Melissa Wiley's Blog, page 168

Captured

I went almost the whole day yesterday undecided about what book to read next. I know, the horror, the horror.

I usually have one nonfiction book and one work of fiction going at once. I'm quite happy with my current nonfiction read: the highly recommended Crow Planet. But I need a novel too, always. You understand.

OK, I'm being imprecise—I actually do have a novel going—but it's the nighttime-read-on-the-iPod-in-the-dark novel, and I can't read on the iPod outside in the back yard while the...

Truly, Maudly, Deeply

Well, I'm going to have to write about The Perilous Gard and The Gammage Cup. But today is our group's big Journey North party, which means Jane and I need to rustle up some Malaysian food. I think we're going with this.

In the meantime, I wanted to round up some of my posts about books I love "truly, Maudly, deeply." That's Maud as in Maud Hart Lovelace, of course, and what I mean is books I have a mad passion for, such as Maud's Betsy-Tacy and Deep Valley novels. I'm going to be doing more w...

Delicious Links for May 3, 2010

• A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: Faking It—"The problem with McCarry's arguments (other than that they are unsupported by any facts and force all bloggers into the role of critic, whether it's a role they want or not) is that not "all" book blogs are part of this "cult of niceness." And, even if such a cult exists — there are reasons for it beyond a person's gender. It can be personal preference. It can be professional — there are many reasons why an author may be careful about what they ...

I was going to write a post about books tonight, honest.

But instead I got caught up in one.

The Perilous Gard, by Elizabeth Marie Pope, author of The Sherwood Ring, which you know I loved. Jane checked Perilous Gard out of the library after we both devoured Sherwood, and before she had finished reading it she had declared it to be a keeper. So now we have a copy, and she urged me to put it at the top of my pile, and I wasn't three chapters in before I understood why. But I can't tell you anything about it right now: must. go. finish.

Class of 1986, This One's for You

At Barbara's request, here's the playlist that kept me moving during yesterday's housecleaning:

"A Little Respect," Erasure

"Come on Eileen," Dexy's Midnight Runners

"Sister Christian," Night Ranger

"Modern Love," David Bowie

"Solsbury Hill," Peter Gabriel

"She Blinded Me with Science," Thomas Dolby

"Given to Fly," Pearl Jam

"Mmmbop," Hanson (What? I said I needed to keep moving.)

"Always Something There to Remind Me," Naked Eyes

"Every Time You Go Away," Paul Young

"Girls Just Want to Have Fun," Cyndi ...

Just Another Thursday Night

Sent at 8:19 PM on Thursday

me: "It's often very hard to measure the thing that you're hoping for. You don't actually care about how calories you eat; you care about how much weight you're going to gain from the calories you eat. But as soon as we go, oh, well, calories are a pretty good proxy for weight gain, we start to come up with these foods that are incredibly unhealthy but nevertheless have very few calories in them. In the same way, Google doesn't really care about inbound...

Know Thyself

Thanks to Girl Detective's handy chart, I know at last that I am a geek, not a nerd. At least, I don't think I am socially inept. Not often, at any rate. OK, maybe sometimes. Like the famous family story of the first time I met Scott's older sister. When Scott and I started dating, Susan was living in Somalia, so I was hearing about her for a good year before our paths crossed. Susan is seriously brilliant, beautiful, poised, and accomplished, and I was just this awkward college student with ...

Swoon with me…

…over these gorgeous covers for the new reissues of the Maud Hart Lovelace Deep Valley Books!

These lovely reissues of Emily of Deep Valley (with a new foreword by Mitali Perkins) and Carney's House Party / Winona's Pony Cart (foreword by yours truly) will arrive in bookstores on October 12th.

I am counting the days!

Posts I've written about Maud's wonderful books, because I love them with a mad passion:

Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
Heaven to Betsy
Emily of Deep Valley, my hero
The famous...

Birdwatcher

Look! For once it's not a bee…

But what the heck IS it??

It flew over the fence, stopped for a brief sip, and zoomed off again. In this picture it has a kind of preying mantis shape, doesn't it? Except for those copper-colored wings. Could those curly antennae be any cuter?