For the past couple of months, I've been monitoring the buds on the Stargazer Lilies in our back yard. It's rather like watching a pregnancy unfold (only without the stupid baby showers) - noting each minor change, the anticipation, guessing the birth date. Sunday morning, we were rewarded with a litter! More are blooming every day, and the fragrance is heavenly. Here's a slideshow of the pregnancy and birth:
Salutations, Salonsters!
For Orange July I'd picked out a Grenville (The Idea of Perfection - 2001 Orange Prize winner) and a new book by Gail Jones, Sorry, from the 2008 long list. These books are quite different from each other but both excellent reads and worthy of recognition.If she did not smile between now and when he came home, she could afford to give him two smiles tonight. And after each smile she could just pop into the bathroom for a moment to undo the damage by smoothing a little dab of moisturiser around the corners of the mouth.I found her character incredibly sad and, though Grenville draws Felicity a bit over the top, it's not that far a stretch when we see almost global obsession with youth and beauty.
She would listen very attentively as he told her about his day, and after the second smile there would probably be no need to smile again for the rest of the evening.
Read More!
Saturday after a scrumptious breakfast at the hotel (breakfast included with room), the three of us Red Roomers took off on a serious book buying adventure. We drove north to Lincoln City and found Bob's Beach Bookstore on Highway 101. The clerk at the hotel desk told us that Bob travels all over the world buying used books - our eyes got big; it was a no-brainer that we'd be visiting Bob! It's an amazing store, nooks and crannies and rooms that go on forever. Paola and I found Viragos - a bit of an obsession for her, a novelty for me.
The library is on the third floor of the hotel and is a yummy reading spot. We, however, weren't doing much reading, so we took over the coffee room next to the library and addressed postcards to the rest of our Red Room friends. We got a little silly (surprise!) and ended up in Wendy and Kip's room visiting and laughing until late.
And this week’s theme is: Reading Challenges. Dewey says:
If you participate in any challenges, get organized! Update your lists, post about any you haven’t mentioned, add links of reviews to your lists if you do that, go to the challenge blog if there is one and post there, etc.I participate in two reading challenges (and I use the term 'participate' very loosely!) - the Man Booker Prize Challenge and the Orange Prize Project. (Some of my blogging buddies are signed up for multiple challenges - ten or more! Even though there is some crossover, I don't think I could wrap my brain around keeping track of all that. More power to 'em!)
Read More!
Not a lot of reading happening here at our Library Thing mini-gathering. We're at the Sylvia Beach Hotel on the Oregon coast, the place for book lovers to come. We've been getting acquainted, enjoying fabulous food and weather, and doing some serious book shopping. We will end our visit with a trip to Powell's City of Books in Portland this afternoon.
Sylvia Beach Hotel, Newport, Oregon
The hotel entrance
The hotel from the beach
Yaquina Beach lighthouse
The hotel library
This week's Booking Through Thursday question:
Another question inspired by the Bunch of Grapes on Martha’s Vineyard having burned down on the Fourth of July. Do you buy books while on vacation/holiday? Do you have favorite bookstores that you only get to visit while away on a trip? What/Where are they?
I'm sure we'll be checking out this little beach town for good bookstores, not to mention hanging out in the hotel's awesome library. Each room is themed for an author (the Edgar Allen Poe room has a pendulum above the bed); they have a restaurant called The Tables of Content. How bookish is that?
(better photo below, courtesy of What's That Bug?). It turns out these are all ladybugs in various stages of life! I would never have guessed that! The experts told us that at these larval stages, they're actually eating more of the bad bugs than they do at the mature stage.
Would you trust this bad boy with your fruit trees?
Another Sunday, another Salon. Sunny, warm days here in Portland. I'm anticipating a trip to the beach next weekend with some Library Thing friends, our first face-to-face, so exciting! We'll be staying at Sylvia Beach Hotel - a book lovers' paradise. My partner and I have booked the Alice Walker room; another friend will be in the F. Scott Fitzgerald Room.
far for Orange July. I finished We Need to Talk About Kevin yesterday and must say it's quite a disturbing book - rather like watching a train wreck, awful to witness but riveting. I felt emotionally drained at the end - and the writing is so good. Now I've picked up something much lighter, A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian.
This is what's left of Orange July after Tractors. So much good reading ahead. I don't know that I'll get to all of these at the rate I'm going, but even half will be heavenly.
What would you do if, all of a sudden, your favorite source of books was unavailable? Whether it’s a local book shop, your town library, or an internet shop … what would you do if, suddenly, they were out of business? Devastatingly, and with no warning? Where would you go for books instead? What would you do? If it was a local business you would try to help out the owners? Would you just calmly start buying from some other store? Visit the library in the next town instead? Would it be devastating? Or just a blip in your reading habit?Deb's question this week was prompted by the sudden destruction of one of her favorite bookstores when it caught fire over the 4th of July weekend. What a sad thing - just the thought of all those books burning makes me shudder.
we're just across the river from the main store (Powell's City of Books - the largest used and new bookstore in the world) and one of the smaller neighborhood stores, which is no slouch, is right up the street from us.
This week’s Weekly Geeks theme is to talk about the magazines we read.
magazines around. From their website:It is Orion's fundamental conviction that humans are morally responsible for the world in which we live, and that the individual comes to sense this responsibility as he or she develops a personal bond with nature.
Ode is a good international magazine that covers a lot of environmental and cultural issues. 
