Craft Books

Unfortunately, I tend to spend more time thinking about crafting than actually crafting. Part of it is that I need to feel really confident before I cut into the fabric horde and part of it is that I'm really lazy. Oh and I need to clean my room to get to the sewing machine. Anyway, I found two books lately that are great providing inspiration.

Zakka Sewing

Zakka is Japanese for household goods and this book has a lot of ideas for making cute everyday things around the home. Of course that squirrel tea cozy on the cover is exactly why I checked it out from the library, plus there is a ton of zakka type items on Etsy that I continuously drool over.

Cool Spaces For Kids

Is this really fun book that looks at how to develop kid space in areas both large and small, indoors and out. I love the projects in this book because they look so fresh. Some of them are diy constructions of items I've seen in kids catalogues that cater to the Waldorf set and some are just beautiful alternatives to the commercialized kids decor that seems to be invading our planet.

In the midst of this crafty creativity, my mom dug out an old Better Homes and Gardens Treasury of Needlecraft book that was stuck in her bookcase from 1982.

It was really interesting to see the resurgence of some of the projects in this book. They could easily come out of an Etsy shop now (appliqued owls and rainbows, stylized creche figures for Christmas, patchwork place mats, modern stuffed animals). While the photography was really cluttery-country and dated, I was still amazed that there were many projects that if taken out of their backdrop context would be very au courant. Still I don't see me making that doily appliqued quilt or the old school afghan made from day-glo poly-blend yarn.

Remarkable Creatures

On the way to and from Chicago, I took up Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures, a book that I've been meaning to read, but kept putting off. I've been a long time fan of Chevalier's, since Carol told me I need to read the Virgin Blue (she was right) and I have no idea why I let the book languish for so long. Fortunately, the library wouldn't let me renew it, so I had to read it.

Remarkable Creatures is the story of two women, separated by age, class and education, who build an unlikely and often strained friendship through their obsession with finding fossils in the early 1800's. Young Mary Anning sells the fossils she finds to tourists to support her family while spinster Elizabeth Philpot keeps her finds in carefully curated cases. Both are viewed with suspicion and ridicule by their seaside neighbors. When Mary finds the fossilized skeleton of what can only be imagined as a monster, their world changes as the religious and scientific community begin to debate the ramifications of the find.

Chevalier returns to themes she has explored in previous novels: self -determination, gender roles, the life of a person who does not conform to society's expectations, and the everyday lives of people living in watershed moments of history. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is that the characters were actual people. Mary and Elizabeth's conversations with each other and other historical (and more famous) figures are fiction, but the main actions and their role in the early work leading up to Darwin's theory of evolution are our history. And while the history is 200 years old, it is incredibly relevant to today, as witnessed by the actions of the Texas Board of Education last week.

Literary Cat of the Day

Princess Arjumand from To Say Nothing of the Dog. Yes, I know that this is the literary cat of the day post and I'm referencing a book that has a dog in it's title. The dog is important but it's the cat that causes big trouble. I read this months ago, but I'm still thinking about this book. Part mystery, part comedy, part science fiction, part romance, this book pokes fun at multiple genres and references so many of my favorite books its hard for me to stop gushing about it. Just read it, you will be happy you did.

Two Words

Steampunk Romance

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Finally a subgenre just for me.

Book Trailers

Thanks to Smart Bitches Trashy Books, I'm all about the book trailers now. Does any other genre do this or is it just a Romance thing? Anyway, here's what I'm going to be reading soon:



Sherry Thomas is in my TBR pile already, but I keep adding more of hers the more I read about her. Now if only I could stop reading the Feehan. She's ridiculous but addictive.

My World Is Changing

I've been hearing about Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods for a while now, and I finally got around to buying it this summer when we were in Arkansas. But it wasn't until I committed to go to a book discussion about it for work that i finally got around to reading it. I cracked the book yesterday and I'm almost finished - unheard of for me and non-fiction, which usually takes me weeks to finish - and now I can't stop talking about it. This book broke something open in me, and now I'm so emotional about it, I'm a mess, which is sort of a problem since I have to speak about it rationally tomorrow. Anyway to organize my thoughts, this is why I like it:

1. Louv could have gone a completely different way with the tone of this book, when I first started reading, I immediately bristled wondering if I was going to feel like a miserable parent for not taking Nora backwoods camping at the age of two. But he didn't. Yes, he clearly does stuff like this with his kids, but really what he's advocating is for parents to ensure that kids get out of the house and into a natural setting everyday. This could mean trips to the park, but it can also mean growing a seed in a dixie cup or watching the birds land on the railing. In one of the best passages of the book, Louv reassures us that making the reconnection is possible, that it doesn't have to be a giant task, and he gives us permission to have fun and to learn things too:

" But before I take you on this hike, let me say something about the pressures that parents endure. Simply put, many of us must overcome the belief that something isn't worth doing with our kids unless we do it right. If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun."

2. He makes a really strong case for our need for Nature for a. mental health b. cognitive learning c. physical health d. the creative process. Our disconnect from nature is really messing us up on all four of these fronts and ruining the earth for everything else on top of it. Really that's it in a nutshell, but this book is so much more.

3. This book should be required reading for parents, educators and policy makers for Chapter 8 - the section on ADHD and the benefits of being in nature to combat it- alone. If you don't read any other part of this book, read that chapter, it is incredibly powerful.

4. He puts the responsibility for making our re-connection to nature on a multiple shoulders (well actually everyone) but he doesn't hang parents or teachers out to dry by saying its all their fault or that they are the ones who can fix this. He takes on universities, environmental groups, government, corporations,educators, parents and everyday folks and gives extremely sound advice about how to make this work. i.e.: this book doesn't just tell you there's this huge society wide problem that is destroying us, but it also gives ideas on how to fix it and points to places where folks are doing it right. Louv also cites lots of research to back up his claims but he also tells us where no one is doing any research, or not enough research, or the research is faulty to support his arguments to encourage more work to be done.

5. This book is readable. It doesn't overwhelm you with statistics (although there are plenty), it doesn't feel like you are being lectured, it's well set up and most of all it is extremely interesting, not just for parents and not just for educators and not just for green folks (although I am all three of those).

So, please check the book out. You can borrow it from me or buy your own copy or go to the library. Whatever it takes. If you want the readers condensed version check out the link to the Orion magazine article he wrote (it's where you will go if you click on his name above). Maybe you won't have the epiphany-revealing, earth-shattering, emotional reaction to it that I have, but maybe you'll like it anyway and maybe it will convince you to go take a walk in the woods. I hope so.

More On the Subject

Lately, I've been obsessed with this amazing website that reviews and snarks on romances. Unlike other snark-y romance sites, these girls are actual fans and they also are academics - making it for me, the perfect website. It's also helping me come to terms with my love for romances as well as helping sort through the dreck for some really great authors (Tree, you've got to read Loretta Chase). Among their many services they have a feature to help people identify romances they've read and lost. This appeals to my secret librarian side - yet another reason to love this site. However, this amazing summary floored even me, who seeks out the absurd in the world of romance:

"I was hoping you and your army of smart and bitchy readers could help me identify a romance novel I read when I was ten or so (in 98 or 99) and kept digging through my friends’ mothers’ romance novel collections during sleepovers.

The novel’s set in Regency England, I think. The heroine lives in Bath and spends her days lamenting the fact that all the men are foppish dandies and she can’t find one who won’t hide his mantitty with frills and lace. And then one day she puts on a dress in a shop and it magically transports her to Ancient Rome. There, she meets a fearsome guy named Magnus somethingorother who promptly makes her his slave. He does stuff like making her put on boobie-revealing tunics during his dinner parties and so on. Obviously she falls in love with him. But then one day she is magically transported back to Bath. She’s very confused about whether her months in Rome were real or just an opium-den-induced hallucination… But then she digs up some plaque or other that she and Magnus had buried together and she knows it was all real.

Thanks in advance!"

First of all, her summary skills are to be applauded. Having read several response papers that Jason was grading, not to mention various grant proposals, and other requests of this nature, I give the writer big props on 1. telling us what we need to know to make the i.d., but not giving us a long, involved play by play of the book 2. painting a sufficiently enticing plot for those of us who haven't read it to be curious about it, and 3. giving us enough snark to make me want to help her/meet her. 4. her use of "mantitties" and "boobies" in so short a paragraph to underscore the absurdity that is sure to be found in this romance.

Secondly, I am now incredibly interested in getting my hands on the book itself. The description sets up three rarities: 1. although the heroine is Regency English (possibly the most common period of historical romance), the setting is Ancient Rome, this is unusual - Italy is sometimes used as a setting (one of the genre's more exotic ones) but it is always from Renaissance forward and the plot then must have opera singers and/or courtesans. 2. This time-travel takes the heroine from a setting in the past, to even further into the past. Most time-travel romances, start in the present and send the heroine back into the past, or if they really want to shake things up they send the hero from the past into the present (or in the case of Janet Chapman's Highlander series - a whole passel of heroes), further, time-travel romances, when not set in the Scottish highlands, are set in England. Not unusual, is the change in location, time-travel in romances always seems to also include a geographical jump as well -see my note below. 3. If the memory of the person enquiring is correct, the heroine appears to return to her own time, without her man - ok, this is completely unheard of.

Fortunately, about a dozen readers knew exactly which book this was, since I didn't. For those of you interested it's Enlsaved by Virginia Henley.

Book Cat of the Day

Ginger by Charlotte Voake. - Ginger loves his food, his basket, and the little girl that loves him.  But then he has to learn to share. 

 

Book Cat of the Day

Sampson from the Church Mice series. My favorite of this group is The Church Mice Adrift by Graham Oakley. Why this series has gone out of print, I'll never know because the story is terrific and the illustrations are delightful. In The Church Mice Adrift, progress has come to Waterthorpe and the rats have been evicted from the waterfront. Searching new digs, they evict the church mice and Sampson from the Vestry. It's up to Sampson to get them home again. Sampson is the best of book cats, smart, courageous, and charitable to the sometimes undeserving mice in his care.


These stories were favorites of mine as a child, and now Nora thinks they are they cat's meow too.

Postings

I've been lurking on LibraryThing's forums for several years now (yeah, this blog is not the only place I have problems posting), and today I scrolled through one of my favorite topics - the worst books of this quarter (or whatever time period) where folks share what they couldn't bear to read another page of. Sometimes these posts are places for people to get all snobby about their reading or to take a couple of shots at book club recommendations, but when I read this post I cracked up:

Worst books so far:

The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis. I had been looking forward to reading this book. It was a really boring book. Even a character who can bring people back from the dead couldn't make this book interesting to me.

The Clue of the Missing Bagpipies. Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #41 Typical Nancy Drew. I'm just tired of her being such a know-it-all in every book.

Is Sex Necessary? Or Why You Feel The Way You Do by James Thurber and EB White. I gave this a rating of 2/5 -- my lowest so far. A humour book that was not funny and really outdated.

I feel like I should add The Late Hector Kipling by David Thewlis. I gave it a 3/5 and thought it was well written, but, it was VERY dark and not what I was expecting.

I love Nancy Drew, but I do agree she can be a know it all. Now I'm off to check out the poster's library. I have a feeling I'll enjoy her reviews.

Most Influential Southern Novel

LibraryThing alerted me to this poll for the most influential of 20 southern novels of the 20th century. Since I know a couple of you have opinions on this sort of thing, I'm curious to know what you all would pick. I haven't really read enough of these to make a strong choice, but I would like to see the debate that's happening on South Caroline Educational Television around this poll. Interestingly, I think there are two movie adaptions of the novels that have had a huge influence on how the South is perceived by people outside of the south - Deliverance and Gone With The Wind, although not necessarily positive perceptions. The poll where you can vote is here but do come back and tell me what you think.

And We're Off!

So the press blitz has begun. Jason had an interview yesterday with the Conway Log Cabin Democrat and this morning he made the Arkansas Democrat Gazette about the reading of his play, Yum, Yum, Yogurt, Ulysses! tomorrow night at Hendrix. Fortunately, the Demozette used the press release from Hendrix which was A. more coherent than his interview and B. included the mention of Jason and Todd's essay in Star Trek and Philosophy, which made the paper too! Both articles quote Bob as well, since he's directing. Hooray for the Hendrix publicity department! Jason is a little distressed with the Log Cabin interview, it sort of rambled all over and the reporter mentioned that Nietzsche was a great influence (he's not) and his offhand remark about absurd sexual fantasies of one of the characters got in, making the play sound a little more scandalous than it is. Nevertheless, don't bring your kids - Kevin Smith definitely was an influence.

We leave tomorrow for Conway and we're looking forward to seeing Bob, Sarah and Zelda as well as anyone else who might be at Hendrix these days. The reading will begin at 7:30 pm tomorrow night if anyone else wants to come see it. Jason's already gotten word that a couple of high school friends plan on attending. I admit I'm starting to get excited about the trip, but I'm a little worried to about leaving Nora so long. I know she'll have a great time with my parents, but this is the first time we are leaving her and I'm a little nervous about how she'll do.

Gunnerkrigg Court

As Todd and Jason already know, I've become completely enamoured with the the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court. I think part the appeal of Siddell's creation is the steampunky feel, although more gritty and then the whole girl power aspect gets me completely. He's dealing with some interesting themes too: technology verses nature, the power of myth, mothers and daughters, free will (for robots and humans), and whether our children take the same paths we choose. Because I have no patience, I devoured the archives in one fell swoop and now I must wait for the three times a week when the next intallment will be posted. I hate waiting...

Congratulations to Todd and Jason

While there has been a very brief mention on Todd's blog, you may not know that they have an essay in Star Trek and Philosophy, which is available now! Here's a few comments from Jason about the publication:

Well, I got an early copy of Star Trek and Philosophy today and it's been fun. Todd and I have an essay therein with the title "Recognizing the Big Picture: Why We Want to Live in the Federation". The anthology is part of a Popular Culture and Philosophy series that has had some fun volumes covering Seinfeld, the Simpsons, Buffy, Star Wars and a host of other topics. This one is edited by Jason T. Eberl and Kevin S. Decker who (1) have been great friends since we all met at SLU and (2) had kept their middle initials hidden from me up to this point.

The essays are very approachable, presenting whatever background would be needed. Authors bring up rival conceptions of death, ethics, politics, and time. These are related to particular episodes, or characters, or facts stipulated by the show. Todd and I are the only authors to mention Ricardo Montalban or cite Leonard Nimoy's explanation as to why the show has appealed so much.

The book will be out early in September, I think so get your copy now. Todd and I will sign them if you mind the tip jar.

Congratulations to you both!

The Weighing Of the Manuscript

The Weighing of the Manuscript will occur at 5pm on August 23, 2008 in the downstairs bathroom of my parents house.

All entries must be received by 4:55 pm, August 23, 2008. You can enter your estimate here in the comments section or at the event site.

The winning prize will be your very own copy of the dissertation, autographed by Jason. There will be no runners up prizes, but there is beer for everyone.

Still More Jane

While I was in the process of placing my reserves at the library on more Darcy Diaries, I wandered through the stacks and found an unusual book in the realm of Jane Austen spin offs. I love the premise of Lost In Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure . Based on those choose your own adventure books that we grew up with and the addition of a game element thrown in, you are Elizabeth Bennet and you are commanded to marry well. Potential husbands include Darcy, but also other Austen men; heros and cads. There are arch comments sprinkled throughout your attempts to navigate the social mores of the regency period. Be prepared for quizzes so you can gain points in intelligence, fortune, connections and accomplishments. Watch out or you may make the wrong choice and end up married to Mr. Collins! While the concept is fun, this isn't really a book that you need to own, but it's well worth checking out from your library.

Summer Reading

I clearly haven't been paying enough attention. It all started while perusing the Best Worst Book discussion on Library Thing. They mentioned Linda Berdoll's Mr Darcy Take A Wife, and I was interested and the next thing I knew I'd read both of her "sequels" to Pride and Prejudice. I won't go into them in detail here (Todd and Jason have already heard me tell them enough of about them already) but they are fun, they are ridiculous, they are sexy, and they are absolutely not Jane Austen. And they most definitely do belong on that Library Thing discussion topic. I gulped all 429 pages of the first one down within 24 hours and once I located the second, Days and Nights At Pemberly, among the stacks at the library, I read it just as quickly. When I picked it up at the library, (I was surprised that it was in the "fiction" section, an not "romance") I noticed another book just a few feet away - An Assembly Such As This by Pamela Aiden, which is part of a trilogy of books retelling P&P from Darcy's point of view, and grabbed it as well. Since then I did a quick look on Amazon and apparently there are many, many, many retellings of P&P (beyond the most famous Bridget Jone's Diary and Clueless) and several that are from Darcy's point of view. I had no idea how insanely popular Austen was (I mean I knew she was popular) and that there was this much fan fiction has actually been published and is available in my library. I guess it's a whole subgenre of ChickLit. I'm wondering just how many of them I'll be able to slog my way through before the faux regency speak kills me or completely rearranges my vocabulary. While I know Todd isn't going to take me up on this (and probably not Carol either) but I'm suggesting you all give Berdoll a try, especially if you are headed to a beach.

Fortunately, at the same time I'm making my way through Charlaine Harris', Sookie Stackhouse Vampire series so I have a little balance. The Sookie Stackhouse books are a lot of fun, especially for folks familiar with the ARKLATEX area. Harris is from Magnolia, Ar, and she really does a good job of creating a sense of place and bringing the setting alive, even if it is populated with the undead. Harris is of course compared to Anita Blake and Anne Rice, and while there are sexy ancient vampires (and other things that go bump in the night)she's sort of doing something else too. Like that other vampire creator, Joss Whedon, she's well aware that the mundane can be horrifying as well, and she also does a good job of picking at themes of race, sex, and class. Her characters are both funny and heartbreaking, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she does with them. If you do decide to check them out, you should probably read them in order. I started in the middle, but I've gone back to the beginning and while I never mind being spoiled, some folks do and there are alot of revelations about previous situations that come up again in later books.

This Just In

For all you HP fans out there, our favorite headmaster is Family:

From IMDB.com:
Dumbledore Is Gay
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix author J.K. Rowling has shocked fans of the boy-wizard series by stating that character Albus Dumbledore as gay. The writer revealed the truth of the Hogwarts school headmaster's sexuality at New York's Carnegie Hall on Friday as part of her American book tour. When asked by an audience member if Dumbledore had found "true love," she replied, "Dumbledore is gay," adding he was in love with his rival Gellert Grindelwald, who he once beat in a battle between good and bad wizards long ago. She says, "Falling in love can blind us to an extent. (Dumbledore was) horribly, terribly let down."

Eggs

Are definitely out. We had been thinking that possibly Nora was able to eat them, but this weekend proved that this is so not the case. Unfortunately this allergy doesn't disappear until age 5, if at all. Lets keep our fingers crossed. On the upside, Isa's recipes came though for me again! This time I tested her biscuits. Although, I think I could veganize my traditional biscuit recipe, I decided to go with a more sure bet. They were a little crumbly, but the taste was super yummy and despite having a less-common ingredient (non-hydrogenated shortening, aka: Spectrum) I plan on making these as my permanent biscuit recipe. Alas, alack I don't have any pictures - though that may be fore the best since this meal also resulted in the great jelly disaster of 2007 (baths all around for Nora, the chair, the carpet and almost Karl).

Sunday was also our 12 anniversary. Hard to believe that it's been that long but it has. Happy Anniversary Sweetie! I shamelessly spent the day reading the present I purchased for Jason - Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson. He got to read it yesterday too, but still... sorry I commandeered your present, Jason! Anyway, it's as great as I hoped and I recommend it to all of you. Especially if you are, live with or know a Star Wars, Star Trek, or Comic Book fan. Or if you ever worked in a bookstore. Yeah, I'm talking about you, Todd.

Fractured Fables

I read the first in the Fables series a couple of months ago, on the recommendation of some members of an on-line discussion group for librarians who love graphic novels. And I thought it was great fun. It's a comic book (now collected in to paperbacks) about fractured fairytales - a theme I love. Fables gives us our fairytales that we know and love so well, and has brought them to our world when an army of goblins under the control of the mysterious Authority has ransacked their lands. Fables tells us how they've been getting along after the "happily ever after".

So I shelved it mentally with all of my other favorites in this area - the Gregory Maguire books, Jasper Fforde's Nursery Crime books, Jon Scieszka's True Story of the Three Little Pigs, and perhaps the original- Rocky and Bullwinkle's Fractured Fairytales. I was interested enough to buy the third in the series, but I passed over the second, due to the reviews. But now I'm hooked. Bill Willingham keeps peeling back layer and layer to these stories. Just when you think you know all about Snow White and Prince Charming he changes thing up. You say okay, I can deal with that and then he does it again. I'm all out of order in the series, but I'm trying to catch up - I've got the second book on request at the library and I've already read a backstory that is making me totally rethink what all happened in the third book, and I sense that I'm going to have to plunk down the cash for the rest of the series since the library only has 1, 2, and the below pictured backstory volume, 1001 Nights of Snowfall, which uses a variety of artists - some absolutely amazing.
One last note, like the original fairy tales - these aren't necessarily appropriate for children, so don't plan on buying the set for any kiddies in your orbit.