This Sunday finds me a bit scattered and at loose ends.  After dropping my husband at the airport very early *yawn* this morning (he’s off on a spur of the moment junket to our home in Florida), and driving home amidst the gloomy drizzle that has become our lot here for the past three days, I don’t seem to have the heart for doing much.  I went so far as to get dressed for church, and then abruptly changed my mind about going, deciding to stay home and read instead.

So- I’m nearly finished with The Wendesday Sisters, and I have enjoyed it, although perhaps not quite as much as I had hoped. After all, it seems the perfect premise for a book lover/writer type like myself- a group of young mothers who meet in the park on Wednesday mornings and form an impromptu writer’s group, using their devloping writing skills to gain self confidence and self awareness.  Perhaps it’s because most of the book is set in the late 60’s and early 70’s, I’m having a bit of difficulty identifying with the characters  - it’s all just a bit “before my time,” you see. 

However, author Meg Waite Clayton demonstrates a superb understanding of this era in American domestic life, and her portrayal of these five women and their relationships seems genuine.  I’ve become a big fan of the television show Mad Men, an original drama centered around a Madison Avenue advertising agency in the mid 1960’s.  The women in this show are also clearly subjugated to the needs and wants of the men they “serve,” whether as secretary’s, wives, or mistresses.  For one who was a child during this time period, it’s interesting to see life from the adult perspective.  As for The Wednesday Sisters - well, it remains to be seen how far they will come into their own by the end of the novel.

I’ve been reading Silent Girl, a short story collection by Tricia Dower, which is also very feminist in perspective, focusing on the lives of girls and women from several cultures,  many of whom are “without a voice” in their milieu.  The stories (inspired by women from Shakespeare’s plays!) deal with a wide range of social issues - from family dynamics to kidnapping and sexual slavery.  This is a fascinating collection, well written and quite unique, and deserves a proper review once I’ve finished reading it.

Plenty to keep me busy, don’t you think?  As long as I can stay awake to keep reading *bigger yawn*.

Ten years ago my only son moved away, leaving behind an extremely bereft pair of parents.

However, he also left behind an empty room.  After a few weeks of moping, it occurred to me that creating a reading room of my own could be very helpful in easing the pain of an empty nest.

With a fresh coat of pain, a lovely floral patterned comforter with coordinating window treatments, a couple of small lamps to shed a warm glow on the page,  a small stereo to play chamber music, and my own little desk from college (which had been gathering dust in our basement), this “reading room of my own” was nearly complete.  And it was far enough away from our family room that the television was (almost!) inaudible.

All I needed was The Reading Chair.

Chairs are all important for the reader, aren’t they?  I like to sit sideways when I read -literally curled up with my feet on the chair beside me.  So my reading chair needed to be fairly wide across the seat.  In this position, I prop my book on the arm of the chair, which must also be of decent breadth to support some of the weightier tomes I take up.  A high back is also a must, for sometimes my neck tires and my head will need to rest against a cushion.  And, just in case I need to stretch out a bit, a matching ottoman, which doubles as the perfect resting spot for one or two small dogs.

So began the hunt for the perfect chair.  Feeling more and more like Goldilocks, I traversed the furniture stores, book in hand, trying out chair after chair.  Too soft, too hard, too low or too high, arms too narrow, seat too shallow…it appeared the perfect chair had not been created.

Finally I found it. Every characteristic exactly what I needed.  It conformed to my body shape perfectly, allowed me to sink into in just deeply enough, my head to relax against the soft back at just the proper angle, my book resting comfortably on the solid arm.  A matching ottoman was available, one plenty wide enough to allow a small dog to cuddle against each of my feet.

Ahh.

For nearly ten years now, I’ve been curling up in my Reading Chair.  On days like today, when midsummer humidity keeps me indoors, the ceiling fan overhead cools me with a gentle breeze as I read.  In the dead of winter, I pull down the shades and cocoon myself with a soft pink blanket, shutting out the snow and ice swirling around outside. 

A small table stands beside me, a place to set my coffee mug in the morning, an iced tea in the afternoon, or a glass of wine in the evening. Usually a stack of books is perched there as well, with a notebook and pen in case some snippet cries out to be recorded.

There’s also a photograph of a small boy wearing a red sweater and a blue baseball cap, smiling sweetly and keeping his mom company in her reading room.

Now tell me, do you have a special place to read?

<pouf!>

that’s the sound of me, blowing dust off the top of this poor neglected Bookstack.

real life has a way of intruding into even the most ravenous reader’s imagination, and mine has been a bit withered these past days.  i can’t really blame it on the heat, for our weather here has been sublime.   perhaps the dearth of writing in this space can be traced to the general chaos in my work life over the past week.

whatever the reason, my brain has been tired and limp, so nothing has appeared on the page.

i have been reading however, make no mistake about that.  (when i stop reading, you will know that the grim reaper is hovering very near my door.)  i’ve been devouring Robert Frost, a very fine biography of this poet, by Jay Parnini.  i finished it this morning - all 448 pages of it - and i’ve enjoyed it immensely.

but at the moment i’m simply too tired to talk about it. 

what i feel most like these days is curling up in bed with a wonderfully entertaining read and just plowing through it from start to finish, without thinking about anything other than a good storyline with characters who are likeable and entertaining.

i dashed up to the library on my bike this evening, and snagged a copy of The Wednesday Sisters, which I’ve been dying to read after all the great reviews its been getting. 

i think this is the perfect night to plunge in.

there’s a bubble bath waiting, and crisp, clean sheets on my bed.

so, off i go.

I confess…sometimes I take my reading a bit too seriously. I have this feeling that everything I read must be edifying or enlightening or educational or inspirational.  But every so often a book finds its way to the top of my stack that’s really none of those things.

It’s simply entertaining.

And with a subtitle like this - The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own - you can probably tell into which category Queen of the Road falls.

Doreen Orion, a self proclaimed Princess, Couch Potato, and shoe fanatic (as well as being a triple board certified psychiatrist) succumbs to the pressure from her husband Tim, and agrees to join him on his dream escapade - a year touring the country in a converted bus. From page one, the reader is hanging on for dear life as this hapless couple start careening around the United States, from Florida to Alaska, New York to Nevada, and everywhere in between.  Along the way they encounter various and sundry bus disasters (fire and flood), meet characters of every ilk (armed robbers and Indian chiefs), spend some time in a nudist RV colony, renew their marriage vows courtesy of an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas, and (not surprisingly) discover new things about themselves and what’s really important in their lives.

Turns out owning 200 pairs of shoes isn’t all that great after all.

Living on our bus allowed me to see how few things I really needed and, ultimately, what I actually valued.  I truly hadn’t appreciated how important my belongings had become until I shed most of them and put the rest at risk - on the bus.  And risk turned out to be exactly what I needed.  While going with the crowd feels safer, it’s much more rewarding to take to the open road on your own, to determine your own course and have your own experiences.

Hmm, perhaps Queen of the Road  was more enlightening and edifying than I first thought.

It was definitely entertaining, for Orion’s writing style is breezy, sardonic, and fast paced.  And her story is not only about travel and challenge, but about love, for along the way she and her husband Tim come to an even greater appreciation of each other’s strengths. 

It’s a feel good story through and through - and the fact that each chapter includes the recipe for a “custom blend” martini (The Phobic Friar-1 part Frangelico, 1 part raspberry liqueur, 2/3 part Baileys; Hold martini shaker firmly with both hands; tremble violently; pour down throat) makes it feel even better!

So if you’re in the mood for a rollicking road trip, you won’t go wrong hopping on this bus. You’ll end the read ride with a big smile on your face.

Queen of the Road

by Doreen Orion

published by Broadway Books, 2008

272 pages

I’ve settled into summer quite nicely, dear friends, and summer has been so kind to us this week.  The weather has been picture perfect, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of being outdoors.  I’m having breakfast with the birds this morning, here on the back porch, as they raise their chorus of avian anthems to the day.  There’s room for you to join me  - I’ve just put cinnamon rolls in the oven and a carafe of fresh coffee awaits.  Welcome to the Sunday Salon.

I’ve been in re-read mode this week, and have just closed the last page on While I Was Gone, Sue Miller’s powerful novel of a woman at the mercy of her own restless spirit.  Jo Becker, a 50 year old veterinarian, really seems to have it all.  A solid marriage, three grown daughters, a fulfilling career - yet she can’t seem to escape this deep sense of restlessness that has dogged her throughout her life, a restlessness that sent her careening out of her first marriage some 30 years earlier, and into a commune in the city.  Events that occurred during that time have haunted Jo ever since, and I don’t think even she had any idea how much until one of her roomates from that time enters her life again, totally unexpectedly, triggering a series of events that puts Jo’s life and marriage in peril.

Miller does so many things so well in this novel.  She takes us into the heart of Jo, her domestic life, the secrets she has kept from her family and even from herself.  As a woman of a similar age and stage of life, certainly I identifed with this character, with the sense of urgency that arises in mid life, when you “know what will happen next.  And next, and next, and then last.”  But I was angry with her too (I always seem to get angry with Miller’s characters, don’t I?)  For her life seems to be all that and more, as the saying goes.  Why isn’t it enough?  What exactly was she searching for when Eli Mayhew, her former housemate, reappears in the middle of this life she has created? 

The central dilemma is set up beautifully in the first two pages, on a “day in mid fall, well after the turning of the leaves.”  Jo and Daniel are out fishing - or Daniel is fishing and Jo has “gone along, with a book to read.”  It is a ritual, this day off together, this time on the water, “the only sounds the noises of the boat - the squeal of the oarlocks when my husband pulled on the oars, the almost inaudble creak of the wooden seat with his slight motion, and the the glip and liquid swirl of the oars through the water, and the sound of the boat rushing forward.”  On this particular day, Jo suddenly has a moment when she becomes “suddenly aware of her state…sharply aware of all the aspects of life, and yet of feeling neither part of it nor truly separated from it.  Somehow impartial, unatttached - an observed.  Yet deeply sentient of it all.  But to no apparent purpose.”  And she recalls a feeling she had in adolescence, says “surely most of us can call it up,” this “burning impatience for the next thing to take shape, for whatever it is we are about to become and be to announce itself.”  But now, she realizes, it’s “different.”  Now, there was “no next thing.”

And because she feels stalled at this moment in her life, she becomes vulnerable to a situation, a person, a feeling, that promises an opportunity to make something happen.  Yet this is not a novel of an ordinary mid-life crisis resulting in an affair.  It could have been that, but it is so much more.  For what Jo does is not really betrayal in the sense we commonly think of it.  It is emotional betrayal, though, and Miller raises the question whether that is not just as damaging as the physical kind.

Something I love in Miller’s writing is the way she so carefully describes domestic life, the way she can endow the most humble moments with reverence.

Often Daniel and I had done the dogs’ walk together when the girls were still home, happy just to be alone with each other at the end of the long day, to escape from them and the phone and the duties of the house.  We’d stumble through the dark, reviewing our separate days for one another, ignoring the dogs, who ran ahead or trailed behind.  We’d walk past the stores, the fancy houses, looking in at other people’s live like strolling gods, commenting.  We’d wander into the unlighted streets off the common that turned gradually into knotted paths, into fields. We’d walk slower and slower as we wound down, bumping into each other more, unmoored and dizzy in the dark.  And then finally Daniel would say, “Well, we’d better head home and see if anyone’s alive.”  Reluctantly, yet eagerly now, we’d whistle for the dogs in the soft night air and turn to start back.”

While You Were Gone is the kind of book that stands up to several readings, I think.  It’s a deeply layered story, with many psychological overtones, a portrait of the inner workings of a marriage which reveals something new on each successive reading.  It’s the kind of book you emerge from, blinking a bit in the bright light of your own reality, and wonder if you too might one day “come across the person who reminds you of your own capacity to surprise yourself…who reminds you that what seems to be -even about yourself - may not be.”

Julie tagged me for this interesting meme all about my favorite pastime…

Do you remember how you developed a love of reading?  I first fell in love with the big glossy magazines on sale in our local drugstore - Look and Life, especially.  They were kept on the bottom shelf where I could reach them, and long before I could read the words, I loved the slick glossy paper, the color photographs, and especially the wonderful aroma of fresh print.  

What are some books you loved as a child?  Heidi was my all time favorite childhood book, followed closely by Little Women, the Little House Books, the Bobbsey Twins, Trixie Belden, Betsy-Tacy, everything by Madeleine L’Engle…

What is your favorite genre?  I like contemporary novels.  I also enjoy some mysteries.

Do you have a favorite novel?  This is a cruel question.  I can’t possibly pick one.

Where do you usually read?  Ha! Where don’t I read is more like it.  I have been known to read in the car at stop lights, although it’s not the most relaxing place.  Usually at home in bed, or in my favorite chair by the window.  In summer I like to read on my back porch, especially first thing in the morning.

When do you usually read?  Reading always bookends my day…first thing in the morning, last thing at night.

Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time?  Not always, but often.  Usually one fiction and one non-fiction.

Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction?  Not really.

Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library?  I used to buy a lot more books than I do now.  I use my library a lot, I have friends who loan me books, I’ve been bookmooching, and now that I’m reviewing books, I get a lot that way.

Do you keep most of the books you buy?  Nowadays, if I buy a book it’s something I really, really want, so most likely I’ll want to keep it so I can re-read it.

If you have children, what are some of the favorite books you have shared with them?  My son always loved books and reading, but his tastes quickly grew away from my girly stories and leaned toward science fiction and action/adventure.  Before that happened, we enjoyed Beatrix Potter books, Winnie the Pooh, and lots of children’s poetry (Stevenson, Shel Silverstein).

What are you reading now?  I’m re-reading While I Was Gone, by Sue Miller; and Making A Literary Life, by Carolyn See.

Do you keep a To Be Read list?  I don’t. I should, though, shouldn’t I?  I have a TBR stack waiting for me in the corner of my office…and another on the chair…and another in the bookshelf…

What’s next?  Next may be another re-read…Family Happiness, by Laurie Colwin.  Or it may be a review book I’m expecting to arrive within the next day or two.

What books would you like to reread?  That’s funny, because I re-read a lot.  Whenever I find myself in a reading slump - when nothing I pick up really seems to grab my attention - I’ll re-read something I’ve loved in the past.  I’m re-reading now, and my next book may be a re-read as well.

Who are your favorite authors?  Oh my…Sue Miller, Mary Gordon, Julia Glass, Elizabeth George, Jane Austen, Richard Russo, Chris Bohjalian, Jhumpa Lahiri (and there are just the tip of the contemporary list.)

It’s been a rather lackluster reading week, dear friends, which explains my absence from these pages.  I did complete a review book for Curled Up With A Good Book, although I’ve yet to write the review.  And I certainly have no dearth of books from which to choose my next read.  Yet none of them seems to be crying “Read Me!”  Thus my reading experience has been less than stellar.

However, this morning I was going through an old bookstack in the basement, looking for some books to put “up for mooching” (I must say, this Book Mooch-ing is a fabulous idea!) when, lo and behold, I came across three old favorites, and books I had completely forgotten I owned.

While I Was Gone, by Sue Miller; Family Happiness, by Laurie Colwin; and The Other SIde, by Mary Gordon. 

I do love re-reading books.  It’s like visiting with an old friend you haven’t seen in far too long.  The familiar cadence of their speech, the descriptions of places dear to them, the characters that intersect with their lives - it’s always a joyous reunion.  And invariably I learn something new, for I’m coming with fresh eyes after my time away.

So I’ve dived into While I Was Gone, Miller’s extremely well written tale of a woman’s mid-life crisis.   I found this book a bit like a grown up version of The Good Mother - clearly a story of a woman dealing with emotional growth, just at a different stage of life.  I first read The Good Mother when I was a young mother myself, just like Anna. 

Now, I’m a middle aged woman (like Jo), and feeling “at just that moment when you begin to turn, when you’re poised exactly between the things in life you want to do and those you need to do, and it seems for a few blessed seconds that they are all going to be the same.”

I love Miller’s writing - I find her books are full of luscious sentences that beg to be copied down in a notebook somewhere.  (Do you do that, by the way?  Have a notebook for  examples of delicious sentences you want to write out in your own handwriting, as if by some writing them down with your own pen, some of the talent behind the words will seep into your brain?)

And so the view from my reading room is definitely brightening.  Thanks to finding a few old friends to visit.

Now tell me, how’s the view from your reading room these days?

Mizbooks has invited us to share books we’ve come across this week that sounded really good, and since there’s never a lack of those for me, I’m happy to oblige.

Just this morning at breakfast I was reading the latest issue of Bookmarks magazine and found a review of this novel - Fall of Frost, by Brian Hall, who “uses the techniqes of fiction to explore the life and troubles of poet Robert Frost.”  The novel is centered around Frost’s visit to Kruschev  shortly before the Cuban Missle Crisis, when Frost was himself an infirm 88 year old.  The novel apparently goes back and forth in time between 1962 and the “tragic events of Frost’s past.”  I don’t know a lot about Frost, but I do love his poetry, and admit to a predilection for reading about the tumultous lives of famous poets.  The “unconventional narrative structure” of the book could be a disadvantage for a Frost neophyte, however.  It’s told in 128 short vignettes that dramatize events from Frosts’ life, and these appear in nonchronological order, so unless one is familiar with the basic details of Frost’s background, it could be difficult to follow.  Bookmarks recommends one read a basic biography of the poet before attempting this novel.  Robert Frost: A Life, by Jay Parini, was recommended to satisfy that requirement.

I’ve been in the mood for a good biography for some time, having not read one since February when I completed Claire Tomalin’s very definitive biography of Jane Austen.  I believe I’ll get a library search going on these two Frost books as soon as possible.

The other book that really appealed was found on the very next page of the magazine.  Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories, by Tobias Wolff.  Many of you know I’m a recent convert to the short story genre, having become an enthusiast while completing this year’s The Short Story Challenge.  According to the terms I set for myself going into that challege, I was to read five collections of short stories, and the collections I chose all happened to be authored by women.  But over the past months, I’ve heard great things about Tobias Wolff, and since this book is something of a greatest hits collection, including 21 previously collected stories as well as 10 new ones, it seems like a good place to start.  Liesl Schillinger, New York TImes Book Review, says “for readers who aren’t acquainted with Wolff’s writing…this book can function as a portabe Wolff, concentrating some of his best work in one place and reflecting the breadth of his gift in the short form.” 

Some good finds this week, right?

I’m pleased.

Now I’ll go hunting for some other worthy specimens to add to the TBR pile.

“Ouch!” my poor husband yelped, stubbing his toe on yet another bookstack.  He looked at the floor, and then at me, rather disgusted I’m afraid.  “Must you just leave them about all over the floor?” he asked.

The irony of it is, I’d just moved that particular stack about five minutes before he came into the room, fearing he would do exactly what he just did when he came in on his nightly window closing rounds.

“Well, I’d love to have built in bookshelves in this room,” I remarked defensively, “but you know that’s certainly not in the budget.” 

“Why so many stacks?” he whined.  “Couldn’t they all go on one pile there in the corner?”

I sighed.  Really, he just doesn’t understand.

“There’s a stack to be reviewed,” I explained, “and another to add to Bookmooch, and another of those to be read next, and another that I discovered in the basement and totally forgot I even owned…”

“Fine - whatever,” he said, wandering out shaking his head in utter bewilderment.

It’s true, I really don’t have a decent bookshelf in the house. 

If only money grew on trees (as my father so often informed me it most emphatically did not), I would purchase these shelves.

And then everyone’s toes would be safe.

(thanks, Rachel, for giving me something to dream about

You probably wouldn’t be that surprised to learn the Ravenous Reader also dabbles in writing - more than just here at Bookstack, I mean.

As a matter of fact, Bookstack is my second venture into the blog world.  I started blogging about two years ago at Becca’s Byline, and have been honing my writing skills there ever since, with fiction, poetry, and personal essays about “life in general and my own in particular.”

Because I dabble in writing, I love to read books about the craft of writing…Writing Down the Bones, The Artist’s Way, Bird by Bird, If You Want to Write, On Writing…well, you can see I have quite a Bookstack going in this genre as well.

And thus, Write On Wednesday was born.  Each Wednesday, I started writing a post about the things I’d been reading in my “how to write” books.  Before long, other people started chiming in, sharing their stories of how they came across ideas, where they found time to write, what they found helpful in journaling, how they overcame writer’s block.  It became an informal place for us to sharing about writing, what we know and don’t know, what works for us and might help someone else break out of writing rut.

Or maybe just help someone find the courage to put pencil to paper for the first time.

And now, Write On Wednesday now has a shiny new home of it’s own.

Come visit.  If you like to write, maybe our discussion will inspire you to join in with a post on your own blog.  Or, just add your two cents in the comments section.

So, click here, and get ready to Write On Wednesday.