Something I've noticed lately while surfing reddit and Pinterest is the skyrocketing popularity of "library porn," or pictures of libraries so ridiculously gorgeous that they get us bibliophiles hot and bothered.  Seriously, there should be a warning label on this stuff.

Joining the ranks of smut like "food porn" and "cabin porn," library porn is exactly what those who love libraries and long for one of their own (myself included) need to visually satisfy their craving for beautiful book storage and perfect reading spaces.  Some of it can be downright inspiring!

Now that I've piqued your curiosity, I present to you a few of the images gathered from reddit and Pinterest that have me drooling at the moment.  Enjoy!

Room designed by famous interior designer, Timothy Corrigan

Law Library in the Iowa Capitol Building in Des Moines

Shiba Ryotaro Memorial Museum Library, Higashiosaka, Japan

Wiblingen Abbey in Ulm, Germany; from the book Librariesby Candida Höfer

Lovely home library, unknown location

Also, if you have a little pocket change and want to place some of these filthy, sexy pictures on your coffee table for all to admire and for you to look at any time you like, you can pick up a copy of the ultimate library porn, Candida Höfer's Libraries, either by clicking here or by visiting the official store via the Shop tab at the top of the blog.  Happy reading!

Mucha by Sarah Mucha

As you can see, my blog has received a super fancy, Art Nouveau-style makeover, and it is looking more awesome than ever!!  Also, because this big redesign is out of the way, that means I can get back to writing the kinds of posts you love to read.  I'll also try to squeeze in a revamping of the online store.

In the meantime, if you're looking for a good book on Art Nouveau style, I recommend Mucha by Sarah Mucha, an illustration-filled coffee table book on the life and works of Alphonse Mucha, the Czech artist who defined the style and the era.  Out of all the many books on Mucha, who just so happens to be one of my favorite artists, this one is my favorite.  You may purchase a copy of the book from Amazon by clicking the picture to the left.

                                                                Happy reading, everyone!

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!

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.

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.

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.

So there aren't many options when it comes to designing an Amazon Associates store, but I've done my best to jazz it up!  I've changed the theme around, and on top of that, I've added some items I know all my readers are going to love!  Not only can you pick up copies of books I've reviewed like The Pact or Uglies, but you can choose from a selection of books I've been reading lately, classics, best sellers, and must reads!  There's also a small section devoted to health and beauty where I sell some of my favorite products, as well as a place to pick up your very own Webkinz! (Okay, I admit it, I'm a Webkinz nerd)  I hope everyone enjoys the update, and remember, if there's something you'd love to buy that you don't see, just suggest it and I'll try to put it in the store for you ASAP!

When Mike came back from Afghanistan, he brought all sorts of goodies with him, the things Soldiers' Angels sent that got shared and picked over by everyone.  In this box of goodies was a book called The Pact by Jodi Picoult.  I read the summary, noted that Lifetime had made a movie of it, and couldn't decide whether or not it would be a good read.  Having read it, I can say that it certainly captivated me and moved me emotionally after about the first half.

Two couples have been living next to each other for nearly 20 years, and their high school-age children, Chris and Emily, have been inseparable literally from the moment of their birth.  When they started dating at age 13, it was what everyone expected and wanted, especially their parents.  However, something was wrong with the picture.  Just before Chris' 18th birthday, the two of them attempted suicide, Emily succeeding and Chris living on.  Chris is immediately suspected to have murdered Emily, despite the very different story he tells about the incident.  Emotions run high, the two families cleave, internal conflicts abound in the separate households, and Chris is ultimately hauled to court to prove his guilt or innocence.  Nothing is ever the same again.

In the back of the book is a little article written by the author concerning how her book is frequently assigned reading in schools, presumably to address the issue of teen suicide, and how its appropriateness is frequently called into question.  However, while it was a pretty good read (I'll admit it, I kinda like Lifetime movies) and may seem like it touches on an important subject that teens should learn about, the author seems to have had trouble sorting out what her own book was really about.  Is it about parents that pushed two people to an incestuous closeness, like encouraging twins to date, making one of the pair unstable?  Or is it about childhood molestation and how it affects people when they grow older and begin to become intimate with someone?  I mean, ultimately it is about "suicide," but Emily's character, being poorly developed because of even the author's confusion about why she really wanted to die, can sometimes be hard to relate to (and that is not because she is a suicidal teen and readers may not be able to relate to that).

The author explicitly states several times, outside of dialogue like a looming fact, that the reason Emily wanted to die was because of the disturbing relationship her parents had pushed her into with Chris.  However, she throws in this tidbit about Emily having been molested, which I felt was not addressed fully enough because of my feeling that it was the true cause of her suicide.  It's almost like an afterthought, the way the author sprinkles in all these larger symptoms of the molestation, such as the fact that Emily can't stand the sight of herself, especially naked; the way she constantly mentions a nightmare that leaves her with unimaginable feelings when she wakes up; and how she is violently opposed to sexual acts, forcing herself to go through with it for the Chris' sake and the sake of her relationship.  She also paints a frightening "self-portrait" in her art class in which a therapeutic art expert is able to identify several signs of molestation.  It is clearly all the feelings springing from her trauma that cause her to want to escape into death, but for some unknown reason, the author is trying to convince us that it's something else entirely.  She doesn't seem to want her character to have developed in the way that she did to the point that she outright tries to deny what Emily became during the course of writing, but Emily is what she is; readers must simply look past the insisting of the author to see it.

Ultimately, it may offer a good message about what can happen after someone has left everything behind, about what goes on for the people around them whose lives are affected by their death.  It also may serve as a tool for addressing the fact that a teen's depression and longing to die are legitimate feelings stemming from legitimate problems.  It also seems that there is almost an unstated message that Emily could have been helped, and I believe this simply because if she was placed in a room with a decent therapist, her past and present issues may have been able to have been worked through with her by a professional.  Should Chris have told someone about Emily's suicidal feelings?  Perhaps, I can't say with any certainty.  However, the book does send a message about the importance of communication on many levels, of which that is only one.

I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars, because while I know there are way better books out there, it's a pretty good read.  I wouldn't ever consider it a waste of time to have read it.  Don't forget to pick up a copy at the Notes From Carcosa Official Online Store!

1.) Night of the Claw by Ramsey Campbell - I know, the book has an amazingly lame, B horror movie type name, but that's what makes it so great. Ramsey Campbell has the skill to take something so mundane, something many of us would consider lame, like the concept of THE CLAW and make it one of the most suspenseful and terrifying books I've ever read. He's the master of putting the element of fear into something readers never knew they could be afraid of. After being given a cursed clawed glove in a package that simply won't let itself be delivered, a father finds himself the victim of the uncontrollable urge to kill his daughter. The curse ravages the family until a breaking point when the father realizes he must go into the jungle and face the cannibalistic spirits of the totem he holds in order to save his daughter from himself. Riveting stuff that will keep you on the edge of your seat, hoping the girl lives, right until the very end.

2.) The Dreams in the Witch House: And Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft - With help from S.T. Joshi, the premier expert on H.P. Lovecraft, Penguin Group has put out a 3 volume collection of H.P. Lovecraft's short stories, of which this is the third one. The reason I recommend this particular version to you all is because of the amazing footnotes that go into great detail about the things that inspired Lovecraft as he wrote. It's really interesting to get so deep into an author's head and begin to know what made someone so great write something so great. The Dreams in the Witch House is one of Lovecraft's better known tales, but unfortunately, it isn't the best. However, there are are plenty of others that are amazing right here in this collection! Here's a list of what you'll find inside:
Polaris
The Doom That Came to Sarnath
The Terrible Old Man
The Tree
The Cats of Ulthar
From Beyond
The Nameless City
The Moon-Bog
The Other Gods
Hypnos
The Lurking Fear
The Unnamable
The Shunned House
The Horror at Red-Hook
In the Vault
The Strange High House in the Mist
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Silver Key
Through the Gates of the Silver Key
The Dreams in the Witch House
The Shadow Out of Time

3.) The House by Bentley Little - Okay, I've read this book, and while the story isn't amazing and I'm honestly not even sure about it, I'm going to recommend it to you. Why? Because it is something to be seen and read for the sake of seeing and reading. People have called Bentley Little original and suggested that this is the book to read to really get a feel for his style, and I agree on both counts. There is nothing like him. But is he good? Some people must think so, because this book won a Bram Stoker Award. He has a skill for words, but I think what really grabs readers and keeps them reading this book is how completely and totally fucked up it is. It is shock horror to the point of deviating greatly from the main plot to allow for more shock scenes, with a thousand scenarios to make your jaw drop in disgust. There are simply a lot, A LOT, of just plain weird, disturbing images in this book that might elicit a powerful emotional response in readers. Some that I recall are the ghost of the little girl asking to be fucked in the ass and a character's dead mother being a bald harpy sitting on an egg in an alternate dimension. 'Nuff said.

4.) Pet Sematary by Stephen King - Of course I'm going to recommend something by the master, Stephen King! While I know a lot of you have seen the movies for the classics like Cujo and Pet Sematary, how many of you have actually stopped to read these amazing books? The Creeds, an ideal family unit with a daughter, a son, and a rascally cat, move to a new house in the country near a notoriously dangerous road and an ancient secret. Their neighbor is full of friendly warnings and cautionary tales about staying away from the land beyond the dead-fall, the endless wilderness behind the Pet Sematary, but he all that only pushes Mr. Creed to do something unthinkable when his son falls victim to the dangers of the highway nearby. Sometimes dead is better, because when things come back from the spoiled ground, they come back different. Pet Sematary is a little thick for the casual reader, like many of King's books, but I like his books that way personally. Why? Because they're so good, I hardly want them to end. Not many things have ever creeped me out the way Mrs. Creed's dying sister or resurrected Gage lurking in the shadows, more dangerous than someone several times his toddler size, has. Few books truly put fear in me, but this is one I had to read during the day.

5.) Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin - Nothing is more frightening than being helpless. Rosemary's Baby presents the portrait of a young housewife who is deceived by everyone around her and trapped on all sides by the only people in the world she trusts. She wakes up one morning to find herself pregnant, a helpless condition in itself, and when she begins to suspect evil doings with Satan going on behind her back and even that her unborn child might have been conceived only to be sacrificed to the Devil, she has nowhere to run. The mother-to-be's heightened pain, fear that her husband has sold her soul to the Devil, and suspicions that her neighbor is pushing her to nurture the child inside her with strange poisons frighten her to the point of hysteria, but there is no escape. It's a story that will make you think and leave you disturbed, even if you put it down days ago. There's just something about the complete violation of all avenues of trust that leaves a very lasting impression and makes you thankful for the security of knowing you have someone to go to if something frightening is happening.