Summer Reading

It’s taken a little while to get here but a book I read propelled me forward. It’s not a book I’m going to go into because it deserves little mention. It’s “Castle” by J. Robert Lennon and after I got over my revulsion of the thing, I decided it was time to write about good books. Good books meaning those that aren’t trash. So let’s start, shall we?

“Coming Home” by Rosamund Pilcher is a massive paperback but a wonderful summer read. The book is set mostly in Cornwall and Pilcher evokes the place pretty good- enough that I must go see it someday! There are quite a few characters that sail in and out but the book centers on Judith Dunbar whom we meet at age 14. Her mother is about to leave to go back to India and she is about to head off to boarding school, all by her lonesome. She befriends a glamorous wildchild, Loveday Carey-Lewis at school and the adventures take off. The friendship twines in and out of their lives and we watch the pair grow and see the choices they make and how they turn out. The book is set near the eve of WWII and Pilcher does a decent job of that though I wish at times there had been closer details, just things like how it was to cook on so much less, etc. Sad things happen, good things happen and it’s definitely a fabulous beach read.

The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries-  Sookie Stackhouse inhabits a strange world no doubt about it. The author agrees with how strange it is as well. I’m on the 5th book and while the number of characters are growing a bit out of control, Harris is steering things along all right and keeping the pace going. It’s never dull in Bon Temps, Lousiana and thank God for that. This is a series read happily with a cold drink in hand. If you dig the whole “what if vampires and fairies really were real?” this may be the series for you…I love it for the Southern setting as well. While this isn’t Flannery O’Connor here, I feel she primed me for this series.

“The Shuttle” by Francis Hodgson Burnett is one of those rip roaring pre-war rides that’s great fun. Okay, so the villian is villianous in the narcissistic way that hits close to some people I’ve known but it felt quite cathartic to see his ending.  “The Shuttle” also possesses a heroine that’s beautiful and good and yet…somehow, I can’t hate. This rarely happens (witness Dickens) and yet Burnett pulls it off. I’m eagerly looking forward to “The Making of the Marchioness” by her that’s coming over from Persephone Books.

Which puts me in mind of Persephone Books. I found them through Danielle over at A Work in Progress- which is a great blog to read about reading, btw! Persephone Books resides London and they print wonderful 20th century books which are out-of-print and undeservedly so.  Wandering through their website is a real treat and their books are fine quality and something I’m entirely addicted to. I really can’t say enough good things about them…they’re a pleasure to do business with.

So that for now but more books for later as I come across them…

Joy in a Jar

Like many people, I’m pretty aware that weird things get put into deodorants nowadays and since I don’t relish the thought of getting breast cancer- or any kind for that matter due to a deodorant, I switched over to deodorants that mask odor but don’t stop the sweat. These failed absolutely and completely. I became a stinky person who regularly washed a few times a day under her arms. Washing three times per day (or more) made the skin on my underarms dry out and become itchy. I felt like a bit of a monkey at times, scratching at my armpits. It just wasn’t cool.

Until…I finally pulled myself together and ordered the goods. And this is what I made

The recipe is all angry chicken’s doing. How people figure these things out on their own, beats me but I’m so in love with her recipe. Is that possible? Of course! I’m on day two after lots of exercise and still not a stink anywhere. Not one trace. And the ingredients are loveable to the body. It makes me happy and it just might make you too. It’s so simple and completely gratifying to make and use. And pretty inexpensive! It takes only a tiny bit to make 4 oz. and I’m figuring this 4 oz. will last a good while.

On a bookish note, there’s a new illustrated cover of “Wrinkle in Time” out. Here it is…it’s just so pretty, I had to share.

Isn’t it lovely? Even better in person, of course. The illustrator, Taeeun Yoo, has an etsy shop too.

So that’s a few things I’m loving right now. What’s making you happy this spring?

Seek and Ye Shall Find

Oh, I found it all right.

cotton=candy

I ran over to the hardware store to get a new furnace filter (husband help) but decided to indulge myself by stepping into the quilt shop. Now quilt shops aren’t really my thing because I suck at fractions. Quilts ARE fractions and measuring and cutting.  I find when the moment comes to get  out my fractions and then measure and cut…well, the caring just goes out of me. Not caring shows up majorly in a quilt. or an unfinished one, I might add.

but quilt stores aren’t just a mecca for quilters, they’re a mecca for lovers of COTTON PRINTS. which I am. I picked up two pieces. The first is for an apron I’ve been meaning to embark on for a few years now (ahem). This print I’m not entirely sold on. Is it grandma? is it spring? is it feminine? could it be retro if I wanted it to be?  I wasn’t going for grandmas but the upbeat of it all.

what would you say? too grandma-y or just right?

The second piece I was got…well, it threw me for a loop when I saw it. I would never think to like such a print but holy crap, it pushes my happy buttons. I think it’s got this whole Tasha Tudor sort of thing going on. Yes, it’s that. And…I don’t think this shows up in the photo but it’s discolored in spots. I love that. I seem to discolor everything accidentally and to have it done for me…that’s discoloration without the guilt!

also…jeff and I met on the fourth and well…it’s a fourth of july sort of cloth. I know I can do Something with it.

Mary Shelley

Yesterday, being in a grumpy mood from a sprained knee, I limped over to the library and picked up a copy of Harold Bloom’s Critical Edition of Mary Shelley. I really don’t have much to say on Bloom except whenever I read him, I snooze but this Edition gathers the stuff people said about her and her work, Frankenstein. Frankenstein doesn’t interest me but what they had to say about her did.

Particularly what her husband says. I haven’t read Shelley in a long time but I was struck by his…his usage of words. I’ve been studying scansion off and on and just his sheer way with the stuff made me all dewy-eyed, etc, etc.  I’ll just share the last stanza but the whole thing is worth reading, The Revolt of Islam, The Dedication.

“Truth’s deathless voice pauses among mankind!
If there must be no response to my cry—
If men must rise and stamp with fury blind
On his pure name who loves them,—thou and I,
Sweet friend! can look from our tranquillity
Like lamps into the world’s tempestuous night,—
Two tranquil stars, while clouds are passing by
Which wrap them from the foundering seaman’s sight,
That burn from year to year with unextinguished light.”

As purdy as it is…what strikes me is the shame of it. Imagine writing Frankenstein when You’re nineteen and then…and then…more or less everyone dies around you (two children, your half sister, your husband, his dear friend and yours, Byron) and you’re left pretty much destitute with one small child and a society that shuns you. She commented that at 29, everyone she knew and loved had nearly all passed on. Not surprising  another masterpiece never flowed from her pen. There was no support structure left and masterpieces do not come out of the emotionally (or physically) destitute , no matter what a certain reading crowd would like to think.

This ‘n’ That

Believe it or not, I have watched the Twilight DVD extras and then those extras on top of it. Truly geeking out but I must say…the film company did a terribly foolish thing when they crossed Catherine Hardwicke (the director) and she said, “See ya.” Because really, Hardwicke’s a modern day hippie (hippies can be so pleasantly zealous about things) and was so completely Into the story, she really loved the damn thing and she did massive amounts of creative work to make the film have more depth than the poor book ever did. I mean…okay, okay, film is a different medium, so very visual (duh) so visual details are easy to add. But they’re also very easy to add in a book. Hardwicke gave the character Bella a wonderful bracelet with pictures of the saints going all around. And she wanted Bella to look very natural thereby giving her a connection with the nature surrounding her. Or at least to hint at it. That’s already more significant details than we get of Bella  in the books (she has brown hair, brown eyes and hates the wet??? Already a charming bracelet and having a connection to nature are beyond the capacities of this book)

And now for something completely different… I do need to mention a project I did manage to finish with dear Mollie’s help.

First the violet bracelet. This idea of violets is really taking hold. This is just a cuff put together with felt and lace and it has the violets (and leaf) sewn on.

This second one is a bonus. Mollie kindly gave me four circles, painted with the life cycle of a dandelion. Backed onto sparkly felt! This is probably the only time in my life in which I found a way to use sparkly felt.

Finally, I’m really loving this photo. Can you spot the little singer?

A new leaf

Sometimes it feels good to turn a new leaf. I wanted to do this with my blog: make it more of a running commentary of my life. I wanted to include more of the everyday things- not just books that I’m reading but what say, is on the stove or what I’ve been penning or what I’ve been staring at day after day.

One thing I’ve stared a lot at are violets. Violets are everywhere and around eleven years old or so, I got fascinated in them. I love their hues (they generally come in purple or in white) and I loved their tiny flowers shape. They pop up in lawns and gardens without any sort of coaxing or transplanting. So they’re hardy and they rove across the landscape like tiny purple and white minions. And so…restless violet.

Violets are restless by nature and I feel that I too like to be in everything, doing everything, seeing a lot.  There are so many things I want to do and so many things I wish to be better in and so this blog, I hope, will be a diary of this hunger and appeasement. I want to run across a lot of subjects here, I want to scatter around. There’s a lot of stuff on my mind and a lot of stuff I’m doing. I want a place to chat to you about that. So let’s go and please, always feel free to comment!

Crumply Tweeds

I've been taking my time and meandering through “Random Commentary” by Dorothy Whipple. It's just slices and bits from her journals and it's a funny sense of life you get from it. I just read this and had a good laugh:

“I was introduced to H.W. Nevinson and E.M. Forster.  J.B. Priestely arrived and swept me to a drink. I found myself next to him at dinner, with E.M. Forster on the other side. E.M. Forster spoke.  He looked rather crumpled in a tweed jacket in contrast to the immaculate dress clothes of everyone else. Is this undress on his behalf a protest against something?”

After reading “A Room with a View” at least one thousand times, I couldn't help but find this pretty funny. Mr. Emerson, it seems, came to dinner.

the falcon cannot hear the falconer

Things fall apart, the center cannot hold…so we are told.

And this held true to me and my two book reading list. Instead, I went on a huge Elizabeth Taylor splurge. Not That one but a literary one. Here's the one I'm talking about:

If you have an interest in self-deception (in others and yourself) and I must admit, I'm fascinated by it, then Taylor is for you. All her novels are “domestic” but the dramas…are the day-to-day dramas we all know and then some that are not. I just got done with “Angel” which may have had the ugliest heroine (heroine?) I have ever read in my life. And yet I couldn't stop. Her life played out true and hard and certain decisions she made as a child, she kept on doing for her whole life. And isn't that just like all of us? Some say Taylor is like Austen but I'm not for that. I love Austen but what Taylor is doing is something else entire. I think I find her closer to Barbara Pym (but then that's another Austen comparison) but anyway…Taylor's books are par excellence and she holds an unflinching stare where most of everyone cannot bear to look into. Especially many writers.

Besides that, things here are pretty fair and I'm gearing up for Christmas knitting extravaganza. I figure if I start now, I may get some gifts done in time. May…

But it must be noted that I completed my summer challenge of roasting a chicken. For some reason, roasting a chicken really intimidated me. Not sure. I just want to say though, for everyone, it's super easy. All the guts are gone by the time you get it. No worries there. So I roasted that chicken, made stock from it and then an amazing and homey soup by Tasha Tudor, artist and writer and chef using that stock. Surely now I can conquer the world.

errr….yeahhhh….the summer reading list…

NOTE: Twilight doesn't really have a plot. Unless plucking a daisy saying, “He loves me, he loves me not” is a plot. yeeeah. I'm not sure why I thought it did. I feel a little bit sorry for my past self. Silly past self!

Tess of the D'Urbervilles…so Tess' illegitimate baby has died and I haven't the heart to go on. I mean, it's summer and not a really horrid hot summer…soooo…

I guess I have to talk about Twilight as I keep pestering and jabbering to poor Jocey about it. There's a couple things about Twilight you should know. One, it's about a high school girl. So if you don't like high school kids, ignore this entry. Two, it's about a high school girl falling in love with a high school vampire boy. So if you like high school stories but not vampires, again retire. Steph was really the one that got me turned onto this book, otherwise I'd never have read it because I don't like high school stories. BUT I've always been curious about vampires, and I did my research when I was a teenager, because c'mon, Immortal. I have never wanted to be immortal (I think it would be excrutiatingly boring after a few lifetimes or so) but I've always been intrigued. Why the Yetti has never interested me as much, seeing as they're probably immortal, I'm not sure.

Anyways, I ate up Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. It's a plot driven book oh yes and plot driven books Cannot be resisted. At all. I read it one night for about seven hours (with Jeff seated on the opposite sofa reading His vampire and zombie book. Now that's true love) and nearly passed out from my blood sugar levels dropping really low at about the eighth hour chiming (I'm not diabetic or anything but I have a massively sensitive system). Ahhhhh, but sugar level dropping while reading a vampire book is ironic.

I have huge arguments with the character development (as there being none) but you have to give it to Meyer. She's in the right genre. It's young adult- where character development for the intended audience is a bit in the wings. So I'm chewing through this book, wanting to know more about the protagonist, Bella and the boy, Edward and all I'm gettig is that Bella finds him so hot, she's willing to die to be near him. Oh yeah and he's beautiful and fights his monster I-suck-your-blood side. Over and over and over. And yet, and Yet, I'm all agog to read to the next book. I mean, I have to. Because Hello! The plot! Which no, I haven't elaborated but need I? Two teenagers in love, one is vampire, you guess.

All I'm saying if you're one for plot and vampires seem rather quirky, give this series go. I doubt Reading Rainbow would endorse it but I believe I would. It's a great summer read. But you don't have to take my word for it.