uncategorized

When love speaks

Standard

I don’t remember my wedding vows. My husband and I wrote them together, and we stumbled through them together on our wedding day – nine years ago today. But unless I managed to find a working cassette player and listened to the recording again, I would not be able to tell you what they included. Something about love and respect, I’m sure.

But what I do remember is the reading we selected for the ceremony, which, thanks to Rufus Wainwright, we also danced to for our first dance.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29

When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possess’d,

Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least.

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

These words have held me up, held us up, through the best and worst moments. They remind me when I feel worthless that someone values me more than anything else in the world. They remind him that I love him as he is not as he expected to be to others. They remind us that just because we own less than some people doesn’t mean we have less.

These words bring us back to the moment we first said I love you, to the moment we said I do, and to each moment when we chose to stay side by side.

Happy anniversary, Sweet Pea.

Tattoos by the book

Standard

I have often thought of getting a tattoo but never have because I couldn’t find something that I thought I would love for always. But after seeing some of these literary tattoos featured on Buzzfeed, I think maybe I’ve just been looking in the wrong place.

I still would be terrified of having a typo.

What words mean enough to you to permanently add them to your body?

High/Low reading and it is all good

Standard

I arrange my books by alphabetically by author, and I track them all on an excel spreadsheet. What? There are a lot of them. I used to have more books, but several moves and two children forced me to cull our library in order to save my back and make space. I borrow most of my books from the library anyway, so it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it might when I started the process.

The results of our book purge made me laugh though, as the range my reading habits were made starkly obvious. If you check out the picture below, you’ll see Can’t Get Enough by Sarah Mayberry tucked between the covers of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.

SAMSUNG

Ha! What is more hilarious to me is that I will admit that I have never been able to make it through One Hundred Years and have never read Moby-Dick (unless you count the board book version we bought for our infant) but really can’t get enough of Mayberry’s contribution to the romance genre.

Of course, the fact that I haven’t read them is the reason why they are still on our shelf. Perhaps, I should give One Hundred Years another shot and put it on the list for this blog.

How do your shelves stack up? Any amusing literary companions?

BJL

Month One

Aside

So, December is not the month I recommend you start a blog. Whoa. Between illness and the holidays, I kinda drop the book for this blog, as it were. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that I started re: read pages and I am looking forward to writing some more, but, not unlike the writing of my book, I underestimated the effort involved in maintaining a good blog.

Thank goodness for new years and fresh starts.

Welcome back, dear Readers, and Happy New Year!

Looking at how my first month went, I am going to revise the blogging schedule. Mondays will still be book discussion, but, for the time being, I am dropping it down to a bi-weekly update, with maybe a little commentary as I read to help keep the habit up.

So, please enjoy my take on a classic novel, A Christmas Carol, which you’ll find in the next post, and we’ll start fresh for 2014.

Christmas break

Aside

I originally planned on keeping up the blog over Christmas week but now that it is upon us, I realize that I won’t be able to give re: read pages the attention it deserves and spend time celebrating the holidays.

So please come back on Monday, 30 December for re: read pages’ regular schedule and have a safe and happy holidays!

Little delay

Aside

Hi, sorry there will be a slight delay in posting my discussion of Fifth Business. I hope to have it up later this evening, otherwise, I will do a double post on Wednesday.

Thanks for your patience,

BJL

welcome to re: read pages

Standard

I am one of those people that enjoys rereading the same book. I even have multiple copies of some books, one for reading till the pages fall out and one for display (to admire its cover as much as its contents). The way authors can put together regular, everyday words and make them be more is astounding to me, and I reread those books to enjoy the feelings they evoke and to admire the work involved in being able to draw those feeling out.  

Good writing doesn’t just happen. It takes time, revision, and care. Great writing – the kind that blows your hair back, stays with you and makes you reread the same pages over and over ­­– well, that kind of writing is illusive. It requires the work of good writing and a mystery ingredient unique to each writer; 10,000 hours may make you capable but it doesn’t make you memorable.

Reading great books can be a challenge, too. Not just processing the sometimes difficult subject matter but seeing the choices an author makes to build scenes and characters. Taking apart a book to expose the thought behind the words can reveal the talent of the writer and bring the reader closer to what makes great writing great.

I hope to use re: read pages to discuss the craft of writing by looking at books or phrases that showcase that craft and to prompt me to work on my own writing (despite the crippling fear of mediocrity). The focus will be on novels, with particular interest in debut novels and the novels of one of my favourite authors, David Adams Richards.

Don’t worry if you haven’t read the book being discussed. You should still be able to form an opinion about the author’s choices that I present or react to my ideas about the book or writing in general. Also, as seems be required nowadays, there may be spoilers about the plot of the books, but, in my opinion, if the writing is great, it doesn’t matter if you know the story because it is how the novel brings you there that is the real enjoyment.

I’m sure the blog will evolve as I work out the tone and focus of the posts and add new features as I learn what is available, but I hope you will enjoy my thoughts on writing and that you will contribute your own observations, comments and critiques as part of the discussion. And, of course, I am always on the lookout for another great read, so please feel free to offer recommendations.

BJL