here also touch on reading and writing. The first essay looks at narrative and the differences in fiction and nonfiction. The next piece was one that discussed awards and gender and started with an experience where a jury that consisted of three women initially picked only women  for the short list, and the discussion and actions that followed that. This experience drove her to amass some statistics on literary awards and the results were quite eye-opening. This naturally led into the theme of the next essay which looked at genetic determinism and a critique of the naturalist E.O. Wilson and his writing. The next essay talked about feet, and what we do to our feet in the name of beauty. Again, some thoughtful ideas emerged here. This was followed by another essay that touched on ideas of beauty, this time about pets (dogs and cats) and dancers. This essay talked about how we see ourselves and the beauty we see in those we care about that isn't what people who don't know them see. The essay that followed this one, again talked about beauty, and connected it back to the idea of rhythm, both in writing and music, and that made me think of these things differently. This is followed by the essay Telling is Listening, a discussion of communication. Not just communication between people, but also other creatures, and in indirect ways. She talks about conversation and how reading differs from watching television in that it is a conversation of sorts. She uses a lot of examples when she does this and that helps clarify what she is saying and making it understandable to the reader in real ways. The essay The Operating Instructions talks about literature is the guide to life, a manual on it for those that pay attention.The last essay in this section is a collection of thoughts on oppression, revolution, and imagination, grouped into themes. This essay is named from a quote by Primo Levi where he says "It is the duty of righteous men to make war on all undeserved privilege, but one must not forget that this is a war without end."

The final section of the book is one writing and includes talks that she has given when teaching writing, whether in classes or workshops. There are many things she brings into these discussions: trust, the writer's relationship with their characters, assumptions that writers make about their future readers, and the issues that accompany ego for a writer. She also has a piece dealing with that common question writers get about where they get their ideas from. This essay had a few paragraphs that really connected for me:

    Reading is active. To read a story is to participate actively in the story. To read is to tell the story, tell it to yourself, reliving it, rewriting it with the author, word by word, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter.... If you want proof, just watch an eight-year-old reading a story she likes. She is concentratedly, tensely, fiercely alive. She is as intense as a hunting cat. She is a tiger eating.

    Reading is a most mysterious act. It absolutely has not been replaced and will not be replaced by any kind of viewing. Viewing is an entirely different undertaking, with different rewards.

    A reader reading makes the book, brings it into meaning, by translating arbitrary symbols, printed letters, into an inward, private reality. Reading is an act, a creative one. Viewing is relatively passive. A viewer watching a film does not make the film. To watch a film is to be taken into it -- to participate in it -- be made part of it. Absorbed by it. Readers eat books. Film eats viewers. 

As an avid reader, that really made sense to me. Later in the same essay she quotes Virginia Woolf about the need to feel the rhythm in a story to write well, and it is from this quote the she gets the title of this book. Woolf says "A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it; and in writing (such is my present belief) one has to recapture this, and set this working (which apparently had nothing to do with words) and then, as it breaks and tumbles in the mind, it makes words to fit it."

In the following essay she talks about the impulse to write and how writing comes to her. The last piece is a long poem about writing, which I read several times, getting more from it every instance. 

An amazing book. I borrowed this one to read, but have now ordered my own copy. 

The Library of Lost and Found

Finished April 17
The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

The main character here is Martha Storm, a library volunteer, single woman in her early 50s living in a small English seaside town. Martha was a bit of a rebellious child, not always giving in to her father's domineering ways, as her mother too often did. She felt that her father loved her younger sister Lilian better, Martha looked after her parents until they passed on, and has been a helpful person in her community most of her life. She volunteers to do things for a wide variety of people from the local schoolteacher, to business owners to her own sister, but never feels fulfilled by her own life. Several times she has applied for a job at the library she volunteers at, but even though the library manager Clive has her planning events, doing tours, ordering material, and manning the service desk, he always seems to have an excuse not to actually hire her. Martha gets on well with the staff at the library, particularly the newest library assistant Suki. Her sister Lilian has two children, and she is often called upon to mind them when Lilian has plans. One person that Martha still grieves for is her grandmother who died suddenly when she was just a child. Martha hadn't even been allowed to go to the funeral.
When she finds a book left at the library door for her, Martha is confused. The book is not new, but damaged, but it is dedicated to her and seems to be written by her grandmother, but the publication date is after her grandmother's death. As Martha takes the first steps toward her own independence and makes decisions in her life, she finds that there are things about her own past she didn't know, and things about her future she must make choices about.
An interesting read.

Strange Things

Finished November 29
Strange Things: Clarendon Lectures in English Literature 1991 by Margaret Atwood

This book contains four lectures Atwood did at Oxford in 1991. They explore how aspects of the Canadian North are used in literature. Each lecture focuses on a specific aspect to do with the North. The first lecture looks at the folklore derived from the disastrous Franklin expedition and the mystery surrounding what happened to the men on it. The second lecture focuses on white writers going native, using Grey Owl, a white man who took on the persona of a native and was only revealed as white after his death. The third lecture looks at the myth of the Wendigo as shown in literature. The fourth looks at women in the Canadian north.
Throughout the lectures she looks at the retelling of stories, the themes and how they come up in different ways, and how the idea of the wilderness as a character in its own right is portrayed. Sometimes the north is shown gendered, often female and predatory. Sometimes it is shown neutral. Sometimes it is shown positively, as a force that brings good in characters lives.
The series offers interesting insights into uniquely Canadian literature themes. I quite enjoyed it.

The Sense of Style

Finished July 30
The Sense of Style: the Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker

This book had a lot more grammar in it than I expected. The audiobook included a pdf of the glossary of terms, and the grammar trees that Pinker discusses, but if you're familiar with grammar and sentence parsing, it isn't strictly necessary to view them.
Pinker talks about the dangers of writers forgetting that their readers don't have the same knowledge that they do, one that occurs for all nonfiction writers, but more so for academics. There is a lot about coherency in writing, and he uses lots of examples to illustrate how changes can be made to make sentences more coherent for the reader without losing the intent of the writer.
When discussing grammar, Pinker addresses rules that really aren't rules, those that have become widely quoted, yet have no basis in reality in terms of language. Many of these came about through rules in other languages such as Latin, or hypercorrections such as the use of I when combined with another person as object.
Pinker's aim is towards greater clarify for the reader, and writing that flows gracefully rather than sounding stilted and awkward. He has lots of examples of both good and bad, and shows how to improve a sentence through simple changes to structure, wording, or punctuation.
Near the end he includes two lists: one of common rules that should be disregarded, and one of rules he feels are important to apply. He includes comments for both that are useful in understanding.
I like his sense of humour that often surprises, and his focus on the reader.
A useful and interesting guide.

A Jury of Her Peers

Finished April 13
A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx by Elaine Showalter

This overview of American women writers covers the entire history of the topic from the beginnings of the country to the end of the twentieth century. Showalter includes more than 250 women writers in her commentary from poets to dramatists to short story writers and novelists. She touches on not only the obvious issues of gender, but also race, class, and politics.
The book is arranged chronologically with authors reappearing in different chapters as their writing carries over multiple time frames. As the book gets closer to the present, the time frames shorten to decades. Showalter looks at the writing in its context, examining the personal lives of the writers, how their experiences shaped their writing and their lives, and how outside forces reacted to their writing. Some drew support from male writers of their time, while others did not. Some flourished economically but not critically. Some did well at the time of writing and grew less significant in following years, others didn't do well during their lives, but became more valued later. Some had to sacrifice their preferences in the type of writing they wanted to do due to the pressures of economics, family situations, or prejudice.
There were a lot of writers I had never heard of, but also many that I've heard of but never read (some of them I've even got the books on my shelves!) And of course ones I've read and loved, or read and not loved. This book will help to guide some of my future reading.
Showalter gives us a history but also includes some criticism here, occasionally making clear her own views on the writers' works, and the reasoning behind those views.
The title is taken from a short story that was adapted from a play. The author, Susan Glaspell was a journalist who covered a murder case where a woman was accused of murdering her husband, and then was so fascinated by the case that she developed it into both a play and a short story. When the county attorney and sheriff go to the house to gather information, their wives accompany them and looking through a woman's eyes make their own discoveries and decisions about her actions. Of course, real juries at the time of the case, 1917, didn't include women and the link is made in this book from legal juries to literary juries. Glaspell won a Pulitzer Prize in 1931 and yet didn't rate inclusion in literary overviews even at her death nearly 20 years later. Questions are raised by the question of "peer" and what that means both legally and in a literary sense.What judgments have been made about the subject matter women chose to address in their writing at various times is discussed as is the change over time to the situation today where a woman writer can, without judgment choose any subject she wishes to write about.
A work leading to reflection, more reading, and thoughtful response.

HHhH

Finished July 17
HHhH by Laurent Binet, translated by Sam Taylor, read by John Lee

This is one of the most interesting novels I've ever read. Let's start with the title, which is an acronym for Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich, which translated to English is Himmler's brain is called Heydrich. The Heydrich of this book is Reinhard Heydrich, an high-ranking Nazi officer, one of the organizers of Kristallnacht, responsible for coming up with the final solution for the Jews, who was in charge of the Nazi-occupied Czech Republic at the time of his assassination where he worked to suppress Czech culture, and was an extremely cruel man. He had many nicknames: The Butcher of Prague, The Blond Beast, The man with the iron heart, . He was also president of Interpol at the time
Two men, a Slovak and a Czech were recruited by the Czech government in exile and the British to carry out the assassination. Their names are Jozef Gabčik and Jan Kubiš, and they were parachuted into the occupied nation by the British in an attempt to keep any blame falling on the local people. Their task was codenamed Operation Anthropoid. During the assassination attempt, the British gun they were using jammed, and a bomb was thrown at the car instead, injuring Heydrich. At first the men thought that the assassination attempt was unsuccessful as Heydrich was taken to the hospital and operated on by a German doctor, but he ended up dying of an infection a few days later.
This book goes into the the history of all three men, the situation in the Czech Republic and the growing unhappiness of the people there. It also talks about the repercussions of the assassination where two villages were razed to the ground and almost all the inhabitants killed, many others were tortured, and the men were betrayed by one of the own comrades.
Besides all of that extremely interesting story, the author is himself a character of a sort in the book, as he describes his research, his passion for the subject, the troubles of writing about real historical figures and events, what is created and what is fact. Binet writes something, correct it, wonders aloud, and looks for more and more information until he realizes he must focus.
A fascinating style, and totally engrossing story based on real and horrible events.

Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares

Finished June 4
Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares: How to Avoid Unplanned and Unwanted Writing Errors by Jenny Baranick

OK, I admit it, I chose this book for the title. I've always been a big grammar fan and took a couple of editing courses a few years back too. The author teaches English and critical thinking classes and has a grammar blog by the same name as this book. With humour, pop culture references, and a flirty style, Baranick illustrates common grammar errors and gives tricks for avoiding them. Every chapter has an exercise or set of exercises to test the reader's learning for that section. A fun book about an important subject.

Good Prose

Finished February 1
Good Prose: the Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd

This book is not only a look at writing nonfiction, but also editing it, and the relationship between the writer and the editor. Todd is Kidder's longtime editor (40 years working together) and here they look at the same writing from both sides of it. The talk about their relationship in particular, but also about the writer-editor relationship in general.
There are chapters on different types of nonfiction writing: narrative, memoir, and essay, as well as a chapter on the issue of accuracy. With a few big publicity books getting exposed as more fictional then they made themselves out to be, this chapter was a particularly interesting one as they looked at the nuances of nonfiction, particularly memoir.
There is also a chapter on style, and the different types. They talked about the need to find your own style and to work to refine it, to individualize it. The next chapter is a more general one on the art of nonfiction, the financial side of it, and how the writer balances the two.
They also talk about being edited and about editing from both sides. Todd has written a book as well, and had Kidder look at it and give some comments, so he talked about how it felt to have things turned around from their usual relationship. This chapter also includes their personal history together.
At the end, the include a section on usage and grammar which I found very interesting. Lots of mentions both here and earlier of Fowler's Modern English Usage, a book I wasn't familiar with. I used the Canadian Guide to Modern English by Corbin, Perrin, and Buxton myself (my mother had used it in her university days as well, and I bought my own copy used when I went to university). Their point about using something to guide one to proper usage is a good one. They also give a good bibliography of writing books at the end.
A very interesting book, with insights into both writing and the author's own lives.

The Next Best Thing

Finished August 10
The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner, read by Olivia Thirlby

This novel has been on beach read lists this summer, and I would say that would be appropriate. It's a novel with twists and turns and a feel-good ending. It has romance, career development, and emotional development. The main character, Ruth Saunders, was injured in a car accident as a young child, an accident in which her parents were killed. The accident left her with damage on her face and neck and she underwent several surgeries as a child. Since the accident, she has been cared for by her grandmother Rachel, a feisty woman with a great sense of fashion.
Ruth has always dreamed of writing for television and a couple years back decided to move to LA to give it a shot. Her grandmother, naturally, moved as well, and the two of them have been making a life for themselves. Ruth has had some TV writing jobs, and is now writing her first series. When her series gets picked up by a network, she becomes a show-runner. We see Ruth struggle with confidence, assertion, and control as she works on the series. We see the complexity of this type of work and learn some of the jargon. We see her love life develop along with her personal confidence and feel for her missteps.
To me the emphasis on her overcoming her physical disfigurement was interesting, but I am not sure that I liked how physical beauty and strength were portrayed here. Maybe I am reading too much into things though. As a light entertaining romance, it is great.

On an Irish Island

Finished July 24
On an Irish Island by Robert Kanigel

This book looks at the legacy of the Blaskets, islands in the north west of Ireland. As the Irish language was vanishing throughout Ireland, these islands drew scholars and writers to them. A pocket where Irish was still the language spoken daily, this area drew a variety of visitors that elevated the islands both nationally and internationally. From J.M. Synge, the playwright to Carl Marstrander, a Norwegian linguist, the area drew both writers and scholars of the Irish language.
Some of these visitors encourage the local inhabitants to write of their lives as well, creating a body of work about their lives that is still studied.
I hadn't been aware of the role this area played in Irish nationalism, language, and literature. Part of their legacy is the language that is still spoken and studied today, but the Blaskets also represented a dying way of life with the move from rural to urban, the growth of modern conveniences, and the decline of community.
A very interesting study that provides many insights.

Distrust That Particular Flavor

Finished March 6
Distrust That Particular Flavor by William Gibson, read by Robertson Dean
Gibson is widely known for his novels (which I haven't read!) but also has written a variety of pieces on different aspects of contemporary culture. He was born in the southern United States and moved to Canada as a young man. Having met and married a Canadian woman, he stayed and now lives in Vancouver. This comes up only briefly in the writings contained here.
This is a collection of articles, speeches, book reviews, and essays on culture, technology, urban life, and the relationships between our lives and the changing world. The articles range over 3 decades, and many have short commentary by the author following them, a take on how he feels about that piece of writing now. The whole feels very conversational as that is the style he often seems to write in, and even the older pieces are surprisingly relevant. I liked the range of subjects and the different ideas he has about the subjects and how they inspire his fiction writing.  I also liked how his personal life often crept in, and illuminated the writing. It is always fun to see behind the scenes and get an insight into the personal side of a writer.
A very entertaining and enlightening collection.

In Other Worlds

Finished November 27
In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood
This book was a thoroughly enjoyable read. This is a book that while discussing speculative fiction, science fiction, their definitions and histories, also discusses Atwood's personal experiences around them. Atwood's reading, writing, and reviewing of these forms the core of the book.
Atwood has broken the book into three parts. The first part deals with her personal experiences and consists of her previously unpublished Ellman Lectures from 2010. The second part collects several of Atwood's reviews of works in the speculative and science fiction genres. The third part has tributes by Atwood to the genre in form of short pieces. She also includes a letter to a school district where her book The Handmaid's Tale was challenged in favor of intellectual freedom, and a discussion of cover art from a book series in the 1930s.
I found this a very personal experience, full of Atwood's usual openness and humour. She is a writer who knows her stuff and this book shows how she thinks about these genres. She looks at the history and gives examples and different points of view, and continuously uses her own experiences as a reflective tool. Her humour comes through again and again, and I found that made it even more personal. While the issues brought to the fore through speculative and science fiction are often serious ones, and need to be taken seriously and addressed, there are also things we can do to lighten the load. I love her sense of humour and also loved finding out about works I hadn't come across before. One line she quoted from Visa for Avalon by Bryher stuck with me "If an individual's right to a place of his own were not respected," Robinson muses, "it was the first link in a chain that would ultimately lead to the elimination of the unwanted by any group that happened to be in power." If that doesn't speak to the current Occupy movement, what does!
I also loved her take on works I was familiar with, and enjoyed nodding in agreement or wanting to go back and take a second look.
Well worth the read, and although I read this as a library book, I think I shall have to go buy my own copy now.

One Hundred Names for Love

Finished July 24
One Hundred Names for Love: a stroke, a marriage, and the language of healing by Diane Ackerman
I admit that I've taken my time over this book for a couple of reasons. First the writing is so good (as Ackerman always is) that I wanted to take my time and really savour it. Second, the ideas she presents are so provoking that I want to take the time to think about them and how I feel about them.
The book is told over time beginning with Ackerman's Paul West (who is also an author that I haven't yet read, but am now intrigued to) having a massive stroke that resulted in global aphasia. That means he lost his language skills. He couldn't talk, or read, or understand. It begins in the hospital with evaluation and treatment. At first Paul can only say "mem" which he says over and over. He has some physical challenges as well in moving his body, relearning how to walk steadily, sit down, get into bed and hold objects. Two fingers on his right hand are cramped up into a claw.
Despite the massive brain damage, Ackerman and West refuse to give up. Ackerman details their daily life once West moves home, how they adjust their routine, how Ackerman must change her relationship with him, and what therapies they use are.
This is indeed a story of love. Because of Paul's long relationship with language as a writer, language is one of the main tools they use in their therapy. Ackerman is totally open and honest in this book, sharing her doubts, joys, and innermost feelings. A wonderful book with insights into the mysteries of healing.

Last Night in Twisted River

Finished May 10
Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving, read by Arthur Morey
This was a long one (20 CDs), and it moved slowly, but was beautifully written. There were times when you could tell what was coming, because he gave you a little bit of plot and then he went back and gave you years of other plot, and eventually came back to the event you knew was coming and were dreading.
He really played with the whole anticipation thing. And played well.
This is a great story, occurring over many years. It begins with the young father and widower Dominic and his 12-year-old son Daniel. Dominic is the cook at a logging camp in Twisted River, New Hampshire. The event the novel is structured around is the night that Daniel mistakes his father's lover for a bear and hits her with a frying pan, killing her. The novel moves backward, showing us how Dominic came to be where he is, and forward, showing what happens to the two as they live a life as fugitives. Daniel eventually becomes a novelist, with many of his novels exploring bits of his own life, and thus the story of their lives is also the story of a novelist, and his stories. The main characters here are really developed into complex people with complicated lives and thoughts. Many of the minor characters are passing and are shown just enough to intrigue.
The pace is slow and, sometimes predictable and yet even those predictable events have enough of surprise in them that they are still interesting.
This was a great read.f

Easter Weekend Reading

While I took time away from the computer this past weekend (except for Saturday at work) and read, did needlework and relaxed.
I managed to finish 3 books and work on a couple of different needlework projects.

Finished April 22
The Big House: a century in the life of an American summer home by George Howe Colt
This is a book I picked up last summer out on Vancouver Island. It was recommended by one of the staff at Tanner's in Sidney. Colt tells the story of a summer home on Cape Cod that was built in 1903 and that he spent summers at regularly all his life. Not only is it the story of an interesting house, but it is also a social history of summer homes on the Cape and a family history. Colt talks about the last summer he spent at the house with his wife and young children, and reminisces about the time he spent as a child. He also delves back further into the lives of his grandparents and great grandparents. Also included are aunts, uncles and cousins. He talks about the family secrets, including mental illness, and about the summer family relationship with the locals. This is an interesting book, that I thoroughly enjoyed. It made me want to explore and pick through all the things in the Big House, to see what interesting things came to light. It also reminded me of the farmhouse I spent some of my summer vacation at for most of my childhood, a house that my grandparents lived in.

Finished April 24 
Oxford Letters by Veronica Stallwood
This is one of the books in the series featuring writer Kate Ivory. My mother-in-law picked this up at a library sale for me. I love this series, set in Oxford and featuring the inquisitive writer. Here, Kate returns from vacation to find that her mother, Roz, is ill, and has a middle-aged married couple who appear to have taken control of Roz's life. Both Kate and her mother's business partner are concerned, and Kate begins to dig deeper into this couple's history. There are warning letters and emails, violence, intrigue and second guessing around a really good story. An interesting side story to do with Roz's history also makes an appearance. And of course Kate's love life moves forward. A great read, as expected.


Finished April 24
Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
This is a classic that I had never read, but that was recommended in the book, Book Ends, which I finished recently. It also counts toward my 1001 Books to Read Before You Die challenge. It took about half the book to really get into it. In the first half I was a bit put off by the biting wit that seemed mean-spirited, about some of the writer characters. However the delving of the main character into his past and a woman that he knew in his youth, the wife of a famous writer, made the book come alive. Rosie's character came to life here as a wonderfully engaging, life-loving woman. Her husband Edward Driffield also was shown as more than that described directly. We see how the various people in an author's life have influence on their writings. Apparently this novel caused quite a commotion at the time, with various people taking offense at the portrayal of characters they saw as based on themselves. A very interesting read and I'm glad I took the time.

The Book of Unnecessary Quotation Marks

Finished March 23
The Book of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks: a celebration of creative punctuation by Bethany Keeley
This is one of those short, humorous books that have you chuckling as you read. As a lover of words, grammar and punctuation, I was naturally drawn to this one.
It includes photos of signs with quotation marks in, surprise surprise, unnecessary places. Keeley groups them into categories like "Work", "Restaurants", etc. and a short comment is included with each one.
It really does make you wonder what goes through people's heads when they are making these signs. It also reflects sadly on our educational system that people misuse quotation marks so badly.
A fun book.

My Reading Life

Finished January 20
My Reading Life by Pat Conroy, read by the author
This is a gem of a book. Conroy reflects on his life, showing how reading became a part of it, talking about those important in the development of his reading, and detailing his experiences. He takes particular time over some books that were key in his development, but mentions many many more. I knew before I finished the first CD of this book that I needed to get myself a paper copy to keep. There are so many passages that spoke to me, and bits I'd like to quote that I know I need my own book.
Conroy is open, reflective, and honest in his reflections. Reading has been the key to opening the world to him. It is what determined his career as a writer, and his development of friends. There were so many interesting anecdotes, particularly those involving other writers, that gave me new perspectives on well known people.
This book is not to be missed.

Light read

Finished April 22
Death and the Lit Chick by G.M. Malliet
This mystery takes place at a mystery writers' conference in Scotland. Staying at Dalmorton Castle, are a publisher, several authors, agents, and a Cambridge DCI who is scheduled to speak at the conference. When the trendiest, and most successful of the authors is found dead there is no shortage of suspects. DCI St. Just is on hand and joins with the local authorities in solving the case. I was quite enjoying it until the scene where all suspects are brought together and each's reasons for doing things are fleshed out. That felt forced, awkward, and unnatural. The rest was good and an enjoyable escape read.

Book about Reading

Finished September 12
How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen
Quindlen is one of my favourite writers, and this book only adds to that feeling. In four short chapters, Quindlen talks about reading and the effect it has had on her life. The first chapter talks about the joy of reading and of being a bookworm. The second chapter talks about the development of reading in her life, the books that she started with and how she came across them. It emphasizes reading as a way to experience the other, to travel without going anywhere, to escape while still being present. The third chapter talks about the various functions of reading from literature to entertainment and the questionable idea that popularity is in inverse proportion to talent. She talks about the importance of books that lessen isolation, that make the reader feel they are not alone in their experiences. She talks about books that have been controversial and what that means. The fourth chapter discusses rereading, indicating that it is not only children that go back to favourite books again and again. She also talks about the inspirations for writing, and how it is not the "geniuses" like Shakespeare that inspire, but the authors who make one feel that "I can do that". She discusses what authors lead her to write and inspired her to keep writing. This chapter also discusses progress and the false predictions about the demise of different writings that are occuring now as well as those from the past.
Following this she includes several book lists that are both interesting and useful.
I could relate to most of what she wrote here, and thoroughly enjoyed it. This will definitely be one of my rereads, as are one or two that she mentions as favourites.

New Collection

Finished July 4
McSweeney's 31
I had been intrigued by this book ever since it arrived and had been reading sections of it ever since. Finally finished it off this morning.
This is a beautifully bound hardcover consisting of a number of forms of literature with descriptions of each form and examples given of original writings and new writings in that form.
The forms covered include: pantoums, biji, whore dialogues, Graustarkian romances, nivolas, senryu, Socratic dialogues, consuetudinaries, and legendary sagas. I had only heard of a couple of these previously (sagas and dialogues) and was intrigued by the others.
It would appear that the favourite for both myself and the editors was the pantoum, an interesting form of poetry, because in addition to the section allocated for this form, several examples also appeared at the end of the volume.
I love having my mind stretched by stuff like this.