the best part

Today is my last day at work before 11 glorious days of vacation. I'm driving (now that I have a new and reliable car--the fair Minerva) up to Duluth for a few days to rest, read and watch the waves on Lake Superior roll by. I haven't even thought of the clothes I'm going to pack but I have picked out my books! I'm taking a little cozy romance by Eva Ibbotson (purchased in London in 2000 and still unread!), Adam of the Road (a long-ago Newbery winner) and E.L. Konigsburg's The second Mrs. Gioconda (guess what that one is about...). I'm taking a bright and cheerful picnic basket (good old Target comes through again) full of books, magazines and crossword puzzles. Also, the long unfinished counted cross-stitch of the New York skyline which will include the World Trade Center because it still existed when the kit was new oh so many years ago. I'll think about what else I need when I am packing on Sunday night.

I'm so excited!!!!

The "Lucky U" copy of Philippa Gregory's The White Queen arrived at the library today and it is going home with me tonight! In spite of my obsessive checking for new titles by my favorite authors, this one slipped under my radar and I ended up #72 on the hold list. Pout, pout. But now it is in my hot little hands and will be read as soon as I get my comfortable clothes on when I get home! Yippee skippy!

I can't wait to go to bed with my book

Because there are no more books to come, I've spent the summer rereading Harry Potter. I'm just starting to read about the third task in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I've enjoyed all of the books immensely though I must admit the first two seem pretty slim and unremarkable compared to the later books--what was all of the fuss about? It is such fun to read them back to back, while my memory is still fresh. Knowing how the series ends, I can now see clues in the earlier books. J.K. Rowling really did do something amazing with these books.

Last night, I read about the madness of Bartimeus Crouch, something I had completely forgotten. The movie changed that part of the story substantially and it, unfortunately, had a bigger part of my remembrances than the book which was first read oh so long ago. I also glorified Snape in my mind because he is played by the glorious Alan Rickman whose snear is so endearing (and attractive). And Dumbledore is ditzier, more like Michael Gambon's portrayal than the grave and ancient Dumbledore of Richard Harris (remember, I've had a crush on him since I was 12 years old).

All in all, a delightful reading experience.

after a long wait, a wonderful book

A friend at church recommended that I read "The latehomecomer: a Hmong family memoir" by Kao Kalia Yang, a Minnesota Book Award winner which she had really enjoyed reading. I requested the book once I got back to the library and, after a long, long wait, I finally got the book last week. I had to finish "Backstage with Julia: my years with Julia Child" by Nancy Verde Barr (I was doing my background reading before seeing the movie with the glorious Meryl Streep) so I finally got to start it over the weekend.

I was a little unsure if I would like it after reading the prologue (I was very put off by the writing style used), but once I started the actual story, I was hooked. Ms. Yang's parents were born in Laos and were newly married when the Laotian government decided to kill all of the Hmong people. They lived in the jungle with her father's family, running from the soldiers, constantly hungry and fearing for their lives. Under gunfire, the family, excluding one uncle and his family, escaped to Thailand and a U.N.-operated refuge camp. The story continues through their stay in the camp and their move to the United States.

Ms. Yang's writing is beautiful--I feel like I am there, a part of the story. Again, I am so grateful for my life of ease and plenty. I am also thankful that Ms. Yang has chosen to share her story for it is definitely worth reading.

huge crush (I mean HUGE)

I love cooking programs. If I had cable TV, I'd be nose to the screen with Food-TV all day long. Mercifully, TPT has a station that show cooking programs every evening from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. I allow myself complete slugdom on Tuesday evening and watch all of the programs. Heaven. My absolute favorite is the glorious Jacques Pepin. I wouldn't eat anything he prepares (when you look up "fussy eater," it says Carol the Reader) but I love to watch him cook, look at him and listen to that lovely French accent. Sigh....

I have now read several chapters of Katherine Darling's Under the table: saucy tales from culinary school, Ms. Darling's memoir/expose/whine about attending Jacques Pepin's French Culinary Institute in New York City. I am living her adventures from the comfort of my newly-mattressed bed (I feel like I'm staying in a hotel since the bed just doesn't feel like it's mine yet), happy to not be swathed in a polyester uniform (you know, the checked pants, long-sleeved and high-collared jacket and the neckerchief) in an un-air-conditioned kitchen. I've read about poaching eggs, making omelets and all things egg--each student is given 3 dozen eggs at the beginning of the session and must produce a perfect example of each cooked form of egg (imperfect samples are gulped down before the teacher notices and comments on the failure). I would imagine that learning to perfect a recipe would put you off eating it for a long, long time.

So far, she hasn't said anything to burst my bubble about Monsieur Pepin--heaven help her if she does!

(This weekend (I was under the weather so reading was the perfect activity) was a bonanza of wonderful reading: I finished The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, the companion book to Shadow of the Wind which is one of my all-time favorites. A fabulous read. I'm also well along in Home Safe written by Elizabeth Berg, my favorite grown-up author. She hooks me from the first word and I love and care for her characters and her words--there are always little phrases to savor and remember. Plus I read an entire issue of Vanity Fair magazine!)

at long last

One of my favorite books ever is Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind, a magical and mysterious book that is not to be put down until finished. In Franco's Spain, Daniel is eleven years old when his father takes him to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books and tells him to choose a book. Daniel chooses a book: Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax. He reads and rereads the book and then asks his friend the bookseller for more books by the same author. The bookseller tells him that someone else is also asking for books by Julian Carax and is destroying them. Daniel is determined to find out why the books are being destroyed as well as find more books before they can be destroyed. Several years of his life are spent unraveling the mysteries of Julian Carax.

I was captivated from the first page and absolutely devoured this book. I wanted everyone I know to read the book, I recommended it to everyone who came to me for a recommendation, even if it didn't fit their reading interests at all! Imagine my delight (joy! elation! anticipation!) when my library cohort the Floating Lust, er, Lush (sorry!) told me there was a companion book coming soon. I checked the library's catalog and there was the book. I requested it and waited and waited and waited. Last week the book arrived! I raced to finish the two books I was reading and, at last, this morning started reading the new book.

The Angel's Game is about David Martin, the unwanted son of a mother who deserted her family and a father who abused him. His father is murdered in front of David's eyes and, with no other family and nowhere to go, David is hired by his father's employer and becomes the office boy at a newspaper. When he is in his late teens, the editor of the newspaper offers David the chance to write a serial fiction column to fill the last page of the newspaper. David writes a lurid murder series that becomes very popular with customers but makes David very unpopular with his coworkers, who envy his success. Soon, the editor bows to pressure and fires David. Jobless, he turns to a wealthy friend who has made arrangements with two seedy publishers to give him a chance to write cheap thrillers and crime books. David jumps at the chance since the money they offer him is beyond his hopes and dreams.

I've read about six chapters and, just like The Shadow of the Wind, I've been hooked since the first word. I can't wait to go home tonight and stretch out on the daybed with book in hand and lose myself in the Barcelona of the 1920s. Doesn't that sound perfect?

back to enjoying a book

I've been reading The forgotten garden by Kate Morton. It has a gorgeous cover of a little cottage in a flower-filled garden. Its endpapers are an illustration by the legendary Arthur Rackham. Both are clues that a reading adventure lies between the covers. I read and read and read and I was still on page 78 after a week. Since there is a long waiting list for the book, I could only check it out for two week and the end of the second week was fast approaching. So what did I do? I gave up. Too many storylines, too many character viewpoints, too slow, too slow, too slow. (I'm at the point in my reading life where I don't feel obligated to read everything that I start--there are plenty of books waiting that I will enjoy. Try it, it's very liberating!)

So, yesterday I started two new books--one in my purse, one on my bedside table--and they both look to be winners!

My bedside book is Silver Phoenix: beyond the kingdom by Cindy Pon. I've read three chapters about Ai Ling, a seventeen-year-old girl who is approached by several young men, but can't get a betrothal from any of them. This is fine with her but her parents are unhappy that none of the young men see the value and beauty of their beloved daughter. Her father, a former servant to the Emperor, returns to the Imperial palace on a mysterious, but, he hopes, short trip which stretches into a year's time. Ai Ling, to avoid the unwanted attentions of a lecherous merchant, decides to go to the Imperial city to find her father. I can't wait to see what happens next.

My purse book is Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith. Set in the early 1940s, Pearl Harbor has just been bombed and America is at war. Young Ida Mae, an African American girl in her late teens, longs to be a pilot. She knows how to fly but, due to her race and her sex, she cannot be licensed for solo flight. Her goal is to go to Chicago where there is a flight school run by and intended for African Americans but doesn't know how to accomplish her dream without her mother's support and approval which are not forthcoming. Ida Mae is fairskinned and could pass as white--what will she decide to do?

So the question is, why do some book grab your interest at the first word and you read effortlessly and happily while others slog along and you never get anywhere?