a bookish life

  I began reading Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker’s Creek many, MANY years ago. It was my companion on road trips – perfect for taking in a short piece at a time, and sometimes read aloud if I could get any other passengers interested. It lived multiple places. On the table by my bed. On the back of the end table. In the basket by the bathtub. Forever ready to divulge another slice of nature as seen through Annie’s eyes. Dillard’s writing is poetry in disguise. The language and structure of the passages makes it easy to forget you aren’t walking with her as she wanders the woods near her home. I found myself totally absorbed by the lives of water bugs and muskrat, interaction between plants and animals, the quiet violence in nature. It is a journey through the seasons with the smallest details brought large. It is "reflection and meditation on creation, creatures and Creator". A truly spiritual experience. Sometimes I would go months without picking it up but something alw...

   There's a difference between a book that's not for you, and a book that's not for you NOW. Not all books are for you, but they are for someone. Let people read what they want to read. The point is to READ. I am just as interested in why people abandon books as why they read them. There's no shame in DNFing (Did Not Finish) a book. Sometimes I know within a few pages that a book just doesn't feel right. Maybe it's not the book I expected it to be. If I get 50 pages in and it still hasn't grabbed me, it's time to give up. So many books, so little time and why waste time reading something that doesn't bring you joy. I felt this about 1 00 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It had the earmarks of a book I would love - magical realism, and Latin American magical realism at that. I absolutely loved Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel and The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia. It shows up on all the "100 Books You should Read If You W...

 ……. Well, not just ANY prompt……. In 2015 I was part of a group that started an online reading challenge. Pick a prompt for each month, challenge the members to read a book that meets the prompt, then post your thoughts on the book you chose. I fell out of the group several years ago but a chance message asking me to pick a month and a prompt for 2024 drew me back. I jumped and added 12 books to my TBR goals for the year. There is no shortage of Book Challenge groups to be found. Search the web, go to GoodReads, Reddit or Shelf Reflections. Pinterest has a board with no fewer than 470 suggested challenges! Our group - Book Lovers Club - choose monthly prompts from The 52 Book Club's 2024 Reading Challenge. That group does a challenge a week - a little difficult for me unless I didn't read anything else and that would eliminate a whole lot of my TBR shelves.  I didn't get back in until later in January so I will have to backtrack to month one. I put Lone Women by Victor La...

It's already February 10th and I suppose I should review my January books before the calendar moves much further. My goal is - again - 52 books this year so I need to average one a week. In January, I read 3. Once upon a time I picked up a Robert B. Parker Spenser novel. These books start in 1973 with The Godwulf Manuscript. For me, Spenser has become a sociological study, watching him change with the times while still being true to himself. He is smart-mouthed, thoughtful, loyal,   and honorable. He doesn't stop until there is resolution. He's a hard-boiled detective in the truest sense of the word.  Parker wrote 40 Spenser novels before his death in 2010. After his death, the family chose Ace Atkinson to carry on the series and he added 10. Mike Lupica is now carrying the torch. His first in the series was released in November 2023.  I read many of them years ago then decided in 2020 to start again at the beginning and work my way through. In January, I finished #31, Ba...

As I am starting this adventure towards the beginning of the year, it is appropriate to share my bookish life in the previous year. I read some outstanding books in 2023, cleaned up some TBR, found some that I was happy to see donated, and bought WAY MORE than I should have. I missed my 60 book goal, only reading 49 books. but those 49 included so many wonderful adventures. Here are my 5 star reads and a little snippet on each of them. Widowish by Melissa Gould     Brought out many emotions for my own widowish journey and clarified just how different each person's story is. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt     Most unusual narrator ever (a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus) with a compelling story of friendship, family and growth. Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel     One of the most beautifully written post-apocalyptic stories I've ever read. The series (Amazon Prime, Max) is worth watching. The House in the Cerulean...

  I do have memories from the time before my mom says I taught myself to read, and there have always been books.Our mom would read to us for hours on the rocking love seat with the Early American print fabric. I would sit with my grandma Dorothy, looking at books and magazines and catalogs. There is no "a-ha!" moment of learning to read. One day, I just could. I had a wonderful teacher in kindergarten, Mrs. Viola Wiese. While everyone else was play/learning, Mrs. Wiese just worked around the fact I could already read.  Then came 1st grade and Mrs. Ruth Schultz. When Mrs. Schultz - the woman can still bring tears to my eyes more than 50 years later - figured out I could already read, she decided it was not fair to my friends who were struggling with, "See Spot run. Run, Spot, run." She removed me from the reading circle. I sat alone in a corner and did math.It was my introduction to being different. And I still hate math. Thankfully, it did not ruin reading for me.I ...

  I have relied on writing during difficult times, when the journey needed a way for me to clarify what was happening. In my younger life I was a dedicated journaler. In college I tried short story and poetry. I was even good enough to be accepted into an advanced creative writing class and published in the college literary magazine. I still have great fondness for that experience and my former teacher, Robert McDowell (You should read his book - Poetry as A Spiritual Experience.) Now life has evolved into planners, to-do lists, work procedures and the occasional uplifting Facebook post. But in my heart - in my soul - I am a writer. And that is owed to my love of reading. My mother insists I need to write a book. I am smart enough to know I don't have the required focus, or the talent.  No story in me is begging to come out.  But I have things to say. Rather than boring everyone I come in contact with to tears as I drone on and on about books, I am going to write.  S...