The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

As if to make up for the last couple of disappointments, along came The School of Essential Ingredients! D-lite-full!

This sweet, simple tale revolves around the owner (and namesake) of Lillian's Restaurant and the small, elite cooking school she runs. I don't remember the duration of the class, but it meets once a month on a monday night and each class meeting takes us through the life story of several of the class members. You get a bit of Lillian's backstory but the bulk of it involves the students. Helen and Carl are an older couple who have been married for many years, though that marriage has not always run smoothly. Claire is a young mother of a toddler and new baby who is experiencing some panic as her life begins to revolve around those new loves. Tom still steeps in the sadness of losing his wife to breast cancer a few years ago. Antonia is a kitchen designer from Italy trying to come to terms with her new life in America. These are just a few of the people learning alot more than principles of cooking in Lillian's class.

I told Katie, this is a book I will buy and keep on my coffee table to read when I'm feeling glum. It cheered me up and made me seriously want to take Lillian's class...if she were not a made up person, obviously. I don't know how much of this is actually attributable to the book or the Julia Child high I'm still on from the Julie & Julia movie. It's a toss up, and I don't care who wins!

The Seance by John Harwood

Constance Langton has known tragedy in her young life. Her younger sister died as a toddler and her mother never recovered from that loss. Her father was a very distant, and absent, man who offered no affection for she or her mother. In her quest to draw her mother out of her melancholy, Constance decides to fake the act of channeling her dead sister's spirit. Unfortunately for Constance, nothing good can come of that. On another note (and in one of the story's more awkward shifts), a very distant cousin dies and leaves a deserted mansion to her closest living female relative, Constance. The lawyer arrives to tell her about her inheritance and leaves her with some good advice: sell the property, enjoy what money is left from paying it's debts, and NEVER go there. The lawyer ends up leaving her a pack of papers detailing his association with the creepy house and its very strange succession of former owners and this nested storytelling makes up the bulk of the book. As you can imagine, the two stories blend toward the end of the novel but in a somewhat heavy-handed manner.

I tried again for a scary book to count towards the R.I.P. Challenge with The Seance and again I lost that battle. I do not blame John Harwood for this especially. There were good characters here and an interesting, if somewhat convoluted premise. The main problem I had was that this book was eerily similar to Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger, which I loved. I will leave it to Mr. Harwood and Ms. Waters to duke out that one, but TLS is clearly the superior of the two, exhibited not least by the fact that it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize just a couple of weeks ago. In comparison, The Seance was somewhat unwieldy and inelegant. I do plan to read his other title, Ghost Writer, because I did like The Seance. I just did not find it to be very scary.

Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts by Laura Benedict

Um, okay. I grabbed Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts intending to count it toward both the 100+ Reading Challenge AND the Readers Imbibing Peril (R.I.P.) Reading Challenge but I can barely stand to admit that I finished it. I hate, hate, hate to say something bad about a book, but I just don't have anything good to say. This book is about 3 girls who get a priest defrocked for crimes of a sexual nature. The priest then gets a demon to exact revenge on the adults the young girls have grown into. That's right. The priest who, as a boy murders someone as he and his mother escape from Cuba, then as an adult, sleeps with a 13 year-old girl, is the victim here. The revenge the demon takes for the priest is of a sexual nature as well.

I admit right up front that I've read plenty of books in which dark, disturbing things take place and while I got the fantods, was grossed out, was disturbed by the images in those books, I've never really felt the distaste that came up with this one. If that was the author's intention, then she hit the nail squarely on the head. However, the characters all felt so flat to me. I didn't care for any of them and none had any redeeming qualities. One Amazon reviewer says it best, "...who is there to hope the devil doesn't punish?" Not recommended.

I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

To the outside world, Ed is not much to look at. He is 19 (though his employer thinks he’s 20), unathletic, ambivalent, unmotivated, and drives a taxi for a living. He has three good friends (Marv, Richie, and Audrey) with whom he plays cards occasionally. He has one exceptionally smelly dog, The Doorman. His more successful siblings have all moved out of this tiny Australian town, leaving him to the very strained relationship he maintains with their mother. He works, he sleeps, and he drinks coffee with The Doorman. That’s about it…until the first ace arrives in his mailbox. Three addresses are written on the playing card. Four aces equal twelve mysteries and Ed will find the answer to his questions only after he visits each one.

This book, along with all Markus Zusak’s novels, is in our young adult collection but, for this one especially, I would recommend for mature readers only (language, sexual situations, violence, mature theme...does that sound too much like the MPAA?).

I have avowed since my first reading of this book that I would place an "I Love Ed Kennedy" bumper sticker on my car just to see who got the reference. A perfect blend of reality and magical realism, I am the Messenger is a feel-good book though the ending does seem a bit forced, like Zusak got all the way to the last couple of pages and just wasn't sure what to do with it. Until that point, I was mesmerized. The language is gorgeous, even the angry bits, and littered with Australian...lingo? Colloquialisms? Whatever the word is. There are beautiful turns on phrase like "their voices slammed and the door shouted shut". I'm pulling that from memory so please allow for mistakes :-) Anyway, imagine a virtual standing ovation sound effect overlaying this discussion and you'll have my opinion!

excitement and adventure

I have only been to Disney World one time and that was 18 years ago, but I am SeRiOuSlY considering going back for this...

! ! ! this just in ! ! !

There is a mullet in the library. I repeat, a mullet in the library.

that is all.

except, that perhaps I should direct the gentleman to this website.

that is really all.

Poe goes online!

As you know, Poe is my dead celebrity best friend!!! Nice to know I can read it anywhere and any time I want...as long as I have access to the interwebs of course :-)

Poe archive from UT Austin goes online: "Lori sez, 'UT Austin's Ransom Center has digitized their Edgar Allan Poe collection, and it's pretty cool. I especially like the copies of his books, with his notes in them.'

Oh, there's tons of Poe treasure here. I'm in hog heaven.

The digital collection incorporates images of all Poe manuscripts and letters at the Ransom Center with a selection of related archival materials, two books by Poe annotated by the author, sheet music based on his poems, and portraits from the Ransom Center collections. Poe's manuscripts and letters are linked to transcriptions on the website of the Poe Society of Baltimore.

The Edgar Allan Poe Digital Collection

(Thanks, Lori!)

"

truth and consequences

I admit it. I did not exercise this morning! I did not sleep very well (see the P.S. on yesterday's post. I will not vomit. I will not vomit. I will not vomit.) and I had both heartburn and a stomachache. An all around stellar Monday morning if I do say so myself. I was only up about 3 pounds so that was a blessing since I was expecting something worse. I can easily handle that as long as I don't stray too far from the right choices this week.

I did bring a t-shirt and some shorts so if it is not raining in 15 minutes, I will break out my Mp3 player and go for a brisk walk before eating lunch. I brought some white bean chili, turnip greens, squash, and a salad. I won't be going home right after work so I even packed a turkey sandwich and some baked chips and fruit to eat for dinner so I won't be compelled to eat fast food.

Yay me.

I have some index cards and am about to make some notes for the inner circle of hell tomorrow's radio interview. A good friend, who was once in the radio business himself, advised me to pretend that I am not talking to a radio audience but to the one person who will conduct the interview. Just forget you're on the radio. Easier said than done. Am I naive to hope that this is not a live spot? I forgot to ask about that.

I say again, with feeling: I will not vomit. I will not vomit. I will not vomit.

the definition of procrastination

I have 5 books to review and I feel like a tool because that's all I seem to do here at Holley's House anymore. Not that it isn't a good thing to do, but this is Holley's House, not Holley's Book Review Blog. So, while books are certainly an important part of my house, there is so much more here...or at least I want there to be. I'm certainly going to try to do better.

In an extremely ADD/oh look there's a chicken/I like glitter move, I'm going to change the subject drastically!

Katie invited her mom, her sister, and I over on Saturday for margaritas and to view some recent super special home improvements. The new carpets were v.v. nice and Doug's margaritas were RoCkIn (as usual!) so after dinner we obviously had to celebrate our tequila buzzes with a few rounds of Mad Libs! Do you know of the wondrous Mad Libs? If not, get thee to a Cracker Barrel or book store and ask for them by name! This was the Adult Mad Libs version so we kept having to shoo the girls out every now and then as the fun sometimes strayed into more crass areas but it was SO much fun! Zippy got all of the funniest rounds. Either my reading or my luck was rotten with all of the ones I filled in and read but even those got us to giggling. I'm hoping Katie might blog one of the more innocuous but funny stories. We'll see.

Can I tell you just how much I hate having to ask my mother for money? A-LOT! It was just enough for a few groceries and gasoline until payday on Friday but it is still very humiliating to just barely miss supporting yourself. I have got to get my more frivolous spending habits under control but I have become accustomed, over the past several years, to having just enough money to pay my bills and do a few fun things but now those few fun things are not quite so easy to come by but I still feel entitled to them. If the weather will just cool off enough to make the grass quit growing, I'd free up $200-$300 a month. Now that I type this, that must be where the majority of my extra money is going.

I may have to break down and get a lawn mower next summer...maybe a little cheap one this winter if I find one on sale. I'll just have to buckle down and do it myself. I did do it before I started grad school but I didn't have time afterward and fell into the habit of letting someone else go to the trouble. Now I'm two years removed from graduation and the thoughts of resuming the task are odious. With a push mower (like I can afford), I have to cut the grass every 6 days and it takes me two week days to do it or a half day on the weekend. At least it was good exercise.

I did not have a good week food choise-wise and it will no doubt show in the morning's weigh in. I'm not going to get all hung up on it since I'm about 80 pounds down since Feb 2008 and it would be foolish to go off the deep end because I had a bad week. I think I'll read The End of Overeating again to re-adjust my scope, so to speak.

I'm reading The Art of Racing in the Rain right now and there is a great quote that sort of runs throughout the book from the perspective of several characters: "That which you manifest is before you." So true. I've really got to work on what I'm manifesting for myself because it isn't heading in a great direction right now. I'm stressed about my money, I'm 99.9% sure I have a mouse under my dishwasher, and I'm eating everything in sight like that sand-devouring Transformer from the last movie. I've come too far to have a serious stumble now.

So, exercise in the morning! Ask me about it if I don't post it here first thing in the morning!

P.S. Oh yeah! I'm also freaking completely out because a fellow librarian and I are doing a radio interview on Tuesday morning about Alabama's statewide Big Read next spring. I will not vomit. I will not vomit. I will not vomit.

Readers Imbibing Peril

It's that time of year again folks! Time for the R.I.P. (Readers Imbibing Peril) Reading Challenge over at Stainless Steel Droppings! As usual, I have selected Peril the First, which is a commitment to read 4 books of horror or any subgenre of horror!

Doh! I finished Abandon too soon!

These books will also count towards the 100+ Reading Challenge I'm participating in over at J. Kaye's Book Blog so my count for the year will continue to creep up!

I don't have a set list of books but I'm gathering possibilities as we speak.

The Contenders so far:

Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts by Laura Benedict

Afraid by Jack Kilborn

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans

The Shining by Stephen King

Vengeance Child by Simon Clark

The Seance by John Harwood

Ammie, Come Home by Barbara Michaels

I only have to read four before October 31, 2009 so this is a pool to select from but I may get around to them all before the year is done!