Let Me Drink What?

So you may not know this one little fact about me:  I'm a crazy serial reader.

That's right. .  . a serial reader.

And in the last three months my appetite for the "classics" has been veracious.  I have re-read my favorite Jane Austen novels. .  .suffered my way through only one Oscar Wilde book (after being spooked by Dorian Gray, why would you venture another???). . .  worked my way through at least seven novels by Trollope (I'm not the trollope, mind you, Anthony quite clearly was). . . and - with Henry James on deck in the batter's box - I'm now thoroughly enthralled by Edith Wharton.

Or I was. . .

Until I stumbled upon the following quote by her today:

This quote. . . on this day.

The day after my return from the family "vacation" which nearly undid me. . . the very day after the very night I listened for the return of one daughter who never came home and another who departed for Boston at 4:00 a.m. . . .the day I woke up and literally hobbled throughout the house with the pain in my knees, ankles and hips. .  . the day I succumbed to a two-hour nap. . . the day I took one look at the bright beautiful sunshine and thought:  Oh how many layers of SPF clothing and how much suncreen will I need to protect myself from THAT!. . .the unmistakeable day when I decided to shut myself in my air-conditioned house and bury myself in Edith - despite the fact that there isn't an ounce of food in this house? And This is what Edith has to say to me today???

Oh Edith, how you disappoint!

So I'm changing your quote, lady.   I'm changing it to this:

Keep Closed the Windows and Let Me Drink My Box!

Playing NOOK-y!

So today was a TOP TEN DAY in the weather department. . . and my priest-boss was not in the office. .  .and I knew that my co-worker was scheduled to take the next two days off. . . and I just happened to be obsessed with. . . !ALL THINGS READING!. . . and there was, by chance, some straws on the table before us. . .

 And - armed with the longer straw - I left work shortly after lunch.

To play NOOK-y.

But I didn't quite know how to achieve the playing part. . .  for my Catholic guilt insisted on making the afternoon seem more like working NOOK-y than anything else.

Now keep in mind that I had downloaded yet-another novel yesterday (the twin sister of that book I loved so well ) and so limited myself to the first 25 pages last night. . .stifling my urge to consume all 179 pages of it's Irish-infused existence within a two-hour period . . . in order to make the enjoyment last . . .you know. . . kind of like a temperance of literature. . .

But, goodness knows, it's not every day that you get to play NOOK-Y so I was all-but-required to spend my NOOK-y time in some manner of productiveness before I was allowed to imbibe again this afternoon - waiting, just waiting, for the right time to pick up that beautifully written story that I knew was guaranteed to tug on my heartstrings and bring tears to my eyes.

So don't you know that I was thrilled to recently discover Goodreads where I can live in my own virtual library and join in on-line book clubs with other obsessive readers who I never have to set eyes on and so I spent the first two hours of my NOOK-y time cataloging my library in order to have things just so before reading that book that called to me in such a haunting fashion.

But then - horror of horrors - turns out that things were not just so on this blog . . . for the Goodreads widget was waaaaaaaaaaay too big for my blog space and so I was forced  to move to the Kindle bookshelf in order to satisfy my need to have things just so. .  .(although I can't imagine a single misguided soul ever playing KINDLE-y for an afternoon. . .much better to own a NOOK don't you think?). . . and so it was well after wine time before A Mom on Spin set her reading self down to enjoy.

And - be still my heart - enjoy I did, in such a guilty fashion, that I suddenly could not possibly consider myself worthy of being in near proximity of such lovely writing.

Writing that caused me to hold my wine glass to my chest and stop reading just to enjoy the moment.

Enjoying the moment.

A temperance of literature.

Now I ask you. . .  is that not what playing NOOK-y should be all about?

At Weddings and Wakes

A  few weeks back I was out to dinner with some friends and the conversation rolled around to book club books.

And suddenly I was a fish out of water.

Not quite in the same way, mind you, as I am when others are discussing sports, politics, current events, television shows or movies. . . but a flapping fish none-the-less.  And let me just share a secret with you:  The reason for my evasiveness when speaking of things current is that I AM TOTALLY OBLIVIOUS TO THE HAPPENINGS OF THE WORLD BECAUSE I SPEND ALL OF MY AVAILABLE TIME-AND-BRAIN POWER HOLED UP ON MY COUCH READING!!!

Well now it's become painfully clear that I can't take part in literary discussions either.  BECAUSE I READ THE MOST BORING STUFF ON EARTH!!!

Who the hell is going to discuss the merits of American Ex-pats in France in the 19th century?  Who cares about the Russian Revolution?   Hadrian's Wall?  Catherine the Great's Lovers?

Who else is blown away by the fact that Tudor and Plantagenet kings had a Groom of the Stool???  Who even knows what a Plantagenet is? Was?  Eliminated?

Can you show me another idiot who has read an entire tome on the building of The Brooklyn Bridge and another on The Panama Canal?

And tell me. . . Is there another lunatic out there who has to restrict their reading to classics and non-fiction because - if she didn't - she would find herself overly-engrossed in any novel she gets her hands on and not come up for air until it is finished?

Fish out of water, I told you.

The beached whale of book clubs. 

But see that little book at the tippy-top of this post?   I read it on Monday.   Squeezed it right between perusing the biographical notes on Tolstoy first thing in the morning and a re-reading of Pride and Prejudice after dinner.

And what a beauty she was. . .

Now I chose it - knowingly departing from my self-imposed ban on novel consumption - because it fit in with my first and foremost love which everyone knows is ALL THINGS IRISH.   And it did not disappoint.  That 163-page novel coaxed childhhod memories out of me like a turkish taffy of Irish-Catholicism.  For how else would I ever have remembered my disappointment on first biting a jordan almond?  My wonder at the floating-bakery-string-dispenser? My envy of my older brothers all-so-important altar server duties?

What a beautiful and descriptive little story this was!  And how it helped to be reminded once again that minutia matters. . .

Thank you, Alice McDermott. Thank you for helping to resurrect MY history.

And thank you for giving me something to rave about for a change.

Oh what?

Now you think I'm a RAVING lunatic???

and, guess what?

Turns out our little Alice has penned a number of books so my ALL THINGS BROOKLYN can easily morph into ALL THINGS ALICE. . . after I finish my little detour to Austenland, that is. . .

Stop the Invites!

Let's cool it on the invitations for a while, my friends.

I know that fall is almost upon us and, hence, the back-to-reality-get-togethers, birthday dinners, charity fundraisers, etc. .  .

But I need you to ask yourself one thing before you add me to your guest list for your next soiree: 

Is this particular invite helping - or hurting -

A Mom on Spin's quest

to sit on her couch and do nothing other
               but read War and Peace?

'Cause that's what it's all about my friends.  A Mom on Spin's ultimate desire to sit in my nice clean living room and devour a book. . . any book . . . depending on my current stream of interest. . .which - at this present moment - happens to be ALL THINGS RUSSIAN, and which I plan to segue into ALL THINGS BROOKLYN just as soon as I tire of Catherine the Great, Rasputin, and ALL THINGS TOLSTOY (all 4,265 pages of him!)

I'm just looking for the book entitled. . .  A Tree-Tzar Grows in St. Petersburg, and I'm there!

But by there, I mean here. .  . at home. . . in my living room. . . on my couch. . . 

Reading.

Just reading.

'Cause I'm oh-so-tired of

ALL THINGS DAUGHTERS. . .

and, p.s.?   Don't tell Drip Dry that you even THOUGHT of inviting us anywhere.   He already accuses me of being a recluse. .  .  but we know it's just a desire to be well-read.

Right????

Hanging with the Plantagenets

So if you have been lamenting my absence lately, you can blame it all on Drip Dry - for he's the one who insisted on buying me a NOOK for my birthday despite my declaration that I would never enjoy reading a book on One of those things!  But once I finished Ken Follett's new 985 page Fall of Giants in glorious hardcover, I was out of  "real" books, so I turned my attention to the pseudo-impostor book-nook.

And I haven't come up for air since. . .

That's right. . .  No blogging. No facebook.  No twitter. No emails (well, except for the 36 or so that begin, Your Barnes & Noble order has been successfully downloaded) because, you see, they didn't have all of these social media connections back in medieval England, and that's where I've been living.

In the High Middle Ages.

That was, until I entered the Renaissance.

Oh, I have read about every king, prince, bastard, and pretender to grace the Court of England since William the Conqueror.  I can trace the lineage of every duke, duchess and earl in both the House of Lancaster and the House of York.   I can name Henry the VIII's six wives backwards and forwards.  I now know exactly what the Groom of the Stool was "privy" to.   And I am waiting with bated breath for Philippa Gregory's newest book, One Queen, Two Queen, Red Queen, Blue Queen.

I would love to enlighten you all further, but I think my NOOK is now fully recharged. . .