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One of the good things about having multiple books in progress all the time is that there is always something to read to go with my mood and I am rarely grumbling at a story that isn’t clicking for whatever reason — I want a page turner and the book is a slow, character-focused book say, or I want something quiet but the one book is frenetic and loud. With more than one book on the go, I never get stuck in one book when what I want at the moment is something entirely different. And, if I don’t have what I want already started, I get the pleasure of diving into a new story.
The flip side of this however, because there is always a flip side, is what I am finding myself coping with right now. I have a couple books on the go, all good, all that I want to read, all moving slow but not in a bad way. These would be the three main books I am reading, the ones that get to most eyeball time.
One is Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson. This is a science fiction book about a generation ship — a ship of about 2,000 people that was sent off from Earth to populate a new planet in a distant solar system. It has taken 170 years to get to this new planet and they are just arriving. Of course the planet is not exactly like Earth from gravity to length of day, to soil bacteria, etc. Now these people who are not the same ones who set out from Earth 170 years ago, have to figure out how to survive on their new home. Interesting, but often technical, and slow moving.
Another is Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve by Ian Morris. As I suspected, I do not agree with his thesis. The book is a carrot and a stick. I am not so excited by his argument and text (stick) but I keep reading because half the book is a critique of his argument by three other people and one of those people is Margaret Atwood (carrot). I want the carrot, but the stick is sometimes hard to take!
My other main book at the moment is Republic of Imagination. I am very much enjoying it but the section on Huck Finn is the biggest one in the book and it is starting to go on too long. Unfortunately there are another 20-30 pages of the Huck section to go.
I don’t mind that these books are moving along at a slow pace or that I am occasionally bored by them. Foragers is a library book with others waiting for it so I have to really concentrate on getting that one done.
So what’s the problem? Well, my turn came up for another library book two days ago, The Bicycling Big Book of Cycling for Women. It’s about bikes and training and nutrition and all that. I expected it would be something to dip into, that it would not be something I wanted to just sit and read for long periods of time. But it turns out I do want to sit and read it much to the detriment of the other books! So the last two nights instead of reading Foragers as I had been doing, I have been reading about cycling. Why read a carrot/stick book when I can read a book that is all carrot? Not a problem generally but the due dates make it one.
This weekend I will be making myself read Foragers as much as possible and attempt to limit my time with the bicycling book. This is not a problem you one-book-at-a-time people have! You can laugh and shake your heads at me, but you multiple book people will understand what a difficult time I am facing for the weekend. These are nice problems to have and I hope all of you have a good weekend with no worse dilemmas than bookish ones to conquer!
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By: Rebecca (Becky) Fjelland Davis,
on 4/10/2014
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Last night I squeezed in twenty miles after school. I didn't feel all that great, and I knew that some exercise would help. It did. It's lovely to be able to ride outside in shorts again!
And here's Freya down at the creek this morning. Happy girl waded through the water.
Just seven days ago, this was us! How easy we forget!
So...Bicycling Magazine is hosting a contest: submit 100 words about your favorite ride (I take that quite loosely) and a photo. I submitted a couple weeks ago, and TODAY (two days before contest ends), I read that I can submit ONE entry EACH day! Holy buckets.
So here's today's entry:
I ride to breathe in the seasons: I watch snow melting, mud emerging, the grass and tiny corn plants sprouting, and foals standing on toothpick legs. Geese honk, winging north, and the baby calves bawl. I smell rain coming, lilacs blooming, mown grass, baled hay, and grain drying in bins. I’m in my upper 50s. I ride so I only have one chin and so my thighs don't rub together. It doesn't hurt if I can beat some people 30 years younger than I am either. Somebody asked me what I use on my face. I said, "Sweat."
: )
Photo by Steve Pottenger
Today, I rode as a marshall for the Mankato River Ramble bike ride. What a blast! Great people, good ride, well organized event...just all around fun. I rode to and from the ride, so I got about 56 miles in. What a great day for a ride.
Below: The FLYING PENGUINS (Jon Anderson at left)
I met some pretty cool new friends on the ride, too.
And bikes galore at the Rapidan park. Pie from Jenny at the Dam Store. Everybody was delighted.
And entirely unrelated, Tuesday night is the big meeting about the proposed frac sand plant in Lime Township. Now we realize we need to get the TOWNSHIP in charge of the planning...to be the planning committee or to appoint one, so the township can set the conditions for the use permit. Hopefully, a moratorium can be placed on its operation for a year....but that's not entirely looking hopeful. More research needs to be done FAST!!!
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By: alethea aka frootjoos,
on 5/15/2012
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Read Now Sleep Later
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Publication date: 28 June 2011 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN 10/13: 0316129259 | 9780316129251
Category: Children’s Picture Book
Keywords: Picture book, children’s, bicycling, travel
Format: Hardcover
Source: Borrowed from the library
I picked up
Along A Long Road at the library because of its eye-catching cover.
Along A Long Road is unlike any picture book I’ve read recently. The illustrations are very graphic and stylized, with clean, fluid lines and only 5 colors (black, blue, red, white, and yellow). It doesn’t have much of a narrative. A bicyclist rides his bike up, down and all around - through town, by the sea, into a tunnel, by a carnival--following a yellow road throughout the book.
I really liked Viva’s illustrations and the fact that the road was shiny while the rest of the book was matte. It really gives the book a unique look and feel. I personally found the story to be a little boring and might have preferred it without words. That way I could have just lost myself in the imagery. However I can see how a simple story like this would appeal to very young children.
I think it would be really fun to have them follow the road and point out all of the people and things that are along the road. The standout here is definitely the art. I also just read on Viva’s website the following: “This celebration of cycling was created as a single, continuous 35-five-foot-long piece of art.” This actually makes me more impressed with the artwork than I already was and I would love to see this in its original 35 foot format.
I picked this book up for the illustrations and I can say that I wasn’t disappointed. While the story itself wasn’t a personal favorite, it’s a really easy read and I can see this appealing to very young children.
By: David Elzey,
on 11/30/2011
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by Matt Phelan
Candlewick 2011
Three remarkable journeys made by a trio of intrepid adventurers – Thomas Stevens, Nellie Bly, and Joshua Slocum – on the eve of the 20th century, rendered in graphic novel format.
As a prologue, we begin with the wager that sets up Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. It seems an impossible (and almost arbitrary) goal to set, but fantastical enough
Autumn has a way of making us pensive, don't you think? Of course, it makes us aware of the passing of time. This year, it's all the more true: my son is getting married in a week, and my grandson turned one year old this past week. But I don't feel old. I just feel as if I'm gathering more information about the world inside. I can only, only hope that makes me a better writer.
I get up a little slower when I've been sitting on the floor, but otherwise, I still feel as physically capable as ever. Maybe I'm fooling myself. But then again...I had a happy realization while cycling last week. I love watching the long shadows during an evening ride in the fall. What I don't love is that dark comes so quickly. Twice this year, I've squeaked home on my bike in the throes of darkness. A couple near misses. Time to mount my light for safety--just in case.
But watching my own shadow, I snapped this self-portrait. I remember how when I started riding fifteen (!!?) years ago, the guys' long shadows were so smooth; their long shadow legs looked like smooth, fast pistons stretching out, up and down the ditches as we passed. Mine looked awkward and certainly not smooth by comparison. Last week, I watched my shadow and made this happy discovery: lo and behold, somewhere, somehow in the last decade and a half of riding, my own cadence has become smoother. My legs looked like pistons, too. I'm going to relish that realization.
Then again, there's the beauty of harvest. It's sad to me because it means soon the fields will be bare and brown-black although there's a certain beauty of bounty in that, too. It also means the long Minnesota winter is too soon upon is.
The harvest itself fills my heart so full that sometimes I think it will burst (to embrace a cliche). Riding my bike alongside tractors, golden beanfields, or a combine like the one in this picture I took last week reminds me of the richness our soil still holds (IF we take care of it). The smells and sounds wash over me with memories: walking out to Dad's combine in my Halloween costume to show him my ghostly self before we went trick-or-treating; riding rounds in the combine with him, working aloud on my Confirmation memory work; just riding, my forehead pressed against the glass window (exactly as Lainey does in
Jake Riley: Irreparably Damaged), watching the grain or corn wash like a wave up into the combine header. And those glorious last autumns at home, when both my brother Bill and Dad were out in the field and they trusted me to do the chores all by myself. I felt so useful. What a good thing to feel.
There was the night when I was probably sixteen when I drove the Cub Cadet into the hog lot with a cart full of 5-gallon buckets of feed, and realized I couldn't back it out without the cart twisting sideways. I was utterly stuck. What did I do? I emptied the buckets, fed the pigs, and then straightened the cart behind the little tractor by herking it around by hand so I could back out. I don't think I ever told Dad or Bill about that and here I am, publishing it for the world. I still can't back a wagon or a cart to save my neck.
But I can ride my bike down county highways, flanked on both sides by golden, browning fields of grain and corn, an
This is my birthday week, so on my birthday yesterday, I rode 55 miles -- Eeek. That's a mile for every year. Muddy, wet, rainy, windy, puddles, grit, but I did it.
Wrote all morning, then rode, then met my writing group for a birthday party/goodbye party for dear friend Jann who is moving to Fargo-Moorhead this weekend. Then Tom took me out. What a great birthday.
Now: back to writing.
Christina K. in the rafflecopter for Love in Bloom
The illustrations look so unique - I like how they're stylized and stick to a small number of colors.
Like the idea of celebrating cycling:)
Great review! Looks good. :)