Thursday, September 15, 2016

Lit: Uniquely Portable Magic

Oh my, I feel like I'm really dropping the ball around here lately. I may be getting posts up here and there, and I am reading, but I haven't gotten around to responding to comments in ages and I'm barely getting around to browsing all of my blog friends' posts. 

I don't even have a very good excuse other than that The Big Guy has taken to using my desk chair to sit in to watch television and it's all but impossible to get him out of it. Which makes it all but impossible to get to my computer as often as I'd like to get there. 

I will be helped this month by a fortuitous email I received yesterday, an offer for the Nook Audiobook of Greg Iles' The Bone Tree which I was about to pick up for a review the end of the month. That sucker is more than 800 pages and I have yet to finish another book for a review next week and one that I'm reading with a group on Litsy. Being about to listen while I drive, clean, and even type this post is really going to help a lot! I've already "read" for almost two hours today. 

Because my September's been so loaded up with commitments, I've been hesitant to commit to too much in October, including R.I.P. XI (Readers. Imbibing. Peril.). I wasn't even sure I'd have time to read any books for Fall Feasting this year. But those are part of what makes blogging so much fun! Also, since R.I.P. includes thrillers, I'm thinking that I'm already reading for that challenge with Natchez Burning and The Bone Tree. So I signed up for that today and I'll spend some time browsing my books to later to find at least one more book that works for that and a couple that will work for Fall Feasting. I'm thinking maybe Sarah Water's Fingersmith for R.I.P. and maybe, finally, Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for Fall Feasting which will also worth well for Nonfiction November. 


Last night a couple of book club friends and I went to hear Geraldine Brooks speak. If you ever get the chance to see her speak, I highly recommend it! She is open, funny, smart and an amazing storyteller and speaker. She talked about her history as a writer, her work as a journalist and how it influenced her writing as a novelist, making sure she doesn't use words in her work that take readers out of the time setting, and how she finds the voices for the characters in her historical novels, particularly the women. It helps, of course, that she's Australian, so she's got that accent going for her! She is married to Tony Horwitz, an American who is also a writer and an American Civil War fanatic (I think she'd agree that word is appropriate). His passion for that war helped inspire her Pulitzer Prize winning novel March. We were all very happy that we'd made the trip across town to see her!




15 comments:

  1. You're fortunate to have heard Geraldine Brooks speak. Authenticity is what I look for in an historical novel so it's interesting to know what she said regarding her own writing. Our city literary festival is being held during the next few weeks and I hope to be able to get to one or two of the events. I hope your October reading plan works out. I have the usual pile of books waiting to be read. My concentration isn't good at the moment so I'm finding shorter novels and non fiction easier to read and enjoy. The 800 page The Bone Tree audio version must be more suitable for you with your busy life style.

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    1. Brooks talked about how she had referenced the color mauve in her book Year of Wonders and only after it was published discovered that the first reference to that color did not occur until almost one hundred years after the period when the book was set. After that, she's been much more attentive to those kinds of details. Our literary festival is next month, too, but not nearly has big as yours which is disappointing.

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  2. So exciting you got see and hear Geraldine Brooks. I've loved several of her novels. And I think that Greg Iles books would work just fine for RIP XI. Enjoy!

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    1. I'm pretty sure I've convinced both of the gals to return to this event every year thanks to Brooks!

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  3. I keep meaning to get a copy of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle! It's been on my TBR list for years, but I haven't gotten around to getting a copy, so I never remember it's something I want to read until someone mentions it. :)

    The book event with Geraldine Brooks sounds like it was very informative and entertaining. Does she have a new book coming out?

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    1. She doesn't have a new book coming out yet. This was as part of a series that Creighton and the Nebraska Humanities host so it wasn't about pushing a new book.

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  4. I bet Brooks was a wonderful speaker! How fun. Best to you as you read all the books! I haven't been able to finish anything lately either and my blog has been sloooowww. Thanks for stopping by and giving me some encouragement.

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    1. It's a good thing I've been really enjoying most of the books I've been reading lately. Not sure why I agreed to so many in such a short time - keep forgetting I'm trying to cut back!

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  5. Oh, hearing Geraldine Brooks would be so cool. I much preferred Year of Wonder to March. I would love to hear her thought process on that one!

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    1. She and her husband were in England, walking, when they came across a directional sign that basically said "this way to the plague town." Of course, they had to investigate and that village stayed in the back of her mind until she finally decided to write her first novel.

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  6. Your reading life sounds very busy right now! The best kind of being busy! I have my September looking too busy too - somehow I have too many books going right now. I want to finish all these in time for a readalong later this month.

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    1. Thank evens I'm like the books, because I'm terrible and dnf'ing books!

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  7. I have been in a blogging slump for pretty this whole year so diving into R.I.P. has given me a great excuse to blog about all things horrorish! So I'm glad you are up to the challenge. What a great experience to see Brooks speak! Good luck on your reading challenges and chunksters this month!

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    1. I don't know how so many bloggers with kids keep up with their blogs. You've got a lot more important things going on keeping up w/ Gabe than blogging!

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  8. Lucky you to hear Geraldine Brooks speak. It sounds as if her talk was full of informative and interesting tidbits! I'm especially fascinated by the thing about the colour "mauve".

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