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Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most.The women of Room’s volunteer collective come and go. Editor Clélie Rich came and went in the 90s--and then came back again. She’s a poet and freelance editor living in East Vancouver with a cat and a herb garden, too many overflowing bookcases, and a growing but invisible selection of ebooks. She collects elephants and quaichs, and is currently Room’s Production Coordinator. |
New and Selected Poems, Volume One, by Mary Oliver. I’ve given away at least four copies of this since 1992. I read Oliver before I go to sleep and when I’m in the bath. Living in a big city, I need someone who can remind me of the countryside I grew up in. Read this. It’s the beginning of “In Blackwater Woods.”
Look, the trees / are turning / their own bodies / into pillars
of light, / are giving off the rich / fragrance of cinnamon / and fulfillment,
the long tapers / of cattails / are bursting and floating away over / the blue shoulders
of the ponds, / and every pond, / no matter what its / name is, is
nameless now.
The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge. I was a very dreamy kid, and my parents set every possible British fantasy kid’s book in front of me. This was great for me, but not so great for my school teachers, who said I was too imaginative and had to learn to focus more. I reread The Little White Horse every so often, and fall quite happily back into that childlike state where absolutely anything can happen, including believing six impossible things before breakfast.
What books have changed your life?
Well, this is hard, because I’m a firm believer in being open to everything, so that most books I care enough about to finish change my life in some way. But, I would say A Distant Mirror, by Barbara Tuchman, in which she explores the fourteenth century through the eyes of one family, and one character in particular. History was dull for me in school, just lists of kings and laws. Tuchman showed me that history is really just about people. Another choice would be The Janissary Tree, by Jason Goodwin. It’s a historical mystery set at the fall of the Ottoman Empire, featuring the eunuch Yashim. It’s the first novel I’v ever read that writes so lovingly and expertly about a real location—Istanbul, in this case—that I am making plans to go and see it for myself. Soon.
How do you like your books served up best – audio books, graphic novels, used paperbacks, library loaner, e-reader…
Ha! Non-fiction and poetry still in paper or as audio books. Fiction from Kobobooks on my ereader and my iPad, although I like my ereader (it’s a three-year old Sony) better. And that surprised me. I thought I’d like the iPad better. Last year, I encountered and read the first five of George R R Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire books. You wouldn’t catch me trying to heft one of those in paper. They’re long! A Storm of Swords is 1216 pages. On the ereader, it’s a little file that just sinks way down into my imagination.
Your life story is published tomorrow. What’s the title?
Started Late, Took My Cat.
Where is your favorite place to crack open a good book in Vancouver?
To buy it off the shelf, White Dwarf Books, and Dead Write Books, in Kitsilano, and both owned by the same wonderful couple, Jill and Walter. To read it, in front of my fireplace, in my armchair, in East Vancouver. I like to read in private.
What is next on your reading list?
Paper:
The Far Traveler, Voyages of a Viking Woman, Nancy Marie Brown
Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann
Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tesaulti, Genevieve Valentine and Kiri Moth
And rereading: All of Michael Chabon
E:
Sanctuary Line, Jane Urqhuart
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
Hyperion, Dan Simmons
The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
And I just bought War and Peace, although I wouldn’t say it’s really on the list! I’m curious about it.
