Category: Books

I
feel like I have been overwhelmed with reading lately and I can’t quite wrap my
head around all the thoughts that are swirling around in my head and form them
into cogent sentences.

It
had been my intention to get back to reading the papers, a habit that had
fallen by the wayside over the summer, and indeed I did.  The week I had chosen to expend my
repertoire into reading happened to coincide with all the recent financial
upheaval and “bailout” or “recovery” plans which made for exciting and somewhat
overwhelming work.  I had great
plans to read the 4 papers I used to read daily, plus a few online news sites,
but quickly got bogged down.  Since
that week I have managed one paper most days with some scanning of the
others.  Time is still an issue and
time to put my attention to anything is a rare commodity.

And
yet, reading papers serves a purpose in that one feels less disconnected from
the outside world, but it has never satisfied a basic craving to engage the
mind in the way that reading a book or a good essay do.  I am partial to fiction, always have
been, and am not particularly elitist in my tastes in fiction, although I have
pretty wide ranging tastes in non-fiction as well.  Recently fiction is better suited to my limited time and
overworked brain because there is not only the mind-expanding aspects that a
good novelist brings to a story, but there is also the possibility of
escape.  Sometimes escape is good
in and of itself.

I
have finished two novels, but because my time is limited to the extent that I
can choose to escape and read or I can chose the time to write (and reading is
much easier) I have read one right after the other without recording my
thoughts. The result is that now, although the novels are quite different, they
are already beginning to comingle in my thoughts and it is more difficult to
isolate the finer points of each. Since I need a book for my next excursion on
the exercise bicycle, the danger of contaminating the remaining ruminations
with yet a third story is quite strong. 
Must. Avoid. That.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics  had been sitting on the “to be read”
shelf for quite a few years (2? 3?) and I had waffled back and forth about
actually reading it.  And at first
I did find it a little off-putting. 
The author’s technique of throwing in references (both real and
imaginary) instead of character and plot development threw me a bit out of gear
at first, and it admittedly did take me a little time really relate to the
voice of the protagonist, but she did win me over, and in fairly short order.  It was not terribly long before the
narrator, Blue Van Meer, proves that she is not just preternaturally bright,
and a bit of an intellectual snob, but really just an out-of-touch teenager who
perhaps has lived too much in her head and books and is struggling to find her
place in the world.  She is torn between
emotional and intellectual distance while still craving acknowledgement and
even friendship from her peers. 
She is woefully unprepared for dealing with the emotions and reactions
of other young people as she has been brought up in a  varied, but rather isolated petrie-dish like environment,
controlled by her peripatetic father. 

I
was rather drawn to Blue. In many ways she reminds me of myself as a young
girl, although I was not so confident in my observations, and not so
self-assured or undoubtedly bright. 
But then, Blue is a fictional creation.  I found it touching that Blue, who prided herself on her
observational skills, and how thorough she was, really missed many things that
were going on around her, things that might have been more obvious to a young
person who had grown up in a more social environment.

And
yet, in the end, Blue grows up, and becomes a more observant, and more
self-reliant person.  She learns
that the world was not as she had supposed, and she begins to see from a more
adult perspective.  This is
traumatic for all children, and Blue’s transformation is artificially more
dramatic than most. 

What
I think now, some time after having finished the book, is that one never knows
how any experiment is going to turn out. 
I think back to Blue’s father’s reactions at the end of the book and I
am struck by his sense of surprise battling with pride at the evolution of his
daughter. 

It was a quick read, again perhaps because I related somewhat to the character,
and did not find the various oblique references to be an impediment but
entertaining and revealing in their own way.  I will read it again. 
I look forward to it.

Pretty
much immediately after putting down Special Topics I picked up Linda
Grant’s novel, The Clothes on Their Backs.   Although the two novels are
completely different, they both revolve around a female narrator who is
something of an outsider trying to find her place in the world. 

I
have to say that I loved Linda Grant's novel — it was an excellent read and
very thought provoking as well.  In fact, I had to keep pausing to
reconsider what I had read, occasionally going back to reread selected
sections.  This made it difficult
as a bicycle book (this is by no means a complaint.) It is entirely different
that Special Topics in Calamity Physics, which I pedaled through at a
furious pace.

In
fact, when I finished I almost immediately started reading The Clothes on
Their Backs again as I think there are permutations of connections that I
may have missed in the first go-round.  It was such a wonderful dissection
of secrets and lies and human failings and perceptions.  Vivian tries to
unravel the threads of her family's history as she is also trying to find the
threads of her place in the world.  All these threads tie in so well with
the images of clothes and the perceptions and significance of what they say, or
don't say, about the wearer.  
The allegorical use of clothes and how they both inform the observer and
hide, or sometimes reveal,  the
wearer is fascinating. The threads of memory and self are so intimately tied in
with the threads of clothing and one's place in society are just fascinating.
 Really, I do need to read it again and look forward to doing so.

It appears that “tomorrow” became three days.  Oh well.

Anny Blatt book 203, “Couture” is not as interesting to me as the previous book.  There are a lot of sweaters that remind me of sweaters Anny Blatt did in the 90’s and even late 80’s, but I think the originals are better.  Most of the patterns are just a little “off” to me, or perhaps it is just too much bling.  

The only other sweater in this book that appeals is this rather classic cardigan, called Lorraine.

It always happens this way: In the midst of summer heat and humidity, when the air is too hot and too heavy and the thought of holding yarn, much less wearing any kind of sweater has slowed my knitting down to a long slow drawl, the winter knitting  books begin to arrive.

The new Anny Blatt Intemporel, Book #204, is filled with sweaters I would love to knit.  In fact the shorter list here would be the things I don’t like.  The problem is that I want to knit everything even though I know it will never happen.  Still, dreams are cheap enough.

When I saw the long cabled sweater on the back cover (leda, far right) I was very excited.  When I saw that there was another one inside I felt like i had hit the jackpot.  I can live in this kind of sweater when the weather turns cold and I much prefer the longer length to the more traditional shorter style of cabled sweater.  I think the pattern on the turtleneck is the more interesting of the two, and when I was younger it would have been my first choice.  But it is a very long expanse of sweater and I am increasingly appreciating the wearing potential of a more open neckline.

The long cardigan on the far left reminds me very much of a long black cashmere cardigan my MIL gave me shortly before I married her son.  I still have that cardigan and it is probably one of the most frequently worn cardigans in my closet.  Since it is more than 20 years old at this point, I keep meaning to make another, but I have never gotten around to doing so.  This cardigan is the exact same shape and length as my favorite cardigan.  The Merinos yarn called for in this pattern is a slightly heavier gauge, but the yarn is yummy and the interesting basket weave stitch is attractive and will hopefully not be too tedious to knit.  This project would probably be a very good investment of knitting time.

While I am on the subject of long sweaters, here are two more that caught my fancy.  The long dusky plum sweater calls for “fine kid” and is knit on 6 different sizes of needles.  I love  the line of this sweater and it is a very flattering look for me.  I love the lace patterns at the hems also, although I may have to make the sleeves slightly narrower simply because I am the kind of person who has an unfortunate tendency to drag my sleeves through my soup.

All is very quiet. Life is very slow in some ways.  You would think if life seemed to be moving very slowly that I would get more and more done.  This is not the case.  The slower things seem to move the less gets done.

I finished two more books:


They wee both interesting and entertaining to read.  They were both though t provoking, but I really don’t have anything to say about either one.  I suppose that is bad, to just plow through the books without coming to some conclusion or thinking about the content.  But I do think about the content, I am just not feeling particularly communicative at the moment.

This means that I have now read more books than I did in all of 2006 (but not 2007 yet).  29 books in the first six months of the year.  They were not all good books, but even so it is a good start.  After a period of restlessness I seem to be regaining my hold on those things that interest me.  I am not yet where I want to be, time-wise and interest-wise, but I feel I am making progress.

Perhaps I need some of that Mormon industriousness (although not the fanaticism).  Of course not all Mormons are fanatics, or consider themselves to be fanatics.

Perhaps what was most interesting was reading these two books simultaneously as the world’s and world-views they address are so strongly opposed.

I finished two books in the past couple of days.  Actually I finished both the same day.

I had been reading Christine Falls by Benjamin Black and really really enjoying it.  It took a while because I limited myself to reading it on the exercise bike and, well, I haven't been as diligent about that activity as I should be.  It didn't matter, the book was fascinating, even if a bit slow and thoughtful at times, and I had no trouble reading it or remembering where I was.  I'm looking forward to his next book, which is newly released.

However, since I didn't decide that this book was a "keeper", the next one will wait for me to get it from the library or audible.  It does strike me as odd sometimes, what I keep and what I don't.  Thank goodness for libraries, although there are enough books I borrow and then want to keep (The Rain Before it Falls comes to mind).  Still it is better than buying and then having to sell or otherwise find new homes for books.  For example  I loved The Cure for Modern Life which I read while G was in the hospital.  I could not put it down and I have picked it up and flipped through sections again and again.  I have read books, even this year, with more beautiful prose, but the writing here fits the characters and the story.  I like the way the author addresses many issues in modern life through her characters, and she does not fall back on "pat" answers when exploring her premise.  What is a good person?  The characters are well developed, and like most of us, they don't see beyond their own little preconceived views of the world.  But each of them is more complex than they appear to the others.  And in the end, you can't tell who is a good person from the superficial facade they present to the world.

But here, I have gotten off the current subject, meaning books I just read.  I also finished Kabul Beauty School which was a joy to read.  Reading this book gave me a feeling for people, for the women in Afghanistan perhaps, whose lives I really could never know at least in my current life,  and about whom the meaningless words in newspapers and scholarly books on current events and political unrest and history never address. In the end, to me, it is the individual stories that are the most important.  Perhaps there is no "great" accomplishment here, and society is not changed, but I continue to believe that is the individual connections we make that are the most important. No I don't understand. But perhaps now the veils over my eyes have seen a glimmer of something else so that perhaps understanding can someday come. Whether or not the endeavor was a success, the book is fascinating, as is its author.  The fact that she is often rash and irreverant, perhaps at times even a bit of an "ugly American" in her insensitivity, these things are also the qualities that allowed her to accomplish so much.   I don't know if the beauty school came to anything.  I don't know if the lives of women in Afghanistan are better than they were or not.  I believe that some women were elected to Parliamentary positions, but I don't know how much bearing this has on the lives of most Afghani women. I do know that the book made me look at the world a little differently.

Progress has been slow on the Shanghai tee because I just haven't been knitting all that much. 

I didn't go to knitting group Thursday night because I was just a
little frazzled and felt like there were too many things at home I
would rather be working on.  None of these things involved knitting.

Friday night we went into NYC for a concert at Avery Fisher Hall. 
Usually I would get a lot of knitting done on the train but not this
time.  G wanted to try listening to a book on tape so I lent him my
Ipod on the trip down and while I did knit a little bit, I spent more
time reading the papers (NY Times and Wall Street Journal) and Eat, Pray, Love. 
I got a Kindle from Amazon for G for his birthday, thinking that the
ability to use a larger typeface would make it easier for him to read,
since he so often complains about how tired and painful his eyes are
after about an hour of reading.  The Opthamologist says there are no
changes in his vision and not much they can do so I thought the large
type would help, but he has trouble managing the device.  Oh well.  I
however found that it was great when we were traveling, or at waiting
rooms and the like because it is small enough to easily drop in my
purse and I can have several books or newspapers on it.  As G watches
me use it, he is thinking that he might give it another chance.

G really liked the book on tape though and ended up using the Ipod on
the way home as well.  I read for a while, but at midnight to 1 AM on
an uncomfortable train, my concentration was a little lacking for
knitting without the aide of a book or music.

Despite the knitting progress, I did want to show you some of the knew
books that have been piling up.  Several relatively new books arrived
while I was away earlier in the month, and I am just getting around to
looking at them now.

 
I ordered Tweed
by Nancy Thomas because I am increasingly drawn to tweedy yarns.  I
have, as I have gotten older developed more of an appreciation for
traditional patterns and tweedy yarns and I just love my Rogue that was
knit in Tahki Donegal Tweed.  I enjoyed reading the information at the
beginning of the book about tweed yarns and there doesn't seem to be a
pattern in the book that I can't imagine knitting for either myself or
someone in my family.  The sweaters are all comfy country sweaters that
I could wear almost anywhere around my home area all fall and winter as
well as through the wet muddy cool days of early spring (which lasted a
little longer than usual this year).

The sweaters in Lisa Lloyd's A Fine Fleece
fit the same need for stylish, comfortable, "country" sweaters which
can work for raking leaves, walking in the woods, browsing the shops in
Rhinebeck or even going out to dinner in the local restaurants which
are becoming increasingly sophisticated culinarily, but still maintain
a country "casual" atmosphere.  I had admired a few of Ms. Lloyd's
patterns before buying the book, and I love the idea that it has
information about handspun yarns, types of wool, and spinning one's own
yarn.  I also find it very interesting and instructive that the
patterns are shown in a handspun version and in a version using
commercially available wool, convenient for those of us who aren't yet
spinning, while also reminding me that I do really want to pick up that
spindle again and perhaps learn to spin.

When the papers came this morning, I immediately put everything else aside and sat down with a cup of coffee to read this article by Luc Sante.  So much of my own feelings about my library are expressed here.

Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals is a fabulous book and the fact that it took me nearly a year to finish it has nothing to do with the book or the quality of the writing. 

Each time I picked up the book, I practically devoured the pages.  Each time life intervened I had to literally tear myself away…and I had to leave the book behind, untouched, because there was no way I could read it at a measured, practical pace.

Granted I have long been interested in books about Lincoln.  I have a small collection on my shelves, but none of them address about Lincoln's character and his political and social acumen the way this book does.  I am not a scholar.  I actually knew very little about Lincoln's cabinet members although now I am itching to learn more about Seward, and generally, although I love biography, I would not think that politics or the inner workings of politics or a Presidential cabinet would be interesting.  I was wrong.  I was fascinated. 

The book has played a tremendous role in how I look at so much going on in the world today because I was so wrapped up in the details of what was going on in the world, at least the American World, then.

I started the book last fall.  Then I had to put it down.  I started again in February or early March and got about 3/4 of the way through before I put it down again.  I finally finished it early this month, and even though I knew how the book would end, who wouldn't, it tore me apart. Although the book is long and it is a work of history, seemingly assiduously researched, it is not a book I so much read as absorbed.  With each page I felt transported into another life and time. I mourned with the nation when Lincoln died even though I knew it was inevitable.  I finished late at night and went to bed in tears.  I was that wrapped up in the story.

Another time I cried was when Lincoln was re-elected.  Here we are involved in an unpopular war (but then all Amreican wars have drawn considerable protest).  The Democratic candidate was McClellan, a popular general, running on a platform to end the war.  I was stunned by this quote:

Most impressive, the soldier vote had swung overwhelmingly in his favor.  In the armies of the West, he won eight out of ten votes, and even in McClellan's Army of the Potomac, Lincoln earned the votes of seven out of every ten soldiers.  Many of these soldiers still admired McClellan but could not countenance the defeatist Democratic platform or the fact that the Confederacy was obviously hoping the young Napoleon would win.  But there was something else, something Democrats had failed to understand.  Over the years, Lincoln had inspired an almost mystical devotion among his troops.  "The men had come to regard Mr. Lincoln with sentiments of veneration and love", noted an Illinois corporal.  "To them he really was 'Father Abraham,' with all that the term implied."  By supporting Lincoln, the soldiers understood that they were voting to prolong the war, but the voted with their hearts for the president they loved and the cause that he embodied.

I can't imagine anything like this happening today.

Materfamilias tagged me for the following meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and acknowledge who tagged you.

As it happens, I am in the midst of  packing preparations and I have two books on my desk, stacked one atop the other.  One is the book I hoped to finish, but have not, and the other is the book I hoped to take with me and begin, but will not.

Because I cannot decide, which book to use, and because the precedent has been set, I shall post from both:

From Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals

If he wanted a seat in the U.S. Senate, however, he would need the support of Ohio Democrats, a task that would not be made easier by assaulting a Democratic president.

Of the four future presidential rivals, only Edward BAtes matched the vehemence of Lincoln’s opposition.  He charged Polk with "gross & palpable lying, " arguing that the true object of the war was "plunder and conquest."

And from the other book, Jonathan Coe’s The Rain Before it Falls comes this passage:

She came back from dinner that night rather early — at about ten o’clock.  Beatrix and Thea had already gone to bed. I poured Rebecca one of those brandies for which we were rapidly starting to develop an appetite, and told her of Beatrix’s request.

Well, now I really want to start reading that new book and find out what is going on, but alas it will have to wait.  The anticipation will be sweet indeed.

But first I need to share the fun and pass this on to five friends.

I select  Liana, Marji, Grace, Gina, and lastly Lisa at Blackwater Park  (if and when she finds the time, which may or may not be likely).

That said.  I am going to shut down the computer and prepare myself for vacation mode.  I will have my portable with me, and I hope to get time to post as I do have things to share, but frankly,  that 20 month old darling of a grandson gets first dibs on my attentions, so we’ll see what I get to…no promises.

Well, the Vogue Knitting did finally arrive over the weekend and I had plenty of time to peruse it over the weekend, and again this afternoon when a minor accident kept me from my assigned task of installing bookcases in the new library.

You probably will not be surprised to learn that there are several things I like; it is actually more surprising when there is little I like in this magazine.  Don't know when any of this will get knitted though, but knitting inspiration pops up when it will and all these lovely sweaters will pool around in my brain, jostling for position, until the right one just happens to jump to the forefront.

I do like the cover sweater very much, and I like this little cropped thing as well:

Although at the moment I love this blue one but can't imagine wearing it.  That might change.  It is not so that I am worried about whether it will look good on me, because if I can figure out an outfit, I know it will look good, because it will look the way I want it to look, I just haven't gotten that far along yet.  Someday it might just pop into my head though. 

I have been really thinking about shrugs and cropped sweaters this spring though.  They are somehow in my head even though that trend is probably over, or perhaps it is because that trend is over — once again I am not sure I really care.  I'll make what I feel like wearing.

It is probably no surprise that I love the Kaffe Fassett cardigan, or perhaps even this interesting top by Mary Lynn Patrick.  Although I am not always fond of Ms. Patrick's patterns, and I tend to be somewhat wary of combining too much pattern and texture in one top, this one appeals to me somehow, although it could be that it just reminds me of some of the ethnic and heavily patterned influences that are popular in fashion right at the moment.

This tunic with its combination of cables, lace and really classic shape definitely appeals, as does this sweater with its asymmetrical design that looks like it will be easy to wear and entertaining to knit: