Books We Like!

Discovered this morning on alternet.org, this new way to order books online:

blue people,
fertilize media revolution every time you buy a book (or cd or dvd) online.

Books We Like is "activist e-commerce", a way for progressives to use their online book purchases to effect change, by collectivizing their online book purchases (Amazon, Powells, etc.). BWL facilitates that, maximizing the resulting sales commissions, and pooling them to fertilize progressive independent media.

Every book purchase captures about a dollar that would otherwise go uncollected; that's potentially millions per year! (includes all subsequent purchases during that session, so start here for CDs and DVDs too.)
100% of profits go to public-interest media efforts, of which BWL is a good example.

So, I went there immediately, registered and made some recommendations.  My name there is gypsymoth, but my recommendations are all pretty much things I've written about here.  Anyway, check it out.  A way to help progressive causes and get the books you want.  Also to connect with a bookish progressive community.  What a deal!

SOLSTICE WISHES

Here at the gateway of the year,
                          may we strive to make good cheer.
                         In our revels shall joy abound
                          and sorrow be cast underground.

In my other journal, I have been posting a few entries about the Winter Solstice, the midwinter celebration that predates Christmas, and showing how many of our traditions during this season are inherited from the days of the nature religions.  The choice of the 25th of December as the birthday of the Christ Child is complex and arbitrary, many other dates were used in earlier times.  Long before the appearance of  "an obscure wonder-worker in Palestine, the celebration of the Midwinter sun held a central place in civilizations throughout the ancient world." (The Winter Solstice, John Matthews, pg. 13) 

In the modern world we barely notice  that during this week we have passed the mid point of the dark season, the shortest day;  that from this point on the days grow longer, the sun brighter, that nature has stepped over the border of the year, that we move toward the season of planting and growth, the season of life. 

But we have - and I wish any readers of this journal good tidings, may you have a holiday filled with peace, joy, rest and comfort, love and merriment.  Wassail!

RECENT READING

Before I left for my Texas visit, I finished Perri Klass' novel The Mystery of Breathing.  Klass is herself a baby doctor, and her novels deal with the world of hospitals and sick children.  Which might sound depressing, but is not.  She is a fine writer, and I suspect she is also a fine doctor.  This novel takes place in the particularly scary world of neonatology intensive care, where the babies are very premature and the mystery of breathing is a daily struggle.  It is a mystery of sorts, as Maggie, the MD central character, has become the victim of a harrassment campaign, carried out by person or persons (and reasons) unknown.  She is a complicated character, arrogant and proud, but vulnerable and lonely at the same time.  I didn't like her very much at the beginning of the book, but as I lived with her through her professional and personal crises, we bonded.  I can't say much more without giving away critical elements of the story - I will say that this book brings us into a world seldom visited by any but the medical personnel and parents whose babies are fighting for their lives in an NICU.  The fear factors here are the life and death struggles of tiny infants and the doctors and nurses who take care of them.  I held my breath through many passages of medical procedures.  But I loved this book.

On the flights to and from Texas I read Augusten Burroughs' much touted book, Running with Scissors. It's been around for a while, so you've either read it or read about it.  Unlike most, I utterly disliked this purported memoir.  Though he's writing about extremely emotional events, I felt no emotion in the writing.  It all felt distanced, untrue, unreal, unfelt.  This may have been on purpose, perhaps it's the only way to write about such a disfunctional youth - but for me this book was words on paper only.  No matter how outrageous the events and characters, they remained cardboard cutouts, never flesh and blood.  I won't read any more Burroughs, that's for sure.  Too many other books, too little time.

MAKING YOUR LIST, CHECKING IT TWICE

Forwarded to me by one of my sisters this morning.  Since few people of any persuasion read this journal, I won't worry as much about offending anyone as if I put it in my windmills blog.  It's amusing and terrifying at the same time.  So much of it is absolutely true.

Some things to do before the Inauguration:

1. Get that abortion you've always wanted.
2. Drink a nice clean glass of water.
3. Cash your Social Security check.
4. See a doctor of your own choosing.
5. Spend quality time with your draft age child/grandchild.
6. Visit Syria, or any foreign country for that matter.
7. Get that gas mask you've been putting off buying.
8. Hoard gasoline.
9. Borrow books from library before they're banned - Constitutional law books, Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter, Tropic of Cancer, etc.
10. If you have an idea for an art piece involving a crucifix,do it now.
11. Come out - then go back in - HURRY!
12. Jam in all the Alzheimer's stem cell research you can.
13. Stay out late before the curfews start.
14. Go see Bruce Springsteen before he has his "accident".
15. Go see Mount Rushmore before the Reagan addition.
16. Use the phrase - "you can't do that - this is America".
17. If you're white - marry a black person, if you're black-marry a white person.
18. Take a walk in Yosemite, without being hit by a snowmobile or a base-jumper.
19. Enroll your kid in an accelerated art or music class.
20. Start your school day without a prayer.
21. Pass on the secrets of evolution to future generations.
22. Learn French.
23. Attend a commitment ceremony with your gay friends.
24. Take a factory tour anywhere in the US.
25. Try to take photographs of animals on the endangered species list.
26. Visit Florida before the polar ice caps melt.
27. Visit Nevada before it becomes radioactive.28. Visit Alaska before "The Big Spill".
29. Visit Massachusetts while it is still a State.

WHERE HAS ALL THE FREE TIME GONE? LONG TIME PASSING, ETC.

Where did November go? It’s well into December now, and to end-of-semester tests, grades, workshops, working with my after-school kids, and trying to have clean underwear, has been added holiday shopping for distant children and other relatives. Next comes wrapping, packing and mailing.

Reading continues, always, but there is scant time for journaling about it. I finished Spectacular Happiness over T’giving in Massachusetts, am almost finished with Killing the Buddha, have read a Marcia Muller Sharon McCone mystery, The Dangerous Hour, and am now reading a book called Welcome to Lizard Motel, by Barbara Feinberg. This book is subtitled: Children, Stories, and the Mystery of Making Things Up, and I want to read it aloud to the world. Seldom do I find nonfiction this compelling – it’s an exploration about the place of stories in children’s lives, told in the form of a memoir.

In the previous post I talked a bit about Spectacular Happiness, written by Peter D. Kramer. This is the guy who wrote Listening to Prozac, and other nonfiction books on psychology. His first novel is more introspective and psychological than much fiction, and now I see why. Robbie (see her comment on previous post, in which I first discussed this book) wants me to go easy on the anarchy, as she must work in the insurance industry. An industry which itself comes in for some criticism in the book. The blowing up of monstrous beach houses built where no houses should ever be is perhaps a fantasy many of us entertain. It is not really the main theme of the book. It’s a long strange convoluted tale of love and parenting, as well as one man’s relationship to his Place. I loved this novel, though I will admit it got too slow and introspective from time to time.

P.S. on Dec. 7 - Well, perhaps it's not entirely a fantasy after all. Take a look at this article from the AOL News.  Ecoterrorism? just across the Chesapeake.  Again, houses being built where no house should ever be.  Nature preserves should be respected, nature itself should get a hell of a lot more respect than it does.  Do I condone this kind of thing?  My jury may still be out, to tell you the horrible truth.  I have already admitted it's a fantasy of mine.  So far, one I have never acted upon.