Book Review: Gemini

Gemini by Sterling Children's
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When my partner and I first met, she was a long-time believer in the power of one’s zodiac signs to affect one’s life, and had done a bit of research on it, while I staunchly refused to countenance any such ideas. My Pentecostal parents raised me to believe that astrology (no matter which cultural version you prefer), numerology, palmistry, and tarot reading were all actively satanic, and even though, as an adult, I’ve stopped seeing Satan around every corner, I still used to dismiss astrology as ridiculous superstition, embraced only by the desperate or the gullible. There’s nothing like falling in love with someone who holds an opinion you once denounced to get a crash course in your own prejudices!! These days, I describe myself as a healthily skeptical seeker. Many things that were once considered just superstitions have since been proven to have a scientific basis; our ancestors simply observed and attempted to explain phenomena, without having access to the data necessary to puzzle out actual causes vs. effects. So I’m prepared to accept that a similar situation may be at work here, especially since some of the things I’ve read have really helped explain some issues that have arisen in my relationship with my partner over the years.

In some ways, I found these small books the most helpful on astrology I’ve ever tried. Ostensibly written for teens, they are written simply, but without any insulting tone, and though they don’t overwhelm with information, they definitely go deeper into the topic than most popular guidebooks or manuals, even most of those intended for adults. The range of relationship types—friendships, family members, love interests—are addressed, covering how each zodiacal sign is likely to interact with those who are the subjects of the individual books (in this case, Geminis). I really felt that I learned some useful information, I greatly enjoyed the illustrations, and I appreciated the fact that the writers acknowledged the fact that the stars are simply guides, and every human is an individual, that not everything they wrote may fit neatly into the readers’ lives!

The only thing I found genuinely unhelpful here was the fact that the date charts they provided—which should have been a very useful inclusion!—only covered a small cross-section of the population, those born from 1995-2006. The addition of just 3-4 additional pages could have covered a MUCH wider range, and even if these books WERE only being read by teens, those additional dates could have allowed them to understand more about their older and younger siblings, as well as their parents and grandparents. The writers did give a one-line aside, suggesting how to use the chart if the necessary dates weren’t listed, but it wasn’t very clear at all, and it took me ages to figure out what it meant; I have to imagine it would baffle many younger readers.

Still, I really like this series, and would recommend it to anyone who wants a more in-depth beginner’s introduction, for themselves or their children, to their signs and how they might have shaped their personalities. Unless you can find the books on a sale, as I did, they’re a bit expensive, so you probably wouldn’t want to pick up a complete set of them to learn more about the signs of others; a more comprehensive, all-in-one introductory volume would probably be more appropriate for that. But for the reader who just want to read up on one or two signs, they’re ideal, as they’re delightfully personal, and further personalizable, with some lined pages included on which to record the birthdates/signs of all one’s friends and family, allowing the owner to put greater effort into understanding and building better relationships with others. Those are skills that are important at any age, but really vital for teens who are attempting to grow out of the complete self-focus of childhood and into more outward-looking young adulthood. For that reason, if no other, I don’t think you have to fully believe in astrology to reap benefits from this book; the relationship advice it provides is just generally wise.


View all my reviews

Once Upon a Flock--a Review

Once Upon a Flock: Life with My Soulful Chickens
by Lauren Scheuer

Okay, the current chicken-raising craze baffles me, I must admit. Although I was raised in a rural Indiana town, surrounded by cows and corn fields, I have never been a farm girl, not least because I have varying degrees of allergy to nearly every land-dwelling creature. However, I have many friends who are animal lovers and small-scale farmers, and I completely understand and respect the attention they lavish on their livestock. I have a more difficult time comprehending the people who decide to raise chickens in backyard suburbia. And yet, the moment I spotted this wonderfully-illustrated book in the library, I knew somehow that I had to read it, and I devoured it without pause in one sitting. Though I have not achieved Lauren Scheuer's degree of success, I am a fellow blogger, and I really enjoy the brief, pithy tableaux that characterize our infant genre. It is a writing style that Scheuer has certainly mastered.

Once Upon a Flock follows the author's journey with her unusual pets from fluffy, down-laden chicks through the trials of motherhood and chronic illness. (Who knew chickens could develop such diseases?) It definitely isn't all smooth sailing in the coop, but there is delightful humor to ease the dilemmas, and Scheuer managed to make me genuinely care about a group of squawking chickens. When I think of chickens, I normally think of crap everywhere, dust flying up that could be fatal to my lungs, and invasions of the damn mites with which most birds are replete. I couldn't believe a writer inspired me to emotionally invest in a flock of them, but she did it with ease, and I enjoyed this read very much. I can recommend it to readers of all kinds.

Reviewing a Fish Out of His Bowl

Murder Being Once Done
by Ruth Rendell

Why is it that every author who bases a series around a single character eventually feels the need to take him out of his usual sphere and into foreign and supremely uncomfortable territory? I understand the desire to keep the series from becoming formulaic, but I would never have accused Ruth Rendell of that failing, anyway. In this book she puts Chief Inspector Wexford into an awkward position that makes him doubt himself, and thereby just made me slightly miserable with him. She made me identify with her character, but I read partly to escape from that kind of reality.

Wexford has suffered an aneurysm, and is on vacation in order to recover. One problem--the nephew with whom he and his wife are staying is also a policeman, one who even outranks the dear old curmudgeon. Inevitably, Wexford gets drawn into a case, and his vacation quickly comes to a halt, even if he is only "unofficially" involved with someone else's investigation.  Wisely, his wife has the sense to throw up her hands in exasperation and cease trying to make him behave.

The actual mystery involved here is definitely up to Rendell's usual standard, which more than makes up for any seeming deficiencies. Having once pushed past the setting and gotten to the meat of the novel, I was intrigued by the plot and impressed by the variety of devices used to keep me interested (and puzzled). I enjoyed it quite a bit, but sincerely hope we go back with Wexford to Kingsmarkham where he belongs for the next book.

A Few Facts About Fibonacci

The Man of Numbers: Fibonacci's Arithmetic Revolution
by Keith Devlin

I will freely admit that before reading this book, the only thing I knew about its subject was the famous "Fibonacci sequence" or "Fibonacci numbers," but for the record, I would like it to be noted that I knew about them LONG before Dan Brown launched The Da Vinci Code against the defenseless public.

Fibonacci's numbers often express themselves
in nature in extraordinary ways.
Photo by Alvesgaspar and modified by RDBury

So I learned a great deal while reading this one, and actually found it very interesting. First off, the man's name was actually Leonardo Pisano filius Bonacci, "Leonardo of Pisa, son of Bonacci," and "Fibonacci" is a contraction of the final phrase.  Obviously, the brain adjusts quickly to the author consistently referring to his subject as "Leonardo," but for the first few pages, I frequently thought, "Who?!", and had to reset my mind.

Secondly, despite what the subtitle might suggest, Devlin is very clear about the fact that Leonardo Pisano did not invent modern arithmetic. In this work, we travel through an overview of the development of our basic numeral system, i.e. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9, as it evolved in India, Persia, and the Arabic-speaking Middle East. We then encounter Leonardo, the son of a merchant from Pisa, whose father brought him along to a post in Islamic North Africa. There Leonardo first encountered the calculation systems that would evolve into algebra, geometry, and the four basic functions of modern arithmetic. Having finished his apprenticeship in mercantile trade, Leonardo brought these concepts back to Pisa, published them in a book designed to be accessible to other members of the merchant class, and quietly ignited a revolution in the mental structures of medieval Europe.

I felt that Keith Devlin overemphasized the need to prove his assertions about Leonardo a bit, but it was at least a refreshing change to read such a work from a scholar, who felt the need to offer some support for his work, rather than someone who provides enormous, fulsome statements as fact. I didn't understand every word of this book--anyone who knows me can testify that I am certainly no mathematician!--but I certainly came away with a knowledge of how much the Western world owes to one medieval thinker who became the conduit for math to countless generations.

I Actually Review a Book!

Reflections of Osiris: Lives from Ancient Egypt
by John Ray

Okay, I really enjoyed reading this book--as long-time followers will not be surprised to hear--so let me enumerate its weaknesses before I dive into any immoderate praise. The author attempted to tell the story of the history of ancient Egypt by making each new chapter a brief biography of an individual Egyptian--king, priest, or peasant--about whom we know something unusual, or the knowledge of whose existence has survived to modern times because an extraordinary document was discovered. As a result, the entire book feels somewhat disjointed, and the eponymous attempt to use Osiris (Egyptian god of the dead/underworld) as the common link for all those highlighted is weak, almost an afterthought in practice, though it works in principle if you already know a bit about the Egyptian theology of the afterlife.

Neith
(image by Jeff Dahl)

Now for the fun stuff. The scholarly author has an enjoyably readable style, and most importantly by far, I learned about a HOST of things of which I was previously unaware, and got much more detail about some things with which I was already familiar. So much so, in fact, that I lost a whole day researching Neith, patron goddess of the city of Sais, because of one passing reference in Ray's book that piqued my curiosity beyond endurance. Now that's MY kind of Egyptology read, especially since I've read enough on the subject by now that not just every book sparks a real quest for further detail like that anymore.

It's a lovely book, a quick read, and I can recommend it to those interested in the subject, from novices to armchair Egyptologists like me.

Lesson 2

Yes, she's back, o few but loyal gang of readers!  And I feel so much better that I'd swear I've had a complete body transplant, except that if I had, and I were still this overweight, I'd be REALLY pissed!  What I have acquired instead is a personal trainer/nutritionist, and the drive to get up and change things every day.  Thank God for recovery in all its forms. When HE decides to get you well, He doesn't mess around!

The next logical question should now be, "How's the Re-Education Reading Challenge going?", especially since those of you who contributed to the reading list put a fair bit of time and thought into which books to add.  The answer is, slow but steady. According to my Goodreads challenge widget, I am woefully behind, as you might imagine, but after a month of post-surgical fog, my keen reading appetite returned to me, and so I have been faithfully plunging ahead throughout the end of March and all of April so far. I may not finish in this calendar year, but I'm not ready to concede yet--we've got a lot of year left!--and if I don't finish in 2013, I've decided to extend the project until I HAVE read them all. I feel I owe that much to the list's contributors, and to myself.  Meanwhile, I can use my laptop again, so let the reviews commence!

Speak
by Laurie Halse Anderson
Square Fish, 2011
198 pages

Another book that is certainly not light reading, Speak is the year-long journey of one girl learning to value herself, to defend herself no matter what it costs her, and to find herself sufficient company when she and the "cliques" in her high school discover they have absolutely no interest in each other.

Once again, we are dealing with the aftermath of an assault, of physical and emotional abuse, but in this book, the author rips away the facade of safety and respectability of the American education system as it currently exists.  All the million tiny opportunities afforded to abusive personalities in all-too-frequently unsupervised moments are portrayed with such poignant accuracy that it's clear the author still remembers her own high school experience with startling (and no doubt, often painful!) clarity.  Her descriptions of bullying, verbal abuse, and especially, of learning ways to hide in plain sight in large group situations such as the cafeteria, certainly resonated with me. Based on the book's brief introduction, this novel has obviously done the same for many, MANY others in the decade since it was first published, particularly for people who suffered far worse things in public school than I ever did.

Reviewers of this book often mention Laurie Halse Anderson's dry, caustic humor, with which she infuses her protagonist here, and it's a good thing she does; otherwise, this book would be so depressing that it might be impossible to finish! It's a seminal work that helped shine light on a cultural evil from which this country suffers--none of which makes it COMFORTABLE reading by any means. Just as it should be.

Reviewing My Way to Joy

Friends, unless I'm just going to lie to you all, I have to say that it's only Tuesday and already I've had a shitty week.  I hope and pray that it can only get better from here, that my doctors will continue to make progress in finally diagnosing my mystery illness, that my daughter will be able to overcome her new and worrisome addiction to playing games on my iPod Touch, and that I will stop feeling a bit like Chicken Little, running about screaming, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"  I'm going to take an important first, optimistic step toward this week looking up, and share another review from my Review Backlog Files, which always makes me feel like I've accomplished something worthwhile.  New posts instantly make me feel a bit more chipper, especially when you lovely people stop by and leave encouraging comments.  It's a beautiful circle of blogging friendship, really. 

*I'd like to teach the world to sing/
In perfect harmony* 

Ahem...sorry...moving on...

April 8, 2012

A Light in the Window

by Jan Karon

[I must warn you that there are SPOILERS in this review, but since the book was published in 1998, it's kind of fair game at this point, don't you think?]

So, the second of the Mitford books, and our sweet, kindly, fusty little vicar is engaged, of all things!  Or at least, by the end of the book he is, but there's an extraordinary amount of hemming and hawing about it before he and his lovely next-door neighbor finally get it sorted out.  In other words, when it comes to romance, Fr. Timothy is a scaredy cat!

Of course, you can hardly blame the man, as he's highly distracted by the machinations of a nauseating female parishioner.  She's recently widowed, and as she was never very fond of the poor blighter who was stuck with her for all those years, she's now determined to drag the poor old vicar into her bed by any means necessary!  Naturally, he would rather eat carpet tacks, and on top of everything else, he also has to find some way to keep her from driving the local diner out of business.  Never a dull moment for the harassed, well-meaning clergyman.

Honestly, these books are about 6 parts Mayberry, USA, 3 parts tent revival, and only one part believable plot, but they're soothing to read.  They're not total escapism--the characters do actually have some problems and heartaches--and though I didn't like this one as much as the first, I can still recommend it to anyone who needs something as cozy as an old bathrobe and fuzzy slippers after a long day in a busy, care-worn world.

Review of "Knocked Out By My Nunga-Nungas"

Another of my seriously back-dated reviews, this one for the "Just Contemporary" YA challenge that I've undertaken this year (because my Twitter friend, Basically Amazing Books, is hosting it, and she's several colors of awesome). Hope you enjoy it!

March 8, 2012

Knocked Out By My Nunga-Nungas

by Louise Rennison

Another of my complete fluff YA books.  (Not all YA books are complete fluff by ANY means, let me point out; THIS series, however, certainly is.)  Thankfully, Rennison went back to what this series does best on this one, cutting WAY back on the "things that have never happened to an average person in the history of the world" scale, so I enjoyed book #3 much more than I did its predecessor.

There were some truly, wonderfully funny moments in this one.  As always, Georgia Nicholson's toddler sister Libby stole the show, leaving me laughing so hard at one point that I was afraid I would either wake up MY sleeping toddler or pass out from trying to keep quiet!

In books like these, I'm not accustomed to the author TRYING to make you dislike the boyfriend that the girl has spent three books trying to land, leaving you HOPING that the girl will break up with him and go for the other guy, instead, but that seems to be where we're headed here.  Georgia's "Sex God" (Robbie) is an indecisive, wishy-washy, annoying "wet weed" (as Georgia's calls his ex, Lindsey), and she really needs to dump him and go out with Dave the Laugh, in my opinion.  The Sex God is too old for her, anyway, so she really doesn't have any fun hanging out with him and his college-aged Bohemian friends. 

Ah, the trials of being 14--much more fun to read about than they were to endure.

A Review of "Unnatural Death"

Ah, a day without Lord Peter Wimsey is like a day without food for your brain...

March 8, 2012

Unnatural Death

by Dorothy L. Sayers

I cannot believe that a mystery writer can make it ridiculously obvious from the very beginning who the murderer is, make other vital information so clear that I figured it out 150 pages before the detectives did, and make one of the primary opening characters turn out to be utterly annoying and completely inconsequential by the end, and yet STILL keep me riveted--and even still keep my GUESSING!!!--to the very end.  How is that even POSSIBLE?!  I knew who did it, I knew the person's dirty little secrets, I even knew HOW the person did it, and yet Sayers would throw me a little curve ball in plot or wording once in a while that would leave me going, "Well, now, wait a minute...maybe I was wrong..."  It was infuriating, but still a great deal of fun.

The more I read of Lord Peter Wimsey, the more attached to him I become.  He just grows on you, like some sort of good-natured, nonsense-babbling, insidious lichen or ivy.

Review Archaeology

Now that I'm slowly returning to blogging--and to life in general--I'm looking back over my Book Lover's Journal, and finding that I have about a trillion reviews that were recorded there months ago, but never made it onto the blog!  There seems no time like the present to rectify that, especially since I need to link those reviews over to various reading challenges that I do still hope to finish before this year is out.  Anyway, let's give it the old college try, yeah?  I'll keep posting these archived reviews periodically, with the date that I initially finished the book, until hopefully we'll be caught up.

March 6, 2012

Despite my initial hesitation about Lord Peter Wimsey, by the time I was a few pages into this novel, he had made a life-long fan of me.  Dorothy L. Sayers Wimsey books are just so comfortable; never boring, just...comfortable, somehow.  (Hence the term "cozy mystery," right?)  The main characters are the kind of people with whom you could hang out happily in a pub on a long winter evening, so despite the loony circumstances that whirl all around them, they're the bastions of sanity at the center.

In this case, Wimsey's own brother, the Duke of Denver (who is as thick as two short planks and one of the dullest men alive) is accused of murder.  I don't know if the bit about a peer of the realm having to be tried by the entire House of Lords in order to be assured of getting "a jury of his peers" was true--it may STILL be, for all I know!--but it certainly made for great mental pomp and spectacle to read about!  It certainly SOUNDS like something that would true of British law.

The title of this book is hilariously apt, because Lord Peter and his sidekick, Inspector Parker, took forever to find out what actually happened, thanks to the myriad dead-end "leads" provided by an enormous collection of completely useless "witnesses".  Frustrating for our heroes, no doubt, but quite fun to read!

Too Much Book, Not Enough Blog, or Review of "Whose Body?"

Have you ever found yourself so engrossed in books that it was difficult for you to take a break from READING them long enough to BLOG about them?  That's the state of distraction I've been in the past few weeks.  I've just been DEVOURING books like a starving man who has stumbled upon a smorgasbord.  Huge, non-fiction tomes, tiny little novels, all have been gobbled up lately into the swirling vortex that is my new-found reading appetite.  I'm already over 30% finished with my Goodreads goal for the year, despite the fact that it's only March, and my Goodreads "currently reading" shelf is displaying four books at the moment.  Don't ask me what happened; I've always been an avid reader, but suddenly, I simply cannot get enough of the written word.

ANYWAY, the fact that I've been reading a non-fiction trilogy lately, the last two volumes of which are each over 900 pages long, has slowed me down enough that I can breathe for a minute and continue chipping away at my reviewing backlog.  Thus, on with a review, what, what?

Whose Body?

by Dorothy L. Sayers

 I really enjoyed this mystery novel, the first in the "Lord Peter Wimsey" series, though the jury was out for most of it on whether I liked Lord Peter himself (and therefore the whole book) or not.  He's one of the first of what became a very familiar pattern--the rich young English nobleman who makes a hobby of investigating crime and gets away with it because of who he is and how powerful his family is.  His mother gets into the act as often as possible to keep her life from getting dull, and his older brother, the responsible one who inherited the family titles and estate, thoroughly disapproves of the whole business, to no avail whatsoever.

In this first novel, the case in hand quickly blossoms into two cases, one a missing business magnate and the other the random appearance of a naked corpse in someone's bathtub.  As usual, the police officer assigned to the corpse case is a complete imbecile, but unlike in all the Sherlock Holmes books, the cop's idiocy gets exposed before the end.  Meanwhile, another police officer, a friend of Lord Peter's, actually has a brain, and Lord Peter uses him as his side-kick/lackey/Watson.

Wimsey himself is very aptly named, if his conversation is anything to go by.  He's so full of random quotations that he's barely intelligible at times, speaks with a rather annoying drawl, and really did not make a favorable impression on me at all until he started demonstrating post-World War I "shell shock" (PTSD).  That factor humanized him in a very dramatic and effective way.  It didn't occur until about 2/3 of the way through the book, and it wasn't until then that I was truly hooked.  Fortunately, I got invested in the next in the series much more quickly (as future reviews will demonstrate).

Review of "Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging"

HAVE I MENTIONED THAT I LOVE ALL THINGS BRITISH?!?!

Yeah, I know, I've only mentioned this a couple of thousand times, and those of you who have known me personally for any length of time have no doubt heard a couple of MILLION times.  So all the Britishisms in this book only made me love it all the more.  Indeed, I would never have picked up this YA novel in the first place if it hadn't been for the title.  For those who may not know, "snogging" is the British equivalent of "making out".  Now, armed with that information, you must admit that this is a pretty hilarious title.

Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging

by Louise Rennison

To be perfectly honest, this book is mostly made up of absolutely mindless, rubbishy fluff.  If you're in pursuit of high art in literature, keep looking.  BUT, if you're searching for an irreverent, hilarious read, you could do much worse.

This whole series strongly resembles The Princess Diaries, but without the completely improbably element of royalty.  However, there is a hidden undercurrent that reveals quite a bit about how the teenage psyche works, or at least how an adult author remembers it working for her.  I feel sure it was this aspect of the book that got it nominated for a YA literary award.  To be perfectly honest, the reader in me laughed my ass off at this book, while my inner mother of a SuperToddler kept thinking, "Oh, dear Lord, how will I EVER deal with raising a teenager?!"

Georgia Nicolson is enrolled in a middle-class British public girls' school (that means a private school, if you're American), trying to survive her teachers, her own confusion about hormones and sex, and the possibility that her whole family might have to emigrate to New Zealand so her father can find work.  Meanwhile, she's wondering if the guy of her dreams really likes her, and how to keep her friends from driving her slowly insane.

In short, this book is utter foolishness, but it's an awful lot of fun.

No "Blah" Like the Present, and a Resulting Review

I am suffering from the "blah"s after a long, exhausting day of SuperToddler SuperTerribleTwos.  To be perfectly honest, trying to catch up on my enormous backlog of book reviews doesn't sound like the most exciting way to overcome these Mommy Blues, but there it is--some people feel compelled to eat chocolate, I get overwhelming drives to write.  Notice I didn't say "an overwhelming DESIRE to write".  Sometimes, I write even when I really don't want to.  It's like my brain gets taken over by little hobgoblins with quills and parchment in their hands or something, and I simply must write.

So, what say we review one of those books that I've been putting off too long while the goblins are hammering away in my head?

A Review of the Medieval Poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, composed by some unknown medieval Englishman who thought that King Arthur, if he ever existed, was a fellow Englishman, instead of a Welsh Celt, by JNCL

Okay, confession time (and a bit of a mini-spoiler, but only a very little one).  For years, whenever I heard the title of this book, I always assumed that the phrase "green knight" refered to the coat of arms of the knight in question.  I thought his shield must be predominantly green, and thus his tunic and his horse's caparison would be, as well.  "Huh?"  Right.  Let me give you a picture of a "caparison," so you'll know what the Hell I'm talking about. 

See how the horse is completely covered in a draping cloth that has his rider's coat of arms worked on it?  That's a caparison.  (Triple word score with this picture, actually, because it also shows you what a coat of arms is, and how both horse and knight wore pictures of the arms into battle, or at least, into tournaments.)  Now you can see why I used to think that the knight was just called "green" because he was probably wearing a lot of green, and would just have appeared green all over.  NOPE.  I was wrong.  The knight who ends up challenging the brave Sir Gawain to a duel of sorts is ACTUALLY GREEN.  Green as lettuce.  His hair is green.  His beard is green.  His skin, and his horse's skin, are green.  Completely green horse, mane, tail and all.

This medieval romance has many of the expected elements of the French, courtly, chivalric romances, clearly reflecting the Anglo-Norman society that developed in England after the Norman Conquest and its obsession with Arthurian legends.  The primary enjoyment I get out of reading books like this is what they reveal about the culture that produced them.  I find it fascinating to discover what such a culture's ideals were, what they thought SHOULD HAVE mattered to them, and even more fun to find out what ACTUALLY mattered to them instead!  There are more column inches of text devoted to butchering fresh hunting kills in this book than to any other single subject, despite all the talk of Marian religious devotion and chivalric knightly behavior.  Sir Gawain might be brave, bold and virtuous, but it's clear that the poet is REALLY impressed by the guy who brings home the venison.

Anyway, if you like Arthurian romance, you should definitely look up this one.  And if you want to make both seem even much funnier, read this book and then immediately afterwards watch "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."  You may need an oxygen mask to help you recover!

Review of "Tutankhamun"

Tutankhamun

by Demi

This is a picture book (though that's a little like saying a Stradivarius is a "fiddle"), so it may seem odd to some of you that I have chosen to review it.  However, all of Demi's books are so gorgeous, and this one in particular so breathtaking, that I had to share it with you, and draw your attention to her work if you're not yet familiar with her.  Visually, her books are simply transcendent, like slipping into the best humanity's dreams have ever achieved.

Demi takes her research very seriously, another thing I greatly admire about her, so her copy that accompanies the illustrations reflects the best that current scholarship on the subject has to offer. 

"Can anyone spot the defect in this plan?"

Yes, that's right.  Demi's books occasionally become dated as scholarship continues to develop, and this one is the latest victim, since our beloved Zahi Hawass revealed more of Tutankhamun's story.  Still, I just find it impressive that Demi gave her bibliography.  And it included some of the biggest names in Egyptology.  In a "picture book".  Tell me you don't find that impressive.

For those who know anything about Egyptian art and language, I must warn you that a few of Demi's artistic choices, made no doubt for stylistic reasons, accidentally made someone or something say something she probably didn't intend them to.  But it's a flaw most people would probably never notice, and it's just so gorgeous that it hardly matters.  If you like Egyptology, history, or even just shiny things, you must give this book a flick through.

Review of "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children"

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

by Ransom Riggs

I must say, peculiar is certainly the word.  This book is weird, but in a kind of freaky, hair-raising, delicious way.

Jacob grew up hearing tales from his grandfather that seemed full of miracles and magic.  As a small child, the boy loved the stories, but as he grew older, he began to realize that the details could not possibly be true.  Despite his grandfather's bizarre and fascinating photographs, no one could do the things Grandfather Abraham described his childhood friends doing.  When Abraham unexpectedly died under suspicious circumstances, Jacob had to set off on a journey to find out what, if anything, lay behind his grandfather's seemingly ridiculous but innocuous accounts.

Certain aspects of this book's plot were weak, or not sufficiently fleshed out, and I found the ending quite unsatisfying, but not that surprising.  Based on the ending's structure, I'll be very surprised if this doesn't become a series of books, which hopefully will resolve any such dissatisfaction.  The simple fact is, this strange and fascinating little book kept me so intrigued that I finished it very quickly.  It may not be perfect, but it's an awfully good read.  Be forewarned--it's a little creepy.  A dark and stormy night may not be the best time to start this one.  But if you like creepy, you're goint to love it.

Review of "The Magic Room"

First off, I would like to thank BlogHer and the Penguin Group for allowing me to be a part of the blog tour for this very enjoyable book.  I was given a free ARC of The Magic Room by Jeffrey Zaslow, and a small monetary compensation for the time I invested in reading and reviewing the work.  However, if you know my blog at all, you know I pull no punches, so if I say I enjoyed the book, I did.  My reviews are not for sale.

In a bridal shop that is virtually the only remaining industry in its small mid-Western town, there is a room with soft lighting, deep, footstep-hushing carpet, and a pedestal.  Women step onto that pedestal as prospective brides hoping for something extraordinary.  They leave it, usually in tears, as brides who have found "the dress."  Jeffrey Zaslow takes us on that journey not just with one, but through the true and sometimes heart-rending stories of numerous brides in search of their dreams.  As we quickly learn, in many ways the dress is just the final symbol of that complete fairytale ending that all brides hope for and some never find.

There are stories in The Magic Room of women from so many different ages and walks of life that any reader is bound to identify with one of them.  Yes, I do mean any reader, because men are as integral a part of each of these stories as the blushing brides.  Loving fathers, supportive brothers, husbands amazing or alcoholic--virtually every type of man is present in the interwoven tales, as well.  Moreover, Zaslow has grasped what the dress hunt means to women in a way that may clear up some of the mystery for any man willing to read this book.

Only one aspect of the book requires some advance notice.  Many of these stories are full of very gritty realism.  There is little in the work that the conservative reader would find offensive, but an account in which an individual is gravely injured may prove overpowering to some, as the author describes the person's wounds in gruesome detail.  There was nothing gratuitous about Zaslow's handling of the event; it was a true story, and only with such grim specifics could Zaslow give the reader a complete picture of what the character was facing.  Still, anyone who faints easily may wish to skim those few pages.  I honestly nearly lost consciousness myself.

Leaving aside those of us who can never look at the fake blood on medical dramas, however, this was a genuinely interesting and heartwarming read.  I quickly grew to care about each of Jeffrey Zaslow's subjects, felt that he had sketched each of them as a fully-fledged individual in a way that kept me reading their personal sagas and cheering them on.  The Magic Room reaches below the exterior, the potentially frivolous elements of wedding plans, and leaves us with a deeper examination of why these things matter to us.  I would recommend it to anyone who is in any way connected to an upcoming wedding, to anybody who enjoys a good romance, and for all those who just appreciate a well-written, entertaining book in which they might learn something.

Review of "The Cricket on the Hearth"

The Cricket on the Hearth

by Charles Dickens

This is the third and final Dickens Christmas Book that I read this Christmas season, which means I have finished the Christmas Spirit Challenge!  Hurray!  Yes, well, I'll try to compose myself now and write a dignified review of the book.

Those of you who have read my reviews of A Christmas Carol and The Chimes know that Mr. Dickens' Christmas works are kind of a mixed bag, but I enjoyed this one quite a bit.  The stars of our show are a married couple who are a sort of May-December romance.  They are not wealthy, but they have a cozy home, they are very kind, and they have the obligatory adorable baby, and a daft teenaged nursemaid who is definitely the comic relief.  Naturally, the plot develops around the much ado about nothing that always threatens such blissful domestic tranquility in these tales.  Having finally read this, I understand much better the origin of many Christmas cliches, especially the character of the villainous toymaker.  I don't know if that one was already old news in Dickens' time, or if we got that strange archetype from him, but either way, his version is pretty entertaining.

Unlike the other two Christmas Books, the supernatural element, though definitely present, is not quite as strong in this one.  Let's just say that of the three, this is the only one in which the "miraculous" elements could easily have just been the good agency of the hero's own mind.  With a surprise ending that I think must have inspired O'Henry, The Cricket on the Hearth is a sweet enjoyable read that ends on an unexpectedly fun note.

Review of "Red Land, Black Land"

Red Land, Black Land

by Barbara Mertz (aka Elizabeth Peters aka Barbara Michaels)

Yes, I finally finished this book!  After some five years.  And it did NOT "go gently into that good night," let me tell you.  Don't get me wrong; I really enjoyed this book.  I just mean that Red Land, Black Land makes you fight for it every sentence of the way; this book is not fluff, and your attention can't waver if you want to keep up with what's going on.

I love Barbara Mertz, and have ever since I stumbled upon my first Amelia Peabody mystery novel.  Murder mysteries set during the dawn of European Egyptology, written by an actual modern Egyptologist!  Forget "What's not to love?"  We can now move straight to "I can die happy!"  So when I discovered that my favorite sleuth-maker had written a duo of non-fiction Egyptology books, I had to own and read them.  I flew through Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs, as I imagine most readers did; it's an unrepentant orgy of all things pharaonic and monumental that still exist of ancient Egypt, all those things that stand out as most flashy and memorable in peoples' minds.  Red Land, Black Land is sort of the antidote to all that, covering the little we can reliably say we know about every aspect of the average ancient Egyptian's life.

This book really does have a very slow start, and I'm not surprised that it took me a couple of tries to get into it.  It's definitely worth it, though; even the beginning material is interesting--if you like Egyptology, anyway--it just feels rather haphazardly arranged, which is why it took me a little while to settle in to Mertz' style of organizing her topics.  It's a riveting read, once you're into it, though, and well-illustrated with line drawings of Egyptian art.  The author makes no secret of the fact that she doesn't know the definitive answers to a number of questions laymen often ask.  Indeed, she reveals that NO Egyptologist can answer all those questions; I don't doubt that some of her colleagues weren't too thrilled with her!  She baldly announces that most learned scholarly theories are at best just the considered guess of an intelligent person.  This is actually one of the most satisfying aspects of the book--Mertz' legendary caustic wit created some priceless one-liners here.

I've been a (decidedly amateur) armchair Egyptologist for years, so much of what Mertz had to say only built on things I've been reading about for years, or brought me up to date on theories that have changed or been rejected since I last read about them.  The only thing I wonder about this book is whether it would be that useful for the true beginner who knows nothing about the topic at all, but is just curious.  I think a little bit of previous background would be useful, though just reading the first of the pair of books before reading this one might be enough.  Barbara Mertz does an excellent job of avoiding overcomplication; Egyptology is just an inherently complex subject.

Review of "The Hound of the Baskervilles"

The Hound of the Baskervilles

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I'm just going to announce right up front that I really liked this book.  It wasn't the most earth-shattering book I've ever read or anything, but the chemistry between Holmes and Watson simply works, and apparently will never go out of style (at least until modern English evolves to the place that Victorian English becomes archaic).  So, to set the scene...Holmes and Watson are informed by a country doctor that a friend of his, Sir Charles Baskerville, has died under suspicious, maybe even otherworldly circumstances.  The doctor fears that Sir Charles' heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, may also be in danger.  Holmes and Watson have to unravel the sinister from the superstitious and figure out what the Hell is going on, which they eventually manage to do, of course, as always.

This may be a tiny bit of a spoiler--not much of one, though, I promise; I HATE real spoilers--but I have pretty well decided that I don't like my murder mysteries to contain epilogues.  This is the second mystery I've read lately that was really good right up to the epilogue, at which point it just felt anti-climactic, as if the author had felt like taking the easy way out at the last minute.  Conan Doyle's epilogue is pretty well-crafted, and fits in with the motif of demonstrating how Sherlock Holmes is ALWAYS in command of what happens during his investigations, so it doesn't have the smack of authorial laziness as strongly as many epilogues do.  Still, I wish he'd chosen a different way to wind up the action, which was quite thrilling and thoroughly satisfying--right up until the epilogue.

So, I really enjoyed the book, and that's not a big surprise, is it?  There's a reason Holmes and Watson have been popular for over 100 years and are still going strong.