it followed me home, ma, can I keep it?

A book jumped into my tote bag in Borders the other day. There's no other way to explain how I almost walked out of the store without paying for it.

Yes, I'd grabbed it from its table, yes, I'd perused it and written it down as a "must read" in my Moleskine, yes, it's purple, and yes, anything that elaborates on "a year of magical reading" has to be a good thing. 


I found it in my tote bag after I went back to the cafe to find it; I'm a good cafe citizen, and always put my books away. Clearly, this book needed a home...mine. It certainly won't be lonely there.


An interview on the author's blog, Nina Sankovich's  Read All Day, includes this advice:

There is no need to read from The Western Canon. Find what you like to read, sit down and indulge yourself, and the rewards will come.

Yes! 

Today, by the way, is Bloomsday. Have you read Ulysses? I haven't. In fact, I don't even want to. Once upon a time, I thought I had to read certain books in order to be truly literate. I'm no longer under that delusion. 

So what am I reading now? All of the Sookie Stackhouse novels. I'm absolutely glutting on them, and enjoying every moment. (One kept me company at a medical appointment the other day, and I appreciated being in Charlaine Harris's hot Louisiana instead of that waiting room. It was so cold in that waiting room ... by the end of three hours, I was wrapped in 4 blankets and still shivering, but I also was in Louisiana. That is the magic of reading!

It almost makes me wish I wasn't a puppet **

I'm here. I am - overwhelmed - so today I'll just say that I've been knitting and spinning.

I finished the Lacy Baktus shawlette in time to wear it to the wake for my father-in-law.

I started a Gaenor shawlette in a beautiful deep plum variegated fingering, just a few days ago.

I began to spin delicious Louet Northern Lights in the Teddy Bear colourway on Gidget, and we are doing very, very well. (This stuff spins itself. It's amazing.)

I've started to photograph some of my spindles - you can browse them here, if you like. Many more are coming. Many. I've been a complete hog about spindles. 

My favourites are the smaller ones - 1 oz. or less - but I know the heavier will come in handy when I begin to ply up some of the spindled singles.

I've decided to participate in the 2010 Tour de Fleece as a member of Team Russian Underpants. (Um, Russian Underpants? Let the Tsarina explain.) My goal: spin every day.

And isn't my Ravatar fetching in her TDF lampshade? Thank you, Lisa!


** As for the title of this post - That's just one of the delicious lines from Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg. There's no way to put it into context without giving away part of the wicked funny part of the plot, so you'll just have to trust me. I'll get around to reviewing it, as well as her Bee Season, and anything else I've read. Really, I will.

too cold to be outside

Here on Long Island, it's utterly freezing, way too cold to be outside. Today, let's brew up some Yorkshire Gold tea and visit a few of my favourite bookish blogs.

Book-Wyrm-Knits, is where Nicole reviews books, writes about writing, knits, and shows pictures of her very adorable kittehs.

Donna, What you think on grows , writes meditations that flow from the daily, and the really gorgeous she just finished knitting.

Melanie, The Indextrious Reader, is a fellow librarian who writes about books books books with gusto, intelligence, and an energetic love of reading.

dovegreyreaderscribbles writes (does not scribble!) and leads her readers to gems by Anne Bronte, Susan Hill, Sarah Waters, and (darn her!) books that US Amazon won't have for months.

The Overdecorated Bookcase, is Inkslinger's repository of insatiable bookishness and reviews, and whose taste in music is eerily near my own. (Rodrigo's guitar concerto, Bach cello suites, Dvorak, and Glenn Gould playing Brahms. I'm there, dude.)

Daphne's Somewhere I have never traveled includes photos of chickpea cutlets and insane gingerbread cookies, invitations to begin to read the Fingersmith books -- and a spot-on rant about The Holidays that I wish I had written. (Brava!)

If you visit these bookwomen, tell them teabird sent you!

** A special thank-you to Carrie of Nomadreader, my secret pal in the Book Blogger Holiday Swap. She chose April & Oliver by Tess Callahan for me, a fabulous choice, worthy of the to-be librarian she is! She also sent the softest bamboo yarn and bamboo needles. Thank you, Carrie!

do I have to bring a note?

I've been absent a lot. I'm sorry. How about a lit survey I just did on Facebook? Pardon the formatting...
1) What author do you own the most books by? Joyce Carol Oates.
2) What book do you own the most copies of? I don't duplicate books on purpose - but my bookshelves are so disorganized that I might have duplicates or triplicates - or I might be the Octomom of books!
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions? No - that's not one of the things I'm preoccupied with.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with? You mean, today? I'd have to say Mrs. Ramsay from "To the Lighthouse."
5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)? "Little Women."
6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old? "Jane Eyre."
7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year? "The Song of the Lark" by Willa Cather. I was snarling by the end of it.
8) What is the best book you've read in the past year? "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. (Not that I actually have a dilemma, since I'm not an omnivore, but when you read that food-industry lunatics are feeding corn to salmon, it's hard to be sanguine about any aspect of our food-chain...)
9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be? "The Omnivore's Dilemma."
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature? Anne Tyler
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie? Any Maisie Dobbs mystery.
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie? It's too late - they already did "Left Behind."
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character. When I first read "Crime and Punishment," it infiltrated my dreams. I was seeing through Raskolnikov's eyes. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult? "Da Vinci Code." Oh.dear.God.
15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read? I'm still reading it - "The Madwoman in the Attic."
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen? I never saw any of the really obscure ones.
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians? Salad dressings? Oh, books. Russians.
18) Roth or Updike? Please don't make me choose.... oh, all right, Roth, for "The Plot Against America."
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers? Sedaris. 20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer? Shakespeare
21) Austen or Eliot? Austen
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading? I've never read "Moby Dick" - and you can't make me.
23) What is your favourite novel? "Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke.
24) Play? (I'll fudge on this one...) Screenplay: "My Dinner with Andre."
25) Poem? One need not be a chamber to be haunted... Emily Dickinson, ever and always Emily.
26) Essay? "Some Memories of the Glorious Bird and an Earlier Self" by Gore Vidal.
27) Short story? Dostoevsky - "White Nights." (or, "The Beast in the Jungle" by Henry James.)
28) Work of nonfiction? "The White Album" - Joan Didion. (Substitute any title by Joan Didion.)
29) Who is your favorite writer? Jane Austen.
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today? Dan Brown.
31) What is your desert island book? Jane Austen - "Emma."
32) And ... what are you reading right now? "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks.

Musing Mondays

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about bookmarks…

• What do you use to mark your place while reading? Do you have a definite preference? Do you use bookmarks, paper, or (gasp) turn down the pages? If you use bookmarks, do you have a favourite?

Many friends have given me bookmarks, including hand-made with pressed flowers, or knitted. I use them, and they make me happy. So do the pretty/funny cards, holiday cards, and postcards that arrive in my happy place: the mailbox.

Don't say "dog ear" to me. (Hands over ears: la la la la la)

I do, occasionally, supplement the bookmarks with papers for note-taking, but the papers are usually stored towards the end of the book.

Casting Spells - Barbara Bretton

Sugar Maple, Vermont, is a lovely town that is distanced from the evils of the world as most of us know it - a haven for ordinary people who welcome tourists to their shoppes, the inn, the playhouse, the library, and the storybook charms of quaint New England.

Chloe Hobbs, owner of Sticks & Strings, provides tourists and townies with yarn, knitting instruction, and the kind of hand-knitted sample items that can tempt even the most stash-stuffed knitter to open her purse. Every knitter knows that Chloe's store is the place "where your yarn never tangles, your sleeves always come out the same length, and you always, always get gauge." Sounds perfectly magical, doesn't it?

Well, it is, and it isn't. Actually, the town has flourished as a haven for ordinary-looking people who only drop their mortal mufti amongst themselves, when their true natures and skills can shine -- and a diverse group it is, what with the werewolves, selkies, wizards, faeries, shape-shifters, poltergeists, vampires, and trolls.

Other businesspeople in Sugar Maple are free to use their powers to create the inviting enchantments that delight tourists. (Productions at the Sugar Maple Arts Playhouse are easy to cast, since all of the actors are shapeshifters!) But Chloe, the product of a mixed marriage between a sorceress and a mortal man seems to have inherited no magic at all. Not a whit of it.

Chloe's friends are eager to get her married, hoping that she, like her sorceress mother, will find her magic when she falls in love. The townspeople are concerned about Chloe as well. As the only female descendant of the sorceress who enchanted the town and kept the magic folk safe for centuries, it is Chloe's presence that ensures the integrity of the spell.

But the spell has been weakening for awhile. Its vulnerability has been proven by the drowning death of a lovely young woman who had just purchased a delicate shawl from Chloe. This brings another threat to the town: a handsome hunk of a policeman from Outside, sent to investigate the death.

Chloe's friends have failed to find a suitable partner for her, try as they might: there had been neither magic nor chemistry between Chloe and the troll, or the selkie whose breath smelled like smoked salmon. But - when Chloe meets the hunk and shakes his hand, sparks fly - literally - and true magic enters Chloe's life.

A subplot about a power-hungry, purple-glitter-shedding faery and her desire to own the Book of Spells that was left to Chloe causes additional tension. Chloe's house is destroyed by the faery's warring sons. ("How was I going to explain this to State Farm?" she worries. Luckily, she doesn't have to, since her house is restored by morning, as if by wizardry.) (Or, by wizardry.) A town meeting about the weakening spell brings out all of the residents, including old vampires who have to insert their false teeth before they wheelchair it out into the night, an itinerant house sprite, a punked-out faery with tats and a pink iPod "permanently set too stun," and a witch who tells Chloe that "Banshees are imaginary."

(This same witch, observing Chloe in a startled moment, says "you look like you've just seen a ghost." Chloe laughs until she cries. So did I.)

Let's just say that this book delighted me, and will delight you. Trust me.

• One cavil: Why did the town's librarian have to be a troll? Don't we librarians have enough of an image problem?? Barbara reminded me that Lilith is a glam troll with gorgeous red hair. True...It's also true that she utters the funniest line in the whole book.
  

reading, knitting, and me

I've been so distracted with one thing or another lately that I have neglected several blog topics: reading, knitting, and me. So, no political screeds or Jeremiads today, just a little reading, a little knitting, and little me.

Reading
Carlyle's House and Other Sketches by Virginia Woolf. These are early "passionate apprentice"-stage pieces that never were published, or even transcribed from her early notebooks until a few years ago. They are rough sketches, very rough if compared to The Common Reader, or the mature perfection of A Room of One's Own. And yet, Woolf's sensibility is evident, as in an imagined moment between Thomas and Jane Carlyle: "Did one always feel a coldness between them? The only connection the flash of the intellect. I imagine so." Or, a character study of Miss Reeves, lover of H.G.Wells: "She seemed determined to be human also; to like people, even though they were stupid."

Any Modern Reader (however common) must recoil from the short essay, "Jews," a brief portrait of one Mrs. Loeb. "It seemed as though she wished to ingratiate herself with her guests and expected to be kicked by them...Her food, of course, swam in oil and was nasty." Her ostentatious kindness to poor relations is designed to acquire for them "the society of men and marriage. It seemed very elementary, very little disguised, and very unpleasant." Anti-semintism amongst the genteel of her time was common, indeed, but this Jewess wonders why a sketch of one woman was presented - albeit only in the notebook - as a description of "Jews."

Doris Lessing, in her introduction, writes, "We all wish our idols and exemplars were perfect; a pity she was such a wasp, such a snob - and all of the rest of it, but love has to be warts and all." Amen to that.

Knitting
I haven't been very productive lately. I've only finished a couple of face cloths and one little crossover scarf. After a blissful reread (via audiobook) of To the Lighthouse (do you sense a trend?), I developed a passionate desire for a green shawl. I spent two of the three weeks of my convalescence swatching the forest-green worsted from my stash, and came up with nothing pleasing. Now I'm thinking of a simple basketweave stitch with a moss border. Yes, that may do.
(Note: when I say "shawl," I mean rectangular wrap - better coverage to keep my poor, battered lungs protected, and now down-arrow in the back calling attention to my - lower back.

Right now I'm knitting a simple, long, slim scarf from fingering yarn that gave me such trouble when I knitted one sock out of it, and when I swatched for a lacy scarf, that I actually threw it away. I thought better of it, rescued it, and substituted texture (the Harlot's one-row stitch) for delicacy. Voila! Perfect.

Reading and knitting
I have joined (as co-moderator) the new Ravelry group for lovers of Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury. (Do you sense a trend?) This group has promise. Next month, I shall moderate a readalong in the Pen Fetish group, which has voted to read Foreign Correspondence by Geraldine Brooks. We pen folk will take to this account of the Brooks as she tracks down and meets childhood pen friends, I'm certain, just as we have taken to deep and detailed discussions of nibs and Noodler's ink.

Me
All of the above, plus an XF nib. Or several.

tagged!

Leah at The Octogon tagged me with the Book Edition of 7 things about me. This one is fun!

1. I love marginalia, but I never write any. All of the notes I take are in little notebooks or random scraps of paper, and they rarely find their way into the right book. Months after I've read the book, I'll find a scrap that says "Newfoundland, maybe?" and I'll have No Idea. None.

2. If Nancy Atherton ever stops writing her Aunt Dimity mysteries, I shall weep. Even though I haven't read the last 3 of them, I know that Reginald and Aunt Dimity are waiting for me.

3. When I was reading Janwillen van de Wetering's Amsterdam novels. I developed a yen for a sundae with vanilla ice cream with pineapple topping because he wrote about one.

4. When I was reading Falling in Place by Ann Beattie, I developeed a yen for Swiss cheese on pita bread with mushrooms (see above).

5. Not only did I love The Borrowers when I was young, I wanted to be one. Just as most young girls want to be Jo March, I wanted to be Arietty. Still do.

6. I still want to be Jo March, too.

7. One of my life goals is to walk Mrs. Dalloway's route in England.

Tagged: Basset Knitter Paula, Crescent Knitter Caitlin, Gubbinal, Rena at A Tradition of Quirky Artists, Kim at Handeye Crafts, Penguingirl, and Cats Who Knit.

Cassandra and Jane: book review

Cassandra and Jane by Jill Pitkeathley. (Harper, 2008.)

Meh.

What did I expect of this fictional memoir of Jane Austen's sister, Cassandra? When I first heard of it, I thought the author was wise to use Cassandra's voice instead of trying to emulate Jane's. (Of course, Jane's narrative would have ended much sooner than Cassandra's.)

I have yet to read any of the Austen spin-offs because I don't read Austen solely for plot, and I'm not sure I want to know what happened once Jane had, as it were, closed the book on them. This book, however, posits itself as historical fiction.

Recently, I read Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman. Before I read this wonderful, rich book, I knew nothing of medieval Wales or Europe. I still cannot pronounce the names of most of the characters. However, I know them, I know how they fit into history, and I have a sense of how it was to live in those times.

(Trust me, I know this is an unfair comparison.)

I can not say the same of this book. The only character I got to know in any depth is Cassandra, and I neither like nor trust her. All I know at the end is that she was a jealous and sometimes- spiteful sister who enjoyed Jane's writings, but understood little of the creative process or spirit. Jane remains one-dimensional, shoved from one heartbreak to the next, or one disappointment to the next, with Cassandra interposing her own saccharine suffering into every nook and cranny. I didn't even have the satisfaction of reading colorful descriptions of clothes or foods, for heaven's sake! In fact, the lack of sensory detail probably predisposed me to dislike this book more than any other deficit.

Meh.

peeping out from my hidey-hole, and Friday Fill-Ins

I've been unusually fortunate in the book contests I've won lately. This week, I received The Memoirist by M.J. Rose from Sarah at Reading the Past. Thank you, Sarah! I always enjoy Sarah's reviews of obscure books, such as A Song for Marguerite by Maureen Peters, and I love her link to Reusable Cover Art.

I'm having a wonderful time reading Cassandra and Jane, which is whetting my appetite for biographies of Jane Austen beyond the one by Carol Shields. I have Becoming Jane Austen lined up as well as a collection of Austen's letters - any other suggestions ?

Friday Fill-ins:

1. Right now, I'm feeling weary, and glad that my current knitting is utterly, totally mindless.
2. Listening to the ocean is where I want to be.
3. How does one spend that much money on clothes and that much money on makeup? Literally. How does one DO that?
4. The moon keeps me on track.
5. Please don't take my Kodachrome away.
6. This fills me with joy.
7. And as for the weekend, I need/want to rest.

Booking through Thursday

Whether you usually read off of your own book pile or from the library shelves NOW, chances are you started off with trips to the library. (There’s no way my parents could otherwise have kept up with my book habit when I was 10.) So … What is your earliest memory of a library? Who took you? Do you have you any funny/odd memories of the library?


I do not remember my first visit to the library. I wish I did. It would be nice if I did. It wouldbe a good beginning to the story of how I decided to become a librarian. Alas.

My first memories of visits to the library are stuffed with disappointment. The old library shared an amber-brick building with the town's offices. The children's area not only was small and cozy for a child, but I was bored with it because I already had read nearly everything on the shelves. I would wander into the adult section and settle down with something that interested me, and the librarians would shoo me back into the children's room.

Blessings on my mother! She was, and is, a voracious, eclectic reader. I took after her in both curiosity and a preternatural ability to read when I was three years old. When she realized what the librarians were doing to me, she demanded an adult card for me. Much as the librarians sputtered, she won her point, and I received both an adult card and permission to check out anything I wanted. Anything! I can not imagine what the circulation desk ladies thought when I checked out books on Zen and collections of haiku for myself, and existentialism for my mother.

I was seven.

(Incidentally, those were the days when libraries would not collect Nancy Drew books or anything else that was so worthless. We've come a long way! Maybe too long. Last week, I cataloged a manga Bible.)

The library was so small that when I worked there as a page (at 15) (volunteer), one of my jobs was to fetch materials from the basement storage area for patrons. By the time it was rebuilt, I was in college, where I hated the poured-concrete, cold library with the bewildering Library of Congress classification system and the haughty librarians. I would use it for college assignments, but for my own reading, I would go back to town, where the reference librarian would be bewildered by some of my requests (Kalki? Gore Vidal?) but would accommodate with grace.

(This was a town that was so protective that a clerk in the only bookstore had to be convinced that I was old enough to buy and read Franny and Zooey at 14. She was convinced it was about incest.)

I've worked in libraries for 31 years now - 29 in the same library. That old brick building shaped my life. I raise my cup of hot, amber tea cup to those amber bricks. Cheers!

when only a meme will do

I found this meme at Thinking About...


1. What book are you reading right now? I just started Pamela by Samuel Richardson on the recommendation of The Tsarina of Tsocks. I love it. What's not to love about an 18th-century epistolary novel? Just my cup of tea.

2. What was the last book you read on a plane? I haven't been on a plane in 12 years, and I don't remember.

3. What was the last book you read on a roadtrip? Well, I haven't been on a roadtrip for awhile either, but the book I've been toting along when I visit people and I know I might be reading instead of listening to twaddle the scintillating conversation is Emma.

4. What was the most unusual place you found yourself reading? See #2 and #3. I don't get out much. I do read while I'm cooking, though. I loathe cooking, so I read while I'm stirring whatever, or while whatever is coming to a boil.

5. What books would you take to keep you occupied on a two-week vacation to the beach? I don't go to the beach. The sun makes me sick, I don't like sand anywhere on my body, and I can't swim. However, should I find myself in a beach house, watching the surf and enjoying a sea breeze, I'd take The Mists of Avalon, Beatrix Potter: a life in nature, and Ocean Breezes: knitted scarves inspired by the sea. (And the appropriate yarn, of course.) All three are on my shelves, unread. What a joy it would be to have time to read them!

Let's see, whom shall I tag? The last two people who did this meme tagged three, so I will do the same -- Moon Rani at Tea Reads, Bridget at The Ravell'd Sleave, and Paula at Bassett Knitter -- plus anyone else who feels meme-ish.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

stunned and tired

Tired and stunned. Maybe the course of antibiotics I finished last week scrambled my synapses. Maybe I'm so sick of my job that I'm too distracted to bat the emotional vampires away. Maybe I just want a toy. Whatever. The cause is almost irrelevant. The effect is not.
I just read a review of a new book, Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, by Gary Marcus. From Booklist:

• "Whether it's memory, rationality, language, or free will, our noble human traits are hopelessly entangled with our baser drives, which have survived the dynamics of evolution."

I ask you, isn't that a perfect expression of our shared dilemma? It certainly expresses mine. I want to be compassionate, but the world keeps throwing things at me that challenge good intentions. (Eliot Spitzer, what the hell...?) I love to learn and read and think, but my professional world has succumbed to the imperative of survival of the fittest, and I now buy almost every book I wish to read. (I've had to fight to keep more than one or two titles by Henry James on the shelf, away from those who would weed based only on circulation statistics. "Fittest," in the library world, doesn't mean what it used to.) Well, here's what I want right now. I want to finish two pairs of socks. I want to read Pamela and finish Madwoman in the Attic. I want to listen to the last disk of A Thousand Splendid Suns, and begin a Miss Marple or two. (Thank goodness for audio books. Suns made me cry so much that it would have been impossible to read with my swollen eyes.) I want a good Greek salad with plenty of cheese, but no onions (since onions are not food). I want to listen to the Goldberg Variations in a darkened room, with ice in back of my neck. At least I don't want anything unattainable in the short term, anyway, eh? Have a good, peaceful weekend, everyone. And be sure to have some Peeps.

booking through Thursday... or Friday ...

(Thanks for reminding me, Bridget!)

Who is your favorite Male lead character? And why?

Call me perverse, but my favorite male lead character is Zooey, from Salinger's Franny and Zooey. He would have to be, since I have always thought of myself as Franny-esque, prone to existential breakdowns in awkward hidey-holes, seeking the mantra that will quiet my psychic swings, watching others devour with gusto while I sip my tea and nibble my toast, being the self-conscious outsider. Zooey is an egotistic bully, true, but his love for his sister is deep and true,and he knows that his dead brother is still the guru who can lead them out of the paralysis of their self-consciousness so they can follow their vocations. I always wished for a brother...