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Filed under: Random, Reading | Tags: Booking Through Thursday, Gallant, Goofus, Highlights, memes, Reading
What’s the most desperate thing you’ve read because it was the only available reading material? If it was longer than a cereal box or an advertisement, did it turn out to be worth your while?
I picked up a Highlights magazine in the doctor’s office once–when I was about twenty-six. I think that the magazine is best known for the Goofus and Gallant cartoons, the ones that were supposed to teach children the proper way to behave. They took the form of two parallel illustrations with captions. Goofus–you knew he was Goofus because he had messy hair–would do the wrong thing, and Gallant would invariably do the right thing.
For example, the captions would go something like, “Goofus comes home from school and turns on the television, putting his homework off until later.” Meanwhile, “Gallant comes home from school and immediately starts his homwork (and sets the table for dinner and washes the dog and cleans the toilets and pressure washes the driveway).” Or, “Goofus cuts in line.” Whereas, “Gallant patiently waits his turn (and uses the time to contemplate his place in the universe).”
Now, as a child, I went for it hook, line, and sinker, but as an adult, I think you can tell from my parenthetical comments that my opinion has changed a little. While I was reading, it occurred to me that Gallant is a major suck-up. I’m sure that as a grown-up, he’s the guy who complains to the homeowners’ association because your house number isn’t in the regulation typeface, or the coworker who rats you out to your boss for surfing on the Internet during work hours, or the mid-level bureaucrat who won’t approve your permit because you used the wrong color ink. By the way, I think I’ve just answered the second question above.
This time last year, we had just returned from a week in London. This is kind of embarassing to admit for a European history major, but it was the first time I had ever been to Europe. I love British history, so the trip was really special for me. One moment that I keep going back to happened on out first day in the city. We had arrived the night before at around 10:00, and after having been in transit for about fifteen hours, we just collapsed in the hotel room, so bright an early that morning, we were ready for some exploring. We took the Underground from our hotel to the Westminster station, and by dumb luck, I picked the right exit, because climbing the stairs up to the street, all I could see was the Clock Tower of Westminster Palace (a.k.a Big Ben) rising up in front of me. It was a perfect moment, because it hit me all of a sudden that I was, in fact, in England, not just reading about it or thinking about it. I was there, and for once, I was happy that I didn’t have to use my imagination anymore.
Filed under: Life, Random, Reading | Tags: Booking Through Thursday, memes, Reading, school, textbooks
Booking Through Thursday question:
- Do you have any old school books? Did you keep yours from college? Old textbooks from garage sales? Old workbooks from classes gone by?
- How about your old notes, exams, papers? Do you save them? Or have they long since gone to the great Locker-in-the-sky?
I have a bunch of my history textbooks from college, and a few on archaeology and linguistics. They’ve actually come in handy a few times. I don’t have any of my old notes, though, because even I can’t read my handwriting. I cross my h’s and dot my o’s. Then there’s the infamous Colomial Latin America class I took fall semester of my junior year. It was at 8:00 a.m. Not a good time for me. There were instances where my notes just stopped with a pencil trail off the edge of the page. Other times I would doze off in the middle of one word and wake up in the middle of another. I made up so many new words that way. Needlesss to say, I did not have another 8:00 a.m. class.
I’ve added a page with a list of links to my reviews of books I would recommend for writers to read. You will notice that none of them are traditional “how-to” books, but they all have something to offer. They reflect my own taste, meaning that the nonfiction skews toward history and the fiction skews toward speculative, so they might not be for everyone, but I think they’re worth a look. Just click on the tab at the top that says “Recommended Reading!”
Booking Through Thursday question:
- Do you cheat and peek ahead at the end of your books? Or do you resolutely read in sequence, as the author intended?
- And, if you don’t peek, do you ever feel tempted?
If I’m reading fiction, then no I don’t look. Mostly because I read a lot of thrillers and mystery novels, and that would spoil the fun wouldn’t it? The possibility of spoiling the ending for myself also keeps the temptation at bay, but I will say that I do get impatient and frustrated from time to time, especially when it’s a really good book and I don’t have a lot of time to devote to reading.
If it’s a nonfiction book, I will often read it out of order, especially if there’s a topic I’m particularly interested in. I’ll also often flip back and forth between parts I’ve made mental notes of, or I’ll start in the middle and read backwards to gain context. I know that’s not exactly peeking ahead to the end, but it does get odd looks sometimes.
Filed under: History, Reading, Writing | Tags: Istanbul, Orhan Pamuk, Reading, reviews
I originally picked up Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk because lately I’ve been very interested in the history and culture of Turkey and its predecessor the Ottoman Empire. I also knew that Pamuk had recently won the Nobel Prize for literature, so I was curious about him as well.
This book is a memoir of sorts, but it’s not a traditional one. It doesn’t follow the format of, “I was born here, and then my family moved here, and then I grew up, and then I did that, and now I’m writing this book.” What Pamuk offers are snapshots of his life in a westernized, upper-middle-class, dysfunctional, Turkish family living in Istanbul. Sometimes these snapshots are out of order, but they are always vivid. Pamuk is always cognizant of how each phase of his life has been shaped by the millennia-old city around him.
I love reading books where the setting is almost another character. Maybe it comes from growing up in the South, but I have always had a strong sense of place, and I love how intricate Pamuk’s descriptions of the places of his childhood are, from his grandmother’s perpetually dark sitting room crammed with furniture and knick-knacks; to the Bosporus, which can be seen from almost any place in Istanbul; to the empty apartment he used as a studio when he thought he wanted to be a painter. Here’s an excerpt from a dissertation on ferry traffic on the Bosporus:
I find the perfect column of smoke comes with a light breeze, and after the smoke has for a time been rising at a 45-degree angle, it begins to run parallel with the ship, without changing shape, as if someone has drawn an elegant line in the sky to indicate the ferry’s course. The thick column of coal-dark smoke rising from a ferry docked on a windless day reminds me of smoke rising up from the little chimney of a hovel. When the ferry and the wind have changed direction just slightly, the smoke rising from the funnel begins to swoop and swirl over the Bosporus like Arabic script.
It’s just a detail, but it evokes and entire scene. In the novel I’m writing currently, I want the setting to take just as prominent a role, so I’m experimenting with this technique.
Filed under: Reading | Tags: Agatha Christie, Booking Through Thursday, books, memes, Reading
It’s time again. Booking Through Thursday.
Almost everyone can name at least one author that you would love just ONE more book from. Either because they’re dead, not being published any more, not writing more, not producing new work for whatever reason…or they’ve aged and aren’t writing to their old standards any more…For whatever reason, there just hasn’t been anything new (or worth reading) of theirs and isn’t likely to be.
If you could have just ONE more book from an author you love…a book that would be as good any of their best (while we’re dreaming)…something that would round out a series, or finish their last work, or just be something NEW…Who would the author be, and why? Jane Austen? Shakespeare? Laurie Colwin? Kurt Vonnegut?
Agatha Christie, when she was at her Appointment with Death, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, Ten Little Indians, Murder at the Vicarage best. There’s just something very conforting about a group of strangers gathered in a secluded country manor, only to have one (or more) of them turn up dead. There’s also something very nostalgic about her works. I suspect that even when she was writing in the 30s and 40s, the world she was writing about was already mostly gone. Her post-WWII novels suffered, I think, because she tried too hard to be up-to-date. She began introducing younger characters and including more James-Bond-like action. Those attempts fell flat for me a little. I’d like just one more gathering of all the suspects in the library for the shocking revealation of the murderer’s identity.
Why can’t the Earth rotate slower? Salon.com just published the first part of their recommended summer reading list. I want to read all five of these books. Of course, right now, I’d just love to find time to do the laundry.
