Back from Lake Placid and to Work--Toumainen, Anyone?

I had three full days in Lake Placid, home of the 1932 and 1980 Olympics, and the premier vacation destination area within the six-million-acre Adirondack Park in northern New York State. When I set out on Tuesday, I had no idea what my exhausted mind and body would decide to do. I gave myself permission to do whatever felt right. As it turned out, I found I was drawn to hiking and exploring (and bushwhacking a bit) in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks, as opposed to flopping down with lots of books all day, which was what I had expected I would want to do.

When I go on my annual solo jaunt to Lake Placid, I never know what I will feel like doing, so I bring loads of books, my current writing project stuff, all my hiking and outdoors gear, and see where my spirit takes me. Maybe because my body desperately needed the exercise tune-up, I spent hours and hours walking and hiking, and now at last, I've found I'm more at peace with myself and am back to good bushwhacking shape. Two of the three nights I slept 11 hours! 

Of course I did read in the late afternoons and evenings. I chose the recently released Finnish novel The Healer by Antti Toumainen, and at this point I have just 40 pages to go. Finishing might seem to be no problem, but I've had my summer course to prepare (two 3.5 hour classes per week!) and a new-to- me YA award-winner to read by Walter Dean Myers.  Monster won the Michael Printz Award, which is the American Library Association's YA equivalent to the John Newbery Medal.

I would love to post some of my photos from my climb up Mount Jo. The summit affords more than 180-degree views of some of the grandest High Peaks. I will, when I have time to get them downloaded. School tomorrow!

When Life Is Upside Down...

Keep grading exams and late papers! But what happened to my reading time I was drooling for this weekend? Well, the college registrar forgot to inform English instructors at the satellite campus that after giving exams today, final grades for the semester must be in by Monday.  And this, a weekend with a holiday, with no advance warning, and in opposition to tradition. My blood is gathering steam for a royal boil.

Now for the meat course. Books on tap for me:
1. I know for certain you won't believe this, but I STILL have a hundred pages to go in Midwinter Blood by Mons Kallentoft. I really, really like the book very much, but because I'm so tired every night, I fall asleep as soon as I'm in a comfy position in bed. It's called the end-of-the-semester sleeping pill. It's more like anesthesia.

2. Yay! Yay! Hooray! Oh, gosh. Oops. Just checked my Nook. I thought The Healer by Antti Tuomainen would be on my Nook today, but now it says it won't be delivered until the 14th of May. I can't wait to dig into this novel because of the post-apocalyptic, "ruthless climate change" environmental disaster backdrop. I'm also keen to read a crime novel by a truly Finnish writer.

3. To the Lake District! That's where I'm headed with The Frozen Shroud by Martin Edwards. It was inexpensive on the Nook ($6.99), and the good reviews about Edwards and this particular novel pushed me to buy it.
Have you read Martin Edwards?

My Time Off Has Vanished!

I must forget all that time off I thought I had in May. Gone! Vanished! Vamoosh!

Since February the college has changed the dates of the Summer I session, but I didn't know until, by happenstance, I heard the current dates from a chemistry professor. I thought she was crazy, but no--I'm the dumb one. I now get only one week off. During that time I am going on a solo writing/reading/hiking retreat to Lake Placid. Three nights at a much-reduced cost. I did this last year in late June and it was so rejuvenating. So, again!

The Silver Lining: This academic schedule change means that I will not be teaching during all of July and August. I understand I will likely be leading occasional nature investigations at Garnet Hill Lodge during late July and August, but that's it! Two months to read! And two months to work on my writing/book projects!  I will need a trip to Boston during that time to visit family, but that's it for travel.

How cool--two entire months to READ during the hottest part of the year when outdoor activities are difficult! Can you imagine? I'm so psyched! I know, I'm overdoing my enthusiasm and exclamation points.

I want to make a list of the books I want to read during those two months. That will be fun. Nordic Noir, yes. Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior, Ian McEwan's latest, and more. A more complete list will be forthcoming.

Do let me know about your summer reading plans. OR, are you too busy to read in the summertime? Do report!

In the Merry Month of May: Books to Come

Yes, just a few days until May. April has not been my best reading month, although it has been a good month for launching work on several writing projects. My reading has been usurped by these projects, so I find I'm not making headway with what I call my recreational fiction.

Some of you may be shocked to learn that I am still reading Midwinter Blood by the Swedish crime writer Mons Kallentoft.

Two weeks ago I borrowed two copies of Phantom by Jo Nesbo, in the hopes that Ken and I would read along together. I could not keep up, and he has zoomed through the book and is entering the final fifth of the novel. It was a terrific idea to read a book like this together, but, well, he has more time to read recreationally and I overestimated my abilities. Yes, you're right--bad excuse! By the way, he's loving the book. He loves the darkness, although he admits he can't read book after book of Nordic Noir. I think I can, but how will I know if other academic books are constantly claiming my time.

So, while I'm reading numerous books about the desperate end of the Civil War in the bludgeoned Confederacy, I'm not progressing with my other bookish interests.

In May, I have a break of exactly 2 weeks and 5 days before I teach a grueling course in the Summer I session.

So here's what I hope to accomplish:
1. Finish Midwinter Blood, of course!

2. Read and write a review for All That I Am by Anna Funder for Caroline's War and Literature Readalong  title for May. Funder is an Australian-born author who now lives in Brooklyn, New York. I'm looking forward to reading this World War II novel. Please join us!

3. I hope to listen to some audiobooks. I'm finishing up the Carole King memoir (fantastic!). I'll be sorry to say goodbye to such a memorable listening experience. I can't say enough good things about it.

4. But I can't claim too much for a mere 2 weeks and 5 days. I have high hopes for leisure reading, but I need to see how it goes!

Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee in Bookish News

I was about to address the readers of this entry as "Auster fans." For such an esteemed American writer, fandom seems too commercial, too disrespectful of Paul Auster's stature in American letters. At least, that's my opinion. But, that said, if you are a devoted reader of Auster's work, have you heard about the volume of letters that he and J.M. Coetzee pulled together, entitled Here and Now: Letters 2008-2011, published by Viking Penguin this March, I believe?

Evidently the two literary comrades, living on opposite sides of the globe (the South African Coetzee now lives in Adelaide, Australia), decided to embark on an epistolary correspondence to see where it led, and with the possibility that they might pursue publication. The project seemed contrived to me at first, but then again, to a reader who has long lamented the loss of handwritten letters as documentary evidence, I was curious about what they might come up with. Anything and everything Auster does fascinates me, so I contemplated buying the book, but before I made the commitment, I found the book sitting on the "New Books Shelf" at the Lucy Scribner Library at Skidmore College, a place I frequent for my scholarly reading. So, last Friday afternoon I literally snatched it off the shelf with a little gasp, as if someone were about to grab it before I could claim it.

Auster's first letter to Coetzee is a reflection about friendship. Wouldn't you know I was so swamped this weekend I haven't had time to read it! Augghh!


   

More Boston Talk (No Books)

Last evening, after a very long day of climactic events in Boston, I called my mom as I often have during this difficult week. And she asked me last night, "Did all of this make you at all homesick for Boston?"  "Oh, yes!" I answered emphatically, "And Ken, too!"

Mom and I discussed the fact that the surviving terrorist, 19 years old, was in my nephew's (her grandson's) class at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, graduating in 2011. I haven't spoken to Liam--he lives with my brother in Cambridge, one of the areas in total lock down yesterday. They both must be exhausted. But, because I teach 19-year-olds, and because I've heard so many reports about the high regard the terrorist's friends and teachers held him in, I feel an enormous sense of tragedy.

I am touring around Boston in my dreams at night. And I was so surprised when Ken told me how he wished to be in Boston with his coworkers and friends this week. I was so surprised to hear him say this because Ken has never said anything about missing Boston. Quite the contrary, in fact. I haven't missed the city either--we've both been so content with the wonders of our wilderness. 

It's embarrassing to say this, but the only things we have missed before this week have been ludicrously trivial, such as fresh seafood, superb Chinese and Thai cuisine, Whole Foods supermarket, and just plain all-round excellent food, all of which we most assuredly do not have here in northern New York. We've made do with the inferior fare available at supermarkets, and because we have wealth in our environment, we haven't complained. How important is food anyway? Not at all, in the grand scheme of things.

I think we both need a brief trip back--to visit friends. Ken needs to see his buddies at The Boston Globe. I'd love to spend time with my mother, and then, in the evenings, visit our best friends...in great restaurants, of course. Oops! There goes the family budget! Perhaps we can in the next month.

Nordic Noir, The Book Depository, and Spring Photo Up

Last weekend I turned again to Sarah's Crime Pieces' review of Barry Forshaw's newest book, Nordic Noir: The Pocket Essential Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction, Film, and TV and decided to buy it. When I found it wouldn't be published in the U.S. until September (Who can wait that long?), I let my laptop spirit me over to The Book Depository's website and ordered it, with no shipping costs. So delighted was I that I would receive this 160-page reference in a couple of weeks rather than five months, I also ordered Forshaw's first book about Scandinavian crime novels, Death in a Cold Climate. Although this title has been published in the U.S., it was not available via our network's dozens upon dozens of libraries, though one can buy it from Amazon or Barnes and Noble for $28. Yet I was able to order it from The Book Depository for around $20, no shipping.

Now that makes me worry about the BD. All I can say is, the company can't be making any money from me, seeing as it ships books all the way from the Channel Islands, but I'm glad it has thus far included the U.S. within its "no shipping" scope. If you live in the U.S. and want a book recently published in the UK, do check them out. I have ordered a few other titles and have been very pleased that the books arrive in excellent condition. I will be ordering more from them soon. Life is too short to wait months and months for books to be published here, not to mention all the great ones that never will!

What Happens When You Call Boston Home

While I blithely wrote yesterday's entry, I had no idea that a terrorist attack had occurred in the square of Boston that I have visited more than any other. On the way home from the college, I was listening to the Carole King memoir rather than the radio and Ken was working. When Ken and I turned on the television at 7pm, we were shocked and horrified to discover the loss of life and crippling injuries suffered by Marathon watchers closest to the explosions. We immediately emailed close friends who live within blocks of the site. I also emailed a young friend who habitually hangs out at the finish line with his friends. As far as we know, everyone we contacted is safe but terribly shaken. We feel so helpless to aid the people most affected by the attack.

As a number of regular readers know, I lived my entire life until 2005 in the immediate Boston area and Ken has ever since his college days. Ken was a software analyst for The Boston Globe newspaper for 20 years and spent more than a dozen Marathon Mondays with co-workers gathering running times from the athletic association that organizes the Boston Marathon. They all hovered over their computers in a building very close to one of the explosion sites, collecting data as the 20,000+ runners made it across the finish line. The Boston Globe prides itself on being able to publish running times in Tuesday's paper every year without fail.

As for me, I made a point of never being in Boston on Patriot's Day. Never. However, because one of the nation's four best research libraries and the oldest public library in the nation is right in the middle of Copley Square, I was a regular visitor, almost always for the purpose of conducting research for one of my books or articles. The Starbucks store across Boylston St. closest to where one of the blasts occurred is a place where I have consumed hundreds of cups of coffee over my years as a writer.

You may wonder why I'm going on about our connections to Copley Square. Home matters. Place matters. Ken and I thought we understood how New Yorkers felt after 9/11. We empathized as did millions of people all over the world. But when a terrorist attack strikes a place you have always thought of as home, as your city, the assault feels very different. I suppose I feel angrier at this attack than at others, but most of all, we feel ruthlessly violated and vulnerable.

Ohmigosh! Carole King: A Natural Woman--A Memoir Narrated by Carole Herself!

First of all, I must begin this entry by saying that Carole King's album Tapestry defined me when I came of age. It spoke for me. It encompassed my dreams and lamented my heartbreaks. I couldn't stop listening to it, and I literally wore out the vinyl. I couldn't help singing along with it either, as bad as that must have sounded. My whole being resonated with each song, each lyrical phrase. She was singing about my life! I don't believe there was an album that I inhaled more deeply than Tapestry, although I must confess to an undeniable, passionate love of Sgt. Pepper, which comes up as a strong second.

I was 18, 19, and 20 during my compulsive Carole King years:1971-1973. By 1974, I had moved on. Her new music no longer spoke to me as vibrantly, and that was that. But my abandonment of her music does not diminish the intensity of my unforgettable recollections of my love for the albums she produced during those years.

When King's memoir appeared last spring, a year ago, I wasn't tempted to seek it out. After all, I had listened ardently to Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon - and the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller, which was an absorbing, lengthy biography that details both the musical careers and personal lives of the three women whom I'd long admired.

I blindly assumed that there was nothing more for me to discover about Carole King. But then--Tah dah!! I came upon the audiobook of Carole King: A Natural Woman at the library and discovered that King had narrated the unabridged memoir. Immediately, I wanted to listen. And I've been compulsively spellbound on my commutes to work ever since. (No! No! Just five miles to go before I reach the college? Slow down!)  Now I get to be embraced by her life and hear Carole tell it in her own words, with her own emphases (she has an emphatic voice), and also hear her burst into song spontaneously throughout. What a joy!! Why didn't this audiobook win a zillion awards??

Well, obviously, I urge you to listen to this audiobook if you have any interest in King or her legacy to popular music. Beg, borrow, steal, or buy it even! It's that good.