I'm Reading a Book (Julian Smith)

Very few days of my life go by in which I do not read.  I learned at a very young age; even when it was just memorization in the early stages, I understood the power of words and that all one had to do was turn the page to continue the adventure, the escape, the inward musing.

Retirement + pandemic = lots of leisure time, not to mention that for me (although there were moments of lack of focus and loss of concentration), it has become one of my primary coping mechanisms during this self-imposed Shelter in Place the past 9 1/2 months.

For years, I have opted in to the Goodreads Challenge, choosing a-book-a-week (52-a-year) as my goal.  Some years I've gotten close, a few years I've achieved, and this year I will have almost doubled!

When I realized last week that I was at 95 I decided that, if there was ever a time to get into the triple-digits, this was it.  So I am pushing, not cheating, to make that happen.  I confess that the last five books were 200 pages or less, but still legitimate books that were on my Want to Read list/pile anyway.  This is where My Year in Books (2020) currently stands (hoping that, even if you are not on Goodreads, you can see this).  Here's/cheers to 100 books... 💖

I consciously decided to make World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Fumi Nakamura (Illustrator) (a Christmas present from my dear friend Michele), my last book of 2020 (starting it tomorrow morning).

Day One all over again on January 1, with my first book of 2021, A Promised Land by Barack Obama, which I am very much looking forward to.  I carefully curate how I wish to spend my time with the written word, and already have many potential novels as well as works of non-fiction earmarked for my ongoing journey.  I am setting my goal as per my usual book-a-week, thinking positive that I will one day have a social life again, and therefore less time for reading (but I've loved every hour/minute/second of page-turning... 😍 )

NR:  She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs by Sarah Smarsh

SONG:  I'm Reading a Book by Julian Smith (ignore the annoying bagpipes in the last 15 seconds!)

BOOK:  Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount (Illustrator)

POEM:  The Nobel Prize for Reading by Nicanor Parra

The Nobel Prize for Reading

should be awarded to me

I am the ideal reader,

I read everything I get my hands on:

I read street names

and neon signs

bathroom walls

and new price-lists

the police news,

projections for the Derby

and license plates

for a person like me

the word is something holy

members of the jury

what would I gain by lying

as a reader, I'm relentless

I read everything - I don't even skip

the classifieds

of course these days I don't read much

I simply don't have the time

But - oh man - what I have read

that's why I'm asking you to give me

the Nobel Prize for Reading

as soon as impossible

(antitranslated by Lis Werner)

QUOTE:  "My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence." ~ Edith Sitwell

Show Us Your Books (Jimmy Fallon and the Tonight Show crew)

[My library books:  everything in the basket was checked out previously, and is now due back June 1; the five on the right had been on reserve B.C. (Before Coronavirus), and I was able to pick them up today...  :-) ]


I am positively hyperventilating.  Our library re-opened.  Well, only for walk-up/drive-up service, but it made my day/week/month!

- Beginning May 18, library staff will call customers with reserved items to let them know their items are available for checkout via our new Walk-Up/Drive-Up Service.
- When arriving to pick up materials, customers should call the library when they are in the parking lot.
- For Walk-up Service: Library staff will exit the library and place the customer’s items on a table. Customers can then approach the table and retrieve their items.
- For Drive-up Service: Library staff will exit the library and hand the items to the customer through their car window. To ensure a safe and efficient hand-off, items will be placed in plastic bags.
- Customers must wear a facial covering to participate in this service.
- Customers returning items are encouraged to deposit them in the library’s book drops. 


For the record, I will never be book-deprived (when the library closed in late-March, I had 25 checked out) but, previous to the self-isolation, I loved being able to reserve a book as I thought of it, which placed it on hold and sent it to my local branch, where I was able to pick it up at my convenience when they let me know it was ready.  That service has not been available for the last six weeks or so, understandably.  Going there today to return the 20 or so we had checked out (the book drops were closed during this time as well), and scoop some up on reserve, made me feel a bit closer to "normal" (whatever that means these days).

Also, you will notice A Very Stable Genius, the book about Trump, on the far right in my photo above.  Even more relevant now, right?!?

Speaking of relevant, I can so relate to the meme below.  I love my husband, but... this absolutely describes the scene on our balcony Every. Single. Morning.  Ack!

SONG:  Show Us Your Books by Jimmy Fallon and the Tonight Show Crew (song begins at 10-minute mark)

BOOK:  Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh

POEM:  The House Was Quiet and The World Was Calm by Wallace Stevens

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

QUOTE:  “Solitude is the greatest treasure, and through it you can rebuild your life, reorder your life, and solve life’s problems.” ~ Sunday Adelaja