A Bluestocking Knits

Booking Through Thursday: Location, Location, Location (Part 2)

Booking Through Thursday for today wants to know where we read --

Where do you do most of your reading? Your favorite spot?

I usually read on the sofa in our living room, a comfy two-seater in sagey-green velveteen bought at a huge discount when our local Laura Ashley shop closed some years back.  (Our loss was our gain, as it were, as we could not have afforded it otherwise.)  My second choice is the IKEA sofa in what we call the front bedroom, although it is in fact our TV room.  I try not to read in bed much, as I have occasional bouts of insomnia.   I don't think I have a favorite spot for reading, as such -- every spot for reading is a favorite spot! -- just a usual one.

I finished reading David Crane's Scott of the Antarctic a while back, and had to rush it back to the library some days late.  It is an interesting book, one that impressed me in a number of ways, and made me think, and want to linger over it.  I was delighted first of all by Crane's writing, with complex yet fluid sentences that made me realize how comma-starved I've become in these days of text messages and emails.  Here is one of my favorites, regarding Scott's meeting with his future wife, Kathleen: "Bernacchi [as an early biographer of Scott] reckoned that Scott had 'only a slender knowledge of women,' but it is fair to say that all the knowledge in the world would probably not have prepared him for the wonderfully tanned, determinedly virginal, twenty-eight-year-old sculptress with a passion for 'male babies' and a critical eye for a prospective father, just back from five months' vagabonding around Greece" (p.312).  How often does one actually laugh out loud at a book on Polar exploration? I ask you!  Subtle, humorous, and telling.

I was very impressed at Crane's ability to not only write interestingly and thoughtfully, but to balance the admirable and not-so-admirable aspects of Scott's character.  It did seem to be rather difficult at times, though, for him to tell enough of the story to keep the Antarctic-novice reader going.  I can imagine that it's hard when the writer knows the cast of characters so well to say, for example, "Crean" or "Lashly," and not realize that the reader has no idea who Crean or Lashly is.  (Even I wished for a little list at the back of the book.)  Crane at one point remarks on Scott's stomach troubles in a way that implies this was chronic, but it had not been mentioned to us before then.  On the other hand, Crane's ability to make the rather gorgonlike Kathleen Scott into a relatively sympathetic character can only increase my admiration for his abilities as a writer.  (In Kathleen's defense, I can only admit that most of my impressions of her come from the men's diaries, as biased and anti-feminist as most Edwardian men.) 

My first experience of the Capt. Scott story, as I've said before, was from the Roland Huntford book and television series -- definitely unflattering towards Scott -- and so my opinion of Scott was quite low for a long time, but after reading Crane's book, I think that Huntford is too hard on Scott, or at least unwilling to show the good side.  I wonder if our taste for gossipy, warts-and-all biographies (did the gallant Captain Oates really father a child at the age of twenty, with an eleven-year-old girl?) these days make us underappreciate the loyalty Scott inspired -- sadly lacking in so many of our public figures now, to our great cost.  Talking of the great Memorial Service at St. Paul's, Crane writes, "There are few things that more poignantly signal the remoteness of Dean Inge's age from our own, because while nothing is more inevitable or healthier than historical revisionism, what has happened to Scott's reputation requires some other label.  It might seem odd from this distance that neo-Georgian England should find in a Darwin-carrying agnostic of Scott's cast the type of Christian sacrifice, but the historical process that has shrunk the rich, complex and deeply human set of associations that once clustered round his story into an allegory of arrogance, selfishness and moral stupidity is every bit as extraordinary" (p.11).

While we can't forget that, as Huntford reminds us repeatedly, ponies and manhauling in the Antarctic lacks a great deal of common sense (to put it mildly), and that by association this lack is transferred to Scott himself with tragic results, we also must remember, as Crane points out not only elegantly but tellingly, that "In such a climate of doubt and self-questioning [as that of post-Industrial Revolution and pre-WWI England], the outpouring of national pride over Scott was no demonstration of imperialist triumphalism but its reverse, its militancy the militancy of weakness, its stridency the stridency of a country desperate for assurance that the moral qualities that once made it great were still intact" (p.9).  Huntford sees the mistakes -- huge mistakes, certainly -- while Crane sees the mistakes in context, which, while it doesn't excuse them, does go some way towards explaining them.  "The most tempting answer is suggested by the cultural and political overtones implicit in Trevor Griffiths' use [in "The Last Place on Earth" series] of the word 'Englishness,' because if Scott was once celebrated as the incarnation of everything an Englishman should be, he is now damned as the sad embodiment of everything he actually was" (p.12), in other words, an Englishman.  We do tend to lash out at the characteristics in other people that we most despise in ourselves, don't we.  The qualities that "made England great" -- duty, self-sacrifice, discipline, patriotism, hierarchy, as Crane lists them -- are now seen as less than admirable.  It's an interesting thought.

Booking Through Thursday: TLC

Booking Through Thursday wants to know what kind of care do we take of our books?

1. Are you careful with the spines? Or do you crack your books open to make them lay flat? From years of working in a public library -- shelving, processing, cataloging -- I've developed a little routine, although it's really just more a habit, for opening new hardcover books, that I find myself doing automatically, even at bookstores with books that I don't intend to buy.  I open the front cover, gently but firmly, as far back as it will go, then repeat this with the back cover, which loosens the stiffness that comes with the gluing of the spine.  I usally riffle the pages too, although this is difficult with books from those publishers (like Knopf) who don't trim the edges.
2. Do you use bookmarks? Or do you dog-ear the corners? If you do use bookmarks, do you use those fashionable metal ones? Or paper? I use paper or thin cardstock to mark my place, although they are usually not official "bookmarks" as such, but handy scraps of paper or index cards if I'm taking notes -- those subscription cards from magazines that we perpetually find under the chairs are very handy, for instance!  I don't like the bookmarks that clip over a section of pages, as like paper clips I think these will either crinkle the pages or discolor them eventually.  I really dislike the magnet kinds, as clever as they are, because I don't want to put anything thick inside a book, being too hard on the spine.  I knew a librarian once who had a collection of things that she'd found in books, things that people had been using to mark their places -- leaves, dollar bills, old letters, a boxed deck of cards, bits of string, and such (I didn't really believe her about the strip of bacon, though).
3. Do you write in your books? Ever? If you do, do you make small marks, or write in as much blank space as you can find? Pen or pencil? Highlighter? Your name on the front page? I found it extremely difficult to get into the habit in college of writing in my textbooks.  I think it took the gradual dawning on me that either my notes would be helpful to me in the future (!), or that my used textbooks would to be honest not get used again by anyone else, to get me to put pencil -- not pen! -- to paper.  I sometimes, although rarely, make light Xs in the margins at passages I especially want to remember and find again, but on the whole I don't write in books.  This is somewhat ironic, as I love to find old inscriptions on the flyleaf of a good book (I always laugh at the part in 84, Charing Cross Road when Helene chides FPD for not writing an inscription in a book he sent her from the shop staff, how she would have enjoyed and valued it but their booksellers' aversion to "damaging" the book has prevented them.)  The only time I use pen is to write my name or a gift inscription.
4. Do you toss your books on the floor? Into book bags? Or do you treat them tenderly, with respect? Er, define "toss"!  That slip from bed to floor (for I as yet have no nightstand)?  Does that count?
5. Do you ever lay your book face-down, to save your place?  Only paperback cookbooks -- otherwise, never!  Certainly not hardcovers.  (I had to laugh when a few months ago I heard Laura, then aged six, say sternly to her little sister, "Not that way, you'll break the spine!")
6. Um--water? Do you bathe with your books? Hold them with wet hands? Read out in the rain? Anything of that sort? There is a certain category in my mind that I call "bathtub books" -- generally romances or light mysteries in paperback that would be no great loss if they were to be dropped into the tub and ruined (which I have done, I confess!).  Many of Barbara Michaels' books are this kind.  I generally don't read the Harlequin/Mills & Boon kind of stuff, but those would also qualify.  I'm careful not to read with wet or dirty hands, not even magazines.
7. Are your books lined up on a bookshelf? Or crammed in any which way? Stacked on the floor? Well, frankly, some of each, although this is more from lack of space than from any disregard or thoughtlessness!  Most of my P.G. Wodehouse collection (I adore P.G. Wodehouse) is stacked up next to the bookcase in the hallway, having been crowded out by the DVDs -- the reasoning being that the DVD boxes are slippery and the stacks fall over far too easily, whereas the books make a fairly sturdy pile which hasn't fallen over yet, despite being whacked now and then with the broom when I sweep.  (Pathetic, isn't it.)
8. Do you make a distinction--as regards book care--between hardcovers and paperbacks? Not usually, no.  It's more the book itself that qualifies it or not -- but even with books I don't like much, I am not careless.  It's either "careful" or "more careful"!  If I don't want it, it goes to the library booksale.
9. And, to recap? Naturally, you love all of your books, but how, exactly? Are your books loved in the battered way of a well-loved teddy bear, or like a cherished photo album or item of clothing that's used, appreciated, but carefully cared for? This question is making me think -- it's not the same as a comfort object, the way that Julia, for instance, carries her Lambie around by the tail, thoughtlessly but with a certain basic need -- it's not the same as clothing, in the way that some people have rooms dedicated to their wardrobe, climate-controlled and organized by color or purpose -- it's more like close friends, that you enjoy having them around, you are considerate of their "comfort" (having a good chair for them to sit on, and tea, or a sturdy shelf), you enjoy their company when they are around and think about them when they are not, you even introduce them to others because you think they'll get along well together.  You think all of a sudden one afternoon, "I haven't seen X in a while, I must call her!" or "Eva Ibbotson! I need to read her again!"  My books are in some ways extensions of myself, too, not just like friends who are the world coming to and interacting with me, in that the books that have spoken deeply to me at different parts of my life are in a way like my diaries, except with experiences that I didn't actually have myself.

Booking Through Thursday: Keeping it Simple

Booking Through Thursday writes, "Let's keep it simple today":

1. What are you reading right now?  I went to the library yesterday morning, and found on the new book shelf Scott of the Antarctic: A Life of Courage and Tragedy by David Crane.  I first learned about the story from watching "The Last Place on Earth", based on the book by Roland Huntford, and then from reading pretty voraciously almost everything I could find on the subject, I learned that the truth, as so often happens, was probably somewhere in between Huntford's inept bungler and the glorious hero of popular mythology.  (One of the best books that I read this past year was Sara Wheeler's Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, a fairly minor member of the Terra Nova expedition who afterwards produced one of the most lyrical works on polar exploration, The Worst Journey in the World.)  Crane is obviously, from the subtitle of his book, in the Scott camp, but he does have some interesting and perceptive things to say, in the first chapter alone, about the English character and its need for heroes in the early days of the twentieth century, with its inexorable slide towards the hell of the First World War.

I'm also well into Reading Like a Writer, by Francine Prose, a literate and elegant guide to the appreciation of great literature.

Booking Through Thursday: But Enough About Books --

But enough about books (for a while at least) -- Booking Through Thursday wants to know what else do you read?

Magazines? Newspapers? Professional journals? Cereal boxes? Phone books? Purchase invoices? Homework? (Please be specific. There may be a test later.)

My extra-book reading is rather staid.  I subscribe to a number of magazines, with a special fondness for what they call "shelter magazines" for some reason -- a less-inspiring name could hardly be found.  I get "Better Homes & Gardens", "Cottage Living", "Interweave Knits", "Martha Stewart Living", and "Real Simple", and I buy occasional issues of "Country Living" and "Natural Home" and other things that catch my eye here and there, if something in it is worth saving.  I have quite a weakness for the UK edition of "Country Living," too.  My mom gives me her old copies of "Sunset", which is one of my favorites.  Nothing literary, alas -- I keep hoping that "Civilization" will start showing up again.  I don't read parenting magazines anymore -- not that I know everything, I just don't have the time! -- although I did pick up "Wondertime" the last few months and found it very appealing.  I am very disappointed -- and told them so -- that Martha Stewart has decided to cease publication of "Kids," which I thought was a wonderful magazine and one of the few that I save whole.  I also read David's "National Geographic" and the "Westways" that comes with our Auto Club membership, and the girls' "Ladybug" -- we'll be adding to their list as birthdays roll by.  I'm looking forward to my Christmas present to David of "The Economist", for which we unexpectedly found a discount coupon in Laura's Brownie fundraiser!

I read the Los Angeles Times every morning, although to be honest I usually have time only to browse the front page, and read the local and Calendar sections, although I do love the Food and Home sections on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

I use to read cereal boxes a lot when I was a kid (Quisp! Cap'n Crunch!), but I usually eat homemade granola or toast for breakfast these days, so no boxes --

Booking Through Thursday: Men and Women

Booking Through Thursday asks a rather provocative question this week --

1. Do you tend to read more books written by one gender over the other? I haven't ever considered this!  Upon reflection, the last three books I've gotten from the library -- assuming that cookbooks don't count, although in the strictest sense of the issue, I suppose they should -- A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by William Shapiro, The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton by Kathryn Hughes, and Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen by Joanna Denny makes it two to one for the women. 
2. If so, which one? Men? Or women? Is this a deliberate choice? Or just something that kind of happened?  I am glad to say that I do not choose books on the basis of their author's gender, but instead on the interest said books may hold for me, the recommendation of another reader I trust (as a personal friend or as a professional reviewer), or on other writings by the author.  The only situation I can imagine where this might happen is that of encouraging certain categories of author, such as regional, cultural, maybe even occupational.  It doesn't seem to me, thank heavens, that women authors need that kind of promotion much these days.  That said, one of my favorite subjects is women's issues, but I don't consider the author's gender in the choosing, but whether he or she writes well, knows the subject, teaches me something that I didn't know before, and so on.
3. And (without wanting to get too personal), is this your gender?  I am in fact female.

As a postscript to this question, looking at my short list above, I did notice that of the three books I checked out from the library a few weeks ago, I bought the one written by a man after reading merely the first two chapters, finished reading one of the two written by a woman (the biography of Mrs. Beeton), and am seriously considering dropping the second of the two written by a woman (the Anne Boleyn biography) due to clumsy writing and egregious scholarship.

Booking Through Thursday: Reading Geography

The Booking Through Thursday questions for today are about the settings of books we read.

1. Have you ever wanted to travel to a place described in a book? If the author is good -- and there are so many who are -- every time.
2. Have you ever ACTUALLY travelled to a place because of the way it was described in a book? Where do I get the tickets for Middle Earth? or Victorian England?
3. And if so, did it live up to the expectations, feelings, emotions you expected from the book? Did you feel like Anne was going to come romping around the corner of Green Gables? Was it as if Jo was upstairs at Orchard House, scribbling on a story? Or was it just a museum, or just a city street? Like Abbey Road without the Beatles? The only actual "pilgrimage" I've made so far was to Hyde Park Gate in Kensington, to see the house where Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell grew up, and to Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex, where Vanessa lived for most of her life -- these were on my first trip to London.  Number 22 was rather different than I'd pictured it, since I'd never seen the rest of the street, and I'd imagined it with the noise of four young children, hackney cabs outside, and so on, but despite the unmistakeable aura of the late 20th century, I was not disappointed.  Charleston was pretty much everything I expected, although rather lonely without its residents and the smell of linseed and turpentine and tea.  And these are both, of course, settings more in the biographical sense, not fictional like Green Gables.  A place I would like to visit someday because of a particular author's novels is Moffat, in Dumfriesshire; D.E. Stevenson lived there for many years.

Photo from Visit Moffat, who although there is no mention of Stevenson, do include a lovely series of walks around the countryside, something very dear to her heart.

Booking Through Thursday: Planning Ahead

Booking Through Thursday wants to know if and how we plan ahead....

1. Do you plan ahead for your reading? Work off of a to-be-read pile? A reading list? Or do you wing it, choose whatever you're in the mood for?  A little of both, really.  I have a mental list of things that have piqued my interest, although since it is only in my head, I frequently forget what is on it, sometimes completely. 
2. If you do plan ahead, how far ahead? Do you have two or three books waiting in queue? Or are you backed up by dozens of volumes waiting their turn?  Well, I mean to plan ahead, but the road to, er, well, good intentions and all.  If I buy it, it goes into the queue, of course, and eventually gets read; sometimes I do have to browse around the shelves at home for something I've forgotten about, though.
3. If you do not plan ahead . . . well, never? What about if you're reading a series? Or someone gives you a book for a present?  I did actually plan ahead for Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, which I just finished -- I'd checked the library catalog regularly, and was just on the verge of paying my 75 cents for a reserve, when I found it on the shelf.  (I enjoyed the book, time-travel being something that intrigues me.  One of the first time-travel things I ever read was a short story by Jack Finney, I can't remember the title now, but it involved old postage stamps being used to send letters to the past -- not the usual time travel, but fascinating nonetheless.  I thought that Wife was intriguingly written, and had some interesting differences from other time travel stories, such as here that Henry cannot take anything with him, not even his clothes -- he even mentions glasses and fillings in his teeth at one point -- while in say, Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander" series the time traveler does not have this problem -- of course with her time travel is an external force, and with Henry it is internal.  And it was different especially in that usually traveling in time is something that people want to do, whereas here it is something Henry has no control over, and makes the story as much about people dealing with a chronic condition, like cancer or a stroke, as it is about the physics and mechanics of time travel.)

Booking Through Thursday: Ringing

Booking Through Thursday noticed last week what a disproportionate number of participants had Tolkien's Lord of the Rings either in their list of "most tattered" books or featured in the photos. So . . .

1. Have you read Lord of the Rings?  Oh, yes.


2. If so, how many times have you read it? Just once? Or so many you can't count?  Innumerable times.  Maybe it's time for a re-read, now that I think about it.


3. If not, why not? Not your cup of tea?


4. And, while we're on the subject, did you see the Oscar-winning movie(s)? What did you think?  Well -- I've talked about this before, oh, more than once, I see -- but now that a few years have passed, I feel that on the whole, while the movies were very good adaptations of Tolkien's books, and while I have enjoyed watching the movies a number of times, I felt a deeper connection to the "Narnia" movie than to the "Lord of the Rings".

Booking Through Thursday: Imperfection

Sorry, I was fantasizing so much about quilting that I forgot that it was Booking Through Thursday yesterday.

1. What is the most battered book in your collection? The one with loose pages, tattered corners, and page edges so soft that there's not even a risk of paper cuts anymore?  Oh, I love those soft edges! loose pages and torn dust jackets bother me (and so I mend them carefully), but I feel lucky to come across one with edges like velvet.
2. Why is this book so tattered? Is it that you love it so much that you've read it a zillion times? Is it a reference book you've used every day for the last seven years? Something your new puppy teethed on when you weren't looking?  I suppose that it's unfair to blame these books' decrepitude entirely on myself, as they are paperbacks of a certain age, with all of the brittle and yellowing paper that that implies.  But these three -- chosen at random from the first shelf I visited -- are some that I remember reading over and over again, and I'm surprised now that they are still relatively whole.  Princess Tales was a Scholastic purchase -- flyers were handed out regularly in school, and you could order a book or two and it would be delivered in class a week or so later.  I got this one in late elementary school, so I was around ten or eleven, I guess -- it cost sixty cents! -- it's one of the few I still have (the others are Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink, and a Romeo and Juliet with the lovely Olivia Hussey on the cover).  I wasn't princess-mad in the way that my own girls are today -- some girls I knew did have lots of frilly things like that, but it was generally a lot less widespread than it is now.  I loved the adventure, probably more than the romance, and the international flavor of this collection as well, with stories from England, France, Ireland, Morocco, and such, much like Andrew Lang's collections, which I also devoured at the public library.  (E. Nesbit's Melisande is still available in some places with lovely illustrations by P.J. Lynch.)  As a mother now, and a feminist, I appreciate the variety of characters I see in this collection, not the rather silly and ineffective ones like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, who simply wait around for the prince to save them or recognize their beauty, but ones like Jay Williams' "The Practical Princess," who does the rescuing herself, or bad-tempered ones like "The Princess and the Vagabone."  Much more interesting!  The Diary of Anne Frank needs no introduction from me, of course; this is probably the book that I reread most often as a teenager, and what started me keeping a diary at the tender age of twelve.  Every rereading brought something home to me -- the fact that teenagers could write so well, that I wasn't the only one with those kinds of feelings, the horrors of war and their price in human suffering.  (I have a lot to thank Anne for.)  I actually remember buying The Song of Bernadette, from one of those revolving wire racks, I think at the grocery store, of all places -- I was in high school, I guess, and already fascinated in a strange and inexplicable way by nuns and the monastic life (since I am not Catholic and am far too self-indulgent for such a life).  I read this book many times, and mended the bumped and rubbed cover carefully with Scotch tape.  Werfel wrote brilliantly, and I was impressed even then that a German Jewish man could so interestingly and effortlessly convey the story of a French Catholic girl.  (Another lesson most likely unlooked-for by the author, that people whom one wouldn't expect to understand things very often do.)

Booking Through Thursday: Perfection, Nonfiction, Rereading

I'm catching up this week -- three posts in one.

Booking Through Thursday this week is brought to you by Deb.

1. What is the most pristine, perfect book in your collection? The one that looks like it's never been opened (and in fact may never have been)? Whose binding is uncracked, the corners still perfect?  I don't think I've ever bought a book without opening it, and I rarely bring one home without at least perusing it that day, if not reading it fairly soon (although it may take a while for me to get started on it, to be sure).  I take good care of my books, even paperbacks, and so barring some unfortunate accident, they are generally in good condition.
2. Why is that book so perfect? Was it a gift? Is it a coffee table book too beautiful to use? Something you simply have no interest in and haven't bothered to open?  If a book is beautiful, then it deserves to be read, and I love looking at beautiful books; I also don't keep books I've no interest in.  The one in my collection in most pristine condition at the moment is probably the very newest, The Week-end Book edited by Francis Meynell.  It's a lovely little volume of chapters designed to fill one's week-ends in the country, something to stick in a pocket before a long walk, or leave on the nightstand and skim before bed.  There are identifcation guides for flowers and animal tracks and architecture and birdsongs -- including musical bars written-out -- recipes and poems and games and rounds to sing in the evenings, all written with exceedingly proper British prose and wit.  (I am very amused at the publisher's note on Amazon, "with various editions and altercations," though I suppose this was not on purpose.)  I've in fact gotten lost for the past ten minutes in the article on penmanship -- "PPS.  W.R. Lethaby once wrote: 'A common interest in the improvement of ordinary handwriting would be an immense disciplinary force; we might reform the world if we began with our own handwriting but we certainly shall not unless we begin somewhere'"!

The questions for the week of July 6 were suggested by Christine.

1. Do you read non-fiction books for pleasure, not counting books required for courses or for work?  Absolutely.  I used to read a lot more fiction, but for some reason, in the last five years or so if not more, I've gravitated more towards non-fiction.
2. If so, what areas of non-fiction interest you the most? If not, why not?  History (social history, more often than not) and biography, literary criticism.  I'm currently reading a paperback copy of John Guy's Queen of Scots, which I found in a box of stuff that my aunt was giving away.  The last biography of Mary that I read was Antonia Fraser's, some years ago, and although I tend to lean towards Elizabeth I's side of the story (if I have to choose sides atal), I still find myself fascinated by the goings-on in 16th-century Britain.  (The copy that I read was a library book that had been extensively annotated -- in pen -- by a rabid supporter of Mary, who made such vicious and copious notes in the margins that it quite colored my reading of the book and stands very clearly in my memory of it.  Funny, how such things can affect the reading of a book.  I felt quite defensive of Elizabeth.)

The questions for the week of June 29 were suggested by Marie.

1. Do you ever reread your books?  Oh, yes -- some more than others, of course.  But one of my criteria for buying a book is whether or not I intend/hope to read it more than once -- otherwise, it's a library read.  I found Anne Fadiman's Rereadings to be a fascinating look at this very topic, the rereading of long-ago favorites.
2. If so, which ones? If not, why not?  Novelists that I love -- D.E. Stevenson, Tolkien, Jane Austen, Eva Ibbotson -- nonfiction and biographies that inspire me (through the subject or the author's writing).
3. Do you read the books the whole way through or pick through for favorite scenes?  I don't often go straight to favorite scenes unless it's just to verify a quote or passage, in which case I don't consider that really rereading.
4. What qualifies a book for the reread pile?  Something that captures my imagination, whether through brilliant writing, locales I love, "kindred spirit" characters, it could be any number of things!