This blog has morphed into a sort of Reading Record so I will attempt to fill in the blanks since my last post six weeks ago. I have read two books which I would not have chosen before, as both are 500 pages long. I avoid "fat" books because I read too slowly. Too many books; too little time. And both are written by British writers and I have been focusing on Canadian literature. But I have no regrets. I also read books which I discover at garage sales and which may have been on my To Read list. I consider the serendipity a kind of gift. The universe saying to me: You'll enjoy this. These include The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. I agree with her own comments about how it could have been better. And Canadian photographer Freeman Patterson's Photography and the Art of Seeing. I love how he's interested in "more than focus," in the art of the image, although I prefer his Photography of Natural Things. In the former, he avoids macro and is not big on colour, whereas I like both of these elements. Other books I've read this year but not mentioned on the blog: Ian Rankin's A Good Hanging and The Complaints (good, but I do love Rebus); Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner; Gail Bowen's Burying Ariel; Ian McEwan's Chesil Beach; Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures; Austin Clarke's Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack (not as good as his fiction). The two fat books I just finished are A.S. Byatt's Possession (check out the Bookdrum's profile), and Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native, which I will post about next. Now I've begun reading the first of three Canadian books I am scheduled to review for Prairie Fire. I also have two books waiting at the library. One continues my Lyme Regis quest; the other is related to my plan to profile a Canadian novel for Bookdrum. To be continued . . . I cannot think of an appropriate visual for this posting, so I've chosen "My life as a vacant lot." (Tongue-in-cheek.) This beautiful vacant lot is in my home town. Or a snap my cousin took of me at her house. "The true reader." Who needs more in life than a good book and a loving cat?
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