Knitting, Books and Heeland Coos!

Knitting: I have the body and one sleeve of Forecast done. In other word, one sleeve and the button bands to go. It has been a very quick knit so far - I wonder if I can finish it before the end of February? My plan was to finish it before we head off to Poland, so I'm well on my way to meeting that target. My knitting group has a crochet-focus meet-up planned, though and I was one of the bright ones suggesting it, but I really should get around to finish my cardigan. Also? Do I really feel like chaining up a crochet project when my fingers are itching to cast on for Frances.. decisions. Books: I got quite a few book vouchers for my birthday and they had been burning a hole in my purse since .. well, last Wednesday! So yesterday I had a 'little' shopping expedition to Borders. I came away with:

• Anne Donovan: Being Emily. Donovan is a local writer - so local that she lives just down the street - and I really enjoyed her Buddha Da.
• Junot Diaz: The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao. It has been very well-received but in a manner which made me suspect I'd actually enjoy it. I've already begun reading it and, ten pages in, I'm not disappointed.
• Ross Raisin: God's Own Country. Okay, I admit I was swayed by the cover and the fact that I rarely get to read books set in Yorkshire's sheep-herding communities. Shhh.
• Michel Faber: Under the Skin. I haven't read any Faber although friends tell me to read The Crimson Petal and the White. I thought a sinister little book might be a better introduction than a big, sprawling Victorian-esque caper. I like sinister books.
• Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's Union. After having read the wonderful Kavalier and Clay, both Other Half and I were keen to explore Chabon's oeuvre. I have been warned that this is less engaging but seeing as a friend of mine apparently inspired a bit character, who am I to resist?
• Robin Melanson: Knitting New Mittens and Gloves. Ahem, well.. I have been circling this book for quite some time now. Grumperina has quite a few pictures of various patterns up. I can see myself making a lot of these mittens in the future.

Today: David and I went to the Burrell Collection to see a British Museum travelling exhibition on Ancient Greece. How do I say this politely? Uhm, having previously lived in a city which boasts The Carlsberg Glyptotek, I was fairly underwhelmed. Fortunately we met this little guy in the pastures outside and he cheered us up (although David proceeded by getting lost in the park and I had to wait 40 minutes at the entrance before he made his way out. And he used to be a boy scout!):

2008: A Year of Reading (Or Not)

I hate admitting this, but I did not read that many books in 2008. One memorable year I easily made it through 100 books. This year I think I struggled to read more than twenty-five books. I have my reasons for this sudden shift in reading habits - an irritating inability to concentrate (thanks to a certain health issue) and my new-found love of knitting which took up much of my spare time. Two books left their marks on me, though. Cormac McCarthy's apocalyptic The Road was raw, bleak and.. superb. McCarthy's language usage was extraordinary: both his sentence structures and his word choices were deliberately pared down to the bare bones. Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was exuberant, by comparison. Initially I found it difficult to get into Clarke's dry, if wordy, prose but after 200-odd pages I was thoroughly enjoying her tale of a Regency Britain which felt very recognisable and odd at the same time. A book which transcended its genre and its tools.

I saw even fewer films in 2008 than I read books(!) and the only film I would single out was released four years ago. Yes, really. However, Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was a very good film and I was sad that I missed seeing it on the big screen.

Let's just skip music except to say that Alaska in Winter's "Dance Party in the Balkans" with its lo-fi, organic/gypsy electronica was the soundtrack to my year. Oh, and song of my year? The Phoenix Foundation's Damn the River (from 2006!).

At least I've knitted a lot in 2008, eh?

Two - No, Three - Links

One website is really eating into my online time: Geni. It's a site which will let you generate your own family tree for free. I have an unwieldy and complicated family tree (think Jeremy Kyle or vintage Jerry Springer) which makes it super-fun to figure out how people are actually related to one another. As Geni also lets you add photos of the different family members, you can also trace where that family chin originated.. Another website which has captivated me today: the 'Coraline' website. The website seeks to promote the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's "Coraline" book - and in all honesty, I am not a big Gaiman fan. However,  try typing in the code: sweaterxxs and you will see why I'm enchanted. Clues: Starmore and miniature.

Addendum: Darn, I forgot to add this amazing video of a meteorite falling in Canada and burning up as it hits the Earth’s atmosphere. The footage is from a police car in Alberta. (via)

Six Weeks of Solitude: Comforts and Frights

A sneak preview of my current project. I am test-knitting a pattern for Old Maiden Aunt and I'm quite excited about a new technique I've just picked up. The Six Weeks of Silence idea seemed particularly attractive this morning after waking up abruptly at 5am because of a neighbour getting ready for work and then being kept awake by builders dragging debris down the communal stairs. I was lying in bed dreaming of that little cottage on Skye: no neds fighting in the street, no taxis honking their horns at 3am, no alarm clocks, no thumping bass-lines.. the idea was so overwhelmingly beautiful that I was almost ready to give up internet access, live-in partner and chai lattes. Almost.

Six more books for the Isle of Skye:

1. James Robertson: The Testament of Gideon Mack: I have already read this book, but that is why I know it'd make a perfect companion for weeks of solitude (although it might just freak me out too).  A (Scottish) book about faith, imagination and how to define reality and truth.
2. James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: If Gideon Mack with its strange opaque view of reality is on my list, I should also have the book to which it owes a great deal. A good university friend was a dedicated Hogg fan. I hope to catch up. I also like books that play off one another.
3. Rodge Glass: Alasdair Gray - A Secretary's Biography: And to round off this small selection of Scottish literature, a book I suspect Father Christmas might give me this year. A biography of one of my favourite authors written in a positively Boswellian manner. And it's all taking place just down the road from my current dwellings. I suspect hermit life on Skye will make me long for the colourful Glasgow West End.
4. Virginia Woolf: Flush: Some light reading is required, of course. Like most pale, sensitive and female literature graduates, I like Virginia Woolf far too much. I also happen to like dogs (which reminds me: this puppy cam is teh crack) and Woolf has penned a little "biography" of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker-spaniel. When the winds really start getting to me on Skye, I will want to curl up with this book about dogs, poetry and Victorian passions.
5. Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's Union: Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was such a pleasant surprise to me. I had anticipated inflated self-importance in the vein of Dave Eggers or Jonathan Safran Foer or maybe even painful so-called 'literary' writing like Jonathan Frazen or Jeffrey Eugenides (you can tell I have issues with male contemporary American writers) - but Chabon proved an utter delight and I am looking forward to being delighted once more. The Yiddish Policemen's Union even has a character based upon an internet friend of mine which is slightly intriguing too.
6. Rose Tremain: Music and Silence: A book not chosen for its title but because of its historical setting in my native Denmark. Another book which has been languishing on my shelves for too long and a book where the historical context is so familiar that I look forward to seeing a foreigner's take. Okay, and maybe a tiny bit to do with "silence".

And then the knitting. I wrote yesterday that I had two projects in mind which was not strictly true. I always have a gazillion possible projects running through my head and I spend much time thinking about yarns and pattern combinations. For six weeks of solitude I could easily have chosen half a dozen projects, but the idea is to limit myself.  Six weeks without noise or distractions could easily mean 'difficult patterns which require concentration and dilligence' but my head does not work like that.

The first project would be Kate Gilbert's Union Square Market Pullover in my beloved DROPS Alpaca. I'd use a warm chocolate brown as the main colour and a deep turquoise (or maybe a deliciously brash magenta) as the contrast colour. The choice of pattern is simple: it calls for miles and miles of mindless stocking stitch on 3.25mm needles. I don't think anything short of being marooned on a remote Scottish island for six weeks could ever make me knit that pullover (and yet I love its elegance and simplicity).

Final part tomorrow. Hopefully I will also have a finished knitted object to show you.

Six Weeks of Solitude: And I Dream of Central Heating

Saturday's Guardian Magazine had a short, but fascinating, article on the joys of silence. The author of the article, Sara Maitland, rented an isolated cottage on the Isle of Skye for six weeks and attempted to live in complete solitude and silence. She had brought enough food to last her six weeks, a few books and some sewing to keep her company. Her experience makes for interesting reading but it also made me wonder. I am a big fan of silence and solitude myself. It's possibly the aftermath of living in lively student halls for years followed by shared accommodation or maybe it is because I am an only child and spent my formative years playing by myself. The idea of spending six weeks by myself on a remote Scottish island intrigues me - although I would probably never go through with it as I'm very, very fond of central heating, fresh milk and my partner. Still, the idea made me wonder what books and knitting projects I'd bring with me to keep me company for six weeks.

Books. Six weeks equals fifty-six days. Depending upon the book, it would last between two hours and two days. As this would be an exercise in enjoying silence and finding solitude, I would not want to squeeze in too many books, but I wouldn't want to get bored either. Call it fifteen books, okay eighteen books.

1. Johannes V. Jensen: Kongens Fald [The Fall of the King]: One of the most acclaimed Danish novels and Modernist to boot. I started reading it last year but put it aside when I started to get very busy with work. It would be a return to my native language and history.
2. William Makepeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair: My good friend Maria once spent her entire Christmas holiday holed up in Inverness with nothing but this book to keep her company. I vaguely remember reading it (maybe just starting it) during my mad "I need to have read all the classics before I turn fifteen" phase. I'd like to revisit it with older, wiser eyes.
3. E.M. Forster: The Longest Journey: The only Forster novel I have not read (and I even have a lovely copy given to me by my old friend Søren). Realistically, the first novel I would reach for in that little cottage. I like Forster. He is so .. placid on the surface but with so many undercurrents.
4. Henry David Thoreau: Walden; or, Life in the Woods: What better book to read whilst in an isolated cottage on a remote island than a book written by a hermit about self-reliance, solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature? Okay, so Thoreau actually lived on the edge of a town and a was a bit of poseur .. but it would be an apt read. I have only read (longish) extracts but Thoreau is both very noble and very, very entertaining (and a bit daft too).
5. Iris Murdoch: The Sea, The Sea: I think I should get better acquainted with Murdoch. I read and loved The Bell and The Sea, The Sea is said to be her masterpiece. It is also a book about solitude, imagination and truths. An obvious choice, really.
6. Mikhail Bulgakov: The White Guard: Both The Master and Margarita and The Heart of a Dog were hugely, hugely enjoyable reads (the former ending up as one of my all-time favourite reads, fact fans). The White Guard has been sitting on my bookshelf for the best part of a year. I really need to get around to reading it.

The first six books, then. The next six books will be posted tomorrow and the remaining six on Wednesday.

But what about the knitting? Between eighteen books, me sleeping a great deal and long walks, what sort of knitting should I bring? Six weeks .. that translates into two sweaters and a big shawl, surely? Ah, but I'm not so sure about that. I have two projects in mind. Funnily enough I will be writing about the first one tomorrow and the second one on Wednesday. Stay tuned.

For the Love of Old Books

I like many things, but there are not many things that I love. I definitely love incunabula (books printed between 1455 and 1500) and early modern period printed books. Yesterday I went to Edinburgh to look at some very old printed books from Scotland. I was not disappointed. I have long been interested in and worked on the shift from (handwritten) manuscripts to the (printed) books. The shift is not as abrupt and clear as many people assume; post-Gutenberg handwritten manuscripts were still produced and printers arguably sought to make their product look as much like handwritten manuscripts as possible. Although The Scottish National Library do not hold any incunabula (as far as I know), I was pleased to see some early 16th century books which still displayed evidence of this urge to mimic handwritten manuscripts: typefaces designed to resemble handwriting, woodcuts trying to look like hand-drawn illustrations and rubrication (emphasising parts of the text using red ink). Gorgeous, fascinating stuff.

And Edinburgh was her usual, gloomy, beautiful, fantastical self. I like visiting the city but I couldn't live there, I think.