The Thin Red Line

Welcome!   If this is your first visit please note that you can click on any book cover to get the book from your local library or click on any book title to purchase it.    Browse recent book reviews on the front page or browse by category in the sidebar.    I welcome your comments and will try to reply as soon as possible.

One Sunday afternoon I was working at the check in desk.   One of the reference librarians handed me her return materials, including Free For All, which she heartily recommended.   ‘It’s a hoot’, she said.

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First, my thanks to Techfun for suggesting this one to me.   It’s taken me an awful long time to read it but I have and I’m glad I did.   In Friday’s post I pointed out that art can be much more effective than traditional in conveying complex realities.   I believe that A Thousand Splendid Suns is an excellent example of a novel that conveys the complex and messy truths of the real life story through novels that, imho, do a better job than history books sometimes in educating a mind about a particular place and peoples.    I previously posted about Gary Geddes’  Kingdom Of Ten Thousand Things which touches briefly on the plight of present day Afghanistan before rushing off to pursue a very different main theme.

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I don’t have regular recurring features tied to specific days of the week, like the very popular Wordless Wednesday that many of my blog friends unfailingly participate in.   I do, however, have a number of regularly recurring features, but you never know what day of the week they’ll pop up on. 

My partner, Ron, has very different tastes in books and reading and I am truly grateful for his occasional "Ron Reviews" wherein Ron writes about books of his own choosing, giving the blog a wider variety of books and a nice change of perspective from time to time.   Today’s book is not one I would ever have selected myself.    I hope you will enjoy reading Ron’s review of A Short History of the American Stomach.

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Happy Monday! We are Way overdue for an Easy Picture Book roundup and I have four great ones today!

Using only five words, artist/illustrator Emily Gravett’s Orange Pear Apple Bear is a unique and charming book that will delight children and grown ups alike. The books varying ordering of the title’s four words and Gravett’s highly creative illustrations of each are truly remarkable. There. Highly Recommended.

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Because I completely depend on the Closed Captions to be able to understand dialog, I rarely go to movies in the theater and even for big deal pictures I am waiting for the DVD. And usually these days, Ron or I has pre-ordered it from the library and it is just a question of waiting for it to turn up in my mailbox. Which is how it is that this weekened we were watching for the first time The Simpsons movie. I loved it and insisted on watching it Twice.

Life Homer on the wrecking ball I have felt caught between a rock and The Hard Place when it comes to updating this blog lately. This past week I was much consumed with sitting anxiously in various medical waiting rooms as David had surgery and Ron had tests. (David is doing fine and Ron is scheduled for More Tests and we are hoping for the best.) Meanwhile everytime I find a moment to go online, it seems that Earthlink is down Again. Between Real Life interfering and Earthink beind down more than up, posts have been Very thin on this blog lately, and I apologize for that.

Here then is my Quirky Cookbook Roundup:

MMMMMM. Bacon. What better way to begin than with James Villas’ The Bacon Cookbook. Villas writes extensively about varieties of artisanal bacon now available from different sources the world over as well as providing over 150 recipes using bacon from the classic spaghetti carbonara to inventive new creations like the Swiss Apple, Pear, Potato and Bacon Braise, which I am positive would be either superb or inedible. Cautiously Recommended.

I really Should have made the second choice a book about chocolate to continue with The Simpsons theme and commemorate the classic bacon and chocolate ‘accident’ sequence, but the book I actually have is a guide to making scrumptious looking sweet baked goodies or every description from the pecan rolls featured on the front cover to delicate butter madelines and amazing muffins, tarts and brownies, Carole Walter provides a useful guide to the inexperienced to intermediate baker looking to make a smash at the morning coffee hour. And I’ve no doubt that Homer would be all over these sticky buns. Great Coffee Cakes, Stick Buns, Muffins and More. Recommended.

Today’s other two selections sadly do Not make the cut. Adam D. Roberts’ The Amateur Gourmet and Sudi Pigott’s How To Be A Better Foodie both seem intentioned to teach the basics of cuisine to people who have spent a lifetime ignoring it and suddenly and inexplicably want to learn. Not Recommended.

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After writing about a whole slew of children’s books in my 12 Books For Christmas feature, I was burned out for awhile on Easy Picture Books, but the latest batch I brought home from the library are so cute and funny that I decided it was time for a Monday Easy Picture Book Round up.

Laura Numeroff is a prolific children’s book author, best known for the series of books that began with If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. Numeroff has collaborated with illustrator Nate Evans to create her 10-Step Guide To Living With Your Monster. From selecting the right monster in the first place to teaching him to brush his teeth, Numeroff provides wonderfully tongue-in-cheek advice to children who seek to own a monster, and the very colorful and imaginative illustrations by Evans are a sheer delight. To anyone who has ever had difficulty living with a monster, this one is Highly Recommended.

I suppose it is hopelessly politically incorrect to recommend a book that portrays construction workers as exclusively male, but the fact is I Loved this clever little children’s book with pages that unfold up to answer a series of questions about Who Builds? From the beaver building a lodge to the technicians building the space shuttle, Michael Rex answers the questions delightfully. Highly Recommended.

Also, The Very Hairy Bear (no image, Worldat) by Alice Schertle with illustrations by Matt Phelan is a recently published book that follows a bear through four seasons. The soft, almost pastel illustrations are quite striking, although they do not translate well to the computer screen and the story is quite cute. Recommended.

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Today I am featuring Bill Keaggy’s  Milk Eggs Vodka not because it’s an interesting and amusing book,  though it is,  but as an example of someone who has turned a popular web site into a commercially successful book.

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One of my duties at the library is to go around just before we close and gather up any stray books that have been left here, there or wherever. Just before closing time Sunday afternoon I came upon a small stack of books in the Children’s area. I was about to check them in and put them on a cart to be re-shelved when I happened to take a look at them. And found that all three were really neat books that I was not already familiar with. So I decided to bring them home instead to read them and share them with you.

It is very unusual to encounter a book that does not have the title or any other writing on the front cover. Which is just one of the very striking things about Walter Was Worried, a pre-school book by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. This book illustrates the emotions different children experience in response to the weather. While the drawings are in a somewhat primitive style, Seeger deftly manges to communicate the stated emotion in each child’s facial expression as the book moves from worried (when the sky grew dark) to ecstatic (when the sun came out). If you have pre-schoolers in the house, this one is Recommended.

I was very intrigued by the title The Deaf Musicians. As someone who is severely hearing impaired but nonetheless loves music (the net result of that is that I am mostly into music that was popular when I was a teenager before I lost most of my hearing) this seemed like it would be my sort of thing. Sorry to say it wasn’t. Pete Seeger’s attempt to jump on the ‘popular musicians put out children’s books’ bandwagon falls flat. The illustrations are, well, kind of ugly and the story line of a musician who goes deaf and then begins performing “music” in sign language with other deaf people on the subway made little sense. Not Recommended.

I’ve long been a Maurice Sendak fan, particularly of his iconic Where The Wild Things Are but had some how managed to miss this delightful little gem. From Alligators All Around to Zippity Zound, Sendak presents the alphabet. With charming alligator illustrations and inventive alliterations (juggling jellybeans, making macaroni, quite quarrelsome) this is a fun way to review the ABC’s. For the pre-school set, this one too is Recommended.

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No, work wasn’t that bad, though it was a long week and I am glad to be to my Tuesday/Wednesday "weekend". I am continuing to upload and sort through Joel’s old image files and found the above amongst many, many, many other things. Thought it was cute enough to pass along.

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Sunday was as expected a busy, hectic day. We are getting huge volumes of returns and have a lot of material backed up to be shelved. To make sure it was a completely sucky day, my hearing aid died at the beginning of the shift. The switch is broken and it will not turn on or off and regardless of the non-setting it constantly makes a deep pitched banging noise, which is usually the signal for a dying battery. Have to disconnect the battery to get it to be quiet. It always un-nerves me when I have to be out in public when my ear is out and I can’t hear at all.

And to top it all off, my toothache, which had been on hiatus is back tonight with a vengence, and I am out of the Vicodin my dentist gave me a couple of weeks ago. So for the first time ever on this job, I am calling in sick today and going to try to get my hearing aids fixed. Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment and will hopefully get more pain meds and by Thursday will feel up to going back to work. Feh.

I finished reading Poppy Z. Brite’s Soul Kitchen. I was under-whelmed. Unlike in D*U*C*K, where she rhapsodized about the food a lot, there is little specific mention of the restaurant’s food as the protagonists are busy buying a rustic fishing camp in Shell Beach and consulting on a restaurant that is to be opened in a floating casino. Neither of these ideas much interested me, and I frequently found myself discovering that the characters are not at all as I had perceived them in the later book. (Notably I had gotten the distinct impression in D*U*C*K that Ricky and G-Man were black but in this book it is made clear they are white– that the characterizations in the later book were so poorly drawn that I could be left with such a big mis-perception is unfortunate.) I suppose sooner or later the two earlier books in this sequence will happen my way and I will probably read them, but I can’t say I enjoyed or recommend this book or this author.

I am also about half way through reading A Perfect Mess and am thoroughly enjoying it. Also about a third of the way through A Boy’s Life. Today’s illustration is of a metal advertising sign (Joel used to have a huge collection of these, including this one, which I sold off before I moved down here.) for a product which unfortunately I do not have, but it seemed topical

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So Thursday I got a message from Bev, who very kindly offered to lend me her copy. (Thank You, Bev!) Then when I got home from work on Friday Ron handed me my very own brand new copy of Deathly Hallows and my wait was at end. (I was up to 64th on the waiting list when I canceled my request on Sunday.) I started reading right away, stopped briefly when we had a visitor, then read all night. I finished Chapter 36 in the car Saturday morning the instant before I went in to work, then read the epilogue on my break around 11am. I have since re-read it most of the way through a second time.

I have nothing but good to say about Harry Potter. It has been such a pleasure these past six years to watch these kids grow up, and as I began reading I found myself thinking that Ms. Rowling has likewise really grown as a writer over the course of these seven books. I thought that the wedding scene early in the novel (where the evil old society biddy gossips savagely to horrified listeners too polite to stop her) was worthy of Jane Austen. (Ron gave me a very dirty look when I said that.)

I did not find that any of the spoiler information detracted from the experience in the least. When it was finished the outcome felt very much inevitable and could not have been otherwise. I found the story very emotionally gripping and admit that I cried at several points. And when it was over felt an enormous catharsis. Bravo. And now that I have recovered from HP fever, I hope to get back to reading other things and blogging about them regularly.

We had three people out sick today and it was an especially busy and hectic Monday at the library. I worked my ass off and will be happy to be off tomorrow and Wednesday. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow afternoon and got a confirmation from Group Health of my doctor assignment and will be able to make a doctor appointment tomorrow. Even when it’s a rough day, I love this job and am so thrilled to have insurance and benefits again.

Years ago when I was living in Boston, I was in a book store with my friend Billie and she handed me a copy of Boy’s Life and strongly encouraged me to buy it. I did and I loved it. It’s a coming of age tale set in rural Alabama. It is beautifully written and a wonderful read. I’ve no idea whatever became of that copy I bought all those years ago in Boston, but while shelving in fiction this afternoon I came across this book and knew I would have to check it out and re-read it. So I brought it home and added it to the stack and look forward to returning soon to Zephyr, Alabama and the life of young Cory Mackenson. And find myself wondering tonight how Billie is doing these days and if anyone has heard from her lately.

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It was a long, tiring busy day at work, par for a Monday but none of the hundreds of books I handled caught my eye as much as the new issue of  The Advocate  that was in today’s mail when I got home.

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