Book Bingo

INGRID THOFT
Our visit with the librarians from the Seattle Public Library and a comment on Monday’s blog inspired today’s post.  Earlier this week, Ramona talked about the teacher who insisted that she read books that challenge her.  Good advice, no doubt, but how to actually do that with so many books and so little time?

The Seattle Public Library's Book Bingo card

One solution is to play “Book Bingo.”  The Seattle Public Library offers book bingo every summer, as do other libraries.  You can complete the card and be eligible for a prize drawing, but even just reading one selection out of your comfort zone will stretch your mind a bit.  And as Linda and Andrea reminded us on Thursday, you can always “bother the librarian!” for suggestions!

I reviewed the Book Bingo card and was intrigued by square that said, “published the year one of your parents were born.” Hmmm.  I’d never considered seeking out books published in 1936 and 1939 (sorry, Mum!), but Goodreads has lists of the top books published by year.  It turns out those years were treasure troves for great books.

Papa Hemingway

What does 1936 have to offer?  Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, Agatha Christie’s The A.B.C Murders, or The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway.  Should I tackle Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce?  That’s one of the options for 1939, but that might be too much of a challenge!  How about The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck or Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep?

Other squares will be easier to fill.  In the biography and memoir category, Hunger by Roxane Gay is at the top of the list.  I also know what my choice will be in the “author of color” category. I’ve heard amazing things about The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.  A Separate Peace by John Knowles fits the bill for a book I read in school.

You know what’s going to be tough?  Choosing something for the “genre that is new to you" square.  I don’t generally read science fiction, fantasy, or romance.  I think I’ll have to ask Linda and Andrea for some suggestions!

Our ever-growing TBR piles!

Reds and readers, do you purposely choose books that challenge you?  How would you fill in some of the squares of Book Bingo?

Bedroom transformations with literary themes

HALLIE EPHRON: I loved Susan's post last week on transforming her son's bedroom into a Harry Potter room. 

Here, with my kids grown and gone, we've had our own bedroom transformation. My husband's "office" had filled up with piles of yard sale finds, including on and beneath a massive oak desk where he was supposed to work. The room could only be navigated with great care, tiptoeing between the piles.

Finally he agreed (aka caved) to get the mess under control and transform the room into a comfy bedroom for a visiting daughter.

 The process took from Thanksgiving to Christmas. The desk, by the way, could not even be give away on Craigslist so it got carted away in the trash. For some of us (me watching; him doing and saying NO DON'T HELP ME!) it was painful. But with a little help from IKEA (bookcases) and West Elm (bed), look how nice it turned out! 

In the end, he only threw out about six box-loads of stuff) because the bed is a magic storage bed that lifts up to reveal... junk. Out of sight at least.

Said daughter was gobsmacked when she saw the room.  She may even have cried.

I know, it's not a Harry Potter room, but if I were making a themed bedroom I might follow the lead of the spectacularly situated Sylvia Beach Hotel where I spent a weekend with the Oregon Writer's Colony on the coast in Nye Beach, Oregon. Its rooms honor authors.

Here's the J. K. Rowling room.

And there's an Agatha Christie Room with a shelf of her books and  a clue from each mystery hidden somewhere in the room. Also rooms for Alice Walker, Amy Tan, Dr. Seuss, Mark Twain, Hemingway... and more. 

I always thought the hotel was named for a place, but it turns out Sylvia Beach was a person. She opened the bookshop Shakespeare and Company on the Left Bank on Paris shortly after WWI and kept it open until the Nazi occupation in WWII, and helped many writers escape fro Paris. She was passionate about books, and became friends with writers like Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, James Joyce, and many more. 

According to Goody Cable, who co-owns the Sylvia Beach hotel, Ms. Beach's unsung claim to literary history is that she edited and published Joyce’s "Ulysses."  With the help of her sisters, Joyce's benefactor, Harriet Weaver, and various authors, she smuggled the book into the US, Canada, and England to bookstores and private buyers. It was considered erotica and banned.  She saw little or no monies for her efforts and got little credit.

How appropriate that a whole hotel whose bedrooms honor writers is named for her!

So today's question: What about your room makeovers. Done in a day, a week, a month? Painful,  gratifying, expensive, fraught with potholes??