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Reading:
Gathering Blue
Moving:
nope
Listening: KBCO
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3 January 2001: Books
I decided to reckon up, based on my reading pages, what I accomplished
in 2000.
Two dozen adult novels, less than one every other week. Plenty of children's
books, and I counted Philip Pullman among the latter though I really believe
they're better suited for teenagers or adults. A few non-fiction for the
first time in years, and I'm not sure I can count the gardening books.
How much more would I read if I didn't reread The Shell-Seekers
or Jane Austen whenever I'm wan?
So far this year I've read a book a day! If I liked Amber Brown as much
as Lyra Silvertongue, I could keep that up.
Adult Novels
- A.S. Byatt, The Virgin in the Garden
- A.S. Byatt, Still Life
- Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
- Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
- Beryl Bainbridge, The Bottle Factory Outing
- D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers
- David Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
- Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
- Douglas Coupland, Miss Wyoming
- Feenie Ziner, Within This Wilderness
- Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason
- Ian MacEwan, Amsterdam
- J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace
- John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman
- John Irving, The Cider House Rules
- Margaret Atwood, Blind Assassin
- Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles
- Michael Cunningham, The Hours
- Myra Goldberg, Bee Season
- Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop
- Richard Russo, Mohawk
- Richard Russo, Nobody's Fool
- Richard Russo, Straight Man
- Rumer Godden, Croyartie v. the God Shiva Acting through the Government
of India
Nonfiction
- Alison Weir, Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life
- Alison Weir, The Life of Elizabeth I
- Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods
- Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
- Dava Sobel, Longitude
- Irving and Amy Wallace, The Two
- Richard H. Minear, Ed. Dr. Seuss Goes to War
- Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman
- Singh, Code Book
Gardening
- Creative Vegetable Gardening
- Sunset Western Garden Book
- The Bird Garden
- Thomas Pakenham, Meetings with Remarkable Trees
Children's Books
- Avi, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
- Beverly Cleary, Ralph S. Mouse
- Beverly Cleary, Runaway Ralph
- Beverly Cleary, The Mouse and the Motorcycle
- Brock Cole, The Goats
- Caroline Ryle Brink, Baby Island
- Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy
- Cynthia Voigt, Elske
- Cynthia Voigt, It's Not Easy Being Bad
- Diana Wynne Jones, Charmed Life
- Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock
- Diana Wynne Jones, Stopping for a Spell
- Diana Wynne Jones, Witch Week
- Donald R. Hettinga, Presenting Madeleine L'Engle
- Doreen Gonzales, Madeliene L'Engle
- E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle
- E.L. Konigsburg, About the B'Nai Bagels
- E.L. Konigsburg, The Second Mrs. Giaconda
- E.L. Konigsburg, Throwing Shadows
- Edward Eager, The Time Garden
- Gail Carson Levine, The Princess Test
- George Selden, The Genie of Sutton Place
- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Jane Louise Curry, A Stolen Life
- Jean Merrill, The Pushcart War
- Katherine Cushman, Catherine, Called Birdy
- Katherine Paterson, Flip-Flop Girl
- Katherine Paterson, Jip, His Story
- Katherine Paterson, Parzival
- Katherine Paterson, The Master Puppeteer
- Katherine Paterson, The Sign of the Chrysanthemum
- Lois Lowry, All about Sam
- Lois Lowry, Anastasia Again
- Lois Lowry, Anastasia and her Chosen Career
- Lois Lowry, Anastasia at Your Service
- Lois Lowry, Anastasia Has the Answers
- Lois Lowry, Anastasia Krupnik
- Lois Lowry, Anastasia on Her Own
- Lois Lowry, Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst
- Lois Lowry, Rabble Starkey
- Lois Lowry, Taking Care of Terrific
- Louis Sachar, Holes
- Louisa May Alcott, Little Men
- Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea
- Lucy Maude Montgomery, Anne of the Island
- Lucy Maude Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars
- Lucy Maude Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams
- Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and the Great World
- Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Joe
- Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy's Wedding
- Maureen Daly, Seventeenth Summer
- Patricia Yolen, Tam Lin, an Old Ballad
- Paula Danziger, Amber Brown Forever
- Paula Danziger, You Can't Eat Your Chicken Pox, Amber Brown
- Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
- Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass
- Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife
- Philippa Pearce, Tom's Midnight Garden
- Robin McKinley, Rose Daughter
- Robin McKinley, Spindle's End
- Robin McKinley, The Blue Sword
- Robin McKinley, The Door in the Hedge
- Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown
- Robin McKinley, The Outlaws of Sherwood
- Rumer Godden, Impunity Jane
- Sharon Creech, Absolutely Normal Chaos
- Sharon Creech, Bloomability
- Sharon Creech, Chasing Redbird
- Sharon Creech, Pleasing the Ghost
- Sharon Creech, The Wanderer
- Susan Cooper, Tam Lin
- Susan Cooper, The King of Shadows
- William Sleator, Among the Dolls
- William Sleator, Oddballs
- William Sleator, Rewind
- Zilpha Keatley Snyder, A Fabulous Creature
- Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Below the Root
- Zilpha Keatley Snyder, And All Between
- Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Until the Celebration
- Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Blair's Nightmare
- Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Runaways
- Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Witches of Worm
---
This morning I emailed Haitch and this afternoon called to ask if she
would like to go shopping avec moi ce soir. She called me moments after
I left voicemail. When she listened to the message she laughed at my ignorance
of the Orange Bowl, but when, talking, I asked if University of Oklahoma
was involved tonight, she nearly burst a vein in frustration and disgust
at my willful ignorance. She actually gibbered, although on purpose. Also
she called me names.
I promised to pick her up some cat food anyway though.
[snort] I'm still giggling.
---
The title Gathering Blue is making more sense now. Meaningless,
it's still a beautiful phrase, but knowing it's about the harvesting of
flowers and plants for dye makes it more beautiful. And the final meaning
is more poignant yet.
For whatever reason, my head feeds me more carols when I'm dismembering
my tree than at any other time during the season. Today, two full days
after crooning to it as I rolled bulbs in tissue, packed away the nonfragile
bits, arranged geegaws in boxes, and unwound lights, crooning like the
German with the knife to the heart in "Saving Private Ryan" and feeling
about as much like a murderer, I've still got Judy Garland doing "Have
Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" on my internal jukebox. I had never
seen "Meet Me in St. Louis"
until this year nor known that was the origin of the song. (Haitch told
me that too. I'm ignorant on all counts.) Christmas eve we watched that
and then "A Christmas Story," an excellent pairing.
RDC hated the former, even though he inherited a fierce love of Judy
Garland and Liza Minelli from his mother. It was a musical, and the only
musical he can stand is "A Nightmare before Christmas." It was
awfully twee in parts, and during the streetcar song we might have even
changed the channel. Judy Garland could be so lovely but her hair, both
color and style, displeased me here. I won't watch it again, but I wanted
to see the context of the song.
I might watch it again. Margaret O'Brien's character totally killed me,
like Phoebe's antics kill Holden. When the father announces they're going
to move to New York, Tootie says, "I'd better start packing now. I'm going
to take all my dolls, even the dead ones" and I nearly fell off the couch.
There's another line about exhuming them all from the doll cemetery. She's
a stellar kid. Plus she builds a great snow-polar bear (extremely fake,
as we see when she later takes a baseball bat to it, but it looks good)
that reminded me of Iorek Byrnison.
But I couldn't watch it again. Margaret O'Brien made a great Tootie and
she might have made an okay Beth March in the 1944 "Little Women," but
June Allyson (Mrs. Lassie) is unwatchable. Searching to find who played
Tootie and who else that actress played, I learned Allyson played Jo to
Margaret's Beth, and anyone but Katharine Hepburn or Winona Ryder as Jo
is just wrong wrong wrong.
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