Live and Let Di

Why Haven't You Written?

My friend Vicky just shared her new blog with me, Mom of Merrill Manor. Her decision to write, the quality of her writing and the diversity of her subject matter inspired me to get my fingers back to the keyboard, writing something more than once a week and more than 420 characters long. (That's the space limit on Facebook statuses...you can find me here for those.)

For the past 2+ years, I have been writing a weekly blog for the Raleigh News & Observer's TriangleMom2Mom page. I love it and it does give me some structure having a weekly deadline instead of this blog's "whenever I feel like it" deadline. But, I am somewhat topically limited since I have to make my posts at least remotely related to motherhood. I'm proud of my work there, love my editor and love the other bloggers. We get lots of traffic, so I know I'm being read. Plus, we just started up a Book Club and we're fiddling with it to see how it goes, who is interested, what kinds of books we should choose, etc. This month, we are reading Celia Rivenbark's We're Just Like You, Only Prettier: Confessions of a Tarnished Southern Belle. What is REALLY cool is that Celia Rivenbark is somewhat of a local here and has participated in the discussion, once referring to me as "the fabulous Di." I told my friends they could just call me TFD.

I'm hoping to use some self-imposed structure to get this old site back up and running and reconnect with some readers with whom I've lost touch. Here I can explore riveting subjects such as:

OMG...you are seriously going to be able to PAY SOMEONE your part of the lunch tab just by touching phones.

The pretend stock portfolio I am going to start with my pretend $10,000.

Why I'm going to watch Oprah today.

How Facebook may have sucked the life out of my writing.

So, tune in...and if you don't hear from me for a few days, get on me...don't let me get away with it! No excuses.

Di

Top Books of 2008

So what have you been reading?

Because I’m kind of geeky, I started an Excel spreadsheet in 1997 listing the books that I read, keeping track of date read, who recommended it and a 1-10 rating. At the end of the year, I enjoyed sorting through what I had read and doing a top 10 list. When I started my blog in 2006, it became an annual staple. 12 years later, I have a spreadsheet listing over 800 books that I have read…so rest assured that if you need a book recommendation, I’m a good one to ask!

This year it seemed like writing and building a house and actually working (albeit temporarily) kept me from reading at my usual frenetic pace, but I still read enough to have some good books for my list. So, here are my top 5 fiction books and top 6 non-fiction books  (sorry, I just couldn’t narrow it down!) that I read in 2008. I hope you find something that will inspire you to pick up a book you might not otherwise have read. (The links provided are to my reviews of the books.)

TOP 5 FICTION
PLEASE LINK THE URLS TO THE BOOK TITLES…THANKS!

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (thanks to my sister Linda for the recommendation)

Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski (thanks to Stephen King for the recommendation)

In the Woods by Tana French (thanks to FSB Associates for sending me a free copy to review)

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman (thanks to my BF Amy for recommending)

Forgive Me by Amanda Eyre Ward

TOP 6 NON-FICTION

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher (thanks to Andrea who tried to recommend it, but I never called her back and eventually found it myself being the Carrie Fisher-stalking loving person I am )

Comfort by Ann Hood (not sure, but if I had to guess I'd say Amy)

Comeback by Claire & Mia Fontaine (Andrea again! Andrea, if you are reading this, please leave a comment with your last 5 book recommendations....Andrea was off her feet for 6 weeks after surgery and probably read a ton! I'm sure with your 2008 track record, my readers want to know.)

In an Instant by Bob & Lee Woodruff (thanks to FSB Associates again. Book bloggers, if you are getting books from publishers, my opinion is that FSB Associates has the best record of sending books that you actually might like.)

Escape by Carolyn Jessop (Vicky...who recommended this ages ago, I bought it well over a year before I read it...and I loved it)

Strong at the Broken Places by Richard Cohen (I didn't mark down who recommended this, but Richard Cohen is Meredith Vieira's husband who has suffered with MS and colon cancer.)

I would LOVE to see your comments about what great books YOU read in 2008. It might give me books to add to my 2009 list! So far, the two books I've read in 2009 have scored an 8 and a 10...and the one I'm reading looks promising!

Di

And now, introducing...

As a veteran blogger, 2nd 5,492,832nd only to...well, I can't really name them all...I feel it is my duty to give a boost to new bloggers who are trying to build their readership to the 78 or so readers I get each day. So, in combination with my recent fawningly positive review of Wishful Drinking, I would like to introduce:

Carrie Fisher

Carrie probably doesn't know it yet, but she is my soul sister. Yes, we are so much alike that it's scary. Except for the fact that when she and I were in our teens, I was hanging with my friends drinking warm beer from Matt's Beer Balls and she was starring in a revolutionary and now iconic movie. (We both made questionable hairstyle choices at the time.) Oh, and her mother is Debbie Reynolds. And she was smoking pot with Harrison Ford when I was...yup, back to the warm beer.

When I heard that she was going to start a blog, I hoped that it wouldn't be just another self-serving, ghost-written celebrity blog used to promote her latest book. What a pleasant surprise! It's not!

Here at Live and Let Di, you can read about the silly exploits of Marcy, Kim, Pilar, Tony, etc., at the Cantina. On Carrie's site you can read about the silly exploits at one of her recent parties...only her friends are people like Sean Penn, Ewan McGregor, Gus Van Sant and Bruce Cohen. And, like Kim, proprietress of the Cantina, her door is open to the random people who drop in unannounced, like Mick Jagger and Paris Hilton.

And Carrie doesn't think she's too cool to accept comments! Take that Dooce!

So, my loyal readers, let's give Carrie a big welcome to the blog world (don't you kind of hate the "word" blogosphere?) and click here now!

Di

Dooce Busted!

A grammatical error on Dooce. My day is officially made.

Anyone care to identify it?

But, Heather, you can relax. You know I'm not going to stop reading and that I sit in awe of you. I'm sure with your kazillions of readers and $40K a month, you would freak out if I stopped reading. I will be first in line to buy your book, It Sucked and Then I Cried, because I admire your willingness to be candid about pregnancy, motherhood and post-partum depression. Parenting books typically make Moms feel inferior. Oh, if I only had the discipline of Dr. Rosemont. Oh, if I could only do the Ferber method without standing outside my kid's room in tears. We need more Moms telling us that in our inferiority, we might just be...normal?

Di

P.S. Thanks go out to JoAnn for noticing my busted link to Dooce. How ironic! I get busted by JoAnn for a broken link in the post I wrote about busting Dooce for a grammatical error!

Need Reader Recommendations!!!

My family knows me and loves me. My husband got me the one thing I wanted for Christmas.

It was all I could do to restrain myself from reading it all yesterday. But we were with my husband's family in Miami and there was so much chaos, laughter and an adversarial game of Trivial Pursuit, so I was too busy.

My sister-in-law, Lori, who picked my name gave me a cute yoga outfit with a top that is my perfect color (royal blue if you need to know for future gift selections) AND a $50 Amazon Gift Certificate!!!

So I need YOU, my faithful readers (although sporadic commenters), to recommend some books for me to buy with my fistful of book dollars!

Thanks!

Di

All I want for Christmas...

Seriously. I am not so much into the exchange of gifts with adults this year. We've gone virtual on my side...we give the people we pick a virtual rendering of what we WOULD get them if there was no limit. Should be fun. I don't want anything. It's not the kind of "don't want" where you say, "No honey, let's economize this year and not get presents for each other" and then have a day of pouting on Christmas that he didn't get you just a little something...because of course you got him a little something. The better to rub the guilt in.

If Santa was coming to visit and no one had to spend any of their dwindling supply of money on it, I would want this:

I have loved Carrie Fisher since Postcards from the Edge. I could have cared less about her in the donuts-on-the-sides-of-her-head days of Star Wars. When we (and by we, I mean me and Amy) read Postcards, we found our voice. She was every writer we wanted to be.

I saw her on The View last week. No, I don't sit around watching TV all day. I was babysitting my friend with cancer...now see how you feel about visualizing me as the couch potato stay-at-home Mom with bon bons. There she was in her slightly overweight glory, looking like she owned the world. She seems funny, irreverent and smart...and would fit in just perfectly at the Cantina.

So, big red guy, if you are out there and you agree with me that one can never have too many books, put Carrie under my tree!

Di

Holiday Magic

I remember when I was about ten, watching my Mom in the kitchen in the kitchen on Christmas or Thanksgiving. The kitchen in our house was about the size of the average McMansion pantry, had no granite, no stainless steel appliances and no custom cabinets, but was still the room that held most of my happy childhood memories.

 

Official disclaimer: This does not look like me, my Mom or our kitchen...mainly because I was NOT born in the 50s.

All of a sudden, it occurred to me that Mom had to work pretty hard to put this big family shindig together. I said, “Mom, I’ll bet you don’t even like the holidays because you have to do all the work.”...[click here to continue reading this post on my Triangle Mom2Mom blog]

Di

The White Album

***Don't forget to enter my Eight Below Giveaway***

Does "The White Album" evoke this:

Or perhaps this:

The former was a monumental stride in music, the first album undertaken by the Beatles after Brian Epstein's death. The latter was a collection of essays commenting on the disjointed, disconnected generation that came of age in the 60's and 70's. I think the enjoyment of both might have been enhanced for some with the addition of a little reefer.

What it does not and should not evoke is this:

Perhaps my problem is that this tableau can only be appreciated if one is stoned. I simply can't imagine any drug that would convince me that "books covered in white paper, each numbered for easy reference" is a good decorating scheme. No. Easy reference is having the original spines facing out, perhaps in order by author's last name, subject or Dewey Decimal number.

Am I the only one who enters a room full of bookshelves and practically salivates? I can't wait to peruse the books. The book collection promises to lay bare the soul of its owner. I actually attended a neighborhood association meeting once because it was at a home that I often walked by and saw huge bookshelves through the window. I only went so I could browse those shelves! If I walked into this room with its stark, homogeneous white, I would feel sad. Sad that books are being used for the primary purpose of decorating rather than reading. Sad that the personality of the book, from the cover art to the broken parts of its spine, is hidden in favor of uniformity. It flies in the face of all that reading is about...freedom to express, freedom to explore, freedom to question.

They might as well have a fireplace with book leaves for kindling!

Di

Are these in alphabetical order?

I used to think those Pottery Barn pictures where all of the books on the bookshelves were the same color were pretty stupid. I wondered if people actually went to bookstores and said, "I'm looking for a book. Something in taupe would be nice."

But then I saw this:

I have to believe that these people don't read.

Di

And the winner is...

Congratulations to Louise from Dayton, Kentucky who won the coveted copy of The Stone Gods during my book giveaway last week. I know it has taken me a while to announce the winner, but I've been WORKING, in case you haven't kept up with my fascinating life.

Now, just to reiterate, all book giveaways on this blog are totally random. As a matter of fact, I use a random number generator function (=randbetween to be exact) on Excel to choose the winner. So Louise's win has NOTHING to do with her superior sucking up skills. But I still want to share it since it did get her extra entries as delineated in my post:

I want The Stone Gods because.....I just started reading this book last night. I had heard about it, and its premise appealed to me. I love sci fi, so this genre is good for me. Shameless sucking up alert: Wow, you are so insightful...how can I exist w/out reading your blog???

Now THAT's what I call sucking up!!!

Di