while you're ahead...

– 2018/39 – 48 years of books (2002)

Monica Dunkley

February 20, 2018

Everything is Illuminated (by Jonathan Safran Foer)

Ok, first a couple of points: I think that Jonathan Safran Foer is a brilliant writer. I really do. I loved his latest book ‘Here I am’ and also ‘Extremely loud and incredibly close’ is one on my favourites… He has a fabulous subtle, self deprecating sense of humour that really makes me chuckle and he’s supremely clever.

His talk at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature a couple of years ago was really good and he’d have a place in my ideal dinner party table. I’d love to sit him opposite Stephen Fry… what a combo that would be…

Having said all that… I really struggled with this book… really struggled, to the point that I would go as far as saying that if I’d read this one first I wouldn’t have been interested in reading any of his other books, which would have been a huge loss.

The book is split into two parts alternating each other, in real time the young author visit Ukraine in search of the woman who helped his grandfather escape the Nazis. The story is told in the most hilarious broken English by the Ukrainian guide Sasha/Alex. Brilliantly written and very funny; cultural differences, bad English… all adds up to form a very very clever written piece. So far so good… The other part, written by the author is supposed to be the story of the Jewish settlement where his grandfather came from, but it’s a completely surreal, non linear (nothing wrong with that), part history, part allegory, part philosophical attempt to I’m not sure what… to explain something about history? to make up something that nobody knows about? And it drove me insane.

I really really struggled. I got annoyed and a few times I closed it in anger swearing not to finish it. I did finish it but more out of stubbornness than anything else. It felt ‘too clever’… like a classic first book when you feel the author wants to show everything he knows at once…

Perhaps though, it’s my fault I didn’t get it, yes, it has moments of genius but… not enough for me. Maybe I read it at the wrong time in my life, it can happen… but still…. not my jam.

Good luck with that.

Let me know what you think.

2018

2017 – Magari domain resto (Lorenzo Maroni)

2016 – Upstream (Mary Oliver)

2015 – La tentazione di essere felici

2014 – Storia della bambina perduta (Elena Ferrante)

2013 – Careless people (Sarah Churchwell)

2012 – Wonder

2011 – The Paris Wife (Paula McLain)

2010 – Salar the Salmon (Henry Williamson)

2009 – Let the gread world spin (Colum McCann)

2008 – The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga)

2007 – Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver)

2006

2005 – Never let me go (Kazuo Ishiguro)

2004 – The Sunday Philosophy Club (Alexander McCall Smith)

2003

2002 – Everything is illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer)

2001 – American Gods (Nail Gainmand)

2000 – Coram Boy (Jamila Gavin)

1999

1998

1997 – Paradise (Toni Morrison)

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991- Regeneration (Pat Barker)

1990

1989 – The Joy luck club (Amy Tan)

1988

1987 – Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami)

1986

1985 – Always Coming Home (Ursula Le Guin)

1984

1983

1982

1981 – The colour purple (Alice Walker)

1980 –

1979 – Sophie’s Choice (William Styron)

1978 – Beauty: a retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast (R McGinley

1977 – A morbid taste for Bones (Ellis Peters)

1976

1975

1974

1973

1972

1971

1970

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– 2018/38 – poetry Monday

Monica Dunkley

no comments

February 19, 2018

Letter Beginning with Two Lines by Czesław Miłosz (by Matthew Olzmannn)

You whom I could not save,
Listen to me.

Can we agree Kevlar
backpacks shouldn’t be needed

for children walking to school?
Those same children

also shouldn’t require a suit
of armor when standing

on their front lawns, or snipers
to watch their backs

as they eat at McDonalds.
They shouldn’t have to stop

to consider the speed
of a bullet or how it might

reshape their bodies. But
one winter, back in Detroit,

I had one student
who opened a door and died.

It was the front
door to his house, but

it could have been any door,
and the bullet could have written

any name. The shooter
was thirteen years old

and was aiming
at someone else. But

a bullet doesn’t care
about “aim,” it doesn’t

distinguish between
the innocent and the innocent,

and how was the bullet
supposed to know this

child would open the door
at the exact wrong moment

because his friend
was outside and screaming

for help. Did I say
I had “one” student who

opened a door and died?
That’s wrong.

There were many.
The classroom of grief

had far more seats
than the classroom for math

though every student
in the classroom for math

could count the names
of the dead.

A kid opens a door. The bullet
couldn’t possibly know,

nor could the gun, because
“guns don’t kill people,” they don’t

have minds to decide
such things, they don’t choose

or have a conscience,
and when a man doesn’t

have a conscience, we call him
a psychopath. This is how

we know what type of assault rifle
a man can be,

and how we discover
the hell that thrums inside

each of them. Today,
there’s another

shooting with dead
kids everywhere. It was a school,

a movie theater, a parking lot.
The world

is full of doors.
And you, whom I cannot save,

you may open a door

and enter a meadow, or a eulogy.
And if the latter, you will be

mourned, then buried
in rhetoric.

There will be
monuments of legislation,

little flowers made
from red tape.

What should we do? we’ll ask
again. The earth will close

like a door above you.
What should we do?

And that click you hear?
That’s just our voices,

the deadbolt of discourse
sliding into place.

– 2018/37 – five dresses

Monica Dunkley

1 comment

February 17, 2018

The new Plumo Spring catalogue dropped into my in box yesterday and I must say… it’s a good one! I always like their stuff, the clothes are a little off kilt and although some items can be quite expensive their sales are always very good if you can wait. I own a couple of pieces and I can confirm they really last and can be worn for years.

The dresses have really caught my eyes this time round and these are my favourites… in no particular order:

Fran top (£89.00). Love love love the burnt sienna colour and the deep silk border at the bottom.

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Gabriella Dress (£119.00). Classic black dress, dress it up, dress it down, from day to night… very useful little number.

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Rosenberg dress (£229.00). Long and feminine… not my usual style at all but I’m loving this silhouette… Could I pull it off? not sure… height is not on my side!

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Via dress (£109.00). This screams holiday to me… from the beach to the pool to the market to lunch… (I also want to have my hair cut short overtime I look at this photos… but that’s another conversation altogether)

Liv red dress (£119.00). Isn’t this fun? I never wear red but this dress is calling my name… such a happy dress…

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So? what do you think? Isn’t it crazy to think about summer dresses in February? I know I know… I should hold my horses… but I must admit I’m getting a little bored of jumpers and boots…

– 2018/36 – postcards from St Anton

Monica Dunkley

1 comment

February 16, 2018

Yup, still alive… but what a week it has been. I can honestly say that I can’t remember last time I was so ill for such a long time and with lots of different things one after the other…

First, as you know, my back just ‘went’… eventually the magic hands of the masseur at the hotel sorted me out and I was able to move again… seriously, she was amazing. Hands like radars for trouble zones… Then I had two days of bad flu. Temperature. Total weakness. I went skiing anyway for half a day but probably shouldn’t have gone because the flu turned into nasty cold which in turn left me with totally blocked ears/dizziness/nausea… I have to move really slowly or everything wobbles.

So weird. All in the space of a week. Enough already. Anyway, we’re back home now and I’m going to try to go back to business as usual.

Let’s have a quick catch up photo round:

last Monday we visited the St Anton Museum, all about he history of the region and its skiing heritage, although you might like me recognise the building as the chalet in the movie Chalet girl (ahem….)

it’s a museum, but it’s also a restaurant.

gorgeous building with gorgeous painted ceilings

(who says men can’t multitask? both Mr M and no 1 here are listening to the history of the region whilst on their phones!!…. whatever…)

Tuesday and Weds the weather finally cleared and although well below freezing we hit the slopes in earnest and explored the area…

just look at that view… I love mountains. We were in my favourite skiing area called Rendl and I could have stared at the view all day. I imagine in the summer it must be beautiful too…

… this next photo is the same area 24 hours later… oh dear. Not quite the same.

Of course where you’re 12 and there are jumps to be jumped you don’t care you can’t see the tip of your skis…

And no I didn’t jump. Are you insane?

It was a strange week. It went super quickly and yet really slowly. I didn’t feel I got to know the area at all and therefore it didn’t ‘click’ for me and I am a little confused as why it’s so famous and popular. The staff at our hotel were the best we’ve ever encountered anywhere, super friendly and helpful and really made our stay very pleasant. I was ill and watched an awful lot of Winter Olympics, I didn’t spent as much time with the boys as I would have liked… I can’t even explain it… it felt fragmented and bitty… I almost feel this week didn’t happen… except I have a mountain of laundry to prove it did!

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– 2018/35 – knitting inspiration

Monica Dunkley

3 comments

February 12, 2018

So… I still haven’t been skiing. I was going to try today.. but the weather is absolutely awful (or beautiful… because let’s face it, watching the snow falling on dark pine trees is pretty beautiful, right?) and it’s snowing quite heavily and I don’t think that poor visibility, snow drifts and unknown pistes are a good match to a back who’s not really one hundred per cent fine. Tomorrow the forecast is for sun and blue sky, I’ll go then.

Frustrating.

To counter that, I’ve spent a lot of time knitting – and I finished both mittens – and I’m currently searching Ravelry and Insta for a stranded knitted sweater. I need simple colour work, reasonably size needles and non fitted shape. I want a cozy warm number.

So far I’m tempted by the three following items:

Irene Lin‘s Boho Style Mosaic Cardigan. This is a recently released pattern and I’m not sure I would know how to do the colour work part… but I do like a challenge and this looks so cozy and… that fringe detail! C’mon peeps, who doesn’t love a fringe?

This next pattern has been in my Ravelry library for ages, years probably. It’s called “Ready for Fall” by Isabell Kramer. I like how the motif is at the bottom of the jumper.

There is another pattern by Isabell that has caught my attention and it’s called “Humulus“; I think they would both look amazing in black with the pattern in white.

Or maybe this one… and that would definitively be a test for my skillz…. all those colours! “Birkin” by Caitlin Hunter.

I could go on and on… there are so many wonderful designs out there but I keep returning to these…

Any more suggestions… ping them my way!

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– 2018/34 – postcards from St Anton

Monica Dunkley

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February 10, 2018

Day one. We arrived yesterday afternoon to blue skies… flying over the Alps is always breathtaking, I am never tired of seeing this view.

The transfer from Innsbruck Airport to St Anton (Austria) is really quick, just over an hour, and before we could say are we there yet… we were there…

(Hotel St Antoner Hof, more on the hotel another post but suffice to stay everybody is super friendly and the food is superb).

This morning however the weather wasn’t quite so good. Not a problem for me, stuck in the room with my bad back, but I’m sure Mr M and the boys would have preferred it not to be snowing.

I must say it looked very pretty from the sofa!

Still though… they went out and ripped some groomers and took the photos to prove it. No 3 had his first ever snowboarding lesson… but after three hours he’s calling it quits and going back to skis. “Everything hurts” apparently.

Bless.

What did I do?

Well… I took photos of our room…

I finished the first mitten (more about it another time, when they’re both done…)

and had a massage to see if I can accelerate the back healing. It was a very good massage but I’m still not in skiing conditions…. sadly… I walk like an old women bent forward.

The pool is lovely…

and I guess I shouldn’t be complaining too much, right? It could be so much worse.

I’m really trying to be my best ‘Pollyanna’.

Send good vibes.

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– 2018/33 – music Friday

Monica Dunkley

no comments

February 9, 2018

– 2018/32 – packing day

Monica Dunkley

3 comments

February 8, 2018

No I’m not moving you silly! I’m packing a suitcase. We’re going skiing.

Actually that first sentence is quite accurate… I’m not moving at all, as my back is still playing up, which makes the whole ‘we’re going’ skiing a little more wishful thinking than reality.

I’m trying to stay positive and I’ll report back when I can find the bloody silver lining in all this, for now let’s pretend everything is hunky dory. 2018 is supposed to be the year of the dog right? in the Chinese calendar? Isn’t that meant to be lucky? Geesh…

I’ve been trying to use the lesson learnt during the recent ‘winter 10×10’ experiment and cut down the number items by packing things that can be mixed and match, rather than following my usual philosophy of taking all my favourite clothes and realising too late that nothing goes with anything else… Fingers crossed that the stupid amount of ibuprofen taken in the last four days hasn’t impaired my judgement… I’ll let you know.

Even my toiletries bag has been reduced. Normally I have two! And for the smarty pants of you I’m planning to use Mr M’s toothpaste and the hotel shower gel, and yes I could have decanted the shampoo and conditioner… but couldn’t find the little travel bottles.

I most likely won’t use too much make up, but after a day on the slopes and in the wind it’s nice to make a little effort. We’re staying in a hotel… with other people… we don’t want to traumatised the general public…

All the ski stuff is in the boots bag. Yes I’m taking my boots even if currently I can’t even lift the bag, never mind putting them on and using them … I’m hoping for a miracle.

And I have three books, and headphones, and sunscreen, and knitting, lots of knitting… not that I will need it… because I WILL BE SKIING I WILL BE SKIING I WILL BE SKIING I WILL BE SKIING I WILL BE SKIING I WILL BE SKIING I WILL BE SKIING I WILL BE SKIING I WILL BE SKIING I WILL….

sigh…

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– 2018/31 – how to hang a quilt

Monica Dunkley

2 comments

February 7, 2018

I love quilts on wall. I love rugs on walls too but Mr M doesn’t like either of the options so the only place where I’ve been able to hang a quilt is the spare room. Lucky guests, right?

Because of this inexcusable aversion/taste lapse etc. I’ve had to wait for my dad to actually move to this country with his drill to realise my dream. (My dad loves his tools and is about to build a shed in his garden…do you get the picture?). Also there is nothing my dad likes more that spending time in a diy store so we were both happy at the end of our adventure.

There are plenty of tutorials out there on the big wide web, but this is what I did:

cut a strip of fabric as wide as my quilt and 8″ tall, I wish I still had some of the back fabric because it would have kind of made the hanging sleeve invisible… but hey… next time I’ll keep that in mind.
fold each short side towards the wrong side 1/4″ a couple of times and stitch down.
fold it in half length wise (WRONG SIDE TOGETHER) and press
fold each long side towards the middle crease and press hard
sew along the long edge of the strip with a 1/4″ seam allowance
lay the sleeve along the top of the quilt about 1/2 to 3/4″ from the edge, with the seam of the sleeve touching the quilt. You’ll notice there is more fabric on the top of the sleeve than on the back half, this is so the rod will not distort the quilt when you insert it/hang it. Pin it carefully.
by hand slip stitch the sleeve to the back of your quilt.

In the photo above you can see the rod poking out of the sleeve (it looks a weird angle… I had just folded the top of the quilt down) and the photos below shows you I simply slot the rod onto the little hook.

Ta daaaaa….

Annoyingly the quilt is not the right size… too small to hang behind the bed… visually at least it needs to be bigger, even if the colours do go well.

I need to make another… oh well…

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– 2018/30 – ‘fair isle knitting’

Monica Dunkley

4 comments

February 6, 2018

The one and only advantage of one’s putting one’s back out completely and utterly a week before a ski holiday whilst getting into one’s car (true or false… true, don’t go there. It hurts and I’m furious) is that one has rather a lot of time to sit around and learn things that have had to have been put off due to life getting in the way of learning new things.

I walk like an old lady, bent forward and very slowly, lifting anything heavier than a sock hurts and I’m bored our of my mind, what else can I do if not knitting?

I’ve been wanting to try my hands at fair isle knitting for ages. It’s getting more and more popular and I have quite a few favourites projects in Ravelry that are just waiting for the right moment. According to Wikipedia: Fair Isle (/fɛəraɪ̯l/) is a traditional knitting technique used to create patterns with multiple colours. It is named after Fair Isle, a tiny island in the north of Scotland, that forms part of the Shetland islands. Fair Isle knitting gained a considerable popularity when the Prince of Wales (later to become Edward VIII) wore Fair Isle tank tops in public in 1921. Traditional Fair Isle patterns have a limited palette of five or so colours, use only two colours per row, are worked in the round, and limit the length of a run of any particular colour.^[1]

Strictly speaking the term “Fair Isle knitting” should only be reserved to characteristic patterns of the Shetland Island whilst any other knitted colour work design would be better described as ‘stranded colour work’. ‘Fair Isle’ sounds so much more impressive though… sigh… and ‘stranded’ seems more accurate because for a while I had no idea what I was doing at all!!!

I picket up what looked like a fairly easy pattern in the latest issue of Making, ‘Lines’, issue 4. (Oh my such a gorgeous magazine….)

There you go: Lines Mittens by Alexa Ludeman.

I used two left over balls of gorgeous yarn… the mustard one is from the Uncommon Thread and the green one is Madelinetosh. Both worsted weight…

… and with the help of copious youtube videos I am actually making progress.

… all those stitches in different colours…

My tension is somewhat tighter – apparently a common ailment of rookie fair ‘islets’ (totally made up word) – but I’m hoping it’ll improve as I practice.

I’m trying to hold the two colours one in each hand and that means that I’ve also learned to knit ‘continental’ style. Check me out!

I haven’t even finished half a mitten and my mind is already planning much bigger projects… a serious case of running before walking…