Graphic Novels, Get Fables
My first couple of attempts at graphic novels didn’t take, they were very dark and violent and I just couldn’t get into them. But Sadie of Extremelygraphic blog suggested Fables, actually I started with 1001 Nights of Snowfall. 
The illustrations are just incredible, plus it gets you started with the whole Fables series. I just finished Fables: Legends in Exile or it could be titled “Who killed Rose Red?”. 
How can you not like fairy tale characters with all too human personae, The Big Bad Wolf as Bigby, hunky detective; Snow White, very tough second in command of Fabletown and Prince Charming, as less than charming man about town. Characters are introduced through a mystery surrounding the bloody disappearance of Rose Red.
If you haven’t picked up a graphic novel yet, go ahead and try these. Read Sadie’s entry about the planned Fables television series.
Local Book Stores, Thanks Fred for reminding me
Thanks Fred, for reminding me to direct folks to the local bookstores. Full Circle is a great independent. Also for the Tulsa folks, Steve’s Sundry. And of course the folks at Best of Books in Edmond, who always support the Oklahoma Center for the Book, Award dinner. But whoever or wherever you decide to purchase books, “it’s a goods thing.”
Buy Books! Buy from our Local Booksellers
Thanks to Carol Hamilton, Oklahoma’s own great poet, I received this email from Roy Blount, of the Authors Guild.
“I’ve been talking to booksellers lately who report that times are hard. And local booksellers aren’t known for vast reserves of capital, so a serious dip in sales can be devastating. Booksellers don’t lose enough money, however, to receive congressional attention. A government bailout isn’t in the cards.
We don’t want bookstores to die. Authors need them, and so do neighborhoods. So let’s mount a book-buying splurge. Get your friends together, go to your local bookstore and have a book-buying party. Buy the rest of your Christmas presents, but that’s just for starters. Clear out the mysteries, wrap up the histories, beam up the science fiction! Round up the westerns, go crazy for self-help, say yes to the university press books! Get a load of those coffee-table books, fatten up on slim volumes of verse, and take a chance on romance!
There will be birthdays in the next twelve months; books keep well; they’re easy to wrap: buy those bo! oks now. Buy replacements for any books looking raggedy on your shelves. Stockpile children’s books as gifts for friends who look like they may eventually give birth. Hold off on the flat-screen TV and the GPS (they’ll be cheaper after Christmas) and buy many, many books. Then tell the grateful booksellers, who by this time will be hanging onto your legs begging you to stay and live with their cat in the stockroom: “Got to move on, folks. Got some books to write now. You see…we’re the Authors Guild.”
Enjoy the holidays.”
Roy Blount Jr.
President
Authors Guild
So as someone who knows how small business is struggling these days, I hope you all go out and buy a book and maybe visit your local flower shop as well. And you might want to pick up some of Carol’s poetry , to pick up your spirits.
Warren Ellis, Sex, Politics and a Love Story?
Just finished Warren Ellis’ Crooked Little Vein. Perverted sex, perverted politics, perverted perverts, there’s a lot of perversion in one tiny book. And running right through is the “boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl” story line, even if boy is an aging private detective with dubious skills and Trix, his side kick assistant, working on her thesis of weird sex practices. 
Some of the story is just plain gross and creepy, but the end of the story rescued it for me. The politics of manipulation of values by the political powers is still intriguing. The hunt for the old book containing the real “design of American society, and twenty-three Invisible Amendments”, the other Constitution, lays the groundwork for the adventure of Mike McGill and Trix. Information delivered by one scary presidential chief of staff and “men in black.” Along the journey are memorable characters, some disturbingly so but Zack Pickles, purveyor of porn, and honest news is my favorite.
Warren Ellis, best known for his graphic novels, Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Fell and Ministry of Space, which I feel I now must try, has given us a view of “mainstream” America that we would rather not know about, insanely corrupt government, which we do know about and a surprisely sweet love story.
Cold, outside and in, Best Afghan ever
I haven’t been on lately, have a cold and suffering from cold medicine malaise. Since the wind is howling I began to think afghan, and my favorite book on the subject. Back in 1985, Jean Leinhauser and Rita Weiss, put out the book, 7-Day Afghans. It is absolutely the best all around afghan book, (IMHO) that has ever been done. The afghans are reasonably doable (unlike many afghan books with instructions running 10 pages and yarn no one could afford or find).
As you can see by the cover the colors were 70′s and 80′s but the afghans work no matter what your color scheme. There’s knitted, crocheted and baby afghans. I’ve made Rippling Shells, in browns, blues, multi-colors, and out of the old dazzleaire, and every kind of worsted. I’m not a knit/crochet purist, I like to make afghans out of some regular worsted weight that can be thrown in the washer and dryer.
So then in 2004 Sterling re-published this classic, with updated colors and yarn suggestions. And I bought that one too. Even though most of the afghans are the same, this volume works because each afghan has it’s own color photo and in more contemporary colorways. The first volume put some color pictures in the middle and the individual pictures were black and white. This is much better.
Need to make an afghan, this is your book.
Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas
I never thought I would read Dean Koontz, I’ve always been a little afraid of “horror books”, even though he is such a great speaker and kind autographer at major library events; like ALA (American Library Association) conference. So I surprised myself by picking up Odd Thomas. What a great choice, now I feel I’ve missed so much from this very talented writer. Mr. Koontz’s avatar speaks to you from his website. As I’ve said before I don’t really care for whirligigs and flash on websites, but I think this one works. It’s just pleasant and strangely welcoming. He has a video on the Barnes & Noble website talking directly to his fans, he seems to actually enjoy fans, answering questions and of course promoting a new book.
Well anyway, Odd Thomas, has all the big social issues, battles of good vs. evil in the insanity of our world, but it also includes very intimate issues of love, companionship, loyalty, and the true nature of family. Koontz has the ability to question or strengthen our ”moral compass”, while turning out a really good tale, complete with unexpected events, good plot, and great characters and best of all making it a series.
Odd Thomas has a facebook page , a myspace page, a graphic novel, and a podcast. There’s definitely an appeal to a younger audience.
However, I think it’s all pretty cool and am now a fan.
Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas
I never thought I would read Dean Koontz, I’ve always been a little afraid of “horror books”, even though he is such a great speaker and kind autographer at major library events; like ALA (American Library Association) conference. So I surprised myself by picking up Odd Thomas. What a great choice, now I feel I’ve missed so much from this very talented writer. Mr. Koontz’s avatar speaks to you from his website. As I’ve said before I don’t really care for whirligigs and flash on websites, but I think this one works. It’s just pleasant and strangely welcoming. He has a video on the Barnes & Noble website talking directly to his fans, he seems to actually enjoy fans, answering questions and of course promoting a new book.
Well anyway, Odd Thomas, has all the big social issues, battles of good vs. evil in the insanity of our world, but it also includes very intimate issues of love, companionship, loyalty, and the true nature of family. Koontz has the ability to question or strengthen our ”moral compass”, while turning out a really good tale, complete with unexpected events, good plot, and great characters and best of all making it a series.
Odd Thomas has a facebook page , a myspace page, a graphic novel, and a podcast. There’s definitely an appeal to a younger audience.
However, I think it’s all pretty cool and am now a fan.
Support Libraries, a good economic choice
I just received this website, More people checking out the library …, from someone in our business office. Just more reasons to support your local public library, it’s there for you in the tough times. Be there for it when funding gets tight.
The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
Back to the Lace Reader, Brunonia Barry certainly knows how to evoke setting, Salem comes alive, today and Salem of the witch hunts. Women and needlework, the telling of our stories, lacemaking comes front and center in the lives, secrets and betrayals of this New England family and those whom they touch.
In a library book I picked up, Lace: The Elegant Veil by Janine Montupet and Ghislaine Schoeller, it states the first American lacemaking center was located in Ipswich, Massachusetts, a town founded by colonists in 1634. These colonists came from places in England, where bobbin lace was made and so brought their craft to America. Needlework was the bridge between the past and the new future. The ladies on Yellow Dog Island, use the lace to remake their lives, to forget the past and accept a new future.
The Lace Reader is a wild mix of a story; mystery, historical, fortune-telling by lace, romance, abuse, religious zealots, family secrets and recovery. Narrative changes tense and people with frequency. The end sweeps the reader along like the tide, pulling and pushing the reader with it.
Occasionally its seems too much, like everything has to be included or lost, it does have plenty of surprises along the way but like gazing through the lace some characters lose definition. However I think it’s worth the read, and would recommend picking it up, and I would certainly read the next one, since Barry intends to make this a trilogy.
