Nov 30 2008
Being a lazy Sunday, once again I’m going to peek at some of my Blogroll friends and see what interesting things they’re up to lately.
My very first look, over at Alpha Heroes, had me chuckling. I have no idea what What a Scoundrel Wants is about (though one can guess, don’t you think??), but the title amuses and delights me. I hope she gets the book, and reviews it - I can’t wait to see the review!
Nov 29 2008
This is another Book (or two books, actually) Without ISBN, and this set was another of the ones given to me by my aunt, from her own university days. It’s interesting to look at some of these books and realize what she must have been studying. It says a lot about her, and tells me how very much alike we’ve always been.
The funny thing about these books is that I had them long before I really got going on my interest in Russia and Russian language. Or rather, I’d had a bit of interest from that hockey series in 1972, if you remember. But it wasn’t until I was in university in 1982, and chose to take first-year Russian as an elective, that the interest was really aroused. And there was The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, just sitting there, waiting for me.
So I read it in my first year of university, while I was beginning to study the language.
It was a slog!
Nov 28 2008
It began with a weekly program I saw on PBS in the 1970s, called “Anyone for Tennyson?” featuring the First Poetry Quartet.
The first show I saw was partway through when I turned on the TV, but as I watched a man standing underneath a tree reciting a poem about birches, somehow I couldn’t take my eyes (or ears) off him:
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree~
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Nov 27 2008
Another of my treasures without ISBN - Heidi, by Johanna Spyri. My book says it was copyrighted in 1954 (the first German edition was published in 1880), but I’m quite certain my actual copy is from later than 1954.
When I pulled this book off the shelf just now and flipped through it, I found myself almost in tears. And that was a sign of just how long it’s been since I read it.
Nov 26 2008
Another set of Books Without ISBN. And to my grief, an incomplete set.
His name was Winnie-the-Pooh. Or more properly, as Christopher Robin tells us on the first page of the first book, Winnie-ther-Pooh. Better known — to millions of kids all over the world — as just Pooh.
Nov 25 2008
Canadians, sharpen your minds and exercise your eyes, and get ready to read! The great national reading program — Canada Reads — is off and running!
This is a national book challenge where five celebrity panelists choose five Canadian books that people all over the country are urged to read. The books and participants are announced before Christmas, and the following February or March, the panelists argue the merits of their chosen book and critique the other books over a full week. Each day, starting Tuesday, one book is voted off the list by the panelists, and a winner is chosen on the Friday.
Nov 24 2008
For those of us who are participating in the NaNoWriMo exercise - that strange, pointless, wild and wonderful exercise where you try to write a 50,000-word novella, all within the confines of the month of November each year - it’s almost finished, and the last rush is on.
There are only six days left. Which, if your goal is to reach the daily average of 1,667 words, means you should be within 10,002 words of that magic 50,000. If you have fewer than 39,998 words in your manuscript, and have a busy week ahead - you may well be toast. If you’re American, and are planning lots of revelry for your Thanksgiving - uh oh.
I am pleased to say that I’m at 47,878, so I’m cruising. Of course, it does “help” to be unemployed. It also helps to have chosen a story idea that I was really excited about. (I write Fullmetal Alchemist fanfiction, and I’ve had this story waiting in my head for months. I don’t usually do fanfic for the NaNo, but I really wanted to finish this year, and this was a surefire way to make that happen.)
For many people, this coming weekend is going to be a mad rush, and the official site is really going to have to be ready to carry the heavy load on Sunday, as thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people try to upload their manuscript so the site can do an official count, and grant them access to the “Winner!” icons.
That’s what we do it for - those little icons that we can wear proudly on LiveJournal or Facebook or MySpace or discussion forums. Isn’t that insane??
But it’s major fun too. There’s a real feeling of accomplishment when you realize you’ve written an entire novella in just 30 days. Granted, it’s likely a bit…wordy. Verbose. A little…padded. But we always vow that eventually we’ll “clean up” our story, and see if we can “do something” with it. We rarely do, but it’s still a nice goal. And yes, there are actually some people who have indeed polished their novella, worked it into a proper novel, and published the thing. So there’s another thing to goad us on.
Anyway, six days to go. Almost finished, and then we can all collapse in exhaustion for another year!
And start thinking about that Three-Day Novel thingie on Labour Day…
Nov 23 2008
Just a relaxed, networking sort of entry today. I thought I’d have a peek at what some of my fellow book bloggers are up to (particularly those in my own Blogroll), to see if I could do a bit of a roundup on a relaxed Sunday.
Via one of my pals, at Minds Alive on the Shelves, there’s news of a Book Bloggers Christmas Swap. If you’d like to be some other book blogger’s secret Santa, and get a little something from a secret Santa of your own, go over and sign up.
Meanwhile, Alpha Heroes has news of a couple of interesting book-reading challenges to sign up for. I remember doing the “50 Books” challenge in 2007 on LiveJournal, and not quite making it by the end, because other things intervened. Pretty bad for a book-reader, huh? But you might consider some reading challenges yourselves, if you peruse various book blogs and see what’s out there. It’s a good way to get yourself reading things you might not otherwise have read.
I should start looking into some reading challenges I’d like to do myself, in 2009.
Bookopolis has news of a holiday book giveaway, where author Brenda Janowitz is giving away six of her books, signed. Free books, from the author herself! Who can resist??
The Indextrious Reader has an account of The Golden Notebook Project, which sounds like it might actually be rather more trouble than one wants to go to, in reading a book.
There are lots of interesting things all over the Book Blogosphere, but they seem to step up the pace a little bit at this time of year. It’s kind of fun to click on a book blog, then click on one of that blog’s Blogroll, then click on one of theirs, and so on and on. You can find lots of fun things going on that way. Have fun!
Nov 22 2008
And again, another book of lists. Sometimes I love these books just for the list-making audacity, but in most cases, it’s what they are lists of that really make these things special.
As well as being a fan of all things linguistic, I also have a passion for history. So a few years ago, when I saw the Handbook of Kings & Queens, it was like it called to me across half the bookstore. I pretty much had a virtual leash around my neck, pulling me over to that display.
Nov 21 2008
You know, for a few years now I’ve been fascinated by the fact that certain elements of Japanese culture are hugely popular here in North America. Japanese anime has been showing on television for many years, prompting huge anime-based conferences to spring up in all major cities, that attract hundreds of thousands of young people. And Japanese manga is wildly popular. You know, those are the novel-shaped “comic books” that are so much more than the slender comics that we grew up with here.
I really, really, really love anime, and I’m beginning to discover certain manga that I enjoy too. But it’s always been a curious thing to me, that this particular cultural phenomenon would have crossed the ocean and take such intense root here.
But yesterday I had it confirmed to me that this exchange of cultural icons is a two-way street.
