Have Blog, Will Travel

After trying to maintain two blogs, I have decided to discontinue Words on a Page in its current form. I will, however, continue to write about books and language at my other blog, Footnotes.


The original idea in creating Footnotes was to show and compare elements of the past with the present. Now the blog will also include other subjects that I find interesting and hope you will, too. So please join me at Footnotes.

Barbara

Link: www.footnotesbybarbara.com

Favorite Books of 2009

Following the grand reunion of the Class of 1951 in 2001, Maureen and I and a bunch of "girls" from St. Vincent Ferrer School in Brooklyn have been meeting once a year in Brooklyn (naturally). And with email and Facebook, the connections have stayed tight.

Maureen, who now lives in Delaware, just sent me a list of some of her favorite books: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Good Earth, Gone with the Wind, Three Cups of Tea, The Shack, The Reader, The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

I've never made a list of my all-time favorites, though I do compile an annual list. My favorites in 2009 were The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, Whatever It Takes - Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America by Paul Tough, and Stoner by John Williams.

The worst book I read in 2009 was Ethan Canin's America America. When critics herald a book and it makes the list of best books for the year, the reader expects quality - good writing, well-developed characters, and a plot that at least makes sense. A friend of mine gave up on it after a couple of chapters, but I was on a trip out west and couldn't get to a book store to replace it, so I finished it on the plane coming home.

Well, it's another year and there's stack of books by my bedside waiting for me.

The Old Composition Book

Upon graduating from college - when the days of required reading were behind me - I started a list of all the books I read strictly for pleasure: fiction, biographies, and non-fiction. The first entry was The Web and the Rock by Thomas Wolfe, dated June 1959. I kept that list in one of those black-and-white composition books, (remember the ones with the multiplication tables on the back cover?). The list stops after a few hundred books in December 1983, Growing Up by Russell Baker.

I found that little notebook recently when I was trying to remember when I had read Arnold Bennett’s The Old Wives’ Tale. I knew I had loved it and was thinking about reading it again. There it was, April 1960, sandwiched between Irwin Shaw’s Two Weeks in Another Town and A. J. Cronin’s The Northern Light.

Today I finished The Old Wives’ Tale again and know why it was such a sensation when it was published in 1908. And I understand why I first loved it. Of course, now that I am fifty years older, I am, I think, better able to understand the lives of the two sisters, Constance and Sophia.

Have you ever wondered why you’re drawn to certain books? I wonder if my desire to read the story of two sisters at this particular time stems from my loss of my sister Nan in June. Throughout the book I found myself comparing Constance and Sophia’s personalities, thoughts and actions to my sister and me.

Ye shall know them by their similes and metaphors…good writers, that is.

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~Anaïs Nin

I’m starting a list of perfect similes and metaphors, ones that stopped me in my tracks. They are the words and phrases that delight, emphasize, and stun a reader and add to the joy of reading. Here are the first three:

John Seabrook’s description in The New Yorker, Dec.21 and 29, 2009 issue of architect Zaha Hadid’s hands as chilled as cutlery in an airplane’s galley."

Joseph O’Neill in his novel Netherland: “The yellow commuter train ran through canal-crossed fields as dull as graph paper.”

Colum McCann, on The New York Times Opinion Page, December 27, 2009 “I would walk the length of Dun Laoghaire pier - a moving corduroy of sea waves in front of me."

I’d love to have you add to this list simply by responding to this post or by e-mail to barbara1037@gmail.com.

84, Charing Cross Road

Any book lover with a fondness for first editions, rare books, and leather bindings is probably familiar with 84, Charing Cross Road. The address is the title of a true story told in a series of letters between Helene Hanff, a writer living in Manhattan, and Frank Doel, seller of rare and secondhand books at Marks and Co. in London.

The letters started in 1949 when Ms. Hanff sent Marks and Co. a list of secondhand books she wanted. She says, “I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except in very expensive rare editions, or in Barnes & Noble’s grimy, marked-up school-boy copies.”

Through the twenty-year correspondence the reader watches the development of a delightful and often poignant friendship between Hanff and Doel. I was reminded of the book last night as I caught the end of the movie on television which featured Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins as Helene Hanff and Frank Doel and Judi Dench as Mrs. Doel. When I took my yellowed paperback version from my bookcase, I saw that I’d bought my copy in June of 1987 at a bookstore in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Helene Hanff’s dream was to visit London. Like her, it had been one of my wishes, too.

(Note: Editions published in the U.S. omit the comma after 84.)

Same language, different vocabulary

I pulled out the dictionary today when I came across the word ”kerb” in an English novel. From the context, I knew it meant “curb,” the stone separation between a street and a sidewalk.

Had I been using “curb” all these years when I should have written “kerb?” Or are the two words just another example of the differences between British English and American English?

According to the Oxford Concise Dictionary, “curb” is a check or restraint; “kerb” is a stone edging to a pavement or a raised path,

The Random House College Dictionary, however, defines “curb” as a rim of concrete or joined stones forming an edge for a sidewalk. It defines “kerb” simply as a curb. Nothing further.

Lately, I’ve been watching quite a few old BBC television shows and find the differences in the British and American versions of the English language quite interesting.

If you’re now thinking “She ought to get a life,” I might say, “Don’t be so cheeky!”

Okay? O.K.

When I moved to Albany in 1995, one of the first places I visited was Lindenwald, the home of Martin Van Buren, the eighth president of the United States. Lindenwald is located about 35 miles from Albany in the Town of Kinderhook. I learned a great deal that day but the most interesting to me was the derivation of one of our most popular responses.

It seems that while he lived in Kinderhook before he was elected president, Van Buren was given the sobriquet of “Old Kinderhook” and, as such, sometimes initialed requests, documents and other papers with the abbreviation, “O. K.” When he moved to Washington, D.C., he often continued to sign informal papers the same way. “O.K” became popular and that’s how “okay” or “O.K” came to be part of our language.

You might hear other explanations for “okay,” but most people have come to accept the Van Buren story.

For a look at Lindenwald and a tour of its many rooms, visit the National Park Service website. Better yet, if you’re anywhere near New York’s Capital District, go and see this wonderful home.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

If you’re passionate about books, you must read Steve Quinn’s article about the little seaside town of Sidney, British Columbia, population 11,000. It’s dubbed Canada’s only Booktown because of its collection of twelve independently owned bookshops, each with its own style.

Here is Sidney’s Beacon Books’ Reader’s Bill of Rights.

The right to not read
The right to skip pages
The right to not finish
The right to re-read
The right to read anything
The right to escapism
The right to read anywhere
The right to browse
The right to read out loud
The right to not defend your tastes