Aim to Thrive
The advantage of having an active book fetish is that it attracts other bookish people, and their books.
I recently received a copy of Kathrin Lake’s new book From Survival to Thrival: How to catch the boat to y our successful, thriving life (even if you thought you’d missed it) from the author:
#1 Thrival Guide for Career, Love and Life
It’s a mouthful of a sub-title, but it reflects Kathrin’s chatty tone quite nicely. (I hope she doesn’t mind me calling her Kathrin…after reading her book, I feel like we’ve chatted more than just briefly through email.) The text does read like you’re having a sit over a cup of tea, and your wise friend keeps refilling your cup and feeding you very useful metaphors along with the plain spoken advice.
I’ve done my own share of self- and soul-searching over the years, and have delved into it all. I’ve read the weird and the wonderful, the odd and the inspiring…but I can say quite definitively that I have not read a self-help guide so down-to-earth.
The simplicity, no, the clarity of Lake’s advice is a bit disconcerting. Her ideas are not revolutionary or novel, just presented without the bells and whistles that jazz up the more colourful (and less credible?) presenters. This unadorned prose resonates with my own thinking and sits quite naturally with me.
As a linguist myself, I appreciate a woman who points out that the word success has other meanings…as in to come after in time or order or follow. And she asks the simple question: What if success were defined as progress, instead of a result? What if success were defined as not where you end up, but how you live your life every day?
What if we stopped keeping our self-praise and self-esteem building blocks for special occasions, like your mother’s good china, and let it out every day (the Good China Syndrome)?
The discussion on need vs. want sets up a very important distinction. It reminds me greatly of June Singer, a Jungian analyst and author, who discussed the difference between using a verb vs. a noun to describe your profession (in the brilliant book Boundaries of the Soul
I will stop here, and recommend that you visit her website — there’s lots to see!
Lori
Robertson Davies, again
I’m not a hit hound by any means, but I do check them, just to see. And the most popular page on this blog is the space where we were discussing The Fifth Business.
Okay, so it’s not popular by some standards, but on my little blog, it continuously tops my hit chart with between 3 & 29 hits per day. And search terms like:
- essay on the women in fifth business
- fifth business ezboard
- women in fifth business
- fifth business mrs.dempster, paul
- fifth business robertson davies reborn
- Fifth Business devil Liesl
- robertson davies fifth business
- Fifth Business name meanings
- sex love in fifth business essay
- psychology in fifth business
- ramsay guilt fifth business
And those are only today and yesterday.
The frequency started once school started. With all this traffic, I’ve only had 2 of these students stay and comment. (Am I wrong in assuming they’re students?) In my day, I would have been searching card catalogues, and journals, hoping for a tidbit. Now, they comb the Internet for their research. I wonder if any of our comments here have been cited in a paper somewhere?
The mind boggles.
But I was thinking of you all on Friday, when I found a delightful treasure in my local secondhand bookstore: Robertson Davies: An Appreciation
For your delectation then, are some of the ideas thrown out by different commentators as Davies’ books were coming out:
- Dunstan is the Hero
- Dunstan in the Saint, not Mrs. Dempster
- Father Blazon is the Fifth Business
So, reading these essays has been quite fun, and now I have to go back and read the damn books again! Ideas that I want to look into myself.
Okay, so you’re writing an essay and you Google your way to this post. I won’t leave you empty-handed, so here are some things to explore further:
- Pay close attention to the audience in all three books.
- Do some research on St. Dunstan.
- All 3 books begin and end in the same places, geographically. (And one of Davies’ next books is called What’s Bred In the Bone
And do some research in a good library, not looking for the quick answer on the Internet.
Deep Economy
Well, Booktalk.org is at it again. This time, one of the books is Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Bill McKibben. (Here’s the link to the Booktalk.org discussion forum.)
This one is hitting me close to home. I worked the opening day of the local Farmers’ Market (I’m the manager), came home, and picked up Deep Economy to read McKibben’s discussion on farmers’ markets — and the studied fact that people have 10 more social interactions there than they do in a supermarket.
I could’ve told him that!!
McKibben believes in communities — the idea that as individuals we make decisions that (seem to) affect only us, but with an awareness of our community, we make decisions that have deeper consequences. [It's a big book, lots of ideas, and I'm writing this in an office with no circulation on a hot day at 6 p.m.. Bear with me on my simplistic synopses. 
]
For example, if I’m just thinking of myself, then I’ll go to the local Walmart and buy the cheapest coffee on the shelf. But, if I were aware of my local community, I’d go to the grocery store in town that may have a higher price tag, but where I know that the management cares about their staff and pay good wages. If I were thinking of the broader community, I’d go out of my way to buy fair trade, shade-grown coffee, and by-pass the big corporations abusing the people of the coffee-growing nations. But, if I were really thinking of the greater community, I’d stop drinking coffee altogether, as the fossil fuels needed to bring that coffee to me, no matter how it’s grown, are damaging our environment. (Plus, they’re running out. Might as well overcome the coffee addiction now, before I’m forced to, down the road!)
This is a huge discussion…that I don’t feel like undertaking at this moment. Perhaps in the comments??
“Merry Bookmas!”
Luckily, I’ve married into a bookish family, and my man is bookish, and his friends are…and my mother has been trained to give me a book gift certificate every year.
Books and consumables are the best presents (consumables…you know — wine, cheese, cookies, jam…).
This year was a nice mess of books:
I found The Art of Blacksmithing by Alex Bealer for Metro. He’s always talking about how he’d like to learn more about it, etc. Well, now he can.
Metro’s sister found him John Hodgman’s The Areas of My Expertise. An odd book of satirical essays and the like…perfect. The same sister sent me the Pulitzer Prize winning Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.
I put a lot of browsing time to use in my local 2ndhand bookstore…made my husband a list of books that were there, that he could pick up for me. And he took me up on it, and bought me the rather unusual Truly Wilde: The Unsettling Story of Dolly Wilde, Oscar’s Unusual Niece by Joan Schenkar. I’ll have to blog on this book individually one day, soon.
Metro also got me two more books — I feel spoiled! The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls was one. New York Times bestseller, winner of various awards…I think that’s the next book I’m reading. He also bought me Think: Why Crucial Decisions Can’t be Made in the Blink of an Eye by Michael R. LeGault. The interesting thing about this book is that LeGault wrote it in reaction to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink…Blink essentially glorifies the decisions we make subconsciously, in the moment, while I believe LeGault’s point is that we need to put more thought into our decisions. I’ll let you know more when I’ve read LeGault’s book (I’ve already read Gladwell’s).
Funny thing, is that our friends sent us some books too…one is Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, and appropriately enough, Literary Feuds: A Century of Celebrated Quarrels — from Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe by Anthony Arthur. His sequel will have to include Gladwell & LeGault.
The final book on the list is Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. This one is also from the same friends…and again, a good call. We bought this for Metro’s mother last Christmas, so it’s been on our radar for awhile.
So, leave me a comment to tell me what books you got for Christmas!!
Free…no charge
Humans! We all seem to want something for nothing. Maybe because we’re programmed to expect our water and air to be free, and we’re still hardwired for the whole hunting and gathering days (not that that was really free…it was a lot of risky work for both tasks).
Anyway, very often, a person finding this blog is searching for a free online version of a book. Sometimes it’s a book that is out of copyright, and truly free. And sometime, it’s a book that people should know better about — some relatively new publication.
Hell, I’m guilty of it as well. I once had a copy of the 1996 essay by David R. Counts & Dorothy Ayers Counts on RVing — which they’ve since expanded into a book, Over the Next Hill: An Ethnography of RVing Seniors in North America. I went searching for the article online, hoping to find that someone had posted it for free…
No luck. Oh, it was out there, but at a cost.
I do some marketing on the side — and this is one thing that I recommend for anyone with a business website: Have something of real value on your website for free. People will come for the free stuff, and keep coming back for more. Good examples: Baen’ free books, and the Altoids mint flash game, which is pretty cool.
B.O.O.K.
We are amused.
From Laugh Break:
Introducing the new Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge device, trade-named BOOK.
BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology: no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on.
It’s so easy to use, even a child can operate it. Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere, even sitting in an armchair by the fire, yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disc.
Very cute. Follow the link for the whole piece. It’s worth it.
“Sesame: of Kings’ Treasuries”
In the 1800s, people used to sit and listen to much longer lectures than we have the patience for today…the one I’m reading now (in my trusty Harvard Classics), is one by John Ruskin, with the intriguing title above. It’s 42 pages long. (good number, really)
How long is that?
[pause]
I just timed myself reading, nay, emoting, a page, and it took me 2 minutes. Okay, so I lied. It’s an 80+ minute lecture. But it is definitely thicker than what we’re accustomed to today.
Here are some of the more delightful samples (courtesy of this site, which saved me from typing it all in myself!):
Practically, then, at present, “advancement in life” means, becoming conspicuous in life; – obtaining a position which shall be acknowledged by others to be respectable or honorable. We do not understand by this advancement in general, the mere making of money, but the being known to have made it; not the accomplishment of any great aim, but the being seen to have accomplished it. In a word, we mean the gratification of our thirst for applause. That thirst, if the last infirmity of noble minds, is also the first infirmity of weak ones; and, on the whole, the strongest impulsive influence of average humanity: the greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise, as its greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure.
This brings to mind Alain de Botton’s book, Status Anxiety, which is on my ‘everyone must read’ list.
Another bit from Ruskin’s essay that I liked, more specifically about reading (the main theme of the lecture):
Very ready we are to say of a book, “How good this is – that`s exactly what I think!” But the right feeling is, “How strange that is! I never thought of that before, and yet I see it is true; or if I do not now, I hope I shall, some day.” But whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours. Judge it afterwards, if you think yourself qualified to do so; but ascertain it first. And be sure also, if the author is worth anything, that you will not get at his meaning all at once; – nay, that at his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive in any wise. Not that he does not say what he means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it all; and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in parables, in order that he may be sure you want it. I cannot quite see the reason of this, nor analyze that cruel reticence in the breasts of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper thought. They do not give it to you by way of help, but of reward; and will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to reach it.
Seems a wise approach to any new book.
My other exposure to Ruskin is through one of his books on architecture, The Stones of Venice. That link is its Library Thing page, and the copy of the book I have is pictured on the sidebar, right at the bottom…the Folio Society version. So beautiful.
Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf
From Wikipedia:
The Harvard Classics, originally known as Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf, was a fifty one volume anthology of works selected by Charles W. Eliot. It was originally published in 1909. Dr. Eliot, then President of Harvard University, had stated in speeches that the elements of a liberal education could be obtained by spending fifteen minutes a day reading from a collection of books that could fit on a five-foot shelf.
Today, my local library was having another ‘Dirty Book Sale’, and on a table was a box of 17 Harvard Classics for $20. How could I resist? Even my husband was positive about it — for the Darwin. And the Cervantes. All of Dante (will I ever read it?). Plato, Homer…
17 of 51…a full third of the titles.
Do I have 20 inches to spare on a shelf?
Quest fulfilled
So we did it. Traveled all the way to Portland, OR, to visit Powell’s City of Books…a mecca of sorts in the book world.
Was it worth it? Well, it was raining in Portland, so it wasn’t like we were going to do any other sightseeing. We’d woken up late in our campground, which was not in itself a bad thing, but instead of breakfast we had brunch…and we ended up driving all the way home that day/night, instead of either camping in the wet or getting across the mountains and setting up camp at night.
But, I’m not answering the question. Yes. It was worth it. It’s a fabulous bookstore. It makes me happy knowing that there exists a place I can get numerous John Fante or Lawrence Ferlinghetti books, should I need to. It had 4 copies of one of the books on my wishlist, Ursula LeGuin’s Dancing on the Edge of the World…now no longer on my wishlist, but in my library.
Another treasure that is now in my library, for a great price, is the New and Collected Poems: 1931 – 2001 of Czeslaw Milosz, Polish poet & Nobel Prize winner. One of the reasons I wanted a book of his poetry was A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry — a collection he edited. The choices he made, and his commentary, put him firmly in the category of Poets I Like.
I will leave you with one of his poems, entitled A Boy.
A Boy
Standing on a boulder you cast a line,
Your bare feet rounded by the flickering water
Of your native river thick with water lilies.
And who are you, staring at the float
While you listen to echoes, the clatter of paddles?
What is the stigma you received, young master,
You who are ill with your apartness
And have one longing: to be just like the others?
I know your story and learned your future.
Dressed as a Gypsy girl I could stop by the river
And tell your fortune: fame and a lot of money,
Without knowledge, though, of the price to be paid
Which one does not admit to the envious.
One thing is certain: in you, there are two natures.
The miserly, the prudent on against the generous.
For many years you will attempt to reconcile them
Till all your works have grown small
And you will prize only uncalculated gifts,
Greatheartedness, self-forgetful giving,
Without monuments, books, and human memory.
Enjoy.
The Personal Essay
Type “personal essay” into the Google search bar and you get pages upon pages of links to tips on how to write your college/university entrance essay…and lots of people linking to what seems to be the definitive book of essays, Phillip Lopate’s The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. (Oh, and if you’re of the Book Club ilk, you can even find a book club guide at Random House.)
Funny that. Pretty much exactly how I ended up with a copy of the book in my library. I was working on an application to a grad program, and wanted to write something more than the ‘this is what I’ve been up to’ style essay, so I picked up Lopate’s book, and lost myself in some of the essays. Used some of the rhetorical tricks therein, had a couple of grad student friends give it a vicious going over, and was pretty proud of the end result. (It landed me the interview, but I don’t think I was hungry enough for academia in person.)
I like reading personal narrative essays, in magazines, online…if, and only if, they are good. You all know what I’m talking about — I want meaty insight, intense story, thunderclap of recognition…no wimpy stories about lessons learned from your cat/dog/precocious child.
This ramble today was triggered by my StumblingUpon this essay site: Fresh Yarn: the Online Salon for Personal Essays. I haven’t fully delved yet, maybe you can all help me.
