A classic. Everyone should read it, right? Honestly: it’s preachy, the problems are trite, the language annoying, and the characters unbelievable. Amazing what being an adult will do. That said, it is a wonderful life book. I wish I were as good of mom as Marmee. I wish the problems my girls faced were that trivial. I hope they grow up to be as good of girls as Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. In short, it’s a book about being happy. And we should all read that. In spite of the flaws, as seen from a modern perspective.

Addendum: Okay. I’ve sold the book short. It’s not that I didn’t like it. I did enjoy the first half; the original Little Women. And I do really like Jo. However, the second half of the book (the sequel, written after the first book did well) really grated on me. So, what do you say about a story that everyone loves, but just didn’t sit as well as you hoped it could?

I tried to read this one. I really did. It had a great first line: “‘Take my camel, dear,’ said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.” It was supposed to be “fantasy, farce, high comedy, lively travel material, delicious japes at many aspects of the frenzied world, and a succession of illuminating thoughts about love, sex, life, organized churches, and religion”.

It put me to sleep.

Not just once, mind you. Once would mean I just had a bad night, and need a few more hours sleep. But several times. Every time I picked up the book, I found myself nodding off. Even sentances like this: “Death is awful, and one hates to think about it, but I suppose after all those years of it the dead take it for granted” couldn’t keep me awake.

If someone with a higher ability to stay awake while reading profound books written in the 1950s cares to read this book, let me know how it goes.

I found this book through Four Obsessions, who found it through A Fuse #8 production, who declared it (back in February) to be the best children’s book of 2006. I’m not nearly as well-versed in children’s books as Fuse is (being a children’s librarian and all), but I do have to join in her enthusiasm for this book by Frances Hardinge. If all first books could be like this — shoot, if all books could be like this — the world would be a happy place.

A blurb about the story doesn’t do the book justice, but I’ll attempt it just the same. Mosca Mye, a 12-year-old girl, lives in the Fractured Realm with her aunt and uncle after her father’s death. She (accidentally) sets their mill on fire and heads out of town with Eponymous Clent, a poet, a cad, a shady but nice enough man. They head for Mandeloin, where they get involved in Nefarious Plots and have all sorts of Adventures. I know it doesn’t sound all that great. But, really it is.

Why? The words, for one. I loved the description of the relationship between Mosca and Saracen, Mosca’s pet goose whom no one else can get near:

However, Mosca and Saracen shared, if not a friendship, at least the
solidarity of the generally despised. Mosca assumed that Saracen had his
reasons for his persecution of terriers and his possessive love of the
malthouse roof. In turn, when Mosca had interrupted Saracen’s self-important
nightly patrol and scooped him up, Saracen had assumed that she, too, had
her reasons.

There are many wonderful little nuggets like that; it would take me too long to write them all. I loved that you didn’t quite know where everyone stood; even Mosca has questionable allegiances at times. There’s no clear-cut black and white. I loved the world which Hardinge created, with the Beloved and Birdcatchers and Sationers and Locksmiths all playing roles in this drama.

My only real complaint is the book cover Harper Collins chose for it. Across the front, there’s a banner: “Imagine a world in which all books have been BANNED!” Well, while not exactly untrue, it’s a bit misleading. In the Fractured Realm, the books aren’t banned, but rather heavily censored. In fact, that’s a major theme running through: what would happen in a world where the free exchange of ideas lead to violence? And then, when the people responsible for stopping the violence (in a violent manner), took it upon themselves to approve or disapprove of everything published? What kind of world would it become? There’s one quote from the head Staioner in Mandelion, talking to Mosca about her father:

“Your father had a brilliant mind — I have never known a keener. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to give the order for his books to be burned. ” He barked his laugh. “And the second hardest was persuading the Guild that they should not burn him as well as his books.”

It’s a good adventure and, in the end, a profound little book. Highly recommended.

This book by Jeffrey Steingarten, oddly enough, reminded me of people as I read it. It reminded me of my father (not exactly someone who pops into mind when reading a book about food), because of the very excellent chapter on ketchup (and I think my dad should read this book, if only for the chapter on ketchup). It also reminded me of hubby’s friends Nick and Scott, because Steingarten is, for better or for worse, as thoroughly obsessive about food as those two. And, I would probably be very self-conscious about cooking for them (though I think I’ve actually cooked for Scott, once, and if I remember right, he put Worcestershire sauce on the hamburger).

Anyway, this book is a collection of Steingarten’s food reviews/essays that he wrote for Vogue back in the early 90s. Some of them are excellent, like the aforementioned ketchup one. I’ve learned more than I need to know about mashing potatoes, vegetables (and how they’re out to kill us), fruit, bread, fruitcake (from his relatives in Salt Lake City, yes they’re Mormon), cooking from the back of the box, diets, wagyu beef…

I admit, I didn’t read the book cover to cover; after getting about halfway through, I got fed up and skipped around the rest of the book reading the chapters that interested me. But, I think this book is meant to be read like that. Or, at the very least, I didn’t lose anything by reading it that way. At any rate, it’s a bit of obsessive food fun. And I do like that.