Welcome to Litsy!

Just got a delivery from a local independent bookshop. Two of these I‘ve already read (library copies) and decided I need to own for times when library access isn‘t available. Tagged book was my very favourite of 2018 and I want to reread it before Humphreys‘ newest is released (Rabbit Foot Bill). Samin Nosrat‘s cookbook is one I‘ve borrowed repeatedly; it‘s about time I have my own copy. Do you have comments on the rest of my stack?

Full video review: https://youtu.be/8_OZt9x-BfE
After her masterpiece, The Lost Garden, this new Helen Humphreys novel was a huge disappointment. The first half is a meta-essay about the impossibility of fictionalizing in an interesting way the life of a woman who did nothing—nothing at all—except make salmon flies; in the second half, the ‘novel,‘ Humphreys goes on, alas, to amply prove the point. One of the most boring books I‘ve ever read.

My favourite book of 2018 is Machine Without Horses by Helen Humphreys, but there were so many other great books too!

I‘ve made a blog post with brief reviews of my favourite books from October, if you‘re interested:
https://lindypratch.blogspot.com/2018/10/october-reading-round-up.html?m=1

In bed with a migraine instead of out with friends. Thought I would nip back into this amazing book to cheer myself up!

There‘s a trailer for the film Kiss the Water, as well as more information about salmon fly dresser Megan Boyd, available online here: http://flylifemagazine.com/video-megan-boyd-legendary-twentieth-century-salmon-f...

There is a myth that says that, although we think of our dead all the time, twice a day they think of us, for a minute‘s duration. This happens when the clock reads 11:11—once in the morning and once at night.

Feeling that we belong to humanity and behaving with compassion towards our fellows is perhaps the most important responsibility of being human today. So, it matters to be able to relate to anyone whom we consider to be “other.”

The presence of something unusual in our usual routines is always startling and exciting. I once saw a buck cross the grass by the river and thought about it for weeks afterwards, the sighting feeling like a sort of magic that I appliquéd to everything in my ordinary world.

(Internet photo; this was taken in a different Canadian city, but moose have wandered in my residential neighbourhood also.)

One of the more striking facts about Megan Boyd was that she wore men‘s clothing —always a tie, often a jacket, men‘s shirts and cardigans with her tweed skirts. In the country dances, she always danced the male roles. So, was this a question of gender identity or sexual preference, or was it simply because she was her father‘s daughter and emulated him, carried on being a man, as it were, after he died?
(Internet photo of Megan Boyd)

Machine Without Horses is the name of a Scottish dance that replicates the movements of a steam train. This book is also a dance, a hybrid of behind-the-scenes novel writing concerns and techniques, followed by the fictionalization of the life of a singular Scottish woman. Warm, wise and beautiful. It also manages to roll right along like a train on a track. I hardly put it down from start to finish. #LGBTQ

The Snow Fly is an early salmon fly that is distinguished by four tufts of pig‘s wool set along the shank, each one dyed a different colour. The wool makes the body of the fly very strong so that it can resist the teeth of the young spring salmon and they cannot easily tear it apart.

(Internet photo. Also, this passage sent me down an Internet rabbit hole in search of information about pig‘s wool.)

You cannot just kill [your characters] off with no real warning. It will feel unbelievable to readers and they will stop trusting your story. Fiction is measured and reassuring in a way that life isn‘t, and perhaps that‘s why we read it, and also why I write it.

Once, the great bustard was considered for the national bird of India but was decided against because of possible misspellings of its name.

(Internet photo)

The trouble with writing a novel is that there are so many ways to make mistakes that you just have to give up on the idea of getting it right. Instead, you have to choose a few aspects to remain faithful to and do your best to make everything else as believable as possible for the reader.

This book was absolutely gorgeous! Helen Humphreys uses the first half to describe her writing process and she researches a salmon-fly dresser named Megan Boyd. The second half of the book is a creative non-fiction piece about Boyd based on the research. Such an amazing concept! Pulling the veil back and showing what's behind the writing process. Also HELEN SENT ME AN ARC OF IT IN THE SUMMER BEFORE IT WAS PUBLISHED! #superfanwin #queerbooks