WOA: Book Adventures

As a side quest in my World of Australia adventuring, I've started a book blog with a friend.

www.bookswehaveread.wordpress.com

Yes, that is a different blogging platform, but that is what happens when you don't want to be the one setting it up and your friend does wordpress. We'll all survive somehow.

So if you want to know what I'm reading, and more importantly, what I thought of it, and follow some interesting adventures in SciFi reading (which is what my partner in crime is up to), feel free to wander on over there. Or click the link thing to the right. I've included it so that you can wander over WHENEVER YOU LIKE and not just when I mention it. Because I care.

And seriously, it is just whatever the hell we're reading and what we think. Which means I'm even going to talk about the more embarrassing young adult stuff I read. Which is Awesome.

Bathroom Reading

Bathroom reading is very important in my house. I have been reduced to reading the backs of toothpaste tubes before, but I try to avoid such drastic measures in my own home. Because I accidentally read some of the articles once in the ever present Reader's Digests at my parent's, I can not supply myself with that monthly collection of entertaining anecdotes, kitty rescue stories and appalling conservative rhetoric.

I've been supplying my bathroom with soduku books from christmases (two books. two christmases.), but sometimes little numbers are just not satisfying. Also, sometimes you are a little tipsy and those grids get much harder.

So I've moved my Anthology of Modern American Poetry edited by Cary Nelson  to the back of the toilet and I plan to read it cover to cover over the next year (this timeline may be revised). If you are in my bathroom, please feel free to read a poem, but don't move my bookmark! (also feel free to read my bookmark. It is a tiny chap book.)

First up: Walt Whitman. Excellent beginning.

Book Club

Being an ex English grad student means I occasionally have difficult book cravings. And it also means that I look at that sentence and realize that it is entirely unclear whether difficult is describing "book" or "craving". Luckily for me, the fact that I crave difficult books is not actually a troublesome craving, because it turns out almost everyone else who was in a literary grad program has a similar problem and I happen to be friends with them.

The summer before last, we all decided to read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, along with the rest of the Internet. We then promptly got off schedule, never had a single meeting, and I didn't finish until well after Christmas and still have rather mixed feelings about the whole thing (Although we now all use the term "post-prandial" with a regularity which is becoming decreasingly distressing)

Last summer I decided I wanted to read Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, which was going very well until I hit page two hundred and got terrifically stuck. I feel much better about the whole thing, because it turns out that everyone I talk to about this has also become completely stuck at roughly the same place, although none of us can work out why. But anyway, I finished the book last week, just in time to start our latest book adventure: Ulysses by James Joyce.

So far I am enjoying myself thoroughly, AND we've already had our first meeting in which we drank beer and yelled about the nature of reading and whether we actually cared for any of the characters. I already have one of the little charts for the chapters tucked in amongst the pages, some of us are reading The Odyssey along with it and we all are just having a ball. Reading is a very solitary act, but there is something about reading in groups and having wide-flung discussions about it which is so immensely satisfying.

Up-Coming Events: Venus Envy Sale, Andy Swan at Raw Sugar and hopefully Dim Sum.

The Ottawa Small Press Book Fair

Walked the all of two blocks to the Ottawa Small Press Book fair on Saturday, and it was... well, small. 

But I found neat stuff! The Grunge Papers a papermaker who has four presses in his apartment and let me muck about in the moveable type. (I am linking you to the etsy page, but there is a real website too. I love my little handmade paper calling card). 

I picked up a nicely printed copy of A Modest Proposal (which will always have a satire-rich spot in my heart), a small chapbook by Helen Hajnicksky called A History of Button Collecting after seeing her talk at the pre-fair reading.

I also signed up for xraymagazine.ca, a emagazine about canadian politics and goingsons.

Altogether, a fairly successful morning, and then I made pinwheels, which turned out fantastic! Huzzah for arbitrarily adding allspice!

Upcoming Events: Mayfair Theater SILENT HORROR FILM FESTIVAL

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

"The ultimate act of expressionist filmmaking, Caligari tells its tale – of a hypnotist who uses a somnambulist to commit murder – on the underside of a tightrope stretched between dreams and reality. Featuring a suitably dreamy live score by HILOTRONS."

YES, do you know who I love? HILOTRONS! whooo! And drinks and food at Irene's Pub beforehand!

 

Shopping Trip

This Sunday announced early that it was going to be grey and rainy and just a bit cold. I had initially had plans to go down to Raw Sugar, my favourite coffee shop down in Chinatown, and noodle about on my laptop, but when three rolled around and I was barely up and out of bed, (although I had completely finished The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner), I cancelled those plans and invited friends over for board games instead.

This had the double benefit of yay games and providing incentive to clean my kitchen/bathroom/tidy the gooddamn living room. My bedroom may still look like a tiny clothes explosion, but my living room has managed to get most of its floor space cleared (unpacking=hard).

Unfortunately, I promptly realized that although I was in possession of plenty of party games, I did not have any of the games ideal for three people and a bottle of wine. So I marched out my door to Fandom II, the nearby boardgame shop, and picked up Pandemic, the game I have been hopelessly addicted to for months. This game is beautifully balanced, which in my book means you actually end up losing a lot as you frantically work with your team mates to cure diseases and stop the spread of infection. (for those of you who know, yes of course Play Games was on in the background. Certain mix tape traditions should never die)

So my apartment is as clean as if has been since I've moved, I made chili for lunch tomorrow (it could, however, be spicier), and I have added to my board game collection. Today = success.

Tomorrow's Plan: get fed awesome Indian food.