Reading Round-up for February

As Dar Williams sings “February was so long, that it lasted into March…”

Yes, it’s March 7th, and I’ve yet to jot any more about my reading in February…I’m tempted to give it up as a lost cause, especially because my memory is fading fast! But I do want to try to maintain the discipline of keeping at least a brief record here of most (if not quite all) of what I’m reading, although I’ve clearly expanded the purpose of this journal quite a bit in recent weeks.

So let me just dive in and try to list a few things I read in February and didn’t have time to post about.

Poetry: Some old favorites by Jessica Powers, plus dipping into a collection of Amy Carmichael’s poems (entitled Mountain Breezes). The spring issue of The Penwood Review hit my mailbox sometime last week…so I guess that’s technically been March reading. I’ve also been using some exercises from the terrific book Creating Poetry again, a Writer’s Digest book by John Drury, and one of the best reference books/handbooks of poetry I know. It almost always inspires me to write, or at least gives me new ways to play with words or practice certain forms/meters.

A short story from an old Image magazine given to me by a friend – I wanted to look at a sample, and no longer have any idea where any of my old issues are. I used to buy this wonderful journal from time to time at Gene’s Books, my favorite independent bookseller in King of Prussia. Alas, Gene’s is no longer in existence and I haven’t been able to afford a copy of Image in a long time. Very happy to have this one.

Children’s literature: I read a lovely little book called Ruthie's Gift by an author named Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. This was her debut novel from 1998; I hadn’t heard of her but picked it up, intrigued, once I realized it was based on what I think of as “my era” – that is the pre-WWI era of American history. I’m working on an epinions review.

Finally found the first book of Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events in at our little, local library – they’re certainly popular! I found it a light, fast read, weird and quite funny. Enjoyed it, but don’t know how hard I will go looking for the rest of the series (I think there are 13 in all?). They strike me as the kind of books it would be wonderful to have on hand while in bed with the flu.

I was very lax this month with scholarly reading or even any serious journalism -- just no energy for it. Though I did very much enjoy reading Bono’s speech to the national prayer breakfast – who would have guessed that he could preach like that?! (although perhaps we should have guessed, based on the song “40” all those years ago…)

Final day of February was the release date for the DVD of the new version of “Pride and Prejudice” (the Keira Knightly one) and I confess I rented it right away. Although I warned myself not to be too bothered by edits and by the liberties it was bound to take (after all, it was only a bit over 2 hours long) I still found myself somewhat disappointed. Still trying to pinpoint exactly why. Parts of it were lovely – in fact, I think the most charitable and authentic compliment I can give it is that, in places, it feels like an inspired visual poem in honor of Pride and Prejudice. So that alone makes it worth seeing. I’ve held off reviewing it until I can give it a more fair assessment on a second viewing. In the meantime, it made me want to see the wonderful A&E miniseries again, so I’ve been letting myself watch it in installments this week, late at night after the Boop’s in bed and I’ve done some paper grading. Viewing that masterpiece always sends me back to the delight of the real thing, the book. A real treat to a week when I’m struggling with a cold and worsening cough, and with sadness over the upcoming move of a dear friend.