The Thin Red Line

The powers that be are conspiring to prevent me from posting today.    I spent over an hour on a long post about Herb Boyd’s We Shall Overcome and Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s favorite words.   My DSL failed at the moment I pressed publish and the post disppaered  into the ether.

The DSL came back up after a bit and I wrote a new post about my problem with the disappearing post and how hard it is to write an article a second time when you have no access to your first draft.    It wasn’t Really a book review but I did include all the links.    Then I clicked publish, the connection failed and the computer ate my post.   Again.

Clearly the powers that be do NOT want me to promote these two books today.    Want to join me in thwarting them?  Go over to Worldcat and order these books from your library, even though I have included NO links.    Or type the titles in the Powell’s search box and buy the new Carle cuz it’s so cool and to show those powers that be that didn’t let me put a link for your to do so in this space.

The gods willing, The Thin Red Line will return to regular publication tomorrow.

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This one is for Chelle, who lives where it’s cold and snowy, the sort of weather that makes a steaming mug of cocoa seem like the perfect idea.   Michael Turback has penned a delicious collection of recipes for a number of gourmet versions of  Hot Chocolate and a variety of cookies and sweets that go well with a cup of rich cocoa.    The Midnight Cowboy, made from Mexican chocolate, milk, Meyers Dark Rum, Kahlua and Jack Daniels  (a Very adult version) caught my eye and I swooned when reading the recipe for Black Bottom Hot Chocolate,  which first calls for making fudge and pouring it in mugs then pouring a rich hot chocolate over the fudge.   If you are a chocolate lover or live in a cold, snowy climate, Hot Chocolate is Highly Recommended.

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Today’s book review was generously contributed by my partner Ron.   If you like it,  please leave him a comment and let him know.

When Alan looks at books coming through to be scanned sometimes he finds stuff for me. And with Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laura Viera Rigler he hit the Jackpot.  He knows that I reread Jane Austen’s six novels at least once a year. And he knows how much I love her work.

If you too like Jane Austen, or just ever wondered how life really was back then, get this book.
I can’t recommend it any higher…

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A question that I have addressed before is "How Do You Pick All of These Books?". Simple really. I go about my job at the library, where I am literally, constantly handling books. Any and all books that catch my eye get set aside, checked out, brought home and piled up on my couch. Over time the best of them get read and blogged about here on The Thin Red Line. And every so often I realize that there are more books here than I will ever get around to writing about and I take a big stack of them back to the library.

Sometimes, after I get it home and examine it more closely I find that the book is not what I thought it would be from just glancing at the cover. Other times I simply come to a realization that I am just not going to get around to some of them. So I pile them up and drag them back to the library where undoubtedly other patrons will find these books more to their liking and will read them.

I really like cookbooks that provide me with ideas for dishes that are different from any that I have made and that offer simple preparations that are not overly complex. The cookbooks I reject generally end up being those that give overly labor intensive directions for dishes that will look better than they taste.

I love reading biographies but all too often these books are either puff pieces that read as though they author was on the payroll of the subject’s publicity firm (and who knows maybe he was?) or else they read like somebody had an axe to grind and I find myself thinking that either way the book would not be a good choice for someone who is a fan and wants to know more, but doesn’t want to spend the time or money on a book that is just a puff piece of a hatchet job.

Sometimes my reason for not featuring a book is even simpler. If the book cover image is not available, for instance, that is usually enough to eliminate it from my consideration.

As always on this blog, I have linked each book cover image to the book’s page on Worldcat, the international meta search engine for public libraries. If any of the titles catch your eye, just click on the cover image and Worldcat will guide you to the nearest library. So that you can add the book to the stack on your own couch. Since the mere fact that I have considered a book and then decided not to write about it hardly constitutes a glowing endorsement, I have spared myself the chore of typing in the the book titles and linking them to Powell’s. If the mere fact that I just couldn’t get around to it makes you want to buy one of these, please do use the Powell’s search box at the upper right of the page to place your order.

And please do give a holler and let me know if you should decide to add any of these to your own stack. I am working on a much more serious and in depth review of a Very important book for tomorrow, and hope very much to see you again then, here on The Thin Red Line.

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This one is for Claire who asked for a book about hiking.   I realize that Journeys of a Lifetime is probably not what she had in mind,  but wait until you hear about the hikes I am recommending to her.

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Happy New Year!   Now that the holidays are over, and having indulged in an orgy of spending and consumption to commemorate the birth of a long ago moral philosopher,  most folks who don’t have WWJD bumperstickers on their cars will feel free to forget about that philosopher and the morality he preached for another year or at least until Easter rolls around, and focus on important things like the Presidential election campaign.   So I decided today to feature a couple of books that might otherwise fall through the crack between faith and politics.

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I don’t usually post about books that are not in English but this Spanish language children’s book I came across today is so unusual and a lot of fun even if you do not comprehend Spanish at all.   Animalario Universal  is spiral bound at the top rather than on the side and except for a few introductory and concluding pages, each page is cut in two places, creating three ‘mini pages’ or frames which can each be flipped independently.   The first image shown is an elephant.   As you flip each of the three segments over one by one the elephant becomes a pig, then the pig becomes an armadillo and so on until finally after the last three flips a camel becomes a fish.   The Spanish words for each animal are displayed beneath the pictures and as best I can tell the book is intended as a fun vocabulary/animal names lesson for the Easy books crowd.   Though it will certainly also appeal to anyone who admires clever and artistic books.  Even it they no hablo Espanol.

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This one is for everyone who laughs at funny cat pictures.  Mario Garza, proprietor of the website stuffonmycat.com has put together a unique collection of pictures of, well, stuff on cats.   Most of the photos were submitted by visitors to the web site, though some are of Garza’s own cat.    The kitty sleeping peacefully beneath a plate of sausage, eggs and potatoes is quite striking as is the cover image of the red-eyed cat with whipped cream on top.   The kitty kicking back with a can of Bud and the tv remote is a hoot as is the cat who prefers the game controller and a bottle of Stoli.   And the cat beneath the bumper of the bus who appears to be straining to hold the whole thing up is priceless. Stuff On My Cat    Recommended.

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Merry Christmas!   Today on Christmas Eve I feature the twelfth and final of my Twelve Books For Christmas.   Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is arguably the essential and true Christmas story in English.   Christmas Carol has been a lifelong favorite for me and re-reading it each December something of a rite of the season.

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In examining the copy right page on this book,  I confirmed that the original poem by Clement C. Moore is in the public domain and so decided to present in it’s entirety Moore’s Classic poem, The Night Before Christmas.

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Today’s post is for my blog friends who also work in libraries.   Twas’ the night before Christmas and an over-worked, under-budgeted librarian is working late into the night to mend her battered and limited collection when a bright red bookmobile descends from the sky and a portly gentleman in red and his Pages elves deliver loads of new books and other goodies.   Loaded with library terms and literary references this unique take off on Clement C. Moore’s famous poem,  Librarian’s Night Before Christmas is a brand new book and was received in our branch for the first time today.    And our head Youth Services Librarian clipped a note to it asking all branch staff to read the book and initial it.  (No way that one was going home with a patron tonight ;)   We all loved it and if you work in a library or wish you did, this one is Highly Recommended.

Tomorrow:  Clement C. Moore’s The Night Before Christmas

Monday:  Charles Dickens’  A Christmas Carol

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Today’s Christmas book is a bit unusual.  It includes a history lesson. Christmas In The Trenches by John McCutcheon with illustrations by Henri Sorensen (who was also the illustrator for The Old Shepard’s Tale, another Christmas book I reviewed) relates the tale of a grandfather and his  in England on Christmas Day.   After the presents and the meal the little girl remarks to her grandfather that this has been her favorite Christmas ever.   She asks if Grandpa has a favorite Christmas.   He does and this is the story.

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Just in case you are counting, today is my seventh of twelve Christmas book posts.   I have already picked out the remaining five books and am set to post one per day,  concluding on Christmas Eve with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.   To be perfectly honest,  I really don’t know what to make of Mary D. Lankford and Karen Dugan’s Christmas USA.   The red, white and blue star-spangled color scheme seems more suited to Independence Day on the 4th of July rather than Christmas.   And the drawing of a gingerbread house with an American flag roof is downright off-putting.

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Sometimes the holiday season makes me feel old.   Recently my friend techfun pointed out how the advent of hundreds of channels and Tivo have retired what used to be annual cultural touchstones we all shared.    Once school was back in session and the evenings became dark and cool the annual telecast of The Wizard of Oz was something that all kids looked forward to.   It would be followed in early–mid November by the Peanuts Thanksgiving Special– The Great Pumpkin and then it would be December and time for our annual rendezvous with Rudolph , Frosty, The Grinch  and of course A Charlie Brown Christmas.

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Certain cookies just mean Christmas.   For me,  buttery little balls of pecan studded dough rolled in powdered sugar (and known by all sorts of different names) are the Christmas cookie,  though I realize for others it may be gingerbread men,  sugar cookies cut in holiday shapes and sprinkled with red or green sugar.   Whatever your own personal #1 Christmas cookie is,  chances are you will find an excellent recipe for it in Lou Siebert Pappas’  The Christmas Cookie Book.

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This one caught my eye while shelving in the 200’s.  Subtitled "Biblical Women’s Deadly Banquets", Nicole Wilkinson Duran’s Having Men for Dinner looks at the symbolism of food and drink in the Bible and relates them to issues of seduction and murder.  I had expected it would be an accessible re-telling of the stories of Jael, Judith, Esther  and Herodias with a humorous contemporary feminist perspective.    Sadly, I was very much mistaken.   This slim trade paperback is a Very academic and dry discussion of these famous Bible stories and is not suited for the casual reader.   Unless you are interested in graduate-level critical Bible study, this one is Not Recommended.

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   If you are in the habit of clicking on my eye candy selections and getting them from the library to gawk at,  be assured that Trisha Wilson’s Spectacular Hotels will not disappoint in that regard.    I have some reservations about this book but if you’re in it for the eye candy,  they don’t matter in the slightest.     Wilson is an interior designer who has worked on a number of spectacular hotel projects all over the world, and her book is perfect for armchair travel from Africa to the Americas to Europe and the Islands.

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Just in case you are keeping count, this is the fourth of my Twelve Books For Christmas.   While Christmas dinner is not quite the classic high-stakes, high-stress meal Thanksgiving so often is,  the Christmas season is often a time for many different sorts of parties.   Whether you are planning a very traditional Christmas Day dinner,  a seasonal cocktail party,  a pay-back-a-whole-years-invitations Open House or an intimate Christmas Eve supper, Williams-Sonoma’s Christmas Entertaining has a menu and copious and specific practical advice to make your soiree a success.   

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Last week I got called in to work a shift  at Sumner Library.   I had worked at that branch once before and they had been very nice to me so when they said they were really desperate for someone to come in from 5–9 pm I agreed.   Since I’d only been there once before I was not as clear as I might have been on the driving directions, and was at the point of wondering if I had made a wrong turn when I realized the library was just ahead on the left.   Since I was in the right lane, I eased over so that I would be able to turn into the driveway, quite failing to notice the big SUV already occupying the left hand lane. 

Luckily it was quite minor as collisions go.   The Jeep SUV’s rugged side panels showed no damage at all and the scuffs on my driver’s side doors will buff right out.   I did knock the side view mirror off, but re-attaching it proved easy and inexpensive.    The other driver was very nice and after re-assuring each other we were fine and that no damage needed to be reported to police or insurance,  I wandered into the staff lounge at Summer,  sat down at the table,  broke into my emergency Pop-Tarts and picked up the first book at hand to distract myself so I could calm down and work my shift.   

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After ‘ooohing and ahhing’  over the spectacular log mansions, I came across two more very eye-catching books,  that focus on very modern and high tech versions of the vacation cabin.   The Texas hill country vacation home pictured on the cover is a big glass box that’s been designed to be energy efficient and cool in the heat of the day.  It is just one of the oh-so-stunning vacation residences featured in Modern Cabin by Michelle Kodis.    Each featured vacation home is shown in multiple day and night exterior photos and multiple interior shots.   The floor plans for each home are also provided as are details of the use of recycled and eco-friendly materials and the incorporation of design elements and systems to make these homes low impact on unspoiled natural areas.

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