Lindsay's Library

Monday, March 14, 2016

Monday Musings

Check out this wacky gem (copyright 1869) I came across at work on Saturday. As the book explains, a "gobolink" is what's created when you drip some ink on a page, fold it in half, and analyze the symmetrical image you've created. The book is full of ink splat drawings and funny little poems to go with them. The joys of working at a library!

Highlight of the week: It was a pretty rough, blah week for me. But I did enjoy our AWOLNATION/Fall Out Boy concert on Wednesday night (even though I was recovering from a bout of food poisoning or maybe a short-term stomach bug at the time -- ugh!).

Reading: I started the historical fiction novel "The Song of Hartgrove Hall" by Natasha Solomons and I reeeeally wanted to like it, but it just wasn't what I'm in the mood for right now. With the impending move, I need something easy and engrossing, and "Hartgrove" was a bit of a slow-starter, so I ended up putting it down after about 40 pages. Instead I picked up "The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend" by Katrina Bivald, which is only slightly more engrossing -- but it's due back to the library and has holds on it, so it moved itself to the top of the queue.

Watching: Last week I did pretty well with my goal of getting a bunch of stuff on the DVR watched before the move -- thanks in part to the aforementioned stomach problems and a sick day from work. I only have one episode of "Downton Abbey" left and I'll probably watch it after work today. I'm sad that the series has come to a close, but I'm excited to see how things end up for everyone. I must say, one of my favorite parts of the show has been the evolving fashions and this season has the most stunning costumes yet! I don't have the right figure for those low-waisted flapper dresses but I want them ALL!

Buying: I bought my first Funko Pop figurine! After much deliberation I chose the Quidditch Harry Potter. If you're not familiar with Funko Pops (which I learned about from fellow book nerds on Instagram), they're little vinyl figurines from basically every fandom you can think of, ranging from Harry Potter to Game of Thrones to "Sherlock" to "Back to the Future." I'm pretty sure there's no way I can stop at just one! (I also finally bought "Morning Star" by Pierce Brown, the Red Rising trilogy-ender. If you haven't read "Red Rising" yet, do it!!!)

Listening to:

Looking forward to: The move being over. I think I'm more stressed about this move than any of our past six! And the election being over. I hate all the candidates (at least the ones who have a chance of making it to the general election) and I'm sooooo sick of freaking Fox News election coverage (looking at you, my dear husband) that I could smash the TV! (Sorry, rant is officially over.)

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Yarn Along: Stovetop Hat and "The Song of Hartgrove Hall"

Yarn Along is a wonderful weekly link-up hosted by the Small Things blog about two of the best things in life, reading and knitting.

Reading: I finished "Room" by Emma Donoghue and "You" by Caroline Kepnes (review) in the past week and now I've started "The Song of Hartgrove Hall" by Natasha Solomons. It's the first historical fiction novel I've read in a while and it's so nice to be back in a one of my favorite genres!

Knitting: I finished my Stovetop Hat yesterday and now I've got to figure out if I want to top it with a faux fur pompom or a yarn pompom. Decisions, decisions! I'm going to give it away -- I was only working it on so I'd have something do with my hands while I watch as much on the DVR as I can before our move -- and I'm thinking a yarn pompom might be more universally liked, but this yarn would look so good with faux fur...

Now I'm torn... do I start another knitting project? We move in four weeks and I still have like 20 hours of stuff on the DVR to watch (haha -- not happening) and it's the perfect time to knit. I suppose I could always use the elliptical while watching. (Ugh.) I'm also trying to decide if I want to take a knitting project with me while I'm staying with my parents in Colorado for a month between Ohio and Hawaii. Maybe a short-sleeved sweater? (Any recommendations for warm-weather knits would be appreciated!)

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Book Review: You by Caroline Kepnes

"You" by Caroline Kepnes
First published in 2014
422 pages
My rating: 4 out of 5
Image from Goodreads

Wow. Who knew a stalking, murdering sociopath could actually be kinda sorta... likeable?! Joe Goldberg, New York City bookstore manager, is handsome (we assume), whip-smart despite the fact that he didn't go to college (we know), and extremely... devoted to his girlfriends.

The moment aspiring writer Guinevere Beck walks into Mooney's Rare and Used Books, her fate is sealed. Joe knows they're meant to be together -- he has to have her, he has to protect her, he has to love and spoil her, he has to help her see what's best for herself.

In shockingly quick fashion -- from a stolen phone and a lot of social media -- Joe basically learns everything there is to know about Beck, and thus begins their (initially one-sided) courtship. The ease of this feat will make you want to double-check your social media privacy settings. Yikes.

Joe is downright scary in his obsession. He follows Beck everywhere, he reads every single one of her e-mails, he sneaks into her apartment and steals souvenirs, he knows more about Beck than she knows about herself -- and he "helps" her get rid of some of the distractions in her life, roadblocks to their relationship. The whole thing is just utterly creepy, and the fact that the story is told by Joe to Beck makes it even weirder. (i.e. "You didn't walk in here for books, Beck. You didn't have to say my name. You didn't have smile or listen or take me in. But you did.")

The thing is, though, that while Joe is a terrifying sociopath creep and definitely should be locked up in prison forever, he's kinda charming. And brilliantly smart. And utterly enchanted by and dedicated to Beck. He will literally do anything for her and he loves every. single. thing. about her. Except that -- despite the fact that nobody should go through the horrors that Beck does -- I didn't love Beck, not at all.

We readers learn an awful lot about Beck, and we're not blinded by passion and fixation like Joe, who managed to put a positive spin on all of Beck's worst qualities. It turns out that Beck is not a very nice person. I hated just about everything about her, from her slovenly habits to her greed to her excessive sexuality to her lying to her using people to her obsession with being the center of attention. She is really kind of despicable. And it's a very odd thing as a reader to want to shake the sociopath by the shoulders and tell him that this girl is not worth his pure and total devotion, his unadulterated love.

I would say "You" is both a crime thriller -- in that we're constantly wondering about Beck's eventual fate -- and a psychological thriller where readers are taken on a frightening ride through a stalker's thoughts. The book lagged a bit in the middle, but I still turned pages like nobody's business. I thought overall the writing was pretty good. But what's really special about this book is Kepnes' ability to make me despise the person who, by all rights, I should be cheering for, and make me -- not like, not empathize with -- simply not hate the crazy stalker nutcase.

I'm planning to continue Joe Goldberg's story with "Hidden Bodies," which just came out last month. And while I was reading "You" -- and reading passages aloud to my husband -- I was thinking it would make a good movie. Turns out other people felt the same, because it's being developed into a TV show for Showtime!

Monday, March 7, 2016

Monday Musings

It snowed lightly all day Thursday, and when I came home from work the ornamental grass bush in our front yard was covered with these little pieces of ice. It reminded me of a string of crystal beads -- so pretty.

Highlight of the week: I survived the dentist! And I enjoyed our Friday night... we picked up barbeque from one of our favorite restaurants here (which I will sorely miss) and popped in a DVD. Maybe I'm boring, but I love cozy nights at home.

Reading: I devoured "Room" by Emma Donoghue in a day, and now I'm reading "You" by Caroline Kepnes, about a creep-tacular stalker -- and written from his perspective. Yikes.

Knitting: I finished up my Stovetop Hat yesterday. The only reason I started working on it was to have something to do with my hands while watching the gazillion shows I have recorded on the DVR (which I now only have four weeks to watch before the move). I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, since I surely won't need any hats in Hawaii the next three years. I might just post a picture on Facebook and see if any of my friends would like a free handknit hat!

Watching: I did good last week and blew through several episodes of one of my guilty pleasures, "Switched at Birth." Only one more episode from last season to go! We also watched "Creed" and "The Walk," both decent movies. This week I'm hoping to knock out some "Downton Abbey." The very last episode ever was on last night, and I'm about six episodes behind so I have some catching up to do.

Eating: Swedish meatballs -- yum! (The recipe we use is from my new fave food blog, Damn Delicious.)

Looking forward to: We're going to see Fall Out Boy and AWOL Nation in concert this week!

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Book Review: The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian

"The Guest Room" by Chris Bohjalian
First published in 2016
314 pages
My rating: 3.5 out of 5
Image from Goodreads

The Short Of It:
This was a fast-paced dual narrative about a bachelor party gone wrong and an Armenian teenager kidnapped into sex slavery. It was a decent read but nothing mind-blowing.

The Long Of It:
Richard has led a pretty straight-and-narrow life. He's got a great job at an investment bank, he loves his beautiful wife and 9-year-old daughter, he lives in a big house in a New York City suburb. But his content and quiet existence is blown to shreds because of one simple decision -- agreeing to host his little brother Phillip's bachelor party at his home.

Booked by one of Phillip's buddies, two mega-hot young things show up -- along with two hulking body guards -- to strip, and more, at the bachelor party. Things are going ok, despite the worries in the back of Richard's mind about the unspeakable stains on his family's sofa, and that sorta-valuable painting, and that glass vase in danger of toppling, until one of the strippers goes crazy and knifes a body guards to death. The other body guard is dispatched with a bullet and the two girls vanish before the stunned, inebriated party-goers can even react. Two men have been brutally, bloodily murdered in Richard's living room by naked women at a sex-fueled bachelor party; thus begins the saga that will alter Richard and his family's lives forever.

Meanwhile, we meet Alexandra, one of the two strippers at the party -- and in fact not a stripper at all, but a sex slave abducted from Armenia by a trusted family friend and forced to service wealthy clients in Russia, then eventually the U.S. Interspersed with the narrative of the increasingly nightmarish reality facing Richard, we learn the terrible story of how Alexandra, who once hoped to become a famous ballerina, came to be held captive for years, forced to cater to the sexual whims of man after man after man. We also find out what led to the bold escape attempt at the bachelor party and what happened to Alexandra and her friend and fellow captive, Sonja, afterwards.

The story was an easy read -- though the subject matter was a bit tough at times -- and I tore through it. But in the end I didn't totally love it, partly because I didn't feel all that connected to the characters or invested in their stories, which is surprising because Alexandra's character should stir up loads of compassion and sympathy. (I think part of the problem here was Bohjalian's use of dropped articles -- "I went to party" instead of "I went to the party" -- to convey an Eastern European accent, but it was a technique used inconsistently and the whole thing just threw me off a little.)

Even though I wasn't singing from the rooftops about my first Bohjalian book, I'm glad I finally got around to giving the author a try, and I wouldn't be opposed to reading more of his work. And I'm glad I read "The Guest Room" because I learned a few things about sex slavery and sex trafficking, topics I'm not particularly well-versed in but probably should be.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Yarn Along: "All the Birds in the Sky" and Stovetop Hat

Yarn Along is a wonderful weekly link-up hosted by the Small Things blog about two of the best things in life, reading and knitting.

Reading: "All the Birds in the Sky" by Charlie Jane Anders. I'm a little over halfway through this quirky tale, which is sorta fiction, sorta sci-fi and sorta magical realism. Next up is "Room" by Emma Donoghue. I've been meaning to read it forever, and now that the movie is about to come out on DVD the time has finally come! (Although I feel like I basically know the entire plot of the book after seeing all the clips of the movie on the Oscars the other night, so that's a bit of a bummer!)

Knitting: Since we were on a trip to Florida all last week (yay for finally visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!) and I didn't take my knitting, I'm no further along on my Stovetop Hat than I was last time I did a Yarn Along post. But our move is rapidly approaching -- as in 5 weeks away! -- and I reeeeeeally need to start buckling down and watching all my DVRed shows, which is why I started working on this hat in the first place. If all goes to plan, I'll have watched a bunch of TV and be showing you a finished hat next week!

Eating: Cadbury Mini Eggs! Now that March is upon us and Easter is in just a few weeks, I couldn't resist grabbing a bag at the grocery store yesterday.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

11 Books to Read When You're in the Mood for Something Light and Easy

Happy Top Ten Tuesday, and happy March! This week's topic, provided by the clever ladies at The Broke and the Bookish, is the top 10 books to read when you're in the mood for (fill in the blank).

We all need something light, easy, fast and fun to mix into the rotation every now and then, and I've got 11 books below that are great easy reads. Keep them in mind for the next time you need some relaxing, happy, stress-free reading material.