Unpunished

After endlessly procrastinating (I have no idea why), I finally got around to reading Unpunished.  And I am so glad that I did!  Unpunished is written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a fairly famous feminist writer from the 20s.  She is better known for writing such things as The Yellow Wallpaper and Herland.  However, before she became a famous writer, she wrote a little mystery gently poking fun at mysteries of the time and providing radical (for the time) social commentary.  This mystery is Unpunished.

Unpunished is the story of a surprisingly (again, for the time) equal couple.  This husband and wife are joint detectives.  Every evening, they come home, cook supper, and then clean up together.  This might not sound jaw-dropping for today, but for that time period, this was pretty ridiculously unexpected.  The husband finds out about a new case in which a very unlikeable man has been shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, hanged (not hung, people), and poisoned.  As the couple digs into the mystery, they realize what a truly awful person this man was.  This man (sorry, I can't remember his name) ruled all of the women in his home with an iron fist and oppressed so many people that were "lower" than he was to such an awful extent that any number of people are suspected for murdering him.  In fact, the reader is actually expected to sympathize with the suspected members, rather than the murdered person.  The family is miserable and oppressed and would like nothing better than to get back at this tyrant.  Gilman writes so bitterly about this man that I was quite sure that she had had some experience with somebody rather like him.  I went back and read the preface and, sure enough, her brother-in-law was, apparently, a hateful and bossy old somebody who ruled her after her father died.

Aside from being a good mystery that left me saying, "What?!" at the end of it, this story was well written and made some pretty important commentary, even for today.  Sure, bossy old fathers forcing their young daughters into unwanted arranged marriages isn't happening very frequently, but the way people interact with each other and the world is still a relevant topic today.  This book is slow going at first, but the story starts to seep in to you after a few chapters.   I highly recommend it

And I have the amazon link.  Our library was discarding it and I just happened to catch it, so I don't know how many libraries are keeping the book.  (I'm not saying that your library doesn't have it- our's has the unfortunate tendency to throw out the old books and keep buying new, more "relevant" books.)  Happy Reading!

A Walk

After a busy morning, I took a walk down the lane to put a letter in the mailbox.  A kitty-friend (Shadow) followed me down and we had a lovely walk enjoying the view and taking pictures (in my case) and shrinking in fear from the cussing mockingbird (in her case).  I'm sharing the pictures with you that I took today.

She leaped down off of the bench where she was sleeping and agreed to join me for a walk…

But first, she had to gaze a little apprehensively up at the tree that held
the enraged mockingbird,

Who warned her that her days were numbered and if she even thought
about getting his babies, she had him to answer to.

We saw gorgeous iris and poppies…I love that little window of time
where both are in flower…

And the clothesline full of wash…

And a blue, blue sky.

A Toast Rack

Today was the retirement community sale that happens every spring.  Each year, the people moving to the home donate stuff to the sale.  The stuff tends to be fabulous vintage finds.  I happened to find the most charming little device- a toast rack!  Now you may be asking, "What on earth is the purpose of a toast rack?"  Why to serve your toast on, of course!  Except, that the toast would have the unfortunate propensity to get soggy and cold, which is just plain nasty.

So, I'm going to use this cunning little device as a letter holder.  I have several friends who send me letters and I thought what a fun way to store letters this would be!

Here are several pictures that I took of it.  What do you think?  Won't this be handy?

I'll be back tomorrow with a review of Unpunished.  Yes!  I finally got around to reading the dang thing and it was a wonderful read.

Henry Reed

I'm back again today with yet another wonderful children's book, this time for slightly older readers.  This book is in my personal library and the other day I just randomly picked it up and started reading it.  The book is called Henry Reed's Babysitting Service.  Henry Reed is the son of an ambassador who travels all over the world.  Every summer, he comes to his aunt and uncle's cozy little 1950s New Jersey neighborhood.  There are several books, but my favorite is definitely Henry Reed's Babysitting.  After the previous summer which is covered in the first book, Henry returns to Grover's Corner and proceeds to plan another moneymaking scheme with his friend Midge.

After conducting lengthy surveys of all the neighbors, they see that there is a real need for babysitting.  And there starts the fun.  There is the busy housewife for whom they cook hamburgers, little knowing that the "hamburger meat" is really ground horse meat for the poodle; and there's the extremely naughty little girl who is surprisingly good at hiding from her caretakers.  But no matter what Henry and Midge do, they always have surprising adventures.  And of course, as in all good 50s children's books, adults are blissfully absent, meaning that the children can have uproarious times without any supervision whatsoever.

Henry and Midge

The book is written in a diary form (something I don't normally enjoy reading), but the stories are so funny and interesting that it works quite well.  I think that the diary form actually works very well for the reader because Henry's voice comes through so clearly without interruptions from the author.

I first heard of these books in middle school, when my dad read one of them aloud.  I remember loving them at once, so it was fun to read through this book again. This story is really great for any age.  Along with Henry's very funny voice are the great illustrations.  All 5 of the Henry Reed books were illustrated by the famous Robert McCloskey (who illustrated and wrote Blueberries for Sal).  Anybody as young as 6 would get the humor and the adventures and there is something timeless about the stories, even with the 50s American references.

Alfie and Annie Rose

This darling little book is in a genre that I don't normally read, but it's such a sweet book that it really deserves it's own review.  The Alfie and Annie Rose books are stories about two little 80s/90s British children and their happy lives.   The stories are told mainly from Alfie's perspective, but Annie Rose definitely plays a big role in the stories.  Alfie is a 4 or 5 year old and Annie Rose is a toddler, so she's probably anywhere from 1-3.  I just read recently that Alfie would be 30 now if he were a real person.  That surprised me so much because Alfie lives in my mind as a 5 year old.  He has all kinds of adventures from going to a birthday party where his friend gets very wild and naughty to befriending the "big boy" (a first grader) at school.  Alfie and Annie Rose live charming, normal lives and I remember how much I identified with them.

Just recently, my mom got one of the Alfie and Annie Rose books just for fun.  It was fun to flip through those pages again and remember so many of those stories.  I grew up reading these stories and I was amazed how much I remembered about the books.  I think that these books are so enjoyable in large part because Shirley Hughes (the author) clearly knows children so well.  She understands just how excited and out of control children get at a 5 year old birthday party and she knows about naming inanimate objects funny names (I had a pumpkin named Perenkin when I was about Alfie's age).  In addition to all these wonderful qualities, the illustrations are gorgeous.  The family's cluttery, cozy little London flat is so much fun to see.

An illustration from one of the books.

I really do recommend these books for anybody.  If you have some contact with any children (or if you don't), I think these books are a must-read.  When there are so many unlikeable characters in children's books and sub-par stories, these books are very refreshing.

Library Loot 5/26

Whew!  Well, I've finally got my Library Loot post together for the week.  I've got a good selection of books this week, mostly from the library.  The other new thing that I've got this week is several nonfiction things!  I just happened to find a bunch of great nonfiction books in the archives of this blog that I thought I must read.  So here goes:

1. What the World Eats by Faith D'Aluisio and Peter Menzel- This book came out quite awhile ago and I heard fantastic things about it, then promptly forgot it.  So now, I'm going to finally get around to reading this.

2. Unpunished- This dagblamed book is getting on my nerves.  It's been in my library loot pile for three weeks and I still can't get around to reading it.  This will be the week that I finally read it!

3. The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe by Theodore Gray- Recommended by the blog mentioned above.  I just thought this looked mildly interesting.  We'll see how it is.

4. Evelina by Fanny Burney- An interesting-looking book that I look forward to reading.  It's a funny 18th century novel.

5. Dear Enemy by Jean Webster- By the author who wrote the slightly more famous Daddy Long-Legs (which I need to read), this is the story of a woman who takes the role of superintendent of an orphanage.

6. The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson- I just recently finished the Sherlock TV show and loved it and then read the original Sherlock Holmes books.  I'm excited to see how this book turns out.

I feel like I got a good haul this week.  I'm excited to see how the books are!  And yet again, my interlibrary loan limit was exceeded.  Sigh.

Sunday Afternoon Thoughts and a Question

I'm sitting here planning my posts for the week.  I just wanted to drop in to let you all know that I'll be back tomorrow with my (more or less) weekly Library Loot post and then I've got a whole list of great books to review for you.  I've been enjoying spending a little of my Sunday afternoon lounging time planning for my weekly blogging.  I love blogging and for me, it is purely fun and relaxing.  However, it can get exhausting to have to think up what to write about, write it, then edit it, then add pictures/links/etc.  I've found that doing the rough draft on Sunday afternoon (including planning for pictures/links/etc.) makes my blogging during the week a lot less time consuming.  Then, I just have to edit and read through the post and add the pictures and I'm done.  However, if I change my mind about what I want to write about, then I've got this extra post that I've got to fit in somewhere.  But other than that small drawback, I really enjoy this writing method.

A kitty picture.  Just because.

So, for those of you who blog, how do you organize and make time for your writing?  Do you start each time you post with a fresh idea and do all your writing at once, or do you do something a little like I do?  And here's the other question:  Do you ever have the problem of forgetting about posts in drafts and then finding them weeks later?

For those of you who don't blog, how do you write other things?  Do you start something, then think about it for a while and finish it, or do you just write the whole thing start to finish in one blow?

I look forward to hearing from all of you!