The Freckled Diaries

More Books

Hey, look. I updated my Shelfari. I'm actually not reading any of them at the moment, as at least one of them is not yet published (the one I'm looking the most forward to but which Shelfari for some reason won't let me place at the top---"Faithful Place" by Tana French). But this is The Plan for winter break/Christmas.

So #1 is Faithful Place because I LOVED the first two books Tana French wrote. Please check them out. They don't have to be read in order because they're not technically a series but they do have the same characters....yeah. Anyway. First "In the Woods", then "The Likeness". You (probably) won't regret it, even if you don't normally like mysteries.

#2 I'm most looking forward to is "The Song is You" mainly because my favorite work of contemporary fiction is "Prague: a Novel" and this is by the same author (Arthur Phillips) and has gotten rave reviews. I think that for me it will be very hard to top "Prague" but we shall see.

#3 is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because I started reading it this summer but had to return it to the library when I was only 50 pages in (there was a queue behind me and I couldn't renew). Lesson learned: don't check out 5 books at a time, you'll never finish them all! I liked what I'd read, but I have to say I don't see what all the fuss is about. Then again, I only got 50 pages in.

#4 is Sorting Things Out because I like that kind of non-fiction (popular non-fiction about odd topics--like "Cod: the Biography of the Fish That Changed the World"), but this is about classification! Go librarians!

#5 is the Quiet American because I've been meaning to read that since before we went to Vietnam (oops....). My cousin managed to accomplish this (or read it while we were there?) and loved it and insists that I will, too. And I stayed at that hotel (the one in which it is largely set, I understand). That and it's kind of a modern classic, and while Greene's not quite one of the Lost Generation modernists (or is he? is Evelyn Waugh?... surely not, right? maybe straight-up modernists? ack, it doesn't matter and I wasn't an English major anyway), I kind of get the impression that many of the things I appreciate about Hemingway and Fitzgerald and company I would like about Greene. I'll let you know how that theory turns out.

So that's it. I've updated the Shelfari. After....a year? I've been busy.

Edited to add....alright so The Quiet American didn't show up, but Barbara Kingsolver's new one did. I just like her and have lots of her books on the "To Read" list. This one may or may not make it. Greene gets a bump. But I can't make Shelfai cooperate. Stupid Shelfari.

Midterms

They've been keeping me kind of busy.  I finished reading The Future of the Past, and think that everyone else should too.  But it's not just me.  Check out this reiview, it does a good job of giving you an idea of what it's about, what it's like and how awesome it is.  NYT review.

Anyaway, I read it, I wrote my own report about it, which to be honest I didn't do nearly as good of a job as I'd wanted to but I was so engrossed in the book I kept putting it down to kind of think about things, or look things up and it kind of blew my time management plan for the whole thing (which, again to be honest, was "ambitious" at best in the first place...).  So yeah, that was done. Had a long quiz/short test sort of thing in History of the Book, aka the class I cannot possibly get enough of.  Pretty sure I got more than 100%.  I'd be shocked if I got less than....95% on the main part (and less than 100% would be a bit of a surprise) and then I had time to answer all five extra credit questions, all of which I'm fairly certain I got correct so...yeah. Sitting pretty there.  The professor is always like "well we don't have time to go over X in detail, which I'm sure you're all happy about" and I'm sitting there like "Nooooo!  We'll stay!  Go over it!" (I don't actually say it but I'm thinking it, emphatically, and attempting to transmit it telepathically).  Tonight, after class the professor and I had a nice little chat about the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age (geology classes undergrad) and their effect on the development of movable type.  It's like nerd summer camp, I swear.

In other news, I have now been indirectly (or directly depending on your outlook) prayed for by not one but TWO Popes, which is pretty cool.  My Uncle Terry met Pope John Paul II several years ago and asked him to pray for his family (of which I am a member).  And just a few weeks ago, Mr. Pat Troy himself (proprietor of my local pub, and a perpetual thorn in the side of Ballyshanner officers) met Pope Benedict the....whatever number we're on with the Benedicts (bad, Catholic, bad!) and had with him a list of his family, friends, employees and (oddly) Ballyshanners to pray for and, well, I was on that one too.  So, looks like it's Heaven for me ;).  

This, by the way is also, the same Mr. Pat Troy who worked as a butler at some castle in Ireland which entertained royaltyand then moved moved to the US where he worked for some fancy family in Georgetown (I don't know which but I have my suspicions, and they're pretty big figures in American history) and has stories about when "Jack and the kiddies" would come over for dinner.  Jack being JFK and all.  Then the man opens a bar/restaurant, and who shows up on St. Patrick's Day but Ronald Reagan.  He's met something like 7 sitting and former Presidents (how, I'll never know) and just recently got a private audience with the Pope.  Oh, and, my personal favorite story... he was on What's My Line in the 60s and met John Daly, Bennet Cerf, Arlene Francis and all them.  And stumped the panel. Oh, and he has the Irish flag that was flown at the North Pole a few years ago too.  Like, just random, weird, Forrest Gump kind of stuff.  Someone needs to get this man's memoirs stat. 

So, that's about it.  Rough draft for big assignment due Wed, an exam next week (midterms have been super spread out, and all classes have both a project and exam).  

And I'm still all silly and girly and giddy.  I feel about 14 years old.  It's nuts.

Never saw the video for the song before.  Kind of disappointed with it.  Seems to take away from the song, for me, seemingly the only one of the so-called "MTV Generation" who never saw MTV.

Books and Moving Galore

So it's that time.  Yes, finally after nearly two full months of trouble and strife (and three years of living in this apartment), I'm packing up and moving out.  I still have mixed feelings on the subject but won't linger too long on the bad because honestly I have the night before Christmas feeling about the whole deal--I'm really looking forward to the new place.  I suppose my desire to stay is tied up with a lot of "ifs".  If my neighbors didn't suck, if my landlord wasn't a jerk (I didn't like the neighbors or the landlord for a good long while before all this), if a whole bunch of other things.  Basically, I love this physical space and geographic location but I really don't like all the BS that comes along with it.

So anyway.  Moving.  Sunday is packing day, Monday is moving day. 

Today is a busy day that I'm going to have to get done on no sleep (I'm a difficult sleeper to begin with--stress and an almost totally flexible work and school schedule does nothing to help that fact).  I have to: drop the kitties off at the vet where they will remain until about Thursday (depending on how fast I get the place painted).  I also want to meet with the vet about various and sundry issues I have--namely the fact that she's now terrified me that I've gone and given them heartworm and I'm scared and that they are due for a teeth cleaning but I'm scared of anesthesia which is apparently necessary for the teeth cleaning experience.  Then, I'm off to the National Book Festival which (a) I want to go to because a favorite author of mine is going to be there and (b) I have to go for a class assignment (long story from History of the Book and author-reader interactions and public performances of literary works etc).  That's from 10-2.  At 3 or so, my mom will be in town and we're going to get packing supplies and bring them on up here.  I then plan to attack my desk drawers and my pile of Very Important Mail. 

Then I move, then I unpack and paint, then hang stuff and then my life is back to normal.  Oh and I have two assignments for school due next week.  Joy.

More on books.....

Last night, I went to what I dubbed the "nerdiest of nerd events", the Washington Rare Book Group's "Rare Book Roadshow", which is basically Antiques Roadshow but for rare books and produced for Book Guys--NPR's book show.  I'm not entirely sure I could have made that sentence nerdier if I tried.  We all know that I mean nerd in it's jovial, positive connotation, right?  Let's hope.  Anyway....it was good fun, honestly.  I didn't bring a book of my own for two reasons really:  first, I'd kind of automatically figured that I didn't have anything worth bringing and didn't want to look like the dumb girl who just brought any old or dusty book wanting to hear that it was worth a fortune.  Second, if I had given it a second thought I may have brought a book just in case but was highly distracted because I was busy straightening up for and then making a YouTube video of my (currently dusty and cluttered) apartment.  It's as good as it's going to get--and I even ventured down into scary, scary basement! 

Anyway, about the Rare Book Roadshow--it was really a good time and I met some good people, heard some good stories and got to hang out after-hours in the National Museum of Natural History (which is where we met).  No one else from my class went which was a little surprising because people seemed really into the idea but that's their loss I guess. 

And finally, before we get to the YouTube links, oh! Dear Reader, there is much else going on in my little world and I'm kind of stupidly giddy about the whole thing but I don't really dare write much more because...well I don't know why. But, :)

So here's the apartment in all it's hastily spruced up from the moving mess glory (and scary scary basement):

"Corduroy Mansions could not be described as being in good order but at least it did not appear to be falling down.

"This old place suits me," remarked William to his friend Marcia. "It’s like an old glove, familiar and comfortable." "

Sigh. That's this place, too.  But the future place (2 weeks from today) as well.  Or so I hope.

That's an excerpt from the second installment of Alexander McCall Smith's newest literary venture: Corduroy Mansions.

Brief background here: he's an author, born in Zimbabwe when it was still Southern Rhodesia to Scots parents.  He eventually became a lawyer and taught law at the University of Botswana.  He now lives in Scotland and in 2002 or 2003 (I don't remember) began a series entitled The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, set in Botswana*.  He then started the Sunday Philosophy Club series, which takes place in Edinburgh, he had a series of short stories I never read and whose name I forget, and he has a children's series.  He captures place and mood exquisitely, in my opinion, and his characters are charming and subtle and like old friends.  He also obviously loves his characters and his readers and places little literary winks at them/us in his books.

By far, the most interesting and most endearing series to me (although the Botswana series will always have a special place in my heart) is 44 Scotland Street.  It is a novel which was started in 2004 and was published in daily installments in The Scotsman newspaper.  It was originally a bit of a bet, or experiment but it proved so popular and McCall Smith enjoyed writing it so much it continued for years, and it's published in bound volumes.  There are five now I believe, although we in the US only have three.  The forth is coming out in two weeks and we'll just have to wait for the fifth.  You could only read the 44 Scotland Street series in the paper edition of The Scotsman. 

Now, however, he is taking a break from 44 Scotland Street and has started a new daily serialized novel, Corduroy Mansions.  It seems as if it will be very similar to 44 Scotland Street in that it takes place in a small apartment building and the novel will follow the lives of the residents, but this time in London not Edinburgh.  Not a terribly original idea for a novel, and a serialized one at that, but McCall Smith's strength is in character development and his amazing ability to truly capture the sense of a very particular time and place.  It is available for free on The Telegraph Online and on an iTunes podcast (excellent for those auditory-learners among us).

What is particularly interesting, especially for those currently enrolled in a graduate level class that deals with these sorts of things, is that it's being described as a "digital novel" which is thoroughly modern but which also uses a very long established literary practice (although it's been out of vogue for some time--that of the serialized novel being written as-it-goes, allowing for feedback and input from the readers.  But now in the digital age, it's on a much larger scale than Dickens overhearing the public worrying about the fate of Little Nell and responding to that in his next installment.  It's instant, it's broad reaching, and it should be very interesting.  I also find it interesting that he brings up the role of fan fiction type novels in his article introducing the series. 

It's just all around an interesting day in the history of the book.

I'd encourage anyone, interested in book history or no, to at least check it out.   So far it seems just like him--charming, witty, cozy, and fun.

*Edited to say, he wrote it in 1998 but it was not published in the United States until 2002.

Reading List

Here's my reading list for this semester (or, well the books, most of the readings are articles), I'm very pleased with it! 

Other than that, I'm stressing myself needlessly about all the different options available.  I'm trying to sort through what needs to be done, what should be done and what I just plain old want to do.

So far my list is thus:

• American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting in Denver Jan 23-26
• American Library Association's Annual Meeting in Chicago July 9-15
• Oxford Seminar Early May-Late May
• Art and Museum Librarianship Class (which is possibly being taught in Scotland this summer, if it is and if the dates line up I would certainly do both Oxford and the Museum class)
• Rare Book School at UVA (different seminars at different points all summer, generally week long)
• Figure out exactly what is up with the Certificate in Conservation from U. Texas is all about.  All their website has is information for people getting their MLS who also want the Certificate of Advanced Studies in Conservation, which is apparently a 2.5-3 year venture.  It tells those who already have the degree to call to work out their options.  This is certainly a post-graduation thing, but I really hope it's not longer than a semester because I just don't feel like relocating temporarily to anywhere.  I'm either in or out, no halfway (of DC that is), and because it's a conservation certificate and DC is where a huge amount of conservation jobs are....you figure it out.  I really would hate to have to give up the new apartment because I'm leaving for only 6 months only to turn around and have to go through the hell that is the apartment rental game all over again, with no guarantee of success. Oh, it's maddening.

So, that's it, so far.  It's what I can remember.  It's a lot.  There's several more regional meetings of ALA type things and Society for American Archivists and just a huge variety of things.  Overwhelming, I say.

Hooray for Librarians

To me, this post is less about She Who Must Not Be Named's attempt at banning books from her feifdom's Wasilla's library and more about the great comments of people's love and realization that really, librarians along with journalists are on the front lines of the fight for the First Amendment.

And for the record: just....ick.  It's one thing to have some local crazies band together to burn copies of Harry Potter, or to try to get Our Bodies, Ourselves ripped from the shelves of the local library but it's entirely another for the mayor of a town to unilaterally attempt to do the same (and, possibly, fire the librarian for refusing to comply although that part is unclear).

I'm all for age-appropriate reading materials here, and take serious issue with publishers marketing certain series to audiences which are far too young, even younger than the author intended, but that doesn't mean it needs to be removed from existence!  It just means that parents and guardians have to be as involved in their children's reading materials as they are in their television, movie and internet usage (and if that's "none", well then you get what you get).

A quick note

About the "currently reading" books. Those books are done, and more have come and gone.  But I haven't updated because that list is a huge pain to maintain, and there's got to be a better way than I've done it.  Some sort of application or widget or whatever Typepad calls them.

Will get to work on it.  But just a btw: the new David Sedaris is great and I highly recommend it.

Community Supported Agriculture

NYT article about it today.  I'm working on getting off the wait list at a few 'round these parts that do autumn CSAs.  Summer is really hard to get around here without a healthy dose of luck.  Here's hoping!

Nothing much else going on.  Still sick, getting frustrated with it.  I live between here (my desk) doing work for my adviser (the LoC Flickr thing) and the shower, which is the only place I am remotely comfortable--surrounded by hot water and steam.  Otherwise I cough everything out of my body and feel like the definition of "rattled", I can't even touch my ribs they're so sore.  Sigh.  I have my iPod stereo all set up in there and have been listening to When You Are Engulfed in Flames on audiobook.  I spent nearly 3 hours in there today alone.  I have long wished it possible to read while in the shower (I used to try as a child which is why many of my Babysitters Cub books are pretty messed up) and audiobooks are close enough.  Now if only there was a shower safe laptop ;)