Wait Without Hope by T.S. Eliot

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

T. S. Eliot, East Coker

Book review: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip

trigger warnings for mentions of rape, kidnapping, emotional abuse, manipulation

I have read a few books by Patricia A. McKillip a while back and really liked them, so I was excited to scoop this one up. I love fantasy stories and  mythological beasts.

Amazon summary:

Young Sybel, the heiress of powerful wizards, needs the company of no-one outside her gates. In her exquisite stone mansion, she is attended by exotic, magical beasts: Riddle-master Cyrin the boar; the treasure-starved dragon Gyld; Gules the Lyon, tawny master of the Southern Deserts; Ter, the fiercely vengeful falcon; Moriah, feline Lady of the Night. Sybel only lacks the exquisite and mysterious Liralen, which continues to elude her most powerful enchantments.

But Sybel's solitude is to be shattered when a desperate soldier arrives bearing a mysterious child. Soon Sybel will discover that the world of men is full of love, deceit, and the temptations of vast power.

This was, per usual, very well written, with subtle characterization and a mysterious feel throughout the story. The main storyline was very "ice princess learns to feel", which isn't my favorite, but was handled well by McKillip. Too often, books kind of punish or scold female characters who love isolation, because women are supposed to have families or be available to men, blah blah blah. I find this mentality especially stupid because the author wrote the female character that way! Anyway, there was that whole "now that I love someone I'm afraid to lose them/they will get injured etc., it was better before I loved anyone" thing, which is a little par for the course at this point. Like, didn't she love the beasts? They loved her, as evidenced by the twist at the end of the book (it made me emosh). Didn't she love her father?

Also, as soon as Sybel gets the baby, a witch pops up out of nowhere to take care of him/teach Sybel how to take care of him. Was she there when Sybel was a baby? Did she take care of her as a baby? Why isn't she mentioned in Sybel's origin story? It was kind of weird to have such an interesting and important character be such an afterthought.

What I found the most interesting (besides the beasts, of course) was the  idea of fear turning you into a monster. Fear keeps you from truly loving someone and makes you do horrible things. Fear and control go hand in hand.  SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THIS POST The king wanted Sybel but was afraid of her and her powers, so he got a more powerful wizard to force her to come to him so he could wipe her personality and powers and leave her a smiling shell for the wizard to use however he wanted. She gets away thanks to the fear monster (literalism!). Then, when Sybel is married to the soldier, she doesn't want him to think badly of her wanting to take revenge against the king, so she wipes his memory of finding her plotting with the opposing kingdom's rulers.

However, it should be noted that it's not like Sybel knew any better. She was born because her father the wizard magically kidnapped a princess that wandered too close to his castle and raped her. She died while giving birth to Sybel. I don't remember how the wizard dad was born, but it was probably something similar. Let's be real: what the king planned to do to Sybel was way worse than what she did to her husband. Like, it wasn't great, but manipulation of memories isn't complete personhood destruction and rape. (Also, did the king really think her nephew [the baby grown up] wouldn't notice that his aunt was a shell of herself? Like honestly, how stupid.)

Also, she had absolutely zero qualms about keeping sentient magical creatures in her castle, probably because it was her father and grandfather who kept them in the first place and taught her it was okay. Like, I would feel bad keeping regular wild animals. Wild animals should be free; sentient magical animals, doubly so. It's basically like keeping people imprisoned. I guess that's why she let them go in the end; she understood about trying to control people you profess to love.

I think the cover on my copy is decent, but I like this one better. Sybel's hair color is more accurate, and the animals look realistic and mysterious rather than cartoony.

Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in: early November
From: thrift store probably
Format: paperback
Status: keeping probably

Pantone's Colors of the Year 2008-2019, ranked

This is extremely subjective.

1. Ultra Violet, 2018: sick name, gorgeous color, evocative of royalty, not too bright or too blue/red, perfect. Yes, this is my favorite color; what about it?
2. Radiant Orchid, 2014: bright, cheerful, the color of the most expensive and exotic flowers, unfussy, unprecious, not overused, my second-favorite color.
3. Blue Iris, 2008: The color in the header image does not reflect this shade at all. It's a purplish blue, like a dark periwinkle. Literally the color of blue irises, one of my favorite flowers.
4. Turquoise, 2010: such a fun, bright cheerful color. So pleasant and versatile. Hard not to feel better when you look at it.
5. Emerald, 2013: rich, opulent green. Bold but replenishing, deep yet uplifting . Use it for jungle, forest, tribal, Victorian, just about any type of look. 
6. Living Coral, 2019: maybe it's the influence of the #rainbowlife Instagrammers I follow, but I actually like this color. Bright, summery and sunny but girly and fun rather than an eyesore. 
7. Tangerine Tango, 2012: girl, this is red. I just googled the shade name and the actual Tangerine Tango is like Living Coral but with more red. It's nice, whatever. 
8. Greenery, 2017: this is fine. The curtains my father chose for the bedroom I sleep in when I visit my parents is this color. Anyone suddenly craving fresh Granny Smith apples?
9. Serenity, 2016: aka the "It's a Boy!" color. snooze (although I guess that's the point)
10. Rose Quartz, 2016: wait, they chose both these colors for 2016? Baby blue AND baby pink? Did they not see the unfortunate baby shower implications? Like it is a pretty color, and millennial pink was/is a huge thing, but still. Pick a side!
11. Marsala, 2015: this is actually the prettiest brown I've ever seen, but it's nearly invisible next to all these other colors. The color in the image above doesn't represent it well at all.
12. Honeysuckle, 2011: it's Barbie, bitch. I googled it and while some varieties of honeysuckle are bright pink, none are as bright as this color (I think). 
13. Mimosa, 2009: all I see is mustard, and mustard is gross.

If my father's wildest dreams came true...

My youngest brother and his fiance would both be doctors in our hometown's medical centers, get married,* settle down in a very nice house five minutes or less from my parents' house, and give him grandchildren.

My sister and her husband would leave New York City and move back to our hometown, get a job at the local medical center's rehab department (my sister) and financial department (my brother-in-law), live in a nice house five minutes or less from my parents' house, and give him grandchildren.

My other brother and his wife would find jobs in the IE branch** of a big tech company such as Apple  (my brother) and local medical center's pharmacy (my sister-in-law), move into a very nice house five minutes or less from my parents' house, and give him grandchildren.

I would allow my father to set me up with a nice young man he met at the gym or Sabbath school, and we would get married and move into a charming house in our hometown five minutes or less from my parents' house, where I would work for the local university or public library (and my husband would probably be a doctor at the local medical center), and give him grandchildren.

We would all be very entangled in each other's lives, have a weekly dinner, and go on vacations together like the Modern Family family.

*this is already happening obviously 
**does not exist

Book review: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

trigger warnings for mentions of domestic violence, rape, and racism

I got Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe during my thrift store haul a few months ago. I had read something online that said it was a great book about women's friendship, or something to that effect. I had mostly enjoyed the movie Steel Magnolias, so I thought I'd give this a try.

Well, it was different. FGTatWSC has two main storylines. The primary one is set in modern times (the 1980s) and is about Evelyn, a depressed middle-aged woman with an unsatisfying life, becoming friends with an elderly woman, Mrs. Threadgoode, at her mother-in-law's rest home, and this friendship gives her a new outlook on life. Mrs. Threadgoode is originally from a small Alabama town by the train tracks called Whistle Stop, and she tells Evelyn all about the town, its varied and sometimes kooky inhabitants, and the Whistle Stop Cafe. Her stories make up the second storyline, although we also get some omniscient narrating going on, as the storyline contains things we know Mrs. Threadgoode couldn't know.

Evelyn and Mrs. Threadgoode are the two main characters of the modern-day storyline, and the Whistle Stop Cafe's proprietresses, Idgie and Ruth, are the two main characters of the Whistle Stop storyline, which takes place from the 1910s to the 1950s or so. Idgie, who grew up with Mrs. Threadgoode, is a tomboy (read: butch lesbian) who decides to never wear dresses again at age 9 and falls in love with older, new to town Ruth as a teenager. Ruth, afraid to be gay/sin, leaves Whistle Stop and goes back to her fiance and marries him, breaking Idgie's heart in the process. The husband turns out to be a sociopath serial rapist and seducer who domestically abuses and rapes her, so she leaves him and gets back together with Idgie, and they open up the Whistle Stop Cafe.

The Cafe cook is Idgie's old nanny, Sipsie, who is African American. Her family is described to us just as much if not more, in some ways, than the white families in Whistle Stop. Since this the American Southeast in the early 20th century, there is of course a ton of racism. While I appreciated that Ms. Flagg fleshed out the African American characters instead of leaving them to be invisible background characters, which often happens with domestic help in this era, I could have done without being told how some of them died, and many of them experienced horrible yet unsurprising racism. Many white townspeople didn't like how Idgie and Ruth fed hobos, but they really got mad when they fed Black people (not even in the cafe but out the back door), and Idgie and Ruth had to stand up to the KKK a few times. There was some parsing of different attitudes held by Black people as the Civil Rights Movement progressed, such as looking down on their elders who had worked for white people.

All in all, this was a very interesting account of Southern small-town life and a lesbian love story. I was surprised by how many townspeople knew about Idgie and Ruth's real relationship and were fine with it (the others just considered them good friends). While I didn't talk about Evelyn much, I really identified with her despair and rage, including how she often imagined herself as a superhero, killing all the bad guys in the world. The eighties truly were similar to today, politically. I liked that she found the confidence to take charge of her life. There is also a riveting murder mystery with a twist ending, and recipes of some of the foods mentioned! I recommend this book if you can handle sad stories and everything that goes along with stories set in the American Southeast in the 20th century.

Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in: late October-early November
From: thrift store
Format: paperback
Status: giving away

Book review: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

I have owned Me Talk Pretty One Day (MTP1D) for several years, ever since my creative writing teacher in college made us read from it for class. I've since read two other of Sedaris's books, and while he's a talented writer, I no longer find him as funny as I used to. Like I said in a previous review, I just have less tolerance now for what older white cis men have to say about race, etc. His essays are generally rather amusing, but there is a lot there that would be considered cringy rather than funny, in my opinion. I think his essay about being addicted to drugs would be a useful one for teachers of college and possibly even high school students; reading about a detoxing and desperate Sedaris inhaling every particle on his floor in case he had dropped some drugs is enough to take away their glamour and danger.

My favorite essay has to be about how his father was obsessed with his daughters being thin and beautiful. It is of course horrifying and depressing, considering at least two Sedaris sisters became a drug addict and developed an eating disorder, respectively, but it's also kind of comical to read. Sedaris had this great, wry line about how he, the son, could have been eating mayonnaise out of the container with a serving spoon and his father didn't care, but if one of the girls gained a pound, the father acted like her life was ending and harassed her into dieting.  It sounds pretty depressing but it was hilarious to read how Amy, who today is a famous actor, got her own back.

The title, in case you are wondering, comes from an essay where Sedaris shares what it was like to learn French in a beginner's class with other expats from around the world. Anyway, MTP1D is worth a read, but check it out from the library.

Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Read in: early September
From: thrift store? don't remember
Format: paperback
Status: giving away

Reasons why I don't finish/have a hard time finishing/straight up don't read books

1. the book is really boring
2. the book is really dense and academic and my brain has acclimated to online video streaming and social media so it's not what it once was
3. I have a mental block about reading for some reason/reading dry spell
4. I don't have time; I'm too busy
5. I hate the book
6. lack of energy
7. previous book hangover
8. the cover is weird/off-putting
9. the book is too intimidating
10. I don't read multiple books at a time so I feel like I must finish the book I'm on even though I don't feel like reading it, so I read nothing
11. it's a library book that I have to return so I never finish it
12. I have to spend my ref desk time slots doing homework or helping patrons instead of reading
13. when at home or on weekends, I do chores, run errands, or binge Netflix (or do the BookRiot #riotgrams challenge), so I have no time/energy to read
14. I've hyped up the book in my mind so much I'm afraid to read it
15. I'm not in a proper headspace for this book. or that one. or that-
16. I think this book is going to be sad/scary and I'm too anxious to read it
17. I don't think I'm mentally prepared for this book right now
18. this book sounds too pretentious or frustrating
19. I bought this book ages ago and and still haven't read it so I owe it the bare minimum of leaving it on my shelf to read someday
20. I have a book/some books from a series and don't have all of them
21. I have a series but don't know which one is the first
22. I have a series but don't know if I have gaps in it
23. I loved this book in college/high school/childhood but I'm afraid if I reread it it won't be the same
24. some smart friend/s recommended this book to me and I don't want to let them down (even though we never talk any more)
25. I have to read this book in order to decide whether to keep it and that's too much pressure
26. what if this book disappoints me 
27. this book has themes I know are going to be upsetting/triggering/angry-making to me
28. there are knicknacks on the shelf in front of the book and it's too much work to move them
29. seeing my dusty bookshelves reminds me that I need to clean my house and that depresses me
30. this book is going to be very simple and fun and easy to read, so I'll read it later

App game review: Garfield Snack Time

As a nearly life-long Garfield fan, I saw the game "Garfield Snack Time" (GST) and decided to play it. It's a typical match-3-or-more-items game, with bigger points for more items matched, and possible boosters or helpful items. Each game has a specific goal: get lasagne to the basket at the bottom of the field, get a certain number of points, collect a certain amount of each of the items, etc. There is a daily challenge that awards you with one coin or more, and the game urges you to connect your Facebook account or buy more coins and boosters with real money at every turn. Watching short video ads gives you 'free' turns or rockets. The app company also constantly hawks its other games, which is annoying.

The game is bright and colorful, with everything animated in a Jim Davis style. It's cute and very addictive. Everything is food-based, with the matchable items being food: blue popsicles, green fast-food soda cups, pink lollipops, red containers of french fries, and yellow pizza slices. Personally, instead of lollipops, they should have had cupcakes, as that is a food item I could see Garfield more readily eating. 

Something else that annoys me is that whenever you fail to make your game's goal, GST does not give you the option of watching an ad video in order to get five (or even one) more turns, the way many other similar apps do. Instead, you have to pay 70 coins to get five turns, or 120 coins to get five turns and 3 boosters. GST also does not set off your remaining rockets and other boosters after you run out of turns, which I think is incredibly unfair. 

Besides the aforementioned turn limits, there are stopwatch "bombs" that will go off in a certain amount of turns, evil anthropomorphic onions that create rings that block areas of the board and mugs of coffee that cover the items in a java lock, requiring you to match the item twice before it disappears. I hate this. Garfield LOVES coffee in the comics, so the java mugs should be a power-up, not a deterrent! The ad companies are very sneaky and often format their ad like an actual video, causing it to play sound (often loudly) despite my phone being on silent. There is a special place in hell for them. 

Anyway, which it's not being an unfair, frustrating and unsolvable pain in the butt, this game is fun, and I more or less recommend it. 3.5/5 stars

Classic literature books reimagined as eyeshadow palettes: The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

This is a very silly idea but I love makeup and books and anyway I haven't finished a book in a while so

The Pilgrim's Progress eyeshadow palette

Christian - matte neutral tan
The Great Burden - matte medium brown
The Slough of Despond - matte black
Hellfire - glittery/shimmery bright orangey red
New Garments - matte pure white
The Armor of God - metallic silver
Vanity Fair - glittery hot pink
The Delectable Mountains - satin grass green
The River of Death - shimmery deep blue
Mercy - satin pale pink
Great Heart - metallic royal purple
The Celestial City - shimmery white with gold microglitter

4 mattes, 4 glitters/shimmers, 2 metallics, 2 satins, a lot of Christianity

The palette itself would look like the original book (see above-right image) on the outside, and when you open it, it looks like a map of the story, with the shade names in the corresponding places. How cool would that be??

Hey Storybook Cosmetics, call me!

Book review: The Book of Sorrows by Walter Wangerin Jr.

Spoilers throughout

After reading The Book of the Dun Cow, I was elated to find that my library had a copy of the sequel, The Book of Sorrows. That elation didn't last very long, as TBoS lives up to its name. It is very depressing and sad, and there are so many deaths, including that of baby animals. It has the same message of love, forgiveness and sacrifice, although, Tolkien-like, we are kind of shown they don't go very far.

Amazon summary:

Seeking peace and respite after their devastating battle with the Wyrm, Chauntecleer and his wife Pertelote again lead the animals of the Coop. But their quest is interrupted when Wyrm once again insinuates himself into the lives of the animals. To defeat this ancient evil for good, Chauntecleer will have to face Wyrm again, not on the battlefield, but deep within the serpent’s lair, risking his very soul to ensure the safety of the animals under his protection.

Interestingly, Amazon has this book's title as being The Book of the Dun Cow: Lamentations. I had thought the third book's title, which is also The Book of the Dun Cow with a subtitle, made no sense, but with this new title for the second book, it does.

Chanticleer has dreams that lead him to believe that Mundi Canus is still alive with Wyrm "sub terra", and that he can find and kill Wyrm and tell MC how sorry he is for the things he said to him before MC sacrificed himself. We quickly learn that both are dead, and Wyrm, in releasing himself to death, has become part of winter and all that is bad. Chanticleer loses it and plunges into his corpse to find Mundi Canus' body and take it home for a proper burial. He infests himself with little worms, which eventually kill him (a fight with a wolf helps with that too).

The Dun Cow shows up again, and this time other animals can see her, especially if they need her.

Anyway this book was so sad I don't even feel like writing about it anymore. I am going to try to track down the third book so I can see how it ends. Usual beautiful writing throughout.

Score: 3.9 out of 5 stars
Read in: mid August
From: the library
Format: bound paperback
Status: returned to the library

Recipe: super easy avocado toast

an avocado toast of my own creation.
the bread is homemade!

Despite having grown up with a Mexican father who slathers avocado on his bread all the time, I hadn't tried avocado toast until my sister took me to  Little Collins for brunch when I was visiting her in New York. It was delicious, but rather too spicy  due to the chili flakes they use in their recipe. Their topping mixture included feta cheese as well as avocado, and they sprinkled pepitas on top. Anyway, I was hooked and started incorporating avocado toast into my diet. A recent blood panel showed I'm a little low in good cholesterol, which basically means I'm medically mandated to eat avocado toast, right?

Here is my recipe, the simplest thing in the world:

• half an avocado
• 1 slice of bread, any kind (I prefer whole wheat)
• salt and/or pepper, to taste (I like both)

Put the bread in the toaster to toast, at whatever setting makes it toasted but not too hard. While the bread is toasting, use a knife to halve the avocado and slice up one half in the shell, then scoop it out with a tablespoon. Put the avocado slices in a small bowl, then grind sea salt and black pepper onto the slices (my grinder contains both). Mash with a fork, unless you're out of silverware because you haven't washed your dishes yet, in which case just use the tablespoon, but it will be harder. Take the toast out of the toaster and put it on a plate or napkin, then scoop the avocado mixture onto the toast with the spoon, smoothing it out so it covers the toast evenly. Lick the bowl and utensils clean (recommended). Eat the avocado toast.

Obviously this is a very bare bones avocado toast recipe, but you can use it with various toppings, such as a fried egg, as my brother had on his visit to Little Collins last week (I shed a single jealous tear, watching the Instagram story), or vege- or real meat, or anything, really. I tend to use the avocados that are about twice the size of a hen's egg, but if you use the big ones, you can possibly get two avocado toasts out of one half, depending on how thick you like your avocado topping. Once my parents' avocado tree starts producing fruit, I'll probably use one avocado per bread slice since those are tiny. The size of the bread will affect your avocado toast, too. I tend to buy bread with small slices (~3.5 in. square), and I brought home some thick avocado slices from the cafeteria, and one slice was enough for my little slice of toast. The avocado toast at Little Collins was delicious, but there was just so much topping piled up so high on the toast that it was difficult to eat. I kept worrying the topping would spill. One should not feel worry while eating avocado toast; one should only feel bliss.

I really love avocado toast because I'm a decadent yet lazy millennial, and it's the easiest of my two favorite avocado dishes to make. I also love guacamole a whole lot, but it's way more time-consuming to make, and I rarely have cilantro on hand because it wilts almost immediately and I end up throwing it away. I actually used to not like avocados at all growing up, except in guacamole. I still can't really eat avocados by themselves, and even putting avocado by itself in tortillas isn't enough. The whole wheat bread provides just enough texture and crunch, and balances the creamy rich avocado nicely.

Book reviews: Shroud for the Archbishop and The Subtle Serpent by Peter Tremayne

At my previously mentioned thrift store book splurge, I found two more books in the Sister Fidelma mysteries by Peter Tremayne. Shroud for the Archbishop is the second book in the series and takes

place right after Sister Fidelma and Brother Eadulf arrive in Rome, a trip they were ordered to take at the end of the first book. Here's the Amazon summary, edited for length:

Wighard, archbishop designate of Canterbury, has been discovered garrotted in his chambers in the Lateran Palace in Rome in the autumn of AD 664. The solution to this terrible crime appears simple, as the palace guards have arrested Brother Ronan Ragallach as he fled from Wighard's chamber. Although the Irish monk denies responsibility, Bishop Gelasius is convinced the crime is political and that Wighard was slain in pique at the triumph of the pro-Roman Anglo-Saxon clergy in their debate with the pro-Columba Irish clergy at Whitby. There is also a matter of missing treasure: the goodwill gifts Wighad had brought with him to Rome and the priceless chalices sent for the Holy Father Vitalian's blessings have all been stolen. Bishop Gelasius realises that Wighard's murder could lead to war between the Saxon and Irish kingdoms if Ronan is accused without independent evidence. So he invites Sister Fidelma of Kildare and Brother Eadulf [a Saxon] to investigate. But more deaths must follow before Fidelma is finally able to put together the strange jigsaw in this tale of evil and vengeance.

I enjoyed this one because it was set in Rome, which I have visited, and the catacombs make an appearance. I liked how all the different nationalities and cultures mingled and lived side by side. I also liked how the whole relics market thing was addressed (a splinter from the cross of Christ is undoubtedly fake). Unlike the first book, the mystery had me guessing, and I had no idea who the killer was. There was a gay couple in this book, only one of which is effeminite, so Tremayne is making progress. They do die rather horribly, but baby steps. It occurred to me that Tremayne is trying to show that gay people existed in antiquity and the middle ages, to counteract the idea that no gay people existed before Oscar Wilde, with Sappho being an outlier. He does it in such a hamfisted way that it makes me chuckle to think it's him being a historically accurate(?) ally, but anyway. 

The other book, The Subtle Serpent, is actually the fourth Sister Fidelma book, so I need to find the third somehow. Despite this, I didn't really feel like I was missing any information. I initially thought it was the third SF book, because at the end of SftAb, Fidelma gives Eadulf a book before they both set off on their respective journeys, and then she finds the book she gave him on a mysteriously abandoned ship. Here's the Amazon summary:

In the year 666 A.D., a headless female corpse is found in the drinking well of a remote abbey in southwest Ireland: clasped in one hand is a crucifix; tied to the other arm is a pagan death symbol. Sister Fidelma--sister to the king of Muman, a religieuse, and an advocate of the Brehon law courts--is sent to investigate. En route, she encounters a Gaulish merchant ship under full sail off the Irish coast--one whose crew and cargo have vanished without a trace.
Faced with a tense local situation, Fidelma must discover first the identity of the body in the well and uncover who was responsible, then find out what happened to the missing crew of the adrift merchant ship, and, finally, determine how these bizarre events are connected. For these events are more than simply disturbing--the peace of the entire kingdom rests upon their solution.

This one was a fun ride, although there were enough bumps to make me uncomfortable. For starters, the abbey is run by a bitchy, pompous abbess who surrounds herself with young nuns specifically so that no one will question her authority, and she makes it as difficult as possible for Fidelma, messing with her investigation at every turn. The one disabled person in the abbey is treated with contempt, and actually hides her intelligence by affecting a stutter and reading the library's books at night. She's accused of the second murder, and the abbess whips up a frenzy in the abbey, and if it's not for Fidelma, she would have been killed. The abbess's ex-husband is the local governor's (who is also the abbess's brother) personal priest (clergy can marry in the Celtic church), feeds everyone lies, and spreads rumors that the abbess is a lesbian and is in an incestuous relationship with their own daughter. All this with a pagan idol conspiracy, Fidelma almost getting shot in the woods, and even more of that ferked up family dynamic, plus lots of secrets and political intrigue. Also, Fidelma is worried about Brother Eadulf's disappearance. It all comes together in the end.

These two books were better than the first one, for sure. I didn't figure out the killers, and the twists had me going back and forth. There were way fewer references to Fidelma's appearance, with only one mention in the beginning of the book of how "rebellious red strands of hair snaked out from her headdress", which is basically verbatim from the first book. Like, why do we have to know that. Also, people grimaced way too much in these books. People only grimace when they're in pain or thinking about something gross, not to signify agreement or greet people, ffs. Remember how I said it was stupid that Fidelma was a grown woman who had no idea what attraction or a crush felt like? Well, it turns out Fidelma had a boyfriend who dumped her or died or w/e, so it's EVEN STUPIDER. Being bitter over a failed relationship doesn't mean one forgets what butterflies in the stomach mean. Ridiculous.

Score: 3.8 and 3.9 out of 5 stars
Read in: beginning of August
From: the thrift store
Format: paperback
Status: giving away

Book review: The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr.

Spoilers throughout.

Walter Wangerin's profound fantasy concerns a time when the sun turned around the earth and the animals could speak, when Chauntecleer the Rooster ruled over a more or less peaceful kingdom. What the animals did not know was that they were the Keepers of Wyrm, monster of evil long imprisoned beneath the earth... and Wyrm, sub terra, was breaking free.

Animal books were one of my first loves. If there is any book about anthropomorphic animals that talk or fight battles reminiscent of Good vs. Evil, I am immediately sold. This one is probably the most obvious Christian not-an-allegory since The Chronicles of Narnia, what with the evil serpent and his offspring being successfully fought by faith, etc. 

What I was surprised to learn, however, is that TBotDC draws from the fable of Chanticleer and the Fox (the version found in "The Nun's Priest's Tale" from the Canterbury Tales) and the mythological basilisk. I have a book of Aesop's fables, so I'm sure I already read Chanticleer and the Fox, plus Chanticleer is an old name for a rooster that pops up in various older works. Chanticleer's wife is Pertelote, in both "The Nun's Priest's Tale" and this book. That's pretty much were the similarities end; there was a fox in TBotDC but he was friends with Chanticleer and his family. 

When it comes to the basilisk, however, everything I know about that mythological creature comes from Harry Potter. The main thing that sets the basilisk apart is the fact that it turns anything it looks at into stone, Medusa-like. However, this never happens in TBotDC. The basilisks in that book don't seem to have that power at all, otherwise the battle would have been over pretty quickly. The Encyclopedia Mythica says that the non-antiquity basilisk is part snake, part rooster, was hatched by a toad from the egg of a black rooster (Senex wasn't black, that I remember) and is also called cockatrice. This, in a nutshell, is the villain of TBotDC (apart from the Wyrm, but Cockatrice is clearly the Wyrm's son).

See? I'm pretty well-versed in mythology and fairytales, and I'd never heard of this. Also, in this picture (found on the basilisk Wikipedia page) is a weasel covered in what looks like rue, the one plant basilisks would not touch. According to this fascinating article, the smell of a weasel was the only thing that could kill a basilisk, and weasels ate rue to make themselves imperious to basilisk venom. The weasel character is the most voracious and successful killer of basilisks in the book, and the animals all rub rue all over themselves in order to be able to fight the basilisks. Read all about rue and its historic uses here.

The Smithsonian article more closely matches Cockatrice's origin: "An aged cock, which had lost its virility, would sometimes lay a small, abnormal egg" to be hatched by a toad in a dunghill (I think Cockatrice's egg was hatched in the coop). The Wyrm persuades Senex to have his own son by laying an egg, aka turn his back on the natural order of things, like the snake in Genesis. The basilisk is also said to have a horrible smell that kills anything near it. In the book, Cockatrice's smell permeates the land, and while it doesn't kill anyone, it's horrible for everyone who lives there. 

Pliny the Elder echoes the end of TBotDC: "The animal is thrown into the hole of the basilisk, which is easily known from the soil around it being infected. The weasel destroys the basilisk by its odour, but dies itself in this struggle of nature against its own self." This is basically what happens, except instead of the weasel, it is the dog Mundi Canus who throws himself down into the pit to stab the Wyrm in the eye with a horn from the Dun Cow. Just as in the fable when Chanticleer gets the Fox to open his mouth and let him go by accident through pride, Mundi Canus gets the Wyrm to show his eye to be stabbed by taunting it into pride. I thought the dog  died from the struggle, but Amazon informed me that there are two more books in the series, and Mundi Canus comes back in the second book, which my library has! That makes sense; while TBotDC's ending was definitely a denouement, I felt like the evil had not been completely vanquished. 

the inside front cover of TBotDC

On the Dun Cow: it seems to be only Chanticleer who sees her and has visions from her. I thought her to be a representation of God, but Wikipedia calls her "one of God's messengers", which would make her an angel. Just now I was reminded of another book, possibly one by Lloyd Alexander, where one of the protagonists goes to a Great Cow and is nourished back to health with its milk. There are cow deities, so lots of precedence for the Dun Cow. I don't think the Dun Cow showed up enough to warrant the book being named after her, though. 

There was a lot of sadness and horror in this book, but I really liked it. If you hate heavy-handed Christian allegories/parallels in fantasy fiction, this book is not for you. If you like books about anthropomorphic animals battling evil, mythological creatures and mythology, or Christian fantasy, I would definitely recommend this book.

Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in: end of July
From: the thrift store
Format: paperback
Status: keeping, but it's not a set in stone thing

Book review: Summer Hours at the Robbers Library by Sue Halpern

I bought Summer Hours at the Robbers Library because of the cover. I am a simple woman; if any book is about libraries, bookstores, librarians, or old books, I immediately want to buy it. Barnes & Noble had a buy 2, get 1 free deal going on, so what more did I need?

Requisite Amazon summary:

People are drawn to libraries for all kinds of reasons. Most come for the books themselves, of course; some come to borrow companionship. For head librarian Kit, the public library in Riverton, New Hampshire, offers what she craves most: peace. Here, no one expects Kit to talk about the calamitous events that catapulted her out of what she thought was a settled, suburban life. She can simply submerge herself in her beloved books and try to forget her problems.
But that changes when fifteen-year-old, home-schooled Sunny gets arrested for shoplifting a dictionary. The judge throws the book at Sunny—literally—assigning her to do community service at the library for the summer. Bright, curious, and eager to connect with someone other than her off-the-grid hippie parents, Sunny coaxes Kit out of her self-imposed isolation. They’re joined by Rusty, a Wall Street high-flyer suddenly crashed to earth.
In this little library that has become the heart of this small town, Kit, Sunny, and Rusty are drawn to each other, and to a cast of other offbeat regulars. As they come to terms with how their lives have unraveled, they also discover how they might knit them together again and finally reclaim their stories.

I expected this book to be heartwarming, a love letter to public libraries and their ability to transform people and build communities, and it was, but... it was really sad? Kit, the reference librarian, has fled from a tragic betrayal; Sunny's parents are anarchist vegan hippies who lie to and neglect her; and Rusty lost everything in the 2008 stock market crash and is desperately trying to see if this Riverton is the one that holds his grandmother's forgotten bank account. I could have handled the latter two storylines fine, but Kit's was too sad. I especially didn't like how the people who failed Kit didn't get a comeuppance.

The main story, the Riverton Library, is set in 2008 and told fairly straightforward. It is interspersed with Kit's journaling of what happened to her as well as Sunny's memories of her family life. Kit's journal entries are told chronologically, if I'm remembering correctly, and Sunny's memories jump back and forth in time. The book actually opens with the first of Kit's journal entries, although we don't know it yet. That first chapter is a recounting of Kit's sexual exploits, a jarring beginning that does not vibe with the rest of the book. I think the book should have started with Sunny's recounting of her juvie trial, not Kit's college love life. It makes the book seem atonal, since we keep going between the rather peaceful but economically troubled library/town life and the disturbing, painful and angry accounts of Kit's pre-Riverton life. The book ends with all of the primary characters opening up and letting each other in, and finally seeing Riverton as their home.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes books about libraries and doesn't mind sad/disturbing stories.

Score: 3.9 out of 5 stars
Read in: late July
From: Barnes & Noble
Format: paperback
Status: tentatively keeping

Mini book reviews: books I read at the thrift store because I didn't feel like buying them

A couple of Sundays ago I went to two different thrift stores and went ham at the book section. I bought dozens of books (I did not stop to count them). There were a couple of books at the first thrift store that I read there because I wasn't sure I wanted to buy them.

The Missing Piece and the Big O by Shel Silverstein
I think most people are familiar with Shel Siverstein's books (The Giving Tree, etc.). I had already heard of and read The Missing Piece, which is about a Pacman-shaped object who has a missing piece and is looking for a pie slice-like object to take in its mouth so they can become whole and roll around. It's been a while since I read this book, but I remember that after trying out dozens of differently sized pie slices and even some other Pacmen, our protagonist finally finds a pie slice that fits. This book seems to be an alternate version of the one I just told you about, because it starts in a similar way but ends differently. In this book, a pie slice waits for the perfect Pacman to make them whole, but is often overlooked and meets only pieces or Pacmen that aren't right. Then they meets a fully round shape (the Big O) who tells them that if they start going on their own, they'll become whole. So the slice starts flopping forward, and eventually wears down their corners until they're a round shape and can roll around the way they've always wanted to. I like this book's message rather more than the first, since the first Missing Piece book tells you to wait and be patient, because your soulmate will come one day. This one tells you to stop waiting for someone else to make you whole, get going with your life, and you'll become whole by yourself. I just checked and TMPatBO was indeed written after TMP. Brain Pickings has a lovely write-up about TMPatBO.

Stuart Little by E.B. White
I read most if not all of the E.B. White books in elementary school, and loved them. White is best known among the K-12 set as the author of Charlotte's Web, and to college students and writers as the author of Strunk and White, a guide to grammar, punctuation, and writing. When we were kids, my sister had a set of the most-loved E.B. White children's books, including Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, and Trumpet of the Swan. Wikipedia says that Stuart Little was actually his first book for children. I remember loving that book, as I do any book about tiny things or people or anthropomorphic mice. Rereading it as an adult, however, I found Stuart to be rather smug and full of himself. His adventures are delightful, as are his little clothes and gear. But he's vain and his pride is not even tempered by his loneliness, as shown by his ruined date by the only girl in the world the same size as him. I also found it weird that he fell in love with a bird, and that animals can apparently speak to humans and write in this book. The world-building didn't seem to be consistent. Also, the book has no real ending! Stuart just takes the road once more to find the bird. That's it. It's like White ran out of ideas. Anyway, a fun read worth sharing with any children in your life.

Storage hacks that suck

I live in a very small house (I hesitate to call it a tiny house because those are smaller), so I am always looking out for ideas to maximize space, usually on Pinterest. I've read the vast majority of the hacks out there, and many of them are useless due to the way my house is set up. Here's what I mean:

1. Hang organizers from your doors! I have exactly two doors in my house. One is the front door, and one is the bathroom door. I am loath to hang organizers on either. It would look weird on the front door, and I have never seen or heard of anyone putting organizers on their front door. There is a towel rack attached to the back (inside) of my bathroom door, as well as some hooks, keeping me from putting a hanging organizer there. I also think it would look weird to put it on the outward side of the door, since guests (and anyone who looks through the windows) will see it. Such is my dire need of places to store my shoes that I would consider putting an over the door organizer on my bathroom door anyway, except for the main reason: these organizers always come with thick metal square hooks to hang them from the top of the door. These are always too thick to let you close the door properly, because whoever first came up with them did so in a time in which all doors had a 1/4 inch gap all around (I'm guessing) and no one has changed the dimensions since, even though now the gaps are 1/8th of an inch or less. I live alone and don't mind having the door ajar when I use the restroom, but it's awkward when guests come over. I had an over the door organizer on my bathroom door in my last apartment, and when my private father needed to use the restroom, he forced it closed and ripped twin chunks from the door frame. I was worried I wouldn't get my deposit back, but luckily the landlord didn't look up. As you can see I don't want to go through that again. Plus a non-ugly shoe organizer/rack is hard to find unless you want to spend a lot of money, which I never do. I have two closets, but they have heavy folding doors with handle pulls right in the middle of the narrow panels. It's a nightmare. 
2. Store things under your bed! Listen, my bed is approximately two centimeters from the floor. It is a nice-enough modern bed with squat plastic feet and a padded headboard that is so short it is blocked by my pillow, since I have a box spring and a mattress and I think the manufacturers assumed everyone would just use a mattress. Use bed raisers! Pinterest yells at me. My bed's squat plastic feet? Are shaped like rectangles on their sides. All bed raisers are built for round or square bed feet, even though low-slung beds have been having a moment for some years and you'd think someone would get a lightbulb over their head and make bed raisers for rectangular feet. But no, I am doomed to have (four centimeters of) wasted space under there. I briefly thought of resting the feet (plus the hidden one in the middle) on cement blocks, but what if the legs slipped off? I don't know how to make that stable. Oh, how I wish I hadn't been seduced by the low price and padded headboard and bought a bed that was actually high enough to slide my under the bed rolling organizer under. I actually wish I had had the brains to buy a storage bed with drawers underneath and a bookcase for a headboard. That would have been ideal. 
3. Hang organizers/pot lids on the inside of your kitchen cabinet doors! Do none of you have shelves in the middle of your cabinets that go all the way to the front of the cabinet? There is just not enough space there. 
4. Store dishes and pot lids vertically, or on a stacking organizer! Use shelf risers! Again, shelves in the middle of all but my below the sink cabinets. I guess I could try taking the shelf off its supports in one of my bigger cabinets, but it sounds like a pain. 
5. Use the wasted space above your doors! My ceilings are incredibly low. I can just reach up and touch the ceiling downstairs without any effort, and I've whacked the upstairs ceiling several times when taking my shirt off over my head. I think it's 6.25 feet high, and maybe 6.5 feet high downstairs. There is no space above the doorways, let alone wasted space.
6. Any kind of modification that requires actual construction: this is a rental??? I mean I wish I could install a tiny broom closet between the studs of my house, or build under-stairs shelves that you can pull out, or hang cubbies on the wall. I'm not even supposed to be using that many pushpins for my pictures. 
7. Use an old chest or trunk as a coffee table! My "living room" area is so small I can't have any coffee table at all. I have one ottoman and it's against the foot of my lounge.
8. Use the dead space behind doors! See #1. Also, my doors don't have that kind of dead space behind them. 
9. Install shelves or rails below your kitchen cabinets! Low ceilings strike again. I have narrow counters as well. 
10. This is not an impossibility, but I kind of hate articles that suggest you get all-new furniture. What do I look like, a Vanderbilt? I have half a dozen chests of drawers from 2 different childhood bedroom sets as well as the childhood bedroom set of a cousin's cousin (hand-me-down squared!). My chaise lounge and plastic storage drawer unit were inherited from my grandma, my table and chairs from my best friend when she moved, and my garment rack from my parents or my sister. The only new furniture pieces are my bed, my bookshelves, my other plastic drawer units and my kitchen cart, all of which were scooped at low prices. Do I look like I have money to buy all-clear furniture, or furniture with hairpin legs? What I get is what I have. 

Anyway. I'll stick to trying to wring as much storage space out of my tiny weird closets as I can. Share any tips you have in the comments.

Book review: Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

Mara, Daughter of the Nile was assigned reading for my 8th grade world history class during the ancient Egypt portion. I really liked it then, and when I came across it in a thrift store, I bought it for nostalgic reasons. It's clear from the name written on the book's edges and the highlighting that another eighth grader read then discarded this book. Rather funny and full circle-y.

Requisite Amazon summary:

Mara is a proud and beautiful slave girl who yearns for freedom in ancient Egypt, under the rule of Queen Hatshepsut. Mara is not like other slaves; she can read and write, as well as speak the language of Babylonian. So, to barter for her freedom, she finds herself playing the dangerous role of double spy for two arch enemies—each of whom supports a contender for the throne of Egypt.

Against her will, Mara finds herself falling in love with one of her masters, the noble Sheftu, and she starts to believe in his plans of restoring Thutmose III to the throne. But just when Mara is ready to offer Sheftu her help and her heart, her duplicity is discovered, and a battle ensues in which both Mara’s life and the fate of Egypt are at stake.

So, pretty exciting stuff, right? 13 year old me was engrossed. Adult me enjoyed it but has some criticisms. First of all, Mara is totally a Mary Sue. She's really smart: not only can she read and write, but she also speaks fluent Babylonian. She's really clever, crafty and resourceful, dodging and out-maneuvering strong adult men and having the ability, as a 17 year old girl, to play two powerful political leaders as a double agent. Let's not forget that she can twist young men around her little finger just by flirting with them and has Sheftu falling in love with her, despite her acting bratty towards him. Oh, and she's really pretty, with blue eyes. Like seriously. Obviously 8th grade me loved this story about a clever bilingual resourceful teen girl w/ blue eyes, but as an adult I want my heroines to feel like real people. 

Mara doesn't remember her parents and has been sold to multiple owners, but she has a vague memory of someone showing her affection, and we're supposed to intuit from that that that's why she knows Babylonian. That makes no sense. If I learned a language as a (very small) child, I would not still be fluent in said language as an older teen if I hadn't had anyone speak it with me in over a decade. Maybe previous masters had Babylonian slaves who talked to her, or she made friends with Babylonians wherever she was forced to go? It's just too convenient. In the beginning of the book we see Mara steal a scroll from her (illiterate) master's library, so I guess that's how she was able to keep up her reading and writing skills. Something else that felt off to me was that Mara had gone through tons of masters and was always getting beaten for insolence and not doing her chores, and yet she still had this unbreakable spirit and was always mouthing off to her masters. ??? That's not really something that sounds accurate in a slavery-run society. It's something that I see too often. 

Mara did not feel 17 years old to me, except maybe in the way she acted towards Sheftu. The stuff she had to handle (being a translator for a homesick Babylonian princess and passing messages to the Prince of Egypt, handling two masters as a double agent, etc.) would simply not be possible for any teenage girl. A grown woman in M15, sure. I also didn't like Sheftu's behavior towards Mara. That whole "I don't know whether to kiss or spank you" crap is the worst thing about romance novels, and it's infantilizing for him to always call Mara "little one". And then they fall in love???? Honestly. 

I did like Mara's growing friendship with the Babylonian princess, who was Mara's opposite and so homesick for Canaan. It's clear that Ms. Jarvis McGraw did her research on ancient Egypt and the different cultures that would have interacted. The settings and scene building etc. were very vivid and felt real.

Anyway, I did enjoy this book as it has plenty of suspense and intrigue, even if it's not that believable character-wise. I'd say go ahead and read this book if you like 20th century historical romance novels with a mystery or bit of suspense. 

Cover notes: This cover is okay. It's very romantic and I can't speak to the historical accuracy of her clothing and the view, etc. There have only been a few other covers of MDotN, and they aren't much better. 

Score: 3.9 out of 5 stars
Read in: early July
From: the thrift store
Format: paperback
Status: giving away

Book review: The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

The only book I read in June was The Passion by Jeanette Winterson. I picked it up because it sounded interesting. It's set during the Napoleonic wars, aka Regency times, and part of the book takes place in Venice, which I love and have been to. It also sounded kind of mysterious and magical. Here is the summary, from both the back of this book and Amazon:

Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice’s compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny.

Right off the bat, I can tell you that I don't like this summary. Whoever wrote it did not read the book that thoroughly. The most glaring example is that the summary says that Villanelle's husband gambled away her heart. This is not true: he gambled away her body. Because he lost at cards, the husband had to give Villanelle to his opponent to work as a "comfort woman" to Napoleon's troops. That is how she and Henri meet. Also, I don't think it's right to give away that Villanelle has webbed feet in the summary, when the book itself is very secretive about it. It gives away the surprise reveal in the last part of the book. The summary makes it sound like Henri and Villanelle meet by chance in Venice. They actually meet in Russia when both decide to run away from the doomed military enterprise (Russia in winter? Does no one ever think?), and Villanelle takes Henri to Venice to hide from Napoleon's men.

As you will have guessed, this book does not shy away from the ugliness of life or war. There was a lot of horrible stuff mentioned, and while I will not list it all, I would apply trigger warnings for explicit sexual scenarios (including non-consensual), forced prostitution, a mention of gang rape, murder, blood, gore, violence, mentions of abandoned feral children, starvation, animal death, and that's all I can think of right now. 

While I liked Henri and Villanelle individually, I don't think I really liked them together as a couple. Villanelle can do so much better than Henri, and she doesn't even feel that way towards him. I am tired of reading/seeing couple pairings that happen just because the guy is in love with the girl. I was also displeased at the ending. After all that suffering and misery, there is no happy ending for the two of them. Villanelle refuses to marry Henri (despite having a child with him) and he goes mad in an insane asylum. Like what? Why? 

However, this was really good and rather beautifully written. If you can stomach all of the ugliness listed above and like the historical setting and topics, I would recommend this book. I liked the Venice setting and events and magical fantasy stuff, such as Villanelle literally losing her heart to a married woman and Henri having to find it before Villanelle is held in thrall. The summary writer probably got this part of the book confused with Villanelle's husband's gambling problem. I also love Villanelle's name; it is a poetic form I learned about in college. (Parents, do not get any ideas.)

The above cover is the one my copy has, and it's ok. Obviously the cards are due to Villanelle's job before she's gambled away, and the mask is because it takes place in Venice. I don't think I've ever seen a book with the author's picture on the front (apart from important literary people like C.S. Lewis). I didn't realize this when I bought the book, but Jeanette Winterson is an important lesbian/LGBT+  writer. I'm not a huge fan of the cover art, but all the other covers were just as bad if not worse. A lot of them featured chickens since Henri works plucking and preparing chickens for Napoleon and apparently the artists only read up to that point in the book.


Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in: early June
From: the thrift store
Format: paperback
Status: idk I might give it away at some point

Book review: Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

I decided to reread Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw after I saw that one of my friends was reading it on Instagram, and she has the same copy as me. This is a play, which was so successful that it was turned into a musical and then one of the favorite movies of my childhood, starring Audrey Hepburn. The play is called Pygmalion instead of My Fair Lady because it references the ancient Greek myth, about a sculptor named Pygmalion who carved a statue of his dream woman, which was brought to life by Aphrodite because she was moved he fell in love with the statue? IDK. Obligatory Amazon summary, because I am lazy:

Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a commentary on women's independence. 

The play is very much like My Fair Lady, except that there are no songs and Eliza marries Freddy at the end and they run a struggling flower shop. Freddy's family and Henry Higgins' mother play a greater role: a sort of parlor party? at Mrs. Higgins' house is where Eliza first tries out her high-class lady act and ends up just saying colorful/shocking language in a posh accent. In the movie, they go to Ascot so Audrey Hepburn can wear an (admittedly iconic) enormous hat and a tight dress. Also, the big to-do where Eliza has to prove her Lady-ness to Professor Higgins' former student is a garden party in the play and a ball in the movie. In the rambling epilogue, we also learn about Freddy's sister and how she learns socialism or something. I didn't really care.

I found the play very quick, despite its various ramblings about class (understandable) and H.G. Wells for some reason. Obviously besides the makeover aspect, my favorite thing about this play is the linguistics. I think My Fair Lady set me up to love linguistics, which I have found fascinating ever since I took a linguistics class in college. I will say that Henry Higgins is very classist and does not recognize that all British English dialects are valid and there is no right one that is 'correct'. This is a good book for English and linguistics students to read in order to see the racist attitudes behind diction classes and linguistic imperialism, etc. Despite all this, I did kind of find Eliza's Cockney rather hard to read, as it's written down phonetically. If you hate dialects in books, I would skip this.

At some point Henry Higgins calls himself and the Colonel "a couple of confirmed bachelors" and that makes the play make more sense. Of course two gay guys would give a girl a makeover and judge everything about her harshly and just kind of... not super care about her future. I feel like most straight men of that era would have been like, "well, if you can't figure out what to do with your life I'll have to marry you since I'm responsible for you." There's a whole song in My Fair Lady where Henry Higgins basically says he'd rather slit his throat than get married to a woman. That's gay proof for you.

I like this play but have decided to give it away since I just have way too many books and some of them have got to go. I would recommend this book if you like My Fair Lady or linguistics or late 19th/early 20th century English class dynamics, etc.

This has nothing to do with the book, but in My Fair Lady Freddy is played by an absolute dreamboat who I have just learned last night was actually young Jeremy Brett, the most iconic Sherlock Holmes!!!!! I was SHOOK.

The above image is the cover that my copy has, and it shows Eliza as a flower girl in the beginning of the book. It's ok. I think maybe the small woman floating above the title is Eliza as a Lady maybe? idk. The only bad Pygmalion covers are the ones who depict her as a flapper or some other anachronism, or who use a Klimt painting as the cover.

Score: 3.9 out of 5 stars
Read in: end of May
From: the thrift store
Format: paperback
Status: giving away

Book review: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

I picked up The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro because some blogger I read said it was good. It won the Man Booker Prize in 1989, and Mr. Ishiguro, who is Japanese-English, has won the Nobel Prize in literature. I thought it sounded interesting, and thought I'd give it a try. Here is the Amazon summary:

...Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect butler, and of his fading, insular world in post-World War II England. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.

TRotD is very well written, and it's clear Mr. Ishiguro is a master of his craft. I thought the prose quite dense, however. Unless you've read a ton of 19th and 20th century British literature and/or are very familiar with the Downton Abbey or Jeeves and Wooster miniseries, a lot of this book will be hard to read and not make a lot of sense to you. You really need to have that early modern English class-obsessed culture and servitude knowledge.

[SPOILERS, I guess] One sub?plot of the book not touched upon in the Amazon blurb is Stevens' relationship with Miss Kenton, the housekeeper. The butler and housekeeper were the heads of the service staff, and as such generally had a closer working and possibly friendly relationship. While Stevens is the narrator and we see everything through his uptight and uber-professional viewpoint, it's clear that Miss Kenton has a crush on Stevens, what with bringing him flowers "to cheer up his room" and arguing with him in a flouncy Austen-heroine manner. Nothing happens between them as Stevens is so emotionally constipated because he thinks that's what a butler should be like, to the extent that he's too afraid of neglecting his duties to properly say goodbye to his dying father. Miss Kenton got engaged in an attempt to awaken jealousy in Stevens, and when it didn't work, she married the dude anyway even though she didn't love him. Stevens and Mrs. Benn meet up many years later and reminisce about the past. Stevens made the trip in hopes that she'll leave her husband (since she sounded unhappy in her letters to him) and they can work together again at Darlington Hall. However, this doesn't happen, making disappointment one of the major themes of the book (besides emotional constipation and love of class separateness). In one of the saddest lines of the book, Stevens says that he gave so much of himself to Lord Darlington that he doesn't think he has anything more to give to his current employer, a rich American Anglophile. [end spoilers]

Plot-wise, most of the action is emotional and philosophical. Nothing much really happens, so this book is recommended only for people who care more about feelings and history than action. This book was really sad but worth reading, probably. If it sounds like you'll be into it, give it a try.

The cover art above is really for the movie, which starred Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. My copy had the same cover as a movie tie-in. Most of the covers for TRotD seem to have clocks, sundials, and hourglasses, due to the theme of time lost/gone by. A lot of covers have old fancy cars and show parts of headless butlers standing at attention.

Score: 3.9 out of 5 stars
Read in: mid May
From: the library booksale
Format: paperback
Status: giving away

random: Michelle's Very Productive Sunday

I don't feel like writing a book review, but I wanted to talk about my day yesterday. I often have low energy due to a medical condition, so it's not unusual to be loved by anyone to spend an entire weekend just sitting on my couch watching Amazon Prime videos since I don't have the energy to run errands or clean. However, yesterday was a high energy day, and I was able to accomplish several things:

1. I washed all the dishes in the sink! Well, there's still a few things, but they're of the "this just needs a cursory wash" variety. I've been known to leave dirty dishes filled with water until interesting mold colonies grow in them. I don't believe in drying dishes by hand, so I put them in the dish rack to drip/air dry.
2. I filled my morning pillbox. This is not a big task but I've been known to neglect it. 
3. I organized and rearranged my bathroom counter! I had been procrastinating on crocheting a suitable hemp cord to hang a card catalog drawer on my wall in order to store some of my hair products. I had bought the drawer (it's not really a drawer for a card catalog since there are oval holes bored into each side and no iconic drawer pull/placard situation, but it is related to card catalogs in some way) at my school's library book sale...in Spring 2017. Yes, a year ago. On Friday I finished crocheting and braiding the hemp cord, then strung it through the drawer's holes and hung it from the Command hooks I'd stuck to the bathroom wall shortly after I bought the drawer last year. Then on Sunday, I removed almost everything from my bathroom counter, which you almost couldn't see through the mess, then put everything back in an orderly way. My hair products didn't end up fitting in the drawer due to the hemp cord having to go exactly through the middle to keep the drawer from tipping, so I filled it with smaller thinner things like my glasses cases and sample skin/hair care packets. I put most of my hair products in the shower organizer hung on the opposite wall. I had purchased a fancy oval engraved metal tray from Dollar Tree (it looks SO much more expensive than it is) to organize my bathroom counter in a pretty way, and I put my face products and most-used hair products in it. I also put things in drawers and wherever they are supposed to go, instead of letting them sit on my bathroom counter. I'm very pleased with how everything turned out!
4. I put away the folded clean clothes I had left sitting in my clothes hamper for weeks. Whenever my hamper is full, I take it to my parents' house to use their washer and dryer, then put the clean clothes in the hamper to bring them back to my place. When I leave the clothes there instead of putting them away, though, I don't have anywhere to put my dirty laundry and I end up heaping it on the ground where the hamper usually goes. My hamper is filled with dirty clothes now, so it looks like I'm going to have to repeat the process this weekend...
5. I sorted and put away many of the clothes that were lying on my bedroom floor. I still have to put away some pants and skirts, and figure out what to do with some sweater dresses that I can't really hang, but my floor is way cleaner than it was before. There are still clothes strewn on the floor of my other room, but baby steps...
6. I forgot to say that I made my bed before step #4 and 5, as I use it as a surface to sort my clothes before putting them away. 
7. I rearranged several furniture items in my bedroom. A few days ago I had decided that the location of one of my chests of drawers didn't work for me. I had placed it against the wall facing the window with a mirror on top so I could use it as a vanity and display my prettier makeup products, but my blinds let a lot of light out, and the mirror reflected it, doubling the amount of light keeping me awake at night (I prefer a pitch black room at night and have trouble sleeping when there's too much light). I moved my vanity (a different furniture piece which was below the window) over a few inches, removed everything from the top of the chest of drawers, cleared the path of any obstacles, then dragged the chest of drawers over to be next to the vanity. I then re-placed my vanity items on the chest (along with a lipstick organizer and acrylic makeup drawers organizer that had no home). It looks a bit packed there, as there are some other chests of drawers against the wall perpendicular to the vanity chest of drawers and my vanity, but I checked and all of them have drawer clearance. I had thought of dragging it back to the other room where it used to be, but I want to have as many of my clothes drawers together as possible. 
8. I moved all obstacles and rolled my hanging clothes rack over to where the chest of drawers used to be. It was previously against the middle wall in the other room, which is not load-bearing (and my bed is already against that wall, gritting teeth emoji), and I decided it made more sense to have it be by my closets (I have two tiny closets since my ceiling slopes down A-frame-style). Besides, the wall by my closets is load-bearing. I also went ahead and rearranged the clothes on the rack to be in a certain color order. There is enough room by the clothes rack to...
9. hang my Mexico shadowbox and put up command hooks to hang my Mexican purses. I did the Command picture hanging strip process for the shadowbox and stuck on the Command hooks for two of my purses (I have to wait until I can hang up the shadowbox in order to see where to hang the other purses). 
10. I also hung up a small mirror I'd bought from the cheap front section of Target (it has hearts all over it like my bedspread), a $1 wooden wall decor item that matches my other wall decor, another wall hanging decor item from Target's cheap section, and did the Command picture hanging strip process for a framed poster I hadn't put up (my VW Bug poster I've had since grade school. It doesn't match my room theme but I can't let it go). I also hung up my wooden Wonder Woman comic book cover art plaque thing over the vanity chest of drawers. I can't put the big mirror there since my ceiling slopes down.
11. I also rearranged the items on my other two chests of drawers, the ones I didn't move. I had several makeup organizing items on the floor, and after I moved the vanity chest of drawers to where it is now, I moved them to be on top of my left chest of drawers, moving the other items that had previously been there to the right chest of drawers. I now have almost all of my makeup organizers on that chest: 4 liquid lipsticks/lipglosses organizers, one compact organizer, 6 mini tin buckets/cups holding more lipglosses, and my big magnetic whiteboard that holds all of my Colourpop Super Shock Shadows (I glued/stuck magnets to the backs of them). My small magnetic whiteboard is on the right chest of drawers because I have a small mirror hanging on the wall next to the big whiteboard and I don't want to cover it up. I put more sticky magnets on the backs of some of my single eyeshadow compacts (and 2 small eyeshadow duos) and put them on the small whiteboard.
12. I filled my evening pillbox as well, another small talk I often neglect.

That is quite a lot! I know there's 11 bullet points but each one lists several smaller tasks. I still have tons of cleaning and organizing to do, but I feel like I've done so much. I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to do all that in one day, after getting up at noon!

Book review: Palimpsest by Gore Vidal

I was not planning on buying Palimpsest from the library booksale, but once I started reading it I had to. It is Gore Vidal's memoir about his life, based more on his memories as they come than on historical facts. Gore, who died a few years ago, came from a political dynasty family (Al Gore is a distant cousin; Gore Vidal dropped his first name to go by his mother's and father's surnames as a teenager) and was related by marriage to the Kennedys. He was also friends with fellow gay writer Tennessee Williams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Leonard Bernstein, and countless other literary, political, and Hollywood luminaries. His life story isn't really told chronologically, as he shares memories as they come to him, like when you're talking to someone and they backtrack. Far from sounding absentminded, Gore Vidal's voice is steady, sure of himself, sometimes serious and sometimes delightfully bitchy. I read this expecting to read lots of zingers and shade, and I was not disappointed.
A palimpsest is "a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain", according to the dictionary. It's a term I came across in library school, and that's what attracted me to this book. At turns funny, sad, and explicit, I'd recommend it if you like old Hollywood and literary gossip or have read every other Kennedy book out there and want something from another perspective. I enjoyed it but won't be keeping this one.

Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Read in: mid April-late May
From: the library booksale
Format: paperback
Status: giving away

Book review: My Son, Beloved Stranger by Carrol Grady

heavy spoilers throughout I guess

One of my tasks as a reference librarian is looking over the new books that are processed and ready to be shelved. One of them was My Son, Beloved Stranger by Carrol Grady. It is about an Adventist mother who is devastated when she learns her son is gay. She and the rest of the family struggle with this new side of their son as well as what others might think, their church's beliefs about gay people, and the looming threat of AIDS. The family eventually comes to accept their son and his sexuality.

MS,BS was based on the author's personal experiences, and I believe the feelings and experiences are very similar to, if not exactly, what happened. It was originally published in 1995 under a pseudonym (visible on the book cover above-left). The writing was, in my opinion, somewhat flowery and dramatic, with some unnecessary details. I do think this book was and probably still is very important for SDA parents of LGBT+ children, as at the time it was published there was little to no literature or visible support around this issue (from/by/to the Adventist church).

While I understand this book was written specifically for parents who might be blindsided by their child coming out to them and what that might entail for their religious beliefs, I thought that it made the son's being gay all about his family, especially his mother. The parents did worry about whether their son Danny would be fired for his orientation (he was a K-12 teacher), or if he would be beat up or ostracized, or if he would get AIDS, but most of their worries seemed to be about their own situations. The parents worried about what other people might think of them and leaned on their son to stay in the closet. The mother mourned the loss of the "straight" son she knew and was crushed that her son would not be able to marry and have children. She was also extremely worried that she or her husband had been responsible for her son's gayness: she and Danny had always been very close (the smothering mother theory), and her husband was a missionary pastor and was often gone for the better part of the year (the distant/absent father theory). She felt like she couldn't talk to anyone about it out of shame, seeing herself as being in the closet as the parent of a gay son, and she sank into a deep depression. Her husband was no help because he, in denial, insisted that Danny was just going through a phase and needed to snap out of it.

I suppose it is a testament to how much things have changed in society at large, my own worldview, and even the Adventist church when it comes to LGBT+ people, but I confess I was rather surprised at how hard Danny's parents took everything. When the mother learned about her son being gay, she started screaming and sobbing and punching the walls so hard she hurt herself. I've already mentioned her deep depression. The father was in denial and refused to reevaluate his worldview or listen to his son. At some point, Danny moved in with his brother and sister-in-law because of the difficulties he was having with his parents. All of this just seemed so extra to me. They were seriously reacting as if their son had been murdered, or as if he had turned out to be a serial rapist or something. And this was from Christian parents who loved their son! I was like secondhand offended at all the homophobia and narrow-mindedness.

After Danny broke off his engagement to a nice girl his parents loved, his mother started remembering all these super gay things he did as a young child, such as being really happy when his female friend let him be the mommy when playing house, saying he was going to be a ballerina when he grew up, begging his mother for  a twirly skirt and then twirling around in it, loving music and art and hating sports and cars, etc. All that and she had no idea?? To be honest, that's pretty stereotypical and imo more indicative of someone being a trans girl than a gay guy, but whatever. I was also deeply amused when Danny's dad said that all teenage guys experience feelings for their guy friends due to hormones. Like what??? Sounds like dad is bi!

Anyway, the book ends with Danny, a couple of failed relationships under his belt, telling his mother that he's going to be celibate from now on and is joining an Anglican church, and she rejoices. The author wrote an afterword that included a more affirming viewpoint for LGBT+ people (i.e. the gays don't have to be celibate to be accepted by their church/God). Overall, I think this book might be helpful for Adventist parents of LGBT+ children, as well as people studying the acceptance of LGBT+ people in the SDA denomination or Christianity in general. I don't think I'd recommend this to LGBT+ people themselves, as the negative viewpoints and situations might be triggering to them. Ultimately, this is a book for straight people, and while some might use it to pat themselves on the back for being so accepting, it might help others, especially the more traditionally minded, to become more accepting themselves. However, a lot of change has happened in the last 20+ years, and there are better books out there, such as Justin Lee's book Torn.

Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Read in: late April
From: the library
Format: paperback
Status: still at the library obvs

EDIT: if you're interested in this book/topic, read this article by Mrs. Grady where she looks back over the 30 years since her son came out and inspired MS,BS. Very interesting.

Book review: Women and Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder by Sarah Hendrickx

April was Autism Awareness Month, and I spotted this book in an autism-themed listicle from Book Riot (I think). My sister works with autistic kids, and I have some neurodivergence of my own, so I ordered this book from Link+, my library's book-lending consortium. I'm going to cheat and put the synopsis from Amazon:

The difference that being female makes to the diagnosis, life and experiences of a person with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has largely gone unresearched and unreported until recently. In this book Sarah Hendrickx has collected both academic research and personal stories about girls and women on the autism spectrum to present a picture of their feelings, thoughts and experiences at each stage of their lives. 

Outlining how autism presents differently and can hide itself in females and what the likely impact will be for them throughout their lifespan, the book looks at how females with ASD experience diagnosis, childhood, education, adolescence, friendships, sexuality, employment, pregnancy and parenting, and aging. It will provide invaluable guidance for the professionals who support these girls and women and it will offer women with autism a guiding light in interpreting and understanding their own life experiences through the experiences of others.

I thought this book very interesting and informative, and I think it would be helpful for autistic women*, parents of autistic daughters, and medical professionals and therapists, etc. I found the personal stories very interesting, and I think they would be helpful for anyone on the autistic spectrum. Social skills have never been my strong suit, so I identified with some of the stories and things the girls and women struggled with. The research was also interesting, but many of the studies were done with few girls, so it's hard to make an impact in autism research that way. More studies with autistic girls and women need to be done. Medical professionals and therapists especially should be educated more; there were stories of dismissive doctors etc. that made my blood boil. It wouldn't hurt if early childhood educators were educated on developmental disorders as well. 

Overall, I liked this book and found it helpful, although I would have liked to see some questionnaires in the back of the book or something to help readers gauge if they or a loved one/patient might be autistic. Recommended.

*usually with disabilities you're supposed to use people-first language (e.g. 'people with disabilities' rather than 'disabled people'), but I read that many autistic people prefer to be called 'autistic people' because it's part of their identity. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details so lmk if I'm wrong.

Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in: late April to early-mid May
From: Link+, my library
Format: paperback
Status: returned