It's March -- Time to Catch Up

Yes, please READ BOOKS! Really, it is our only hope. Enough said.

Sitting here at the computer, thinking about how to begin blogging again, I decided to just do it and to mark the beginning of March with a new post. The first day of March has been sweet as a lamb around here. How about where you are?

Where I Left You:

In August I had read some of Thoreau's The Concord and the Merrimack and shared a bit of that with you. I will get back to this one and we will catch up on it soon. It was about this time that I had a health setback and decided to take a break from blogging. I am still dealing with some things and will have surgery in late April. Nothing life threatening, just a nuisance. After a winter of laying low, I am back. Am still not sure how the blog will develop, perhaps it will find its own way. I feel the need to write so we will see how it goes.

BBC Radio 4:

A sweet little thing happened yesterday. I was cooking and listening to "A Good Read" on BBC Radio 4. Each 30 minute program has two guests and the interviewer. They discuss three books, one chosen by each person. It is kind of like belonging to a book club in a very passive way. This is one of my favorite programs on BBC Radio 4. My very favorite is "The Archers", but I will save that for another post. Most of the time the books discussed are ones I have heard about before, sometimes have read, most of the time not. Well, I listened to two programs while making dinner and it turns out I own three of the featured books! Here they are along with links to the programs. If you have not listened to "A Good Read" before, you are in for a treat.

Memoirs of Hadrian, Good-Bye to All That, Song of Solomon 

All three are now in my To Be Read (TBR) stack. I have started the Morrison before, but cannot remember why I did not finish it. As I read these, I will let you know how they go.

BBC Radio 4 "A Good Read" Links:

Graves and Morrison, Goodbye to All That, Song of Solomon

Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian

My Italian Year:

2017 is my "Italy" year. This is why:

Frances Mayes Bramasole Olive Oil

Bramasole Oil

We gave our family and friends cans of this oil for Christmas gifts this year. It is really quite good. Actually, it is pure nectar! One of our friends said she has to keep it hidden from her husband because he will drink it. It is surprising the difference between the "real deal" and oils available here; even the "good" ones do not come close. Here is what we did when our shipment arrived:

Oh My...

We have had it on practically everything except Sunday morning waffles.

To pay homage to Frances Mayes and her excellent oil, I decided to read about Italy in 2017 and to learn to cook the real Italian way.  I will share some of my reading and cooking with you as time goes by. The Vegetable Lasagne recipe in Frances Mayes' "Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life" is superb.

2017 Reading So Far...

Sweetwater Creek, Anne Rivers Siddon

The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield

The Patience of the Spider, Andrea Camilleri

Divisadero, Michael Ondaatje

The Girl of My Dreams, Donna Leon

Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope

The Fall of Troy, Peter Acroyd

Rumpole and the Primrose Path, John Mortimer

The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller (5 stars, the best so far!)

The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan

The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant

Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life, Frances Mayes

Most of these have been audio books. I have needed to zone out a bit this winter. Quiet days, resting, knitting, and listening.

That's it for now, see you soon.

Tunnel Redux

I am recovering from my second carpal tunnel surgery, doing well, but not ready to take up where I left off before this medical flurry.

One thing I am going to do in the next week or so is re-visit the purpose of this blog so I can focus on getting along with some serious reading. Using LibraryThing's Legacy Libraries, find authors I like, and read the books I have in common with those authors. Simple.

See you around the corner.

Cosy Blankets and Cosy Mysteries - - My Sweet Distractions

Cosy Stripe Blanket

I am just loving that summer is in our rear view mirror and my favorite favorite favorite season is here. I love autumn, especially when the rains return. One of my very best things is to be outdoors when a Pacific storm is rolling in. The clouds race by, gusty warm winds carry loads of negative ions, leaves swirl down and around, and I am standing, facing the wind. It is so exhilarating. I dream of it during the dog days of summer when my misery index is sky high. And, in the depths of cold, gray, sometimes icy winter when my misery index and my Vitamin D levels are hellishly low. Spring? It is my second favorite season tempered with the knowledge that summer is just around the corner.

So, now you know I am obsessed with the weather. It comes from being an Oregon native. Oregon, where the weather changes by the hour. At least it used to do. Fellow-Oregonians, is it just me, or does it feel like we are now living in the San Joaquin Valley of central California? Gosh, if I wanted to live in that climate, I never would have moved back home to Oregon. But, I digress from the subject of this blog post.

Distractions...the first big one is pictured above. I love to knit and crochet, and this is my latest project. A king-sized crocheted afghan. I am using a very nice Stylecraft Special DK ("sport weight") acrylic yarn. I order it from Wool Warehouse in the UK. This yarn is soft, does not separate with use, and comes in a variety of eye-popping colors. Being acrylic, it is easy to care for. I have used it for several projects and have not been disappointed yet.

You might notice a new blog on the list to the right. I have been following Lucy at Attic24 for several years. She is a master crocheter, very generous with her patterns, and her blog is a joy to read. She lives in Yorkshire, UK. As an aside, if you watch Last Tango in Halifax you will see canal and small town scenes from Lucy's hometown! Anyway...the Cosy Stripe Blanket is one of her patterns. Bold bright colors are her trademark. The colors in this blanket are a bit muted because it is meant to be a fall project. Lots of warm autumn colors. Lucy has opened a Wool Warehouse shop on her website where you can buy "packs" of yarn for some of her specific patterns. It certainly takes the guesswork out of choosing yarn. Wool Warehouse shipping charges are about the same as if ordered from an online store in the U.S.

Since I am a little "antsy" (some people might say A.D.D.) I have to be doing something else when I am doing needle work. If we are not watching a movie (or the playoffs...GO METS!), I am listening to audio books downloaded from the Oregon Digital Library Consortium.

I love cosy mysteries. There are scores of authors I could name, but Agatha Christie, P.D. James, Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey, Deborah Crombie, M.C. Beaton, and now Charles Todd are my favorites. Usually set in the UK, preferably prior to 1950. Deborah Crombie and M.C. Beaton are exceptions as their stories are set in the present.

I first discovered Charles Todd when I was browsing through the digital library looking for a new-to-me audio book mystery. I found one of his later Inspector Ian Rutledge stories. Really very good! I was transported to the UK. The time period is just after WWI. A shell-shocked veteran, Scotland Yard Inspector Rutledge solves crimes (so far all set in the idyllic countryside) and battles his demons. His sidekick, Hamish is always present. He offers advice, insights, caustic comments, and is often downright annoying. Unfortunately, Inspector Rutledge cannot shut Hamish up because he lives inside Rutledge's head. It is embarrassing when Rutledge speaks out loud to Hamish.

What I like about this series is the multi-layered story. Not only are we with Inspector Rutledge as he methodically solves the crime, we are also with him as he fills in his and Hamish's back story from WWI. It is very compelling reading. Perfect for whiling away the hours as I work on my cosy blanket.

And it is all a very sweet distraction from serious reading for this blog. I am making progress on Ulysses and will report in with an update very soon. Stephen Dedalus is almost off the beach and we are about to be introduced to Leopold Bloom, the main character in the story.

Links to the blanket pattern and to the Charles Todd audio books I have listened to so far:

Cosy Stripe Blanket

A Lonely Death

The Red Door

A Pale Horse

Oregon Coast Getaway

We will return to the Ulysses Project and check in with other reading but today I will tell you about a relaxing little sojourn I took to visit friends at the southern Oregon Coast. As you may know, the best time to visit our seashore is in the fall, particularly September. The weather was perfect, except right on the beach where the summer fog lingered into the afternoon. Here are a few pictures (not taken by me).

Beach near Bandon

Face Rock

Estuary

Bandon Lighthouse

My friends live on a farm and I was delighted to meet two miniature donkeys, two tiny goats, five or six big goats, many cats and chickens. The rooster was magnificent! He looked like an Old World rooster, quite colorful, and very much in charge of his hens. There was a lovely garden too. Perfect.

Nearby "wildlife" woke me from a sound sleep. There is a Game Park nearby and the lions can be noisy!

In case you ever wondered why it is foggy and cool on the Oregon Coast in summer, it is due to the influence of the California Current (my dad always referred to this as the "Japanese Current"). The effect along the Oregon Coast is significant, especially between April and September. The day I left it was sunny, warm, and beautiful just slightly inland from the beach. When I drove by Face Rock on my way home, I could not see anything for the fog.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the current:

"The California Current is an Eastern boundary current and is also part of the North Pacific Gyre, a large swirling current that occupies the northern basin of the Pacific. The movement of northern waters southward makes the coastal waters cooler than the coastal areas of comparable latitude on the east coast of the United States. Additionally, extensive upwelling of colder sub-surface waters occurs, caused by the prevailing northwesterly winds acting through the Ekman Effect. The winds drive surface water to the right of the wind flow, that is offshore, which draws water up from below to replace it. The upwelling further cools the already cool California Current. This is the mechanism that produces California's characteristic coastal fog and the negative temperature anomaly we measure in California's coastal waters during summer (Mann and Lazier, 2006). This translates into cold coastal waters during the summer, stretching from Oregon to Baja California. Note, this does not include the coastal water surrounding San Diego. There is a warm water anomaly off San Diego (Mann and Lazier, 2006)."

Reading Rest Area

We have grand kids this weekend, siblings from around the world in town, and a birthday party, so lots going on here at Reading Road Map Headquarters. What is NOT going on much is reading, as in reading for long stretches of time without interruption. Are there ever any such "stretches of time"?

Given the state of things here, this is what is going on right now on the Reading Road Map journey:

Finished "Arctic Dreams" and a post to come soon.

Reading Colette short stories, as well as "Earthly Paradise", an autobiography of sorts comprised of short pieces written by Colette.

Another M.F.K. Fisher book, "Two Towns in Provence".

Listening to "Five Red Herrings" by Dorothy L. Sayers, a free audio book download from my local library. I like this production because it is done as a radio play rather than a narrator reading the book.

Just barely beginning "The Mountains of the Moon", a trip to central Africa in the early part of the 20th century.  I pulled out one of our beautiful old 1950's map books to follow along with the British Museum Herbarium expedition to Ruwenzori, 'the mountains of the moon'.  The map book takes up almost half of the dining room table when opened out so I suspect it will not get to live there long.  This journey will go on hold until later this month.  The map books will be the subject of more than one post. They are close to the top of my list of favorite things.

Kenya and Uganda

Ruwenzori

I am also strolling through cookbooks as I plan the weekly menu.  What I am NOT doing, is going to book-related blogs to read reviews of new books, ordering new books, and moving them to the bookshelf to sit unread for who knows how long.  So far, so good!

Looking at the above list, one might think a bit of  "reading ADD" has returned. It looks like a scatterbrain list, but really, it does not feel like it in real life.

There might be a beautiful picture book about Leonard and Virginia Woolf's garden at Monk's House coming my way, but it will be a gift, so it does not count.  Right?

I Cannot Wait!

   

Distractions

We are on our way to another 100+ degree day here.  This will be day 5 or 6 or 7 of temps above 90.  For our neck of the woods, this is unusual and uncomfortable.  We have one small window AC unit.  With strategic placing of fans, we can distribute cool air to parts of the house.  By 6 pm, we have lost the battle. Then begins a frantic comparing of thermometers.  When inside is within a few degrees of outside, we open up the house and let fans and what little breeze there is take over.

Today's heat is compounded by smoky skies from large forest fires burning to the south of us.  Not good.

So, my first distraction is the heat.  Second, third, and fourth (not necessarily in that order) are these:

Distractions

Confession -- I love cosy mysteries, especially British cosies.  Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, M.C. Beaton, Ngaio Marsh, you get the idea.  My local library is affiliated with the Oregon Digital Library Consortium.  I download free cosy mystery audio books onto my old iPod.  Too easy and too much fun!  A definite distraction from serious reading.

I justify the audio books because I like to listen while I knit.  Another distraction!  I just started (and re-started several times -- grrrrr) a new project.  Over the Sea to Skye Shawl. I am not happy with the yarn color.  In the above picture the yarn shows a slight shade of purple, as it did in the online catalog at Wool Warehouse.  In the real world, there is no purple, it is more of a muddy putty color.  Oh well, it will make a fine sturdy winter lacy shawl anyway.

The August 13, 2015 issue of  The New York Review of Books arrived two days ago.  I have not opened it, but I see it every time I walk into my study.  My eyes seek it out.  Just looking at the cover I see three articles I will probably not read and I think, "so it is not like you will read it cover to cover".  No, but there are at least four other articles I WILL read.  Exponential Distraction!  For me, the problem with reading The New York Review of Books is that I invariably find books I want to buy and read.  Books I do not need to buy.  I already own sooooo many unread books (thus the purpose of this blog!).  For now, I am keeping clear of the current issue.  I might sneak it into the car to read on an upcoming road trip.  The trick is not to have pen and paper at hand to jot down those titles I just cannot live without!

So, for today, this is my story and I am sticking to it.  Heat, cosy mysteries, knitting, and The New York Review of Books.  My distractions.  Uh-oh, I forgot to mention Sudoku puzzles.

The Chair

One day I was looking through the books and such at my wonderful local used book shop when I spied this chair.

It was on sale for $40.  Some might consider it an ugly chair but I fell instantly in love!  It is horribly uncomfortable but I bought it anyway.  You will be seeing a lot of this chair because I think the seat makes a lovely background for pictures I take for the blog.

Here is a link to one of the better used book (and sometime furniture) shops around.

Kalapuya Books