So InKlined

Autumn begins for me when I start to hear the local high school band drum core in the evenings, when I want to run outside again after the breathless heat of summer, and when my reading lists shift to biographies instead of quick reads.  This evening I checked all three fall items.

For those reading along, our October read is The Orphan Train by Christina Baker Cline.    Ms. Kline will also make an appearance at the Southern Festival of Books on October 10th if you're in the area.

Circle, Column, Square

It's a small world after all.

Epcot
September 2014

Hope you've had a good week.

Grateful not Grating

Perhaps it takes the really hard, awful, long days to fully appreciate the early morning crispness of a dark starry sky, the wisdom from an older man solicited because you made the time, the arm around the shoulder in comradery from a fellow athlete, and the pause for a photo for a visiting stranger now friend.

At least this is what I'm thinking for Wednesday.  

Faster, Better, Stronger?

I didn't know that Annie Jones is the top competitive speed reader with a 2,246 wpm and 60% comprehension or that she has won the National Speed Reading Championship* a hefty six times.  This Guardian article was interesting for that piece of trivia and for the review of the speed reading app, Spritz.  Rob Boffard knocks out one of the Man Booker shortlist books in just under four and a quarter hours**.  I honestly don't know if I have the fortitude to sit that long with the intense focus that is apparently required when ramping up to 700 wpm.  I found the speed a little dizzying (and I don't think it was just the reading water).  There are some novels I'd love to spin through, but for others, I enjoy the time on the page, savoring the small effort and the time devoted to a simple pastime.  How about you?

*    I also didn't know there was a National Speed Reading Championship.
** This is shorter than the time to cook a turkey (old-school baked).

Know your Place

If this month had a subtitle, it would be "September from a Suitcase."   I downloaded Dark Places by Gillian Flynn just before boarding last weekend in the frenetic gate getaway.  I was both hooked and creeped by the story, changing my guess along the way for our culprit.  (I was wrong.)   This title is a fairly quick read and the story moves along nicely, however the ending crescendoed a bit too much for me and I felt the closing was almost too tidy.  (Was that just me?)  Still, it was a novel that allowed me to completely block surroundings and disappear from numbers into words for a little while.  I won't spoil the ending; she'll keep you guessing.

I'm saving Sharp Objects for a stretch of sunny days just to be on the safe side.

Light to Dark

Sunny late summer morning
A balcony
Two cups of coffee
A banana

Dark Places*
e-reader
Park tickets
Sunscreen

Hoping that this quiet morning of reading (or the coffee) gives me the courage for an afternoon water park. Have a great Sunday adventure.

* I'm not sure this Flynn novel was the right one to read in an unfamiliar dark room.

Unbind the Mind

For any of my fellow GBC members who have ever used a hot plate in a science fair (mine was to create a tornado), take a few minutes to read Alison Flood's piece in The Guardian, "Artist creates book that turns black as it is read."  Leproust's book to black in four hours is highlighted in the Unbinding the Book Exhibition as part of London's Art Book Fair.

Saturday Night's All Right

Reading, knitting, biking, baking.

Hope your Saturday has been filled with things you love.

The White City

Mid day swim
Pizza whim
Saul Bellows in my bag

Chicago city
Trying to be witty
A dress deal snag

Waiting on a train
Running in the rain
Wow, it is good to be back.

A little glass of wine
All is really fine
And always more than I lack.

I Wander

"Not all those who wander are lost.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

BNA
August 2014

I've been wandering more and writing a bit less.  

Reading more and talking a bit less. 

Walking with music more and driving a bit less.

Savoring more and questioning a bit less. 

Boxed In

I've been practicing the art of improvisational cooking:  four ingredients and no heavenly idea where a knife could be.  For people who like to have the odd cookbook (Hotdish for 100?,  The Pleasures of Cooking for One, Eggs and that ever popular Potato), might I suggest a cookbook for the week before and four weeks after you've moved?

It could well include chapters like:

* Philipps or Flathead for your Stand In Spatula?
* How to rescue food from burning with your brand new oven
* You need wine
* Throw away those condiments
* What to with six packets of yeast
* Eat everything in a bowl
* Your gym towel as a stand in oven mitt (if you haven't been to the gym)
* Ensure - it's the drink for the aged and people who move frequently
* How to sterilize your box cutter if you need to cut a bagel
* Aren't you glad you have three dozen wine glasses?
* Have your Dad bring tomatoes

Just a thought.  I'm sure there must be others suffering through a corral of boxes.

Right?

It's So Easy

Linda Ronstadt is one of the artists included in my Dad's record collection.  I can't remember the first time I heard her music, but she's one of the singers who stayed in my personal musical rotation through the years.  Her biography  Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir has been added to my book list at the positive review by another artist and GBC local, Gretchen Peters.

Hope you're finding a little musical inspiration this weekend.

je ne sais quoi

Paris has been on my mind this year.  It's the trifecta resulting in pined travel:  a few years since I've been (three), I've had dear friends make the trek this year, and a blue-eyed wonder said "take me to Paris".

You'd have Paris on your mind too.

Lisa Appignanesi pens her top 10 books about Paris in The Guardian.  I've read two, have two more on my book list, and have one associated book that was a gift from a colleague (Balzac's Lost Illusions).  A respectable start, don't you think?

Moving On Up

Based on current trends I should be unpacked by the end of October.

I will find my spare toothbrush in the next three weeks, that leather cuff in about two weeks, and if I'm lucky, my astronaut shirt in the next seven days.

All cookbooks are accounted for and I've asked the Universe to forgive me for the unkind thought to the boy who gave me a two pound Oxford French dictionary which landed on my foot.

Every day feels like Christmas.

(And Groundhog Day.)

Thursday Night Lights

Historical theatre with a historical band.  Music soothing the soul.

Princess Theatre, Decatur, AL
September 2013

Bringing into Focus

Photos...worth more words than I can muster with just a few sips of coffee.  I found this collection by Bryan Schutmaat incredibly moving.  I hope you'll check it out:

Grays the Mountains Send

Wifi High and Lowe's

Sometimes you find yourself in a very small town at the end of a thirteen hour workday.  You're hungry and you'd like a side of wifi with perhaps some eggs on toast or a tomato panini sandwich.

Simple, yet accessible.

Not too demanding. After all, you're still without water and home internet access because of a little utility accident with a very large shovel.

In that moment after a long drive around the city, desperately hoping for something that stayed open past nine, you realize you're in a town of introverts, and that instead of making wifi available in late night coffee shops around the city, each individual would rather be at home, alone or in small groups...programming, saving the world, creating the next best efficiency, or just playing a game on their super-secure, non-broadcasting networks.  Because after all, this town is smart.

So when you find yourself in a Lowe's parking lot typing away in your lap with a bag beside you that will be forever unnamed, you will try to forget that you ever read Fast Food Nation and hope that this isn't the first book you start to unpack.  When you go home, you will need a glass of reading water.

And when you go to sleep thinking about this very odd day, you will know that despite nights like this, you are still pretty darn lucky.

Moving On

Combining two stressful life/work events in the same weekend probably wasn't my best idea.  As an upside, I'm getting a nice bicep workout from carrying lots of boxes of books.  My bookcase has also found its new home and at some point in the near future, I'll have a lot of fun re-organizing the books to whatever whim I happen to have on the day.  Typically, they are (loosely) arranged by genre and then by height.  Authors sometimes are on the same shelf, but not always.

I don't have a future as a librarian.

Hope your weekend is going along well.

Something About Mary

The Man Booker Shortlist was named Tuesday.  Who will be your first read?

Image from Manbookerprize.com

I'm a Boxer

I've packed my books three times in the last three years.

The first time, all books were carefully cataloged into a spreadsheet and packed according to genre.  Some of the more delicate items were wrapped with brown paper to keep them from shifting.  It was all very deliberate.

The second time, I was still careful, packing books by genre but without the additional packing paper and spreadsheet.  I did dust off a couple of spider webs.

This weekend, Whitman was mixed with Tove Jansson mixed with Kaplan.  I didn't have time to sort and I resisted reading too much before the books went into the boxes (but I still reviewed all my bookmarks aka boarding passes).  I think I've reduced the number of boxes by seven or eight.

Still, I have these, two more boxes of cookbooks, and two shelves yet untouched.  I hope I didn't pack any spiders.

Then there were 19