What's up this week?

Another lesson learned: I am perceptibly getting older.  My birthday is coming up later this month, and when I look at my sheer lack of resilience in the face of young people things, I know that I am becoming old.  When I stay out late a single night, my schedule is irreversibly fucked up for a week or more.  I become a night creature who can neither force herself to go to sleep earlier nor stay up until the next night to make herself tired, the latter of the two being my usual go-to.  And when I finally crawl out of bed the next day at 1 in the afternoon, I feel like death.  I am not a morning (afternoon) person at all.  I just sit there, feeling ill and foul and grumpy for hours if I don't force myself to make me some coffee, and lord forbid if anyone talks to me before then.

What bothers me the most about being helpless to correct my sleep schedule is that the rest of the world closes at 4 pm, so by the time I drag my ass off the couch and get dressed, things are winding down for everyone else.  I keep trying to get to the doctor for some walk-in blood work, but I can only fit in so many things before 4 after waking up so late.

I can't handle liquor anymore, and I get hangovers now.  And  EVERYTHING gives me heartburn.  I can't even have the odd bit of raw onion on a sandwich every now and then without suffering like a sinner in Hell.  Sometimes it's so bad that the pain keeps me up all night, or all morning rather, because I can't get to bed before 4 or 5 am.  I have to sleep with Tums and Pepto by the bed.  Pretty sure I have developed acid reflux in my old age, but I don't want to have to endure the esophageal probing to be diagnosed.

And the allergies, omfg, the allergies.  They never used to be this way.  I cannot exit the house without a Claritin, and if I make the mistake of doing so, my ears stop up.  I cannot hear anything, and I just wander around, grumpy af, aiming my ear at things I'm trying to listen to.  It basically cancels out human interaction, because I can't follow a conversation like a human.
First world problems, people.

Bleh, I said I wouldn't rant this week.  Well, I'm not particularly grumpy, just wish I could get on a slightly normal schedule.  Or eat an onion.  And the climb toward 25 doesn't fill me with mortal dread anymore, so woot about that.

Like a give a fuck

So I've begun planning for my birthday party, so excited over here!  It's going to be Harry Potter themed.  I'm going to make treats from the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, decorate in the colors of the four Hogwarts houses, and have an epic Potter movie marathon.  Also, Quidditch Beer Pong is a thing, and it is going to be at my party, both to satisfy my love for Harry Potter-themed party games and to entertain my husband and his buddies who love beer pong like a brother (I don't get it).  The game will be played OUTSIDE, and people better stay off the lawn...

What am I reading?

Lord, I wish it was something else, but I'm reading The Chamber by John Grisham.  It is just seems to go on forever, and I'm just so sick of his shit right now.  The man is not writing lawyery crime books or even touching lawyer-type general fiction stuff; he is writing complaints about the penal system and the poor state of society under the guise of badly written stories.  The protagonists in his books absolutely lack souls; they exist only to facilitate his epicly long lectures on how everything is fucked up and everyone is too much of a selfish fuck to care.  It is like those episodes of Law and Order: SVU that go on and on, but in the end, the bad guy gets away or the good guy gets raped/killed because of the failures of society and the law.  It's like that, but it's so much longer than an hour.

Also, there's none of this

I know he's very popular and all, but there are lots of popular writers that suck.  And he sucks.  Or at least the lawyery novels he became famous for do.  I actually liked Bleachers, but more about that in a second.  His subject has potential, but his stories are bad.  Sure, people should be made aware of the problems he addresses and made to question the morality of turning a blind eye to the plight of the homeless or death row inmates; I'm all for that aspect of his books.  However, the man cannot write a good story or good characters, no matter how much he obviously is trying.  If he spent more time focusing on writing relevant events into the story to teach the lesson rather than unabashedly lecturing about it page after page, he might just change the world.  But as it is, he has only succeeded in making me irritated at his style and frustrated that he didn't do a better job at his attempt to raise awareness.

But I suppose that his lawyer books are an easy read and an easy way to draw people in at the airport unsuspectingly and teach them a lesson.  However, I think that if a denizen of airport paperbacks, looking for some entertainment, were to read one of his books, it could go one of two ways: they might become either enlightened or bored.  Bored like when the teacher is lecturing angrily about something you've never heard of that you will forget the moment you leave the room.  And they would never come back to learn any more lessons.

For me, his veil of fiction is just too thin, and it makes his works unprofound where there is so much room to be profound indeed.  He wants to get his message out there, but at his core, he is a lawyer first and an author of fiction second.  For anything good to come out of a writer, they must be a writer first when writing.  Because he is a writer second and a lawyer first, his lesson is well fleshed out, but his fiction is wrapped poorly and thinly around it and never comes to its potential.
BUT THEN AGAIN, maybe he knows that his audience of bad paperback connoisseurs  aren't exactly profound people themselves and would understand the direct approach better.

Although I've only read a handful of his books, I don't think he ever came into his own as a writer until one of his most recent, Bleachers, which has absolutely zero to do with lawyering and is actually very relatable, especially for someone who grew up in the Southern football culture.


What is my current muse?

I thought that reading some more modern fiction would get me out of it, but it didn't: I'm completely obsessed with everything 1920s.  I love the people and everything they did, touched, lived, wore.  I love their haughty, jaded attitudes, their vampy makeup, their unusual and experimental fashion, their slang, their music, their hair, their drinks, their homes, their writing...  Eee, I have to go roll around with glee just thinking about it.

Appropriate gif is appropriate

I'm eating up pictures, poetry, magazine articles, magazine covers, books, catalogs, biographies of celebrities, art, fashion plates, anything I can find.  It's all beautiful.  I've been obsessed with this era before, and I'm ready to be again.  A very long time ago, I wrote a serial short story that took place during prohibition called "The Black Dog," and I always thought it could be better.  I think that this is a great time to either look at that story again or start something new and special.  One idea that occurred to me involved an apartment or flat haunted by a '20s girl.  I won't reveal any more of that one's plot, because I think it has a lot of potential and I fear plagiarism like I fear death.

While all this '20s stuff is on my mind, I'll try to make it a point to share some of what I've found in a Writspo post, because I know it will be appreciated.  It's all so good, how could it not be?!  If you know of any movies, books, poems, or anything else from the era that I absolutely must see, don't hesitate to share in the comments!

Buy a copy of Portzline's book here

So I've always been one to fall in love with the book stores I go to, and sometimes I'll even travel quite a ways just to visit the special ones.  That's why I'm so captivated by this fairly new concept of bookstore tourism.

So what is this thing?  Bookstore tourism is where you, either by yourself or with a group of other bibliophiles, make a particularly interesting bookstore your travel goal and then, well... travel to it.  The self-styled originator of bookstore tourism and author of Bookstore Tourism, Larry Portzline, says on his website that the goal of bookstore tourism is to support independent bookstores by promoting them as a travel destination.  Portzline himself used to lead "bookstore road trips" to New York, where the 50 people aboard his chartered bus would visit about 20 independent booksellers in Greenwich Village.

Now we all know that independent bookstores are now more than ever in need of customers and the boost that bookstore tourism can offer, what with the advent of the e-book and all.  I've seen a lot of unique and interesting bookstores, and it would be a terrible, terrible shame if any of them were to go out of business.  Because I know that they would appreciate me pointing you in their direction and because I think it would be super fun do some of my own bookstore touring, I'm going to start highlighting one independent bookstore each month!  Who's else is excited?!

I couldn't resist throwing this in to express the excitement

Each bookstore that I post about will have something truly wonderful about it that makes it worth traveling to reach.  I'll give you information on all my old favorites, plus some new ones that I hope to visit especially for this blog (I hear Nashville has some awesome bookstores).  I'd also like to post about some of the really beautiful ones all around the world, even though I might never see them all in person. Be looking out for June's bookstore in my next post!

But if you just can't wait that long to read about amazing bookstores, you can pay a visit to Travel Between the Pages, a blog I found while researching this post.  There are tons of posts on bookstore tourism, but really all of the posts on the blog are fascinating and worth a read.


 Until next time, happy reading and happy travels!

Portrait of Juana Mariataken after rescue

Many of us encountered Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell in elementary and middle school, but I honestly never knew before today that it was based on a true story.  Apparently, the Newbery Medal winning book that tells the story of Karana, a Native American girl who survives for years stranded on the island formerly inhabited by her people, is based on the real-life survival story of a woman named Juana Maria, better known as the "Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island."  I was especially fond of survival stories and stories about befriending animals when I was a kid, so I absolutely ate this book up.  I even remember playing pretend with my friends that we were stranded on the same island as Karana.  To find out that the events depicted in the children's novel actually took place (more or less) just gets me over the top giddy!

Juana Maria's story and its popularity with young readers in the form of O'Dell's novel made San Nicolas Island and the Channel Islands off the coast of California famous.  It also inspired Navy archaeologist, Steven Schwartz, to search the island, which is now a Navy base designed to track missiles.  After investigating the island for more than 20 years, Schwartz and his team believe that they have found the very cave in which the Lone Woman lived!

Archaeology student inside the cave, courtesy of LA Times

According to the Los Angeles Times article on the find, because there was no known cave on the tiny island in which the Lone Woman might have stayed, Schwartz concluded that the cave must have collapsed and been buried.  When he acquired a government survey map dated 1879 that pinpoints the location of an "Indian Cave," he knew that this was the place to dig.  When more than 40,000 buckets of sand were removed from the cave, relics from the Juana Maria's time were discovered.  There was also a separate discovery of two redwood boxes held together with tar at some nearby cliffs.  The two boxes hold more than 200 stone blades, harpoon points, bone fishhooks and other tools, and Schwartz speculates that they may have been placed there by the Lone Woman, who was known to stash useful things all around the island.

In light of this awesome discovery, I'm definitely going to have to do a reread of Island.  It's been a very long time since I've read it, and I can't wait!  I'll be sure to post on here about my reread, just as soon as I plow through this very bleh John Grisham book I'm reading.  If you'd like to join me in reading Island of the Blue Dolphins, you can buy yourself a copy, new or used, by clicking here or by going to the Shop tab at the top of the page.  Also, here's a link to the Wikipedia article on Juana Maria for anyone interested in the story of the actual woman who inspired the book.

Yesterday, June 12th, marked what would have been Anne Frank's 84th birthday.  It was also on this day in 1942 that Anne Frank received a diary for her 13th birthday and wrote the very first entry in it.  The life she wrote within those pages has touched millions of people across the globe, not just as a chronicle of the terror of the Holocaust but as a candid look into the life of a teenage girl trying to understand herself. 

The first page of Anne's diary, courtesy of AnneFrank.org

Recently, a mother in Northville, Michigan, filed a complaint, demanding that the definitive, unedited version of Anne's diary be banned by the school district for its, well, frank language when talking about sexual matters.  Here is one passage that has her worked up:

"Until I was eleven or twelve, I didn't realize there was a second set of labia on the inside, since you couldn't see them. What's even funnier is that I thought urine came out of the clitoris…When you're standing up, all you see from the front is hair. Between your legs there are two soft, cushiony things, also covered with hair, which press together when you're standing, so you can't see what's inside. They separate when you sit down and they're very red and quite fleshy on the inside. In the upper part, between the outer labia, there's a fold of skin that, on second thought, looks like a kind of blister. That's the clitoris."

Anne's writing desk in the Annex, courtesy of AnneFrank.org

Well, this is quite a description.  When read in this blunt block quote without truly appreciating the context or the young girl who wrote it, it is easy to see why someone might become uncomfortable.  However, I have two points to make about why it would be wrong to remove this passage or any other passage like it.

The sexual content in this book is of the nature of a young person being curious about sex, as every
young person is around this age.  In her diary, Anne is has depicted her own self-discovery, and part of discovering herself is discovering her sexuality and sexual identity.  Everyone goes through this at some point, and to censor Anne is to deprive today's young readers the opportunity to see that being curious about sex and one's anatomy isn't freakish; it is something everyone goes through and is completely normal.  It removes the guilt that might be associated with wondering such things, and it gives young people the opportunity to learn a little of what Anne learned without having to ask an embarrassing question. Anne even describes giving the "sex talk" to her crush, Peter, who has questions himself.

To remove these sorts of things is to also to remove a part of Anne and to make her seem other than she really is, to place her on a pedestal of sainthood.  It removes her humanity and her realness.  Editions leaving out Anne's more racy entries aren't depicting the real Anne but a false version of her altered to conform to society's mores.

Secondly, removal of sexual content from school books in order to "protect" children doesn't actually protect them; it instead makes them more vulnerable.  In places where young teens don't receive proper sexual education that helps them understand the process and the risks and are instead told only to abstain from sex in order to protect themselves from pregnancy and STDs, rates of HIV contraction and unplanned pregnancy are higher.  Let me just throw this chart up there for you:

Source

When teens, who are going to probably become sexually active whether adults like it or not, are uniformed about sex, they are unable to make informed decisions regarding it.  Censoring what Anne says about female anatomy amounts to pretending that it doesn't exist and telling children to just stay away from it.  It is overall unwise and unhealthy to suppress what a young girl has to say about her own questions about sex and the answers she found.  Pretending sex, sexuality, and sexual anatomy don't exist doesn't make them go away.

But this story has a happy ending.  I honestly can say I've never been prouder of our education system than at this moment, even if it was only one school district.  Instead of giving in to the pressure of uninformed parents, which has been a regrettable trend among states and school districts over the past several years, Northville Public School officials have stated that they will not remove the book.  Their reasoning?  Taking away the unedited version amounts to censorship.  If only certain portions of a book are banned, it changes the book altogether and presents it as something it's not, like those idiotic editions of Huckleberry Finn that censor the n word.  This is fundamentally wrong, and these school officials see that.

If you've not been fortunate enough to read the unedited version of Anne's diary, it really is an enlightening treat.  Anne becomes almost a whole new girl; she even has a period, talks candidly about the subject of sex, and forms sometimes harsh opinions about the people around her and their choices.  If you'd like to have a copy for yourself, new or used, just click here or look under the Shop tab at the top of the page.  Happy reading, and don't ever let book banning stop you!

I bet you all know why I wrote about this book.  Just look at the cover; it's easy to guess.  Just like The Sweetheart of Prosper County, there is a rooster on it.  I know a lot of people don't like romance novels or take them seriously, but they are my guilty pleasure.  So how could I resist a romance novel with a rooster on it?

When Amy Klasse loses her job at the local TV station because she's been replaced by a dancing chicken, she is lucky enough to receive a chivalrous offer from Jake Elliot, the local veterinarian, to be his receptionist.  However, the ensuing romance between them is anything but smooth.  When the very dancing rooster that stole her job disappears from the clinic where she now works, she's suspected of foul play (GET IT?).   Their romance evolves as they search together for a way to prove her innocence.

This book was a little hard for me to sit down and write about actually.  When I first started reading it and it was revealed to me that the leading lady was a virgin, I was all ready to jump down Evanovich's throat about being a female author who promotes society's virginity fetish in her work.  However, not wanting to make any rash judgements, I just kept reading.  About halfway through the book, I decided that the author must be trying to empower women who have made the choice to remain a virgin and wait for the right person to come along.

HOWEVER.

By the end of the book, I realized that the author had no intentions at all.  She's not promoting the virginity fetish, she's not empowering virgins, she's simply being entertaining.  She has an interesting writing style.  Not amazing (well, maybe amazing for a paperback romance author), just interesting.  After reading the book, I realize that she is a person who uses her gut to write; she embodies the feelings she feels and the feelings women everywhere feel in her writing simply by blatantly stating thoughts, no matter how small or random they may seem.  She lets her characters follow her emotions and her wants.  This makes for a good romance novel, one that speaks to lots of women and makes characters and situations identifiable, but the technique has its flaws.  Or rather, it has little graces that allow a bit of meaning, intentional or not, into an otherwise typical airport paperback.

What she has done with her technique, this being a romance novel and all, has created a female character who embodies many seemingly random traits that women everywhere might identify with, such as wondering if they're to flat-chested, being a virgin because the right person never came along, being engaged to someone they didn't love, not wearing makeup, loving children, having a secret sexy side etc.  They may not identify with all of the attributes of the main character, but it is just about guaranteed that they can latch onto at least one.  While this doesn't make for a deep and meaningful story, this is actually a pretty good strategy for a romance novel.

As far as this type of book goes, I was fairly impressed.  Her book was continually upbeat, witty, and charming, even in the face of the mystery of a rooster murder.   The intro to the book states that this was one of her earlier works and first appeared in a magazine, and I can see why it and other stories like it led her to success with her Plum series.  It is a sweet story that hinges on romance and good times all wrapped around a mystery story, like a love burrito filled with intrigue and sleuthing.  Although I've never read her Plum books myself, I must assume that they follow the same sort of style, being also romance/mystery books.  They're not deep, they're not dark, they're simply fun.  Foul Play is a good little story to read on the plane or at the reception desk that doesn't make the reader contemplate the mysteries of life too much, just provides some happy entertainment.

As I mentioned, the writer's technique of giving in to her feelings and the feelings that she perceives her readers have as well leads to a bit of meaning underneath all the steamy romance and entertainingly witty comebacks.  Her portrayal of the antagonist, Veronica Bottles, says a lot about society today, and what it says isn't really good.  The character comes from a place of hate; the writer hates society's beauty standards and she hates the girls that conform to them, or rather the perceived "perfect woman" that they have built.  Therefore, she has created Veronica as an embodiment of everything that seems to make things harder for the average woman in order that she may tear them down.  The character has big breasts, wears skimpy clothes, dons lots of makeup... oh, and she's dumb and overtly sexual.  Jake, who in this instance embodies the "male gaze," rejects and even laughs at Veronica and her traits outright in favor of the more unconventional beauty of the protagonist, validating female readers everywhere who feel inferior to women like Veronica.  Jake's rejection shows readers that Veronica is not the type of woman that good men want.  Veronica becomes a sort of running gag in the book, something to laugh at and to look down on, even when the character is vulnerable and suffering in a bad relationship.  Even her sexuality is ridiculed and vilified at every turn.  She is not a well-developed character at all, she is instead a scapegoat only.  Her feelings and personality as a character are unimportant; she is a shell and a representation of everything there is to envy or hate in today's world.

It is sad that a character like this exists, especially as a sort of little villain.  I do not think that Evanovich is a bad person for writing a character like that, rather that the society that made her feel that such a character was needed is a bad society.  Women shouldn't have to feel that there is a great and oppressive standard hovering over them their entire lives that everyone hates but can do nothing about except destroy symbolically in the pages of a book.  Veronica as a scapegoat should be unnecessary.

But she's not.  Her existence speaks to women and accurately captures their thoughts and opinions about beauty standards.  We all hate that girl we are told we should be.  Veronica is, sadly, relevant to the times.

Be that as it may, it is not necessarily right to hate each other, to hate other women who face the same problem we all do, because of an external force seemingly beyond our control.  Girl hate shouldn't exist, and we shouldn't hate Veronica (no matter what kind of silly shenanigans she gets into).  We cannot take out our feelings of injustice on other women who just so happen to fit society's ideal.  Girl hate has been ingrained into us, but we, especially as writers, can strive to end it.  We must remember that all girls are girls are human, no matter what they look like, and they all struggle with the same forces everyone does.  Rather than write scapegoats, we should write girls with souls.  We should write girls who are clearly human beings with problems and feelings, no matter how they look.  If there is to be a female villain, looks shouldn't be the only source of her villainy.

I said in my review of The Sweetheart of Prosper County that I enjoyed the book because it broke the stereotype of the busty girl being slutty or dumb, gave her a soul, and gave young girls struggling everywhere someone positive to identify with.  Sweetheart showed that all types of people are humans with emotions and cannot be judged by what's on the outside. Society's ills won't be solved by hating each other, but rather by accepting each other and uniting as a solid front against them.

In the end, I chose to give Foul Play three stars because it is a three star book of its type.  Rather than comparing it in my mind to masterpieces beyond its field, I compared it only to other romances.  There are better romance novels out there, but so far as the purely-for-fun, entertainment-only type, this one is pretty darn good.  It kept a little smile on my face the whole time, and isn't that what those kinds of books are supposed to do?  So if you like paperback romance and you're going to be stuck on the bus or the subway or a plane for an hour or so, I'd recommend this book for the job.

If you're interested, you can pick up a copy of the book (used or new) here.  Enjoy it!

So I don't know about all of you, but I love fan art.  For those of you who don't know, fan art is art drawn/painted/photoshopped/etc by fans of a book/anime/movie/etc.  Deviantart is practically exploding with it.  And that is where I found all of the beautiful Hunger Games fan art presented in this post.  Art created by real fans seems to more truly capture the essence of a book and the feelings it inspires than Hollywood-style representations.  After all, fans are the only people that love a thing enough to actually invest time into creating an artistic expression of it, generally without getting paid. It also serves as an outlet for people's alternate imaginings of a story, which opens up the world of impossible romantic pairings and gives us all pictures of characters who hate each other kissing.  Without further ado, here are five beautiful pieces of fan art with a little info on each.  I hope you all adore them as much as I do!

"The Hunger Games" by Tiffany Mills (a.k.a. Sunshineyellowful); Source A more lifelike rendering of the Mockingjay emblem worn by Katniss.  I've seen quite a few pictures that people have drawn trying to capture the look of a Mockingjay, but they all seem so harsh and look nothing like a real bird.  Being a great lover of birds, I was pleased with this realistic rendering and find him to be completely adorable and exactly how I imagined him when I was reading.  I also <3 the happy little look on his cute little bird face.

"Fire is Catching" by Megan Lara; Source Lara is the artist behind the alternate cover art that appears on the front of some limited edition issues of Willow: Wonderland, a recent Buffy comic book spin-off series from Dark Horse.  She has drawn tons of beautiful ladies from the realms of books, TV series, video games, and comics in her lovely and unique Art Nouveau style, and I was absolutely thrilled when I saw this picture of Katniss in the artist's interpretation of her interview dress.  This is also available in t-shirt form here.

"Effie" by pseudolirium; Source I was really thrilled to find this portrait, especially because so much Effie art is unoriginal (meaning practically traced from movie stills) and unappealing because I don't like the movie portrayal.  In several interviews, the creative minds behind the movies admitted that they tried to make the beauty of the capitol more washed out and garish than it was portrayed in the book in an attempt to make it unappealing to young viewers, whom they did not want to get the wrong message from the film.  Thus, movie-Effie is overdone and washed out rather than glamorous.  In this charming Photoshop portrait, she is perfect.  She has an almost classic appeal while still appearing futuristic and edgy.

"Berries" by Kate Wheeler (a.k.a. Rat Girl); Source; I'm loving the simplicity of this one, as well as the sort of jagged, harsh-line style.  It's so uncomplex, but their ragged appearance and the berries say a lot.  Apparently, there was some debate about the original version having the wrong coloring, so the version you see is the corrected version.  The work was originally drawn on card stock with artist quality pens, then colored in Photoshop.

"Katniss on fire" by palnk; Source I just think this piece is amazing.  That's why I saved it for last.  Fans love to draw and paint Katniss transforming into the Mockingjay; I've even seen some cosplays of her in a "burning" dress. However, few put quite so much detail into the feathers, and I love the smouldering ember effect on the feathered part.

I hope you've enjoyed this little adventure into the Hunger Games and into fan art; be sure to let me know if you liked it so I'll know whether or not to share the other fan art beauties I've found from across the internet!

Also, if you're not yet a fan of the Hunger Games series and would like to become one, I direct your attention to the newly remodeled online store.  You can now shop the store right here on the Notes From Carcosa site by clicking the "Shop" tab at the top of the page, or you could simply click here to get a copy (new or used) of the first book in the series.  Enjoy it!

Dolora Zajick, mezzo-soprano and former Adler Fellow

Earlier this month, the San Francisco Opera announced its 2013-14 season, which includes the world premiere of an opera based on Stephen King's 1992 book, Dolores Claiborne.  I don't know about all of you, but even though it's not one of Stephen King's scary novels, I'm still very excite! 

Plus, if ever there was a Stephen King book that was suitable for opera adaptation, it's this one.  Instead a horror book full of monsters and ghostly manifestations, Dolores Claiborne is a psychological thriller with murder, repressed memories, and sexual abuse, things that have found themselves at home in operas from The Rape of Lucretia to Tosca.  I actually love the movie version of the book with Kathy Bates, so I can't wait to see how the story manifests itself as an opera. 

The brand new opera's music will be composed by Tobias Picker, with its libretto by J.D. McClatchy.  A favorite in San Francisco, Dolora Zajick, will be playing the title role, soprano Elizabeth Futral will sing the part of Vera Donovan, and Sarah Biller will play Dolores' daughter, Selena.  McClatchy has stated that the opera will be sung in "American verissimo style," and the words will be basic American vernacular without any "pretty English."  I'll admit that I know very little about opera, but the idea of an opera in everyday language seems unusual and intriguing to me.   Also, just looking at pictures of Dolora Zajick makes me feel like she'll do well with the role; she sort of manifests the mental image I had of Dolores while reading the book.

The opera is set to open September 18th and run through October 4th.  For those of you who would like to read the book before experiencing the opera, you can purchase a copy of Dolores Claiborne here.  Happy reading, and happy listening!

So this is something I've been seeing a lot on Pinterest lately: Christmas trees made out of books!  I've seen several pretty spectacular ones from libraries all over the world, as well as smaller trees made by individuals in their homes.  This is a great idea for someone with a lot of books and creativity to spread around (I'm sure plenty of my readers have both), so I've put together a little guide for creating a book Christmas tree of your very own!

Courtesy of the Richard A. Gleeson Library at the University of San Francisco in CA

The book tree pictured above was actually made using a few hundred books, but you can make a slightly more humble tree if you don't happen to have that many books on hand.  Here's what you'll need to get started:

• As many of your nicest looking books as you can spare for the outer part of the tree
• Some less beautiful books to fill the inside of the tree
• Several books of decreasing size to make the point of the tree
• All the usual decorations, such as lights and ornaments (don't forget the star!)

Step 1:  Measure your space, and decide how large you want your tree to be at the base.  Remember that the larger you make the base, the taller the tree will be and the more books it will require to make.

Step 2:  Organize your nice looking books based on thickness.  Using books with a similar thickness on each row will help to keep the tree stable.

Step 3: Create your first ring of books on the floor according to your measurements from step 1 with the spines facing outward.

Step 4: Make a second ring of nice looking books within the first so that any gaps in your outer ring won't reveal the tree's filler books.

Step 5: Use your less beautiful books to fill in the empty space inside your second ring.  Be sure that these books are arranged flat and are level with their corresponding row.  They do not have to be arranged in a circular fashion, the must merely fill the space to offer your tree some stability that it wouldn't have if it were hollow.

Step 6: Begin the next row a couple of inches inside the circumference of the one before it, and repeat steps 3 through 5.  Do this for each of the subsequent rings until you are unable to make any more rings.  The following video from a library in Polland demonstrates this portion of the tutorial:




Step 7:  Once you are unable to create more rings, stack your books of decreasing size into a pyramid and place it atop the tree to make a point.

Step 8:  Have fun decorating, and enjoy your unique book Christmas tree!


Be sure to let me know if you enjoyed the tutorial, and don't forget to send me pictures of your own book tree on Facebook or to notesfromcarcosa@yahoo.com!  Also, if you'd like to follow me on Pinterest, just click the button below. 

 








Thanks for reading!

Okay, so anyone who knows me at all can probably tell why I picked up this book in the first place: the incredibly adorable rooster on the front.  He is just so cute!  Look at his little earlobes! <3  But I digress... again, I was in search of YA lit with a powerful feminist message for an essay.  I was a little put off at first by the fact that the book deals with a girl's attempt to win Prosper County Sweetheart and ride in a parade to prove the world wrong, but somehow I just knew that it would have a little more to it than that... Or I was in love with that rooster, I don't know.

In Sweetheart, we meet Austin Gray, 15-year-old resident of a teeny-tiny Texas town.  Dean Ottmer has teased her mercilessly since the 4th grade, and when he makes fun of her flat chest at the No-Jesus Christmas Parade, she decides that it's time to make a real change in her life and prove the Dean Ottmers of the world wrong.  She's determined to become the Sweetheart of Prosper County and ride in the No-Jesus Christmas Parade herself, and the first step toward this goal is joining the Future Farmers of America (a real organization that I was at one point a member of myself) and raising herself a prize rooster for the fair.  Against the background of a very varied array of FFA members and her own mother's overprotective nature, she's going to make sure Charles Dickens the rooster makes it to the top and takes her with him!

There were so many things about this book that I liked, only a couple that I didn't.  For instance, I didn't always believe all of the characters as Southern teenagers or as teenagers at all.  But then again, when I thought about how their dialogue didn't always flow or seemed forced, I remembered what it was like to be a teenager and how I've been a bit peeved at books in the past for making teenagers sound incredibly smooth, saying things far too clever for that awkward time in life. 

But I do feel like there wasn't an excuse for the Elvis impersonating character to be forced.  When an author is trying to create a group of strong characters that send an important message, they all need to be equally compelling and strong.  Elvis could have been a powerful message about being yourself in the face of high school bullying, about moving on and doing what you love and being true to yourself, but he seemed to fall a little short while characters around him rose to the challenge of the message they were meant to deliver.  Don't get me wrong though; he wasn't all bad, he got a good bit of the message across, and I loved his shining moments at the fair.

I also didn't buy the noodling scene.  I get the idea of kids doing something dumb that could get them hurt, but it started out forced and ended in a deus ex machina way.  When the protagonist is in trouble in the middle of nowhere, here comes An Adult to save the day at exactly the right moment.  It was almost as if all the other gape-mouthed teenagers had merely stood by, waiting for this person to show up rather than doing what people would normally do.

But all that aside, it was a great book that has a lot to teach to its target demographic; perfect for readers in the 11-15 range and still very appealing to adults who like YA lit.  The characters in this book are stronger than the world around them, and they teach Austin and the readers about what it is to live life and live it in the face of adversity. 

Her best friend, Maribel, is a great example of Hispanic culture, and I definitely caught the message when (spoiler alert) her ice cream lost at the fair because it was too different (i.e. too ethnic).  Sundi, the reigning Sweetheart, instead of being taken down as that mean pretty girl, is elevated to the level of human being and proves herself to be a gentle heart and fierce friend.  While Austin is a message of strength for the "average," Sundi is a message of strength for the "above average."  Society at large is trained to judge a girl on her looks and assign traits to her based on looks or rate of development, something boys simply don't have to face while growing up.  Sundi's character is why this book was good for my essay: she challenges the pattern of judgement.  It's refreshing to see a book that gives personality and soul to girls like Sundi, revealing the fallacy of the girl-judging we are subjected to and even participate in.

Alright, all ranting aside, the book is clever, funny, and a pretty good glimpse into the world that tweens and early teens find themselves in.  It was able to both be an accurate representative of that world, as well as a teacher to its inhabitants of subjects that are addressed far too little in today's vapid and fantastical YA lit, all in just over 200 double-spaced pages.  It is a rare book that can be so effective in so few pages.  It also reminds us that teen fiction doesn't need fairies or vampires or magic.  Not to mention it harks back to the books I was reading when I was in early middle/ late elementary school about cute, cuddly animals that come suddenly into the protagonist's life and leave them changed for the good.

I give cute little Charles Dickens the rooster 4 big blue ribbons out of 5, but I do only suggest this book for its target age group or for people who are very open to the way teen fiction is presented.  If you just got done with Moby Dick and haven't touched a YA book since you actually were a young adult, this kind of writing might not be for you.  But if it is, you can pick up your own copy of The Sweetheart of Prosper County by Jill S. Alexander right here.   Happy reading!

Melt 1/2 cup of sugar in iron skillet slowly, until brown and runny. Mix egg, butter, remaining sugar, and milk in a saucepan and cook over a low flame until butter melts. Turn the heat up to medium and add the browned sugar. Cook until it reaches the soft ball stage or until mixture leaves sides of pan. This takes about 10 minutes. Remove from fire, let cool slightly, and add vanilla. Beat until right consistency to spread. If it gets too thick add a little cream. This will ice a 2 layer cake.

Reprinted by permission from The Junior League of Memphis, Inc. from “The Memphis Cookbook” © 1952; recipe submitted by Mrs. Phil Thornton, Jr.

Her romance with the senator's son also left a bit to be desired.  At points, I was sure that it had been developed simply so that (spoiler alert) he could dump her later for writing about such a big, bad issue.  I liked his father more than I liked him; maybe Skeeter's little life would have been more interesting if she'd met the actual senator first.

 Thanksgiving is over, and just like every other store on earth, I'm in the spirit of a mega-sale!  Or rather Amazon is, and I'm fortunate enough to be able to offer my readers all the Black Friday deals Amazon.com has to offer until December 3!

I've added a brand new Magazine Subscription section to the store so that I can offer you guys $5 subscriptions to a few and discounted subscriptions to others.  I've also added several discounted Blu Ray boxed sets to the DVD/Blu Ray section of the store, and they're all half off or more!  AND... Amazon is having a buy 3, get 1 free sale on a butt ton of books, so I've provided a handy dandy link to that below; just click 4-for-3 on the menu to the left.  Have fun shopping!

So for a while there, I was really into several women poets who had very different styles but still left me with that philosophical, I-just-read-something-deep feeling.  I spend a lot of time sharing my favorite novel reads with you guys, but how many books of poetry have I shown you?  Like three or something, that's how many.  So I've decided to spice things up with 3 more books of poetry I'm sure you'll love.  Enjoy!

1.) The Moon is Always Female by Marge Piercy - Piercy is a very feminist poet, so I'm just warning readers that they might not agree with everything she has to say, especially coupled with the powerful and poignant way she says it.  I, on the other hand, totally agree with her and feel like this is one of the best books of poetry I've ever read.  Well, okay, I may not agree with bisexual polygamist relationships, but I still know a stunning collection of poems when I see it.

2.) Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath - Alright, I do know that there are a million complete-works-type collections of Sylvia Plath out there, but Winter Trees always seems to speak to me more than a hodge-podge collection of anything and everything.  The poems compliment each other, and they're probably some of Plath's best work, all completed within the last nine months of her life.  I know not everyone would agree with my "the best" statement because she has so many very, very famous and quoted poems, but I think it's a good thing to expose yourself to the not-so-known works of certain authors.  I mean, it's great to be introduced to Plath by such poems as "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus", but there's so much more to the author than those tidbits, which is especially evident if you get around to reading The Bell Jar.

3.) The Gold Cell by Sharon Olds - Sharon Olds is a poet that has sometimes left me with mixed feelings.  The Gold Cell was one of the first books I read by her, and it managed to capture me.  She's a shock-and-awe kind of poet that says things with so much brass, you just want to look away sometimes.  She's had a life full of something, I'm not sure how to describe it, and she addresses all of that something with vivid attention to detail.  Later, I found her harder to read when I realized that a great deal of the things she was writing about weren't as dramatic or trauma-inducing as her poetry would lead you to believe.  But if you can get past that, it reads like a good bit of dramatic fiction.

A little under a week ago, the great Stephen King released his latest work, 11/22/63, a time-travel novel dealing with the delicate subject of the Kennedy assassination.  Resurrecting the seemingly quiet town of Derry, Maine, setting of It, Insomnia, and the short story "The Bird and the Album," he introduces us to Jake Eppling, a man who teaches GED classes at night and just so happens to learn that there's a portal to 1958 in the local diner.  Enlisted by the diner's owner to help stop the Kennedy assassination, Jake travels back and establishes a life for himself as George Amberson in hopes of stopping Oswald's plan.

The excerpts on the book's official (and very interactive) site show a book that appears to be Stephen King in top form, although this is his first venture into the realm of historical novel writing.  The previews don't offer a glimpse into the portions of the book dealing with Oswald himself or give any hints about how it might actually turn out in the end, but it is just enough to get fans excited!

While time travel isn't overtly the subject of the book, merely a device for the doings of the protagonist in the past and the lessons taught about life and love, a review in the New York Times calls it "one of the best time-travel stories since H.G. Wells."  I'm inclined to believe this before having the chance to read it myself simply because its Stephen King.  While there are moments in some of his books, very rare ones, where I felt something may have been missing or been too much altogether, I could certainly say even without having read 100% of his books that the greater portion of his work is outstanding.  He is a master of his craft, weaving a world of life, death, and the bizarre in a way that continually pulls us back for more, despite any very minor transgressions.  He has never betrayed his readers, and there's no way he would let us down now.

I'm looking forward to reading this book for myself and to offering a review to my readers!  I must admit that I haven't been keeping up with Stephen King's very latest work, but this one seems much more can't-miss than some others.  Perhaps this is because I've been reading a lot more literature that hinges on eras of great change, and I'm excited to read more!  If you'd like to pick up your own copy and read it for yourself, you can do so here.

For all of you out there lamenting at the thought of never reading another new Crichton masterpiece, his second posthumous book, Micro, completed by contemporary Richard Preston, is being released on November 22 and is already available for pre-sale.  To celebrate the release of this book, the Michael Crichton facebook fanpage has announced a photo contest presented by Harper Books called Micro Yourself!

The photo I entered in the contest; vote for me!

The rules are simple: Submit a photo of yourself on a micro scale using the Micro facebook app.  This could mean you next to something huge, a photoshopped picture of you doing battle with a bug, or a trick photograph that makes it look like you're lifting the pyramids; get creative!  Then vote for your favorites (you can't vote for yourself), and the top 50 photos will be entered for a chance to win one of the 27 awesome prizes.

What are the prizes, you might ask?  Third prize, which will go to 20 participants, is a limited edition Micro t-shirt and copy of the book.  Second prize, which will go to the next 5 top participants, is the t-shirt, a copy of Micro, and a mass
market paperback edition of each of 10 Crichton classics.  First prize, which goes to the second most popular single photo, is the e-reader of your choice with a $100 gift card to the corresponding retailer, the t-shirt, and a hardback copy of Micro.  And finally... the GRAND PRIZE for the single photo with the most votes is limited edition leather-bound copies of Jurassic Park and The Lost World, the e-reader of your choice with a $100 gift card to the corresponding retailer, the t-shirt, and a hardback copy of Micro!

The Grand Prize!

What else can you do on this neat little contest page?  Well, you can read all about the authors, as well as read the entire prologue to Micro!  From what I've read, it looks like it's going to be another instant Crichton classic.  I really can't wait to read more and see if I can spot the influence of Richard Preston on the ending.

So is everyone excited for the release?  Tell me what you think of the excerpt!  Tell me if you think Crichton is back as a zombie!  I'd love to hear from you!

In my previous post, On Modern Illiteracy,  I mentioned that conquering the failure of our education system to produce functionally literate adults who enjoy a good book might begin with self-education.  This could mean learning a new language, taking risks, learning about another culture, watching something educational instead of reality TV, or reading a book.

I consider reading the most important item on that list.  However, not everyone has learned to enjoy reading.  I don't think it's a matter of people simply not liking to read and therefore never wanting to (although I'm sure this is the case sometimes), but rather a matter of people having never learned that reading for pleasure can actually be fun and entertaining, just as good as watching a movie or television.  Because of the way reading is presented as part of school curriculum, people lose the drive to read and begin to view it as a chore.

So if you're someone who is interested in bettering themselves through self-education, pursuing the things you enjoy and want to learn in order to improve yourself and your life, and learning to view reading as something enjoyable and beneficial instead of boring and forced, I've got a few good suggestions for you!  Here are five books that won't be too challenging for a non-reader but will still be able to capture imaginations and spark interest.  If you're a reader, don't hesitate to suggest these to your non-reading friends; you just might change their lives!

1.) The Giver by Lois Lowry - Alright, I know I've recommended this book so much for everything, but it really is a great and important book!  A lot of people get assigned this book to read in grade or middle school, but how many people really read it or paid attention when they did?  The Giver is about Jonas, a boy in a utopian world of no war, no pain, and no choices, who is about to turn 12.  12 is the age when people in his community are assigned to the job they will perform for the rest of their lives, and Jonas is mortified when he isn't called onto the stage with the rest of his classmates to receive his job assignment.  Then he is told that he will be given the most important job there is, the job of Receiver.  Receiver of what?  Memories of pain, war, pleasure, and the dark truth about the society he lives in.

2.) Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe - Although not as commonly assigned as The Giver, Things Fall Apart is another book encountered in high school English classes that students might be inclined to dismiss.  If you're looking for a starting point for investigating other cultures, this might be the book for you!  Okonkwo is a prominent tribe elder in his Ibo village in Nigeria, and his strong, warrior-like attitude that abhors weakness of any kind has brought him great success.  However, when aggressive European missionaries invade his native land and uproot and destroy the beautiful culture he has always known, Okonkwo refuses to stop fighting the shattering of his fragile world to the very end.

3.) Deadline by Chris Crutcher - So you don't like romance, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, mystery, fiction, nonfiction, any genre!... But you do like sports.  Then Deadline is the book for you.  Chris Crutcher incorporates plenty of good sports action into this book, which just might lure you into a world much deeper than the next touchdown.  Ben Wolf is an 18-year-old high school senior who has just been diagnosed with aggressive leukemia.  He has elected to forgo treatment and won't be telling his family so that he can have the best senior year he could possibly have without the stigma of his disease following him and defining him.  He sets some goals: enlighten his closed-minded civics teacher, help the local drunk clean up his act, become the best darn football player Trout, Idaho, has ever seen, and talk to the captivating Dallas Suzuki.  But keeping his secret isn't going to be as easy as he thought.

4.) Cujo by Stephen King - Horror can be an amazing genre, but if you pick up the wrong book, you'll never be able to get into it.  There are some terrible dime-store novels out there that are just so lame, and if you pick up something too long like Stephen King's It, you might get bogged down if it's your first time and start to hate the tedium.  However, while it will keep you captivated for a long time, Cujo is relatively short.  It's like a concise version of what great horror writing should be.  Vic and Donna Trenton have a son named Tad, and Tad is terrified of the monster in his closet that he is sure will get him one day.  When Donna and Tad find themselves stranded in the countryside, locked in the hot car with a rabid St. Bernard outside, Tad knows exactly what beast they are facing.

5.) Dear John by Nicholas Sparks - Like the horror genre, the romance genre is riddled with terrible books that are just so bad, they shouldn't even exist.  And yet, this is the genre that most people read and that people find easy to read.  If you're ready to read, don't know where to start, and nothing else appeals, perhaps the strong emotions that a romance novel can evoke will capture you.  Not really knowing what to do with himself, John Tyree joined the Army after dropping out of high school, but when he meets Savannah Lynn Curtis, he knows his life is going to change.  Savannah is a college student who volunteers for Habitat for Humanity and loves horses, and although reluctant, she falls quickly and passionately in love with John, pulling him into a world full of meaning that he never had access to before.  They vow to wait for each other while he finishes his tour of duty, but 9/11 turns their lives on end.  John decides to re-enlist, and the extended separation finds Savannah falling in love with someone else.  When John returns home, he finds that Savannah is married and still the girl of his dreams.  Now he faces the hardest decision of his life.