Moleskin or Bust
Currently reading:
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
Books finished this week: 1
★★☆☆☆
Where this book came from: The very adorable Browsers in Olympia, WA!
Why this book: Mostly the cover——which is gorgeous——and the deckle edges. Also the witchcraft.
Thoughts: Once upon a time, I was reading a PD James book, and something was revealed near the end that was so clever I literally had to put the book down and say, “Wow, I’m so stupid.” Something similar happened with Once and Future Witches, except something so extraordinarily stupid was revealed in the last 20 pages, that I set the book down, looked at my cat, and said, “This is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever read.” Granted, the last few weeks have been a bit taxing, so maybe I partly just wasn’t in the right mindset for this one. But in my reading experience, Witches was far too long, the pacing was too slow, the imagery was repetitive, the language was unnecessarily flowery, and the world-building felt shaky. The spells are all taken from nursery rhymes and familiar sayings, which should be clever, but feels very forced, because mostly all you have to do is swap in “witch” for one word in a random proverb. Boom! Magic! Doesn’t matter if the rhyme and rhythm are then thrown off; you just have to deal with it. And mash up some lavender or roots or something, idk. I’m giving this one two stars because there were some pretty passages and because witches are awesome, but if you choose to read it, know that it’s going to be a long and arduous journey to a whimper of an ending.
Library updates:
So a super fun thing about my cat is that she seems to hate bookmarks. To be fair, she only goes after them when I’m actively playing with her by teasing her with a bookmark; she doesn’t grab them out of my books or anything. But she goes absolutely bonkers for a piece of paper poking out from between the couch cushions or peeking over the edge of an armchair.
The claws absolutely come out when we play the bookmark game, and she got me good on my right pointer finger the other day. Not a large cut, but deep. And then she trilled at me like, “What? We’re not playing anymore?”
That whole anecdote is only tangentially book-related, but this is my blog and I’ll share what I like!!
The last few months have been punctuated by occasional purchases from Moleskin. I’ve always been a fan of a good notebook from any brand, but the magic combination for me is a Moleskin page plus a Pilot pen. I went hunting for a new notebook to journal in back in March and decided on an XL beauty from Moleskin, in a gorgeous pale blue/lavender shade called hydrangea. Then, when I started a new job in June and decided I wanted a physical planner to keep track of meetings and tasks, I went back to Moleskin for it, and also ordered a two-pack of notebooks. I use one of them to take notes when I read books for my freelance reviewing gig, and recently wrote down put my National Book Festival agenda in it, too. I mostly just stare longingly at the other one, trying to decide what to do with it.
A few weeks ago, I had the idea to keep track of what I read in some physical form, since I’ve been enjoying writing things down by hand so much the last few weeks. I mostly use Goodreads to keep track, which I like, but the way digital companies rise and fall nowadays, who knows how long my shelves will stick around? I also don’t love giving more of my business——even if it’s just clicks and site visits——to Goodreads’ parent company, Amazon.
Moleskin has a line of dedicated notebooks for different topics: movies, recipes, and, yes, books. (I’m not sponsored by them, I swear. But, uh . . . sponsor me, Moleskin.) Though I liked the snazzy blue notebook meant for tracking reading, it felt a little more intense than I wanted it to be. Much like this blog, I want my tracking system to be very low stakes and low pressure, just basically a list of books I’ve read.
So I ordered a hardcover notebook (in “reef blue”) and have started copying down every book I have saved as having “read” on Goodreads.
The list currently stands at 828 titles. I joined Goodreads in 2011 and have some titles noted as having been read in 2009 and 2010. I have come across two or three titles so far that I think I accidentally categorized as “read” when I meant to add them to the to-read shelf, because I have no recollection of them. I’ve also noticed there are some repeats, where I accidentally counted a new edition when I meant to just add a new reading session of the same book. There are one or two comics that are also listed by issue rather than collected volume, which adds to the count.
But still. 828. Wow. I can’t even fathom how many hours, how many pages, how many words that is. That’s so many publishers and imprints; so many authors and editors. So many people pored over all those pages before they landed with me.
I’ve managed to make note of over half of them over the last week and I hope to finish the project soon! Then I’ll continue to keep track both on Goodreads (until the Amazon overlords decide to axe it) and in my new little notebook library. I just write down the month in which I finished the book, the title, the author, and my star rating out of five; very simple. I feel accomplished, and now I have a solid record of doing something I love, a record that can be used to make recommendations to friend or can maybe live beyond me one day.
All this handwriting has made me want to try my hand at writing a story longhand again. Maybe that’s what that lonely notebook is for?
I used to write all my things longhand. And by “used to,” I mean when I was about twelve. I’d write drafts of my epic fantasy novel in assorted notebooks, then sit down once I had a good chunk of work done and type it up, editing as I went. It was honestly a pretty good way to go about it, since the time it took to handwrite everything meant I had some distance from the words by the time I reread them as I typed. I think my aim was to do a final read and edit once I’d finished the damn thing, which unfortunately didn’t come to fruition.
But I love the feel of a pen on paper, and I miss creating in that way. Maybe I’ll try that out again, and see if it leads me to any interesting places.
Closing thoughts:
Buy a notebook. You deserve it.
Total books read from the Moratorium Library: 18
(Total books added to the Library: 30.)
I don’t want to talk about it.
