Find me HERE

I've moved my blog to Squarespace, and it's beautiful.  Find me at www.amytimberlake.com.

Taking a break from blogging...

I know, I know, I've never been that consistent in my blogging...

But this is looking like a BIG break. I'm thinking about my website (www.amytimberlake.com) and the blog and wondering how I can bring everything together in a more efficient manner. I'd like for this blog to be on the website, so that those that stop by the website see the blog and those who read the blog? Well, I want them to see the website. It seems inefficient to have two things going on here.

And I want a break. My mind keeps spinning with blog topics & images, etc. (Honestly, I enjoy thinking about blog posts -- this is part of the problem!) I'd like to write some poetry, and have some good quality God-meditation type time. Sometimes the blog-think gets in the way (as fun as it is).

As for the bringing the blog and website together, I'm thinking of switching from .mac to squarespace for a website that does it all. (We'll see.)

But meanwhile if you'd like to keep up on my book related news, set your feed reader at http://web.mac.com/amytimberlake/Site/Blog/rss.xml

See you in a bit!

Books are Overrated?

Found this in"The Last Word" of The Week (May 16, 2008) written by Mikita Brottman. (Her new book is called The Solitary Vice: Against Reading.)

Believe it or not, people once considered reading to be a dangerous vice. Now it's "what makes America great," according to one slogan. Other book-promoting campaigns also try to persuade us that reading is sexy ("Get Caught Reading"), hip ("Get Real@Your Library"), virile and productive ("Read and Grow"), and, of course "fun-damental."

So in-your-face, so taken for granted is this faith in the healing power of literature, it's hard to believe such assumptions have emerged only in the last 50 years, postdating the development of all the other kinds of entertainment...that now compete for our time and make reading look old-fashioned in comparison. And yet, historians of mass literacy have shown, our indiscriminate faith in the act of reading would, not so long ago have seemed gloriously insane.

For much of our history, in fact, reading was considered bad for you. Books, it was long believed, had hidden powers; they could cast a spell on you. And its not hard to see why. The earliest secular manuscripts, produced long before the advent of general literacy (and often the work of alchemists and magicians), must have seemed suspiciously cryptic to ordinary law-abiding nonreaders.

The "reading is good for you" campaign is all over kids books. I'm not a fan. I know, the promotion is more for the parents, so they'll feel books are as necessary to their kids well-being as vitamins or organic milk, or whatever. I'm hearing my mom's voice: "Eat your greens." We all know how we responded to this kind of pressure as kids...

As a kid, reading for me was escape, exploration, adventure, and plain fun. Some of it I hid from my parents, and that was part of the joy. (I actually read a few bodice-ripping romances around the age of 12.) But the main thing was that I could check out any book in my public library and they would let me check it out. More often than not, I headed straight for the adult mystery section (Agatha Christie). I brought my book to the check-out counter and lifted it over my head to get it there. (I was so young, I could not see over the lip of the counter.) Yes, the librarian asked if my mother knew what I was checking out, but she always let me take the book home. Pure joy!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle -- 3 Cheers!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Yay! I had so much fun reading this book! Barbara Kingsolver is funny and rant-prone (but in the best possible way) and provocative. I'm already a farmer's market, organic kind of gal, but this gave me even more to think about. And I've tried one of the recipes -- strawberry-rhubarb crumble (didn't have strawberries at the market so mine was a rhubarb only -- and yum! I loved following the story of her daughter Lily and the eggs, and also the whole raising turkey story. In addition, I've gotten a great book list out of this too. I've ordered a cheesemaking book and the canning book. (I've thought canning was complex, but Barbara -- can I call her 'Barbara'? I feel like I know her -- put me at ease and made me think I could do this too. I've got the big pot already.) I can't grow much at all since I'm a city dweller, but I'm thinking of trying tomatoes in a sunny, roof spot. Three cheers!

What's at the farmer's market in Chicago? Yum!

Yum! Rhubarb, asparagus, REAL baby carrots, easter egg radishes, red onions, shitake & crimini mushrooms, rhubarb tart & sticky bun (not seen), maple scone, bagette & 8 seed bread. I had to go to two farmer's markets to get the bagette and scone. Red Hen Bread is one of my favorites in Chicago and they only go to the Lincoln Park Farmer's Market (which is on the way back from our walk to Green City Market). It's been so cold here that there's been no fruit except rhubarb, so I'm looking forward to some strawberries.

Yum!

Does David Sedaris check his Amazon Rating?

Loved this week's "Over & Out" column in Time Out Chicago with David Sedaris. Check this out:

Have you still not been on the Internet?
I started going on it in September. I didn't really go nuts. I know people who, when their books come out, they're obsessively looking at their rating on Amazon. I would never do that. No, no, no, no. Uh-uh.

Why not?
Well, a couple of years ago, Amazon gave me a big stack of [reviews]. And I didn't know that civilians would review books. But I said, "Oh thank you so much." And I threw them directly into the trash can. Never. I don't read the legitimate ones, so I'm not gonna read -- you know, you get letters: "Dear Mrs. Sedaris, I got that book of yours and it was awful. You probably only hear from people who liked it. Well, I didn't!"

Sounds eloquent.
Uh-huh. But I don't have email because that -- my God, can you imagine? At least this woman had to put a stamp on this. But with e-mails, it doesn't cost people anything to complain.

Who's paying the most for gas?

Check out this map.