and you have a right to tell me how to feel...exactly why?

Quite sometime ago i had jotted down my thoughts about The Girls Who Went Away and then posted them to my annotations/review on goodreads as well. Last year a perfect stranger with the user name Erin had then commented on my thoughts/feelings which boiled my blood a little every time i saw it but kept deciding there was no point to even trying a response.

I wasn't sure about your point of view until the very end of your review. Being pregnant and having a child changes people. There is no way to explain it, and no way to create that change but to have a child. You will never understand the desperate love until you have a child.

~Erin (whoever that is...)

Yesterday, for some reason, i finally decided i had to respond, for whatever it was worth:

• I'm sorry that you had to slog through my ENTIRE review to understand my feelings (you could have stopped reading--and there were three people who admitted to liking it!)
  
• I never claimed to be inside my mother's head and know what she felt or thought, but YOU were not inside her head either, and even though some feelings are SOMEWHAT universal that does not mean she was as connected or felt the same way you do.
  
• You have no idea where i am in terms of motherhood so you can't tell ME how to feel about it or what to understand (one of the reasons i can't relate to what my mother went through is because of some of those same feelings you describe...)
  
• She never has sought me out so it seems she might not have cared to.
  
• This is about MY feelings, my issues and thoughts about something i have had to deal with my whole life.
  
• It is also about my not caring about hers and you can't tell me that i must care!

and who are your favorite fictional librarians

I can't think of any of mine of the top of my head (i know i've read a few though. Here's an article from the Seattle Public Library's Shelf Talk mentioning a few (mostly mysteries which i don't read much.)

I didn't find many likable (or even memorable characters~maybe that's why i can't mention any names) from In the Stacks: Short Stories About Libraries and Librarians ~nor was i all that fond of Borchert's Free for All non-fiction adventure, anyway.

Unleash your inner librarian

by David W (5/4/08)

What are the odds? The brand spanking new Library of Congress subject heading for “Public Libraries – California – anecdotes’” is getting quite a workout. In the past six months we have seen the publication of two humorous memoirs by librarians in the Los Angeles area: Don Borchert’s Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks and Gangstas in the Public Library and Scott Douglass’s Quiet Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian. They’re both entertaining slices of the library life (or as I like to call it, “The Game”), and I recommend them both. You may have to get in line, as they are both proving to be very popular, and not just with library staff either! It seems a lot of you are interested in exploring your inner librarian. While you’re waiting to get a behind-the-scenes look at the glamorous, high-stakes world of public librarianship, let me introduce some of my favorite fictional librarians.

Meet Cassandra Mitchell, librarian of the small town of Sechelt, British Columbia. While perhaps less well-known than the prim and plucky Miss Helma Zukas just down the coast in Bellehaven, Miss Mitchell is smart, compassionate, resourceful, sexy, a trained professional with a deep commitment to her community, and a love of books, which, she writes, “are my work, my comfort, my joy.” This, in a personal ad answered by RCMP Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg, who observes her well-rounded character in acute detail. “He noticed that as she shelved the books, she pulled some slightly farther out, and then, unthinking, ran her fingers along the spines as if playing a harp.” Small wonder Alberg becomes her love interest and fellow crime solver in nine evocative, psychological mysteries by L.R. (Lauralie) Wright, beginning with The Suspect, winner of the 1985 Edgar award for best novel. Readers with a Masters in Library Science will find special poignancy in A Touch of Panic, in which Cassandra is stalked by that most exasperating of villains, a pompous, predatory professor of library science. Wright died in 2001, but her masterful Northwest mysteries deserve to live on with fans of P.D. James, Ruth Rendell, and mainstream fiction readers as well.
Dorcas Mather, head of Rhode Island’s Squanto Library and droll narrator of Jincy Willett's cunningly titled Winner of the National Book Award, in which she offers her uproariously trenchant views on readers and books, most notably a tell-all crime story written by her twin sister. Abigail Mather is sensual, fleshy, impulsive and free-spirited, while Dorcas is bookish, angular, self-contained and sensuous only toward books. “When I was twelve, and An American Tragedy was my favorite summer book, (Abigail) thrilled to Forever Amber…” Yet the odd pair is linked by mutual love, and the despicable attentions of the superlatively creepy Conrad Lowe, with tragicomic results. Although Dorcas seems at first glance stereotypic spinster librarian, her keen perceptions, vulnerabilities and devastating wit make this a compelling, hilarious and irresistible read.
Myrtle Rusk, the academic librarian heroine of Michael Griffith’s Bibliophilia who has been pressed into service by the head librarian at LSU to prowl the stacks in search of clandestine coitus and to curtail all such free exchange of bodily fluids on library property. Not surprisingly, Myrtle resents being placed in the role of “…deputy sheriff of nookie… a sexless functionary …that joy-spurning old biddy, the Puritan at the Circulation Desk.” It is fair to say that the library itself resents it as well, for one can feel the life force pulsing through the aisles, yearning to break free of its hidebound restraints in small transgressions and grand flagrances, just as Griffith’s prose roils and bubbles with savory expressions. When the library director’s vampish daughter sets her sights on Seti, a pious, charmingly befuddled Egyptian exchange student studying water management, Myrtle must somehow find a way to dam or channel the inevitable deluge.
Then there are librarians’ librarians, such as Alexander Short, the brilliant young hero of Alex Kurzweil’s The Grand Complication, who sublimates his personal insecurities and shortcomings into the exhilarating chase after elusive knowledge, and whose relentless skill at unlocking puzzles and finding arcane answers just opens up more questions. Or William of Baskerville, that daring champion of free thought from Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose who must puzzle through that cruel perversion of learning – a library ingeniously designed to confound its users. Who of us have not shared his frustration from time to time?
We’ve only scratched the surface, so look for more posts on great fictional librarians. And make some noise: Who are your favorite librarians, in fact or fiction?

maybe i'll be able to think of a few at some point...
Well, i do have some fondness for Dewey of Unshelved fame (not to mention Dewey the "Small-Town Library Cat" and Robert Hellenga's Margot Harrington of The Sixteen Pleasures. And okay, The Camel Bookmobile's Fiona Sweeney by Masha Hamilton was somewhat appealing as was of Josephine Carr's somewhat stereotypical Alley Sheffield of The Dewy Decimal System of Love; and of course, i loved Henry from Audrey Neffeneger's The Time Traveler's Wife (haven't seen the movie, though.) So maybe i can think of a few. There is also Charlaine Harris's Aurora Teagarden series, which i haven't read, but i do like the Sookie Stackhouse series (or True Blood for you television aficionados~which i have seen and loved.) And, gosh, that's a mystery too (go figure...)
Then there are a few non-fictional librarians that i appreciate: starting with Henry T. Coutts and Edmond Lester Pearson from the turn of the last century (i'm talking about the 19th here, folks~couldn't find these in any library or even ILL so spent more than a pretty penny to actually buy them!); Joel Rane (Scream at the Librarian); Betty Vogel (A Librarian is to Read); and Will Manley.

bookthoughtdraft #1 (not a full-grown post) Enola Holmes

So, good intentions have left me with a gigantic (read: massive, enormous, colossal, extensive, imposing, ponderous, monumental, cumbersome, towering [get the thesaurutical idea? i think i've actually amassed about two years worth~yes, i said two years] ) pile (pile being only theoretical, of course) of unposted posts that i keep meaning to post. I'm going to start posting them unfinished (the idea being to make it just one step further along on the stumbling path of my life. That being said, let me present the first such draft (appropriately back-dated, but of course.)
maybe one day i'll find my notes for these.
The Case of the Missing Marquess is the first in the Enola Holmes Mysteries series by Nancy Springer (Enola Holmes being the much younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft). Enola's mother disappears leaving the Holmes' brothers to threaten Enola with boarding school where she'll learn to be a "lady" (the last thing she wants, by the by) after they see the appalling amount of freedom Enola has to run about and be herself. When Enola discovers a series of cyphers left behind by her mother (who has conviently been teaching her the art of cyphering) Enola runs away from the Holmes' estate to London both to find her mother and escape her brothers' plan. As soon as she hits the city she immediately stumbles upon a mystery of her own involving the disappearance of young Viscount Tewksbury. She uses what is apparently a genetic propensity to solve the case employing a wide variety of disguises. Springer plays with quite a few ideas surrounding the restrictive Victorian mores, but if Enola's character seems to make some asynchronous slips her naivety makes up for it. She is an ingenuous ingenue. Sherlock comes off as rather an ass at the beginning but his character grows on you a little (the same can't be said of Mycroft so much.)
The second Enola Holmes mystery~The Case of the Left-Handed Lady has Enola (still in hiding from Mycroft and Sherlock) setting up shop as a Perditorian (totally stumped me until i realized that it has zipped right past me in the first book: from the Latin perditus meaning “lost”, Perditorian: one who divines that which is lost) in London. She has gained quite a bit of street smarts this goround and has grown quite adept at juggling disguises. The book is pretty much as enjoyable as the first (which was enjoyable~did i mention that?) A quick, intelligent, entertaining read for early teens (or those of us with that level of intellectual ability.)

"You can be lonlier in the wrong relationship than you can ever be when you are single."

Once again i find myself in the midst of reading a book and wondering exactly what continent the author is living on (in this case Imogen Lloyd Webber~yes, she is the daughter of Sir Andrew~is in London~something i guessed from her language~though she could have just been displaying her anglophile airs like me and Madonna)~i guess i should start reading those back inside flaps before embarking on my reading tasks (or at least paying more attention when i do). The Single Girl’s Survival Guide: secrets for today’s savy and independent woman is one of those books that i bought for my library (even though it didn’t necessarily fit my collection development plan) because nobody else in the system seemed to be picking it up and Brodart listed it as being in high demand (besides which it looked like something, in my silly, thinking i am still a young foolish girlish, girl, phase i would want to read myself~bad, bad librarian, i).

Anyway now that it is in there are quite a few people who have put it on hold so i feel somewhat vindicated. . . The book itself is somewhat silly and suggests we single gals have more money than we often do (especially the slightly younger Bridget Jones type set i’m suspecting the book is aimed at~Lloyd Webber doesn’t even use the word singleton~which might be considered passé now~see how out-of-it i am) i do suppose Miss Imogen is not quite as strapped as many of us might be. The book is rather amusing (especially its A Single Girl’s Survival Glossary including such terms as ALL TEXT NO TROUSERS, BIG DUVET, BUNBURY, EXplotation, NFI, RETROSEXUAL, SOCIAL HAND GRENADE (i have a few of those in my past) and SQUEAKY. Other than the amusement to be found (and it is almost worth reading for that) much of the advise is rather basic (tho perhaps the young-just-embarking-on-life might find it more useful than i) and some of it is quite useful. Worth a glance but not much more…

"...as a girl, about to descend a snowy slope, I seemed to hear advice: Hold on tight, Marie. It seemed to come from the mountains themselves,

…or from the future.”

In my continuing quest to learn about all things Marie Antoinette i picked up Abundance: a novel of Marie Antoinette, a rather richly detailed 545 page book by Sena Jeter Naslund. Naslund writes with a very obvious sympathy towards Marie Antoinette and at times it was hard to believe M.A.’s absolute goodness (even tho she did come across as quite shallow~perhaps more interested in politics and learning than i had previously thought~yet she still loathes reading.) Most of the story is told in M.A.’s own voice, but it also includes letters exchanged between M.A. and her mother (Maria Theresa, Royal Empress of Austria) and between M.A. and her brother, Joseph II (these letters were apparent constructed from the historical record). Nalund seems to have most of her details quite close to the truth (from whatever i know on the subject, and haven’t we already established that that isn’t much?~but her reliance on resources contemporary to the time seem to bear the assumption out~tho Naslund does blame the infamous “let them eat cake” line on the wife of Louis XIV when the line is probably entirely apocryphal and not attributable to anyone, in addition to not having the traditional meaning) but both a little more embellishment and a little less depth of detail might have helped (i’m not sure the length of the book was entirely warranted~Naslund turns phrases well enough that just as much could be said with less).

“Perhaps captive animals do not see beyond the grilles of their menageries.”

M.A. led a sheltered life and she was raised to expect the privileges she received (she did try to make reforms to simplify things in court but she shows a real lack of understanding of how things really are for the peasantry and how her extravagances effect them or how truly ineffective her attempted efforts at helping that peasantry are~tho listening to her mother a tad more might have behooved her, i’m not sure it would have saved her...) She is truly surprised and confused by when the tide of public opinion turns against her but Naslund has her bear it rather gracefully, she believes her duty is to the people of France (as well as her children) even if she has little idea how to serve those needs. I felt it was quite a realistic portrayal of someone of her class, her age, living in the times that she did.

“I find my mind has become a dense, opaque cloud of confusion. And what has become of the part of me that I mean when I say “I”? I am lost in a fog, I have little sense of who I am. But I know I am not what they imply.”

“How can I play my role—that is to say—how can one maintain her identity, without the proper costume?”

Even though it wasn’t a terribly tedious read, it did get somewhat repetitive in some places and i didn’t feel like i needed to hear quite so much of the minute goings on of almost everyday of her life (or so it sometimes felt). I finally lost my sense of trudging along (the novel did just enough to keep me interested) once M.A. was imprisoned and began her inevitable path toward the guillotine. I was definitely sad to see her go but i don’t believe i would have enjoyed life in the eighteenth century French court~just a bit of a bore~no matter how opulent and decadent it may have been…

"Marie-Antoinette was the victim of idealogical inflation systemitically fueled by the pamphlets and the press."

and "Even when thrown by the handful at their targets, the pamphlets failed to rattle the good humor of the queen--thanks, perhaps, to her complete lack of curiosity about the written word. Reading, an immobile an immobile activity demanding sustained concentration, bored her."

Yeah, reading kinda does suck (or so i've been told)

So a short while ago i watched Marie Antoinette (rather enjoyable flick) and became interested in the life of the queen. After devouring what i could find on the internet and biographical databases i went in search of actual books. The only thing that wasn't a children's book my library system seemed to possess was The Wicked Queen: the origins of the myth of Marie-Antoinette by Chantal Thomas, a title i think i picked up once before, started perusing, then returned. This time i struggled my way through (don't get me wrong, it was interesting, if somewhat dense~don't know if any of this was due to the translator, Julie Rose, but i do think this is a tome written for academia more than anyone else).

I perhaps should have noticed that the call number was not one for biographies, though a quick perusal of even the book flap would reveal that it is a study of how the contemporary propaganda pamphlets and tracts not only turned the French people against the foreign queen, but were mostly untrue. I would have benefit ted from a more thorough grounding in the details of Marie-Antoinette's life (there is a brief chronology). And a glance at the back of the book to reveal that the names of everyone i was having such a hard time keeping straight were glossed there might have helped (i am forever making too-late discoveries such as these...) Apparently people were as obsessed with the sex-lives of royalty (the celebrities of the day) then as they are now (not too surprising) and there is quite a bit of vulgarity to be found here.

Perhaps of interest to students of eighteenth-century aristocracy, historical scandal sheets, or the French Revolution. I will continue my quest for biographical details and i might enjoy this one more after a few more facts under my belt (though i did read the entire thing in just a few days...)

"Maybe when your real life becomes the terror, there's just nothing left to dream about."

In Taken Edward Bloor imagines the year 2036 as one with severe class divisions (an outgrowth of divisions which are already dangerously increasing.) Thirteen-year-old Charity Meyers is a Floridian daughter of privilege who lives in the Highlands, one of many gated communities, escorted to and from satschool (a school where lessons are beamed by satellite from an elite Manhattan academy) a heavily-armed butler, Albert (who along with her family's live-in "french maid" Victoria are part of the RDS~Royal Domestic Service~the "largest and most prestigious company in the service industry.) Their very names are regulated by the RDS.

Kidnapping has become a "major growth industry" in this society of the future and, as such, the rich kids are trained to deal with the stress of the situation as well as follow the "protocol", the ransom is to be arranged within twenty-four hours and the child returned safe and sound. On New Year's Day 2036 Charity is kidnapped and thus begins her twenty-four hour countdown. The pace of the book keeps the reader enthralled as the hours are counted down and Charity's story is told in both present-tense and flashback. The details of the society she lives in are often relayed from details she has written about in various term papers.

Charity's father is a dermatologist who amassed his fortune by developing a skin bronzing treatment (ironically, her mother died of skin cancer) and his wealth has survived the "world credit crash". Her stepmother, Micki, is a self-centered "vidqueen" who makes documentaries and with Micki and her father in the midst of a divorce Charity spends much of her time with Victoria and Albert. With many twists and turns and Charity's growing sense of social awareness, Taken is a fast-past, thrilling read.

"Innocence is a curable disease, you know."

another rewriting of Shakespeare; another feminist interpretation; another Lisa Fiedler young adult novel (even though i wasn’t excessively thrilled with the last); i guess i just can’t resist…

Romeo’s Ex: Rosaline’s story takes a rather minor character from Romeo and Juliet (though she is the catalyst for the meeting of the couple that many consider the most romantic of all time~just in case you need a refresher, Rosaline was the character Romeo was mooning over at the beginning of the play and drove him to sneak into the Capulet’s party where he instantly fell in love with Juliet). In Fiedler’s take, Rosaline is Juliet’s cousin (a not entirely unbelievable premise given that the drama’s character has some relation to the Capulets [else why would she be at the party?]). Rosaline is also an apprentice healer (seemingly to be a common theme with Fiedler~tho Rosaline has ambitions to study medicine at an academy), which provides her an opportunity to meet Romeo in the first place (and he to become enamored of her).

Rosaline’s story really is the main focus of this novel while Romeo and Juliet’s is told as more of a subplot (and as a contrast to the true love that develops between Rosaline and Benvolio {both originally skeptical of love and all things related), who saves her life during the play’s initial Montague/Capulet brawl~tho she originally mistakes her savior for Mercutio). Rosaline’s yearning for the bad-boyedness of Mercutio is in direct conflict with her growing affinity with Benvolio. Mercutio wishes to make a conquest of Rosaline (as is his wont) and it makes for a somewhat involving (if entirely predictable) story.

I found this book to be rather more enjoyable (still somewhat fluffy tho) than Dating Hamlet (perhaps the experience of a freshman novel matured Fiedler…) (but i did find the trivialization of Romeo and Juliet’s love somewhat annoying~even though i once wrote a term paper for my Theatre History class about how their relationship was one more of adolescent attraction than true love~much the same concept, but it was my concept; therefore all that much better!). This novel was much truer to the original play (perhaps easier to do when using more minor characters). But one does wonder at the eventual “collapse” of the all independent, feminist women in these type of books, when love conquers all…oh well (some of us are so happily single we just can’t understand…

"Sometimes, we lose sight of ourselves when we're not paying enough attention."

When Sandy Shortt is ten years old her classmate Jenny-May Butler disappears, and the very public search garners a great deal of attention for her small Irish town. Though Jenny-May lived across the street from Sandy she was more antagonist than friend but her mysterious disappearance obsesses Sandy. From that day on she finds herself preoccupied with finding all things that go missing (those single socks in the dryer, that , sweater you wore one time, the stray notebook, even something as trivial as a paper clip). Sandy looks for all lost things and grows more isolated from the rest of life.

I found myself relating to the description of Sandy’s obsession for “missing” those things lost (though i think i believe i might lose the meaning and the memory they held for me while Sandy just wants to understand where they go, how they go~but reading this reminded me of so many things i could never find~the anklet i lost and never found in my first boyfriend’s bed, the ring i lost the night i spent guarding the Greek theatre with my current crush~all the watches that disappeared in my apartment on Catherine Street {and it never occurred to the me who likes to think myself cynical that some things disappeared into roommates hands~until now~almost fifteen years later} perhaps loosing things attatches even more meaning and memory to them than keeping them ever would…)

Though i have a bit of the OCD myself, Sandy takes it to rather dysfunctional levels. Her obsession with searching continues into adulthood when she becomes an agent for the Gardá Síochána (the Irish National Police Service~i get the Scotland Yard impression here), and later a Missing Persons investigator on her own. Cecelia Ahern delivers her story in There’s No Place Like Here in delectable pieces, she made me want to read more of her work (and i was rather surprised to discover she wrote P.S., I Love You.)

Sandy stumbles into a land of the lost and is at first somewhat elated to find all things that have ever gone missing. But as details of her life and those of Jack Ruttle (the man who had hired Sandy to find his brother just before she disappeared) are slowly unveiled she begins to “miss” the not only the life that she left behind (and had isolated herself from) but the chances she had never given herself. She finds herself longing to return to her life (and the life she might have if she tries…)

This book is going onto my favorites list (at least for the moment…)

"Cursing, threatening, perhaps violent librarians."

"It was a concept that they could not get their minds around. Their whole world fell to pieces and not one of the subjects they took at school gave them a clue about putting it back together. Had they Googled it, it still wouldn't have helped them"

sounds somewhat more interesting than it actually is…

(i, at least, have managed to bite my tongue before the curse words actually emerge, or at least muttered them under my breath)

Free for All: oddballs, geeks, and gangstas in the public library is a book that i saw somewhere and thought would be somewhat entertaining (i, like many others like me, snap up those tales of libraries and bookstores for the camaraderie, relatability, or something like that.) Dan Borchert

“was a short-order cook, door-to-door salesman, telemarketer (did a bit of that myself back in the day...), and Christmas-tree-chopper before landing work in a California library. He never could have predicted his encounters with the colorful kooks, bullies, and tricksters who fill the pages of this hilarious memoir.”

(Some note should be made here that Borchert isn’t a MLS degreed librarian~nor did he ever call himself one in the book~apparently there has been some not-mild controversy surrounding this because in his marketing or publicity interviews or some such, he has been called a librarian; and of course many librarians, having worked hard and paid much for that grad school degree, resent people taking the title librarian unjustly~let me just say here, that, tho i am among those~to a certain extent~who cling to that title so proudly and possessively, i’m not sure if this is his mistake or those marketing him and i’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and much of the public is unawares so that can’t really be blamed [to a certain extent~i believe it is at least partly our job to educate the public…] {and we have a librarian assistant at my library without whom i would be lost~but she's still not a librarian~perhaps Borchert's system should make a clearer delineation between tasks that various job functions perform than they currently seem to~because his book makes it appear a little haphazard...and maybe it is...})

Having got that out of the way, Free for All was quite a bit less than i wanted it to be. As many other librarians have said i have much more humorous (and more frightening) tales to tell (though a few of his were unique in some respects~i'm sure every librarian has at least a few of those...) And is this really an urban Los Angeles library~it sounds a bit more like a smaller town~or is that just my cynical jaded self? I must say i was not overly impressed with Borchert’s writing ability either (nor his seeming equation with the way things are done at his library, in his system with the way things are done in all systems~such as who does what and way as well as the way his bureaucracy function.) I’m not a big fan of the book's organizational scheme either. It wasn’t a complete waste of time, though, and there were some amusing moments. Perhaps this would actually be of more interest to those who do not work in libraries to discover that all is not quiet in the library or that we do not "just sit around and read all day, perhaps for me it is more like a “busman’s holiday”.

"I wished that I were anyone but Ophelia, victim of mischance and evil"

I won't rehash my love of all things Shakespeare and the particular love i have for his play Hamlet here (although my reading of the particular young adult novel Ophelia by Lisa Klein did prompt a viewing of all six of my various Hamlet dvds for their sundry interpretations~it is always better to view performances than just to read over the text and i felt it all needed slight refreshing so i pulled i started by rereading the text itself then decided to pull out all five of my Hamlet dvds and watch those instead.

I started with the Kenneth Branagh version because that is the first version to actually use the full text of the play. It is set in Denmark, though in the nineteenth century (somehow i feel a bit iffy with the whole messing around with the bard thing~but then i think~how anachronistic was old Will to begin with? and i rethink my whole thinking...) Overall i liked the Branagh version (though, of course, i did have a few quarrels with it~can anyone ever do a film of something you love ever fully to your liking?~i found Ophelia a tad too "knowing", if that is in fact the word...).

I've always been fond of Franco Zeffirelli's Shakespeare and his Hamlet is no exception (tho i've somewhat soured on Mel Gibson now~i do love Helena Bonham-Carter as Ophelia and the locations here are wonderful). Olivier is brilliant as always~i can see why he is who he is (was?), but of course (tho how you can leave out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is beyond me...) and i also really like Richard Burton's dress rehearsal version. I must say i'm not a huge Ethan Hawke fan but i did like his Hamlet (even if it was set in "modern"~well year 2000, god how time does fly~New York). And then there is the Russian Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet, beautifully sparse and spare (just as imagine ninth century Denmark), it is also beautifully Russian… (i would also love to get my hands on a Ralph Fiennes Broadway production~so i'm just a little obsessesed~but this was probably enough for a single film festival...)

I think that Lisa Klein might be a slightly better author than Lisa Fiedler (what is it about the name Lisa and making feminists out of Shakespearean heroines~even when there already are a few feminist Shakespearean heroines already?). I’m actually quite struck by many of the similarities of the backstory in these novels. Klein doesn't seem to be stretching quite so much for her language anyway, and the book just seemed to flow much more naturally. Her Ophelia also seemed to be much more of a real feminist than did Fiedler’s (who’s felt more like what every young girl dreamed of being in a strong female~but maybe that is appropriate to a young adult novel.) And is there really a textual basis for Ophelia being an expert herbalist (other than her “there’s rue for you..” speech?~much of which content was more common knowledge than it is today) Not that i didn’t love the detail but it was common to both novels. I did have some problems with the setting tho~seemed to be more Elizabethan than the ninth century Danish i wanted it to be (there i go again...)

I really liked the relationship developed between Ophelia and Gertrude, as well as between Hamlet and Ophelia. Familial relationships seem to be more realistic than in Fiedler’s book (and no obnoxious father reworking...) The end is somewhat predictable (although about half of the novel takes place after the end of the play) from too many clues laid out along the way (and doesn’t seem entirely in keeping with the point of the novel~tho i suppose some concessions must be made.) ‘nough said? Too much?

"Why on earth would anyone refuse to be the queen of England?"

It's a concept that eight-year old Anne Boleyn can’t quite wrap her mind around when Charles, the grandson of Maximilian, patriarch of the Hapsburg family and Holy Roman Emperor, tells her that his aunt Margaret had refused to marry Henry VII. Charles plans to be the Holy Roman Emperor one day (not an unreasonable expectation, given hereditary lines and all~also given the fact that it is fulfilled). Anne plans to be the queen of England one day (this seems like a much more unreasonable expectation…but isn't it funny, isn't it strange how sometimes those, ever so unreasonable expectations come to pass? . . . )

Robin Maxwell considers her Mademoiselle Boleyn to be a prequel to her previous (rather excellent) works as it tells of Anne’s youth (before she rather fatally catches the eye of the lecherous King Henry IVIII, much of it spent in the French court of King Francois and Queen Claude (daughter of King Louis XII). She befriends Leonardo da Vinci (not mentioned in the history books but imagined, i suppose reasonably, by Maxwell).

It's been quite some time since i read her earlier works and, memory being what it is, though i remember liking them, i don't remember many of the details (though i did recommend The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn to a costumer just the other day because of course i had Mademoiselle Boleyn checked out at home~i just hate having to recommend books to customers~even though it is a big part of my job when they are completely uncooperative in telling me about their personal likes and dislikes, "Well, what do you like?" they so unhelpfully ask, as if we would have the exact same tastes, anyway...)

I've been watching The Tudors lately on Showtime and Maxwell seems to have her historical accuracy down much better than the creators of that show (although i'm not quite so much up on Anne's upbringing or the peripheral figures of the Tudor court as i could be~history never was my strong point, much as i loathe to admit it). But the Showtime people seem to have confused Henry's sisters as well as a few other characters which bothers me just a tad and i wonder what else they got wrong~still and all it is a very interesting series and i would recommend for its entertainment value and for some of its historical value.

From what i know Maxwell got right i tend to trust her other details and she does have some interesting after notes. Overall, i can highly recommend this book and it gives a much better (and much more sympathetic~and i do see many of Henry's wives as quite sympathetic characters~they really were victims of there age~and the only one i would wish to be is Anne of Cleves~she had it the best of anyone of her time and all because she was judged to be ugly~go figure...) portrait (in my ever so humble opinion) than that, ahem, other, Boleyn, historical receiving so much attention of late...

"bleedin' poetry"

If a novel were trying to talk big in an attempt to make itself look tough i think it just might be Channeling Mark Twain by Carol Muske-Dukes. This seems to be the first book in a while that didn't touch me personally, (other than reminding me of Vida~probably my least favorite Marge Piercy novel, or parts of The Handmaid's Tale, or my one ex-roommate). Before i figured out that it was actually set in the seventies i thought it was a little too hippy-heavy-handed~actually not a mixed metaphor however much it may sound like one.
I didn't find the narrating character all that likable~nor her motivations so easy to grasp~but with those caveats it wasn't the worst book i've ever read (hmmm...damning with faint praise anyone?) Holly Mattox is a Midwesterner (Minnesota to be exact in New York. She has just finished grad school, teaches at the New School and has some big ideas on social justice, feminism, radicalism, and all those other isms.
She has been part of an after-care program Women's House of Detention on Rikers Island and has just been granted permission to teach a poetry class there. One of the woman in her class, a Polly Lyle Clement, an epileptic inmate who was found floating in the East River and is currently awaiting transfer to a psychiatric facility (as about half the women in the detention center are), claims to be a direct descendent of Mark Twain and also claims to be gifted with "second sight", to be able to see into the future and the past and to be able to channel communication from her famous ancestor.
This was not an emotionally difficult book to read (nor was it painful to slog through). It was interesting despite my mis-connection and i'm not sorry i read it~though it did take me a while because i put it down several times (just not my highest recommendation here...)

"Scrawls of desire."

I don't know who jenny downham is or what she's done (apparently trained as an actor and worked in alternative theatre, kindred spirit, hmmm...) but she can put words together in the most beautiful manner imaginable. I am so very jealous~or actually just so very glad to be able to read her writing.

Before I Die is sixteen-year-old Tessa's story~her thoughts, feelings, wishes, as she experiences them in the months, days, hours before her death. Depressing? Perhaps a bit~i wasn’t really in tears until towards the end, and even then it wasn’t a really sobfest~but it was of course sad. Tessa isn’t the long-suffering altruistic teen we’ve all come to know from those movies-of-the-week and all to prevalent child is dying novels who serve as an inspiration to all around her (though she definitely has her moments~as i hope all of us might). She feels anger, depression, selfishness~lashes out at those around her~goes through most of the horrible teen moments (those times that make you want to send them all away to their own special island as a friend and i had planned when we were barely out of our teens ourselves).

Tessa wants to experiment with sex, with drugs, with life, to fall in love~she wants to experience what is out there to experience (not so uncommon i suppose). Tessa’s father and the mother who has been absent for much of her life find it difficult to place limits on the child who will not live long enough to set her own limits~or to see the consequences poor choices may bring down the line.

This book is a beautiful and startling piece of fiction. One that is written in a true and lyrical voice (easy enough to read in a day, as well. It is one that i want to own and put on my shelves to pick up and read again~or just pick up every now again to read a passage here and there for its poetry.

"All writers struggle, very few manage to get published, and almost none are any good. It's the 'believing' part that's the trick."

I almost put down Chuck Thompson's smile when you're lying: confessions of a rogue travel writer before i was 50 pages into it with the intention of never finishing it (which is something i rarely do~sometimes i will put down a book with every intention of finishing it and not ever doing so but for some reason i often plow through many as i ended up doing with this one~and there were a few interesting parts~more than a few in actuality...) It was Thompson's caustic personality that put me off more than anything (not that i know him or anything, but since this a non-fiction piece that he narrates i did get some sense of the guy and i don't think i liked him much~and he doesn't seem to like much of anything~tho maybe i'm getting him all wrong~he admits that many of the people he now counts as friends"apparently had to overcome some initial repugnance toward my supposedly radioactive personality." And i have come to really like a few people i absolutely hated upon first, second and third impression...)

But, shall we get back to the book? I can't remember why i picked it up (are you getting sick of hearing that from me?) I think perhaps because i like reading travel narratives (and no, Chuck, not the rhapsodizing, sunny type that the travel editors demand~as you argue in this book~and i do believe you, there~but the book type that describe the good and the bad) and this one purported to describe the "real story" from someone who had been to many, many places. Alas 'twas not to be.

This included less description of travel and more bitching about life and politics than much of what i've read of late. He describes experiences teaching English in Japan, traveling in Southeast Asia, some in former Soviet bloc countries and that seems to be about it (well there is a bit more but mostly it is just opinion spouting~he hates the Caribbean and really likes Latin America.) I must give Thompson credit for a sense of humour and there are a few bits worth reading as well as a few bits that were a little enlightening (and i suppose it's good every now and then to read things that just plain piss you off~more than just occasionally in fact.) There are a few travel tips most of which are common sense, some of which are silly and stupid, some of which are very helpful (rubbing batteries on your leg for a few extra hours of static electric charge~never knew...). The book takes a truly ugly and surprising turn at the end talking about the possible end of oil-dependent energy, which while true, seemed out of place.

Thompson does describe some of his youth in Juneau, Alaska (been there, done that~NOT to be confused with Anchorage as some reviewers have done~Thompson would be appalled) Alaska he describes as the whitest state in the nation (Utah being the second) having lived in both i would have to agree somewhat (that is IF you are excluding Native Americans and Hispanics which i suppose he is...) this is a very personal account about much more than travel (and very little travel at that. Mostly rant, rant, rant about anything and everything. I didn't absolutely hate it though. From what i can gather Thompson is about the same age (and i didn't disagree with everything he said~and i haven't been to many of the places he describes so i can't have an opinion on much of that...) as me so you would think we would have more in common (and perhaps we do~i often wonder exactly how unlikeable i am, and for that matter~exactly how parenthetical i can become...)

of frogsicles and zombie orb-weaving spiders

I think my original interest in this book came about with my hypothesis that some people (perhaps me in particular) might have stronger immune systems than others simply in the fact that they have weaker immune systems than everyone else. Ultralong oxymoron? Let me try and explain: I seem to have a continual cold (especially in winter) or a cold that comes, gets better for a day or two, and then returns. My mother shows constant concern for this and is always urging me to a doctor (said doctors can never do much~neither can airbourne or Theraflu) but of course i am constantly exposed to the public and every virus that comes their way (basically every virus that comes into our community~especially since those lovely people who are too sick to go into work must come into the library to pick up their movies to keep them entertained at home.) Anyway, i'm known to have a weak immune system, but i sometimes wonder if my immune isn't very strong for fighting off all those viruses it gets and not getting any major complications~perhaps when the major superbug hits i will have already developed and immunity to it because i will have already had one of its original permutations. It's a theory anyway...

Survival of the Sickest: a medical maverick discovers why we need disease isn't quite so much a defense of my theory as it is a rather fascinating study of evolutionary epidemiology (among other things~and perhaps if i had read the subtitle before placing the hold i might have picked up on that~but maybe i read a review and had an entirely different reason for wanting to read the book in the first place~one never knows these things). The medical maverick of the subtitle is Dr. Sharon Maolem (Jonathan Prince is co-credited~a not-so-much ghost writer?) The reading is pretty easygoing, if you are new to the subject area it is incredibly interesting~if you are not new to the subject area there might not be that much new information here but the presentation is such that might still come across a few "a-has" or "I hadn't thought of that one".

His basic premise is that evolution and the climatic conditions of our ancestry contributed to our genetic heritage (perhaps not such a huge intellectual leap) but that the genetic predisposition to certain diseases such as diabetes was an advantage in colder climates such as Northern Europe or Scandinavia where increased sugar levels might be a protection against the cold.

I'm not sure how much of a "maverick" Dr. Moalem is (a Ph. D. in human physiology and in the "emerging fields of neurogenetics and evolutionary medicine"), much of this has been at least postulated before; but he does an excellent job of synthesizing it for the general reader (i enjoyed it anyway.)

nothing is ever quite the same

Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a kingdom far, far away, when i was but a young girl...

My mother was working for her Educational Psycology PhD advisor (for the dissertation that was forever in progress but never materialized because of the independent child she was raising all by herself~among other things) in a private consultation business. I would go to their testing center while she worked and play for hours among the educational toys/testing equpment or read the library books/assesment materials (it was all good entertainment in my eyes). There was one book i read over and over again (actually i'm sure there were many books i read over and over again.)

A while ago, on one of my library discussion lists someone had a patron query about a book concerning a dog who lied around all day and then became a star of a commercial. This struck a cord with me as one of those books i loved as a child. Many answers were given~none of them sounded right to me. I could picture all the illustrations (could even visualize the dog~but couldn't name the type~Bassett Hound). Finally someone came up with the right book: Something Queer is Going On (a Mystery) by Elizabeth Levy (sadly out of print now, i believe); and i rejoiced to have rediscovered my old friend. I looked it up in our system and we did indeed have a copy~it was apparently part of a series (of which we only had a few titles left) but i did pull in the book in question and Something Queer at the Library (a Mystery) (but of course).

Now that i have read these two titles i have reached a conclusion i have reached before and that is new to almost no adult: you really can't re-experience your childhood with the same wonder, and sometimes, even trying can taint some of your memories of that childhood.

Although i still recommend this series (and i'm still in love with Fletcher the Bassett Hound~and the fact that Jill, his owner, has a large mass of red curls atop her head...) Something Queer is Going On just isn't the same book i remember (and maybe it is the small paperback format~i remember reading a large hardcover in at least semi-color but who knows how accurate my memory is...) The paperbacks still contain the same, very charming, illustrations (including some very helpful annotation which is part of what i always enjoyed). I think that Something Queer is Going On, perhaps as the first of the series, is the better of the two i read (and doesn't seem to start somewhere in the middle.) Basically this is the story of a dog who goes missing (a dog "who never needs finding, because he never goes anywhere..."), his owner, Jill, and her friend, Gwen, who set off to find him.

Something Queer at the Library concerns some vandalized library books, and Gwen and Jill's attempt to uncover the culpret and motive (actually not a bad subject to cover~though i wonder how many young readers would recognize the library of the late seventies~no matter.) Jill wants to enter Fletcher in All-State Dog Show and since he has never competed before she goes to the library to do some research (now there's a novel idea.) The two girls find certain pictures cut out and set out to discover which pictures are missing and why.

Both the books make cute stories and i would love to find a copy of the hard cover (if i hadn't sworn off book collecting for lack of space... like that's a resolution i can keep...)