summer reading

It’s really hard to go to my other job now that I’ve put in my notice – especially since the weather has turned hot and I get to start out the work-day in a hot warehouse.  But I only have to clock in eight more times – eight more times!  The countdown is on.  It’s been a decent job to have (part-time with benefits) but I’m ready to do something that feels meaningful.  Like give out summer reading prizes.

Speaking of summer reading, I’ve been sort of hot and cold with my reading – gobbling down a few books quickly, then taking ages with one, then back to gobbling.  Right now I’m a few chapters into Jenny Davidson’s The Explosionist, and I’m really enjoying the combination of historical fiction, alternate history, and mystery.  Throw in some spiritualists, a heroine who loves chemistry, and a fabulously detailed Edinburgh setting – I’m hooked.  Plus, the book is pleasantly fat without feeling either slow or padded.

I was amused to stop by my parents’ house to do laundry and find a copy of Lament on the counter – apparently my mom read my Goodreads review and got it out of the library, and after she was through, my sister picked it up.  My sister just finished reading New Moon and said picking up Lament felt like she was still in the same world, only it had gotten funnier and the character more spunky.  Awesome.

I want to be a librarian…

Oh wait, I AM.  As of yesterday, I will officially be the newest librarian at my library – the library I grew up at, the library where I volunteered for nearly ten years, the library where I’ve worked for the past five years.  I’ll be mostly a children’s librarian, but I’ll also work at the reference desk upstairs, covering breaks and days off and letting the regular reference librarians get some time away from the public.  I’ll have a storytime in the fall, when we expand our hours.  This is all thanks to the lovely people in the county who voted to increase taxes and provide stable funding for all the libraries.

I’m so flipping excited.  Sometimes I’m driving around and I make this sort of going-down-a-roller-coaster screaming noise, except quiet.  It hasn’t quite sunk in – and it probably won’t until I’m rolling out of bed and showing up for work at 8:30 or 9 am every day.  It will be lovely to have my evenings free, but I’ve been spoiled by having my mornings and most day times free.  I’ll only work 1 evening each week, and I’ll still have my one working weekend each month.  And I’ll only have one full-time job.  This will feel so weird.  In a good way.

I’m excited about in a professional sense – that I’ll finally be putting my degrees to use, and doing a job that I believe in, and having more of a career and less of a random collection of part-time jobs – but I’m also curious to see all the little ways that this will change my day-to-day life, like coming home at 6:30 and making dinner.  Or being able to have dinner plans with friends.  Or being able to go to all those evening church services that are so conveniently scheduled for people who work during the day, but are impossible to attend if you work evenings.  I can finally use that ballroom dance lesson gift certificate that my mom gave me for Christmas.  I can develop new habits – a good challenge.

And oh boy, now I have a really good reason to keep up with children’s books.

edge of the world

North of Muir Beach – gosh, I love the coast.

writing prompts

It’s a lazy Wednesday morning.  I made the puffiest of puffy oven pancakes for breakfast, and instead of having coffee with a little cream, I’m having hot milk with a little coffee.  Still delicious, but in a different way – I haven’t done a very good job of drinking up my milk this week and tomorrow is my turn to drive to the farm.  So the pancake used up some and the hot milk with coffee is using up more.  Pudding might use up most of the rest.  I’ve had a little cold for a week or so, which makes delicious cold raw milk not quite as appetizing as usual.

I finally took 150+ photos off my camera and I think I’ll post them slowly – I was just reading a post at Penni Russon’s blog about having blogger’s block (I particularly liked her comments on sadness and google searches), and either I have it, too, or I’m just lazy.  Or I’m out of the habit.  Either way, I miss it.  So I’ll try to jump-start myself with photos.  And more talking about books, of course.

Here’s a photo of the trail Bronwen and I hiked on our mini-break – conveniently photographed while on a coast drive the next day.  Yes, it really does go up and up and up.  But it was lovely at the top.

I’m reading Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s The Home-Maker, which is sort of painful to read but fascinating.  And I’m convinced the characters will become much happier before too long, so the pain is more bearable.  I think it would be funnier, too, if it didn’t in some way tap into my own fears about my desire for neatness and order.  Reading about slightly OCD behaviors loses its funny when you can imagine yourself doing some of the same things.  At any rate, I might need to take a break and read another YA novel – there’s a pile waiting for me.

happy bloomsday

I wish I were in Ireland for the occasion – although the weather is cool and cloudy, so it’s almost like I am.  I just need another cup of tea and I’ll be set.  I remember being in Dublin shortly after Bloomsday in 2001 and seeing signs up for various spots along Bloom’s route.  I even took my copy of Ulysses off the shelf this morning and flipped through, reminiscing about not quite reading it all the way through in college (I think I skipped a chapter).

Speaking of books I’ve actually finished, I thought North of Beautiful was fantastic and now I need to go read Justina Chen Headley’s other books.  Themes that could have been heavy handed felt true to life and I was definitely hooked by Terra’s story.

I made a dark chocolate cream pie (recipe from the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion, of course) the other day, and now that it’s gone, I miss it.  I might have to make another.  I did a gingersnap/vanilla cookie crust, and the filling was pleasantly dark and topped with whipped cream.  The combination was delicious.  While I was in California, Kate indoctrinated me into the cult of Dorie Greenspan, and we spent many hours poring over her book Baking and making a coconut tea cake, world peace cookies, and a berry tart.  With Bronwen, I made a peach and fig custard tart from Sunday Suppers, and between all these things I’m feeling the baking mojo.  I need to figure out a dessert for Father’s Day, and in the meantime who knows what I’ll dig out of a cookbook?  I feel like I could try anything.  And I’ve got more lone egg whites in the fridge, so this time I might really need to try meringues.

vacation books

My second day home from vacation – a week in California with friends – and I’m having a lazy Saturday and enjoying my weekend before heading back to work Monday.  I managed to pack exactly the right amount of books for the trip, which is a minor miracle.  Usually I completely overpack, or I stash books in a bag that I can’t access during the plane ride.

I was about halfway through S.A. Bodeen’s The Compound before leaving last week, and I hate to bring a short, half-finished book, but I needed to find out how things ended.  I got it on Kitri’s recommendation, and it’s a good fast-paced, tense YA novel.  Some plot elements I guessed at – the narrator’s family has been living in an elaborate bomb shelter for something like six years, following a nuclear attack on the country – but others, like the Supplements, surprised me.  It’s not really dystopian novel in a strict sense, but it really has that feel, especially once you get into it.  It’s like the father has created a mini-dystopia in the compound.  I finished that one up waiting at the gate at PDX.

Then I breezed through Ann Brashares’ adult novel, The Last Summer (of You and Me), which wasn’t anything remarkable but made for a good airplane book.  It’s interesting to see YA authors in a different genre – the story had a different tone from the Traveling Pants books and 3 Willows, but the characters were still young (early 20’s) and there was a recognizable feel to it.  A bit more melodramatic, and primarily following one character, it still dealt with relationships between a group of people in an interesting way.  Teens who enjoyed Brashares other books and want some slightly more adult themes could definitely pick this one up.  It wasn’t as funny as her YA books, though, which seemed like a shame.

Then I completely switched gears and started Andrea Barrett’s The Voyage of the Narwhal, which I picked up on a recent trip to Powell’s. I’m sensing the beginning of an Andrea Barrett kick – I love the way she recycles minor characters between books – it makes me want to read them all, and then go back and reread so I understand all the connections.  I’m reading her books out of publication order, too (I started with The Air We Breathe, which I think is her newest).  Plus, the characters all feel so real – there was one character who I suspected would be unlikeable, and did turn out to be a pretty terrible person, and I kept wondering if he would have a redeeming moment (pretty much not).  Other characters struggled to come into themselves in a way that was fascinating and slightly painful, but ultimately rewarding.  This would’ve made a good addition to the college class I took on “Travel and the Literary Imagination,” which interestingly enough came up in conversation with Bronwen on our mini-break.

On the way home, I started Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero, which demands careful reading, but like Anil’s Ghost seems like it will be worth it.  Like the other one, I don’t really know where the plot is going, but it’s so carefully crafted and the characters are heartbreaking (in the best sense of the word).

I worked at the library yesterday, and forgot to bring Divisadero with me, so I started reading one of my holds* on my lunch break, and am now back in the land of YA with Justina Chen Headley’s North of Beautiful, which is absolutely compelling.  Terra’s interest in maps and collage art doesn’t feel like it’s there to make her seem more well-rounded – her interests are really crucial to her character and are working well with the plot.  And speaking of jerk-tastic characters, I’m really loathing her father and wondering what will happen with that storyline.

*Possibly one of the best things about working at a library is that it’s not the end of the work when you forget to pack a book, or if you finish one on a break.  I always have a few holds waiting to be picked up, and if not there’s a whole library to choose from.  No lunch break is every spent in book-less misery.  Plus if I see something good, I can put it on hold right from my desk or immediately check it out to myself.

Now it’s time to go spend some quality time with that perennial favorite, the cookbook.  I’m thinking dark chocolate cream pie.

updates

I finally broke down and bought myself a new laptop recently, and it just arrived the other day.  Bliss.  I was having some keyboard issues with the 5-year-old one, which was just annoying as all get out (and made it very hard to want to reply to emails, write blog posts, etc. when I knew I’d have to copy and paste to get the letters I wanted).  The old one was also incredibly slow.  Painfully.  Torturously.  It got me through grad school and gave its life in the process.  RIP.  Well, not until my brother tranfers all my files for me…

So here I am on a lazy Saturday morning, coffee at hand and an enormous fried egg in my stomach (seriously the biggest I’ve ever eaten – the egg didn’t quite fit into it’s spot in the carton – the beauty of fresh farm eggs).

I finished an audio book that I didn’t care for – The Ghost in Love – and it seems to have put me off audio books, which is a pity since I have Sally Gardner’s The Red Necklace waiting patiently to be listened to.  Yesterday was my last day of work before two weeks of vacation, so I won’t be driving to work and listening in the car.  I might get some listening in on my trip to California, while driving from airport to farm to university town – last time my rental car had a CD player and I listened to most of Laura Whitcomb’s A Certain Slant of Light.  I remember the whole thing vividly because I (being unfamiliar with the car and the roads) accidentally hit the random feature on the CD player and couldn’t figure out for the longest time why the book was jumping around so much in time.   Hmm, that probably influenced my impression of the book (although I did go back and listen in order, parts had already been spoiled).  But I associate that story completely with that drive, and in retrospect I like the book more than I did initially.

Right now I’m reading Eon: Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman – originally from Leila’s recommendation.  It took me a while to get into it – the first 100 pages were interesting but a bit slow – and then yesterday I hit a point of starting to speed through it.  The world of the book is fascinating, and gender roles play a huge part in the story, although you could probably read it as pure fantasy.  The cover art only says “fantasy” and “dragons” but there’s a lot more going on and I’m so curious to see where the story takes me.  The world-building is impressive and the characters are complex and believable.

On the job front, things are looking good.  We’re getting there.  The job I want now exists, and I just have to get it – we’ll see what HR says about promoting me vs. making me apply and interview.

with a side of snark, please

It’s a coffee morning.  Yum.  And I traded days with a library coworker, so I got to sleep in this morning instead of doing my usual rush to work (yeah yeah yeah, I know I don’t start until 10 am on Fridays, I’m a pathetic excuse for a working adult) – although, of course, that means I’m working tomorrow afternoon.  I’ll enjoy it now and work later.  Actually, I never mind going to the library – I just hate getting ready for work, packing a lunch, etc.

I’m starting to think about what I’ll bring to the annual Turkey Dinner in May that my parents host.  Last year I took home the rubber chicken in the side dish/dessert contest, so I need to find an appropriate follow-up recipe.  I’m thinking of using the Nectarine and Raspberry Tart recipe as a starting point, and doing some sort of variation.   Different fruit combinations on a similar base.  We’ve been joking about having a bake-off at work (not the library) because some of us regularly bring in homemade treats while others merely claim to be capable of such greatness.  So I’ve taken to taunting the alleged baker with descriptions of recipes like this one.  Taunting – if only that were a marketable job skill.

I think I’m going to have to make banana bread today – BUT I might branch out and try the recipe in my King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, instead of the regular ol’ King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion. Crazy, huh?  Do you think I’m working too hard to insert variety into my life?

In bookish news, I’m reading Maggie Stiefvater’s Lament, which has a lamentably (okay, I’ve had too much coffee) bad cover considering how much I’m enjoying it – there are some zinger one liners* in there.  I picked it up after reading Leila’s review (that woman could talk me into reading almost anything) – she recommends it to fans of Melissa Marr, and while the set-ups seem very similar, this one has a deliciously snarky edge that I didn’t see in Wicked Lovely.  And you know how I love my snarky edge.

*”This was possibly the first time anyone had ever expressed interest in my personal life, and I wasn’t sure if I should answer her or chronicle the event in my scrapbook.”

so many questions

Have I mentioned how much I love being out of school?  Since I moved right after I graduated, it’s like I made a clean break with that school part of my life.  When other people talk about tests or homework, it seems so long ago and far away.   Being out of school feels “normal” – which is to say that I haven’t gone all hog-wild with my free time.  Instead, I’m just trying to find new habits and patterns and enjoy my freedom until the day when I might have to show up for work at 8:30 (yawn) am.

Instead of thinking about things like projects and deadlines and the intricacies of the library catalog (although I still think about that sometimes), I can contemplate life’s big questions:

• Should I have coffee or tea?  Coffee is more satisfying and creamy (when I add cream, which is always), and it involves more elaborate preparation rituals.  Tea gets honey, which is lovely, and it’s simple and never makes me jittery when I drink too many cups.
• What should I read next?  Right now I have out Looking for Anne of Green Gables, Well Witched, Pippi Longstocking, Crossing to Paradise, Tales from Outer Suburbia, Wintergirls, The Home-Maker, The Surrender Tree, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey, and some cooking and gardening books that I keep forgetting about.  I’m listening to The Ghost in Love in the car and enjoying it although it’s pretty off-beat.  It’s one of those books that talks about food a lot, which I love, and it has these occasional brilliant observations that you would never have made but recognize as being true.  Actually, the same is true of The Air We Breathe, which I’m also reading, although the observations have a different feel and the food is described with less reverence, and it’s not off-beat – just compelling in a 19th century novel way.
• What shoes should I wear for Bronwen’s wedding?  This one needs research.
• Why am I incapable of finishing bananas before they turn brown?  And how many loaves of banana bread can I bake before I cut myself off?
• Will my balcony get enough sun to keep my plants alive?  And will the sun ever stay out for more than two minutes at a time?

In the meantime, though, I’ve answered the “what to bake?” question (chocolate chip cookies) and the “what to eat for lunch?” question (tuna on sourdough with a pickle – and yes, I eat lunch at 3 pm – and you would, too, if dinner was at 10).

Bog Child, or how I changed my mind about Siobhan Dowd

Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
It feels strange to tag a book set during the year of my birth as “historical fiction,” but this is a story where the specific time and place are crucial to the story. It’s not one of those books set during the recent past just for cultural references or because the author was a teen at the time. On the other hand, though, the story feels contemporary, except for the details of the political situation and the technology involved in analyzing the body of the girl found in the bog.

I didn’t have high hopes for this book, and I almost didn’t pick it up because of how much I disliked A Swift Pure Cry. But in every place where that book let me down, this one came through. Where the drama in that one felt over the top, this one felt appropriate. Where the plot twists were predictable and annoying in the first book, they were startling and crucial in this one. At one point the tension was so high that I couldn’t bear to open the book at work (knowing I’d either be unable to put it down or would burst into tears), but when I finally had a chance to sit down with it, along came a twist that broke the tension in such a perfect way that I almost cried for joy. Other twists were heartbreaking, of course, and one I should have seen coming because the clues were everywhere. The romantic subplot also helped break up some of the tension while still feeling realistic.

There’s a lot going on in the story – family drama, romance, archeology, hunger strikes, political tensions, the stress of exams, friendships – but each part of the story felt essential to the rest, and each character felt like a living, breathing person. In fact, whenever I wasn’t reading, the characters were living in my head so vividly that I was agonizing over their futures.

The story walks a fine line in terms of the political situation – and I found myself wondering how much the average American teen would know about what was going on in Northern Ireland during the eighties. I never really understood the situation, and I’d never heard of the hunger strikers, until a class I took while studying in London (and I almost found myself wishing for my notes while reading). Dowd’s note at the end gives a bit of information, and readers who are drawn into the story will probably end up wanting to read more. I’m unsure about how important it would be to know exactly what was going on, historically. Confusion might push some readers away, but the tension is so well played that it almost might not matter if you know all the details.

I could keep gushing, and I’ve barely mentioned Mel, the girl found in the bog, and how her story ties into Fergus’ story, or how it’s a fantastic coming of age story, or the sense of place that’s so palpable – in other words, it was fantastic for when you’re in the mood for a gripping story. Just be careful about reading it at work.

View all my reviews.