Friday, February 24, 2017

FINALLY -- The 2016 European Reading Challenge WINNER!



THIS IS THE WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT POST FOR 2016

TO FIND THE 2016 REVIEWS, GO TO THIS PAGE

TO FIND THE 2016 WRAP UP POSTS, GO TO THIS PAGE

THE 2017 EUROPEAN READING CHALLENGE IS LIVE NOW -- GO TO THIS PAGE TO SIGN UP OR READ MORE

2016 was the fifth year for this challenge, which involves reading books set in different European countries or written by authors from different European countries.

Big thanks to all the participants who joined me for the Grand Tour!

JET SETTER GRAND PRIZE WINNER

In a real celebration of European Reading, the Jet Setter Prize for 2016 goes to "Eginhard" who read and reviewed 14 books from different countries, mostly in their original languages! He even read a book in Irish and one in Serbocroatian. I usually feel all fancy pants when I read a book that was translated from another language and not just set in a foreign country.

Congratulations, Eginhard! And I am glad you signed up again for 2017!

Honorary Mention (but no prizes) go to eight other participants who posted wrap up posts on the Wrap Up page because I appreciate these posts very much for making my job of figuring out the winner so much easier!




My own wrap-up post is here. I read 10 books from different European countries (all in English), but I only reviewed one of them.

Congratulations to all the readers who completed the challenge! For those who finished the challenge but didn't post a wrap-up, feel free to do so now and link it on this page here.


The gist: The idea is to read books by European authors or books set in European countries (no matter where the author comes from). The books can be anything – novels, short stories, memoirs, travel guides, cookbooks, biography, poetry, or any other genre. You can participate at different levels, but each book must be by a different author and set in a different country – it's supposed to be a tour.

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Book Beginnings: On the Ragged Edges of Medicine



THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Instagram, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING



All too often a day at Burnside Health Center would begin with a melancholy tramp through the heart of Portland.

On the Ragged Edge of Medicine: Doctoring Among the Dispossessed by Patricia Kullberg, published by OSU Press. This powerful memoir by a doctor working with Portland's homeless and urban poor is organized around the compelling stories of 15 of her patients.

Monday, February 20, 2017

Mailbox Monday

When I was in Missoula for work last week, I stopped at the Friends of the Library sale shelf, as I always do, and found two books.



The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten, collected essays by the food critic for Vogue magazine.



All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West, described as the fictional companion to Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.

What books came into your house last week?


Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday, a weekly "show & tell" blog event where participants share the books they acquired the week before. Visit the Mailbox Monday website to find links to all the participants' posts and read more about Books that Caught our Eye.

Mailbox Monday is graciously hosted by Leslie of Under My Apple Tree, Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit, and Vicki of I'd Rather Be at the Beach.


Thursday, February 16, 2017

Book Beginning: The Life and Loves of a She Devil by Fay Weldon



THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Instagram, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING


Mary Fisher lives in a High Tower, on the edge of the sea: she writes a great deal about the nature of love. She tells lies.

-- The Life and Loves of a She Devil by Fay Weldon. This is on Erica Jong's list of Top 100 20th Century Novels by Women.

I've totally been sucked into #bookstagram on Instagram, as the picture above shows. Not that I have time to be taking pictures of #booksandcoffee. But I am a secret abuser of hashtags and Instagram lets me indulge my weakness.

Friday, February 10, 2017

Book Beginning: The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch



SORRY FOR THE DELAY!

I SCHEDULED THIS TO POST WHILE I WAS TRAVELING FOR WORK. BUT MY OPERATOR ERROR -- I HAD THE WRONG DATE AND IT WAS GOING TO GO UP TONIGHT INSTEAD OF LAST NIGHT.

BIG APOLOGIES!

BUT IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY, SO PLEASE BE NICE TO ME!!!

THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING



"How far away is it?"

-- The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch. Well, that's a nothing beginning that could go anywhere. But a good one for a book I started on a plane. This is one of the books for my 2X17 Challenge.

I finally got on Instagram, which immediately became my favorite #timesuck. And I see that several Book Beginners have been posting there, some of you with very clever visual interpretations. I'll try to do a better job of following along. Thanks for the inspiration!

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Author Interview: Yvonne Wakefield



When she was 18, Yvonne Wakefield took the inheritance intended to pay for her college, bought 80 acres in the Oregon mountains, and built her own log cabin home.

Wakefield's new memoir, Babe in the Woods: Building a Life One Log at a Time, explores her "relationship with woodsy things" and how Yvonne built a life for herself after becoming an orphan at 14.


Yvonne recently answered questions for Rose City Reader about her book, her cabin, writing, and woodsy things:

How did you come to write Babe in the Woods?

I started compiling journal pieces I had published with unpublished material written in notebooks to create narrative that read more like a story than a diary. I also wanted preserve the stories of a stage of humanity that is getting lost in the digital age.

Why, at age 18, did you head off into the Oregon mountains to build a log cabin by yourself? And why did you think you could do it? 

The night my mother died I had, I don’t want to say vision because that sounds too mystical, so I’ll say an idea formed in my mind. It was of me, a cat, living in a cabin I built in the woods. I had no idea I could achieve what I envisioned but through dogged determination and blinded by naiveté and driven to create a home for myself I survived insurmountable situations with the help of kind strangers I met during the process of building.

Can you give us an example or two of advice you wished you had before you undertook to build a log cabin by yourself? 

I wish I had listened to people I met along the way who advised me not to lift really heavy things like logs. But at 18 years old you listen to no one but yourself. Consequently, my bones and organs paid the price.

Is Babe in the Woods more memoir or more a how to book or survival guide? Who is your intended audience? 

It is memoir, a straight forward story about surviving myself on inter and intrapersonal levels and doing this mainly alone in the wilderness and often in isolation, motivated on by the goal of building a home. I purposely avoided writing too intricately about the building process because I did not want it to read like a how-to guide. What it took for me to survive is unique to my own physique and circumstances. I thought my audience would be mainly twenty something women, but marketing statistics revealed a range of women between the ages of 20-60 and men interested in building with logs.

What is your work background? Did it lead you to writing your book or contribute to your book in another way? 

I have a checkerboard work background. For decades I’ve juggled making and selling art with free-lance writing and teaching to cobble together a living. I have a doctorate in Human Organizational Systems which sometimes comes into play in my consultancy work. I do not believe any of this contributed to my writing Babe in the Woods, but it did my other book, Suitcase Filled With Nails: Lessons Learned Teaching Art in Kuwait, because it is the story of my six years as an art professor at a women’s college in Kuwait.

Can you recommend any other books about what you call our “relationship with woodsy things”?

One of my favorites is Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and the journals of Emily Carr and Opal Whitely.

Writers often follow the rule, “Write what you know.” But did you learn something about yourself from writing your memoir that you didn’t know before?

Yes. Interestingly in Babe in the Woods: Building a Life One Log at a Time, I saw a relationship with my brother and this carries over into the second of the series. I also realized that the foundation I built at age 18 literally and figuratively developed in me traits I continue to use on a daily basis

Who are your three (or four or five) favorite authors? Is your own writing influenced by the authors you read? 

Anything by John Steinbeck, most of Kurt Vonnegut, and Annie Dillard. I do not believe my writing is influenced by any writer. If I saw that it was, I would immediately quit writing. I write like I talk and think and that is particular to me.

What kind of books do you like to read? What are you reading now?

I like memoir. When I write, which is mostly every day for the last six years, I don’t really read books because I don’t want to be influenced by other words and by night, my usual reading time my eyes and brain are shot.

You have a terrific website. From an author's perspective, how important are internet resources to promote your book? Do you also use social networking sites or other internet resources? 

My website is really that…a kind of web displaying certain facets of my art and links to my books. Research shows that the internet is essential in promoting anything. Unfortunately, using social media does not come naturally to me. It’s really a chore for me to use. Like a language or tool I’ve little idea on how to best apply.

Do you have any events coming up to promote your book?

Upcoming events are posted on my website. This Monday, February 6, 2017, I'll be doing a reading at 6:30 PM in Port Angeles, Washington, at the main library. And on Tuesday, February 7, I'll do a reading at 6:30 PM at the Sequim Library in Sequim, Washington.

I love to attend book groups who are using my books and do so whenever I’m invited.

What’s next? Are you working on your next book?

Yes. The second in the Babe in the Woods series is just about ready to go into final editing and I’ve dashed off pages for the third book which brings my story with woodsy things into a new light, showing a 360 degree view of the orphaned girl at 18 to the newly widowed 60 year old woman who can still yield a chainsaw, ax, and maul with precision and strength. I still own the property and cabin and go there at least once a month. The only thing I won’t do alone any longer is saw down big trees. I’ve been lucky in that sense and want to keep it that way.


THANK YOU, YVONNE!

BABE IN THE WOODS: BUILDING A LIFE ONE LOG AT A TIME IS AVAILABLE ONLINE, OR ASK YOUR LOCAL BOOK SELLER TO ORDER IT!

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Book Beginning: Hillbilly Elegy



THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING



Like most small children, I learned my home address so that if I got lost, I could tell a grown-up where to take me.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance. I opted for the audio edition because it is read by the author, which is my preferred choice for memoirs.