Recent Books

Before Christmas, I spent several days making books -- for one, I borrowed a form that I learned in my very first class in book arts, called a "Spine Surprise;" for another, I used the covers of a lovely old book in French that I'd had on my shelf for over a year; for a third, I re-discovered a sheet of paper that was perfect for a "puppy journal." (I'm still not sure what a puppy journal is, , but as the owner of a new puppy, I knew I had to make one!)

The Spine Surprise book is an accordion-style book with signatures on both sides. One side has pockets and and a signature pamphlet-stitched into the center fold; the reverse side contains two signatures, one in each corresponding folds. The book is secured it with an elastic band.

The other books are coptic-stitched. I used a four-needle binding and combined two different colors of waxed linen thread.

A Year's Reading: Part Deux

Yes, I did say in my last post that I was only listing "some" of the books I most enjoyed reading last year, but when I looked over my reading list again, I felt guilty about not mentioning a few more favorites:

The Places in Between is a book I likely wouldn't have read had it not been a selection of my book club. It turned out to be one of my favorites of the year. Rory Stewart, the author, is a Scot and a former British diplomat who was posted to the Middle East. The book is a recounting of his walk across Afghanistan. Some of the members of my book club thought the book too slow and some thought it a failing that Stewart didn't tell us "what to think" about what we were reading. I thought the book's pace and style fit the content precisely, and Stewart's even-handed way of describing what he encountered on his trip actually said a great deal.

I read T.R. Pearson's first book, A Short History of a Small Place, years ago. It was a wonderful discovery for me, and I've been reading Pearson every since. A Short History had a voice I'd never heard before (you'll either like this or you won't), and was very, very funny. Cry Me a River is a very different type of book. What Pearson's fictions shares, 'though, is his ear for language and his eye for character.

This year I read more "how-to" art-related books than usual. One I recommend highly is Steve Meltzer's Photographing Arts, Crafts and Collectibles. In addition to learning about photographing the subject matter, the book answered a lot of questions for me about photography in general.

I feel better now that I've told you about these... Happy reading!

Artist Credit: Reading Woman (c. 1670), by Pieter Janssen Elinga

A Year's Reading

Here's the list of the books I read in 2007. I've been keeping reading lists for as long as I can remember. I'm not quite sure why, other than to stay focused on reading, and to refer to when someone asks me for a recommendation. But it's also a good way to look back with a bit of distance to see which books left an impression, and which I might have done without.

It's a reminder, too, of the truth of the "so many books, so little time" adage. And that, even among those books I was able to read, so few left a significant mark -- books that I remember months later and still get excited about.

Some of these include Patricia Hampl's Blue Arabesque, a quiet, meditative book about art and artists (this was the first book I'd read by her and it won't be the last); The Mystery Guest, an odd little book (by Gregoire Bouillier) about....well, about the narrator's former romantic relationship, a bottle of wine, a party, and his role as the party's "mystery guest." It's much more, and perhaps much less, than that. I liked it a lot. Truth and Beauty, by Ann Patchett, is about her relationship with her close friend, the writer Lucy Grealy (see Autobiography of a Face). Patchett is a wonderful writer, and her description of her friendship with Grealy is alternately fascinating and infuriating, but always heartfelt and honest.

I'd never read Sharon McCrumb, but found The Ballad of Frankie Silver strangely affecting, perhaps because the setting is the mountain towns of North Carolina, where I live. The novel is based on the true story of the first woman executed (for murder) in the state. McCrumb is a terrific story-teller. Another favorite was Charles Baxter's The Feast of Love. I'd been hearing about this novel for years, but got around to reading it only recently. It's full of characters you want to know more about, and permeated throughout with a feeling of magic. It made me want to know Charles Baxter better, too. I enjoyed Balzac and the Little Chinese Princess, by Dai Sijie, a lovely story of two Chinese boys who are sent to work in a rural area of China during the Cultural Revolution. And I liked Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. It was only after I finished the book that I remembered having read a novel of hers on a lark a couple of years ago, Stern Men, only a little about lobster men in Maine, that I'd much enjoyed.

Of the books I re-read, I fell in love again with E.M. Forster's Howard's End and My Antonia by Willa Cather. I admit that it was hard to read Howard's End this time without seeing Emma Thompson as Margaret Schlegel (Emma played Margaret in the film based on the book). No doubt that added to my enjoyment, but on its own it's a beautifully layered book. My Antonia was a lyrical journey. I don't remember being very excited about it the first time I read it (come to think of it, that was probably in high school or college). I'm convinced that a major part of the reading experience is the reader's readiness. They say that timing is everything, and it certainly applies to reading. Which is why re-reading, years after you first read a book, can yield such great rewards.

What did I not like? Well, perhaps the worst books are those that I think of as the equivalent of Chinese food: moments after you've finished them, you've forgotten them and are hungry for a real book. Usually, though, all's well while you're reading. To extend the metaphor, they're a little like comfort food. As to what I plodded through, The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley, a book I read for a book club, and My Name is Red, another book club read, top my list. They're very different books of course, and Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize for his body of work recently. I found My Name is Red to be terribly repetitive, as if Pamuk wanted to make sure that the reader GOT THE POINT. The Mists of Avalon, which I understand is a huge favorite of many and a cult book of sorts, was also repetitive (and very, very, very long). But more than that, it wasn't much fun, and a book about the Arthurian legend (told from a feminine -- and feminist -- perspective) should be fun. Instead, it was preachy and pretentious.

I'm already into my reading for 2008 and looking forward to great new finds and some classic favorites. Happy reading in 2008!

My 2007 Reading

• The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
• Photographing Arts, Crafts and Collectibles - Steve Meltzer
  
• The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
  
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Ann Bronte
  
• The Brontes at Haworth - Ann Dinsdale
  
• The Man Who Smiled - Henning Mankell
  
• Howard's End - E.M. Forster
  
• Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
  
• Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
  
• The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
  
• The Tattoo Artist - Jill Ciment
  
• Dead Clever - Scarlett Thomas
  
• The Ballad of Frankie Silver - Sharon McCrumb
• Lions and Liquorice - Kate Fenton
  
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
• Angelica - Arthur Phillips
  
• Homeland and Other Stories - Barbara Kingsolver
• On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
• Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith - Anne Lamott
• Digital Art Studio - Karin Schminke, et al.
• In Case We're Separated - Alice Mattison
• The Forest Lover - Susan Vreeland
• Truth and Beauty - Ann Patchett
• How to Read a Novel - John Sutherland
• The Orchid Shroud - Michelle Wan
• The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman
• Same Sweet Girls - Cassandra King
• The Art of Fiction - David Lodge
• The Amateur Marriage - Anne Tyler
• Cry Me a River - T.R. Pearson
• Have Mercy on Us All - Fred Vargas
• Drinking Coffee Elsewhere - Z.Z. Packer
• Polio: An American Story - David Oshinsky
• Friends, Lovers, Chocolate - Alexander McCall Smith
• Tell Me a Riddle - Tillie Olsen
• The Death of Ivan Illych - Leo Tolstoy
• London: A History - A.N. Wilson
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Princess - Dai Sijie
• Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert - Roger Ebert
• Blue Arabesque - Patricia Hampl
• The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason
• My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
• The Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith
• Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Mystery Guest - Gregoire Bouillier
• All is Vanity - Christina Schwarz
• Prague - Arthur Phillips
• Creative Collage Techniques - Nita Leland/ Virginia Williams
• Reading Like a Writer - Francine Prose
• Collage Techniques - Gerald Brommer
• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Blechdel
• My Antonia - Willa Cather
• The Places in Between - Rory Stewart
• Lady Into Fox - David Garnett
• The Keep - Jennifer Egan

Artist Credit: Woman Reading, by Mary Cassatt, top right

"Women's (Art) Work"

Lee Kottner has a thought-provoking post today about, among other topics, the devaluation of crafts made by women at home. The entire post is well worth a look. Here's some of what Lee has to say:

"It's easy to dismiss handmade work as trivial or pointless activity in the machine age, especially when it's made by women. Crafts traditionally done by women have been undervalued and dismissed by patriarchal society for centuries. And I have to say it pisses me off to hear Old Guard feminists dissing other women's work this way. Doing so just plays into the false dichotomy men have always built between professional and home production: between the male chef and the woman who cooks equally well in her own home; between a male ceramicist with a commercial studio and a woman potter who makes her own dishes; between a male fashion designer (or even a tailor) and a woman who designs and sews her family's clothing; between male fabric designers and women who batik and silk-screen and weave their own fabric. Whatever men do in a professional setting is traditionally considered more important and harder and more respectable than the same job done by women in their own homes. Bullshit, I say. It was women cooking, weaving, sewing, and potting who started all these so-called arts that men elevated into some lofty category. It's not who does it, it's the quality of the work the matters.

"The article's author quotes Debbie Stoller, Bust's editor and founder of Stitch'n Bitch, as saying that those domestic crafts were casualties of the first wave of feminism. Don't you believe it. Women sewed from both necessity and out of boredom but it was, more than anything, the cheap availability of mass-produced goods that made women's handicrafts unnecessary. Women could not have moved into the workforce without cheap manufactured goods they formerly hand-produced: bedding, clothing, even food (butter churning?). In addition, advertising created a desire for the manufactured rather than the hand-made. But in poor families where mass-produced goods were still unaffordable, women still continue to sew, knit, and crochet. Same hand crafts like tatting and lace making fell by the wayside for cultural reasons unrelated to feminism. Who includes lace-embellished linens in their trousseau anymore? Who even has a trousseau? Mass production put the majority of independent cast ironworkers, glassblowers, and cabinetmakers out of business, too. These are traditionally male handcrafts (like printing), and nobody blames feminism for their demise. Yet they're as scarce as or possibly more scarce than women who sew, crochet, knit, or weave."

BookGirl's 2009 Reading

This is my work-around to Blogger's unfortunate inability to create separate "pages" (something Wordpress, for example, can do), so don't concern yourself with the date above. So I'm creating this list as a separate post and will link to it from an item on the sidebar of my blog's home page. I'll keep it up to date.

My 2009 Reading

• The Raphael Affair - Iain Pears
  
• The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
  
• The Creative Habit - Twyla Tharp
  
• Painted Paper - Alisa Golden
  
• The World to Come - Dara Horn
  
• Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders - Lawrence Wechsler
  
• 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel - Jane Smiley
  
• The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery
  
• People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
  
• A Flaw in the Blood - Stephanie Barron
  
• The Private Patient - P.D. James
  
• Fat Chance - Simon Gray
  
• Downtown Owl - Chuck Klosterman
  
• Tender is The Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
  
• The Dress Lodger - Shari Holman
  
• The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
  
• The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
  
• The Pleasure of My Company - Steve Martin
  
• Fearless Creating - Eric Maisel
  
• Softspoken - Lucius Shepard
  
• The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday - Alexander McCall Smith
  
• Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
  
• Jim the Boy - Tony Earley
  
• The Book Thief - Markus Zuzak
• Ask the Dust - John Fante
• Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson

My 2008 Reading

• The Poetry Handbook - Mary Oliver
  
• The Great Man - Kate Christensen
  
• The Cloister Walk - Kathleen Norris
  
• Absalom, Absalom - William Faulkner
  
• When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson
  
• Astrid & Veronika - Linda Olsson
  
• Print, Pattern & Colour - Ruth Issett
  
• Art & Fear - Bayles and Orland
  
• Three Junes - Julia Glass
  
• The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher - Kate Summerscale
  
• Away - Amy Bloom
  
• The War of Art - Steven Pressfield
  
• Author, Author - David Lodge
  
• Valentines - Ted Kooser
  
• As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
  
• About Alice - Calvin Trillin
• The Accidental Masterpiece - Michael Kimmelman
  
• The Gate of Angels - Penelope Fitzgerald
  
• The Writing Diet - Julia Cameron
  
• We Are Now Beginning our Descent - James Meek
  
• Shakespeare: The Word as a Stage - Bill Bryson
  
• The Girl of His Dreams - Donna Leon
  
• The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
  
• The Chessmen of Doom - John Bellairs
• Maps & Legends - Michael Chabon
  
• Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
  
• A Long Way Down - Nick Hornby
  
• Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith
  
• The Archivist - Martha Cooley
  
• Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
  
• Out Stealing Horses - Per Petterson
• Altered Books Workshop - Bev Brazelton
  
• Twilight - William Gay
  
• What the Dead Know - Laura Lippman
• The Film Club - David Gilmour
  
• The Society of S: A Novel - Susan Hubbard
  
• The Haunting of Lamb House - Joan Aiken
  
• The Mature Master - Sheldon Novick
  
• The Careful Use of Compliments - Alexander McCall Smith
  
• Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
  
• Pleading Guilty - Scott Turow
  
• 'Measure for Measure - William Shakespeare
  
• Daisy Miller - Henry James
  
• The Beast in the Jungle - Henry James
  
• One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson
  
• The Aspern Papers - Henry James
  
• The Spellman Files - Lisa Lutz
• Tourist Season - Enid Shomer
  
• What Maisie Knew - Henry James
  
• The Garden of Iden - Kage Baker
  
• The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare
  
• Washington Square - Henry James
  
• Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
  
• The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett
  
• Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare - Stephen Greenblatt
  
• Midwives - Chris Bohjalian
  
• Trespass - Valerie Martin
  
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
  
• Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
  
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig
  

My 2007 Reading

• Photographing Arts, Crafts and Collectibles - Steve Meltzer
  
• The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
  
• The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
  
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Ann Bronte
  
• The Brontes at Haworth - Ann Dinsdale
  
• The Man Who Smiled - Henning Mankell
  
• Howard's End - E.M. Forster
  
• Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
  
• Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
  
• The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
  
• The Tattoo Artist - Jill Ciment
  
• Dead Clever - Scarlett Thomas
  
• The Ballad of Frankie Silver - Sharon McCrumb
• Lions and Liquorice - Kate Fenton
  
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
• Angelica - Arthur Phillips
  
• Homeland and Other Stories - Barbara Kingsolver
• On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
• Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith - Anne Lamott
• Digital Art Studio - Karin Schminke, et al.
• In Case We're Separated - Alice Mattison
• The Forest Lover - Susan Vreeland
• Truth and Beauty - Ann Patchett
• How to Read a Novel - John Sutherland
• The Orchid Shroud - Michelle Wan
• The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman
• Same Sweet Girls - Cassandra King
• The Art of Fiction - David Lodge
• The Amateur Marriage - Anne Tyler
• Cry Me a River - T.R. Pearson
• Have Mercy on Us All - Fred Vargas
• Drinking Coffee Elsewhere - Z.Z. Packer
• Polio: An American Story - David Oshinsky
• Friends, Lovers, Chocolate - Alexander McCall Smith
• Tell Me a Riddle - Tillie Olsen
• The Death of Ivan Illych - Leo Tolstoy
• London: A History - A.N. Wilson
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Princess - Dai Sijie
• Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert - Roger Ebert
• Blue Arabesque - Patricia Hampl
• The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason
• My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
• The Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith
• Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Mystery Guest - Gregoire Bouillier
• All is Vanity - Christina Schwarz
• Prague - Arthur Phillips
• Creative Collage Techniques - Nita Leland/ Virginia Williams
• Reading Like a Writer - Francine Prose
• Collage Techniques - Gerald Brommer
• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Blechdel
• My Antonia - Willa Cather
• The Places in Between - Rory Stewart
• Lady Into Fox - David Garnett
• The Keep - Jennifer Egan