I'm not sure why but it feels like my generation of readers have all gone nostalgic at the same time. Maybe it's the Twilight mania that is making us remember our own crackliture. It seems everywhere I turn these days I'm seeing remembrances and rereadings of Christopher Pike.
]]>I'm not sure why but it feels like my generation of readers have all gone nostalgic at the same time. Maybe it's the Twilight mania that is making us remember our own crackliture. It seems everywhere I turn these days I'm seeing remembrances and rereadings of Christopher Pike.
Oh we read his contemporaries as well. There were plenty of R.L. Stine's that got passed under desks as well. But Chrisopher Pikes books were a bit longer and meatier. Christopher Pike introduced our tweenage selves to the murder, mayhem and supernatural episodes as can only happen among upper-middle class Americans. Drugs, murder, coming back from the dead, abortions, sex - yes he had it all.
Sadly, Like Pike hasn't been updated since May but just looking at the list of books in the sidebar sets me back at my sixth grade cafeteria table. Nothing is held back in those reviews so if you want to reread (or read any of those books for the first time) maybe save it for later. Oh but how well I do remember Remember Me. Yes indeed, Shari was cool.
I don't think I ever read Monster but it was the first Pike book that Cait at Escape Through the Pages read.
Monster was not only the first Christopher Pike book I read (starting a love of his books that continues today), but it was also my first thriller book. I have a fear of horror/thriller movies, but that fear somehow doesn’t continue over to literature (thankfully), which I discovered when I picked this book up in my grade seven classroom to read for independent reading.
Dannie took a look at one of the books I remember the most clearly - Die Softly. I love her take on Pike's writing style. http://readingwatchingliving.blogspot.com/2009/11/book-review-die-softly...
Die Softly is a strange kind of mystery. It's kind of like you saw it coming, but you didn't see how is came. Possibly one of the strongest characteristic of Pike's writing, he's able to let you think you won, but then flips it on it's head and makes you feel like a moron. In a good way.
Jenn at Young Adult Revisited remembers Whisper Of Death vividly - it got her in trouble in sixth grade.
http://yarevisited.blogspot.com/2009/10/whisper-of-death-christopher-pik...
Whisper of Death holds a fairly special place in my heart because it once got me in trouble. My little group of sixth grade friends and I chose the book for our reading group and made the mistake of discussing it in the classroom. A classmate (damn you Luke!) ran and told our teacher that we were reading a book about abortion, cussing and sex. The teacher took one look at the book and banned all Christopher Pike books from our classroom for the rest of the year. It’s kind of sad when you think about it…
For Halloween YA authors Diana Peterfreund and Carrie Ryan paid hommage to Christopher Pike on the Book Smugglers blog. I loved how Peterfruend mentioned doing an bit of an internal squee when she saw her book on a shelf at a bookstore right beside Pike's books. And I loved the point that Ryan made about what she learned about writing from Pike.
Carrie: I think reading Pike then expanded my understanding of how far authors could go. It’s exactly what you said – no one’s safe, which I think added to the thriller aspect. I mean, there’s a comfort in reading a romance where you know things are going to work out, you just don’t know how. They’re still page turners because it’s the figuring out how that’s fascinating, but with Pike… all bets were off.
No one was safe and even when you thought that you knew what was going to happen, you never really could be sure. His explanations were always plausible...well plausible enough in Pike's world. And that was good enough for us.
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey was very disappointed she couldn't find any recent posts about "Witch." She also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>It doesn't seem like this trip will be complete smooth sailing for the royal couple. PETA is up in arms after Camilla wore a fur stole to a public event. It must be said that her hat was fake fur. (And I was highly amused by the "since no one who is anyone wears real fur any more" comment in the article. PETA, she got her Prince. Do you think she really cares if anyone thinks she is anyone?)
Right before the couple arrived a poll revealed that Canadians aren't crazy for Charles, though we're fond enough of Queen Elizabeth II. Yes, the Prince of Wales has an image problem. Personally, I think it largely stems from knowing too darn much about his affairs. Thanks to the very public dissolving of his marriage with Princess Diana I know things about Charles that I really wish I didn't know.
The biography of his grandmother Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother came out recently (I've been reading it, it's huge). I had heard through the years that she did not approve of the public nature of the divorce and did not wish for anyone from the family to speak to the public about it. What I didn't realize until this week is that the Queen Mother only ever gave one interview in her entire life. One interview that happened after she got engaged to Prince Albert. No wonder she didn't approve of the royal family speaking publicly about the marriage. Coincidentally the Queen Mother did not have an image problem in Canada. The royal visit in 1939 was enormously successful.
Marilyn has decided that the coverage of the royals isn't great. She also says that Charles isn't such a draw, really.
With the exception of the Queen, Charles on tour works better as a double-act. Bring someone attactive or higher ranking with him and he can't lose. Arrive by himself and, well who really cares, right? The minor royals suffer this indignity all of the time.
There is hope for the royals though. I found a thread in the Toronto Livejournal Community where people were wondering if it was possible to get in a line to meet them. I wasn't planning on attempting to see them. I saw Prince Charles when I was a kid. As part of the first leg of their cross-Canada Royal Couple tour in 1983 they visited my hometown. I have some pictures in my photo album. Of course you wouldn't be able to tell it was Princess Diana if I didn't tell you but I have an undeniably recognizable photo of the Prince of Wales. I'm going to end up seeing Charles and his new wife purely by accident. It turns out we're all attending the Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa next week. Of course, I suspect they'll have much better seats.
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>For the last few years there's been a "Chunkster Challenge" where bloggers committ to reading some of these big books. I find it comforting, even though I don't join (I suck at challenges), because it means that I'm not the only one that buys or borrows these books with the intent of reading them and then let them gather dust.
]]>For the last few years there's been a "Chunkster Challenge" where bloggers committ to reading some of these big books. I find it comforting, even though I don't join (I suck at challenges), because it means that I'm not the only one that buys or borrows these books with the intent of reading them and then let them gather dust.
The 2009 Chunkster Challenge was hosted at Feelin' Chunky. (A Novel Challenge will be hosting it in 2010, in case you are interested.) A "Chunkster" is defined as a book that is 450 pages or more and that is ADULT literature (fiction or nonfiction). Yes, that's right. Twilight and Harry Potter don't count. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell does count...it also happens to be one of the books languishing on my shelves. Gone With the Wind is a Chunkster. I remember reading it in junior high. Everyone thought I was nuts, and was unimpressed when I informed them, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."
I always have a lot of fun reading through people's reading lists but when I look at the lists people have for the Chunkster Challenge I'm often surprised by how few of the books I recognize. Southern Sassy Things finished six chunksters in the past years and I've hardly heard of half of them. I didn't do much better with Teddy Rose's book list either.
I've been thinking about big books a lot since I bought Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother: Official Biography last week. It's a book that I think qualifies as a tome. It has more than thousand pages, though I must say it's surprisingly light. I don't know how they managed it but I think it weighs less than my copy of Harry Potter And The Order of the Phoenix
. I bought in part because I think that she must have lived an interesting life. She didn't just live to be more than 100 years old, she lived an entire century. She was born in 1900 and died in 2002 and I find that kind of fascinating. But another part of me was just blown away by the size of the book. It is thicker than the phone book for the province I grew up in. That's rather impressive.And scary. It is a big book. I didn't buy it the first night I saw it but it picked away at me. I kept asking myself who would read a thousand page biography of the Queen Mother aside from the die-hard royal family fans. The more I thought about it the more I wanted to read it. It would be a challenge. So I bought it. I've set myself a goal of reading ten pages a night. I've missed the last three nights because I went away for the weekend and the book just does not scream "packable". I had read more than fifty pages the first couple of nights so I'm still mostly on track. If I continue at the rate of ten pages per night it will still take me more than three months to read. It's a tactic I've used with other books, though with fiction to try to stick with chapters.
Do you read big books? Do you have a special strategy for reading them. Or are they no big deal?
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>A Hippie In a Minivan spent a day in Montreal at the Redpath Museum. Confession: I've sat on the steps at the Redpath Museum (many, many times) and had a class or two in the lecture hall while I was a student at McGill but I never actually toured the museum.
The theme was Mummies. A little tour and talk about mummies and then an activity for the kids…The talk was perfect, geared towards kids and just the perfect amount of time for the kids. Little did I know that as small as the Redpath museum is, they have the second largest ancient Egyptian mummy collection in Canada…3 mummies, a sarcophagus, mummified animals, a set of Coptic Jars along with many other artifacts.
The Drowsey Monkey is wondering if meditating is causing her to lose her blogging edge.
I've been wondering if all my meditation classes have taken away my edge. Made me too balanced to blog. I'm not all tense and angry ... well, yeah okay I'm still a bit of those but not enough to blog about it. Perhaps I need to rethink this self awareness journey.
Ecochick is now an eco-mom. Her post introducing her new eco-chick brings a smile to my face.
I got kind of lost looking at the wonderful photographs on Isle Dance. I'm sure we all know a bunch of reasons why the chicken crossed the road, but do we know why the rooster crossed the road?
I found some sage advice at Join Me On The Path. The next time you are feeling overwhelmed maybe you need to h.a.l.t..
A wise friend advised me to h.a.l.t. when I’m overwhelmed, conflicted or unsure, and to ask myself these questions:
Am I hungry?
Am I angry?
Am I lonely?
Am I tired?If I answer yes to even one of those questions, it’s best to remedy that issue before even trying to figure out what to do about what’s overwhelming me or what might have me conflicted or unsure.
I really need to remember that one. When I get hungry I also get tired and well, I'm sure there are tropical storms that cause less of a disturbance than I do when I'm like that.
What Canadian blogs have you been reading?
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>Let's look at the Nook first. (Yeah, it's a bad name, but then Kindle isn't so great either.) This new offering from BN offers a lot of what the Kindle does, including wireless downloads. It's good to see the Kindle have some competition on that front (rumor is that Sony is coming out with something similar soon and one assumes that when Apple unleashes their version it will have that as well). When the Nook was announced one of the big (in fact HUGE) advantages that readers saw was the "Lend Me" feature which would allow the Nook owner to "loan" the e-book to a friend for a period of fourteen days. During that time they would not be able to read the book on their own device. In a world where "loaning e-books" tends to result in "dirty rotten pirate" this was major news.
Until someone did a little bit more digging. As it turns out that you can only loan a book out once. There was a collective sigh around the blogosphere and well, some people who already ordered it before that tidbit came to light might be in for a bit of a surprise.
Geeky Mom asked if the Nook will be a Kindle killer and I honestly don't think so, especially in light of the loaning a book only once policy. And because Barnes and Noble is coming to the game late their e-books stocks aren't quite as extensive as other e-book sellers.
Now let's move on to the Kindle. There was a story in the New York Times about e-books that caused a kerfuffle (I believe that is the polite term for what happened). This is the part in particular that caused the uproar:
Exploiting a loophole in Amazon’s system, Ms. Englin has linked her Kindle to the Amazon account of some nearby friends, allowing all of them to read books like “The Lost Symbol” at the same time — while paying for them only once.
The article then goes on to report that Ms. Englin says she and her friends do not know if what they do is within Amazon's terms of service. It's how the article ends and the big takeaway from the whole article as written is that this woman is cheating the system. It set off numerous groups, but perhaps most unfortunately it set off some authors. The woman was called a thief on Twitter. Worse yet, others were encouraged to retweet the accusation.
The problem was, as so elegantly laid out by Dear Author's Jane, the Ms. Englin and her friends weren't doing anything wrong. Not by Kindle's Terms of Service, which allows six devices to be connected to a single account. And no, they do not have to live in the same household. Now you're not going to let use anyone use your Kindle account. Why? Because they also have access to your credit card (which is stored so that you can download wirelessly to the Kindle) and can make purchases on it. You have to be pretty good friends with someone to allow that. She wasn't breaking any copyright or digital rights management laws or agreements either. You see, we readers? We have some rights too.
The problem here is that the very same law that gives authors a property right to their creative work gives consumers the right of first sale and fair use privileges. Let me state that again. The VERY SAME LAW that creates intellectual property for authors gives readers rights too.
A lot of this comes down to digital rights management and pirating. Now, this is going to be the hard part as I try really hard not to rant. This is the thing, I support authors. They provide me with hours and hours of entertainment each week, let alone over the course of a year. I'm happy to pay for their books when I can afford and borrow from the library when I can't. I don't want their work to be pirated anymore than they do and I certainly won't be the one pirating it. But I hate digital rights management and the DRM files that are attached the the e-books that I legally purchase. With a passion.
I remember the first time I tried to move an e-book that I legally borrowed from the library onto my e-book reader. It ended in tears and swearing. Ditto the same time I legally bought a book from an e-book store that wasn't the same store as the brand associated with my e-book reader. The file type was compatible but well...I darn near threw both the reader and my computer at the wall. I wasn't trying to do anything with the books that I wasn't supposed to do. I was only trying to move it from my computer to my reader so that I could read it, a radical action don't you think? I still hate that process, though I'm happy to say it has gotten a bit easier...most of the time.
I honestly felt like I was being punished for been a good law-abiding citizen of the world. If ever there was a moment I was tempted to look for pirated books it was those first two attempts to move legal books to my e-book reader. If I wasn't I could have gone online, found a pirated version easily enough and it would have been far easier to move onto my device. It really makes no sense to me. Ok, fine. It does. I understand why the DRM files on these books exist, but I do not understand why they need to be so difficult to use.
Courtney Milan in her post "Readers Have Rights Too made a point that I really agree with.
But keep in mind that the value a book has is not just in the act of reading it. It’s also–hugely so–in the act of sharing it. In giving a book to a friend and waiting breathlessly to see if she loves it as much as you do. In reading a book someone else has recommended, and figuring out why it does (or doesn’t) work for you. Books are about building community, and if we undercut that community as authors, we take value away from our books.
I love sharing and recommending books to my friends. I have many books I'd love to share with my friends but the problem is that we're not exactly geographically conveniently located for that. Many of my friends live in other cities. Heck, I'm Canadian and many of my reading-inclined friends live in the US. We sometimes try to read a book together (or even within the same month as each other) but coordinating which person can buy one, which has to wait for a library copy, etc can make it pretty difficult. And don't even think about trying to all get a book form the library at the same time unless its several years old and not very popular and even better if it's a classic (heh! Moonstone!). It would be fantastic if there was a way we could share e-books. The same way it would be fantastic if I could loan them physical books. I'm not breaking any laws when I purchase a book and loan it to a friend, so the assumption of some people who think if I want to loan an e-book to a friend I'm a pirate/thief/no-good-awful-human-being really bothers me.
Authors, the people who are having this discussion? We're not talking about sending it to 500 of our social networking friends who will turn around and do the same. We're not talking about putting your e-book up for sale on e-Bay or Craigslist. We're talking about sharing your book with our mothers, sisters, close friends. We're not trying to pirate your books or steal from you. The world of e-books is a whole new world for everyone. We've got your back. Just make sure you have ours too.
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>The challenge happens two times a year and book lovers all over sit themselves down and try to read for 24 hours straight. It's really fun. As the 24 HourRead-A-Thon FAQs point out even if you aren't a reader (or just can't dedicate yourself to reading on the allotted day) there are still other ways people participate. You can cheerlead or host a mini-challenge. You can tweets and urge people on.
I know what some of you are thinking. A whole 24 hours of reading sounds like bliss doesn't it? I took part in back in April and let me tell you, it's surprisingly hard. I'm someone who will happily sit and read for hours at a time but reading for a whole day, on purpose? It's hard. Surprisingly hard. Of course you don't have to read for the full 24 hours. I don't. I try to read as much as I can but when it comes right down to it, I'm not not a night owl and will fall asleep reading if I try to stay up all night. (Or stay awake and be a grumpy, grumpy bear the next day and since we have plans with my in-laws tomorrow morning that I probably bet avoided...)
So exactly how many people are participating? Well, the sign-up post shows that 362 readers are joining and 92 cheerleaders. Yes, we are reading force not to be reckoned with.
Who are these readers? They are people like Bonjour Cass. She is much smarter than I am today and remembered to to bed early and set her alarm to wake up and start reading. And it's her birthday weekend! Stop by and say happy birthday!
Alyce from At Home With Books is also smarter than me. She tackled her laundry pile last night.
Melanie from Melanie's Musings is cheerleading today. You can get to know her with the read-a-thon meme.
I love how BrownGirl BookSpeak kicked off her read-a-thon post. She simply stated that she. reads. hardcore.
One of my favourite things to do with the read-a-thon is check out people's bookstacks. This one at The Stacks My Destination is quite lovely. (I wish I had Little House On The Prairie in mine.)
I'm starting late today and I feel very much like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! (Hmm I do have a copy of Alice around here somewhere...) So I'd best stop writing this post and get myself reading. If you want to follow the fun on Twitter look for the #readathon hash tag.
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>Many people I know, myself included, read as a form of escape. When it's a stressful week at work or something is going on in my life that I can't do much about reading gives me a way to forget about it for a few minutes or hours. Through a book I can go on a trip to Italy, become someone else, sometime even leave the galaxy. In the not so great moments reading helps me see the possibilities that exist. In the good moments it reminds that there is still more that is possible.
For Elizabeth at Take a Whisk, reading got her through rough times in her childhood.
Reading saved me. I got lost in the words and escaped a stressful childhood and school experiences that were less than joyful. The words helped heal my first broken heart and they helped me to see that the world was a much bigger place than I could possibly imagine.
Sometimes books saved us from the monsters in the closet. For write J.L. Powers books got her through the night.
I would creep out of bed and get a book, a safe book, a children’s book, one that wouldn’t contain demons or violence or anything unsafe. I would huddle in the very back of my closet, bathed in the harsh light of the light bulb. Or, better yet (because it made me feel less sequestered from the people I needed to be near me in order to feel safe), I would gently ease open my bedroom door and sit on the cold cement floor of the entryway just outside my bedroom.
For others the fears and monsters weren't easy to get rid of. Dear Author set aside their usual "first sale" series this Monday to post, as they said, a very, very special essay from Chloe on why she reads. It saved her.
I am alive today because of books. Over 5 years ago, my abuse flashbacks were coming to a head and I was getting maybe 30 minutes of sleep each night after I’d wake up screaming from what I call the “five rape marathon flashback”. Nora Roberts/JD Robb’s “In Death” series saved my life. I had started counseling the same year Naked in Death was published and tried to read the book when it came out based on the recommendation of a friend. But as soon as I realized that Eve had been abused as a child, I put the book down and didn’t pick it up again until 3 years later.
The Dear Author blog is right. It is a very, very special essay. Stories can provide an escape when we need it. They can make a sick boy laugh. They can help an abused child survive. They can help a woman heal.
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>I've tried downsizing. I really did. When I moved from Montreal to Toronto I could only afford to move a certain number of boxes and I since I was moving into an apartment that was already furnished by my new roommates (who are a completely different kind of post themselves) books had to pared down. Then when I moved out of the apartment I was sharing with my roommate (it was a joyous day) I was moving into a teeny-tiny apartment. I only had room for one bookcase and the one I had was even too big. Out it went, along with some books, and in came a new smaller bookcase. I eventually decided I had room, not mention the need, for a second bookcase.
Because at no point did I stop buying books.
When I left that small apartment in Toronto it was to move into an apartment more than twice the size in Montreal. I had space! Lots of space! Add into that the fact that I didn't have access to a library for a long time it meant even more books. Another bookcase was added. I was now up to three. By the time I moved to Ottawa a year later I was in desperate need of a fourth. I currently stand at 6 full-sized bookcases and one half-size.
There are days when I look around and wonder where on earth these books came from. (I do not allow myself to consider how many times I've moved certain books.) But when I stop and really look at each individual book I can tell you where I got it. That hardcover copy of Death Du Jour by Kathy Reichs? I bought when I was still in university. It's personalized and signed by Reichs. The 1930s hardcover edition of Pollyanna? It's from my grandparents house and I brought it back on one of my last trips home. Frommer's San Francisco Day by Day? I bought it at Costco in preparation for BlogHer Food.
There are books I bought on vacation, books from my childhood, books that replace books that have gone missing from my childhood. Some were presents. Many, many of the books on my shelves are unread. Most of those that have been read will someday be reread.
Patti at Oops...Wrong Cookie has one of those lovely jobs, the kind that comes not only with books, but books you want to read. But she also hits on something else, the other place I get books...the ones I don't keep. I'm speaking, of course, of the library.
I'm not a big buyer of books. Strange and unusual, I know, since most library people tend to be book collectors. I'll usually only buy books after I've read them and like them enough to think I'll read them again.
Most of the books I read I do not own, but I can't switch to 100% library or borrowed books. The thought of it makes my heart a bit sad. I guess I'm a bit like KH Chronicles.
I get asked why I buy books and magazines rather than loaning them from the library and saving myself a small fortune and the answer is because one day, like dinosaurs and hypercolour t-shirts, books will no longer exist.
And I want to hold on to them, in my own two hands, for as long as possible.
I don't know that I can envision a time when there are no physical books. I just can't. I don't believe it, or maybe I just refuse to believe it. I've considered doing one of those "no buying books" challenges. I've purposely set out to do it for a month or two but I find it's kind of like yo-yo dieting - the more I try to restrict myself the more I resist and eventually binge. A couple of years ago Kelly Watson wrote on Romancing the Blog about how she tried to give up buying books. They were her "latte factor" of sorts.
When I returned home with my newly acquired booty I felt no remorse. I had books! Lots of books! Shiny, new books! And like a proud new mom I couldn’t help but brag about them to everyone, including my Latte Factor friend. While my friend was happy for me, she couldn’t help but ask “Why did you buy those books? Couldn’t you get them books from the library?”
I could give you many excuses for why I buy books (I want to support authors! I want to support local store owners!), but mostly it's because I just liked books. I figure as long as I can remember where I got the books on my shelves I'm doing ok. It's only when I start forgetting that I'll need to stop...right?
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>While The Cutting Edge was very much a work of fiction Battle of the Blades is anything but. We have taken honest to goodness female figure skaters, including Olympians, and paired them with hockey players. Yes. Tie Domi. In tights. Though unlike the movie, I don't think anyone expects the winners of this show to go on to win the Olympics.
I honestly can't decide if this is insane or brilliant so it pretty much follows that it is insanely brilliant. But it leads to one question, which Lose that Girl also wonders - why on earth did it take Canada, aka The Great White North, so long to do this?
Before this series took to the ice, I don't think anyone with any sports knowledge could picture tough guys, Tie Domi or Bob Probert on figure skates gracefully lifting *anything*, spare the Stanley Cup, high into the air. Now these hockey stars are orchestrating death spirals and overhead lifts with (almost) the greatest of ease. The resulting program is downright addictive!
I know you want to be skeptical. I do too. I haven't seen it yet though I'm hoping I can catch up online. (I'm bad at watching pretty much anything on tv. I suck at tv.) Auntie Fashion doesn't normally watch the CBC and well, she just made me laugh.
Although I normally swear off the CBC like I swear off white leather pants and home perms, I think I’ll watch this show.
Oh, come on. Whether you are a fan of CBC or not (and really, I am) you have to find that funny, especially since it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that you'll find both white leather pants and home perms if you happen to watch CBC on the right day.
One of the kind of fun things about this show is that the people competing are fairly familiar figures. Lori Beth at The Road Less Travelled had her favourites picked out before the show started.
I'll admit I have a soft spot for Barb Underhill and Ron Duguay -- if only because they're probably the ones closest to my age (46 & 52 -- the other skaters have been referring to them as "Grandma & Grandpa"). When I heard Duguay was on, I thought, "Good Lord, he was playing hockey when I was in high school!" -- I checked, and he was!! But they are also proving to be a great pair to watch. Duguay still has some Studio 54 moves in his repetoire ;
And bad/awesome 90s movie connection aside, many of the participants really are reminiscent of 80s and 90s culture so it's perfect blog material for Tammy 80s and 90s nostalgia blog.
Try as I might I can only think of one thing to sum up how I feel about Battle of the Blades. All together now - TOE PICK!
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>Fans of any series will tell you that they are very skeptical when another author takes over the writing reigns of a series. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I think many people are hopeful about this one. The book certainly has a fun official site. I do so like it when books have good websites.
When a new book is released in a long standing series, particularly when it's a book that's not written by the original author, maybe people ask why it's even being written at all. Bookwitch wonders who needs it.
Who needs to know? I mean, who doesn’t already know about it? There was a long description/history thing in the Guardian a week ago, and I just wondered what the point was.
[...]
The point of the new book is surely to educate a new generation of readers, and anybody old who happened to miss it the first time?
(She also made me really want to listen to the radio series...)
There's been a lot of press for this new book. While many people can't decide if they are excited or wary, everyone is curious. Jenny Ross at Geeks.co.uk interviewed Eoin Colfer. What can we expect from the new installment? Well, not what Adams was planning.
“I wanted to do my own story,” he says, “I thought if I used his notes it would divide opinion, so I just did my own thing.”
So what can people expect from the latest novel?
“They can expect lots of the old characters back again, they can expect some new characters, they can expect an adventure. In a nutshell – same universe, same characters, new story.”
The Struggling Writer posted a Colfer video that gave him hope about the new edition.
In Colfer’s own words, he’s not trying to be Douglas Adams. Rather the book simply is “presenting you with a possible ending in a possible universe which you may find amusing”.
The Amazon-own Shelfari site was also able to speak with Colfer. Colfer seems to be taking the pottential nay-sayers in stride.
Amazon.com: Again, you were aware that there are easier lots in life than potentially being hounded from safe house to safe house by unruly Hitchhiker fans incensed that you've taken up this particular gauntlet?
Colfer: The only reason I could think of for not writing this book was that there were possibly people who would not want me to do it, so I argued with them in my head for a few days and eventually they came around to my way of thinking.
And if a new book isn't enough of a celebration for you, perhaps you might want to make a Pan Galatic Gargle Blaster. Some of Adams original ingredients are hard to come by so Kelly kindly provided some substitutions for us earthlings.
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>Shelf Discovery continues and expands on that column. I was kind of surprised by how few of the novels I had actually read. I felt as if I was just a titch too young to full appreciate the collection that she gathered. The reflections on the books I hadn't read, in all honesty, just were not as interesting to me. It does make sense really. It's rather hard to wax nostalgic about something you never really experienced. Notes From the Officers Club rather felt the same way. She grew up in Germany and (I know this will be shocking to many of you) hasn't ever read Judy Blume. She was unfamiliar with many of the books but was hoping to get a view of American teenaged girlhood but found herself a little disappointed.
For some of the novels, she definitely raised some very valid points.Many of them, I felt like I was simply reading a synopsis. And based onthe summaries, I could definitely see why these stories would appeal toyoung girls and how they could help them learn to be comfortable withthemselves and develop into strong women but I could have used a littlebit more of "and this matters because." If I had read the novels, I mayhave been happy reminiscing about old reads; since I haven't, I neededa deeper reading than she provided.
Live Under A Rock liked parts of the book, but also suggested that if we are going to re-examine those books maybe we should look a bit deeper at them, including looking at race issues in them while we're at it.
Guys? When I was a little kid and I read Little House on the Prairie, Ididn’t even realize that “papoose” referred to a Native American baby. Wilder othered Native Americans to such an extent that I thought that apapoose was…guys, I don’t even know WHAT I thought. Oh, and a fewyears back I decided to re-read Little Town on the Prairie becauseit was my favorite as a preteen (search me—I don’t know why). Imaginemy horror when I came across the scene where Pa performs in blackfaceand Laura invites us to imagine how hilarious that must have been!
Librarilly Blonde felt like she was talking with a friend as she read the book.
Reading her writing makes me feel like I'm talking to a really cool,smart friend who understands how much these books formed our worlds when we were teens (and younger). We're older and wiser now, and we canlook at things like Harriet Welsch's growing empathy in Harriet the Spy and the ultimately bleak endings of Blubber and The Cat Ate My Gymsuit with an eye for literary technique, but ultimately, we are still ten years old and reading these books, reacting to them viscerally and re-reading with hunger. Reading Skurnick makes me unafraid to giggle and gasp and OMG as I read Go Ask Alice and Flowers in the Attic.
Taren at the Chick Manifesto thinks that women of different ages will approach it differently.
The author is in her thirties, so most, if not all, of the people inher age range will be familiar with just about every book. I'm in mytwenties and am about half and half as far as having read the books orat least being familiar with them. Then there are the teens, who Ithink are going to discover so many amazing books that they might nothave ever heard of or read. I love that it's written in a way as to beaccessible to those who haven't read the books, yet familiar enough forthose who have who want to reminisce.
If your teenaged reading habits involved everything from Little House in the Big Woods to Go Ask Alice to Flowers in the Attic, you need to move Shelf Discovery to the top of your reading list.
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>I've spend Thanksgiving in the dorm. I've cooked (with the help of a former roommate) Thanksgiving dinner for ten fellow students. I've spent it travelling. I've had Thanksgiving dinner on trains and even at a Swiss Chalet. I've cooked with friends (and always provide the stuffing). I've spent at few at a cottage in Vermont. This year I really thought I was going to cook the big meal. But I'm not.
My mother is coming to visit next week. She arrives Sunday evening. It will be the first Thanksgiving we've spent together in at least ten years (probably closer to twelve). At first I considered cooking the big meal but then I realized that we'd spend her entire visit eating leftover turkey. That's not very fun. I like to treat my mother to meals that she can't quite get in my small hometown - Indian curry, Thai stirfries, shish taouk.
After rejecting the idea of the traditional turkey I thought about making lasagna. My mother always makes me make a lasagna whenever she's in town or when I visit her. It takes me almost as long to make as cooking a turkey. Then we realized that she'd have to meet my in-laws. Thanksgiving dinner seemed appropriate. I met Lee's entire family on Easter weekend. (We seem to have a thing for holiday dinners.) We figured we might as well do it at the same place that I met his parents, a place that has become the default family dinner location. Yep, we're going to the buffet at the racetrack and casino.
I know. It seems funny. It's actually pretty good. It provides a nice neutral group for meeting family members. It's busy but not too loud. On race nights you have a few minutes of excitement every 30 minutes or so. And when it's all over we each take a $20 bill and take our chances with the slots. It's fun. But not so traditional for Thanksgiving, which to be honest suits my not-quite-traditional family just fine.
Maybe someday I'll cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner again. It would be pretty similar to an American one - turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, veggies. You wouldn't see green bean casserole or sweet potatoes with marshmallows. There would be, of course, pumpkin pie. Or maybe I won't. Maybe my Thanksgiving tradition is to not have one.
See also:
Vintage Love - A Canadian Thanksgiving Table.
Green Living - Eco-friendlier Thanksgiving suggestions
Gotta Little Space - How to Carve a Turkey
Get Out of Debt Girl - What's your Thanksgiving tradition?
Cutest Little Things - Judy is planning a surprise for her Canadian husband
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>As the New York Times article on the new Pooh points out, retellings and story extensions are not uncommon and sometimes are quite successful. Now, I'm not entirely a purist. I can handle my Pride and Prejudice with a dash of zombies or even told from the perspective of Mr. Darcy. But there are some retellings, sequels and prequels that make me wary and some of that I refuse to even acknowledge (I'm looking at you Before Green Gables).
Rosemary for Remembrance isn't thrilled about the idea of a new Pooh book and character.
Pfeh. I don't actually have any great fondness for Pooh, even though I read him over and over as a child; I didn't single him out to be read to the children. (Neither did I Wind in the Willows, so my taste is clearly flawed.) I'm thinking that the new task of a literary executor, instead of burning indiscreet letters, should be to defend the property from any and all brand extension in perpetuity.
Kara at Not Just For Kids is not overly fond of a new Winnie the Pooh story either.
Okay, I'll admit it: I'm not a huge fan of Pooh. I kind of like Piglet, and Eeyore is sort of amusing, but when I tried to read the original Pooh books on my own as a child, there was no connection. Perhaps I've been stunted as a person, but there you have it.
All the same, I found myself peeved and protective when I read on the BBC website that a new character, Lottie the Otter, has been created for the first "original" Pooh story since Milne stopped writing them himself.
Not everyone is wary about the new story. Some fans like the idea of a new female character. Maria at Brain Pickings is excited about the new Pooh story.
But we have faith in the book — we see it as a brave and ambitious homage to one of humanity’s most iconic children’s classics.
Taking on writing a new story for a beloved classic and adding a new character to the mix is brave and very ambitious. No one can deny that. Here's to hoping it works out well for Pooh and his friends, both new and old.
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
]]>Personally, I'm all about reading books while soaking in the bath. Preferably with a cold drink at hand. (The drink varies - sometimes it's water, gingerale or perhaps even a nice Chardonnay.) I've rung in a couple of New Year's Eves in the bathtub with a delightfully trashy romance novel, an ice-bucket with a bottle of wine in it and lots and lots of bubbles. I highly recommend it. It's much more relaxing than trying to find a cab at 1am.
Before you ask, no I've never dropped a book in the tub. (I have dropped a glass of wine in the tub though, I just convinced myself that it was a spa treatment and poured myself another.) I have gotten a few drops on pages or the covers which is enough to make some bibliophiles gasp. That isn't to say that I don't have a few rules for bathtub reading.
Sassymonkey's Rules for Bathtub Reading
Rule #1: It doesn't matter it if it is paperback or hardcover but I must be able to hold it open with one hand. No Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. No Harry Potter books after Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. This also rules out magazines. They are just too large to read in the tub and I think you are asking for trouble in the form of soggy pages if you try.
Rule #2: No library books. I'm sure I've broken this rule a time or two (sometimes they are really, really good and it's hard to put them down). While I've never dropped a book in the tub I don't want to change it. Me and Murphy's Law have a longstanding relationship, which brings us to....
Rule #3: Don't read anything in the tub that you can't replace. That precious-to-you signed copy? No. That long out of print book? No. That copy of Pride and Prejudice that you stole from your grandmother's bookshelf? No.
Rule #4: Don't bring anything into the tub that you think you are going to want to take notes on. Or add lots of post-it flags to. Balancing a book is risky enough, you don't to add paper, pens and post-its to that do you? No, I didn't think so.
Rule #5: Keep a towel within easy reach. I know that seems obvious but there's a difference between a towel being within easy reach when are standing and getting out of the tub and when you are actually lying down in the tub. Ah ha! You see what I'm saying.
Rule #6: This should go without saying but just in case...no iPhones, Kindles, Sony Readers or whatever electronic device you use to read e-books in the tub. Reading a physical book tempts fate enough. Step away from the electronics.
Rule #7: All bathtub must be fun. That book you are forcing yourself to read for your bookclub or because your mother-in-law loaned it to you? Nope. Reading for class? No.
Rule #8: Relax. If you are anxious about dropping the book in the tub just don't do it. The point of reading in the tub, for me at least, is that I get to relax and de-stress. If it stressed you out just don't do it.
Now, I know that I'm not the only person who reads in that tub. I know that many, many of your do it. So I went on a hunt for tub reading stories.
When I was Just a Kid lets us peek into people's childhoods. Author Nancy O'Dell admits that she used to read in the tub until the water was cold.
Crystal blogs at Not My Steps and wonders where can a mother of seven read is she doesn't read in the bathtub.
Reading in the bathtub during a tornado warning isn't quite what I have in mind when I think of bathtub reading but hey, if you have to hide in there anyway...
But I think my favourite bathtub reading story I found was this one from rglawe at that Big Universe Blog.
I can still remember that day in first grade, when Mrs. Anderson brought a bathtub into our classroom, filled with soft, red pillows and loads of easy readers. It was an old fashioned, white tub with claw feet – nothing like I had ever seen in our home. Still, I wonder where she found it and how she managed to bring it to school. What a fabulous treat it was to take a turn reading in the bathtub. Two at a time.
Raise your hand if you are jealous that you didn't have a bathtub full of cushions and books in your first grade classroom? *thrusts hand into the air*
Do you read in the bathtub? Do you have rules for bathtub reading?
]]>Nuit Blanche started in Paris in 2002. The point of the festival is to make art available to the masses. I love the idea of it. I grew up in the country and Nuit Blanche seems like the kind of thing that I'd read about in books and dream of attending. When I look at pictures from past events there's something very Alice in Wonderland about it to me. Having never been I can only imagine that the experience of it feels vaguely like falling down the rabbit hole - exciting, beautiful and occasionally a little bit weird.
One of my favourite things about Nuit Blanche is to look at what people plan to visit. I find these suggestions fascinating to read. I find it really interesting to see what people really want to see. (Hi, I'm nosy!)
View on Canadian Art offers up their 2009 Nuit Blanche top picks.
Spacing Toronto will cover the events live during the night via Twitter and Nicole shares her top things to check out.
BlogTO offers up their favourites by zone.
Vague Terrain's Zone A suggestions.
Of course one concern is how to get from one event to another. Transit doesn't run all night, right? Well normally you'd be correct. The Toronto Transit Commission is offering a special Nuit Blanche transit pass and some routes will operate all night long.
As a sign of the times the festival is offering up applications to help you plan your night. Photo Devotion looks at the Toronto Nuit Blanche mobile app.
The event is free, public transit is going all night. What more could you ask for? As Tina at Toronto Moda says, you really have nothing to lose by attending, except maybe some sleep.
Have you attended a Nuit Blanche event in the past? What would you like to see?
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
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