I'm pooped out after cleaning all day yesterday, readying the house for the graduation party we're having for my daughter this coming Saturday. She's leaving high school behind, marching us straight into the poor house. We're becoming human ATMs - like we haven't always been - but now the numbers are getting a whole lot bigger. I didn't think ATMs were even supposed to dispense such large amounts of money.
Remind me how much I complained now when, in two more years, we have TWO children in college. I feel nauseous. Let's leave all that behind and try a bit of book bloggy fun, letting someone else do all the heavy lifting for a change.
Here's how Blog Hopping works: I start out at a random book blog and link to a post I enjoyed reading, one I'll also comment on at that blog. I'll peruse their list of recommended blogs and choose one, hopping over there, repeating the process. This is something I do for fun anyway, in my "free time" that isn't really free time so much as "blog addiction." May as well share great new sites with you all.
Ready? First Stop:
Beth Fish Reads: Reading, Thinking Photography
What I enjoy about her blog is how interactive it is, that she asks for contributions from readers to add to whatever the current subject matter may be. In this particular instance I'm referencing a post called "Weekend Cooking: Dinner with Friends":
"Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page."
Hop!
Never been here before but check out her post re: what books she's received through the mail lately. It may make you weep (I know it did me...). Some good stuff here, like Muriel Spark's The Driver's Seat, which I'd never even heard of. And I enjoy Muriel Spark very much:
Guess who's just added yet another book to her TBR list?
Hop!
A Literary Odyssey: My Journey Through 250 of the Classics
Linking to her post on Shusaku Endo and his book Volcano:
"A volcano resembles human life. In youth it gives rein to the passions, and burns with fire. It spurts out lava. But when it grows old, it assumes the burden of those past evil deeds. It turns deathly quiet as we now behold it. Nevertheless, a human being is not entirely like the volcano. When we grow old, will cast a backward glance upon our lives, becoming fully aware of our mistakes."
I tried commenting on her post but, Reader, I am embarrassed to say I could not figure out how to do so. I tried the usual way I go about it, which is straightforward, but I didn't receive a comment box. Never mind, though, there's so much here to skim through. She's a sweet person with a huge love of reading the classics and posts about books acquired, book lists, etc. She also participates in lots of literary challenges, which is one thing I sorely lack. Check out this other post on one of those, The Classics Club. These people put me to SHAME!
Hop!
The Classics Club originates on the A Room of One's Own blog. To join, you make a list of 50 classics you plan to read within five years, including an ending date. This you post on your own blog. You link your list to Jillian's blog and every time you finish reading and commenting on one of these classics you link back to her blog, to make the whole process interactive. It makes more sense if you read her directions!
And I think this may be a fun challenge to join. Classics are my first love and I only came to contemporary literature a few short years ago. Talk about your steep learning curve...
I still read some classics - mostly for the Classics Book Group at the library - but nothing at all like I used to, when I read them almost exclusively.
So, Jillian... A List of 50 you say...
One more... HOP!
Musings is one of the many, many blogs participating in The Classics Club challenge. So, I swung from that vine and wound up reading this post, in which she shares thoughts on Elizabeth Taylor's A Game of Hide and Seek:
"Taylor’s writing is exquisite. The story unfolds very slowly, with the rich observational detail Taylor is known for. And it’s emotionally intense as well. In the first part, the reader feels the pain of young love — we want Harriet and Vesey to accept the love they feel for each other, and live happily ever after. We feel pain in the awkwardness of their parting, and the pain returns when they meet again in middle age. By that time, I had come to appreciate her marriage to Charles. I was caught up in Harriet’s dilemma, simultaneously wishing for things that might have been, and wanting to maintain the comfort and security of her family life. The ending is ambiguous, and yet felt completely right."
She also references a bio of Taylor I didn't know existed!:
This is the danger of blog hopping: it adds to your TBR list exponentially.
The Other Elizabeth Taylor by Nicola Beauman
Amazon's info:
This is the first biography of one of the greatest English writers of the last century. Betty Coles became Elizabeth Taylor upon her marriage in 1936. Her first novel At Mrs. Lippincote's appeared in the same year (1945) as the actress Elizabeth Taylor was appearing in National Velvet. Over the next thirty years, "the other Elizabeth Taylor" lived and worked in Buckinghamshire and published several titles of fiction. Nicola Beauman's biography draws on a wealth of hitherto undiscovered material.
Nicola Beauman is the author of A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914–39, Cynthia Asquith, and Morgan: a Life of EM Forster. She founded Persephone Books in 1999.
I enjoyed my romp past a few bookish blogs. I'll have to do this more often. I've clearly never gotten out enough and have become pretty insular. I visit loads of other bookish blogs but usually lose them after one visit and can't find them again. This exercise forces me to slow down, for one thing, and to record my hops. Plus, see what's out there as far as all the fun challenges, what others are reading and what not.
Hope you enjoyed it as well and will visit some of these lovely sites.
