Booking Through Thursday

Do you lend your books to other people? If so, any restrictions?

Not many people I know are interested in the types of books I read, so I'm actually thrilled when someone wants to borrow one. I'll even loan them out so others can read them first.

Do you borrow books from other people? (Friends or family—I'm not talking about the public library)

I borrow books from my mother-in-law once she's through with them. Then I get to keep them. Unless it's from her leatherbound collection; those I have to give back. Otherwise I don't borrow very many because I've usually already read what's offered to me (or don't want to read it).

And, most importantly—do the books you lend/borrow get returned to their rightful owners??

Usually. Eventually. Although we've had the Christopher Buckleys loaned to my husband for almost two years now and I've probably had Galapagos longer than that. . .

Middle Ages Tech Support. . .

or, the highlight of this afternoon's training session.

Bookmarks

One more batch of themed books--ones that already have a bookmark in them and need returning to:

World Light. Halldor Laxness. Started in May 2003. The first chapter ends with the undersized literature-loving foster child Olafur weeping when a book he couldn't read, but kept hidden in his clothes, is taken from him and burned. But I put it down 200 pages in when the character seemed to transmogrify into someone I didn't recognize. The next February I read 200 more pages. Only 200 more yet to go and then I can read Independent People. Bookmark: one from the public library, a quick guide to Dewey Decimal classification and subject areas.

Virginia Woolf. Hermione Lee. Stopped at p. 478 (out of 755), the chapter on Vita Sackville-West, to read The Easter Party by Sackville-West. Was I waiting to read All Passion Spent as well? Bookmark: a reply form from the QPBC. Guess I didn't.

Jenny and the Jaws of Life. Jincy Willett. I know I've read more than one story in this collection--and I rarely read story collections straight through--but there's a notecard stuck between p. 26-27. The notecard is a black and white photo of a kitty touching noses with a walrusy-looking puppy stuffed in a ceramic teapot.

The Italian. Ann Radcliffe. Set aside last fall at an exciting spot: Ellena and the evil monk on the beach, p. 260. Bookmark: old-fashioned library checkout card from Harriet Hume.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Annie Dillard. Six out of 15 chapters read. Bookmark: a strip of Glidden paint samples, ranging in color from Pasture Green to Forest Light.

Emerson Among the Eccentrics. Carlos Baker. Stopped at the end of Part Two, intending to read Emerson's essays from the Forties before continuing on into the Fifties in the bio. Bookmark: an index card on which is written "A Conversation with My Father. Grace Paley."

Selected Essays, Lectures, and Poems. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Next essay to read: "The Over-Soul," from 1841. Bookmark: a folded envelope preaddressed to the Children's Theatre here in town.

Will in the World. Stephen Greenblatt. A post card from Sir John Soane's Museum in London between p. 92 and 93.

Theme reading

If I were to stop buying books (and yes, I still feel saturated in books) and checking out books (three holds waiting for pickup), I could have fun with the books I already own. I could do theme reading for the rest of the year.

I could return to Rebecca West.
The Harsh Voice.
The Thinking Reed
The Fountain Overflows
The Birds Fall Down
This Real Night
Cousin Rosamund

I could spend several weeks on Southern literature.
Wise Blood. Flannery O'Connor
The Violent Bear It Away. Flannery O'Connor
Collected Stories. Flannery O'Connor
The Unvanquished. William Faulkner
Go Down Moses. William Faulkner
Thirteen Moons. Charles Frazier
The Golden Apples. Eudora Welty
Move Over, Mountain. John Ehle
Off For the Sweet Hereafter. T.R. Pearson

I could finish all the classics on my "13 Classics to Read in 2007" list (three down at this point).

I could read all the books on my Reading Across Boundaries list.

I could have a Thomas Hardy month.
Far From the Madding Crowd
Two on a Tower
The Woodlanders
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Selected Poems
Claire Tomalin's bio

I could concentrate on nonfiction.
The Omnivore's Dilemma. Michael Pollan
Misquoting Jesus. Bart Ehrman
The Human Touch. Michael Frayn
The River of Doubt. Candice Millard
Monsieur Proust. Celeste Albaret
Freethinkers. Susan Jacoby
and many others

I could focus on Ships at Sea for awhile.
Patrick O'Brian
Beat to Quarters. C.S. Forester
This Thing of Darkness. Harry Thompson
The Voyage of the Beagle. Charles Darwin

Westerns.
The Willow Field. William Kittredge
Butcher's Crossing. John Williams
Angle of Repose. Wallace Stegner
The Big Rock Candy Mountain. Wallace Stegner
Dancing at the Rascal Fair. Ivan Doig
This House of Sky. Ivan Doig
Liar's Moon. Philip Kimball
The Crossing. Cormac McCarthy

Have a Go-to-the-Devil month.
The Master and Margarita. Mikhail Bulgakov
Dr. Faustus. Christopher Marlowe
The Testament of Gideon Mack. James Robertson
Paradise Lost. John Milton

Complete the Fairy Tale/Fantasy Challenge.
The Ladies of Grace Adieu. Susanna Clarke
Dogsbody. Diana Wynne Jones
Anansi Boys. Neil Gaiman
April Witch. Majgull Axelsson
Summerland. Michael Chabon

Or I could just read books totally at whim within or without these parameters.

I could. Really.

The weekend's reading

Finished John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things during an afternoon stint at the library on Saturday. I'd put it aside the middle of last month in order to focus on David Copperfield and because I thought it would make an excellent selection for Carl's upcoming Fairy Tale/Fantasy challenge. The challenge doesn't begin until March 21, however, so, for me, it will have to remain an outlier and one I recommend others include on their official list.

The Book of Lost Things is at heart a quest story. Young David, still mourning the death of his mother and bitterly resentful of his new stepmother and baby brother who take much of the attention when his father--a code-breaker during WWII--happens to be at home, is lured into an alternative world after hearing his mother's voice call to him for rescue. This alternative world is a dark reflection of the fairy tales he's partial to and part of the pleasure of reading about this world is in recognizing the original stories that Connolly has added his kinks and twists to. Suffice it to say, if you prefer a Disneyfied-spin on the Brothers Grimm, you're going be to be very uncomfortable reading this book.

I managed to somehow get through my son's dragon phase without realizing that "wyrm" was the word usually used for such in medieval lit; the connection was made for me after reading A.S. Byatt's "The Thing in the Forest," whose creature was certainly more worm-like than dragony. There is a similar beast in The Book of Lost Things (which quite handily and gruesomely deals with some German tanks that have made their way into this alternative world), and I've found it curious that both my exposures to the legendary wyrms of Britain have come in contemporary stories dealing with children who have been sent from London during WWII to avoid the bombing.


Yesterday I started Dan Simmons' The Terror. I bought this one for L., since he has a soft spot for Arctic exploration, but since he's been complaining about his vision lately, I doubt he'll attempt this behemouth until after his next eye exam and new set of glasses.

Based on Sir John Franklin's 1845 attempt to find the Northwest Passage, the books begins this way:

Captain Crozier comes up on deck to find his ship under attack by celestial ghosts. Above him--above Terror--shimmering folds of light lunge but then quckly withdraw like the colourful arms of aggressive but ultimately uncertain spectres. Ectoplasmic skeletal fingers extend toward the ship, open, prepare to grasp, and pull back.

Temperatures are at negative 50 degrees and the HMS Terror and her sister ship Erebus have been lodged in the ice within the Arctic Circle for more than a year. Low on food and morale, the men who aren't yet dead are being stalked by something out on the ice that may prove to be supernatural.

So far very good.

Brief Reading Update

I've been going to bed at 8:30 or 9 all this week. My exhaustion has been brought on by regular trips to the gym, no doubt, and will lessen--I hope--as I adjust to a non-slothful lifestyle, but for now it's really playing havoc with my reading.

A brief update:

Finished David Copperfield on Monday and S. finished it on Wednesday. We're still discussing.

I'm back to reading John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things and should finish it without fail this weekend.

I've read two stories from Rick Bass's The Lives of Rocks, "The Lives of Rocks" and "Yazoo," and I can tell that I'm going to enjoy this collection mightily.

I'm reading Diana Wynne Jones's Dogsbody on the treadmill. (This is why I haven't managed to lose any weight this week--I'm still moving slow enough to read.)

I have a shipment of books coming in from the UK, but I don't expect to be ordering anything in March or April. I can't shake this feeling of saturation. I want to read what I already have on hand.

Let's see how long that feeling lasts.

Booking Through Thursday

How many books would you say you read in an average month?
So far this year, I'm averaging five books a month.

In a year?
My average for the last five years has been 77. Last year I read 75. I don't know if I'll manage that this year if I keep reading enormous classics.

Over the last five years?
I read 386 books between 2001 and 2006.

The last 10?
I read a total of 851 books over the last decade.

(via Booking Through Thursday)