Memes and Memoirs (or, really, a single biography)

I've been tagged twice in the last week or so with the Blogging Tips Meme. And I've been seeing and reading the tips at various blogs. What a great idea! However, since I was computerless for a while and then busy catching up, I'm going to skip participation since everything I could think of has already been said. Here are links to Gentle Reader's Shelf Life and HeidiJane's Adventures in Bookland where you can read and appreciate some great blogging tips! (oops! faulty links--they should be corrected now)

I started Elizabeth of the German Garden, the biography of Elizabeth von Arnim by Leslie de Charms, the other day and am thoroughly enjoying it. Melanie at The Indextrious Reader kindly recommended it after I'd complained of being unable to locate a biography of Von Arnim. The book is out of print and must be located through used book sellers, but is worth the effort.

Have to share a few select quotes (several of the quotes are originally from The Solitary Summer, others from her journals):


What a blessing it is to love books.... Everybody must love something, and I know of no objects of love that give such substantial and unfailing returns as books and a garden. And how easy it would have been to come into the world without this, and possessed instead of an all-consuming passion , say, for hats, perpetually raging round my empty soul (66).

I read and laugh over my Boswell in the library when the lamps are lit, buried in cushions and surrounded by every sign of civilisation...books have their idiosyncracies as well as people, and will not show me their full beauties unless the place and time in which they are read suits them (66-67).

De Charms notes that Pepys, Montaigne, Lamb, and Gibbon were probably in the same category, while Thoreau, Goethe, Keats, Spenser, Wordsworth and Shakespeare were her choices for out of doors.

When I drive in the forest, Keats goes with me; and if I extend my drive to the Baltic shores and spend the afternoon on the moss beneath the pines, I take Spencer... (67).

Lovely morning. Walked in garden with Wordsworth in hand and was happy (67).

Easy to fall in love with an author who adores books and gardens and writes about them with such pleasure, such obvious friendship, as if she could be introduced to the garden or the books and begin a heart-felt conversation with either.

"What Have You Read" Meme

I'm not sure where I first saw this meme; it has been floating around for a while. I copied it into a draft and then let it sit for a week or so. Yesterday on Bookish Kitty, I was reminded of it again and decided to add the additional element of highlighting books with which I was not familiar. She gave links to Book Fool and Belladoza. By following the links back, one might determine exactly where the meme originated.

* Bold the ones you’ve read
* Italicize the ones you want to read
* Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in
* Highlight those you haven't heard of

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Book Meme

Found this meme at Musings of a Bookish Kitty who discovered it at Booking Through Thursday.

What kind of care do you take of your books?

1. Are you careful with the spines? Or do you crack your books open to make them lay flat?

If it is my book, I often crack them open to make them lay flat.

2. Do you use bookmarks? Or do you dog-ear the corners? If you do use bookmarks, do you use those fashionable metal ones? Or paper?

I use bookmarks, scraps of paper, and the little card that comes in the front pocket of library books. Flags are nice for referring to specific pages or passages.

3. Do you write in your books? Ever? If you do, do you make small marks, or write in as much blank space as you can find? Pen or pencil? Highlighter? Your name on the front page?

I do write in some copies of my nonfiction books. My copy of Philip Lopate's The Art of the Personal Essay and a few other books that I frequently return to also have highlighting and annotations.

4. Do you toss your books on the floor? Into bookbags? Or do you treat them tenderly, with respect?

I'm not awestruck by books nor do I value them for any reason other than the content (with the exception of a few very old or valuable ones), but I treat them with reasonable care when setting them down or putting them in my bookbag.

5. Do you ever lay your book face-down, to save your place?

Only if in a hurry and there is nothing I can use to mark my page.

6. Um--water? Do you bathe with your books? Hold them with wet hands? Read out in the rain? Anything of that sort?

Nope.

7. Are your books lined up on a bookshelf? Or crammed in any which way? Stacked on the floor?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

8. Do you make a distinction--as regards book care--between hardcovers and paperbacks?

Some paperbacks that I value receive greater care than do paperbacks in general.

9. And, to recap? Naturally, you love all of your books, but how, exactly? Are your books loved in the battered way of a well-loved teddy bear, or like a cherished photo album or item of clothing that's used, appreciated, but carefully cared for?

I own very few books that have any value outside of their content. I treat all of them with respect, but I'm not overly concerned about them. Art books and books that are quite old receive gentle treatment, but mostly my books are used quite casually. That doesn't mean carelessly...

10. Any additional comments?

Like Bookish Kitty, I am more careful with books that are loaned to me.