Posts Tagged ‘books’

fifteen in fifteen

// June 13th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Life

This sort of meme makes me both crazy and happy. The instructions are as follows: “Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me because I’m interested in seeing what books my friends choose.” The list is in order of how I thought of it, not how I read it. Reply in a comment if you so desire. (Thanks for the tag, Jen!)

  1. 1984 by George Orwell
  2. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  3. The Bridge by Iain Banks
  4. Justine by Lawrence Durrell
  5. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  6. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  7. Demian by Hermann Hesse
  8. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
  9. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
  10. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
  11. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  12. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  13. White Apples by Jonathan Carroll
  14. Black Wine by Candas Jane Dorsey
  15. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

invisible pie

// April 5th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Life

jus' meAfter writing like this for nearly eleven years, I have run out of titles, so I am recycling random things I hear that stick in my brain.

Brain, brain, brain: offline life has become a morass of the brain. First it was grad school applications, then the short story that took over my subconscious, and now an impending civil service examination.

Then there is the reading list: Enduring Love (Ian McEwan), Tricked (Alex Robinson), and more than a few others. Last night, we even watched a movie, “The Visitor”, so uncommon for us as we have devoted all our DVD time to “Battlestar Galactica” for months now.

Aside from writing, I have lost the urge to think creatively, and have not picked up a puzzle in months, nor have I started one of the myriad knitting projects my mother so thoughtfully sent me. My games lie fallow. I suspect this preponderance of linear thinking over non-linear comes from a sedentary lifestyle. Correcting this is my next order of business.

The details of two important events in my near future remain undecided — graduate school and the wedding — so I rely instead on the certainty that they will happen. For someone as obsessed with the minutiae as I am, this reliance does not come easily, but it comes.

I will close with a few online tidbits:

  • Hunch: asks you simple questions, then gives you clear advice.
  • F.lux: adjusts the color of your computer display to the time of day.
  • unlibrarian: is my tumblelog, which is where you will find my random silliness.

podcast #7: sequels

// January 19th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Podcast

After our “creative hiatus” of over two years, Matt is not rusty, but I sure am. In this episode, he is charming and funny, while I am bitter and annoying. My opinions on vampire novels are sure to alienate the whole family! Don’t miss this!

 
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the return of the huh

// December 19th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Libraria, Life

I am barely coherent at this point, but sure, I will throw some words together and at you while I sip my cookie tea. You heard me: cookie tea! And no actual cookies were harmed in the making of this tea, so it is gluten-free! Ah, tea-chnology.

Various events over the past few days have turned parts of my life into a wobbly shopping-cart — you know the kind, one wonky wheel requiring an extra-tight grip to keep the whole thing moving forward. As a result, my knuckles are white but I am also chuckling vaguely to myself in the quieter moments, from a curious “huh, this is what my life is now” type of observation mode.

I would be more specific, but I refuse to break my streak of obtusely referring to Major Life Drama from the pedestal (lighthouse? watchtower? creaky treehouse?) of metaphor.

The HWF (Holiday Work Function) earlier this evening was bizarre — no dinner, just appetizers, and mostly inedible ones at that — and one drink ticket that I failed to use. The music was cranked too loud for me to hear most of the conversations around me, but I did chat with some colleagues and meet some nice new folks. I left after about an hour, caught a train, and read the first 50 pages of “Twilight” by the time I got home. The writing, while not fantastic, is enthralling, and I will probably end up reading the rest of the series. I would say something cranky about the fuss over these books, but I cannot muster up the faux-disdain.

What I will comment on crankily is my inability to read one book at a time. I used to be so good at that! Now I have at least 3, usually 5, going on at once, always a range of fiction and nonfiction, funny and not, so that no matter which mood I am in, there is always something to read.

… which might explain why I find myself employed in a building that houses hundreds of thousands of books. Huh.

grateful for books

// July 17th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Libraria, Life

When I started this exercise, I thought I might have some trouble enumerating all the objects of my gratitude, since I had been so focused on the negative for so long.  Not so!  Today’s entry is another easy one: I am grateful for books.  I love words and stories, paper and ink, the sound of a new book’s spine as it is first opened, the smell of an old book’s pages.  I believe in literacy and libraries, in the power of the written word to inspire and to inflame.  I learned to read when I was 3 years old, and since then it has been my fondest hobby.  It is the greatest luck that I find myself with a career in libraries so I can live my passion every day.

My beloved gave me Iain Banks’ Matter for my birthday, and I have been savoring it in small morsels ever since. Today I am grateful for it keeping me company while I drift in and out of achy sleep.

(This entry is part of one month of gratitude.)

Libraries get their due in two very different books

// April 16th, 2008 // Comments Off // Intarweb, Libraria

Libraries get their due in two very different books
“It’s National Library Week. USA TODAY’S Bob Minzesheimer examines two books about libraries — one mystical, the other more mundane.” (via monkeemind)