Julie & Julia – & JJ
Some people are appalled at this, and some find it wonderfully convenient, but I have friend categories. With me, people always know where they stand, because that is what I appreciate most about my own interpersonal relationships. I have a ‘best friend’, a ‘best friend since kindergarten’, a ‘roomie’ (my college room-mate), a ‘sister-wife’ (a very bad long running joke with my bestie of a cousin, no we are not actually sister-wives), and a ‘favorite friend.’ I can proudly say that JJ Golightly, of the Tidbits from Miss Golightly, is my favorite friend.
Favorite friends are those people you can go lengthy times without seeing, but once you see them again they are like crack to your system and you want them more and more. Favorite friends are those friends that if you ever chose to be lesbians (which we are not) you’d spend your life with them, because they are the ones you call randomly and say in the most superfluous and hyperbolic way possible: “I have a longing for you!” Favorite friends are the ones that you’ll hold hands with in public and not care if people look at you funny or take it the wrong way, because like a surrogate sister, your favorite friend is someone you would love to have literally attached to your hip, or in your back pocket if you could keep a miniature of them. They are also the person you happen to see the least of, and maybe that’s why the magnetism toward them remains forever in tact.
I recently had a wonderful visit from both my Roomie (Coffee Cups in Trees) and my Favorite Friend (Miss Golightly). What happens on these trips is this:
Roomie drinks coffee at the table, Favorite Friend bakes and cooks all sorts of goodies and photographs the results, I scurry back and forth trying to decide which I’d rather do, help cook or be lazy and drink coffee. The coffee usually wins.
Maybe it was because of one of these visits (in which all three of us gain five pounds over night), or maybe it was because Glen at the HPB Humble Book Club meeting brought up Julie Powell in our discussion of The Old Curiosity Shop, or maybe it was because I’d had the book sitting open to page five on my coffee table for about a year, but I finally got around to reading Julie & Julia
Nothing like reading a memoir about a frazzled maniac with a serious obsession for obsessions and sci-fi shows – in the kitchen – writing a blog and book when you too are nearly 29, frazzled, obsessed (but not dedicated), writing a blog, and most recently lost your entire book (again) to a computer virus. It gives hope. It gives motivation.
I will write a book in the next 30 days. Not the one I intended, I’m too crushed right now, but a different, lighter book that is loitering in a journal in my cabinet just waiting to be properly edited and put into a computer. I have 30 days. If Julie Powell can cook 523 recipes in 365 days, get published, and not be a loser by age 30, damn it, so can I. Except I’m not cooking. I’ll be ‘writing’ a nearly already book (from paper to computer) in 30 days and getting it to Smashwords by my 29th birthday. This I do vow.
In the mean time, I will still be reading, writing this blog, eating if I can afford it, and teaching Kung Fu… because that’s who I am, that’s what I do. Funny, that I had to be reminded of that by a memoir about French cooking.
Which is a delightful, by the way, all the way down to her swearing like a sailor, something I wouldn’t have even noticed had she not pointed it out. She may live in Long Island City, but when it comes down to it she’s from Texas, and as a Texan I can say there are two kinds of Texas women… the kind that swear, and the southern belles who don’t.
I appreciate her kitchen woes, I love to eat but have many cooking woes myself. I appreciate her small and outlandish apartment, I have a once lovely home that has just been utterly broken by this recession and a foundation problem. There’s just so much to relate to, and frankly, Julie Powell is down right endearing. She’ll never be my Favorite Friend in real life, as that spot is forever taken and I doubt I’ll ever even meet her, but she is definitely a favorite on my bookshelf.
Old Curiosity Shop – A Curious Book
Title: The Old Curiosity Shop
Author: Charles Dickens
Length: The Reader’s Digest version is 523 pages
Chosen for the Half Price Books Humble Book Club for the December discussion to get in the spirit of winter without the over kill of A Christmas Carol, I was incredibly excited about finally getting to this particular Dickens title. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to my great expectations (pun intended) and failed to become my new favorite Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby
With a villainous dwarf, a troupe of dancing dogs, and then some, The Old Curiosity Shop was less about a cozy antique shop (which is what I wanted) and more of a Don Quixote style adventure occurs within a Les Miserables themed tale of woes for an old man/ young girl runaway team. Spectacular! Spectacular! from The Moulin Rouge comes to mind: bright colors, forced marriages, evil characters who resemble carnies… it was a bit much for me, but allegorical novels usually are.
Nell was too perfect and met too tragic an end. Quilp was too disturbing, too evil. Who makes their wife stand in a corner all night and not move for the sheer pleasure of mental torment? Not to mention, he’s a dwarf! Give him a good, hard kick and go on your merry way if he’s evil!
Despite my lack of love for this novel, I think it a great selection for a book club. There was so much to talk about, so many things worth speculating. First, the merits of reading it as it was initially released, which was in serial. I think reading Dickens’ work in weekly installments instead of all at once as a novel brings back a level of magic to his stories that was lost after they were printed and bound in one volume. Second, at the book club meeting, we had a lengthy discussion of the use of names and archetypes. Third, the ties to Master Humphrey’s Clock, Dickens’ Wife’s Sister, and a number of other seemingly random connections that bring new light to the book.
The most interesting to me currently is that of Master Humphrey’s Clock, because I own the book and have not yet read it. Master Humphrey’s Clock was a periodical of short stories about the ‘curiosity shop’ I actually wanted to read about when I began the story of Little Nell. Master Humphrey is actually the narrator of the first few chapters of The Old Curiosity Shop and then steps out of the picture.
There aren’t many members in our little book club at Half Price Books, and it seems to be on the verge of becoming a gentleman’s [book] club run by a non-gentleman [I’m a lady], but the meetings are open to anyone and everyone the first Monday on the Month at 8 pm. Snacks are provided and the book discussions so far have been pretty awesome. Up for discussion in January is Molly Wizenberg’s A Homemade Life
While the Net was Sleeping…
Too many Sandra Bullock allusions for one heading? I think so, but I don’t feel like Starting from Scratch. Heehee, see what happens when I go without my internet for 3 whole days. The cheesy humor that only I find funny gets out of control. And this post isn’t even about Sandra Bullock.
It’s about the fact that my internet was down for 3 days and in that time the Kiddo and I went on a bit of a young adult binge. If you follow my blog, or my life, you know we read a lot of picture books. This last weekend, however, we just couldn’t help ourselves. After finishing Pippi Longstockings, the kiddo seemed more and more interested in sitting through me reading chapter books, and there were two in particular calling my name.
The Magician’s Elephant
With The Magician’s Elephant I was moved first by all the deep blue hues. Rich blues and grays give the impression of a romantic gloom I find fascinating. Of course, after it was off the shelf and in my hands, the elephant sealed the deal. I adore elephants and half our lives consists of elephant art and books with elephants on the covers.
The fonts, the illustrations, the beautiful fairy tale… what is not to like about this wonderful book? Everyone should have a copy of Kate DiCamillo’s tale of family and keeping promises. It makes for a great Thanksgiving and Christmas season read, and I highly recommend sharing it with your children by the fire.
Kate DiCamillo is famous for Because of Winn Dixie, The Tale of Despereaux, and countless others. She has made quite a name for herself in the book-world as a trustworthy storyteller, but this is the first I’ve actually read of her work, and what a testament it was! My two year old sat through the whole book in one morning.
Of course, author Kate DiCamillo can’t take credit for the art, that is the fine work of Yoko Tanaka. She has quite a bit of published work and still manages to stay in the non-book art scene at galleries and group shows and such, according to her online bio which is actually more of a resume. I’m excited about keeping track of her future ventures as well, because I’ve really fallen in love with what she did for The Magician’s Elephant.
Tony DiTerlizzi became a part of our lives when I first grabbed a copy of The Spider and the Fly picture book. Of course, I was familiar with the dark tale, but DiTerlizzi’s art really sucked me in. It was not until later that I discovered he was the same DiTerlizzi who wrote and illustrated The Spiderwick Chronicles. What a clever, talented man! Where I previously lamented over whether the kiddo was ready for such a gothic tale as Spider and the Fly, Kenny & the Dragon is a story of friendship and book-love for any age. Again, everyone needs a copy. We will probably re-read this in the Spring or Summer.
Side note: I totally want a bicycle like Kenny’s, it’s so cool.
Flatland Falls Flat
Title: Flatland
Author: Edwin A. Abbott
So here goes one of my less than going reviews. I hate writing these because I truly enjoy enjoying books, so when I don’t enjoy one I am so thoroughly disappointed with everything. It is a sad state of affairs for me when I don’t like a book.
Flatland is a much raved about little piece of allegory refered to in the subtitle as “a Romance of Many Dimensions.” In 1884, when it was published, it had a bit of a cult following and is often described as an “underground favorite.” A bit of sci-fi, a bit of possible dystopian society… it was one of the rare times I read the back jacket and it sounded right up my alley. It was recommended by so many friends. Yet, at only 147 pages long, I was bored to tears by page 36.
I understand what Abbott was trying to do and say, but it is truly exhausting keeping up with circles, pentagons, straight lines, and triangles and all their interpersonal relationships. It was overdone. Everything you need to know to grasp Abbott’s idea could have been handed over in a ten page short story.
In the future I think I’ll stick to his theological work.
St. Denis
Click to visit Kate’s Library
My thoughts on Part Four of Les Miserables
Maybe it is a bit shallow and unliterary of me to come away from St. Denis and only have the story of my own marriage on my mind, but that’s the truth of it. How can you read what has become a nearly epic love story and not think of your own? Call it what Hugo does, The Stupefaction of Complete Happiness, and then maybe you can forgive me for getting wrapped up in the romance of it all and not caring for the extensive history, the depth of the literature, and all the rest of it.
“From time to time Marius’ knee touched Cossette’s knee, which gave them both a thrill.” – Book Fifth
Do you remember that? That feeling like a shock, but so much gentler, when the object of your affection makes contact; the feeling incredibly enhanced when that person loves you back… Do you remember?
I met my husband when I was fourteen, my freshman year of high school. He was old for our grade and already fifteen. By the time I was fifteen too, I was sitting next to him at lunch our sophomore year, just friends but wondering desperately if he would ever want more. In those days, I thought a knee knock or a hand graze was everything. Come to find out, it was nothing compared to him taking my hand to walk me down the hall later that year. Or even much later – years later – when he would hold just my pinky finger under a blanket in college because we were under orders from my then boyfriend not to hold hands. We were best friends by then and the idea of not holding hands with my best friends was excruciating. That same evening he leaned in and whispered in my ear, “I’ll always love you,” and then some blithering nonsense about my boyfriend and the direction of our lives.
Things changed then. Obviously that (very awesome and dear to me) boyfriend didn’t last as a boyfriend, and I finally knew what I had wanted to know all along: my best friend was my truest love.
Our first year as a couple at my 3rd degree black belt test.
The innocent but thrilling touches didn’t end there, we spent an entire summer trying to ease my parents into the idea that he was around. I neither confirmed nor denied that he was my boyfriend – at twenty I didn’t think it was any of their business – but during the school term we were in different cities so we wanted to take advantage of the time we did have. It was like a Jane Austen novel in my head, something like Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill: catching glances across the room, brushing knuckles and fingertips in the hall. Sneaking a whisper and a kiss when no one was in the room.
“What passed between these two beings? Nothing. They were adoring each other.” – Book Eighth
Apparently, I have thing for secrets, because that was nearly the entirety of all my relationships, relishing in the act of not letting anyone know. The difference this time is I was dying to scream it from the roof tops: One day I will be Mrs. Jonathan Klemm!
As for complete happiness, it is still had. We fight and argue – after all, we are married- but at the end of the day, at the end of it all, I can snuggle up in the crook of my love’s arm and hold his hand. He will rub his thumb against mine, lean down and kiss my forehead, and all is well again. The thrill of the small and innocent touches still there – after all, we are married.
Skip to my next Les Miserables post.
Weekly Low Down on Kids Books – Ella
Titles: Ella the Elegant Elephant
Author/Illustrator: Carmela & Steve D’amico
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Genre: Kids Picture Book
How cute are these!? We picked them up at the library this morning and already kiddo is hooked. They follow the adventures of a little elephant named Ella, who is shy but always finds a creative and sweet solution to her problems. The result? This tiny, unsure elephant always does something outstanding for her friends, family, and ultimately learns beautiful life lessons for herself and her readers.
The pictures are bright and lovely, they capture the eye of the kiddo and remind her heavily of Babar
So Many Books
Title: So Many Books, So Little Time
Author: Sara Nelson
Publisher: Putnam
Length: 242 pages
Ironically, when I find myself so overwhelmed by my mountainous TBR pile I become crippled and damn near illiterate, I find that the perfect cure is a book about books. More specifically, a book with lots of lists and descriptions and lengthy lamenting of how many books there are in the world that are begging my attention. So my latest reading slump (if anyone but me were keeping tabs, they’d see I only read two books – other than children’s books – in the whole of October) I picked up a copy of Sara Nelson’s quasi-memoir detailing a year in the life of a professional book reviewer.
It’s short and sweet, and has a lovely methodical layout. Each chapter is dated, and dedicated to a week of time (I am assuming, as the whole purpose of the project was to read a book a week and write a bit on her life as she read said book, but I didn’t count the chapters and they are un-numbered). It was a pleasant read, I enjoyed the simplicity and quickness of it. But it also made me think, I found myself journaling after I finished every chapter.
She has a little segment on Then & Now, discussing the great reads of her adolescence and what she thought the first time she read it versus how she feels as a grown up and I found myself solidifying my plan to have my kiddo journal and document her own reading experiences throughout childhood to remember the titles and authors as well as her true feelings on the subject matter. Of course, we’ll keep it age appropriate, at first she will only be able to summarize briefly, but then she’ll have proof of the process of change and growth as a literary being. I’ve journaled my whole life, but not always with purpose. Purpose is a delightful thing to have. The ability to later compare your thoughts and feelings about literary ventures with such clarity would be such a treasure.
The chapter reminded me of my re-reading of The Great Gatsby earlier this year, and how much I truly enjoyed it. It reminded me of a need to re-read Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, which I always hated, but feel I was just too immature and boisterous to care about a man fishing. Typically, my Then & Nows are quite vague, but with all this recent documentation of my reading life, I’ll have a better view of my lit-brain when I’m 80.
But above all, the chapter reminded me that there is value in my re-reading. Often, my TBR pile is so high, I feel guilty when compelled to read something I have already read. Should I really be doing this? I wonder. I know Persuasion nearly by heart, shouldn’t I be tackling Bauer’s Ancient History, a book I’ve been slowly pecking through, and loving it, for almost a year and a half now. Shouldn’t I be immersed in George MacDonald’s Lilith, a book I’ve had for ages, but keep only relishing in the first chapter and never moving on – over and over again? The list goes on. And yes, there is a physical list in my own writing, with not nearly enough checked off titles because I continually pick up others.
Then Sara Nelson says, “If you want to make the book god laugh, show him your reading list.” I nearly died. YES! However, every so many weeks, I find myself sitting down to write a new one anyway. I find them therapeutic, refreshing, even mysterious as I tend to write them haphazardly allowing my subconscious to take over and just see what spilled out of the ink pen next. What has been hiding in the recesses of my bookshelf that my brain remembers is calling my name? I think that’s why book lovers revel in their lifestyle so much. Whether they care a lick about the mystery genre, every book lover enjoys a good mystery.
Being a patron of libraries and used bookstores, I often find myself in the middle of a mystery. Whether it be a random scribble in the margins: Secret meeting in the place at 8, password candles, or some such nonsense, highlighting or dog-eared pages, when a book shares owners all sorts of questions arise. Most specifically, for me, I often find stashed bookmarks in the books I read. Sometimes at the start of a chapter, or in the middle of randomness where someone either wanted to savor a line or simply gave up reading the book; sometimes it’s a receipt or a thank you note, birthday cards, and even checks… things people stashed and forgot about, or possibly the item just slid into the pages when the book was stashed into a purse or bag. I often wonder which of these is the story for whatever scrap I find.
SMB,SLT had a small post-it stuck between pages 54 and 55, the beginning of February 27th, chapter: The Clean Plate Book Club. Did they run out of time and have to turn a nearly over due book back into the library? Did they give up because they hated it? Or give up out of principle, because the chapter is about seasoned readers having the power to give up on a book if they aren’t interested in it, wanting to prove something to themselves? Did they simply mark the chapter because the ideas within its pages spoke to them? We may never know. It keeps the mind reeling, though.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea that mature readers, seasoned readers, are the only ones who can give up on a book part way. Nelson describes it as a reader’s rite of passage.
“Allowing yourself to stop reading a book – at page 25, 50, or even less frequently, a few chapters from the end – is […] the literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah or a communion, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: Today I am an adult. I can make my own decisions.”
Funny, I always thought of it as something slackers do in high school. Post motherhood, I thought it was something I did because I killed brain cells while being pregnant and having a baby. Quitting kills me every time, but there are times that I feel compelled to do it, mostly because I either plan to finish it when I’m in a different mood, or I discover the author is what Paul Collins would describe as someone who writes ‘unequivocal crap.’
It seems, then, I am a late bloomer in, yes, even reading. I thought at least I had escaped that title in one thing in life, having been a very early reader. But apparently not.
The most interesting chapter for me, though, where I might leave a small post-it myself, is March 15th: Eating Crows. It’s all about recommending books to friends and how it can possibly damage the friendship. What if one likes it and the other doesn’t? What does this say about each person? How does this new information you have gathered about your so-called friend change the friend dynamic.
This is where I found myself saying, ‘Oh, hell.’ I’ve been around book nerds, book people, bookstore staff, customers, friends, family, the whole shebang, and this is the first I’ve heard about this dilemma. I recommend books to people all day, every day. It’s my favorite thing to do. If I recommend a book it is because I either liked it, or I truly think you may like it. May is a big word in this sentence. If you don’t like it, that’s your own business, but I’d love to discuss why and learn more about the world around me. It isn’t going to make me not want to be friends with you, that’s just shallow and dumb… even though I may secretly think that what you read is shallow and dumb, I know that somewhere someone is thinking the same thing about what I read – so why should it matter?
The next chapter about borrowing or loaning books is also silly to me. I don’t loan it if I’m not ok with not getting it back – usually. If that’s not the case, then I’ll tell you PLEASE PLEASE GET THIS BACK TO ME one day, and that only happens with someone who has already established a good track record. If I don’t say that, you may bring it back, or just consider it a gift if you fall in love with it. I don’t care. I have plenty of books, and multiple copies of some of my favorites. A book will not ruin our friendship unless you write one about me that is awful, spilling the beans that you’ve actually hated me all these years but haven’t said so because… Then, we might have issues. That hasn’t happened to me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did. And no, I don’t have anyone in mind, I’m just used to being surprised by what people think of me.
All in all, Nelson you served your purpose. I have a new list of titles to tackle, nothing you mentioned in your book because we have entirely different reading tastes. That’s not true. They are similar in the way a Venn diagram is similar. Not a Venn diagram, more like if there are four quadrants of reading (I, II, III, and IV), and I & II are two different kinds of book snobs and III & IV are polar opposites of I & II who read varying kinds of ‘unequivocal crap’, we are readers I & II. Still, we may not have the same, identical tastes, and in real life you would probably never want to be my friend, but I enjoyed your book and it has made me voracious for the piles and piles on my own shelves again.
“Your Review Helped…”
I love getting these emails:
AnakaliaKlemm, a customer just told us your review was helpful to them while shopping on Amazon.
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 June 11, 2012
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Read my review here.
Parnassus on Wheels – Can I Have One?
Title: Parnassus on Wheels
Author: Christopher Morley
Publisher: Akadine Press
Length: 160 pages
“[…] When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue – you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night – there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean.”
Parnassus on Wheels is both sweet and clever. It is adorably romantic. After reading this, I want desperately to peddle books from a horse-drawn early 1900s RV. Morley has captured a tale of an adventure that is every book lovers dream: to travel in a cozy carriage with a dog and horse, spreading the love and joy of literature to everyone you meet. What could be better?
Mr. Mifflin is a middle-aged ginger, evangelizing about the religion of books as a way of life, when he meets over-weight Helen McGill. Helen is tired but spunky, she’s been a ‘house-wife’ to her brother for years on the farm they share. Her brother, a famous author doesn’t really treat her as though she’s her own person, and 6,000 loaves of bread into life, she buys Mifflin’s whole operation for $400 on a lark. Of course, everyone thinks Mr. Mifflin is taking advantage of the lady, but in reality he has offered a whole new life, a new way of seeing the world, and an absurd amount of joy.
As a bookseller, this story speaks to me. I ran the literature sections for several years, and I received an intense amount of satisfaction from finding books for my customers. The idea that you could deliver books straight to someone’s doorstep in such a homey but noninvasive manner sounds so enticing and whimsical to me.
Peddlers are well-known concept:
THE PEDDLER’S CARAVAN
[46]
I wish I lived in a caravan,
With a horse to drive like a peddler-man!
Where he comes from nobody knows,
Or where he goes to, but on he goes!
His caravan has windows two,
And a chimney of tin, that the smoke comes through;
He has a wife, with a baby brown,
And they go riding from town to town.
Chairs to mend, and delf to sell!
He clashes the basins like a bell;
Tea trays, baskets ranged in order,
Plates, with alphabets round the border!
The roads are brown, and the sea is green,
But his home is like a bathing-machine;
The world is round, and he can ride,
Rumble and slash, to the other side!
With the peddler-man I should like to roam,
And write a book when I came home;
All the people would read my book,
Just like the Travels of Captain Cook!
—WILLIAM BRIGHTY RANDS.
But a book peddler is a fairly unique idea, and I love Christopher Morley for sharing this idea with the world. Clearly, he didn’t invent the concept, but one wonders if he encountered a caravan such as R. Mifflin’s Traveling Parnassus, or is it merely a dream he had for himself? Parnassus on Wheels was Morley’s first novel, first published in 1917. Mr. Mifflin returns in the book The Haunted Bookshop, a sequel I am strongly looking forward to, but what I find most interesting is that Christopher Morley wrote over 100 novels. Have you heard of any of them? I had not, I was only aware of Morley because he was pressed on me by a fellow bookseller. I rarely come across his work in bookstores, and I have never seen a title of his in any library. I now plan to collect his work more vigorously.
Morley apparently wrote a number of essays and poems as well, and lectured at University. One adorable little factoid is that he married a woman named Helen shortly after studying history in college. I can’t help but wonder how much Helen McGill, of Parnassus on Wheels, resembled his own wife whom he loved.
Have you read anything by Christopher Morley? Please leave comments.
Bill Bryson, I adore You
Title: The Lost Continent
Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher:Harper Perennial
Length: 299 pages
I read A Walk in the Woods a year or two ago and I remember thinking, “What a witty, sarcastic, jack-ass – I love him!” The same holds true for one of Bryson’s earlier works, The Lost Continent.
This book is a great travel memoir of a road trip in America, back when it was still glaringly clear that we were The United States of America, each part of our country a very unique place, in the midst of the late 80’s and early 90’s when the lines were getting blurred and we as a nation fell more and more into a federal ‘group-think’ existence.
Being from the south, there are many times when I feel I should be greatly offended by the things Bryson has to stay about my neck of the woods. Three things must be said about my not getting offended 1. We southerners don’t offend easily, we just pat your hand and say ‘Bless Your Heart’ for not understanding us and 2. Bryson is funny and intelligent, and despite a lot of generalizations and false conclusions, many parts of his descriptions are familiar and full of truth. But finally, 3. “The South” and “Texas” don’t always mean the same thing, we are a brand all our own, and mighty proud of it.
Bryson’s version of tourism is wonderful. It has both the comprehension of American ways and not quite being an outsider, as well as the fresh eyes of someone who has been away for so long. His adventures around national landmarks, travels through run of the mill towns, and his uncanny ability to not be duped in one instance and be completely suckered in another is fantastic. He finds himself in both the best and the worst of places. From the smallest hotel room in NY to the cleanest hotel room in New England, Bryson experiences it all, and shares every scurrilous detail.
If you’ve ever stepped foot in any of these places, you can’t help but enjoy his descriptions. If you haven’t yet been there, you find yourself intrigued. If you’ve ever read Conspicuous Consumption, you can’t help but notice how Bryson spells out the concepts Veblen’s concepts with severe imagery. If you’ve never read anything at all, you can at least appreciate his comedic nature and how much his books will make you laugh.
Scentsy pairing: Clean Breeze or Route 66
As usual, I’m enjoying Bryson’s work quite a bit and am so excited to get a chance to discuss this book with other people at the Half Price Books Humble Book Club meeting on October 1st. There’s still a few days to find a copy, read it, and pipe in at the meeting.
Anakalian Whims 