The latest issue of Poets & Writers has arrived!  Seems all I have done for weeks is work at the office, work in the gardens, work in the house.  But I keep telling myself that summer is here, and if I don’t make time for writing, I have only myself to blame.  So I have instituted some new mini-goals to keep my book research going.  And this weekend, I’ll be giving myself permission to lie in my newly-furnished guest room, overlooking my newly-constructed perennial border, and soak in the pages of a favorite periodical!

What are you all doing this summer?  Any progress on the writing projects and TBR stacks?

Despite spending most of my recent “off” hours digging up sod, laying in a new perennial border, and planting my vegetable and herb garden, I have managed to read several books in the last couple weeks, all of which I hope to review here soon.  For now, I just wanted to state for the record how much I love living 2 blocks from an award-winning library!  The Way Public Library recently was ranked #6 nationwide in its class, and I say, congratulations to all of its patrons!  It’s rare when they don’t have what I’m looking for, and the convenience of logging in from home, putting books on reserve for myself, and walking down to pick them up is making it very hard to be “reasonable” about my TBR stack.  I just returned Nadine Gordimer’s Beethoven was One-Sixteenth Black and Other Stories and James Shapiro’s A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, am currently reading Rivka Galchen’s Atmospheric Disturbances, and just got an email notice that the copy I reserved of Emily St. John Mandel’s The Singer’s Gun is ready for me to pick up!  I am definitely a multiple-book-source girl (a copy of Laura Lippman’s What the Dead Know arrived via BookMooch yesterday), but I see the balance tilting in favor of the library, now that I live just down the street.

How much do you use your local library?  How does that compare to your other book sources?  And what makes your local library unique?

Do you read narrative history?  I’m talking about books like Eric Jager’s The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France or Leslie Carroll’s Royal Affairs: A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adeventures That Rocked the British Monarchy or Jon Meacham’s American Gospel: God, The Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. When it comes to history, I appreciate a heavily-footnoted scholarly treatment as much as the next academic, but I find narrative history more appealing.  I think it’s partly the confidence these books bestow — in reading them, you learn enough about the subject to discuss it intelligently, even if you wouldn’t presume to present a conference paper on it — and also partly it’s the sheer enjoyment of reading a true story as well-told as a good novel.

I’m considering a book project of this nature, so your input would be much appreciated at this stage.  Do you read narrative history?  How often, relative to other genres?  What do you like or not like about it?  Do you have favorite periods (Colonial America), dynasties (Tudors), regions (Japan)?  What’s more important to you: compelling story or careful source citation?  How important is the cover art, the title length, or the author’s pedigree?  Do you have a favorite author in this genre?

Do tell—and thanks!

After weeks of remodeling and painting, my muscles needed a break.  So even though I have lots of work to do on the house, I gratefully have spent evenings over the last week or so catching up on all the reading I set aside when we moved in.  Right before the move, I had re-read A Wrinkle in Time and resolved to read, for the first time, the remaining four titles in that series.  Having done so now, I think I’m still partial to the first one, but all are that fun and characteristically L’Engle combination of easy reading yet thought provoking.  I’m looking forward to introducing my oldest niece to these soon.

Also at the time of the move, I was about halfway through C. S. Lewis’ The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (I read a great review of it at a blog inspired by the book) and am back to that now. It was his last book and the one that perhaps captures him in his most natural habitat as a classics prof, and it’s one of those books I read with a full packet of post-it tabs for marking excellent points or quotes I want to remember.

Thanks to my sister, who’s a fellow Maisie Dobbs fan, I also got to catch up on that series with the latest, Among the Mad.  This is a consistently interesting series, I have to say.  I was excited to learn that a new one, The Mapping of Love and Death, is due out in April.

And now I finally have my TBR stack unpacked and organized again, so as soon as I finish Lewis, I’ll be reaching for one of these — which one, I haven’t yet decided.

What are you currently reading?

Today marks the third Sunday of Advent, and I have to admit that waiting for the Christ Child is a bit overshadowed by waiting to take possession of our house.  We closed two weeks ago on our first house—after 15 years of renting near grad schools and temporary teaching assignments—and hope to begin moving next week (yes, best Christmas present ever)!  In the meantime (and in addition to packing), Brandon and I have been marking the season by reading aloud each evening from Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas.  This is our third year of observing Advent in the company of this book.  Each day features a selection from a great poet, theologian, or church father or mother, including Madeleine L’Engle, Thomas Merton, C.S. Lewis, Henri Nouwen, Kathleen Norris, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Annie Dillard, Sylvia Plath, Bernard of Clairvaux, and John Donne.  As in all collections, some of the selections are more striking or original than others, and we enjoy noting the thematic and stylistic elements that characterize each selection’s author.  On the whole, we have found this useful for quieting and focusing our thoughts and sparking a bit of conversation as we unwind from the day.  

Do you have any Advent traditions?  Any favorite books you return to in this season?