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Library Loot

Published on February 13, 2009May 20, 2018 by Margaret7 Comments

I went to the library yesterday to pick up a reservation, The Private Lives of the Impressionists by Sue Roe. I’d written about the short course on the Impressionists I’m doing and Litlove recommended this book. It has a lovely front cover showing part of Eugene Manet on the Isle of Wight by Berthe Morisot. I’d love to see the original which is in the Musee Marmottan in Paris.

The course I’m doing is focussing on the sites the painters used and not much about their lives and as I know very little (nothing really) about them this book promises to enlighten me. It covers Manet, Monet (I get those two mixed up in my head), Pisarro, Cezanne, Renoir, Degas, Sisley, Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt, going into their homes, their studios, describing their love affairs and arguments, as well as their canvases and theories. It has some illustrations.

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Whilst I was in the library I looked for other books on the Impressionists focussing on their actual works. There was plenty of choice and I came home with two large heavy books:

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The Impressionists by Robert Katz and Celestine Dars. This is full of colour illustrations in two sections, one on the history of Impressionism and one on the life and works of the artists in Sue Roe’s book plus Frederic Bazille.
The Impressionists by Themselves, edited by Michael Howard. This is a massively heavy book containing a selection of their paintings, drawings and sketches with extracts from their writing. It’s arranged chronologically covering the years 1856 – 1924

I don’t think the three week loan period will be long enough for me to absorb these books but at least I’ll find out if I want to buy any of them for future reference.

Tuesday Teaser

Published on February 10, 2009 by Margaret13 Comments

teaser-tuesday Miz B hosts this weekly event. The idea is to pick two sentences between lines 7 and 12 from a random page in the book you’re currently reading without giving away ‘spoilers’.

This week my teaser sentences are from page 169 of White Noise by Don DeLillo:

I thought of telling them about the computer tally, the time-factored death I carried in my chromosomes and blood. Self-pity oozed through my soul.

Sunday Salon

Published on February 8, 2009 by Margaret6 Comments

Today finds me in the middle of a few books, but I want to start more. This is one of the signs of a true bookaholic I think – that compulsion to read more. I’ve decided to take my “Currently Reading” section off the sidebar as it wasn’t accurate at all and only reminded me of books I’ve yet to finish. It’s not that I don’t like the books I’ve started it’s just that I keep coming across more books that interest me and so it goes on.

white-noise Today, I’ve been reading a bit more of White Noise by Don DeLillo. This is rather a strange book. LibraryThing reckons I “will probably like this book” and so far I’ve both liked and not liked it. The story seems straight forward. It’s about Jack Gladney and his wife Babette and their fear of death – who will die first? Their family life is complicated with children from their various previous marriages.

It’s funny in parts, not laugh out loud funny but amusing, particularly in the rambling, roundabout conversations between Jack and his son, Heinrich who is fourteen and concerned about his receding hairline. Jack is a college professor (Hitler Studies) and Babette reads to old people, gives talks on posture and is invited to teach another course on Eating and Drinking: Basic Parameters – to explain to adults the current thinking on the right way to eat etc – the mind boggles!

And then it’s boring in parts, rambling on and on about trivia, maybe that’s the point but it is tedious. The real problem is that these boring bits start off well and then go on too long. The episode of the “airborne toxic event” was fine to start off with as Jack and family evacuated the house but got bogged down in too many details intermingled with Jack’s stream of conscience thoughts. Then in the next chapter my interest revived with the story of the drug that Babette has been taking in secret. And that is where I left off reading for the time being.

My plans for the coming week are to finish White Noise and also Le Grand Meaulnes by Henri Alain- Fournier in time for Cornflower’s discussion next Saturday. LibraryThing prediction is that I “will love” this book – so far so good.

But now I’m thinking I want to read something different – maybe Agatha Christie’s By the Pricking of My Thumbs, or The Shoe Queen by Anna Davis, about a woman obssessed with shoes. She has over 500 pairs and wants more – a bit like me with my books. Just imagine you could wear a different pair of shoes every day for about 16 months and where would you keep that many shoes!

Library Loot

Published on February 6, 2009May 20, 2018 by Margaret10 Comments

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Alessandra that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

I must confess that I always have far more books out from the library than I could ever read in the loan period and I take back a number of them unread or keep renewing them as long as I can. But I do enjoy browsing and taking books home that I think I may want to read. It’s a great way of trying out books I may never read otherwise.

Yesterday I was going to go to my course on the Impressionists in the morning and food shopping in the afternoon. That was the plan, but the snow changed all that. The course was cancelled as the tutor couldn’t get there. But the snow wasn’t too bad so we went shopping in the morning and as we were passing the library I popped in. I quickly scanned the shelves and came out with four books, which all seemed to just jump off the shelves into my hands.

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Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman – a book of short stories. This appeals to me because the stories are about the families who have lived in Blackbird House on the wild coast of Massachusetts for over two hundred years. It promises to be a magical tale. I haven’t read anything by Alice Hoffman yet although I have got Practical Magic.
The View From Castle Rock by Alice Munro – biographical fiction, “a brilliantly imagined version of the past.” Munro’s family emigrated from Edinburgh to Canada in the 18th century.
Ferney by James Long. Cornflower wrote about this book and I added it to my wishlist, so I was really pleased to see it in the library. It’s set in a broken-down old cottage in Somerset , a couple’s dream and financial nightmare.
A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch. I may have read this many years ago, but I’ve been thinking about reading Murdoch’s books recently and this was the only one in the library that I thought I hadn’t read. Elizabeth Jane Howard’s quote on the book describes the book as a “comedy with that touch of ferocity about it which makes for excitement.”

The question now is will I read them before 26 February when they’re due back. That all depends upon what I feel like reading and I have plenty to choose from – another 8 books from the library or any of the other books sitting around waiting to be read.

LibraryThing – “Will I Like It?”

Published on February 5, 2009 by Margaret3 Comments

a-leap001 I was nicely surprised the other day when I had a new comment on my LibraryThing Profile page telling me I’d snagged a copy of A Leap by Anna Enquist. Surprised because the closing date for requesting books hadn’t even ended. I’ve snagged a few books from Early Reviewers before but only received them months later. In fact, Sue Guiney’s Tangled Roots never arrived at all via LT – I’ve now received a copy thanks to Sue, herself! So I was even more surprised and delighted when A Leap popped through my letterbox this morning (it’s a slim book of 84 pages).

When I added it in to my library I found a new feature, well I’ve only just noticed it at any rate. It’s on each book’s Main Page headed “Will you like it?” – a bar sliding from “won’t like”, “will probably not like” “will probably like” “will like”, “ will love”. So now I’ve been checking it out to see if it really can tell whether I’ll like a book or not.

I checked The Hidden by Tobias Hill, which I write about here. LT thinks I’ll “love it” – actually I liked it, well not far wrong there. So I then looked at Death of a Gossip, which found rather disappointing (I wrote about it here). I wouldn’t go as far as saying I don’t like it, but in LT’s terms I’d rate it “will probably not like”, but LT thinks I “will probably like it” – wrong!

Currently I’m reading Tartan Tragedy by Antonia Fraser and I’m thinking of giving up on it. It’s set in the Scottish Highlands where Jemima Shore is on holiday caught up with the mystery of Charles Beauregard’s death. Allegedly he was descended from Bonnie Prince Charlie. I should be “loving it” according to LT but I’m not – it just seems to be so long winded and far-fetched. Part of my problem is that I’m fed up reading what all the characters are wearing. I don’t like to give up on a book (think of the time I’ve wasted but it’s a library book, so no cost involved).

Well, I suppose “Will I like it?” is just a guide and for fun really, but I hope it’s right about A Leap because it predicts that I “will like it”, maybe I’ll even love it..