The Most Beautiful Book in the World

Thank you Ian Lawson.

Thank you for your words, your photography, and your most beautiful book, From the Land Comes the Cloth: A journey to the heart of the Hebrides.

Thank you for your ability to connect to a land, its people and its cloth and to create a work of art that connects me to them.

As you say in your book,

Colour reflects our moods and the seasons; it calms and excites the senses.  Different textures add depth and definition.  The light and shadow of the Outer Hebrides and its unique landscape of ancient stones, mountains, loch, machair, moorland, beach and ocean slowed me to a standstill.  As I began to photograph the landscape, the people and the tweed, I started to see patterns emerge.  A beat began and the rhythm of Harris Tweed flowed into my consciousness and into my pictures.

A piece of Harris Tweed is an art form.  Caught up in the warp and weft is a combination of inherited traditions, individual imagination, craftsmanship and skill.  This artistry and ingenuity in the weaver's work is a genuine appreciation of the land, told in wool...The glorious landscape and cloth are undeniably entwined.  

I am grateful for your heart that captured the true essence of the people of the Outer Hebrides.  I am grateful for your talent and patience as a photographer for capturing the light, the people, the land and the cloth in a way that I could not.

I am grateful for this book that moves me every time I sit down with its 430 pages of beauty.

Its weight grounds me to the earth again and reminds me how I felt for those seven hours I spent on the Isles of Harris and Lewis.  Through your work, I experience the interrelationships between sea, land, sky, plants and people and feel the rhythm of their conjoined heartbeat.



For those who cannot afford to travel to the Outer Hebrides of Scotland where your story is told, thank you for this film that you prepared for them to watch:


HEART OF THE HEBRIDES from Ian Lawson on Vimeo.

And for those who are not able to buy the book, thank you for the 108-page preview that you so generously share on your website.

I am still trying to figure out why Scotland has touched me so.  And your book is helping me think it through.  There is spirituality woven into its pages guiding me along.

Thank you Ian Lawson.  You have created a masterful work.  My counsel and companion until I can visit the Hebrides again.

[Note:  Through Ian's website, I have found he is releasing another book entitled Shepherdess: Seasons of my Life which follows the story of Alison O'Neill as she tends her hill farm in Cumbria.  Gerry Krueger, this video is for you.  It's 13 minutes of absolutely wonderful.]

Beading with Diane Fitzgerald

Diane Fitzgerald is to the beading world as white is to rice.

As a bead collector, jewelry designer and author, her work has provided me with loads of inspiration and enjoyment.

Because Diane is also very good at writing instructions, I have spent many hours over many years making her designs before getting the chance to meet her on Monday.

Together with my Embroiderers' Guild, we gathered to learn how to make these cornerless cubes in Diane's new design...the Moorish Tile necklace...



Believe it or not, they are all the same bead made from the exact same pattern made to look different by changing the colors. Take another look.  Brilliant, right?

Each bead is made from 6 squares and 8 triangles...



And when you put them all together, they form this nifty cube.  I started another colorway just so I could see what would happen with the pattern...

The finished cube ends up being around an inch.  I don't plan on continuing to make them this size but have ordered some size 15 delicas to see what happens when I make them tinier.

Diane's books are some of my favorites on my bookshelf.  As a collagist, I am always on the  lookout for methods of engineering textiles and beads in my work.  Diane is a master at sculpting and working with beads to make all methods of different shapes...stars, cubes, netting, charms, and flowers...

When I mentioned my Scotland trip, she reminded of the beaded thistle that was included in her book of flowers.

OH the flowers!



By far, the book I use most is The Beaded Garden: Creating Flowers with Beads and Thread.  If it's not on your bookshelf, it should be...

Or if you can't afford to do that, hunt it down through your local library.  There are oodles of beaded flowers and leaves that you can use in your needlework projects.  My crazy quilt group and I have made many, many flowers from this book and have had a ball doing it.

Here's a bitty rose I made for Radiance, a bead journal project...



And here are some bellflowers I made during Summer Charm School in 2009...

Diane has a new book coming out in November titled Shaped Beadwork & Beyond: Dimensional Jewelry in Peyote Stitch which includes the pattern for the Moorish tile bead and lots more.  She had an advance copy for us to preview and the book is a total winner.  There are patterns for starfish, stars and temari ball-inspired beaded beads to name just a few.

If you can't wait that long, you can visit Diane's website to purchase a few of the patterns before the book comes out.  Take a moment to check out her articles that have appeared in publication.  She has uploaded them all in .pdf format so you can download them for free.  There's a wealth of information there and it doesn't cost a dime.

Happy bead dreaming everyone.  See you next time.

At Last, Jane Hall Opens Up

When Jane Hall published her first book, The Art & Embroidery of Jane Hall: Reflections of Nature, I was smitten.

I devoured every page and was impressed with her ability to capture the delicate, natural forms of flowers, leaves and butterflies while using needle and thread.  I was fairly desperate to know how she did everything.  And her first book left me wanting and disappointed.

I re-read the entire book twice from cover to cover just trying to decipher the smallest hints of technique.  But she gave only the briefest of clues.  And frankly, it left me feeling a bit sad.

That was until she published her next book which I pre-ordered and finally read this past weekend...
The Art of Embroidered Butterflies.

Finally she shares how she accomplishes such delicate precision...and I am so grateful.

She takes you with her on the walks through the meadows outside her home in the UK.  We see what she sees and then we are taken through her artistic process of how she translates the natural forms she studies into her own works of art.  

As someone who is seeking to create more precision in my own work, it's a thrill for me to absorb her prose and her process.  I highly recommend it to you, if nothing else than to soak in the beauty of her world, her supplies and her subjects.

That being said, this isn't a "project" book.  There are no patterns or supply lists.  And it's not likely that you will easily be able to copy her butterflies...she uses lots of antique silk threads and other supplies that are not so easily attained.

But you will be inspired and get new ideas for how to create more delicate and realistic embroideries.

Happy Monday everyone!

The Artist is a Collector

If I could have written a book about creativity, I wish I would have written this one:

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

It takes only an hour or so to read.

Unless, like me, you have to stop to really think about the messages that he delivers so simplistically.

The book is full of insight, historical reference, brief vignettes, and starts with this quote from Pablo Picasso:

 "All art is theft."

Nothing is original.  All creative work builds on what came before.

As artists we are collectors...and we are shaped and fashioned by what we love and what we surround ourselves with.

Kleon says:

“Some people find this idea depressing, but it fills me with hope…If we’re free from the burden of trying to be completely original, we can stop trying to make something out of nothing, and we can embrace influence instead of running away from it.”

And by stealing, he's not implying plagiarism where you try to pass someone else's work as your own...no, not that. But instead, borrowing ideas that speak to our souls and transforming them into our own personal creative expression.  It's about Transformation not Imitation.

“Copy your heroes. Examine where you fall short. What’s in there that makes you different? That’s what you should amplify and transform into your own work.”

And yet we do imitate when we're learning.  We take classes, we reproduce and follow patterns created by other designers, we copy their work processes...all to learn.  And, as Kleon says:

"It's in the act of making things and doing our work that we figure out who we are".  

Yes.  That's it, exactly.

In fact, after reading each of Kleon's 10 things, I felt like jumping up and shouting "Yes!!" to each one. I saw myself in and on every page.

Some more faves:

Side projects and hobbies are important.  Mess around. Wander. Get lost.  Don't throw any of yourself away.  Keep all your passions in your life. 

Don't worry about unity.  What unifies your work is the fact that you made it. 

Establishing and keeping a routine can be even more important than having a lot of time.  Work gets done in the time available. 

Write the book you want to read.  Draw the art you want to see.  Start the business you want to run.  Play the music you want to hear  Build the products you want to use.

And the list goes on and on.  It's better if you just read it yourself.  And if you do, I'd love to know what you think of it.

If you're interested, here's a TED talk by the author on Steal Like an Artist here.  And he has a blog here.  Have a great day!

Three Paths Converge on Story

Over Thanksgiving break, I realized where I have been traveling in my creative life through this blog...and it wasn't just to Texas to visit Jim's family.

I realized that there are three paths of creative expression on my blog: my needlework, my photography and my writing, and that they were all leading to the same place.

And that place centered around my desire to Tell a Story.

Last July, Maura sent me a link to this interview with author Marion Roach Smith on NPR titled 'Memoir Project': Tips for Telling Your Story...

Once I saw the title I realized something Maura had already known. I was using my blog as a vehicle for telling my story.

It sounds fairly obvious, I know, since isn't that what most people use their blogs for? Please don't think me stupid but I had never intended for my blog to be the vehicle for story. It just kind of evolved that way.

Did you have an intention for your blog when you first started it? Is it the same today?

When I first started this blog, I thought I would use it as an entree to the online needlework community, seeking like-minded friends with a love for all things needle.

A place to share my needlework with others and likewise, see theirs...I don't think my original intent went much beyond the idea of sharing and needlework...

It wasn't long after I started blogging that I connected with Robin Atkins and started the Bead Journal Project. Thanks to Robin's approach, I began expressing small bits of myself and my life with beads, needle and thread. I surprised even myself. I had never realized I had a unique, creative voice...and that it had something to say.

After the Bead Journal Project, all my work started to have a purpose and a connection to my self, my life experiences or to the people I love. And the story behind the creation of my needlework, became equally as important as the finished pieces themselves. Maybe even more so.

For me, the creative process moved beyond the physical generation of needlework...beyond the accomplishment of a finished piece or task...to the expression of the intentions and daily revelations I experienced while making the pieces.

And it was the desire to better convey the emotional experiences of my work which led me to seek better ways to capture and express my feelings both visually and verbally.

That led me smack dab in the middle of the vast world of photography, trying to better convey my story through the photographs I was taking for my blog. Though I've made some improvements, I am still really a neophyte in the photography world.

And now, I find myself a bit of a neophyte in the vast world of writing as well...

So...while my stuffing was soaking up the gravy from my turkey, my brain was soaking up all the tips and advice for writing memoir in Marion Roach Smith's short, 100-page book, The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life.

Sooo much more goes into writing well than I admit to considering before writing my blog posts...

Which words to choose? Which details to include and which to leave out? What angle to take? How can I boil down all the thousands of thoughts and feelings that are jamming up my mind into something expressive yet...simple.

How can I better convey those routine moments of my one, divine life that feel so important to me? How do I tell my story...better?

It seems overwhelming.

And yet, I know that the struggle to best illustrate my life...through my needle, through my photography and through my words...is the best teacher of all.

Because it's the struggle of self-expression, of deciding how to tell my story, that teaches me who I am.

And maybe I'm not the only one? Perhaps there are many of you reading this post today who have struggled similarly in expressing yourself through your own blog.

Well. Marion Roach gives lots of great tips for writing about your life. Not only is her book a very quick read but I happen to think that it translates to telling story through needlework as well.

She gives 3 basic guidelines to writing memoir:

1. Writing memoir is about telling the truth.
2. Every page must drive one single story forward.
3. Just because something happens doesn't make it interesting.

She then goes onto to give writing and editing advice...and I honestly believe that it is all translatable to telling a story through needle and thread.

What is the story that the piece of needlework is trying to tell? Do all the elements on the piece contribute to moving the story forward? Just because you have a beautiful button or ribbon or thread, doesn't mean that it belongs in the design...etc...

Over the next few months, I plan to further explore the idea of telling story through needlework...and to further explore the nuances of sharing that story through photography and memoir.

In the meantime, if you're interested in learning more about writing memoir, Marion has a website here, a blog here and you can find her book here, The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life.

And should you think that for some reason your life isn't worth writing about? Well, that's just not true. Everyone has a story. And I, for one, find your unique point of view very interesting.

It's why I read blogs.

See you next time.

_________________________________________________________________

From Marion Roach Smith's Memoir Project:

"Learn to value the reader, whose hunger for truth is enormous and whose thirst for understanding this life is unquenchable."

"It's in the small moments that life is really lived."

"A blog post is not about stuffing in as much as you can; rather, it's about illustrating something correctly."

"Learn to write with intent and you might learn something about life."

"Scenes from real life fade fast, losing blood and paling, and your job is to jump on the damn thing, with those wild, electrified ping-pong paddles in hand and jolt it back to life before it goes blue."

Picture Books Where Creativity Saves the Day

A while back, I posted about my secret habit of reading Martha Stewart Weddings even though I won't be hosting or attending a wedding any time in the near future.

Well, here's secret habit #2...

I spend a lot of time in the Children's section of the bookstore reading picture books...even though Jack, at age 14, is no longer reading at the 4-6 yr old level. *sigh

I look for books with great stories, great illustrations...and, if a needle and thread appear in the story, then I am absolutely giddy.

Well, check out this book I just found this past Saturday when Jack and I went to the store...

It's wonderful. The story is about a mouse named Noodle who finds a ball of yarn...

And she teaches herself to knit. The illustrations are captivating...

But the greatest thing is that the yarn is flocked on every page so little hands (or big ones) can rub the yarn as you read the story...

You might want to check it out for the little one in your life. Or for you...*wink

I have lots of favorite children's books but today I'll focus on a few where Creativity Saves the Day.

The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau is my absolute fave of all time but I've talked about that one before and I know many of you love that one too.

The Orange Shoes by Trinka Hakes Noble is another fave.

Delly needs new shoes but her family can't afford them. When she finally gets a pair, it's just in time for a fundraiser at school...the Shoebox Social. Before the big day, her shoes are ruined by her nasty classmates but Delly uses her talent to overcome her sadness...

Cinderella's Dress by Nancy Willard is a new take on the old fairy tale told from the perspective of two magpies who nest in the tree outside Cinderella's window. It's not the fairy godmother that gives Cinderella her dress for the ball...it's the two magpies who use all of the treasures they've stashed in their nest to sew her a beautifully be-ribboned gown with feathers, and beads, and all sorts of shiny things...The rhyming could be a lot better but it's still a sweet story...check it out before you buy this one...

The Lost Ears by Phillida Gili is about a beloved teddy bear who loses his ears when he mistakenly gets thrown in the washing machine. A clever girl who can sew saves the day and, not only fixes the bears ears...but makes him a scarf, coat and hat to boot...

Phew! That's enough to wet your whistle for today.

I'd love to hear about your children's favorites where creativity saves the day...

Happy Reading.

French Ecclesiastical Embroidery

Looking at beautiful embroidery makes me weak in the knees.


And taking pictures of beautiful embroidery...

Having images to keep and study...well...


That's priceless.


When I took my Tambour Beading Masterclass, Bob Haven treated our class by showing us this antique French ecclesiastical stole which he had bought at a flea market in Paris.


It was stitched on silk satin and the silk was basted onto a piece of muslin for safekeeping.


Bob understands the importance of preserving, sharing and studying these rare antique embroideries and didn't hesitate a second when I asked if I could post the images on my blog. Thank you again Bob.


The embroidery wasn't quite complete so you could see that the transfer was made by pouncing chalk over a series of needle holes pricked onto a pattern.


The holes were incredibly tiny -- this photo is a close up so the "dots" appear much larger than they actually were.


Because the piece was laid out on a high table, I wasn't able to get a picture of the entire stole. Sorry about that.


But I love to study the shading, the use of metal threads, the design, the stitches...


After returning home, I went on to Amazon France looking for French tambour beading books. Though I found a few, I was more intriqued by this amazing french book titled De Fleurs en Aiguille. I know enough French to know that the book was about flowers and needlework (actually...it's something like Flowers in Needlework: The Art of Embroidery in
the Visitation)...and the cover photograph gave me heart palpitations...so I took a chance and ordered it.


And OH!! I was NOT disappointed. This book is an absolute treasure trove of beautiful images and close ups of the embroidery created by the nuns of the Visitation of Mary or Visitandines founded in the 17th century in France. I found a newsletter here that explains a lot more detail about the museum, the Visitandines and their art...the book is actually a catalogue for a museum exhibit was held in 2009 at The Musée de la Visitation in Moulins.

I've added that museum to my "must see" list.

Most of the book's subject matter is ecclesiastical but don't let that fool you. It's absolutely stunning.


The book is written in French so I cannot understand very much. But it's worth the price and shipping for the pictures alone.

I also own a piece of ecclesiastical embroidery that I bought to study. However it is not nearly as fine as the work I showed you today. I'll share that tomorrow.

Have a beauty-filled day.

Snow by Orhan Pamuk: A Book Review

(Note: Snow is the fifth of twelve books I've committed to read as part of the 1% Well-Read Challenge)

Why Snow?

Snow's author, Orhan Pamuk, is one of Turkey's most prominent writers and has sold over seven million books in seventy languages making him the country's best selling writer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 and has become the first Turkish citizen to receive the award.

His novels are about hope, confusion and loss, brought on by his characters' and community's struggle between Western and Eastern values. The English translation of Snow was published in 2004 and the New York Times listed it as one of its 10 best books in 2004.

OK, so I tell you all of this so that you will understand why I chose to continue to work my way through this book for two solid months. This was not a book that you can't put down...in fact, I put this book down more times than I can count. The main reason being, this book is work. I mean, it's like work on the scale that sometimes studying great works of literature can require.

I did not enjoy this book but I'm not sure it's the fault of the author. As I read and worked, I came to believe that the reason I was not enjoying this book is because I could not relate to the characters or their situation. In this book, I represent the West -- and much of the religious and political context of this book is foreign to me -- as you might expect since I'm not Turkish.

The story takes place in an Eastern border city of Turkey called Kars (kar means "snow" in Turkish) when, Ka, a political exile and a poet is returning to the city after having been gone for 12 years having sought asylum in Germany. Ka is complex -- since leaving Turkey, he has not been happy and has been unable to write poetry. Ka returns under the pretense of investigating the suicides of a number of young girls who have been asked to remove their head-scarves while attending school. But the real reason for his return is that an old college friend, Ipek, is said to have divorced her husband and Ka hopes to kindle a love affair, propose marriage and whisk her away to Germany, where they can live happily ever after.

Ka enters Kars in the midst of a huge snowstorm which completely cuts the city off from the rest of the world for the duration of the book -- the phone lines are down, the streets are impassable -- and no one can arrive or leave the city. The city itself is poor and impoverished with a tremendous amount of conflict regarding the secular values of the State and Islamist fundamentalists. There are many political and ethnic groups which makes it tough to follow at times. But, I imagine, if you were a Turk you would grasp all of that quite easily. The book follows Ka through his investigations, through his attempts at winning Ipek's love, through his furious poetry writing (he writes 12 poems during his visit there); through a revolutionary military coup that he is drawn into, and through his personal peaks and valleys of happiness and despair.

Ka is not a hero and he is not even likable sometimes -- he often becomes whiny and meek in trying to persuade Ipek to leave with him; he often lies and doesn't stay true to his word and he ultimately causes the death of some innocent people as a result of his actions. And, the story is not told by Ka, but by a friend of Ka's (named Orhan!) who is an author researching Ka's poems written in Kars and re-tracing the history of Ka's trip there.

So, there are lots of reasons why this book was difficult to read. However, this book was an impressive work of fiction and I felt it was worthy of my struggle. And, I enjoy it more now, having researched the context a bit and learning more about the author and modern Turkey. The author, himself, has been criminally-charged by the state of Turkey and put on trial for speaking out against Turkey's treatment of the Kurds. He was released from prosecution in 2006 and now teaches at Columbia University.

Reading Snow, and making my way through it, is probably one of the main reasons why I decided to participate in the 1% Well-Read Challenge. Sure, it's easier to read books that I enjoy and can relate to, but how much growing am I really doing? Snow took me out of my complacent, American suburban life and threw me into the conflict and confusion of modern day Turkey -- where conflict exists within households and among friends over political, religious and ethnic issues and where the path to happiness and freedom is not always easy to find.

There were parts of the book that were very enjoyable -- mainly, the idea that Ka is finding God in the snow that is covering the city; that Ka feels divinely inspired at a moment's notice to find a place to write down his poems that just "come to him" from somewhere outside of himself; that Ka is an artist; and that Ka is seeking happiness and discussing it's pursuit and how he might define it. This caused me often to stop reading and reflect; and I suppose a little introspection is never a bad thing...

This book, along with Turkish history and culture, could have been a semester's long course at a University and I would be honored to take the course. And, if I ever see Mr. Pamuk's name on a lecture series down the road, I would love to hear him speak one day.

If you want to read a more masterful review, check out Margaret Atwood's from the New York
Times Book Review here.

And, if you're interested, this is a poignant excerpt from Orhan Pamuk's Nobel lecture which, I believe, reveals his core belief behind his writing...

What literature needs most to tell and investigate today are humanity's basic fears: the fear of being left outside, and the fear of counting for nothing, and the feelings of worthlessness that come with such fears; the collective humiliations, vulnerabilities, slights, grievances, sensitivities, and imagined insults, and the nationalist boasts and inflations that are their next of kin ... Whenever I am confronted by such sentiments, and by the irrational, overstated language in which they are usually expressed, I know they touch on a darkness inside me. We have often witnessed peoples, societies and nations outside the Western world–and I can identify with them easily–succumbing to fears that sometimes lead them to commit stupidities, all because of their fears of humiliation and their sensitivities. I also know that in the West–a world with which I can identify with the same ease–nations and peoples taking an excessive pride in their wealth, and in their having brought us the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Modernism, have, from time to time, succumbed to a self-satisfaction that is almost as stupid.

—Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Lecture (translation by Maureen Freely)

Next up in the 1% Well-Read Challenge is The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. See you then.

The Count of Monte Cristo -- Book Review

This month for the 1% Well-Read Challenge, I was working my way through Snow by Orhan Pamuk when I became completely captured by The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas which is also on my list for this year...

The Count of Monte Cristo is over 1,000 pages long and I knew I was going to need at least two months lead time to get through it, so I began in June hoping to end by July. I had ordered it from Audible to listen to the audiobook and it has been an incredible recording and narrative.

OK, so, why I did not know that this amazing story existed, I will never know. I have read two other Dumas works...The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask, both which were made into movies. I was an English minor in college and if I hadn't read many works of literature, I was at least aware of them... My only guess as to why this book was never assigned in school is because of its length? But, boy oh boy, when I get a really good book like this one, I don't even notice the length...or the laundry... Now that it's over, I wish it had been 2,000 pages...

The story is set in France, Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean between 1815-1838. On the eve of his betrothal, our main character Edmund Dantés, is wrongly accused of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment -- all caused by the combination of actions of three men who, acting in their own self interests, have little concern that they've ended the career, marriage and life of an innocent man. The book concerns itself with the suffering and hope of Edmund who is whisked away to a dungeon where he spends the next fourteen years in isolation while the men who placed him there live on in the real world, becoming successful through less-than honorable practices...

I really don't want to tell you what happens at all because you MUST read it. It's written as an adventure story and deals with hope, justice, vengeance, love, mercy and death...all good elements of a great novel.

IMHO, this book is in a league of its own. It's one of the greatest novels I've ever read. And my sister and my husband both agree.

I highly recommend the audiobook which I was also able to find at the library on CD for my husband...it's over 53 hours of listening but the narrator does a great job of acting the voices and pronouncing all of the foreign names....the characters are all interwoven and connected throughout the plot which is also made easier to follow by the audiobook.

I didn't have trouble with this at all, but should you be the type that gets confused by who is whom...wikipedia has a character chart here...

What can I say other than it was a GREAT GREAT book. Please let me know if you have read it or if you read it as a result of this review; I'd like to hear if you agree. I also found out that the novel has been adapted to many screen versions, including several films, numerous TV series and an anime series. It has been estimated that this story has been filmed once every eighteen months from 1920 on...and even had a TV miniseries in 1998 starring Gérard Depardieu...

I guess I've been living under a rock...a rock the size of the island of Monte Cristo....

Next month, I'll tell you about Snow by Orhan Pamuk...

Editor's Note: The accented "e"s of this post would not be possible without Gina of Threads of a Tatting Goddess, to whom my written French is forever grateful...

Deep River by Shusaku Endo

This book review is my third one as part of the 1% Well-Read Challenge where I am reading one book per month from the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list...

This book is written by critically acclaimed Japanese author Shusaku Endo with translation by Van G. Gessel.

This book is about a group of Japanese tourists who travel to Hindu's Holy City of Varanasi and the River Ganges. As the group witnesses tremendous displays of religiousity, spirituality and faith, the reader is privy to each character's internal dialogue and how each person psychologically processes the experience-- either finding or failing to find their own faith.

Isobe is grieving for his dead wife whom he ignored his whole life; Kiguchi is haunted by his memories of The Road to Death in the jungles of Burma during WWII; and Numada is recovering from a serious illness and has found great strength from his relationships with animals. But, it is the last two characters, Otsu and Mitsuko, who are my favorites...

Mitsuko, is a cynical young woman who lacks a spiritual compass yet is smart enough to grapple with her internal emptiness and search for meaning within her unhappy life -- though in a very selfish way. Mitsuko and Otsu first cross paths in College where Mitsuko notices him for his determination to do good and pursue his path to God, though he is cast as a nerd and socially backward. Mituko toys with him, and on the dare of her mean friends, Otsu becomes the brunt of a cruel and harsh joke set out to debase him and rock him from his sense of "goodness".

They both leave college, Mitsuko goes on searching for something to fill the void within herself and Otsu goes on to a seminary to attempt to become a Catholic Priest -- when he ultimately fails to be accepted to official religious life by the Catholics, the Buddhists, and the Hindu monks -- because he refuses to accept ONE relgious path at the exclusion of all others -- he ends up serving the poor and being poor himself -- the ultimate imitator of Christ on earth - and Mitsuko can't help but seek him out over and over again throughout the novel-- to tempt him, to revile him, to spit upon him, and yes, ultimately, in order to love herself.

The reader is taken on a spiritual journey as the characters make their pilgrimage to the Holy City of Varanasi and we are left to our own internal inquiry as the author builds a critique of modern society -- a society that seems to lack moral substance and is headed nowhere.

I can't tell you much more than that without giving it away. But this book is powerfully written and the reader's course is well-plotted so that we, too, are on a religious pilgrimage, if we allow ourselves the debate.

Shusaku Endo is a prize-winning Japanese writer and one of his novels, Silence, about two Jesuit missionaries who travel to Japan in the 17th century, is being made into a movie by Martin Scorsese for release in 2010. Evidently, Mr. Scorsese was also moved by Shusaku Endo's work. I commend him for shunning the big-explosion, mass-movie appeal of the spiritually-shallow modern blockbuster, and deciding to produce and direct a movie that deals with the journey of mankind to find God. Mr. Scorsese understands that this one may not pack the movie theaters like Spiderman but says, "this one is done for the heart." Bravo!

I recommend this book highly and will definitely be reading other books by Shusaku Endo. My book for June in the 1% Well-Read Challenge is Snow by Orhan Pamuk.

Gone With The Wind -- Book Review

Oh my. If you have never read this book...or haven't read it in a very long time, treat yourself and immerse yourself in its almost 1,000 pages! I confess that I took this with me on Spring Break and did little else but read -- this book made me stay up late and wake up early -- couldn't put it down, until it was done...and then, of course, I was so sad to see it finish.

Written by Margaret Mitchell and published in 1936, this is an epic story of love, war and survival set in Georgia during the Civil War. Scarlett is so unbelievably appealing to me because she is bold, cunning, ruthless and fearless AND so is Rhett Butler. It is probably one of the greatest love stories of all time, and even more appealing because it is full of tempest, and passion, rage and danger. As a couple they are evenly matched and the unpredictability of their actions and words, leaves you constantly shocked or disappointed -- but trust me, these two happened to the world -- the world didn't happen to them. And, suffice it to say, they evoke A TON of emotion in the reader -- even if you know the story, the book is worth the read again and again! Three months after being published, the book had sold one million copies and just one year later, the novel won the Pulitzer prize. To say it was a tour de force is an understatement.

In 1939, the movie was released starring Rhett Butler and Vivien Leigh and went on to win 10 Academy Awards. Today, the movie is considered one of the most popular and greatest movies of all times and, when adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind is the highest-grossing film ever! This year marks the 70th Anniversary of the release of the film in Atlanta, and the film is being restored for release on DVD sometime this year. Four hours long, this film is magnificent and true to the book, down to many of the famous lines.

Rhett Butler to Scarlett when she asks him to kiss her: "No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how."

Scarlett, when Rhett proposes that they marry: "It's fun for men -- though God knows why. I never could understand it. But all a woman gets out of it is something to eat and a lot of work and having to put up with a man's foolishness -- and a baby every year."

And Rhett, in response: "I said you'd had bad luck and what you've just said proves it. You've been married to a boy and to an old man. And into the bargain I'll bet your mother told you that women must bear 'these things' because of the compensating joys of motherhood. Well, that's all wrong. Why not try marrying a fine young man who has a bad reputation and way with women? It'll be fun"


But one of the most delightful parts of the book is the relationship between Mammy (Scarlett's nursemaid) and Rhett and the red petticoat. You can read the whole scenario here, if you want. And, Hattie McDaniel who played Mammy in the movie was the first African American to win an Academy Award and it was for Best Supporting Actress.

When Margaret Mitchell was asked what Gone with the Wind was about she said, "if the novel has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong and brave go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't."

Scarlett, when faced with starvation: "As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."

It's a must read. Just don't plan on doing much else while you're reading it.

Next up for me in the 1% Well-Read Challenge is Deep River by Shusaku Endo.

The Old Man and The Sea -- A Book Review

Many of you know that I participate in the 1% Well-Read Challenge and that we have just kicked off another year. That means that by the end of this year, I should be 2% well-read -- actually, I think I'll be about 10% if I include all the books I've ever read on the list outside of the challenge.

Anyhoo. This month I'm delighted to tell you about this little gem of a read by Ernest Hemingway. If you read it in school, I urge you to read it again.

The messages are many. The prose is simple and direct. The story captures and captivates you.

It's only 125 pages and takes only a few hours to read. I read the whole thing on the bus trip up to New York last week, while looking up every now-and-again to say to Jim and Jack, "You've got to read this. It's such a great story!

The book starts out with the old man who has fished his whole life on a skiff in the Gulf and he has gone 84 days without catching a fish.

Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated. p. 10

In the first 40 days, a boy had been with him but the boy's parents had said that the old man was salao -- the worst kind of unlucky -- and pulled the boy to another boat. It made the boy sad to see the old man working alone and so he continues to help him and, is truly, the man's one true friend. The boy loves and cares for the man who has taught him to fish.

He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women , nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. p. 25

The middle of the book takes place at sea, when the old man, alone, hooks the largest marlin he has ever seen in his life.

Now is the time to think of only one thing. That which I was born for. p. 40

It's larger than his boat and stronger than the old man, so the old man uses his wits, his knowledge of fish and the sea, and his will -- to perservere against the huge, beautiful fish over three days and two nights at sea, alone, with only two small bottles of water and a fish to eat.

I wish I had the boy. p. 45

He has tremendous respect for the marlin...

You are killing me, fish, the old man thought. But you have a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother. Come on and kill me. I do not care who kills who. p. 92
But a man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. Page 103
...and I will stop there. What happens next is poetic. But in case you haven't read it, I won't spoil it.

And my favorite line... To hell with luck, I'll bring the luck with me.

I couldn't put it down. A gem. Jim and Jack are both going to read it too.

Next up is Gone With the Wind...which I'm clap-my-hands excited about. I'm taking it with me next week when we go to Florida to visit my father. I expect a heck of a good read...and, of course, we'll have to re-watch the movie...