Page 26 of 41

Anna Karenina Readalong

Walkie Talkie Book Club Leave a comment
Main characters and relations in Anna Karenina...

Image via Wikipedia

“You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.” —C.S. LEWIS

Wallace at Unputdownables is hosting a readalong of “Anna Karenina.”  I was one of the first to tell her I was in and she had a copy of the book that she sent to me, so I have a BIG, beautiful copy of the book!  I was a little behind, as I didn’t start reading it until Wednesday night, but it was easy to catch up and I finished our assigned reading for the week last night.  Handling it in chunks is going to be nice.  Discussing it with others is going to be even nicer!

Because I just finished my book club book (“Loving Frank“) and just had book club discussion about it last night, it was still fresh in my mind when I was reading Anna Karenina.  So my first thoughts of the book are in relation to that book and the book discussion.

How are they related, you ask?  Mamah, the ‘mistress’ in Loving Frank was a language scholar and worked as a translator.  So when I began reading AK, I thought a lot about the translators and the roles that they play in the storytelling.  I thought the description that Mamah gave to Frank about how a good translator takes not only the words but the thoughts and feelings behind the words to find the best translation was very interesting, and something that I hadn’t really thought of before this time.  Frank and Mamah worked on poetry and prose together and attempted to put out beautiful translations.

Another topic that came up in discussion last night was whether or not affairs were more or less commonplace in the past than they are today.  There were mixed feelings about it, because the stigma of divorce and societal exclusion in the past may have made illicit affairs more common.  People had to go very underground if they were pulled by a new attraction.  People married for different reasons in the past (at least in these books!), not necessarily for love, so if they felt attraction and understanding outside of their marriage it may have been not as difficult to ignore.

I’m not sure of those ramblings made much sense, but it framed the thoughts that I had while reading this first section of AK.  I thought it was interesting that it was out there for all (in the family) to know when Stiva had an affair.  No secrets kept between husband and wife alone.  Makes you wonder about their relationship in particular and marriages in general in this time, in this country, in this nobility.

Well, those are some general (not specific to Wallace’s questions today!) thoughts about week one of AK!  Yay!

Off to read!

Audiobook: My Life in France

Walkie Talkie Book Club 4 Comments
My Life in France
I just finished listening to the audiobook as I pulled into book club (to discuss “Loving Frank“) and realized that it’s Thursday and Words and Peace has her weekly “I Love France” meme on Thursdays!  Once again I’ll participate!  So at the last minute on Thursday, I’ll post about Julia Child and her memoir about her life in France.
Listening to a book is always a much different experience than reading a book, and I think this would have been good to read.  There are recipes recited and French words and phrases spouted without definition and I think I would have taken more in with my eyes than my ears.  But I liked the general feeling that I got from the book.  I liked hearing about the love that Julia and her husband had for each other, the support that Julia got for finding her passion in cooking, and the fascinating process they went through to get “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” published.
Now I want that cook book, although Julia realized at the time of its publishing in the 1960s that it was already pushing the limits of what the American housewife would tackle, in the time and care that the French pour into their food preparation (and eating!).  But yet the book and its successor were popular, as was the television show that she began filming.
I will have to look up episodes of her TV show and think about tackling some simple French meals!
Off to read!

Books: a Goodreads wrap-up! Four for the price of one (post!)

Walkie Talkie Book Club 3 Comments
Simple Times by Amy Sedaris
Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People
by Amy Sedaris

3 of 5 stars

bookshelves: audiobooks

Read from September 27 to 28, 2011
You have to know what you’re getting into when you read an Amy Sedaris book. She’s really quite something. 🙂 It was a silly fun little listen.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Summer and the City by Candace Bushnell
Summer and the City (The Carrie Diaries #2)
by Candace Bushnell

5 of 5 stars
Read from September 26 to 29, 2011
What fun to spend Carrie’s first summer in NYC with her. I wonder if you have to be a total Sex and the City freak to love these books?? Hoping for another!
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
Ella Minnow Pea
by Mark Dunn

4 of 5 stars
Read in October, 2011
A quaint, easy read with deep meaning. As the residents of Nollop, an island founded by the creator of the “perfect” sentence – The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog – lose the ability to use letter after letter as they fall off his statue, persecution and loss of freedoms become the norm. So the search for an even more perfect sentence is their only hope. Good stuff.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
Loving Frank
by Nancy Horan

5 of 5 stars
Read in October, 2011
Wow. I have wanted to read this book for some time now, but I didn’t realize how much it would grab me! The story of the enigmatic Frank Lloyd Wright and his mistress, Mamah. The sacrifices they made to be with the “real and true” love of their lives. Set between the years 1907-1914 and told mostly in Mamah’s voice, the struggles of women’s equality and what it means from person to person were highlighted. I want to know more about Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright and was happy to see “afterwards” and “acknowledgements” when I finished the book.
***This was read for book club and I can’t wait to discuss tomorrow night!

40 Things (40!!!) Happy Birthday, Boof!

Walkie Talkie Book Club Leave a comment
thank you note for every language

Image by woodleywonderworks via Flickr

Following along with Boof’s 40 Day Challenge leading up to her 40th birthday, DAY 40!  Happy birthday, Boof!

40) A favourite book about a celebration

I’m going to cheat.  I looked through my Goodreads list and couldn’t find anything with a holiday theme that I would call a favorite, so I simply thought about my favorite holiday (Thanksgiving) and some great movies that were set around a Thanksgiving theme (and maybe one that isn’t set around Thanksgiving, but another holiday I’ve recently adopted).

Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday.  I love thankfulness – thinking about what I’m thankful for, telling people what I’m thankful for, and writing what I’m thankful for.  That “attitude of gratitude” has been preached to us by Oprah and I really believe that it can change your outlook on life.  So, when I started thinking of movies that were centered around a Thanksgiving celebration, a few came to mind.

First, “What’s Cooking?” (In LA’s Fairfax district, where ethnic groups abound, four households celebrate Thanksgiving amidst family tensions. In the Nguyen family, the children’s acculturation and immigrant parents’ fears collide. In the Avila family, Isabel’s son has invited her estranged husband to their family dinner. Audrey and Ron Williams want to keep their own family’s ruptures secret from Ron’s visiting mother. In the Seelig household, Herb and Ruth are unwilling to discuss openly their grown daughter’s living with her lover, Carla. Around each table, things come to a head. A gun, an affair, a boyfriend, and a pregnancy precipitate crises forcing each family to find its center. IMDB)  I should re-watch this, but I remember loving it.  Loving how it wrapped up and how cleverly the story was told.

Of course, “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” is one of the greatest comedies ever, and just happens to be about getting home for Thanksgiving.  I don’t think I need a synopsis for it. My favorite scene is when they are driving down the highway and being told they are going the wrong way (“How do they know where we’re going?”).  Hilarious.

“Home for the Holidays” is also a movie I haven’t seen in a while, but I remember loving it.  (After losing her job, making out with her soon to be ex-boss, and finding out that her daughter plans to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend, Claudia Larson has to face spending the holiday with her family. She wonders if she can survive their crazy antics. IMDB).  Ah, family holiday dinners.  🙂  I am thankful that our Thanksgiving dinners are not filled with lots of drama!

A few others that have a Thanksgiving theme that I have seen include “Pieces of April” and “Hannah and Her Sisters.”  Good movies.

The last movie about a holiday that has inspired me is the Italian film, “Mid-August Lunch,” a great movie about Ferragosto – the Italian tradition of getting out of the city for a few weeks during the hot weeks of mid-August.  It is a great movie and a great holiday that I have embraced in the last few years, having my own “lakeside” vacation with Italian flair, right in the middle of Minnesota.

And as to my list, as I admitted yesterday, it was incomplete.  Last night I did some thinking about how I wanted to move forward and here’s what I came up with:  You know I love the Satellite Sisters and I have written about their book “Uncommon Senses.”  I am going to create a list of things that I want to accomplish based upon the “senses” highlighted in their book.

The Sense of Connection
The Sense of Self
The Sense of Humor
The Sense of Adventure
The Sense of Direction.

As I’ve said about their book before, it applies as well today as it did ten years ago when it was written.  And I know that I can find things in all those “senses” that I would like to put out there as challenges for myself.  So as well as writing about books, I will be writing about these challenges.

Thank YOU for following along with these daily posts!

Off to read!

40 Things (39)

Walkie Talkie Book Club 1 Comment
Angela's Ashes

Image via Wikipedia

Following along with Boof’s 40 Day Challenge leading up to her 40th birthday, day 39!

39) A book I expected to hate but loved

Before I started the Stieg Larsson trilogy of books, I never would have imagined that I would have loved them as much.  It took me about 75 pages to get into the first book, but then I was hooked.  I felt myself wincing a few times, anticipating that things were going to be scary or bad, but they just got up to the edge and never went over for me.

I also didn’t want to read “Angela’s Ashes” because I thought it would be so heavy and sad, but it was nothing of the sort.  It was full of hope and good humor.  I loved that book, too.

#39 on my list was:  Nothing.  Here is the point when I have to admit that the list that I found of my “40 things” ends at 38!  How depressing is that?  I was making my list as I went along (as was evidenced by #37 – penned when the opportunity arose) and was focused on the ones left to do rather than finishing the list.  Ugh.

So tomorrow, I will work on a new list of some kind!  5 Things to complete by October end?  10 things to do on my Sabattical?  45 things to do before 45?  50 things to do before 50?  I will ponder this and start a list…

Off to read!

40 Things (38)

Walkie Talkie Book Club Leave a comment
Nick Hornby

Following along with Boof’s 40 Day Challenge leading up to her 40th birthday, day 38!

38) An author crush

This is a toughy, because although I can be an author-stalker, I don’t necessarily think about them as crushes.  But one author that I immediately looked for on Goodreads because I love to read anything by him, would be Nick Hornby.  His books are clever and witty and apt.  I would love to meet him and see if he’s anything like the characters he writes.

#38 on my list was: Drink before noon.  How silly is that?  It wasn’t a well-thought-out addition or something I had been dreaming about doing for years, but rather added as the opportunity came about.  🙂  We have a small cabin on a small lake about an hour from where I live.  It’s absolutely perfect.  This drink happened one morning at the end of the dock to celebrate my brother’s birthday and the nearing end of summer.  I always say that the end of the dock is my favorite room at the cabin… whether it be with coffee or wine, alone or with friends, with a book or purely sun worshiping.  It’s the best.

My Favorite Room at the Cabin

Off to read!

40 Things (37)

Walkie Talkie Book Club 3 Comments
Bel Canto (novel)

Image via Wikipedia

Following along with Boof’s 40 Day Challenge leading up to her 40th birthday, Day 37 –

37) A book that I still think about years after having read it

Gosh, there are a lot of books that I still think about, years later.  I’d like to re-read “Tale of Two Cities” sometime, as I remember loving it in high school and have vivid pictures in my head relating to the story.  I also was amazed by “Death of a Salesmen” when I read it in college.  Just blown away.  And “The Color Purple” was beautifully vivid, and I can also see those pictures in my head.  More recent books that I still think about include: “Those Who Save Us,” “Bel Canto,” “Peace Like a River,” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.”

#37 on my list was: Road trips with Kitschy Side Trips.  Unfortunately, I haven’t taken many road trips that allow for scenic stops along the way.  I’m usually purposeful in my travel, trying to get from Point A to Point B in a timely fashion.  But in October of 2007 my friend Beth and I took a mid-week road trip from our SE corner of the state of Minnesota to Pierre, SD.  Beth’s sister lives there and works in a bookstore that was hosting a Lorna Landvik book signing and discussion.

The Corn Palace

So we took off one Tuesday morning, stopping at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD – yes, a building and gymnasium decorated with corn.

We also stopped at cute restaurants for our meals.  It was a blast getting there, and the adventures continued when we met Lorna. She was promoting her book, “The View from Mount Joy,” which we read in preparation of meeting her.  We had photos taken with her, drank wine with her, and eventually took her site seeing around Pierre with Beth’s sister in the lead!  We went to the Veteran’s Memorial in Pierre and lit the flaming fountain.  We had such a good time with many well-needed laughs.  I need to do this more often!

We have met with Lorna twice since this first trip: once at the Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis, where she has a stand up routine in January, and she joined us for dessert afterwards, and once in our hometown where we bid and won dinner with her for a library fundraiser.  Good stuff.

at Bryant Lake Bowl

Off to read!

40 Things (36)

Walkie Talkie Book Club 2 Comments
Woman's Home Blog Book

Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Flickr

Following along with Boof’s 40 Day Challenge leading up to her 40th birthday, day 36:

36) A favourite book recommended by another book blogger

Well, since almost all the books on my TBR list come from book blogs or newsletters, it would be hard to choose just one!  But a recent favorite was the book “Attachments.”  I raved about it in a previous post, but it was just so clever and unique.  It will rank up there as one of my favorites of 2011.

#36 on my list was: Go to an Opera.  So I did!  My list-making compatriot, Deadra, and I looked at the Minnesota Opera schedule and chose a more comedic story to go see.  In November of 2007 we saw L’italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers).  It was fun to get dressed up and go to the Ordway and the show was a lot of fun, too.  It’s a long and complicated plot (you can read elsewhere) but it was not difficult to follow.  We had great seats, but not for opera.  We were close to the stage.  Lesson learned:  When you go to the opera, you want to sit NOT in the front rows so that you can better read the subtitles being projected above the stage!  We still did all right, as I said, but next time I’ll look for different seats!  Good times!

Off to read!

40 Things (35)

Walkie Talkie Book Club 2 Comments
Title page of first edition of Anna Karenina

Image via Wikipedia

Following along with Boof’s 40 Day Challenge leading up to her 40th birthday, day 35 –

35) The longest book I have ever read

Once again, I am so thankful for Goodreads.  It was easy to look up the number of pages in several books that I have read.  If I had to guess without looking, I would guess that even the abridged version of “War and Peace” that I read in1994 was probably one of the longest books I’ve ever read.  The full version of the translated book clocks in at almost 1400 pages.  Yikes.  Looking at some of the big books that I’ve read, I noticed that I have listened to some of my lengthier books on audio – “Fountainhead,” “Jane Eyre,” and the Harry Potter books rank up there (The Half Blood Prince is 652 pages).  I guess the number of discs included and hours required doesn’t intimidate!  A few summers ago I read “East of Eden,” (600 pages) and loved it.

And today’s the perfect day to announce that I am participating in an “Anna Karenina” readalong with Wallace at Unputdownables, which starts this weekend, I believe!  Wallace is mailing me the Penguin classic version, which clocks in at 817 pages, and I’ll keep you posted on my progress – or sign up yourself, if you’re up to the challenge!  I’m excited to read this, especially with others, because a movie will be released in 2012 starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law.  There are many versions of the movie out there, so it will be fun to watch some of them after I’ve finished the readalong.  Love me some books and movies!

#35 on my list of things to do: Sing a solo in a concert.  In the fall of 2006 (after my daughter went to college!) a small group of us organized an adult choir to sing showtunes and other fun music.  We are still together, meeting weekly and doing little “gigs” in lots of different places in SE Minnesota.  I used to sing solos a lot as a child/teen and I was the mother in “Cheaper By the Dozen” musical, so it isn’t too far of a reach to sing a solo at a concert, but it had been years since I had, and the nerves were still there.  🙂 At our spring concert in 2007 I sang a song called “Crossword Puzzle” from a little known musical and it was great fun.  In 2009 I sang another solo called “The Hostess with the Mostes’,” also a lot of fun.  I love to sing and may even look for another choir to join in addition to “my” current choir!

Off to read!

40 Things (34)

Walkie Talkie Book Club 1 Comment
Writing

Following along with Boof’s 40 Day Challenge leading up to her 40th birthday, day 34:

34) A book I wish I had written

Hmmm.  Good question.  I wish I could write any book that is fun, intelligent, and succinctly written.  I love words, especially well-chosen and clever words.  And I love books that leave you with a smile on your face and a lingering good feeling.  I haven’t ever written a story before, but I have written some poems, song lyrics (adapted to familiar tunes), and some good haikus.  I’ve written long, rambling letters and cute, pithy slogans. But what do I wish I could write?  I guess this is worth more consideration, as I’d love to write something, and at this point I’m happy with blogging.

#34 of my list was: Eat more ethnic foods.  And so I have!  I’ve always loved going out for Mexican or Chinese food, as well as preparing both.  Since I wrote this on my list, I’ve eaten Spanish tapas, Vietnamese quite a few times, and found that I LOVE Indian.  Since I wrote this list I also made it a personal goal to avoid chain restaurants as much as possible, especially when traveling, seeking out new places to try.

Off to read!