I was fully planning on writing a bookish post last night to publish today but I got caught up in watching the election results and couldn’t concentrate enough to write anything. Could the bottle of wine I drank while watching the returns come in have had anything to do with it? Who knows? I wanted to post something so I’m treating you to a couple of photos from our trip to the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago:
Tomorrow I have a full day of pre-surgery appointments and then my surgery is Friday. Hopefully I’ll be back to writing bookish posts soon after that.
It’s time to sign up for Thankfully Reading Weekend! This will be my fourth year participating. It’s a low-stress event – you can read as little or as much as you want. There are fun mini-challenges and giveaways throughout the weekend. You can sign up at Jenn’s Bookshelves. The “silver lining” of having major abdominal surgery two weeks before Thanksgiving is that I don’t have to do any cooking this year! I’ve been cooking and hosting Thanksgiving dinner for YEARS. That should leave me ample time for reading, provided that I’m not too hopped up on painkillers.
I think Thanksgiving Weekend would be the perfect time for me to get caught up on one of the many series that I’m way behind in. Off the top of my head, I’m thinking JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series, Lara Adrian’s Midnight Breed series, Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series, or Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series. I’m at least four books behind in each of them and they are all easy enough reads that I could manage them with a narcotic fuzzed brain.
In 1920, Elsa Emerson, the youngest and blondest of three sisters, is born in idyllic Door County, Wisconsin. Her family owns the Cherry County Playhouse, and more than anything, Elsa relishes appearing onstage, where she soaks up the approval of her father and the embrace of the audience. But when tragedy strikes her family, her acting becomes more than a child¹s game of pretend.
While still in her teens, Elsa marries and flees to Los Angeles. There she is discovered by Irving Green, one of the most powerful executives in Hollywood, who refashions her as a serious, exotic brunette and renames her Laura Lamont. Irving becomes Laura’s great love; she becomes an Academy Award-winning actress—and a genuine movie star. Laura experiences all the glamour and extravagance of the heady pinnacle of stardom in the studio-system era, but ultimately her story is a timeless one of a woman trying to balance career, family, and personal happiness, all while remaining true to herself.
I love films, Hollywood, movie stars, glamour and this book had all of that. Laura Lamont is a fictional character but she reminded me of several old Hollywood movie stars. From what I’ve read in interviews with Emma Straub, she did quite a bit of research about the Hollywood of yesteryear and the way the studios used to control all of the movie stars. I loved getting an inside peek at how it worked behind the scenes.
This book is more than that though. It follows Laura through most of her life, which goes through several ups and downs, some them expected and some of them quite unexpected. Her evolution from Elsa to Laura is not a straightforward transformation. Straub has made Laura more complicated than that, which I appreciated. Her writing is beautifully descriptive and was a joy to read.
Neve had her first Parents as Teachers home visit on Monday. According the parent educator, Neve is right on track developmentally. I didn’t really have any concerns but it was still good to have some reassurance.
After school on Monday, the boys had karate. After karate, we were headed to the Intergenerational Book Club at our church for the first time when a tire on my van blew out. The boys found this very exciting. When I pulled into a gas station and got out to look at the tire, I muttered, “god dammit” when I saw it was flat. Little did I know West had hopped out of the van too and was right behind me. I heard a little voice echo, “Dammit!” It was actually really cute but I did tell him that was a grown-up word that I shouldn’t use and neither should he. Then I called Travis and he and Neve were able to come rescue us in time for us to make the last half of the book club. The book was Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat. It was really fun – we all had a great time. I’ll have a more detailed post all about it later in the week.
Tuesday night was David Sedaris at the Kauffman Center!
Wednesday was Halloween:
Thursday night was parent/teacher conferences at the boys’ school. Both boys got great reports. It’s pretty amazing that they can behave so well at school when they are pretty much maniacs all the time here at home. I guess I should be glad that they are capable of good behavior – there is hope it will happen at home someday!
Friday the boys were off school and we spent most of the day running errands to make sure we had everything we needed to get our family Christmas pictures taken Saturday morning. While looking for dress pants and tights, I somehow got talked into buying them all new hoodies. They are so lucky their mom likes to buy them clothes! I’m thinking of getting myself one too so we can all match.
Getting our Christmas pictures taken on Saturday morning went really well. The very best part was getting to include Neve in all the family portraits. When we have a foster placement, I always have some family portraits taken without the foster child because I know that they probably won’t end up being a permanent member of the family. But Neve is in our family FOREVER!! so she could be in all the pictures.
Saturday night was our church’s annual auction. We bid on and won an overnight babysitter! One of the women in the congregation who is a teacher and great with kids will come to our house and stay overnight with our kids. Sweet!
Last Saturday, we had our second annual Halloween party. About thirty-five kids attended. We had a chilli and hot dog dinner, a craft table where kids could make a mask, a haunted house in our garage, a pumpkin bean bag toss, and pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern. Even though it was about 45 degrees outside, a lot of the kids went outside to play in our back yard. That’s probably good because I don’t think we could have had all of the kids in our house at one time!
When we were getting ready for the party, Neve was walking around the house singing Happy Birthday. Because if we’re having a party, it must be someone’s birthday!
November is National Blog Posting Month. I’ve decided to join BlogHer’s NaBloPoMo challenge to blog daily again this year. This will be especially challenging for me because I’m having major surgery on November 9. I hope to schedule a few posts ahead of time to cover the surgery day and a few recovery days. Or I could just blog stream of consciousness while on the morphine drip – that might be fun!
In addition to writing book review posts, I’d like to write some opinion pieces about bookish topics. Lord knows I have opinions. I just need to put them together coherently. If you have any book related topic suggestions please let me know.
My husband and I saw David Sedaris speak Tuesday night at The Kauffman Center. He was fantastic as usual. He read some previously published essays, some essays from his upcoming new book, and also an essay that he’s still working on. Then he took a few questions from the audience. One person asked him what his favorite film is and he said when he was younger it was Planet of the Apes (me too!) but that now it was the second Lord of the Rings movie. He added that he doesn’t like to see movies in the United States because people talk through the whole movie. He prefers to watch them in France or Japan where people take the experience more seriously.
If you’ve seen David before, you know that he loves to chat with his fans while signing books and that no matter how long the line is he will chat with each person for at least a minute. Vivian, the owner of Rainy Day Books, told us that one time he did a book signing at her store that lasted until 2:30am. People were napping on the floor while waiting their turn! Even though this was my third time seeing David speak, it was the first time that we had a babysitter who could stay late enough for us to wait in line to meet him. I was so nervous – what was I going to chat with him about? I get so star-struck and tongue tied when I meet a famous person it’s ridiculous. (I almost passed out when I ran into Jessica Simpson at the mall and I’m not even really a fan of hers.)
After waiting in line an hour and forty-five minutes, it was finally our turn. I told David that it was our first time getting a babysitter long enough to wait in line and he asked me how much babysitters cost these days. I told him ours cost $17 an hour and he calculated our time spent waiting in line:
Then he asked Travis what he did for a living:
Then I told him that when we lived in New York City, we went to see one of the Lord of the Rings movies at the movie theater. There was a man sitting a few seats away who was whisper explaining the entire movie to the woman he was with. I leaned over and asked them nicely to please stop talking. The woman glared at me and said in a very thick New York accent (which I imitated), “What are we supposed to do, talk mentally?” David thought that was great and he pulled out his little notebook and wrote it down! I kept my cool until we were out of ear shot and then I squealed like a little fangirl.
My friend’s brother has seen David Sedaris several times and he said that David has a super good memory and always remembers him when he goes through the line to meet him. He said that he remembers most people. I wonder if he’ll remember me next time?
If you ever have the chance to see David Sedaris live, you MUST do it. I always laugh so hard my cheeks hurt.
After I saw Samuel Arbesman speak at Tedx Kansas City a few weeks ago, I knew I had to read his book. The premise of his talk and his book is that facts are not really information set in stone, the way we usually think about them. The world is constantly changing and nothing is for certain forever. I was floored by the notion that what my kids are learning in school may contradict what I learned in school. For some reason, that notion had never occurred to me!
The Half-Life of Facts is easily understood by a lay person. I found it very readable and I don’t have a head for science at all. Each chapter outlines a different reason why facts may either change or be found to be untrue. Arbesman uses examples throughout, all of which I found fascinating. I would love to read even more stories about which facts have changed over time and why.
I was surprised by some of the facts that are no longer true. For instance, did you know that there really isn’t a dinosaur called a Brontosaurus? I had no idea and both of my boys have been through dinosaur obsessions within the past few years. The Brontosaurus was found to be a type of Apatosaurus over a hundred years ago. However, once something is out in the ether, it’s really hard to circulate information modifying or correcting the original assertion.
I appreciated that not only does Arbesman discuss the various ways in which untruths persist and facts change over time, he also offers suggestions of how to keep current without getting information overload.
I love that in keeping with the spirit of The Half-Life of Facts, Arbesman’s website has a Errata and Updates section for the book. There is already one case listed in which Arbesman unknowingly perpetuated a myth about how spinach became known to have a high iron content.
It’s very rare that I read a non-fiction book that I have a hard time putting down. The Half-Life of Facts is one of those rare riveting works of non-fiction. I highly recommend it to all.
Check out Samuel Arbesman’s Tedx Kansas City talk:
1950 Tennessee, a time and place that straddles the past and present. Ivorie Walker is considered an old maid by the town (though she’s only in her early thirties) and she takes that label with good humor and a grain of salt. Ever since her parents passed away, she has hidden her loneliness behind a fierce independence and a claim of not needing anyone. But her mother’s death hit her harder than anyone suspects and Ivorie wonders if she will be alone forever.
When she realizes that someone has been stealing vegetables from her garden—a feral, dirty-faced boy who disappears into the hills—something about him haunts Ivorie. She can’t imagine what would make him desperate enough to steal and eat from her garden. But what she truly can’t imagine is what the boy faces, each day and night, in the filthy lean-to hut miles up in the hills. Who is he? How did he come to live in the hills? Where did he come from? And, more importantly, can she save him? As Ivorie steps out of her comfort zone to uncover the answers, she unleashes a firestorm in the town—a community that would rather let secrets stay secret.
I just love Southern fiction and The Good Dream is Southern fiction done well. Ivorie is a wonderful character – a strong and caring woman who refuses to bend to society’s will. She lives in a small town with a big cast of characters; it reminded me of a Fannie Flagg novel in that way. The author uses wonderfully descriptive metaphors filled with Southern charm. Some of my favorite examples:
“As useful as a back pocket on a shirt”
“Slower than a turtle after Thanksgiving dinner”
“Helpful as teats on a bull”
There is a darker side in this book however. Some very bad things happen to the boy in the first part of the novel that might be hard for the fainthearted to read. I didn’t find any of it gratuitous though.
The narration is first person when Ivorie and her brother are each telling their story. Parts of the story are also told from the boy’s point of view and I absolutely loved the device the author used for his narration. (I don’t want to give too much away so I won’t get more detailed about that part.)
When I saw that the author was the narrator of the audio book, I was apprehensive. That doesn’t always go so well. After listening, I was pleasantly surprised – she did a great job. She used a light Southern accent for the prose and then varied the thickness of the accent for the dialogue depending on who was speaking. I surprised when I listened to the author interview at the end of the book to hear that she doesn’t actually have a Southern accent at all because it sounded so authentic when she was narrating. She even did a really good snobby Southern accent for the banker.
After I listened to this book, I learned that the author is considered a Christian fiction author. I don’t know if this book is considered Christian fiction; I didn’t feel like it was while I listening to it. It is inspirational but it doesn’t have a lot of religious talk or preaching in it. I would highly recommend The Good Dream to anyone.
Click here to listen to an audio clip of The Good Dream.
As a writer for Chick Habit, an increasingly popular women’s website, Alex Lyons gets paid to be a bitch. She’s churning out several posts a day, and she saves her juiciest ones for blog prime time, when working women eat their sad desk salads in their offices. Alex tells herself she’s fulfilling her dream of being a professional writer; so what if it means being glued to her couch and her laptop from six a.m. to six p.m., scouring the web in search of the next big celebrity scandal? Since Chick Habit’s parent company keeps close tabs on page views, Alex knows her job is always at risk.
So when an anonymous tipster sends her the year’s most salacious story—a politico’s squeaky-clean Ivy League daughter caught in a very R-rated activity—it’s a no-brainer. But is Alex really willing to ruin the girl’s life by igniting the next Internet feeding frenzy? And what she doesn’t yet realize is how this big scoop is about to send her own life spiraling out of control.
I think that anyone who blogs will appreciate Alex’s story for sure, especially those who blog professionally. Internet and blogging ethics are still evolving and this book is a great commentary on the nebulous state of them today. Also, the author worked at both Slate and Jezebel so I assume that Alex’s story is fairly realistic as far as what it’s like working as an online writer.
Alex has to keep up on pop culture as part of her job and this book is full of pop culture references which was fun if you are an entertainment junkie like me. I love reading dirt about celebrities even though I know I shouldn’t. Alex feels twinges of guilt about her snarky posts just like I sometimes do when I read that kind of snark.
The author did a great job of making the stress that Alex feels palpable to the reader. I spent most of the book wishing Alex would take a shower! She wears the same ugly dress most every day and doesn’t have time for much personal grooming because she must be in front of her computer at her editor’s beck and call.
In addition to the ethics storyline, there is also a mystery element as someone is trying to sabotage Alex’s career. I already found the book fun to read and the mystery made it that much harder to put down.
If you spend a lot of time online (and who doesn’t these days?) and are looking for something quick and fun to read, then this would be a great book for you.
Thank you to TLC Book Tours for providing me with a copy of this book. Check out the other tour stops:
