4/23/14 Library Loot

Here's this week's Library Loot from The Captive Reader.  I went to the library yesterday, so this post is just in time!  I got a good pile (I've been having great book luck recently).  I hope you find some titles to add to you TBR list!
                                       

1.  The Scent of Water is a story of a woman who finds consolation for a failed romance in a little country cottage and the people that she meets around her.  I love Elizabeth Goudge, so I think this will be good.

2.  Another Fred Chappell book.  I'm sure it's going to be just as good as Brighten the Corner Where You Are.  This is the story of Jess Kirkman, the son of protagonist in Brighten the Corner.  As his grandmother is dying, he looks back on the stories of the women before her.

3.  A 20s mystery about a husband and wife detective team who solve a murder case.  The back of the book says that this book has a lot of social commentary in it.  The book makes fun of murder stories, with the victim being shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, strangled, and poisoned!  This is also a very feminist book, with commentary about the helpless position that most women were in.  The very equal partnership between the husband and wife is emphasized.  I'm interested to read this!

4.  The 5th Flavia de Luce Book

5.  The 6th- and last- Flavia de Luce book.

6.  Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture- The title is pretty self-explanatory. I found this on some blog, I'm sorry I can't remember where.  As an introvert in the church, I think this is going to be a very interesting and inspiring read.

7. For some reason, the last two times I was at the library, I forgot to get the 3rd Emma Graham book.  I'm glad I finally remembered!

8.  I am so pleased that I found this.  (From another blog...blogs have given me so many good book ideas!)  I read Nancy Drew in late elementary school/early middle school and loved them, although I distinctly remember noticing that I could never remember the latest Nancy Drew I had read.  They all kind of ran together.  However, I have a real fondness for Nancy and it will be interesting to read about her origins.

So that's my loot for the week!  What did you get?

I am Half-Sick of Shadows

I got my Flavia de Luce book back!  I sat down and started reading.  I think this might be my favorite of the Flavia de Luce books so far because of all the developments in character and in the ongoing story about Flavia's mysterious mother.  I really was very pleased with what happened in this story.  The other new new thing about this book for me is that for the first time, I actually am interested in Dogger's character.  (Dogger is Flavia's father's valet of sorts and also a gardener/odd jobs man.  They were also in a war together and Dogger still has painful flashbacks.)  He seems to be developing into a main character and not just a background character.

In this book, Colonel de Luce (Flavia's father) is even closer to bankruptcy on the old mansion in which they live.  Finally, he hears about a film producer that is looking for an old English mansion for his latest film.  Colonel de Luce rents out the mansion and the set trucks and the famous actors start appearing a few weeks before Christmas.  This both disappoints and thrills the de Luce daughters, who are excited to have real live actors living with them, but also disappointed because it means that there will be no Christmas tree and presents.  However, things start to get very exciting when Flavia becomes friends with the selfish but strangely likable leading actress.  The night after a play that the actors give for the locals, Flavia can't sleep and so is wandering the halls.  Suddenly, she hears a movie that the actress starred in.  She hurries to the actress's room and finds her, hung from the ceiling with rolls of film.  But the odd and slightly chilling thing is that the actress was dressed and covered with make-up after she died.  Now it's up to Flavia, with the grudging assistance of the inspector, to find out whodunnit.  There are a pile of suspects, as half the village has been snowed in with the de Luces.

The quote on which the title of the book is based.
Each book title in the series is from a quote.

I am enjoying each Flavia de Luce book more and more as I go along.  Each story stands out in my mind and the characters are well-developed.  My next read will probably be the 5th Flavia book.  I'm also very excited because there is a TV show about Flavia de Luce being made this year!  I will most definitely be watching it.

A View of Easter

I had a lovely Easter weekend and I'm going to share the pictures that don't have faces in them with you!  Starting off, here's the gorgeous sunset picture I got on Saturday night after a glorious campfire.  The glowing crack is a ventilation crack in the barn.  I caught the sunset pouring through.  This is one of my new favorite pictures.

This is the traditional lamb cake that we always make.  It's a bit of a rigamarole, but we love it and it makes such a pretty centerpiece, besides being delicious!

Easter Sunday, there was church, then a big extended family party with delicious ham and sides and plenty of desserts (I'm still recovering from a sugar headache!)  After I got home, I was fiddling with the camera and got a very pretty shot of a pot of hyacinths, an old crate-turned-plant stand, and a vintage armchair in the kitchen.

So that was my easter.  How was yours?  Was it a quiet gathering with a few people?  A big family wing-ding like me?  Or did you not celebrate Easter?  I'd love to know what you did.

If I ever finish blasted A Company of Swans, I'll review it.  It's a perfectly good book, but I have had so many other distractions recently that reading has been pushed to the back burner.  I'm looking forward to a quiet week with plenty of reading!

Happy Easter

I hope that all of you have a very Happy Easter, wherever you are and whatever you're doing.

The easter sunrise this morning.  This captures just how vivid it was.

The sunrise to the west.  See the pinky-purple streaking over the barn?

Mary Stewart Books

I got cheated out of a library book.  I checked This Rough Magic out of the library, so pleased that I had found a book by Mary Steward that I had never read.  After reading through most of my library pile, I finally reached for This Rough Magic.  I opened the book and started reading.  Each chapter of the book has a quote at the start.  This one, from the Tempest, seemed awfully familiar, but I kept reading.  Two chapters in, I realized that I had read this book.  I wasn't in the mood for a re-read, so with a sigh I put the book back in the library box.  So now I know that I have read every Mary Stewart book in the library.

 If you haven't read anything by her (or if you have), Mary Stewart is a truly fantastic author.  Her writing is clever and really fits into its own genre: a mix of gothic, thriller, romance, magic, a smattering of comedy, and beautiful scenery descriptions.  I was introduced to Mary Stewart quite a while ago. 
She is such a good writer that I would confidently recommend anything she has written to any reader.

But, while I have read all the books, I haven't read them in these editions.  Just recently, the UK released all of the Mary Stewart books in beautiful new editions with lovely vintage pictures on the front.  I am feeling slightly light-headed.

Did you notice that Thunder on the Right, Nine Coaches Waiting, and My Brother
Michael all have the same dress.  I wonder if these illustrations came from a
vintage pattern cover... 

Sigh.  This is my biggest want right now.  Can you imagine?  The complete set of these (go to amazon, there are about 10 more) sitting on my bookshelf.  *Swoon*

An Extremely Cute Project

(I'm sorry, guys.  This has absolutely nothing to do with reading, but it was so cute I couldn't resist posting.)
After moving my sewing room around and getting a gorgeous new Bernina sewing machine for Christmas (thank you, family!), I was ready to start sewing.  I finished up a pair of fabulous turquoise overalls that had been languishing around and looked around for a new project.  My requirements were many: it had to fairly quick, it had to involve my lovely sewing machine somehow, and it had to be an item that was useful.  And so, I found this project from a book on appliquéing and set to work, cooing happily because it was so daggone cute.  I ended up not following the instructions at all, just cutting and appliquéing and then sewing up.

This is the first one I made.  First of all, I folded some plain oatmeal colored linen and lined the bottom of the hanger up with the fold.  Then, leaving about 1/2 inch seam allowance, I cut around the shape of the wire hanger.  Next, I embroidered four hangers in green pearl cotton and then machine appliquéd little clothes cut out of fabric scraps
                                         
This is what the back looks like.  I just sewed up the top of the hanger cover with black pearl cotton and did it in kind of uneven stitches.  I like the slightly unfinished look it gives to the hangers.

Now this is my absolute favorite.  I dug through and found scraps of fabric from clothing that I have actually made for myself.  The overalls I just finished, two summer dresses, a pair of flannel pajamas, and a skirt on which I sewed teensy weensy little pockets.  And did you see?  They're hanging on a rickrack clothesline!

I have two more up at the sewing machine.

A pistachio colored rickrack clothesline and a narrow embroidered red ribbon clothes line.

I can't sell these because they were somebody else's idea, but if you know me, drop an obvious hint and I'll make one of these for your birthday.

Brighten the Corner Where You Are

I adored this book.  Even though I was in deep mourning over leaving Flavia de Luce behind, that didn't keep me from thoroughly enjoying Brighten the Corner Where You Are by Fred Chappell.  The premise of the story is very simple: a day in the life of Joe Robert Kirkman, a schoolteacher who wants to teach about evolution, a philosopher, and a lover of pranks in a 1940s North Carolina mountain town.  The story is recounted by his son.

The tale opens with Joe Robert Kirkman shimmying up a tree at 3 in the morning to catch an opossum. Then he cooks french toast for himself while his family sleeps, breaking every pot and pan in the house and then splattering egg all down the front of his best suit.  We learn that he is going to be questioned by the school board about his beliefs because of his teaching of evolution.  While on his way to school, he sees a child flailing about in a small, fast-flowing creek.  He dives in, expels the water from her lungs, and takes her to the general store, where he changes into an odd collection of clothes that afford him odd looks all day.  The day is filled with many an adventure from ending up stuck in the chimney with a goat on the roof to a drastic interview with the paper.

The Author

One of my next reads.

This story is charming, gently funny, and full of beautiful language.  The writing is some of the best I have read in a long time and Chappell manages to capture post war North Carolina perfectly.  The characters are interesting and quite human, with foibles and funny quirks.  Joe Robert Kirkman is the funniest, quirkiest, most human of them all.  I highly recommend this to pretty much everybody.  Even if you don't have an affinity for southern novels like I do, this is a must read, simply for the beautiful language.  I am also excited because this novel is part of a sort of casual series, all written through Joe Robert Kirkman's son's eyes.  I will definitely be reading them all.