I've Returned--I Hope for Good!

I sustained a wee bit of an injury that has made life difficult enough so that I have not had the energy to blog. Posting mid-term grades consumed my time as well. Although I may not have been blogging, I was reading.

I have extensor tendonitis in my left foot, which seems to have happened while hiking. I did indeed fall that Tuesday morning but thought nothing of it. I picked myself up immediately and felt perfectly fine. I didn't feel any pain until evening. Strange! But I've been hobbling ever since, for the past 11 days. I start physical therapy next week, thank goodness, but you know how tendonitis is; recovery progresses very slowly.

I am nearing the end of Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin. How about you, Katrina? Rankin has me wanting to make a trip to Edinburgh. Indridason had me wanting to visit Reykjavik. Maybe I can combine a trip to both cities? I better save my pennies! I'd love to see how Edinburgh has changed since I last visited 38 years ago. The October issue of National Geographic Traveler has an article about Edinburgh. I want to visit Castle Rock! My subscription is digital. The photographs are so much more alive in a digital format, I have been amazed! I'm truly there in those photos! My subscription is through Zinio.

In other news, I just found out today that I have landed a part-time "holiday" job at a major bookstore, which, I was told at my interview, may lead to a permanent part-time position. How I wish! I love working in bookstores. I have loved every bookstore job I've ever had.

And The Small Room discussion. Tomorrow, October 31st. I must head over to the site that's hosting it and remind myself how to go about it all. I'll post again tomorrow when I get it straight.

10 Weeks Left in 2010--Which Books Will You Read?

Perhaps because I'm so in tune with the fall semester, the number of weeks remaining in this calendar year weigh heavily on my mind. I am hell-bent on engaging in the May Sarton discussion of The Small Room at the end of this month, and I'm eager to do a virtual Edinburgh tour with Ian Rankin by reading Let It Bleed with Katrina and whomever else would like to join us.


So, what else? I'm determined to read The Great House by Nicole Krauss, which has received unanimous rave reviews. But I must have that back to the library on November 1st.

My students are reading memoirs for our Memoir Project, which will culminate in their writing a very brief memoir of their own, of a single event, or a series of events in their lives. I simply must find a memoir to read to be in communion with them.

Are you putting a list together of the books you'd like to finish by New Year's, or does the calendar have zero impact on your reading speed? Please weigh in on your final 2010 reads!

Let it Bleed by Ian Rankin is a Go!

All right! As unappetizing as my library copy of Let It Bleed is (scroll down), I started reading it on Tuesday morning and got so hooked! I had to work most of the day, so I couldn't let myself go, but I'm eagerly awaiting several days when I can immerse myself for an hour or more at a time. Ian Rankin's police detective Rebus is wonderful. I'm all set for the ride, Katrina. Does anyone want to join us for an Edinburgh journey? Rankin's website has a map of the city, and I think I'll refer to it to aid my virtual travel to Scotland.

Ian Rankin & Edinburgh!

I'm closing in on the last 60 pages of The Small Room by May Sarton. I'm loving it; in fact, amazed by it, perhaps because I'm especially in tune with the "crisis in academe" theme.


After teaching today, I drove to Crandall Library and picked up a copy of Let it Bleed by Ian Rankin, one of the "John Rebus mysteries," published in the US in 1996. Katrina of Pining for the West will be reading and discussing it with me. Because she is a true Scot and lives close to Edinburgh, I'm hoping she'll be able to clue me in on the "Scottish dimension", explaining things, perhaps, that I have no clue about. All (most?) of Rankin's "John Rebus mysteries" are set in and around Edinburgh. I have only visited the city once, when I was nineteen, and was immediately entranced.

But I have a problem with the copy of Let It Bleed that I've borrowed. It's obvious that thousands of people have read it. The binding is, miraculously, intact, to its credit, but the jaundiced pages (you're cheap, Simon & Schuster!), the coffee and chocolate stains (I hope that's all they are), and the wrinkles from bathwater or beach-bathing or cooking spaghetti are all together too much! I don't mind a well-read book, but this copy I may choose to abandon back to the Crandall morgue.

A few minutes ago I thought I might buy a copy, but I'm not. No Kindle copy is available, so I'm going to wade through the water-laden pages of the library copy. Much ado about nothing, I suppose, but the aesthetics of reading are very important to me and they have been offended.

A Confession

My third post today--must be a personal record!

I confess I made a book-related purchase that was quite impulsive. Ken was partially responsible because he always condones gadget-related purchases. The creature arrived at the post office today.

I bought the new second-generation Kindle. It cost $139, as I bought the Wi-Fi Kindle, so I can download books from home, instead of via a cellphone "Whispernet" network. Because of our mountains, cellphone reception is a lost cause here in the Adirondacks.

Stay tuned!

Saying "Sayonara" to a Book

Book Blogger Hop at Crazy for Books this weekend. I have time this weekend because of our abominable weather. Two inches of snow tonight and howling winds after a day of a blustery, icy rain.

I have a problem "ditching" a book if I've managed to read over half of it. And the more I've read, the harder it is to stop reading. Yet if I start reading a title, and at pages 50-70 I can see it's going nowhere I want to go, I can easily set it aside and move on without remorse. But once a considerable time investment is made, I have trouble letting go, even though I've been known to make the sacrifice at late stages.

I'm facing this problem with Blackout by Connie Willis right now (scroll down for more info). I have only 120pages left of a nearly 500-page book, but I'm convinced nothing is going to happen that's going to make those final pages worth the trouble, so I tell myself I intend to get to the ending, but time passes and nothing happens and the book goes back to the library. But I still may finish it yet!

Last Day for a Free Month at BookSwim!

Just thought I'd let my readers know that today, October 15, is the last day to sign up for a free month at BookSwim. Scroll down to read about the beginning of my experimental foray into this new book rental subscription plan. I've just found out that my books should be arriving early next week.

Consumed by Great Reads

I finished Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason early this morning, and I can say I truly enjoyed it. I think mysteries and police procedurals are marvelous escape engines for the times when I'm under stress. I'm looking forward to reading more by Indridason and by other contemporary Icelandic writers. But my next detective novel will be one by the Scottish writer Ian Rankin--I've decided that much, thanks to Katrina of Pining for the West! The Rankin book will be for my personal Scottish Literary Challenge.


After finishing Jar City, I plunged into The Small Room by May Sarton. (Scroll down for more info about Sarton and The Small Room discussion coming up at the end of the month.) I read nearly 50 pages and am in a state of rapture. As you know, I love Sarton's writing, and this story is hitting so close to home! A new Ph.D. is launching her teaching career in a small New England woman's college, where there is much tension beneath the congenial surface. In addition to this link to my work life, the book was published in 1961 and evokes the dawn of the '60s in ways I didn't think were possible. (I'll wax on about this at a later date, when we discuss the book at the end of this month.) So far, I'm smitten beyond fathoming. This hysteria can often be a bad sign; inevitable disappointment may be around the corner, but I don't think so.

Oh! And the W.W. Norton paperback book cover! It is a beauty. I'm so glad I decided to buy rather than borrow.

Book Swim & A Nor'easter Blows In!

Oh, dear. It's much too early for this, though it has happened that we've been clobbered by a nor'easter in mid-October. I pray that the storm will be all rain, but it will be very cold, and snow will be mixed in, according to all reports. The snow will be heavy at times, they say, but as long as the temperature stays in the high 30s, we'll be all right. The storm will sweep in tomorrow afternoon and last into Saturday. My grandfather, a Massachusetts farmer born in 1883, always said, "No blue skies 'til three days after a nor'easter." And that's about right.

Book Swim!!!! I've been waiting for them to come up with "a free- month introductory subscription plan" and that has paid off. I signed up for six bestsellers, and they're supposed to be sending me three books. But a slight caveat. I signed up Sunday afternoon and they're still saying on Wednesday evening that they're "shipping soon." Not the best service for a company that charges $23 a month to loan three books!


The concept of Book Swim is great. But the cost is too high unless impeccable service can be delivered. I selected books that are in very high demand, BUT that's all Book Swim has in its inventory. I chose Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (tops on the bestseller lists), Ken Follett's first in a new trilogy about the 20th century, and Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars, about the White House's handling of the war in Afghanistan. I chose several others that are not in as high demand, and Book Swim has chosen not to send those, which indicates that they probably have very few copies of books that are not at the top of the bestseller lists.

Still, I love experiments that involve books, so here I go! I'll keep you updated.