July 29th, 2010
Imagine a place
Yesterday Harriet crawled around the library lusting after other children’s nannies, and so I sat idly by the picture book shelf to see what I could see. My favourite discovery was Imagine a Place by Sarah L. Thomson, but in particular, the images by Rob Gonsalves. Amazing, mesmerizing pictures that become more magical the longer you look.
April 4th, 2010
A Moral Dilemma
This morning whilst out on a quest for hot-cross buns, my husband brought me home a moral dilemma. He’d found Don’t Tell the Grown-Ups: Subversive Children’s Literature by Alison Lurie in a box on the sidewalk, and he thought (quite correctly) that I’d like it. The only trouble was that it’s a Toronto Public Library book and it hasn’t even been discharged.
So, what to do? The book is stolen property, but I feel removed enough from the scene of the crime that I could let myself get away from profiting from it. But what kind of scoundrel allows a theft from the public library to go unrighted? Though would returning it cause undue paperwork for overworked librarians? I’ve looked this book up in the system, and there are eleven other copies– which don’t seem to include this one. Perhaps they’ve accepted that it’s gone for good, and so who am I to challenge that? If I decided to take it back anyway, where exactly would I take it? This book is from the Toronto Library’s “Travelling Branch”, which (I think) means I’d have to go chasing after the bookmobile…
March 30th, 2010
On community
I joined Twitter about a month ago, and I’m still not quite sold. First, twitter vocabulary makes me cringe. It also gives me a window into a whole host of things going on that I’m not a part of, so I feel left out, and I probably liked it better when I didn’t know what I was missing. That said, it is the best way to get links to great content, and I really appreciate that. Some people manage to be consistantly hilarious in 140 characters. Interesting to note that my favourite people to follow tend to have columns in major newspapers– either they’re terribly good with words, or they have more free time than the rest of us.
The point of Twitter is community, though Twitter is not so much where the action takes place, but it can point you in the direction of the places where things are happening. And because there are a lot of these places, Twitter becomes very useful.
Julie Wilson’s Book Madam and Associates is in full swing: “a collective of publishing and media professionals who love bright ideas and have been known to have a few of their own.” She’s just announced her crew of associates, and the group of them managed to pack an Irish pub last Thursday night. The Book Madam has also just announced her online Book Club’s first pick: Amphibian by Carla Gunn. It’s like Oprah, but with less conflict with Frey and Franzen.
The Keepin’ it Real Book Club has yet to come down from their Canada Reads: Civilians Read high. (And okay, I’ve just read their latest post in which I was referred to nicely. Which I didn’t plan, but I still like it. Community sure has its good points). Newest side project is “Books in 140 Seconds”, which is a whole Book Club meeting in 140 seconds. They read Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld to start things off: check out the first video here. (Aside: I hated Prep, in case you’re wondering, and didn’t come to love Sittenfeld until American Wife.)
The KIRBC has also got behind the Toronto Public Library’s amazing Keep Toronto Reading campaign. 99 reading journals are currently floating around the city, they have a Books We Love promotion with readers doing video pitches, and many other events, online and otherwise.
March 4th, 2010
Why I love the Toronto Public Library/ How the internet gets books read
I am an avid buyer, mostly because I can’t quit, but also because any person who loves books really should be. If I bought every book I wanted, however, I’d have to move to a warehouse and I’d be totally broke, so I am pleased to have the best public library system in the world at my disposal so I can eat its book-buying dust. In a good way.
Waiting for me at the library today was The Sixties by Jenny Diski (of the LRB blog, and many elsewheres), When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (which I read about on the The Guardian Books Blog), and Picking Bones from Ash by Marie Matsuki Mockett (because Maud Newton said so).
February 8th, 2010
Furnishing a room
Our house is currently in a state of upheaval as we begin the process of moving the baby into her own room. We’ve got a faint hope that it might help her sleep better, and after eight months of enjoying having her close, we want our room back. And no doubt she’ll be joining us there most nights anyway (and yay for reluctant co-sleeping, which is much better than being awake).
Baby will be moving into the spare-room/ office/ library, however, so the books have had to migrate living-room-ward. Which at first I was sad about, that the books would be losing a room of their own, but now having them out in the world again, I realize that I’ve missed them. How little I visited our library, unless I had a reason to, and how nice the spines are just to stare at, and the journeys they could take me on from my seat here in the gliding chair.
And I realize that books have been missing from this room all along. It’s so nice to be back among them. The aesthetic effect of their various colours and heights. How the walls were empty before, and the floor just too wide, and how the built-in shelf beside the fireplace was wasted before now. It’s true, they do– they furnish a room! And joyfully, because televisions don’t, we’re getting rid of ours, so just excuse the focal point in the photo in the meantime.
January 13th, 2010
The library is doing nothing
The library is doing nothing to relieve me of my obsessive compulsive bookbuying ways. Instead, the library is widening my exposure to books I will DIE if I do not own. Lately, in this way, the following books have made their way into my library and into Harriet’s: Kiss the Joy as It Flies by Sheree Fitch (about which more is to come), 365 Activities You and Your Baby Will Love,
Baby Sign Language Basics, Ten Little Fingers Ten Little Toes by our beloved Mem Fox, Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers, and How Happy to Be by Katrina Onstad. And now I also really think I need a copy of The Sleeping Life by Kerry Ryan. I’m not going to mention the two novels I picked up at the used bookstore this morning (Small Ceremonies and Muriella Pent, borrowed from libraries year ago; how did I live this long without them?) because I don’t want my husband to find out about them. (If he happened to, however, read this far in this entry, he’d be relieved to know at least that I’ve read both of them already so the to-be-read shelf has not grown at all.)
Anyway, that is it. I am cut off. No book buying until March.
January 8th, 2010
A bit overwhelming
“Maybe–”, I said to my husband last evening. And then I couldn’t go on, because to do so would be to put a name to the problem that mustn’t be named (or at least not by me. Husband names it frequently, which is the problem). But I can’t hold it in anymore: “Maybe there are too many books in my life at the moment.” Because it’s gotten a bit overwhelming. Would be less so if I could stop requesting books from the library all the time, and if the Toronto Public Library holdings didn’t contain every one of my heart’s desires. (I am now hold 34 of 161 for Patrick Swayze’s autobiography. Yes, I too am not sure if this is really necessary).
I am currently reading Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women by Harriet Reisen. I’ve also been reading the poetry collection The Sleeping Life by Kerry Ryan, which is pretty wintry so far, so it feels like the right book for now, though my life hasn’t been very sleeping for a long time. Progress is slow on the Alcott book, which is no matter on one hand because the book is very good, but then I’ve got such a backlog of books waiting. Like the Canada Reads: Independently books, which I’m going to start shortly. Beginning with Ray Smith’s Century, I think, because that is the one I’m most scared of.
And to make up for the dullness of this post, I give you a glimpse of me and technology circa 1987.
December 10th, 2009
Pathos and other things
If I look tired here, it’s because I am! It’s been a hard, hard, hard few weeks. I think I’m blaming it on teeth, as there are two teeth apparent but remarkably sloooow at coming in (it’s been two weeks now, and they’re just creeping past the gums). There’s been a lot of screaming all the livelong day, and a lot of not sleeping all the deadlong night, and now I’ve just learned the joy of pushing a stroller along snowy sidewalks that people don’t shovel. Today I was a lesson in pathos as I shoved my stroller up over snowy curbs, the rain cover ripped and flew up in my face, my boots were leaking, buttons dripping off my coat, and I got splashed by a taxi-cab. The whole thing was very sad. And I won’t even get started on the middle of last night, when the baby would only stop crying when she was throwing up in my bed.
Motherhood is not always as romantic as I dreamed it would be.
There are good things: wonderful books to read, of course. I’ve been doing ongoing Christmas baking. I’m knitting Harriet a Christmas stocking. I finally completed a short story for the first time since Harriet’s birth. My short story contest win. Friends to spend afternoons with. Yesterday’s visit to the Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books. That Harriet’s intensive lessons in waving hello and goodbye are starting to pay off. Advent calendar fun at every turn.
Speaking of, I’m loving The Advent Books Blog. I love reading the recommendations for books I have no intention of reading even, I love that different kinds of books that readers are so passionate about, and I like the linky places the recommenders’ biographies are taking me.
I love this post about Christmas shopping at the library. DoveGreyReader on readers vs. critics. Maureen Corrigan on passionate books for the holidays. Rebecca (delightfully) on names and naming. And I found this old interview with Allan Ahlberg, which was interesting. (Peepo is a favourite around our house.)
Now must go eat… something. And begin reading An Education by Lynn Barber.
UPDATE: For those who care, the second tooth is finally in, and we’ve got a bit of peace around here. Hurrah! I’ve also found a cheap second-hand jogging stroller online that will make my pedestrian life a little less pathetic this winter.
November 26th, 2009
Remarkable
That my library owns a DVD copy of the movie It’s Pat is quite remarkable, but what’s even more so is that sometimes the movie is signed out.
November 25th, 2009
Leave me alone, I’m reading
I spent the weekend enjoying Maureen Corrigan’s book Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading. (My copy is an ARC I picked up at the Vic Book Sale, and may I say it makes me happy to know that an ARC can have its life extended?) Other than the fact that I’m into reading books about reading books (lately, Howards End is on the Landing and Shelf Discovery), before I picked it up, this book didn’t hold a ton of appeal to me. I’ve never listened to Corrigan’s reviews on Fresh Air, and her focus on detective fiction and Catholic martyr stories didn’t exactly turn me on, but she’s a wonderful writer and the whole book was engaging. Also, I realized I recognized the “Catholic martyr story” Karen and With Love From Karen by Marie Killilea, which I don’t think I ever read, but I remember from the paperback rack of every school library I ever browsed through.
Like most books about a reader’s relationship with books, the shape of the narrative was bizarrely (but pleasingly, I thought) random. Corrigan weaves the books of her life into the story of her life– how women’s “extreme-adventure” tales led her to her adopted daughter from China, how detective fiction helped her find her way out of the mire of academia, how she remembers her father through the WW2 history books he used to read. Also, how Maureen Corrigan finally found love, her quest for “work” in the novel, how a woman who reads for a living could be two generations away from a grandmother who never learned literacy. She also mentions Barbara Pym (whose books are proving hard to find used, by the way. Seems those that like her books also like to keep them).
As I read Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading, I had to keep going online to put books on reserve at the library– in particular, and in transit to me as I write this (!), I am excited to read Gaudy Nights by Dorothy L. Sayers (which features a literary Harriet) and Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott. And Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym. After discovering Corrigan’s reviews online, I’m also looking forward to reading The Man in the Wooden Hat.
I just finished reading Lost Girls and Love Hotels by Catherine Hanrahan, which was too gritty for my English old-lady tastes (though I am Canadian and thirty. I am just not cool). From that experience, I realized that I get incredibly irritated reading about people spiralling toward rock bottom, and that is just my sensibility. The ending of the book, however, made it for me. Shocking, gross, and brilliant.
Now I am reading Cleopatra’s Sister, which is a novel by Penelope Lively, which means that I’m enraptured. (The book has a whiff of Moon Tiger about it, which has been my favourite Lively novel yet.)
