Marigold loves Fancy Nancy. I love The Last Unicorn. Tow Hearts is a sequel to it? I read one book by him about spirits in a graveyard that didn't do much for me, but I also really liked his Folk of The Air, or something like that.

isn't quite a book of its own. More like a novella, a la breakfast at tiffany's.

I found it in the back of a 2006/2007 edition of "The Last Unicorn." Apparently, Peter Beagle wrote it after his editor/friend/someone annoucned that he was going to be writing something set in the world of the Last Unicorn. He not only set it in that world, but re-introduced all the main characters from the book.

Like I said, it's a beautiful piece of writing and it stayed with me long after I put the book back on its shelf.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

Then I must find it.

he's writing a sequel to "Two Hearts." I've searched and searched on-line, but apparently it's not done/out yet.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

glad you liked the latest Tenacious!

I read Casa Azul and was disappointed by it. Then again, I'm much more interested in Kahlo than I am in Trotsky.

What Neil Gaiman book are you going to be reading in the not-too-distant future?

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

well, i've read american gods and that's on the list as a re-read, but i'm also looking to read star dust. i started the movie once tho i didn't get to finish it or get too into it, cuz of nicolai, but i didn't kno it was based on a book by gaiman. i'm not too far into casa azul, but i like the story and structure so far, tho i'm also finding that it's hard to get into.

I just finished Cooking For Madam, by the woman who cooked for Jackie Kennedy Onassis for years. There are some neat recipes, and I was not exactly expecting socially conscious writing. I have to admit, though, that I was put off by the really casual acceptance of being able to have four or five kinds of cake and dessert for a birthday, or being able to bring special food from one house to another because "you can't get such good food there."

There was a certain amount of "gee, see how just-folks the Kennedy/Onassis family was," but it clashes pretty hard with the casual privilege. A passing reference to not liking visiting Haiti because "the poverty upset me," really got me going -- I bet the poverty upsets the residents of Haiti, too, but they can't exactly climb back on board the yacht and go back to eating goose liver pate.

I'm re-reading Minding the Body, which is a pretty good round-up of women's writing about their bodies and how social and personal views of the physical affect/have affected them. I bounce between thinking, Yes, that really sums it up, I get that, and Gee, I never thought of that.

Tomorrow we're going to the bookstore and everybody is getting something to read on vacation. (I prefer not to take library books on vacation, where they can get lost and damaged; paperbacks cost less than replacing library books.) I swear I'd get The Kama Sutra -- I've been madly curious for years -- if it weren't for the fact that I'm going to be vacationing with my parents. My father might be amused, and would certainly not comment in any case, but I suspect my mother would be, if not shocked, at least taken aback. No point in creating potential friction with someone I'm going to be spending ten days with.

Since I already have a fantasy book, I'll be picking up something non-fiction. I usually buy non-fiction over fiction. I can get my fiction fix at the library, but non-fiction is different.

Zanna, that reminded me - years and years ago, before I was married, my parents asked me if I had ever heard of this book, the Kama Sutra. They were considering getting it for a close friend as a wedding present, since they heard it was about sex, but weren't sure. I loaned them my copy and, although they did get a copy for him, my mother told me later that she had not enjoyed my highlighting.

I am so glad Miranda recommended The Sparrow and its sequel Children of God (or something like that) by Mary Doria Russell. Jesuits in space. Damn, that was some good science fiction!

Speaking of space, I am reading Pledged, that book about sororities as research for a space sororities idea I have. Also re-reading The Big Rumpus and reading Walking On Water: Reading,Writing Revolution.

anything with the words "writing" and "revolution" in the title definitely pique my interest.

Am finishing Nicole Hahn Rafter's "partial justice: Women, Prisons & Social Control" about the history of the women's prison (did you know that, up until the late 1800s, women were housed in male prisons, often in attics, basements or cells next to men?). It's *full* of information and I'm tempted to ask for my manuscript back to add weave some of this historical information into the narrative. (I think my publisher would kill me if I did so)

Also read "Twilight in the Forbidden City" about the last emperor of china, written by his Scottish tutor.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

It's about teaching writing sort of. Funny guy.

I love that book. I also read another book by Jensen (can't remember what it's called) about communicating with animals and being sexually abused by his father--not so funny--disturbing but gripping. He's written some other cultural-critical books that are on my "someday" list.

I'm re-reading "Sisters of the Earth", a compendium of women's nature writing...am looking for things that fuse nature writing and mama-writing but haven't come across anything yet. (It seems you need to have time and space to sit quietly and be introspective to write about nature...not exactly plentiful commodities in the lives of mamas!)
GEMINI Mama

That man loves salmon, doesn't he?

Mamas and nature...well, there's Barbara Kingsolver, maybe? In a much more esoteric, fictional way, I like The Wild Mother by Elizabeth Cunningham.

One of my all time favorites is Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

I finished The Candy Bombers by Andrei Cherny, a long book about the Berlin airlift of 1948. And The Fortune-Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8 Lee, about Chinese food in America (entertaining read).But what I'm really waiting for is Ursula le Guin's new one, Lavinia.

Miranda: a zine about motherhood and other adventures

Read it. It's okay. No Tehanu(:

and they give you prizes that aren't plastic and paper crap? wow...

My manuscript is in the send-to-blurbers stage and so I get to take a break from prison-related reading (although I still have 2 books half-read). I'm reading Rebecca Walker's Black, White and Jewish. I read an article (questioning why most of the momoirs are written by white, middle-class women) in the latest

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

The good stuff is only if you make some serious goals and make the drawing at the end of the program. Until then, it's stuff like bite-sized candy bars or a bag of chips. I think the big stuff is mostly donated by local businesses.

I'm reading Take Bit Bites, by Linda Ellerbee. It came from the biography section, but it's fluff. A mix of travel, food, and biography. Right now, and for a long time, most likely, my traveling and adventurous eating are at one remove; this book qualifies. But I don't think I've been enlightened other than learning how to properly pronounce "pho."

The fudge pie recipe in that book is yummy and super easy!
GEMINI Mama

Read Rebecca Walker's momoir and hated it...and I am usually so "don't judge mothers" - may have been why I hated it, the way she writes about her mother....

I found a sci-fi author who is new to me and whose work I am enjoying - Cory Doctorow. I read his YA book Little Brother and DD1 then just devoured it. I just read his book Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town and it is way weird but fascinating. I think I'll read his other works. I am currently reading The Sparrow, which Miranda mentioned here, and really liking it so far.

The Cure For Modern Life - I am actually liking this novel and that last one I read, although I am generally unimpressed with popular mainstream adult fiction. There are nice characters.

You know, I was kind of disappointed in House of Djinn. I thought it lacked the depth and detail of Shabanu, and especially of Haveli. I read Sister/Outsider in college (long ago!) and still really like it. Zami is excellent, as well. I'm reading The Candy Bombers: the untold story of the Berlin airlift. Just finished The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller (good summer read) and The Miracle at Speedy Motors (latest in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, which I like a lot).

Gemini, for an easy, terrific read, I highly recommend The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. Or, if you've never read any of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books, start with the first one. They are just so sweet, insightful, clever, and will make you feel good about the world and the people in it.

Miranda: a zine about motherhood and other adventures

Thanks for the reminder, Miranda--I read the first few #1 Ladies, but think I left off one or two books ago...and I'll look for the Middle Place too. I have "Out Stealing Horses" waiting for me at the library, which Catherine Newman says is "understatedly beautiful" and since I adore every word she writes, it must be true!
GEMINI Mama

Just started The Ten Year Nap from the library - hope it's good.

I liked House of Djinn well enough, but I understand. Haveli really didn't impress me the way Shabanu did - it was a very good book, but I was totally besotted with the first - and this one doesn't either. It is certainly about people growing up differently than the other two were - shows how other people were probably sort of just tripping lightly along while the situations that were central to Shabanu's life in the first two books happened.

Lovely librarian memoir called Free for All by Don Borchert.

I adored Good Omens. I love Pratchett anyway, and when you combine his half-bubble-off-plumb sense of humor with that peculiar world view Gaiman has, it's total fun.

I'm looking at a collection of Ursula K. LeGuin's novels, the ones set in the same universe as The Left Hand Of Darkness. I think I've read all of them -- I know I've read Rocannon's World, which is the one I'm starting with -- but I could go back to LeGuin over and over.

I'm still working my way through Carb Conscious Vegetarian. I don't know how many of the recipes I'll get to try, but I really want a copy of this book for my own. For one thing, because of the carbs issue there is none of the mysterious need other cookbook authors seem to have for putting a tablespoon of sugar into every second dish. For another, the recipes sound really, really tasty.

Oh, mamas. I just started The Maternal Is Political an I am swooning. Go. Get. Now.

ohhhh, i haven't read Portrait in Sepia. I'll have to get that from the library when I need a(nother) break from prison reading.

Juggling "Prison, Inc," a memoir of being in a (male) private prison. It's horrifying violent and awful (the prison and thus the author's telling of his time there) and Blanche Caldwell Barrow's "My LIfe with Bonnie and Clyde." If you've ever seen the WArren Beatty/Faye Dunaway version of the Bonnie & Clyde story, Blanche was the annoying, often-screaming wife of Clyde Barrow's brother.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

Honeybee by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Away by Amy Bloom. Young woman loses her family in a pogrom, comes to NYC in early 1900's, then learns her daughter may have survived. Epic journey ensues. Really, really good.

Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy. Growing up gay in Texas with a glamorous, husband-hunting mother. Not as good as it sounded on NPR.

Miranda: a zine about motherhood and other adventures

Much YA - a recent good one called Savvy by Ingrid Law and Incantation by Alice Hoffman. Trying Ever by Gail Carson Levine and SO EXCITED to be reading House of Djinn, the third SHABANU book by Staples.

A third Shabanu book?!! Oh yay! Must go put it on hold!

Miranda: a zine about motherhood and other adventures

I KNOW! It was good!

More YA wealth - recently finished Teen, Inc. and Evolution, Me And Other Freaks Of Nature (may have gotten the title out of order) from the library and they were both rather good for their type - Mimosa snatched them up and read them, too. Now reading an even better one - Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.

I am longing for some quality mama fiction, though.

(shhh...it's my secret respite from prison reading)

I read "Zami" years ago, but don't remember very much of it. I'm really liking this biography; it's a much-needed refresher after reading lots and lots about prisons and prisoner issues every other second of the day.

Somehow, when reading "Zami," I missed the fact that Lorde was married (in an open marriage in which she brought her lovers home and he snuck around) and had two children. I just read this description of how she raised her children and think, "Wow...she was so ahead of her time."

"As Beth and Jonathan grew, Lorde's approach to raising them was progressive. She made her own whole-grain bread, and way before any one else was discussing it, she questioned the causal effects of sugar & dyes on hyperactivity in children. Lorde was aware of all manner of health & science issues, answering the children's questions about sex & the body in age-appropriate manner. AS kids, Beth & Jonathan were dressed in the same kind of clothes, and encouraged to be physically affectionate with each other. They were never talked down to or left out of conversations about the civil rights movement or the war in Vietnam. Although they were not allowed to watch television indiscriminately, they could watch the evening news. Walter Cronkite's televised face became integral to their young lives. When they could read, she read The New York Times with them. Her children were taught to see themselves as part of a larger extended family whose members, unlike the outside world, were united by racial & sexual differences, rather than terrified of them."

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.