May 2010

I read fourteen books this month. Six of them belong to the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters, which just goes to show you that when I binge-read, I binge-read. Unfortunately, the titles and cover art are so patently embarrassing that I can only binge-read them at home.

“All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis
The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye, Second Half
Lion in the Valley by Elizabeth Peters
The Deeds of the Disturber by Elizabeth Peters
Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks
The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters
Cheating at Canasta by William Trevor
The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog by Elizabeth Peters
The Hippopotamus Pool by Elizabeth Peters
Un Lun Dun by China Miéville
The Reserve by Russell Banks
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle from The Annotated Sherlock Holmes
Seeing a Large Cat by Elizabeth Peters
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

The novella by Connie Willis was a delight, which significantly brightened one of my last days on campus this semester. And I’m proud to say that I finished the 958-page mammoth by M.M. Kaye, set in British India. The Iain M. Banks novel was, I fear, not his best; if I’d read that one first, I might have been too frustrated to finish it. William Trevor had been recommended by a professor, but this particular collection of short stories is pervaded by loss and death, which makes it a pretty depressing read. On the other hand, it has been proven that China Miéville can write equally as well and imaginatively for young adults as for older readers. Since I”ll be taking a class on Russell Banks, I thought I would get a head start on the reading list, but I wasn’t sure how to take the changing dynamics of this novel set in the Adirondacks in the 1930s. My reading Arthur Conan Doyle should need no explanation. Lastly, after a five-month hiatus occurring at the end of Chapter Three, I have finally finished rereading my tied-for-favorite novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. (It’s possible, this time through, that I got slightly choked up.)

This month I read nothing for class because I have no class. Bring on the summer!

May 26

I am now the owner of Jane Austen in three languages.

Pride and Prejudice (English)
Orgoglio e pregiudizio (Italian)
Orgueil et préjugés (French)

Can I read them? No. Well, one of them.

And in other news, I made a killer batch of chocolate chip cookies. You can have some if you’re really nice to me.

May 25

Hawaii was lovely. Between spending time at the beach and the Hawaiian Chocolate Company that was in the lobby of the hotel, I saw tanned surfers and tourists with interestingly patterned sunburns, more shops than a fanatic could enter, the view from Diamond Head crater, lighthouses, waves, mountains, pineapples, Pearl Harbor and Punchbowl cemetery, and no fewer than seven Japanese brides and grooms in the hotel. I ate too much, of course, but managed to avoid the worst of a sunburn, and sat for many hours on the lanai (patio) of our top floor room overlooking the rolling sapphire waves.

Here’s the only picture I took in Hawaii, standing on the lanai, looking down at a rainbow that seemed to end right at my feet. In person, you were able to see three enormous sea turtles through the clear water. As I say: lovely.

May 18

1. Hail Is Hell. My car was damaged in a hailstorm this weekend. The windshield shattered, and the car has dents on the hood, roof, and trunk. Major dents. Dents caused by ice cubes the size of baseballs. The insurance company called the event a “catastrophe.” The windshield at least is getting repaired, but meanwhile I decided I don’t like hail. (If anyone wants to buy a perfectly functional, hail-dented car, do let me know.)

2. Hello and Goodbye. I’m back from a trip and about to leave on a trip. I’ll be gone tomorrow for a week to the only state that’s also an archipelago, where I will doubtlessly be one of the few tourists without a camera. If you want to know what Hawaii looks like, you’d better google it, because you’re not getting any photos out of me.

3. Things I Might Do on the Eight-Hour Flight.

Read a novel.
Write part of my own novel.
Edit either or both of two possible novels.
Rewrite a short story.
Listen to music or podcasts.
Journal.
Play sudoku (expert).
Read another novel.
Sleep.

And I’m quite looking forward to it. Nothing makes an introvert happier than a long stretch of time in which to devise entertainments for herself.

May 13

1. All’s Well That Ends Well. Am done with the semester. All done. No more semester. This makes me happy.

2. Russell Crowe. Will be seeing Russell Crowe, er, I mean, Robin Hood this weekend with friends. This also makes me happy.

3. Summer Schedule. Have been working on a summer schedule for myself, so that I don’t waste a third of the year in binge-reading and movie-watching. I’m approaching the midway point of a novel at the moment, so that’s a good start. I’ll be writing another novel in June and focusing on short stories in July and August; I’ll have a battery of material with which to impress my thesis advisor when we meet in the fall. I’ll also be attempting to write a personal essay, since I’ll more than likely be taking a creative nonfiction workshop. My main goal by the end of the summer is to have lots of rough drafts. Then when I’m dazed and frazzled during the fall semester, I will only have to clean things up.

4. And German. Will also be working through yet another German textbook. You’d think I’d have gotten it down by now. But this is a German-professor-recommended textbook, so I’m counting on it to work wonders, although I’m not going to start it until after my vacation.

5. Hawaiian Vacation. Am going to Hawaii next week for six days. This, especially this, makes me happy.

May 10

Virtual Shelf

And this picture of Fiction E-F completes the first full bookcase.

Prominent up top of course is my three-volume set of The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, of which I am exceedingly proud. (Look! All three make Holmes’s silhouette!) Umberto Eco is also worth sighing lovingly over. I think it might be time for another read-through of The Name of the Rose, which remains one of my five favorite books.

The bottom shelf contains two mystery series that make me smile, the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde and the Peculiar Crimes Unit series by Christopher Fowler. I suppose I am something of a mystery fanatic, and while I’ve never yet successfully written one, I’ve read, well, more than a few.

Close observers will also notice F. Scott Fitzgerald, of whom I am a fan. I’ve always enjoyed reading and studying British and American modernists; some place the dates of modernism between the world wars, 1914-1941, or others like myself put them a bit earlier, 1900-1929. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald is worthy to note because if I were to ever specialize in literature above creative writing, modernism on both sides of the Atlantic would be my chosen field.

May 9

Virtual Shelf

Please excuse the knife on the bookshelf. I live with a military historian.

Here in Fiction C-D, you can observe a wide range of interests. You’ll find classics (Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, James Fenimore Cooper, Dante), mysteries (Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie), young adult fiction (Susan Cooper, Sharon Creech, Roald Dahl, Kate DiCamillo), erudite contemporary fiction (Italo Calvino, Don DeLillo, Junot Diaz), and more evidence that I live with a military historian (Bernard Cornwell).

More books about Sherlock Holmes are lurking, most notably The Final Problem by Michael Chabon and A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin, two excellent portraits of a very old Holmes.

The black sheep of this shelf is The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. It’s a perfectly lovely book, but I’ve seen it shelved under D, S, and E. For a while it lived in E, until I looked for it once and couldn’t find it: as it turns out, I had subconsciously expected it to be in D, so that’s where I put it back. I’m seriously considering reorganizing my books according to the colors of the spines. I could probably find them just as fast.