In case anyone’s looking for key reads for the fall, PW just posted the Man Booker longlist. The only one I’ve read is McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, which I enjoyed immensely. And even though I haven’t read it, I’m pleased to see Michael Redhill’s Consolation on there, which is a book that someone, somewhere made the argument that it’s the ultimate novel about Toronto, even if I can’t remember who said it or where I read it.
Hot Water – Hooray!
They came this morning and fixed the hot water tank, which was apparently never installed properly in the first place, so they need to come back tomorrow and fix the vents. This will cost us $400.00. Isn’t home ownership lovely?
However, nothing can dampen my mood today as I’m working from home for the first time in months with wide open windows, gorgeous sunshine outside, and the brilliant smell from the chocolate factory wafting in with each breath.
And in other good news, I got a new freelance gig that I’m pretty excited about but I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it too much before I actually hand in my copy. Needless to say, my mother would have been tickled pink, but more on that later.
Oh, and I’m pages away from actually finishing a book. A real book!
Quick Updates On The Fly
Our hot water tank broke this morning so my dream of having a lovely hot shower after four days up north at the cottage spilled out all over the cold, basement floor. This did not start off my day well.
As a result, no bike ride in because I was so late that my RRHB had to drive me to work. I hate driving to work.
I did not manage to finish a single book this weekend although I did watch Zodiac and half of Perfume. Well, that’s not exactly true, I read Dramacon, my very first manga, which was super-cute although I felt old just flipping the pages. Oh, and I also felt old because I had to learn how to read the books. Yes, even reading manga is a new experience for me. But the Tokyopop website is just so cool, isn’t it?
Now I’ve got conditioner in my hair, I’m exhausted because I just couldn’t sleep, and I wish I was still up at the cottage because the weather was just so luscious this weekend I didn’t want to leave.
How are all of you? I feel like the summer is whizzing by so fast that I haven’t had a moment to catch my breath.
The Girl Who Has Nothing To Say
I’ve been at a work conference since Sunday, and haven’t been home a single night this week to really blog, so here’s a quick catch-up:
1. My delicious RRHB downloaded (shhh) the current episodes of Rescue Me that have aired in the States on FX but won’t show in Canada until September. I do not feel remotely guilty about this for many reasons, the first of which being the evil company that ruined my life actually airs the show so bully on them. But most importantly, it’s an amazing show, one of my favourites, that gets me thinking about all kinds of issues and shocks me at every turn, and I simply could not wait. It’s beyond frustrating to try and avoid the spoilers, which is almost impossible if you move in the same virtual circles that I do, and try to be patient for months before the show airs here when he can click two or three buttons and we have the entire season almost at our disposal.
2. Men who walk around in my neighbourhood without shirts to show off their impressive physiques are somewhat like overly made-up ladies who wear white thongs under their white pants: they’re simply giving me too much information.
3. People who ride mopeds in the bike lane are annoying. Truly.
4. I’m in the middle of reading a book about email. It was given to us at work to help improve our email correspondence. Apparently, we get too much of it and it annoys some people. Okay, I’ll admit it, yes, I mocked the book when I saw it sitting on my little assigned seat. But I’m prepared to eat crow. Because it’s actually a really solid little book full of amazing tips and fascinating bits of advice. Oh, and now that they say that “Dear Comrade” has gone completely out of style, I’m on a mission to bring it back. Perhaps I’ll start each post with Dear Comrades…today I?
5. Dear Comrades: I certainly wish that I hadn’t shown up at the office on Sunday a full four hours before I was supposed to, regardless of how much work I managed to get done before our conference actually began.
6. I’ve been catching all kinds of sh*t for defending the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice. Apparently, being the last person on earth never to have seen the truly superior (or so I’m told) BBC version has opened me up for a world of ridicule my esteemed pop-culture brain just isn’t used to. What say all of you? How wrong am I to enjoy the latest version? Or do I hardly expect any of you to own to it?
D’Oh
On Thursday night we went to see a preview screening of The Simpsons Movie. As I’m not the biggest Simpsons fan in my household, that honour goes to the RRHB, who was quite excited that we got passes to a preview screening. It was at the CN Tower, which was a very strange place to see a film, but whatever, a free movie is a free movie.
And I don’t want to give too much away, especially about the funny gags and super-sharp writing, but will say this, if you’re any kind of fan, had seen the show at least once, and, well, don’t live under a rock, you’ll laugh. I mean, it’s basically an extended episode with some hijinks that aren’t suitable for prime time thrown in, and it was totally entertaining in all the right ways.
But if I had to be totally, totally honest, I’m pleased we got to see it for free because I’m not 100% sure that I’d pay full-price at the multiplex for it. Not that it matters as we paid just as much to park as we would have for the tickets anyway, so perhaps that’s a moot point.
Birth Day
Bittersweet are these days where you technically turn a year older but feel no different. Today is made even more bittersweet by the fact that I’m at work, which I have managed to avoid for five years of birthdays in a row.
Last year we were in NYC, which was amazing, and hot. The year before that I was in Paris and then Ireland, which was life changing, and hot. The year before that I was preparing for hip surgery and on the cusp of a nervous breakdown (silly boss from hell, sillier ragdoll for getting that caught up in the nonsense) but was on holidays and we went to see Spider-Man 2, and it was a wonderful day. Then I spent two weeks up at the cottage, which was amazing (even if I ruined my book club just prior to it. Don’t ask!). The year before that we were in PEI, and the year before that we were in California, which was also life changing and not the least bit hot, much to my surprise.
And so tonight we’re going to see a special screening of the new Simpsons movie, and to celebrate, I’ve created my avatar. The red shoes are an homage to Sam Lamb. While it’s a work day, and I’m not in Paris, or Ireland, or California, or at the cottage or on the east coast, it’s still something out of the ordinary, and by the time you get to be my age, isn’t that all that matters?
#49 – A Golden Age
I thoroughly enjoyed Tahmima Anam’s A Golden Age. Set in Bangladesh just as the war for their independence broke out in 1971, the novel centres around Rehana, a woman in her mid-thirties with two grown children (a son and daughter), and her struggle to keep her life together during the difficult times.
A Golden Age takes place in the town of Dhaka, which is technically East Pakistan to begin with before it Bangladesh. Tahmima Anam has a talent for bringing rich detail to the page that not only truly reflects the time and place, but also builds up an atmosphere around Rehana herself. She loves to garden, and therefore the landscape reflects that fact. She’s a widow, and despite having some hard times, manages to keep her family together throughout the struggle by building a house on her property that she rents out. But most of all, Rehana’s a mother, and the entire story with the novel bears witness to this fact.
One of the most interesting aspects of war fiction, if that’s even a genre, for me when it’s told from a female perspective, is how different the story remains. War on the home front may be worlds apart from where the front-line action might be (although the war touches Rehana and her friends directly), it still changes lives in ways that make it impossible to ignore. There is a subtle strength in Rehana’s character that reminds me of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Ramsay in a way, and the argument was made to me, many years ago during an undergraduate class in modernism, that To the Lighthouse should be considered a war novel. While I’m not sure if it’s an accepted reading of Woolf’s novel or not, the idea stuck with me, and that’s how I approached my thinking about A Golden Age, as if it too was a war novel in the purest of senses.
Like To the Lighthouse, there’s a building that Rehana rents out on her property called Shona that becomes a central character in the novel. As life in war is reflected by its inhabitants, and the house itself takes on a new personality. It’s a fascinating idea, I think, to imagine not only how characters feel the impact of war, from the blankets the women sew on top of Rehana’s roof for the refugees, to the pain and anguish she feels when her children become involved in various ways, but to also see what changes in the physical landscape beyond just craters made by bombs (Khaled Hosseini, I’m looking at you). Even a detail as simple as a bed that used to be used for a child has now been appropriated for other things makes you imagine war permeating every aspect of a life, and not just those lives on the front lines with the bullets.
Regardless, I wanted to read this novel because I didn’t have Bangladesh on my Around the World in 52 Countries list, and I’m so glad I got a chance to experience it. For a first novel, it’s really quite wonderful. It’s also exciting because HarperCollins Canada will publish the novel in Canada this January, and even though you could order it from Amazon, it’s actually worth the wait.
PHOTO IN CONTEXT: I left the book on the dock when we drove home and had to call my aunt to rescue it. The cover got a bit water marked (as it rained a bit, just a few drops) but I wanted to show the poor abandoned novel where it would have ended up had my family not shown it a little bit of kindness. And what a cold, cloudy day it was! Shockingly, it was first-thing in the morning when I took the picture. And the bits of wood everywhere are from Gordie, the dog, who loves sticks so much that it’s almost impossible to understand.
Life As I Know It Is Over
So I went to see the renal dietitian today, and she was perfectly pleasant, as many people I deal with are at the hospital. However, she has told me to stop eating nuts.
ENTIRELY.
On top of that, other things on the ‘must-go’ list include: juice (no more than a 1/2 cup a day), tuna sandwiches more than once every couple weeks, cheese (ack!), butter (which I only use to cook with) and muffins.
As I’m ‘high risk’ with this whole cholesterol thing because of the Wegener’s, I really need to crack down and deal with the situation but I do love almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts, pecans, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, all yummy, all out.
Like I said, life as I know it is over.
Sigh.
Cottage Redux
We’re up north this weekend where, you know the refrain, I’ll be reading and writing. Have a brilliant weekend all!
Ragdoll: The Icon
A friend over at McNally Robinson sent me the most delicious icon that I will now use on a regular basis. He had created a poster in-store to brand the ‘staff picks’ so you could always tell who was recommending which book. And the image to the left is the one that I choose.
How awesome is that? It’s me in t-shirt format.
And if you have a chance, play around with their new site, which launched today. It’s an amazing example of a store pushing the boundaries in terms of delivering content that’s relevant but also intent upon building a community around the books that they sell.