This Month's Books

Really liked!:
The Witness for the Prosecution and other stories
Chasing Vermeer
Fever, 1793
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette

Liked:
Tales of St Austin's
N or M?

Would teach in an ESL class:
Chasing Vermeer
Fever, 1793

The cat with two heads...

"I was in my laboratory
Creating what I thought would be...
Well...
Something great for the World
A two headed cat!
You could pet one kitty's head
Then pet the other kitty's head
But little did I know the power of Atomic Energy
Would create
A two headed
Man-Eating Monster!
The Cat with 2 Heads
Whoa, the Cat with 2 Heads!
Two heads..... of terror!"

-The Aquabats

The Thursday Craft Group

For the last year or two my friends and I have had a regular weekly craft day. Every Thursday we get together and do something crafty. I haven't been very good about posting about our adventures.

For the last two months we have been working on bags/purses. My mom sent me a book of purse patterns: Amy Butler's Style Stitches 12 easy ways to 26 wonderful bags. The book is divided into easy, intermediate, advanced, and experienced patterns. I did a bag from the easy category. It was still challenging, but it turned out ok.


Her pattern doesn't call for a zipper or little interior pockets, so I added them. The bag is huge. Sometimes that is a good thing, and sometimes it's annoying. But, overall, I like my new purse-bag.

My friend, Rose, did a bag from the advanced category. It was a disaster and she threw it away. She is thinking of trying the same bag I made. Another friend, Michelle, is also making the same bag I did.

We also made/are making a gathered clutch, which I found at noodle-head.com. Here are the three I made to coordinate with my bag.

The Community Book Group

I just attended my second Book Group meeting. This month's book was The Secret Garden. We talked about parenting, because the book shows a few different parenting methods. We talked about gardening, obviously. We talked about animals, because Dickon has so many pets and it was the Robin that first interested Mary in life. We talked about Europe. We talked about diet and exercise, because eating a good diet and getting exercise waked Mary up to life. It was a good book to read and led to good discussions. I recommend it for any community book group. The book is available for free from Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org).

Next month's book is The Alchemist.

The Community Book Group

My friend has been bugging me to join her book group. It was sort of dying out and she wanted to revitalize it. I agreed to join on a few conditions:

Condition 1: I have listened to her complain about the arguments over which book to read next. That is silly. We create a survey, have people vote, and plan the entire year's books now. Everyone votes. The books with the most votes will be read. No monthly arguments.

Condition 2: She also had been complaining about not being able to get a hold of the book club book. Some people bought books because the library didn't have them. That is also silly. The public library has dozens of book club book sets. And The Gutenberg Project has tons of books available online for free. So all book possibilities had to come from one of those sources. No one has to spend money on this.

Condition 3: No weird or dirty books. I just do not feel comfortable suggesting that everyone read a book that is inappropriate. If people want to read stuff like that, they can. But we don't have to read and discuss it as a group. So the survey mostly included books I have already read. And a few books my friend insisted on.

Condition 4: I heard about a few occasions last year where one person dominated the discussion, argued with other people, and made people feel stupid. Those people never went back. That should not happen. No arguing or making other people feel stupid.

So I went to last month's book group to do the survey. And I read the book they were reading. It was "Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague" by Geraldine Brooks. There were good things and bad things about the book. I think it was a fairly accurate portrayal of how the plague changed society. I don't think it is a very accurate representation of women and medicine in England. And in the end, the heroine ends up as part of a harem in the Middle East. What?

But, overall, it reinforced to me why I do NOT read adult fiction. There were several allusions to certain body parts (that won't be explicitly mentioned because we don't want web searches bringing perverts to our blog) and graphic descriptions of sex. Were those really necessary to the plot? Really? The little old ladies at book group were upset and admitted to skipping sections of the book because they wanted to be sure they missed the dirty parts. This reinforces to me why I made condition #3.

The survey was successful. The ladies liked the idea. So here is the schedule for the rest of the year:

• February: The Secret Garden (online at Project Gutenberg)
  
• March: The Alchemist
• April: Eight Cousins (online)
  
• May: Snow Treasure
• June: The Railway Children (online)
  
• July: The Book Thief (I haven't read this)
• August: Understood Betsy (online)
  
• September: The Forgotten Garden (I haven't read this)
• October: The Graveyard Book (I haven't read this)
• November: The Uglies (I haven't read this)
• December: Sarah, Plain and Tall
  

I have reservations about the books I haven't read. Like I said, I don't feel comfortable recommending books to people if I can't personally vouch for it. Anyway, I'll keep you updated about Book Group.

This Month's Books

Books I liked:
Richard Scarry's Father Cat's Christmas Tree
Sleeping Murder
The Golden Ball
Sad Cypress

Books I didn't like:
I also read the community book group book: Year of Wonders. I don't recommend it. More about that in another post.


I checked out a whole bunch more books, but haven't read them yet. I might renew them. Maybe.

This Month's Books

Liked it a lot!
The Penderwicks : a summer tale of four sisters
The moving finger
Towards zero
Cards on the table
Tumtum and Nutmeg
The Magician's Elephant

Liked it
James Herriot's favorite dog stories
The elevator family
The dollhouse murders
The lovesick salesman
Igraine the brave
Sinister Scenes

OK
Aliens on Vacation

Didn't like it
Apple Island, or, the truth about teachers
The Peterkin papers

Started but didn't feel like finishing
The best school year ever
The small bachelor
Forbidden Sea

Would use in an ESL reading class
The Penderwicks
The Magician's Elephant

Oh, Baxter!

We had the canopy up for a few days, but had to take it down again:

This Month's Books

Liked it a lot!
The children of Noisy Village
The girl in blue
Here lies the librarian
The hollow : a Hercule Poirot novel
After the funeral
Taken at the flood

Liked it
James Herriot's animal stories
Agatha Christie : the woman and her mysteries
Unearthly asylum
Meeow and the pots and pans -- this is a picture book. It is a story of a black and white cat like mine. I didn't like the story very much, but I liked the pictures a lot.

OK
The real James Herriot : a memoir of my father
A season of gifts

Would use in an ESL reading class
James Herriot's animal stories
The children of Noisy Village
The girl in blue
Here lies the librarian

This month's books

Liked it a lot!
The Unexpected Guest
The Sittaford Mystery
Elephants Can Remember
Hickory Dickory Dock
The Hotel Under the Sand
The Search for Delicious
Fiendish Deeds

Liked it
Peter and the Starcatchers--I might have liked this more if I had been in more of a reading mood. It is actually pretty clever.

Would use in an ESL reading class
The Search for Delicious
The Hotel Under the Sand