A Rambling Sunday Salon... and a greyhound question

Good morning! As per the usual Sunday morning routine around here, I'm up early, sipping coffee, checking e-mail, and composing a Sunday Salon post.

It's been a busy week with very little reading and I only managed to finish one book, Ernest Hemingway: A Writer's Life by Catherine Reef. It provided just the right amount of background and now I'm ready to tackle A Moveable Feast sometime in April.

The Ladies' Paradise by Emile Zola is my 'main read', and I'll be returning to it today after several days of neglect. This is my second Zola novel, but I'm sure it won't be my last!

Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden is on my ipod and it's keeping me walking a little longer than normal (even broke into a jog yesterday... not for long though!). The story drew me in right from the beginning, and I'm already looking forward to today's walk.

I don't have an audio on CD for the car at the moment. Do any of you ever have two audiobooks going at the same time? Not sure if that would work for me...

My book group met on Thursday to discuss The Help by Kathryn Stockett - everybody loved it! The discussion was thorough and far-reaching. It was our best turnout in a year. The hosting member recently completed a kitchen remodel and we were all anxious to see the finished product. It was stunning!! We thought T.C. Boyle's The Tortilla Curtain would be an interesting follow-up. I'm already a fan of Boyle's writing and The Tortilla Curtain was one of my favorite books in 2008, so I may read his new book, The Women, instead.

On a non book-related topic, some of you know I am dog-lover that has been dog-less for the past several years. Our beloved old Brittany died, then our Bernese Mountain Dog puppy developed some serious health problems. My husband has finally (somewhat reluctantly) agreed to another dog!

I'm looking for a dog (not a puppy) that will be a 'walking buddy' for me, but fairly low key in the house. Our Brittany was unbelievably energetic (to be kind!) for about 5 years before settling into an active routine. The Berner was lovely from day one, but two other families we know also lost very young Berners and we don't want to go that route again. There was also the time spent vacuuming dog hair...

My idea this time is to adopt a retired greyhound. I've done some research, talked to the rescue group, we visited some dogs yesterday, and I'm just about ready to fill out the forms. Do any of you have any experience or advice about greyhounds to share?

After my walk and some reading, I'll be making stuffed shells to take to Palm Sunday dinner at my parents. What are you up to today?

*greyhound photo from L.A. Times

A Few of My Favorite Things - 2009

My first year of blogging has also been a fantastic year for reading. Although my totals don't even approach what many bloggers are able to read, I have enjoyed this year's books more than ever. Some of that can be attributed to more thoughtful book selection on my part, but most of the credit goes to other book bloggers. This year, exactly half the books I read were a direct result of your recommendations. Thank you!

Top 5 Books of 2009:

The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield - review here

Therese Raquin by Emile Zola - review here

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri - review here

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout - review here; my bookclub reaction here

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett - review here

Honorable Mention:

Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple - review here

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin - review here

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - review here

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo - review here

The Hour I First Believed - by Wally Lamb - review here

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto - review here

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim - review here

North River by Pete Hamill - review here

Favorite Graphic Novel/Memoir:

Ethel & Ernest

by Raymond Briggs

(review here)

Favorite Non-fiction:

Downtown: My Manhattan

by Pete Hamill

(review here)

Favorite Audiobook:

The Help

by Kathryn Stockett

(review here)

SHORT STORIES

2009 will be remembered as the year I rediscovered short stories. It's probably accurate to say that the last short story I read was in high school and, even then, I didn't particularly appreciate them. This year, I reviewed 35 short stories here and read quite a few more.

Overall Favorite Story

"The Dress" by Louise Erdrich

(review here)

Favorite Ghost Story

"The Old Nurse's Story" by Elizabeth Gaskell

(my review here; read the story here)

Favorite Holiday Story

"A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote

(my review here)

Most Powerful Story

"Chicxulub" by T.C. Boyle

(my review here; read the story here)

Funniest Story

"I Dated Jane Austen" by T.C. Boyle

(my review here; read the story here)

Honorable Mention

"The Swimmer" by John Cheever

"When Everyone Was Pregnant" by John Updike

"A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell

"Double Birthday" by Willa Cather

AUTHORS

In 2009, I read 27 new-to-me authors. Most were recommended by bloggers; several I hadn't even heard of at this time last year. I'll definitely be reading more of these favorites.

Favorite Author Discoveries - 2009

Louise Erdrich

Emile Zola

Colm Toibin

Dorothy Canfield (Fisher)

Alan Bennett

Dorothy Whipple

Banana Yoshimoto

Pete Hamill

A Reflections and Resolutions post is coming later this week.

TSS: Thank You, Santa!

Here we are... the final Sunday Salon of 2009!

Christmas was wonderful, but this weekend is all about relaxation. We hosted Christmas Eve dinner for my family (a much-modified version of the traditional Italian Seven Fish Feast), went to Midnight Mass (which now takes place at 10 PM!), then came home for a champagne toast and 'Santa business'.

Gone are the days of the 5 AM present frenzy! I was the first one up Christmas morning, and enjoyed a quiet cup of coffee while waiting for the girls. When two of the three are up, the third one is awakened (along with my husband) for stockings.

Next comes our relatively new Christmas Breakfast tradition. This year we enjoyed Nan's Baked French Toast. You can find her recipe here. I used a combination of strawberries and blueberries - it was delicious!!

Finally, it was time for presents. Everyone was delighted with their gifts. The biggest round of applause and laughter came when Daughter #1 opened her Jane Austen Action Figure! There were lots of books under the tree this year.

Here is my stack:
From the top:

A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen - Santa knew he couldn't go wrong with this one!

What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller - a recent addition to my wish list, thanks to Claire

The Women by T.C. Boyle (signed!) - Boyle, one of last year's 'discoveries', is fast becoming a favorite. This is his most recent novel.

The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich (signed first edition!) - Erdrich is one of my 'discoveries' this year. My daughter found this signed copy at her college bookstore.

A Year in Japan by Kate T. Williamson - both Eva and Staci loved this, and Santa must have heard me complaining about our library system not having a copy

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel - I guess Santa got tired of hearing me whine about the non-renewable library copy due back January 2nd!

Later, it was off to my sister's for more gifts and Christmas Dinner.

A beautiful stack of new books, but you'll never guess what I chose to curl up on the couch with yesterday afternoon.... Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf!

I was feeling very relaxed and stress-free, and figured that was the perfect frame of mind to attempt Virginia Woolf. I just fluffed the pillows, threw the afghan on my feet, and let the words kind of flow over me... and do you know what? It's working!!

There are at least a couple of failed attempts at Virginia Woolf in my past, but I think this time will be different. And just in time for Woolf in Winter, too!

Did you receive books for the holidays? What are you reading this week?

I'll be posting a year-end wrap up, my list of favorites, and a few resolutions later this week. But now, I must return to Mrs. Dalloway...

"I Dated Jane Austen" by T.C.Boyle

T.C. Boyle does many things, and he does them well. His short story "Chicxulub" is incredibly powerful. I loved his novel The Tortilla Curtain, and look forward to reading the others I have on my shelf. He also does a fabulous job reading the audio versions of his novels... which is not, by any means, a given for authors. Yesterday, I discovered that he's even dated Jane Austen!

While perusing his collection entitled t.c. boyle stories, "I Dated Jane Austen", found in the "love" section, caught my eye. Written in 1977, it tells of Boyle's date with our beloved Jane. He arrives at the Austen residence (dressed in 70's attire), and is shown into a parlor to meet Reverend Austen.

I could see it coming with the certainty and illogic of an aboriginal courtship rite: a round of polite chit-chat.

The Reverend cleared his throat. "So what do you think of Mrs Radcliffe's new book?"

Soon it's time to head out to the movies.

There really wasn't much room for Cassandra in the Alfa Romeo, but the Reverend and his troop of sons insisted that she come along. She hefted her skirts, wedged herself into the rear compartment and flared her parasol, while Jane pulled a whit cap down over her curls and attempted a joke about Phaetons and the winds of Aeolus. The Reverend stood at the curb and watched my fingers as I helped Jane fasten her seat belt, and then we were off with a crunch of gravel and a billow of exhaust.

The juxtaposition of 70's hip with 18th century manners is quite humorous.

As you might expect, things don't go exactly as planned at the movies. Boyle decides to take the Austen sisters clubbing instead, and you'll never guess who they run into!

As it turn out, you don't have to guess. This story, in it's entirety and complete with illustrations, can be found on the author's website. Click here to read it. It's short and just a lot of fun!

Visit The Book Mine Set for more Short Story Monday posts.

Chicxulub by T.C. Boyle

T.C. Boyle continues to fascinate me. I'd been slowly reading his collection, simply entitled stories, when Nymeth brought "Chicxulub" to my attention. It's not included in the collection, so I was very happy she also supplied this link to the New Yorker, where it appeared in 2004.

Boyle has me from the first sentence with this one:

My daughter is walking along the roadside late at night - too late, really, for a seventeen-year-old to be out alone, even in a town as safe as this - and it is raining, the first rain of the season, the streets slick with a fine immiscible glaze of water and petrochemicals, so that even a driver in full possession of her faculties, a driver who hadn't consumed two apple Martinis and three glasses of Hitching Post pinot noir before she got behind the wheel of her car, would have trouble keeping the thing out of the gutters and the shrubbery, off the sidewalk and the highway median, for Christ's sake. . . . But, that's not really what I want to talk about, or not yet, anyway.

There is an instant understanding here. I have three teenage daughters. I live in a safe small town. My daughters could be out walking too late at night...I don't want to continue reading this story! I think I know where it's heading.

But, Boyle is masterful. I can't stop. The story line above shifts back and forth with the narrator's musing about meteors - the Tunguska in Russia one hundred years ago, and Chicxulub on the Yucatan Peninsula some sixty five million years ago.

"Chicxulub" is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful short stories I've ever read. The story is gripping, but it doesn't end the way you would expect. I'm sorry I can't give much more of a summary - this is a story you need to experience for yourself. Boyle includes a sentence near the end that perfectly ties the two aspects of the story together. It made me pause and shake my head in admiration.

Thank you so much, Nymeth, for leading me to this story. It's one I doubt I'll forget!

John, our host from The Book Mine Set, is on vacation. If you've written a post for Short Story Monday, please leave your link in the comments so I can visit you!

(photo from the NY Times)

Modern Love by T. C. Boyle

"There was no exchange of body fluids on the first date, and that suited both of us just fine."

How's that for an opening line? "Modern Love" is the first story in T.C. Boyle's 1998 collection simply entitled, stories. The book is divided into three sections: Love, Death, And Everything In Between.

In "Modern Love", an unnamed male begins a relationship with a hygienically obsessed editor of Anthropology Today magazine. On the first date she says,

"I usually bring a disposable sanitary sheet for public theaters - just think of who might have been on that seat before you, and how many times, and what sort of nasty festering little cultures of this and that there must be in all those ancient dribbles of taffy and Coke and extra-butter popcorn - but I didn't want you to think I was too extreme or anything on the first date, so I didn't. And then the ladies room ... You don't think I'm overreacting, do you?"

The man really wants to make this relationship work, so he is willing to take things slow and, eventually, even submits to a physical exam and barrage of tests from the woman's personal physician. Of course, this relationship is doomed to fail.

T.C. Boyle is such a readable author. His writing perfectly captures the emotion and motivation of his characters. Boyle, quite simply, gets it right. Stories is one of my purchases from Friday night's library sale, and I know I'll enjoy working my way through this huge collection!

Visit The Book Mine Set to see who else has a short story post today. You can leave a link to one of your own, too.