Friday Tidbits: A Reading List

Shamelessly giving my fellow summer camper, Vladimir Alexandrov, a shout out for his recently published book, The Black Russian

A found treasure: very beaten up, falling apart and in tatters but much loved, as much as a childhood teddy bear.

I've long wanted to do something with books on my blog. Yes, reading is difficult when you have so many "conditions," but we also have to keep in mind that the "use it or lose it" principle still applies to us as well.I'm sure we all know that we must read, for many reason: time goes by more quickly when you're down deep in book world; reading gives you the ability to travel the world. (Cliche but true nonetheless?)  Yet how do we get our minds to get around the barrier, the realism that we have to keep in mind: the naughty CFIDS/ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, severe insomnia, fibro-brain and those forsaken migraines which try to foil us at every turn!?? It's short-term memory: the pits. It's concentration: long gone. 

I'm been procrastinating - but of course!  Actually, I've not been anywhere close to taking on the chore of organizing books, working up the energy in order to climb up and down chairs to retrieving books (because a ladder would be too safe?), then washing down the shelves and climbing on a chair again in order to rearrange said books.  You get the pictures.  However, I'm not complaining.  Honestly!  Truly!

So I've lifted a few books I'd liked when I first read them. Then I tried to put them into categories depending on your ability and if you can comprehend anything you've reading on any particular day. I call this the "moody reading."  In the mood for mysteries? You've come to the right place. Chick flick book: I've got a few authors for you.  And so, here we go.

Series, though stand-alones as well.  

• J.A. Jance: the JP Beaumont series. You can start reading the series at any point but his back story is so good that you'll really like it if you start at the beginning of the series. Don't tell hubs, but I have a crush on him! ;)
• Harlen Cobin: I can't wait to read his newest, a stand-alone. 
• Elizabeth George and her Inspector Lynley.  She's amazing. Stellar reviews, a best-selling author.  She too has a new book about to come out. (Yippee, I'm set for a few weeks now!)
• Charles Todd: a mother and son team. Their series, An Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery, takes place after WW1. I love the novels because he has demons as a result of the war.

Chick Lit: Is this fiction category still going strong?  I'm so behind in my reading, but these are fun and easy to read!

• Marion Keyes
• Elinor Lipman: hilariously funny.
• Jane Green and babyville and Isabel's Bed are both a good way to stay in bed.  Funny. Good!

Historical Fiction

• The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simon, a trilogy which makes for a best-seller in Australia. It's a romance surrounded by some pretty heavy stuff: Russia during WW2. Get out the tissues. Very satisfying read.

Contemporary books which I think will, in time, become a classic.

• Yellow Raft on Blue Water by Michael Dorris about a Naive American finding her way. We read it in book club and everyone loved it.  Please: don't go by my description.

Good reads:

• The Kite-Runner by  Khaled Hosseini. Can't wait to get my hands on the newest, And the Mountains Echoed 

Mysteries:

• Thomas H Cook: Red Leaves
• Jill McGown (Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd & Judy Hill mysteries)
• Deborah Crombie (the Duncan Kinkaid/Gemma James series)*
• Jan Burke* (the Irene Kelly series)

Hopefully, this should get you through the weekend! ;)  What are your favorite books?  I'm hoping there will be a next time with books. I'd love to hear what you'd been reading (even if it's a small thing from People magazine.)  Please let me know what you'd like to "hear" from me.

As always, hoping all are feeling their very best - only better!  Caio and paka.



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*NOTE: In editing this post I inadvertently dropped "the Duncan Kinkaid/Gemma James series" and Jan Burke's name, thus making Deborah Crombie the author of the Irene Kelly series.  I'm so wrong and so sorry: it's Jan Burke who writes the Irene Kelly series.  Fibro-brain strikes again: how truly embarrassing.  Apologies to all.

Reading Comprehension: CFS & Fibro 101

And preggers with child #2

Finally!  Reading seems to be making it's way back into my life: yippee!  

Books have been an essential part of me as long as I can remember, probably since I first learned the alphabet at the age of four.  Since that time, rarely has a book been out of my hands.  I walk down the stairs successfully while reading a book; I wash my hands while reading a book; I often cooked and baked while reading a book.  

So it was with great anguish that I stopped reading two and a half years ago.  It happened because my daughter became so deathly ill and we spent over a year running to and from hospitals.  For the first time in my life as far as I could remember, I couldn't concentrate on reading.  My great escape was no longer available to me.  My greatest entertainment was no longer available to me.  My greatest identifier, that of "bookworm," was no longer applicable.  I think that during that time once my daughter first became ill, until just recently, I managed to read five books total, this from a person who read over 400 books a year.  (I know, I know: it sounds crazy but I kept a list for ten years so I know my numbers are correct.  OK ... that sounds even nuttier: keeping track of so many books!)

Even during the worst days, months and years of my adventures with CFIDS/ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, migraines, body migraines, myofascial pain, insomnia, and a host of other conditions, I would read, even forcing myself to read if need be.  I learned to read through all but the worst migraines - the one that would make hospital admissions necessary.   In fact, I forced myself to read even on days when I couldn't concentrate on anything of significance.   

So, why did I make myself read?  There are several reasons:

• The "use it or lose it" rule: afraid that I'd start skipping days, I was afraid that I'd lose my ability to read at all.  And it would be so easy to do so, though it's strange to explain that concept to anyone not ill with something that would make reading comprehension a problem.
• I'd already lost so many things that I loved dearly - gardening, swimming, cooking and baking.  I was a terribly domestic creature who even loved to clean house.  All of this robbed me of my identities, but I was not about to let reading be taken away, the biggest part of me - that is, after being a wife, mother and best friend.
• It's the cheapest and easiest way to travel, be it through time or space.  And I do love to travel!

So, imagine my relief when I managed to read three books in the last month.  OK: I admit it.  I'm a book and reading snob and before my daughter became so ill, I would have laughed if someone called themselves a reader and only read a few books a month.  (We all have our moral frailties and this is definitely mine! However, I do realize it and have worked hard on trying to improve my character: unfortunately, it's sort of like trying to teach an old dog new tricks, even when I was ten years old!  Some things are just ingrained in us and no matter how much we try to change, we fail.  JOKING!  I think!)  But back to the subject at hand.

So, what have I been reading?  Nothing earth-shattering, that's for certain.  I'm not up to rereading any Tolstoy or Dostoevsky yet.  However, I have come up with a few strategies to getting myself into reading which may help those who have come down with the DD and are too ill to read books that they would have read in the past.  The following are some suggestions for those who desperately want to get into reading again: hopefully, they'll be of some use to readers:

• Good days: read what good books you can.  Bad days: read ANYTHING you can, no matter how "low" you have to go! 
• Reread books you've read before.  By now you may well have forgotten them.  Or in rereading them, you may see many things you never saw before, or see things in a different light as you learn more about yourself and the world because of illness.
• Reading biographies where one already knows "the plot" is often a safe bet.  For example, anything on the Royal Family is easy-peasy for me because I'm an unabashed Anglophile, especially when it comes to the Windsors.  Biographies are also successful with me because I'm usually attracted to people I know something about.  My big failure was an attempt at a biography of Albert Einstein (his thought experiments sounded fascinating but the real deal got a bit too heavy for me) and I'm now onto Marilyn Monroe, whom I knew very little about.  It's been "fun" to try to keep track of the characters in Monroe's life: impossible, actually.  I've had success only with Joe DiMaggio, Monroe's second husband, because hubs is such a Yankees fanatic and I remember my brother trading baseball cards as a child.  I also remember Arthur Miller, Monroe's third husband because ... well, because Arthur Miller is Arthur Miller, one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century!  After that, all the people in Monroe's life become rather murky. (I've not gotten to the Kennedy years yet.) 
• Book series are a good bet.  I like to read mystery series which I've been following for years because the main characters are as familiar to me as members of my own family and so I'm a few steps ahead when I start the books.  BTW: I normally dislike starting new books because in the beginning I'm terribly confused, something that started happening to me more and more, the sicker I became with the DD. 
• LONG books are terrific, and the longer the better.  Why?   In my case, I don't have to change gears and can read to my heart's content, not sighing in sadness that the book will end too soon and I'll have to go start another book.
• Find books with settings that are on your radar because of some sort of special interest.  I find myself reading books which put me into my children's worlds.  One son lives in Malaysia, so I've read a few books on that country.  Likewise, when he lived in Australia for several years, I read just about every book from Australia I could get my hands on.  My daughter teaches autistic children, so I've gotten into Temple Grandin as well as books that deal with the subject of autism.   

I've often wondered what the attraction to mysteries is, especially given that "book snobbery" problem of mine.  After all, back in my university days, I thought nothing would be better than when I finally finished my education and would be able to read as many of the classics, especially modern classics, I could possibly want. In fact, I've read very few "classics" over the years.  And mysteries?  Why, pray tell, mysteries?

I finally figured it out a few years ago.  (I know I'm slow, but I didn't realize that I was THAT slow!)  

It's because my life is a mystery.  Just as psychiatrists usually go into psychiatry because they want to understand themselves better, I read mysteries because I want to hone my detective skills.  I want to know why it is that I'm sick and how this happened.  I want to be able to think outside the box because I think that too many of those trying to figure out the mysteries of CFIDS/etc. and fibromyalgia haven't done a great job of it.  

They say that the best physicists are the young ones.  "Why is that?" I asked my hubby once.  I discovered - or it's my interpretation - that it's because the young ones are those who can still think outside the box.  The young ones aren't afraid to go where no one's gone before.  Once they learn too much about the laws of physics, that is, as the young physicists get older, they start to assume too many things.  Harry Feynmann of the "Manhattan Project" was the youngest physicist at Los Alamos.  Because he was too young to be impressed by such accomplished scientists as Niels Bohr, he was often sought out and given great weight: he wasn't impressed by the older guys, he just wanted to do physics, period. 

In mysteries, it's unsafe to assume anything.  So, I suppose that I'll always be a person interested most in biographies of people who've done great things in medicine (see the posts on Dr. Janet Travell and her pioneering work on myofascial pain) as well as being interested in mysteries.  Because my life is one great mystery which needs to be adjusted at every twist and turn - which is often hour to hour - it's a simple matter of survival in many ways as well.

Books, especially mysteries, are the best way I know to keep my brain from atrophying, as well as keeping myself in the loop of what mysterious things my body and brain have been up to at any given time.

What do you think: am I on the right track?

As always: I hope everyone is feeling their best, only better.  Ciao and paka.

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The mystery of why can't the bookworm read?

The boys loved putting on the "bobbies" hats when we had our own little mystery: who had robbed our flat while we were all sightseeing?

Good golly, great balls of fire!  I am NOT kidding when I say that I'm not sure how much longer I can "accept" this new Irene who doesn't read, who's not capable of reading because of problems with concentration.  I'm very much back in the POSITION of being able to read again, given that my daughter's health is, for the most part, on the upswing, and that I'm back in bed.  In fact, given how much I am recovering from the abuses my body and CFIDS/ME/fibro-addled brain experienced in the last two years, that is, between all the health crises in the family, I should be able to GLADLY escape to my book world, and certainly would have any other time in my life.  Heck, normally at any other moment in my life, I'm sure a crazy blood-thirsty gang of Viking would have had problems ripping a book away from me.  

This is a totally new me I don't recognize.  I don't like it at all and, frankly, I'm beginning to fear it.  Heavens, no matter how ill I've ever been, I've always been able to read.  Granted, I did get to the point in my deteriorating health where I was strict with myself and forced myself to read at all times, for fear of losing the ability to do so. And I reluctantly admit to reading some of the most awful junk on my really bad days (no titles from me on this count - I still have a bit of pride left!) when I had such extreme concentration problems.  Yes siree, I've read awful, flinching stuff when all is said and done, all in the name of keeping my brain from completely atrophying from this DD.

Forget the memory problems (pun: groan!).  I signed the terms to the surrender of that battle a long time ago and made extremely difficult concessions to the agreement, that of having to read a book in a day or in a single "sitting."

"Sitting"?  And how wrong is THAT word since I can basically only read lying down and only on my right side at that, in bed, no other way as long as I can remember?  Ha!  Given that I remember HOW much (?), I'm not sure how convincing that statement is.  But rest assured, it was my middle child, who's always had a knack for noticing the oddest things, who pointed it out to me back when he was about eight years old and he was absolutely right.  And I DO remember my mom being upset with me even when I was growing up, that I wasn't able to read from a sitting position.  I'm a bit of an odd duck, aren't I?

There's yet another reason that I'm afraid and upset about this inability to read.  Just as I've always used my "Russian-ness" as an identity that made me different from others as I was growing up and allowed me, I strongly feel, to avoid an "identity crisis" in college when EVERYONE was going through their "identity crises,"  (it WAS the 70's!) so, too, has "bookworm" been an integral part of my identity.

I've lost so much to this stinking disease, this CFIDS/ME and fibromyalgia, not to mention the migraines, the pain, the God-awful fatigue that makes you want to flow down the drain with the water as the bathtub empties.  I'm no longer able to garden like I love to, cook and bake like I yearn to, on a regular basis.  The couple of times I can do so a year, if I'm lucky, are an exception to the rule.  I long ago gave up on photography (or picture-taking!), swimming, visiting with friends.  I've not been to the movies since 1997 when "Titanic" swept the Oscar's, this a person as a member of a family that would often go to see three movies right in a row on a single Saturday or Sunday.  I no longer go to church. I cannot clean, iron...tasks I used to love to do because of the sense of accomplishment I always felt afterwards, if for nothing else.

As I torture myself trying to analyze what the heck is happening to me, I realize that in the last twenty years I've become more and more drawn to mysteries, and series at that, and have wondered why?  It took me a while to realize that the mystery aspect was enticing and appealing because it sharpened my deductive reasoning skills - a fancy way to say that I needed to think like a detective as I've tried to figure out my biggest mystery: what the heck was going on with, to and in my body, as well as my brain?

And why in the world the love of series?  Well, because it was so much easier to read a novel where I knew all the players and their histories and didn't have to kill off precious brain cells in trying to learn new people and places and their back stories.  There's not much I dislike more than beginning a book because it's just so hard to figure out what the heck is going on.  Lordy, even the font that changes from book to book throws me off my game.  All of this is so weird since that means that as I was reading 400 plus books a year in the last few years  (I kept a journal of titles, that's how I know!) that's an awful lot of unpleasant feelings at least once every single day. Was/am I a masochist? Coupled with how much time I would spend each day wandering the house trying to find a book to read, was in the "mood" to read (code word alert!), and given how much I was reading, I marvel at how quickly I must have been flying through those books!  And it's no wonder hubby had such mixed feelings about hitting up our libraries, hauling books home by the bagfuls, hoping he'd hit a home run with at least a couple of those books every few days.

A funny memory of my kids' childhoods.  At night when they would finally be ready for bed, once I got to the point where I couldn't always put them to bed anymore but hubby had to as often as not, the kids would run to my bed, attack and jump all over me vying for my attention, hyped up as usual from just being three rambunctious children, and demand to know what I was reading and how far along I was into the book. In the morning, when they would see that I'd had yet another sleepless night, they'd again invade my bed and want to know what I was NOW reading. Their biggest delight: if I had finished the book I was reading when they went to sleep, read another book as they slept and was into book #3 when they woke up.  OK, I never said my kids were NORMAL!

I'm trying every mind game I can think of and I still can't get into reading, this to a person who would walk down stairs reading, wash my hands in the sink while reading, brush my teeth while reading...the list goes on and on. In fact, I often tricked myself into doing a chore my body couldn't handle by reading and doing that chore at the same time.  I'm not saying I remembered anything I read while doing these things.  It was a bit like a roller coaster ride, fun while doing it but almost immediately forgotten.  And it got the job done.

Just as a smell can trigger the most deep-seeded memory and bring it it the foreground, I remember where I was or what my interests in life were back then, and I recall what crisis, happiness, indeed every twist and turn of our family's history at any given moment, all from just seeing a book cover.  Books are my history.

And the joke and anecdotes surrounding my reading are many. We were on our first trip to London, the entire family! The oldest was ten (trip first described in the post on 2/26).  We stopped at the bookstore at the airport (oh how I love to look at walls and tables at a bookstore and laugh when I see that I've read at least 75% of the books I see).  The gentleman remarked on how wonderful it was to see my kids zeroing in with excitement towards the books instead of the toys sold there too.

Before you get to "Oh, how sick can she be if she's flying to London, for heaven's sake!"  Wait!  

I held up a book that had caught my interest, but feeling very guilty about the bloody fortune we were spending on this vacation, plus so exhausted from the packing and planning, I was definitely not in peak shape even for my low standards.  I help up a book and asked the seller, "does this come in paperback?"  The man looked at hubby and hubby looked at clerk and I had no answer to my seemingly simple question.  I repeated, holding the book up even higher, a bit annoyed since my upper body strength has never been the greatest, I was exhausted, I was sure my makeup was rolling to my neck down from my face, I was sweating, I was becoming nauseated, my hair was getting wet from the exhaustion and all I wanted was an answer to a very easy question.  Griding my teeth behind what I'm sure was a very fake smile, I repeated, "DOES THIS BOOK COME IN PAPERBACK," a bit more slowly than called for.

The looks going back and forth were quickly getting on my nerves when hubby gingerly replied, "Uh, Irene...you ARE holding the book in paperback."

My brains was so slow that it took me a full minute of staring at the darn thing to finally understand what he meant.

Some days you just can't win.

In the meanwhile, I'll continue reading samples of books from my Kindle.  Something has to finally kick in. 

Reading, like I said, is me.

Visiting Kensington Palace on  Easter Monday, we discovered that Princess Diana had set up an  Easter Egg hunt for little children coming through that day, as well as a place in the basement where they could color and make all sorts of Easter arts and crafts projects.  What a lady!  

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