My Brain On Books XXXX

 

   

 

I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo every year since 2004.  I have been blessed to have it in my life and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love.  I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids. 

This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two.  Including mini-challenges that don't require a separate post..   

Be sure and see my tribute poem to Dewey and the Thon she birthed at the bottom of this post

My folding camper rocker new last summer.  Hoping to spend some time in it this thon.  The weather is perfect 

=

4:44 - Third Finish!

I didn't make it the full 24.  That last update took me longer to write than it toom to read the book I was talking about.  That work triggered self-reflection which triggered as it often does a nap attack.  There was already light in the window so it was definitely after 5 abd probably after 6 when I gave up.  I woke at 10am but it took until noon to get my mind and eyes and ears in sync with reading.  Then I spent several hours working my way through a chapter each in several more NF:

• The Great Influenza by John M. Berry
• Not in God's Name by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
• The Tree Collectors by Amy Stewart
• White Trash by Nancy Isenberg

I Am Maria by Maria Shriver

Then I started Maria Shriver's new book,  This was 90% poetry and 10% memoir/personal essay.  I usually slow down to a snail's pace to read poems and dole them no more than three in a sitting.  But I couldn't stop turning the pages and so I decided I was going to push on and make it my third finish with the understanding that I was going to have to go back to the first poem and re-read them slow to give me time to reflect, absorb and appreciate the insights and the word play.  At least I hadn't waited until the last five days of my loan to start it so I had over a week to do it over the right way and now when I go back to the beginning maybe my curiosity about the who, what, when, where, how will have been sated so I can keep it where it belongs as the backdrop and not the heart of the message.

I was surprised at how many ways Maria developed similar wounds to her psyche as I had. The dynamics between herself and each of her parents was so similar to my own in spite of the fact that my family did not live in the public eye.  Still there were similarities enough that when her poems contain conversations she is having with her younger self and her mother at various crisis points in their relationship I feel her words touching something raw that quivers in recognition.  That's why I know I need to go back and sit with those moments and those words and let them probe what is trying to speak within me and maybe wake up my own words and my own healing energy.

But I must remind myself that she didn't get to the level of healing she has reached by reading a poem.  Or a hundred poems.  She got there by sitting with the pain until it spoke its truth to her and that doesn't happen in a moment or a minute or an hour or a day.

12:22 AM - Second Finish

I spent a couple hours reading a chapter in each of several NF books:

• The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy by Robert P. Jones
• The Untold Story of Books by Michael Castleman
• Being Seen by Elsa Sjunneson
• The Collected Poems of Maya Angelo

Then I started another novel.  Well, I thot it was a novel and it was fiction but it's length was in that grey area between novel and short-story.  It was over 100 pages but not by much.  There were no chapter breaks so I never paused let alone quit and once again read beginning to end in one sitting.

Once upon a time about three decades ago that was an everyday experience for me but that was before my visual impairment crossed the line defined as legally blind.  Then my reading speed was cut in half and a few years later in half again.  I must admit tho that I'm managing this today by listening to the Kindle robot at 3.5x while following along with my eyes.  This gives me back close to my reading speed as a teenager with eyes only.  I can't reach that speed with eyes only or ears only.  Due to hearing loss I loose syllables if i'm not also watchng the words highlight on the screen.  With ears only I can seldom speed it up past 1.5.  With eyes only I often drop below 1x which is equal to the speed of speech ( 200-250 wpm).  

Convenience Store Woman
by Sayaka Murata

So the story (novel? novella? short story?) was Convenience Store woman by Sayaka Murata.  This was a very unnerving story for me.  I'm assuming, tho I'm not sure I should be, that the author meant it to be unnerving but because it's POV character's character was so similar to me in some significant ways, I identified with her only to find myself cringing as her choices went off the rails even tho those choices were solidly based on the very same characteristics that I identified with.

To clarify, like me Keiko was obviously neurodivergent.  This wasn't said directly but made obvious by her interactions with family, classmates and teachers as a child along with her first person narration reveals her to struggle with social interactions and expectations.  She is constantly saying and doing things that shock others and she is shunned at school and shamed by family.  Then she learns to observe and mimic those around her until she soothes their nerves as they begin to hope she is finally 'normal'.  But it never lasts long as she always miscalculates like a cat crossing a balance beam and stepping on its own tail and tumbling to the ground.

Then as a college student she gets a part time job at a convenience store and it seems she has finally found her element.  The rigid protocols, the scripted interactions with customers, the perfectly lined up product on display, keeping all the surfaces clean and gleaming--all of this is her happy place and the added benefit is that those around her now treat her as normal and she feels like she finally belongs.  Her parents are proud of her.  Her classmates and teachers congratulate her.  Her boss praises her and her co-workers include her in their circle.

She was content to continue in this way for the rest of her life but that was another miscalculation as after a number of years it is made clear to her that she is expected to move on to a full-time job or a profession or marriage and children.  Otherwise she is not contributing enough to the community.  It was at this point the story took that dark turn when Keiko made cringy choices.  I dare not say anymore as I can't clarify any further without spoilers.

8:44 PM - First Finish!

I sat on the porch from 5:22-8:33 and read a book start to finish in one sitting for the first time in a very long time.  Of course I was listening to the Kindle robot read at 3.5x while following with my eyes--but still!

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks

The book was Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks and it was a memoir about the loss of her husband in 2019.  It was a meditation on grief and loss.  The very short chapters alternate between the events in the hours, days and months following his death and Geraldine's months long retreat (alone) to a remote Australian island three years later to free and confront all of the emotions surrounding the events of 2019 that she had felt she had to sublimate behind a socially acceptable mask.

What she shares goes deep and speaks to me as I continue to process the grief from the loss of my Dad in 2005, my husband in 2020 and my Mom in 2024 all.  My Dad on my husband's birthday, my husband the day after his birthday and my Mom one month after those anniversaries and three weeks before my birthday.

4:44 PM - Intro Meme

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Kelso Washington USA.  Across the Cowlitz river from Longview where I grew up and had been living with my elderly mother between January 2013 and late July 2021.  I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit in late July 2021.  This  post was a photo essay of my new space.

So this is my 13th thon in my own home, counting the Reverse Thons in August 2021 & 2023 & 2024.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Non-Fiction: Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks

Fiction: Letter From the Lonesome Shore by Sylvie Cathrall  (book 2 in a duology.  I read the first one two weeks ago.  It was one of the best things i've read all year and i've finished over 60 books since Jan 1.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Savory: baby carrots and broccoli blossoms dipped in Ranch

Sweet: cold grapes and blueberries

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

• Still processing grief over the loss of Mom last October..  That's why I'm looking forward to the Geraldine Brooks book Memorial Days as it is a meditation/memoir about her grief after loosing her husband
• Widowed September 2020  It still smarts at unexpected moments.  But at least it is usually only once  a month now instead of constantly.  
• Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision.  Have only a sliver of vision left in center of right eye.  The rest is shadows and shimmers.
• Have struggled with mood disorder of Anxiety and Depression and insomnia since grade school
• Diagnosed with high functioning autism in 2015.  In my 50s!
• Have a caregiver who comes in five days a week to help with chores and errands I can't do alone. 
• I proved during this move that I have more volume in fiber art supplies than in clothes by at least thee times.
• I probably have double the volume of clothes in tree-books but since I still haven't got them all moved over I can't be sure.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

This is my 40th Dewey thon so there aren't many variations I haven't tried. 

Doing anything but especially reading or writing for a full 24 hours used to be my superpower but not so much anymore.  Now that I'm in my mid sixties the price I pay for that self abuse is significant as all my systems are less forgiving. 

Because of my vision issues I have always considered that the only metric on which I could compete as I'm now such a slow reader.  But I've discovered that I can rack up an impressive number of books dipped into in 24 hours.  I like to read a chapter each in 4 to 6 NF in an hour and then spend an hour immersed in a novel.

Ah but the ONE thing that I could do different that could make a lot of difference in the quality of the experience is to do a better job than in the past of staying hydrated.  But nearly equal to that in impact would be to get briefly active at least once every two hours.  But this isn't the first time I've set that intention.  Let's hope I do a better job at it this time.

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

Read more...

My Brain On Books XXXVIII

 

   

 

I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo every year since 2004.  I have been blessed to have it in my life and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love.  I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids. 

This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two.  Including mini-challenges that don't require a separate post..   

Be sure and see my tribute poem to Dewey and the Thon she birthed at the bottom of this post

My new folding camper rocker which will be an integral part of thons from now on.

 

It is supposed to rain off and on the whole thon but unless it is below 50 degrees and/or the rain is being driven in under the porch awning I will try to spend some daylight time out here.  Other times I have the beanbag chair, the rocker and the couch/bed.  Also the mini-tramp if listening to audio.

I never got to sit outside.  It rained all day and was also windy and thus chilly with occasional blasts of rain under the awning.

1:44 AM - Time to eat again

And therefore time to listen to another disc of A Sudden Light by Garth Stein.  See below at update 5am.


12:22 AM - oops! my Kindle Fire shut down in the middle of a sentence

The Closing of the Western Mind
 by Charles Freeman

I was 11 screens from the end of the chapter I'd been reading for over an hour when my screen blinked black and powered off.  Ugh.  I hate when that happens.

I don't typically spend over an hour with a NF (except memoirs and biographies and books about writing craft or creativity.  Well maybe true crime and some investigative journalism that has a throughline as compelling as a novel) but this one was slow reading as it is so dense with quotes and references to other texts--and dates! Not to mention detailed presentations of the various arguments made by the early theologians of Christianity between Jesus and Constantine, including the influence made on them by Judaism and the Hellenistic philosophers.  Lots of things to keep straight.

I wouldn't have persevered if the book wasn't due tomorrow (well today now) probably before I wake from my post thon stupor.  I did not want Libby to snatch it from me before I'd finished that chapter or I'd probably have to reread it on my next turn. It was over 80 screens long!

This is the latest book on my currently reading shelf related to my obsessive decades long study of Comparative Cosmology which is the overarching concept that includes: Theology, History of Christianity (and other world religions and spiritual paths), Sacred Texts, Anthropology, Philosophy, Psychology, Quantum Physics and Mythology.


7:44 PM - Back to Reading!

But first food!  So back to the audio of A Sudden Light by Garth Stein while i fix and eat.  See below at 5am.


5:00 PM - Into the mystic

Savage Beauty
by Nancy Milford

Subtitled: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay

I've been reading this one for several months and am still only about 15% in.  In this sitting I reached the point where she was 'discovered' at age 20 after submitting  a remarkably mature poem to a national contest in 1912.  It was her poem Renascence and after many pages of a play by play of that year in which lines from what she considered her first mature poem had been teased throughout the narration, the entire poem was presented in full. 

I was blown away.  I also got a lesson in how to read a poem.  Or maybe a reminder.  I tend to try to speed read but poems are not meant to be read that way.  Rather they need to be read mindfully, savoringly, and with careful attention to grammar, punctuation, image and metaphor.  I had to keep backtracking to pick up the thread again because I kept missing the signals (mostly punctuation) that indicated what phrase or image was referencing which previous phrase or image in order to complete a thought, an action, a comprehension... 

Missing these signals changes the meaning or throws the mind into confusion like being lost in a maze.  But once it all clicks into place...  WOW. 

I'm not proficient at reading poetry.  I'm too impatient maybe.  But on the random occasions when I manage to connect to one it always changes me.  This is no exception.  As i finally finished after nearly an hour on the poem alone, I exclaimed in my head: OMG she's a modern mystic.  How did I not know that?

Go find a copy and read it.  Better yet get this book and read also about her childhood and the influences on her writing of her experiences and her relationships with her parents and sisters and journals.  Yes, journals.  She named them and spoke to them as if in conversation with a person.  Not just a person but a beloved.

I have a feeling I won't be dilly-dallying my way through the rest of this book.

I will also be looking for a collection of her poetry very soon.

How did I not know she was a mystic?  I became drawn to mysticism in the mid to late 90s during my explorations into Comparative Cosmology.  Milly is the most modern one I've encountered so far.  Unless I missed the signals when I did encounter them, which is quite possible especially if I encountered them before my exposure to the Medieval Mystics during my Comparative Cosmology studies.

Oh my!  I think I need to return to the poets I discovered in my late teens and twenties two decades before my comparative studies and encounter with the concept of mysticism.  Emily Dickenson, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman...

There were others.  Mostly women writing in the 1900s and several publishing in the decades before and after my high school graduation.  I can't remember any other names in this moment but I'm raring to go seek them out somehow.

So poetry is apparently a form of mindfulness!

Just had that thought as something in me made the connection with something I read hours early in The True  Secret of Writing.

Something in me wants to apologize for getting off track but then I rebel against that because this is how I encounters with words and story and ideas affects me.  This is my brain on books!


2:00 PM - Sit Walk Write

The True Secret of Writing
by Natalie Goldberg

I'm about one third thru this after two weeks.  The secret can be summed up by three words understood in the context of Zen:

•  Mindfulness
• Non-Judgement
• Practice (Sit Walk Write)

12:00 PM - Next...

If it Bleeds

by Stephen King

I moved on from the Stein audio at 7AM.

Usually I would spend the next several hours after being immersed in a novel reading NF, spending 15-30 minutes in each of several.  But because of what happened this morning when I accidently opened a Stephen King book on my cell phone while preparing to sleep, I was eager to return to the novella that kept me awake until an hour before the official start of the thon.  Sigh.

I returned to the last novella in the collection, Rat, which was another of Kings exploration of a writer's mind and the bargains they are willing to make to succeed.

Since I'd finished my first coffee and my breakfast of yoghurt, cottage cheese and blueberries I moved from the rocking chair where I'd listened to the A Sudden Light for two hours over to the beanbag where I immersed in Rat for forty or so minutes before I started struggling to keep my eyes open.  So I moved back to the rocker for another half hour or so until yet again the drowse began to take me.  I developed a stitch in my side, a crick in my neck and twinges in my hip from the way I was slouching in my chair.  So I moved to the couch which is also my bed but I was sitting on it like a couch until at some point I wasn't.  I didn't notice the time I surrendered to a nap but it was probably after 9:30 and possibly after 10:30.  I woke at 11:11 when my cell alarm went off.  It is one that goes off every day to remind me to check in with myself and ask certain questions, like:

• have you hydrated in the last two hours?
• have you taken your meds and/or supplements?
• Is it past time to have something to eat?
• Is it past time to get up and move about?
  

Lately because of not sleeping well or much at all the main question it is asking is: Shouldn't you be awake already? Today it startled me into asking: Aren't you supposed to be reading?  Can't you even stay awake for Stephen King?  Oh far have the mighty fallen?

i got up and fixed a second coffee and sat in the rocker reading Rat off my cell for at least another hour.  I'm used to reading a King novella in one sitting so it was very frustrating to have it broken up like that.  It makes it difficult to hold it in my mind like the faceted gem it usually is.

5:00 PM - Starting with:

A Sudden Light
by Garth Stein

I read The Art of Racing in the Rain after seeing the movie last spring and fell in love with both.  Like that one, this one is set in the Seattle area of Washington state which I visited many times in my childhood.  But that is only one of the draws.  Both books also have elements of mysticism and/or magical realism.  This one might be a ghost story unless those elements are related to the use of gaslighting techniques by one or more characters on the rest.  The POV narrator is a 14 year old boy forced to join his father on a cross country trip to meet his grandfather whom his father has been estranged from for 23 years.  The dynamics of these two father/son relationships (both dysfunctional) interact.  The boy begins to understand that the grandfather has Alzheimer's and his father and his aunt who he's also never met and who is the grandfather's caregiver are on a mission to gain power of attorney so they can sell the mansion and acres of forest it sits on so they can afford to put their father in a nursing home and still have a significant inheritance.  He hears them speaking about 'developing' the land.  Also about a curse on the property and family because the family riches had been gained by exploiting the land during the era of the timber barons.  

This is first because it is an audio book on CD and for the first hour I'm awake my eyes are gluey and I'm at risk of falling back to sleep if I don't stay active.  So I will turn it on and listen while I make coffee and while I continue to prepare my beanbag chair for occupancy.  It became a fiber collector the last few weeks--from clothes to bedding to yarn and fiber WIP.  I was going to finish that project before I slept but ran out of time if I was going to get a solid sleep before 5.  

Yeah, right.  Fat chance!  Good intentions and all that.  Instead of clearing off the beanbag I sat on the edge of the bed and organized my ebook library on my cell.  It was suppose to be calming and make me sleepy.  I was suppose to be moving to the top several shelves the dozen or so books I was most interested in encountering in the next 24 hours.  At some point I accidently opened a Stephen King.  It was the If it Bleeds anthology.  I had left off some months ago with one novella left to read and of course I started reading.  Next thing I knew I had one hour left for sleep.  I turned off the cell and the light and settled in to try to catch a nap at least.  But all I did was lay there anticipating the alarm.  Ugh.  It could be a long day.  Coffee will be my friend.  Would it be wrong to take an extra Adderall?  Probably.  Maybe I'll just use coffee until around the 12 hour mark. Sometime between 4 and 6 this afternoon and then take he one Adderall. Ah well.  Times wasting...

4:44 AM - Intro Meme

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Kelso Washington USA.  Across the Cowlitz river from Longview where I grew up and had been living with my elderly mother between January 2013 and late July 2021.  I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit in late July 2021.  This  post was a photo essay of my new space.

So this is my 10th thon in my own home, counting the Reverse Thons in August 2021 & 2023 & 2024.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Non-Fiction: Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford (a biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay

Fiction: A Cautious Traveler's Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Savory: Jalapeno Poppers

Sweet: Coconut Bites (with Goji, Cranberry, Chia seeds and Chocolate

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

• My Mother died Thursday evening.  If there are any family events taking place over the next 24 hours I will have to set aside thon activities but for whatever hours of this 24 that I'm alone I will read and update.  The grief is still fresh but reading is one of the ways I process strong emotion and sitting and stewing won't help.  I may return to one of the books that helped me through the loss of my husband 4 years ago last month.
• Widowed September 2020  It still smarts at unexpected moments.  But at least it is usually only once or twice a month now instead of constantly.  
• Began living alone for the first time ever three years ago July. Sometime in the last few months it began to feel like home.
• Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision.  Have only a sliver of vision left in center of right eye.  The rest is shadows and shimmers.
• Have struggled with mood disorder of Anxiety and Depression and insomnia since grade school
• Diagnosed with high functioning autism in 2015.  In my 50s!
• Have a caregiver who comes in four days a week to help with chores and errands I can't do alone. 
• I proved during this move that I have more volume in fiber art supplies than in clothes by at least thee times.
• I probably have double the volume of clothes in tree-books but since I still haven't got them all moved over I can't be sure.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

This is my 38th thon so there aren't many variations I haven't tried. 

Doing anything but especially reading or writing for a full 24 hours used to be my superpower but not so much anymore.  Now that I'm in my mid sixties the price I pay for that self abuse is significant as all my systems are less forgiving. 

Because of my vision issues I have always considered that the only metric on which I could compete as I'm now such a slow reader.  But I've discovered that I can rack up an impressive number of books dipped into in 24 hours.  I like to read a chapter each in 4 to 6 NF in an hour and then spend an hour immersed in a novel.

Ah but the ONE thing that I could do different that could make a lot of difference in the quality of the experience is to do a better job than in the past of staying hydrated.  But nearly equal to that in impact would be to get briefly active at least once every two hours.  But this isn't the first time I've set that intention.  Let's hope I do a better job at it this time.

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

Read more...

My Brain On Books XXXII

  

 

 

I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo every year since 2004.  I have been blessed to have it in my life and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love.  I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids. 

This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two.  Including mini-challenges that don't require a separate post..   

Be sure and see my tribute poem to Dewey and the Thon she birthed at the bottom of this post

My Read-a-Thon Nest
a Beanbag Atop a Mini-Tramp

Book as Art

1:44 AM - Book as Art

I just spent an exquisite hour with a tree book I think qualifies as a graphic novel tho I don't usually see graphic novels that exceed 500 pages.  The whole experience of handling the book from first picking it up was like that of handling an art object in a gallery or museum.  The pages are of a thickness I think meets the standard of card stock.  The pages are all framed in a black quarter inch edge.  I estimate it is 3/5 pictures with series of images that tell a story without words like the camera shots in a movie sandwiched between pages of text that tell a story with the flavor of fable.

This was given to me two years ago with the understanding that I would read it and pass it on to a child I believe would enjoy it.  What was holding me back was the small print used for the pages of text.  But I finally found a work-around and solving the problem for this book means I will be able to pick up more tree books in the future.  As my vision got less and less the frustration with print books grew and grew until I became very shy of them.  Tho I still love to have them around me and to handle them and browse through them.  I just can't read them longer then a few minutes and the need to get the lighting just right coming from just the right angle and the magnifying glasses just right for the size of print and the pages at just the right angle and just the right distance from my eyes and to hold all of that steady...well...it was a juggling act and very distracting from the content so it was impossible to get lost in the story.  This is how I solved it:

Tools for Tree Book Reading

The combination of a bright headlamp with 2.5X magnification glasses I was able to read and get lost in the story for over an hour.

As for the story: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.  It won a Caldecott Medal in 2008.  It is the story of a boy who lives inside the walls of the train station in Paris, France just before WWII.  He has secretly taken over his uncle's job of keeping the several dozen mechanical clocks in that sprawling building running.  And he has a secret mission to complete a project his father died trying to finish mostly at his request.  The story features clockwork automatons, stage magicians, a cavernous bookstore and a grumpy old mechanical toy seller as the young boy's nemesis.

I just wish I'd known what a success this would be and started it sooner.  Like before noon.  I could have easily finished it in 3 to 4 sessions of an hour each.  An hour is all I can take of having my forehead squeezed by the elastic bands of the headlamp but I think that will get easier.  As it is I will not be finishing a book this thon.  Especially one I started after kickoff.  But I accomplished a lot

The Lost Tribe of Coney Island by Claire Prentice

11:44 PM - 

Just spent about an hour reading a book on my Kindle.  The Lost Tribe of Coney Island: Headhunters, Luna Park, and the Man Who Pulled Off the Spectacle of the Century by Claire Prentice.  I've been working my way thru this one at the rate of about a chapter per day for a couple weeks.  I is a fascinating look into American history and culture interacting with an 'exotic' culture just over a century ago.  And it is a tossup as to which culture was the most savage.

It is giving me a new angle to view current events as well because this pre WWI slice of American history contains all the same elements of conmen, grifters, conspiracy both actual and rumored, paranoia, bigotry, bullying, self-righteousness and blatant calculating lies as our own current events and all of this without radio, TV or the Internet.

Again. Again and Again. : Awakening Into Awareness -- Essays and Stories
by Mathias B. Freese

8:44 PM - First tree book of the thon

I just spent over an hour with two short essays from Mathias B. Freese's Again. Again and Again. : Awakening Into Awareness -- Essays and Stories.  I usually like to put more time between two short piece and especially when written by someone whose every word is so precisely chosen for both meaning and impact and both fact and effect.  

These are the kind of writings that try and nearly succeed in catching thinking in the act.  Thinking about thinking is one of my favorite things to do but I have not mastered as has Mathias Freese the art of writing about thinking about thinking.

I don't think I'll be picking it up again before the thon is over as my thinker is nearly sunk by sleep depravation as once again I was too revved up to sleep last night and thus I hit 24 hours awake 12 hours ago and I have 8 hours to go. Tho I'm seriously starting to doubt I will make it..  But I kept my promise to myself to pick it up during the thon as it is an ARC I received months ago and I still owe the author a review and I want to deliver that before NaNoWriMo

Tomato Soup and Toasted Cheese Sandwiches

6:44 PM - readathon Finger Food

I decided to use some of the remaining battery on the Fusion5 to play an audiobook in my Libby library while I made and ate tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches.  It had to be the Fusion5 if I were to remain untethered as my laptop is not Bluetooth.  So I have been listening for just over an hour to Karen Armstrong reading her Art of Scripture.  Armstrong's writing has been one of my valued resources as I began to question and the make my own path to freedom out of the cult I was raised in.  It would not be an overstatement to think of her creating the first foundation of my comparative studies in sacred text, religion, mythology or the overarching comparative cosmology.  All of which or other words for Story.

I listened to the Intro and Chapter 1.  The latter covering the scriptures of Israel.  Chapter 2 will cover India but I'm ready to move on.  Besides I'll keep it all straight in my head easier if I don't introduce the stories and concepts of different cultures in one session.

4:44 PM - Readathon glitch

Right around 1:30 pm  I dozed off on the beanbag.  For just a few seconds.  But that was all it took for my Fusion5 10 inch tablet to slip from my hands and hit the floor right on the power plug and bent it off.  This is a Windows/Android fusion with limited storage so I don't keep my important irreplaceable files on the device but still I had to go read all the file titles to make sure.  I did find a half dozen photos taken with the device that could be positive were in the cloud.  And I found several free pdf downloaded off the browser via those giveaways associated with signing up for newsletters.  I suppose nothing I would have missed if I hadn't been reminded by seeing them.

Anyway that was a tedious two hour task taken out of my thon day.  Now I have to decide whether I'm going to use the remaining three hours of battery to continue reading from my Libby Library (Dietland and more) or switch to reading off my heavy awkward laptop screen.  I just synced the library to the laptop so I have that option but it is definitely not as relaxing a reading experience.

I used to have my Libby library on a Nexus android.  A 7 inch that was even lighter weight and easier to hold for hours than the Fusion but it crashed in early summer.  I need to replace it because Libby allows keeping the book file on the device for reading offline with Android device but with Windows devices you have to be online.  I also have the option of telling Libby that I prefer to read on my Kindle and they will send the books to my Kindle but I don't know how fussy a task that would be and I've already spent enough time fussing.  I want to get back to Dietland.  I had just passed the halfway mark and it was getting real intense.

But I have a headache and suspect it is because I need food as it has been over six hours since I ate.  I'm also jonesing for coffee but I've already had by allotted second thermos at 9am so I need to weigh the pros and cons of extra caffeine as in the risk of a caffeine headache vs the risk of not making it to 5am.  I know what Stella thinks I should do.  Sigh. Bless her heart.  

I'm sad over the demise of my little Windows tablet. It has been a huge part of my daily life for two years.  I used it mostly for entertainment and web browsing.  I watched videos, listened to music and podcasts, read ebooks and blogs and articles. I could have music playing on it while I read on another device or researched or wrote on the laptop.  And yes, I mean demise because it isn't worth taking it in to a shop and paying to have it repaired.  Windows has already given me one warning that certain features of Windows 11 are not compatible and I know from experience that a few months on from that warning they will issue a six month warning that they are discontinuing support.  It is maddening how they seem to design these things for obsolescence.

I now I've lost four hours of reading to this glitch!!!

8:22 AM - Started out with Dietland by Sarai Walker.  Just spent an hour lurking on social media scoping other readers.  Didn't engage yet as I'm anxious to get back to the story.

Who knew weight loss groups and glam girl mags are cults?  Breaking free can be murder.  Is staying free even possible?

4:44 AM - Intro Meme I'm setting this to go live at 4:44 AM but it may be well into hour 1 or even hour 2 before I check in again.  I'll be reading my first pick sitting in my beanbag chair nursing my first thermos of coffee and eating a protein bar....

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Kelso Washington USA.  Across the Cowlitz river from Longview where I grew up and had been living with my elderly mother between January 2013 and late July 2021.  I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit in late July 2021.  This  post was a photo essay of my new space.

So this is my forth thon in my own home, counting the Reverse Thon in August 2021.  The second Fall one.  I completely spaced out the August Reverse Thon this year and was so sad when I realized it.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Non-Fiction: Again. Again and Again. : Awaking into Awareness -- Essays and Stories by Mathias Freese

Fiction: Dietland by Sarai Walker

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Tomato Soup and Toasted Cheese Sandwiches.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

• Widowed September 2020  It still smarts at unexpected moments.  But at least it is usually only several times a week now instead of constantly.  But September brought it back to several times a day.  September was his birthday and the anniversary of his Mom's and my Dad's deaths as well as his.  So it was still a rough patch two years out.
• Living alone for the first time ever.  Fifteen months now.
• Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision.  Have only a sliver of vision left in center of right eye.  The rest is shadows and shimmers.
• Have struggled with mood disorder of Anxiety and Depression since grade school
• Diagnosed with high functioning autism in 2015
• Have a caregiver who comes in four days a week to help with chores and errands I can't do alone.
• I proved during this move that I have more volume in fiber art supplies than in clothes by at least thee times.
• I probably have double the volume of clothes in tree-books but since I still haven't got them all moved over I can't be sure.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

This is my 32nd thon so there aren't many variations I haven't tried.  I am hoping and have planned accordingly that i get more than six hours sleep before my 4:44 am alarm goes off.  I've had a habit of such heightened anticipation that I sleep poorly or not at all before it starts and then struggle to do the full 24.  Doing anything but especially reading or writing for a full 24 hours used to be my superpower but not so much anymore.  Now that I'm in my mid sixties the price I pay for that self abuse is significant as all my systems are less forgiving. 

Also hope to a better job than in the past of staying hydrated and getting up to move regularly.

I am most looking forward to many sessions of sustained reading as I've just passed thru a dark couple of months in which I lost focus, concentration and enjoyment of reading but as of last week it is back tho I've had to curtail it as I had so many messes of many varieties to clean up reading was set aside for those hours when I was too fatigued to do it well or long.

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

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We Miss You Dewey

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Book Review: A Gift Upon the Shore by M K Wren

 

A Gift Upon the Shore
by M K Wren

M K Wren's A Gift Upon the Shore was a gift to readers everywhere and everywhen back in the day before smartphones and internet.  It's a post-apocalyptic story about saving the books for future generations.  

I read it first time decades ago when it first came out in the early 90s and felt the need for a reread in this day when the book burners and banners are at it again.  

What might happen if they gained the upper hand?

The premise:

Civilization is gone.  Nuclear winter just set in.  Two women alone in a house on a bluff above the surf on the Oregon coast not yet knowing if there are any survivors in the local rural community and if so are they the friendly kind?  

The runup to the nuclear End had seen a  plague that killed millions in America alone, roving gangs of nihilists terrorizing those still civil, half of California fell into the sea taking 2 million more souls, the president had been assassinated by a bomb and those taking the power canceled the constitution and set up a Federal Information Broadcasting System.  

You saw that right: FIBS.

But even that was gone on the day the bombs fell as the EMP took out all electronics including car ignitions and digital clocks, home appliances and power tools  And then nuclear winter set in within days.

Is there hope?  And if so will they choose it?  

The only clue is in the author's choice of names for her protagonists: Mary Hope and Rachel Morrow.

This book came back into my life like a miracle.  I'd thought about it often over the years as memories of scenes haunted me as did the mission the women took upon themselves after the initial shock wore off and they had assured their basic survival needs by looting the abandoned buildings and vehicles within a day's travel on horseback.

Instinctively, part of their looting had included every book they encountered until the volumes they found together with those they'd already owned topped 10K not counting duplicates.  It was nearly a full year after the End when they had the time to contemplate a future for themselves and for humanity.  And that is when they devised the mission to preserve the books for the future.  

I had vivid memories of images of them wrapping the books in aluminum foil and then applying a waterproof sealer which I could not remember.  I remembered they had built a vault by digging a cave into the side of the bluff above the surf and lining it with stone and cedar planks.  I remembered that later in the story someone had tried to dynamite the vault.  And that that someone was related to the Christian cult they had encountered years after the End.  The first and only survivors they did encounter within the decades the story covers.

I had remembered that much but even that more vaguely than that summary implies.

I had lost my reading records in a move and could no longer remember either author or title.  But I did remember we had once owned a trilogy written by the same author and that it had been a sci/fant story involving another fundie cult and that the title of book one had the word Lamb in it.  That wasn't enough to find a viable search term for online resources.

But then one day while searching something else altogether (which I no longer remember what it was or the search terms) there in the results was one of the books from the trilogy and there was the author's name and from there it was just a click to find her list of titles and there it was.  A Gift Upon the Shore.

That happened no more than a month before Dewey's thon and I thought what a perfect read for Dewey's legacy.  So I made myself wait for the morning of the thon to start the book.

Reading this book was a slow slog due to eye issues (legally blind with RP) combined with emotional issues related to the events in my life in the late 90s that caused me to excommunicate myself from the cult I was raised in.  I wonder now what role this book played back then in helping me identify my own faith community as similarly toxic to the one featured in Wren's book.  

It must have had some impact if even unconscious as I read it when it was still a new hardback at the library in the early 90s and the first inkling I had of the doctrinal disputes that were about to implode our faith family was in 92.  Then in 94 I witnessed the disciplining of an infant for "inappropriate use of his voice" as the men in the room calmly discussed scripture and the women calmly handed out dessert plates and the small children calmly played their little games on the floor.

That scene became a tornado that devastated my soul. That picked me up out of my world and set me down in what might as well have been another planet. That turned me from a True Believer into a skeptic and set me on a mission to learn to think for myself.

There is a scene in this book where a 13 year old is whipped with a belt for blasphemy for asking in church why the begets for Jesus in the gospel don't agree with each other and both lead to Joseph and not Mary who was supposed to be a virgin.  Reading that scene again after spending the month of April writing my memoir of the events that catapulted me out of my faith community was so surrealistic I can't even...

It was like pouring salt on the wounds I just ripped the scabs off of.

See Friday's post, Of Flux and Fuss and Frustrations, for a more in depth explanation of the roots of the emotions this novel is stirring up.

The read-a-thon was supposed to end at 5AM Sunday for me but I read on until 7:30 trying to finish this story. I was still just over 10% out when I had to give up. Then I woke up after only four hours of sleep and after coffee picked up the book again--and fell asleep over it waking at 9pm after another 4 hours of sleep.  I finally finished it after 10PM. 

This story is going to haunt me for the rest of my days.

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My Brain on Books XXX

 

 

 

I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo every year since 2004.  I have been blessed to have it in my life and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love.  I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids. 

This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two.  Including mini-challenges that don't require a separate post..   

Be sure and see my tribute poem to Dewey and the Thon she birthed at the bottom of this post

My Read-a-Thon Nest

The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina
by Zoraida Cordova

12:22 AM (Sunday) - Coming up for air.  WOW.  I've spent this whole time with the same book.  Tho I must admit that eyestrain caused me to need to rest my eyes frequently and several times closing my eyes to rest them resulted in mini naps.  Most lasting minutes but one or two over an hour.  But the Libby ap says I spent a total of 11 hours 33 minutes on The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina by Zoraida Cordova  between 5AM and 12:11 AM.  It's a book I could have read in under six hours once upon a time but those times are gone forever.  But in spite of how long it took I am suffused with a sense of triumph for having read a whole novel in what is still in essence one sitting.

It was magical.  Not only the flashback to days of yore when reading a novel in one sitting was nearly a daily happening but the story itself.  Magical.  I feel like I've been dreaming and I don't want to wake up. How do I move on to another story now with only four hours and a bit left in the thon?

And it wasn't even the book I listed in the opening meme that was the one I was most looking forward to.  I started it in the first hour because I expected it to be an easier read than Matrix like a fantasy or a YA.  I thought I'd be done before noon and could move on to the literary Matrix with a tankard or two of coffee in me.

But this story turned out to be as complex as any Lauren Groff story I've yet encountered and contained themes as serious as any literary novel I ever read.  To top that off many of those theme are the very ones I'm currently obsessed with.  Loss.  Grief.  Dysfunctional family dynamics.  Family secrets.  The untrustworthiness of memory.  The power of creativity and imagination.  The importance of truth telling.  The primal need for connectivity.  The daily necessity for repentance and forgiveness.  The evil of misused power.  The need to just say NO to bullies of all stripes.  The arrogance of that sense of purity and piety that calls itself righteousness giving itself the right to judge others 'less than' which is the source of most of the pain we humans inflict on each other in the name of good.

4:44 AM - Intro Meme I'm setting this to go live at 4:44 AM but it may be well into hour 1 or even hour 2 before I check in again.  I'll be reading my first pick sitting in my beanbag chair nursing my first thermos of coffee.

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Kelso Washington USA.  Across the Cowlitz river from Longview where I grew up and had been living with my elderly mother since 2013.  I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit in late July.  Yesterday's post was a photo essay updating the current status of the settling in phase.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Non-Fiction: Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

Fiction: Matrix by Lauren Groff

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Chips and guacamole.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

Widowed September 2020 

Living alone for the first time ever.

Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision

Diagnosed with high functioning autism six years ago

Have a caregiver who comes in twice a week to help with chores and errands I can't do alone.

I proved during this move that I have more volume in fiber art supplies than in clothes by at least thee times.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

I'm hoping to interact with the community more this time than in the last several thons.

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

Read more...