The Dead Play On by Heather Graham

The Dead Play On is my first Heather Graham. I've always meant to try her, as my mom always loved her books, back when she wrote historical. I never got around to it (you know how that is, right?) until Katherine mentioned this one in one of her posts. I decided that my love of books set in New Orleans and my desire to try something new (new author, new genre- romantic suspense) was good enough reason.

Here's the summary.

Play a song for me… 

Musicians are being murdered in New Orleans. But Arnie Watson apparently died by his own hand. When Tyler Anderson plays the saxophone he inherited from Arnie, a soldier and musician who died soon after his return, he believes he sees visions of his friend's life—and death. He becomes convinced Arnie was murdered and that the instrument had something to do with whatever happened, and with whatever's happening all over the city… 

Tyler knows his theory sounds crazy to the police, so he approaches Danni Cafferty, hoping she and Michael Quinn will find out what the cops couldn't. Or wouldn't. After all, Cafferty and Quinn have become famous for solving unusual crimes. 

They're partners in their personal lives, too. Quinn's a private investigator and Danni works with him. When they look into the case, they discover a secret lover of Arnie's and a history of jealousies and old hatreds that leads them back to the band Arnie once played with—and Tyler plays with now. 

They discover that sometimes, for some people, the line between passion and obsession is hard to draw. Only in uncovering the truth can they hope to save others—and themselves—from the deadly hands of a killer.

So was it worth the wait? Well, yes and no. While I very much enjoyed the plot, I have to say the writing did very little for me and I knew who-done-it well before 50%. Let's start with the writing. Graham is one of those writers (I say, based on my sample of one) who writes a sentence for every single action. He said. She said. She turned. He sat.  Longer sentences, but it was kind of like reading a play, and I hate to read plays.  Then, there are about 642 characters. I understand this, we have to hide the killer's identity as long as possible, but when all of them are doing step by step things, it gets tiring.

I also did not find the romance to be very believable. I liked Quinn and Danni well enough individually, but I didn't see any heat between them, despite their amazing ability to have sex on zero hours sleep. Every time they stepped into the bedroom one of them made an incredibly lame come on and suddenly all tiredness and stress was forgotten. I'd like to believe that I missed something by not starting at the beginning of the series, but their relationship should only be getting stronger.

I also wished there was a bit more of the paranormal aspect that is hinted at all the way through the book, but in reality, there was absolutely nothing paranormal about it at all. And there were so many loose ends- the cafe owner? Sharon? All that said, I did very much enjoy the New Orleans/ Bourbon Street setting and really wish I liked it enough to go back for more.

On Sunset Beach by Mariah Stewart

My recent disappointment with Susan Mallery's Fool's Gold series has led me to try to find other small town romances to fill that gap. I've been aware of Mariah Stewart for years, but never took the time to try one out. These two things combined to have me request On Sunset Beach from NetGalley.

Here's the summary:
From New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart comes a captivating and heartwarming new novel in her beloved Chesapeake Diaries contemporary romance series—perfect for fans of Barbara Freethy, Robyn Carr, and Susan Mallery.
Carly Summit’s name couldn’t be more fitting, since in life she always lands on top. She grew up wealthy and privileged in a tony Connecticut town, opened her own gallery in New York City, and is about to make art world history displaying previously unknown works by a prominent twentieth-century painter. No wonder she possesses a can-do attitude that can’t be soured. Ford Sinclair is another story. A military career in war-torn Africa, where he witnessed unspeakable violence and suffering, has left him haunted and deeply cynical. Now he’s looking for a way to forget and a place to belong. He hopes to find both back home in St. Dennis.

When Carly is forced to move the premiere of her new exhibition from Manhattan to St. Dennis, and Ford agrees to take charge of the town’s only newspaper, the two cross paths. But it’s hardly the start of a beautiful friendship. While Ford can’t ignore her charms, Carly’s unflappable good cheer only confounds him. Yet beneath Ford’s stormy brooding, Carly sees a man worth caring about—even if her warmest ways can’t thaw his frozen heart.

My thoughts:
First of all, I think perhaps "frozen heart" is stretching things a bit far.  Ford is a bit shellshocked from his past, and finds it hard to think about his future in general. He's not sure that he really fits in in St. Dennis any longer but he also can't think ahead to what he does want to do.  When his mother conspires to throw him into her role at the newspaper, he agrees temporarily, only to discover that it's not the terrible hardship he'd imagined. The reader doesn't really see his role in the paper beyond how it applies to Carly, but we do see his dissatisfaction and uneasiness with life lessen as the book progresses. Ford is likeable, even when his war memories intrude.

Carly is a bit harder for me to like. She's very successful, but not afraid to admit that it was her family's money that enabled her to become a success. Sure, mom and dad paid for the first art gallery, but now she's successful both professionally and financially in her own right. However, in the first half of the book there are quite a few examples of her wealth that just felt like showing off to me. This doesn't continue through the book, and I came to admire her ability to go with the flow of the art exhibit in St Dennis, even when it disrupts her plans. At times she's a bit too good to be true, and every thing falls into place a bit too neatly for her. She works hard, but she's able to overcome any short deadline or change of plans with grace.

The romance itself is steady. It's not overnight and neither do either of them deny the attraction. I admit I found Ford a bit smarmy in their inital meeting, but that element dropped off quickly. It isn't perhaps the most swoonworthy of romance novels out there, but it does make me interested in the remainder of the series and I'll certainly be picking up another to see if it fills the hole left by Fool's Gold.

The perfect purple tweed purse for fall (and pattern review)

Recently, I experienced wardrobe malfunction when one of the straps ripped off my the cute purse I'd been using. (Yes, I use wardrobe malfunction in the loosest sense.)  The bag was cute, summery, striped, and $.50 at a yard sale, so I wasn't totally heartbroken.   I temporarily swapped over to this yellow bag that I made a few years ago, but it wasn't really doing it for me. It was too summery and the crossbody handbag style wasn't what I wanted.  I've pinned a few bag patterns lately, and knew I had plenty of fabric in the stash if I found the perfect one.  For me, the perfect purse has one exterior pocket sized to hold my phone and keys, and is big enough to hold a fair amount of stuff, while not being monstrously heavy all on it's own.

I ran across the pattern for Charlie's Aunt's Poachers Bag in the Pink Chalk Studio newsletter and thought that was a terrific candidate.  The pattern is sent as a .pdf so it's instant gratification when you order it.  You print it out and then for the few pieces that are too big for one sheet of paper you tape (or staple) them together. I printed, cut them out, and read over my instructions. There were a lot of pieces, but it seemed pretty straight forward. On Saturday I got to cutting fabric, and had the whole bag together by 2:30! I have had this purple tweed in my stash for well over a year. (And after this bag, I have a couple yards of it left!) I'm pretty sure it originated at the thrift store or a yard sale. I lined it with some light colored fabric with large scale flowers and birds on it.

This is a remarkably well written pattern. I've done a handful of .pdf patterns now, and almost always there is a portion of the instructions that repeat themselves or just don't make sense, and I didn't run into that at all with this one.  She has you make your own interfacing with quilt batting, which was new to me, but worked beautifully. The bag has a good amount of structure without being stiff. You have the option of making a fabric strap or attaching a recycled strap from another bag, and I choose the latter. It has one gathered pocket on the exterior and one simple pocket on the inside, and it fastens with a magnetic snap. My only real criticism is that it has you do your last row of top stitching 3/4" from the top edge of the bag, which I didn't really like once it was done. I think it makes the lining look puffy in a way that closer top stitching doesn't. It is possible that I will unpick this row and redo it.

Overall, a great pattern and a terrific bag. I love how professional the front looks, and that it wasn't at all confusing or hard to do.

Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach

I have kept a book list for nearly 20 years now.  I started it in January of 1993 and have kept it up ever since. (In reality, I started it in 1992, but for whatever reason when I decided it was a "real" thing I tossed those random months that didn't go back to January. Argh.) I thought this was impressive, my list of 40, or 60 or 80 books a year. (My annual reading tops out at 116 books in 1999.)  Jenny Rosenstrach has me beat though. She has a list of every dinner she's eaten for the last 14 years. Sure, it's not as many years, but it's every day! Every one of them!  I can only aspire to such things.

Even without my awe at the Dinner Journal, Dinner: A Love Story: It all begins at the family table is a terrific book. It's one of those mixes of memoir, how-to, self-help and cookbooks that come together in a terrific book. (I had a similar reaction to A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table (my review) and The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time (my review)). Rosenstrach's goal is to get the reader to see that making dinner for a family doesn't have to be a painful, heavy obligation. You can learn to love having dinner without being a terrific chef or a stay at home Martha Stewart.  There's no guilt to not eating together every night, if little kids need to eat an early dinner, so be it. Once they learn a few manners, everyone can sit together. Mostly. In either case, dinner should be pleasant, and not a chore. The book is full of pictures from the author's actual life, of both the food and her family. Its a nice book, full of text, but not heavy and preachy about what you should and shouldn't been feeding your kids. I completely enjoyed it.

As I was reading Dinner: A Love Story, I marked a few recipes to try later. Imagine my surprise when I went back to count and discovered that I had marked FOURTEEN of them!  I tried a few of the ideas from the book early on, with some huge substitutions, but last week was finally the week to try actual recipes. I choose four from the book for my weekly menu (links go to the recipes on her blog):

Chicken with Bacon-y Brussels Sprouts on page 156- Mike and I liked it, the kids were unimpressed. As usual with Brussels Sprouts.

Great- Grandma Turano's Meatballs on page 194.  We didn't love the sauce, it was sweeter than we are used to, but the meatballs were terrific and there were no leftovers.

Grandma Jody's Chicken from page 11. I made these with a little oven baked bacon and we had them as sandwiches. These were excellent. Also, we used crushed corn chex cereal for the breading because that's all I had and it seemed close enough to Corn Flakes.

And last, and best, Pork Shoulder Ragu with Pappardelle on page 179. Except we had ours with linguine noodles, cause our grocery stores don't sell pappardelle. This was knock your socks off terrific, and I copied it into my dinner journal (you had to know I'd start one) to make again. This one made the house smell better than I can every remember it smelling. Ever.  She suggests this one for low key adult dinner parties, and I can easily see that.

I have a few more marked in the book to try before I take it back to the library (or maybe I'll just use these handy links):

Chicken Curry with Apples
Pomegranate Pork Loin with Cabbage
Yogurt Marinated Grilled Chicken
Mustardy Pork Chops with Apples and Onions


Huh. Looks like my menu for this week is already planned. Good thing my family like apples!

In short, terrific cookbook, and even if I didn't like the food, worth it to read for the writing between the recipes.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, beer, wine, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. More information at the welcome post.

The Fire Flower Dress and pattern review

Look! Sewing! I finished up the Fire Flower dress a couple weeks ago, but it took forever to get any decent pictures of it. This weekend we went to an Easter party and I was able to get it in action.

First, some pictures, and then my review of the pattern.














The pattern that I bought is the Owly Baby Wrap Dress. I bought it at Pink Chalk Fabrics and downloaded it as a PDF. All of my interactions with Pink Chalk Fabrics have been good and I loved the look of this dress so I paid the $10 for the pattern, even though it was a huge splurge given all the free tutorials online.

The pattern offers several variations, the wrap dress as I made it, one with a button closure instead of ties, and one fully reversible one. 

First, the good: The finished dress is adorable. The bias tape finishing wasn't at all hard and looks very professional (shown in the last picture). The option top stitching at the waist makes it look terrific. I got a ton of compliments on the dress at the Easter party we attended. This is by far the best clothing sewing I've done and I'm pleased with it.

And now, the bad: The pattern itself was not so good. You print out about 16 pages and cut a 1" border off all of them, and tape them together. Then you cut out the size you need. This wastes a TON of paper, since it's sized from newborn to 5T. I really wish it was newborn to 2T, and then 3T to 5T on another set of pages. This was my first indication that it wasn't going to be the best pattern. I did all this and cut my fabric out and was ready to go. I choose the 18 month size as the Princess is now 19 months, but on the smallish side. The width is a little wide, which is fine, she is a slight girl, but it's also fairly short. On a toddler it's still adorably cute, but if I were making it for a taller or older child it might be too short.

The pattern had you jump around a bit from one style to the next, but this was ok as many patterns do such a thing. However, there are also places where it says, "please note that in the picture for step 7 I've already completed step 8, you can do that too if you want, and it will make this other thing easier!" (Paraphrased, obv.) Well, why not just swap those in the pattern? Steps 2 and 3 are identical. Literally. A proofreader might be a good idea. Near the end of the pattern she suggests an alternate style of hemming, but rather than explaining the technique, she directs you to google. And yes,  I can do that, but I just paid $10 for the pattern, not to look it up on my own. And lastly, there is absolutely NO mention of finishing the inside seams. NONE. Not even a "look it up on google!" I used my serger to do it, but if I hadn't there would be a lot of exposed seams on the inside and my dress would have fallen apart the first time I washed it.

In the end I was happy with my finished dress, which makes my complaints seem silly, but I think it would be a disservice to not mention them. As I was making the actual dress I was pretty annoyed at having spent money on such a poorly written pattern, but the dress is pretty cute and it's possible that I'll make it again with some slight changes.

Holly's Inbox by Holly Denham

I won a copy of Holly's Inbox from a giveaway on another blog. I had seen a nice review at Bookfoolery and Babble and I was excited to get this one. I actually started it pretty soon after receiving my copy. I read to about halfway, at which point the book was inadvertently spoiled for me at another blog. It took me a long time to pick it back up but eventually I did and was fairly happy with the outcome.

Holly's Inbox is essentially a chicklit book told in email format. It's a big chunk of a book and looks a lot more intimidating than it actually is. Holly is a receptionist at a large financial institution and the book is pretty much everything about her job, love life, and family over the course of couple months. Being chicklit, a large portion of the book is about her love life which is fine with me. I like a little romance in my books, if you haven't noticed. The setup is really slow with a lot of new elements added in during the last small section, which felt rushed and like a total setup for the sequel. (If you'll recall, I disliked that about Twilight, too.) Pacing was off, but I suppose part of that could be attributed to the format.

The one thing that I really disliked about the book is that the author's pen name is Holly Denham, as is the main character. There is a letter to the reader at the beginning that is "from" Holly Denham, and pretends that this is a true story. My understanding is that it is not. This bothers me. A lot. It reminds me of when The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks came out and everyone believed it was a true story only to find it was fiction and would be shelved as such. Unlike James Frey's A Million Little Pieces which was billed as memoir and turned out to be not so true, but is still not shelved as fiction. In any case, I didn't like it.

Have you read Holly's Inbox? Did you dislike the same things I did? How do you feel about the author writing as the character, including on the title page? When the sequel comes out do you plan to read it too? Have you read any other great books in email form? I'm pretty sure the only other one I've read is Meg Cabot's Every Boy's Got One (My review is here.)

Holly's Inbox by Holly Denham
Sourcebooks Casablanca
2009
665 pages

On reviewing books (TSS)

Do you have a harder time writing reviews of non-fiction than of fiction books? I'm sitting here next to a small stack of three books that are waiting for a review. One of them is fiction and two are non-fiction. Despite having loved one of them and recommended it to everyone I know, I still haven't sat down to review it. It's been months now and the details are getting fuzzy so every day that passes the review gets worse and worse.

Reviewing fiction seems so much easier, because I don't have to get "real" facts right. I can talk about the plot and how I felt about the characters and if I thought it all worked. I don't have to worry about being accurate. The only real worry is spoilers which are pretty easy to avoid, if it isn't a book in a series. Series book present their own challenges, in how to write a nice review but not give away details of previous books. Somehow, I muddle through on those.

Recently I've read a couple of blog posts by popular authors that talk about if blog reviews are real reviews. (The posts also address non-blog reviews, but I don't read many of those so I am not.) In this post by author Shannon Hale, she addresses the issue of "is 'did I like it?' a real review?" Many bloggers (according to her) post reviews that consist of if they liked it, and then have a rating. This is certainly how *I* review books. Does that make it less of a review? Does it have less value if I don't talk about things like technique and motivation? Does applying a rating to the book make the review less legit? Hale asks some great discussion questions at the end of her post, and you really should pop over there and join that discussion as well.

The other post, which directly refers to Hale's, is on John Green's blog. He asks if there are any reviews that you just got wrong. Where you didn't understand the book, but didn't clearly see that the problem was you and not the book. His example was about technology and age, which is a great example. I've been thinking about my own reviews and can't think of an obvious example of one of my own. After looking over my list of reviews, I've come to decide that this is because my reviews tend to be pretty safe. I don't review a lot of things that I dislike because I don't finish books that don't work for me. There are a few that I wish I'd done a better job of linking up to author sites or other reviews of my own, but I'm too lazy to go back and do it. So what about you, are there any reviews that you'd like to do over? Do you ever want to change a rating, if you give ratings?

Another reason that reviews are hard to write, is that I find I get fewer comments on my book reviews than on any other of my posts. I know that comments aren't everything, but it does feel good to get a little feedback on what you write, ya know? I don't know, but I do think that it makes a difference on how much effort I want to put into them. What type of posts do you get the most comments on?

Quick reminder: If you want to enter my TBR day contest you have one more day to do so! I'll accept entries until midnight tomorrow (oh, ok, until I wake up the morning of the 1st.) Head over to this post to enter.

A bloggy resolution

Lately there has been some talk around the blogosphere about blog reviews being worse than paper reviews (will that controversy ever die?), especially those of the blogspot variety. In another paper review, women's writing, and by association women readers, are brushed off as pretty insignificant- eaters of tea and cucumber sandwiches. I'll save you the discussion on this, you can find them all over the web, but it does make me think about my own reading and blogging. (Not that the discussions are bad, just that I don't have anything new to add. Here's a nice one from Caribousmom, and one at another at minds alive on the shelves, and chris at book-a-rama talks a bit about it.)

I've become a bit unenthused at my own reviews. If I were reading myself on a Reader I'd never click through (for the reviews, for the stunningly cute boys, yes, yes I would!) I've been reading a lot of easy books lately, Evanovich, and Jim Butcher and the like. I've got a good excuse, I think, with two small children and a full time job it's hard to focus. But I'm not so happy about it. I've decided to step it up a little and stop skipping the hard stuff. I'm not swearing off on the easy stuff by any means, but the occasional non-fiction or literary fiction or classic wouldn't kill me. I'm also on the lookout for a nice set of guidelines for questions. Something generic to every book- I know there is a blogger who I read all the time, one who reads tons of books, who uses such a thing, but do you think I can remember who it is? Help me out here, someone who can remember needs to give me a link. And if it's you, I'm sorry, I think you're great. I just can't remember who you are!

However, this doesn't mean that I agree with the columnist. I think bloggers do a much better job of spreading a love of books than an paper review ever did. I think there is a niche for every type of book blogger, whereas you never see romances (for example) reviewed in mainstream print. I think that women's fiction is some of the best writing out there. Anyone can do war, I'd like a little emotion with my books, please. (Wait, was that a stereotype? Should I take it out?)

Anyway, my point, as I struggle to make it, is that on MY blog, the standards have slipped and I'm gonna fix it. EVERYONE ELSE'S bog though, still great. I'd rather read a hundred of them than a handful of print. I'd rather be friends with the writer, and I feel like I'm friends with many of you. I'd rather be able to respond, and get a response. I love being able to compile notes on the same book. I've added way more books to my TBR from the blogging world than I ever did from my NY Times book review subscription.

Oh, and today for lunch I had cucumber sandwiches. Cream cheese, cucumbers, and ham. It didn't seem to affect my intelligence AT ALL.

.

2008 Wrap Up

What? The year's not over yet? As fast as time flies lately I am surprised to hear that. A few days ago the lovely Janssen posted her half-year mini review wrap up, and since it was such a great idea, I'm stealing it.

As of the end of June I have read 24 books. Here they are with links to my reviews, and with a very brief comment as to what I remember about them.

Books read in 2008:

1. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer- Good, but not worth all the hype. But don't say that on your blog our you'll get some nasty comments.
   
2. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger- How on earth does a person write this without being incredibly confused all the time. Excellent book.
   
3. 50 Greatest Love Letters of All Time edited by someone whose name I never went back for. Duh. Forgettable for a book I wanted forever.
   
4. Austenland by Shannon Hale. Sweet little tribute to Pride and Prejudice.
   
5. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. Vote Obama in 2008!
   
6. Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume, Jennifer O’Connell, editor. Reminded me that I didn't really read that much Judy Blume.
   
7. Sex and Sensibility, Genevieve Fields, editor. Reminded me that I didn't have much of a single life.
   
8. Storm Front by Jim Butcher. Book 1 of Harry Dresden. I wasn't quite sold on it yet, he's kinda annoying.
   
9. Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs. AWESOME. Best new series I'm reading.
   
10. In the Midnight Rain by Ruth Wind. Revisiting an old favorite- romance and blues, what more could a girl want?
    
11. Moneyball by Michael Lewis. A really interesting book about baseball. I am tempted to read his book Liar's Poker about Wall Street.
    
12. Fool Moon by Jim Butcher. Dresden book 2, I'm starting to like this wizard.
    
13. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. Two friends grow up to swap places in the world.
    
14. Grave Peril by Jim Butcher. Dresden book 3.
    
15. The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke. My first Burke and a eye opening fictional account of New Orleans during and after Katrina.
    
16. Dedication by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. High school boyfriend grows up to be a big rock star and write songs about you. Great until the end. I had such hopes.
    
17. Candy Girl by Diablo Cody. Average girl becomes a stripper for a year.
    
18. Bonk by Mary Roach. What WON'T they study about sex?
    
19. Grave Surprise by Charlaine Harris. Book 2 in a series, girl sees dead people. Wonder if Harris watched The Sixth Sense when she made this one up?
    
20. Toddler edited by Jennifer Margulis. My life in book form.
    
21. 1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose. Non-fiction account of life after Katrina. Horrifying and depressing and something everyone should read a little bit of.
    
22. Summer Knight by Jim Butcher. Book 4 of Dresden and I jumped right into book 5.
    
23. Helping Me Help Myself by Beth Lisick. Do self-help books really work? It would appear not.
    
24. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Best book I've read yet in 2008, I think. The writing is spectacular. Review to come!

So there you have it, a half year in review. What have you read so far? Have we read any of the same books so that I need to go read your review?

Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl

Two reviews in two days? Will wonders never cease??

Two notes first- the H on my laptop is sticking. This means I often leave it out of words. If you can't figure out what I'm saying, try adding an H. Does it help? No? Then it's probably just me. Second, I just poured a cup of coffee all over myself, the chair and the laptop. No, I had no good reason. There was no child, no pet, no surprise, no noise. I wasn't trying to click on anything, I wasn't reaching for something, I just picked it up and poured it all over. The laptop seems to have survived. The chair I'm not so sure about.

And now, on to our featured presentation!

As we were getting ready to leave for our four day Thanksgiving retreat, I was picking out which books to read. Sure, I wasn't gonna read ALL of them, but a girl needs choices! So I hopped over to paperbackswap to see which books in my TBR had waiting lists. Might as well read books I can quickly trade for a credit, right? I made a huge list. Seriously. Like 30 books. That might be too many for a four day family filled vacation. I narrowed the list down to Lisa Kleypas' newest, The Time Traveler's Wife, and Garlic and Sapphires. Since it was Thanksgiving, I started with Garlic and Sapphires, the overabundance of food in both was too much to ignore.

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl is a memoir of her days reviewing restaurants for the New York Times. On her first flight to New York she discovers that all the restaurants have descriptions of her and are waiting for her to show up, so she decides to get creative and disguise herself. The book is pretty much what you'd expect from that description- stories of the disguises, the personalities of each, the experiences of each and how it changed her reviews. She goes to a lot of restaurants I'll never go to, eats a LOT of food I'll NEVER eat, and remembers it all in very fine detail.

I don't know if it's the food itself that enthralled me, because honestly I have no desire to eat most of it, but I really really enjoyed this book. The different reactions she got from the same restaurants when she went as her characters vs. herself was amazing. The special treatment money could buy was eye opening. There are recipes spread throughout the book. I did not read them all (so not gonna cook mussels in the middle of South Dakota!) but some of them looked quite tasty. I don't know if this will make my top five for the year, but it was surprisingly good and I'd recommend it to anyone who loves to eat.

Thursday Thirteen #25

Once again, I frantically trying to catch up. I have bookmarked roughly 837 blog posts that I want to mention here, I want to talk about what I'm reading, I have a monkey story to relate... SO you're getting it in a freeform sort of Thursday Thirteen. It's kinda cheating, I know, but it's my blog I can do what I want!

1. I just saw this post over at Elle Fredrix's blog. Freaky cool, huh? They move very slowly for me.


2. Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Dragon posted the BEST review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that I have seen yet. Very insightful. (Note: there are spoilers in the review, bookmark it and come back if you haven't finished yet.)


3. Etsy Love! A journey of 1000 stitches had the brilliant idea to post about etsy and collect some links into Mr. Linky. Go check it out. My own etsy shop (still tiny!) is listed there as well.


4. This review of The Time Traveler's Wife (again at Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Dragon) makes me want to move it up my list- fast! I own the book, what am I waiting for? (oh yeah, all those OTHER books I own...)


5. Erin at The Paperback Stash nominated me for the Rockin' Girl Blogger award. I LOVE that picture at the top of her blog, no, not that one, the one on the right.

1. Trish nominated me too! Does this one cancel out the other? Thanks ladies.


2. Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Dragon (can you tell I just discovered this blog? and that I love it?) posted the Best. Ever. Story about used book shopping. Go read it.


3. I am reading The Storyteller's Daughter by Saira Shah. It is about Afghanistan, and I had hoped it to be an enlightening follow up to A Thousand Splendid Suns. It's a memoir, and so far I'm finding it to be much less serious that I had hoped. The author is clearly enchanted with Afghanistan, and it is coloring her writing. This is good for most memoirs, but not really what I'd hoped for this one.


4. I am also reading Glass Houses by Rachel Caine. This is the author of the Weather Warden series, which I love. (Ok, I've only read the first one. I love it though!) I've read about half of Glass Houses, and the jury is still out. It is only just now getting interesting. Fortunately, it is also short.


5. We are going camping for real this weekend. Like, in a tent and everything. I can't wait to see what the Monkey thinks.


6. And speaking of His Monkeyness- yesterday he told me he wanted to wear a specific shirt. I said, "this one? the one with the Brontosaurus on it?" and he said, " No Mommy! APATOSAURUS." Gee thanks kid. Correcting me ALREADY??? and he's not even 2 1/2 yet!


7. Dewey created a blog where we can discuss Harry Potter with full spoilers. Go check it out.


8. There is a necklace on Etsy that I really really want. Like really. Badly. WANT. I visit it every day to make sure it is still there. Because I want it. A lot. Only now I am nervous about posting the link, cause what if you want it too?? So just imagine it, k?

(for whatever reason, blogger doesn't want me to put that picture there without renumbering my list. 5+8=13)

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

The Westing Game was my first Newbery Challenge book. This book won the prize in 1978 and according to all sources is hugely popular. Perhaps I'm in the wrong demographic (and, of course, I am) but I did not get it. I didn't find it interesting. The mystery was confusing. There were clues, but they didn't really lead to an answer. Perhaps I didn't spend enough time sorting them out and keeping notes, maybe if I had I would have be enthralled and amazed. As it was, I didn't like it. I didn't care who won and I found all the characters annoying. I didn't feel like there was any danger to the character who was in danger. Just eh.

Here's the publisher's summary, if you're still interested:

For over twenty-five years, Ellen Raskin's Newbery Medal-winning The WestingGame
has been an enduring favorite. It has sold over one and a half million copies.
This highly inventive mystery involves sixteen people who are invited to the
reading of Samuel W. Westing's will. They could become millionaires-it all
depends on how they play the tricky and dangerous Westing game, a game involving
blizzards, burglaries, and bombings! Ellen Raskin has created a remarkable cast
of characters in a puzzle-knotted, word-twisting plot filled with humor,
intrigue, and suspense.

NOLADawn gave me an interesting link to this site, where you can see actual manuscript pages. That's more interesting than the book was, I think!

This is my first Newbery Challenge and my second By the Decades Challenge book.

Weekend update, including The Mediator 1: Shadowland by Meg Cabot

Yes. It's True. I finished a book. Granted, it was a fairly short young adult novel, but hey, it counts! I read The Mediator 1: Shadowland by Meg Cabot. This is my 3rd Cabot and I'm really glad it wasn't my first! The plot is interesting, but the writing is pretty bad. The premise is that Suze is a mediator- she sees ghosts and helps them move on. (Shadowland was published in 2000. The Sixth Sense came out in 1999. Hmmm.) Suze has just moved to a new town and hopes for a new start at a new high school (a la Buffy), but wouldn't ya know it? There's a ghost problem. The book has great potential. I liked the characters just fine. My problem is with the violence. Ok, that's not actually correct. I don't mind the actual violence in the book. I dislike Suze's propensity to threaten to punch (or fantasize about punching) anyone who annoys her. It seems childish. This is a young adult novel, but really, it's not needed at all. If this had been my first Meg Cabot I'd probably stop here. I won't be recommending this one to others and I won't be adding the rest to my wishlist. I might one day check them out of the library, but as it is, I have way too many books to read.

As for other reading, I've read another 50 pages or so of The Book Thief and it is still excellent. I haven't read anything with this style of writing in a long long time. It's just beautiful. I'm in no hurry to finish because then it'll be over. I also started Plum Lovin' by Evanovich today and will likely wrap it up tonight. I did not read any of The Inheritance of Loss for the group discussion. Oops.

I've been doing a little crocheting, and frogging and trying again. I want to make a little something for the new baby in my family, but can't get in a groove.

The most exciting thing of the weekend (of the bookish weekend anyway) is that my awesome husband made us this little logo for my Dystopian Challenge. If you looks really close it's the opening of Fahrenheit 451. How cool is that? Now if he'd just tell us what books he's planning to read for the challenge...

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Wow. Just wow. Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books that I've always meant to read and never done (until now.) It's a short little book, only 150 pages or so. In terms of reading time, it was a fast little book, but it took me over a week to read it. I knew before I read it that it would be powerful, I mean, how could it NOT be??

Here's the part of the summary from Amazon.com:

"In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

So much of this book is scarily like today. People don't want to think or read challenging things. *I* don't want to read challenging things. I like my life to be easy and happy. Bradbury takes it to an extreme. Decades of life without books, without philosophy, poetry, fiction. No one just talks. Families aren't in love, parents don't care about kids, school is only about the sciences. Politics are boiled down to soundbytes. Happy ones. There is a war, but it's vague, and no one knows the details because it's not about them. Sound familiar?

Fahrenheit 451 is fast. The action is non-stop. One event leads to the next with no pause for breath. The entire book is a buildup to the climax. I really enjoyed this. I can't believe I never read it before. If you haven't read it, go read it now. (Hmmm. A challenge? Shall we? Let me ponder this...)

Sufficient Grace by Darnell Arnoult

After talking about it for months, I have finally read Sufficient Grace. Here's what it says on the back of the book:

"Set against the backdrop of two neighboring Southern towns, Sufficient Grace is the powerful, affecting story of two families over the course of a year, from one Easter season to the next." "One quiet spring day, Gracie Hollaman hears voices in her head that tell her to get in her car and leave her entire life behind - her home, her husband, her daughter, her very identity. Gracie's subsequent journey releases her genius for painting and effects profound changes in the lives of everyone around her. Ultimately, her quest leads her into the home of Mama Toot and Mattie, two strong, accomplished women going through life changes of their own. As the bonds between these women grow stronger, and the family Gracie left behind come to terms with their own loss, both worlds slowly and inevitably collide, revealing a long-buried secret that they share." Sufficient Grace explores the power of personal transformation and redemption, and the many ordinary and extraordinary ways they come to pass through faith, love, motherhood, art, even food. Even though we sometimes have to leave behind an old identity in order to discover our soul, this poignant, poetic study of the human condition affirms the enduring importance of relationships and the strength we derive from them.

I found this to be a slow book. Slowly paced, nothing urgent about it, just laying out the events in a nice easy way. I didn't feel the need to return to it to see what happened next. This isn't really a bad thing, but does explain why it took me so long to read it. The book takes place over the course of a year, and follows into two storylines- Gracie's and Ed's (her husband). The book description would have you think that something dramatic happens "both worlds slowly and inevitably collide" but I think the important word there is "slowly." The "long-buried secret" wasn't so shocking, I didn't think.

That said, I enjoyed the book. I wanted to know what happened to Gracie, I thought she was well-written, and I loved Toots. Some of the characters seemed pretty one-dimensional (Ginger, Wally, the new doctor at the end). There are a few really moving scenes, my favorite being a scene involving Mattie and her late husband's shoes. Another scene is about Ed and an overabundance of windchimes, and I really liked the symbolism there.

There are some aspects that I need to think about a bit more, and might come back to later for another shot at a review. For example, how did the title come about? I'm sure it's because of the Bible verse in 2 Corinthians 12:

7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

but does this refer to Grace? Ed? Ginger (their daughter?) I can't see how it's about Toots and Mattie. They aren't troubled at all by the appearance of a crazy white woman. I don't think it can refer to Grace, she's not the least upset by her new life, though God does talk to her. So Ed? He's handling it fine. The only character who needs a little strength seems to be Ginger, but the book isn't really about her.

I need to think more about the history of Gracie and Toots, and the little bits of backstory given by Toots. I'm wondering if I'm missing anything there, or if it's really just a way to explain Gracie's mental illness. It's all written very dramatically, hinting that there is more to the story than what is revealed.

The reader's guide at the author's website has the two following questions, which interest me:

-Sister Reba and Gracie both feel "called" to make some of the same decisions.
They both leave their families for a different, nontraditional life, a life with
a focus they believe is defined by something beyond their own desires, even by
God. They both retreat to the woods at times. Can you think of other common
ground shared by Reba and Gracie? Why are these similarities viewed differently
from one character to the other?
-On a larger scale, how do you interpret the issues of faith and fate in the novel? Of miracles and coincidence? Of the
thin gray line between a passionate, inspired calling and bona fide illness?

I definately need to think more about that last question. I didn't make the connection between Sister Reba and Gracie while I was reading the book. During the book, they were clearly different to me, but now, thinking about it, not so much. (Sister Reba is a traveling woman preacher. She left her family and daughter behind to follow God, like Gracie. Reba is not portrayed as crazy at all, just a very religious person.)

Overall, it was a good book, and it certainly has me thinking about it longer than I usually do when I finish a book. I have a feeling that it won't be leaving my head any time soon.

While thinking about this review, I found a blog post that contains some recipes from the book. Here's a link to it.

Official Website for Darnell Arnoult

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron, creator of When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle is the author of I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. This is a short little book of essays on various topics including purses (she doesn't love them), manicures (ditto), New York (loves it), and aging (hates it.) For the most part the essays are funny, and they are light and easy (yes, even the one on death.) I suspect this book is aimed at women a generation older than me, and perhaps would be a bit more meaningful to them. I had similar thoughts about Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking, which I read last summer. It was good, but it wasn't all it was made out to be. Get it from the library, not the bookstore.

This was my 7th book for the New Author Challenge.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

An average of seventy-four species become extinct every day, which was one good reason but not the only one to hold someone's hand, and the next thing that happened was we kissed each other, and I found I knew how, and I felt happy and sad in equal parts, because I knew that I was falling in love, but it wasn't with him.
---From A History of Love, page 202.

For Christmas, my friend Shawna gave me A History of Love by Nicole Krauss. I am embarrassed to admit that it took me this long to read it. I was nervous, she had loved the book so much and I was worried that I wouldn't love it. I was wrong. It's hard to summarize what this book is really about, so here's the text from the back cover:

Fourteen-year-old Alma Singer is trying to find a cure for her mother's loneliness. Believing that she might discover it in an old book her mother is lovingly translating, she sets out in search of it's author. Across New York an old man named Leo Gursky is trying to survive a little bit longer. He spends his days dreaming of the lost love who, sixty years ago in Poland, inspired him to write a book. And although he doesn't know it yet, that book also survived: crossing oceans and generations, and changing lives . . . .

This does not begin to describe the book. It's very good. It's written so well, from the perspective of a half dozen people. The clues to how it will all end are evenly paced and well written. Nothing is given away too soon and nothing is left out. This isn't a light fluffy book, the parts that are the book within the book are completely different in style and tone from the rest of the book. It's so well thought out and written that I wish I had written it. I should not have worried, this book will end up on my personal best of 2007 list.

Every Boy's Got One

Every Boy's Got One is the story of Jane and Cal who are in Italy to witness the elopement of their best friends. Jane is a cartoonist and Cal is a foreign journalist, and they have nothing in common. Dislike is instant, before they even know each other's names. Jane thinks the elopement is incredibly romantic, and Cal thinks love doesn't exist. Due to an unfortunate turn of events (of course) they are thrown together to save the wedding. The plot is predictable, you KNOW how it ends from page one. There aren't really any surprises along the way.

This was a very fast book to read. It's written entirely as email and journal/diary entries between the main characters. It took me about 3 hours to read. I think if it had been any longer that element of the book would have gotten tiresome, but it did make the pages speed by. I liked the story, and loved the setting, but if it weren't for the unusual way it was written I think it would be pretty forgettable. This was my second Meg Cabot and I'll certainly read more of them, but I won't be buying up her backlist just yet.

What I'm Reading Now, and What I'm Not Reading.

I have a ton of books that I feel like I have to read. There are several reasons for this- the book was a gift (Hi, Shawna!) or written by someone I know, or part of a series. As I've mentioned several times, I'm a member at Paperbackswap, and the way it works is that you add your name to the list of people wishing for a particular book. As the books are posted into the system, the first person on the list is offered it and everyone else moves down. You "buy" the books with credits that you earn from posting your own books into the system and mailing them off. It's a fair system, but what it means is- I often read books that aren't the ones I most want to read. For example, if I hear of a Great! Awesome! Wonderful! series, I go add the first few books to my list. The first one comes in, and I feel the need to read it quick, before I get offered the next one. If it sucks, I don't want to waste a credit on the next, see? If the books rocks, then it's safe to leave the rest of the series on the list.

All of this to say, I seem to never get to everything. I still have one of Kim Harrison's books here, a series I know I love, and haven't read it. I have Suffient Grace, sent to me by Sharon last fall and haven't read it. I have The History of Love, given to me by Shawna for Christmas, and only just started it. I have Twilight, which has been mentioned pretty much EVERYWHERE this month, and haven't started it. I have so many books! Which typically isn't a problem, until I want to read them all now!

Today I finished up Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green. This is the second Nightside novel. If you've been reading along you know I was hesitant about reading more of them. This one had a nicely finished plot, but a few other teeny flaws. I am still on the fence about the series. Mike is actually reading the first one (a fiction book not about baseball!) and I'll probably take his lead on the rest of them. I am ambivilant, and with so many books around here there's always something else. They are very quick, easy to read books, so that's a plus. I give this one a 3/5.

I've gotten one more book in the house since my last count (from PBS), bringing me to 13 books in, 7 books read. Holding steady at a 6 book surplus.

Something From the Nightside by Simon R. Green

John Taylor has an extraordinary gift. He can find things, anything. John is from the Nightside, a place where it's always 3 am, and everything is real. Myths are alive in the Nightside, ghosts are real, legends exist. He has been hired to find a runaway and since he's down on his luck, he takes the case.

I love the idea of the book. I like the Nightside. This seems a lot like a man's version of the worlds that Laurell Hamilton, Charlaine Harris and Kim Harrison have created. It's harsher, blunter, less forgiving. I can see myself reading more of them. It was quick and very easy. However, this was the first book in the series, and without spoiling it for the next guy I have to say- he could really do with a better plot idea. It was kinda like he got to the end and then was stumped on how to end it, and threw this crazy idea into the book. It all worked so very well, until that point. I will read the next one (I already have it) but will hold off on ordering more until I see if he has more (or should it be less?) imagination next time. I'd give it a 4, but the ending brings it down. I'll let you know if you should seek them out.