Archive for the ‘My World’ Category

My World: More Post Updates

Posted in My World, tagged on December 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Roadside Sunset - Alexandria - wWnter 2012

Note to subscribers – the post updates continue – fixing my tagging – you may be getting duplicate posts! Hoping to complete “housekeeping” soon so it’s all tidy for the new year.

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My World: You Just Never Know & All That Jazz

Posted in My World, tagged on December 13, 2012| 2 Comments »

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This is turning into one of those slightly weird weeks.

On the kind-of down-side, the dancer missed her last major Christmas recital rehearsal today because of terrible roads. As the all-day performance (she’s in four concerts, as part of a competitive “touring” dance troupe) is on Saturday, and as there is still last-minute choreography going on, this caused some stress. No worries, I’m sure they’ll all pull it off, seasoned performance veterans that they are! She’ll be learning the missed bits moments before she hits the stage; keeps it interesting!

On the “oh, well, an unexpected day at home” up-side, we were all here together (rare-ish situation lately), so we went out into the snowstorm to hunt down a Christmas tree. Funny how our farm’s private forest of tiny perfect fir trees have grown so dramatically in the twenty-one years since our first expedition up the hill in December, to the point where it’s hard to find something small enough to fit in our low-ceilinged living room!

And on the really down-side, we’ve just found out that our family’s main pay cheque may be seriously disrupted; my husband’s workplace is unexpectedly under immediate strike notice as employee contract negotiations have hit a neither-side-wants-to-budge brick wall. As of December 18th he may have an unanticipated and not particularly well-timed “holiday”. Something we definitely never saw coming!

Fingers crossed that it gets sorted out.

Otherwise, life is pretty good. Just a wee bit surreal, thinking of alternate possibilities and coping strategies in case things do come crashing down, money-wise.

At least the tree is checked off the list!

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My World: Book People Are the Best!

Posted in My World, tagged , on December 10, 2012| 6 Comments »

Last week I read several reviews of Diana Tutton’s Guard Your Daughters; most, but not all, enthusiastically and favourably comparing it to Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle. Now I am not alone in believing there is a special warmth in the sun that shines on the Mortmain family as depicted in that tale, so anything that is compared to it attracts my immediate attention.

After reading Claire’s review on The Captive Reader blog, I commented to her on how much I would like to sample Guard Your Daughters for myself, and Claire, who has decided this one is not a “keeper” for her, immediately popped it in the mail to me. I found a parcel card in my box yesterday, and being Sunday, was unable to collect it as our postmistress had the parcel room locked up tight, but this afternoon my teenage son kindly drove the fifteen minutes back out to our small rural post office to pick it up for me. (He picked up a tub of ice cream, too, as our post office is a tiny room at the back of a small country general store, so it wasn’t completely a disinterested trip!)

My husband is away working a night shift this evening, so I will have no qualms about retiring to bed and reading as late as I want without worrying about the light shining in his eyes. Actually, I think I might bow out early, to give my full attention to the task at hand. Will I love this one, or be disappointed? Either way, I am looking forward with great anticipation to finding out.

Thank you, Claire! An early Christmas present, indeed. A review shall follow post haste.

Book People are The Best!

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My World: Canada Reads 2013

Posted in Canadian Book Challenge #6, Contemporary Fiction, My World, tagged , , , , , , , on November 30, 2012| 2 Comments »

canada-reads-2013-panelists-books

Last night, with great self-congratulatory brouhaha, CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi introduced the Canada Reads 2013 Shortlist and celebrity panelists. This is an event I’ve watched (well, more accurately, listened to) with mild interest the last few years, but never really embraced.

I confess that I am in general deeply cynical about prizes awarded by popular vote, which is the whole premise of this literary “event”, but this year the shortlist picks seem more intriguing to me than some in the past, so I’ve set myself a personal goal of reading and reviewing all five of them. This will also tie in nicely with my participation in 6th Annual Canadian Book Challenge , hosted by John Mutford of The Book Mine Set .

I may also explore among the picks in the Long List, though I have no intentions of reading all of them. We’ll see what happens. This list will find a home in my library bag, for those days when inspiration needs a little push. I’ve already read a few (a very few) of the picks, though mostly before this blog materialized. I may re-read and review. Or not! Leaving myself wide open here.

This year Canada Reads has a regional theme, which doesn’t really work in my opinion, as there are only five extremely broad regions and geographically and philosophically I think there is more variance in truly regional Canadian literature than these limited categories allow. But no one asked me, so I guess I need to go with it.

Here’s our Long List:

B.C. & Yukon:

The Prairies and North:

Ontario:

Quebec:

Atlantic Canada:

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My World: Housekeeping Alert – Duplicate Posts May Be Coming!

Posted in My World, tagged on November 26, 2012| 4 Comments »

Greetings, faithful blog followers. It has ocurred to me, now that this blog has become a part of my life and I feel no urge to quit on it just yet, that I should tag my posts with the year I read the books, what with a whole new year coming up and all.

I’m not sure if retagging/editing posts sends them back out into the world to those of you subscribed via email, but if it does, just a heads up that you might be getting lots of duplicate posts. I think I will start at the beginning with my edits, so if these do start to come your way, just delete as the spirit moves you.

(Didn’t want anyone to think that I am hitting a super-productive streak or anything!)

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My World: November 11, 2012 ~ On the road.

Posted in 2010s, My World, tagged , , on November 11, 2012| 4 Comments »

I’ve been on a lightning trip to the coast to take the dancer to choreography sessions and to pick up pointe shoes and other arcane neccessities. It was an enjoyable and productive – if rather rushed – excursion, but I’m glad to be back home.

A few glimpses from the side of the road on the trip home today.

A frozen waterfall in the Fraser Canyon near Boston Bar; snow-dusted hills above Lytton; sagebrush above the Thompson River south of Ashcroft.

I would have liked to have stopped more often and taken many more photos. It was a beautiful day to be out and about –  the roads were quiet and the light was lovely – but dark comes quickly this time of year and we just made it home as dusk deepened into night as it was.

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Poem: Field of Autumn by Laurie Lee

Posted in 1940s, My World, Poetry, tagged , on October 27, 2012| 2 Comments »

FIELD OF AUTUMN

Slow moves the acid breath of noon
over the copper-coated hill,
slow from the wild crab’s bearded breast
the palsied apples fall.

Like coloured smoke the day hangs fire,
taking the village without sound;
the vulture-headed sun lies low
chained to the violet ground.

The horse upon the rocky height
rolls all the valley in his eye,
but dares not raise his foot or move
his shoulder from the fly.
The sheep, snail-backed against the wall,
lifts her blind face but does not know
the cry her blackened tongue gives forth
is the first bleat of snow.

Each bird and stone, each roof and well,
feels the gold foot of autumn pass;
each spider binds with glittering snare
the splintered bones of grass.

Slow moves the hour that sucks our life,
slow drops the late wasp from the pear,
the rose tree’s thread of scent draws thin –
and snaps upon the air.

Laurie Lee ~ 1945

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My World: Mid October, 2012

Posted in My World, tagged , , , , on October 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

On the outer edge of autumn. October 17, 2012.

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My World: Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Posted in My World, tagged on October 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

My daughter’s roving band of feathered foolish ones.

“Turkeys on the grass, alas!”

This is a farm, so I needn’t go into their ultimate fate for those of you with sensitive sensibilities. These handsome creatures lived a short but on the whole happy avian life, as evidenced by their presence very much out of the barnyard, foraging for fallen crab apples, and slugs and other delectables in the garden.

Carpe diem, all.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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My World: Rosamunde Pilcher???

Posted in My World, tagged on October 4, 2012| 8 Comments »

Hello, dear fellow bookish friends. I would love a little input, if you feel so moved.

As some of you may have gathered from previous occasional comments, I provide books for my very frail, completely house-bound, 87-year-old mother. We happily share some of the same reading tastes, though she tends to be more tolerant of – how shall I put it? – more romantic, or uplifting books than I, and completely uninterested in anything smacking of historical fiction, memoirs, non-fictional travel or history (unless it’s local history, and she knows some of the people referred to), fantasy, sci-fi, satirical humour, or dark realism, which eliminates a huge percentage of my personal library for sharing with her.

Joanna Trollope, Maeve Bianchy, Mary Stewart, and their ilk all find favour, as do such authors as Miss Read, Monica Dickens, Daphne du Maurier and Pearl S. Buck. Classic mystery writers such as Agatha Christie, D.L. Sayers, Patricia Wentworth and Ngaio Marsh are acceptable, and I do believe I now have most of each one of those authors’ large production! She’s read and re-read everything even vaguely suitable from my collection, and with winter coming on, with its long, dark evenings, I’m racking my brains for new authors for her to explore and enjoy.

Yesterday, while trying to pick out some likely to be appealing books, I remembered someone on some blog I frequently read speaking quite highly of Rosamunde Pilcher, and – lo and behold! – there were quite a number to choose from in the several secondhand bookstores I visited.  So I’ve purchased a few – The Blue Bedroom (short stories), The Empty House, Another View, and September.

Today I’ve dipped into all of them, reading a page here and there, and several of the short stories, and I’m just not finding them terribly appealing. Is it just me, or did I pick the wrong ones, or??? These seem very “romantic fiction”, in all the worst ways. Could it be just that I’m coming off a course of Elizabeth Taylor (whom Mother did not at all enjoy when I slipped a few into her last box), and haven’t yet lowered my expectations?

What’s the general view on Rosamunde? Am I wasting my time with her, or do I need to dig deeper with a little more tolerance? Are there some books that are better than others, and if so, which would they be? Obviously The Shell Seekers must be one, as it is referenced favourably on every single flowery cover, as is Coming Home.

Your Pilcher opinions and other author suggestions most welcome!

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