Out & About

Sometimes, I amuse myself by searching the library catalogs subject headings. The minutia of these fascinate me. I first discovered their delight when reserving a season of the television show the Office, Season Two. Are you aware that one of the subject headings for the show is “Clerks–Pennsylvania–Scranton–Drama”? Another is “Office Politics–Pennsylvania–Scranton–Drama” But here’s where the electronic catalog is much more fun than the card catalog. By a single click, I can find out how many other titles have the same detailed subject matter. In the case of the above subject matters, there are five other titles–all seasons of the Office.

But let us follow a trail of subject headings and see where they lead us. I’ve just put on reserve Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1960 book You Learn by Living, which has the intriguing subject of “Conduct of life.” There are 797 other titles following in the subject heading from Las 3 preguntes: Quien soy? Adonde voy? Con quien? to Zig Zigler’s Life Lifters: Moments of Inspiration for Living Life Better. But going back to the subject heading, I see there are some other intriguing subjects nearby. First off, the catalog helpfully tells me there are 37 related subjects from “Benevolence” through “Folly” “Self-Interest” and “Reliability.” But there are also a host of different categories of “Conduct of Life” from 15 separate categories for African Americans (boys, children, teenagers, men, Mississippi, women, quotations, etc.) to “Conduct of Life, Celebrities United States” which is at the bottom of the page. Clicking to the next page would undoubtedly open up a whole world of “Conduct of Life” but we’ll continue our journey with “Conduct of Life Anecdotes” with 19 entries.

The entries in this contain a few Chicken Soup for the Soul books and two different titles about how John O’Hurley has learned about life from dogs. But we will click on the title: Artistic License: Three Centuries of Good Writing and Bad Behavior. This gives us three other subject headings, we’ll go with “Authors–American, Anecdotes.” This gives us three other titles, two of which have to do with animals: dogs and horses. Apparently a lot of American Authors write about animals. By clicking on Cold Noses, Warm Hearts: Beloved Dog Stories by Great Authors we will then find ourselves with new subject headings. I’m going to take a more general one, to try and get us out of this dog trail and so I will choose “Authors–Anecdotes” which gives me three more books.

This time I’ll follow the trail of It Takes a Certain Type to be a Writer which only gives me one new heading, which I must follow: “Authorship–Miscellenea” which sends me only one new book, Lucky Break: How I Became a Writer. From there I can follow “Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)” which seems to be a broader category and it is, with 137 entries.

From there I can scroll and click until I find a book that interests me enough to put it on hold. The Multnomah County Library system has many small branches and one big library. Growing up, I usually found books to read at the Boise Public Library by wandering the stacks and grabbing what looked good to me. Now that the stacks at my local branch are much smaller and our library’s hold system is so awesome, I tend to take recommendations from friends, newspapers and magazine and put them on hold. Scrolling through the subject headings is a new way for me to wander the stacks, at least virtually.

The month in which Patricia sabotages her plan to read many fewer books than she read in 2010.

Read

The Hour I First Believed

Wally Lamb

This is a massively long book which I found to be a very, very good read. It wandered onto an additional tangent there near the end. I could have done without the Quaker/Abolitionist/Prison Reformer character/tangential side plot, but I was willing to because Wally Lamb is excellent at writing characters I want to keep reading. This novel is sweeping in that it covers, Columbine, the fallout from Hurricane Katrina and prison reform as well as family secrets large and small. Could it possibly be a bit over written? Possibly yes. Did I compulsively read until the end despite this fact? Yes indeed. In another nine years when Lamb finishes his next novel, I will happily line up to read that one too. Or wait to come across it in the library, which is what I did with this one.

The Tempest

William Shakespeare

Oh crap, we’re seeing the Tempest tonight. That means I need to start and finish reading this play today. As usual, the Bard’s words failed to move me, but the play was quite delightful.

Lost & Found

Geneen Roth

Roth uses the loss of her fortune (thanks, Bernie Madeoff!) to examine how her relationship with money is similar to her relationship with food, as well as how family experiences with money contributed to her view of, and management of her money.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Aimee Bender

Aside from having the best title of the year (I sometimes randomly say it to myself for fun) this is a wonderfully written piece of magical realism. In my view, the best magical realism causes me to think, “what would my life be like if that happened to me?” and this book kept me pondering, in many different ways, after I finished it and I’m guessing I will continue to think of it on and off for years.

It’s also a my favorite kind of magical realism: somewhat impossible to make into a plausible film. That means I get to keep my own pictures in my head.

Red Hook Road

Ayelet Waldman

So Bildungsroman is a novel which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood, but what is the term (and it must have a somewhat Germanic sounding name) for a novel that examines the thoughts and motivations of a family, or group of characters, usually after some major event has happened. English majors, help me out here.

This is my favorite kind of novel. I get to drop in on a family, see what’s going on, make judgements about their motivations, become attached to them and see how it all works out in approximately 500 pages or so. For a long time, I resisted reading Ayelet Waldmen because she’s married to my Amazing 21st Century Novelist/Essayist Boyfriend (Michael Chabon) and I was worried that reading her might mess up my relationship with him, but it turns out we can all happily exist together and I have another good author to catch up with.

The Postmistress

Sarah Blake

Sort of a second-tier, Lifetime Movie or Hallmark Channel-esque entry into WWII US based fiction. It wasn’t great, but I kept reading.

Blood Meridian

Cormac McCarthy

Read for Kenton Library Book Group

I really hated this novel for the fact that it was too violent and there was never any explanation or explorations as to why the characters were so violent. I felt like I was trapped in a Quentin Tarantino film. I kept reading, hoping for something–anything–that would make me like this book, and also because I was reading it for book group. I never found anything to like, but in the book group discussion I learned that the premise of this book was based on a historical incident, which was interesting. Also that there is a free e-book available for those who want to delve into the nuances of the story.

While I was reading the book, I was explaining to someone that I had a bookmark advertising the movie Jayne Eyre in my copy of Blood Meridian and her comment was, “You need a bookmark for that book. Every time you open it, there’s some sort of killing going on.”

I really enjoyed “The Road” and “All the Pretty Horses” but I was not a fan of this book.

Gardening Without Water

Charlotte Greeno

I was hoping this was a comprehensive sort of book about storing a lot of water including step-by-step instructions as to how to build such a system for myself. Alas, it wasn’t. It’s an English book, so some things don’t apply. Like she cut into her pipes to divert greywater into her shrubbery and observed that most pipes in England are on the outside of the house, so this is easy to do. Not so in America.

The Eyere Affair

Jasper Fforde

A quite delightful alternate-reality-English-special-forces-in-the-literary-sense book. I particularly enjoyed the Richard III as Rocky Horror Picture Show scene.

Freedom: A Novel

Jonathan Franzen