Jana Remy
  • Writing
    • Disability
    • Making History
    • Digital Humanities
      • dayofDH
    • Canoeing
    • Creative Nonfiction & Essays
    • Feminism
    • Bibliographies
      • Pacific Worlds Bibliography
    • Social Media
      • Mentions/Links
  • Scholarship
    • Awards/Fellowships
    • Conferences & Invited Talks
    • Collaboration
    • Workshops
    • Conference Planning
    • Technical Skills
  • Teaching
    • Blogposts About Teaching

Jana Remy

  • Writing
    • Disability
    • Making History
    • Digital Humanities
      • dayofDH
    • Canoeing
    • Creative Nonfiction & Essays
    • Feminism
    • Bibliographies
      • Pacific Worlds Bibliography
    • Social Media
      • Mentions/Links
  • Scholarship
    • Awards/Fellowships
    • Conferences & Invited Talks
    • Collaboration
    • Workshops
    • Conference Planning
    • Technical Skills
  • Teaching
    • Blogposts About Teaching
Category:

books

was happiness…
booksdeep thoughts

was happiness…

Was happiness so bound up with the knowledge that it was also ephemeral?  And was it therefore always to be accompanied by the stubborn fear of its loss? Something wasn’t right. And yet she believed that she had developed an unusual capacity to ruin her own good fortune with this anxiety, this expectation of something going wrong.
~Richard Bausch, Hello to the Cannibals

 

This was one moment in the book that resonated with me on a fairly deep level. I was raised on the notion that one could not know happiness without also knowing a corresponding sadness, and it seems to me that every happy moment in my life has held the shadow of the days where things have been equally awful.

I love how Bausch is able to capture that so well in this quotation. It happens in a moment where the protagonist has no idea that there is a huge amount of sadness in her future, it’s a foreshadowing of what’s to come. But of course life is not as tidily constructed as a novel and I wonder if it isn’t possible just to be happy for awhile, without it inevitably leading to a time of despair?

December 18, 2017
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
What I’m Reading
bookshow to charm memaking history

What I’m Reading


Started Richard Bausch’s Hello to the Cannibals last week and have had a hard time putting it down. I’m about halfway through and thus far it reminds me so much (in the very best ways) of Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose. In both, the protagonist becomes obsessed with a historical character. It goes without saying that I identify pretty strongly with that impulse.

November 25, 2017
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
booksdeep thoughtsoutriggerworld

as powerful and as strong…

Last week we did a fairly strenuous canoe paddle, more than 60km, in a remote northern area of British Columbia.  The paddling wasn’t so daunting (3-4 hours per day of solid work), but it was the portages from lake to lake, the lightning storms, and the persistent pelting rain that quickly dampened my sleeping bag and all of my clothing that took their toll.

Now that it’s over, however, so much of that difficulty is forgotten.  And instead what remains are the gorgeous images imprinted into my memory and onto the roll of film that we shot as we traveled.  Such as this one, taken on the home stretch to Bowron Lake:

glassy waters(Note: the horizon is slightly crooked due to the boat leaning a bit to the right side that morning)

As I was writing in my journal when the journey was completed, the first thing I put on my list of lessons learned was:

I like to do hard things

And it’s true.  The stretch of an ambitious endeavor makes me happy.  Doing the mundane, the repetitive, the easily achieved task…boring.  I thrive when presented with a challenge, which is why the trip to British Columbia was so much more appealing than a resort stay or some other leisure activity.

While on this trip, these two books, Tracks and Paddling My Own Canoe accompanied me everywhere:

two books for my travels later this month…journey narratives ftw #JSLFL #booklover

A photo posted by @janaremy on Jul 13, 2016 at 6:34am PDT


I just finished reading Tracks today, which is a book about a woman who walked across the Australian desert with four camels in the 1970s.  At the close of the text, this quotation jumped out at me, as a better expression of my thoughts about hard things, than I expressed myself in my journal (emphasis my own):

As I look back on the trip now, as I try to sort out fact from fiction, try to remember how I felt at that particular time, or during that particular incident, try to relive those memories that have been buried so deep, and distorted so ruthlessly, there is one clear fact that emerges from the quagmire.  The trip was easy.  It was no more dangerous than crossing the street, or driving to the beach, or eating peanuts.  The two important things that I did learn were that you as powerful and as strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision. 

July 31, 2016
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
booksmary mondaypoetry

close as two pages…

Because I do like me some book-ish poetry…

Untitled
by Elizabeth Bishop

Close close all night
the lovers keep.
They turn together
in their sleep,

close as two pages
in a book
that read each other
in the dark.

Each knows all
the other knows,
learned by heart
from head to toes.

 

books on my desk

A few of the books that are regularly stacked on my desk at home…

June 27, 2016
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
booksdeep thoughts

bargains with myself

I sometimes make small bargains with myself to keep focused on the things that are important to me (and to reign in my time-wasters).  One such bargain is that I often set is that I won’t peer into Facebook until I’ve finished reading my current book.  So I’m up to that again, and have promised myself to finish Christina Lamb’s Farewell Kabul, which I picked up in the airport last week.  It’s a pretty dense read, but is fascinating.  I am learning so much.

photo of my little free library, with several books inside(photo is of my new Little Free Library, where I can pass along all of the awesome books that I read, to others!)

June 26, 2016
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
booksssc

short shameful confession #29

library shelves with booksWhen I was a kid (around the time that I was reading The Mixed of Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler), it was my dream to someday hide out in a library after hours, perhaps snoozing among the stacks and reading reading reading to my heart’s content.

I happen to be, at this very moment, nearly alone in a closed library.  And musing about all of the possibilities…(so if you don’t hear from me for awhile, you’ll know why)

View previous short shameful confessions

June 14, 2016
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
booksmake me smile

Sunday Reading

In lieu of reading the Sunday newspaper, I’m reading a variety of interesting web articles this morning. They’re all so good, it seemed well-worth sharing a few of the links:

A comparative review essay from LARB about Istanbul and Shanghai, which prompted me to add Midnight at the Pera Palace to my reading list.

A Boom article about camping (note: the vintage photos are almost as good as the writing).

This NYTimes article about why doctors still use stories (or case studies) in addition to data. (H/t to Holly for the link on FB)

October 19, 2014
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
booksdeep thoughts

Things can happen…

gorgeous peonies at the market this morning

gorgeous peonies at the market this morning

When in the end, the day came on which I was going away, I learned the strange learning that things can happen which we ourselves cannot possibly imagine, either beforehand, or at the time when they are taking place, or afterwards when we look back on them.” – Out of Africa, 1937

Realizing today just how much of my life has been beyond my imagination–both for the good and for the bad. It seems one of those truths that is most easily recognized at moments of transition.

And, channeling my inner Karen Blixen as a reminder to keep writing and telling my stories even in the midst of so much change…

June 6, 2014
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest

booksdeep thoughtsthings I like

but your soul…

12871386154_acc10d9f7a_zBut you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life.  Your particular life.  Your entire life.  Not just your life at a desk, or your life on the bus, or in the car, or at the computer.  Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart.  Not just your bank account, but your soul.

~Anna Quindlen, A Short Guide to a Happy Life

March 2, 2014
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
booksdeep thoughts

I have never felt the need..

12066103805_e7bd078edcPhoto taken in Tongeren, Belgium.

 

Loved this thought, on being satisfied with this world, and not needing an afterlife (or a God)…

You see, I have never felt the need to invent a world beyond this world, for this world has always seemed large and beautiful enough for me.  I have wondered why it is not large and beautiful enough for others–why they must dream up new and marvelous spheres, or long to live elsewhere, beyond this dominion…but that is not my business.  We are all different, I suppose.  All I ever wanted to know was this world.  I can say now, as I reach my end, that I know quite a bit more of it than when I arrived.  Moreover, my little bit of knowledge has been added to all the other accumulated knowledge of history–added to the great library, as it were.  That is no small feat, sir.  Anyone who can say such a thing has lived a fortunate life.

~Alma Whittaker in _The Signature of All Things_

February 14, 2014
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
books

on my nightstand…

This week’s books-in-progress (click on the book covers to connect to the titles on amazon):

Highly recommended for those of us who are struggling to keep writing academic articles amidst our other busy-nesses.

Enjoying this historical-fiction book immensely. It’s got a bit of everything that I love: ocean explorers, early America, science, feminism, and engaging characters. Nothing like that other book that Gilbert is so famous for writing.

And speaking of Elizabeth Gilbert, here she is again on my nightstand. I haven’t yet started this one, but I aim to later this week.

I’m skimming this one as part of my resolution to worry less about money. I’d prefer to enjoy money rather than fret about it obsessively.

February 10, 2014
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
booksRandom

This week, on my nightstand

What I’m reading right now*:

I loved the Yiddish Policeman’s Union, so I picked this one up a few months ago.  But I’ve not found it nearly as engaging as I’d hoped–I’m having to push my way pretty hard through to the end.  The characters of this one just aren’t grabbing me and keeping me interested.

 

Jared Farmer’s recent SoCal lecture about Trees was one of the best that I’ve heard in a long time.  I’ve been dipping in and out of his book and find it to be one of the best-written history books that I’ve encountered this year.  And, the landscape around the OC looks so different to me after reading Jared’s tome.

 

My officemate recommended this book to me after she learned of my interest in western history.  It’s about the Indian Wars, which is an era of history that’s not easy to digest.  The writing is accessible (i.e. not for a historian-audience) and breezy.  If you enjoy western history, I’d recommend that you add this one to your nightstand.

 

And then there’s Tom Zoellner’s latest, Train.  I haven’t started it yet, because I’ve got to finish a few of these others first.  But I can’t wait!

 

*Click on the book images to visit the amazon pages for these books.

January 30, 2014
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 8

About Me

About Me

Hi there friend, and welcome to my blog. I started writing on the internet two decades ago. Since then I've started and finished a PhD program, left the Mormon church and became a Quaker, got divorced, remarried, found full-time work in academia, took up rock climbing and outrigger canoeing, and traveled across the globe (China! Belgium! Italy! Chicago! Montana! Portland! Gettysburg! and oh-so-many points in-between). This blog is eclectic and random--it has poetry and cooking and books. And cats. And flowers. And the ocean (my ocean). But in that sense it's a good reflection of me and my wide-ranging, far-reaching, magpie curiosity.

Snapshots of My Life

No images found!
Try some other hashtag or username

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog.

Popular

  • 1

    A Room of My Own

    December 4, 2017
  • 2

    the post-post divorce Christmas celebration

    November 28, 2017
  • 3

    open

    December 21, 2017
  • 4

    Reader, I married him

    March 22, 2017
  • Ellycat

    January 2, 2019

Categories

Archives

Popular Posts

  • 1

    A Room of My Own

    December 4, 2017
  • 2

    the post-post divorce Christmas celebration

    November 28, 2017
  • 3

    open

    December 21, 2017

Calendar

January 2021
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Jun    
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Flickr

@2017 - PenciDesign. All Right Reserved. Designed and Developed by PenciDesign


Back To Top