Book Lovers Club
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After nearly two weeks at home, we're off on our next adventure tomorrow. This time we're driving to Florida, taking our time and stopping whenever we want. I grew up in St. Petersburg and daughter #2 lives in my mother's house, which I now own. It's always a thrill to be back "home". My husband asked me if I was packed and I said yes, my book bag was full. Oh...he meant clothes. Oops, hadn't thought of that.
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Yeah I used to buy purses based on book size. I HATE the larger paperbacks for that reason - both the taller variety & the "hardback" size. And they mess w/my shelves & won't fit in a Levi's pocket. Pocket books are gone. Interesting that purses were called pocketbooks (below from Wiki)
a bag usually with handles and pockets that is used by women to carry money and personal belongings.
Due to LE I carry a super small cross-body purse now. But to compensate I always have a book or two in the trunk of my car. I cleaned the trunk yesterday & have a wonderful old John MacDonald that i haven't read since the 1970s. It's calling my name but I'll resist and save it for an emergency when I forget to take a book.
Sandra: have a great time on your wandering sojourn. I've never tried to go anywhere that wasn't planned in detail. I'm not sure I'd know how to act. (P.S. - turns out my iron is fine & iron pills or infusions won't help. I have Anemia of Chronic Disease & am so pissed off I probably still won't be talking about it by the time you get back home)
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ahhhhh.....but "Q" books! .....11.5 " in width or greater! VR's sustenance! VR always wears a cross-body and Q books don't fit in them and e-readers don't do justice to the glory of oversized coffee table books....VR's orthopedist often admonishes her about dragging them home and the library's circulation desk is even worse! They remind VR of her lousy shoulders, elbows, wrists and hands! Who knew that reading was such a demanding sport???!!! VR is certain just carrying and not reading Q books should be an Olympic sport!
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minus??? Books in the trunk????!!! I ALWAYS have one on the passenger's seat!!!!
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Yes VR, I always take whatever I'm reading with me in the passenger seat. The book in the trunk is "just in case". In case I forget to grab my book, or in case have to wait forever at some doc's office & finish the book I brought, or in case I decide to go to lunch when I was planning a quick trip to the grocery story, or even in case someone should happen to invite me to throw aside all caution and go immediately - do not pass go - to the shore (ocean, lake, river...). I can live w/o clean clothes. I can't live w/o a book.
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Minus two! Me too!😇
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I loved his masterpiece, The Shadow of the Wind.
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Sandra - how we'll miss you. Have a great time & save up stories for later.
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I'm taking the laptop so I'm sure I'll check it once or twice in the next two weeks.
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Safe trip Sandra! Minus and VR, I have two new paperbacks in my car. One in the trunk and one in between the front seats. My e reader is in my purse. I check to be sure I have a book before I check to see if I take my phone.....
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I have a Kindle app. on my phone too, as a backup to the e-reader & 'real' books. A last resort kind of thing, which I have actually used once or twice.
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I've often lurked on here to get book suggestions, but I just finished Wild from lost to found on the pacific coast trail by Cheryl Strayed, and wanted to share with you all. Really enjoyed it, she is a good writer and the story line was great. I would deffinitely suggest reading it if you haven't, it is also a true story. Now I'm reading State of Wonder - it's OK, but not enjoying it as much as Wild.
Ruth, I have the kindle app to on my tablet and phone. That phone app has saved me so many times waiting for doctors appts where the only magazines were golf digest or health today. I usually check the ebook out from the library now, and have the real book as a backup.
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I just finished Travels With Myself and Another: A Memoir by Martha Gellhorn. She was a journalist who covered every military conflict from the Spanish Civil War to Vietnam. She was also Hemingway's 3rd wife and the only one who told him to take a hike. She had a sharp wit and was one tough lady. I enjoyed reading about her travels and experiences.
Gina
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I was fascinated by your strategies to assure that you would always have a book to read. even though I sometimes scare myself by wondering if I could survive incarceration for even a day without a book, I do go out and about without books. I look forward to reading the crappy magazines in the doctor's offices or other stuff I find when waiting for whatever. I can see now that if my greatest fear is being caught with nothing to read, I should carry around something to read and not leave it to chance!!!
anyway, I just finished The Late Starters Orchestra by Ari L. Goldman. Goldman is approaching his 60th birthday and decides that he wants to master the cello and instrument he took up in his late 20's and stopped playing as his family and professional life took precedence. He joins an amateur orchestra, studies with his cello playing son, goes to music camps and in the process tells his story, the story of his first cello teacher and the stories of the other late starting musicians he meets along the way. Goldman is a former reporter for the NYT and a current journalism professor at Columbia U, he is a father and husband and an Orthodox Jew AND a musician. It really was a lovely book.
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I just read On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, which I found very sad. Misunderstandings and miscommunication between a young married couple (in the apparently very, very naïve days of the early '60s) changes the course of both of their lives. I am not sure if I would recommend it or not.
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Ruthbru, that was one of the books discussed in The End of Your Life Book Club which I just finished - having seen it recommended on this thread!
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That's why I read it...I kept a list when I was reading End of Your Life (which I LOVED) & Chesil Beach was one of the books that sounded interesting. Now I will have to go back and refresh my mind as to why they liked it.
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ruth...I'm curious what the big deal was about the book. I read it years ago and wasn't rocked by it. Again, I think I'm missing that fiction loving gene....so you can't go by my opinion when it comes to fiction...
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I am not very 'fictiony' either...so that may be part of my problem too. However, I am almost done with a really good non-fiction, so will soon have a more enthusiastic report to share
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Ruth & Jelson & VR - Chesil Beach is on my short list - again because of End of your Life Book Club. I read Atonement a couple of years ago & I think I Iiked it. What a horrible thing to confess. that I'm not really sure anymore. Guess I read too many books. Now I'll have to get Chesil Beach sooner rather than later to compare thoughts.
Reading an innocuous Lisa Jackson book that one of the ladies I play dominoes with left on the table. No need to remember the name. Next up is Daniel Silva's The English Girl.
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Speaking of End of your Life, has anyone read The Lizard Cage? That's one of the few left on my personal list from that compelling compilation. Also Chesil Beach per above, Stegner's The Spectator Bird (need to re-read) and Trevor's Felicia's Journey.
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After sleeping on it, I will say that I don't like Chesil Beach at all:
* too much time spent on French kissing techniques (or the lack thereof), the kneading of legs, pubic hairs etc. and then BOOM 'lets flit over the next 30 YEARS in a couple pages' ending
* since the author had developed a relationship between the couple leading up to the wedding (they did not just meet, marry on a whim & immediately fall into bed)....would one botched sexual encounter really end a whole relationship/marriage? (If so, the divorce rate would hover around 100%)
* Seriously, if she was that 'frigid', wouldn't she just lie there? Why would she be grabbing onto...ahem...'things'?
I have decided that it is 'icky'!
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I went back to End of Life Book Club to find out why the author, Will Schwalbe, and his mother liked Chesil Beach.
Schwalbe comments that he and his mom talked about "the book's fascinating and melancholy coda, which explains what will happen to each of the two main characters." And when he wondered if things could have turned out differently, she replied, "I don't know, maybe not. But the characters think that things could have turned out differently. Maybe that's why you found it so sad."
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Ruth, I couldn't stand the book, although I had enjoyed the author's previous works.
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Good, it's not just me then!
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yay! So maybe I'm not missing the fiction gene after all!
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I loved Atonement but all the rest of Ian McEwans' books have been a disappointment. Although I also read a lot of non-fiction, I am an admitted fiction and mystery lover and proud of it. I do draw the line at bodice ripping and quivering loins, but respect others who love that stuff even though I wouldn't be caught dead with one of the Shades of Gray books.
Someone recommended The Devil's Breath by Tessa Harris and I just finished it. It's well written, mysterious, contains fascinating medical references for the time period, and I found out at the end that much of it was true. It occurs in England in 1783 and is worth your time. Do read the glossary, which is organized by chapter, as you finish each chapter. You'll find out what some of the words and phrases mean. I usually read with a dictionary handy, but there were many unknown references as I read the book. Wish I'd known about the glossary. Don't read ahead in the glossary...you don't want to give any of the plot away...just go one entry at a time.
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So today is the day I've been looking forward to for months. Geoff Dyer's latest book is published today. Here's a wonderful review....Now I'm counting the days until I meet him again. In June, he will be at The New York Public Library.http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/book-review-another-great-day-at-sea.html
".....But here is the great thing about writing: Unlike, say, biomedicine or electrical engineering, it has no intrinsic limits. If you are good enough, you can get away with anything. And Dyer, at his best, is outstanding. He is one of our greatest living critics, not of the arts but of life itself, and one of our most original writers—always out there beyond literary Mach 1, breaking the how-things-usually-sound barrier....."
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