May 26-Monday (holiday)

We had a nice weekend with Marty and his friends going wine tasting in Sonoma and visiting at our house in Vallejo but I didn’t have as much time for reading and for annotating books as I had hoped.  I did get to read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde this morning and tonight I will finish Silmarillion before I go to bed.  I also read An Unsuitable Job for a Woman Friday and finished last night-so I guess I did get some reading done.  The summaries will have to wait until later this week when I get home.

I got to visit 2 bookstores this weekend.  Friday we went to Barnes and Noble to browse and I did break the “no buying” ban.  I found a beautiful edition of The Divine Comedy in the Longfellow translation (which I have been trying to find ever since I read The Dante Club) which also had the Gustave Dore illustrations.  I had to buy it (only $18 in HC!) because there was only one copy on a bargain table and I might never see one like this again.  So far I’ve done admirably on resisting books during the buying ban but now I’ve ruined my record.  Today we went to Borders in Vacaville which is where we were to meet John and Susie.  Jim found a book about the Mondovi family that he wanted and since it was on a buy one get one at ½ price he also bought Devil in the White City, a nonfiction story that takes place in Chicago during the 1893 World’s Fair which Tucker had recommended to him.  He doesn’t have to pay attention to the ban because although he likes books he can control himself most of the time in a book store.

I’ve been reading a “book about books” that I got from the library, The Yellow- lighted Bookshop, subtitled a memoir, a history.  It is one man’s journey with books both as a vendor and as a reader.  The most important thing I have learned in this book is that not only do I suffer from “book lust” I am also a “book snoop!”   Whenever I see someone reading I am always curious to know what the book is-not to make judgments but just interest in what other people are reading.  I tend to surreptitiously try to read the title or at least see the cover (in an airport I’ve been known to then go to the bookstore to see if I can locate the cover to find out the title).  It was nice to discover that I’m not the only one who does this (the author at least tries to see the title-I don’t know if he carries it to the extreme I do).

When I get home I will have to get serious about making my “classics list” for the challenge I plan to do.  I’m still trying to decide if this is a good time to try Anna Karenina.  We only have to read an average of a book a month and if I did it in the summer I should be able to not get too bogged down.  This challenge will probably make me have to give up my goal of 100 books this year anyway.  As Dad’s doctor said-you have to weigh quantity against quality-although he was talking about life, not literature.  Although, come to think of it, is there really that much difference between the two?  There are just so many books and I have so little time-and that gets shorter every year!

Desultory “daily” notes:

March 30, 2008

This is the last day of our “tax trip” to Vallejo.  We have had a nice time with Melinda visiting for the weekend.  She lives in Kansas but her older son and his family live in San Ramon which is only about 20 minutes from our Vallejo house so she came over to spend a couple of days with us.  She has lent me the next two Maisie Dobbs books (the series she started me on in February) which I don’t have to return until July-something to look forward to reading and no pressure to read quickly.  I finished the 1^st book in the Julia Spencer-Fleming series, also Melinda’s recommendation, and can look forward to getting the next one from the library after I read a couple more for the Book Challenge.  Melinda also recommended three other books for me to read:

Zigzag by Ben Macintyre, the true story of an MI5 double agent during WWII based on files released by the British a couple of years ago;

Killing Floor by Lee Child, the first in a series of novels about Jack Reacher, a former military policeman who travels incognito solving problems as he meets them-there are 12 books in this series so far, so if I like it I’ll be set for quite a while;  and

Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera, a young adult novel about a Maori legend and Maori culture.

I will be examining these sometime soon.  I’m not likely to run out of ideas for reading.  It is nice to have someone to “talk books” with for awhile.

We took Melinda to a new (for us, that is) winery in Napa (which is about 45 minutes from Vallejo) called Hess Collection.  The wine was good and they have a wonderful art gallery that takes up two floors-museum quality modern art.  My favorite artist was Franz Gertsch, especially his woodcut prints.  I also liked Magdalena Abakanowicz, especially her fiber art and Frank Stella.  We’d like to go there with our son  Marty sometime as he, too, really enjoys art museums.

I had hoped to finish Silmarillion this month for the BC but I’m only a little past the halfway point so I guess I’ll have to wait until April to get credit for that.  I also need to read the J.D. Robb book I borrowed from Mary in January.  I did a better job journaling this month but didn’t get as much reading done.  I guess it is a trade-off.  At least I’m caught up with my summaries.

Desultory “daily” notes:

March 14-Friday

I had a very busy week and no time for journaling but tonight we are spending our second night in Monterrey and Marty is at the rehearsal dinner so maybe I can spend some time catching up.  We are here for Ty’s wedding tomorrow and staying in the house of one of Marty’s dance friend’s family.  We arrived yesterday evening and went to dinner at Fifi’s on Forest Avenue-just a short ways away from where we are staying with wonderful food, good atmosphere and very nice people.  This morning we lounged around the house because Marty didn’t feel well and wanted to rest before all the activities.  I got a chance to finish my book, The Man Who Was Thursday.  I finished the story last night and today I read the Introduction (it was advised to wait to read this until after you read the book because it revealed most of the plot devices) and the 3 short pieces at the end which were related to the story.  It was a book with lots of Christian ideas and symbolism.  I will have to read it again, this time reading the Introduction first, to really get a good grip on all the points Chesterton is making.

About 4:00 PM we dropped Marty off for his rehearsal and dinner and we went to Cannery Row (the one Steinbeck wrote about) to wine taste at Bargetto tasting room and then had a glass of wine at Taste of Monterrey, a wine tasting room featuring many wineries from the area and a fantastic view since it is on the second floor of the building.  While sitting and looking at the water (where we got to watch 2 otters cavorting in the open bay) we talked with a woman from the area who recommended that we have dinner at Schooners in the Monterey Plaza Hotel at the end of Cannery row.  It was a great recommendation-we had a wonderful meal of halibut and an excellent desert.  All in all we had a very nice and relaxing day and time in the evening to get my journaling is done.  As Pepys would say-”and so to bed.”

I decided took back in Journal 1 where I periodically work at reconstructing my reading life before I started journaling to see if I had included this book–here’s the entry:

Steinbeck, John:  Cannery Row (College & later Reedley Book Group Sept. ‘99)

One of my favorite books that this short lived group read-I think I was the one to suggested it.  Some scenes you just never forget-like Doc and the toads.  This is definitely worth a reread!

Desultory “daily” notes:

March 3, 2008

Today I found this quote for Jim’s Kiwanis Newsletter:

I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us. -Konrad Lorenz, ethologist, Nobel laureate (1903-1989)

I have a copy of Lorenz’s first book, King Solomon’s Ring, so I think that is what I’ll read next for the Book Challenge.  Lorenz was a scientist who spent his career doing close watching of animal behavior, allowing them to live freely in his house and surrounding yards.  I think this should be an interesting as well as entertaining book.  It’s one of the Time/Life Minor Classic selections that I bought in the ‘80’s (as was the Thurber book I read in January).  I’m finally getting around to reading them.

One of those classics I did read at the time I bought them was Kabloona, which was about life among the Inuit’s. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep it when I moved to California.  I’m sorry now because it was very good and I’d like to read it again.  Below is the review of the book which I put in Reading Journal 1–an on going attempt to reconstruct my reading life before I started doing the yearly journals:

De Poncins, Gontran:  Kabloona (Life Among the Inuits) (Time/Life Book-‘80’s) 

In 1941 De Poncins published a memoir telling about the 15 he months spent among the Inuit people of the Arctic. He is initially appalled at their uncivilized lifestyle but eventually morphs from a “Kabloona” (a white man) to an Inuit.  Poncins recreates both the 1930’s world of France and the world of Frozen Canada.

It’s been years since I read “Kabloona” and I don’t remember the specifics of the book.  What I do remember is the basic humanity of the people, the hard life they lived, and the culture shock between my life and theirs. I remember the book forcing me to question my idea of “progress,” “civility,” and “modern man”. Books such as Kabloona and Mutant Message Down Under, a story by Marlo Morgan about living with aborigines, tell us more about our roots as a species than many of the great thinkers and philosophers, whose only reference is modern man, are able to do. (Kabloona has the advantage of being a true story, describing the lives of actual people while it is happening.) When you read books like these you pause and reflect, trying to discern what it means to be “human.”   I remember being surprised that we “civilized” people have more in common with “primitive” people than appears on the surface.

The story dives deep into the interior life of the author as much as it details an ethnographic examination of (primitive) Inuit life. The myths and values of the Eskimos contrast sharply with the bourgeois morals of a gentleman of Paris. For example, in Eskimo culture, there is little concept of private property…that’s why an Eskimo man will let you borrow his wife or a snow knife. (I did wonder how the wife felt about that concept!)  Language in the arctic is fascinating.  A polar bear is HE WHO HAS NO SHADOW. There are more than a hundred words for “snow.”

Far away in the cold desolate Arctic, author Grontran De Poncins learns what it means to be human. This is a romance, a classic reminiscent of Robinson Crusoe and a terrific read!

March 7, 2008

Well, at least I’m doing a better job journaling this month than I did in February but I’m not getting as much reading completed-possibly because I’m trying to read too many things at once!  Yesterday when I had an entire afternoon and evening to read I couldn’t stay awake.  Even after sleeping most of that time away I still had a better and longer night’s sleep than I have had all week.

Melinda called today and, among a bunch of other things, recommended a mystery series she is reading by Jacqueline Winspear about a detective in the 1920’s named Maisie Dobbs.  I looked them up on the library web site and lo and behold Reedley has a copy of it and it was checked in so I ran down to get it this afternoon.  But I’m trying not to start it until I finish the 3 other library books I’m reading-Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin (I’m having trouble sticking to this one, even with only 100 more pages to read!), A Higher Purpose: Profiles in Presidential Courage by Thomas J. Whalen (Jim’s grandmother’s maiden name), and Poet’s Corner by John Lithgow (I will probably buy this one when the ban is off-I have it on CD but not the book).  I also need to finish King Solomon’s Ring for the Book Challenge.

The book about the presidents I checked out on a whim on Wednesday because one of the chapter about Chester A. Arthur with whom I share a birthday.  I had always been a little ashamed of him but according to Whalen, although he was a pretty scummy politician up to the time he became president, when Garfield was assassinated he was a remarkably good president.  He not only rose to the occasion and eschewed all political chicanery but he sacrificed his political future by following Garfield’s agenda (which before Garfield’s death he had continually tried to undermine) and pushed through congress the first Civil Service reform bill to stop government jobs being given out in return for political favors.  The Pendleton Act which he rammed through set up the Civil Service Commission and required that applicants for federal jobs must pass a test to be considered and when they were placed in jobs the job was stable; when new political appointees accepted posts that supervised worker they could not fire them in order to give the jobs to their friends.  Since my husband is a research scientist for the USDA, we are grateful to Chester A Arthur and Jim and I  will drink a toast to him on our shared birthday in October.  There are 8 other presidents profiled in this book and I think I will go ahead and read at least some of the rest of the stories.

March 8, 2008

Now back to the Time/Life Books that I purchased about 25 years ago!  I read two of them soon after I bought them:  Kabloona which I mentioned earlier and which I no longer have, unfortunately, and Disraeli by Andre Maurois which I have summarized in Reading Journal 1 and still own.  Last month I read Lanterns and Lances by James Thurber and this month I’m reading King Solomon’s Ring by Konrad Lorenz, which is a wonderful book about his work as an ethologist (one who studies animal behavior).  It is delightful to read and an in depth study of animal behavior at the same time.  I have five other Time/Life books:

The Forest and the Sea by Marston Bates, subtitled-A Look at the Economy of Nature and the Ecology of Man with an introduction by Loren Eisley.  I seem to be on a “naturalist” kick this year!

Three Came Home by Agnes Newton Keith-a memoir of her time of captivity in a Japanese internment camp in Borneo during WWII.  This will be a difficult read at least emotionally but I think it is important to remember.

The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie-a fictional account about a mountain man in the Rockies in the 19^th century.  I remember my Dad talking about this book when I was a child and I will finally read it.  I wish I had done so before Dad died so we could have talked about it together.

Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier-a book of short stories featuring the weird and the bizarre that is highly recommended by Michael Dirda (so it can’t be bad!).  I do wonder if I had any idea of what it was when I bought it but it will be good for me to stretch my reading into unexplored areas!  Of course, I did read some Shirley Jackson in my past life and I think she might fit into the weird and bizarre category.  Maybe I should look her up again!

The Natural by Bernard Malamud-a story about a baseball player in the early part of the 20^th century that was made into a movie in the latter part of the 20^th century.  This one is at Marty’s house.  I ought to read it someday.

I am having a good time exploring my personal library during this time of not being able buy books.  I also enjoy exploring the public library.  Hopefully, I am developing good habits that will keep my book buying urges in better control, purchasing only those books that are good enough to keep and reading them as I purchase.

March 9, 2008

Well, I couldn’t wait to start Maisie Dobbs. I finished King Solomon’s Ring Friday night so last night (Saturday) I started Maisie. I read 2/3’s of it before I went to bed. This afternoon I finished it. Melinda was right—I do like it!

Today she sent me another recommendation—Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming. I looked it up on Fantastic Fiction and found out it is the third book in a mystery series about a female Episcopal Priest who is also a “detective.” I ordered the first one in the series from the library , In the Bleak Midwinter, when I ordered the second in the Maisie Dobbs series, Birds of a Feather. I’d better be careful or I will be reading more out of the public library than out of my library!

I won’t have any trouble reaching the goal Tucker set. I’ve already read nearly 3,000 of the required 3,500 pages to be read by June 30^th, but I would like to read at least 10,000 pages by the end of this year. I just have too many good books that need reading and that at one time or another I wanted to read badly enough to buy. I have 2 Josephine Tey mysteries that I haven’t read yet and 3 more to buy when the book ban is off so it’s not as if I can’t find good mysteries in my library.

I am being tempted on many sides, however. The book section in today’s paper (on Sundays we get about 1/8^th of a page for books if we get any at all!) reviewed two mysteries that I want to read. One was the newest J.D. Robb, Strangers in Death, which I won’t get to this year because it’s something like number 27 and I think I’m ready for number 9 next. However, the end of the review made me think that maybe I don’t need to be embarrassed by my enthusiasm for these books. The reviewer said: Best for: Anyone who enjoys lively writing. If you’re hesitant to dive into the Eve Dallas books because the prolific Roberts also writes romance novels, get over it. The characters are compelling, the plot suspenseful and the sci-fi twist is an added dimension.

That about sums it up for me. I really don’t care at all for Nora Roberts’ books but her alter ego writes very well!

The other book reviewed was The Anatomy of Deception by Lawrence Goldstone. This is an author with which I am not familiar and I don’t know what else he has written, but this one sounds intriguing. The following is the entire review:

The history: In the late 1800’s, patients who entered a hospital were more likely to die than get better. But medicine was on the brink of a spurt of advances, brought about partly by the work of men like University of Pennsylvania Professor William Osler, who fought against the idea that autopsy was ghoulish, and the first chief of surgery at Johns Hopkins, Dr. William Halsted.

The mystery: The body of a young woman is brought in, and Dr. Osler looks stunned and abruptly ends his autopsy teaching session. When the woman’s body disappears and a fellow physician is poisoned, young Dr. Carroll is faced with a moral medical and forensic dilemma.

Best for: Will appeal mostly to readers who enjoy historical novels or have an interest in medical history.

For me: I like both, so I figure this will be my cup of tea if it’s well written. I’ll have to research it. (nb–it got pretty good reviews on librarything.com so I will check it out soon.)

Kenney, Catherine: The Remarkable Case of Dorothy L. Sayers (BC 273 pgs)

Kenney does a wonderful job of analysis of Sayers fiction as Christian literature (even though her main characters aren’t Christian). She also devotes a section to the play cycle, The Man Born to Be King and the book length essay The Mind of the Maker. Along the way she tells us a lot about Sayers life and other work. She recommends Barbara Reynolds book for information about Sayers work on Dante and her other “religious” writings. As many times as I’ve read Sayers novels this book whetted my appetite to read them again. I will be referring to the book for more insights when I do that.

Abbott, Anthony: The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat (BC 65 pgs) poetry

Tucker gave me this small volume of poetry several years ago—I think before we moved to California. It was written by one of his favorite professors at Davidson. I never got around to reading it, probably because I didn’t have very high expectations for the quality of the poetry. I picked it up this week at Vallejo because I had just finished reading the book on Dorothy Sayers and wanted something “light” to read before I went to sleep. It ended up taking me 4 days to read and I will definitely want to read it again—more slowly. The poems are wonderful and varied both in style and theme. There is a wide range of subject and of emotions. Love and grief and wondering why are presented. Many of the poems have Christian connotations but seem to ask questions rather than answer them. There is also underlying tragedy in many of the pieces. These are poems to ponder and return to. I wonder if I appreciate them more now as I approach “old age” than I would have when I was younger.

Thurber, James: Lanterns and Lances (BC 192 pgs)

When Tucker was a teenager he used to rave about James Thurber and read everything he could get his hands on, including this book. (I’m amazed that this one didn’t end up in Chicago!) The only Thurber I ever read was the required (in HS) Walter Mitty. I’ll have to read that again—perhaps I didn’t do it justice. I enjoyed these short humorous pieces which include a lot of word play. The longer piece he wrote about Henry James has reminded me that I plan to read one of his for the Book Challenge. This was an enjoyable read during my week R&R – and in honor of Tucker.

Desultory “daily” notes:

January 26—Saturday

I’ve been up at the Vallejo house for a week on R&R. Jim was here last weekend and then went to Bodega for the Walnut Board meeting. Marty came up last night to join us and will ride back with us. I’ve had a great time reading and resting. I’ve gotten a huge start on the Book Challenge plus a lot of J/].D. Robb covered. I hope I’m ready to go back tomorrow!

The Book Challenge was a great idea—I am discovering treasures in my library I was only dimly aware or, or had forgotten completely. I will have no trouble reading out of my library for 6 months—maybe longer. I do have to admit that sometimes I’m alerted to a book that I would like to own—especially while reading the Dorothy Sayers analysis. I should make a list of future purchases.

One thing that is helping me find great stuff to read is my new hobby—cataloging my books on librarything.com. So far I’ve catalogued nearly 1500 books. I have about a third of the library to finish, the sewing room to do, and the books in the kitchen to do. I’m pretty sure I will go over 2000 books. I should have it done by the end of February if I keep at it.