Still Life with Book Maven

Greetings, readers. Today I’m starting something new and different — and while I don’t plan to blog about it every day, I do want to share it with you because I think it’s such a great combination of real-life action and online interaction.

My friend Bindu Wiles is offering a yoga/writing practice called “21 5 800,” which means 21 days, 5 days a week, of writing 800 words combined with at least 15 minutes of yoga (we all have the choice of taking a class, using a DVD, or spending time in savasana/corpse pose). 

I’m a yoga newbie, so I’ve chosen the savasana option, and I’ll be listening to Taize chants each day to encourage mindfulness. I haven’t set a daily time for writing, although one may naturally emerge.

I’ll be writing a new passage of my novel-in-progress…”in progress” now for something like five years! I can’t wait to see where this focused challenge will lead my characters and plot.

If you’re reading this, there’s a chance you’ve been reading my various blog iterations for a while — loyal readers are the only kind I have. All two of them! I should call my blog readers “The Few, The Proud, The Patient.” Sometimes I go months without blogging. So far, since 2004, I haven’t gone years without blogging, but never say never…

One of the first blog “features” I “invented” was a regular post called “What’s On Your Nightstand?” I had just become the Books Editor at AOL, and we were trying to gently pull AOL users out of the message board chat rooms and into the light of blogginess. (Upshot: What a mess! There was a reason those chat rooms were popular; they were the true precursor of Facebook and Twitter. But that’s another story for another day.) While I wasn’t then and remain sadly less community-minded than I should be, I did want a blog spot in which I could hear about what other people were reading, wanted to read, looked forward to reading, recommended to others…

Yeah. I totally napped while others invented Goodreads etc. That brings back painful memories of an AOL interview in which one of the company’s enfants terribles repeatedly snapped the fingers of both hands in succession in front of my face while barking “What’s the killer app for books? What. is. the. killer. app. for. books?” They hired me anyway. AOL no longer has a Books Channel. Res ipsa loquitur.

So OK, so all right, I’m not an Internet visionary. I accept that. What I am is a woman with great taste in books and a certain amount of writing talent, which is why after AOL gave me the boot I blogged for two years for Publishers Weekly (when they stopped paying bloggers, I stopped blogging; that’s also another post for another time, and in no way reflects on the current Publishers Weekly as they are now independent and heading towards a bright future), and then was given a wonderful opportunity at WETA-PBS here in the DC area which is my current gig, The WETA Book Studio.

I love posting things on The Book Studio, but it’s a different animal altogether than this sad, neglected Still Life with Book Maven blog. No longer! I’m filled with new purpose and energy and would like to channel it into something more productive than scrubbing the crevices in my kitchen with Simple Green and a putty knife. Whoops, TMI…

So: What IS on your nightstand? Share one title, share twelve. This is different from my Tweetmeme #fridayreads. Friday Reads is all about what you’re actually reading. WOYN is all about your TBR stack. The more titles, the merrier. 

As for my own TBR pile, it includes the following titles, all of which are in different stages of Being Read: 

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

A Curable Romantic by Joseph Skibell

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

The Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn Taylor

Serena by Ron Rash

Bloodroot by Amy Greene

Amandine by Marlena di Blasi

Oh the shame…but really, that’s what this feature is all about: Confession. Which books are you neglecting? Which books are you struggling with? Which books are the ones you can’t put down? Tell me, lads and lassies. I’m listening.

SPOILER ALERT: Far down in this post I discuss a couple of plot points in Elizabeth George’s latest Inspector Lynley novel, “This Body of Death.” Feel free to skip if you don’t want to know a thing…

I told you I was going to start blogging again…and I’m going to bring back several of my old “features,” including “What’s On Your Nightstand?” One of those old features was “Character Flaws,” in which I reconsider famous or archetypal characters from literature. Since I’m unbelievably lazy and careless about adding tags and categories to my blog post, you may not be able to find all of the former entries. However, since there were only two or three, you’re not missing much.

Ha! Ha! Well, that will change. I’m back and with a renewed sense of bloggy purpose, which brings me to today’s subject: Inspector Thomas Lynley, the blonde, blue-blooded, and bloody complicated chief detective of Elizabeth George’s mystery novels.

I’ve been a huge fan (yes! I said “fan,” not “reader” — sorry, but that describes it best in the case of books in series) of George’s books since the first in the Lynley/Havers/St. James series came out in 1988, “A Great Deliverance.” I was hooked early and hard by the quartet of genteel English people at the series’ center — Thomas Lynley, Simon St. James, Deborah Cotter, and Lady Helen Clyde. I blame the aunt who introduced me to Agatha Christie; from there it was a slippery slope to Margery Allingham, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Minette Walters, and so many more authors who penned (and pen) mystery novels that use the British class system (to a greater or lesser extent) as one aspect of their work.

Thomas Lynley, AKA Lord Asherton (he’s the 8th Earl thereof), has always struggled with his noble lineage and status. I know that  many of my fellow readers may disagree with me, but I’ve never bought into Lynley’s figurative forelock-tugging about his rank and privilege. He moans about it and tries to get all of his fellow police officers to treat him like one of the chavs when he’s on duty — but he has little compunction all through the series about using his family’s inherited lucre to indulge his propensity for Saville Row togs and very, very, very expensive vintage automobiles.

Also, let’s face it: He couldn’t marry Deborah, the daughter of his valet Joseph Cotter. He went for Lady Helen Clyde, she of the silly shoes and thinly developed personality (notice I did not say “thinly developed character;” I think Elizabeth George is very deliberate, canny, and smart about what she chooses to emphasize in her books).

In “This Body of Death,” the newest Elizabeth George Lynley novel, “Tommy” Lynley has another choice to make between the lower- and upper-class women in his life. This time, it’s not just personal and/or romantic, either; it’s personal and professional. (See? I told you George is deliberate about these things. Even if you don’t care for this novel — and my colleague Maureen Corrigan certainly didn’t — it’s wonderful to see George’s wheels turning as her career progresses). Will Lynley give his loyalty (and his kisses) to new Chief Inspector Isabel Ardery, or remain connected in solidarity and friendship to his former partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers?

For me, “This Body of Death” will stand as the series title in which Elizabeth George tears the shrink wrap off of her Ken doll of a character, Lynley, exposing him to light, air, and his own limitations. There’s a particularly poignant scene in which Lynley meets Havers at a motorway Little Chef (sort of the British equivalent of a Denny’s). His distaste at her eager consumption of a fry-up lunch, his obvious discomfort at having his superb auto in the parking lot, and his growing disaffection for his old team make the reader as uneasy as Barbara.

Lynley is a right toff, in other words. How fabulous! Instead of trying to make all of her characters politically correct, Elizabeth George is choosing to make all of her characters complex. I look forward to what happens next. The books, taken individually, may be uneven. The series, taken as a whole, is a triumph.

Greetings, readers, friends, colleagues. I’ve been away from blogging for a while, and I finally miss it. I needed the hiatus. I’ve been blogging about books, authors, and publishing for nearly six years, and these past six entry-free months have cleared some cobwebs from my brain’s cluttered attic.

Of course, I haven’t been inactive. I’ve been tweeting furiously (as you probably know if you’re reading this, since the only people reading this will be friends who have stuck by through my Twitter Era). I’ve been on Facebook a little bit more than usual, and I’ve been out and about in real life, too.

However, it’s time for me to crank up the the old Word Press machinery and jump back in. 

OUCH. I don’t want to jump! I have blisters on blisters after Book Expo America 2010…

I’ve been attending these conventions since BEA was ABA, you whippersnapper bloggers, you. Why I’ve even gone to BEA pregnant (and being pregnant in Chicago in the June heat while walking a far more massive trade-show floor than now exists is not my idea of a good time). But my years have not added to my wisdom, alas. 

It’s true: I am still too vain to simply give in and wear tennis shoes with socks to BEA. Yet my feet are so sensitive and my back so cranky that there is virtually no shoe other than the tennis shoe (the puffier, the whiter, the more moon-boot-resembling the better) that can help me avoid blisters while still supporting the rest of my body weight. Every pair of shoes I’ve tried causes a new set of pain points. (May I mention now the agony of open/peep toe shoes at a trade show? Blisters on TOP of toes are awful.)

Friends who have accompanied me from show floor to dinners and parties know too well the cries of “Wait! Wait! I can’t walk that fast. You don’t mind if I take off my shoes and walk ten blocks on dirty NYC pavement, do you? My feet hurt too much! I need a cab! Ouch! OH my God, you are so lucky to be a man/be wearing flip flops/have no foot issues.”

Fortunately for me, my friends, and the industry at large, I can soon shut up forever about my aching feet, because I’ve found the solution: These Thierry Rabotin black ballet flats. Yes, they cost a pretty penny — but they are beyond comfortable, causing no blisters yet also supporting the back and arch.

I’m afraid that the maker will discontinue this style, so I may have to buy two or three pairs to stockpile for my ever-faster-approaching dotage. Simple, classic, comfortable, but more important? They’re NOT TENNIS SHOES.

Vanity, thy name is Bethanne Patrick.

I’d love to hear your own tales of BEA Shoe Madness — or perhaps you have a) found a great solution b) given in and only wear Dansko Professional clogs or c) become a man due to their far more sensible approach to footwear.

You may have read my previous blog post about the Twitter Book Tour I’m conducting this week for Juliet Schor and her new book “Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth.” 

For those of you who stop by for one of the events (today’s starts at noon!), I thought I’d provide a little more info about Schor and “Plenitude:”

Schor’s Bio

Juliet Schor co-founded and co-runs The Center for a New American Dream

Synopsis of “Plenitude”