The books of May 2012

It’s taking me a while to get around to writing this one. Mostly because I moved last month and I haven’t signed up for internets yet at home. I had to compromise…a night off from watching DVDs and going through stuff for a night with just me and a Word document that I could put on a thumb-drive and transfer to my blog.

In the midst of the packing, moving, unpacking, organizing, perusing, and repacking, I went to see a few movies. I’ll talk about the last viewings first. Men in Black 3 was surprisingly entertaining. For the series, I thought it was a plausible storyline and that Josh Brolin. Holy crap! He really, really studied up on Tommy Lee Jones and did an outstanding job. Plus, you know, Emma Thompson. The woman really just can’t do wrong. Also, it was better than MIB 2…which isn’t saying much.

Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows was kind of a let down. I mean, sure, it was funny in places and it had great music. It certainly had the cheesiness I expected having been a fan of the remake TV series in the early 90s. The original, also supremely cheesy, had its moments, but I never sat down and watched the whole thing…just some of it. That said, it was not a bad movie at all. It just had the sad misfortune of following…THE AVENGERS!

I cannot say enough great things about The Avengers. I saw it more than once and I still can’t narrow it down.  I loved just about everything about it. The storyline? The actors? The dialog? The hotness of the actors? All of it was amazing…HULK SAY ALL OF THINGS ABOUT MOVIE GREAT! The only downside, if you can call it that, is I seem to have developed a massive crush on the villain. Tom Hiddleston’s Loki might be the most charming villain on the big screen.

Wait, this blog is about books, isn’t it? The stuff is supposed to be less word count-y. OK. So I did manage to buy one book because I knew that once I had the place semi in order, I wanted to read it as soon as possible, so I bought Jen Lancaster’s Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner.

This month wasn’t a heavy reading month. The library fulfilled all of my needs…and then when I unearthed a box full of cheesy romance novels, I decided to re-read one of those to round out the month.  I read: The Balkan Escape by Steve Berry (the short story I bought on my Kindle last month), Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo, The Naked Truth: A Memoir by Danielle Staub, Hiding from My Reality: My Story of Love, Loss, and Finding the Courage Within by Taylor Armstrong, Peter and the Vampires (Volume One) by Darren Pillsbury, The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith, and Hearts Aflame by Johanna Lindsey.

The Balkan Escape was a short adventure of the female lead in the Cotton Malone books by Steve Berry. It's interesting and gives the background for one of the full novels. Cassiopeia meets the Russian who appears as the kidnapped man who they have to save...I think in The Emperor's Tomb? It was actually at the end of the paperback I had read, but at the time, I didn't feel like reading it.

I checked out Cosmopolis because I saw the trailer for the movie that’s coming out…starring everyone’s favorite sparkley, angsty vampire, RPattz. I can see him in this role. The story takes place in a very tech-filled world where information and money and sex seem to be the only outcomes of any situation. Oh, and death, mostly through murder in this book. I can’t say that it’s a book I think I’ll cherish in my memory, but I think it was written to translate extremely well to film. That said, I’m looking forward to seeing how they handle those constant streams of information on the big screen.

Yes, I know. I KNOW. Shut up already. I watch the Real Housewives. I’m not overly particular about what city they need to be from either. I think Jersey and Atlanta are my favorites, but I admit to enjoying the OC and Beverly Hills too. I couldn’t watch DC; New York tends to get on my nerves (especially without Betheny); and Miami was actually too nuts for me (this from the girl who likes Jersey and Atlanta…shocking!). Having seen these shows, I was prepared to be very vocal in my dislike for these books. Danielle Staub’s book was, um, well…it just wasn’t good. It pained me to read it because I could picture her face and could almost smell the lies. I don’t know. Who knows what’s real and what isn’t. But this really seemed like a couple hundred pages to make herself seem like a better person. She did address the Cop Without A Badge book that slammed her in the past…and admitted that she was an addict and an “exotic dancer”, but she frequently bashed the other Jersey housewives without always naming them directly. It was like watching a less entertaining version of the show…based solely on the one character that you don’t really like. I had an entirely different reaction to Taylor Armstrong’s book. She also had issues out the wazoo (where exactly is the wazoo?) and she continually put herself in horrible, horrible male situations. The last one physically and emotionally abusing her so much that if she had stayed any longer, he probably would’ve ended up killing her instead of himself. It was a very sad story, but it had a slight uplift to it. She seems to have learned how to ask for help and how to cope with things she didn’t think she could. So, color me surprised, but overall it was a decent read.

Peter and the Vampires (Volume One) is a collection of Pillsbury's kids stories about Peter, his mom, his little sister, his best friend Dill, and his grandfather. There were four stories. The first, Peter and the Dead Men, was about burned zombies who live in the garden. The second was Peter and the Vampires...the vampires being two girls from Peter's class, one who is weird and has a crush on Peter. The third one is Peter and The Changeling. While Peter and Dill are watching Peter's little sister, she gets switched with a troll. The fourth one was Peter and the Swamp Monster. Peter and Dill went to a water park and ended up in the swamp and having to face a monster. These are all very cute and I'd recommend the series for tweens.

The Marriage Plot. I was on the waiting list for this book since last October. And here’s the thing...a month later, I remember that I read it, but not much else. I know that I laughed some…and I got into the story well. It was better than Middlesex, which I did not like at all, but perhaps not as good as The Virgin Suicides (loved it!). So far, Eugenides and I are having a love/hate relationship. But he’s a master at the game…he takes long enough to write the next one that I forget if I liked the last one much or not. Sorry if you were looking for an actual review of this one…I really…OH! Wait. I do remember and I did like it. It was the girl who dated the guy with schizophrenia or something and he had to take lithium and he didn’t like the religious studies guy who was crushing on his girl. The religious studies guy eventually went to India and shaved his head. It’s a good book…but not for everyone. I think there’s something about his style that both draws and repels me…hence the whole love/hate thing.

I was really excited about Unholy Night. I loved Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter! I love how he takes these known “histories” (one being historical fiction and one being real history about a real person) and slips all the supernatural stuff in like it totally belongs there. You want to slap your forehead and say, “D’oh! Of course he was a vampire hunter! Of course vamps over-run the south and the government. Totally fits! Slave as blood donors? Well duh!” And I’ll stop before I put in a big spoiler for those who haven’t read it. Suffice it to say, those two books are genius to me.  So I checked out his latest book, Unholy Night. This one was about how the three wisemen were actually three of the worst criminals and they ended up escaping certain death and escorting Jesus, Mary, and Joseph to a safe destination. There wasn’t really a lot of supernatural in this one…perhaps why I wasn’t as fond of it. There were some zombie-like things, but mostly it was soldiers and small miracles. Which, you know, is cool and all, but it didn’t translate as well as the other books. My best advice here is that if you really want to read a different take on biblical stories, please buy (don’t check it out because you’ll want to keep it on your shelf) Christopher Moore’s Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal instead. It is hysterical.

While I was unpacking, I found a box full of cheesy, milky-white-shouldered and bared-male-chested covered books. Ah, romance novels. You’re all so stupid, but we all read you anyway. My freshman year of college, a friend from home work in the public library. She was shelving in the romance section and was intrigued by the cover of Johanna Lindsey’s Hearts Aflame. She read the first chapter. She photocopied that first chapter and checked out the book. While reading the book, she sent me the photocopy and after reading the one chapter, I made a special trip to the used bookstore and got my own copy of the book. I’ve been a fan of her books ever since. They’re formulaic, but witty. And since this was the first one I’d ever read, I didn’t get the formula. I just thought, “Vikings” and “Hot”. If you’re ever in the mood for a romance novel that would never ever happen in a billion years, please check out one of hers…maybe one of the early Malory novels. The men are all handsome and brawny rogues and the women are all strong-willed, smart, and beautiful. There will be a conflict between them to keep them apart, but they’ll find ways around it…and in that case, the journey is always hot. Enjoy!

The books of April 2012

Another month has completely flown by me! I realize that there are still most of today and all of tomorrow left in April, but I decided that today would be reading optional, so time to blog.

I saw some more movies. I checked and it looks like I'm planning to see a movie every weekend from now through mid-August, minus one. Everything looks so entertaining! This month I saw Wrath of the Titans (sadly not awesome), Cabin in the Woods (best horror genre movie ever!), Wild and Weird with the Alloy Orchestra playing for all the silent shorts at Ebertfest, and John Cusack's latest, The Raven (better than I expected and it made me want to re-read all of Poe's stories).

I managed to squeeze in some crafts. First up was another custom item I asked weelittlestitches to design for a friend's birthday. She loves Romy and Michele, so I thought maybe she should be able to see them every day:

Let's fold scarves!

One of my BFFs made a request for a cross-stitch. I found the pattern in an old book I had and then stitched up the saying she wanted:

Remember to put the key where you can find it.

The IronCraft challenges this month were good. Challenge 7 was "Freshen Up". I took it a little outside the box between their description and what I had just made for BFF. I decided to put a favorite saying to stitch and found (in that same book) something I could make for myself so I look at it every day as a way to think differently about my life:

A cute reminder not to be a dud.

Challenge 8, "Love Your Mother...Earth" was a recycle challenge. I went back to Erica Domesek's P.S. - I Made This book and followed the instructions for the fringe t-shirt scarf:

This scarf is a good idea, but I'll probably never wear it.

Lastly, I was commissioned to make two of the following:

Does this even need a caption?

In book news, I bought one mini-book for $0.99 on the Kindle this month...and downloaded lots of free books. But I didn't buy a physical book.

This month I read Sizzling Sixteen, Smokin' Seventeen, and Explosive Eighteen all by Janet Evanovich. I also read: Good Christian Bitches by Kim Gatlin, Beauty and the Werewolf by Mercedes Lackey, The Garden Intrigue by Lauren Willig, The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory, The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory, Ragnarok: The End of the Gods by A. S. Byatt, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Secret Rage by Charlaine Harris. (Also, this new layout for composition from Blogger? Totally not user friendly.)

All three Evanovich books were the same as the other fifteen. Stephanie Plum gets bonds cases, can't figure out which man she wants to be with the most (Morelli or Ranger), deals with her crazy family, and generally bungles cases with Lula until she accidentally solves those cases. Always fun reads. Whenever nineteen comes out, I see me sitting on the balcony, reading with my sunglasses on until it's too dark to be outside reading.

I read GCB because I read that it's the inspiration for the show on ABC. It's extremely, loosely based on the book. I don't know...I didn't really enjoy the book, possibly because the characters had already been developed very differently for me by the TV show. It wasn't bad; I just think you have to choose which one you prefer...I prefer the show with Kristin Chenoweth and Annie Potts.


Beauty and the Werewolf was another book in Mercedes Lackey's 500 Kingdoms series. I really like this series because it takes the same fairy tale you've heard a million times and messes with it. Because it's a series, there's a driving force called "The Tradition" that's constantly trying to push people into the story characters. Each kingdom falls under the realm of a fairy godmother (some more powerful than others) and she has to work to keep the magic contained and the people unharmed as much as possible. This new take on Beauty and the Beast has the girl attacked by the werewolf so they can be thrown together. She soon learns that the werewolf thing is a curse and the guy wasn't born that way. So while she's falling for him, that doesn't break the curse. He's also scholarly and has turned to learn about magic, so he's a lower-level wizard...she learns from him and her local godmother and is on her way to becoming a sorceress. It was a very different take on the story...as are all of these books in the series. And, there are always little jokes on pop culture in Lackey's books of this series that I enjoy finding. If you want to read this, I'd point you to The Fairy Godmother first since it's book one of the series and kind of explains how things will work throughout the series. All of these books are good.

The latest installment from Lauren Willig has our current day graduate student researching one of the Pink Carnation's male spies...the poet who appears in a few other books. He ends up working with an American to find out that Napoleon has hired Robert Fulton to create a new weapon for him to attack England. Of course, the American and the poet fall for each other while working on a horrible masque/play for Napoleon's house. In current time, the grad student and her British boyfriend have problems with his family and a film crew at his home. Turns out, there's a treasure that his uncle/cousin has been after the whole time to add more intrigue to the story. As always, as soon as I was done, I wanted to read another one. She's going to need to start writing faster!

The two Philippa Gregory books are part of the Cousin's War series. Last month I read The White Queen about Elizabeth Woodville. The Red Queen was about Margaret Beaufort of the House of Lancaster. I did not like her at all. She was constantly harping on things being her God-given right...one husband even pointed out how nice it must be that God supported each of her hair-brained schemes. She wanted her son on the throne as he was the Tudor heir. She and her one-time brother-in-law, Jasper Tudor, fought valiantly to put her son on the throne. It was pretty much a chore to read because she was so very unsympathetic. The Lady of the Rivers was about Jacquetta, Elizabeth's Woodville's mother. She was French and had briefly been friends with Joan of Arc while her family held her for the French, knowing that once the matriarch died, her uncle would hand Joan to the English to be killed. Jacquetta had a bit of "the sight" and sometimes she could see people's futures, but not always in a way she could understand, despite her first husband's training. This one was more interesting because Jacquetta was full of life and took her fate into her own hands and didn't rely on others to do her bidding. I think there's a fourth book for the series coming out this summer. If you like this time period, read the first and third books, but skip The Red Queen. That one was far too irritating.

Ragnarok was a good book! I've found Byatt to be hit or miss with me, but this was definitely an interesting one. A child in England during the second world war finds a book about the fall of the Norse gods and uses her reading to deal with the pain and loss of war. The imagery was pretty amazing. It was hard to put this small book down.

I read The Secret Garden so long ago, that I could barely remember it all. I downloaded it on to the Kindle since it was free and let it be my first venture into reading on an electronic device. Turns out, I still love books, but I'm also pretty happy with this device as well. It definitely cuts back on the clutter issue. Anyway, I don't remember my original reactions to this story, but I did like it this time around. It ended up happily and neatly, with everything fixed...you know, except for the gardener still having back pains and the family of fourteen (!) still being poor. Despite the garden descriptions, it didn't make me look forward to going outside in the summer. Shocking, I know.

I found Secret Rage on the shelf at the library while looking for something else. I like Charlaine Harris's Sookie books, so I thought I'd give it a try. It was a short, brutal read about a series of rapes in a town in Tennessee. The characters were very interesting and I always love a good southern story. I could've done without some of the fine details, but I knew it was a "ripped from the headlines" type of story so I was prepared. All that was missing were the Law and Order gong sounds at the end of each chapter. 

I've got a lot on my plate for May, so I might not be reading as much. But I'll definitely have some movies to talk about and some other stuff. Have a good rest of April!

The books of March 2012

Last day of March. Kind of hard to believe...what with the weather being overly nice and all. This month I managed to go to the movies three times, but all of the previews I saw make me think I might start living in the theater soon. We went to see Wanderlust (very funny...and very, very wrong), The Hunger Games (awesome!), and the Art theater finally got A Dangerous Method (loved this).

I didn't make as many crafts this month. The two IronCraft challenges were the dollar store challenge and the Peeps challenge. For the dollar store, I collected items from Michael's dollar bin and clearance racks and ended up with this, coming in right around $5:

Pretty sure this isn't the duckie's natural habitat.

For the Peeps challenge, I ran out of time...and creativity. Nothing was standing up correctly and I kind of made a big mess on the counter. I called it "Blue Peep Group's Easter Show Rehearsal" (rehearsal because nothing was working):

Things are going terribly wrong on this stage. 

I have a few friends who love Ryan Gosling and follow the "hey girl" Twitter feeds and such. So one lucky birthday girl got this from a pattern I bought from Defiant Damsel's etsy shop:

Hey girl, hope your birthday is fabulous.

The last craft I finished in March was for another friend's birthday. I made a very cute one from the weelittlestitches etsy shop and some homemade shortbread:

milk + cookie = love 4 eva!

I spent a lot of time in the library, so I only ended up buying one book in all of March: the third book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. It finally came out in the paperback size that matches the other two I have. Yay for a matching set :)

It turns out, I read a lot of books this month. A lot. Mostly because the Evanovich series reads really, really, really fast and the Selznick books were crammed with pictures. This month I read: Secret London: An Unusual Guide by Rachel Howard, The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Wonder Struck  by Brian Selznick, Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan, Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner, and Janet Evanovich's High Five, Hot Six, Seven Up, Hard Eight, To the Nines, Ten Big Ones, Eleven on Top, Twelve Sharp, Lean Mean Thirteen, Fearless Fourteen, and Finger Lickin' Fifteen.

Secret London: An Unusual Guide is a travel guide for those wanting to go to places the usual traveler might miss while roaming around London. I've wanted to go to London for so long that I've gotten to the point that I can't tell you why I want to go or what I want to do. This book had TONS of places that I would miss if I just did the big things on the list. I took copious notes and will go back to them closer to travel time (hopefully next year) and see what's still around and what things still seem really interesting to me. This is only the first book I'll look into for London. I want to make sure I cover a lot of ground in my head and when I'm actually there.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret is now a lovely movie everyone can enjoy on DVD called Hugo. I saw the movie last month in the theater and finally read the book that had been sitting on my nightstand for a long time. The book is filled with the story and lovely black and white illustrations. Having seen the movie first, I wasn't surprised at how beautiful and intricate the drawings were...I was surprised by how faithfully the drawings were represented on film. The book follows Hugo's story from when we meet him, through his past to explain his present, and then turns to connect all the characters together through Georges Méliès. Méliès is a character in the book and is also a real-life master film maker. Each character has a part to play in the story to bring everything to a much happier place in the end. The book does not take long to read at all (despite the page count...remember, lots of drawings). If you've not seen the movie, wait until after you read the book. It's not one of those situations where you'll like one more than the other, but it's very nice to see how it comes to life.

Wonder Struck is another Brian Selznick book with both story and pictures. The story this time is split in two: one part is about a young boy who goes completely deaf and how he goes off to find his father and the other part is about a young girl, about 50 years earlier, also deaf, in search of her inattentive mother. Without knowing their pasts and futures, these two characters' stories become intertwined as the young boy's search comes to a close. It's another beautifully told story with lovely black and white drawings to illustrate the fantastic worlds Selznick has created.

Maine is the second book by Sullivan. I read her first one, Commencement, last fall. This book was another that sat on my nightstand for a long time. Maine wasn't about female friends, it was about the females in one family. I didn't really get into this one...it got a lot of good hype when it came out and it is a decent book, but I wasn't really blown away. It was very hard to have sympathy for any of the characters. It wore me out to read about all of their problems and skeletons in the closet. When I was done, it felt like a relief and definitely didn't leave me wanting to know more about what happened to them...even though the ending was a little off and tried to be somewhat redeeming.

Fly Away Home was another good book from Weiner. I seem to consistently like her writing. This story was about a family reacting to and surviving a political scandal that involved the husband cheating on the wife. Each character was well defined and had things you liked and didn't like about them. Weiner's first books seemed more light hearted than the last couple of I've read. The topics that she tackles aren't usually light hearted, but she always has a character who brings the laughter. This was an engaging read and as I got toward the end I realized that no one had made me laugh out loud and I was kind of sad. But then, out of nowhere, chaos! And the grandmother pulls though with the hilarity. I laughed out loud as she grilled each person about their secrets that they hadn't even come to terms with themselves and certainly hadn't shared with the rest of the family.

Speaking of laughing out loud, every single one of the Evanovich books has made me laugh like that...usually more than once. One of them I even had to put down because I started cry-laughing and could no longer see the page. Pretty sure the neighbors thought I went crazy. These are the books about Stephanie Plum, an incompetent bonds agent who sometimes catches her man, but usually ends up in a big crazy mess with either Lula, the ex-hooker turned file clerk, or her Grandma who thinks she's entitled to see inside every casket of every dead person. One of the two main men in her life, Morelli the hot cop or Ranger the hot, mysterious security agent, usually have to come to the rescue. She's got the intuition for the job, but unless someone makes her really angry, she's just not that effective. These books aren't prize winners and the stories are generally slightly unbelievable, but they are very entertaining. If you just want something light to read to pass the time with a few laughs, these are your books.

Well that's it for this month. Now to sleep off the unseasonal allergies. Woohoo!

The books of February 2012

Another month has zoomed by me and I'm not totally sure how that happens anymore. Possibly that whole aging thing. Well, I guess it's not totally passed us by since Leap Year gives us one more day in February, but it's as good as done, right?

This month was busy, but fun. I saw The Artist at the Art theater in town (while I was there, I also joined the co-op to help keep the theater going...read more about it here). If you haven't seen this movie, you need to do so. As a bonus, it won one of those sparkley Oscar things, so it's not just me that thought it was good. I also saw Hugo, which I also liked a lot. It's coming out on DVD soon, so make sure to rent it or stream it or whatever you need to do to watch it. Oh! And I saw One for the Money and This Means War. Both of which were hilarious. Don't believe the bad hype!

Craft-wise, I'm going to post a few things I made last month and everything from this month because all of the February birthdays are over. IronCraft challenge two was hearts and flowers. I made a friend in California a gift out of that one by doing a little craft math:

Chocolate is greater than or equal to hearts + flowers all of the time!

The third IronCraft challenge was called warm up. This time I made a matching cowl and wrist warmers...mostly because my neck and hands are generally cold:

Baby, it shouldn't be cold inside...

IronCraft four was catalog creation. What it really made me realize is that I don't get a lot of catalogs anymore...except cooking ones. Anyway, the ones I did look at, as well as the stores, had a lot of loop scarves (aka infinity scarves). Seemed simple enough, so I tried one:

It's a scarf! It's a circle! Possibilities are endless!

I made a few things for friends with February birthdays. My friend who often takes time out to tell people how she really feels about what they just said to her got a visual aid from the Subversive Cross-Stitch book:

Now she can just point and roll her eyes, saving her voice!

A friend who wanted a ribbon...a yellow one...got a version he could keep forever instead of a jpg:

Aaawww, who's a good scientist?

My friend who loves Zoolander required my having a custom pattern made from the weelittlestitches esty shop.

"A eugoogolizer. One who speaks at funerals."

Last but not least, the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (also from weelittlestitches): 

I'm such a good friend that if you liked Hellboy and I didn't, I'd make this for you.

So books! The thing this blog should be mostly about! I have to admit a very guilty secret. I bought Snooki's A Shore Thing. You can't convince that it won't be just like watching the show, only I won't have to look at or hear them. That was it. My hard earned (about) $6, given to Snooki and her publisher.

The books I've read list is only slightly less embarrassing. With all the crafts and movies and Oscar watching...and being sick, which was awesome...reading needed to be very light and fluffy. This month I read: Overbite by Meg Cabot, Red Carpet Diaries: Confessions of a Glamour Boy by Steven Cojocaru, Incendiary by Chris Cleave, The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice, Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly, and Four to Score by Janet Evanovich.

Overbite was a continuation of Cabot's book Insatiable that I read last month. Cabot's going against the current grain by not including a werewolf in these, but they are highly enjoyable. Meena now works for the Vatican's Palatine Guard, and while she broke off the affair with the vampire (possibly frowned on by her new bosses), she couldn't quite shake him. Meena, her brother, her friends, her over-protective bodyguard, her vampire ex-boyfriend, her vampire ex-neighbors, and of course, her doggie Jack Bauer are back. This time they're trying to figure out which is the least of the evils and get rid of at least one of them for goodness sake! They work for the Vatican. Isn't that what they're supposed to be doing? This book, and the first one, are just fun to read.

Red Carpet Diaries...yes, I purposefully saved this for red carpet month. Steven Cojocaru is quite the character. Hard knock life? Triumphant rise from horrid circumstances? Only if you count not having the right hair products or clothes. This was complete fluff with a side of name dropping. He's met a lot of people working tv and the red carpet...and he's willing to share. It was a quick read, but not one I need to read again.

I won't lie. The real reason I didn't focus on reading for a bit was the book Incendiary. It was written as one long letter from a woman who lost her husband and child to an act of terror in London committed by Osama bin Laden. Was it sad? Sure, but it was also funny at times...and a pretty thought out story for being written in a way that nearly drove me nuts (nowhere near as bad as the worst book of last year, Room). She was also having an affair...right smack in the middle of the deed, when they saw the bombing on tv. Your sympathy goes up and down for her. In the end, it was a decent read, but again, not one I'll be keeping.

Full disclosure? Ann Rice and I broke up a long time ago. Sometime around books 4 and 5 of the vampire series. The ramming of her thoughts on religion into my brain didn't sit well, so I decided no more. And then she came out with the books where apparently she found some other religion to share with the masses, so I avoided those as well. But a little over a week ago, I saw that she had a new book out called The Wolf Gift. I like wolves. I like gifts. And she seemed to be not discussing religion along side her occasional smut anymore so I was game. It's actually quite good. It's definitely Anne Rice though...like if you've ever read anything by her, you'd know right away that she wrote this. And I was wrong...I mean yeah, there's a wolf and they're calling the bite that turns you into a werewolf a gift, but she's back to rethinking her religious thoughts...and trotting them out through philosophical arguments...right next to a storyline that seems to involve more "civilized" beastiality than I ever thought I'd read (the total I thought I'd read was NONE, by the way). I checked it out from the library and I can't for sure say if I would read it again or not, but if she writes a second one, I'll probably read it to see if she's gotten over any of her issues yet.

You might remember that a while back, I read Janet Evanovich's One for the Money. Well, when I went to the library to get the beastiality Anne Rice book, I was in that fluffy book needing mode. I remembered that Evanovich has plenty in the Stephanie Plum series (eighteen full novels and several side books), so I made my way upstairs and grabbed two through five (five will be on next month's list...I didn't feel like staying up all night to read it). All three books are completely fun, insane, no-way-did-that-happen, and man-those-guys-sound-hot (and after seeing the movie and having people in place for those guys, yes, they are indeed hot) books. The grandma is still cracking me up and so are the guys. Her ineptitude and sheer dumb luck as a bonds agent is what ends up unbelievable, but still really funny. There's always something highly entertaining in her burgh...blowing up cars, hanging out with cross-dressers, hanging out with ex-hookers, burning down funeral parlors, standing on the tables in Atlantic City...this girl gets into everything. If you need to kill a few hours with something mindless but highly entertaining, read these. I'll be reading all of them.

Did you watch the Oscars? Did you check out the dress reviews online to see if your opinion matched Tom & Lorenzo's (the link is part one of three)? No? What?! What do you mean who are Tom & Lorenzo?! Stop reading this and go to their site!

The books of January 2012

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...but the fire is so delightful...wait a minute! The weather has been in the 50s and 60s and while a fire is always delightful, I don't know that it's necessary just right now. Seriously! I'm not sure what's up with the spring weather in January, but I'm sure we'll pay for it later somehow.

What have I done this month? Well, I know I saw Underworld: Awakening. It was a good sequel and led me to believe another installment will happen. What I couldn't believe is the trailer I saw for a new Resident Evil. People really continued to watch these after the first one?! Inconceivable! (And yes I do know what that means and I am using it properly.)

Let's see...a few crafts this month...pretty much all of them to be gifts for people next month, so I can't post them. But I can show one of them now. I found the pattern in an etsy store and almost died laughing. Luckily, a fellow Buffy fan had a birthday and was in need of a present:

Buffy to Giles: hips don't usually lie like that!

I'm trying to remember if I bought books this month. And, brace yourselves, I did not by myself a book in the whole month of January! Did I think about it? Yes. Did I buy books for other people? Yes. But, I decided to dip further into the seemingly never-ending pile of books that are around me daily.

So what did I read? I started with a couple of items from the library: Other People's Rejection Letters: Relationship Enders, Career Killers, and 150 Other Letters You'll Be Glad You Didn't Receive by Bill Shapiro and I Know I Am, But What Are You? by Samantha Bee. From the home stash, I read: Never Tell Our Business to Strangers: A Memoir by Jennifer Mascia, The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares, The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory, At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream by Wade Rouse, Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love by Larry Levin, and Insatiable by Meg Cabot.
The rejection letters book was funny and sad. It was a fun way to pass a few hours on an actual cold, wet, wintry Saturday afternoon with the sniffles. I feel like the title is pretty self explanatory. I just really needed something to cleanse my reading palette from the crap that was Room.

I always thought Samantha Bee was funny on The Daily Show, but I hadn't gotten around to reading her book. It wasn't as hilarious as the Mindy Kaling book, but it was still very entertaining. I'm always drawn to comic actors/actresses biographies and straight up humor books under the implied promise of hilarity. If you enjoy her humor, you'll probably like this. I did.

The Jennifer Mascia memoir was one I searched for...and searched for...after seeing it one time on a display at a bookstore and reading an article about it a long time ago. I did overhype it in my head, but it was still really interesting...and the cover was cross-stitched, so that's awesome. Who doesn't like a book cover with a little old-school stitchin' with some guns? Jennifer grew up fairly naive to the nature of her family's business ventures, possibly because each individual may have needed more therapy techniques than people knew about in the 70s and 80s. Mafia involvement? Check. Drugs? Check. Adultery? Check. INSANITY? CHECK! As a family unit, these people were tight, but just messed up. I enjoyed how the view she gave into her childhood, teen years, and adulthood. Despite all the crazy, there was a lot of love, but wow. I'm glad her parents had passed once she found all of this out or she might not have been able to move on with her own, separate life.

Ann Brashares is a little bit the same in every book. The story took place mostly at the beach, but some in the city. Sisters grow up, dynamics of relationships change, one sister doesn't change her thought processes, the other does, and of course, there's a man stuck in the middle. I guess you could call it a love triangle, but it's different than that. The guy is bff with one sister and in love with the other. They both need him in completely different ways...then tragedy, as only Brashares can write it. She does manage to give it a kind of happy ending, but it has some sad that you can't shake off.

If you're not a fan of historical fiction (not romance, but history mixed up with fictional dialog), then you probably don't like most of Phillipa Gregory's books. I started reading her way back...I think my first one was The Other Boelyn Girl, but it could've easily been that weird one about the gardener and the little person. Life was definitely different back in the day. Anyway, The White Queen is the first of the Cousins' War set of books by her. This first one happens during the time of the War of the Roses and focuses on Elizabeth Woodville, better known by her position as mother to the princes in the tower than by her name. I've only read one other book series that falls into that time period and I LOVED it, so I was kind of inclined to like this just because of the era. It was a good read and definitely has me ready to read the other two in the series (The Red Queen and The Lady of the Rivers) that I know are out now.

[Sidebar: while looking up that Sharon Kay Penman link, I found out that she has a new-ish one out last fall...Lionheart, which I will be either buying or checking out immediately. Although, it's been years since I read While Christ and His Saints Slept, so I might need to skim through that a bit again.]

Wade Rouse. Hilarious. This is another find from reading Jen Lancaster's blog posts regularly. Wade and his partner moved from the big city to a small, small town in Michigan near the water. Since neither were particularly adept at country-livin', the anecdotes are hysterical. I had more than one soda-up-and-out-the-nose moments with this book. Not many reads start with your main character being attacked by a raccoon and defending himself with lip gloss. Pure fun.

And now, let's watch while I yet AGAIN read a book about an animal. You guys know that in books and in movies, animals die a lot of the time, right? I know it too. but I continue to read books that make me cry. Now, you know going into this, right form the cover picture, that Oogy has had some problems. And thanks to a video passed around a couple of years ago when I got this book, I knew that Oogy was alive so I thought it might be better to read about a doggie who overcame all the crap at the beginning and LIVES and has a happy life. I cried every chapter. But I still can't believe how amazing his story, and his family's story, is. If you feel like crying, but know that things turn around, read this. Otherwise, just stay away. It's too emotional.

A long time ago, I noticed that Meg Cabot (love her!) had put out a book called Insatiable and the version I have has a woman on the cover, holding a stake. That's right. Vampire book! And then, just before Borders closed, I saw another book by Meg Cabot, that went with that first book and it's called Overbite. I bought it too. As luck would have it, after the history lesson, the sad puppy who get happy, and the modern Green Acres tale, I was really in the mood for vampires. They are not sparkley. The entire situation is very humorous (this is part of why I love her)...it's about the original Dracul family, and their clan in modern day New York. There's a soap opera vampire war and a real-life vampire war with the Vatican's Palatine Guard getting involved. The woman in the center of all of it? Meena Harper (yes, like Mina Harker, only better). And she has a special ability...she knows when people are going to die. And her dog, Jack Bauer. HA! Yes, she totally named her dog Jack Bauer and if I ever get another dog, I consider this now to be the perfect name. If you can't tell, I really liked this book. Just go read it. I don't even want to tell you any more about it.

I've started Overbite, so it'll be on next month's list. Oh! Marian Keyes! She's back! I am so very, very happy about that. She has a baking book (with Himself) coming out next month and she's working on a new novel involving the last sister from the Walsh family, Helen. Yes! Keyes was out of commission for two years, fighting to get it together. Her newsletter for January is pretty awesome. If you like her, check it out.

Alrighty, next month should also include tidbits on how I felt about the Oscars. Later!

The books of December 2011

Happy New Year everyone! It was a good year, but as always, I'm looking forward to whatever's next. Bring it on, 2012!

Last month, I saw some more movies (gotta get ready for the Oscars, right?) - the new Sherlock Holmes (possibly even better than the first one), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (really, really, really good), and the latest Mission Impossible (entertaining, despite Tom Cruise).

I went to the annual Renegade Holiday craft fair in Chicago and hung out with an old friend afterward. This year, I actually made it home for Christmas...so far I've still only seen a dusting of snow for the winter...definitely a change from the 2010/2011 winter. I also made some more crafts to complete my goal of completing 1/4 of the Iron Craft Challenges. I had two left at the beginning of the month to meet my goal (as well as finishing up some Christmas gifts). I chose the last two challenges. The Mulligan challenge was taking one of the previous challenges and doing it, I chose to do the one where I make a gift for a friend again. I customized a sign a friend made during her work day a few months prior to Christmas:

Hopefully her new job will help her avoid such events.

The other challenge I did was called Bling. I made a ring based on the instructions in Erica Domesek's book, PS - I Made This:

Shiny and bulky!

This month I got a few books as gifts and bought a couple: One for the Money by Janet Evanovich, Is Everyone Hanging Out without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling, The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, Book 1) and The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, Book 2) by Rick Riordan, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, 11/22/63 by Stephen King, and Girl in the Kitchen: How a Top Chef Cooks, Thinks, Shops, Eats and Drinks by Stephanie Izard...thank you to friends, Santa, and the sales at Target.

The books I read this month: The Magician King by Lev Grossman, The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles, Book 1) by Rick Riordan, A Life in Stitches: Knitting My Way Through Love, Loss, and Laughter by Rachel Herron, Is Everyone Hanging Out with Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling, Talking to Girls about Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut by Rob Sheffield, One for the Money by Janet Evanovich, The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkanen, and Room by Emma Donoghue.


The Magician King was a good follow up to The Magicians. I'm glad I read them back-to-back like that. Quentin's friends show up in mid-air at the end of the first book and ask for Quentin to come back to Fillory with them. This second book is about all of their adventures since he returned to Fillory as a Magician King. I think it was even better than the first book, but I definitely needed to know the characters and the history to enjoy it as much as I did. Last I heard, The Magicians was going to become a show on TV at some point. I can see how it would be fun to watch. It's much darker than the Harry Potter books...even more so than the last of that series, but it would be interesting to see how they created the land of Fillory.


The Red Pyramid is the first of the Kane Chronicles. The first series of Rick Riordan books I read (see The books of January 2011) were about Greek mythology. The books I got by him for Christmas are about Roman mythology. The Kane Chronicles are about Egyptian mythology. A brother and sister team have lost both of their parents before I'd read even a third of the book. Turns out their family is in a long line of protectors of magic and on one side, blood descendants of the original pharoh-gods.Their adventure takes them all over the world and they deal with different gods and different magic as they have on-the-go crash lessons about their family throughout the ages. Egyptian mythology was one of my first interests when I was a little kid, so this book was very fun for me to read.

A Life in Stitches was collection of stories of the author's life. How she used knitting to get through good and bad times; how she used knitting to express her emotions; and how she used knitting to help others (friends, family, and strangers). Some of it made me cry and some of it made me laugh out loud. You don't have to know how to knit to read it, which is nice, but it definitely made me want to knit things when I was done.

Mindy Kaling is "Kelly Kapoor" on the American version of The Office. She also writes and produces for the show. Is Everyone Hanging Out without Me? was so hilarious, I have to wonder why anyone would ever NOT want to hang out with her! It's a quick read and when you're done, you really want to be her new BFF. I laughed so hard a few times while I was reading this, that my parents (I was visiting for Christmas) came upstairs and asked what was so funny. This book is an excellent way to pass some time.


I read Rob Sheffield's previous book, Love Is a Mix Tape, about his wife and being widowed at a young age. Sheffield is a music writer and this book was really good...especially if you tie your life and memories to the music you listened to at any given time (that's also why I like High Fidelity by Nick Hornby). Talking to Girls About Duran Duran is more about his life before all of that when he lived at home in a house full of sisters. There was a lot of good musical memories (again), but not nearly enough Duran Duran for me ;) He ties learning about new music and loving it to growing up and learning about dating and living. Another good read.


One for the Money is the first of Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. It's going to be a movie later this month. Plum is a fun character who's down on her luck, with a family we can all relate to (driving her crazy most of the time). She gets a job as a bail bondsman for her cousin's company and ends up having to bring in the guy who was her first crush and more. It should translate to the screen really well...it's got action, romance, comic relief, and suspense. A quick and fun book to read and the best part is, there's already at least eighteen of these so whenever I need to read more about her life, I can go to the library and pick one up with little hassle.


The Opposite of Me has sat on my nightstand for a while. Twin sisters who don't really look alike, living very different lives. One has a breakdown after being fired from her job and returns back home and back to being jealous of her sister who is beautiful and seems to have a charmed life. Of course, nothing is as it seems on the surface. The sisters have traumas and change and become friends. It ends really happy, which was nice. Luckily both characters are sympathetic enough and you enjoy reading about them changing their lives for the better and learning their lessons. I'll be reading more of Pekkanen's books.


Last, I read Room (I actually cheated a little and finished it this morning). People raved about this book and from what I'd read, I thought it sounded interesting. It was not. I really did not like it. A woman was kidnapped and repeatedly raped over a period of years while living in a shed "Room". She gives birth to a little boy and she names him Jack. They end up escaping and I guess it's supposed to be a story of heroics and renewal of life but mostly I was irritated as crap by how the story was told through the 5-year-old Jack. I guess that was what was supposed to be so interesting, but I didn't care for it. I finished it because I was determined to do so, not because I was so engrossed in the story that I couldn't put it down. Guess I'll be thinking twice before falling for the hype again.


Mostly good choices this month. I'm guessing that I'll keep doing this as part of my 2012 resolutions. I like chronicling what I've read...mostly because it's a nice exercise in memory and hopefully gives others some good ideas of some books to read. I don't know what my other resolutions will be...I'll think about that this week. I want to do another modified challenge for crafts...Iron Craft is going to a challenge every two weeks this year, but since I don't always like the challenges, I don't want to say I'll do all of them. Still contemplating, I guess. I'd love to travel some more, but that's dependent on a lot of factors. As the Euro drops, my hopes go up though. I hope everyone has a great 2012!

The books of November 2011

November was another busy month. I felt like it had been forever since I'd spent time inside the movie theater, so I rectified that by seeing The Immortals (surprisingly good), the Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (not good, either time I saw it, but a fun way to spend time with friends), and the new Muppet movie (it was "sensational, inspirational, celebrational, [and] Muppetational" - LOVED IT!).

I kept working toward my goal of 12 or 13 total crafts (one for each month or one-fourth of them) for this year's Iron Craft Challenge. For the Rest Your Head challenge, I made a pillow that looks like a present:

Finally, a gift that truly keeps giving.

Next up was the Fall Contest for crafting something that fell into the theme of fall/autumn. I made a bag with all the fall colors I love to represent my favorite time of the year:

Hopefully I won't fall down with my fall bag.

You may have noticed that the title of that challenge included the word "contest". Well, thanks to everyone who voted for my fall inspired bag, I won the Iron Craft Fall Challenge! I even got a badge for my blog to prove it!

I did two more challenges in November: the Handmade Holiday challenge and the For the Table challenge. I haven't framed any of these yet, but I like them a lot.

Hoppy Christmas, people!

Pumpkins go on the table, generally in pie form.

This month, I didn't buy any books, but I got one for my birthday called A Life in Stitches: Knitting My Way Through Love, Loss, and Laughter by Rachel Herron. It looks like a good one!

It was another library-based reading month. I read Forever by Maggie Stiefvater, Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares, Gossip Girl: Psycho Killer by Cecily von Ziegesar, The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan, The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig, The Emperor's Tomb by Steve Berry, The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry, and The Magicians by Lev Grossman (this one was borrowed from a friend).

Forever is the third book of the Wolves of Mercy Falls series. Again, while reading the book, I wasn't that into it (same with all of her books) and it felt like it was taking a long time, but the story stays with you afterward. This one focuses on the same group of teens, but this time the threats are more imminent: a rogue wolf who cares nothing for her fellow wolves and a group of men with weapons enough to destroy the pack. The story is sad, but ends up happier than expected. I'm not sure if there will be a fourth book...to me this kind of wrapped up the series.

Sisterhood Everlasting is the latest in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. The girls are all grown up and don't have loads of time for each other. Spoiler: complete and unexpected tragedy strikes for a book like this. The story this time focuses on how the girls deal with/cope and recover from their loss. It actually made me cry. I didn't expect the dark turn, although I knew Brashares was more than capable of it (remember the little girl who dies in the first book?), I just didn't think she'd move the story in this way. If you've not read any of these books, they're kind of fun (better than the movies) and I did like that this one was based around their friendships and how they try (or not) to hold them together when it's too hard to even hold themselves together. I like coming back to these friends every few years to see what's up.

Some of you might know that I occasionally dabble in watching Gossip Girl. What you might not know is that I actually read the first book before I watched any of the series on TV, just to see if I might enjoy it as a guilty pleasure. Turns out I did. I don't regularly watch and I don't go out of my way to read the books...I only ever read the first one. And that's what Psycho Killer is: it's the first book, redone with lots and lots of murdering. Teen angst gone wild! I was highly entertained by the characters being taken to their worst extremes...the book was pretty funny. Perfect for a post-Halloween fix.

Carrie Ryan's third book of the Forest of Hands and Teeth series was another good one. The main character this time is the lost sister of the last book's focus. It brings together the four teens in an epic battle with the zombie-type creatures who are destroying what's left of humanity. It drags a little in comparison to some other, similar books, but it's still interesting. The army of protectors for the city show themselves to be horrible people, capable of things much worse than the zombie-types. This series isn't as awesome as The Hunger Games, but it fills a nice void left once you finish Mocking Jay.

When I'd looked earlier, I was told The Orchid Affair wouldn't be out until next year. I was so excited when I saw it at the library that I may have made a little squealing noise. Once again, Willig takes us into the world of British and French spies in the time of Napoleon. The Pink Carnation and the Purple Gentian make appearances in the book, helping out one of the students from their spy school. In real time, the grad student telling the story is having to help her new boyfriend (descendant of the spies) deal with the betrayals of his own family while trying to move her research forward. I really love these books. I think there are plenty of flowers to come and I'm very happy about that!

Next up were books six and seven from Steve Berry's Cotton Malone series. The Emperor's Tomb takes place after The Paris Betrayal...maybe a few months after. The double-agent makes another appearance and messes with the flow of events for Cotton and Cassiopeia. Working with the Russians and the Americans, Cotton goes off to help save Cassiopeia from the Chinese. The Chinese end up being at the brink of civil war and Cotton and Cassiopeia get completely tangled in the plots and have to help figure out who the best bet for safety might be. The double-agent earns Cassiopeia's trust and Cotton's anger, but eventually, all the truth comes out. Book seven, The Jefferson Key, is the first in the series to take place in the United States. Basically a bunch of pirates feel they should have free reign within and without the US government. They mess with the economy of the world and then try to assassinate the President. It turns out they were behind all assassination attempts (failures and successes). This one was a really fun read since it was stuff I knew a lot about...kind of like National Treasure with a better lead and less inconceivable happenings.

The last book I read, I finished on the 1st of December, so I cheated a little by saying this is for November only. But I was 80 pages away from the end and couldn't stay up any more on the 30th! Anyway, a little while ago I read in a magazine or online or somewhere that Fox was going to start a new show based on Lev Grossman's book The Magicians. A friend had it and loaned it to me so I could see what I thought. It's a decent book, kind of too long, but just when I'd think I was bored, something would catch my attention. The book is about Quentin, an outcast type of boy who loves books about the magical land of Fillory. Much to his chagrin, he lives in the regular world. But then he finds out that not only is magic real, so is Fillory! The book covers his journey from regular world boy to magical world traveler and back to normal working human. He loves and loses. The magical training and the kids in Brakebills (the magic school) is darker than Harry Potter...well, the beginnings of Harry Potter. It's not as engaging because it's very hard to feel sorry for several of the main characters. I laughed whenever they compared their real magic with the Potter series and when they visited Illinois and talked about how cold it was in Urbana in the winter! Overall, it was an interesting take on the what if magic is real question. I've already started reading the second book and will talk about it next month.

Well, hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and is looking forward to a great holiday season!