More Oddities

We're kind of getting toward the bottom of the books, though far from finished (and this, of course, does not count the books in the other part of the house).  But more oddities keep turning up.  Like where did this come from....

 

It was printed in 1915 and contains not only the translations, but also pictures of allthe U.S. presidents (ending with Wilson), a "how to" section of what to do if you want to become a citizen, and a sample citizenship test.  I don't have the slightest idea where this came from.  We never had a foreign student from this part of the world and neither of us have Danish or Norwegian ancestors, nor have we ever even thought about learning the language(s). 

And then there was this book...

 

Yes, I worked as a typist for an ob/gyn office for 12 years, and I certainly would remember acquiring this book, but I don't.  And don't know what I'd do with it if I did.

Today's last oddity is this

 

I'm not even quite sure that I know where Tunisia IS, much less wondered about living there! Where DID all of these books come from?

In a way I will be sorry when we have finally sorted through and given away so many books.  It is, I have to admit, a voyage of discovery every time Ned sets up stacks of books for me to sort through.  Of courses the next problem will be--where will we put all the books we decided we want to keep, since all of the bookcases in the other rooms are full.  I hadn't thought of THAT problem yet.

We went to see Shrek--the Musical tonight and it was a fun show.  Jeri and I always send each other pictures of the programs for whatever show we were seeing each night.  By coincidence, tonight she was seeing Fun Home with music by Jeanine Tesori, who also wrote the music to Shrek.

After several "dry" weeks, it appears we are headed into a busy season.  We have one more show to see this week, then three next week, and Oklahoma! the following week.  There's also a memorial service, a graduation party, and a dental appointment in there too.  So I guess I won't be bored for awhile.

Fear of Buying

I didn't go quietly into the supermarket yesterday, apparently.  I had not one but two people stop me to talk about my socks.

I told one guy that I wore them so I could be found in the dark.

I hadn't been to Nugget Market in awhile and it's always a wonderful revelation of the cornucopia of delights from which to choose.  They recently reorganized the place, and I'm still learning where to find things I used to be able to find easily.  But in the search, I've discovered wonderful new things, like green pea snack crisps, flavored dried peas which are nice and crunchy and better than empty calorie crackers.  There are also always new things to discover in the international aisles, with more and more Middle Eastern offerings.  It's difficult to get out of the place with under $200 worth of purchases.  I even bought some Ben and Jerry's Urban Bourbon ice cream, which I'd heard of but not found before (it's rather tasty).

Before going to the store, Ned set us up for more book sorting.  More hard backs.

This was a more difficult set of books to toss.  These were a lot of books that I have read and reluctantly put in the "give away" pile.

But then I come across books that I had forgotten I meant to read, like one by my hero, Erma Bombeck, "Aunt Erma's Cope Book," one of her earlier books.  Erma Bombeck is the whole reason why "Funny the World" came to be.  At one point there was discussion about having a journal-type column in the paper and I decided to see if it would be possible for me to write a newspaper length column daily (which, at that time, Bombeck was doing).  Nearly twenty years later I think I've proven that  I can, but almost never have I written anything that satisfies me as much as any entry written by Bombeck.  (There is such a column now but it's weekly and it's much better than I could have written.)

I know that I need to put this Bombeck book in the "give away" box but I have to read it first, so I spent yesterday reading it.  It's about all the self-help books that have been written for every possible condition.  (The title of this entry was one I loved from her book, the funny take on "Fear of Flying" about situations happening in a supermarket.)  It's a relatively short book and I should finish it today and will then feel comfortable putting it in the "give away" box.

In the middle of all of the sorting and giving away books, I bought a new one.  Do you guys have the "Nextdoor" feature where you live?  I've seen people on Facebook talking about it in other cities.  It's a private social group for people in particular areas of towns.  I don't know how many groups there are in Davis, but our group has been quite active, asking for suggestions, giving warnings, and just notifying others of things this area should learn.

A newcomer to Davis, and to our area of Nextdoor, wrote asking for suggestions of books about California that would help her learn more about where she is now living.  There were lots of suggestions, but one guy recommended a book called "Cool Gray City of Love" by Gary Kamiya, which he says is the best coverage he's seen about San Francisco.  I'm always interested in books about San Francisco and had to order it.  

So I'm reading the Bombeck book and the San Francisco book simultaneously and both are excellent.  I'm particularly loving the San Francisco book, and in the first chapter learned a whole lot about the Farallon islands, which I have seen 30 miles off the shore of the city but really knew nothing about.  For example there are more than 300,000 birds of 13 species found there as well as five species of seals and sea lions, including  the huge elephant seal.  Humpback, gray and blue whales regularly feed there and in the fall 30-100 great white sharks come to feed.  I could go on and on, but I expect to find all sorts of new things about "my" city and look forward to reading more.

See how we came to have so many books?

That's HOT

I'm trying to clear out the freezer and use up things that have been in there for months (some for years).  Now that I have ordered freezer labels, I think things will go more smoothly and I won't run the danger of pouring pumpkin pie mix into my spaghetti sauce again.

Tonight I defrosted a rather large container of "something."  I could see it had beans in it and it smelled chili-ish, so  was fairly certain this was a legitimate dinner.  And it was.  It was a chili I made awhile ago and as I stirred it on the stove and took a small spoonful I remembered this recipe.  This had more heat than most chilis I make.  I don't know why I followed a recipe.  I never follow a recipe for chili, but I must have been inspired by a food network program or something.

In any event, as I tasted it, I remembered that when I first made it, this had been almost too spicy to eat.  And still is.

You know, of course, that when you have something super spicy, water does nothing to ease your mouth, but milk does.  I found something even better.  I also had half a package of tater tots and some fresh cherry tomatoes so served those with the chili, and taking one or the other or both after each mouthful of the chili made it palatable.  However, I told Walt (who cleans the kitchen each night) that unless he liked the recipe, he had my permission to throw the rest of it away, even though there was enough for another meal.

I was reading Malala Yousafzai's book about displaced families and the terrible conditions under which they live and what they go through to try to find peace in the United States, and telling Walt to throw away perfectly good food when there are so many starving around the world gave me a twinge of guilt.  But since I couldn't mail the food to them, I assuaged my guilt.

I have never been an adventurous eater.  In a fast food place, I order my cheeseburger plain (no sauce), buy mild cheeses, etc. The most adventurous I ever got was having escargot with Gilbert on his birthday in a French restaurant in San Francisco.  

But with all the food network programs I've been watching, I've decided to start trying to eat a little bit more spicy foods.  Everybody is always tossing in red pepper flakes to "turn it up a notch" and I'm starting to do that...just a tiny notch.  I am now actually adding the sriracha they send with our Home Chef meals (still only half of what is supplied) and am slowly helping my taste buds adjust to a slightly more spicy diet

Of course the fact that your taste buds change as you get older helps.

My favorite candy bars for forEVer have been either Snickers or U-No bars.  Now I find them both too sweet for me.  I used to love a nice rare steak or a big slab of prime rib.  Now I look at them pictured on menus and know I can't eat a fourth of what the pictures show.  I am no longer tempted by restaurant commercials which show delicious multi courses of delicious foods.  I know I couldn't eat a quarter of the foods shown.

Even my favorite crab salad sandwich at Fenton's is too big and I usually take half of it home either for Walt or for my next meal.

I now understand my (paternal) grandmother who, toward the end of her life, said rather plaintively "when I can eat again, I just want a big slice of prime rib."  I don't think she ever got it.

I guess this is why, though I think I eat way too much, my weight has not changed in about 5 years or more.

---

I am remembering the pledge I made a couple of years ago, to set aside time for reading, since I hadn't been reading as many books as I wanted.

While I would like to read something like 75 books a year, it seemed that my average was about 50.  But this year, as of the first of May, I had read only FIVE.  So I've been spending time reading for the last two weeks and am enjoying it.

It helps when I continue to read books as bad as "A Diary on my Screwing Up my Year Abroad."  All I wanted to do at the end of that book was to read a better book.

I chose a book that I described in my review as a "palate cleanser."  It was "The Tour: A Feel-Good Irish Springtime Read," which was a low key, easy read story of a group of people taking a bus tour around Ireland.  They were predictable character types and the life each one of them (including the bus driver, who had his own drama) was changed during their one week tour.  

Lots of suspension of disbelief that they all had such major life changes. 

But it was an easy read that took slightly over a day to read.

When that was finished, I was ready for something a bit more meaningful and chose the Malala Yousafzai book I mentioned before, which tells the stories of several women who were forced by violence or other circumstances to leave their homes and relocate elsewhere.

It's too bad our glorious leader doesn't read or his heart might be moved by the stories of what caused these women to leave their countries and why they endured such hardships to get to where they hoped they would find peace and safety in this country.  Of course, he doesn't have a drop of empathy in him, so I doubt he'd be moved anyway, even if he did care about the conditions of refugee women and children.

Next I'm moving on to re-reading "The Hobbit," which I first read in 1969 (I know because Paul was the baby at the time).  Bri tells me that's our next book club discussion and I have from now until July to finish it.

Thursday Thirteen

I watched The Great American Read last night, a PBS show hosted by Meredith Vierra designed to get Americans to read more.  The two-hour show went through 100 books that had been collected by various suggestions from the public as the most favorite book of all.  The show presented each of the 100 books, had some interviews with authors and I guess between now and the fall, people can go to the web site and vote for their favorite(s) and votes will be tallied and determine which is the favorite book of all.  You can vote once a day and can vote for more than one book at a time.

I have read over half of the books on the list and thought I would pick thirteen to talk about here.  These aren't necessarily my favorite books but books that have made an impact on me for one reason or another.

1.  I'm certain that when all the votes are tallied To Kill a Mockingbird will end up being #1.  It is on everyone's list and who doesn't love this book?  I'm glad that I never saw Harper Lee's first book, which was kind of a prequel to Mockingbird and which was not published until after her death.  Apparently people encouraged her to publish the other book first and it was the only book published in her lifetime.  Apparently in the prequel Atticus Finch wasn't such a good, noble guy and I would hate to think of anything other than a Gregory Peck-ish Atticus Finch.

2.  The list combines series books into one book, so choosing Outlander is actually choosing all 8 of Diana Gabaldon's books.  It may not be my favorite book but is close to the top.  I am not as slavishly dedicated to the series as many, many others are, but I do love it, especially the audio books, because of the wonderful narration by Davina Porter.

3.  Catch-22 might not be on my all time favorite book list, but we all read Joseph Heller's farcical novel in college and bits and pieces of it stick with us today.  And who can hate a book with a character named Major Major Major Major?

4.  Where the Red Fern Grows is a multi-tissue book that I loved and gave to Brianna for Christmas.  I don't know if she has read it, or will read it, but I wanted to share that book with her.  It is one of my favorite dog books.

5.  I wonder if I would love Jane Eyre as much now as I did as an adolescent.  I read it several times, along with Wuthering Heights, so the Bronte sisters were some of my favorites.  The language might make it a slog to get through now.

6.  Of course Gone with the Wind has to be on my list.  I tried reading it twice and gave up and when I finally gave it the ol' college try on the third reading, I got immersed in it and read it one or two times after that.  It's one book that I don't think the movie spoiled for me.

7.  I stopped reading the latest books in the Clan of the Cave Bear series, but at the time when I was reading Jean Auel's epic quasi historical novel, I was really taken with it.  The heroine is Ayla, a young Cro-Magnin girl who grows to adulthood during the course of the books.  You have to hand it to Ayla because according to Auel she is responsible for everything good in life--the wheel, spoken language, domesticating animals, cooking food, and even discovering orgasm.  A prehistoric Superwoman.  (It all got too fantastical for me and I stopped reading)

8.  I did go through a lot of b-i-g books at a certain point in my life and Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet was one of them.  I had read many of Follet's thriller-type books and this, which tells the story of the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Knightsbridge (I think it was based on the cathedral in Salisbury). It covers the years from 1123 to 1174.  I was very glad I had read that book when we were at Salisbury Cathedral many years ago and perhaps had a greater appreciation for the work that went into the building of it (though I have not read the two subsequent books which take the cathedral through to its completion.

9. I was pleased to see Armistad Maupin's Tales of the City on the list.  I first read the book, as everyone did, in serial form in the San Francisco Chronicle.  The first three (I think) were serials and eventually they all made it to book form.  I loved those books, which were set half a block from where I grew up.

10.  Chronicles of Narnia is on the list.  While  these books aren't favorites, they have made a big impact on me because of Brianna's book club where she leads a discussion among several adults, which is one of the "funn-est" things that has happened in the last couple of years.

11.  I'd put Grapes of Wrath on my list, though I really like Steinbeck's East of Eden better.  I went through a huge Steinbeck period, where I read almost all of his books, back to back.  I found that my writing improved whenever I was reading Steinbeck.

12.  I will guiltily admit to reading Book 1 of both the Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey sagas.  Both were a waste of time and I hated the heroines of both books, though curiosity about what was going to happen kept me reading.  However, finishing Book 1 I had absolutely NO desire to continue the Grey series.

13.  From time to time I think about George Orwell's 1984 and wonder which of my favorite books I would choose to memorize and pass along to a younger person, if all the books were to be destroyed.  Of course it's all moot at this point anyway because I couldn't remember diddily squat now.

The list does not include Herman Wouk's Marjorie Morningstar, which was one of my adolescent favorites which I read at least once a year for several years.  The movie totally destroyed it for me, it ruined it so badly.  Likewise Pat Conroy's Prince of Tides, which was one of the best written books I'd read in a long time, didn't make the list.  It too was destroyed by the movie (I have a hard time forgiving Barbra Streisand for what she did to it!)

I will be continuing to cast my vote(s) over the coming weeks and will be curious to see if my prediction about To Kill a Mockingbird ends up being true

Curl Up with a Good Book

It was the middle of the afternoon and I had a choice of going to Atria, or just getting in a comfy chair and reading.  I chose reading.  In many question memes that I have answered over the years, I might be asked something like "how often do you read?"  I always answer that there isn't a day when I'm not reading.

But not lately.

The last book I finished was a month ago and I have read almost nothing since then.  No real reason, but it just somehow seems like too self-indulgent to just sit. and read.

Of course it's not self indulgent to sit and watch an NCIS rerun that I've seen a dozen times before.

I've decided that I miss reading and I need to set aside a period of time each day to read.  Somehow this move to memory care makes me feel comfortable taking a day or two off and indulging myself by curling up with a good book.

It's not that what I'm reading right now is gripping.  I saw actor Jeffrey Tambor plugging his new autobiography and checked it out on Amazon awhile ago.  (The book is so new he talks about the Trump presidency in it.)  I did one of those "Look Inside" clips that Amazon offers and read that he was born in San Francisco.  When he said that he grew up on "31st Avenue, which was thirty-one blocks and change from the Pacific Ocean" (which is not true), I decided I wanted to read the whole book.  (In fact, I tweeted Tambor about his error.  He "liked" my tweet, but did not comment)

[There are 42 Avenues to the ocean, which means that 31st avenue is more like 11 blocks, not 31 blocks.]

Anyway, I started reading his book and am enjoying it.  As I said, it's not riveting.  I am not rushing to find out what happens next, but it's a fun book and unlike a lot of autobiographies in that it doesn't fire a straight line from birth to today but bounces around like the whole thing is free association. Also, he is quite erudite and his language draws me in.  I have always been attracted by good writing, and this is good writing.

But my reading was augmented by the fact that I was sitting in front of the (turned off) TV and had my remote controls in hand.  When he started talking about how he got cast for Arrested Development, he was talking about a very popular show, but one I had never seen.  I checked Netflix and discovered that Season 1 is available on Netflix, so I took a break from the book to watch the first few episodes of the show, so I knew more about what he was talking about.

So I spent about 2 hours with Tambor's book and decided that I need to do more of that sort of things.  I hope to set aside an hour (minimum) a day to just read.  I have read only nine books since the first of the year, and that must be a record low for me.  Of course, much of my time, if only mental time, has been centered on getting my mother settled in memory care, but she's settled now and it's time to schedule reading again.  I should do that in the morning, when I know my mother is still asleep and I don't feel the need to rush off to Atria.

(The thing about having a Kindle is that I'm in the middle of about four books now and it would be nice to finish them all!)

The other thing I did yesterday is to check the Compassion bloggers.  A group of six sponsors are on a trip to Kenya to check out Compassion centers and visit their sponsored child(ren).  

 

I periodically get invitations to join one of these groups to visit one of my kids somewhere in the world.  It would be nice to be able to travel to one of these poverty areas and see first hand what life is like and why I continue to sponsor kids.  Especially Kenya, where I sponsor ten kids (technically, I only "sponsor" two of those, but I write to ten, so I think of them all as my sponsored kids).

Photos like this make me wish I could join them

But there are several things which keep me from wanting to go with one of these groups.  A photo like this, taken of the group walking into the 2nd largest slum in the area around Nairobi (over 600,000 people), where they began is one reason.

I have read blog entries from bloggers who have made other trips like this and report walking a mile or two to get to the homes they are visiting, and since I have difficulty staggering from my desk to the refrigerator, I know that I would not be physically able to keep up.

There are other reasons, but that and the cost are the biggies.  But I do like to get a sense of what it is like and the plethora of photos shared on the Compassion page allows me to be there in spirit. 

One blogger wrote, In a political climate where we hear so much about who gets in and who needs to leave and where we draw the line and where we build walls, it’s easy to lose sight of such a simple truth: we belong to each other. And today, as we left the church where we had been welcomed and loved so lavishly and unconditionally, we felt such a sense of belonging with the Maasai.

The stories these bloggers tell make me understand the difference Compassion makes in the lives of so many children and keeps me going as a sponsor.

Squirrel !!!

Remember the dog in the animated movie Up?  That's how I'm feeling these days.

Every time he started to do something, he got distracted by a passing squirrel.

My squirrels are books.  Today I was sorting through a box of the 'better' books, those that I really want to read but, for some reason or other, know I will never get around to (length, size of print, etc).  I have most of Michael Crichton's, one of which is a hardback still wrapped in cellophane.  But I doubt I will ever read it.  I have most of Robin Cook's too.  There was a time when I devoured his books, and I suspect this was purchased during that time. (I'm also discovering that as I come across clumps of books, I can remember where I was in my mind/interests at the time I bought them.)  Robin Cook is a good writer and writes riveting stories, but when you have read enough you realize the plot is pretty much the same -- different locale, different biological threat to the world, different heroine in trouble, but who will save the day -- and you just get to the point where you don't care any more.

I also have several Frederick Forsyth, which I'm pretty sure I won't read because of length, though I have loved his books.  So into the Logos box they went.  (I should say that length is really not a deterrent.  I have read many >500 page books on my Kindle, but a >500 page book is just too big to lug around everywhere.)  But one of the Forsyth books was a little ( less than 200 pages) book called "Phantom of Manhattan," inspired by Gaston Leroux's "Phantom of the Opera."

Andrew Lloyd Webber had reviewed it: Frederick Forsyth not only captures the spirit and style of Gaston Leroux's original novel, but also the romance and thrills that have made the Phantom such an alluring character.

I sat down "just for a minute" to look through it and immediately got hooked, just on the preface, where he tells how "Phantom" came to be such a phenomenon.  It was written around the same time as "Dracula" and "Frankenstein," and achieved some small attention, but then lapsed into obscurity.  Had it not been for a meeting by Leroux with Carl Laemmle, President of Universal Studios we might never have sung those wonderful Lloyd-Webber songs.

Leroux gave Laemmle a copy of his book, when he learned that the American was enthralled with the Paris Opera House.  Laemmle, the story goes, read the book in one night.  He was, at that time, preparing for the silent movie about Victor Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" for Universal's then-new star Lon Chaney.  Laemmle wanted another vehicle for Chaney, before he could be gobbled up by a rival studio and figured that Leroux's story would be just the thing.  The fear part of it was a great selling point, especially for women, who liked to be scared, and they gave away free smelling salts in the lobby before the film!

It made "Phantom of the Opera" a classic, and Chaney a star.  It was re-made several times for movies and television, but it didn't achieve the status it has now achieved until a young camp director produced it for London's West end and it was seen by Andrew Lloyd Webber.  He was in the middle of writing Aspects of Love at the time, but the story stayed with him and when he had the time...well...you know the rest.

The Forsyth book takes the idea of Leroux's story and sets it in 1906, 20 years after the events in Paris, in an era where few would have known about the disaster there...and takes it from there (I haven't actually started the story yet)

I read all of this when I should have been sorting through more books, but this was my squirrel, and as I type this, the book is sitting on my desk and I know I will do more reading than sorting today.  Since it is so short, I will almost certainly finish it (then I can put it in the "Logos" box!) before returning to book-sorting.

---

I went to Atria today to deliver meds and pick up laundry.  Fortunately she was in her apartment so the visit was easier because we could talk many times about how much she loved the flowers around here.  I started telling her that Ned was painting my office lavender.

You'd think that would be easy.  You'd be wrong.  

- Ned is home painting my office.  We're painting it lavender.
- What about lavender?
- That's the color of the paint.
- Paint for what?
- My office.  Ned is painting it.
- Ned?  Where in your house are you painting?
- My office.
- I've never seen your office.  What are you doing to it?
- We're painting it.

etc.

And that's just the FIRST time we talked about it.  Know how many times you can repeat this conversation in an hour?

We also had an argument, of sorts about her mail.  She has a stack of opened envelopes that she says she needs to throw away.  It's been there for awhile.  I told her I'd go through it to see if anything needed to be attended to.  In the tall stack there were ads for X-Finity, ads from AAA asking her to return (for the car she no longer has), empty envelopes, etc.  I got them all sorted and the 3 envelopes she needed to keep set aside and she was adamant that I throw NOTHING away because she had to go through it all herself and decide what she needed to keep.  Then she set it all back where it is, waved her hand over it and said "I have to get rid of all this crap."

Sigh.

I'd write more but... squirrel !!!

Blossoms and Books

I took my mother on a "blossom drive" on Thursday.  I was going to have lunch with her but found her in the alcove across from the dining room eating 3 cookies, which she told me was her "lunch."  This is not the first time she's done that.  I suspect this may be her new normal.  Sitting with her back to the dining room, having cookies and no real lunch.

Anyway, I told her that since she wasn't going to eat, I'd like to take her for drive around Davis to see all the spring growth, since she loves nature so much.  I promised her she wouldn't have to get out of the car and I'd bring her back home again.  I was going to have her sit on the bench right outside the building so she wouldn't have to walk to the car and I'd drive up and pick her up, but I think the idea of sitting alone for 5 minutes was too scary and overcame her back pain, so she walked with me.

We drove all over Davis and she did like the blossoms, though I think she liked the green leaves more.  And what seemed to impress her most were cars.  I can't tell you how many times she said "you never see old cars here." or "cars, cars, cars...so many cars.  You never see old cars here.  They all look new."

I tried to pass by places I knew had beautiful gardens, but flowers didn't seem to interest her at all.  I just never know what is going to interest her any more, but whether she enjoyed the copious blossoms or the cars the best, I do think she enjoyed herself.  For once, she was not nervous, worried that she couldn't find her apartment when we got returned to Atria and I let her out at the door.

But she was sad to discover I would be out of town overnight and said that she'd try to find some reason to keep me in town.  I'm going to be gone less than 12 hours. I guess I'm now expected to come EVERY day.  Ain't gonna happen!!!

Well, I turned out not to stay the night with Char after all, since the talk we were going to was over before 8:30.  I got the prize (not really) for coming the farthest to listen to and talk with author Tracy Guzeman, the author of "The Gravity of Birds."'

This was a first time book for this young author and she was one of those people who had a lucky star, when everything went well for her.  A writing teacher put her in touch with an agent, who was able to sell her book when she finished it...which she did in about four months.  

It included amazing research on her part.  The story concerns a young girl with rheumatoid arthritis, who loves birds.  It also is about her sister and the reclusive artist who changes their lives. It takes place in Upstate new York, Tennessee and New Mexico and deals with art authentication, all subjects she knew nothing about.  She painted such amazing pictures of New York, Tennessee and New Mexico and has never been to any of those places.  She did great research on birds, their lives, their nesting pattern, their migration.  She read all she could about rheumatoid arthritis on the internet and in medical journals and joined discussion groups., She said Google was her best friend.  You'd never know she was not an expert in any of these subjects.  Or that she did all this and produced a 300+ page book in 4 months.

It started as two short stories that she blended into a full length novel that she told her agent she would have finished "by April," in 4 months.  She wasn't even sure how she was going to join the two stories until she found an old portrait in her attic of a relative and her two daughters and that brought the story together for her.

While I was fascinated to hear the background of the development of the story, I loved even more her discussion of her writing process.  I always love to hear about how writers write.  Do they hand write or use computers? (she uses a computer)  How does she keep track of the character and plot lines.  I remember my friend who was writing a Japanese themed novel for years and she had 3x5 cards with important things for her to remember pinned up all over the wall above her desk.  Tracy set up 2 spread sheets.

I particularly like hearing how writers write.  Over the years, I have accepted that my method of writing is that I have to get a couple of paragraphs down and then I have to get up and eat something.  Or watch something on TV.  Or go to sleep for the night.  I do this automatically and have for years.  I have been pleased to read about other writers who follow the same sort of routine.

Tracy talked about a writer she knew who had to have absolute quiet in order to write anything and rented a cabin in the woods, where he was even bothered by bird sounds.

She says she aims to write 2 pages a day and writes early in the morning and late at night when it's most quiet.  I remember author David Gerrold telling me once that he aimed for 2-4 pages a day, though considering the cacophony in his house, I don't think peace and quiet is a part of his own routine.

The time just flew by and at the end I was so glad I had made the drive down to hear her, and talk with her...and we were out of the library in plenty of time for me to drive home so I could be here to brew a fresh pot of coffee for Walt on his 76th birthday.

2015 Books in Review

Every year at the end of December, I do a review of the books I read throughout the year.  Last year, I only read 36 books, or a total of 11,543 pages.  This year I increased that significantly, reading 57 books, 18,746 pages.

Of the books I read,

28 were "real books" and of those 18 were books I read at Logos
14 were Kindle books
15 were audio books

I broke the subject matter down into genres:

16 were what I call "blood and gore" books, technically crime dramas
10 were novels that don't fit any specific genre other than "contemporary fiction."
2 were classics (by Mark Twain and by James Hilton)
10 were non-fiction including...
     ....2 Compassion-related books, books about people sponsoring children
3 were about animals (including one young adult book)
4 were about dementia or Alzheimers
3 were books written by friends
2 were contemporary fiction with a lesbian theme (one of those was a cross-over, since it was also a blood and gore book!)

The non-fiction category was mostly biographies or autobiographies, or books like "Acquired Tastes" by Peter Mayle, which tells his experience of being sponsored to find out what it's like to spend a year living as an ultra  rich person enjoying things like Havana cigars, top of the line liquors, 5 star restaurants and hotels, first class transportation, specially made shoes and suits, etc.  (Nice work, if you can get it!)

I actually read three books by Mayle.  The other two were "A Good Year," the story of a man who loses his job and inherits a villa in the South of France and his adjustments to the life there; and "A Dog's Life," which I described as "the story Marley would have written if a real life dog could have written."

Of the autobiographies, my favorite would be a toss up between Rob Lowe's "Stories I Only Tell My friends" and Alan Cummin's "Not My Father's Son."  I listened to both as audio books, and both were riveting.  What a difference between Lowe's privileged childhood in Malibu and Cummin's violent one in Britain.  I've come to think that listening to an autobiography read by the subject is much better than reading it because there are nuances that don't come across on the written page (like Kristen Chenoweth's story, which I read a few years ago, which includes bits of her singing).  Lowe's follow-up book, "Love Life," wasn't nearly as interesting, though the relationship between him and his sons was beautiful to read.

Scary stories would be "Stolen Innocence" by Elisa Wall, the story of a girl raised in the Fundamentalist LDS church and her story of abuse and ultimate escape, and "Elephant Girl" by Jane Devin, a child who escaped an abusive parenthood and her struggle to become a successful adult.  The latter book suffered from lack of an editor, as it was self published and far too long.  There were places where you wanted to roll your eyes and say "Come on now!"

A disappointing biography, but not surprising, would be "Angry Optimist" by Lisa Rogak, which follows Jon Stewart's career and paints him as a less than likeable person, which I had heard rumors about, but I still like his public persona.

I thought I had already read all the books I was going to read about dementia, but found four more this year. "Can't We Talk about Something more Pleasant?" by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast was a book I shared with Jeri, as it is the story of Chast's relationship with her parents before, during, and after the onset of their dementia.  "While I Still Can" was written by early onset Alzheimers-diagnosed Rick Phelps, written to help caregivers understand what it is like to be him.  (I found that one very helpful in understanding what is going on inside my mother's head.)  He also set up a group on Facebook, which has thousands of followers and which has been so supportive to everyone who participates.  "My Roller Coaster Ride with Sallie" was more a soul-baring story about a daughter's trials with her mother, while "A Dignified Life" by Virginia Bell and David Troxel offers more practical ideas for dealing with a loved one with dementia.

Books written by friends included a re-read of David Gerrold's "When HARLIE Was One," and a newly published book, "How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness" by Toni Bernhard, who asked me to review her book for Amazon, which I was happy to do.  The third book was "Trowsering Your Weasel" written by not exactly a friend, but fellow blogger Murr Brewster, who is the funniest blogger since Marn gave up years ago.

There's also a "Miscellaneous" classification which includes "Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey" (a book I read at Logos), "Of All the Gin Joints" by Mark Bailey, which is a great bathroom book, since each "chapter" is only a page or two; and "The Wicked Stepmother" a fairy tale from Kenya, which I read because one of my sponsored kids mentioned reading it.  Strange book.

Of all the books, my favorites include Stephen King's "11/22/63" which shows that going back in time to change things has unexpected consequences.  I also enjoyed Emma Donahue's "Room," which I probably would not have finished if I had been reading it, but the voice of the young boy, Jack, who narrates this audio book, was so compelling that I couldn't stop listening to it. And surprisingly, I loved "The Martian" by Andy Weir, a story I would never have picked up if it hadn't been a book club selection, but it was fascinating.

Disappointing books included the much-touted "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt, another book club selection, which was much longer than it should have been and ultimately I think I liked it, but didn't always like it throughout the book.  I also labored through "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which gives a not entirely pleasant view of America by a Nigerian, living here for 6 years and observing the overt and covert racism that goes on.  I also learned more about African hair than I ever knew.

I read 4 Ruth Rendell mysteries and 5 Harlan Coben books.  Rendell's best books feature Inspector Wexford and each of them made me wish I had started with book one because reading them out of order is confusing, since the series seems to cover his entire career as a detective.

As for Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar books, I loved them and listened to them all as audio books, though in the last one I read (there are two more) the original narrator, Jonathan Marosz, was gone and Coben read the book himself.  Suffice to say he is a terrible audio book reader and I'm glad to hear that the next two will have a regular professional narrator, though not Marosz, whom I will miss.

I do love looking back over the year and see what my reading life has been like.  I look forward to seeing what new adventures await me in the pages of books in 2016.

55 Questions about Books, Part 2

31 How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
I write theater reviews for money and have no problem giving negative reviews if deserved. I think the worse review I ever gave was for James Patterson's Zoo.

32 Do you make up stories, or ever think about an alternate ending for a book because you want to?
No.  I'm happy with what the author came up with.  Or if I'm not, I don't waste time trying to think of something else.

33 Most intimidating book you’ve ever read? Why?
I don’t understand “intimidating” books.  Perhaps “Babi Yar” because it dealt with such an unpleasant subject, but I was still interested in reading it.

34 Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin? How come?
Moby Dick. I’ve never read it, have heard nothing good about it, have no plans to read it. (But I’m not nervous about it at all!)

35 What book do you try to steer people away from?
ZOO, by JAMES PATTERSON!!!! If you feel you must read it, please read my review first!

36 What book do you recommend most to others?
“The Mother Tongue” or Patrick Conroy’s “Prince of Tides” (MUCH better than the movie)

37 Do you ever re-read books? How many times have you re-read a favorite? If you don't re-read books, why not?
I don’t have time to re-read books now though I will re-listen to parts of any of the Outlander series when in the car because I love narrator Davina Porter. As an adolescent one of my favorite books was “Marjorie Morningstar” and read it many times.

38 Favorite fictional character and why?
I have a soft spot in my heart for Detective Harry Bosch because I’ve enjoyed watching his crime solving abilities and the hidden soft spot that few get to see.  I also love Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar...but I also love Claire Frasier from Outlander. Who doesn’t envy her finding the love of her life, even if she had to go to the 18th century to do it.

39 Favorite fictional villain and why?
I guess Voldemort in the Harry Potter series because I kept wanting to find out what his back story was.

40 Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?
Crime/drama books. Those are the easiest to read though I did read “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society” on a trip to France because it seemed that everyone else was reading it too. (Great book, by the way!)

41 The longest I’ve gone without reading.
I can’t even think. Not more than a day or two, surely. At least not lately.

42 Name a book that you could/would not finish and why you couldn't?
“Left Behind” by Tim LeHaye, which was highly recommended to me by my cousin, who loved the series. I found it so much religious manipulative crap that I threw it across the room and never finished it.

43 What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
My husband trying to tell me something.

44 Favorite film adaptation of a novel?
“Gone with the Wind” was pretty good.

45 Most disappointing film adaptation?
“Prince of Tides.” What Barbra Streisand did to that beautiful book was criminal. It may be a good movie, but as an adaptation of the book, it was terrible.

46 The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
I haven’t spent a lot of money in book stores in a long time. I buy kindle books one at a time and if I buy real books, they are from the used book store where I work If I ever spend $20 in one purchase that’s a lot for me.

47 How often do you skim a book before reading it?
Never. Only to make sure the print size is large enough for me to read it.

48 What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
See question 42. Other than that, bad grammar. Some of the self-published books these days don’t have editors and that is a huge mistake. And I nearly did not finish Patterson’s “Zoo” because it was such a horrible book, but it was SO bad I figured it would be fun to review it...and it was.

49 Do you like to keep your books organized?
Surely you jest. I do not know the definition of “Organized” in any aspect of my life.

50 Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?
I either keep them or take them to the used book store where I work, which uses its proceeds to raise money for charity ($200,000 in the last four years)

51 Do you read for enjoyment or to gain knowledge?
Both, but mostly for enjoyment.

52 Name a book that made you angry. Why did it?
“Zoo” because Patterson used to be one of my favorite authors and this bunch of crap was so poorly written and the plot so bad that I can’t believe he actually wrote much of it. Patterson should think better of himself than to publish this junk.  From what I've seen of promos for the TV series, television has not improved the story.

53 A book you didn’t expect to like but did (from 2015)?
“The Martian,” which we read for book club. It’s very technical throughout, but the author has created such an interesting character and put him in a harrowing, yet not completely fatal situation that I kept reading to find out what happened.

54 A book that you expected to like but didn’t (from 2015)?
“The Rosie Effect.” The book club decided to read it because we all had enjoyed “The Rosie Project” so much, but the sequel was not nearly as good and I got tired of it quickly (though finished it so I could participate in the discussion – we all seemed to have the same reaction)

55 Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
All of my readng is guilt-free pleasure reading.  If you’re going to feel guilty for reading a book, maybe you shouldn’t be reading it.

55 Questions about Books, Part 1

 1 Favorite childhood book? Why is that one your favorite?
There were so many books. Difficult to pick "a" favorite. In grammar school, I read the Five Little Peppers series and the Bobbsey Twins. I read my first Black Stallion book in the 4^th grade and devoured all the rest. I read every Nancy Drew ever written, and read all the animal books and books about nurses I could find.

2 What are you reading right now? What are your thoughts on it?
"Angry Optimist," about Jon Stewart (trying to ease my way through weaning off The Daily Show).  It's an interesting book and I'm learning things I suspected, but didn't want to know about the off screen Jon, who is  quite different from the on-screen.  Like Johnny Carson, he is not a social person, guards his privacy and has few close friends.  Also a stern taskmaster on The Daily Show.  But really all I cared about was his Daily Show persona, which I can't fault.

3 Do you go to a library? If so, what do you currently have checked out there? If not, is there a reason?
I live 3 blocks from a library and have not been inside in years. No reason except I just have hundreds of books at home that I need to read so feel no need.

4 Do you collect any authors/series or certain types of books? What are they?
I have a large collection of Albert Peyson Terhune books, and most of the David Gerrold books up until about the mid 1990s.  I don’t really "collect" any other authors/series, though I make it a point to read all of the authors I like.

5 Do you have a yearly goal on amount of books you want to finish? What is it? Are you ahead of, or behind in your progress?
Fifty is a nice goal. Right now I’ve read 42 this year, so I will reach the goal well before the end of the year. (In 2012 I read 78)

6 Do you have an e-reader? What kind? Do you read both "real" and ebooks, or just one or the other?
I have a Kindle. I read a lot of books with it, but I also read "real" books.  And of course listen to Audio books.
7 Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once? Why?
I always have several books going – at least one on my kindle, an audio book that I’m listening to in the car and another audio book that Walt and I are listening to together as well as at least one "real" book that I probably started while at Logos.

8 Do you have a blog or GoodReads where you post reviews? If so, give your URL ~ if not a one word answer IS ok here.
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4806357

9 What sites, if any, do you go to for getting recommendations of books? If you don't use any sites, how do you get recommendations for new books?
I don’t go looking for recommendations, but reading Good Reads reviews and Amazon notices is helpful.  Recommendations Amazon or Audible.com send me will get me investigating...and of course Char has pointed me in the direction of a lot of books.

10 Favorite book you’ve read this year (so far in 2015)? Why?
Maybe Stephen King's "11/22/63."  That was definitely my favorite audio book.  For favorite reading book, "The Martian," which I bought before I knew it was going to be a big blockbuster movie.

11 Least favorite book you read this year (so far in 2015)? Why?
"The Rosie Effect," sequel to the delightful "The Rosie Project," both of which I read for book club. While "Rosie Project" was quirky and fun, "Rosie Effect" was boring and repetitive.

12 Book due to be released this year (2015) that you are most looking forward to and why?
"Playing with Fire" by Tess Gerritsen. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a new Gerritsen. Also looking forward to "Do Unto Animals," written by Jon Stewart’s wife and recommended highly by her husband.

13 What is your reading comfort zone and How often do you read out it?
My comfort zone is crime/drama type books, but I very often read out of it.

14 Favorite place to read? Why do you like that place best?
Sitting in my recliner with a glass of ice water at my side, since it’s the most comfortable seat in the house

15 What are your thoughts on book lending?
Since most of the books I read are kindle books, I can’t lend them. But if it’s a "real" book, I’m more likely to give it to someone rather than lend it to them.

16 What are your thoughts on pirated books?
Bad, bad pirates. Unfair to struggling authors.

17 What are your thoughts on "Banned" books?
Banned books lists are ridiculous. Depending on the group doing the banning, they would ban many of our most beloved classics.

18 What are barriers you have to reading more? (work, family, etc)
My TV addiction.

19 How many books did you read during Jan - Jun (1st 6 months of year)? How many more books have you read in Jul & Aug?
28 from January to June, 14 so far since July (close to finishing one more, though)

20 What makes you love a book?
Caring about the characters, good plot, believability.  It helps if I get so emotionally invested in the book that it makes me cry.

21 What will inspire you to recommend a book?
If I finished a book and think "I need to talk to someone about this" I’ll recommend it.

22 5 of your top read genres & one Recommended book for each genre
Crime/drama - "Chasing the Dime" by Michael Connelly
Historical Romance - "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon
Sci Fi - "Flying Sorcerers" by David Gerrold and Larry Niven
Animal books - "The Elephant Whisperer" by Lawrence Anthony
Bio - "Stories I only Tell My Friends," by Rob Lowe

23 5 authors you read a lot & one book you recommend for each
*  I read a lot of Michael Connelly (all of his, actually) and any is good, but one of his early books, "The Last Coyote" where hero Harry Bosch investigates the cold case of his own mother’s murder is a good one.

*  I love David Baldacci and his "Absolute Power" was a favorite. It will change your mind about the abuses of power!
*  I’ve read all of Diana Gabaldon’s "Outlander" series and my favorite was "Voyager," where Claire returns to Scotland to find Jamie.
*  I am working my way through Harlan Coben books, and loved "Drop Shot," which centers around tennis this time.  I love his "hero," Myron Bolitar.
*  I have read most of John Steinbeck’s books and my favorite was "East of Eden." I loved it for the descriptive passages of places I know quite well. Every time I am reading Steinbeck, I find my own writing improves.

24 Do you read non-fiction? Biographies? What is one of your favorites? If you don't read them, what keeps you from them?
Yes, I read both non-fiction and biographies. In the non-fiction category, anything by Bill Bryson is wonderful. I particularly like his "The Mother Tongue".
Anatoli Kuznetsov’s "Babi Yar" is not a pretty book–-and it’s huge--but it tells the important story of how he, a gentile adolescent, survived the Nazi occupation of Kiev and the atrocities he saw.

25 How many times do you read a week?
I read every day, even if only briefly while waiting in line somewhere.

26 Do you feel you read better with or without noise? What kind of noise can't you read through?
I can read through anything except someone standing in front of me talking to me.
27 What influences your book choices?

A book by a favorite author I haven't read yet, recommendations from interviews I hear, or whatever seems to hit my mood when I read the cover of the book.

28 Favorite reading snack? Favorite reading drink? Do you eat/drink while reading, or do you put the book down for snacks?
I usually have water with me, occasionally a snack, but not usually.

29 Do you literally judge a book by its cover, title, or author?
In order, probably author, cover, and title. But sometimes title, cover, author.

30 What is the longest book you have ever read? The shortest?
Ever? Tough to remember. Tom Jones was 1,024 pages. That may be the longest. The shortest was a book I read recently, "My Roller Coaster Ride with Sallie: An Alzheimers Story" by Judy J. Harritan, which was only 37 pages long, but which nicely told her feelings about dealing with her mother’s dementia.

Billows of Books

.I read someone's profile on SwapBot the other day and I absolutely loved her phrase "at home in an ocean of literature, in a storm, flooding all the floor, the tables, and the chairs — billows of books" How delicious does it sound to live in "billows of books," though as I look about me at every floor, table and flat surface in addition to numerous book shelves crammed full of books, perhaps I already do.

I don't know if anyone ever pays attention to the ever-changing left column of this page, but I have been changing the "Books Read in 2015" entry frequently lately.  I'm in a real book-reading stage right now.  Of course it always helps to read several books at once and in the last week or two I finished four books I'd been reading at for a long time.

The most recent was "How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness," written by my friend Toni Bernhard.  It's her third book inspired by her chronic illness, which she developed on a trip to Paris in 2001.  Though they first thought it was a virus that would pass in time the virus affected her immune system and has never left. It has resulted in her having to retire from her position teaching at the UC Davis School of Law, and she has been mostly house-bound, and often bed-bound for the past 14 years, missing the opportunity to spend as much time as she planned with her grandchildren, often having to miss holiday events, etc.  Her first book, "How to Be Sick," was a Buddhist-inspired how-to book which told how she has adapted to this life she never wanted to live.  It has won prizes and many in her situation have started following her.  She now writes a regular columnn for Psychology Today.  Her next book was "How to be Well" (and I don't remember the jist of that one).  This third one will be published in October, but she asked if I would review it for her, as I reviewed book 2.

Though I enjoyed her first two books, I found this the most "relatable" of the three.  There is less Buddhism (though there was really not all that much) than in Book 1 and by the time you finish, you have a very clear picture of what chronic illness is, and how best to cope, while still making the most of your life.  You also learn what not to say to someone with a chronic illness ("You look terrific!" is right up there, said to someone who has been able to go out for a short time and may look normal, but may be in pain), and, alternatively, you learn what someone with a chronic illness wants to hear from people who want to contact her (not "let me know if there is anything I can do for you," but "I'm going to the store; can I pick something up for you?" for example).  Also many of her exercises to help the patient make it through a difficult day work well for helping those of us who are not suffering the physical debilitations of a chronic illness, but still have to get through difficult things in our lives.

This book was quite a change from the audio book I had been "reading" for the past several weeks.  "Stolen Innocence" by Elissa Wall tells the story of a girl, born and raised in the FLDS (the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints -- the guys who still practice plural marriage).  It tells of the power the FLDS authorities have over their followers.  Elissa and her siblings were removed, along with their mother, from the father beause he was deemed to be "unworthy of the priesthood," and the mother was given in "marriage" to another man (who already had several wives).  Elissa was forced into a marriage at age 14 with a 20 year old cousin she hated.  She tried everything she could to get out of the marriage, but ultimately was forced into it, in threat of losing her chance at entering the kingdom of heaven, which you can only enter with your husband, apparently (and the husband can only enter if he has at least 3 wives).  

My heart ached for the 14 year old Elissa who didn't know the first thing about relations between men and women, had not been told the facts of life (this is nothing you are permitted to discuss in the FLDS and a bride must learn about sex from her husband), and was essentially raped an abused by her husband regularly.  She ultimately finds the strength to leave the FLDS and her husband and marry a man with whom she had fallen in love, after several years of marriage and five miscarriages.  She ultimately played a big part in the arrest and life sentencing of Warren Jeffs, the self-appointed FLDS "prophet" who made her life a living hell for so many years.

And then there was "While I still Can," a book by Rick Phelps, diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers in his 50s, determined to record what he was going to in the hopes of it being of some help to other Alzheimers victims and their caregivers.  Realizing that he would eventually not be able to do the writing, he connected with another author, Gary Joseph LeBlanc, who chronicled Rick's decline and his feelings and what was going on in his head.  The last sections of the book are no longer about Rick but about the last years of LeBlanc's own father, who died of Alzheimers.  I assume this was beause Rick was no longer able to communicte effectively.

One of the things that Rick did was to start group called "Memory People" on Facebook, a place where people suffering from Alzheimers or dementia...or mostly their caregivers...can communicate with each other.  I joined immediately and have found it quite helpful.

And then to lighten the load a bit, I also finished Dick Francis' "Twice Shy."  I haven't read a Dick Francis book in a long time and had read just about all of them up to a certain point.  He is the former jockey to the queen and so his mysteries all concern some aspect of horse racing.  This one had very little actual horses in it, but revolved around track betting.  It wasn't his best, but I enjoyed it.  

Now I'm starting a whole new raft of books.  The audio book Walt and I are listening to together in the car is David Baldacci's "Last Man Standing," which it will take us a couple of trips to Santa Barbara to finish, because it's longer than most of his books.  On my own, I'm listening to a new Harlan Coben book, "One False Move," which I haven't gotten too far into yet, but Coben is the master of the simile and/or metaphor and I about cracked up when I read that something "chaffed like a tweed condom."

And I'm also reading a book called "The Rosie Project," by Graeme Simsion, which I am reading for a new book club, one that Char belongs to.  I'm going to try that one, though it means driving a bit over an hour once a month to meetings.  But that's actually a perk because it means I can get through my audiobook that much faster and she seems to really enjoy this group.  I am loving "The Rosie Project," about an awkward intellectual who has decided he needs to find a wife and sets about doing it scientifically. Anybody who is a fan of The Big Bang Theory will recognize that, though this book is set in England, the guy looking for a wife is exactly like Sheldon Cooper.  

Thursday I'll be back at Logos and will choose a fresh book to read there.  Yes, my life may seem like it's only television, but there is a huge dose of reading in there too.  Is it any wonder I rarely get any housework done!  But I'm lovin' being surrounded by "billows of books"

7 Deadly Sins of Reading

I'm getting ready to answer some questions for a SwapBot swap and thought I'd test it out here.  I'm supposed to answer the following questions.

• GREED: What is your most expensive book? Most inexpensive book?
• WRATH: What author do you have a love/hate relationship with?
• GLUTTONY: What book have you deliciously devoured over and over with no shame whatsoever?
• SLOTH: What book have you neglected reading due to laziness?
• PRIDE: What books do you most talk about in order to sound like a very intellectual reader?
• LUST: What attributes do you find most attractive in male or female characters?
• ENVY: What books would you most like to receive as a gift?

Maybe THE most expensive book I own is the one I typed -- "Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics," a textbook by Frederick Reif.  I don't remember how much it cost when it was published in about 1965, but it is still being sold today for $107.  You can get it second hand for $76.  Of course my copy is autographed, so it is probably worth more.  I looked up reader comments on the book on Amazon today and was pleased to read this comment:  "For a book that never saw a second edition, it is remarkably free of typos and errata."  Yay me!

As for the most inexpensive book, there are some that I have purchased on line for 1 cent.  The postage to mail them was significantly more than the cost of the book!

The love-hate relationship is with two authors:  James Patterson and Patricia Cornwell.  Patterson because he was one of my favorite authors before he started becoming an "industry," co-authoring with others and cranking out two or three books a year.  I strongly suspect that his "co-author-ship" consists of putting his name on the cover.  Some of them (Like "Zoo," the worst of the lot!) are godawful, but some still retain the magic that they had when I first discovered him.  Detective Alex Cross deserves better treatment than he has been getting lately

As to Patricia Cornwell things happened when she wrote "Blow Fly," which was the first dreadful book of hers.  I keep hoping to find what I found in her first several books, and occasionally there is a spark of the old Cornwell, but usually I am disappointed.  Again.  Kay Scarpetta seems to fare all right, but what Cornwell has allowed to happen to Merino and to her niece Lucy is unforgivable.

As for gluttony, it would have to be the "Outlander" series by Diana Gabaldon, of course.  I've read the books more than once and listen to the audio books frequently.  It's my go-to thing to listen to in the car if I'm not currently listening to a new book, and at the book store, if I only have an hour to read, I'll pick up one the books and just read at random.

My slothful confession is I have often not finished the more serious books, even those I really want to read, like Rachel Maddow's book.  I tend to be very shallow and stick with the easy to read thrillers.

Pride, hmmm?  Well any of the aforementioned "more serious" books that I actually finished I'm more likely to mention than to say that I read Rob Lowe's autobiography.

I like my female characters to have spunk and pride and to be able to survive on their own, if necessary.  I like the men to be gentle and polite and have a good sense of humor...and totally devoted to the women to whom they are attracted. And definitely not into S&M or sucking anybody's blood ("50 Shades" or "The Twilight Series")

The books on my Amazon wish list are usually the more expensive ones, usually something to do with show biz, either movies or theater, like "As You Wish: Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride," or Alan Cumming's autobiography, or "Nothing Like a Dame: Conversations with the Great Women of Musical Theater."

Books of 2014

Each year, I go through the list of books I read the previous year.  I keep track of the number of books and the pages I read.  I'll never equal 2012, when I read 78 books, or 24,837 pages.  I had just started working at Logos Used Book Store in 2012 and made it a goal to read a whole book every day I worked...and I did.  But after 2012, I read books I wanted to read and if I didn't finish in a day, I took them home to finish--so fewer, but longer books.  The past two years have been more representative of an average year for me.

In 2013 I read 34 books (14,940 pages) and this year, having finished Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl," I read 36 books (11,543 pages).

Of the books I read,

- 8 were "real books" that I read at Logos
- 5 were "real books" that were NOT Logos books
- 13 were Kindle books
- 9 were audio books

Using the classifications I use on my Kindle these are the genres that I read

- 19 were crime drama books and I discovered author Ruth Rendell this year.  I've read several of her books at Logos.
- 8 were "contemporary fiction" (fiction books not considered "classic" by Logos!)
- 7 were non-fiction books
- 2 were travel books
- 1 was a classic

In the "non fiction" category there was great variety, from "Upstairs at the White House" to "Exceptional Depravity."  The former was a tale by J.B. West, the usher at the White House from Truman to the very early Reagan days.  I learned so much about how life at the White House works.

"Exceptional Depravity" was the story of a horrific murder of two people I knew here in Davis, the capture of the sociopathic teen ager who murdered and eviscerated them just to see what it felt like.  He liked it so much he planned to murder someone else with a baseball bat, but was captured first.  The trial portion of the book was very, very detailed.

There were also a couple of biographies there, like "Happy Accidents" by actress Jane Lynch, which was a delight, and "I am Nujood" by Nujod Ali, 10 years old and divorced at the time of the writing of the book.  An eye opener as to the practice of child marriage in middle eastern countries.

"The Man Who Loved Books Too Much" was a weird story of a book thief and the world of theft among book collectors.

"Enrique's Journey" was fiction, but based on fact and it told about the conditions for children in Central American countries who become so desperate they risk unimaginable hardships to try to come to the United States.  I was so moved by that book that we ended up sponsoring a young man in Honduras so that he can have a better life.  We can't do big things, but we can do a little thing.

Armistead Maupin's "Days of Anna Madrigal" was bittersweet, the end of Maupin's decades-long "Tales of the City" saga, wrapping up the stories of all of the characters we have come to know and love since his work first appeared as a daily serial in the San Francisco Chronicle.

"40 Years of Chez Panisse" was an odd book I read for book club.  It was mostly interesting for the fact that I lived in Berkeley when Alice Waters was establishing her restaurant and experienced many of the things of which she was a part.  As a reading book, it's not very interesting -- but a nice coffee table book.

"Gidget" was another book I would never have read if it had not been for book club.  Definitely not what a 70 year old woman is interested in.  It was written by the real Gidget's father, and I wonder what it was like to be him writing about his teen aged daughter and the surfers in Malibu in the 50s-60s.

A surprisingly interesting book was Bill Bryson's "Shakespeare: the World as Stage."  I am not a Shakespeare fan, but love Bryson, and this book was filled with fascinating information and non-information (nobody really knows who Shakespeare was or what he looked like, for example!)

The most looked-forward-to book was "Written in My Own Heart's Blood," Book 7 in the Diana Gabaldon "Outlander" series.  I have come to love those books (and now the STARZ television mini series).  I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but not as much as some of the earlier ones.  Still, I will be eagerly awaiting Book 8 which, if history is any indicator, won't be out for another 2-3 years.

Book Meme - Part 2

I realize I have done a lot of book memes, and have probably done part of this one as a Sunday Stealing, but I love answering questions about books so I'll give this one a try again.  There are 55 questions in all, so I'm breaking it into two parts.  This is part 2, some of which sounds familiar, so apologies if I'm repeating myself.

26 Do you feel you read better with or without noise?
I can read with or without and frequently read while the TV is on, but if I had my druthers, it would be without noise.

27 What influences your book choices?
An author I know I like, someone's recommendation, something I've seen about the book on TV or heard on the radio, or, when I'm in the book store, just reading the book jacket and seeing if it sounds interesting. Sometimes nothing more than Amazon suggestions.   In the past year, many of my choices have been influenced by recommendations for learning about dementia.

28 Favorite reading snack?
I don't generally eat while reading.  Just have a large glass of cold water by my side.

29 Do you literally judge a book by its cover, title, or author?
Probably author first, title second and cover third.  Kindle books don't have covers; books at Logos frequently don't have covers.  I actually judge a book I want to read more by its appearance.  A shabby book with discolored and/or wrinkled pages and small type is not something I would usually choose at the used book store.  

30 What is the longest book you have ever read? The shortest?
I checked this recently.  "Gone with the Wind" is over 1,000 pages.   Several others I've read have been in the 900s (like the recent "Written in My Own Heart's Blood" and "Tom Jones," that I read back in high school.)  Shortest would be some kids' book.

31 How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
Since I'm a professional critic, I don't mind giving a bad review when it's deserved.   I do it for a living (though not of books).

32 Do you make up stories, or ever think about an alternate ending for a book because you want to?
No.

33 Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
Hmmm...I can't think of one.

34 Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?
I'm never too nervous to begin a book.  I may put it off because of expected time constraints, but if I deide to read it, I'm not nervous about it. (It will be awhile before I start Bill Clinton's autobiography, though!)

35 What book do you try to steer people away from?
The "Left Behind" series, that propagandistic pile of crap. I also would not recommend "Heaven is for Real," another book that starts out as maybe possibly having some merit, but which floats off into such fantasy and religious propaganda, it made me angry.

36 What book do you recommend most to others?
I always recommend Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue" (which I love).   It's the history of the English language and incredibly more fascinating and enjoyable than you'd think. I have also recommended many, many other books, based on the taste of the person I'm giving the recommendation to.

37 Do you ever re-read books?
Not any more, except audio books.  At one time "Marjorie Morningstar" was my favorite book and I read it often.  Also read many Albert Peyson Terhune dog books many times, but these days there are too many I want to read and not enough days left in my life, so I don't give myself the luxury of re-reading books.

38 Favorite fictional character?
I don't know if I have "a" favorite.  I love Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch, I sometimes love Kay Scarpetta (when Patricia Cornwell is having a good writing phase).  Of course I love Diana Gabaldon's Jamie Frasier and Claire Randall Fraser. There are lots of other characters that I have loved over the years, none of which come to mind at present.

39 Favorite fictional villain?
Captain Hook, cause he's had a hard life!

40 Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?
LOL.  All of them!  When you have a Kindle, you can bring lots and lots and lots and lots of books with you.

41 The longest I’ve gone without reading.
A day, maybe?  Since I always have a book with me, it wouldn't be much longer than that.  Definitely not longer than a week.

42 Name a book that you could/would not finish.
The aforementioned "Left Behind" series.  I started Book 1 and ended up throwing it across the room, it so disgusted me.

43 What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
Almost nothing.  If the dogs are barking outside and I have to stop and bring them in, that's a distraction.

44 Favorite film adaptation of a novel?
Nothing is ever perfect, but "Gone with the Wind" was surprisingly good.

45 Most disappointing film adaptation?
Definitely "Prince of Tides," which I loved, but which Barbra Streisand, in making herself the central character, totally ruined.  Second might be "Marjorie Morningstar" which looked like it was going to be perfectly cast (and was), but the changes they made to the script ruined the story for me.

46 The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
I can't remember.  No large sums in recent years, for sure.

47 How often do you skim a book before reading it?
Never.  I want to be surprised.  If I'm choosing a book to read at Logos, I might read a few pages in the middle just to see if I like the writing style, but most of the time, no.

48 What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
Realizing that I was bored out of my skull and wasn't interested in what happened to any of the characters.

49 Do you like to keep your books organized?
Nothing in my life is organized, my books least of all.

50 Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?
I give a lot to Logos.

51 Do you read for enjoyment or to gain knowledge?
Definitely for enjoyment, which often includes gaining knowledge as a byproduct.

52 Name a book that made you angry.
I'm reading a book right now, "I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced" which is about child marriage in Yemen and that's making me pretty angry. Her father sold her to her husband, who was in his 30s.  I am also reading a book called "The Elephant in Captivity," written in 1981 by a man who really loved elephants and was trying to get laws changed to make it easier to import elephants into the U.S. for zoos and circuses because their populations were diminishing in the wild.  I suspect that at the time this was felt to be a good thing to do, but given what we now know about elephant societies and the cruelty they suffer in zoos and circuses (the biggest one having no "family" around) almost everything he writes makes me angry...but I do want to stick with it to the end and see how many situations he covers.  And of course, the Nazi atrocities described in "Babi Yar," where thousands were killed during the Nazi occupation of Kiev made me very angry.

53 A book you didn’t expect to like but did?
Oddy enough a book called "The Pretty Women of Paris," which is essentially a guide to the prostitutes of Paris in the late 1800s.  It was one of my Logos books and I intended to just kind of skim it, but found it fascinating.

54 A book that you expected to like but didn’t?
"The Stupidest Angel" by Christopher Moore.  I loved his "The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's childhood Pal" and when my book club chose this book, I eagerly started reading it, but quickly decided it should have been named "The Stupidest BOOK."  (Our book club was divided on it; half of us hated it; half of us loved it)

55 Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
All of my reading is guilt-free.