BOOKISHGAL

Just when I had gotten started on the Thursday Thirteen meme, the original hosting site shut down. But many participants have renewed it, and a new site is hosting it, so it’s going to continue.

So today I’m going to see if I can think of Thirteen Reasons to console oneself at home with a book in the winter:

1. You can immerse yourself in the plot, and not notice that it’s snowing outside for the four thousandth time this winter.

2. It’s a good excuse to curl up in the arm chair, your feet tucked under you to keep them warm.

3. It’s like having a cosy chat with a friend while the snow falls outside.

4. You can read about tropical places.

5. Your cat (or dog, if you wish) can curl up in your lap and act as a heating pad.

6. Your cat (or dog) can also act as a book podium.

7. You can put off going out to shovel the walk by repeating, “I’m in the middle of a chapter, wait till it ends,” every time someone makes the suggestion.

8. You have a perfect excuse to drink several cups of hot chocolate, which goes very nicely with book reading.

9. Staying inside with a book will keep you away from people who would sneeze on you and give you a cold.

10. It will keep your blood pressure down so your head won’t explode from frustration at the snow.

11. You’ll have something to talk about tomorrow on the bus with the person next to you, when the bus gets stuck in a snowdrift on a hill, and you’re there for 45 minutes until the road is cleared.

12. You can silence your conscience with a complex plot when you decide to take your own “snow day.”

13. It’s a BOOK. You need an excuse to read??

And there we have it. If you have your own, do them on your blog and then link at the hosting site.

(For some new Thursday Thirteen headers, try Jenn or Samulli.)

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This one’s a toughie. It’s one of my favourite books, even now when I’m no longer religious, and it’s one of the hardest to read at any time. It’s both an Earthquake book, for me, and incidentally one of my Books Without ISBN.

Many people will be familiar with C.S. Lewis, he who wrote both the Narnia books and many theology/philosophy books. But even people familiar with the theology books aren’t always aware of A Grief Observed, which he wrote while grieving the death of his wife, Joy.

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It’s kind of hard to contain this whole book in one blog post. The Ramayana (or the Ramayan as it’s also known) is one of India’s two greatest mythical epics, the other being the Mahabharata. These two ancient epics underlie India’s self-identity, for both Hindu and non-Hindu alike, in much the same way the Bible underlies North America’s.

I first encountered the Ramayana when I was a grad student in the PhD program at Syracuse university. In one semester, I was studying the three-volume translation pictured above, translated by N. Raghunathan, while being a TA for an undergraduate Hinduism class, in which the students were studying the shorter one-volume translation of A.K. Narayan. I didn’t have any other courses that semester, so you could say I was pretty much immersed in the story for four solid months.

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It’s Sunday! So what have my bookish friends been up to this past week?

Well, Nicola at Alpha Heroes has had it up to here with, as she puts it, “the profoundly horrible things that Our Hero has had to rise above to become The Man He Is Today.” She’d really like some suggestions for reading “some fluff that’s ACTUALLY fluffy.” So if you have any ideas, pop over and suggest a book.

Hopeinbrazil at Worthwhile Books discusses poetry and, to my excitement, recommends the Classic Poetry Aloud site, where a narrator reads, well, classic poetry. Out loud. She recommends the site for people who aren’t wild about poetry but might enjoy it more if they can hear it read aloud than if they see the stark words on the page. I love a lot of poetry, but am still pretty limited, so I’m going to take advantage of that site!

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This “Earthquake Book” didn’t change my world view or help me start eating fruit, or any sort of upheaval like that. But this trilogy about Robert the Bruce, the historic Scottish hero and king, turned me absolutely mad for Scotland and its history.

I had heard the name “Robert the Bruce” during my life, and had no idea who this person was or why he had such an odd (to me) name. So when I saw The Steps to the Empty Throne, by Nigel Tranter, along with the other two books in the trilogy (The Path of the Hero King and The Price of the King’s Peace), I absolutely had to buy them.

And I discovered that Robert Bruce of Scotland was the king who, after many battles, took Scotland out from under England’s thumb in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, re-establishing that country’s sovereignty and independence. I followed the intrigues and the battles with avid attention, absolutely devouring all three books. I found out about Bruce’s antagonist and occasional ally, the rebel William Wallace. I learned about the various clans in Scotland. And I also found out where the Stuart kings had come from (both of Scotland and England): Bruce’s son David died without an heir, so Bruce’s daughter Marjorie, who had married Walter Stewart (of the family of Stewards of the crown) became the heir.

I’d never known anything at all about Scottish history before this. But I was suddenly so enthralled that I bought book after book that Tranter had written. He had such a way of making these people real, of making them live. He portrayed their worries and struggles, he talked about the larger view and the national implications of the choices they made, and when he wrote about a battle, you could almost see the positions of the armies and the tactics they used in the fight. But what I loved most was how he described the clans and other families, what their motivations were, how stubborn they were, and how Robert Bruce found ways to drag them all together to support the cause of independence. And, of course — how he dealt with those in Scotland who continued to side with England, and fought against him.

I read nothing but Tranter’s books, for months. This was the time when I learned how to read while walking, so I could start reading as I left the house to head for the bus, could continue reading on the bus, and keep reading while walking from the bus stop to work. I was mesmerized.

I’ve loved the very idea of Scotland ever since. Which was why, despite my solid paternal Mennonite background going back seemingly to time’s beginning, I was thrilled to discover two different Scottish bloodlines on my maternal side. (I’m all over the Davidson clan, and some day want to have a skirt and sash made from the tartan.)

I see, looking at the Wikipedia site, that Tranter wrote way more books than I ever knew about. I guess I’ve got some hunting to do now, eh??

This blog format at this site says we can embed YouTube videos. Yet no matter which code I enter, in the “Visual” or “Code” screen, using the “YouTube” button or the “Media” button — nothing. So, since I’d rather not spend hours and hours trying to make work something that should work easily…

SO GO HERE AND WATCH THE DAMN VIDEO BEFORE READING THIS POST. Grrrrr. Thank you, blog program, for wrecking the mood.

Ahem. So where was I? I shall try to reproduce the post that this site also ate completely, while I was switching from the “Code” to the “Visual” window to see if my 400th attempt to insert a YouTube video worked or not. (And yes, I have done YouTube videos on other WordPress blogs, just fine. Some of the stuff normally found on WordPress blogs [I have several, elsewhere] doesn’t work very well at this site.) Grrrrrr again.

Basically, the essence of the eaten post was this. I discovered a newish thing today. It’s been going on for a little while, though I hadn’t encountered it before. Publishers are following the migration to the Internet, using it to publicize newly-published books, by creating trailers for the books. Dramatic trailers, like the ones done for movies.

I had all sorts of stuff to say about the blurring of lines between “real life” and the life we’re all increasingly living on the Internet and on our digital devices — but the mood really has been wrecked. So watch the video, and meditate and come up with something profound on your own. See you tomorrow.

(And I will never attempt to put a YouTube video into this particularly useless blog program again.) (Oh, and I also see that it’s now eaten my new “Innovations” category, which had already been created and saved before I ever started doing this post. Loathesome bastardized copy of the good WordPress blog program. Grrrrr.)

This is a rather sweet Book-without-ISBN, and another of my aunt’s original collection: The Way of Chinese Painting: Its Ideas and Technique, by Mai-mai Sze. Unfortunately it’s falling apart, a little bit, but it’s still a treasure.

I don’t paint (all my creativity gets expressed in words), but I get goosebumps just reading the Table of Contents. The first four chapters are entitled: I) The Concept of Tao; II) The First Canon; III) The Four Treasures: Brush, Ink, Inkstone, paper; IV) The Elements of a Picture.

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Barack Obama won’t be my President. But most of my friends are American, and I rejoice in their joy. And as a Canadian I join with them — as most of the rest of the world and all people of decency and hope and spiritual and intellectual vigour join with them — in honouring the Inauguration of Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America.

I didn’t quite believe you still had it in you, you guys — but you did. You do. There is still hope for the glory to return to America. It will be a hard fight, but now I think the will and the spirit may still be there. You can do it.

So. Some books — by, about, and for — Barack Obama.

His own books: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. And Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama’s Plan to Renew America’s Promise. And Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.

The New York Times describes how books gave Obama his voice.

Richard A Muller has written a book about science: Physics for Future Presidents.

Children across the United States have contributed letters and memos of advice for the new president, published in the book, Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: Kids’ Letters to President Obama.

There is also a new book of letters to Michelle Obama: Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women Write to the New First Lady.

And Barack Obama is going to be sworn in on the same Bible used by Abraham Lincoln at his own first Inauguration.

Have a great party everyone! And good fortune as you work to repair your country over the next four years. We’ll all work with you. Because in so many ways, Barack Obama is our President too.

YES WE CAN.

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Another “Earthquake Book,” in which I discovered that the more fairy tales and fantasy you learn (and practise!) as a child, the better grasp you have on reality as an adult. Who knew?

I’m not big on Freud. In fact, let’s say that it’s an extreme understatement to say, “I’m not big on Freud.” So I approached The Uses of Enchantment, by Bruno Bettelheim (who was a Freudian psychoanalyst who worked with children), with — shall we say — just a bit of caution and scepticism.

But! I found so much to value in this book. One of the most vital insights, for me, was that engaging in fantastic play, and identifying with the characters in fairy tales, gives a child a chance to express and work through his or her inner antagonisms and fears, without spilling over into the real world and doing some potential harm.

A child can feel pretty helpless against those giant people called her parents; when they want to exert their wills — taking her to get her shots or get her hair cut, making her put away her toys, insisting she eat her peas — there’s not much she can do to stop them. It would be easy for inner resentments to grow, even while she knows that she really shouldn’t have bad feelings about these people she essentially loves. So how can she resolve this inner contradiction?

Fight a giant! Or cheer Jack on when he climbs the beanstalk and steals the goose that lays the golden eggs. Or, if she has both the negative and positive feelings toward a parent, she can externalize both at once, as Grandma and the Wolf, and watch the hunter slay the Wolf while Grandma remains intact. She gets her triumph, works out the resentment, and her parents survive in real life. Win-win.

The child can go on adventures and overcome being the youngest, or the dumbest, or whatever place his siblings have assigned to him in the family hierarchy. He can safely take risks, learn courage, even beat up his brothers — all while continuing his real world non-threatened existence.

There’s a lot going on in fairy tales. Yet some adults frown on them. So Bettelheim addresses the question of why people would want to deny them to children:

Some people claim that fairy tales do not render ‘truthful’ pictures of life as it is, and are therefore unhealthy. That ‘truth’ in the life of a child might be different from that of adults does not occur to these people. They do not realize that fairy tales do not try to describe the external world and ‘reality.’ Nor do they recognize that no sane child ever believes that these tales describe the world realistically.

Yet the inner function of the fairy tales is precisely to help the child sort out reality from fantasy, and learn to act in the real world with clear eyes.

I was once invited to a class of kids to talk about dragon myths. I have rather a *koff* extensive collection of dragon figures, posters, key chains, etc, and I know a ton of myths about them. So I talked about some of the dragon stories, using my figures as illustrations.

As I was describing the Norse conception of the three-level world surrounding the World Tree, Yggdrassil, with the eagle in its top branches and Nidhogg the dragon gnawing its roots, with the squirrel Ratatosk running up and down the tree carrying insults between them — one young boy (he might have been ten) sternly told me that these stories were lies so there was no point in learning about them or being interested. He didn’t smile once through the whole class, and didn’t look like he was even capable of smiling.

I still wonder what became of him: whether he cracked, whether he loosened up, or whether he’s a joyless fanatic plotting somewhere to turn my country into a theocracy and close all the theatres and bookstores.

I had always loved stories and myths, even as a kid. But I loved them even more when I read Bettelheim’s book and discovered that not only are they wondrous and enchanting, but we need them in order to learn to function in the real world. How cool is that!

Good day, and happy Sunday to all! It’s time for my whirlwind tour of my Blogroll, to see what some of the bookish people on the Net are doing, are interested in, have discovered, and so on.

I planned to go in reverse alphabetical order for a change, but I’m afraid I still must give pride of place to Alpha Heroes this week. The reason is her post from last Tuesday: What Would You Do…for the love of books? She talks about a forum we both inhabit (though I don’t get there nearly as much as I want to, which I must remedy) — Salon’s Table Talk — and some of the book discussions there. Aside from demonstrating what a fun place the TT forum is, that post shows the lengths to which bookish people will go for their books. As Nicola says, “These are my people, my kindred spirits.”

Amen.

Interestingly, Hopeinbrazil from Worthwhile Books addresses a similar sort of bookish mindset and world view in her Thursday post on Book Bindings. I find myself looking at certain books on my own shelves too, more for their bindings and beautiful presentation than for their actual content. I go so far as to have “show” copies of my favorite books in addition to the set for actual reading. For example, the copy of “Game of Kings” that I photographed for this post is from my perfectly matched set of Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles, which sits on my shelf and doesn’t get touched. For my actual reading of that series, I have a set of (equally matched) books with different covers, largely yellow (very ugly in my opinion), some of which were bought used from bookstores, and all of which are a little ragged.

At The Printed Page, I see a phenomenon I really enjoy, that I’ve only seen a couple of other times in my still-rather-limited circle. On Friday, there was a guest post by author Holly Shaumas, promoting her new book, Love and Other Natural Disasters. I’ve seen guest posts before, but Holly was doing an actual “tour,” posting on a list of other bookish blogs. What a cool idea! And then today, The Printed Page has announced the Noontime Book Chart (featuring the book, The Ride, by Jane Kennedy Sutton), which will be hosted at J. Kaye’s Book Blog on Monday and Wednesday, and will be at The Printed Page on Tuesday and Thursday. So a lot of sharing events is going on.

One of the blogs on Holly Shaumas’s blog tour is also Bookopolis, where Sheri S. recently reviewed The Year of Living Biblically, by A.J. Jacobs. I loved his book about reading the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica in one year (you know…back when it actually came out in physical form!), so Sheri has only whetted my appetite for his latest.

Melanie at The Indextrious Reader has realized that since 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, the Science Book Challenge she’s taken up is going to fit very nicely into that.

Lisa at Minds Alive on the Shelves has listed the books that came in just during the last two weeks while she was on a business trip. I’m envious!

Joanne at The Book Zombie makes me want to read Fruit, by Brian Francis. Who wouldn’t want to read it after a summation like this: “By the end of the book, I was a total fangirl of Peter Paddington. Regardless of whether or not he loses weight, gets his nipples under control or achieves social stardom – I’m positive he will be a success.”

And now — last but not least? deserving at least a drumroll — someone I’ve added to my Blogroll: Flitting on Fiction. I’ve been following Flit for a while, but after seeing the most recent posts on censorship and what high school students should be allowed to read (would you believe someone’s trying to ban The Handmaid’s Tale again??), I really wanted to add this blog. So check out Flit’s blog, and join the discussion.