hmmm. I'm back and now I have to think of things to write. This was never a problem before. I usually write late at night. Ideas just come to me late at night. I'm a night owl. I don't like to interact with people after a certain point but I could stay up for hours after that point. But the past few weeks I've been going to bed early (for me) and I'm finding it harder to get back into the groove.
Sooooooo ...
Booking Through Thursday asks:
Which do you prefer? (Quick answers–we’ll do more detail at some later date)
There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.)Books on North American French Colonial History. Mostly.
But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.
What niche books do YOU read?
“This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”
Booking Through Thursday asks:
Is there a book that you wish you could “unread”? One that you disliked so thoroughly you wish you could just forget that you ever read it?
The thing is, I do usually forget that I read it. Although I tend to overthink many things I don't tend to dwell on things that don't interest me. In fact, I've been accused of intentionally forgetting things that I'm not interested in.
But, for reasons that will become clear in a future post, I've been thinking of books that include The Bonfire of the Vanities. And I regret that I remember it. What a waste of time that was, reading that.
This week's question at Booking Through Thursday is this:
Last Saturday (May 2nd) is Free Comic Book Day! In celebration of comics and graphic novels, some suggestions:
- Do you read graphic novels/comics? Why do/don’t you enjoy them?
- How would you describe the difference between “graphic novel” and “comic”? Is there a difference at all?
- Say you have a friend who’s never encountered graphic novels. Recommend some titles you consider landmark/”canonical”.
I don't think I've ever read a graphic novel. When I was a kid I read comic books. In fact, according to my parents, in fifth grade I got in trouble for reading comic books in class. I must have gotten it from some other kid in my class because I don't remember ever buying a comic book. And the truth is that I don't remember reading comic books in class in fifth grade. I remember playing hangman with my friend Carol and being bored to death because our teacher was so bad. That was the year I got and "A" in most every subject (except probably gym class) and a "D" in effort. Hence the parent/teacher conference about the alleged comic books. But I digress ...
I have nothing against comics, comic books or (I suppose) graphic novels. And if someone wants to recommend one I might put it on the list of things to be read.
Booking Through Thursday asks the following:
Which is worse?
1. Finding a book you love and then hating everything else you try by that author, or
2. Reading a completely disappointing book by an author that you love?
This is a hard one, but since answer No. 1 would require me to read a lot of books I hate to really find out that I hated everything else - I think that would be worse. Although I'm having a hard time thinking of a book that I've loved but then hated everything else the author wrote. Sometimes (often) I don't like anything else as much as the book I loved, but I usually don't hate everything else. On the other hand, I have loved an author and then read a disappointing book. For instance, my favorite AS Byatt. I was disappointed by The Biographer's Tale (even though I think it could be made into a film). But that's just the way life is.
By the way, my friend and regular commenter AndiF has (finally) decided to start a photo blog. She's still unpacking, organizing and moving the furniture around, but the housewarming party is in full swing. Check it out: 40 Acres More or Less.
Booking Through Thursday asks:
Some people read one book at a time. Some people have a number of them on the go at any given time, perhaps a reading in bed book, a breakfast table book, a bathroom book, and so on, which leads me to…
- Are you currently reading more than one book?
- If so, how many books are you currently reading?
- Is this normal for you?
- Where do you keep your current reads?
And here are my answers:
1. Yes.
2. Three
3. Yes.
4. On the floor next to the bed, in my car and on the table in my office.
I usually have more than one book going. I almost always have a "hard" book that I work on slowly and an "easy" read that goes in my car and to work with me. Right now my "hard" book is Anna Karenina, which is hard only because it is so long - and I have to say that it is unusual for me to take so long to finish a novel. I still have 300 pages to go and I've been reading it off and on since September. It isn't that I don't like it. It is just so darn heavy! Usually at some point I get so deep into a novel that I start to carry it around with me even though it is the "hard" book. But this one gives me a backache. I think, though, that I'm going to take it to jury duty with me on Monday.
My current easy read is Babylon Sisters which also happens to be my Reading Group book this month. After starting it I realized it was perfect to carry around with me. That doesn't always happen with Reading Group books, sometimes they need more concentration. In months when that happens I pick a different book as the "easy" read and read the Reading Group book at home (and put Anna aside - you see how it goes.)
Then I sometimes have books going that don't need to be read all at once because there is no narrative. Right now it is Billy Collins' Ballistics but it might be a book of essays or a book of non-fiction that isn't in narrative form. Sometimes the non-fiction is also the "easy" read - the ease existing in short chapters that can be read at lunchtime. I also sometimes have a history book going - one of my hobbies is French colonial history and I pick up books in that subject that tend toward the academic. They can be read in small chunks as the spirit moves me. For instance I just ordered a new book about the French records at Michilimackinac which will probably include lots of lists - which I can work through at my own pace.
Then there are the "interrupting" books - I pick up a book at the library (usually a book in a mystery series I'm reading) and just drop everything else and read it until I'm finished. (That's happened a lot in the last month with the Laura Lippman books.)
You?
Over at Harriet, Cathy Halley posted the following:
In response to Travis's last post, Iain says: "I'd be very interested in a poll that asked people what stereotypes they associate with poetry and poets."
So would we. So let's ask that question far and wide:
What stereotypes do you associate with poetry and poets?
Stereotypes. Well, poet stereotypes abound. Sensitive and moody top the list. Poor. (Definitely poor.) Impractical. Now that I think about it there are really a lot of negative stereotypes of poets. But when I think of one of my favorite living poets, Billy Collins, he just seems like a regular guy who happens to write poetry.
Concerning Poetry itself, I find hard to think of stereotypes because I dismiss them too easily. Difficult to understand. (It isn't really). Only meant for highly educated people (how do you think illiterate societies passed on stories - they made poems of them). Lots of rhymes. (not)
In any event, as part of National Poetry Month make it a point to be nice to a poet this month.
I saw this at Of Books and Bicycles and then at a lot of other blogs. You are to “name 25 writers who have influenced you. These are not necessarily your favorite writers or those you most admire, but writers who have influenced you. Then you tag 25 people.”
Influence means to have an effect on someone or something; to cause change. At first I couldn't think of many books that actually changed me much less the writers of those books. Not that I think it didn't happen but a writer may have influenced me in such a way that I'm not aware of it or don't remember it. On the other hand, many books affect me momentarily but it's hard to say that any of those affects are lasting. And the idea that I could remember 25 seemed unrealistic. But I started thinking about it. Click "More" to see my list.
What book do you think should be made into a movie? And do you have any suggestions for the producers? Or, What book do you think should NEVER be made into a movie?
Anyone who reads this blog will know that I'm a huge fan of AS Byatt. But The Biographer's Tale is my least favorite Byatt novel and I found it almost unreadable in certain respects. So it might strike some of you as funny that I think it could be made into a film. But I do. I've thought so ever since about a week after the first (and only) time I read the novel and was caught up in thinking about how the novel just didn't work. When suddenly I thought, but it would work as a movie. I just never thought I'd get the chance to tell anyone this idea.
For those of you who haven't read it, I can't recommend that you do. But I'll give you a brief synopsis. Phineas G. Nanson is a graduate student who tires of academic life and is uninterested in completing his dissertation. He is tired of post-structural literary studies and wants "facts". His advisor recommends that he instead write a biography of an obscure writer who only wrote biographies: Scholes Destry-Scholes. Nanson attempts to research Scholes' life but, in the end, discovers very little about Scholes, certainly not enough to write a biography. To support himself as he conducts his tedious research he becomes employed at a travel agency that helps people plan special fantasy trips. In the course of the story he also becomes lovers with two women, a Scandinavian bee taxonimist and a radiologist. In the end he is not able to finish the biography but he does become a fiction writer.
Not the most exciting plot in the world. Those immersed in academia might find parts of it amusing; others might be bored. But the plot is not necessarily the reason that it didn't work as a novel. The problem with this novel was that Byatt forces the reader to go through every bit of tiresome, pointless research that Nanson goes through.
When Nanson finds that Scholes had begun work on three biographies, we are forced to read the excerpts of these biographies that he has found. All right, perhaps this was not pointless from the point of view of the reader because the fictional biographies are of real life persons (Carl Linneaus, Francis Galton and Henrik Ibsen) and we the reader figure out that Scholes inserted a bit of ... fantasy into his biographies. But although not pointless, they take up a great deal of the book and interrupt the narrative (and while Byatt is making statements in this novel about narrative it is still annoying). Each of these three real life people were involved in the science (or art?) of classification. And classification plays a big role in this novel.
Nanson also discovers a huge collection of notecards on which Scholes kept notes. As Nanson slowly works through them he tries to classify them and fails. As a reader we try to impose a narrative on them and fail - there is no rhyme or reason to the order of the cards and the quotes on them are not identified so it is impossible to tell what was a quote versus what was an original thought of Scholes'. This notecard examination goes on for quite some time and is the main reason that I found the novel almost unreadable.
So why on earth would I think this would make a good film? Because if you cut out those sections of the novel in which the reader must read what Nanson reads (not the idea behind these sections but the actual fact of having to read them), the story of Phineas Nanson is actually ... a tale. A fairy tale, even. And one that lends itself to a visual medium.
Byatt loves to create tales and she often inserts them into her novels. She did it in Possession and in Babel Tower. She also wrote a small book of tales. And I'm usually bored by them. But this entire novel is a fairy tale and it works if the reader can get past all the research she is forcing us to do.
Here are the details that I left out of my synopsis. Phineas G. Nanson is a "little person". Not really a dwarf. "Small but perfectly formed." Maybe like a hobbit but without the furry feet. He is given advice by Professor Goode - a Merlin or Gandalf like person. The two women with whom he becomes involved are like opposite twins of myth - one a bee taxonimist, all outdoors and golden. The other a radiologist, all indoors and silver. There is a mysterious stranger who lurks at the Travel Agency and is threatening in some vague way (his name is Bossey) all of which leads up to an "encounter". The Travel Agency itself is one of those magical places that inhabit British children's literature - Phineas "just notices" it on the street one day. He realizes that he needs a job and it just sort of appears. A plain building with a magical interior .
The particular reason I think this would work in film is because as the story moves forward his life become more colorful - literally. (In the novel his writing becomes more interesting too). And it would work so much better if you could actually see the color and the other visuals. The story opens in shades of brown and gray (London, the interior of a classroom) and ends in a field of bright flowers. In between he moves between a gray existence (reading all those damn notecards) to color (the Travel Agency). I can picture an Amelie like colorization technique as different objects become colorized until by the end his whole world is color. And all the parts that were boring to read? We could see what he sees as he reads them - as they become more fantastical. A sort of movie of the mind showing us that what were supposed to be solid documentaries about great men became works of fiction.
I think it could work.
The most amazing thing to me is that the whole fairy tale thing was not even noticeable to me through most of the novel. Thank god. If it had been blatant I would have given up early on. I don't like fairy tales. But it was done so subtly that I didn't even realize it until late in the novel when Phineas gets into an argument with the very likeable but slightly naughty gay owners of the Travel Agency and the word "fairies" is flung around. Gasp. Of course I assumed it was just a slur thrown against two gay men. Until a few pages later when it dawned on me that they were not only gay they were exactly like fairies. Real fairies (well, you know what I mean). Think Tinkerbell. She is essentially good but unreliable. She grants wishes but they might not turn out as you expect. She has a temper and gets jealous. She can be mischievous. And that's what the Travel Agency owners are like. They have made Phineas' life better by employing him but they are also ... difficult. And it was at that moment that I put the whole thing together and realized that Phineas was living in a fairy story although he thought he was living another genre of narrative altogether. And once he released himself into fiction his life became happier.
Now can't you just see a filmmaker wrapping his arms around that concept?
Oh, and by the way, I never thought I would ever blog about The Biographer's Tale.
We’ve all seen the lists, we’ve all thought, “I should really read that someday,” but for all of us, there are still books on “The List” that we haven’t actually gotten around to reading. Even though we know they’re fabulous. Even though we know that we’ll like them. Or that we’ll learn from them. Or just that they’re supposed to be worthy. We just … haven’t gotten around to them yet. What’s the best book that YOU haven’t read yet?
It's probably The Brothers Karamazov. The translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky has been sitting on my shelf for at least ten years and I know that someday I'm going to read it.
Why don't I, you ask?
I think it's because I don't know how to allocate my time for it because I don't really know anything about it. I'm not familiar with the narrative. All I know is that it is a long novel. I don't know what the flow of the story is; I don't know how many natural stopping points there are; I don't know how demanding it will be from a time perspective.
I don't mean overall time, that never bothers me. I mean each individual segment of reading time. In my youth, when I had large blocks of time that I could spend reading, long novels never deterred me. But now my reading time is more often broken up into smaller segments. So before I pick up a large novel I wonder how many natural stopping points there are and I wonder how intense the reading experience is going to be (i.e. how fast or slow am I going to have to read).
Last September I decided I was going to read Anna Karenina over the winter and part of me hoped it would be a warmup for Dostoyevsky. Why did I feel I could read Anna but not Brothers? Because I knew the story of Anna - I've seen movies based on it. A year ago I saw an Opera based on it. Since I knew the story I felt comfortable that I knew where the natural stopping points were going to be and I also felt comfortable that if I had to put it down for a while I would remember the storyline when I picked it up again.
And, indeed, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Tolstoy broke the novel up into very short chapters. So it is possible to pick it up and put it down over the course of a week. And when I was diverted for almost three months I didn't give up on it, I just eventually picked it up and started reading where I left off. It helps that it is one big soap opera. But I knew before I started that the narrative had a soap opera quality to it.
Brothers? I know nothing. I don't want to start it, find out I don't have time and need to divert myself and then give up because I know that I'll be helplessly lost when I pick it up one (or two or three) months later).
But. I will read it one day.
Booking Through Thursday asks:
“How do you arrange your books on your shelves? Is it by author, by genre, or you just put it where it falls on?
About half of my books are shelved alphabetically by author but are segregated: fiction, drama/poetry, non-fiction (biography), non-fiction (general).
The other half are shelved differently. Children's literature has no rhyme or reason and is just stuck on shelves in a bookcase in my guest room. Travel books are shelved by location. Cookbooks are shelved by size, as are art books.
The biggest section of books that is non-alphabetical is my collection of books about colonial history which are categorized by time period and culture (French, West Indies and German).
Books "to be read" are stacked on top of a bookcase.
How about you?
I think the point of this challenge is to pick a book from each of these categories and then read it during 2009. So I'm trying to think of books for each category that I haven't read yet. I need suggestions.
A book with a "profession" in its title:
Help?!!
A book with a "time of day" in its title:
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (because I feel I ought to)
Or
Thursday Next, by Jasper Fforde (because I want to read it - although technically Thursday is a day and not a time a day and technically Thursday isn't even a day in this book.)
A book with a "relative" in its title:
Dreams of my Father, by Barack Obama (truthfully I'm not all that interested in reading this but I can't think of another book with a "relative" in its title.)
A book with a "body part" in its title:
The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant (I didn't have to think hard on this, it was already on my list)
A book with a "building" in its title:
The Black Tower by Louis Bayard (I could be convinced to pick something else)
A book with a "medical condition" in its title:
I'm stumped. Andif recommends Warm Springs: Traces of a Childhood at FDR’s Polio Haven" by Susan Richards Shreve which I do remember being interested in.
Nearly half of all men and one-third of women have lied about what they have read to try to impress friends or potential partners, a survey suggests.Animated discussion ensued.In my life, I don't ever remember lying about what I was reading to impress a potential partner or a friend. Or, really, anyone.
Men were most likely to do this to appear intellectual or romantic, found the poll of 1,500 people by Populus for the National Year of Reading campaign.
The men polled said they would be most impressed by women who read news websites, Shakespeare or song lyrics. Women said men should have read Nelson Mandela's biography or Shakespeare.
Despite all the attention being given to the tumult at Random House, the real, out-of-control bloodletting seems to be going on at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, where tips to MobyLives have it that among those fired were fiction editor Angelie Singh and one of the most prestigious and acomplished and admired editors in the business: Drenka Willen. She is best-known for being the editor of four Nobel Prize winners: Günter Grass, Jose Saramago, Wislawa Szymborska and Octavio Paz, as well as other well-know authors including Umberto Eco and Amos Oz. Given that HMH has announced it won’t be buying their new books any time soon, and now has fired their truly beloved editor, one has to wonder if those writers will now stay with the house. Or, to put it another way, do the proprietors of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt really know what they’re doing?Not good.
How much time — if any — do you spend on the Web? Is it a distraction or a blessing?Of course, both. But which more often? Lately I've been more spider than fly being online for information; getting in and out as soon as I've finished reading and not being too distracted. But I've been a fly. Often.
Both. Last spring, I spent a week at an artists’ retreat where you’re asked to leave your cellphone behind and where you have no Internet access in your room. There’s one computer with Web access in a dank corner of the basement. At first it felt strange. Quickly, it felt wonderful. I emptied out, filled up. I didn’t go online all week. That said, if you’re writing a scene set in a steam laundry in Scotland in the 1920s, who could resist Googling “steam-laundry scotland” and being led to “Tender Fabrics Delicate Colours Send a Postcard Van Will Call”? Who can resist taking a break from writing to search, say, for a used gymnastic mat on Craigslist, or looking at house-swaps in Borneo and Greece? I do wonder how the Web is changing the texture and reach of contemporary fiction, as well as the writing process. It’s so easy, now, to find out a little about a lot or a lot about a little. It’s so easy to get interrupted or to interrupt yourself. But what a lovely lot of things to find. If it’s the Web, are we the spider or the fly?
I receive a lot of review books, but I have never once told lies about the book just because I got a free copy of it. However, some authors seem to feel that if they send you a copy of their book for free, you should give it a positive review. Do you think reviewers are obligated to put up a good review of a book, even if they don’t like it? Have we come to a point where reviewers *need* to put up disclaimers to (hopefully) save themselves from being harassed by unhappy authors who get negative reviews?I have never yet in the Long Life of this blog (heh) received a free book to review, but I would like to think that I would give my true opinion in the review. A reviewer who puts up a good review of a book she doesn't like is doing a disservice to her readers.
I’ve asked, in the past, about whether you more often buy your books, or get them from libraries. What I want to know today, is, WHY BUY?I buy books for two reasons. I'll buy a book I've already read because I love it and some part of me is simply compelled to own it. Perhaps it is a fear that it will go out of print and disappear. Perhaps it is a preemptive solution to waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to look up a passage. Perhaps it is just an irrational, totally emotional response to certain words that causes me to want them to belong to me.
Even if you are a die-hard fan of the public library system, I’m betting you have at least ONE permanent resident of your bookshelves in your house. I’m betting that no real book-lover can go through life without owning at least one book. So … why that one? What made you buy the books that you actually own, even though your usual preference is to borrow and return them?
If you usually buy your books, tell me why. Why buy instead of borrow? Why shell out your hard-earned dollars for something you could get for free?