proefrocks » literature

A review: The Interrogative Mood

debra — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:11:30 +0000

by Padgett Powell
Here is where I usually link to a reading/discussion guide or two, I’m not really sure one needs a guide. The book, itself, is a guide to discussion.

a summary
A book of questions, sometimes the questions relate to those before and after sometimes not.

a review
I couldn’t read very much of the book at a time, it overwhelmed my brain to the point of pain. The the more I read, the less nonsensical the paragraphs seem so I am able to read more at a time. I have found that skipping forward and back to be the best way for me to enjoy the book. I wish there was an index so I could find exact questions again. If you have someone in your life you’d like to know better, grab a copy and have a go at it. I think I would rate this book for adults, some of the questions I wouldn’t want to explain to my 5 year old even though I don’ have a five year old. I may add this to my library if I happen upon a copy for a reasonable amount of money.

A few of my favorite questions, copyright of course belongs to the author, quoted here only to entice others to read it.

Would a catastrophic global war be required to restore us to simple living? p17
Have you any skills in the area of weaving or knitting? p35
Do you miss Tab and do you fully understand its disappearance? p43
Can you knit? p61
Would it be reasonable to ask someone if he or she has a favorite musical note? p66
Why is a banana yellow and not banana? p67

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A book reivew: Flatland

debra — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:36:29 +0000

by Edwin A Abbott
reading guide 1
reading guide 2
Flatland text from Project Gutenberg
Annotated Version of Flatland
Wiki background

a review/summary

I first started listening to this on Craftlit and found my attention span waning. I decided to stop listening to this book for a few episodes then checked out a hardcopy from the library. I started with the text on Project Gutenberg, linked above, and wanted to hold it in my hand and flip chapters. I found that I enjoyed understood it better to read first then listen.

While I don’t fancy myself anything special when it comes to reading deeper into what an author means, this author made it quite easy to see his points. The author used satire to convey his thoughts on social classes as well as gender inequality using personified flat two-dimensional shapes. I feel as though I can’t say too much more without revealing what can be discovered while reading. I found myself pulling for the poor square after a while. Please use the links above to read more about the book or the book itself as it is in public domain.

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Post tags: book review, flatland

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A book review: Spin Control

debra — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:15:41 +0000

by Amy King, 2009

a review/summary
I borrowed this book from the library along with many others to evaluate what books to add to my spinning library. This one will be joining my library at the end of the week, making an Amazon order for Christmas. Amy challenges the readers to play with the wheel. It’s nothing I couldn’t have figured out on my own but to see it written down, permission to play with the wheel whether it seems conventional or not, somehow makes it ok to set about doing. She tells us to change a specific setting one way then spin, then make another change and see what happens. Then change another setting and asks how it changed from the previous ones. (scientific method anyone?)

After the introductory chapters she gets to the business of explaining many of the questions I had in a blog draft like how to know how much twist to put in the yarn. She shows us how to evaluate previously spun or purchased yarn in an effort to reproduce it and encourages us to keep a spinning notebook. She shows us how to spin a variety to novelty yarns and even shows several knitted swatches of different prep and spinning techniques on the same base fiber. I feel like cover to cover gets me a spinning class. Can’t wait to get my hands on the book permanently. I’m off to browse the rest of the books, stay tuned for more reviews.

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Confessions of a book-aholic

debra — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:59:54 +0000

I love books. I have loved books since I was young. I can’t remember not loving books, I can’t even remember my first book that’s how many books I love. I have sung the praises of visiting the library as a child to check out my limit of books every Saturday. If you live in Michigan, check out melcat to see if your local library participates. If your library doesn’t participate, ask the librarian why not. If you don’t live in Michigan, see what your state has that would be similar. I love sitting at home and searching the database for books to request from far off libraries or ones just down the road, interlibrary loan is wonderful. I have requested books for knitting, book club, biographies, home birth, many whims and fancies and of late-spinning.

I love that at the time I searched I found 19 different books on the topic of spinning that I wanted to check out and could order then without leaving the couch. Last week, 4 books came in for me, my library had 3 on spinning, and today another 10 arrived. While I will not be able to read all of them word for word by the time they are due, I will be able to evaluate the copies to see if it would be an excellent addition to my spinning resources. The final cut will most likely be renewed just to be sure. Some of the books are out of print, so I will have to settle for used books and in some cases retired out of a library.

I made my list using various online sites that recommended books here and there. I also searched melcat for handspinning once I found that tag in common. I am doing a single elimination process. If I look at book and don’t see how I will use it or it has information that another book already has, off the list it goes. If it has new information or combines information from two or more other books, on the list it goes.

So far it’s a tentative list but here are four possibilities:

Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning
The Spinner’s Encyclopedia by Enid Anderson
The craft of hand spinning by Eileen Chadwick
The Complete Spinning Book by Candace Crockett

The first one I’m fairly certain of wanting, the second is a reference book rather than a cover-to-cover read. The last two are rather redundant, so I don’t need or want both, but I don’t know which is better at this point. I’m hoping that after borrowing the rest, it will be clear.

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Post tags: books, library, melcat, spinning

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Three Cups of Tea

debra — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:30:13 +0000

one mans’ mission to promote peace . . . one school at a time

by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin

web site

a review & summary
Greg began raising money to build schools to educate the children in Pakistan 1990′s after he was unable to complete a summit to K2. He was the medic on a team who was scheduled to summit but had to do a last minute rescue and evac of a team member, thus eliminating his chance to reach the top. On his way down the mountain, he took the wrong path and found himself in a local village. Seeing the poverty in this village, he vowed to return an build them a school. This book chronicles his travels as he raised monies to build that school and many more with the hope of stopping the violence through education. He offers a unique perspective on America’s War on Terror with insights about the civilians this war impacted firsthand. I highly recommend reading this book if for no other reason than the unique perspective.

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Book Club & The Christmas List

debra — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:37:54 +0000

by Richard Paul Evans

a review & ummary
An extremely fast read, high on sap low on plot. In the introduction the author shares that he had always enjoyed Charles Dickenson’s “A Christmas Carol.” The Scrooge in this book is named James Kier and is three ghosts is a premature obituary wherein he understands that even his own son can’t stand him. This book is highly predictable with emotional twists and turns designed to elicit tears and joy in all the “right” places. Borrow it from the library if you must read it, I’m not likely to read another by this author. I like to at least guess at the out come, not have a map drawn to me.

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A website or two

debra — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:16:10 +0000

Page by Page Books – a site similar to Project Gutenberg

I’m currently reading a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” I saw the movie, now I’m reading the story. I think I like the story better.

Catalog and track your cookbooks and recipes with Cookbooker. It’s in beta right now, I’m not sure that I’ll use it as much as I thought I would. It has some of the cookbooks I have but not all and I haven’t investigated enough to see where to put in new books.

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A Review: eat, pray, love

debra — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:18:19 +0000

by Elizabeth Gilbert
reading guide

a summary
After a divorce and rebound love, Liz took a year off of life to journey across Italy, India, and Indonesia as she struggled to write this book and bring peace and balance to her life. Without much planning, Liz spent almost four months in each country making friends, finding herself, her purpose and a peaceful coexistence with life. She shared her studies in the Hindu faith as well as other spiritual insights as she travels. While in Italy, a new friend shared his view of each person, each city having a word. He shared

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Book Club & Tigerheart

debra — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:20:29 +0000

by Peter David
You’ll have to write your own reading/discussion guide for this one.

a review
Rarely do I have to read a fiction book with a dictionary and I found it rather refreshing to expand my vocabulary while I read a reimagining of Peter Pan. Many of the potential new vocabulary words are explain either through context or by the narrator. I love the names of two of the pirates, “Caveat” and “Roomer,” they live up to their names. The only place Peter Pan is mentioned is in reviews on the covers of the book. After that we follow the story of “The Boy,” Gwenny, Paul Darling and a host of “Anyplace characters” The author wrote Tigerheart from the narrator’s point of view, but the narrator recorded the story in the first person. The narrator will occasionally become sidetracked explaining why something is the way it is or why he doesn’t know something he doesn’t know. I found myself giggling through the book often. I’m not sure this is a children’s book, but it could be read to a child with creative editing done by an adult. What I enjoyed most wasn’t the story line, who won the battle, what happened to the characters. I enjoyed trying to guess how the characters and plot twists related to the original story. Did this story occur before Wendy, John and Michael flew with Peter? Was “The Boy” Peter? Was Gwenny (Gwendolyn) Wendy? How does Paul relate to the Wendy, John and Michael?

I would like to read the Peter Pan stories and then Tigerheart again to compare the writing style and characters. To read the original Peter Pan and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, please visit Project Gutenberg.

a summary
While villains and heroes come and go, one thing remains, there must be heroes and villains. Tigerheart is a story from “Anyplace” where in there are pirates and non-pirates, heroes and villains. Which are which are for you to decide. Paul Darling’s sister Bonnie disappeared, she didn’t want to be a baby, turned into a bird and flew away. This tale follows Paul’s adventure to and from “Anyplace” on the quest to bring a baby girl back to his mother to make her happy again.

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The Book Thief

debra — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:23:14 +0000

by markus zusak
reading guide

a review/a summary
It’s not often I struggle to write about a book. What to say without giving too much away? A familiar topic fictionalized in an unique manner, “The Book Thief” will keep you turning the pages. The main character, Liesel, becomes a thief of books among other things. The narrator leads the reader through Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s while following a child, her family, neighborhood and government. While technically a young adult book, I would highly recommend it for a wider audience including plain-old adults.

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A new iPod

debra — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:02:43 +0000

Late this summer my Nano developed a problem. I was no longer able to use the center click wheel. The iPod still played music/podcasts, I was just unable to select what I wanted to play in what order. It started at the beginning of the list, then I had to fast forward to the episode I desired. I attempted to fix this by only putting on a couple of episodes at a time, which was less than ideal, but worked as long as I had enough listening material. I toyed with purchasing a replacement wheel and inside electronics but was concerned about wasting money if I didn’t fix it. I was also a bit envious of the amount of space on newer iPods. When the Nano was in tip-top shape, I regularly filled it and had to leave off music lists or newer podcast episodes. On Friday, I will finishing paying for my “new” iPod Classic. I purchased it before Apple released its new line in September, but overall I’m happy with my purchase. I have a smaller Classic, 120GB, as opposed to the newer 160GB one that was released in September. I looked at other brands, other sizes, other others and decided that between the ease of use of iTunes and a similar price point for other mp3 players with comparable size, the Classic was what I wanted.

And it’s that time of year again, what’s on the iPod in the podcast realm. Many old favorites are still in the mix, some no loner on the list have discontinued new episodes, some have become a bit erratic, some just don’t suit me any longer and some I try again after a hiatus.

I’ve still decided not to review any of the new podcasts nor explain why others are no longer on the list. My skin isn’t thick enough when the podcasters leave me feedback. I feel guilty when I share my opinion which hurts complete strangers. Yes, they put themselves out there. Yes, I am trying to be unbiased, I have no stake in the success or failure of a podcast so I’m not playing favorites. Moving on . . .

Standard disclaimer-not all podcasts in my list are suitable for family listening, please check reviews left on iTunes and the shownotes for the podcasts to determine if you would enjoy or be offended by a podcast.

Still hanging on:

CraftLit | iTunes
It’s a Purl, Man Podcast | iTunes
knit obsession with zknits | iTunes
limenviolet’s Podcast
The Moth Podcast – real stories told live without notes
Never Not Knitting | iTunes

Stash and Burn | iTunes
Sticks and String Podcast | iTunes
Stitch Stud and his Bride | iTunes – podfade? just noticed no new episodes since May 2009

New-ish, but staying for a bit longer:

Alex Anderson Quilt Connection | iTunes
The Anatomy of Knitting Podcast | iTunes
Books on the Nightstand | iTunes
Brass Needles | iTunes
CraftSanity | iTunes
CraftyPod | iTunes
Double Knit | iTunes – deleted this one a year ago, giving it a try again
Knit Misadventures | iTunes
KnitMoreGirls’s Podcast | iTunes

On probation:

The Sassy Sheep | iTunes
Here’s to Ewe | iTunes
Creative Mom | iTunes
Crafternoon Tea with Grannyg | iTunes
avocadoknits | iTunes
Social Knitworking | iTunes
Sapphires-N-Purls | iTunes
Knitscape with Becca and Betty | iTunes
Electronic Knitting Group | iTunes
unhinged knitter | iTunes
Y2Knit PODconnetion | iTunes
Strings ‘n Things | iTunes

If I add too many more to my lists, I’m going to have to take a screenshot and color code them as old, new, and on probation. If you have a podcast or know of one related to literature, crafting (knitting, crocheting, quilting, scrapbooking, stamping, etc), gardening, real-life stories, etc that is not commercially produced (we all know that Lion Brand Yarn has good things to say about itself, but I’m still not going to listen) leave a comment.

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Book Club & The Help

debra — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:25:05 +0000

by Kathryn Stockett
reading guide

a review
As the title indicates, this is a book I read for book club. I wouldn’t have read it otherwise. I find it hard to believe that a white author can write an account of life for African-American housekeepers/maids in the south in the 1960s. Penguin books had a podcast episode with the author about why she felt she could write this book. I listened to part of it and was so bored I turned it off before finishing it. The stories from the housekeepers/maids in the book were interesting enough to hold my interest.

a summary
A fictional account of the life of African-American housekeepers/maids set in the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi. The book is written by a white woman and is told from the point of view of a white woman just out of college and two housekeepers/maids. The white woman, Skeeter, wants to be a journalist and decides to interview at least 12 woman who spent their lives taking care of other people’s children and house. The story is full of racial tension as all of the women sneak behind the backs of their employers, friends, family, neighbors and high-society. The story was creative enough to hold my interest, but I have no idea as to the accuracy of such an account, fictional though it is.

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Book Club & The Glass Castle

debra — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:01:03 +0000

by Janette Walls
reading guide

a review
A well written memoir of the author’s childhood with an alcoholic parent and an out-of-touch parent. I was genuinely surprised by the depth of caring toward her parents the author could express as she wrote her account. I had a difficult time finding any empathy for the parents, while Janette clearly found common ground on which to stand with her family. I found myself a hybrid between Janette and her youngest sister, who when the time came, ran from her family and hasn’t looked back yet.

a summary
Janette recounts her childhood and the chaos that one alcoholic parent and one free-spirit parent brought to her life and the lives of her siblings with love and respect for them. While her father was not violent, his drinking left the family with little to no money to provide for basic needs, including food, clothes, and shelters. Her parents pride wouldn’t allow them to accept handouts or help of any kind, rather the children went without meals, clothes, appropriate shelter and more. Her mother would work only when absolutely necessary and kept secrets of her own that may have saved the children a great deal of pain and anguish had she been a bit less selfish. This is a heart wrenching account of a child watching her parents spiral out of control of their lives and their failure to provide for the basic care of their children. The few things the parents did instill were pride in education and pride in self, that one could do just about anything one set about doing.

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Library Plugin gone wacko

debra — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:07:02 +0000

I have used a WordPress plugin called “Now Reading” for several years to track the books I’ve read. Though it is designed to be more for my library collection, I use it generically. Some of the books I list I own, many I borrow from the library or friends. After the latest “upgrade” the plugin broke. I’m not heartbroken, but I am bit upset as I have over 150 books listed as read, reading or planned to read since Nov. 2007. Less than 10 books are listed as reading or planned to read. The error I get is, “You are not authorized to perform this action.” Creating a new users on my blog with admin privileges didn’t change the problem. I did find that if I worked backward from the blog to the plugin I could edit “currently reading” books, but received the same error if I tried to add a new book. Part of me things it’s a WordPress problem as my WordPress hiccuped a week or so ago, but I also upgraded this plugin around the time it hiccuped. I didn’t notice the hiccup until Friday. I do have a work-around since I know how to edit MySQL databases but man is that a pain. The plugin wrote a nice little interface that runs information across 4 databases in one little form. I’ll keep using the silly thing until I’m too annoyed with the upkeep and then I’ll switch. If anyone out there uses something similar, I’m taking recommendations.

Ok, after setting my categories and scrolling down the page, I can say it’s a WordPress problem. WordPress has merged my admin account with a contributor account, grrr. I thought I fixed this last week.

Well, after deleting all author/admin/contributor accounts except the admin one, I have had no luck in forcing Now Reading to work. Maybe it’s time to uninstall and reinstall or just replace it with Now Reading Reloaded. I seem to have fewer consistent errors with the new plugin. It’s written by someone else but based the original plugin, so it works with minimal effort.

It seems to be stable now, 20 minutes later. ~~I’ve had to disable another coolie plugin as the install went totally wacky after a recent plugin upgrade-YARPP-yet another related post plugin.~~ As of Aug. 28, an updated release of YARPP seems to have addressed the issue so I have reenabled the plugin and fixed the template to show the related posts on the index as well as the single post pages.

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Book Club & For One More Day

debra — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:39:50 +0000

by Mitch Albom
reading guide

a review
A quick read wherein the author let’s you in on his secret a bit at time, though with enough information to figure out most of it before the last page. I’d read it again.

a summary
In the author’s typical style, the story looks at past choices and regrets, and then offers a way to rectify some. The premise of this work asks if you could have one more day with a loved one who had died, what would that day look like, what would you talk about, what would you do, etc. Charley, the main character, is allowed one more day with his long dead mother. He learns to look at himself and his family in a different light.

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