my mind is hungry

From 50 books.

Mother Tongue

This is the first time I've contributed to the CNG Lending Library blog so I just thought I'd share what I'm reading.
I'm about a third of the way through Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue. Anyone who has read Bill Bryson before knows his work is always an entertaining read, and this book in particular is of interest to all my fellow wordsmiths (in fact it's a must-read) - it basically goes into all the intricacies of the English language. Anyone who wishes to borrow it is welcome to do so when I'm done. Here's a passage with which to leave you:

"Even when you strip out its obsolete senses, round still has twelve uses as an adjective, nineteen as a noun, seven as a transitive verb, five as an intransitive verb, one as an adverb and two as a preposition. But the polysemic champion must be set. Superficially it looks a wholly unassuming monosyllable, the verbal equivalent of a single-celled organism. Yet it has 58 uses as a noun, 126 as a verb, and 10 as a participal adjective. Its meanings are so various and scattered that it takes the Oxford English Dictionary 60,000 words - the length of a short novel - to discuss them all. A foreigner could be excused for thinking that to know set is to know English."

A Novel approach

So lat night I had an hour or two to myself after the gym and I began work on my masterpiece: The Definitive Australian Gay Classic.
This hasn't been done before, to my knowledge.
It fits somewhere into the same genre of those old Crawford productions like All The Rivers Run. A bit like A Town Like Alice (the second half). A feast of the Baz Luhrmann variety. With a bit of Brokeback Mountain thrown in.
Priscilla Queen of the Nineteenth Century.
In novel form.
Not a movie. Which the above would infer.
I plan to be the Colleen McCollough of homos.
I post this here in the hope it will encourage my fellow literary-types to also write. The Lending Library could expand its borders a little.

Down in the Dumps Books

When I’m in a certain mood, by which I mean a bad, sad mood there are always certain books I gravitate towards. Books that tell me what I want to hear, some times, or books that sink into depression with me.

Right at the top of the list for the latter category is Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair, which is also one of my favourite books for any time. It’s a nice, bitter little volume and the literary equivalent of listening to depressing music when you’re already depressed or going out for a drink with someone whose life is just as shite as yours.

“I wrote at the start that this was a record of hate, and walking there beside
Henry towards the evening glass of beer, I found the one prayer that seemed to
serve the winter mood: Oh God. You’ve done enough. You’ve robbed me of enough,
I’m too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone forever.”

Greene’s prose is so lovely and so emotive I often find myself stuck with a quote from this book in my head, or mooching along in the cold, imagining myself as the book’s protagonist in a long overcoat.I’ve tried to write this sort of stuff when I’m quite depressed myself or when things aren’t going well but it never works out - I seem to spiral into self pity and get nothing done but clocking up a lot of couch time. I just don’t know Greene did it and I’m struck down with serious envy.

“I sat with the telephone receiver in my hand and I looked at hate like an ugly
and foolish man whom one does not want to know. I dialled her number. I must
have caught her before she had time to leave the telephone and said: ‘Sarah,
tomorrow’s all right, I’d forgotten something. Same place. Same time. And
sitting there, my fingers on the quiet instrument, with something to look
forward to, I thought to myself: I remember. This is what hope feels like.”

Anyway, enough of the jealousy - what about you guys? Anything particular that you reach for in time of crisis?

don't accept books from strangers

My list for the super fun book mart is mostly comprised of books given to me by someone who couldn't be bothered with the trip to Good Sammies. Don't judge me. Please.

1. One copy of Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle. Self help book given to me by my much treasured aunt and uncle who clearly think me in need of unprofessional help. Yes, it is as bad as it sounds. Good to read outloud ironically while drunk. Condition: one small cut in bottom right hand corner - consequence of frantic Christmas present wrapping.

2. One copy of A Month of Sundays- How to go Travelling Without Leaving Town by James O'Loghlin. Condition: Slightly curly corner on the cover as consequence of being stored in a box. Other than that barely been opened. When I travel, you won't see me for dust.

3. Creepers by David Morrell. It is about "urban explorers who illegally enter sealed buildings. . . soon after the group enters it becomes clear this decaying seven-story building holds more secrets than they could have imagined in their worst nightmares." Condition: second hand but looks like its first owner thought as little of it as I did and left it firmly closed.

4. Beneath the Skin by Nicci French. Zoe Jennifer and Nadia are three women with nothing in common. Except for the man who wants to kill them. Ho hum. Condition: practically new- shouldn't have been written.

5. Cathedral by Nelson Demille. March 17 is a day when everyone, everywhere is an honorary Irishman. Everyone except IRA man Brian Flynn. Cosmopolitan called it a "bulldozer of a book". Need I say more? Condition: third hand - could do with some semtex.

Super Fun Book Swap Mart # 2

Ok. I'm unwilling to part with a much as I previously thought but I have:

1. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Johnsy has already requested)
2. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (I have two copies and I hated it)
3. Property by Valerie Martin (Winner of Orange Prize 2003. Not my bag, baby)
4. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James (A rather nice copy, but I can't do it.)

Free to good homes. please take them. please.

Super Fun Book Swap Mart

Kate and I have just been talking about going on a massive book-buying spree, but I have just realised that I really do not have any more room left on my bookshelves and the catbox couldn't possibly accomodate another lot of furniture. However, there are a few books I would willingly part with in order to make room for preferred one. These are ones I started and never finished, books I hated, odds and sods. I am already sending a duplicate copy of Hitchhikers Guide to Johnsy tomorrow, so I suggest this: Everyone does an audit of their bookshelves and advertises their extraneous wares on the CNG library blog. Books are free to good homes although swapping is encouraged.

I shall post my audit tomorrow. It will probably start with Henry James' Wings of a Dove.

has it come to this?

A used book seller in the States has started burning books in protest at the declining value of the written word. Tom Wayne had thousands of books in storage and tried to give them away to thrift stores or libraries but was told there was no room in the inn. So he burnt them. Well, he burnt some of them before the fire department forced him to stop because he didn't have a burning permit.
He told spectators "This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today".
All I can ask you is: on a scale of one to ten - how horrifying do you find this?

Tell me honestly...

When to blazes is everyone finding time to read so much?
I have barely started a book I received a fortnight ago and am thoroughly enjoying!
I think I have too many commitments. I need to shed something. I used to find hours and hours each week. I used to finish books in a sitting. (The first time ever, for any book of length, was Roald Dahl's Matilda. Don't know how old I was but I just devoured it!). But now... now I can barely find five minutes!
So tell me... when are you stealing five minutes?

Presents for Bookworms

At some point this afternoon, you will each receive a CNG Lending Library Commemorative Gift. Use it wisely. Word out.

communion of literature

Just a quick note to point out that the latest instalment of Yann Martel's suggested reading to Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper is out: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie.

I've never read any Agatha Christie, which is probably an admission that will see me thrown from this venerable forum. I suppose there are things that just wouldn't occur to you to read for whatever reason - that's what makes this arrangement we have here a good one. We all suggest things that are new and different to each other, give 'em a go and see how we enjoy it.

I'd also like to draw your attention to Martel's comments on second hand books that made me want to shake his hand.

Read the full post at The Glass Wall.

Australian Literature

Some of you are probably going to want to ask, "does it exist?" or will say, "that's an oxymoron".
Perhaps you're right. But given that the lovely Kemery has just refused a copy of We Of The Never Never which my Grandmother gave me for Christmas (which she had purchased as a secondhand volume herself some 15 years before and had left on her shelf until she gave it to me, and which I found on the weekend under a pile of paperwork at the weekend) I was wondering if there ARE some Australian classics anyone thinks we simply SHOULD read?
Come on. There must be one.
Mustn't there?

Does this sound like the worst book ever?

Trading Places …
The Secret Lives of a Brothel Owner and a Priest!

Respected Western Australian author, Maurice Czarniak has just released his exciting novel, Accidental Discovery. This quirky, original work of fiction centres around Brendan, a handsome Catholic priest, who wants to leave the church due to his emerging sexual desires. As fate would have it, Brendan has a chance meeting with businessman and brothel owner, Jack – a series of unpredictable events culminate in the two men swapping roles.
The tale is rapidly propelled along in exciting and dangerous directions when it is discovered that Brendan has supernatural powers! Converting the brothel into a sex therapy clinic, and pseudo-priest Jack delivering his ‘original’ version of a Sunday sermon, makes for entertaining and compelling reading from start to finish!
Accidental Discovery is an original tale, with fast-paced good humour and passionate romance steeped in mystery – an impressive new novel indeed!

I can't even begin to list the things that are wrong with this synposis. Or the scenarios I would have to find myself in before reading it is an option.

It's out through Zeus Publications people, in case you cared....

Review: The Virgin Suicides (Jeffrey Eugenides)

I read this book years and years ago because I had a huge crush on the person who suggested I should read it.

I believe I still have his copy of the book and this weekend I re-read it because I really love it.

"None of us went to church, so we had a lot of time to watch them, the two
parents leached of color, like photographic negatives, and then the five
glittering daughters in their homemade dresses, all lace and rufffle, bursting
with their fructifying flesh."

I'm shite at writing reviews about anything I like (generally I'd really much prefer to tear them to shreds) but something about the language of the book really gets to me. Sure, it can be a little bit Stand by Me with the whole 'looking back at childhood' thing but it's one of those books that really straddles the gap between being a super simplistic story about highschool crushes and a house full of hot minxes and a look at a complex and sad little world.

"He tasted first the grease of her Chap Stick, then the sad Brussels-sprout
flavor of her last meal, and past that the dust of lost afternoons and the
salt of tear ducts. The peach schnapps faded away as he sampled the juices
of her inner organs, all slightly acidic with woe. "

I don't want to get all Michael Perrot and just rehash the storyline but I do really enjoy the fact that, as the book progresses, it's more and more obvious that the story's not really about the girls (the titular virgin suicides, though that's a total misnomer) but about the narrator and the other guys and the way they have been disappointed with life.

Incidently I think the movie did a fairly good job of translating some of the book onto screen but it certainly missed a lot of the poeticism of the writing and is, in my opinion anyway, it doesn't stand up that well alongside the book, although the soundtrack rocked.

"It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but
only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do
not hear us, up here in the tree house, with our thinning hair and soft
bellies, calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all
time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never
find the pieces to put them back together."

Highly recommended (and in my bookcase).

We Need To Talk About Kevin (Shriver): nature vs nurture

"Dear Franklin,
I'm unsure why one trifling incident this afternoon has moved me to write to you. But since we've been separated, I may most miss coming home to deliver the narrative curiosities of my day, the way a cat might lay mice at your feet: the small, humble offerings that couples proffer after foraging in separate backyards."

To sum this book up - heartbreaking and terrifying.

Shriver is a clever writer, her style is relatively simple but is so vivid and cleverly constructed. Every now and again she'll throw in a phrase or sentence that makes you stop and want to shake her hand. I was hooked from that opening sentence above.

The the novel, for those who haven't read it, is written as a collection of letters to her husband. It's a great technique that makes you think about all the times you've stopped yourself during an extreme moment and thought 'how would I tell this story later?'. It also allows her to dose the whole book in a sense of impending doom fitting for the subject matter. Which is dire. The main character Eva's son Kevin is imprisoned for shooting dead nine classmates. She lives with the notion that she always thought there was something wrong with the boy, but what do you do when it's your son? This is the nature vs nurture argument writ large. Rest assured you'll need a big hug and a stiff drink when you've finished reading this one.

About halfway through I'm afraid I started to lose interest, describing it to my boyfriend as like The Omen, if Damien's so bad and no-one believes her why doesn't she just leave?
But all of that dropped away for the last quarter. Although the story makes no bones about the tragedy in its opening pages, she manages to not let the reader just grow complacent, she keeps reminding them about the consequences, the innocence of the people that were maimed and killed. She saves some terrible surprises for the end. But Eva's narration becomes increasingly unreliable, she remains adamant on things she had done, for which there is no proof. She leaves out parts of the tale until the very end, flooring you when she finally reveals them. And, despite all claims otherwise, she still loves her son.

What stuck me as interesting is after she has finished her story she acknowledges that Kevin was, indeed, still her son. In among the nature/nurture arguments Kevin, who seems irreparably broken earlier in the novel, starts to make sense to his mother. Somehow the experience or the passing two years has brought them closer together, although he was the perpetrator. How she could find time for him when he took so much from her I just couldn't understand. But I suppose she understood him more than anyone, as a child there was nothing he would miss if it was gone. In prison he discovered the importance of his mother. It breaks your heart that Kevin had so much growing up to do when he killed those people and had he just started a MySpace page instead he could have turned into an alright person. He starts repeating his mother's words he mocked as a younger boy. She keeps his bed made, just in case.

It makes the quote on the opening page ring true:

"A child needs your love most when he deserves it least"