May 2009

A Lion Among Men

2009, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I have a love/hate thing with Gregory Maguire.

Loved Confessions of an Ugly Step Sister
Loved Wicked
Hated Mirror Mirror
Did not love Son of a Witch
Bored by Lost

Based on the above, you might be a little bit surprised that I plucked A Lion Among Men off of the large print shelf. I was a little surprised, myself.

After the horrendous book Son of a Witch turned out to be, why would I want to ruin the memory of Wicked further with what would probably be another horrendous muddle up of The Wicked Years.

Well guess what. A Lion Among Men… fabulous. I did not want to put it down. Loved it. And because I loved it, it was worth it to read the hated Son of a Witch (without it, Lion Among Men would not have made sense.)

Yackle, Nor, The Dwarf – they all come together in The Cowardly Lion’s story. Nice. Very nicely written.

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Lamplighter

2 Comments / 2009, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

Lamplighter is a Cybil. We first got it on audio but after a few minutes gave up on it – we realized that without reading book one, we were completely clueless about what was happening. There are a lot of made up words that make absolutely no sense on audio.

So, I grabbed the first book (Monster Blood Tattoo) and read it awhile back. It was good. Prince J liked it too. TW didn’t read it then, but I grabbed it again and she read it earlier this week.

I knew what was “different” about Rossamund in book one. But TW and Prince J seem unaware.

Book two, Lamplighter… it all comes out. Well not all of it, but there are clues and clues all the way through, leading up to Rossamund (and others) figuring it out. (I’m trying to avoid spoilers here folks – sorry!)

Anyway, the only problem with book two is that book three appears to have not been published yet. And I really want to know what the heck is going to happen NOW.

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Four more Cybils

4 Comments / 2009, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Young Adult /

Of the four Cybils I read yesterday, there was only one that was a yawn. Fabulous Fishes, a nonfiction picture book, was just a wee bit boring – especially when you look at the other books in the category. It’s not a bad book, nice photos, nice rhymes but that’s just not enough in this category. I’m not a Nic Bishop fan but even his Frogs book was better. His photos just rock. I wouldn’t have chosen it to win the category but I do understand why others would have selected it.

Moving into middle grade fiction, I loved Shooting the Moon. Maybe it’s the military brat in me. Or the mom of military brats. But I just loved the book. If pushed, I’d say this was my favorite in that category.

Last, Sweethearts, from the YA fiction category. Another good book. A problem book that is just a little different from other problem books. A teen girl who recreates herself, never feels quite right in her new skin and then has to face the past. Really nicely written without a clear, clean, happy ending.

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I went to California and forgot to Loopt…

Travel Log, Work /

Not really. I Loopt quite a bit of my trip, you just didn’t see my Loopt updates because I’m nuts. During a conversation about online security in the Digital Reality Check group, I decided I should change a bunch of my passwords. So I did. Unfortunately, two of the passwords I changed were my Twitter and Facebook passwords… and then I forgot to tell Loopt that I changed them.

So I was Loopting away and the only people who were seeing those were … TW. And maybe Michelle, but probably not since she got a new phone and I somehow doubt she reinstalled Loopt.

I’ve got good stuff in Loopt so I thought I’d do a mini blog update, showing you the photos from the trip.

This was my first trip to the new and improved (they have a kitchen!) BlogHer offices and besides the kitchen, I was loving Liz Henry’s office decor.

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The Holiday Inn Express, on El Camino Real, is the hotel I always stay in when I go to RW City. I was a wee bit disappointed that I did not get a free bottle of wine on check in (no I don’t drink) but all was forgiven when my morning newspaper was delivered in a cute little reusable smiely bag.








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Good to know that Kinkos in Palo Alto are the same as they are in Gainesville and in Glenview… pretty run-down and dirty.








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Fascinated to learn about Lisa Stone’s obsession with the power stapler. Who knew?








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I spent the day in a cool office with a cool video conferencing hookup. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the view that our NYC staff had. Here’s ours:








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I enjoyed sodas with Jenny and Jenifer and Lisa but as great as that was, it wasn’t nearly as fabulous as having breakfast with Liz at the spot the bad mamas coffee is held… I have always wanted to go to bad mamas coffee.








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I got to fondle Liz’s new book.








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You’re jealous, aren’t you?

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The Little Giant of Aberdeen County

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

When someone from the BlogHer Book Club group mentioned The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, I looked it up on Amazon. The title was appealing and the cover even more so. I didn’t reserve it, just kept it in my head. About a week later, I happened to see it on the large print shelf so I grabbed it.

TW’s mom read it first and didn’t really like it but she said she thought we would like it.

TW read it and enjoyed it but didn’t really talk about it.

I read it and loved it.

I loved all of the characters. I loved the story. Loved the quilt (even though I figured out the quilt thing long before Truly did.)

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The Little Stranger

3 Comments / 2009, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Queer, Women /

I almost didn’t read The Little Stranger. I was going to boycott Sarah Waters’ latest book because I’d heard it didn’t have a lesbian theme or lesbian characters.

Hah.

It may not have had overt lesbian themes or characters but if Caroline wasn’t a lesbian… well, I think she probably was.

The Little Stranger was a good read, ten times better than Affinity. A good bit better than The Night Watch. It’s no Tipping the Velvet or Fingersmith but it’s pretty darn good.

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The London Eye Mystery

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Young Adult /

When I saw The London Eye Mystery on the Cybils list, I knew it would be good but I didn’t expect it to be quite this good. Even after reading the reviews and seeing it win. I just didn’t expect this.

Actually, I didn’t know what to expect.

I had no idea “Ted” had been diagnosed with a “syndrome” or that it would be a book about a kid who it appears has Asperger’s. It was a brilliant book, with brilliant characters… even if I knew almost immediately where Salim was.

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Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Non-Fiction /

Milk was a total impulse pick from the new nonfiction arrivals at the library. I saw it placed on top of the nonfiction shelves as we made our way to the check out counter and grabbed it.

TW made fun of me.

Because I do not like milk. Except in my quad grande nonfat caramel macchiato.

She’s right. I don’t. But, I thought it might be interesting to read. It was. It also made me glad that I do not like milk. Also glad that I have not bought into the organic milk fad. I would like to try water buffalo milk, though. (By the way, the recipes and the “milk chemistry experiments” were really interesting. The book was worth picking up, just to read through those.)

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Two more Cybils

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I thought I’d finished with the picture books category but apparently not – I’ve still got some non-fiction books to go through and that’s good because the two I read yesterday are fantastic.

First, Wangari’s Trees of Peace – excellent drawings, simple story of a complex problem without overly frightening young children when speaking about the violence against Wangari.

Next, a book I will have to buy – several times over. My children are huge Wanda Gag fans. OK scratch that, they are huge Millions of Cats fans. The three older ones can probably tell the story word for word with just a wee bit of prompting. The three younger ones, probably can’t but have definitely heard “Hundreds of cats. Thousands of Cats. Millions and billions and trillions of cats.” over and over again.

Loved Wanda Gag: The Girl Who Lived to Draw. Loved the story, loved the art.

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