Gatsby Girl

If you can't stand the HEAT...make sorbet

2012-07-20T17:44:00.001-05:00

It is Houston in the summer time. I was talking to myself the other day when I realized two things...1. I was talking out loud and 2. I noticed I was saying, 'What on earth possessed me to move to Houston?' I don't regret this move. I was able to become a teacher, live in a great city with amazing food, atmosphere and culture but the heat 9 months out of the year is too much for me. I have decided that I will spend as much of the remainder of this summer laying on the couch, reading books, and eating lemon sorbet. Its yummy and even yummier when mixed with vodka or rum, whichever you happen to have an abundance of for a nice afternoon refresher.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/lemon-sorbet-recipe/index.html

Check out Emeril's great recipe. Mine is in the ice cream maker right now!

Add another one to the list

2012-06-27T17:21:00.000-05:00

I have to keep a list of the books I've read. Otherwise, I see a book in the store, the jacket blurb really holds my interest, I pay for the book, get 30 pages into it and realize that it seems very familiar. I did this with several books over the years before I started keeping a list. It gives me a great sense of accomplishment to add another title to the list. The list is arranged alphabetically by author's last name of course. Does anyone else do this or have other quirky reading habits? I can't be alone in my reading eccentricities.

Last night while my boyfriend was in surgery for the largest hemorrhoids this side of the Mississippi I finished Nightwoods by Charles Frazier. It was short for him, only 250something pages. Good, not bad, not nearly as good as Cold Mountain, which took me ten years to love, but man do I love it now. If you like Frazier's writing style and don't want to invest 500 pages of your life, this is a good read with all of his classic Carolina woods scenery.

Sugar!

2012-06-16T16:43:00.001-05:00

I was tired of being punished so I put down Crime and Punishment for a bit. It amazes me how many times I start reading a book before I actually get through it. I started Cold Mountain at least 5 times over the course of 10 years before I made it all the way through.

Trying to find something a little more entertaining and still on my summer reading list. Poisonwood Bible here I come! The first few chapters are poetic enough. Kingsolver uses beautiful prose to describe the lives of her characters in rather vague and ambiguous terms. This novel was about to have the same fate as C & R until she mentioned bringing boxed cake mixes to the Congo. Funny enough...I had a boxed cake mix in my pantry! Oh how my mind wandered. Lemon Supreme. So instead of reading this afternoon I have been baking lemon cupcakes with strawberry butter cream icing!!!! Ahhh. Life is worth living once more but I promise you don't want to be here when I come down from this sugar high. Don't you just love how literature can inspire?

Crime and Punishment all right

2012-06-13T18:23:00.002-05:00

I'm reading Crime and Punishment. I have to. I'm supposed to teach it in the fall with some sense of authority. I've owned the copy I'm currently reading for YEARS. But why does reading about crime and punishment feel like I have committed a crime and am being punished for it? The good news is I am getting in some really great naps. Please send words of encouragement or if you've read it, give me a teaser, something to look forward to so I can not look like a dolt in front of my students. Please and thank you!

Tear Jerkers

2011-08-20T09:22:00.000-05:00

Two good tear jerkers...

Where the Red Fern Grows and Beach Music. I cried. I bawled. I turned red and splotchy. I wouldn't trade that emotional roller coaster for anything. Contrast that with reading the same books again and again, sometimes 5 times a day with my classes. As a d English teacher, I know this allows me to truly understand the work in greater depth than ever before but sometimes I find that the literature approved by the state board of education and district lacks true passion.

Can you imagine a classroom where the students are brought to tears by book? Someone please tell me the last time they heard of anyone getting excited about the Canterbury Tales. One of my many goals for the year, which also includes taking over the world, is to find a way to inspire passion for reading in my students. Wish me luck!

Is it Ayn or Ayn?

2011-07-27T20:22:00.000-05:00

I read my first Ayn Rand book last weekend. Anthem is a futuristic dystopic novel. The use of we instead of I threw me for a little bit of a loop. Yet after reading the very short evaluation of the state of society the most riveting question that I can come up with is...Is her name pronounced Ann or Ine?

Has anyone read her novels? I'm told Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are masterpieces but I am out of time. My summer vacation is essentially over. Hours of uninterrupted reading time are a thing of the past. I'm working on the 4th Harry Potter book, high brow, I know, but this is what I have time for right now. However, when I return to work with other well educated adults I would like to be able to spout off all of the classics I read over the summer and don't want to be embarassed by mispronouncing the name of Alan Greenspan's friend. Help!

Summer Recommendations

2011-07-10T23:12:00.001-05:00

After a considerable reading drought and a serious craving for a good summer read, I have a few come up with a few recommendations. The first is Ree Drummond's Black Heels to Tractor Wheels. I am a Pioneer Woman enthusiast. Stalking her blog on a daily basis makes me want to move to the country and grow my own vegetables. I've perused her cookbook and while I cook from her recipes online on almost a weekly basis and I love the pictures in her cookbook, it was something I could live without. But then, a few days ago on another trip to The Tattered Cover I saw it! It was sitting on the edge of a stair up to the second floor of this fabled book palace. Black Heels to Tractor Wheels with a beautiful silver sticker on the cover indicating that it was an autographed copy! I stumbled, almost quite literally on the Pioneer Woman's book. I sat down right there on the stairs and started reading. Ree's writing style is lovely and light and having never been on a date with a cowboy myself, I was looking at my rather urban boyfriend picturing what he'd look like in a pair of boots and wranglers. I devoured this delightful read in about 48 hours with out of town guests hampering my reading time. I smiled all the way through and am now fantasizing my move to a bucolic paradise.

The next on my suggestion list for you is The Help. I read it maybe one or two summers ago and being a daughter of the South, I found this novel funny, entertaining, and hitting a little close to home. Now that it is coming to the silver screen I highly recommend it is an entertaining summer read. The novel does tap into a few of the Southern cliche's and issues of racial tension that have characterized the South for so many years but it doesn't fall into these ruts for long. There is much too much character drama to dwell in the shortcomings of our Southern heritage for long.

The last recommendation on my short list for you this evening is Water for Elephants. Another novel that has made its way to the big screen. Water for Elephants is full of romance, action, and a few terrible scenes of animal abuse. But the abuse only endears our hero to us all the more. I opted not to read this book on the recommendation of my mother for a few years because I didn't think I could handle the sad scenes of an elephant bearing the blows of a paranoid schizophrenic. After mustering the courage I found it wasn't too graphic for my taste. By the time I finished this book I actually was wishing for more.

I confess I have not seen either of the movies of the books I suggest, but as is true with 99.9% of novels turned to movie, the book is always better. There are only two books that I have ever read that I feel fall into the other .1% and they are Last of the Mohicans and Cold Mountain. Being an AP English teacher though, I have taught Cold Mountain and therefore read it at least 5 times now. I am happy to say that every time I read that novel I fall more and more in love with it. I don't know what that makes my percentage now. After all, I'm an English teacher not a math wiz.

Enjoy these light summer reads and share a few of your favorite summer time novels with the rest of us!

The Power of Suggestion

2011-07-08T11:18:00.000-05:00

I read. Sometimes it comes and goes in spurts, sometimes there's a drought, and sometimes putting a book in front of my face is the quickest way I know how to fall asleep. Because I read so much, or at least hold books in my hand a majority of the time, I find that I don't want to waste my time with a book that takes 150 pages to get going. I don't want to waste my time with a book that has no character development. I don't want to waste my time reading more bad writing.

My hope for this blog is that it will be a place for readers to come together to share good reads. I'll do my part to share what I'm reading, whether its good or bad. I hope you will share too and more specifically your opinion about it.

Scouring the New York Times Best Seller List has only gotten me so far in book recommendations. The majority of the time I feel that a good publicity campaign will get you to the top of the list better than an actually good novel. The best books I've EVER read have been sent to me as gifts or on loan from good friends. Occasionally I stumble across a good book on my own but for every captivating novel there are at least 10 that I could have lived without.

Join my bibliophile community so we can enjoy some of the really great books the world has to offer.

Mecca

2011-06-25T13:16:00.002-05:00

Different people visit certain places on this beautiful planet of ours for a variety of reasons, some spiritual, some emotional, some adventurous, some because it makes them happier than any other place in the world. I feel all these things about bookstores, particularly quirky, unique, independent bookstores. I am in Denver for the summer to get away from the Texas heat, to visit my mother, so I will still love Love of My Life (LOML) by the end of summer, and most of all to make my annual, or bi-annual if I'm lucky, pilgrimage to The Tattered Cover.
This is an independently owned, by a woman no less, bookstore. There are three locations in the Denver area but my favorite is in the LoDo district of Denver just at the end of the 16th street mall. Its in an old refurbished/ re-purposed building. It smells like books and coffee when you walk in the door, not plastic and gloss. The wooden floors creek under your feet. Denver's unique collective gathers there for a quiet hour of reading and an iced latte on their lunch breaks. There are stories of bookshelves, rather reminiscent of a public library, anyone remember what those are? But The Tattered Cover is better! Its better because it has character, it has kitsch it has knowledgeable staff, it has used books, it has bargain books, it holds author discussions. TTC is at the forefront of keeping the written and PRINTED word alive.
As you know, I am an English teacher. I didn't start out my adult life that way, and didn't really develop a love of reading until I was in my early twenties. But having made the voyage into the good life I really promote reading from actual books to my students. I'm sure I will delve into the benefits of reading from paper in future posts but I shall get back on topic...
The need for real bookstores that have actual paper books in them is so important for our culture, our children, and civilization as a whole for that matter! (Picture my fist in the air, index finger pointed at the sky for extra emphasis) I am so grateful to The Tattered Cover for all that they do to make the world a better place. I'll be back as soon as I can! Don't change a thing TTC!

I Vow!

2011-06-24T14:17:00.000-05:00

To post more consistently.

To make my blog worth reading.

To try not to embarrass my family with my posts.

To share my inner most thoughts and hopefully you will too.

To be a good blogger.

(Did you picture me with right hand raised and left hand over a Bible? Good)

-even if it means this is all you get for today.

Did You Survive?

2010-12-29T19:47:00.000-06:00

Have you ever struggled really hard to find the perfect gift for someone you dearly love? I went through that this year. This is the second Christmas my boyfriend and I celebrated together. We are in that stage of living life like a married couple, where the future seems so far ahead and that it is ours for the taking.

He loves to work in the garage, repairing everything from computers to cabinetry. As a result, our garage sends me into twitches just upon entering. We were walking through Home Depot one day over a month ago when he randomly mentioned wanting toolbox chest things. You know, the kind that are on wheels and have drawers and will be passed down to your grandchildren.

So I sucked it up, threw myself out of my natural waters and flopped through the Sears website like a fish out of water. I bought 2 stackable chest of drawer heirloom tool chests, arranged for pick up at the closest location, that was not in the ghetto, closest to where I live. I hid these monstrosities in the garage until Christmas under moving blankets. I thought for sure he was going to notice 5 feet tall box stacked in the garage, but remember, this is the garage of the Apocalypse.

I anxiously awaited Christmas morning, hoping he hadn't connected the dots of the momentous mention of wanting tool boxes and the gargantuan boxy sheet thing looming in the corner of the garage. After all gifts were unwrapped, I lovingly lead him to the garage, with a flourish swung off the blanket only to have one of the most unexcited reactions in the history of the gift giving. I'm sure one of Santa's elves died at that moment if the life span of elves works anything like fairies, keeping in mind specifically Tinkerbell's fainting spell in Peter Pan when we all have to clap to reassure her of our belief!

For days after Christmas he feigns interest in these tool boxes while I'm chomping at the bit to park my car in the blessed garage again. Three days after the big reveal upon returning home from taking my mother to the airport he says,"We need to talk." My palms start to sweat, my heartbeat is slightly elevated and my head is lacking the required oxygen. Is he breaking up with me? Does he hate my mother that much?

The drawers on the chests don't pull out smoothly. They are the ball bearing kind he tells me. How could I mess this up? I did research. I called my dad to ask his advice on what kind of tool chest to buy. I spent hours walking through Home Depot and Lowes and spent a considerable about of confused time on the Sears website. I heard Craftsman was the best. I knew he would want multiple chests to stack on top of each other and that the whole thing must be on wheels. I even spent a worrisome evening struggling with whether or not he would want the black or the red chest. In all that time no one ever mentioned to me there's a difference in the machinery used to pull the forsaken drawer out. I mean, I knew always buy DeWalt and Craftsman. Buy cordless powertools if at all possible. And whatever you do, don't buy a man purple tools, but really? Ball bearing versus regular drawers, who knew?!

After tears, today he returned my subpar gift and paid for the upgrade of what he really wanted. Now every time I see those instruments of organization I will be reminded of my ineptitude of gift giving. Of course I would rather him have what he wants and will be durable and of great use to him but why did I have to be so incapable? Why aren't there really cutely dressed women that greet other women with the deer in the headlight look at these home improvement mega stores that take us by the arm and say, "Honey, come with me. We are going to get your man the perfect gift and he's going to buy you that ring from Tiffany's because he'll be so proud of you!" That's my suggestion you smelly hardware stores. Create an aesthetically pleasing separate entrance for your female, specifically girlfriend/ wife clientele that would never darken your door otherwise. Have a non-intimidating friendly woman there to greet us. Serve coffee, maybe even have a wine tasting event and have someone hold our hand through the whole painful thing because there's nothing worse than having the love of your life think you are stupid, don't listen to him for the hours that he rambles on about tools and building projects that put dirt under his fingernails, and worst of all, have to return the gift that you painstakingly had to lie about why you had to borrow his truck and unload 100lb boxes into the garage by yourself.