Please Excuse the Mess/Absence

I  really really REALLY want to support BBAW (Book Blogger Appreciation Week – pls notice button in right sidebar) and so I sent off an email to Amy – you all DO know Amy, right?! – asking if I could help.

Did you hear that – as far as I recall – that the participation is over 1200+ book blogs!?       Um, yea.   how many do you follow? impossible!

I didn’t really want to do an interview;  I don’t really know why exactly, but I just didn’t and the only other way at the moment was to do the meme.  BUT… I didn’t participate last year and the meme didn’t make much sense to me.

SO, I fretted that I really wanted to be a part of BBAW and yet didn’t know what to do.    HONESTLY, I didn’t last year because it felt so clique-ish.    (am I spelling that right?)  and I got over myself to realize that it really is a support and celebration of ALL of us diverse crazies who blog almost exclusively about books and so…

Where was I?

So, Amy says, “YES!!  BY GAWD, DO WE NEED HELP!!!”  which isn’t surprising at all, when you think about all the panels that have been set up to judge and you-know-who-all-what-all.

I’m glad to help.   BUT WOW!    the task they gave me has given me a TOTAL new appreciation.

I’ll be busy.     Excuse me if I’m not twittering off about nothingness and visiting your blogs.   I’m out reading blogs I’ve never heard of before (so far = extremely impressed) and rating them harshly and then ever-so-sensitively and wrestling with the GOAL of how awesome it is that we all support and get along.     Be nice, be impressed, be critical!?

I love book readers.   I so appreciate the warmth I’ve been received here.

so, if you miss me – I’m doing me duty to the book blogging community and I will see you sometime next week.

I do hope to interject with a review of My Father’s Paradise by Ariel Sabar (Violet! what a sweet book!   I’m almost done.)  maybe next week or tomorrow.  who knows…

anyone else a bit overwhelmed with their bbaw responsibilities?   or in awe of all those helping out???   stand up. anyone extremely glad (like I am) that I was NOT nominated to be judged?!    ha. (ok Nymeth – I really hope you’re  laughing.)

And….   I don’t really remember who all I nominated for stuff but I wish (maybe I did!)  I had nominated Bybee for best commenter because she makes me laugh!   And we both lived in Sedalia MO once  – tho, I don’t think at the same time  but I count her as a kindred spirit.   ya know… if you take away her books, she’s naked.   EEKS!

Why Not Let It R.I.P.

I’ve caved.   “NO MORE CHALLENGES CARE!”    Oh well.    It’s the badge I covet most, I think.

I am always blown away by the enthusiasm for this challenge:   R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril…  IV! And even-though I’m challenge-challenged, I’m succumbing anyway.      Actually, I had assumed from everyone who has so excitedly posted their pools of reading choices that the Peril the First level of FOUR books was the lesser of the levels, but actually it’s the HIGHEST!

When curiosity got the best of me, I finally (and I suggest you go ahead and click here, too. You know you want to) clicked to the official challenge site at Carl’s Stainless Steel Droppings and found out that I could post my pool as my entry commitment.

I’m choosing the Peril the Second of TWO books:

Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes*

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies** by Seth Grahame-Smith 

Luckily, I have both of these books in house.    But, in the spirit of choice and pool-posting, I offer the following books that may or may not be appropriate but I’ve seen them on other’s pool lists so I, too, will offer them up for consideration.    All of these are also in house:

Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin

The Likeness by Tana French

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

But wait!  There’s more!!  I also want to put something/anything by HP Lovecraft on the list because it’s been awhile since I read a book for my Chartroose Challenge and am hoping that if she see’s that I’ve mentioned her, I can entice her out of her quasi-retirement or where-ever-the-hell-she-is to post something!!!   (please Char?  we miss you!)

*    Something Wicked… was a DNF from last year that I really loved but somehow put down and it done got runned over.

** and P&P&Z counts for my Everything Austen Challenge – yippee!

Emotional Reader

I have turned into the official librarian for my neighborhood.     The next door lady, a mother of three boys  of ages 6, 8 and 10, returned to me a brand new copy of a book as well as a literally dog-eared (as in their new German Shepherd puppy chewed on my autographed copy) Still Alice by Lisa Genova and asked, “May I have another book, please?”

Warning: dog eats books

She loved Still Alice and also mentioned that another book I gave her was just as great,  Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper.

I invited her over to look at books I have stacked here there and everywhere but I got impatient waiting for her, so I delivered a stack for her to choose from.     The reason I took this photo is so I have a record of what I gave her and when.     Now that I type this and think about what I did, I’m hoping she puts them on a high shelf… oh well!

She immediately picked The Book Thief because it was the one on top when I presented them.    I asked if she wanted to know what it was about and she said,

“Nope.    Did you like it?”

“Yes, one of the best I’ve read this year.”

“Then I trust you.     Everything you’ve given me, I’ve liked.”

“uh, ok.   Are you sure?”

“Yep, although…     You do tend to read very emotional books.”

Do I?   or is it only those FEW books that I’ve given her.    I hadn’t thought of my reading like that.    I can list a few non-emotionally-charged books, like Mauve and maybe Thunderstruck, certainly The Day the World Ended – it didn’t make me cry.     All of these are nonfiction.

It just struck me funny, the blanket assessment of what I read based on two books I’ve shared.   And really, can you look at this list and ASSUME what kind of reader I am?    I think it shows a huge variety!

I’m really wondering what she’ll think of The Book Thief or if she caves to the stack, reads through the back covers and selects something else.

Weekly Geeks 2009-32 Why Haven’t I Read This Yet?

Please click here to go directly to the Weekly Geek blog.

This week’s Geek asks us to list those books we’ve always meant to read and just have not yet ever gotten around to.   (perhaps, this sounds better:  just not yet have gotten to –or–  just never read yet,  –or– whatever.)

I have a huge list of books I’ve always said I would read someday and it includes Anna Karenina, Moby Dick, and even Harry Potter.

But this book, I swear, I’ve been lugging around with me since college and I still have only read a few of the poems.    No, can’t be college – the copyright date is the year after I graduated.    I don’t remember when or why I bought this and  I cannot tell you any good reason why I’ve not opened and read it yet:

The Erotic Works of D.H.Lawrence

On the other hand (and with nothing to do with DH Lawrence), I do want to say I’ve recently read a few titles after many years of wishing to:    A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Color Purple and The Pillars of the Earth.   Yea me!

Lovely Quotes

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage” ~Lao Tzu

- just saw this on Twitter, retweeted by Boston Bibliophile.   It’s a good one, yes?

Which reminds me, I don’t have time to sit here and twit away my morning!   I can’t decide if I should leave to drop off the dog to daycare right now and then come back, work out and get ready to meet my friend Beastmomma.    OR work out and just drop off the dog on my way to IKEA.   So, I sit here checking blogs and hitting refresh on the Twitter Home page and it is seriously frightening me.

Good news:   I’ve been ‘hired’ (purely volunteer basis = no pay was discussed) to help a teacher research gender issues in education.    Anyone read anything on this topic recently? I’m sure she’s just wondering if I can dig up some books she hasn’t yet found.   It’s all fun.   I believe I remember Dewey reading and discussing some great books so I will check there first thing later today.    (ha – that sounds funny.)

All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action. – James Russell Lowell

And now, I feel I must address this quandry of my BBAW nomination.    I have been nominated for Best Commentor (or is it Commenter?)     Does this mean I leave the best comments or I’m just prolific?   Whatever, it is humbling and exciting to be nominated and I know the others who are also nominated are incredibly worthy and deserving.   It’s just weird now thinking/wondering if  I’m commenting just to comment and get the counts up and at so many blogs!!! or just continue to do as I do.   Know what I mean?      So, I will just continue being me and enjoy the blogs like I always do.     I will not campaign or try to buzz around everywhere but will attempt to visit and make new friends, cherish the ‘old’ friends and — ok, I’ll just shut up now.

Please Welcome New Book Blogger!

So I told you about my wonderful book club – now you get to meet one of the members!    Please welcome a friend who has decided to focus her blogging to be all about books (and likely other stuff, too.)

KB of True Confessions of an English Teacher

Please click on her blog name and visit her and show her what the Book Blogging Community is all about.   It’s the best!   We need to tell her about BBAW (I received a nom, by the way, thank you) and Weekly Geeks and challenges and the Read-A-Thon and…    So fun.

Oh, Just Lots of Stuff

My IRL Book Club — newly named as The Bookies  — met yesterday afternoon to discuss The Day the World Ended at Little Bighorn.    We enjoyed refreshing pina coladas and blackberry beer and swimming in the pool on a hot humid day talking about books we’ve been reading, hope to read, hated to read, etc.     We are all praying that the sun and heat will also be present for our next meeting so that we can, once again, enjoy Books and Beer and Pool.

We have no formal book selection format;   we just assign who will be the next person to suggest a book and either allow them to dictate the next book or to bring a few titles to vote.    For September, we’ll be reading

My Sweet Charlie by David Westheimer

This book is from 1965 and has been made into a play and a movie, but unfortunately Netflix doesn’t have it.      Anyone heard of it?     I’m just excited to see that one copy is available in the library system and BY GOLLY!!  that library is my town’s!   Awesome.   (and if any of my Bookie friends want it after me, just let me know and I’ll pass it on.)

In other news, I was so excited to see I’ve been awarded this:

The Zombie Chicken Award!   (click here to get the details) I tell you what – this really does mean a lot to me (especially since I was getting a bit obsessed with checking my email and searching #BBAW on Twitter yesterday.   sheeeeesh – get over my damn self already) and so I thank Lisa at Lit and Life very much for thinking of me and bestowing this incredible award.    I will hereby pass it on to Jodie at BookGazing, Lu at Regular Ruminations, Jenny at Jenny’s Books and Jessi at Casual Dread.         I am actually very proud of my little blog – I’m doing with it exactly what I want and have no grand goals but it delights me to no end that I have readers that I respect and cherish.   Thank you so much.

Now, for my thoughts on Lost and Found by Jacqueline Sheehan, Avon Trade 2007, 304 pages.

I enjoyed this novel about a woman who in the first few pages loses her husband to a heart attack.   She is a psychologist so she is supposed to know how to deal with emotional upheavals but she finds she just doesn’t know how to grieve and live and take a year off from her job and throws herself into something else entirely.    She eventually makes friends, finds drama and allows a dog into her life who teaches her that she can learn to love again.    It was good:   three pie slices.   Of course, the dog is awesome!!!   I love dogs.

What else?

BOOK BLOGGER MEET!   I’m meeting one of my blogging buds, Beastmomma, who has recently moved to Massachusetts!    We’re going to shop a bit at IKEA on Monday and then find a nice restaurant for veggies and chat about BOOKS.   I’m very excited.       So more on that next week.

Finally,

I’m off to guard my boat from big bad Hurricane Bill this weekend.   I’ll likely be unplugged – the wifi is already iffy and I bet the rain just makes it worse.   Or maybe it won’t rain?    We’ll see.   They (those weather people ‘they’) aren’t making too much of a big deal of it, so no need to be worried or anything.

To end this, how about another pic of my wonderful dog on the boat!

Rays of Sunshine

Just when you need it most, a post by one of your favorite bloggers will touch on something that stops you cold and makes you think.

Here’s what LitLove says in her thoughtful post on Suffering and Enlightenment:

In work, the key is to extract the maximum pleasure out of accomplishing the task. Whatever else happens is irrelevant. In love, support the people who matter by really listening to them, and teach them gently how to listen to you. With children, love them by learning who they are, not who you wish them to be. When alone be honest with yourself, don’t let yourself off the hook but treat yourself with humour. And if the big storm clouds gather, get help of every possible kind. Knowledge, support, practical care, whatever it takes – that’s what other people are for and it makes them feel good to help you.

Now my petty headgame problems are minor MINOR and appalling to me that I even think them once, let alone DWELL on them frequently:  thoughts of jealousy, sloth and lack of focus — while my life is truly blessing-overheaping.    So I thank LitLove and I thank Nymeth (wink!) and I thank all of you for being you and sharing your energies with the blogosphere.

Have a better than nice day!

Population: 485

Review  Population 485 by Michael Perry, HarperCollins 2002, 234 pages

Citizen Reader’s latest Book Menage inspired me to check out this book from the library.   I enjoyed it very much.

**** crickets ***

Oh, man, let’s try that again, shall we?

I’m a big fan of Citizen Reader’s nonfiction book blog and when I failed to read the books required of the latest Book Menage, I thought to myself “SO WHAT?” and decided that it was not really an obstacle to participating.   The discussion questions were insightful and the intelligent positive comments had me hooked;   I just had to get my hands on this book!

So I checked it out from the library and I enjoyed it very much …

Mr. Perry lives in a small town and is a writer.    and oh what a writer, he is!     He crafts a lovely metaphor.    He writes about his job as a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical responder – yep, that means intensity!   and gore!   and medical terminology!!    it’s GOOD.   And he writes about small town characters and small town ways and just miscellany about his small town and why he loves it.

He writes a bit about his family and his friends and about the full circle of life and death.   and about what it means to be a part of a community.    Given that one of my latest reads was about HAPPINESS, I must say that Perry’s book does a lot to contribute to how a sense of trust in your community adds to that sense of well-being where ever you may be.    Laugh out loud funny, this book is heartwarming and heart-breaking, too.

Perry does tend to use some BIG words.   You know — words that are multisyllabic that you don’t usually hear in conversation.    If I had any complaints, it would be that I didn’t know all the words well enough to let myself jump right by them.   Enjoy:

desultory – lacking a plan, purpose, or enthusiasm

otiose – “I did slap together a booklet of otiose homilies entitled How to Hypnotize a Chicken…” – serving no practical purpose or result

atavistic – “As a dyed-in-the-wool farm boy, I find Ihave an atavistic urge to poor-mouth anything more theoretical than a bag of feed.” – relating to or characterized by reversion to something ancient orancestral

alacrity – brisk and cheerful readiness

palimpsest – something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form

abattoir – “Emerging from a relationship that ended in a way that simply brings to mind the word abattoir, ...” –  a slaughterhouse

rattamacue – “The mamba loosed a final spasm, executed a triple rattamacue death dance down my anterior tibial ridge, then went still.” – [I couldn't find this spelling;  perhaps only one T?   ratamacue]

biffy – A toilet; An outhouse

contrapuntal – “I crave a contrapuntal mix of shiftlessness and stability.” – of or in counterpoint

spavined – “I am getting hints – yes, even here in this spavined place – that if we work at it, we can learn to achieve stasis in the moment, even as time ripsaws by.” – a disorder of a horse’s hock

bathyscaph -”It seems the day always comes when the Significant Sweet Other says something, or casts a certain gaze, and as if someone bumped a toggle switch in the bathyscaph, all the oxygen shoots from the room.” – a manned submersible vessel of a kind used by the French deep-sea explorer Auguste Piccard

exculpate – “And so, when it comes to my marital phobias, let me exculpate my parents.” – show or declare that (someone) is not guilty of wrongdoing

THEN today!   I was browsing the sales cart and saw the paperback – it’s a sign!   I have to pass it on!     To enter my book giveaway, please leave a comment here telling me anything personal about a small town you either live in now or lived in once, passed through, anything!    Here’s my story:    I had just moved to Tipton Missouri (pop approx 3000 according to 2000 census) and was signing up for utility service at the town office.   When I tried to tell the clerk who I was, she already knew!       She didn’t know my name but she knew the number and street of my new house address.    IT TOTALLY FREAKED ME OUT.   But she was very nice and I have to say, living in Tipton was a mighty special time in my life…     Contest closes midnight Sunday August 23rd, 2009 EST and winner will be picked at random.   Be sure I have a way to contact you (the WP comment sign in requires your e/m, yes?)

New Books in the House

Any good books new to you and recently added to the pile in your possession?     Lookie at what I’ve got!

I’m a winner-chicken-dinner and I’m over the top excited to say I won Pride & Prejudice AND ZOMBIES!!! by Seth Grahame-Smith.   Thank you to Ceclia Bedelia over at her blog of adventures and her sister, too, who crafted an adorable book mark.    It’s a good thing I begged Stephanie to let me sign up late for her Everything Austen Challenge (not really — she offered; she tells me I’m the 200th person to participate) and I also must give a shout out to my friend Joanne over at Book Zombie – anything with zombies reminds me of this awesome blogger.

I was given three books by my impressive friend KB (I’m trying to get her to start a book blog…) and although I have only read two (and yet to rate any higher than 3 pie slices – which isn’t bad but won’t make my best of list at the end of the year) the third one is pulling strong:    Lost & Found by Jacqueline Sheehan.    I’m on page 100 or so.

and then, last week, I finally made myself go to the library!    and I checked out one book for the World Citizen Challenge:   My Father’s Paradise by Ariel Sabar, and two books for last month’s latest Book Menage at Citizen Reader’s – my vote for best nonfiction blog in the BBAW’s and I’m hoping CR will be a finalist:      Book Blogger Appreciation Week is in September! The Menage featured Population: 485 by Michael Perry and The Father of All Things by Tom Bissell.    This last I’m listening to the audio, a new experience for me and so this will make an excellent future post.   It also qualifies as a World Cit book since half of it is a travelogue through Vietnam.

Today, I was back at the library for my Tuesday Trig Tutoring and decided to glance at the sales carts wondering if a book might jump out and beg me to take it home.    Oh, me of little faith.   I should have known better…    I came home with The History of Love ($2) by Nicole Krause, A Reliable Wife ($3)by Robert Goolrick (please somebody tell me this is because I’ve been reading good reviews?!), Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder (I’m beginning to collect Kidder books) and paperback version of Population: 485!!!    So expect a review soon with grand announcement of a ‘do you want this?’ offering.

I took this photo on my laptop and I don’t know how to flip it so it’s not a mirror of me that you can actually read the titles…  oh well!    A bit too much light, too.