Starred Saturdays: week of July 25

Is it the end of July already?  Yikes!  Remember that  Diana Wynne Jones Week (hosted by Jenny of Jenny's Books) starts tomorrow so this blog will be all DWJ, all the time.  Yeah!

It's another slow week in the blogosphere so here are a couple quick links.

Need a floor decor idea?  Have you tried a Sharpie?  Artist Heike Weber is a pro with a permanent marker. (via Apartment Therapy)

The EW Blog has the first two chapters of Cornelia Funke's new book, Reckless, a dark fairy tale.

I feel totally ignorant for not knowing that there are freshwater seals.

Was it last week that I had African wildlife in Scotland?  Well, this week it's past photos transposed over the exact same locations in modern times.  It's called "computational rephotography".  Absolutely amazing.  Sergey Larenkov's WWII rephotos are grim and sometimes heartbreaking (see one below).  (via Flavorwire)

Getting into DWJ mode,
K

"My name, in those days, was Susan Trinder."

I don't know why I was so tentative about picking up a book by Sarah Waters.  I think it was because I'm very picky about this genre of book -- modern novels with Victorian settings and sensational topics.  When I read a bad one, it almost makes me angry.  After all, there are fantastic actual Victorian sensational novels out there already as examples.  But I had heard enough good things about Sarah Waters that I felt safe finally trying one of her books.  I asked around for suggestions on where to start and ended up pulling Fingersmith from my TBR pile.

As a novel with many twists and turns, it's hard to summarize without giving anything away so this is very vague.  Susan Trinder is a young woman raised in London in a less than wholesome household -- a place where goods are fenced and babies are raised for sale.  However, the owner of the house, Mrs. Sucksby has always done her best to keep Susan innocent.  And yet the time comes for Susan to help the household and give them all a chance to live the good life.  But, of course, things are not as straightforward as they seem and the good life may be out of everyone's reach.

So if I had to give this one a grade , it would be between B+ and A-.  I liked it quite a bit but didn't absolutely love it.  After an extremely complex plot, I found the ending to be just a bit too neat.  Also, some of the characters and relationships weren't as well defined as they could have been.  However, since I've already admitted that this is exactly the genre of book that I'm most picky about, you can take my complaints with a large grain of salt.  This is a good book.

Smoothing my petticoats,
K


Support our site and buy Fingersmith on Amazon or find it at your local library.  We bought our own copy.

"Sabrina scrambled through the darkness armed with a shovel and using the cold, stone walls as a guide."

Second in Michael Buckley's Sisters Grimm series, The Unusual Suspects, this is a strong follow-up to the first book.  I read it just about as fast as possible and, as it has a cliffhanger ending, put the third book on hold at the library as soon as I finished!

While being completely different, this book is also more of the same as the first.  There are fairy tale creatures gone amok and others who live fairly normal lives in human disguises.  The young Grimm sisters, Sabrina and Daphne, are still trying to adjust to discovering who they are related to and what their grandmother does for a living.  They are also still trying to find out what happened to their parents when they disappeared a year and a half before.  And, even more harrowing, they finally have to start at their new school.

If this is your sort of series, this is a great one with strong characters and lots of surprises.  I'll be moving to the next book soon!

All that glitters,
K


Support our site and buy The Unusual Suspects (The Sisters Grimm, Book 2) on Amazon or find it at your local library.  We borrowed our copy from the library.

Book v. Movie: Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

For possibly the first time, I strongly prefer a movie version to the original novel.  Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgins began as a short story in Fortune magazine in 1946.  It was then almost immediately expanded into a novel, illustrated by William Steig.  The story is about a New York City family that decides to buy a home in the country.  Mr. and Mrs. Blandings want to be able to garden and spend more time with their daughters.  As you can expect, they are taken advantage of by others because of their naivety and are constantly foiled by their own grand plans.  Reading about Mr. Blandings failures is briefly funny but chiefly painful.  Mrs. Blandings' character alternates from clueless pampered wife to strong advocate and manager.

The 1948 film version stars Cary Grant and Myrna Loy.  It has a couple of added plot lines and a more humorous tone than the book.  I originally watched the movie because of the stars but have watched it a few more times since because it's amusing. This is one of my favorite scenes and is actually almost word for word from the book. Mrs. Blandings is choosing paint colors.




The story has also been remade into The Money Pit with Tom Hanks and Are We Done Yet? with Ice Cube.

Verdict: Just watch the movie unless you are remodeling or building a home and need to read about someone who has it worse than you.

Trying to forget my own home ownership troubles,
K


Support our site and buy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (the book) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (the DVD) on Amazon or find them at your local library.  We borrowed the book from the library.

Discussion: The Trouble With Boys

There are so many things I love about having a son.  In fact, I was rather relieved when I found out he was going to be a "he".  I'm not good with high-pitched voices, pink or gossip.  I was deathly afraid of having a child who wanted to be a cheerleader.  (I guess I still am!)  I didn't want the stress of letting my little girl start dating.  However, the one thing I'm most scared about is not being able to share some of my favorite books with my child.

I have tried to get in some of the more neutral "girly" books before Z's too old to have a strong gender bias.  We've enjoyed Pippi Longstocking and Madeline and a few others.  But what happens when he's a little older?  I probably won't have trouble getting him to read Harry Potter or the Benedict Society books but I might have a hard time getting him to try Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre.  What is the chance that he will try Pride and Prejudice?

Do any of you have the same dilemma?  Do you try to get your child to read books that might not be the norm for their age or sex?  And if you don't have kids yet, what are your plans for sharing everything you love with them?

Taking it in stride,
K

Starred Saturdays: week of July 18

Well, here we are again!  It's been a quiet week.  I'm getting a bit worried that we are running out of summer much more quickly than I'm ready for.  We've ordered Z's new and bigger backpack for first grade and his first lunch box.  My baby's growing up!

As soon as I have some free time, I'm going to make my handwriting into a font.  I rather like my handwriting.  (via Techland)

Tired of the old-fashioned push-pin method of recording where you've been in the world?  Trade up to a scratch-off map.  It's like a lottery ticket but you've already won because you got to go somewhere new.  (via ApartmentTherapy)

Diane of Bibliophile by the Sea has found that the NY Times has digitized book reviews back to 1981.  Again, when I have some free time ...

If you're getting antsy for Jenny's Diana Wynne Jones week like I am (admittedly, I've just devoured two more DWJ novels in the past week or so ...), read this lovely tribute article.  Apparently, she's an author worth knowing! (via A Fuse #8 Production)

io9 has collected bits of wisdom and advice from 34 sci-fi/fantasy authors.  (Why 34 and not 42?  I don't know.)  I kind of love this one --

"You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you." — Robert Anton Wilson

TastyKitchen has what they say is a muffin that tastes like a doughnut.  I'm going to use my willpower to avoid making them though because they're really just a muffin dipped entirely in melted butter and covered in cinnamon sugar.

And now for a unique photo spread.  The photographer, George Logan, has transposed African safari shots on a Scottish landscape.  Marvelous!  If you choose to buy the book, all proceeds go to The Born Free Foundation -- a very worthy cause.  (via Flavorwire)

Saturday is a fun day,
K

New Release: Seance for a Vampire

Titan Books has just re-released The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Seance for a Vampire by Fred Saberhagen and it's definitely a fun summer read.  Suppose Sherlock Holmes had a case that led into dangerous supernatural territory -- so dangerous that the only possible help could come from Sherlock's cousin, Prince Dracula.  I know ... it sounds a bit far-fetched but it really works!

A young woman disappears during a leisurely rowboat trip and turns up dead a day later.  When spiritualists arrive to take advantage of her mother and promise that they can contact Louisa, her father goes to London to ask Sherlock Holmes for help revealing the charlatans for what they are.  However, when Holmes and Watson attend the séance they must admit that something out of the norm is happening.  The young woman appears out of nowhere, looking pale and having no reflection, one of the spiritualists is brutally murdered and Holmes is dragged off by a powerful malevolent force.  So Watson must turn to the only one who can help -- Prince Dracula.

I had a lot of fun with this book!  It was the perfect read for a summer afternoon.  This is actually one of a series of Holmes books by different authors and I plan to read more of them.  Usually I'm touchy about retooling of characters but I think that Holmes has been taken in so many different directions over the years that I've come to accept it.  So why not see what his adventures would be like with Dr. Jekyll or martians?

A good read is elementary,
K


Support our site and buy The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Seance for a Vampire on Amazon or find it at your local library.  We received a review copy from the publisher.

Just Wasting Time

We have finally given in and joined Twitter!  So either leave your twitter name in the comments section or go follow us and we'll reciprocate -- we're @WeBeReading, of course.

Pondering the wisdom of this,
K