More books...

Initially, I started keeping reading logs to get T.R. to do his.  We bet dinner on who could read the most pages over the log period (I had to read nx the pages he did to keep it fair).  Worst case, I had to make dinner anyway and best case I got fondue.  I no longer keep track of the pages, but the habit of tracking the books is now ingrained.  I have vague plans to make a tally quilt someday with different colored “books” for each category.

However, writing up what I read only three times a year means that I often forget all the really cool things I wanted to say about any particular book.  So I have decided to write book reports more often about fewer books.

So far, since T. got out of school (beginning of summer, my definition), I have read 14 books.  Four of those were for my fitness blog and I won’t go over them again.

Perhaps the most important book I have read recently is Hannah Arendt’s book The Origins of Totalitarianism.  We live in a scary time and the book offers some interesting perspective on how things can get worse.  It’s not light reading, but it is definitely worth it to shed light on such topics as how racism plays into totalitarian agendas, for example.

I borrowed Beauty in Arabic Culture by Doris Behrens-Abouseif from a friend back when I was working on T.R.’s Christmas book last year, but didn’t read it until now.  I have a very Dead White Male sort of education and I’m slowly working on broadening that.  What I was particularly struck by in the book was the interplay between the natural and the artificial in art—a room with trees made out of jewels reflected in a pool of mercury, the nearly literal gilding of the lily as a guiding principle.  I would have liked more illustrations and more explanation of the illustrations presented, but the Internet exists to show me pictures when necessary.

I already wrote a little bit about Faith in a Seed by Henry David Thoreau, or at least the specific copy I have.  What I value about Thoreau’s writing is the combination of close observation with a sense of humor.  He likes what he sees and responds to the beauty of the world with joy.  The book is also interesting because it depicts science in action:  data collection, hypothesizing, testing, refining, all within a deeply humane framework.

So much for nonfiction.

I was gifted a bunch of older kid books by a friend who is moving.  I have many more to look forward to reading.  However, the first three I tackled were early Carolyn Keenes.  One was even pre-Nancy Drew, By the Light of the Study Lamp.  The other two were Nancy’s Mysterious Letter, and The Quest of the Missing Map.  I enjoyed them, but I also am happy that times have changed.  As empowered as Nancy is, pains are taken to make sure that she works within the bounds of the patriarchy, never doing anything that might compromise her attractiveness or ability to win queen of the dance.  Racism is casual and stereotypes abound.  The plots are just as ridiculous as I remembered.  I would classify them as entertaining cultural artifacts with some questionable bits.  The fourth one I read was Ouida’s A Dog of Flanders.  I picked it to read on a day when I was in a bad mood, figuring that a story about a dog was just the thing to cheer me up.  Plot spoiler:  the dog dies.  So does the child who loves him and his aged grandfather.  Many points for pathos, but not what I was looking for at the moment.  There were other stories in the book, some of them considerably more cheerful, but I had a hard time getting past that initial betrayal.  (T. pointed out that many books with dogs in them end badly, such as Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows.  Apparently, I want the fairy tale version in which all dogs live happily ever after.)

Syd recommended S.A. Chakraborty’s book The City of Brass.  It’s YA speculative fiction set in an alternative version of the middle east in which there are djins, marids, peris, and demons.  The world building is wonderful and it is nice to have the human culture that interacts with the magical one from a different part of the world than I am used to reading about.  There had better be a second book soon, however, because the ending was not an ending.

Rick Riordan can have my money for any book he writes.  The Burning Maze is the latest in the Trials of Apollo series.  Some of the books have stronger plots than others, but the characters are always strong and I laugh out loud often.

So much for kid/YA.

Finally, I read The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon.  It’s speculative fiction set in a near future in which our smart devices kill us.  It’s a little more complicated than that, but I don’t want to spoil it.  The writing is lovely, the characters are interesting, and it has references to Alice in Wonderland.  What else is needed?

That brings me up to date.  I will post more when I read more, probably even fewer books at a time.

Thinking by typing...

Forgiveness is tricky.  In some ways, it’s the simplest thing in the world.  I can choose to forgive someone and it’s done.  Until I find myself mad about the same thing again and I have to repeat the process.  Sometimes over and over.  (I am not a very good person; maybe other people don’t have this problem.)

It doesn’t matter if the person I forgive is sorry.  It doesn’t matter if people have changed.  It doesn’t even matter if they know they’ve wronged me.  I need to forgive because that’s where healing starts for me.  Selfish, perhaps, but true.  I don’t want to be the person that I become when I refuse to forgive.

The trouble is that forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation.  I can’t do reconciliation all by myself.  Forgiveness might be a step on the road, but reconciliation requires some traffic in both directions.  And there’s no damn map.

I hate unresolved issues.  They’re the “shave and a haircut” that makes me tap back “two bits.”  I want life’s screenwriters to tidy up the endings, preferably within this episode, not as an arc over the season.  They are not with my program.  Life is long enough that there are lots of possible complications and short enough that I feel some urgency about making peace.  I often don’t know what to do.

The Depression Monster that lives in my head tells me I’m going to screw up whatever I do.  It also tells me that I deserve whatever bad things happen because of my screw ups.  As far as it is concerned, every bad thing that has ever happened in my life is the direct result of me being a worthless piece of shit.  It does not build confidence when it comes time to decide if, when, or how to engage with a broken relationship. 

And the relationship in question is severely broken.

I remember a time when it wasn’t.  Or at least I remember a time before I knew it was broken.  I remember trusting.  I remember being trustworthy myself (because the Depression Monster exaggerates about how much I am awful, it doesn’t mean that I’m not sometimes awful.).  It hurts to remember.

It’s possible I’m blowing everything out of proportion.  On the face of it, I have to deal with a fairly simple request.  That it came after I asked not to be contacted anymore and that it came packed with red flags complicates things.  I don’t know what to do.

So I ask myself questions.  What would be kind?  To whom?  What is realistic?  What are the costs?  What would the people who love me tell me?

No answers, but I’ll probably be awake thinking a long time.

Summer Road Trip, Day 8: Heads and Critters

The Getty Museum has fabulous things.  T.R. pretended to be one of them:

We checked out exhibits on medieval visions of paradise in Europe and India, the influence of India on Rembrandt’s work, the intersection of Egyptian and Greco-Roman culture, fabulous French furniture (although we got lost in there and I began to feel nervous that someone was going to come along, tell me to hold up a clock, gild me, and leave me there forever), amazing photographs, and much more.  In fact, it was somewhat overwhelming, but all very, very wonderful.  The museum campus itself is gorgeous and when Brent had had enough of any particular gallery, he found lovely places to sit outside and enjoy the views.

There are many ways to categorize the zillion photos I took, but here are two samples.  First, heads from various periods, including a severed version of John the Baptist!

Second, critters:  hedgehog, monkey, hippo, dog, and bear.

I bought many postcards and two picture books.