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I’m posting a day early this week and posted a day late last week, not that anyone would notice. My former publisher strongly encouraged me to develop an author/book website. I completed my own research and agreed it was a good idea. I selected ipage because it allows you to include a blog on your website. To me, that seemed efficient. I wasn’t keen on supporting both a website and a separate blog site.
My webpage went live in December 2011 and I posted my very blog on 12/12/11. I have not been consistent in posting blogs, I admit it. I accept responsibility for not seeking visitors to my website by posting interesting blogs weekly. However, in the past 14 months the number of comments I’ve received can easily be counted on one hand. So I’m beginning to wonder if I made a tactical mistake to bury my blog within my website. Should I have created a separate blog on blogspot like many others have done? Everyone in blogland – help me out. Let me know if you think it would be worthwhile to create a separate blog on blogspot?
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The theme for the readings the Winter Session of my book group TUESDAY MORNING BOOKTALS IS “Unhappily Ever After”. One of three books in the series is The Living is Easy by Dorothy West. One reason for being a member of a book group is to get the opportunity to read books you generally wouldn’t chose for yourself – not out of bias – out of ignorance.
Dorothy West was a member of the famous Harlem Renaissance. The Living is Easy was published in 1948 but sadly went out of print. West didn’t publish fiction again until 1995 at the age of 85 when The Wedding was published. Oprah Winfrey turned the book into a TV mini-series. The Living is Easy tells the story of a middle class Black family in Boston at the turn of the 20th century. The family matriarch and protagonist Cleo (Cleopatra) runs a household of sisters, children and her husband with a unique maternal vision, gile, lies, conniving, ingenuity, and improvisation. For me, Cleo will be one of the most memorable characters in literature. While successful for many years, Cleo’s husband, Bart Judson, loses his fruit importing business and moves to New York City to find a job and send money home for the family. The book raises the themes of intraracial oppression, assimilation into a white society and how marriage can be suffocating. I highly recommend reading The Living is Easy, it will change your world view. If any readers have ready Dorothy West, I invite you to post a blog on this site. Blog 9-10-12
Growing Up in the Library My father didn’t believe in buying books. I don’t know why. He was a gifted student himself and graduated from high school at 16 because he was allowed to skip a grade. He didn’t attend college because he graduated from high school in 1928 on the eve of the depression, his father lost the farm in central Indiana and Dad wanted a job. He worked for one company 45 years, hard to imagine today. We did have three or four books, other than the Bible, that were stored in a box on the top shelf of the front room closet. My Mom read to me before I was sent packing to kindergarten. I loved the special time and attention that reading represented. To this day I believe that Mom is my source for the love of reading. Those few books didn’t last long. I discovered both the library at Foreman Elementary School and many of the teachers kept books in their classrooms that we could borrow, I did. Summer was a bleak time until I discovered the Public Library which I found only because it was across the street from the Methodist Church we attended. I had to get my parents’ permission to get a library card. I guess the word was out that we didn’t have any books at home and I would be a risk to not return books to the library. I was steeped in the honor system and there was no risk of that. A kind librarian taught me the Dewey decimal system because they tired quickly of me asking where a book was located. I thought the process to categorize and then shelve books was pure genius. I was a known person at the library by 6th grade. The library out grew its original building and a brand new concrete library was built near the shore of Lake George. It was an ugly building but had twice the space of the old library. Most important it was air conditioned. My father also didn’t believe in air conditioning. In the summer I was allowed to ride my bike to the library to bask in the air conditioning and read in peace. Any library is still one of my favorite places. When visiting Ireland I visited the Library at Trinity College. The library is 300 years old and the Long Room contains 200,000 old books and manuscripts. I also saw the Book of Kells, which because of the lighting to protect it from deterioration, was disappointing. |
rex owensI write to tell the story of our human saga. Categories
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