Completed: Nineveh and Its Remains

I FINALLY FINISHED IT!

I have been reading this book since last spring. It has sat, staring at me, on the dresser next to my side of the bed since last spring. It has been taunting me, but I finally won.

It's not that it wasn't a fascinating read. The foreword, about Layard's life and work, was much enlightening about a name that I came across in my studies (I studied Near Eastern archaeology - not sure if I mentioned that), but never learned enough about to appreciate as a person. The stories Layard told in his own voice, about his excavation campaigns at Nineveh and his travels in Mesopotamia were touching and telling of an age and way of life long gone in that area.

I think the reason I struggled with it was twofold. I started it in the throes of drafting my thesis - a bad time to start a book. Also, once I reached the book itself (not the foreword), I was disappointed. Again, not by what was there, but what wasn't. For a book that was titled "Nineveh and its Remains", there was very little of the site, or the dig. I did learn that excavation was seemingly single-handedly directed towards recovering sculpture. Not even text - just sculpture. Monumental sculpture. Although he appears to have the best of intentions in his excavations, I have to cringe when he discusses things crumbling to dust upon excavation, and tunneling to find artifacts.

No, much of the book was Layard's travels and relations with the local tribes that he worked with. He travels by horse to various areas, meets various sheiks, and witnesses religious and spiritual events. He does much of this with a classic European superiority and detachment, though his seems milder than most of the same era. I feel it was more of a sociological reflection than an archaeological one.

On a different note, every once in awhile you learn something after years of study that makes you giggle. In this book, there were two. Both have to do with Layard's name. The first is that his last name is not pronounced like 'lay-yard'. It's pronounced like 'laird'. Every prof I ever had, every time I ever read his name, I thought it was the former. The second interesting bit is that his name changed - after college he chose to be Austen Henry Layard, instead of Henry Austen Layard. Or it was the other way around - I can't remember. But I love the whimsy of just choosing to reverse your name.

Title: Nineveh and Its Remains
Author: Sir Austen Henry Layard; or, Sir Henry Austen Layard
Published: 1969 (originally 1849)
Pages: 295

Total books blogged: 7
Total pages: 2,682

The cover was just a plain library-bound cover, so here's the title page!

Completed: Walking with the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birute Galdikas

To be fair, I finished this book several weeks ago. I just haven't gotten around to blogging it. But I realized looking back that it really looks like I've read very little since September, and it looks that way because it's true.

I've been slowly eliminating TV shows from my PVR, no longer recording ones that I really won't miss. I've been trying to read, at least a bit, every day before bed. And I try to read during my lunch break, though some days that just doesn't happen!

Walking with the Great Apes was fascinating. The four main characters really do read as though they were (are, for two of them) larger than life. Richard Leakey, patriarch of African palaeoanthropology, playboy, scholar and personality. The man who selected three women to study the great apes - two of whom were not even trained in a relevant subject. He believed that women would be better able to empathize with the great apes - better able to understand them.


Jane Goodall - free spirit, kind, spiritual, patient adventurer. Fearless. Even in her old age, she travels more than any of her staff, who work in shifts to keep up with her. As a young woman, she was beautiful, serene, a perfect person to act as a bridge between the human psyche and that of the chimpanzees of Gombe.

Dian Fossey - passionate, psychologically unstable, loner, angry, bitter Nyiramachabelli (read the book for the explanation of the last word). Dian came from an unhappy childhood and lived an unhappy adulthood. Although she loved the gorillas, she slowly removed herself from humanity. Hers was a sad life, despite its many accomplishments.

Birute Galdikas - gentle but utterly firm, commanding and yet soft-spoken. She was the only one already a grad student before being selected by Leakey, and the only one to remain in academia proper.

All three sacrificed marriages and relationships, health and wellness, time, money and comfort, for their dreams. Dreams that Leakey helped to foster but that each woman embraced with all their hearts. The "three primates" have become three of the most influential and well-known women in science, and they caused paradigm-shifting changes in the field of primatology. Crusader (Jane), Sorceress (Dian) and Diplomat (Birute) - truly miraculous women. Well worth a read.

Title: Walking with the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birute Galdikas
Author: Sy Montgomery
Pages: 239

Total books blogged: 6
Total pages: 2,387

Christmas

Another Christmas has come and gone in our home. The boys were here with us for the actual holiday, and so that was absolutely lovely.

Many books came into our home as gifts this Christmas, and I look forward to those that were given to me. I have already read most of the boys' new books to them as bedtime stories. I will be sad the day that they decide they are too big to snuggle with me on mine and D's bed and read before getting tucked in. It's such a staple - an almost meditative part of my day. I hold them, and I know the good and the bad of the day, and none of it matters right then because I have two beautiful boys who love me and who I love, and we're sharing books together, sharing a togetherness right before they fall asleep. J often nods off before we're done stories. I'm still able to pick him up and carry him to bed, but just barely. It's scary how big they are getting.

I sit in our mess of a living room, coated on most surfaces (including the floor) with various Christmas presents, wrappings, or instruction booklets. I am not a mess person, and each day this mess will get smaller as I slowly work at it in between playing, reading, cooking, cleaning, and boo-boo fixing. It's amazing to me that this mess is OK only because my boys made it. If I had made this mess it would be utterly intolerable and I'd have to clean it up before bed. But I won't - I'm heading to bed in a moment. I might read a few pages of Nineveh and Its Remains before I tuck in (yes, still working on it - Christmas shopping, cards, visits, wrapping, and a few other work responsibilities means I've abandoned this blog for most of the last month). But I will sleep soundly even though there is a mess downstairs. It's amazing what being a (step)mom will do to you, the things you're able to deal with and better yet, just accept.

G once asked if I would rather have a clean house everyday - we'd just finished cleaning up their toys that evening. He said he knew he made messes, and that I didn't like messes, so would I rather he was at Mama's? Oh, I held him close and it brought tears to my eyes. I told him I'd rather have him and his brother here and have the house be heaped 5 feet high in toys than have a clean house with no boys.

I think he was looking for reassurance, and I hope he got it. But that day was the day I decided that I'd try to let the little stuff go. It's been a long journey so far, adapting to being a Mom. But every day they teach me something new.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope you've snuggled your kids too.

The United Way booksale. Or, the Victoria College Booksale.

This week is the United Way Booksale at my university.

I have a problem with booksales. I can't resist them.

One of the main reasons that I have so many unread books is because of booksales. Because so many booksale donations come from estates and whatnot, I find a plethora of the cloth- and leather-bound books that I adore. I find these books as addictive as creme brulee, hot sunshine and good wine. I want to own them all. I love reading little inscriptions in their fronts, and knowing that this book that I now own was found by someone named Helen under her Christmas tree back in the 50s. I feel at peace when I find these things.

I used to go to the Victoria College booksale when I went to U of T. The last day of the sale was "Boxing Day". For $10, you purchased a box. Then you filled it and left. The last time I did it I wound up with a first-edition Steinbeck.

And so, this week is the United Way fundraising booksale. I went during my lunch today, and in addition to a few books for the kids, I found a Paul Theroux, a book by Jane Goodall, and a Farley Mowat book about Dian Fossey. As I am currently reading a book about Leakey's "Three Primates" (the three ladies who studied the great apes - I'll blog it in a few days, I'm almost done), I immediately snatched up the latter two.

And here we reach the crux of this post: I originally hypothesized that I would read from the top left of the first bookcase to the bottom-right of the last bookcase and blog each book. I still wish to do this. I didn't originally consider that I would keep buying books, though of course this will be the case.

And my first reaction was fear - did I start a project that will never end? But then I realized I must stop considering this as a project. This is a pasttime. This is something to enjoy and savour as the page count rises, and as cliche as it sounds, it will be a journey. There won't be a set ending, and now that I've thought consciously about it, this doesn't bother me.

So - I will have a Home Book and a Work Book. My purse isn't big enough nor do I have the desire to truck a book to and from work each day. My Home Books will be left-to-right, top-to-bottom books. My Work Books may or may not be so - reading heavy philosophy or sociological studies at lunchtime doesn't appeal to me.

My current Home Book is one I took out of the library ages ago, but I'm getting there. I'll blog it soon. Once it's done I'll start in the top-left of the first bookcase. Here we go!

Word of the Week: Osetra

Well, Bourdain spells it "osetra". There are a plethora of other spellings online, an indication of a word that has been translated from another language that doesn't use the English alphabet. You should see how many variations there are for English spellings of Arabic words, a phenomenon I experienced with frustration while researching particular archaeological sites, only to find that they have 5 or 6 'different' names.

Osetra is a type of caviar. The second-most-expensive type of caviar there is (beluga has it beat). Unfortunately the species of sturgeon that produces it is nearly extinct in the wild. If you choose to partake, please be sure to sample from the farmed osetra-producing sturgeon.

I'm not sure I have ever tried caviar. As a child it has the gross-out factor - fish eggs? Yuck! But as an adult, it has an allure, and an air of importance and expense. It is also similar to other prestigious seafoods (oysters, fugu), in that it is expensive, and you want to make sure you get the 'right' experience the first time you try it. I've turned many an oyster hater into an oyster lover simply by showing them the good kinds, and how to eat them. I feel that I've never had anyone looking over my shoulder at a nice restaurant, able to tell me what caviar to order and how to enjoy it.

There's also my general lack of like for fish eggs. I love sushi, but I request it masago-free. The various varieties of fish eggs have been sampled and rejected by my taste buds. Would caviar be better? Different?

Completed: A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal

Many years ago, I read a book called Cosmopolitan by Toby Cecchini. It was recommended to me because I was told that anyone who has worked behind a bar (as I did for many years) needed to read it. I have since told many a service-industry person the same thing. Anyone who hasn't worked front-of-house will still enjoy it, but they just might not get it as much.

A few years later, I was introduced to the back-of-house equivalent of Cosmopolitan. It was (is) called Kitchen Confidential, by a chef named Anthony Bourdain. I remember lending it to my Dad one summer - we spent a week or so at a cabin belonging to a family friend on Manitoulin Island. Dad spent hours reading it, bursting into his high-pitched laugh every few minutes.

So, when I came across another autobiographical Bourdain book in a bargain bin, I couldn't help it. It has sat on the shelf, as have hundreds of my books, for several years. I finally picked it up as lighthearted reading material for my lunches at work a few weeks ago. It may not have been the best selection for meal time - he eats some damn disgusting food as he jets around the world. But the man just has a way with words. You can't help but be right there, feel the emotions he's feeling. A high while eating perfect Moroccan food in Fez. Stomach turning due to food poisoning or drinking cobra bile. He's almost convinced me I need to visit Vietnam. I certainly need to visit the south of France.

More than anything, his book convinces me that there is no such thing as the single most perfect meal. It's a sentiment I've always agreed with, but now I can formulate that conclusion more consciously than I could before. A crepe purchased off a street vendor in Paris, or a calzone from a basement restaurant in Hungary, are just as delicious as Il Mulino in Toronto or Coast here in Vancouver. I will always crave a kartoffelpuffer (potato pancake with garlic sauce) and some roasted maroni (chestnuts) on a cold winter's day in Vienna just as much as a perfectly cooked lobster.

Stay tuned for a Word of the Week catch-up post - Bourdain uses enough culinary terms to make your head spin!

Title: A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal
Author: Anthony Bourdain
Pages: 274

Total books blogged: 5
Total pages: 2,148

Completed: The Lord of the Ring trilogy

That's it! I'm all done grad school. It doesn't quite seem real yet. I haven't yet felt a sense of loss at no longer having that status, but perhaps that is because being done is better than being in the fray. "I can't - too busy with school" doesn't apply any more, but I still feel there aren't enough hours. "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want." Garfield? Calvin? Not sure who said it, but it applies to me. I want to play my flute, and work on my stamp collection (mock if you will - it was fun when I was a kid and it's still fun), do puzzles, write on this blog, read more, enjoy TV without guilt, experiment with cooking, get back to the gym (went to a brutal spin class today - first time in two months!), write to my family more... so much to do! It's only been a few weeks, but I've started to get to my non-grad-student list.

And one of the things I wanted to get to was the Lord of the Rings. I last wrote when I was reading the Fellowship. I have gotten through the Two Towers, and also the Return of the King. I tried to read the appendices, but the first one was like reading that part of the Bible where so-and-so begot such-and-such - just a huge list of jumbled names, and I just couldn't. Plus, I didn't want the extra information to take away from what was an absolutely mesmerizing place - Middle Earth is wonderful. I would visit in a heartbeat - particularly Lothlorien. He really did create a whole world. When you read a book and not one detail is missing to make it real - when nothing takes your attention away from the story, because the background is flawless - that is truly magical writing. I enjoyed every sentence. Even the simplest detail was beautifully conveyed. Everyone should read LOTR.

I have seen the first movie, and of course, with the book so fresh in my mind, I was somewhat disappointed. I suppose I shouldn't have expected more - they couldn't possibly include all of the details that made the books as good as they were. But they left out a LOT. Like Tom Bombadil.

I've waited so long, so I look forward to the other two movies. But I can say with absolute certainty that the books are worth every moment you spend reading them. I waited far too long to tuck them under my belt.

Titles: Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King
Author: J. R. R. Tolkein
Pages: 1,664

Total books blogged: 4
Total pages: 1,874