Sunday Salon: Weekly Geek

I missed TSS last week (no Internet) so I think it will be okay to post twice this week.

From Reading, Writing and Retirement: Our Weekly Geek task this week: Dewey is asking us to list our favorite books that were published in 2008 (you, dear readers, will have a chance to participate in some future post). By the end of the year the results will be compiled; Dewey thinks "it’ll be interesting ... to see a list of what book bloggers choose as their favorite books rather than what a newspaper decides or what the top sellers were." Great idea!

1. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
2. My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead edited by Jeffrey Eugenides
3. A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz
4. Why We Hate Us by Dick Meyer
5. Lost in Planet China by J. Maarten Troost
6. Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux
7. The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
8. Sundays in America by Suzanne Strempek Shea
9. Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
10. Judy Moody Goes to College by Megan McDonald

Sunday Salon: Back to Normal

Ike's gone. Power is back. Phone works again. Internet has returned. We have food in the freezer. Shingles are back on the roof.

And I read two books yesterday. I couldn't read much during the storm or after the storm.

I know things are going back to normal when I can read again.

I'm a Cybils Panelist!

I was very happy to discover yesterday, shortly after the resumption of our Internet service, that I was chosen as a 2008 Cybils panelist. I'll be working on the shortlist for nonfiction picture books.

Sunday Salon: Hurricane Adventure

I've spent the last three days worrying about, anticipating, and, finally, going head on with Hurricane Ike.

We tried to decide whether to leave or stay, leave or stay. We decided to leave yesterday, but we only traveled as far as Houston. Safer than being thirty miles from the gulf, but still a hurricane adventure. Winds gusting a hundred miles an hour...falling tree limbs...rain beating on the roof and windows....

We've spent today cleaning up around my bil's house and trying to make it without power (though we were fortunate enough to have a generator).

We've had reports that our house has a hole in the roof, so we are crossing our fingers that we'll have a home when we return tomorrow.

Side note: I was happy to find that I can download books onto my Kindle even during a hurricane.

It's Almost Time for Another Read-a-Thon!

Almost time for another Read-a-Thon!

Unexpected Hurricane Holiday

Two sets of images are in my mind today as Hurricane Ike approaches the Texas Gulf Coast where I live:


Hurricane Carla in 1961


Evacuation for Hurricane Rita in 2005

Why We Hate Us

A paradox that bewilders me: America today. How can we be so affluent, so able to instantly satisfy any need, no real concerns over having enough food or clothing or shelter, and yet be so miserable?

Why We Hate Us addresses this paradox. Here's what I took away from this book:

The biggest problem seems to be that people have no real connections. Almost half of America feels isolated. And our lives are shallow, not deep. A quote from the book:

"With all our riches and freedoms, we have assembled what we thinly call 'lifestyles'---assemblages of recreation, work, consumer goods, freely chosen beliefs, family arrangements, and a great deal of media. Our new arrangements are not providing the nourishment we need, the warm relationships and ready guides. The older, connective tissues of American life are fraying, and the new, artificial ones are weak."

I had to put this book down several times. It was horribly depressing. But it addresses a very important question: Why is it that we live in the most affluent society that has ever existed yet we are not pleased with ourselves? Like most books of this sort, the author spends twenty chapters addressing the problem and one tiny chapter offering solutions.

One of the author's strongest recommendations is to limit media. I agree. I gave up tv three years ago and it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

One Book

Bad reading week.

I only finished one book, The Wishing Year.
I've been wishing for a copy for a long time.
All I can say: Be careful what you wish for. Disappointing.

Okay. Let me think about this again. I only finished one GROWNUP book. I finished lots and lots of kids' books. I Like Books by Anthony Browne. Book, Book, Book. Piggie Pie. No More Water in the Tub by Tedd Arnold. A Fine, Fine School. Wait! I Want to Tell You a Story. I Took My Frog to the Library. Bad Rats by Eric Drachman.

I loved every one.

Yes. That makes me feel lots better.

Musing Mondays: Book Slump: It Can't Happen Here

If you saw my house, you would see that a Book Slump could never happen here. (The photo above shows a stack I haven't quite fit into my six shelves.)

I have six bookshelves where I've squirreled away TBR and books I've loved just in case of such a terrible book event.

I have big, thick wonderfully browsable books that are fun to wander through whenever I've just finished a tough read.

I have light travel narratives to work in after a thoughtful novel.

I have lots of 32-page picture books to read aloud slowly if I can't find time for a nice big nonfiction book.

I have easy access to three library systems, including the enormous Houston Public Library and the Harris County Library. I can request and request and request. That gives me lots of possibilities.

My TBR and my library cards have me fully immunized against the dread Book Slump.

Reading about Reading

I'd requested Proust and the Squid from the public library and it finally arrived yesterday. I'd planned to browse it, reading the parts that seemed relevant or intriguing. Instead, I read the whole book today.

Here were some of the thoughts from the book I'm still thinking about:


“While reading, we can leave our own consciousness, and pass over into the consciousness of another person, another age, another culture.”

“The implications of cognitive automaticity for human intellectual development are potentially staggering.”

“…by five years of age, some children from impoverished-language environments have heard 32 million fewer words spoken to them than the average middle-class child. In another study, which looked at how many words children produce at age three, children from impoverished environments used less than half the number of words already spoken by their more advantaged peers….In the most underprivileged community, no children’s books were found in the homes; in the low-income to middle-income community, there were, on average, three books; and in the affluent community there were around 200 books….One of the major contributors to later reading was simply the amount of time for ‘talk around dinner.’ The importance of simply being talked to, read to, and listened to is what much of early language development is about….”

“Some up-front costs, such as transfer errors and substitutions from one language to the next, are less important than the advantages, if…the child learns each language well.” (implications of learning two languages as a child)

“When one realizes that children have to learn about 88,700 written words during their school years, and that at least 9,000 of these words need to be learned by the end of grade 3, the huge importance of a child’s development of vocabulary becomes crystal-clear.”

“An enormously important influence on the development of comprehension in childhood is what happens after we remember, predict, and infer: we feel, we identify, and in the process we understand more fully and can’t wait to turn the page.”

‘Recent reports from the National Reading Panel and the “nation’s report cards” indicate that 30 to 40 percent of children in the fourth grade do not become fluent readers with adequate comprehension….the entire school system (has) different expectations for students from grade 4 on. This approach is encapsulated in the mantra that in the first three grades a child “learns to read,” and in the next grades a child “reads to learn.”’