I saw this on Cleopatra Loves Books blog and wanted to do it for the same reason as Margaret at Books Please – I love lists as well as books. I tried to stick to fiction on my physical ‘unread’ shelves, and was able to do it in the time provided except for a couple of problem categories which necessitated a second sweep.

The instructions: Find a book on your bookshelves that contains (either on the cover or in the title) an example for each category. You must have a separate book for all 20, get as creative as you want and do it within five minutes!! (or longer if you have way too many books on way too many overcrowded shelves!)

1. Food

American Pie by Michael Lee West

I was attracted to this by its title, since I love theme reading and I have a nonfiction Kindle book of the same name, and Canadian Pie by Will Ferguson also in my stacks.

2. Transportation

The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa Al Aswany

This was an impulse book store buy that I haven’t cracked open yet.

3. Weapon

Big White Knuckles by Brian Tucker

I had a hard time finding something for this category, but knuckles can be a weapon, right? Since this is set in a Cape Breton coal-mining community, I’m going with ‘yes’.

 
American Pie

4. Animal

In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje

Canadian content that I should have read in high school. I have good intentions. . . .

5. Number

A Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan

I’ve read a couple of books by Amy Tan, but never this one.

 
6. Something You Read

Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher

I would have had more success from my nonfiction shelves where I have books about books galore, but we do read postcards.

7. Body of Water

In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien

I thought O’Brien’s The Things They Carried was a powerful and moving book, so I’m looking forward to this one.

 
8. Product of Fire

Louisiana Power and Light by John Dufresne

I was so busy looking for the after-products of a fire, that I completely missed this book on my first sweep. I’m going with ‘light’ as one of the things a fire produces!

9. Royalty

The Puzzle King by Betsy Carter

New York City! Immigrants! Jigsaw Puzzles! How can this miss?!

10. Architecture

The Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright

Although you wouldn’t know it from the cover of this modern reprint, this classic children’s book is all about the Melendy family’s move to, and life in, the country house known as the four-story mistake. I cheated a bit on this category because I’ve read this book at least a dozen times in my life, but I’m sure I’ll read it again too.

11. Item of Clothing

A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvette Edwards

I put this in my stacks when it was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2011, intrigued by the title and the charming cover on my edition, as much as the synopsis.

 
12. Family Member

Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene

I started to read this last year but found I really wasn’t in the mood to finish. Rather than give up on this vintage classic, I reshelved it for another try.

13. Time of Day

Sunset Park by Paul Auster

I’ve never read Auster and I’m not sure what to expect from this piece of literary fiction. I just hope the story is more “on” than the colour of this cover – it doesn’t much look like a sunset to me.

14. Music

Accordian Crimes by Annie Proulx

Another that I read several years ago and hope to reread. I remember this as wickedly funny – in the end.

15. Paranormal Being

Pluto’s Ghost by Sheree Fitch

Since I never read anything with paranormal beings, I thought this category would go unfilled. Then I came upon this little gem by local author Sheree Fitch, that I picked when visiting her Mable Murple’s Book Shoppe & Dreamery in nearby River John NS last summer. I’m pretty sure this has nothing to do with a real ghost.

 
16. Occupation

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

China’s Cultural Revolution, a hidden stash of Western Classics, and a love of reading. Yum!

17. Season

Autumn Laing by Alex Miller

Every time I look at this Miles Franklin Award nominee from 2012, I want to curl up on the couch and lose myself in it. Soon, I promise myself.

18. Colour

The Blue Light Project by Timothy Taylor

From Vancouver author Taylor, this story of a hostage taking at a filming of a children’s talent show sounds promising.

19. Celestial Body

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

I was attracted to this novel because it unfolds over a twenty-four hour period, a structure that I very much enjoy.

20. Something That Grows

Roses are Difficult Here by W.O. Mitchell

This category was bound to be a Canadian classic: either Roses or Anne of Windy Poplars by Lucy Maud Montgomery (which Kindle edition is free as of time of writing).

* * * * * * *

 
How many are on your bookshelf? Want to give this challenge a try yourself? Consider yourself tagged.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Joyce over at From This Side of the Pond hosts a weekly hodepodge of questions. It’s been a month since I hopped into the discussion so it’s time!
 

1. What’s a word that describes your life? Cluttered
A word you wish described your life? Simple
 

2. Back in my day we
subscribed to newspapers. I always had a least two dailies coming to the house, and one at the office. Sunday afternoons, I sat down with four weekend papers. It was glorious. It was a trial for me when we first moved to rural Nova Scotia because we couldn’t get any national newspaper delivered – and even the copy I could buy at the pharmacy in the summertime has been discontinued.

But that’s not the issue. I just read this CBC news article (on-line, of course)—“Your lifestyle is making blue box recycling unsustainable”—about the problem facing recycling programs today. Basically, the sale of recycled paper used to cover the cost of processing the plastics, but because the volume of printed newspapers has dropped dramatically in the past 20 years, so has the income of these programs.

Add to that: the volume of plastics has increased BUT the income from these is based on tonnage (takes a lot of plastic to make a ton) and the processing capacity of the recyclers is based on volume. And there’s the problem of handling all the new kinds of recyclables on the market now: your take-out salad bowl, your frozen vegetables bag, or any ‘combined’ product such as bubble envelopes. (Are they paper? Are they plastic? Can they even be recycled?)
 

3. When it comes to takeout are you more likely to opt for Italian, Mexican, or Chinese food? Does a typical week at your house include takeout?

Hmm . . . of the three options, the only one available in a less-than-45-minute drive is Chinese, although there is a food bus that sells “tacos” in the summer cottage season. We probably have Chinese take-out (no delivery) once a month or so.
 

4. Think about the people you most respect. What is it about them that earned your respect?

The word that sprang to my mind was ‘integrity’. Webster’s Dictionary defines that as “having sound moral principles, uprightness, honesty, and sincerity”.

Yup, that’s it. It’s those people. I’m thankful that I have a lot of them in my life.
 

5. What’s something your friends might see and say is ‘so you’?

Wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling bookcases. It’s something I’ve wanted all my life and finally got two years ago. Then our real estate agent told us that at least half of them had to come out if we want to sell the house. I can’t tell you how shattered I was.

(These aren’t mine. I couldn’t find a photo of mine on short notice.)

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Since I live in part of that region of North America that has had four nor’easters this month, I’m hearing a lot about how it’s supposed to be spring. I have to restrain myself from that line of thinking because I know that spring comes to northern Nova Scotia in May. At the beginning, it’s cold and colourless. By the 31st, it’s summer.

It’s a miracle month, but it’s still five weeks away.

What about you? What did you do back in your day?

March 21st, aside from being the Spring Equinox this year (more later), is also World Poetry Day. The day was established by UNESCO in 1999. The United Nations site explains “Poetry reaffirms our common humanity by revealing to us that individuals, everywhere in the world, share the same questions and feelings. Poetry is the mainstay of oral tradition and, over centuries, can communicate the innermost values of diverse cultures.”

That sounds so serious – and the poetry I’d like to share today is not. It prefaces the book Most Anything You Please by Trudy J. Morgan-Cole which I just picked up from the library yesterday and am itching to start. It’s about three generations of women who run a small grocery and confectionary store in St. John’s Newfoundland.

The words of this poem are taken from Old Brown’s Daughter by G.W. Hunt, an old English music hall song which has become a Newfoundland folk song.

Old Brown sells from off the shelf most anything you please
He’s got jews-harps for the little boys, lollipops and cheese.
His daughter minds the store and it’s a treat to see her serve
I’d like to run away with her but I don’t have the nerve.

Although we’re supposed to be getting a snow/ice pellets/freezing rain storm this evening, this morning is sunny. I think that’s appropriate given, that for the next six months, our daylight hours here in the Northern Hemisphere will be greater than the dark hours. Hurrah!

Happy World Poetry Day! Thank you to Sue at Whispering Gums for the impetus for this post. Her take on the day is much more intelligent and diverse than mine.

Do you have a bit of rhyme you’d like to share?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

It’s time again for the Six Degrees of Separation link-up, hosted by Kate at Books are My Favourite and Best and you can find complete details by clicking on the link.

This month, the start to everyone’s chain is The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf. Wolf asserts that the “beauty myth” is an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society’s impossible definition of “the flawless beauty.”

1. The beauty myth is probably the reason why I bought and read Charla Krupp’s How Not to Look Old: Fast and Effortless Ways to Look 10 Years Younger, 10 Pounds Lighter, 10 Times Better (plus its companion book How to Never Look Fat Again). Both of these actually had some great tips, some of which are beyond me now, but some that I still employ. Perhaps without them, I’d look older and fatter than I do.

2. Having played into the trap of the Beauty Myth with Charla’s books, I’ll try to fight the myth, and turn to Going Gray: What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Really Matters by Anne Kreamer. This book was an account of the author’s decision to stop dying her hair, and let her natural beauty shine through (that’s her on the cover).

I read this several years ago when I didn’t know that I would be 63 and not yet grey. (It’s a gene from my mother’s side of the family.)

3. But grey or not, I am 63 and considered a senior by many, so Strength Training for Seniors: How to Rewind Your Biological Clock by Michael Fekete was a clearance purchase I made in an effort to feel younger.

I believe it was David J. Lieberman in Get Anyone to Do Anything who said that, if you want people to like you, move like a young person. Strength training is necessary for me to even try to do that.

4. Some studies show that exercise may be a way to lower the likelihood of Alzheimer’s. In In Pursuit of Memory: The Fight Against Alzheimer’s, Joseph Jebelli says that as the more of the world’s population becomes seniors, “Alzheimer’s is expected to affect 135 million people by 2050, overtaking cancer to become the second leading cause of death after heart disease.” (According to the Office for National Statistics, it already has in England and Wales.)

I haven’t finished In Pursuit of Memory yet, but I’m finding it fascinating. Alzheimer’s is such a difficult and misunderstood disease. It leads me to my next link.

5. In How Many Camels are There in Holland: Dementia, Ma and Me, Phyllida Law recounts the final months of caring for her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, in the tiny Scottish village of Ardentinny – with the help of friends, local villagers, and her two daughters, actresses Emma and Sophie Thompson. Amazon says that running through the account are “anecdotes, memories and legends that form the fabric of every family.”

Unfortunately when I tried to read it a couple of years ago, I got no further than the first chapter and just couldn’t make sense of it. That probably says more about my state of mind at the time than it does about the book.

6. I was reading a hardcover copy of How Many Camels that I bought because several years ago, I greatly enjoyed Law’s Notes to My Mother-in-Law. A sweet & short memoir of sorts, written in the titular notes by the author to her mother-in-law, who was hard of hearing and yet wanted the day’s news and arrangements, it was a short and charming read. Both women sounded like people I’d like to know, and Phyllida’s respect and affection for her mother-in-law were evident.

So there you have it – a journey through some of my nonfiction reading for the past few years. I seem to be focusing on aging. Quelle surprise. What most concerns you as you get older?

P.S. Did you notice that the covers for all three of the books dealing with Alzheimer’s are white – fading away? A statement?
 

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

I thought I should take a break from post after post of monthly reading recaps from three years ago, so I decided to join in Hodgepodge again this week. It’s hosted by Joyce at From This Side of the Pond.

1. Where do you go when you need some inspiration?

I’ll admit that this question completely stumped me. What kind of inspiration? Inspires me to what? Really, completely stumped.

2. What’s under your bed?

This one is easy-peasy. The cord for the electric blanket. Dust bunnies. Maybe some stray tissues. That’s it.

3. Thursday, February 22nd is National Chili Day, National Margarita Day, and National Cook a Sweet Potato Day. Of the three which would you most like to celebrate? Is that likely?

I love roasted sweet potatoes, drizzled with olive oil and salt and pepper. Think I’ll make a batch tomorrow and celebrate.

4. What are you ‘snowed under’ with right now?

Aside from house renovations, it’s deskwork: blog posts, making appointments, arranging the details of our Ecuador trip, transferring info from last year’s calendar to this year’s, paying bills, writing letters. If I didn’t have anything else to do (Paint the bathroom! Volunteer work! Go to the appointments made!) I’d be fine.

5. Tell us three to five things that make you feel balanced.

1. Bible reading
2. Volunteer work
3. Exercise
These all make me feel as if I’m not just the desk-sitting pursuer of all things mundane.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

I made arrangements to go visit my daughter & her family, because we’re leaving for Ecuador from Ontario anyway. I planned the visit for my usual ten days because I don’t want to wear out my welcome. Things were perfect.

Then the airline stopped making the flight I booked and changed me to another day & time which didn’t work on either end. The only day that did meant I would be over two weeks at my daughter’s. So I made arrangements with my sister to finish up my 16 day solo stint with her. And, in fairness, when I called WestJet to change my flight again, they were marvellous – friendly and efficient.

What started out as a problem resulted in a positive customer transaction and a bonus visit with my sister. Yay: lemonade!

Can you think of a problem situation where you ended up with lemonade instead of lemons?

This link-up is hosted by Books Are My Favourite and Best, and you can find complete details by clicking on the link.

This month, the starting point for everyone’s chains is The #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. If you haven’t read it, you’ve probably heard of it. In it, Mma Precious Ramotswe begins her own business–the aforesaid agency–and solves a number of small cases. It’s set in Botswana in what, I suspect, is a lost time in African society (much like 1950s small-town America) but I love the gentle rhythm of Mma Ramotswe’s life.

1. Also set in Botswana, although one not quite so charming, is Eleanor Lincoln Morse’s White Dog Fell from the Sky.
In mid-1970s apartheid South Africa, medical student Isaac Muthethe has himself smuggled out of the country into Botswana. He is in danger in his home country because he witnessed the murder of a friend by white members of the South African Defense Force. He is hired as a gardener by a young American woman, Alice Mendelssohn, who has followed her husband to Africa. The white dog of the title is a stray that shows up just when Isaac is dropped off in Botswana, and that attaches itself to the young man.

This book made me aware of the issue of cattle-farm fences across Africa, which cut off wildlife from their families and from water supplies. It also sharpened my understanding of the apartheid situation in South Africa, especially after Isaac is extradited and tortured. This is not Precious Ramotswe’s Botswana. This is a powerful and moving book that should have received more attention than it did. A different tone is set in

2. To Dance with the White Dog by Terry Kay.
Sam Peek’s children are worried about him since his beloved wife of fifty-seven years died. They’re not sure he can live alone on his farm and survive. Sam is determined to stay, though, and continue to care for his pecan trees.

When Sam begins telling his children about a white dog who visits him — but seems invisible to everyone but him — his children think that grief and old age have finally taken their toll.

There’s nothing supernatural and no mental illness here–just a bittersweet story of grieving. Desmond Tutu called To Dance with the White Dog “a hauntingly beautiful story about love, family, and relationships”. I concur – this one of those free Kindle books that turned out to be a real winner.

3. Another book that I thought was well-done and that I read on my Kindle app was Will Ferguson’s The Shoe on the Roof.

The tone of this novel is almost whimsical and it took me a while to figure out the seriousness of the story. I suspect that it was the author’s intent to keep the reader slightly off-balance while he established the underpinnings of the plot.

Amazon calls this “the startling, funny, and heartbreaking story of a psychological experiment gone wrong” and says that “The Shoe on the Roof is an explosively imaginative tour de force, a novel that questions our definitions of sanity and madness, while exploring the magical reality that lies just beyond the world of scientific fact.”

4. Using the word ‘shoe’ in the title, I linked to G is for Gumshoe, a Kinsey Millhone mystery by Sue Grafton who died just a few weeks ago, in December 2017.

I know I read this several years ago, and the plot synopsis does ring a bell, but I can’t tell you much about it now.

I do remember that I read to ‘M’ in this series, and took a break because the tone was getting darker and I wasn’t enjoying them as much as the earlier adventures. I’ve never gotten back to Grafton’s books, but I do have ‘N’ through ‘Q’ on my bookshelves so one never knows.

5. Richard Adams, author of one of my favourite modern classics, Watership Down also died in 2017.

Amazon’s synopsis focuses on the band of rebel rabbits that left the warren and had adventures.

I read this in the 1970s and what I remember is the movement within the warren to trust the humans who, in the end, flooded the rabbits’ home, killing many. Do I remember correctly? I hope so because

6. Another book with a seemingly benevolent party with evil intent is The Gold Eaters by Ronald Wright.

This epic novel tells the story of the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro’s entry into Peru and his subsequent conquering of the Incan Empire. What greed, what a loss of culture, what a waste of human life!

So there you have my links: location, two white dogs, ebooks, the death of authors, and evil intent. Have you read any of these books? What would you have linked differently?

Why not visit Kate’s blog and see how she made the final connection to The Heart’s Invisible Furies?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Joyce over at From This Side of the Pond hosts a weekly hodepodge of questions.

I was sick yesterday so didn’t read my email with the HodgePodge questions until noon today. So I’m w-a-y- down the list of participants again, but here goes!

1. It’s that time of year again…time for Lake Superior University to present a list of words (or phrases) they’d like to see banished (for over-use, misuse, or general uselessness) in 2018. You can read more about the decision making process and word meaning here, but this year’s top vote getters are-

Which of these words/phrases would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Is there a word not on the list you’d like to add?

I was puzzled to see unpack on this list but it’s referring to its misuse as a verb that should be analyze, consider, assess, and so on. That I can agree with.

The word I’d most like to see gone is impactful, as the panel says: “A frivolous word groping for something ‘effective’ or ‘influential.’” It seems to me to be just bad grammar.

And, yes, while we’re talking about this, I’ll tell you my pet peeve and hope that I don’t mortally offend anyone. In the last couple of years, I’ve seen (heard) that the word “died” has died an unnatural death in the English speaking world. A decade ago, someone would have died, or passed away, or even passed over, but now people only “pass”. I’m always tempted (very irreverently & probably offensively) to ask, “Pass wind?” Please, people, death is neither pleasant nor natural nor anything but grief-inducing, but it is what it is. Using that, may I say ‘trendy’, euphemism doesn’t alter the facts.

2. What’s something you need to get rid of in the new year?

I need to get rid of this house. I feel rather ill saying that. I love this property, I love this house, I love the village 6km down the road, but we need to be able to make decisions about retirement and we can’t be anchored here by a piece of real estate.

3. Where do you feel stuck?

I feel stuck in winter, as odd as that sounds. The cold makes it impossible to do work outside that needs to be done, both in the garden and on the buildings, and it makes it difficult to work in the unheated barn to sort and dispose there.

4. January is National Soup Month. When did you last have a bowl of soup? Was it made from scratch or from a can? Your favorite canned soup? Your favorite soup to make from scratch on a cold winter’s day?

I can’t remember the last time I had a bowl of soup and it was probably canned.

I guess one thing that winter is good for is soup-making and eating.

A friend gave me a big bag of freshly harvested carrots a couple of weeks ago and I have been roasting them for suppers. I think tomorrow would be a good day to make a pot of carrot soup. Usually, I make split pea.

5. Tell us one thing you’re looking forward to in 2018.

Finding out more about what the future holds for us! Where will we end up? By the end of this year, we should have the answers to a number of variables (when will the house sell? How much will it sell for? Where will our grandchildren be? Etc.) and should be narrowing in on our path for the next few years.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

We laid the ceramic tile in the upstairs bathroom last week. Note the scraps of old dark wallpaper that the previous owners had covered with a high baseboard.

I’m so eager to get with on the rest of the reno in there!

Have you an opinion about any of these? Have I any readers left after question #1?

This is my first time participating in First Book of the Year, hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, and now in its fifth year.

I Am a Truck by Michelle Winters was short-listed for the 2017 Giller Prize and I’ve been burning with curiousity about it since then. It has been described as a “tender but lively debut novel about a man, a woman, and their Chevrolet dealer.” Doesn’t that sound intriguing?

(Our grandson wanted to be in the photo too, but I’m reading something else to him.)

Whatever your first book is, I hope you have tons of reading pleasure in the coming year!

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Joyce over at From This Side of the Pond hosts a weekly hodepodge of questions. This week’s questions piqued my interest.

1. ‘Hurry less, worry less’…what’s your strategy for making that happen this holiday season? How’s it going so far?

This one is easy. Since we don’t celebrate any holidays, there’s no more or no less to do than at any other time of the year. It’s working well, and has for the last 30 years.

2. Do you have a list of to-dos that need accomplishing in order to prepare your home and/or property for the winter season? What are some of the jobs on your list? Are you a do-it-yourself or do you hire someone to accomplish these tasks?

Not to prepare for the winter season, but to prepare for selling our house next year. There’s a list a mile long: strip & paint two bathrooms; replace counter, sinks, toilet; take up the old carpet on the stairs; sand & paint the stairs & lay new runner; clean the barn; and so on and so on. Lots of these I’m doing myself but we’re hiring some help: to trim the trees and carry the brush away; to put a door on the basement stairs; to clean up Bill’s to-do list that just seems to keep growing since he works full-time – including four hours commuting 4 days each week. By weekend, when he also has other responsibilities, he’s toast. I’m so happy to have found someone to clean this up for him.

3. According to dietitians surveyed, the most popular health foods for 2018 will be -turmeric, sprouted foods (bean sprouts, breads with sprouted grains, etc), veggies in place of grains, dairy free milk, and pulses (lentils, chickpeas, etc). What’s the first thought that ran through your head when you read this list? Of the foods listed which one might you add to your regular diet? Also, can milk really be dairy free? Is it still milk?

Thoughts: I’ll have to be sure to use up that turmeric tea in the cupboard; I’ve just collected the equipment for sprouting beans and alfalfa – darn! Does this make ‘trendy’? Yuck!; we already stock almond ‘milk’ for our grandson and I much prefer it for my smoothies; and now I can serve lentil soup and hummus with a ‘clean conscience’.

‘Milk’ is just semantics.

4. The Pantone Color of the Year for 2018 is Ultra Violet. According to the Pantone site ‘Ultra Violet communicates originality, ingenuity, and visionary thinking pointing us to the future.’ What say you? Do you like the color purple? Did you see the movie or read the book-ha!? Is purple a color you wear often? Describe for us one purple item in your home without using the word purple. If you were in charge of such things what color would you select for 2018?

I like purple, but this ‘Ultra Violet’ is a little too purple for me. I mean, what are we supposed to do with that?

When I was a teen, I decorated my entire bedroom in shades of purple. That’s where the only purple item that I can think of in the house now is from: an old metal Welch’s grape juice can (it’s sold in cardboard now) that I use on my desk. How to describe it? Easy: grapey.

If I was in charge? I really don’t know – maybe a sage green. I think the world needs soothing right now.

5. Favorite book you read this year?

I had a few 5 star books this year, but the one that is most memorable for me is The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. It’s a middle grade book, based on a true story about a gorilla that spent decades alone in a cage in a mall in the southern USA. It’s haunting.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

This is the first time I’ve participated in Wednesday Hodgepodge. I can’t promise I’ll be in every week, but maybe now and then.

I’ve been wanting to break ‘radio silence’ for some time and get back into posting to my blog at least semi-regularly, hoping that there are still some of you out there reading!

So, inspired by Laura at Reading in Bed and Rebecca at Bookish Beck who participated in a meme started by Carrie at Pickle Me This (whew!), I was curious to know just where the books I read come from.

Here are the statistics for my last 30 reads:

Public Library: 18 books 60%

• Fire Burn by John Dickson Carr
• A Different Pond by Thi Bui
• Replay by Ken Grimwood
• Detective Gordon: The First Case by Ulf Nilsson
• Deadly Appearances by Gail Bowen
• Blood of the Wicked by Leighton Gage
• Kindred by Octavia Butler
• If This is Freedom by Gloria Ann Wesley
• Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo
• The Longest Night by Andria Williams
• The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore
• The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout
• Death of an Englishman by Magdalen Nabb
• Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman
• The Gold Eaters by Ronald Wright
• Mud Season by Ellen Stinson
• Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
• Death in the Stocks by Georgette Heyer

Purchased eBooks: 4 books 13%

• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
• Meet Your Baker by Ellie Alexander
• Send in the Clowns by Julie Mulhern
• Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

NetGalley or LibraryThing Early Reviewer: 3 books 10%

• The Fight That Started the Movies by Samuel Hawley
• The Shoe on the Roof by Will Ferguson
• Remember My Beauties by Lynne Hugo

eBook Freebies through BookBub or Riffle: 3 books 10%

• Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart
• Circle of Influence by Annette Dashofy
• Live Free or Die by Jessie Crockett

On my shelf – Purchased new, but at a discount store: 1 book 3%

• The 12 Bottle Bar by David Solmonson and Lesley Jacobs Solmonson

Scribd.com: 1 book 3%

• Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

There are no surprises there for me except for the number of eBooks that I actually paid for. I blame a reading challenge that required books that my public library didn’t have.

I really have to stop reserving library books and work at reading from my own shelves.

How about you? Do you rely heavily on your public library?

I first started keeping track of the books that I read in 1997 when I was already in my ’40s. These early records are incomplete, and some of the brief comments are laughable. But, inspired by JoAnn of Lakeside Musing who has shared her older journals in a series that she has named Pages from the Past, I’d like to share my journals with you. Herewith, a small sample from February through June, 1998. My record-keeping was thin on the ground!
 

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller (Non-fiction, Autobiography)

Written when she was 22; includes various letters she sent as a girl and young woman. I was prompted to read by seeing a performance of Miracle Workerat Theatre Aquarius.

It’s really remarkable what this girl learned. In future I’d like to read the books she wrote later in life.

[2016 notes: I’ve known about Helen Keller all my life – well, at least since I saw the Patty Duke version of The Miracle Worker when I was eight years old. Keller was an incredible woman.

I never have gotten around to reading more of Keller’s books, so I guess that’s an oversight to correct.]
 

The Ragged Way People Fall Out of Love by Elizabeth Cox (Fiction, Southern USA)

Realistic, but not earth-shattering. I read the last half of the book while I was coming off Effexor [an anti-depressant] and perhaps I was not in a condition to grasp the story. Everything seemed strange.

[2016 notes: I cannot express how glad I am to be free of that incapacitating condition (clinical depression), and I’m sorry that I can’t comment further on this book.]
 

How to Make an American Quilt by Whitney Otto (Fiction, Women’s)
A good, quick read. I thought sometimes that the sections of “instructions” were overdone and too ethereal. But the stories of the people pieced together in this small town were fascinating.

[2016 notes: I remember little of this book, but it was made into a 1995 movie with Winona Ryder, Anne Bancroft, Claire Danes, Ellen Burstyn and Maya Angelou. I don’t think I saw the movie.]

Dogs Never Lie About Love) by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (Non-fiction, Animals)

This was really interesting for the first half-dozen chapters, then it seemed to become a lot of padding and unsupported theories. In the end, no one really knows what dogs think or feel – we are limited by being able to think only in human terms. This I knew before I read the book!

[2016 notes: I had a spurt of rating my books around this time, and I see that I gave this only 2 stars out of 5.]
 

That’s all for the first half of 1998. Does anything interest you?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog

When the days get shorter and I’m making supper when it’s dark outside, I want to make something cozy. It’s then that I often turn to eggs.

I could – and do – make scrambled eggs and toast, or fried egg sandwiches, but even my eight-year-old grandson recognizes these as a “last resort” supper. This classic egg dish, on the other hand, never raises his suspicions.

The recipe for this Middle Eastern dish, also called shakshuka, ran in Canadian Living magazine a couple of years ago. The flavours are beautifully intense, and two eggs and the sauce are surprisingly filling as a single serving. I serve it with crusty or garlic bread to mop up the extra sauce.

TOMATO AND FETA BAKED EGGS
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, sliced
half sweet red pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic
¼ tsp. ground cumin
¼ tsp. sweet paprika
¼ tsp each salt and pepper
Pinch cayenne pepper
1 can (796 ml/28 oz) diced tomatoes
3 Tbsp. tomato paste
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
6-8 eggs

1. In large skillet, heat oil over medium heat; cook onion and red pepper, stirring occasionally, until onion is softened and light golden, about 10 minutes.

2. Stir in garlic, cumin, paprika, half each of the salt and pepper, and the cayenne pepper; cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Stir in tomatoes and tomato paste; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 10 minutes.

3. Scrape into 12-cup (3 L) casserole dish; sprinkle with all but 2 tsp of the feta cheese.

Using a spoon, make 6 -8 wells in the tomato mixture; crack one egg into each well. Sprinkle remaining salt and pepper over eggs.

Bake in 375ᵒ oven (190ᵒ) until whites are set but yolks are still slightly soft, 15 to 18 minutes.

4. Remove from oven; tent with foil and let stand for 5 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining feta cheese and chopped parsley (if desired).

Note: To my mind, the tomato paste is an essential ingredient but I’m loathe to put out three times the money for a tube (great idea) as for a can of the same size. My solution is to divide a can into 3 or 4 “servings” and freeze them in baby food jars or small plastic containers. When a recipe calls for a small amount of tomato paste, I slip a container out of the door of the freezer and into a bowl of warm water until the paste is thawed enough to slide out of the container.
 

I’m linking up with Weekend Cooking.

This link-up is hosted by Books Are My Favourite and Best, and was inspired by Hungarian writer and poet Frigyes Karinthy. In his 1929 short story, “Chains”, Karinthy coined the phrase ‘six degrees of separation’. The phrase was popularized by a 1990 play written by John Guare, which was later made into a film starring Stockard Channing.

On the first Saturday of every month, Kate chooses a book as a starting point and links that book to six others forming a chain. Bloggers and readers are invited to join in and the beauty of this mini-challenge is that I can decide how and why I make the links in my chain

December’s starting book is Richard Yates’ 1961 classic Revolutionary Road. This is another starting book that I haven’t read yet. Amazon tells me that “It’s the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple who have lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner.”

1. Revolutionary Road came into my sphere of awareness about the same time as Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwarz, which has nothing at all to do with Yates’ novel, except that I confused them in my mind for a couple of years. Reservation Road is the story of man who accidently runs over a young boy and flees the scene. It was made into a movie with Mark Ruffalo in 2007.

2. In 2011, the sequel Northwest Corner by the same author was published. It tells the story of the same man, after he is released from prison some years later and is trying to start his life over. I won a copy of this in a blog giveaway and read it in January 2012.

3. Another book I read in January 2012 was Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion 1917 by Sally Walker.

Imagine the greatest manmade explosion in history prior to the atomic bomb. That was what was detonated in Halifax Harbour in December of 1917, killing two thousand people, leaving more than six thousand wounded, many of them blinded by flying glass, and over 9,000 homeless. Relief efforts were hampered by a blizzard the day after the explosion.

The style of this book is a middle-school textbook but it’s well worth the read.

4. Since The Cartographer of No Man’s Land by P.S. Duffy is set throughout the year of 1917, in France and in Chester Nova Scotia, just a few miles outside Halifax, I expected the Explosion to play some part in the story. I was disappointed that it rated only a passing reference near the end of the book.

5. The explosion also has a bit part in Ami McKay’s The Birth House. The bulk of this story takes place in the years 1916-1919, in Nova Scotia, this time on the Bay of Fundy shore.

The protagonist, Dora Rae, is befriended and mentored by the community’s midwife/herbalist. Over the course of her life, Dora’s house becomes the birth house—or the place where the women of the community go to have their babies, rather than taking the sometimes dangerous trip into the nearest town where ‘modern’ male medicine suits their needs somewhat less.

The midwives offered onion juice as a tonic to their expectant and new mothers.

6. Another book where onions have medicinal purposes is Holes by Louis Sachar, a 1999 multiple award winning children’s chapter book. Our protagonist Stanley Yelnats has been unjustly sent to a boys’ detention center in the desert, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day, digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep.

There’s a mystery told in flashback so the reader is always ahead of Stanley but just, and there’s piecing together for the reader to do too. It’s actually quite a bit of fun. (The onions play a part in the flashback bits.)

So there you have it: from 1950s suburbia to a 1990s boys’ detention centre, via the first world war. What do you think?
 

Why not visit Kate’s blog and see how she made the final connection to Rush Oh!

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

The 2016 edition of Nonfiction November is wrapping up. This week’s link-up is hosted by Lory at The Emerald City Book Review.

Lory asks: Which of this month’s amazing nonfiction books have made it onto my TBR?

NEW TO MY TBR LIST THIS MONTH:

 Field Notes: A City Girl’s Search for Heart and Home in Rural Nova Scotia by Sara Jewell

Amazon: “Field Notes includes forty­-one essays on the differences, both subtle and drastic, between city life and country living. From curious neighbours and unpredictable weather to the reality of roadkill and the wonders of wildlife, award­-winning narrative journalist Sara Jewell strikes the perfect balance between honest self-­examination and humorous observation.” Plus, Jewell lives just an hour down the road from me!

This was recommended by Naomi of Consumed by Ink. I already have it reserved at the library.
 

The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers by Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Kilmer-Purcell writes with dramatic flair and trenchant wit, uncovering mirthful metaphors as he plows through their daily experiences, meeting neighbors, signing on caretaker Farmer John, herding goats, canning tomatoes, and digging a garden, as he and his partner fix up their 205-year-old house near the hauntingly beautiful town of Sharon Springs, N.Y.

JoAnn of Lakeside Musing recommended this to me. My library ‘holds’ list now also includes this title.
 

When in French: Love in a Second Language by Lauren Collins

Amazon: “What does it mean to love someone in a second language? Collins wonders, as her relationship with her French boyfriend Olivier continues to grow entirely in English. Are there things she doesn’t understand about Olivier, having never spoken to him in his native tongue? Does ‘I love you’ even mean the same thing as ‘je t’aime’?”

Language, French – this is for me! I first saw this book on Kathy’s blog at Bermuda Onion, and Kate at Parchment Girl also recommended it to me. I’m so looking forward to this!

Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live by Peter Orner

Amazon: “‘Stories, both my own and those I’ve taken to heart, make up whoever it is that I’ve become,’ Peter Orner writes in this collection of essays about reading, writing, and living. Orner reads—and writes—everywhere he finds himself: a hospital cafeteria, a coffee shop in Albania, or a crowded bus in Haiti. The result is ‘a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir.'”

This was on one of Deb’s lists at ReaderBuzz.
 

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater understanding of her own place in the world.

An Adventure in Reading‘s raider girl told me about this one, which is now also on my library ‘reserved’ list.

 
A couple of great recommendations that also made it to my TBR list came in after I wrote this post but this represents one new book for each fabulous week of Nonfiction November 2016! Are you adding any of these to your TBR list?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog

In Melissa Harrison’s lovely At Hawthorn Time, I also met Howard, retired from his city job and keeping from going bonkers in the country with his hobby of restoring vintage wireless units.

First, a sound I know you’ve heard, but perhaps didn’t know the word for.

Heterodyne hɛt(ə)rə(ʊ)DINE/: Electronics of or relating to the production of a lower frequency from the combination of two almost equal high frequencies, as used in radio transmission.

Slowly he began to scan through the frequencies, adjusting the dial minutely, listening, waiting, listening again. Pops and crackles, garbled speech, snatches of music, and between it all the otherworldly heterodyne wails.

Boss: a knob or protrusion of stone or wood. Bosses can often be found in the ceilings of buildings, particularly at the keystones at the intersections of a rib vault. In Gothic architecture, such roof bosses (or ceiling bosses) are often intricately carved with foliage, heraldic devices or other decorations.

The church was cool and empty, its roof timbers with their curved bosses lost in shadow, the air it held within it very still.

I’ve seen ceiling bosses scores of times, and never thought about the name for them. How about you?

 

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered or spotlight words you love. It’s hosted by Kathy at Bermuda Onion. Hop on over and see what wondrous words other bloggers have discovered this week.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

This week’s link-up is hosted by Julz at JulzReads. The prompt for this week’s Nonfiction November entry is expertise.
 

It’s probably no surprise to anyone that I’m choosing to be the expert on moving-and-starting-over a new life in the country.
 

1. Country Matters: The Pleasures and Tribulations of Moving from a Big City to an Old Country Farmhouse by Michael Korda

From Amazon: “With his inimitable sense of humor and storytelling talent, New York Times bestselling author Michael Korda brings us this charming, hilarious, self-deprecating memoir of a city couple’s new life in the country.

At once entertaining, canny, and moving, Country Matters does for Dutchess County, New York, what Under the Tuscan Sun did for Tuscany. This witty memoir, replete with Korda’s own line drawings, reads like a novel, as it chronicles the author’s transformation from city slicker to full-time country gentleman, complete with tractors, horses, and a leaking roof.”

 
2. From Stone Orchard: a Collection of Memories by Timothy Findley

From Amazon: “As they say, if only the walls could talk …

The walls have never talked so eloquently or endearingly as they do in From Stone Orchard, a collection of Timothy Findley’s Harrowsmith columns – revised and expanded – plus new writings, all on life at a 19th-century farm just outside of Cannington, Ontario. Here are tales of the farm’s past, both distant and recent: the comic coincidences leading to the naming of the swimming pool, and why Margaret Laurence would never dip her toe in it. Or the night dinner party guests went outside in the twilight, dressed like royalty, to watch a herd of majestic deer pass through the gardens.”

 
3. Heading Home: On Starting a New Life in a Country Place by Lawrence Scanlan
From Amazon: What harassed and harried city-dweller has not dreamed of escaping to a quiet place in the country? With his wife, Scanlan moved from the city of Kingston to a 19th Century frame house on the Napanee River in the village of Camden East, Ontario (pop. 250).

Heading Home plots their transition from city to country, with its challenges and comic twists. The book’s twelve chapters, each devoted to one month, chronicle a year in the life of the village. Scanlan points to a wide range of data and interviews dozens of people who have opted out of city life–all to show that a major demographic shift is underway.

As lyrical as it is practical, Heading Home shows the way to a new life beyond the freeways and high-rises. Heading Home is the perfect book for all who have lived in the city but who yearn to start over–in a country place.

I could add to this list, but these three provide enough of a foundation for you to know if the country life is really for you.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog

In Melissa Harrison’s lovely At Hawthorn Time, I met Jack, an itinerant farm worker who navigates his way across the England by a combination of memory and instinct. Here are a couple of words that give some insight into his methods.

Telluric: (təˈLOORik) of the earth as a planet, of the soil; a telluric current, or Earth current, is an electric current which moves underground

Usually he navigated by a kind of telluric instinct, an obscure knowledge he had learned to call on even when the land he walked through was unfamiliar(.)

Perturbation: (pərdərˈbāSH(ə)n) 1. anxiety; mental uneasiness. 2. a deviation of a system, moving object, or process from its regular or normal state of path, caused by an outside influence.

The last two times he’d slept he’d felt the perturbation of a large town not too far ahead running like static through his dreams.

I couldn’t decide if that used the first or the second definition of perturbation. What do you think?

 

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered or spotlight words you love. It’s hosted by Kathy at Bermuda Onion. Hop on over and see what wondrous words other bloggers have discovered this week.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

This week’s link-up is hosted by Sarah at Sarah’s Book Shelves. The prompt for this week’s Nonfiction November entry is to make a pairing of a non-fiction book and a related novel.

The best match I can think of is Beginning French: Lessons from a Stone Farmhouse and the Bruno, Chief of Police series. Both are set in the same area of southern France. But I’ve talked about those books before.

So instead I’m going to present some of my reading from last year and suggest

Alan Turing, the Enigma Man by Nigel Cawthorne which supposedly was the book that the movie The Imitation Game was based on.

It’s not the most interesting lifestory I’ve ever read but it’s not bad, and it’s short.

I’d follow that up with Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis. Although these are two separate books, they’re not really, being just one long story that had to be divided up for publishing. Both concern time travel from the year 2060 to WWII England – London, Kent, and Bletchfield Park among other locales.

Willis’ time travel is complex but, in the end, it all makes sense. I did so enjoy both of these books.

 
Do you have interesting nonfiction/fiction pairings for me?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog

In our side yard, we have the (remaining of two) biggest poplar(s) that anyone I know has ever seen. It is at least 100 feet high (30 metres) tall. Muriel, who lives next door, is 93 and grew up in the house where we live. She tells us that those trees were big when she was a child. Another family member told us that the fishing boats used to use the trees to guide them into the harbour that is just over the hill.

But poplar trees don’t last forever, and over the past 13 years, we lost all of one tree, in pieces, until we finally cut down the dead trunk. Sad to say, but the remaining tree is going to follow soon.

Two years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Arthur, a large limb came down, breaking a window on the house and narrowly missing doing more damage.

 

Then, near the end of October another big windstorm took down another large (double) branch of the tree, this time sending it in the opposite direction, across the driveway.

 
But I think you’ll agree that the chances of limbs coming down from that tree in a windstorm are pretty good, so what’s this post about?

Sunday morning, we awoke to the tree down on our property and Tuesday evening, I read in His Whole Life by Elizabeth Hay:

Less than an hour later, (the storm) was over. They could see the near trees, the shoreline, the first island, the far shore, and in that moment the biggest tree of all came crashing down less than thirty feet away. . . The shoreline wasn’t shoreline anymore, it was fallen tree.

 
It was a giant hemlock that fell in the book, but I was struck by the description because that’s how it was: The driveway wasn’t driveway anymore, it was fallen tree.

So what are the chances? Ever have life and your reading collide?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

This week’s link-up is hosted by Rachel at Hibernator’s Library. The prompt for this week’s Nonfiction November entry asks what I look for in nonfiction reading.

More than anything, I want to learn from NF. I want to investigate ideas or times or places that I’m not familiar with. And I tell myself I’m particularly interested in anything to do with Canada, some things France, history, country living (especially moving to the country), or things bibliophilic. But what I’ve actually read over the last ten years leans toward food and memoirs. Oops!

I know I’m not big into how-to or self-help or business and I want my nonfiction to be narrative. Occasionally, I’ll work hard to take in a topic (and feel better for it) but generally I’d like to skip textbook or reference style NF.

For some reason, although the cover doesn’t seem as important to me as it does with the novels I read, the title does. And oddly, sub-titles have huge appeal for me.

So books like Lawrence Scanlan’s Heading Home: On Starting a New Life in a Country Place (Canadian, country, subtitle) or Adam Gopnik’s The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food (France, food, subtitle!) have huge appeal.

For the record, I’ve read Heading Home more than once and love it, and since I’ve greatly enjoyed at least two of Gopnik’s other NF books (Paris to the Moon and Winter: 5 Windows on the Season) I’m putting The Table Comes First at the top of my TBR list – in fact, I just reserved it at the library.
 

What about you? What do you look for in your non-fiction reading?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog