June 2010

Syren

2 Comments / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, From the Stacks Challenge, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I received a review copy of Syren AGES ago and I put off reading it because I’d fallen behind on the Septimus Heap series and I thought I’d catch up and then read it. (TW and Prince J both read it ages ago and liked it a good bit…) I realized in January that I was never going to catch up with the series but I still wanted to read Syren so I read some reviews and blog posts for the books I’d missed and then started Syren. The first chapter or two left me confused because, duh I’d missed a lot, but by the fifth chapter I was hooked and happily reading. In fact I wanted to read it all of the way through without putting it down.

This really is a terrific middle grade series. In some ways, I like it better than Harry Potter (blasphemy, right?)

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Books About Prairie Dogs

2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Non-Fiction /

The other night, I was looking for something light and fluffy to read and I came up empty. So I figured, what the hell, I’ll read these non-fiction prairie dog books that TW made me reserve at the library.

First – Prairie Dogs (The Complete Owners Handbook) made me stop halfway through and look to see if Sharon Vanderlip was on Twitter. She’s not and I want to know why. I would like to talk to her about some of the things she mentions are important for prairie dog owners to know. I’d also like to ask her some questions. Like has she ever spent any time with a prairie dog in her house. Ya know, stuff like that. I also am anxiously awaiting the updated version of this book because it’s only freaking available used – for more than $100. Do you know how many giant plastic balls I can buy with $100? I want the book but I need the stupid balls. (Which are not, by the way, mentioned in the book at all. They should be – along with the fact that you’ll have to buy new ones constantly.)

Next – The Prairie Dog: Sentinel of the Plains was awesome. I’d like to buy this one too, and I might because it won’t cost me four giant plastic prairie dog balls errr $100.  Great photos, nice bit of prairie dog history, and a well balanced look at the prairie dog “problem”. (I have an unbalanced opinion – stop killing the damn prairie dogs, people. They are a keystone species. We don’t kill our keystone species without serious consequences.)

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Books! Books! Books!

3 Comments / Daily Dose /

We went to the Little City Used Book Sale yesterday and came back with a very nice haul – not quite as many books as last year but pretty darn close.

81 books from the Little City Book Sale

81 books = $167.50
10 are brand new (thanks to Scholastic for donating a ton of brand new books to the booksale!)
4 are large print
6 are graphic novels
5 are very old – 2 Nancy Drews, 1 Hans Brinker (don’t ask)
23 cookbooks

Now – where are we going to put them? We need more Billys!

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Goth Girl Rising

2010, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Queer, Young Adult /

TW was right, Goth Girl writing letters to Neil Gaiman was a nice touch. Without the letters, I don’t think I’d have enjoyed Goth Girl Rising nearly as much. The poetry pages were a nice touch, as well – slowly adding stanzas until we get to the end. Lyga does a nice job of building us up and then bringing us back down safely – or as safely as you can get when you’re dealing with Kyra.

Great sequel.

Normally I want a series I like to continue but I think in this case, Lyga should call it finished.

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Grand Plans

Daily Dose /

I’m used to TW coming up with grand plans and big ideas. I have a strategy for handling that. What I’m not used to is my mother coming up with grand ideas and big plans.

When I saw a NY Times email forward from my mom I almost didn’t click it – I don’t really feel like doing much work today and I figured she had a suggestion for a BlogHer blog post or something. The link, after all, was about Terrariums making a comeback – which is kind of a neat idea for a BlogHer editor. But, the first line of my mother’s email – the one right before the link – that confused me.

Let’s make these next month. Doesn’t it sound like fun?

For awhile, I thought maybe she meant to send this to my sister. She lives in the same city with my sister. My sister has young children. This seemed like a message not intended for me. I puzzled over it. Closed the email. Went about my business. But that message stuck with me. What was she talking about? I went back to my inbox and I clicked the link. Nice terrariums. I closed it. Pondered it some more. Has she gone just a little bit senile? Should I call my siblings and find out if they’ve noticed anything – weird – like this email to me?

And then it hit me.

She’ll be here, at my house, next month. July is next month. And she thinks making terrariums while she’s here sounds like fun!(?)

Wait until TW and Michelle hear about this. Won’t THAT be fun? Also, anyone know where I can find small glass jars, to use for terrariums, in the Northern Suburbs of Chicago?

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Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker in Training

2010, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I had high hopes for Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker in Training – it wasn’t bad, I just didn’t find it quite as interesting or compelling as Stiff. TW seemed to appreciate it more than I did – and when she read it, we ended up having an awful lot of discussions about plans for her death. Err I mean plans for her body after death. She’s sure that Prince J should be the one to manage her affairs after she’s gone – which insulted RJ – and made me laugh out loud. It made Prince J stare blankly at her – which is why I laughed out loud. I just can’t picture it…  I can, however, picture her being cremated and having her ashes placed in “bottle urns” and hung from a bottle tree.

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Julie and Julia

2 Comments / 2010, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Favorites, Non-Fiction, Women /

It’s weird, I really didn’t have any desire to read Julie and Julia. I don’t know why, the book has everything I like – food blogger, grand ideas, Julia freaking Child. So why didn’t I want to read it? I don’t know, it was probably the hype that turned me off. I only read it because a) I saw it on the shelf, in large print, and thought TW’s mom would like it b) TW’s mom said it was “weird” and it didn’t make sense to her that someone would do such a project c) TW’s mother raised TW who would CERTAINLY think up something like this – and carry it through.

I couldn’t NOT read it after hearing TW’s mom talk about it.

Turns out this was a horrible book for TW’s mom. She doesn’t do the F word and lord, the F word is all over the book. I think had this not been the case, she’d have probably had a different reaction. (TW’s mom would totally be one of those “bleaders” who gave Julie shit for her language.)

I, on the otherhand, loved every word of it. Every single word. Well the killing of the lobsters made me kind of queasy but that’s to be expected. Lots of the recipes made me queasy – that’s a lot of mess, a lot of work, a lot of crazy food that I really do not want to eat. But… the project… pure brilliance. And the writing, fun. Fun, fun, fun.

I’m so glad I read it. (I’m sorry though to hear that Robert, the dog Julie and Eric adopted post-project, passed away a couple of months ago. I was irrationally sad about that when I saw it on her blog last night.)

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