Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 94

Nostalgia Goldmine Challenge!

Have you been reading my reviews of obscure kids' books or obscure science fiction or obscure whatever and wishing you could lay your hands on them?

Via telophase : "In case you haven't seen it yet, the Open Library is now the National Emergency Library, which means you can borrow ebooks with no waitlist. They've got over a million books--I did a broad search last night for science fiction and fantasy, and they've got a ton of books, both well-known and obscure, from the mid-1990s and further back; adult, YA, middle grade, and kids. Especially when I got to the 1970s and 80s, it was like scanning the shelves at my childhood library and bookstore trips.

Formats tend to be epub, PDF, and encrypted daisy for print-disabled users."

If you need a different format, you can get them converted via this free and very easy service.

You can filter by genre and year (and other ways as well). I did a search filtering for "juvenile fiction" and "1980," and got the most astonishing transport back in time. Especially since they show the original covers!

Here are the books I recognized, most of which I don't own and haven't thought of in 40 years: No Such Thing as a Witch by Ruth Chew, Mr. Chatterbox, Bruno and Boots: Beware the Fish and Who is Bugs Potter? by Gordon Korman, Fables by Arnold Lobel, Choose Your Own Adventure: Space and Beyond, and Flutterby.

I was also disappointed to discover that The Girl Who Lived on The Ferris Wheel was not about a girl who lived on a Ferris wheel. The Ferris wheel was a metaphor for her abusive mother's moods. BOOOOO.

The whole experience was like stumbling upon the world's greatest thrift store bookshelf.

Here is my challenge to you, in a time when I think a lot of us have time on our hands and could use a distraction and community challenge:

1. Look up a year of your choice, and report back to me in comments about books you remember.

2. Download a book, read it, and report back on it in your own DW or here, as you wish.

3. Challenge me to read and report on something of your choice!

4. Post this in your DW, and let your readers challenge you.

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Tamar, by Mal Peet

A Carnegie medal-winning YA. In one strand, two SOE operatives code-named Tamar and Dart (both male) are parachuted into Nazi-occupied Holland; in the other, 15-year-old Tamar (female), who was named by her grandfather, learns about his past after his death.

The parts of the book that are about the war, the resistance, and life under Nazism are excellent. Unfortunately, there is not one but TWO other plots. One is Tamar's story, which is fine but not outstanding until it goes off the rails on a truly ill-conceived romance. The other is a love triangle taking place between dude!Tamar, Dart, and Marijke, a young Dutch woman. I HATED that story and unfortunately it takes over the second half of the book.

( Aggravated spoilers )

I feel like fighting Nazis was sufficiently dramatic. The loooooooove story didn't come across as the deep statement on passion, love, and the darkness in men's souls that it clearly meant to be, but as eyerolly melodrama. IMO, anyway.

Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal[image error]

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Support Mail-Order Restaurants! Eat Ube Coffee Cake!

Out of everything that's going on, what's hitting me hardest is all the small restaurants that are closing down or struggling desperately to survive. In LA, a lot of them are beloved family-owned, people of color-owned, and/or woman-owned places. I love them and their food and their owners and workers, and I'm doing my best to support them.

So! Want to get a taste of LA's deliciousness while supporting people who could really use a break? Order by mail! They are shipping nationwide, though I would check in advance if you're in Hawaii.

Ninong's Cafe is selling pastries, cookie butter, coffee, and mugs. This is one of my absolute favorite LA restaurants, a Filipino place best-known for its pancake flight and devotion to all things ube. I especially recommend their ube coffee cake and other ube treats. You can order now and they'll ship everything fresh on Saturday. You get 20% off with the code FLATTENTHECURVE. (Ube is purple sweet potato. It has a delicate and delectable flavor. I hate yams and I love ube.)

If there's anything you want that's listed as out of stock, just email the Cafe. They'll respond promptly. Nothing is really out of stock as they're baking it fresh, it just sometimes sells out and gets listed that way.

Cookies and coffee cake can be frozen, so you can order extras for later. ;)

Porto's is selling frozen bake-at-home stuff. They're a Cuban bakery notorious for their extremely long lines, and famous for their addictiveness. I am especially in love with the potato balls and guava pastries, both of which are available to bake at home.

Bhan Kanom Thai is selling all sorts of Thai treats. They are a wonderful Thai dessert and grocery shop in the heart of Thai Town, selling unusual cupcakes and other delicious things. A lot of what's available for mail order is non-perishable groceries; if you don't live in LA, I'd use their contact form to check on whether it's practical for them to ship their fresh desserts and cupcakes. They respond very promptly.

Please comment with any beloved local places that are also shipping. And please share this post widely, if you so desire, or make your own!

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Photos now on Instagram

I'm now putting my photos on Instagram. I won't always link them here, so please follow me there if you want to see them.

Today I dyed my own hair.

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The Time of the Kraken, by Jay Williams

Thorgeir Redhair has always been an odd one out among his people, as he dislikes killing and keeps an open mind about their ancient enemies in the next village over. This attitude may save everyone when, while scrambling to avert a war, he discovers that a much greater enemy is approaching... the dreaded kraken!

The ending and overall thrust of the story, though unexpectedly melancholy, will not be surprising to anyone who's read much science fiction. But the worldbuilding and story is delightful, populated with a gazillion cool creatures, plants, and locations, and heavily featuring badass women, small bands of unlikely companions, and battles with tentacled ant-lions.

I'm not sure if this was meant to be YA or adult. It reads more like YA, but is very frank, though not explicit, about sex. (The hero and heroine, who are young adults, have had plenty of enjoyable sex before they officially get together; it's all very sweet and wholesome.)

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The Time of the Kraken[image error]

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The Seance, by Joan Lowery Nixon

Church attendance went way up, and people began remembering all kinds of stories about witch water in the Thicket, and a giant black panther with human eyes, and old Marley Thompson, who cast hex spells on people until he accidentally shot off his right foot while hunting and went to live with his son and daughter-in-law in Buffalo, where it's too cold to pay attention to hex spells.

If you're guessing this is a southern Gothic... not exactly. That is, it is, but its actual genre is 80s teen thriller.

Can you believe I was a teenager in the 80s and never read Joan Lowery Nixon? It's true! And so I have no idea how typical this book is. I assume the twisty suspense aspects are, but I'm really curious if the Southern Gothic atmosphere is too.

Lauren lives in East Texas with her Aunt Mel (short for Melvamey because of course it is), her neighbors Fant (husband) and Feeny (wife), and Sara, who like Lauren is a 17-year-old foster kid, but unlike Lauren is pretty and gets lots of attention from both boys and adult men. When Sara vanishes during a seance and then turns up dead in the Thicket, suspicion falls on every man and boy in town... and also the teenage girls at the seance, because one of them had to have helped her stage her disappearance.

The thriller aspects are pleasingly twisty, but what was most fun for me were the OTT Southern Gothic bits.

Fulfillment of premise: If you're looking for a book heavily featuring a seance, this is not it.

The Seance (Laurel-Leaf Suspense Fiction)[image error]

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Los Angeles is on lockdown

It's okay though, I'm prepared.

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The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins (Complete)

That was SO SATISFYING. My favorite part was the middle (Marian's narration) but I was not disappointed with the rest. I love that a book written in 1860, which gives so much time to make tropes stale and old, still managed to pull off so many genuine gasp-out-loud moments and startling twists.

Marian is still the best. All else is spoilery.

( Read more... )

My only real disappointment was that it mentions in passing that a certain character can turn dead humans into a stone-like substance that will preserve them forever, and this never comes up again. I want my human corpse statues!

Which Wilkie Collins book shall I read next?

Do any of them have good audio versions?

Are there any good filmed adaptations of The Woman in White?

The Woman in White (Penguin Classics)[image error]

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Even the cats are bored

While I was sorting my pantry items, Alex pounced on a cardboard container of chicken broth, puncturing it in multiple places and sending broth spurting in all directions like severed arteries.

I later caught him perched on a step-ladder batting at my refrigerator magnets which he normally can't reach.

Not to be outdone, Erin waited till a cupboard was completely filled with neatly sorted pantry items, then took a flying leap into it.

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The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins (Post # 2 - Marian Halcombe & Frederick Fairlie, Esquire)

This book is SO GOOD, you guys! I was enjoying it before but Marian's narration is amaaaaazing, so is Mr. Fairlie's in a very different way, it's so funny and suspenseful, I have NO idea where it's all going, and there are now pet white mice in a homemade pagoda!

Everyone needs to read this book. It really kicks into gear once you hit Marian's narration. I am really admiring how Collins creates completely different voices for all the narrators so far. That is very difficult to do when they're all first-person, and he manages it marvelously.

Marian is the best. She's so snarky and determined and practical.

The main body of the building is of the time of that highly-overrated woman, Queen Elizabeth.

The description of Blackwater Park is marvelously menacing.

On the farther bank from me the trees rose thickly again, and shut out the view, and cast their black shadows on the sluggish, shallow water. As I walked down to the lake, I saw that the ground on its farther side was damp and marshy, overgrown with rank grass and dismal willows. The water, which was clear enough on the open sandy side, where the sun shone, looked black and poisonous opposite to me, where it lay deeper under the shade of the spongy banks, and the rank overhanging thickets and tangled trees. The frogs were croaking, and the rats were slipping in and out of the shadowy water, like live shadows themselves, as I got nearer to the marshy side of the lake. I saw here, lying half in and half out of the water, the rotten wreck of an old overturned boat, with a sickly spot of sunlight glimmering through a gap in the trees on its dry surface, and a snake basking in the midst of the spot, fantastically coiled and treacherously still.

After several shocking developments, we meet an amazing new character...

The gentleman, dressed, as usual, in his blouse and straw hat, carried the gay little pagoda-cage, with his darling white mice in it, and smiled on them, and on us, with a bland amiability which it was impossible to resist.

"With your kind permission," said the Count, "I will take my small family here--my poor-little-harmless-pretty-Mouseys, out for an airing along with us. There are dogs about the house, and shall I leave my forlorn white children at the mercies of the dogs? Ah, never!"

He chirruped paternally at his small white children through the bars of the pagoda, and we all left the house for the lake.

NO SPOILERS for anything past the point I've read! Not even hints! However feel free to discuss the parts I've already read.

( Read more... )


The Woman in White (Penguin Classics)[image error]

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