It took me just a few hours to read The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman, 2008). It's YA, so it's not a long book, and there's a spooky lyricism to both the writing and the story that kept me turning the pages.
It's Jungle Book in a graveyard, basically, with ghosts taking the place of the animals and bringing up a boy who alone of his family survived a gruesome murder. An eerie, wistful coming-of-age story...really, it's hard to describe this book. If the concept appeals to you at all, you should just go read it.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The Now Habit
It would be premature to say The Now Habit (Neil Fiore, 2007 ed.) changed my life. I just finished it yesterday, after all. But I do think it solidified my thinking on issues I was already learning how to deal with and gave me some good new strategies as I try to be more productive and build a better life for myself.
Unlike a lot of books on procrastination, The Now Habit examines the root causes of the problem instead of just teaching a new system for your calendar and to-do list. And in Fiore's view, being a procrastinator doesn't mean you're lazy, but that you've learned a less than optimal coping strategy for dealing with perfectionism, fear of failure, and/or being stuck in a situation where you feel powerless. So he asks you to examine the reasons you're putting something off and offers strategies to help you feel safer and/or more powerful. Also, since a common reason for procrastination is the fear that you'll never get to relax again, his system requires you to schedule breaks and time for play first. I'd stumbled across that idea on my own. I have a daily list for the projects and tasks I'm working on outside work, and once I've crossed everything off for the day, I'm done. Instead of working on tomorrow's work, I curl up with a book or watch fun TV, and it's downright reinvigorating.
Unlike a lot of books on procrastination, The Now Habit examines the root causes of the problem instead of just teaching a new system for your calendar and to-do list. And in Fiore's view, being a procrastinator doesn't mean you're lazy, but that you've learned a less than optimal coping strategy for dealing with perfectionism, fear of failure, and/or being stuck in a situation where you feel powerless. So he asks you to examine the reasons you're putting something off and offers strategies to help you feel safer and/or more powerful. Also, since a common reason for procrastination is the fear that you'll never get to relax again, his system requires you to schedule breaks and time for play first. I'd stumbled across that idea on my own. I have a daily list for the projects and tasks I'm working on outside work, and once I've crossed everything off for the day, I'm done. Instead of working on tomorrow's work, I curl up with a book or watch fun TV, and it's downright reinvigorating.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
For Liberty and Glory
For Liberty and Glory (James R. Gaines, 2007) is a joint history of the American and French Revolutions, viewed through the lens of Washington, Lafayette, and their friendship. Though I know quite a bit about both revolutions, Gaines highlights linkages between the two beyond the obvious and brings the social and cultural context forward more than most histories of the era.
Gaines doesn't explicitly say so, but reading his account of events in France made me wonder if the difference in population density impacted the outcomes almost as much as the fact the Americans had some experience of self-government and came from a system that already limited the powers of the monarchy, while the French were trying to move all the way out of absolutism at once. America, a country with low population density and no city close to the size of Paris, could handle the chaos of a revolution and the weak central government prior to the Constitutional Convention because such uprisings as there were were isolated, and they didn't have a big, half-starved city providing angry mobs to drive the revolution to unhealthy extremes.
Before reading this book, I didn't know much about Lafayette, but I ended it admiring him. He wasn't the most brilliant figure of his age, militarily or politically, but he was honorable, courageous, and consistent--he had his principles at 19, and he followed them still at 70. And I have to admit to getting a bit verklempt at the end, when Gaines points out just how much of Lafayette is in the Constitution of the Fifth French Republic--i.e. the current one, the one that gives every appearance of being here to stay. That's the vindication of history for you.
Gaines doesn't explicitly say so, but reading his account of events in France made me wonder if the difference in population density impacted the outcomes almost as much as the fact the Americans had some experience of self-government and came from a system that already limited the powers of the monarchy, while the French were trying to move all the way out of absolutism at once. America, a country with low population density and no city close to the size of Paris, could handle the chaos of a revolution and the weak central government prior to the Constitutional Convention because such uprisings as there were were isolated, and they didn't have a big, half-starved city providing angry mobs to drive the revolution to unhealthy extremes.
Before reading this book, I didn't know much about Lafayette, but I ended it admiring him. He wasn't the most brilliant figure of his age, militarily or politically, but he was honorable, courageous, and consistent--he had his principles at 19, and he followed them still at 70. And I have to admit to getting a bit verklempt at the end, when Gaines points out just how much of Lafayette is in the Constitution of the Fifth French Republic--i.e. the current one, the one that gives every appearance of being here to stay. That's the vindication of history for you.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Reading Drought
Every once in awhile I'll go through a phase where I just can't finish a book. I pick up novels and get annoyed by the characters a chapter in, or by the writing a few pages in. I start nonfiction histories and am interested for a few chapters, but ultimately get lost in a sea of unfamiliar names and stop caring what happened to any of them. And it's frustrating, because there's nothing like the pleasure of getting lost in a good book.
I'm in such a drought now, as evidenced by the fact I haven't blogged about a book in over a week. In that time, I've cast aside a pair of novels, one a YA historical novel that was just a tad too Afterschool Special in its life lessons, the other a double period piece--it was written 80 or 90 years ago, about events that took place ~350 years ago. In the right mood, I could've enjoyed both books, but this week I didn't feel like being preached to by the former, nor putting up with certain old-school conventions of the latter. (No protagonist of mine, whatever his century, woos his woman with "punishing kisses." He just doesn't.) I've also abandoned two nonfiction histories which started out promising but turned dry and slow-paced.
I hope I get past this soon. I started a new research book this morning, Royal Mourning and Regency Culture, by Stephen C. Behrendt, on the cultural impact of Princess Charlotte's brief life and tragic 1817 death in childbirth. This just shows what a geek I am, but so far it's a page-turner. I'm also about to start a semi-research book, For Liberty and Glory, by James R. Gaines, about Washington, Lafayette, and the American and French Revolutions, which sounds so fascinating it had better be good. And if that doesn't work, I've got a Bernard Cornwell in my TBR pile--nothing like a writer you know and trust to tell a good story.
What about you? How do you get out of a reading drought?
I'm in such a drought now, as evidenced by the fact I haven't blogged about a book in over a week. In that time, I've cast aside a pair of novels, one a YA historical novel that was just a tad too Afterschool Special in its life lessons, the other a double period piece--it was written 80 or 90 years ago, about events that took place ~350 years ago. In the right mood, I could've enjoyed both books, but this week I didn't feel like being preached to by the former, nor putting up with certain old-school conventions of the latter. (No protagonist of mine, whatever his century, woos his woman with "punishing kisses." He just doesn't.) I've also abandoned two nonfiction histories which started out promising but turned dry and slow-paced.
I hope I get past this soon. I started a new research book this morning, Royal Mourning and Regency Culture, by Stephen C. Behrendt, on the cultural impact of Princess Charlotte's brief life and tragic 1817 death in childbirth. This just shows what a geek I am, but so far it's a page-turner. I'm also about to start a semi-research book, For Liberty and Glory, by James R. Gaines, about Washington, Lafayette, and the American and French Revolutions, which sounds so fascinating it had better be good. And if that doesn't work, I've got a Bernard Cornwell in my TBR pile--nothing like a writer you know and trust to tell a good story.
What about you? How do you get out of a reading drought?
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste
I never would've picked up Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste (Carl Wilson, 2007) if its author hadn't shown up on the Colbert Report a little while back. But I'm glad I did, because it's an enjoyable, thought-provoking book.
The author, a music critic, decides to explore an album and an artist he's always considered the epitome of bad music--Celine Dion, and the 1997 album that includes "My Heart Will Go On." He doesn't "review" the album until the penultimate chapter, spending most of the book exploring strands of North American music history, how Quebecois culture and history shaped Dion and her music, and the function of taste (in music, books, art, food, whatever) as a way of defining our identities and our place in social hierarchies.
Good stuff, though I'm not quite ready to take him up on his challenge and, say, hang a Thomas Kinkade painting above my bed. I wonder what it says about me that Thomas Kinkade is my Celine Dion, as it were, when in general I know and care FAR less about the visual arts than I do literature or music. Most of the time I readily shrug off the popularity of books or music I don't enjoy, including Celine Dion, with a "Some people juggle geese." (Firefly reference) But put me in a Christian bookstore with a display of Kinkades or those patriotic paintings of soaring eagles, and suddenly I'm Absolute Aesthetic Judgment Woman.
The author, a music critic, decides to explore an album and an artist he's always considered the epitome of bad music--Celine Dion, and the 1997 album that includes "My Heart Will Go On." He doesn't "review" the album until the penultimate chapter, spending most of the book exploring strands of North American music history, how Quebecois culture and history shaped Dion and her music, and the function of taste (in music, books, art, food, whatever) as a way of defining our identities and our place in social hierarchies.
Good stuff, though I'm not quite ready to take him up on his challenge and, say, hang a Thomas Kinkade painting above my bed. I wonder what it says about me that Thomas Kinkade is my Celine Dion, as it were, when in general I know and care FAR less about the visual arts than I do literature or music. Most of the time I readily shrug off the popularity of books or music I don't enjoy, including Celine Dion, with a "Some people juggle geese." (Firefly reference) But put me in a Christian bookstore with a display of Kinkades or those patriotic paintings of soaring eagles, and suddenly I'm Absolute Aesthetic Judgment Woman.
Monday, April 20, 2009
The Secret Wedding
Apparently I'm not a typical romance reader. In the past few days I've finished one romance and got about a chapter and a half into another before giving up in frustration. I won't name the book I gave up on. As someone who blogs as an aspiring writer rather than as a hard-core reviewer, I have a policy of only reviewing books I can give at least a qualified recommendation to. But I think I can say why the book failed for me without giving away identifying information: the set-up for the hero and heroine's first meeting was one I'd seen too many times, and I didn't like the way the author used the language. There were some misused words, and the word choice altered between overly forsoothly here-we-are-in-Days-of-Yore speech and anachronistic like-whatEVer phrasings. I can accept either style, depending on the overall tone of the work and even when it's set, but veering between the extremes gives me whiplash. But that book gets rave reviews on Amazon and elsewhere, including praise of the author's style and voice. Huh. No accounting for taste, I guess.
However, I thoroughly enjoyed The Secret Wedding (Jo Beverley, 2009). The characters are believable and interesting, the plot moves along at a good clip, and the setting is believable for its time and place (mid-18th century England). But when I look at its online reviews, they're all over the map and tending toward negative. A lot of readers seem to dislike Caro, the heroine, considering her selfish and cold for being so concerned about protecting the property she inherited even though she didn't have relatives or tenants depending on her. And I just can't see it. I feel like those readers are missing the point that unless a woman entered marriage with a specific legally binding agreement to the contrary, every scrap of property she owned became entirely her husband's. I can't blame a woman for wanting some protection--if nothing else, if her husband died and left all his property that was once her property to, say, his brother, she could go from wealthy heiress to penniless widow overnight. And while I'm not generally a fan of insta-sex between the hero and heroine, in this case Beverley made it work. So this one I do recommend.
However, I thoroughly enjoyed The Secret Wedding (Jo Beverley, 2009). The characters are believable and interesting, the plot moves along at a good clip, and the setting is believable for its time and place (mid-18th century England). But when I look at its online reviews, they're all over the map and tending toward negative. A lot of readers seem to dislike Caro, the heroine, considering her selfish and cold for being so concerned about protecting the property she inherited even though she didn't have relatives or tenants depending on her. And I just can't see it. I feel like those readers are missing the point that unless a woman entered marriage with a specific legally binding agreement to the contrary, every scrap of property she owned became entirely her husband's. I can't blame a woman for wanting some protection--if nothing else, if her husband died and left all his property that was once her property to, say, his brother, she could go from wealthy heiress to penniless widow overnight. And while I'm not generally a fan of insta-sex between the hero and heroine, in this case Beverley made it work. So this one I do recommend.
Friday, April 17, 2009
The Weather of the Pacific Northwest
I've lived in Seattle for ten years now, but up until 2006 or so I wouldn't have seen the point of writing a book called The Weather of the Pacific Northwest (Cliff Mass, 2008) "What weather?" I would've said. "July days are only 20-25 degrees hotter than December ones, on the whole, and you get 8-9 months of cloud and 3-4 of sun. How boring must it be to forecast that. Yep, it's November, ten-day forecast is cloudy with chance of light rain and a high of 50 for all ten days...YAWN. This place HAS no weather." I'd grumble about how in Alabama, where I'm from, we got our rain in proper STORMS (complete with tornado warnings to add some danger to life), none of this measly drizzle. And in Philly, where I spent my college years and mid-20's, you have four proper and distinct seasons, and while the city is paralyzed by snow, at least it was proper snow, and not slush that melts by noon. (Here I'd usually boast of the Blizzard of '96.)
Silly pre-2006 Susan. That Susan had never struggled for over two hours to make the normally ten-minute drive from daycare home after getting caught out in the November 2006 rush hour surprise snowstorm, or stood on her deck watching the creek behind the house spill over into the neighbor's yard during the 2007 floods (not to mention the whole bit where I-5 to Portland was closed for DAYS). And I will never, ever complain again that Seattle doesn't have proper snow after spending a week of my life snowbound back in December. I'm sorry, Pacific Northwest. I was wrong. You DO have weather. Lots of weather. More than enough to fill a book.
Cliff Mass's book is probably only interesting to OR, WA, and BC residents, but for us Northwesterners it gives clear, detailed explanations for everything from why Sequim is so dry to how wind patterns create the Puget Sound Convergence Zone to those funny flying saucer looking clouds that sometimes form over Mount Rainier. (I think the mountain looks like it's wearing a yarmulke on those days, but it's possible I have a strange mind.)
Silly pre-2006 Susan. That Susan had never struggled for over two hours to make the normally ten-minute drive from daycare home after getting caught out in the November 2006 rush hour surprise snowstorm, or stood on her deck watching the creek behind the house spill over into the neighbor's yard during the 2007 floods (not to mention the whole bit where I-5 to Portland was closed for DAYS). And I will never, ever complain again that Seattle doesn't have proper snow after spending a week of my life snowbound back in December. I'm sorry, Pacific Northwest. I was wrong. You DO have weather. Lots of weather. More than enough to fill a book.
Cliff Mass's book is probably only interesting to OR, WA, and BC residents, but for us Northwesterners it gives clear, detailed explanations for everything from why Sequim is so dry to how wind patterns create the Puget Sound Convergence Zone to those funny flying saucer looking clouds that sometimes form over Mount Rainier. (I think the mountain looks like it's wearing a yarmulke on those days, but it's possible I have a strange mind.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)