Book, Blog and Subscription Recommendations

Must get to London, must get to London, must get to London.......

Ohhhh, GG - skip the uncs, these are living in the absolute CS!! I am actively choosing my spot - imagining rebuilding the bridge down in the wood so they can transport them down to just the right spot, and picturing the serpentine walkway we need to put in as a path for an elegant access - I REALLY WANT THESE (okay, that is not going to be possible, they belong to a national museum, I've not completely lost contact with reality - but sheesh, they are lovely). Now, how do I convince them that I am the the best repository for them!! And Portland - I second that, I don't know when you were last here - but there are some wonderful changes (and some pretty ghastly things too). Have you seen the Foster courtyard at the British Museum? I'm sure you have been here since then, and the new Tate housed in the old Turbine Hall - thats celebrating 10 years this summer?

Now back to reality - time to turn off the sprinkler that is giving my poor astrantias a last drink for a couple of days (no rain for more than 2 weeks), pick some lettuce, broad beans, and sunflowers to take into town, scrub up and off back to the city life. Workwork. Mortgages to pay. Harsh, reality can be such a drag.

The weeds here are also "beginning to steal my will to live" as Laurie so aptly puts it. So the solution is at hand. I must transport to an art gallery for an inspiring exhibit. My son and I were discussing the sorry state of the world and what might happen in the future regarding energy consumption and life as we know it, when he said something along the lines of, "but we need to have something beautiful too, like art and stuff like that."

Ohhhh, MHF, I now have hope for the future - with kids like him the world will be alright. Perhaps a nice period of gazing at one of those lovely outdoor gilhooley's would be the perfect restorative. Glass, water and colour. Do we need much more?

We went to the Late Renoir exhibit a couple of weeks ago at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and although he's not one of my favorites, it was still lovely to spend the morning surrounded by all that wonderful art! I hope you can find a good exhibit, MHF!

Glass, water, color, and sex & chocolate.

AMEN and AMEN, Judi.

ohhhhhh, portland, have you been talking to the bride?

I was at a delightful wedding a couple of weeks ago - really was so much fun - and at one point I was entrusted with carrying the brides handbag which held the wedding certificate "guard this with your life, do not let it out of your sight" I was told by the maid of honour. So I did, carefully carrying it as we all processed through the streets of London to the happy couples home - bride and groom leading. On arrival the Maid of Honour and I tried to figure a safe place to stash the said bag, DO NOT LOSE THIS on both of our tiny, champagned, minds (we had a couple little sips at the church) ( and what a tinsy little tiny clasp bag - what could she have inside? turns out deodarant and tissues - ahhhh) - not in the dining room, too much being set up - definately not the kitchen: caterers shouted at us, living room full to brim, lots of happy drinking going on - nipped into bedroom, ahhhh, the bedtable drawer - FULL OF CONd&%s!!!! A life time supply - slammed it in there, bursting into giggles - "they will definately find it", good irish catholic maid of honour said as we giggled our way out. Another woman, changing small baby was looking at us wide eyed, "they're married now, won't be needing those anymore". snigger snigger - reduces you to a teenager. Well that and a few glasses with bubbles. so cute. Ahhhhh, Brides.

Sounds like a scene from a movie, Laurie!

Another book.......but maybe there was also something sinister in the bedside drawer, hiding under all those condies.

Does anyone else watch this website - sometimes it can be a bit navel gazing, but it can come up with some interesting things too - look at some of these photos

http://thinkingardens.co.uk/iconic.html

And someone has a terrible blog with a great name, made me think of Gwen - its called Garden Beet. Good?

Garden Beet is good!

I decided to go with Down & Dirty - Gardening with Gwen.

Altho I did use What's Growing On for a regular column in the master gardener newsletter to list all the BG activities that are ongoing for people to reference.

There were so many good ideas, I hope to incorporate many of them into future endeavors.

Just finished pulling nettles (some taller than me!) and whacking brambles out of the way to make the path to the chicken coop less dangerous.

Laurie, such a funny story about the bride's handbag! You could write a book...a novel or a memoir or whatever you want, you have so many entertaining stories to tell.

Gazing at glass art would be a perfect Summertime foray into town, partnered with a visit to a rose garden or something like that.

Judi, your tale of shopping with the bride is hilarious too, but good for mother-daughter bonding.

"Nettles taller than me" LOL. I have some of those too. It is not just simple weeding anymore. It has become bushwhacking.

Bushwhacking - do we become the object or the subject in that idea?

Finished 'The Touch' and am now reading 'The Children of Hurin' by JRR Tolkien. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. A story he wrote and never published.

Object or subject?.....Both! I am bushed and the weeds are whacked.

Well done.

LOL. I may win one battle, but the weeds are still winning. One patch of 6 foot thistle down and.....innumerable patches of various invasives to go. I'm not sure what is worse, nettle, thistle, grass, or buttercup.

Back to the subject of this thread. I have been reading a somewhat obscure book that has been sitting on my side table by the couch unread all Winter, a gift (which I do genuinely appreciate) from my mother who keeps asking, "Oh are you reading this?" every time she comes to visit. It is the autobiography of my grandfather's cousin, Virginia Gildersleeve, who was either one of the few or the only woman involved in writing the United Nations Charter.

I'll bet she had an interesting life. Wow

Wow, Holly. That's quite impressive!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Gildersleeve

I have a lovely lovely way to beat the heat - garden until 11 AM - then head for the shade to read until 4PM, then out again until 9. My idea of heavan (I don't want to wish the summer away, but I am counting days until 28 July when my 4 weeks off from work start!) So - with 5 hours of reading time I have been savouring tomes and want to add a few to the list.

First - if you haven't already, it is time to re-read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. 50th Anniversary, and a real memory tug to remember the first time you read it. I go back to this book every so often just to get pulled back into the beauty of her writing - the characters she creates are some of the most poignant ever. Fabulous, and gets better with each reading. Definately a must on my list.

Here's a hands across the ocean - I did know that Jonathan Raban was a brit! Wahoo - and relocated to Seattle (which he seems to have a distinct love/crit relationship with). I love his travel writing (his book on the Mississippi is not to be missed - what a languid journey). He has just published a collection of his shorter writings and it has some real gems - great for summer dipping, I loved his essay on WAVES - being away from an ocean he stands by a puddle and watches the wind make microwaves. Excellent stuff. Book is called Driving Home: An American Scrapbook.

If you feel like stepping out of the US and into Norway try Per Petterson new book I Curse the River of Time - I loved his IMPAC winning Stealing Horses, and this is equally good. Really good story of 'growing up, growing older'. Lovely writing.

Mindless thriller fun - Lorraine Adams The Room and the Chair.

I know most of you will say 'nah' to these, but honestly they are good - two books on bikes, not Pony's type, push bikes - It's all about the Bike and Le Metier. The first is about the drive to build the perfect bycycle - its wonderful, really intersting. The second is about the world of cycle racing, and the role of the domestique in the cycle team. I enjoyed it throughly (but then I do watch Tour de France - I can't tell you how thrilling the sound of hundreds of racing bikes is!! It sounds like a giant bee swarm - wonderful).

TTFN. Good reading between the gardening.

Laurie, I really couldn't get into Out Stealing Horses. Maybe I should have another go at it. Right now I'm OD-ing on WS Merwin, who was just named Poet Laureate. I reread his The Lost Uplands, stories about southwestern France where he lived off and on for many years. The middle of the three tales is in the first person and talks a lot about the garden that he wrested back from rubble and weeds, and the changes in animal husbandry that he witnessed in his area of Quercy. Then I read his The Mays of Ventadorn, about the history of troubadors, intertwined with some autobiographical musings about meeting Ezra Pound and becoming a writer. What was amazing to me was that when I was curious to know how Bernard de Ventadorn's music and words (in Occitan) sounded, I was able to go online and find a site which had his songs being sung! Now I'm reading his Summer Doorways, again more of a memoir but it's excellent. Of course he writes beautifully.

DH is reading Beverley Nichols thanks to your recommendations, and he's really enjoying him. He got up from his chair last night and went over to the piano to try to figure out which one of Beethoven's symphonies begins with a major chord, per Nichols' comment about his works. But he only has the 5th through the 9th and it wasn't any of those...

I bet my DH and DS would like It's All About the Bike.

Thanks for the additions, GG - I don't know WS Merwin, but I'll certainly go check on them when I am at the bookstore this week (stocking up for my 4 weeks off!) - but goodness what beautiful titles: Summer Doorways - so evocative. I've made a note.

And glad DH is enjoying Beverley Nichols, and how fab to be able to just nip over to the ol' Joanna and try out a few opening chords (why do I imagine your's isn't a tinkly ol' upright?). Yes, please. How absolutely elegant. Beveryley Nichols would be proud.

Oh, it's definitely an old upright, Laurie! In fact it was originally a player piano but the tuner told DH's mother when he was a sprat that he could no longer tune it well with that mechanism inside, so they had it removed. It actually has quite a nice tone, though! We have a very high ceiling, wood beams, and plaster walls, so the acoustics help.

Never heard it called the ol' Joanna! Rhyming slang, I take it?

Take a look at WS Merwin on Amazon and see what you think of him before committing yourself!

Ohhhh, lovely - nice that its so familiar, and sounds like a perfect room.

It's actually our living room/dining room; we have a very open house. Acoustics weren't so nice when we were raising two kids and wanting a bit of privacy, though!

Laurie, was that bike book called It's All About the Bike? The only book I could find with that title dealt with a biker's girlfriend. Who was the author? It might have a different title here.

GG, the author is Robert Penn - but I just looked on Amazon UK and they only have it on pre order (how nice is that our independent bookstore got it before Amazon!) So it might be a little bit before it comes to the US. apologies for getting everyone excited. I hadn't thought to look at that.

Laurie, that's what I figured. I found it on Amazon.ca but again, it had to be pre-ordered. It does look like fun reading, but I wonder why the Amazons aren't getting it for so long!

I don't think its a conspiracy - but.......................(twilight zone music)

Just finished "U is for Undertow" by Sue Grafton - yet another Kinsey Milhone who-dunnit. I haven't read all of them, but enjoyed the earlier ones better. I had a hard time tracking the characters in this one, although it could be that I'm just scattered lately.

I'm in the middle of a Robert Hellenga book, The Italian Lover. I love his writing and stories. But if you want to read his books, start with The Fall of a Sparrow, then The Sixteen Pleasures, then this one. They are not really a series but a few of the characters carry over. Fall of a Sparrow is my favorite.

Thanks Portland, I don't know Hellenga's writing - I will Fall of a Sparrow for my trip to Cappadocia. On my list.

I just finished Born to Run and loved it. It's a nonfiction book about running that's a page turner - who would have thought. Only book I've given a 10 in several years!

I just finished Dean Koontz's "The Husband". If you are a Koontz fan and have not read this one, it is a must read. A bit gory, but slightly more realistic than some of his novels. I didn't have time to read and still finished it in two days....

I just read Nora Robert's "The Search". Based in the Northwest and main character is a dog trainer. Good story and not tooooo much of the smoochy stuff.

I also read The Search because of the dog focus. I would have liked a little more smoochy stuff. :)

I like some Koontz, esp The Watchers. I'll look for that one.

I like Nora so I'll look that the search.

Re movies, if you have the chance to see Micmacs, do not miss that one. Quirky little French film. Really fun. The first few mins are a bit gory but they set to basis for the rest of the story, which is not gory at all.

Ending the summer reading season - and here are my final raves:

Just finishing up Peter Matthiessen's Shadow Country (this was originally published as a three volume Watson Trilogy - so some of you may have read it in that form). I have to say this is a brillant read - excellent just as a story, but superb as the great American novel. Why don't I know about this author, and why isn't he a pulitzer/nobel winner. This is great American writing - and I keep stressing American because it could not be written by another nationality. There is a real difference in the style - the paragraph length, the paring down of the words, the characterizations - this is like so many of the other great writers: Hemingway, Steinbeck, Robinson, Welty, Oates - it is that precision of writing, the distraction of the 'ease' of reading which is so characteristic of really great American writing - breathtaking.

And what makes it even more interesting is the way the novel evolved - written first as a 1500 page book, initiallly his publisher made him break it into 3 books. 20 years later he felt he had to get it back to its true form so he rewrote and parred it to 890 pages - yes it is a very long read, but not a spare page in it! I love the fact that he felt this was so important that he had to return to it, to reassess it, work on it and republish. I always love when someone holds a long long thought - (And this isn't an author without something else to write - his list of publications is LONG and diverse)! Please, read this. It is GREAT writing!

Also read Orhan Pamuk's new book "Museum of Innocence". Now this is not American writing - a tough read, you need the timing of a Proust reader, but equally worth doing. (I think of Pamuk in the same group as Isiguri - he is not a warm writer, but he is fascinating). And I was fascinated, I was literally compelled to complete it, but I also made sure I had a stack of quick easy murder mysteries to read along side it (my back up is always the Penquin green and whites from the 30's and 40's when I am wading through someone like Pamuk). Another long one (at almost 600 pages) it is a brillant description and assessment of obsessional thinking. My goodness, his understanding of the character of an OCD person is exquisite - so well observed, so well thought through. My only faulting is the ending - he introduces a character in the final 30 pages - and it just annoyed the h*&& out of me - I wanted to line out the pages!! but otherwise perfect.

And finally Paul Hardings short fast touching 'Tinkers'. My only complaint about this book is that he won the Pulitzer for it - and my thought is he is only in his 40's!! Too young, I just keep thinking what could possibly be left for him to accomplish, to hit the heights at that age, what could possibly come after? But I also found myself wondering in 20 years time how much more mature this work could be, and if he revisits this book as Mattheissen has done (I hope he will) - I think his life experience could make it something more. It is a brillant book now, but for me, I wouldn't have given it the pulitzer, not yet. Brillance isn't enough, it needs more living to make it great.

Has anyone gotten around to reading Mantel's Wolf Hall yet? Anyone? Gosh I hope so.

After my daughter told me that the Girl Who Played with Fire was much better than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I decided to read it. And it was better, so much so that I plan to read the third book in the series. For some reason, I am liking these books. They are not great literature by any stretch of the imagination, but they are quick reads and entertaining. I also want to reread The Sixteen Pleasures and Fall of a Sparrow. And Larry's Party and The Stone Diaries by Shields. I liked those.

Wolf Hall is sitting on the little wooden library step ladder by my book shelves. I shall start it in a few weeks. I am also going to get Shadow Country. Laurie, have you heard of Powell's Books in Portland? It is such a big book store that they have maps. For me, it is a more dangerous place than a jewelry store.

I may try reading Pamuk when I am feeling industrious and intellectual, which is not often these days.