At last!

I got Laurie R. King's new Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes mystery, A Garment of Shadows, from the library this morning!  Started reading as soon as I got in the car, and was very annoyed that we got home so quickly.

I'd write more, but I want to go read :-D

Early Christmas for Me

I got an early Christmas present in the mail this weekend:  two Christmas albums by the Piano Guys musicians, Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson.  Because Cowboy doesn't like listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving (he says he's keeping me honest, or some such fiddle-faddle), I only listened to one song from each of them when they arrived, to make sure they're not defective.  You can buy these as CDs or mp3 albums here on their website.

Here's the song I listened to off Steven Sharp Nelson's album, just in case you're in a clandestine Christmas mood too:



"The Carol of the Bells" has been one of my absolute favorite Christmas songs since I was eleven.  It's featured in the McGee & Me movie 'Twas the Fight Before Christmas, which I first saw at my best friend Christy's birthday party, and which is still my favorite McGee & Me movie.  It's originally a Ukrainian song, and I got to sing it in Ukraine with my future in-laws when Cowboy and I spent Christmas there when we were dating :-D

I also got a wristband, which turns out to be a fabulous teething toy!

"Steal Like an Artist" by Austin Kleon

This is a quirky, fun, inspiring little book.  I'm going to try to remember to read it whenever my muses are absent, my creative well has run dry, and I'm convinced I'll never write another coherent sentence -- much less an interesting one -- ever again.  It's a very quick read, with more than half of the 150ish pages containing very little text.  You could read it in one sitting, unless you have three small children.  Then it will probably take you a couple days, like it did me.

The subtitle of the book is "10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative," though I have to admit I'd read some of his tips elsewhere.  The main idea is that, like the writer of Ecclesiastes told us so long ago, there is nothing new under the sun.  Everyone is just reworking the same ideas in their own way.  And so Kleon suggests that you do things like make lists of who inspires you, then find ways to combine the ideas they give you into some new projects of your own.

My favorite section is Chapter 3:  Write the Book You Want to Read.  It's very short, but it made me go, "Okay, yeah, I'm going to pay no attention to what's cool in fiction right now, I'm going to write the book I want to read."  Which is a western, because I love westerns, and who cares if they're what people are into right now, they're what I'm into, and I'm the one putting in all the work.  So there :-)

Anyway, you can buy this book for under $10.  If you want to know a bit more about it, go to the author's site here.  I totally recommend this book not just for writers, but for anyone doing creative work who needs a little boost now and then.

Three Charming Blogs

Today I'm going to natter on a bit about three blogs I've been reading for a while now.  They're all written by teens, intriguingly, and all three informative and thought-provoking.  I'm posting about them in the order I started reading them, because they have to go in some sort of order, and as I don't like one better than the other, chronological it is.

Classic Forever is written by Millie, who's now in college, though when I started reading this blog, she was in high school.  This blog is primarily about classic movies and TV shows, and the actors and actresses who star in them.  Millie is also a Bobby Darin fan, which will forever endear her -- and this blog -- to me.  She writes with such enthusiasm and joy that I can't help but want to watch whatever movie or show she's glowing about.

Lit Lovers & Corset Laces is written by Ari, a high school student with some astoundingly deep insights into the books she devours.  We share a love of Jane Eyre and Jane Austen, which is how she found my blog and I found hers.  I wish my own book reviews were half so detailed as hers.  She also likes to watch movie versions of classic books and blog about what she thinks they got right, and what she thinks they got oh-so-very wrong.

Austenitis is written by Charity, a home schooled teen who, obviously, is also a Jane Austen afficianado.  She blogs about old and new books and movies, so kind of a mix of the other two blogs.  I've only been reading her blog for a couple months, and at first, I thought she was at least my age, if not older!  Finally got around to reading her bio one day and discovered that, nope, she's actually an articulate young woman.  I love that she does ratings for the books and movies she reviews, and also clues me in to any objectionable content.  Of the three, Charity reminds me most of a slightly younger me :-)

Thank you, Millie, Ari, and Charity, for providing me with so many hours of entertainment and enlightenment!  I look forward to reading many more of your posts for a long time to come.

"Jane Austen Made Me Do It" edited by Laurel Ann Nattress

A couple months ago, I started reading a blog called AustenProse, written by Laurel Ann Nattress.  As you might imagine from the title, a lot of the posts have to do with Jane Austen, and they're intelligent and informative, not to mention enjoyable, which is why I "followed" it after reading about three posts.  Last month, Ms. Nattress held a series of giveaways for this book, which she edited.  I was quite excited, as I'd already read a review of this book that made me want to read it, but I hadn't managed to get it from the library yet.  So I entered a couple of the giveaway drawings, and I won one!  How could this story end even more perfectly?  My copy (autographed, I might add, by Ms. Nattress) arrived just in time for me take it on our vacation.

I'm so glad it did, because these short stories provided a welcome break from the other two books I had along, a series of literary analyses of famous novels written by women and a history of the U.S. Marshals.  A little Austenian fiction was a treat between doses of the other two books.

Like every anthology of this sort, some of the stories pleased me more than others.  There are purely romantic stories, humorous stories, adventurous stories.  There are additional scenes for Austen's own books.  There are several ghost stories, two epistolary tales, and one dream.  Most of the stories take place either in the present or in Austen's own time, but one takes place in the 1960s.  You can go here for a complete list of the stories and a synopsis of each.  I'll just highlight a few I especially like.

"The Chase" by Carrie Bebris.  Hands-down my favorite story!  It chronicles an actual adventure of Jane Austen's brother, Frank, while he's captaining the H.M.S. Petterel and engaging Napoleon's naval forces.  It made me want to dust off my Patrick O'Brian books and Horatio Hornblower movies.

"When Only a Darcy Will Do" by Beth Patillo.  A university student tries to earn a bit of money leading her own tours of London's Jane Austen sites.  She encounters a man dressed in period clothes and calling himself Mr. Darcy, and her life will never be the same.  If all romance novels were like this story, I would read them.

"What Would Austen Do?" by Jane Rubino and Caitlen Rubino-Bradway.  A bored fifteen-year-old boy mistakenly signs up to learn how to dance Jane Austen-era dances.  He ends up meeting a girl, reading Austen's novels, and learning how to cope better with high school.  The notes at the end say the authors are considering expanding this into a novel, and I hope they do, because I want to read it.

"Nothing Less Than Fairy-land" by Monica Fairview.  Emma and George Knightley return from their honeymoon and begin moving his things into Hartfield, but Mr. Woodhouse makes it as difficult as you might imagine.  Emma comes up with a suitable and logical solution.  I probably liked this especially well because I finished reading Emma so recently, and because it gives a happy ending to a character I've always felt sorry for.

"Mr. Bennet Meets His Match" by Amanda Grange.  Mr. Bennet reminisces about his youth and why marrying Miss Jane Gardiner seemed like a good idea at the time.  Because I spent a great chunk of Pride and Prejudice wondering why on earth he married her, I found this story the most satisfying of all the new-scene stories.

Just like when I read A Study in Sherlock earlier this year, I'm inspired to seek out the works of several of these new-to-me authors and see how I like their other stories.  And because Stephanie Barron has a story included here ("Jane and the Gentleman Rogue"), I'm eager to read another of her Jane Austen Mysteries too.

"Jane and the Man of the Cloth" by Stephanie Barron

At first, I was afraid I would be disappointed by this book.  For the first few chapters, it felt like the plot was too obvious -- clearly, the brusque, roguish Mr. Sidmouth was the smuggler everyone was talking about.  Then the plot seemed like it was going to follow a bit of Pride and Prejudice, with Captain Fielding playing Wickham to Mr. Sidmouth's Darcy.

But then, about 5 or 6 chapters in, all of that was clearly not the point at all anymore, and I got sucked in.  A Byronic hero, a bit of swash and buckle, and a plot so tangled I never did figure it out before I was supposed to -- I loved it!  Much more so than its predecessor, Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor. That was fun, but this is delightful.

This fictional Jane Austen is presented as a resourceful, bold, and spirited woman of twenty-nine.  I should like to be friends with her, very much.  There are many footnotes that bring in things from the real Jane Austen's letters or the society she lived in, which makes this book sound dull (footnotes being the thing of college research papers, after all), but it's anything but dull.  Even if the main character wasn't supposed to be Jane Austen, I would still have enjoyed this book.

EDIT:  I forgot to add my favorite parts!  Here they be:

Particularly Good Bits

And so I cross the room to peer out at the unknown, stretching before me like all the days I have yet to live; and can discern nothing beyond my own wavering reflection in the window's glass.

The day broke quite stormy, as though all the seacoast mourned the Captain's passing; and the inmates if Wings cottage lay abed, hugging their dreams close against the rawness of the day.

Full many a midnight thought I have entertained with alacrity, only to reject it over my breakfast chocolate as excessively disordered.

The Edge of the Precipice

Well, I've done it.  I've started another blog.

Now that you've finished rolling your eyes, I'll remind you that I mentioned earlier this year that I'd like to have a blog where I could collect all my book reviews.  I just couldn't think of a blog name I really liked that wasn't already taken.  I really wanted to call it "Words, Words, Words," after a line in Hamlet, but that -- and every variation I could think of -- was taken.

But I've thought of a blog title I love!  The Edge of the Precipice.  It's from an F. Scott Fitzgerald quotation:  "Draw your chair up close to the edge of the precipice and I'll tell you a story."  I've loved that quotation for years, and it suddenly popped into my head the other day as being a great name for my book review blog.  I hastened to my computer, and sure enough, it was still available, so I nabbed it.

Anyway, I'm actually re-posting all my book reviews from the past 8 years on that blog.  All the ones from this blog and my other two blogs.  Every single one.  Which is going to take me a while, but once I'm done, I'll start posting my new reviews there too.  I'll try to finish reviewing Jane Austen's novels here, just for completeness, but those will get posted over there too.  And eventually, all my book reviews will go there.  So go follow that blog if you want to keep reading those.

But I'm not closing down this blog, I promise.