Category: Books - A Cottage by the Sea

Looking for novels with depth

8/10/2022

My reading! It’s dropped off, at least my pleasure reading. In the past few weeks I’ve returned five or six novels after giving each no more than thirty pages a try; novels with copyrights of the last three of four years. I just don’t care about the characters’ problems, undoubtedly due in part to the discrepancy in their ages and mine. I'd like to add--no depth.
So, this afternoon I perused the library stacks, including the Librarians Choice shelf, and checked out a few books to try. My criteria, first and foremost was to apply the old adage: You can tell a book by its cover. Next, I read the blurb on the cover. If that appealed, I gave the first page a try. So here I am with five books. So far, so good.

A bag of books from a friend

6/13/2020

My library is opening for curbside pickup next week. The librarians are in the process of gathering books from my On Hold account. Hopefully on Tuesday I’ll receive an email asking me to schedule a pick up time. Books from the Minuteman Library Network won’t be available, but those owned my library should be ready for me.
With this news, along with the bag of favorite books a friend gathered for me yesterday, I figure I’d better get reading. My first read from the bag has got to be Murder at the Kennedy Center (1989) by Margaret Truman (1924-2008) . I recall my mother commenting that the president’s daughter (of all people) was writing mysteries, and, that she was quite good. I’m sure my mom never read any, nor have I, but it’s time to begin.

Spend time with positive people

2/3/2020

Spend time with positive people is one of the ‘nuggets of truth’ I wrote about in The Teacher Book: Finding Personal and Professional Balance, a book I published in 2000. That nugget is still with me twenty years later. It is not that I avoid all negativity. We all have difficult things going on in our lives, and at times we need to pour them out to someone. I can listen to that, and I am very grateful that I have friends who do the same for me. By positive people, however, I mean those who desire to get out of despair, not those who seem to want to remain in a ‘poor me’ state.
I believe that good conquers bad, that every human being has a beautiful soul, and that we each have a choice to go high. Those who are profoundly stuck in negativity need a listener who will remain with them through to the other side. I know when I am not that person. I know my limitations. That’s what I mean by my choice to spend time positive people.

Books and trucks and the library

7/10/2019

What a surprise to see that this is my first post of the month. It’s been busy here at Camp Fisher but now things are back to our usual silent, solitary, and simple routine. July 4th festivities and company have departed. All good. In fact they make this quiet time more precious and appreciated. I definitely like a change of pace.
   Earlier this morning, from our open widows, I could hear the whistle of the little train at Truck Day over at the library. Well, when we took our grandkids it was called “Truck Day,” but now it’s “Touch a Truck Day.”
    I just went over; took a few pictures outside, and a few books from inside--random books from the stacks. New books don’t seem to appeal to me these days. Maybe it’s because the characters are younger than me—younger by many, many years. Maybe I want stories set back when I was younger. Regardless, I wanted a good novel so I pulled a book from the shelf, read the dust cover, and made a choice. I came home with five.
      I’m very grateful for libraries and that I live within hearing and seeing distance of one.

Librarians' Choice

1/28/2019

Right across the street at the library I’ve discovered a new source of ready-to-read reading selections: the books on the Librarians’ Choice shelf. Librarians and readers have a built in basis for friendship, and what do readers do? They share book suggestions. The shelf is another way of doing this.

Creating an enduring mission statement

10/8/2018

   I’ve had enough of the news. No, that’s not accurate: I’ve had too much of the news. It crept up on me during the Supreme Court hearings. I started listening to news show after news show, watching what I call My Sources. The obsession even seeped in during my time in Florence in September when I was there alone to walk around with God and find peace, joy, and balance in my life.
     Now, once again, thank God, I have returned to what this blog is all about--silence, solitude, and simplicity. In particular, it is silence that I must return to: silence in my head, and silence in public. Although I still have strong opinions and I am still angry about the political scene, I know it doesn’t serve me to keep ranting, because in doing so my opinions and anger run my life, and what kind of a life is that?
    Years ago, through an exercise in The Path: Creating Your Mission Statement for Work and for Life, by Laurie Beth Jones, I articulated my life mission: to inspire, affirm, and encourage peace, joy, and balance in teachers.* On my good days I still live this mission for all people, although believe me, even on those good days I forget or miss the mark. However, on the days when I obsess over the news, I fail miserably. Not only do I forget my purpose, but it fades away from who I am, and I become the person I don’t want to be. In its place, all I am able to be is be angry, and when I am angry there is no silence in me.
     Sometimes we have to ask ourselves the most obvious of questions. This is one of those times for me. I am an optimistic, positive human being. Is there any reason I should allow such negativity to seep in and run my life? The answer is NO.

* I wrote about the process I went through in The Teacher Book: Finding Personal and Professional Balance, published by Heinemann. My audience at that time was teachers, but the mission is for all people.

Those morning pages again~

10/26/2017

     Remember Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way published in 2002? Remember the ‘morning pages’?
Julia recently published It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again: Discovering Creativity and Meaning at Midlife and Beyond. In glancing through (not reading) this latest publication I was inspired once again by her brilliant, and yet simple practice of ‘morning pages.’ I ‘did’ them years ago, I’m doing them again.
      First thing in the morning pick up your journal and start writing. Don’t think, don’t plan, just write. Let that stream of consciousness pour out of your pen. Don’t edit; in fact, don’t reread. When you’ve written three pages, close the journal, and go on with your life.
     I’m amazed at what has come to me since beginning this practice five days ago. Amazed at topics: I may be on my way to figuring out how Florence has shaped my life and why I keep returning. Amazed at insights: I meditate with less distraction when I write all about me first.

Book stores in Florence~

9/15/2017

Here’s an update on my 2017 Reading Challenge. To date I’ve read 82 books. Traveling, however, has slowed down my pace. I just don’t have the time. My reading is pretty much relegate to Kindle reading in restaurants. Kindle tells me I have read 11% of The Medici: The Rise of Parvenu Dynasty 1360-1517, by Danny Chaplin, and have 14 hr. 28.mins left in the book (I’m skimming some). I’m also reading The Beautiful Necessity: Seven Essays on Theosophy and Architecture, by Claude Bragdon. Its 111 pages are filled with architectural drawing, but I can only digest a few pages at a time before I go out into the street and observe the real thing.
I confess that I spend some reading time wandering around the Feltrinelli bookstores at the train station and Piazza Republica--as well as enjoying their cafes. And today, for inspiration, I visited the Laurentian Library, designed by Michelangelo. And besides, back in May I reached my goal of 52 books.

2017 Goodreads Reading Challenge

6/10/2017

I have completed my 2017 Goodread Challenge of 52 books, and it’s only June. Now what to do with my time. Maybe I’ll go for 100 for the year, a nice round number.
The last three books I’ve read will remain high on my list of best books ever.
In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri
A Wall in Jerusalem: Hope, Healing, and the Struggle for Justice in Israel and Palestine, Mark Braverman
A Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit, Michael Finkel

Reading for compassion: February 2017

3/1/2017

* Conclave, by Robert Harris
**The Street Sweeper by Elliott Perlmann
By Chance, by Martin Carrick
*The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Navigation Log, by Martin Carrick
*Tattoos on the Heart, by Gregory Boyle
**Colorless Tsuuru Tazaki, by Haruki Murakami
**Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent
Pompeii, by Robert Harris