I have moved...

notsittingpretty.wordpress.com

Trying this again.

Bahhh

I thought I would track my books through GoodReads, but low and behold, Amazon has taken over! No, I will not contribute.

I have deleted my account. I guess I will be doing this the old fashion way.

Amazon Buying Goodreads: Industry Reactions

New Year + 1month

I presume that no one visits this site

.. lucky you.

This site will no longer wholeheartedly contain my daily reads, cause now writing recommendations has become a part of my day job, which I came to expect and is fine by me. (I'll post these next time around, and that will be the last of it for now) - until I've read something that I have took so much pleasure in to write about it.

So ambitions - reading always, yes - and now with the underlining of being able to pass on a good story to another. (It will still and always be a selfish act in itself). But I decided to expand  Fakemeaty and have it store and show some of my paintings on a mildly serious and cynical note. The website is overdue and I am slowly working it out in my head and on paper - no, no coding yet. AND like most artist's sites - that I have seen, it will have a blog/ feed of sorts. So that's it. I am moving on-  a few more of these and splat.

Cause I'm somewhat obsessive - I do & plan on keeping track on my reads here: Goodreads.

So I technically cheated and skipped over her chapter about 30 rock, but everything else changed my life. No, but it helped me take life a little less seriously. Wondering how long will that last...

I am also in my faze of checking out books and abandoning them for whatever reason. Orwells Diaries  are fantastic, but it looks as if I will only get so far... tbc

Long ago...

I started this blog with the goal of keeping up with my reading - pondering it, for remembering cause it is not easy to, after the book is shelved away. No, I have not been blogging for you, my friends (the Internet sphere), or the one-two people that actually follow me.

I still leave the house with a book in my hand, and since I recently started working PT at the Mechanics' Institute, I've been tossed into another whirl of titles that I want to add to my to-be-read pile. ho-hum. If you have never heard of the Mechanics' Institute, to me, it is one of the greatest places on earth.


Since, I've been here last, I have read some great things - the more or less obvious.

 Save Twilight - J. Cortazar

 Essays in Love- Alain De Botton

 Train Dreams - Denis Johnson

Lolita - V. Nabokov

Blood, Bones & Butter - G. Hamilton

...and others.


I have also been dabbling in some paint. And these things are still up until mid October!

I think that's it, for now.

loves

It feels like a busy week. Nothing too pressing, but they are all minuscule things that need to be done and are adding up to take a sh*t load of time. I've been meaning to complete some side projects, (i.e. make changes to the bookstore website, create my own site for artwork, etc.), but f*ck. Coincidence that I am also reading an fantastic book right now. It is far from my usual fare, but its really really good.

 
*edit - I am usually not keen about reading an author back to back... maybe that is why I am so bad at keeping up with a series. The Kingkiller Chronicles is a huge exception. A part of it may be that its only a trilogy and that he came out with the second book, Day 2 last year (released in paperback last month or so). If it was the Song of Ice and Fire, yea I know what reading I have ahead of me. So I have found that I have had trouble explaining exactly what this book is about - and I can say what makes it so great is that is has a little bit of everything, as well as hero- or the anti-hero that all captivating stories involve.

 Kote is an innkeeper in a time and town where demons or Chandrians linger. They are known in old children's limericks and stories, but as far as the common folks know- they are just old tales. The same is for Kote or Kvothe, who is a legend with many aliases, but this innkeeper has kept his identity a secret, until a scribe, the Chronicler, recognizes him and Kote agrees to have the Chronicler transcribe his life story this one time, over a course of three days. Each book, is a day and a segment of Kvothe's autobiography. Throughout the book, we learn that Kvothe grew up as a traveling gypsy, lost his family to these Chandrians, and is on the quest to find what exactly these demons were after- as a poverty stricken kid without a family, he still has high ambitions as a musician and to learn the science/ magic of Sympathy in the University. Even though he doesn't have the means like others, he has the wit, intelligence, and charm to get accepted in the University and study with the masters. Add in a douse of sneaking into the archives, slaying dragons, fumbles with arch enemies, alchemy, intellectual debate, and keeping up with Denna (the love of his life and of apparently every other male in town).... and you have one of the best books - now underrated, but I bet will soon blow up like Miss Sellout Collins. Well only if you have the patience for 1600+ pages for the two, so far.

April 21 - August 24, 2012

Whoa, I made it!

Some fabs

For a second I felt a slight panic. After my engrossment with Grapes and the Joad family - after feeling like I had to savor every morsel and pinch a penny for my grim, jobless future- Thank the skies I didn't have to live through the Great Depression - I felt like I didn't have any reading to turn to. What can possibly follow up such a wholesome, but despairing classic?

I flipped through my piles of books, just a handful of pages at a time and had to put them down. Bend Sinister, Empire of the Sun, Downstream, Blood, Bones & Butter... plus the patient sitting of M.R. James' Collected Ghost Stories, which was loaned to me a month ago and the awful book borrower I am, don't have the patience, nor motivation to read things that are purposely made to scare. (Oh the suspense!!!) I promise to read it eventually...oye

After a recommendation from my bookseller comrade, and the perusal of the fiction stacks (a job which I am happy occupy) plus a memory of online book spiels; I am satisfied and for the mean time fulfilled.

A Giacometti Portrait (sounds like Ja-ko-met-tee) is the record of an 18-day sitting of an old friend, James Lord who modeled for Alberto Giacometti. Readers gets to tap into Giacometti's creative process and painterly insight, which is foremost humble and fervent as the portrait constantly develops and regresses under his brush. What I like the most about this is that even as a successful artist, Giacometti approaches each piece as it is his first time seeing and creating - this also proves to be defeating, possessive, and adverse at times. With each day/ chapter, there is a photo of the portrait... my one peeve is that the resolution is horrific (its more like a bad b/w photo copy of the artwork).





Yea the next book is a head turner, but only cause its such a hippie-esque title. As a fan of novels about the quintessential American, this is a quiet classic about an English Professor that was born in the poor farm land of Missouri in the late nineteenth century. He leaves to college to study agriculture to prospectively return to the farm and help his parents, but later becomes interested in English, Philosophy, and the likes. As an appointed scholar, he embraces the University and is deemed a life that is resembles nothing of the one he left.

I'll admit that as I am writing this, I am only a third of the way through but I did gleefully get through 50 pages in a sitting. The words flow graciously, in a way that reminds me of Yates and Orwell - I know that its not a cheerful story (I realize that I despise things cheerful), but as a 7-year old customer said while purchasing Lemony Snicket's last books in the series, "Not all good books have to have happy endings."


Lastly, because of my minimally employed arse, I have been taking a figurative painting course every Friday and have been painting a bit more than usual-- but far from any state of satisfaction. It may be just me, but I am finding that the more I paint, the more I am discontent with myself. Jesus! like it gets worse by the day... whatever. I can't quit. I've recently came across a lovely artist Chelsea James, who I turned to in my hasty attempt to paint something new to submit for the student art show. We'll see if they will even like what they see, but a bookstore blues piece is what came of the idea to create something from the mundane.

I have been neglecting my updating of books and such. To be honest, I've been all over the place with my reading, where usually I would become a bit peeved with my inability to finish a book. I do not feel this way at all, although I can't say that I have been 'hooked' with any one book.

Others in the pile,

• Status Anxiety by Alan de Botton
• Social Animal by David Brooks
• various art reference...

I have been hooked on reading the classics//more so contemporary than old, but this one proved to be sarcastically humorous, yet wretched. The once aristocratic are sold as slaves, but through it all infatuation, love seems to be the only hope for Candide. Throughout he asks if the world is capable of producing good


After drooling over East of Eden, I finally had the guts to ride with the Joads to California. It's been a grim, but invigorating because Steinbeck is gold. At first I was a bit shy about reading this..like I should have had it under my belt in high school, but no its beautiful and I'm damn proud.