How it works!

1. I’ll start. I’ll pick a book, today! If you’re interested, pick it up and finish it in within 2 weeks.

2. The 1st seven bloggers who want to be hosts & who comment here to tell me you’re interested will be blog hosts for the summer. (One person every 2 weeks.)

3. Anyone can follow along — infinite book club! Way better than packing into a tiny parlour, right? 2 weeks from today, I’ll start a book discussion on the book I’ve chosen in this blog. Everyone’s who’s read can join the discussion in comments.

4. The next host will choose a book – preferably something reasonably new and literary. In 2 weeks, we’ll head over to their blog, where they will start a discussion, and so on, and so forth, until the end of summer.

Sound fun?? I’m going to start with a book I’ve wanted to read for awhile:

Wide Eyed (Little House on the Bowery) by Trinie Dalton

So! Let me know if you’re interested and want to be a host! I think we can get 7 people willing to start a book discussion in their blogs, right?

In other bookness, I’ve also been plowing through non-fiction, for some reason.  These are recent reads that are worth picking up:

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science

The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire

Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis

Just Kids

But this post is a tribute to staying in, bundled by the woodstove, cracking open a new book and going on adventures! I had a stack for my convalescence, but only got through a few. Give me snow days!

Brooklyn, taken by my Wawa (great-grandfather) in 1917

One of my favorite jobs ever was as a teenager at Old Schoolhouse Books in Vermont, where I could sit on a sheepskin in the bay window and watch the snow fall, reading through countless pages of old and rare books. One day is burnt into my memory, snow coming down like mad outside, reading the Bell Jar for the first time, shocked and numb and grateful that the weather kept anyone from coming in. The owners had an old Scottie dog named Katie, and she often kept me company.  Creaky old wooden floors in a Victorian storefront, rows and rows of ancient and musty books, the snow coming down thickly outside. Heaven.

Photo by my sister-in-law, elflovebaby on flickr

Howards End

No, really. I just re-read it and found myself dog-ear-ing a million pages.

“What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into your daily lives? Haven’t we all had to struggle against lifes daily greyness, against pettiness, against mechanical cheerfulness, against suspicion? I struggle by remembering my friends; others I have known by remembering some place – some beloved place or tree.”

The Children’s Book

Perfect sprawling escape, I cried and cried.

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name

I think this is next on the list.

Misfortune: A Novel

Looks like “The Wolves of Willoughby Chase” but for grown ups. We shall see!

The Destiny of Isabelle Eberhardt

Only halfway through, but wildly interesting.

The Times We Had

Marion Davies was so misunderstood! I watched a documentary on her after reading this – she’s whip smart and adorable!

Divisadero

2nd next on the list!

Coming Through Slaughter

More Ondaatje.

The Book of Lost Things: A Novel

I read this a few days after Janna died, it was sad and escapist and lovely.

A Field Guide to Getting Lost

In the middle of it – oh, exactly what I needed, right now. I’ve been thinking so much about the state of lost, I had a dream recently about it, and death. So recommended, this book.

What else? I wish I’d read more over the break! I was feeling listless and ouchy and spent it mostly cuddling by the fireplace. Not a bad way to pass the time! One of my favorite bookshops relocated a block from my house, danger!!! The stack threatens to grow…

Mockingbird ~ sean stewart
A friend gave me this to read, and when I finished it, I told him; “Well, I don’t need to tell you the story of my life anymore.”

Daughter of Earth ~ agnes smedley
It’s like if Opal Whiteley was less crazy (maybe.) and totally kicked ass.

Tell My Horse ~ zora neale hurston
Time traveling to other lives.

Ghosts I Have Been – richard peck
Even better as an adult, so good for lunchtime reading.

Quakeland ~ francesca lia block
Growing up with writers is interesting — the writing and characters age with you, like you’re reading the trajectory of your own life.

Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar ~ richard brautigan
rb totally writes like gertrude stein, rhythm and repetition, with more magical realism.

Daddy Was a Number Runner (Contemporary Classics by Women) ~ louise merriwether
I found this one on the street! It was charming and good and hard to read and more time-travely to past lives.

Charms for the Easy Life (P.S.) ~ kaye gibbons
southern witchery.

The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright ~ jean nathan
I had no idea Dare Wright was SO INSANE. Impossible to put down.

on the ‘to read’ stack:
The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems ~ fritjof capra

The Thin Place ~ kathryn davis
I started this today in the park, Vermont spirit magic.

Leroi Jones and Diane Di Prima at the Cedar Tavern, April 5, 1960

I’ve been obsessed, OBSESSED with Diane DiPrima since I was 14 and came across her poems in an anthology, devouring everything I could find after that. Memorizing chunks of Loba, her epic poem that continues to be written. Living vicariously through her Recollections of My Life as a Woman of life in 1950s NYC, ($33 a month walkup, burning wood in the fireplace for warmth, artist model & cream cheese sandwiches at chockfulo’nuts, writing poems and livinglivingliving,) wishing for a time machine, & now, older, admiring and identifying with her sense of being a woman, her chosen path for life, her confidence and peace.

Last night I finally was able to see her read / speak, after years of missed moments, and it was so worth it. She discussed various ways a poem may be “received” and read poems that had arrived as if dictated. She spoke of her moments of decision to be a poet and what it meant giving up – traditional home, family, security. She is older, wonderful, inspiring, solid.

I’ve been thinking so much about instinct, about identity, about divination and direction on this plane, where are we and where are we going – do we know? And I feel we do know, we have our magics and our grounding, it’s that chattering mind that distracts us that she doesn’t seem to have – a slow, easy, grounded confidence in what she says, what she writes, who she is.

My notes from the evening read ~
1. sound words
2. everything has a form
3. graph of a moving mind
4. pulling threads
5. the new book of heaven
6. resonance
7. antennae
8. chants
9. murder cake
10. divination
11. dialogues with the absent
12. dreams

On identity and if her poetry shaped her identity:

“No. Any identity that I’ve identified, I’ve noticed because I am noticing that it is a trap. The times I have come face to face with my identities are when it is time for that identity to stop.”

(This is amazing to me, that if one is noticing or thinking of ‘identity’ it is inherently not right – it’s only in the not-noticing that one is true.)

On the phenomenon of the internet:

“I don’t publish online. Because I don’t know what medium that is. You’re not making something in time, and you’re not making something in space. …No one has been able to tell me what it is.”

listen -
Ave
Revolutionary Letters

This summer, pick up one of these books, relive those clean clear days, words that shaped us as teenage girls with fists against the world and our hearts held in our hands. If I ever have a girl (hopefully!) I’ll pull her aside one day and hand her stacks and stacks – These are your textbooks. Use them well.

season of the witch
we have always lived in this castle
pilgrim at tinker creek
dangerous angels
recollections of my life as a woman
be here now
emily of new moon
the wisdom of insecurity
i capture the castle
zami
franny & zooey
big sur
tripmaster monkey
girl of the limberlost

Oh, so many more, I can’t even think & my regular book collection is in Vermont stashed away until they can move into the cabin. I will add more as they come to me!

What were the words that shaped you?