Let’s Get a Pup, said Kate: Go get this book, said Jessica

March 21, 2010 in Bob Graham, Children's books, Dogs, Family, Love | by | Leave a comment

A coworker of mine, when he heard I was having a little girl, and discovering that I was the owner of two dogs, told me about this book. 

“I read it every night to my daughter, who is allergic to dogs, but wants one so badly” said Dave.

“I ADORE this book,” said Jessica.

And I do. I was head over heels, from the very beginning:

“The end of Kate’s bed was a lonely place. Tiger the cat no longer slept there. Tiger died last winter, so there were only Kate’s two feet to keep each other company.”

Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones, or the still fresh wound of my favorite cat’s death last summer, but I’m not ashamed to say that before the book even properly started I was bawling in that most cathartic,  poignant way that we all need once in a while.

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The Elegance of the Hedgehog: French novels and alter egos

March 2, 2010 in French novel, Muriel Barbery, Nerdy books, Novels, The Elegance of the Hedgehog | by | Leave a comment

I’m reading a French novel.

Just writing that conjures up all sorts of fantasies I’ve often had about my alter ego.  This girl  majored in English (instead of Science) and spent her college days sitting in the courtyard of an old, New England, brownstonish, liberal arts college.   She drank coffee (something I really do detest), read obsessively (something I actually do) and discussed the relative merits of Russian versus British authors (even in my wildest fantasy she hates those darn Russians, she is me after all. . .) with her equally pretentious but brilliant friends (my real friends are indeed brilliant, but hardly pretentious).  This alter ego of mine, incidentally, was taller, thinner, had red hair and wore glasses due to an affected sense of fashion rather than out of actual need.

But fantasies aside, it’s a New York Times bestselling French novel.  In other words, just a book like any other. Read the rest of this entry »

Neil Gaiman’s Odd: I love him.

November 18, 2009 in Adventure, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Neil Gaiman, Reading, Runaways | by | 2 comments

Forgive me, readers, for two things.  One, for being absent for so long, and two, for being self-indulgent and explaining away my absence.  Humor me, it’s relevant (sort of).

Toward the end of the summer I took a new job and simultaneously, somehow, and totally on purpose, I found myself knocked up (no oops there, but I do wonder at my timing). So between the working, the throwing up, the commuting, the being exhausted and the studying for the MBA which suddenly seems much less important, I haven’t had time to crack a book for enjoyment since.

This, I have discovered, is a very unhealthy place for me to be.  My body is having a hard enough time keeping down food (like some women, I’ve lost weight in my first trimester).  This is no time for my soul also to be lacking in (literary) nourishment.

This baby may not end up being a reader, though with nature (on both sides) and nurture (on all sides) I don’t see how that will be possible.  Regardless of how he or she turns out, it will not be from lack of a steady diet of stories.

Starting now.

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Butterfly in the sky. . .no more.

August 31, 2009 in Book News, Reading Rainbow | by | Leave a comment

RRAfter 26 years (seriously, that is almost my entire life!) Reading Rainbow will be coming to a close.

Apparently funding is given for shows that teach kids how to read, not why to read.

Sad.  Very sad.

1602: When In-Joking Is Actually Postmodernism

August 23, 2009 in Adventure, Andy Kubert, Comics, Marvel Comics, Neil Gaiman, Superheroes | by | 1 comment

590-1I avoided 1602 for years for no good reason. One of my biggest problems with the big serial mess of the superhero genre today is the “in crowd” exclusivity it seems to revel in, making for a literature of fandom rather than one of universal questions and challenges. Gaiman’s purpose to writing 1602 seemed, at first glance, to be nothing more than this; a “wouldn’t it be cool if” scenario where he gets to put familiar superhero characters in the unfamiliar setting of Elizabethan England and thereby allow himself to reference two of his favorite geeknesses: 1960s low art and 1600s high art. So I passed.

My prejudice wasn’t completely meritless. The first couple chapters are full of groaners, especially with the name-plays. See, in 1602 his name is Peter Parquagh – get it? It’s like Parker but archaic! And why does this boy have such an odd fascination with . . . spiders?! Hooo, I get that reference! Then there’s the muscled-up stranger from the New World who’s an unusually blonde and white captain-like Native American named Rogers . . . oops, I mean “Rohjaz.”

The rest of the set-up pages follow suit as we’re introduced to the cast and settings. Nick Fury is instead Sir Nicholas, and instead of a techy super spy he’s the Queen’s most trusted intelligence aide and protector. Dr. Strange, who normally lives in New York’s Greenwich Village, awkwardly states that he lives in “the village of Greenwich” to someone who already knows where he lives. The Fantastic Four are still a band of friends led by a scientist who gain powers in a freak accident, but here they travel to the New World in a ship called The Fantastick and are never heard from again except in legends of super-powered transformations and do-goodery. The “a-ha!” and “oh yeah!” moments are many and frequently grating.

But then I surprisingly found myself buried knee-deep in the middle of the book without pausing to take a note or breathe or eat a sandwich and I realized that the story is good despite itself. Or is it actually just good despite my knee-jerk presumptions of hokeyness?

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BBAW Update

August 21, 2009 in BBAW | by | Leave a comment

 

Jesse and I are very excited to announce that our friendly little blog has been nominated for three (yes three!!!!) BBAWs:

  • Best General Review Blog
  • Best Review
  • Most Collaborative

We’re currently compiling our best blog posts to send to the nomination committee and jumping up and down with excitement!!!!!

How To Buy a Love Of Reading (for about $24.95 at your local bookstore)

August 18, 2009 in Books about books, How To Buy a Love of Reading, Novels, Tanya Egan Gibson, Teen angst | by | 2 comments

51q1ZdQ0YGL__SL500_AA240_“I love this book,” I said to Tim while attempting read in a moving car, something that, to my intense frustration, I have never quite managed to do without wanting to vomit (thankfully I can read on a moving train, which makes my long commute more bearable). 

 “Listen to this,” I said, quoting page one (yes, page ONE!!).

Hours later, not long after the genesis of Francis Wells’ idea, the party would meet a premature death with a cloud of plaster dust covering the Gardner’s guests, as well as a dessert table graced with spun-sugar Giacomettis and the life-sized sculpture of Michelangelo’s David, whose penis had all evening been dripping syphilitically.

 

“And this!” I raved.

By ten p.m. there had been three slideshows – one of which, “Hop Art: A  Portfolio,” projected photos of Bunny’s own work onto the ballroom walls, interspersed with a  series of dinner courses as carefully presented and unsatisfying as Francis’ wife.

“I didn’t want to love it, but there it is, how could I not?”

“Don’t you want to love all books?” he asked, confused.

I pondered his question; certainly its a valid one.   When it comes to reading, as with the rest of life, I’m total cynic. I certainly don’t expect to love all books – an inordinate amount of what is published is trash, or boring, or overdone (or pleasant and inoffensive, but forgettable).   But there are those who allege that cynics are disappointed idealists.  Maybe.  If it were not true that a vast majority of published works are just plain mediocre, if we did live in an ideal world, would I really want to love every book I read? 

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Hey Kids — It’s the Book Blog Awards!

August 9, 2009 in BBAW | by | 5 comments

I don’t know why it took me two weeks to post something about the BBAW awards after learning of them from Ms. Stacked Blog, but I’m not known for my intelligence, after all. Regardless, what this means for you, lucky reader, is you can nominate your favorite blogs in a category list so voluminous and specific that there’s no chance of leaving out any of the bright spots on your RSS feed. Check out the gigantic honking button at the top left of this page — clicking there will bring you to a nomination form, sparkling and patiently awaiting your eager dirty fingers.

Of course, though I would love for you to nominate Yours Truly Humble Blog for anything, our content flow is admittedly spotty so I will point you to a few of those I nominated instead. (Actually, what am I talking about? Jessica posts witty, engaging stuff all the time. Nominate Jessica for awards! Go do it now!!) Any of the below blogs are highly recommended for both award nominations and general reading pleasure. And many gracious thanks in advance for any WWRN noms with which you deem to honor us.

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I didn’t know we had a king… I thought we were an autonomous collective.

July 6, 2009 in Arthurian Legends, British History, Classics, Fantasy, Novels, Stephen Lawhead | by | Leave a comment

Arthur

King Arthur may well be the ur-fantasy story.   The ur-hero story even.  This story has been told countless times, in many forms including, quite notably, Monty Python’s version (you can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!), one of my personal favorites.  There is even much academic debate about whether a real Arthur or Merlin existed. While that is mildly interesting, and I have been known to read a treatise or two about what might have happened, I’d much rather read pages and pages (and pages and pages) of stories about what could have happened.

The Arthurian legends were certainly my first foray into “fantasy” and it’s the one story I never tire of, no matter what the medium.  I daresay I’ve read them “all” – The Mists of Avalon, the Sword in the Stone, The Once and Future King, even Tennyson’s Idylls of the King.  I have a grand copy of Le Morte d’Arthur, almost too beautiful to read (or at least that’s my current excuse for not reading it). 

I love this story (or should I say stories) so much that I took an entire class in college about King Arthur (me, a science major!), in which we read the older texts based on the oral legends (where Gawain was the hero, not some pretty French dude).  They aren’t as flowery as the Lancelot versions with their courtly love, chivalry and the round table, but it is those gritty older texts that, in my humble opinion, have spawned the best modern Arthurian works.  As my high school English teacher always told us “Arthur was a peer of Beowulf.”  Which means, though he likely carried a sword, his armor was made of leather instead of metal, and he probably didn’t joust.

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OK Sonnets, See You in 400 More!

June 6, 2009 in Classics, Poetry, Shakespeare, Sonnets | by | Leave a comment

Well that’s finally finished, and what a birthday week it was. It feels slightly indulgent to take up so much blog space with something so silly, but then again, are 400th birthdays silly? They only come around once, after all!

I hope you enjoyed reading some of these reflections on the sonnets but more importantly, I hope you felt inspired to pick up an edition to peruse on your own, at your own pace, in the little nooks and crannies of your day.

In that spirit, I thought it would be fun to collect a select few images of the many thousands of editions that have been printed since 1609. Keep on the lookout for the one that grabs your eye.

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade.”

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Jessica’s Reading

Jesse’s Reading

Jesse and Jessica are Both Reading

Devin’s Reading

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