Then I can REALLY knock it.

You know the expression "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it"? Well, I'm trying an e-reader.

My local library loans them out, and though I rant and rave against those things, people who own them keep saying "Oh you should try it." So, I borrowed one.

The one I have is the Kobo, and I'm assuming it's bottom-of-the-line. It sure doesn't perform too well. Slow page turns, even slower book loads, difficult to read (maybe the contrast is too low? No option to change it.).

I have so far found two unexpected pros. First, the Kobo comes preloaded with 100 classics. This feature wouldn't appeal to a lot of people, I know, but when I scrolled through them I saw that the titles included a great deal of the books I have on my shelves. I collect literature because those books are timeless - why buy James Patterson? No reason. No reason at all.

Second, a super heavy, thick book can be annoying to pack around with you. Just for example, the Kobo already includes Anna Karenina, War and Peace, and Vanity Fair. AND, you have the option of viewing them in large print. Imagine reading a large print version of War and Peace on the bus? You'd need a collapsible lectern.

An unexpected con, though, came my way last night. I was 3/4 of the way done my annual pilgrimage through "A Christmas Carol", and was using the e-reader. I got to the famous "the colour hurts my eyes'" scene, wherein Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come are standing in the Cratchits' cottage watching Mrs Cratchit stitch on Tiny Tim's funeral linens. Bob Cratchit is about to come through the door having been to the place where Tim's grave will be. He is about to say this line:
"But however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim -- shall we -- or this first parting that there was among us?"

No matter how many times I've read it, every time I get to that line I bawl like a little tiny baby.

Not this time, though.

On the e-reader, I was COMPLETELY unable to connect emotionally to the story.

How weird is that?!



More on the e-reader later. I'm about to go get my mouth fixed (praise God).

Shame how these things work out.

Today was going to be my most dazzling post ever. I had a whole Thing plotted, and it was going to stun and stupefy you, leave you breathless with amazement.

But, Fate had other plans -- namely a dental abscess that has finally reached "overwhelming pain" level and right now I am only talking to you because of codeine.

Tomorrow a glorious root canal is scheduled and after that I should be more myself again.

Nearly forgot.

I almost forgot about posting today -- imagine!

I'm starving, so I'm going to keep this short so I can go fry up some ham and eggs, pop some bread in the toaster and drink some coffee.

Christmas baking is about to begin! I think today is List day, with maybe some shopping thrown in. Tomorrow is St Nicholas Day, the official start of Christmas for me, and my daughters always have a "Welcome Christmas" party on the 6th too. We'll make pulla dough tomorrow morning, then when their friends come over in the afternoon they can braid their own take-home pulla and then watch Charlie Brown's Christmas.

I've done the orange-and-almond Christmas cakes already (and took a picture of the fruit mixture for you - see below) - they have been drenched in Grand Marnier and are mellowing on the sideboard, wrapped in parchment, tinfoil, and plastic. Yummers!

(Maybe I should rethink my breakfast plans...)

Messy Tuesday with a vengeance.

Remember when I used to do Messy Tuesday posts? Well, what you're about to witness is the Messy Tuesday to end all Messy Tuesdays.

A few background notes for this vost:
1) the room in question doesn't usually look quite this bad - I had pulled out all the toy bins for organising;
2) the kids promised me "Mum, if you clean our room, we will DEFINITELY keep it that way until Christmas." [insert hollow laugh]; and
3) this is something I hear all the time: "Mum, we need more socks. All our socks are lost. We can't find any socks. Buy us more socks."

 

Hang spring cleaning!

The love I have for The Wind in the Willows cannot be overstated. I can't begin to guess how many times I've read it, and it still makes me laugh right out loud, and then makes me tear up and sniffle like a little boy.

My children love this book too, especially the younger, who can't get enough of little animals in velvet waistcoats acting like humans in all seriousness: she is completely dedicated to the entire Beatrix Potter oeuvre, as well.

Several times people have tried to adapt Wind In The Willows to film, with varying degrees of success. And normally I don't really hold with adaptations, only because people feel that, once they've seen It, they know all about It and don't need to read It. But this one is really, really good - so funny - and you should try it sometime this winter (it's a perfect winter movie - also it's a perfect summer movie). But you do have to give it a chance - the makeup can be a little startling at first, but once you enter into the spirit of the thing it's universally charming. The intervention scene, when Toad repents of his motorcar behaviour, is hilarious.

A little preview!

By hook or by crook.

I live far away from my sister, but the magical internet has brought us closer. We've been Skypeing lately - I put her on my kitchen counter, and she puts me on her kitchen counter, and we clean our kitchens or make an egg and toast fry-up or unload our dishwashers together. It's lovely. I even got to meet her new kitten the other day.

The only problem is that you mustn't venture far from your laptop or the other person can't hear what you're saying.

But, so fun. And, though nowhere near as good as being together, it does feel companionable.

I didn't stage this photo...if I had thought of it ahead of time, I'd have moved the port. And cleaned the fingerprints off my laptop screen. Ew!

I'm a Card-carrying Bibliophile

All year I've meant to tell you about a great present I got from Dave and Joe: the 2012 Forgotten English Calendar. They sent me a lovely box of things last December and this calendar was tucked into a corner, next to a bunch of gigantic Lindt bars and some books. Every day I peel off a new sheet, and find a funny, interesting bit of trivia regarding an old word or phrase, many of which I have read in old books.

Today's is "bibliomaniac", which is actually quite a current term in some circles. James Donald's Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 1877 says "One affected by bibliomania, book-madness, or the rage for possession." I realise guiltily that I have been infected with bibliomania in the past. I sometimes - only sometimes, mind you; I am a dedicated reader from way back - feel a restless need to acquire books utterly without regard to their actual reading value.

Here is today's entry from my Forgotten English calendar:

On December 1, 1834, a public auction was begun at Sotheby's in London to sell off about a half-million books from the estate of English bibliomaniac and Member of Parliament Richard Heber (1774-1833). It required more than 200 working days over two years. After stockpiling enormous numbers of English books, his family fortune enabled him to buy up many books in French, Italian, and even Portuguese -- languages he was quite unable to understand -- as well as in Greek and Latin, languages he had learned in childhood.

Surprisingly, Heber's last will never mentioned his collection, although most of his waking hours were devoted not to reading but to the passionate acquisition of private libraries, which were first housed in London and Oxford, then in Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent. Henry Peacham's Complete Gentleman (1622) included the counsel, "To desire to have many books, and never to use them, is like a child that will have a candle burning by him all the while he is sleeping."
***
Still - I can understand Crazy Rick's obsession with book ownership. Imagine being able to afford to not only buy up private libraries, but house them in four European cities? What a marvellous thing.

And hey - there are worse things he could have been collecting!

(I have just spent twenty minutes Googling "weird collections" for examples, but now I'm too depressed to link you to any of them.)

A demain!