The Queen's Books

Wheel of Time

2008-07-09T02:10:00.000-07:00

I've always intended to give the Wheel of Time series a whirl and when this prequel showed up in our audio section I decided to
get to know Robert Jordan on my commute. Like all the audio books I really enjoy, I ended up checking out the book version so I can read
at my own pace. BD asked me if I liked it and if I'd read it outloud to him and out of my mouth popped "It's too girly for you."

Where that came from I don't know, but it's not just that most of the book is about a girl initiate into the White Tower magic
circle. Also, there are those strange spellings that probably are supposed to be phonetic but don't look that way to me. Anyway, I am
getting a secret girly thrill out of reading it.

2008-01-01T05:28:00.000-08:00

USE YOUR WATERCOLORS TO DESIGN A FAIR ISLE COLORWAY *

OPEN NORTON'S ANTHOLOGY TO ANY RANDOM PAGE. DESIGN A SWEATER INSPIRED BY WHAT YOU READ *

CHECK OUT AN INDIAN COOKBOOK AND CREATE A MEAL *

BUY SOME PLAYDOUGH AND PLAY WITH IT *

MAKE SOME SCULPY BUTTONS *

KNIT 2 NICKY EPSTEIN FLOWERS *

CROCHET A CLUSTER OF GRAPES WITH LEAVES *

OPEN A Barbara Walker Stitch Book, SELECT A RANDOM STITCH AND KNIT IT INTO A POT HOLDER SIZED SWATCH *

SELECT A PHOTO FROM Smithsonian Magazine AND DESIGN A PROJECT INSPIRED BY IT *

TAKE 6 RANDOM YARNS FROM YOUR STASH AND KNIT A FREEFORM SHAPE WITH
THEM. INCORPORATE ONE LACE AND ONE CABLE STITCH INTO PROJECT *

BUY A COLORING BOOK AND CRAYONS AND COLOR IT *

CHART A STRANDED COLORWORK PATTERN *

CARD SOME FIRESTAR OR OTHER GLITTER INTO A BOWL OF MOHAIR LOCKS *

READ A C HILDRENS BOOK *

WATCH A CARTOON MOVIE *

READ A (small) BOOK OF POETRY *

WRITE A 2 PAGE REPORT ON CAMEL FIBER, WITH CITATIONS *

CREAT OR COPY A CHARTED DRAGON YOU COULD KNIT *

KNIT A PAIR OF SOCKS FOR ME **

KNIT A PAIR OF SOCKS FOR ME **

KNIT A PAIR OF SOCKS FOR ED **

KNIT A PAIR OF SOCKS FOR ED **

KNIT A PAIR OF SOCKS FOR WILLIAM **

KNIT A PAIR OF GLOVES OR MITTENS **

KNIT A HAT **

MAKE A BOWL OF FELTED FRUIT **

EMPTY A BOBBIN AND SPIN IT FULL OF A NEW FIBER **

TAKE YOUR PAINTS TO A GARDEN AND PAINT IT *

DRINK YOUR MORNING COFFEE ON THE END OF THE PIER *

RESEARCH AND WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT BALD EAGLES *

NEEDLE-FELT A DOLL – USE THE VIDEO TO GUIDE YOU **

KNIT A STUFFED ANIMAL – MAY BE FELTED **

USE YOUR SCISSORS TO CUT OUT A CIRCUS - FREEHAND *

SEW SOME RIBBON FLOWERS INTO A GARLAND **

TRIM A BONNET (DECORATE A HAT) **

SEND A LOVE LETTER *

2007-11-01T03:21:00.001-07:00

What can I say. I already knew most of the tale and I already loved Laurie's writing. It's fun to get some of the earlier details, even
if she may have shaped them a bit to make the story fit nice and tightly. Or to protect the innocent.

I've already reccommended this tale of divorce, loss, discovery and recovery to several folk. The library copy hasn't been on the shelf
yet! I may need to order a second one.

Great job, Crazy Aunt Purl!

I couldn't even finish it. Even though I have to lead a book club discussion on it tomorrow. I just couldn't take
any more depressing dank Southern decay. I pumped my cousin who did read it and loved it, to find out if
the result of the heroine's sojourn into ClampODeath Christianity turned out okay or if it just got creepier. BH assures me it's
okay. The ending was pretty creepy though. I did read that part. Ugh. I would NOT have read this if I had not HAD to.

2007-09-05T02:05:00.000-07:00

I'm awash in this mystery series about a woman who runs a needlework shop and sleuths out about one murderer every two or three months. If you can get over the crowded schedule, I'd say these are the best fiber themed books out there. They're light summer reading, mind you, but DE-lightful reading just the same.

Thematic fiction can be really dreadful, especially some of the needlework/knitting/fiber ones. Too sweet to stomach, too pat and tidy for even the most fairy-est princess among us. Making them a mystery leavens the dough a good bit. As I read through the series, I can see Ms. Ferris' literary skill develop. With any hobby there is a lot of jargon and for the most part our author weaves them into the plots with enough subtlety to keep the action moving. Not unlike Stealing with Style, by Emyl Jenkins, which I reviewed a couple weeks ago, this is a series that has actually gotten me a little more interested in some of the other beautiful fiber crafts.

There are a lot of them in the series, which does present a believability issue, for if I had half a dozen murders in my life in one year, or even three - well - I don't know if I'd be quite sane. I can make the literary leap but it takes a lot of spring.

2007-07-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

As I said before, I am always going to love visiting Gabarone and Mma Ramotswe and all the people who come to her with problems. There is the mystery of the 3 deaths in the same bed in the same ward, always on a Friday, in the little hosptial in Mma Ramotswe's home village. There is the trouble of a wandering husband with a nagging wife. And there is some real pre-wedding tension between
Mma Makutse and Mma Ramotswe. But with the help from some supportive shoes, who never let a body hide from the truth, everyone is soon back in step.

I am always gently refreshed when I visit Botswana and the people at the #1 Ladies Detective Agency and Tlokweng Speedy Motors.

Actually, I've just about finished book 1, Miss Julia Speaks her mind and have brought home Book 2 - which tells you I liked the first book enough to read more.
Miss Julia is one of those people who does the right thing because it's the right thing to do - even when it's the hard thing to do. One of my favorite sorts of
people. I've known about these books a long time. Just getting around to reading them. Unfortunately, book 2, Miss Julia takes over didn't hold me tightly enough to read it thoroughly and I probably won't be reading any more in the series for the time being. I got a little tired of all the stock characthers. And I never did get a feel for just how old Miss Julia is.

I've moved on to other things.

Stealing with Style

2007-06-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

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Harumph. I deleted my original review, but here are some of the telling features that pleased me.

The heroine was my age. That is - old enough to have grown children.
The book was set in Virginia - a plus when it's well done.
Emyl Jenkins is an antiques appraiser and she begins each chapter with a question/answer about antiques which then folds into whatever happens in the upcoming pages. There's real economy and careful weaving done with this gimmick so you are glad she shared rather than irritated.
I liked the good guys and the bad'uns weren't so very evil. More like - so very human - bad humans, but just bad.

Ms. Jenkins is no novice to publishing, but this is her first foray into fiction and it shows. There is something that tells you it's a First Novel, though I can't quite put my finger on it without using words like ingénue and jejune which seem inappropriate when applied to anything a woman my age does. And yet raw is certainly not the word to use in such a gentile and gentle book. I just believe that with practice the author will ripen into something full and fun to follow, in the Mary Higgins Clarke vein.

Happily, the story concludes with enough open windows that Jenkins could be bringing us more. I certainly hope so.

It gets 4 stars, which I'll put here when I can find the code for them.

2007-03-05T13:02:00.001-08:00

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I'm still playing around with books that might inspire and instruct me as I create my own studio plans.
Both of these books are by the same author so its no surprise they feel very similar. WWC was a
major turnoff at first because so many of the studio spaces were cluttered beyond what my eyes could
tolerate. Granted, they were organized, colorful clutter, but the spaces were way too busy for my taste. After giving the book a second and then a third look, though, I began to find ideas that were appealing and even useful. Also, most of the women creators in these places create fussy cluttery crafts. Lots of scrapbooking/collage/stamping/found object crafts. Eventually I did find a few calm looking spaces that were not barren in their sleekness.

OYCS is a little more of a how to book, with some cute quizzes that, if you are a quiz sucker
like me, make for a little diversion in your reading. Lots of this information is No Duh info I
expected that, mind. Ive done my share of organizing and grouping and focus seeking so I didnt feel
cheated of time for having read this book or the previous. And I am going to buy those peel & stick
furniture pieces and get the grid paper because what I want to create will serve at least as a triple
purpose room. Besides, they look like paper doll furniture to me!

Ive ordered in a half dozen more books on creating a home office and storage that works and such
because I dont feel fully inspired, I'm not sure I've covered every base and besides, these books
are fun to look through. I think, though, I must set myself a deadline for starting the actual drawings
and another for completing that stage and entering into Royal Negotiations with the
Other Person who has a right to his opinion about project.

But because this is a Project which I hope to complete with Great Success, I'm also reading this.

Not that I haven't probably read all the information before either, but because sometimes I need to
hear it twice, or thrice, or quitillionice times before I remember to actually do some of those
things that I already knew were good ideas. And it's also what I'm in the mood for.

And because I haven't found another good book to thrill me lately.

Clapton's Guitar

2006-12-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

This is such a guy’s book. It’s also very journalistic, which is a style of writing I don’t usually care for. It’s good journalistic writing, but it’s still got that magazine sound to it. It’s a book I’d have never read except that it was our book club’s choice. (and I made the choices this year) That’s one of the great advantages of book clubs.

St. John is every boy who ever wanted to get up on stage and make love to a guitar, as it vibrated against his belly and down his thighs. Music is a very physical art and more than many men have poured their souls into a guitar.

The real fun of this book is that it’s about people with passions. It’s about friendship. It’s about being on the quest. It’s not my quest, mind, but the energy of their passion and their questing and the devotion the fellows end up having for each other rings a corresponding bell in my soul. After all, I just spent $$$ to go all the way to New York to knit in a hotel!

Ahh. But it was knitting. With friends. Yes. Allen St. John and I sing the same song.

Oh. And Eric Clapton has almost nothing to do with this story. He’s just the name to be dropped, like saying you rode in the same elevator with Lily Chin while you were at Stitches. Which was good, since I hadn’t heard Eric Clapton since he sang For Your Love with the Yardbirds. I’d never even heard Layla! I had to go listen to some soundclips on amazon dot com. But don’t worry. Even rock music innocents like me can feel the passion in this quest for a Wayne Henderson Guitar. And the sound clips of Wayne Henderson on A dot com were much more appealing to me. I’m a sucker for flat pick guitar. Sigh.

How's your spirit?

2006-11-27T12:27:00.000-08:00

I am still on that same spiritual path and can't remember when I had such a wonderful time with something
so deeply internal. Let's hope I can learn a little more about blogger code along the way.

I loved loved loved this book. Not so much the first half, which is nice enough, but repetitive. I got
the message after the first 2 or 3 chapters....perhaps pages. But the second half is a list of 22 fun
ideas - games you can play with your mind, your attitude, your spirit. Perfect reasons for buying...

2006-09-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

Like all self help books, it could have been a pamphlet, but then they couldn't have charged $19.95 for it. This was a book L had been urging me to read for a long time. I understood the concept behind it, but I'd never gotten down into the text of it before. How glad I am I did. I'm having so much fun tapping into my own power. It's a great way to focus your life, to be aware of all that is around you, so that when opportunities present themselves, which they do all the time, you immediately recognize them and act upon them - so swiftly it feels like magic!

As literature it doesn't rate more than 3 stars, but its useful nuggets make it a 5.

Still trying to get there from here. “Get where?” you ask. Oh - someplace even better than here. Someplace where the heart is singing all the time. Someplace where the intuition gets listened to when it tosses out a warning. Someplace where joy spreads out
and makes a difference. Where I spread the type of joy that makes a difference. To that place where I don’t borrow anxiety and use it to ruin perfectly splendid situations. To that place where diatribes don’t spew out of my gut about stuff that .... once
unloaded ... didn’t really matter that much to me in the first place. I want to let go of the control freak crap that whips me for living. I want to appreciate more the things I already love and let go of the stuff I hate. Nobody but me is making me pick it up in the first place. It’s going to take me to put it down.

I didn’t finish the Wayne Dyer book so I can’t really give it a rating. It’s not bad, but it wasn’t what I am looking for right now. It was too wordy and too explainey and too much background and what I’m looking for are practical steps that still enfold the spiritual underpinnings but that are fun and doable. Lynn Grabhorn, of the Excuse Me book, has a workbook too - which I purchased, used, at a good price, off of Bookfinder.com. But I believe I’m going to have more fun with the Hicks book - it’s a little more positive.

When I get a chance to do it justice, I’ll do a complete comparative review of both books here.

2006-08-24T04:08:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, I was reading an older edition of this volume, but I was rather dissapointed in the annecdotes offered as interesting gossipy tidbits. I also didn't mine the entire vein. I skimmed, got bored, and put it down. Maybe next time. Maybe something else. I have some awfully good quotable volumes in the library. I'll scout about and see what I can dig up.

Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos

2006-08-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

Although I'd read the review and purchased this book, it was patron who actually prompted me to read it when she returned it to the library, saying “it’s a wonderful book.” How I wish I could remember who she was - because I’d love to talk to her about it. Something in her voice - some sincerity of tone - some trust I unknowingly put in her judgment - made me take it home, whereupon I promptly misplaced it, not finding it till I cleaned house on Saturday. Carying it upstairs, I peeked at page 1, sat down on the half made bed, read a chapter - and was lost.

It’s set in present day Philadelphia. It’s about a young-ish, single woman and falling in love and it has a happy ending but it doesn’t take you on a sappy journey to get you there. It’s got a kid in it who’s believable enough, it’s got a bunch of people I immediately cared about. They weren’t so crippled that making a cup of coffee would be considered mental health. They weren’t so perfect they had no room to grow. The author skillfully told the story from two points of view and put one in the first person with the other in the third. She cleverly displayed her own esoteric knowledge of classic films by endowing her heroine with the same database of actors, plot and dialogue.

Best of all, though, are the beautifully chosen words with which Ms. de los Santos swaddles every scene. Exquisite words that slip rich knowledge of Cornelia’s pajamas - and of the sort of woman who would pick such pajamas - into your consciousness so softly it’s more as if you remember that about her, rather than discover it. Lovely, friendly, chatty without being inane, painting word pictures you want to go back and linger over on page after page, this novel was pure pleasure from start to finish.

This isn’t just a book I loved reading. It’s a book I wish I had written. I picked it up on Saturday evening and read through chapter one. All day Sunday I kept putting it down to DoDootifulThings but then abandoning the housecleaning, the preparation for unexpected Monday guests, the languishing knitted projects and HeyBaby, with her almost full second bobbin, to pick it back up again. I shrugged off BD’s offer of a boat ride and a trip to town, I didn’t bother to get dressed, I carted the book from room to room and regretfully finished it just before dinner on Sunday.

I can’t remember the last time I didn’t want a book to end. Non-fiction doesn’t count, since it ends when whatever was being talked about happens - you can wear the sweater, World War II comes to an end, or your stock portfolio swells enough to allow you to take early retirement. Historical fiction doesn't count either, because it has to come to an end when all those bold kings and strong queens eventually die and their dates are carved upon tomb stones. Their personal calendars are known quantities. Unlike the life you’re living now - with it’s endless moments of waiting for the next thing, giving time an elasticity and mystery that can’t be measured, a historical novel has a structure, the fact of which is already accepted, even if it’s not yet known. But a contemporary novel with that mind bending ability to put you in a Philadelphia coffee shop, introduce you to a tee-tiny woman and her Cary Grant boyfriend and ... and make you want to stay forever - well. That has been a rare pleasure for me made all the more valuable for its very scarcity.

This is a real Wower!; chock full of good qualities. But best of them all are the pages and pages of beautiful words describing the most ordinary things - making you believe that maybe your ordinary world is just as beautiful. I believe that's the greatest of the gifts Marisa de los Santos gives you with Love Walked In.

The Magician's Wife by Brian Moore

2006-08-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

It's okay. It's a 3 star book. Our heroine, Madame Labert is the young wife (teenage bride, now with a few years beneath her corset) of a famous French magician, Henri Lambert. She's not happy in her marriage to a very wierd and much older man. You get lots of glimpses of bored/sad/frustrated housewifery a la 19th century. Boring house parties, utterly dull audiences with Napoleon III. There's a dark threatening Colonel orchestrating everything. There are scary Algerians and wise Algerians and all too human Algerians and I confess - I never read the part about Algeria. I just read the ending and it left me completely unsatisfied so I didn't bother to take the train to the last page.

Based on a true (ish) story.

And what do you know - it's going to be a movie!

Some websites if you are curious:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/m/moore-wife.html

http://www.discoverkate.com/movies/magician/

In which The Queen lays out her plans

2006-07-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me that I’ve recommended a goodly number of books here – proof that I actually do read – and yet I’ve not kept any record of them. The plan now is that each time I update my current reading I’ll copy the old information here. I’d like to have more than just a list of the books I’ve read. I’d like a little mnemonic to draw upon … just in case.

Expect the graphic to be fiddled with as time permits.

Good reading to you all.