Expanding Empathy

I find it odd that people who like to read are so often pigeonholed (by fellow bibliophiles as much as non-readers) as being antisocial, solitary, and awkward. Not to say it isn’t true in some cases, but the idea that readers don’t know how to deal with reality or connect with other humans is flawed, in my opinion.

If anything, I think it's possible that readers may possess an even greater capacity for empathy and understanding the world around them, simply because books require the exercise of this ability.

There’s Nothing Quite Like a Book Sale

One always can tell the change of seasons by when the used book sales start up in early summer.

That is, almost always.

In recent years I thought I’d gotten somewhat desensitized to the allure of the words BOOK SALE. After all, for several years when I have attended book sales the majority of the “finds” are books I already own. While there’s nothing wrong with swapping out a trade paperback for a hardcover edition with gilt pages, the joy is a bit dampened compared to that of finding a book one doesn’t own. (Janine is French, I’m thinking of you.)

Yet this year, as book sale season sails by uncelebrated, I find myself feeling empty, like a certain vital part of my existence is missing.

All in the Wrist and Other Excuses

It’s been ages since I’ve posted anything to this blog, and not for lack of thinking about it. Here are my excuses, in chronological order:

1.      November-December: “I’ll just wait until the holidays. I’m so busy, and blog readers will probably be pretty busy anyway.”

2.      January: “I have injured both wrists. Since my day job involves typing and other wrist-centric tasks, when I get home at night I can barely do anything.”

3.      February: “I have been sick. Twice.”

4.      March: “I’m having an existential crisis that is being exacerbated by a worldwide pandemic and a statewide shut-down the day before my birthday.”

5.      April: “I need to do my taxes. I need to do my taxes. I really don’t want to do my taxes. I think I’ll download Stardew Valley instead.”

And that’s how we got to May.

On Snowflakes, Paper and Ice

I've been a bit sad this year, because this is the first Christmas in several years that I have not adorned my desk at work with paper snowflakes. Snowflakes, I feel, have been getting a bad rap lately, being used as a term to describe young people who think they are more special than they are. What did snowflakes do to deserve such negative associations?

The tradition of making paper snowflakes is something that comes naturally to children, but for me it  took on another level with home-schooling. My mom got a book from the library, Easy-to-Make Decorative Paper Snowflakes by Brenda Lee Reed. 

Focus on What Matters

"Many people are going through life "out of breath" because they are involved in so many activities--many of which do not contribute to their life's purpose.... So many agendas will compete for your energy and attention that if you're not committed to your own unique purpose, then your resources will be drained by everything else."

~ Fresh Air by Chris Hodges

Chapter 2: Catch Your Breath, pg 29

I've been feeling so overwhelmed lately, stalked by an ambiguous anxiety that's not caused by one big stressful thing, but rather a thousand little inconsequential chores or errands. 

It's funny how even things that are recreational or entertainment, like reading or hobbies or even watching TV, can warp into yet another thing on the To Do list. For instance, "having" to watch TV because you're trying to clear up your DVR queue.

The same has been true of reading for me as well. At the beginning of the year I challenged myself to read 150 before 2019. While I think this has generally gone well, it has had two shortcomings:

I Was Not Alone

After writing my review of Agatha Christie's Dead Man's Folly, I found this review on the novel's Wikipedia page:

Miss Agatha Christie's new Poirot story comes first in this review because of this author's reputation and not on its own merits, which are disappointingly slight.... The solution is of the colossal ingenuity we have been conditioned to expect but a number of the necessary red herrings are either unexplained or a little too grossly ad hoc. People are never candid about their vices so there is no need to take seriously the protestations of detective addicts about their concern with the sheer logic of their favourite reading. What should be the real appeal of Dead Man's Folly, however, is not much better than its logic. The scene is really excessively commonplace, there are too many characters and they are very, very flat.

~ Anthony Quinton 

Times Literary Supplement 

December 21 1956 (pg 761)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man%27s_Folly

I'm not sure whether to be encouraged that my amateur opinion was in sync with a professional reviewer's contemporary analysis, or to be disheartened that my opinion is not unique or new in any way!

New Year's Reading Resolutions for 2018

Looking back upon my year of reading in 2017, I can’t help but feel as if I could have done better. Granted, there’s a point where reading A LOT can take over one’s motivations and it suddenly all becomes about page numbers and book totals and whether a novella is more of a short story (and therefore doesn’t count) or a true novel (which would totally count!). It’s not right to make reading all about the numbers. That would make reading more like math, and we certainly can’t have that.

Yet sometimes goals are good, because they force us to push our limits, shake us out of apathy, plunge us into deeper subjects than we’re used to swimming in, and generally make us leave our comfort zone. This is especially true in today’s society where reading is secondary to other forms of entertainment. In fact, that’s why I feel I could have done better; I feel my reliance on other media (TV, mostly) caused me to waste valuable free time that would have been more profitably spent reading.

I refuse to feel despondent about my self-supposed failure, though. Instead I choose to look toward 2018 with new resolve. Setting lofty goals may be setting myself up for failure…but what if I reached those goals? Often it’s more about proving yourself to yourself than to others.

As usual, my baseline goal next year was to read 100 books. Then I thought, “Why stop there? Why not up it to 125? To 150?”

My local library got new carpet...

...and it looks like Joanna Gaines got a hold of it.

Yep, definitely getting a

Not that that's a bad thing. Only I do suspect that children will be playing Hot Lava by jumping from brown tile to brown tile on it.  That's my prediction from past personal experience, anyway.

A List of Recommended Winter Reads

In my previous post I explained the why Winter Reads are—or should be—different from the usual Summer Reading fare. Winter Reads should take advantage of the fact that (if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere like me) you are cooped up inside during long nights and cold days, and finally turn to those books that require a bit more focus and patience to appreciate. In this post I’ll present some books I’ve read in winters past. Without further ado, and in no particular order, my recommended winter readings include:

Recommended Winter Reading?

One of the articles I see all the time being posted online around May or June are the obligatory Suggested Summer Reading, Best Beach Reads, or something of the kind. Frankly my TBR pile is too big for me to take note of many of these recommendations, but they’re always worth a look for some lighter entertainment. Summer is so busy (with outdoor activities, family reunions, vacations, garage sales, local festivals, even outdoor movie showings) that it makes sense that summer reads would be shorter, “fun,” and almost fluffy in nature.

Which brings up the question: Is there such a thing as Recommended Winter Reading?

Well, if there wasn’t before, there is now! I shall make it so!

815...and counting...

There is a great upheaval happening in our family. My mother’s library, after many years of accumulation and stacking and double-shelving and stacking on top of the double-shelving, is being rearranged.

Like most people, normally I am not fond of change.

However, when it involves touching a great deal of books and reacquainting myself with long-lost or nigh-forgotten friends, that’s another story altogether.

You know you’re a bibliophile when, after all the heavy lifting of bookcases and sniffle-inducing work of dusting shelves is complete, you are excited to make every book at home in its new place on the shelf.*

Some people like to sort by size. Starting with the tallest and ending with the shortest covers, it gives a shelf a lovely crescendo look. 

Others shelve their books by color, not only for aesthetic reasons (the ombre look is so in) but also because they tend to remember a book’s color more than the author’s name or title. This has led to a fairly popular book display fad in libraries and bookstores, where they place a ton of random, unrelated books from various areas of their collection on a table together with a sign that says something along the lines of, “I don’t remember the title, but the cover was blue.”

Emmuska Orczy's Lord Tony's Wife - A Parody - Part 2

Last we left our heroes, Lord Tony (friend and sidekick to the Scarlet Pimpernel himself) and French aristocrat Yvonne de Kernogan in oblivious marital bliss. But Yvonne's British-hating father is intent on having the marriage declared null and void, and marry her off to the rich Frenchman Martin-Roget. Unbeknownst to everyone, Martin-Roget is actually Pierre Adet, a Revolutionary who has sworn revenge against the de Kernogans because of the unjust death of his father...

Scene 6

DE KERNOGAN: Oh my daughter how I’ve missed you!

YVONNE: Dad? Are you feeling okay? You’re looking all sentimental and suspiciously not furious with me for marrying an Englishman against your will. Also, how can you have missed me? It’s only been like 16 hours since I eloped.

DE KERNOGAN: How can you say such hurtful things about your loving papa? You know I’ve always had your best interest at heart.

YVONNE: So what was all that “You’d better marry Martin-Roget or else!” stuff?

DE KERNOGAN: I only wanted you to marry Martin-Roget because he was rich and handsome and French and awesome (although those last two things are so alike it’s redundant). If I’d known you already had a boyfriend I would have supported your decision.

YVONNE: I told you I was in love with Lord Tony! And us getting married should be no surprise to you. After all, look at the title of this book! I’m Lord Tony’s Wife!

DE KERNOGAN: Still, there was no need to keep this a secret from your old man, to get married in the middle of the night rather than in pomp and circumstance! I didn’t even get to give you away at the altar!

YVONNE: Well, Dad, I guess I’ve completely misjudged you on account of you behaving like a controlling jerk all my life. I’m so sorry! Here, stay with us for a while and completely ruin our honeymoon.

LORD TONY: I told you we should have gone to Niagara Falls.

DE KERNOGAN: Okay, you’ve talked me into it. But just so you know, *cough cough* I’m not feeling all that good. You know how frail and sickly your poor elderly father is, and how close to death…you know what I think I want to go home and die in my own bed.

YVONNE: Oh no!

DE KERNOGAN: Don’t you worry about me. *cough cough* Weak and helpless as I am, I can make it home on my own…probably.

YVONNE: Father you can’t go alone! Tony, is it okay if I escort my father home?

LORD TONY: Sure! What can go wrong?

Emmuska Orczy's Lord Tony's Wife - A Parody - Part 1

As with the other Emmuska Orczy Scarlet Pimpernel books I’ve read thus far, Lord Tony’s Wife did not disappoint me in its entertainment value. This is a novel placed during the French Revolution and decidedly pro-aristocracy, but political leanings aside this novel—along with the others of its genre—is good, hyperdramatic, swashbuckling fun. And because of this, it's also extremely fun to summarize, hence the "sweded" drama below.

In this installment, one of our hero the Scarlet Pimpernel’s sidekicks, Sir Tony, takes center stage with his love, Yvonne. But, as with almost all Pimpernel novels, the cunning, daring, proto-Batman legend plays a pivotal role. Also back for more punishment is the Pimpernel’s sworn enemy Chauvelin. As their cat-and-mouse game continues, poor Tony and (not really a spoiler alert) his wife end up as pawns while the dogged Chauvelin once again tries to trap his nemesis.

Our story begins with Pierre Adet, fiery revolutionary and son of the decent local miller, stirring up a mob to go after the local aristocrat, le duc de Kernogan. Just as the reader begins to hear the “Kill the Beast” song from Beauty and the Beast, along comes a carriage, driven by faithful servant Jean-Marie, and conveniently carrying the duc’s only child, the beautiful and headstrong Yvonne:

Scene 1

YVONNE: Jean-Marie! Why have we stopped here?

JEAN-MARIE: Because I just got a tipoff that there’s a mob at the crossroads.

YVONNE: So?

JEAN-MARIE: They have scythes and spades and axes.

YVONNE: What’s your point?

JEAN-MARIE: I think we should send a scout to see what’s going on.

YVONNE: So what you’re saying is you’re afraid of a few murderous bloodthirsty revolutionaries.

JEAN-MARIE: Yup.

YVONNE: Jean-Marie, that’s silly! I’m the proud and feisty daughter of the local aristocrat and therefore have nothing to fear from such aristocrat-hating scum. Take me home, Jeeves!

JEAN-MARIE: But my lady…

YVONNE: If you don’t take me home you are disobeying my orders and therefore should just go join those rebels! Also, I will fire you.

JEAN-MARIE: Fine. But don’t get mad when…

PIERRE: Oh ho ho, what do we have here?

JEAN-MARIE: Nothing. Just me and some random anonymous non-aristocrat person taking an evening cruise suspiciously in the direction of the de Kernogan estate.

MOB: It’s totally de Kernogan’s carriage! Let’s see who’s inside!

YVONNE: Hum, I’m starting to think that maybe my cowardly servant was right.

MOB: It’s de Kernogan’s daughter! Let’s throw her into the mud like her kind has done to our people all this time!

YVONNE: Yeahhhh definitely starting to regret my pride and fearlessness.

PIERRE *breaking into the carriage* I’ve got you, my pretty!

YVONNE: EEEK YOU’RE LIKE THE DEVIL HIMSELF *faints*

JEAN-MARIE: I’m getting outta here! *drives away* Hum that wasn’t as hard as I thought. I wonder why I didn’t just drive full speed through the mob, to begin with? Oh well, I’m sure this little incident will have no long-lasting consequences….

General Rules for Helpful Titles

Because it’s bad manners to point out flaws without having something positive to suggest as an alternative, as a continuation of the last post I present some rules and examples of books with titles that actually do tell us something about the plot contained within the covers.

Granted, most book titles are not extremely erudite. And the following is, as always, my opinion and therefore up to debate. But once some parameters are set (such as were set forth in the last post showing what might disqualify a title), it becomes a rather interesting game of comparison and analysis.

Conclusion #1: Including a Verb or Otherwise Indicating Action or Movement in the Title Is a Good Start:

Jules Verne is especially good at this:

• Journey to the Centre of the Earth
• Around the World in 80 Days
• From Earth to the Moon

So is Agatha Christie:

• Murder on the Orient Express, Murder in Mesopotamia, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Murder at the Vicarage
• Death on the Nile, Death in the Skies
• What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!
• The Moving Finger
• Lord Edgeware Dies
• A Murder is Announced

General Rules for Unhelpful Titles

I’ve been doing a lot of research into marketing for work; how people get other people not only to know about a certain product or service, but also how they get those other people to actually desire that product or service. And, as I am wont to do, as I’ve been mulling it over I’ve been thinking about how that relates to books.

Although you really should not judge a book by its cover, the harsh reality is that we do anyway. Not just the cover art or the size or the choice of font. We judge according to the title. A good title—or at least a unique one—can make a reader pick up a book even if the actual content is subpar, whereas a poor, mundane title can bely a truly magnificent book.

That’s what the modern Publishing Industry and the strategies of marketing would have us think, anyway. But is that really the case? Do we really rely only on a title to tell us what we want about a book? Or, especially for modern readers, do we “do our research” a little deeper, taking recommendations from people we know or looking at star ratings on the internet or actually opening the book and reading not only the blurb but also maybe skim over a bit of the actual text?

I decided to look at my own bookcase to run this experiment: If I knew nothing about a book except the title, would it be enough to entice me to read it?

Whatever the Weather

It's a testament of its universal awesomeness that reading, as a past-time, is one that may be deemed appropriate no matter what the weather. From the blizzard conditions of winter when the only respectable place to be is in a comfortable fireside chair with a mug of some hot beverage in one hand and a tome with gilt pages in the other, to the beastly hot and humidity of summer when next to the A/C vent is the natural habitat of sane people.

When the weather continues charming, on the other hand, a nice "summer reading" is in order, preferably in a hammock outside under the shade of one's favorite tree, with the sun shining and a nice breeze that is just soft enough not to blow the pages of your book and lose your place.  (Unless of course you are reading on a tablet or other such electronic device, in which case the breeze can be as blustery as it likes.) 

That Awkward Moment

When I'm on break at my new job and some coworkers start having a conversation across the room about Don Quixote and I REALLY REALLY want to join in. 

Until the one actually reading Don Quixote disses it as "too long" and "basically the same joke over and over."
Then I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to join in and correct him in the error of  his ways:

He's totally wrong about Don Quixote. Unfortunately he fell into the same mistake of many modern readers, and saw the musical first. Man of La Mancha is about Cervantes, not an actual adaptation of the book! Now, while I agree some parts of Don Quixote do take the "joke" so far it's like beating a dead Rosinante, who says this book is only supposed to be about "jokes"? Satire is more than for chuckles and lolz.  It's about making a point, making one think.  I for one was fascinated by it. Not only does it have the laugh-out-loud moments one expects, but it also brings up some tough questions. Is it better to be sane like the other characters in the book, but not have any principles or desire for some higher standard of life? Is Don Quixote a pathetic character, or is he perhaps like Plato's metaphor of the cave, where the person who has escaped the dismal reality of servitude and darkness comes back to tell his fellow captives of this new wide world outside, only to be ridiculed as insane?

How To Read A Book: A Detailed Tutorial

1.

Know how to read. Since you are reading this blog, I assume this has already been completed.  Good; I like to be able to start a checklist with something all ready to be struck off. If for some reason you are miraculously able to understand this tutorial without reading, may I suggest taking a short break to look into The Literacy Network, or perhaps make a trip to your local library and ask one of the helpful circulation desk staff for assistance. They’d love to help. That’s what they’re there for.  

2.

Okay, now to the more serious obstacles. Find a book to read. Since this is not what to read but how to read a book, I will leave this choice up to your discretion. Although I would like to remind you that I have some recommendations, there are also TONS of places to find book recommendations, including but not limited to: Goodreads, Amazon.com, blogs, newspaper articles, magazines, and again, LIBRARY STAFF. You know how I said they'd love to help you learn to read? The other purpose of their existence is to help you find what to read. They're kind of like human search engines, and if you're a library regular, they can get to know you enough to personalize a reading material search more accurately than any online computer program.*

How Profanity Shuts the Door

There really isn’t such a thing as luck. But if there was, I’d be having a rather long stretch of the bad version lately when it comes to reading.

Before I elaborate, I have to go on a rant. Perhaps it’s because I’m spoiled by literature where people—albeit created characters—tend to use language in a much more creative and distinguished manner. Perhaps I’ve read too many Victorian novels where puritanical censorship forced authors into that distinguished creativity. Perhaps I personally am prudish, unrealistic, and wishing to enforce a rigidity to language which is against the very nature of language itself. 

No matter the reason, I am sick of swearing.

It's not what you think....

Source: Moi

I just really miss Leverage, I promise!!!