Monthly Archives: September 2008
Ruth Hall
Fanny Fern’s 1855 novel Ruth Hall surprised me a little bit, partly in terms of its plot, but even more so in terms of how it is written. The plot has a fairly traditional structure to it — a heroine … Continue reading
The Aging Meme
Becky tagged me for this meme, created by Zoesmom. Sometimes I ignore tags (sorry!), but this time I think I’ll be a good sport, so here goes. At a certain age women should stop listening to what everybody else is … Continue reading
Filed under Life
Intro to the Arts
I wrote last January about sitting in on an “Intro to the Arts”-type class in order to learn how to teach it myself, and now I’m actually doing the teaching. So far it has gone well. I wasn’t particularly pleased … Continue reading
Filed under Teaching
Craziness!
This triathlon training … it’s fun but crazy. For one thing, while I’ve been a regular weather forecast checker for a while now, I’ve become utterly obsessive about it. If the weather this weekend doesn’t clear up, I won’t be … Continue reading
The Dogs of Riga
Now that the school year is underway again, I’m back to listening to audiobooks on my drive in. I started the year off with Henning Mankell’s crime novel The Dogs of Riga, which I snatched up at the library after … Continue reading
Filed under Books
Stupid articles about books
Now and then I love to criticize people who write stupid articles about books in well-known newspapers, and I have another chance today; if you want to scoff a bit, go check out this article fromThe Times on books you … Continue reading
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a moving, beautifully written, emotionally taxing, very well-told novel. It’s the kind of book that’s difficult, not because of the way it’s written, but because of the direction you know the story … Continue reading
Filed under Books
Starting new books
I’ve just started some lovely new books that I would like to tell you about. One is Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall, which starts out at a fast pace, with a quick survey of the heroine’s childhood and then the early … Continue reading
Filed under Books
Used bookstore visit and a reminder
First of all, the reminder: the Slaves of Golconda are reading and discussing their next book soon — it’s Ruth Hall, and posts are due September 30th. Anyone is free to join the group; just write about the book on … Continue reading
Filed under Books
Frost
Thomas Bernhard’s novel Frost is a strange and difficult book, and I’m not entirely sure what I want to say about it. It was a book with very little plot, which I often like, and it wasn’t much like a … Continue reading
Updates
Triathlon training feels a lot different than training for bike races — it’s not just that I have three sports now instead of one, but that I have more workouts a week. I used to ride 4 or 5 times … Continue reading
How Novels Work
I’ve now finished John Mullan’s book How Novels Work, and I enjoyed it, with only a few reservations. The book is a survey of the various technical aspects of fiction-writing; it has chapters on “Beginning,” “Narrating,” “People,” “Voices,” “Genre,” and … Continue reading
Filed under Books, Nonfiction
The Novel
I’m working my way slowly through Franco Moretti’s collection of essays The Novel, Volume I: History, Geography, and Culture and am about halfway through it. It’s the kind of book that’s best for browsing in rather than reading straight through, … Continue reading
Filed under Books
My last race
Last night was my last race of the season — there are others I could do, but I feel as though I’ve done enough, and I have no desire to do any more. It was a fine race. It went … Continue reading
The Explosionist
I really loved fellow blogger Jenny Davidson’s young adult novel The Explosionist; it was a good story with an appealing heroine and an interesting concept — what would the world be like if Napoleon had won the Battle of Waterloo? … Continue reading
