hogglestock

  
The cartoon on the cover of A Book Addict’s Treasury by Julie Rugg and Lynda Murphy, while cute in its own right, is merely an excuse for a new batch of gratuitous Lucy photos.

  
Recently I was in Austin, Texas helping my brother-in-law get ready for an upcoming move. One of the things we did was sort through his books and figure out what would be kept and what would be sold. I offered to make the trip to Half Price Books to sell the box of culled books. Once there, the clerk told me it would take about fifteen minutes to assess how much they would give me for the books. Unfortunately, the buying counter was quite close to the “Books on Books” section. At first I thought I would just browse. Then one title ended up in my hand and then another. But wait, I didn’t have room in my luggage take anything back to DC. I soon found myself, however, up at the information desk asking if they shipped books. Next thing I knew I had a rather heavy basket in my hand filled to the brim with books.

When all was said and done, my brother-in-law got $26.50 for his books and I ended up spending $152.00. I too, have been culling my books lately, so what in the world was I doing buying books? Having fun? Feeding an obsession? Feeding my soul? Yes, yes, and yes.

Among the treasures: Two Anita Brookner hardcovers (one not pictured–now I only am misisng one AB first edition) and a Betty Smith novel I haven’t read.

I’ve seen so much about Enid Blyton on UK blogs, but I have never read any. How could I pass this up?

This kind of speaks for itself.

And then the Books on Books haul.

  

One of the most pleasant commercial spots on the interwebs for the bookish is The Literary Gift Company. So many wonderful things. I love it.

One of their offerings is this literary map of the United States of America. I recognize that, like any book list, the map is essentially an exercise in subjectivity. I don’t hate this map. But a couple of things bother me slightly. The first is the location of certain authors. It must have been hard to decide where to put certain authors. Do you place their names in their birthplaces or where they spent most of their lives, or where they set most of their work? I get it. But I still take exception to things like the largish F. Scott Fitzgerald being placed in his (and my own) natal state of Minnesota. Does anyone think of Minnesota when they think of Fitzgerald, I mean besides Minnesotans? Not likely. He should be near East Egg and West Egg. Not only is Gatsby his most popular novel, but it is easily one of the seminal works of American fiction. I also take exception to Garrison Keillor’s name being more prominent than Sinclair Lewis’s. I like Garrison Keillor, but his writing is but a shadow of the literary icon Lewis.

I understand why the literary cartographers would want to shift Fitzgerald to his Midwestern roots. Not only are there far more northeastern authors, but they are all duking it out for a fairly small geographic area. Geography also wreaks havoc with how big an author’s name should  be. Based on this map you would think that E. Annie Proulx and Black Elk (who?) were the biggest writers to come along before and since sliced bread. Literary figures who tower above the likes of Walt Whitman and Mark Twain.

If I could actually see the map up close I am sure I would have even more challenges with it. But I don’t need to turn this into a flaming rant. I will just leave it as a slightly excited observation with the occasional raised voice.

They have also made one for the UK, but I will leave that critque to my friends across the water.

  
Barbara Pym is turning 100
The effervescent Amanda at Fig and Thistle (@nerdybookgirl) sent me a message this week on Facebook telling me that the centenary of Barbara Pym’s birth was coming up in 2013. She suggested that we do something to mark the event. I was immediately on board. I love Barbara Pym, I like that she was having a nice round anniversary, and I like that there is plenty of time to get something good going.

We decided to host a Barbara Pym reading week in early June that nicely coincide with Pym’s birthday on June 2nd. So off I went to the interwebs to look up images of Pym and came across the web page for the Barbara Pym Society of North America.

Not only do they have a really fun landing page, but they have merchandise and an announcement for their annual conference in Boston in March. I’ve already become a member and hope to get to the conference. The presentations sound fascinating (e.g., The Therapeutic Value of Barbara Pym Novels) and the kick-off event on Friday night is evensong at the Church of the Advent. Right up my alley. Plus the Boston Symphony Orchestra is doing a program that weekend that I would like to hear and I have only been to Boston once and that was about ten years ago.

Amanda and I aren’t sure what the reading week will look like, but we do know it will be fabulous and appropriately Pymsian.

I think this will be especially fun because there are many Pyms I haven’t read. I have been saving them for the proverbial rainy day, but this seems like a good reason to go on a Pym binge. (Although binging of any sort doesn’t seem particularly Pym-like.)

And speaking of 2013
Once again I am looking forward to C. B. James’ TBR Double Dog Dare over at Ready When You Are, C.B. This is his annual event where those brave enough to take the dare only read books from their To Be Read (TBR) pile from January 1st through April 1st. This means that you only read whatever books are in your physical possession as of midnight on New Year’s Eve. I have enjoyed this immensely the past two years. This year I plan to combine it with my ongoing attempts to get through the A Century of Books challenge. I am determined to finish that list off and I think I am going to try and finish it by April 1. And I have tracked down all of the books on that list and have them in my library so it fits in quite nicely.

I think C. B. has made a particularly clever button for this year’s Dare.

  
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. The food is delicious, it is relatively low hassle compared to Christmas, and it falls on a Thursday, so there is always a nice long weekend to follow.

The Food
This year because of our recent travel schedule and a death in the family, our Thanksgiving is going to be pretty low key. I only made one pie this year (pumpkin) using John’s grandmother’s recipe which would make anyone love pumpkin pie. After watching the entire third season of the Great British Bake Off in the course of just a week I was also determined to make my own pie crust this year. I have made them from scratch in the past, but I always run into trouble rolling it out. This year it rolled out beautifully but I may have overworked it. We will see what it tastes like. I also decided to add a twist to my cranberry sauce this year so I used fresh ginger and clementine juice. I did a bit of sampling already and can confirm that it is delicious.

Thanksgiving is not Thanksgiving without stuffing–which I don’t actually stuff inside the bird–I keep that cavity free for aromatics and herbs.

Aromatic veggies and thyme for cooking the bird.

For the gravy

The bird and the oven
I have been fantasizing for years about my dream kitchen. With any luck it will happen in 2013 when we renovate and add onto our house. For quite some time we have been convinced that we were going to get a Wolf range. But yesterday we went to look at a house that was renovated by one of the builders we are considering for our job. In that kitchen was the most beautiful range I have ever seen. It was a Lacanche and it was gorgeous.

Not only is it pretty, but because it is rather old fashioned in its engineering as well as its look, it has far fewer mechanical bits and computers than most high end ranges. My only concern was that the oven is smaller than most American ovens. Would I be able to make my Thanksgiving bird in it? So I did some measuring this morning to see. I tend to make smallish turkeys (14 pounds) but I use a rack so I was worried I might have trouble in the Lacanche. So I did some measuring this morning.

Measuring the height of my bird (after a night of post-brining air drying in the fridge).

The Lacanche oven is only 12″ high which is about 4″ less than our current oven. But as you can see from the picture, the bird will fit with plenty room to spare. Plus, and this is the important part, we were already planning on having a separate standard sized wall oven in the new kitchen, so it doesn’t matter so much that the Lacanche has a smaller oven.

Just look at it…

Ours will be smaller than this, but it does show off how pretty it is.

This is a warming compartment. Not only can you keep things warm, but you can use for as a proving oven for things that need to rise in a  warm place. And would you look at those knobs.

This is the one we are getting, but in black. And we will get the burner configuration shown on the left.

Lucy helped me
As always, Lucy was eager to help out in the kitchen.

  
When I was in the tourist information office in Delft last week I spotted this fantastic postcard for Galerie de Kunstkop which is the studio of artist Rene Jacobs.

And doesn’t she look like she could be related to the painting in Spain that was recently “restored” by an eighty-year-old woman?

 
I have been having a great time running around the Netherlands. I am staying with friends in The Hague where there was this very cool temporary scuplture. Thank goodness the books weren’t in English and I don’t read Dutch or I would have been tempted to climb the sculpture to find something good to read.

Papier Biënnale 2012 in Rijswijk en Den Haag at  Museum Meerman

Photo credit: Alicia Martín

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Another example in some other city.

 
   

In Evelyn Waugh’s novel The Loved One, the British protagonist Dennis, a young has-been poet living in post-war Los Angeles, confides in his boss at the Happy Hunting Ground pet crematorium:

“Through no wish of my own I have become the protagonist of a Jamesian problem. Do you ever read any Henry James, Mr. Schultz?”
“You know I don’t have the time for reading.”
“You don’t have to read much of him. All his stories are about the same thing – American innocence and European experience.”

That about sums up my feeling about Henry James–at least the part about not needing to read much of him.  A few years ago I had to kind of force myself to like Portrait of a Lady, but I did end up enjoying it. I did the same with The Spoils of Poynton. I finished, but I didn’t enjoy it. Washington Square I’ve read twice and didn’t enjoy it either time. So for my A Century of Books challenge I plugged The Golden Bowl in for 1904. It is also on the ML100 list so I could kill two birds with one stone. But 200 pages in with 400 more to go I just could not have cared less about finishing. So with my new attitude about life being too short. I chucked it.

In its place, I picked up The Loved One which was hilarious. If you like Wodehouse, you will like The Loved One.

House of Stairs by William Sleator

This is the cover I remember

I also recently finished House of Stairs, William Sleator’s young adult dystopian novel from 1974. I first read this book when I was about ten years old. Parts of the book have stuck with me for the intervening thirty-some years. Unfortunately the title wasn’t one of things that stuck. Thanks to one of you who blogged about this book a year or two ago, I was reminded on the title.

Five sixteen-year-old orphans find themselves in a white horizon-less room full of nothing but stairs and landings. It is quickly apparent to an adult reader that they are being subjected to some sort of Pavlovian conditioning. Three things struck me about my second reading of this book.

1. It is still an enthralling read. Albeit a much quicker one at forty-three than it was at ten.

2. The experiment perpetuated on the orphans is almost like a foreshadowing of reality TV where the “stars” are conditioned to fight each other. The characters in the book do awful things to each other to get enough food to stay alive. The characters on Big Brother or The Real Housewives do it for fame and money.

3. There is a distinctly gay sub-storyline that doesn’t take a queer theorist to recognize. In fact, I would suggest that both Peter and Lola are gay. And, it turns out, the heroes of the book. I wonder if the subconsciously gay ten-year-old me subconsciously picked up on that thread? If so, I had no recollection of it.

 

Winter Garden by Evelyn Dunbar copyright: Tate/PCF

Last night when I took Lucy out for her final constitutional of the day, I was struck with what a beautiful night it was. Plenty chilly, but the wonderful crisp, late fall, almost winter kind of chilly. The air was perfectly still and smelled sweet with just a hint of woodsmoke somewhere. The bright, but no longer full moon, illuminated the wispy clouds across an otherwise clear sky. It was just magical. I let Lucy take extra time sniffing all the piles of leaves lined up along the sidewalks. So even though it sill looks more like autumn than winter, I felt that the winter scene above by Evelyn Dunbar was a perfect image for today.

Can’t wait to place another Persephone order
I’ve enjoyed reading all of the blog posts recently about Persephone’s 100th book. An enthusiastic Persephone poster in the past, I have found my blogging life a little overwhelmed by a research/writing project I am doing for work. The project is fascinating, but it does sap my strength a bit. (That last line sounded a bit like Elaine whose daily triumphs and trials I find rather Pepysian in their scope, and endlessly enjoyable.) Anyway, I was feeling a bit like I had missed my blogortunity to celebrate Persephone’s milestone achievement. But then I finally got the most recent issue of The Persephone Biannually in the mail this week. (From which I purloined the Dunbar image.)

I own about 41 Persephones so far. There are at least another 20 I want to buy not including Nos. 99 and 100: Patience by John Coates, which is getting almost universal accolades across the blogosphere; and The Persephone Book of Short Stories. Not normally a huge fan of short stories, I have loved the collections that Persephone has published in the past and am dying to see what they have collected in this volume.

And speaking of Persephone, did you know that the creative, witty, ebullient, and nerdybookgirl Amanda over at Fig and Thistle is naming her third child Persephone? I wonder if the baby shower will forgo the obligatory pink for dove grey?

A troika / hat-trick / triptych of gifts (pick your metaphor)

Book the First: I mentioned earlier (I think) that I have been the recipient of book blogger generosity lately. First, the wonderful Sarah Faragher of the wonderful Sarah’s Books in Bangor, Maine sent me a wonderful copy of The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac by Eugene Field. This summer, while book buying in Maine, I came across Field’s book The House. When organizing her collection Sarah found an extra copy of the Bibliomaniac book in the same edition as The House remembered my blog-post about Field and was kind enough to send it to me.

The best secondhand bookstore in Maine.

Book the Second: Somewhere recently I must have complained about trying to find a decent copy of Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm. The version that I bought online turned out to be a truly horrible print to order version that I really hate. Pam, my favorite American ex-pat living in Tasmania, has a great blog called Travellin’ Penguin, and had an extra copy of Zuleika laying around which is now making its way across the Pacific (unless it decided to fly the other direction).

Pam’s pen of Penguins

Is this the one travellin’ to me?

Book(s) the Third: Granite State author and blogger Margaret Evans Porter of Periodic Pearls thought of me while she read Andrew Hollinghurst’s latest novel The Stranger’s Child on the way home from one of her many (many, many) trips to the UK. She decided to send it on to me knowing that once I finish A Century of Books sometime next year, I would welcome the chance to read it. She also sent along a copy of Mapp and Lucia and, given my recent pilgrimage to Rye, an article about Lamb House. (“Books the Third” sounds like I have had a series of cats each of which I have named “Books.” Often called Booksie, I am now on my third cat: Books III. Of course I don’t own any cat, just Lucy Honeychurch, the cutest dog in the world. “Books” doesn’t seem like a good name for a dog. “Booker,” short for Booker T. Dog might work, but not Books.)

When we went to Lamb House in May we didn’t get to see the above the ground floor because the rest of the house is let to a family who live up there. I thought it would be a great place to live, but I had no idea the quarters would be this nice.Now I really want to live there. I wonder when their lease is up? Thanks for sending this clipping Margaret.

The rest of the photo. How fantastic is the view of the church through the windown. Looks like a stage set.

Den Haag here we come (with a pile of books)
We are off soon to visit one of my best friends in the world. It just so happens that he and his fantastically witty husband live in The Hague. I know, who in their right mind visits the Netherlands in November? I have chosen five (yes five) books to take along with me. Three of them are mass market paperbacks that I won’t mind leaving behind no matter how much I may end up liking them–a re-read of Queen Lucia, House of Stairs by William Sleator, and some Castle book by Elizabeth Goudge. The Sleator is a book I read in 6th grade. A bit science fictiony, I have been wondering for thirty-some years what the book is actually about. Now I will find out. The Goudge looks like it is going to be a DE Stevenson kind of romance. And the Benson should be a joy from cover to cover. I am also taking along The Golden Bowl. I have been a third of the way through this book for months and months now. Time to knock it out. And for some reason, I sometimes hanker for James when I travel. I may also take along the aforementioned awful edition of Zuleika Dobson.

A picture from October 2009, the last time we were in Den Haag. I am guessing this time will be considerably less leafy.

The joy of having an editor
When I met John 10 years ago, one of the first quips I remember him making was “everyone needs an editor.” He wasn’t thinking necessarily about writing either. He meant we could all use a life editor. Someone to tell us that a particular shirt needed to be sent to the Goodwill. Or someone who could gently suggest that our approach to, well, you name it, might need some tinkering for maximum efficacy.

Even though I count myself a decent writer, I am fully aware that I have more than a few writing ticks (or is it “tics”?) that might be adorable in a blog (or not), but not so adorable in a professional work product. Some of you may even vaguely recall when I published the My Porch Manual of Style (MPMS) back in September 2010. You probably remember it, because after setting rules for my blog, I have spent the last two years being entirely lazy and inconsistent in their usage.

So now I have this year-long research/writing project for work that is coming dangerously close to an end. After completing about four-fifths of the manuscript I realized that pain of death could not induce me to go back and copy edit the thing. Then I thought of Teresa at Shelf Love. I have always admired the way she writes and I know that she makes a living as an editor. Would she perhaps do a little freelance work? Would she take on my typed ramblings? Thankfully, yes and yes. And what a joy it was to get back my marked up draft. Teresa preferred to mark her edits electronically in Word, so incorporating her excellent suggestions was as easy as a click of the mouse. Having an editor is amazing.

(It wasn’t until I linked just now to my previous post about the My Porch Manual of Style, that I realized I had actually mentioned Teresa as my inspiration for that post. It certainly seems like it was meant to be.)

Evelyn Dunbar
In searching for a digital image of the Dunbar painting that I posted above, I came across a great blog all about her wonderful paintings. Even more fascinating is Christopher, the writer of that blog. A native of Scotland, Chrisopher lives in Languedoc, France where he writes, composes, conducts a “multi-national chamber choir,” and builds drystone walls. How fabulous does that sound. I hope my retirement is that interesting.

Gratuitous garden pictures
John took these garden photos the day before Hurricane Sandy arrived in town. The winds were not as strong as were expected so we came through unscathed.

   

The view from our bedroom window this morning. (Just kidding. DC is about a three-hour drive to the ocean.)

Hunkered down for Hurricane Sandy it feels like a wonderful snow day. Both of us home from work. John no longer has to fly to Chicago tomorrow for work. Lucy is as snuggly and cute as ever. Did a good run on the treadmill. Back in cosy sweat pants and slippers. What’s that, oh, I feel something, I think it might be, yes, it is, a numbered list…

1. Yesterday just hours before the rain began, one of the electric windows on our car got stuck in the open position. Can you think of better timing? So far the trash bag solution is holding up to the rain. We will see what happens when the winds, gusting up to 70 mph, get going.

2. We had a fun time bowling yesterday with Roz and Layla. Some of you may remember Roz from a book club in London. They are residents of DC now, and despite all of their very outgoing efforts to wring every bit of entertainment out of their new home, I think they have yet to find a book club here that doesn’t make them want to fall asleep or run from the room screaming.  With any luck Roz is wrangling an invitation for us to an event in December that will make you all envious. But I am not going to say what it is until it happens. Stay tuned.

3. As I mentioned previously, I am making my way through the 1980s portion of my Century of Books list. My latest was 1986 which I jut finished this morning:

Anagrams by Lorrie Moore
This was Moore’s first novel. Up until that point she had been a mildly successful short story writer. Well. Anagrams feels like short stories in search of a novel. Overall it is the tale of Benna and her bestfriend/boyfriend Gerard but each “chapter” is a kind of alternate universe version of their story. I kind of enjoyed the first two or three but then the final one is not only the one I enjoyed the least, but it is by far the longest. Longer than all the others combined. Which for me, reinforced the notion that Moore really couldn’t come up with a single, cohesive novel, but instead strung together a bunch of trying to be too clever twaddle. She (both author Moore and protagonist Benna) is one of those lit professor types who things too much about what she writes. Full of puns and plays on words and various veiled and not so veiled references to anagrams.  There were moments that I quite enjoyed but overall I was glad when it was over.

4. I have been the recipient of unsolicited book gifts from three people lately. I will blog about them in more detail in the days to come. Suffice it to say that the online book community is a wonderful place to hang out.

5. Is Facebook ruining your blogging life? Or maybe I should say impairing, or even just changing.  I have become Facebook friends with some of my favorite bloggers and I love following the ups and downs of their daily lives. But I find that it divides my attention a bit and keeps me from being more creative on My Porch. Granted I have had less time for blogging this year, but it seems like the stimulation I now get on FB is taking away some of my urge to blog. My Porch has always had a healthy dose of my personal life mixed in with books, and those posts tend to encourage more comments than posts that are strictly about books. And now I find that my books only posts are boring the tears out of most of you…I am not sure where I am going with this.  I know I need to step up my blogging game, but that might have to wait until my work project is done at the end of the year.

In the meantime, are there any of you regular commenters, or even lurkers, who would like to be friends with me on Facebook? If so, shoot me an email and I will let you in on my last name and we can be friends.  onmyporch [at] hotmail [dot] com