2013 Reading Adventures

I’ve got big plans for reading in 2013. My plans are so big that realistically they will probably spill over into 2014. At a minimum I hope to read at least 35 books this year. Last year I participated in the reading challenge on Goodreads and I wound up finishing 31 books out of my desired 50. I’m hoping that my more realistic ambition of 35 books will also prove to be more achievable. We’ll see. For years my husband has been my reading buddy, we choose books to read together and discuss. Previously I broke up my reading list between a short group list of our picks and a longer personal list. This year I’m not doing that. Instead I drafted my list after discussing it with my favorite reading buddy so my list is a mash-up of both our interests and it is long enough to last me at least two years. It will be fun to see how far I can get.

Koi together by E.A. Schneider

Without further ado, here is the new reading list in no particular order:

• Tam Lin by Pamela Dean<–Done!
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens<–Done!
• The Language of the Night  by Ursula K. LeGuin<–Done!
• The Fisherman of the Inland Sea by Ursula K. LeGuin
  

  Japanese maple and stone lantern by Ellen Schneider

• Finding My Elegy by Ursula K. LeGuin<–Done!
• The Dispossessed: an Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. LeGuin
• Villette by Charlotte Bronte
• King Lear by Shakespeare
• Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Song for the Basilisk by Patricia McKillip
• The Sorceress and the Cygnet by Patricia McKillip<–Done!
• Od Magic by Patricia McKillip
  

  Japanese Maple Leaves in Autumn by E. A. Schneider

• Ringworld by Terry Pratchett
• The Black Arrow  by Robert Louis Stevenson
• These High, Green Hills  by Jan Karon
• The Awakening  by Kate Chopin
• Burn by Daniel Swenson
• The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
• Once On A Time  by A. A. Milne
• A Farewell to Arms  by Hemingway
• Their Eyes Were Watching God  by Zora Neale Hurston
• White Noise by Don DeLilo
• The Prelude by Wordsworth
• The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• The Wasteland and Other Poems  by T.S. Elliot
• Manifesto for All  by Tracy McClusker
• Letters From Nowhere by Tracy McClusker
• The Stars My Destination  by Alfred Bester
• The Devil Wives of Li Fong by E.H. Price
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
• The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
• Bully for Brontosaurus by Stephen Jay Gould
• The Flamingo’s Smile by Stephen Jay Gould
• The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin
  

  Tree in Black and White by Ellen Schneider

• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
• Phantastes by George MacDonald
• A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony
• The Book of Heroes by Miyuki Miyabe
• Ico: Castle in the Mist by Miyuki Miyabe
• The Souls of Black Folk  by W.E.B. DuBois
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton
• The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick
• A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
• The Well At the World’s End  by William Morris
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Vonnegut
• Cold Days by Jim Butcher
• The Codex Alera  by Jim Butcher
• Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley<–Done!
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
• Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
• Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
  

  Lantern in Autumn by Ellen Schneider

• The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather
• Kwaidan: stories and studies of strange things by Lafcadio Hearn
• 100 selected poems by e.e. cummings
• Snow Country by Y. Kawabata<–Done!
• Flatland: a romance of many dimensions  by Edwin Abbott Abbott
• The Phoenix and the Carpet by Edith Nesbit
• Arabian Nights
• Book 1 of the Journey to the West
• Maurice by E. M. Forster
• The House on Mango Street by Cisneros
• The Silmarillion  by J.R.R. Tolkien
• A Canticle for Leibowitz  by Miller
• Dune  by Frank Herbert
• Moon Over the Back Fence  by Esther Carlson
• The Dreaming Place by Charles DeLint
• Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears by Datlow and Windling
• The Charwoman’s Shadow by Dunsany
• Mermaid and Other Water Spirit Tales from Around the World  by Heidi Anne Heiner
• Bluebeard Tales from Around the World by Heidi Anne Heiner
• Twelve Dancing Princesses Tales From Around the World by Heidi Anne Heiner
• Rapunzel and Other Maiden in the Tower Tales From Around the World  by Heidi Anne Heiner
• Cinderella Tales From Around the World by Marian Rolfe Cox and Heidi Anne Heiner

Yes, there are 76 works on that list with some works comprising multiple volumes. Granted the above list is supposed to last me through 2013 and 2014 but like the dates of a calendar I have every confidence that these coming months will come and go faster than a chamealon’s tongue. With Providence I hope to make a mighty fine dent in that list and be the better for the effort by this time in 2015. As I go I will blog about my progress and my pondering regarding each title I read. I owe you all a wrap up on my 2012 reading and if you stay tuned I will be delivering that soon. In the meantime, do you have any reading ambitions for the coming months, dear reader? What books and why? Thanks for stopping by here a the pond and may your appetite for good books be voracious and your reading be plentiful.

Riffle in the Stream by Ellen Schneider

Hullo, 2013, nice to meet you

Hello again, dear readers! I know it has been a while. The holidays hit me like a truck and I am afraid this blog has been dreadfully neglected as a result.

As January comes to a close soon I thought I had better jump in and say hello again to all of you and this new year. During this holiday season I had my hands full hosting Thanksgiving and then being a crafty Christmas Elf. While I couldn’t recapture the peace of last Christmas’ effortsI did manage by grace and tea and good company to make some homemade holiday magic for some of the people I care about. Without further ado here follows some of the crafty gifts I made for people this fall and Christmas 2012.

My gorgeous Tofurkey roasts (there are two there). Come on, you know you want to try some, all you carnivores out there who are not allergic to soy!

Front of Bedside Organizer

Back of Bedside Organizer I made

I made someone special a bedside organizer as an Un-Birthday present. I got the pattern from the book One Yard Wonders by Patricia Hoskins and Rebecca Yaker. This was the first project I made from that book and it was pretty easy to do. I look forward to making more as the opportunity comes along.

Once again, the centerpiece of my Christmas crafting was the Quillow. I made quillows for several special people.

Quillow fronts all done.

Peanuts Quillow

Elk Quillow

Butterfly Quillow

Canadian geese quillow

Fisherman Quillow

I planned the design for these quillows over the course of weeks. I managed to finish them though within 48 hours right before Christmas using store-bought microfiber throws and lots of tea. I have to admit I did feel especially Elf-like working right up to the minute like that.

I also made some small non-quillow crafts. I am, I confess, still working on a hand full that will yet be sent out this winter. After all, nobody knows when Jesus was born and a box of presents is usually a welcome thing.

Front of Christmas hot pad

Back of Christmas hot pad. I think these penguins are so cute.

Hot mitts decorated with yo-yos.

Close-up on yo-yos. These hot mitts match a tea cozy I made my mom a while back. Now she can handle hot tea pots in cozy style.

Bear fabric ornaments in progress.

I also made some quilted Christmas ornaments using the novelty bear fabric you see above. Using a pattern I found in a magazine I basically quilted the bear fabric, batting, and a simple green holly fabric together. Then using pinking shears I cut around each bear square. All I had to do was add a cute holiday ribbon and I got 22 easy quilted ornaments. Of course I neglected to take a picture of the finished ones but hopefully you get the idea.

Finally, there were Christmas cookies that I made with one of my favorite people.

Tower of Christmas cookies. Huzzah!

All in all it was a fun Christmas. I feel very blessed to have so many special people in my life to care about.

Hopefully the holiday season was a joyful one for all of you, dear readers, and that 2013 is well begun.  I’m not a great one for making New Year’s resolutions per se but I am a list-making junkie with a big list of creative goals for 2013, one of which is posting here more often. I did pretty well at meeting my goal from last year of three posts a month until I got busy with work. This year I’m hoping to do at least one post a month and with any luck I’ll surpass that goal. Did any of you make any creative resolutions for this year? Did you have an especcially great Christmas craft project? I’d love to hear about it in the comments section and stay tuned for some upcoming book discussion.

So long, Summer & goodbye, October, it’s been fun

One serving of autumn by E.A. Schneider

It’s almost Halloween, the culturally accepted end of summer here in the states was Labor Day and we’ve all been enjoying pumpkin flavored everything for two months. Trees have long since turned to colors other than green as the chlorophyll retreated revealing the spectrum of substances that have been there all along. As is my custom I am sitting here reflecting upon my reading over the past several months, what it has meant to me, and what I will be reading in  winter over the long months before we see the chlorophyll in the trees again here in cheese-land. The summer was marked by some vexation in my literary ambitions. Frankly I was bested by a rather poorly written book. My momentum of reading energy was checked when confronted with the morass of imaginative potential and lack of skill that is Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. Prior to attempting Lindsay’s book I had been booming along on my reading list. Since I made the decision to officially set aside the book for the foreseeable future I have made more progress. Just to remind you what I originally set out to do I have copied my reading lists below from an earlier post.

The Group List of Summer 2012

1. Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon  <–I’m reading this in lieu of Gravity’s Rainbow since I failed to read it (hanging head in shame). <–Done
2. The Prelude by William Wordsworth
3. King Lear  by William Shakespeare
4. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
5. The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels<–Done
6. Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne <–Done

Ellen’s Summer 2012 Reading List!

1. Ringworld by Terry Pratchett
2. Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit<–Done
3. Tam Lin by Pamela Dean
4. Changes by Jim Butcher<–Done
5. Ghost Story by Jim Butcher<–Done
6. The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
7. The Master of Heathcrest Hall by Galen Beckett<–Done
8. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf<–Done
9. These High, Green Hills by Jan Karon
10. Song for the Basilisk by Patricia McKillip
11. Voyage to Arcturus by D. Lindsay
12. The Borrowers  by Mary Norton<–Done
13. The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
14. The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery<–Done
15. The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
16. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
17. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
18. The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle<–Done
19. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
20. Parker Pyne Investigates   by Agatha Christie
21. Nightwatch by Sergei Lukyanenko <–Done
22. Villette by Charlotte Bronte

In addition to the above I also wound up re-reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and most of Emma by Jane Austen when I found myself unable to face another page of Voyage to Arcturus. Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin has become my lunchbox book, so far so good, it is an enjoyable read. Currently I am formulating my 2013 reading list. It will be an overly ambitious combination of books from the above list which I didn’t get to and books that I hope to read with my better half. Over the next couple weeks as I finish this list I plan to post capsule reviews of my thoughts regarding what I read over spring, summer, and early fall as well as some lovely photos of mine. Happy reading and happy October, dear readers, thanks for joining me here at the pond.

Japanese Maple in Autumn by Ellen Schneider

Flash Fiction: Cinderella’s Ghost

Wisconsin Life on Wisconsin Public Radio hosted a flash fiction contest judged by Wisconsin author Patrick Rothfuss this fall. The requirements: a 600 word or less polished piece of ghost story fiction. I didn’t win so you won’t be hearing my story performed on the air by talented radio actors but you can see the winning entries here. It’s okay. I was just happy to be writing and competing. As you read the story below you can imagine a talented cast of radio actors performing my little piece of spine-tingling fun. This whole exercise has also given me a new idea for a novella which I count as a win. I hope you enjoy my piece of otherworldly fiction, comments and criticisms would be good. This time two of my photos rescued from my long-sleeping damaged hard drive formed the inspiration for this story; I hope you enjoy them. As always, thanks for joining me here at the pond, dear readers.

Inspiration:

Water spirit by E.A. Schneider

Cinderella’s Ghost

by E.A. Schneider

The other people at the hotel called the nightly visitor Cinderella’s ghost.  It was the hallmark of Chateau Wasser: “Enjoy a romantic getaway full of Old World charm and otherworldly wonder!” was written across the brochure, which depicted a watercolor sketch of a feminine shape rushing downstairs.  The gritty truth, of course, is that it’s a scam. Yeah, sure, once upon a time somebody living here saw a young woman rushing down the stairs in a ghostly way, cried “spirit,” and a local legend was born.  Me, I don’t buy it, but I have to sell it as part of my summer job.

By day, I bus tables at the house restaurant, the Gingerbread Haüs, but by night I flex my acting pecs by donning a pearlescent gray gown, pale cake foundation, and a silver gray wig. They cue the fog machine and the recessed stair lights, and then I go rushing down the front stairs to the drive as the bell in the tallest tower tolls twelve.  Underneath my look of alarm and embarrassment, I am laughing every step of the way.  I do a good job playing ghost; the guests line up to watch me run, and people keep coming back since I took the gig.  My boss keeps saying to me, “Claudia, you keep packing people in like this and I’ll give you a raise.” I’ll believe it when I see it, especially after last night.

See, last night I showed up late to my cue.  The Haüs was packed and my replacement was a no show.  This was bad — we had a full house to see the ghost show as part of some paranormal Pennsylvania bus tour.  Not the night to show up late.  When the bell tolled midnight, as I sprinted to the dressing room just off the main stairs, I saw her through the downstairs window: a woman all in silver grey dashing down the stairs, losing her left shoe on the final step and disappearing into the gloom beyond the lights and fog.  I thought it was one of the upstairs maids covering for me; she looked a little slender for the costume, but she’d done a great job.  The girl even looked alarmed, like she really was fleeing from something terrible.  I didn’t recognize her face, but then I didn’t know the housekeeping staff. What would I say to my boss? He’d just come downstairs from watching the show with the bus tour guide.

“Claudia! Fantastic job.  The tour guide says that some of the guests’ paranormal readings are off the charts.” A chill crept up my back as he laughed.  “Say, Claudia, how did you get changed so fast?”

“Sir, I’m sorry, I was late tonight.”

“What?”

“I think one of the upstairs maids must have covered for me.” Now he was turning gray, laughter fading from his face.

“Two. There are only two maids tonight and they watched the show with us upstairs.”  We blinked at each other as the implication sunk in. I turned and went into the dressing room, my boss at my heels. There, exactly where I had left them, lay my costume pieces and makeup. My boss went outside to look for the shoe, but he didn’t find it. Now I’m sitting here at my dressing table, looking at my pale reflection, and I have to wonder: if I go on tonight, will I be alone in the fog? -574 words

Inspiration: 

Caryatid in tears by E.A. Schneider. Photo taken in Allerton Park in Illinois.

Freedom to Read

Happy Banned Books Week, dear readers! For 30 years the ALA has been putting on Banned Books Week and the the world is a richer place as a result. Last year I posted several times about the importance of fighting censorship and fostering intellectual freedom. Hopefully this year I can do the same and catch-you-up on my reading adventures from the summer. In the meantime do please explore Banned Books Week events online and in your area. I found this list especially provocative given just how many titles on that list I have read and love. How about some discussion here. Do you, dear readers, have a particular favorite book that has made the banned or challenged list? If so, what titles and why do you like them? Do you think that part of what makes that book special is part of why the book was censored?

Inquisitive Dove by E.A. Schneider

Flash Fiction Fun: Migrations

Hello, dear readers, I have returned to my beloved pond to share some flash fiction with you today. Yes, I’m a welcher, I have yet to deliver on my promise of a blog post about all my summer reading. It will come and come soon I hope but in the meantime I had to share a moment of Grace with you. This weekend whilst continuing my battle to organize and set up my creative lair I found something I thought I had lost forever, something I was beginning to doubt had ever existed: a travel drive I made backing up some of my photos. This is important because I thought I had made this travel drive about two weeks before my old computer crashed. When that computer crashed I lost thousands of photos. Photos of friends, trips, weddings, and all the photos I had taken for art’s sake and edited for hours to bring out their beauty. I was undertaking a cycle of back-ups, starting with this traveldrive, when the computer crashed and I lost so much I thought I would have plenty of time to protect. I was heartbroken. My heart still hurts to remember it, my eyes start to tear. This weekend I finally managed to get my old hard drive sent off to experts, experts I hope will be able to salvage what I lost, but they might not. Everything might be well and truly gone save from my memory. I think about these photos often, even in my dreams, but this weekend I found myself selfishly praying that I’d get another chance to see them again. That’s when I found my travel drive at the bottom of a box under a pile of pencils and old greeting cards. The drive doesn’t have everything I lost but it has a lot of important shots, shots I feared I would never see again. They are now backed up in multiple places and I’ve been smiling all day at odd moments just thinking about them. I feel the touch of Grace in this and I am humbly grateful. To celebrate I share with you the following piece of flash fiction, the first creative writing I’ve managed to achieve in weeks. It’s rough, it’s short, but it’s fiction I wrote and I can’t help but feel optimistic that I’ll be writing more soon. Between the Grace and the crisp fall air and my return to the realms of fiction how could I not feel hopeful? Here’s hoping you find some hope and a smile in this piece of fiction too.

Inspiration:

Nightmare tree or dream tree? by E.A. Schneider

Migrations 

by E.A. Schneider

I told her to stay away from the tree. Sarah never listens to me though, never has and now of course she never will. Why did we go out there anyway? It isn’t a picturesque spot. That part of the wood is just cold, dark, creepy; the kind of place nightmares get conceived.  This is pathetic. I can’t remember anything. How come people in the movies can always remember every detail when they’ve been traumatized? I don’t think it works that way at all. One minute Sarah and I were by the tree in the morning and the next I was by myself in this field and there are stars out. Is anyone looking for us? Did anyone know we were going to Cauly Park? I just don’t know. I’ve got to think. What do Sarah and I do? We walk through the woods. We peer through binoculars and our Sibley guides and we trash talk each other’s life lists. Yesterday she saw an Alder Flycatcher and I was dissing it.

“My Horned Lark is so way cooler.”

“Yeah right, Alfy.”’

Veery. Catharus fuscescens. That’s what we were looking for; the flyway goes through Cauly park, the fall migration is in full swing. The equinox just happened, the sea change of the seasons and every living thing is responding to the new rhythm including the perennially bird obsessed. Neither of us had the Veery on our lists, we were determined to be the one to spot it first. We just kept walking into the wood, we kept looking until we stopped by that tree. I didn’t like it. Something about the way it seemed to rise up from the Earth with those long grasping arms alongside a gaping mouth just seemed hungry, predatory, in a “you look like a tasty morsel” kind of way.

“Sarah, I think we should leave.”

“Look at that tree, Alfy!”

“I am looking, it’s creepy, and there are no birds.”

“Oh c’mon, you like creepy.”

“I like Vincent Price and Edgar Allen Poe by the fire, not predatory trees in a forest.”

“Alfhild Agnes Eklund, don’t be a wuss.”

“What do you want from me, Gertrude Sarah Anderson?” That got me a look.

“C’mon, walk widdershins with me.”

“No.”

“This tree is perfect, just look at it.”

“I am looking and I still say no.”

“Seriously? Alfy, you know nothing is going to happen, don’t you? It’s a game. There is no Faerie out there.”

“Sarah, that’s neither here nor there. Let’s just go, okay?”

“I’ll prove it to you, Alfy. Just watch.”

“No, stop,” please I wanted to add but I didn’t get the chance. The last thing I remember is Sarah’s laughter; blue eyes wide, I could almost see the speech bubble hanging from her lips saying there’s no such thing as Faerie. I had reached for her. My fingers still felt the damp and the smoothness of the sleeve of her raincoat; I had just managed to touch it as she completed the circle of steps.  Then I woke up here in a prairie I don’t recognize under stars, stars I don’t know. Did I lose Sarah? Or did Sarah lose me? This might be the start of a very interesting story; at least I still have my binoculars. I just hope Faerie has birds.

Word Count: 553

Food for Thought

Overall I’ve made a conscious effort to keep Technicolor Lily Pond apolitical. It is meant to be a haven of imagination, a place for creative expression, and fun intellectual discussion. I talk books, photos, fiction and crafts more than anything else and somehow I’ve managed to attract a number of wonderful readers with my eclectic interests. I hope that this tiny little dose of American politics won’t drive all of you away. Thanks to my husband over at Catecinem I found something really interesting and I want to share it with you. I took the political quiz offered over at iSideWith.com and I was very surprised by the results but in a good way. See, I’ve long thought of myself as a very moderate voter who is not represented by either major political camp. This is a depressing feeling, this feeling of political powerlessness, homelessness really. I was raised knowing all the names of the major American suffragettes. I was the kid with major historical women trading cards. My family took a vacation to Seneca Falls, NY just so we could all read the names of everyone who signed the Declaration of Sentiments, the first step in the journey of women’s suffrage in this country; two of those names were my ancestors. You could say that I was raised to be a uniquely passionate voter and I’ve become a very sad one of late years.  The results of the test below surprised me because I thought that I would have about 30-40% tops in common with any given candidate or party, what I would call an F grade. Yet, that is not the case. The way I think (at least  when I took the test on Friday morning) shows that I have a lot more in common with the candidates, the parties, and my fellow voters than I would have guessed. Now I reserve the right to change my mind. In fact I plan to do my homework on the issues, the candidates as well as their parties and re-take the test in a few weeks to see how my responses and therefore the results might change. We’ll see. There’s a line from Star Trek: Enterprise that I love which feels especially trenchant just now. “Where I come from everything is up for debate,” so said Captain Jonathan Archer. I think that is one of the best lines of Star Trek and that universe has had more than its share of doozies. Like many Americans I think I have become complacent with unhappiness, with political branding, with the feeling that things are the way they are and we’re all stuck with what we’ve got when that is just plain not the case. The government outlined by the U.S. Constitution allows for legislative trial and error, for consensus building, and for gradual but effective change. Everything is up for debate, there are choices and options, it all just takes time which is a good thing for the country even if it tries the patience of a short-attention span media driven populace. You won’t see me going door to door for any of these parties or wearing buttons or slogan emblazoned T-shirts; at most I’ll be making an informed vote for someone to-be-determined come November which is an achievement in itself. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that it’s just nice to know that there are options and that there are elements of common ground in this country if the electorate and the elected choose to explore them. This just gives me hope and I hope that this little post helps you find some too. Thanks for joining me here at the pond, dear readers, stay tuned for my next post discussing my summer reading adventures.

My results from iSidewith.com