Curious incident of the cloud atlas

This week we're looking at the book website LibraryThing, in which people list and discuss their favourite books. I was curious about the most discussed books. Harry Potter and the Twilight series led the pack. Then at #20 was an old bookclub favourite: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. It's about an autistic boy named Christopher who is logically trying to figure out the mystery of who killed a neighbour's poodle. The narrator has an distinct voice, and it was a compelling and universally enjoyed read.

One of the common tags applied to this book was humor, so I clicked that to find out what LibraryThing readers thought was funny. Douglas Adams, David Sedaris and Terry Pratchett topped the list.

LibraryThing can be useful for browsing and making unusual connections based on tags. However, I still like wandering the stacks and randomly picking up books. I like spying on what people are reading on the bus. I like picking up books left in hostels. My favourite chance read was when my husband found The cloud atlas by Liam Callanan by the side of the road as he was out biking. It's about the Japanese bomb balloons sent to North America during WW2, as seen through the eyes of three memorable characters. Since the book had dropped out of the sky to me, I dropped the author an email, to tell him I enjoyed his evocative tale. He wrote back- for which I am still delighted!

Organizing a book club online

My book club is getting ready for our year end dinner to pick the books for next year. We have an enthusiastic member who organizes us by email.

I've been looking at online productivity tools for work, like Google calendar and Google docs. It made me wonder if they would be useful for book clubs.

I love digital calendars, especially how you can get appointments to repeat without writing them over and over. I also love the colour coding- like using different markers. Really, it's all about the stationery!

If we were to post the reading list on a shared freeware calendar, we could access it from anywhere. Like a garage sale- hey, isn't that the book we're reading next spring? Or we could get the address and phone number as we're rushing to a meeting.

I think these tools will have great potential in the future, when more people have smart phones.

It also makes the possibility of digital book clubs possible. However, I'm all about the snacks.

Happy eating!

The girl with the nose ring

I'm not sure there are many people who haven't read The girl with the pearl earring by Tracy Chevalier. It's the story of Griet, a servant in the home of the painter Johannes Vermeer. She has an aesthetic sensibility, which is noticed by the 17th century Dutch painter. Griet is increasingly drawn into his artistic process. The book was inspired by a Vermeer painting of the same name.

At work, we are exploring Flickr, the photo sharing site, so I searched for the painting. Images of the painting, yes, but also all manner of strange homages. There are modern photographs of ladies posing, chalk artists drawing on the sidewalk, copy paintings both good and bad, and dolls and stuffies posed with wrapped hair. My favourite is the Lego mini figure version! What an excellent resource for a visual artist, both for finding images to draw and self promotion.

I headed over to Youtube, reluctantly, as I think the quality has declined since everyone's started to upload. I found the trailers for the Girl with the pearl earring movie with Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. There were some self promoting artists and musicians' videos "inspired" by the painting, which were painful to watch. However, I found some interesting author interviews with Tracy Chevalier. She was talking about the research process for her latest novel, Remarkable creatures. Unfortunately the reviewers did not find that book very remarkable. Remembering how much we enjoyed Girl with the pearl earring, I read reviews of Chevalier's other novels. The lady and the unicorn was highly recommended for book clubs. It draws inspiration from the unicorn tapestries in the Cluny Museum in Paris.

When you look at the original Vermeer painting, your eye is drawn to the luminous pearl. It is the focal point of the image. I called this post The girl with the nose ring, because my husband is painting a portrait of a lady with a big shiny nose hoop! He took this before photo as he is very reluctant to paint in the jewelry!

Happy reading!