More podcast fun! This time from the Guardian Books podcast…

The title of this one is a little deceiving: author Tracy Chevalier [think The Girl with the Pearl Earring] talks about library loans. Isn’t that nice?! But is she just talking about how wonderful libraries are, how important literacy is? Nope. Way better and more unexpected. Get this, libraries in Britain actually PAY authors a little something when their books are borrowed from a library.

Seriously!

See, I told you you’d be surprised.

How civilized and forward thinking of the British .. I like it! Why don’t we have one, I thought? Turns out that Canada does participate in this program, it’s called The Public Lending Right Commission, or rather has a version of the program running here. The US however does not.

From their international website, “Public Lending Right is the right of authors to receive payment for free public use of their works in libraries.”

If you are an author in the US, get on the bandwagon man. Call your senator or representative. Wow, call someone. This just seems like an all around wonderful solution, one that acknowledges the rights and needs of everyone: the importance of literacy, the need to support writers who maintain and extend our literacy through their work while maintaining that iconic institution we know and love as the library.

p.s. a friend gave me a set of not-so-old-to-be-useless encyclopedias that i was very happy and thankful to receive. ya think I can find a shelf for them? Nope. Gah, I’m tired of seeing them lying around in grocery bags but don’t have the hutzpah yet to do the reorganization of bookshelves required to fit them. The list of things left undone because we hope to move this year is getting biggggger. Scary.

she told me to…

To Mother

I hope that soon, dear mother,
You and I may be
In the quiet room my fancy
Has so often made for thee, –

The pleasant, sunny chamber,
The cushioned easy-chair
The book laid for your reading,
The vase of flowers fair;

The desk beside the window
Where the sun shines warm and bright;
And there in ease and quiet
The promised book you write;

While I sit close beside you,
Content at last to see
That you can rest, dear mother,
And I can cherish thee.

Louisa May Alcott

Silly me for listening to book podcasts. They make me want to buy books!

Besides Books on the Nightstand which I love because hosts Ann and Michael are such darn nice down-to-earth people, I also tune in every week to The Sword and Laser, a fantasy/science fiction podcast hosted by Tom Merritt and Veronica Belmont. (Btw, LOVE the new website design guys and did ya have to pick such an awesome book as The Windup Girl to read next?!!!)

Between the two, I get stellar recommendations from just about every genre of book out there. And that’s how I read. The number of bookshelves I have on Goodreads continues to grow as evidence to that.

I go where inspiration strikes me, rarely if ever thinking “I just don’t like that kind of book.” Ah, wait a second… I don’t do chick lit. Honestly, if a book is pink or has a stick pencil drawing of a fashionista on the front, it turns me off.

But anyway, the point I was trying to make is that so far 99% of my books are borrowed from the library.

We go probably once a week. It has such a fantastic inviting air to it. The second floor that houses the children and young adult collection is open to air, and the kids take off up the curling Gone with the Wind-esque stairs intent on finding adventure. I take a quick stroll through the adult graphic novels, never forgetting the new fiction and nonfiction selections, usually finding very juicy tidbits to my to-read list, before heading up myself to join them.

Last visit there was a real treasure, the new biography of Louisa May Alcott. If you are a Little Women fan, you will appreciate the context into which Harriet Riesen places Louisa’s whole life, connecting real life events to her fictionalized versions. I’m only a hundred pages in and it’s been extremely insightful and readable.

So, with so much free entertainment, how to justify purchasing new books?

I have to have criteria. Here they are:

1. Favourite authors with a new book and amazing reviews… thinking of The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt which I’ve yet to pick up. Her Possession is such a favourite that the tagline for my blog comes from it.
2. Books I’m highly likely to re-read or reference… like my favourites about writing
3. Treasures that are a real part of my personal journey… too many to pick just one
4. Brand new books I can’t get used. Goodwill has amazing 1/2 off sales which where I found Mists of Avalon!
5. Graphic novels that the library doesn’t have yet… aka Buffy Season Eight
   

That’s a lot of really good excuses to buy books, but I still don’t. I load them up in my shopping cart, drool over it a bit, look to my left at the stack of books I already own there, look to my right at the  latest library stack, both piling up and crowding the computer monitor on either side, sigh a little and try to forget about how something is only $15 online at Chapters.

My hope is to one day have a beautiful home library. The living room or maybe the dining room, besides the master bedroom of course, will be wall to wall bookshelves. (Can ya tell that I’m unlikely to ever be a Kindle girl?) An oasis, a beating heart, a thinking centre for myself and my family. Expanding our minds and thoughts with every word. A great chair or two, comfy pillows, a small desk with my journal. I can think of no greater heaven.

I simply can’t decide whether to keep building now or wait just a little bit longer.

How do you get your books? And which ones do you buy?

Wish I could share this talk via actual video, but the best I can do is share the feed. Rabbi Harold Kushner visited Toronto at the end of last year to give a talk based around his latest book, Conquering Fear, Living Boldly in an Uncertain World. I really enjoyed the depth and breadth of his insight and spirituality. He covers many topics, though he starts with fear, but does not ever seem to be wandering. What he says regarding fundamentalism, fear, not being intimidated, God vs. nature and what God has in store for our lives all struck me deeply. I’ve yet to read his books, but his name keeps popping up lately and the quality of message in this talk makes me think long and hard about doing so soon.

The Rabbi’s talk was aired on a Canadian television show called Big Ideas. From their website,

“BIG IDEAS is a showcase of ideas that shape our public debates. At their best the lectures featured on the program expose us to the differing ways of defining what matters and how that affects our understanding of the world as it is and as it is likely to be… Each age has a set of questions by which it defines itself. If, 50 years from now, someone came across a list of BIG IDEAS shows, they would have a pretty good idea of what people thought about and debated in the early 2000s.”

From this link to the Big Ideas website, you can see the video or listen to the audio. We get the show in podcast form via iTunes each week. Expand your world view and have a listen. It certainly did for me.

Agatha Christie.

This book was an addition to my Women Unbound Book Challenge because I found it for $1 at Value Village and my curiosity about the author has been peeked, having never read any of her books, ever since I watched the Doctor Who episode where she is featured. Yes, that’s my second Doctor Who reference in as many posts. Sorry, big fan here!

Murder on the Orient Express is a departure for me in another way. Mysteries haven’t been a favourite genre of mine since I finished every single Nancy Drew my hometown library had in stock. Perhaps there was some burnout involved. Hard to say.

Nevertheless, Christie surprised me with a quick deft read that kept the adrenaline coursing in my veins and the eyes open over night shifts. Not an easy task.

Indeed it was a fun little book. Old style mystery writing too. Find the clues. Piece it together. No CSI computers, lasers or digital recreations here. Just a knack for observation and experience with human psychology.

Hercule Poirot is the featured detective. I hadn’t previously realized that she had her own Sherlock Holmes consistent throughout her books. He had my brain running in loops. Every time I thought I’d figured something out, I had not. Oh well, the end was sufficiently stunning that I didn’t mind being less astute than he.

However enjoyable this little jaunt, I feel no further urge to read more of Christie’s work. I get just enough murder and mayhem in my diet when we try to solve one of the stories in this book over the dinner table.

As an aside, I know I’m really really late but…

I am so proud that in 2009

I read 22 books total, not counting short stories or graphic novels
was a member of Goodreads for my first full year
met some amazing women among the Chicks on Lit group there
found more books than I can read in five years for my to-read shelf
and finally – finally! – found a book podcast i can call favourite, Books on the Nightstand.

The best of the best book selections from the year would have to be Eat Pray Love in nonfiction and Ender’s Game in fiction, though there are very close runner-ups in both categories.

Here’s to the journey of 2010!