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Monthly Archives: May 2006

Last week I blogged about books I don’t finish; this week I’d like to talk about the opposite.

I have a problem that’s probably pretty common to the Riskies and our guests. Too many books, not enough bookshelves, despite the fact that there’s book storage in every room of our house except for the bathrooms (hmm… no, maybe not a good idea.) Since it’s unthinkable to stop the incoming flow, some books must go. I recently forced myself to go through this annual decluttering exercise.

To the donation pile:

  • Books I didn’t enjoy.
  • Books I got at a conference over three years ago, still haven’t gotten to, and aren’t somehow calling me to hold onto them.
  • Duplicates–too many of them!

Keeper shelf items:

  • Books I love so much I can’t part with them.
  • Classics and useful reference books.
  • Personally autographed copies.
  • Books by favorite authors or recommended by friends, or with truly intriguing blurbs, that I will get to someday.
  • Books by favorite authors that I didn’t love, but merely enjoyed. Somehow I feel disloyal parting with them. Or is that I like to keep a collection together?

The keeper shelves are still pretty full. My TBR list is enormous and growing daily. It made me wonder. Why keep a book if I may never reread it?

But the answers came. I do get to TBR books. Eventually. With books I’ve already read, I do often share them with friends, and I may share them with my children when they’re older. Very good reasons to hold onto these treasures.

So how about you? What makes a book a keeper? Do you clean out now and then?

And oh, yes, any suggestions for the best places to donate a boxfull of books of mixed genres, largely romance?

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, Romantic Times Best Regency of 2005!
www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Reading | Tagged , | 14 Replies

Because I am jet-lagged, this post will be weird. I apologize in advance.

I’m having my morning tea right now. This will hopefully help my jet-lag. (I just returned from England, which means an eight-hour time difference). Plus, the night before the flight, I only got about three hours sleep. Why? Tea. I had a lovely afternoon tea at Richoux in London, but I guess the afternoon caffeine was too much for my system. So tea hurteth, and tea cureth. Tea giveth, and tea taketh away.

Did I mention this post will be weird? Yes, it’s a tour of things Cara drank while in England. Or, in some cases, didn’t drink.

When I was in England, I drank a lot of cider. I love hard cider. I don’t know why. I can’t drink wine (it gives me migraines.) I hate beer. I never liked hard liquor. But cider is just beautiful. Cider dances in the brain and on the tongue.

I did say I was weird today, right???

Speaking of things Cara didn’t drink…

On the flight back, for some reason the flight attendants tried to dehydrate me. And this was on Virgin Atlantic, which in that past I’ve always been very impressed by!!! But this time, instead of coming around frequently to give us liquids to drink, they instead came around with food accompanied by NOTHING to drink. No water. No soda. No nothing. And no liquids in between. They did this multiple times. I still have the headache.

So, what gives, Virgin Airlines??? Did you suddenly decide that water costs too much???

I did complain. The flight attendants took this as a personal criticism (which I found very odd) and just told me that there was water in the galley. They told me this eight hours into the flight. Telling me this earlier would have been nice. And they never did tell me where the galley was. Or explain the logic behind giving one a tray full of food, and then expecting one to somehow get up (which is impossible with the tray table down, of course — and where am I supposed to put the food???) and get water from the galley. And if we all did this, think of the chaos!!! No, not a workable system.

And so I say again: what gives, Virgin Atlantic??? Are you trying to make me switch my loyalties to British Airways or American Airlines, despite your cool seatback entertainment systems with twenty movies to choose from??? Because it’s working. Watching movies is cool, but having no headache is still cooler.

Cara (who had a very good time in England, actually)

Posted in Research | Tagged , | 10 Replies


Oh, happy days! Sharpe has come to BBC America, Saturday nights at 9 pm, right after one of my favorite shows, Cash in the Attic.

Richard Sharpe, for those of you who may not know, is a fictional soldier in the Napoleonic War, created by Bernard Cornwell in a wonderful series of books, now spanning his early years with Wellington (then Wellesley) in India to beyond Waterloo. Sharpe is a marvelous character and Cornwell does a masterful job of giving us such rich detail about the war, so that you actually feel as if you are there, experiencing it with Sharpe.

The BBC Sharpe is played by Sean Bean, a very sigh-worthy choice.

Here is what Sean Bean’s Sharpe website http://www.shipofdreams.net/seanbean/sharpe/index.htm
says about the BBC series:

“The films are based on the Napoleonic campaign novels, and follow Sharpe and his “Chosen Men” (riflemen who are trusted crack shots). Sharpe has been promoted from the ranks, very unusual in its day, so he has the resentment of the “gentlemen” officers, and also that of the men, who assume he is no better than them. He is promoted after saving Wellington’s life, and is often sent on dangerous missions, along with the Chosen Men, due to his skills and bravery.

In the first film, Sharpe’s Rifles, we are introduced to the Riflemen who will become the Chosen Men, and Sharpe has to forge both respect and friendship with their soon-to-be Sergeant, Patrick Harper. The later films show how cohesive a fighting force these few men become, they think and act as one. The last film to be made was Sharpe’s Waterloo, depicting the great battle.”

I was first introduced to Sharpe through the Chivers Audiobook versions. William Gaminara narrated, and his deep, sexy voice truly enhanced the experience. I can still him say, “Sharpe swore.”

Sean Bean is not the Sharpe I visualized while listening to the audiobooks. In fact, almost all the cast of the BBC version are not the people Cornwall gave to my imagination. Furthermore, I think of the BBC shows as “Sharpe Lite.” The shows meld elements of several of the books into one story, but cannot give the richness of detail that is in the books. Another point–these were not high budget productions, so rather than a cast of thousands, you get a cast of….dozens.

Cornwell also is no romance novelist. His Sharpe is actually quite stupid in love, which is quite frustrating, but even unsatisfying romance elements were not enough to keep me from loving the books, the character, the life of the Napoleonic soldier.

And the Sharpe films, for all their not being the Sharpe of my imagination, are still wonderful. If you don’t get BBC America, you can also rent the Sharpe films from Netflix or purchase them online.

Enjoy!
Diane


As I’ve probably posted here before, I love movies. I’m by no means a Cinema Expert, like a friend of mine who was a Film Studies major. I don’t much like going to the movies with him because afterwards he always wants to talk about camera angles and filters and other techie stuff I don’t understand. I just want to talk about the characters. And the dialogue. And the costumes. All much too amateur for him. 🙂

Anyway, I do enjoy movies. So, I’ve been following the news out of Cannes this week. I love Cannes, too, for being so goofball and overblown and, well, so French. Who else boos movies? Not the Canadians, I bet. Toronto is probably far more civilized and not nearly as much fun. I’d like to know what all those actresses are thinking when it comes to their gowns, though. Kirsten Dunst, who I like because she’s usually so quirky and cute, gets herself up to look like Fraulein Maria at the abbey for her big premiere??? Monica Belluci in a Christmas tree skirt trimmed with feather dusters??? This is France, people! FRANCE! (Sofia Coppola sure had some great shoes, though).

But I digress. Fashion will always do that to me. I’m here to talk about movies. I think. One movie in particular–Marie Antoinette, the one reportedly just booed at Cannes by moviegoing members of the “petit bourgeois” (according to one French critic). Now, I haven’t seen this film–it doesn’t open here until October. I’ve only seen a trailer, and I don’t know why it was booed (though I’d dearly like to find out). I will definitely see it, for the elaborate costumes, Versailles, the reported neo-punk soundtrack, and because I’m always a sucker for overblown, pre-Revolutionary shenanigans. But I have some reservations, mostly about the casting. As I said, I do like Kirsten Dunst. But does “quirky” equal “Austrian princess in powdered wigs”? Just not sure. I also don’t know who I would cast instead, if it was MY movie. Maybe Anne Hathaway? Or Emmy Rossum, if she wasn’t so tall?

Anyway, here is your task, if you choose to accept it. Let’s imagine we’re making a film about, say, the life of Byron (forget the one from the BBC a couple years ago–ours will be better!). Who would you cast in the lead parts? As Byron? (I would vote for Johnny Depp, I think. Or Keanu Reeves, if he had the acting skills to equal his looks, darn it). Caro Lamb? (Now there would be a part for Kirsten Dunst!). The Shelleys? Annabelle Milbanke? Lady Melbourne?

Serious and/or goofy answers all happily accepted! As are suggestions for Marie Antoinette. Or any other movie you choose to make. YOU are the director now! I may even give away a free book to the most, er, creative ideas…


I like my art over the top. My favorite movies, actors, books, music, paintings and couture all share the common element of being pushed further than it might seem possible. Recently I found something I thought epitomized what pushed something in my opinion from “good” to “special.”

Nick Cave is most famous for being a musician, but he is also a writer, most recently penning the script for The Proposition starring Guy Pearce. I bought a book of his writings recently–song lyrics as well as fragments of short stories and an essay or two–and found something he wrote about the German band
Einsturzende Neubauten:

“They are simply a ‘great’ band–and I use the word in the classical sense. To me, the essence of their greatness does not lie in their unorthodox attitude toward making music–rather it is based on a fundamentally orthodox premise. What makes Einsturzende Neubauten great in my eyes is the same thing that makes Johnny Cash–or the Velvet Underground, John Lee Hooker, Suicide, Elvis, Dylan, Leadbelly, The Stooges–great. They are all innovators but what sets Hank Williams apart from the bulk of his contemporaries is the same thing that sets Einsturzende Neubauten apart from the huge, faceless morass that modern New Wave music has become. Through their own hard work, by steadfast lack of compromise, through the pain of true self-expression, through a genuine love of their medium, they have attained a sound which is first authentic, and which is utterly their own. But not for the sole purpose of being different. They are a group which has developed its own special language for one reason–to give voice to their souls.”

My goal, when I write, is to give voice to my soul, even though that might sound pretentious coming from someone who writes fairly light romance; the means here, the motivation, is more important than the end. I might never feel as if I have truly developed my own ‘special language,’ as Cave says; but I can strive for that goal. No matter what genre an author writes in, in what style, I think the reader can tell when a soul has been given voice. Your favorite soul vocalists are no doubt different than mine (and I’m not talking Aretha). But what they share is an authentic sound.

What do you think makes a great artist?

Thanks–

Megan
www.meganframpton.com

Posted in Music, Writing | Tagged , | 5 Replies
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