8 posts tagged “good books”
Shewhoquilts came over last night. I ended up making the curry and a tomato-avocado salad in balsamic vinegar on the side. Dessert was coffee and biscotti. Simple, yet oh-so-good. I was going to make a cake, but then I sprained my knee while vacuuming. Normal people trip on the vacuum cleaner or fall downthe stairs when off-balanced by the vacuum cleaner...not I. I tripped over the floor and the wall (I don't know how. Maybe I wasn't expecting them to be there?) and heard a distinct "pop". I do not like that sound. Neither did my knee. One elastic knee brace plus one bag of ice plus cashier duty for a few days, here I come.
As a side note, shewhoquilts insists that I "do not have too many books." Such a wise woman. I will not take this opportunity to order more (I have five waiting to be read, and if I end up seeing a doctor for this knee I would regret spending the money) but I will bear that in mind for future book purchases. :P
In the meantime, what have I purchased?
I mentioned a month or two ago that I would like to read some Heinlein but that I drew a firm line at spending upwards of $30 on a single hardcover title. (Heinlein is relatively early scifi, and a lot of that genre was never--or hardly ever--published in hardcover.) I also generally dislike "collection"-style books. However, I broke down and ordered this when a fantastic deal came up on one of my booksites. Including shipping, it was less than $8, and I will now be able to read Have Spacesuit, Will Travel; Starship Troopers; and Podkayne of Mars. Excellent. Depending on how this goes, I may pick up his other omnibuses.
Ann Patchett wrote Bel Canto, which is simultaneously one of the most beautiful and almost certainly the saddest book I've ever read. Because of my respect for Bel Canto, I purchased this a few days ago while it was on a clearance of sorts. If it's anything like Bel Canto, I may have to pick up some more of her books. I read Bel Canto last year sometime; it wore me out, but in a good way. It was just so intense that I couldn't pick up another of her books until now.
I picked this up, too, also at a clearance. A number of people may be familiar with the story of the Indianapolis because it was mentioned by Quint in the film Jaws. This book delves into the experience of the men in the water, the reasons why they weren't even missed for days, etc. Should be an interesting read.
I also purchased a book of Emily Dickinson's poetry for about $4. I bought it for two reasons: one, I don't own any of her poetry and she's considered a classic author, and two, the book is a really lovely book: the paper is high-quality and slightly glossy, the book is heavy and well bound. There's just one problem: I've since tried to read some of her poems, and I can't stand them. They strike me as simperingly gooey; the experience was not unlike being trapped in a small room with a little old lady force-feeding me caramel syrup and reading poems about her cat, Fluffy, who died twenty years ago and to whose memory she remains faithful. I guess I'll have to try them again later this week to see if that was a mood I was in rather than the poetry, and if I still don't like them I'll shelve them for a few years and then see what I think.
My carry-around-with-me book this week is Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which I am rereading for approximately the fifty-seventh time. I love this book. I can always see the salon of the Nautilus as clearly as if I'd been there.
Finally, I'm reading a Rex Stout Nero Wolfe collection, and I think I'm in love with Archie Goodwin. I
I had a Bookseller First yesterday.
A bit over a week ago, I had a customer approach me and request that I find or order a certain book for her. We didn't have it in stock (I'm ashamed to say that I can't remember the title now), but she wasn't in a hurry to read it, so I placed an order. Having done so, she asked for a recommendation.
Recs are tough. A lot of people want to read a new book or new genre, but when it's actually placed in their hand they get cold feet. Fear of the unknown, perhaps? Who knows?
Anyway, glancing at her basket of books, I made a strong plug for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. One of the benefits of this book is that it has a thoroughly memorable title; people do not forget it! She said that it sounded interesting, but that she wasn't inclined to get it because it had been promoted by the corporate office of The Bookstore in their "Suggestions" newsletter, and that she'd never liked any of the titles they featured.
"Bluntly speaking, ma'am," said I, "I never have either. Frankly, I can only chalk up their recommendation of this book to a clerical error or one of their reviewers getting drunk some night and sending off an email about it. Their selections are usually cover-to-cover angst-ridden drivel. That being said, when this book came out I did two things that I haven't done before or since: I purchased one of their recommended copies, and I did so when it went bestseller. I haven't regretted it for a moment, and I've reread it at least once since I purchased it."
She agreed that she'd consider getting it, and then changed the subject. I thought nothing more of this until yesterday evening, as I suggest titles to customers all the time.
She came back yesterday evening, and came up to my register. I opened my mouth to give my usual hi-how-are-you-did-you-find-everything-you-needed-do-you-have-a-savings-card spiel. Instead, she started the conversation.
"Oh, you're that bookseller who recommended that potato peel pie book to me! I came back earlier this week but you weren't here. I just wanted to let you know that I LOVED that book! Thanks so much for suggesting it! Do you have any other recommendations?"
I have given hundreds of books recommendations to people in the last year and a half at The Bookstore. Of those hundred, I expect that a few dozen actually picked up the book. Until yesterday, not one has ever come back and told me if they liked it, much less asked for another recommendation.
I am happy.
Three guesses as to what the next rec was, and the first two don't count.
Yep.
You guessed it.
84 Charing Cross Road.
My "fun-reading" has been cut drastically in the last few weeks. I've just been (cue Greek chorus here, as this is an oft repeated cry) too busy.
Correspondingly, the list of books I want to read next is growing exponentially.
What I've read recently:
I've just finished some of the Miss Read Fairacre and Thrush Green series. Deep? No. They are pleasant, though, and who can help but want to read more about Joseph Coggs? I've met few children that I actually like, but I like kids like Joseph: scrappy, tough, kind, responsible. Besides, Miss Read's comments on village life are ones that make me giggle. Maybe you'd have to have lived in a small village once yourself to understand. Maybe not. In any case, I do like her writing.
Saturday night, I finished Dean Koontz's From the Corner of His Eye. Dean Koontz is perhaps a little deeper than Miss Read, but there's a limit to how deep you can get when you're writing about singleminded monsters and once-abused individuals who rise above their circumstances by making pies. I love the way that Koontz takes such characters and has them reach the sublime via that which is, after all, really important: golden retrievers, chocolate ice cream, great books, and pie-related masterpieces.
Right now, I'm reading The Princess Bride. I've been told by at least half a dozen people whose taste in books I respect that My Life Will Not Be Complete unless I read The Princess Bride. So far, I like it. I don't think that it will be in my top ten (or twenty) favorite books, but I do like it. William Goldman has been added to my list of authors with whom I'd like to share a cake and a pot of tea and a lot of good conversation and laughter. (That list is a blog post all to itself.)
What I am going to read soon (ish):
Sitting on my to-be-read shelf are the last two Helene Hanff (of 84 Charing Cross Road fame--see, I knew I could work that book into this post!) books that I have yet to read. One is Underfoot in Show Business, and the other is Apple of My Eye. The first title is fairly self-explanatory: Hanff spent most of her years in New York writing plays--or trying to, at least, and this is her story. I know already that it won't be as good as 84 or Duchess, but I still want to read it. The second is her version of an illustrated book on New York, complete with Hanff-isms galore. I opened it at random when it arrived in my mailbox, and read that she detested the Metropolitan Museum of Art because she loved Central Park. I can't fathom why the one means the other, but I do know that it took a superhuman effort to leave that book on the to-be-read shelf until I've a) finished some algebra homework, b) studied for music literature, and c) finished The Princess Bride. I do want to know why she loathed the MMA, as it's one of my favorite places in the world. I was there once and fell promptly and irrevocably in love.
On a completely different note, I've decided that my familiarity with science fiction has been sorely neglected. This has much to do with reading From the Corner of His Eye; Robert Heinlein's work is featured prominently in that story. Therefore, Starship Troopers, Podkayne of Mars, and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel are on the to-be-read-soon list. Evidentally, one cannot simply get a hardbound copy of each of these for a dollar plus shipping: think more in the $25 per book range. I will, therefore, sacrifice my opinions about collection-style volumes of works and purchase Outward Bound, as this contains all of the above and can be purchased for a mere $3 or so plus shipping.
(I know that most earlier scifi was published in paperback only, but surely forty years after the fact the classics should be available in hardcover at cheaper prices? Ah, well.)
Furthermore, I want to reread Paradise Lost. I read it once, but I know I didn't come within a hundred miles of appreciating it, though I can tell you from experience that the entire poem can be sung to the tune of the Coca-Cola song.
So the to-be-read-soon list is as follows:
Underfoot in Show Business (Helene Hanff)
Apple of My Eye (ditto)
Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein)
Podkayne of Mars (ditto)
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel (ditto)
Paradise Lost (John Milton)
As varied a list as I've ever seen.
None of these qualify for a full-length letter, but...
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Dear Sir/Madam,
I realize that you don't like Sarah Palin. Congratulations. You are entitled to your opinion. Such is the country in which we live. I really don't give an intoxicated iguana what your political views are, provided that you don't make me listen to them.
However, this business of taking books from various sections of the store and covering the books about Governor Palin with various other titles Must Cease.
By doing so, you are not preventing her from running for re-election (or for another public office). Nor are you changing her mind (or anyone else's) on a wide variety of topics. You are simply assuring yourself of an Unpleasant Fate when we booksellers find out who you are. You see, the nuisance here is threefold: first, if someone does wish to purchase a book about Governor Palin, it is difficult for us to find such a book if it is covered by another. I'm sure that's your intention. However, it means that we may lose a sale and will lose a good deal of patience when we try to find one of the twelve copies we supposedly have in stock. Secondly, the book you have used to obscure the Alaskan governor's smirk does not belong there. Oftentimes, you simply grabbed it from a shelf. If we look for that inoffensive title for a customer, we won't find it, either. Again, a possible lost sale, and certainly an annoyed bookseller. Finally, when we do discover this, it will be after we close and as we are tidying up the store. It makes more work for us (yet another book to be filed properly), and the bookseller who looked for both the Palin title and the obscuring title will be taking your name and political affiliations in vain.
In short: grow up.
UbiCaritas
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Dear Sir/Madam,
You may be a fellow bookseller, in which case you should be booted straight to a special circle of Hades for this stunt as you would have a fairly good idea just how much extra work you have made for bookstore employees across the nation. If you aren't a bookseller, then you're just a sadistic little troublemaker. Either way, I hope you fall into a fire ant nest after dropping a jar of honey over yourself.
Apparently you decided that it would be ever-so-cute to prop a book about monkeys on a display featuring books by and about our current president. Better yet, you could photograph this title in such a display as PROOF that a large bookselling chain (Barnes & Noble, in this case) is RACIST and must be BOYCOTTED IMMEDIATELY (I quote from the nationally-circulating email you so kindly sent out) because of COURSE the corporate offices of such a chain would be so patently stupid as to planogram something like that (after donating the maximum allowable amount to the president's election campaign, but I digress).
Ergo, bookstores (the big chains, and some privately owned stores) all over the country have instructed their booksellers to routinely check all Obama displays for such defacement. Because, you know, in the current short-staffed climate we haven't enough to do without regular checks of the seven different Obama displays in the store.
Go cuddle a grizzly bear, why don't you?
UbiCaritas
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Dear Sir/Madam,
I don't know why you insist upon leaving opened-to-the-centerfold Playboy and Penthouse magazines and The Illustrated Guide to Gay Sex in the children's department. (The latter was tucked neatly behind a book on a display, so an unsuspecting individual would pick up the children's book and get an eyeful.) In fact, I probably don't want to know. However, if I catch you in the act of doing so I shall turn you over to the ex-Air Force Bible-thumping Southern Baptist supervisor who is nearing retirement. I'm sure he won't mind retiring a few months earlier than originally planned, and I'm equally sure that he'd enjoy spending five minutes with you in the parking lot before the police arrive. Heck, most of the booksellers (who ordinarily couldn't disagree with this supervisor more on matters religious and political) would probably cheer him on.
May you try such a stunt in front of that nice police officer who brings his kids by the store to pick out books every weekend.
UbiCaritas
(And before you ask--no, we're pretty sure it isn't the occasional curious kid doing this. It's happening too darn regularly, and some of the stuff is stored sufficiently out-of-kid reach that it is highly unlikely that a kid would keep getting their paws on it.)
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Dear Sir*,
Certain of our booksellers are occasionally asked to dress up as characters from children's books for our weekend Story Time. As the costumes tend to be on the smaller side, the person within the costume is usually a female bookseller.
I have a recommendation for you.
Before you make a comment on the "bangability" of the young-enough-to-be-your-daughter bookseller wearing the costume (she has taken off the mask in order to reassure a small child), I would strongly suggest that you ensure that the person to whom you are speaking isn't that bookseller's father.
Just a suggestion, you understand. Take it or leave it as you see fit.
UbiCaritas
*This one didn't happen recently or at my store. Another bookseller told me about the incident, and it struck me as sufficiently humorous that I had to pass it on. The story previous reminded me of this one.
Oh, SUCH an original title.
And yes, I need to be studying algebra right now.
However...
Books I'm reading/ordering/will read/et all:
The Jasper Fforde Thursday Next series:
Jasper Fforde has that wry, literary, tongue-in-cheek sort of humor that one might expect if you crossed Terry Pratchett with Harry Potter and threw in an old-fashioned librarian just for kicks. I'm slooooowly working through the series after picking up Something Rotten at Half Price Books a few weeks ago for $4. It's a sort of literary-scifi-fantasy-adventure cross. How can you not read a book that features Mrs. TiggyWinkle and Emperor Zhark as SpecOps agents? (Featured paraphrased quote: "My name strikes terror into the heart of billions, but can I get my collars properly starched? Noooooo!") Or a series in which characters such as Hamlet can jump into real life in order to have identity crises? I ask you.
Start off with The Eyre Affair, and work your way through the next four. He also has a Nursery Crimes series (introduced in Thursday's The Well of Lost Plots) which features, natch, Detective Jack Spratt. Haven't picked those up yet, but if they are to the level of Thursday Next, they're well worth it.
Having read The Eyre Affair, I had, of course, to rerererereread Jane Eyre. As usual, it was even better than I remembered and I understood or saw more nuances that I did in the last reading. If you haven't read it, then do so.
Finally, thanks to Mr. Fforde and Ms. Bronte, I decided to try Jane Austen yet again. (I was forced to read Pride and Prejudice at nine or ten, and have held a strong--oh, I can't resist--prejudice against Austen ever since.) Ergo, I ordered Sense and Sensibility, and it should be here this week:
Title: 84 Charing Cross Road
Author: Helene Hanff
Rating: Can one perhaps raise five stars to the second, third, or tenth power? (Can you tell that I'm taking another math class this semester?)
Read it
if you love good books,
if you want to share that love with wonderful and book-loving people,
if you want to become a friend of friends of books,
if you love the feel of a perfectly bound good book in your hand--none of those revolting "grimy schoolboy editions" published by B&N, Borders, and all and sundry,
if you appreciate great wit and gentility,
if you consider abridgement, retelling, and selection to be crimes that would, in a reasonable world, be punishable by hanging, drawing and quartering at the very least,
if you are or ever have been an impoverished bibliophile,
if you've read and loved The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (a reviewer of that beautiful book led me to 84 Charing Cross Road),
(and if any of these statements are true and you haven't read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, get thee to your nearest bookstore/computer/library)
if you haunt real used bookstores and/or devoutly wish that chain used-book stores, however well-meaning, would not exist as they tend to put the privately-owned used-book stores out of business,
if you dream of spending afternoons wandering through shelves and shelves and shelves of books,
then you must read this book. That's all there is to it. You will laugh, nod, hop up and down, run out and spend too much money on some books, cry, and reread, because the only issue I'd have with the book is that it is too darned short.
I got my copy yesterday, stayed up 'til two reading it after work, and will reread it again today before finding a fellow book lover to whom I'll pass it on.
Go forth and purchase it! In paperback, you can get it for $5 (including shipping) from Abebooks.com. In hardcover, you could get it for $8 or so (again, including shipping). I'd argue that this book should be purchased in hardcover because of the sort of book that it is, but I'm sure Ms. Hanff would have understood if one must purchase it in paperback. Heck, go to a library and get it for free. It is all of maybe 150-200 pages, and probably less; not exactly a tome.
Just read it, okay?
(Carapiccoladiva, I have vowed that this afternoon I shall sit down and read Mrs. Dalloway cover-to-cover and not let myself be distracted from my purpose. Now you go get this book! :D Incidentally, it is available in German. Oh, and I've meant to email you about this, but to look back to the book meme of over a year ago, Birgit Nilsson's autobiography--La Nilsson--has finally come out in English.)
Don't really have any stories from work at the moment (at least, nothing amusing) and school is fantastic but as of yet unremarkable, so what to write about? Well, if singing and work are out, that leaves...books and food, natch!
Okay, recipe for a lovely dinner, which will either serve 3-4 or leave lots of leftovers. In particular, the salmon is incredible as leftovers, possibly even better than it was right out of the oven. I think the flavors mingle a little better after 24 hours or so.
Take a salmon fillet and a bottle of ginger-wasabi marinade (I never said that this was original!). Pour some of the marinade into the pan, and slap the salmon into it. Turn the salmon over a few times in order to be sure that it is covered in marinade. Refrigerate for a day or so.
The next day, snap the ends off of two pounds of asparagus. Place the ends on the bottom of a fairly deep frying pan. Add just enough water to almost (but not quite) cover the asparagus ends. Add a TB of butter, cut into slivers. (I know, I know, butter = great evil presence that will kill you in your sleep. One TB will add a whopping hundred calories to the entire two pounds of asparagus, and will improve the flavor immeasurably. Put the butter in, darn it!) Then put the rest of the asparagus on top of the ends. The ends will keep the asparagus from scorching on the bottom of the pan. Cover the pan, and set it on a burner. Simmer until tender, about 8-10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the stalks.
While the asparagus is cooking, put the salmon under a broiler until crispy on the edges; time will vary depending on the size of the fillet. Cut a few slices from a loaf of really good bread and some more slices of a similarly good cheese (I recommend Brie). If you're a wine person, pour a glass at this point. Put on some sort of pleasant but unobtrusive music. Pull out the salmon, and cut yourself a piece. Dish out some asparagus, put some bread and cheese on the plate, and voila! Dinner is served.
I had fresh raspberries and a peach for dessert; to make it fancy, you could add cream whipped with just a hint of nutmeg, with a light dust of nutmeg overall just before serving. I think that the fruit was good as it was, though, as it's hard to beat perfectly in-season raspberries and peach!
Now for some books...
I've finished Waiter Rant, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I even decided to purchase it, on the theory that I've read The Waiter's blog for years for free, and that I should at least say "thanks" by buying the book.
It's a rather out-of-the-way book, admittedly. The best way to describe it is as a collection of blog posts. Over two-thirds of the book has never been online, but I still sort of perceived it as a set of posts (admittedly longer than most of his posts) that I hadn't read before. You know how, when you read a really neat blog you finish up reading the latest post by thinking "Man, that was COOL, but I wish it kept going?" This book is like that for Waiter Rant fans.
As a rule, I don't usually read best-sellers. Far too frequently, they're trash, garbage (yes, there's a difference), or just plain badly written. I not only read this NYT Bestseller, but I purchased it before it hit used-book sites at a considerably cheaper rate. Readers (all six of them) of this blog know how unusual that is.
It's written as a series of letters between several characters and set shortly after WWII. I was initially uncertain about it, but after reading about 20 pages I was hooked and didn't put it down that night until I'd finished it.
If I had to describe it, I'd say that it's a historical novel/love story/mystery based around some relatively unknown wartime incidents. It will particularly appeal to the lover of good books.
Resistance is written by a woman who was arrested in France shortly after Paris was invaded. She had been distributing pamphlets and putting impertinent de Gaulle bumper stickers on Nazi vehicles. For this, she spent the remainder of the war in prison and labor camps.
I would have expected this to be a really interesting book, and it was. But it was just depressing. That sounds so self-centered, because this woman went through more horror than I can imagine. But, well, it's true. I didn't see much love or affection in this book. Sure, I wouldn't exactly expect that from the Nazis, but the author spent most of the book being sarcastic and unpleasant. When speaking, for example, of being told that she was a grandmother, she didn't discuss her feelings of not meeting this child or even initially knowing his sex or name. Instead, she was sarcastic: of course the camp's wardress didn't let her know; she supposed that good German women didn't need to know the sex of their grandchildren. If any of you have read The Chronicles of Narnia, the author's style reminds me of that of Eustace (Voyage of the Dawn Treader) when he wrote in his notebook: in a word, snotty. Just snotty.
Maybe it's partly the translation, since the book was translated from the French. But the unpleasantness, bitterness and--I'll use this word once more and then stop--snottiness of the book kept me from particularly appreciating it. At the end of the war, some of the local peasants refused to identify those who had mistreated them. Why? Because they were religious, and forgave their opppressors. Quite frankly, I couldn't do that, but I could respect it. After all, those who had been in charge of the camps weren't going to be in such a position again, so not identifying them wouldn't cause others to suffer in the future. Instead of being at least understanding about this position, she mocks them and makes unnecessarily rude remarks about the religious statues in their cottages.
All in all, this isn't a book I'll be recommending anytime soon.
Now for an entirely different sort of book. While I'm a bit of a Dean Koontz fan, I had never read his Frankenstein books. I read both over the last month or two. I must say, I'm impressed. While I wouldn't say that they are great literature, I will say that they are, as his books generally tend to be, extremely well-written. Exquisite attention to detail mingles with brilliant imagination, and they form another series that has me begging, "Mr. Koontz, WHERE is the third book of the series?" (His Christopher Snow books, my favorite of all his series, have been waiting for their third book for over ten years, I believe, though a very distance reference was made to them in his latest Odd Thomas installment.)
Koontz makes the reader present in his story; one cringes at Carson's madcap driving, and chuckles at Maddison's side comments. At the same time, the reader ponders the unanswerable: how and what is ensoulment? Can a creature created specifically for evil still render good? The importance of the responsible practice of science and, of course, the "everyday hero" are prominently featured.
There are, as always, many good laughs and much reference to mouth-watering food. As has been indicated in his other books, Koontz (not incorrectly, I think) seems to argue that when the world is being destroyed, sometimes all that one can do is cling to that which one holds dear: family, friends, and chocolate-mint ice cream.
Heaven alone knows when he'll release Book Three. It was supposed to be published in 2006. The date was then pushed to 2007, and on to 2008. Now the tentative release date is in 2009.
I do know that I'll be first in line when that book is finally released.
But please, Mr. Koontz. Couldn't you finish the Christopher Snow series soon? This reader would be most grateful.
My cousin sent me a Barnes&Noble gift card for my birthday.
Barnes&Noble sells used books online, and you can use gift cards to purchase them.
So, I got:
This author is not as well-known as she once was, but her books are really well-written and enjoyable. I had this in paperback; now I'll have it in hardcover! Yay!
Of course, that meant that I had to get the sequel to Gone-Away Lake, which is, unusually, quite as good as the first.
I could not be more pleased that Roger Lancelyn Green is coming back into vogue in some of the better area schools. He was a professor at, I believe, Cambridge. His specialty was myths, and he retold all sorts of wonderful stories for children. He found a perfect blend of authenticity and somewhat modernized language: while his characters and the story's voice don't speak Middle English, they utilize an older style without being inaccessable. He's retold everything from English/Welsh myths to old Egyptian fairytales. Furthermore, I love the Everyman Library editions; the bindings are lovely, the paper is of good quality, PURTY pictures, and so forth. I am disgusted to note that his Tales of Troy seem to be entirely unavailable in hardcover for those of us who don't want (or, in my case, can't afford) the collector's set of four of his books: leather bindings, gold leaf on the pages, ribbon markers, leather slipcover, retailing at a mere $550....no, that was not an extra "5" in there...
Was it Erasmus who said "If I get a little money, I buy books, and if there's any left over, I buy food"?
I should have that framed and put it on my wall.
Of course, I couldn't have spent that gift card on anything much except books. Sure, they sell CDs, office stuff, journals, etc--but if my choices are a) books and b) virtually anything else, then I generally choose books. In case y'all hadn't noticed.
Must get showered/dressed/ready for work, as I'm on call.
