Artistic Journey

I finally started one of my books for the Outmoded Authors challenge, Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton, and I have a feeling I will like this one a lot. The artistic process fascinates me. Here’s a quote which I really liked:

“I have often imagined that if I were in solitary confinement for an indefinite time and knew that no one would ever read what I wrote, I would still write poetry, but I would not write novels. Why? Perhaps because the poem is primarily a dialogue with the self and the novel a dialogue with others. They come from entirely different modes of being. I suppose I have written novels to find out what I thought about something and poems to find out what I felt about something.”

Of course one thing often leads to another and I ended up seeking out some poems by May Sarton. Here is one that I like for it makes me think of a true wintery day.

The evenings are spun glass these winter days;
They stretch out clear above the dusty litter,
They quietly surround with a pale crystal haze, —
But just before the dark these evenings glitter.
Then for one moment under that clear glass
The fragile earth, the trees, all seem to shiver,
While hangs there, still, most beautiful and ominous,
The darkening sky reflected in the river,
While people peer out just before they pull
The comfortable shades and shut themselves away
From all that’s ominous and beautiful,
From what they guess the night might have to say.

~ Winter Evening

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Book Group Notes

I met up with my foreign authors book group last night to discuss A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka (click on title for more of my thoughts). I wasn’t as impressed with the book as I expected to be but it was a quick read. I think everyone found the book an easy one compared to some of the other books we’ve read this year.

Next year we are starting off the year with Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende. I have a lot of Allende books but this is one that’s missing from my shelves. I think this means a trip to the library is a must.

Of course while waiting for book group to start I wandered around and found the latest issue of World Literature Today. This is one of those magazines I want to subscribe to but then I remember how many subscriptions already arrive in our mailbox. What do you think? Should I go ahead?

Anyway, today was another exciting day of bookbinding. My first book is done! It’s sitting under some heavy books right now and I can’t touch it for the next 24 hours but I will be showing pictures because I really want to show it off. Hee.

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Sugar & Mystery Overload

Tonight we had our Christmas celebration and book exchange at the Mystery on Mondays book group. Apart from sampling lots of goodies throughout the evening, we also discussed Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. While I don’t think it was as big a hit as some other Christie novels we’ve read we were all super happy the book had no recipes.

That’s a bit of an inside joke with our group as every December we try to select a Christmas theme book but the books we’ve chose have always had cooking recipes and not much mystery. I liked the Christie book a lot and it’s making me want to read more of her novels.

As far as the book exchange goes I got Avenger by Frederick Forsyth. This book really doesn’t sound like my typical read. Hmm, maybe I’ll exchange that with a friend later. Speaking of exchanging books one of my best friends recently gave me Velocity by Dean Koontz to check out. She said it was a good, intense novel. You know, I think the last Koontz novel I read must have been when I was just out of high school! This should be fun.

And, in more mystery news, I did finish Raven Black by Ann Cleeves (click on the title for more of my thoughts). It was a great read and I definitely recommend it. Now I’m starting another mystery Deadly Advice by Roberta Isleib. This is the first in the Advice Column mystery series. So far it’s got a great beginning so I’m looking forward to see what this amateur sleuth gets up to.

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