Amysue's Read-o-rama

Knitting Rules!!!!

I was so thrilled to pick up The Yarn Harlot's new book , Knitting Rules:the Yarn Harlot unravels the mysteries of swatching, stashing, ribbing and rolling to free your inner knitter.  Really, what more do I need to add.  Her books are as informative, funny, refreshing and down to earth as her blog.  This is book 19.  Sure I just picked it up but no doubt I'll be finished by morning-tomorrow night at the latest!

18.

Diana Wynne Jones's Unexpected Magic, a collection of short works.  Delightful of course.  DWJ's writing is always wonderful and the worlds she creates always comelling and complete.  I plan to reread the Chrestomanci novels sometime this year.  I'm off to a conference so not  much to write here, but will go on more about my love for her writing later in the year.

17

Micah, the new pb from Laurell Hamilton was a lightening fast read.  Not surprising as the new Anita Blake novel (hard bound) is due out in a  month or two and this was just released, and is essentially a longish short story with no real plot.   Well, OK there is a plot.  Anita and Micah (one among many of her boyfriends and a were leopard) ended up traveling to New York alone and stay at a fancy hotel and have really hot sex (oh and raise a zombie for a court case, but that's just an excuse for being alone in a hotel and having really, really hot sex).  Look, I'm not complaining.  I like Micah.  Still, a bit thin for eight bucks.  On the other hand the sex is really great.

Matty Groves.

This traditional ballad is one of my favorites (especialy the Fairport Convention version, as sung by Sandy Denny) so how could I turn away from a book by the same name?  The Haunted Ballad series of mysteries by Deborah Grabien is one I had not heard of until I stumbled over this book on the new titles shelf at my public library.  It was a wonderful cozy escape into the UK, folk music and a ghost story-albeit with some gaps in the plot, but the atmosphere was so soothing that I didn't care.  I'll be looking to read the others in this series as soon as my library can find them for me!

10 weeks and 15 books!

I finished the PostSecret book.  Post Secret is one of my favorite regular stops on the internet expressway.  The concept is so simple-create and mail in an anonymous post card telling a secret you have never told anyone.  Many find it cathartic to release these secrets and also to read them.  Many of the cards themselves are works of art.

This is a card in from the most current posting on the website. There is a poignancy to many of the cards, but not all are negative. One that stayed with me (it's in the book) is simple drawings of hearts with words repeated all around the borders (joy,love etc.) and around the hearts.  There is the declaration that the writer's husband is the first man who has never hit or abused her and the little words around the hearts declare , joyfully, over and over "and he never will!".

I often find myself wondering what I would send to the PostSecret address if I were ever so inclined.  One problem is that I tend to not harbor a lot of absolute secrets.  Another is that those secrets that I might have hidden are in many ways hidden from myself.

Many have written in to the website's owner and told him how they have created cards and instead of sending them to him sent them or gave them to the people in their lives who needed to see them.  Often these stories have good outcomes.

The best thing about the site and perusing the cards published in the book is seeing that many of the things we all feel are shared by others.  Once again confirming  Spider Robinson's wonderful words: "Shared pain is lessened,shared joy is increased-thus do we refute entropy."

I am no book reviewer.

It's such hard work.  Luckily in the case of my 14th book of the year, Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson, Bookslut does it for me.  I will say this though, these days I rarely read so called "hard" science fiction.  When I do it's often a chore or feels like I'm back in school with maybe a little bit of plot and character thrown in.  I heard so many great things about this novel that I decided to give it a try and upon starting it literally could not put it down until I finished.  The science is wonderful, the characters mean something and best of all it has a well thought out ending.  Thank you Robert Charles Wilson for restoring my faith in the thought provoking, mind blowing possibilities the genre is capable of at it's best!

10,11 and just about 12 (and almost forgot 13)...

Loved, loved Kelly Link's, Magic for Beginners. Every single story is exquisite and thought provoking.  I have always loved magical realism (note to self, time to reread Moacyr Scliar's Centaur in the Garden) and these stories drift in, out and around our reality in ways that are disturbing and force me to think hard about my perceptions and assumptions about the world.

I also read a fun memoir by Amy Kraus Rosenthal, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.  I think that despite being 4 years older, in some ways we were separated at birth.  Some of her entries could have been written by me, verbatim, not a thing changed.  Funny.  Insightful.  Yummy.  Read it.

And I am just about finished with Myla Goldberg's Wickett's Remedy.  It is a very sweet and engaging story about the devastation the influenza epidemic in the early part of the 20th century caused families and the country (looking at South Boston in particular).  It has piqued my interest in the causes and effects of that epidemic and I am going to the library to get some non fiction books that deal with this subject.

Happy reading!

Stop the presses!  I also read Tamora Pierce's , The Will of the Empress.  In just about one sitting.  Loved getting to reconnect with the characters again, and all in all a fun fantasy (I love me my genre fiction!)