Bookish Bliss: Silent Players by Anthony Slide

One of the things that I am fervently anticipating about our upcoming move is the chance to free the rest of my book collection from the storage bin, where it has unhappily resided for the past 18 months. As most of you probably know, I own a lot of books. Though my collection is not as vast as my heart would dictate if it had free reign over my pocketbook, it is still large enough to make a small-town pubic library envious. Pondered in this light, purchasing another volume is probably not the most necessary action that I could take. However, for us feverish-reader types, there are certain books that speak to us at such a high, insistent pitch that they cannot, for long, be ignored. On such occasions, a benign browsing-trip to the book-store can turn into a pleading session between your heart and your wallet. This afternoon, the former trounced the latter; this is how I came to have Anthony Slide's 'Silent Players' in my possession.
I have a mania for Pre-1930's cinema. Anthony Slide was lucky enough to befriend many of the performers of that era while they were in their twilight years; he is also a fantastic film historian, with many wonderful, insightful genre books to his credit. Although I am a critical reader, I will never be a jaded one; thus, I am nearly crazy with delight over the thought of delving into this volume. There are books that you purposely seek out, and those that you casually happen upon. (It is a toss-up as to which anticipation is more acute.) This one fell into my lap, as I was idly time-killing at Half-Price Books with The Chef. Although I will likely rush through it, I am going to try my best to slowly savor this particular word-sensory experience. However it plays out, I promise to write about it here, in one form or another. Reading may be a solo practice but its impact is ultimately collective; the best books are meant to be shared.

14 September 2009-Reading List

I just don't seem to have much time for reading these days. Creatively, it is a great thing because that means I have been writing up a storm. Recreationally speaking, I will not mince words: it sucks. It really does. Yet, I understand that it is part of the ebb and flow of the artistic process. This does not mean that I have stopped dreaming of books. Oh, no! In fact, it means that I think about them all of the time. Each new catalogue is greeted like a long lost friend. I have a growing mound of enticing catalogues, from Daedalus to Bas Bleu, almost always at hand. I'm going to share with you a few of the books that are currently intriguing me.

1. Fallen Angels by Harold Bloom, Mark Podwall, illus. (YALE)Written by the reigning Titan of literary criticism, it explores the concept of fallen angels in books, art, and modern society.
2. Affairs and Scandals in Ancient Egypt by Pascal Vernus (CORNELL)Bad behaviour among the ruling classes is definitely not a modern phenomenon. This book is proof that the elite have always engaged in tabloid-worthy shenanigans.
3. Ermengard of Narbonne and the World of the Troubadors by Frederic L. Cheyette (CORNELL) A life of the female ruler and troubadors' darling.
4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius by Leo Damrosch (MARINER)I appear to be in a biographical mood but this definitely appears to be a tasty read, at least if you are into JJR.
5. Medieval Schools From Roaman Britain to Renaissance England by Nicholas Ormer (YALE) For the Anglophile-History geek residing in me...yes, these are two of my very favourite things.
6. Darwin: The Indelible Stamp The Evolution of an Idea James D. Watson, Ed. (RUNNING PRESS) A collection of the great man's still fascinating and relevant works.
7. Infinite Ascent A Short History of Mathematics by David Berlinski (WEIDENFELD & NICHOLSON) I am a lit-geek. Math has never particularly been my cup of tea. Yet, there is something indescribably alluring about this relatively short volume (a scant 197 pages). Is it high enough on my list to purchase? Probably not. I do see myself checking this out from the library, though.
8. Thoreau and the Art of Life Precepts and Principles Roderick MacIver, Ed. and Illus. (HERON DANCE) Thoreau was a strange man, an individualist of the variety that only 19th-Century America could produce. His words still care the weight and heave of truth.
9. Colette by Julie Kristeva. Jane Marie Todd, Trans. (COLUMBIA UNIV. PRESS) Colette remains one of the most engaging and maddening of all literary females. She was resolutely unconventional in most respects--which is quite appealing--and gratingly offensive to modern sensibilities in others. And, always, there is the singular writing.
10. Voices from the World of Jane Austen by Malcolm Day (DAVID & CHARLES) This volume looks into the lives of some of Austen's famous contemporaries, especially those with different experiences and world-views than that of England's most enduring and famous female author.
11. Consequences of Sin by Claire Langley-Hawthorne (VIKING) A period (Edwardian) murder mystery with an appealing-sounding heiress at its heart.
12. My Life in France by Julia Child & Alex Prud'homme (ANCHOR) I am already mildly sick of the 'Julie and Julia' craze. I admit that Julie Powell's writing and flat personality do very little for me. This posthumously published autobiography is more my style: part France, part food, part love-story.
13. Victorian and Edwardian Architecture by Derek Avery (CHAUCER PRESS)I have a slight obsession with decadent, lush coffee table books such as this.
14. Hemingway and Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers by Mark Bailey, Edward Hemingway, illus. (ALGONQUIN) One of my biggest passions is dead writers. I am also a trained bartender (oops, sorry, mixologist) so this book is quite the thing for me. And, yes, Edward is a real Hemingway (Papa's grandson).

Reading List: Fictional Dreaming

I received an unusually compact little Daedalus Books catalogue in the post last week. Upon opening it, I was delighted to discover that it is a fiction-only edition. Like many creative writers, I cannot bring myself to read novels or short-stories when I am waist-deep in my own work. This poses no such problem when I am penning reviews or articles. As I am currently in the midst of two short-stories, I have imposed a fiction ban on my leisure reading. For the near-future, I will be indulging only in writing-craft books, biographies, and history.
This will not stop me from dreaming about some of the fabulous reads contained within that Daedalus Books catalogue.I am, at the moment, intrigued with the following.

1. 54 by Wu Ming (HARCOURT)This novel contains an epic mish-mash of threads. It is set in, naturally, 1954 and features, among many other things, Cary Grant (yes, that Cary Grant). Consider me interested.
2. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (HARVEST) I own a copy of this classic novel by one of America's foremost 20th-century poets. I think that I am overdue for a re-read, if only to erase the awful let-down that was the 2006 version of this novel (stick with the original 1949 film, if you must).
3. An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke (ALGONQUIN) Fires and Emily Dickinson? Another strange amalgam of seemingly unrelated concepts that I cannot get out of my mind.
4. The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa (FABER & FABER)This is a recent novel by one of my favourite contemporary writers. It is about a man desperately in love with one woman-in-many incarnations, across many years and continents.
5. The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories by E.M. Forster (SNOWBOOKS) I am not a fan of Forster's novels. They have never quite worked for me; I did not buy into the epic Merchant Ivory obsession. However, I am open-minded; there is little of value that I will not give a chance to, at least once. I have never read his short stories. This collection houses 6 of them. I am at least interested enough to check this out from the library.
6. The Conjurer: A Martha Beale Mystery by Cordelia Frances Biddle (ST. MARTIN'S) This is set in 1842, with a resourceful and brave heroine at the center of the action: perhaps not very true to the times, but enthralling anyway.
7. A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (VINTAGE)While I can only take Hemingway's novels in small doses, I still find his compact, to-the-point writing immensely refreshing. 'Arms' reminds me of being 18, and getting caught up in the rather melodramatic love-story between the wounded soldier and resolute nurse. Brett Ashley of 'Sun' is, for me, a less tiring, though more artificial heroine. If you combine every female character in all of Hemingway's canon, you may just squeak by with one well-rounded woman.

Reading Wish List:Week of 22 June

My reading fast ended on 31 March, for what little good that has done me. I have been so busy writing--articles,blogs,zines,serials and a novel--that reading has been demoted to the role of second-class citizen. Suddenly, something that has been deeply integral to my identity since, it seems, the moment of my advent, has dwindled to the occasional, nostalgic pastime of a too-busy woman. From a creative stand-point, this is ultimately a very good thing.

I am in an exceptionally ripe stage of creativity: a manic fire of artistry was lit some months ago, and continues to blaze unabated. To spend too much of my precious time reading would be to invite stasis to return. As a writer, I simply cannot take that chance. This means that I have been taking time to really savour everything that I read, instead of rushing through 5 books at once in order to make way for the next one in the queue.I have not been reading a dozen books a month, as is my custom. My input of others' words is currently about a third of that; the output of my own writing has been phenomenally increased.

This means, of course, that my reading wish-list is growing at a rate far too fast for me to catch at present. When the muse has mellowed a bit, I hope to sit down and kick back with some of the following volumes!

1. Dictionary of Modern English Usage by H.W. Fowler (WORDSWORTH) and Oxford American Writers' Thesaurus David Auburn, Michael Dirda, et al., eds. (OXFORD) The contents of these 2 tomes are self-explanatory, as is my obsession with words. I am a reference-book geek of the highest order. I could easily get lost in either of these volumes for hours.


2. Randall Jarrell on W.H. Auden by Randall Jarrell, Stephen Burt, ed. Adam Gopnik, foreword (COLUMBIA UNIV. PRESS) Wystan Hugh Auden has long been one of my favourite poets, although I have never been able to fully embrace his work. That is, I realize, a peculiar state of affairs, yet it is the truth. I remain magnetized, humbled, awed and occasionally annoyed with his poetry and his person.


3. ABUNDANCE: A Novel of Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund (HARPER) Historical fiction can be compelling or appalling, depending on the ratio of accuracy to imagination: the author needs to be heedful of that important balance. Although I am not as enamored of French Court life as of its English counterpart, this appears to be a truly fascinating read. I am unsure whether it is entirely possible to humanize Marie Antoinette, but I am intrigued enough to find out.


4. A View from Vermont Everyday Life in America by Helen Husher (GLOBE PEQUOT)Vermont is one of my favourite states--I thoroughly enjoyed a stay there 5 years ago. It is very far removed from my own existence--perhaps that is part of my appeal. This book is made up of a series of essays. By its description, it almost seems to be a 21st-Century "Country of the Pointed Firs", with a Vermont setting.


5. Secret Agent AKA Danger Man: Sets 1-6 Starring Patrick McGoohan This is a DVD set of the 1960's television series. I am half in-love with the recently deceased, ridiculously suave Patrick McGoohan. This series preceded The Prisoner, a cult-classic that took me 6 months and multiple viewings to warm up to (I admit to still finding it, on occasion, insufferably silly).I can think of many things far worse than sitting through a marathon of Patrick McGoohan at the pinnacle of his appeal.


6. The Art of Conversation A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure by Catherine Blythe (GOTHAM BOOKS)I became an actor so that I could pretend to be other people. I am a writer so that I can invent other people, and control situations to perfection. This means that conversation is not always my strong suit: I much prefer hiding behind a set of pre-determined words. I envy anyone with the skill, the means, and the magic to weave impromptu conversations.


7. The Human Story Our History, From the Stone Age to Today by James C. Davis (HARPERCOLLINS) What awesome ambition must be required to try to encompass the great sweep of the entire course of history in 466 pages. If nothing else, it must be a fascinating attempt.


8. The Victorian Celebration of Death by James Stevens Curl (SUTTON)19th-Century society had a much healthier grip on how to handle death and mourning. They did not hide it away like we do but accepted and celebrated it for what it is: one stage in the many that all humans must pass through.


9. Firewalk The Psychology of Physical Immunity by Jonathan Sternfield (BERKSHIRE HOUSE) Firewalking absolutely enthralls me. Though I would never jump from an airplane or bungee jump, I would leap at the opportunity to walk across hot coals!


10. To Go Signing Through the World The Childhood of Pablo Neruda by Deborah Kogan Ray (FSG) This is a kid's book. If I am ever pregnant, I will surely read the poems of Neruda to my child while he or she is still in the womb.This looks like a great way to directly introduce a child to the life of the man with the magical voice.

A Reading List a Mile Long:24 May Edition

When The Chef got the mail this morning, he immediately took the "Daedelus Books Early Summer 2009" catalogue and tossed it into the trash.He is certainly no enabler, I will give him that.His thoughts on the subject run the course from "You already have more books than you need" to "You can't afford to buy books right now".He muttered the latter as he pitched the precious trove of literary possibilities.'Tis true,I must admit, but it falls far wide of my reasoning.I love to think about books almost as much as I enjoy reading them.My reading list is destined to grow ever longer--I will never be able to keep pace with my desires.But no matter--perusing a catalogue is something akin to flipping through 'Elle'.I will never own 90% of what catches my fancy but I am all the richer for knowing that they exist.And,unlike haute couture, I can borrow all of the books that I want.I am currently quite intrigued with the following.

1-JANE AUSTEN'S GUIDE TO GOOD MANNERS COMPLIMENTS,CHARADES AND HORRIBLE BLUNDERS BY JOSEPHINE ROSS HENRIETTA WEBB ILLUS. (BLOOMSBURY) Although I have no interest in the worshipful cult that has grown up around the witty lady from Bath,I am an unabashed fan of her life and works (that I am an Austen myself makes this somewhat inevitable).This book is an exception to my rule:it looks genuinely engaging.We could all do with a goodly dose of manners, especially as filtered through the Austen sensibility.
2-ALDOUS HUXLEY COMPLETE ESSAYS VOLUME V:1939-1956 and ALDOUS HUXLEY COMPLETE ESSAYS VOLUME VI:1956-1963 ROBERT S. BAKER AND JAMES SEXTON, EDS. (IVAN R. DEE) A compilation series of the non-fiction essays of the famously hard-to-fathom Englishman (at least for high-schoolers trying to work their way through 'A Brave New World').Huxley's contribution to 20th-century literature was immense.These books offer up a fraction of his varied out-put.
3-JOYCE BY IAN PINDAR (HAUS PUBLISHING)I love biographies of dead writers, as I have mentioned on more than one occasion.James Joyce was truly the most fascinating of individuals.Of equal fascination to me is how biographers approach the man and his work in so many odd,convoluted,dense and deep ways, which insures that Joyce as subject will always seem as fresh and new as his writing.
4-ANGUS MCBEAN:PORTRAITS ANGUS MCBEAN,PHOTOS. TERENCE PEPPER, ED. (MONACELLI)Angus McBean was one of the finest photographers of the 20th-Century.His images of British stars from the 1930's onward are amazing:I can only imagine how fabulous this coffee-table edition of his work must be.
5-SUN VALLEY:ARCHITECTURE AND INTERIORS ALAN EDISON AND JO RABJOHN TIM BROWN, PHOTOS. (GIBBS SMITH)Sun Valley is one of the places in America that I would most like to visit--probably because it is so different from my native neck-of-the-woods.Couple that with my well-known love of coffee table books, and it looks like a winner.
6-ALL IS CHANGE THE TWO-THOUSAND-YEAR JOURNEY OF BUDDHISM TO THE WEST BY LAWRENCE SUTIN (LITTLE,BROWN)Buddhism,while ultimately not for me as a life choice, is a subject that I delve into time and again.I like the approach that this book takes, elucidating the long-history of Buddhism's dance with the West.
7-TRUE VAMPIRES BY SONDRA LONDON (FERAL HOUSE) I,like many,find the literary vampire (and its historical origins) of keen interest.However,this book crosses the threshold into reality, by profiling people who truly believe that they are vampires.I am not sure if the result of reading about such people will be horror or pity.
8-WAVE-SWEPT SHORE THE RIGORS OF LIFE ON A ROCKY SHORE BY MIMI KOEHL,ANN WERTHEIM ROSENFELD,PHOTOS. (CALIFORNIA)This appears to be an analytical-visual take on the gritty nature of coastal life.Rugged shores are some of my favourite places to visit. I harbor a kind of artistic-literary fantasy of living on the wild shores of New England or Cape Breton.As that is unlikely, I will make do with the occasional vacation and this book!
9-FLAVORS OF GREECE BY ROSEMARY BARRON (INTERLINK)You can chalk this one up to a combination of hunger and the fact that I ate at a Greek diner with my boss a few days ago.Oh,and because I really do love Greek food.I still regret not ordering Baklava for dessert on Friday.
10-CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG BY IAN FLEMING (YEARLING) I loved this book as a child, and was in the habit of dreaming myself into the story.That it was written by the man who gave us Bond, James Bond really makes me giggle as an adult.It is one of the little gems that I would love to read aloud to my (hypothetical) future children. Sigh.

Banned From Books:Return to Villette, and Myself

I am ,again, a reader: avid, avowed and unapologetic.I have been back in the literary fold for these 17 days past.I have waited to write on my return to words, to a joy that is so much more than passive indulgence in others' creativity,in an effort to horde the experience before sending it out into the world.

I returned, Day 1, to Charlotte Bronte's VILLETTE. I was famished for words, and the worlds they enable in our imagination,slightly beyond,perhaps, what is reasonable.I picked up where I left off with Miss Lucy. I had scant time to push further than a few pages but felt,instantly,a symbiotic welcome back to my favourite pastime.

I have tried to keep my reading on an even keel. I know too well how easy it would be to spend hours lost in the wilds and civilizations of alternate paradises and societies,playgrounds and prisons. So, in lieu of causing an intellectual avalanche, I have eased back between the pages, of this and another book or two.

I have a veritable army of books lined up at the ready. I am not a slow reader and do not possess the self-control or patience to become one.These books will doubtless be ingested ,rather faster than intention dictates, with immediate replacements in the wings.Yet, my book fast instilled in me an understanding,however slight,that to read a few pages at a sitting is its own kind of pleasure,with its own rewards.

I will ever be following my soul's quest to devour as many books as possible in this brief life.After a month away from reading, I have a renewed appreciation for the small,slowed-down intimacies that the written word creates. Pace and volume are,perhaps,also-rans in the act of the intellectual and artistic grace of good literature.Perhaps the only thing that truly matters is the engulfing feeling of having,finally,returned home to myself.

PHOTO: A LETTER WRITTEN BY CHARLOTTE BRONTE.

CANNOT WAIT TO READ:A LIST EVER-GROWING

I enjoyed doing the mini series "A Reading List a Mile Long" so much that I have decided to make it a regular feature.I am always coming across new books, old books, all kinds of books that instantly catch my fancy.I enter them into my beloved moleskin, where they remain until, one day,I am able to cross them off my list.

Many sources help feed my bookish desire. I am inspired by random meanderings through stalls of all persuasion and origin, be they at library, book store or flea market, as well as catalogues and, occasionally, recommendations from others.Through these means, I am always being exposed to new wonders, and reacquainted with old favourites.

This space will be home to some of those finds, as I add them to my anticipatory "Cannot Wait to Read Log".

Today, I am really digging the following:

1-Life in a 17th-Century Coffee Shop by David Brandon (SUTTON) I would love to flow back in time so that I could sit, a mug of that exotic new beverage coffee at my elbow, and observe some of the great literary talents chat, argue and engage in the polarizing topics of the day. Oh, to be at a table near that strange genius, Samuel Johnson! Unfortunately, barring some fabulous scientific discovery, this book is as close as I will ever come to such an experience as that.

2-Murderers' Row An International Murderers' Who's Who by Robin Odell & Wilfred Gregg (SUTTON) File this under: Mae, Morbid Curiosity

3-Dietrich by Malen Sheppard Skaerved (HAUS PUBLISHING) Dietrich is one of those enigmatic phenoms whose lives I will never cease to find fascinating, puzzling and engrossing.I could read a volume dedicated to the German goddess every six months for the rest of my life, and never read my fill.

4-The Custodian of Paradise by Wayne Johnston (NORTON) A novel that appears to have one of the most vivid, memorable heroines in the annals of literature. It is set in WWII Newfoundland, a place that I came very near to visiting 5 years ago.This book will surely resurrect those plans.

5-I Celebrate Myself The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg by Bill Morgan (VIKING)Beat poet, intellectual renegade and legend: Ginsberg's life was meant to be chronicled in a vast, encompassing fashion. This books, at 700 pages, at least aspires to accomplish that.

6-Women Who Write by Stefan Bollmann. Francine Prose, forward. (MERRELL)One of the abiding obsessions of my life as writer and woman.

ARTWORK: SAMUEL JOHNSON by EVERT A. DUYCKNICK, 1873

REVIEWING MY COLLECTION: LIVING AUTHORS Edited by DILLY TANTE

I have a nerdy, abiding mania for several things. The one that has been with me the longest is my passion for reference books: dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs. Anything with the express purpose of imparting information and wisdom of a linguistic, geographic or historic nature sets my heart to twirling. As a writer, I also swear by all manner of odd and informative fact, trivia, date and biographical books. 'Living Authors'is the latter.

I picked it up around five years ago, from the discount purveyor Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller. I have scored some amazing finds from that catalogue but this has been the most used, appreciated and enjoyed.

It is a thick book, chock-a-block full of enticing, informative and brief biographies of, yes, living authors. The catch, which is exactly what made the tome so alluring to me in the first place, is that it was initially published in 1931.So, if you were hoping to read tasty tidbits about Dan Brown or Anne Rice, then this is not your volume. However, if you enjoy the works of some of the greatest writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, or want to discover lesser-remembered lights of that era, then it is well worth finding a copy. Mine is a 2001 reprint.

The book profiles nearly 400 authors, including a photo or illustration of each, as well as a description of their looks. You learn about their backgrounds, careers, and personal lives. While there is no gossip, there is trivia both odd and insightful to be found.

It has proven to be a handy, one-of-a-kind data resource for my columns and reviews, much-thumbed,and infinitely inspirational.'Living Authors' is the perfect book to flip open randomly, while sipping a cup of tea or lazing on the sofa. It takes you back to a time when the world was fertile with wordsmiths of every ilk who, even after separating the talent and the person, were bewitching, engaging and unique individuals in their own right.

Even if I had to eviscerate my collection, 'Living Authors' is one of the last volumes I would part with:it has a charm, approach and immediacy impossible to duplicate.

PHOTOGRAPH: Then-Living Author LOUISE BOGAN.

Banned From Books: A Reading List a Mile Long, Part III

Today is the last day of The Challenge: reading commences tomorrow. I am relieved to slip back into the homey yet challenging skin of being a reader, and my self-identification as such. I already feel as if I shall want to devour one of everything, please! This will make April as much of a challenge as March. Whittling down my wish-list is going to take a mental chisel of epic proportions--continuing to peruse that Daedalus catalogue is probably not the best use of my idle time. I am, sadly, too deeply engrossed to pull back. Here is Part III of my Reading List, straight out of Daedalus Early Spring 2009. It is probably a good thing that I have not broken the seal of the Bas Bleu catalogue that arrived a few days ago!

1-Love and Louis XIV The Women in the Life of the Sun King by Antonia Fraser (NAN A. TALESE)A soon-to-be notch on my post of biographies read, it is authored by the superb Antonia Fraser, who specializes in chronicling the lives of historical figures. Plus, the re-telling of the Court of the Sun King must read like the trashiest modern tabloid, wrought real.

2-La Dame D'Esprit A Biography of the Marquise du Chatelet by Judith P. Zinsser (VIKING)A peek into the life and careers of one of the most accomplished women of the 18th-Century.

3-The Thames: A Cultural History by Mick Sinclair (OXFORD) This is essentially a biography of the iconic English river. This would be a good place to call me a history geek and obsessive Anglophile. Go ahead. I know you want to.

4-Whores of the Devil Witch-Hunts and Witch-Trials by Erik Durschmied (SUTTON) The title is reason enough, don't you think? Persecution of women of power and influence was sadly wide-spread, even in otherwise civilized societies. I find studies of such endemic superstition, fear and greed incredibly fascinating.

5-Mary Magdalene: A Biography by Bruce Chilton (DOUBLEDAY) Rounding out the genre is a telling of the life of the woman who, in unknown and unknowable capacities, walked by the side of Jesus.

6-Letters of EB White Revised Edition EB White Dorothy Lobrano Guth & Martha White, eds. John Updike, forward. (HARPERCOLLINS) The world and insight of the man behind the extraordinary worlds of creatures Charlotte, Wilbur and Stuart is presented through decades of his letters.

7-Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier (DUTTON) She wrote the lovely, evocative and believable 'Girl With a Pearl Earring'. All of her novels create, and re-create, in the most breathtaking capacity imaginable, lost eras and the human, complicated individuals who inhabited them.

8-Emilio's Carnival (Senilita) by Italo Svevo (YALE)His early masterpiece, dating from 1898.

9-Maxfield Parrish and the American Imagists by Laurence S. Cutler & Judy Goffman Cutler (CHARTWELL) Another lush coffee-table art book.

10-Toulouse-Lautrec in Paris by Franck Maubert (ASSOULINE) The life + artwork of the bedazzled, sordid legend.

11-Obsessed with Hollywood Test Your Knowledge of the Silver Screen by Andrew J. Rausch (CHRONICLE) I am, and I will.

Banned From Books: A Reading List a Mile Long, Part II

It was Tuesday night, warm, breezy and clear: post-dinner out with The Chef.I had to break out in a trot to keep up with him--the strides of a tall man are too much for me to keep pace with. He was through the doors before I could shout "slow down". I was led, surely quite knowingly, straight down the primrose path: that door opened into Barnes & Noble.

I followed The Chef around the many tables and shelves, up and down escalators, going whither he went, wherever his desire carried us, avoiding too closely anything that looked tempting to my eyes. I am in the waning days of MY GREAT CHALLENGE--this book fast, or intellectual famine--and did not wish to needlessly make things harder on myself.

Besides, I have been walking around with a large portion of the Daedalus Books catalogue swimming circles in my head. I unloaded some of my wish list a few days ago. Below, is Part the Second.

1-The Awful End of Prince William the Silent: The First Assassination of a Head of State with a Handgun by Lisa Jardine (HARPERCOLLINS)Call me morbid, if you must. The entire nature of the world and our future as human beings changed as a result of this single event.

2-American Cities: Historic Maps and Views by Paul E. Cohen & Henry G. Taliaferro (ASSOULINE)A big, expensive, interactive coffee table book. I have so many of these that, like my framed pieces of art, I have to routinely change them out in order to display them all. Still, there is always room for another, correct?

3-Charlotte Perriand: A Life of Creation by Charlotte Perriand (MONACELLI)A designer, she worked alongside legends (Le Corbusier, people!)and lived fascinatingly and singularly: this is her autobiography.

4-Jack the Ripper: Letters From Hell by Stewart P. Evans & Keith Skinner (SUTTON) In case you thought I was morbid with the assassination book.

5-Storm Warning The Origins of the Weather Forecast by Pauline Halford (SUTTON) I am fairly certain that reading this book will forever classify me as an utter geek yet I care not. Forecasting weather is still an imperfect science: we continuously whine about the erratic ability of our meteorologists. However, the leaps we have made in a couple hundred years is really impressive. This book tells the story of how far we have come, and why.

6-The Art of Burning Bridges A Life of John O'Hara by Geoffrey Wolff (KNOPF)Never the most popular man in literary--or life-circles, he is a mostly forgotten writer. In his day, he was brilliant, polarizing and famous. As I have stated before, I love literary biographies--especially when they are devoted to someone whose star was once bright but has since grown dim. Unfortunately, those are often the best writers.

7-Lighthouses of North America by Barry Pickthall (CHARTWELL) I break for lighthouses, really I do. If I see one on my travels, I must stop. While nothing short of towering reality can capture their beauty and history, a coffee table book is a good start.

8-D.H. Lawrence's Paintings by D.H. Lawrence. Keith Sagar, intro. (CHAUCER PRESS)D.H. Lawrence the artist, category visual, is given due notice and examination in this book. Finally.

9-Film Posters of the 60s The Essential Movies of the Decade by Tony Nourmand & Graham Marsh, ed. (TASCHEN) Films of the 60s as seen through promotional posters, full-size and in-color, published by Taschen. Enough said.

Banned From Books: A Reading List a Mile Long, Part I

I received the Early Spring 2009 Daedalus Books catalogue in the post yesterday. A book catalogue in my hands is, ordinarily, a thing at once dangerous and heavenly: it is porn, complete with alluring, tasty pictures.It is my ritual to grab a pen, throw myself into a chair, and hastily circle anything that catches my fancy or piques my intellect.The arc of my interests is wide, and ever-growing: there are many blurbs touched with ink by catalogue's end.Occasionally,when my curiosity gains the upper hand, I will add up the cost of every circled item. The figure is always embarrassing, even with a discount purveyor like Daedalus.

Even as the no-books challenge is winding down, I am still trying to quell and quash my desire--I will stop shy of calling it a need--to read, read, read! In lieu of picking up a book, I picked up that catalogue and marked my desires with a half-empty black pen, which is now drained and dry. Below is a sampler of some of the delectables, oddities and inspirations I found.

1-Bugatti Queen In Search of a French Racing Legend by Miranda Seymour (RANDOM HOUSE) I am a sucker for biographies of independent,odd and accomplished female souls.

2-Black Barty The Real Pirate of the Caribbean by Aubrey Burl (SUTTON) I have a sick fascination for all things piratical, historically speaking.

3-Eating with the Victorians C. Anne Wilson, ed. (SUTTON)I am a Victoriana nut and I love food. This tome seems like the perfect blend of sociological commentary ( food says loads about a people and culture) and cookbook. Yum!

4-Faces of Science by Mariana Cook. Intro by Gerard Piel (NORTON) While I am not a science fiend, I do find the minds and lives of scientists to be enthralling curiosities ( hello, Johannes Kepler). I also love photography.

5-Penicillin Man: Alexander Fleming and the Antibiotic Revolution by Kevin Brown (SUTTON) SEE ABOVE.

6-A Theatrical Feast in New York by Elizabeth Sharland (SUTTON) How, and where, famous thespians and playwrights pass the time before and after opening night.

7-DEAR FRIENDS American Photographs of Men Together 1840-1918 by David Deitcher (ABRAMS) Doesn't the title say it all? And, no, it is not erotica, at least not in any modern sense.

8-Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. Ralph Steadman, illus. (VINTAGE) Sometimes only Gonzo will do.

9-Wordsworth:A Life by Juliet Barker (HARPER PERENNIAL) My gluttonous yearning for biographies of writers of every stripe will never be sated. Bonus points if it gives good coverage of his famous sister Dorothy,as well.

10-Dolce Vita Style by Jean-Pierre Dufreigne (ASSOULINE) Anyone who has ever seen even 5 minutes of the Fellini film understands why it merits a book such as this.

Painting:The Reader by Jean-Honore Fragonard

Banned From Books, Part IV-Bucherwurm

At this hour, I am deeply envious of the woman in the painting. Night is slowly descending and the light in my loft is of the same haziness as the boudoir in Hermann Fenner-Behmer's work. Perhaps she is reading by a slowly awakening light, in the morning's dawning, but I like to think that she is enjoying the languorous waning of a day that is passing into memory. The leavings on the table could be of any meal; I choose to make them the remains of an evening's repast. I, too, have tea nearby.Yet, while I remain mistress of my clothing, I am missing the key accessory of that engrossed reader, a book.

I have adhered faithfully to the outlines of this challenge:no books for the entire month of March, except for research purposes. No novels,no autobiographies, no enticing histories of anything, no poetry.I have been busy, and this very busyness, while exhausting, is what made the first two weeks fly by, what made the lack far less trying, or noticeable, than it would have been ordinarily.

I missed, initially, the book that I was then reading. I had been visiting the world contained within its pages, gathering its story to me at odd moments throughout each day, for a few weeks, intentionally lengthening the process. It was Charlotte Bronte's "Villette"; approximately one-third remains, waiting to be picked up again when the Challenge has ended.

The real sense of loss has been appearing in the last few days, pricking me for a few seconds before scuttling off again. Reading is not just a past-time, an addiction or an addendum to my character. So many things, vast and subtle, are caught up in the coils of this pleasure. I never realized, fully, how sensual an experience words are, for me, nor how many other vital enjoyments are joined to the act of reading.

Tea, fragrant steam rising off of eddying milk,housed within a familiar cup, rests on its saucer at my elbow. Too hot to bring to my lips, it cools as I read. Engrossed in the book, I forget about the liquid, I forget about everything but the words before me, the words and the scenes and emotions those words evoke. I forget about the tea until it has nearly become too cold for its purpose, catching it to my lips immediately before it is a waste, when its warmth is just right, downing it in three long gulps, Goldilocks-like.

I am sinking into bathwater; indulgently hot water, no bubbles, a few candles, and a book.Magazines are cumbersome and flimsy-only a book serves to pass the time,about an hour's worth if the water temperature stays elevated. A glass of wine, red, resting on the tub's edge between sips, aids my warmth, from the inside. Drops, light as mist, scatter onto a page or two. When dry, they are lightly raised, as braille.

Face-down on my bed, reposed comfortably as the woman in the painting, I am half-covered with a sheet, foot tapping, turning the pages of a book--spending the final moments of the evening on words, sentences and thought.Drowsily stretching, I fall asleep mid-paragraph;my curling fingers mark the page. I awake, slowly, to painful rays of light ,and the book with its freshly crumpled edges.

I am deeply envious of the woman in the painting.She is in full command of her simple pleasures: a book, a pot of tea, and the evening's dying light.

Painting:Der Bucherwurm, Hermann Fenner-Behmer (1906).

Banned From Books or:Take My Left Arm, Please

The act of opening a book is, for me, an offering to the eternal. It is an odd, unique, tensile link in a liturgy that has been occurring for hundreds of years. It is neither religious nor mystical. It knows of not one God but of millions.To read is to connect with what has come before and what is yet to be:you are connected, however tenuously, with every person who has pored over the same words. It is a subject that I have touched on a time or two already, in a different venue:its relevance endures, not only for me as a reader but as a writer. This very connectedness is, indeed, the main reason, aside from an insatiable love of words, I am a writer at all.

Attempting to justify, to explain, to elucidate the very marrow of your lifestyle, your character, your mind-set in one article is daunting. Like Everest, it is impossible for most of us to ascend, yet many make the effort.

I identify myself fully, and with pride, not as a writer who is female but as a female writer. Whether or not my perception or subject matter is decidedly 'female', if such a thing is even possible, is entirely not the question at hand. As a fiction writer, my voice is liquid, changeable and mobile even if my style is not.

I was inspired by the Nobelist George Bernard Shaw, a male, to be a writer. Yet it took an army of women writers, from every era and genre, to convince me that it was possible.To succeed as an artist is to conquer a vast, unknowable, hostile territory. Historically, while never a fully respectable career path for anyone, up to and including today's artists, it has always been an easier one for men to traverse. At some point,women have been banned from and discouraged in doing just about everything we have ever desired. Being ignored in the arts is just one example. Still, thousands of talented, determined, resilient women have succeeded brilliantly,often irreverently, as writers.

It is to those women, from Behn to the Brontes to Bogan, that my mind turns, however fleetingly, every time I sit down to write. They are my network, as much as any living person, to whom I can look to for words of wisdom, guidance and support. Their lives, though far from wholly knowable, are guide-books to the difficult, joyous, invigorating moments that we all encounter and surpass.

It was my little hope, from the age of seven, to be able to write, always. Unaware then that you could be allowed to do such a thing as a serious grown-up, I applied myself to my scrawled, childish compositions while I could.I earned a happy dollar or two by selling hand-written copies of my stories to my family. I curbed that show-and-sell dimension to my writing when slightly older but my mania for reading has never been hidden. Since I have been doing both things--reading and writing--for the vast majority of my life, they have always been glued together in my perception. They are mirrors of each other.One without the other is not to be fathomed by my intellect. Yet, of course, that is exactly what I am now doing.

During the early stages of my transformation from reader to the ever-flowing reader-writer-writer-reader-writer that I am today, I discovered the canon of literary works by incredible women. It was a few years later that I stumbled upon the archetype of my other self: the salonierre.Active in locales as geographically separate as Paris and Moscow, salons were regular literary, philosophical and musical gatherings organized by women. They were much more than hostesses. They were the magnets that drew together artists and patrons, intellectuals and dissidents in a spirit of camaraderie, debate and discourse. The salonierres determined the style and tenor of these gatherings, their wit, verve and creativity acting as sustenance for all whom they entertained.

The salonierres were not content to be solitary readers. They were an artistic force, independent enough to choose favourites and influential enough to assure their success. Salonniers,no mere bluestockings, were participants in the sowing of literary criticism and reputation. Often, they carved a career of words for themselves.

I, living in what is perhaps an ill time for certain of my talents, am a writer and a bluestocking. If I could figure out a practical method of sharing this passion with others,to form a sort of modern salon,which is not the same as a book club(for which I have no natural bent),I certainly would. Either way, the reading is not separate from the writing. I have, in many ways, minutely calculated this life and, giving up even a crumb of what I have so intricately fashioned, feels, at this juncture,like an act of personal desecration.

Yet, for the duration of this barmy wager, separate they must be. For the first time in nearly 3 decades, I must be one without the other: writer, yes, reader, no. I maintain a slight hunch that, at some point, I shall go through a kind of low-key version of the DT's: shaking, night sweats, mental restlessness. I jest, barely. While half of my identity is temporarily fallow, I am hoping that its partner-in-intellect, my creativity, will benefit from the sudden vastness of attention it is currently receiving.

I'll get back with you in a week. I will either be stir-crazy or revelling in a new sense of Achillean artistry or, as a wild-card option, resplendent with an assortment of new skills:maybe I will take up knitting or learn how to bake a killer baklava. You never know until you make the attempt.

(This is the third in a series).

Hello Sadness or:Part II-Challenge Accepted

The French writer Francoise Sagan, famous for penning 'Bonjour Tristesse' whilst still in her teens, voiced a lament familiar to passionate readers the world over when she said,"The one thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read." That sentiment is part of a larger soliloquy I have been saying to myself, and occasionally to others, for years. If I was granted a life span five times longer than average, I would still lack hours enough to read all that I wish to read. I should probably find myself, at the close of that nearly half a millennium, just catching up with, say, the mid-Eighteenth Century English novel. So, as it stands, with providence allowing for a run of approximately 8 decades, and subtracting the time spent actually living this life, I will fall abysmally, though gamely, short. In blunter terms: I will die trying, to the very end, to cram as much of the written word into my heart, brain and soul as possible.

In deciding to forsake reading books for the entire month of March--to reiterate, that is 31 days--I am not pushing away, however temporarily, a simple past-time that serves to fill an idle moment or two. I seldom reach for a book to stave off boredom or to kill an excess of time, nor do I read out of habit.I brush my teeth or exercise out of habit because I know, with a detached intellectualism, that those things are good for me, and therefore necessary.My bond with words is ,dually, ingrained and a conscious choice to live a specific type of life, an explanation which will be broadened upon in Part III.

Yet,I read for too many reasons to make deciphering an easy task, or a light one. It is a fiercely-tentacled thing and, in trying to untangle it, one likely to become even more tightly suctioned together. I have rarely given depth of thought to this conundrum--in fact, only since The Chef's advent into my life a few years ago have I given it any thought at all. For the next few weeks, as I let books recede into the background of my daily life, I will likely return often to this subject. For today, it is enough to say that I read mainly, beyond any hope for enlightenment or enjoyment, to form a connectedness to things, ideas and people that would otherwise be outside my world and beyond my ken.

(The photo is of a lovely painting by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot)

I've Been Challenged,Part 1 or:You Cannot Be Serious

It must have been a surprise to my family when, aged three, I rather matter-of-factly picked up a Little Golden Book and, with it right-side-up, began to read. No one, you see, had actually set out to teach me.It must have been organic, the natural result of an already marked fascination with the written word: even as a toddler, I wandered around the house clutching books in my hands, imploring every adult to read to me, please. At my grandparents' house, I would often slip away from my playroom, or anywhere else I was suppose to be, to go read in the hall coat closet. Yes, the coat closet: it is where a box containing all of my books was kept. After struggling to open the door, then again to snap the light on by pulling the long white string that dangled from the ceiling, it was easier to plop down and "read" right there, next to the vacuum and my grandpa's golf shoes. After awhile, my worried family ceased their worrying, as my whereabouts were set in cement.


There are a few commonalities to the hundreds of photographs snapped by my family during my first five years. Within the frame can be found me, my light brown musical teddy bear and books. "Start as you mean to go on" is a phrase that I have seen randomly popping up on the web in recent weeks. It is trite but manages still to neatly encapsulate the course of my life in the thirty years since I first decoded that Little Golden book.


My love for reading things in book form is fierce and adamantine. It is one of the tallest and sturdiest pillars of my being; my self-identity is en-coiled so completely with books that I am unsure if I could ever unravel it, even if I chose to try. This, then, is the very thing that has been asked of me: to forsake books for the entire month of March.


This gauntlet was hurled at me by The Chef, a seasoned veteran in putting challenges to me that at first seem cruel or needless and, on occasion, flat-out silly. He has proven himself on a number of these occasions to have a surprising depth of insight into my character and motivations.Example: Steak, the noshing of, by his birthday. I was a vegetarian at that time, something that I have since ceased to be. That is another story, however, but it is an example of a compelling coerciveness that I have never met in another person, save myself.


When he first suggested that I not read a book, except for professional needs, for an entire month--and a month of 31 days, at that--I took it for a joke. It was merely an off-handed comment, after all, spoken in his normal voice while he was dressing for work one morning. I would have expected such heterodoxy, if it was truly meant, to be accompanied by the opening of the very earth beneath our feet ,gale-force winds or, at the least, by a circling of ravens above our heads. As those things did not happen, I laughed off his suggestion as a jest.


But, no, the man was serious, and remains so. He maintains the position that it would do me good to be a non-reader for a month. I asked him if he thought it would do him good to be a non-breather for a month, as it nearly amounts to the same thing. I would not, could-not give such a ridiculous challenge a thought. What could I, or anyone, possibly gain intellectually, spiritually, philosophically or in any way that matters, by not reading books? The answer, now that it has come, is exoteric: how would I know? I have gone no more than a day or two, in all my years as a reader, without picking up a book or two ( or three) and greedily ingesting at least a few pages.


The first of March is a scant few hours away, and I remain undecided in my response. While I am reluctant to attempt something that seems to be designed to entirely impoverish my soul, I am not entirely unwilling. A month is not a lifetime, it is a gathering of days that will quickly disappear.I am wise enough to know that there is something to be learned from the brief absence of words, although what that is, exactly, is yet unknown.


If I take up this challenge, I will not be entirely bereft of words: the fast is for (non-professional) books only, leaving the internet and magazines open to my perusal.While I try to decide, I am going to take a cue from these rules. Instead of finishing the night with Charlotte Bronte, I am going to close it with the March Issue of 'Marie Claire' and a glass or two of wine.


Tomorrow, in Part II, I will contemplate a life without books while explaining why my life is contained,explained and justified, in so large a part, within them.

THE ABOVE PHOTO IS BY LIN KRISTENSEN OF NEW JERSEY. IT IS LICENCED UNDER THE CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 2.0. CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO SEE ALL OF THE INFORMATION.