i hate long posts...

... so i apologize. jh

slacker... i know!

a few weeks ago, i arrived home to the usual mound of mail. there were the usual bills {which i ignore... thank God for the bill-paying husband!}, the magazines, the catalogs that are full of swim suits and spring clothes {glorious spring!} and a flat mailing envelope. nothing outstanding... so after my first glance, i walked away without another thought.

a few days later, after darling husband had paid the bills, cleared away some of the magz and catalogs, that flat envelope remained on the counter. you have to understand, i'm a "piler" and have piles of this stuff here and there, so i'm trying to keep this specific counter clutter-free, and at this point i was so irritated that there were still lego pieces, many school papers and this big envelope on my counter. in my irritation, i start huckin' lego pieces down the hall to the boys' room, and then see that MY NAME is on the said envelope. and then i see that the envelope was from random house... random house!? OH GOLLY!! did i buy another book? did i buy another book and forget that i bought it?! does the said darling husband know...

i ripped that envelope open and dumped out the most wonderfulest of wonderful surprises...

sarah addison allen's

the girl who chased the moon!

well, i can tell you that right then i gave up with clearing the counters of the legos... i clicked on the kettle, made a cup of tea, grabbed a blanket and plopped down in my sunny reading chair and jumped right in.

in true SAA fashion, we head to north carolina, and i'm a goner. hang up the "do not disturb" sign, make your own dinner... mom is reading!

so, emily returns to the north carolina town where her mother grew up to find a giant for a grandpa, a bedroom with "mood" wall paper that changes all by itself, new friends with old stories about her mother that contradict with the woman emily knew as her mother, and... a boy.

i love the magic that bubbles up from all of her books, like the bubbles from a muscato d'asti... sweet, ticklish to your insides and makes you drunk on the pure pleasure of drinking it... or reading it, in this case.

and then there's the baking... always with the cooks in these books. SAA brings in a subplot of emily's baking neighboor that weaves in and out of emily's story seamlessly, yet makes you crave (yes, the pun is intended) more of the sweet stuff.

have you read garden spells yet? what about the sugar queen?

garden spells is SAA's debut and i just loved it--so much, i recommended it to everyone who came into the library for about a month! again set in NC, a magical house with a magical garden and a group of ladies you wish you were friends with--especially claire who bakes the most wonderful yummies with the things from her garden... and cousin evanelle, who gives random {yet immensely useful} gifts...

and then speaking of random gifts, in the sugar queen chloe finds books everywhere--just when she needs them. and josie has a closet where she hides her sweet stash, her romance novels and just recently a new friend, della lee. then they all whip up some magic to change josie and chloe's lives... and what happens to della? hmm...

now that i've disected these books {like i know anything}, i think the thing i like as much as the food is the ties of female friendships. emily and julia, josie, chloe and della, and even the friendship that sneaks up on sisters like claire and syndey. and you know how i like that idea of friendship!!

and next to friendship, i like to bake... sooooo, i think that SAA's next book should be a cookbook!! what do you think?!

__________ updates & news __________

*megs and i are still reading drums of autumn, but by the way i've been sneaking it to work, we should be done soon! how can diana gabaldon still keep writing this story? and why can't i put it down?!

*i'm also listening to charlaine harris' book dead until dark... it's the sookie stackhouse series, the inspiration for the HBO series 'true blood.' my first foray in to vampire literature...

*i haven't read the percy jackson series myself, but the big kid did... and altho the movie is different from the book, he liked the movie "almost" as much as the book--and that's saying a lot from him! give the series a try!

happy reading, my friends!

more of the same...

... and i mean that in a good way!

i just was ordering books this morning, and came across this one:

a fortunate age by joanna smith rakoff.

powells.com said, "Like The Group, Mary McCarthy's classic tale about coming of age in New York, Joanna Smith Rakoff 's richly drawn and immensely satisfying first novel details the lives of a group of Oberlin graduates whose ambitions and friendships threaten to unravel as they chase their dreams, shed their youth, and build their lives in Brooklyn during the late 1990s and the turn of the twenty-first century."

i'm excited to get into this one... and all of the sudden, this apres college genre is making me think of st elmo's fire. the person you were in college doesn't always translate into the "real world." and what a slap in the face that is... but you're lucky to have friends to help you thru.

and again, speaking of friends,i just finsihed a year on ladybug farm by donna bell. three friends buy a house and promise to spend at least a year there...which challenges their preconceived ideas, their bodies--but never their friendship.

they are older (than me), they are a widow, divorcee and single gal, who left the comfortable life in baltimore to fulfill their dreams. and just like life out of college never seems to be what one would hope, these gals realize that they didn't lose their dreams, but the dreams they brought with them to ladybug farm, changed and grew with them during the year.

life has a way of doing that. i think my buddy mick said it best when he said, "you can't always get what you want... you get what you need"

happy reading, my friends

*there is a sequel to a year on ladybug farm, called at home on ladybug farm...but it's on the back burner because my reading buddy (can i say your name?) and i are about to jump into drums of autumn!

friends... what a lovely idea

ok, there is just something about cornwall that calls to me...

and while the way we were was a great read about families, friends, secrets and cornwall, it was not quite pilcher's duplicate... but then can anyone really fill those shoes? i think not. it may even be a debilitating curse, if you thought about it...

so about a third of the way thru the book, i decided to stop comparing and to enjoy it for what it is-- another book by a lovely english woman who also writes equally lovely books about cornwall. if you can separate the two, you will enjoy this book.

i'm hopeless with female friendships, and so i read about them! julia and tiggy have one of those envious friendships that surpasses their school days and went into their adult lives. it happens that tiggy finds herself pregnant and very alone in 1976, and she turns to julia--who, with her three children, is also a bit alone with her naval husband at sea. over the summer, the family pulls tiggy in tight... along with all of her secrets! then 30 years later, those same secrets become dangerous to all of them!

* * * * *

speaking of female friendships, i also just finished beach trip by cathy holton. this one was set in another favorite place--north carolina coast. four friends reunite after 20 years! i can't even imagine! so much drama, and yet they all agree to meet at one of the four's beach "cottage"... is everyone in the carolinas fabulously wealthy?! it seems like every book i read, there is a lot of money and these beach "cottages" that are coastal mansions. hmm... i was just wondering...

so, this one is also told in the "then and now" flashback approach. things start out so confusing with pieces of the puzzle missing, and then the story progresses with the flashbacks mingling with the present and things start to make sense... it's one of those books that you have to speed thru just so you know the whole story!!! but this concept of friends reminds me of anne rivers siddons outer banks (also set in north carolina with wealthy people), mary mccarthy's the group and beth gutcheon's the new girls (both new england old school money).

in the beach trip, there is so much pain among the friends that is just swept under the rug. there are betrayals that they just overlook. and there is so much unhappiness... WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS? but they do. they make the plan, spend a week together and in the end {teensy spoiler alert} they come out as better friends than they were when they were in college... it's baffling to me and yet i want it!! so then i start thinking about who i'd like to spend time with after a 20 year separation... or if i'm friends with that many people for that many years?! i can think of only one person i've been friends with for that long... weird. and then to dredge up the nastiness of youth... i'm not sure there's enough firefly to make me want to do this! hmm...

so i ask you...

what's your favorite "friend" book?

would you take a "beach trip" with people you haven't seen in 20 years... or is keeping up on facebook good enough?!?

happy reading, my friends!

the jacket says...

"marcia willett captured the hearts of rosamunde pilcher and maeve binchy fans..." any other thought and/or opinions out there about marcia willett?

i was shelving today and grabbed the way we were... actually just based on the title--oh, hubble gardner, you make me swoon!

but knowing it's author has been compared to the great ladies of the genre, i'm a little excited to see what is in store for me here...

* * * * *

a prayer for owen meany took me forever to listen to, but what an amazing book... this maybe one of my new favorite books... maybe.

what happens when your best friend thinks he's God's instrument... from the time he was 11... and after he accidentally killed your mom... your mom, whom he declared had the "best bosom" of all of the moms...

or how do you continue to be friends with him when he knows that as God's instrument, his life has a point and a mission and that all of it leads up to the day he dies? everything in his life has a reason behind it, and he knows it...

the thing i think most struck me about this book is the fact that john and owen stayed friends thru thick and thin... there was a trust there that is rare in friendships, i fear. they worked as a team, not one better than the other. they accepted (loved?) one another as the brothers they didn't have...

i highly recommend this book. i haven't read anything else by john irving, but have loved the world according to garp before i even was old enough to understand all of the humor. this one will get you hooked on john irving and you'll want to read them all! (and he's got a new one just out--last night in twisted river)

happy reading

a conscious is worth a thousand witnesses...

i love the way beth gutcheon writes. it’s clean and simple, and subtly knocks your sox right off... but in a wholly satisfying way.

i grabbed more than you know off of a display because of the cover, checked it out because of it being set in maine, and loved it so much that i went to half.com and bought all of her books that i could get my hands on. she is gem that has maybe yet to be noticed and appreciated! now, if i could get my hands on the one i lent out…

saying grace is centered around a private day school in california. it’s a progressive school, as you might have guessed, and the head of the school is rue. she’s open-minded, she’s fair, and she’s kind to those around her—and she expects the same from those she leads, works for, and teaches. and of course, few people often play by those rules. one memoriable passage is where rue is trying to teach a class about the golden rule and the meaning of the maxim: a conscious is worth a thousand witnesses...

how many people actually live by that rule? or how many rather live by: it’s only bad if you get caught! the real punishment comes from failing to squeak under the radar, not from the crime. it's an interesting thought, because how do you teach your kids to be decent people when the people--the world--around them doesn’t play by the same rules as you’re teaching?

well, you hope there are people like rue in the world. her ways may not be the popular way, but when rue is pushed into a corner, and everything starts to crumble—her school, her marriage and her family—she scrambles and claws for the “top,” hoping to rise above and keep everyone afloat with her. and then her buoy, her closest confidante, her love walks away—to his new confidante, a new love? she gracefully bows out. but in doing so, she doesn't then turn her back on her beliefs because it feels better, nor does she throw barbs to hurt those who hurt her.

this a nice reminder to be good people. because try as we might we don’t always treat each other as we would like to be treated. we get caught up in what makes us feel good at the moment, not considering other people in the process. i don’t know if that makes us bad, misguided mayhaps. at some point, we all turn to the wrong person, put faith in the wrong people and eventually get hurt... and then wish things could change back to how they used to be. and yet, saying grace shows us that things do turn around with enough patience. i’m not sure in real life that’s the case… but maybe.

happy reading!

life imitating art...

is the truth stranger than fiction, really?!

*does fiction dictate our realities?

*does fiction come from the realities of life?

*interesting stuff to contemplate...

happy reading!