Monday, June 27, 2011

i'm too busy to read!

Now if that isn't a cry for help, I don't know what is!  I am in the middle of Drowning Ruth and loving it.  It feels like I may want to read it twice to pick up all the little clues and twists that I'm missing because I'm so distracted.  It isn't detail-oriented in a "solve the mystery" way, I just wish I had time to submerge and live in the story.

Nevertheless, I made a library trip anyway and tried to see if any books from the Persephone Books catalogue were there - just one: The Homemaker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher.  If you haven't snagged a look at Persephone Book's website, take a peek...  lots of treasures. 

tren - I have read that Hitler's Youth book, and Letters From A Woman Homesteader is on my bookshelf.  It was a thrift store find.  My girls have read about Maud March - one loved it and two were lukewarm.  I thought it was a fascinating idea...  Your Granny's story sounds interesting, too....

fartygirl - I just read the New Yorker article about the Wilder women...  Very intriguing.  I always felt the tension between Pa and Ma...  I think we read the stories differently as adults than we did as children.

Books I've Read:
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte - This was definitely good Bronte reading.  It was not as great as Jane Eyre, but the characters were interesting and it had a bit of mystery on the moors.  Shockingness with a woman leaving her husband and living on her own...
Man's Search For Meaning - Viktor Frankl - As a consummate scholar and scientist, Viktor Frankl used his experience as a prisoner in the camps of the Holocaust to study human nature and the truth of "choice".  We always have a choice. He wrote parts of this while he was in the camps and kept his papers hidden!
Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury - I read Something Wicked This Way Comes in 9th grade English.  I loved it.  It was fall in New England and life was imitating art.  I did not enjoy Farenheit 451... at all.  It was a book club selection, otherwise I would not have picked it up - sci-fi, futuristic, very dark.  Silly, in my opinion.  But any guesses on future technology could be seen as silly.  The age-old tactic of book-burning was carried over into Bradbury's future, though.
Except For Me and Thee - Jessamyn West - I watched "Friendly Persuasion" often on AMC as a child.  I decided to pick this one up and read the story that lead up to it.  It was easy reading - a story of the Quakers and their relationships with the slaves. 
The South Beach Diet - Arthur Agatston, MD - I read it, I admit. It was hard for me as I believe in natural foods, in their natural state, in natural proportions, all in moderation.  If I remember correctly, I was annoyed with the lack of evidence of a healthy sustainablility.

Do you "hoard" books?  Or "collect"?  Or do you read and give away as my sister does?

1 comment:

  1. I do hoard books. I've been thinking of sorting through them and weeding them out. I enjoyed the book snob blog post the other day about "culling" her collection. I need to cull mine. I have a lot of books, but I have a bunch I will probably not read, or read again.
    Dorothy Canfield Fisher sounds familiar to me. It seems to my foggy mind that perhaps she is the author of Understood Betsy, which I read and loved. Am I right? Have you read it?

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