At Home by Bill Bryson Bill Bryson is known for rambling but fascinating non-fiction books, spanning a subjects from travel to astronomy. In this book, he set out to explore a topic closer at hand – his own house, and the history of its rooms. Not just the history of his particular house, though that’s covered, too, but a history of the evolution of the hall from basically the whole building to a minor passageway and the introduction of the dining room. I’d been putting off reading Bill Bryson, though I’d heard good reviews from multiple friends. This was fascinating. People, landscapes and ideas weave in and out of the book, as well as the development of ideas like privacy, comfort, and the beauty of nature. Who knew that centuries of the English language went by before the word “comfort” as regards to physical comfort even came up? We also learn about an ancient Mesopotamian (I think) city which, truly amazingly, featured no streets, but only houses built layers deep on top of each other. Neat, I say, and while I’m not rushing out to read everything Bryson has written this very second, I’ll definitely keep him in mind for the future, both for myself and for people looking for a good book. Especially a good book for listening to on a car trip kind of thing, because this seems like the kind of listening that could interest nearly everyone.
A note on ebooks:
It used to be that when someone did a catalog search and came up with an ebook as a result, they would come to the desk to ask what an ebook was and go away in some frustration when I told them. I got this book initially because I was determined, now that patrons ask nearly every day about using our downloadable ebooks, to try some myself. I tried both text and audio ebooks. I’d initially thought that I would prefer the audio books. I listen to audiobooks all the time on my commute, and switch between books for myself and my son, hoping for the books that have tracks every three minutes rather than once a chapter or every minute (leading to 90-track discs), and also hoping that I can remember which track we’re both on. The audio books had some problems, mostly related to my situation. My car doesn’t have a way to plug the iPod player in directly, and the radio transmitter has lower sound quality than the regular radio. The books from the service show up as music. I think for that reason, if I stop in the middle of a track to, say, switch to music until the baby goes to sleep, I haven’t found a way to mark where I was in the track. With podcasts, I can switch back and forth to music without losing my place in the podcast. Also, I wasn’t able to figure out how to get the wma-encoded audio books on my iPod through my Mac, though the instructions said this was possible, and the selection of mp3 books is quite limited. I know, I could always go to Audible.com, but I really like borrowing rather than buying books if I’m only going to read them once.
I was quite pleasantly surprised, though, by the text ebook experience. Once I’d figured out the process, it was quite easy to use. I can set it up to read while I eat (my usual reading time), and even a 600 page book is light enough to hold while nursing the baby. Sure, the library’s collection hasn’t yet caught up to the sudden surge in demand – and ebook publishers haven’t yet figured out a model that would let multiple people check out the same digital book at the same time, because that would make things too easy. But the book was easy enough to find and quite nice to use. Even if I still love the feel of a physical book.
How to Knit a Love Song by Rachael HerrickThis is a classical romance – meaning focus on the couple and the progress of their romance more than any other aspect of the plot. It features Plot Variation B, where the couple starts out hating each other as people, fighting a strong physical attraction. Abby, our heroine, is a young knitting designer of some renown. She was the protégé of Eliza C, an older knitting star, whose initials and advice quoted at the beginning of each chapter make it clear to those familiar with the knitting world that she is modeled on the incomparable Elizabeth Zimmerman, or EZ, all of whose works are still popular and in print decades after they were first published. Eliza has recently passed away, however, leaving to Abby the small cottage on her ranch, and to her nephew Cade, the current occupant, the house and surrounding land. Cade is furious at having the property split up, after his years of work making the ranch profitable. He’s especially furious because the cottage is uninhabitable, in poor repair and stuffed full of boxes, so that Abby has to stay in the house with him. Abby is fleeing a scary, stalking ex and is determined to make a fresh start here, no matter how unfriendly Cade is. There was just slightly too much description of the hotness of Abby’s figure from Cade’s point of view for my taste, but this was still satisfying overall on both the romance and the fiber-love aspects.
Korgi by Christian Slade This is a sparkling graphic novel, wordless except for the introduction, nicely all ages. Hidden in the forest live the small magical people called the Mollies, with their helpful foxlike Korgis. One day, a little girl named Ivy gets lost, and she and her Korgi must outwit the monsters who are trying to trap them in order to get back home. The pen and ink illustrations are beautiful and expressive. The cover made me wonder about it being too girly of a book, but not to worry – there’s enough adventure here to capture the not-girly reader, too, as well as the occasional touch of humor. This has been added to our personal library and we’re now giving it as kid birthday presents. There are two more books in the series now available.
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren. Read by Esther Benson. I read Pippi multiple times as a child, of course, but hadn’t reread as an adult. And I tried Pippi on my son a couple of years ago – he would have been three or four – with high hopes that were soon dashed. It just didn’t work for him. Now, however, he is a big six-year-old, with kindergarten behind him and newly chafing at the rules that define childhood. In other words, ready for tales of a girl who defies the rules, who lives by herself and does what she wants. Even when the adults get upset with her, she ends up being loveable and saving the day her own way. I had remembered Pippi as a coherent story, and so was somewhat surprised to find that each chapter is a more or less independent story, with only the three main characters coming through from one story. Pippi rolls out cookies by the hundreds on her kitchen floor and gives Tommy and Annika lavish presents from her treasure stash. She rescues small children from bullies and fires, decides that school is much too restrictive for her, and puts on a better show than the circus. Though my LB is used to listening to books with longer plots, I’d imagine that these shorter stories would be ideal for introducing children to longer books, with continuing characters but shorter plot arcs. It’s a classic book, and Esther Benson reads it in classic style – which made me chuckle, too, as Pippi sounds much more refined than I imagined her being. We’ll be coming back for sequels. 
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness Dr. Diana Bishop, student of alchemy, has been trying for most of her life to forget that she was born a witch. After all, being witches cost her parents their lives. She doesn’t use magic or associate with other witches. And while the magical community back in upstate New York was used to that, the witches at Oxford are being less understanding that she’s only there to do research for an upcoming paper. Two things happen that bring already simmering tensions to a boil. First, large numbers of supernatural creatures witness Diana find and even open a lost alchemical manuscript that has been magically hidden in the Bodlein Library for years. And then, an ancient vampire named Matthew Clairmont, witnesses her use her magic when she thinks she is alone. Soon magical creatures of all three types – daemons, witches, and vampires – are pressuring Diana to retrieve the manuscript again and share the contents with them. Somehow, she finds herself trusting the vampire more than anyone else. I loved all the clearly well-researched history in this book. I liked that the vampires weren’t only a century or so old, but really, really old, with Diana’s family having similar roots in Salem history. Matthew speaks Provencal and quotes troubadour poetry on occasion. The witchcraft is a blend of modern paganism with traditional storybook spell craft, which works well in a fantasy set in a realistic modern world. This is a book steeped in a love of books and history, with self-discovery, adventure and romance. It’s exciting both in characters and story to be interesting, while still feeling like literature rather than fluff. (I got into a whole conversation about this with another mother who was reading this as our children were at physical therapy.) I did get a sinking feeling as I got towards the end of the book and realized that there was no way the story could finish in the number of pages remaining. Sure enough, it’s a fat fantasy book with two more presumably just as fat planned to follow. But more good books aren’t a bad thing, right? I was also quite amused to note that you can friend not only the author but also Diana and Matthew on Facebook, and that Harkness has playlists for the main characters available on 
Geek: Fantasy Novel by E. Archer It was the cover that really caught me on this book: A big medieval helmet, the face inside wearing taped-together glasses. And on the back, a hole made by an exploding bunny rabbit. Call me an easy sell – I took the book home. Our main character, Ralph, leads a boring and geeky computer-programming life in America. The one thing his parents have always insisted on is that he never, ever make a wish. But when his previously unknown Aunt Gertie offers him free tickets to spend the summer with her and his three cousins in their castle in Britain, he jumps at the chance. Then he learns the big family secret: all children are traditionally supposed to make a wish, which is usually granted in a way that proves disastrous to the wisher. There seems to be some inconsistency in the internal narrative here, as the early examples were all of poorly phrased and instantly granted wishes. Now, though, children making a wish are whisked away to a fantasy world inspired by their wish. There they are the heroes of their own narratives, but with the distinct likelihood that they will perish both in their fantasy world and in real life trying to make their wish come true. It’s an interesting idea which was spoiled somewhat for me by the heavy and not-too-skillful interference by the narrator, whose frequent intrusions into the story make him a character in his own right. The humor tended towards the black as well, with our hero rather frequently dying and coming back to life again. Still, for those interested in the geeky intersection of metafiction, computers and fantasy gaming, this book could be just the ticket. 
Cooking in the Moment by Andrea Reusing This is a cookbook of the kind filled with glossy, full-page photos of delicious-looking food. Reusing is the chef at Lantern, a local foods restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Her focus in this book is easy but delicious food from seasonal ingredients, something between a foodie’s complicated recipes and someone who cooks primarily from cans and boxes and thinks that real cooking is too complicated. (As an aside: she uses foodie the way I’d use gourmet. I’d consider foodie to be the middle ground between a gourmet and someone who eats only from necessity, someone who appreciates good food but keeps it simple. What do you think?) Refreshingly for the local-cooking effort, the recipes are arranged by season and month, starting with late March. Of course, North Carolina’s spring starts a good deal earlier than Michigan’s, but plants still come up in the same order, so that’s easy to adjust for. She also uses a lot of seafood,all varieties that she considers sustainable enough to eat. While not exactly coastal, Chapel Hill is still a whole lot closer to the ocean than we are. We can get some lake fish, and maybe even treat it the same way, but “local” and “seafood” just don’t go together in my neck of the woods. While my web research showed Lantern listed as an Asian fusion restaurant, I didn’t get that so much from the book. Yes, quite a few Asian-inspired dishes, but also a lot of Mexican and European-American traditional. The treatments are generally very straightforward, designed for simplicity and relying on good, fresh food for flavor. My foodie husband says that he would see himself looking at it for inspiration and then using his own usual methods to put things together rather than actually following the recipe. I would leave out the chilies, cayenne, and/or red pepper flakes that are present in abundance in nearly every recipe. I really appreciated her discussions of what to do with the mountains of hearty greens like kale that tend to arrive with a farm share. There are also little essays with experiences for every season – what’s in at the farmer’s market, making fresh strawberry ice cream with her children to celebrate the last day of school, heirloom apple varieties and the efforts to classify and preserve them. This, too, is a kind of primer on finding your local food experts. All in all, this is a beautiful and drool-worthy book. 
The Finder Library. Volume 1. by Carla Speed McNeil I’ve had friends from quite different circles recommend this to me before, but I just couldn’t quite get into it. This time I tried the new super-big version, and found that between the introduction and having more of the story together, I was able to understand the world well enough to be sucked in. This is science fiction with a strong grounding in human nature as well as feeling rooted in real traditions, and the nature of the graphic novel lets these things go by without much explanation, though the extensive endnotes go into both these and the many references to literature and film in the stories. McNeil calls it aboriginal science fiction.
Crafternoon by Maura Madden Madden has an idea: More people should be crafting. Crafting with friends is fun. She’s been having monthly crafting afternoons, or Crafternoons, for a few years now and shares her expertise in this book. She has general guidelines on making your Crafternoon a success. She has a year’s worth of crafting ideas with instructions for crafts that can be completed in an afternoon – Valentines and paper crafts, paper dolls, knitting, embroidery, knots and more. She leans towards the less precise in her crafting, and her instructions reflect this, probably a good approach for those trying to finish in an afternoon. Madden’s events seem to be populated mostly by single friends her age plus her mother, but she urges readers to make their events multigenerational affairs that are friendly for kids, which is surely the only way something like this would work for me. Madden’s humor sometimes felt like it was verging on padding the word count, but the book is otherwise fun and inspiring. Who wants to do Crafternoons with me?
Koko Be Good by Jen Wang Jon is a new grad student and musician who desperately misses his long-distance girlfriend. While trying to be social at the bar with his new classmates, he meets the explosive and rebellious Koko. She has no regular income and seems to float from one friend’s house to another, trying to find as much adventure as possible. Somehow, these two opposites strike up a friendship. Koko is inspired by Jon, who plans to join his girlfriend in working with disadvantaged children in Peru, to try to be good. What is good, though, and is it good for her to try to be good if being good is antithetical to her nature? Meanwhile, her initial poking fun at Jon’s efforts makes him reconsider: is this really what he wants to do? Would he be more true to himself rejoining his old band or taking his experimental music further? Wang’s shaded artwork transitions seamlessly from calm and beautiful to crazy and comical along with Koko’s mercurial moods. This is a tale full of the adventure and searching of young adulthood.
