Knitting in the Shadows

One-Sided Reading

Who knew that simply inputting a bunch of data about my reading history, current reading, and reading plans would reveal so much to me?  Sure, I expected to see patterns in my reading.  There are patterns everywhere. 

And I expected to see cycles in my reading; I tend to do all sorts of things in cycles.  You can tell this simply by observing my home.  At one end of the cleaning cycle, I'm uber diligent, and dust and clean up, and tidy, and scrub toilets and sinks frequently.  Then, over time, the frequency diminishes, and one by one the tasks fall by the way side (vacuuming the stairs goes first, then dusting....).  Until suddenly, I look around me and am appalled.   The same cycle is clearly visible on my desk.  Those two cycles only rarely have anything to do with each other. (And if you're going to tell me that your house doesn't have such cycles, I'm going to ask you who your cleaning service is.)

Similarly, I tend to go for a while reading the books that Golf Pro has checked out of the library, and enjoying crime fiction for a while.  Then I slowly start adding more fantasy to my reading pile, and veer off into whatever the kids are reading.  Then I'll find a series (usually fantasy, but sometimes historical fiction like Diana Gabaldon's exquisitely delicious Outlander series).  Then I'll swing back to reading with Golf Pro.

In the middle, I usually have some sort if interesting non-fiction book in the bathroom or somewhere else where I'm only going to read a few pages at a time.  My slow reads full of facts and curiosity, but which are just too dense to read as a whole.

Recently, however, my reading pattern has changed.  You don't see all of it on GoodReads, because I've not yet added my text books to the reading list.  I can't decide whether they really belong there.  But...

Today, as I entered the completion of my most recent bit of fiction, I noticed a couple of things.

1.  I now have a real place to keep the list of books that I want to read, but don't yet have on hand (or time for).  And it's a list that I'll be able to find! So that book I want to read won't get forgotten. Alas, that list is growing very quickly.  Today, I marked one book as READ, and promptly added two more TO READ. (How exactly do you count the one you've marked to read that you've already read?)

2. While it's clear that I'm reading a lot about anatomy, physiology, pathology, and massage assessment and treatment (what with studying for the National Boards and all).  I hadn't realized just how much of my "down time" reading is also tied up with Massage.  I'm reading massage related books for my leisure reading too?  Really? 

What do I mean?  Well,  I'm studying by re-reading, and re-note taking, and quizzing myself on the following books (feel free to skip this particular list, it's a bit of record keeping in addition to being information you might be interested in):

1. Hole's Essentials of Human Anatomy and Physiology, 10th Edition. (I find it rather delicious that my daughters use a more recent edition for their high school anatomy course).
2. Theory and Practice of Therapeutic Massage, by Mark F. Beck
3. A Massage Therapist's Guide to Pathology, 4th edition (MTGP 3e), by Ruth Werner
4. Orthopedic Assessment in Massage Therapy, by Whitney Lowe
5. Trail Guide to the Body: How to locate muscles and bones 3d Ed, by Andrew Biel
6. Illustrated Essentials of  Musculoskeletal Anatomy, 5th Ed., by Sieg and Adams (whose illustrations, frankly aren't as good as those in the Beck, Theory and Practice Book, or the Trail Guide -- but this was our assigned text book).
7. Massage, A Career at Your Fingertips, by Martin Ashley, JD, LMT (which was a rather pitiful book, that made me want to write a better one, but which, again, was our assigned textbook).

and of course, the official "Review Guides" for the exam itself, which do provide the same material in new ways, so that I'm "layering" the information, but which, more importantly, provide practice tests.

Mosby's Massage Therapy Review, 3rd Edition (which I own)
Review for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork Certification (from the library)

But in my "down time" I'm otherwise just reading these:

Bodywork: What Type of Massage to Get and How to Make the Most of It, by Thomas Claire (which makes me madly jealous of him, since he actually GETS all of these massages and writes in detail about the experience.  I want to write THIS book).
The Worlds Best Massage Techniques, by Victoria Stone
The Way of QiGong: The Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing, by Kenneth S. Cohen

and I just finished

The Five Elements of Self-Healing: Using Chinese Medicine for Maximum Immunity, Wellnes, and Health, by Jason Elias, and
Human Bones: A Scientific and Pictoral Investigation, by R. McNeill Alexander

Seriously! 

(Well, okay, I'm interested, but also that's reading, not studying, and since it's connected I'm hoping it will help.)

That's not to say that I'm not also reading the Biography of Water (a few pages at a time), or that I don't have a bit of fiction at my bedside for "go-to-sleep" reading, but still.

It makes me worry a bit that I'm becoming, well, a tad -- obsessed?  one-dimensional? all massage all the time?

I'm hoping that this is just a sign that I'm dedicated to passing these upcoming exams, and to really deeply LEARNING all this stuff so that I will be the best massage therapist I can be.  We'll check in again in, oh, mid-October after I've taken my exams.

To combat this one-sidedness, I'm considering joining my community in a thing I've just learned about.  Evidently, every so often (monthly? seasonally?), the libraries (or someone) in our twin-cities get together and pick a book for the whole community to read at once.  This month, it's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  It's been a long time since I've read it, and I DID just finish a novel last night... so I (cough) have room (cough) in my reading list (cough cough).  I think I'll join the folks in town and read ol' Tom again.

As soon as I finish reviewing the Nervous System.

(I'm now inspired, suddenly, to see if we can have a blogiverse reading club.  Anyone want to join me in reading a book, and chatting about it here?)

Books - the Good Reads Frenzy

I have Facebook account.  I use it more to chat with my friends, and do little mini-blogs sharing my thoughts or articles I've liked. (Today, I actually wished that there were a way to share things BACK to my blog from Facebook, instead of only the way to publish my blog posts to Facebook.)  I like following my friends on Facebook.  I do not like playing all the games etc. (translation, I've escaped the evil time sucks that Facebook so giddily applies)

I use three whole apps on Facebook:  Family Tree (in which I've connected to distant cousins), Words with Friends (which sometimes becomes a bit of an obsession), and GoodReads.  Luckily, GoodReads is accessible without a Facebook membership -- so you can avoid the whole issue of FaceBook and still play. (And, you can choose who gets to see what you post).

I've been inconsistent in my use of GoodReads, but last weekend I went a little overboard.  I logged in two years worth of books.  We will NOT discuss how long that took (nor will we make snide comments about the fact that I have a wee notebook in which I record every book I read).

It was only after I typed in all these book titles that I discovered the GoodReads app for my smart phone.  That app has a wonderful tool in it that could have saved me so very much time:  A BAR CODE READER!

Score

So... when I next have that frenzied need to go back and post my book reading history, I can stand at my bookshelf and scan barcodes in.  I'll still have to go back to make comments, but having them already in there will be a huge time saver. At least for the books I own..... that little notebook goes back over a decade).

But why do I do this?  Because I find it fun, and useful, to have a list somewhere that lets me know what I've read -- especially what I've read and LIKED (or read and didn't like).  With GoodReads, not only do I have that list, but I can go back to see what I thought of a book.  I can also share my opinon with folks I "friend" on GoodReads.  Sharing my opinion is okay, but reading THEIR opinions about books that I'm considering reading is awesome.

And. Even if all I post is whether I disliked, liked, or loved a book, that leads GoodReads to make recommendations for me, just in case I ever come up with a week where I'm at a loss for what to read next.

When is it Censorship?

As often happens in this wonderfully interconnected world, a blog post has prompted some wonderful savvy responses.  This time, it happened here in ShadowLand.

I posted about my surprise and frustration that my 15 year old was able to check out a movie from the library that was either originally rated NC-17 and then defined as unrated, or was the alternative version, rated R. Until I actually put it in the DVD player and watch it, I can't tell which version we have in the house, because it didn't come with the full box.

Janna said:

"As a librarian, here's what I think their policy probably is: it's up to you, as the parent, to be aware of what your children are reading and watching. This is the policy behind NOT banning books. It's not up to them to decide what is suitable for your child. And I know you're going to say "But movies have ratings!" But it's a slippery slope and if the library isn't already on that slope by policing movies, they won't find themselves being shoved into policing books. What if an R or NC-17-rated movie is based on a book? Should access to the book be controlled, too? Where do you draw that line? By not having a line at all, that parent who doesn't want their child reading The Great Gatsby isn't going to be restricting your child, too. (http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedclassics)."

That gets me thinking along several lines:

First off, I agree with her, generally.

If we let the library decide who can check out what, we're inviting them to censor our reading.  I don't want anyone else deciding what I can read, or even what my kids can read. I don't want them deciding what we can watch, either.

On the other hand, I figure if a library follows the same policy as the theaters do, using the ratings that are out there, they won't go wrong.   If the ratings rules mean that a 16 year old can't get in to see a film, period, then the library is reasonable in saying she can't check the film out.  Mom (or frankly anyone over 17) can always check it out and let her watch it, of course.  (The fact that they now call it NC-17 (in part because it can be assigned for violence, drugs, or exceedingly aberrant behaviors in addition to sex or even pornographic scenes) and not X is irrelevant here). Ditto, if the ratings rules say you need a parent or guardian to take you in, the library can say she needs a parent or guardian to approve  her rental of that movie.  Heck, the library policy could state that teens have to have a parent or guardian sign a release to clear them to check out R rated movies. 

It takes a village to raise a child.  That's because parents cannot be by their children's side all the time.  And just like parents can't always there when the kid tries to get into the movies, parents can't always be there when the tween or teen goes to the library.  (Heck, around here, one of the middle schools is right across the street from the library; the kids go over to the library after school all the time).  A parent can always come later and say "yes, it's okay, she can see that," and then check out a movie.  But a parent can't always be there to say, "whoa, no.... not yet" before it's too late.  The theaters deal with this by assuming it's not okay to let a person under 17 see an R rated unless the parents, guardians, or other presumably responsible adult escorts them.

As I said, I don't want someone else deciding what we can read.  I'd rather my girls wound up reading pornographic literature before I thought it was a good idea than have someone else deprive them of the chance to read something because they'd put it on a banned books list.  I mean seriously, have you looked at the banned books lists lately?  China banned Alice in Wonderland!  There was a time when Chaucer's Canterbury Tales were banned.  Are You There God It's Me Margaret, which has it's place on the Top 100 Children's Books list, has been "challenged" in various places in the U.S.

On the other hand, There's something a bit different about movies.  Not that I want anyone banning movies, or limiting them generally.  But I do agree that there are some films that kids aren't old enough to see. There's something different about visuals.  It's one thing to READ that a stoned out woman is paying for her cocaine by  performing  a rather, shall we say "non-standard" sex act -- even to read exactly what she did.  (There is such a scene described in the synopsis fo the film that inspired my previous post - even reading the synopsis made me uncomfortable).  If you're reading something, and you have no experience to back it up, you're not likely to be ABLE to really visualize it.  It's even harder to give it not only sight but sound.  If you're watching.... it's right there in your face, with sound.  It's vivid and real in a way that books rarely are.  (Could potentially be traumatizing to some -- especially someone two, three, four years under the age indicated by the ratings.)  It's really hard to unsee something.

I don't see that restricting access to a movie has to mean restricting access to a corresponding book. Screenwriters are prone to changing books slightly (or a lot -- I've seen movies "inspired by" books that shared little more with the original book than the title and some character names).  What might have been a scene that wasn't played out in full in the book might become one that is very detailed in the film.  An assault scene can be written many ways -- in a book it might be simply presented, or referred to in memories - the character remembers a man's hand on her mouth.  In a movie, you see it, vividly, clearly; you see the hairs on the backs of his hands, the dirt under his fingernails, the way his fingers distort the flesh of her cheeks.... Almost no one describes such things in the detail that you can get from 5 seconds of film.  (Of course, the screen writer can also choose to omit a brutal scene too).

And so, I don't automatically equate a film with the book upon which it's based.  Reading the book might be no big deal, or it might be less appropriate than the film.  But if the impact is going to be a strong one, I'd rather my kids have the book in hand than watch the NC-17 film.

It IS a slippery slope.  And I would not want any library to take it upon themselves to make the decisions about who gets to check out what movies. But there is a system in place to determine how old a person ought to be before they can see certain movies.  And the library has a system in place that ties a child patron's age to his or her library card number. It makes sense to let them work together.  That system, working in tandem, would help parents know which things they need to weigh in on. (In this case, had I been alerted (either by my daughter whining that the library wouldn't let her check something out, or by the library sending an automatic email that a child was attempting to check out an R rated (or NC-17 rated) film), I would not have discovered the issue at 11:30 p.m. on a night before I had to be up early.

Now, ultimately, I don't intend to let the librarians decide whether my child can watch any given movie, or read any given book.  I do not even intend to let the ratings people make the ultimate decision on that.  I still think it's the parent's job to get in there and figure things out one child at a time.  I still read books I see my kids reading (even if I don't catch them before my daughters read them, I do read them, and if I think it's appropriate, I discuss them).  I still make my own judgements about films too.

I don't want the library to do my job.  I'm saying that where a system is in place to protect kids from things that they're not ready for, it should be used.  Kind of like we expect the shopkeepers to decline to sell them cigarettes and/or alcohol until they're old enough.  Just as I can choose to let my children smoke or drink in my own home (which I don't )... I can choose to let my children see movies with violent or degrading sex scenes.  Either way, the parent should be doing the choosing.  When the stores say no, the parent can choose.  When the theater says no, the parent can choose.  When the library doesn't say no, the parent may not be able to choose before it's too late.

I haven't decided whether to suck it up and watch a film that I've been told is beautifully made, but very depressing, or to join my child in watching it, but either way, I'm not banning her from watching it.  (I have told her she can't watch it with her friends without her friends' parents telling me it's okay for them to see -- I'm not making that decision for any other parents or their kids).  I've learned enough about the film from people I know who have seen it (doing my research a different way), that I think it won't scar her for life. But I'm glad I had an opportunity to find out enough about this movie to make an informed decision before she watched it.  Had she started watching it one half hour later, I'd not have had that chance.

Beach Trees -- Rebuilding More than a House

I recently posted a review of Karen White's, The Beach Trees at the BlogHer book club.  It went live there on July 15, and I'm reposting it here, just because....

Penguin's summary of the book said, "From the time she was twelve, Julie Holt knew what a random tragedy can do to a family. At that tender age, her little sister disappeared-never to be found. It was a loss that slowly eroded the family bonds she once relied on. As an adult with a prestigious job in the arts, Julie meets a struggling artist who reminds her so much of her sister, she can't help feeling protective. It is a friendship that begins a long and painful process of healing for Julie, leading her to a house on the Gulf Coast, ravaged by hurricane Katrina, and to stories of family that take her deep into the past."

Frankly, that doesn't tell you much about the book. For starters, it leads you to expect that the story you'll be reading is about Julie's loss and what how her family erodes.  Not so much. 

This is a book about three generations of women (or girls) who disappear, and the mysteries behind those disappearances. 

Julie Holt's sister disappeared when Julie was twelve.  In some ways, Julie blamed herself, as kids are wont to do, and thus she devoted much of her life to finding her sister.  Despite developing a bright career in the arts in Philadelphia, she spent every night poring over all of the internet sites with information about missing people, or missing children instead of building a vital life of her own.  She stayed in contact with the detective assigned to her sister's case until he retired, and then with the detective who took over the long cold case.  Her life revolved around hunting for her sister.

Eventually, she met Monica... a woman who had left her own family for reasons that she never told Julie.  I find it a tad difficult to believe that Julie, who had devoted her life to finding the sister who had disappeared so long ago, would be so accepting of Monica's decision to leave her family wondering what happened to her, but that acceptance is necessary to the rest of the story.  Over time, Julie and Monica became such close friends that when Monica died of a heart condition, she left a will which gave Julie Monica's share of a house on the beach in Biloxi, Mississippi, and made her guardian of Monica's five year old son.  She also left Julie a painting ... a painting of Monica's great grandmother, who also disappeared, leaving her family many years before.

The Beach Trees is the story of how Julie, unable to find her sister, unable to solve the mystery of that missing child, is eventually able to resolve the mysteries of two other missing women whose ties to her family are half a century old.  It is also a story of rebuilding, and rediscovery.

We meet Julie as she's on the road, having abandoned her career in favor of taking care of the five year old son of  and heading towards Biloxi, Mississippi to find this house.  Upon arrival, Julie discovers that the house had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.  She then seeks out a woman that Monica had told her to find, where she is given the original painting by Abe Holt -- a painting of Julie's great grandfather.

Now the story really begins.  Julie meets the rest of Monica's family, including Monica's brother (who owns half the house) and grandmother, Aimee.  She learns about Monica's past, and  discovers that her own great-grandfather painted the portrait of Monica's great-grandmother, which Monica left to her.  She meets the people who have lived and worked with Monica's family since Aimee was young, and learns the secrets that bind them to Monica's family.

As Julie learns Aimee's story, and discovers the mystery of Monica's great-grandmother's disappearance, she also works with Monica's brother to rebuild the house in Biloxi.  As Julie learns to understand the meaning of home and family in a new way, she comes to understand why people rebuild after hurricanes. Over time, she and Aimee slowly put together all of the pieces of the puzzles of the past, ultimately discovering what happened to Monica's great grandmother, and why Monica ran from her family.

In these stories, we see New Orleans of today, and of the 1950's when the Mardis Gras Crewes were still in their hey day.  White's descriptions of New Orleans are not as vivid as some, but still invoke the city for those who know it.

This is a quietly satisfying book.  In the end, we still do not know what has happened to Julie's sister.  But Julie, at least, is at peace with not knowing.

 

 

A Discovery of Witches, Harkness Alchemy hits the Mark

I recently wrote a review of A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness, for BlogHer.  It was published on the BlogHer webiste on June 7, 2011.

And now, the full text is here!  (lucky you)

 

A Discovery of Witches was a pleasant surprise.

 

I admit, I was looking forward to a nice read, even though I was leery of the premise: Witch meets Vampire and they can’t resist forbidden love. Trite.

 

And yet, there’s more to this story than that.

 

Much more. One just has to forgive a few things in the first chapter to find it.

 

When I first started reading, I found myself distracted by little technical things: a misplaced apostrophe that created a grammar error on page 7, several commas that should have been semi-colons, and run on sentences desperately trying to wedge in a few chapters worth of history into a single paragraph.

Now, I recognize that those over-full sentences are common in today’s books. And I know why writers do it; most readers are impatient to get to the story, and don’t want to spend a lot of time reading the background to learn where a character comes from or what motivates him or her. But few writers do it so well that you don’t notice they’re cramming backstory down your throat fast enough to make you choke. Alas, Deborah Harkness hasn’t quite mastered that trick.

 

Luckily, Deborah also doesn’t plague you with the backstory flood for very long. By Chapter 2, we’re into the story, and the Witch we meet, a laptop using historian of alchemy and the history of science who does not use her powers, is pretty interesting. True, the concept of “witch who refuses to use her powers” is also a bit over-used, but this book does some interesting things with it. I’d tell you, but that would spoil a bunch of the good stuff at the end for you.

 

Instead, I’ll pause to revel in the fun of following an historian through a day poring over manuscripts so old one daren’t touch them without gloves on. The attention to detail on how one gets to look at these manuscripts, and then how one handles them is delightful, and subtle. I didn’t feel at all bashed over the head, just quietly informed.

 

Even more fun is the information we glean from reading along with our protagonist. This is where this book truly got me. Deborah Harkness invites us to dabble in the history of science, and alchemy with her. She gives real information, and puts quite a bit of it in a new and intruiguing light, but doesn’t bludgeon us with it. I found it enticing enough to want to go learn more. As it turns out, many of the texts mentioned in the book are real, and one can find copies (or books written about them) in good library. While the critical text in the story, a manuscript on alchemy originally collected by a man named Ashmole isn’t real –the man was, and one can go read about him; his collection of alchemical texts is even available at a certain on line bookstore!

 

I fretted again, when we first met the vampire. His description threatened to take us straight back to the land of clichés: the “most unnerving thing about him was not his physical perfection. It was his feral combination of strength, agility, and keen intelligence that was palpable across the room.” P 18-19. Really? At this point, our heroine, Diana, had not even met the man, er vampire; she’d only seen him across the room, where he was standing, not performing feats of strength or agility. And yes, he’s cold to the touch too. And yes, he’s fabulously wealthy, and owns mansions and castles. And yes, there’s a bit about how he finds this woman, this witch, all but irresistible because her blood “sings” to him. Thankfully, he’s never described as being like marble.

 

Once again, despite a flirting with the clichés, Deborah takes her character and makes him interesting. While the modern Witch is studying alchemy; the centuries old vampire is doing genetic research, and studying both “regular” DNA and mitochondrial DNA. And they both do yoga.

 

The storyline also skirted the hackneyed – forbidden love, dangerous vampires etc – but once again, Harkness takes this now somewhat standard premise and does wonderful things with it. She gives both the witch and the vampire rich family histories, and lets us meet the families. She puts all sorts of historical events and places in a new context as she shows us how vampires and witches have had their impact on the world around us.

 

And she leaves the warts on (not literal warts of course). Vampires and witches are as guilty of prejudice and bigotry as any human; and just like human history, it’s interesting to watch people learn the reasons behind some of the old prejudices. It’s even more interesting to see them learn that some were meant to protect them in older times, but that maintaining them now is dangerous.

 

There’s too much going on for this book to finish well, and it didn’t. Harkness leaves us wondering why we didn’t learn more about the daemons (the third race of supernatural folk). But worse yet, she created a big problem, but didn’t solve it. She got everyone safely out of danger, and set things up nicely for the problem to be solved in a sequel, but left everything hanging. Clearly, this is book one of more than one. I’d have been happier about that if I’d known going in that this was only Act One. That said, I’m eagerly looking forward to the sequel, and hope it comes out soon!

The Beach Trees -- Plugging my Review

As you may recall, I'm working with the folks over at BlogHer's book club, writing reviews.  My lastest review has just gone live. You can see others' reviews in their page on The Beach Trees

Book Review!

My book review for A Discovery of Witches is finally live over at BlogHer's Book Club.

It starts this way:

A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness, was a pleasant surprise.

 

I admit, I was looking forward to a nice read, even though I was leery of the premise: Witch meets Vampire and they can’t resist forbidden love. Trite.

 

And yet, there’s more to this story than that.

 

Much more. One just has to forgive a few things in the first chapter to find it...

but if you want to read the whole thing, you'll have to go over there :-)

(but I'll give you a spoiler -- my last sentence is:

 I’m eagerly looking forward to the sequel, and hope it comes out soon!

On Reviewing Books

Some of you may notice that there are ads over there in the side bar.  Those ads, provided by BlogHer, are what pay for the blog, which lets me keep nattering on in public.  Every so often, BlogHer offers up a new way to play with them.  This time, I could not resist:  I get to review books.  Well, to be accurate, I get to review one book.  I'm assuming that if they don't like the way I do it, they'll pull the plug.

Now, I totally plan to share my review with you, but this time, I'm just writing about the reviewing process.  As tempting as it is to write my review like a serial story -- with daily updates on how I feel about the book as I go along -- I'm not going to do that.

Usually, I pick up a book, and just read.  But I figured that if I'm supposed to write a decent review, I should take notes for myself.  That, apparently, puts me into editor mode.  I found myself distracted by either a typo or a grammar error (apostrophe placement) on like, page 7.

It took a while to trim back that editor view.  I'm still trying to take notes, so that I don't forget something I noticed as I was reading that I think is worth including in the review -- but I'm also trying to just go with the flow and read the book.  For what it's worth, I've gotten "in" to the story now, and have fewer quibbles, but that may be because finally, my family is letting me just sit and read!

Meanwhile, I'm playing with a group of folks on Ravelry who put up design challenges once a month.  The past two have not excited me, but this month, I'm totally in!  I'm still swatching, but should be in the GO mode pretty soon.  Luckily, this one is a baby garment, so it'll knit up quickly!  Can't wait to get this one out to testers!

I win... again.

Recently, Lynn Barr published a lovely book called Reversible Knitting: 50 Brand-New, Groundbreaking Stitch Patterns.  Like many yummy new books, it has a blog tour.  On that tour was a post from Grumperina, which included a review, and... a pointer over to the place where Melanie Falick was offering up a wee  contest.  All one had to do was comment (like that's hard for someone as verbally -- well -- effusive -- as I am to do),and vote for a preference for the book cover, and one had the chance to win a copy of the book.

Well.

You know what happens next, right?  I read, I voted (my choice didn't win) and I commented, I went about my business... and way back at the Winter Solstice, I learned that I WON!! (I was a tad busy at the time, and blogged about other things).

Yesterday, my copy arrived in the mail!  I love me some pick-me-ups after hard days.  And though I didn't spend too much time whining about it, my hip was giving me fits yesterday.

Today, I have this:

This book has disclosed to me that there is a certain amount of fuddy duddy-ness that has taken over my brain. There's a pattern for a two-tone vest in there that I actually quite like, but which, at least in my no-longer-in-high-school opinion, becomes nothing but trashy when worn backwards (an option that they propose on page 100, and which you can see in the gallery for the book). 

However, there are other things in here which I find quite delightful. Particularly the stitch patterns. I will be browsing heavily.  It may not hold anything that I wind up knitting, but it has lots of fun ideas that I'm likely to use as springboards.

Meanwhile, I'm helping a friend design a hooded scarf.  Yesterday, we fiddled about, chose the cables she wants to use, and charted the tails.  She's off swatching/knitting a tail, and when she's done, we'll have a go at implementing my secret plan for the hood itself.  (Row gauge is about to be seriously relevant.)

Thinking and Reading...

Your Word is "Think"

You see life as an amazing mix of possibilities, ideas, and fascinations. And sometimes you feel like you don't have enough time to take it all in. You love learning. Whether you're in school or not, you're probably immersed in several subjects right now. When you're not learning, you're busy reflecting. You think a lot about the people you know and the things you've experienced.

What's Your Word?

I can agree with that assessment.

And, like Carrie, my source for all the fun quizzes, I have questions about this assessment.

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader   You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Non-Reader
Fad Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Zero on the fad reader line?  ZERO? I do read popular fiction!  I'm not a total fad reader, but, for example, I have read the entire Twilight Saga.  Some of that, of course, was self-defense.  I do have teen/tween girls.

Carrie's why I am trying to Book Through Thursday.  This week, our assignment is to report on what inspires our reading.  By that, I presume they mean to ask what inspires our choices in reading materials.  At least 60% of that, for me, is other people.  Folks mention a book they're enjoying, and I add it to my list of things to read.  Then, when that leads me to an author I enjoy, I read more.  Who are these "folks?" Well, my family (husband, my children, and occasionally still, my parents), my friends (The Divine Though Blogless Elizabeth, for example, has "given me" shelves' worth of "new" authors), blog authors (and commenters), and folks from my last hold-out email list.

Another chunk is inspired my curiosity... I get these fits of wanting to learn things.  So I get books!

Every once in a great while, browsing the library or bookstore inspires a choice.  But the "to read" list is already sooooo long, that I won't need to go looking for reading material for a long time.

I do have fun things to show you... but I have to take pictures first.

Booking Through Thursday on Saturday....

Booking Through Thursday asked, a week ago, what our favorite books from 2008 were.

I figured this would be easy ... since I have this little book into which I write down the title and author of every book I read.  I'm not sure why I do it, but I remember starting it for a reason.....  I fetched up my notebook and discovered that though I clearly marked the start of 2007, I failed to define the break between 2007 and 2008.  (I did remember for 2009).  So, I don't know which books qualify.

I spent a few months in which I put little ratings by the books -- a star, a check, a plus sign...and for a few a minus sign.  Some got notes like "1/2" which indicated that I found them too awful to finish.  That should also have helped.  But I wasn't consistent.  And I seem to have fallen off the habit.  So that wasn't much help... but still..

I've randomized among the starred books, and decided (with no real justifying reason) to list the following from my 2008 reading:

A Hat Full of Sky , by Terry Pratchet.  It goes with The Wee Free Men, which I also enjoyed immensely.

An Irish Country Doctor (Irish Country Books) by Patrick Taylor.  I followed up with An Irish Country Christmas (Irish Country Books) just this month.  These are delightful easy reads.  One of the genre that introduces you to a small community which you soon find that you'd love to at least visit.  By the end of each book, I wonder whether I wouldn't be happier living in a place like Ballybucklebo in Ireland. (I'd certainly enjoy listening to people talk!)  I find, as I read, that I "hear" it with a slight Irish brogue.

Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier ... which manages to blend the Princess who kissed the Frog with vampires and make it work. (I love re-tellings of fairy tales).

The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold.  I've never met a Bujold book I didn't like.  She writes science fiction (fairly hard science fiction at that) and fantasy with equal grace.

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck Ph.D.

Mindset is actually back on the shelf to read again.  It's one of the few non-fiction books that I read, but it's really quite interesting.  It talks about how our mindset as we face challenges can dramatically affect our success -- and even whether we keep trying.

You'll notice an absence of Stephanie Meyer on that list.  It's not because I've not read them.  I read all four of the Twilight books, and The Host: A Novel.  I even enjoyed them .. but evidently not well enough to star them in the wee note book.  Admittedly, part of my decision to read all four Twilight books was because I like to preview a the books that my daughters read when the come off the "teen" shelves.  Why? Because the Books in the Teen Library don't come with guides to clue you in.

Manga is found in the Teen Library section.  But Manga has ratings.  It has little things on the back that let you know whether they're age-appropriate for your child.  For example, I discourage C (er, Kitty -- I did say I'd use those new nick names, didn't I?) from reading ones marked "Older Teen" or "16+".  I flat out forbid those albeled for adults.  She doesn't need to be reading porn yet, even if it is "only a comic strip."

The rest of the books in the Teen Library are unrated.  There is little guidance as to why they made it to the Teen shelves.  Sometimes, it's because the vocabulary is higher than one would expect a fifth grader to comprehend. Sometimes, it's because it tackles issues that fifth graders aren't ready for.  But... the issues that you are reasonable for a 17 year old to read about aren't necessarily appropriate for a 12-13 year old to read about.  Sixth graders don't really need to read about the intense story of a girl who lost her virginity to rufie-assisted date rape that leads to AIDS, which is now killing her, do they?  Nor do they need to be reading steamy hot pornography.  At least not without their mothers (or fathers, I suppose) knowing its coming so that the appropriate conversations can be had.

So... I read lots of teen literature.  My girls like vampires.  So do I, for that matter, but I also know that there are an awful lot of vampire books out there with soft porn lurking in the middle.  I want to talk to them about porn, what's good about it, and why people like it (as well as what can be bad about it), before they encounter it.  This means that I read their vampire books first.  Which gets me to things like Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, Book 1).  I hope that the series continues in its pattern of not getting to the porn stuff, but then I recall certain series I've read which went from Novel with a mildly suggestive scene, through novel with very suggestive scenes, to novel with several steamy but not quite explicit scenes, to sequence of soft porn scenes barely held together by a novel sort of.  I suppose this means I'll have to read the next one they bring home... sigh.

I also try to read books that my husband is reading.  We're both avaricious readers, and I do like to share some things with him.  He's a big fan of books in which someone dies horribly and we either follow the killer or follow the detective along until the end.  I like many of these. (Jeffrey Deaver springs to mind)  But not all.  So... he brings 'em in, and I try to keep up with him, and the girls.  He tends to find an author, and pull in everything that person wrote, and read them back to back.  His most recent discovery is John Connelly, but I can't seem to really get into them -- they're too.... harsh? for me. On the other hand, he also enjoys Michael Connelly, whose The Brass Verdict I just finished. (And now, we're finally into a discussion of what I've read THIS year).

And if trying to keep up with a tween and a teen and a husband's reading weren't enough... I read blogs, and my blog buddies read books, and recommend them -- and I go fetch them from the library.  Which is how I found Alice Hoffman.(and a BIG THANK YOU goes out for that!)  I just read Practical Magic followed (with a pause for Brass Verdict) by The Probable Future. I'd seen the movie Practical Magic, but I think I like the book better.  I'm ready to take a page from the GolfPro (DH) and read through her list. (She's written a lot, so I'll won't run out any time soon).

In between their books, I still read ones I find on my own. This month, that's meant trying to follow up with more Neal Stephenson.  I read all but the last chapter of Zodiac.  By then, I just didn't care any more.  There was too much gratuitous sniffing of nitrous oxide and not enough getting to the conclusion.

I'm counting that as me all caught up.  Maybe I'll even remember to Book Through Thursdays with you, and keep myself up to date.  Some weeks, I'll be able to report a number of finished books.  Other weeks... er... I won't .  But I'm hoping that on those weeks, the Booking Through Thursday geniuses will have a topic for me to address.

Deathly Hallows

Today's the day. At first I thought my copy of the book would be far from me, arriving at my home in Illinois while I'm here in Maine, I was able to persuade Amazon to ship it to me here instead.  It has arrived.  Now ensues the battle over who gets to read it first.

There are two copies in the house:  mine, and my dad's.  Both of us get priority to read our copies.  My daughters do not really buy into the fairness of this ruling.  Right now, I'm all but done re-reading the Half Blood Prince, and thus am willing for one child to read into my Deathly Hallows until I finish...  Dad is willing to allow the other to read into Deathly Hallows while he does other things.  It is likely to get ugly when we adults want our books back.   

Read little children, read quickly...

Meanwhile, ... I figured it would be a good day to play some Hogwarts games. Turns out there are a number of sorting hat substitutes on the Internet.  Here's what they say about me:

I'm a Gryffindor!

Now, of course, we all want to be affiliated with the marvelous Harry and Hermione, and the Weasleys, so I suppose I'm happy with that, but ... is BRAVERY the main thing I relate to? Not really...  And the other sorting hats I tried had a different view:

This sorting hat says that I belong in Hufflepuff!

Said Hufflepuff, "I'll teach the lot, and treat them just the same."

Hufflepuff students are friendly, fair-minded, modest, and hard-working. A well-known member was Cedric Digory, who represented Hogwarts in the most recent Triwizard Tournament.

Take the most scientific Harry Potter Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

who knew?  not me!
I figured myself to be more of the brainiac than the diligent type...I'm not good at slogs...
Then again...this sorting hat agreed.

Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?

Of course this one says that I'm close to balanced between the three houses...

Your in-depth results are:
Ravenclaw - 14
Hufflepuff - 13
Gryffindor - 11
Slytherin - 7

Which house do YOU belong in?

Book Reports (again) and travel summary

Since I last wrote, we've been to the beach -- twice even -- and been canoeing, and driven across the White Mountains and gone to Shelburne Museum.  Alas, however, I am without the magic software that lets me make my pictures small enough to upload.  Thus, you'll have to wait for a full report until I return home.

I can, however, give reports on my recent reading.

I'm still not entirely sure what made me select Dark to Mortal Eyes by Eric Wilson (448 pages, WaterBrook Press (May 18, 2004)) from my library shelves.  I'm not into "Christian Fiction", as they call it, but the story blurb must have intrigued me.  It was, in the end, an interesting thriller of sorts with lots of well-used chess references and an plot that twists through a woman scorned waiting a generation to exact her vengeance on the child and grandchild of one person in Nazi Germany who showed her any gentleness at all.  She was clearly twisted.  And she used a combination of some supernatural evil thing (clearly fueled by her hatred) and an old Nazi poison gas to wreak havoc while tossing in a kidnapping in the middle.  All of this burbles under the story of a young woman who was given up for adoption at birth and now seeks to meet her birth mother, some 22 years later, and a police officer, who was a kid in the hospital the day that child was born, who has some issues of his own to work through. In the end, it's clear that the author wants us to believe that the good guys make it through my turning to God. It's not too overdone though, so even those of us not particularly attuned to the idea that your life will turn around if only you accept your savior can enjoy the ending. In fact, in some ways it seems as though that part was added in to Christianize an already decent piece of horror fiction.

I cant quite recommend it.  It has an interesting plot, but it moves awfully slowly (or seems to).  It covers a lot of ground in its 443 pages, but the language sometimes seems to bog it down.  Were I editing it, I'd have offered some changes to let it read a bit faster... but then, I'm not the editor, and I'm sure that whoever Eric's editor was had reasons for his choices as well.

Over the past week I've also been reading The Princes of Ireland, by Edward Rutherford (800 pages, Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (March 1, 2005)).  I started it in Maine, and was unable to finish before we left (imagine that).  I had to relinquish it to the Skidompha Library and wait to get into the Fletcher Free Library to obtain a copy to finish.  There was just no way I was going to haul this book back home on the plane.  The Fletcher Free library does a neat thing:  it allows visitors to the area to obtain library cards!  I will have to share this idea with my own local library when I get home.

Any way, back to the Princes of Ireland. I really enjoyed this book, and recommend it without hesitation, despite its heft.  How much of that is because I love tales of old Ireland, and Irish mythology (which plays a bit of a role in the very beginning) I don't know.  But Rutherford took me through 1100 years of Irish history (okay, Dublin's history) using tales of people (real or imagined) in ways that made them all seem real and live and interesting. 

This book, like his others I believe, follows a few families through generations to tell you the history of the Dublin region.  Though I know this is a work of fiction, I also know that it is based on a lot of historical research, and where he could be truly accurate, Rutherford was.  The action rarely strays far from Dublin, but you hear news, as those who lived in that region would have, of other parts of Ireland, and of England, over the years.  We watch as the people of the area around Dublin (and almost certainly the rest of Ireland) go from "pagan" to Christian, under the gentle guidance of Patrick, to devoutly Catholic (the section in which we meet the book of Kells is delightful - and reminds us that while England and Europe were struggling through their "Dark Ages", Ireland was keeping art, literature and faith alive and well), to having Protestant practices forced upon them when Henry's men start burning relics in bonfires in town, and punish with death those who will not yield their loyalty to the pope in favor of Henry as leader of their church. 

I particularly enjoyed learning about the differences between what and Irishman mean by an oath of fealty and what Englishman meant in the 10th and 11th centuries.  In some ways, it makes me wonder whether a whole lot of history would have been different had folks not let that go without saying.  Frankly, I like the Irish meaning better, but then this book was written from the Irish viewpoint.  Perhaps I'll try his book Sarum to get what may well have the English viewpoint (if that one doesn't London surely will.  On the other hand, perhaps I should continue the Irish view with  The Rebels of Ireland, which takes up where the Princes left off.  It is interesting to read history from the side I've not heard before.

And finally, I read Od Magic by Patricia McKillip (320 pp, Ace Trade; Reprint edition (June 6, 2006)).  This was the book that I brought along with us because I anticipated that all three of us would enjoy it.  Compared to the other two, it's deliciously light.  It is the story of a young man, all but a hermit, with a remarkable talent for gardening and for making curative things out of plants, who is invited to become the "magical" gardener for Od's School of Magic in the main city of Numis.  As it turns out, this gardener has a lot of natural magical talent of his own, though he doesn't realize it.  As it also turns out, the school of magic that was originally set up to teach and enlighten those with magical talents, has come to be one that restricts them so that magic is only used precisely the way the king wants it to be.  Toss in a feisty princess who is betrothed to a man she doesn't particularly like and a mysterious magician who makes delightful illusions, and you have a lovey fantasy that works well.

That being more than you were prepared for, and all I have time for right now (I do have vacation activities calling me you know), I'll stop with this.  Next up:  movies and likely music, possibly knitting, and a report on a great museum.

Book Report & Days 5& 6

Book Report:

I have finished another book.  A Fold in the Tent of the Sky by Michael Hale (355 pp).  Interesting. A series of plays on paradox ... There's a group who hires people with psychic abilities to do spying of sorts for folks willing to pay big bucks for obscure information.  One of the psychics figures out how to materialize corporally in distant places ... and in the past.  So he goes around changing things (first change was to prevent Sharon Tate from being murdered by Charles Manson -- clearly that character has some personality issues). The first time someone changes things, folks at the institute catch it, and remember two time lines... but soon only one person left remembers both time lines. The interplay of multiple time lines, and the ripple effects of the changes he makes are interesting. 

Day  5 Report -

This was mostly a lazy day, but it did include a fun surprise for the girls.  Little did they know that while they were off horse-back riding, Mom and I went to Woodsound Studios and picked up a rental cello for them to try.  Sunday, they head their first lesson from Mom:

C, having taken violin in 4th grade, has a bit of an advantage.  She's already got the concept of the bow-hold generally, and has adapted to the cello bow-hold quite nicely.  She's working on playing a scale already!

J is learning how to hold the bow, and how to move it across the strings.  She's having lots of fun.

Both of them will have a "real" cello lesson with a phenomenal cello teacher, Myles Jordan, on Wednesday afternoon.

Day 6 - Monday

C has sailing lessons this week.  For reasons I cannot comprehend, J has NO interest in this activity, so she'll be hanging out with Mom and me in the mornings.  There was a bit of a snafu finding the class, but C was patient and happy just watching the water.

J was a bit more active about waiting... and just had to stick her toes in

While C was learning all the ropes for sailing, the rest of us went off shopping and bought some new clothes at a nifty store called Mexacali Blues. It was a successful adventure for Mom, and J and me! 

The afternoon included lunch, a trip to Biscay Pond for a bit of a splash, then grocery shopping, and getting ready for an evening of wonderful music with the Daponte String Quartet.  Those of you who are compulsive link clickers will have noticed that Myles Jordan is in the Daponte String Quartet... we feel pretty special and spoiled that way.

The girls weren't as up for music as they'd thought -- likely because the concert started with some esoteric Prokofiev -- so we left at intermission.  I'd have been sorely disappointed to miss the second half, but Mom and I are going again ... this time in Freeport.

Tomorrow: more sailing, a knitting update, and just maybe -- alpacas???

Reports on Books and Vacation Day 4

One of the joys of being on vacation is that you get to READ.

Just before we left, I finished (well, almost) the Poe Shadow.  I was within about 10 pages of the end, but I had to return the book to the library.  Generally, it was a good book, but moved more slowly than did The Dante Club (by the same author).  I found it to be artificially convoluted, but perhaps the reason for all the apparently arbitrary twists and turns was to be found in those last ten pages.  Perhaps I'll even find out when I get home.

But for now, I've just finished reading The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber (348pp)   It's set, more or less, in a yarn store, and starts with the opening day of the shop, and three women signing up for knitting classes for very different reasons; Carol is desperate to have a child and is about to undergo her third IVF procedure; Jacqueline is sure her son married the wrong woman, and is determined to be great grandmother to the child her son and his wife are expecting -- because she's certain her daughter-in-law won't be a good mother; and the Alix, sporting black leather jacket and spiky black hair with purple tips and presenting a sullen attitude, figures she can use the time spent knitting a baby blanket for project Linus for community service hours that she owes.  In the end, the four women, plus the daughter-in-law, learn a lot from each other, and become good friends.  And the yarn store succeeds.

I found it particularly interesting to see these women lose their prejudices about Alix, whom everyone thinks upon meeting her is likely to be... well... a low life, but who is a wonderful person once they get past her defensive facade. It reminded me of my prejudices about the folks who serve time in our jails.  It also dealt with prejudices about people who are not "the right sort" and how they're so often preventing people from seeing the good in others.  All in all, I enjoyed it immensely.

Of course, I've also been knitting away.

I've started working on the Shadow Shawl.  I decided that, as cute as they are, I don't want the little picot fringey edge thingines that are in the pattern.  Thus, I frogged back a bunch of that, and have restarted and am making speedy progress. Those picots really slow you down!  They also use up yarn.  This means that I may not have to have the Divine (if Blogless) Elizabeth fetch me up a spare skein of the second color of yarn after all. (I realized after it was too late to get back to the LYS before departure that I needed four skeins of the second color, not three.  oops).  I'm thinking that extra skein was all for picots....  This shawl is really quite easy, once you get the hang of the pattern.  Easy, but not quite mindless -- you've got to keep that 10 stitch count in mind, and because of the construction, markers won't help.  You've also got to remember which of the two yarns you're using, because what happens at the end of the first row and beginning of the second row is different for each of them.  Still, it's fun, and plenty easy for passenger knitting in the car.

The Beyond The Comfort Zone shawl is my mindless knitting. Well, at least it is when I'm knitting it.  I'm also continually fussing about which color/yarn goes next, and tweaking the simple pattern that I'd planned on following.  First, I switched the center paired yo's for a pair of what I refer to as bar increases, but which I indicate in pattern writing as "kfb" (knit into the front and back of the stitch).  I found that line of holes down the center distracting and weird given all the stuff that's going on with the yarn itself.  Then, I decided that I'd tweak the shaping a bit to avoid that pointy tail thing that I dislike about triangular shawls.  I added a bit of pi shawl shaping to help it hug my shoulders more by dramatically increasing the number of stitches at the point when it goes around my shoulders, and then I shifted the placement of the center increases so that the new stitches wind up between markers to make a new trapezoidal sort of shape. (And yes, I'm writing it up)

Despite my aversion to pointy triangles, I'm not going to mess with the Shadow Shawl's triangular shape (well, I don't think I am, there's still time <grin>).  Shadow is knit vertically and altering that may require all sorts of weirdness to accomplish the hugging thing I've incorporated into the Beyond the Comfort Zone Shawl. Besides, the cool shadow chevrons will become weird trapezoids if I change the shape of the overall shawl.

Speaking of aversions to pointy triangles... Willow has been saved!  I emailed the folks at Just Our Yarn, wondering if by chance they had anything that might work for the border of the shawl so I could just make the change I really want to make to the pattern.  Not only do they have "something", they have a hank of the very yarn in the very dye lot which they'd not sold because it had knots in it.  They don't sell yarn with knots... without giving a huge discount!  That naughty knotty skein is on its way to my house as I type.  I'm thrilled beyond measure.  Time for more chart fiddling ... wheeeee

Day four report.

The girls went to horse camp, where they learned more about the care and feeding of horses, and got to take care of their "own" horse for the day.  They also got a riding lesson .. in which C cantered for the very first time. There are pictures of them at the end of the day here and here.

While the girls were playing with horses, Mom and a ran various errands, including picking up a surprise cello rental.  Mom is "learning" to play the cello.  She's currently working on Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites.  She also performs now and then in a local quartet.  Now, I'll admit, she didn't start cello 'til she "retired" here in Maine, but still... learning??... Bach's suites?? right, whatever.

Either way, the girls are very taken with it, and have declared that they want to play the cello.  So, while we were out, we stopped at a wonderful store (Woodsound Studio), where they bent all the rules to rent us a cello for a mere two weeks.  Tomorrow... the cello will be revealed to them.

Now, I'm still trying to figure out how to get my new camera phone (a Motorola V360) to let the pictures OUT and onto my computer so that I can upload them here.  Any phone wizards out there? Elizabeth? can you get Dave to guide me? (I just can't seem to survive without my favorite Geek Stud, even when I'm on vacation, can I?)

Book Reports

I now know what happens when you let life and books get in the way of blog reading.
According to my blogrolls list, I have 745 blog posts waiting for my attention.

While ignoring those posts, I have read a few books:

Desert Wives: Polygamy Can Be Deadly, by Betty Webb (2002) , 293 pages.  This is a Lena Jones Mystery, that includes a frighteningly accurate depiction of life on some of the polygamist compounds in Arizona and Utah.

Halfway House, by Katharine Noel (she spells her  name right -- like my middle name!) (2006) , 365 pages.  This one is not fun.  Good, but not fun.  It tells the tale of a family whose oldest daughter has bi-polar disorder.  It begins when the girl is in high school, and has her first serious "break" -- and takes her through a few hospitalizations, time in a halfway house, and through what we hope is her final growth into the ability to live safely and productively with her disease.  It also takes us through the ways her disease affects her family.

The Akhenaten Adventure (reading from my kids' bookshelves again), and its sequel The Blue Djinn of Babylon. by P.B. Kerr.  Both fun... nitce new mythos for the djinn.

Then, having been badgered a bit by the elder daughter, I succumbed to her demand that I read The Curse of the Blue Tattoo by Lois Meyer (383 pp).  This was a fun book.  I found myself reading just a few more pages... repeatedly... well into the night.  I do think it's mis-named.  Yes, there is a tattoo.  Yes, it's blue.  But it's referred to only a few times; twice when the fact that our heroine has it is discovered by those who are scandalized, and once when it is used sort of as an oath.  The book is about the rousing adventures of a young woman who, orphaned in late 18th century London, having escaped life begging under Blackfriars Bridge by going to sea disguised as a boy, and some time later, after evidently performing well as a ship's boy, is discovered to be a (gasp) girl! and is swiftly sent off to a finishing school where the tale begins.  As you can imagine, she doesn't fare terribly well.  She does manage to foil Cotton Mather's slightly mad grandson (a preacher of Cotton's mold to be sure), and win a horse race between learning to embroider and overcoming a horror of the french.

Finally, I'm turning back to adult books with The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl (who wrote the Dante Club.  I loved the Dante Club.  The Poe Shadow is a bit slower -- it has more time with nothing happening, but then again it starts at Poe's funeral.... in the Dante Club, it started before all the victims were dead.

I shall now return to you to your regularly scheduled knitting blog, since I'm clearly not cut out to review books in groups.

Of Books and Sleeves

Time to Randomize again..

I've been lured into more book stuff.  First, there was the reading group that I somehow started within one of my lists.  Then I found this Summer Reading Program (with prizes)... which I signed up for.  That means that you poor suckers lucky ducks will get to see my reviews of the books I read this summer.

My Basic Goal: 12 books in 12 weeks.  I'll probably succeed here, and so really should have made it a higher goal.

Bonus:  24 books in 12 weeks.

Super Bonus -- 36 books ... with one book each week coming from my daughters' reading lists.

This week, I'm reading

Better Than Chocolate by Susan Waggoner and

A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

Last week, I read Futureland by Walter Mosely.  For the SRP, I'm reporting that it came in at 400 pages, most of which were enjoyable SF reading.  Mosely played with some interesting ideas in this dystopian novel.  Certainly, his concepts of future prisons were intriguing.  This wasn't fun reading, but it was a good book.  It tied nine stories set in this future world together -- each focused on a different character, and seemed at first to be unrelated.  Eventually, however, they were all tied together.  Let's hope that no one in our current world comes up with the racially-targeted virus that he imagines in the end.

Meanwhile, it seems to be the Era of the Sleeves here in Shadowland.

I'm still chunking away on the sleeves for the evil-sweater-of-fug.  I finished sleeve one, and am about half way through the main sleeve (that part that comes before the cap decreasing) on the second sleeve.  Since some of you have asked for pictures of the evil sweater that is consuming my precious knitting time ....

Here is sleeve one:

If you look very closely, you'll see that there is a basket-weave sort of pattern going on there. The lovely chenille-esque yarn hides it pretty well, but it really is there.  Here is a close up so you can see what I mean:

The color isn't quite right.  But as much as I love you guys, I'm just not willing to spend a whole lot of time tinkering with it to show you just what I've got.

To ease the burden of fug-knitting, I give myself a bit of Paint-Box treat every so often.  It's not quite the rule of ten, but I do try to take breaks at every potentially significant marker to give my hands a rest from the huge needles, and let me feel soft wool too.

Thus, I continue to make slow progress on sleeve two of the Thistle Coat:

Note that the bottom edge there is now correctly knit, and will match its mate when the time comes for them to be sewn into the main garment.

But you didn't come here for that did you?  You want to know whether I was a good little knitter.  DID I go out to KIP for World Wide Knit in Public Day ?

Of course I did!  I did it without my camera though, so we'll have to rely on pictures from the ever-lovely, ever-blogless Elizabeth's camera phone.  Her hubby (my bestest Geek-Stud friend) promises to pull them off soon so that I can share them with the world.

On Books

First, this meme has caused me to want to install one of those things that keeps track of every key stroke.  I had it done.  With links to every freakin' book and author... and was filling in my tags, when I left my cursor on the wrong window to go fetch the url of a tagee... and left my unsaved but beautifully finished post.

I DID have every book now checked out from the library listed, and linked..... I am unlikely to do it again.

In massive frustration, I'm walking away now. ....

Round 2, in which I get most of it back.

BOOK MEME

[1] Name five of your favorite books.

I've thought about this before (I'm thinking this may have been part of the previous book meme... )  Lately, I haven't been re-reading very many books.  Those that I used to re-read, I've not read recently...  This means that you'll get more than five (especially because many of my favorites are really series).

1.  In my youth, I read Dune by Frank Herbert many times.  I loved this book.  I still think it's marvelous.  I've enjoyed the pre-quels (written by his son), but loathe the sequels that he wrote.  The movie starring Sting was a disaster.

2.  I also read Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein so many times that I wore out my paperback copies. I think Dune lived because I had a hardback.   Stranger is a book that I'm fairly certain influenced me in a myriad of ways.  If you want to chat about that, drop me an email but I don't really want to get into all of it here.

3.  I'm sure you'll find it no surprise to learn that I also wore out copies of J.R.R. Tolkein's entire Lord of the Rings  series, including the Hobbit.

4. I love Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series.  I've read the first book (yes... Outlander) several times. The characters are so vivid and the main characters are so real, with flaws and foibles and honor ... I wish I knew them for real.  I'd love to have them be in my family!

5. Shakespeare.  I still think he's the finest dramatist out there.

6. Ursula K. LeGuin, particularly The Left Hand of Darkness and The Wind's Twelve Quarters

7.  Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar  Series, and Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series were great favorites of mine.  Law school was a better place because these were in my non-law reading collection.

8.  Jeffery Deaver -- I started with The Bone Collector , and then read them all

9.  Dan Brown .. I stared with The Da Vinci Code , but soon had read them all

10.  Mercedes Lackey's Diana Tregarde  Series, and Laurell K. Hamilton's  series

[2] What was the last book you bought?

Well. The last book I bought was a gift -- it was specifically requested by its recipient.  It is a book that I would never buy for myself, and am highly unlikely to read.  Thus, I'm skipping to the last book I bought for myself (allowing me to bypass Great Knits for Kids, updated by Debbie Bliss, which I bought because C wants about 2/3 of the sweaters in it), and then sitting around pondering that question for a really long time.  I don't seem to buy books for myself these days.  I use the library.  No , I mean I use the library.  See below.

If I remember, I'll update!

[3] What was the last book you read?

Just barely finished reading Diana Gabaldon's A Breath of Snow and Ashes.

[4] List five books authors that have been particularly meaningful to you (in no particular order).

Cathy changed this question.  I think I'm keeping her change. This one also took me a long time to think about.

Robert Heinlein, as mentioned above. 
Spiral Dance  by Starhawk
Knitting Without Tears , by Elizabeth Zimmerman
The Prophet  by Kahil Gibran
The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu

[5] Name three four books six seven you’ve been dying to read but just haven’t yet.

I have no good answer for this.  I maintain a list of books that sound like a good thing to read on the library's system (so cool that I can do this!)  Then, I place those that seem most like what I want next on hold, so that when I arrive at the library, it'll be on the hold shelf waiting for me.  Some books take longer than others to arrive, depending on how far down I am on the waiting list.  We always have about four or five DOZEN books out of the library at any given time.

Currently, there are 58 "books" (including movies and CD's) out on my card.  These include books for me, books for C, books for J and books for Dan.
Here's a smattering of the titles waiting on my "library shelf" for my attention:

The Birth of Venus, by Sarah Dunant
Blood list by P.N.Elrod
By these Ten Bones and In the Coils of the Snake  by Clare B. Dunkel
The Chymical Wedding, by Lindsay Clark
City of Masks, by Daniel Hecht
Death's Little Helpers, by Peter Spiegelman
Desertion by Abdulrazak Gurnah
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The Ghost Stories of Muriel Spark
Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier
Gray Matter by Gary Braver
The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw
Hominids, by Robert J. Sawyer
Indigo by Graham Joyce
Mesmerized by Candace Camp
Modular Knits by Iris Schreier
Monster of God by David Quammen
Path of Revenge by Kate Egan
Solstice Wood by Patricia McKillip
To the Bone by Neil McMahon
Traveling while Married, by Mary-Lou Weisman
A Treasury of Magical Knitting, by Cat Bordhi
Zen and the Art of Murder by Elizabeth M. Cosin

Some of these are really C's, but I'll likely read them too. Likewise, some were picked out for Dan, but I may read them as well.

I read mostly fiction.  I tend towards fantasy, some science fiction, or horror (vampires) or mystery, psychological thrillers.

[6] Tag five people and have them fill this quiz out on their own.

Okay, in alphabetical order, I tag
Dave
Jessie for adding Tubey to my list of things todo...
Norma
Stephanie who almost certainly won't have time, but whose reading habits intruigue me.
Sylvia