Getting in the mood for winter

If you’ve been hoping for snow, and it’s still too warm… (or you live in a snow-adverse region, like the desert) here’s a book that will make you want to burrow delightfully under an afghan with a hot drink: The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys.
In different years, the Thames has frozen solid. The author tells stories from the perspective of first-hand narratives from moments in time when the water is still.  These are the extraordinary moments when ordinary folk skate on ice in the margins of a rich man’s Book of Hours. Each story is self-contained, so the book can be picked up and put down inbetween preparations for holiday visitors. Perhaps it would be a good gift idea for your favorite Anglophile.

Kind of Odd signs on trucks

I’m not talking about the KANE is Able truck signs (although they make me smile with this slogan that sounds like a Biblical joke), the Batesville Casket Company logo with its green tree or the Leidy logo (which I remember in its pre-2003 incarnation, with Leidy in the shape of a pig). I’ve shared my drive with all three of these.

I’m talking about homegrown slogans with hand-drawn letters (or reflective letters lovingly glued to the side of a truck. Recently I saw two:

1. On the back of a moving van: “The Lord Is MY God!” (Is it me, or do you wonder if the truck was professing its faith too? All I could think in the heat of the commute was “You go, Van! Tell it to the faithful!”
2. On an old, green dump truck, in silver hand-painted letters with red outlines “Pimpin Aint Easy” (Even the trucks out there realize it’s hard for a pimp. I mean honestly… what? Maybe an explanation of why the driver is behind the wheel earning an honest day’s work hauling dirt?)

I’ve seen hand-painted logos from team sports, marijuana leaves on the back of a city trash truck, and a Pinto painted a pink most often found in the medicine cabinet.

So, seen any fun signs on trucks or cars while you fight the fumes of the morning commute? I’ll keep watching. It makes a welcome break in the day when I find something as fun as a yellow rubber ducky stuck on the end of someone’s antenna.

Two More Gifts

… and I can mail out packages.

One of the great things about my friends and family is they love books. An easy trip to a bookstore with a coffee shop attached; I get to look at some of the current books and music that are out; and the wrapping is a snap.

If you’re shopping for books, here are a few ideas (depending on the personalities of recipients, of course):

• For the kids: Bats at the Library — it’s a lovely, illustrated, imaginative book that’s a wee bit meta (see how many characters from other books you can identify in each picture). Check it out at your library, and see if it would work for a boy or girl (or grownup) you know. Another great book is Arabel’s Raven for preschoolers.
• For the preteens: Mistress Masham’s Repose. I loved this book when I was a preteen. Another book by TH White, The Goshawk, is good too.  I remember The House With a Clock in its Walls as one of the books that gave me fits when I was 11, but might be just the cup of tea of a brave preteen boy or girl. If you want adventure with fewer sleepless nights, try Aiken’s Midnight Is a Place.
• More for preteens: All of a Kind Family, by Sydney Taylor, and The Saturdays, by Elizabeth Enright. The first is about an immigrant family living on the Upper East side in NYC in 1912 (please ignore the phrase “heart-warming story”… as a kid I was fascinated about the different time period). The second is about a family of kids who pool their money each week so one person can go do something they’ve always dreamed about.
• Teens have the Twilight books, but there are also classics like Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye (yes, I cried while reading the last page in a library),  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (more hankies), and Gothic classics — Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, including Fall of the House of Usher, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre or Villette, and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (which is a spoof of the genre).
• Adults might appreciate books filled with: Christmas carols, recipes, diy crafts (if you know a craft they enjoy), stories about nature, or vacation ideas.

Note: when I was a student, I was able to find lots of out of print books that I knew people would like at a second-hand store. Sometimes an older book is better because it’s a collector’s item or has illustrations the recipient would remember.

Hoping your season is jolly, and you manage to survive with your spirits intact.

Weaving in Ends

I’m finishing up the toe on the second sock. Yesterday was filled with a lot of unexpected delays (some good, and some bad) and noise. Not a heck of a lot got done, including the baking project I was musing about. So today, I’m picking up the pieces, making some decisions about what I can and can’t accomplish before tonight. And weaving in sock ends is on the list. Unfortunately, lack of sun is making pics of finished socks impossible right now.

I did finish the Maxim Chattam book, The Cairo Diary. Even though I was warned that I might not like the ending, I kind of liked the unfinished feel to it, with multiple layers of truth. It is a book of fiction, and seems self-consciously aware of that, since the narrator takes care to leave things muddied a bit. If you’re squeamish, don’t read it. Yes, there are lush descriptions of Cairo during the 1920s, and the salt-scoured descriptions of the monastery with its strange architecture surrounded by the sea, but it still has harsh notes that may jar people to look away (it is, after all, billed as a thriller). I’m still glad I read it grimly on to the end. It rewarded me with lines like,

She spotted the fleeting pencil of light from a lighthouse far away on her right.

“And all these stars, the sole and silent witnesses of human tragedies since the dawn of time.”

It leaves with the question of “What is “truth” after all?” In a book that blurs historical scenery, from historical descriptions of a party held in a hotel in Cairo to gardens with mercury pools, with multiple layers of fiction and discussions about Rousseau, the mystery is in one’s perception of the whole. How will the reader react, and how much can the readers bring to the stories themselves? I do wonder how much I’ve lost by reading an English translation. I would have lost much more if I had struggled to understand the French version, of course.

Just Say No

Books I need not get out of the library again:

Agatha Christie’s Peril at End House. A fine example of stupid endings and unneccessary explanations that makes my teeth go on edge. This is not Dame Agatha at her finest. Instead, it’s a 1932 tale filled with cocaine fiends that unfortunately reminds me of some of the scare movies we sat through in health class. Sigh. Sometimes you don’t grow into a book (I panned this one back in High School, and I think I am similarly disappointed now.). No matter — Christie wrote enough mysteries to read that continue to amuse and entertain.

It is interesting that Christie wrote this in 1931 (I suppose) and Dorothy L Sayers was writing Murder Must Advertise (published 1933) with similar themes of drug smuggling. One wonders if this topic was really “hot” in the British news during that time.

A recent disappointment is Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. I think if I were a different reader, this would have been a very entertaining book to read. The idea behind it held a lot of promise, and I have hopes that other books from SA Allen will follow through on that promise. Maybe I’m just not a Men in Trees/screwball magic romance kinda gal?

So far the Cairo Diary is grim, but interesting. And yes, the Gardener (who skips to the end of books) has warned me that I’m going to feel led along by the ending. I probably won’t mind so long as things don’t fall apart midstream.

Bookish quote

Since her adolescence she had developed a theory, which held that all the keys to the cosmos were assembled at various earthly points: libraries. An individual who knew all the books in a few libraries could understand the universe, right down to its most intimate, most savage elements.”

The impossibility of the task for a single brain and a single life reflected all the truth of this ultimate knowledge: It was not within the grasp of mankind.” – Maxim Chattam. The Cairo Diary.

Yep, I’m still reading along, in between work, walks, knitting, choir practice, and making dinners. So far, not too spooky. We’ll see how it goes. I’m a wimp. But this quote is one of those things I think about when in a library. That absolute thrill when I see all those books. And honestly, in today’s economy, the library is needed more than ever for job seeking, escapist reading, and a place you can sit and think without people asking you if you’re going to buy something.

Why I Like Books About Books

Recently I discovered The Vault by Peter Lovesey. Sadly, I was less interested in the actual mystery story as I was about the excitement of what it would be like to find sketches done by Mary Shelley that show the writing process of Frankenstein.

I’ve moved on to The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay. It’s set in a used bookstore in NYC, with a protagonist from Tasmania. I’m more excited at the thought of a mysterious manuscript being found than in the 18-year old protagonist’s realization of amazing things about herself and her coworkers. Sad, but true.

Perhaps I should hold Shakespeare and all his plays within a play responsible for this. I’m more interested in the books within books. Sometimes I’m interested in the characters and relationships when their motives make sense. But often, the character trait to which I can relate is bookishness.

I grew up in a house decorated with books. Yes, there were pictures and needlepoint hangings on the wall. I grew up reading cookbooks for fun, paging through sermons in the spare bedroom, and reading Mom’s old Nancy Drew stories and Please Don’t Eat the Daisies in the upstairs hall. I loved historical fiction, Victorian novels, or Lady Gregory. I still have a passion for Victorian authors, like Wilkie Collins. A lot of what has motivated my job choices can be summed up in two words: reading material.

There is magic at work in a bookstore, surrounded by text and all those voices clamoring for attention — poets, playwrights, and novelists. It’s close to the thrill of working behind the scenes in a historical museum, surrounded by artifacts of other people’s lives. Or a bit like camping and waking up early surrounded by trees and a lake, wondering how many people of the past have seen the same scene you’re seeing.

So, how about you? What styles of books fascinate you?