New Year

Just a brief reconnection. I stayed away from computers for 2 weeks. Kind of interesting to live like that. It's like getting acquainted with an old reality. As usual, I didn't do a lot of reading...but did do some. I'm still looking for the right book. I started a book called Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam. It's linked short stories. The first two or three stories were very good, very readable and compelling but after that I got bored. I'll keep reading it though. I'm trying to be optimistic. I did some research and wrote a paper once about how editors and poets decide on the order of poems in a poetry collection. It's actually very interesting and strategic so I'm thinking that it's the same with this story collection. The book won the Giller Prize which is a big Canadian book prize. Maybe some of the judges only read the first 2 stories...who could blame them really...

Judging for a literary prize would be quite the reading experience. I find it challenging just to read one book.

I'm actually writing a review of a book right now. It's called Earth Alive: Essays on Ecology by Stan Rowe. Reviewing a book is an interesting experience and changes the way that you read a book. I'm concerned with structure and how the book fits with others in the field. This book is particularly difficult because Stan Rowe sprinkles these little tidbits of wisdom and clear insights throughout the essays but because it's a collection of essays and lectures and public talks over several years, it's hard to hover above the whole and see his cohesive view of things.


So if My Year of Reading started out with my haphazard thoughts about what I was reading but increasingly began to focus on psychonavigation and journeying through reading perhaps La Lectrice Errante is going to pursue reading-levitation, my attempts to 'hover above the whole'. I hope that I can at least get off the ground...