Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

This may date me a bit, but this book reminds me of an old classic (and I use classic loosely here) from the 80's, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure with Keanu Reeves (I swear he deserved an Academy Award for this one, for his hair alone) and some other "dude" whom no one can remember (and do we really want to).

Anyway, those two go back in time in a phone booth time machine....(good grief, was it really this dumb) to ace a book report, you know, because they're the get good grades type of students, obviously, and end up bringing back famous people from history. One was Abe Lincoln, looking remarkably like the real thing by the way, his voice was like..a grumbling, deep canyon of manliness, if that makes any sense. That's the voice that kept playing though my head during the diary portions of this book. "Let us have faith that right makes right..." or "A house divided against itself can not stand," and lest we forget "I want to kill vampires until every ounce of blood is drained from their bodies.." Er, yeah..some of the greatest lines in history were uttered by this man. I guess.

This book will make a fine companion to the biography of Mary Todd Lincoln I'm reading in June for book club. Hopefully Mary kicks some serious vampire booty too. And she'll do it all while hand sewing a handkerchief. Of course.

3 stars

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

This was a very interesting book. Like I said previously, it has just about everything in it. Good, bad, murder, Irish wisdom, Chinese wisdom, familial tensions, lost love, suppressing parents, history, religion, and whorehouses. Lots and lots of whorehouses.
The major theme of this book is good vs bad. What makes someone good or bad? Is it our surroundings? Is it because of Cain and Abel? Is it due to what kind of parents we have? Or are we capable of choosing to be good or bad?
East of Eden follows two families through three generations and what constitutes the good and the bad of the family. At times, a very depressing book. I found myself unable to read because I just wanted the characters to grow and I was afraid they wouldn't. I found myself wondering how often I say "that is just who I am" or "I take after my father or mother". Is this reason enough for me not to change? I think it is hard to change the cycle of families. Those that do it, are the ones with real courage and that was the golden nugget from the book.
My one issue with the book is the female characters. There were not many redeeming qualities in the woman in the book. Maybe I was just being overly sensitive. I tend to like my woman strong and not crazy. There was redemption of this at the end.
I wish I had a book group to discuss the book with because there are many parts that would elicit interesting conversation. So instead I will share some facts on Mr. Steinbeck.
1. He considered this his greatest work even though it came at a time that critics suggest his writing was declining.
2.He grew up in Salinas, the setting for most of the book.
3.He had a falling out with a close friend and he wrote this a few years after the friend died. (There is so much brother tension in the book I just had to find a reason why. I don't know if this is true. Just hypothesising).
4.His book Grapes of Wrath, was the 6th highest book to be banned from 1990-2004.

He was a controversial writer and I would guess a controversial person in life. Very interesting.

It's a new month as well as a Monday. What are you reading??

Hey, it's a new month and a new week! Now if it'd only be nice enough outside to maybe venture out occasionally it'd be a happy ending all way round! I swear I've never been this cold...brrrr. Check out what others are reading here.

This time of year my reading usually slows, not increases, again blame the weather and my anxious gardening fingers need something to do, so, why not turn pages instead I say.

I just finished:
Angelology by Danielle Trussoni.
Excellent haunting, brooding sort of book.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley
A fun vampire read where the vampires aren't really that nice., or attractive. Holy cow they were actually scary! What a concept.

We discussed The Help by Kathryn Stockett at book club. Another excellent book that took me back to a time period we must never forget.

I'm currently reading:
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
I'm liking this one more than I thought I would, and I saw the end of Hamlet the other night on PBS. The cornucopia of death scene. Got the tragedical juices flowing anyway. Can't wait for that to happen here...I guess..

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Graham-Smith
I liked his P&P&Z version, and this one is supposed to be better. Real photos this time! At least, they look real. Those damn vampires..

Abigail Adams by Woody Holton
In case you didn't know, Abigail was a 1776 feminist! There's Joan of Arc, then there's her.

Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism edited my Maxine Hanks
Stephanie and I are reviewing and leading discussions on these essays for a friend of ours who has a blog feministMormonhousewives. We're only just starting. It will probably be a summer long project.

So what are you reading? And, how do you keep your hands warm after they develop the pallor of a corpse? Just wonderin'.

Something I really want

So I am using all of you a little today. I have talked about an author named Sarah Eden and how I really like her books. She is doing a giveaway of her fabulous book Seeking Persephone on her site. Not a big deal you might say, but it is the last copy she has of this book. You can't buy it anywhere. So I am linking her on this site for my own personal gain. She does have a book out "courting Miss Lancaster" that was just lovely. She reminds me of Georgette Heyer.
Here is her site.
Sarah M Eden

Angelology by Danielle Trussoni

I'm not sure why I liked this book. Maybe it was the half naked man on the cover. Maybe it was the religious foreshadowing, the looming Gothic art and the mysterious passageways into long lost secrets, that moved my brain to crave it like a big bowl of the banana cream cake I just had after dinner.

I became slightly involved with this book. It haunted me a little. It haunts me still, and that surprises me, because there is very little romance, very few people die (but when they do die, they die spectacularly), the praise on the back cover catalogs words like: alluring, delicious, gorgeous, beguiling and holy, and I usually try to avoid books with so high of appearance adjective praise...they frighten me into disliking them.

So what was it then? The atmosphere. I became quite lost in this world she's created. A world that's deeply religious, mythological, and historical at the same time. A world where angels and humans are at war with each other. A world where if you really want to know what happens read Misfit Salon's excellent review of this book here. The plot is complicated and diverse, very descriptive and bordering on verbose, but still, I liked it.

But who knows, maybe it really was the naked man on the cover.
And now I really must get back to more cake...
4 stars.

Movie Update - Clash of the Titti-ans

Finally saw this movie...okay, okay, I saw it in the first weekend..dork, dork, dork! We heard 3D was done after filming and added in post production so we skipped the 5 dollar charge (5 dollars more!!! What the cuss!) and saw it in plain ole 2D. Maybe we should've seen it in 1D. Is that cheaper I wonder? Or better yet 0D. Because that would mean we wouldn't have seen it at all. Pretty disappointing, although funnier than I expected. But...it wasn't supposed to funny. Duh!

They almost completely changed the story and added another female character, whom I sort of liked, but what?? And Perseus is practically bald - hair shaved completely off. And he's the only male character to have hair this way. What, he refused to at least wear a wig? He looked totally out of place. The Pegasus is black. Black for crying out loud. I guess that's better than red, orange..

The special effects are of course better, but a bit jarring sometimes. In 3D I probably would've been sick to my stomach and running to the bathroom and not because I had to pee. Although I had to do that too. Not that I would've missed anything..

Sigh.
Bummer.
Watch the preview instead. It's better.

1984, Brave New World and other depressing stuff

Many a time we've participated as a family in the "No TV for a week" program at my children's school. Every year my kids, for the first few days, act like they're going to die a slow, retracted, terribly excruciating death. What? Read a book instead of watching SpongeBob? Play outside with our actual legs moving, our actual heart beating, instead of our fingers getting early carpel tunnel on a game console? But my "friends" won't know that I'm eating dinner, or that I ran an errand today! Perish the thought!

Until eventually, when the whining reaches a decibel only dogs can hear, it then, amazingly, stops. They adjust. They realign like a good hip joint slipping back into place. A miracle happens. We start to do more together as a family. We talk more around the dinner table because we're not in a rush to get back to the idiots on Survivor. Do we all fall in love again? No, this isn't The Cosby Show (hee hee), but really, by the end of the week we do connect again in almost a primal way. (Just kiddin. I do love my family anyway, sort of..when they're nice to me..)

I agree with Postman, we are now more Brave New World than 1984, in that we love the distractions, the silly minutiae that controlls us. I like OK Magazine just as much as I like Newsweek. Reading a book online and on the printed page is as aligned in my brain as peanut butter and jelly. But as our little tv and computer experiment shows, it is possible to get back to the prehistoric basics if we want to.

But do we want to?
That's the problem.
Brave New World here we come.

Written in the 1930's, I got the feeling throughout that Huxley wasn't a big fan of American capitalism, or was that just me. Hmm..

Have we turned out like he predicted? Are we sex-starved, atheist, gum-chewing, movie-watching, drug users who never want to be unhappy, at all costs? (Did I mention I like OK Magazine and Entertainment Tonight?)

Maybe not to that extreme, but we have evolved I guess. For better or worse, in this "marriage" of ideas who knows for sure. It probably depends on who you ask - which may also depend on who you voted for, and who you listen to on the radio. I tend to hope our country isn't headed straight down the crapper, but don't mind me - I'm high on my "soma" and am currently hanging out on Fantasy Island and getting a tan with Ricardo Montalban. Read the book and you'll get why I said that. Worth at least one try for its historical significance.

So, the year 1984 came and went without too many major government take overs. (Not really but let's pretend.) But we've made great strides haven't we? Currently, we can steal a person from their home claiming they've violated the rules of our country. They're an Enemy of the State not worthy of basic rights. A great danger to the norm we call our society. We torture them for answers they don't want to give. Tell them they're insane, that our way is the best way, the only way, until they break and the creases are permanent do we cure them of their vile ways. A shiny new American penny coming out clean on the other side. A carbon copy of ourselves and our ideals. Or so we think.

But what if instead of America, it's Oceania. In place of Guantanamo Bay, put the Ministry of Love. In the place of our government, put Big Brother.

Even I noticed the similarities.
And I'm a Democrat.
Scary, scary.
Anybody else have some thoughts on these books and the state of our current lives? What similarities do you see?

As for me, time to read something lighter, like Of Mice and Men before I run as fast as I can into a brick wall, or drive my imported car off a cliff.

The Fossil Hunter

Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World

By Shelley Emling

This is a book about Mary Anning. What?!? You’ve never heard of her? But she discovered the first ichthyosaur; the first plesiosaur, too. She was well-known throughout Europe in the early 1800’s. In fact, Charles Dickens himself wrote an article about her. The tongue-twister, “She sells sea-shells by the sea-shore” was inspired by her.

Still doesn’t ring a bell? Well, no surprise there. I’d never heard of her, and I’m into this sort of stuff. It’s a pity that the woman who made so many great discoveries should be so forgotten. I was thrilled to stumble upon a book that might help rescue Mary Anning from obscurity.

Unfortunately, the circumstances that allowed Mary to sink into oblivion are the very reasons that this book is largely unsuccessful. Mary Anning was poor, had little formal education and adhered to a Dissenter faith. Worst of all, she was a woman, she was plain, and she was an old maid.

It’s a miracle that she overcame all of this to become a relatively well-known paleontologist in her day. She had to work harder than anyone else to do so, though, and that didn’t leave her any time to write journals or autobiographies. Few others felt motivated to write about her either (Dickens being one of the notable exceptions, but of course, he of all people would appreciate a Dickensian story of beating the odds).

Perhaps most detrimental of all, because she wasn’t even allowed to be a member of the Geological Society of London (women weren’t admitted until 1904), her discoveries had to be presented to that body by men, men that would, more often than not, be given credit for her discoveries. Occasionally, one of these famous (male) geologists would kindly mention Mary Anning in his writings, but it always had a subtle hint of condescension.

All of this leaves very little in the way of records about Mary, which, over time, has allowed her to fade into anonymity. Sadly, this has also left little for author Shelley Emling to draw upon, forcing her to resort all too often to supposition. Mary likely did this, and probably felt that. She might have done this, but she might have done that. All Emling can give us is a shadowy reflection of who Mary Anning might have been. After reading the book, all 213 pages of it, I felt like I hardly knew Mary Anning at all. And that is a real shame. Mary Anning deserves better.

The Age of Wonder

How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
By Richard Holmes

In 1768, Captain Cook and his crew set out to circumnavigate the globe, a journey that would open a whole new world up to Europeans and fuel a renewed interest in science and exploration. Just 63 years later, the Beagle embarked on an expedition that would culminate in Darwin’s theory of evolution, a theory that, it may be argued, has removed the romance from science and replaced it with cold, hard logic.

The years bookended by these two historic sea voyages are the time period explored in Richard Holmes’ book, The Age of Wonder. The first half of the book is absolutely brilliant. Exotic Tahiti, the early days of ballooning, and huge breakthroughs in astronomy are described with such enthusiasm and wit that I couldn’t get enough of it. The stories truly are fascinating. Don’t believe me? Consider the tale of the two balloonists that quarreled their way across the English Channel, a passage that ended dramatically with the men mostly naked and half-frozen (p. 149-152).

Unfortunately, the second half of the book was a bit of a bore for me. And allow me to emphasize the for me. In its second half, the book starts to delve more into philosophy. Is there a God? Why are we here? Does some part of us endure after death? You know, the age-old questions.

Problem is, I don't do philosophy. This is my secret shame. I really want to be philosophical and deep, etcetera, etcetera, but the minute someone mentions transcendentalism or existentialism, my brain shut right off. I can’t tell Plato from Socrates, and Descartes works better than Ambien for me. (And to be honest, I don’t even know if what I’ve written even has anything to do with philosophy, but it sounds pretty good, wouldn’t you agree?)

Holmes takes the traditional view that the horror of science is that it may one day turn on us (a la Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein) or that the scientific method has replaced wonder with cynicism and logic. I guess for me, the only horror lies in getting so caught up in wondering why science can’t tell us where we’re going or why we’re here that one forgets to enjoy the mysteries and beauty that science can expose.

First half of the book: 4 stars
Second half: 2 stars, but will appeal to those with a more philosphical bent

* Sorry, my comuter is acting up, and I can't seem to post pictures or comments. My apologies!

Author interviews

Lula and I have briefly talked about the idea of having author interviews on the site. Would any of you be interested? Who would you want interviewed? And what kind of things would you like to know about them? It could be fun to learn about them, and the world of publishing and writing. Let us know what you all think

Warbreaker

Lula you are always doing all the work on the blog. For that I say thanks and so I am feeling inclined to post so you don't feel like your the only one.

This is for all you fantasy lovers out there. Warbreaker is a story of people who return from death and become "gods". Living breath that can "awaken" people or objects and command them to serve the awakener. Colors that hold power of their own and the country that 1/2 loves and worships colors versus the other 1/2 that loathes color and thinks it to be abominable.

Sanderson is a fantastic writer. He weaves very complicated plots and complicated characters.

I like this world and the story. Political intrigue and religious debate abounds in this book. And your always wondering who is good and who is bad. What religion is right? What makes a "god"

In the midst of all this wondering you will find yourself laughing.

This is a full blown fantasy, even has a little scifi feel to it. I will say that I liked Sanderson's Elantris better. It felt like it was edited better and cleaner. There were aspects of Warbreaker that just didn't seem to make sense, like the whole color thing. So if you are a casual reader of fantasy I would say to read Elantris first. They are long, complicated stories, but they always keep me on edge.

I gave it 4 stars on goodreads for whatever that means to you.

The Spirit of Sweetgrass by Nicole Seitz

There's something to be said about a well cast first sentence on page one of a novel - This is what I remember about that night - my last night alive.

Was the main character, 78 year old Essi Mae already dead then and telling her story from the grave? Why did she die? Who was she? I wondered all these things like a fish wonders what that worm dancing in the riffles would taste like. I was hooked. By that first sentence and the warm tones of that cover.


Essie Mae Jenkins is a sweetgrass basket maker who sells her finished products from a roadside stand on a tiny anonymous highway along the coastal islands of South Carolina. From there she sews her baskets, weaving in some of the sweetgrass and Gullah culture, and a little voodoo magic for good measure, all in the presence of her dead husband, Daddy Jim.

Like the vanishing sandy beach ecosystems that sustain that billowing native grass, so is the talent of making these unique baskets. Essie Mae wants to pass it on like it was passed on to her. But nature's forces are working against her, not unlike the forces of prosperity are working against the disappearing sweetgrass. Like all of us as we age, Essie Mae feels like she's slowly disappearing from the landscape as well.

Well-written in great Southern voice, The Spirit of Sweetgrass hits on many levels. It brings into sharp focus the fears that we all worry about as we age - of being forgotten and replaced. I wondered what I would leave behind for my family, suddenly wanting to take up a new skill or perfect the two or three that I have! And, I thought of what's been left for me in previous generations and I became both happy and melancholy at the same time. Memories, love, cherished mementos, and most importantly a knowledge of things particular to my family and friends always bring in torrents of emotion. We all wish for this, in any culture and time.

I enjoyed reading about other lifestyles and customs unfamiliar with my own. Now, if I could just get my hands on one of those baskets!

3 stars

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead A play by Tom Stoppard

To be or not to be, that is the question.

We all remember that famous line from Shakespeare's Hamlet, that play of all plays. Was Hamlet really being told what to do by his dead father, or was he really insane after all? Did his mother know what was going on? Did his uncle really murder his father? Were Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet's friends from childhood, as funny and brilliant as they seemed?

What?

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Hamlet from a different point of view. A play within a play, within a play! Two minor characters bewildered and apparently unable to accept their present condition are brought to life in such a way that I thought of Deep Thoughts on SNL and laughed out loud more than once. It was genius. It was thought-provoking, and as you see from my book - full of such excellent word play between the two characters that I should now buy stock in sticky notes.

A sample -

Inside where nothing shows, I am the essence of a man spinning double-headed coins, and betting against himself in private atonement for an unremembered past.

And -

We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.

This clip from the movie is one of the best parts of many.

This play is an easier, and much, much shorter way, to view the struggles in Hamlet. It almost explains why it ended like it did - with a cornucopia of death.

We're tragedians, you see. We follow directions - there is no choice involved. The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means.

I highly recommend reading this, and then watching the movie. You will never look upon Shakespeare's most famous play the same again.
5 stars
Thanks to the Good Books Club for recommending it.

Plants, Plants, Plants!

Ah, I'm such a sucker for spring! It's almost here, in this part of the world anyway. I couldn't get to the backside of January and February fast enough. I'm one of those weirdo's who actually enjoys yard work, and despises house work.

Detests it.
Hates it.
Loathes it with a passion.
What does dish pan hands mean anyway..

When the weather warms so do my reading choices, almost against my will. If I can't physically get my hands dirty, I want to read about others doing so. I want to smell the fresh cut flowers through someone else's nose. If I must.

I've been rewatching this PBS series about two gardening sleuths. It is excellent!! And perfectly named.





And my reading choices for this month are:

Anybody else have any good gardening or outdoorsy sort of books they read this time of year? How does one fill that void of time and space that only a really good seed catalog can fulfill?

Suggestions?

The Tudors - The Good Queen, The Ugly Queen, and the Stupid, Stupid Queen. Season 3

It's the 1500's in Tudor England. The King's wives keep dying, either from a broken heart, by losing a head or for giving their all while finally birthing the King a son. What's a poor grieving King to do? Marry a mysterious German princess of course, Anne of Cleves who happens to have a nose as long as the Empire State Building, poor girl. At least she had the sense to except his divorce and continue to live rather richly and quiet-like in England. Katherine Howard however, well, she just seems doomed to follow in her cousin's footsteps, or is it just me??

Season 3 of this series did not disappoint. As far as I can tell in my limited knowledge, they are following the actual story very well. You just can't write this stuff! It's unbelievable what happened back then, over 400 years ago. My only qualm of course, is King Henry's size. He was in fact quite hefty by his forties, and probably wasn't even close to the lion they portray him in the bedroom. But this is Showtime after all, not the History Channel.

Still though, very interesting to see it all played out on the screen. Aside from Cromwell's death however, which is horrible to read about, let alone see on tv. It's fun to see these people and times brought to vivid life. The next season will be the last. I wish they'd continue on into Queen Mary's and eventually Queen Elizabeth's life, both of whom were equally if not more interesting than their famous father.

But oh well, I'll take what I can get I guess.

I highly recommend this series if you like early English history at all.