Pam Webb

a writer's journey as a reader

Archive for the category “Books”

16 Jun 2015
7 Comments

Reading Challenge #33: Lizzie and the Doors of Doom and Delight


I recently finished yet another Jane Austen fan fiction entry: “Lost in Austen.” This is not to be confused with the witty series of the same title that featured a modern girl smitten with Darcy, who through wishful thinking, ends up trading places with Lizzie Bennett. I think Lizzie got the better deal, actually. I would rather reach for Advil than a leech any day when it comes to ridding a fever.

Modern meets Regency image: pintrest.com

The old “judging covers” applies here image:thefamouspix.com

Not familiar with choose your own adventure books? Weren’t you one of those 8-10 year olds who dove in those simple, yet exciting stories that allowed you to make a choice of your plotted path? I believe they are the only example I know of where the “you” second person point-of-view is actually used in writing.

Any of these titles sound familiar? image: pintrest.com

They take a bit of effort since the reader must make a decision which direction the story will go. “You come to two doors. If you choose the right one, turn to page 37. If you choose left, then proceed to page 18.” The reader either experiences a nasty turn of events, like being eaten by a hungry lion or can be rewarded, as in by being discovered to be a long lost son of the neighborhood millionaire and receiving an unexpected inheritance. A person could die and live several lifestyles over the course of a reading. I think the short story “The Lady or the Tiger?” is the foundational beginnings of these books.

As for Lost in Austen–mash up all of Jane’s books with the choose your adventure theme and you spend a day pursuing Darcy or ending up as the heroine in one of the other Austen tales of matrimony quest. Without giving away spoilers I will say this: be wary of that Caroline Bingley, especially when walking the grounds of Pemberley.

I applaud the creativity involved in the project, yet I needed at least three bookmarks while reading. One for the Darcy plotline, one for when I had to make my decision, and one for when I died (more than once) and had to go back to my decision point because I would then have to go find chocolate to soothe my disappointment before returning to where I made the wrong choice to begin once again.

I’m wondering–What other classics could become a Choose Your Own Adventure?

How about Alice? “You decide drinking tea with a table of lunatics is unwise, you stay on the path.”

Then there is Robison Crusoe. “You decide one footprint is one too many and immediately build a raft and take your chances upon the oceans towards home.”

Maybe Scrooge? “You feel uncharacteristically generous and contribute to the various charities. After a good night’s sleep you decide to provide stock options to your employees. You live a much happier life, although prove so wonderful you become boring in your philanthropist ways that you are passed over for a Dickens protagonist.

Whst classic adventure would you choose? What if Wendy shut the window after all and Peter found a willing Priscilla or Hortense to sew for the boys?

Posted in Books, Literature and tagged , ,
11 Jun 2015
7 Comments

Summer Reads in the Making


Although school ended June 5th, I signed up for a workshop which prepares me for fall and pays me to be there, so I’m sticking it out until June 12. To celebrate my upcoming release into the almost endless days of summer, which for me involves LOTS of reading, I am finally sitting down to decide on my destinational course of action. I take my Reading Rainbow directive seriously “I can go anywhere. It’s in a book. Take a look…”

My room in its vacated student mode. I’m surprised the desks weren’t more in a tangle from students bolting out the door to summer’s beckoning…  
Here are some possibilities:

King Lear: I’ve watched at least two different dramatizations which were powerfully presented, one with Ian Holm. I even began reading Jane Smiley’s Thousand Acres, a modern retelling (didn’t get too far due to her plot restructuring). I’m drawn to this play, being fascinated by Shakespeare’s penchant for family dynamics and the fact he has three women instead of the usual one or two. It’s weird to realize that in Shakespeare’s day male actors having to project the wounds of a daughter, of trying to capture of how a woman would react to a father’s rejection is fascinating because women had to be portrayed by men. Then again, we also have men portraying women–did anyone really believe Dustin Hoffman was a woman? My choice of Lear is one of considerable contemplation. Basically I’m trying to determine if I can switch to Lear from Hamlet in my AP curriculm. Going from a son’s agony to a daughter’s makes for interesting analysis. Maybe I’ll do a comparison. Here I go again–working on my supposed two months off…

Of course Harper Lee’s Watchman is at the top of the list. I will request it at the library and figure my turn will come along in time for Christmas Break reading.

I plan to browse for some middle reads, revisit some friends from childhood such as Homer Price or Henry and Ribsy. I am open to suggestions for newer middle reads, especially series. I started reading Al Capone Does My a Shirts. It has promise to continue. A kid who lived on Alcatraz?

And I am game for trying out BIG name authors whom I have yet to make an acquaintance. Maybe Clive Cussler, or Janet Evanonich. I’m taking suggestions for commercially successful authors because I need to get out of my nineteenth century rut of classics reading. I think its healthy to read a book by someone who’s presently living.

Then there is my TBR. Time to blow dust off the list and begin whittling down the titles. 

And what will you be reading this summer?

Anyone try these out yet?

Boston Girl/Anita Diamant
The Remorseful Day/Dexter
Book Seller/Mark Pyor
The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction/James Thorn
Tipping Point/Gallagher
Bird by Bird / Anne Lamott
Loving/Living–Henry 
Hidden Talents-David Lubar
Love, Nina/Nina Stibbe
Juliet’s Nurse/Lois Leveen

Posted in bloggers, Books, Literature, Reading and tagged , , ,
19 May 2015
7 Comments

Mockingbird Winner!


I have yet another reading quiz result. This time I explored what kind of hero I might be–I am quite pleased with the findings. Honestly, I wasn’t peeking at the choices. Yet, here it is and *tadah* I’m feeling vindicated. Ready…

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Apparently because I like to read in my spare time, fight for what I think is right, and prefer my own company I’m an Atticus kind of hero(ine). All this time I thought I was a scrappy bookworm. This time I included the link. Do tell what your results are.

What kind of hero are you? Take the quiz!

Posted in Blogging, Literature, Reading and tagged , , , , ,
15 May 2015
6 Comments

Reading Challenge: #20–My Salinger Year


Joanna Rakoff has provided that rarity, a memoir that reads like a novel. She does admit she needed to fill in some gaps, which is totally understandable and quite forgivable. The point is that Ms. Rakoff allows her readers to peek behind the curtain where most plebeians are barred when it comes to the world of lit deals. We are given glimpses of when one of the old venerable literary agency’s began to roll out of the Stone Age of carbon copies and Dictaphones into the pacings of the WWW. This is the agency that represented J.D. Salinger. The title is both misleading and essential to understanding the book. Salinger plays his part in Rakoff’s memoir like he did in real life for so many: an enigma of reverberation. He left a lasting impression on Rakoff long after her encounters with him, and she is able to pass that enduring awe to her readers.

Front Cover

The following is a passage, which, for me, serves as the book’s metaphor. How so many freshly degreed lit majors hope to “make good” in NYC as an assistant  at a publishing house or agency and live beyond their means by believing in their facade, to almost succumb to disaster only to recover and continue in the momentum of living as a twenty-something.

 My shoe, with its narrow heel, caught on the thick carpet, and for a moment I thought–I knew, my heart beating faster–that I was going to trip and fall down that small flight of stairs, the world around me rotating, but then I simply laid my hand on the railing, steadied myself, and continued down. p.139

If you are looking at the reminiscent or retro view of the book world, a bit of Mad Men of the literary scene, then I urge you to find My Salinger Year. It’s a bit of The Devil Wears Prada peek of publishing. I wonder if Emily Blunt is busy for this one because I do see a film in the making. Heck, I could see Meryl Streep as an agency queen. Oh yeah–

Posted in Books, reflections, reviews, writers and tagged , , , ,
29 Apr 2015
3 Comments

NPM: #29–morning has broken


I am a definite morning person. This trait, along with being a “tidee” versus being a “messee”, did not follow genetic pathways to my kinder. No one in my family can understand my bounciness in the early a.m. When “Morning” by Mary Oliver dropped into my mailbox, I read it, related to it, and couldn’t wait to share it. It reminded me ever so much of the Cat Stevens song as well.

Morning by Mary Oliver

Posted in creativity, reflections and tagged , ,
25 Apr 2015
13 Comments

NPM: #25–the Poe in poetry


Most of Poe is a favorite. I don’t care for the macabre aspect, the chop-him-up-cause-I-loved-him-so stuff. Makes me nervous walking across floorboards when he does that kind of writing. My students like Poe because they like the scary aspect of his writing, although they don’t always understand his diction, they get his intent of setting people offside with mixing real with horror. So, it is with surprise that I’ve come across a Poe poem that is actually upbeat. Which Poe are you most familiar with–the scary guy or the dreamer?

Dreams

Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 – 1849
Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! tho’ that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
’Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be—that dream eternally
Continuing—as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood—should it thus be given,
’Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revell’d when the sun was bright
I’ the summer sky, in dreams of living light,
And loveliness,—have left my very heart
In climes of mine imagining, apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought—what more could I have seen?
’Twas once—and only once—and the wild hour
From my remembrance shall not pass—some power
Or spell had bound me—’twas the chilly wind
Came o’er me in the night, and left behind
Its image on my spirit—or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly—or the stars—howe’er it was
That dream was as that night-wind—let it pass.
I have been happy, tho’ [but] in a dream.
I have been happy—and I love the theme:
Dreams! in their vivid colouring of life
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of semblance with reality which brings
To the delirious eye, more lovely things
Of Paradise and Love—and all our own!
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.
Edgar Allan Poe

Eddie, do you need a hug?

image: Academy of American Poets

Posted in Americans, creativity, reflections, Uncategorized, writers and tagged , , ,
22 Apr 2015
5 Comments

NPM: #22–bumbershoots and such


L’Avenir est Quelque Chose (The future is something)

by Dobby Gibson

 

All day for too long 
everything I’ve thought to say
has been about umbrellas…

the rest of the poem

I own a passel of umbrellas. Some I have adopted, since they get left in my classroom. A few I inherited from my mother-in-law who actually had an impressive collection of them, ranging from the impressive wooden-handled proper British brelly to the cheapy insurance company giveaways. I have bought my own umbrellas when the mood strikes. I carry an extra one or two in the car. Once, I stopped and gave one to a child shivering in the rain while she waited for her school bus. In fact, I toy with the idea of becoming an umbrella aficionado and giving them away as I see fit. I will wait for white hair and the Social Security checks for that to transpire. A crazy old lady is considered harmless–at least I hope my umbrellaling will be considered benign, if not quaintly amusing.

 

image: Morguefile/garbofromhungary

Posted in creativity, Nature, Poetry, reflections, Uncategorized and tagged , ,
18 Apr 2015
2 Comments

NPM: #18–the rhythm of sports


The beauty of poetry is that it embraces a diversity of interests and subjects. I found a elegance of movement in the rhythm of this particular poem as it captures the game.

 

“Fast Break” by Edward Hirsch

 

 

image: Morguefile.com

 

 

 

 

Posted in creativity, Poetry, Writing and tagged , ,
16 Apr 2015

NPM: #16 Window Watcher


Athe Window

D.H. Lawrence,1885- 1930

The pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters
Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter;
While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters.

Further down the valley the clustered tombstones recede,
Winding about their dimness the mist’s grey cerements, after
The street lamps in the darkness have suddenly started to bleed.

The leaves fly over the window and utter a word as they pass
To the face that leans from the darkness, intent, with two dark-filled eyes
That watch for ever earnestly from behind the window glass.

 

I like how Lawrence personifies nature, how the trees and wind and leaves talk to each other with mutterings and laughter while inside, a person watches unaware. It’s lovely and a bit creepy all the same. It stirs my imagination to thinking of fairy tales.

 

Is the wind laughing outside these windows? image: Pintrest

 

Posted in creativity, Nature, Poetry, reflections and tagged , , , | Leave a comment
10 Apr 2015

NPM #10: Emily and the sun


Emily Dickinson

National Poetry Month wouldn’t be the same without a guest appearance from Emily. Image: Academy of American Poets

A Day

Emily Dickinson, 1830 – 1886

I’ll tell you how the sun rose, —
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
“That must have been the sun!”

But how he set, I know not.
There seemed a purple stile
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while

Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away.

It will no doubt take a lifetime to read and appreciate Emily D’s some 1000+ poems. I do so delight in finding one I haven’t seen before. How does she devise these slips of images that dazzle to the point of pause? What’s interesting to me is that she didn’t capitalize “sun” although she personified it, which did have a penchant for doing.

Have you a favorite Emily? Please share. Maybe I am not aware of it yet and I would like to make its acquaintance.

Posted in Americans, creativity, Literature, Poetry, reflections, writers and tagged , , | Leave a comment

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