2011

Cybils Short List – One Poetry, One Graphic Novel

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge, Poetry /

I was really looking forward to Borrowed Names – a book about mothers/daughters, a book about Laurie Ingalls Wilder, Madam C.J. Walker, and Marie Curie (and their daughters). And I did like it but more than half the book was the store of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder. The Walkers and Curies felt shorted – which is too bad because I particularly liked the Walker and Curie sections of this book.

Twin Spica – a little girl wants to be in the first class of the Tokyo Space School. There are problems, of course, it’s a graphic novel after all. The girl’s mom was injured and killed when she was a baby – when the first Japanese rocket crashed into earth after lift-off. Elly read this one before I did and she liked it. I read it and… I liked it too, once I settled into the traditional backwards method of reading (it always takes me about three pages to get used to reading right to left, lol) – but I didn’t get the end. I don’t know if it’s because it was almost midnight when I finished or if I missed a heading that explained what the heck was going on but… I think I need to re-read the last three pages. Maybe that’s the intro to volume two? I don’t know. (FYI to those looking for middle grade graphic novels – there’s some family violence in this book. The father slaps the daughter a couple of times. And there are cases where the kids fight with each other, but in the context, the fighting makes sense (three kids locked in a small room together and told to place dominos – millions of dominos – in line within 7 days …. Or they flunk the test. It’s one of those controlled environment tests for space programs. Totally stressful, read Packing for Mars if you’re confused by this. Heh)

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Four Non-fiction Books in January and February

2011, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I’m playing catch up on my book blogging. First, because I simply fell behind. Second because three of these books I don’t really want to blog – yet. I’ll be blogging those over on BlogHer later this month. But I do want to keep a record of them here so…

1)      The Art of American Book Covers is a beautiful book. I think I need to own this one. Just so I can flip through the pages and imagine holding those old, beautiful books. LOVE.

2)      Shop Smart, Save More – interesting look at what led to The Grocery Game.

3)      Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half with America’s Cheapest Family – hah, I’m a sucker for these kinds of books. This one was extra fascinating (also extra frustrating for me since I kept growling “Patriarchy”…)

4)      Supershop Like the Coupon Queen – interesting, slightly updated, look at the original coupon queen (who I do remember from day time tv in the 70’s and 80’.)

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Full Dark, No Stars

2011, Books in Bed, Fiction, short stories /

When I reserved Full Dark, No Stars I didn’t know it was short stories, so that threw me right off the bat. Then the opening story, about rats (among other things) creeped me the hell out. Which is what I expect from a Stephen King novel. So I’m not complaining but UGH. The next story – was a hard read. A woman is raped and then seeks revenge. Hard, hard story but beyond that, I found some of the lesbian languaging to be “off” – at the end of the book, King talks about writing real people and not pulling punches and writing about things people would never really do. Well I hear him and normally I think he does a good job of this but in this case, it didn’t feel true to the character(s) for some reason. So color me unhappy with the second story. The rest of the stories – excellent in every way. Just creepy enough, amusing when they need to be and hardcore evil when they need to be that, too.

Overall, good stories. I’m not sorry I read them. But the rats, ugh.

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World and Town

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

On New Year’s Eve, TW, Michelle and I went to the big magazine in stand in Evanston to see if we could find some fun, quirky magazines to play with. We found some and we also found some old standbys – like Bookmarks. Inside Bookmarks were a lot of books I hadn’t heard of, including World and Town by Gish Jen. I thought this one sounded interesting so I reserved it at the library and… why have I not read Gish Jen before?

I love her writing. I love her characters. I love this story. As I approached the end of the book, I put it down in favor of some non-fiction because I just didn’t really want the book to end – even though I wanted to keep reading it. I kind of just wanted to keep reading it forever.

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The Spooky Girl

2 Comments / 2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

The Spooky Girl  is another of those books I picked up from the shelf because the cover was interesting and so was the title. And it was a fun book, sad in places – as you’d expect from a book about a young woman who died before her time. It also contained a very important lesson for those of  us who live in the internet age… make sure you have important addresses and phone numbers of people who should be contacted in the event of your death somewhere besides your cell phone. Odds are high that if you get hit by a bus, your cell phone is not going to survive and your friends will never know what happened to you because your next of kin won’t be able to contact them to let them know. That would suck, wouldn’t it? Bad enough to get hit by a bus and have your cellphone destroyed (that makes me weepy just thinking about it) but to have your friends just assume you’ve skipped out on them. Tsk tsk.

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Confessions of a Prairie Bitch

2 Comments / 2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction, Women /

Last year I thought about reading the Little House actors’ memoirs and then put it off when our library closed. Thankfully, Zandria posted her yearly reading list and nudged me into reserving them.

The first one,Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, came to us last week – TW read it first and laughed loud and hard all the way through it. I mean she really really laughed. And she wanted to talk about what she was laughing and I had to shush her strongly so she would not give it away.

When  I read it, I chuckled in a lot of places but I did not roll around on the bed laughing the way TW did. TW is weird. I would, however, love to see Alison Arngrim’s stand up show. That would be awesome.

If you loved Nellie or hated Nellie, you should read this. Heck, if you enjoyed watching Little House on the Prairie, you should read this. I’m worried that Melissa Gilbert’s book won’t stand up to Alison’s… I’ll let ya know next month.

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Death of an Ambitious Woman

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Mystery, Women /

How could I resist, with a title like Death of an Ambitious Woman? Particularly when the sub-title points out this is a mystery with a female detective. I will admit that I thought this was just the most recent in a series I’d never heard of and was kind of surprised to realize it’s a debut novel. I hope there are more. I kind of like the people of New Derby – even the bad people.

I also liked that while I knew who did it, I didn’t know exactly how. And I also didn’t know EXACTLY what was going on with the other suspects who were all guilty of lots of stuff. Nothing super surprising occurred but there were enough twists that I read the book straight through last night and never once thought about putting it down.

If you like mysteries – give this one a try.

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Greetings from Jamaica

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Favorites, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Queer /

I bought Greetings from Jamaica, Wish You Were Queer at Women and Children First, last month when we were looking for one of Michelle’s Christmas presents. The title made me laugh and as you may remember, I was looking for more lesbian fiction right about that time.

It can be difficult to find humorous lesbian fiction, which is too bad. Lesbians are funny and someone should spend more time writing funny, light, chick litty lesbian fiction. It’s fun!

The Santori family was a fun one to go on vacation with and I was completely amused  with Maria, Lisa and Vince – what great siblings. I’m equally glad Lisa didn’t get the girl, which is what I was afraid was going to happen there for a minute. Oops, that was a spoiler, wasn’t it? Ack. Sorry!

I’d really like Mari SanGiovanni to write a book about Lisa next. Now that would be funny.

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Fever 1793

2011, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Young Adult /

After we finished listening to Forge, I decided to grab Fever 1793 on audio since we’ve never read it – and because I was amused that Matty Cook was the main character. She was briefly mentioned in Forge when Mrs Cook had to return home to help her daughter in law with new baby Matilda Cook.

I was disappointed that Mrs Cook from Forge had already passed away before Fever 1793 took place but it was nice to see King George the parrot again – however briefly.

I liked the book a good bit. I liked Matty. I liked Eliza. I’m very glad I did not live in America in 1793 – yellow fever was (is!) horrible!

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Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who’s Determined to Kill Me

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, From the Stacks Challenge, Non-Fiction, Women /

Several months ago, I went to BlogHer Belmont to have some fun get some work done with my co-workers. When I arrived, Lisa Stone handed me a mailing envelope with a book inside that she thought I should read. I laughed and made sure it made it into my suitcase home. When I got home, I opened it up and as soon as I saw the cover… I laughed too.

Lyra aka Gaknar (The Fear Demon) is famous at BlogHer Belmont for her shrieks during my phone calls. She has always particularly appreciated the voice of Lisa Stone. She’s also famous because I so often rant about her and publicly wish her dead. Which is obviously an exaggeration. If I really wanted her dead, she would be dead.

I finally found some time to read Winging It and it was funny and familiar and frightening, all at the same time.

What in the hell was Jenny Gardiner thinking? What was her family thinking? Why wasn’t someone there who could step in and say ENOUGH – this is not healthy for your, your family or the animals you keep bringing into your lives.

Because it wasn’t just Graycie the African Grey who was a troubled pet, it was more than half of the other pets they brought into their home as well. Not to mention one family disaster after another. Not to mention Pierre the French Exchange Student.

Does Jenny Gardiner have a blog because, dude, hers would be one of those trainwrecky types where you cannot really believe that so much can happen to one family, the type where you’re in the background saying NO, DO NOT DO THAT and judging the blogger for making such horrendous decisions, the type where in the end you keep reading because you recognize yourself and your own bad choices and your own ability to get through it, stick with it, and come out the otherside willing to give a parrot who wants to kill you hydrotherapy three times a day for what seems like the rest of your life while taking care of three children under 5, a dog who is allergic to everything (literally) and your own Lyme disease.

I can’t decide if I wish I’d read this book during the first week Lyra aka Gaknar came to live with us. It certainly would have made us less freaked out the day we found the big feather in the bottom of the cage and SOMEONE was sure it was a blood feather and she would bleed to death. Hah. It also would have been easier when Lyra aka Gaknar lost a bunch of weight and we were sure she was going to die any second.

Then again, if I’d have thought I would wind up with a bird who needed anywhere near as much care as Graycie – or was as messy – or as evil… I think I would have had to move out. Or make the bird move out.

After my family finishes reading this, I’ll be sending it back to BlogHer Belmont for Superwoman aka Miriam – it’s sad just how many of the BlogHer Belmont staff have wished a bird dead….

This is also my first book in this year’s From the Stacks challenge – it’s red (with the jacket on.)

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