So Many Books
I reblogged a post this morning discussing books, the acquisition of books, and when a person could possibly have too many, (*gasp*) yes, too many books. This got me to thinking, yet again, about my own collection – ahem – addiction.
You see, Spring is just around the corner. My husband just cleaned out our master bedroom closet the other day and I donated a trash bag of clothes to Goodwill. Nooks and crannies will be conquered. The stuff that has piled up throughout Winter will be organized. Although I clean the house every day, this is when the true disinfecting from top to bottom occurs.
And the biggest mess of my house is the part of me that I love to love the most…
Yes, those are piles on the floor.
Yes, those are paperbacks stashed in the window sill. (And an empty fish tank.)
You don’t want to see inside those cupboards… so many paperbacks.
Guardian of the Library
I don’t remember what the top of that end table looks like… and that basket underneath is filled with picture books.
That completes The Library. One day, the dream is for that room to be all built in bookcases. When that magical day comes, I’ll actually have lots of empty space on the shelves and nothing piled anywhere. I’ve done the math. Therein lies the dilemma when it comes to purging. Purge too soon and my shelves won’t be full. Too late and I could be on the next episode of hoarders.
Wait, but there’s more…
This is the “school closet.”
Kiddo’s shelf, comprised mostly of the books from my childhood.
Kiddo’s actual shelf – you know, the books she picked out. (And a few given to me at the baby shower many moons ago.)
The last one… I promise.
This is why, other than review copies, my goal for the last few years is to make sure I read more of what is already in my personal inventory… and attempt to avoid new purchases like the plague. I was largely successful in this venture in 2013 – here’s to continuing the plan in 2014. I will not allow myself to spend more than $100 on books this year, and I must give away more than I bring in. That is the goal.
What about you? Are you a book collector? A digital collector or physical copies? What is your vice and addiction? How do you decide what to keep and what to toss?
And lastly – am I a pack rat?
MORNING COFFEE: FRIDAY EDITION
Photo compliments of Hannah from Coffee Scribble. (Formerly known as Musings from the TARDIS.)
Reading List 2013
Every end of December I post the list of what I have read that year. Most titles have corresponding reviews here on my blog. Some do not.
Obviously I read a lot of books out loud to my child. The ones I have included on the list are the chapter books. Our daily dose of picture books are left unlisted because that would just get ridiculous, although they take up a huge chunk of my day. (Note: The Magic Tree House & Reading Guide listings are two separate MTH books that correspond in subject. Because they are such short children’s books, I make them share a number. It takes me about four hours to read each pair out loud.)
1. The Prominence League – C. David Cannon (January)
2. If These Walls Had Ears – James Morgan (January)
3. March – Geraldine Brooks (January)
4. Magic Tree House & Reading Guide: Dinosaurs – Osborne (January)
5. Magic Tree House & Reading Guide: Knights – Osborne (January)
6. Magic Tree House & Reading Guide: Mummies – Osborne (January)
7. The Small Room – May Sarton (February)
8. Magic Tree House & Reading Guide: Pirates – Osborne (February)
9. Lords of Finance – Liaquat Ahamed (March)
10. The Secret of Lost Things – Sheridan Hay (March)
11. God’s Love – Calvert Tynes (March)
12. Eden’s Outcasts – John Matteson (March)
13. Inheritance – Louisa May Alcott (March)
14. The Wild Girls – Pat Murphy (March)
15. Fizz & Peppers – M.G. King (March)
16. On Chesil Beach – Ian McEwan (April)
17. Magic Tree House: Ninjas & MTH: Rainforests – Osborne (April)
18. Lunch in Paris – Elizabeth Bard (April)
19. Magic Tree House & Reading Guide: Sabertooths – Osborne (April)
20. The History of the Ancient World – Bauer (April)
21. Magic Tree House & Reading Guide: Moon & Space – Osborne (April)
22. Lessons Learned – Andrea Schwartz (April)
23. Bitch Factor – Chris Rogers (April)
24. Teres – Gershom Wetzel (April)
25. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers (May)
26. Magic Tree House & Reading Guide: Dolphins & Sharks – Osborne (May)
27. The Hunger Games – Collins (May)
28. Catching Fire – Collins (May)
29. Mockingjay – Collins (May)
30. Don’t Die By Your Own Hands – Holmes (May)
31. Slice of Life – Chris Rogers (May)
32. Magic Tree Houses: Ghost Towns/ Lions – Osborne (May)
33. The Princess Bride – Goldman (June)
34. Magic Tree House & Reading Guide: Polar Bears – Osborne (June)
35. Born to Run – Christopher McDougall (June)
36. Storybound – Marissa Burt (June)
37. The Prominence League II – Canon (June)
38. The Distant Hours – Kate Morton (June)
39. John Adams – John McCullough (July)
40. Magic Tree House & Reading Guide: Pompeii & Rome – Osborne (July)
& Magic School Bus: Volcanoes
41. Spindown – George Padgett (July)
42. The Cry of the Icemark – Stuart Hill (July)
43. The Color Purple – Alice Walker (July)
Magic Tree House: Day of the Dragon King – Osborne (July)
44. A Passage to India – E.M. Forster (August)
45. Letters to the Granddaughter – Schubert (August)
46. Over Sea, Under Stone – Cooper (August)
47. The Gospel According to Starbucks – Sweet (August)
48. Aphrodesia – John Oehler (August)
49. The Lightning Thief – Rick Riordan (August)
50. My Antonia – Willa Cather (September)
51. Magic Tree House & Reading Guides – Osborne (September)
52. Surprised by Joy – C.S. Lewis (September)
53. Love is a Choice – Minirth (September)
54. Thomas Jefferson: Art of Power – Meacham (October)
55. Going Native: Biodiversity (October)
56. Just One Evil Act – Elizabeth George (October)
57. The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion (October)
58. The Evolution of Jane – Cathleen Schine (October)
59. The Immortal Class – T.H. Culley (October)
60. Aspects of the Novel – E. M. Forster (October)
61. Death Without Cause – Pamela Triolo (November)
62. Player Piano – Vonnegut (November)
63. Seed Savers: Heirloom – S. Smith (November)
64. The Bookshop Hotel – A.K. Klemm [yes, I re-read my own book as I’m currently writing the sequel] (November)
65. The Sparrow – Mary Doria Russell (December)
66. Harbinger of Evil – Meb Bryant (December)
67. Confessions – Saint Augustine (All Year)
68. Been There, Done That, Really! – Paulette Camnetar Meeks (December)
69. The Secret Keeper – Kate Morton (December)
“Can’t believe I didn’t hit 70 this year. I’ve been slacking!” I lamented. Then, when I went to grab the next Magic Tree House selection, I realized I never documented The Titanic Unit.
70. MTH #17 & Research Guide: Titanic – Osborne (some time in the Fall 2013)
– Books Piled Around My House Unfinished –
I am notorious for starting books and leaving them willy nilly somewhere until the mood strikes me to pick it up again. So where it is not uncommon for me to read a book in one sitting, it is also not uncommon for a book I like to take months or even years for me to finish reading because I’m waiting for that right moment to dive in. Like a real-life vacation, sometimes you want to be in a cabin in the mountains and sometimes you want to be on the beach in Fiji. It doesn’t mean you don’t like mountains and it doesn’t mean the beach is awful, it just means that: if you’re in the mood for mountains why would you go to the beach? Because I have reached that point in my life as a reader that if I hate it, I won’t bother setting it aside… I’ll just get rid of it.
My goal for the New Year is to polish off more of these before starting (and temporarily abandoning) too many others. Because these are books I actually really like, I’m just waiting for those magical moments when I know I’ll enjoy them best to return. What’s ridiculous about the books on this list is that I am about halfway through all of these books.
* If On A Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
* Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – Clarke
* Freddy and Fredericka – Helprin
* The Path Between the Seas – David McCullough
* Storyteller – Sturrock (this one is actually amazing! I started reading it in November and I’m still picking my way through it)
* The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (still reading this aloud to the kiddo every night before bed)
* The Lacuna – Kingsolver (reading this for the January Half Price Books Humble Book Club meeting, should be done by the end of the week)
Confessions
I had great plans for the year 2013. I do every January. I make lists, I plan reading schedules. I try to join way too many book clubs. I set unreachable goals. More specifically, this year I wanted to read through Susan Wise Bauer’s Autobiographies and Memoirs list. It’s about 25 books long, I think, starting with St. Augustine’s Confessions. It is December. I am still reading Confessions.
I’ve read Confessions before in college. It’s not a difficult read, just an important one. It’s the book I save for early mornings as I watch the sunrise with my coffee. Sometimes I read it aloud to my daughter over breakfast, a lot of times I hunker down in the early light and keep it to myself.
I’ve been keeping a lot to myself over the past few years, which goes against the very core of my being… or the very core of who I am told I am. Throughout my life I have been compared to a babbling brook. Information, life experience, anything goes in… and out it babbles in the blink of an eye. I come off extremely extroverted to people who know me least. I find this ironic because I have so much that I don’t share. I am so back and forth with what feels the most natural (hold it in or spill the beans?) that I have a hard time deciding what teachings are right (hush up and keep it to yourself or Confess?).
After reading The Sparrow and re-reading Augustine’s Confessions in the same year – in the same month, really. You’d think I’d have something deep and eloquent to say about Confession. Or, perhaps, you’d think I’d spill out a confession of some kind in this blog post…
All I’ve got for you in the form of a confession is that the first time I read Confessions was during an all-nighter 12 hours before a test for my literature class at a Baptist college. Note the sarcasm when I tell you the experience was so enriching.
Instead of a true confession, I am reminded of a previous post in which I determined I was not very thoughtful. Instead, I sit here lamenting the fact that I have hardly accomplished anything I set out to do in January at all.
I console myself by saying, hey at least I got published this year! (Which seems very anticlimactic when your book is not a Steinbeck level masterpiece.) It might not be the stunning work of art I dreamed about writing since childhood, but people seem to like it and… there’s always next year!
Again, I say that every year. And thus starts the cycle all over again: A January list of books to read and goals to accomplish. Stepping stones that I believe will turn me into a scholar with at least half a brain. I have a feeling I will lie on my death bed at 105 and say to the heavens, “No, not yet! I’ve learned nothing! And I haven’t figured out how to be thoughtful!” We’ll see. Visit me when I’m 105 and I’ll let you know. Even though I’m a woman, I suspect I might have a beard like this guy by then…
My Rundy
(This is supposed to be a review of My Antonia, HPB Humble book club selection for September’s discussion. But it’s not.)
With every book I read, I miss my high school English teacher more and more. I’m nostalgic by nature, so this should not be misconstrued as any overly dramatic longing. I only regret the times I was too exhausted to stay awake in class. I want to hear him talk about something I’m currently reading that wasn’t part of the curriculum ten to fifteen years ago. I feel desperate to hear his literary thoughts.
I miss Mr. Rundell – casually referred to in the classroom as Rundy – I miss conversations we never had. Which is ridiculous. Who misses their high school English teacher so much?
Sadly, it’s because somewhere in my seventeen year old brain, I was convinced that when I was a grown up, Mr. Rundell might be my friend – join my book clubs – hang out. I always thought that if he hadn’t been the teacher and I hadn’t been the student we would have been friends. I think everyone thought that about him. He was so cool, but super nerdy. He made being a little bit geek look fun.
At seventeen I was also convinced that I would never marry or have children. I thought this because the love of my life had me pretty convinced we were never going to be anything other than platonic. Now, we’ve been married for seven years and have a daughter. The point? What I thought at seventeen turned out to be pretty irrelevant. And the love of my life finally did fall in line with all of my heart’s desires. So why can’t my old English teacher?
I want to hit him up on facebook like I do my old college professors. Discuss random things that pop in my head as they come up organically. Why shouldn’t I? I’m still paying for the degree that’s sitting in my closet with a dog chew tear in the corner of what was probably meant to look like very expensive paper.
Selfishly, and a bit stalker-like, every few years I start googling him to see if I can hunt him down. Last time I was dying to discuss East of Eden (we read Grapes of Wrath for school) with him over a whiskey. Now, it’s Willa Cather’s My Antonia.
I watched the new Gatsby movie with a friend the other night and all I could think was, “I would have loved to see this movie for the first time with Rundy.” Even if it meant I had to sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair bolted to a crappy desk to do so.
People shape our lives in ways we do not expect. I was always a reader, I always loved literature. He did not ignite something in me that wouldn’t have already been there. But the man knew how to balance that fine line between teacher and friend. Teenagers really need to feel like someone is on their side sometimes, and Rundy had being on our side down pat. There was a rapport that made us desire his classroom and approval alongside a pure, true teacher student ambiance.
I knew he was one of my favorite teachers then and there, but I never expected to actually wonder what he was up to or hear half his lectures in my head when I re-read old classics. I especially didn’t think that I would feel the absence of his lectures when reading a title I didn’t even know about at age seventeen.
So this is not so much a review as an ode to my favorite English teacher of all time. The tall, lanky, hunched-over-geek that sat on the bottom of his spine as he leaned awkwardly into the stool beside the podium. The guy who had us write essays on Pink Floyd and Army of Darkness. The man who arched his eyebrows at my best friend and me when I told him we were just friends and said, “Sure.” I think he was the first person to get me wondering if I had a shot with the boy who swept me off my feet and became my husband.
This is an ode to the guy that made us think.
As for Cather’s work, I nearly died at a quote on page 187 by Lena: “[…] I don’t want a husband. Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them, they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what’s sensible and what’s foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody.”
I laughed and laughed at this. Oh, Lena, how I thought that too! But that post is for another day.
Where Curiosity Comes to Stay
One of my favorite shops put out a short film. The shop is called Good Books in the Woods, I credit them for inspiration in the bio on the back of my first novella which will be coming out soon. Recently, I planned to write a When We’re Not Reading segment on the release party for the film as well as on Journaling Night for HPB Humble. The post never occurred as I had so much fun at both events, I forgot to take pictures.
Luckily, I don’t have to spend too much time what an incredible evening it was… coffee, wine, cookies, fruit trays, book browsing, film viewing… all in the cozy living room of Good Books in the Woods, because the film is available for you to see too.
Click the movie poster to view the You Tube video.
I hope you enjoy it!
As for Journaling… the second Thursday of every month at 7:00 pm, I sit myself at the table in the Metaphysics and Health section at Half Price Books Humble with journals, pens, prisma pencils, clip art, and a whole lot of creative energy. Inevitably, one or two customers always join me. It’s really relaxing and offers a chance to really kick all your cares from the day out of your mind.
Needless to say, despite the fact that the segments are called When We’re Not Reading, there’s generally a bookish theme to every aspect of our lives.
Word Love
Photograph by Maureen F, click to visit her Flickr page.
I have a strangely inappropriate love for certain words. One of them is wafted.
wafted past participle, past tense of waft
VerbPass or cause to pass easily or gently through or as if through the air: “the smell of stale fat wafted out from the restaurant”.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned my love for this word in this blog somewhere before, I know I briefly commented on it in my review of Kendall Grey’s Inhale. But while reading Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, I decided this topic deserved its very own post – not just a brief comment.
It struck me, much more strongly than ever before, how much I truly love this word as I read these lines:
“His napkin clung to his waist for a moment, hanging absurdly, like a loin cloth, and then wafted to the floor in slow motion.” – On Chesil Beach, pg. 33
Because there I was reading Ian McEwan’s book, completely uninterested and partly uncomfortable by the topic altogether, until that word hit the page. With one word, my entire mindset turned around. With one word, I thought: McEwan really is a lovely writer.
As soon as that thought struck me and I was able to identify where it came from, I recalled reading that word somewhere else earlier in the week. I poked around in my reading material a bit and found that M.G. King used it in Fizz & Peppers. Not only did she use it, I found that I had whimsically underlined it without giving it a single thought. I often read with a pen or pencil in my hand. You can often find doodles, or notes, or sporadic underlining in many of my books. It is something that often happens without thought, and sometimes upon re-reading the title, without reason. It seems as though, while reading Fizz & Peppers, I came across that word, and my pencil just reached out from my hand and licked it like it was a delicious bit of whip cream on top of a fine dessert.
“Even before he made it halfway down the hall he felt the hot, soggy air wafting through the house.” – Fizz & Peppers
Well, it doesn’t have to be in past tense, you see, I like any form of the word waft:
Definition of WAFT
intransitive verb: to move or go lightly on or as if on a buoyant medium <heavenly aromas wafted from the kitchen>transitive verb
: to cause to move or go lightly by or as if by the impulse of wind or waves— waft·er noun
Although these fonts aren’t doing the word justice, in all its forms I just love that word. The deep smile it gives me is inevitable. And I couldn’t tell you whether it starts with my lips and seeps down into my gut or if it is the reverse, but I cannot read the word waft without becoming inexplicably happy.
I would like to go on a hunt through my personal library and see where else I have made note of this wonderful word in my books. That would take years, but it would be a worthy cause. From now on, I’ll just remember to make note in my journals of where I have read it and who wrote it.
Click to visit book blog: Wafting Through the Bookshelf, adventures in bookwaft
Do you have any favorite words? Another of mine is speakeasy, I like they way it feels when it is spoken aloud, but I have no deep love for the meaning. Waft is unique for me in that I love every aspect of it, how it sounds, what it means, the elegance it gives a sentence when it used, the image I have in my mind when I read it… oh yes, but what is your favorite word? And why do you like it?
It’s a Love Fest
Featuring all my favorite lovey-dovey pics from peeps I know…
Hannah in England
Will Staney proposing to his wife at a Foster the People concert.
Hubby and Me at a Party
If you don’t think this is sweet, there’s something wrong with you… Emily & Michael.
There we are again… The Klemms 2006
Andrew and Krystal
Valentine’s Book Love Art
If you don’t already, you should really follow Bookshelf Porn on Facebook. Click the image they shared today (Valentine’s 2013) to visit their page.
Anakalian Whims 