Discovery of a New-to-Me Author

Before we left for our trip to Ireland, I asked PianoLady, an avid reader, for some reading suggestions. She gave me several suggestions, I found and downloaded them, and started listening. No joy! As you know, I want content I can get lost in. I want content that will grab me and make me not want to turn off my MP3 player. I'm not a good book club member—I don't want to analyze and pick apart a novel. I want to escape!

When I told her, six weeks later, that I just didn't love her suggestions, she was shocked. This is the first time her suggestions have failed with me.

When I had my knitter friends over for dinner a month ago, I told them this story and again asked for suggestions. Concert month (i.e. December) was coming, and I needed something to ease me through all my Cleveland commutes.

One woman—I think it was my friend Melinda—suggested the author Kate Atkinson. I went onto Audible and searched for her work. For reasons I no longer remember, I chose "When Will There Be Good News" for my Kate Atkinson starter.

Oh. Wow.

I love.Love.LOVE this woman's work!!! I am easily smitten with wordsmiths, and this author is a wordsmith par excellence! She turns phrases and crafts similes in a manner I can only hope to someday emulate.

I finished "When ..." yesterday, and plan to start it again. I loved it and am afraid I missed a few things, so want to hear it again. Then I'll go back to Audible and find more. (And the local library's MP3 shelf, just in case I can find a free download of this work.)

Kate Atkinson has been added to my Most Favored Author. Have you read her? What do you think?

Heaven and the Lack Thereof

First, I apologize for saying nothing for over three weeks. I honestly don't know where the time goes.

Next, if you follow all my comings and goings to NC, I will report that my visit with Mother lasted 24 hours. I used impending rain as the excuse and got out as she was walking to dinner on the second day I was there. I have two statements to make about the visit: 1) She's doing remarkably well; and 2) There's no cure for narcissism. I'm hopeful that I won't have to make that trip again until March.

And now—ta da—a current post!

I heard an interview with Carolyn S. Briggs on one or another talk show I listen to during my workdays. She wrote "Higher Ground: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost" in 2002. She adapted it to a screenplay, and the movie was released this year, and was nominated for the Grand Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival. I'm waiting for it to hit Netflix or Amazon.

Her interview captured my interest because of my own lack of relationship with faith, or with Christianity, or with religion. Who knows what to call it these days?!

Ms. Briggs is five years younger than I, but much of her religious life in the 70s paralleled that of mine in the same time period. There were praise sessions and home churches and speaking in tongues and other charismatic, evangelical manifestations. The major difference, though, was that she seemed to fully embrace the practices and beliefs. I, on the other hand, went along.

The pattern of much of my life has been to go along. Go along to get along. Go along so people might like you. Go along to ensure a stable and accepted place in the world. The bottom line: do anything to avoid being given away again. And so I gave myself away again and again and again.

Because our life during my first marriage was so wrapped up in church, I lost all my friends when I left my husband to regain any vestige of sanity that I ever had. In that environment, one doesn't leave her husband, regardless of how miserable she's been or how many times she's tried to escape by any means. Oh, but maybe they weren't really friends.

An example of how little I was known or understood by these people occurred after I reconciled with my husband following a three-month separation. I came back because I missed my children so terribly, and I thought he had woken up to his part in causing the separation.

During that brief period we were back together, I attended a women's bible study and prayer group in Ft. Worth, hosted by a woman in the church we had been attending. The bible study included foot washing.

<Sidebar On>
As I was growing up in the Seventh-day Adventist church, communion was observed four times a year ("quarterly") and always included a foot washing ceremony. ("Rite"? "Ritual"? "Procedure"? Whatever.) I always hated it. It seemed so artificial and contrived to me. I didn't like it any better as an adult. What was the point? But then, I've never had any use for the communion ritual, either. It's merely something we're told to do. And I've always been averse to being told what to do.
<Sidebar Off>

As I was washing the feet of a woman named Cookie (oh, the things one can still remember 30 years later), she said to me, "I hope you can be as gentle with your sons as you have been with me."

<Rant On>
Whuck? Woman, you know nothing about me. You've never been inside my home. You've never seen me with my children except in the artificial environment of two-hours-a-week church and occasional church-related social events. You don't know what it's like to run a family where the husband won't look for a real job besides selling Amway. You don't know what it's like to live with a "loving" husband who tells you that you shouldn't even take an aspirin for your many—and sometimes daily—headaches because God is trying to teach you something. You don't know what it's like to have been emotionally abused by that "loving" husband for ten years.
<Rant Off>

Who knows what my husband told Cookie about me. He certainly didn't tell her anything about "us". When we were just a few weeks into our marriage and I realized I had made the biggest mistake of my life, I begged him to go to marriage counseling. He told me, "We don't talk about things like that to strangers." Well, we didn't talk about it among ourselves either, so there you go. And there the marriage went after ten miserable years.

I enjoyed Ms. Briggs' writing. I especially appreciated how she bared her soul in writing this book. I wish she had spent a little more time dealing with how she coped with her new Weltanschauung once she broke away from the hyper-religionism. I felt that 90% of the book dealt with the religion, and very little with the aftermath. But it's her book. When I write my book, I can handle it the way I want.

I look forward to watching the movie, as I feel it will help/force me to look inside myself a little farther.

And digressing—my sister-in-law said something to me recently about praying for someone, and paused before saying it. Then she said, "I know you don't agree with that."

What I agree with or believe or condone has not one thing to do with what you agree with or believe or condone. I salute your right to believe whatever resonates with you. But, at the same time, I cling for dear life to my right to believe whatever resonates with me.

You can believe in foot washing or communion or saying the rosary or smoking peyote or staying in bed with your bedmate on Sunday morning. You can believe in anything you want. And you can know for a surety that I will not tell you you're wrong.

But in the same vein, you owe me the respect and courtesy to not.not.not try to get me to relinquish my beliefs in order to adopt yours.

You may think you have all the answers, but—I assure you—you don't. I don't. Nobody does.

You have your beliefs, and that's all they are. Your beliefs.

If we go someplace after this existence (the topic for another post), we may or may not find out there what the correct answer was. And then again, maybe there's no correct answer at all.

We'll see . . .

One Day

Before Mozart C minor Mass hell week and all its affiliated time-in-the-car, I was searching on Audible for a new book. I chose "One Day", by David Nicholls. I liked the idea of peeking into the lives of two people on the same day every year for twenty years.

I've been enjoying it immensely, and will see the movie as soon as it comes out on video next month.

There are so many good lines in this book. Nicholls is the kind of writer I like who turns out phrases that grab my ear. (I "read" most books in audio format.)

I think the movie wasn't such a big hit, but I highly recommend the book.

The two books that PianoLady recommended to me for our Ireland vacation didn't resonate with me. They were "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand", by Helen Simonson, and "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet", by Jamie Ford. I think both of these books might have lent themselves more to hardcopy reading than audio format.

I think I'll go back and explore Nicholls' two earlier novels, to see if this is always the way he writes. I hope so!

Secret Vices

Okay, I like romance novels. So report me to the literature police. When I've got a nine-hour drive ahead (two-per-week every other week for the past six weeks or so), I want something that will capture my interest and keep my mind from wandering.

I was searching Audible.com before my last trip to find something suitable for the trip, and I happened across Sherryl Woods's "Chesapeake Shores" series. Having lived in the D.C. area for roughly a third of my life, I love the Chesapeake Bay and all the little inlets that define its shore. I read and enjoyed the first book—and it met my distraction goals—so downloaded the next, and the next, and so on. I'm now on the most recent one, and I'm annoyed at my addiction.

I must say that Ms. Woods has found a formula that works for her. But sometimes it's just a tad too formulaic.

I actually wrote to her a week ago and asked, wryly, "Do you know how many times you use the adjectives 'wry' and 'wryly'?" And I received a charming response from her. Not all authors would have done that.

Here's the thing about audiobooks, at least for me: I notice patterns in writing much more when I'm listening to the book than when I'm turning the physical pages. I don't know if that is caused by the way I read—I speak the text in my mind as I'm reading. My years of working as an editor have made this bad habit hard to break. But if an author uses the same phrase repeatedly, I'm going to notice. And at some point I'm going to get annoyed.

I don't believe I've ever noticed someone speak "wryly." What sort of statement would that encompass? And, upon reflection, I don't believe she uses other adjectives for speech in the same way she uses "wryly." All of her characters are wry. No one is exempt.

And I don't think I've read one of her books that did not include that phrase. Repeatedly.

The other phrase is "more's the pity." I have never heard anyone use that phrase. I've lived in the Florida, Wisconsin, Texas, Maryland, Virginia, D.C., Arizona, and Ohio. I've known octogenarians and agrarians and vegetarians. No one uses "more's the pity." I had to google it to figure out what it meant, and I still don't think I get it. When I mentioned this annoyance to Ms. Woods, she said she hears it "all the time." So there you go. Writers write what they hear.

I do have to talk a moment about her characters. Never—in the pages and pages of books of all genres that I've read—have I read so many characters prone to jump to erroneous conclusions. And to hold grudges. And to make assumptions that will bite them in the ass. And to refuse to communicate. One of her main characters in the series is a psychoanalyst. Can't he just please get these people into his office and tell them to grow up?!

The greatest example of this conclusion-jumping was when a young woman appeared on the family's doorstep during Thanksgiving dinner. She handed a baby to the mother of the family and told her the baby's name was the same name as the father of the family. The mother immediately assumed her husband bedded the young woman and produced another child. And she was in a snit about it for an interminable number of pages.

Just talk! Ask the question. Get the answer. Don't run off in a huff based on an assumption!

Communication is vastly underrated!!

Okay, so even with all those complaints and negative-sounding comments, I have enjoyed these books. I'm less than two hours from finishing the last book. I will read all the rest of the books she releases in this series.

But now I'm about 36 hours from my next nine-hour drive to NC. I need something to make the time fly.

Guess I'll spend a little time on Audible tomorrow and see what else pops up.


And what are you reading?

Inappropriate Teaching

My latest read is Chuck Palahniuk's "Survivor". I grabbed it off Audible because it was under $10 and I needed something to pass a couple of Cleveland and Akron commutes. It has captured my interest, but not in a can't-put-it-down way. More in a what-outrageous-thing-is-he-going-to-say-next way.

When one observes parents teaching their children the basic facts of life—"that's a 'tree', that's a 'book', that's a 'dog'—one sometimes wonders, "what if we mixed up the words?". Admit it. You've thought this at least once, right?

What if I said a cat was a koala and an acorn was an ant. What if you totally messed with your kid's mind? I'm thankful never to have run across someone so perverse, but it could happen ….

Mr. Palahniuk's protagonist is the sole survivor of a religious cult (think Mormon and Mennonite and Heaven's Gate, all rolled up into one community). A suicide hotline in his community posts a flyer with the digits in the phone number reversed. The incorrect phone number is his. He gets a couple of phone calls from people contemplating suicide. He handles the calls deftly. Then when the flyer with the error is corrected, he creates his own flyer with his phone number. People considering suicide call, he answers, and he tells them, "Just kill yourself."

It's the act of someone whose conscience has been eradicated by his early drink-the-Kool-Aid training.

He works as a housekeeper/valet for a nouveau riche couple. Each time they're going to a dinner party, he has to find out ahead of time what the menu will be, then teach them how to eat anything they're unfamiliar with.

The day he quits the job, he tells the man that a hearts of palm salad is eaten by spearing the heart with a fork, sucking the juice out of it, and then tucking the heart into his breast pocket.

The employer believes everything he says.

I'm not loving the book, but I am forging ahead as I really do want to see how it ends.

<Taking a Fork in the Mental Process>
I'm writing this the morning after President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden. I see the people cheering in the streets. My daughter-in-law drove to D.C. yesterday to do an engagement shoot with clients who had gotten all the necessary permissions to have their photo session in front of the White House. And now this: all creativity must be brought to play in making this shoot happen.

I see on the news people standing and chanting, "USA. USA." I see people en masse at the White House and at Ground Zero, cheering, crying, shouting, dancing.

People! It's not over. This evil, demented man (bin Laden) poisoned the minds of hundreds, thousands, who knows how many people. You think just because he died they're going to change their ways of thinking? No. They're not!

This does not mean we can send all the full-body scanners to the scrap yard. This does not mean the military presence in the mideast can cease to exist. This does not mean we can relax. Alas, this does not mean we can relax.

What do I feel? Not giddiness. Not happiness. Not a competitive "Woo. Woo. We got him. We won."

Relief. Just relief. Post-partum relief.

That's over. Now we can move to the next stage, while we discover what the next stage really is


And my mind is with the families of those who died at the Pentagon and in Manhattan and in Pennsylvania. May they feel a measure of relief today.

<Returning from the Fork>

I guess the message of both the book and bin Laden's capture/death is this: Be vigilant.

1. Think for yourself.


2. Don't believe everything you've been told.


3. It ain't over until the fat lady sings, and we don't have any idea who the fat lady is!

Think peace!

Fitting In

I've written a number of times in this space about feeling, throughout my life, that I didn't fit in. I know I'm not alone. Lots and lots of people don't fit in where they've been dropped on earth.

I loved and respected the environment at Interlochen Arts Academy when my younger son was a student there. That school made it possible for hyper-talented young people who didn't fit in at their home school to meld their lives together and fit together in the creative Eden that is Interlochen Center for the Arts.

I've just finished reading Jodi Piccoult's "Nineteen Minutes." I loved this book!

First, the method Ms. Piccoult used to lead the reader into the mind of the characters was brilliant. I felt such empathy for Peter. I wanted to take Josie out for a mocha and tell her, "You're better than this!"

Second, the topic and Piccoult's treatment of it was riveting. I couldn't put the book down. At times when I would have been listening to something on XMRadio or watching something on television, I was turning on my iPod to get further into the book. And yesterday, while cleaning house, I turned it on to start from the beginning again.

I loved the way Piccoult put her words together. I loved her descriptions of places and things and seasons and feelings.

And, of course, now I've got to explore her body of work and listen to her entire catalog. ("Nineteen Minutes" came out in 2007. Where have I been?!)


What have you been reading?

Open and Shut

I've been trying to get through John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany". When I downloaded it, I was thinking I had read some John Irving in the past and enjoyed it. Now, looking back to wonder why on earth I wanted to read this book, I search his bibliography and realize I've never read any of his works. Hmm, wonder who I was thinking of!

I rarely put down a book once I've started it. But in the past year I think I've given up on released back to the universe several books that just weren't compelling to me.

What did I download to replace Irving on my iPhone? Four Nora Roberts novels - The Bride Quartet. Call it Chick Lit if you must, but I have always loved her writing. Maybe it's formulaic, but I don't care. I escape from my world when I'm listening to her works. I fantasize being able to write a quarter as good (and as prolifically) as she does. Okay, so she won't win a Pulitzer, but she draws me in.

I simply must learn to not feel guilty when I put a book down for the final time even though I'm less than halfway through. The author will get his or her share of the money, and I'll move on.

What are you reading this snowy day?

What Are You Reading?

After PianoLady told me she was reading Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom", I picked it up off Audible.com and have been slowly making my way through it. In contrast to the daily two hours of drive time during which I listened to book after book, my only dedicated time now is my Monday night drive to and from Cleveland for rehearsals. The audio book is over 24 hours in length! At one day a week, that's three months of rehearsals to complete the book!

Do you know how easy it is to forget the facts you've already learned when you put a book down for a week? Very easy!

I will say that the thing I don't like about audio books is the fact that you can't look ahead to see what's coming. In a hardcopy book, when I get bored, I'll glance ahead to see if my interest is going to pick up in the coming pages. That's not an option here.

The other thing that's frustrating is when I hear a passage that I'd like to remember or quote in a blog or Facebook. Unless I pick up the iPhone, look at the display and write down which section I'm in and how many minutes into that section, I'll never find the quote again. I can't exactly highlight it!

I did look at the Wikipedia page on "Freedom", and learned the scene will soon move to Washington, DC. I love reading or watching works set in cities that I love, and I totally love DC. So my boredom will fade soon.

What are you reading?

What Are You Reading?

I just finished "Eat, Pray, Love" after avoiding it ever since it slammed into the American consciousness. As I've mentioned before, I tend to avoid books and movies that are phenoms. But I like to read the book on which a movie is based before I see that movie. I've been thinking I want to see Julia Roberts in "Eat, Pray, Love", so picked up a copy of the book and then, lacking time to sit and read, got the Audible.com version. And now I'm not sure I want to see the movie!

One thing I especially like about reading is forming my own mental images of people, places and things. Do I want to know what Hollywood thinks Felipe looks like? (I haven't even looked to see who the actor is who plays this important role.)

I enjoyed Elizabeth Gilbert's writing and want to look into more of her work. There were passages I absolutely loved and wanted to include in this post. However, when you're "reading" an audio book, it's very hard—while driving—to pick up the iPod, open the player, note what track it's on and how many minutes into the track it is. I just may have to listen to it again while sewing or knitting so I can stop and copy down the portions I want to share.

Gilbert's experiences and thought/growth processes made me ponder my own life and where I could have done things differently. But, then, I do that on my own anyway. I'm kinda introspective/obsessive that way. (Do you think I have Obsessive Introspective Disorder?)

I've delayed long enough now that it's out on video. Maybe I'll rent it, invite my Knitting Buddy Melinda to bring her latest project, and we can knit and watch it together, sans popcorn. Then I can see if Hollywood's version of Felipe is as delicious as he is in my mind.

And what are you reading?

Books and Movies

Next Wednesday night is WYSU movie night again. My knitting buddy Melinda works for WYSU and we try to coordinate our movie watching so we at least get that time to socialize every month even if I can't make knitting group. She brings whatever sock or washcloth she's working on at the moment and we sit, watch, and knit. We are the ultimate multitaskers.

This month the movies are "Eat, Pray, Love" and "Nanny McPhee Returns". I'm inclined to see EPL, although Melinda wants to read the book first. I normally prefer to read books first, but for some reason I had no desire to read EPL. I think it's because it was such a phenom, and I tend to shy away from fads—or what I deem to be fads. And I think I'd rather see Nanny McPhee with the g'babes. So I'm not sure how Melinda and I are going to resolve this impasse.

Speaking of phenoms and contradicting myself, I'm listening to "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." I bought the book but just couldn't find the time to sit with it. Then when my Audible subscription renewed, I bought and downloaded it. Now I keep the hardcopy by my bed and reference it when I'm wondering how a name is spelled. I'm having a hard time following the story, and might just listen to it again when I travel back to Asheville next Friday.

I'll be going alone next weekend (unless the Jazzman changes his mind again and decides to eat up a vacation day that would be better spent doing something fun together rather than driving for 8.5 hours and packing boxes) so will have 16-20 hours to listen to audiobooks. I'm torn whether to relisten to "Dragon Tattoo" so I can pick up all the parts I missed, or get the next book in the series (which numerous people have said is better than the first), or to relisten to Musicophilia, in light of Ridley's synesthesia.

Now that I don't have my hellish commute to Akron every day, I don't get to listen to nearly so many books, and I miss that part of my life. But let's see—drive in rain and sleet and snow to listen to books, or work from home? Ahhh, work from home!

What are you reading?

Who Are You? Really?

Anyone who has read this blog for, oh, longer than two weeks knows I am defined by my adoption. The perceived abandonment follows me everywhere, through marriages and jobs, into dreams and nightmares. It is who I am.

Lately I've been hearing a lot about a woman who is known as Byron Katie. Her Web site states,

The Work of Byron Katie is a way of identifying and questioning the thoughts that cause all the fear and suffering in the world.

In one of the radio shows I was listening to this week, the host—a great proponent of adoption—was talking about how Ms. Katie's work helps people stop focusing on the negatives of long, long ago. She enables them to, instead, build upon all they've accomplished in their lives to see who they truly are today.

Someone said Katie's work is similar to—in the same vein as—Marianne Williamson's work with "A Course in Miracles". I've heard and read some of Williamson's information, have heard her on the radio, and am familiar with the concept of positive affirmations, but for me affirmations just do not ring true. I feel like I'm trying to pull something over on myself, trying to trick myself into believing something that's just not valid.

I want to learn more about Katie and see what her work can do to set free some of the gremlins that roam around my brain.

It can't hurt, right?

(Today's photo was in a large box of photos I brought back from Mother's apartment. It was taken in late 1950, after my family got me in late June of 1950. I was five or six months old in this photo. Jim is five years old. Jerry is seven. The picture was taken in the living room of the house they were living in at the time, on Westminster St. off N. Orange Avenue, near what was then Orlando Sanitarium & Hospital. Six months later we moved into the house on Lake Maitland, where we lived until I went away to college.)

Leaving the Saints

I spent three years of my life in and around the Mormon church. I married a LDS man and embraced his lifestyle in my neverending quest to fit in—somewhere, anywhere.

I made many good friends during that phase of my life. And, of course, lost them all when I left him and left that church family. No one cared that my life had been threatened. No one cared that I went to sleep every night in fear that I would not be alive to wake up in the morning. When I heard "Leaving the Saints" discussed recently, I just had to read it.

I was touched by Martha Beck's writing. I found her incredibly open, and felt awestruck by the turmoil she must have experienced to lay these thoughts and feelings down on paper.

Since finishing the book, I have read several criticisms of it written by other members of Dr. Beck's family. We each have our own memories of how things happen. She has recounted her memories, and I respect all she lost—and gained—in doing so.

I was raised in a strict religious environment that is, in practice, similar to the LDS practices—specifically in health and dress restrictions, but also in some beliefs of what to expect in the end times. You've heard my schtick: I was raised Seventh-day Adventist, then I married a man who was raised Southern Baptist but got off into all the charismatic stuff, then I married a Lutheran, then a Mormon, and then a golfer. I liked the golfer's religion the best.

All joking aside, I would have to say I don't like religion. I don't like people presuming they're better than everyone around them, simply because they hold different beliefs. I don't like the rampant criticism that accompanies many religions—in my experience, the Adventists. I don't like the thought that if I vary one whit from the stated game plan, I am a horrible person. I want to be unconditionally loved and accepted while I mature and grow as a human being.

Can't we just be nice? Can't we speak the language of kindness?

When I was on Match hoping to find a nice man with whom to share my life, I stated in my profile that I was "spiritual but not religious". For me that translated to, "I don't really know what I believe, but please just let me believe it. Or not believe it."

So my interest was piqued by the following passage in "Leaving the Saints":

The word religion comes from the Latin religos, meaning "to tie together again." On a grand scale, I think this means the reconnection of all souls, all spirits, all the bits of divine creation that briefly imagine they—we—are separate and alone.

Instead of tearing people, families, groups, … apart, why can't organized religions seek to build their members up, imbuing them with a sense of togetherness, unity, and self-worth.

Don't tell me what a sinner I am—don't tell me of everything I'm doing wrong. Encourage me to want to do things right. Encourage me to be a better person.

---

There was one more passage that set the chimes in my head to ringing. Dr. Beck was describing the work she had begun in Phoenix after she and then-husband and children left Utah. In helping students prepare for and advance their careers, she would counsel:

"You'll know when you're in the wrong job interview," I'd say during a lecture, "because the pit of your stomach will tell you to get out. Your first daily priority should be stillness, attention to what you really know and what you really feel. Don't 'network' into meaningless relationships with colleagues who bore you; find the people who can make you laugh all night, who turn on the lights in your heart and mind. Do whatever work feeds your true self, even if it's not a safe bet, even if it looks like a crazy risk, even if everyone in your life tells you you're wrong or bad or crazy."

I feel like she described my current state of life. I left a sure job with a good salary in which I was absolutely miserable. I have a wonderful new job where every day I'm scared about being able to pay my taxes but where I love my work. I can always make more money. I can't make happiness.

And in my personal life, I have always been serious. Hyper-serious. Always trying to do things right. Always seeking approval and love. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I have this wonderful man who loves me and encourages me and helps me. And makes me laugh. Daily. Uproariously. Laugh-giggle-titter-smile-guffaw-laugh. Laugh.

My life is beyond good. My life is a miracle!

Selected Reading Materials

Y'know how many hotels have a Gideon Bible in the bedside table? And how Marriotts have a Book of Mormon for your reading pleasure? I opened the drawer in the Allegro and found this card:





"… diverse selections of inspirational, spiritual, and religious books are available through the front desk."

Does it make you wonder how many people go request any of these books? And which books are requested?

Love it!

The Ten-Year Nap

I heard a recent interview with Meg Wolitzer on one of the afternoon talk shows I listen to on Sirius/XM—I believe it was on Broadminded. Something about the way she spoke or what she said about her latest novel grabbed me.

Now I'm not a good book club member. I don't go looking for themes and rationales and what did the author really mean when she said, "increasingly and transparently annoyed"? I just want to be entertained. I want to escape my troubles for a half-an-hour and revel in someone else's troubles.

Certain book topics, certain key words an author might say in an interview, will always reel me in. Adoption is, of course, a hot topic. Love late in life interests me. Sewing, quilting, pottery, beading—I like to see how authors such as Debbie Macomber or Kate Jacobs will thread one of my interests through a story. And once I find a book I like, I tend to read everything that author has written. John D. McDonald, Agnes DeMille, Harry Kemelman, Nora Roberts—read 'em all! (My lifelong best friend just sent me another bookmark for my birthday, saying someone as well-read as I can never have too many bookmarks. She's right!)

So as I got into "The Ten-Year Nap," I couldn't remember why I bought it. The Publisher's Weekly review on the Amazon product page says, "In her latest novel, Wolitzer (The Wife; etc.) takes a close look at the opt out generation: her cast of primary characters have all abandoned promising careers (in art, law and academia) in favor of full-time motherhood." I couldn't see that as I was reading. I saw the interconnectedness of the one generation of women, but the jumping around from generation to generation and story to story lost me. About a third of the way into the book there was the introduction of an adopted child, so I thought maybe that was what had grabbed me, but that character didn't figure too prominently in the book.

So the story itself never grabbed me—I kept reading because I hate to just drop a book midstream. I kept thinking I'd find the reason for my purchase if I read one more chapter. That never happened.

But what happened is I discovered an author who is simply fabulous at choosing words and meshing them together to make absolutely beautiful sentences. As sentences and paragraphs unfolded in front of me, I kept thinking, "Oh, that's brilliant." "Oh, that's how I could put those words together."

So you can bet I will be running to the library to find more books by Meg Wolitzer. She is an incredible craftsman, and I look forward to reading more of her works.

This week I'm reading a chapter of Martha Beck's "Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith." My third husband was a Mormon, and I considered the friends from that time in my life to be very dear friends, even though I lost all of those friends when the marriage ended. Within the Mormon community, you're either all the way in or all the way out, in my experience. There's no halfway, and if you don't believe everything they believe, you're not going to find a place on my calendar. Just sayin'. Just my opinion. Beck is an excellent writer and story-teller, and I look forward to each breakfast, lunch, and dinner break to devour another chapter.

And what are you reading?

Is It Fit to Read?

Each time Tyler or I move, we talk about books. We discuss the number of books we have, how it makes sense to get rid of them, and how much we love them. We don't want to get rid of them. We are book people. When a colleague told him his books all live in a library and can be checked out when he wants to read them again, Tyler said, "But when someone walks into my home, he can look at my bookshelf and instantly know a lot about me." I like that idea. I like my books. But at the same time, I have too many books. Or not enough bookshelves.

The other day I posted about the crap stuff on my nightstand. I thought you might like to know what all these books are and why they're just sitting there. So here goes. You can help me decide whether they need to go downstairs to my library or out the door to some worthy book-giving organization.

HTML, XHTML & CSS

You're impressed, aren't you, that I listed this one first. This is for my geek side and is brand new. I need it for some work I'm doing for Tyler. It will move to my new desk in my new home office (currently in the back of the TV family room.

Golf for Dummies

Brand new, with accompanying DVD. I'm bound and determined to learn to swing a club respectably before I go with the Jazzman to his summer cottage on the shores of Lake Erie. Note to self: Make time to watch the DVD, and schedule some time at the practice range as soon as Carmina is concluded.

Making the Cat Laugh, by Lynne Truss, 1994

Subtitle: One woman's journal of single life on the margins. From the woman who wrote "Eats, Shoot, and Leaves". A wanna-read, just haven't made the time. Back downstairs to my library.

Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation, Edited by Roger Housden

Recommended to me by my dear friend and teacher, Diane Ericson. I love the poems in this book, and actually gave one to you earlier. I want to spend more time with this book. It can stay.

Ireland, by DK Eyewitness Travel

Ireland trip cancelled. Book goes back downstairs to my library, to the travel book shelf.

Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm, by Jon Katz

I love this man's blog and include it in the feeder on the right side of my blog. Beautiful words; beautiful photography. But I have not enough time, so it's going downstairs onto the "Nexxxxt" stack. (You have to say that with a rising inflection, like the lady behind the counter at the bakery. "Nexxxxt?")

Floor Sample: A creative memoir, by Julia Cameron, the author of "The Artist's Way"

I want to read this, as I also want to work through her Artist's Way and Artist's Way Workbook. Maybe after I retire.

The Grapes of Wrath

My book group chose this last year, but I never get to book group any more because of Monday night conflicts. I started this and got nowhere. Heading downstairs.

Reflections on the Causes of Human Misery and upon Certain Proposals to Eliminate Them, by Barrington Moore, Jr., Pub. 1970.

WTF possessed me to purchase this book?! I must have heard some talk show host discuss it and thought it was pertinent to all my adoption issues. I'm not sure this is ever going to get read, and not sure I would even bother to give it away. It may just go in the trashcan as a lesson on impulse purchases.

Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama

Another book group book. Probably not going to get read. Too many books, too little time. (Remember when I used to say that about men? Glad that's over!)

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty TIps for Better Writing, by Mignon Fogarty

This woman has a great podcast that she turned into a book. I refer to it occasionally. It came home from my office and never got past my bedside table. As I glance over, there are a number of other papers and items that came from the office that need to leave the bedroom. Now!

ASP.NET Development with Macromedia DreamWeaver MX

From the old office. Going to the new office. Why is this in the bedroom?!

ASP in a Nutshell

Ditto

The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier: How to solve the mysteries of weak writing, by Bonnie Trenga

Double ditto

Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, how today's smartest businesses grow themselves, by Adam L. Penenberg

Someone somewhere on a plane recommended this book to me. I bought it. I haven't read it. To the office. I should read it.

Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson

Don't remember when or where or why I bought this. It caught my eye. A legal mystery, which I tend to buy and enjoy. Back downstairs for more free time.

Wishful Drinking, by Carrie Fisher

Put this on my wish list after noticing the play adaptation in the NYC theatre district last October when PianoLady and I made our annual trek. Thought I'd enjoy it. Tyler bought it for me for Christmas and remembered to give it to me at Valentine's Day. Notice a trend here? I think we're both too busy. Oh, wait. That's why I'm going to work for him! (I am halfway through this book. Will put it in my music bag for the Hell Week that is ahead.)

And finally …

Puzzle books

As one ages, one should spend some time each day on a puzzle of some sort. I told my manager this when he dinged me on my appraisal last year for doing my daily crossword in awful, interminable, boring meetings. I think he bought my explanation, but he didn't take the ding off my appraisal. And it's no longer my problem!

Current stack: Tri-Doku (throw/give it away—you don't get it!); Fill-In Paint-doku (nah, not gettin' that one either); 10x10 Sudoku (all the easy and medium ones are filled in and you don't like to waste/spend time on the hard ones - trash it); Sudoku to go - Gentle (about five puzzles left in this one—put it in your music bag and finish this week).

Okay, now was that so hard? Oh, wait. As I look down, I see two more Sudokus and a Washington Post crossword compilation. And five catalogs. And four beading and quilting magazines. I'm out of control!!

"Hi. My name is Jan. I'm addicted to the published word."

(Oh, and thanks for your help.)

---

Oh, dear. An hour later I found one more book under everything I'd been going through on my bed.

The Other Side of Organized: Finding Balance Between Chaos and Perfection; by Linda Samuels

How funny is it that this is the book that got lost under all the clutter?! This is the one PianoLady sent me recently, which I'll get to soonest. I'm sure. I have to!!!

Enjoyable Reading: Happens Every Day

The Professor e-mailed me the other day with another book selection. This man and I only dated for about six weeks, but we'll be friends forever. He has a sixth sense for the songs and books that interest me and is quick to send me suggestions. This one hit the mark, totally!

The book is Isabel Gillies' "Happens Every Day," a memoir of the life and death of her marriage. Much of the action takes place in Oberlin, Ohio, a sweet small college town where it seems nothing could go wrong. Or quite this wrong. The book opens with Gillies' husband hanging dozens of family pictures in the bathroom, which immediately got me thinking about the downstairs powder room in my house and how I could give it some character.

I tend to lose myself in books. I love reading books and watching movies that are set in places I know. Tyler and I visited Oberlin when he was college-shopping but, as I remember, he felt it would be Interlochen South and wanted to break out of that mode. Plus Youngstown wanted him badly and made him an offer I couldn't refuse. But I digress.

I've dated plenty of men who, I joke, had "Scoundrel" tattooed on their foreheads. Gillies' former husband, Josiah, is just such a man, a man with no ethics or moral fiber. The Professor, in giving me his take on the book, referred to him as a "world class narcissistic coward." Powerful words.

I'm about halfway through "Happens Every Day," and loving every word Gillies has written. I hope she will write more, as I like her style and feel it is similar to my [blog-]writing style.

As I was doing a Google search to find out more about her, I noticed that her book was listed on NPR's Fresh Air's Top Ten Books. I will definitely have to explore that list some more, if all those books are of this caliber.


What are you reading?

You Had Me at Dickensian

My current commute-read is Emily Arsenault's "The Broken Teaglass." I'm not smitten with it; it's not the kind of book I run back to the car to continue listening to. But it uses the word "Dickensian." I tend to hold onto and pet books that use the word "Dickensian."

I think the first time I heard the word was in the movie "You've Got Mail," which I dearly love and watch over and over again while sewing. So when I hear it again, I think of the movie and want to enjoy the book as much as I did the movie.

I do not remember how I happened to choose this book, but it will last for about four more commutes, so that's a good thing.

No real book report is coming from me on this.

So I'll ask: What are you reading?

It's My Mind I Miss the Most

Hi. My name is Jan, and I'm post-menopausal.

I thank the pharmaceutical gods for the little patch I change twice a week that gives me a shred of memory. I'm reminded of the charitable work I did in Tucson, playing the piano weekly for an Alzheimer's respite program. These sweet little old men and women loved to hear me play tunes from the 30s and 40s and old show tunes. Those tunes spoke to an area of their brains that still worked. One sweet little lady would call out, "Play 'Tea for Two'." I'd play it, then play something else. And she'd call out again, "Play 'Tea for Two'." It would have been humorous if it wasn't such a painful illustration of the ravages of Alzheimer's.

I'm traveling Thursday evening to Asheville to visit my 96yo mother. My brothers and sister-in-law and I split the task of visiting, one of us going every six weeks. This gives Mother something to look forward to, something to brag about to the ladies she eats with daily. She lives to eat and sleep, so I make sure to have audiobooks for the trip and knitting projects for the visit.

(Let me insert here that this woman's mind is pretty darned sharp for someone who will be 97 in May. Her children are grateful to the powers-that-be for her mental acuity!)

I have an Audible.com subscription, but my long daily commute has caused me to use up all my annual credits. Rather than spend real money on more books, I'm going to look back at the library of books I've bought over the past four years and choose a couple to listen to again. This is not a problem, as my estrogen-starved brain can't remember the details of half the books I've "read" anyway!

I really do love long drives as a great opportunity to feast on words, whether that's catching up on NPR podcasts or drawing inspiration from creative authors.

What's your favorite recent read?


(I loved the title of the image I pulled for this post: sparsely populated skull!)

MIA and Whatcha Readin'

My g'babes like to watch "Fineas and Ferb", a strange little animated show where one character walks into a room and queries "WHA-cha DOOO-in?". There's an addictive inflection (the first syllable of each word is drawn out, the second syllable is pitched higher than the first) in her voice—after hearing it a few times, every time I hear someone ask "Whatcha . . .", I hear this character's voice and the inflection.

I've not written much lately. Work is incredibly hard, frustrating, exhausting right now. We have a software update coming out in a month, and a lot of people are throwing political spitballs at each other. When you couple that job stress with my commute stress (I swear someone snuck an extra ten miles into I-76 right around Kent), I'm totally enervated when I get home. I sit on the chair, flip through my TiVo list, and do a little beading before I drop into bed to do it all again the next day. I haven't walked into my sewing room (a sure stress-reliever) since the insulation guys came and moved everything away from the walls into a big clump in the middle of the room. My blog topic ideas are thought of and quickly forgotten.

So if you're still here and still reading, thank you.

Back to Whatcha Readin': I love Meg Ryan movies, especially the romantic comedies, and most especially "You've Got Mail." Her character is a bookie who owns a darling independent bookstore, and loves "Pride and Prejudice." After hearing her, and countless other people and characters, talk about "Pride and Prejudice", I decided to see what it's all about.

To everyone out there who adores this book, I'm sorry. I don't adore it. I don't love it. I'm tolerating it. Well, I'm trying to get through it. If I were reading a hardcopy that I'd borrowed from the bookstore, I'd probably just drop it into the return bin. But I bought the audio—with dollars, not credits—from audible.com, and every chapter listened to is another five or ten miles under my tires.

I don't love the style of writing—the wordiness, the overused words, like "felicity." Last year my friends named their new daughter "Felicity". Great name for a beautiful little girl; lousy word to repeat over and over in a book.

But that's just me and my quirkiness. (In freshman English a thousand years ago, I wrote an essay about how ugly the fall leaves were. I had grown up in Florida where everything was always green. My English professor thought I was neither clever nor funny. Whatever.) I have added the Pride & Prejudice movie to my Netflix queue, as I want to see, if fewer than eleven hours, what it's really all about. I may not like the movie, either, but at least I will have given it a fair try.

PianoLady is off to Florida today to visit her daughter in Tampa. She's reading "Happens Every Day" on the plane. I've added A Bookworm's World to my Google Reader, and love reading her reviews and getting ideas for my next reads. There are about five books on my Audible wishlist, and my membership is renewing in a couple of weeks so I can again use credits instead of money to get my daily driving/reading/listening.

So what are you reading? Oh, excuse me—whatcha readin'?

(By the way, Boston just woke up. He confirmed that "Isabella" is the Fineas and Ferb character who says, "Whatcha doin'?" He wanted to know why I wanted to know. When I told him the title of this post, he said, "Funny." Whattaguy!)