her blog

kerfuffle. a fuss; commotion. a brouhaha.

(thanks to everyone who told me their favorite words on instagram, facebook and twitter. this is the first of many, many words that i'll be embroidering from your suggestions. keep them coming!)

what's your favorite word?

petrichor. a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.

the knife of never letting go by patrick ness

bettie enthusiastically recommend this to me and i'm glad i listened. if you like dystopian thrillers, you'll love it. 

the sky is everywhere by jandy nelson

i'm sorry. (not really.) its another book about a grieving teenager. apparently sad young adult books were a big part of my coping mechanism this spring. lennie's sister passes away suddenly and she's left rudderless, trying navigate the world without her. she lives with her eccentric grandmother and pot smoking horticulturalist uncle. they're all a little lost but they have each other and they eventually figure it all out. i cried. a lot. still not really sorry.

the other typist by suzanne rindell

i sort of hated this book. i've put it here to solicit your opinions if you've read it. its gotten a ton of good reviews and i can't figure out if i'm missing something.

and here's the current library pile:

velleity. a mere wish, unaccompanied by an effort to obtain it.

i wasn't happy when i began reading jess walter's beautiful ruins. It's set in Italy, near cinque terre. i have been suffering from some serious wanderlust the past month or so, daydreaming about trips we've taken, trips we'd like to take. so, cinque terre has already been on my mind and now i was aching for it.

the mere mention of monterosso al mare early in the book and I was there in my head, holding hands with shawn while running down the train platform to meet friends from chicago. before we said hello we told them we were going swimming. Immediately. and we did. we'd been there a few days before our friends' arrival and had found a totally deserted beach just a quick, steep hike down from the town center in cornigila. we'd swam every day since. it was paradise.

i remember eating swordfish cooked in lemon and tossing the bones to a nearby clowder of cats trying desperately to make sure that everyone knew the drill. we did and so they ate good that night. 

the alleys smelled like rotting grapes. that sounds gross but it really wasn't. It was mid-harvest and everywhere we looked, grapes were strung up in doorways and between buildings, and piled high in buckets and tubs. i loved walking through town around 5:00 pm, the setting sun would hit the hung grapes, intensifying their smell and making them glow.

i remember drinking jug after jug of blood orange juice because shawn discovered there was such a thing as blood orange juice and that it was quite tasty. blood orange juice, bread and cheese. every single day.

so, i wasn't happy. because although we will be taking a Trip this year it probably won't be to cinque terre. so, heartache. then, i remembered that week we spent there ten years ago and i was happy. blissfully so.

also, the book is good and that always makes me happy. 

i loved this book. the main character, wren, survives a car accident in which her boyfriend dies. she struggles with how to move on and retreats to her father's house deep in the woods of the northeast to try to get a grip. its a quiet book, much like the forest in winter, but packs a punch. 

occasionally, my inner 13 year old forces me to read a true crime novel. they are almost entirely unsatisfying. when i first read about people who eat darkness, i was certain this book was different. it was. a page turner from the introduction on, it tells the story of lucie blackman, a young woman who disappears in tokyo in 2000. i don't know that i can recommend it just because true crime really isn't for everyone but i definitely enjoyed it (but was glad when the book was over.)

flappers, the supernatural, speakeasies, murders, and the museum of creepy crawlies. i loved this book. kind of a lot.

i started this last night and stayed up way too late reading. 20 years after tara martin disappears, she knocks on her parents door on christmas day, looking barely a day older than when she left. those she left behind, particularly her brother and her ex-boyfriend, wrestle with her story that she rode off on a white horse and all the accompanying emotions her reappearance creates. i really can't wait to see how this ends.

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."
 - Dolly Parton
 

things i'm reading both on and off the internet:

LOVED IT. next up: all the days and nights by william maxwell and what there Is to say we have said: the correspondence of eudora welty and william maxwell

the equals record - this was the first post i read from this site. i put it in my reader and have enjoyed the writing a lot.

stories about prince - its exactly what it sounds like and if you like prince at all, you'll love it!

the reconstructionists - all sorts of awesome.

valentine's day for under achievers

O, she says

by Hailey Leithauser

O, she says (because she loves to say O),
O to this cloud-break that ravels the night,
O to this moon, its mouthful of sorrow,
O shallow grass and the nettle burr’s bite,

O to heart’s flare, its wobbly satellite,
O step after step in stumbling tempo,
O owl in oak, O rout of black bat flight,
(O moaned in Attic and Esperanto)

O covetous tongue, O fat fandango,
O gnat tango in the hot, ochered light,
O wind whirred leaves in subtle inferno,
O flexing of sea, O stars bolted tight,

O ludicrous swoon, O blind hindsight,
O torching of bridges and blood boiled white,
O sparrow and arrow and hell below,
O, she says, because she loves to say O.