Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and books on tape. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
When the weather is cold and the roads are not good, it is easy to hibernate and take long winter naps. Grandbabies lure me out of the cave for sure, but it is books that keep me anchored to the world outside my door and send me traveling across space and time.
I enjoyed The Republic of Imagination by Azar Nafisi very much. She speaks with me as if we were having lunch together and teaches me to think about what books mean to us all. The whole book is an answer to why we read.
After speaking all across America Azar said:
(pg. 27)
I found a nation of readers, large and small, old and young, rich and poor, of all colors and backgrounds, united by the shared sense that books matter, that they open up a window into a more meaningful life, that they enable us to tolerate complexity and nuance and to empathize with people whose lives and conditions are utterly different from our own.
(pgs. 300, 301) Speaking of James Baldwin's works: (Baldwin said, "I have never seen myself as a spokesman. I am a witness.")
One of the confounding things about writing about great literature is that there is really nothing to say: everything is already there in the work itself...But still we need to talk about the experience, actual and imagined; we need to share something of the anguish and the joy of having experienced something unique and universal. In this manner, the act of reading and responding is in itself an act of witnessing.
I also enjoyed the book
The Great Northern Express: A Writer’s Journey Home by Howard Frank Mosher. Howard Frank decided at the age of 65, after a bout with cancer, to travel to bookstores across the country to promote his tenth book. He was driving his Loser Cruiser that had 280,000 miles on it to travel another 20,000 miles. What an adventure! But the book is also about his life and his desire to write about the people of Northern Vermont. He talked to his long dead “Uncle Reg” as he traveled and with The West Texas Jesus and he also talked with me…all of us ensconced in his front seat.
I also enjoyed another Martin Walker mystery set in France, The Resistance Man. The Chief of Police, Bruno, is a comfortable person to walk or ride with until he grabs the villains and then watch out. Bruno has a cottage that he keeps working on and a new puppy that he is training to find truffles and to get along with his chickens and geese. The puppy is just starting to get too big to ride on his chest when Bruno is on horseback.
Then there is the food that Bruno makes for his friends or his friends make for him. It makes me hungry just typing this. This one was the best, yet, of the series. Very poignant and much more than just a mystery.
I am still reading a fantasy series about the world in the 41rst century where the easy life has taken a Fall and everyone is struggling to survive. Just when I think that it is a bit over the top, something comes along to keep me reading. There is a long and interesting part in the second book about wyverns and dragons learning to take off from and land on a sailing ship. Immediately, I am pulled into what Azar Nafisi calls the Republic of Imagination and I forgive the author some other sins to watch the proceedings.
Meanwhile I am learning about William Marshal and the world of England and France in the reigns of Henry II and his sons. It is a fascinating and brutal world.
My drowsy winter brain wakes up with the pleasure and the joy of reading and traveling the world. What books are you enjoying now? If you have finally had a chance to make a list of books for the desert isle that we visited last week, add them in the comments. I am always interested. I love lists.
My TBR pile has been replenished with more books by Daniel Abraham and books that readers mentioned here. I now have Missing Person by Patrick Modiano, War Brides by Helen Bryan, and The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal. Waiting in the wings also is The Just City by Jo Walton and the third book in the Jinx series by Sage Blackwood (our Sensible Shoes). Jinx’s Fire will be coming out on March 24th. I was gifted with an early copy and I will be reviewing it soon.
A friend recently asked me if I read different kinds of books in different seasons. She said that she seemed to read more thoughtful books in the winter. I can’t say for myself because I seem to read what is available, but I did wonder what you all think? She lives in Southern California where it is very hot in the summer and I wonder if the weather as well as the season makes a difference. Do you have different reading patterns based on the time of year or the weather?
Diaries of the Week:
Write On! Critical Thinking - Part 1
by xaxnar
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Escape With Me
by ExpatGirl
http://www.dailykos.com/...
After a 55 year absence, Harper Lee to release new novel featuring a grown-up Scout Finch
by Jen Hayden
http://www.dailykos.com/...
NOTE: plf515 is taking a break from WAYR. I am sending him best wishes and hoping he will be back soon.