Quote de jour

"This nice and subtle happiness of reading, this joy not chilled by age, this polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene life-long intoxication."

  ~Logan Pearsall Smith

Oh dear it happened again. A library five book pile-up. Let's get this over with, shall we? The only thing scarier is, I'm not showing everything I'm reading. First, a publicist sent the brand new memoir Changing Shoes by soap star Tina Sloan about aging gracefully. One look at the cover and I thought, hasn't this been done already? To death? I figured it warranted a quick skim but then I wanted to read more. I must be getting old or at least ready to admit my middle-aged status because I loved it. There! I said it.  Tina's warm conversational tone felt like having fizzy pink cocktails with a girl friend. She has a cute website too. changingshoes.com
 

I read with breathless interest an excerpt of Joyce Carol Oates' memoir Widow in the New Yorker. The book is being discussed, dissected side by side with Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking and I don't think it's fair to compare two very different styles. Didion's work is transcendent and raw. She remains a widow. JCO remained a widow a scant six months before meeting her current husband at a dinner party. Her story is no less riveting if not transcendent. No matter, I still bow before the feet of this powerhouse writer that knows no bounds. Nothing, not even death can stop her from her outpouring of elegiacal words. Sadly, I had to skim this and all the rest this week. That, or not sleep. I may be addicted to reading but not that much.



My favorite book this week is a compelling memoir unlike anything I've ever read. The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal traces his past via his inherited collection of Japanese Netsukes, the only remaining treasure from one of the richest Jewish European families who lost everything to the Nazis. He articulates more here.

Stephanie Elizondo griest has pulled together another excellent collection of globetrotting stories The Best Women's Travel Writing 2010. I enjoyed reading the random story while waiting at the dentist's office. It's compact size is handy for subway or airport reading.


Geo-Political prognosticator George Friedman's latest book The Next Decade falls flat and I'm out of steam.

Running on fumes... it leaves the dregs....magazines. No comment except hooray seeing fellow Canuck, the Bieber gracing the VF cover. So much fame, so fast is never good. May his next decade be healthy and yours dear reader. Keep reading.