Books Read: April 2011

Children’s fiction

Paddington at Large (Michael Bond)

Paddington Takes the Air (“)

Thursday Rides Again (“)

The River of Adventure (Enid Blyton)

I love children’s fiction, and had great fun re-reading one of my all-time favorite authors, Michael Bond, creator of the incomparable Paddington Bear.  Paddington is a master of getting into and out of sticky situations with gusto.  Bond also penned two books about a mouse named Thursday – I tried the second (having found it in a used bookstore), “Thursday Rides Again”, and while mildly entertaining, it lacked the charm of the Paddington books.    Enid Blyton was also a childhood favorite who doesn’t hold up well on adult re-reads, yet I occasionally enjoy revisiting her low-key tales of very British children engaging in unlikely adventures.

Mystery fiction

A Red Herring without Mustard (Alan Bradley)

Death at Wentwater Court (Carola Dunn)

An Uninvited Ghost (E.J. Copperman)

The Alpine Advocate (Mary Daheim)

The Alpine Betrayal) (“)

Fantasy/Mystery/Unclassifiable

One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (Jasper Fforde)

“A Red Herring without Mustard” is the third in Bradley’s novels featuring 11-year-old crime solver Flavia de Luce (written for adults) in 1950s Britain.  Some find the extremely intelligent, emotionally isolated, chemistry (and poison) obsessed Flavia improbable, but I love her delightfully skewed outlook and her humor, and tend to think of her as a budding Sherlock Holmes.   “Death at Wentwater Court” is the first (of many) in Dunn’s series set in 1920s Britain featuring aristocratic sleuth Daisy Dalrymple who is charming and fun to follow around.  “The Alpine” series by Daheim features small-time newspaper owner Emma Lord in present-day Washington state; Emma is an engaging narrator who juggles family, work, and romance while giving the sheriff a bit of crime-solving help.  “An Uninvited Ghost” is the second is Copperman’s unusual mysteries where guest-house owner Alison Kerby has two ghosts to help her find clues to the killers.  (The first is “Night of the Living Deed” and both are great fun.)

Jasper Fforde’s latest entry in his “Thursday Next” series delves deeply into his wacky invention, the BookWorld, where fiction seems more real than the RealWorld.  In this outing, the “written” Thursday Next travels both worlds to find out what happened to the “real” Thursday.  More about clever ideas than anything else, Fforde’s creations are entertaining enough to keep me going. 

Nonfiction

Journey Into Summer (Edwin Way Teale)

Autumn Across America (“)

Teale was a naturalist who traveled around America with his wife Nellie on a series of seasonal adventures in the 1950s/60s, covering some 20,000 miles each season (there are two more, for Spring and Winter).  Teale writes in a very companionable way about the landscapes, animals (with a focus on birds and insects), plants, and the people they meet along the way who have close ties to nature.  You know you are in for a treat with chapter titles like “Walking Down a River”,  “Night of the Falling Stars”, and “Badlands by Moonlight.”  Life moves at a slower, more observant pace with the Teales, and it is a pleasure to journey with them.

Currently reading:

The Winter Garden Mystery (second Daisy Dalrymple book)

Wandering Through Winter (another Teale season)

Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong (John O’Donohue)

What are you reading?

Does That E-Book Come with Fries?

Okay, first off, I am old.  Not really really old, but middle-aged enough to remember fifty-cent double features at the movie house.  I also remember cherishing every new book that came into my life. 

I grew up in a small town.   I can’t recall an actual bookstore in that town until I was in my teens.   We went to the library once a week, and I came home with towering stacks of precious words that took me into special worlds.  In school, we got catalogs from Scholastic, and I loved pouring over them and sending off for books and eagerly anticipating that magical moment when the big package arrived in the classroom and our treasures were handed out.

Every book mattered.  A lot.  Every reading experience made me glow a little brighter inside.  By the age of 13, I had my own book collection, and I carefully labeled every book with the correct Dewey Decimal number, because it was terribly important that I claim each volume as my own in my personal library.

Books – real, tangible, solid books – they are my mental souvenirs.  When I look over my bookshelves today, each title, every cover, takes me back to a special place along my lengthy roadmap of fictional and nonfictional journeys.  And every book also speaks to me about craft, and time, and patience – of how the authors and the editors and the publishers poured their hearts and souls into making a new wonder for me to visit on my travels, one that would rarely disappoint.

A writer these days (and readers) cannot help but notice the E-book revolution.   They’re everywhere.  They’re taking over.  They’re the new face of publishing.  Everyone can now put their books up for sale in the digital world and lure folks with entire novels for a mere 99 cents.  Get rich quick!  No more waiting for NYC publishers to recognize your genius!  Readers are the new gatekeepers!   It’s egalitarian, and surely that makes it better and fairer for everyone!

Okay, calming down now.  I would never say that all e-books are crap.  The responsible folks out there are advocating for editing, professional cover art, and much of the same level of hard work from e-book authors as they would do for a “legacy” publisher.   I guess what troubles me about all this is the devaluation of books.   What once was an object that instilled me with awe is now as common as those fries that come with your burger, and can be gobbled down just as easily and as thoughtlessly, or consigned to the trash bin, gone forever at a mere touch.    Then again, maybe that devaluation is no different at all from dime novels, penny dreadfuls, and the evil paperbacks that folks like me once ranted about in the past.  Is it?  You tell me.  I’m listening.

After all, the e-book revolution is good for people who, in the past, could not easily access the wonderful world of books for one reason or another.  It is also good for people who want to share their creative efforts without needing someone else’s approval.  I do not argue that the increased availability and access to so much knowledge and art is a bad thing.  It’s merely a different thing, and at my age, there’s only so many brain cells left to accommodate new stuff.   I think my brain stopped at cell phones and has never managed to move another inch forward. 

The world is always changing, and I acknowledge that, in many ways, it is moving on without me, and someday (maybe tomorrow), my  personal library will be an antiquated museum piece.  I’ll become a recluse, that curmudgeonly woman who yells at the earbud-wearing kids crossing her lawn. 

And you know what?  I’m truly okay with that future.  It is of my own choosing.  I shall be content to sit in my comfy recliner holding an old-fashioned hardback (OMG, it’s so heavy!) with absolutely nothing plugged in to my ears (with which I shall still be able to hear the birds singing) and with a cup of tea and a plate of homemade cookies…because I don’t eat fast food, either.

Not about art, books, birds, or writing

After too many weeks of a cold, wet Spring, we finally saw some sunshine today here in the Pacific Northwet, and I just had to share how much the  Hounds (and me, too!) enjoyed it:

Bodie dog.

Bodie and Georgie sniffing around on the patio.  I need to get some weeding done....

"Made It" Moment

Go check out the delightful blog Suspense Your Disbelief for a nice (and short!) telling of my "made it" moment today!

Wonderland

People who look at my DVD collection notice something right off.  “Aren’t most of these movies for kids?”  Well…not all of them.  Sort of.  Kind of.  Truth to tell, the collection is heavily weighted towards Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks – and  the rest is comprised of 1960s Beach Party flicks, 1950s monster movies, and Hiyao Miyazaki.

I also own all three seasons of Gilligan’s Island. 

If you then look over my bookshelves, you’ll see a ton of nonfiction on the history of exploration and travel, and naturalist's memoirs, plus a lot of mystery fiction, a little fantasy, some classics, and an entire bookcase full of books ostensibly written for children.  Basically, my tastes in entertainment run strongly in favor of what one might call “happy adventures”.  Good-hearted people engage in amazing adventures or solve mysteries or explore fantastical lands, have a few breath-taking mishaps along the way and/or face off against dastardly fiends with the foreknowledge in the reader or viewer’s mind that everything will turn out well.  The fun is in tagging along on the adventure in the company of lively characters.

So when it comes to writing, I know my main characters must face obstacles to their goals, but I want them to have a good time along the way and not suffer too much.   I tend to tone down the conflict and tone up the banter.   “Light-hearted romp” has been used to describe my work, along with “light-footed”, and “Light as the finest pastry”… you may sense a theme there.   Clearly, I don’t do angst. 

Most likely I should be writing middle-grade children’s books instead and I’m looking into that.   Write what you like to read, I always say. 

Question:  does your DVD collection reflect your writing tastes the same way your book collection presumably does?   Give examples.   Test at 11.

I Paint Stuff

Winter Pond Reflections

Watercolor.  This is my favorite pond at the Montlake Fill (AKA the Union Bay Natural Area), a lovely spot in the middle of Seattle where one can forget all about the city while wandering through the meadows, woodland, ponds, and lakeshore marshes. 

Serendipity

What I love most about doing research is stumbling upon the unexpected gem that fits perfectly into the story.  My mystery novel, Seattle Sleuth, is set in 1921 and features Phillip Shaw, a veteran of the Great War struggling to find purpose in his life after dealing intimately with too much death.

One scene takes place in Denny Park, and when describing the park through Phil’s eyes, I wanted there to be something more than just a basic description of the trees, the playing field, the bandstand.   I wanted some emotional resonance, but how?  He’s just talking a walk through the park. 

Then, while researching the park’s history, I came upon the fact that it had originally been a cemetery.  The graves were moved to make way for the park, and rumors surfaced right around the time Phil would have been a young lad, that not all the graves were dug up, and bodies still remained under the park land.  Aha!  Serendipity.  And so I opened the scene with this:

     Death must have been on my mind that day, for when I entered Denny Park my first thought was of graves.  The place had once been a cemetery, and when Helen and I were growing up, we heard wild stories about it, that not all the bodies were moved before it was turned into a park.  Some of the dead had been accidentally left behind in unmarked graves, to be walked upon unheeded by the living. 

Helen and I once stumbled across a book on spiritualism, and in the confused way children have of getting things all mixed up, we would pretend we were spiritualists by weaving around the park with our eyes shut, holding out sticks, dowsing not for water but for the troubled souls below.  Whenever one of our sticks dipped downward, we would proceed to scare each other senseless, dashing back to the safety of our picnic area, where father patiently waited.  He had little time for such nonsense.

Now it was no longer just a park – now it was a park with resonance.  

And now for the reading post

I’ve been reading lots of mysteries lately (well, as always, really) and just finished Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn, set in 1923 England.

Dunn’s heroine, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple, inhabits aristocratic society, though in the typical spirited way of mystery heroines, she wants to make a living as a journalist.  She determines to solve the murder of blackmailer Stephen Astwick at Wentwater Court,  where she’s gone to do a story about country life.  She is ably assisted by a handsome Scotland Yard detective.  It’s charming and cozy and makes for an easy way to while away one’s time.  

Which brings me to “What I look for in a mystery”.  Basically, I look for something at least one step removed from  reality.  I don’t care for gritty, or hard-boiled, or taken-from-the-latest-headlines stuff.  That’s what my daily newspaper is for.

I tried to explain to friends recently why I couldn’t “get into” TV shows like “Hawaii Five-O” and “NCIS” because they were about contemporary reality, and how I needed either some kind of twist on reality, or reality with a humorous touch.  My examples were “Pushing Daisies”, “Lost”, “Life on Mars” – all obviously have fantasy elements.  But my friends said, “You like the new ‘Sherlock Holmes’”, which is set in contemporary reality.  Yes, I replied, but it’s Sherlock Holmes in contemporary reality.  That alone is odd enough to hook me. 

In mysteries, I like just about anything historical, which is obviously one step removed from today.  I also love “cozy” mysteries, most of which are set in contemporary times but have an element of light humor or eccentricity which one doesn’t find in most gritty, realistic crime reporting.  Or they are set in a location which is new to me, or highlight a profession or hobby of which I know nothing.   So those are more like a half-step away from reality.  It’s enough.   And I recently enjoyed one which featured a pair of ghosts helping the amateur sleuth – definitely a big step away, and I recommend it.  It’s called Night of the Living Deed  by E.J.Copperman and the sequel has just come out, too. 

When you go book shopping, do you look for stories close to contemporary life/reality, or do you prefer your fiction to be a step or two removed?

In which I pay attention to my own blog description

It occurs to me that my blog description claims that "I write stuff.  I paint stuff.  I read stuff."  Yet so far my posts have been nearly all about writing.  Either I change the description, or I try alternating more between writing, art, and books.  Well, since it's easier to come up with new posts when you have more topics, I wisely chose the latter approach.

Thus I present a classic from my Early Bird Period, in watercolor and colored pencil, titled "To Leap or Not to Leap?"

This is a Humboldt Penguin, which sadly I did not get to see in its actual abode, but rather in the Woodland Park Zoo.  He (or she, how can you tell?) spent about 20 minutes wandering about from rock to rock staring down at the water, and at the fellow penguins frolicking below, before making up his mind.  Which was:  To Leap!

He truly did want to Look First.