BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS

{Picture above is of unread books on my left sidetable. A veritable feast, thanks mainly to # 1 Daughter}

Books read in 2009.

I would have said 75 maybe 70.

My goal was to read 100 books in 2009, but I actually fell far short of that by reading 51.

Here they are from my sidebar:

Singing Lessons - Judy Collins
Through Black Spruce - Joseph Boyden
Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen *
Payback - Margaret Attwood
Forty Words for Sorrow - Giles Blunt *
October - Richard B. Wright *
Marley & Me - John Grogan *
Mama Makes Up Her Mind - Bailey White
The Camera My Mother Gave Me - Susanna Kaysen
84 Charing Cross Road (for the umpteenth time!) - Helene Hanff *
The Domino Principle - Adam Kennedy
Faith - Jodi Picoult
The Road - Cormac McCarthy *
The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter *
Somewhere Towards the End - Diana Athill *
Fair & Tender Ladies - Lee Smith *
Deadly Appearances - Gail Bowen
The Amateur Marriage - Anne Tyler *
A Colder Kind of Death - Gail Bowen
A Delicate Storm - Giles Blunt
The Secret Scriptures - Sebastian Barry *
Surface Tension - Patrick Ocampo
Belong to me - Marisa de los Santos *
The Outport People - Claire Mowat *
The Custodian of Paradise - Wayne Johnston *
The Soloist - Steve Lopez *
R.E.A.L. From the Edge of the Rock - Rita Mary Stamp
In the Middle of Life - Richard B. Wright *
Fruit - Brian Francis *
The Chameleon's Shadow - Minette Walters
Helpless - Barbara Gowdy *
The Last Coyote - Michael Connolly
Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn *
Me & Emma - Elizabeth Flock
Displaced Persons - Margie Taylor *
The Lincoln Lawyer - Michael Connolly
92 Stories - James Thurber
Weekend Man - Richard B. Wright *
A Great Deliverance - Elizabeth George
Kill The Messenger - Tami Hoag
Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon *
Dark Places - Gillian Flynn *
Too Much Happiness - Alice Munro *
T is for Trespass - Sue Grafton
Love & Summer - William Trevor *
From the Ashes of my Dreams - Ed Smith
Come Thou Tortoise - Jessica Grant *
Cloud of Bones - Bernice Morgan
Children of Eve - Deirdre Purcell
The Bishop's Man - Linden McIntyre *
Brooklyn - Colm Toibin

The best are asterisked.

One a week, eh? Not bad.

However, in my old age, I’ve discovered a new skill. I have this sturdy leather book holder I use for recipe books. Now I use it for propping the book I’m currently reading and knit as I read in front of the fire.

Highly recommended - for those who invariably multi-task.

Maybe I’ll crack 60 books this year. Along with 51 pairs of assorted cashmere, silk and cotton hand knit socks completed?

Oops, oh, and did I mention my Lexulous addiction?

A Wasted Brain in Oz

Over our nightly game of Scrabble, he’d pop the cigar from his mouth and wag it at me as if I were some kind of fool, which he thought I was anyway for he never got tired of reminding me of it back in the day: that my brains were wasted on me, a mere girl, I wouldn’t know what to do with them, when it should have been my brother, who was thick as two planks, who should have got them.

As I was saying, the cigar would be waving at me, trailing a stream of blue smoke, the lips would be pursed, he’d be staring at the Scrabble board, debating his next move, whistle-talking in that way he had, about too many consonants or too many vowels in his tiles, as if I, his brainy daughter, wasn’t challenged in such a way when it came to my turn.

He’d defend absurdities, like “oz”, referring to his absent best friend, the god of spelling, Father Ned, who’d use “oz” regularly, in defiance of the Scrabble dictionary which I handed to him, my temper bubbling in spite of myself: where in god’s name did “oz” appear, I’d demand of him and in response he’d take a long, deep puff and admonish me, his eyes rolling upward, telling me that the Scrabble dictionary was an American invention and what did they know about English and its usage please tell him, the expertise of Father Ned was all he, my father needed, thank you very much, for hadn’t Father Ned lived for years in America and could tell stories about it that would make your toes curl, what did the Americans know about English or the good Irish game of Scrabble.

So there we were, the fifty-year old divorced daughter, the widowed seventy-five-year old father, touring around America together in my car in search of his long lost uncle, Vincent Xavier Mullalley, who might be in Philadelphia, or maybe in Boston or New York, for he had emigrated suddenly out of Cobh in County Cork when he was sixteen, seventy years before, and they’d never heard another word from him and maybe one of the phone books in one of these cities would give him up like an offering to his nephew, my father, who was named for him and who spent the afternoons of our trip dialling up Mullalley strangers in these American cities asking in his thick unintelligible Cork accent if they had a Vincent Xavier in the family.

Before we left on this trip, I’d remembered that when I was still living back home before my own emigration, that together we’d always completed the challenging crosswords in the newspapers and followed up Sunday tea with a game of Scrabble where I would invariably beat him, much to his pouting annoyance, so I packed the Scrabble board for this road trip but after the second bout of “oz” in the first few evenings of playing I stretched that wasted brain of mine out even further and let him win each and every time and allowed him to gloat but not for long for I made sure he caught that little smirk on my face as I packed the game away and that would shut him up right there in his tracks.

Life's Like This

You have plans.
They change.
We change.
My friend B dies and I can't be at the memorial service.
B loved attention but his personally planned funeral is the Simple Alternative, no flowers, casket, mourners. Just a little service. A post mortem shock for those of us who know him and his fondess for centre stage.
I planned Part 3 of the Pornography Series. It hasn't been written yet.
I have a houseguest who is staying far too long but leaves this Tuesday. Today we entertained a disparate group to a midday "dinner" and she did most of the work.
The conversation soared and swooped and I was asked to read some of my short stories publicly. One particularly wonderful - and true - story told by a guest today involved a cross-dressing tough old cod fisherman. Tremendous Monty Python factor.
Since I had a dream about reading my stories aloud I am more than thrilled at the theatre possibility mentioned today. I've always wanted to read my work to an audience.
My article for the month of July didn't get written.
My shelter and food work is way behind.
I want to blame the over-extended guest but this would not be truthful.
It is my own disorganization and procrastination.
My own immaturity that cannot defer gratification.
We had some lovely days on the beach and I showed her my own stunning Newfoundland.
We played Scrabble every night by candlelight though I must admit to being pissed tonight when she got all her letters off twice and beat me soundly. Sometimes I feel I am three years old.
She is a very nice, intelligent, interesting woman but I struggle when people are around too much, I struggle with liking them. I realize my inner recluse needs a lot of attention and she doesn't get it when I have to host graciously.
I decided to build a small cabin way back on the hill on the property here. Somewhere to escape to and write no matter who inhabits the house.
I feel I'm on display in the main house. Newfoundlanders are very friendly, they love to pop in and see what's going on and think writing is a fairly silly pursuit and of no value when compared to boat-building or trench-digging. They wait for me to do something important like plant potatoes.
Blackflies are making a meal out of my head. I have lumps where I didn't think lumps were possible.
I have a gentleman caller who is a very alert and lively jean-clad eighty-five year old who makes bowls and incredible artifacts out of local trees. Exquisite work. He is full of stories and very courtly and gracious. I am enchanted. He moves like a man in his twenties and entertains me with lovely anecdotes. He also calls to hear my outgoing message on my telephone line when I'm not here. Sometimes ten times a day. He is unaware I installed call-display a week ago. He could be a stalker. But I think he is lonely and also thirsty for a paramour.
I also had an email from a very, very long-ago boyfriend who found me through my published work. He was very much in love with me at one point (egads over forty years ago) but, alas, not I with him, and this out-of-the-blue attempted re-ignition has piqued my curiosity meter.
R arrives here on August 11th and I find myself greatly amused that from an absolute dearth of a possiblity of a relationship over a month ago, there are now three.
Much like a dessert table at a buffet.
A veritable feast of choice. Or not.
But it is terrific to feel alive and savour the potential.