Sunday Stills - blue

I'm participating in Sunday Stills for the first time. Today's challenge is to photograph the color blue. Easy-peasy you think....but you can't use the sky and you can't use a photo from your archive.

Check out what the rest of the gang has come up with here.

Punching Out

I'm reading and enjoying Paul Clemens's memoir Made In Detroit. He has a new book that has just been published titled Punching Out. Here's the promotional video:



H/T to Citizen Reader who has guided me toward many gifted writers.

Quotable - the gift economy

"The book I most often give as a gift is The Gift, by Lewis Hyde. I keep four or five copies around the house at all times, for swift giving to people who need them. Most often they are artists of one kind or another, and are worrying about the disconnect between what they do and how hard they work, and how little money they make. Hyde's book explains the differences between the money economy in which we think we live, and the gift economy, in which we also live. Gifts – including artistic gifts – travel in mysterious ways, but travel they must, or else they die."

~ Margaret Atwood, talking about World Book Night

More Prize Worthy Books

The American Booksellers Association (ABA) has announced finalists for its Book of the Year awards. I've bolded the titles I've read. Not too many, unfortunately.

BOOK OF THE YEAR – ADULT FICTION

Great House, by Nicole Krauss
How to Read the Air, by Dinaw Mengestu
Room, by Emma Donoghue
The Surrendered, by Chang-rae Lee
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell
A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan

BOOK OF THE YEAR – ADULT NONFICTION

At Home, by Bill Bryson
Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff
Let’s Take the Long Way Home, by Gail Caldwell
The Tiger, by John Vaillant
Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
The Wave, by Susan Casey

BOOK OF THE YEAR – ADULT DEBUT

Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, by Maaza Mengiste
The Emperor of All Maladies, by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson
Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes
The Quickening, by Michelle Hoover
The Wake of Forgiveness, by Bruce Machart

be happy or else

Here's an enlightening and entertaining animation based on Barbara Ehrenreich's lecture on her excellent book Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America.

"A sharp-witted knockdown of America’s love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism."

Are books still relevant?

In the internet surf this morning, I encountered these musings about books and our culture:

Amusing Ourselves to Death - a comparison of Brave New World to Orwells 1984

Mrs. Brightside solemly notes the closing of her community's Borders and the place books have in her life - Books.

Don't You Evah Interrupt me while I'm reading a book! H/T Sheese



Don't forget to check out Sassy Banana -- it still has that new blog smell.

Quotable - disordered eating

"I didn't decide to become anorexic. It snuck up on me disguised as a healthy diet, a professional attitude....

I finally understood that by being on a perpetual diet, I had practiced a "disordered" form of eating my whole life. I restricted when I was hungry and in need of nutrition and binged when I was so grotesquely full I couldn't be comfortable in any position but laying down. Diets that tell people what to eat or when to eat are the practices in between....Obsessing about what and when to eat is not normal, natural, and orderly. Thinking about food to the point of obsession and ignoring your body's signals is a disorder."

~ Portia de Rossi from her memoir Unbearable Lightness

the hidden life of books

h/t Survival of the Book

Top Five Fiction 2010

My favorite five fiction books read in 2010:

One Day by David Nicholls

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by  Muriel Barbery

The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter

Blame by Michelle Huneven

Other books of distinction:

Best book of short stories 

Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy

Best graphic work 

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Top Five Nonfiction 2010

My favorite five nonfiction books read in 2010:

Let's Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell

The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham

Stuff - Complusive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Prof. Gail Steketee Ph.D. and Prof. Randy Frost Ph.D.

Finding Iris Chang by Paula Kamen

Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Honorable Mention:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Quotable - tasty and tawdry

"His book has everything deliciously tawdry you want from a pop-star memoir. It attempts naked honesty about his roller-coaster career, marriage, depression and sex addiction. If that's not enough, there are plenty of beefcake photos. Springfield is 61 and looks 38. Sadly, he writes like he's 19."

~ Susan Jane Gilman Sex, Drugs And 'Life' — The Year's Best Guilty Reads

We caught some of Springfield's show at the California State Fair this summer. It was also "deliciously tawdry."

October Bookshelf Cleaning

Something for everyone...especially if you are fond of memoirs:

Giveaway Details:
These books are in great condition and have been read once by me, except for Jesus Land which I bought used and in good condition.  Entries are open to the US only.

To enter leave a comment on this post stating which book(s) you are interested in, including your email address.

For an extra entry,  leave a separate comment indicating you follow this blog or have just signed up to follow (via Google Friend Connect, RSS Feed, or email subscription, etc.).

The winning entries will be selected by use of random.org on Oct. 23rd.

Freedom to Read

Freedom to read whatever and whenever I'd like is something I admit to taking for granted. It's also something that is extremely important to me. It's mind boggling that people actively put their time and attention toward undermining this liberty.

Every year during Banned Books Week, I check out the annual list of books of challenged and banned books. On this year's list, there are at least three books that my neighborhood book club has read. We are hardly a subversive group! There are even some members who don't drink wine. Really.

Here are the dangerous books my book club has read in unknowing defiance of all that is good and pure and apparently American:

The Tortilla Curtain
The Bean Trees
The Glass Castle

These were good discussion books -- some of the group's favorites. While one or two in the group strongly disliked The Tortilla Curtain, none of us would want to take away the ability to choose to read this book from someone else. I'm going to take another look at this year's list and see if I can find more to suggest for the book group.