I keep weeping.

Re-reading Brain Plague by Joan Slonczewski, just started reading The Girl With The Pearl Earring or something like that, reading the new Brain, Child and Med School Mama

Hey mamas,

Where do you go to find out what's happening in the world? What newspapers, magazines, websites, etc., do you go to?

Being a mama with her head in the clouds a lot of the time, I realize I have no idea where people go for their daily/weekly/regular news fix. And now, of course, I'm working on something that requires that I at least have *some* idea of how people other than me are perceiving current events.

What are you cuddling up with this winter?

No library trip for me, but I've gone through the partially-read stuff and picked out A Conspiracy of Paper. I got started a while back but then got distracted, or maybe I chickened out on reading the constant portrayal of the casual anti-semitism of the era. It's told from the point of view of a Jew, so you get it with the full impact of what it feels like to be the target, especially in a situation where it's usually necessary to ignore it for survival's sake.

Hello Everybody

A few years back our son wrote a lovely book called The Day before Christmas. Many people looked at it and loved it, but the picutre book market being what it is there was little chance of it being published.
A short while ago I picked it up again and still loved the immediacy of the pictures and the gentleness and happiness of the story and thought it at least deserved to be seen.

part 1 got buried way back there, but it probably was time to start part 2 anyhow...

Just finished reading "Riding Freedom" to dd. It's a fictional biography of Charlotte Pankhurst (aka "one=eyed Charley"), a woman who disguised herself as a man and drove stagecoaches in the 1800s. She was also the first woman ever to vote--55 years before women won the right to vote in the U.S. Her gender wasn't discovered till after she died.

Anybody read Life of Pi? What do you think of it? I haven't picked it up yet, but it's next on the list (after I finish the fluffy fantasy I'm currently using to numb my brain.

What else are you all reading? Anybody going serious in honor of the beginning school year?

So what's your "beach reading" this summer? Beach Blanket Passion or War and Peace? Do you read "improving" or "important" books, or do you read Miss Marple?

I'm partway through Robin Hobb's Soldier Son trilogy. Shaman's Crossing was pretty good, but I've put down Forest Mage in distaste, and I don't know that I'll pick it up again. The main character is turning into the male version of an earth goddess and going through emotional agony because his family and society are pushing him into self-hatred over it. It's really, really upsetting to read, and I'm not sure that there are enough compelling reasons for me to continue in the face of that.

i'm going to be putting together an index of mama/parenting zines. this would enable readers to find articles in various zines on specific topics and/or by specific authors.

if you would be so kind as to answer a couple of questions i'd appreciate it!

what do you look for in a mama zine? are you interested in particular genres or subjects? if so, which ones?

i have the feeling that - if you're like me - you may be interested in mama zines in general and wouldn't necessarily be looking for specific topics. if that's the case, if you could just let me know which types of articles you like the best or that you tend to strongly identify with, in general.

December is long-gone. So too (hopefully) is the snow and the cold and the frozen-over puddles.

So...

What are you reading now that you can leave the house without fear of frostbite?

I'm reading issue 10 of Kachorrit@s, a punk parenting zine from Argentina. My friend got off the plane from buenos aires, came to the anarchist bookfair and gave me two rumpled issues. China and I were both superpsyched to find out that yay!