The Conscience Pudding

Dessert Options

2011-01-31T18:15:00.000-08:00

After making a batch of horrendously unhealthy Special K bars (not part of the Special K diet plan!) and having hypoglycemic attacks in the middle of the night, I decided I needed an alternative dessert on the healthier side. I found a can of pumpkin in my pantry, cobbled together a few recipes (including a diabetic one), and then just added some of my own stuff to create a pumpkin pie that turned out to be light, creamy, moist, and flavorful. Little Ben is wild for it. Every night he asks for pumpkin pie and gets a slice. Honestly, I consider it a vegetable, and it's the only way I can get any citrus into him. Now if I could just find a way to make myself forget there are choco-PB bars in the house as well....

My Pumpkin Pie

Make a basic 9-inch pie crust and put it in the pie plate. I actually made one out of wheat flour, which is fine, but I'll go back to white flour next time because I prefer its texture.

15 oz can of pumpkin
1/3 c granulated sugar
2 Tbsp real maple syrup
1.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger)
2 beaten eggs (I reserved about a tsp of this for brushing on the crust's edge.)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c skim milk
zest of one tangerine or orange
1/4 c tangerine or orange juice

Mix it all together well and pour it into the pie crust. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes and then reduce heat to 350 until center is set (45 minutes to an hour).

Heyer Mysteries

2011-01-31T17:40:00.000-08:00

I have read so many Heyer mysteries since my last post that I've lost count, but I'm going to get it together and make a list right here. I have developed a pretty serious addiction (akin to my weaknesses for Afrin or these damn things), and I'd start reading another one right away if I had one at home. I don't, and I'm enjoying the first few chapters of Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad Trilogy, but I'm experiencing Heyer mystery withdrawal (which no amount of tea seems to assuage).

I seem to have read these in pretty much the right order, going through the three Hannasyde stories and continuing on to the Hemingway stories. Hemingway is Hannasyde's subordinate in the early ones and later becomes a superbly enjoyable Chief Investigator with charm, pointed wit, and a stellar memory. (I told Ickie I enjoy it as much as in Foyle's War when the investigator bluntly informs a suspect that he knows he's lying to him.) Also, some of the romantic plots will be given away if you don't read in the order below.

Why Shoot a Butler?
Footsteps in the Dark (Funny, but ended up being my least favorite of all of these, and not really a typical mystery, in my opinion.)
Death in the Stocks (The sibling suspects in this book have some of the most hilarious dialogue I've ever read. I laughed out loud multiple times.)
Behold, Here's Poison (My favorite character in this one, Randall, is described perfectly as an "amiable snake." I need more Randall. Next to Hemingway, he's probably my favorite character in Heyer's novels thus far, and that is saying A LOT.)
They Found Him Dead (The pacing here is a bit iffy, but Hemingway starts to really show his stuff, and we're introduced to Terrible Timothy, who is just adorable.)
Duplicate Death (Terrible Timothy and his half brother return, and Hemingway is now the Chief Inspector. The characters were a bit less flamboyant, but it is still a diverting read. I found it very funny when Hemingway's subordinate annoys him by slipping into Gaelic.)
No Wind of Blame (The explanation of the murder wasn't altogether convincing, but the melodramatic scenes of Mrs. Carter and her daughter are an absolute scream.)
Detection Unlimited (Just finished this last night. I often guess who the murderer is in Heyer's mysteries, but I was clueless here until the end, and I appreciate that. There are many hilarious moments, and Hemingway is in rare form. I love that several older ladies agree that it is so nice that a murder occurred so the young people have something to entertain them while they are staying in the country. That just goes to show you how lighthearted a murder mystery can be.)

Mysteries of One Kind, and Another

2010-12-07T11:12:00.000-08:00

I've been reading lots of Georgette Heyer books these days. Never heard of her? She's a mid-20th-century British author, and although she's mostly famous for her Regency romances, she wrote excellent mystery novels as well. I read Black Sheep, a romance, first, which was a good bit of fun: Think Jane Austen that has a modernized mindset and is more lighthearted comedy than social satire. Then I read Why Shoot A Butler?, which I absolutely loved. It's a good enough plot (I never have a clue who the guilty party is, so I'm not an expert), but the sarcastic protagonist, witty dialog, and memorable characters are what really makes it worthwhile. It reminds me of Wodehouse, especially the clever butler and the Bingo Little facsimile. I've never been big on mysteries. I've read a couple by Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, and I can't understand why Heyer isn't more famous. I've requested several more from our library and am currently enjoying Footsteps in the Dark, a comedy of errors/mystery set in an old country house in England, of course!

Since it's Advent, I also read Connie Willis's Miracle and Other Christmas Stories. While it's not her strongest work, I really enjoyed all of the short stories, including stories about a choir member sheltering a homeless man and his pregnant wife in the church nursery, an unpleasant man trapped in a busy toy store at Christmastime, and an interesting new role for the Christmas Carol ghosts. The very short story Pony (the name says it all) cracked me up. However, I think Willis's introduction was most resonant for me. I told Chris afterwards that it was better than any Midnight Mass homilies I've heard. She's just talking about why she likes Miracle on 34th Street and A Christmas Carol, but her comments get to the heart of the matter.

"Christmas is supposed to be based on selflessness and innocence, but until the very end of Miracle on 34th Street, virtually no one except Kris Kringle exhibits these qualities....But in spite of this (actually, in a delicious irony, because of it) and with only very faint glimmerings of humanity from the principals, and in spite of how hopeless it all seems, the miracle of Christmas occurs, right on schedule. Just as it does every year."

"Remembering the past, truly seeing the present, imagining the consequences of our actions are the ways we actually grow and change. Dickens knew this years before Freud....
...the story touches us because we want to believe people can change. They don't. We've all learned from bitter experience (though probably not as bitter as Dickens's) that the world is full of money-grubbers and curtain-ring stealers, that Scrooge stays Scrooge to the bitter end, and nobody will lift a finger to help Tiny Tim.
But Christmas is about someone who believed, in spite of overwhelming evidence, that humanity is capable of change and worth redeeming. And Dickens's Christmas story is in fact the Christmas Story. And the hardened heart that cracks open at the end of it is our own."

It All Comes Back to St. Paul's

2010-11-13T06:29:00.000-08:00

I've taken a while to post about Connie Willis's two-volume series, Blackout and All Clear, because I'm so full of thoughts on the books, but I can say very little about books' ideas without giving away much of the plot. Suffice it to say, I absolutely love the duo. The past few days I've spent in a state of inspiration and mourning: the conclusion filled me with hope, and yet I'm sorry I am no longer reading it. I actually reread the last couple of pages of the book multiple times because they were so lovely.

Set in the Oxford time-traveling universe, this series follows three historians to England during the Blitz. Daily life in London and Bletchley Park, the evacuation at Dunkirk, and service in an ambulance corps felt particularly realistic. Willis mentions the time she spent interviewing a group of women in England who served in different capacities during World War II, and if I were one of them, I'd be pleased to the point of tears that these books were inspired by their lives. I've read and watched many stories set in England, Europe, and America during WWII, but this is the one that best conveys that extraordinary manner in which ALL of England went to war, and every man, woman, and child did their bit.

Again Willis touches on chaos theory and divine providence, intertwining historical fact, science fiction, and poetry. The relationships amongst the characters are deep and heart-wrenching. The conclusion is close to perfect.

I strongly suggest reading Doomsday Book prior to this series, as it is helpful to already know the characters of Mr. Dunworthy and Colin Templar when Blackout begins, and it's even more important that you read Willis's short story Fire Watch beforehand. There's a reference or two to To Say Nothing of the Dog as well, but it's not essential to have read that one already (although it's enjoyable to see a repetition of the themes from TSNofD, albeit with far more gravity).

Behemoth

2010-11-07T12:16:00.000-08:00

Scott Westerfeld's Behemoth, the second installment in his steampunk trilogy, was just as much fun as Leviathan. Like the first volume, the highlights are the detailed drawings of the fascinating contraptions and beasties. The plot is engrossing, the locations exotic. As with the first volume, I appreciated that the book is a well-rounded story in its own right instead of simply being an episode in a series with a cliffhanger ending. Certainly, there is more story to tell, and I look forward to reading it, but this chapter of the story came together in the end in a satisfying manner.

That said, I have decided that characters aren't Westerfeld's strong point. Although the characters in this story are interesting and elicit an emotional reaction from the reader, the only one with much complexity is Deryn/Dylan, the British girl disguised as a midshipman. Periodically, Deryn's slang is so reminiscent of a cocky, young midshipman from a Hornblower novel that I'd forget she was a teenage girl. Her outer confidence and leadership is nicely contrasted with her inner turmoil and secrets. I wish Westerfeld was able to provide a bit more depth to Alek, the Austrian prince on the run. Perhaps he will succeed in doing so in volume three.

My only other criticism is that for some inexplicable reason, they commissioned someone other than Keith Thompson (who did the brilliant interior illustrations, especially the map of Europe in Leviathan) to create the cover art. The cover art for Leviathan was perfect--a mass of interlocking gears. Who approved this cheesy photo of an aviator on Behemoth's cover? Boo.

Mr. Pratchett

2010-10-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

I had a hankering for rereading some of my Terry Pratchett favorites lately, and last week I carried Lords and Ladies into my doctor's office. It turns out, my doctor is also a big fan of Mr. Pratchett's novels. He told me that a fourth book just came out in the Tiffany Aching YA series, titled I Shall Wear Midnight. You can imagine my excitement!

I Shall Wear Midnight was just as enjoyable as the first three Tiffany Aching stories. I appreciate that Mr. Pratchett's style is rather different in writing juvenile literature--the prose is less dense and a bit less witty, although the writing is still intelligent and the jokes, though more obvious, still funny. Mr. Pratchett is so adept at pleasing his audience, albeit pleasing us with deeper humor, ideas, and creativity than the average "formulaic" crowd-pleaser. Midnight contains everything I like in a good book: a smart and resourceful protagonist, secondary characters who grow more complex as we get to know them, a really REALLY scary bad guy ("The Cunning Man"--isn't that wicked sounding?), convincing love interests, a gang-getting-back-together moment, an exciting showdown, and a satisfying conclusion with a cheering crowd (including little blue men drunkenly shouting "CRIVENS!").

My doctor also informed me that Mr. Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer's a few years ago--it's very early onset, as he began showing signs in his late 50s. We mulled over what a tragic loss such a mind as his will be. It's doubly impressive that Midnight was published after his diagnosis. Mr. Pratchett has made the absolute most of his talent with his scads of books (an average of 2 books a year since 1983!!) that are beloved by so many, especially me.

Here is a partly funny, partly sad speech Mr. Pratchett gave about his Alzheimer's in 2008.

Nancy and Plum

2010-09-23T12:14:00.001-07:00

I am very fortunate to live within a pleasant five-minute stroll from our local library. In addition to it being a lovely old building, it has a great children's room with lots of toys and activities for our little boy, and an interlibrary loan system that Ickie and I can't live without. Another great perk is the free advance reader copies of children's books and novels. The library simply asks that if you take one home, write a brief review and return it to the library. I've had some winners and losers, but the other week I stumbled upon a gem: an updated edition of Betty MacDonald's Nancy and Plum.

Originally published in 1952, Nancy and Plum is the story of two precocious orphan sisters, inspired by the bedtime tales MacDonald used to make up for her sister when they were children. Nancy and Plum's parents died when they were little, and their careless uncle abandoned them in a wretched orphanage run by the horrid, heartless, stingy headmistress, Mrs. Monday. Nancy and Plum have enough intelligence and humor to make the best of any situation, whether it is being locked up without any food on Christmas Day or being tormented and tattled on by Mrs. Monday's spoiled niece. It's the sort of plot my sister and I used to invent with our dolls. The orphans are charming and hilarious, the sympathetic neighbors are wise and sweet, and the villains are tremendous fun to hate. I read the book from start to finish within 24 hours, laughing and crying simultaneously and often.

It's not just a great story with memorable characters, for MacDonald has a gift with prose. She describes the countryside with beauty and also describes people and situations with memorable detail and poignancy. Jeanne Birdsall, author of The Penderwicks, wrote the introduction to this new edition, and MacDonald's novel is certainly reminiscent of Penderwicks, as well as the novels of L.M. Montgomery.

Here's an excerpt.

After Mrs. Campbell had gone with the lamp, Nancy said, "Doesn't Mrs. Campbell smell good. Like cinnamon and fresh bread."

Plum said, "She's beautiful."

Nancy said, "And Mr. Campbell is very handsome."

Of course they weren't at all. Mrs. Campbell was round and cozy with sparkling brown eyes, curly brown hair and rosy cheeks but she wasn't beautiful. Mr. Campbell was tall and thin with merry blue eyes and stiff sandy hair but he wasn't handsome. They were good and kind however, and oftentimes goodness and kindness cast a glow over people that passes very well for beauty.

Through the Cupboards

2010-08-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

N.D. Wilson's 100 Cupboards trilogy is reminiscent of a whole bunch of stuff I love. The protagonist, 12-year-old Henry, is an over-protected single child sent to stay with his aunt's family of precocious girls in small town Kansas. Henry is given an attic room, and he discovers a wall of mysterious cupboards leading to other worlds. That's all you need to know, as you'll want the exciting tale to be a surprise.

Henry is an interesting kid, and I told Ickie that even if this weren't a fantasy novel, I'd be interested in Henry's character--how he embraces eating meat and playing baseball (two activities forbidden by his parents), and how his relationships develop with his extended family, especially his understated and wise Uncle Frank. The fantasy worlds Henry enters are in turn appealing and horrible, and Wilson does a good job of balancing competing plot lines and a large cast.

Compared to other young adult fantasy novels, this series is superior to many. The allure of the mysterious cupboards can't help but remind one of Lewis's wonderful wardrobe, and the world-hopping provides a dizzying experience similar to Wynne-Jones's Chrestomanci books. One character reminded me strongly of Gollum, and there were several scenes with terror akin to that found in The Lord of the Rings. Henry's personal growth and sense of "lost and found-ness" resemble Harry Potter. Whereas the books are lacking any religious symbolism, they do have a positive focus on familial devotion and honor. Wilson's fantasy world is fairly complex and well-realized, but the main characteristic that sets this novel apart from others in its genre is Wilson's gift for descriptive prose. Here's a little sample:

"The soft applause of a thousand rustling trees surrounded him, and he ached to see them, to shake off his blindness and watch the silver-bellied leaves flick and twist on the wind's wake."

My only criticisms: I'm still mulling over how I feel about the epilogue. I'm not completely satisfied with it. Also, a map of the secondary world where Henry spends much of his time would help me visualize its vast geography. The sketchy map of the cupboards at the start of each book is excellent, though. I'm trying to imagine all those cupboards on my own bedroom wall.

School Chums

2010-08-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

Sheesh, I know, it's been forever. I haven't had much to comment on or the time in which to do so. However, this week I read two very different books worth sharing.

The Strange Case of Origami Yoga, by Tom Angleberger: This light-hearted "mystery" is recorded as a set of case files (with doodles) by multiple sixth graders regarding Dwight, the weirdest kid they know, and his origami Yoda, who is surprisingly adept at giving advice and/or predicting the future. I thought it perfectly captured the sensation of being a sixth grader--still innocent and imaginative as children, yet aware and befuddled by society and the opposite sex. Many of the kids are funny, but Dwight is one in a million. Ickie and I both read it in a day and laughed a great deal. The chapter about the Cheeto Hog completely slayed me.

A Clock without Hands, by Guy Burt: Jackamo insisted that I read this so that we could discuss our opinions about it, and it merits more detail than I'll go into here. Alex, an artist in his 50s, narrates episodes in his life out of chronological order. His flashbacks and his artwork help him to make sense of his poignant relationships with his two close childhood friends, Jamie and Anna. The story shifts among critical events from childhood summers together in Italy, teen years at a boarding school in England, and a reunion as young adults in Italy. You see the plot twists coming far in advance, so the tension really stems from the emotional heft of the relationships and Alex's mental struggle to piece things together in a significant way. Alex's naivete comes across never as annoying ignorance; his mental process is redolent of his childhood learning disability and of his role as a tormented artist, though I believe it is most influenced by his innocent, childlike, and unconditional love for Anna (who I don't like) and Jamie (who I really feel for). It's a unique and moving story that demonstrates how complicated relationships and unhappy endings can be stunningly beautiful.

I'm the pefect heroine!

2010-06-07T10:24:00.000-07:00

Last night I read this brief introduction by Connie Willis to one of her short stories in the collection Fire Watch. I'm seriously so excited about this idea that I have goosebumps after reading this for the fourth time, and I don't know if one short story (which I haven't read yet) can live up to it. I've been wondering for the past 12 hours how I can justify stealing this idea.

"Nobody knows what housewives do all day. Nobody cares either, and this places the housewife in the same position as Miss Marple, whom people are continually underestimating, and gives the housewife a certain freedom and power that make her the perfect heroine.

"I've used the housewife in several stories, and she appears in this one in her guise as Young Mother. The role of Young Mother is a little more constraining in that when something important happens, she is likely to miss it because she is wiping somebody's runny nose or putting on somebody's boots. On the other hand, while she is pushing somebody on a swing or waiting for somebody to finish their Coke, she has a lot of time to think. And sometimes, taking somebody to the bathroom, she sees something everyone else has missed."

Epiphany

2010-05-31T11:22:00.000-07:00

I wish I had written a post about Bellwether by Connie Willis last night at 10:30 when I finished it. I am still loving it in retrospect, but last night I was so hopped up on happy juice from its ending (and really just the whole thing was a joy to read) that I ran downstairs and interrupted Ickie at work to gush about it, and then when I went back to bed, I was too excited to sleep, my brain just zipping around happily.

Bellwether is an ideal quick, witty, and just-thought-provoking-enough summer read. It's the story of Sandy, a statistician studying fads (specifically, the origins of hair bobbing in the 20s), who works for the bureaucratic HiTek corporation in Boulder, Colorado. Colorado is the perfect setting to poke fun at quirky trends in the 90s--all themed restaurants and surly GenXers--and HiTek is a hilarious nightmare of mock-worthy management trends. Sandy meets Bennett, a chaos theorist seemingly immune to fads. It's a pleasure to follow Sandy and Ben's burgeoning partnership, as they have a deep intellectual connection as well as a shared sense of humor (and familiarity with the poetry of Robert Browning--Willis always gives literature a nod, which goes to show you that even scientists & mathematicians need it). Sandy and Ben's research misadventures are a hoot, and their exasperating coworkers make them even more likable by comparison.

Many of Willis's common themes appear in Bellwether; among them are chaos theory (with life events reflecting mental confusion), tip-of-the-tongue (or mind) sensation, a combination of sociological and scientific perspectives, and historical anecdotes that enrich the story. Each chapter begins with an excerpt about the life and death of a particular fad (most of them are quite amusing), and Sandy and Bennett spend much of their time making references to the circumstances in which famous scientists made discoveries/had epiphanies. There are several great "A-ha!" moments, and at least one pleasing final revelation I didn't see coming.

Writing a novel about fads and chaos theory is inspired. It's so completely original, don't you think? And writing it so well is even more impressive! The fads provide just enough low-brow appeal whereas the discussion of chaos theory is just enough physics to excite my ignorant brain. The resolution of the themes and characters is positively giddy-making! Thus far I have yet to be disappointed by my new favorite author, and I'm delving right into her short story collection, Fire Watch.

On Marriage

2010-05-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

I'm posting a selection from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "A Wedding Sermon from Prison" here which Ickie's parents read at our wedding, 10 years ago. I never fail to grow misty-eyed and choked up when I come to the last sentence. I am married to the man I most admire and have the most fun with, and I have every confidence that our marriage will be just as happy 40+ years from now (unless there's a zombie apocalypse, and even then, I think we'd make a nigh unbeatable team).

"God is guiding your marriage. Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance, through which He wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to His glory, and calls into His kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man.… As high as God is above man, so high are the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of marriage above the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of love. It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

"God makes your marriage indissoluble. ‘What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder’ (Matthew 19:6). God joins you together in marriage; it is His act, not yours. Do not confound your love for one another with God. God makes your marriage indissoluble, and protects it from every danger that may threaten it from within and without; He wills to be the guarantor of its indissolubility. It is a blessed thing to know that no power on earth, no temptation, no human frailty can dissolve what God holds together; indeed, anyone who knows that may say confidently: What God has joined together, can no man put asunder. Free from all anxiety that is always a characteristic of love, you can now say to each other with complete and confident assurance: We can never lose each other now; by the will of God we belong to each other till death."

Incomplete

2010-05-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

This is the post wherein I seem to be referring to a common theme/experience among three books but in actuality I'm cramming three book reviews into one bloated post to catch up. But there is a similarity: I'm left with a feeling of unfulfillment at the close of each of these books, although not in a bad way, and for three different reasons. (Yes, I'm aware that "unfulfillment" is not a word, but I can't think of an appropriate synonym. Suggestions?)

Blackout, Connie Willis: Although Blackout has a cliffhanger ending, it's also an appropriate intermission in a two-volume series. Blackout is back in Willis's Oxford time traveling universe, of which you know I'm a fan from my posts on To Say Nothing of the Dog and Doomsday Book. Blackout follows three young "historians" who've been sent to World War II to observe refugee children in the countryside, London during the Blitz, and the evacuation of Dunkirk. Of course, everything is all muddled and perilous, and then the "net" mysteriously closes and the protagonists are stuck. In her other time travel works, the Oxford theory is that "slippage" (ending up in a time different from one's coordinates) is the time continuum's way of self correcting and a sign that it's functioning properly. However, a new theory has emerged that slippage is a symptom of the time continuum breaking down--perhaps the historians will be trapped for good? Willis immerses this fast-paced adventure in fascinating historical detail, while considering its implications as a scientist and philosopher.

Lincoln's Dreams, Connie Willis: This book, published in the '80s, is a thematic precursor to Passage. Lincoln's Dreams is about a Civil War researcher who gets involved with a traumatized woman dreaming Robert E. Lee's dreams (FYI, I don't get the title either). Willis was mulling over similar ideas (the spiritual, psychological, and scientific meaning of dreams and near death experiences) in Lincoln but really succeeded in a well-rounded story and hypothesis in Passage. Lincoln is a shorter, slower, bleaker work, and though its conclusion is not poorly devised, it does leave the reader in the dark (both in mood and in information). Willis's SciFi spends more time in the social sciences than other works of the genre, and this one has it in spades: psychologists with varying dream theories, unhealthy romantic attachments, obsessive-compulsiveness, and unusual suicidal tendencies. The characters' experiences rang true, but I felt deeply sad at the close, not only on behalf of the protagonists but from learning so much about Robert E. Lee, Lincoln, and the misery of the Civil War.

The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To, DC Pierson: This one is set in high school, so you clearly have all the psychological issues present, albeit less sophisticated. It's a story about social outcast Darren, who draws, and his best friend Eric, who doesn't sleep. It's one of a few stories that I feel genuinely portrays life in high school, minus the weird stuff--and it does get weird. If I split the book into thirds, the first part made me laugh very hard, the second part was agonizing and poignant, and the last part was positively nuts, with a sudden and (once again) indefinite conclusion. But if you were a nerd or a geek about anything in high school and were afraid the other kids would find out and mock you for it, I think you'll relate to these boys as much as I did (in spite of the sex, drugs, profanity, and poor parenting).

Okay, I've got a ton of extracted material below, but I promise they're worthwhile. Extract 1 describes Darren and Eric's work on their "movie trilogy and series of novels"; extract 2 describes the boys plotting revenge on Halloween; and extract 3 describes Darren's conflicting emotions when Eric confides to him that he doesn't sleep. I think, as a teenager, I spent most of my life feeling the way Darren does in extract 3.

"By October we have three notebooks full of concept art for TimeBlaze. By this time Dr. Praetoreous, instead of being the main character, is just another player in a universe of characters, including the Praetoreous family (each of whom is actually another version of Dr. Praetoreous in a different timestream, so there's cowboy Praetoreous and postapocalyptic Praetoreous and two-dimensional Praetoreous in a universe rendered in 2D), the Time Squad (the Temporal Ranger's extended posse of villains, rogues, and scoundrels from the outskirts of time), and an entire pantheon of gods drawn from the Greek, Aztec, Indian, and Chinese mythologies who have been summoned by The Man using Dr. Praetoreous's invention known as The Mortalizer....
I am proud of the way, in this one drawing, the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl seems to be almost 3D, his feathered tail way off in the distance in the bottom right corner of the page and his semi-reptilian head roaring toward you in the top left as The Man stands passively at the top of an ancient South American ruin, directing the newly Mortalized god to go out and f*ck sh*t up."

"What we have on the kitchen counter five minutes later makes it pretty clear we've never gotten revenge on anybody. Half a dozen eggs leftover from two weeks ago when my dad made breakfast for a woman who stayed over on a Saturday night. Processed, individually wrapped yellow cheese slices because I feel like I remember seeing or reading about a prank involving cheese slices somewhere, but maybe it was an art project, not a prank. Some rope from the garage, just in case we have to rappel up or down something. Neither of us knows how to rappel, in fact I've always counted myself lucky that our school doesn't have that rope-climbing thing as part of PE like you see in movies. But rappelling seems like something you do as part of getting really excellent revenge. We could also use the rope to hang somebody in effigy, if we decide to go that way. But again, that's straying into art-project territory.
It also seems like a good time to spray-paint somebody's house or car, but we don't have any spray paint. We have a can of wood-staining stuff from the time my dad painted our deck. It's not even technically paint, and it's heavy as hell. Also, we have some flashlights.
'It looks like we're going to make an omelet,' Eric says, 'rappel in through somebody's window, and serve it to them.'
'You read my mind,' I say. Eric laughs.
We go out the door without much of a plan and everything in a paper grocery bag, becoming two of a ton of kids out tonight with some rotten eggs and bad intentions but probably the only ones with a can of Home Depot store brand chestnut wood stain."

"For a second I let myself live in a world where what Eric's said is the truth, where all the evidence that it's true isn't a pack of lies to be debunked. In this world my betrayal and confusion about how to feel about this kid is replaced with relief, and my heart swells and my brain practically explodes out of the front of my head at the idea that this is actually happening to me. Then I put one mental foot back into the mundane world of Eric being crazy or a liar or both, where we say 'yeah, sure, okay' even in response to the smallest stuff it's easy and low-stakes to believe. I go back and forth feeling my heart get either huge and kid-like or small and full of poison."

How I defended my child from an evil bird and lived to tell the tale...

2010-05-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

Sure, I'm bookish, but that doesn't mean I'm unlikely to take action when the situation calls for it.

Actually, let me back up a bit.

I don't like birds. I like the idea of birds, and I like the sound of seagulls from far away, finches chirping outside my office window during the day, or the quasi-wild parrots in that Telegraph Hill documentary. But my most common reaction to birds is rage (when they wake me up at 4am and I stumble groggily, muttering obscenities, to close our bedroom window) or fear. It's not just because I've seen movies where flocks of birds inexplicably attack or spread typhus and/or zombie epidemics. There's something about their beady eyes, pointy beaks, chaotic flapping, and amoral nature that chills me to the bone. I can hear you responding, "But animals are not capable of moral understanding," and to that I'd say that birds seem LESS capable of it than mammals. I can usually read a mammal's mood. Mammals appear to have personalities. My cat, a selfish creature, is at least rational. I am the giver of food and the opener of doors, so if she wants Fancy Feast or to go out on the porch at dawn, it makes sense to jump on my bed and complain in my face.

I have a history with geese in particular. My dad and I were chased by a goose when I was about 3, and it's chilling to hear him tell the tale. A couple of decades later, I was stalked by vengeful Canadian geese, displaced by construction, at my office in St. Louis. One bided his time on our roof, out of sight, only to explode in a murderous frenzy and chase me through the parking lot as I ran to my car.

All of this to say, we have an evil Canadian goose in our park. It's the talk of our town, at least among the "library moms" whose preschoolers play at the park. Yesterday morning, when my son tired of the playground and toddled over to watch the ducks and seagulls, this black-headed, black-hearted avian fiend made straight for us. It stopped several feet away, stretched up to its full height, and looked at me like this:

Now, to its credit, this goose only showed up this week with an injured wing, so it's clearly feeling abandoned by its flock. I get that, but that doesn't justify his aggression toward me. Plus, our park is REALLY NICE for birds, insofar as people throw them so much food that they don't even bother eating all of it, and he's bigger than all the other birds, save one big white goose (that my friend named Howard).

As soon as I saw the goose glare and come for us, I picked up Ben and moved away (trying to maintain a calm and non-threatening demeanor). My diversionary tactics seemed successful, but the wicked creature outsmarted me by staking out a spot right next to my water bottle. I really needed the water in that bottle, and I refuse to be one of our town's littering troglodytes, so I had to draw the goose away from the bottle, then rush back to snatch it, all while carrying a squirmy 27-pound boy. Public Works watched the drama unfold from the safety of their vehicle.

When I arrived at the library later that morning and asked my compatriots about the homicidal goose, everyone piped in:
"I saw that goose yesterday! He was scary!"
"He's so out of place! My son kept asking why he was there."
"I saw a policeman trying to catch that goose earlier today! But it didn't work. The policeman lost."

I'm sad to report that, as of this morning, the Canadian blight has not only NOT been removed to a sanctuary or bird hospital, he has corrupted Howard. Both Howard and Canada went after us this morning, and after a narrow escape, I watched them chase and hiss at the poor duck couples for no justifiable reason--at least no reason I can conceive of in the human or goose world.

Seven Deadly Sins Meet a Disappointing End

2010-04-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

Oh, Mr. Nix, how could you? I'm so disappointed. I devoted myself to each new release of your seven-book The Keys to the Kingdom series, only to arrive at this shoddy end? Alas.

Honestly, I didn't expect it to be as good as Nix's Abhorsen trilogy. TKttK started out fairly strong, stayed interesting for a while, and then got increasingly weaker. The formula felt a bit tired out. None of the characters seemed to develop. The fantasy world was muddled and random. The religious imagery was a good idea to start but didn't seem to hold much significance. And yet...I was hoping for a satisfying ending that would clarify some things. I regained interest as the action in Lord Sunday was fast-paced, and then I came to the final chapter. I was very, very disappointed.

**SPOILERS BELOW**

Yeah, so here's basically what happened. The House is being destroyed by Nothing (ever read or seen The Neverending Story? Yeah, not completely original), so Nix gets to the point where he has two choices: he can either magically stop the Nothing and fix the House/save the world, or he can let it destroy and kill everything, and then bring it all back. Both are pretty cheap tricks, in my opinion. In the final chapter, all in a hurry, Arthur gets ultimate power, a few enigmatic characters are "revealed" (to no real satisfaction), everything gets destroyed, the dang Architect complains that she's tired and just up and LEAVES, and Arthur brings it all back, book over. Oh, yeah, except his mom is dead, so he takes about one sentence to let that sink in, and then everyone goes about their business, blah, blah, blah....SO CRAPPY. There's no payoff for any of the detailed religious imagery, and no creative explanation for this spiritual dimension or its impact on the real world. Ugh.

Oh, yeah, and his sweet little yellow elephant who came to life to help Arthur just got KILLED and then left with no followup. I think I'm more ticked about that than anything.

Oh, and I hate the cover art on this last book. It's completely freaking me out, and not in a good way, partly because of his glowing eyes but partly because Arthur has the hairstyles of an old, frumpy woman with too much hairspray. Also, the cage and hedge pictured look cheap. Cheap like the ENDING.

Conventions Unconventional

2010-04-01T09:57:00.001-07:00

My canon contains many books about bright young girls who aspire to an education and career that seem unattainable. There are several other conventions at work in The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, and each of them comes across as fresh and convincing. Jacqueline Kelly's young adult novel is about Callie, an 11-year-old girl with six brothers, growing up on a Texas farm in 1899. The story begins during a summer heat wave as Callie develops an interest in the natural world. Her observations and inquiries draw the attention of her grandfather, a reclusive codger who intimidates and generally ignores his grandchildren. Callie and Grandfather Tate discover a mutual love of natural science, much to the consternation of Callie's stern mother, who intends for her only daughter to be a proper young lady, debutante, and capable wife and mother.

Callie is disinterested in and lousy at household duties, but she's quite the impressive scientist. Although her parents can afford and hope to send their eldest son to college, Callie is the one child who really yearns to go (a vexing injustice!). Mr. and Mrs. Tate are strict but caring, and they aren't unlikable, but it's maddening that they can't see their daughter's true potential. Callie feels "like a coyote with its foot caught in a trap" and grows increasingly depressed about her fate, but she also develops a beautifully intellectual and tender relationship with her grandfather, who is sympathetic and encouraging yet doesn't try to undermine Callie's parents. There are a handful of scenes in which Callie is so frustrated with her parents' cluelessness that had me in tears. But one of the greatest joys-within-misery of life is finding the one person who understands you amongst a great many who do not, am I right?

Callie's practice of natural observation also hones her understanding of her friends and family members. She gains a special respect for her mother and the family cook, and is more adept at dealing with her little brother Travis's sensitive personality than anyone in the family. Although imperfect, she grows less selfish and more admirable with each page.

The conclusion is open-ended yet optimistic: Whereas part of me wanted a nice, tidy ending for Callie, I appreciated even more the final chapter's vision of hope.

Kelly's descriptive prose is exquisite. (Incidentally, Jacqueline Kelly is also a practicing physician and lawyer--who makes me feel like a fruitless sluggard!) Often I had to put the book down and pause, then reread a paragraph, because the language is breathtaking. She turns naturalist observations into poetry. Below are a few examples.

The opening lines to the novel are haunting: "By 1899, we had learned to tame the darkness but not the Texas heat. We arose in the dark, hours before sunrise, when there was barely a smudge of indigo along the eastern sky and the rest of the horizon was still pure pitch. We lit our kerosene lamps and carried them before us in the dark like our own tiny wavering suns."

Grandfather Tate describes a small bat who flew into his tent: "Although it still seemed only partly sensible to its surroundings, its feet gripped the twine in what I supposed to be a kind of primitive reflex, and it folded itself with particularity and hung there as if in nature, presenting a compact parcel surprisingly tidy and pleasing to the eye."

Callie describes a caterpillar: "Petey curled into a fuzzy comma when I put the leaves in his jar."

A fuzzy comma! I still haven't gotten over it. Doesn't her way with words makes you want to leap for joy?

Finally, can you even get over that cover art? The silhouette of Callie with a butterfly net surrounded by curious creatures and plants is striking. The book was on display at our library, and I stared at it every time I walked by it, and finally decided to check it out just because the cover is incredible. I'm so glad I did.

Pretzels!

2010-03-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

In one of many albums at my parents' house, there's a series of photos of me at age 3 wandering around a fair in Germany eating an enormous pretzel. I have always loved big, soft, warm pretzels, and those Germans really know how to make them. Thanks to Alton Brown, and my brother-in-law Will for tipping me off, now I know how to make them too!

I made these yesterday and they are the best I've had since being in Germany. Ickie and I gobbled them up hot out of the oven with yellow mustard, and Ben enjoyed one when he awoke from his nap. Then we had a second helping with our pub-food dinner (perfect on an overcast, chilly evening), consisting of apple-squash-cheddar soup sprinkled with crispy prosciutto, and beer. The beer was a last-minute acquisition: I flipped out around 5pm realizing how necessary it was, and Ickie took Ben out to the store with him to save the day.

Book News

2010-03-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

In light of my recent obsession with Connie Willis (see previous post), I just have to mention that she is releasing a new two-part series this year. The first novel is already out (I'm waiting on it via inter-library loan), it's titled Blackout, and it takes place in the same Oxford Time Travel Department universe as Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog. There are some unhappy reviewers on Amazon, but as far as I can tell, they're angry because the end of the first novel is a severe cliffhanger. I'd love to wait until part two, All Clear, is released (this coming fall) and do it all at once, but I'm just too eager to read part one. I YEARN for the agony!

Everything is a Symbol

2010-03-24T11:12:00.000-07:00

One of my personal highlights in the last year was discovering the works of Connie Willis. When people ask me about her, I say, "She's unique! Her books are something unlike anything I've ever read before." Okay, that's not the case for To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is a tribute to multiple works, and contains comedy equal to those works. However, Doomsday Book was spectacular; bleak at times, but spectacular all the same. And I just finished Passage. I checked it out initially from our library, didn't get around to it, and then checked it out a second time. The premise didn't pique my interest when I read the blurbs about it. But, WOW. It blew my mind. Twice.

Joanna Lander, a psychologist, and Richard Wright, a neurologist, are doing a scientific study on near-death experiences. That sounds only mildly interesting, right? Yet after reading the first 100 pages, I told Ickie, "I just read 100 pages of mostly technical dialogue between two doctors wandering around a hospital and it's GRIPPING!" Willis writes dialogue well; her books are long and filled with it, and she somehow succeeds in making scenes of dialogue referring to the wreck of the Hindenberg, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and temporal-lobe stimulation thrilling. I don't even know how she does it. The historical information is fascinating, the literary references are poetic and meaningful, and Willis's descriptive prose is lovely (on one page she goes from a discussion about neurotransmitters to a haunting description of snow falling under sodium streetlights *sigh*).

Anyway, Richard simulates near-death experiences (NDEs) with chemicals, and Joanna interviews the study subjects about what they've seen. They spend most of the book running around Mercy General, the labyrinthine hospital where they work, avoiding a neo-spiritualist hack trying to sabotage their study. Eventually, Joanna decides to undergo the NDE simulation herself. The hospital is a mirror image of Joanna's mental confusion as she struggles to understand what she has seen in her near-death state and derive some sort of medical knowledge or personal significance. I felt the same psychological turmoil and "tip of the mind" feeling that Joanna often has. There are also several other characters who offer insight: Joanna's former literature teacher, who has Alzeimer's; an overly chatty WWII vet; and a little girl with a failing heart who is obsessed with disasters.

I wish I could say more about the plot, but I don't want to give too much away, and honestly, I could write a whole other book about this book. As I mentioned earlier, something wildly unexpected happens two-thirds through, then the plot drags in bits for the last third, and all of a sudden, POW! The final chapter was simply stunning. I was curious and a little skeptical about how Willis could write a novel about NDEs and manage to say something significant, either scientifically or spiritually, without it coming off completely bogus. As in Doomsday Book, there are several Christian or "spiritual" characters whose beliefs are grating, and for a while I assumed that Willis would concentrate on a satisfyingly scientific solution to her mystery. The scientific solution was there, and it was satisfying and significant. But my mind was indeed blown a second time in the final chapter. Everyone and everything in this book is a metaphor or a message. Even the chapter-opener quotes (usually the last words of famous people) are weighty with meaning. Because some traditional/religious beliefs were represented in an off-putting light, I reacted against them (even though I believe many of them), and as a result, I arrived at the finale with open expectations, and Willis's imagery dazzled me.

Passage is a book about death and fear and hope with gallows humor and terror and the best of humanity and everything, everything, is a symbol for something. I could keep writing and thinking about it for days on end, and I wish I had a friend who just read it so that I could discuss it in more detail!

Spring: Pros and Cons

2010-03-18T10:58:00.000-07:00

It is so lovely outside here today. Spring arrived in Maine two months early. I can see daffodil shoots in my side yard, and this Saturday it may even make it to 70 degrees.

But here's the thing: I'm only 50% excited about it. Maybe more than that. Sometimes I'm 100% spaztically ecstatic that the sun is shining and I can go jogging without swathing every square inch of my skin in fleece. But sometimes I secretly wish it weren't so nice outside. So, so nice. Because when it is, I don't have an excuse to be a cave dweller. Ben and I spent all afternoon at the park yesterday, and we'll do the same today. What is my problem?

1. I not-so-secretly love winter. I love wanting to be warm inside, actually wanting to turn up the heat and sit on the couch like a potato sack in flannel and not break a sweat all day.
2. I love not being social. Sometimes my other two family members and my cat are the absolute maximum of social I can handle. When it's nasty outside, everyone understands if you don't get up the gumption to socialize.
3. The warm temperatures signal the frightening unveiling of my pale, clunky legs. The winter uniform is so nice: pants, boots, coat. We all look relatively equal in that. I can barely handle personal maintenance from the neck up, and even then I can put a hat on it. Warm weather brings with it far too many responsibilities for a girl.
4. When it's really cold, it's my responsibility to eat casseroles and sticky toffee pudding. I have to, or I'll die. I am not ready to start eating salads and ceviche.
5. Today it's nice enough that I could dry my laundry on the line. I could have white sheets flapping gently in the breeze while I sit on my back porch breathing in the scent of clean laundry. Doesn't that sound pleasant? But it involves me lugging a laundry basket of wet laundry (wet, twice as heavy as dry) up my basement stairs and out the back door, balancing precariously on the edge of the deck, clothes pinning it all up, and then remembering to take it all down again. I could be saving the environment, but I just dumped it all in the dryer. Fine.

I really am happy that I can open the windows for the first time this year. I think I probably just need more coffee.

Looking at Things Afresh

2010-03-13T18:37:00.000-08:00

I'll write more book reviews soon, I promise. In the meantime, I want to have this lady's outlook. Cynical me can't resist smiling when I read her refreshing, Pollyanna-like notes.

(Secretly, I can't help thinking it's easier to write these notes when you live in SoCal. I have been missing it often this winter, even though spring has arrived early up here.)

Ladylike Pursuits

2010-02-08T11:16:00.001-08:00

To my American friends: Please tell me you watched the conclusion of the Emma miniseries on Masterpiece Classic last night INSTEAD of the football game? Please. It ranks right up there with the BBC's Pride and Prejudice as a successful literary adaptation. Each casting choice was perfect. Ickie and I thoroughly enjoyed Emma and Knightley's verbal sparring. Romola Garai (also excellent in I Capture the Castle and Daniel Deronda) was spunky and just a bit spoilt, while still exhibiting compassion, doubt, and remorse when the occasion called for it. She was not only a convincing character--she was very much like my friends and I at that age. The final scene with Michael Gambon (playing Emma's father) made me a wee bit teary; several scenes of Emma acting overly dramatic made Ickie and I laugh fairly hard; Mr. Elton and his wife (the vexatious Christina Cole) made us cringe (I got a kick out of Garai's agog expressions in these scenes); and the ball scenes made me all giggly and weak in the knees. I appreciated the amount of time devoted to fleshing out the characters of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax; their messy, complex relationship was convincing, as was Frank's alternately careless and affable "guy-ness." (Is that a word? It ought to be. Frank just exudes mid-20s guy-ness.) Harriet was dim but extremely pretty and innocent. Even Isabella and the older Mr. Knightley have some scenes that round out the family dynamic well.

I really have to applaud the screenplay authors. The dialogue was well done, and it was a smart choice to begin the series on a darker note, comparing the lots of young Emma, Frank, and Jane. When Emma's mother dies, she remains at home with her sister, father, and a nurturing governess. By contrast, Frank is sent to his overbearing aunt, and Jane grows up with more prosperous relatives. In addition to the children's misery at being sent away, we see how sad Mr. Weston is to see Frank go, and how broken Miss Bates is when she must give up her niece. Miss Bates is especially tragic: her poverty prevents her from raising Jane and puts her at an awkward position in society, but more than that, she's painfully lonely. Her mother is mute and unresponsive, so Miss Bates fills the empty hours with one-sided small talk and doting over Jane's letters. I may appreciate the special attention to her situation most of all.

I confess that I haven't read Emma in quite a few years, but I don't recall any major departures from the text. I'd love to hear what other Austen fans thought of this beautiful production. If you missed it, you can watch it on the PBS website. It is also available on Netflix.

My other ladylike (or not so ladylike, depending on how you see it) entertainment this week was reading Winnifred Watson's Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. I had seen the movie when it came out in the theater, and whereas many details in the movie differ from the book, overall I consider it a successful adaptation because the feel of the thing is spot on. It's much like Fry and Laurie's Jeeves and Wooster insofar as the plot is great fun but slightly irrelevant; it's more essential that the mood and humor of the books translate well. Anyhoo, Miss Pettigrew is a twist on the Cinderella story set in 1930s London. The book has just enough levity to balance the frivolity. My edition had a preface nearly as charming as the book. Here's a lovely little snippet from the preface about the author:

The common theme running through these novels is women having second chances, adapting to change, moving on, just as Winifred Watson herself experimented with different genres: changing direction was characteristic of her as a writer. And in the end she changed into no longer being a writer, which I regret, but which she does not seem to. She said to me 'I have had a very happy life.' And in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day she wrote a very happy novel.

Hence, I've spent my week with two characters who have second chances, but on opposing ends of the spectrum. On one end is an affluent young woman who is used to getting her way, but who learns to be more selfless and restrained. On the other end is a middle-aged woman who has known only poverty and drudgery, and she's able to let loose and have fun for the first time in her life. It's a very pleasant way to balance things out.

A Once-Wild, Unblemished Place

2010-01-30T11:14:00.000-08:00

Eilis Dillion's The Island of Horses is an enchanting tale set on Ireland's coast. Two village boys, Danny and Pat, decide one day to visit the titular island, about which they've heard tales of curses, ghosts, and abandoned villages. They're most curious about the legendary wild Spanish ponies (decendents of survivors of the defeat of the Spanish Armada). Danny's account of their first visit to the island imparts a lovely sense of wonder and adventure: two boys, without their parents' permission, fishing for eels, camping out in a ruined cottage, and discovering the hidden valley of the horses. When Pat brings back a black colt, the plot becomes more complex and exciting. I loved Dillion's portrait of rural society (with island-to-town rivalries) and sparse descriptions of land and sea.

"The sea was like pale, gray-blue satin, with a long, smoother line far out where the current was. There was one boat out there. It looked like a bird, because we could not see where the sea joined the sky."

Isn't that the most vivid and hauntingly melancholic picture of the sea? I'm positively drunk on her simple prose.

The moral virtue of the boys and their friend Luke is noteworthy, as they take the chance to help their enemy. Throughout the story there is a wistful sense of loss: even as the boys explore the island, they are stealing away the magical seclusion of this mysterious place, and after they take the colt home with them, they worry about others invading the island and kidnapping the remaining horses.

I'm deeply sympathetic to the allure of a remote place; there's nothing quite like finding a little pocket of life on the edge of nowhere, which I've had a few opportunities to do in my travels. Even though I'm sure thousands of readers have shared Dillon's story, my reading of it makes me feel alone and contemplative--in a very, very good way. I highly recommend it if you're in that kind of mood, which makes it all the more appropriate for winter reading.

Sometimes It's Nice to Have Parents Around

2010-01-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

Jeanne Birdsall's The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, the follow-up to The Penderwicks, is just as good as the original. There's not an ounce of cynicism in this story, nor is it saccarine. Continuing about a month after the four Penderwick girls and their father return from their summer vacation, this story chronicles the widowed Mr. Penderwick's awkward attempts at dating, and Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty's plot to avoid a potential wicked stepmother. The book had me nearly in tears twice: in the prologue, which is a brief flashback to Mrs. Penderwick's last few days in the hospital, and in the following excerpt, which shows 4-year-old Batty and her dog spying on the neighbors (it certainly makes me feel a little extra mushy that the baby's name is Ben). If Batty's quiet yearning for a mom doesn't get you a little choked up, you might have been born without a soul.

They tiptoed to the forsythia border and lowered themselves quietly to the ground. Through the bottom branches of the bushes they could see the feet of the neighbors: little baby feet in red sneakers, zigzaging tipsily around the yard, and grown-up lady feet in white sneakers, following behind.
"Duck, duck, duck!" Ben was calling happily, his feet zigging and zagging even farther.
"Oh, Mr. Silliness," laughed his mother, and kept on chasing.
Batty thought Iantha had a nice voice and an even nicer laugh. It was hard to tell about Ben's voice, since he only kept saying "duck."
Now the little red sneakers stumbled, and suddenly there was an entire Ben in view. Batty pulled herself and Hound back a bit, but before the baby could notice them his mother had scooped him off the ground.
"Oh, dear, are you hurt, my Ben, my pumpkin, my lumpkin, darling Ben?"
Batty caught her breath. Yes, it was a truly extra-nice voice.
"My pumpkin, my lumpkin, darling Batty," she whispered to herself.
Ben, not hurt at all, was soon wriggling out of his mother's arms, and then all the feet disappeared and the voices stopped, and Batty knew that they'd gone back into their house.
"My pumpkin, my lumpkin, darling Batty." This time she made her voice lower, so that it would sound more like Iantha's voice.

Clockwork Contraptions and Unnatural Beasties

2010-01-24T10:57:00.000-08:00

I've appreciated touches of the steampunk trend elsewhere: in the 1960 The Time Machine starring Rod Taylor and the curious contraptions in Hayao Miyasaki's movies. Reading Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan immersed me in this fascinating mash-up of Victorian and futuristic science and technology. Leviathan is set in an alternative version of Europe on the cusp of World War I. The first protagonist is Alek, the teenage son of assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, who is on the run from his enemies. The second protagonist is Deryn, a teenage girl masquerading as a boy in order to join the British Air Service.

In Westerfeld's mind-bogglingly creative world, Germany, Austria-Hungry, and the Ottoman Empire arm themselves with menacing steam-powered contraptions, such as nimble two-legged tanks and enormous walking land frigates. The allied Brits, French, and Russians have embraced Darwinism and genetically engineered beasts that are half animal, half machine. The greatest example is the Leviathan, a gargantuan, part-whale airship, which manages to be both an unholy perversion of the natural law and COMPLETELY AWESOME. I am certainly in a quandary over it. The military terminology and action sequences bring to my mind Hornblower's naval battles as well as Imperial walkers on Hoth.

Leviathan is the first book in a series with rather a cliffhanger ending. You can imagine my distress as I drew near to the exciting conclusion, realizing there weren't possibly enough pages left in my book to incorporate a conclusion. Although a bit slow to warm up to, the characters developed greater depth and likability as the narrative progressed, and I'm eager to follow their burgeoning friendships in the sequel(s). However, for me, the absolutely best, most mesmerizing element of this book is the illustrations, and more specifically, the map appearing on the endsheets. I could gaze at that map for hours transfixed by the eerie mythological faces forming Norway and Sweden, the warrior lion curled into the shape of Great Britain, and the slavering Russian bear with his jaws open and poised over the machinery filling the regions of Germany and Austria-Hungary. If I were to make a list of my favorite maps from books (and this does strike me as an excellent idea), that map would certainly be in the top few.

Gains and Losses

2010-01-20T10:58:00.000-08:00

My feelings during and after reading The Book Thief are difficult to express. It is excellent. I was initially concerned that a story told by Death, who describes human deaths according to the prevailing color would feel forcibly artistic or pretentious. In the end, it did not. The final words were lovely and haunting. Death's narrative bounces back and forth timewise, so you have many glimpses of events that will occur, but those events are still vague enough to be surprising. It's the story of a German girl in World War II. She's an orphan, she's poor, she's not a Nazi, and technically she's a book thief, but there's something about her thievery that doesn't feel like theft. Each theft feels like a religious experience; oftentimes it's her best way of connecting with someone she loves, and it usually feels like she's taking something that's rightfully hers.

I'm rambling. Sorry.

Liesel is an orphan, sent to live with foster parents who turn out to be quite loving, especially her father. Her three closest friends are Rudy (a boy with lemon-colored hair who loves to run), Max (the young Jewish man hiding in her basement), and the mayor's wife (a sad woman who shares her personal library). Markus Zusak claims to have based his book on tales from his parents about growing up in Germany during the war. Liesel's joys, disappointments, and profound losses do feel like real life, and like the best wartime stories, we see the worst and best humanity has to offer. There are also two illustrated books-within-the-book that are simple and moving.

Lists

2010-01-20T10:45:00.000-08:00

Oh, gosh, I'm actually so embarrassed that is has been so long since my last post. However, it's easy to update you on my reading by subject matter: time travel, World War II, and magic. It seems like just about everything I've read in the past few months have had one or all of these themes. The magic one was really a Christmastime phase I experienced: I reread Masefield's The Box of Delights and adored it even more the second time, and because I was in the mood for that sort of thing, I reread Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle and also loved it more the second time. But all around that were gobs of time traveling and many books or shows/movies about WWII. Since January is year-end list-making frenzy time, I'm making two lists accordingly:

The Time Travel List:
The Time Travelers (or Gideon the Cutpurse) Trilogy
When You Reach Me (which recently was awarded the Newberry)
London Calling
The Lighthouse Trilogy
A Whole Nother Story (I didn't love this one, although if I were 11 years old, I'd probably think it hysterical. However, there's a time traveling device, so on the list it goes.)
The Game of Sunken Places
Doomsday Book
To Say Nothing of the Dog

The WWII List:
London Calling
To Say Nothing of the Dog
The Book Thief (separate blog post on this one to come)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Band of Brothers (viewed in full the week prior to Christmas)
Foyle's War (added to my list of all-time favorite miniseries)
Mrs. Henderson Presents (I didn't love this.)

Of course my favorites (on these lists and possibly this year) were the two Connie Willis books, which I raved about in earlier posts. I often wonder how brief a time is a reasonable wait before rereading. What do you think?

Fewer Grownups = More Fun

2009-11-15T10:03:00.000-08:00

I really lucked out at our library sale this week finding hardback copies of The Wind in the Willows (with the proper illustrations--hard to find) and The Penderwicks, among other treasures. A mom friend pointed out The Penderwicks to me, mentioning that it won the National Book Award because it was different from all the other children's books nominated that year. "They were all dark fantasies," she said. "This is just a sweet tale about children on summer vacation with minimal adult supervision."

I dove into Penderwicks as soon as I got it home and read it within three days. From the start it reminded me strongly of E. Nesbit's stories and Edward Eager's Tales of Magic, and in fact it makes references to Nesbit's Bastables and Eager's Magic by the Lake. The four sisters also reminded me a bit of Little Women.

The premise is simple: the kindly, Latin-quoting Mr. Penderwick rents a cottage in the New England countryside for his family for several weeks in the summer. The cottage is on the grounds of a large estate with magnificent gardens. Rosalind (filling in for her deceased mom), Skye (the hot-headed tomboy), Jane (the authoress), and Batty (the animal-loving preschooler) befriend a lonely boy and unwittingly get into trouble daily. The girls are all intelligent, spunky, sensitive, and oh-so-likable. It's charming charming charming.

A Medley of Creepy Stuff

2009-11-09T09:44:00.000-08:00

Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden reminded me of many things.

Wuthering Heights: The scope of its story takes place over multiple generations, and the high-spirited women of the family seem cursed as they seek happiness and love.

The Secret Garden: There's a fantastic walled garden, plus cousins--one sickly and one eager to drag the sick one out of the English manor and into the fresh air so they can share the garden. Frances Hodgson Burnett even has a brief cameo.

The Thirteen Tale: Twins, the gothic mood, creepy English manors, the suggestion of incest, etc.

The Lady in White: Secrets are revealed from multiple perspectives, although TFG's narrative bounces back and forth from 1913 to 1975 to 1913 to 2005 (and so on).

Dickens: Abandoned children and orphans are in the Dickensian vein, especially those trying to survive in Victorian slums whose only comfort comes from spinning terrifying tales about ghosts and Jack the Ripper. Also Dickensian are the cruel, low-class Mrs. Swindell and the vile Mr. Mansell.

Rebecca: The portraits are oppressive and haunting, and Lady Mountrachet pulls a Mrs. Danvers.

Jane Eyre: There's something about that old creep Linus and his withered leg, hiding in the darkroom with his stalker photos and living on the edge of insanity that recalls Mrs. Rochester.

The Faun and the Woodcutter's Daughter: A collection of fairy tales plays a central role in the story, and several of the tales are included in full in the book. TFatWD is just one of the better fairy tale collections that have a similar feel.

Everything I've read set in Cornwall: Because it's set primarily in Cornwall. (Although the bit set in Queensland puts me in mind of The Thornbirds.)

If you like all those things, especially in combination, you'll certainly enjoy The Forgotten Garden. I'll refrain from summarizing the plot and leave it as a pleasant secret to you readers. Although it felt a bit pulpy at times, there were many genuine and tender moments.

When you tire of time travel or fish and chips, you are tired of life.

2009-11-04T10:12:00.001-08:00

First of all, I completed the Time Travelers (aka Gideon) trilogy by Buckley-Archer and enjoyed it from start to finish. It's great for kids or adults; it's even a wee bit educational. For example, there's an inside joke about Sam Johnson's famous London quote, references to the revolutionary writings of Thomas Paine and the events of the French Revolution, and a touching depiction of King George III's young family. I appreciate it when an author assumes her readers are educated and rewards them with applicable humor as well as suspense, but there's also a subtext throughout the trilogy that in order to appreciate the fantasy (or scientific invention) of time travel, it's essential to know a good bit about actual history. (That theme is similarly important in Connie Willis's books, insofar as the time travel department at Oxford is the history department.)

While you are reading your books set in London, enjoy some tasty fish and chips! Here's a recipe a partly invented for dinner the other night. I'll give credit to Mark Bittman for the original fish sandwich recipe and Giada de Laurentiis for the oven-baked fries recipe, but I've changed them enough to mostly claim them as my own.

Crunchy Fish Sandwiches with Lemon-Curry Mayo

Begin with 2 pounds fresh white fish (I used haddock. You could easily substitute cod or catfish--just make sure it's the freshest you can find. If you're a sad landlocked person, you can usually get local farm-raised catfish.). Cut the fillets into sandwich-sized pieces. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. Dredge in a mixture of cornmeal and flour.
Pour just enough olive oil into a frying pan to cover the bottom and heat it on high until a spec a cornmeal sizzles when dropped in (this is the best part, as the fragrance of all that hot olive oil is ever so lovely). Add fish to pan a few pieces at a time and reduce heat. Fry about 3 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels.

For the mayo, mix equal parts light mayo and light sour cream with fresh lemon juice and zest, salt, pepper, lots of curry powder, and a dash of cayenne. Just keep seasoning and tasting until you like it.

Our grocery bakes tasty soft white Italian loaves. I cut thin slices of these and toasted them. Then I slathered them with mayo and added the fish and a handful of fresh arugula (the arugula is essential!).

Oven-baked Sweet Potato Fries

Peel a couple of sweet potatoes and slice them into 1/2- x 4-inch fries. Coat with olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast in the oven at 425-450 for about 45 minutes until beginning to brown, stirring a couple of times. They won't be crisp like potato fries, but they'll taste great, especially dipped in the curry mayo.

Speaking of leftovers, the fish heats up nicely in the toaster oven. You can make yourself another sandwich the following day, or you can put some of the heated fish in a tortilla with fresh cilantro and a squirt of fresh lime for a simple, yummy fish taco.

Or you could just mash up the cold fish and sweet potatoes and eat them with your fingers, which is what Baby Ben did.

Messengers

2009-10-31T19:10:00.000-07:00

London Calling, by Edward Bloor, exemplifies what young adult literature ought to be (you heard me, chintzy vampire romance novels). It reminded me of Tangerine (also by Bloor) and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. I don't want to share too much about London Calling's plot and risk giving too much away. Thirteen-year-old Martin hates the prep school where he's one of the few, looked-down-upon scholarship students. The story begins with an unfortunate event at school, a little background in Martin's weighty family history (and family problems), and chronicles Martin's summer vacation as he hides out in his basement, depressed.

And there's time travel. Of course. Because every book I read has time travel in it these days. In this novel, the time travel takes on a slightly more spiritual edge.

The histories and fates of multiple families are intertwined. The mystery is exciting, but even more notable are Bloor's convincing relationships among family members, particularly fathers and sons (and I'll add a special note of appreciation for Martin's wonderfully understanding big sister). Bloor also portrays faith with sensitivity and gravity: most of the characters follow a religious tradition, but many are going through the motions as they pray, searching for healing and understanding. I was moved seeing Martin find purpose, belief, self-confidence, and the love of others.

If I have one very small criticism, it's that a certain comeuppance scene goes a bit too far, both in feeling too unforgiving and too unrealistic, which I feel is out of step with the overall tone of the conclusion. However, I can see how a young reader would absolutely love this particular scene. I look forward to checking out more of Bloor's books.

and it was still hot.

2009-10-28T16:45:00.001-07:00

Ickie and I went to see Where the Wild Things Are over the weekend. I've been looking forward to it for months, ever since seeing the preview and hearing that Spike Jonez was directing. (Jonez did Being John Malkovich, which has to be the weirdest premise for a movie ever, and that hilarious Happy Days Weezer video.)

For your information, this movie is not for young children. It will frighten them. Older children might even be bored with some of it. WtWTA is for those of us who grew up loving Maurice Sendak and who are mature enough to appreciate the unfiltered anger, ecstasy, and desperation of hurting kids.

Jonez has fleshed out Sendak's story to depict Max as an older child hungering for attention from his older sister (who coldly ignores him in one scene) and his sympathetic but overworked mom, played by Catherine Keener. I love Keener in everything I've seen her in, and even though she's only in a few scenes here, she's spectacular. Jonez is able to portray a tremendous amount about Max's home life in just a few introductory scenes: in my favorite, Max lies under his mom's desk and tells her a story while she works late. Jonez's attention to details is striking: Max lazily fingering the pantyhose seam on his mom's toes, her tired but tender expression, and the sound of her fingers clacking on the keyboard recording Max's sad, made-up story. She's a good mom, as this scene critically conveys, for in the next scene she's furious with him, worn out by his antics and neediness, and Max is out-of-control and extremely unlikable.

I haven't even gotten to the wild things yet! When Max first spies them by firelight, their conversation sounds like an overheard argument on a playground. The wild things are granted individual personalities (and amusingly commonplace names: Carol, Ira, Douglas, Alexander) absent in the book. They look just like Sendak's illustrations come to life--not at all like men in costume. I don't even know how they managed to create these faces that change so clearly from one emotion to the next. The wild things are in turn depressed, manic, irritatingly needy, achingly lonely, terribly afraid, and terrifying. The wild things are children utterly out of control, struggling with playground politics, trying to mimic adults, hugging and hurting each other in equal measure. They reflect Max's emotions as well as others from his real life. And the whole movie just looks AMAZING. The fort they build will blow you away! It is worth seeing on the big screen, and though some scenes are heartwarming, you have to wade through a lot of pain and darkness to get there.

Upon leaving the theater, I felt drunk on my own emotions: exhausted and enthralled at the same time, as though I hadn't felt anything so strongly since I was a child. It's a beautiful, beautiful movie, and it adds to my enjoyment of the book greatly, an experience I rarely find in a book-turned-movie.

Epidemic

2009-10-10T16:58:00.001-07:00

Okay, I am officially a very enthusiastic fan of Connie Willis. Her novel, Doomsday Book, stunned me. It's 578 pages long, and Willis succeeds in stretching the suspense out over that many pages--agonizing, but in the best possible way.

Like To Say Nothing of the Dog, Doomsday is based in the Oxford's "history" (time travel) department in the mid 21st century. Unlike TSNOTD, it is not a comedy. Doomsday's story line follows two protagonists: Kivrin, as she travels back to the 1300s, and Mr. Dunworthy, who remains in Oxford. Their experiences complement each other, both set at Christmastime, contrasting futuristic and medieval medical care in a pandemic. The secondary characters are well developed, and it was far too easy for me to become attached to them. One of the elements I enjoyed most was the role of religion in the lives of different characters in crisis. Some are superstitious, several are infuriatingly hypocritical, a few are unexpectedly inspiring, and one character's faith is genuinely moving.

Willis has such an imagination. I found her portrayal of life in the 1300s fascinating. I also had the urge to wash all my towels and sheets in scalding hot water by the time I finished. And I'm yearning to visit Oxford again--preferably in this century.

England Circa World War II

2009-10-05T06:44:00.001-07:00

I've been transported to England in the 1940s often lately. My previous review, To Say Nothing of the Dog, had multiple scenes that took place around Coventry Cathedral during the Luftwaffe bombing. I just completed The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Plus, Ickie and I are addicted to the BBC series Foyle's War.

Guernsey is a novel in letter format, set shortly after WWII. It chronicles the fictional friendships among author Juliet Ashton and the members of the literary society on Guernsey, one of the British Channel Islands occupied during the war. Juliet and the islanders initially bond over their shared love of literature and then grow to know each other deeply. There are many stories of events during the occupation from multiple perspectives. Most of the letter writers are delightful characters, although at least one is extremely irritating, and we come to know the brightest star of the cast via secondhand stories. The novel does a spectacular job of conveying the a character's complex nature with a short, simple anecdote. There are a several enjoyable romances and one point in the book in which I cried noisily with tears streaming down my face. If you enjoyed 84, Charing Cross Road (which I did), you may see a similarity here.

Foyle's War, set in a small town on the southern coast of England, is a series about a police detective during WWII. Each episode is more than a mystery, as Foyle often turns up government corruption and espionage related to the war effort. Honeysuckle Weeks (love the name!) and Anthony Howell (Roger of BBC's Wives and Daughters) are excellent in supporting roles, but Ickie and I especially love Michael Kitchen's understated performance as Chief Inspector Foyle. He is quintessentially British, conveying a range of thought and emotion with a stiff upper lip. The scenery is lovely, featuring white cliffs, small towns, period sets, Spitfires zooming over the countryside, and stately manors. Although many of the events and revelations are quite depressing, there's also subtle humor. Mysteries and WWII stories have been done again and again, but Foyle's War is uncommon.

Glowing Review

2009-09-30T07:23:00.001-07:00

Before reading this book, you must read:

1. Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog, Jerome K. Jerome
2. A generous helping of P.G. Wodehouse (especially his early novels and Jeeves novels)

It would also behoove you to:

1. Read some of Dorothy Sayers's Peter Wimsey mysteries
2. Have a familiarity with Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle
3. Read Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone

I mean, let's be honest, you ought to have done all that already, unless you're just some kind of shameless failure. [I'm sort of kidding because, actually, I haven't yet read The Moonstone, only Collins's The Woman in White. But I do believe a disregard of Wodehouse is a critical character flaw.]

So, have you done that? Good. Now you're ready to read a book that will make you scrunch up your shoulders and grin so wide that you feel you're attempting to squeeze out all your excess glee. It's To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis. It's the closest thing to a modern writer writing like Wodehouse I've found, and I didn't think that was even possible. There are overbearing aunt types and a sappy Madeline Bassett type and a poetry-quoting, infatuated Bingo type and an absent-minded Oxford professor and a retired Colonel obsessed with fancy goldfish and imposters and imminently capable butlers. It's obviously a tribute to Jerome, so much so that Harris, George, J, and Montmorency have a cameo on the Thames, as does a tin of peaches (or is it pineapple?). And it's a mystery: What happened to the bishop's bird stump? But technically, it's science fiction. YES. Because it is about time travel.

And it's just the best thing you can imagine. It's so funny, and it's genuinely romantic, and it's set in Oxford, and it's really exciting, and the last line is excellent. Oh my goodness. I am positively in love with this book. I can't say any more about it, or I'll give it all away.

Many thanks to Jenny for the recommendation.

Don't Play Their Game!

2009-09-13T12:06:00.001-07:00

[This post won't be of much interest to you unless you've already read The Hunger Games. If you'd like to know more about it, here's my review. The following is more of a personal rant than a helpful review. Just know that I highly recommend both books.]

I picked up Catching Fire (sequel to Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games) yesterday morning and completed it this afternoon. My eyes are tired and adrenaline is coursing through my veins. What can I say? It was very like THG in quality and theme. It picks up six months after the end of the games with more star-crossed loves, more wretchedness from those Capitol despots, more fights to the death, and a heap of political unrest. There is, as I expected, an agonizing cliffhanger ending, and I have no idea when the third novel of the trilogy will be published. Sorry. Aaagh.

Katniss's character is so damaged to begin with that she isn't much changed, aside from new nightmares reminiscent of the games. She struggles to protect her loved ones, not knowing whether she ought to play the government's game or rebel against it. I'm a little impatient with her slowness to rebel within the hunger games, to be quite honest. I understand that she's just a teenage girl, and technically she has been rebelling from the start of the series by trespassing and hunting. But there are all these obvious little hints that the oppressed people from multiple districts are looking to Katniss for leadership and inspiration, and she's clueless. So I'm sympathetic to her frustration that she is being used against her will and knowledge (by more than one faction), but I want her to grab control of the situation and do something really risky and smart and effective! Perhaps my expectations are too high for a 17-year-old girl. She's done amazing things already, and she spends a lot of time admirably questioning whether her motives are selfish and/or for the good. I'm too quick to compare her to Gregor from Collins's Underland Chronicles, who is younger yet wiser and more decisive. In a comparable war situation, he aims to avoid violence, choose mercy, and urges others to do the same. But of course, my critique of Gregor is that he is too young, at 11, to be a sword fighting warrior who petitions for peace.

Herein lies the value of Collins's novels. They fill me with excitement, revulsion, pity, and inspiration to the point of utter confusion. I am frustrated with protagonists on the basis of flaws which only make them more human, and yet they are fantastic, symbolic heroes. I struggle to put my impressions into stilted prose and am just going to give it up because, once again, fiction has done the job for me. However, if there's one relatable message I take from Collins's writing, it's that children can survive a lot; they're weak and strong and surprisingly resilient and thoughtful. With Free-Range Kids fresh on my mind, I'm convinced we don't give children enough credit for their intelligence and abilities at a very young age.

Worrying Less

2009-09-12T06:26:00.000-07:00

"There has never been a single substantiated instance of any child dying from a stranger's poisoned Halloween candy." Infant formula, BPA, metal baseball bats, cell phone brain cancer, lead, raw cookie dough, and plastic bags are either less threatening than you'd think or completely non-problematic. A walking school bus and giving kids a chance to create their own games in PE are great ideas! "If you actually wanted your child to be kidnapped and held overnight by a stranger, how long would you have to keep her outside, unattended, for this to be statistically likely to happen? About seven hundred and fifty thousand years."

Awesome. I feel better. Much better. Thanks to Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry by Lenore Skenazy, I took Ben to the playground yesterday and didn't feel nervous when he crawled further away than usual, played with friendly strangers, ate dirt and ice cream, and took off his hat when he wasn't wearing sunscreen. I really like Skenazy's message, and I laughed out loud at her humorous prose multiple times. Now The Today Show seems even more alarmist than ever before. Mostly, it reminded me of the freedoms my parents granted me as a child, how much I enjoyed them, and how very much I benefited from them.

Here's a list of some of the best things my parents let me do before I reached age 20. All of these things made me brave and curious and eager to explore.

I walked to school without an adult every day of elementary school. In the 4th and 5th grade, this was even more thrilling because it was a much longer walk (perhaps a mile?) and after school we would wander around and explore the huge drainage ditch. I still get an enthralled shiver when I think about that ditch.
In the 5th grade, I went to Wild Animal Park camp and petted a cheetah. This may be the best animal experience of my life.
When I was 9 or 10, I spent the night with a friend whose parents were gone most of the evening. She and I baked chocolate chip cookies from scratch. (They tasted horrible, but it's one of my most exciting baking memories.)
In the 6th grade, my family and I walked down Bourbon Street in New Orleans. I stood still while a street performer did a flip over my head. Everyone laughed, and no one voiced a concern that I might get kicked in the noggin.
I spent many many hours as a kid just wandering around our neighborhoods, the mall, the movie theater, parks, and the community pool. Without a cell phone. I came home for dinner, then went back outside to play kick the can in the dark.
In the 8th grade, I went on two trips with a girls' service organization from my church. On one trip to a college campus, I encouraged my friends to skip the activities and wander around the campus with me at night (I was so inspired by this that I decided right then I would go to college there, and that's exactly what I did). On the second trip we went to San Antonio, where I encouraged my friends to skip the activities and wander around the Riverwalk with me.
My parents took us to Washington, DC. Our hotel caught on fire, but everyone was safely evacuated. We laughed and took photos of ourselves pretending to scream in horror next to firetrucks, then went to the zoo.
When I got a driver's permit, my dad would often take me out in the "wart." During these drives he would recline his seat and pretend to nap, or fiddle with the overhead light and tell me funny stories. He didn't give me a lot of driving tips, he just told me not to trust other people's turn signals. Later he taught me how to drive his sports car like a fighter pilot (his profession).
I never had a set curfew. My parents trusted me not to get in trouble, and I didn't.
In my junior and senior years of high school, I went on two choir tours, during which I wandered around downtown Washington, New York, Toronto, Santa Fe, and Chicago completely without adult supervision and had a spectacular time.
I went off to college. Without a cell phone. My mom and sister helped my carry my stuff in, hugged me, and left. It was the best three years of my life.
When I was 19 years old, my parents put me on a plane to Frankfurt, Germany, with some cash and a Eurorail pass. Two days after I arrived in the little town of Iserlohn, I called my parents from a pay phone; I cried a bit and complained that I couldn't call the US on the phone in my dorm and someone had stolen my luggage wheels. When I hung up I felt better and went to eat some gelato. My parents didn't feel better, but there was nothing they could do, so they didn't. I had a glorious summer. I went on on several trips with my fellow students and two weekend trips all by myself. One afternoon when I was bored, I just wandered out of the town, up a mountain, through a thick forest of evergreens, and out into a wheat field just as the afternoon sun turned it light gold. It was possibly more beautiful because I was on my own and could have gotten completely lost (but I didn't).

I'm so very jealous....

2009-09-05T05:09:00.000-07:00

Just check out Neil Gaiman's personal library here.

Of note: Of course there's a cat napping in the comfy chair. This is "Cat-Crazy Gaiman," as I shall henceforth refer to him.

Things missing that would be in my personal library fantasy:
1. cozy stone hearth
2. rolling ladder attached to the shelves
3. big globe
4. massive thesaurus on display
5. chrome tea cart full of tea things

1763: Reading about it is nice, but I wouldn't want to visit.

2009-08-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

I just completed Gideon The Cutpurse by Linda Buckley-Archer, and I really regret not having checked out the second book in this trilogy, The Time Thief (published under the title The Tar Man in the UK).

And let me just take this moment to say that I am tired of publishers changing titles of books when they publish them in the States. The Tar Man is a far far better title, especially if you already know this character from reading Gideon!

Okay, back to it. In Gideon momentum builds slowly, the author taking care to develop characters and relationships. It's a time travel story about two 21st-century teens, Peter and Kate, sucked back into 1763. They receive the aid of Gideon, a former thief but gentleman, as they search for their time machine, stolen by the treacherous Tar Man. Buckley-Archer goes into fascinating detail to depict 18th-century England, as well as a few famous persons and places. Obviously I've never been to 1763 (I know you're all surprised by this), but I have one bone to pick. Peter and Kate would suffer dysentery for a week or more after eating the food and drinking the water back then!

That is my one small criticism, as I enjoyed everything else about the novel. The prose is elegant, there is occasional humor and plenty of suspense involving highwaymen, horse races, and science fiction-y stuff. Yes, it seems like it wouldn't all go together, but Buckley-Archer manages to make it work. I especially came to like the character Parson Ledbury, whom I feared at first would be a Falstaff-like buffoon or a judgmental buffoon (some kind of buffoon). He was neither and was a character who displayed greater depth and change, as well as humor and mercy, as the book progressed. What a pleasant surprise!

The cover design of the hardback edition is wicked cool. The spine looks like an 18th century volume, but the cover has a cutout crack with an eye peering through it. I picked it up at the library simply because the cover design captured my interest!

Note [added 8/31/09]: The American edition of Gideon The Cutpurse is titled The Time Travelers. I think the UK title and cover design are more interesting, but the artwork on the North American editions is still rather nice. The third Volume, The Time Quake, will be released in the U.S. in October.

Everything's on Vacation

2009-08-26T17:53:00.000-07:00

It feels as though it has been an eternity since I've posted anything here, and really it hasn't (just since August 1). But still. It's because I'm so busy with baby care and other responsibilities, I'm having difficulty finding time to read. (This makes me feel very not myself.) In addition, I haven't read anything extraordinary lately. I did read the young adult novel Speak last week. I accidentally picked it up thinking it was by M.T. Anderson, and then Ickie pointed out to me it is by Laurie Halse Anderson. However, I saw it was nominated from some awards, so I gave it a try. It was a quick read and a well-written YA novel about a 14-year-old girl trying to come to grips with a traumatic experience. It had the high school-outcast thing going on like Veronica Mars, minus the snark and the noir. I appreciated LH.A.'s believable depictions of relationships at that age, the protagonist's difficult growth, and the open-ended finale.

What else? I read Nicholas on Vacation, which was just as funny and charming as the other Nicholas books. I'm currently reading Gideon the Cutpurse, which captured my attention largely because of the cool cover and is showing promise.

My reading choices have been slightly more limited the past two months because the state-wide library loan system has been down. Boo! It is due to restart at the end of this month, and you'd better believe I'll be flooding the system with all my requests! The sequel to Hunger Games is coming out in about a week, and my biggest goal is to find time to read it as soon as I lay hands on a copy.

More of a Good Thing

2009-08-01T06:29:00.000-07:00

One might argue that you can't improve upon perfection, but I say, give me more of it, and you've done so! Nicholas Again by Goscinny & Sempe and Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome are great examples. I can't say for sure I've laughed harder at these follow-ups to Nicholas and Three Men in a Boat, but I've laughed at least as much. Tears of joy have been shed; hyperventillation has been experienced; a book has been set aside as I strain to compose myself and continue. And a good time was had by all, except for, perhaps, Ickie, who has to put up with my insistence on reading snippets to him. I know he'd prefer to read them for himself, but I am compulsive in my desire to share my amusement with him.

To wit, here follow some selections from each text. Nicholas Again contains more stories of little Nicholas going to school, happily fighting with his buddies, innocently terrorizing adults, and having a fabulous time. This is from the chapter "Prizegiving Day":

"There were prizes for everyone. Cuthbert, who is top of the class and teacher's pet, got the Arithmetic prize, the History prize, the Geography prize, the Grammar prize, the Handwriting prize, the Science prize, and the Good Behavior prize. Cuthbert is nuts! Eddie, who is very strong and likes to punch his friends' noses, got the Gymnastics prize. Alec, my fat friend who is always eating, got the Regular Attendance prize; that means he goes to school the whole time, and I suppose he really did deserve the prize, because his Mom won't have him in her kitchen, and if he can't be in the kitchen, Alec would rather go to school than anywhere else. Geoffrey, who has a very rich Dad who buys him anything he wants, got the Deportment prize because he's always smartly dressed. There are times when he's come to school in his cowboy outfit or his Martian suit or his musketeer's uniform, looking really great. Rufus got the Art prize because of the big box of colored pencils he had for his birthday. Matthew, who is bottom of the class, got the Good Comradeship prize, and I got the prize for Public Speaking. My Dad was very pleased, though he looked a bit disappointed when our teacher said the prize was awarded more for the quantity than the quality of my work. I'll have to ask Dad what she meant."

In Three Men on the Bummel, "J," Harris, and George are 15 years older. J and Harris are married with children, and George, it can safely be assumed, couldn't be bothered to get up early enough to find himself a girl. The three fellows choose to go biking in Germany for this holiday. In one of my favorite chapters thus far, J chronicles the misery of being awakened by Harris's unruly children in the middle of the night. After which, the three fellows stop in London to play a joke George has devised. He found a phrase book written for Germans visiting England, with lots of dreadfully awkward, stilted phrases, and George tests them out on London cabbies and shopkeepers. (Doesn't this sound like a joke we'd come up with today?) It sends a boot salesman into a rage.

The chapters set in Germany capitalize on amusing cultural differences (primarily the German obsession for rules and order).

"All three of us, by some means or another, managed, between Nuremberg and the Black Forest, to get into trouble.
Harris led off in Stuttgart by insulting an official.... Harris did not know it was an official he was insulting. He took it for a fireman (it looked like a fireman), and he called it a 'dummer Esel.'
In Germany you are not permitted to call an official a 'silly ass,' but undoubtedly this particular man was one. What had happened was this: Harris in the Stadtgarten, anxious to get out, and seeing a gate open before him, had stepped over a wire into the street. Harris mantains he never saw it, but undoubtedly there was hanging to the wire a notice, 'Durchgang Verboten!' The man, who was standing near the gate, stopped Harris, and pointed out to him this notice. Harris thanked him, and passed on. The man came after him, and explained that treatment of the matter in such off'hand way could not be allowed; what was necessary to put the business right was that Harris should step back over the wire into the garden. Harris pointed out to the man that the notice said 'going through forbidden,' and that, therefore, by re-entering the garden that way he would be infringing the law a second time. The man saw this for himself, and suggested that to get over the difficulty Harris should go back into the garden by the proper entrance, which was round the corner, and afterwards immediately come out again by the same gate. Then it was that Harris called the man a silly ass. That delayed us a day, and cost Harris forty marks."

Object Lesson

2009-07-10T06:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday our neighbor came over and told us this story, which cracks me up for some reason.

"Did you hear we have a new mailman? You know, the old one died. He was a grouch. He died shoveling snow on his way to his hot tub. He was a drug addict. Okay, maybe he wasn't an addict, but he did a lot of drugs."

So if you're a grumpy mailman who loves his hot tub and has a lot of snow to shovel, please don't do drugs. Or if you're a grumpy mailman who does drugs and lives up north, put your hot tub inside. Or if you're a grumpy drug addict with a snow-covered hot tub, don't deliver the mail. However, if you're a mailman with a drug problem and a hot tub buried in snow, you probably can't help being a grump. Unless you do more drugs.

Boy Stuff

2009-07-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

Reading Nicholas, by author Rene Goscinny and illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempe, is the most fun I've had in a while. Accompanied by hilarious pen and ink illustrations, Nicholas is a simple book of stories about a little boy growing up in France in the 1950s. Little Nicholas narrates in an innocent, run-on manner, and the humor is best appreciated by adults who sympathize with harried parents and teachers. Nicholas cheerfully relates his adventures, each of which ends in a fight and a mess, thereby making it that much more fun. For example, in one chapter all the little boys attempt to play cowboys and indians but spend the entire time arguing and whacking each other, and Nicholas, as always, comments that it was a fabulous time. It's what little boys are like (and occasionally dads and little girls too).

There's a charming cast including Nicholas's mother and father, Cuthbert (who is top of the class and teacher's pet and wears glasses so they can't whack him so much), Old Spuds (the grumpiest of the teachers), Mr. Billings (the neighbor and Nicholas's father's arch enemy), Alec (Nicholas's friend who is fat and eats all the time), and the rest of Nicholas's gang.

I've requested every other Nicholas book that I can find translated in our library system. I can't wait to read them! They remind me of The Magic Pudding author Norman Lindsey's theory that children are only interested in two things: fighting and eating.

Tolkien Five

2009-06-20T05:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a great little top five essay for Middle Earth fans. My favorite quote within the essay describes predominately inferior world-building by lesser authors as the "great clomping foot of nerdism."

Glee

2009-06-18T18:09:00.001-07:00

I'm a cynic. I approach nearly everything with at least a touch of sarcasm. But there are also quite a few times when I just like something unabashedly. Here's something I stumbled upon that made me not a cynic.

Having Everything

2009-06-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Donnelly's A Northern Light is such a lovely, plaintive book. It interweaves the true death of a young woman in 1906 with the tale of a fictional girl, Mattie Gokey, growing up in the Great North Woods. Donnelly was inspired by Grace Brown's letters as well as the stories told by her grandmother, who grew up in the region. It reminded me a bit of Northern Borders by Howard Frank Mosher, although I resonated more deeply with Donnelly's protagonist, possibly because she's a young woman who dreams of being a writer.

The novel's chapters alternate between two time frames, and the story concludes when these time frames meet. The first storyline begins with the discovery of the drowned body of Grace Brown and the mystery of her missing partner. Mattie works at the lakeside hotel where Grace and her companion were staying. The second storyline begins a few months earlier, as Mattie struggles to finish high school, mourns her recently deceased mother, and cares for her father, younger siblings, and their farm. Mattie is bright and creative, with a love for books and words. She and her best friend Weaver, the town's only black boy, dream of going to college in New York City.

The novel is filled with the overwhelming grind of everyday life and much tragedy. So many scenes were heartbreaking and a few were amusing. On a personal note, it was therapeutic for me to read this book this week. Whenever I became overburdened with my daily responsibilities of caring for my baby, housekeeping, and freelance editing, I would pick up A Northern Light and read about Mattie's friend trying to care for her newborn twins, cook for her husband and all the farm hands, boil laundry, etc. To say life was hard is an understatement.

The mysteries of the story are thinly veiled, but the manner in which Donnelly reveals information is touching and deeply personal. She focuses more on the effect the revelation of truth has on Mattie than on manufacturing twists and surprises for the reader. I still hurt right through when I think about Mattie talking about her first kiss and how nice it felt because it was the first time anyone had embraced her since her mother's death nearly a year ago.

A Northern Light is delicately composed and is a credit to Mattie's literary idols (e.g., Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Louisa May Alcott), and although it has obvious appeal to women, I believe men would appreciate the quality of the work as well. (At least you fellows ought to do so!)

Phraseology

2009-06-11T12:57:00.000-07:00

Most of us have a movie, book, or TV show quote that's worked its way into our daily use, serving as an inside joke among our little club of fellow fans. Who among us didn't quote Monty Python's Holy Grail constantly in high school or college? (If you didn't, you might not be nerdy enough to enjoy my blog.)

Ickie and I have several regulars in current rotation. We can always make each other laugh by saying "Go back from whence you came!" (G.O.B. in Arrested Development). As cuss-word substitutions, Ickie often uses "Frak" (BSG) and I use "Blurg" (30 Rock). But the really random, just-between-the-two-of-us quote is "When will they listen, Bob? When will they listen?" We're not even sure that's the exact quote anymore. Any deviation just makes us laugh harder. "When will they learn, Jim? When will they learn?" It comes from a Mystery Science Theater short that's a cheesey educational video about train-track crossing safety (view here). Basically, a 1950s kid gets hit by a train because he doesn't follow proper precautions, and the railroad employees comment on his carelessness, shaking their heads grimly in a laughably stilted bit of acting. We reference it all the time. You'd be surprised how applicable it is to everyday life. For example, Pizza Hut shows an ad for gross-looking pasta, some rednecks have a noisy argument on the street outside our house, Ickie's students fail because they don't apply themselves, a duck gets hit by a rock...the possibilities are endless, especially when you go around feeling superior all day long like we do. Just thinking the phrase now in my head makes me feel like laughing.

I'd love to read your favorite oft-used quotes in the comment section. Maybe I'll even make a pie chart of the results. Because pie charts are super fun.

Unwelcome Neighbors

2009-06-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

Last night I stayed up late to complete We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. You know Jackson from her short story "The Lottery," required reading for all middle school English classes. Castle is similar thematically. The title alone made me want to read the book, as it reminds me of the oft repeated phrase from Cold Comfort Farm: "There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm." I couldn't get this phrase out of my head, which is replete with humor, so I took an undeservedly whimsical approach to Jackson's dark novel. I often do that with the most frightening of tales. I enjoy scary stories so much that my reaction is to be simultaneously creeped out and giddy.

Castle is the tale of Merricat, who lives in the isolated Blackwood mansion with her elder sister and senile uncle. Several years ago, all the other Blackwoods died when someone put arsenic in the sugar bowl. Readers get a wonderfully warped perspective via Merricat's narration, who reveals more and more of her strange compulsions as the plot progresses. Jackson writes in modern, eerie prose, focusing on the cruelty of which ordinary people are capable and leaving just enough of the mystery unrevealed at the conclusion. It reminds me a bit of Jane Eyre and the stories of Flannery O'Conner.

It'll Make a Good Story

2009-05-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

In high school, my friend H and I wrote three journals we refer to as "The Trilogy." Each recorded a separate event: vol. I, a choir tour up the Eastern seaboard; vol. II, a camping trip on our friend Scoob's farm; and vol. III, our senior ski trip. (There were also some minor works, but I'll decline from cataloging them here.) H and I had matching pocket thesauri and a shared love of purple prose. We esteemed ourselves artisans of the written word, transforming each mundane experience into a harrowing adventure or epic melodrama. We considered ourselves extremely funny, although I suspect you had to be there, and more importantly, be us.

Actually, we really were funny. Damn funny. Still are. But not as funny as Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.

Jerome's popular work (written in the late 19th century) pairs Wodehousian humor with idyllic descriptions of the English countryside. But really it's just three young guys and a dog boffing about in a boat on the river, experiencing the kind of comical mishaps everyone has on a camping trip, with a generous dose of good-natured bickering. Jerome also has a great tendancy to go off on tangents, and his chapter opener summaries are a hoot. I've laughed so hard in several scenes that tears ran down my cheeks, and when I tried to read sections out loud to Ickie, I hyperventilated.

For your enjoyment, here's an excerpt. "J", Harris, and George get excited about a tin of pineapple, only to discover they haven't packed an opener. Madness ensues.

"Then Harris tried to open the tin with a pocket-knife, and broke the knife and cut himself badly; and George tried a pair of scissors, and the scissors flew up, and nearly put his eye out. While they were dressing their wounds, I tried to make a hole in the thing with the spiky end of the hitcher,and the hitcher slipped and jerked me out between the boat and the bank into two feet of muddy water, and the tin rolled over, uninjured, and broke a teacup.

Then we all got mad. We took that tin out on the bank, and Harris went up into a field and got a big sharp stone, and I went back into the boat and brought out the mast, and George held the tin and Harris held the sharp end of his stone against the top of it, and I took the mast and poised it high up in the air, and gathered up all my strength and brought it down.

It was George's straw hat that saved his life that day. He keeps that hat now (what is left of it) and, of a winter's evening, when the pipes are lit and the boys are telling stretchers about the dangers they have passed through, George brings it down and shows it round, and the stirring tale is told anew, with fresh exaggerations every time.

Harris got off with merely a flesh wound.

After that, I took the tin off myself, and hammered at it with the mast till I was worn out and sick at heart, whereupon Harris took it in hand.

We beat it out flat; we beat it back square; we battered it into every form known to geometry--but we could not make a hole in it. Then George went at it, and knocked it into a shape, so strange, so weird, so unearthly in its wild hideousness, that he got frightened and threw away the mast. Then we all three sat round it on the grass and looked at it.

There was one great dent across the top that had the appearance of a mocking grin, and it drove us furious, so that Harris rushed at the thing, and caught it up, and flung it far into the middle of the river, and as it sank we hurled our curses at it, and we got into the boat and rowed away from the spot, and never paused till we reached Maidenhead."

Friend of the Book Blog World

2009-05-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Felix at The Growlery for his thoughtful (and more in-depth) review of The Hunger Games. I'm glad you enjoyed my recommendation!

Being a Foodie

2009-05-15T11:58:00.001-07:00

I reckon I had the latent potential for "foodieness" all along. My mom loves trying international foods. When I was growing up, she cooked delicious meals for us every night (her Spaghetti Carbonara and Buttermilk Pound Cake recipes continue to be two of my all-time favorites). She loves to brag that my favorite meal as a 3-year-old was steamed clams and a green salad. As we grew older, once a year Mom and Dad dressed us up and took us to The Nicest Restaurant in Town, where I cleaned my palate with a sorbet course. My grandmother visited us and made mouth-watering Southern meat-and-veg with glorious biscuits. My aunt lived with us briefly while I was in high school and made spectacular creations--I well remember coming home from school one day and being greeted by perfectly browned stuffed game hens.

Then I went overseas and tried everything that was set in front of me. I spent a summer eating wurst and gelato in Germany. I spent two years in Indonesia eating grilled fish with my fingers and cultivating an appreciation for avocado juice with chocolate syrup. I had dim sum for the first time in a Chinese restaurant in Malaysia. I ate a slice of lemon pie in Australia with a meringue so enormous it hung off the edge of my plate. I slurped enormous bowlfuls of Tom Yum soup for breakfast in northern Thailand. I dolloped fresh mayonnaise on my cold roast beef in Paris.

Food has always excited me, but I didn't start cooking until I got married. And for the first year or so of our marriage, Ickie was treated to commonplace casserole fare. Then I read Cooking for Mr. Latte by Amanda Hesser. I've read other food books since (I'm currently reading the beautifully written A Homemade Life by Orangette blogger Molly Wizenberg), but Mr. Latte was my original foodie book inspiration. Suddenly I was putting lemon zest in everything and making my own salad dressing.

I began to recall the noodle soup stands I frequented in Southeast Asia. They always had a basket of condiments on the tables: fiery sambal, syrupy soy, astringent vinegar. I gleaned that I could construct a great meal by combining salty, hot, sweet, sour, and bitter flavors. Then I moved to Santa Barbara, where I learned anything works if you begin with fresh produce and really good olive oil. I've become a person who doesn't follow recipes to the letter. Ever. I'm a sloppy, impatient person when it comes to creating anything, yet generally the end result is darn yummy.

We foodies are snobs in different ways. For example, I'm incredibly picky about pancakes. They have to be made from scratch, with buttermilk, cooked in an iron skillet with good unsalted butter, and served with REAL maple syrup. Yet I don't insist on warming the syrup and plates to go with my pancakes, whereas my brother-in-law does. I can make some tasty potatoes, but I don't cradle them in dish towels lovingly like Ickie's sister. I have strong opinions about wine and can really throw back Italian Nebbiolo. However, I really don't know jack about beer, a fact my beer aficianado friend probably considers unsettling. I love love LOVE corndogs.

Here are a few books I've enjoyed that pair narrative and recipes:

Cooking for Mr. Latte, A. Hesser
A Homemade Life, M. Wizenberg
Like Water for Chocolate, L. Esquivel
Untangling My Chopsticks, V. Abbott Richardi

"The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."

2009-05-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

It's hard to conceive the inhumanity of which humans are capable. I don't claim to be an especially nice person, but I still can't imagine maiming someone else. I'm not even sure I could do so if my life depended on it. I wonder if only some or all people are capable of really terrible things. I often think of my rector's (from my church in St. Louis) answer when asked why bad things happen to seemingly innocent people. He said we live in a fallen world and we're all just kind of spreading the sin around.

I'm pondering this because of two stories I recently completed. One was the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus by Art Spiegelman. The other is Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Maus (I & II) is a graphic novel and is a brilliant example of the genre. Spiegelman's layered narrative shows his interactions with his aging father, who in turn tells of his experiences in WWII Poland. Spiegelman depicts the Jews as mice, the Germans as cats, the Poles as pigs, the French as frogs, etc. They have human bodies with these animal heads. The animal caricatures work well although I can't explain exactly why. There are many stories about the holocaust, but this one is unique in contrasting the resourceful young man surviving a concentration camp with the aging, neurotic father, as seen through the eyes of his son. Spiegelman struggles to get along with his difficult father, understand his past, and conceive of how it has impacted his own life. Ickie and I both found the last panel moving.

Hunger Games is a young adult novel Jackamo described as a cross between The Running Man and The Lord of the Flies. The main character is a teenage girl who supports her impoverished family. The story is set in a dystopia with a government-mandated annual lottery that pits teens in an arena where they fight to the death. The death match is broadcast like a season of Survivor. It's bizarre and frightening. It's also really hard to put down (I read it in less than two days). As in her Underland Chronicles, Collins' protagonist is a poor teen (who has lost a parent) forced to fight in a violent, evil world. The whole book is one big ethical headache--my head is swimming just trying to write down my thoughts and emotions during and after reading it. It's the first in a series, which is good because there's a lot more story to tell, but the ending was strong enough for this first story to stand alone.

Endings

2009-04-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

I've been reading so many good young adult books lately, most of them recommendation from Jackamo. Here's a rundown of my recent reading activity. (There are warnings about spoilers below.)

The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins: I mentioned these in an earlier post, but I enjoyed them increasingly more as I read through the series. I was deeply touched by several of the characters. This is a youth series with excitement and depth, but also a lot of death and sadness.

SPOILER WARNING:

I really loved the ending. Whereas the events of the series come to a rewarding conclusion, it isn't all tied up perfectly and as a result feels like an honest coming-of-age story for Gregor, who is a preteen on the cusp of adulthood with more experience, courage, and wisdom than most grownups. It's melancholy, but how could it not be after all he's been through? The final detail of his toddler sister Boots finally saying his name properly closes on a hopeful note. The more I mull over the ending, the more I appreciate it.

END SPOILER

The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare: This is rather pulpy but well-written fantasy series for teens. SWS tells me Clare has been accused of plagiarizing everyone from JK Rowling to Joss Whedon to Twilight, but I don't see any more shared ideas in this than I do in most of the other recent fantasy fiction I've read. Even if she borrows many ideas from other authors, she creates her own super fun story. Clare has another series coming out soon--prequels to TMI, and I'll certainly be checking them out.

SPOILER WARNING AGAIN:

The conclusion of this series wasn't as strong. Jackamo pointed out to me that it was written for teens (and Clare seems especially to have teen girls in mind), as the characters had some silly doubts about love, paired up tidily, and attended something akin to a ball at the end. My biggest criticism: I felt there were a lot of ideas here that could be mined for religious significance, as there is a Jewish boy turns vampire and an agnostic girl who not only discovers she has angel blood but sees an angel. These characters never seem to experience the spiritual questioning common to many adolescents, and they have greater impetus to do so! So that is a lost opportunity. The ideas needn't be "churchy" in nature, but it would have added depth to the characters to make them a bit more philosophical.

END SPOILER

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale: With a cheesy name like this, I had expectations for something girlie and saccharine, but Princess Academy is a lovely surprise. It's a Newbury Honor Book focusing more on the value of hard work, ingenuity, and devotion than dressing up in gowns or living in a castle. If I had a young daughter, I'd strongly recommend it to her. It had a satisfying and not totally predictable ending, but I won't post a spoiler about it.

Wild Things

2009-04-02T06:51:00.000-07:00

I've got several wild things to address. The first are a series of books by Canadian author Melanie Watt about a paranoid, obsessive squirrel. I chose at random from the library Scaredy Squirrel and Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend. Ben was about as interested as he is in any picture book at this age (i.e., it looks good enough to gnaw on), but Ickie and I found hilarious Scaredy Squirrel's strict daily schedules, emergency plans, potential friend quiz, and fear of germs, walruses, and the unknown. The drawings are adorable (godzilla is town-crushingly cute) and Watt's kooky sense of humor extends even to her author's bio.

Second, I'm in the middle of reading the Gregor the Overlander series by Susan Collins. It's touted as a version of Alice in Wonderland for city kids. The opening sequence where Gregor and his baby sister are sucked down a vent from their laundry room and land in a land of giant rats, bats, and cockroaches is a tribute to Lewis Carroll's work, but the series has its own quest-driven plots. The Gregor series has many of the same elements that make Harry Potter an above-average series: Gregor is a brave kid under pressure who makes decisions with integrity. Most of the characters have complex personalities (especially my favorite sarcastic rat, Ripred), and it's interesting to watch the different species struggle to find common ground.

Third, Ickie just put me on to the trailer for Where The Wild Things Are, the classic by Maurice Sendak. You can watch the trailer here. Several things excite me when I see this trailer. First of all, it looks COOL. Ickie said, "It looks like an indie kids' movie," which is a pretty accurate description. The creatures and marvelous sets appear to have escaped from a Michael Gondry film, and the wild things have a shine and movement in their eyes that makes them look real, not just like giant muppets. They LOOK JUST LIKE the book, and I want to pat their heads to feel their wiry hair and join in the wild rumpus. Another good thing: Spike Jonze is directing it. He directed the super weird Being John Malkovich (which I enjoy for general concept as well as the company video explaining why a building has a 7 1/2 floor). Also good: Catherine Keener plays Max's mom, so even though it appears they made up backstory for Max's home life, I imagine Catherine Keener playing it well without excessive sappiness. And Paul Dano does a voice--he's awesome.

Even if WTWTA turns out to be a dud (which is hard to imagine), it's encouraging to see a children's movie creatively embrace the possibilities of fantastic children's fiction, instead of just a crowd-pleaser filmed in New Zealand or a freakish CGI hellscape. I don't know if Sendak is still alive, but I'll bet he's thrilled no one tried to turn his artistic book into something akin to The Polar Express movie, which manages to make me cringe from the oozing sentiment as well as cower in fear of the uncanny, glass-eyed, zombie children. Ook.

These Are Mine, But You Can Have Some

2009-03-20T12:17:00.001-07:00

I made scones last night. I know it's Lent. Shut up. I didn't want the buttermilk to go bad before I had a chance to use it.

Anyhoo, I took a recipe and changed it enough that I think it's fair to call it my own now. I mimicked the technique for the biscuits I blogged about recently. The scones are the best I've ever made. Ickie loved them.

Watoosa's Scones

2 c flour
1/4 c sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
optional: 1/4 to 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 stick unsalted butter, cold & cut into pieces
2/3 c buttermilk, plus a bit more if needed
optional: currants or dried cranberries
egg wash: 1 large egg beaten with 1 tbsp milk

Whisk together dry ingredients. Cut butter into dry ingredients with a pastry cutter until butter is the size of small peas. Put flour mixture in fridge to chill for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Add buttermilk to flour mixture, mixing just until moist (drizzle in a bit more if you want moister dough). Turn out onto a well-floured surface, and knead only a few times. Pat into a rectangle; fold over into thirds as you would a letter. Repeat patting and folding twice. Pat or roll into a circle (about 7-8 inches in diameter) and cut into 6 pie pieces.

Brush with egg wash. Sprinkle with granulated sugar. Bake at 400 degrees 15-20 minutes until tops brown. Make some tea. Enjoy scones with jam and cream or just plain, hot out of the oven.

Lyrical Baby

2009-03-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

Ickie and I are fans of Candlewick Press. They put out unique children's books, such as A Visitor for Bear, which we gave to our niece last year. The hospital where Ben was born gave us several children's books, and one of them, also by Candlewick Press, is Here's a Little Poem, which we've enjoyed reading to Ben on recent evenings. This collection features sweet, quirky poems by Langston Hughes, Robert Louis Stevenson, and A.A. Milne as well as other less famous poets. I especially love the dreamy illustrations for the bedtime poems. Here is my current favorite:

Manhattan Lullaby

by Norma Farber

Lulled by rumble, babble beep,
let these little children sleep;
let these city girls and boys
dream a music in the noise,
hear a tune their city plucks
up from buses, up from trucks
up from engines wailing fire!
up ten stories high, and higher,
up from hammers, rivets, drills,
up tall buildings, over sills,
up where city children sleep,
lulled by rumble, babble, beep.

The Best Biscuits

2009-03-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

When it's below zero and blizzarding (don't laugh, we've had plenty of that this year), I need comfort food. It's not just to make me feel better about being stuck indoors; I need calories for survival. Bring on the fat and bring on the biscuits! Any good Southerner will tell you that the best comfort food is her grandmother's biscuits, but a true southern grandma's biscuit methods are shrouded in mystery. She can toss in flour, scoop up lard with her fingers at random, and pour in buttermilk without measuring. Grandma cannot convey how this heap of dough transforms into fluffy, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth divinity, and my mom has complained that when she does the same the results are bland, white rocks.

My dear grandma hasn't baked her biscuits in years, but I still remember when she came to take care of us when I was in sixth grade while my parents were away. When we got home from school in the afternoon she had a full supper of biscuits, meat, and veg hot and waiting. I never hope to recreate her masterpieces, but I did recreate a reasonable facsimile by following this recipe from Southern Living. I substituted all-purpose flour with baking powder and salt, but otherwise I followed the folding directions precisely. Scarfing one down hot out of the oven, Ickie pronounced them the best he's ever had.

Scarred for Life

2009-03-12T05:53:00.000-07:00

On a recent visit, my friend JW recommended Blindness by Jose Saramago. Saramago won a Nobel Prize for this novel, and although it's an impressive achievement, it's as desperate as anything you can imagine.

A sudden and unexplained epidemic of white blindness infects the population. The story follows the small group who are the first to go blind and are interned in a dilapidated mental asylum. Like many of the epidemic/apocalyptic stories I've read lately, this one explores human nature, be it compassionate or degenerate. Saramago's run-on sentences, minimal punctuation (dialogue jumbles together), and unnamed characters convey well the chaos and confusion of the epidemic.

Like other stories in this vein, survival depends on humanity's basest needs: the search for food, shelter, companionship, and a functioning toilet. (I don't mean to be flippant here; let's just say I have a fresh appreciation for plumbing.) Yet Blindness is not utterly without hope. There are many horrors, but some characters act selflessly, wisely, and honorably.

I was worried before beginning the novel that Saramago would have an obvious agenda or message, but his story is richly enigmatic. Near the end of the novel, two of the main characters make a brief and eloquent suggestion of what the blindness might symbolize, but the reader is left to her own theories. The conclusion snuck up on me: suddenly I turned a page to discover I was at the close, and even after all the horror, this lovely, warm, vague emotion washed over me. I didn't end with any clear insight, I simply experienced beautifully written art.

Befuddled at the Close

2009-03-05T06:34:00.000-08:00

I believe endings are hard to write. You can have a great story idea, even an entire excellent novel, but when things come to the end it gets tricky. I often prefer stories that are a bit open-ended, so as to spur continuing thought and debate, as opposed to stories where all the ends tie up neatly and seem a bit forced. But sometimes an ending is just odd. In this case I'm referring to the finale of Heroes of the Valley by Jonathan Stroud. Stroud also wrote The Bartimeaus Trilogy; he writes Heroes like Bartimeaus: it's unique, it's witty and dark, and Stroud can really DO creepy. The scene in Westminster Abbey in the second Bartimeaus book is one of the eeriest scenes I've ever read.

Stroud does some good things in Heroes of the Valley. He creates a captivating mythology in an isolated valley reminiscent of medieval Scandinavia. The myths frame every chapter and are incorporated into the story well. There are tunneling-zombie-troll monsters that make my hair stand on end. As soon as the reader is convinced of the truth of these old tales, Stroud introduces cause for doubt, so the reader can hardly predict what will happen next. The characters are interesting yet flawed (as in Bartimeaus, the heroine is far more likable than the hero). But the ending, well, it was weird. I did not like it. I didn't hate it, I just didn't get it at all. It wasn't so much a weak conclusion as a strange one. I can't seem to put into words why it's so problematic. Nevertheless, the book was worth reading.

Bloodsucking Hilarity

2009-02-20T13:17:00.000-08:00

Hooray! I found another of Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax stories (no thanks to you readers, who didn't share that information with me). Well, no hard feelings. Carpe Jugulum is a funny spoof of vampires, who are accidentally invited to a royal christening and decide to take over the kingdom with their "modern" ideas of vampirism. It's all very silly and clever, with a kooky Igor, a nerdy priest, and vampires running through castles craving tea instead of blood (how I love British humor). However, as a new mom, I especially enjoyed the following passage in which new mother Magrat packs up the baby's things for an emergency outing:

"When she looked up her face was set with purpose. She pointed at Oats.

'You find a bag or something and empty into it all the stuff in the top drawer over there, and take the potty, and the little truck, oh, and the stuffed animals, and the bag of nappies, and the bag for used nappies, and the bath, and the bag with the towels, and the box of toys, and the wind-up things, and the musical box, and the bag with the little suits, oh, and the woolly hat, and you, Agnes, find something we can make into a sling....'

There was a clatter from the direction of Mightily Oats. He already had both arms full, and a large stuffed rabbit in his teeth.

'Do we need all of that?" said Agnes.

'You never know,' said Magrat.

'Even the box of toys?'

'[Her father] thinks she might be an early developer,' said Magrat.

'She's only a couple of weeks old!'

'Yes, but stimulus at an early age is vital to the development of the growing brain,' said Magrat, laying baby Esme on the table and shuffling her into a romper suit. 'Also, we have to get on top of her hand-eye coordination as soon as possible. It's no good just letting things slide. Oh yes...If you can bring the little slide, too. And the yellow rubber duck. And the sponge in the shape of a teddy bear. And the teddy bear in the shape of a sponge.'"

Familiar Characters

2009-01-28T10:32:00.000-08:00

I'm a little disappointed because I've now read all of Terry Pratchett's novels featuring Granny Weatherwax. Oddly enough, I read last the first book in which she appears: Equal Rites. Although her character is somewhat better developed in later novels, this one's plot is very fun, especially watching Granny go up against the snobbish, sexist wizards at Unseen University when they refuse to admit Granny's young apprentice, Eskarina. I'm always sorry when I complete a series I've enjoyed and there aren't any additional stories with these characters (at least as far as I know), but I'd happily reread any of these, especially Wyrd Sisters.

In other news, Ickie has begun reading a Winnie the Pooh story to Ben and I each evening. We gave Ben a Winnie the Pooh treasury for Christmas, and I had forgotten how darling and quietly amusing A.A. Milne's little characters are. Of course, my favorite bits are the illustrations by Ernest Shepard. I adore his sketchy pen and ink drawings in Kenneth Graham's novels and refuse to read any editions with "updated" (i.e., ruined) pictures of Toad, Rat, Mole, and the lot.

Legendary Troublemakers

2009-01-22T08:40:00.000-08:00

I just finished Witches Abroad, another fun Terry Pratchett novel featuring Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick. This one played on several fairy tales (including a brief cameo by Gollum). It was creative and fun, although I slightly prefer the witch stories that are versions of Shakespearean plays. I'm currently reading Equal Rites, Pratchett's first book in which Granny appears. She's a really wonderful curmudgeon.

Prior to Witches Abroad, I read Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips. In it, the Greek gods are living in somewhat reduced circumstances in London and, as the title aptly puts it, behaving very badly indeed. Actually, Artemis is the only really reasonable member of the quarrelsome family. All the gods (except Artemis, goddess of chastity, and Eros, who has converted to Christianity) are sleeping with each other or causing trouble, so several chapters are fairly vulgar. By contrast, Alice and Neil are two mortals interested in Scrabble, tidiness, and each other, but who are too timid, wholesome, and polite to make it work. Alice and Neil are especially likeable when contrasted with the likes of the Apollo and Aprodite. The plot stays true to the classic formula, the gods playing tricks and getting even with each other, and of course a hero with a quest and a bit of immortal assistance. It was a well-formed story and a fun read.

Midsummer in Midwinter

2008-12-31T07:06:00.000-08:00

Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies is another novel featuring Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick, the three witches from Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters. Just as Wyrd Sisters is a funnier version of MacBeth, Lords and Ladies is a darker and simultaneously sillier version of A Midsummer Night's Dream (my favorite of Shakepeare's plays). What can I say other than I absolutely loved it? I'll just include below the passage that amused me most:

"Good morning, Hodgesaargh," she [Magrat] said.

The castle falconer appeared around the corner, dabbing at his face with a handkerchief. On his other arm, claws gripping like a torture insturment, was a bird. Evil red eyes glared at Magrat over a razor-sharp beak.
"I've got a new hawk," said Hodgesaargh proudly. "It's a Lancre crowhawk. They've never been tamed before. I'm taming it. I've already stopped it peck myoooow--"

He flailed the hawk madly agaisnt the wall until it let go of his nose.

Strictly speaking, Hodgesaargh wasn't his real name. On the other hand, on the basis that someone's real name is the name they introduce themselves to you by, he was definitely Hodgesaargh.

This was because the hawks and falcons in the castle mews were all Lancre birds and therefore naturally possessed of a certain "sod you" independence of mind. After much patient breeding and training Hodgesaargh had managed to get them to let go of someone's wrist, and now he was working on stopping them viciously attacking the person who had just been holding them, i.e., invariably Hodgesaargh. He was nevertheless a remarkably optimistic and good-natured man who lived for the day when his hawks would be the finest in the world. The hawks lived for the day when they could eat his other ear.

And Now for Something Completely Different...

2008-12-31T06:52:00.000-08:00

I'm always rather food-logged post Christmas. This year I'm full to the brim with ham, bacon, casseroles, cookies, and chocolate, so last night I made something atypical of holiday fare. First, I baked two loaves of soda bread. The extremely simple recipe from Southern Living can be found here. My only alteration was to bake it in 9-inch loaf pans for only 45 minutes (by then the toothpick came out clean). Ickie and I cut right into it after about 5 minutes: There's nothing like warm, moist bread on a cold, snowy day. The buttermilk made it taste buttery and slightly sweet but very light. It's excellent toasted with blueberry jam and tea.

For dinner I made Emeril Lagasse's recipe for Crab Pie. I won't watch Emeril (I disdain TV personalities and preachers who shout at me), but this dish is fresh and tasty. My Aunt Sara made it for us several years ago, and she's one of my favorite cooks. The pie was especially good because I added extra crabmeat (fresh Maine crabmeat was on sale at the supermarket).

Nightly Adventures

2008-12-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Ickie finished reading out loud to us the final pages of John Masefield's The Midnight Folk. The events in The Midnight Folk take place prior to The Box of Delights (our 2007 Advent novel) and also feature young orphan Kay Harker going up against his loathsome governess Sylvia Daisy, the devious Abner Brown, seven troublesome witches, and a pair of treasonous cats. With the help of his old toys and a host of animals (a good cat, a cockney rat, an old owl, and others), Kay races against the wicked midnight folk to find his great grandfather's hidden treasure and return it to its rightful owners.

Written in the same dreamy style as Box of Delights, Midnight Folk is a twisting, run-on adventure in which Kay does all the things little boys (and girls, in my case!) love: sneaking out at night, riding broomsticks and foxes, sailing on a ship manned by friendly mice, eating too much pork pie, muddying his pajamas, and skipping out on lessons. It's all magic and dreams and goodness, and it's perfect for Christmastime.

The New York Review edition also features a lovely afterword by Madeleine L'Engle, who sums up this magical book far better than I am able:

"The evil midnight folk vanish with the dark, and the good midnight folk, the stuffed animals, the real old owl, the water rat, are all there to help Kay do his growing up. This poetic book makes demands on the readers, but it is well worth the trouble, and the child with imagination will find many delights."

Ditto for adults. Nothing makes us feel more like children than sitting in front of the Christmas tree in our pajamas, surrounded by cookie smells and snow-flecked windows, filled with wonder and anticipation.

Sequels for the Glum

2008-12-16T05:35:00.000-08:00

What is wrong with my Advent reading choices this year? Well, nothing, as long as you don't mind being alarmed or depressed. First I read the sequel to Octavian Nothing Volume I. Volume II is subtitled The Kingdom on the Waves. Ickie enjoyed it more than I did. The first volume is quite horrific in parts but impressively unique, and I think M.T. Anderson is a brilliant writer. Kingdom on the Waves follows Octavian as he joins a Loyalist regiment of ex-slaves during the Revolutionary War. Let's just say their experience is grim. It is also a bit slow in parts. Highlights were some backstory about Octavian's mother and a deeper portrait of his friend Pro Bono, but otherwise the book would be improved if it were more concise.

After that rolicking good time, I picked up The Dead and the Gone (the sequel to Life As We Knew It). I found it less personal and more gruesome than its companion novel. The Dead is the story of 17-year-old Alex, a Puerto Rican boy in New York City who must care for his two younger sisters. The characters are less isolated than Miranda and her family in rural Pennsylvania, yet it's up for debate whether this is an advantage. Alex's fellow New Yorkers are in turn threats and saviors. I resonated with Alex less than the Miranda, but Alex's story is still exciting. One detail I enjoyed is Pfeffer's different perspective on faith, which creates a gratifying balance between the companion novels. In Life As We Knew It, the only example of Christianity is quite negative, but the church and prayer are essential supports for the devout characters in The Dead.

We Do Not Love the Moon

2008-12-01T06:36:00.000-08:00

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer is the apocalyptic journal of teenage Miranda. When an asteroid hits the moon and knocks it closer to earth, tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanos decimate the planet. Miranda's family (her mother and two brothers) stockpile canned goods and firewood and bunker down in their rural Pennsylvania home. As society falls apart bit by bit, Miranda's family becomes increasingly isolated.

The book's style is straightforward, conversational, and honest, just as one would expect from a young girl's diary. In the midst of the horrible circumstances, Pfeffer explores Miranda's poignant and complex relationships, such as with her divorced father and his new wife, her exceptional mother and older brother, and her born-again best friend.

The story is bleak. It's a hard book to put down but it's not a happy tale. Ickie mentioned that it reminds him of the new Battlestar Galactica in the way it explores humanity's response to the destruction and survival of our race, and in that way, Life As We Knew It is still a tale of hope. Even if everyone dies, there's something fascinatingly life-affirming about humanity's response to death, with all our flaws and our heroics.

Leftovers

2008-11-28T12:45:00.000-08:00

I love Thanksgiving leftovers. Since we haven't traveled to see family the past three years, I only make one vegetable side dish for us and then focus my energies on the turkey, cornbread dressing, and cranberry sauce. It takes a while for me to tire of that winning trio. However, we always have lots of turkey, and I chop up the extra portion, freeze it, and then chuck it in soup for months afterward. The frozen meat hits the hot broth, and our kitchen is filled with the lip-smackin' aroma of Thanksgiving all over again. Below is my recommendation for what to make with your leftover turkey this year; just substitute turkey for the chicken.

Chicken, Mushroom, & Wild Rice Stew

¼ c butter

2 T olive oil

2 c chopped onion

1 c chopped celery

1 T minced garlic

2 (8 oz) containers sliced baby portabellas

6 T flour

2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

1 ½ tsp pepper

2 qts chicken broth

4 c chopped cooked chicken

3 c cooked wild rice

1 c half and half

1 tsp dry thyme

2 T dry sherry

Heat butter and olive oil over medium heat. Saute onion and celery 5 minutes. Add garlic for 2 minutes. Add mushrooms for 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add flour, garlic powder, salt, and pepper; cook 2 minutes stirring constantly. Add broth, stirring until smooth. Bring to simmer; add chicken and rice and cook 20 minutes. Add cream and thyme; simmer 5 minutes. Stir in sherry.

Yield: 3 quarts

Too Many Secrets

2008-11-27T17:58:00.000-08:00

As a fan of The Thirteenth Tale, I couldn't help noticing the author often mentioned Wilkie Collins's novel The Woman in White, comparing it to the deliciously Gothic classic Jane Eyre. There are some similarities, but what I found most impressive was Collins's use of so many contemporary writing trends. Collins was a contemporary of Dickens and Bronte, yet her novel feels far more modern. The polite British society of the 1850s is quite recognizable, but at times the book feels more like a modern crime investigation. It's written from multiple perspectives, and each character's narration is noticably and amusingly biased.

I can hardly summarize the plot without giving away too much, and that would be tragic, as the most enjoyable feature of the book is the string of secrets revealed about so many of the characters. I expected a few of them, but each secret led to an even juicier one as the plot thickened enticingly.

I'm surprised I haven't had the book recommended to me before, and Jackamo and I were just wondering today why it's never read in schools. It's so much more entertaining than Dickens! Why must we be forced to trudge through Great Expectations (twice in my case) when we could instead be gobbling up The Woman in White? (Ditto when it comes to reading MacBeth instead of Shakespeare's comedies.) Alas, our educational institutions too often stamp out the fun of reading.

[Bonus points to the commenter who can identify the 1990s film from which I stole my post title.]

Disappointing Sequel

2008-11-14T09:53:00.000-08:00

I just finished Cybele's Secret by Juliet Marillier, a kind-of sequel to Wildwood Dancing. Whereas I quite enjoyed Wildwood with its creative take on two classic fairy tales and exciting conclusion, I think Cybele is slow, random, and disjointed. It is a character and fantasy plot device potpourri--not in a good way--and I found the romantic scenes cringeworthy. One of the concepts of the book that is especially pointless and irritating is protagonist Paula's confidence that the magical denizens of The Other Kingdom are setting all the characters on a quest "for the greater good" and "to learn a lesson." Somehow it was easier to overlook this tiresome message in Wildwood. Cybele was diverting enough to complete, and that's about all I have to say about it.

Worrisome Day

2008-11-14T05:59:00.000-08:00

Although it's more personal than what I usually post on my blog, I just thought I'd mention three concerns specific to this day:

1. My mom is having her first chemotherapy treatment today.

2. Jackamo's son is having hernia surgery today.

3. I woke up to the news this morning that Westmont College (where Ickie and I worked for two years) and much of Montecito, California, is burning. The college occupants were sheltered in the gym and no one is reported hurt, but I'm sure many of our friends have lost their homes. It just gives me a sick feeling to look at the photos of the fire.

Also, Ickie will be traveling to Denmark next week, and while it's probably the safest country on the planet, it's still worrisome to be apart. Also, I'm consumed with envy (very bad). So if you're not inclined toward prayer, I would consider it a kindness if you were to start on our behalf.

Here are a few photos of Westmont and Montecito pre-fire (click for enlargements):

Repeats

2008-10-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I've posted. It's not because I'm not reading; I'm simply not reading anything new at the moment. Having a new baby makes it difficult to get on the computer, let alone think critically about what I'm reading, so I've been rereading The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series. They're pleasantly familiar for my weary brain while up in the middle of the night with the boy, and both are what I consider appropriate fall reads.

My next purchase will be The Midnight Folk by John Masefield (author of The Box of Delights, which Ickie and I so enjoyed reading out loud last Advent). The New York Review Children's Collection edition of Midnight Folk was scheduled to be released on my birthday but was delayed inexplicably until this week. Ickie wants us to read this one out loud during Advent this year. Hopefully the boy will enjoy it! I was reading to him from The Sorcerer's Stone the other day and he drifted off to sleep for a catnap.

Ach! Crivens!

2008-09-14T14:19:00.001-07:00

Since Terry Pratchett has written dozens of novels, it's been an easy thing to procure stacks of them from the library. Within the last few weeks I've enjoyed Wyrd Sisters, Mort, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, and The Wee Free Men. Of those, I thought Wryd Sisters the most clever, Amazing Maurice (a retelling of the Pied Piper tale) the sweetest, and TWFM the funniest. Mort featured Death (who often makes amusing appearances in Pratchett's world) and a boy named Mort who served as his apprentice, and although diverting, I didn't enjoy it quite as well as the others.

Currently I'm reading A Hat Full of Sky, which I think is a rather spectacular title. It's the second in the series featuring young witch Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men, little blue pictsies with thick Scottish accents and a love of stealing, fighting, and drinking. Last night when I was up at 4 am nursing Big Ben, I laughed so hard I was afraid I'd dislodge the boy. When the pictsies start their energetic cursing and bickering in their thick Scottish brogue, I can barely contain myself. It's good to have something to help me wile away the drowsy hours of midnight breastfeeding, especially since Ben appears to be having another growth spurt (the boy is all growth spurts). Next I plan to read Wintersmith, the third Tiffany Aching story.

I highly recommend everything I've read by Pratchett. It's great fun to see his memorable characters appearing among the interweaving plots of his novels.

Stranger Than Fiction

2008-09-01T10:49:00.000-07:00

If truth is not always stranger than fiction, it is on occasion more interesting. Such is the case with Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre, the true story of perhaps the greatest spy ever known. Macintyre chronicles the adventures of Eddie Chapman, a gentleman thief, masterful liar, serial womanizer, and shameless pickpocket who is impossible not to like. A young English thief imprisoned in France, Chapman makes a deal with German occupiers during World War II to serve as an agent. Once in England, he counteroffers his services to British MI5 as a double agent.

Though Chapman often seemed devoted to persons and sincere about his actions, it was impossible to predict his behavior or to determine his loyalties. It's never clear whether he worked as a double agent for the money, out of patriotism, or simply for the thrill of it. In addition to his adventures, Chapman's affairs and friendships are explored in great detail, and none is more captivating than his deep friendship with his German handler.

It's enlightening to learn about the real life of a secret agent and the WWII intrigues, but Chapman's enigmatic personality is the real fascination here. I've never read a more exciting spy story with a more amusingly inexplicable protagonist. The James Bond types are so utterly bland by comparison.

Big Ben

2008-08-25T12:01:00.001-07:00

Here's the link to our new boy's blog.

Let's Try Sandpaper on the Damned Spot

2008-08-17T05:07:00.000-07:00

Terry Pratchett has written dozens of novels in his Discworld series. I've meant to read one for quite a while, but I was overwhelmed by sheer number and wasn't sure where to start. The other day Ickie brought home Wyrd Sisters for me, and I've been chuckling gleefully over it ever since. I'm only a little more than halfway through it, but I wanted to go ahead and post about it since I'll probably be busy with other matters of importance for the next week or two.

It's hilarious. It spoofs MacBeth, occasionally playing off the Shakespearean language and featuring three witches, a usurper who washes his hands obsessively, the usurper's overbearing wife, and a ghostly king. The three witches have clashing personality quirks: one is a severe old curmudgeon; the second is a drinking, partying grandmother with a house full of rowdy offspring; and the third is obsessed with romantic, flowery natural remedies (the magical incarnation of Madeline Bassett). The usurper is a bit mad, and his mood isn't helped when the ghostly king stealthily over-salts his meals.

Even if the conclusion of WS is disappointing, it'll be worth it to have laughed so hard at the portions I've read thus far. Here are a few examples of Pratchett's witty writing:

The usurper duke's opinion of his subjects:

"A jolly good riot, now, that would have been more--more appropriate. One could have ridden out and hanged people, there would have been the creative tension so essential to the proper development of the state. Back down on the plains, if you kicked people they kicked back. Up here, when you kicked people they moved away and just waited patiently for your leg to fall off. How could a king go down in history ruling a people like that? You couldn't oppress them any more than you could oppress a mattress."

A conversation between the newly dead king and the grim reaper:

"'Won't anyone be able to see me?'
'Oh, the psychically inclined. Close relatives. And cats, of course.'
'I hate cats.'
Death's face became a little stiffer, if that were possible. The blue glow in his eye sockets flickered red for an instant.
'I see,' he said. The tone suggested that death was too good for cat haters. 'You like great big dogs, I imagine.'"

A description of Nanny Ogg's cauldron:

"The water under the lid was inky black and, according to rumour, bottomless; the Ogg grandchildren were encouraged to believe that monsters from the dawn of time dwelt in its depths, since Nanny believed that a bit of thrilling and pointless terror was an essential ingredient of the magic of childhood.
In the summer she used it as a beer cooler."

And finally, my favorite quote, which I immediately read to Ickie:

"Demons were like genies or philosophy professors--if you didn't word things exactly right, they delighted in giving you absolutely accurate and completely misleading answers."

New Blogs

2008-08-17T05:02:00.001-07:00

I've created a blog where we can post baby photos once junior is born, which should be this week:
The Kid

Also, guest poster and resident tea expert (on the sidebar) Jackamo has created her own blog:
The Best Intentions

This Story Makes Me Gruntled

2008-08-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

I've read a lot of coming-of-age books about boys this summer, so it's a pleasant shift to read one with a female protagonist. I stumbled upon The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart in the library yesterday, and without any prior knowledge, brought it home and read the entire thing in one afternoon. I take joy in finding characters to whom I relate, and I relate to Frankie even more than most.

Frankie is beginning her sophomore year at a New England prep school. Over the summer she transformed from a skinny geek to a pretty teen, but Frankie's physical changes are irrelevant to her self esteem. She's perfectly aware that she has become more attractive, but she didn't like herself any less when she was an awkward freshman. Her story takes place over the course of the fall semester as she dates a popular senior, discovers the school's secret fraternity, and masterminds several elaborate pranks.

(Frankie is also a P.G. Wodehouse fan and spends an entire chapter explaining a linguistic joke she developed based on Wodehouse's language. That alone would endear her to me.)

Whereas most teens (both in novels and in life) suffer angst about who they are and where they fit in, Frankie already knows herself. She knows that she's smart and funny and charming. She's aware of her dark side. Whereas most teens are aching to be prettier, more popular, more accepted, or more loved, Frankie just wants someone else to know her with the same clarity she knows herself. On the surface, some of her complaints deal with gender bias or an oppressive institutionalized culture, but ultimately Frankie's frustrations stem from her hope that her friends and family will come to understand her true character.

Although her epiphany is not free of heartbreak, Frankie realizes: "It is better to be alone, she figures, than to be with someone who can't see who you are. It is better to lead than to follow. It is better to speak up than to stay silent. It is better to open doors than to shut them on people." Frankie's experience mirrors so much of my life. My appearance improved over the course of my teen years, but even in my frizzy, gawky days, I knew who I was and liked who I was. I'd rather be understood by a few than liked by everyone. And my marriage is so happy, not simply because my husband and I love each other, but because we know each other deeply and completely.

Disreputable History is lighter than many of the similarly set books I've read (e.g., Special Topics in Calamity Physics, The Secret History, Prep); the language is cleaner, there are fewer references to sex and alcohol, there's no violence, and most of the characters are decent people--students who enjoy learning as well as play and are rarely cruel to each other.

Celebrating the Blues

2008-08-08T15:00:00.001-07:00

It's blueberry season, and that's doubly exciting in Maine because we not only have cartons of standard blueberries, but we harvest those marvelous little jewels, wild blueberries. Wilds are the smaller, sweeter version of the big berries you see in supermarkets across America, and if you don't live up here, you can probably only get the wilds in frozen or canned varieties, which I'll just tell you right now, are going to be a disappointment. Fresh wild blueberries are so good you'll just want to eat a bowlful with a spoon (not to mention add them to your cereal).

Below are my favored recipes for both standards and wilds.

Blueberry Pie (my 4th of July dessert of choice)
Source: Southern Living

1 homemade pastry for double crust pie, chilled for at least 30 minutes
5 cups standard blueberries
1 T lemon juice
1 c sugar
1/3 c flour
1/8 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
2 T butter
1 egg, lightly beaten with a bit of water
1 t sugar

Stem blueberries and mix with next 5 ingredients. Pour into pastry crust. Dot with butter. Cover with top crust (I prefer a lattice top b/c it crisps better). Cut vents in top crust. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes or until golden. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Blueberry Jam
Source: Southern Living

1 1/2 quarts stemmed standard blueberries, partly crushed
1/4 c fresh lemon juice
1 stick cinnamon
7 c sugar
2 (3-oz) packs of pectin

Combine first 4 ingredients in a pot; bring to boil until sugar dissolves, stirring often. Boil 2 minutes, stirring often; remove from heat. Discard cinnamon. Add pectin; stir 5 minutes.
Pour into sterilized jars and seal. Process in boiling water 5 minutes.

Loads-of-Blueberries Coffee Cake
Source: Food Network

4 T butter
3 c wild blueberries
2 c flour
2 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
3/4 c milk
2/3 c granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 T sugar mixed with 1/2 t nutmeg

Melt butter and cool. Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk together milk, sugar, eggs, and butter. Stir into flour mixture. Fold in the blueberries. Spread batter in greased 8- or 9-inch baking dish. Sprinkle with the sugar-nutmeg topping. Bake 45-50 minutes or until done.

Blueberry Streusel Muffins
Source: Southern Living

1 3/4 c flour
2 3/4 t baking powder
3/4 t salt
1/2 c sugar
2 t lemon zest (or more...much, much more!)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
3/4 c milk
1/3 c vegetable oil
1 1/2 c wild blueberries
1 T flour
1 T sugar
1/4 c sugar
2 1/2 T flour
1/2 t cinnamon
1 1/2 T butter

Combine first 5 ingredients. Combine egg, milk, and oil and stir well. Add to dry ingredients, stirring to moisten. Toss together blueberries, 1 T flour, and 1 T sugar and fold into batter. Spoon into a dozen greased or lined muffin tins. Combine 1/4 c sugar, 2 1/2 T flour, 1/2 t cinnamon, and butter; cut with a pastry blender until crumbly and top muffins. Bake at 400 degrees for 18 minutes or until golden.

Happiness is...

2008-08-05T10:11:00.000-07:00

So, here's my nonfiction selection for the year: The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner. An interview with the author on The Daily Show, recent reports on "the world's happiest countries," and other books Ickie has read on happiness research peaked my interest. As I began The Geography of Bliss, I told Ickie I was initially disappointed by the lack of specific information and statistics--in other words, the book was less academic than I had expected. However, I came to understand that Weiner's book is simply a different (and not at all poor) concept; it's a travelogue with a running theme--the author's search for and musings about the nature of happiness.

Weiner visits multiple countries, some which scored high on the happiness scale (e.g., Switzerland, Iceland), some which scored mid-range (e.g., Great Britain, the US), and the most depressing place on earth: Moldova. Actually, the chapter on Moldova was the funniest. Each time Weiner interviewed anyone in Moldova (either natives or expats), they were hard pressed to think of anything positive about the place until each person finally conceded "the fruits and vegetables here are very fresh."

In each chapter, we get a clear feel for Weiner's impression (he didn't much enjoy Qatar, but he adored Iceland). Rather than simply ranking these countries on a happiness scale, Weiner contrasts each culture's understanding of happiness. The Qataris actually seemed offended when asked if they were happy, the Thais told Weiner not to think so much, the British felt that talking about happiness was "cloyingly American," and the Swiss dubbed envy as the greatest enemy to happiness. Weiner touches on all kinds of interesting concepts that spark deeper consideration but still manages to produce a book that is light, personal, and amusing.

Do I believe happiness can be a geographic location? It's certainly true that I'm more content in some climates and cultures than in others, and I don't expect everyone to agree with me. For example, those of you who know of my disgust for hot, muggy weather will understand my affinity for this quotation:

"Ibn Khaldoun, the great Arab intellectual of the fourteenth century...believed that the great curse of civilization is not war or famine but humidity: 'When the moisture, with its evil vapors ascends to the brain, the mind and body and the ability to think are dulled. The result is stupidity, carelessness, and a general intemperance."

Attacks on humidity aside, Weiner's book was a pleasant impetus for me to meditate on my own outlook on life and what influences it. His concluding advice is simple but affecting:

"Money matters, but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important. So are friends. Envy is toxic. So is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude."

Off the Reservation

2008-07-23T14:10:00.001-07:00

I read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie in one afternoon. It's written from the perspective of a 14-year-old Spokane Indian boy, and whereas Junior does sound like a typical teen (fart jokes and all), he offers many true, thoughtful observations about his world. The story has a lot of standards in good coming-of-age novels (e.g., Jim the Boy, Run with the Horsemen).

When Junior decides to transfer to the more-challenging "white" school in a local town, he is treated as a traitor on the reservation. Junior is awkward, poor, and lonely, but he finds unexpected kindness from others. He mourns the loss of his best friend and multiple deaths in the family as well as the more general self-destructive lifestyle of his tribe. Part of why the narrative works so well is that it's told by Junior in the first person, so he can confide all the touchy-feely emotions deemed unacceptable for adolescent males. The novel is filled with his funny, perceptive cartoons, such as a drawing of him and his former best friend in the third grade, jumping into a lake holding hands, with the caption: "Boys can hold hands until they turn nine."

Every crisis and triumph in Junior's life is an equal mixture of pain and joy. He reacts to so many miserable circumstances with crazed laughter, and it's hard to know whether you want to laugh or cry yourself. Alexie's novel is a keen combination of tragedy and hope, capturing perfectly the language of a teen-aged outsider.

Spy Novel Versus Other Spy Novels

2008-07-20T18:49:00.000-07:00

When I lived overseas and ran out of books to read, I borrowed a few of my boss's Tom Clancy novels. They were exciting, and when I stayed up late at night to read them, I'd hear the wild dogs rooting through my trash and imagine they were instead Russian commies.... But let's face it, Clancy, Ludlum, and the like treat their words as a technicality in the interest of fabricating a good plot. Espionage stories excite me, but they are often artlessly executed. Night Soldiers, the first novel I've read by Alan Furst, is an exception.

Most of Furst's novels are set during World War II, and his characters are often commoners caught up in the shifting European politics, attempting to survive the chaos. Night Soldiers is the tale of a young Bulgarian, Khristo, originally recruited by the Soviets but disillusioned by their methods. I had to grow accustomed to Furst's writing style, as some scenes are told from unusual points of view with ambiguous language. However, as the narrative proceeds, it grows progressively more exciting, culminating with the last few irresistible chapters.

Ickie said, "It's a spy novel, but by someone who can actually write well." Furst has obviously done in-depth research on the events and life in WWII-era Eastern Europe, a history I'd do well to understand better. Especially affecting for me were Khristo's reactions and observations upon meeting Americans, whom he sees as privileged and naive while also inspiring and admirable. Where Furst could have simply hustled along with his thrilling tale, he often pauses to consider deeper details about people and their actions. Some compare his work to Graham Greene, and while Greene's work is more contemplative (and more concerned with faith), it's a more apt comparison than to the pulpy spy novels. I look forward to checking out more books by Furst and trust they'll distract me from the inconvenience of being nine months pregnant.

"Do you need anything dampened or made soggy?"

2008-07-18T04:36:00.000-07:00

Joss Whedon, creator of Firefly (pretty much my all-time favorite show EVER), has created a hilarious web series, Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog. It stars Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, an aspiring super villian with a crush on a cute redhead at his local laundry mat. Nathan Fillion is a scream as Captain Hammer, the smarmy superhero who foils both Dr. Horrible's plots and love life. Act I begins a bit slowly, then takes off with the first of many musical numbers. It reminds me a bit of Pushing Daisies and Flight of the Chonchords. It features Whedon's typical witty dialog, and the songs are catchy as well.

Penny: ...I went on a date.

Dr. H: Get right out of town! How was that?

P: Unexpected. He's a really good-looking guy, and I thought he was kind of cheesey at first.

Dr. H: Trust your instincts.

P: But he turned out to be totally sweet. Sometimes people are layered like that. There turns out to be something totally different underneath than what's on the surface.

Dr. H: And sometimes there's a third, even deeper level, and that one is the same as the top surface one.

P: Huh?

Dr. H: Like with pie.

Watch the full three episodes in steaming video or download to itunes here.

Gender Bender

2008-07-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

Today I dropped by the DMV to update my new street address in the system. While there, I pulled out my license, examined it more closely than usual, and realized they have my gender listed as "male." (I can only assume the DMV staff of last year were distracted by my muscular physique and luxuriant beard.) I turned to Ickie and asked him how he felt about having been legally married to a male for the past year. (I guess we're lucky our marriage hasn't been scandalously uncovered and dissolved now that we no longer live in California.) When I went up to the service window, I pointed out to the clerk the error on the license and said "I'll bet you don't get too many 8-months-pregnant males in here." He was so amused he ran to the neighboring cubicle to show his coworker.

In a few weeks I'll return to my official legal status of female. For now, I guess I should watch some sports on TV, grunt while I lift weights, and shout at some hot chicks from my vehicle while I still have the excuse to do so. I feel like I've missed some opportunities by not noticing this earlier.

The Lovely Complexity of an Ordinary Life

2008-07-10T16:34:00.000-07:00

Back in March I wrote a glowing post about Jim the Boy, a simply and beautifully written novel by Tony Earley about a little boy growing up in a small town during the Great Depression. I'm happy to report that the second novel Earley wrote about Jim Glass is just as good as the first. Whereas the first novel follows Jim for a year when he was about 10 years old, The Blue Star records Jim's senior year in high school. Jim's widowed mother and funny, fatherly uncles are still present as is Earley's familiar, effortless prose. The plot is somewhat more mature due to Jim's age, and World War II propels events in the town. Jim's friendship with his insightful ex-girlfriend is as moving to me as his at-odds romance with a struggling half-Cherokee girl.

There's something about Earley's writing I find impossible to justly describe. His stories are sentimental without descending into melodrama or affectation. Your heart bleeds for each character; they live humble, ordinary lives, but Earley can infuse an ordinary life and the simplest of phrases with great poignance. After finishing the book last night, Ickie asked me about it (he read this one prior to me as well as the first), and I couldn't talk about a single scene without getting all choked up. If you're a fan of Southern literature or coming-of-age stories, you'll especially appreciate Jim the Boy and The Blue Star.

Cultivating A Green Thumb

2008-07-06T04:41:00.001-07:00

In the past I've been hopeless at keeping plants alive, but since moving into our new house, I've made an extra effort, and it has paid off. The previous owner was a master gardener, so all we had to do was watch our back hillside garden bloom in the spring and continue to bloom all summer (at present it's covered with yellow and orange lilies). I managed to plant impatiens and hostas in the front garden, and they have flourished.

Inspired by that small success, yesterday Ickie and I drove over to the most extensive and impressive nursery I've ever visited and bought a montmorency cherry tree for our yard as well as some potted herbs. The tree will commemorate our first year in the house as well as the summer The Kid is born. We'll be able to admire a tree full of these blooms next spring:

...and more importantly, a tree full of these tart cherries for pie and jam:

(Some of you know tart cherry is my favorite type of pie/jam, and I obsess about the cherry season each year.) Granted, it'll probably be several years before the tree can yield enough fruit for half a pie, and I suspect we'll need to make a concentrated effort to keep the rouge birds and squirrels from eating them, but I'm excited all the same. At the nursery I fought the inclination to buy every fruit tree in sight and turn our tiny back yard into an orchard full of apples, plums, pears, and cherries because I figure The Kid will want a bit of space for throwing a ball around without hitting one of mommy's trees.

Zack

2008-07-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

Alright, unless you're excessively squeamish or have an unusually pathetic complex about being frightened, I demand that all of you immediately get your hands on a copy of World War Z by Max Brooks. Subtitled An Oral History of the Zombie War, it's a book both Ickie and I quickly devoured, much like a zombie devours tasty brains. Once you begin, it's impossible to put down, unless you are a zombie who has just been alerted to fresh brains in the area or a live human who needs to defend yourself against a zombie onslaught.

Many of you may be thinking to yourselves, "I have no desire to read a book about a zombie apocalypse." Well, friends, that just shows how little you know. I'm not a horror movie fan, and in general I opt for dainty tea-sipping accompanied by British humor or fairy tales. Sure, on occasion I've mentioned the importance of developing my personal zombie contingency plan, just for the sake of discussion. But I fail to see how any reader won't be drawn into WWZ.

Told after the war, in documentary fashion, WWZ is a collection of interviews with people across the globe. From political strategists to soldiers to civilian doctors to feral children, each character recounts his or her experience in the zombie war with a unique voice. Ickie pointed out that the book has a feel most like the new Battlestar Galactica series on SciFi (which you should be watching). As in that series, we're hearing from the survivors of the human race, and Brooks delves into every theme: human psychology, battle strategy, survival instinct, religion, consumerism, democracy versus communism, reconstruction, etc. Most of the tales are chilling, but all of them are fascinating. I'd like to recount my favorite chapter here as an example, but I can't choose one. It may seem odd that a book about zombies offers deep insight into the human condition, but it's true.

Cranford

2008-06-25T07:51:00.000-07:00

I honestly find it impossible to write about all the things I love about the new BBC series Cranford in a blog post of moderate length. Every detail contributes something extraordinary, including the quaintly animated opening credits to the stunningly composed scenes and beautiful photography, to a perfect British cast (Judi Dench, Michael Gambon, etc.), to the fact it’s an adaptation of an Elizabeth Gaskell novel. Likewise, it doesn’t hurt that Cranford was created by the two women (Sue Birtwistle and Susie Conklin) responsible for BBC’s excellent Pride and Prejudice and Wives and Daughters.

Now, I must fess up that I’ve not read Cranford, so I can’t say from firsthand experience how the show compares to the novel. However, I’ve read in online forums that even where they’ve added a bit to the storyline (it’s a relatively short novel, apparently), Birtwistle and Conklin stay true to Gaskell’s work. They even include several subtle jabs at Charles Dickens (a mentor of Gaskell's).

Chris and I laughed more in the first episode of this show than the entire P&P series (and I always laugh a great deal at that one). Cranford is a town full of gossiping (but not unkind) spinsters, so much of the humor features the hysterical Imelda Staunton jogging flustered and frumpily through the streets, nearly apoplectic to convey the latest news. My favorite character is the stalwart and puritanical Deborah, played by the marvelous Eileen Atkins. Here’s a sample of the first exchange that made Chris and I rock with laughter.

Deborah: I would prefer it if I did not enjoy oranges. Consuming them is a most incommodious business.
Matilda (Deborah's sister): There is not such a lot of juice, Deborah dear, when sliced with a knife.
Mary (Deborah & Mattie's young guest): At home, we make a hole in our oranges…and we suck them.
Deborah registers a silent expression of abject horror.
Matilda: That is the way I like to take them best, but Deborah says it is vulgar and altogether redolent of a ritual undertaken by little babies.... My sister does not care for the expression: suck.
Deborah cringes.
Deborah [in an authoritative tone]: We will repair to our rooms and eat our fruit in solitude.

The series is not only a comedy, and there are so many moving storylines and touching moments I can't begin to summarize them here. The many strong females are the backbone of the town, whereas the male characters are somewhat muted and incidental. However, there is one subplot I especially like about an estate agent working quietly and secretly to educate the young son (played by the adorable Alex Etel of Millions) of a degenerate squatter.

Everyone in Cranford has strong opinions. Many seem biased and regimented to a fault, yet every character has moments when she or he shows compassion to another person. The show has everything from cows in pajamas to funerals and romance, and I'm planning to buy the series to watch over and over again.

Significant Dates

2008-06-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

2008 features a host of new releases from some of my favorite series and authors (all of which I've reviewed earlier on my blog). Here are the upcoming releases I anticipate most:

The Midnight Folk, John Masefield (NYR Children's Collection): After being enchanted by Masefield's The Box of Delights during advent this year, I was both thrilled to hear tale of a prequel and distraught to find it out of print. Luckily for me, the industrious drones at the NYRCC are featuring it as one of their beautiful new editions. The fact that it's being released on my birthday is akin to adding vanilla ice cream to cherry pie. Release date: 9/30

Uncle Cleans Up, J.P. Martin (NYR Children's Collection): My adoration of J.P. Martin is comparable to Masefield, and again the NYRCC saves the day by providing me with a second farcical collection of stories about Uncle the benevolent millionaire elephant. Release date: 6/24

Superior Saturday, Garth Nix: This is volume six in the Keys to the Kingdom series by Nix, a captivating fantasy series aimed at preteens. It's coming out on the eve of my baby's due date. Will I have time to read it if baby is running late, or will I be too overwhelmed to read it if baby is born early? Either way I'm sure I'll manage to order it for my eventual enjoyment. Release date: 8/1

The Pirates! In An Adventure with Napoleon, Gideon Defoe: Defoe's fourth book about a zany collective of pirates and their ludicrous adventures with historical and fictional characters promises to be just as funny as the other books. A snippet of Napoleon is available on his comical website. Release date: It is already out in the UK but not yet in the US.

To round things up, I'll mention the other series I'm eager to continue. I reviewed the first book of the Percy Jackson and Olympians series by Rick Riordan, but as I continued with volumes two through four of the series, I enjoyed it more and more. Now I'm dangling on cliff's edge as I await Riordan's next offering, and there's no word on when that release will be. Alas! But the kindly Mr. Riordan has provided a list of recommended young adult lit for greedy, impatient readers like myself on his website.

A Snail with Character and Two Dull Young Men

2008-06-17T18:40:00.000-07:00

I probably post more quotes from Wodehouse novels on my site than from any other author, but I find them endlessly amusing. In this case, the excerpt comes from the excellent Sam the Sudden, one of my new favorites. Wodehouse has a gift for metaphor, as I've mentioned before, and he also attributes hilariously introspective personality traits to animals and inanimate objects. In this case, I offer you a simile about a dog named Amy, followed by possibly the most ever written about a snail in Western literature:

"Like Niobe, she [Amy the dog] had mourned and would not be comforted. But now, to judge from her manner and a certain jauntiness in her walk, she had completely resigned herself to the life of exile."

"By nature sociable, she [Amy the dog] yearned for company, and for some minutes roamed the garden in quest of it. She found a snail under a laurel bush, but snails are reserved creatures, self-centered and occupied with their own affairs, and this one cut Amy dead, retreating into its shell with a frigid aloofness which made anything in the nature of camaraderie out of the question."

Another of Wodehouse's gifts is in conveying a character's manner of speech secondhand. In this case, the omniscient narrator describes the comments of two "rabbit-faced" young men at a dinner party.

"'I gave her a plot for a story,' said Sam.

One of the rabbit-faced young men said that he could never understand how fellows--or women, for that matter--thought up ideas for stories--or plays, for the matter of that--or, as a matter of fact, any sort of ideas, for that matter.

'This,' Sam explained, 'was something that actually happened--to a friend of mine.'

The other rabbit-faced young man said that something extremely rummy had once happened to a pal of his. He had forgotten what it was, but it had struck him at the time as distinctly rummy."

Morning Walks

2008-06-05T10:27:00.000-07:00

Ever since moving into our new neighborhood, Ickie and I have taken a 2+ mile loop nearly every morning--I walk it and he runs it. Here are some of the things I've enjoyed on my morning waddle.

yammering swans on the Presumpscot River
the aroma of greasy Mexican food from the Fajita Grill
a blood-red cardinal
Saccarappa Falls by the old Dana Warp Mill
huge blooming bushes of forsythia, rhododendron, and lilac
a sleek black kitten with bright jade-green eyes
the towering stone of St. Hyacinth's Catholic Church
a white-spotted chipmunk
dome-covered desserts on the counter of Olivia's diner
toddlers hassling the seagulls hassling the ducks in the park
aimless teens hanging out on the railroad bridge
a house that smells like sauerkraut
little league baseball games on Saturday mornings
neighborly pedestrians who make room on the path for the pregnant woman
the hot dog cart next to the playground, crowded with children

Update (06/15/08): The other morning I saw a man riding down Main Street on one of these. Sadly, he was not arrayed in period costume and handlebar mustache to match. He just looked like he was riding to work, which actually made it all the more curious.

Don't Judge Him by His Nickname or His Scales

2008-05-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

I'm a chapter away from completing Poo-poo and the Dragons by C.S. Forester (author of the Horatio Hornblower series). It's a charming book of stories Forester made up for his son, who refused to eat when his mother went out of town. Forester made an arrangement with his child that as long as the boy ate, Forester would continue with the stories, and he reported being shocked by the amount his child could put away.

It's not at all surprising that the little boy was willing to stuff his face for hours simply to hear these stories. They're told with wry humor, inserting dragons into the everyday life of a typical family and treating every outrageous situation as anything but extraordinary. When Horatio, the male dragon, goes to work at the local grocery to make up for swiping watermelons or accompanies young Harold (nicknamed Poo-poo) to school, it's treated as only slightly unusual. When Ermyntrude, the female dragon, enters into a beauty salon for a makeover, the owner welcomes her, simply pausing to ensure the dragon has enough pocket money to pay for services.

This is definitely a book aimed at elementary school-aged children--its language is far simpler than a young adult series--but I'd imagine any child would enjoy it, and any adult would enjoy reading it to her child. Forester constantly interjects little parenthetical asides in the narrative, quizzing young readers about characters' names and traits. The chapters are episodic and the perfect length for bedtime stories to boot. The only disadvantage? The book is out of print. Ickie had to special order it for me through the college library. It's a shame because I can think of many little ones for whom it would make an ideal Christmas gift.

Not Told in the Style of Dr. Cornelius

2008-05-17T04:56:00.000-07:00

I went to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when it came out in the theater. My boss convinced me that Georgie Henley as Lucy and James McAvoy as Mr. Tumnus had such excellent chemistry it made the other shortfalls of the movie worthwhile, and I must agree that their bewitching teatime scene together was the best part of the film. Also, Tilda Swinton was pretty convincing as the White Witch. However, I won't be seeing Prince Caspian (probably not even on video). To me the trailers look pretty poor, and this review sums up my worst fears. In typical Hollywood fashion the movie makers appear to have turned it into a superficial action fest, and I saw a clip of Reepicheep, who looks nothing like Reepicheep ought to look. Blurg.

Sometimes I wonder if Hollywood producers/directors/writers can even read a book and determine on their own what makes it great, or if they are utterly devoid of this ability.

Update (5/29/08): Jackamo was roped into seeing this cinematic atrocity over the weekend and reports it is even less like the book than I originally suspected. Apparently, it only vaguely resembles the book in that it has a character named Prince Caspian (albeit played by what appears to be a male model in his mid 20s); otherwise it was completely rewritten as one long battle scene. AAARG. I'm going to have to start writing hate letters to the Disney Corporation. I knew when they got the rights to this series they'd screw it up royally. Insipid troglodytes!

Tagged

2008-05-16T07:16:00.000-07:00

Jen tagged me to write a meme. Word games = hard to resist. I could spend weeks on this and obsess over it, but I'm going to make it easy on myself and put forth the first sentence that comes to mind. I'm stealing two adjectives from my husband (who said years ago that the best two terms to describe me are "impish and vivacious") and the noun "bookworm" from Jen, who was kind enough to describe me as such.

Impish, vivacious, wandering bookworm adores pie.

Just for laughs, here's a photo of me in my pjs celebrating last summer's fresh, tart cherry pie.

Meme rules:
1) Write your own six-word memoir about yourself.
2) Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you'd like.
3) Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible, so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4) Tag five more blogs with links.
5) And don't forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

I'm not fond of "tagging" or forwarding emails to people when I'm told to do so (that's my impish disrespect for authority coming through), but if you read the meme rules and want to play, I look forward to reading yours.

Goodbye, Fraggle Green Carpet!

2008-05-09T08:01:00.000-07:00

Several folks have asked for some before and after photos of our new house. Here are the rooms we've worked on thus far, plus some spring garden shots.

My Sister's Wedding

2008-05-09T04:40:00.000-07:00

My sister got married on May 1, and I was fortunate to be there for the wedding. It was a small but lovely ceremony...with bagpipes of course! (Little Sis and I have created a family tradition of having at least one man in a kilt at our weddings.) Here are a few photos.

Modern Greek

2008-05-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

It feels like an eternity since I've written about a book. What with renovating, moving, traveling, and then coming back to more unpacking and renovating, I haven't been reading as often as I'd like. Plus, now that I'm in my third trimester, I find afternoon naps are once again a necessity (as they were in the first trimester).

With all of that in mind, there is a book I finished last week that was a good deal of fun. It's another young adult novel called The Lightning Thief. Penned by Rick Riordan, it's the first book in the series entitled "Percy Jackson and the Olympians." Though not a work of art (it's no Octavian Nothing), it combines a creative premise with a beguiling, quick-paced plot. Percy, a preteen who can't seem to fit in, discovers he is a classical hero in the truest sense: his father is an ancient Greek god. After entering a summer camp for half-blood children, Percy discovers how the gods have moved West with progress, leaving illegitimate and gifted progeny in their wake. Percy soon embarks on a quest with two friends.

I'm wondering if modernization of Greek myths is the latest trend because Lightning Thief portrays the gods tongue-in-cheek similar to The Pig Scrolls, which I also read this year. Considering the nonsense and soapy melodrama rampant in classical mythology, there's endless potential for snarky, modern adaptations.

Another Shower Photo

2008-05-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

Jackamo sent me more baby shower photos, so I thought I'd post one more especially good one here.

Friends from Far Away and Long Ago

2008-05-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

This week I was in Pensacola for my sister's wedding and received a surprise baby shower the day after the wedding. Jackamo, in a rush of concern that I wouldn't be given a baby shower as a result of a fairly recent relocation, spent months collecting letters and gift cards from friends Ickie and I have made in our various jaunts across country and globe. As a result, I sat down to read dozens of notes from friends spread hither and yon, and I must say that all of you make Ickie and I look so much better by association. As I was grinning sappily in my airline seat yesterday, I had the thought: "If I were to crash and burn right now, I'd go down feeling utterly loved." We are beyond fortunate to have you in our lives and hardly feel worthy of your generosity.

HR and KH, friends since grade school, also attended the teatime soiree and asked if they would "make the blog." Here are photos of us all!

In Common

2008-04-17T04:48:00.000-07:00

The New York Times recently ran an amusing article about reading and dating. The funniest bit to me was mention of a woman who broke up with a guy "because he was very keen on Ayn Rand." I feel that.