booktastic

I didn’t post yesterday because I felt the only thing I had to talk about bookwise would be repetitive of my post the day before - mainly because I’m still working on these audiobooks. (In all honesty, it wasn’t just that: I was also pretty busy last night and didn’t get to use the computer). My husband I had lots of Halloween-related activites to take care of, and I made a mushroom soup from scratch for dinner. We carved pumpkins, watched the scariest movie in the world (The Haunting), watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, completed work on my halloween costume, took pictures for our facebook pages… It was a busy evening. But I digress.

I’m having better luck with my reading on public transit. I remembered yesterday that I often had better luck avoiding motion-sickness when I read on my trip to work rather than my trip from work - possibly because I’m still half asleep at the time. So I gave it a try, and sure enough, I was able to read for the majority of my commute to work yesterday morning. (Today I was stressed because I’d missed my bus and was worried about making the transfer, so I didn’t even try). It’s worth mentioning that on my trip home yesterday I had very good luck avoiding the motion sickness (I was getting so much into my book that I almost missed my top) - which leads me further to believe that this situation is psychosomatic.

Today I am listening to an audiobook called Bell, Book and Scandal by Jill Churchhill. It’s a mystery novel and, to my surprise, takes place in Chicago. It’s okay for listening to, especially when the alternative is focusing on my data entry; however, it’s worth pointing out that I’m already at chapter four and I’m still waiting for a mystery to happen. The heroine is a mystery writer (shock! It seems like the heroine in these sort of books is always a mystery writer or mystery reader) who is going to a mystery writing conference with a friend. I’ve learned a lot about writing conferences (which is good, since I have aspirations of my own) and very little about solving mysteries.

(Time Passes…) Okay, now I’m at Chapter Nine. Still no mystery. I’m confused… Is this a mystery novel? It seems to be all about mystery writing (which is fine), yet has no mystery in it. I don’t think being about mystery writing qualifies it as a mystery; perhaps the library had it classified incorrectly….?

Oh well. Today is Halloween! Happy Halloween! I expect to be very busy tonight, because last year I had something about seventy trick-or-treaters (which, to me, is a lot!) Ah well, I’d better finish up here… I have candy to eat. – Mrs. Hall

As I said, this job gives me an excellent opportunity to catch up on my reading via audiobook. Today, since I’d exhausted what I could find on other free sites, I made use of a resource I recently discovered through the Chicago Public Library website…

Free Media Downloads!

Yes, the Chicago Public Library website allows you to search their site, locate downloadable media (audiobooks, videos, and PDF copies of books) and keep them, for a short time, on your computer. (I don’t know what happens after the 21 days you’re allowed to keep them… Maybe your computer blows up or something.) Actually, some items (randomly, it seems) you are actually allowed to download and copy to disk, which is pretty keen.

I think this is a fairly new program on behalf of the ChiPubLib, and I haven’t heard of any other Libraries doing it. But isn’t it nice? Unfortunately, you have to have a Chicago Public Library card in order to use the system (sorry, out-of-towners).

The first thing I downloaded (when I discovered this service last month while attempting to renew books online) was one of the Patrick Troughton Dr. Who episodes which is available only in audio form because the silly BBC destroyed the video copy of the episode. I was also able to copy this particular download to CD, so I have it to enjoy for all time. (I am very enthusiastic about this program right now.)

Today, since I’ve been needing things to listen to at work, I downloaded the audiobook of Garcia Marquez in 90 Minutes - which was actually about two freakin’ hours long. (Very misleading). Granted, I do know a lot more about the South American modernismo movement in literature than I did before - but come on. It said 90 minutes. — Mrs. Hall

You’ll have to excuse me for not posting yesterday. I had to run errands during my lunchbreak, so I thought I would post when I got home… but, being exhausted by having only about three hours sleep the night before, I found myself lying blearily on the couch for most of the remainder of the evening.

That said, it was a pretty good reading day. On the bus home, I was able to read significantly longer than I have been. This is possibly because I began to get very interested in the book, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice - interested enough that I actually forgot how poorly I was feeling (until I began to feel very poorly indeed, and had to stop).

In addition, I was extremely delighted to discover that Youtube has a few sections from my favorite audiobook of all time: The Screwtape Letters as read by John Cleese. This was especially exciting for me because although I desperately love this recording, I have never owned a copy (only borrowed a library copy) and now it is out-of-print and quite unavailable.

The nice thing about listening to a recording of something you like to read is that sometimes in reading you will pass over things that you can’t ignore when you hear it. Thus it is with The Screwtape Letters.

(In case you’re not familiar with the book, it’s written as a series of letters from a senior devil to a young devil who is in the process of tempting his first soul. It’s funny yet serious - and simultaneously light while being very heavy indeed. It will make you examine your soul in ways you never imagined. It’s also exceedingly British, as the senior devil [Screwtape] sounds for all the world like a stuffy old British civil servant [which I believe was the intention]. One of the ultimate books on religion. If you haven’t read it - you should. I don’t care if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Agnostic or Athiest - you should read this book!) 

I had read the book before, of course, when I listened to the recording - but John Cleese’s reading of it really brought it to life. Certain passages had gone clean over my head when I read it, but were really hammered home when I listened to the recording.

Happily, my job here does not hinder me from having headphones on, so I was able to listen to the “letters” that are available on YouTube. There are only about seven of them, unfortunately, but they are all good. Here is an excellent one; this is letter seven - an excellent treatsie on how “Noble Causes” can actually advance the downfall of the soul. (I would advise you to ignore the little visual display that the video’s author came up with. I would have been entirely content to have John Cleese’s voicevoice and a blank screen.  — Mrs. Hall

I’ve just had one of those days where you have a couple things you want to do - but you can’t decide which one to work on, because working on one makes you feel guilty for ignoring the other - so you spend all day going from project to project, without completing any of the things you really wanted to work on.

For instance, I was supposed to write or read today, it being my second-to-last day off. I couldn’t decide which one to focus on. So instead, I went to Mass, did the dishes, tidied, prepared New Zealand Jaime’s Christmas package, messed about with facebook, watched Mystery Science Theatre 3000, read the news, and so on. Granted, I did need to do all of those things… except facebook and MST3K…

I’ve had Mystery Science Theater 3000 on the brain lately, so I think I’ll recommend you a book related to that: The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Episode Guide. Now, obviously, you’re not going to get a lot out of this book if you haven’t seen the show first, so you really need to go out and get a couple episodes of that. (For more on this show, check out my other blog Moviephile).

Once you’ve seen a couple episodes (Manos: The Hands of Fate and Space Mutiny are particularly good ones) - come back and pick up a copy of this book. It’s a good guide to the series. Also, the entries on the individual films were actually written by the cast and are, therefore, hilarious. The main thing wrong with this book is that it is incomplete; the series went on for another four or so seasons after this was published.

More on this later, no doubt. I’ve got to go and not read or write for a while until Mr. Hall gets home.  — Mrs. Hall

I started The Beekeeper’s Apprentice last night and so far I’m enjoying it. I was a little concerned at first about the heroine of the book… I was afraid things might go in that “men are stupid, women are smart!” area, but so far things are looking good. I’m intrigued enough to keep going.

This isn’t the first non-Conan-Doyle Sherlock book I’ve read. A few others have crossed my purview: the ones that spring to mind immediately are those by Nicholas Meyer, such as The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. (Nicholas Meyer, incidentally, was also the director and writer of the film Time After Time, which is about H.G. Wells traveling through time to the sleazy 1970’s.) I read those books years ago when I was a teen and very into Sherlockiana, and I was somewhat disgusted with them.

As I recall, things just got goofy. The book started out all right, but eventually Holmes and Watson were immortal and travelling through time and such - and I just didn’t buy it. (Not that I have a problem with Sci-Fi, obviously! But I didn’t read the book for Sci-Fi: I read because I wanted a Sherlock Holmes mystery.) Holmes was not acting like Holmes - by the end of the book (this one or one of Meyers’s others, I don’t remember) I was just like, “I don’t even care about these characters anymore. This is not Holmes and Watson.” I may be doing Nicholas Meyer a disservice; after all, as I said, I haven’t read the books since I was a teen, and perhaps I judged harshly. All I know is that at the time I was very displeased.

So far, I think I’m safe with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. We shall see.

All this talk of Victorian Era folks travelling through time reminded me of this new movement I heard about recently: Steampunk. Have you heard about this? It’s most bizarre, but I kind of like it. It’s a “subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction” -  a mix of Victoriana and sci-fi, or slightly pre-Industrial era and fantasy - I’m having trouble defining it, but I really like its look. As a style, it’s very interesting: I really, really like this  computer redesigned in Steampunk fashion. It takes all the flair of the Victorian Era (you know, all the delicacy and crafstmanship in ordinary objects which we used to have before Frank Lloyd Wright killed beauty) and mixing it with the technology of today.

The only part I don’t like is that some people are starting to call Steampunk a “lifestyle”; that’s taking it just a bit too far. It gets kind of poseurish at that point. Let’s just call it a style, folks, and enjoy it for what it is. — Mrs. Hall

To my surprise, when I got home from work this evening The Beekeeper’s Apprentice was waiting for me at my door. (The mail lady has decided, for some reason, that our mail goes in our door rather than in our mailbox. Personally I have no problem with this - it saves me a trip to the porch - but, still, it always surprises me when I open our screen door and a big wad of something tumbles out onto my foot. But, I digress.)

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice! I didn’t think it would arrive so quick. Now I have a conundrum: I try to never read more than two books at a time, because… honestly… I really don’t read two books at the same time. When I say that I’m reading “two books”, what I really mean is I’m taking a break from one book to read the other. I really shouldn’t start a third one at that point, because I’ll just serially start interrupting books and never finishing them and starting new ones (because that’s how I roll).

So that means, if I want to read this, I really should “stop reading” one of the other two; The Jane Austen Book Club or Life of Christ.

The Jane Austen Book Club it is. Sorry, ladies: Jesus wins. – Mrs. Hall

I tried to read on the bus on the way home from work last night. I opened up The Jane Austen Book Club to chapter two where I’d stopped, and read… for around five minutes. Then I began to feel the telltale headache and nausea…

This is what reading The Jane Austen Book Club does to people.

Just kidding! It’s my motion-sickness rearing its ugly head. Most annoying. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to read on my commutes anymore. Generally speaking I did most of my reading on the train - and I don’t have trains as part of my commute anymore. I just go from bus to bus. (I love my new commute. It’s only 45 minutes and travels through the most interesting parts of Chicago. I go straight down Michigan Avenue. Oh, and by the way - I also love working downtown. Working in the surrounding neighborhoods is fine, but when that happens I never go downtown and I don’t really feel like I live in Chicago. Now I feel like I live in Chicago again.) 

Perhaps, as I mentioned before, perhaps I need to just force myself to read until I get over this. I think that’s probably what I’ll wind up doing, even though my commute is fairly short now. – Mrs. Hall 

P.S. The picture has nothing to do with the book I’m reading or motion sickness. I know. But when I did a search for pictures relating to “motion sickness”, I came up with either a bunch of blurry pictures (apparently people were motion sick when they took them) or this, so I chose this because it was nice looking. Enjoy.

Well, I started my temp job today… in fact, I’m actually AT my temp job right now. Don’t worry, I won’t get fired for writing this: they have nothing for us to do right now, so we (I and the five other temps) were invited to “play” on the Internet.

I’m not sure how much this job is going to affect my reading/writing schedule. Obviously, I won’t have as much time for either…. However, public transit always seemed to help my reading habits, as once I get used to the route I can just bliss out with a book for the majority of the trip.

I don’t know if I’ll be doing that today. I didn’t in the morning because this is the first time I took this route and I didn’t want to miss my stop. I could potentially do it in the evening… But the last few times that I’ve tried to read on the bus (since I left my old job in September) I’ve found myself combatting motion sickness. I don’t know where that came from, as I thought I had effectively cured myself of that this past year by insessantly reading on the bus and train. It’s probably a psychological thing: I’m reasonably certain that as soon as I get used to riding the bus every day again, I’ll get over it. (I brought along The Jane Austen Book Club today just in case). 

As for writing - well, I won’t have eight hours a day to do that anymore. Now I have to fit it into my evening which is also time I have to spend cleaning, cooking, and spending quality time with Mr. Hall. So I won’t have as much opportunity to do that, which is unfortunate, but unavoidable for the next two months (i.e. until I am hired or passed-along) by this job. I’ll still do it as much as possible; probably mostly on evenings when Mr. Hall is working.

So we shall see what the next two months bring. It should be interesting - in every sense of the word. – Mrs. Hall

Sorry I didn’t post yesterday, folks: sometimes when it rains, the internet doesn’t work. I don’t know what the connection is, but there you have it.

I finished reading Mistletoe Murder last night. It had a better mystery than Christmas Cookie Murder (more actual sleuthing and solving went on), but, as I said, the writing style was rougher (or more rough, I don’t know the grammar rule in this case). And I didn’t like the characters as much as I did in Christmas Cookie Murder - slightly younger and slightly more obnoxious. But, unlike the Christmas Cookie Murder, although there were moments where the character was wholly distracted from the mystery - it was never as pronounced. There was a big chunk of CCM which was a sub-plot about one of her children getting involved with drugs (a sub-plot which never even really amounted to a condemnation of taking drugs, which was odd) . It was kind of interesting from a character perspective, but took forever to tie in with the rest of the story. When I was reading it, I was just like, “Okay… when do we get back to the mystery?”

I’m in the mood for more mysteries. I think their necessarily dark moments are satisfying my desire for darker reading (for Halloween). I’ve got another Sue Grafton book lined up, B is for Burglar, but I’m not all that excited about it… I kind of want to re-read a Sherlock Holmes novel, especially since I’ve got The Beekeeper’s Apprentice on the way.

Of course, I still have The Jane Austen Book Club to finish, as well as a book I started last night, Life of Christ (by Fulton Sheen). I’ve had that one sitting on my shelf for a long time. I didn’t realize how long until I opened it up and found that I had purchased it at my home town bookstore, The Book Nook. Since that was the case, I can’t have purchased it any later than 2002… Yes, I occasionally procrastinate. I know this surprises you, but there you have it. – Mrs. Hall

I should have posted earlier today… but I was plumb wore out. In apology, please accept a link to this wholly-unrelated video of The Mavericks singing “Here Comes My Baby.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsK0hz2ABbk

I believe I walked somewhere in the order of twenty blocks today in my quest to pick up a bit of hose for my husband’s Halloween costume and get a printer cartridge refilled. And for all that walking I was only half successful: I got the hose, but to my simultaneous disgust and approbation, Cartridge World is closed on Sundays! I mean, good job not profaning the Sabbath and all - but why o why must they be so good about that when I really need my printer cartridge refilled? Oh well.

I’m still reading Mistletoe Murder. It’s a bit harder to read than Christmas Cookie Murder was, and it’s bringing to light some faults I didn’t intially see in that other book - but still, I can hardly blame her for any roughness in the story or writing craftsmanship. I mean, this is her first book. I already know she gets better, so all is forgiven. (For the time being. I still have to finish the book…)

However, the majority of the evening was spent writing, which gives me a warm, satisfied feeling. I would love to show you what I just wrote - but, unfortunately, these silly publishers these days seem to consider a piece of writing that has been online as being “published” - and hence don’t want to buy it.  So, in order to increase my chances of getting this thing off the ground, I must refrain.

I’d better get back to my writing while I still have this inspired feeling. And before the milk I’m drinking puts me to sleep. — Mrs. Hall