library – Page 6

Sharing My Reading

April 27, 2012 by rurugby 1 Comment

I had many wonderful conversations in Portland yesterday that I talk about in yesterday’s post. Some of the best conversations were about reading, writing and books.

One of the best things about my childhood is my parents were and still are huge readers. My dad literally read the entire encyclopedia in his house when he was in high school. His mom, Mary Davis taught reading for decades and generations in the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs, CA area) how to read.

I was a reader starting at 3 with Star Wars read and listen LPs. Yep I was born in 1974, Star Wars came out in 1977 and it started me reading. I think that’s awesome. I guess it’s part of the reason I am a Universalist Theist, which comes partially from the mystic concept of the force that binds us, before there was blood tests for metachlorians.

But, talking about books we love and are passionate about is why things like Goodreads are so amazing. Or even things like my Amazon review of Colleen Hoover’s “Slammed” which lead to a friendship and to having my poem “Write Poorly” in her follow up to “Slammed”, “Point of Retreat.”

One of my Facebook posts on Wednesday was: I’m on page 25 of 277 of The Catcher in the Rye: “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote i was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much though.” Thought of the fact you can interact with authors now though Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc. like I have with several authors here like Colleen Hoover and Hugh Howey. Sharing books is an amazing thing.

So was talking with Angie Muhs who I talk to on Twitter and Facebook and maybe went once or twice before yesterday’s tweetup and that she can look at my Goodreads and see what I have been doing, and also you can find out how others liked or didn’t like the book you just finished it’s amazing. And of course, a post on ed2dq.com “Goodreads.”

I find sharing my love of learning amazing. I can’t imagine how great this country would be if we were a more literate nation.

This weeks books:

Only finished one book, the incredibly dated “Shoe” comic strip collection a “Shoe for All Seasons” by Jeff MacNelly. Some fun, very, very dated, yet in a lot of ways journalism hasn’t changed from 1982-1983. **1/2 (2 Goodreads-Ok) (Walker Library)

I checked out 5 books:

A Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger: One of those books you can argue was too successful. I would love if Salinger wrote more books before his great success. As good as I remember for 20 years ago as a junior, seems to be the consensus. Great narrator, very identifiable for a geeky kid who felt an outsider. Talking to someone at work today and she said it might be a better book for men. I kind of agree, the struggles are very much the struggles of the young man who doesn’t know what’s next but the world looks phony. ***** (5 GR) (Walker Library/Westbrook) 108 of 277

Every Thing On It by Shel Silverstein: A new Shel Silverstein book of the poems that didn’t make his other collections from 1991. Not as good as “Where the Sidewalk Ends” but to me as good as “A Light in the Attic”, I love his wit and humor. And of course the nutty pictures. ***1/2 (4 GR) pg 104 of 195

Bob Dylan: Chronicles (Volume 1): Huge Bob Dylan fan, think I may own this, not sure where if I do. Barely started on pg. 4 (Walker)

Is There a Place on Earth For Me? by Susan Sheehan: A book about schizophrenia. I found Mark Vonnegut’s “The Eden Express” very hard to read, and I expect this will be too. Was recommended on Goodreads so I got it through Minerva. (Patten Free Library, Bath, Maine) This book is well loved, have not started it yet.

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True by Richard Dawkins: I have been interested in Mr. Dawkins for a while, couldn’t get going on “The God Particle”. Not started yet. (Walker)

Bookcrossing pickup/World Book Day:

Was given “The History of Love” by Nicole Krauss at work from a bookcrosser, here is my entry for it: Was handed this book directly at work. Just read the first page so far. I do love the opening: “When they write my obituary. Tomorrow. Or the next day. It will say, LEO GURSKY IS SURVIVED BY ANY APARTMENT FULL OF SHIT.

Reading:

Jimmy Corrigan or The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware: I have a full post on Chris Ware and this is considered his seminal book. About a third of the way through, I know there are much, much smarter kids, I am not sure there are many sadder kids. ***1/2 (4 GR) (Rice PL)

Duncan the Wonder Dog by Adam Hines: Crazy that this whole monster of a graphic novel is available complete online. There is no way I could read it that way. But it’s definitely wicked cool. The #1 book on GoodOkBad.com , I think that Seth Hahne likes this book more than I do so far, but it makes you think a lot about the relationship between animals and man. Right now ***1/2 (4 GR) but could easily go up. I think I may end up having a post on this one. pg. 266 of 390 (Lithgow Library, Augusta, ME)

The Essential Rumi: pg 54 of 310. Amazing that poetry written by the 13th Century mystic Jelalludin Rumi feels so modern, I give a lot of credit to the translator Coleman Barks. Something I am looking forward to reading more of in the next few weeks, a few poems at a time. *** (4 GR)

Read lots of bits and pieces of books on Kindle this week:

The City Game: Basketball from the Garden to the Playgrounds by Pete Axthelm: Very high average on Amazon.com and definitely worth 2 bucks for any basketball fans about NYC, streetball and the Knicks especially the 1969-1970 championship team. Good stuff. *** (4 GR)

The Greenhouse by Audur Ava Olafsdottir: I will admit the name makes me think of one of my favorite movies “The Player”. Excellent story about a young man who is a gardener going from Iceland to a famous garden at a monestary with some rare roses. Amazing that got for only .99 when Kindle was running a sale on their translation line on Sunday, April 15th. ***1/2 (4 GR)

The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux: Only a little bit in so far, beautiful language. When I think of “The Mosquito Coast” I think of one of Harrison Ford’s great performances. It was great, but incredibly mean and a tough film to watch. The movie gets **1/2, the book seems like potentially **** but too early to tell.

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: A free classic on Kindle only like 2% in but seems like much better than “The Jungle” which I read and liked in high school. I know my classmate Conrad Saam worked with Sinclair Lewis in I think AP English (or maybe junior year) and I think Babbitt was his favorite may have to ask him. Funny that I confuse Upton Sinclair “The Jungle”, with Sinclair Lewis, they are entirely different.

Wool Omnibus Edition by Hugh Howey: Get a feeling I will end up finishing this at Rites of Spring for some reason. Hugh Howey is one of my favorite authors of 2012. **** (5 GR) in Wool 4 right now, and about halfway through the omnibus.

Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine… Had the free edition for a while and read through the reviews and such and decided to subcribe on Kindle.

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall: Really good stuff, too bad the Terahuna got with the wrong guy. Love the idea about how man was built to run, and needs to learn to run again with joy. I started this several months ago and think will be finished this Spring, I read non-fiction much, much slower. ***1/2 (4 GR) 37%

A Moveable Feast: Several authors write stories about an adventure in food. Good stuff so far. *** (3 GR) 15%

Beethoven’s Shadow: Fascinating novella about the process in performing all of Beethoven’s sonatas. Very rich, even though it’s a novella it’s taking a long, long time to read. 57%

The Secret Piano: From Mao’s Labor Camps to Bach’s Goldberg Variations by Zhu Xiao-Mei: Fascinating tale of a pianist that came of age during the worst of Mao Zedung’s terror. Makes me realize that Mao is one of the top ten despots of the 20th Century. Extremism of any kind is a great, great vice and terrible, terrible things are done for “the cause.” Book is about to leave the time of anti-intellectualism to the time of labor camps. Beautiful book. **** (5 GR) 33%

That’s it for now and at a very, very short 1400 words plus, wow. This is easily my favorite blog post of the week, gives me a lot of perspective with my reading.

“Blankets” and High Expectations

April 20, 2012 by rurugby 1 Comment

So one of the books I really enjoyed this week was Craig Thompson’s “Blankets.” It’s a graphic novel I have heard wonderful things about, and I loved his Habibi.

I flew through it on a Saturday at work and it made the day go much, much faster.

Yet I was disappointed by it. I expected more. I expected something richer. “Habibi” was just that good. It completely blew me away. Made me think about the Arab world, Islam, Arabic, Slavery, Water, Money … It’s just an amazing book. ****1/2

And “Blankets” was very good. It’s fast moving, it’s a wonderful story. It captures the perils of being fundamentalist, and learning about love and lust, but it simply wasn’t as rich as Habibi, so I was moderately disappointed. But I would still recommend it and really enjoyed it. ***1/2 (4 GR)

Books read this week (A lot):

Blankets

Hot Water Music by Charles Bukowski: Very cool collection of short stories, that took me forever to read 2-3 very short stories at a time. My favorite was about the bad poet. But so many are so similar, two losers meet each other, get drunk, hook up. ***1/2 (Kindle)

I read a lot of just ok this week.

Chasing Dogma by Kevin Smith: Saw this for a buck at the excellent Green Hand Bookstore. Neat store with wonderful randomness and books, and a cool owner in Michelle Souliere. I love Kevin Smith, but this book was doomed with way, way to much Jay. ** (2 GR) (Own) Planning to give away on bookcrossing.com.

Brush Strokes with Greatness: The Life and Art of Joe Sinnott by Tim Lasuita: A friend at work who notices I like comics lent this to me. Took me forever to read. The artwork was cool, but the writing not so much. I get that he is one of the best inkers of all time, but feel there can be a better book written about him. ** (2 GR)

Thor: Volume 1 by J. Michael Straczynski: Pretty pedestrian origin story. Even with a floating Asgard in Oklahoma not much really happens. ** (2 GR) (Walker Library)

Diving Into the Wreck: Poems, 1971-1972 by Adrienne Rich: Wanted to like this a lot more than I did. Honestly Adrienne Rich makes me think about my least favorite class at Rutgers, Expository Writing 101 and the annoying PC style of writing. I know she is a great poet, but this wasn’t for me. **1/2 (3 GR) (Walker)

The Devil in the Kitchen: Sex, Pain, Madness and the Making of a Great Chef by Marco Pierre White: Read this because he is one of Anthony Bourdain’s heroes. Cool book about growing up as a chef apprecticing at many of the great restauarants in London and England. Probably taught Gordon Ramsay how to be so mean. I also talked about this book in yesterday “Ghostwriting” post. ***1/2 (4 GR) (Kindle)

Half Way Home by Hugh Howey: No where near as good as the Wool series, and a much slower read for me than the Hurricane, but loved the first third, enjoyed the last tenth, found the middle half pretty slow. Still quite good. *** (4 GR)

Books Checked Out:

The Essential Rumi: Because I believe Rumi is an essential poet. Just started on Chapter 2 on page 8. (Rockland Public Library)

Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert and Richard Isanove: Curious about this graphic novel in inside cover says it’s “Neil Gaiman’s vision of the Marvel Universe in the year 1602!” (Books by Mail, Maine State Library, Augusta, ME)

Reading:

A Shoe for All Seasons by Jeff MacNelly: Horribly dated (1983) but journalism is still an odd, odd profession. 80% through (Walker). **1/2 (3 GR)

The Greenhouse by Audur Ava Olafsdottir: Was a .99 book on Kindle on Sunday. Interesting book about an Icelandic young man going to Italy with a rare rose. Not sure where this is going yet, but enjoying it. 16%

The Morality of Capitalism: What Your Professors Won’t Tell You by Tom Palmer: Interesting so far, meant to be a libertarian book about capitalism and a counterpoint to Marx. Curious, think this will be read slowly. (9% – Kindle)

The Secret Piano: From Mao’s Labor Camps to Bach’s Goldberg Variations by Zhu Xiao-Mei: Very interesting book about learning to love music in Mao’s China. Looking forward to spending some time with this one this week. Another .99 translated book on Kindle last Sunday. 7%

Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich: Found this for .50 at Bull Moose as part of my amazing 5 bucks post. Enjoyed “Sex on the Moon” quite a bit by Mezrich, pretty good so far. pg 17 of 257 (own)

That’s enough for now, will see what next week brings.

National Library Week

April 13, 2012 by rurugby Leave a Comment

This week from April 8th-April 14th is National Library Week. Regular readers of my #FridayReads post realize how much I lose Walker Library and Minerva, and how important libraries are too my life. They enrich the soul, enrich the mind and one of our most democratic institutions for growth. So if you haven’t been in a while, visit your library, it misses you. And it’s ok just find a shelf for your library books and you are less likely to lose them. Libraries are amazing, especially in states like Maine where libraries have an easy to use program like Minerva to get books from libraries across the state.

So come back to your library. Try some books out, reading begets more reading, as you can tell from my reading.

Books read this week:

Daytripper: My favorite book so far of 2012 and Wednesday’s post. ***** (5+ GR)

Dragonslippers by Rosalind Penfold: Well done graphic novel about abuse, the art felt very HS pamphlet. I am happy this book doesn’t resonate with me. But I have been lucky. *** (3 GR)

Words I Wish I Wrote: A Collection of Writing That Inspired My Ideas by Robert Fulghum: Very solid and cool book about quotes that inspire one of America’s favorite Unitarians. I enjoyed this but a slow read. It’s a cool way to learn about some great writers. *** (4 GR)

Maine in Four Seasons: 20 Poets Celebrate the Turning Year edited by Wesley McNair: Cool poetry book I read it the library, there are only 20 poems in it. Makes me realize I wish I could have went to Lowry’s Lodge tonight. Would go out for the after poetry, but today is a day to be home after a weeklong cold. And I had to work until 8 tonight when it starts at 7.

Sons of Liberty: Re-read the first book of this series again on Saturday. The fact I can do that is a week takes this book up to ****. (5 GR)

Pyongyang by Guy Delisle: One of my favorite books of all time. This is probably my 5th or 6th read. Been lending this to lots of people at work. If you ever wonder how bizarre North Korea is this lets you know. The sarcastic style of French Canadian animator Delisle is perfect for this book. ***** (5 GR)

Sons of Liberty: Death and Taxes: Re-read the 2nd book in the Sons of Liberty series today. Solid, not as good as book 1. Less about slavery, more about the rebellion about the Stamp Tax. Still looking forward to part 3. ***1/2 (4 GR)

Checked out a ton of books (7), a good celebration of National Library Week: (All Walker this time)

A Shoe for All Seasons by Jeff MacNelly: Shoe has been around a long time, as this collection from 1982 indicates. Journalism has been poor for a long time too, in both money and now ever too frequently content. **1/2 (3 GR) about 20% in. (Walker)

Making Comics : Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels / Scott McCloud: Saw Scott McCloud at MECA doing a lecture. “Understanding Comics” is a book I want to read. Just started this. Should be interesting to learn more about the art.

Blankets: An Illustrated Novel by Craig Thompson: I loved Habibi, heard this as good or better. Expected to get just this and Sons of Liberty 2 at the library.

Dragonslippers

Sons of Liberty 2

Wildness within walking distance : Poland Spring, Maine / Robert M. Chute: Cool book of poetry. The pictures are beautiful. The simple Maine woodlot is an underrated place of beauty. The pictures are stunning, the poetry nice. pg. 51 of 74 ***1/2 (4 GR)

The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus: The adult librarian put it in my hand so I checked it out. About 3 chapters in, reminds me a lot of “Children of Men.”

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July: Cool books of short stories, only 2 stories in.