Review a book or talk about books in progress and the state of my reading plans for February? Well, since we are almost a week into the month, let’s talk about the latter. The book review can wait.
So for the last couple days I’ve been moaning quietly to myself about how January was a terrible month for reading, that I read hardly any of the books I planned to. Then I looked at my January plan and realized the month was significantly better than I thought. I finished four of the seven books I was in the middle of. Not bad, right?
The carryovers:
- The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker. Even though I like this book it keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the in progress pile. I mean, nothing against Pinker, but when it’s between him and Roxanne Gay, or him and Ann Leckie, or him and Patrick Rothfuss, Pinker loses every time. Right now he is losing out to Mallory Ortberg. I do want to finish the book, I really do.
- This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate Change by Naomi Klein. I got halfway through this very good, hefty book before I had to return it to the library because my three weeks were up and there is a long line for it. I checked the university library system where I work and there were a couple copies there checked out but with no holds and both due soon. So I put in a hold request. Now, a mysterious disaster has struck.
When I arrived at work Monday morning I discovered that the book was supposedly on the hold shelf at my library. Hooray! I went to retrieve it and it was not there. Hmm. The computer says the hold arrived on Saturday so I questioned my Saturday colleagues and none of them knew what I was talking about, there had been no book courier delivery on Saturday. So I emailed the circulation person at the library from which the book was sent. She checked her shelves. The book was not there. We thought perhaps a student worker had goofed and the book might still be in transit through the courier. Monday and Tuesday came and went and it still did not arrive. Today I sent out a system-wide email to all the library circulation departments asking if the book might have ended up on their hold shelves. Nope. So the book is AWOL.
Here’s the bad part, if the hold expires before the book makes its way to me, I lose my chance to have it and have to place a new hold. While there were no holds when I put one in a month ago there are now four hold requests for two books one of which is now AWOL. University checkout periods are much longer than at the public library. My fingers are crossed the book arrives before the hold expires and I have to get at the back of the line.
- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. If I hadn’t made it to part two of the book when I did, I was going to stop reading. The first part is so raw and horribly violent it was making me sick to my stomach reading it. People on my metro train were probably wondering what was wrong with that scowling person reading her Kobo. Was her breakfast not agreeing with her? Did she have a bad day at work? Even though I am past the first part, the book still presents a problem: I don’t like it. Intellectually, I can see why it is considered an important book. Emotionally it is all kinds of messed up. But I keep reading because intellectual me says my discomfort is probably a good thing. Thank goodness the book is short and I only have about 100 pages left.
Then there are the two ongoing project books: John Keats’ Complete Poems and Proust’s Guermantes Way (which is suffering from the same problem Pinker is).
Got all that?
Now for new books in February. I am laughing my way through Texts from Jane Eyre at the moment. I like to read it before bed. I have frequent outbursts of laughter and sometimes I interrupt Bookman’s reading to read to him. This book will probably be done by the end of the weekend. The next one that gets picked up will be Pico Iyer’s The Art of Stillness.
I just got notice today that waiting for me to pick up from the public library is On Immunity: An Innoculation by Eula Bliss. I’ve been waiting my turn since November and now my turn comes in the midst of an ever growing measles outbreak that began at Disneyland in California a couple weeks ago. I am safe from measles, I have been vaccinated against them twice. Once as a child and then again when I was 18 and heading off to college. At that time you had to provide proof of vaccination in order to attend and exceptions were rarely granted. For whatever reason my childhood health records did not show I had been vaccinated. The university needed proof in writing, not my mom’s solemn promise, and so I had to get vaccinated again. Ow. There’s a reason they give all these shots to kids, it’s so you don’t remember how much they hurt! The book will no doubt be even more interesting now given how relevant it is proving to be at the moment.
Finally, I have a new book to read and review for Library Journal. It is one that makes me very happy. It’s called First Ladies of Gardening: Pioneers, Designers and Dreamers by Heidi Howcroft. It is filled with gorgeous color photos of beautiful English gardens and teeny tiny print about the gardens and the women who created them. I began reading today and is it ever wonderful.
Well that should do it for February plans. Since it is still winter here I have lots of hours of reading under a quilt with the cats to look forward to.
Great reading plans ahead, Stefanie. What a timely read – On Immunity. You’ll definitely have to keep us posted on that one. I hope your AWOL book appears!
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Iliana, I know, I could not have timed the reading of On Immunity better. Serendipity. I hope the AWOL book appears too!
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Lots of good reading, sounds like. A Clockwork Orange was the only movie I ever walked out on. Could not take it. It was early ’70s. Anyway I was never tempted to read the book after that so I must give you kudos for finishing it and I look forward to your review when you do.
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Grad, I’m very excited about it, it’s good to be excited about reading 🙂 I will definitely not be watching the movie. Actual visuals of all that violence will definitely be more than I can take!
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That stinks about your AWOL book! Hope you find it quickly!
Our book group almost chose On Immunity as our February choice, but it lost out to The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Can’t wait to hear about it!
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Some good reading going on there. I haven’t read Clockwork Orange yet, look forward to reading what you think. Three weeks probably not enough to read a big book like the Naomi Klein…can you renew?
Recent reading includes a reread of the overlong but haunting Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel and an interesting mix of fiction/reportage called Tales From the Mall by Ewan Morrison. Both are books about modern life in modern Britain so utterly familiar and yet so alienated and strange. Mantel can make a place like Dorking seem one of the strangest places on earth…quite a feat!
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Ian, I could not renew the Naomi Klein book because it has 95 hold requests on it that’s why I’m distressed about the university copy going missing. Hopefully it will turn up!
Ooh, Beyond Black is a book I keep meaning to read. Since I know nothing about Dorking anything anyone says about it will seem strange and exotic to me 🙂
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Laila, I know! My fingers are crossed it turns up. I hope Girl on the Train turns out to be good. I’m looking forward to On Immunity because the whole anti-vaccination thing completely baffles me.
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You are brave to get through A Clockwork Orange – I never have. But Texts from Jane Eyre sounds hilarious! I’m also curious about the Naomi Klein, but what a pain that it has gone on its travels like that. Sometimes books just go mysteriously missing in the University Library here and it is the biggest pain ever. No, I’m really not exaggerating. 🙂
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Litlove, Clockwork Orange is so hard for so many reasons that have nothing to do with the Nadsat slang! After that sickeningly violent beginning I’m supposed to be horrified now about Alex being “conditioned” but I’m having difficulty mustering up any sympathy for him. Missing library books really are a big pain both when they are ones you want to borrow and when they are ones from your library that is part of your job to deal with their being missing. I get it from both sides! 🙂
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I look forward to hearing what you think of On Immunity. I read it a couple of weeks ago and it really gave me a lot to think about. I’m pro-vaccine (as is the author) and, I confess, the book didn’t make me any more sympathetic to the anti-vaccine group but it did help to understand all the cultural trends that feed into that movement. Biss does a great job of examining every aspect of the vaccine debate not just the science.
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Karen, I’m pro-vaccine too and I just don’t understand the anti-vaccine people either. So I’m glad to hear the book does a good job at looking at all sides of the debate.
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I saw “A Clockwork Orange” before I ever read it. We had to see it for a course I took in college, and I felt horribly sick throughout most of it, having never before then watched anything much more violent than “The Three Musketeers”. It was one of the most brutal films I ever saw, and yet I still think it’s one of the most important ever made. After having seen the movie (more than once, I might add. Call me a masochist, I guess), I didn’t find reading the book too bad. Just make sure you’re reading the uncut, original English version, because the original American version cut the very important ending, which changed the whole purpose of the book.
I certainly hope you find the Naomi Klein and get to finish it. Bob got that and has been reading at it and finding it very interesting, although given his passion for the subject, he says it’s mostly reiterating what he already knows.
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Emily, My version has the original American ending with the English ending included as an alternate ending. The editor has a big long explanation in the introduction about why he chose to do it that way. And good news! Naomi Klein got delivered to my library Friday about 30 minutes before I left for the day. It apparently had been sorted incorrectly and was making a tour of the Twin Cities in the courier bins.
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Oh you made me smile this morning, Stefanie. Do you laugh so loud that you think you need to be instructed in the Art of Stillness? 😉
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Cath, I think I just might! 😀
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I’ve never been able to face reading Clockwork Orange. There’s the slang thing and the violence thing, and I just always head off and read something else. I think the one circumstance in which I might read it would be if I were trapped somewhere with none of my own books, and the place where I was had only, like, Clockwork Orange and the Left Behind books or something. But I devoutly hope that scenario never comes to pass.
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What an eclectic book list. Imagine reading A Clockwork Orange and Guermantes Way at the same time. I’ve seen the movie A Clockwork Orange, it’s more graphic than the book. So maybe you should stick when the book. I’m sure it’s easier to finish than Proust’s… considering the length, not the violence. 😉
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Arti, oh yes, if the violence in the book is making me ill I will definitely not be seeing the movie since I am even more affected by visual depictions of violence. Proust is an interesting case since he often makes me want to do violence to him in this particular book!
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LOL! 😉
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Jenny, heh, Clockwork Orange or the Left Behind books, that would be a hard choice when forced to it! I hope you never are! 🙂
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I loved Texts From Jane Eyre! What a fun book. I read large chunks of it to my family on Christmas day, and they appreciated it too (or at least they humored me nicely). She captures the essence of so many books so well, or sometimes she undermines them or shows sides of them that aren’t obvious.
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Rebecca, it is a fun book and good fun books don’t happen very often. I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt compelled to share by reading aloud to others!
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I like the sound of First Ladies of Gardening–at first I thought it might be a nice companion to Founding Gardeners, but it looks like the first ladies aren’t the First Ladies–still, hopefully it has lots of lovely glossy photos! I am going to press on with the Burgess, too. I might as well try and keep the momentum up as well, but I suspect you will finish well ahead of me–I have three or four books I seem to be forever chipping away at and maybe someday soon I will finish one! 🙂 Happy February reading–looks like you have lots of good books to keep you occupied while you are stuck in side.
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Danielle, heh, wouldn’t that be cool? No, this is about the quintessential English garden and the the women gardeners both professional and amateur who made and continue to make it great. Lots of drool worthy photos! Definitely lots of reading to keep me occupied!
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Don’t rely on those immunisation shots! There was an article in our press last week revealing that the great and the good got it wrong with this year’s flu jabs and only 3% of us had actually had effective medication. All that pain, not to mention 48 hours of flu like symptoms, for nothing!
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Alex, the measles vaccine is a pretty sure bet at this point. The flu, on the other hand, as you point out, not so much. While I am pro-vaccine, I don’t get flu shots every year. I can’t remember the last time I even had the flu and my own doctor told me that even when they get the mix right it’s only about 40% effective.
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