Not Just Jane: Rediscovering Seven Amazing Women Writers Who Transformed British Literature by Shelley DeWees

Summary from Goodreads:
Jane Austen and the Brontës endure as British literature’s leading ladies (and for good reason)—but were these reclusive parsons’ daughters really the only writing women of their day? A feminist history of literary Britain, this witty, fascinating nonfiction debut explores the extraordinary lives and work of seven long-forgotten authoresses, and asks: Why did their considerable fame and influence, and a vibrant culture of female creativity, fade away? And what are we missing because of it?

You’ve likely read at least one Jane Austen novel (or at least seen a film one). Chances are you’ve also read Jane Eyre; if you were an exceptionally moody teenager, you might have even read Wuthering Heights. English majors might add George Eliot or Virginia Woolf to this list…but then the trail ends. Were there truly so few women writing anything of note during late 18th and 19th century Britain?

In Not Just Jane, Shelley DeWees weaves history, biography, and critical analysis into a rip-roaring narrative of the nation’s fabulous, yet mostly forgotten, female literary heritage. As the country, and women’s roles within it, evolved, so did the publishing industry, driving legions of ladies to pick up their pens and hit the parchment. Focusing on the creative contributions and personal stories of seven astonishing women, among them pioneers of detective fiction and the modern fantasy novel, DeWees assembles a riveting, intimate, and ruthlessly unromanticized portrait of female life—and the literary landscape—during this era. In doing so, she comes closer to understanding how a society could forget so many of these women, who all enjoyed success, critical acclaim, and a fair amount of notoriety during their time, and realizes why, now more than ever, it’s vital that we remember.

Rediscover Charlotte Turner Smith, Helen Maria Williams, Mary Robinson, Catherine Crowe, Sara Coleridge, Dinah Mulock Craik, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon.

Let me tell you how nice the HarperPerennial team is - I spied a bright, pink spine with the words "Not Just Jane" written on it in an Instagram photo of their fall sales conference, asked about it, and they offered to send me a copy.  What sweethearts.  Or they just didn't want me to hold their interns hostage or whatever.  Hahaha.

But seriously.

One day Shelley DeWees surveyed her bookshelves and wondered why Jane Austen and the Brontës,  were the only women writers from nineteenth-century England anyone seems to know about (you can throw George Eliot (aka Mary Ann Evans) and Virginia Woolf in there as part of the literature "canon" of undergraduate education).  She started poking around and found a host of women writers - some of them best-selling - who took advantage of changing culture and economics to support themselves with writing careers.  After doing her research, DeWees narrowed her focus to just seven women writing between 1800 and 1900: Charlotte Turner Smith, Helen Maria Williams, Mary Robinson, Catherine Crowe, Sara Coleridge, Dinah Mulock Craik, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon.  These seven women came from middle-class backgrounds, had reasonably good educations (for what could be expected at the time), and most turned to writing to support themselves and their families in an era when women began to claim jobs and legal status.  Not Just Jane is the resulting book.

Now, if your eyeballs roll at the very idea of "literary biography" let me assure you that Not Just Jane is very interesting and very readable.  DeWees goes out of her way to present contemporary criticism about these seven women, ranging from critical thoughts on their work to knee-jerk reactionism about lady scribblers. [These reactions boil down to "Omg, the ladeez they are writing THINGS and people are READING THEM because IMPROVED ACCESS and won't someone think of the children!" Victorians can hand-wring with the best of them.  Isn't it frustrating amusing how history repeats itself?]  Changes in the publishing industry - like the repeals of taxes on knowledge that decreased the costs of printing and increased circulation and access - allowed these women and many others like them to become prolific and popular authors.  We need to revisit these women and bring them back into view.  Even though I am well-read in Regency and Victorian literature, I had really only heard of Mary Elizabeth Braddon, probably the best known of the seven, although I haven't yet read her (most popular work: Lady Audley's Secret).

I do wish that Not Just Jane had been longer. I would have read a book three times as long to cover more years and more writers (DeWees's reasons for setting her boundaries leave out eighteenth-century writers who influenced Jane Austen like Fanny Burney and Ann Radcliff).  However, I am not the average book buyer and I understand the decisions made in making this as accessible a book as possible.  (I made it one of my handsells at the store so I can try and make everyone buy it.)  But Shelley, if you write that longer book, call me - I will read it!

Not Just Jane is out October 25, 2016 from HarperPerennial - which is next Tuesday, so tell your bookseller you want a copy.

If you want a chuckle, search #notjustjane on Instagram and you'll see a few 'grams (or if you're a Litten, I posted some there, too) with my annotations/notes (in which I try to be amusing).  I'm @balletbookworm both places.

Dear FTC: I received an ARC from the publisher waaaay back in April (thanks for the ARC, Olive!).

Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton

Summary from Goodreads:
Margaret the First dramatizes the life of Margaret Cavendish, the shy, gifted, and wildly unconventional 17th-century Duchess. The eccentric Margaret wrote and published volumes of poems, philosophy, feminist plays, and utopian science fiction at a time when “being a writer” was not an option open to women. As one of the Queen’s attendants and the daughter of prominent Royalists, she was exiled to France when King Charles I was overthrown. As the English Civil War raged on, Margaret met and married William Cavendish, who encouraged her writing and her desire for a career. After the War, her work earned her both fame and infamy in England: at the dawn of daily newspapers, she was “Mad Madge,” an original tabloid celebrity. Yet Margaret was also the first woman to be invited to the Royal Society of London—a mainstay of the Scientific Revolution—and the last for another two hundred years.

Margaret the First is very much a contemporary novel set in the past, rather than “historical fiction.” Written with lucid precision and sharp cuts through narrative time, it is a gorgeous and wholly new narrative approach to imagining the life of a historical woman.

Back when I thought I was going to back and pick up a PhD in literature (as one does), I took a graduate-level course in Restoration literature. Included in the reading list was this very curious piece of writing, The Blazing World.  It was written by one Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle, and is considered to be the one of the first science fiction genre novels.  So when Liberty mentioned there was this new historical novel based on Margaret's life you can bet I was all over that in a hot second.

Margaret the First is a gorgeous historical novel, so very lush for such a slim book (also that beautiful cover). I really loved how Dutton managed to combine her own prose and imagining of Margaret's inner life with that of Margaret's own writing - and Margaret started writing and publishing because her husband was broke (penniless Royalists were not uncommon at the time, but Margaret was a bestselling writer who miraculously kept them afloat). There's a great deal of attention paid to the fact that Margaret cannot do the one thing expected of her - settle down and be a baby-making factory - and all the really ghastly treatments that she and her husband William go through to boost their fertility (which probably made everything worse). All that sort of distills into the visions Margaret has that find their way into her writing. What would she have created had she been given the education men received?

Go order this beautiful book - out from Catapult Press.

Dear FTC: I bought my copy of this book.

The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee

Summary from Goodreads:
Lilliet Berne is a sensation of the Paris Opera, a legendary soprano with every accolade except an original role, every singer’s chance at immortality. When one is finally offered to her, she realizes with alarm that the libretto is based on a hidden piece of her past. Only four could have betrayed her: one is dead, one loves her, one wants to own her. And one, she hopes, never thinks of her at all. As she mines her memories for clues, she recalls her life as an orphan who left the American frontier for Europe and was swept up into the glitzy, gritty world of Second Empire Paris. In order to survive, she transformed herself from hippodrome rider to courtesan, from empress’s maid to debut singer, all the while weaving a complicated web of romance, obligation, and political intrigue.

Featuring a cast of characters drawn from history, The Queen of the Night follows Lilliet as she moves ever closer to the truth behind the mysterious opera and the role that could secure her reputation -- or destroy her with the secrets it reveals.

The second I heard that Alexander Chee had a novel coming out about a Belle Époque opera singer with a secret I went on a mission to figure out how I might ferret out an advance copy.  I put The Queen of the Night on pre-order in hardback but I knew I was going to need time to read, and re-read, and digest.  Basically, I just want to snuggle the book and pet it because it is that good so I'll try and write something reasonably coherent.

Lilliet Berne is what is known as a Falcon soprano (named for the first such singer, Cornélie Falcon), with a voice of incredible darkness and power but a very fragile physical instrument.  Lilliet's secrets have secrets, secrets that could be deadly.  When she is offered an original role, an accolade that would cap her career, the opera's libretto threatens to bring her secrets to light.  The librettist is an unknown, the novel it is based on unknown to Lilliet.  As she recalls her life, delving through many layers of intrigue and disguise to determine which person betrayed her, the reader begins to wonder: who is Lilliet and what will happen to her?

The Queen of the Night is a novel at the intersection of Romanticism and Realism, two major movements in nineteenth-century art.  The surreal nesting of Lilliet's many-layered life inside the harsh reality of an orphan in Paris during the Second Empire.  The sturm und drang of the opera next to the monotony of being a grisette in Empress Eugénie's vast wardrobe.  The glittering heights of celebrity outline the horrifying years when Lilliet is treated as a possession.  Were this to become an opera, Verdi would have to compose the music.

Throughout the novel, Lilliet muses on the ideas of fate, hubris, and vengeance, giving us a glorious line:

...the gods did not kill for hubris - for hubris, they let you live long enough to learn. (p46)

Lilliet is the Queen of the Night - a role she loves for its dark power and famous for the fiendishly difficult "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen"/"The vengeance of hell boils in my heart," is Carmen - trapped by the hand of cards dealt to her, is Violetta - caught between her heart and her past as a courtesan, is Leonora - the casualty of a revenge plot decades in the making.  As Lilliet notes: "victory, defeat, victory, defeat, victory, defeat."  As I was re-reading the book, I noticed that I wanted to listen to Mozart's Don Giovanni and Pucinni's Tosca.  Odd, because Giovanni is a baritone role, clearly not something Lilliet would sing, and Tosca did not premiere until 1900, well after the events of the book.  But there is something echoed in Lilliet's struggle against what she views as a curse brought on by hubris: Giovanni brazenly inviting his doom to supper and Tosca singing her haunting aria "Vissi d'arte" about art and prayer.

Tucked in among all the activity with circuses and Emperors and celebrity and opera, there is the simple story of a teenage girl who believes she is to blame for a karmic misfortune.  In her haste to get away she commits error after error as any inexperienced, grieving teenager might do, stumbling into misfortune and by sheer strength of will and cleverness keeping herself alive.  She becomes the famous Lilliet, leaving the adult woman to salvage what is left of the little girl from the Minnesota prairie.  Whatever your thoughts on opera as a music form, this coming-of-age tale with its mysterious twists and turns is the heart of Chee's novel.  A brilliant book to start 2016. 

Bellissima.  Bellissimo. Bravo.

PS: If you aren't familiar with opera - it isn't all Valkyries with blond braids and Viking hats, trust me - I suggest the following list of discs to check out:
Renée Fleming, "The Beautiful Voice", "Bel Canto", "Renée Fleming"
Jonas Kaufmann, "The Verdi Album", "The Best of Jonas Kaufmann"
Bryn Terfel, "Bad Boys", 1996 Don Giovanni recording
Joyce DiDonato, "Drama Queens", "Diva Divo"
José Carreras, "Passion"
The #1 Opera Album and The #1 Opera Album II - these are compilations with both older and newer recordings but wide range

Dear FTC: I did a first-read of this novel using a DRC provided by the publisher via Edelweiss and then I bought a copy because why the hell wouldn't I?

Dance to the Piper by Agnes de Mille

Summary from Goodreads:
Born into a family of successful playwrights and producers, Agnes de Mille was determined to be an actress. Then one day she witnessed the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova, and her life was altered forever. Hypnotized by Pavlova’s beauty, in that moment de Mille dedicated herself to dance. Her memoir records with lighthearted humor and wisdom not only the difficulties she faced—the resistance of her parents, the sacrifices of her training—but also the frontier atmosphere of early Hollywood and New York and London during the Depression. “This is the story of an American dancer,” writes de Mille, “a spoiled egocentric wealthy girl, who learned with difficulty to become a worker, to set and meet standards, to brace a Victorian sensibility to contemporary roughhousing, and who, with happy good fortune, participated by the side of great colleagues in a renaissance of the most ancient and magical of all the arts.”

Strangely, I think I read Dance to the Piper before, or tried to, because the early sections of the book were crazily familiar. When I was a child, I read any and all dance biographies or memoirs I could lay my hands on, which were pitifully few given my local public library. I read Alicia Markova's constantly, understood most of Margot Fonteyn's, was frightened by Gelsey Kirkland's, but I didn't understand Agnes de Mille's.
1) de Mille wasn't a ballet dancer so was immediately of less interest to me (tutus and toe shoes were my jam)
2) She didn't take ballet lessons until she was an adult but she still wanted to emulate Pavlova (*cue scoffing from one totally stuck-up kid*)
3) She went on and on about her own dances which I had never heard of or seen (I knew she had choreographed Oklahoma! but this was completely prior to that and made no sense).

It didn't take.

Well, I'm so thankful that NYRB Classics printed a new edition and that they contacted me out of the blue and offered a review copy. A re-read almost 30 years later - with a much wider dance education and modern classes under my belt, not to mention a dance minor - really made the difference in my understanding.  de Mille's memoir is not only a chronicle of her experiences as an itinerant, aspiring dancer in an era when America was developing its idea of the art form apart from classical ballet but also the very early silent motion picture era when her father moved the family West to join his brother Cecil (yep, that de Mille) in California. Her story is a testament to how your dreams and goals change over time.  She never gives up her dream of being a dancer, and her determination to keep with her ballet training was a major influence on her later choreographic style, but she slowly turns from classical ballet to an original contemporary or modern style.  We would never have had Rodeo without her.

A few chapters are a bit uneven in places, and clearly shows mid-century psychological theories around the edges, but de Mille captured everything so brilliantly.  Dance history fanatics will goggle at the sheer number of mid-twentieth century dancers de Mille interacted with both in the US and in England. For a memoir supposedly delivered to her editor in a grocery sack, the sentence-level quality of writing is excellent.

(Must also point out an introduction by the dance critic Joan Acocella)

Dear FTC: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

Mãn by Kim Thúy

Summary from Goodreads:
A triumph of poetic beauty and a moving meditation on how love and food are inextricably entwined, Mãn is a seductive and luminous work of literature from Kim Thúy, whose first book, Ru, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, received a Governor General's Literary Award and won the nationwide book competition Canada Reads.

Mãn has three mothers: the one who gives birth to her in wartime, the nun who plucks her from a vegetable garden, and her beloved Maman, who becomes a spy to survive. Seeking security for her grown daughter, Maman finds Mãn a husband--a lonely Vietnamese restaurateur who lives in Montreal. Thrown into a new world, Mãn discovers her natural talent as a chef. Gracefully she practices her art, with food as her medium. She creates dishes that are much more than sustenance for the body: they evoke memory and emotion, time and place, and even bring her customers to tears. Mãn is a mystery--her name means "perfect fulfillment," yet she and her husband seem to drift along, respectfully and dutifully. But when she encounters a married chef in Paris, everything changes in the instant of a fleeting touch, and Mãn discovers the all-encompassing obsession and ever-present dangers of a love affair. Full of indelible images of beauty, delicacy and quiet power, Mãn is a novel that begs to be savoured for its language, its sensuousness and its love of life.

Mãn is a book that I might probably have picked up and read all on my own.  It was slated for feature in the Discover Bay at the store (I walk past the display multiple times during a shift) and I like to pick books out of that list.  However...some smart person at Kim Thúy's publisher decided to purchase sponsorships for Book Riot podcasts so for a week-and-then-some this book was in my ears.

Of course I had to have it.

Mãn is one of the best, best books I read or will read this year.  It is a beautiful, slim, delicately wrought novel comprised of tiny flash-style chapters and a word for each chapter translated into Vietnamese in the margin.  (Aside: the physical design of Mãn is soul-destroyingly beautiful.)  It is a the story of a woman trying to find where she belongs in the world.  It is the story of a culture that has held onto so many of its traditions even as its people are forced to disperse around the globe.  It is the story of ordinary people who make sacrifices.  It is a story of how food can convey emotion and memory.  All of this is packed into 140 spare, quiet pages.

A perfect novel for a rainy, quiet evening.  I'll definitely have my eye out for Ru in the future.

Sarah Vowell: The Partly Cloudy Patriot and Unfamiliar Fishes

Summary from Goodreads:
Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and, in doing so, investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. In this insightful and funny collection of personal stories Vowell -- widely hailed for her inimitable stories on public radio's This American Life -- ponders a number of curious questions: Why is she happiest when visiting the sites of bloody struggles like Salem or Gettysburg? Why do people always inappropriately compare themselves to Rosa Parks? Why is a bad life in sunny California so much worse than a bad life anywhere else? What is it about the Zen of foul shots? And, in the title piece, why must doubt and internal arguments haunt the sleepless nights of the true patriot?
Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, themes, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration.
The result is a teeming and engrossing book, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.

Summary from Goodreads:
Many think of 1776 as the defining year of American history, when we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self- government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as defining, when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded first Cuba, then the Philippines, becoming an international superpower practically overnight.
Among the developments in these outposts of 1898, Vowell considers the Americanization of Hawaii the most intriguing. From the arrival of New England missionaries in 1820, their goal to Christianize the local heathen, to the coup d'état of the missionaries' sons in 1893, which overthrew the Hawaiian queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of beguiling, and often appealing or tragic, characters: whalers who fired cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their God-given right to whores, an incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her brother-husband, sugar barons, lepers, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode "Aloha 'Oe" serenaded the first Hawaiian president of the United States during his 2009 inaugural parade.
With her trademark smart-alecky insights and reporting, Vowell lights out to discover the off, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth state, and in so doing finds America, warts and all.

As part of my vacation reading I packed the two Sarah Vowell books I owned but hadn't read yet: The Partly Cloudy Patriot and Unfamiliar Fishes.  Light, fun (oh, and I'd brought along the audio edition of Assassination Vacation to make my parents listen to while I was driving - it worked, Dad downloaded the ebook to read since we hadn't got the audio finished).

I loved both of these books but didn't find either to usurp Assassination Vacation as my favorite.  The Partly Cloudy Patriot is a collection of essays on different subjects more in the vein of her appearances on This American Life than a single-subject work of non-fiction.  It was good but it felt a bit all over the place.  My favorite essay was the last piece about Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Unfamiliar Fishes is much more akin to Assassination Vacation in format but very serious in tone.  It's hard to be wry and witty when detailing the questionable tactics used by both missionaries and the US government that led to the annexation of Hawaii. I did learn a lot about the history of Hawaii that I didn't know, particularly about the Hawaiian royal family and how their version of monarchy operated.  Very much a book that needs to be read by many people.


Dear FTC: I purchased my copies of these books.

A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition

Summary from Goodreads:
No holiday season would be complete without watching Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang give a forgotten tree a little love, recite the Christmas story, and sing "Silent Night."

For nearly fifty years, since first airing in December 1965, A Charlie Brown Christmas has been one of America's most beloved television shows and is a holiday television staple. Every year millions of fans tune in to the Emmy-winning Christmas special featuring Vince Guaraldi's iconic jazz score and Charles Schulz's Peanuts characters as they remind Charlie Brown, and all of us, of the true meaning of Christmas.

A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition is a lushly illustrated tribute to the beloved television classic that takes readers behind-the-scenes of the Peanuts holiday special. It includes the script of A Charlie Brown Christmas, more than two hundred full-color pieces of original animation art, Vince Guaraldi's original score and publication notes for the songs "Christmas Time is Here" and "Linus and Lucy," and a look at the making of the feature from producer Lee Mendelson and original animator, the late Bill Melendez. The two share their personal memories and charming reminiscences on the Christmas special and reflect on their three decades of working with Peanuts creator, Charles M. Schulz.

A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition is a delightful and fitting salute to the holiday special that never fails to deepen your love of Christmas, touch your heart, and give you hope.

There's just something about the Charlie Brown Christmas special.  It's hard not to love Charlie Brown as he despairs over his little sister's letter to Santa, Snoopy as he decorates his doghouse a la that annoying Clark Griswold-like neighbor, Lucy as she bosses everyone around (nothing new there), and Linus as he tells the story of the Nativity all the while holding his security blanket. The Peanuts gang are our old friends.

This lovely memoir/history/mini-biography originally published in 2000, shortly after Charles Schulz's death, brings together Lee Mendelson (producer) and Bill Melendez (animator - who also worked for Disney and Warner Bros) to tell the story of their good friend Sparky and how they managed to bring the Peanuts gang to life on the small screen (despite the misgivings of a few network executives who thought the whole thing would be a bust).  They talked to a few of the now-grown child actors who provided the voices of the characters and include a very nice chapter on Vince Guarini, the Grammy-winning jazz pianist who provided us with the iconic "Linus and Lucy" theme music.  Mendelson also included many pictures and animation stills as well as the sheet music for "Linus and Lucy" and "Christmastime is Here" (if you aren't me and don't already own the score) and the original script for the special.

There's even a little bonus: in the bottom corner of every right-hand page is a little still from the skating scene...flip the pages!!

A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition is a great present for the Charlie Brown enthusiast.

Dear FTC: I received a review copy of this book from !t Books, a division of HarperCollins.

The Best American Infographics 2013

Summary from Goodreads:
The rise of infographics across virtually all print and electronic media—from a striking breakdown of classic cocktails to a graphic tracking 200 influential moments that changed the world to visually arresting depictions of Twitter traffic—reveals patterns in our lives and our world in fresh and surprising ways. In the era of big data, where information moves faster than ever, infographics provide us with quick, often influential bursts of art and knowledge—on the environment, politics, social issues, health, sports, arts and culture, and more—to digest, to tweet, to share, to go viral.

The Best American Infographics captures the finest examples from the past year, including the ten best interactive infographics, of this mesmerizing new way of seeing and understanding our world.

It's Best American time and, guess what? There is a new addition to the series - The Best American Infographics!

Statistics and pictures, yay!  I've been learning more about data visualization (adding to the job skills, yo) and it was fun to see how the compilers used the intersection of information and art. My only issue, and it likely will be hard to correct when converting newspaper-sized or web-page-sized graphics to print, is that the binding cuts through the middle of the graphic and makes it hard to read. Only a serious problem with one or two graphics, though.  I'd love to see this as an enhanced ebook to get the interactive graphics working (might make the file size too big, though...).

The Passion of the Purple Plumeria (Pink Carnation #10)

Summary from Goodreads:
Colonel William Reid has returned home from India to retire near his children, who are safely stowed in an academy in Bath. Upon his return to the Isles, however, he finds that one of his daughters has vanished, along with one of her classmates.

Having served as second-in-command to the Pink Carnation, one of England’s most intrepid spies, it would be impossible for Gwendolyn Meadows to give up the intrigue of Paris for a quiet life in the English countryside—especially when she’s just overheard news of an alliance forming between Napoleon and an Ottoman Sultan. But, when the Pink Carnation’s little sister goes missing from her English boarding school, Gwen reluctantly returns home to investigate the girl’s disappearance.

Thrown together by circumstance, Gwen and William must cooperate to track down the young ladies before others with nefarious intent get their hands on them. But Gwen’s partnership with quick-tongued, roguish William may prove to be even more of an adventure for her than finding the lost girls…

Let me get something off my chest.  Ahem, Lauren Willig's publisher...tap, tap...yes, you.  I, as one of Lauren's loyal readers, am really annoyed at you for publishing Miss Gwen's book IN A PAPERBACK ORIGINAL INSTEAD OF A HARDCOVER.  Very annoyed.  I'd sick Miss Gwen and her parasol on you if I could manifest her in the real world.  I have a beautiful line of hardcover novels on my shelf that are now spoiled by a paperback.  Luckily for you the Pink Carnation stories can't be spoiled by format changes.

Back to Miss Gwen and Colonel Reid.

As a reader, it was such a delight to have Miss Gwen develop fully from her dragon-like chaperone role into deeply dimensioned heroine.  As much as she would despise the word.  She has so much armor built up over the years that it was a delight to watch those layers peel away through her interactions with Colonel Reid and how befuddled she gets when those pesky things called "feelings" start to get in the way of clear, rational thinking.  There is a point, very late in the book, where your heart just breaks for her.  It's hard to imagine the Miss Gwen of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation provoking sympathetic feelings; she was only slightly less terrifying than the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale and we really don't meet that dragon until The Masque of the Black Tulip (book two).  Speaking of "old" Miss Gwen - is it just me, or did she age backward in the series?  Because I would swear that she seemed much closer to sixty in book one but here she's obviously in her early forties (and had much less gray and grizzled hair here).

Colonel Reid also gets to shine.  In The Temptation of the Night Jasmine he seems like a jolly Scot of retirement age whose past amorous affairs have not resulted in easy lives for his children (Alex is fine because he is a legitimate son but Jack, being half-caste, has a very bumpy road....).  Here, we see how much he recognizes that he hasn't been a good father, particularly to the daughters he sent to England, and how much it pains him to own up to that fact.  His natural boisterousness is a great contrast to Miss Gwen's stand-offish personae; he makes a great foil.  I just loved him.

And then there's the simple fact that our hero and heroine are very much outside the norm for romances.  Even Vaughn, likely in his late thirties or early forties at most, is a conventional romance hero.  Miss Gwen and Colonel Reid are middle-aged and both looking for a second chance at a happy relationship.  So few romance novels have older heroines (older heros are slightly more common) so I applaud Willig for giving Miss Gwen her chance.

The Eloise-and-Colin framing story inches along toward a big decision but they get their own mystery in the form of the fabled Berar treasure.  But they also get saddled with Jeremy (turd) - Colin's cousin and step-dad - if they wish to actually find the treasure.  This was a nice diversion and I wonder how Lauren is eventually going to wrap up that relationship.  I expect a happy ending.

At this point in my review, I usually update my heroine rankings for the Pink Carnation series.  The standings after The Garden Intrigue: 

While I liked Emma, she didn't top Letty and Arabella in the heroine rankings (she's probably duking it out with Mary or Laura - after Caroline Murat, Lady Vaughn won't scare her). Augustus, on the other hand, doesn't fare so well in the hero ranking. After Geoff, Miles, Turnip, Vaughn, Richard and Andre (tied), and Alex, the only hero Augustus tops is Robert the Duke of Dovedale (who still strikes me as a wet blanket, sorry). He's probably tied with Alex. He has very tough competition.

However, Miss Gwen and Colonel Reid are so different from the previous Pink Carnation couples that I'm having trouble.  Plus, Colonel Reid is Alex's father, so putting them in competition seems just wrong.  So they get to be on a little pedestal all by themselves.  I think Miss Gwen would like that.

And now we must wait over a year for Sally Fitzhugh's book because Willig teased us with a bit of a chapter about Turnip's little sister.  I think she's going to give Letty and Arabella a run for their money.

Matilda, read by Kate Winslet

Summary from Goodreads:
“The Trunchbull” is no match for Matilda!

Matilda is a sweet, exceptional young girl, but her parents think she's just a nuisance. She expects school to be different but there she has to face Miss Trunchbull, a kid-hating terror of a headmistress. When Matilda is attacked by the Trunchbull she suddenly discovers she has a remarkable power with which to fight back. It'll take a superhuman genius to give Miss Trunchbull what she deserves and Matilda may be just the one to do it!

Jackie gets full credit for finding this new audiobook edition of one of my favorite, favorite childhood books (apparently, Matilda is only 25 this year...which is weird because I would swear that I read it before age 10). Penguin Audio put out a Matilda audiobook READ BY KATE WINSLET!!

Breathe, breathe.

It is so, so, SO good. Winslet has an excellent reading voice and distinctive accents for each character (who knew that she had all those different voices in her?). I loved all of it. The only complaint I had (if it is a complaint) is that she's so dynamic in her reading that it was hard to get a middle-range volume set (was listening in the car so road noise was an issue) so perhaps the sound engineer needs to take another look.

BUY BUY BUY!  Run, do not walk to the store and BUY!!

The Graphic Canon, Vols 1, 2, and 3

Nestled among the graphic novels I found The Graphic Canon volumes 1 and 2.  What is this, this is interesting....  An anthology series.  Of classic literature.  But turned into graphic novel editions.  Must have must have....

Summary from Goodreads:
THE GRAPHIC CANON (Seven Stories Press) is a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind trilogy that brings classic literatures of the world together with legendary graphic artists and illustrators. There are more than 130 illustrators represented and 190 literary works over three volumes—many newly commissioned, some hard to find—reinterpreted here for readers and collectors of all ages.

Volume 1 takes us on a visual tour from the earliest literature through the end of the 1700s. Along the way, we're treated to eye-popping renditions of the human race's greatest epics: Gilgamesh, The Iliad, The Odyssey (in watercolors by Gareth Hinds), The Aeneid, Beowulf, and The Arabian Nights, plus later epics The Divine Comedy and The Canterbury Tales (both by legendary illustrator and graphic designer Seymour Chwast), Paradise Lost, and Le Morte D'Arthur. Two of ancient Greece's greatest plays are adapted—the tragedy Medea by Euripides and Tania Schrag’s uninhibited rendering of the very bawdy comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes (the text of which is still censored in many textbooks). Also included is Robert Crumb’s rarely-seen adaptation of James Boswell’s London Journal, filled with philosophical debate and lowbrow debauchery. Religious literature is well-covered and well-illustrated, with the Books of Daniel and Esther from the Old Testament, Rick Geary’s awe-inspiring new rendition of the Book of Revelation from the New Testament, the Tao te Ching, Rumi’s Sufi poetry, Hinduism’s Mahabharata, and the Mayan holy book Popol Vuh, illustrated by Roberta Gregory. The Eastern canon gets its due, with The Tale of Genji (the world’s first novel, done in full-page illustrations reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley), three poems from China’s golden age of literature lovingly drawn by pioneering underground comics artist Sharon Rudahl, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a Japanese Noh play, and other works from Asia.  Two of Shakespeare’s greatest plays (King Lear and A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and two of his sonnets are here, as are Plato’s Symposium, Gulliver’s Travels, Candide, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Renaissance poetry of love and desire, and Don Quixote visualized by the legendary Will Eisner.  Some unexpected twists in this volume include a Native American folktale, an Incan play, Sappho’s poetic fragments, bawdy essays by Benjamin Franklin, the love letters of Abelard and Heloise, and the decadent French classic Dangerous Liaisons, as illustrated by Molly Crabapple.

Look at all the cool things that have been illustrated or turned into beautiful graphic novels. Very much enjoyed the breadth of work both geographically and artistically. My favorite pieces are The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, Coyote and the Pebbles (gorgeous art), Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, The Flea, and The Tale of Genji. I laughed so hard during The Woman With Two Coyntes.  I wish that so many pieces weren't excerpted but a) can you imagine how long this is and b) obviously, this is an anthology and if I like something THAT MUCH I will go buy the original and pony up for the authors' work (I really need to win the lottery).

Summary from Goodreads:
The Graphic Canon, Volume 2 gives us a visual cornucopia based on the wealth of literature from the 1800s. Several artists—including Maxon Crumb and Gris Grimly—present their versions of Edgar Allan Poe’s visions. The great American novel Huckleberry Finn is adapted uncensored for the first time, as Twain wrote it. The bad boys of Romanticism—Shelley, Keats, and Byron—are visualized here, and so are the Brontë sisters. We see both of Coleridge’s most famous poems: “Kubla Khan” and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (the latter by British comics legend Hunt Emerson). Philosophy and science are ably represented by ink versions of Nietzsche’sThus Spake Zarathustra and Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.  Frankenstein, Moby-Dick, Les Misérables, Great Expectations, Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment (a hallucinatory take on the pivotal murder scene), Thoreau’s Walden (in spare line art by John Porcellino of King-Cat Comics fame), “The Drunken Boat” by Rimbaud, Leaves of Grass by Whitman, and two of Emily Dickinson’s greatest poems are all present and accounted for. John Coulthart has created ten magnificent full-page collages that tell the story of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. And Pride and Prejudice has never looked this splendiferous!  This volume is a special treat for Lewis Carroll fans. Dame Darcy puts her unmistakable stamp on—what else?—the Alice books in a new 16-page tour-de-force, while a dozen other artists present their versions of the most famous characters and moments from Wonderland. There’s also a gorgeous silhouetted telling of “Jabberwocky,” and Mahendra’s Singh’s surrealistic take on “The Hunting of the Snark.”  Curveballs in this volume include fairy tales illustrated by the untameable S. Clay Wilson, a fiery speech from freed slave Frederick Douglass (rendered in stark black and white by Seth Tobocman), a letter on reincarnation from Flaubert, the Victorian erotic classic Venus in Furs, the drug classic The Hasheesh Eater, and silk-screened illustrations for the ghastly children’s classic Der Struwwelpeter. Among many other canonical works.

Volume 2 picks up right where Volume 1 left off and drops the reader straight into the trippy world of Coleridge's "Kubla Khan".  I am coveting the Pride and Prejudice adaptation - of which only Chapter 2 in included here - and the beautiful Moby-Dick illustrations done on found paper.  By far the absolute best art is the silhouette adaptation of "Jabberwocky" for which I had to Instagram one page because it blew. my. mind.

Summary from Goodreads:
Volume 3 brings to life the literature of the end of the 20th century and the start of the 21st, including a Sherlock Holmes mystery, an H.G. Wells story, an illustrated guide to the Beat writers, a one-act play from Zora Neale Hurston, a disturbing meditation on Naked Lunch, Rilke's soul-stirring Letters to a Young Poet, Anaïs Nin's diaries, the visions of Black Elk, the heroin classic The Man With the Golden Arm (published four years before William Burroughs' Junky), and the postmodernism of Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, Kathy Acker, Raymond Carver, and Donald Barthelme.  The towering works of modernism are here--T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The Waste Land," Yeats's "The Second Coming" done as a magazine spread, Heart of Darkness, stories from Kafka, The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf, James Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses, and his short story "Araby" from Dubliners, rare early work from Faulkner and Hemingway (by artists who have drawn for Marvel), and poems by Gertrude Stein and Edna St. Vincent Millay.  You'll also find original comic versions of short stories by W. Somerset Maugham, Flannery O'Connor, and Saki (manga style), plus adaptations of Lolita (and everyone said it couldn't be done!), The Age of Innocence, Siddhartha and Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Last Exit to Brooklyn, J.G. Ballard's Crash, and photo-dioramas for Animal Farm and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Feast your eyes on new full-page illustrations for 1984, Brave New World, Waiting for Godot, One Hundred Years of Solitude,The Bell Jar, On the Road, Lord of the Flies, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and three Borges stories.  Robert Crumb's rarely seen adaptation of Nausea captures Sartre's existential dread. Dame Darcy illustrates Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece, Blood Meridian, universally considered one of the most brutal novels ever written and long regarded as unfilmable by Hollywood. Tara Seibel, the only female artist involved with the Harvey Pekar Project, turns in an exquisite series of illustrations for The Great Gatsby. And then there's the moment we've been waiting for: the first graphic adaptation from Kurt Vonnegut's masterwork, Slaughterhouse-Five. Among many other gems.

Conveniently for me, I discovered the first two volumes right before Volume 3 was scheduled for release so I didn't have long to wait.  Modernist works are less familiar to me (so sue me for being a Regency/Victorian specialist) but holy cats, "Araby" is amazing in adaptation.  My one bone to pick here is that so many very long works (i.e. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) were represented by one-page or two-page illustrations and, unfortunately for me, they were often books I hadn't read before in the original so I couldn't judge how it was adapted.  But the art was still gorgeous.

(ETA: There will be a CHILDREN'S LITERATURE COLLECTION coming out in November.  So amazing!)

New Music Obsession: Gotye

I was driving along the other day and heard a song on the radio (I don't always listen to the radio, usually I have an audiobook on my iPhone).  It was catchy, with a loping-lazy bounce and a little marimba hook.  I would have sworn it was John Mayer - not his style, but maybe he was branching out.  Nope, not him.  I did some Googling and the artist is the Belgian/Australian multi-instrumentalist Gotye.

The song?  "Somebody That I Used to Know"




I. Am. Obsessed.  It's got such a great hook and yet it's so simple in construction.  It's from his 2011 album Making Mirrors.  How did I miss it?  Buy, buy, buy!

And then Kate (via her friend Jeruen) turned me onto this:



There are five, FIVE, people around that guitar. They are Walk Off the Earth.  I will obsess over them, too.

Surprises from my Secret Santa!

I received my Secret Santa package about a week ago but I've been really remiss in blogging about it (particularly as I would remember while at work and had no picture of what I actually received).

Well, my SS was Jill of Book, Books Everywhere and just look what was in my package!





Talk about getting spoiled!  I almost cried when I opened the box.  She sent EL Doctorow's Ragtime (something I keep thinking I have then get home and realize I don't have it), Tasha Alexander's And Only to Deceive (my SIL says those are good), Richard Paul Evan's The Christmas List, and Patricia Miller Mauro's Safe from the Past AND chocolate (yum, yum).  Thanks so much, Jill!  This December has been hard, what with Mom's diagnosis and surgery and all (she's doing so well, we're all so thankful), so a lovely box of Christmas cheer and book love was just what I needed. 

Thank you many times!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sourcebooks is the place for goodies on JA's birthday!

In honor of Jane Austen's birthday (December 16) Sourcebooks is offering the ebook editions of Darcy-inspired fiction for $1.99! 

There's a "Darcy for everyone":

Darcy and Fitzwilliam
A Darcy Christmas
The Darcys and the Bingleys
Darcy's Voyage
Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star
The Man Who Loved Pride and Prejudice
Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy
Mr. Darcy Goes Overboard
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife
Mr. Darcy, Vampyre
The Pemberley Chronicles
Pemberley Ranch
Searching for Pemberley
The Trials of the Honorable F. Darcy

I picked up Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star, The Man Who Loved Pride and Prejudice, Searching for Pemberley, and Weekend with Mr. Darcy (not listed on the Sourcebooks page but found for $1.99 when I ran "sourcebooks+darcy" into the B&N search engine).  I find that I enjoy the Austen-inspired stuff more when they use the works for inspriation as opposed to writing "sequels" or "variations" with the original characters and settings.

The special pricing runs through December 30 so get 'em while they're hot!

(I also picked up Penguin's Holiday eSampler for free...just in case you're looking for more holiday deals.)

One of Our Thursdays is Missing

Thursday Next is one of my most favorite literary characters, making Jasper Fforde a favored author.  Very favored.  There was a great deal of gleeful hopping up and down when I bought my copy.  One of Our Thursdays is Missing is the sixth book in the Thursday Next series and I was a bit apprehensive when starting - it's not narrated by Thursday.

Not the real Thursday, anyway, but Thursday5 who has taken over narration of the revamped TN series since the erasure of Thursday1-4 (and The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco) at the end of First Amongst Sequels.  All the other books in the series are narrated in the first person by Thursday, only switching narrators briefly when necessary (like when Thursday was in a coma in Something Rotten and Landen received a visit from Commander Bradshaw, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, and Emperor Zhark - Landen narrated that chapter) so an entire book from a slightly different viewpoint....  I was a bit guarded for the first chapter but then I got lost in the plot and rich stock of book jokes and puns.  I love it.  Written Thursday is just as wonderful a narrator as real Thursday - it gives a slightly different perspective on the BookWorld and what a BookWorld it is.  The BookWorld is a major part of what makes the TN series so terribly much fun and it undergoes a major reorganization at the beginning of OoOTiM - from an amorphous Nothing to a Fiction Island in a sphere.  The World consists of text description, therefore it can be rewritten and rearranged. 

The rearrangement suits the plot of OoOTiM far better because Thursday5 (who really isn't called that anymore, she's simply called Thursday so I probably better get used to it) now helps out with the Jurisfiction version of the NTSB when she's not busy with her series.  Thursday is ordered to whip up a report (read: overlook the real cause) about an odd chunk of book that has crash landed in the middle of the island.  On her way to the accident site, she is accosted by an odd red-haired book character who intimates that all is not right in the BookWorld: the real Thursday Next has gone missing!  In the company of a clockwork robot named Sprockett and a malfunctioning Mrs. Malaprop, Thursday begins her own covert investigation into the real cause of the accident and the real Thursday's disappearance.  Written Thursday must confront the dangers of the Outland (the Real World) and Vanity publishing to save real Thursday and Fiction Island.

Fforde introduces new bits and bobs to the BookWorld with characters old and new.  Written Thursday visits the Lady of Shallott, the possessor of a very special mirror.  The Thursday character understudy has a prediliction for goblins, something of which the written Pickwick has an outspoken dislike.  The Council of Genres is worried that the rising level of e-books will drain the Text Sea.  Fforde even thinks up a "feedback loop" where readers inprint their own thoughts and impressions back onto the fictional character, not without issue: Harry Potter was seriously pissed off that he'd have to spend the rest of his life looking like Daniel Radcliffe. (p 69)

I can't recommend the Thursday Next series enough.  They are silly, absurd, thrilling, hilarious, literary, and unputdownable.  If you've never read any Thursday books, start with The Eyre Affair; if you've kept up with Thursday, what are you waiting for??  Read this book!  (I'm waiting very impatiently for the OoOTiM release on audiobook so Thursday can keep me company in the car, just like the previous volumes).

The Craft Crawl is done, man!

I finished out my 2011 Craft Crawl with a visit to Common Threads, the quilting shop here in North Liberty.

In a snowstorm, of course, but Common Threads is on my way home and besides, you get to see Hank while you're there (he is literally the shyest dog I've ever met...the only reason he approaches me is because I smell like kittehs).

Although I don't quilt (it's just not very portable as opposed to knitting), there are shelves and shelves of pretty quilting cottons.  So I picked up several yards of two kinds of fabric to make into either a needle roll or book cover (I got enough in case I make a mistake, I'm not as practiced at this whole sewing thing):

I think the tea rose print for the outsides and the blue flower print for the insides, no?

And then (because I missed the debut due to work), I picked up some yarn on sale at Common Threads:

 BugSnugger Sparkle Sock in Water - sooooo pretty.

Bug Snugger yarn is made by Diane Pals in Marengo (Ravelry profile).  This yarn caught my eye because it is a) fingering/sock weight, b) blue/blue toned, and c) SPARKLY.  There's a little bit of silver spun into the yarn.  Pretty sure I'll make a lovely lacy scarf/shawlette out of this - it shouldn't be hidden in my shoes as socks!

And that's my Craft Crawl - I turned in my card at Common Threads - it was a lot of fun and I can't wait to see what they do next year.

(For all you non-craft people, I promise there's a book review or two percolating in here.)

It's Craft Crawl Week 2011!

Seven Iowa City-area craft stores are hosting the second Craft Crawl this week: Beadology, Ben Franklin, Common Threads, Fired Up, Home Ec, The Knitting Shoppe, and Shields Sewing Center.  All you have to do is visit each business during the week, make a purchase of any size (Edyie will sell you a button for 40 cents), and get your Craft Crawl card stamped.  When your card is full, you get entered in a drawing to win a $50 gift card from each business.  I have a time crunch this week, so I managed to hit six of the seven businesses today (Common Threads is only a few blocks from my house so I can visit later in the week).

I started out bright and early by stopping at Shields and Ben Franklin for quick purchases (I bought a seam ripper and a corner punch, respectively).  Then I stopped at The Knitting Shoppe to peruse the yarn and chat with Edyie (ps, Edyie was recently featured in the local paper).  We chatted in-between customers and I found some yarn that would be perfect for the Camellia Shrug from the most recent KnitScene:

Silky Wool from Elsebeth Lavold (45/35 wool/silk) in a pretty blue (color #10).  This should have a really nice drape around the neck when worked up.













And then I found more sock yarn (what else is new).

Mountain Colors Crazyfoot in Thunderstorm.  I luurrve sock yarn.

Especially the variegated kind - so many possibilities.

(Just an aside: Edyie is teaching an angora bootie class February 20, 1-4pm, and a class on linen stitch February 27, 1-4pm, if anyone is interested.)

I snagged some lunch and headed to Fired Up, which is such fun because you get to paint your own pottery (Fired Up provides the blank pieces, you paint/decorate them, and then Fired Up fires the pieces in the kiln).  Last year, I made food and water bowls for my kittehs so this year I decided to make something for me; I painted a giant coffee mug...tee-hee.  It will be ready in a week after it has been fired (picture then).

I stopped by Beadology to grab some seed beads.  I don't work with beads much (jewelry-making is too fiddly for this knitter) but I do like to free-hand designs on projects. 

So I got some white, green, and grab-bag colors.  Kinda pretty.  Not sure what project I'll use them on, but I'm sure I'll think of something.


I stopped at Home Ec on the way to the store (I had to work today at 3pm, boo, otherwise I would have just finished the Crawl today).  I heard a rumor that they had got some new stock of project bags (ok, ok....I read it on their FB page).

 Seriously cute draw-string bags made by JennieGee with the "Keep Calm" logo.  Of course I had to buy a blue one.

And then I bought more sock yarn - this time by Lone Tree Wools (Betty Shreeve in Lone Tree, IA).  It's a pretty, soft blue-grey-brown color. 

Now to get all my new yarns entered into Ravelry (which reminds me, I've acquired some books and mags I need to get logged, too).

I'll visit Common Threads this week then my Crawl will be complete!

The Orchid Affair

Of course, timing is everything.  Right after I create and post about my anti-HEA book display I go and read a HEA book.  Hahaha.

The Orchid Affair is the newest Lauren Willig "Pink Carnation" novel and there's no way I could pass it up.  I read it in under three hours and I have a pretty signed bookplate from Lauren.  Fangirl, yes?

The new heroine in The Orchid Affair is not so new to us.  Back in The Masque of the Black Tulip we were introduced to some trainee spies at Richard and Amy's spy school, one of them being a rather prim governess by the name of Miss Grey.  Fresh from training, Miss Laura Grey has been inserted by the Pink Carnation into the household of one Andre Jaouen, cousin of Fouche and employed by the Prefecture de Paris, as Mlle Laure Griscogne, governess to Jaouen's two children.  Laura has her own history in France, Paris in particular, and what seems like a simple assignment - observe and report on Jaouen's activities, particularly those relating to Bonaparte, Delaroche, Fouche, etc. - becomes far more complicated and dangerous than Laura expected.

Lauren excels at making her heroines different from one another and Laura is no exception.  She is the oldest Pink Carnation heroine at 32 (I believe Mary was previously the eldest at about 23 or 24) and the most educated and worldly.  She is also the heroine who, if thrown out into the world, could survive easily by her wits and intelligence making her an excellent agent for the Pink Carnation and a heroine you really want to root for.  Once the major action of the Regency plot heats up, you really, really want Laura to succeed in her mission and have a good ending (being a Pink Carnation book, you do have some idea of how the book will end right from the beginning, but you still want it to happen and would be disappointed if Laura didn't get her man).  Jaouen is a great addition to Lauren's heroes: a father, serious, educated, haunted, and he has his own secrets.

While some of the earlier Pink books felt more like Regency Romps, there is more urgency to the plotline of The Orchid Affair and, Augustus Whittlesby and his terrible, overblown poetry aside, it is a darker book.  Lauren doesn't skimp on the realities of torture in post-Revolutionary France and, while dead bodies have shown up in previous books, the violence is more nuanced and necessary to the action of the book.  There is more at stake in the denouement than just information, state secrets, and international espionage with masks and flowers.

I find myself far more interested in the Regency spy plots than in the framing story of modern-day PhD candidate Eloise, although it is through Eloise that we access the Regency plots.  I think this is because we only see bits and pieces of the Eloise-and-Colin-have-a-relationship development even thought the framing story usually ties in thematically with part of the book; in book 3, The Deception of the Emerald Ring, Geoff and Letty wind up married as part of a mistaken-identity-botched-elopement and have to learn to overcome one anothers' prejudices and assumptions, while Eloise has to overcome some of her assumptions about Colin in order for their relationship to move forward.  In the The Orchid Affair, Eloise gets to spend a little more time with Colin's air-head mother and decidedly sleazy step-father/cousin.  I actually got to like Colin a little more in this book, probably because of his rotten family (family is a large part of the Regency plot).

The Orchid Affair was, as expected, as very fun book to read.  Coming off a very hectic and disorganized three weeks of moving, not being able to find things, writing very large checks, and heaps of stress it was nice to curl up with a spandy new book, a pot of tea, and the cats to read the evening and night away with characters old and new, flowery spies, and dastardly villains.  I can't wait until next January for a new installment!

Pink Carnation Heroine Standings:

Laura and Letty are having a face-off over who is the best Pink heroine; Laura is pretty clever but Letty is really stubborn and can create excellent distractions. Arabella is looking on to see if she can capitalize on the disagreement (if Pen doesn't beat her to the punchline). Mary thinks she is better than all this, Charlotte is reading a book, Hen is practicing her scales (and making sure Miles doesn't eat all the ginger biscuits), and Amy is far too busy training new spies to notice.

The Pink Carnation is, of course, observing the whole thing.  Silently taking notes.

Who needs love?

So every year at the store we go from Christmas signage to Valentine's Day signage - with a brief stop-over for New Year's resolution-type books - in a blink.  So for six weeks we get to live with the Valentine's Day table brimming with relationship, sex, and dating books in varying shades of pink, pink-er pink, and red.  For someone who is always acutely aware that Valentine's Day is SAD (Singles Awareness Day) it can get old fast.

So I got to thinking "Why not an anti-Valentine's Day type of display?" Not neccessarily against Valentine's Day, per se, but one where the love stories don't end happily or not as the reader would wish.  Also known as no HEAs (Happily Ever Afters).  Just for a little balance.  And would be full of good books to read.  Why not, indeed.  So I made one (with input from a few other booksellers - the display is buried in the fiction section but I plan on catching unsuspecting book browsers with the sign "Who needs love?"):

The Time-Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
On Love by Alain de Botton

I deliberately went with more recent novels than classics (because if I did classics, Anna Karenina would be front and center followed by Jude the Obscure and Wuthering Heights as well as very obvious plays from Shakespeare).  Do you think I'm missing anything essential?


(Looking at this list again I must have had Booker awards on the brain....)
ETA: One or two things on the display that slipped my mind writing this post.

I haz a happee!

A happy new house!  Be prepared for a long post with gratuitous photographic displays!

 So Thursday, December 30, I went to the bank and signed my life away...but I got the keys to my new house!  I stopped by Lowe's for painting supplies, picked up some lunch, changed out of my suit (I, apparently, am the only person I know who dresses up for a house closing, but I have a suspicion that the loan officer is happier loaning a large sum of money to a person who looks like a professional, not a dumpster-dweller), and headed over to my new house with a few things.

Including the house-warming present from my bank.

Now that the house was mine, I could think about what I wanted to do with the rooms in the new house. 

The master bedroom needed a coat of paint, not too far from the starting shade of blue, but the original job was really shoddy (did they thin the paint before using it?).

The smaller bedroom, my office, needed several coats of paint to cover up that ghastly shade of Pepto-Bismol pink and some work to cover really bad drywall patches (this is not as pink as it should be but I was having trouble getting the correct exposure because the lighting in that room is really dank, also on the list of things to change).

Mom and Dad came down to help - Dad to help paint and Mom to get started on the kitchen (see below for what was up with the kitchen).  We weren't done with painting that evening - it was just too many walls to paint (even with Jess and Jackie coming over to help) and we needed another full coat in the office to cover the pink, even though we'd started with a tinted primer.  So back to the condo for bed:

Which was really the couch because I had to start taking the bed apart for the movers.  I didn't go to sleep until nearly 2am because I was also taking apart the stereo system and packing all the clothes in the drawers in my room.

Up at 6am and I took the cats over to the new house.  Which involved tricking two highly suspicious felines into their carriers (also known as giving up on doing it nicely and dropping them butt-first into the carriers), packing them into the car with all their toys, blankies, and new litter boxes, and taking a (mercifully) short car ride with two howling animals.  They were installed in the downstairs bathroom, known as "the cats' bathroom", for the day.  Then I raced back to the condo in time for the water heater guy to install the new water heater (old water heater was peeing water on the floor at the condo), the movers to come for my furniture, and the contractor to fix the drywall (I was practically paying the buyers to take my house).

 It was like a circus!! We found little kitty hoards under all the furniture. 

After the movers left, Dad and I worked on more painting - we didn't finish until Saturday (!) but the results were well worth it.


 

My bedroom has a much more saturated blue color - along with a more even paint job - so it feels very calm and peaceful.  The cats felt more at home once we got the bed made (when I let them out of the bathroom they wouldn't go anywhere without me, even crying to get me to come downstairs so they could use the kitty box; Chaucer would stand at the bottom and cry to have me to come down and get him).

My office turned out to be AMAZING!  The color is Bimini Blue and after a coat of tinted primer and two coats of color it looks exactly like the card.  I've got a little touch-up work to do, still (and we got a bit of paint on the woodwork), but I'm busily filling up my bookshelves with books.

So, do you want to hear about the kitchen?  The kitchen was a disaster.  The oven was beyond disgusting (I'm sorry I didn't remember to take a picture), like multiple-years'-worth-of-cooking pizza-directliy-on-the-racks-without-a-pan level of dirty; we had to vacuum the ashes out of the bottom after running the cleaning cycle.  My mother, who is quite good at getting kitchens in order, spent nearly three days cleaning cabinets, even borrowing the putty knife to scrape God-only-knows-what off of cabinet bottoms.  She made me promise that the next time I buy a house I request on the offer to have a professional cleaning done prior to close (and that goes for my brothers and sisters-in-law, too). 

In the end it turned out to be a very nice and clean kitchen with a low wall looking over the foyer where Chaucer likes to sit and vulture the food. 

I swear that I cleaned my condo unbelievably well prior to the sale on January 5 - it took two days and you could have eaten off the floor in the bathroom where the litter boxes sat. True story.

I had the carpet cleaned at the condo prior to closing.  It was so sad to see it empty - even though I am happy to be well rid of it, it was my first house and I cried when my realtor called to tell me the sale was completed. 

Bye-bye old kitchen, it doesn't even look like I lived there (or anyone, for that matter).

Among the surprises at the new house, I was gifted with a large porch swing (they asked if I wanted it and I said I didn't care because I already had a swing...so they left it) and multiple junk drawers full of old makeup, barbie shoes, hair-ties, nails, screws, keys, crap, about $3.50 in pocket change (which I fed to the Peanut-Butter Bear Bank), and these:

 

I think these are what I used to put notecards on but they were holding up the shower curtain in the upstairs bath!  Not only were they slobs, they weren't very smart because these bad boys rust!  Classy!

So my new house is slowly coming together.  The cats have settled in nicely (I found favorite toys upstairs on the third day, so they adjusted quite well; Dante has found his old hiding places again).  I've got a lot of boxes left to unpack - and I don't have any nice living room furniture as yet - but it feels like home now.

Welcome, friends! (My youngest brother and sister-in-law gave this to me for Christmas a few years ago - I never had a satisfactory place to hang it until now).