Mermaid Pants

My favorite reads of 2011, Part 2

2012-01-28T00:40:00.000-05:00

I posted already about my favorite new releases from 2011. Since I read all sorts other things that weren't new releases, I thought I might give them their own post, too.

Ascendant by Diana Peterfreund

This is the second book in Peterfreund's fantastic Killer Unicorns series. A good friend alerted me to this series because we're both hardcore unicorn enthusiasts (and really, who isn't?) My first exposure to this universe was the short story from the Zombies vs. Unicorns anthology. I read Rampant and Ascendant and I fell in love. Both books kept me reading late into the night. But Ascendant is the one that I rank higher, simply because it had me bawling at the end. I tend to favor middle books of trilogies, and this series is intended to be a trilogy. Astrid totally makes my shelf of beloved "Kick-Ass Heroines."

[My Review of Ascendant] [My Review of Rampant]

The Ordinary Princess by M.M. Kaye

I'm really not sure how I made it this far in life without ever reading this charming little novel. Princess Amethyst -- or Amy, as she prefers -- is an ordinary princess. Aren't princesses supposed to be beautiful? Amy was "gifted" by a fairy to be ordinary -- but her ordinariness is in her looks only. She's a very remarkable and charming heroine, who runs away from home when her parents want to marry her off. I passed this along on PaperBack Swap so someone else could have a chance to go on Amy's adventure, but I kind of wish I'd held on to it!

[My Review]

The Wives of Bath by Susan Swan

This novel is the source material to the film Lost and Delirious. I enjoyed that movie, but the novel totally tore me to shreds. The movie is VERY LOOSELY based on this book and the two are entirely different entities. I've never read anything like this. The year is 1963 and thirteen-year-old "Mouse" Bradford attends to an all-girl boarding school (with her least favorite gender) and gets into a lot of philosophical debates with none other than her own lump on her back.

[My Review]

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

"When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin." I had a very personal response to this assigned reading for my World Lit class. I found myself relating to Gregor Samsa in a way that I'm not sure Kafka intended. I loved this very bizarre story -- but mostly because it is told in a very un-bizarre way.

[My Review]

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I first read this short story in high school, and while I liked it, it didn't do much for me. I came across it again when I was older and read it in an entirely new way. I chose this story to be my research topic for my World Lit final paper, and I got to get cozy with it again in my American Lit class. I am extremely familiar with this story and have read it more times than I remember. For a 6,000 word story, though, I do manage to come away with something new every time I read it. I personally find this psychological thriller/gothic tale very frightening because, as someone with a chronic disorder, I fear if I'd been born in Gilman's time, I could have ended up exactly like this narrator.

"Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats

Oh, Keats. I'd never read Keats before, but I have developed a fascination with this poet whose life ended too soon. Though if he hadn't been doomed, would he have written such gorgeous poetry? I could link the poem here, but it's easy enough to find on the internet. If you haven't read it yet, you'll read it when you come across it, when you're ready for it. I think about this poem a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot. Whenever I see an image encased in something like a pane of glass, it is so extraordinarily Keats.

"'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

Every single line of this poem blew my heart and mind apart. I think I had to change my pants afterwards. I'm told this isn't exactly the most popular response to this narrative of the wimpy, aging, regretful Prufrock. But each of the words and lines in this poem folded in on each other, the descriptions collapsed over one another, and it all somehow created something that made me swoon. It must be all that sexual frustration, isn't it? (Don't answer that.)

"Let us go then, you and I/ When the evening is spread out against the sky/
Like a patient etherized upon a table."

Friday Reads: 27 Jan 12

2012-01-27T23:42:00.001-05:00

This is a lot blurrier than it looked on my phone.

I can barely keep my eyes open tonight, so I'm not sure how much reading I'll get done. But this week's Friday Reads is the graphic novel American Vampire by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque and Stephen King. I've had this book out from the library for way too long! It needs to go back soon. I'm only enjoying about half of this reading experience so far. The graphic novel is told in two intertwining stories, but only one of them is really catching my interest.

It's the last Friday Reads of January! And I don't exactly have a lot to show for it. I've only finished two books so far this month: Cinder by Marissa Meyer, and Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins.

Friday Reads: 20 Jan 12

2012-01-20T23:30:00.000-05:00

Math is nothing but problems

I've just finished my first week of spring semester classes. While I want to stay on top of my school work, I also don't want to cut back on my reading.

This week I picked up two of my library requests. I think I might have been the first in the system to get my hands on The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. This will be my first non-audiobook John Green experience.

I have been on the waiting list for The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin since November! I'm glad it's finally gotten to me, but what poor timing! Because, of course, my reading must come secondary to my math homework. Blurgh.

And the math book, in case anyone is curious, is A Survey of Mathematics with Applications.

Friday Reads: 13 Jan 12

2012-01-13T23:02:00.002-05:00

Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins

My Friday Reads tonight is Billy Collins' latest poetry collection, Horoscopes for the Dead. I best be getting this book back to the library soon, as I am nearing my due date. I love Collins and I was fortunate enough to meet him at the 2010 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival where he signed my copy of Nine Horses. It doesn't appear that any of the new poems he read at the festival are included here. But I'm not done yet, so there's still hope! So far these poems are enjoyable and typical of Billy Collins usual style. The best one I've come across is the title poem. I can tell already that this one is going to need a reread. And another.

"FridayReads is a global community of thousands of people who come together each week to share whatever they’re reading. Our goal is simple: to raise reading’s visibility and encourage more people to join in!" [site]

My favorite reads of 2011, Part 1

2012-01-12T23:53:00.001-05:00

Better late than never, right? I present my list of my favorite reads of 2011. When I looked over what I've read in 2011, I realized I ought to make two lists: a top 10 compilation of the best books released in 2011, and another list for older titles that I read in 2011. Here's part one. It is mostly young adult, though there's some middle grade and adult. The number is just the order in which I read them, nothing else!

1. So Shelly by Ty Roth

This story of three teens, modernized versions of Percy Shelley, John Keats, and Lord Byron, came at the perfect time for me as I was studying Keats in my World Lit class. This is a very beautiful novel, a very different sort of novel. It's unfortunately been given some negative attention due to some disturbing content. Author Ty Roth wrote a wonderful blog entry about it. Anyway, I couldn't get this book out of my head.

[My Review]

Recommended for: Mature Readers, Classic Lit Lovers, Poets

2. Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

An adorable story of a girl named Sapphire who stumbles into a magical realm and the adventures she has there. I read this while I was on vacation and it was such a perfect vacation read. I really needed this! I needed it all, especially the wyvern.

[My Review]

Recommended for: Fans of escapist children's literature that yearn to go to Narnia, Wonderland, Neverland or Oz for the first time all over again

3. Cloaked by Alex Flinn

I am a big fan of Flinn's fairy tale retellings, but this one is very much my favorite. It is a mash-up of various lesser-known fairy tales: The Frog Prince, The Elves & The Shoemaker, The Golden Bird, The Six Swans, The Valiant Little Tailor, The Fisherman and His Wife, and The Salad. I loved Johnny, the narrator/hero, so much.

[My Review]

Recommended for: Fairy tale retellings fans, magic & adventure lovers

4. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Libba Bray makes me so happy. I was itching for this book for what seemed like forever and I'm so thrilled that it delivered amidst the hype. The premise: A plane full of beauty queen contestants crash lands on a deserted island. Hilarity ensues. Well, it's only hilarity in the hands of Bray, who succeeds in making a satire without feeling like satire.

[My Review]

Recommended for: Satire & Humor fans, feminists, everyone

5. Red Glove, Curse Workers Book 2 by Holly Black

I adore this series - and not just because I'm from New Jersey, where this story takes place! I love what Black has done with this very unique world. A Curse Worker is someone who can curse another with skin-to-skin contact. This noir-esque trilogy follow Cassel, the youngest of a Curse-working family. The first book is actually a loose retelling of the fairy tale "The White Cat," but it has gone way beyond that now! And I like where it's going.

[My Review]

Recommended For: Mystery lovers, Urban Fantasy Fans

6. Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

It seems as though this gorgeous cover has gotten way more attention than the story inside! In these pages, we meet sisters Ruby and Chloe, as well as a reservoir that might as well be a character in itself for how developed it is. This is a bizarre novel that straddles the line between contemporary and magical realism. The writing is so crisp, so vivid, so carefully rendered. This is Suma's YA debut, and I'll be reading her for life now.

[My Review]

Recommended: Anyone who has a sister, Readers who love gorgeous prose

7. Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares

I loved seeing what the girls were up to again ten years after the last book in the series. It turns out they've grown up and had lives and are way more successful than I am. But they're still the same characters we loved when we saw them last. Yes, a Very Sad Thing happens during the course of this novel. But that didn't hamper my enjoyment. I read this voraciously, albeit through my tears, and I enjoyed every moment.

[My Review]

Recommended For: Fans of the original Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, People who can read through tears

8. Delirium by Lauren Oliver

I didn't think this book would move me like it did. Seventeen-year-old Lena lives in a society that has declared love a disease: amor delirium nervosa. Luckily there is a cure that can stop love from ever happening, and Lena is just days away from her scheduled procedure. She was raised to trust the government and fear the effects of love. But once she contracts the disease, she must figure how to deal with her symptoms.

[My Review]

Recommended for: Dystopian lit fans, thrill-seekers

9. When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

In this reimagining of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Hannah Payne commits the crime of abortion and is punished by becoming a "Chrome" - a criminal whose skin is pigmented to match their crime. This is a powerful novel, and though it doesn't make the grand statements I was hoping it would, it still swept me up just the same. It's probably for the better that this story isn't preachy.

[My Review]

Recommended for: Dystopian lit fans, Women who want to read science fiction about women and women's issues

10. Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George

I don't understand why Jessica Day George isn't crazy popular - her work is top notch. In this charming novel, 11-year-old Princess Celie and her siblings must protect their castle from those trying to take it over. Only Castle Glower isn't just ANY castle - it's magical. Every Tuesday the castle makes some sort of architectural change, a fact that the royal family has always been down with. Celie is a wonderful, resourceful, spirited heroine. I devoured this adorable book to pieces.

[My review]

Recommended for: Middle-grade fantasy fans, reluctant readers

Friday Reads: 6 Jan 12

2012-01-06T23:59:00.000-05:00

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

My first Friday Reads of 2012 is a new release from this week. Marissa Meyer's sci-fi retelling of "Cinderella." I am only one chapter in, but so far I am hooked!

"FridayReads is a global community of thousands of people who come together each week to share whatever they’re reading. Our goal is simple: to raise reading’s visibility and encourage more people to join in!" [site]

Books read in 2011

2012-01-06T23:22:00.000-05:00

1. Born at Midnight by C. C. Hunter

2. The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood *

3. Zombies vs. Unicorns edited by Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier

4. Elixir by Hilary Duff with Elise Allen

5. Candide by Voltaire

6. Tartuffe by Moliere

7. Ash by Malinda Lo

8. So Shelly by Ty Roth

9. A Doll's House: A Play by Henrik Ibsen *

10. Rampant by Diana Peterfreund

11. Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You by Dorian Cirrone

12. The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

13. Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

14. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

15. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

16. In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka

17. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

18. Miles From Ordinary by Carol Lynch Williams

19. The Wives of Bath by Susan Swan

20. The Absolute Death by Neil Gaiman

21. Bossypants by Tina Fey

22. A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn

23. Huntress by Malinda Lo

24. Indigo by Alice Hoffman

25. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

26. The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye

27. Lyra's Oxford by Philip Pullman

28. The Wellspring by Sharon Olds

29. The House Without a Door: A Study of Emily Dickinson and the Illness of Agoraphobia by Maryanne M. Garbowsky

30. Another Faust by Daniel and Dina Nayeri

31. Ascendant by Diana Peterfreund

32. Valiant by Holly Black

33. Wish by Alexandra Bullen

34. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

35. Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson

36. Cloaked by Alex Flinn

37. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

38. Red Glove (Curse Workers #2) by Holly Black

39. Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs

40. 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

41. Memories of the Future, Volume 1 by Wil Wheaton

42. Christian the Hugging Lion by Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell, and Amy June Bates

43. Three Stories You Can Read to Your Cat by Sara Swan Miller

44. All-American Poem by Matthew Dickman

45. Kenny & the Dragon by Tony DiTerlizzi

46. Errant by Diana Peterfreund

47. St. George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges and Trina Schart Hyman

48. The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame

49. Stories edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

50. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Salina Hastings and Juan Wijngaard

51. Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

52. The Man Who Loved Books by Jean Fritz and Trina Schart Hyman

53. Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares

54. Real Mermaids Don't Have Toe Rings by Helene Boudreau

55. Cloaked in Red by Vivian Van Velde

56. The Mermaid's Mirror by L. K. Madigan

57. How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein

58. Legend by Marie Lu

59. Abandon by Meg Cabot

60. The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

61. Songs For a Teenage Nomad by Kim Culbertson

62. Seven Tears Into the Sea by Terri Farley

63. Never Cry Werewolf by Heather Davis

64. The Sea King's Daughter: A Russian Legend by Aaron Shepard

65. Fins Are Forever by Tera Lynn Childs

66. Cinder & Ella by Melissa Lemon

67. Lost Voices by Sarah Porter

68. Delirium by Lauren Oliver

69. One Day by David Nicholls

70. Supernaturally by Kiersten White

71. Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes

72. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

73. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

74. The Blue Hotel by Stephen Crane

75. A Tale of Two Castles by Gail Carson Levine

76. When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

77. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

78. The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

79. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

80. The Zoo Story by Edward Albee

81. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

82. Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography by William E. Gienapp

83. The House Divided America in the Era of Civil War and Reconstruction by Louise Mayo

84. The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

85. The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry *

86. I Used to Know That: Civil War by Fred DuBose

87. The Lion & the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney

88. Owl Moon by Jane Yolen

89. Mouse Soup by Arnold Lobel

90. Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears by Emily Gravett

91. At Night by Jonathan Bean

92. Tuesday by David Weisner

93. Chanticleer and the Fox by Geoffrey Chaucer

94. Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George

95. The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger

96. The Guild by Felicia Day

97. Fraggle Rock, Volume 1 by Heather White

98. Glitches by Marissa Meyer

99. Frederick by Leo Lionni *

100. Matchless: An Illumination of Hans Christian Andersen's Classic "The Little Match Girl"by Gregory Maguire

101. The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland For a Little While by Catherynne M. Valente

102. True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal--and How Nearly Dying Saved My Life by Kevin Sorbo

*reread

Links are to my Goodreads reviews.

My love letter to "The Twilight Zone"

2012-01-02T10:50:00.000-05:00

Roughly 407 tweets and 45 hours later (minus some hours of succumbing to sleep) I emerge bleary-eyed from The Twilight Zone marathon hosted by the SyFy Channel. The Twilight Zone marathon is my annual tradition, which I start getting really excited for around Thanksgiving the way some people get excited for Christmas. As a child I seem to remember The Twilight Zone marathon churning out episodes into the evening of January 2nd. This was probably before the SyFy Channel adopted it.

On a whim, I decided to live-tweet as much of it as I could, using a different Twitter handle, @sirentrousers. (Because, you know, siren=mermaid and trousers=pants.) I wanted to be respectful of my 200 followers I have with @mermaidpants and not blow up their feeds with uncontrollable geekery.

I want to thank all of the Twitter followers that joined me on my journey into the fifth dimension. I cherished every @-reply and was ecstatic at every retweet of one of my ridiculous comments. Experiencing my personal tradition through social media was a wonderful experience. Every time I thought I couldn't continue -- couldn't sit upright, couldn't keep my eyes open, couldn't squeeze out another brain morsel -- I would get a thoughtful tweet or a new follower that motivated me to keep going. I am so incredibly appreciative of all the tweeters who hung out with me to ring in the New Year in this very special way! I wish I could make love to you all! Now as I exit the fifth dimension and enter a new year, my brain feels a little fuzzy.

Because a blog entry here wouldn't be complete without a photo of a book, I shall include this:

I believe I bought this book shortly after the last marathon. I think it's time I familiarize myself with some of the source material!

My exposure to The Twilight Zone made a deep impression on me. I am very grateful that my parents were fans during the series' first run and introduced me to the show, especially when I was young enough to be fully amazed and afraid and awed by everything I saw. I don't remember my first episode, I sort of just remember being submerged into them all. Not only has the series informed much of my writing and imagination; I also believe it's what made me a more caring and compassionate individual. This is what science-fiction does, I think.

When I was a kid, the ones I liked best were the episodes with the most shocking twist. Now my favored episodes tend to be for the ones that challenge a set of beliefs. Since I really only watch The Twilight Zone during the New Year's Eve marathon (and quite rarely inbetween, because I like to store up my excitement for the end of the year), I am exposed to many of the same iconic episodes year after year. Though, somehow, every single year I see at least one episode I've never seen before. (This may be why I'm a little wary of watching the entire series front to back - the magic will be gone!) This year I lost my Zone-virginity to "Twenty-Two" and "Night of the Meek."

A few years ago I quit the most demoralizing job I have ever had. I'd only had it a few months, and while I enjoyed the work, my boss was an abusive and controlling asshole who didn't deserve an awesome assistant like me. This was mid-December. I found myself unemployed over the holidays and when The Twilight Zone marathon finally appeared, I threw myself into it.

That year I saw the episode "The Obsolete Man" for the first time. The episode stars Burgess Meredith as a librarian in a totalitarian society that's eliminated education and literacy, and therefore he must be "liquidated" for the crime of being "obsolete." This episode -- and the chanting of "You are obsolete!" -- made me feel validated. I pulled myself out of post-unemployment depression and decided that I didn't want to be obsolete, not anymore. A few months later I re-enrolled in college to finish my degree and made the decision to become a librarian.

The Twilight Zone continues to inform and shape my life. I don't really want to know what kind of crappy person I'd be without it. Thank you, Rod Serling, for making me a better human being, year after year.

A merry bookmas and a journal new year

2011-12-26T20:30:00.001-05:00

While all of the people on my gift list got books for Christmas (primarily pre-owned ones, but books nonetheless), Santa did not bring me any books. Seriously, I thought he knew me better than that.

However, I did get something pretty darn awesome. A handmade journal designed by my dear Lauren. It's pretty gorgeous. It's not like I'm lacking in journals (just as I'm not lacking in reading material). Since I'm still plodding through a moleskine journal that I started over a year ago, I'm not ready to start a new journal. Besides, this journal is much too pretty for the emo rants that end up my journal.

I have to come up with something really awesome to use this journal for. Even though I think just displaying it on my desk next to the plastic unicorn and fairy that were in my driving is good enough for me, I kind of want to make all the hard work she put into this worth it.

What sorts of things do you use your journals and notebooks for? Oh, and did the Holiday Fairy bring you any books this year? Tell me so that I may live vicariously through you -- and so that I may get ideas of what to buy with my gift cards.

I have been a highly absent blogger

2011-12-21T00:20:00.001-05:00

So I've been a highly absent blogger lately. And there's a few reasons for that. I heavily blame my reading and studies for school these past few months for taking me away from leisure reading and blogging. Yet it's more than that. It used to be that this blog was where I'd dump photos of my recent book purchases and awesome bookstore finds. I've been doing a lot less collecting new books lately. This is mostly because ever since I was laid off earlier in the year I have not only had less income to acquire these books, but also because I have found myself wanting to purge collection of books that I know I'll never get around to reading -- no matter how much I want to read them.

And yet, here I am. My last entry was back in August, and it was to enter a contest -- but I did manage to win a book, by the way! And since my last entry, blogger has gotten all pretty on me. Since my last entry I've both started and finished my fall semester, and now I'm on a bit of a break. And even though I tell myself I'm on a book buying freeze, books still manage to sneak in here. I really don't know how it happens!

The three in the photo are from a recent Amazon purchase. After months of deliberation, I finally decided what to spend my birthday gift certificate on.

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett: I tried to read this when I was about eight, but I found it too difficult. It was one of the many books I threw across the room in frustration. (Along with The Great Gilly Hopkins, and Anne of Green Gables.) I found The Secret Garden much easier to get into and is still one of my absolute favorite books from my childhood. I think I'm ready to give Sara Crewe another chance.

Selected Poems of John Keats: I love this guy. I was exposed to "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightingale" in my World Lit II class and my brain was turned inside out by his insights.

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson edited by Thomas H. Johnson: I've tried some Emily before, but I never could stay interested in her sing-songy rhymes. It turns out that I needed someone to hold my hand and show me the way. I was lucky enough to explore a sampling of her poetry in both my World Lit II and American Lit classes. Now I feel that I understand her so much better and I'm ready to leap off and wade through some of her stuff on my own.

I actually enjoyed Keats and Dickinson so much that I wrote an essay comparing and contrasting the two for my World Lit II mid-term essay. You're shaking your head. You don't really see how that would work, do you? Well, trust me, I made it work, and I aced it!

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor arrived in my mailbox this afternoon and I am beyond thrilled to finally have it in my hands. I have heard so many wonderful things from bloggers and writers alike. And the book itself is so beautiful!

I'm happy to be typing in this little web-shaped box again. I hope to return to it again and again during my winter break. For a long time this blog has not been what it used to be, but I'm excited to find out what it's going to morph into next. I hope you'll join me for the ride.

A birthday bash!

2011-08-25T12:27:00.000-04:00

Enna Isilee of Squeaky Books is hosting a snazzy birthday bash of crazy cool stuff over at her blog.

When I saw that she and I share a birthday (September 22nd), I immediately became excited. Other than being birthday buddies, I love the idea of this contest. Not only do you get to read some fun interviews with awesome authors AND get a chance to win stuff, you get the chance to explore some really wonderful book blogs out there since the actual giveaways are hosted on other blogs. I will being a close eye on this monthlong birthday bash.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

2011-07-27T23:13:00.000-04:00

Mara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.

There is.

She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love.

She's wrong.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer hits stores everywhere 9.27.11. Pre-order your copy here. Download the widget here. Enter to win an Advanced Reader’s Copy here.

* * *

The cover of this is so evocative, how could you not stare at it for hours?

BEAUTY QUEENS! (or, Libba Bray; how I adore thee)

2011-05-30T14:05:00.001-04:00

I just got back from being away for a week, and it was agony knowing that my copy of Libba Bray's BEAUTY QUEENS had been delivered to my house on its May 24th release day. (I'm also bummed that I missed Libba's NYC appearances last week while I was away in the Outer Banks.) Now that I'm home and finished with my vacation reads, I am now free to go chill in my backyard hammock, sip lemonade with a paper umbrella, and dig into this book. *cue island music*

I've been so excited for this book, which is described as a LORD OF THE FLIES for girls, and placed my pre-order as soon as it was available back in November. But I'm pretty much thrilled by anything Libba does, honestly. I devoured her GEMMA DOYLE trilogy, and GOING BOVINE was absolutely freakin' brilliant. (Her blog and Twitter feed are quite wonderful as well.)

Katniss Everdeen doesn't need you to defend her

2011-03-17T10:13:00.005-04:00

I read this morning that Jennifer Lawrence has been confirmed as Katniss for the movie adaptations of The Hunger Games trilogy. Reading the responses to this news has reminded me why every once in a while I try to swear off reading internet comments altogether.

I am a little disgusted by the hate-spewing at Jennifer and the ridiculous outrage at hiring a light-skinned, blonde woman to play the olive-skinned, dark-haired heroine. How exactly did we get here? To criticize a woman, an actress, a person whose job it is to take on various roles and transform herself and make them convincing to the audience. How dare some random internet commentators say things, like she's too old (she's 4 years Katniss' senior), too blonde, too tall, too fat. (Yes, someone called her fat. Though by District 12 standards, I guess she is.)

How is this acceptable? Comment after comment criticizes her appearance, yet very little about her acting ability. Getting an Academy-Award-nominated actress for this role is more than anyone could have hoped for. Shouldn't the fans be a little more excited that a movie like this is actually getting this sort of clout? And to the people who complain that she "can't act," I'm not sure I understand that sort of attack towards someone nominated for prestigious acting awards like an Oscar and a Globe.

I am puzzled by the angry commenter who said, "Aren't there enough roles for blondes in Hollywood these days?"

I understand frantic fans being protective of their beloved series. From keeping up with blogs and Twitter and various book forums I've learned that everyone had their heart set on some actress or other who LOOKED the part of Katniss. There was no real consensus on one particular actress from what I've read, though some people simply wanted "an unknown that looks like Katniss."

Is appearance really such a big deal, a deal big enough for fans to want to sacrifice a movie being well-acted in favor of someone who naturally looks the part? Isn't it wonderful news to know that the role is going to an actress who can handle the emotional depth of the character, even though she wasn't born with dark hair and olive skin? I would so much rather have a trustworthy actress who can really make me believe she is the Girl on Fire, rather than someone who can dress up and look the part.

***

ETA 3/17/11: After being pointed out that this post may be construed as racist, I felt the need to mentally explore this topic a little more.

I understand that some of the frustration has to do with the selection of a white actress for the role of Katniss. It comes to my attention that my support of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss may be construed as racism and support of the white-washing of Hollywood.

But not all of the frustration has to do with this. Race was never my point, but rather the horrifying insult-hurling at a woman based on her looks. Not factoring race into this post may have unintentionally contributed to racism. This was not my intention.

My intentions for this post was to shake my head at the horrific insult-hurling in Jennifer Lawrence's direction -- it just isn't okay. This post was not intended to agree with the white-washing of Hollywood. Only a handful of the vitriolic comments I've read have had to do with race specifically. My point, really, was to show my incredulousness at the tons of hate slung Jennifer's way and make the case that acting ability should overshadow any sort of physical attributes.

ETA 1/13/12: I removed this post from my blog for several months after a misunderstanding. I've decided to clear it out of my saved posts and publish it again. I've edited to clarify my point - and I hope I've done a good enough job. I wish people could just play nice on the internet.

I think I have too many books

2011-03-03T15:02:00.001-05:00

Earlier this week, I found myself quite suddenly unemployed. In between my classes and the job search, I seem to be finding things to fix that didn't really need to be fixed at all. This afternoon, I started to attack the wall of books. I reorganized shelves 2 through 4 (pictured above) and now I have separated my Young Adult from Fiction/Literature, and I have Anthologies hanging in a pile waiting to find some space to squeeze into.

Of course, now that I've begun this, there's no turning back. Because now I have stacks of books all over my floor, and some decisions need to be made.

Many questions have been raised as I fiddle with these books.

Why do I hold on to mediocre books that I read years ago?
Do I really need all of those "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" books?
Should short story collections by a single author be shelved in fiction, or anthologies?
Am I ever going to decide I like Alice Hoffman again? Why do I still have like ten of her titles?
Why am I hanging on to ARCs?
Should I separate fairy tale collections from fairy tale criticism?
Should anthologies be alphabetized by title or editor?
Is it okay to get rid of books I was given as gifts if I didn't like them? (The books, not the gifter.)

WHEN AM I GOING TO HAVE TIME TO READ ALL OF THESE BOOKS??

...

Right. I need to purge some stuff. Because what you see there on that shelf is not everything I own. There's another shelf above what's shown, and a whole other wall of shelves to the left of those books. I also have piles neatly stacked against walls, and boxes of books hidden under the bed, and several more boxes up in the attic. According to my LibraryThing account, I have 970 books. I used to think that was a lot, but I recently met someone in one of my classes who told me she owned over 5,000 books. I was jealously horrified.

Mathematically, it's impossible to read all of these. Especially factoring in school reading (and I plan to be in school for the next decade or so), plus audiobooks loaded onto my iPod, and the library books I can't seem to stop borrowing. And then there's the inevitable used book sales that I can't seem to keep my tote bags away from.

It would definitely feel great to set a chunk of these books free, but I have no idea how to make the cuts. Advice, anyone?

In Defense of Hans Christan Andersen

2011-02-22T08:45:00.002-05:00

I will defend Hans Christian Andersen till the day I die.

For some pathetic reason, I identify with the man's lonely, misunderstood, creative existence. If all readers have a literary soulmate, then he is mine.

This morning, I read a tweet from a librarian I am newly following on Twitter. She stated that "Hans Christian Andersen is an asshole," and linked to a blog entry.

Now, this caused me alarm, because I am (for some reason) instinctively defensive of my boy Hans. When I read the entry, I was disappointed to see that the argument for calling him an asshole is steeped in an anti-feminist misreading of his tales "The Red Shoes" and "The Little Mermaid."

I do not want to argue with a librarian who wrote a two-hundred paged thesis on reinterpretations of fairy tales in Young Adult librarian. No, sir. I myself am an aspiring librarian, though I'm years away from going through the process of even applying to a LIS school, and I greatly respect librarians (on Twitter as well as the ones in my community) for all the training they have to go through. Librarians know their shit.

So I'm not arguing with a librarian (though I did tweet two rebuttals), but Twitter's micro-blogging format just isn't enough sometimes. This is just my own opinion, in response to someone else's opinion, based on my own readings and interpretations of Andersen's stories and life.

The Red Shoes may seem on the outset a cruel story about a little girl that is essentially punished with death for digging a pair of rockin' red shoes. To understand any of Andersen's stories to the fullest is to understand his life. Most, if not all, of his stories have a biographical element. (The man was a narcissist!) Hans based the little girl's story on a memory he had from his confirmation. When he was in church, all he could think of were his squeaky new boots. There's a lot to mine in this tale, such as defying the church, and finding your passion . . . . To only view this tale as anti-feminist, due to (spoiler alert!) the little girl's death is to do Hans a great disservice. It's my personal opinion that Hans was much too childlike in his own mind to exhibit any sort of misogyny. I also think that he imposed his own feelings better into female characters than male ones due to his bisexuality. Which leads me to . . .

The Little Mermaid is my favorite tale, and the one that hooked me into the world of Hans when I was eight-years-old (and this was before Ariel made her splashing debut). I revisit this story several times a year, through many different translations, and (this is going to be cliche) I find something new every time. A new layer, waiting to be peeled away. On the surface (haha, pun), this is another story where a female character bites it due to following her passions. But that doesn't mean that Hans hated women, it means he hated HIMSELF. (In addition to being a narcissist, he was also self-loathing.) "The Little Mermaid" is a tale of sexual repression, a sob-fest about someone who couldn't have what she truly desired because the world didn't have a place for her.

This is the very thing that Hans was trying to recreate with this tale. Hans had fallen in love with a man named Edvard Colin (Hans would be on Team Edvard today), and was never completely rejected by him. This was probably because Hans never felt he could speak out his true feelings (sound familiar?) This story was written when Hans took solace on the island of Fyn to avoid Edvard's wedding (to the woman he loved) in Copenhagen. His own personal anguish was poured into the story, and into the main character herself.

Hans IS the little mermaid. If his stories are cruel to women, it is only because the poor guy was so hard on himself. I don't think it is fair to read these pieces solely as sexism (though I'm not denying it can easily be found), because I doubt Hans actually mean to tear down the opposite gender. I think he was simply finding an outlet for his personal feelings that felt safest to him. (Which is really messed up if you think about it long enough.) (Which I just did.)

So. Hans was definitely a strange fellow (I mean, dude carried a length of rope with him when he traveled because he was deathly afraid of fire - say wha?), and a completely misunderstood one. But I maintain that his cruelty to the women in his tales was only an extension of cruelty to himself. The guy never, ever caught a break.

I need to thank Magpie Librarian for inspiring me to sort out my thoughts on this fine Tuesday morning (when I should actually be writing an essay on Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" - oops!) There are no hard feelings, of course, and I am very appreciative of her blog entry because it led me to the discovery of an Andersen retelling by Dorian Cirrone, Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You.

This is exactly the reason I heart Twitter.

Books read in 2010

2010-12-31T23:46:00.000-05:00

1. wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
2. Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George
3. Winter Rose by Patricia A. McKillip
4. A Wolf at the Door edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling
5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus #2
6. If I Stay by Gayle Forman
7. Isabel of the Whales by Hester Velmans
8. Death's Daughter by Amber Benson
9. One Hundred Poems from the Japanese by Kenneth Rexroth
10. Lucifer at the Starlite by Kim Addonizio
11. Winter's Child by Cameron Dokey
12. Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks
13. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
14. Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen
15. Daisy Kutter: The Last Train by Kazu Kibuishi
16. Shiver by Maggie Steifvater
17. A Lion Called Christian by Anthony Bourke and John Randall
18. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
19. Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks
20. Two Plays for Voices by Neil Gaiman
21. Cupid by Julius Lester
22. Comic Book Tattoo edited by Rantz Hoseley
23. The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
24. Muppet King Arthur by Paul Benjamin & Patrick Storck
25. Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier
26. Graceling by Kristin Cashore
27. Infinite Days by Rebecca Maizel
28. White Cat (Curse Workers #1) by Holly Black
29. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
30. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
31. The Beforelife: Poems by Franz Wright
32. Tell Me a Secret by Holly Cupala
33. Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink
34. Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev
35. Walking to Martha's Vineyard by Franz Wright*
36. Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
37. Winter's Journey by Stephen Dobyns
38. Going Bovine by Libba Bray
39. Fire by Kristin Cashore
40. Siren by Tricia Rayburn
41. Firelight by Sophie Jordan
42. Paranormalcy by Kiersten White
43. The Vampire Diaires Vol. I: The Awakening by L.J. Smith
44. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
45. The Stuff of Legend: Book 1: The Dark by Mike Raicht and Brian W. Smith
46. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
47. Nine Horses: Poems by Billy Collins
48. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
49. If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho translated by Anne Carson
50. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
51. Odd & the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

*reread

#AllHallowsRead

2010-11-06T13:43:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Neil Gaiman, we have a lovely new tradition called All Hallow's Read. If you haven't heard of it, the linked site tells you everything you need to know about the concept, which is to give a scary book on Halloween.

I received two lovely books this year. Amber Benson's new middle grade book, Among the Ghosts (pictured with an ad postcard from Amber), and a copy of the Penguin Classics hardcover edition (that I adore so much) of Wuthering Heights.

The cover kind of matches my jeans!

Birthday books

2010-10-29T19:21:00.000-04:00

So I had a birthday ... a month ago. And with birthdays -- good ones, at least -- come books.

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me edited by Kate Bernheimer
The Search For Wondla by Tony Diterlizzi
Zombies vs. Unicorns edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier
The Stuff of Legend: Book 1: The Dark by Mike Raicht, Brian Smith, and Charles Wilson
Lost Constellations: The Art of Tara McPherson Volume II

Poetries

2010-10-24T15:05:00.002-04:00

Nine Horses by Billy Collins
The Wellspring by Sharon Olds
The Dead and the Living by Sharon Olds
At the Drive-In Volcano by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
All-American Poem by Matthew Dickman
The Poets of New Jersey: From Colonial to Contemporary edited by Emanuel di Pasqual, et al.

I accumulated most of these poetry books due to the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival this year. I met Billy Collins, followed Sharon Olds around, fell for a naughty math poem by Matthew Dickman, and walked past Aimee Nezhukumatahil choosing poetry for her upcoming reading and was anguished trying to decide whether I wanted to accost her to ask her to sign her book I'd just purchased. (I lost my chance.)

Stephen Dobyns won the first New Jersey Poets Prize, which was awarded at my school. He signed my book afterwards and inscribed in it, "Keep poetry on your desk."

And the Poets of New Jersey book that I borrowed from the library over the summer ended up being the textbook for my Creative Writing class, so now I get to own a copy. Neat.

Oh, Penguin, you make me sigh with joy

2010-10-23T15:01:00.000-04:00

This semester I discovered a love I didn't know I had: Penguin Classics.

For the World Literature class I'm taking this semester, I've found that these editions have made really great supplemental reading for the selections in our textbook. Did I need to buy these to understand the stories any better, or to get a decent grade? Well, no. Okay? But they sure do look damn sexy on my shelf. If only I can find the room.

Paradise Lost by John Milton
The Aeneid by Virgil
Lysistrata and Other Plays by Aristophanes
Medea and Other Plays by Euripides
Metamorphoses by Ovid
Inferno by Dante

I had to photograph Homer's The Odyssey separately, because I love the way it looks on my nightstand. I also got this adorable owl votive holder for my birthday, and when I put it on top of my copy here, it amuses me to no end. (Owls? Athena? The Odyssey? ... Anyone?)

I now have a new obsession. Thanks a lot, Penguin.

Yikes!

2010-10-22T21:16:00.000-04:00

Wow. I've had these books sitting on my entertainment stand for over a month, and this picture on my desktop for slightly as long. Since I feel I must log each and every book haul, I have a lot of back-tracking to do. I blame school. I blame school for keeping me away from reading, and away from this blog. And away from my life, in a more general sense.

Fire by Kristin Cashore
The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening by L.J. Smith
The Vampire Diaries: The Struggle by L.J. Smith
Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
The Beforelife: Poems by Franz Wright
Red As Blood by Tanith Lee
Seduction and the Secret Power of Women: The Lure of Sirens and Mermaids by Meri Lao
Generation T: Beyond Fashion by Megan Nicolay

Yes, there's a bit of a vampire trend in there. It was slightly intentional. I had hoped to be reading these all October long for a perfectly autumn-y vampiric month. But, no. My school workload had slightly different plans and I'm still burrowing my through the first Vampire Diaries book. Maybe I'll have these finished by next year's Halloween?

Choose Your Side: ZOMBIES vs. UNICORNS

2010-09-09T22:13:00.001-04:00

I've been so pumped for this! It's almost time for the ultimate showdown! It's the battle between zombies and unicorns! (Personally, I am rooting for the unicorns.)

Poetry & Ponies

2010-08-17T08:36:00.029-04:00

I don't post about my library trips as often as I visit, because for some reason it seems slightly wrong to photograph books that aren't actually mine. But until the book-photography feds come after me, I'm going to do it. I'm hoping to spend less time in bookstores in a (futile) effort to spend less cash on books and more time reading them. But I can't pry myself away from library books. As my friend Lacey (a librarian) says, "They're so free!"

Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev. I've been reading a lot about this on Goodreads, and I'm always up for new YA audiobooks.

Tell Me a Secret by Holly Cupala. This is the August pick on readergirlz, and I thought I'd actually read one while everyone else is reading it too this time around.

Above the River: The Complete Poems by James Wright. I'm getting ready for my fall semester creative writing course with some poetry.

The Poets of New Jersey: From Colonial to Contemporary edited by Emanuel di Pasqual, et al. Okay, I'm a little ashamed that I had no idea some of these poets from New Jersey. Shame on me.

Also shown are two cute pony magnets from a friend that happened to be hanging on my desk when I took this photo.

Random selections

2010-08-16T22:07:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure why I picked out most of these. I suppose it was just way to make it feel worthwhile that I bothered to show up at a rather underwhelming library book sale.

Red As Blood by Tanith Lee. There's a vampire Snow White retelling in here somewhere, and that's why I bought it.

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen. I read a Dessen book a while back and didn't much like it, but I'm willing to try her again.

Lirael by Garth Nix. Sequel to Sabriel! Which I still haven't read. Zombies! Braaaiinnns!

Thunder Oak: A Welkin Weasels Adventure by Garry Kilworth. I got this for a really stupid reason that I can't believe I'm about to admit on the internet. But, hey, it's my blog that no one reads, so here goes. I thought about using the name "Thunder Oak" for a town in one of the fantasy stories I wrote for NaNoWriMo. So I did what I always do when I come up with a name or a title -- I googled it. And I found this series. PaperBackSwap had it, and now so do I.

Strands of Light by Gael Baudino. I thought this title sounded really poetic so I took it home. Sometimes I'm a really superficial book chooser.

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett. I need some more Pratchett in my life.

Unicorn & Dragon by Lynn Abbey. Honestly, I couldn't resist that title! Come on!

Shadow Magic and Daughter of Witches by Patricia C. Wrede. It's Wrede. Wrede is cool, right?

Cross by Sumiko Amakawa. I see in my photo I have the book upside down. Or is it supposed to be facing that way? I'm unaccustomed to manga, as I stopped reading it over a decade ago. But every once in a while one will catch my eye, like this one did.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. A replacement for a yellowed/crappy copy I'd had.

E=MC2: A Biography of the Worlds Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis. I honestly hate physics. I failed it so bad in high school and I still don't know why they let me graduate. But I LOVE this Einstein fellow. (Which may or may not be directly related to the cinematic treat brought to you by Yahoo Serious - Young Einstein.)

Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner. It's Kushner. Kushner is cool, right?

Books of the New

2010-08-05T22:29:00.002-04:00

As well as trolling my local area library book sales this summer, I've also been racking up a few brand new books here and there. This stack is a collection that's been growing since the spring, and I think I've refrained from posting it because I was hoping it would get a little bigger.

Though, you know, thankfully it hasn't. My book stash has long ago started to overwhelm me, and I need to start showing it who's boss.

The World Above by Cameron Dokey. The latest in the Once Upon a Time series, this one based on Jack & the Beanstalk. Though I have to admit that the title evokes my favorite tune from "The Little Mermaid" Broadway musical.

Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George. I loved Princess of the Midnight Ball, her retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, and this novel takes one of those princesses and puts a spin on the Cinderella fairy tale.

Infinite Days by Rebecca Maizel. Early review copy courtesy of LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Givaway program. Young adult novel about a vampire that wishes to be human again. I was especially interested in this because the vampire is a girl! Nice twist from what's going on out there in the paranormal teen romance genre these days.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman. It's Jesus! It's Philip Pullman! What more can I want?

Stories: All New Tales edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio. Even if it weren't edited by Neil Gaiman, the cover alone is reason enough to buy it.

Serenity: Better Days by Whedon, Matthews, and Conrad. The little number 2 on the side makes me want to buy the first one, even though I collected those individual issues when they were released in comic form. Hrm.

X-Babies: Stars Reborn by Schigiel and Chabot. I fell victim to the adorable Kitty Pryde on the cover. I have an uncontrollable weakness for Kitty Pryde.

Muppet King Arthur by Benjamin, Storck, Silvani, Alvarez. I don't know why.

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce. This Little Red Riding-hood retelling looked so very enticing. The cover art is frame-worthy.

Emily the Strange: Stranger and Stranger by Rob Reger. The second Emily the Strange novel! Hurrah!

The Art of Emily the Strange by Rob Reger. I've been coveting this for several months. And now it's mine! Covet no more.

Books of the used

2010-07-13T17:59:00.000-04:00

Library book sales, PaperbackSwap and the used book store, oh my!

I have a problem. I know. I'm working on it. Really.

Sybil by Flora Rheta Schrieber
The Prince of Whales by R. L. Fisher
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
The Idiot Girls Action-Adventure Club Laurie Notaro
Song of Unmaking by Caitlin Brennan
There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
Forever in Blue Anne Brashares
Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult
Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult
The Word on the Street by Rob Lacey
Bring Me a Unicorn: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Mythology by Edith Hamilton
Encyclopedia of Gods by Michael Jordan
Hour of the Octopus by Joel Rosenberg
The Wandering Unicorn by Manuel Mujica Lainez
Companion of the Night Vivian Van Velde
The Sight by David Clement-Davies
The Summer Country by James A. Hetley
The Winter Oak by James A. Hetley
Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Shapechanger's Song: Chronicles of the Cheysuli - Omnibus One by Jennifer Roberson
Princess at Sea by Dawn Cook
The Decoy Princess by Dawn Cook
The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

BookCat makes an appearance

2010-06-14T15:05:00.000-04:00

BookCat is displeased with my lack of book updates. I'm right there with you, BookCat.

I'm back in school for the summer semester (why, oh WHY?) and my reading/blogging time has been squashed once again. But I'm still collecting books and building the fort of literary goodness. Also, I recently rediscovered Goodreads and dusted off my account. I am in the process of working backwards through the books I've read to rate and review them. So if you're a member of Goodreads, come on and be my friend. And if you aren't a member of Goodreads . . . well, why aren't you?

(A perfectly acceptable answer is that the website is kind of ugly. I totally agree.)

Free Comic Book Day!

2010-05-10T10:22:00.002-04:00

The first Saturday in May is Free Comic Book Day, and I spent May 1st going around to a few different shops in the area. The pile spread out on my bedroom floor is an accumulation of that day, and a few months build-up of comics that I hadn't yet read. (I have a poor habit of overwhelming myself with reading material.)

There was one comic in particular that I was searching for, that none of the comic shops chose to carry. (Comic shops don't carry all the titles offered for FCBD, I was told, and indie pubs charge more.)

The comic was The Stuff of Legend. I tweeted my woes about not getting it, and writer Mike Raicht contacted me to send me a copy!

To sum up: Twitter is awesome.

And I have a lot of reading to do.

More poetry magnetics

2010-04-18T19:30:00.002-04:00

I'm still on target with my daily poems for NaPoWriMo. Because today's prompt calls for a cat poem, I wanted to share this kitty-cat magnetic poem. Meow!

More pieces of my book fortress

2010-04-18T19:03:00.005-04:00

I really ought to stop collecting and start reading and getting rid of books. I'm running out of stacking room. The good news is that I will have a fully fortified shelter of books when it comes to be apocalypse time.

Dragon Tales edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh. I love this sci-fi collections, I just can't help myself.

Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone adapted by Walter B. Gibson. My New Year's Eve tradition is to watch as many episodes of "The Twilight Zone" marathon as possible.

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. Who doesn't love some Ray Bradbury?

41 Stories by O. Henry. Or, for that matter, some O. Henry?

Spirited by Nancy Holder. A "Once Upon a Time" series book, this one based on "Beauty & the Beast."

The Portable D.H. Lawrence. It's portable! My only personal find at a recent library book sale (the rest all went directly to my listings on PaperBackSwap).

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness by Karen Armstrong. Been wanting this book about an epileptic former nun (that's really watering it down, I know) for several years, and I finally found it at the Book Barn for a buck.

Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult. Good ol' Jodi. Whose last name I recently learned the correction pronunciation of: pee-koe. I guess I have to stop calling her Jodi Pickles.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. This probably deserves an entire blog entry of its own. I read this for the first time ten years ago, and I've been craving reading it again. It was given to me as a gift for a special occasion recently, and it's just in time for the new comic book adaptation.

The Insomniac Liar of Troppo by Norman Dubie. I'm participating in NaPoWriMo, and there was recently a prompt to write a poem beginning with a line from one of his poems. I was not familiar with his work before then, and none of my libraries carry any of his titles. But PaperBackSwap had this available, so I snagged it up.

Night Out: Poems About Hotels, Motels, Restaurants, and Bars edited by Kurt Brown & Laure-Anne Bosselaar. I got this in honor of National Poetry Month. I am adoring it so far.

Book Rejoices

2010-04-10T14:10:00.004-04:00

One of the local Borders stores recently closed it doors for good, and while that is sad news for their employees (and the book-selling industry) - it meant frequent trips to watch the percent of their store-closing-sale keep dropping.

Cat's Claw by Amber Benson. The sequel to Death's Daughter, which I finished a few weeks ago and I don't know when I'll be ready to jump back into that world. I bought this at Midtown Comics and had both of my books signed by Amber (as well as my copy of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer - Willow & Tara graphic novel.)

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner. I saw this in a bookstore about a year or two ago (I honestly don't remember anymore) and the title has always stuck with me. It finally is part of my collection thanks to PaperBackSwap.

Violet Eyes by Debbie Vigue. Another one of those "Once Upon a Time" series books. This one is based on "The Princess and the Pea."

Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey. This was one of my unsung YA picks, and now I finally own it. Rejoices.

Tantalize and Eternal by Cynthia Leitich Smith. I borrowed both of these on audio book from the library, but I couldn't listen to them because the sound of the narrator's voice bothered me too much so I ended up deleting them from my iPod. I'll have to read them with my own inside-my-head voices.

The Book of J by Harold Bloom and David Rosenberg. A translation and lit crit of some of the books of the Bible, the parts believed to be attributed to the author many scholars have dubbed "J."

Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan. Short story collection by the author of Tender Morsels, (an unsung YA pick from a friend.) The real reason I bought this was to fill out an Amazon.com order to get free shipping.

Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link. This was recommended by Amazon after buying Red Spikes. It was a bargain book!

Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade by Landry Q. Walker and Eric Jones. Cute graphic novel I couldn't resist for the price.

Good Mail Day: A Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art by Jennie Hinchcliff and Carolee Gilligan Wheeler. This book combines two of my favorite things - mail and collage art. There's some beautiful stuff in these pages.

There's also some beautiful stuff going on outside today, so I think I'll take this stack out in my backyard and get some reading done.

Yay, poetry!

2010-04-07T15:10:00.004-04:00

So far I am seven for seven for the daily prompts for NaPoWriMo! I composed this little Magnetic Poem the other night, because I'm totally feelin' the poetry, man. I used the Cat Lover's set, yet managed to not use any of the feline-esque words. (And, yes, that's Link behind those magnetic word tiles.)

More on April

2010-04-01T11:53:00.004-04:00

In my haste to jam as many April Fool's Day jokes into my last post as I possibly could (apologies for the triple-post to my followers in GoogleReader - sometimes blogspot makes me wrestle with images), I forgot to mention two other April occasions.

April is National Poetry Month, and ReadWritePoem is hosting National Poetry Writing Month, or NaPoWriMo. The idea is to write 30 poems in 30 days. I will be participating this year. This year is a little bittersweet, because once April is over, ReadWritePoem will be shutting down. I'm sure that National Poetry Writing Month will live on, however, though it's a shame to see this valuable site closing its virtual doors.

There are other April poetry challenges, such as RePoWriMo - Refrigerator Poetry Writing Month - though it looks slightly abandoned right now. There's also Robert Lee Brewer's April Poem-A-Day challenge.

You can read more about National Poetry Month at poets.org, the people that started it all, and sign up for poetry e-mails sent daily during the month of April.

April is also time for ScriptFrenzy - the sister challenge to NaNoWriMo - where instead of a 50,000 word novel in a month, participants are to write a 100 page script of anything from a film, stage play, TV show, graphic novel, video game, animated feature or any other sort of scripted material I might've left out. I will be attempting ScriptFrenzy this month as well as NaPoWriMo, never tried script-writing before, with a graphic novel idea. It's a little bit daunting that ScriptFrenzy and National Poetry Month are both in April, but I guess I'll learn soon enough if poetry goes with script-writing.

And because it's still April Fool's Day, there are few more e-pranks here.

Eat a book today!

2010-04-01T11:20:00.005-04:00

I love the internet on April Fool's Day. Google always has a trick up their sleeve: Today they they have announced that they've changed their name to Topeka.

Webcomic xkcd has become a DOS command center.

YouTube is now showing videos in TEXTp, a text only mode.

My favorite comic book e-retailer Things From Another World are now selling Tauntaun steaks.

Craftster has some interesting crafty tips today.

Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the UK is now marketing ice screen, a virtual ice cream.

But thanks to Wikipedia, I also learned that not only is today April Fool's Day, and Maudy Thursday, it's also Edible Book Day. Now, I'm not exactly sure what that means, but books2eat has all of the details. Sounds delicious, and now I know what I'll be having for lunch! Nom nom!

Snowpocalypse makes for perfect reading weather

2010-02-26T19:44:00.011-05:00

Yes, I admit it: I've been spending way too much time on Twitter; crocheting scarves and stitching up poctopi; and capturing, with my brand new camera, the junk I carry in my bag, feline adorableness, and the snowpocalypse taking over my backyard. All of that instead of doing things like writing, or blogging, or reading all of these books I amass and keep track of here.

I've got a new stack looming on the edge of my desk, thanks to PaperBack Swap, bookstores going out of business, scoring a discount on a damaged item, cashing in on gift cards and maximizing Borders coupons to the fullest.

Death's Daughter by Amber Benson. Best known as the actress that portrayed Tara on "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer," Amber is multi-talented. I've read a few of her comics, and have been curious about this book for a while. I got this for a gazillion percent off at a local Borders Express going out of business sale.

Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan. Recommended by my friend Lacey for the unsungYA blog blitz, I knew I had to have this Snow White & Rose Red fairy tale retelling for my collection.

The Forest of Hands & Teeth by Carrie Ryan. Looks like I'm going to be attempting to read about zombies again, though I didn't enjoy my first time around.

Boy Toy and Hero Type and Goth Girl Rising by Barry Lyga. I've been following Barry on Twitter and reading his BLog, and enjoying them both so much that I figure I ought to fill out the rest of my Lyga collection. I read The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl and loved it.

Ash by Malinda Lo. This caught my eye in the bookstore because of the title, and I wondered if it could be a Cinderella retelling. I was right, and bought it on impulse, even though I had to borrow money from Lauren to bring it home with me.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. Been hearing a lot about this series on the internetz and thought I should give it a go. It's also been recommended by my friend Krystl.

Far Traveler by Rebecca Tingle and Your Own, Sylvia by Stephanie Hemphill were both 39 cents at the Borders Express going out of business sale. That's reason enough to try books I've never heard of.

The Gates by John Connolly. I have two other books by Connolly. Have I read them? Nope.

The Witch Must Die: The Hidden Meaning of Fairy Tales by Sheldon Cashdan. This book ended up not being very helpful when I borrowed it from the library for my fairy tale project for Psychology over the summer, but I've been wanting to read it for my own curiosity since then anyway. I finally broke down and bought a used copy online.

The Art of the Disney Princess by Glen Keane. This was the damaged item I mentioned - because the dust cover was torn I got it for 50% off! Contains gorgeous work from various artists with their own interpretations of Disney Princesses. It just came out a few months ago so even the newest princess, Tiana of "The Princess and the Frog" is included. However, Giselle from "Enchanted" was not. But I will battle anyone that says she's not a real princess.

First Sale of the Year

2010-01-23T10:55:00.002-05:00

First library book sale of 2010! Exciting! I brought forty bucks in cash with me, and ended up spending less than four to fill my bag. So it goes.

We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier

Once On a Time by A. A. Milne. I had no idea A. A. Milne had written anything for adults.

CatFantastic edited by Andre Norton & Martin H. Greenberg. Yay, short stories about fantastic cats!

HorseFantastic edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg. Love these collections by Greenberg. Now all I need is The Night Fantastic!

Quest For a Maid by Frances Mary Hendry

I, Coriander by Sally Gardner

Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde

How To Be Lost by Amanda Eyre Ward

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

Impossible by Nancy Werlin. This arrived from PaperBackSwap just two days ago, only for me to find at the book sale today! Sigh.

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, illustrated by Chihiro Iwasaki. The illustrations of the mermaid remind me a bit of Lady Amalthea from The Last Unicorn.

The 5 Best YA Novels You've (Probably) Never Read

2010-01-20T20:56:00.032-05:00

As part of blog project conceived and organized by the Young Adult lit blogger Kelly of YAnnabe, I'm going to take a moment to give some love to five of my most favorite, under-appreciated Young Adult novels.

The idea is to give some attention to some books you normally wouldn't have known about, let alone read, because all of the bookstores are blinding you with their stacks and stacks of those same few over-hyped titles (that most of the time don't really deserve the attention.) As I waded through the dregs of my local bookstore, I've managed to find these gems.

1. Emily The Strange: The Lost Days by Rob Reger, Jessica Gruner, and Bob Parker

What I know about Emily the Strange I've learned over the past few years from t-shirts, postcards and stickers from her merch line at Hot Topic. While Emily has had books devoted to her before, they've been art books with very little text. The Lost Days is Emily's first adventure in the narrative. I admit that I'm a biased Emily fan, but this novel impressed me for being so true to what I'd already gleaned about her character. Not an easy task, since the story opens when Emily awakens on a bench in a bizarre little town - armed only with an empty journal and none of her memories. Her amnesia is never frustrating though, surprisingly, and instead adds to the charm of the book as she works to figure out what's going on. The pages are peppered with hand-written notes, lists (13 items long, of course), and adorable doodles of cats and skulls. The mystery is engaging, the characters are unforgettably unique, and the book never feels like it's a sell-out. Not bad for a character that started out as a t-shirt design.

Buy on Amazon | Emily The Strange Official Website

2. Leap Day by Wendy Mass

The day is February 29th -- Leap Day -- and it's Josie's birthday. What I love about this book is that it "leaps" between Josie's first person narrative and the third person narrative of all sorts of characters that come into contact with Josie, from close friends to random classmates, various teachers, and family members. Characters are never what they appear to be, and I adore that. Though I'm smitten with all of Wendy Mass's novels, this one is very near and dear to my heart.

Sadly, though, I saw about a dozen of these in the bargain section at my local Borders recently. Though that's good news for all of you that don't have a copy yet. Also, it's currently only $3.20 on Amazon.

Buy on Amazon | Wendy Mass Official Website

3. Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey

Okay, this isn't just another one of those novels trying to horn in on the saturated YA paranormal romance market. This one is different from the rest, because it's actually quite good. Jessica is your average seventeen-year-old living in rural Pennsylvania when she happens to discover she is actually a Romanian vampire princess adopted by New Age anthropologists. Oh, and also, as a part of a blood-pact, she is betrothed to a vampire prince and the marriage will unite two warring vampire clans. You know, it's the sort of stuff that every high school senior finds herself having to face at one point or another.

Actually, in its own way, it actually is. In Fantaskey's vampire mythology, vampires are born instead of made. A vampire female must be bitten by a male vampire to complete her transformation. And in what seems on the surface a cheesy plot point, Jessica is given a copy of a book called "Teen Vampires Guide to Dating, Health and Emotions" in order to assist her transition from American teen to vampire royalty. Hidden behind this quirky storyline is a tale of a girl being catapulted into adulthood, and becoming who she's really supposed to be. Enjoyable, witty, dangerous and sexy -- this novel proves that the supernatural teen genre isn't exhausted quite yet.

Buy on Amazon | Beth Fantaskey Offical Website | Beth Fantaskey on Twitter | Chapter 1 Excerpt

4. The Garden by Elsie V. Aidinoff

This is not your Sunday school version of Adam and Eve and the Creation. When I read this, I felt creeped out to reading such a "blasphemous" retelling of the story of Eden. Aidinoff's depiction of God as a childish, selfish, bratty being was jarring. But the story is fleshed out, risky, and I loved how the book played out -- petulant God and all. In the afterword, Aidinoff says the reason she wrote the story was because she felt there were so many holes in the Genesis Creation story that she wanted a way to explain them. And in spite of her saying she didn't set out to write a story with feminist and religious leanings, for her to have written Eve as a strong and smart woman (oftentimes much smarter than Adam), and to write about God and the Serpent and the first two humans . . . it kind of happened anyway.

Sadly, though it only came out in 2005, The Garden appears to be out of print.

Buy it Used on Amazon | Request it on PaperBackSwap | Elsie V. Aidinoff's Author Profile

5. Midnight Pearls: A Retelling of The Little Mermaid by Debbie Viguie

Part of the Once Upon a Time series, a collection of books by different authors retelling fairy tales, this one puts a spin on my personal favorite: The Little Mermaid. Pearl was very young when she was caught in a fisherman's net and pulled out of the sea. She was adopted by the fisherman and his wife and raised as their own. She's a little bit different than everyone else, and the villagers are mistrusting of her because of her strange appearance - yet she cultivates a secret friendship with the prince. When the prince nearly drowns in a boating accident, he is saved from the wreckage ... though not by Pearl. This story stresses an element that is a minor point in the original: the love triangle. This simple yet beautiful mermaid story (not to mention the rest of the Once Upon a Time series) is a guilty pleasure for me.

Buy From Amazon | Once Upon a Time series on Wikipedia | Debbie Vigue's Blog | Debbie Vigue on Twitter

For some more lovin' on lesser known Young Adult novels, check out Kelly's post for her blog blitz project and let your Amazon wish list blossom and grow.

From Halloween till New Year's Day

2010-01-18T11:59:00.007-05:00

From the end of October till the beginning of January, I collected these books on my bedroom floor. Because of personal illnesses, winning NaNoWriMo (!!!), prepping simultaneously for finals and the holidays, I barely got a chance to take a look at them. Now it's mid-January, typically my favorite month for reading, and it's time sort through what I've been hoarding for weeks.

The Wood Wife by Terri Windling

I thought this might have been based on a fairy tale, but I don't know for sure. But I don't think I can go wrong with Terri Windling.

The Diamond Secret by Suzanne Weyn

I didn't realize that "Anastasia" was a fairy tale, but that's what this novel in the "Once Upon a Time" series is based on.

Winter's Child by Cameron Dokey

This "Once Upon a Time" series book is based on "The Snow Queen." Now I have them all!

Clever Maids: The Secret History of The Grimm Fairy Tales by Valerie Paradiz

A look at the women featured in Grimm fairy tales, and the women behind them.

A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham

Got this for Lauren, but since she already had it, I kept it!

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

The Modern Library edition, because I think they look so classy on my shelf. I love Alice, and I have the Annotated edition. But I wanted something easy to carry so I can read Alice on the go.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Took this home with me after spending the better part of an hour wandering the aisles of the used bookstore, the Book Barn.

Powers by John B. Olson

I scored myself the advance copy of this book from Library Thing Early Reviews. It's a sequel, so I'm not sure if I should track down Olson's previous, Shade, before reading and reviewing this one. (Probably, right?)

Legacy by Thomas E. Sniegoski

A story about superhero parents. This is another free copy of a book I won from this Bildungsroman blog entry.

Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

A story based on norse mythology by Neil Gaiman? I'll take that, thank you. Also there's drawings.

Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George

Based on the fairy tale "East of the Sun, West of the Moon."

Bulfinch's Mythology

My copy had water damage, so I got this copy from PaperBackSwap - which looks like it's seen better days. But it's a Modern Library edition, so, automatic win!

Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons From a Writing Life by Terry Brooks

Saw that this was being recommended on the NaNoWriMo forums. Too bad I didn't even get to open it during November.

Hans Christian Andersen by Jackie Wullschlager

Biography of one of my most favorite authors.

The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack by Nicholas Gurewitch

It is not easy to resist the lure of Perry Bible Fellowship.

Body Bags by Christopher Golden

First book in the Body of Evidence series, recommended to me by Little Willow of Bildungsroman, due to the main character, Jenna, being my name twin.

Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce

Always wanted to read Tamora Pierce, but I've been intimidated by her back catalog. I've been told that this is the place to start, though.

Sabriel by Garth Nix

Medieval zombie fighter! Can't say no to that.

Ariel by Steven R. Boyett

This is one of my favorite books, introduced to me by my good friend Lacey. It's a post-apocalyptic coming-of-age story, and features a talking unicorn named Ariel. The book had been long out of print by the time Lacey lent me her copy, but I did manage to find a used copy on the internet for my very own. In November the book was finally reprinted, though with an updated cover which no longer features the twin towers (which play a prominent part in the climax of the story) ... or any sign of the unicorn that the novel is named for.

Elegy Beach by Steven R. Boyett

The sequel to Ariel, which takes placed thirty years after the events that take place in the first novel, which is referred to as "The Change" (when technology stopped working, and mythological stuff like unicorns and griffins got plopped onto Earth.) No signs of unicorns on the cover of this book either.

Q-Ko-Chan by Ueda Hajime

Manga about never-ending war and giant robots, my cousin gave this to me for Christmas after telling me it reminded her of me. Hmm.

A Mermaid's Tale by Amanda Adams

A book all about mermaid myths and meanings! A wonderful Christmas present from Lauren.

From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers by Marina Warner

I pined over this fairy tale book at the library many times (over in the 398s, my favorite section to get lost in) since I borrowed it for one of my Psychology projects over the summer. I pined because this book is out of print. But the pining paid off, and this was another Christmas gift from Lauren.

The Vampire Archives: The Most Complete Volume of Vampire Tales Ever Published edited by Otto Penzler

I bought this a few days before Halloween, but since that was also mid-term week, I didn't get to dig in to these vampire stories in a timely fashion. The stories are categorized into headings like "Pre-Dracula," "True Stories," "Psychic Vampires," and "Is That a Vampire?", etc. Not only does this collection purport to be the most complete volume of vampire stories, collecting stories by Anne Rice, Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, and Harlan Ellison, and a preface by Neil Gaiman, it also contains a bibliography of every vampire story or novel ever written. The bibliography itself is over 100 pages long, so I believe it. Not such a bad collection to have around.

Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult

I've still only read one Picoult book, but I nab her works whenever I see them. At book sales, or ... wherever.

Grimm's Grimmest by the Grimm Brothers

Some of the darker of the dark and lesser-known Grimm fairy tales, singled out into this collection, such as "The Juniper Tree," "The Robber Bridegroom," "The Crows," and "The Girl Without Hands." (Awesome illustrations by Tracy Arah Dockray, and an introduction by Maria Tatar.)

Tales from Wonderland: Volume 1 by Joe Brusha, Ralph Tedesco, and Raven Gregory

Graphic novel collection the one-shot horror comics re-imagining Wonderland.

Eternals by Neil Gaiman

Gaiman's 2006 Marvel comic mini-series, an update of Jack Kirby's series of the same name, about some more-than-humans with awakening powers and immortality.

Biblio-healing

2009-10-12T18:22:00.008-04:00

Amazon has brought some great things to my doorstep last week (as well as PaperBack Swap, but mostly Amazon this time.) I am fighting off a bad cold and need to rest, so I'm going to keep this one short and sweet.

The Rose Bride by Nancy Holder. From the "Once Upon a Time" series, this one is based on "The White Bride and the Black Bride," which is a fairy tale I am not familiar with.

Wild Orchid by Cameron Dokey. Also from the "Once Upon a Time" series, this one is based on "The Ballad of Mulan" which I am only familiar with from the Disney movie (and I hadn't realized it was considered a fairy tale.)

PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God edited by Frank Warren. The newest PostSecret book, the fifth one so far. I buy these faithfully within a week of release. (Unfortunately, my copy had a torn page and I will have to exchange it.)

The Interpretation of Fairy Tales by Marie-Louise von Franz. Jungian analysis of fairy tales, recommended to me by a commenter on this blog!

Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson. Who doesn't love some Jeanette Winterson? Or lighthouses, for that matter?

Song of the Sparrow by Lisa Sandell. A story, told in poetic verse, or Elaine from the Camelot mythology.

Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson. This arrived from PaperBack Swap just in time for Banned Books Week, and also ironically coincided when the book was being challenged at some high schools.

Riddle-Master: The Complete Trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip. If I see Patricia A. McKillip's name on something, I take it with me. That's just the way it works.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. Audrey's new book! Her second offering only earned a C+ from Entertainment Weekly, but maybe that's only because it's no easy task to live up to her previous novel The Time Traveler's Wife. I'm sure this is awesome in its own right, and I can't wait to discover that for myself.

Catwoman: The Visual Guide to the Feline Fatale by Scott Beatty. Catwoman, my favorite DC universe lady. Purrrrfect.

Two other non-book-related pieces of news:

I've broken down and gotten a Twitter. My blog features my three latest tweets over in the sidebar, with the option to follow me.

I have officially entered in National Novel Writing Month. It seems that being busy with school and not being able to find the time to read for pleasure, study, or do homework wasn't enough of a challenge for me. I am displaying my participant web badge proudly over there to your right, and as soon as November blows in I will show off my word count progress bar there for my loyal blog readers. (All two of you.)

Queer Dimensions

2009-09-29T16:45:00.005-04:00

I've been pretty darn excited since I got in the door just a little while ago, because there was a package from Amazon.com waiting for me. Packages from Amazon are always full of awesome, but today it is even more so. Today, the book waiting for me inside this box was a book of short stories put out by QueeredFiction, a small press that publishes genre fiction featuring gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters.

But WHY am I particularly excited about this book?

Because one of the contributors featured in the sci-fi collection Queer Dimensions is one of my very good friends, Lacey Louwagie. I also had the privilege of reading an early draft of her contribution, "The Man in the Mirror" (back when it was titled something else), while lounging in the bathtub on a cold winter day and trying to muster up some haphazard critique for it. Now here I am months later with a copy of the published book beside me. Very cool. I'm anxious to start reading it right now, instead of doing some last minute studying for an algebra test tonight. Sigh. Duty calls.

A very giraffe-y, kitty cat, corset, moo-cow, fairy tale birthday

2009-09-27T14:49:00.010-04:00

So last Tuesday was both my birthday and the autumnal equinox. This year's harvest brought beautiful book bounty from my Amazon wish list. Joys!

The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray. My Gemma Doyle trilogy is now complete! (The interview with Libba in the back of the book made my day.)

Going Bovine by Libba Bray. Libba's new book came out on my birthday. I got this one for myself with an Amazon gift certificate. By the way, the book trailer is not to be missed. FOR ANY REASON.

Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood by Maria Tatar. This book was very helpful to me for one of my psychology projects, but I couldn't finish it in time and had to return it to the library. Now I have it for my very own!

101 Cataclysms: For the Love of Cats by Rachael Hale. Last year, right before I got my kitten, I went to Borders and looked through this book for inspiration for kitty names. I adore Rachael Hale's photography, but ultimately the inspiration for his name came from a Beatles song.

Zarafa: The Giraffe Who Walked to the King by Judith St. George, illustrated by Britt Spencer. I've been pining for this book since I saw it in a bookstore in Boston. Now the zarafa is all mine! This also reminds me of the awesome site One Million Giraffes, which I discovered around the same time I found this book. I plan on submitting some of my own giraffes just as soon as I make some.

The Annotated Brothers Grimm edited by Maria Tatar. I love these Annotated books. I now have all three fairy tale collections edited by Maria Tatar. Because I rock. On my birthday.

Lobsters make everything better

2009-09-27T12:52:00.004-04:00

The last book sale I went to had a curious method: A tote bag needed to be purchased from them for the price of two dollars. Then it could be filled for a fee of seven dollars. No other kind of bag was permitted. If you could not fill your bag, you had the option of paying for the books individually (something like $1 for hardcovers, $0.50 for paperbacks, etc. Usual book sale fare.)

After driving a half an hour to get to this library, which I've never been to before, I got suckered in. Even though most of the books I filled my brand spankin' new tote bag with weren't for me. Since after one walk-around of the whole place while carrying a little map, I decided to focus on picking out books for my fifteen-year-old niece. She ended up rejecting most of them and now they're sitting in a box in the basement, waiting to be donated to the next book sale and/or the Book Barn. Sigh.

I did find one particular gem that made the whole thing all worth it: Ocean Playground Snappy's Surprise finger puppet book. I was so elated when I saw this book, I grabbed it and looked over both shoulders guiltily when I shoved it in my tote bag. Surely that much joy meant I was doing something I shouldn't have been.

Some of the highlights of what I managed to find for myself:

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I used to have an ARC of this book, but got rid of it when I tried to lighten my load. (How silly of me to even try!) At the time, I had no idea that this was a book written during National Novel Writing Month. (Which is something I would like to try again this November, but I fear that schoolwork will keep me out of the game.)

Chosen By a Horse by Susan Richards. I picked this up at a store just the night before to read the back of it, and made a mental note to remember to put it on my wish list or borrow from the library. Behold, the Book Gods can hear my thoughts! I magically found it at the book sale the next morning.

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. Sedaris is one of those authors that I always wanted to read just to say I've read, to see what the big deal is.

Scottish Wonder Tales from Myth and Legend by Donald A. Mackenzie. When it comes to any kinds of myths, legends, or fairy tales: resistance is futile. It's a good thing I never try.

Elidor by Alan Garner. I admit it, I only picked this up because there's a unicorn on the cover. I'm sorry.

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. Who could resist the lure of Pooh? Or Cottleston, cottleston, cottleston pie?

Tales of Ancient Egypt by Roger Lancelyn Green. But of course.

8 Plus 1 stories by Robert Cormier. After reading I Am the Cheese, I do not pass up anything Robert Cormier.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. I've been looking for a nice copy of this at the last few book sales, and I didn't know until I got home that this still isn't it.

The Celts: An Epic Novel of Ancient Ireland by Elona Malterre. Celts, why not? Everything all goes back the Middle Ages. At least, this semester it does.

I finished reading The Secret Life of Lobsters this morning, and it's a trip back to the library for that book. Good thing I have my Snappy finger puppet to console me if I experience any lobster withdrawal.

Library book sale action, comin' atcha!

2009-09-27T10:53:00.007-04:00

Even after going to the preview sale and the regular sale, I couldn’t resist the bag sale on the third day. Most of the books I snagged were picture books for my five-year-old niece, and some teen fiction for my fifteen-year-old niece and are not shown in the photo. Actually only three of them are from that sale. The rest are from PaperBack Swap, or swiped from elsewhere. (Hint: an ever-growing stash of books collected by someone who spends far more time and money at book sales than I do.)

Metamorphoses by Ovid. I ordered this on PaperBack Swap after reading about it in my History of the Middle Ages textbook.

A View From the Bridge by Arthur Miller. My favorite Arthur Miller play. Yes, Death of a Salesman and The Crucible are great -- but this is the one that really won me over.

The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. I saw the movie and didn't think it was all that great. Probably because I'm not familiar with enough Austen. But I kept seeing this book at sales, I had to finally give in and put it in my bag.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Bought this to replace a very worn-in mass market copy.

Blood Red Horse by K. M. Grant. Recommended to me by the woman at the last book sale after she saw all of my finds. They didn't have a copy there, but PaperBack Swap did.

St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves stories by Karen Russell. The holy grail of all of my finds, and I didn't even find it myself. (This came from the earlier-mentioned elsewhere.) This had been on my Amazon wish list since it came out and I hadn't even realized it was released in PaperBack. Excitement!

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Saw this at all three days of the book sale and I found the cover so emotive that I put it in my bag. I have no idea what it's about, but it was a BAG SALE and that's what bag sales are for, after all.

The Thing of the Cats And Other Feline Fairy Tales edited by John Richard Stephens. Does it get any better than cats and fairy tales?

Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams adapted by Andrea Posner-Sanchex. I can't stop collecting these little square Disney Princess picture books.

Oh-em-gee! Book sales!

2009-09-20T10:48:00.006-04:00

Holy library book sales, Batman! There were two different library book sales in the area last weekend -- but I was able to make it to only one of them. Three times. The books above are from the preview night for Friends of the Library, as well as some books I had hanging around from the Book Barn and received from PaperBack Swap.

The Monopoly Book by Maxine Brady. I used to borrow this book from the library ALL the time when I was a kid. That doesn't mean I've ever won a game of Monopoly, however.

Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath

From Fatigued to Fantastic! by Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D.

Low-Fat Vegetarian Meals in 30 Minutes by Faye Levy

The Complete Book of Pizza by Louise Love. I guess there's not much in the world about pizza that I didn't already know.

The Little Mermaid Disney picture book

The Little Mermaid retold by Patricia Lakin, illustrated by Roberta Collier-Morales. I love this one because the mermaid totally has 80's hair. Behold.

Ultimate Spider-Man #18: Ultimate Kings by Brian Michael Bendis. I already had #s 15 and 16, so I guess I need to get #17 for an smooth succession.

Rumpelstiltskin’s Daughter by Diane Stanley

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder. A woman working the book sale saw me book up one of the Gemma Doyle books, and she recommended this trilogy to me.

A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle

Yesterday We Saw Mermaids by Esther M. Friesner. I have no idea what this is about. But when I see the words "mermaid" in a title, I usually do the grab & clutch.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

King Arthur’s Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury by Geoffrey Ashe

Medieval Myths by Norma Lorre Goodrich. Thought this (and the previous) might be interesting since I taking a course in the history of the Middle Ages this semester.

Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling. Whoops, this one managed to sneak into this photo, even though I mentioned it in an earlier post. Sneaky book!

TTYL by Lauren Myracle. A positive review from a friend piqued my interest in this series.

Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown

The Wish by Gail Carson Levine. Anything Levine rocks. I think I've said that before.

East by Edith Pattou. Based on the Norwegian myth "East of the Sun West of the Moon." I was not familiar with it, despite taking two Children's Lit classes. But when I read it recently it called to mind the Greek myth, Cupid & Psyche, a tale I'm very familiar with. I'm always amazed by similar stories from completely different cultures, which was what my first project back from Psychology was all about.

Magic Study by Maria V. Snyder. Sequel to Poison Study. Now I just need Fire Study, and I have the complete set!

Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares. And I'll have the complete Pants set as soon as I find the fourth book in this series.

The Frog Princess by E.D. Baker. It's that whole fairy tale thing again that I just can't resist.

The Possibilities of Sainthood by Donna Freitas

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island by Linda Greenlaw. Lobsters are my newfound love. Not to eat, but to read about.

The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt. I loved Samantha Hunt's first novel, The Seas, which I thought about a lot in Maine. I hope her second novel, a fictional book about the non-fictional Nikola Tesla, is as beautiful and reality-bending as her debut.

Mary Called Magdalen by Margaret George. I think maybe I had this already. Oh well.

Pilate’s Wife: A Novel of the Roman Empire by Antoinette May. I'm in the Middle Ages mode. Though I probably won't get a chance to read this during the semester.

Immortal by Traci L. Slatton. This caught my interest also because of my Middle Ages class. About the Black Death and the Inquisition. Fun stuff.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. I tried to read this last year, but I couldn't get into it. Too many people whose opinion I respect love this book though, so I will attempt it once more.

The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman

The River King by Alice Hoffman. Though my interest in Alice Hoffman is declining, I couldn't help but nab these two titles.

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. Two Picoult hardcovers! Woo.

Since I've run out of room on my book shelf and under my bed, I've decided to reinforce my walls by piling books up along the floor. I figure they should keep me warm in the winter.

And now I must go do some graphing homework for algebra, and write a paper about Constantine.

Very Nearly Autumn

2009-09-10T23:39:00.007-04:00

Oh, September - how I adore thee. Today was the first day I got a real twinge of the feeling that summer is really ending and the fall season is almost here. There was that sharp, cool, distinct very nearly autumn air hovering as I walked across the campus parking lot this afternoon. Hoodie-wearing season is nigh! Autumn has quite the special place in my heart (if not only because I was born on the autumnal equinox, and my name was very nearly Autumn). There’s all this totally awesome junk the impending season brings. Pumpkin Spice coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, fallen brown leaves crunching beneath my Skechers, the scent of new school supplies wafting through the aisles of Target, navigating the corn maize, new TV shows, razor blades hidden in apples . . . what’s not to love about autumn.

That last sentence was not phrased as a question because there isn’t anything to not love about autumn (except when it snows), and that is why I decided to get in the autumn-y spirit and get these books.

The Apple Cookbook: More than Sixty Easy and Imaginative Recipes edited by Nicola Hill

There is clearly a LOT about apples that I don't know. These recipes certainly are imaginative. Turkey Kabobs with Apple, Trout with Apple, Pork & Apple Pasties, Apple & Avocado Pasta Salad, etc. There are more meat recipes than I would've expected, so I probably won't end up using most of them, but that's what you get when you order a cookbook from PaperBackSwap without ever having looked at it before. I got this mainly for dessert recipes anyway. I would like to hit up the apple orchard soon. Fun fall times ahead! My favorite part of the book is the first couple pages where it gives a little description of all the different kinds of apples.

Let's Look at the Seasons: Autumn Days by Ann Schweninger

A very cute and informative picture book to teach children about Autumn, complete with poems, a look at fall holidays, an explanation of why leaves change color, and a leaf wreath making activity.

Autumn's First Leaf by Steve Metzger, Illustrated by Aaron Zenz

Instead of a story about the life cycle of a leaf, this story uses the backdrop of autumn to preach about how friends are friends no matter what they look like. The illustrations are so adorable I want to cry.

The Fairest of the Fall: A Disney Princess Book

Ariel finds what Scuttle tells her is a jack-o-witchy floating in the water, and decides to organize a Halloween party under the sea. Meanwhile, Briar Rose walks around the woods pretty darn confused about this whole autumn thing.

Sweet and Spooky Halloween: A Disney Princess Book

Not so much spooky, but sweet enough. Ariel, Belle, Cinderella, and Snow White (though she's not pictured on the cover! Oh nos!) celebrate Halloween in their very special, very Disney Princess ways. The best part is when Cinderella and her Prince drive off in a carriage that really is a giant pumpkin! Ha, ha. I get it.

August haul

2009-08-31T14:35:00.006-04:00

First day of school today, so I can say good-bye to my Reading Life for the season. Course, that didn't stop me from collecting all these books this month. Money also didn't stop me either, because I got ALL of these for free! (Especially the library books.) Not spending money right after coming back from vacation is a good thing. (Too bad I had to pay for textbooks for school. Those were ... not free.)

Eternal by Cynthia Leitich Smith. Even after reading the description on the back of this audio book, I'm still not entirely sure what this is about. Something about a guardian angel of a dead princess? Works for me.

Revenge of the Whale by Nathaniel Philbrick. This is the true story of the whaleship Essex, the story that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick. (I'll admit it, the only reason I'm interested in this is because it was mentioned by the tour guide of the whale watch I went on while in Maine.)

I have quite a queue of audio books in my iTunes now. I seem to borrow them from the library much faster than I can listen to them.

Sirena by Donna Jo Napoli. Years ago I parted with a copy of this and then wished I'd kept it because it is a mermaid story.

Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling. The third collection of Datlow & Windling's retold fairy tales.

Judy Moody by Megan McDonald. It's high time I get on board with Judy Moody.

The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me by Roald Dahl. Giraffe, yay!

Shoebag by Mary James. I LOVED this book when I was a kid -- I can honestly say that it's the best book about cockroaches I've ever read.

Zarafa: A Giraffe's True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris by Michael Allin. This is the story of the giraffe that was gifted to the King of France from the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt in 1845. More people should do this.

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. Couldn't resist a title like this.

Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale by Catherine Orenstein. An awesome resource for fans of Little Red, Orenstein discusses all the variations of the tale and Red's lasting cultural influences.

The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis by Sheldon M. Stern. One of the most interesting times of American history: when citizens believed that hiding under a school desk could save them from nuclear war.

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fourth Annual Collection edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. I now have two of these anthologies (only 19 more to go!)

The Book Without Words by Avi. There's a lie in the title.

The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fisherman and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean by Trevor Corson. I am learning so much about lobsters!

"It is in the unexpected or neglected place that you will find the lobster."

-- Irish saying

Zombies aren’t all they’re cracked up to be

2009-08-25T22:03:00.009-04:00

Over the past few months, I’ve picked up three different books about zombies. And I learned something very important: the magic of zombies doesn’t really come across in literature.

Confession time. Before this year, I have never read any Jane Austen. But after reading Entertainment Weekly’s glowing review of Seth Grahame-Smith's new mash-up title Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I got myself to the bookstore and bought a copy as well as Austen’s original. Finally something motivated me enough to read some Austen, and that something was zombies.

After taking much longer than I expected to plod through the herky-jerky Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I am convinced that the book received its rave reviews based on the ingenuity of the idea. Pair a classic work of literature with violent brain-munching monsters! Brilliant!!

Well, almost.

While I did enjoy the book overall, it never actually lived up to my expectations. A book that is categorized in the humor section should have probably been somewhat more entertaining. Though I did get a chuckle at some of the ways that Seth Grahame-Smith twisted some of the events of the original -- such as when Elizabeth showed up at Netherfield with the hem of her dress caked in dirt, it was all because she was kicking the butts of those wretched unmentionables. Of course.

The book needed to be slimmer. The story could have been just as effective (or even more so) without a word for word transcription with some zombie mayhem and ninja action spliced through. But then . . . I guess that was the point. And the damn book IS a New York Times Bestseller, after all, so I should probably stop picking on it.

Right, so.

After I finished reading about Elizabeth Bennett vanquish some zombies, I thought to myself: Hey, what if I ever find myself unprepared during a zombie apocalypse?

I borrowed from the library (and returned without finishing) The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead by Max Brooks. This book, by the way, is also supposed to be considered humorous. This book, posing very convincingly as an actual survival guide, is way over the top in taking itself seriously. So much that it just comes off as mind-numbingly dull. It seems that I will just have to perish during the uprising, as I do not have what it takes to fend off reanimated corpses. In fact, I think I would rather have my flesh eaten by zombies than be forced to read this entire book. When I was a kid, I was so addicted to reading that I read all the words I could find. I read everything from cereal boxes as well as the milk carton while eating breakfast, to the directions and list of ingredients on shampoo bottles while taking a bath. For fun! To this day I still read whatever I possibly can, from the tiny print on the backs of all my receipts and the crappy posters and advertisements on the subway. I am telling you this because NOTHING can convince me to go back and finish reading this book. Yes, it's that boring. So boring that I thought my brains were melting out of my head and I was convinced that the zombie war had already begun.

The third zombie tale to fail me was You Are So Undead to Me by Stacey Jay. This young adult novel about Megan, a teenage Zombie Settler (meaning she's got mystical powers to, uh, listen to the problems of the dead and send them on their merry way to a peaceful afterlife) has a lot going wrong for it. The zombies are actually the best thing about this book, which isn't saying a lot. Stacey Jay seems totally obsessed with two things in her writing: 1) the passive voice and 2) trying desperately to mimic the way a fifteen-year-old girl might talk. Megan is downright embarrassing. She is what someone's mom might act like if she found the secret to time travel and became a teenager again. She is obsessed with boys, the homecoming dance, boys, cheerleading try-outs, boys, and not too much else. Oh, and boys.

Here's what really gets me about this story: ALL of the action happens OFF-SCREEN. Many important plot developments reach their climax or are resolved while main character, the narrator of the damn book, isn't even present. Stacey Jay fails at writing 101 because she doesn't take heed of the age-old advice of "show, don't tell" and allows her supporting characters to fill Megan in. (It seems she is too obsessed with boys or practicing dance routines for her to be present during her own story.)

This book makes a distinction between zombies (benevolent undead who seek Megan's help for their unfinished business), and reanimated corpses (the dead that have been raised by witches, sorry, black magic practitioners, for some evil purpose or another.) The RCs, as they are called in the book, are closer to the popular idea of zombies. But the scenes when Megan is being chased down by them aren't scary at all. The action doesn't flow and instead just bursts out in a stream of consciousness and hiccups until all the zombies go away.

You Are So Undead to Me could have used a nice, fat edit. Rearranging the order of some of the scenes would have helped a lot. And it would have benefited from additional scenes to fill in the gaps and explain some backstory. The ending, by the way, was a touch homophobic (and I'm not even sure if that was the author's intention.) I do give the Stacey Jay credit for trying to add something new to the zombie genre, and for aiming her book at a young adult audience -- but, for me, it failed. To anyone wanting to read this book: I say stick with Stephenie Meyer. At least she knows her weakness and doesn't bother with pesky details like plot.

So. What have we learned here? Zombies are all fun and games until someone tries to write a book about them.

Home sweet home.

2009-08-24T21:13:00.001-04:00

I am finally home from my travels and I am just about ready to return to work tomorrow. Fall semester begins in a week. Things are settling back to routine and my dazzling summer adventures are settling into memory. But I’m glad to be back at home with my kitten, and of course, my books. I missed my reading spot with my cozy chair and being surrounded by books.

When I packed for vacation, I smuggled books into my luggage like they were illegal substances. Only four books ended up traveling with me (in addition to the audiobooks loaded onto my iPod), and I consider that traveling light. But there was so much to do while away that I didn’t finish any of them (despite starting them all.) I’ll have to make my next vacation a stay-cation, so I can just lounge about and read.

Miles of piles

2009-08-07T14:45:00.009-04:00

In the month of July, I managed to pile up the same amount of books that I have read this entire year. (Which was 29. But as of about a half hour ago, got bumped up to 30.) There are a few reasons I've let these books accumulate on my TV, without blogging about them, without even registering them on LibraryThing. The number one reason was that my Psychology class was sucking the very life out of me. But class ended last week and I got an A, thankyouverymuch.

I thought that when class was over I would have oodles of time to read. But I got clobbered with a pie in the face of life stuff. The very same day of my Psych final I developed an ear infection (which I am still suffering with right now). Downsizing and the like at work. I attended an out-of-state wedding (complete with ear infection). Various family-related stuff. And in just a few hours I will be on my way to a weeklong stay in Maine.

My oodles of time to read dwindled a bit, but I managed to just finish Jessica's Guide to Dating on The Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey. I adored this book, which I found to be the intelligent person's answer to those Twilight books (yes, offense those dense, screaming, Edward-obsessed Twifans) with a dash of The Princess Diaries thrown in. The plot follows Jessica, a seventeen-year-old adopted teen in Pennsylvania, after being confronted by Lucius, a foreign exchange student from Romania, who tells Jess that she's actually a vampire princess that has been entrusted to a blood pact which involves the two of them being betrothed since birth in order to stop two warring vampire clans. If it sounds a little cheesy, that is because it's better that way. What makes the story works is that it doesn't make much sense, but it's so damn good you gobble it up anyway. At least, that's what I did.

It is already a week into August, and I had wanted to participate in Laurie Halse Anderson's WFMAD this month, but the pie-clobbering (mostly, the ear infection) has kept me out of the game this far. I plan to hop on the bandwagon as soon as tonight. Because not only do I like to read words, but sometimes I even write them, too.

Also, speaking of writing, I've added a link to a good friend's blog about writing. Not just because she linked my blog, and not just because she's awesome (she is), but because she has some great insights to share about the life of a writer.

After a dialogue of PMs with fellow Paper Back Swapper Scott that led him here to this very blog, he told me about a site that he co-founded called SFFaudio. There's tons of awesome stuff on that site to keep a fan of sci-fi and audiobooks occupied and happy for days on end!

A few weeks ago I was told about a blog called Awful Library Books, which has become one of my favorite time-waster sites. I now peruse the library's cart of discarded books religiously in hopes of finding something worthy of that blog.

I heard on the news recently about a site called Bookswim, which proposes to be a Netflix for books. I haven't had time to try it yet, but I'm curious.

And before I head off to do some final packing, the books from my photo are:

After Long Silence by Sheri S. Tepper

'Salem's Lot by Stephen King (which is now packed in suitcase -- I've been planning to read this in Maine, appropriately.)

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (I can't remember another book that's been recommended to me as many times as this one has.)

Faery! edited by Terri Windling

I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This by Jacqueline Woodson

Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause

Tam Lin by Pamela Dean

Wendy by Karen Wallace

I Was a Teenage Fairy by Francesca Lia Block (I read this many years ago, but I don't know what happened to my copy. I couldn't resist paying only 50 cents for this one.)

Indigo by Alice Hoffman

Isabel of the Whales by Hester Velmans

Emily Windsnap and the Monster From the Deep and Emily Windsnap and the Castle in the Mist by Liz Kessler

Dark Congress by Christopher Golden

The Wizard, the Witch & Two Girls from Jersey by Lisa Papademetriou

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire

Spindle's End by Robin McKinley

Whalesong by Robert Siegel

The Mermaid Summer by Mollie Hunter

Lost on a Mountain in Maine by Donn Fendler as told to Joseph B. Egan (I thought I might take this on my trip with me.)

Automated Alice by Jeff Noon (I read this some time ago and stupidly sold it. I love this book, an update of Alice in Wonderland, and I have referred to it often in conversation. I needed to own it again.)

Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block (I was regretting having gotten rid of this book one night, after reading a bit about it on a forum, and lo and behold, the very next morning I stumbled upon it at the Book Barn. In the New Age section, for some bizarre reason.)

Rebel Angels by Libba Bray (I adore these Gemma Doyle books. I listened to them on audiobook, but I need to have the actual pages. I still need to get the third and final in the series, The Sweet Far Thing.)

Ophelia by Lisa Klein

Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

Becoming Chloe by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Painless Algebra (I haven't really gotten around to doing much math so far this summer. Not that I'm complaining.)

The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Religion, Literature, and Art

My Giant Treasury of Fairy Tales (I actually picked this up for my youngest niece, but I've kept it in my pile because there's some good stuff in there. No telling when I will fork it over.)

After all, what can be better than a rampaging mutant lobster?

2009-07-19T09:30:00.005-04:00

When I found out earlier this week that the genius that is Quirk Classics is bestowing another lovely gift this year in the form of octopi, pirates, a giant mutant rampaging lobster, and who knows what else they'll throw into this nautical tale of adventure and mayhem. The follow up to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies will be out on September 15th: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

This was very exciting news for me -- which I learned of in Entertainment Weekly's Shelf Life -- on a morning when excitement up until then only came in the form of Coolattas from Dunkin' Donuts. (I had stayed up the night before until 2 AM to write not one, but FIVE essays for Psych class -- assigned that day and due the following. No foolin'.)

Reading about the forthcoming Jane Austen mash-up put me in high spirits. I'm especially stoked for this one. While zombies are plenty awesome enough and their entry into any sort of entertainment is cause for celebration, sea monsters are thrilling for a few reasons. There's a variety in sea monsters you don't get with the undead creatures we've come to expect like zombies or vampires. (Murderous Squids! Deranged Sharks! The Kraken! Maybe even Nessie!) Oh, and since sea monsters are alive, they can be killed for the very first time! What's more special than that? I dare someone to venture how this could not be totally awesome.

Because my brain is still zombified from so much homework this week, I am going to quit while I'm ahead and my send-off will be links to the Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters Book Trailer, and a download of the first chapter of the audiobook of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Reading overload

2009-07-13T22:24:00.004-04:00

My Psychology class is keeping me very occupied and I have been on a reading overload lately. I didn't know such a thing as reading overload was possible, but when my eyes began to feel like they were going to blast fiery holes through the pages and my arms became sore after holding books up for hours on end from so much reading, (the latter hasn't happened since the seventh Harry Potter book was released), I was proven wrong.

Yes, so, I have been spending a lot of my time reading about fairy tales. And even though it might be obvious to anyone that reads this blog that fairy tales are a deep passion of mine, I have actually been doing this research for a class project. More specifically, the power that fairy tales hold over us and what draws us to return to them.

I bought a copy Carl Jung's Man and His Symbols, because I had been curious about his theory of the collective unconscious -- the unconscious thoughts shared by humanity. Maybe this book wasn't the best place to look, because Jung spends a lot of time on dreams (which is what the book is meant to be about), but he does talk about universal images and symbols a lot. It has always fascinated me that every culture has their own creation story, their own flood story, their own version of Cinderella, the 'Mother, Matron, Crone' idea . . . I could go on. The collective unconscious could explain why: these motifs were inherited to us from our ancestors through dreams.

I have had Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales on my shelf for years. But it's been all the way at the top, and I can thank my class for giving me an excuse to get the step-stool to pull it down and actually read it. This can be a hard read at times because of Bettelheim's specific way of explaining things (and some of his bizarre takes on fairy tales), but what I took away as most interesting is that Bettelheim wrote of fairy tales being akin to psychoanalysis. Which makes sense to me, because fairy tale characters are just stock characters anyway, and it is easy for children to superimpose themselves into them and find a way to mine the story for whatever it is exactly that they need that outlet for.

Roger Sale's Fairy Tales and After: From Snow White To E.B. White didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, but I found his personal experiences of reading the tales as a child and then rereading them later on to his own children pretty interesting. This guy is pretty mean to authors such as A. A. Milne and Lewis Carroll, among others, but he doesn't ever seem to dis the fairy tales (which can be very easily done.)

I borrowed Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood by Maria Tatar from the library, and I think I may have to buy it for my very own. I don't think anyone else has such equal regard and authority of fairy tales than Tatar. Both this book and her Annotated Classic Fairy Tales (which I DO have for my very own, as well as her Annotated Hans Christian Andersen) were a great help for this project. She explains the origins of fairy tales, and that they were originally meant for adults but discarded and relegated to the nursery.

The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales incorporates translations of the tales from the likes of Grimm Brothers, Charles Perrault and good ol' Hansy alongside discussion of the original cultural context and some gorgeous illustrations (most of the reproduced from the original publications.) In the introduction, she explains that we are continually drawn to fairy tales because we share with them our core essentials: basic fears and deep desires. They are a part of us, our thoughts, our daily lives, even in our TV commercials (see the the new Hansel and Gretel AT&T ad for further proof.) Tatar suggests to us that even those who have not read the actual stories may in fact be familiar with them. I actually made up a quick verbal quiz for my fifteen-year-old niece, who considers herself far beyond the fairy tale stage, in which I asked her to identify phrases such as: "Mirror, Mirror on the wall" and "Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum" and "Grandma, what big eyes you have!" and "This porridge is much too hot!" She got every question right. What this says to me is that, whether it is Tatar or Jung or Bettelheim that's correct on the particulars, fairy tales are not soon forgotten.

Homework! Check me out!

2009-06-29T22:33:00.004-04:00

I’ve managed to find a way to sneak in some pleasure reading after all, in spite of beginning a summer psychology course this morning. As part of the curriculum, we are to choose an area of interest to pose a psychological question about (and attempt to answer with research.) My topic caught me a little off guard -- as evidenced by me audibly muttering, "Oh, God" when I was one of the first students asked what my interests were. The professor thought he was making a joke, or maybe making light of my stalling, when he said with a wink, "Well, that's good. You can do religion if you want to."

After admitting that religion is, in fact, a topic that interests me. He asked me to define religion. I tried my best for 8:30 in the morning and babbled something about spiritual belief in something greater than the self. He asked me if I thought whether people were more inclined to believe in something or not at all. When he asked me about atheism, I told him I think that it's not that atheists don't believe in a god, rather it is a denial of a god. Otherwise it wouldn't be called atheism.

Atheism isn't something I'd thought about too much before, but I was so inspired that right after class I went right to the library to take out a zillion books about it! My focus on my research is what draws people to atheism, the denial of the spiritual self.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

God, the Devil, and Darwin by Neil Shanks

The Essential Mystics: The Soul's Journey Into Truth by Andrew Harvey

Atheism: Opposing Viewpoints edited by Beth Rosenthal

Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (ad Why We Don't Know About Them) by Bart D. Ehrman

Now if only I had the time to read them all.

Let's do reading!

2009-06-28T22:25:00.008-04:00

This is my latest batch of books from my rounds at Borders, Amazon, and PaperBack Swap. I'm sure I'll find room for them. Somewhere.

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, illustrations by Charles Santore.

I just bought this last night, and I've already paged through it about twelve times. The artwork is gorgeous.

Water Song by Suzanne Weyn

A retelling of The Frog Prince from the Once Upon a Time series.

Beauty by Susan Wilson

A retelling of Beauty & the Beast.

Was by Geoff Ryman

Not quite a retelling, but rather a twist on The Wizard of Oz.

Vacations From Hell by Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Claudia Gray, Maureen Johnson, and Sarah Mynowski

A collection of short stories I plan on taking with me on my next vacation.

You Are So Undead To Me by Stacey Jay

A teenage girl vs. the Zombie Apocalypse -- what's not to love?

The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

I must brush up on my Holmes before the movie comes out! (Also, yay for Modern Library Classics edition!)

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

Aliens! Religiosity! How could this not be awesome.

I'm excited for my new stack of reading material -- but unfortunately, I now must resign myself to a monthlong class in Psychology, which starts tomorrow, and that means less time for pleasure reading. Bleh.

Joss Whedon's birthday

2009-06-23T22:06:00.003-04:00

In honor of Joss Whedon’s birthday today, I am going to spend the rest of the evening catching up on my pile of back issues of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight.

I also realized that it's been a very long time indeed since I've made a visit to my local comic shop. I usually get my comics delivered from Things From Another World. I must rectify that soon!

I've got some readin' to do

2009-06-22T22:18:00.005-04:00

Even though I have a ton of books I just recently added to my collection, I couldn’t help but pick out a few things from the library today.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

Sweethearts by Sara Zarr

It’s a theme! Both are audio books with a main character by the name of Jenna.

Saving Juliet by Suzanne Selfors

In today’s Dear Abby there was a letter from a woman complaining about her son reading Romeo and Juliet in school, because she believes it promotes teen suicide. Everyone knows that kids these days only read IMs and text messages anyway, so I can't comprehend why she dared to whine about them reading classic literature. So when I saw this book, a twist on Shakespeare's tragedy, I had to get it.

Deenie by Judy Blume

Yesterday Enigma and I were talking about challenged books, and she mentioned this was one of her favorites books in junior high. I've read a few Blume books, but not this one. But that's all about to change!

Also, after looking at those lists of challenged books, I notice that the titles don't vary too much from the books suggested by The Big Read. Besides, many of the various reasons that those books are challenged are reason enough to want to read them. Well, they are reasons enough for me, at any rate!

Happy Birthday, Gemma!

2009-06-21T15:42:00.019-04:00

The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray begins on June 21st, 1895 - Gemma’s 16th birthday. Today is Gemma’s 130th birthday!

I had no idea I was going enjoy a book about Victorian finishing schoolgirls so much, but I was soon taken with Gemma. She’s so many things -- defiant of her society’s rules for women, has no patience for false piety, and bold enough to speak her mind (when she is permitted to speak freely . . . and sometimes when she’s not.) She’s funny and sometimes even sarcastic. Maybe a Victorian girl is can be written this way because her author lives in the twenty-first century. But I can’t help but wonder if Gemma wasn’t entirely alone in her early feminist mindset. I guess there’s no way to really know.

These books combine a lot of genres and touches on a variety of topics, and a I devour books that can juggle so many things successfully. Historical fiction is blended with dark fantasy, as well as sprinklings of romance, mystery and even a bit of teen-appropriate horror. The series at some point touches on suicide, cutting, epilepsy, inter-racial relationships, sexual abuse, extra-marital affairs, and drug addiction all while centering on its core story -- the four teenage girls who possess dark secrets and magic.

In the first book, A Great and Terrible Beauty, Gemma discovers her ability to see visions of the future and unlock magical realms. She befriends three girls from a boarding school in England, where she is sent from her birthplace of India soon after her mother dies. There is Ann, Gemma's roommate, a homely, stuttering, insecure orphan girl. There are Felicity and Pippa, beautiful and popular and rich, who are at first cruel to Gemma, in that way that only girls can be. But (of course) they eventually all win each other over. Girls have not changed much in a hundred years. The four of them don’t really trust one another, but also realize that they can’t rely on anyone else.

The real heart of this series that it is a tale of coming of age. It is the story of young women discovering power in a society that strips them of it. It is about girls not just trying to fit in among their peers, but also desperately trying to fit in among themselves. Of striving to grow into the women they will one day be, and learning how to be comfortable and strong enough to live in their own skins. It is a story that, even though was written about a time very different than the one we live in now, is still so very relevant to young girls today.

Happy Birthday, Gemma. And many more.

Book round-up

2009-06-20T23:09:00.005-04:00

I'm stacking up the books I've collected throughout the past week. Books are colonizing on my bedroom floor again. I'm going to have to find alternate ways to make room for them. Such as building furniture with them, like a nice chair or bedside table. Or perhaps a fort to hide behind when the zombie apocalypse happens.

My most recent swaps from PaperBack Swap:

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Because everyone could use some more Atwood in their lives.

Snow White by Donald Barthelme

A post-modern, adult absurdist retelling of the fairy tale.

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

I have been listening to this series, the "Gemma Doyle Trilogy" on audio book, and I am now quite the fan.

Schaum's College Algebra by Murray R. Spiegel

Because . . . sigh.

From Amazon marketplace:

Nocturnes by John Connolly

This will look awesome on my shelf next to John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things. Not only that, but I even want to read this book of short stories! The best part is that it was only 54 cents!

From Borders, using their 40% off coupon:

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George.

An adaptation of the "Twelve Dancing Princesses" story, which I find really exciting because that particular fairy tale doesn't get retold very often.

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

A story woven together with a backdrop fairy tales.

And, finally, my text book for my summer course:

Essentials of Psychology: Concepts and Applications by Jeffrey S. Nevid

I got this from half.com rather than the school bookstore, so I'm crossing my fingers that it's the right one.

We had another rainy Saturday -- well, all the days lately have been rainy -- but it was perfect weather for reading. All days should be just like this one.

Just a small town girl

2009-06-17T22:18:00.009-04:00

Thanks to the coaxing of two good friends, I recently discovered just how awesome audio books can be. For over a year I have been at a job where I’ve been lucky enough to listen to headphones while I work, and normally I just listen to my iPod. But there’s really only so much a 30 GB iPod can seem to hold after a while. How many times can I listen to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” anyway? (The answer to that is, of course: on a continuous loop until eternity comes to an end.)

The reason I’d been resisting audio books is because I’d been wary of them. I didn’t want to lose focus on the story because my thoughts were wandering or because I was interrupted or -- and this one is far-fetched -- because I might actually have some work to get done.

"That's everyone says at first," my friends told me when I rattled off my list of fears. So I put all those excuse aside for a moment and decided there wasn’t any harm in giving it a try. I poked around in the internet, and free audio books are surprisingly easy to find. I found this site particularly helpful.

After being read to during a whole day at work, I felt totally exhausted. By the end of the day, I felt as if I’d lived two lives. One where I was following Dorothy Gale on her adventures in Oz, and another where I was earning money by doing data entry. It made me dizzy. Dizzy with elation! Yes, how exciting to be able to get more done in a day! I could hear books by day, and read them by night.

Courtesy of the local lending library, I now have plenty of audio books synced up on my iPod and ready to tell me their tales. I believe I’m stocked until the end of the month and probably a bit beyond.

I've discovered a handy-dandy trick when uploading books on CD to iTunes. Seems that audio books have this pesky “bookmark” feature that chops up chapters into tracks that are only a few minutes long. Which is great when actually listened to on CD (I'm assuming), but not so when importing to a computer. By the time an entire book is done being loaded into iTunes, there could be somewhere around 150 to 200 tracks associated with that book. Annoying. But easily remedied.

When the CD is inserted into the drive, do not import right away. Instead, select all of the tracks, and go to “Advanced,” then “Join CD Tracks,” and then import the CD. All of the tracks on the disc will be merged into one long track. Instead of ending up with a bazillion tracks, there are only as many tracks as there are total discs. No need for the “bookmark” feature, since iPods have fantastic memories and will hold your spot on the track when it stopped. Even if you pause your book to go listen to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” a few more times.

And believe me, I would know.

The Little Mermaid

2009-06-16T23:05:00.007-04:00

My book of Broadway's The Little Mermaid arrived on my doorstep today. I had been waiting for such a book to exist for over a year, and I routinely checked Amazon.com for one to appear. I even mistakenly ordered the songbook, as there weren't enough details on the item page when it was released and I thought (hoped) it was a book about the Broadway production.

I stumbled across The Little Mermaid: A Broadway Musical Book a few weeks ago after poking around on the show's website when I was curious to see who replaced Sierra Boggess as Ariel. (It's Chelsea Morgan Stock, who originated the role of Ariel's mer-sister Andrina.) But instead of leaving the site after finding that info, I stuck around to browse the store. Why, the book was right there, the whole time! Well, perhaps not the whole time. The book was released May 12, 2009. So at least I'm not that far behind, right?

Actually, not quite. Because after uploading my new book to LibraryThing, I discovered that the book IS available on Amazon after all. Turns out that typing "The Little Mermaid Broadway Book" doesn't turn up any search results for the book. Yet, strangely enough, typing in the ISBN does (which the crafty Disney site does not reveal.) Also, so does typing in the true title of the book (and Disney doesn't want you to know that either), which is The Little Mermaid: From the Deep Blue Sea to the Great White Way.

So I unfortunately ended up shelling out double by purchasing from Disney's site rather than Amazon. But I can't stay bummed for too long - not with this beautiful book to comfort me. Neither cover photo on Disney nor Amazon's site do this book justice. The book shines so much it almost sparkles. The photos are gorgeous - which include many production stills from the show, as well as lots of concept art (like seen in the photo above.)

The book is divided into four parts: Ariel's Story, which chronicles the path of the original Hans Christian Andersen tale to the early development of the animated film to the birth of the Broadway musical; Ariel's Circle, about the cast and characters; Ariel's Voice, describing how the songs (both old and new) were written; and Ariel's World, the look and feel of the stage production's set, costumes, lighting, and choreography. I'm excited to have this lovely book in my collection, and from now on maybe I won't be so gullible next time I hang out at a Disney website.

The Time Traveler's Wife

2009-06-15T15:07:00.019-04:00

Finally.

I’ve been both equally very, very wary and obsessively anticipating this movie ever since I found out there was to be one. When I finished reading Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, now one of my most beloved books, I slept with the hardcover tucked under my pillow. I did not, under any circumstances, want to return that book to the library. I have since acquired many copies of it . . . as I tend to do with my favorites.

Seeing the trailer today was both a bit of a relief and a let-down. Relief because the movie is finally going to come out (on August 14th, after being delayed from the original release date of Christmas 2008). And a let-down because, as Ms. Niffenegger herself said (according to the book's wiki page), “Ive got my little movie that runs in my head. And I’m kind of afraid that will be changed or wiped out by what somebody else might do with it. And it is sort of thrilling and creepy, because the characters have an existence apart from me.”

I want the movie to be as breath-taking and awesome and tingly as the book it was based on. Even though I am still excited as ever to see it (and hoping there will be a re-release of the book with a movie poster cover), the trailer fell a little flat with me. Not only did it give away one of the most suspenseful elements of the novel (which I don’t plan on giving away here, even though the damage has been done), but I was also saddened to see that one of my favorite lines of the novel has been altered. Though it’s not all that shocking, of course. Movies always change things from books, and not always for the better.

Clare’s response to Henry’s marriage proposal [from page 233 of the paperback edition]:

“Yes . . . Henry.” I have an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. “But you know, really. . . I already have.”

Read the book. See the movie. In that order.

The darndest things happen to me when I enter bookstores

2009-06-14T22:35:00.005-04:00

I didn’t mean for another book binge to happen again so soon. As I was driving home from a party this afternoon, I passed a Borders. I couldn't help but to stop in. What's a girl to do.

I went in there for one thing. ONE THING. I didn't even grab my tote bag. I explained to my cashier when she asked, "Are you sure you don't want a bag?" that I completely believed that I was only going to run in for ONE THING. I just meant to check the Young Adult section for any books I don't already own of the Once Upon a Time series. I could only find ones I already have. Maybe I should've just turned myself right back around and left the store. But if I'd done that, I wouldn't have gotten all this neat stuff!

And after coming back from that Borders, Lauren and I headed on over to our local Borders. To shop for Father's Day gifts! Well, at least that's what she did (and it's what I told myself I was going to do.)

Many thanks once again to the weekend-long 25% off entire purchase coupon! A lot of these from from the bargain bin anyway...

A TV Guide to Life: How I Learned Everything I Needed to Know From Watching Television by Jeff Alexander

The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness By Steven Levy

Now is The Hour by Tom Spanbauer

Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance by Gyles Brandreth

Mademoiselle Boleyn by Robin Maxwell

The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint

Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

The Princess and the Hound by Mette Ivie Harrison

Nobody's Princess by Esther Friesner

Nobody's Prize by Esther Friesner

Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales From Around the World by Kathleen Ragan

Chasing them down all around the town

2009-06-13T13:29:00.045-04:00

I present my latest book haul. Because my town’s used book sale this morning wasn’t quite enough to satisfy me, we also headed over to the used book store. What can I say, I was on a roll. I also did some damage at Borders a few nights ago, taking advantage of their 25% off your entire purchase coupon.

From Borders, I got:

Algebra For the Clueless by Bob Miller.

Because learning doesn’t end when school does. Or so I’m told. I’m enrolled in College Algebra for the fall, and I should at least pretend I might do some practice this summer. This book ought to be pretty informative, though, as one of the bullet points on the cover purports that this is by “The Best Teacher on the Planet!” Awesome.

wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Laurie can do no wrong. I loved Speak and Catalyst and I was lucky enough to score copies of her earlier books, Prom and Fever 1973 at a library book sale a few weeks ago.

Emily the Strange: The Lost Days by Rob Reger and Jessica Gruner, illustrations by Rob Reger and Buzz Parker.

There is a special place in my heart for Emily.

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly.

Classics For Pleasure by Michael Dirda

Total coupon savings: $16.74!

From today’s Book Sale:

Aliens in Space by Steven Caldwell

A strange picture book of many different alien races. How informative!

The Korean Cinderella and Yen-Shen: A Cinderella Story From China

Picture books for my collection of all things Cinderella.

Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

The first Jodi Picoult book I read, but I didn’t own it. Until now.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

One of my favorite books of all time. I can never have too many copies of this.

Emma by Jane Austen

The Modern Library edition! I’ve been collection Modern Library Classics, and Emma is the next Austen I want to read. Lucky me! (And thanks to Lauren for finding this one for me.)

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Penguin Classics edition. I feel a traitor to Modern Library. But it’s so sleek, so pretty.

The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold by Francesca Lia Block

Even though I have this in hardcover, I couldn’t pass up this paperback edition.

I also scored a VHS copy of The Princess Bride. Because it rules, that’s why.

Total: $3.80!

From the Book Barn:

Fairy Tales and After: From Snow White to E.B. White by Roger Sale

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer

Night Gate: Book One of the Gateway Trilogy by Isobelle Carmody

Dancing Girls and Other Stories by Margaret Atwood

Total: $3.50!

Not bad, and the day ain’t even over yet. It’s a sort of drizzly Saturday afternoon, which is perfect for digging in to these. Either that, or napping.

Summer Reading

2009-06-12T21:22:00.007-04:00

So the weather is getting warmer. Summer is on the way. And I can’t help it, because this time of year still always makes me think of the end of the school term. Back when we were handed typed-out lists from teachers containing the books we were assigned -- or some years, lucky enough to choose from -- to read over the summer. Summer Reading.

Yes, the combination of the warm weather and the month of June clicks something over in my brain. I should be reading more. It’s been years since I have carried home one of those summer reading lists clipped neatly into my binder, and I can barely remember the titles that were on any of those sheets. But I still remember lazy summer days swinging in the hammock in the backyard with a book in my hand. Slipping away to the loft of our barn with stacks of library books spread all around. Day trips to the beach with my toes dug into the sand and a book on my lap. I remember the way the librarians would dip their pencil erasers into a dark red ink pad to fill in the circles on my fold out card to log the books I read after enrolling in the summer reading program.

I’ve been fully trained: summer equals reading.

Of course reading is quite good all year round. Summer is especially sweet for it, and it’s probably because all of them snazzy used book sales held in the musty back rooms of libraries. Stacks and stacks of books for epically cheap. More than I will ever have time to read, sure enough, but at least they look pretty on my shelf (and in piles on my floor) and make me feel smart. And that’s what really counts.