Colleen Mondor's Blog, page 23

What a night!

The American President.

Back with bookish links and thoughts later but today I'm celebrating democracy and also my birthday. :)

Why I Vote: Because for far too long, Julia Lennon could not

This post is part of a lit blogsphere event celebrating voting. Please see the round-up post for links to other sites & quotes. I will be updating that post through election day.



Things you need to know about my great grandmother, Julia Lennon (1892-1972):

1. She was illegitimate, with a story about her unknown father that was so murky and heavy with potential "I was the child of royalty" influences that we have long considered it more fable than reality. Her mother claimed they were both immigrants, but I think now that Julia was born in Westchester County (what later became the Bronx) and the immigration story was a lie perpetuated by her mother.

2. Her mother, Marie Filak, was a known liar.

3. Julia grew up in the Bronx with a mother, stepfather and three half sisters. They never let her forget that she had a different father. She did use her stepfather's name until her marriage however.

4. She was married in Fort Lee, New Jersey in 1910 to Thomas Lennon. It was, by all accounts, a love match.

5. Before and initially after her marriage, Julia worked in garment factories. If you are familiar with the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire then you know what this was like.

Why I Vote Round-Up

We are all over the web with this event - the links will be updated with quotes as the posts go live and I'll keep adding to it as more folks join in. This post will be active through Election Day. GO VOTE!!!!

Kelly Fineman at Writing & Ruminating: "It's not just because I grew up in a mixed marriage - one Democrat, one Republican, with some different viewpoints and many the same. But it was a marriage where it was clear that both parties had a stake in supporting the family (financially as well as otherwise), and one where it was a given that they were going to vote in primaries, national elections, school board elections, etc.

Katy K at A Library Mama: "I vote because even if democracy isn't perfect, it's the best thing we've hit on so far, and a democracy where people don't vote, isn't. I vote so that my kids can see me take an active role in our government and believe that one person can make a difference."

Brian Kerr-Jung at Critique De Mr. Chompchomp: "So, the truth is, I'm not an undecided voter. While it's still technically possible that my vote may change, there is very little I can think of that would cause it. But I don't want my candidate to know that. Why not? Because I want as much as I can possibly get from him. I want all the specifics, promises, clarifications and commitments I can possibly get. I want him to go all in."

Edi at Crazy QuiltEdi: "Like me, my mom and dad never, ever imagined they would see a black president in their lifetime. My dad passed away long before Pres. Barak Obama even came onto the political scene. Dad was a diehard Republican and I have no idea how he would have voted, but mom was a lifelong Democrat. She had moved to Indiana to live with my sister and during the campaign mom was glued to CNN! But, you know what? My mom couldn't vote for him."

Lynn Miller-Lachman at her author site: "Voting from abroad, we felt like we were still part of the country. It gave us a connection to home and reminded us that when we return at the end of the year, we will live with the consequences of ours and everyone else's decision."

Tanita Davis at fiction, instead of lies: "Voting is both privilege and gift, and obligation, for someone whose ancestors were slaves, and whose chattel status prevented them from being thought of even as human."

Lee Wind at I'm Here, I'm Queer, What the Hell Do I Read?: "Talk to your parents, your grandparents, your friends. Let them know the issues that matter for you, and share with them your hopes (and even your fears) for the future."

Greg Pincus at Gotta Book: "As I watch the devastation of hurricane Sandy, I'm reminded again how we all pull together... how we are, despite vast spaces between us, all part of something bigger than just our own smaller communities. To me, a Presidential election is about that, too."

Little Willow at Bildungsroman: "For those unable to get to a polling place the day of the election, there are other ways to vote, such as absentee ballots and mail-in ballots, which you may fill out while in the comfort of your own home. You may wear your pajamas and eat ice cream while casting your vote for positions and propositions which will touch you, your family, your friends, and your country."

Tricia at the Miss Rumphius Effect: "For many, many years voting was a right afforded to privileged white men. We have a come a long way since those days, but we still have a long way to go. Every voice, every opinion matters. We cannot move this country forward without the thoughtful participation of ALL our citizens, young and old, male and female, partisan and non-partisan."

Charlotte at Charlotte's Library: "Voting always makes me cry, I'll explain, with my best attempt at an insouciant shrug. Because, darn it, it does."

Alex at The Children's War: "You see, my dad was an immigrant. He came here for a better life and he found one. After a few years, he became a citizen and, despite our childish here-we-go-again-eye-rolling, he never got tired of telling us how lucky we were to be born in this country - especially on the first Tuesday of every November."

Jone has a Walt Whitman poem at Check It Out: "It seems to me that each political season stirs up more divisiveness than the earlier. It's stunning the amount of money spent to get elected. In "For You, O Democracy," I found hope in the lines."

I'm writing about my great grandmother here at Chasing Ray: "I vote for Julia because life is hard and doing my part to try and make it a better place is something I owe her, and every other woman then and now who finds themselves in the same circumstance."

David at Fomograms: "It's like being asked if you want chocolate or vanilla, saying "I don't care," and then complaining about the flavor you've been given. As the popular bumper sticker goes "Don't Blame Me, I Voted For the Other Guy," except I didn't even do that much, and so by extraction, it's my fault after all."

Sarah at Finding Wonderland: "When I was little, my mother would bring me with her to the polling place--often in some devoted volunteer's garage--and I'd see the excitement, the people going in and out of the little voting booths, and I already looked forward to being a part of it. It wasn't just a matter of getting a neat "I voted" sticker. Voting was a fact of life, and there was no question that I'd one day do it."

Debra at Library Lass: "I'm a blue girl in the one of the reddest states in the union."

Justin has a comic up at babble comics. Here's a clip:

We need to rebuild New Jersey

It's the right thing to do. See National Guard video of the shore here.

I love New York

Joan Osborne - Hallelujah in the City - the whole album is sublime....

In the footsteps of Helen Mirren & more

I watched Inkheart on Saturday night for the first time and was reminded, again, that in a perfect world Helen Mirren* would be Queen. Of Everything.

A snapshot of my recent reads: With or Without You by Domenica Ruta, an intensely personal memoir for Booklist and Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea by Kage Baker & Kathleen Bartholomew, a delightful romp in a lightly steampunk 1848 with the best bunch of prostitutes you've ever wanted to spend literary time with. I'll be reviewing this here, soonest. (It's due from Subterranean Press on 12/31.) Also rereads of two Hemingway short stories: "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber". I love these - spare, stark and deadly accurate.

Reviews I'm writing for my December column include The Unnaturalists by Tiffany Trent, a fantasy/adventure set in an alternate London that is also a wee bit steampunkish. Lots of fun, though I think it would have worked best with 100 more pages to give readers more details of this interesting world. Also, Redshirts by John Scalzi which everyone and their cousin has been writing favorably about and really is that much fun and a great teen crossover and The Kairos Mechanism by Kate Milford, a novella set after her delightful MG novel The Boneshaker that was funded by Kickstarter and is wonderful. It's dirt cheap and as an e-book makes a great stocking stuffer. (Don't you think that filling someone's Nook or Kindle with a bunch of inexpensive e-books would be a big fun as a stocking stuffer idea?) You can buy Kairos as a physical book as well (like I have - great cover).

What I'm reading now: Sex and the Citadel by Shereen El Feki for Booklist, (much more on this after my review is posted); Classic Hollywood Style by Caroline Young for my December feature and The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne Valente (for my February column). She also has a novella due out in the spring from Sub Press that I'm looking forward to: Six-Gun Snow White. (Can you resist that title?)

On tap is Dangerous Work: Diary of An Arctic Adventure from Arthur Conan Doyle, which I'm quite excited about!



*Can not wait to see Red 2. LOVE HER.

On beach from the Bronx, 1935

This is my grandmother and grandfather when they were dating in 1935. (The little boy in front is my grandmother's youngest brother, Eddie.) My grandfather, Pete, was was nineteen here, and my grandmother, Catherine, was fifteen. They were married four years later.

What I love about this picture - one of the many things I love - is that it captures them in the beginning, when they were just deciding to be a couple, when he was as much a part of her family and friend to her brothers as he was significant to her. My grandfather's siblings were all so much older, (soon after he was born a couple of his brothers left to fight in WWI), that I think my grandmother's family was especially significant to him. Her older brothers were all around his age and they enjoyed each others' company from the start. My grandmother's family was one of those with whom everybody hung out - I think because there were so many of them (eight), they just always seemed to be having a party. It doesn't hurt that they had fun (the stories are legendary) or that they were all so beautiful. (My great uncles were gorgeous, period.) My grandfather fit perfectly - he could dance, play instruments, was a whiz at games and even used to hand carve airplanes while he and my grandmother were first spending time together. (They couldn't really date when she was fourteen... :)

So here they are - just getting started, just finding each other, just falling in love; Pete & Catherine when it all began.

Always looking

Trying to find my way into this next book is maddening on so many levels. All the research is here, all the ideas sorted, all the things I want to say are recorded. I know what I want it to be. But getting there - getting inside it - is driving me nearly insane. I would go nuts if it wasn't so familiar.

It's just never easy.

St Exupery is not in this book, or if he is it will only be a line or two. But I think about him disappearing a lot as the act of disappearance, of getting lost literally and metaphorically, is so much in this book, so much of the research I've done. I actually was looking for crash sites on some navigation charts the other day and found it amazing how many wrecks are found at all. I guess it's a miracle that we ever found evidence of St Ex; that his story ever had a definitive ending.

My son is reading The Little Prince graphic novels right now - seems appropriate on so very many levels. :)

[The commemorative plaque in the Pantheon in Paris: "To the memory of Antoine de Saint Exupery, poet, novelist, aviator, missing during an aerial reconnaissance mission, 31 July 1944".]

Tim Powers & Kelly Armstrong

Tim Powers has a new novella, Salvage & Demolition, due in December from Subterranean Press that has a delightful noirish mystery/time travel mash-up vibe. Our hero is San Francisco rare book dealer Richard Blanzac who obtains a collection of literary artifacts from a small time beat era poet via her niece (the poet in question having long ago died). While perusing the collection (a few boxes that contain some first editions, an odd Ace Double Novel, a verse manuscript by an unknown author, etc.), reality starts to bend and Richard finds himself back in 1957 San Francisco with an apocalyptic cult, the beat poet (Sophie) and a plan to call up a Sumerian deity to basically end the world. (It's kind of retro Buffyesque plot-wise and I mean that as a high complement.)

The adventure is a little wild and the cult (aside from the real guns) just this side of silly/crazy but the book is so much fun that any questions about how the whole thing is happening are easily cast aside. Richard & Sophie have a very Nick & Nora banter style which is even sillier as the first time he meets her is the second time she has met him (time travel never works easily, does it?). There's style here - serious style - and the 1950s comes alive in fabulous fashion. The mystery is great, the bookishness of it all is pure candy for me and the romance is sweet. As to whether or not any of it could happen - who cares? Purely joyful reading from start to finish. (Oh - and includes JK Potter's excellent moody illustrations!)

Kelly Armstrong also returns this December with another fun outing with her werewolf couple Elena Michaels and Clayton Danvers, Forbidden. These books are adult paranormal of the best sort - the couple interplay is realistic as hell, the mysteries solid and while sex is present in the narrative it's not of the ridiculous over-the-top sort (looking at you Laurell K Hamilton), but more of a "the kids are back at home, we've got a few hours to wrap up this mystery and then we can squeeze some time in at the local motel - booyah!" kind. It's charming and smart and grown-up in the best sort of way. The interplay between Clay and Elena is the biggest part of why I look forward to these books and why I feel they succeed so well.

This time around there is a new character, Morgan, whose hoping to talk to Elena about joining the pack. He gets waylaid enroute in an innocent seeming small town (with a very dirty underbelly) and as the heroes comes to the rescue they uncover a dead body and lots of general weirdness. The plot, as they say, thickens. Stuck with slit truck tires, bad weather, lots of questions, and too many lying locals, the werewolves are determined to get to the bottom of things (as we know they will). Morgan has lots of future storytelling potential and Elena & Clay do not disappoint. I don't feel like I've indulged in a guilty pleasure when I read Armstrong books - I just feel happy. *grin*

[Both books provided by the publisher - Subterranean Press. You should be buying their books; I have and they are fabulous!]

It's this easy to make a librarian happy!

Tears of JOY for ALL OF MY GIVERS of BOOKS TO BALLOU SHS IN WASHINGTON, DC- Library Media Center! One resourceful library-Thanks to YOU!

— Melissa Jackson (@BallouLibrary) October 18, 2012

We end the second book fair for Ballou High School in 2012 with deep thanks to everyone who shopped the Powells wish list, spread the word, and supported our efforts to build this most worthy of school libraries. Over 175 books were bought off the wish list and many others were sent direct by authors (thank you!). You've already seen how the students were there to unpack the boxes, and reading the Ballou Library tweets will show you just how excited librarian Melissa Jackson is to see those new titles arrive to fill her shelves.

This has been great and it has had a real and significant impact on the lives of many book loving teens. We did a good thing here and on behalf of everyone at Guys Lit Wire, I thank you for taking part. See you in the spring when we return to Ballou again!

IT IS GREAT TO SEE IN A WORLD THAT IS SAID TO BE A TOUGH ECONOMICAL TIME THAT PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE GIVING STUDENTS BRAND NEW FREE BOOKS :)

— Melissa Jackson (@BallouLibrary) October 18, 2012