Summer Reading

I made it! And I am so glad that I did. What an amazing place the library is today. I took a big tote bag and retrieved my 9 books (The list of books I picked up is in this blog post.) from the shelf where they have the books that have been reserved that are waiting for you. Then I talked to the reference librarian for quite awhile and she printed out a number of things for me. How to put the apps on your kindle or phone so that you can download eBooks right from the website. You can also read magazines and newspapers that way. She told me about all manner of other resources, music, movies, audiobooks, and more. And she gave me some information about the goings on at the library as well as more information about the self-publishing program. I then kind of wandered around through the stacks of books, and just generally acquainted myself with this library branch which I had only been in once. I can keep the books for 3 weeks so I imagine I will go back every 3 weeks or so unless I decide to renew the books and take a little longer. There’s so much I can do via eReaders from home I won’t have to go real often especially since I’ve checked out so many books at once.

A bag full of books!

I came home with such a bounty I couldn’t wait to get the books in and go through them to decide what I would read first. As I did I evolved a plan for my summer reading. I listen to my audiobooks when I am doing activities like exercising, doing dishes, driving in the car, etc. Then I will have a fun mystery to read at bedtime. I am going to start with the next Seaside Knitters Mystery in the series that I hadn’t read yet, Murder At Lambswool Farm by Sally Goldenbaum. I have read the whole series except the last two and I picked both of them up today. This will be perfect bedtime reading, not heavy, and I am relieved to have a book to hold because I’ve been trying to listen to my audiobook at bedtime and I keep falling asleep listening to it and then have to try to find my way back to a place before I fell asleep! Now I can just put the book down when I’m tired and turn out the light.

Mid to late afternoon I take a rest or a little nap with the pugs in my big recliner. I wanted a special book to read at this time and I had just the book, a book I have wanted to read for some time, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. Jansson is the author of the much loved Moonintroll books (I also got 3 of those.) but her adult fiction is very special indeed. On the cover of this book is a quote by Anne Morrow Lindbergh who wrote, “This small book is a complete experience… sharp, perceptive, earthy… a rare book that is a delight to read.” This book is hard to describe. Very short chapters that are more like singular tableaux, they could be watercolor paintings, they are exquisite. They don’t read like regular chapters in a book but come together as a story overall of a grandmother and her granddaughter on an island one summer. I read several “chapters” snuggled up with the pugs before taking a little rest.

And because I have wanted to read Jansson’s Moomintroll books for years I brought home three and will start with Moominpappa’s Memoirs. Neil Gaiman, whom I admire greatly, is quoted on the cover saying simply, “A masterpiece.” I will keep a Moomintroll book here beside me on my work table to dip into now and again. All kinds of books for a summer of reading.

So much is happening in this summer return to words, books, writing. Last night I wrote a story for Katya’s and my “700 Word Stories” where we each share a noun and use the 2 nouns as a title. We have written quite a number of them now but last night I wrote my story for our words, “Memory Book” and I was quite surprised to see what came up for me. I wrote a very poignant story about a woman in her 80’s who has never kept a diary but now, faced with a diagnosis of dementia, is beginning to write everything that she can remember about her life before she loses her life completely. I was so deeply touched by this character that it came to me that I may want to expand on the short story I wrote. A novella? A novel? I don’t know, but it touched me deeply.

It is my firmly held conviction that to write well you must read well, and varied, and many types of books. It is no wonder that I haven’t been writing anything more than blog posts for some time. I love writing these posts and will continue but I have always written more than this, it’s just that the last few years I have barely been reading at all. I am now diving into books like someone dying of thirst in the desert who has just found water, I have come home to books, to the library, and a huge change is taking place. Writing stories, reading them, reveling in words in every direction, this has been my life since I was a young girl. Today I packed up all my fiber work, it simply wasn’t time for that, perhaps in a few months. It is time to devote my time to reading and writing. I have begun, I look forward to seeing how it all unfolds.