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Showing posts from December, 2012

Books in Review: What I Enjoyed in '12

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2012 was a great year for books, and not just because adults got their own summer book club. (Although that was a bonus, I agree!) I read some great books for Fall for the Book (FFTB) this year, including (but not limited to ) The Submission and Age of Miracles . I was able to meet Amy Waldman, Michael Chabon, Eleanor Brown, Karen Thompson Walker and Alice Walker.  I missed Katherine Boo, but I just finished her book Behind the Beautiful Forevers — and I encourage you to read it, too. Next on my FFTB list: Weird Sisters . I met authors outside of the festival, including Tom Perotta, whose book The Leftovers made me appreciate how well he can create a story that can end but still carry on. I read quite a few worthy biographies, including Let's Pretend This Never Happened and How to Be a Woman . I laughed, I cried, I celebrated their lives and foibles. What great tales! I'm sorry I was so light on my reviews, but I'll try to be better next year — and maybe even

Blast from the Past: I'm Reading a Book!

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This video offers excellent lifesaving advice. Watch it and learn. Then catch some of his other videos on YouTube . You're welcome.

Listing Book Piles, 2012 Edition

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This year, I changed a few ways I do things: a new house, new technology — why not? But now I haven't the foggiest what I have read this year. It's true: I used to record them in the monthly pages of my organizer, which I affectionately called "my brick." (It was that heavy.) Then I got a Kindle Fire and started using Google Calendar (which, I realize, in the end will lack the permanence and reference of my Franklin Covey pages). This streamlining encouraged me to stop recording my books as I finished them. Now I have multiple sources, none of them easily organized and quick to provide information. Sigh. I thought I was being so clever. Now, I shall record on this page, in no particular order, all of the books I have read this year. That I can remember. Feel free to let me know how wrong I am, for that is the only thing of which I am certain. My 2012 Reading List (I think; subject to change when I remember another one or realize I read it last year ins

Movie vs. Book Harry Potter

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Courtesy Book Riot

Poetry Wednesday: What's in My Journal

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What's in My Journal Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean Thing, fishhooks, barbs in your hand. But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable. Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous discards. Space for knickknacks, and for Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify. Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind that takes genius. Chasms in character. Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above a new grave. Pages you know exist but you can't find them. Someone's terribly inevitable life story, maybe mine. by William Stafford from Crossing Unmarked Snow © Harper Collins , 1981.

The Winter Solstice: The Longest Night Leads to Longer Days!

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Fire and Ice  Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To know that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. by Robert Frost   Poem courtesy poets.org Image by Alice Mason

Poetry Wednesday: Toward the Winter Solstice

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Toward the Winter Solstice Although the roof is just a story high, It dizzies me a little to look down. I lariat-twirl the rope of Christmas lights And cast it to the weeping birch's crown; A dowel into which I've screwed a hook Enables me to reach, lift, drape, and twine The cord among the boughs so that the bulbs Will accent the tree's elegant design. Friends, passing home from work or shopping, pause And call up commendations or critiques. I make adjustments. Though a potpourri Of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Sikhs, We all are conscious of the time of year; We all enjoy its colorful displays And keep some festival that mitigates The dwindling warmth and compass of the days. Some say that L.A. doesn't suit the Yule, But UPS vans now like magi make Their present-laden rounds, while fallen leaves Are gaily resurrected in their wake; The desert lifts a full moon from the east And issues a dry Santa Ana breeze, And valet

Never Forget: Where The Hobbit Began

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Today, Tomorrow and Tomorrow

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Poetry Wednesday: The Feast of Lights

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The Feast of Lights   Kindle the taper like the steadfast star Ablaze on evening's forehead o'er the earth, And add each night a lustre till afar An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth. Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre, Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn; Chant psalms of victory till the heart takes fire, The Maccabean spirit leap new-born. Remember how from wintry dawn till night, Such songs were sung in Zion, when again On the high altar flamed the sacred light, And, purified from every Syrian stain, The foam-white walls with golden shields were hung, With crowns and silken spoils, and at the shrine, Stood, midst their conqueror-tribe, five chieftains sprung From one heroic stock, one seed divine. Five branches grown from Mattathias' stem, The Blessed John, the Keen-Eyed Jonathan, Simon the fair, the Burst-of Spring, the Ge

Today: The Hobbit

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Tomorrow

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Two Days Until

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Three Days Until

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Four Days Until

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Five Days Until

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Poor Bilbo!

Six Days Until

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Antici— (say it!) — pation

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 Have you re-read the book yet? Will you do so before the movie?

Countdown to 'The Hobbit' Commences!

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From One Book Lover counts down to the release of the movie The Hobbit December 14 — and beyond! Visit this blog every day from December 7-16 and celebrate J.R.R. Tolkien's story brought to life on the big screen by Peter Jackson.

Poetry Wednesday: The Christmas Trees

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The Christmas Trees (A Christmas Circular Letter) The city had withdrawn into itself And left at last the country to the country; When between whirls of snow not come to lie And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove A stranger to our yard, who looked the city, Yet did in country fashion in that there He sat and waited till he drew us out A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was. He proved to be the city come again To look for something it had left behind And could not do without and keep its Christmas. He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees; My woods—the young fir balsams like a place Where houses all are churches and have spires. I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees. I doubt if I was tempted for a moment To sell them off their feet to go in cars And leave the slope behind the house all