Katherine Quimby Johnson

The future of the book

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:59:46 GMT

Last night, at a writing-related meeting, the topic of the future of the book came up.

I have seen the future and there are no ink-and-paper books in it, said one person. And no book stores.

I'm not so sure about that. I'm really happy to have all kinds of information, especially factual, available in electronic form, but I think and believe that there will continue to be a place for physical books. Moreover, I think it is essential for children's development that they experience physical books. Books offer tactile, sensual experience. They offer babies control they don't have in very many parts of their life--the baby decides when to turn the page, to turn back the page, to chew the book, to stare and touch, and wear it as a hat or step on it. To drop the book and go back to it later for immediate return to wherever. A real object in a real world, in other words.

What do you think? Are e-books going to replace ink-and-paper children's books completely?

And the walls come tumbling down

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:57:05 GMT

Twenty years ago this evening I was a relatively new mother, walking my colicky baby around the livingroom until it was late enough in the day for a warm bath to take effect.

Tears streamed down my cheeks.

They weren't because I was tired, or wished the colicky period would pass.

They were tears of joy, because the Germans had broken through the Berlin Wall.

I had seen the Wall. I had been on both sides of it. I had seen the ruins that remained in the East. Important reminders about not repeating the past, they also spoke of a lack of resources.

I had been under the Wall, riding the subway from West to West by passing underneath the East, where armed guards stood in the shadows of closed subway stops, stops marked with their original signs--Alexanderplatz, Unter den Linden, Potsdamer Platz.

I had gone through Checkpoint Charlie. I had seen the border guard pause as he compared my companion's passport photo with her face, the tension only broken when she explained the difference in hairstyle as a Dauerwelle (permanent), and then his quick flash of smile, as much for the ease of her German (not English) as anything else, I suspect.

The Wall, and the government that erected it, have left their scars, as did the war--even if the ruins have all finally been cleared.

Today, though, as I did 20 years ago, I find myself with tears on my cheeks, because of the power of people, when they work for good, and because, at least in one part of the world, a whole generation has grown up not knowing what it means to live in a divided country.

There's more to say, but I won't. Instead, I'll quote Robert Frost: "Something there is that doesn't like a wall."

All Hallows E'en

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:01:16 GMT

I've got candy, but that's it for this house this Halloween. No cornstalks, no jack o'lanterns, no bats, no shrieks in the night. (We're still playing catch up after The Great Sorting.)

But I'm feeling a bit nostalgic.

You see, my parents got married on Halloween (long story), and so, many years, we'd be enjoying a candlelit steak dinner at home while the trick-or-treaters knocked on the door. As Oldest Daughter, I was the one who answered, and the looks on their faces, as they peeped past me into the dining room were always priceless. You would have thought we were the Adams Family. (BD, imagine Grandma and Grampa as Gomez and Morticia.

Ok. Now. That's enough laughing.)

And, with BD in Galway, I'm also remembering the first Halloween costume she chose for herself, in preschool, when she came home in late September and announced, "I'm going to be a sunflower for Halloween." Thank goodness for tissue paper and fabric scraps, and a month of planning time.

--Not the best scan, but it gives you the idea.

Now, time to can applesauce.

Clickety, clickety. Clickety tap.

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:42:57 GMT

Even if I wrote science fiction, I still wouldn't be Douglas Adams--for any number of reasons, but today best of all for the way I am unable to say, "I love deadlines. I love the sound they make as they go whizzing by."

I'm more of a "deadlines concentrate the mind" sort of person. Today's results: A draft of a completed draft of a 1200 word feature I began yesterday for a magazine (due Friday), 500 words on a local German dinner fundraiser, and 775 words on the local American Legion post for an upcoming newspaper with a focus on Veteran's day, both due tomorrow.

That's a lot of words for me, an amount I am never able to accomplish for fiction. I wonder why that is. Someday maybe I'll figure the secret out.

In case you're wondering why I'm ahead of deadlines--I've got another big one next week and I need to do some research for that one, but can only keep so many stories in my mind at one time. (Almost wrote in the air, there, definitely a sign I should stop for supper.)

But while I'm off enjoying leftover chicken a la king, tell me what deadlines do to you. Do you panic, do you ignore them, do you find a way to fake them out? Share your secrets.

I'll never--oh, come on, of course I'll tell. That's what LJ's all about, finding people who share your fears and dreams and neuroses.

If I ruled the world...

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:51:07 GMT

Thanks to jongibbsfor starting this train of thought:

If I ruled the world:

1) Everyone would "walk on the left, drive on the right," as they were intended to from the beginning.

2) Cyclists would obey traffic signals like the vehicles they are, and, when traveling in a group, they'd also ride single file, not two or three abreast in the driving lane, even when they're on a country road.

3) People would once again bring only homebaked goods to a bake sale. Store-bought fools no one.

4) We'd have a national spring cleaning day--say the 2nd Saturday in April--when we'd all clear out our closets and cupboards. That would mean there would be no Great Sorting, but I'd be willing to live with that.

5) Weeks would be 8 days long, so we could have a day to get caught up after the work week and still have a two-day weekend.

6) Toilet seats would automatically lower after a five-minute interval. You know what I'm talking about!

7) Every village would have a cafe with wi-fi.

8) No one would talk-and-block in the grocery store--talking on their cell phone while pushing their cart and otherwise being generally oblivious to those around them.

9) Grocery stores (or supermarkets, which are no longer so super) would not block what were once aisles wide enough for two carts to pass with special bump-out displays, thereby rendering the aisles not wide enough for two carts to pass.

10) Refrigerators, pantries and cupboards would magically restock themselves once a week. Or. Grocery lists would magically write themselves and take themselves to the store to shop.

That's all I've got. How about you?

cheese?

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:28:00 GMT

So here's the question of the week.

When did cheesy become the adjective du jour?

I ask because it seems to be reasonably popular among my college students, who are juniors and seniors. It seems to be disparaging, although sometimes mildly so, as in "That's cheesy, but it's ok."

I'm wondering if it's rhyming slang, as in "rhymes with sleazy,"--[edited to add] although the students don't seem to use it the way I would--cheap and easy/sleazy. With them, it's more that someone or something is predictable, cliche, possibly non-ironic? It's the migration in meaning that has me puzzled.

Norma Fox Mazer

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:06:19 GMT

When I heard the sad news about Norma Fox Mazer, an image flashed into my mind.

We were all gathered at what is now Vermont College of Fine Arts for one of the absolutely splendid novel writing retreats organized by saraharonson and cfaughnan Norma Fox Mazer was one of the guest authors that year. I still remember how closely we all listened as she gave her craft talk, and when she spoke of the upstate New York landscape, she made it real for everyone, not only those who knew the area.

She was a powerful writer, with a stature for greater than her physical self. Although she will be sorely missed, she leaves a powerful legacy.

East, West

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:35:11 GMT

Home's Best

I think it's been about 10 months since I had a "normal" Saturday. (I can't say "we," because HH had to go to a workshop today). It was very strange--in a completely good way--to be able to move through the house tidying up and stopping for a cup of tea every so often, without feeling like I needed to rush, rush, rush because next weekend we'd be back at The Great Sorting. I sorted out BD's room so I had space to put the clothes while I was making the switch from summer to winter clothes. After being cold most of this week, I finally got out the wool sweaters and turtlenecks, and put the shorts (that I wore very little this summer) and T-shirts back into the trunks.

I spent a couple hours in the garden, pulling the weeds and I took down the bean trellis. I also wondered why I had bothered with a garden this summer. (We kept thinking TGS would be over.)

Now it's time to make some cornbread to go with the chili that simmered all afternoon, and put my feet up.

Tomorrow, off to my parent's for my father's 83rd birthday.

Next weekend--there's nothing on the calendar!

Rolling in Writing

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:06:49 GMT

Last weekend was the Burlington Book Festival. This weekend was the League of Vermont Writers annual fall meeting. We held it at the Bishop Booth Conference Center, which looks like this on a sunny day:

Today was not sunny. It was cool and rainy and gray unless you were where you could see the foliage, which burned with all the colors of the fire HH started after I arrived home.

But it was a great meeting, because of the speakers:

Jim DeFilippi, who decided to put all his novels on line for free, and told us why. You'll find his work at http://jimdefilippi.com/ .

Joe Citro, Vermont's master of all things that go bump in the night, and possibly in the daytime as well. Joe shared the ups and downs of his publishing career, which is headed back up the publishing roller coaster, with the appearance of his latest: The Vermont Monster Guide.

David Weinstock, a poet, copy writer, and marvelous teacher, who led us in a workshop to make our writing stronger. A sampling of David's poetry is here, and his blog is here, although it hasn't been updated in a while. One of the exercises he asked us to do was to break the rules as often as possible. Since I have no problem breaking many of the writing rules (split infinitives, prepositions at the ends of sentences, sentence fragments, using "I", using contractions), I chose to try to break the "show, don't tell" rule. That one was tough and I can't say I succeeded. But now I'm thinking about why it is that that rule, of all the rules, is so difficult, especially since it is one I learned more recently than school.

What made it great? We learned and we laughed. Educare et delectare--The old dead Latin dudes knew a thing or two for sure, I'm going to try to keep this in mind, even as I break more of the Latin-based "rules" for writing in English, those ones that we all learned in school.

Book Trailers

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:22:36 GMT

The latest entry in my occasional series of Book Trialer reviews is for Janet Lawler's Tyrannoclaus

The illustrations that are shared tell you so much--this book brings together Christmas and dinosaurs (what a brilliant concept!), is mellow and reassuring in tone,. My favorite shows the sweatered dinosaur sleeping on his back.
The narrator's mellow voice keeps the same tone as the illustration and tells you a lot about the intended audience: This is a read-aloud picturebook, one meant for preschoolers. A different voice quoting from the book itself adds variety and fun, and lets you know this book rhymes. Finally, the book trailer length--less than two minutes--is what you'd want for preschoolers, their parents, and teachers.

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:46:53 GMT

kellyrfinemanposted the Radcliffe Top 100, italicizing those she's read and using boldface on those that have been banned somewhere. It seems like a great idea to me.

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
13. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
23. Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
37. The World According to Garp by John Irving
38. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
39. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
40. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
41. Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
51. My Antonia by Willa Cather
52. Howards End by E. M. Forster
53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz by Toni Morrison
57. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
59. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
66. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
68. Light in August by William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
82. White Noise by Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
87. The Bostonians by Henry James
88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster
99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Some, like Brideshead Revisited, I've started to read but couldn't get into, and some are just not for me at a certain moment. Which brings me to a point made at the panel discussion at the Burlington Book Festival. Children are very good at deciding when something isn't right for them. Chances are, if they want to read something, it's what they need to be reading for whatever reason.

Book Festivals

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:34:50 GMT

Book Festivals are great, especially when they aren't that far from where you live.

Here's what I got to do as a volunteer at the Burlington Book Festival this weekend:

1) Hear the marvelous Rita Dove read from her latest work, Sonata Mulattica. The work itself was amazing, but by being there for the reading, I got to hear her talk about the process, and about closing herself in while she worked to find the right voice, not too formal, not too contemporary, for this work of poetry about people and events of the nineteenth century. (Friday)

2) Hear jbknowles, lurban, kmessner, tanyaleestone, and julieberrygive a panel on children's writing and their process. The audience had great questions, too. Plus, I picked up some autographed copies to add to my collection. (One of the drawbacks of book festivals--how do I fit the books I bought onto already full shelves? Eeek!) (Saturday)

3) Hear two up-and-coming poets: Chris Lawless and Jillian Towles. Chris is a recent Champlain College grad with a voice and a presence that should certainly go far. Jillian is in her second year at Champlain and already up to giving a public reading of material that shows real mastery. (Sunday)

4) Hear and see an evocative presentation by Daniel Lusk, who has written poetry about the underwater world of Lake Champlain and combined it with music and video footage and stills for a unique and evocative presentation. (Sunday)

Maybe it was just being surrounded with all this poetry, but at a certain point this afternoon I found myself reaching for the pad and pen, because I had an idea for a poem and also a title for a picture book that will give me the spine to hang the rest of the book on. I hope.

Thanks to both kmessnerand patesdenfor plugging the League of Vermont Writers and the Leagues July 2010 Conference!

It was lovely to come home through the rain and falling colored leaves to a hot spaghetti supper and a fire in the woodstove. HH knows how to treat a tired writer.

Today's results

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:28:30 GMT

On the home front:

7 pints of Pottsfield Pickle.

This is one of my favorite late-summer things to "put-up." Ground or chopped cabbage, red tomatoes, green tomatoes, celery, onions, and red tomatoes sit in the fridge in salt overnight, then they're cooked with mustard seeds, cinnamon, cloves, sugar, and vinegar before being sealed in jars. Not lot of hands-on work for results that are yummy on hamburgers, hot dogs, mac 'n cheese, baked beans, and comfort foods like that.

On the professional front--

Someone asked me to write a story--a story I want to write. There's pay, which is good. But what's even better is that this person knows my writing and thought of me when this story idea came up for their publication. Yes!

Also,
Because I'm conference chair of the 2010 League of Vermont Writers Conference, I got to send out the call for workshop proposals today.

If you live in the Northeast and are interested in receiving that call, please email me at lvw at leaguevtwriters dot org. Here's the basic pitch for the conference:

The League of Vermont Writers’ Conference, “Timeless Craft, Timely Skills,” will be held July 23-25, 2010 at the Grand Summit Hotel and Conference Center at Mt. Snow, West Dover, Vermont. Surrounded by the inspirational beauty of the Green Mountains, participants will attend workshops on craft and on skills for the electronic age, have opportunities to pitch their work to agents, and learn the latest from editors and publishers. For more information, contact lvw@leaguevtwriters.org.

I won't be posting tomorrow, because I'm off to volunteer at the Burlington Book Festival, where I'll see

kmessnerlurbanand many other fabulous writers.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Good reads

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:59:29 GMT

This is the latest in the books you might have missed but should read (now).

I'd heard Wicked Lovely described as "Twilight with wings" so I was more than a bit hesitant. Nothing I've heard about Twilight has given me any interest in reading it. Sorry if you liked or loved the vampire stories, but I prefer strong, independent heroines, like the one I found in Melissa Marr's novel. I enjoyed the way each chapter opened with a quotation from some late 19th- early 20th Century work on the fey. I enjoyed the various tensions and intertwining plots. I admired the way each character came to full life without ever being described in great detail (a lesson to learn for writers in that).

Call it an urban fantasy, an almost-Regency romance in modern garb, or neo-Goth take on an earlier vein of Gothic, it's a good read.

So good, in fact, that I'm not sure I'd want to see the characters come to life on the big screen. All the CG in the world couldn't match the glamour this book conjures.

Scribble, scribble, scribble

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:05:53 GMT

I may not be taking part in jonowrimo this year, but I did get some writing done today. I worked on what is, for the moment, a supersecret project for a grown-up audience. I also had some time to think about my pbjproject, which I really needed to do before I got back to the scribbling again.

The funny thing is, although I've been writing for years on the keyboard, both of these projects seem to be coming to life in composition books. I can carry them with me and pull them out when I've only got a few minutes, without even having to boot up a laptop. Given that at least two days a week, snatched moments are all I have, the notebooks make the best use of my minimal writing time.

How about the rest of you--anyone out there find themselves actually putting pen (or pencil) to paper?

learning when to leave well enough alone

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:45:18 GMT

I've been mentally lambasting myself all day. You all get to find out how _n_l I am. (Fill in the blanks with your favorite vowel.)

So, we have all kinds of things from the house in Connecticut. One of the last was the beginning of a reverse painting on glass. Nana had only gotten as far as the black outline, and it was a lovely almost pen-and-ink of a small flower arrangement. Even without color it was lovely.

I put it in a frame last night.

Then I noticed the blotches of mildew from three decades of being in a damp basement.

So I decided I needed to rub the mildew off.

You can probably see it coming.

That's right, I smudged some lines. They're not off completely, but it is no longer a lovely as it was.

I feel terrible. There's nothing I can do. (Well, I could learn how to do reverse painting and copy it. But it wouldn't be the same. I would still know.)

We have other completed reverse paintings done by Nana, so it's not like I destroyed the sole survivor.

But I still feel terrible.

I let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

It's something I'll be thinking about the next time I get to the revision stage.

By the way, Nana was a completely cool grandmother. We have the slingshot she used to drive away the horse that was eating her garden.

The Great Sorting, redux

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:22:27 GMT

I said I'd post some pictures. Here are a couple of before-and-after pairs.

The attic, Room 2.

Before:

"Daunting" would be my adjective of choice.

and

After

Some of the furniture was moved there after the room was cleared.

May I say how awed I am by HH's diligence in getting the room to the state where it could be used to store other items?

Not every room looks more spacious now:

This was the computer room (originally the boy's bedroom):

It was the only place to put the china.

That's what 19 sets of china look like (four have found homes), as well as assorted tea and dessert sets.

Let them eat...

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:48:17 GMT

Crabapple Butter.

Although the garden didn't do well this season (boo and hiss) (but on the other hand, how would I have been able to deal with it?), the crabapple tree put out another lovely crop.

This is only some of the harvest. Fruit still hang on the tree, ready for the birds and squirrels to enjoy.

Last year I made jelly (here's the post) and because a recipe makes 10 jars of jelly--much more than enough for even the most avid pair of fans to eat--this yea I decided to make crabapple butter.

The cut up crabapples were boiled with cider:

When the apples are soft, you put the mixture through a food mill, which gives you something I refuse to call a slurry, because I think it's too pretty to be described by a word that sounds less that good looking.

Isn't that a gorgeous color?

Then everything gets cooked down until it's thick, thick, thick. Some of the color goes away, alas. About 30-40 minutes before it's as thick as you want it, you add sweetener and any spices. Because I was working with crabapples, which are sour on the order of lemons or grapefruit, I definitely wanted to add sweetener. I decided to go with maple sugar, because I had some on hand. The result was 4 cups of Maple-Sweet Crabapple Butter.

Scones are necessary, don't you think?

Since The Great Sorting Ended....

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:25:58 GMT

Oh boy, I can't believe how long it's been since I posted.

Between teaching twelve highly motivated college students the skills of copyediting, meeting deadlines, and trying to catch up around the house, it seems like I fall into my armchair after supper and the only thing I want to do is read.

Nothing wrong with that, though.

Here's a list of what I read that I enjoyed:

Breathers: A Zombie's Lament (S.G. Browne). Not side-splitting the way Max Brooks' Zombie Wars was, but humorous enough, with passages that merited reading aloud to the other person in the room. Even if there is a Red Sox game on the tube.

Notes for a War Story (Gip). A graphic novel that shows the effects of war on young men who are not fighting it. Although it is set in an un-named central European landscape that could be Serbia or Bosnia, its tone resembles that of certain post-World War II novels and reminded me a bit of the film The Third Man.

Skim (Mariko and Jillian Tamaki). Another graphic novel, this one a coming of age story. I loved the way the main character is drawn to resemble a woman in classic Japanese art. I also thought the story was strong, refusing to make easy choices in story line.

Let it Snow: Three Holiday Romances (John Green, Lauren Myracle, Maureen Johnson). Even though New England is in no hurry for winter to arrive this year, these were fun stories and it was enjoyable watching the characters overlap. I found myself wondering if some characters were in the first draft of the first story, or if they were added later.

My Most Excellent Year (Steve Kluger). The Boston Red Sox. Mary Poppins. First love. Finding your talent. What more does a novel need? In this case, an interesting format of multiple voices, which made everything work beautifully.

Born to Rock (Gordon Korman). This was a re-read, but I enjoyed it at least as much the second time around. A young Republican with a heavy metal father? Best of all, as fun as it was, it had a great heart.

The Highest Tide (Jim Lynch). I'm undecided about whether this is a crossover from the adult market to YA, and I'm not sure I believe the voice is that of a 13-year-old, but I loved the writing, especially when it came to describing the world of the northern West Coast, and one small bay in particular. There are also some lovely sentences in here, the kind that convince you that not all sentences should be short and sweet.

Bloom (Elizabeth Scott and Lisa Fyfe). Another coming of age story, this one about figuring out who you are and how to be that person, and about figuring out which guy is the right one for who you really are.

and one work of non-fiction:

America Dreaming: How Youth Changed America in the 60s (Laban Carrick Hill). I know Laban, but that's not why I enjoyed this book. It provides a systematic overview of the 1960s, showing how one movement led to another, and where they came from (and where they led). The illustrations are so well chosen and not at all cliche, and the layout is clear. Elise Whittemore Hill is a master at book design and in certainly shows in this case.

The Great Sorting - Quick update

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:25:47 GMT

It's over! Yesterday night, about 7 pm, we finished The Great Sorting. The process of clearing the house is not complete, but the sorting is. I'll have photos later, but for now, let me simply share some numbers:

324 neckties, everything from the straight and narrow 50s to the flamboyant 70s, and on through the turn of this century.

162 model kits, all parts in place, waiting to be assembled.

24 sets of china (Yep, that's right. We completed 3 previously partial sets. The last one at 4:30 yesterday afternoon.)

22 or 23 weekends since the second weekend in January (funny how that works out to almost one per set of china). I'm not even going to calculate the miles, or the carbon.

2 large roll-off dumpsters filled.

1 very happy couple heading home this afternoon.

The LPs, paintings, tea towels, doilies, beverage glasses, decorative tea cups, men's suits, vintage clothing, and books are too numerous to be counted.

If you have ever sorted out a family home, you have some sense of the relief. We have now seen it all. There are no more boxes to be pulled from dusty shelves, underneath the bed, dim attic recesses, damp basement floors.

Whew!

Ambrosia 1.5 or a picture

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:42:30 GMT

is worth 1,000 words.

Raspberry jelly, mmmmm.

Ambrosia

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:41:53 GMT

It's Thursday, and there a lot of things I could mention this week, but since I have to rush, I'm going to list one:

Raspberries.

Chocolate raspberry shortcakes were enjoyed yesterday evening. However...

If there really is a food of the gods, it ought to be homemade raspberry jelly. Fragrant as a summer afternoon in the berry patch, glowing like half-pint-sized garnets, sweet and tart and utterly scrum-yum delicious.

I'd show you a photo, but the jars are in their hot water bath at the moment, which is why I have time to post.

Hope you are all enjoying your own end-of-summer-start-of-fall treats.

Happy Birthday, Sharon

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:58:43 GMT

Happy Birthday, sputnam !

On your special day, here's a Vermont photo just for you:

Pleasant Valley from Bryce Hill. (Photo, Kathy Johnson)

It was 20 years ago today....

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:59:39 GMT

Someone wonderful came into my life.

She's always been willing to try new cuisines--

First birthday = first ice cream (Ben & Jerry's vanilla).

And to spend time with books

for whatever reason,

though now she enjoys the plot--or at least laughing at it.

(Sharing "trashy romance" cover copy with Dad.)

But as much as she enjoys reading, she loves to travel.

Ladakh, India, 2005.

And now, she's off on a new adventure....

Burlington Airport, Saturday.

in Ireland.

Happy Birthday, Beloved Daughter! May the road always rise to meet you.

I Get Around (Sort of)

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:19:05 GMT

Thanks to professornana, I can map the places I've been.

U.S.

visited 18 states (36%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

The World:

visited 8 states (3.55%)
Create your own visited map of The World

There definitely needs to be more travel in my future!