Thanks to all who've sent notes asking if I'm still alive. Sorry I wasn't able to reply to all, but I'm popping in to reassure you I haven't yet left this earthly plane. For some of you, hopefully that's what you'd hoped to hear. For the rest of you, I know lots of …
Category: Books
March in Review: Much more reading, many more books. That’s more like it.
I had faith March wouldn't let me down, unlike my crappy January and February. Lie: I had no such faith, but told myself things could hardly go further south. And there were no Olympics, no television distracting me. The TV reverted to its usual function: background noise for napping and covering the surface of my …
Continue reading March in Review: Much more reading, many more books. That’s more like it.
Early February check in: Spark & Shelley & Bowie (and abject misery)
Screw April; February is the real Cruelest Month February heard me telling it to sod off. It's only the 10th, and it's already wiped the floor with my pasty arse. Hell, so far all of 2018 hates my guts. Yes, I said I wanted an exciting year. But my definition of "exciting" is …
Continue reading Early February check in: Spark & Shelley & Bowie (and abject misery)
Bookmarks: As the books come marching in.
Re-building my library is a whore's paradise, I ain't gonna lie. But it's also terribly sad. Why? As I search the shelves of bookshops I see titles I used to own, but can't afford to buy back. It would cost a fortune. Visions of grabbing a couple dozen of them, running out the door …
Daily: Bits & Bob’s yer uncle
After a long stretch of feeling pretty okay, insomnia and that black dog depression reared their ugly heads once again. The all too familiar slide began before Christmas. I thought once the holidays passed I'd bounce back; a couple weeks later, I realized that wasn't going to happen without intervention. You can't be …
My generally crappy week in review: reading and other complaints
Books mentioned in this post: Muriel Spark - The Comforters Muriel Spark - Robinson Muriel Spark - Memento Mori AJ Finn - The Woman in the Window Peter Manseau - The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost Michael Wolff - Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White …
Continue reading My generally crappy week in review: reading and other complaints
Merry Booksmas! Books I’m gifting to me this year.
Let's face it: no one knows which books I want at the holidays. Used to be I owned thousands and no one could tell what I didn't already have. Now that my library's so small, it's what haven't you already read... Plus, I only exchange gifts with my kids, so there's that. They figure I …
Continue reading Merry Booksmas! Books I’m gifting to me this year.
A little book therapy goes a long way.
I miss the good old days when I had me a rich husband to pay for my subscription to the Sunday New York Times. There's nothing on earth like a thick slab of newsprint slamming onto your driveway once a week, leaving a rectangle-shaped imprint in the asphalt. Even once I peeled off the sections …
Flaubert, Sand and A Sentimental Education
Frederick expected that he would have felt spasms of joy; but the passions grow pale when we find ourselves in an altered situation; and, as he no longer saw Madame Arnoux in the environment wherein he had known her, she seemed to him to have lost some of her fascination; to have degenerated in …
Book buying in Scotland thus far
You may want to cover your ears if you don't already know this: I sold off hundreds of my books before I came to Scotland, keeping only two or three dozen. Even for a temporary move, ownership of that sheer volume of books was problematic. I had nowhere to store them. My daughter was moving, …
