I love thunderstorms. I love the unpredictable brilliant flashes of light, and the explosive sound. I love the pouring rain, and even the sound of hail banging on the windows and roof.
Tonight’s storm is particularly beautiful to me. The lightning is mostly cloud to cloud, and the thunder has that echoing rumble that vibrates within me.
It reminds me of the summer of 1992, when Rick and I went camping in the Hocking Hills. We set up a tent in the primitive walk in camping area operated by the state park, and during the night storms rolled through. Severe storms, actually. There were tornado warnings in neighboring counties. Hocking was spared tornado warnings, but the severe storms rolled over top of us.
Rick and I took it in turns to reach up and knock the water off the top of the tent when it began to pool and sag between the poles. We didn’t really sleep much, as the lightning (and therefore thunder) were nearly constant. I remember that rolling thunder sound, and how it was echoed and magnified in the ravines of the Hocking Hills. The echoes seemed to go on and on, repeating each thunderclap as if it was a preteen’s favorite song on CD, played over and over.
The next day, the world was scrubbed, and the creeks and waterfalls were beautiful. I think of that night often when I hear storms now. It’s one of my favorite memories.
June 25th, 2009
I received an email from the Columbus Metropolitan Library and followed a link on their website to comment on the proposed 50% funding cut in state library funds. I’ve posted the text of my email below. If you care about libraries, please submit your own comment at this website: Save Our Library
I am contacting you to express my concern about the Governor’s proposed cuts to library funding.
Libraries have already received a 20% cut in funding; a 50% cut will have drastic consequences to our libraries and our communities: branches will close and services will be cut.
Libraries serve a unique role in our communities. The job search assistance alone provided by many branches of the Columbus Metropolitan Library is of tremendous benefit. Every time I visit my local library branch, I see many adults using the internet as well as other computing services, gaining internet access for job searches and communication that many of our lower income citizens are unable to afford at home. Libraries provide an educational center for children after school, and our library’s summer reading program is also of immeasurable benefit to the long term health of our community.
I’m sure I speak for many Ohioans when I point out how much I rely on the library for access to books and other media, as I cannot afford to purchase all the books my family reads, nor can I afford the subscription fees for premium online content such as the Encyclopedia Britannica.
My children benefit from the library staff when they need to research a topic for school, and my Girl Scout troop benefits when they are able to point us to the resources we need that a troop could not possibly afford to purchase for themselves.
I am aware that our current economic climate places our state in a difficult position. With the incredible range of services provided to communities by our libraries, however, I ask you to reject this proposal and save our libraries.
Sincerely,
Anne Bennett
June 25th, 2009
Booking Through Thursday today asks:
There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.)
But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.
What niche books do YOU read?
It’s a fair (and accurate) assumption that I read novels, as well as a fair bit of mainstream nonfiction, especially if it’s science or history related. I also read a lot of fantasy literature, which is slightly less common, but still not really what I would call a “niche” reading pattern.
My true niche, one that might very well distinguish my bookcases from others, is predominately seen in my library borrowing. I read craft books. I actually OWN a number of scrapbooking books (and wish I owned a few others) and I also have a few books on friendship bracelets, beading (jewelry and other creations), cross stitch, and even a book on knitting (although I haven’t attempted knitting again in a number of years).
I check out craft books OFTEN. They’re also typically crafts that you’ll find at camp — such as boondoggle (lanyard weaving), some speciality area of scrapbooking (like rubber stamps), or some other craft material or theme that relates to whatever my Girl Scout troop is up to at the moment. I’m sure if there’s someone at the library reviewing my borrowing history, they must find it amusing sometimes, such as when I suddenly check out thirty different books on the middle ages, or ten books on camp cooking, or the travel guides for every state surrounding Ohio.
When I was in college, senior year in fact, the really odd niche I found myself occupying was books on gothic literature and terror as a literary device. I actually own an entire book on terror in literature called “The Delights of Terror” as well as a number of other ones that I checked out from my college library during my senior honors research project. Not surprisingly, I was writing about the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. (I have a nice collection of their writings as well.)
But I guess in some ways, I can’t see any of these as a real “niche” that only I read — after all, there’s enough people reading them to make a publishing house print several thousand copies. How small is a niche anyway?
June 11th, 2009
Today’s Booking Through Thursday question:
This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (yes, this is cheating)
- Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
- Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
- Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
- A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
- A Midwife’s Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
- Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- The Little Prince by Antoine St. Exupery
- Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
- Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers
These were the first fifteen books that came into my head this morning as I wrote this post. What comes first into your mind?
June 4th, 2009
This week’s Booking Through Thursday question asks:
Is there a book that you wish you could “unread”? One that you disliked so thoroughly you wish you could just forget that you ever read it?
A couple of them come to mind, actually. And usually it’s because I felt that I wasted so much time reading them! One is White Teeth, by Zadie Smith. We read that for my book group a few years ago, and I’ve blocked out much of the memory of the reading except the overwhelming dislike and feeling of “I used my valuable reading time for THIS?”
There was another one we read in book group, by Jimmy Buffet, that I also didn’t like and would just as soon have the time back — A Salty Piece of Land. You really have to be a parrothead to like that book, and I don’t qualify.
Typically though, I can’t say that I really have such visceral reactions to a book that I want to “unread” it. There are plenty I haven’t liked much, but I tend to drop a book 100 pages into it if I can’t get more interested to continue. I haven’t liked Jodi Picoult very much, but those books aren’t my kind of books anyway, and I always begin picking apart the story and logic which pretty well ruins the book.
I’m actually pleased to realize that most of the books I dislike enough to mention here aren’t books I would have chosen for myself anyway — they were books chosen by others for the book group to read. So apparently I do pretty well picking books out for myself.
May 28th, 2009
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