Games of Thrones

Since I've gotten home from St. Louis, I've done nothing in the evenings except read. I come home, say hi to Jeff, and plop myself down on the couch to read. At 11 or so I'll move upstairs and then read until I either fall asleep or read until I think I'm going to have problems waking up the next day. To say that I've been a little focused is a bit of an understatement.

I've been told by at least half a dozen people that I need to read at least the first book of the Song of Ice and Fire series, A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. Jeff had received the book as a gift last Christmas and it's been sitting in my stack. So last week I picked it up. And I was immediately sucked in. The characters are all so unique. Throughout the book I would fall in love with different characters. Eddard, Tyrion, Arya, Catelyn, and Jon Snow all have been favorite characters at one point or another. They are each so well described and their individual stories so fascinating. The book follows the Starks of Winterfell, the lord, his lady, and their five children, as they set out into a very well described fantasy world. Each has their own role to play in just this book and I know that those roles will be every futher expanded as I read the rest of the series.

Martin tells a story that's both raw and truthful, which is a tough thing to say for a fantasy series. The word he creates falls its own set of rules beautifully. Magic exists in small doses but it has it's place. Dragons and other creatures have or do live in the world. But each part of the book rings true. Martin creates a history for the world, a mythology for the world, religions, and enough ruling classes that sometimes they are a tad tough to keep straight. He does provide an overview of the houses in the back, but you're so focused on the Starks that I didn't find I had to consult it often. The book has political intrigue (a lot of political intrigue), a fascinating family story, myth and legend, war, and a bit of sex. It's everything I enjoy in a good book and I can't wait to continue on and find out what happens next.

Yep, I'm a series reader again. I broke my rule with the His Dark Materials trilogy, and shattered it with the A Series of Unfortunate Events series. I already the next book of the Song of Ice and Fire series and after a small break I'll dive back into that one. But it won't be tonight. I should probably catch up on the housework I've been ignoring since I started the first.

Thanksgiving Trip

Jeff and I spent the holiday in St. Louis visiting family. We drove down on Thursday and made it just in time for dinner. We left Sunday morning. In between we spent tons of time with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and their adorable little guy. Here they are below. This is Jeff's younger brother's family. They hosted us this trip and did so wonderfully.

We did some shopping on Friday. Not much (I'm not a Black Friday fan) but trips to JoAnn's and Barnes and Noble made me happy. My sister-in-law wanted to make a couple fleece tie blankets as gifts. We managed to get the fabric and complete both blankets in one weekend. Here's my wonderful sister-in-law playing around in JoAnns.

Friday night we went to Jeff's older brother's house for dinner and some wonderful wine. My sister-in-law has introduced me to a number of great wines over the years and this night was no exception. I think between us, she and I must have drank a bottle and a half each. Great conversation, great food. A fun night.

Saturday we went to the zoo with my little brother and his fiancee. It was a bit cold out so the zoo was really quiet. But the animals were active and we made good use of the heated indoor houses. The bird house was Jeff's favorite, it was so quiet you could hear even the quietest birds call. We were the only ones in there for most of our time. The lions were playful and fun to watch. It was a great trip.

The weather was perfect the entire trip and it was great to see family. We don't get down to St. Louis near enough so it was nice to have a longer visit to catch up. We'll hopefully get back down in the spring. But it was a wonderful trip.

Foodscapes

I'm sure you're all tired of seeing food at this point. After the huge feast that is Thanksgiving, there are days and days of leftovers. And dinners with family. And extra pie in the fridge. I'm sure you're thinking that you've seen enough food for a lifetime. Or, if you're like me, you never get tired of food. Particularly not when it is as well presented as these foodscapes.

Carl Warner is a U.K. based photographer who creates landscapes out of food. Almost everything in these scenes is edible. He takes very traditional looking scenes and finds the exact right ingredient to make them out of edibles. According to his website each set takes a couple of days to build and then Warner takes photos of the foreground, background, and the sky separately. Like any organic setting, the food deteriorates quickly so he has to work in stages.

Warner started as a still life photographer and then began to branch out into these arranged landscapes. His work has been used in numerous advertisements and he even came out with a book of his work. I just love the inventiveness of these images. Every part of the picture offers such wonderful detail, which makes for complete images that are creative and simply amazing. The images can be dramatic or serene but they are all wonderful to look at. And all made of food.

Not sure why but this simple scene is my favorite

The Stacks

There's a reason I don't reread my books that often. It's below.

This is my bookcase of books that I haven't read yet. Not just one of the shelves, the whole case is unread. This isn't even the whole case. There's one more row below of oversized books. Books come and go from the case but it's never empty. And often books will stay on there for years before I finally get to them. Buying books is a matter of moments, reading them is slower.

This is my stack of books that I haven't read that don't fit on the bookcase. Currently they are sitting in boxes in my closet but I drag them out occasionally to pick from them.

As you can see I have plenty to keep me occupied. I could choose not to buy or borrow another book for two years and I'd probably still have enough reading material. I've accepted that I'll never read all the books I want to read. But I would like to one day empty the bookcase above. Of course that would mean avoiding the library and the bookstore. So, it's probably never going to happen.

Rereadings

I'm sure it won't surprise any of you to know that I read a lot. And I mean a lot. I spend much of my free time with my nose stuck in a book. What might surprise you is that I don't reread. Ever. I can list on one hand the number of books that I've read a second time or more. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse gets reread every couple of years. I think of that book as a re-grounding. I read it to refresh myself. Pride and Prejudice has been read at least four times. Charlotte's Web gets pulled off the shelf occasionally, and yes I still cry no matter how many times I read it. I've reread two others for a book club I'm in. Other than that, nothing gets reread.

I once started a book only to find within the first three chapters that I had read the book in high school. The whole plot flashed back to me and I put the book down and moved on to something else. Something new. But this weekend I started a book that I was pretty sure I'd read before. It's a memoir about reading called So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson. I was sure I had read it years ago and every once and a while I would get flashbacks of chapters. But it never came back to me fully. I read her discussions of books and had the odd sense of deja vu that comes with rereading but even up until the end, I never remembered the book enough to put it down. And it wasn't in my LibraryThing (I'm CatB if you're interested). So I read the book for perhaps the second time and enjoyed it.

The moment I put it down I grabbed another, and this one I knew I had read. I picked up Russell Hoban's The Mouse and His Child. I read this book as a child and it had the biggest impact on me. Here was a book that was on the surface about a wind-up mouse and his child, trying to find some friends and evade an enemy. But even as a child I recognized that the book was so much more than that. It was an allegory. I saw the discussions of infinity and trying to define Being and cause and effect and the book intrigued me, even at a young age. So when I found out that the book had been reprinted with illustrations from David Small, one of my all-time favorite illustrators, I made it a point to find a copy. I had glanced through the book after buying it but didn't plan to reread. After all, it was the illustrations I was looking for. But today, after finishing one potential rereading, I purposefully picked up the book and read.

And the book lived up to its memory. I loved it for a second time. The story was familiar, but I was amazed at how much I had forgotten. There were characters that I hadn't remembered at all. There were subplots that hadn't meant anything to me as a child and were therefore forgotten. And the ending surprised me. I'm not sure how I had forgotten it. Although the characters were the same I read this like a brand-new book. And it got me thinking. I wonder how many of my childhood favorites would be worth going back to reread? How many stories have I forgotten enough of that they would be worth revisiting? I might have to go through my shelves. And create a stack to reread. After all, if it hadn't been for the illustrations, I would never have picked up this wonderful tale again.

Nostalgic Musical Interlude

The summer before my junior year of college was one of those great times that I look back at nostalgically. I was living alone at the time, working to pay my own bills by cleaning apartments. I would wake up at 5 each morning, clean apartments until 2, then go home and write until nearly 11 or midnight. It was the most productive time in my life. And I loved it.

The soundtrack for that time in my life was Natalie Merchant's Tigerlily, Violent Femmes, the music from the film Evita, and Indigo Girls. I think I wore most of those cassettes out (remember those?). I would pop a tape in and listen while I cleaned. When I got rid of most of my tapes, those were the ones I kept. They were just too special to me.

This afternoon, as part of my desire to get back to myself, I've set my Pandora radio streaming to Natalie Merchant. And it's been so energizing. Pandora (seriously I love this service) offers me not just Natalie, but Sarah McLaughlin, Jewel, Dido, The Cranberries, Fleetwood Mac, and The Sundays to name a few. It is the soundtrack of my college years. I'm reminded not only of the songs I loved that I'd forgotten about, but about those years of my life.

No matter what happens in my life, music has always been an energizing force. I have songs that make me think of middle school, high school, college, my early years of dating and marriage, and my more recent days. A single song can take me back. You can tell my mood by what song I'm singing. And if I'm alone, I'm always singing. Today it's Life is Sweet by Natalie Merchant.

Hi

Hi there! I'm Cat. You might remember me from blogs such as Ancora Imparo and Yet Another Children's Book Blog.

This is me, on the left, back when most of my time was taken up with writing and reading. Back then I was young and immature and passionate and far happier than I have been recently. I've been struggling a lot lately with depression. People who see me day to day probably wouldn't have noticed but it's been there. Sapping my energy and taking away my passion. And I haven't been feeling like myself. So I'm going to get back to the things I love the most. And you're all welcome to join me.