Time Paradox

It seems like yesterday and at the same time light-years ago that I stood motionless next to a child's hospital bed on what had seemed like an ordinary Tuesday morning - freshly drawn tubes of blood in one hand, ID labels in the other, and a very upset child behind me - staring at CNN video of the World Trade Center Towers as the first tower fell. The nurse next to me started sobbing. I did, too. Even thinking about that moment brings a lump to my throat and I have to work hard to swallow it down.

Later that week on Friday the noon whistle blew at the University of Iowa power plant. Basil Thompson asked our accompanist to cease playing and my character dancing class joined the entire University in marking a minute of silence for all those who lost their lives the Tuesday previous. Basil is gone now, too, from a heart attack suffered while giving a ballet class in 2005 and his memory also seems like yesterday, but also so many ages ago.

After 9/11 I turned to the poetry of Emily Dickinson, an odd choice I know but she has a little poem about hope:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Always remember.

2009 Man Booker Shortlist

I commented earlier on the 2009 Man Booker longlist, in particular my drooling irritation that most titles were unavailable in the United States.

The shortlist was announced September 8 and, to fuel even more drooling irritation, there are two with no current US publisher information (still):
A S Byatt The Children's Book (Random House, Chatto and Windus)
J M Coetzee Summertime (Random House, Harvill Secker)
Adam Foulds The Quickening Maze (Random House, Jonathan Cape) - no US date
Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)
Simon Mawer The Glass Room (Little, Brown) - no US date
Sarah Waters The Little Stranger (Little, Brown, Virago) - out since April 2009

States-side we also have to wait for the publication of The Children's Book (October 6, 2009, conveniently enough the day the Man Booker is announced), Summertime (December 24, 2009), and Wolf Hall (October 13, 2009). So...I can read one out of six...*le sigh*

I know these aren't "our" authors in the US but it's kind of silly that something considered worth reading in a language I already speak isn't available until after the announcement of the award winner. At least I could get The White Tiger (2008) and The Gathering (2007) right away if I so wished; what's up with this year?

I could keep whining ad nauseum but I'll spare everyone and shut-up now.

BTT: Recently Informative

What’s the most informative book you’ve read recently?

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

The most informative book I read recently was The Little SAS Book (4th edition). No joke. It saved my butt at work. For fun, the most recent book I read in an informative subject was The Six Wives of Henry VIII and I'm currently working on The Link.

BBAW: The Polls are open

Unfortunately for me, I wasn't shortlisted in either of the two categories for which I was nominated (Most Eclectic Taste and Best Name), boo-hoo.

Fortunately for a whole lot of other bloggers they did make the cut and there are many, many categories that need your votes.

So mosey on over to the BBAW Voting Booth post and git a-voting (I'm about half-way done with categories that have nominees I read frequently; there are TONS of book blogs that I haven't read before so I need a bit more research before doing any voting in those categories).

Teaser Tuesday: The Good Thief

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

- Grab your current read

- Open to a random page

- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

He realized then that Mrs. Sands already knew about the dwarf in the chimney. She had put out the meal for him.
~p. 124, The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

(this is the current hand-sell at my bookstore - it's really good!)

BTT: Bigger!

What’s the biggest book you’ve read recently? (Feel free to think “big” as size, or as popularity, or in any other way you care to interpret.)

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

Well....I have a tendency to read books with lots of pages so yay for big books. The largest book I recently read would either be Henry VIII: The King and His Court or The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir, followed by Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters (the page numbers between these three are really close if you change the font size and the paper quality). I'm currently working through Christina Rossetti's Complete Poems, which weighs in at about 1400 pages, but that's something you just don't sit down and read cover to cover.

The single largest book I own is 30,000 Years of Art : The Story of Human Creativity Across Time and Space; it probably weighs as much as the coffee table it rests on (has awesome pictures, too).

(The "I like big books" button comes from the FB application Pieces of Flair)

Bookspotting: September 2, 2009

• Library binding edition of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (on the Aunt Marge chapter; how do I know this? because I had to stand over that poor person for 15 minutes and I hope she didn't mind my reading over her shoulder while I tried to avoid hitting her in the head with my backpack)
• Alex Haley's Roots
• new E.L. Doctorow - Homer and Langley
• one Don Quixote in Spanish (we're in the second week of classes)
• two medical students reading anatomy notes

And what was I reading? Nothing, I was trying not to fall over when the crazy bus driver stopped short every time.

Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float

I don't usually pull the cover picture through onto my blog (I'm one of those "click through if you're interested" people) but in this case the cover is partially responsible for my purchase of the book. I developed a case of the chuckles when I saw the cover illustration.

The main reason for my interest in OJTGMWDF is due to McSweeney's Internet Tendency and a little piece by Sarah Schmelling titled "Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition)" that made me laugh. Schmelling converted Shakespeare's tragedy into a Facebook feed (the old-school version) which conveyed the entire story in only a few pithy status updates and pages and set off a number of imitators who probably felt gypped because Schmelling thought of the idea first. She's now built on her idea and has produced a whole book of Facebook feeds, profiles, and groups for the wacky characters of classic literature with "Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition)" leading the pack.

I am a Facebook addict, a little less so these days due to the loss of the old-school Facebook feed and its replacement by something less fun (in my opinion), as well as a classic literature freak (oh, you didn't know that? ha!) so when I heard that Schmelling's book was due out last week I was 90% positive I would buy it. The cover pushed it to 100% and so I spent the latter half of last week chuckling over Jane Austen's profile, the virtual-gifting from Goneril and Regan to King Lear, and watching Hemingway get trounced playing Scrabulific with Faulkner and Joyce. Poor Dracula can't quite get the hang of his Vampire application and you had better keep your password hidden from Puck. So it goes (yep, Slaughterhouse-Five gets in on the action).

I had a good laugh. Off to go throw a sheep at Mr. Darcy.

Bookspotting: September 1, 2009

The Time Traveler's Wife
Mother Jones (pretty sure that was the title, but I can't get a search to pop up the correct book for me, black dust jacket with title in red lettering)
The South Beach Diet
A hard cover library book that looked suspiciously like An Irish Country Doctor, but I couldn't see the title to be sure
A rather dog-eared looking Bible (I've never seen this passenger read anything else, not even a newspaper)
The Daily Iowan and The Press-Citizen (local newspapers, one collegiate, the other town)
The Teddy Kennedy issue of Time

And what was I reading? I was knitting on my cardie, all the better to spy on people.

Teaser Tuesday: The Moonflower Vine

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

He was right. Aaron couldn't spell - much more than his own name. But he had a natural way with a pen, and the letters came out round and flowing. It was as easy for him as spilling ink.
~ p 139, The Moonflower Vine, Jetta Carleton

Zombie Chickens

Many thanks to Ryan at Wordsmithonia for gifting me with an award about undead, rotting barnyard fowl....larfs, kidding...basically it means Ryan thinks I'm awesome (strut).

To quote from Ryan's blog:

The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken - excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all.

Well.....I really don't want to be chased by crazy zombie chickens so I better get a-choosing:
Jackie at Alright, so...
Michelle at The True Book Addict
Amy at My Friend Amy (because she is rocking it with this BBAW craziness)
Media_Zombie at The Media Morgue (appropriate, eh?)
Susan at Well-Mannered Frivolity

Banned Books Challenge: It begins..

September 1, 2009 has arrived and my first blogging challenge, hosted by Bibliobrat, starts today. The Banned Books Challenge (as previously stated) is pretty simple: read at least one banned/challenged book during the month of September. Banned Books Week officially occurs September 26 - October 3 this year so I would like to have my challenge books read by then.

I am officially reading The Satanic Verses and The Naked and the Dead (since I already own those) and I'm going to try and finish American Psycho by the end of the month as well.

Day 1: Will start The Naked and the Dead when I get home; due to two-hours' worth of panicking over recalled library book that I needed to return or incur UI Library wrath/recall fine of $4/day after 9/8 I forgot to put the Mailer in my bag this morning; the cats hid the library book under the desk (I found it - the fur babies really do love me...I think)

Current books-in-progress: Frankenstein, Foucault's Pendulum, The Moonflower Vine, and Hush, Hush (plus the aforementioned challenge titles)

Current knitted item: 16-button cardie - almost ready to bind off for fronts/backs and start the sleeves

Current movie obsession: Videodrome (Banned Books Week might put me in the mood for an odd movie or two)

Current iTunes loop: Wait, wait...don't tell me!