Books: Book Stack

So, I always intend to blog about my reading. Book reviews and stuff. And as a sort of reading diary. But I never do.

Today I was looking at that stack of books on Desk Two, and I took a picture.

So what's in the stack?

That one on the bottom is the main rule book for Sandy Petersen's Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. It was very exciting when it was available in hardback, oh boy! It's the third edition.  When they were still doing percentile rolls instead of whatever weird thing they switched to. Yes, I do remember the game mechanics of a game that I haven't played in over a decade; is there a problem with that?

Two decades.

Two and a half decades?

Sigh.

I loved Call of Cthulhu. I loved roleplaying. Himself introduced me to it in college, and we kept it up for a while, and then it just petered out, but I still remember it ever so fondly. I doubt that it's on my desk because I was actually using it; I was probably using it as a hard surface to write on or something. But that means it's still on the active shelves, because seeing it there makes me happy.

The Whole Seed Catalog is great seed porn. I paid money for it even though it was expired when I came upon it. Just for the pictures.

I love Laurie King's books. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, with Holmes and Russell, should be one of my comfort bathtub paperbacks like the battered books that you see on the top of the stack. Now that I think of that I think I'm going to go get a paperback copy. And I loved the next one in that series and the next one, and the next one....and I love her other books. But...

Did I ever tell the story about the amusement park? Someone, a relative, a friend, I can't remember (And that's actually odd, because I didn't have enough friends to forget one. Hmm.) once took me with their family to an amusement park. And there was the usual "what do we do?" discussion, and the consensus was to go to, let's say, the ferris wheel. And we started toward the ferris wheel, "but first" we did something else, and "but first" we did something else, "but first" we ate something, "but first" we watched a show, and the whole day I couldn't enjoy anything, because my mind was fixed on the ferris wheel as the starting point, and everything else was a let's-get-this-over-with thing.

I mention this to explain why I couldn't enjoy Dreaming Spies. It starts at a particular point in time in the fictional world, and then moves back to a time previous to that fictional time, and I spent the Whole Bleeping Book in let's-get-this-over-with mode. I had the same problem with the sequel to Stephen Baxter's Flood. Ark, that was it. You'd think that this problem would recede in re-reading the book (because I re-read books, including mysteries) but I suspect not.

I don't have that problem with movies. I don't know why.

Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl (Susan McCorkindale) is about a Thin Lady who moved to a farm. It's amusing, it's well-written, I can't identify with Thin Ladies one bit. It didn't work for me. I bought this in a period where I was buying all sorts of back-to-the-country memoirs and urban homesteading books. I may go back to that when spring comes and the seed catalogs arrive and my simple farm resolutions fall apart, but I'm not in that phase right now.

The first several chapters of Doing Good Better (William MacAskill) were very enjoyable--I enjoy a well-written argument, and I really enjoy the elegant destruction of irrational beliefs, or elegant "why didn't I think of that?" discoveries. Who knew (spoiler?) that the best way to improve schooling in a specific community isn't books or school supplies, but deworming pills distributed by the teachers so that the kids have fewer sick days? It makes sense when I think it through, but who saw it coming? I love stuff like that.

Then it gets practical. It wouldn't be serving its purpose if it weren't practical, but apparently I wasn't ready to switch from enjoyment to useful information. I'll read it again when I am. Meanwhile, I'm just taking away the lesson that, yes, the best way to help the world, for me, is to make more money and donate some of it.

The Other Typist (Suzanne Rindell) started out very interesting, and then I got busy. I suspect I'll be reading it over Christmas, though I may pack it for Thanksgiving weekend. I did realize, however, that there's a comfort factor in the structure of a murder mystery--I have a fair idea of how a mystery is going to go. By contrast, I have no idea how The Other Typist is going to go. I don't know if the bad people will get their comeuppance. I don't know if the good people will survive. I don't know anything. We'll see how it goes.

How to Fly a Horse (Kevin Ashton) is part of a recent focus on creativity, along with Culture Crash above it, and Big Magic over on Desk One and therefore not in the photograph, and Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz. (Why do I include that one in the group? I don't know. Yes, I do--I think that it shares some facts and stories with other members of the group, possibly How to Fly a Horse, and because I loved the author's Ted Talk, as I loved Elizabeth Gilbert's Ted Talk. See? Don't worry, no, it doesn't make sense.) There are, no doubt, more that I'm forgetting, probably on Desk One. It was a lot of fun--one of those books that has me annoying other people by throwing little passages and facts at them. Himself isn't crazy about that habit of mine.

I've barely started Culture Crash. It was making me feel sad and cynical, and I ran away to the happier Big Magic. In my brain, the two are in opposition, because Culture Crash laments the fact that no one is getting paid to create any more, and Big Magic advises the creator not to count on getting paid to create. But I don't think that those arguments are really in opposition, because one is societal and the other is individual. I'll dig into Culture Crash again soon.

Speaking of Big Magic, Stern Men is my "stop fangirling and read one of her books, dangit!" Elizabeth Gilbert novel. I've only read a single page of the prologue, which had the effect of reassuring me that it's OK to write narrative and not just scene. That's all. Another likely Thanksgiving or Christmas book.

Hmm. I'm listening to yet another Podcast with Elizabeth Gilbert (this one for the New York Public Library, with Ann Patchett) and she mentions that she wrote for magazines. Which reminds me that my favorite authors tend to have also been journalists. So I hope I'll like Stern Men.

Then there are two bathtub comfort books near the top. The Moving Finger is one of my favorite Agatha Christies--I think that the only one I like better is The Pale Horse. I'm not that interested in the mystery--it's all about the characters, and the nice little un-angsty romance that Agatha Christie is so good at.

The Skeleton in the Grass (Robert Barnard) is, again, a cast of engaging amusing characters, but it doesn't just let you bask in sweet nostalgia; it questions.

Miss Melville's Revenge (Evelyn E. Smith) isn't my favorite Miss Melville novel; that's the first one. But I found it when sorting books, said, "Ooh! This one!" and it's been in the bathtub-book place of honor since. Waiting for the bubble bath. (The bubble bath came just the other day. Himself keeps me in bubble bath. There's a giant, giant jug of my favorite bubble scent, Cranky Baby (aka California Baby Overtired & Cranky) in the bathroom.)

That's the stack.

Image: Mine.

Rambling: Creativity, Pink, and Betrayal

So, I'm listening to Elizabeth Gilbert's podcast ("Magic Lessons") and she's being all sweet and supportive and enthusiastic and spiritual and...pink. I don't know what to do about this. As I keep saying, I loved her TED talk. And I apparently love the podcast, because I've listened to all of it today, and now I'm mining the podcast world for her guest appearances on other people's podcasts.

But...pink.

In one of the podcasts, she talked about getting stuck creatively and trying to break out by doing the opposite of what you've been doing. And I don't know if I'm stuck, but I'm wondering if I should consider the possibility of embracing pinkness. Just, you know, to see what happens.

So what's pinkness? I think that I see it as enthusiasm without cynicism. And, see, saying that feels like I'm betraying my lifetime loyal companion: Cynicism. Cynicism, meet my readers. Readers, meet Cynicism. Of course, you've met before, in plenty of my posts, but I don't think you've been formally introduced, by name, before.

I feel a really strong resistance to resisting cynicism. It feels like betrayal. Cynicism and I are pals.

Now, Ms. Gilbert keeps talking about fear, in a way that is not unlike the way that I'm talking about cynicism. And cynicism is a big galumphing costume that's animated by all sorts of things, and one of those things is, without a doubt, fear. But there are other things in there. I don't want to pat cynicism on the head and encourage it to go away and have a nap. I don't want to tell it, as she tells fear, that it's never going to get to drive the car. Well, the creative car. The car of creativity.

(Patrick, from Coupling: "Well, obviously the puppy represents love. You’ve got to rescue the puppy of love from the car… of… conversation.")

There are things inside that cynicism costume that I need. In fact, I suspect that my creativity is split between cynicism and pink, rather like Good Kirk and Bad Kirk. I've managed to mostly avoid the pinkness, but I think that that luxury is coming to an end. Two of my current project ideas require me to at least occasionally turn away from cynicism so that he can't clearly see what I'm writing until it's down in words. One of them is about a man that (oh, dear God) likes his mother, and another one requires that I understand, and ideally even embrace, a certain brand of uncritical enthusiasm.

Twitch.

Image: By Russavia. Wikimedia Commons.

Books: Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic

So, I finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert's(*) Big Magic. I bought it because I loved her TED talk on genius as an entity separate from a creator. I loved Big Magic just as much, though I can feel that there's a battle in my head, between my natural cynicism and the positive messages of the book. Cranky and Inspirational are dancing around the ring, taking shots at each other.

(* Elizabeth Gilbert? Eat Pray Love lady. You know, her.)

Inspirational made it into the ring partly because the positive messages in the book aren't determinedly oblivious, shovel-in-another-spoon-of-sugar, unicorn-breath messages. Gilbert doesn't assure you that if you take risks, quit your job, follow your passion, blah de blah, you'll be just fine. In fact, she recommends keeping your day job. She doesn't tell you that your creativity will fight your battles and keep you fed; she urges you to protect and feed and support your creativity, even though it may never feed you, may never do anything but keep you company and give you a shot at more joy in your life. She doesn't assure you that you'll create anything world-shaking, or beautiful, or even good. But still, that joy thing.

No unicorns. I like that. Even though I dislike "inspirational." I dislike the word. I dislike the concept. It makes me twitch. But it's still in the fight, holding its own against my cynicism. Not that she used the word, at least not that I particularly noticed. But there's a vibe that needs a word, and that word keeps popping up in my head.

It's my mother that inserted the word in my head. She loved that word. If you read my blog, you know some of how I feel about my mother. Elizabeth Gilbert, on the other hand, likes her mother.  Maybe that's part of the difference. Maybe a supportive mother is a natural brake on cynicism. Maybe it allows positive ideas that don't smell like unicorn and don't feel like denial.

Is it wrong that I'm relieved that Elizabeth Gilbert doesn't want to be a mother? Some distance from the idea of the mother as the font of all good things is...good.

I love the TED talk. I love the book. I bought Stern Men, one of Gilbert's novels. (My cynicism just wouldn't allow me to buy anything as popular as Eat Pray Love. Maybe later.) I subscribed to Magic Lessons, Gilbert's podcast. I'm Googling for videos of Gilbert's various talks. I'm sensing fangirl tendencies in myself. This must be controlled.

But all the same, I love Gilbert's concept of an idea as something that has its own separate existence, that seeks a person to carry it out--and that eventually, if it's neglected, moves on to find another person, leaving a dead husk behind. (OK, I don't know if "dead husk" is hers or if it's a product of my crankier view.) She has me thinking of my five (count 'em, five) ideas for books--three novels and two nonfiction--and wondering which one I want to tend and feed and keep alive. Because I can't manage a litter.

Maybe she's (twitch) "inspiring" me to commit to writing one of my dark, cynical ideas. That would be cool.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: To book or not to book?

Whenever I post, I think, "I posted! I'm back in the groove! I'll post every day now!"

Not so much.

But here I am again, forcing myself to type something.

I've had a book idea, a nonfiction book idea. This is a good thing, because while I love having written fiction, I don't love writing fiction. And that doesn't seem to be getting better. I love writing nonfiction.

However, I find myself operating under the assumption that you have to have some sort of fancy schmancy expertise, directly relevant credentials, to write a nonfiction book. That is, to get it published. Is that true? I've been checking nonfiction books to see if it seems to be true.

For example, I just picked up Cool: How Air Conditioning Changed Everything, by Salvatore Basile. I haven't started reading it yet, so I can't tell you how it is, though it easily passed the page-through-and-read-some-paragraphs test. According to the bio whatsit on the book jacket, Salvatore Basile is a professional musician, "educated at the Boston Conservatory and The Juillard School." Those are certainly fancy, but they don't have much to do with air conditioning, or technology history. Now, when I check his website, it tells me that his first book was about music, which is an area where he has fancy expertise. So I'm not quite sure what to conclude.

I recently finished My Age of Anxiety, by Scott Stossel. It's about anxiety, and the history of anxiety and treatments and how people feel about it, and relates most of that to his life and his experiences, sort of back and forth and back and forth. It's good, by the way--I recommend it. Scott Stossel doesn't have fancy academic/medical credentials, but he has thoroughly fancy writing credentials--he's the editor (rather than "an" editor) of The Atlantic.

And I just started How to Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis, about literary heroines, similarly relating the material to herself, back and forth, back and forth. (Also good.) She's a playwright and has some fancy-sounding writing credentials.

I've previously mentioned The Lost Art of Dress, by Linda Przybyszewski. Her website mentions all sorts of things and publications--about dress, vintage dress, law, and so on. There's also a picture of someone, I hope her, with a straw hat with cherries on it. I like that. She has a whole lot of fancy credentials; if I want evidence of people who don't, she's not the data point I'm looking for. But she does have a blog. It looks pretty cool.

So do I try to write the book? It would likely be historical and current information on my topic, a topic on which I have no credentials fancy or otherwise, always relating to me, back and forth, back and forth. You notice I'm not mentioning the topic. I'm still in that phase (did I say this somewhere in my last post?) where I have the illusion that the mere idea, alone, has value, and that if I reveal the idea I may as well forget it because someone smarter than me will leap on it. Once I get a look at how much work it will be to implement the idea, and how many different ways it could be implemented, I'll probably be perfectly happy to describe it.

That is all. But I'll post again any minute now.

Or at least in less than thirty days.

Type Something!

Why is it that when I haven't posted in a while, it feels harder to post? I guess it's because I know that this happened and that happened and the other thing happened and I didn't post about them, so what makes it worth posting now?

It's been two weeks, that's what.

So.

Um.

I've been reading Women in Clothes, a newly released book that's the result of surveying hundreds of women about clothes and appearance and such. This seem to be the "munchy book" about fashion that I've been wanting. I like it a lot. But I'm less than a quarter of the way through it, so it seems a little premature to review it.

We also bought Crazy Enough by Storm Large, and Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel. And I'm in the middle of a murder mystery...whose name I can't remember. I'm reading stuff.

I'm not so much writing stuff. I have been doing a little bit of sewing prep--cutting pattern pieces apart, preshrinking fabric and pressing it, and so on. And the previously mentioned threading of the serger. But nothing's been cut out or sewn.

Um.

That seems to be all.

SOTD: Bacon. And rambling.

No, it didn't come out of a bottle. Which is a shame. Who wouldn't want a really good bacon perfume? I fried it in a pan, the traditional way. We had bacon and pancakes for Labor Day breakfast-for-dinner.

We ate whatever we darn well pleased this weekend, and last weekend, on the principle of making up for our lost vacation. We've resolved that we're going to cut that out and start eating some semblance of a decent diet next week. Though probably not Tuesday. You can't combine going back to work and going on a diet, right? Right.

I'm trying to get myself into a good slow-sewing habit, maybe half an hour every other day. This weekend my half hour was threading the serger with a new color. It's embarrassing that that takes half an hour, but there it is. As a bonus activity, I preshrunk the fabric for a pajama top, and found the pajama top pattern. Next I'll press the fabric. Tum te tum te tum. Bitty step by bitty step.

I just ordered Women in Clothes (Heti/Julavits/Shapton/associate editor Mann--I previously incorrectly attributed the whole thing to Mann), due out on Wednesday. I don't know much about it, but I really like the idea of what little I've read. I'll let you know how it is when I get it.

It occurs to me that it would be logical to add a page up there next to "new to perfume?" and "fume scout" and all that, for all these books about women and clothes that I keep reading. Maybe I will. Eventually. It could happen.

Um.

I guess that is all.

Random thoughts: Chicken and children's books

The local grocery had fried chicken in the lunchtime hot bar. Yay.

I need to read the rest of Rumer Godden's work. She's my favorite author, but I don't think I've read even half of her books, I suspect because the older I get, the more I perceive the sadness in them. Poor Mr. Plantaganet in  The Dolls' House makes me want to cry now.

I was realizing recently that the best children's books often are sad, in  a way that haunts me more than adult books. Where the Wild Things Are. Peter Pan. A Wrinkle in Time. The Light Princess. Stuart Little and the rest of E.B. White's books. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. A Little Princess. The Velveteen Rabbit. Harriet the Spy. Hitty. Ruth M. Arthur's books. And more and more. For some reason, even the ones with happy endings still leave me with a flavor of sad.

I went Googling for a reminder of what titles make me think this, and found an article about Anne Carroll Moore's work in introducing children's books to libraries. Well, and then it goes on to some controversy. It's an interesting article.

I want a copy of Ruth M. Arthur's The Saracen Lamp. It seems to be extra out of print. Not in the sense of being unavailable, just in the sense of expensive.

I used to check out Ruth M. Arthur's books from the library shelf across from Rumer Godden's books and a few feet down. I spent a lot of time in the children's room. My brain has a hard time accepting that those books are no longer on those shelves, waiting for me.

My favorite book on building dollhouses was upstairs in the adult room, down in the second rank of shelves, roughly in the middle. They rearranged and moved it once. I was dismayed. I own a copy of that one, now. With the correct dust jacket. The correct dust jacket is an important part of the experience of that Mine Mine All Mine I've Got My Own Copy Now Ha! experience.

That is all.

Blogging: Books and books

Dang. Missed two days. Oh, well.

I’ve been reading The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish, by Linda Przybyszewski. My favorite quote so far is “I may be the only historical to lecture the Supreme Court in a suit that won a blue ribbon at a country fair.” That’s from the author herself, not from any of the historical subjects that she discusses. I'm barely two chapters in, but I'm enjoying it. And I'll leave it at that until I'm further along.

I've also been re-reading Service Included, by Phoebe Damrosch, about her time working at a waiter at Per Se. Well, and about other things. Also enjoyable.

I'm also about a third of the way through American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. Also good.

I'm halfway through each of two books about software.

I should really finish something.

That is all.

Rambling: A Wrinkle in Time (on paper, on stage, and in my head)

(I wrote this yesterday. Then I got sleepy and forgot to hit Publish. So I'm calling it yesterday's post. Yep.) 

 The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is showing a production of A Wrinkle in Time, adapted for the stage by Tracy Young. You should all go see it. Run along and order your tickets. I'll wait till you get back. I can tell you where to eat in Ashland, too.

But that's not mostly the point of this post. Part of the point of this post is that the play made me cry. That's no big deal, in general: plays often want to do that. But...

OK, digression. Really, this is going to be relevant. My mother has a story about my brother as a baby, eating creamed spinach. I think it was spinach; anyway, it was something he didn't like the taste of. He would willingly open his mouth for a spoonful, experience the taste, and cry. And then he'd open his mouth again. He utterly failed to make the connection between accepting the spoon, and his crying.

I have a similar disconnect with what's making me cry when I see this play. Or think about this play. Or talk about this play. I get a few words in, and off go all those wanna-cry body parts. (Not that I'm saying I don't like the taste of the play. Did I mention that you should go see it?)

But the wanna-cry isn't associated with identifiable thoughts. Or feelings. Or images. Or characters. There's no, "Oh, poor Meg," or Charles Wallace, or Calvin, or any of those. I'm burbling "Yeah, they did a really good job of carrying out the spirit of the book without slavishly sticking to elements that wouldn't work onstage, and the thing they did with the viewfoils...dagnabbit, why am I crying again?!"

I feel as if I'm standing outside myself getting exasperated as I crash, like an unstable computer. But there's no core dump, nothing to analyze.

Well, no feelings to analyze, but that leads to the second part of this post, where I realize that I'm seeing a metaphor in the play that I think was there all along in the book, and wondering how I could possibly have missed it, and wondering if I made it up. But, see, I can talk about that metaphor all day and it doesn't make me cry. So it doesn't solve the puzzle.

Anyway. This is going to be a spoiler. Spoiler. Not the final spoiler in the story, but a spoiler, so stop reading if you want to read (or see--bought those tickets yet?) A Wrinkle In Time without being influenced by my interpretation.

You remember the room, the metaphorical "cloven pine" and Mr. Murray (Meg's father) and Meg with Mrs. Who's glasses? Yes? Mr. Murray's trapped in the room, a prison with transparent walls. He can't see, and no one can get in to help him, or even communicate with him, no matter how loud they shout or how hard they pound on the walls. All they can do is watch him suffer.

But when Meg puts on Mrs. Who's glasses, she can walk through the cold transparent walls. She gives the glasses to her father--puts them on him herself, I think, against his "that won't work" protests--and he can see. He can see, and he can get through the walls, though now she's blind. He scoops her up and walks out of his prison, carrying her.

Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Was this obvious to everyone but me?

Is there a child of disordered parents who has not, at times, wanted nothing on earth more than the ability to make their parents see, and to empower them to escape from the prison of their own making? And also to give up their own self-imposed responsibility and become a child, finally cared for, rescued, by that parent?

Suddenly that's what I get from that scene, in the book or the play. Suddenly IT, and Camazotz, are all metaphor. They're Mr. Murray. The mind imprisoning and controlling him is his own mind. The mind that tried but failed to destroy his children is his own mind. I don't know if Madeline l'Engle meant that, consciously or unconsciously, but there it is all the same.

But I can discuss that, and write it, and nothing wants to cry. So there's got to be something else in there.

Or I just need a clean reinstall.

Fashion Writers: My Bad

I owe fashion writers an apology.

I imagined them as Mean Girls all grown up, perching in tiny chairs next to the runway and squealing "Ooh! Ruffles!" Nodding in approving unison as they see that the models have gotten even more skeletal this year, and whispering and tittering when they see a colleague wearing a skirt that's eight millimeters too long.

That's bad enough. But worse, I slipped and fell into the idea that primarily-feminine interests are superficial and airheaded. Well, not all of them, but with regard to fashion. It's related to a trap that digs itself rather frequently--the idea that women can be as serious, as intelligent, as worthy "as men". That idea sounds vaguely empowering for an instant, until it becomes clear that it makes men's worthiness the standard. Men as norm, men as yardstick, women as the deviation struggling to return to the norm. If men are the standard, then that leads dangerously to the idea that women have to give up anything uniquely feminine in order to be worthy, or at least normal.

And, yes, I know that there are no new thoughts here. Feminism has been fighting over traditional femininity since, well, forever. Whether to embrace it as part of a proud identity, whether to reject it as a male-imposed standard, and any number of other positions in between and scattered around, including the position that it's men, in being deprived of things like, oh, a glorious scarlet crystal-pleated skirt (I still don't like ruffles), who are being suppressed by a patriarchal society.

The point where I owe fashion writers an apology is in assuming that they're all trying to undermine the power of women. Actually, the bigger point where I owe fashion writers an apology is in assuming that they're stupid.

I'm sorry.

Now, this doesn't mean that I've seen any specific fashion writer as stupid. In fact, that's where I should have seen the fundamental wrongness of my premise. I've never encountered a stupid fashion writer. I just assumed that the writers that I encountered were all exceptions, intelligent people adding worth to a subject that has no inherent worth.

Linda Grant, author of The Thoughtful Dresser? Exception. Elizabeth Cline, the author of Overdressed? Exception. The writers of the articles in Fashion Projects magazine? The fashion critics that they write about? Amanda Stuart, the author of a biography of Diana Vreeland? Diana Vreeland herself? Every blogger that I've encountered in the perfume-blogging and sewing worlds who's written about fashion? Exceptions, exceptions, and more exceptions. Josephine Picardie, the author of My Mother's Wedding Dress? The final exception.

Why final? Well, reading My Mother's Wedding Dress was the point where I finally and firmly realized that when you can't find an exception to the exceptions, the rule is wrong. I think that this book did the job because I couldn't say, oh, well, she just happens to occasionally talk about clothes as a way to address bigger issues. The author worked for British Vogue, and many of the essays in the book come out of interviews that she did in covering fashion. She's a fashion writer. She's a fashion critic. There's no getting out of it. And she's very smart, with things to say.

Yes, she uses clothes to address bigger issues. I realize now that they all do. Fashion criticism is not all about ruffles and hemlines, any more than perfume criticism is all about analyzing the notes or movie criticism is all about special effects or camera angles. The narrower subject has inherent interest, yes, but the subject also has plenty to say about the rest of the world.

Sorry.

Why didn't I know this? Why didn't I assume that an area that fascinates so many women must also have something to appeal to intelligence? Why, when I know that people giggle at the phrase "perfume criticism", did the very phrase "fashion criticism" strike me as vaguely funny?

Again with the sorry.

I feel as if I owe someone a nice fruit basket.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Books: So Sure of Death, by Dana Stabenow

I've read all but one of Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak mysteries, and the exception is only because that one is out of print and my efforts to get a used copy have failed so far. So now I'm moving on to her Liam Campbell series. I'm reading them entirely out of order; I've read at least two that come chronologically after this one.

I like them all. (Though I prefer Kate.) I like them so much that they turn my mind to the whole "genre fiction"/"literary fiction" conflict. I assume that Dana Stabenow's mysteries are genre fiction, and that I'm therefore supposed to blush a little bit about reading them, and claim that I only take them to the beach. I'm supposed to see genre fiction as the Cheetos of literature, right? Overflavored, oversalted, and with orange powdery stuff that will stay with me and rub off on thoughts generated by finer literature.

Feh.

Now, there are some genre fiction novels that I do see as the equivalent of...well, not Cheetos, actually; I find Cheetos to be a very fine experience of their type. Maybe the equivalent of those dubious generic imitations of Hostess snack cakes. Vaguely pleasing, nominally fulfilling expectations, but with a disappointing aftertaste that makes you want to go eat something else. (Like a Cheeto.) Vaguely likable people in those stories have cute thoughts about cats or dogs or recipes or home improvement or real estate or expensive shoes, and meanwhile somebody gets murdered. (Oh. Yes. While I'm generalizing my thoughts to fiction in general, the "genre" that I'm talking about here is murder mysteries. We've met, right?)

But Dana Stabenow's mysteries have those moments that make you say, for example, "Oh, my God, he said that to Kate?! He's doomed. Just doomed. Huh? Don't interrupt me, I'm reading!"

And to me, a book that gets you bug-eyed and gawpish about a character, based purely on the character rather than on exploding helicopters or stashes of drugs, can look literary fiction in the face and say, "Feh."

Um. I guess that's about all. I suppose I should really say six or eight words about the actual books, huh? They're set in Alaska, modern day. There's a lot of crime and politics and a moderate amount of sex. Often there's food. There's a wolf. But only half. Read 'em. They're fun.

That is all.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Books: To Love and Be Wise (and more Josephine Tey)

I just finished Josephine Tey's To Love and be Wise, from 1951. (Hmm. Why do I keep thinking that her books are just a little bit older?)

I was going to go on to say, "This finishes my re-reading of all of Josephine Tey's books..." But then I went Googling to find a list, and found three books that I've never read: The Expensive Halo, Kif, and The Privateer. It appears that I can say that I have finished re-reading all of the Tey mysteries--these appear to be more in the category of odds and ends. I'll be reading them all the same. (Oh, and there's also something called Claverhouse. And two plays. Hmm.)

So. This finishes my re-reading of all of Josephine Tey's mysteries, a goal that I started in 2013. The full list, in roughly the order that I (re)read them, is:

The Franchise Affair
Brat Farrar
A Shilling for Candles
The Daughter of Time
The Singing Sands
Miss Pym Disposes
The Man in the Queue
To Love and be Wise

I'm very fond of these books. They give me the pleasure of a classic "cozy", but I find them more challenging and less predictable. They break the nice tidy cycle of a murder mystery that I was describing in my last book-related post--and come to think of it, they don't always have a murder. And I want to meet the characters; they're so very likable, in a way that's sensible and quirky and dry all at once.

In the new introduction to the new printing of all of these books, Robert Barnard says, "Her readers...give to their favorite Tey novel what they once gave to their favorite books of childhood, to The Wind in the Willows, Little Women, or whatever: unconditional enthusiasm." Yes. Exactly. I think that mine is The Franchise Affair, though that may just be because I read it the longest ago, so my craving is the strongest.

Er.

That seems to be all.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Reading: "Where's the murder?"

Since December 31*, I've finished four books:

The Obituary Writer, by Ann Hood. (Fiction)
Tell the Wolves I'm Home, by Carol Rifka Brunt. (Fiction)
She Matters, by Susanna Sonnenberg. (Creative nonfiction?)
The Secret Life of Pronouns, by James W. Pennebaker. (Nonfiction)

I liked them all. But none of them had a murder. I'm not sure that I approve of that.  And I'm only partly joking.

I've grown accustomed to the prominent event spikes in a murder mystery--the lead-up to the murder, the murder itself, the discovery, the investigation, the solution. In a good murder mystery (and there are plenty of bad ones) I like the way that those spikes illuminate the characters, their relationships, their personalities, goals, fears, blah. I used to be vaguely ashamed of my diet of mysteries, but I'm starting to feel defensive about my defensiveness. When I finish a nice peaceful book, I often feel that the characters had less depth than the characters in a story that also includes guns, blood, and interrogations in the library. They don't fear for their lives, their freedom, or the lives or freedom of their loved ones, and so it often feels as if they just toddle around on the stage making sophisticated grown-up remarks about their lives. No salt, no fat.

That's not really true of the two novels above, and I think that's why I'm making this discovery--I was surprised to read a couple of non-murder-mysteries that did have interesting characters and situations, even if I would have been happier to see somebody get shot. The novels aren't described as literary fiction, though, so I can't claim to have broken through my barrier with that genre. (Or non-genre.) But I liked them.

At this point I feel that I should say something about all the books, but I find it oddly difficult to discuss books. I worry that I'll spoilerize them, and no doubt I worry that I'll look stupid. I'll try to get that machinery oiled by offering random thoughts, in the hope that someday I'll write proper reviews someday.

The Obituary Writer is a two-strand story about two women, one in 1919, one in 1961. I find myself wanting to assign perfumes to them--I decree that the independent young woman in 1919 buys Mitsouko for herself, while the 1961 housewife wears Caleche because it's what her husband thinks his mother would approve of.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home is a story of childhood merging into adolescence, with a fairy-tale air in spite of having no unrealistic elements at all. If I visualize The Obituary Writer it looks open and clear, a well-lit piece of television with good costumes and very fine cinematography. Tell the Wolves I'm Home is darker, thicker, less literal, a tapestry that moves. I'm not sure if it's my favorite of the four or not, but if all four authors came out with new books at the same time and I had to pick just one to buy first, I'd pick this author's. I want to see what her next creation looks like.

She Matters explores feminine friendships, and a longing for feminine connection and, as I interpret it, mothering. I take it personally because I don't take it personally. Do I have that same longing? Do I seek to replace the mothering that I didn't really get, like the author does, or do I truly not feel a void that wants filling, the void that for her was apparently a cavern that drove much of her life? The book feels meandering and unstructured, but that also feels like its proper structure, if you see what I mean. Don't worry if you don't, because I'm not sure I do either. Halfway through, I wasn't going to finish it; by the time I was done, I was ready to find the author's other books.

The Secret Life of Pronouns is the kind of munchy nonfiction book that I enjoy. I mentally class it along with Freakanomics and Why We Buy and other books that present scientific research in an enjoyable, NPR-interview sort of way. It suggests that our writing--such as, for example, this piece I'm typing away at right now--tells us all sorts of things about ourselves, our confidence, our relationships, blah. (Hmm. Could the word "blah" be used to tie my writing to me, and also to a specific time, since I've only recently started using it? And why am I using it? Did I get tired of the word "etc." What does it mean?)

*Footnote: So, that's four books before mid-January. I used to do the 100+ book challenge, and that would put me just about on track, at least by my own rules, which credit me for books that I finish in the year in question. Without that rule, every year I entirely lose credit for the big bag o' books that I'm halfway through at the end of December.

Even so, I realized that trying to read more books resulted in my reading fewer books. I don't know why; it doesn't make much sense, but there it is. So this year I plan to log/blog books finished in the year, without worrying about keeping up with any specific reading rate.

And that is all.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Fashion: There's always a pair of boots

I was just re-reading The Thoughtful Dresser by Linda Grant, and was struck by the bit where the author states that

One day last summer, at the moment of waking, I knew that I had to go out at once and buy new shoes. Shoes which fulfilled a function apart from walking...Ridiculous, sexy, "I don't care how much they cost, I have to have them" shoes.

Her conclusion was that the waking message from her subconscious to buy those shoes was a message to "be seen." I'm still not quite sure what my subconscious is demanding, in pushing this style thing. It might, indeed, be a goal to be seen, after a lifetime of trying to disappear. Or it could be some slushy Hallmarky "love yourself" thing that I refuse to see due to its inherent slushiness.

Today I bought a pair of boots. Actually, I'm going to confess: Today I bought two pairs of boots. (NAYY linkyness: From Village Shoes.) First I bought a moderately practical flat-heeled pair--practical but also dripping with steampunk-chimney-sweep atmosphere. And I took a picture of another pair to see if it would haunt me. I do that now and then--I still have a pair of rhinestone earrings in my phone's camera roll that are still haunting me but not quite enough to inspire me to buy them.

The haunting took effect at record speed. Himself didn't hate the photo of the other pair. With that knowledge, I found myself hurriedly changing clothes to a skirt shape that had more of the Edwardian/Victorian vibe that I get from the boots, called the store to find out how much longer they were open today, and charged down there in the car. I walked out half an hour before they closed. With, of course, the boots.

That's them up there. I have fifteen days to change my mind and return them, but I don't think I'm going to. We've already bonded.

Photo: Mine
Title Quote: Modern Family

Books: My eyes are bigger than my...eyes.

My book plate is overfull. Right now, I'm partway through:

The Table Comes First, by Adam Gopnik

Pirate King, by Laurie R King

Ghost Walk, by Marianne MacDonald (Finished! Around 1/13)

A Death in Summer, by Benjamin Black

Winter of Discontent, by Jeanne M. Dams

Escaping into the Open, by Elizabeth Berg

Write Away, by Elizabeth George

A Charitable Body, by Robert Barnard

Cool, Calm & Contentious, by Merrill Markoe

The Chicken Chronicles, by Alice Walker

What the Dead Know, by Laura Lippman

What the Dog Saw, by Malcolm Gladwell

Angry Housewives Eating Bonbons, by Lorna Ladvik (Finished! Around 1/17.)

Well, that's just alarming. I didn't know, when I started the list, how long it would be. Odds are that I've forgotten some, too.

I think that this explains why joining 100+ challenges hampers my reading--I feel pressure to finish the book not too long after I started it. And it doesn't count if I don't finish it in the year that I started it. So I'm declaring my own 100+: My goal is to finish 100+ books this year, irrespective of when I started them. If I continue that from year to year, then it really doesn't matter when I started them.

That's the plan. I should probably go read something now.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Free-Association Friday: A glance at Arpege, and then it's just babbling

Lanvin Arpege was one of the first classic scents that I considered. I finally bought a bottle earlier this year, and wore it for the first time today. Aside from quailing at this evidence that I have too many bottles (it took me, what, three months to wear it?),  I'm not sure what I think. I remember my sampling as rich and dark; today's wearing is more aldehydic, prickly rather than silky-powdery, thin rather than rich. I'll try it again soon, and see if I can reconcile what's going on.

I find myself craving more perfume and less stuff. I want to buy bottle after bottle, and I want to sweep through the house and declutter sixty percent (or maybe eighty) (how about ninety?) (do we really need furniture?) of practically everything else. Both urges seem to be increasing as daylight and temperatures decrease.

Come to think of it, I also have an urge to buy teacups. I'm resisting that one entirely, because I rarely drink hot tea when I don't have a cold. But, what? I want the teacup that Giles used in the Buffy episode Inca Mummy Girl. Now, please.

Oh, and books. I want books. I finished The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman and got halfway through The Table Comes First by Adam Gopnik and just started Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos. I don't, at least yet, seems to have a strong opinion about any of them. But I want more books. I should haul myself to the library, except I can't safely read library books in the bathtub.

A sample-sized decant of Montale Chocolate Greedy is on its way. And 100% Love. I suppose it's logical to crave foody perfumes in the winter.

Speaking of chocolate, I've been thinking of reviewing chocolate bars in the same way that I review perfumes. Is that weird? Somehow it seems weirder than reviewing tea, which many perfume bloggers seem to do.

We're watching Mad Men. The scene where Joan tells Peggy, "You want to be taken seriously? Stop dressing like a little girl." It makes me consider that I've never dressed like a grownup. I might like to give it a try. I think that those vintage perfumes are having an influence on me.

Speaking again of chocolate, I want some.

That is all.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: New Toy

I have an iPad now.

Ever since the first iPad came out, I've wanted one, but I also acknowledged that I had Absolutely No Excuse Whatsoever for buying one. For big stuff, I had my computer. For small stuff while out of the house, I had my phone. And, heck, my computer is a laptop, so I could carry it outside the house too, just as every third person in every coffee shop on the planet seems to. So no iPad for me, nope nope nope.

Then the new one came out. And now I'm typing this on one. I no longer recall the rationalization that I used for buying it. I know that travel was involved, and the ability to access data without WiFi.

I find myself feeling weird discussing the thing, because discussing luxury items feels vaguely Wrong. Then I remind myself that this is a perfume blog, for bleep's sake. The discussing-luxury-items ship has sailed.

So. What do I use the thing for? What justifies it, compared to a laptop? Well, for one thing, I write in new places. I'm typing this while sitting on a barstool. I wrote a long rant on an airplane. I hesitate to carry the laptop, and even when I do carry it, I hesitate to haul it out and start it up. I don't have that issue with the iPad.

Now, hauling out the iPad is a habit that I've been actively cultivating since the day I bought it. I've chosen to accept--embrace--being "one of those people". The ones that eat their meals or wait for their movies or buses while typing or tapping or gesturing or staring blankly at one electronic device or another. I knew that if I didn't make a point of taking the thing everywhere, and firmly extracting it at restaurants and in lobbies, I wouldnt end up using it.

So I'm writing on it. Check.

And I bought OmniFocus, a ToDo type thing that I'll use to organize my life. Really. OK, maybe not really, but I enjoy entering reminders and plans. "Buy yogurt" and "Trace Beene jacket pattern" and "Figure out what smells funny in fridge." Personal things, not work things. I like that.

Oh, and I watch movies, of course. And TV shows. I love TV. Especially personal, private TV. It's not that I watch anything embarrassing; I think that it may be more about control and the TV being mine mine mine. When I was a kid our TV was on a rolling cart, and I used to roll it into my room for no reason other than that possessiveness. So I was delighted when Himself bought me a portable TV back in college and re-delighted when he got me a video iPod and now he's talked me into the iPad and, yay.

And I got a database app where I'm storing information about all my sewing patterns so that when I'm in a fabric store I know how much yardage I need. Also delusional? Probably. But I have entered a dozen or so patterns, complete with photographs of the front and back of the envelope.

And of course there's web browsing. Incessant web browsing.

And eBooks. I'm torn about eBooks. I signed up for the Google ones and I buy them through my local bookstore's site, so at least they get a cut. But I want to know how much the cut is, compared to a paper book. See, I'm not going to give shelf space to many new paper books, so I can either buy and read and sell or give away the paper versions, or buy and read the eBooks. I don't much care which, except for the instant gratification that an eBook provides, versus the bathtub readability offered by paper. So the profit to my favorite bookstore is a nontrivial factor, and I wanna know.

Well. So. That's all. There's an under-edited, diary like air about this post. I wonder if the iPad, due to its less fluid editing but greater availability, is going to make this blog more diary like? We'll find out.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Books: My prime nonfiction choices, Part I

Last night, being unimpressed with my latest batch of library books, I picked up The Thoughtful Dresser by Linda Grant, a book that I've discussed before. It's a nonfiction book about fashion, not a topic that normally interests me. It goes deeper than fashion, or it goes to the depth of fashion, whichever way you might think about it. But all the same, I don't care that much about fashion, and I love this book, and I concluded that that's because Linda Grant is an extraordinarily good writer. She's not the showy kind of good writer, the kind where you're always noticing specific phrases. Instead, she's the kind that makes every word communicate, seamlessly, so that you're not consciously aware of the words. Reading the book, I feel almost a sense of motion, traveling down the path of the thoughts at a moderately fast clip, so that I'm never bored or wanting to get to the end of the passage or the page. And that metaphor doesn't work altogether, because I'm not just passively traveling; as I read, I feel as if I'm somehow involved in making the journey happen.

That made me think about my favorite nonfiction books, and my favorite nonfiction writers. I started making a list. I'm narrowing the criteria--I'm not including memoirs or biographical works, or primarily comedic books, or what I'd call "nonfiction novels" where the book is different from a novel primarily because it happens to be true. So, for example, American Fried by Calvin Trillin, one of my very favorite books, isn't in the competition because the author is the main character in most of the pieces and therefore it has a little too much memoir, and also because it's so very, very funny. But I still recommend it. Go read it. Then read the other two in the Tummy Trilogy. Then read everything else Calvin Trillin ever wrote.

OK, moving on to my favorites among books that fit the criteria:

The Essential Earthman,  One Man's Garden, and Henry Mitchell On Gardening. Henry Mitchell is the best garden writer. Period. He was a journalist, and I find that that's something of a pattern among my favorite authors. He wrote a gardening column for the Washington Post from 1973 to his death in 1993, and the books are drawn from those columns.

I'm at a loss to describe his writing. It combines solid information with philosophy, but something about that statement suggests the cute and pseudo-profound, and that is as far from Mr. Mitchell as I can imagine. I learned most of my gardening knowledge from these books, the information settling into my mind so quietly that I can't remember the time when I didn't know it. But I re-read the books for the philosophy and the sheer pleasure of the words. Deborah Needleman, in an essay on Henry Mitchell, said "He provides a sense of comfort, much like the feeling you get from a cookbook when you have no intention of making any of the dishes. He had scores of devoted readers with little or no interest in gardening."

I've never read his fourth book, the one that isn't focused on gardening; I suspect that I'm reluctant to reach the point where I've read all of his writing and there is no more.

Why We Buy, by Paco Underhill. I'm annoyed with myself; I can't find my copy of this book. I'm not interested in retailing or marketing, so it's a prime example of an engaging book about a topic that doesn't interest me all that much. I am interested in psychology, so that's part of the explanation. Psychology and anthropology, maybe. The appeal is, I think, mostly the author's instinct for stories and nuggets of information that will fascinate, combined with engaging writing. 

Oh, dear. And I see that he has another book out. The second book, The Call of the Mall, didn't appeal to me nearly as much as the first one. But now there's one called What Women Want, and I'm tempted, though the reviews are lukewarm.

Nassau Street and Fun and Profit in Stamp Collecting, by Herman Herst. Henry Mitchell is the best garden writer; Herman Herst may well be the best writer about stamp collecting, though my reading in that area is much less extensive. Mr. Herst dealt stamps from 1933 through 1973, putting him right in the middle of the most exciting events of philatelic history--or were they so exciting because he brought them to life by writing about them? It's hard to say. He also qualifies as a journalist by my standards, contributing columns to "virtually every stamp publication in the country," continuing well after his retirement.

Mr. Herst's writing is less philosophical and more consciously instructive than Mr. Mitchell's. His books are full of stories and advice--in fact, each chapter of Fun and Profit is titled with a piece of advice, such as "Cheap stamps never become rare." I haven't collected stamps since junior high, but I was delighted when I recently found that Nassau Street was available for purchase; I suspect that I would enjoy these books just as much even if I'd never collected. They're full of stories, psychology, and anthropology; that, too, seems to be a pattern in my favorite books; it describes The Thoughtful Dresser as well.

I can see that writing this post is going to end up being expensive; I hadn't realized that there are several more Herman Herst books than I was aware of. And some are in print.

Much Depends On Dinner and The Rituals Of Dinner, by Margaret Visser. Stories. Psychology. Anthropology. Here we are again. In Much Depends On Dinner, Ms. Visser takes the ingredients of an ordinary meal--chicken, salt, butter, corn, and so on--and follows their roles in human customs and history. The Rituals of Dinner has a similar approach, but it follows dining customs rather than food. I've blogged about these before; I still love them. To my dismay, I don't love Ms. Visser's other books as well; I'll be trying them again, but these two are the ones that I'd urge you to make the time to read.

Googling tells me that Ms. Visser is a "broadcaster". Does that qualify her for the journalist pattern? Hmm.

The Fear of Cooking, by Bob Scher. This is a delightful combination of cookbook and therapy for kitchen phobia. As written, it takes the non-cook through facing their fears and cooking, but it's fun to read whether or not you ever turn on a stove. (Quote: "I mean, here's a whole duck, say, and it's cold and guppy and slimy, with pieces of skin flopping around.") I think that the journalist pattern here fails, unless it helps that the author is, among other things, a documentary filmmaker.

All of the Miss Manners books, by Judith Martin. I feel a little odd including books that are written in question-and-answer format (interleaved with essays), but I don't care. Judith Martin is funny and intelligent and an extraordinarily good writer, and her expertise isn't just in etiquette, but in human problem solving. Psychology. Anthropology. Stories. She's also (ta da!) a journalist.

The Forest for the Trees, by Betsy Lerner. A book of advice for writers--not advice on when to use an adverb, and how to avoid passive voice, but about, to quote her, "what makes writers tick." I'm interested in the topic, but I also just really like Betsy Lerner's writing. I bought this, I bought Food and Loathing (a memoir-like book, so it doesn't qualify for this list), and I'll probably continue to buy any book that she writes.

There are, without a doubt, many more. That's why I'm pre-titling this Part I, though I don't yet have a list for Part II.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Books: Wanting Sheila Dead, by Jane Haddam

I rarely trust a novel that mentions the current President by name, or demonstrates an awareness of the latest movies. I'm not saying that an interest in current events is bad. I'm not saying that brand new novels are bad. I'm saying that the combination of the two makes me suspicious. I've read, for example, books from the early eighties that seemed to think that "Hey, wow, I've heard of this Internet thing!" qualifies as a substitute for plot and characters, and I don't like to repeat that experience too often.

So when the jacket of Wanting Sheila Dead revealed that much of the novel is based around a reality TV show, and when the first page contained a side reference to Oprah (who, admittedly, isn't exactly a new phenomenon), I normally would have put the book back on the shelf. But the first page also said:

Sheila Dunham's voice came into the room like battery acid over a bullhorn. That was a metaphor that made no sense. Olivia didn't care. It fit exactly.

That's not something that would come from someone who's saying, "Hey, wow, I've heard of this reality TV thing!" at least not at the expense of the book. So I bought it. I bought it used, so sadly I won't do the author, Jane Haddam, a bit of good, but I liked it so much that I can imagine buying one of her books new. In paperback. There is almost no level of desperation to get my hands on a story that will cause me to pay for a new hardback. So I'll have to wait a while for her next book, though there's a huge backlog of past books that I can work my way through.

The book reconfirms a theory of mine: I like male protagonists, but I like them best when written by women. In my admittedly limited experience, male protagonists written by men tend to be too uncomplicated, too strong, too clear in their purpose. They don't muse. Unlike Haddam's Gregor Demarkian, they wouldn't speculate on how and why the sidewalk in front of the church was washed, or think about their decision to initiate, or not initiate, a handshake with a woman. I like Gregor Demarkian; he seems to be full of stray thoughts.

And I liked the book. There were two mysteries, so the whole book wasn't about the reality TV show, which was a good thing--there's a limit to how much even a good author can do to overcome my severe lack of interest in that topic. But I was engaged by the TV plot, and all of the annoying young woman tied to it, so imagine how much I'd like a Jane Haddam/Gregor Demarkian book without either one.

I recommend the book, and I probably recommend the author more than the book. Which is just as well for the author, because Wanting Sheila Dead is already down to bargain pricing, and the next book is still in hardback. And some of you might buy hardbacks. Maybe. I realize that getting the author paid isn't my problem, but, well, sometimes I think about it.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Reading: 100+ status, and a request for suggestions

Remember the 100+ Reading Challenge? I beat last year!

OK, technically I just know that I'm going to beat last year. Last year I had read seventy-seven books by Boxing Day and then stopped; this year I'm going to finish book seventy-seven sometime this weekend.

I walked through the lists from this year and last year, just for entertainment. I'm disappointed that I haven't branched out more from my usual murder mystery focus--last year I read fifty-three murder mysteries (or books that I found on the murder mystery shelf at the used bookstore, whether or not they actually had a murder) and this year it looks like about fifty as well, so far.

My other patterns remain more or less the same across the two years. I re-read a lot of Agatha Christie and Barbara Michaels. I hunt down new authors with long lists of books--Susan Conant last year, Margaraet Maron this year--and then sell their books as soon as I'm done, because apparently I'm not really all that captivated. I try the occasional book that somebody calls literary fiction--A Gate at the Stairs last year, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand this year--and then abandon the genre again.

This year I did try a little fantasy (Game of Thrones) and a little science fiction (Flood), but neither pulled me out of my usual reading comfort zone. I dabbled among all those children's books that I keep meaning to re-read, but didn't read them. It's possible that the challenge discourages me from reading children's books, because their shortness makes them feel like cheating, but I don't want to waste reading time on anything that I don't want to score.

Similarly, as Christmas approaches, I'm tempted to re-read The Lord Of The Rings, the way that I always used to over Christmas vacation, but knowing that those books will take me a while to read, and that I won't be willing to skip ahead because that would make the book uncountable, I'm resisting the temptation.

I'll probably sign up for this challenge, or another similar one, next year, but I think that I should add some more goals.

More literary fiction? Meh. I seem to have a prejudice against literary fiction, mainly because some of the people who read it like to speak sneeringly of "genre" fiction, as if a good author can't be good when writing a genre work. ("Those characters are too three-dimensional for a murder mystery! Flattten 'em! Flatten 'em now!") I realize that I'm being prejudiced based on annoyance at someone else's prejudice. I'll work on it.

More children's books? I've always loved children's books, and no doubt hundreds of good ones have been written since I was a child. And it's silly to worry about "cheating". Then again, I find myself thinking of Judith Martin saying that toys invented since a person was a child are "charmless" to that person, and wondering if the same might be true of children's books.

More science fiction? Nah. I have great respect for science fiction, but it's been a long time since I actually enjoyed it. In book form, at least--I do enjoy it in movies and on TV.

Classics? My grade and high schools were leery of anything longer than The Scarlet Letter and a little bit of Mark Twain. When I look at the Random House Modern Library list of 100 best novels, I see that I've read...eight of the board's list and nineteen of the reader's list. That leaves a lot to try. Sadly, I find that I don't feel a great deal of excitement about trying them.

Maybe I should search for a more rebellious or quirky list--the best novels written by women, perhaps, or the best children's books. Googling for list of "best books" by or for women, though, also leaves me cold--there's an uncomfortable leaning toward the heartwarming, which I assume comes from the selection process rather than being an inherent characteristic of women's writings.

But I like the general idea of reading more non-genre books by female authors. (Or, for that matter, really good genre books by female authors, that I may not have heard of.) Any suggestions?

Image: By Nathan Williams. Wikimedia Commons.