Carpe Libris

When I first dipped my toe in the waters of the blog-o-sphere it was as a reader, an indulgence I still partake in a few mornings a week.  I'll wake up, check my e-mail and the latest headlines on BBC News (because I feel I need to be well versed in what's happening in the UK while maintaining a blissful ignorance about what's going on in my own neck of the woods), and then start working my way through my blog bookmarks. 

I never cease to find inspiration from the web pages of this creative community.  From craft projects and recipes found on Sweet Paul and Creature Comforts to beauty tips from make up artist Lisa Eldridge (finally-- black eyeliner that stays put!) and fashion know-how from The Sartorialist and Nicolette Mason, after I'm through reading I'm ready to face the day.  Even when I just throw on my favorite jeans and cardigan, dab a bit of Smith's Rosebud salve onto my lips, and make my same old Greek yogurt and fruit for breakfast, the inspiration still lingers with me like the scent of yesterday's April showers.

My favorite posts, however, come from the bloggers share what they're reading and invite their readers to do the same.  While I may not try the latest fashion trend or arugula recipe (OK so I probably will try any recipe featuring arugula-- bad example) I will and do take book recommendations to heart.  When I click on The English Muse and discover she has posted one of her periodic "What book are you reading?" entries, I get a pen and paper and start making a list of all the wonderful suggestions her readers recommend in the comment section.  Likewise, when I read about a book on Ill Seen, Ill Said , Le Project D'Amour or From the Hatchery, I take note because these women are such gifted, thoughtful and talented writers themselves. 

So in keeping with the spirit of my favorite posts on other blogs, I decided to periodically post what I'm reading.  I preface this with the warning that I rarely read one book at a time.  Like a well balanced diet for the body, I believe in a well-balanced diet of reading material for the mind, with a sweet treat thrown in every now and again.   Here it goes . . .

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal 
This book first came up as a recommendation for me on Amazon last year and it wasn't until after I'd read the description and was hooked that I realized it was written by the son of a dear friend and my mentor in all things Celtic and poetic, Esther de Waal.  Even if I didn't know Esther, I still would have purchased the book.  Not only is it a history of a fascinating family and their journey through the anti-semitic Europe of the ninteenth and twentieth centuries, it's also a treatise on the place of objects in our lives and an ode to the sense of touch.  Edmund is a potter and perhaps this is one reason he is able to write so eloquently and viscerally about handling.  I also admire the way he imagines the story of his ancestors through the objects they possessed and the places they lived, teasing out the metaphysical through the physical. 


Sacred Place, Chosen People:  Land and National Identity in Welsh Spirituality by Dorain Llywelyn
This is a book you probably won't find listed as a "must read" on many blogs.  And the fact that I'm reading it for the second time (the first was in Gladstone's Library the summer of 2009 while doing research for a paper on how landscape impacts poetic expression) doesn't mean I think it is a must read for everyone . . . just for those of us who are planning on leading a pilgrimage to Wales in 2013.  Meaning me.  Although the focus is on the Welsh experience, Llywelyn raises some interesting points for those of us non-Welsh readers as well.  In the first chapters he discusses the sense of exile felt by many people in today's world.  "Many people in modern Western cultures-- Wales is something of an exception to this-- express a loss of an organic sense of place."  (p. 22)  It made me wonder if what I feel is loss or devaluation?  For those of us who are products of a suburban or urban place, or "the new world", do we discount this experience, and somehow give more import to the impact rugged, rural, foreign landscapes have on the spirituality of their inhabitants?  Just the tip of the iceberg in terms of questions raised by this book . . .

And speaking of icebergs, I just finished A Night to Remember by Walter Lord.  I raced through this non-fiction account of the sinking of the Titanic, captivated by the "perfect storm" of occurrences that led to the disaste,r and the stories of the passengers and crew.  It's a quick read . . . I finished it in about the time it would take to watch the re-released film without having to put on a pair of specially crafted glasses to do so.

So now for light reading I'm onto The Seance by John Harwood.  One of my other guilty pleasures (besides blogs) are Victorian Gothic and ghost stories.  Maybe it's because I used to borrow Gothic romances from my mother and aunt's bookshelves (Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, Barbara Michaels, Dorothy Eden).  Reading these atmospheric tales, be they modern like Susan Hill's The Woman in Black or classic such as The Turn of the Screw, takes me back to rainy days spent curled up in the basement with a musty smelling paperback and an imagination full of remote manor houses, down and out plucky heroines (usually governesses), and the brooding men with secrets that eventually win their trust and hearts.  I started The Seance last night, only to realize I think I've read it before. The heroine here isn't a governess but a young woman who, in an attempt to pull her mother out of a decade long depression brought on by the death of her youngest child, pretends to go into a trance so her sister can "speak" to her mother and reassure her she's at peace.  This well intentioned act starts a chain of events that leads to . . . I can't remember where, which is why I'll keep reading this book again. 

Illustration from the original text,
"Please sir, I want some more."

Finally, the last book on my plate right now is a story I know well but one I've never actually read:  Oliver Twist.  It's not only Victorian ghost stories that I'm reading lately, but also a host of Victorian novels of all sorts for a writing project (a novel) on which I've been working for the past 18 months or so.  After filling my Kindle with dozens of free books (three cheers for public domain texts), I finally limited myself to three authors:  Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Dickens.  Although I've read some Dickens in the past, the 1968 film Oliver! has always been my go-to telling of the story.  I've enjoyed reading the original text not only for the humor of Dickens, but more for the insights into the lives of  those in the Victorian era who didn't live in haunted castles and manor houses.  They had a much more frightening and dangerous existence than any Gothic   
                                                  novelist could imagine.


So that's what I'm reading.  How about you?  What are you reading?  Any recommendations?