My Plastic Life

We watched a documentary over the weekend about plastic bags. For the most part, I’d like to think I’m a responsible shopper — I tote around a canvas bag wherever I go, we use those giant recycled plastic ones at the grocery store, and we attempt to recycle everything we possibly can. And yet, the facts from that one-hour doc were so upsetting that I’ve been thinking about it for days. Canadians use 6 billion plastic bags a year, and less than 1% of these are recycled or reused. The rest go into landfills. And this got me thinking about My Plastic Life, how much of the stuff I use on a daily basis and make a list to see where I can cut back and/or down:

1. Plastic bottles for shampoo, conditioner and body wash. Last year Zesty took me to Costco around this time and I bought a MASSIVE bottle of shampoo that I used for about ten straight months. Considering that’s one bottle versus many smaller bottles, maybe I’ll have to see if I can tag along again.

2. Plastic water bottle: this is already reusable, so I think I’m okay there.

3. Plastic wrap for all of the fruit & veggies from the grocery store, the farmer’s market, and from Whole Foods. Everything I pack a lunch in is plastic, but reusable, so that’s something, but still — I haven’t even gotten on my bike yet and I’ve already used plastic every step of the way.

4. Water bottles and plastic bags all strewn on the side of the road (when I started this post the garbage strike hadn’t even begun; now it’s even worse). None of these are directly my fault but I’d never really LOOKED before. Now I notice them everywhere.

5. Plastic hair clip.

6. I’m sure there’s plastic in my keyboard. What else is it made out of?

7. My phone too.

8. Plastic water glasses and container (both made in China) for drinking water at work. Again, I use these everyday and have stopped buying water bottles altogether. Do I get a pat on the back for that at least?

9. Whew. Wax paper for my bagel and a brown paper bag. Both of which can go in my green bin.

10. Plastic pens.

11. Wait. My glasses are also plastic.

12. And so on…

I’m not even at 11 AM and I’ve already used plastic in every single inch of my daily life. Where do I start? And how do I make a change? The #1 thing I’m going to do is start taking containers to the farmer’s market instead of just bringing my cloth shopping bags. But that’s such a small change — and I’m afraid it simply won’t make any difference whatsoever.

Anyone else have suggestions? How do you work on cutting excess plastic out of your life?

#35 – Dune Road

I’ve been conflicted over the last few days about whether or not to create a post for Jane Green’s latest book, Dune Road. There were two things I liked about the book — the attempt to move beyond generic chicklit into a more mature story and it’s perfection for an easy read if you’re sitting on the beach for an afternoon. That said, there were a lot of problems with the book too. Continuity (or lack thereof) really makes me crazy, both in film and in fiction, and when authors repeat themselves, use the same cliches to describe multiple situations, add in unnecessary and completely irrelevant scenes, I get a little frustrated. So much about Dune Road could have been better — that’s not to say that it’s bad — but there are too many characters with too disperate storylines that don’t always connect. Simply, there’s just too much going on in this book and had Green slowed down and tackled maybe just one relationship instead of four or five, Dune Road would have been all the better improved by it.

But maybe I’m putting too much pressure on a book that’s clearly meant to be escapist in terms of its read. The novel tells the story of divorcee (she’s in her early 40s) Kit Hargrove and her family, which includes her ex-husband, two kids, a mother, and surrogate mother (her next door neighbour) as she navigates her new life. That means finding a new love (but can he be trusted?), a new job (as an assistant to a best-selling but secretive novelist with a tragic past akin to Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood), and finding her way to happiness. Accompanying her on this journey are her two best friends, Charlie and Tracy, who each have their own complex stories that further complicate both the novel and Kit’s life. The book throws in multiple mysteries, then tops them off with various cliched happenstances (long-lost relatives; shady pasts; soap opera love affairs) and tosses all of this about like a salad hoping a novel appears.

Primarily what the books could haved used was a bit of editing. Please let’s not use the exact same phraseology to describe more than one relationship. Please don’t introduce characters with vivid backstories who have absolutely no relevance to the central storyline. Please take more care to introduce shady characters who actually appear in the novel. More action, less telling, and for goodness sake, why not make it a triology — exploring each character: Kit, Charlie and Tracy in a full-length book so we feel at least satisfied that we, as readers, are getting the whole story.

In general, I can accept commercial fiction as it is — fun, frivolous and frothy. That’s why I whip through these books at lightning speed when I need a bit of a holiday from the tedium of everyday life. Remember, I’m nothing but a sappy girl at heart, as I’ve said many times in the past, but I also enjoy and am consistently impressed by writers who take up the challenge of moving beyond the cliches and the “read it all befores” to kickstart a genre that’s truly in need of a little facelift. I’ve been consistently disappointed with my latest chicklit reads, and have honestly enjoyed some of the Harlequins I blurbed over the last year far more. They may be predictable (as was this novel), but at least they feel a little bit more honest in terms of using their formulas in new and innovative ways.

However, I don’t want to end on such a negative note. I was sucked in from the very beginning of this book and read it over the course of a day. I even took the long way home via the TTC so I could get in a few more moments with the characters. There’s something special in a writer who can convincingly pull you along until the end of the book — someone who creates emotional lives for her characters in a way that you are consistently empathizing versus sympatizing, which for me, is always a richer reading experience. All in all this is a very good book for me to pass along to my adorable mother-in-law who broadly reads this kind of woman’s fiction. I think she’d like it very, very much.

To Be Or Not To Be

Thoughts of BookCampTO are still funneling around my head, and one in particular — Mitch Joel (@mitchjoel) (much quoted and oft-called upon) after stating a very obvious fact that authors should come to their online presence with a strategy and not feel they need to jump into every social media avenue available to them, said something akin to: “What does it mean if you’ve only got three followers on Twitter? You suck.”

By definition then, little old me with my barely 130-odd followers, sucks. My teeny little book blog has never exploded or made me rich. It’s never gotten me a book deal. I barely have 6 followers (I think). So overall, does my online persona suck balls in his eyes? Is audience the only thing that matters? Is my platform over even before it began? I was having a crisis of online consciousness after hearing that because deep down I’ve never put the words up here for anything other than the pure pleasure of typing one letter after the other.

Maybe that’s short-sighted of me. Another friend at BookCamp TO mentioned that she was going to spend the good part of the upcoming year just ‘getting her name out there.’ And I do recognize the importance of putting yourself forth as an expert, as someone with valuable opinions to share, as someone with thoughts that are worth expressing, and I did some of that this weekend.

However, I’ve been hiding behind a “pen name” for years, never wanting my online life to converge with my offline life. I enjoy the bliss of anonymity. But it’s been years since I published anything under “ragdoll” — it was a holdover from the years of recapping at Television Without Pity. And then came the Boss From Hell incident where I did a lot of complaining after I lost a job I wasn’t all that fond of anyway. The need not to get sued (as dooced was no longer an option) was foremost in my mind. Now my online life and offline life are so mixed up there’s no easy way to keep them separate.

I was afraid of speaking up at BookCampTO simply because I like being a little behind the scenes. I like thinking what I think and sharing those opinions with like-minded individuals who love me for who I am not what I do. Anyone who was there knows that I got over that rather quickly and couldn’t quite help myself but to open my mouth and let some thoughts spew forth. So maybe I need a bit of a retool, a bit of a rethink, maybe I need a 2.0 or a 3.0 version of myself that’s not afraid to step from one side of the internets to the other worried that people will find out that I type more often than I think.

But then, Sassymonkey’s intelligent and thoughtful post “Can’t we just stop with “right” and “wrong”” also got me thinking yesterday that maybe Mitch Joel, as smartypants as he is, perhaps spoke a bit too quickly — that there’s nothing wrong with having three followers if you’re happy and pleased with your online life. That if you enjoy using the technology and its ability to add value to your life, that’s all that matters. Not all of us are here to find a way to do much more than say what might be on our minds. Even if it is behind a cloak of a poorly conceived moniker that came out of hearing a truly awful Aerosmith song that was stuck in one’s head for far longer than it should have been.

So, I don’t think I’ll take the “ragdoll” off the site any time soon. I mean, truly, all I want to do here is talk about good books. And I think that’s probably okay, right?

#34 – Love Begins in Winter

From the P.S. Section of Simon Van Booy’s collection of short stories, Love Begins in Winter, I learned he’s a solitary writer. Not that writing isn’t always a solitary act, but that he actively heads out of town and travels alone specifically so he can conceptualize a story before he puts it down on paper. His writing embodies the nature of this travel — it’s touched with the insights of a keen observer but not without a haunting sense of loneliness, one that informs every character that comes alive throughout the five stories.

Each has its basis in a love story, whether it’s traditional or parental, love in its various forms remains the central theme of each piece. Entire lives are defined by it, or the absence of it, and as his characters come to find it, unexpectedly in most cases, love changes them in not-so subtle ways. Setting informs every inch of this book — it’s rich in its description, from the rain on the streets of Sweden to the snow in Quebec, you get the feeling that the author, and not just the characters, have walked the streets, lain in the cold white sheets of the hotels, and explored every inch of what’s detailed.

Poets have such a way with prose. I know we take that forgranted, that poets actually know what to do with language, but sometimes they stumble over the longer form (I’m sorry Anne Michaels, I am sorry to say that outloud; I know you are beloved), and get lost in trying to find the right words. And yes, what Van Booy does with language is breathtaking. I’m forever impressed by writers who can create a vivid character, a vivacious situation, with just one sentence, and this book was full of moments that made me hand the book over to my RRHB and say, “see, THIS is how I feel.”

I’m a romantic at heart. I wept at the sickly-sweet ending of the utterly terrible He’s Just Not That Into You. I stumble over cliches of chicklit, and often find myself welling up even though I know I’ve read it all before. But here, in Love Begins in Winter, I’ve never come across love in quite this way before — never stretched it out like a road underneath a motorcycle or jumped with it off a cliff as a backstory, and it’s refreshing to see how it changes Van Booy’s characters when it appears in front of them whether they’re expecting it or not. Walter the Irish-Romany’s knees get a little weak but pages later you see how true love vests itself into his life. George gets a letter in the mail and it changes his life forever, and for the better. And if you’re patient, and read this book slowly, carefully, you can’t help but get swept away in the romance of it all, at least I couldn’t.

READING CHALLENGES: The “Summer is Short. Read a Story.” challenge for work. Next up is actually trying to finish Sarah Waters’ latest novel, and hoping that it doesn’t continue to put me to sleep at the turn of every single page. Zzzzzzzz. Wait? What?

NOT FOR A WHOLE POST, BUT STILL: Speaking of romantics, I finished Gemma Townley’s latest novel, A Wild Affair (#35) and have to admit that I wasn’t as enamoured as I usually am with her books. The plot seemed really contrived and her usual way of writing smart situations within a genre that really exploits cliches just wasn’t there. On the whole, I’m not sure if the Jessica Wild character is someone to hang a series of novels upon, and the “twist” felt more like a plot necessity than a life-shattering event. However, I still adore her, and highly recommend her chicklit as a cut above many of the other writers attempting the same kind of fiction.

BookCamp TO

Giving up a hard-earned Saturday isn’t always easy, and I’m so glad that the experience of BookCamp TO made it worthwhile. Billed as an unconference, Book Camp TO brought together a wide variety of bookish folks, some from the big publishers like me, some from smaller publishers, some writers, some marketers, the list goes goes on, for a day of discussion around the future of book publishing. In a way, I think it would be worthwhile for us to move past the idea that the future is coming and just accept the fact that the future is here. It’s not something we need to bemoan or begrudge, but look at and decide what we want to do in terms of what’s right for any particular author or business.

The biggest takeaway for me from the day would be a point that @janinelaporte made early in the day: “content is content and it doesn’t matter how you get it, just that you get it.” I’m in a unique position, having come up through the ranks of online vs. general publishing, accepting the fact that content is malleable has never been an issue for me. The fact that people can read in so many different ways isn’t a threat, it’s an opportunity, and ensuring that we figure out the right way for everyone to get paid, the possibilities are limitless. We spend too much time as an industry (forgive me, but it’s true) whining about the death of traditional publishing.

Again, maybe it’s just my sunny personality (not, yawn) but I’m really tired of all the complaining. Book sales are up in Canada. Anyone who takes the TTC knows that there are at least 7-10 people in each car with an open book on their laps (I am usually the only one with a Sony Reader). Mobile devices and downloadable reading applications are the fastest growing segment in that industry. Sure, we don’t have a Kindle yet, but even the hint of a story that Indigo intends to create their own device has me all atwitter. Never before in the history of the bricks and mortar business has such innovation made such evolution possible. We just need to get over the mindset that we’re in the book industry and not in the business of creating content.

That doesn’t mean that all of our authors are commodities, nor does it mean that books as they have existed will cease to exist, but simply that we need to explore the opportunities of doing things differently. Why can’t we celebrate this fact? Why are we always focusing on what we’re doing wrong and what we’ve lost (who actually misses that Globe stand-alone Books section please raise your hand?) instead of imagining all of the great stuff that’s going to happen once we make that simple shift in conception? Authors are important. Books are important. None of that is going to change by the nature of how one gets their content, whether it’s a mobile phone or a magazine. Whether they’re listening to it via an iPod or whether they’ve cracked the spine on a freshly bought tome from Book City. I want it all to survive. In fact, I’ve staked my family’s livelihood on that fact that it will — or else what am I even doing in the business in the first place?

I had so many interesting conversations on Saturday that trying to dispel them into one singular blog post might not be helpful, but for me, the best part of the day was hanging out with smart, interesting, intelligent people who all feel passionately about the survival of books in general. And if anything, I learned that my unique position: as an author, as a blogger, as a person who works at a publishing company, has knowledge that’s actually worth sharing. Funny thing, that.

Summer is Short. Read a Story. (#s 32-33)

I am very excited about a fun campaign we’re running at work called “Summer is Short. Read a Story.” Celebrating much-beloved but hard-to-sell short story collections for the summer months got me thinking about two books I finished recently: Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge and Gil Adamson’s Help Me, Jacques Cousteau. Both books contain a series of linked short stories that have female protagonists: the former centred around an aging (and then retired) 7th grade teacher (the Olive Kitteridge of the book’s title) and the latter around the ever-growing Hazel. Authors Adamson and Stout (who just won the Pulitzer for Olive Kitteridge), while different in terms of their style and substance of their stories, have uncanny talents for characterization. They can sum up a character — their habits, their emotions, their intentions — often with just one heartbreaking sentence that seems to epitomize good writing. It’s something I admired while reading both books over the past week.

Olive Kitteridge lives in a small-town in Maine, her husband was a pharmacist and her son grows up to be a podatrist, and neither truly lives up to her expectations. People in town are as kind to Olive as they are critical, and she’s a presence in every single story, whether it’s from the point of view of her husband or her neighbour. Each perspective adds a little bit more to her character, unravelling Olive like an onion until the final sentences of the book open her up to the core.

Echoes of small-town life can be found in Gil Adamson’s stories as well, Hazel, who we see grow up from a young girl into a young woman, copes with the pressures of family life. Whether it’s crazy uncles, oddish grandparents, fathers who can’t stop tinkering or mothers who feel that they made a wrong turn somewhere, she grows up with a wild and unwieldy cast of characters who inevitably shape who she is as a person.

My reaction to both of these books was emotional — I fell a little bit in love with these two main characters, Hazel for her rough and tumble time with adolescence and the pains that accompany growing up, and Olive for her tough-talking, no-nonsense approach to life that ultimately ends up alienating her from so many people that she loves. Modern life bleeds so many different colours, from rationalizing long-term relationships, their success or failure, from expectations we have for ourselves and how they change to the complex relationships between parents and children, and these two works explore these themes with a keen and affecting eye for detail and determination.

Highly recommended reads.

READING CHALLENGES: Help Me, Jacques Cousteau is the 12th title I’ve read for the latest Canadian Book Challenge. And, well, Olive Kitteridge is an award winner so maybe I’ll create a new challenge for those, unless on already exists?

WHAT’S UP NEXT: I’ve started Denis Johnson’s Nobody Move, Frances Itani’s Leaning, Leaning Over Water and am halfway through Sarah Waters’s latest novel, The Little Stranger. But Vanity Fair also beckons — somehow I can’t resist spoiled rich kids in Sofia Coppolla-inspired photo joints coupled with the Kennedys and more Bernie Madoff revelations. I mean, I’m only human people.

#31 – Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

When I first started to work at Random House, I spent a lot of time getting to know the lists. It’s not something that happens organically until you’ve worked at a publishing house for a while, and so I spent a lot of time combing through blogs getting to know the books. One of the first authors that I discovered was Alexander McCall Smith, and I started to read the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, quite simply because Sarah W had said so many nice things about the series that my curiosity was piqued. But the books are so short and easy to read, which meant that I devoured about six of them before feeling like I’d eaten too much candy: a little upset in the stomach but still somewhat high on the sugar.

Then, the TV show came along and I was worried, at first, that they wouldn’t be able to capture the spirit and essence of the books. They did. Completely. Which meant that this weekend as the show came to a close, I was left without my weekly dose of Mma Romotswe. Well, that just won’t do, so I picked up McCall Smith’s latest book, Tea Time for the Traditionally Built. And it’s just as sweet as the six or so other books I’ve read. The central mystery revolves around Mma Ramotswe discovering the reasons why a local football (read: soccer) club keeps losing matches, fixing up Mma Makutst’s love life (oh Phuti!), and figuring out what strange noises the little white van is making and why. The themes that are present in each of the other novels are present: a strong moral sense, defining people by how they are treated and treat one another instead of their social and/or monetary status, simple solutions to complex problems. What’s also present is Mma Ramotswe’s particular talent of coming to conclusions that are both full of common sense and sassy smartness that you wish you had a No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency to figure out your life.

If I have one (slight) criticism, it’s that all of the books are essentially the same: local mystery, personal problem (either Mmas) that needs sorting, and larger life lesson. Yet, this is the very sameness I craved this week while feeling terribly unwell. Familiar characters, familiar situations. The experience of reading these books is akin to watching every episode of ER or Law & Order. And I know a lot of the repitition is for the people picking up the series halfway through…so really, it’s not a true critique of the novels themselves.

The book was delightful, I mean, of course it was — it was just what I needed this week and my only complaint was that I read it too fast. Yesterday as I was waiting for the very late TTC, I finished this book, read the P.S. section of Bonjour Tristesse, and bemoaned the fact that all of my electronic reading gadgets had run out of juice. There’s nothing worse than being a reader caught with no words to feast her eyes upon.

READING CHALLENGES: AMS was born in Zimbabwe. And he’s actually the first African novelist I’ve read in ages for my Around the World in 52 Books challenge.

NOT WORTHY OF A FULL POST NOTE: I also read #32 this week — Pillow Talk by UK chicklit author Freya North. The story was sweet, and I’m not going to lie, there were places where I actually teared up, even if I did get a little embarrassed by a couple throbbing members along the way.

WHAT’S UP NEXT: Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge.

#30 – Bonjour Tristesse

Francoise Sagan published Bonjour Tristesse when she was just eighteen years old. Precocious, intelligent and hideously spoiled, the novel’s heroine, Cecile, leaves Paris to spend the summer on the coast of the Mediterranean with her father and his mistress, Elsa. As Cecile describes, “The first few days were dazzling.” Romance floats by on a boat carrying a young man named Cyril, and the two begin a love affair. Her days are carefree until her father, a bit of a playboy who has never settled down, invites a friend, Anne, to come and stay with them as well. 

Anne and Elsa are as different as two women can be, and what starts off innocently soon morphs into a love triangle that Cecile manipulates from her position as daughter, lover and friend. Spoiled and used to getting her own way, Cecile isn’t happy with a very specific turn of events so she does everything within her adolescent power to impose her will upon the adults. Her childish actions have very grown up consequences, and not a single person on that dazzling vacation walks away unscathed. 

The novel is short, succinct, and the narrative style reminded me a little of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Cecile’s own short fallings are endearing, and the entire book makes you long for those days when you were foolish enough to act upon your feelings every single moment of every single day. The P.S. section in my copy contained an interview with the author as well as a truly captivating essay about driving — just perfect for the start of summer when all I can think about is taking a road trip and spending hours in the car just driving, not really caring if I get anywhere in particular. 

READING CHALLENGES: Sagan was born in France, so that takes care of that country for Around the World in 52 Books. Reading her novel made me long for Paris, because it was just about a year ago that I was there with Sam. Also, Bonjour Tristesse is on the 1001 Books list, so that’s two challenges with one short page count (130!).

#29 – Brooklyn

Weeks have passed since I finished reading Colm Toibin’s ridiculously fabulous new novel, Brooklyn. When the book arrived in the mail, I let it sit on my desk for a couple of days because I knew it was one of those books that once I started reading, I wouldn’t be able to put it down. Both of Toibin’s previous books were equally excellent but Brooklyn is hands down my favourite. In fact, I’m going to say that it’s probably the best book I’ve read so far this year. 

Eilis has spent her entire life in the village of Enniscorthy where she spends her days taking bookkeeping classes and her nights being ignored by local boys at local dances. She lives in the shadow of her successful, poised, well-dressed older sister Rose, who has built an existence for herself in the small town with a good job and a passion for golf. When a priest from Brooklyn comes to visit and offers Eilis the chance at a new life — a job, a place to stay, a world away from Enniscorthy — and she takes it. After all, both of her brothers have left to make their fortunes in England, and Rose does nothing but encourage her to take the chance. 

In Brooklyn, Eilis finds herself, she works hard as a shop girl during the day, and continues to learn bookkeeping at night. Simple goals, but all within reach. And her life truly opens up when she meets Tony. Her homesickness has passed, and despite the moral strictness of 1950s America (not to mention Ireland), Eilis actually feels happy until tragedy brings her home. Everything is different now. Eilis is different, changed, more confident, schooled, and experienced, which leads her to a crossroads. Does she stay in Enniscorthy or does she return to Brooklyn, to Tony?

The story reads overtly simplistic when you think about it — a coming of age tale, an immigrant’s experience — but Toibin’s skill at telling it remains unwavering throughout. His language, his ability to cast the characters, to explore their emotional situation without ever having them openly express an emotion stunned me. What more can you ask of a book than it be a well told story with well developed characters who make a choice that ultimately defines their life in the end? How many young girls emigrated, found themselves away from home, unhappy, and then surprisingly ensconced in a new life that widens their world? 

Eilis doesn’t always make the right decisions. Her human flaws are always apparent. Yet, her story has you engaged from the very moment the novel opens with the simple action of her watching Rose come home from work. If anyone out there has read and hasn’t fallen completely in love with this novel as I have, I will swear right now that we can never be friends. 

READING CHALLENGES: I’m counting Toibin as my Irish entry for Around the World in 52 Books. It’s also #1 so far in terms of the 30-odd books I’ve read so far this year…

Stunned And Stumped

We’re still missing our desktop. Luckily, a darling old friend has fixed it for us, but we forgot the power cord, which means we’re still on the laptop. That’s not a bad thing. But it’s strange to be so without what you’re used to. Freelance is piling up. Blog posts are piling up. Life is piling up. Today my electronic gadgets all died on the way home as I had just finished my book — that meant I had nothing to read while waiting and waiting and waiting for a Tamil-stopped streetcar. 

This morning, I woke up at 4:36 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. Good for the garden, because it meant I had time to head outside before getting the morning routine started, and water the plants with the rain barrel versus the hose. Bad for actually being awake. The day started and ended off in a haze… and now I’m sucked into the last episode of America’s Next Top Model.