What to do?

This picture, snagged from the excellent Facebook page Grammarly, pretty much sums it up. I told you last week how awesome "The Girl With All The Gifts" was. The problem is, I have started and stopped four other books since then. It's not that any of these are fundamentally flawed in any way... I just can't seem to find the right follow-up. I am also reading "The Last American Vampire" by Seth Grahame-Smith, which is great, but I need an audiobook so that I can read while doing other things. My paintings don't turn out nearly as well if I'm reading hard copy, and the library tends to get cranky about paint on their books. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to share! Otherwise I am just going to browse Audible and cry until I fill this book-shaped hole in my life.

In other news... it's been a slow start to the week for painting. Between homework, packing, and work, I haven't gotten too much done. I am working on a second Tolkien portrait, by request. Like a crazy person, I decided to fill in the lettering first, then start working on the background. It seemed like a good idea at the time... instant gratification and whatnot. But now I am painting around all those little detailed letters and leaves. This is what it looks like so far.

I'll post tomorrow (hopefully with a finish!) but in the meantime, there's always Facebook, Etsy, and now Instagram! Thanks for stopping by!

Book Review: The Girl With All the Gifts

 
I should start by saying that I am very much over the zombie craze. I have been for awhile. Zombies have never been my favorite horror fixture, and the theme has been done to death over the past few years. (Pun intended). So, honestly, I am not sure what made me pick up this book. I am just exceedingly glad that I did.

The book begins in a warped sort of academic/residential setting for young children. We are not told exactly why these young students are housed in cells instead of dormitories or rooms, nor why their daily routine includes all four limbs and head being strapped into a wheelchair before class. Throughout the book the author employs such vague and perplexing situations, revealing one puzzle piece from the left upperhand corner, two from the lower right, one from the middle, and so on, compelling the reader forward to figure out just what in hell is going on.

We eventually learn that a pandemic has struck, wiping out a large portion of society, and creating a subspecies of "Hungries." I feel I can tell you that without giving anything away, since the global disease model is fairly standard zombie fare. I won't elaborate any further, however. The less said on plotline, the better. Carey maintains a level of suspense not only about events and back story, but also with the characters. From one chapter to the next, you will not know who is good or bad, who is pulling the strings, and who is being manipulated or to what end.

The book is also emotionally absorbing. We are not given stale archetypes of heroic scientists, fearless warriors, and mindless droning cannibals. (Ok, there might be a few of the latter. But just a few. There is much more to Carey's Hungries than one might think.)

I hope I have intrigued you enough to have a look at this book. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Catching Up

Hello there... I have certainly let a lot of time elapse since my last post, apologies! I will try to be more diligent from here on out. We have had some very high and some very low points, but as always, we keep on trucking and see where the road goes.

Nate's battle buddy, Zino, finally came home to stay, after 33 months in service in Afghanistan. Now he is enjoying retirement. And the couch. We lost Jade in March to a rapid onset pneumonia. It was very sudden and extremely painful but we were lucky enough to have the support of our friends, especially Natasha. We miss our little Bug terribly but we are so fortunate to have had her in our lives.

We brought home this crazy little girl about a month ago. Her name is Lola, and she is absolutely hysterical. She doesn't really talk as of yet, but she likes music, flying in circles, and stealing shiny objects. We are hoping to welcome a new furry family member soon, one of Zino's Army peers. I can't elaborate on details since I don't have any, but fingers and paws are crossed.

We are also looking to move in the near future. We really want to be near downtown, and think we may have found "The Place!" Again, fingers and paws and feathers crossed.

Lots of good books to update you on, but that's for another post. I went back to school in December to pursue my Bachelor's in Creative Writing. It was finally time! Thus far I am focusing on one course per semester, so it's slow going, but I am so glad to be studying again, polishing up old skills, and learning new ones.

Finally, I have launched a small venture on Etsy called Something Wicked Art. Right now I only have a few pieces posted, but I am spending anywhere from two to ten hours on any given day working on paintings to add. The revived October Country blog will still talk lots about books and I will keep you up to date on my latest cross stitch adventures, but I hope to bring you along on this art journey as well. We do have a Facebook page as well, so please check out the shop and "like" the Facebook page if you want to see more. Nate has been trying to sell me on the idea of Instagram, but I haven't quite figured that out yet. Here are a few sneak peeks at some of the paintings... click the links above to see more.

Well, to anyone that's made it this far through the post, thank you for visiting and reading! And stay tuned for further updates!

-Carolyn

Literature Map

It's Saturday night and after a long day at work, we are settled in, relaxing and watching old Tim Burton movies. Glad to have Nate back home after several days in the field. Amazingly, some of the humidity let up and the air is actually really nice tonight! I've just passed the halfway point in Catch-22 and I'm having very mixed feelings. I keep reading that the second half is pretty extraordinary, so we'll see how it pans out. Stay tuned for a review in a couple of days.
In my last post, I talked about my reasons for reading. I asked you why you read, as well! I thought that a next logical topic would be "what do you read?" And how do you decide? I think I addressed the first question in the previous post... I will read just about anything, including a Chinese food menu. Deciding what to read is not always that simple.

May I present to you... the Literature Map! If you can think of at least one author whose work you have enjoyed, this site can get you on track to some new reading suggestions. The site is based on a self-adaptive computer system which "learns" relationships and patterns and then generates suggestions for similar authors. It's a simple website, and can get a bit addictive.
When you go to the Literature Map homepage, it will open up a window and ask for you to type the name of an author. Hit the "continue" button, and in a few seconds, you'll see a screen like the following example. I chose to start with John Steinbeck.

Somewhere near the middle of the "map" you should see the original author's name you entered. The names surrounding the original are other authors related to Steinbeck's writing in one way or another; the closer the relationship, the closer the names will lie on the map. Some will probably be authors you've already read; some will be familiar; some will be new. Now, pick an author from the map. Any author will do.  Jack London you say? Ok, let's see what happens...

A new map! Note that Jack London is now the central author. Some of the surrounding authors will be common threads from the previous map (Ray Bradbury and Cormac McCarthy, for example.) But there are also a whole new assortment of authors to explore. Click on a new one, and you'll get a new map! I don't know about you but I could do this all day.

When you're trying to decide on your next book, do yourself a favor and visit the Literature Map. Play around with some names, follow the trail of suggestions, and I bet you'll find some summer reading ideas!

You’re right. No human being would stack books like this.

I believe I mentioned the other day that I participate in a book group on Goodreads, a social networking site based around, you guessed it-- books. This particular book group, rather than assigning a "book of the month" that all members must read, operates on a series of seasonal challenges, where readers pick books of their choosing within certain categories or parameters. Different tasks earn different amounts of points, as do other factors like page length or publication date (these are known as "style points.")    

The new season is coming up June 1st, and the challenges, as well as some of the style categories, have changed. This is not a surprise, it occurs every three months. Nevertheless, there's been some backlash. In discussion of the changes, one of the irate participants stated emphatically that she had only been pushing her reading boundaries and writing reviews "to get points." This made me more than a little sad. Reading just for points? But it also made me think about the many reasons for reading. I suppose they are a little different for everyone. I use the reading group challenges to help me decide what to read next. When you have the kind of stacks of books-to-be-read that I do, it can get a bit overwhelming! I enjoy the sense of community in the book group, and I like exploring new types of books I may not have considered before. But ultimately, if I want to read something that doesn't fit within any of a season's parameters, I'm going to go ahead and do it. And that's ok. Because this is why I read:

I read for enjoyment. Every book has something to offer, whether it's a discourse on philosophy, a lesson from the past, a heart-pounding action scene, or a laugh-out-loud moment. There are classics that are overrated, and mass-market paperbacks with really great parts, so I don't feel bad about reading a history book followed by a novel followed by a science book. As William Faulkner said, “Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it."

I read to "get away." Rather than let my mind go to screensaver mode, I would much prefer to jump into a story. I fill a lot of otherwise vacant space with audiobook reading... driving time, doing chores, going for walks, etc. There are very few things on television that compel me to pick up a remote. In the immortal words of Groucho Marx, “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”

I read because I am interested. It seems every website one uses nowadays has a section where it asks for "interests." I hate that section. Likewise, I hate being asked my favorite genre of books or music. My answer is inevitably too long, or I don't answer at all. I am interested in a little of everything, and I like to read a little of everything. My very top shelf of favorites includes a book from 1930 and a book from 2011; Russian books and German books; comedy books and war books; true crime and classics.

I read to learn. If someone asks me to take on a task, research an issue, or work towards a goal, my first impulse is either to run to the library or Barnes and Noble. I guess that gives me away as an artifact of the pre-Wikipedia age, when school papers had to have printed sources listed on their bibliographies. A good non-fiction work can be just as engaging as a novel.

I read because I care. There's no substitute for life experience, but when it comes to understanding and empathizing with others, reading can be a pretty close second. A book can let you see things from someone's perspective that you might never see otherwise, and lets you experience things you may never have a chance to do. You yourself may never fight in a war, intervene in an emergency, or live in a country where half of the population is not allowed to read. But you can try to learn from and understand those who have.

I read because I like to write. Stephen King put it concisely: "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that."

Conversely, I often write because I read. For me, it's a no-brainer. I invest a lot of time in reading. And, like exercise or therapy, reading is an endeavor where "you get out what you put in." The last thing I want to do is read 500 pages only to let the story drift away into the realm of the forgotten. Whether it's an essay for a class, an entry in a diary, or an online review, writing about a book you've read is an extension of the reading process. Unless a book is complete offal, it should leave you with some questions. What did I spend the last X number of hours/days/weeks/months doing? What did I like or dislike about the writing? What scenes or lines of dialogue resonated with me? Would I want to meet any of the characters in real life? By ignoring those questions and moving industriously on to the next task at hand, I believe you are cheating yourself.

So what's the point of all this? Mostly, I hope that this post got you thinking about your own reasons for reading. I hope that you make time for yourself to escape to new places, meet new people, learn something new. I hope you come across passages that stick with you, so that you can't wait to thrust a copy of the book into a friend's hand and pass it along. I hope you will finish a book and give yourself time to process it, whether it's by writing in a journal or discussing it with a loved one over coffee. (or brandy? ...warm milk? ...Ovaltine?)

Tell me... why do you read?