Owner: pages turned URL:http://pagesturned.blogspot.com Join Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 13:28:58 -0500 Rating:1 Site Description: I've kept an online reading journal/commonplace book since the fall of 2004. I'm partial to contemporary literary fiction, but I also enjoy the classics as well. Site statistics:Click here
No title 2008-04-07 06:21:00 Rosanne Cash on songwriting and brain surgery:Sitting in the audience, I felt my songwriting engine get turned on by hearing Joe, wonderful Joe. Sitting in the audience, I lifted my head from where it had been glued on that little flashlight circle of the mundane and torturous and my scary adventures in pain and neurosurgery. I went home and started writing about John and Eric, with Kurt’s signature phrase “so it goes” in my head.
Boy and Girl Tramps of America 2008-04-08 19:10:00 Working in reserves at the library has its perks: sometimes I'll come across a fascinating book or article while I'm processing a professor's list that I probably never would have otherwise encountered.Today's find was Boy and Girl Tramps of America
. Thomas Minehan, a journalist and sociologist, obtained a firsthand view of the life of homeless, transient children during the early 1930s. He set out to write a sociological study, but soon realized "[t]o describe their life in statistical terms was not only inadequate, it was untrue. Such a description omitted the most important phases of their lives, their strife against cold, their battle for bread, their struggle to obtain and repair clothing, their hates, their humors, and their loves. . ."Unfortunately, this one is long out-of-print and
Tagged 2008-04-11 04:30:00 I have been tagged by Alison at BORN TO READ and knit.For the book tag, here are the rules:Pick a book at least 123 pages long.Open that book to page 123.Find the fifth sentence and post the next three.Then tag five other people to do the same.Since March I've had Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True on my desk (I've actually been using it as a mouse pad). Anyone who's read my six-word-memoir ought not to be surprised that I'm trying to accumulate several future reads on mental illness and sibling responsibility. I also have Rachel Howzell Hall's A Quiet Storm close at hand for the project, so what the heck--I'll quote from both of them.From the Lamb:I'd given up caffeine the year before--felt better, slept better. Then I'd started up again--back in the summertime, when all that Kuwait st Read more:Tagged
What I'm reading 2008-04-10 17:43:00 I'll start with a confession: last month I got a Kindle.I'd wanted one since I first read about them last November, but we're not the type of people to ever get expensive first generation technical devices. Heck, we'd been married for more than a decade before we got rid of the rabbit ears and paid for basic cable.But the reason I wanted a Kindle sort of necessitated getting one now: I need to lose weight. I get so bored walking on the treadmill that I can't manage to stay on it long enough to do myself any good.I've tried audiobooks, but I don't get along so well with them. I've tried reading while walking, but my reading glasses slip down my nose and sometimes actually fall off; and if I'm walking slow enough to read I'm certainly not giving myself much of a cardio workout anyway. Self-d
Biography in Fiction 2008-04-10 05:24:00 Half the drama of biography occurs within the biographer. Yet how many biographers include themselves as characters in their books?Biographer (and Readerville denizen) Carl Rollyson provides his top ten list of novels that deal with the tensions between biographers and their subjects. Read more:Biography
, Fiction
No title 2008-04-12 10:00:00 In honor of Margaret, who very kindly elevated me to the level of hillbilly music the other day, I'm offering a link to Goin' Across the Mountain, which will provide you with eight hours of fine bluegrass music this overcast Saturday.Enjoy. WNCW is the best radio station in the area. Too bad I can only pick up the signal online.
Sunday Salon 2008-04-13 06:47:00 Would the same thing happen to me? Maybe Johnnie was right; maybe once you stripped away the rationalizations, it always came down to a simple matter of escape. An escape from poverty or boredom or crime or the shackles of your skin. Maybe, by going to law school, I'd be repeating a pattern that had been set in motion centuries before, the moment white men, themselves spurred on by their own fears of inconsequence, had landed on Africa's shores, bringing with them their guns and blind hunger, to drag away the conquered in chains. That first encounter had redrawn the map of black life, recentered its universe, created the very idea of escape--an idea that lived on in Frank and those other old black men who had found refuge in Hawaii; in green-eyed Joyce back at Occidental, just wanting to b Read more:Sunday
, Salon
Latest dozen books 2008-04-14 15:13:00 Dreaming in Cuban. Cristina Garcia. For Slaves of Golconda at the end of the month.The Canon. Natalie Angier. I tried to find a review copy of this at ALA last summer. When I couldn't, I decided to wait until it came out in paper.Great Writers Great Stories Regional writing from Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. edited by Edward Allan Faine. My friend W. from California (that's in Maryland) brought me this when she visited last month.We are Now Beginning Our Descent. James Meek. I've heard it's not near as good as The People's Act of Love, but then, what could be?Hunter's Run. George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham. A recent hit at Readerville.No-Man's Lands. Scott Huler. Yay for review copies!Child 44. Tom Rob Smith. Another yay for review copies.A Quiet Storm. Rache
A poem for Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos 2008-04-17 06:11:00 In the desertI saw a creature, naked, bestial,Who, squatting upon the ground,Held his heart in his hands,And ate of it.I said: "Is it good, friend?""It is bitter—bitter," he answered;"But I like itBecause it is bitter,And because it is my heart."--Stephen CraneThe best summary of last night's so-called debate that I can come up with this morning. Continue eating your hearts out, corporate media. Read more:Charlie
, Gibson
, George
Cat show! 2008-04-20 13:27:00 A frou frou kittyAn AbyssinianA Maine coonAnd my own personal show favorite, a Tonkinese with the softest fur imaginable.
How Privileged Are You? 2008-04-23 07:45:00 (Via Dark Orpheus and Imani)The original authors of this exercise are Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, and Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright. Bold the true statements. You can explain further if you wish.1. Father went to collegeValedictorian of his high school class, my dad won a scholarship to Wake Forest University. But since my grandmother had recently died (my grandfather had never returned from a trip into town to sell a load of logs when my dad was three), he wound up going into the machine shop business with two of his older brothers instead.2. Father finished college3. Mother went to collegeMy mother dropped out of high school at 17 to marry my dad4. Mother
No title 2008-04-30 07:13:00 This blog should be getting back to its usual chirpy self in another week. At this point I just have to get through N.C.'s primary on Tuesday (I'm precinct judge: Ack! Responsibility!) and all the distractions I've been dealing with for the past couple of months should be behind me.I. can. not. wait.
No title 2008-05-03 13:06:00 Not that you can tell, but I'm the one holding a blue sign behind the letter H. . .
Maggie's Southern Reading Challenge 2008-05-04 08:14:00 This will be the second year that Maggie
has hosted the SouthernReadingChallenge
. The objective is to read three books by Southern authors between May 15 and August 15. I need to join another reading challenge like I need a hole in my head, but how can I resist a challenge that gives me both an excuse to issue dead mule alerts and a chance to win a tin of pecans? I'll be selecting books from this pool:The Grass Harp. Truman CapoteA Visitation of Spirits. Randall KenanOn Agate Hill. Lee SmithThirteen Moons. Charles FrazierCollected Stories. Ellen GilchristEverything That Rises Must Converge. Flannery O'Connor
1001 Books You Must Read list 2008-05-10 11:18:00 I didn't intend to sign up for any additional challenges this year; I thought when I copied the list below and bolded the titles that I'd read that I was merely doing it so that I'd have an on-line list for later reference, but now that I've completed the list I realize I should have five additional books completed from this list by the end of the summer anyway, so why not commit to the 1% Well Read challenge? Ten books from the list below before the end of February 2009, with the ones I should complete by the end of August being Silas Marner, Everything That Rise Must Converge, Robinson Crusoe, Les Miserables and Mary Barton. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo IshiguroSaturday – Ian McEwanOn Beauty – Zadie SmithSlow Man – J.M. CoetzeeAdjunct: An Undigest – Peter MansonThe Sea - John Banvil Read more:Books
No title 2008-05-14 08:54:00 I expected to be back to posting as soon as the primary was over, but I didn't count on how exhausted I would be for days afterwards. Or the lower back pain. We voted 896 people on the machines, had 54 provisional ballots cast, and stayed so busy that I didn't even have time to eat an entire bagel over the course of the day. If we don't get both more workers and more equipment in November--well, I
Sunday Evening Salon: The Philosopher's Apprentice 2008-05-18 18:11:00 When Mason Ambrose's nemesis, a writer of anti-Darwinist screeds, asks him in the middle of his dissertation defense (in the middle of chapter 1 in James Morrow's The Philosopher
's Apprentice
) if God is dead, Mason knows exactly what he should say to skirt the snare that's been placed before him. Instead he opts to keep his self-respect:"Why," I said, "do our postrationalist theologians, Dr. Pielm Read more:Sunday
, Salon
No title 2008-05-21 14:36:00 What Obama is Reading
Woodpecker 2008-05-29 09:50:00 A young woodpecker stunned himself on our back door this morning. When he didn't object to my taking a few shots without a plate of glass between us, I decided he might need a lift into a low-lying branch. . . the very idea of which was all he needed to send him soaring up to his usual height. Read more:Woodpecker
Prince Rupert's drops 2008-05-30 21:07:00 They "let it off" on the steps of their hut. It was early, with the sun just slanting through the cross-crossed needles of the casuarinas which lined the creek. There was dew on the grass and their boots were wet from it. The larme batavique caught the light and gathered it in like molten metal straight from a glassworks' glory-hole. It withstood her father's hammer and her mother's axe. And then Read more:Prince
, Rupert
No title 2008-06-01 12:46:00 What fun: Truth to Power.I used to wish everyone in Congress would read The Grapes of Wrath. I'll ponder what the individual presidential candidates should read on my trip to the library to pick up holds.What books would you recommend?
Mourning dove 2008-06-02 19:21:00 This little fella was practically underfoot yesterday afternoon while I hung out laundry (our heat pump died on Saturday, and I'll not be running the dryer until we have air conditioning once again) and he helped L. water the plants in the front yard in the evening.Today he was m.i.a. and I worried about him, especially after I saw the hawk scoping out the back yard on one of his fly-overs--he's Read more:Mourning
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You 2008-06-02 07:08:00 The problem is I don't ever learn anything from learning experiences. In fact, I make a special effort not to learn whatever it is the learning experience is supposed to teach me, because I can't think of anything drearier than being somebody whose character is formed by learning experiences.~~~People always think that if they can prove they're right, you'll change your mind.~~The main problem was Read more:Someday
, Useful
Trends 2008-06-05 08:00:00 Have your book-tastes changed over the years? More fiction? Less? Books that are darker and more serious? Lighter and more frivolous? Challenging? Easy? How-to books over novels? Mysteries over Romance?My first impulse was to say yes, my tastes have changed considerably over the years, but then my eyes fell on a book that I checked out from the public library over the weekend--Charlotte Bacon's Sp Read more:Trends
No title 2008-06-04 17:25:00 Poor Claudie. He has a uti.Poor us. He let us know he wasn't feeling well by peeing all. over. the. sofa.
No title 2008-06-06 14:14:00 My mother is a fish.Seriously.
Sunday Salon: Latest stack from the library 2008-06-08 10:00:00 The bulk of these, fortunately, comes from the university library which means I have more time to get them read before their due dates.The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye. A.S. Byatt. Eva's review prompted this check-out.Was This Man a Genius? Julie Hecht. I think I might read this during Dewey's Readathon later this month. I'm a little obsessed with Julie Hecht at the moment.Split Estate. Charlot Read more:Sunday
, Salon
The size of a teen-age eagle? Really? 2008-06-10 07:05:00 We were all delighted when David Sedaris's latest, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, showed up in the mail yesterday. I left it for the others to read and admire, though, turning my attention to library fare, particularly David Guterson's The Other (I think I do want to read this one, but I'm going to wait till it shows up at the university library), until close to bedtime when I thought I'd quickl
The greedy pig edition 2008-06-11 18:22:00 Actually, these represent the last three months of book purchases. I think I should now have the willpower to make it till August without getting twitchy.Guard Your Daughters. Diana Tutton. (Dovegrey Reader-inspired)The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam. Lauren Liebenberg. (Eve's Alexandria-inspired)Know Nothing. Mary Lee Settle.The Writing Class. Jincy Willet. Received it yesterday, fi Read more:greedy
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