Ahhh, the Reading Life

We're trained to be at jobs early. We need to wait for our clients. Our clients should never wait for us. And, when we have a bevy of inspections to do, we try to stack them together with a few minutes between them, to maximize the day. But, that doesn't always happen due to people's schedules. In both of these cases; you find that it doesn't take as long to get to a job as you planned or you have time in between inspections; there is "dead" time to fill. I always carry something to read with me. It can be my latest book or one of the magazines off the stack, but there is always something to read.

In October, when we had the large number of inspections on one project, I managed to get through a book and a half, just in down time. Since I made most of the appointments and was doing most of the inspection work, I built lunch into my schedule. There was a Subway adjacent to the job site and I spent many lunches in a corner, reading the latest book from the stash. I'm still working through Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I only got half-way through the chronological order of books so I have the rest to read this year. I love what is called the mass-market paperback size. It fits in camera bags.

On one day, I found myself waiting on a supervisor to let me into the next set of buildings to inspect. North Park University has a lovely area right in front of their main administrative building.

There are benches around the area just inviting you to sit down and relax. The gentleman told me he was going to be about 30 minutes late and apologized profusely. "Not a problem," I said. "I can sit here and wait. The benches are comfortable."

I don't remember which book this was, but it was the next one in order. I think I got close to 30 pages into the book before he was able to come get me for the next buildings.

Getting lost in a good book can detach you from reality. I know this all too well. I've picked up the latest read and thought, "I have an hour. I'll just read the next 50 pages or so." The next thing I know, it's 3 hours later, I haven't eaten and the book is 3/4th finished. If you're not interrupted by anything, time evaporates into the pages. I love sitting outside and reading. Of course, there's nothing quite like having Pilchard in my lap when I'm reading, but the smell of fresh air and sunshine seems to make the novel's characters more alive. This day was overcast and devolved into heavy rain, but just being outside, in an inviting place for reading, lifted the mood of the whole day.

If I had money, I'd have an enclosed porch added to the house, where I could open floor to ceiling windows and sit in pools of sunshine and read. Of course, if I had the money, one of the first things would be to add a library. Mmmmmm...

Beverage:  Dunkin Donuts tea

Deb

How Was Your Summer, Part 6

I might have had a lot on my mind at the end of June, beginning of July. But helping Becky find a forever home for the waif in the bathroom was never far away. I posted and reposted the photos. I sent inquiries to no-kill shelters in the east and southeast Virginia area. All were full of kittens. They empathized, but no one was willing to take a kitten. Then a co-worker of Becky's came forward.

She would provide the kitten with a home. Her son had seen the photos and was in love. They would come get the girl the week before I was slated to come to Virginia on vacation. I was thrilled. Then it all fell apart.

I'm not privy to why it fell apart; it just did. We were back to square one. Becky was devastated. "I don't know what to do. It can't live in my bathroom. At some point, Zia (one of her dogs), is going to figure out how to get the door open and I fear Zia will kill her. And there's the whole allergy thing." I looked around my house. I have two girls I adore. Was my house and my heart and life big enough for a kitten? I decided it was and I offered to take the kitten if no one came forward.

Becky pushed everyone at the hospital where she worked. She showed countless people the photos. No one wanted her. So, the day after I arrived, she and Jon came to Carole and Larry's to play games and to bring this little gal, who I was taking home with me. I couldn't come up with a girl's name. I struggled and struggled. I always told myself that if I ever got to name a female cat again, she would be called "Rosalind", after the main character in Shakespeare's As You Like It, one of my favorite plays. But, as I drove east, it just didn't sit right. I finally settled on "Esme", for "Esme Weatherwax", a character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I don't really like Esme, but nothing seemed quite right.

"The naming of cats is a difficult matter. It isn't just one of your holiday games." --T.S. Eliot; Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. 

We put the kitten in my bedroom with food, water and her litter box. The bedroom was about twice the size of the bathroom, plus, there were windows she could look out. She warmed up to me almost instantly and spent half of the night sleeping either on or next to me. We let her come out of the room, supervised, the next day. Carole's cats were unimpressed, except for Jacen and Jaina. Jaina was upset and hissed, growled and spit at the kitten when it came out of the room. Jacen, on the other hand, was really excited to meet Esme and the two of them chased each other, tumbling around on the carpet under the bed. Becky had done a very good job of socialization. There was one problem. This was not a girl. This was a boy.

We had a huge laugh. In Becky's defense, she'd never cared for kittens so had no idea what to look for, shall we say. Well, that changes the naming convention, doesn't it. Esme Weatherwax went right out the window. Immediately, I knew what his name would be, "Hamlet". I don't know why; I just knew. My first cat had been named "Shakespeare". This felt right.

On Monday, July 18th, I left Virginia at 5 in the morning with a kitten under the passenger seat of the car. That's where he stayed the entire trip home, coming out only to use the litter box and to have food and water. When I stopped for food myself, I would check on him. He was quite the trooper. The next day, he went to the vet.

Becky had mentioned she supplemented the wet and dry food with milk supplement for kittens for the first couple of weeks he lived with her. My vet was impressed. He seemed healthy. She felt he was around 4 months old which would be consistent with his size and needing milk supplement when Becky found him. We drew blood to check for feline leukemia. He had ear mites, which was to be expected and he also had fleas. I wound up having to treat everyone for fleas from July through last month. But other than those issues, he's a healthy kitten.

He spent the rest of July and most of August living in the office. I would go in and play with him but contact with the girls was minimal. I would put him in my bedroom and leave the door open so the girls could go into that room and smell his scent. After being in the office for a month, I let him out when I was home. Over Labor Day, I let him out at night, too. No one was allowed into the basement through the month of September, something Pilchard was not pleased with. My rationale was that he needed to learn his name and to come when I called. There are so many hiding places in the basement. One step at a time. He was spayed in September, getting the rest of his shots at that time, too.

There was a lot of hissing, yowling and growling. I opened the basement up in mid-October and allowed Hamlet to go outside during the end of October, when we had some wonderfully warm afternoons and weekends.

But have I made the right decision? Mija and Pilchard are not happy.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Book #6

This is going a bit better than I expected. I can finish a book about every 3-4 days. It does mean, to read the whole series, I need to read a book a week, but that seems a reasonable goal. I finished book 6 last week.

It's the return of Granny (Esme) Weatherwax and introduces Nanny Og and Magrat. (I kept reading her name as "Margrat". It was just easier, eventually, to acknowledge I don't see her name as written, but, right now, she doesn't seem to mind.)

I think this is the first book where many threads of a story are introduced, left dangling, and then tied up somewhat neatly at the end, with the thought that some of the characters introduced will be back in later books. This is a rollicking good read and stands alone as a story in and of itself. You don't need to have read "Equal Rites" to get a feel for who Granny is. She's softer in this book. I still felt she was a bit of a bully, but the storming into lives and simply demanding people do what she thinks should be done, has been softened. She's got two other witches acting as foils and, although they aren't the fierce character she is, they are written as having good and nobel and right answers to the problems posed in the book.

The story, around which all the other threads dangle is that the king of Lancre is murdered by his brother. The king had a son and sympathetic guardsmen scooped up the infant and got him out of the castle immediately after the king's demise. He's given to the witches who place him with a traveling theatre troupe. The boy grows up within the theatre. The duke, who murdered his brother, makes life hard for the witches and goes increasingly mad.

The story is built on Macbeth with bits of Shakespeare's lines wandering through the book, not quite lost, but not quite sure why they are here. "Is this a dagger I see before me?" and "Out out damned spot!" make appearances and the duke's madness owes its origins to Lady Macbeth's madness. If you know Macbeth, you'll laugh at how that play weaves its way through the chapters.

What I liked best, was the discussion of the theatre versus magic. I think this quote sums things up nicely. The theatre troupe is called to Lancre to stage a play where the king who died is portrayed as horrible and the duke is portrayed as nobel. (You'll recognize that trope from Hamlet.) The witches are increasingly accosted as evil in the kingdom where they live and have lived all their lives. They lead respectable lives and people depended upon them, but the duke feels they know too much and he needs to destroy them. "Double, double, toil and trouble" shows up too.

The witches attend the premier performance of this play where the language of the theatre will be used to rewrite history.

"Granny subsided into unaccustomed, troubled silence, and tried to listen to the prologue. The theater worried her. It had a magic of its own, one that didn't belong to her, one that wasn't in her control. It changed the world, and said things were otherwise than they were. And it was worse than that. It was magic that didn't belong to magical people. It was commanded by ordinary people, who didn't know the rules. They altered the world because it sounded better."

I never looked at the theatre in that way before. I've read this book previously, but I didn't remember much of the story. I came into the book expecting to dislike Granny and felt, with this paragraph, a kind of sadness for her. This isn't what she's used to and it really bothered her.

And yet, there is a magic in the theatre. A well-written, well-staged play is like bottled magic. It transports you to a different view of a story. Pulitzer Prize winning plays get that recognition because they envelope you and have you see things just a bit differently. Even something as silly as "Spamalot" has a wonderful kind of magic that helps you forget your cares for 3 hours. Best of all, that magic belongs to us and we can all see it, feel it, touch it.

Things work out in the end, although there is some question about the new king of Lancre. I'm hoping that gets resolved down the road. Now, it's on to new people in a different section of Discworld. I'm a third of the way into book #7.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Book #5

Finished book #5 on Sunday evening. I'm taking a bit of a break to get a counted cross-stitch project at least started. I have to finish it by the first week in May so it gets framed in time to be given away at the end of June. If I was doing the "read one book a month" idea, I'd be up to May. I've come home from work, sat down in the recliner to get a lap cat and thought, "I could start book 6", but I know I'd dive headlong into the book to the detriment of the cross-stitch and I need to, at the very least, get it started.

This book starts the rip-roaring writing style of many of Pratchett's Discworld books. It starts off a bit disjointed, but, by about page 30, you're riding the crest of a magical wave that just doesn't stop until page 220. There is more humor in this book; sentences which leave you chuckling. But the wry commentary on life isn't here. Pratchett doesn't seem to be lampooning life so much as simply writing a good story. And what a story it is.

Rincewind is the main character. Ah yes, Rincewind, the protagonist of the first two books. There are times during this when I wanted to shake Pratchett. I couldn't decide what he was trying to say with the character. Rincewind is not a good wizard. It's said ad nauseum. I get it. I get it. Rincewind has been told, repeatedly, he's awful. He can't do magic. He would just like to live quietly in the library. Yet, life seems to have decided he's going to save the world. I was frustrated with all the pages spent driving home how bad a wizard Rincewind is and how he kept trying to get away from some destiny he didn't want. How that story plays out is very good. The conclusion of Rincewind's story feels right, even if how it got there is a bit rough.

My current all-time best Pratchett quote is found here, on page 5 in my copy. "'...what is it in this world that makes living worthwhile?' Death thought about it. 'CATS,' he said eventually. 'CATS ARE NICE.'" If there is a theme, it would be the attempt to discover what makes living worthwhile. The characters of the book; Rincewind, Coin, Conine, Nijel, the Librarian, Creosote; do grow as the book progresses relative to the characters which surround them. The Librarian seems to be the most prescient of all of them, quite interesting for an orangutang, but even he has to figure some things out and decide what is important. The characters are well-defined and it's easy to root for them.

This theme of finding what makes life worth living is carried over from "Mort", book #4. Rincewind is in book #4, although he's a minor character. The continuity of character is one of the reasons Discworld is beloved. You get to see how characters, minor names in some books, get their own stories, grow and change, as the series took form.

I also like the description of Unseen University's library. It's clear Pratchett loved libraries and the description of this one is wonderful. I'd love to be lost in its stacks. I like how the books are portrayed as sentient. Who hasn't walked into a library or a bookstore and felt the books calling to you. I don't remember if there are more stories involving the library. I hope so. There's a lot to talk about in a library full of magic.

This book would stand on its own. You wouldn't have to read any of the books in front of it to get a lot out of it. It's still good to have read the first two in the series so when Rincewind's story is tied up and delivered, you have a sense of who he is.

Beverage:  Raspberry Seltzer

Deb

Books 2, 3 and 4

It's euphemistically called "the creeping crud" and I got it in the middle of January. I thought it was just allergies; that all the new construction and paint in the office was finally getting to me. Hence, I treated it like an allergy. Yeah, well, about that...

It was nothing more than a heavy cold. Well, a heavy cold that knocked me out for a week. The great thing, if there is such a thing with a cold, is that it's conducive to reading. I can't breathe through my nose. I'm exhausted so I'll take a quick nap that devolves into a 3-4 hour sleep. That means, I'm wide awake at 2 a.m., glaring at the alarm clock. Oh well. Get out of bed, settle into the recliner and pick up my latest Discworld book. 

I finished the first 4 in January. Now, before you say, "Whoa, that's a lot of reading", understand that Discworld books are wonderfully quick reads. There are underlying meanings and commentaries, if you choose to look for them. Otherwise, they are whoppin' good yarns. Pratchett is great at telling stories and, superficially, you can knock off one of his books in 3-4 days, a week tops. The other thing you should know, I've read all of these before, not in order, other than the first two, but over the course of years, I've read them. I don't always remember them but I have read them because they were in the basement, in the stack. So, a second read goes a bit faster than a first read. 

This is the second book of the introduction to the Discworld. The first book ends in somewhat of a cliffhanger. You wonder what will happen to Rincewind, Twoflower and the Luggage. The book takes a bit of love to get into. It could be read as a stand alone book, but, in reality, 80% of the story comes from "The Colour of Magic", so I recommend you read that first. There are more topical references in this book than in "Colour of Magic", so someone looking for the Pratchett wit won't be disappointed. I thought it might not be as quotable, but, once it gets going, the quotable parts come fast and furious. "It is said that the opposite of noise is silence. This isn't true. Silence is only the absence of noise." "...darkness isn't the opposite of light, it is simply its absence."

The metaphorical Pratchett makes its first appearance here. Read those quotes. The opposite of [insert word] is its absence. I remember, when I was a junior in high school, we took a two week family vacation, which was a drive through the mid-south, following, sort of, the meander of the Mississippi River to the gulf. One of our stops was Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. There were a number of tours of the cave you could take. We took one which was 90 minutes underground. I remember, at one point, the ranger said, "Now, we're going to ask you to sit here (indicating a seating area) and we're going to turn off our lanterns and I'd like to ask you to be completely still for two minutes. I have a timer so you'll know when 2 minutes is up. Trust me. That will seem like an eternity." When Pratchett says the opposite is absence, that's what I remember. The black dark; total absence of light. It was creepy. Add to that, no noise. Where we were didn't have any water in it, although there are places in the cave which have running or dripping water. 

I remember the eerie silence. We sat there for 2 minutes and it did feel like an eternity. You started to hear your breathing and your heart beating. I think, as humans, we crave light and noise. Even now, quiet, for me, includes hearing Pilchard snore, or the tapping of computer keys or the crimple of the page of a book as it's turned. We could not live without light and sound. 

This is the third book. There are a lot of characters on the Discworld and Pratchett introduced them in a higgledy-piggledy fashion. I'm focused on reading the books in chronological order, which is far different, other than books 1 and 2, to how they were written. It might be fun, in 5 year's time, to read these in the order they were written, to see how that compares to the chronology. 

This book introduces Esme (Granny) Weatherwax, one of the more colorful characters on the Disc. I like her in later books where she is a character, but, in rereading this book, I don't like her here. The book attempts to lampoon the idea that there is "women's work" and "men's work". Women can't be wizards and men can't be witches, "...because of the lore". It's a feeble excuse and this is meant to highlight how limitations in what men and women can do are silly. 

Granny's purpose is to come to grips with the idea that Esk, the other female character in the book, can be a wizard because she's the 7th child of a 7th son. Technically, the 7th child should be a boy so when the wizard staff is given to the baby, the wizard magic is passed to a male. But that doesn't work out. Granny struggles against convention and, eventually, comes to see that Esk's training needs to be in wizarding and so she has to go where no woman has gone before; Unseen University and wizard training. The problem is how this message is transmitted. 

Granny comes across as a bully. When she's not mildly bullying Esk, she's openly bullying the adults she meets. This is, perhaps, meant to say that her age and wisdom give her an advantage to know that her opinion is the right one, if they would just go along with it without question. But, I felt, many times during the book, uncomfortable with how she was portrayed. She's generally, though not always, right, but this is depicted as only because she glares at people and makes them uncomfortable. That's not depth of character so much as bullying. I didn't see that the first reading through. I'm fairly certain she evens out in temperament in later books so I'm treating this as an introductory story where the character is here and let's see what other adventures she can have later. I don't remember if I've read of Esk after this book. I'm hopeful she will be further developed. I don't remember if she was successful in her studies. 

Finally, I finished this one on Sunday. It takes a bit for this tale to get going. A full 2/3rds of the book is setting up the last 1/3rd which sucks you in and makes you want to keep going, even though it's way past your bed time. 

The personality that is DEATH, i.e. "Mort", a pun of which everyone in the book seems to be aware, is more fully explained, but, again, I don't like him nearly as much in this book as in later books. I think DEATH was meant to be a major character all along but getting him to a point of continuity would be bumpy. 

The actual ending of the book, the last 3-4 pages, feels jerky. I didn't like the segue from the real climax to the end. Too much was left unsaid, unfinished and I don't think it ever gets tied up. In a way, it felt as if Pratchett had created a conflict he couldn't quite resolve in the direction the ending was going. Essentially, DEATH takes an apprentice and the story revolves around the growth of that apprentice into the job and DEATH's foray into the world of the living to figure out why we like life. 

Two characters of note show up; Rincewind, of the first two books, and Albert, DEATH's manservant. Albert becomes important again in a later book and I'd forgotten his backstory. Rincewind, however, feels like an afterthought. The person he is could have been named "Bob" and it would not have changed the story. And how Rincewind got to the position he's in is never explained and that, I feel, is a big oversight. Maybe it will come later, I don't know. Rincewind kind of disappears from the series, if I remember correctly. 

This isn't as much of a quotable Pratchett as his other books are. The musing on mortality, given Pratchett's death last year, was poignant. "Reality is not always what it seems," is probably the best. The book deals heavily with what is and is not real and how one person can change reality. Still this is worth picking up for a long plane ride. It will have you wondering, as DEATH does, "WHY IS THERE A CHERRY ON A STICK IN THIS DRINK. IT'S NOT AS IF IT DOES ANYTHING FOR THE FLAVOR. WHY DOES ANYONE TAKE A PERFECTLY GOOD DRINK AND THEN PUT A CHERRY ON A POLE?" (DEATH's name is always capitalized and everything he says is capitalized.) My friend, Pam, does not like maraschino cherries. I don't think I knew that when I read this book the first time. When I encountered this quote this time, I laughed so hard. She agreed with DEATH's sentiment. 

I'm about a third of the way through book #5, "Sourcery". It contains my all-time favorite Pratchett quote, but I'll leave that for the review. So, this is math, but, if I've done my math correctly, I'm reading #5 and there are 40-ish total books, so I'm 1/8th of the way through the series? That doesn't sound so intimidating. When this task is looked at as, there are 40 books and I've read 4 which means there are 36 more to go, it feels like I won't make it. I'm going to do this. This is my goal for 2016. 

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

Reading Again. Book #1

There are a lot of readers in my World of Warcraft guild. And quite a few articles have been printed in the last days of 2015 and the first days of 2016 about reading.

There's this article on how to read more books.
http://www.vox.com/2015/1/1/7470719/how-to-read-more-in-2015. The take away from the short list is that I can and should stop reading a book I don't enjoy. I can tell you exactly how many times I've done that. Twice. Period. I have slogged through stuff I really wish I hadn't because, well, I bought the blasted thing. It's wasted money otherwise.

Not all recommended books are going to be to my taste. I need to not feel pangs of guilt for disliking some author's writing. My lord. I can't stand Thomas Hardy or, dare I say it, Jane Austin. I suffered through those because my BA in English required it. Unless I'm taking a literature course, my reading is for me, and if Jane Smiley or Thomas Pynchon do not interest me, regardless of the pennies spent on their tomes, I need to let the book go. Perhaps I can leave it in the waiting room of the lab the next time I go see the vampires for my RA blood tests.

In this article, http://www.vox.com/2015/12/29/10634416/reading-list-books, I first encountered the "don't finish what you start" idea. I also encountered the comment that reading fiction teaches you to be a better person. Admittedly, I don't read a lot of fiction. Oh I have a lot of fiction on the shelves, but I don't read it. I don't know if science fiction is what they are driving at here. I'm thinking straight up pretending based on current times is what they mean. Maybe they lump the pretend worlds into the fiction category, but I'm leaning toward the category embracing the new books by Joyce Carol Oates and Danielle Steele, set on terra firma and not in the stars.

I think to the fiction I have read and it's mostly from my days matriculating at Viterbo. Perhaps I should haul out a list of Dickens. Somewhere in the basement, swims Moby Dick. I enjoyed reading that when it wasn't for class. Perhaps I would be more empathetic if I read more fiction, but my goal this year isn't a wide variety of book genres. My goal is simple. Read every Discworld book, in order.

Pratchett, who died March 12th of last year, wrote 41 Discworld books from the beginning, The Colour of Magic to the final The Shepherd's Crown. I've probably read a dozen of them. The downstairs bookshelves contain my collection.

I've long wanted to read them all. They are like old friends who you visit once in a very great while. When we got to discussing books in guild chat and on our Facebook page, a voice inside my head said, "Why are you hesitating reading all of them?" I could throw up flimsy excuses mainly centered on time, but, going back to the very first Vox post on reading, I have the next books lined up.  I think I have the first 8 books. I'm not waiting on an order. A paperback can always be carried somewhere. I can go back to the bigger purse for those times when I know I will have to sit and wait. I don't really have an excuse, other than lethargy and inaction.

Last weekend, I strolled up to my stash and picked out the first 5 Discworld books. I gave them bookmarks and stacked them on the ottoman in the living room, on top of a burgeoning stack of magazines calling, seductively, "Read us first before you start the books. You know you want to." I hesitated. But the siren call of Discworld was louder and I'm rearranging the ottoman so the books are more important than the magazines. I've decided that, as I finish a Discworld book, it goes onto the shelves in the office and I critically look at what I have stored there. I need to be surrounded by things I love and although I love books, those I really won't ever open again need to go into a give away box. Then, the next book in the series can be brought up from the basement or ordered from The Bookstore. This way, if I need something 5 books ahead, I have it.

The other part of the equation is that Pratchett is so easily quotable. If I like a book enough to review it, I want to have quotes at the ready. Because it can take me more than a few days to get to a review, my head has been filled with other things and, oh dear, where was that one quote. I'd end up rereading again. I found my small post its, the rectangular ones with a side stick. I can easily, as I'm reading, mark the passage I found interesting for comment later on. This has been wonderful.

I've started a list of quotes, too; book, page and quote. I had one a long time ago, but it's been lost. Pratchett was able to coin a phrase for a great many of life's situations. I want to be able to find the right quote for the right situation. Not sure how I'll cross-reference the quotes, but this will be a start. Just start, Deb, just start. There is the meme, "Every journey starts with one small step". Collect the quotes first. Then decide how you want to organize them.

Finally, I joined the web site, Good Reads. I don't like that it pushes Amazon as your source for books, but, beyond that, it's okay. I've added a few books I've read and I can see what some of my friends are reading right now and they will be able to see my progress through this goal. There was much hesitation about sharing this. It's kind of like a resolution. (Raises hand. Intones solemnly.) I do hereby resolve, in the year 2016, to read all Discworld books in order. What happens if life intrudes? Indeed, I have a craft project I need to start work on. It won't take very long but I need to collect the pieces and get it done. It has to be done by June. That's going to impinge on my reading time. Read a bit. Craft a bit. It will work as Discworld books can be read in 3-5 sittings of 90 minutes each. But I must give myself permission to get as far as I can and not sweat that I didn't finish this. So, let's not call it a resolution, doomed to failure, but a desire to try to accomplish this task.

I picked up the first volume and cracked it open on Tuesday. Finished it this morning.

You can read my mini-review here. (books. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1512159133) Deeper reviews of the other books will follow. This is to get started.

Why is Pratchett so beloved? From the Foreword, "You can't map a sense of humor." I think, in a nutshell, that sentence encapsulates why readers flocked to him. On the surface, a story about a has-been wizard, ("...he was, he would be the first to admit, a coward, an incompetent, and not even very good at being a failure..." [pages 173-174]), a tourist from a far-off land, and that man's walking luggage; roaming about a land which was a disc, carried by 4 elephants who stood on the back of a turtle swimming through space, would be anything more than head-scratchingly weird. But Pratchett tapped in the funny ("I've seen excitement and I've seen boredom. Boredom is best." [Page 176]) and the poignant. ("Fate can be one mean god at times." [Page 190])

Perhaps he didn't know the books would take off as they did. Perhaps it didn't matter. He would have written them to be shared around winter fires when the latest Tom Clancy didn't please. Whatever the case, I have 40 books to get through. I'll hope you'll check in to see how I'm doing.

Beverage:  hot cocoa

Deb

Late Spring and Early Summer Reads

My friend, Chris, mentioned in passing that he still had some money left on an Amazon gift card he was given at Christmas. He lives in Canada and his employer gives everyone an Amazon gift card at Christmas. It's usually from Amazon Canada but last year, someone goofed and got them from Amazon US. Well you could order from the US, but the duty taxes to import stuff are pretty steep. So, Chris got me the bathroom set and all the M&Ms back in January. The little bit he had left was mine if I wanted it because he had nothing else to spend it on.

I always wrestle with that kind of offer. I never, ever want to appear greedy. Does accepting something like that make me look greedy? After thinking it over, however, I sent him a list of things which I would like if he really wanted to spend the money. I didn't want to know if he did or if he found something else to do with it. I would be surprised if something came.

Something came.

I have my late spring and early summer reading taken care of. Larson's book is brand new, coming out in March. And I haven't read that Pratchett book. I found out there are 40 books in the Discworld saga. I'm pretty sure I haven't read even half of them. (I still can't find my copies of Going Postal and Hogfather. It's driving me nuts as I want to reread Going Postal.) It's supposed to be a wonderfully warm weekend so I probably won't get to watching the movie, but I'm really excited to watch it.

So, I'm thrilled to be the recipient of Chris' company's error. I need to get the deck stained and sealed and the flowers planted and I'm good for this year's summer relaxing. Ah the simple joy of falling into a book.

Beverage:  English Teatime Tea

Deb

You Might Be a Geek

I need more tee shirts like I need pneumonia. I remember reading somewhere that tee shirts were the number one clothing item found in landfills. I believe it. I have a month's worth of good shirts and a half a month's worth of "but I can't throw this away" shirts.

I have trained myself to not look at the collectible tee shirts when I visit a location. Last year's trip to the north half of the Skyline Drive through the Shenandoah National Forest, yielded a coat and a pair of socks that I love. They had nice tee shirts, very nice, but I can't have any more. In fact, I've started a box of tee shirts I no longer wear because they are useful in crafting. Somewhere, there exists a grand plan for turning a month's worth of tees into a quilt. Some day. Some day.

Still, I think one of the reasons people gravitate towards the tee is because you can "wear your heart on your sleeve" so to speak, with little impunity. I can broadcast that I've been to Charleston, South Carolina, that I love cats, that I read banned books from the relative "safety" of my chest. Freedom of expression seems more free when plastered on the front of a navy Hanes bulky tee. And, if you're going to give away a mass quantity of something for participants at your event, you can't go wrong with a tee shirt, although I admire your ability to decide how many XXS and XXL you need to get to have enough and not 85 left over.

Although I steer clear of them now, owing to the number in my closet, I'm not immune to their siren song. This was a shirt seen at Woot.com at the beginning of January.

Woot is an overstock distributor. Every day, they have a wide variety of items marked way down to liquidate. It's quality stuff. I've purchased sheets and yard items from them. They also feature tee shirts from independent producers. This one is amazing and I had to get it.

For those of you scratching your head, the style is reminiscent of Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night". It's got the similar colors done with the ball stars and the impressionistic brush strokes. What made this shirt appealing was the design. This is Discworld, the science fantasy world created by Sir Terry Pratchett. The world is a flat disc, supported at four points by elephants. These elephants stand on the back of the great space turtle, A'tuin. He flies around the universe and, occasionally figures into the books.

If you want to start this series, get "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic". The Wiki link has a list of the books as written. Pratchett would jump forward and backward and sideways through the lives of his characters. As a for instance, the 5th book  in the list, "Sourcery", has the main character from the first two, Rincewind, interact with "The Witches", who were in the 3rd book written. Characters come and go and there are often references to events in other books, books you might not have written. "Oh dear. Must go get that one now."

There's really not a definitive order to reading them. You could just grab the first one you see and jump in. But the scene is set by reading the first two mentioned. When I think about thinning my library, getting read of Discworld books is not part of the equation. Accumulating all of them, that's something I'm trying to do.

So now the task is to go through the shirts I have and move at least one to the quilt/craft box. I have long told myself that if I buy a tee shirt, I have to give one away or take it out of circulation. I suppose putting it in the craft box is not the same at giving it away, but I'm thinning what's in the closet, which is the important part.

You'll rarely see my face in my own blog, but this is a momentous occasion.

My favorite Discworld quote, "What is there that makes life worth living? Cats...cats are nice." DEATH from "Sourcery".

Beverage:  Scottish Breakfast Tea

Deb

I Had Some All Along, Photo(s) 26

Carole has asked that I find some books in a series that she used to read. I do remember the series so I've been in the basement off and on over the last 10 days, to try to find them. I found other stuff, but, so far, not the books she wants.

I have two stacks of Discworld books.

Yes, I have read Jane Eyre, Sideways Stories and Charlotte's Web. I have not read Catwings Return, The Moonstone or The Magician's Nephew. I could get rid of Jane Eyre and not ever read it again. It was better in the first Thursday Next book, The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde, but you do need to have read the original to understand what was going on in Fforde's book.

The Color of Magic is the very first book in the Discworld series. (If you're curious about this series, start with that one and then read The Light Fantastic.) I was looking at that and thinking, "You know, I should reread all of these. It would take about 3-4 days for the bigger ones, like Pyramids, but I could finish Equal Rites in a weekend." My recent read, Thud, was added to the stack.

On the bottom shelf is a libretto from Porgy and Bess, the Gershwin's great American opera. I'd forgotten I had this. In 1980, I got to see the whole opera produced at Indiana University. It was magnificent. I probably don't need to keep the libretto as I'm not likely to see the opera again, but, it's one of those things I feel like having.

As I plowed through sections of the basement, I started a stack of garbage. I had water in the basement a many years ago and some things, which were on the floor, really should be tossed. Plus, I had that mice infestation a couple years ago, which the girls eradicated, and I'm finding remnants of where they lived for a bit before a cat sniffed them out and they vacated. I can only work for about 2 hours before the moving of boxes and the sweeping of stuff gets to my joints and I have to rest. But given that it's been years since I cleaned in some spots, this is a victory.

The books have stubbornly refused to reveal themselves. I opened a long thin box and came face-to-face with

a whole box of packing peanuts.

At Christmas, I send out a bunch of gifts. Invariably, I am out of packaging. I have to pillage the office stores for padding. Here, I had packaging materials, more than enough packaging materials, to ship anything this past Christmas. I'm always thought this box contained paperback books.

So, what do I do? Should I move these from the box, which is, actually a good place to store them since stuff can be piled on top of it or it can go on top of other things because it's light, or should I recycle these? I am, likely, traveling over Christmas, so much of what I would normally ship won't be shipped this year. Maybe, as I clean more, I'll find an innocuous place to stick this where I can forget it in December when I'm looking to ship stuff. You know how that goes. "I'll put it right here where I'll remember." Sure I will.

The hunt goes on. I have a few other places I look and then I have no clue. Did they get water logged and we toss them. Carole doesn't think so, but anything could have happened. In the meantime, it's kind of been like an archeological dig in my own basement. "Oooh! I forgot I had this."

Beverage:  Scottish Breakfast tea

Deb

2014 Book 2

I suppose having a heavy cold is good for one thing. I finished another book on the way to reading twelve this year.

This is another in Pratchett's hugely popular Discworld series. Unlike previous books, you do not need to know the back story of any of the characters to enjoy this novel. This is science fantasy, at least that's where you'll find it. But it's very much a satire and you need to understand that Pratchett skewers everything in his Discworld novels. His British humor (humour?) is very much in evidence but it's not as pronounced as I've seen in other books. I should have counted how many of the series I've read, but I didn't. (When I think of getting rid of some of the books in this house, Discworld books are not even considered.) Come with no preconceived notions of what the book will skewer and enjoy the ride.

So what is this book about. The cheeky answer is, "It's about 300 pages". That's not quite double the size of usual Discworld novels. They tend to hover between 160-180 pages, which is, in paperback size, about a half inch thick. This is a good inch and a quarter thick and even if I lop off the advertising at the end, it's still close to an inch and a quarter.

It's also not as "ha ha" funny as other novels. Oh it's got some priceless moments, but this is a more sober novel, more a twists and turns novel, more a "what's going to happen next" novel. It's a murder mystery, a who-done-it where the "obvious" murderer is obviously not who did it. I can see that. The head of the police (called "The Watch" in the book) can see that. The head of the city where this takes place can see that. But the deceased was the leader of the dwarves and the seeming murderer was a member of their arch enemy, the trolls. Throw in that the murder takes place before the anniversary of the epic battle between trolls and dwarves, one which happened thousands of years ago but is still celebrated. And that battle has, for hundreds of years been a subject of debate about who attacked whom first and, more importantly, who won. The chief of police needs to solve this one, stat, and keep the two sides who really, really, really, don't like each other, from reenacting the battle in the capital city.

There are side plots galore. Discworld books are, to me, like hearty stews. Every person introduced, and some don't show up until you're 2/3rd of the way through the book, every plot twist (Wait a minute. She's a what?) are like additions to the stew. This guy simply dies of fright, of the possibility that he could be taken by the Summoning Dark. The chief of police reads "Where's My Cow?" to his young son every night at 6 without fail and it was hugely amusing to see how much a made up first book which included animal sounds could influence the ending of the novel. (Terry Pratchett actually followed up this book with "Where's My Cow". Looks like I have to get that to have my Discworld collection complete.)

What struck me about the book, however, was how Pratchett used it to comment on the nature of perception, especially when it comes to historical events. There is the aphorism, "History is written by the winners", but what if there weren't winners? What if we took an epic battle, one we know "everything" there is to know about it and discovered it wasn't exactly like we've come to understand all these years? What if the "history" that we know is colored by which side we happen to be on?

I have a lot of bookmarks. They are all in a pile on the desk in the bedroom. I change bookmarks with every book. I just reach into the pile and whichever one feels good, that's the one I use. The bookmark I used for Thud is a Civil War commemorative. One hundred and fifty years later, we are still wrestling with the issues of that war, a war that is greatly colored by which side you happen to fall on, which view you happen to hold.  Pratchett's own English history is filled with great moments of he said he said versus Wales and Scotland and Ireland.

Look across the ocean to Europe and the Mediterranean. Wars have been fought for far less than states rights. In some cases, no one knows the exact reason Joe hates Fred, but they only know they are supposed to because the dwarves and the trolls had an epic battle in this very spot some 4,000 years ago and you dwarves started it. No we didn't. We just came here for the restorative waters and a band of trolls jumped us. Well, I won't give away what the police chief found but it wasn't what "everyone" suspected.

I find the nature of the satirical novel, and Pratchett slathers this on with a trowel so if you don't like satire, don't read Discworld, to be the closest to holding up a mirror to ourselves. I think the huge popularity of Pratchett's novels and he's written far more than just those in the Discworld series, including children's books that are not satirical, hinges on his ability to take what we see every day, and make us think about what it is. He's skewered politics (well, that usually happens when the book is set in the main city), the post office, the movie industry, religion, academia, science fiction, the nature of fame, expectations, you name it, it's probably been poked at. Sometimes, satirists want to change the world. They want you to take down your preconceived notions you've always been told. Most of the time, they just want you to look at things with different eyes or from a different view.

We can't not see something from our point of view as a dwarf, troll, vampire, werewolf, human, ogre, etc. (You tell me what Nobby is.), but we can, for a moment look at our own history with a "what if". What if the Gathering Dark is not allowed to gather, but is rather told to get out of town, could we turn an event where we'd normally recreate a battle into celebrating a commonality between us? Would we then find ourselves reading more "Where's My Cow" to 6 month olds than bashing in peoples heads with clubs?

Beverage:  Cranberry Raspberry seltzer

Deb

It's Just Rotten

Perhaps you have seen this image taken from the space station.

It's been in the news a lot in the last couple of weeks. To the left is Lake Superior to the right is Lake Ontario. In the middle, almost completely obscured are Lakes Michigan, Huron and Erie. Around here, a big deal has been made of Lake Michigan being 90% covered in ice. The Coast Guard has had one of their biggest ice breakers in the far southern tip of the lake, breaking the ice so essential goods can travel by barge out of Chicago and Gary, Indiana harbors. Three weeks ago, a TV news crew went with them and the crew said it's one of the worst winters they have seen for lake ice. They think they get a channel cut and two days later, it's frozen again.

Here we are in March and, true to the aphorism, "In like a lion, out like a lamb", we got a heavy snowstorm on March 1st.

Yeah yeah. It's pretty, but Ive grown exceptionally tired of it. 

There is beauty in the pattern of white snow and blue shadow cast by an afternoon sun but I came down with a cold, the first heavy cold I've had in several years and this limited anything I was going to do, including shovel snow. Of course, that makes me frustrated because it needs to be moved from one location to another because it's too deep to be walked through in just shoes. I have to wear my boots and, as much as I like my boots, I'm tired of putting them on; of ear muffs, of scarves, of zippers and snaps and gloves. Just tired of winter in general. 

The weather people were quick to say that meteorological winter arrived at the end of February, all the while telling us there would be two more storms dumping snow on Chicagoland this week. As I type this, the 3 incher is outside, spitting white flakes in flurries and raging torrents. I was well enough yesterday to shovel the deck, out to the car and the front steps out to the mailbox. So much for that. 

There's nothing one can do besides yell outside when you've moved more snow, "Stop already" and know that Mother Nature is laughing. She seems more like a character from a Terry Pratchett Discworld novel this year than she ever has. I do wonder what we've done to honk her off so much that she insists winter be with us and her coat of snow covering the land for a long time. And when you're sick and the thought of moving yet another 3 inches from point A to point B makes you physically weak in the knees, you feel you will strangle another cheery weather person who says, "Well, we are in meteorological spring". Stick it where the sun don't shine. 

I spent Sunday and Monday either sleeping or in the recliner reading. The only good thing about being sick is that I'm pretty much immobile, excepting the times I need hot tea. That means my lap is not mobile. 

 That means, while I watch "Easter Parade" and then read, I have the benefit of both girls. Mija loves to flop onto my hand and gets her chin and head scratched.

Pilchard simply settles in, stretches out and goes to sleep. I haven't been coughing much with this cold so there isn't a wracking hack which would shake Pilchard and cause her to leave. Mija has always seemed scared of sneezes and coughs so she bolts when either of those occur. But, for about 2 hours, we are a happy trio.

It's rotten that there is more snow and no sign of spring. It's rotten that the current projections are that we will have a colder than normal spring because the lake is 90% frozen. It's rotten that a cold finally nailed me. Yet, when it's us, dozing in the recliner, watching the news or a lovely Fred Astair movie or just reading book number 2 for this year, we can, for a moment, set aside the next snow storm.

Beverage:  Earl Grey tea

Deb

Almost Almost

If you remember, this is the year of the "anti-resolutions". This is the year to cleanse myself, or at least try to, of habits which are self-destructive. I still spend too much time in the cult of celebrity, but I'm getting better. I'm also posting less in social media and trying not to beat myself up as much. While the former is simply a matter of, as the cursor hovers over the latest gossip, opting not to click, the latter very much is telling myself that I'm okay as I am, that I will be okay as I am and that, if I need assistance or information, there are people out there who can provide that. But I did decide to make one resolution.

At the beginning of the year, this was the stack of magazines on the ottoman.

That's eight, count 'em, eight magazines left. This is a far cry from a couple years ago when the pile could have injured one of the girls.

When I realized that I was getting caught up on magazines, I decided I would resolve to finish off the pile, completely, before I did any crafting. I honestly don't know what my craft for this year will be and that's primarily due to my decision to read these instead of craft books.

Since the top photo was taken, I've read 3 more magazines. There are 5 left. I get one Scottish magazine and Cooking Light and a cross-stitch magazine and that's it. That's enough for me to be able to stay on top of them and not let them get into the paper equivalent of a mountain.

What will I do when the stack is gone? Well, my goal is to read 12 books, one for each month. I realized in December that while I don't add to my personal library, I also don't remove things from it. It's tough to get rid of books but I've come to understand that I don't tend to re-read them, even if I liked them the first time. I'm debating about my collection of Terry Pratchett's Discworld. I haven't picked up any of them, except for the first two, since I read them the first time. As I seek to divest myself of stuff, I need to look critically at what books I keep and what books I take to a used book store.

For now, I'm working on the magazines. The Highlander tends to be more article than photos. Scottish Life has an equal part article and photos but it has several columns that do not have a lot of photos so they take time to read, although I will simply skim the column on whiskey since I no longer drink. The Scotland Magazine is more photo than words, something I don't like. Plus, their proofreading, even if I allow for the differences between US and British grammar, leaves much to be desired and is very bad. Let's just say, I have not missed that magazine coming into my home.

It's a good feeling to be this close to having the stack gone.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Favorites Back-to-Back

Yesterday was International Cat Day. I tried to take some photos when I got home figuring I haven't take their pictures in at least a week, but they were in no mood to pose. I was able to corral them for a hug, a tight, scrunchy, "I love you this much" hug, followed by a kiss on the nose, followed by a leap off the lap indicating they couldn't wait to get away from me.

I've gone through the cat folder in my Flickr account and I have selected two of my favorite photos of them to reshare.

I love this one of Mija.

This is trust. This is love. Yes, this totally interrupts whatever it is I want to do since she's lying on my right arm and I'm right handed, but I don't care. This exemplifies our relationship. 

I love this one of Pilchard. 

 She never met a box she didn't try to get into. Of course this was too small, way too small for a 12 pound cat. Did that stop her? She's my diva. She rules the roost. She causes the problems but she's also my lap cat and my alarm clock if only because the food dishes are empty.

Sometimes, especially when I have the potential to be suddenly deployed to a job that may require an overnight stay, I think how much less complicated life would be if I didn't have to call Pam and ask, "Can you feed the girls because I have to go to Iowa for work?" Yes, my livingroom rivals a packing store and I never have completely white clothing. It always has black hair on it. And yet, when I come home and there are faces waiting for me, faces that sleep with me and sit in my lap, I cannot imagine life without cats.

Today is National Book Lover's Day. I am a happy lover of books.

I'm not reading a book at the moment. I finished 2 magazines last night from the stack and seeing how few are left on the stack makes me inspired to work on magazines over my upcoming vacation. Either a book or magazine is good for sitting on the deck in the morning with a mug of tea and a bowl of fresh cut fruit. I might pull a book out of this stash and start it. We'll see.

So, two things that define me have back-to-back days. I'll never remember this so I do something interesting next  year, although the Book Lover's Day will fall on a weekend. A visit to a bookstore, perchance? Just what I need, more books. I really need to make a list of all my Discworld books so I don't run the risk of accidentally buying one I have. And  I don't remember what the next one is in the Thursday Next series I'm reading. I should buy Erik Larson's most recent book, In the Garden of Beasts. It's out in paperback now, although I haven't read Thunderstruck which is in the stacks above.

If I combine both loves, I really should read Cat Daddy, the book I won from the blog, Cat Wisdom 101.

I was so excited to receive this and, well, it's still in the stack, unread.

But, I agree, 100%, with the late Edward Gorey who designed this tee shirt.

As long as I have a book and a cat, life will always, always be good. Happy National Book Lover's Day to my book loving readers and a belated happy World Cat Day to those who live with cats. If you live with both, double salute.

Beverage:  tea

Deb

Reading is Fundamental. A Lot of Books are Not.

One shelf of the two bookshelves in my home office. Lewis Carroll. Shakespeare.

Miscellaneous. The trips of April and May provided me with time to read. I took the cross-stitch along but, when the car died, I didn't feel like putting the effort into counting stitches. Getting lost in a good book was highly preferable. That book was consumed in 14 hours. I picked up a second one in anticipation of the May trip. It's a collection of essays and doesn't promote straight reading. Read 3 or 4 at a time. Set the book aside. Read another 2 to 3 at another time.

The television shows about hoarding got me thinking about my books, as did the current read. It's a book entitled "Readings" and it's by Pulitizer Prize winner, Michael Dirda. For some reason, the photo I have of the book cover is corrupted so you'll need to go to the link to see it. The author is a book critic and a voracious reader. I've found some of his essays on books and reading to be obtuse, but most of them are spot on, exceptionally humorous and full of dropped names, including authors, critics and, most importantly, books.

He defines bibliophiliac. I consider myself one, but I've got nothing on him. I have two stacks in the bedroom, two stacks in the cats' room, three bookshelves upstairs, two bookshelves and numerous boxes in the basement. He describes boxes upon boxes of books, of sneaking off to second hand bookstores, of then having to sneak the purchases made at said stores past a long-suffering wife. I read, deliciously, the essay wherein she culled their boys' bedrooms of books and how he was horrified at what she was going to get rid of, even when "getting rid of" meant taking to a second hand bookstore where they would be sold to new homes. I watched with no small horror as people in hazmat suits shoveled stuff from the homes of hoarders. This is no less a hoarding situation, only it involves books, and, I would wager, we wouldn't blink an eye at the dozens of boxes in a basement or attic.  They are only books.

He talks about trying to get as many different editions of one book as he possibly can. I just read an essay on erotic literature and he mentioned his collection of Lolita books, how each cover from each reissue of the book reflects the sensibilities of the times and what the publisher felt needed to be emphasized. He has 7 different copies of the book, each with a different cover. After reading that, I went into my office and there was the shelf pictured above.

I know what he's talking about. I wanted a copy of everything Lewis Carroll ever wrote because I did my senior thesis on "Nonsense Words in Lewis Carroll's Through the Lookingglass and What Alice Found There". I love Shakespeare so collecting books about him was sort of to be expected. Along life's journey, I've found other things that pique my interest and that I must have. Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series is my current object. I have, I think, all of Agatha Christie's mysteries.

Writings have been burned since the Chinese figured out how to develop an alphabet and assemble that into words on paper. This allowed ideas, which could be against the grand view of the current rulers, to be widely disseminated. Martin Luther started a whole new religion by writing some ideas on parchment and nailing them to a church door. Control ideas and you can control people. Ban books and the ideas contained therein never see the light of day. They don't assault your carefully ordered frame of existence. Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 was written during the McCarthy era when ideas which didn't conform to a scared government were deemed "un-American".

I think, at some deep metaphysical level, those of us who love books have the idea that we could lose them and it's up to us to save them for future generations. It becomes important to keep these, to pass them along, to be subversives because who knows when Douglas Adams will be banned. We can't let that happen because we are aware of what a vast amount of knowledge was lost when the library of Alexandria in Egypt was burned. It's not called the Dark Ages because there was no electricity.

If we are real biblioholics, we wander the bookstores, both new and used, for the quintessential find for whatever genre we enjoy. Some people collect first editions. Some collect graphic (essentially comic book, for those who don't know the term) novelizations of their favorite stories. Some collect specific authors. Some collect specific topics. But we all collect to have, to keep, to preserve. And that's where I'm wrestling with another side of myself.

Divestiture. I mentioned, a few posts back, that I'm going to pare my cookbooks down to a manageable few. AWK! What was I thinking!? That is going to mean getting rid of some. I have them stacked on top of the bookshelf and I'll never use those ones up there because they aren't on the shelf and I never see them. I barely use the ones I have because there's the storage unit in front of the bookshelf but once that's gone, it's time to purge. I tell myself that. I tell myself it will be "easy" to review what I have and just get rid of the ones that don't interest me anymore. Get. Rid. Of. Books. I have books stuffed sideways on other shelves too. I've long wanted them to be upright. And those two stacks in my bedroom? I want to read those books and get rid of those stacks. I want all my Terry Pratchett books to be in one location. They are currently scattered between three different shelf units. All of this means some have to go.

That is the hard part. Books are friends. I'm introverted and I've found a lot of solace in books. Reading Rainbow's hook was that books can take you anywhere. I've been reading since kindergarten. I would give my eye teeth to get a full set of the primers I learned to read from. The Red Book, The Blue Book. I remember the thickness of The White Book, which was really a pale lemon color, that we got in second grade. I remember reading ahead and being annoyed with the reading group to which I was assigned. Some of the farm kids considered reading to be a mere annoyance. Why read when you could get your information from TV? "Did you see Mr. Ed last night? That was so funny!"

Surrounding myself with books is in my blood. I could never not have a home library. I have long wished for the funds to add to my house. I'd add a second story which would include a library where all my books could be filed, just like a public library; non-fiction here, fiction here, cooking there, science fiction there, cat books here in the middle. That would be nirvana.

The Chicago Tribune's Book Fair is June 8 & 9 this year. It's already calling to me. "Come. Come. You came last year and left with a few things. Come again. There will be more to see." I probably will go. I'll develop a list of books I'm looking for, books to add to the stack in the bedroom.

So, I'm wrestling with this. I don't NEED more books. I will always have books on my birthday and Christmas lists but I don't NEED to possess them long term. When was the last time I opened The French Connection, an adequately good thriller? I could get rid of it. I tell myself that, repeatedly. Let's see, over the summer, how many books actually make it into a give away box.

Beverage:  Darjeeling tea

Deb

A Book Inhaled

It's been on the stack for a couple years now. Pam gave this to me as a Christmas present.

I'm not sure why I decided to pick up a book and read. The stack called out to me and I grabbed the top book which happened to be this one. I'm trying to come up with a way to describe it, for those of you who don't know Terry Pratchett and Discworld. Perhaps a good summation would be "The Golden Girls take on Opera".

You don't have to know a thing about opera to enjoy this book. You also probably don't need to know anything about Discworld to enjoy this book. Some of the books in the Discworld series are better if you've read a companion volume. This one can stand alone.

But, if you know anything about opera and about The Phantom of the Opera; the movies and the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical; this will be quite funny. There is Christine. There is the 'fat lady'. There is murder and embezzlement. There are witches. There is a ghost. There are underground caverns and secret stairwells and trapdoors and a cat. I really enjoyed trying to figure out 'who done it' and realizing, at the same time as the protagonist, that I was wrong.

I can devour Pratchett's Discworld books. They are so funny, pointed and satirical. This one is less of a topical examination as some are, and more of a humorous look sideways, at opera. I'd rank it with Moving Pictures, another Discworld book you should read. I started reading this on Monday and finished it last night. If you are looking for a smart, witty, funny, entertaining read, you can't go wrong.

Beverage: tea

Deb

Day 30 - An Author that you will read whatever they put out

I was so busy yesterday, that although I had this topic covered, I didn't have time to post day 30. This is a good topic to end a 30-Day book challenge.

If you've hung with me, you know there are others whom I could have put in this spot; Terry Pratchett and Jasper Fforde. I decided on Erik Larson because he writes what is probably termed "historical fiction". This means, he takes a real event, researches it and then writes about that event, but he makes up things that couldn't possibly be known, such as how people felt or what private conversations they might have had with, say, a neighbor.

I stumbled across Larson in 1999, when I worked at The Bookstore. A book named Isaac's Storm had just come out. It was about the Galveston, Texas hurricane of 1900, which has been labeled the deadliest hurricane in US history. As the hurricane category scale and the appellation of names to them had not happened, it's referred to only as the "Galveston hurricane".

The Isaac of the title was the chief meterologist stationed in Galveston. The book details not just how much the fledgling US Weather Service knew, but when they knew it and the whole political climate surrounding how much information to feed the public. In reading this book, particularly with the backdrop of Hurricane Irene behind us, you might be appalled at what people of 1900 took for granted. Galveston changed the Weather Service.

I was allowed to take the book home to read. After all, it's hard to sell something you haven't read. Jenny, one of the co-workers, called and said she wanted it back the next day so she could put it in the window. I had already read a bit over a third of it so let's keep going.

I distinctly remember looking at the clock in the living room at 1:30 a.m. Larson was building up to the arrival of the hurricane. I like to tell people, "The hurricane arrived at 2 a.m. and I didn't put the book down for another hour." I know I was tired the next day, but I could take Carole to school, go drop off the book at the store and come home for a nap. 

After that, I read Devil in the White City. This was another "can't put me down" books. I supposed the setting, Chicago and the World Colombian Exposition of 1893 was appealing from the start. There are things still on the south side of Chicago which were created for that world's fair. The 'devil' was one, H. H. Holmes who, it is thought, murdered from 20 to 200 people while he lived in Chicago. Most of these murders took advantage of the World's Fair by luring people to stay at a 'boarding' house Holmes had set up along one of the avenues to the fair. The house has been long gone. I read this at a time when I had to drive through that area for work and I tried to imagine what it looked like, with all the buildings and the people.

His next book, which I have not read but which is in the pile is Thunderstruck, a story about the first wireless transatlantic communications. Guglielmo Marconi's story is told in tandem with that of a Scotland Yard detective who is hot on the trail of a murderer who is moving to Quebec. It's been called Larson's least compelling book. As I haven't read it, I can't testify to that.

The book at the top of the column is Larson's latest. It came out in May. It's the story of William Dodd, the US ambassador to Hitler's new regime. All the press I've read about it say this is Larson's best book to date. I'll have to see if I can get it.

And this concludes 30 days of books. This has been quite fun and has forced me to assess my reading.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Day 14- Book that should be on hs/college required reading list

I'm late in posting. There will be a post on why at a later date. Onwards.

I saw this topic on Sunday and spent the better part of the day thinking about it. I was drawing a complete blank on what I wanted to attach. About 10:30 at night, on Sunday, as I was winding down for sleep, it hit me. Yesterday, I found the books so I could photograph them.

 

Science fiction/fantasy is not covered on reading lists. That is a shame. Some places will have I, Robot by Isaac Asimov or Ray Bradbury and Martian Chronicles or Kurt Vonnegut and Fahrenheit 451 on their "supplemental" lists but I haven't seen a list where science fiction or fantasy was required. 

These are my Discworld books. I am missing The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. I don't know where they are. Those are books one and two and I strongly recommend reading them first before jumping into any of the ones you see above.

What science fiction can do that a "regular" novel can't is deal with a subject such as religion (Small Gods) in a very pointed manner. Setting the theme on a fake planet distances the reader from the topic, adds what can be a necessary degree of separation to allow the reader to think about how the theme applies to them and their life.

The other thing sci-fi does is allow the writer to engage in what I consider the best "what if" scenarios. Carole's read them and I can't remember the name of the series, but there's a whole collection of books based on the premise that the South was given supreme weaponry and used it to win the Civil War. In this world, the author can stand convention on its head and look at huge "what if" scenarios.

A lot of parents and students feel the 'required' reading list is a chore and show be abolished. As I believe reading is supposed to expand the mind and jump-start the ability to think critically, I think a year 'round reading list should be given. I think Terry Pratchett's wry sense of humor would appeal to high school and college students. If you do pick up his novels, be prepared to have a few "oh yeah" moments; those moments when the humor hits very close to home.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Day 9- A Book you’ve read more than once

Yes, I'm a day late. I just didn't feel like posting yesterday. I have a lot of gripes lately and am debating if a griping post would make them easier to deal with. They are the kinds of things that annoy more than anything else.

Plus, yesterday's topic caused me to spend a lot of time thinking about it. The way my reading goes now, it's rare that I read a book more than once. I love reading Terry Pratchett and Jasper Fforde. Pratchett's Discworld series is filled with wonderful lines that can be quoted again and again. But other than the, "Which book has that one line in it?", which causes me to skim them again, I haven't gone back to read the books once I finish them. I have a large library of books I don't want to give away, but will I go back to them? Probably not.

Hence, finding something that I've read more than once was a bit of a challenge. I thought about the cookbooks I return to again and again. I have been known to sit down and read a cookbook as a novel. After all, I don't think you can get the flavor of the book by checking just the recipes for chocolate cake.

As I sat in the office last night sorting some piles my eye caught one shelf of books. I have most of J.R.R. Tolkien's books. He wrote more than just the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He wrote a prequel of sorts to the Hobbit, a very dense book called The Silmarillion. He wrote Letters from Father Christmas and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Legend of Sigard and Gudrun. He was quite prolific but he will always be remembered for Bilbo and Frodo Baggins and their 4 book adventure.

I have read those 4 books at least 3 times. I didn't see my copies on the shelf upstairs. It's possible they are on the bookshelf in the basement. Each time I read them, I discovered something I hadn't read before.

For voracious readers, these are kind of "Well, yeah. Everyone's read them more than once." So, I struggled to find something else that I have read more than once. Shakespeare falls into this category as I read one of his plays every year. But, I have already talked about Macbeth. I'm looking for something I might have read that you might not have since I have rather eclectic tastes.

I don't know what triggered the thought this morning as I was searching Barnes & Nobel.com for a photo to illustrate this and Day 10's post. The book leaped into the front of my mind just like a teenage cheerleader at a football game.

In 1971, Gene Hackman won a Best Actor Oscar for the movie, "The French Connection". I don't remember how I came by the book on which the movie was based, but it had a photo of Gene Hackman on the cover. I didn't see the movie until the 1980's, but I read the book at least 3 times. In fact, my copy was so worn, the back cover fell off at one point.

I remember being gripped by the story; raw heroin being smuggled into the US by a suave Frenchman and the initially unlikable cop who intends to stop this guy. I'm thinking this might be the first "I can't put this down" book I remember reading. I know I read it during the summer when being glued to a book until 2 a.m. didn't impact the next day's schooling. I also know I raved about it and got rather confused looks from schoolmates.

So, I'm going to list these two, one kind of obvious and one very much not. I far prefer Gene Hackman on the cover of the book.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb