Weekly Geek Week TWENTY TWO

For the who/what/where/when/etc, please visit Dewey here.

My first visit to a blog I had never visited before was Kristian and Rachel’s American Bibliophile.     (Rachel reads and writes and wears cool shades.   Kristian judges books by the cover but this works for her, so who am I to judge!)   However, I can’t tell – or I’m missing it?  – who is writing what posts?     Lots of stuff here, readings all over the genre maps and good short posts about books, reading, and whatever.   A great mix of stuff.

For my next visit, I chose to linger here because of the blog’s title;  I love words.    And I’m in love with the header:   Worducopia : I love fountain pens, too!   My favorite post was this one and it happens to be (at the time of this writing) the most recent.  go figure!    In good Geek-Spirit, I had to investigate further and find out if we have similar reading tastes…     We do and we don’t.  I couldn’t find anything we’ve both read, at least recently.    But I love her writing style and I’ll be back for more.     And she loves nonfiction.     This is an excellent post:   Memoirs.

Blondie Rocket over at Reading Comes From Writing has a great post that really highlights her reading style – I got a good glimpse what kind of reader she is before I ever read a review.   The one review that inspired me the most to add the book to my tbr was this one:   A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soldier. I like that she really mixes up genres – nonfiction, light mystery, recent releases, etc.

Nice to meet ya Everyone!   Happy Weekly Geek and Happy Halloween Week, too.

Review The Lace Reader

Review    The Lace Reader  by Brunonia Barry

 Recommended to me by Softdrink’s excellent review here.    Rather than write my own blahblahblah, I wrote some haiku…

Towner’s aunt is gone.
She mourns her twin sister, too.
Why won’t she read lace?

She’s got complications.
She’s a sympathetic character.
But can we trust her?

Witches in Salem,
Puritans and Calvinists.
Yellow Dog Island.

Ipswich lace and cobwebs,
hallucinations and lost love,
Can Rafferty save them?

Halloween Spirit

What do you LOVE about Halloween?   Don’t tell me, tell TI and enter her contest to win a book.   You can tell me, too, if you want.

Do you like horror books?   Want to re-write your own horror story?  Join in with Chartroose and Jack to write a short story in the style of HP Lovecraft.    Scheduled for Halloween night!

What have you read this year that was creepy, scary, made you quiver in fright? 

   Are you dressing up this year?    What will you be?   What will your     kids/ dogs/ cats/ spouse be?

   What was your favorite costume from when you were a kid?

 Why am I asking?   I don’t know, something to do…   Happy Hallowe’en!!   Read something scary, Ok?!

Review The Matisse Stories

Review      The Matisse Stories  by A.S.Byatt 

OK, first off, I’m such an unaware dweeb that I didn’t even know A.S.Byatt was a woman.  Not that it matters.  Why does that matter, anyway?   Maybe just because an impression is thrown…  

I’m also trying to get into using goodreads.com (like I NEED another place to waste my time and one more pswd to forget!!) but I’m starting to get invited by ‘friends’ and since I can’t get them to come HERE, I’m sharing over there, too.   In addition to.    I am just not familiar with the layout yet so it frustrates me.  

Here’s what I just wrote over there (I’m checking to see if their linking works!)

The Matisse Stories by A.S. Byatt

rating: 4 of 5 stars
TOO many words I didn’t know! Can you say ‘vocabulary lesson’? ugh Otherwise, BEAUTIFUL stories about unresolved and resolved tensions, communications, relationships, etc. I can’t put my finger on the word I want (see? I DO need a vocab lesson.) Not amusing, not funny, well, maybe if you think DARKLY amusing. but not sinister….   I did love it, if I didn’t get irritated that I didn’t know some of the words. It makes me wonder about reading any more of Byatt, tho.

View all my reviews.
 

Well, OK.   Not what I expected but still cool.    and I don’t yet have any reviews over there but you’ll see a more-pretty list of what you can also read in my Past-Tense list.    I fear that I will get sucked in ‘over there’ and neglect this HOME, where I feel so comfy and get to converse with all you book-buds of mine.

HOW MANY OF YOU ARE ALSO IN GOODREADS?   and/or in BOOKMOOCH?   Just curious…

NOW!  Let’s get to that VOCAB lesson, shall we?   Feel free to check off the ones you do know and go ahead and feel smug and superior;  I don’t mind a’tall.  I promise to adore your amazing intellect and vast knowledge of words forever.    I must add this:   MANY of these words I write down EVERY SINGLE TIME I see them.   I know, I do.  (I’ll * the ones I’m referring to.)  It’s like having an acquaintance that you know their name but don’t trust yourself to use it in the open, to voice out loud, ya know?   Does anyone else suffer from vague-word-recollection?    Chartroose, make up a word that is defined as ‘knowing-a-word-but-not-knowing-it-at-the-same-time’, can ya?

The Matisse Stories book includes 3 short stories.  The first, Medusa’s Ankles, was such an itchy reminder of being middle aged and annoyed with it.    A sample passage:  “What had left this greying skin, these flakes, these fragile stretches with no elasticity, was her, was her life, was herself.  She had never been a beautiful woman, but she had been attractive, with the attraction of liveliness and warm energy, of the flow of quick blood and brightness of eye.  No classic bones, which might endure, no fragile bird-like sharpness that might whitely go forward.  Only the life of flesh, which began to die.”   OH!  the ending is awesome!  The whole story is good.   [I actually have a note in my book - that I totally forgot about until I started to type the word list - to do a review of the story as if I was a journalist called to the scene after and writing the story for print in a newspaper.   It would have been clever, I think...]   Here are my list of words:

seraglio – harem, pouffe – thick cushion used as a seat, emanations – unknown to physical science, which sensitives may perceive or which the human body emits.

Art Work, the second story, was delightful and sad and COLORFUL.   I think Byatt was going for colorful and vivid; just as a Matisse painting.   I can’t call myself art knowledgeable but I think I can recognize his major works and his style, though I may not be able to describe it intelligently.    Back to the story, I don’t think I would have been as patient of wife.

chuntering – aha!  a made-up word!!   Byatt is brilliant!  sounds like it sounds, I suppose…[found on another website as GRUMBLE (Brit.)], squitter – burst of data, madder – plant used to make red dye, purblind – slow in understanding, speedwell – plant also known as veronica, verisimilitude * - the appearance of truth, 

–  I’m going to stop linking, too time consuming, since my IE won’t let me use the WP feature to make it easy…  Yes, I have to type/fix all the code.  yuck, I know!   Which is why they don’t open new windows, which I would prefer.   oh well…   Typing up this post has been taking me away from sending that resume out…   DISTRACTION syndrome.   This post is taking me longer than reading one of the stories.   –

gouache – watercolor painting technique
gentian - some kind of plant
minatory - of a menacing nature
alacrity * - eagerness
tump - to fall over
‘horrent and recumbent’ – (huh?)  bristling and with no movement
concertinaed – something to do with concerts
quotidian *  – commonplace
stupiferous*  (spoken by a kid – yea, right.) – [I couldn't find this so maybe it DOES make sense that kid used it.   The reader doesn't get told how old the kid is and I assumed he was ~ 8 yo]
sylph * – elemental being of air

The Chinese Lobster story was very intense and discussed intense subjects such as rape, sexual harrassment, and suicide.    It was a colorful story, too, and quite touching.    I didn’t take many notes during this one, but I will mention that one word which upon reading the next sentence became instantly clear and understandable and made me feel idiotic for pausing at it, was MAJUSCULE.    Sure, I know miniscule – how come I never considered majuscule before?   Makes sense; I truly believe this was my first time to consider it, though.  

So ends the lesson.  FOUR STARS.

Explaining the Banner

I don’t think I’ve ever yet posted an explanation for the photo at the head of this blog.   Have I?   I don’t recall.   I think maybe, only, in response to comments.   SO here goes.

Every January, I set a New Year’s Goal to organize my recipe collections.    I should feel quite OK about throwing out (or inventorying on BookMooch.com) these books I’ve never ever used and I must, MUST! punch holes in the loose printed sheets from the internet and alphabetize in a notebook.   I must, I say.

I was hoping that if I posted this picture for me to see everytime I logged into my blog, that I would be inspired. 

Alas, not yet.    Maybe today.  After I drop off the dog to day care, get the oil changed in the car, stop by the grocery store for sub-buns to replace the ones that I borrowed from my neighbor, purchase some nice resume paper, whip up a resume to apply for a U of Mass job I saw advertized (wish me luck and skill!) and then finish the laundry and maybe put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher.

MUST REMEMBER TO TAKE BOOK TO READ WHILE AT CAR DEALER!    And what book is that?   the Matisse Collection by Byatt.

toodles! 

(and yes, I bought my husband the Cooking With Beer book and it has a lot of fun recipes in it.   We use this one.   We always seem to have the main ingredient on hand.)

The Wisdom of Eve and All About Eve

When I signed up for the LitFlicks Challenge, I originally wanted to view movies that had won the Best Picture Oscar and read the books that were the story source for the adaption to the screen.

I had bookmooched The Wisdom of Eve  by Mary Orr and Reginald Denham thinking this was a book.      However, it is a play adapted from the story by Mary Orr on which the film All About Eve was based.     I believe it was first a story published in a magazine.    I didn’t mind reading the play but would have preferred it in prose.

Then, I watched the film…  AWESOME!   It was delightful!  and funny!   and had witty banter!!     Won Best Picture Oscar 1951.   and slew of other categories – wins and nominations.   Check the movie details here.

I loved it.

Maybe this isn’t much of a review, but it’s all I got.

     

Review The Soloist

Review    The Soloist  by Mark Salzman

I always google-image for the cover when I do a book review and this time, rather than just choose the one that matched the actual copy that I read, I clicked here.    (<– an excellent review at Renee’s Book Of The Day)

WHY?  I don’t really know.   Don’t you LOVE it when you find something extraordinary?   I don’t think I have ever met this bookblogger before but I love this review.   AND, I see in the sidebar that GEEK LOVE is featured as Best of the Blog.   I must say this is what made me copy the link and include it here.   I hope to visit again and read more – but later.

I have a review to write!   (and don’t you HATE it when you sit to do a review and you read another’s wonderful review before you have committed your own thoughts to keyboard/monitor?)

HOW DID YOU GET THIS BOOK?    I was given this book by my friend, Holly.  I had never heard of it before, nor do I recognize the author.    Holly and I don’t always agree on books but I would say, about 50-75% of the time we do.   We never ever argue or have big conflicts, but ya never know – which makes it fun but unpredictable to recommend books to each other.

This was a cerebral read in a quiet masterful way, but not in hard thinking way.   (Does that make sense?)    I enjoyed the time inside the head of the main character and yet, the whole time, I wondered if I would ‘like’ the person if I knew him.   I certainly didn’t dislike him and he had reasons to be so, well, anti-social, I guess.   Awkward, definitely.   Very interesting, but you’d never know it by superficial conversation.     So, this story felt like you were truly inside hearing this guy’s thoughts; very psychological fly-on-the-wall stuff.   

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?    A child prodigy who is given every opportunity to grow up into being the world’s greatest cello player discovers at age 18 that he has lost the ‘ear’ – the perfection – and thus is no longer able to concertize.    Taking a job as a college music educator,  he fights to regain, by which I mean he spends hours of dedicated practice, that amazing performing ability once again.   He misses and intensely desires to get back into the concert hall.  

But one summer, he is called to jury duty.  The trial he has to sit for as a juror is a complicated one.  AND, he is introduced to a 9 year old boy who seems to have the amazing innate talent to appreciate and create incredible music on the cello.    Despite his reluctance (lack of confidence?  too big a distraction?) to tutor this kid, he does.     His thoughts on the trial, his relationships with everybody, and his life beliefs collide and he makes somewhat of a breakthrough.  

Four stars.

For more, Lightheaded at EveryDay Reads has written a very nice review here.

Wrap Up and Wake Up!

At the beginning of this Oct-08 Read-A-Thon, I committed to give 2 cents per page I read to the Red Cross.     Now that I see my results, I am upping that per page committment to 50 cents.   Doing the math, 219 pages at $0.50 =  $109.50.       I am also committing to volunteering to ePals, the literacy program that pairs adults readers with children who then read and discuss books via email, etc.    Sound like fun, yes? 

End of the Event Meme:

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?    All of them?!    The second to last because I was really trying to redeem my pathetic self and finish my book but my vision was not cooperating.   I must say I started strong, had wimpy middle, slept 4 hours (drank one too many beers before that nap but if I remember the party at all, the Red Sox won.) and woke up to spend 3 solid hours reading!    

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?   No.   I like Raych’s sug to have novellas on hand, but any book is fine – one that holds your attention.   It doesn’t really matter how long the book is, does it?   Unless  you want to be able to post how many books completed in your stats.  But I don’t care about stats…

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?    Not right now but I probably should go read my wrap up post from June 08 and see what I said.   I played a different role this time and was not very devoted, sad to say.   Last time I was more dedicated, for sure.    My review/thoughts on June’s Thon are here.

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?   I was much better at knowing what time/hour it was – but that could have been me.   The who’s who update page from Ariel was terrific!   And reading is easier than cheering, I think.   I really dropped the ball in cheering this time.

5. How many books did you read?   I am still trying to finish up the one I started.

6. What were the names of the books you read?    Cimarron by Edna Ferber (sick of me telling you about it, aren’t you?  snort.)

7. Which book did you enjoy most?    Same.

8. Which did you enjoy least?  Yes, this too.

9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?   No.

10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?   YES!   I must improve my efforts next time.

 

Be watching this blog for upcoming reviews:   Lit Flick Post on All About Eve, Book Review on The Soloist by Mark Salzman,  Lit Flick Post/Movie Review of The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, Book Review of Cimarron,  Book Review of The Tale of Devereaux with my 8 yo neighbor and just more silliness and fun.  Thank you!

Read-A-Thon Hour 23 and on to the end!

I’ve read 41 pages in the past hour, for a running total of 149 pages.   

One hour later, I’ve read 24 more pages.    My vision is blurry and my mind won’t hold the concepts.   I find myself re-reading passages and losing my place.  Sentences I think I just read seem unfamiliar.

AND, we’re DONE!   It’s 8:01 am in Massachusetts and I am on page 259, which means that I read 46 pages the last hour and 219 total in this disappointing effort.

I should be ashamed.   OH WELL!    I’ll do better next time.    Thank you everyone!  I’m off to comment and clap the deserving readers and cheerleaders now.   

RAT Hour 21

I woke up and thought:   “READ-A-THON!” and just flew out of bed!   After splashing myself awake and putting on water to boil in my tea kettle (Coffee is nifty but hot tea is quicker), I’m back.

I’m first responding to a min-challenge for short stories over at Ready, When You Are CB and the book from which this tale will be pulled is…

The Matisse Stories by A.S.Byatt,  first story Medusa’s Ankles 28 pages.

A sentence from the 8th paragraph: “He stood above her with his fine hands cupped lightly round her new bubbles and wisps, like the hands of a priest round a Grail.”

I’m back to reading now.    WAKE UP!