Sensitive Creatures by Mandy Ord (2011)

I don’t often read comics — I feel like I just read the words and skip the art, which feels like it’s a waste of my time/effort and disrespectful to the artist or something? — but this one was on display at the lib so I picked it up. And it’s just so cute! Our main character/narrator is this odd little one-eyed character, but she’s so goddamn relatable.

The book is divided up into little short stories, essentially. And they’re all little everyday things — trying to exchange tickets for the metro, going to visit your sister and her kiddies, having a weird dream where you’re a giant, walking the dogs, etc.

It felt like I was reading someone’s diary, if they were the sort of person who doodles in their notebook — although the art was much better than that.

Sam Saboura’s Real Style: Style Secrets for Real Women with Real Bodies by Sam Saboura; illustrations by Bunky Hurter (2005)

Saboura is the guy from the old Extreme Makeover reality show, where they had plastic surgeons and cosmetic dentists and all these people make over so-called ‘ugly’ people. This book isn’t really about that; the focus here is really just on clothes and dressing to suit your body type. (I am a ‘half-pint’, apparently.)

It’s just funny — this book isn’t even quite a decade old, but some of the information is so out of date… No mention at all of skinny jeans! Nothing about Spanx. Patterned tights are super uncool. There’s a backlash against pashminas! Just get used to having to haul up your strapless dress and wiggle back into it… Strange.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth (2012)

I actually read this book a few weeks ago, and I’m partway through reading it again (it hasn’t even gone back to the library between reads). I’m re-reading for two main reasons:

1. It’s really good (duh), and
2. I still have so many questions!

Not that reading this novel a second time has answered any of those, because it’s not like I skipped a few chapters the first time. The author even says in this interview with Malinda Lo (who’s awesome) that many readers have questions about what happened at the end and have demanded a sequel with answers.

I’ve got a pretty big list of questions:

• Where do Cameron/Jane/Adam go afterwards?
• Does Cam die of hypothermia?
• Does Ruth die?
• What does Ruth think about what they did?
• How long until Ruth even finds out about it?
• What does Lauryn Hill have to do with this book? (Not much, I don’t think… this novel was set before the album even came out. Ha! Came out! Ha! Good music; listen to it anyway!)
• Who helps them? Margot? Lindsay? Mona? Bueller?
• Why didn’t Lindsay or Jamie or someone else put up a fight beforehand?
• How does Coley feel about herself and all the trouble she caused?
• Is Coley’s brother’s name really Tyler Taylor? (If so, I think his fictional parents are dumb.)
• What’s Irene up to? Is she still dating Harrison, the polo player?
• Is Rick really mad? Or just disappointed? Or maybe he’s had a change of heart and thinks it was a good idea?
• Does Lydia just continue being a huge bitch? (I assume the answer is yes.)
• What happens to the dollhouse?
• Do they all live happily ever after?

So yeah, if there’s anything that will answer these questions, I’d definitely read it. And I’d read anything else of Danforth’s that I came across, too (but this is a debut novel, so nothing else at my library as of yet). I really like her style, both in terms of writing, and in terms of what I found on her website, which is pretty cool… it’s so cool I just spent 20 minutes looking at all the stuff on it.

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz (2012)

Photo: J Muckle/Studio D

I read another Junot Diaz book a while ago that I reviewed for this blog. It got really good reviews. I thought it was okay. This one got good reviews too, and I wish I hadn’t put off reading it as long as I did. It’s a collection of short stories that feature one of the peripheral characters from Oscar Wao. Some of the stories are very short. Others you wish were a book all on their own.

I read the last story in this book probably three times in a row — it’s one of those things that you read where you really have to

take it in

think it

feel it

let it hurt you.

It was like being punched in the chest, but I wanted it to happen over and over. I think I needed it to happen over and over. Maybe that only makes sense if you read it. Maybe you need to read it.

The Specialty Shop: How to Create Your Own Unique and Profitable Retail Business by Dorothy Finell (2007)

I picked this book up from the library, since I’ve been labouring under the impression that I will eventually learn to sew using a sewing machine and become rich and famous selling pajamas. Right now I’m at the point where I can sew enough to repair or make minor changes to things, but only when sewing by hand. The machine scares me for some reason.

Anyway, this book profiles a bunch of specialty shops that the author likes and that, in her estimation, are doing well for themselves. I don’t know, I thought her parameters were kind of odd. She gave BIG points for how pretty the actual shop was, and seemed pretty down on advertising… and it’s not like the book was written pre-internet. She suggested making newsletters (like actual physical paper newsletters) for customers using CLIP ART, fercrissakes. So excuse me if I don’t put a lot of stock photography in your ideas.

Also she was inconsistent when talking about the size of the shops — you can use square feet OR square metres, but not both. That bothered me too.

Maybe I’ll get some books about Etsy instead, on the off-chance I ever get my shit together and sew something someone might want to buy.

Manna by Mitchell Brain

So here’s the link to this story: Manna. I don’t often read webstories or self-published ebooks, I guess just due to prejudice? And yeah, sure, it might have benefited from some editing, but I still read the entire thing this morning. Near-future dystopian society, and (spoiler alert!) escape to a utopian society. And yet, it’s so realistic… so many of the technologies mentioned in this story are definitely not that far off, and there are going to be big decisions to be made about how we’ll use them (whether for good or for evil). But for now, just go read the story.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012)

So I realize everyone has already read this book already, but I only got around to it recently. It turns out there’s going to be a movie, and obviously the book is always better than the movie, so I wanted to get reading it out of the way.

It’s not very often that a book or series is both popular AND good (*cough* 50 Shades *cough*), so I was pretty impressed with Gone Girl. I don’t usually read other people’s reviews of books (does anyone even read book blogs? If not, I’m in big trouble…), but I actually did for this one, and I was surprised by what I read. A lot of people didn’t like the ending — I wasn’t so much surprised at that; the way the book goes, it ends exactly the way a lot of readers would hope it WON’T — and I didn’t like the ending either, but for a different reason.

Perhaps this comes from writing, or maybe just years and years of non-stop reading, but I didn’t like the ending because it was so abrupt. I mean, yeah, characters are as messed up as real humans are, so they’re going to do things you might not like or make decisions you might not want for them. But when you spend 100+ pages describing a single day, and then you’re down to three or four pages to describe WEEKS at a time, especially when big, exciting, important shit is happening? That really bothers me. And if the author had rushed through the beginning rather than the end, I might think differently — but this strikes me as really lazy, like “oh, I don’t really feel like writing the last hundred pages. Twenty or so should do the trick.”

I feel like, the way movies are so dragged out, this problem will probably disappear in the film version. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Knit Your Socks on Straight: A New and Inventive Technique with Just Two Needles: 20 Original Designs by Alice Curtis (2013)

This book would’ve been more accurately titled: ‘Knit Your Socks on Straight: A New and Inventive Technique with Just Two Straight Needles [and a crochet hook, not that I know how to use one of those because if I did, I’d have picked up the book called ‘How to Crochet Some Goddamn Doily-Looking Socks]: 20 Original Designs [That Even Your Great-Grandmother Would Never Make or Wear Because They’re So Ugly]’.  A pointless book if you’re the sort of person who can’t figure out how to knit with one stick once you’re used to knitting with two (like me).

Nobody Does It Better… Why French Home Cooking is Still the Best in the World by Trish Deseine (2007)

I just want to eat everything in this book. I want to cook everything in this book, and then eat it. It all looks so appetizing! (Even the weird stuff — escargots, tripe, honeycomb, olive oil and fleur de sel on chocolate cake, …) Deseine does a great job of making everything sound easy-to-do, too — a pretty tall order for the haute-est of haute cuisines. It probably helps that, as an Irish lady, she’s an outsider too. And she’s funny! I mean, how often do you actually sit down and read a cookbook? If you’re someone other than me, I mean.

The Cult of LEGO by John Baichtal & Joe Meno (2011)

Yup, this is a book about LEGO. Yup, it’s got lots of pictures. Yup, it’s flippin’ awesome.

The history of the LEGO company! (They originally started out making wooden toys.)

A wooden pull-toy invented in the ’30s by the LEGO Group. Their famous bricks didn’t come along until the ’50s. Source: http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/lego-group/the_lego_history

Their logo! (Based on one of their first toys, a best-seller: a little wooden duck.)

All the different sets! Pieces! Colours! LEGO-obsessed adults and their conventions! (I hope to one day reach this level of nerdery.)

I still have all my LEGO from when I was a kid… and I totally never take it out and play with it, especially when my nephew isn’t visiting… even though the electric train is still super cool… yeah, nope. I definitely don’t take that out and set it up.