“Imperial Self beyond self that I call my soul,
Climb up into the crow’s nest:
Look out over the changing ocean of my life
And shout down to me whither to change my course.”
– Sarah Cleghorn
from “The Lookout”
Portraits and Protests
Authors
J. K. Rowling – Her First Novel for Adults
Did you know that J. K. Rowling has written her first novel for adults? The Casual Vacancy, published by Little Brown and Co. is making it’s debut tomorrow, September 27.
A member of the town council of Pagford, Barry Fairbrother, dies unexpectedly in his early forties. The competition for his seat is fierce, and further exemplifies that the quaint town with cobbled streets is not at all what it seems. In fact, everyone is at war with one another and nothing is as it seems.
Want to read more? Here’s J. K. Rowling’s web site with more detail.
A Balance of Fiction and Non-Fiction
Here’s what I’ve found … I really do like reading a balance of fiction and non-fiction. I usually am reading one novel, be it adult, MG or YA, and also one non-fiction book (generally) of a metaphysical nature.
Recently, after finishing my last novel, I started reading Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani. I have been slowly working my way through Wayne Dyer’s Wishes Fulfilled a second time because it is so spot on, but I found I miss the thrill … the immersion in a story that I can’t put down. I want a book that nurtures my heart and soul as well as one that calls upon my mind and emotions and takes me places I’ve never been.
So I am going to Paris with the vampire Pandora by Anne Rice, a selection I’d made at The county library’s annual book sale. If you’ve never read Anne Rice, you will find her riveting. I read Interview with a Vampire, The Mummy and several others, but I loved the New Orleans Mayfair witches trilogy the best – The Witching Hour, Lasher and Taltos. They remain on my bookshelf as worth keeping and reading again. I’m looking forward to sitting with Pandora in a Paris café where she recounts her history; she was once a highborn woman in Augustan Rome who later named herself after the Pandora of mythology and in time, came to pursue Lestat.
Balance restored. How about you? Are you a one-book-at-a-time reader or do you multi-read, too?
Thanks to Emily …
How happy is the little Stone
that rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn’t care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears —
Whose Coat of elemental Brown
A passing Universe put on,
And independent as the Sun
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute Decree
In casual simplicity —
–– Emily Dickinson
Poem 1510
Lost when the Story Ended
How you know a book is truly fabulous is when you finish it and feel a bit lost. That’s how I felt after reading The Help. I was done the story, but I didn’t want to leave that world where Miss Skeeter was writing her novel with Aibileen and Minny. I wanted to keep cheering them on and holding my breath when Skeeter finds Hilly’s been in her satchel and wish that Minny would leave Leroy. And now it’s over.
It’s a wonderful author who can so thoroughly engross you in the world she’s created that you just sit and stare a while. The Help was not only a brilliant story but also a stark look into a time in the deep South when racism was sharp, but the edges were being chafed by the likes of Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers and Rosa Parks in the growing civil rights movement. It’s a portrait of whites and the “coloreds” who served them, and how the maids fared depending on the inclinations of their missus. What a read!
I saw the movie before I read the book, and now am going to watch it again. Apparently, I’m not done quite yet.
But what do you choose to read after you’ve finished a novel that held you in thrall? I’m thinking something as far from it as I can get. Despite my many selections from the annual library book sale, I admit I did purchase a few new ones that I’ve been wanting to read, and The Camino is one of them. What a joy reading is.
Still A Dreamer 