November Reading 1: Poetry and Short Stories

 It's getting a bit late to post my November reading wrap-up. Last week was busy and time slipped away from me. I'm just going to post the books I read and not be too long-winded about them.

I read a lot of poetry and several short story collections and thoroughly enjoyed all of it! I'll start with the poetry. 

The Gulf Tower Forecasts Rain: Pittsburgh Poems: An Anthology edited by Doralee Brooks (owned book)

I was sitting in the yarn group one day when my phone buzzed with a message from a friend. He was in the Enniskillen bus station with time to kill between buses. They have a couple shelves of used books there so people can leave books or take books. They ask for a donation to a children's charity. What an excellent idea this is! Whenever my friend is going through there, he sends me photos or video of the shelves so I can see if there are any books I'd like. On this day, he sent me a photo of this book followed by '?'. What an unlikely book to find in that place. It's an excellent book--surprisingly so, I must admit. I've never been to Pittsburgh, but I loved this book. Each poem told a story, which is the kind of poetry I enjoy. I don't need deep symbolism or tricky word play, although I can appreciate the latter. But I love poetry as story and this book is full of that. I didn't really expect much from this book, but it's one I'm keeping and will revisit. And who knows--if I ever get to Pittsburgh I'll bring it with me.

The Puzzle-Heart by Louise C. Callaghan (friend's copy)

This was on the shelf when we were dogsitting and it's another book I thoroughly enjoyed, full of little story gems, this time set in rural Ireland.

Calm (A Poetry Prescription Collection) by various poets (BorrowBox e-book)

All of the poems in this collection are meant to evoke a feeling of calm. It's a great little collection. My favorite poem in the book is by Ono no Komachi.

Seeing the Moonlight

Seeing the moonlight

spilling down

through these trees

my heart fills to the brim

with autumn.

I read several short story collections last month as well. I do love my short story collections, especially classics and modern classics.

Secrets in the Snow and Other Classic Crime Stories, edited by Matthew Booth (library book)

Standing Her Ground: Classic Short Stories by Trailblazing Women, edited by Harriet Sanders (library book)

Classic Stories from the Age of Decadence, edited by Jane Desmarais (BorrowBox e-book)

These are all part of the Macmillan Collector's Library. They're great little hardback books that would be great to tuck into a bag or a pocket when going out in case you have a bit of reading time 😊They're all excellent collections which I thoroughly enjoyed reading

Case of the Claws by various authors (BorrowBox e-book)

This book contains four short stories written by authors such as Catherine Aird, Edmund Crispin, Ellis Peters, and Patricia Highsmith. It's a good read.

The Open Door and Other Stories of the Seen and Unseen by Margaret Oliphant (library book)

Oliphant is an author I want to read more of so I was happy to read this book. I have her Carlingford Chronicles on my e-reader. I've only read this book and her novel Hester, both of which I loved. She was quite prolific so I still have plenty of this Victorian author's work to read.

Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett (BorrowBox e-book)

A collection of sort-of linked short stories chronicling the author's experience of a kind of solitude at the edge of a coastal town. I quite liked it.

That's it for today. I'll post the rest in part two. Hope your December reading is as good as mine has been so far!

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Didn't Want to Wait

 I didn't want to wait for my December reading wrap-up early next year to write about this book, which I finished this afternoon. I now have a new-to-me author to love and many more books by her to read and I couldn't be more thrilled.

I didn't know that psycho-domestic noir was a thing, but according to the Sunday Times as seen in the photo above, Celia Fremlin is the grandmother of the genre. Whatever. I loved this book, Uncle Paul, from start to finish and the ending was superb--the last paragraph gave me goosebumps. This rarely happens but when it does, I know I need to be on the lookout for more work by this author. I am ready to read everything she's written right now, but I will be patient and pace myself 😏 BorrowBox has her debut novel, which won an Edgar award, in e-book format so I've already borrowed that. The library has several of her titles, many of them in the same sort of Faber republications as this one. One is even a Christmas one, but it's too late to get it in time for this Christmas.

This book, originally published in 1959, wasn't even on my radar, but after seeing a short review of another book of hers in a blog post on Tuesday night and recognizing the author's name from past reviews, when I saw this at the Central Library on Wednesday, I plucked it off the shelf and brought it home with me. I am so glad I did. If this book is anything to go by, this woman could write. Her descriptions of characters and settings placed me right there and I could feel what she was describing--she's extremely good at capturing feelings. Here's an example from when Meg, the main character, and her half-sister Mildred are at a holiday cottage and have overslept:

"Then she remembered. She was here at the cottage and Mildred was here too. No doubt she too had overslept after their upsetting evening, for there was no sound from her room, nor from downstairs. Uneasily, Meg wondered what time it was. For it is a curious fact that, even if one is on holiday, even if one is free to sleep the twenty-four hours straight through at will, nevertheless, oversleeping invariably brings with it a feeling of dismay, a sense of impending disaster. The whole universe seemed pushed out of gear by this strange awakening to the noonday sun. The humming of bees already grown drowsy in the heat; the subdued, occasional chirp of birds whose morning clamour is over; the sense of breakfast irrevocably missed and lunch grotesquely inappropriate; all add up to such a feeling of alienation from ordinary life as can only be described as fear." (p. 121)

There were many times while reading when I thought about how much I loved the writing, but the plot was also exceedingly well done. The book begins with Meg receiving a telegram from her sister, Isabel, an anxious women on holiday with her husband and children in a seaside caravan park. The telegram is to beg Meg to come quickly because their half-sister, Mildred, has taken a holiday cottage nearby and it just happens to be the same cottage in which a terrible event from the past occurred. What was that event? Mildred has left her husband, is terrified of the cottage, and insists she hears footsteps. Are there footsteps and if so, whose are they? Meg decides she can go for the weekend, but gets sucked into the drama and ends up staying beyond that. Plot ensues from there. I won't say any more because part of the fun of this book is reading on as the story unfolds. 

In addition to the writing and the plot, the characterization is excellent--the way she writes Isabel for instance, made me really feel the agitation and anxiety she frequently exuded. The quirky supporting characters added some humor to the book and I laughed more than once. There are also moments where Meg is trying to figure out what is going on and her mind takes flight into all sorts of possible scenarios. You can feel the panic building in those passages. Fremlin does all of this so very well in this book and I am so glad I have so many more of her books to explore.

Have you read any of Celia Fremlin's work? If so, what did you think of it?

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Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down

 Those of you in the US who are of a certain age, may remember the old Life cereal commercials where three kids are looking with wrinkled noses at their bowls of cereal and asking what it is and then one of them says, 'I'm not gonna try it! YOU try it.' Then they look at the littlest one and say, 'I know, let's get Mikey! He won't eat it, he hates everything!' Of course Mikey loves it, much to the surprise of the bigger kids who then start to shovel cereal into their own mouths. Well, I tried a couple new-to-me things this week, with mixed results. 

The first thing was at lunch the other day. I was out with a friend for most of the day. She picked me up early and we went off to Letterkenny. We went into a couple of shops together and then went our separate ways, agreeing to meet back at the car in a couple hours. I popped into the charity shop across from the library and took my time looking at the books, coming out with a few for me and a few for Bill. I crossed the street and went into the library where I again took my time looking at books. I spotted one that I'd read about just the night before and was interested in, so that and another one came home with me. My backpack was getting heavy but as I was heading back to the car, I spotted another charity shop that hadn't been there when Bill and I were last down that way so I had to pop in. Two more books for Bill and one for me later, I went back to the car. I was just grabbing books by authors Bill likes but I wasn't sure if he'd read them or not. Happily, he hasn't read any of them. 

After the errands were done my friend took me to lunch at a place she really likes--The Friar's Rest in the Glencar area. I'd never heard of it, but I was happy to go and experience it for myself. It was a great little place--unpretentious with excellent food, large portions, and reasonable prices. Here's where my Mikey moment comes in. Chicken curry features on many menus here, whether at sit-down restaurants or takeaways. It's always offered with a choice of rice, chips (chunky french fries) or half rice, half chips. Always the chips with all sorts of food--even lasagna is usually offered with coleslaw and chips. I continue to find this odd. Anyway, chips are always iffy. Some places serve excellent chips and some are soggy and very meh. I wondered about chips with curry, envisioning a plate with a pile of rice and chips mingled together and topped with a curry. And I'd never had that kind of curry here, only Thai red curry, which I love. This is more like an Indian style curry (although possibly not very authentic, but I don't know). So in all the years we've been here I've seen this on various menus in various places and always chosen something else. On this day, something felt appealing about the chicken curry and when the server asked me if I wanted half and half, I said yes. The platter came with a metal dish of curry on one side, a large pile of chips in another section, and a scoop of rice on one end. I started by picking up a chip and dipping it into the sauce. Delicious! She likes it, hey Shari! I scooped some rice into the curry. Yum! And that's how I continued to eat it--dipping the chips and scooping the rice--until I was full. There was plenty left of both our lunches so we asked for a container to take the rest home. My chips were gone and I dumped the rice and curry into the box. I ate it for lunch yesterday and it was just as delicious. So live and learn--I get the whole chips and curry thing now. 😀 I do think it's highly unlikely that I will ever try the lasagna/coleslaw/chips combo though.

Yesterday after coming home from another fun meeting of the yarn group at the library, I started a book I picked up this week called An Alternative Irish Christmas: Stories and Essays. When I picked it up, the librarian wasn't finding it right away so I told her the title and commented that I had no idea what would be alternative about the stories and essays, but I guess I'd find out. I certainly did and it wasn't pleasant. I was reading the first story with a growing sense of dread, feeling that there was some bad stuff coming. I should have stopped pretty early on and at least skipped that story because I could have done without the description of the puppy mill and the state of the surviving dogs and their dead brethren. And the description of what happened to the protagonist's dog when he was a child. Oh yeah, and the brief mention of the suicidal teenager. Happy Christmas! I set the book aside. This afternoon I decided to try the next story, but I was ready to stop reading if it appeared to be heading into equally gruesome territory. The next story had some humor but was also painful to read. I get it--this is real life, families are dysfunctional, people are suffering, and for some people, the Christmas season is a depressing and painful ordeal. This is the case for some of my best friends. This kind of thing just isn't what I'm looking for in a festive season story. I don't want them to be sickly sweet either. I guess I want something in between sugary fluff and misery. I remembered a book I read years ago before we came here--Christmas short stories by a single author--which was full of truly depressing stories, including one in which people at a holiday party were drunk so didn't notice the cat falling into the cauldron of stew cooking on the fire. I shall be wary of Irish Christmas stories from now on. And after the second story in the library book, I set it down on the return pile and picked up the book I got at the library the other day. I'm loving that one.

So a mixed bag as far as trying new things goes. Loved the curry and chips, really disliked the Christmas book. Such is life.

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Acts of Kindness and Simple Pleasures

 Here we are in December. Wow. We were on the bus this morning and I was thinking about how it seems like it was just recently that I was looking at the fields of fireweed alongside the road, but it was months ago. We were on the Local Link bus, which goes through some very rural areas. The stairs on this bus are a bit steep, especially the middle one and there are several elderly people who get on in the middle of nowhere so they can get groceries. It always makes me smile to see the kindness shown to people, particularly these elders. When they return with their shopping, someone--either the driver or a passenger--will offer to help them out with their groceries. Today there was a younger guy who was helping. After he got off, someone else helped. And when we got off, Michael, the driver, took our bags off the bus for us. It's much appreciated by all because it's a narrow, steep journey from bus to sidewalk and it's good that everyone uses the handrail!

I put the coffee on when we got home. Last week Bill found an Irish place that sells flavored coffee beans. Not many, but a few good ones. This is a fairly new thing here. When we first got here, coffee wasn't much of a thing but through the years this has changed a bit. We decided on three bags of coffee--a chocolate peppermint, a vanilla, and a caramel. The coffee arrived within a day or two and Bill started with the chocolate peppermint, which we've been enjoying for the past few days. It's so good! It's nice to sit and sip--perfect for the season. 

I'm about halfway through a book about the history of macaroni and cheese, which I'm loving and eager to get back into. Last night I was starting a new knitting project and looking for my size 2 double points. I finally remembered where they were. I'd briefly thought about using my 1s which were ready to hand, but I wanted the 2s. Then I cast on, didn't care for the resulting fabric, ripped it out and started again with the 1s 😏 At least now I know where the 2s are when I want them again some day. I'm looking forward to getting back to the book and the knitting later today.

I hope that this first day of December is filled with simple pleasures for you too. 

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Caution! Danger Ahead!

 I was busy mending a pair of Bill's pants today when I was surprised by the postman knocking on the door. We don't usually get mail delivery on Saturdays, but there he was with a parcel from Kenny's Books, an indie bookshop in Galway. Bill opened it and handed me this book:

What a fun surprise! He said he was reading something online and an ad for the book popped up. Usually neither of us would pay much attention, but this caught his eye and I apparently came to mind at once. I can't imagine why 😉😏He went clicking around, found it at Kenny's and ordered it. Now it's mine and I couldn't be more thrilled! It's a book filled with art depicting women engaged in the dangerous activity that is reading. Here's the back:

It's so interesting to consider how terrified people have been--and still are--by books and reading. From limits to who has been allowed to learn to read, to what kinds of things certain people are allowed to read, books (and the ideas they contain) have always been dangerous to some people. And yet, books haven't gone anywhere. People try to contain and control books and their contents and they don't succeed. And how wonderful that it is so! I can't imagine a life without books and wouldn't even want to try. Bill and I interviewed a 106-year-old woman and her 70-something daughter a couple of decades ago. Both were readers, but the elder was unable to see well enough to read or hear well enough to listen to audiobooks. She talked a lot about what books meant to her throughout her life. She remembered a book about fossils that she won in elementary school (which would have been approximately a century before). She lit up when she talked about how excited she was when her very first library book was mailed to her very rural home when the library was new. She loved books, language, and learning. She was a teacher of French, among other things. Then she got married and her husband didn't want her to be too tired to take care of him when he got home from work, so she stopped doing the job she loved and was so obviously suited for. She kept reading though and I have always hoped that provided some consolation to her as she went through the years thinking about the other life she might have had. When we left, I sat in our truck and I cried. I wouldn't have thought it possible for me to appreciate books and my access to them any more than I already did, but I think after listening to her, I did. 

I know that I'll enjoy every minute I spend with this book. It and Bill are definitely keepers 😃

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Do We Need It?

 I came across this quote while I was reading yesterday afternoon. It actually speaks to an issue I've had conversations about at various times throughout the years. Although this woman was talking about a particular place, her words are relevant to many people in many places. As someone who has been asked about Thanksgiving recently, it seemed particularly appropriate to this time when many people will get caught up in the Black Friday frenzy of consumerism. I've watched as Black Friday creeps earlier and earlier each year--and it's expanded here since we arrived. When we left the US, stores were even opening on Thanksgiving itself, although in the state we were last in, it was illegal to do so, thus giving employees the chance to actually have a holiday.

To give a bit of background, Mary McNelis lived in a very rural part of Ireland. It's not far from where we live now, although we've lived closer in the past. Decades ago, she started a small shop selling machine knit sweaters, mostly for kids. She prefers hand knitting, but the machine was quicker. Her business grew and her kids eventually took over and expanded into other kinds of textiles. This is what she had to say:

Do we need it all? I suspect that the answer is usually no. I think the last line will stay with me for a long time. 'Because we were happy before we ever got it.'

Mary's story is included in this book:

I'm hoping to read more of it after I get the stuffing in the slow cooker. Do I need stuffing? I don't. Am I happy and thankful that I will have it? I am. That's one of the small things I'm grateful for in this life. There is so much more, large and small. If you're celebrating Thanksgiving today, may you have a wonderful day filled with gratitude and joy. If you're not, may this Thursday be a wonderful day for you, filled with gratitude and joy. 

Happy Thanksgiving/Thursday!

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Random Wednesday Words

 Yesterday afternoon, I caught myself thinking it was Friday 😕 I think this may be because in my mind, Tuesday evening was the start of holiday mode for me as we did what we need to do and now we're just settling in and getting ready to enjoy Thanksgiving tomorrow. 

We had the first Crafting for Christmas workshop (?--still not sure what to call these) yesterday. Just a few people came but it was nice to sit and chat and they had the hang of things before we left. Before that started, I went into the library, which shares a lobby with the art gallery where we were doing the huck gift tag. Both Bill and I had books in, so I picked those up. One of mine was this one:

It's about a tapestry weaving collective in Donegal. I don't think it's still in existence, but I'm interested in the history anyway. Bill has commented numerous times about the fact that when he goes to the library site to search for a newly published book, they never have any in a Donegal library branch. This isn't a new book--it was published 20 years ago--but you'd think there'd be at least one copy somewhere in Donegal. Nope. I requested it from elsewhere. Weird. I am grateful for the nationwide library system that allows me to request books from anywhere in the country.

Before we left to care for our furry friend in Killybegs, the buds on our Thanksgiving cacti were starting to grow. I actually considered taking one with us because I thought we'd miss the blooms. I decided not to because I figured the buds would just get knocked off in transit. When we got home three weeks later, I was happy to see that no blooming had occurred so we didn't miss it. The flowers have started to open now.

A little thing, but this, along with the blooming cyclamen a friend gave me, brings me moments of quiet joy every time I walk into the kitchen. May you have many such moments throughout your day.

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