I finished reading Анна Каренина... Just kidding!

For the record, I have started reading Anna Karenina at least 3 times. Because I'm a Russian nerd. Because it's one of those books I SHOULD read.(Note to self:  finish Best Short Stories of Dostoyevsky.) Because we have an antiquated copy of it laying about the house. But as I explained to someone, "I always get to the part where Levin is going on about the serfs and Kitty is like, right there, and I get annoyed and lose interest."*

But this time was different. Maybe because I figured, hell, if I can finish Moby Dick, I can certainly finish Anna Karenina. Maybe because I'd since watched that amazing Tolstoy biographical movie with Christopher "Captain Von Trapp please be my boyfriend" Plummer. Maybe because I'm older and have lived a little more and the whole thing was way more meaningful.

Mostly it's because most recent film adaptation, directed by Joe Wright (Atonement, the abridged film adaption of Pride and Prejudice that I don't hate as much as I should) and staring Keira Knightey (who I'm also supposed to hate but don't) opens today in select theaters. (Which means it should be in this zip code when? Oh that's right, never.) 

I haven't read any reviews. Mostly because I'm all but contractually obligated to see it, and I'd rather not know beforehand if it sucks. (And even if it does suck, it will at least be beautifully cinematographed/art directed/costumed and can in no way be as painful as the time I was forced to sit through Beverly Hills Chihuahua.) 

But this blog post is supposed to be about the novel. So getting back to that... We have an edition that I'm thinking originated with my grandmother. Hardcover. Joseph Ruzicka Bookbinders Baltimore, M.D./Greensboro, N.C./Washington D.C. New York Charles Scribner's Sons 1922. Copyright 1899 By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. Retired at some point from Martin Memorial Library, York, Pennsylvania. In other words, an edition that I'm not going to find on Goodreads. 

And since my Goodreads is linked to my Facebook account, and I'm just pretentious enough to want all of my friends and "friends" to know that I'm reading Anna Karenina (and not Fifty Shades of Grey), this necessitated choosing an edition to use in its stead, one that closely mimicked it in page numbers so as to make my reading progress more accurate. 

Movie Tie-In, Paperback, 976 pages
Penguin Classics Paperback, 838 pages
Modern Library Paperback, 938 pages

Hmmm... my hardcover edition has 657 pages.

To make a long story short, turns out I have a hard copy of Anna Karenina through the middle of part 5, and I finished THAT book this morning, just like I said I would. It has no credited translator, making it very likely that when I read the second half (downloaded as an ebook on my phone?) it will be a different translation.

But I will persevere. Kitty has a baby bump. To be continued. 

At left: Levin and Kitty from a drawing by E. Boyd Smith. At right: This is what happens to Cello tape after 50+years. 

* For what it's worth, Anna Karenina takes place post-emancipation, so Levin (read: Tolstoy) is, in actuality, going on and on about the muzhik. Just so you know...

Today's book emporium finds:

Winged horses rival unicorns in awesomeness.

This would be awesome if it were actually about vikings.

What I can only assume are large phallic paperweights.

I was back in BAM today and thank goodness someone vacuumed the floor. Anywho, I stumbled upon a new cover by Coralie Bickford-Smith for Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. I've never read any Dickens myself because I like to stay happy, but now I'm curious, is there any knitting in this novel?

UPDATE: Ali says there is lots of knitting and "it's all metaphorical and shit."

Lots o' Stitchery

Today's bargain-basement find is 1979's The Complete Encyclopedia of Stitchery written by Mildred Graves Ryan and illustrated by Marta Cone for $3 (thanks, Al!).  It touches on crocheting, embroidering, knitting, macramé, rugmaking, sewing, and tatting.  The knitting chapter alone is 200 pages!

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I haven't read the Twilight series and have only seen bits of the movies, yet, I felt like I was reading an adult version of the Twilight romance that made me want to yak -- And I like romance. The main characters were likeable on their own, but I had more interest in the minor characters and the plotline twists and turns. The novel is well-written and has a unique approach to the overwrought vampire/witch/daemon story; however, the use of "creature" to describe the non-human species inexplicably bothered me. Unfortunately, the author's academic professorship shows through in lectures about the practice of yoga, genetics and evolution, and obscure historical figures. However, the dialogue made me laugh out loud several times in a good, intentional way. I won't be anxiously anticipating the next installment of the trilogy, but I might read it eventually.



View all my reviews

Under the Sea

I've been itching to go to the National Aquarium in Baltimore for some time, and in celebration of my birthday (and because they are also 12-year-olds at heart) my friends agreed to go with me. :)

Like I said, I was really excited.  (Find nail decals here.)

I was especially looking forward to the seahorses because I'm in the midst of reading this:

But alas, only one seahorse species remains.  Boo!

There were bright fish, dull fish, odd fish, stingrays, sharks, turtles, snakes, birds, and so forth.  

Something new and different was the Jellies Invasion exhibit.  Now, generally, I'm not a big jellyfish fan because I was stung more than once at the beach as a child, but behind glass, they're pretty.

We ate at Hard Rock Cafe out of desperation.  Overpriced, mediocre food if you ask me, but we weren't going to trudge across the Inner Harbor during a heat wave in search of something better.  (On a side note, we followed two people inside with bags that referenced a Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference.  Never knew there was such a thing.)  We were seated in close proximity to a creepy bronze bust of Mick Jagger, but while we waited for our food, we rocked out to Journey on the television screen.

Special thanks to the lovely ladies who accompanied me!  Always remember, love will find you!

Dragon Tales

I've always been a regular library patron, but lately I've been spending more time in the children's library than in seeking out titles for myself, filling my Mary Poppins bag with books, books, books. 

(Although must seek out Shadowfever by Karen Marie Monig - the final book in a series I said I wasn't going to finish. Reading about Unseelie before bed = weird, weird dreams, even for me.) 

My completely unscientific method of finding suitable, engaging children's books (because believe me, just like with adult selections, there are some where you're like, "How did this get published??") is  to park myself in front of a particular shelf and browse, keeping in mind my audience; Lily, William, Sarah, Rachel, John, Charlie, and now Mae. Last time I was in H/I, this week, R-S-T. I like to read books before I check them out, but last week's visit was abbreviated because Martin was closing for a private banquet at 4:30. But I still did good, albeit with Dad's help. 

 

This is the Farmer by Nancy Tafuri 

Dad actually picked this one, after I asked for his help. Charlie picked it up off the table, started reading it herself and then ASKED me to read it to her, which, given that Charlie isn’t as into books as some of the other 6-year-olds I know, says something right there.

At the Firehouse by Anne Rockwell 

William, for whom I chose this book, loved it, as well he would given his love of all things related to fire. (Last week I brought him Mary Ann Hoberman's adaptation of Mrs. O'Leary's Cow.) I liked it too, in spite of the anthropomorphic Dalmatians.

The Egg by M.P. Robertson

This was, without question, the serendipitous find of the week. Sarah literally squealed when she found it in my backpack. (“You got the egg?!?!? I LOVE The Egg!!!!) And it’s been equally loved by everyone else to whom I've read it.

Because what's in the egg? Nothing other than a DRAGON. (Whether a Norwegian Ridgeback or a Hungarian Horntail, I couldn't tell you.) George (because of course the main character in a book about a dragon would be called George) doesn't so much TRAIN his dragon as mother it; since the dragon has, of course, imprinted on him. 

Charlie however was, God bless her, concerned about the third lesson, “How to Distress a Damsel. 

After I explained that damsel was an old-fashioned word for girl. (French-derived. Like Mademoiselle, get it?) Charlie still wanted to know who this girl was and why was she tied up. She completely rejected the notion that she was WILLINGLY tied up as part of the game. (Although, in a tangentially related note, this week Sarah discovered that her sister would LET her tie her up with jump ropes--once anyway--this even BEFORE we’d read The Egg.) 

Her conclusion? George, despite his studious and innocuous appearance, wasn't really a very nice boy after all. 

Good for her.

Now my damsel, if only you’d sleep in your own bed and go to bed without a fuss.  

“What if there are no damsels in distress, what if I know that and I call your bluff. Don’t you think every kitten figures out how to get down? Whether or not you ever show up.”

Elephant Sucker

Today, I discovered Elephant magazine, published in The Netherlands.  They had me at "elephant," but it's about "contemporary art and visual culture," not elephants.  I didn't actually read the content of Issue #6, but the pictures were pretty. :)

I did notice an article about Coralie Bickford-Smith, who designs pretty book covers for Penguin Books.  I'm a sucker for pretty book covers.

Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger

I've never read The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, but was intrigued by her follow-up novel Her Fearful Symmetry.  Why?  Aesthetics and morbidity.  The library's hardback cover is shiny blue-green with tree-branch lettering and the primary setting for the story is London's Highgate Cemetery.  I'm a sucker for attractive book covers and I love cemeteries, history, and ghosts.

I was unfamiliar with Highgate Cemetery prior to reading this book, but I must say, it's the most interesting part.  The cemetery opened in 1839 on the outskirts of London as the city's population, and subsequently its mortality rate, were exceeding available burial acreage.  It seems burial here was somewhat of a posthumous one-upmanship of fancy funerals and swanky memorials, excluding London's poor, of course.  With a decline in new residents, negligible funding, and virtually no landscaping or grave maintenance, the cemetery nearly fell into disrepair; however, the Friends of Highgate Cemetery have been working to restore and preserve the cemetery since 1975.  Hats off to them!  I'm not familiar with many of the "famous internments," except Karl Marx (I read The Communist Manifesto in high school...fun) and Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

But back to the novel, I greatly disliked most of the characters, which presented a roadblock in my reading enjoyment.  Niffenegger's depiction of identical twins made me profoundly grateful for my singularity and protective of my individuality.  I feel like I should chat up some twins to confirm that they're not all absurdly dysfunctional.  The story requires some suspension of disbelief, to which I excel, but it doesn't make the characters' behavior more bearable.  I'm just gonna say it: everyone in this book is a selfish whore (except maybe Martin, Marikje, Jessica, and James, the last three of which are fairly peripheral)!  I finished it feeling annoyed.  Mind you, it's well-written with well-developed characters and plot, just not particularly pleasurable.

Our favorite middle school librarian (Hi Rachel!) sent us this via text today.

Why yes, that is a 50 year old anthropology book in a middle school library. I'm sure it's not racist or anything. :)

I for one CAN'T WAIT to get my hands on it. 

In case you were wondering what "avant-garde" meant...

Once again, thank you new book section at Martin Library for this serendipitous discovery. (Though my name recognition of David Levithan is owing entirely to my favorite YA librarian, Molly Krichten.)

A quick and delightful read, gender-neutral and immensely quotable, I include this quotation because it's laugh-out-loud funny (as opposed to morbidly depressing - I'm in a good mood today) and, the first of my many, many purple post-it notes.

avant-garde, adj.

This was after Alisa' show, the reverse-blackface rendition of Gone With the Wind, including songs from the Empire Records soundtrack and an interval of nineteenth-century German poetry, recited with a lisp.

"What does avant-garde mean, anyway?" I asked.

"I believe it translates as favor to your friends," you replied."

Buy the book from Amazon. Fan the author on Goodreads. Follow @loversdiction on Twitter.

I Read Good

I enjoy two primary pastimes: knitting and reading.

I've known how to knit since high school and mostly taught myself, but I've never been a hard-core, consistent knitter. I go through phases. I also get easily frustrated, which is not good for a knitter. Knitting takes time and patience and I usually need something else to occupy my mind, like a movie. Much to my chagrin, I can't knit and read at the same time. Yes, yes, I know there are books on tape, but my feelings on those lie with my feelings on e-readers: NO!

I was never much of a reader in my younger days. I have a short attention span and limited will power when it comes to reading material. I've finally figured out that finding reading material I enjoy is like finding cute clothes, you have to browse patiently. I actually enjoy skimming library shelves and looking for covers that catch my eye, but I also make sure to read a few lines of text. (This is how I made the decision to not read the Twilight series.)

On a side note, I was actually voted "Most Likely To Be Found in the Library" in my high school newspaper. I don't know who "voted" because I certainly never received a ballot, but my friends and I thought this was pretty hilarious because I rarely read (unless for school). I always assumed I was assigned this label because I'm quiet and shy...unless you're my friend and then I'm quite obnoxious. :)

I haven't really read anything in a while because I was busy knitting, but just recently, I finished two books and here's a little bit about them.

Last year, I read and enjoyed Sarah Addison Allen's Garden Spells and I was equally pleased with The Girl Who Chased the Moon. All of her books have a touch of fantasy that requires some reality suspension, but they're beautifully written with good plot and characters. I cried through a lot of this novel, but not in a horribly depressing way. If you're looking for a feel-good piece of fiction, I suggest you check out Sarah Addison Allen's novels. Even Ali with her high literary standards enjoyed it. :)

I followed the aforementioned light-hearted novel with Justin Cronin's The Passage. I'm thinking maybe I should have reversed the order because this book was in no way light-hearted and I could really use a pick-me-up right about now. Basically, via failed attempts to make the ultimate soldier using a vampiric virus, the U.S. Army unintentionally spearheads the death and destruction of the North American continent. Woohoo, good times!...NOT! Obviously, there's way more to the story, considering it's 766 pages long (too long if you ask me). I was apprehensive about reading this book because of a few things Ali had mentioned to me when she read it several months ago; however, I found myself really getting into it. Whenever I read/watch apocalyptic stories, I always end up imagining myself in that position. What would I do? And then I feel really grateful that I'm NOT in that position. The end of the book sets up the beginning of the next book, but honestly, I don't know if I can handle another one. I'm exhausted.

Atomic Thoughts

My thoughts of late are with the people of Japan. Their nuclear power plant troubles have me thinking about the worst nuclear incident in the United States, which was not as bad as Japan's current problems, and certainly nowhere near as horrifying as Chernobyl. March 28th will be the 32nd anniversary of the Three Mile Island accident. Coincidentally, I was born and raised just outside of the 10-mile radius surrounding TMI and within the 10-mile radius of another nuclear power plant. (For anyone unfamiliar with TMI, I recommend the PBS documentary Meltdown at Three Mile Island.)

The China Syndrome is a movie about whistle-blowing on safety hazards at a nuclear power plant in southern California starring Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda, and Michael Douglas. Its theatrical release came 13 days before the TMI incident.

Despite my love for Gregory Peck, I've never managed to sit through the 1959 movie On the Beach. I read the novel by Nevil Shute in 7th grade and could never bring myself to watch the movie because reading the story was depressing enough. The premise is nuclear fallout from a world war has killed the global population with Australia as the last remnant of humanity.

In all honesty, I've never really given a great deal of thought to nuclear energy, even though I grew up in a place with warning sirens, phonebook evacuation plans, and potassium-iodide tablet distribution. For several years, I lived near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a city born of the Manhattan Project. I had every intention of visiting the American Museum of Science and Energy to learn more about nuclear power, but never managed to get there.

Perhaps it's time to get real.

Bones for Children

Looky what Ali found for me at the library!

It's a children's book about animal bones written and illustrated by Steve Jenkins, and simply and appropriately titled Bones.

Elephant bones!

Skulls!

Run, human, RUN!

Remember the Triangle Fire

One of the first non-fiction books to bear the nameplate of my personal library was The Pessimist's Guide to History ("An irresistible compendium of catastrophes, barbaraties, massacres and mayhem"), which I bought for myself in the 7th grade.

In its pages, I was introduced to a range of horrific historical events and natural disasters. Some would inspire further research, i.e. the Albigensian Crusade, subject of a 10th grade Regional Studies paper. Others would become more real to me through the course of my travels, i.e. the Halifax Explosion, a permanent exhibit at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, visited as part of the Great Canadian Tour of 2001. (Incidentally, their collection also includes a permanent exhibit on that more famous clusterfuck of the 20th century, the sinking of the Titanic; being the nearest major port, Halifax became the final resting place of the majority of the recovered detritus, human and otherwise.)

And there on page 193: The Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire.

Just ten minutes before quitting time on March 25, the six hundred employees of New York's Triangle Shirtwaist Company were startled by the ringing of a fire alarm. The employees -- mostly sixteen to twenty-three-year-old immigrant girls -- panicked as flames broke out in a pile of oil-soaked cotton rags on the eighth floor and spread rapidly to piles of cotton cloth and hanging shirtwaists, the fitted shirts for women manufactured by the company.

Screaming employees on the eighth floor rushed between the closely spaced sewing machines to the narrow exit and raced for stairways and the elevator. Workers on the ninth and tenth floors saw flames shooting from the windows below, and soon the fire spread to those floors. There was only one narrow fire escape, and many were trapped on the upper floors. A number of girls burned to death while waiting in vain for the elevator. Others forced open the elevator doors when it stopped running, and thirty women leaped into the shaft to escape the fire, their broken bodies piling up at the bottom.

Other employees rushed to the windows. Crowds on the street watched in horror as girls, their hair and clothes on fire, threw themselves out the windows and crashed through the sidewalk covers into the basement below... Fire nets were useless as girls toppled into them four and five at a time.

Thirty minutes after the fire began in the supposedly fireproof building, 145 [now officially 146] employees, mostly young girls were dead. (Flexner 1992)

***

Fast-forward some twenty years and I meet one Rebecca O'Leary -- ginger-haired dancer, historian, Clark Gable aficionado and all-around awesome person -- and become peripherally aware of her interest in said tragedy.

Which brings us to... today.

March 25 will mark the centennial of the Triangle Fire. In light of this anniversary, two new documentary films explore the background and aftermath of the incident. The excellent Triangle Fire, which recently aired on PBS (see preview below and/or follow the link to view it online in its entirety), and Triangle: Remembering the Fire, which will air on HBO on March 21.

Watch the full episode. See more American Experience.

In addition, a consortium of organizations and individuals calling itself the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition is spearheading commemorative events in New York City and beyond. In Central Pennsylvania, Gettysburg Stage will be performing The Triangle Factory Fire Project by Christopher Piehler and Scott Alan Evans, which "uses eyewitness accounts, court transcripts and other archival material to create a dramatic moment-by-moment account of this historic fire and the social upheaval that followed." The production is directed by, you guessed it, Rebecca O'Leary. (Follow the link for performance and ticketing information.)

Outrage in the wake of the Triangle Fire paved the way for government oversight of working conditions. Then again, that oversight is only consequential when and where it can be actively enforced. Triangle Fire premiered on PBS on the same day that the FBI arrested the security chief at Massey Energy on charges related to last year's deadly mining disaster in West Virginia. The indictment

accuses Stover of lying to federal agents about an apparent systematic effort to deceive federal mine safety inspectors...Stover and his guards used a special radio frequency to warn miners underground when inspectors arrived at the mine. That gave the miners the chance to mask or fix serious safety problems and avoid citations, fines and closure orders.

29 workers died.

And as Eileen Boisen Nevitt touches upon in her reflection on the life of her grandmother, a Triangle Fire survivor, the majority of American clothing is still manufactured by young women under harsh if not life-threatening working conditions, whether in Bangladesh, China, or still in the United States. "A century later, the Triangle Fire remains an enduring legacy with global implications."

A police officer and others with the broken bodies of Triangle fire victims at their feet, look up in shock at workers poised to jump from the upper floors of the burning Asch Building. The anguish and gruesome deaths of workers was witnessed firsthand by many people living or walking near the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place. Others read about it in the many newspaper reports circulated during the following days and weeks, bringing the conditions of garment worker into public scrutiny as it had been during the shirtwaist strike of 1909.
The Triangle Factory Fire
Photographer: Brown Brothers, March 25, 1911 Kheel Archives, Cornell University

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Happy 60-something birthday, Dad! I chanced upon a book I thought he would like the other day called Classic Western Stories: The Most Beloved Stories compiled by Cooper Edens. Apparently, Edens has one of the largest collections of vintage picture books in the world.

He also received his birthday Harvey Wallbanger cake (made by Mom) after dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse.

Good Stuff Cheap: Part Deux

Oh Ollies, how I love you, most especially your books.

Awesome find #1: 

I'm slowly working on building up a collection of awesome, personally relevant children's books for rotating into my yet-to-be-made/purchased Mary Poppins bag. And I've loved great apes ever since Biological Anthropology my freshman year of college.  (Jane Goodall, you are my hero.) At one point, an entire wall of my room was decorated with photos of such, and if you are ever unfortunate enough to mistake a chimp for a monkey in my presence, you'll quickly learn just how seriously I take my primatological classifications.

So I'm ecstatic over my serendipitous find of Ape by conservation biologist Martin Jenkins with beautiful illustrations by Vicky Wilson.  The book does a fair job of addressing, in a manner accessible to young children, some of the less warm and fuzzy (human?) aspects of chimpanzee behavior.

"Chimp's gang sometimes get into fights with other chimp gangs -- nasty fights, with lots of biting and hitting. 

Made me wonder if they'd address some of the more human aspects of bonobo behavior

Oh, I BET she does. :-)

  Plus, I learned something new:

"Orangutans are mostly vegetarians. They eat a lot of different kinds of fruit but are especially fond of durians."

Awesome find #2:

Montessori-minded people know how hard it is to find early childhood materials that showcase the lowercase alphabet.  Enter Click, Clack, Quackity-Quack: A Typing Adventure by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin. One of the materials I designed for my Montessori language arts module actually had as one of its direct aims increasing the child's familiarity with the layout of a QWERTY keyboard, so I LOVE, even if it isn't 100% phonetic. ("Only one pig peeking" - Granted, it would have been hard to work an octopus into a story about a farm.)

And speaking of farms..

Awesome find #3:

I know I should have some sort of Child of the 80s loyalty to vintage Little People, but this is the one instance where I think the revamped version has improved upon the original idea, helped along by the Claymation and the Aaron Neville.  Props, Fisher-Price!  Seriously, does it get any cuter than this?  I might start collecting, for ME.

Anyway, I'm giving this to Lily, I swear! I even went back and exchanged the circus themed one I'd originally picked up for the farm one, knowing how she digs farm stuff.  But do you know hard it is to find Paint With Water Books? Way harder than you would think given their level of awesomeness and superiority to coloring books. (What's a little spilled water compared to Junior accenting your walls with crayon?)

Good Stuff Cheap: Part Uno

I happened upon a spelndiferous children's book of fairy tales this afternoon. (Ostensibly, it's a gift for my little cousin Hannah, and I will try my best not to commandeer it.) The Fairy Tales is a collection of Perrault and Grimm Brothers fairy tales translated by David Walser and illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski.

I'm especially tickled by the illustrations. I like the elephant in this illustration by Piańkowski from Joan Aiken's bedtime stories book A Necklace of Raindrops. I feel a trip to the library coming soon...

Reading Is Sexy

I just wanted to take a moment to gush about my new planner. It's so much more fun to set plans when you have something pretty in which to write them. :) This year, I opted for the The Reading Woman 2011 Engagement Calendar. (I also love that it's called an "engagement calendar.") Within its pages are various paintings depicting women reading and quotes by women about reading. My favorite painting is Carl Larsson's Woman Lying on a Bench.

That dog looks like my pekeweenie Zadie! ::LOVE::

this is what I read in 2010

Alison's 2010 book montage

Alison's favorite books »