Re-Reading Harry Potter

A few days before I went to see the most recent Harry Potter film, I thought I ought to re-read the book before I went. I didn't have long, and so I started reading with my frenetic, rushed Harry Potter pace. You know the one, where you rush to get to end so no one else spoils the book for you. I got through about a chapter and decided I just didn't want to read so fast so I put the book away, and went to see the film. Of course, that put me in the mood for Harry Potter and I decided to try to read the book again.

I started slowly, a chapter a day. It's always taken me time to 'warm up' to these books, and it never seems the story really starts until everyone is ensconced at Hogwarts. After awhile, I began reading more and more until suddenly I was finished. And now I am reading about the Deathly Hallows.

I am not going to summarize Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince nor am I going to 'review' it. I just wanted to say what a different reading experience this was than before. The last three books in the series I rushed through, reading for plot and this time around I was able to take my time, get to know the characters better, particularly the secondary characters. I do really like the magical world Rowling has created - I can practically imagine the entire thing really exists - and this time I was able to really enjoy it. Another plus, was being able to jump right into the next book in the series, and who knows? Perhaps I will go back and re-read the earlier books just to experience how Rowling set the story up so long ago.

I hope my daughter wants to read these books someday, but won't it be such a different experience! She'll never have to wait and wonder what's going to happen - it's all right there in the next book.

It must be that time of year

This is my first experience with the 'end of the school year' and it's a doozy. I can hardly keep track of everyplace we need to be let alone gather my thoughts and write an intelligent review of anything. I've watched my girl in 5 'performances' since last Thursday, not including t-ball or swimming, or the kindergarten art show or girl scouts...whew. So, since I haven't shown any book stacks in some time, I thought I'd share some recent acquisitions.

Lots of these books came from bookcloseouts. I was thrilled to find Dark Hearts of Chicago there - I'd read some great reviews of this a year or so ago and wouldn't you know it hasn't been published in the US. Similar story applies to A Hidden Life. The Louise Erdrich book was bought used since I enjoyed The Master Butcher's Singing Club so much.



The four books on the bottom of this stack were purchased at a book sale. I went to the same sale last year and had better luck. There were a lot of 'dealers' there - they had scanners and would scan the codes on the books to see if they matched what they were looking for. I found them irritating since they would block whole sections of shelves and the space was quite cramped. I was happy to snatch The Blood Doctor right out from under someones nose before he could scan it. Ha! This pile is heavy on suspense, including another mooched Barbara Vine and the Sophie Hannah book, an author I became aware of through other book bloggers and who is not published here as far as I can tell. Can you see that Agatha Christie? It's And Then There Were None - I've yet to read her but read a great review of this recently.


This third stack is quite a mishmash. Book Crush is Nancy Pearl's version of Book Lust for children and teens. I've found loads of great suggestions for my daughter and for friend's children as well. My daughter tends to go straight for the 'character' books (barbie, princesses, etc.) and I'm trying to steer her gently away. Karen wrote about Can Any Mother Help Me? some time ago and I've been waiting for the paperback to come out (bookdepository). The subject is fascinating - a group of women in England in the 1930's form a secret magazine which they write and pass around - and leave each other comments on! It sounds like blogging but without computers. Let's see, more nonfiction, A Fatal Waltz compliments of Harper Collins and finally a book I was excited to pick up this past weekend, The Minnesota Homegrown Cookbook. It's filled with stories of restaurants, farms, and recipes using local ingredients. So far, I'm the only owner of it on LibraryThing! I just realized I forgot to photograph another book which seems timely - The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly - which is set in Burma. I read about it on a blog, I think, but cannot remember where.


As I look over these books, I am again astounded by how many have been purchased as a direct result of book bloggers. I never would have known about many of these or thought I would have been interested them. I thank you, as always, for letting me be a part of this amazing community.

Hopefully, regular programming to return soon.

I couldn't help myself.......

I finally had to read Coraline. After reading 3 blog reviews of it in the past couple of weeks and seeing the trailer, I knew I had to just do it. I don't know what I was waiting for! Coraline was a fantastic, frightening, escapist read and I think it took me less that 2 hours to finish it. Coraline is a young girl who moves into a flat with her parents and discovers a parallel but creepy world on the other side of a mysterious door. There are parents that look like hers, but have buttons for eyes. They want to keep Coraline with them and when she doesn't want to stay they try everything in their power to make her. Coraline is amazingly brave. Naturally she is terrified, but she is able to keep her mind clear and focus on the task at hand - saving her family and some other unfortunate souls. This is obviously a very dark book, but there is plenty of humor, too. Musical mice, theater-loving dogs, and a very special talking cat . This book is meant for children, obviously older ones as this would be much too frightening for the younger set.


I watched a pretty amazing film last week called Water. Water is set in India in 1938 and tells the story of a young girl who has been married off, widowed, and sent to live out the rest of her life in a widow's ashram at age 8. She becomes close to another widow, a young woman forced into prostitution and the film shows what happens when this woman attempts to escape from her fate. The film is beautifully shot and though the subject matter is grim, the music and the setting are a joy. It took the writer of Water many years to have this film made because there was so much protest in India. She persevered and we have her to thank for providing us a chance to see this other way of life. Unfortunately, these practices go on, there are still widow's ashrams and child brides. As a mother, watching this film brought up many emotions in me about my own child. I am reminded of the scenes in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan when the young girl's feet are bound. I am reminded of the interview of an African woman planning to have her daughter circumcised because that is simply what is done. She knew it was against the law, but was ambivalent about the medical complications that could occur and stated that she believed it didn't hurt much. I come back to this story, when a mother and father send their child away to a life of sorrow. It all makes me want to give my daughter the education, knowledge and drive to fly away and succeed in this life on her own terms, to be everything she can be. I cannot imagine living in a culture that would force me to mutilate her body or send her to a hopeless life far away. I thank God I don't have to.

Care to snoop?

I love looking through bookshelves, either in person or in photographs and I thought I would show you some of mine. These photographs are of my new shelves which contain lots of favorites and many unread books. I have another bookcase filled with Viragos and other shelves all over the house.

The top left shelf contains all the grey books as well as my vintage books. It is difficult to read the titles but I have copies of Little Women, The Mill on the Floss, Maggie Now by Betty Smith, Because of the Lockwoods by Dorothy Whipple, A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband (more on that book later), and The Shuttle.


The decending four shelves contain fictional books. This is a small part of my stash.




The top right shelf contains much of my English history and biography collection. The one beneath it is also nonfiction, some grouped by country, some miscellaneous.


Here are most of my cookbooks.



This bottom shelf has a bit of cookbook overflow and other nonfiction titles about food. There are also some children's books, including my 1937 collection of My Book House books. My daughter is enjoying these despite being continually told to "be careful!"

Finished!!

*** This is a spoiler free post. Beware of comments.***

I awoke Saturday morning at just the right time, ate breakfast,showered and walked over to Barnes and Noble. I arrived before the store opened and stood in line with about 100 people waiting for the store to open. My husband said I might "actually be nuts." I told him gleefully that 90% of the people in line were adults, all with a smirk on their face, which to me meant "yes I am here standing in a line at 9:00 Saturday morning to buy a book, a children's book." It was really fantastic to see.

I did work 8 hours on both Saturday and Sunday but managed to finished last night around 10:30. I was able to avoid any spoilers, did not look at the newspaper or any news websites or television shows and I'm so glad. I'll admit I was tempted to peek on Saturday evening since I knew I wouldn't get to the end until the next night, but one of my co-workers whose son is a huge fan talked me out of it.

I enjoyed the book very much, it is action packed and very different from the previous ones. I always have a hard time getting into the rhythm of these books; not sure if it's the writing or me. There is always some turning point though, usually around halfway through, and I speed to the ending. Harry is a hero for the ages, courageous, selfless, clever, and bold.

I know people are talking about the 'end'; I am not sure if they mean the last 8 or so pages by that, but for me the end was the last 75-100 pages. I found myself reading passages over and over, saying the words to myself in a whisper to take it all in. It was intense and magnificent the way Rowling brought this all to a close. Her brilliance, I think, is in the story and world she conceived. I remember when I read the first 3 books and thinking about the parallels of Voldemort and his followers and their beliefs to Hitler and the Holocaust. The ways of classifying people are so very similar. I believed then that she had a greater message.

I was happy to have so many questions answered about all the different characters. I do have one question that is nagging me though, one I thought would have been answered but was not. It is not integral to the story but the idea of it had been suggested in the past which is why I thought Rowling would have mentioned it in passing in the last few pages. I'm not sure if I should mention it in the comments or wait a few days; I'll wait for now.

I am ready.

I am ready for Book 7.

I have seen the new movie. I found it positively entertaining and I loved it. It is rare that I go to adult movies, even more rare that it would be an 'action' movie, but I just love these. I could watch it all afternoon.

I have re-read Book 6, I finished this afternoon. I thought it got off to a slow start but picked up once Harry and Dumbledore began their travels into the past.

I will pick up my reserved copy of the book Saturday morning but unfortunately I have to WORK all weekend and the first long stretch of time I have to read will be Sunday evening. I hope to finish it then. I really would like to get the end on my own, without any 'spoilers'.

I have also been reading Margaret Forster's Keeping the World Away. I have been enjoying it, but put it aside to read Book 6 and plan to resume reading it tonight. I have also been working on putting more of my books into Librarything. I have a helper that likes to carry the books to the computer, then stack and count them. The reason I am just entering this batch is that things are going to be rearranged here soon. I absolutely cannot wait - something has been on order since March.

I am looking forward to reading everyone's thought on the book next week - have a great weekend.

I finally finished it.....and I'm so glad I did.

I've been feeling a bit quiet lately and one of the reasons, I think, is that I just needed to finish something. That something turned out to be Linda Lear's Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature. This biography is exceedingly thorough, and for me, the reading of it took a long time. I went slowly, absorbing bits at a time, not wanting to rush and skim over parts. Thus I'd been with this book for about a month, a long time for me. I will admit I was somewhat relieved to put this book aside and move on to something else.



Potter is a fascinating subject and the book feels very personal since the author uses Potter's journal entries and personal letters as primary sources. This book details her rigid Victorian upbringing and describes the contacts she had as an upper class child. The Reverend Gaskell was a good friend of the family. Yes, that Gaskell. Potter spend much of her youth alone or with her brother or other adults and was really able to focus on her interests during this time - animals and the observations of their habits, other wildlife, drawing and painting. Beatrix spent a lot of time as a young woman studying and painting fungi and the author discusses this part of her life at great length. The fact that Lear was able to make this section quite readable instead of tedious, I think is to her credit. A portion of the book deals with Potter's life as an author and the rest with her 'second career' as a wife, landowner, and farmer.

The last portion of the book, regarding farm life felt a bit long to me. The details about farm life are quite lengthy. There is discussion about Potter's relationship and qualms with the National Trust. As I am not a resident of the UK, I was unable to read this with the broader view of public knowledge. The last chapters deal with the end of Potter's life and the aftermath of her art and land holdings which was very interesting.

I found myself wondering at various times, what would her life have been like at a different time or if her family had a a different financial situation? Potter struggled, as probably many women did with personal desires and familial duty. It seemed her parents were particularly strict and demanding of her time, even as a 40-something woman making marriage plans. It probably didn't help that she was considered rather eccentric.




Would I recommend this book? If you are a big fan of Potter's work, definitely. I would recommend reading it alongside Potter's own works. I so enjoyed learning the 'story behind the story' and then reading her books and looking for certain details in the landscape, in interior scenes and in the animals and people themselves.

I suspect that when I am able to travel to the UK, a visit to Hill Top Farm will be on the agenda.

edited to add:
I almost forgot! Here is a passage that tells me Mrs Heelis (Beatrix) was not unlike myself in certain ways.

'At 70, Beatrix had given up, if indeed she had every seriously tried, keeping either a tidy house or her muddles of papers in order. .....the large table in the centre of the hearth room at Castle Cottage was primarily her working desk - though it was used for all sorts of other purposes as well. It was perpetually strewn with letters, maps,....etc.......waiting to be sorted. If a visitor called, a place was created by pushing the piles to another spot. Quite often supper was served on a cleared end.'

Now I fear you know too much about my own housekeeping.

Facing the Light

I purchased this book some time ago. Any book with a picture of an English country house on the cover, a mention of Binchy and Pilcher on the back, and a description of an extended family gathering, well, I just cannot resist. It sat in the big stack of books to be read until one day I read this review and thought to myself, 'well that sounds like something I would enjoy'. I proceeded to see if the book was available on one of my swapping sites when I suddenly realized I might have this book upstairs. Lo and behold.

This is just the sort of comfort read I've come to love. A family comes together at Willow Court, the home of matriarch Leonora, to celebrate her 75th birthday. There are mysteries and revelations, an eccentric artist, an elderly nanny who remembers just enough, and a touch of romance. All come together to bring this novel to life and to its satisfying conclusion. A good read, indeed.

Over the weekend I purchased this.



It was really about time I was reading this alongside the biography which details the writing and production of each book. I rarely pay full price for a book such as this but it had to be done. The loveliest part of this purchase is sharing it with my daughter. She was a bit confused as to why I was making this purchase for myself.

I have also started The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. My bookclub will be discussing this in July. I hope that I find as much pleasure in it as I did the first time I read it a few years ago.

A house and a rash

We took a family drive on Sunday along the Mississippi to visit little river towns and Laura Ingalls Wilder's birth site. This log cabin was built on land previously owned by Charles and Caroline Ingalls. The site is very low key, it is just along the road and marked with a sign describing the site.



We made a few other stops, including one at Lark Toys in Kellogg, Minnesota. They have a beautiful, new, hand carved carousel. The animals are gorgeous and all are so different and unique. This photo does not do it justice.



Lark toys is full of all sorts of toys to purchase as well as vintage ones to look at. It was quite a trip down memory lane. There was even a children's bookshop. The books there were not shelved in the ordinary way but were all arranged facing out. This definitely decreased the number of different books they had, but increased their appeal immensely. I think I am always more likely to pick up a children's book (well, really any book!) if the cover art appeals to me.

Sunday afternoon we brought dinner over to some friends who had just moved. I made Ina Garten's Lemon Grilled Chicken and Szechwan Noodle Salad both from The Barefoot Contessa, a little salad of arugula, and chocolate chip cookies. They were so glad to have a home cooked meal and we proceeded to eat along with their one year old boy. I asked our friends if their son had eaten peanuts before as there is peanut butter in the noodle sauce and they said he had. Not long after, we noticed he had a rash all over his chest, chin and hands where he had handled the noodles and wiped the sauce on himself. The rash turned into white welts, literally within seconds. It was so frightening, and I felt horrible! His parents immediately put him into the tub and we gave him some Benadryl and within about 1/2 hour the welts were completely gone and the red rash was mostly gone too. What a relief! I know peanut allergies are very serious but I had never seen one in person, or a rash develop so quickly.

My in-laws are coming today for a few days and the computer is in the room where they will be staying. I am sure you see where I am going with this. I will be back later this week, most certainly with a review of The Shuttle which I am nearly finished with. I just cannot wait to find out how it all ends.

For kids

I picked up That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown by Cressida Cowell at the library last night and read it for the first time. The story is very charming and the illustrations are fabulous. It is about a little girl and her stuffed rabbit Stanley who have amazing adventures together. The Queen covets the rabbit and tries to bribe Emily to give it up. At one point Emily is offered 'all the toys she could ever desire'. At the end of the book I asked my daughter what she would do in the same situation. "I would say 'NO' because I already have too many toys!" Hmmmm. Well as least she can admit it. And I have a great comeback for the next time she asks me to buy anything.

My daughter found this book , Children Just like Me at the library. I generally love these DK publications and this one is no exception. It is filled with images of children around the world, along with their homes, schools, family, what they eat,what they play with and the list goes on. It's just a great entry point into talking to children, even small children, about how other people around the world live. That we're not all the same, and the things we take for granted, other children consider a privilege, such as homes, school, clothing, toys, and books. I highly recommend it.

This books reminds me of some books I read last year by photographer Peter Menzel, all of which are a more in depth and adult version of the above. They include Material World, Hungry Planet, and Women in the Material World. All of these are informative, eye-opening, stunning in their beauty and their sadness. I highly recommend them all. He has another book published entitled Man Eating Bugs and I'll admit I have not read that one.....

I may start linking more to Barnes and Noble - has anyone else noticed how slow Amazon is lately? And when I search for something, it often comes up with bizarre items and the thing I'm looking for is far down on the list.