Here and There: What I'm Reading

I haven't been able to get into a good book for awhile now.  I've been reading The Rhythm of Family by Amanda and Stephen Soule at the beginning of each month as they move chapter by chapter.  And I just finished snippets of The Essential Dalai Lama, but nothing has really grabbed my attention lately, or rather there hasn't been enough of my attention to grab onto a book.

I did however see this book at my mother's house two weekends ago and was fascinated by it as I am fascinated by trees.  I will stop at the library on my way home tomorrow and pick it up.  It's called The Wild Trees:  A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston and it's about climbing the great Redwoods in California that are thousands of years old and stand over thirty-five stories above the ground.  It's about the thrills and fears of climbing and the discovery of the actual other trees, plants and animals that have previously lived high in the canopies of these trees undiscovered.  So with vacation coming up next week I am hoping to be able to plop down and actually get some good tree reading in.

Here and There: What I'm Reading

I am often reading several books at one time, but only usually one fiction book. At the moment it is The Time of my Life by Cecelia Aherne. It's not the sort of book I would have picked out for myself, I don't usually choose funny books, but it is this month's choice for our Women's Institute Book group, which I have decided to join. I am surprised to find I am actually quite enjoying it.  It's about a woman, Lucy, who finds an envelope on her doormat one day inviting her to an appointment with her Life, as she's been ignoring it and it and the situation needs to be addressed. A  strange premise, and a book I didn't warm to at all for the first few chapters - but a little further in I am rather enjoying it. 


I am also still reading a little each day (or more realistically, when I remember!) of Simple Abundance and Romancing the Ordinary. I love Sarah Ban Breathnach's writing, and it is a lovely start or end to the day to read a chapter of one or both. It is packed with wisdom, inspiration and quotes, including this one:


"All you need is deep within you waiting to unfold and reveal itself.
All you have to do is be still and take the time to seek 
for what is within, and you will surely find it." 
- Eileen Caddy

Here and There: favourite childhood books

Books from my childhood, all well loved and well read. Four of them were passed down from my Mum, but the rest are mine. I loved them all.

Enid Blyton's Anytime Tales and Pixie Tales. Pixie Tales was the book I bought with my 50p book token, a prize from the libraries' Good Readers Club. I was invited to a special presentation where I had to go up on stage and collect it, I was the youngest child in my school ever to win a prize in this yearly competition, I would have been five or six. As I recall, it involved reading a lot of books, writing the occasional essay about them and being quizzed by the librarian about each book I read. I still have my orange 'Good Readers Club' badge. Enid Blyton's Fairy Tales type book are quite sinister, I remember being rather scared by them. I also loved her Famous Five books. I read many of them, but don't seem to have any now, though they could be in the loft. Probably I just read them so much they fell to pieces! I loved reading about the adventures of the Famous Five - Julian, Dick, George, Anne and Timmy the dog as they solved all sorts of crimes and mysteries. When the Young Philosopher was young, I bought him the entire set, and I think he read one before deciding he didn't like 'old fashioned books' and I gave them all away.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, of course. We read this at school when I was about eight, and I was just young enough to try my own wardrobe hopefully a couple of times... years later I acquired the whole set. I am not so keen on the films, but then I never am. They never live up to the book.

Four books of my mother's - Katherine at Feather Ghyll, the Little Countess, The Ruses of Ruby-Anne, The Daring of Daryl. All delightfully old fashioned when I read them in the seventies, and even more so now.

Downy Duckling, a rhyme and picture book from when I was very small. It was from my Uncle's work Christmas party, when all the workers' children were given a gift. I think he may have put me down as his daughter so that I wasn't left out. In fact, I know he did, as I was coached that I had to go up when they called out my first name with my Uncle's last one!

Tom's Midnight Garden. I adored this book, and still love the idea of a garden which only appears when the clock strikes thirteen. Wonderful!

The Secret Garden, I loved the tale of Alice and how she, Dickon and Colin slowly become friends and bring the garden back to life.

Little Women. Of course I wanted to be Jo.

Mary Jones and her Bible. An unusual choice this one, and I have not known anyone else who has read it except the girl who gave the book to me. It is the true story of a little girl in Wales who so wanted to be able to read the Bible she saved for six years and then in 1800,  at the age of 15 walked 25 miles to buy one. I wasn't brought up in the church, nor am I a believer now, but I was and remain very inspired by her dedication.

I also remember loving my Hamlyn Children's Illustrated Bible, which I know I still have somewhere, battered and with the front cover missing. It was a fifth birthday present from my aunt and uncle. The pictures were fantastic, I particularly loved the Plagues of Egypt.

And last but most definitely not least, my favourite book, What Katy Did. I identified with Katy, she was impulsive, impatient, always doing the wrong thing - but then an accident transforms her personality to something far more gentle and kind. I read What Katy Did endlessly - I remember once setting myself the target of reading it front to back thirteen consecutive times, and I did, and then many more times during my childhood. I recently downloaded it for Kindle - I didn't realise until looking for my old books today that it was on the bookshelf, rather than somewhere in the loft packed away.

I have always loved books. I love fiction as a means of finding out about other people and places, and as a means of escape. I love learning, so I have many non-fiction books too, on many different subjects. I have a 'to be read' bookcase, rather than a pile, and still I buy more. My book wishlist is as long as my arm. I've never been any different.

Here and There: Favorite Childhood Books

my beloved Trixie Belden series

One of the first books I remember loving and reading and re-reading was called "The Adventures of a Brownie".  I don't know where it came from and I've tried to find it again but it is difficult to find.  I did find an online version here, but the illustrations seem different than from my memory.  I think they were different because I remember Brownie looking tiny and not so very scary and the book had an old brown or green cover I cannot remember which and the cover was very thready.  This is the same version of the story though for I remember Brownie living in the coal cellar and I remember the cat and Dolly the cow.  I see the publish date was 1947, so I don't know how we came to have it, whether it was my mother's or picked up somewhere, perhaps I will see if she remembers, but always I remember it being one I would pick up and read over and over again.

That is the one I remember from the furthest back.  There are others though that I have loved enough to hunt down and collect.

There were two other books I also remember reading over and over again and strangely they were about dolls.  I never remember playing with dolls growing up, but somehow I took to these books.  There was a pink book that was illustrated by Edward Gorey (I loved the illustrations before I even was old enough to know how cool Edward Gorey was) and it was called Merry, Rose and Christmas Tree June and I remember Jane's Great Aunt wanting to show her off and going to the Doll-Arama that had all the fancy dolls and always remember the description and crazy picture of one's hair falling out.  In the end Jane fancies a plain old doll that doesn't "do" anything on an upper shelf behind forgotten Christmas ornaments.

The other book was from when I was a bit older and it was called Behind The Attic Wall and an unloved orphan goes to live with her Great-Aunts (again with the great Aunts) and hears voices beyond the wall where she discovers living dolls, a mystery, love, and imagination.  I actually bought this book for Emily to read a year ago.  She didn't seem to be as fond of it as I was, but it remains my favorite and I'm glad to have it to read again.

Most of all though the one that has stuck with me was the Trixie Belden mystery series.  Trixie Belden is the thing in my family.  We have all read them.  My mother and my Aunts read them.  They are huge fans, my mother recently bought my Aunt a Trixie Belden charm.  My sister, my cousins and I have all read them, and recently some of them were reissued in Canada and my mother got them for me and Emily has begun to read them.  I have some of the original editions boxed up, but they are so delicate it's hard to read them.  Trixie was basically a Nancy Drew type except she wasn't rich, she was a normal kid, a tomboy and lived in a normal home and had brothers and a wealthy neighbor who became her best friend Honey.  They solved all sorts of mysteries and I loved them like they were friends.  Even now I can read and re-read them.

There are a million that I can think of but these are the ones that stand out.  I wonder sometimes which are the books that will stand out for my children.  There is an over abundance of books in this house.  It will be interesting to see which ones they remember fondly enough to hold onto or find again when they have grown.

To Be Read

Hi there. I am sorry you had such a rotten day. I just read your blog and I just love 'I know it could be worse but I don't have to like it'. I certainly know that feeling.

It would be nice wouldn't it, to move somewhere away from all the cares and troubles? When the Prof and I first got together we spent a lot of weekends at his house in Kent. I always felt really carefree and relaxed when we were there. These days I regularly run away, I guess that's what the country drives are all about.

Mrs Biddlebox sounds funny, though I am not sure my cake baking skills are up to the task. I last baked a cake in 1994!  Mopping skills not that great either, sadly...

I have just finished Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger, who also wrote the Time Traveller's Wife. I found it interesting, moving, unbelievable and predictable by turns, but I enjoyed it. Next on my pile from the library is Glasshopper, but I feel like rereading One Day so I might start that this evening as the film goes on release soon and I'd like to read it again first.  A trip to the library is in order soon, I think, maybe this weekend. I am reading so fast lately, often a book every couple of days, so I like to keep myself stocked up.

Truth be told I have books on my bookcase I have had for a long time that I have still to read - I think we talked before about how one has to be in the right frame of mind for a particular book. I will get to them all eventually! I put the book you picked up at the library on my list, it sounds interesting. I loved the Secret Garden when I was young, too. Do young people still read those old books? I know I could never interest the Young Philosopher in anything he called 'old fashioned', although he loves books.

I think I am coming out of the relapse I seem to have had, fingers crossed, I am feeling a little better today. I have decided against the few days away I was thinking about, I couldn't really find anywhere suitable to stay without a car. I think instead I will plan a few treats for that week as the Prof will be away. Seems like a good idea to me.

I hope you are having a good day today. Almost the weekend!

I'm so sorry you are having a rough spell.  There is a book both I and my girls read called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day; he resolves to move to Australia.  After my terrible, horrible, no good very bad day yesterday I resolved to move to an island off the coast of Maine or Florida.  Anywhere far from everyday life.

Everyday life can get you down sometimes can't it.  Last night I just couldn't take the responsibilities of work and having a home and family anymore.  It sounds childish and selfish, but I just wanted to be a child again.  Or in the case of another favorite children's book of mine, Mrs. Biddlebox, (you would like her) she takes her bad day and mops it up and bakes it into a cake.

If only we could do such things, what say you?

I didn't write this last night, like I usually do.   I was spent.  So I am writing this morning before I go to work today (please let it be better, or as my co-workers might say, please let her be better).  I'm sitting here early with a bowl of oatmeal and fresh blueberries and a warm cup of tea.  I'm hoping to have a better day today, mind shift please. 

I hope you will upswing soon.

I took my very bad mood to the library last night.  Moved up and down the stacks with no book in mind, just seeing a title or a photo and pulled it down off the shelf to peruse.  I spent about an hour there, winding back and forth.  There was an odd woman in the next aisle talking and laughing to herself which made me feel a little better about myself as cranky as I was. The library and all those books made me start to feel better and so I picked and took home this one, about an American woman who goes to care for her 8-year old Goddaughter after her best friend dies in  London.  I'm about forty pages in and really liking it.  It's a lighter style of writing given the situation compared to the book I just read and it references another book I loved growing up The Secret Garden. 

I promised to put a book page here, I will no doubt eventually get to it.

So what are you reading?

Be well, my friend.

Reading and Writing

Happy Monday!  It started off to be a busy weekend here.  The girls went to a ballgame and I went out to dinner with a friend from work Friday night (two nights out in one week, hey).  No great photos like you had it was dark and noisy and my friend is very camera shy.  Saturday we hauled around town, farmstand, grocery, shopping etc.

Today, Sunday, I have found myself attached to the couch.  A pillow, a book and a blanket.  My cousins daughter is here visiting so the girls were mostly occupied with her today.

I almost finished The Time Traveler's Wife today.  I'm very glad you recommended it to me, it has been on my "to read" list but that is ten miles long so it may have taken me awhile to get there.  I think I am finding a special place in my heart for it.  So having a lazy day I am almost done.  It felt good to laze about. 

I have never made a comment though on the book discussion.  I read the book discussion notes in the back of the book today as well and thought: I wouldn't know what to say about the theme of death, I just really, really, like the story.  I felt this way when I was in school and I took a Literary Criticism class.  It was all about reading what people had written about books and discussing it and it was actually the only English class I took that I disliked.  I couldn't help but feel inferior when I didn't get all these great cosmic nuances of the stories.  And who is to say that I read the story incorrectly?  Isn't the best part of reading the fact that you get to personally take something from it?  And doesn't everyone get something individual to themselves out of the tale?

So I tend to shy away from book discussions.  What I can tell you though about this book (and so many others) is they sometimes make me feel inferior.  I love excellent writing but sometimes with my favorite authors and even some of my favorite friends, I think wow, what they have written is beatiful and so eloquent I could never even hope to throw my own writing out there.

Then I realize that the literary world would be quite a dull place if we all wrote with the same voice.  What I have to remember is the words that I string together, the stories I have to tell are that, they are mine and they must be told my way, to the best of my ability.

No one could write what I write so therefore I couldn't dream to write like Audrey Niffeneger, Alice Hoffman or even you or Sara.

I have come to realize that writing for me comes from what I know best and right now that thing is motherhood. I find that is where I find my best voice, where the words tend to flow easiest from the well.  In my heart I guess I know that I should start with motherhood, with daughters, with this experience I've been given and work from there.

Friday, I wrote this piece that I have posted on my blog today about a fight I had with Emily that morning.  I wrote it at lunchtime at work, because it was still on my mind.  I don't think I could write anything with such heart that I didn't have my heart invested in.

On another note, you've been quiet this weekend.  I hope you are well.  I hope perhaps you are taking that Internet break you've been threatening.  I know I could sometimes use it myself. I look forward though to see what's going on over there across the sea.

Pyjama Day

     

Image from here

Hello Jen. This poster that you sent me a link to on twitter today, was so apt. I went to bed last night just after midnight, and with the exception of waking briefly when the Prof kissed me before he went to work, I slept solidly through to 1.45 pm! I don't feel remotely refreshed either, still tired and fed up at having missed half the day. CFS is a pain in the bum. When I went into the kitchen to make tea and toast, I discovered that we had no bread. Then I saw that the dear dog had managed somehow to get her head into a dish that had some fat in from the sausages I cooked last night and, as she could only just reach with the tip of her tongue, had managed to splash the fat all over the worktop, saucepans, toaster and everything else in the vicinity. That will teach me not to leave the kitchen in a mess and go for a drive, as we did last evening.  Anyway, I decided to ignore the mess for the time being, sat down (still in my nightwear, naturally) with the laptop and there was this poster. It gave me a laugh when I was feeling sorry for myself, thanks for that! I must have needed the sleep, to have slept through like that, but I am either asleep or feeling exhausted so much of the time that it sometimes gets me down. A laugh was just what I needed. I also decided to take it at face value and not do much for the rest of today at all. The Prof is bringing in a takeaway for dinner, and I am just going to read this evening. I love to read.

From the moment I learned to read I was a voracious reader. I read all the time. My Dad would not allow me to read at the table, something I thought was extremely unfair. At breakfast with my brother and my Mum in the mornings, she would always read the newspaper. My young self couldn't see that was any different to me reading a book during the evening meal. They couldn't stop me reading though, I used to read the sauce bottles instead. I read in bed at night, by the light coming through the crack of the bedroom door, hiding the book under the covers if my parents came upstairs. I read when I had friends over to play, leaving them to fend for themselves. I read so much that my mother worried about it, because I read instead of playing. By the time I was nine, I had a reading age of fourteen and had read all the books in the school's reading scheme. In secondary school I read in all my break times. I read in the car, even though it made me travel-sick. I read anything and everything, and wherever I was would look for something to read, from the newspaper to the cornflake box, and any books I could get my hands on.

The first book I  remember reading myself was one of Enid Blyton's Famous Five series. I must have been six or seven. I think it might have been Five Get Into Trouble, though I read so many of them after that that I can't be sure. I loved the Famous Five books, about four cousins and their dog, and their adventures every school holiday in the English countryside. After that I remember reading 'What Katy Did', by the American author Susan Coolidge. I found myself in Katy. She was tall like I was, and had long dark hair like mine (in the picture on my copy, at least) and I identified with her temper and lack of patience. I loved that book and still have my original falling-to-bits copy. For some reason I set myself the task of reading it thirteen consecutive times, and then I did. I also read What Katy Did at School and What Katy Did Next, but don't remember those quite so well, especially the last one, when Katy is grown up. I might have to put those on my list to get from the library next time. I also loved my Hamlyn Children's Bible, full of Bible stories in simple text and with lovely full page illustrations. I was not brought up in a religious home, nor do I have any religious belief now, but I loved some of those stories, especially from the Old Testament.   

At the moment I am reading The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, for another reading group, at Writing Our Way Home. It is about a family of immigrants to the USA from India. I am only two or three chapters in, and I am really enjoying it so far. Next up will be the Time Traveler's Wife. I loved it the last time I read it some years ago, so I am looking forward to rereading it and discussing it in the group with you and others. After this, I have another four novels from the library, as well as my own 'to be read' pile, which I have to say is considerably bigger than yours, Jen! 

I don't blame your girls for not wanting to part with their books. Most of my childhood books are gone now, but I still have a dozen or so old favourites, and reread them from time to time. Some books are like old friends, you might not spend much time with them very often anymore, but it's good to know they are there. 

love of books.

I loved what you said about anticipating spending time reading the books you had from the library.  I was in the library as well this past Saturday, picking up The Time Traveler's Wife for the book read you mentioned.  I also got another book and two cookbooks.  I am a cookbook fiend, browse them in bed like a magazine.  I love the library...so many good books.  I'm a sucker for a good cover, sometimes it's turns out worthwhile sometimes not.  I remember times before I had the girls that I would just go in and wander up and down the aisles taking down books that looked good until I had a whole stack.

These days I don't have as much reading time, but I'm trying to carve a place back in for it.  I sat down for two hours last weekend and finished my last book, cleaning being banished to the back burner.  The photo above is of the books currently residing in my house that I have yet to read, or yet to finish.  Remember back in the beginning when I said I was working on becoming a better "finisher of things".   So these are in addition to the library books.  I find though that I have to be in a certain mood for certain books, so I am sure I will find my way back to them.

We drown in books in this house, the girls each have overflowing bookshelves of books they cannot part with going all the way back to Karelyn's favorite Goodnight Moon.  With money being what it is I tend to rely on the library more and more.  It is a good thing to have a librarian for a sister!  When I do find books I really, really want to keep for inspiration or for another read, I check out used bookstores online.  I have gotten great used library copies of books for as little as a couple of dollars.  I don't mind that they are marked up or rough around the edges, I figure that's the sign of a well loved book.  One time I got a copy of a book with the little card in the back where it listed the names of the library users and the dates they checked the book out.  Seems so far from our automatic check-outs these days. 

So that's all for tonight.  It's late, very tired as it's been a long week already.  Now to settle into bed with a hot cuppa tea and that book I was talking about.  They say the best writers are avid readers.  Until tomorrow......