Librarian in Heels

top ten books I wouldn't mind Santa bringing me

2012-12-04T19:09:00.000-06:00

I don't pay this blog enough attention, and I am going to start by participating in this cool meme I found at The Broke and The Bookish called Top Ten Tuesday. Every week there's a new top ten list, and this week it's the Top Ten books I wouldn't mind Santa bringing me. When I am wandering around my branches, I seem to always be thinking of books I would like to own...really, truly OWN - yet, when pressed to limit the list to ten, I have a rough time. Hopefully this list won't cause too much head-scratching!

Here they are, in no certain order:

Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
I can't escape my love of history; it's in my blood and I live it every day (I live on a historic site where my husband is the Director). I'm halfway through Wolf Hall right now, and I know I will want to re-read it, and well, knowing I own the e-book just isn't enough for me. Hilary Mantel was the first woman to win the Man Booker prize for Wolf Hall, her characterization of the court of King Henry VIII as seen through the eyes of the man who would become his closest adviser, Thomas Cromwell, and she won it again this year for the sequel, Bring up the Bodies. I can't wait for the third book in the trilogy, which she is now writing.

Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Like everyone else right now, I'm going through a real Lincoln phase, with the Spielberg movie out and getting such great reviews. Tony Kushner based his screenplay on Team of Rivals, and it's been on my list of "I MUST READ THIS BEFORE I DIE" since it came out.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
I can't believe I've never read this book. I am currently reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for a book discussion and I love it. I can already tell I will need this for my personal bookshelf.

Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version edited by Philip Pullman
I have a treasured copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales given to my by my father in 1977(when I was nine) and another, antique copy given to me by a friend back in the 90s. I gave my daughter her own copy last year, when she turned nine. I love Grimm's Fairy Tales and look forward to reading Pullman's edition.

Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year by David Von Drehle
Again with the history - I know. I heard David Von Drehle on The Bob Edwards show and it really made me want to read this book.

The Mystery of Mercy Close (not published yet, maybe Santa can pull in some favors) by Marian Keyes
Marian Keyes is one of my all-time favorite writers and I know lots of her fans have been waiting for this book, the final installment of the Walsh Sisters books (which do not need to be read in any certain order). Finally, we'll get to Helen Walsh's story. Keyes writes with such great Irish humor and emotion...if you haven't read any of her stuff, start with Rachel's Holiday or Anybody Out There?...both are books about the Walsh sisters. I actually have the digital ARC of this, but hey - if Santa can produce a real copy, why not?

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
We have a great YA librarian at my branch who keeps telling me to read this. She's never steered me wrong before!

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
I've never read it, and I'd like to see the movie, but I have this thing about reading the book first (which I am clearly going to breach with the aforementioned Team of Rivals). I've downloaded it, but I'd like to have a nice copy to actually hold in my hand!

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian
I loved this book. It's a beautifully written account of a woman's experience in Syria during the Amenian Genocide of 1915. I love the way Chris Bohjalian writes, and I need to have this on my personal shelf. His books are fantastic. I guess I could also throw in a copy of Bohjalian's The Double Bind if Santa doesn't mind bringing me eleven instead of ten books. :)

Still Missing

2012-05-24T10:06:00.003-05:00

I really got sucked into this book, and I loved every minute of it. Still Missing (2010) by Chevy Stevens has been on my list of "to reads" for a couple of years, but, for some reason, I just never picked it up.

Last Friday, I picked it up. I'm a notoriously slow reader, and I have two daughters and one monumentally messy house, so I don't get a chance to read a whole lot when I'm at home unless I just can't not read something. I was finished with this book Monday morning (and I worked on Sunday!). This book was the author's debut novel - an engrossing, fast-paced story of a woman abducted and held against her will for over a year, who manages to escape but finds it exceedingly difficult to re-enter her life as she left it. The format of the book is also intriguing - it's told in sessions (as opposed to chapters) with an unnamed therapist, who has no dialogue. The main character struggles not only with what happened to her, but why it happened - and the abject, almost primal fears that the experience instilled in her, which she can't seem to overcome. I literally could not put this book down, and it also affected me - it's so hard for me to find books like that. I really enjoyed this book, gave it five stars on Goodreads, and can't wait to read her second book, which was published in 2011.

Lightning does strike in the same place twice - quite literally, folks

2012-03-02T10:43:00.004-06:00

Ok, first off, I guess I should note that since I seem to be a crappy book blogger, I think I'm taking this blog off into a more general direction - not that I won't still talk about books, but I think I will also talk about "the other stuff" I'm interested in.

One of the aforementioned "other stuff" is weather. I am an amateur weather nerd.

As a child I had what one might have characterized as a morbid fear of tornadoes. This could stem from the "Super Outbreak" of 1974, when I was 5 years old. I vividly remember hiding under the bed in the room I shared with my little brother. My mother wasn't home at the time - we were home with the cleaning lady, and to be honest, I don't remember much about it, other than the chocolate frosting and that the entire day it was literally green outside. We grabbed a can of chocolate frosting and ate it under the bed. I think that's the first real experience I had with tornadoes - nothing hit even remotely close to us that day, but I was scared. And I continued to be scared into my adult life.

I've lived all over Indiana, and every place I've lived has a story relative to severe weather and tornadoes...but, you know - it's Indiana. We're no Kansas, or Oklahoma, and we're not known for a high incidence of tornadoes. But still, we're in the Midwest, and Midwest = tornadoes. It's sort of a way of life, like earthquakes in California or hurricanes in Florida. You get used to it - you live with it - I suppose.

So, flash forward to the night of November 5-6, 2005 - I am eight months pregnant with my second child - my 3.5 year old daughter is asleep in her bed - my husband is asleep upstairs. My daughter had a nightmare, so I was on the couch - also, I never slept well during either pregnancy. After an extraordinarily balmy and beautiful November day, we'd settled in for the night - my husband being sure to pull his car into the garage, since there was a chance of storms and possibly hail overnight. It was November. We weren't worried.

I wasn't even really worried when a Tornado Warning fully woke me out of a half-sleep daze around 145 am. I did wake up my husband, though, because we live on a state property and the alarms tend to go off if the power goes off. I switched on our local weather guy, who indicated that he saw strong rotation in a thunderstorm headed our way - and that, basically, if we were anywhere in the vicinity of EXACTLY WHERE WE LIVED, we needed to be in our 'safe place', which, for us, is the basement. We grabbed our daughter and I grabbed a candle and my purse (candle was a bad idea - in case of gas leaks. ALWAYS HAVE A FLASHLIGHT.) and we headed to the basement with about 30 seconds to spare. With our daughter wedged between us, we listened to our house shake, mud splattering everything (I thought it was rain) and the many trees surrounding our property cracking, breaking, and finally exploding as an EF4 tornado barreled right past our house. Thankfully, it was enough to the east that it didn't completely mow over our house - and it may even have not been completely on the ground...we don't know. We do know that for about a month our house was uninhabitable, we lost two outbuildings, 2 cars, our entire bedroom, our daughter's bedroom and 3/4 of our roof. All of the trees in our neighborhood were destroyed. We were lucky, though - a trailer park about 1/4 mile west of us was decimated and 20+ people were killed there. As the tornado moved northeast through the adjacent town, another 4 people were killed. A family. A woman with a three year old son, who was 8 months pregnant, just like me.

It was traumatic - thankfully we were physically unscathed. Yes, we lost things - but we were fine, our daughter was fine, and the baby was fine, and was born on her scheduled date - December 12. We were insanely lucky.

The past 6+ years, it's taken me time to reconcile my 'irrational' childhood fear of tornadoes with the reality of what happened to me as an adult. For the sake of my children, I have learned to maintain a calm and collected demeanor, even though I am absolutely terrified and freaking out on the inside. One of the things I've used to calm myself over the past six years is this, "Lightning Never Strikes in the Same Place Twice" and/or "what are the odds it would happen in EXACTLY the same place, again?"

It happened. Almost. Again.

This past Wednesday morning, a significant storm followed basically the same trajectory as the November 2005 tornado. Once again, we were in the basement, this time, my children are too big to wedge between us...we just huddled together in our safe area of the basement - my daughters remarkably calm, and my husband and I trembling with fear and deja vu.

The tornado (which was an EF1) bypassed us and damaged homes a few miles east of us...but mapping done by local meteorologists and amateur weather enthusiasts indicate that the storm did, indeed, take a track almost identical to the November 2005 storm. Admittedly, the strength of this storm was nothing like the 2005 storm, and Thank God for that. It could have been much, much worse. We, and others in our area, know that all too well.

I'm not sure that I want to hang around our neighborhood long enough to find out if lightning strikes repeatedly in the same place. What would you do?

2012-02-25T12:14:00.000-06:00

Divergent by Veronica Roth

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really liked this book - I've always been a fan of apocalyptic/dystopian stories, and this one is one I might consider "the thinking man's Hunger Games. I loved that series - because it was fast paced and left lots to the imagination (you never really know why the United States because Panem, for example). Divergent is not as fast paced, and some have criticized the first part of it for being boring, slow, or lacking in action. I disagree.

What I really like about this book is its language, and the way introspective teens might relate to it. Tris (short for "Beatrice") lives in a world of the not-too-distant future in a ruined Chicago (like the Hunger Games, you never know exactly what catastrophic even has taken place), where people are assigned to 'factions"'. There are five factions - Abnegation (Selflessness), Amity, Dauntless, Candor and Erudite. At 16, individuals are tested and required to choose a faction and are initiated by the chosen faction. If they don't make it through the initiation the become 'factionless', which is essentially the equivalent of the Untouchable caste in Indian society.

Tris is tested and is found to be Divergent - that is, she doesn't strongly favor any one faction, which makes her dangerous. She chooses a faction, and tries to keep the nature of her divergent character a secret. Her choice of factions, however, sets into motion a chain of events that will jeopardize her own existence, but more importantly, the stability of the only society she has ever known.

This is a well-written YA book that, like the Hunger Games, offers an alternate world for escape and allows for imagination to run wild. The subtext, however, of the effects of stratifying society into organized 'factions', in my opinion, makes "Divergent" less of just another appealing, fast-paced YA dystopian novel and more of a genuinely thought-provoking piece of literature that adults and teens might enjoy reading and discussing together.

View all my reviews

Mudbound by Hilary Jordan

2012-01-30T18:15:00.003-06:00

I loved this book.

Mudbound is one of those books that I dive right into, and literally CANNOT stop reading until I finish. Professional reviews of the book were mostly positive, although there was some criticism of the character development (or lack thereof) and what some perceived to be the rather basic "good v. evil" subplot involving the black and white characters. I felt that the book was pretty true to what the climate of the South was at the time, particularly the deep south - insofar as the main characters had no real righteous feelings about the indignities visited upon their black neighbors. They neither liked nor disliked each other - it was an accepted, albeit from our perspective morally wrong and reprehensible, social code. I enjoyed the book very much, and for me, it flew by. There's lots to talk about here - from the deep, almost evil character of Pappy to the plain indifference of Henry, the husband of the main narrator - to the pathos of Jamie and Ronsel - for a variety of reasons.

The story was simple but also very complex - and so I have chosen it for one of my upcoming book discussions.

The Hunger Games Trailer

2011-11-17T16:55:00.000-06:00

Apparently the official trailer for "The Hunger Games" came out yesterday, or this week, or something. I watched it last night. I have to say - it makes me want to see it. So far it looks pretty true to the book.

Wikipedia Lets you Make Stuff Up

2011-05-28T19:35:00.002-05:00

...from the folks who bought you the "This Shit Writes Itself" t-shirt...I bring you "I like Wikipedia 'Cuz it Lets you Make Stuff Up" t-shirt.

This would make a great giveaway.

Catching Fire and Mockingjay

2011-05-28T10:51:00.000-05:00

I just finished Mockingjay, and I must say, I miss my friends from The Hunger Games. That may sound weird, because it is weird...but I loved those books. I just hope they don't totally ruin the movie version...seriously, they're already comparing it to Twilight, which, well...yeah. I've never seen those movies.

This is the first set of books in a long, long time that I didn't go all Billy Crystal from When Harry Met Sally on...you know, how Harry reads the last page of a book to find out how it ends in case he dies before he finishes it? Yeah, I usually do that, and I did not with any of these books, because the buildup was so worth waiting for.

Incidentally, if you're not familiar with "going all Billy Crystal" on a book...here's a clip from When Harry Met Sally, to explain it all to you:

Anyway, I'm not going to spoil it for anyone else - but the thing I loved about these books is that they kept me constantly moving - guessing, trying to keep up with the action of the story and what was going on. I cared about the characters...I developed relationships with them. This is what happens to me when I read books I love...I finish them, and then I'm depressed because I've become emotionally attached to the story. It's weird, I know.

I'm really hoping Suzanne Collins writes at least one prequel to The Hunger Games, if only to explain how Panem came to be - what happened to the world to create it? I love the detail of these books, but I also love the way she doesn't include some of that information - it's left to your imagination. She has a real gift for storytelling. As interested as I was to see how the Katniss/Gale/Peeta triangle would work out, what really captivated me about the books was the world in which Katniss, her family and her friends lived in - the idea of a world not too terribly different from ours, but at the same time radically different. Collins really captures and creates a realistic world that's scary because it's really not all that different from our own, and it's a completely plausible future world, even though we have no idea how that world came to be.

And that, my friends, is a dark side.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

2011-05-28T10:34:00.002-05:00

Hysterical. Awesome. Fun. Fast. Tina Fey is totally "da bomb". I am so not cool for using a 20 year old descriptive...but she is.

Movies That are Better Than Their Books, part I

2011-04-25T17:07:00.003-05:00

The other night my 8-year old daughter was lying on my bed, looking at a rather large, looming stack of books I have on a rickety old Art Deco-y chair. (It's how I decorate)

"Have you read all of these?" she asked.

"Most of them," I replied

"What about Gone with the Wind? That's a book, too?" (Oddly she picked the one book in the stack I've never actually finished.)

"Yeah..well, no. I've read most of it, but I like the movie better than the book."

We went on to have a discussion about how the movie differs from the book - lots of things are left out, presumably to make the movie a) flow better and b) not be 10 hours long. Anyway, it got me thinking about other movies I've seen that I liked better than the book. Gone with the Wind isn't really a great example, because both the book and the movie are great...I just happen to prefer the movie, I think, because I saw it first - when I was about my daughter's age. It's still my favorite movie.

A few summers ago, I started library school and was doing a lot of driving from my mother's house to the University of Illinois for my 10-day Library School "Boot Camp". At the time I was reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert for a book club. Just in case you're not familiar with the story behind the book, Elizabeth Gilbert is a writer who, in her thirties, went through a devastating divorce, lost all her money, and embarked on a quest to find herself, by visiting three significant countries beginning with "I"...Italy (Eat), India (Pray), and Indonesia (Love). I listened to the Italy part of the book, and liked it - but, try as I might, I coud not slog through the India part. I made it through the Indonesia part, but something about the book as a whole - maybe the way it was written - just didn't work for me. I remember thinking that it was rather self-indulgent, which, I know - was the point, and maybe it's because I am pretty close to the same age as Elizabeth Gilbert. It just all seemed a little too contrived to me, the way her book - and her life - panned out.

So when I heard it was being made into a movie - blarg. Not interested. When I heard Julia Roberts was in it - blarg. Even less interested. However, I knew Javierf Bardem was in it, and I love Javier Bardem, and if I could stomach him as Anton Chigurh, well, hell - I could endure Julia Roberts for two hours.

I was pleasantly surprised that this movie is much better than the book - it flows quite well, stays true to the book and manages to be entertaining. Liz's experiences in Italy were right in line with what they were in the book - the India section wasn't as torturous as it was in the book (really, I kept thinking this person needs to get over herself...) - you kind of get that she's really wrestling with the pain she inflicted on her ex-husband - which I don't think comes across in the book at all. Indonesia was also great - thanks to Javier Bardem. (He's justs great in whatever he's in, frankly. Sigh.) Plus, the cinematography was wonderful - I've been to Rome, and recognized a lot of the places she visited.

One of the things I enjoyed most about the movie was the casting. I don't dislike Julia Roberts, but it seems that she's often cast in roles that play up to her superstar status. Here, she seemed really comfortable in the role and very natural as Liz Gilbert. Billy Crudup plays her ex; James Franco the younger man with whom she has an affair after her marriage crumbles, Richard Jenkins plays "Richard from Texas" - a man she meets in an ashram who refers to her as "Groceries" and helps her find inner peace; and, finally, Javier Bardem as the man she meets and falls in love with in Indonesia. All of theses casting choices were spot-on, and, most importantly, age appropriate, which made the movie even more believable/enjoyable.

One thing does sort of bother me about both the book and the movie, and that is this - why is the key to finding oneself, for this woman at least, invariably tied in some way, shape or form to men?

I found Eat Pray Love (the book) tedious and a little too perfectly packaged for me to believe that everything happened so serendipitously. It translated well into a movie, I think, because really - nothing happens by happy accident. Especially if you're in search of yourself.

Reference Fun Fact #532: Why Wikipedia is Never a Good Idea

2011-04-06T22:33:00.002-05:00

Anyone out there seriously considering Wikipedia as a source, should pay heed to this (sorry for the crappy quality) clip from "30 Rock".

A Revolution of books about Russia

2011-04-06T22:15:00.001-05:00

My most recent column...you can find it here, if you want to see it in situ.:) Not real pleased about the use of the word "novels" in the title (two of the books are non-fiction) and the title of one book was edited incorrectly. I've made corrections on this version.

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Russia is a fascinating place. The classic Russian novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky detail stories of love, lust, murder and revenge amid the backdrop of the frozen, unforgiving Russian landscape.

Too often, when readers think about Russia they probably think they'll have to reread "War and Peace" or "Crime and Punishment" to find a great, sweeping Russian story. Right now, there are several great books about Russia and her people for those die-hard Russophiles (like myself) out there.

"The Madonnas of Leningrad" by Debra Dean is a story about a Russian immigrant, Marina, who at 82 years old, is battling Alzheimer's. While her short term memory (her granddaughter is getting married) is all but gone, the memories of her youth as a docent at the Hermitage in Leningrad as the great 900-day siege by the Nazis is undertaken in 1941. The book explores Marina's memories of the siege, and of the great artworks of the Hermitage that she and 2,000 others took great pains to hide from the advancing German forces.

"City of Thieves" by David Benioff is also about the siege of Leningrad. Lev Beniov (the account is loosely based on the experience of Benioff's grandfather) is arrested for looting and thrown into jail with a deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed the two are tasked with finding one dozen eggs for the wedding cake of a powerful Soviet colonel whose daughter is getting married — a preposterous, but deadly and epic, task
.
"Russian Winter" by Daphne Kalotay is the story of a retired Bolshoi ballerina who, upon auctioning off her significant collection of jewelry, reflects upon her past in Stalinist Russia, and her defection to the west. Another novel that interweaves the past and the present, Russian Winter is a sweeping novel of love, death, betrayal, life-changing secrets amid the backdrop of a stark Russian world.

"The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival" by John Vaillant is an incredible true story — haunting, creepy and on the verge unbelievable — about a manhunting (and eating) Siberian (Amur) tiger in the frozen wasteland of Siberia. Vaillant's narrative includes interesting particulars about the history of the Siberian tiger, and details on the Russian attempts to save it. Interwoven with the story of the tiger's plight is the incredible story of the tiger in question — its uncharacteristic human hunting spree, and the amazing, almost human lust for vengeance that this particular tiger had. The Tiger is a fascinating read — and I'll be honest — I was rooting for the tiger most of the time. The book brings up some very timely issues on conservation — the Russian government has worked hard to preserve the Siberian tiger, even going so far as to create a task force to ensure the mutual protection of the tigers and humans who share habitats.

Finally, for an original take on Russian history and culture, try "Molotov's Magic Lantern," written by Rachel Polonsky. Polonsky, who is British, moved to Moscow and into an apartment building that once housed Russia's elite — including the notorious Vyacheslav Molotov (one of Stalin's henchmen). In Molotov's former apartment, Polonsky finds an extensive library and a "magic" lantern, which sends her on a trip across the country, reviewing the cities and landscapes viewed by some of Russia's most famous literary figures.

This Shit Writes Itself

2011-04-05T19:00:00.002-05:00

This is the most awesome, fantastic t-shirt EVER. I want one.

Never say Never - Literally.

2011-02-20T17:24:00.010-06:00

...I keep telling people that the reason the new Justin Bieber movie is called Never Say Never is because there are a lot of parents out there who would never have gone to see a movie about Justin Bieber who are now either planning to go see a movie about Justin Bieber or have already gone - like me. Never Say Never, to me - it's a James Bond movie. Ha. Never Say Never, indeed.

My 8-year old daughter has, all of a sudden, developed a thing for Justin Bieber. I work in a library, so I am not unaware of who the kid is, I just always kind of dismissed him as a YouTube/Radio Disney flash-in-the-pan payola sensation. I mean, my guilty pleasure, honestly, is pop music, and I like some of his tunes...but I never stopped to consider if the kid was actually talented. (My brother ran over all my Madonna cassettes when we were growing up, so hostile was he toward my penchant for pop.)

So a couple of weeks ago, when my daughter asked me if we could go see Never Say Never, I said "sure," and thought nothing of it - I figured she'd forget. We have his first CD, My World, which she was never too into, so I didn't put much stock into it. Then, last week, my mother-in-law came to visit, and my kid scored a Bieber night shirt from her grandma. She turned to me and said, "You promised to take me to see the Justin Bieber movie, mommy." Oh, crap. It was like she said it in slow motion. She hadn't forgotten - and I was stuck.

So I made a 'deal' out of it. One of my friends graciously agreed to go with me, and we decided it was 3D or nothing. We bought a shitload of popcorn, candy, drinks, and settled in for what we thought would be the longest 1 hour and 45 minutes of our adult lives. I decided to live Tweet the crappy spots. I figured there would be alot of them.

The thing is - almost from the beginning, the movie is eminently watchable. You see Bieber from almost the very beginning...a cute little kid, for lack of a better word - a prodigy...playing the drums on a chair - and playing them well. While alot of us have dismissed him as just another production, or creation, of a machine like Disney or Nickelodeon - it's clear that this kid has real musical talent. He can sing, dance, and play several instruments - he writes a lot of his own songs. He's only 16, and you never get the idea during the film that he is anything, really, other than a 16 year old boy who has these talents, who has followed his dream and kept the faith, and as a result, who also happens to have sold out Madison Square Garden. As a mother, I appreciated seeing the scenes of him behaving like a normal child...refusing to rest when he's sick, for example. It made him seem very real to me, and to my children.

Maybe I drank the Kool-Aid, but I guess he gets the thumbs up from me. It wasn't a concert film, per se - it was a film about this really quite normal kid who has this incredible talent, who has worked his ass off, and who appreciates who he is and where he comes from. Hopefully that will not change. He seems like a nice kid.

My daughter is sure they're going to be married someday when she's a famous fashion designer. Hope you're reading, Justin. ;)

The Hunger Games

2011-01-24T20:45:00.005-06:00

I don't read a lot of YA...probably because when I was a reader's advisor, the Gossip Girl series was a big series, and I was just frankly grossed out by alot of what was in it...and I am no prude.

Anyway, I wrote my column for the Sunday paper on some YA dystopian fiction - basically, The Hunger Games, which I just finished, and which I loved - and I am reading the second book in the series right now - Catching Fire. A librarian friend of mine who works in my department is also reading them - and we were sort of in a 'contest' to see who could finish Catching Fire first...of course, she won. She came in to work the other day and had been able to spend all of Saturday reading it. I am reading three books at the same time right now - Catching Fire, Jane Eyre and My Fair Lazy...so I am not finished with Catching Fire. She has now moved on to Mockingjay, the third book in the trilogy. I realize that no one (or at least very few) cares about this.

I love dystopian stuff - and post-apocalyptic stories - which is weird, because I was totally freaked out by them as a child. I was also freaked out by extreme weather and wanted to be a meteorologist, so I guess maybe that's just how I roll - I liked to immerse myself in what freaks me out. I'd much rather read something about a weird future world than something really sad.

The premise behind The Hunger Games is that sometime in the not-to-distant future, the United States will become a fragmented state of 12 districts, called Panem. Each year, as punishment for some long-ago revolt against The Capitol (in District 1), each district sends two Tributes - one boy and one girl - to The Hunger Games, a televised battle to the death which all citizens are forced to watch. Katniss Everdeen, the sixteen year old Tribute from District 12 (once Appalachia), actually volunteers to save her twelve year old sister Prim from certain death in the Games. It's a stark and bleak look at what our world could become - but you never really know what has happened to create Panem - I am hoping to find that out in the next two books. The first book was great, and a fast read - I loved it, and I gave it to my 12-year old nephew for Christmas.

I know a movie is being made of the series, although I don't know whose been cast in it. This is definitely one movie that will have to be really good to measure up to the book, in my opinion. I tore through this - and finished it right as I was reading Wuthering Heights - which may account for my less than stellar reception on my third or fourth reading of that book - it was all I could do not grab Catching Fire and start on it...but book group called, and I finished WH.

Wuthering Heights II

2011-01-24T20:24:00.004-06:00

Last week's first "Chicks with Sticks" book discussion had a really swell turnout...11 people! Which is awesome. I was so excited...seriously, when I first walked into the room, I thought I was in the wrong place. We had a nice time, we sort of discussed the book...the acoustics in the cafe weren't great, so next time we'll do it in a different room. Hopefully everyone who showed up will come back.

Wuthering Heights is still one of my favorite books ever...it's interesting, though -my interpretation of it now is a lot different than it was 20 years ago, when I first read it in college. When I read it in college, I thought:

Heathcliff was awesome - the archetypal brooding hero ;
The story was so romantic, I wanted to be Cathy, and I wanted to meet my Heathcliff.

I also cried when it was over.

When I finished it last week, I thought:

Heathcliff was a self-indulgent, sociopathic weirdo - not to mention a jerk;
The story was really sad, and I really didn't like either character. They were both selfish and self-indulgent, and I really felt for the other characters - the ones whose lives Cathy and Heathcliff ruined.

I did not cry when it was over. Not even close. (It might have something to do with the fact that I get maybe 5 minutes to myself per day, but I just didn't get into it the way I did as a 21 year old.) Maybe the idea that romance is a myth has permeated my jaded, old soul - or maybe I just like to think that love shouldn't be that painful. I wonder what their life together would've been like if things had worked out. They would've made each other miserable (but they probably would've had great sex). Right?

February 15th is Jane Eyre. Hopefully people will come back!

Wuthering Heights

2011-01-05T19:32:00.004-06:00

Well, I am supposed to be reading Wuthering Heights for my upcoming book discussion. It's one of my favorite books, and I love to read it during the winter time (I just wish I had a fireplace...). I've recommended it to all these people and so far none of them seem to like it. That makes me kind of sad, because it's a book I read very early on in my life and one I have always loved, mainly because it's so dark and so unlike a romance - and yet it's extremely romantic.

So - I am preparing to re-analyze this book by pulling book discussion questions off the Internet. Wow. Exciting stuff, I know. I am determined to be prepared for the bashing of this book.

Winter Reads for the Busy Librarian

2010-12-23T19:12:00.005-06:00

I'm endeavoring to get more reading done in the coming year...and I am a librarian by trade. Go figure.

When I worked in museums, people always commented on how 'neat' and 'fun' it would be to work in a museum. It was fun, and at times, it was really cool - but it was still work - alot of work, actually. And that was before I was married with kids. I rarely got to enjoy a visit to a museum, because I always found myself being critical, or in work mode. A real "museum professional".

Now, whenever I tell people I am a librarian, they comment on how nice it would be to get paid to read books. As if reading books is all a librarian ever does or has ever done. Not even close.

Book reviewers get paid to read books - librarians get paid to find information, catalog materials, help customers and students with research, help people use the Internet, help find phone number and addresses, stamp newspapers, weed through collections, maintain files on local history - but we don't get paid to read books. I wish.

That said, I really don't get a chance to read as much as I would like to. Of course, I have two children, 8 and 5 - and they (and their dad, and their passel of animals) keep me busy at home - I have housework, I have hobbies other than reading...so when I finally do get to read and finish a whole book in less than, say, 2 months, it's quite the grand affair. So I try to choose wisely what I plan to read next.

Right now I am taking a much needed break from 'serious' (read: non-fiction) reading, and I'm finishing up a Mary Kay Andrews book, The Fixer-Upper. It's chick lit, it takes place in the South, and it's about restoring an old house. Three of my all-time favorite things! Her books are great. Highly recommend.

So, I have several other books on the nightstand right now - I actually have them in a pile by my bed (and some of them are in my cubicle but will end up in a pile by my bed later this evening) - and I am hoping to get a just a little bit of reading done over the holidays. - here's some of what I am taking home:

Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda;
The Hare with Amber Eyes: a Family's Century of Art and Loss by Edmund de Waal;
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli;
As Always, Julia: the Letters of Julia Child and Avis Devoto edited by Joan Reardon;
Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt by Robert Gottlieb;
Some Girls: My Life in a Harem by Jillian Lauren (a little trashy non-fiction);
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte; and
How to Build a Digital Library, 2nd edition by Ian H. Witten, David Bainbridge and David M. Nichols (which is about as exciting as it sounds, and no, I am not taking a class. I am reading it on my own, because I dig the whole digital libraries thing.)

So, in between cookie decorating, food preparation, present wrapping, cat entertaining, kid entertaining, possibly snow play (we may havea white Christmas!), quick crocheting to finish up a present for hubs, I might get some reading in. I might. And I'll be back at work on December 26.

Chicks with Sticks

2010-12-22T16:36:00.005-06:00

Everyone thinks this is a really creative name for a book club. (I actually stole it from the title of a book by the same name.)

I am a so-so knitter and a so-so crocheter. I thought it would be fun to start a book discussion group at the library where I work that centers around classic women's fiction, and I thought it might be cool for people to bring their knitting or crocheting. Maybe this will inspire me to actually do the knitting and crocheting I would like to do - more than a scarf a year for my sister. Although I did knit an awesome, tiny slice of watermelon over the summer that everyone thought was a tiny pink thong. Yeah, really. They did.

Starting in January, we're meeting on the third Tuesday of every month, and we're reading a different classic work of women's fiction. January is Wuthering Heights, one of my all-time favorite books. February is Jane Eyre, March is Little Women (get it? March - Little Women?), April is The Secret Garden. May is Emma.

Wow. Really? Seriously?

2010-12-14T16:24:00.002-06:00

I can't believe someone seriously challenged this book.

testing the waters of the "online book club"

2010-09-19T20:12:00.005-05:00

My brother is a librarian in Washington state. beginning October 1, he's leading an online book discussion through Ning - first book is Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. I joined the online discussion, to test it (and see if I can get one to fly at my library) and also because it's my brother, I haven't discussed a book with him since the early 90s, and I had no clue he liked Jane Austen. He was an English major in college and I was an English minor (we went to the same college), and we frequently had classes together, some of which there were actual betting pools amongst students and professors to see which one of us would skip class the most. Anyway - I for some reason always thought my brother hated Jane Austen (as I find a lot of men do - at least they dismiss her as a serious writer) - but it turns out he loves her.

Portrait of the Addict as a Young Man

2010-08-08T15:55:00.007-05:00

So, not a very chick-litty book. But I've always been fascinated by the drug culture, and what drives people to do drugs in excess. I mean, to like, go off the radar, give up your life, and go on a 5 week long, $70,000 crack binge. Who would do that? And why did this guy not die after basically pumping his system full of what is essentially, when it all comes down to it, the equivalent of battery acid? It's fascinating to me. Really.

That said - this is a fast read, and it is fascinating - just this guy's level of intent on killing himself fascinated me...but (and maybe I am jaded by A Million Little Pieces), it's remarkably self-indulgent. I mean, really...apparently the guy had a crappy childhood (wow - really?) and had some issues with urination as a child (again - really? That almost never happens). What's fascinating to me is that most people go on and function in life. Some people become so self-induglent and self-pitying that they choose to destroy themselves. OK, fine. But then this guy gets a $350,000 book advance to write about it? Whatever. I just frankly wonder what he did with the $350K, or what he will do with all his money, eventually. Um, smoke it? Probably. Which is pretty sad.

Anyway - this book's very interesting - and again, I am very probably jaded by the whole A Million Little Pieces Oprah thing, so I don't know how much of this is true, and the author gives his own little, uh, disclaimer at the end of the book, basically letting us all know that he doesn't, either, given the amount of shit in his system and the level of complete and utter wastedness he had achieved.

Still, if you, like me, are interested in the sordid excapades of debauched and self-involved crack addicts posing as literary agents (or vice-versa), check this one out. It took me, all told, about a day to read, which is quick for me. It's definitely sordid and it grabs your attention from the beginning. Don't buy it, though - go to the library and check it out.

Book Blogger Hop

2010-08-01T20:18:00.005-05:00

So...I just discovered that there's a Book Blogger Hop, similar to the whole "follow Friday" thing on Twitter. The idea is that you go to the sponsoring blog, Crazy-For-Books.com, go to the Book Blogger Hop post, enter your link, visit other book blogs on the list, and post about the Blogger Hop on your blog. I love this!

Oh, and part of the deal is to answer a weekly question. This week's question is: Who is your favorite new-to-you-author this year?

Ahhh - the answer for me, the lover of really awesome British Chick Lit, is Harriet Evans. She's published four books that I know of, and I'm midway through the fourth (her most recent, I Remember You), and I love, love, love her books. Her writing style is similar to Marian Keyes (another one of my all-time faves) - each story has a plot and various subplots, and the character development is wonderful. If you can keep from reading ahead - which, believe me, is difficult - there are twists and turns to the story that will always surprise the reader. My favorite book of Evans' is The Love of Her Life, which I finished this summer, since it was a selection for our summer reading program, and it was on my 'list'. It came highly recommended from my friend Erika, also a librarian and lover of chick lit. So. If you haven't checked out Harriet Evans, and you like British Chick Lit, be sure to do so. She's totally awesome.

Hot Tub Time Machine is a deceptively cheesy title

2010-07-25T12:31:00.000-05:00

So far, in between episodes of "Big Time Rush", which is, by far, the absolute worst television show ever made (Hannah Montana's got nothing on this piece of crap - thank you, 110+ heat indices, for forcing my family inside for the weekend - and I have done crafts with my kids and played with my kids and cooked with my kids, but they love this shitty show...) and mediating arguments between my daughters (I started timing them on a stopwatch this morning to see how long they can go without fighting - right now they're running about 5-10 minutes), I have found some time to blog and watch movies. Last night, I watched Hot Tub Time Machine, which is not nearly as shitty as the title might lead one to believe.

Of course, I am a sucker or John Cusack, and I always have been - way before all the joiners discovered Lloyd Dobler with him boom-box. I loved him in Class, and Better off Dead, and The Sure Thing (which is one of my all time favorite movies). His ability to poke fun at himself, his past movies, the 80s in general and still be intelligent and funny....*sigh*...makes this movie. Still love him. The only bad thing was, when they flash to the 'young' John Cusack, it's not actually the young John Cusack. But he's still pretty hot for an old dude. I can, of course, say this, because he's only like 2 years older than I am.

Also - this seems to be the week of Rob Corddry - he was on Letterman the other night plugging Children's Hospital (which I plan to watch tonight on Adult Swim), and he's in HTTM. And he's fucking hysterical. Of course, one must keep in mind that I have a deep affinity for raunchy comedies, and an even deeper affinity for bathroom humor and extraneous use of the word 'fuck' - so if these things don't appeal to you, chances are you won't like this movie.

However, if you lived through the 80s (especially if you lived through them and remember them - I am convinced this movie was made specifically for those of us who are of John Cusack's generation (*sigh*, again) ), and you have a sense of humor, you'll appreciate this movie for it's really obscure references to 80s movies, and the occasional cameo from people you thought you'd never be able to pick out in a lineup today, let alone recognize in a movie 25 years later. (The bully from the original Karate Kid)

Vacation

2010-07-24T16:35:00.000-05:00

I got a promotion in March, and I really, really needed a vacation. So I'm taking one, right now. And one would think, since I am a librarian, that I probably loaded up on books for my week and a half off, right? Wrong...I am still reading the same five books I have been reading for the last two weeks, and those are:

Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marian Keyes;
I Remember You by Harriet Evans;
A Portrait of the Addict as Young Man by Bill Clegg;
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
The Unlikely Lavender Queen by Jeannie Ralston

In my defense, I do have two youngish daughters, and I am trying to spend as much time as I can with them. My older daughter just asked if I work tomorrow, and when told I am on vacation for the next week, she actually grimaced. Not a good sign. For any of us.

So. In addition to not getting much reading done, I have managed to watch a couple of movies in the last week or so. For example I watched When in Rome, with Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel (Mr. Fergie). It stunk - but, then, I was expecting it to. However, I was also expecting it to, you know, take place in Rome. Yeah. It doesn't.

I watched All About Eve, which I'd only seen bits and pieces of, which was really good. I tried to watch it on my consistently pixelated (and way overpriced) cable, but gave up and went - ahem - to the library to check it out. It was awesome.

I watched The Last Station, which is about the last year of Leo Tolstoy's life, and I also loved it. It featured my honey James McAvoy, (who could stand still for two hours and do nothing and I'd probably buy the DVD) Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer and Paul Giamatti. I loved it, but then, it's a period movie, and it has James McAvoy in it. (That's about all it takes for me.) But, in all seriousness, Helen Mirren gives an amazing performance (as she always does in any film) as Tolstoy's wife, and it sort of re-upped my long dormant interest in Russian history - the one history class I didn't get a chance to take in college.

In other even less exciting news, I visited my weedy garden today to find probably twenty red tomatoes. It's looking like bruschetta and pasta and pizza margherita for a few days for me! I also have six new lavenders and four humongous poles dripping with beans, so in addition to some varied reading that I intend to finish this week, I obviously have some yard work to do. :)