And So We Let The Great World Spin

…because doing that is easier than trying to get it to stop spinning, I guess. At least we haven’t managed that one yet.

When I first saw Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann reviewed on Amazon I was dismayed to learn that it wasn’t yet available on Kindle.  So I had to WAIT FOR IT.  Sheeesh.  I’m much better at instant gratification than I am at being patient.  I waited so long I eventually forgot about it.  And then when I came across it by accident finally listed in the Kindle store a few days ago I downloaded it right away without even trying to remember what my reasons were for thinking I would like it in the first place.

Well, good thing I’m boring as dirt consistantly predictable and don’t change my mind a lot because the book did turn out to be exactly the kind of story that kept me happily reading all the way to the brilliant end.  I’ll admit there was a moment of panic when one section ended and another began and I was completely lost with a brand new cast of characters who seemed to be completely unrelated to the previous set.  I’m not normally a big fan of back to back short stories because of my deeply ingrained need to know what happens next.  But here the stories and the people are all linked in simple or intricate ways;  their lives converge and overlap, and the actions of this one or that one send out ripples which will ultimately affect the actions or even the fate of someone else.  It’s the kind of thing we see every day of course -  action, reaction, watch the dominoes fall.

In New York City, August 1974, Phillipe Petit walked back and forth across a cable between the World Trade Center towers.   This real life event is not necessarily the central focus of the book, but it is the thread that holds it all together.  There is a street priest from Dublin, his brother, his lover, heroin addicts, hookers, mothers who have lost sons to the Vietnam war, artists, computer hackers, cops, and a Park Avenue judge.  And I’m sure I’ve missed more than I’ve mentioned here.  Ordinary people who are capable of extraordinary things.

The book is beautifully written and was well worth the wait. There are some very quotable quotes throughout.  Enjoy this little sampling.  And if you decide to read the whole book, I think you will enjoy that too.

“It was my earliest suggestion of what my brother would become, and what I’d
later see among the cast-offs of New York—the whores, the hustlers, the
hopeless—all of those who were hanging on to him like he was some bright
hallelujah in the shitbox of what the world really was.”

“There are rocks deep enough in this earth that no matter what the rupture, they
will never see the surface. There is, I think, a fear of love. There is a fear
of love.”

“The intrusion of time and history. The collision point of stories. We wait for
the explosion but it never occurs. The plane passes, the tightrope walker gets
to the end of the wire. Things don’t fall apart.”

 

Another Best Seller

I am in awe of Kate Morton for writing yet another novel that held my undivided interest from beginning to end.  If you haven’t read

- The House at Riverton

- The Forgotten Garden

- The Distant Hours

- The Secret Keeper

just pick one and get started.  They’re all great stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the book description from Amazon:

From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Distant Hours, The Forgotten Garden, and The House at Riverton, a spellbinding new novel filled with mystery, thievery, murder, and enduring love.

During a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and watches as her mother speaks to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime. A crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy—her vivacious, loving, nearly perfect mother.

Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress living in London. The family is gathering at Greenacres farm for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday. Realizing that this may be her last chance, Laurel searches for answers to the questions that still haunt her from that long-ago day, answers that can only be found in Dorothy’s past.

The history and the family secrets are fun, the characters are strong, her writing is a treat to read.  Over four hundred pages flew by, layer upon layer of the story revealed, past to present and places in between until the final mystery was solved.

If you’re not hooked yet, read the excerpt on Amazon.  And I’ll see you later – 450 pages later I expect.

 

Let’s Play Lexicographer

Joseph Broch (Photo credit: puigjoan)

Daily Prompt  Create a new word and explain its meaning and etymology.

Well I’m just enough of a geek to get all excited and anticipate that playing Lexicographer will be a lot of fun. I felt that way about Hungry Hippos once too, for about five minutes.

Here is my new word, the very first one in my Brave New Words Dictionary (that is also made up, so don’t bother looking for it on Amazon just yet):

rablentumentia - (rab-len-tum-en-chi-ah)

noun

a mental disorder or form of mild psychosis in which the patient is afflicted with very lengthy bouts of non-stop talking in a loud and obnoxious manner with complete disregard for audience and/or subject matter.

Word origins: from rablen, (middle English), to speak in a rapid confused manner;  from entia, (latin), the state of, and from tumlen, (yiddish),  to make a racket.

possible synonyms, also mostly made up - bureaucratosis, cacoethes loquendi, non-motivational speaker syndrome, chronic blarney verbitis

Sentence Examples:

1.  The CEO’s pointless rambling at board meetings was routinely ignored until one of the members arrived without his ear buds and was consequently subjected to twenty minutes of verbose indecipherable nonsense which he later described to his co-workers as almost certainly blatant symptoms of a rather severe case of rablentumentia, and was gratified to realize that not one person disagreed with his astute diagnosis of the problem, although that was perhaps due to the fact that none of them had had the misfortune of misplacing their own ear buds and were well-trained and practiced in the art of appearing to listen and give a damn.

2.  A person suffering from rablentumentia should not be considered for the position of telemarketer.  (So why are they, I wonder?)

3.  Some doctors have noted that the duration of rablentumentia can be lessened by the onset of laryngitis and that although there is no proven cure for the condition, being bound and gagged and placed in such isolation as a sound-proof room may significantly reduce the visible and auditory symptoms of the illness and thus the stress levels of everyone involved except for the patient himself, but what the hell, it’s a start.

 

Teleported by Accident

The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman might be the strangest book I’ve ever read.  “LONGLISTED FOR THE 2012 MAN BOOKER PRIZE” is the phrase that impressed me I guess.  Truthfully, I don’t remember how it turned up on my kindle.  Or why.  Maybe it was one of those muddle-headed middle of the night minor mishaps, where I push some buttons on my e-reader with my eyes closed.

I read a few pages and thought, oh my God, what have I gotten myself into now?  Several chapters in I lost count of the times I’d  back-tracked and re-read passages and even whole pages trying to get it all to make a bit of sense.  Eventually I had one of those ah-hah moments.  Once I realized it’s simply an insane story that’s all over the place, that’s when I started to love it.

This partial quote from the Amazon  site sums it up well:

…..a historical novel that doesn’t know what year it is; a noir novel that turns
all the lights on; a romance novel that arrives drunk to dinner; a science
fiction novel that can’t remember what ‘isotope’ means; a stunningly inventive,
exceptionally funny, dangerously unsteady and (largely) coherent novel about
sex, violence, space, time, and how the best way to deal with history is to
ignore it.

If you can wrap your brain around thousands of brilliantly crazy metaphors and similes and want to read a book with four different endings, this could be just what you’ve been waiting for.  There are some difficult  parts and bits of bizarre cleverness that I’m sure went right over my head, but there are also hilarious scenes that had me laughing out loud.  For me it was a sort of roller-coaster read – I had to make myself sit back and enjoy the ride - so that when it was over, I found I couldn’t remember a whole lot about it except for the fun.

 

Tell the Wolves I’m Home

This is the kind of book you could read from beginning to end on a quiet afternoon, forgetting everything around you.  That’s assuming you’ve got a quiet afternoon with no distractions of course. If you don’t have that, you’ll wish for it once you get started.

No matter, I read the book in fits and starts whenever I had a minute or two, and thoroughly loved it anyway.

This is a love story of sorts;  about partnerships and bonds, siblings and family, relationships and promises, grief and loss, love lost and found.

(Excerpt from Goodreads and Amazon)

1987. There’s only one person who has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus, and that’s her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn’s company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June’s world is turned upside down. But Finn’s death brings a surprise acquaintance into June’s life—someone who will help her to heal, and to question what she thinks she knows about Finn, her family, and even her own heart.  

Hard to believe this is a debut novel.  I hope Carol Rifka Brunt has many more stories to share.

 

Getting to Know Stephanie Plum

I’m halfway through book three in Janet Evanovich’s great long mystery series starring Stephanie Plum.  This is one of the reviews from Amazon on the book that started it all:

Stephanie Plum is so smart, so honest, and so funny that her narrative charm could drive a documentary on termites. But this tough gal from New Jersey, an unemployed discount lingerie buyer, has a much more interesting story to tell: She has to say that her Miata has been repossessed and that she’s so poor at the moment that she just drank her last bottle of beer for breakfast. She has to say that her only chance out of her present rut is her repugnant cousin Vinnie and his bail-bond business. She has to say that she blackmailed Vinnie into giving her a bail-bond recovery job worth $10,000 (for a murder suspect), even though she doesn’t own a gun and has never apprehended a person in her life. And she has to say that the guy she has to get, Joe Morelli, is the same creep who charmed away her teenage virginity behind the pastry case in the Trenton bakery where she worked after school.

If that hard-luck story doesn’t sound compelling enough, Stephanie’s several unsuccessful attempts at pulling in Joe make a downright hilarious and suspenseful tale of murder and deceit. Along the way, several more outlandish (but unrelentingly real) characters join the story, including Benito Ramirez, a champion boxer who seems to be following Stephanie Plum wherever she goes.

Janet Evanovich shares an authentic feel for the streets of Trenton in her debut mystery (she developed her talents in a string of romance novels before creating Ms. Plum), and her tough, frank, and funny first-person narrator offers a winning mix of vulgarity and sensitivity. Evanovich is certainly among the best of the new voices to emerge in the mystery field of the 1990s. –Patrick O’Kelle

Even though I’m not an avid mystery fan, the story was great and written with large doses of humour.  I haven’t seen the movie, but I like the trailer.

There’s lots of controversy over the casting, (isn’t there always?) but it all looks good to me, no doubt because I haven’t yet reached book twenty in the series with indelible character sketches branded on my brain.  Maybe I’ll never get that far.  But the journey to this point has been a lot of fun.

 

E is for Etymology

E is for Etymology, Origin 1350–1400; Middle English < Latin etymologia < Greek etymología, equivalent to etymológ ( os ) studying the true meanings and values of words.
One of the first things I do every morning is play my many word games.  Apparently, that’s what WRITERS do.  Ergo, I must be a writer.  Ergo is another lovely E word, way quicker to type than therefore, ergo I decided to use it here and if I continue on with this sentence for much longer you will begin to seriously doubt I have any talent for writing whatsoever.  Ergo I shall stop.

If you love words too, check out

PR Daily News 

and click on Writing and Editing.  Or anywhere else, for that matter.  It’s full of interesting stuff.  The article that convinced me I must belong to that elite group called “writers” is here.  Because I love all those word games and play most of them every day.

MOST days I feel very smug and smart with all the words I know or can figure out and sometimes am even able to spell correctly.  Other days it’s good to bring that ego down a  peg or two by playing Etymologic.  The first time I played I got 4 out of ten by making wild guesses.  The best I’ve done is 8 out of 10 by cheating.  You can totally rationalize cheating if you convince yourself it’s in the interests of learning something new and has nothing at all to do with getting a less embarrassing score.

These games are also something I can enjoy by clicking away with one hand while using the other to drink coffee, another activity which gives me great pleasure.  I wonder where the word multitasking originated?  From Latin multis (much, many) and French tâche (job or task)?  Although the word tache without the accent can also mean ink stain.  So another plausible meaning might be too many ink stains on your fingers from writing so much, and ergo, get a keyboard you moron.

Having a good book on the subject of etymology seemed like such a great idea to me this morning that I searched Amazon for just such an invaluable source of information.  There were just way too many choices. What I ended up downloading to my kindle was this:

English Swear Words and Other Ways to be Completely Misunderstood, by Peter Freeman.

I doubt that it will be helpful for cheating at  Etymologic, but it could prove to be wildly educational.  Sort of like learning a second language, and probably a lot more fun than Latin.

 

So What Are YOU Reading?

Because I am living alone at the moment (and for the next five months or so of moments) I have a lot of time for uninterrupted reading.  It’s one of the best feelings there is, to have the quiet time to sit down with a good book, and to just let whatever else needs doing wait.  Kind of a delicious spaced-out interlude in which the rest of the world ceases to matter.

Just finished Escape by Barbara Delinsky.  It’s one of those feel good stories with a happy ending.  Of course there’s a lot of stress and trauma and mucking about to get there, but you just know things will work out eventually for ALMOST everybody.  And the ones it doesn’t all work out for, well that was their own damned fault.  In the crazy world of workaholic lawyers in New York,  Emily suddenly decides to walk away from it all and figure out her priorities in life because she’s mega stressed and no longer happy.  How many people do you know who are working their butts off doing something they hate to do for all the wrong reasons?  Take a good look in the mirror – one of them might be you.

Odd Jobs by Ben Lieberman is turning out to be a real page turner and everybody’s fate is up in the air.  Of course I’m referring to the characters who are still alive at this point in the story.  I’m about half way through it.  If I review it now I’m less likely to give away the ending. Here’s the little blurb from Amazon:

College student Kevin Davenport is working any and every odd job to make it through school. He discovers who killed his father while working at the corrupt, mob-controlled, Kosher World Meat factory. Now he will stop at nothing to prevent the killers from ruining other families and to get his revenge, as well. Conventional techniques, such as going to the police, have not only been ineffective for others, these methods have proven to be virtual suicide.

So all bets are off and Davenport uses the grittiest and strangest methods as tools to bring down the killers. The characters, misadventures and odd jobs will have the readers laughing. But the hazard is real and Davenport is in over his head.

It’s very well written and hard to put down.  Unless you get interrupted by something like this next book.

Shift or Get off the Pot by Linda Edgecombe.  My boss gave it to me as a gift.  Do you think she’s trying to tell me something??  I started reading it last night at work and finished it when I got home, and decided I already have a life, thank you very much.  There are some very insightful things in it of course, not that I needed to hear any of them.  Okay, all sarcasm aside, it’s actually an excellent motivational book, which is why I was able to quickly read the whole thing.  And also just in case there’s a test later I like to brown nose and appear to be smart.  Funnily enough, it’s a lot like the Escape book, advising us to get rid of the negative things in our lives, discover what it is that makes us truly happy and fulfilled, and then get out there and have fun and enjoy life.  Instead of being on “The Deferred Life Plan”, working ourselves to death so we can be happy some time in the future, we need to start living right now.  Accept who you are, do your best, and learn to laugh again.

Apparently I need to accept the fact that I’m a Relator.  (Not to be confused with realtor – I would suck at that job.)  The other choices are Socializer, Thinker, and Director.  Get the book and find out who you are!  Or if, like me, you already know everything, never mind.  And now, back to the grizzly murder mystery.  I definitely have my priorities straight.

 

Egg On and Early TV

(Perry and Della - the unbeatable team)

These topic suggestions have egged me on.  Such a strange expression – makes me think of someone pelting me with raw eggs to set me in motion.

What’s the best way to find out about new books you might like?  Go to the Word Press Home Page and click on the Books topic.  Lots of people out there are reading like crazy and sharing their experiences.  All of the e-books on my Kindle come from Amazon of course, and the reviews and suggestions there are great.  The “customers who bought this item also bought”  thing can be very helpful too if you’re looking for books that are similar to, or just as interesting as, the ones you’ve already enjoyed.  It never hurts to have friends who read a lot and like to make suggestions.  And I love bargain book tables.  Although those aren’t piled high with new books, they’re usually new to me and there’s always the possibility of discovering some obscure gem.

How do you spend the majority of your non-work time? Non-working.  Eating, sleeping, reading, blogging, playing games, keeping up a house, washing my hair.

If you were going to redecorate your home, what would you change? A better question might be, where would you start?  But frankly I’ve spent a lot of years changing things up and around, and now I’m at the point where I don’t really care that much about it anymore.  Our house is too big for just the two of us.  If we ever move to something smaller I’ll think harder about the whole decorating thing.

Are you an early bird or a night owl?  Nope I’m not really either one.  I don’t get up excessively early, and I don’t go to bed ridiculously late.  So I’m one of those boring intermediate chronotypes with no sleep disorders, unless you count liking sleep a lot as a disorder.

What creeps you out?  Unexplainable mystery noises in the dark. The kind of strange sounds you’re not quite sure you actually heard, because they might have been part of a dream, so you listen so hard you stop breathing but you don’t hear anything else.  And so you drift back to sleep.  And promptly hear something slightly different that could have come from the same unidentifiable source so you have to start the whole listening without breathing process all over again.  Or you get up to investigate and make your own mystery noises in the dark because you only knock over extremely cacophonous objects when you’re trying really hard to be quiet.

You can pick one chocolate from the box.  What kind of filling do you hope is inside?  Deliver me from sweet cream fillings that burn my throat and hard chewy centres that stick to my teeth for three hours.  Just give me chocolate covered nuts – in fact, how about a whole box of them so I don’t have to read the quide and try to figure out the pictures and decide what exactly might be inside a Himilayan Pink Salt Peanut Butter Red Velvet Dark Chocolate Truffle From Hell.

What’s your most treasured possession?  My brain.  Such as it is.

Who are your all time favourite authors?  Absolutely impossible to say because I have no idea even where I might begin.  Every single person who writes has something to say, ideas to get across, stories to tell, insights to share.  If I read a book I particularly like, I’ll always see what else that author has written but it’s not good to get bogged down in any one particular genre.  There is brilliance everywhere.  And complete garbage too, but how would you recognize the great stuff without the crap?

What were your favourite tv shows when you were a kid?  We didn’t get a tv until I was nine years old and then we had only one channel so we watched whatever stupid thing happened to be on.  We especially liked staying up later than our normal bedtime to watch a show, which meant that The Ed Sullivan Show and Bonanza (on Sunday nights all the way to ten o’clock) became our favourites by default.  Later on I liked to watch Dr. Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare, and argue with my sister about which one was more sexy and swoon-worthy.  I liked Perry Mason a lot too, because he never lost a case, and I was convinced that Della Street was the main reason why.

        

Now seriously, who would not prefer those sexy hairy arms and Ben’s brooding good looks to Dr. Hairless Wonder there on the right who looks like he’s fresh out of grade eight?  (My sister isn’t here to defend her heart throb from the ’60′s so I feel like being a bit ruthless).  We argued about hockey players too, pretty much just for the sake of arguing because it rarely had anything to do with the game or their hockey skills.  And then we moved on to male singers (Mick Jagger vs. Eric Burdon, for example).  It’s an endless list for a fun game of ‘have an opinion and defend it, no matter what’.   All in the spirit of egging eachother on.

 

The Beauty of E-Books

Amazon Kindle 2 Wireless eBook Reader

I’ve had my kindle since last Christmas, and the current count for my downloaded books is a whopping 82. Never in a million years would I have devoured that many titles in a year without it.

I love the convenience of carrying it with me anywhere and having immediate access to such an incredible selection of reading material. All the features of shopping at Amazon are right there, including reviews and recommendations. Obviously I’ve made good use of them.

Reading this way hasn’t replaced my love of picking up an actual book at all, just enhanced it. I still love the feel of a real book in my hands and glossy book jackets and page flipping and the awful habit of scribbling notes in the margins and handing over a copy to a friend.

But the kindle is my own little personal portable library zipped up in a padded cover. It never loses my page or misplaces a favourite title. The page flip is now a button click – different, but no less effective.

It’s hard for me to imagine that e-books will ever completely replace the real thing, but they’re certainly going to save a lot of trees. And they’ve already made my hard copies seem somehow more rare and even more precious to own.