A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

It’s been a while since I did a Sunday Salon! I’ve just not felt that I had much to report recently. Summer has started, and I’m a little less busy than I was in the spring—I’m only taking one class this semester instead of two. I find that I actually do better in my classes when I have more work to do. I’m a list-maker; when I made a list of things I need to do, it makes me do those things all that much faster (I also make lists of things I’ve already done, so I can cross them off!). I did well (for me, at least) in the two classes I took in the spring, although they were difficult. But I like a challenge! I’ve also had some time this weekend to fool around with the layout and template of this blog. I’ve had the same one up for so long that I figured it was a time for a change. I've also been playing around with Blogger's new interface; there seem to have been some improvements. It's easier to upload photos; on the old interface, my computer kept crashing (or may...

Another Sunday! I think DST gets everyone turned around; unless I turn the clocks forward the night before, I always feel like I’m running behind somehow. Anyways, I’ve been spending the day working on various stuff for school; I had an hour-long phone conference with one of my professors this morning and then I’ve been spending much of the afternoon working on outlines and writing essays for class. I’m also preparing for a long weekend next weekend to Arizona. The goal was to get out of the “cold” weather, but since the high temperature here is supposed to get up into the 60s/70s this week, it won’t be so much of an escape! But I think getting away from work for a day or two will be good. In terms of reading, I’ve been reading for class, but I’ve also found time for pleasure reading. Right now I’m reading The Children Who Lived in a Barn , a children’s book which is mostly good, fun fantasy (although the practical realist in me is finding plot holes everywhere). Surprisingly, I’ve bee...

I can’t believe it’s already March—so much has been going on and I’ve been so busy lately! I’m still taking two courses on top of work, so I’ve been spending my evenings and weekends doing coursework—my classes “meet” online on Tuesdays and Wednesday and then I usually have several hours of work on top of that. Although I’ve been so busy, I’ve still been reading a lot—I’m currently reading another Virago Modern Classic, The Weather in the Streets (Rosamond Lehmann), which is a sequel of sorts to Invitation to the Waltz . February was a busy reading month; in 29 days I finished ten books. I haven’t had that much time for blogging, but I’ve been writing and posting reviews, which should appear here over the next few weeks. In April I’ll be participating in Muriel Spark Reading Week and I’ve got three choices: Aiding and Abetting , Loitering With Intent , and a lesser-known one: Territorial Rights , set in Venice, which might just be perfect. Like I imagine a lot of you, since the end ...

Another Sunday come and gone! I’ve not had much time to read or write, apart from what I’ve been reading and writing for school. For my editing class, we’ve been reading Strunk and White’s Elements of Style , which I can’t believe I haven’t read until now (I was an English major in college, WHY didn't they have us read it). Because writing is a form of communication, a hallmark of it is to be succinct, and there’s an overwhelming emphasis on the importance of clear, concise writing. There’s an interesting bit in there on how all writers reveal something of their personalities and beliefs through their writing. It’s important for the writer to place himself in the background so that he can achieve a sense of style by having none to start with. It’s a short little book but extremely thought provoking, and it’s really helped me to reconsider my writing—a lot of what appears on my computer screen tends to be superfluous. It’s always around this time of year that I start hankering after...

Happy Sunday! For someone as anti-social as I am, I was quite busy this week! On Friday evening I had drinks with an old friend from middle and high school, and then yesterday I went to go see My Week With Marilyn , about Marilyn Monroe’s 1956 filming of The Prince and the Showgirl (with Sir Laurence Olivier, played by Kenneth Branaugh in this film). The story focuses on a young third assistant producer/director (aka: gopher) who strikes up a friendship with Marilyn (played by Michele Williams here) on set. I thought it was a really enjoyable film. You may or may not know that Marilyn was actually a great reader, leaving behind a library of 400-plus volumes at the time of her death. There’s a subtle nod to that in the film; Marilyn has a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses in her dressing room. In other news, classes began again this week—I’m taking two, one on editing and the other on research strategies for biomedical writers. We had our first “meeting,” i.e., webinar, for the editing cl...

Happy New Year! I’ve been a bit busy this past week; I began re-watching the first season of Downton Abbey in preparation for the premiere of the second season this evening in the US! I have been geeking out about this all week in the most insane way. I took the Downton Abbey personality quiz and it turns out that I’m Anna Smith, the head housemaid, but I think there’s a certain amount of Edith in there as well. In reading, I finished They Knew Mr. Knight this week and embarked on Nella Last’s War this weekend. The problem I have at the beginning of the ear always is that there's so much possibility with every book I own that it's tough to decide what to read next! On a non-book-related note, for the past couple of months I’ve been giving online dating a whirl. It can be so difficult to write a profile that’s meaningful and connects with someone, especially since most dating profiles are mere shadows of who we really are. Like job applications and cover letters, people really...

Happy New Year! I guess it’s time for the ubiquitous end of year reading wrap up. This year I read a lot less, due to a number of reasons. I finished 93 books in 2011, which is a lot less than my usual 140-plus books in 2010, 2009, and 2008. It’s been a good year for reading, though. I read a large number of Persephones and Virago Modern Classics. I read a few historical fiction and historical nonfiction books, though the number has definitely decreased in comparison to previous years. But I also read a lot more nonfiction, and a lot more new-to-me authors. On the other hand, I still unintentionally focus on female authors over male more in my reading habits. The full list of books I read in 2011 can be found here. Hopefully in 2012 I can get back to reading earnest, but it might get put on the back burner this year as I continue working on my degree. Today is actually my blogoversary; today this blog turns 4! Hard to believe that I’ve been doing this so long and I’m still keeping it ...

It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just a week away, and that the end of the year is two weeks away! I’ve spent the past couple of weeks doing the usual Christmassy things: buying gifts, etc. There doesn’t seem to be much point in actually decorating my apartment for Christmas, since it’s just one person. But it’s been fun seeing all the Christmas trees go up in the windows of the apartments in my apartment complex, and seeing the Christmas decorations down in the lobby. I also re-watched Love Actually, which is my favorite Christmas movie. So I’ve {kind of) gotten into the spirit of Christmas this year! As for reading, I’ve just not done very much of it this year in comparison to other years. Usually I can read about 150 books per year, but this year I’m drastically down, with only 93 books finished (realistically only one or two more will be finished before the end of the year). Part of it is that I’ve been busy with school; and with me officially starting work on my Maste...

Another Sunday again! I’ve been spending my weekend a number of ways: yesterday my sister came down to Philly from New York, so I met her and a few of her friends for some shopping at Anthropologie and brunch, and then more shopping on Pine Street, where there are a few consignment shops where you can get designer fashion for really, really cheap! That’s how I found a fantastic camel-colored DKNY coat for $55! I love finding hidden gems like that, don’t you? Today I am back at the grindstone, as I had several assignments to revise for class that are due tomorrow. Friday is the last day of class, so I have a break for a bit before the spring. I’ve finished everything but my final paper, which I haven’t gotten back from the instructor yet; thank goodness she gave us an extension for revisions on that! I am always surprised at this time of year how close Christmas is. Only a little over 3 weeks away! I am never very good at shopping for Christmas gifts, because I’m very, very bad at figur...

I’ve had a busy week! It’s always nice to have the weekend to rest and rejuvenate and get ready for the week ahead. Thank goodness this upcoming workweek is only three days! I have a new major project at work that I’m eager to get cracking on, though, and my schoolwork is going well. I spent a good part of the weekend editing assignments and working on a new one. I’ve applied for the MS program, so I hope to hear back on whether or not I was accepted before Christmas. I’ve also started a new project that I’m excited about. I don’t talk about my personal life much on this blog, and maybe only a few of the people who read this (if any) know that I have Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of autism. I decided to write about my experience with it—fewer women are diagnosed with AS than men, and there are fewer books out there that focus on the female experience with AS. Plus, it seems to be a very popular topic right now in the world of publishing. I am less affected by Asperger’s, but I’m aff...

I’m back! I’ve had a busy few weeks, therefore not much time for blogging. However, I spent most of my afternoon yesterday writing—first a CME proposal for class and then eight, yes eight reviews! So you’ll start to see them pop up here over the next few weeks. I’ve had a lot going on in my life recently, so I’ve been reading a lot more than usual (probably as an escape from reality). I’m back on a Virago Modern Classics binge; now I’m reading Ordinary Families, by E. Arnot Robinson, a novel about a quintessential English family between the wars. So far this month I’ve finished The World My Wilderness (Rose Macaulay) and One Fine Day (Mollie Panter-Downes). This week I also read Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop, about a woman who opens a bookshop in a small English seaside town, despite opposition from the locals. Sublime! What have you been reading?

Why does the weekend go by so quickly? I’ve been a bit busy; I had a webinar for class yesterday afternoon. Obviously, the big news on the East Coast was the freak “snowtober” we got yesterday, as well as the cold, so I spent all of yesterday indoors (with a brief 5-minute jaunt outside to go pick up my dry cleaning). I spent most of today indoors as well, working on an assignment for class, reading, and cleaning my apartment. The days are getting much, much shorter here, so I’m going to be thankful next week when we “fall back!” That way, I won't be walking to work in practical darkness! I’ve read more than the usual this month: Testament of Youth, by Vera Brittain; The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton; Company Parade, by Storm Jameson; Aspergirls, by Rudy Simone; The Way I See It, by Temple Grandin; Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons; Thinking in Pictures, by Temple Grandin; and Round About a Pound A Week, by Maud Pember Reeves. I’m currently re-reading Wuthering Heights; a perfe...

It’s another Sunday! Hard to believe that the week passes by so fast. Not much to say, except I’ve spent most of the weekend working on a 15-page midterm paper (due Oct. 21), cleaning my apartment, and working out—so basically the usual. The weather finally feels like fall, so I've been enjoying the colder weather. You have no idea how much I've been fantasizing about my winter sweaters and favorite boots! I'm still plowing my way through Testament of Youth , which is fantastic but it's taking me a long time to read. I’m also trying to get up the motivation to write reviews of books I read over a month ago! How do you motivate to write reviews?

It’s been a busy week and weekend. I spent a good deal of my free time working on this ten-page paper I had due on Friday. The course I’m taking is an online course that has three webinars over the course of the semester. Yesterday was the second webinar, but since the professor had trouble logging on, we (the students) hung around for about an hour waiting for her. Frustrating considering that this was the webinar where she was going to explain our long final paper to us! Hopefully, though, we’ll make it up somehow. I spent a good deal of time this week organizing—mostly organizing the documents on my computer and flash drive so that I can find them more easily. For example, I now have a folder for my book-related documents, one for the class I’m taking, and one for things like resumes and cover letters. What I haven’t been good at is writing reviews, so I’m going to try to get to those at some point this week. So I’m trying to cut back on sugar. Anyone who knows me know I LOVE sweet ...

Happy Sunday! So much has gone on around here in the past few weeks that I don’t even know where to start! Last Sunday my sister and I came back from a 10-days vacation to London and York where we saw positively everything! We got there on Friday the 2nd, late at night, and on Saturday, we went to the British Museum, which has to be my favorite London museum. They’ve got an exhibition on right now on medieval relics and reliquaries that had me drooling—reliquaries and manuscripts and other devotional objects, one of which was the MS of Matthew Paris’s Chronica Majora ! Stunning. Then we went to the Persephone shop, where I picked up a copy of Reuben Sachs . In the afternoon we went to Regent Street and Piccadilly. Went to the enormous Waterstone's there, where I went to the fiction section while my sister went to look at the art books. She came back 15 minutes later to find me with an enormous stack of books in hand! They just don't make books in the US like they do in the UK. ...

It’s another Sunday! I’ve been busy this weekend, preparing for vacation starting on Friday: cleaning and laundry, and some preliminary packing. My sister and I are going to London and York for ten days, and the more I research, the more excited I get about this trip! We are spending two days in London before we hop on a train to York for three, and then back down to London for the rest of the time. It’ll be fun to get back there and explore: the museums, theater, food (I’ve been craving Indian food all week), and of course book shopping! I think the first place we’re stopping is the Persephone shop; I can’t wait to get back! I also look forward to getting back to the British Museum, which I visited twice on my last trip and only managed to scratch the surface of. We’re going to be seeing Much Ado About Nothing at the new Globe Theatre—a play I’ve read and seen the movie of, but never actually seen performed. I don’t plan on bringing many books on vacation with me, because I anti...

It’s raining here where I am, and slightly colder than usual. When it’s raining, why do drivers always find the largest pothole with water in it and them splash whatever pedestrian is walking by on the sidewalk? Well, that ‘s what happened to me today as I was going to the gym. How annoying. Anyways, this is the kind of day that called for comfort reading, so I naturally turned to Daphne Du Maurier’s Myself When Young , a short memoir based on the diaries she kept from 1920-1932, so from the age of 13 to 25 (when her first novel was written). It’s a great memoir about the making of an author, and I’m really enjoying it. I’ve made good progress with the All Virago/All August challenge; and I’ve even stumbled across a few in bookstores over the past few weeks. On Wednesday I stopped in to a hole in the wall bookstore near work (so small that I probably have more books in my apartment than in this particular store!) and found four, and then two more at the bookstore closer to my a...

Another Sunday, come and gone! I’ve been reading Viragos this past week; Kate O'Brien's The Land of Spices , and now I’m halfway through Vita Sackville-West’s All Passion Spent , which is stunning. I had no idea I’d find a novel about an elderly woman so engaging! I think that Vita Sackville-West is becoming one of my favorite authors; she certainly had an interesting, unusual life. In other news, my sister and I have booked a trip… to England in September! We’re going to London, then taking the train up to York for three or four days, and then back to London—so about 9 or ten days total. The last time I was there was 2009; and it’s been at least ten or fifteen years since my sister went. I’m really excited to get to York, where I’ve never been; all that medieval history really fascinates me. Obviously, book shopping is on my list of things to do (I’m making a beeline for the Persephone shop right off the plane!), and I want to go see Much Ado About Nothing at the new Globe The...

August is nearly here and therefore the end of summer! Where does time go? July was a slow reading month for me; I only finished five books: Before Versailles , by Karleen Koen; a re-read of Anne of Green Gables , by LM Montgomery; Pearl Buck in China , by Hilary Spurling; I’m Not Complaining , by Ruth Adam; and Lady of the English , by Elizabeth Chadwick. All of these were mostly or very enjoyable, so it was a successful moth in terms of finding things to read that I liked or loved. It’s been years and years since I read Anne of Green Gables last, so it was great to get back into a book I loved when I was younger. I’ve been looking forward to August for a while now; a bunch of people in the Virago Modern Classics group on LibraryThing is doing All Virago/ All August. I did it last year and in the process discovered F Tennyson Jesse’s novels, as well as I Capture the Castle (a highlight of 2010), Winifred Holtby, Vita Sackville-West, and Kate O’Brien, so I’m looking forward to partic...

It recently occurred to me that I haven’t written one of these Sunday Salon posts in a while! I thought, therefore, that it might be a good idea to organize my reading and do some sort of mid-year roundup. So far this year, I’ve read much less than I did last year or in 2009; right now I’ve finished reading 52 books, with Deanna Raybourn’s The Dark Enquiry currently in progress (a nice bit of escapist summer reading). This year I’ve been reading more nonfiction; 11 books this year. I’m still going strong with reading Virago Modern Classics and Persephones; 26 and 7 books, respectively. I’ve had the good luck of enjoying most of the books I’ve read this year; the best read so far is F Tennyson Jesse’s A Pin to See the Peepshow, sadly out of print but a really interesting fictional take on a famous 1920s murder trial. F Tennyson Jesse was a crime journalist, and this novel reads like sensationalist fiction sometimes, but I absolutely loved it. Review TC. Other good reads for the...