Book Blogger Hop

Participating in all kinds of follow memes today, hoping to get back in the game.

This week on the Book Blogger Hop hosted by Crazy-for-Books, the prompt is:
  
Highlight one book you have received this week that you can't wait to dig into.

I'm heading to the library on my lunch break to pick up four books that just came in for me. It never rains but it pours, right? I'll have a hard time deciding which one to dig into first. These four are:

Black Blade Blues
J.A.Pitts

Lesbian fantasy - be still my heart! Sarah Beauhall has more on her plate than most twenty-somethings: day job as a blacksmith, night job as a props manager for low-budget movies, and her free time is spent fighting in a medieval re-enactment group.The lead actor breaks Sarah’s favorite one-of-a-kind sword, and to avoid reshooting scenes, Sarah agrees to repair the blade. One of the extras, who claims to be a dwarf, offers to help. That’s when things start to get weird. Could the sword really be magic, as the "dwarf" claims? Are dragons really living among us as shapeshifters? As if things weren’t surreal enough, Sarah’s girlfriend Katie breaks out the dreaded phrase… “I love you.”  As her life begins to fall apart, first her relationship with Katie, then her job at the movie studio, and finally her blacksmithing career, Sarah hits rock bottom. It is at this moment, when she has lost everything she has prized, that one of the dragons makes their move. Suddenly what was unthinkable becomes all too real…and Sarah will have to decide if she can reject what is safe and become the heroine who is needed to save her world.

Museum of the Missing: A History of Art Theft
Simon Houpt

Priceless masterpieces...Brazen thefts: The true story behind the blank spaces on the museum walls. What kind of person would dare to steal a legendary painting--and who would buy something so instantly recognizable? In recent years, art theft has captured the public imagination more than ever before, spurred by both real life incidents (the snatching of Edvard Munch's well-known masterwork "The Scream") and the glamorous fantasy of such Hollywood films as "The Thomas Crown Affair." The truth is, according to INTERPOL records, more than 20,000 stolen works of art are missing--including Rembrandts, Renoirs, van Goghs, and Picassos. "Museum of the Missing" offers an intriguing tour through the underworld of art theft, where the stakes are high and passions run strong.

Original Sin: A Sally Sin Adventure 
Beth McMullen

In this hilarious debut, a former U.S. spy turned stay-at-home mother of a toddler tries to find a most elusive work-life balance when the USAWMD (United States Agency for Weapons of Mass Destruction) decides it desperately requires her services again, and calls her back into the field.

Prisoners in the Palace: How Victoria Became Queen with the Help of Her Maid, A Reporter, and A Scoundrel: A Novel of Intrigue and Romance
Michaela MacColl

London, 1838. Sixteen-year-old Liza's dreams of her society debut are dashed when her parents are killed in an accident. Penniless, she accepts the position of lady's maid to young Princess Victoria and steps unwittingly into the gossipy intrigue of the servant's world below-stairs as well as the trickery above. Is it possible that her changing circumstances may offer Liza the chance to determine her own fate, find true love, and secure the throne for her future queen?

So, which should it be? Lesbian fantasy? Literary non-fiction? Hilarious girl spy thriller? Or historical YA?

Feature and Follow Friday

Participating in all kinds of follow memes today, hoping to get back in the game.

Next comes Feature & Follow Friday hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.

This week's featured blogs:
 
The Book Addicted Girl
and
The Little Book Blog

This week's question: Let's step away from books for a second and get personal. What t-shirt slogan best describes you?

That's a hard question to answer as I purposely don't wear t-shirts with slogans on them. BUT, there is this absolutely adorable t-shirt sold in my friend's shop that I do occasionally sport. It's a chipmunk/squirrel creature his hands up (I think of it as a him) and the word bubble coming from his mouth says, "Books Rule!" That describes me to a...well...pardon the pun...T.

TGIF at GReads!

Participating in all kinds of follow memes today, hoping to get back in the game.

First up: TGIF at GReads!

This week's questions:

If you could be one character from a book, who would you choose & why?

I'm going to borrow this idea from the original post and also break this up into categories:

Historical
If you've been on my blog before, you're probably tired of hearing me talk about my favorite book, Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley. But here we go again, because I would most likely want to be her, despite going through the Civil War, various husbands, and let's not forget - corsets. She also gets to travel a lot of the country/world, ends up living in Ireland, has a head for business, is absolutely loaded, and ends up with Rhett Butler. Overall, I think pros outweigh the cons.

Contemporary
Just about any Nora Roberts character from the last 10 years. I love her strong women, overcoming the odds with a sense of humor, business savvy (can you tell I want to open my own business someday?), love of dogs, straight-talking honesty, and eventual partnership.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy
This category is a tie and I'm going to cheat just a little. Lt. Eve Dallas from the ...In Death series by J.D.Robb (a.k.a. Nora Roberts) may live in NY, but it's not like the NYC we know. Set in the future, with all kinds of advancements like flying cars, interplanetary travel, and legalized prostitution, and despite the trauma of her early childhood, who wouldn't love her former bad-guy turned bad-ass husband, ex-thief turned rock n' roll star best friend, and the satisfaction of being NYC's top murder cop? But, in terms of an actual fantasy world, Jacqueline Carey's Phèdre nó Delaunay (Kushiel series) has the most true grit, determination, beauty, sexual adventures, and smarts of any character I've ever read.

Children's
Last but certainly not least, in the children's book category, let's break this down by age-appropriate book type:
Picture book: Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney. Obviously I'd like to be Miss Rumphius, and hope I still can be someday. I just need to figure out what I can do to make the world more beautiful. I've got an idea. Stay tuned.
Middle Grade: Clementine (series) by Sara Pennypacker/illustrated by Marla Frazee. Precocious and intelligent, warm-hearted and artistic, she's not the easiest of children but her family and friends still love her.
YA: Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. Aside from being the heroine of my favorite YA, Taylor Markham has a gender-neutral name (which I love), a plucky attitude, a sense of fairness, and simultaneous emotional strength and vulnerability. She also has a secret past to figure out, a present adventure involving secret tunnels and school wars, and a future with people who care about her.

Friday Round-Up

Each week I round-up all the (mostly book-related) articles/blog posts/book reviews/websites/videos that entertained me during the week. Enjoy!

Children's Books

Absolutely gorgeous redesigned minimalist children's book covers by Christian Jackson featured on Flavorwire. You can also see them on his website here.

Reimagined children's book covers by various artists on this blog: Uncovered Cover Art.

100 Scope Notes (a children's lit news and review site) reports on School Library Monthly reporting on Red Hawk Elementary School's new library system.
A few elementary school libraries have begun to organize their books based on the bookstore model, also known as "WordThink", doing away with the Dewey Decimal system.
I am in favor and here's why:
1. It's elementary school. For those who respond that the children will grow up not knowing how the rest of the library world operates, they will have plenty of time to learn that in jr. high/middle school and high school.
2. It absolutely facilitates more reading based on interest. Particularly for those reluctant readers who may have been greatly surprised to find themselves enjoying a Harry Potter book or a Carl Hiasson novel, they can now pick another book off that section's shelf and risk possibly enjoying another, similar, read.
3. The purpose of school reports at that age are, in part, to teach the fundamentals of research. The fact that you can look up several books on your subject in one place might actually encourage a student to do MORE research for a project, as all the books are look, right there! By the time they've realized they've read three rather than two books on the subject, the project will practically have completed itself. Then when they're older and will have to run around the library looking up books on their subject based on call numbers, they might be more likely to look up a few more rather than just that one big one they found in that one spot.
That's just my unsolicited 2 cents. What's your opinion?

Download the first four chapters of fantastic fantasy from husband-and-wife team, Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis, Wildwood Chronicles (a middle grade novel being released August 30, 2011). Lots of extras on their website, in addition to the preview, like videos, music, and their blog.

In case you didn't get enough of this last week, I now present Werner Herzog reading Go the Fuck to Sleep at the NY Public Library (it's a short clip, not the whole reading).




Articles

I can't decide if this should go under "children's" or "articles", so here it is on the cusp of both. io9 presents "10 Creepy, Sexy Fairy Tales That Should Be Films". I believe they stretch the definition of "fairy tale" just a bit with some of their suggestions, but I understand the sentiment. I, personally, keep hoping for a live-action, Ang Lee-directed, Mulan with Ziyi Zhang, the amazing martial arts star/actress from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Mediabistro's GalleyCat has "Free Samples of the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction Longlist".

For something a little more lowbrow, take a gander at HuffPo's round-up of the "15 Most Ridiculous Book Titles Ever".

"A Whiff of History" is an article about capturing and recreating the smells of history, whether that's a 3,500-year-old perfume or the scent of an endangered flower. Why would I recommend this? Besides the obvious "learn something new every day" factor, these lines show the stretch I'm making between olfactory history and books:

"Perfumers like New York-based Christopher Brosius have used headspace to re-create less obvious smells, like the odor of an old fur coat or a well-worn paperback [this is the part where I interject and say, "And this is why I don't own an e-reader..."]. Their goal is an artistic one, but the same approach could serve as the beginning of a database. Imagine having a library of scents specific to a particular time or place, from the strangely sweet aroma of a plastic-wrapped CD case to the blend of horse dung and candy that permeates Boston’s Faneuil Hall."

"An institution called the Osmothèque, headquartered in Versailles, France, operates as a kind of Library of Congress of perfumes - a collection of historically important perfumes, in their original formulas, kept chilled in aluminum flasks."

Okay, it IS a bit of a stretch, but it's a really interesting read, either way. And as someone who is particularly sensitive to smells - and is probably the only person in the world to vehemently dislike the smell of lavender, tea tree oil, and patchouli - this article gave me a nice trip down my olfactory memory lane.

AAGH! The New Yorker has an article about a bookstore in Sag Harbor that has a...wait for it...it hurts to say...HIPSTER LIT section. I'm dying inside. Sorry self-identified hipsters, I'm just not that into you. Thank goodness there's only one book on this list that I love - High Fidelity by Nick Hornby - and so can still hold my head up. If you ARE into "hipster lit", Flavorwire has the ultimate "hipster lit" round-up.

The Daily Beast asked authors what their most favorite summer read was. Admittedly I only cared because I wanted to know what Sherman Alexie said (The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll), but some of you may care about the other books other authors recommended.

Speaking of Sherman Alexie, I signed up for his newsletter and occasionally I get emails with a poem that he wrote in it and it's the best part of my day when that happens. I highly recommend it.

Blogs/Websites/Magazines

Thanks to Ms. Emily Crowe over at As the Crowe Flies (and Reads!) for turning me on to these book posters that take the ENTIRE text of a book and put it on one page. Spineless Classics has done just that with several of your favorite books (including one of my favorites, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll). Other posters feature Dickens, Jane Austen, Black Beauty, and even the Bible.

Though Trashionista doesn't generally review books that are to my particular taste in reading (for those who like specifically women-oriented literary and non-literary fiction, this is the site for you), I would wear this dress they've featured.


On a related note, this article also points you to Spoonfulofchocolate's Etsy site, where "handmade book handbags and book e-reader covers" are sold.

Letterpress

A really exciting "moveable type" project is making its way to a city near you! (If you're in the States, that is.) Power & Light Press, despite sounding vaguely religious, is actually a letterpress studio based in Oregon. They've rigged up a movable type truck and are driving around the country bringing letterpress to the people. Find out all about it by clicking the highlighted links and watching this video.

Book Review: First Grave on the Right/Second Grave on the Left by Darynda Jones

First Grave on the Right
9780312662752, $21.99, St. Martin's Press

Second Grave on the Left
9780312360818, $21.99, St. Martin's Press, Pub. Date: August 16, 2011

by Darynda Jones

Stephanie Plum (of Janet Evanovich fame) meets the supernatural - hilarious, kick-ass, and sexy.

Charlotte (Charley) Davidson is the Grim Reaper, though she likes to replace the grim with sarcasm. Basically, she's the big shining beacon of light that all ghosts who neglect to cross over on their own are guided towards. Usually it's ghosts who have a reason to stay behind, for instance, because they've been murdered. That's where her day job comes in. Charley's also a PI (private investigator) and a "consultant" for the police department where her father was a cop and her uncle is still a detective. Between helping Uncle Bob solve crimes, working on her own PI cases, and helping ghosts receive closure before they pass over, Charley's plate is pretty full. Somehow she still manages to find time to find herself involved with one ridiculously gorgeous, bad-ass dude who may or may not have been shadowing her, and saving her from almost certain death, most of her life. While his corporeal body is in prison for the murder of his father (not that the abusive bastard didn't deserve it), his incorporeal self is visiting Charley in her dreams and then her waking moments, bringing heat of all kinds with him.

In First Grave on the Right, Charley is helping to solve the murder of three lawyers, also while working on a side project - trying to figure out just who, or what, that deliciously sexy man is who keeps slipping in-and-out of her day- and nighttime dreams. The lawyers were working to free an innocent man convicted of the murder of one teenage boy and the disappearance of his own nephew. Meanwhile, when she finds him, the man of her dreams (literally), happens to be in prison. In a coma. And has three days left before the state pulls his life support. With the help of her assistant, Cookie, several ghosts, and reluctantly working with hunky, skeptic, fellow PI Garrett Swopes, Charley tries to connect the dots between an abandoned warehouse, a human trafficking ring, a priest, the innocent man, the missing boys, and the lawyers. All while racing against the clock to find a way to save Reyes Alexander Farrow, the convicted murdered in a coma, who happens to appear very much awake and alive the several times he appears to either kiss her or save her life.

Read an excerpt here.

In Second Grave on the Left, Reyes Alexander Farrow (Mr. super-gorgeous, possibly evil, lifesaver - literally) has disappeared. Never mind he's hidden himself in an effort to protect Charley; she's found him once, and she'll find him again. Unfortunately Reyes isn't the only thing on her mind. Her assistant/best friend, Cookie, needs her help to find another missing person. An old high school friend of Cookie has gone missing, and the more they search, the more they find out about a long-buried high school secret among a an old group of friends. Unfortunately, someone out there is killing to make sure that secret stays buried. It's another race against the clock while Charley and Cookie search for the missing Mimi and the missing Reyes before they both end up dead.

Read an excerpt here.

Friday Round-Up

I'm going to be trying this new weekly post where I collect all the (mostly book-related) articles/websites/book recommendations from around the web/life in a given week and post them on Fridays. We'll see how well this goes. Here's this week's Friday round-up:

Children's Books

Lemony Snicket Recommends - this link kills two birds with one stone by introducing you to a fantastic blog, Dinner: A Love Story, and to David Handler's (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket, author of the Series of Unfortunate Events) summer reading children's picture book recommendations.

Christopher Walken reading The Three Little Pigs. An oldie but a goodie.


Book Trailer for Hugo, the movie based on the best-selling, Caldecott-winning Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Go read the book. Then watch the movie.

Samuel L. Jackson reads the children's book Go the Fuck to Sleep.

Quiz


Name the missing word in the book title quiz
I answered 38 of 42 missing words in these titles in 2 minutes, and can honestly say I'd never heard of the 4 titles I didn't know. How did you do?

Blogs/Magazines

"The Broship of the Ring" - a hipster take on The Lord of the Rings - on the art blog of Noelle Stevenson, A Girl and Her Demons

Better Book Titles
Discovered this a while ago and then forgot about, this blog is brilliant in summing up a book by giving it a new title. For instance, instead of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, blog creator Dan Wilbur suggests "Are We There Yet?" as its "better book title".

Persephone Magazine
-"a daily blog focused on topics of interest for modern, intelligent, clever women"

Articles

Flavorwire's "Take a Dip: Literary Greats in Their Bathing Suits" (not nearly as racy as I'd hoped).

Salon's "The Greatest Books That Never Were" (and basically any other article written by Laura Miller).

Not really book-y, more just nerd-y, but a fascinating article from GOOD on how technology is saving dying languages: "How Do You Save a Dying Language? Crowdsource It."

The Guardian's Top 10 Iranian Books list, as put together by author Kamin Mohammadi.
While you're at it, check out Ms. Mohammadi's new book, The Cypress Tree, which uses three generations of women — Ms. Mohammadi, her mother, and her grandmother — to tell Iran's history. Sadly for the Americans, it's only out in the UK right now.

The Guardian's "Famous for the Wrong Book" article, by John Self.
Okay, yes, obviously I love The Guardian's book articles. But, to chime in with my opinion, despite loving High Fidelity and Juliet, Naked, I actually prefer Nick Hornby's non-fiction, book-review-ish essays collected in a three-part series of books beginning with The Polysyllabic Spree. And though she's best known by Anthropology undergrads for her more academic treatise, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, my life would not have been complete without Anne Fadiman's essay collections, Ex Libris and At Large and At Small. Last but not least, though it's not quite the same, I will forever treasure Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley, the authorized sequel to Gone With the Wind, above and beyond anything Margaret Mitchell ever wrote.

Watch This

PBS documentary, Biblioburro: The Donkey Library about one school teacher's determination to bring books to children living in very rural, very remote, very dangerous parts of Colombia.

Guinea Pig Writers July Post

This month's theme at my writing group's blog - guineapigwriters.com - is travel and books.

Here are my two posts on this topic:
Post 1
Post 2

So far no one has answered the question, To what book do my post topic titles refer? Be the first and win the satisfaction that comes with knowing you've made me a happy blogger.

Waiting on Wednesday: Saints Astray by Jacqueline Carey

Waiting on Wednesday (WoW) is a weekly meme hosted by

Breaking the Spine.

My first and second WoW posts were about my guilty pleasure reading - romantic (often paranormal) paperback/mass market novels. My third and fourth WoW posts were YA (young adult) titles. My fifth and sixth WoW posts were about adult literary fiction. My middle grade WoW post is here. And now, featuring another guilty pleasure:

Saints Astray 

by Jacqueline Carey

9780446571425, Grand Central Publishing (Hachette), $14.99, Pub. Date: November 22, 2011 

Known for her (never-ending) Kushiel series, Saints Astray is the second book about Olivia, part super hero, part werewolf. Go here to read my review of the first book, Santa Olivia. This series is a mix of comic book superheros, post-apocalyptic ("near future") urban fantasy, and her signature heady romance - this time between two women.

Guinea Pig Writers: April

In this post months ago, with little fanfare and ado, I mentioned I was part of the Guinea Pig Writers.

This group of 12 (myself included) survived being the first cohort (hence the name guinea pigs) to graduate from the Simmons College MFA in Writing Literature for Children program in association with the Eric Carle Museum of Picturebook Art.

We have a website/blog where we post weekly on a monthly topic/theme (as well as other general posts).

April's theme is Spring. March's theme was mud. February's theme was love.

Here are my posts for February, March, and April - all relate to children's books in some way around those specific themes, but they also relate to other interests and life and...stuff.

I'll be posting a link to my post on that website each month. Hope you enjoy!

Board Book Round-up

This post was prompted by my friend Sarah who will soon have a new baby in her life. The new baby's parents have decided to ask for books instead of other gifts (brilliant idea), and I was thrilled to be Sarah's go-to for children's book advice. We decided that as other people were already gifting the baby with many classics old and new, Sarah would go with some contemporary board books (because as great as the Harry Potter series is, it's going to be a while until the kid gets to it). Here are my suggestions for recently published board books to give to a new baby:

I have to begin with Chronicle Books. They publish the "In My..." series of finger puppet books by talented collaborators Sara Gillingham and Lorena Siminovich. I wrote about my love for this series before in my mixed-media artist post.

Simms Taback is another artist whose board books Chronicle sells. A completely different type of style and design from mixed-media work, these books are genius in their simplicity, and can be used to grow with the baby.

Blue Apple Books, distributed by Chronicle, sells DwellStudio board books. Dwell is a designer baby boutique, and while normally I'm not into that sort of thing, I just love the look of these books.

More mixed-media board books are created by Kate Endle for Publishers Group West. I blogged about What is Green? and Who Hoo Are You? here.

Alison Jay does these gorgeous crackle-painting illustrations and has a few board books, like the one on the left, as well as 1,2,3 and ABC-themed with nursery rhyme-inspired pictures  (as well as a full-length Alice in Wonderland).


Going back through old posts of mine, I noticed an Ode to Christopher Wormell. While his woodcuts and darker color palate may not be to everyone's taste, I'm personally a fan, and would recommend picking up any one of the 4 books of his available in board book format.

Another ode I wrote was to Gyo Fujikawa, one of my all-time favorites from my own childhood. One of the first illustrators to include babies of all races in her work, her pictures are timeless classics, being slowly republished today by Sterling Publishing.

Matthew Van Fleet is published primarily by Simon & Schuster, and he creates incredibly interactive board books great for all baby/toddler ages. You can touch, feel, pull, look, hear, etc. everything about these chunky, funky board books.

The most recent board book review I wrote was about Patrick Hruby's ABC is for Circus. Read the review if you want to hear how much I gush over his design, color choice, and use of shapes & contrasts.

If you're looking for something a bit older, in 2010, I had a series of posts featuring my favorite picture books by season by publisher. Feel free to read those posts (listed below) for some picture book ideas.

Summer 2010 Harper Collins
Summer 2010 Random House
Summer 2010 Houghton Mifflin
Summer 2010 Simon & Schuster
Summer 2010 Workman
Summer 2010 Little Brown
Summer 2010 Scholastic
Summer 2010 Publishers Group West
Summer 2010 Candlewick
Summer 2010 Penguin
Summer 2010 Marshall Cavendish

Fall 2010 Random House
Fall 2010 HarperCollins
Fall 2010 Candlewick

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Wish Were Made Into Movies

The Broke and the Bookish, a brilliant book blog, 

hosts a weekly top ten list meme.

I like this meme because I like lists. I like this meme because it reminds me of the Top 5 lists from High Fidelity (by Nick Hornby as a book, starring John Cusak as a movie). And I like this meme because it causes me to think long and hard about book-related topics. So here goes:

Top Ten Books I Wish Were Made Into Movies 

1. Yes, this is my number 1 choice: Mulan. 

Before you throw the Disney version and its sequel, the 2009 Chinese film, and the rumored 2010/2011 3D Chinese film at me, let me clarify - I'd like an available in the United States, live-action version please. I'm not against Chinese films, I actually really enjoy them (side note: check out "In the Mood for Love," available on Netflix, it's just gorgeous), but unfortunately the two Chinese versions are not currently available in the States. Also, yes, you may bring up the point that the story of Mulan is technically a Chinese ballad, and therefore not really a book, though there have been a few book adaptations, most notably the one based on the Disney movie and one called Wild Orchid: A Retelling of "The Ballad of Mulan" by Cameron Dokey. Yet, I'd still like to plea that in an era of increasingly sappy, helpless, frankly moronic young female movie protagonists (you know I'm thinking of Twilight and the recent reproduction of Red Riding Hood), can't we get just one kick-ass, historically-based, gender-bending, family-honor-centered heroine? I don't think we've had one of those since a 26-year-old Angelina Jolie graced the screens as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. It's time.

2. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

This one may be cheating a little because technically I hear it's supposed to be coming out sometime in 2011, but I've yet to see a trailer for this baby. This 2008 Caldecott Award-winner had the movie rights purchased before the book was even published. Half film stills, half text, the novel isn't complete without reading both text and image. A neat bit of trivia about this book is that due to the amount of illustrations, the publishers had to use a cookbook binding for the book so that it would be able to lie flat, taking in the full affect of the pictures. So beautifully and fully envisioned, I can't wait to see what the movie will actually be like.

3. In Death (series) by J.D. Robb, aka Nora Roberts

Also cheating a bit - this is a serious of romantic murder mysteries set in the future that is so.freaking.good, I really wish they'd make a 10-season series of shows out of Eve Dallas, her oh-so-sexy Irish husband Roarke, her aide Detective Peabody, Peabody's co-hab McNab, and everyone else in this richly imagined, not-too-distant futuristic world.

4. Kushiel's Dart, Kushiel's Chosen, Kushiel's Avatar by Jacqueline Carey

They did it with Lord of the Rings, can't they do it again? The first trilogy in what's become so-far a 3-trilogy series is one of the most consuming set of novels I've ever read. Drawing on ancient history, religious history, politics, war, human relations, etc., Jacqueline Carey has created an incredible world, ridiculously intricate plots, a sexy, intelligent, courageous woman, and her equally sexy, dangerous, disciplined consort. If not three movies, than an HBO series for sure - and please don't skimp on the sex and violence.

5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

As my choices appear to be getting more bloodthirsty, let me calm things down by plugging one of my more recent (in the last few years) favorite-to-recommend reads. An epistolary novel that takes place right after World War II, I love that it's historical without being "Saving Private Ryan," it's letters are fulfilling without being "Message in a Bottle," and it's lighthearted enough that "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" comes to mind with that similar sense of time period costumes, music, glamor, and a hint of drama. It looks like I might get my wish, too, as there are rumors of this movie being "in development" this year. Who knows when we'll actually see a cast list, much less a trailer, though, so I'm still putting it on the list.

As usual, I'm switching things up a little: now I'd like to highlight what I think are great movie adaptations of some favorite books:

6. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, starring John Cusak

As I mention this book/movie at the beginning of every Top Ten Tuesday blog post, clearly this needs to be #1. Even as an American adaptation of a British book that's so steeped in British music folklore, the movie version totally nails it in terms of the feel of the plot itself. And what isn't John Cusak brilliant in?

7. M.A.S.H. by Richard Hooker, starring Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould

So quirky! All of it - the whistling, the talking over each other, the hijinks and shenanigans. Such a great period-piece.

8. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard, starring Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, and Richard Dreyfuss

Tom Stoppard wrote both the play and the movie script (shocker, I know) - the play I love to read just as a book, and the movie is one of my favorites to fall asleep to. It's almost a full 2 hours and it's not really action-packed but in that way that has so many layers of meaning. It's a great rainy day afternoon in the background while I'm cooking or crafting film.

Here is a book I loved but have yet to see the movie because I'm too chicken:

9. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, starring Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft, and Judi Dench

I know, I know, with a cast like that, what the heck am I waiting for? Maybe I'll finally gather up my courage to watch it this weekend.

Lastly, please stop making movie adaptations of this book because you'll just never be able to capture it on film:

10. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Ignore both the British, low production quality film unless you want a good laugh, and its 2005 remake unless you're playing a drinking game where you take a shot every time someone with big star power (John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Mos Def, Bill Nighy) is on screen and that still doesn't make the movie any better.

Book Review: House of Dolls by Francesca Lia Block, illustrated by Barbara McClintock

House of Dolls
by Francesca Lia Block, illustrated by Barbara McClintock
9780061130946, HarperCollings, $15.99

Known for being poetic and surreal while featuring elements from the real world, Francesca Lia Block's latest, House of Dolls, is lovingly illustrated and difficult to sell. Its charming trim size and brightly-colored cover make it appeal to a picture book audience, but the length of the text will make it hard for most children under the age of 8 to sit through. 

This reads as an ambitious project, tackling many tough subjects, filtered through the lens of three female dolls, two boyfriend doll-counterparts, and one human girl. The subtle themes of love and loss, family relations, and the larger context of wartime struggles may require some explaining to a younger reader. It is difficult to see quite how the human characters arrive at the ending they do, when the connecting piece is so clearly missing. Part of the story deals with the human girl's jealousy over the gorgeous doll clothes sewn by her grandmother. At a pivotal point in the book, one doll designs three dresses for herself and her doll friends - this would have been the perfect moment to draw a fourth dress for the little girl, giving the grandmother a clue that she wants to be involved. While the grandmother does eventually make a dress for her granddaughter, it's a stretch of the imagination to see how she comes to this conclusion. Perhaps the author, in signature style, felt that obvious a plot point did not fit with her writing, but as a reader, it would have helped.

The delightful, delicate, and intricately detailed illustrations are classic McClintock, and lend an air of charm to an otherwise heavily-burdened book that tries to do too much at once.

TGIF - Book Tears

Fridays seem to be a popular day for memes. Two of my favorites are:

Literary Blog Hop by The Blue Bookcase and
Book Blogger Hop by Crazy-for-Books

Unfortunately neither of these blogs are hosting their weekly memes (as of this writing, maybe they will later in the day), so I went looking for a new thoughtful Friday question.

Luckily, I happened upon GReads! with the TGIF question:

Book Tears: Do you get emotional when you read? Which books had you in tears?

I am roughly 10 times more likely to cry at books and movies than in real life. In fact, if I know I need a certain type of emotional release, I've been known to pop in a vid or pick up a book that is guaranteed to make me start shedding those tears that would otherwise never see the light of day (or the bedside lamp at 2 a.m.).

The first book I remember making me cry was Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery. I won't give away any spoilers, but as we all know, when there's a war going on (like there is in Rilla), some go away to fight and some never come back. It was such a pivotal moment in my life when I realized I was absolutely heartbroken, just like Rilla, and I had the ability to release those emotions like that.

Since then, I relish a good crying book, to the point where there are some I'll read at least once a year just to reassure myself that connection is still there. I may win an award for how many times I can mention the same book throughout one blog, but Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta makes me literally sob - not that pretty, just one or two tears running down your cheeks, movie sort of crying, but the going through an entire box of tissues, can't read for the fountain of tears pouring from your eyes, having your roommate knock on the door to ask if you're okay type of crying. Every. Single. Time.

Truth & Beauty by Anne Patchett also had me in tears, in a big part because this is a work of non-fiction, and the love and friendship and grief and reckoning described throughout the book is made so much more powerful by the fact that it is a true story.

I honestly can't remember the last book that made me cry. Maybe it's just Friday morning-almost-the-weekend brain, because I'm pretty sure I cried at one fairly recently, and they were happy tears, too, though admittedly I'm more likely to sad-cry than happy-cry. Maybe it will come to me. If it does, I promise to report back to you.

I'm curious - are you more likely to sad-cry or happy-cry?

Top Ten Tuesday: Redesigning Book Covers

The Broke and the Bookish, a brilliant book blog, 

hosts a weekly top ten list meme.

I like this meme because I like lists. I like this meme because it reminds me of the Top 5 lists from High Fidelity (by Nick Hornby as a book, starring John Cusak as a movie). And I like this meme because it causes me to think long and hard about book-related topics. So here goes:

Top Ten Book Covers I Wish I Could Redesign

1. First and foremost, one of my favorite books of all time: A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter. 

Let's take a look at some of the horrendous covers this book has been saddled with over time (to the left & right):

SNORE.

Now let's take a look at the cover I redesigned for it in a class in grad school (thanks to the incomparable Sandy Littell for her design and technical expertise/assistance!):

 Wouldn't you pick up a book with a beautiful cover like that?!? (Click to enlarge.)

2. This one is actually my favorite book of all time: Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley. This is the only book cover this book has ever had, and while I'm impressed it was originally a NYTimes bestseller (when it was first published in 1991), the book would definitely have benefited from a cover redesign when it was re-released in 2010.


Honestly, other than those two, I don't have many covers I would redesign. Instead, I'll bring up other cover thoughts to make it to my 10 books.

3. Biggest personal disappointment with a series repackaging: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, illustrated by Keith Thompson. Love the original cover with the steampunk gears and the raised, embossed feel of the cover; dislike the rebranding with the character's face on the front.

4. If it's a book for a woman, it must have pink on the cover. I think that's a not-so-subtle industry motto. Here's the biggest example: Knock Yourself Up: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom by Louise Sloan. As a potential single mother by choice, I was really inspired by this book, and appreciate the stories, advice, and down-to-earth approach to an incredibly difficult life choice. However, did the cover have to be bright, freaking, hot pink? I understand most men would not be drawn to this book in the first place, but much like there isn't one type of motherhood for women, why does there need to be this stereotypical gendered pink cover? If you're going to publish a thought-provoking book about choosing single motherhood, why not continue that outside-the-box thinking with a well-designed, original, cover? Humph.

Now I will switch to discussing some book covers I absolutely adore.

First, a mini-ode to Penguin Group.

5. Penguin Inks. Penguin really does have one of the best design departments in the industry, in my humble opinion, warring closely with Chronicle Books in San Francisco. Their Penguin Inks series is inspired - hire tattoo artists and artists who create tattoo-like art to redesign selected paperback fiction covers. Click here to read more about the collection at the Penguin Ink website.

6. Penguin Classics: Couture Classics. Another genius idea to jazz up the classics to reach a wider audience. What teenager could resist this Wuthering Heights? All the covers are designed by Cuban-born artist and fashion designer Ruben Toledo. To read more about him, go here and here. To see the entire collection, click here.

7. Penguin Classics: Hardcover Classics. The talented Coralie Bickford-Smith, senior cover designer at Penguin, is the creator of the gorgeous patterned linen cloth covers in the hardcover classics series. Forget the matching red leather spines, imagine a whole set of these on your bookshelf. Read more about the series here.

8. As I mentioned Chronicle earlier, it would be remiss of me not to highlight some of their books. A recent favorite of mine is Prisoners in the Palace by Michaela MacColl. Though I've seen it in person, I've yet to get my hands on a copy to read, so I can't speak to the writing yet (though I suspect it's great). Normally I'm not one of those "Ooh, shiny!" types of people, but the Andy Warhol-esque pop art cover completely grabbed me. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble uploading a picture, so click on the title to take you to the Chronicle webpage.

I think I'll stop there, as I haven't completely followed today's "assignment" anyway. Enjoy.

Book Review: Burning Bright: Stories by Ron Rash

Burning Bright: Stories
by Ron Rash
9780061804120, Ecco Press (HarperCollins), $12.99

Though I had every intention of attending his appearance at Harvard Book Store last month, I'm afraid in the end I missed it. I did, however, finish reading his book on the day of the event. Despite my missed attendance, everything else about this book was the perfect set of circumstances. I walked into the library and saw it in front of me on the shelf. I read a little bit of it every morning and afternoon on the T to-and-from work, and finally finished it the day of the event. Short stories are a favorite form of mine, so I was even more thrilled to be reading this collection by one of my favorite southern authors (Dorothy Allison being another).

Overall, Burning Bright is a collection of thoughtful, evocative, charming, and quick reads. The language is not wasteful of words but is also fully descriptive. Speech in dialect normally drives me up a wall, but in this case fits naturally with the Appalachian setting. I think the word "raw" is often overused, but that quality comes from the stark lives of the characters; much like the words used to describe them, there is no flash–no excess–in their living. What little happiness or advantage appears in their lives is so unexpected and often burdened that you question whether it's worth it.

For instance, an older woman, widowed, marries a young outsider. The community that should have taken care of her now questions not only her relationship, but if her new husband is the one setting the recent rash of forest fires.
In another story, a young man, burdened by the hospital bills for his mother, agrees to grave robbing for Civil War artifacts. Though his mother's bills get paid, he'll have nightmares of what happened that night for the rest of his life.

The portrayal of modern day poverty leading to drug usage in that historical a setting was especially meaningful.

A pawn broker takes family matters into his own hands: Who is worth saving? His brother? His nephew?
Two loving yet meth-addicted parents struggle to provide a Christmas for their son while coming down off a high. The son provides momentary salvation for them by secretly stealing pawnable items from a plane crash, but is the quick fix worth the ultimate sacrifice?

From historical to modern day, these brief slice-of-life moments offer a powerful glimpse into one view of Appalachian society.

For more Ron Rash, read my review of his novel, Serena, here.