Cooler Weather - A Great Time to Read

Shani & Nikki watching me read Henry James

The beginning of October here on the Florida Panhandle and somebody turned off the heat. I'm talking 50s and 60s, which is pretty chilly for Florida this time of year. Normally it's warm temps through mid November. Shorts, sleeveless-Ts and bare feet kind of weather. Only yesterday morning the weather took a decided dip and it's long pants, socks and sweatshirt weather. A decidedly chilly breeze is blowing, making it too cold to sit out on the patio. I'm hoping this is just for a few days. I'm already wanting the warmer weather back.

On the other hand, cooler weather means lots more time to read. And since I'm a book-aholic, I jump at any chance to snuggle into a comfy chair and read. I'm still making my way through literary classics I missed in years past, or old favorites I want to read again. So right now I'm on a Henry James kick. Back in High School I read the requisite Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller. At 15, when I was sick at home for two months with mono, I read James' Portrait of a Lady. Through the years, that book has remained one of my favorites.

Well, now I've set out to read all of Henry James' novels. In the last few weeks I've read Washington Square, The American, The Europeans, Daisy Miller, Roderick Hudson and Louisa Pallant. This morning I'm going to start The Bostonians. I never realized how much I'd enjoy reading Henry James. His books are addictive, which is saying a lot for an avid reader like me. I can't finish one without delving into the next one minutes later. Maybe if I'd read these books when I was younger I wouldn't have enjoyed them as much? I don't know. I must say these are great reads for this time in my life. His stories are all about character and place. He wrote as if he were painting a picture. So maybe that's why I'm enjoying them so much?

As I said, I'd love to have the warmer weather back. Then I'd sit out on the patio and read Henry James. In the meantime, I'll curl up in my recliner, or lounge on the couch, and enjoy his books just as much as if I was reading them outside.

My Summer Reads

Since this has been an extra hot, high humidity summer, I've spent a lot of time indoors reading. Of course, I'm also a night owl so I always stay up late and read. Soooo ... I've read a fair number of books this summer and, I must say, quite a variety.

June was primarily a Janet Evanovich month, a month to catch up on Stephanie Plum's adventures in Plum Lovin', Fearless Fourteen and Plum Spooky. I figured her books were a great way to start the summer off right. I also started catching up on my Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series by reading Flashback. Of course, I enjoyed every one of these books. Since June provided a few days with a cool ocean breeze I could also sit on our trellised patio to read.

On July 1st I got my Kindle as an early birthday present, as my birthday is actually later in the month. A lot of classic lit is free on Kindle, so I "bought" bunches of old classics that month and started reading: Alexander Dumas' The Black Tulip, Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King, Willa Cather's My Antonia and The Song of the Lark. In paperback I read: Nevada Barr's High Country and Hard Truth, and ended the month with Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes. Obviously July was a very hot month as I read a lot of books.

August was an even hotter month, but I didn't read quite as much. This was an all Kindle month. I started with James Fenimore Cooper's The Pioneers, which is the 1st of the five "Leatherstocking Tales" which I never had gotten around to reading (I'd only read the 2nd, The Last of the Mohicans, way back when). I followed that up with Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale: a Novel, which I had read many years ago when it first came out. The cost was only a few dollars on Kindle. Then I read Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome and The Reef. I finished up August with Robert Louis Stevenson's essays: Across the Plains. What a wonderful assortment of reads.

We're only halfway into September and summer will be officially over in another week. On my Kindle I've read Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth and just last night finished her classic, The Age of Innocence. Obviously I'm on an Edith Wharton kick. In the meantime, I've dug into my TBR shelves and am re-reading James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans and Jane Austin's Mansfield Park. I'll probably finish up the summer with Edith Wharton's appropriately titled book, Summer. I have to admit I've had a rally enjoyable summer reading lots of great books.

***ALERT -- DO NOT BUY A KINDLE! PLEASE READ MY POST DATED 9/18/10 REGARDING THE PROBLEMS WITH KINDLES. Note - a Kindle is fun while it works, but when it stops working, you're out a lot of money. So please read my ALERT before you consider buying a Kindle.

Books, Books and More Books - Part 2

My TBR Bookshelf

Last night my Mom asked me what I was going to write about next. That was an easy question. Books. I've been chomping at the bit to get back to "Books, Books and More Books." So here goes.

This particular bookshelf is in the guest bedroom. It used to be filled with paperbacks of historical and contemporary fiction. But those got moved to another place and classics and history books pretty much took over. Every Christmas and birthday I order some books from Amazon.com as a present to myself. That way I know I always get something I really really want. So my last couple gifts to myself have been Wordsworth Classics (those are the books with blue covers) and some history books that caught my eye.

Though the classics can be purchased in a variety of editions, Penguin Classics, Barnes and Noble Classics, Oxford Classics, Dover Classics Bantam Classics, Signet Classics and Kindle Classics. I recently took a liking for the Wordsworth Classics. Though I have to admit I have a fair number of Penguin, Oxford, Bantam and Signet Classics too. Hey, remember, I love books? I buy what I can find. Sometimes from Amazon, and other times from local bookstores. In Pensacola we have Books-a-Million, B. Dalton and Barnes and Noble. I frequent them all. Pretty much nothing compares to holding a brand new book in my hands. Although I have to admit that now that I own a Kindle, it's really cool reading classics on my Kindle too and I've downloaded lots of them, many of which are freebies. Anyway ...

Now back to this particular bookshelf. These are all TBR (to be read) books. Old favorites I read years ago, usually back in my college days, and want to re-read, or classics I never got a chance to read. There's also non-fiction, autobiographies and history books that I've stumbled across from time to time. I probably have a lifetime's worth of reading on that one bookshelf, as the shelves are packed two rows deep with more books cross-wise on the top. I worry that if a hurricane comes along I'll have to evacuate with all my books.

This wicker bookshelf has moved back and forth across the country, first with my Mom and then with me. So it's been in California, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Texas and back to Florida, just to name a few locales. On our last move, from the Texas Hill Country back to the Florida Panhandle, I think I counted 27 boxes of books. I have to add that my husband was more than willing to buy me a Kindle for my last birthday in hopes that I don't add any more boxes of books to any impending moves. Though I think we're pretty much settled here near the grandkids, so my husband probably won't have to lug any more of those boxes of books. Besides, the paperbacks aren't all that heavy, It's the art books that are the heavy ones. Anyway, as I was saying ...

This particular bookshelf has old favorites I'm anxious to re-read, like Mary Stewart's The Moonspinners and Lawrence Durrell's "Alexandria Quartet": Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea. There's also Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and War and Peace; D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, Women in Love and Sons and Lovers; Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities; E. M. Forster's A Passage to India; Jessamyn West's The Friendly Persuasion; Richard Hughes' A High Wind in Jamaica; and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

As for books I haven't yet read, but have always wanted to, there are many on this shelf: Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice; George Elliot's Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda; Charlotte Bronte's Villette and Shirley; Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, The Return of the Native, Under the Greenwood Tree and others of his I somehow missed through the years. Also, there's D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow; Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe; and Alexander Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask. So I've got a lot of reading to do.

As for the non-fiction/autobiography/history books I've got quite an assortment: Queen Victoria's Little Wars by Byron Farwell;  Gertrude Bell, Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations by Georgina Howell; Twenty Chickens for a Saddle by Robyn Scott; The Pirate Queen by Susan Ronald; The Oxford History of the French Revolution, 2nd Ed. by William Doyle; The Valley of the Assassins and A Winter in Arabia by Freya Stark; Savage Kingdom by Benjamin Woolley; 1453 by Roger Crowley; The Blue Nile and The White Nile by Alan Moorehead; The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk; and Four Queens by Nancy Goldstone. I could go on and on.

Some contemporary paperbacks I recently bought made their way to the TBR bookshelf: Janet Evanovich's Finger Lickin' Fifteen (I've read all the way through 14 & the "Between the Numbers" books too), Mary Alice Monroe's Swimming Lessons (I love her books); Daniel Silva's The Defector (this is a great series of espionage/international intrigue), and Bernard Cornwell and  Susan Kells' The Fallen Angels (a sequel to A Crowning Mercy, which was great). Anyway, I'm nothing if not eclectic in my reading. I just plain love books. I'm hoping that you do too and that some of these gems will be added to your TBR bookshelves too.

A Ray Bradbury Story

In my college days I was fortunate enough to meet Ray Bradbury when he came to lecture at a neighboring university. I sat through his lecture, totally mesmerized. Such a charismatic man. I'd loved all his books for years, starting with Dandelion Wine, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes. His Fahrenheit 451 still holds a place of honor on my bookshelf (along with Ayn Rand's Anthem).
 
Anyway, at the end of the lecture I stood in line to have a chance to talk with Ray Bradbury. How could I pass up that opportunity? When it was my turn he took my hand and held it between both of his and looked deeply into my eyes. He said, "I can tell you're going to be a good writer." His words sent chills through my body. How did he know I wanted to be a writer? I did so hope he was right.

Through the years I've thought I let him down. I never became much of a writer. Sure, I did tech writing, but that's not the same. In college I started writing my first novel. It was a suspense thriller. When I'd completed the first five chapters I let one of my professors read it, which was a serious mistake. He gave it back to me and said it was terrible. I took the five chapters, along with all my notes and all the short stories I'd written to date, and burned them. I figured I wasn't good enough to be an author.

Much to my surprise, my professor stopped me in the quad a couple weeks later and said, "I've been thinking about your novel. Your subject matter is not what I'd normally read, but I like your style and I think you have a knack for dialogue. You need to keep writing." I thanked him and went on my way. I never told him that I'd burned everything. I never did attempt to reconstruct that novel or those short stories.

I've learned a lot of lessons through the years. One is to keep writing even if some people don't like what you write. Remember, first and foremost, you're writing for yourself. Secondly, you're writing for a handful of fans. I've never stopped writing through the years. In fact, I've completed two novels, Firefall (a futuristic thriller co-written with my husband) and Outback Lover (a romance set in Australia). With the former we collected a zillion rejection letters. The latter I never attempted to market. All told, I've only had one poem and several magazine articles published (all under a different name). I have boxes of short stories,  and partials of novels and a fair amount of poetry, all stacked in a closet.

I don't think Ray Bradbury had blogging in mind when he told me I'd be a good writer. On the other hand, since he wrote science fiction, I guess he'd think the concept of blogging is pretty cool.

Books, Books and More Books - Part 1

Bookshelves in my Living Room

If I'm addicted to anything, it's books. Lots and lots of books. Everything from romance to suspense to history to art to short story anthologies to classic literature and everything inbetween. I love books! Without books my life would certainly be duller and much less interesting.

Some of my earliest memories are trips to the local library with my Mom. It was way before I knew how to read. I'd sit cross-legged on the carpet in the child's section of the library with an assortment of picture books in my lap. I would go through them one by one and always take a stack of books home with me. Mom and I must have made a lot of trips to that library, because I think I "read" every book on the shelves in the Early Children's section. Mom would often sit on the carpet next to me and quietly read some of the stories to me. I loved that time together and will always treasure those moments.

When I got into grade school, our whole class would walk to the library once every two weeks and we could all check out books to take home with us. I never missed a school trip to the library. My earliest favorites were the Betsy Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. I read all of them. Then I fell in love with the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene and Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.  Some other books that stand out from those grade school days are The Enormous Egg by Oliver Buttersworth, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, Old Yeller and Savage Sam by Fred Gibson, Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (I still have my autographed copy) and Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes.

I remember at the start of 5th grade that my teacher called my parents in for a conference and told them I spent too much time reading fiction. She thought that was the reason for me being a "daydreamer" and insisted the situation be corrected immediately. For a time I forbidden to read anything but non-fiction.  So I discovered the biographies of Daniel Boone, Davy Crocket, George Washington and Francis Marion "The Swamp Fox." Who needed fiction when the true stories were even better?

I think at this point my teacher got really frustrated. She must have then said something about science books, because I brought my school science book home and read it from cover to cover and was totally fascinated.  So then I visited the science section of the library and read everything I could get my hands on about dolphins and whales and birds and every subject you can think of. I think about this time my teacher gave up and I was allowed to read anything and everything once again.

I still remember the day, when I was in 6th grade, when I told the librarian that I'd read every single book (or just about every book) in the Children's section of the library. She smiled and said "Come with me." And that's when she led me into the Adult section and introduced me to a treasure trove of classics. First off was Conrad Richter's "The Awakening Land" series" The Trees, The Fields and The Town. I think that's when I read James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans for the first time (I'm re-reading that one now). A couple of my other favorites from that time were A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes and The Friendly Persuasion by Jessamyn West.

By this time our school no longer made trips to the library, so I went every Saturday with my best friends next door, and we'd walk to the library rain or shine and bring home a new selection every week. I got really interested in reading anything I could find about pioneers and the Oregon Trail. One of my great-grandmother's had come across on the Oregan Trail when she was just a kid, and I'd grown up hearing stories about Cowboys and Indians and Buffalo. I dearly wished that my grandmother had written down her own story instead of passing it on verbally to her children and grandchildren. I thought a lot of her stories got lost in the telling.

Well, when I was ready to enter college I chose a Bachelor of Art's in English Literature. I thought I wanted to be an English Teacher, but it didn't turn out that way. Life got in the way. I received my BA in English, but never did complete the Teaching Program. That's okay, because I discovered after a year of substitute teaching that it really wasn't my thing. I went on to other jobs, including Tech Writing, but always retained my love of books. And in spite of all my 5th grade teacher's efforts to the contrary, I'm still a dreamer. (Read more about books in Part 2.)