Mailbox Monday

Only one book came in the mail last week, so Mailbox Monday is pushing it. But many came into my house last week because I stopped at a church rummage sale Friday morning and snagged a couple of books that caught my eye, and I used my Reading Local contest winnings at Title Wave, the Multnomah County Library book store. Most of the Title Wave books are ex-library, with plenty of stickers, stamps, and tape, but they are in very good condition and make good reading copies. I was lucky though, and got a nice edition of 2666 -- the three volume, boxed, paperback set -- from a stash of uncirculated copies Title Wave is selling for $12.50 (the cover price is $30). I have mixed feelings about this book, so getting a good buy on a cool edition makes me more inclined to read it -- as if that makes any sense. The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos (which I won in a give away and now cannot for the life of me find my way back to the hosting blog -- sorry!) London Fields by Martin Amis (From the rummage sale; I am interested to read more of Martin Amis's books because I have only read Money.) Cuisine Novella by Antoine Laurent (The first sentence on the cover caught my attention -- restaurant in Paris -- but now that I read the rest -- fantasy, time travel -- I have buyer's remorse. Good thing it was from the rummage sale!) Nuns and Soldiers by Iris Murdoch (I'll read them all eventually.) 2666 by Roberto Bolano (see above) Shaken and Stirred: Through the Martini Glass and Other Drinking Adventures by William L. Hamilton (Ex-library, but looks like a lot of fun.) The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier by Colin Woodard (I love lobster and I love Maine -- can't wait.) Iris Murdoch: A Life by Peter J. Conradi (for when I finish the novels) Christmas Comfort & Joy by Better Homes and Gardens Books (All the Christmas books are ex-library, but they make great reference books for when I go Christmas crazy.) Christmas With Southern Living 2004 by Rebecca Brennan Christmas With Victoria 2000 by Kim Waller

Opening Sentence of the Day: Au Revoir to All That

"On an uncomfortably warm September evening in 1999, I swapped my wife for a goose liver." -- Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine, and the End of France by Michael Steinberger That may be my favorite opening sentence of the year.

Shame of the Village

LibraryThing outed me as the slacker I am. Long a member of LibraryThing's terrific Early Reviewer program, I have been lucky enough to nab several review copies of interesting books. For a while there, I was the model Early Reviewer. I would have earned an Early Reviewer gold star if they handed them out. Whenever I got a book, I read it immediately and I always wrote a review. But last fall, I started slacking off. Books would come, and I put them in their own priority TBR stack, and then ignored them. At first, I blamed my new job and house moving, but then, like a kid playing hooky, I just enjoyed seeing how long I could get away with not reading the books. More came in (although not as many as when I was the model participant), and I did not even bother reading the back covers -- I just bunged them into the no-longer-a-priority stack. Not any more. I got caught! LibraryThing has a new system where Early Reviewers can access a page listing their personal Early Reviewer books and information on the status of the book -- as in, whether you received the book yet and when you posted your review, with a gentle reminder to review the book if you have not done so. It is not an overtly threatening system, but the Power of the List is enough to shame me into fulfilling my duties. So, coming soon will be a new Rose City Reader List of the Day -- all my Early Reviewer books. And maybe a personal challenge is in the works. Anything to get back that gold star.

Opening Sentence of the Day: After Dinner Speaking

"Some of the sweetest sounds that a speaker can hear are the surprised ripple of laughter from the audience, the murmurs of approval at praise well deserved, and the firm hand of applause at the end of a speech, a sound of clapping that goes beyond the polite." -- After Dinner Speaking by Fawcett Boom This little book was published in 1991. I think I picked it up some time in the 1990s, when I was putting in my time with various Bar organizations and had to do my share of speaker introductions and opening remarks. Too bad I never read the book back then. I usually ended up winging it and my attempts at public speaking were always too glib, too rushed, and generally botched. Never too late to learn, though, so I am finally going to read this book. For one thing, that will get it off my nightstand where it has lived for the last 15 years.

Review of the Day: Changing Places

In Changing Places, David Lodge’s 1975 novel, American and British college professors exchange teaching positions for part if the 1969 academic year. Mousy Philip Swallow finds himself basking in California sunshine in Berkeley, but embroiled in campus shenanigans, student protests, and an exciting new world of counterculture experimentation. On the other side of the Atlantic, Morris Zapp, a flamboyant and famous Austen scholar takes his new “red brick” college by storm, wowing the English Department as well as the wife of his colleague.

Lodge guides the reader along the crisscrossed paths of the two scholars, from one comical escapade to the next, but never shies away from the difficulties that arise. This is the type of story at which Lodge excels – examining how people react when outside events force them to reexamine what they believe in and hold dear.

He makes it funny, but the underlying dilemmas are as serious as they come. For example, the scene where Zapp realizes that his flight to England was so cheap because it was a charter flight of pregnant women taking advantage of Britain’s newly relaxed abortion laws, includes this passage:

For Morris Zapp is a twentieth-century counterpart of Swift’s Nominal Christian – the Nominal Atheist. Underneath that tough exterior of the free-thinking Jew. . . there is a core of old-fashioned Judaeo-Christian fear-of-the-Lord. If the Apollo astronauts had reported finding a message carved in gigantic letters on the backside of the moon, “Reports of My death are greatly exaggerated,” it would not have surprised Morris Zapp unduly, merely confirmed his deepest misgivings.

Religion? References to Jonathon Swift and Mark Twain (and, in the omitted section, T.S. Elliot)? Not typical fodder for a lighthearted novel, scenes like this makes readers laugh, but leave them with plenty to think about.

Lodge eventually followed Changing Places with a sequel called Small World (1984). He wrapped up his academia trilogy with Nice Work (1988).

OTHER REVIEWS

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