(S)mythology by Jeremy Tarr

As I’ve said before I hate reading the back of the book, it always tells too much of what happens. Instead I like to read the first page. Standing in the library the first sentence in this book caught my attention, here it is for your enjoyment:

“Because this is ultimately a fairy tale, and because it is sacrilege not to begin all fairy tales with four simple words, and because I can think of no better words than these four to start off this particular fairy tale, because of all this we begin Once Upon a Time.”

Probably Jeremy had all his papers marked with big red R.O.’s in school too.

When the book took short funny and completly random tangents to explain things that didn’t need explaing I was hooked. Unfortunatly it got a bit long, while it made me laugh out loud at times it’s not something I can broadly recommend.

Unless you think things like this are funny:

“The Cabbie went red. He looks constipated, Sophie though. She was right, the Cabbie was constipated, he hadn’t had a constitutional in just under a week and though usually a pleasant man, one could understand why any mishap could cause him great rage.”

Then maybe you should try it.

Please excuse Piper, she was cuter than the book cover.

Would I recommend it? No

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

First off I’d like to take this opportunity to mention something that has irritated me for years.

Ahhem…

Why are science fiction and fantasy always grouped together?

They are not the same.

The end.

This book is science fiction but please don’t run away yet, I have a sci fi theory. Sci fi, has it’s good, it’s bad and it’s ugly when it comes to books, just like every other genre, it’s just that people have a low tolerance for the bad and the ugly when it involves  science fiction and write the whole lot off. So here is my advice – do what I do, only read the ones people recommend. You get rid of just about all of the bad and the ugly and will hopefully end up with a book you may not otherwise have looked twice at that falls firmly into the good category.

P.S. Also never judge a science fiction book by it’s cover, I just finished this book and I’m not really sure what the deal is with the picture, please ignore it.

Would I recommend it? Yes. It was recommend to me, so following my own advice, I read it. I got sucked in, stayed up too late reading and by the end my head was reeling and I told John he needed to start it immediately.

Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth

Please allow my lovely assistant Ivy to show you one of her (and my) new favorite children’s books.

Here you see her posing with the cover of the book.

It’s a pretty cover, after all it is a Caldecott Honor book.  You’ll know when you see it at your library because it’ll be the one with the panda with the red umbrella on the cover.

Here you see Ivy showing off more of the illustrations. Wonderful, beautiful, some of my very favorite ever, illustrations.

In addition to the gorgeous watercolor ink paintings (have I mentioned that I really like them?) the book has three “zen shorts” within the main story.  According to the author’s note at the back, ” “Zen shorts” are short meditations – ideas to puzzle over – tools which hone our ability to act with intuition. They have no goal, but they often challenge us to reexamine our habits, desires, concepts and fears. ”

It sounds all scary and woo woo and heavy but I promise it’s not.  It’s just wonderful.

Would I recommend it? Yes, and so would Ivy.

Every Cowgirl Needs a Horse by Rebecca Janni and Lynne Avril

Did you know that Ivy loves horses?

She does.  Really, really loves them.

Sometime last winter her Grandma Mary happened to say, “Ivy, what would you do if Santa brought you a horse?”

Bad idea Grandma Mary, bad idea.

After a few weeks when it became obvious that Ivy was convinced Santa was bringing her a horse I called up my Mom and yelled at her.

In effort to fix the situation she told Ivy that winter isn’t a very good time to get a horse. Ivy accepted this explanation and our conversations turned to, “…when it’s spring and I get my horse…” which was a problem, but I was hoping she would forget.

Of course she did not forget.

We still don’t have a horse and Ivy still wants one, so when the librarian showed her this book at the library I must have got a bit of a wide eyed panicked look because she quickly assured me it would be perfect.

The girl in the story wants a horse for her birthday,

instead she gets a bicycle.

The bike turns out to be a great pretend horse for the “cowgirl,” the last line says: “Yes, sir, I’m a cowgirl from head to toe, and all a cowgirl really needs is a horse…

…and I do have that.”

It did seem perfect for the little girl who really wants a horse but isn’t getting one even though, as she has pointed out, it is spring now.

Ivy listened to the book.  When we finished she pointed at the last page and said “But Mom, that’s not a horse that’s a bike.”

So much for that idea.

Would I recommend it? Yes, while it did nothing to temper Ivy’s horses wishes we did read it approximately 16 million times and she only pointed out the bike/horse discrepancy 14 million. I’m calling it progress.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

  My copy of this book is a discard from our library and it confuses me because on the spine there is a little sticker that says “Mystery” complete with ghost and candle.

Is it because mystery and history rhyme and they mixed up the stickers?

Or if I was still a young adult and hadn’t read this book a pile of times would there be a mystery to solve?

I can’t figure it out, but if I ignore the sticker I like the rest of the book mystery or not.  I think I read this first as a Battle of the Books book and it’s somehow found it’s way onto my book shelf.

Would I recommend it? Yes, while I enjoy it now I loved it when I was younger.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

The last of my “sick” books was an old favorite.I’m a book re-reader, I like to own my favorite books so I can come back to them again. Even though I’ve read them before it’s almost always something new that jumps out at me.

As I was reading The Poisonwood Bible I realized that I haven’t read it since having the girls. What a different perspective motherhood brings!

Would I recommend it? Yes!

Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger

After reading more about cooking pasta than is normal I switched gears to northern Minnesota murder mystery. I read Boundary Waters by this author a few months ago, and it was alright. Once I started this one I realized it was the same series, but a book that came before Boundary Waters – oops!

Would I recommend it? I feel about the same as I did with the other. To use John’s least favorite phrase: I didn’t hate it.

Heat by Bill Buford

Being sick most of the week was rotten, really rotten. The only silver lining was I got to read a pile of books, some new and some old.

The first one I read was Heat {An Amateur’s adventures as kitchen slave, line cook, pasta-maker, and apprentice to a Dante- quoting butcher in Tuscany} this is our book clubs current book and I’m hoping they may have something to add to this post, becuase I read this during the worst of last week and it’s a bit fuzzy.

What I can say is that some of it was funny, some of it was disturbing, and probably the only thing that kept me from rushing off to the kitchen to consume large amounts of food is that I wasn’t running anywhere, and if I did go someplace it wasn’t going to be the kitchen…

Would I recommend it? I just can’t give any real recommendation on a book all about cooking read when I had the flu. Someone else will have to help me out!