NPR Interview with Michael Chabon

I heard an interview on NPR with Michael Chabon. This is what caught my attention:

On constructing a sentence

"Sentences are the purest, simplest, most pleasurable part of writing for me. And it's the part that comes the easiest to me. It is frequently the case that I, as I am sitting and writing ... the harbinger of the sentence kind of begins to occur to me in a sort of empty, rhythmic form that has no real meaning yet ... And, you know, instantaneously afterwords, the sense of the sentence fills in that empty vessel and I'm just struggling to kind of keep up with it and get it down. But there are plenty of other times where I am just really working and working and working and working and ... I trample on that initial, beautiful, mystical sentence that emerged ... and I have to try to keep fixing it and tinkering with it. And, you know, I love that aspect of it: the shaping of sentences, the crafting of sentences, that's the fun part of writing for me."


I am currently reading his 2007 book The Yiddish Policemen's Union and am finding myself "over my head". The blurb on the book cover "At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, an homage to 1940s noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption,....."


Just did some googling and found this on wikipedia

The Yiddish Policemen's Union is set in an alternative history version of the present day. The premise is that, contrary to real history, the United States voted to implement the 1940 Slattery Report, that recommended the provision of land in Alaska for the temporary refugee settlement of European Jews who were being persecuted by the Nazis during World War II. The novel's divergence point from real history is revealed in the first dozen chapters to be the death of Anthony Dimond, Alaska Territory delegate to the U.S. Congress, in a car accident; Dimond was one of the congressmen responsible for preventing a vote on the report. It imagines a temporary independent Jewish settlement being created on the Alaskan coast. As a result, two million Jews are killed in the Holocaust,[1] instead of the six million in reality.


Maybe now it will make more sense because for the first 82 pages I kept thinking I never knew this. Still struggling with some of the yiddish words....makes all that teaching about context clues come home to roost.

Family Vacation 2012

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Found Another Cool Site

http://undergroundnewyorkpubliclibrary.com/


Wonderful pictures of New Yorkers reading on the subway

Check out this site

Although I am not particularly fond of the blog title the pictures of bookstores, bookshelves, and book storage are fabulous.

http://www.bookshelfporn.com

What Librarians Do

http://schoolzandtoolz.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-do-librarians-do-all-day.html


Had to share this! from 2010 by Jennie McKenzie from her blog schoolz and toolz

I absolutely love reading Ferrol Sams. Don't know how I missed his 2007 Down Town. Almost halfway finished and am enjoying his writing style, his phrases, his characters and setting. Can recognize the South I caught perhaps the "tail end of" by being born in the 1950s.

My son tried and tried to read him, but just can't get into his books. So obviously not for all.

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1237 Follow this link to learn more about this wonderful Georgia author.

Busy Reading, But Not Posting

Have been busy with lots of books but I have not been posting of late.

Here is a list of recent reads.....

Summerland by Elin Hilderbrand

Scarlet by A.C. Gaughan Young Adult Fiction

Baby I'm Yours by Stephanie Bond A short prequel to a series

The Sweetest Gift by Jillian Hart (A love inspired romance I purchased for my mother)



I have also been spending some time doing genealogy. Took some books back to my former library today and was talking with the new librarian. Mentioned the genealogy and she asked, "What's with it with people who retire and take up genealogy? My mother did the same thing."

Guess we have the time and we are closer to the other end of the family tree than before and want to get it all down while we still can!