Partly Cloudy, by Tanita Davis, is here!

 

I love Tanita and love her writing. 

This is her latest; my copy just arrived. I'm so excited! 

For a rundown of Tanita's upcoming book launch activities and events, visit her website here. 

Bits and Pieces of Our Days

 “I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” 

— Blaise Pascal

* A year ago on Valentine's Day I didn't know what was coming. (Well, I guess by then we'd all heard of the coronavirus entering the country but I was still naive enough or stupid enough or hopeful enough to think it would be handled well and contained.) On this day last year I was blogging about creating black-out poetry, because I never have a lot to say about Valentine's Day. Atticus and I often forget that Valentine's Day is approaching, though we've always bought chocolate for our daughters because any occasion calling for chocolate will be observed in the Edmisten household. Our anniversary is at the end of January so we've just finished trying to figure out when to schedule the celebration of that (because —hello! — school year in full swing and National Honor Society induction meetings and speech season and my schedule in addition to his ... you get the picture) when Valentine's Day rolls around and we're left looking at each other and saying, "Again? We just celebrated our love, for Pete's sake. Now we have to come up with another creative observance?" 

Okay, we've never actually said that but that's how it feels. It's not that we don't like romance. We just don't like having it dictated to us on a timetable. I'm a Questioner (thanks, Gretchen Rubin, for coming up with the Four Tendencies. I kind of love you for this.)  Questioners need to have reasons to do things and I've always rebelled against being told I should express my love for my husband in a certain way on a certain day. I'm always perfectly happy to express my love for Atticus on Valentine's Day, but my rebel wing bristles a little at the world saying I should. 

Anyway, here we are on Valentine's Day, 2021, and Atticus and I told each other not to do anything at all. "Nothing, do you hear me?" He said he heard me but he also bought me a little box of chocolates and gave me a homemade Valentine. I gave him a card and told him he should buy that Wallace Stevens biography that he wants. 

So, happy feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Atticus. 

~~~~~~~~~~

* Recent reading: 

The Seven-and-a-half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (fun distraction) 

Life is in the Transitions by Bruce Feiler (a number of interesting stories about just how non-linear life is) 

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman (took a little bit to get into it but it ended up being very Backman-ish in its blend of humor and poignancy.) 

The pandemic robbed me of the joy of reading for a while but I've been getting back into a groove, I'm happy to report. 

Favorite reads from late 2020 that I probably haven't mentioned here: 

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (haunting and stunning) 

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (she writes of grief with such piercing truth) 

 Book recommendations? 

~~~~~~~~~~

* December and January were a blur of Covid-related sadness and shock, prayers, practical attending to my parents, coming to grips with their reality, near-daily surprises and difficult decisions about their conditions, and re-learning that miracles happen. The blur this week is one of preparation: they are going home! My father, since early December, has spent time in a hospital, then a specialty hospital, and then a skilled care facility while my mother has been in a skilled care facility for the last six weeks. They are returning home, not unscathed by Covid, but with hope for the years to come. I am grateful beyond words. 

All in all, not a bad Valentine's Day gift. 

Poetry Friday: Reader, She Finished It

Sharing a rough draft this week. (Pardon us while we're under construction.) :) 

The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted this week by the ever-wonderful Elizabeth Steinglass. 

Reader, She Finished It 
by Karen Edmisten

Reader,
she finished it.

Seventeen years old,
Ramona
read Jane Eyre.
And, oh,
the talk, the
talk,
the talk.
Bookish talk
that began
before they could talk.
My daughters
and I whispering
goodnight to the moon,
giggling over Clifford,
silly Amelia. Demanding
justice with Fern,
weeping with Wilbur.
Wandering
into wardrobes,
in search of kindred spirits.
The talk, the
talk. Little
women, a little prince.
Little talks, looming talks.
Atticus, Scout, back again?
Come in, please,
come in.
Who is proud, who
is prejudiced?
Let's talk of what
has passed
and what's to come.

Reader, she finished it.
But, oh, reader,
we are never done.

Bookish Language

I was at Half Price Books with my librarian daughter the other day and we were trying to keep each other from buying too many books.

I saw this beloved gem and thought, "Oh, I love Nora Ephron and I loved that book. But I don't remember it." (Because I am, you know, a woman of a certain age.)

So, then I replied to myself, "You can get it from the library. You don't need to buy it, even if it is only $2."

Then, my self replied to myself, "But you loved it, and you want to reread it, and even if the library has it, you'll want to read it again."

Then, in unison, my two selves said, "And you know you won't remember it, so won't it be nice to keep it around so you can reread it?"

When I caught up with my daughter in another part of the store, I said, "There's a story behind why I'm getting this one."

She said, "And here's why I'm getting these six...."

And I nodded vigorously, because she didn't even have to explain.

Bits and Pieces of Our Days

June is doing its usual thing, and by "usual thing" I mean, "careening past me at an insane speed that should get it stopped by a state patrolman immediately and, possibly, it should even do some jail time."

~~~~~

We love our local arts center and last month Ramona got to sing at an arts center fundraiser. Her voice teacher is a dear friend of mine (and an amazing singer) and she had several of her students sing that night, which was lovely. Ramona sang "Stars and the Moon" (which I had never heard until her recital last month and now I'm obsessed with it. Beautiful song.)

When I started this blog, Ramona was three years old, and my reports on her went something like this:

from April, 2006, age 3:

She wanted a brownie last night. It was fine with me, and I started to cut one for her. She looked at the pan and an anguished look overtook her face. She threw herself down on the floor with a groan. 

"What's the matter? I thought you wanted a brownie!"

"I do-o-o-o," she whined from her pitiful spot on the floor. "But I was assuming they were frosted."

... and now she's singing about the men in her life. Well, okay, not actually in her life -- men in the life of the character singing "Stars and the Moon," but you know what I mean. Times have changed. The kid quotes are different these days. They still sometimes make it to Twitter or Instagram (because she's one of the funniest people I know and she can wickedly snark with the best of them), but I mostly try to respect her privacy. But some things never change. I posted this in January of 2006, and it's still true:

"Mommy, you'd be very sad without my fwiendship." 
       ~~ Ramona, age 3 

(Does she know she's providing me with material on a daily basis?)

Here's a recent, 16-yr.-old Ramona story:

Her: Mom, remember when we first watched Mary Poppins? When there was the run on the bank, I said I didn't know what that was, so we stopped the movie and for 15 minutes, you explained it to me, and we talked about the Great Depression, and then we finished watching the movie together. And that, in a nutshell, is my childhood.

Me: Oh! I'm sorry! Did I ruin the movie for you?

Her: No! I loved it. I meant that in a good way!

Indeed, I would be very sad without my daughters' friendship.

~~~~~

Recent reading: 

Oh, so many good books! They need their own post. I've read about 30 books so far this year, but when did I last blog about them? Where shall I start? Oh, dear, this is anguish on the level of a three-year-old who was assuming she'd get a frosted brownie. 

I'll start with a list of what I read in May, and thus far in June: 

Crossing to Safety, by Wallace Stegner (Beautiful.) 

The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides (Not what I expected, had hoped for something...different.) 

Macy McMillan and the Rainbow Goddess, by Shari Green (Lovely.) 

Harry's Trees, by Jon Cohen (Also lovely.) 

Introverted Mom, by Jamie Martin (Spot on and a fun read.) 

The River, by Peter Heller (Kind of a gut-wrench, but in a beautiful way.) 

The Plant Paradox, by Steven Gundry (Interesting. My family gets frightened, though, when I read a new book about food. They wonder what I'll be doing to our diet next.) 

I have not been doing justice to books here on the blog. I must remedy that. 

~~~~~

I'm teaching two classes for Brave Writer in the fall, and registration is already open. I'll be teaching The Writer's Jungle Online in September and Middle School Writing Projects (which is already filling up fast) in October. You can check out all the Brave Writer offerings here. 

Poetry Friday: Billy Collins, W.B. Yeats, MRIs, and Knowing Poems by Heart

I picked up Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process last night and skipped straight to the Billy Collins contribution, "Into the Deep Heart's Core." I decided on the spot that I must (yes, must, because what if I need an MRI someday?) memorize "The Lake Isle of Innisfree."

Don't fret. This isn't a medical post, and I don't need an MRI —you'll get the MRI reference when you read the piece. And, happily, I can send you directly to that piece, because the book grew out of Joe Fassler's "By Heart" series in The Atlantic, and you can find the Billy Collins piece here.

A few shimmering gems:

It’s a powerful, unexpected statement of a simple sentiment: I want to go somewhere better than where I am.

Poetry’s kind of a mixture of the clear and the mysterious. It’s very important to know when to be which: what to be clear about and what to leave mysterious.

And yet I think poetry is as important today as it’s ever been, despite its diminished public stature. Its uses become obvious when you read it. Poetry privileges subjectivity. It foregrounds the interior life of the writer, who is trying to draw in a reader. And it gets readers into contact with their own subjective life. This is valuable, especially now.

And of course, listen to Yeats read "The Lake Isle of Innisfree."


Arise and go now, and read Billy Collins on the joy of memorization.

And memorize something. Because you never know when you're going to be in a "very high-tech coffin," in need of a beautiful and useful distraction.


The Lake Isle of Innisfree
William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

~~~~~~~~~~

The inimitable and amazing Jama Rattigan has the round-up this week at Alphabet Soup. 

Meeting Ally Carter

About eight years ago (Seven? Nine? Something like that -- whenever she was at that junior high-ish age), Betsy started reading Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series. Then she went through the Heist Society books, devoured all of Embassy Row, and somewhere along the way, introduced her little sister to Ally Carter too. Ramona promptly inhaled every Ally Carter book she could get her hands on (which wasn't too hard -- Betsy owned most of them.)

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. The girls discovered they could get their hands on a signed copy of Carter's brand new book, Not If I Save You First from an indie bookseller in another state. They promptly ordered it, and just a day or two after it arrived, Ramona spotted big news on Twitter: Ally Carter was coming to an indie bookstore just a short distance from us. (Ahem ... when you live in a small town in the midwest, everything worth doing that is under 2-3 hours away is "a short distance.")

So it went on the calendar!
We counted down!
Monday, April 9th arrived!

Ramona was sickish, but it would've taken a coma to keep her away from this book signing. Anne-with-an-e had never gotten in on the CarterMania, but she came along just because, hey, it's a bookstore, and hey, the rest of us are sparkling company.

Betsy and Ramona talked about what to say to Ally Carter when they met her. They speculated that the fangirling could spiral out of control -- what if they sputtered, spewed, misspoke, and embarrassed themselves with things like, "We loved the Grungy Goblin series ... umm, I mean Gallagher Girls! And Horse Solemnity -- No! Heist Society! And of course we loved Eatery Rowboat. Doh! Embassy Row!"

In the end, they slaughtered nary a title, remained composed while asking questions ("What book or writer inspired you to want to be a writer?" and "What advice do you have for someone who loves writing and would like to get her writing published?"), we bought a couple more books, and we all survived the long book-signing line. When it was our turn, we all fangirled, truth be told. And Ally Carter could not have been kinder or more gracious. She was truly lovely, and gave so much of her self and her time to each and every girl (and mom) there.

The next day we had a fun little exchange with her on Twitter and today Ramona said, "Do people still say 'shook'? Because I'm still shook."

Some of my fondest mom/daughter/road trip memories involve book signings and being shook in the company of my daughters. (Remember Ramona and Jim Arnosky? Sigh.) And sometimes, writers you originally met online become the dearest of friends.

Finally, it just has to be said: indie bookstores are the best. Thanks, Bookworm.

What I Read in 2017

Let me start by saying it wasn't nearly as much as I'd planned to read.

Gosh, somehow, after Friday morning, July 28th (when Atticus got the cancer diagnosis), the year just kind of got away from me. August was that blur of tests and MRIs and scheduling and worrying. It wasn't always easy to concentrate. I do remember finishing Middlemarch while I was staying in the hospital with Atticus. He was asleep one morning, and all was quiet, even the nurses and their ever-present checks on vitals. Then there were blurry days of recovery at home, and difficulty concentrating again, and just as he was getting back to some semblance of normal, the blurriness, the tests, the doctors' appointments were happening with Betsy.

And yet.

Books.

The one constant in our lives.

The list is all I have time to share today, but in the days to come, I hope to blog more about what I loved, what I didn't, and what I want to read in 2018.


The 2017 Book List (including read-alouds with Ramona):

The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine Aron
Anne's House of Dreams, L.M. Montgomery
The Spindlers, Lauren Oliver
The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
The Magnolia Story, Chip and Joanna Gaines
Stitches, Anne Lamott
Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham
11-22-63, Stephen King
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
Dragonspell, Donita K. Paul
The Girl Who Drank the Moon, Kelly Barnhill
Better Than Before, Gretchen Rubin
Echoes, Maeve Binchy
The Year of Living Danishly, Helen Russell
Big Little Lies, Liane Moriarty
Black as Night, Regina Doman
The Wheel on the School, Meindert deJong
The Mother Daughter Book Club, Heather Frederick Vogel
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
Emily of New Moon, L.M. Montgomery
The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
Beauty & the Beast (a Camp NaNo novel by my daughter, Betsy)
A Fatal Grace, Louise Penny
Emma in the Night, Wendy Walker
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin
Our Souls at Night, Kent Haruf
Design Your Day, Claire Diaz Ortiz
Untitled (Another NaNo book by Betsy)
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Emily Climbs, L.M. Montgomery
Reading People, Anne Bogel
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
Emily's Quest, L.M. Montgomery
The Four Tendencies, Gretchen Rubin
The Princess Diarist, Carrie Fisher
Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
Dark Matter, Blake Crouch
Braving the Wilderness, Brene Brown

~~~~~

What did you read last year?

Poetry Friday: Marginalia, by Billy Collins

Are you a marginalia type? Or a notes-in-a-separate-notebook reader? Do you use post-its? Do you dog-ear? What do you think of book darts? (Thanks, Anne Bogel, these might change my life.) Do you leave your own books in pristine condition, but enjoy eavesdropping on the marginalia of others, via a heavily used book?

Whoever you are, whatever you read, however you scribble, Billy Collins gets it.

Marginalia
by Billy Collins

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
....
(Read the rest here, at the Poetry Foundation.)

~~~~~

Carol Varsalona has the round up this week at Beyond LiteracyLink.

What a perfectly lovely book

"Reason, beauty, poetry, and excellent conversation were his preferred tools for settling disputes." 

-- The Girl Who Drank the Moon, by Kelly Barnhill 

Bits and Pieces of Our Days

Late last month, Betsy, Ramona and I went to see the filmed version of the Broadway show Newsies. They're big fans of the movie (which I've never seen) and they couldn't wait to see the stage version (on film, that is.) It reallly was a lot of fun, and we had a great evening. 

For more than a week I couldn't get some of the songs out of my head. On Ash Wednesday, "Seize the Day" was still pulsing through my brain but as I fasted that day, my hungry, addled brain kept changing the lyric to "Feed the Day." 

~~~~~

I took my writing group girls to a coffee place last week. Our Brave Writer freewrite prompt was:

Imagine that the different kinds of food on your plate are angry at each other. Write a scene with dialogue so we can hear them fight!

Ramona wrote about the drinks we had all just ordered. Addressing the peach and cherry Italian sodas, 

Mom's coffee scoffed. 

"I will not trouble myself with such petty disagreements. I am the most mature, most robust, most sophisticated drink out there." 

Cherry Soda guffawed. "Yeah, right. You're bitter, and you stain teeth." 

I had no idea my coffee was so snooty.

She said she was channeling Jane Austen as my coffee wouldn't trouble itself with petty disagreements.

I love our writing group.

~~~~~

I finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Discussion, anyone? (Tamara, I'm looking at you. Expect to be brought into an email loop for discussion.) Anyone else who wants to discuss it here? Leave a comment. 

"The library was a little old shabby place...

... Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church." 

~ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn 

Bits and Pieces of Our Reading Life

I haven't read much this weekend. I was walloped with Atticus's cold on Friday night, and I've spent the weekend mostly craving naps.

But here's a rundown of 2017-Reading-to-Date:

The Highly Sensitive Person (mentioned in this post) by Elaine Aron.

Anne's House of Dreams, by L.M. Montgomery. Sigh.

The Spindlers, by Lauren Oliver (Ramona had read this one and told me how imaginative she thought it was. I read it, too, so we could talk about it.)

The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin (Read-aloud with Ramona. It's a fun murder mystery for middle-grade/YA. We both enjoyed it.)

The Magnolia Story, by Chip and Joanna Gaines (Ramona and I are listening to the audio book together. Chip and Joanna read, so it's delightful. We've had fun watching Fixer Upper together, too, which we only just discovered last fall. I liked the first season the best, as the clients and the budgets just seemed more real.)

Stitches, by Anne Lamott I'm about halfway through this one. I love Anne Lamott because she's so honest and real.

"What I resist is not the truth, but when people put a pretty bow on scary things instead of saying, 'This is a nightmare. I hate everything. I'm going to go hide in the garage.'" 

~~ Anne Lamott 

Bits and Pieces of Our Days

I like ice in my coffee in July, not on my road in January. But on the road is where the ice is today. School and work were canceled for everyone, but Atticus isn't exactly enjoying his day off. He was hit with a stomach bug last night.

Bleh.

And it's only been six days since I last complained that it's not spring yet.

Six days closer to spring? Yeah, we'll go with that.

~~~~~

I recently read The Highly Sensitive Person, by Elaine Aron. As Anne Bogel pointed out, the only (and ironic) problem with this book is that some of the case studies mentioned will bother a highly sensitive person. Still, worth the read if you can get through the stories of abuse and are interested in finding out more about yourself, HSPs in general, or your HSP child. 

After reading that, I couldn't decide what I was in the mood to read. I wandered around the house, perused bookshelves, started at least three different books (I'm in the mood for World War II drama! No, wait, I'm not at all. I may never be again. Tiny, Beautiful Things? No. Wait. More abuse. What else? A good bio? No! I don't know! What do I want to read? What do I need to read?) 

Suddenly, I spotted Anne's House of Dreams. 

Bingo. When you need a palate cleanser, run to Prince Edward Island. 

~~~~~

Last week, when I told Ramona that our break was over and it was time to face the resumption of math, all she could summon in response was a Hamilton quote: "I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory." 

(Not sure what I'll do with myself someday when my daughters aren't around to keep me laughing.) 

Some Books We Read in 2016

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman
Betsy was a Junior, Maud Hart Lovelace 
The Pretend Wife, Bridget Asher
Essentialism, Greg McKeown
In This House of Brede, Rumer Godden
Yes, Please, Amy Poehler
Bossy Pants, Tina Fey
Little Men, Louisa May Alcott
Jo's Boys, Louisa May Alcott
Driving Hungry, Layne Mosler 
Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys
Still Life, Louise Penny
One Plus One, JoJo Moyes
Prisoner B-3087, Alan Gratz
Why Not Me? Mindy Kaling
Betsy and Joe, Maud Hart Lovelace
The Power of Vulnerability,  Brene Brown (Audible)
What Alice Forgot, Liane Moriarty
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller, Jr.
Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry
Nest, Esther Erhlich
The Madwoman Upstairs, Catherine Lowell
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Jack Thorne
The Awakening of Miss Prim, Natalia San Martin Fenollera
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling
Betsy and the Great World, Maud Hart Lovelace
The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman
Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
My Name is Lucy Barton, Elizabeth Strout
Betsy's Wedding, Maud Hart Lovelace
The One in a Million Boy, Monica Wood
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer 
Crosstalk, Connie Willis
Lab Girl, Hope Jahren
A Circle of Quiet, Madeleine L'Engle
84 Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff 
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, Phaedra Patrick

Two NaNoWriMo novels -- Betsy wrote one in July and one in November

Books I read with Ramona:

The Titan's Curse
Battle of the Labyrinth
The Last Olympian (all three are part of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series)
The Pushcart War, Jean Merrill
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey, Trenton Lee Stewart
Return to Gone Away, Elizabeth Enright 
The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase, Wendy Mass
Jane of Lantern Hill, L.M. Montgomery
The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic, Jennifer Trafton
The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate, Jacqueline Kelly
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
The Shadow of the Bear, Regina Doman
Black as Night, Regina Doman

~~~~~

Top three picks? (No, don't make me pick! Okay, I will): 

In This House of Brede
Hannah Coulter
Far From the Madding Crowd

Book I'm really glad I read but will probably never read again?

A Canticle for Leibowitz

Books that filled me with happiness when I needed it: 

All things Maud Hart Lovelace and L.M. Montgomery

Books I finished, but that disappointed me the most: 

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child 
The Awakening of Miss Prim 

Books I didn't finish, for a variety of reasons: 

Lab Girl (actually a really good memoir, I just wasn't in the mood for memoir. I plan to return to it.)

My Name is Lucy Barton (I felt I was reading an entirely different book than the one I'd heard described by others as lovely. Maybe it was just my frame of mind at the time? I don't know.)

Favorite read-aloud with Ramona:
Jane of Lantern Hill
The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate

~~~~~

What were your top three books of 2016? 

Photo credit: FreeImages.com

Bits and Pieces of Our Days: What We've Been Reading

Ramona and I just finished The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate, Jacqueline Kelly's delightful* sequel to The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. We did it together as a read-aloud and were both sad to reach the end of our time with the Tate clan. And who needs a science curriculum with books such as these? Love them.

* ETA: Just fyi: It does tackle some serious themes, too, so some of you might want to preview it and/or be ready to discuss those. 

~~~~~

While we're on the subject of science, though, we're working our way through Fruitless Fall together. If you've never fallen hard for honeybees, you need to pick up this book. 

~~~~~

Betsy is doing some reading aloud with Ramona, too. Last night they finished The Son of Neptune, from Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series. 

~~~~~

Her own stuff: Ramona recently finished Andrew Clements' Things Not Seen, which she said was "fun, and interesting, and there was more to it" than she thought there would be. She recommends it. 

Then she moved on to Tanita Davis's A La Carte, which she desperately loved. It left her with a book hangover, drifting and unsure of what she wanted to pick up next. She just wanted more time with Lainey. 

She eventually moved on, though, and is currently reading The Importance of Being Earnest. 

~~~~~

Last month I read The One-in-a-Million Boy, by Monica Wood, and it was lovely and sad and uplifting. Recommend, recommend, recommend. 

I just finished Connie Willis's newest book, Crosstalk. It's basically a romantic comedy, lightweight fun. I think the story could have been told in a shorter book, but I still enjoyed it. I've been told I need to read To Say Nothing of the Dog, so that's on the TBR list for lightweight Willis. I think Doomsday Book (not lightweight) is still my favorite of hers. 

Right now? I'm rereading Madeleine L'Engle's A Circle of Quiet. I adore her Crosswicks journals. 

~~~~~

Final book note: 

Did you know that yesterday was, as my friend Beth at Endless Books calls it, the Literary Day of Days? November 29th is the birthday of Madeleine L'Engle, Louisa May Alcott, and C.S. Lewis. 

Why did I not have this day highlighted on my calendar? Why are there not banners and fireworks? I assure you, next year the Literary Day of Days will be celebrated to the fullest extent allowed by law and bloggery. 

For this year, I will simply rerun this picture of a note I received from Madeleine L'Engle many years ago. (The story behind it is here.) Happy Belated Literary Day of Days! 

What Are You Reading?

So, I recently posted on Facebook that I had book hangover and couldn't decide what to read next. After finishing Far From the Madding Crowd, which I loved dearly, I was in a dither. I picked up The One in a Million Boy by Monica Wood over the weekend, but in the meantime, ideas were piling up on the FB post, so I decided to share them here.

I didn't clean up the list -- just grabbed everything that was mentioned, so these are in order of comments. If you'd like to add anything on FB, go here. If you just need to head to Amazon and start clicking, well, we all understand.

books by Terry Pratchett
Ready Player One
Enders Game
Destiny of the Republic, Candice Millard
Laurus
Three Men in a Boat
The Eyre Affair
Orphan #8
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
A Lantern in Her Hand
Bright Smoke, Cold Fire
The Awakening of Miss Prim
Dearest Dorothy series
The Confessions of X
Anne of Green Gables
James Herriot
The Muse, by Jessie Burton
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Lonesome Dove
The miniaturist
Hamlet
Brave New World.
A Postcard from the Volcano by Lucy Beckett
The Marriage of Opposites, by Alice Hoffmann
The Death of Ivan Ilych
Blackout/All Clear, by Connie Willis
To Say Nothing of the Dog
Bellwether
Doomsday Book
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Candice Millard's Hero of the Empire
The Meaning of Names by Karen Shoemaker
Flannery O'Conner
A Very Special Year, by Thomas Montasser
The newest Louise Penny mystery
Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Taylor Caldwell's Grandmother and the Priests
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
I Am Margaret series,
A Girl of the Limberlost
Pride and Prejudice
Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson
WWI diaries of Lady Cynthia Asquith
Jeremy Poldark

Podcasts that were mentioned:

What Should I Read Next? (My friend Danae told me about Anne Bogel's podcast awhile back. I was immediately smitten.)
Books on the Nightstand
Dear Book Nerd

Recent Reading

I honestly didn't know what I was getting myself into when I picked up The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. It was far more beautiful than I'd anticipated. It was a sad, gut-wrenching tale about choices, secrets, and consequences, a tale that could only end badly and yet I came away from it glad that I read it, glad that this book is in the world. 

~~~~~

I really wanted to like The Awakening of Miss Prim more than I did. (I hate it when that happens.) I don't know if it was the translation I read, or what, but I just never fully entered into it, despite the premise involving librarians, loads of books, and quirky eccentrics. A lot of people seem to like it, so maybe it's just me. 

There was this beautiful passage in which a character describes conversion as: 

...my touchstone, the line that's split my life in two and given it absolute meaning. But I'd be lying if I said it's been easy. It's not easy, and anyone who says it is is fooling themselves. It was catharsis, a shocking trauma, open-heart surgery, like a tree torn from the ground and replanted elsewhere.

Oh, my, yes.

~~~~~

Betsy's Wedding, by Maud Hart Lovelace.

Is there more relaxing bedtime reading than Betsy books? 

Methinks not.  

~~~~~

No.
Just no. 

This was not necessary. 

Recent Reading: Wendell Berry, Esther Ehrlich, and Another One From My Daughter

I dropped this beautiful book and marred the cover with a pronounced crease.  Somehow, though, that seems more than okay. 

I finished Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter last week and discovered for myself why my friends, when the title comes up, gasp and seem to rise from the planet for a moment as they relive their own experiences of reading it. When they circle back down to earth and are able to speak again, they always mention underlining and highlighting and the lyrical beauty of the writing. 

They are right. And I have joined their ranks. 

Title character Hannah Coulter, now in her 70s, is looking back over the many years of her life. Hannah shares her history with us in prose that is both simple and reflective. I don't think it's a spoiler to share this passage, which comes very early in the book: 

When you are old you can look back and see yourself when you were young. It is almost like looking down from Heaven. And you see yourself as a young woman, just a big girl really, half awake to the world. You see yourself happy, holding in your arms a good, decent, gentle, beloved young man with the blood keen in his veins, who before long is going to disappear, just disappear, into a storm of hate and flying metal and fire. And you don't know it.

My copy, with its creased but lovely cover, is full of such underlinings. I read with pencil in hand, marking passage after passage, ripe plums that I wanted to preserve and remember forever. I read Hannah quickly and slowly: flying through the pages, but savoring the words of a world that has passed into memory.

~~~~~

I read Nest, by Esther Ehrlich, in just the last couple of days. 

Nest, deliciously set in 1972, is narrated by eleven-year-old Naomi Orenstein, nicknamed Chirp, after her love of birdwatching.

Chirp has an awful lot going on at the moment. There's something wrong with her beloved mom, but the doctors aren't sure what. Chirp's older sister, Rachel, is going to weird parties ("Something feels funny; like they're all on one team and I'm on the other.") Chirp's next-door-neighbor, Joey, comes from a family that Chirp's psychiatrist dad says has "significant issues," so he might be scary or he might be nice…it's hard to tell, when a boy has a rock in his hand, just what he plans to do with it. Chirp's haven is Heron Pond, where she goes to look for her favorite bird, the elusive red-throated loon, which can be extremely awkward or immensely graceful, depending on where it is and what it's trying to accomplish.

I loved this book so much. Ehrlich's writing is iridescent; it shimmers like the sunlit water that has been part of Chirp's world since she was born. And that gorgeous writing serves well a story that is full and weighty. Sadness, deep pain, grief, and love mingle with insight and hope. Bring the tissues.

My only caveat is that it's billed as middle-grade fiction -- it could be too much for very sensitive children, as it covers extremely serious issues.

Read it for yourself, because it's worth the grown-up read. Then you can decide who you'll share it with.

~~~~~

Finally, I've mentioned NaNoWriMo before, but who knew the craziness was encouraged in July? Camp NaNoWriMo is November madness in the middle of summer. Betsy, who has completed five NaNo novels in the past, did another one last month. She finished 60,000 words before the end of July, let me read her first draft (that almost never happens), and she made my cry with one of her plot developments. Reading doesn't get any better than that. 

Ramona set herself a goal of a 10,000 word story for July and met it. She hasn't let me read her story yet, though -- not sure when she'll release a draft to me. And Anne-with-an-e is trying a longer work for the first time ever, so I'll keep you posted on future Edmisten-Daughter books, and whether or not they make me cry. 

I Finished A Canticle for Leibowitz

So, I recently finished A Canticle for Leibowitz. I can't believe it took me this long to read it (30-some years? When did you first recommend it, Jack?) Beautiful, horrible, gut-wrenching, and thought-provoking, it delves into the connections among faith, reason, knowledge, science/technology, church, state, and man's ever-predictable penchant for overreaching and destroying himself. 

"Ask for an omen, then stone it when it comes -- de essentia hominum." 

Do you want to discuss? We'll start it in the comments, so as to prevent spoilers, of course. 

(I've got a busy couple of days coming up, so if I don't get a chance to jump right in, please be patient with me...I will get back to the discussion!)