TASTING LIFE TWICE

50 in 365 update

nobody@vox.com(Crystal) — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:09:31 -0400

Sooo I know I promised to read 50 books this year, and I AM well on my way but have been lax on updating. Here are my most recent reads:

#10 The Little Friend by Donna Tartt -- I listened to this as an unabridged book on tape, read by the author, which I felt greatly enhanced the experience. I really enjoyed this book and the images still sit with me a few weeks later. I don't think she has measured up to the amazing Secret History, but this is still worth a gander.

#11 Livia by Anthony Barrett -- a wonderful biography about Augustus Caesar's wife, Livia.

#12 Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges -- This book is on the favorite list of many literary-minded friends and I have to admit that I just don't see why it's so brilliant overall. Maybe I'm the one that's not so brilliant, sigh.

#13 The Game by A.S. Byatt -- It was just ok. Nothing of the brilliance that Possession had. Overall I felt like it was rather a let down. But I bought it second hand for about $2 so I suppose it evens out.

#14 Salem Falls -- Jodi Picoult -- Better by far than The Game but still, just OK. I picked it up at the airport in Oakland in a shop that had a terrible selection of books. She has done some work with Grub Street in the past so I tend to want to patronize authors connected with one of my favorite organizations. It's an easy read but the whole teen witchy thing felt cliched.

#15 The Witch of Portobello -- Paulo Cohelo who, according to the book flap, is one of the most beloved writers of our time (he is?). So I haven't read the Alchemist yet, don't sue me. At any rate, this book was also a fast-paced read but I did find that the ending rather fell flat for me as some great "literary" fiction has a tendency to do. Again, maybe I just don't have an overall affinity for the esoteric? What I liked about this book was the style--not a single bit of it was told from the POV of the main character but instead, through a series of interviews of everyone that knew her.

#16 The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay -- I really liked this book partially because it was about books and about a bookstore and because the characters are so strange and peculiar. Despite the oddness of the cast, the book is very accessible and reads quickly. Definitely recommend.

#17 The Collected Poems of Carl Sandburg -- Ahhh just plain wonderfulness. I often read poetry to Joe before we go to sleep at night. When you read poetry aloud to someone who isn't much of a reader, you realize that accessiblilty is of the utmost importance. I was struck by how many of his poems, now 100 years old in many cases are still so very relevant, fluid and modern even today.

I'm also halfway through Aldous Huxley's The Island, partway through Margaret Atwood's The Tent and sigh of sighs, only about 400 pages into War and Peace. I like the Peace portion a lot but the War portions tend to drag on for me. And I can't figure out how late 18th Russia had so many damn princes and princesses...they seem to be everywhere you turn around!

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lazy blogging=lots of linking=hours of your life lost

nobody@vox.com(Crystal) — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:15:21 -0400

I'm not sure why I never have anything to say anymore, on either of my blogs. I'm usually spewing some drivel or another so you might think it would end up here, but well, I have to chalk it up to laziness.

At least with a list like this it proves you can find pretty much anything you want on the Net. And that Stumbleupon rules. Here are a few of my favorites to keep you busy for hours.

And so, for your lazy link pleasure:

Candy by Joshua Hoffine

That should keep you busy for now. :)

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things i'm looking forward to: a list

nobody@vox.com(Crystal) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:27:36 -0400

Jens Lekman at the Paradise
Battlestar Galactica Season 4 (argh it starts the night of Jens Lekman! TG for TiVO!)
Colin Meloy at the Somerville Theater
Planning a little wine tasting party
SPRING at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery
Spring in general!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ice cream season
Cleaning up the back porch, potting flowers and getting ready for summer.
Sitting on that same back porch and writing (although half the trees are gone and there is a massive house just feet away from ours now...maybe I'll have to scope out a park)
Lavinia, by Ursula K. Leguin
Going to the Langham Chocolate Bar for my birthday in June. I've been wanting to go since I moved here 11 years ago and this year is not going to pass without me going!
Receiving this in the mail sometime this week!
And this.

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50 in 365: Books 1-10

nobody@vox.com(Crystal) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:02:43 -0400

I haven't been posting as I go for the 50 in 365, but I have been reading. Sooo here is the backtrack for what I've read in the last two months.

#1-3

The Gormenghast Novels

The Gormenghast novels are really three books, Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone. Incredible books, especially the first two, which chronicle the story of a very odd castle and its strange inhabitants, including the just born Titus Groan, the 77th Earl of Gormenghast. It's a well-written gothic fantasy of sorts, although it can hardly be called fantastic in that there is no magic, just an amazing cast of characters.

I highly highly recommend these books. The BBC and WGBH put out a mini-series a few years back that is based on the first two novels. I think that the mini-series would have been confusing to me if I hadn't read the books, but I thought that they did do justice to the story and they did a great job with casting. Netflix them AFTER you read the books.

Now You See Him: A Novel

I've read quite a few other books as well...

#4 After Gormenghast, I read Eli Gottleib's Now You See Him. It's not the type of book I would normally buy but I scored a free reviewers copy. It's a short, easy read. Interesting literary mystery novel if you like those sorts of things.

#5 I was looking for a book on my great reading list that I could take with me on a business trip I took in January. Joe convinced me to bring Great Expectations, which I, shockingly, have never read. In fact, I've never read any Dickens beyond certain passages handed out in writing classes in college. This is very strange to me, being such a literary freak and such a fan of British literature in general. Dickens' collected works are on my list to read, definitely. I really enjoyed the book but found it hard not to picture Ethan Hawke, Gwenyth Paltrow and DeNiro as characters. I hardly remember that movie but reading the book brought it back and it was difficult not to think of those actors as I was reading.

#6 I picked up Love in the Time of Cholera at the airport in Oakland, CA on my way back from that trip. I hadn't read it yet, nor have I seen the movie, but wow, what a beautiful story. I do want to rent the movie...can anyone tell me if the movie does the book justice?

#7 The Glass Castle was interofficed to me by a colleague who knows I like books. I don't typically read many memoirs but this one threw me for a loop. It's written by a now-successful journalist who was raised by parents who were rather fucked up but still loved their kids. The story chronicles the story of how they lived, in shacks, often without food or money or clean clothes. I was absolutely riveted.

Finite and Infinite Games

#8 Another book that I read, Finite & Infinite Games by James Carse, was a slim volume that I picked up as a result of some random blog post I read about cognition. Basically Carse presents a philosophy of looking at the world, either as a finite game or infinite game. Children play infinite games...neverending games without rules or boundaries. Adults define, place rules around and create finite games, which in turn create stress in our lives. I like the idea of figuring out how to let go a little, how to take life less seriously and how to shape the world into a game that I want to play rather than to play the finite games of others around me.

Incredible Good Fortune: New Poems

#9 If you love poetry, you must pick up Ursula K. LeGuin's Incredible Good Fortune. It's been a very long time since I have read a book of poetry that has pleased me so much. The poems are delightful, smart, charming and they are incredibly accessible. I love the magic that weaves in and out of her words, as much here as in the many wonderful stories she has published throughout the years.

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heavy reading ahead

nobody@vox.com(Crystal) — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 18:30:23 -0500

Lots and lots of books to read in the new year.

To start me out, I'm going to be tackling:

I also have the collected works of James Merrill sitting here waiting for me to crack open:

Trying to knock a few more off my massive lifelong booklist...I managed to check off about 50 this year, which is good considering that I only started it midyear. There are about 4k books on that list overall. I read about 21 or so books that are not on the main list, not counting all the many nonfiction Rome books I have been reading for research on my book. If I was only tackling books on my big list I probably would have plowed through a lot more. Goal this upcoming year is 100 books off the main booklist. Shouldn't be too hard...I read about 800 words a minute.

This week I read:

I also have been reading through You on a Diet which is pretty good, actually. Figured I could use some motivation in 2008. :)

I'll probably also snag a book on CD at the library, actually. I find that I really like listening on my drive to work. Right before Christmas I finished Pompeii, which I highly recommend.

Oh, and I zoomed through The Glass Castle right before Christmas. VERY VERY good--a book that will sit with me for years to come.

I think that's enough bookish things for now, don't you think?

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Perhaps She Caught a Tesseract: RIP Madeleine L’Engle

nobody@vox.com(Crystal) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 09:43:35 -0400

Madeleine L'engle

News of her passing came out in the NY Times yesterday.

I just wrote about her a little over a week ago, about the wonderful advice she gave in the book, Madeleine L'Engle {Herself}, how inspirational she was and how I met her briefly when I was in the 7th grade. Oh how I wish I had more presence of mind at that age, to ask questions that could have benefited me throughout my writing life.

Earlier this year, her thoughts on how the world views artists helped me gain great perspective during a time in my life when my artist husband was out of work and when I was struggling to write. I can say without any measure of doubt that out of all things in this world, her words were instrumental in helping pull me out of a winter depression of last year. A few paragraphs on the page gave me hope, a new understanding and an appreciation of her wisdom.

Her Wrinkle in Time books were some of the most influential of my childhood. They fueled my imagination, they made me want to read, to write, to build my own worlds. Re-reading them within the last year reminded me of all the reasons I loved her writing as a child and gave me a whole new perspective on the underlying tenets of her writing, the power of her craft and her ability to wrangle and tame the written word. She will continue to be an inspiration to me in my life.

From {Herself}:

Struggling Toward Meaning

To be alive is to be vulnerable. To be born is to start the journey toward death. If taxes have not always been inevitable, death has. What, then, does life mean? No more than "One brief-candle?"

The artist struggles toward meaning. Mahler was terrified of death, and worked out his fear in music. I had a letter from a college student at Harvard saying, "I am afraid of non-being." That same day, a friend with whom I was having lunch, said, "I cannot bear the thought of annihilation."

Art is an affirmation of life, a rebuttal of death.

And here we blunder into paradox again, for during the creation of any form of art, art which affirms the value and the holiness of life, the artist must die.

L'Engle was an artist that, in her death, will never experience non-being or annihilation. Instead, she will live on, being reborn every time a person picks up one of her amazing books, filled with power, love and light.

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Stardust

nobody@vox.com(Crystal) — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 08:53:22 -0400

Yvaine & Tristan

In a rare move, I went to see a movie by one of my favorite authors (Neil Gaiman) although I had not yet read the book (in my defense it was originally a graphic novel and I just haven't read many books in that genre). Maybe that was okay, because I absolutely loved the movie. It's good not to feel frustrated about cut scenes or ending changes (which I understand happened in this case), or characters not being represented like I thought they should.

I will go get the book, but for now I'll continue to think about Stardust the movie, which my husband and I went to see today (after much hemming and hawing on his part because he doesn't really like movie theaters). What a beautiful, beautiful, sweet, funny, exciting, well-done film.

Clare Danes played Yvaine, a fallen star. Charlie Cox plays Tristan, a boy who is on a trek to find the star and bring back the star to a local girl who he wants to marry--although he doesn't realize that the star is actually a woman. And Michelle Pfeiffer--oh I have always loved her and in this she was magnificent--played a perfectly beautiful and perfectly hideous evil witch. De Niro played Captain Shakespeare, a closeted gay pirate. Absolutely brilliant performance.

One of the key witchy things that happens in the movie is a few scenes of divination by looking at entrails. Icky, but I thought it interesting because in ancient times, divination through entrails after a ritual sacrifice was very common. I have several scenes in my novel about divination along these lines. If the liver was a certain shape or color it meant something. If there were deformed or missing organs it might mean another. In the case of Stardust, the entrails told the witches where to find the star.

Overall this is an enchanting fairytale that kids and adults alike will love for many years to come. Definitely will be snatching this up on DVD when it comes out!

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some things I love about summer

nobody@vox.com(Crystal) — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 15:59:32 -0400

BBQs with friends

Hotdogs
fireflies

Firefly
evening thunderstorms, especially if there is heat lightning

Boston-storm
the sound of cicadas

Cicadas
the beach (although I have yet to go this year, sigh)

Cranes beach
sangria

Sangria
books books and more books to read

Stack o books
ice cream

Ice cream
champagne grapes

Champagne grapes

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writing, libraries, booze, etc.

nobody@vox.com(Crystal) — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 17:58:32 -0400

A little roundup of miscellaneous things.

I have a post about the recipient of the EMC Leadership Award at the Computerworld Honors-- Laura Campbell from the Library of Congress.
I have a snippet from my book about the world's first gourmand, Apicius, if you want to check it out and tell me what you think.
Since summer is nearly here, I wanted to share a tasty cocktail, created entirely by me. Even if you aren't a gin drinker (which I'm not) you should try it out--I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Ginger Rogers in a Shady Grove

Build, fill glass with ice

1 1/2 oz gin
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
1 tsp sugar

Fill with ginger ale or even better, ginger beer
Fresh mint, limes
Serve in a highball glass with a mint sprig for garnish.

Scaled for 1 serving(s) and 48.0 oz pitcher

Build, fill pitcher with ice

8 oz gin (1/3 750ml bottle, 1/4 1L bottle)
4 oz lime juice
1 oz sugar
Place fresh mint and cut up limes in pitcher

Fill with ginger ale or even better, ginger beer
Fresh mint, limes
Serve in a highball glass with a mint sprig for garnish.

Enjoy!

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good reads?

nobody@vox.com(Crystal) — Thu, 31 May 2007 07:36:18 -0400

Anyone use Good Reads? If so, drop me a PM with your email addy and I'll add you to my friends. It's similar to LibraryThing but more social.

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