A Work in Progress

New Bas Bleu Offerings

I know I have often mentioned the Bas Bleu catalog here.  If you don't already receive this in the mail, you really must go to their website and request their catalog!  They are my favorite mail order bookstore (now that The Common Reader is very sadly defunct).  It is a fun little glossy magazine with books, book reviews by readers, and other reading paraphernalia to entice you.  I got mine earlier in the week, but have only now been able to sit down and really look through it.  I am always amazed that I can find something totally new in it! Since Bas Bleu is slightly off the beaten track, this is a great way to find new, interesting, (literary) and not already overly publicized books.  Here are a few that are on my wishlist: The Bibliophile's Dictionary: 2,054 Masterful Words and Phrases , Reading Women (a collection of women in art and photographs depicted reading), A Journey into Dorothy Parker's New York (I love books about literary New York), Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary: Or Why Can't Anybody Spell? , Death in the Garden (English crime novel set in 1925--must buy this one!), Bamboo Cutting Boards (what? you say...they look like books...fun.  So, I probably wouldn't buy them, but I like them anyway--more for the person who has everything), Outermost House (I keep looking at this one, I have to buy it sometime!), Nancy Drew Postcards (to go with my stationary), Some Danger Involved (another interesting looking mystery), For the Love of Libraries: A Book of Postcards (not sure what I would use these for since I am a terrible letter writer, but I want them anyway), Inflatable Solar System (okay, this is in the children's section, but I think they are cool and want them anyway), and finally I will leave you with something practical--I have a tin of these and they're great--Book Darts (I need the bigger tin though!). 

A Different Kind of Book

Next to reading, stitching is my favorite thing to do in my free time.  Once in a while I will show something I finish that I have stitched, but I thought I would share some interesting projects that I hope to undertake this year, and if you are a booklover, too, you might appreciate these!  On the left is a design called "Petit Carnet d'Ouvrages, Livre I".  I plan on starting this very soon.  It is an accordian style book that was inspired by old pattern books.  In addition to the front and back cover it has eight more "pages" of stitched alphabets, borders, and motifs.  It can be folded closed like a book and tied with a ribbon.  In the past stitchers had small paper booklets (Sajou) with these same kinds of contents that they would use for samplers or to monogram their linens, etc.  Actually if you can find these little Sajou now they are worth money!  Unfortunately I have none in my needlework collection.  The design on the right is another accordian style book of Quaker motifs.  This is just a modern design--I am not aware of any antique booklets of Quaker motifs. Quakers were also very big on stitching, and Quaker designs are very popular now amongst stitchers. 

This is an actual antique "souvenir" book in one designer's collection that dates from 1895.  Per the article in Samplers and Antique Needlework Quarterly, "souvenir, which means 'to remember' speaks to the Victorian craze for collecting, documenting, and showcasing everything from autographs to ferns to exotic baubles from foreign places." The cover of this original souvenir book is silk and the pages are canvas stitched with wool threads. 

This design has been reproduced for stitchers today to stitch.  Ellen Chester of With My Needle has charted this design using the original motifs.  She did make some changes including slightly different floss colors.  I think this is the coolest (stitched) book, and I hope to eventually stitch this one as well.  The first two are fairly small books, but this one is closer to the size of an actual book.  Perhaps these are not your standard kind of book, but I love all sorts of books, and these combine both my appreciation for books and my love of needlework!

Sword for Hire

Spain's Golden Age (the 17th-century) is the setting for Arturo Perez-Reverte's Alatriste novels.  I have read that there are five of them, and they are being translated into english.  Captain Alatriste is the first novel, narrated by Inigo Balboa.  Inigo is the son of Diego Alatriste's friend and compatriot who died in battle.  When Inigo is about 13 he is sent by his mother to act as page to Alatriste and he tells the stories of their adventures together (at times well into the future looking backwards with experience heavy on his shoulders).  In this first novel Alatriste is hired to Kill a pair of Englishmen--their true identities not at first revealed.  Alatriste's problems arise when he doesn't kill them much to the dismay of Italian Gualterio Malatesta, his co-assassin.  It is what happens afterwards that is the meat of the novel, so to speak.  I don't want to give away anymore details.  I read this without reading any reviews, and I am happy to have done so.  It was much more entertaining to have everything unfold before my eyes without any prior knowledge of the characters and their significance.

I did, however, go back and read the reviews to see if I was the only one to really enjoy this novel.  Library Journal had an interresting interview with the Perez-Reverte, who said, "Under the guise of action and thrusts, the Alatriste novels, pose very complex questions about the nature of man, about solitude, honor, cruelty, loyalty, life, and death.  I know I wanted an adventure story--something "swashbuckling".  I got that, but really there was more to the novel.  I really got a sense of what Spain in the 17th century must have been like.  I have read Perez-Reverte before, so I was not surprised that this was just as intelligent and well written as his other books.  I have to concur with the New York Times--"Equipped with a quick-witted, charismatic hero and much to provoke and goad him, Mr. Pérez-Reverte has the makings of a flamboyantly entertaining series. Captain Alatriste ends with a wicked flourish, an evil laugh and a strong likelihood that the best (happily for me!) is yet to come."  I am already debating whether to check out Purity of Blood now, or try and wait until the paperback edition is released and buy it later instead. 

At Loose Ends

Since I have managed to finish a few books in the last couple of weeks, I am faced with these piles on my night stand--yes, my "currently reading stacks" (I do realize my small problem of lack of self control when it comes to starting books...).  The problem (which is actually not really a problem) is deciding which book to concentrate on.  I am really in the mood for some good escapism at the moment.  The problem is too many good books to choose from--they all sound wonderful, but I am not far enough yet in any of them to be at the "totally sucked into the story" point.  Finally I decided that I have been ignoring my Modern Library list, so I have been reading The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles tonight.  Is the North African desert far enough away from my own reality?  Nearly.  It is always nice losing yourself in someone else's life.

The Ghost Orchid

You can count on certain things when it comes to novels by Carol Goodman. The protagonist will be a woman.  Quite often she is a writer or an artist.  The setting will be upstate New York.  There will be water involved and likely snow.  And along with the suspenseful theme there will be a romance involved as well.  This sounds pretty formulaic, and I guess Goodman's novels are somewhat formulaic, but I have read all (four) of them now.  Her latest is The Ghost Orchid, which I finished over the weekend.   I enjoyed it, but not as much as her earlier books (particularly The Lake of Dead Languages and The Seduction of Water).  The Ghost Orchid was really two stories, and each chapter goes back and forth in time between the two.  At first I found this distracting as just when I would get into one story, it would flip forward or backward in time.  Along with her usual suspense, this story involved the supernatural and a ghost story as well.  Actually there were many parallels between the stories, which were both set at Bosco--an artist's colony.  In 1893 Aurora and Milo Latham bring a medium to the estate to contact their three children who died of diptheria.  By the end of the story, Corinth Blackwell, the medium, and Tom Quinn her accomplice are gone and along with them their only surviving child.  Flash forward and enter Ellis Brooks who is writing a novel based on the events of that summer.  The further she gets into her novel the more she and the other Bosco residents believe something far more sinister happened at Bosco in 1893.  Well, you can imagine the rest.  While not quite as good as I had hoped, I still enjoyed it, and doubtless I will read Goodman's next novel as well.

Books to Learn From

I love craft books.  I love them even more when I have a 40% off coupon for Michaels and can buy them discounted, since they are not generally cheap!  Several years ago I took some quilting classes.  I have two quilt tops finished except for the actual quilting and I finished one table runner.  I have also started one quilt top, but it has been sitting in a bag looking rather forlorn as there are simply not enough hours in the day to get everything done that I want to get done!  Next to reading needlework is my favorite thing to do in my free time.  It is easier for me to work on smaller projects (like  my samplers) rather than a large quilt.  Lately my new interest has been in working with wool--particularly making penny rugs.  Honestly I have spent more time thinking about making them than actually doing it.  But as always my intentions are good--it's just that dang time thing again.  This book has a lovely penny rug design in it, which is what prompted me to buy the book.  Another thing to add to my ever growing list of things to do.  Needless to say, it is not often that I am ever bored!

A New Library Stack

Just like Iliana, I received a few emails this week letting me know books I had requested had arrived.  I know this is a common experience, but they always seem to come in at the same time.  I guess I need to approach my library requests differently.  Rather than sit down with a list and just add my name to the queue for each book, I should only request a few at a time.  Generally I will go into the library's online catalog when I see or read about something new.  I always think that since I am the 4th or 8th or 10th name on the list that I won't get it for a while.  However, that never seems to be the case!  So, I came home with a stack to add to the three I already have!!  I am working on The People's Act of Love as you know.  There are two new ones that I really want to read: The Fugitive Wife by Peter Brown (set in 1900s Alaska--a woman flees her abusive husband), Brookland by Emily Barton (I came very close to buying this one--"the remarkable story of a determined and intelligent woman in 18th century Brooklyn consumed by a vision of a bridge...), add to these A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel (I have heard too many good things about this author), What Caroline Knew by Caryn James, The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow, and Victorian London by Liza Picard.  I know I have said this before, but I really wish I could read faster...

Prodigious Imagination

'God was surely watching over you to bring you here," said Balashov.

'God didn't bring me here,' said Samarin.  'A man brought me here.  The man who is following me now.  The Mohican.  Have you heard his name?'

'No.  I mean, I know the novel, of course.'

'This Mohican is no older than you or me, and he has the respect of all the great thieves, from Odessa to Sakhalin.  They're afraid of him.  The Mohican climbs over bodies to get where he wants to go just as lightly as you're stepping on those sleepers there.  Even in prison, he was the freest man I ever met.  The ties that form at once between two people, whether they're brothers or complete strangers like us, don't exist for him.  He doesn't deal in honour, or duty, or obligation, or care.'

'And yet he took you with him when he escaped.'

'Yes.  He took me for food.  We ran in January, when there is nothing to eat in the Taiga, let alone the tundra, and the deer herders are too far south.  He took me with him intending to salughter, butcher and eat me, like a pig.'

'God have mercy on us.'

'What could be better than food that walks alongside you, carries your goods, and keeps you company until the day you eat it?'

A People's Act of Love by James Meek

A Few Good Links

In today's New York Times Book Review section there was an interesting article on  literary novels going straight to paper.  It appears that more literary novels or novels by lesser known authors don't seem to sell as well in cloth as say "knock-offs of The Da Vinci Code".  Humpf.  Actually I think I prefer to buy paperbacks to cloth anyway, as I can fit more of them on the bookshelves (well maybe not at present since all the shelves are full...).  Jhumpa Lahiri's novel, Interpreter of Maladies  (which is sitting high up on my TBR pile) was mentioned as an example of a "paperback original".  It is sad to think a novel that would later win the Pulitzer Prize was not deemed a good enough seller to be published in cloth.  Is this really any surprise though?

Thanks to Bookglutton I found this link to The Neglected Books Page.  Just think of all those forgotten books sitting on used bookstore bookshelves (or untouched for years on library shelves).  Sometimes I will buy a book even if it seems quite dated, just to get the feel of the period it was written.  Take for example my lovely copy of Pamela Moore's Chocolates for Breakfast.  Sadly(?) this is long out of print (originally published in 1956), but copies can be had for a mere pittance through Amazon's used books network.  Working in a library where there is constant weeding going on, I always feel bad for the cartloads of books that come down, which haven't been checked out in 30 years and are destined for the recycling bins!

Whenever I am looking for book news I always turn to Bookslut.  They do an exceptional job of gathering all the daily book news.  Everytime I stop by there I find something new and interesting.  They link to a great Salon review of The Amalgamation Polka by Stephen Wright, which I have sitting next to my bed and am looking forward to reading!  It also appears that the 2006 Tournament of Books has just started.  Of the 16 contenders I have only read three, and have one sitting (yes, you guessed it) on the TBR pile!  I am looking forward to seeing how Kazuo Ishiguro and Ali Smith do!  A literary sporting event right up my alley!

The Plot Thickens

You don't say "no" to The Church.  Especially in seventeenth-century Catholic Spain.

"I, " he said in his disagreeable voice, "am Fray Emilio Bocanegra, president of the Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition."

"With those words, an icy wind seemed to blow across the room.  The priest made clear to Diego Alatriste and the Italian, succinctly, menacingly, that he did not need a mask to hide his identity, or come to them like a thief in the night, because the power God had placed in his hands was sufficient to annihilate any enemy of the Holy Mother Church or His Catholic Majesty, the King of all the Spains.  That said, while his listeners swallowed nervously, he paused to assess the effect of his words, then continued in the same threatening tone."

"Yours are sinful, mercenary hands, stained with blood like your swords and consciences.  But the Omnipotent Heavenly Father writes straight with crooked lines."

--Captain Alatriste, by Arturo Perez-Reverte

(I wonder what just rewards await Fray Bocanegra in heaven...apparently only good ones for his "deeds" according to him.)