I heart Christopher Moore

So if you were to head over to my LibraryThing account and check out all the books I’ve read recently, you might notice that the past 4 books I read (of the 8 I’ve read this year so far) are all by Christopher Moore.

My heartfelt thanks must go to my best friend, who sent me copies of Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal and Island of the Sequined Love Nun about a year ago. I devoured them and immediately picked up Practical Demonkeeping to keep on with the theme.  And then I must have been distracted by something, for I didn’t read any more of his books until earlier this month.

In the past five days, I’ve read:

• The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
• The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
• Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings
• A Dirty Job

Oh my god is this man hilarious!  The second two - Fluke and A Dirty Job - I enjoyed more than the others (even Lamb).  I think it’s because the scenarios are much closer to home than the rest of his oeuvre.  Fluke tells the story of a whale researcher trying to figure out why humpback whales sing, and A Dirty Job tells the story of a man who becomes a Death Merchant, moving souls along from dying people to the people who need them next.  I suspect my love of the Death book stems partly from my love of Terry Pratchett’s Death books too - nothing better than knowing that Death isn’t some scary non-entity, but rather is an anthropmorphic personification or a second-hand shopkeeper.

Anyhow, if you want to read some really absurdly funny books, I can’t recommend Christopher Moore highly enough.  Your local public library should have some of his books, and if they don’t, you should ask them to purchase them.  Of course, you could also head to your local bookstore to get them.  Whatever floats your boat.

My Favorite Things (November 2006 version)

There are a few things in my life that I’m really grooving on lately. Rather than hoard that information, it seems only fair to share it with all of you, my numerous readers!

Tivoli Audio Fashion PAL Portable Audio Laboratory AM/FM Radio in sky blue

This small, battery-operated, rechargeable radio is just the right thing for my bathroom. I love the sound, the reception is AMAZING (seriously - I pick up stations from Providence, RI), and it’s so darn cute I could die. Yes, it’s expensive. I splurged on it, because the bathroom is the one place where I need to have peace and calm in the morning. I wanted no cords draped all over the place. This fits perfectly on the bathroom cabinet. I love it!

Kiss My Face fragrance free moisture shave cream

I can’t begin to express how much I love this shave cream. It doesn’t smell (a plus in my book, ymmv), you only need a small amount of it, and it lathers up really nicely. My legs (when I do take the time to deal with them) are always happiest when I use this shave cream over soap or other body washes/shave creams.

No One Cares What You Had For Lunch

Blogger and mightygoods.com writer Margaret Mason offers up the blogger’s version of writing prompts. NaBloPoMo made me realize how stinky some of my posts are (who CARES about all those memes anyway?) and this book gives me lots of ideas to make this blog a wee bit better.

Google Reader

I love how Google Reader has changed my blog-reading habits. It’s so much easier for me to navigate through all the chaff and get to the wheat. And no annoying Bloglines plumber for me!

J. Crew factory store corduroys

You can’t get them online, from the catalogs, or in the regular stores. I know because I tried (no way I’m paying more than $50 for a pair of cord, which always wear out faster than other pants for me). But they have these cords in the outlets which are the Perfect Cords for Me. I’m in the smallest size I’ve worn in literally years - and this is because I’m at my lowest BMI in years too. Hockey plus some dedicated work after last winter’s moving/moping/new job/eatingfest has paid off. But these cords - I got one pair and loved them so much that I braved the Wrentham Outlets outside of Boston a few weeks ago to pick up three more pair. I now own them in: light sage green, dark sage green, grey, and a warm honey-brown.

Milky Way mini candy bars (leftover from Halloween)

Apparently I like candy bars with caramel in them. How do I know this? The Twix mini candy bars are gone from the jumbohumongousgigantic bag of candy we got from Costco. And tonight I think I finally found the last Milky Way in the bag. Granted, I’ve thought that before, and always another one surfaces. We’ll see if my luck holds out beyond tonight.
Timex Easy Reader watch with expansion band

It’s been a looooong time since I owned a watch I liked. Normally I agonize over watch purchases, going for something that is exactly perfectly right. On Monday I was in a bunch of meetings where I was supposed to be keeping time, only it was hard to do without a.) a computer (my normal timepiece) or b.) my cell phone (my backup timepiece). So in a fit of needing a watch now, I headed to Target and found this little dandy piece. And I got it way cheaper than they have it listed for at Times! It’s been on my wrist all day and not once has it annoyed me. That is the sign of a fabulous watch in my world.

On a different note, this is just weird.

Book Meme swiped from Amanda

One book that changed your life? The Secret Language of Birthdays by Gary Goldschneider and Joost Elffers. I got this book during a time in my career when I was in a place that was not the best fit for me or the organization. When I turned to my birthday and started reading the description, I burst into tears, cried for a bit, and went home to update my resume and start looking for jobs.

One book you have read more than once? Watership Down by Richard Adams. It’s an epic story of life, friendships, tyranny, hope, and rabbits. What’s not to like about it?

One book you would want on a desert island? One book? Or one series? The series would be The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, which the friend who introduced me to the series referred to as, “the series that almost made me fail out of grad school.” I used to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning reading them. I’ve read most of them twice, and can’t wait until Jordan finishes the series. He’s been going through some really awful health stuff this past year, but things are looking a little up for him. I’m hopeful that he’ll finish the series. Now if you truly mean one single book, I would possibly bring Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Yes, it’s one of those books that has always annoyed me for some reason, but I imagine that if I were forced to do a close reading or re-reading of it, I could find all those amazing things in it that other people see.

One book that made you laugh? Pretty much anything that Terry Pratchett has written, but since I have to choose one, I’ll say The Hogfather. In this book, someone has kidnapped the Hogfather (a spoof of Santa Claus), so Death decides to fill in during the crisis. Laugh out loud hilarious.

One book that made you cry? Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. Amazing, stunning, touching, thoughtful, beautiful, lyrical, difficult. Read it.

One book you wish had never been written? The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller. Many reasons why, one being that one of my former places of work was his former place of work, and the special collections department spent way too much money collecting every edition (in every language) of that damn book. And I’ll never get those 90 minutes of my life that I spent reading the book back.

One book you are currently reading? Blithe Tomato by Mike Madison. He’s a farmer in California and writes delightful, poignant vignettes about farming, farmers, and farmer’s markets.

One book you have been meaning to read? Affinity by Sarah Waters. I enjoyed her first book, Tipping the Velvet, so purchased this newer book during one of my adventures at the New England Mobile Book Fair. It’s been sitting on my bedside stand for several weeks now.

Now tag five people:You, you, you, you, and YOU! (Okay, really: Jessica the coollibrarian, Stella, Libby [email is cool], Amy [ditto], and Tammy[ditto]).

Thanks, Amanda!

Patricia McConnell is a Genius

You may be aware of the fact that Amy and I have two dogs, Maggie and Otter. (In case you weren’t, I direct you to the posts in the blog tagged “the dog“. Or head to the flickr set entitled “Maggie + Otter“.)

At any rate, the dogs are great fun and bring a lot of joy to our lives. Like all members of the family, however, they tend to drive us nuts on occasion. Moving from Philly to Boston was hard on them - we went through a six-month period of pretty nasty fights between the two of them (although they always showed bite inhibition, which meant they weren’t actually trying to kill each other even if it sounded like it.) But since June, when we moved into this house, they’ve been getting along like a brother and sister… which means they mostly like each other, and she bitches at him for being a big doofus the rest of the time. Normal sibling behavior.

Despite the fact that they’re getting along, I still wanted to understand more about how their brains work, why they’d gone through that period of freaking out our downstairs neighbors with their fighting noises, and why they had such different temperments. Otter is a pretty happy-go-lucky dog, with just a few phobias/quirks (hates having his toes touched [his nickname is Otter Scissortoes], hates having his collar grabbed, loooooves to snuggle but only on top of the covers). Maggie is a lot more intense - always thinking, always alert, ready to fight/run at a moment’s notice, but cuddlier than you can even imagine a dog could be. So I’ve picked up a few books along the way and done some reading - I hit the usual suspects first: the Monks of New Skete and Dog Training for Dummies. I read a few more books here and there, and thought I was really starting to figure things out. But a few months ago, I was in the public library and picked up Patricia McConnell’s book The Other End of the Leash.

In the book, McConnell makes the argument that many of the difficulties humans have with dogs (and vice versa) stem from our fundamentally different ways of approaching the world. Humans look each other in the eye and approach head-on in greeting, dogs approach from the side and only look each other in the eye when they are trying to threaten another dog. Humans enjoy chest-to-chest contact (hugs) while dogs flat-out don’t. And so on…. It was really one of the best books I’ve ever read about the human/dog (mis)connection.

Imagine my delight when I wandered back into the library a couple of weeks ago and stumbled across McConnell’s newest book For the Love of a Dog. If it’s possible, I think this book may have been even better than the first one. In this book, McConnell discusses how emotions are similar and different in humans and dogs, dealing with things like the biology of emotion and the behavior of emotion.

While I can’t say that I completely understand either of my dogs, I do have a bit more knowledge in my arsenal that helps temper my frustration when the dogs are doing something I wish they wouldn’t do, or not doing something I want them to do. Maggie and Otter may not realize it yet, but this knowledge will make their lives better.

Finding a home in Boston-area bookstores

One of the things that makes a place “home” for me is a good local bookstore. When I lived in Philadelphia, I frequented the campus bookstore, a local Borders, and several smaller places in West Philadelphia. Never did find that one that just felt right to me, though…

So now that I’m in the Boston area, I’ve been wondering where to go that’s not too far (i.e. all the way into Boston/Cambridge). There is a Booksmith in Wellesley that I tried and tried to love, but alas, the inventory just isn’t up to snuff. The campus bookstore carries books for courses almost exclusively. And I suppose I could go to the local large mall area to find a B&N or Borders. But frankly, I’m just not that interested in heading to the mall area on a regular basis.

Imagine my delight, then, to find the most AMAZING bookstore in Newton Highlands, near a place where I go every week anyway. It’s called the New England Mobile Book Fair. And when I walked in, my jaw dropped and I knew I was home.

For the curious, here’s the deal. Books are arranged in a completely out-of-the-box way. Division number 1: full-price vs. remainders. Within full-price, division number 2: hard-cover vs. paperback. Within those, division number 3: adult vs. children. Within those, division number 4: publishers vs. subject areas. Within the publisher areas, division number 5: title arrangement vs. author groupings. It’s completely illogical to me, yet it works! They don’t have an inventory control system per se, but use Books in Print to determine if something is in print. Then you walk to the publisher area first, and subject area second, because a book could be in either place. The serendipity is stunning. And what I like about the shelving in each area is that it’s by title rather than by author. So no, I can’t see (most) authors’ full works, but I can do more random browsing, as I’ve got no way to really tell what I’m looking for. They are a very Long-Tail business. An inventory control system would help them immensely, but their quirkiness makes up for it.

Coolness: They had almost the entire set of offerings from Seal Press.
Coolness: More AMC books than you can shake a stick at.
Coolness: 20% off paperbacks and 30% off hardbacks every day.

I highly recommend this place.