Badgwendel's Blog, page 8

My Favorite Dickens

I know what you’re thinking..EWWWWWW…now THAT is horrid, disgusting and certifiable. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Correction…I know what you’re thinking about me having a blog post called “My Favorite Dickens” because anyone who spends anytime talking books with me discovers I loathe Charles Dickens so much and so very hard. Just the thought of the time and school hours wasted on reading Bleak House and Great Expectations is maddening. Not even Gillian Anderson can make Bleak House tolerable. However I have to be grateful for the fact that Charles Dickens, that overrated blowhard who makes my eyes roll back so far in my head I almost need a trip to the UConn Health Center ER, is a link in a chain that created one of my recently discovered favorite authors, Monica Dickens.

For those who want to play family tree. Here it goes. Am very sick of typing Charles Dickens. So very sick. Charles Dickens spawns Henry Fielding Dickens who spawns Henry Charles Dickens who spawns Monica Enid Dickens.

Now usually (see Tigers in Red Weather), I don’t like certain writers and their extended writing spawn. But when trolling the fiction section of Book Barn and the library book sales bag days, I don’t always think about the writer’s last name and just zero in on certain publishers, figuring “oh gee…they haven’t done me wrong so far.” And oddly enough both these publishers (Virago Classics and Persephone Books are British and on my I Want Every Thing They Publish lists…such another post entirely…) And into my shopping bag went Monica Dickens’ Mariana in the Persephone Books reprint edition with the main thought “If I don’t like I can always try and sell it to Book Barn”.

And how very glad I am that my brain focused on “OMG Persephone Books” and “what a lovely cover” and didn’t process that an British writer named Dickens could be related to HIM…because I would have missed out on a wonderful author. Like Stella Gibbons and Angela Thirkell, opening a Monica Dickens books, fiction or one of her memoirs, is like stepping through a door into the past. Only you don’t have to be of a certain class because even the best Stella Gibbons and Angela Thrikell isn’t that fond of the lower orders. It doesn’t matter if you’re curled up on Mr Couch rocking a tattered Marvel t-shirt or sprawled on Mr Bed, fighting a hacking cough and wishing you had sprung for a Miskatonic University sweatshirt because it’s gotten freezing and the layers of Mr Blankie and Mr Cardigan aren’t enough, you’re “Monty” putting on a battered looking hat, taking the bus to the employment agency to try out a career as a cook even though you can barely make scrambled eggs let alone a feast for 12 after being an epic failure at theater school. You’re the slightly older and maybe not wiser “Monty”, confused as to how to make a nurses cap out of a round of linen and scraping wax off hospital bed wheels while trying to survive as a nurse in training during World War II. Or you’re the older “Monty”, an established and beloved wife and mother, looking back on her life and career through the years.

And then you’re yourself again, coughing and hacking, lurching into the living room for your computer to see if the local libraries have any and I mean ANY more Monica Dickens books in their systems for an interlibrary loan. You will even accept one of her children’s horse books which in your head are akin to Noel Streatfeild’s Shoe books. You must have more Monica. And then when you’ve tracked down those few titles, ecstatic that they are available, wanting them that second and vowing to scour the library sales and your favorite used bookstores for more titles while filling an Amazon Wish List that you know no one will ever check because your family just doesn’t function that way, you pick up the book you just ended and start again from page one.

 

Filed under: Books I Want, Favorite Authors, Mariana, Monica Dickens Tagged: Favorite Authors, Monica Dickens

Tigers In Red Weather

Ever pick up a book because of cool cover art, read the inside flap and added it to your book bag, crawled onto your bed and read said book and then closed the covers after you’ve finished and asked “Why the bleep did I read this?”

Or is it just me? It can’t be just me…

This afternoon, a book with cover showing a retro siren in red beach togs with a slash of matching red lipstick lured it’s way into my stack of library books. I could blame the general awfulness of the day (unexpected mission critical car repairs for Mr Saturn that drained my NecronomiCon 2015 savings and a big chunk out of our personal checking accounts, headache from dealing with said car repairs, feelings of failure for not being able to pay for everything myself and having to ask Blacklight to pay his share, etc) for picking up Liza Klaussmann’s Tigers in Red Weather. I could blame PMS. I could blame my brain being addled by finding the brand new Margaret Atwood just sitting in the general fiction stacks unmarked as brand spanking new vs in New Fiction where it truly belonged. Or I could blame the Agent of the Random because sometimes books just aren’t awesome or the right book for a reader. I firmly believe every book has it’s reader and Great Tulu knows I’m not going to love every book.

I’m sure for the right person (IE not me) Tigers in Red Weather would be a treat. It’s the tale of two cousins, the darkly handsome Nick (a lady) and lush (in more ways than one if you get my meaning hic hic hic) Helena. Nick is rich, bored, and non traditional lovely with flashing green eyes. The men just love themselves some Nick. Helena is the lovely blonde cousin who feels second best from their childhood days on Martha’s Vineyard (her mother didn’t marry as well as Nick’s mother). We first meet the cousins in fall 1945 as they break up house (Nick to head south to her Navy husband, Helena to Hollywood and a second marriage). We then skip to the late 1950s, meet their children (Nick’s daughter Daisy and Helena’s son Ed), bad stuff goes down one magic summer and then we skip-a-doodle to through the 1960s, learn some secrets (I would have totally pegged Nick’s husband Hughes as a deeply closeted homosexual vs the true secret) and then the book mercifully ends.

I plugged along through everything, wanting to shake Nick and Helena by the shoulders until their brains rattled. I also pictured Helena’s son, the not quite “right” Ed as a budding Norman Bates. The most shocking and interesting thing about the book was turning to the author info and discovering Liza Klaussmann is descendant of Herman Melville. Does my loathing of Melville extend to his distant family? If so, is my love of Monica Dickens, descendant of the dreaded Charles Dickens an aberration? These questions compel me more than the fates of Nick and Helena, Ed and Daisy.

In the right hands, again NOT MINE,  I firmly believe someone will adore Tigers in Red Weather. I imagine the right reader (NOT ME) to be someone who loves Downtown Abbey, cupcakes, wines and Martha Stewart. I can totally see Jen Lancaster reading Tigers in Red Weather on her Kindle by the pool and loving it to death.

In these undead raccoon paws?Eh…but kudos to the fine marketing geniuses at the Hachette Book Group and jacket designer Lindsey Andrews because I would have never picked up this book if it wasn’t for the cover, not even if I found it at the Simsbury Public Library book sale on $8 bag day.

Filed under: book review, Can You Tell I Hate This Book?, From The Library Stacks, Gwen is a Bitch, Jen Lancaster, Library Raid, Liza Klaussmann, Not My Cuppa Tea, Tigers in Red Weather Tagged: book review, Liza Klaussmann, Tigers in Red Weather, Why Did I Read This?

MaddAddam

I may have broken a new land speed record on Tuesday afternoon between Moderate Income Apartments and the New Britain Public Library to see if MaddAddam was truly in Express Books (rapid reads you can have for seven days only-no holds). I may have checked the Express Books section multiple times and my shoulders sag when I couldn’t find it. I may have picked up my holds with a heavy heart and slunk off to get takeout from the buffet/sushi joint next to the LaQuinta Inn a few blocks further downtown. I may have whinged on Twitter about the Universe being a big old meanie pants about no MaddAddam.

And I may have experienced a moment of pure joy when I called the Simsbury Public Library just before leaving Company X for the day on Wednesday to see if they had MaddAddam available. And muffled a shriek of delight when I was told the head librarian had just put it out on the Newest of the New section and they would hold it for me. And I might have decided Route 10 was the Autobahn, setting yet another land speed record to a library.

Okay, you know I totally did all of the above. And you also know I crept into the bedroom, curled up on Mr Bed with MaddAddam and growled at Blacklight when he came in the room to talk to Miss Susan Fish. Yes, Miss Susan Fish is the cutest widdle redhead ooo is her daddy favorite fishie girl but dude? I have been waiting FOUR FREAKING YEARS FOR THIS FREAKING BOOK!

Ah, yes…review the book already right? Gotcha.

S0 after four years and much re-reading of Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood and listening to both books back to back while toiling away at Company X and more mutterings of “when will MaddAddam finallyyyyyy come out?” than Blacklight cares to remember, the glorious release date has come and MaddAddam has been unleashed on our world. And yes, I devoured it in one glorious swoop, only putting it down to get another cough drop, chug another glass of water or shift position on the bed because my stupid hip hurts like a melon farmer.  Now was my four year wait in vain?

Like any much anticipated book after a first read, there was certain sense of let down. Is any book as wonderful as we hope it will be? Something was missing and it wasn’t the daily checking of Margaret Atwood’s Twitter feed for MaddAddam mentions or the “oh please don’t let this book suck a donkey” when I read the MaddAddam Amazon page. What was missing? A sense of fear, of being hunted, of being doomed.

The Post-Waterless Flood world hasn’t changed. Most people are still dead. Mad scientist creations lurk, the Crakers (which my poor allergy brain decided are “the Crackers”) are still eating leaves and grasses and totally Uncanny Valley hot and singing. There is no internet, Starbucks (sorry Happicuppa), etc. But that delight and terror I felt when Jimmy was in his tree to hide from the wolvogs or Toby fighting the pigoons at AnooYoo? Gone. Oh, Mr Pigoon, BiteYoFaceOffWolvog, Mr BobKitten and friends are still around but they are about as scary as the electric bill. Wait…my electric bill IS scary…

The sense of terror and the struggle to survive in the Post-Waterless Flood world of Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood just isn’t in MaddAddam. Quick example: If the survivors visit to the drugstore is so fraught, maybe show us the trip? Are there pigoons in the underbrush? Painballers in the trees? Make me really feel why gleaning girl stuff was so mission critical at this very moment. And this is coming from the person who mourned when a certain girl product went away (curse you,  Always, curse you…heeheehee…curse). Otherwise it’s just a cheap excuse to introduce with a sledgehammer a plot twist, Blacklight and the stuffed dragon babies could figure out in the depths of Boesmansgat clutching a flashlight with dead batteries. Ms Atwood, you are so much better than this!

And this just may be me, my need to know EVERYTHING, the four year wait coming to a close with each page turned, but MaddAddam feels rushed. The bulk of the book is spent building a world and it’s terrors (slutty gals! ersatz coffee! Craker winkies!) and then oh golly, third act…let’s have a rushed climax. The problem could lay with sections that cry to be lifted out and turned into a book of their own.

Case in point, over the course of MaddAddam we learn more about the winner of Most Unlikely To Be A God’s Gardener Let Alone Adam Seven: Zeb. Turns out Zeb (government name Zebulon) has lead a most interesting life. Instead of cluttering up the midsection of MaddAddam, I wish Zeb’s story had been it’s own full length book even with it’s dreaded Zeb knows everybody in the MaddAddam universe revelations. Want to know exactly who and how? Not going to spoil it here but basically if there was no Zeb? We might not have the Waterless Flood. Okay, given some individuals, the chances of an extinction event are still strong but not our Waterless Flood. Destruction does find a way.

But even with the let’s use a sledgehammer to unveil a plot twist, and Everybody Knows Zeb, and the madd (see what I didd there?) rush to  the climax, there are glimmering moments. Even though I don’t spend each page wondering if Character X is going to survive to the end of the chapter, there is slight some element of terror. Our survivors worry about the Crakers being attacked by others. Now if your brain is wired with classic sci-fi, you might think “hey now…Crakers=Eloi and that makes the Morlocks…oh man..bleepppp”. Toby getting Zeb to spin out his life story reminds me achingly of  the Blind Assassin sci/fi novel, the secret lovers meeting and an Arabian Nights like story that unfolds with each meeting. That sort of connection truly helps erase some of the dull sledgehammer thud. And makes me want to re-read The Blind Assassin. Another character (not Zeb) is pretty much doomed but hey if you re-read the whole series? Character has pretty much been doom chow since their first appearance. Their departure wasn’t a surprise (I had them pegged for compost fodder much earlier) but was still a little sad when it happened.

MaddAddam is a fine book and in my Atwood Top Ten. Heck, I’m even going to hit the library to see if they have the audiobook version. But it may be best enjoyed in one big orgy of back to back reading/listening with Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood. What I don’t like besides Mr Sledgehammer is the stories that aren’t told. I want to know how two characters survived their experiences. You don’t have to give me blow by blow but more than a sentence or two please? I’m reminded of something that the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast brought up when they covered The Music of Erich Zahn, I believe it was Chad Fifer who said the story that went out the window is the one he really wanted to read. The story they’re reading is good but it’s the missing one that they truly desire.

Filed under: book review, Buy or Check It Out, Library Raid, MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood, speculative fiction Tagged: book review, MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood, Read It Now

Abominable Science!

Ever since I was a tiny BookGwen I have loved and been scared by the unusual. If I really probed and peeled back the layers of memory I could lay the blame for this at the feet of two things, The Dadster taking the toddler me to see JAWS (it was the 70s and he was bored at home) and Leonard Nimoy’s In Search Of… and maybe that friend of The Dadster who BELIEVED BELIEVED in all the stuff. The one who brought over books on aliens, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. And wait…one more thing…the Time-Life book series Mysteries of the Unknown. 

So as an adult, yes, I watched Monster Quest, Mystery Quest, Is It Real? and read some of the books. But I never stomped around the woods or haunted the shores looking for things. First off: you don’t get this vampire pasty going outside. And second: outside is full of bugs and wind and nature… And as I aged and learned more, I grew more skeptical.

Now when one of my top 5 favorite, I’ve listened to them so many times I can recite the episodes word for word podcasts interviews authors on their latest work, I drop everything, hop onto my local library’s online catalog and try to get that book if possible. Remember I am POOR and don’t have new book money.

Today’s book is one that Blacklight had to remove from his side of the bed this morning. I might have growled “MINE!” “GIMME!” and “NO TOUCH” as I snatched it away and stashed it on my nightstand. Books are so much better bed partners than husbands. Husbands want you to cook and clean and not leave books on their side of the bed…but back to the book. As commanded by my Monster Talk overlord Blake Smith, I mean, inspired by a recent episode of Monster Talk, I finally got my hands on a copy of  Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero’s Abominable Science!: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie and Other Famous Cryptids?

(A little side story about finally getting my hands on Abominable Science! My local library is broke and is barely hanging on. But two towns over in the same general library network is the rich library who has in the past actually ordered some of the books I recommended for purchase. Their copy is on order. And yes, I have been checking my account at least twice a day so see if Abominable Science! has come in yet. No dice. But another library in our general network had it, so on my day off yesterday I trekked to the wilds (yes wilds, there is a working farm next to this library) and snatched it up two minutes after the library opened!)

First off as a graphic/layout geek (I have stopped reading certain books because the font made me want to puke), Abominable Science! is a gorgeous book. Much time and care has gone into turning out a pleasing product with an easy on the eyes layout and some truly lovely pictures, many in color. And kudos to the cover designer for their pulp magazine inspired layout which makes Abominable Science! really stand out from the sea of books at your local book store. If I had the money, I would have bought the darn thing for the cover alone (says the gal who designed her wedding invitations to look like a pulp romance comic). And it’s heavy. The book itself isn’t over-sized, it’s your standard hardcover size (IE you don’t have to turn it sideways to fit on the shelf) but the paper stock is top notch (another aside: yes, I have judged books on their paper stock-it’s a side effect of the graphic/layout geek thing and having parents who used to work in the sidelines of the printing business). Even more kudos to the folks at  Columbia University Press for putting out such a terrific product at a decent price.

Once you get past the cover, inside is a true treasure. You may want to make sure all spouses are fast asleep, your children are distracted and the pets fed because you do not wanted to get pulled out of reading. Certain people who spend way too much playing Minecraft almost got barred from coming into the bedroom while other people were reading. Sounds extreme? It’s not. A book this good deserves your full attention.

Donald R. Prothero and Daniel Loxton take turns at the helm. Now sometimes this can spell disaster for a book. Other times? Having two authors is genius. Donald is the professor with careful examinations and a drier but still completely compelling way of presenting the facts and theories. It’s like attending an amazing lecture and getting a little bummed when the lecture ends but you know there’s still more lectures coming up. Daniel’s chapters don’t have the same professor feel but are just as compelling and his experiences in the wild as a child and an adult add a certain flavor. This experiment allows both authors to use their differing experiences/educations to really probe into their subjects. To put it in Blacklight terms, it’s like have Jamie and Doofus Guy Adam from Mythbusters break down an experiment. You end a chapter feeling like you understand a subject and what factors influenced how the world at large sees the cryptid. What you don’t feel? Talked down to, pandered to, jerked around or flat out lied to. Abominable Science! is the product of careful research not cut and paste and more cut and paste of things over and over again.

If you are looking for a book that doesn’t give a long hard look at the monsters with a skeptical eye, don’t buy this book. This is not the book for you. Come with me Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside> 

However if you ARE looking for a book that carefully researches each cryptid (the notes are over 50 pages long and fascinating reading in themselves) and cryptozoology,  and will not make you feel like you’ve wasted your time, money and brain cells (coughcoughbradsteigercoughcough) then Abominable Science! is the book to buy. And if you can’t buy it (oh how I know THAT feeling) request your local library buy it. It’s that good!

Filed under: Abominable Science!, awesome sauce, book review, Buy or Check It Out, cryptids, cryptozoology, Daniel Loxton, Donald R Prothero, Library Raid, Monster Talk

Haven’t I Read This Already?

Let’s play a game!

Guess That Anne Tyler novel!

Middle-aged quirky guy who has slender and niche book series has devastating life event, moves back to childhood home to stay with his spinster sister, spinster sisters finds live as the quirky guy has major house trouble and finds a measure of happiness in his life.

Guess! Now! Come on…do it! Guess!

I’m waiting!

Okay…ANY guesses?

Oh….The Accidental Tourist.

Wait…The Beginner’s Goodbye…

Hmmm….you know…both answers are correct.

A few weeks ago, after an Entertainment Weekly back issue binge, I put the latest Anne Tyler, The Beginner’s Goodbye, on hold. And when I did get my hands on it a few days later, it was a hard slog even though it’s a just wee, dainty, slip of a thing. Something wasn’t holding my attention fully. But I slogged through it and just chalked it up to trying to relax and read when Blacklight was sitting four feet away on the couch, flinching in pain every time he shifted or took a deep breath. Spouse in pain and you can’t do a thing to help make it better isn’t exactly the best setting for reading. And all the reviews said the book was slight but good. So it had to be me…

Fast forward to last night. Have just spilled full glass of cold water all over side table including on Mr Kindle. Snatch up Mr Kindle, tidy up the mess and collapse on Mr Couch in relief that Mr Kindle is okay. Because the last thing I need to do to replace Mr Kindle even though he’s the $79 one with special offers. And dive into The Accidental Tourist because do not want to read about the Triangle Fire, I want escape.

And I start reading, then pause and then start reading again. Something isn’t right and it’s not the people at the basketball courts playing late into the night, every other word a curse. Or that my back and left hip hurts. Or that I can hear Blacklight through the wall escaping his pain with watching My Little Pony videos. The book, something is wrong with the book. Have I had this much trouble re-reading The Accidental Tourist in the past?

Mr Kindle gets turned off and I headed to bed with The Intellectual Devotional Biographies.

And this morning as I’m blow drying my hair and wondering if I should even bother to put makeup on, it hits me (not the hairdryer). There are only so many plots in the world. Big Guy in R’lyeh knows I have a whole virtual trunk of failed chick lit novel attempts that boil down to the same plot and characters. If it can effect pudgy, needs to cut back on the Starbucks Gwen Never-Was, why can’t it effect Anne “Quirky Baltimore Lady with a Pulitzer” Tyler.

Because, let’s face it…Macon (The Accidental Tourist) and Aaron (The Beginner’s Goodbye) are pretty similar. And not just because in my head they are both played by William Hurt.

both suffer a tragic death of a loved family member
both go a little mental in being alone after death of said family member
both their houses’ go to pot and then fixing of said house is a sign of their returning to normalcy
both go back to their childhood home after the tragic death
both have a hyper organized and older than her years sister who finds love with a man connected to their grieving brother
both have worked for a family business that would have failed without the input of a hyper business aware sibling
both write/are in charge of a quirky, slender niche book series which is the title of the book
both are played by William Hurt in my head (try NOT to cast William Hurt as Aaron…try)

No wonder I felt a little deja vu during The Beginner’s Goodbye…

 

 

 

 

Filed under: book review, Books I Loved Back in the Day Tagged: Anne Tyler, Deja Vu Time, The Accidental Tourist, The Beginner's Goodbye

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day: Or I Don’t HATE EVERYTHING!

Reading over (okay EDITING for spelling and clarity) past blogs, I realize I may come across as a bit…oh…I hate EVERYTHING. Then again, when Blacklight was making us in My Little Pony form, I was Bitchie Cakes the pudgy Earth Pony librarian with glasses whose perfect library involved NO ONE visiting it and a precious locked cabinet of HP Ponycraft…

So what was my point? Ah, yes…that I don’t hate everything that isn’t HP Lovecraft or Florence King.

YES, that IS possible.

Some books I love so much that I will travel oceans of time…okay, okay, OKAY…to the Noah Webster (West Hartford) Library and endure the awesome yet painful experience of Blue Back Square to get my hands on Winifred Watson’s Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day.

When I’m not shaking my head and sighing “oh…Howard…you dumb ass” or plotting a trip to bring my idol Florence King unfiltered Chesterfield Kings and hard liquor, I like to curl up with British novels, especially if they are pre-war and/or part of the Virago Classics line. I also like to curl up on Mr Couch, drink enough Vitamin Water Zero XXX to float a battleship and watch screwball comedies with Myrna Loy and Irene Dunne.

This made the movie Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day perfect viewing. Even more perfect, the New Britain Public Library has a copy. Remember I am poor. And think LIBRARIES ARE THE MOST AWESOME THINGS!

And the movie was a based on a quirky novel? I’m in!

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day is a Cinderella but fun novel. Miss Pettigrew, a down and out nanny of a certain age, goes to what she thinks is a interview for a nanny job. What happens is totally different. However maybe not, because even though Delysia LaFossee is a grown ass woman, she needs a nanny to tidy and straighten out her wild and exciting life.  Miss Pettigrew, a curate’s daughter, rises to the challenge and is slugging back drinks and keeping up with the night life with the best of them AND making this new world a more tidy place.

Track this one down. Heck, if you have the right sensibilities and the cash…order it from Amazon. It’s totally worth it!

Filed under: awesome sauce, Blast From The Past, book review Tagged: Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, Winifred Watson

I Give Up!

In my never-ending quest for a)  new things to read b) escape from my life and c) free stuff for my Kindle, I’ve been stuffing poor Mr Kindle with oodles of classic (hey there public domain!) children’s books. It’s at the point where I have more wholesome reading than Lovecraft. Then again aren’t wholesome, clean, upbeat children who respect their elders scarier than the Big Guy in R’lyeh? (Hmm…something to explore in another blog post mayhaps?).

Growing up, I was always a Louisa May Alcott and Laura Ingalls Wilder girl. That snippy, twee little red-headed demon…sorry Ames, I mean, one Miss Anne Shirley, never made it into my bookshelves. And I was the little girl combing the library and every tag sale from home to the shores of Lake Michigan (hey there Grand Rapids circa 1978!) for things to read. And I’m more than old enough to remember and have been the right age to watch the Anne of Green Gables miniseries in the 1980s.

Fast forward mumblemumbletwentysomethingmumblemumble years, I’m still re-reading Louisa May Alcott and Laura Ingalls Wilder, I even have a friend (hi Ames! ) who has read Anne of Green Gables AND been to Prince Edward Island. Me? I read the 2008  biography of Lucy Maud Montgomery (Looking for Anne of Green Gables: The Story of L. M. Montgomery and Her Literary Classic by Irene Gammel) and….nothing…

Skip ahead to spring 2012. I have a HUGE hankering to re-read Laura Ingalls Wilder.

It’s late one Saturday night. Libraries aren’t open until Monday. The hankering is so great I will even PAY to buy for Mr Kindle because the thought of going to Barnes & Noble is PAINFUL. I don’t want to be anywhere NEAR children. I just want to read some Laura Ingalls Wilder

Check Amazon. Discover that the Little House series is NOT a Kindle or e-book. Pout and then decide to see if there is any Louisa May Alcott I haven’t read. And then think, “hey why not download all these Anne of Green Gables books…how bad can they be?”

And download I did.

And start to read.

Over the past two weeks I’ve slogged through (in order) Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne’s House of Dreams.

Last night I flung Anne of Ingleside onto the floor, not giving a damn or a gram it was a library book* and snatched up a book on Hammer Films in the Bray years to stare at pictures of Sir Christopher as tasty hot why couldn’t I be alive in 1950s England to tap THAT total babe Dracula.

Mmm..mmm..mmmm…Sir Christopher Lee…so…tall…SO VERY HOT…huh…what?

Oh yes, Anne of Everyone Lurves Me and People Who Don’t Are Total Dumbass Meanies. And Anne of All The Guys Want Me Because I Am THAT AWESOME. And let’s not forget that classic Anne of ZOMG Some One Doesn’t Like Me BUT THEY WILLLLLL OHHHHH THEY WILLLL WORSHIP ME!

Once I can pry myself from the loving grasp of Mr Couch, I am going to march over to my work desk, snatch up Mr Kindle, cover him in a bazillion kisses for ever exposing him to Lucy Maud Montgomery and delete EVERY SINGLE DAMN ANNE BOOK CACKLING SO WILDLY THAT BERTHA ROCHESTER WOULD SAY “Damn girl! You need HELP! Git A Grip!” before scamper dampering off to try to burn Edward alive…AGAIN…

Usually once I pick a series to read, I READ THAT melon farmer. I read that melon farmer so hard that I will spend the whole day on Mr Couch with the series stacked up next to me IN ORDER! I will get 4 hours of sleep if it’s during the work week. I will “cook” with Mr Book in one hand while I’m plucking the Success rice bag out of boiling water.

I have read every scrap of Miss Read’s Thrush Green and Fairacre series (that was hard reading…Mrs Pringle and Betty WEAR on a person).

I have read every single Angela Thirkell Barsetshire series right down to the ones where you think “okay….there are twenty pages left…who is going to marry whom with a special license?”.

I have read EVERY SINGLE FROSTED POP TART MARY LASSWELL AND BEANY MALONE BOOK THAT MY CENTRAL CONNECTICUT LIBRARY SYSTEM HAS!

But I will never, ever, not even if I can group marry Thomas Jane, Dylan Moran, NPR’s Stephen Thompson, Garret Dillahunt, movie Thor AND Christian Bale, finish Anne of Ingleside or read Rainbow Valley or Rilla of Ingleside.

There is no way.

You can’t make.

You’re not my mommy!**

*all the librarians out there can stop worrying. The book wasn’t hurt by saying hello to Mr Floor. It’s now safely jammed deep into my library return bag next to the I will never watch it in a million years first season Game of Thrones Blu-ray.

** okay, two things I liked in the Anne books. Katherine Brooke (Anne of Windy Poplars) pre “ANNE IS THE MOST AWESOME AND I OWE MY LIFE TO HER” makeover. And Leslie Moore (Anne’s House of Dreams ) until she is all “ZOMG ANNE I AM THE WORST PERSON FOR HATING YOU AND EVERYTHING PERFECT IN YOUR LIFE” . Damn it, Katherine and Leslie! Hate away! You two ruled for a brief and shining moment.

Filed under: bitch be crazy, book review, Books That Suck, c-i-l-l me now!, Can You Tell I Hate This Book?, Crap on A Stick Tagged: Anne of Green Gables, I Give Up, Lucy Maud Montgomery

I Have A Sad (And A Mission)

With a long waited for and most blessed vacation upon me this week, I flung aside my Kindle stuffed to the gills with free (i.e. public domain) books and went to the New Britain Public Library to scoop up some inter-library loans and get an armload of magazines (which my brain will always hear as “Madga seens” a la The Gunslinger in The Drawing of The Three). So Entertainment Weekly Summer Movie Issue stashed in my book bag I wandered over to The National Review to check out the latest The Bent Pin. And whimpered and dug through the pile until I found the farewell column. Once again, Florence King is retiring. And she’s sick. And I may just turn on the TV or see online one day soon that she’s passed.

Florence King is one of the very few authors I can tell you exactly what libraries have which copies. Or the places and circumstances I found and bought her works.

He: An Irreverent Look at the American Male? Noah Webster Library (the main branch of the West Hartford, CT library), three rows from the left of the Teen Room, very bottom shelf, about four books in. Amazing to even find copy in CT. Had only read excerpt in The Florence King Reader due to rarity and cost of used copies online.

When Sisterhood was in Flower? Fiction sections of both the New Britain Public Library and Southbury Public Library.

Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye? Southbury Public Library. Could find in three minutes at old library location. Would need about 15 minutes to find at the new, huge, shiny building near the other middle school/Heritage Village.

WASP, Where is Thy Sting? New Britain Public Library. Must handle with care because cover is separating from spine in the front. Section on the WASP who goes all rustic with his wife Faith is falling out and needs re-binding. Think might be the only person who has checked out this book over the last 10 years.

Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady? UMO (University of Maine, Orono to the average bloke) library, fiction stacks. Read to pieces.

 

The Barbarian Princess ? Her one and only bodice ripper under the pen name Laura Buchanan, mass market paperback from the 1970s found in an Old Town, Maine junk shop during a visit from my parents in the spring of 1993 for 50 cents right next to an ancient RCA proto-laser disc player just like the one my dad bought years ago.

With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look at Misanthropy? Purchased at hip, independent New Haven bookstore after a trip to the Peabody Museum in 1992 with my mother and one of her friends.

The Florence King Reader? Purchased at the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble on my first, ALL BY SELF NYC adventure and devoured on the Metro-North train back to Danbury.

STET, Damnit! Purchased three times, twice on Amazon, third and last time in late March at the Book Barn Downtown for $4 for the hardcover because am certain will never get back from co-worker loaned copy to. Which is okay, because it means Miss Florence King has another rabid reader in “Commander” Reynolds.

That’s just select titles off the top of my head. So my mission this lovely vacation week, (besides eat my own weight in Gummi Bears) is to photocopy all The Bent Pins in the back issues of The National Review.

Because Florence King is worth it.

Filed under: Books I Loved Back in the Day, Farewell, Florence King, Library Raid, Life is Unfair, The National Review, vacation Tagged: confessions of a failed southern lady, literature, reflections in a jaundiced eye, university of maine orono, vacation

Eloise’s Guide To Life

***The Final May 2011 Eloise Horror…READ THIS IF YOU DARE***

Yup, another Eloise book!

But if you’ve read the original Eloise series, Eloise’s Guide to Life or How to Eat, Dress, Travel, Behave, and Stay Six Forever! is really Hand Over $10 to the Estate of Kay Thomson and Hillary Knight.

Because, Dear Readers, our little guide to the Eloise Life is just a handful of Eloise quips with a few new drawing just the right size to slip into a pocket. But if you’re a hard core Eloise addict, scamper off to Amazon or B&N and “Charge It!”

Filed under: book review, Books That Suck, Eloise, Eloise's Guide To Life, Gwen is a Bitch, Hillary Knight, Kay Thompson, Waste of Time, Why Why Why Why Tagged: Eloise

The Secret of The Lonely Doll

***May 2011 Biography backlog time!***

You know how sometimes reading one book can get you to want to re-read another one?

For me, it was reading a Kay (Eloise) Thompson biography. Because it triggered the memory of another best selling series featuring a blonde girl turned into best selling doll and all the rage. Yet the two books act like the other never existed.

But in New York City, two bleached blondes of a certain age were creating young blonde alter egos who lived in a fantastic version of New York. While Eloise was laying waste to The Plaza, blocks away a little blonde named Edith was having adventures with her friends Mr Bear and Little Bear.

There’s something eerie and rather off when you track down The Lonely Doll books. Edith the doll is childish yet knowing. And most frightening of all, a clear doppelganger for her owner/creator Dare Wright.

Just how creepy? Get your hands on a copy of Jean Nathan’s The Secret Life of The Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright.

The hardcover edition will have a mosaic of pictures. The trade paperback will have what looks like a dead Barbie doll with seashells on her eyes and a rope of pearls. That’s Dare Wright, author, photographer, model, artist, eternal child.

You could sum up Dare Wright’s life as “totally freaking messed up”. That’s a very brief way of putting it. Just how very, truly messed up her life was not even her biographer could get to the bottom of. But after her parents’ bitter divorce, never seeing her father again, being separated from her beloved older brother for over twenty years and never never never out of her mother’s grasp certainly doesn’t make for a healthy and productive adult life.

Sure, Dare Wright wrote best selling books and was a successful model who could create of the illusion of luxury out of a gum wrapper and a toothpick. (Wonder what she would do with our dragon collection and Blacklight’s 500+ game collection?) But Dare Wright couldn’t form an adult relationship with a man, behaved like a small child well into her sixties and slept with her mother right up to her mother’s death.

When you put down The Secret Life of The Lonely Doll, you realize that Dare Wright was an illusion, a fantasy, a dream creature. Every artist works out their life and traumas in their art.

But not every artist leaves you as sad and drained as Dare Wright.

Filed under: book review, Books That Haunt You, Dare Wright, Jean Nathan, The Lonely Doll, The Secret Life of The Lonely Doll