October has been busy. A good busy that comes from learning you can adapt and you like where you are and who you’re with and even though your air mattress might deflate every night while you’re sleeping because the damn cat poked a hole in it, there’s good food and good people and you can feel yourself get better at whatever it is you’re doing. It’s a good kind of busy to be, and so I am content. I’ve tried sneaking in as much reading as I can, though that’s easier said than done, but I’m becoming more conscientious and my lunches are spent with a book balanced over my soup and sandwich, or while I’m waiting for the laundry. Thirty minutes here, twenty there, I’m doing my best.
Paris: The Novel by Edward Rutherford – I’m generally a powerhouse reader. I read quickly and I can pick up details while I’m at it. Except, apparently, with this book. This book has taken me a month to read and because I finally got to page 300 I told myself I couldn’t quit and so I didn’t but holy moly. It’s not because it’s boring or because it’s exceptionally difficult to understand, but the book jumps through years and characters are named after their Grandfathers and all of a sudden you have two Roland de Cygnes and the family tree at the beginning of the book confuses me a little, to be honest, even though I’ve gone back and checked it at least four times a chapter. The book takes the reader through 700 years of Paris, in all its glory and tragedy and splendour and loss. There are monarchs and lowly serving girls and the history of the Eiffel Tower and World War 1 and it’s beautiful. It really is. But it takes concentration to get through it. You (or rather: I) have to focus because all of a sudden I’m in the middle of the chapter and I can’t remember how we got to this point. I’ve also ended up googling everyone from Mary, Queen of Scots to Catherine of Medici and ‘The Sun King’ and ended up on a downward spiral of links because holy crap, everyone was connected to everyone else and that gets complex. But it’s good. It’s a history lesson in the guise of a story that’s really an adventure. It’s 700 pages of ‘holy crap I think I’ve missed something’ and ‘oooooh, scandoulous!’, which might be my favourite things to have in a book. It’s worth it, all the time and the googling and the confusion. For me, at least.
Misc.:
+ How to shoot with film (Apartment34)
+ The Adultery Arms Race (The Atlantic)
+ Canada’s Coverage of the Ottawa Shootings Put American Cable News to Shame (Mother Jones)
+ Confronting My Cyberbully, 13 Years On (The Atlantic)
+ 50 Incredibly Clever Logos (Digital Synopsis)
+ We Don’t Need No Education (Outside Online)
+ Why More and More Restaurants are Banning Kids (Quartz)
+ The End of Neighbours (Maclean’s)
+ How to be Polite (Medium)
+ I Went Seven Days Without Complaining (NY Mag/Science of Us)
+ The Power of 29: An Ode to Being Almost 30 (NY Mag/The Cut)
+ Pending Parenthood in the Digital Age (Pacific Standard)
+ The Marijuana Retirement: How My Parents Became Late-Life Pot Moguls (Daily Intelligencer)
+ For a More Ordered Life, Organize Like a Chef (NPR)
+ The Introverted Face (The Atlantic)
+ Our Unique ‘Microbial Aura’ Travels With Us (PRI)
+ Slumbering lions win top wildlife photo prize (BBC)
+ Instagram VS Real Life (Garance Dore)
+ Stephen Harper and the Question of Canadian Security (The New Yorker)
Blue Eyed Sight 