Snapshot Saturday---May 4th

On this beautiful spring morning please come with me to my back yard...

Enter through the garden trellis covered with clematis...

Soak up the sun sitting near the rock wall with the pretty azalea, Japanese maple, and creeping phlox...

Ah!

Snapshot Saturday is hosted by Alyce At Home With Books

Top Ten Words/Topics That Instantly Make Me Buy/Pick Up A Book

Hosted by Broke and Bookish

Even though this is supposed to be my TOP TEN words or topics that would make me instantly pick up a book, there is no way I will reach ten. Very few topics or words have that much power in my reading selections.  But a few do.  Here they are:

1. Printz award winners...I try to figure out which books will win each year and then once the winners are announced I attempt to read them as soon as I can.

2. John Green...I read everything that I can by this author.  If I know that his book is coming out soon, I preorder it.  Simple as that.

3. Harry Potter...in the old days I would line up to get the newest book as soon as it was available.  If JK Rowling published a new book about Potter and friends, I'd buy it.

4. Audiobook recommendations...I am always up for a good audiobook and will request copies from the library based on these recommendations. I also like to give audiobook recommendations if anyone needs some ideas.

5. Starred reviews...books that receive starred reviews from several sources: School Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, YALSA, etc. I don't read all books which get starred reviews but I favor them.

*Hey folks, please leave me a comment.  I love to  hear what you think, even if my ideas are more boring than yours.

Sunday Salon and Wrap-up of Readathon

It's Sunday and time for my weekly update. This week I will also update how I did on the Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-thon.

Readathon: as you can tell from it's title this was supposed to be a 24-hour reading session with updates along the way.  Well, I didn't even sign up until five hours into the thing, so that would make it a 19-hour readathon.  And I joined knowing that I already had commitments that day, most important was the preparation we needed to do for the event that we are hosting at our house today. If you cobble together all my reading times and subtract out all the time I was doing something else my 24-hour readathon suddenly became a 6-hour read when-you-can-a-thon. Now when I tell you what I read you might be more impressed than if you think I actually read for 24-hours and only finished this paulty list.

• What I finished: 
• A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway...about his five years in Paris when he was a young, struggling writer.
• Ten Poems to Last a Lifetime edited by Roger Housden...the last book in the ten poems quartet.
• I Could Pee on This and Other Poems by Cats...a really silly little book containing poems about, er-r, cats.
• Dancing with Joys: 99 Poems edited by Roger Housden...I was over 3/4th of the way through this book before the readathon but I finished it up.  Such lovely selections.
• Started but didn't finish:
• Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets by Evan Roskos...a young, depressed boy expresses his feeling through Whitmanesque poems. 1/3rd complete.
• Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman...my audiobook selection. 1/7th complete.

Today: We are hosting a party for our church members to help welcome our new choir director, Erin, and her husband, Dom, to our church. It just so happens that Erin is my cousin, once removed. We are serving Branks BBQ and baked beans, others in the church will bring salads and desserts. It is due to start in a little over an hour.

Weather: this past week the weather was gorgeous, but today it is overcast and rainy...of course we are having a party, so it has to rain.  Sigh.

Scripture: 1 Peter 2: 11 "Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul."

Readathon...Update #2

Update #2

We just returned from the BBQ restaurant where we picked up the pulled pork and beans for tomorrow's party/open house.  While there the family got some dinner so, in keeping up with the readathon, I read poems aloud while we waited for our food.
Since the first update:

• Finished, A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, read 130 pages.
• Read from, I Could Pee on This: Poems by Cats, read 20 pages.

Back to the books. Bye!

Readathon Update #1

Update #1

2 hours into my mini or half readathon and so far I've:

• Finished, Ten Poems to Last a Lifetime edited by Roger Housden, pages read around 20.
• Started, A Moveable Feast: Sketches of the Author's Life in Paris in the Twenties by Ernest Hemingway, pages read 85.

In addition to reading I have assisted my husband in readying the house for our guests and party tomorrow. Soon we leave to go do our shopping. The list has been made.

Back to the books.

Dewey's 24-hour Read-a-thon

Last minute addition to the Dewey's 24 hour Read-A-Thon, I decided to join the fun but will have to make mine a mini challenge because a. I didn't know about until now so didn't rise at 5 AM to start reading and b. I have a party at my house tomorrow and have to do some prep work for it today. But I did get up this morning and read before I got out of bed.  So I'm on my way.  Here's a little about me:

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
I live in Puyallup, Washington (NW Coast of the USA)

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
I haven't planned any snacks so I will just eat regular food today, maybe munch on a few pretzels, too.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
My name is Anne and I am a librarian at a high school of about 1700 students. I have two daughters who are out of the house, one is married, the other in college. My husband supports my reading fanaticism and occasionally even discusses books with me. 

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I'm a first-timer. Because I am starting late I will take my 24 hours into Sunday. I am looking forward to finishing up books that have been sitting around for a few weeks on my pile. I hope to read:

• Ten Poems to Last a Lifetime by Roger Housden
• Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets
• A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
• Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
• Dancing with Joy: 99 Poems

Let the reading begin.

My Ideal Bookshelf

In February my daughter gave me a copy of a book, My Ideal Bookshelf  with a note that she knew I would love it.  She was right, I do! The moment I opened the book I not only dived right in but started organizing my own ideal bookshelf.

Visit the Ideal Bookshelf Website to get all the information about this fabulous project, look at the art by Jane Mount, and learn how you can get a picture painted of your ideal bookshelf from popular groupings or create a custom page.  That would be an awesome gift. Since I'm a huge Jane Austen fan, I considered the possibility of getting one with all her books until I remembered that I'm not actually sure I've read all the books.  Then I found the Chronicles of Narnia and was tempted especially since Mount painted the books in the right order!

The book highlights the ideal bookshelves of 100 famous (semi-famous) people: authors, editors, cooks, designers, artists,  etc. I immediately turned to Nancy Pearl's page. She is a retired Seattle Public librarian who now has a spot on Public Radio talking about books. I confess I haven't even heard of one of the books on her shelf. Many of the other bookshelves were stuffed with classic books or large tomes. I wondered if anyone's bookshelf would be more down-to-earth like mine. Stephanie Meyer, of Twilight fame, had several books on her shelf that I'd read and like. Gina Trapani, an app designer, has two of the same books as on my shelf.  After perusing the whole book I certainly had a few more books to add to my TBR pile, too.

In lieu of a painting or print of my Ideal Bookshelf, here is a photograph. I had a hard time limiting myself to just ten books. My current choices are:

• The Chronicles of Narnia (represented by the first book in the series, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)--- it is a sentimental favorite since I read it as a young girl and then reread it to my daughters when they were young.
• Pride and Prejudice/Persuasion by Jane Austen---when people ask, I usually say that my favorite book is P & P, but I actually like Persuasion just as much. My husband paid me the ultimate compliment this year when he said he likes it that I am an Austenphile. How'd I luck out?
• Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns---this is not only a fabulous story, it is also the book that brought me back to reading after a very long hiatus.
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green---this book represents both excellent and ethical YA literature. When I started as a teen librarian eight years ago I wasn't a YA reader and wondered if I would be able to relate to any of it.  After reading Looking for Alaska, Green's first novel,  I became a huge YA lit fan.
• Peace Like a River by Leif Enger---something about this story, a family in crisis and the miracles that happen, really speaks to my heart. 
• The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver---My parents were missionaries in Africa, this novel is about just that. I ate it up! Quite a few of Kingsolver's books could be on my bookshelf.
• Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling---so many good things have happened because of these books in my life and the lives of my children and students.
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle---the first book I remember loving. The memory of what this book meant to me has remained vivid.
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee--- (on my iPod)---I've never "read" this book, just listened to it on an audiobook and I've listened to it more than once.
• The Bible---so important to my life!

What books are on your ideal bookshelf?

Retrospective Wednesday: The Great Gatsby

In high school I, like almost all American teenagers, was assigned to read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Up until today I thought I actually read the book back then, but now I am not sure. I remember vaguely the descriptions of jazz parties and a observant narrator (Nick) but I got the rest of the details wrong. So maybe I just read a few chapters and pretended for the rest. What a great shame because The Great Gatsby, originally published in 1925, is not only a superb book it also provides an amazing peek at a bygone era written by the author whose works actually heralded in the Jazz Age. Lillian Gish said of Scott and his wife, Zelda, "They didn't make the 20's, they were the 20's." If for no other reason than to get a bit of a feel for life in the twenties, this book is a must-read.

So with this Retrospective Wednesday post I hope to encourage those of you who feigned your way through your first Gatsby experience like I did, barely reading it, or those of you who read it so long ago that it is now just a vague memory, to reread it. And for those of you who haven't read it yet, now's the time! Get to it! The movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby is coming to a movie theater near you soon. Read the story first because, as we all know, the book is always better than the movie.

Now I will leave you with a quote from a letter written to Fitzgerald by Maxwell Perkins, his editor at Scribners, after he'd had a chance to read Gatsby:

"I think you have every kind of right to be proud of this book. It is an extraordinary book, suggestive of all sorts of thoughts and moods. You adopted exactly the right method of telling it, that of employing a narrator who is more of a spectator than an actor...The amount of meaning you get into a sentence, the dimensions and intensity of the impression you make a paragraph carry, are most extraordinary. The manuscript is full of phrases which make a scene blaze to life...it carries the mind through a series of experiences that one would think would require a book three times its length." - from the postscript in my version of the book

Do yourself a favor read/reread The Great Gatsby soon! Or, as I did, pick up the audiobook and listen to the excellent voice actor Tim Robbins read it to you. The last disc of the set included a selection of letters written by Fitzgerald  to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, his agent, Harold Ober, and other friends and associates. This section was read by a different reader which gave it the feeling that Fitzgerald himself was reading us his letters. My only criticism of this recording was when Tim Robbins would drop his voice when Gatsby was making an aside and since I listen while I'm driving, road noise made it hard to hear during those parts. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the story in this format.

The audiobook was published in 2002 by Caedmon.

Top Ten Tuesday...Books I liked better than I expected

Broke and Bookish

Books I liked better than expected:

Almost all "classics" are books that have surprised me at how much I end up liking them. So many people complain about the books they "had" to read in high school yet I found all these excellent and so well-written.

• Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald...currently reading and I'm blown away by the writing.
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding...no wonder so many schools require this book.
• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo...all 1000+ pages of it.
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith... an American story that talks to so many immigrant families experiences. I just was swept up in the story and the story-telling.
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury...this is all about books and value of reading.  What is not to like?
• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery...I just read this book last year and expected it to be a bit juvenile for me.  It wasn't and I loved every minute.\
• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh...I guess books become classics for a reason, they seem timeless yet give a sense of history and bygone eras.
• Emma by Jane Austen...though it took me forever to read it I didn't expect to learn new aspects of the story never covered in the movies, so I was delighted by it.
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain...There is so much controversy about this book I wasn't prepared for how much a loved this classic American story. 
• Ten Poems to Change Your Life by Roger Housden...it is a poetry book, I had no expectations of enjoying it at all. I actually loved it.

Ten Poems to Open Your Heart by Roger Housden

"The purpose of a book is to serve as an axe for the frozen sea within us." -Franz Kafka

If the purpose of a book is to take an axe to our frozen hearts, the purpose of this book is to take an axe to my heart which was frozen without poetry.

Roger Housden tells us in his introduction, "Great poetry, like art, is a bridge between our heart and the heart of the world."  Though the ten poems highlighted in this book may not clearly be love poems in the typical sense, they all have a message that can help melt our hearts toward mankind, ourselves, or toward God. These poems all help open the heart of love by "embracing our frailties, our mortality, the clay of our human nature."

In "West Wind #2", Mary Oliver she encourages us to turn our boats toward the falls (love) and row. 

---when you hear the unmistakable pounding---when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming---then row, row for your life toward it. 

Housden reminds us when using a rowboat one moves forward by turning around and facing backwards to row. "Mary Oliver is saying it again: you cannot hope to see what lies ahead when it comes to a life lived with love."

Wislawa Szmborska's "Love at First Sight" challenges "the assumption that love at first sight erupts out of nowhere." Who's to say that a couple haven't been moving toward and next to each other for years?

Every beginning
is only a sequel, after all,
and the book of events
is always open halfway through.

My husband and I both attended University of Oregon but never met until after graduation. While in school we could have stood in line to pay our tuition, sat next to each other at a football game, drank from the same drinking fountain, or ate burgers sitting in nearby booths at Taylor's Bar. For all we know for years prior to meeting, the universe was conspiring to bring us together so that by the time we did meet our book of events was open halfway through.  And for the record, my husband and I had a lot of fun, after reading this poem, imagining all the times we may have run into each without realizing it before we actually met. This poem opened those thoughts for us.

The poem "Love" by Czeslaw Milosz asks us to look at ourselves as from a distance.

Love means to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
Ane whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills---

I don't think he just means a healing from narcissism but a healing of self so as to be open to what the world has to offer. Truly to be open to love, we have to love ourselves but we also have to be open to loving others.

In the first line of the final poem in the book, "Buoyancy" by Rumi, we are reminded of the connection of love and poetry.

Love has taken away all my practices
And filled me with poetry.

I hope this review has encouraged you to find a poem you love today. And once you find it you can read it to the person you love. Have fun with it, too.