I'm Late

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored. —Evelyn Waugh

Ah, Evelyn. We would have gotten on swimmingly. Punctuality and I are loose acquaintances at best—some would argue (my husband among them)—perfect strangers. My copy of April's book club selection is due to arrive today...on the last day of the month. Combine that with the fact I've yet to review last month's pick and I'm on a roll of tardiness. Best of all? I told Tracy I'd post this yesterday, so even my post about being late is late. Luckily for me, when it comes to punctuality, or lack thereof, she and I are simpatico. Just one more reason to love her.

You may have noticed by now that I'm in a constant state of pulling myself together. Here's how you can help (thank you in advance): Let's all just pretend Girl at War was our April pick and The Princess Bride will be our May selection. Which effectively makes me early. The bonus for you? You can say you've done your good deed for the day. Rest assured, we've already chosen June's book and will announce it mid-May, like normal, pulled-together bloggers. Baby steps.

Posted by Rachel

Tender Surrender

I am yours now, and you are mine and together we'll love through all space & time. —Prince

I never had the notion of loving Prince by halves.  Yes, I’m talking about Prince today because it will help me work around this heavy cloud of disbelief.  Like books, music makes life more rich. Maybe Mr. Nietzsche said it better: “Without music, life would be a mistake.”  (Leave it to Friedrich to fan the dramatic.)  And Prince’s music was, well, more electric and soulful than anyone else’s. There are no adequate labels for Prince.  John Mayer called him, “the greatest pop musician whoever lived.”  Sorry John, that feels remarkably lackluster. I heart Huckabee’s admission that His Royal Badness defies all description in this worthy read.

The artists that I adore are the ones who appear to be good people too—that look well beyond their star-studded selves.  So when I hear that the High Priest of Pop saved a library, I get all warm and fuzzy inside.  Louisville’s historic Western Branch Library was in danger of closing their doors after nearly a century due to financial troubles. I’m sure Prince was particularly interested in saving those stacks since it was the first full-service library in the U.S. to serve African Americans exclusively.  And save it he did.  He made a generous donation to alleviate Western’s financial burden.  What’s even better, Prince donated to the literary cause anonymously.  “He didn’t want people to know.  He just wanted to do the right thing without a lot of fanfare and accolades,” a former library employee explained.  Can you say my kinda guy?  

So, in honor of Prince Rogers Nelson, here are a few reads that should remind us fondly of The Purple One.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Prince would be proud of me for choosing this epistolary novel about “how love transforms and cruelty disfigures the human spirit.”  This Pulitzer Prize winner is a must read about one woman’s ability to survive, to let go, and ultimately, to love.

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

Everyone should read Harold and the Purple Crayon.  Everyone. His story is as appealing as it is rich. Each time I pick this prize up, I’m back under Harold’s spell—a long-time classic for plenty of great reasons.

Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes

Caldecott winner Kevin Henkes has personality and it shows. So it’s not surprising that an enthusiastic mouse named Lilly grabs the heart.  She shines in her movie-star glasses, with her eccentric accessories that jingle and play jaunty tunes.  Something tells me she and the Prince of Funk would get along fabulously—God rest his passionate soul.

Posted by Tracy

Weekly Wrap-Up

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world. —William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

WHAT WE LOVE THIS WEEK

"I sold your Shakespeare for sixty bucks," he said. "You're dead to me," I said back. And thus began the end of our relationship. I mean, really. If you don't know me well enough after four months of dating to know I'd never part with my Riverside Shakespeare—chock-full of meticulously hand-written notes from one of my favorite classes at BYU with Shakespeare guru, Professor Bruce Young—then you are not paying attention. To be fair, dear reader, lest you think me harsh, it wasn't so much the selling that sealed the deal (he was just trying to be helpful), it was the unapologetic disbelief with which he accused me of overreacting. His name was Robert...something. The trauma of it all has effectively wiped his name from my memory.

Unlike Robert Something, The Bard is unforgettable, and today marks the 400th anniversary of his death. London, of course, is celebrating #ShakespeareWeek in a big way.

Here's what a Shakespeare Yelp review would look like.

Time to brush up on The Bard and not sure which play to read first? Goodreads's got your back.

While nothing can replace my marked up Riverside Shakespeare, this edition is lovely.

Not to rob Will of his due, but have you ever seen a cuter scene stealer? 

File this under things we didn't love this week: the passing of Prince. This is the message Tracy left on my voicemail: "Prince is dead and I'm in a puddle." She's officially in mourning, which for Tray means she's burned a CD of his best and will listen to nothing else for the next two weeks. #truefan

COMING NEXT WEEK

A review of Girl at War. Finally.

Posted by Rachel

Throwback Thursday

Every life deserves a certain amount of dignity, no matter how poor or damaged the shell that carries it.

I need an intern.  At my house.  Every day.  The sink’s clogged, the dog barks, and the kids are constantly hungry.  Good thing I’m a one-step-at-a-time kinda girl.  When I went to Costco to fetch Liquid Plumr, I strolled by the books only to find Kate DiCamillo’s latest Raymie Nightingale. So I picked it up and put it in the cart with mass amounts of the powerful gel.  That’s what I call multi-tasking!  DiCamillo is an author I can count on to deliver.  We all know authors like that, don’t we? Jane Austen, Ivan Doig, Kaye Gibbons, Khaled Hosseini, Toni Morrison, Roald Dahl, C.S. Lewis, and so many more top my list. (Rachel might faint if I don’t add one of hers and everyone else’s, J.K. Rowling.) As soon as I finish reading Rae’s Christmas gift My Southern Journey, I’ll know whether or not I can include Rick Bragg to my prestigious stack of favorites.  

I’m throwin it back to 1998 today, when Bragg published All Over but the Shoutin’.  Bragg ain’t just whistling Dixie in this sobering, funny, moving memoir.  He dispels the notion that any white man who lives in poverty does so by choice.  He and his brothers were robbed of their collective childhood because his defunct father, always three sheets to the wind, has a bad habit of running out on his family.  Bragg’s angel mother, Margaret, picked other people’s cotton, and went 18 years without a new dress, just to put grubby clothes on her boys’ back and a little bit of food in their mouths.  “Turning hard scrabble into a pleasant memory was something Margaret Bragg would do for her boy again and again as he grew.” Margaret is an unforgettable, inspiring character who makes me want to do better. She alone is likely the reason her son, who was more destined for the state pen than the Pulitzer, became something.

Rick Bragg is a storyteller extraordinaire.  Maybe one of the very best?  This book is definitely worth a read.  And a re-read.  Maybe I don’t need an intern afterall?  Just some time for a little southern comfort will do right about now.

Posted by Tracy

And The Pulitzer Goes To...

Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light. —Joseph Pulitzer

Our intern sent us a list of the Pulitzer Prize winners that were announced today. I'm telling you, Darren's got nothin on him! The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen took home the prize for fiction. The winner of the biography or autobiography category looks intriguing: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan. For a list of all the winners and finalists, click here. This talk of winners calls for a walk down Pulitzer Lane, does it not? Let's reminisce for a moment. Of course, my favorite of all time:

To Kill a Mockingbird (1961)

MORE FAVORITES

All the Light We Cannot See (2014)

Middlesex (2003)

Beloved (1988)

The Color Purple (1983)

TOP ON MY LIST TO READ

Gilead (2005)

How about you? Did I miss one of your favorites? Is there one you're itching to read? Here's a list of all the past winners for fiction. Here's hoping you find your next favorite book among them.

Posted by Rachel

As You Wish

When I was your age, television was called books.

I find it inconceivable (yeah, I went there) that we'd never heard anything about this book until last week. To quote Tray, because she's one of my favorite people to quote...and just one of my favorite people period:

I read [the] review [of The Princess Bride] and found it astonishingly hard to believe: “Whether you liked the film adaptation or hated it, read this book! It’s the the Spinal Tap of fairy tales, and it’s much funnier on paper.” I L.O.V.E the film adaptation, so this comment felt like a challenge, and well, I’m up for one. Gotta see if it’s true.

How 'bout we all find out together? With tax day looming, April seems like the perfect month for a lighter book club selection, so The Princess Bride it is. This may be a bit of a quirky pick.  What can I say?  We're versatile girls.  I'm pretty sure this charmer has got something for everyone--Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, and miracles. 

*Oh, and don't fret, next week we'll review Girl at War. 

Posted by Rachel

For The Love Of Words

Dictionary: The universe in alphabetical order. —Anatole France

By Noah Webster; engraved by H. B. Hall and Sons, 62 Fulton Street, New York, New York - Yale University Manuscripts & Archives Digital Images Database

Our new intern informed us that on this day in 1848, Noah Webster published his first dictionary. Such a good intern—he's worth way more than we're paying him...which is nothing...unless you count keeping him in Dr. J's salsa and promises of burgers and Coke Zero. Without him, this day would have slipped right past without us giving Noah his due.

Like most successful men, the Webster owes it all to his mom. Well maybe not all, but she did spend long hours educating him, making up for what he called "the dregs of society," or in other words, his teachers in the one-room primary school he attended. Throw in the church pastor who tutored him in Latin and Greek and his dad who mortgaged the farm to pay for college, and we begin to see how a small farm boy like Webster ended up at Yale. He graduated with a degree in liberal arts—later writing that such a degree "disqualifies a man for business." (Hmm...that may explain my inability to balance a checkbook, let alone run a business...)

It took Webster twenty-six years to complete his first comprehensive dictionary—he was 70 years-old on publication day. His book contained seventy thousand words, twelve thousand of them having never appeared in a dictionary before. His hope: to standardize the American language and set us apart from the Brits. (He complained that the British Aristocracy was ruining the English language by setting its own standard for spelling and punctuation.) His first book only sold 2,500 copies, forcing him to mortgage his home in order to produce a second edition. He never recovered financially and died just three days after finishing an appendix to his second edition, not knowing the tremendous influence his book would eventually come to have on the English language. Being the wordsmith he was, I think he was okay with that.

Posted by Rachel

91 Million Sold, 100 Years Old!

Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school. —Beverly Cleary

We want to give a quick shout out to Beverly Cleary. Today she’s 100 years old! While we agree with Ramona that exaggerating feels good, that century mark is accurate. Cleary was born when Woodrow Wilson was president, in a year when Norman Rockwell first blessed the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.  It was the same year The Boy Scouts of America was born. We think it’s just as important to read about Ramona, Henry Huggins, and Ralph the Mouse as it is to Be Prepared.  

In the 1940’s, Cleary worked in a children’s bookstore.  She read this line in a children’s book: “Bow-wow.  I like the green grass.”  Since she’d never known a dog who could talk like that, she couldn’t help but ask, “ What is the matter with authors?” Forty-two books and countless honors and awards later, Cleary can feel good about writing pages that “entertain children and give them courage and insight into what to expect from their lives.”  Well done Beverly.  Bravo!

If you haven’t read Beverly Cleary yet, I would start with The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Rachel loves Ralph but the second grader in her remains loyal to Ramona, so she recommends Beezus and Ramona as well.

Posted by Tracy