skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven is really good. It's the story of a group of characters connected by the most unusual and distressing of circumstances. One of the main characters is only featured for a minute at the beginning of the story, so it's fascinating to me that connections to his life might have been what the story was about were it not set in such an unusual time. I was thinking it's science fiction, but on second thought there is no science fiction here at all. Read it and decide for yourself.
Loving Amy A Mother's Story by Janis Winehouse - Amy Winehouse was like this flash of music and voice and style - here and gone. But to her family, she was a daughter, granddaughter, sister and cousin. Wayward and wary of authority on the outside, so that she wouldn't have to reveal whatever she was feeling on the inside. What did come out in her music was beautiful and powerful. This biographical memoir fills in some of the blanks about her life. I know my book reviews aren't particularly inspired today, especially since I liked both books. I'm still preoccupied with getting things in order, though. I participated in a neighborhood yard sale on Saturday and moved a lot of stuff out of here. What didn't sell isn't going back in the cupboards, either. Half of it is packed for Goodwill in the car. The other half is annoyingly gracing the dining room table while it waits for me to list it on Craigslist or one of the Facebook virtual yard sales. I also started playing Pokemon Go which is fun and a huge escape from the concerns of life on any given day. It's fun to be outside walking around with a goal, and when I find a particularly darling Pokemon, it's even more fun. I like searching for things to collect, and the Pokemon don't take up any room! (Just time.) Today I'm going to clear off the dining room table if it's the last thing I do. And it might be.
Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik - I kept seeing this title pop up in the various places I see titles pop up, and was intrigued until I picked up the book at the library and saw that it was in the shape of the casual beach reading paperbacks I used to read in the 1990s. Complete with super small print. I put on my reading glasses and decided to dig in. No wonder it was popping up on book lists. Angry Housewives is about a group of neighbors who form a book club and sisterhood, and the story follows their lives for 30 years. Faith, Audrey, Kari, Slip, Merit, and then Grant are all of us. They define friendship, love, loyalty and sisterhood. What could be more beautiful?
Summer is here! The past two days were super hot and sunny and Peter helped me to open up our screened porch. A few years ago I bought new fabric with which to cover the chair cushions, and yesterday I started the project. The first two are finished and look great. At some point I'd cut into the main fabric, so I have to do a little patching and piecing to get the third cushion finished, but all in all I'm happy with the fabric which is a black background with colorful parrots as the print. I have solid fabrics in three of the colors from the print with which to make coordinating pillows. By finally using this fabric, I've freed up some shelf space in one of the fabric closets, so some of the fabric that is here and there (on the bed and nightstand in the guest room) can now be put away. As soon as I've finished, I'll post pictures of my happy little porch.
