Category: Other Posts

The Book(ish) related summary of what I’ve been doing

(Archive post moved from BookLikes)

Hey, it’s me again; I’ve temporarily (I hope) turned into one of those BL’ers that pops in and then promptly disappears.  Hopefully, in the coming weeks, that will cease and I’ll be back to my regular living-here routine.

The school year started back up on January 28th here, which means all the IT related stuff that should have been done in the previous year’s last term is suddenly being plonked on my desk and never mind the 700+ iPads piled up around me, and oh, by the way, when can we have the iPads?  This week?  No?

The 28th was also my birthday.  A Significant Birthday.  As many of you know, this Significant Birthday is going to be ushered in (or out, as the timing of the trip is yet TBD) with a trip to Africa, so I can stalk, from a safe distance, animals that see me as lunch.  But in the meantime, several smaller celebrations were … celebrated?  A day at the theatre with my SIL and niece to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (excellent, though I could have done without the interpretive dance).  A day hiking in a nearby National Park, and a quick weekend away last weekend in the wilds of country Victoria.  Posts abut those two are following as it was all going to be too much and too photo heavy for one post.

So, where’s the book related part of this post, you may be asking.  The first book-related part is my present from MT:

(I’ve edited out some of the more nitty-gritty details; as we all know, discussing politics or money in mixed company is just not polite).

A couple of verbal caveats were added:  This is in addition to my normal book buying budget, and it’s meant to be used on books deemed as collectible (by me), or a splurge.

My husband is a bucket of awesome.

The other part of the bookish update is the ongoing library project, which until today wasn’t so much on-going, as it was completely stagnant.  Our neighbor (he with the necessary equipment to rip 12 foot/3m boards) was out of town two weekends ago, and we were gone last weekend.  As I type this though, MT has headed over there to get started on the next lot of shelves, which might be the last ones, as we’re running out of salvaged wood.  Once we see where they get us, we’ll figure out what to do from there.

Here it is as of right now:

I can’t get the whole wall into the frame – the room is too small, but we now have one wall and a quarter of another one done.  Hopefully this weekend will see the rest of wall 2 done.

I think I’m slowly climbing out of my reading slump; I’ve been on an Urban Fantasy tear this last month, and not all of it has been re-reads.  Progress!

*glingleglingle* The bookshelf fairy finally arrived!

So I’m still in the midst of slumpaggedon, but in between constantly hitting refresh over the weekend, checking to see if BookLikes was back up, my attention was consumed by our latest home project, which I’ve alluded to in my previous 2020 post.

The start of this DIY saga goes back to last May, when MT took possession of what was to become the company’s new premises.  It was formally a sushi bar, and the owners left the space abruptly, leaving everything in situ.  The landlord refused to do anything to fit out the space, so MT negotiated with him to do it himself.  This meant we (I) had first pick of salvage, before the contractors came in, and part of the sushi bar was the bar itself.  A huge, solid, hardwood thing of beauty.  The contractors dismantled it for us, and we’ve been storing it.  Because I had plans ::rubbing hands together::.

It took some time to sort out exactly the way I wanted to do it, and the recent influx of furniture from MT’s parents caused a complete re-think, but over the holidays we finally fixed on a plan of action and started ordering the necessary bits.

Last weekend, MT and our incredibly kind neighbor with the cool woodworking tools started ripping the planks and cutting them down to size.  As you see above, we started on the wall behind the door – that way, if we screwed up it would be easier to hide it.

As you can see, we have high ceilings (14ft), and we’re going all the way up.  I’ve done shallow shelves up top, as I’m planning to put paperbacks up there, and I didn’t want the room to feel too top heavy.  We’re also going to go all the way around the room, with plans to do the opposite corner this weekend.  We’ve already started, in fact:

Those planks above the fireplace are temporary so I can get more books off the floor; they’ll be replaced with long shelves that span the width of the fireplace.  We just have to wait until the neighbor returns from holiday so we can cut the planks for the next section.

Stay tuned for updates.

The Polysyllabic Spree

by Nick Hornby

Published: Nov 30, 2004
by McSweeney’s, Believer Books
ISBN: 9781932416244

[star]

 

“…I suddenly had a little epiphany: all the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. […] But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.”

I loved this book; even though I’ll likely never read most of the books Hornby talks about, I loved reading his thoughts about them. He’s hilarious and insightful and, I think, fair (although it’s hard to say given the constraints he claims to be under by The Believer).

Each chapter is one of the monthly columns he wrote for The Believer and at the beginning of each is a list of the books he bought that month and the books he read. Hornby talks about the books he read in a free form style; one book leading to the next. Interspersed throughout are excerpts from some of his favourite books, including David Copperfield and a selected letter from Anton Chekov that is brilliant; I want to copy it, frame it and send it to several people I know.

If you enjoy reading about books, I highly recommend this one; it’s a fun read.

Find The Polysyllabic Spree at:
LibraryThing
WorldCat
BookFinder

Back home, or, TBR Thursday: the mega edition

Forensics: The Anatomy of Crime - Val McDermidThe Alchemist - Paulo CoelhoThe Graveyard Book - Neil GaimanPlato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar... Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes - Thomas CathcartThe Fine Art of Fucking Up - Cate DicharryBattle of the Books - Henry Morley, Jonathan Swift,

I got home last night, leaving behind sunny, 31C weather to return home to rain and 8C.  Ah well, at least the cats still recognised me and my husband was very happy to have me home.

Along with an astounding amount of new clothes (mid-season sales!!) I brought back a pile of books (of course) and returned home to find another pile waiting for me as my internet buys continued to pile up in my absence.  The tally:

New books in June:  19

Books read in June: 1

One book read this month.  I don’t think I have ever before only read one book in a month so that probably says more about how much fun I had than all of the pictures I took (and there were many!).

The books in the bar above are the purchases I made in Amsterdam at the American Book Center (Highly recommend!) and at the used/antiquarian book fair taking place in the street out front.  The covers below represent my normal haul of internet buys.

                        

The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho was recommended to me by my best friend and he also found The Fine Art of Fucking Up – Cate Dicharry  and I read the summary over his shoulder and thought it sounded good.  Battle of the Books – Jonathan Swift  was a find at the book market and how could I not pick up a gem with that title?

The other 3 at the top are recommendations from my fellow BookLikers, so I know they’re going to be good!

The American Book Center… I could have spent days and days here….