Tuesday, March 18, 2003

On My Wishlist Hey, finally something that is not a book! But what is it? Well, whatever it is, I am certain it will feel right at home with the Surfing Safari Cthulu and the Demonic Bear and the Sorcerer's Apprentice bear and Miss Pumkinhead and Merv Pumkinhead and al the rest of the singing gyrating giggling cast of well, only dozens at the moment, but I hope to build it into my own personal army of goth toys. Sort of a Toys for Goth Tots. 1:35:04 PM    comment []

Book Magazine Here is one of my absolute favorite site: Book Magazine. It is always delightful and adds much to my TOBE (To Be Read) list. This month, there is an article about one of my favorite writers, Elizabeth peters, creator of Amerilia Peabody, that Victorian lady Egyptologist based on the real-life Amelia Edwards, mentioned by Burton (she also wrote, and some of her ghost stories can be found on the Internet). There is also an article about how teenage girls read twice as much as teenage boys. There are many other wonderful things on this Web sit, if you love reading about books, scurry off and read it! 12:07:26 PM    comment []

Current Reads The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt I love this book. The tone is To Kill a Mockingbird meets Harriet the Spy, and Harriet is the name of the twelve-year-old girl who is the main character of the story who is trying to solve a real-life mystery. Harriet decides one summer vacation to find out who killed her brother years before, when Harriet was a baby, and to punish the person. I read a review somewhere which stated the theme of this book is the end of childhood and learning to accept adult authority. What a bunchof hooey! This is a smart girl who will grow up to be a smart woman who will never accept somone else's "authority" above the evidence of her own intellect, and more power to her! I love Harriet, I was harriet, and I dread the battles which are in store for her, but I also know the world needs more Harriets. All the Hely's of the world think so. Tartt possesses an amazing mastery of language, of its simultaneous simplicity and complexity, perhaps because she is working with some intriguing characters. Granted, the rest of the characters had a difficult time getting the spotlight away from Harriet, but Harriet's world is the one which is most fascinating. harriet's world is scarey and thrilling and adventurous and dependent on the whims of adults (who are typically thinking about something else at the time) in teh way only a tweelve-year-old's world can be, all at once and intensely. A lot of reviewers criticized this book, perhaps that is why I love it (Go, Harriet!), but this is the unspoiled female version of Catcher In the Rye, sad and combative and funny all at once. The years With Ross, by James Thurber This is Thurber's take on Ross and the early days of the New Yorker, and it is, if somewhat wandering in chronology and subject matter, also amusing and fascinating in the way Thurber used many correspondences from his time at the New Yorker to reconstruct its history. The descriptions of the battles between editor and writers is timeless, except perhaps in that these battles seem to be conducted with far less wit nowadays. I mean to locate a copy of the "Theory and Practice of Editing at the New Yorker" list which Thurber quotes. My writing professor would appreciate the timelessness of the dearth of good editors. Thurber's book is another excellent example, as is the one avobe, of style and tone. I also just finished a book titled something like Trail of the Amazons. It was somewhat iteresting in teh material it cited, but the author, who is a television film producer, brings some of the less scholarly aspects of television journalism to the book, and it loses much of its focus, especially in the later chapters. I would recommend it as a beginnin, but regard much of the research as opinion and somewhat suspect. The ibliography, however, is far-ranging and quite good. At least, I suspect it is, the recorded books for the blind leave off the bibliographies, which makes me nuts. Books should lead to other books, thus supporting a healthy addiction to the habit of reading. 11:58:35 AM    comment []