Monday, October 29, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Note to self: What I've read for the past couple months
No one will care about this post other than me, but I want to get these books jotted down before I completely forget I've read half of them. Otherwise, I'll totally check them out of the library all over again, only to realize three pages in that there's a good reason the book feels so familiar. Plus, since I didn't write it down, I have no idea what I read all summer. This is my list since about the beginning of September.
Brian Selznick -- The Invention of Hugo Cabret. (Creative idea, lovely black and white illustrations, not as well-written as it could have been).
Maria Doria Russell -- A Thread of Grace, Children of God (Neither was anywhere near as good as The Sparrow, though CoG is a sequel)
JRR Tolkien -- The Fellowship of the Ring. (For the umpteenth time, getting ready to write lesson plans on it for work).
Robert Ludlum -- The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy (Read them because I really enjoyed the first and third movies. The books are not as good, and I couldn't even finish the second one)
Keith Donohue -- The Stolen Child
Lois Anne Yamanaka -- Blu's Hanging (Recommended by this couple staying at the bed and breakfast with me while I was in Hawaii -- she's a local Hawaiian author)
Michael Ondaatje -- In the Skin of the Lion
Jeremy Iverson -- High School Confidential
Markus Zusak -- The Book Thief (Amazing! Best book I've read in years)
John Clinch -- Finn (the story of Huck Finn's father. Interesting. Pretty depressing)
Michael Ondaatje -- Divisadero (Nowhere near as good as The English Patient, but still quite lovely)
Cormac McCarthy -- The Road (In typical McCarthy style, really dark and emotionally difficult to read, but so well-written.)
Arthur Phillips -- The Egyptologist (The reviewers of this one must be dolts -- the "shocking" ending was SO predictable! I basically skimmed the second half of the book. I've been wanting to pick up Phillips' first novel, Prague, but after this book, I'm not so sure).
EDT on 10-25. Forgot one: Heat by Bill Buford. (The first third reads like a hero-worshipping tribute to Mario Batalli. I mostly skimmed the final third -- not nearly as good as, say, Anthony Bourdain, if you're into the whole behind-the-scenes-in-the-restaurant-industry thing).
Brian Selznick -- The Invention of Hugo Cabret. (Creative idea, lovely black and white illustrations, not as well-written as it could have been).
Maria Doria Russell -- A Thread of Grace, Children of God (Neither was anywhere near as good as The Sparrow, though CoG is a sequel)
JRR Tolkien -- The Fellowship of the Ring. (For the umpteenth time, getting ready to write lesson plans on it for work).
Robert Ludlum -- The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy (Read them because I really enjoyed the first and third movies. The books are not as good, and I couldn't even finish the second one)
Keith Donohue -- The Stolen Child
Lois Anne Yamanaka -- Blu's Hanging (Recommended by this couple staying at the bed and breakfast with me while I was in Hawaii -- she's a local Hawaiian author)
Michael Ondaatje -- In the Skin of the Lion
Jeremy Iverson -- High School Confidential
Markus Zusak -- The Book Thief (Amazing! Best book I've read in years)
John Clinch -- Finn (the story of Huck Finn's father. Interesting. Pretty depressing)
Michael Ondaatje -- Divisadero (Nowhere near as good as The English Patient, but still quite lovely)
Cormac McCarthy -- The Road (In typical McCarthy style, really dark and emotionally difficult to read, but so well-written.)
Arthur Phillips -- The Egyptologist (The reviewers of this one must be dolts -- the "shocking" ending was SO predictable! I basically skimmed the second half of the book. I've been wanting to pick up Phillips' first novel, Prague, but after this book, I'm not so sure).
EDT on 10-25. Forgot one: Heat by Bill Buford. (The first third reads like a hero-worshipping tribute to Mario Batalli. I mostly skimmed the final third -- not nearly as good as, say, Anthony Bourdain, if you're into the whole behind-the-scenes-in-the-restaurant-industry thing).
Friday, August 31, 2007
Hi Matt
Look, a post. These pictures are from March in Santa Cruz. THAT'S how far behind I am!
This is a surfer standing on the top of a very high cliff -- 2 or 3 stories tall, I'd guess. He's checking out the waves, which are BIG.
This is that same guy about 20 seconds later. Yes, he's mid-air.
And about 30 seconds after that. Do you see what a MONSTER that wave is?
He survived, though, and here he is climbing back out of the water to do it all over again. Even the way OUT of the water looks scary as heck to me!
And finally, this is a kid (seriously -- he looked about 15) who thought he had the guts to do this. He's got his feet down on a tiny little ledge down below. He sat there for about a minute, thinking about it, then climbed right back up! I think that's a little closer to my style :-)
So in Santa Cruz, there's this lighthouse that's been converted into a surfing museum. It's on a cliff, up above the ocean, and it's surrounded by benches that have placards that pay tribute to surfers who have gone to the great ocean in the sky, often in surfing accidents.
That doesn't seem to faze these guys, though.
This is a surfer standing on the top of a very high cliff -- 2 or 3 stories tall, I'd guess. He's checking out the waves, which are BIG.
This is that same guy about 20 seconds later. Yes, he's mid-air.
And about 30 seconds after that. Do you see what a MONSTER that wave is?
He survived, though, and here he is climbing back out of the water to do it all over again. Even the way OUT of the water looks scary as heck to me!
And finally, this is a kid (seriously -- he looked about 15) who thought he had the guts to do this. He's got his feet down on a tiny little ledge down below. He sat there for about a minute, thinking about it, then climbed right back up! I think that's a little closer to my style :-)
Sunday, April 15, 2007
farm living is the life for me . . .
Hey Mike, what's that on your car?
Careful. . . careful. . . almost there . . .
Oh Crap!
There are many many things I like about living on the farm, but nothing has made me laugh as hard as this pretty much since I moved here. Especially the look on Mike's face in the last picture.
I suspect the chicken was trying to get away from the dog, who has been terrorizing them all afternoon. The dogs around here are great with the sheep, but not quite so much with the chickens
Is it a cat? Wait, no . . .
It's an Araucana Chicken. Of course. What now?
Careful. . . careful. . . almost there . . .
Oh Crap!
There are many many things I like about living on the farm, but nothing has made me laugh as hard as this pretty much since I moved here. Especially the look on Mike's face in the last picture.
I suspect the chicken was trying to get away from the dog, who has been terrorizing them all afternoon. The dogs around here are great with the sheep, but not quite so much with the chickens
Friday, April 13, 2007
What I've Been Reading 4/13/07
I can't even begin to talk here about the hectic-ness that has been my life the past couple weeks. Suffice it to say that someone else's shit hit the fan at work and I've been busy dealing with the fallout.
So. . . Not much reading lately, but a couple of really excellent books to mention:
Nancy Farmer: The House of the Scorpion
Picked this one up last month when I was in Portland (darn it -- still haven't posted those pics!), from the remainders bin at Powells. It's young adult lit, and has won a ton of awards and rave reviews, for good reason. I read the whole book in less than a day and it was truly fabulous. The premise: It's some unspecified time in the future. Human cloning is a reality and to the South of the United States is a country called Opium, which exists, as you can guess from the name, purely to produce drugs. The main character is Matt, a young boy who learns fairly early into the book that he is a clone of the biggest of all of the drug lords. I don't want to give anything away, but suffice it to say, Matt lives a pretty screwed-up life at the hands of the drug lord and his cronies, but eventually escapes from it all. Really interesting book. Parts of it reminded me of Louis Sacchar's Holes, and other parts reminded me of dystopic writers like Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid's Tale or Ray Bradbury. Good stuff. I'll definitely be recommending it to middle school and high school students.
Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love
I wasn't so sure how I'd feel about this one, not being an especially religious type, and also not having much patience for sappy self-help crap. This book turned out to be quite a lovely read, though. It's a memoir and the basic story is that Gilbert goes through a bone-crushing divorce and then the devastating end of the affair she used to shield herself from the divorce. In search of something, well, not so sucky, she decides to live abroad for a year in 3 different places: Italy (where she eats like crazy and learns to speak Italian), India (where she lives on an Ashram and meditates a lot) and Indonesia (Where she studies with a medicine man and, unexpectedly, falls in love again). This book had the real potential to become sappy, and there are certainly moments where it walks the line. But Gilbert is also pretty darn irreverant and FUNNY, to boot, so she tends to stay just this side of the line. I liked a lot of things about the book, but I think what struck me the most was Gilbert's capacity for self-forgiveness, and her lack of fear at showing that side of herself to the world. I've already recommended the book to a friend who's going through a tough break up. I kept thinking of her as I was reading -- I think there's a lot that will speak to her in this book.
And, really, that's about it for my reading for the past couple of weeks, unless you want to include countless documents at work.
Santa Cruz pics in the next post, I swear.
So. . . Not much reading lately, but a couple of really excellent books to mention:
Nancy Farmer: The House of the Scorpion
Picked this one up last month when I was in Portland (darn it -- still haven't posted those pics!), from the remainders bin at Powells. It's young adult lit, and has won a ton of awards and rave reviews, for good reason. I read the whole book in less than a day and it was truly fabulous. The premise: It's some unspecified time in the future. Human cloning is a reality and to the South of the United States is a country called Opium, which exists, as you can guess from the name, purely to produce drugs. The main character is Matt, a young boy who learns fairly early into the book that he is a clone of the biggest of all of the drug lords. I don't want to give anything away, but suffice it to say, Matt lives a pretty screwed-up life at the hands of the drug lord and his cronies, but eventually escapes from it all. Really interesting book. Parts of it reminded me of Louis Sacchar's Holes, and other parts reminded me of dystopic writers like Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid's Tale or Ray Bradbury. Good stuff. I'll definitely be recommending it to middle school and high school students.
Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love
I wasn't so sure how I'd feel about this one, not being an especially religious type, and also not having much patience for sappy self-help crap. This book turned out to be quite a lovely read, though. It's a memoir and the basic story is that Gilbert goes through a bone-crushing divorce and then the devastating end of the affair she used to shield herself from the divorce. In search of something, well, not so sucky, she decides to live abroad for a year in 3 different places: Italy (where she eats like crazy and learns to speak Italian), India (where she lives on an Ashram and meditates a lot) and Indonesia (Where she studies with a medicine man and, unexpectedly, falls in love again). This book had the real potential to become sappy, and there are certainly moments where it walks the line. But Gilbert is also pretty darn irreverant and FUNNY, to boot, so she tends to stay just this side of the line. I liked a lot of things about the book, but I think what struck me the most was Gilbert's capacity for self-forgiveness, and her lack of fear at showing that side of herself to the world. I've already recommended the book to a friend who's going through a tough break up. I kept thinking of her as I was reading -- I think there's a lot that will speak to her in this book.
And, really, that's about it for my reading for the past couple of weeks, unless you want to include countless documents at work.
Santa Cruz pics in the next post, I swear.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Oysters!
On the way home from hiking at Point Reyes yesterday, we stopped off at Hog Island Oyster Company on Highway One in Marshall for some oysters. We were totally disappointed when we pulled up and they looked closed. Turns out, they were, but the lovely young ladies that work there were still cleaning up and hadn't closed out the cash register yet. They took pity on our poor oyster-deprived souls and hooked us up.
I've never actually had oysters at home before, but we had fun learning how to open them, aided by an "oyster knife" from the general store in Tomales. Thankfully, the knife wasn't actually sharp. Otherwise, I think we would have had some blood with our oysters -- the damn things are hard to get open! Here's a pic of M. fighting with one of them.
You have to sort of wiggle the knife, which looks like a letter opener only not so sharp, into the hinge end of the oyster. Once it pops open at that edge, you twist the knife around to open the shell all the way. See below.
But, ohh, is the hard work worth it!
But, ohh, is the hard work worth it!
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
What I'm Reading 3/21
Things are still hectic at work, so my reading continues to be relatively light. This week, I read a couple young adult books and that's about it. I've also started Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, but I'm not through it yet.
William Steig -- Abel's Island
William Steig was an author I remember really enjoying as a kid. He had this great picture book called Sylvester and the Magic Pebble that was quite lovely. In any case, Abel's Island is a chapter book and it was an enjoyable little read. Slightly odd in terms of the language -- emotionally it's about right for third or fourth graders, but the language would be difficult for a lot of adults I know. I think it's probably a better read-aloud book for kids than one they'd read independently. I DO really love authors who don't talk down to kids, though. Actually, I guess I would really have enjoyed independently reading this book as a kid -- I would have been excited to go look up all the words I didn't know and figure them out. :-)
Ian McEwan -- The Daydreamer
Another young adult book, written by an author who normally writes adult literature. I really enjoyed McEwan's Atonement, and The Daydreamer was not a disappointment. Peter, the main character, is a boy who often gets lost in the world of his fantasies with poignant results. It's a quiet book, a bit dreamy, very well written. Again, I like it because it doesn't talk down to kids in any way. I think I read somewhere that McEwan wanted to write a book for adults that kids would love, too, and he's done a great job here.
William Steig -- Abel's Island
William Steig was an author I remember really enjoying as a kid. He had this great picture book called Sylvester and the Magic Pebble that was quite lovely. In any case, Abel's Island is a chapter book and it was an enjoyable little read. Slightly odd in terms of the language -- emotionally it's about right for third or fourth graders, but the language would be difficult for a lot of adults I know. I think it's probably a better read-aloud book for kids than one they'd read independently. I DO really love authors who don't talk down to kids, though. Actually, I guess I would really have enjoyed independently reading this book as a kid -- I would have been excited to go look up all the words I didn't know and figure them out. :-)
Ian McEwan -- The Daydreamer
Another young adult book, written by an author who normally writes adult literature. I really enjoyed McEwan's Atonement, and The Daydreamer was not a disappointment. Peter, the main character, is a boy who often gets lost in the world of his fantasies with poignant results. It's a quiet book, a bit dreamy, very well written. Again, I like it because it doesn't talk down to kids in any way. I think I read somewhere that McEwan wanted to write a book for adults that kids would love, too, and he's done a great job here.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Tomales Bakery
This morning I woke up and realized that I had no milk in the house for my coffee. As much as I may try to deny it, I'm afraid I actually DO need coffee in the morning. I didn't have any yesterday, and I was wiped out and headachey by mid-afternoon. But I CAN'T drink my coffee without milk. At work, I actually water it down and then add milk. (Though, it should be said, the coffee at work is labelled "strong" and "not so strong" and I'm pretty sure that "decaf" is a four letter word around there).
Anyway, what that meant this morning was that I had to go out for either coffee or milk. I'm a solid 12 miles from the nearest grocery store, so I took the go out for coffee option, and went into the town of Tomales, which is only a few miles from my house. There's not a whole lot to Tomales: A general store, a coffee shop, a sandwich shop, a cute little hotel that usually doesn't even have anyone at the front desk (you get a key code to get in and out), and a teeny tiny park with swings and pine trees that shed cones as big as my head. That's about it, and I love it.
In any case, Tomales Bakery = AWESOME. I can't believe I've lived here for 2 months and haven't made it in till today. This may become my new Sunday ritual. It's this teeny-tiny little shop that smells like heaven. You can barely fit 3 people inside. Anyway, I got there nice and early, so it wasn't packed yet, and I had my pick of the pastries. (supposedly they sell out of almost everything by 11am most days). I had a humongous pecan roll that was absolutely delicious and perhaps the best coffee I've ever had. Just plain old coffee, but I doctored it up with a bit of organic brown sugar and some Strauss Family Creamery half and half, and it was absolutely delicious. Strauss milk is fabulous. Unfortunately, it's also VERY expensive. A half-gallon glass bottle of it costs around 5 bucks (including a dollar bottle deposit, but still). I've bought it a couple times, and even the skim tastes super-rich and fresh. But, really, I can't justify spending that kind of money on milk most of the time.
Other advantages to Tomales Bakery:
1. You get to pour your own coffee, which is good for me because I like to make mine about 1/3 caffeinated and 2/3 decaf.
2. It has these lovely wooden chairs outside where you can sit and drink your coffee and read the paper
3. If you go early in the morning, it isn't yet overrun with bikers and tourists, so you can watch the locals chat outside the post office, pet the dogs that wander around, and just breathe the lovely air and enjoy the quiet.
4. They're cheap! My coffee and cinnamon roll was only 3.50 total. And their loaves of fresh-made bread are about half the price of all the other local bakeries I've seen.
5. They'll call you to let you know when you've stupidly forgotten your wallet on their counter and not make fun of you at all when you go back to retrieve it. :-)
Anyway, what that meant this morning was that I had to go out for either coffee or milk. I'm a solid 12 miles from the nearest grocery store, so I took the go out for coffee option, and went into the town of Tomales, which is only a few miles from my house. There's not a whole lot to Tomales: A general store, a coffee shop, a sandwich shop, a cute little hotel that usually doesn't even have anyone at the front desk (you get a key code to get in and out), and a teeny tiny park with swings and pine trees that shed cones as big as my head. That's about it, and I love it.
In any case, Tomales Bakery = AWESOME. I can't believe I've lived here for 2 months and haven't made it in till today. This may become my new Sunday ritual. It's this teeny-tiny little shop that smells like heaven. You can barely fit 3 people inside. Anyway, I got there nice and early, so it wasn't packed yet, and I had my pick of the pastries. (supposedly they sell out of almost everything by 11am most days). I had a humongous pecan roll that was absolutely delicious and perhaps the best coffee I've ever had. Just plain old coffee, but I doctored it up with a bit of organic brown sugar and some Strauss Family Creamery half and half, and it was absolutely delicious. Strauss milk is fabulous. Unfortunately, it's also VERY expensive. A half-gallon glass bottle of it costs around 5 bucks (including a dollar bottle deposit, but still). I've bought it a couple times, and even the skim tastes super-rich and fresh. But, really, I can't justify spending that kind of money on milk most of the time.
Other advantages to Tomales Bakery:
1. You get to pour your own coffee, which is good for me because I like to make mine about 1/3 caffeinated and 2/3 decaf.
2. It has these lovely wooden chairs outside where you can sit and drink your coffee and read the paper
3. If you go early in the morning, it isn't yet overrun with bikers and tourists, so you can watch the locals chat outside the post office, pet the dogs that wander around, and just breathe the lovely air and enjoy the quiet.
4. They're cheap! My coffee and cinnamon roll was only 3.50 total. And their loaves of fresh-made bread are about half the price of all the other local bakeries I've seen.
5. They'll call you to let you know when you've stupidly forgotten your wallet on their counter and not make fun of you at all when you go back to retrieve it. :-)
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Sonoma Coast Park and Armstrong Woods
Last Sunday, I went to Armstrong Woods for the first time. I hadn't really intended to end up there. I had to work all morning and by 1pm, it was such a beautiful sunny day, I just had to get out of the house. So I drove north up Highway One, figuring I'd just stop wherever looked interesting.
I stopped first at Goat Rock beach in Sonoma Coast State Park, hoping to see the Harbor Seals that apparently come ashore there this time of year to have their babies. Unfortunately, they haven't arrived yet for the year. This is the sign that greets you as you enter the beach.
I don't know if you can read the sign, but it says "This is one of the most deadly beaches in California." Reassuring, eh? Apparently these massive "sleeper waves" occasionally come out of nowhere and snatch unsuspecting tourists off the beach and suck them out to an untimely demise in the sea. Fun.
This sign is at one of the parking areas up above the beach. Sadly, this forces me to admit that my mom was right. (Did you hear that, Carol? You. Were. Right.) She's been warning me about mountain lions for months, telling me about how a mountain lion ate off a woman's face while she was hiking and so on. I really thought she was just being overly paranoid and trying to stop me from hiking alone. But, then, look at the pretty picture. I mean, it's not going to stop me from hiking, mountain lions or no. I'm pretty sure that the reason things like mountain lion attacks make such a big splash on the news is because they're so darn rare. Still, I wouldn't like to run into one of these beasties out on the trail.
In any case, after seeing neither harbor seals nor mountain lions (or goats, for that matter) at Goat Rock, I continued up highway 1 for a couple more miles, then decided to cut across 116 through the Russian River Valley and circle home that way. I have to say, the drive along the river there is nearly as pretty as the shore. And I totally want to live in one of the cute little houses perched up in the trees in all the little towns along the Russian River. Too far from work, I'm afraid, but maybe someday when I'm allowed to telecommute. Eventually, I ended up in Guerneville, and when I saw the sign for Armstrong Woods, I couldn't resist, since several people had recommended the hiking there.
I wasn't disappointed. Armstrong Woods, for those of you who don't know, is a state preserve that is chock full of massive Redwoods. What I'll say about it is this, for the trees, it's just as lovely as Muir Woods, with less than a tenth of the crowds (no tour buses!!!). The views if you hike up into the hills above Muir Woods are much better, but the lack of crowds is such a big draw, I think I'd probably rather come to Armstrong. Though I don't think I would hike alone here, again. Not enough hikers for me to feel safe. If I fell and sprained an ankle or something, it could be ages before someone came along and saw me.
In any case, It was fairly late in the day by the time I got there, so I only hiked a couple miles, up a ridge and then back down into the Redwood grove. It was also a bit of a gloomy day, so I don't have many good pictures. Here's one of something that blew me away, though:
The height and diameter of the tree are amazing enough, but the thing that really gets me is the age of the tree. How is it possible that something that is 1300 years old can even still be alive? How can something have been in the same place for 13 centuries and not have been disturbed? It's shocking, and wonderful. Makes me feel pretty insignificant, actually. And the tree is healthy, too. If stupid humans don't screw it up, it could live for hundreds of years longer. wow.
Anyway, today is the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market for the first time, and probably the SF MOMA. I've been told it's actually kind of disappointing if you've been to the art museums in DC, NY, etc. But I'm going to give it a try, anyway.
I stopped first at Goat Rock beach in Sonoma Coast State Park, hoping to see the Harbor Seals that apparently come ashore there this time of year to have their babies. Unfortunately, they haven't arrived yet for the year. This is the sign that greets you as you enter the beach.
I don't know if you can read the sign, but it says "This is one of the most deadly beaches in California." Reassuring, eh? Apparently these massive "sleeper waves" occasionally come out of nowhere and snatch unsuspecting tourists off the beach and suck them out to an untimely demise in the sea. Fun.
This sign is at one of the parking areas up above the beach. Sadly, this forces me to admit that my mom was right. (Did you hear that, Carol? You. Were. Right.) She's been warning me about mountain lions for months, telling me about how a mountain lion ate off a woman's face while she was hiking and so on. I really thought she was just being overly paranoid and trying to stop me from hiking alone. But, then, look at the pretty picture. I mean, it's not going to stop me from hiking, mountain lions or no. I'm pretty sure that the reason things like mountain lion attacks make such a big splash on the news is because they're so darn rare. Still, I wouldn't like to run into one of these beasties out on the trail.
In any case, after seeing neither harbor seals nor mountain lions (or goats, for that matter) at Goat Rock, I continued up highway 1 for a couple more miles, then decided to cut across 116 through the Russian River Valley and circle home that way. I have to say, the drive along the river there is nearly as pretty as the shore. And I totally want to live in one of the cute little houses perched up in the trees in all the little towns along the Russian River. Too far from work, I'm afraid, but maybe someday when I'm allowed to telecommute. Eventually, I ended up in Guerneville, and when I saw the sign for Armstrong Woods, I couldn't resist, since several people had recommended the hiking there.
I wasn't disappointed. Armstrong Woods, for those of you who don't know, is a state preserve that is chock full of massive Redwoods. What I'll say about it is this, for the trees, it's just as lovely as Muir Woods, with less than a tenth of the crowds (no tour buses!!!). The views if you hike up into the hills above Muir Woods are much better, but the lack of crowds is such a big draw, I think I'd probably rather come to Armstrong. Though I don't think I would hike alone here, again. Not enough hikers for me to feel safe. If I fell and sprained an ankle or something, it could be ages before someone came along and saw me.
In any case, It was fairly late in the day by the time I got there, so I only hiked a couple miles, up a ridge and then back down into the Redwood grove. It was also a bit of a gloomy day, so I don't have many good pictures. Here's one of something that blew me away, though:
The height and diameter of the tree are amazing enough, but the thing that really gets me is the age of the tree. How is it possible that something that is 1300 years old can even still be alive? How can something have been in the same place for 13 centuries and not have been disturbed? It's shocking, and wonderful. Makes me feel pretty insignificant, actually. And the tree is healthy, too. If stupid humans don't screw it up, it could live for hundreds of years longer. wow.
Anyway, today is the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market for the first time, and probably the SF MOMA. I've been told it's actually kind of disappointing if you've been to the art museums in DC, NY, etc. But I'm going to give it a try, anyway.
Reading this week 3/10
David Kamp -- The United States of Arugula.
I feel like everyone has been talking about this book, but I didn't end up being all that impressed with it. I've been trying to articulate why, but I'm not really sure. Perhaps because I'm not enough of a foodie to know all the big name chefs he talks about? Or maybe just because I don't actually tend to enjoy nonfiction books all that much to begin with? I'm much more of a fiction and poetry reader. I think I was just expecting it to be more exciting in some way, with all the buzz. Not a terrible read, but it's not a favorite, either.
Dora Mary Russell -- The Sparrow
Now this one is a new favorite. It's about a group of people who are the first to encounter a new alien race adn the tragedy that ensues. The description on the back didn't catch my attention at first, but a friend had recommended the book a few years back. Then, just recently, I saw it on a staff favorite display at Copperfield's Books and finally decided I should check it out. I read the first chapter or so, wasn't caught by it, and put it down. But then I tried again a few days later and I'm so glad I did. Russell's writing is lovely, and the characters felt like real people , people that I would love to have as a part of my own life. My heart absolutely ached for the main character, Emilio. I also found the structure of the book really compelling. You know from the first page that the expedition to this new planet has ended in tragedy, only one survivor who is all-but-incapacitated both physically and mentally. Russell then does a great job balancing scenes from the planet with scenes from the present of the book to slowly reveal the story.
Ray Bradbury -- Farenheit 451.
Somehow I've never read this book before, which isn't all that common for me and 20th century classics. I'm not quite done with it, and I've liked it a little less as I've read farther into it, but the first section grabbed me immediately. Bradbury really is a wonderful writer. I'll write more about this book when I actually finish it.
Also dabbled a bit this week with some ee cummings poetry, another Plath biography, and the usual tourist books about the Bay Area.
I feel like everyone has been talking about this book, but I didn't end up being all that impressed with it. I've been trying to articulate why, but I'm not really sure. Perhaps because I'm not enough of a foodie to know all the big name chefs he talks about? Or maybe just because I don't actually tend to enjoy nonfiction books all that much to begin with? I'm much more of a fiction and poetry reader. I think I was just expecting it to be more exciting in some way, with all the buzz. Not a terrible read, but it's not a favorite, either.
Dora Mary Russell -- The Sparrow
Now this one is a new favorite. It's about a group of people who are the first to encounter a new alien race adn the tragedy that ensues. The description on the back didn't catch my attention at first, but a friend had recommended the book a few years back. Then, just recently, I saw it on a staff favorite display at Copperfield's Books and finally decided I should check it out. I read the first chapter or so, wasn't caught by it, and put it down. But then I tried again a few days later and I'm so glad I did. Russell's writing is lovely, and the characters felt like real people , people that I would love to have as a part of my own life. My heart absolutely ached for the main character, Emilio. I also found the structure of the book really compelling. You know from the first page that the expedition to this new planet has ended in tragedy, only one survivor who is all-but-incapacitated both physically and mentally. Russell then does a great job balancing scenes from the planet with scenes from the present of the book to slowly reveal the story.
Ray Bradbury -- Farenheit 451.
Somehow I've never read this book before, which isn't all that common for me and 20th century classics. I'm not quite done with it, and I've liked it a little less as I've read farther into it, but the first section grabbed me immediately. Bradbury really is a wonderful writer. I'll write more about this book when I actually finish it.
Also dabbled a bit this week with some ee cummings poetry, another Plath biography, and the usual tourist books about the Bay Area.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
big blue sea
I've fallen in love with the Pacific Ocean.
I didn't grow up with the ocean. In fact, where I grew up (Michigan) is pretty darn far away from the sea. We have the Great Lakes, which are spectactular in their own right. But they're not the ocean. As a kid, my first experience with the Atlantic was visiting my grandparents in Connecticut and, frankly, I thought it was pretty icky. The beach we went to was overrun with horseshoe crabs, which are not the most pleasant creatures ever, and the water was dark and seaweedy and dirty. We also went on vacation in Florida a couple times, and I LOVED collecting shells on the beach. Mostly, though, I just didn't care much about the ocean. I was perfectly happy with nice, clean freshwater lakes.
But in November, when I saw the Pacific for the very first time (on Thanksgiving day, no less), it was love at first sight. And now, I live only 5 miles from Highway One, and the ability to drive up and down the coast is at my fingertips. So I spent the weekend exploring the Sonoma Coast. SO beautiful.
How can I be lucky enough to have all of this right in my backyard???
Yesterday, my friend L. and I wandered around the beaches just north of Bodega Bay. I can't remember which beach these pictures are on, but could it be more gorgeous? We went to Coleman Beach, Miwok Beach, and Shell Beach, and then today on my own, I went to Goat Rock Beach, hoping to sea the seals that come there to "nest" in the spring. Unfortunately, they haven't arrived yet. In any case, I'm fascinated by the rocks just jutting up out of the ocean everywhere around here. VERY different from the super fine-sanded, flat beaches of Lake Michigan.
Anyway, we went at low tide yesterday, and so I got to experience tidepools for the very first time. Check out the awesome sealife I saw:
These are called Giant Green Sea Anenomes, though they're not actually that big.
This one is an Ochre Sea Star. He was a BIG dude, 8 or 9 inches across. They also come in a bright orange color.
And this is a combination of Goose Barnacles and California Mussels. I never knew barnacles could be so lovely.
There are also all these places where waterfalls tumble out of the cliffs above the water and make their way down to the ocean. And the rocks on the beach are like nothing I've ever seen -- all sorts of greens and reds and striped white and black. I don't know much about rocks, but I certainly came home with pocketfuls of them that are now in lovely little heaps all over my house, along with some beautiful pieces of driftwood. Anyhow, I have a zillion more pictures, but it's getting on toward my bedtime, so they'll have to wait for another day.
(Sorry about the oddball formatting -- I'm still getting used to how this blogging thing works, and I'm too sleepy at the moment to fuss with it anymore to get it all to look exactly the way I want it to)
Cuteness overload
This, my friends, is the cuteness that I see outside my bedroom window on a daily basis. This little guy was born the morning this picture was taken. When he grows up, he'll look like this:
Pretty, huh? I actually have no idea what variety of goats we have here, but they have this long hair and crazy curly horns. To me, they look like they should be frolicking on an Alp somewhere. Instead, they frolic outside my window and make me late for work with their distracting antics.
(p.s. Finally got the software installed to download images from my new camera. I've been a regular picture-taking fiend lately, so there are many more to come!)
Saturday, February 24, 2007
What I've Been Reading this week
This has been another pretty lousy couple weeks for reading -- I've been swamped at work, and actually having to bring work home (which I try to avoid). Plus, I've started to make friends here, so I've actually gone out and done stuff more. Not a bad reason to read a little less.
In any case, I finished that Sylvia Plath biography and I don't know what to say about it. I can't say I disliked it, but I still think that the author was seriously obsessed with Plath's sex life. I also feel like the book was far too much just a chronological list of every poem Plath every wrote and every date she ever went on. It also didn't feel very balanced -- it didn't have many quotes from other people or even from Plath herself, because the author didn't want to have to get approval from the Plath estate. It felt, I think, a little too soft. I dunno. I don't read many biographies.
The rest of the last couple weeks, I've really been just dabbling --reading a little bit of this book of poetry (Tony Hoagland, Mark Doty), a little bit of that guidebook to the Bay area, dipping into Plath's unabridged journals. Right now, I'm about 2/3 of the way through David Kamp's The United States of Arugula. Hopefully I'll have more to write about my reading next week.
In any case, I finished that Sylvia Plath biography and I don't know what to say about it. I can't say I disliked it, but I still think that the author was seriously obsessed with Plath's sex life. I also feel like the book was far too much just a chronological list of every poem Plath every wrote and every date she ever went on. It also didn't feel very balanced -- it didn't have many quotes from other people or even from Plath herself, because the author didn't want to have to get approval from the Plath estate. It felt, I think, a little too soft. I dunno. I don't read many biographies.
The rest of the last couple weeks, I've really been just dabbling --reading a little bit of this book of poetry (Tony Hoagland, Mark Doty), a little bit of that guidebook to the Bay area, dipping into Plath's unabridged journals. Right now, I'm about 2/3 of the way through David Kamp's The United States of Arugula. Hopefully I'll have more to write about my reading next week.
Stranger in a Strange Land
It's amazing how foreign a place can seem even when it's a part of the same country you've lived in for your whole life. I mean, the people are more laid back and all, but it's really the landscape that's getting me right now.
Here's the thing: it's February. And it's spring. These two things simply don't go together in my mind.
I tried to deny it at first, telling myself that it was just a few rogue flowers that were coming out early. That even happens once in a while in bitter cold Michigan. But I can't deny it anymore. The world has burst into bloom around here, and it's absolutely gorgeous.
There is, of course, the usual spring assortment of daffodils and hyacinths and such. There are also these yellow trees that have just blown me away. It's like everywhere you go, there they are, spectacular balls of the brightest, sunniest yellow you can imagine. You can't even see that they have branches, the flowers are so thick. I've never seen anything like it. Spring trees everywhere else I've lived run more toward the pink-and-white spectrum. According to a former-arborist friend, the yellow trees are called Bailey's Acacia. I want to plant a whole grove of them outside my window, because every time I see one it makes me happy.
Of course, there are also various apple and cherry-looking trees in bloom. The apple blossom is Michigan's state flower, so I know those well. And Traverse City Michigan calls itself the cherry capitol of the world. I haven't gotten close enough to confirm what the blooms here are, but I'm pretty sure they fall into that family. I suppose some are probably plums, too. I don't think any of them are oranges or lemons -- I have seen trees citrus trees just full of fruit recently, so I suspect they bloom in the fall or something.
The wildlife is also a bit foreign to me. I mean, deer and squirrels look pretty much the same anywhere, and the mountain lion warning signs I saw while hiking last week didn't particularly faze me -- we have those where I hiked in northern MI as well. But Sea Lions? Just hanging out in the middle of tourist-central.? That's weird. And I'm dying to go see the whales and Tule Elk at Point Reyes (which I might do this weekend). Plus, tidepools!
The birds, though, are what I really don't recognize. I've seen a couple really gorgeous ones here on the ranch. Bright, bright colors (or swatches of color), no idea what they are. Even using my handy Audubon field guide to California, I haven’t been able to positively identify them.
One was absolutely brilliant blue, and sleek looking (so more like a robin’s feathers than a Bluejay’s) and a slim body. I suspect it was some kind of bluebird, but I don’t remember it having an orange belly like the bluebirds in my guidebook, and it seems like it was a bit sleeker.
The other is glossy black, also fairly slim, with one narrow swatch of brilliant red on each wing. Perhaps a redwinged blackbird? My guidebook says they actually have red and yellow, but these appeared to one have red.
And then last this gorgeous blush-colored bird. It looked kind of like a finch to me, a little bit chubby, only it was this pinkish-red all over and I've not seen a finch that looks like that before.
I think perhaps I need a better guidebook – this is one I bought for hiking when I was here on temporary assignment for a few weeks last fall. And it was good for that, since I didn’t know I would be moving here for good then and didn’t want to spend a lot of money, and also since I don’t like to carry too much with me when I’m hiking. But I think it suffers from trying to do too much – it includes everything from trees to snakes to fish to birds to flowers to furry creatures and so on. So in the end, nothing is covered in much depth. I’d love to have a more in-depth book each about birds, trees, and flowers, which are the things I mostly care about, anyhow.
And speaking of trees, I don’t know how I went 31 years without encountering Eucalyptuses (Eucalypti?). I mean, I know HOW, since they don’t grow in the east and all, but wish I hadn’t. They are quite lovely to look at, but even better, they smell great. I know people describe the smell as slightly medicinal, and that’s both right and so wrong, since medicine implies to me an overpowering generally icky smell. This is much more subtly – slightly minty and fresh and it just hangs in the air around the trees, especially when it's been raining. I noticed it a lot when I was hiking here this past fall, and now there’s this one place on my way home from work where I just want to slow down and open the windows to let the smell in. Fittingly enough, it’s the same place where my cell phone stops working, as if the Eucalyptus trees are marking some kind of boundary into the simpler, more nature-aware life I seem to be living since I moved here.
(although, it should be said, I've been told that the Eucalyptuses are actually a non-native species, introduced here by farmers as wind-breaks, and that they have crowded out some native species)
Anyway, I just got a new digital camera for my birthday, so I'm really and truly going to get pictures posted soon. Really.
Here's the thing: it's February. And it's spring. These two things simply don't go together in my mind.
I tried to deny it at first, telling myself that it was just a few rogue flowers that were coming out early. That even happens once in a while in bitter cold Michigan. But I can't deny it anymore. The world has burst into bloom around here, and it's absolutely gorgeous.
There is, of course, the usual spring assortment of daffodils and hyacinths and such. There are also these yellow trees that have just blown me away. It's like everywhere you go, there they are, spectacular balls of the brightest, sunniest yellow you can imagine. You can't even see that they have branches, the flowers are so thick. I've never seen anything like it. Spring trees everywhere else I've lived run more toward the pink-and-white spectrum. According to a former-arborist friend, the yellow trees are called Bailey's Acacia. I want to plant a whole grove of them outside my window, because every time I see one it makes me happy.
Of course, there are also various apple and cherry-looking trees in bloom. The apple blossom is Michigan's state flower, so I know those well. And Traverse City Michigan calls itself the cherry capitol of the world. I haven't gotten close enough to confirm what the blooms here are, but I'm pretty sure they fall into that family. I suppose some are probably plums, too. I don't think any of them are oranges or lemons -- I have seen trees citrus trees just full of fruit recently, so I suspect they bloom in the fall or something.
The wildlife is also a bit foreign to me. I mean, deer and squirrels look pretty much the same anywhere, and the mountain lion warning signs I saw while hiking last week didn't particularly faze me -- we have those where I hiked in northern MI as well. But Sea Lions? Just hanging out in the middle of tourist-central.? That's weird. And I'm dying to go see the whales and Tule Elk at Point Reyes (which I might do this weekend). Plus, tidepools!
The birds, though, are what I really don't recognize. I've seen a couple really gorgeous ones here on the ranch. Bright, bright colors (or swatches of color), no idea what they are. Even using my handy Audubon field guide to California, I haven’t been able to positively identify them.
One was absolutely brilliant blue, and sleek looking (so more like a robin’s feathers than a Bluejay’s) and a slim body. I suspect it was some kind of bluebird, but I don’t remember it having an orange belly like the bluebirds in my guidebook, and it seems like it was a bit sleeker.
The other is glossy black, also fairly slim, with one narrow swatch of brilliant red on each wing. Perhaps a redwinged blackbird? My guidebook says they actually have red and yellow, but these appeared to one have red.
And then last this gorgeous blush-colored bird. It looked kind of like a finch to me, a little bit chubby, only it was this pinkish-red all over and I've not seen a finch that looks like that before.
I think perhaps I need a better guidebook – this is one I bought for hiking when I was here on temporary assignment for a few weeks last fall. And it was good for that, since I didn’t know I would be moving here for good then and didn’t want to spend a lot of money, and also since I don’t like to carry too much with me when I’m hiking. But I think it suffers from trying to do too much – it includes everything from trees to snakes to fish to birds to flowers to furry creatures and so on. So in the end, nothing is covered in much depth. I’d love to have a more in-depth book each about birds, trees, and flowers, which are the things I mostly care about, anyhow.
And speaking of trees, I don’t know how I went 31 years without encountering Eucalyptuses (Eucalypti?). I mean, I know HOW, since they don’t grow in the east and all, but wish I hadn’t. They are quite lovely to look at, but even better, they smell great. I know people describe the smell as slightly medicinal, and that’s both right and so wrong, since medicine implies to me an overpowering generally icky smell. This is much more subtly – slightly minty and fresh and it just hangs in the air around the trees, especially when it's been raining. I noticed it a lot when I was hiking here this past fall, and now there’s this one place on my way home from work where I just want to slow down and open the windows to let the smell in. Fittingly enough, it’s the same place where my cell phone stops working, as if the Eucalyptus trees are marking some kind of boundary into the simpler, more nature-aware life I seem to be living since I moved here.
(although, it should be said, I've been told that the Eucalyptuses are actually a non-native species, introduced here by farmers as wind-breaks, and that they have crowded out some native species)
Anyway, I just got a new digital camera for my birthday, so I'm really and truly going to get pictures posted soon. Really.
Monday, February 12, 2007
This week's reading
This past week was a busy week at work, so I didn't get to do as much reading as usual. Here it is:
Kate Moses, Wintering -- The descriptions on the back cover annoyed the heck out of me. One reviewer says she's "never read a more womanly book." WTF does that even mean? Stupid reviews notwithstanding, I found this book to be quite lovely. It reminds me a bit of The Hours, basically doing for Plath's final days what Michael Cunningham did for Virginia Woolf's. I have never much liked Sylvia Plath's poetry, but I think that Moses does a really fabulous job of capturing the sadness and madness of Plath's final days, without over-sentimentalizing or hero-worshipping. Moses' imagery is really gorgeous, and I like the form of the book, which jumps back and forth in time (mimicking the lack of groundedness Plath herself must, like any seriously mentally ill person (or anyone, for that matter, whose marriage has just disintegrated), have felt in her final months. In fact, this book has piqued my curiousity about Sylvia Plath and led me to re-read The Bell Jar (which I like much more now than the first time I read it) and to dig into some Plath biographies.
Elisabeth Hyde The Abortionist's Daughter I'd heard some buzz here and there about this novel, so I picked it up and read the whole thing yesterday afternoon. It was a decent read, though a less substantial than I'd expected frome the buzz. Hyde's writing reminds me a bit of a less adept Jodi Picoult, and I wasn't all that surprised by the ending of the book (which is a mystery of sorts, in the same way Picoult's books are).
Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar The first time I read this book, I didn't much like it. Looking back, I think I was just too young for it (perhaps in 8th or 9th grade). I hadn't experienced enough sadness and strife in my own life to really connect with the characters' experiences in any personal way. Much the same thing happened with me with Catcher in the Rye, which is now one of my all-time favorite books, and I'm glad to be giving this book a second try as well. I'm only about halfway through, so we'll see what I think when I finish it.
Paul Alexander Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath I'm about halfway through this biography, which just happened to be the first one that came in through interlibrary loan. I don't know if it's the "best" one out there, but I'm enjoying it so far. I have to say, though, I think Alexander is a bit too obsessed with Plath's dating life for his own good. I swear, he lists out every single date Plath ever went on in the book, by name, to no good end that I can see. It's totally ridiculous. Anyway, I'll update on the book when I finish.
That's it for reading this week. On a completely unrelated note, there is a lavender convertible parked outside my office today. LAVENDER. And sort of metallic. It looks like something Prince would drive.
Kate Moses, Wintering -- The descriptions on the back cover annoyed the heck out of me. One reviewer says she's "never read a more womanly book." WTF does that even mean? Stupid reviews notwithstanding, I found this book to be quite lovely. It reminds me a bit of The Hours, basically doing for Plath's final days what Michael Cunningham did for Virginia Woolf's. I have never much liked Sylvia Plath's poetry, but I think that Moses does a really fabulous job of capturing the sadness and madness of Plath's final days, without over-sentimentalizing or hero-worshipping. Moses' imagery is really gorgeous, and I like the form of the book, which jumps back and forth in time (mimicking the lack of groundedness Plath herself must, like any seriously mentally ill person (or anyone, for that matter, whose marriage has just disintegrated), have felt in her final months. In fact, this book has piqued my curiousity about Sylvia Plath and led me to re-read The Bell Jar (which I like much more now than the first time I read it) and to dig into some Plath biographies.
Elisabeth Hyde The Abortionist's Daughter I'd heard some buzz here and there about this novel, so I picked it up and read the whole thing yesterday afternoon. It was a decent read, though a less substantial than I'd expected frome the buzz. Hyde's writing reminds me a bit of a less adept Jodi Picoult, and I wasn't all that surprised by the ending of the book (which is a mystery of sorts, in the same way Picoult's books are).
Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar The first time I read this book, I didn't much like it. Looking back, I think I was just too young for it (perhaps in 8th or 9th grade). I hadn't experienced enough sadness and strife in my own life to really connect with the characters' experiences in any personal way. Much the same thing happened with me with Catcher in the Rye, which is now one of my all-time favorite books, and I'm glad to be giving this book a second try as well. I'm only about halfway through, so we'll see what I think when I finish it.
Paul Alexander Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath I'm about halfway through this biography, which just happened to be the first one that came in through interlibrary loan. I don't know if it's the "best" one out there, but I'm enjoying it so far. I have to say, though, I think Alexander is a bit too obsessed with Plath's dating life for his own good. I swear, he lists out every single date Plath ever went on in the book, by name, to no good end that I can see. It's totally ridiculous. Anyway, I'll update on the book when I finish.
That's it for reading this week. On a completely unrelated note, there is a lavender convertible parked outside my office today. LAVENDER. And sort of metallic. It looks like something Prince would drive.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Stand By
It's been a busy busy busy week, so all the lovely posts that I've created in my head have unfortunately gone un-posted. It's finally Saturday, but I must clean my house this morning. We've had a lot of rain this week (and I'm a messy cook), so the floors are filthy.
In any case, here's a quick tidbit from life on the ranch:
Did you know that baby sheep are born with long furry tails? They're very cute, actually.
Here's a link: The top sheep on the left is the kind we have (don't their heads look like fuzzy white yodas?) http://www.sheep101.info/tails.html
Unfortunately, as you'll see from the link, the lambs don't get to keep their cute tails -- they're "docked" to keep the sheep cleaner and prevent disease. This grosses me a out a bit. Especially now that I've learned that they do it is by tying a rubber band around the tail tightly enough that it atrophies and falls off. Yuck.
Hope no one was eating while they read this!
In any case, here's a quick tidbit from life on the ranch:
Did you know that baby sheep are born with long furry tails? They're very cute, actually.
Here's a link: The top sheep on the left is the kind we have (don't their heads look like fuzzy white yodas?) http://www.sheep101.info/tails.html
Unfortunately, as you'll see from the link, the lambs don't get to keep their cute tails -- they're "docked" to keep the sheep cleaner and prevent disease. This grosses me a out a bit. Especially now that I've learned that they do it is by tying a rubber band around the tail tightly enough that it atrophies and falls off. Yuck.
Hope no one was eating while they read this!
Sunday, February 4, 2007
What I've been reading 1/28/07 to 2/3/07
This past week was a good reading week. I read one novel that is definitely in my top 5 for the year and a couple others that were quite good, plus some new poetry and a short book of non-fiction.
Kate Mosse Labyrinth
I got this book through Bzzagent.com, recommended for people who enjoyed the Davinci Code and The Historian. While I didn’t fall in love with either of those books, I did find them both to be enjoyable. The DaVinci Code offered an afternoon’s worth of mindless diversion while I was flying somewhere that I now can’t remember. The Historian started off incredibly strong for me, then faded a bit as I went along, but I was glad I read it. So, anyhow, BzzAgent sent me my copy of Labyrinth and I read it right away. It didn’t grab me at first, but it did pique my interest more as it went along. In particular, I ended up really liking the two main female characters, Alice and Alais, both strong, intelligent women, and fairly compelling. The storyline, not as much. It was a bit convoluted for my taste – too many characters in too many different places and time periods. Actually, I guess that makes the title of the book pretty apt, huh; the book itself felt labyrinthine. Overall, I’d give it a B- or C+. I don’t feel like I wasted my time reading it, but it also won’t be making my favorites list. I am going to recommend it to my mom and sister, though. I think it’s more up their alley than mine.
Gail Tsukiyama The Samurai’s Garden
This book definitely ranks in the top 5 books I’ve read in the past year, and it was the perfect antidote to the overly convoluted Labyrinth. I picked it up off the shelves at work (have I mentioned that I love love love working for a company where I’m surrounded by books and book lovers?), though I’m not quite sure why it caught my eye. I’d never heard of the author before, and the book isn’t especially flashy on the outside. In any case, I’m very glad I did read it. Tsukiyama creates this world that is somehow incredibly lush but incredibly simple at the same time. There are really only 3 main characters, and not that big of a supporting “cast” either. Tsukiyama writes in this way that I can only describe as peaceful. Her language and images are quite lovely and reading this book made me feel incredibly calm and quiet and satisfied, like I’d just taken an especially relaxing yoga class.
Mary Lawson Crow Lake
Another one from the shelves at work. Very enjoyable, though I felt it was a bit heavy-handed in the foreshadowing department. Lawson spent most of the book hinting at this big, secret tragedy that ended up being presented in a rather anti-climactic way when it was finally revealed. I also was a bit irritated by being completely unable to place the book in time – the main character felt quiet contemporary, and was only meant to be 20-something, but the world of her childhood really felt like it was meant to have been 50 or 60 years ago. What I did love, though, was the sections of the book that were about the main character as a child. Lawson does a great job capturing that childhood naiveté toward the adult world, knowing that something is going on, but not really understanding what that something is. Plus, I love that the main character is this incredibly intellectual woman, who is so brilliant about the natural world but so un-brilliant about the relationships around her. I like that the book doesn’t slip into that “emotional women/distant men” thing that’s so cliché.
Tony Hoagland What Narcissism Means to Me
This is a book of poetry I ordered from Amazon after I heard one of his poems on an NPR podcast. I absolutely adored the poem from the podcast, and the book is good, but as a whole it didn’t quite live up to the poem. What I like about Hoagland is his sense of humor and the ordinariness of his subjects. He reminds me of Billy Collins in that way, except Hoagland is, even more than Collins, totally a creature of contemporary pop culture. He’s good, though. Recommended. Here’s a link to the poem I heard that led me to buy this book. It's called "A Color of the Sky"
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171303
Elizabeth Soutter Schwarzer Motherhood is Not For Wimps
Schwarzer writes a blog with the same name as this book (www.damomma.com), which has me in fits and giggles pretty much every time I read it, so I ordered her book at the same time I got the Hoagland. As I expected, it made me laugh till I almost cried in places. I think I still like her blog better, perhaps because it’s more “right now.” I think Schwarzer's writing has also gotten better over the years, and everything in the book is from a couple years ago. In any case, I’m going to send this book off to a friend who just had her first baby – hopefully she’ll get a kick out of it.
Katharine McMahon The Alchemists Daughter
Picked up this one on sale at Target, out of their “Bookmarked” rack. They had a buy two get one free thing going on (I also got Jeanette Wall’s The Glass Castle and Jodi Picoult’s The Tenth Circle, both of which I read last week). I think Target actually does quite a nice job selecting books for Bookmarked. Once you get past the inevitable chick lit crap, a lot of the fiction I’ve picked up there has turned out to be quite enjoyable, if not super-intellectual. This book was no different. I’m not usually a big historical fiction fan, because I often feel like the history somehow overrides character and plot development that has real depth to it. This book avoided that trap pretty well, though it did totally have the “gorgeous asshole husband sleeping with the wife’s maid” cliché. Actually, the book made me mad when I first started reading it. I was so pissed that the author had made the main character, Emilie, so naïve as to fall for that guy. It was so obvious, in some ways. Despite that, though, I ultimately got into the book, gained some respect for Emilie, and whipped through the whole thing in one day. I found myself hoping for a neat happy ending, and I didn’t quite get it. It was happy enough, though, and I liked that. Also, McMahon surprised me sometimes with these lovely turns of phrase that just came out of nowhere The book's upstairs and I don't feel like going after it, but I'll try to add a couple quotes later.
This afternoon, in between grocery shopping, house-cleaning, and getting to feed the sheep grain right from my hand, I started reading Wintering by Kate Moses. So far, it is quiet and lovely and sad and it’s making me long for something that I can’t quite identify. I’ll report on it once I’ve finished.
Kate Mosse Labyrinth
I got this book through Bzzagent.com, recommended for people who enjoyed the Davinci Code and The Historian. While I didn’t fall in love with either of those books, I did find them both to be enjoyable. The DaVinci Code offered an afternoon’s worth of mindless diversion while I was flying somewhere that I now can’t remember. The Historian started off incredibly strong for me, then faded a bit as I went along, but I was glad I read it. So, anyhow, BzzAgent sent me my copy of Labyrinth and I read it right away. It didn’t grab me at first, but it did pique my interest more as it went along. In particular, I ended up really liking the two main female characters, Alice and Alais, both strong, intelligent women, and fairly compelling. The storyline, not as much. It was a bit convoluted for my taste – too many characters in too many different places and time periods. Actually, I guess that makes the title of the book pretty apt, huh; the book itself felt labyrinthine. Overall, I’d give it a B- or C+. I don’t feel like I wasted my time reading it, but it also won’t be making my favorites list. I am going to recommend it to my mom and sister, though. I think it’s more up their alley than mine.
Gail Tsukiyama The Samurai’s Garden
This book definitely ranks in the top 5 books I’ve read in the past year, and it was the perfect antidote to the overly convoluted Labyrinth. I picked it up off the shelves at work (have I mentioned that I love love love working for a company where I’m surrounded by books and book lovers?), though I’m not quite sure why it caught my eye. I’d never heard of the author before, and the book isn’t especially flashy on the outside. In any case, I’m very glad I did read it. Tsukiyama creates this world that is somehow incredibly lush but incredibly simple at the same time. There are really only 3 main characters, and not that big of a supporting “cast” either. Tsukiyama writes in this way that I can only describe as peaceful. Her language and images are quite lovely and reading this book made me feel incredibly calm and quiet and satisfied, like I’d just taken an especially relaxing yoga class.
Mary Lawson Crow Lake
Another one from the shelves at work. Very enjoyable, though I felt it was a bit heavy-handed in the foreshadowing department. Lawson spent most of the book hinting at this big, secret tragedy that ended up being presented in a rather anti-climactic way when it was finally revealed. I also was a bit irritated by being completely unable to place the book in time – the main character felt quiet contemporary, and was only meant to be 20-something, but the world of her childhood really felt like it was meant to have been 50 or 60 years ago. What I did love, though, was the sections of the book that were about the main character as a child. Lawson does a great job capturing that childhood naiveté toward the adult world, knowing that something is going on, but not really understanding what that something is. Plus, I love that the main character is this incredibly intellectual woman, who is so brilliant about the natural world but so un-brilliant about the relationships around her. I like that the book doesn’t slip into that “emotional women/distant men” thing that’s so cliché.
Tony Hoagland What Narcissism Means to Me
This is a book of poetry I ordered from Amazon after I heard one of his poems on an NPR podcast. I absolutely adored the poem from the podcast, and the book is good, but as a whole it didn’t quite live up to the poem. What I like about Hoagland is his sense of humor and the ordinariness of his subjects. He reminds me of Billy Collins in that way, except Hoagland is, even more than Collins, totally a creature of contemporary pop culture. He’s good, though. Recommended. Here’s a link to the poem I heard that led me to buy this book. It's called "A Color of the Sky"
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171303
Elizabeth Soutter Schwarzer Motherhood is Not For Wimps
Schwarzer writes a blog with the same name as this book (www.damomma.com), which has me in fits and giggles pretty much every time I read it, so I ordered her book at the same time I got the Hoagland. As I expected, it made me laugh till I almost cried in places. I think I still like her blog better, perhaps because it’s more “right now.” I think Schwarzer's writing has also gotten better over the years, and everything in the book is from a couple years ago. In any case, I’m going to send this book off to a friend who just had her first baby – hopefully she’ll get a kick out of it.
Katharine McMahon The Alchemists Daughter
Picked up this one on sale at Target, out of their “Bookmarked” rack. They had a buy two get one free thing going on (I also got Jeanette Wall’s The Glass Castle and Jodi Picoult’s The Tenth Circle, both of which I read last week). I think Target actually does quite a nice job selecting books for Bookmarked. Once you get past the inevitable chick lit crap, a lot of the fiction I’ve picked up there has turned out to be quite enjoyable, if not super-intellectual. This book was no different. I’m not usually a big historical fiction fan, because I often feel like the history somehow overrides character and plot development that has real depth to it. This book avoided that trap pretty well, though it did totally have the “gorgeous asshole husband sleeping with the wife’s maid” cliché. Actually, the book made me mad when I first started reading it. I was so pissed that the author had made the main character, Emilie, so naïve as to fall for that guy. It was so obvious, in some ways. Despite that, though, I ultimately got into the book, gained some respect for Emilie, and whipped through the whole thing in one day. I found myself hoping for a neat happy ending, and I didn’t quite get it. It was happy enough, though, and I liked that. Also, McMahon surprised me sometimes with these lovely turns of phrase that just came out of nowhere The book's upstairs and I don't feel like going after it, but I'll try to add a couple quotes later.
This afternoon, in between grocery shopping, house-cleaning, and getting to feed the sheep grain right from my hand, I started reading Wintering by Kate Moses. So far, it is quiet and lovely and sad and it’s making me long for something that I can’t quite identify. I’ll report on it once I’ve finished.
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