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By Haven Kimmel

Again, I picked a book because of the cover. This time, however, I put the book back down and decided to look into it a bit before I bought it. My research consisted of accidentally reading a quote from the book in a magazine or something like that and putting two and two together to get “Prolly, I should read that book” At my next available opportunity I bought the book ( I actually bought it new and unused too – which is a rarity for me, but only because I couldn’t find it at the HalfPrice books on each of our recent forty-dozen trips) So, $15 later I settled in to find out what this girl named Zippy was all about. Wow, this is one book I can honestly say that I’m glad I bought it new because that may put more money into the author’s pocket. I loved this book. It was simple and honest and entirely too funny to be real – though I don’t doubt it mostly is. Haven Kimmel, the author, was nicknamed Zippy by her father. She grew up Quaker in Indiana and it’s never entirely spelled out if she was poor or rich or just indifferent to monetary standing (I’m opting for the third choice) The picture she paints of her family is loving and beautiful even as they lament the fact that she may be somewhat touched in the head because she doesn’t speak (At least not until she’s almost 3) THAT story alone is worth the money I gave for the book. The accompanying pictures are all gravy. A delightful memoir, great for summer reading!

By G.M. Ford

G.M. Ford is a local writer (well, local to me at least) There are a few local writers that I know of and G.M. Ford is the first one I’ve read to describe real things and real places in and around Seattle with very little embellishment and/or re-sculpting of the landscape. Though, in truth, the re-landscaping is usually more of a movie habit (Can I get a “Sleepless in Seattle”?) there are a few authors that have done it. I don’t like it when they do but I like it that I know this area enough that I can notice.
  Anyway, I bring this up to point out that I liked G.M. Ford’s writing style. He was honest, up-front, and not more than a little human. Things that happened in his book could have actually (almost) happened in real life. I liked it.

Sweet Merciful Crap these cats are stupid.

Of course I am referring to the incident earlier this evening involving the tiny house spider.

Lemme ‘splain.

   After living for a number of years in the American Deep South, I have discovered I am loathe to kill small house spiders even though they give me the wicked jibblies. The good thing is that the jibblies are usually in proportion to their size and little house spiders have almost ceased to scare me at all – unless they drop from the ceiling onto my head when I least expect it. (more…)

In 2001 I decided I was fed up with my run down van and I wanted to buy a brand new car. In order to do this I needed to juggle my finances around and figured the best course of action would be to move in with my grandmother while she was recovering from knee-replacement surgery. I wouldn’t have to pay rent, she could have someone to cook and run errands for her, and I could finally buy that car. Problem solved!

   Now, my grandmother has lived in the same house for all the life I can remember and some of it that I can’t. I have ALWAYS been creeped out by the basement. Not a paralyzing terror mind you, more of a low grade “I just don’t want to go down there by myself” type fear. But, when I moved in, the only room available was one of the rooms in that basement. I actually didn’t mind at the time because my grandmother is a smoker and the upstairs was filled with 50+ years of stale cigarette smoke. (more…)

By John Welter

The front cover of this book boasts that this is “A novel of Covert operations, Love and Luncheon meat” Ah, sweet sweet luncheon meat. To be more specific, SPAM. The first three chapters of this book had me laughing so hard that I couldn’t breathe very well. The description of the covert baseball game between the CIA and the Secret Service (Time: Classified, Location: Classified) and how our heroes were going to find, play and win the game were more than priceless. I was ready to recommend this book after reading that far. Then I read the rest of the story and was heartbroken and hopeful all at the same time. A very easy book to read. The writer’s style is a bit different than other books and I liked it quite a bit. It was very personal and loving towards the characters, even when they’re being jerks (which is not as often as you’d think given the story is in the Secret Service) It details how one lonely guy goes from despair to desperation through a 60 second nervous breakdown and out the other side then find that there might be hope in his life after all. I cried at the end even though it was easy to see coming. The ending, though not too original, had enough Avenging Blowfish slant to it that I didn’t mind. Definitely a summer reading recommendation.

This evening I decided to tackle to rosemary patch in front of the pig roast site. It’s been about 2 years since it was last weeded. The ground was once covered in gravel the weeds grow really well because it’s a bitch to get a shovel through the soil. It needed to be done though so I threw on my togs and dragged my butt out there to do it. Here are the before during and after shots for you:

If you look behind the fence you’ll see all the dead weeds that Brian has sprayed. We’re getting ready to lay the gravel which will provide the fire-retardant ground for the oven. Next up: defining the flower beds!

By Ken Bruen, narrated by Michael Deehy

Okay, I get it, you’re Irish, you’re depressed and you want everyone else to know just how hopeless life is. That does not give you the excuse to write this book. Even if it seems like a good idea.
If Ken Bruen, apparently an award-winning author, had stayed with the character driven part of the story I would have enjoyed much more of this book. But alas, he did not. The Dramatist is a murder seriously lacking in mystery because the main character was too busy quoting depressing literature and listening to all sorts of “moving” pop music while struggling with his alcoholism and nicotine addiction. When the story meandered back into the mystery realm it was disjointed and more than a bit forced which is sad because the author is clearly a talented story writer. This book wanders from entertaining to cheesy to WTF? so often I thought I was going to need a map.
The most annoying bit was the ceaseless name-dropping. The constant references to pop stars and their rock-ballads (you know, those “deeply meaningful” songs written about love, happiness and the singer’s lack thereof) coupled with a liberal sprinkling of poignant and emotional quotations were, I can only guess, meant to lend an air of “coolness” to the character and his plight. Instead I found that Bruen’s perpetual need to cite other artist’s work in order to explain the heartache, headache and misfortune tiring and unoriginal. It was like sitting in a bar and listening to some drunk guy telling you how all of his problems are exactly like the problems of whatever person is in the spotlight for the moment. And then he expects to understand and glorify his plagiarized strife because, by reason of comparison, his problems are now just as cool as the rich and famous. It’s an insincere and derivative veneer at best and painfully annoying to listen to with every chapter.
The truly exasperating part was that Bruen didn’t even need the quotes and references to set the mood of the story. His writing is accomplished enough to transport the reader into the life and mind of a dried-up alcoholic struggling to survive in the small-but-becoming-bigger town of Galway, Ireland. His character development was well though out and richly detailed in subtle ways, I’d even say well written if only he hadn’t forced it to be a crime story! Bruen may have been dedicated to the idea of a murder mystery but his story construction falls miles short of the mark when the murders are hardly even alluded to until the last quarter of the book. At that point, the main character stumbles upon a lead, tracks down the killer and solves the crime with his own brand of vigilante justice in just a few short chapters; the killer has no convincing motive for the murders and the crimes have don’t have much of anything in common with the main thread of the story except for the moral “Life sucks and then we all die” which is a tenuous connection at best.
But this is all beans when it comes to the final three pages of the book, wherein a horrible tragedy blindsides the main character (and supposedly the reader as well) and causes him to fall off the wagon, deeper into his alcoholism than ever before. This implausible ending is so out of place with the rest of the book that it’s simply unbelievable. The story ended and I almost missed it I was so caught up in my disbelief. Thinking back on it now wish I had turned off the CD player three minutes sooner. I saw the ending coming and thought to myself “No, he couldn’t do that. It’s too passe, too over-done, too predictable.” But he did.
Ken Bruen is an award-winning author. I suggest you read one of his award-winning books, not this one.

By Liz Evans

Barking! is the fourth Grace Smith book in a growing series. This is the English equivalent of the Janet Evanovich series (or at least that’s what the cover says) I don’t know because I haven’t read the Evanovich series yet but my mom and Step-dad keep telling me they’re hysterical. Eventually, I’ll get there.
I found Barking! at the perpetual Library book sale for a quarter and figured what the heck, if it’s no good then I’ll just slip it back in the lot and the Library will be 25 cents richer. So I picked it up and figured that it would only be so-so. In fact, as I read it I kept thinking “Well, this is only going to be so-so.” but I kept reading it and it kept being pretty good. I liked the way the author made the story seem like it was all about ghosts and someone’s past life but in the end it was all about greedy people and how mean they can be. Plus, there is a crazy dog lady (not crazy as in “Millennium hand and shrimp!” crazy, more like I-kiss-my-dog-on-the-lips crazy) And since I used to be a crazy dog lady I liked her character.
A simple simple story with an unusual plot-line. A fun book sfor Summer reading.

Written by Dicey Deere

Do you like mysteries?
Do you like Soap Operas?

Do you like stereotyping the Irish?

Then good lord have I got a book for you! “The Irish Manor House Murder” by Dicey Deere is all three of these things and more!

You may remember Deere from such books as “The Irish Cottage Murder” or “The Irish Cairn Murder” Perhaps you read “the Irish Village Murder”? No? Too bad for you because you’re missing out on some of the most ridiculous and complicated plot twists I’ve ever read. And by complicated I don’t mean interesting-and- subtle-but-Wow!-That-makes-so-much-sense-in-the-end type complicated.

No sir!

I mean, the Oh-my-god-it-could-have-ended-40-pages-ago-but-apparently-the-author-didn’t-think-that-it-was-juicy-enough type complicated. To be frank, this was one of the most absurdly thought out murder mysteries I’ve ever read. And I’m including some doozies in that category.
Firstly, the fact that all the characters have names like Jaspar O’Mara, Padriac Collins, Inspector Egan O’Hare – Ugh. Clearly, the author (who is said to spend quite a bit of time in the Irish country side) has never met an Irishman named Michael or Tim or even Greg. They all have fabulous Celtic names and even more fabulous Celtic secrets.
When Ms. Rowena Keegan (Vet student, horse lover and granddaughter to the eminent Dr. Ashingdon, Ireland’s premier thoracic surgeon) said to Ms. Torrey Tunet (Multi-lingual translator to the UN and children’s book writer cum amateur sleuth)

“It would be a crime to let this child survive. I’m going to abort my baby.”

I should have known to put the book down for good. But alas, being drugged up and laid up after my tonsillectomy, in need of some frivolous light reading, I picked it back up again and was sucked into the world of Ballynagh, Ireland where everyone knows everybody’s deepest secrets except for who killed the victim and why.
Oh sweet Jesus this book was terrible. The plot was terrible, the people were terrible and the author (who’s writing wasn’t as terrible as her story construction) thought that by revealing more and more secrets it would make it all better in the end. It didn’t. What it did provide was a few hours of outlandish entertainment that I will try to reconstruct for those people that would like a spoiler.

THERE NOW FOLLOWS A SUMMARY OF THIS BOOK. IF YOU PLAN ON READING THIS BOOK DON’T READ ANY FARTHER. OR AT LEAST DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU.

So, Torrey Tunet, Multi-lingual translator to the UN is writing a three-language children’s book and has chosen Ballynagh , Ireland in which to write it. She wakes one day to a stomach-ache and fever and, as she’s going to get some flu meds from the chemist she keels over in the street only to be rescued by…

Jasper O’Mara, the “rare-book dealer” who has been bicycling around the Irish country-side to find old and rare books. Only he’s not a rare book dealer. He’s not even Jasper O’Mara, he’s really Jasper SHAW, famous investigative reporter and friend to one Flan Finnegan, son of IRA rebel Rory O’Irish-somethingorother.

The book begins with Torrey witnessing Rowena Keegan trying to trample her beloved grandfather, Dr. Gerald Ashenden, with his favorite horse, Thor. Rowena is arrested but since Grandpa-dude is adamant it was an accident she’s released the next day. Torrey talks to Rowena, who’s pissed at Grandpa-dude but keeping mum on the happs. As she’s leaving Torrey checks out her caboose and realizes that Rowena is preggers! Rowena then says the famous line about having to abort the baby. But why?

Now Meet Caroline Temple, Rowena’s perpetually weak and wan mother, widow of Tom Keegan, famous Irish Rock-star, and new wife of Dr. Mark Temple, a Chiropractor whom she met during some sort of physical therapy for her brittle bones. Dr. Gerald Ashenden (Caroline’s dad and Rowena’s beloved? Grandpa) despises Dr. Temple because Chiropractology isn’t a real medical profession (let alone a real word) and he’s obviously married to his frail daughter in order to get his hands on the family fortune.

Deep Breath

Now meet Scott Keegan, Rowena’s brother who Grandpa-dude hates too because he’s A) gay B) lame in one leg and C) Drives a red Miata. But it’s okay because Scott hates grandpa just as much, so the feelings are at least mutual.

Got all that?

Good.

Now I’m going to try to sum up what happens but it’s complicated so bear with me…

Grandpa-dude is out riding Thor two days after Rowena tried to kill him. Torrey, who happens to be walking by, watches as Thor rears up and collapses on Grandpa, killing him. Torrey rushes to the scene to discover a small wound in Thor’s rump. What made the wound? The broken tip of a knitting needle. Yes, that’s right – someone has shot a knitting needle into Thor’s ass causing him to have a heart attack and die killing Dr. Ashenden in the process.

Everyone suspects Rowena because she tried to kill him and because the gossip grapevine has decided that she’s been secretly sexually abused for years (and that’s why she’s pregnant) But alas tis not so…

Meanwhile….

A scraggly gypsy woman steals Torrey’s tomatoes and we learn that she knows something about the murder and will share her story with Torrey soon…Only she’s found the next day, strangled in Torrey’s own bed!

Later….

Dr. Ashenden’s will is read and everyone gets something (Rowena gets the estate in Kildare) except for Scott, who gets “ten pence a year” (Enter Scott’s reason for killing Grandpa?) Trinkets are left to several medical colleagues of Dr. Grandpa and Torrey borrows one, a ring that has a Dutch inscription, flies to Copenhagen to talk with the person to whom it was willed, only to find the woman that Grandpa-dude was set to marry before he met Caroline’s mother Katherine, the local bar-wench, with whom he’d had a fling and knocked up.

And here comes the shocker…..Dr. Grandpa-dude is really EVIL-Dr-Grandpa-dude!

But, how do we know? Why, because the town gossip/historian/ancient-guy tells Torrey that some X-ray technician fell down drunk in a bog years ago and suffocated because he was so drunk he couldn’t get back up. See where this is going?

To clear the air, Inspector Egan O’Hare calls a meeting of the usual suspects. In said meeting we learn that Drunky McX-ray technician was employed by Evil Dr. Grandpa to secretly abort the lovely bar wench’s fetus by x-raying it to death. He tells the bar wench that they are “getting an x-ray to determine the sex of the baby.” Baby flips Dr. Evil the bird and goes ahead with the birth as planned but comes out lame as a one-legged puppy. All of this happens six months after Evil Grandpa married bar wench because True-love found out about the attempt on baby Caroline’s life and fled for her own.

Rowena tried to run down Evil-grandpa-dude because lame, gay brother Scott (who’s been secretly blackmailing Evil Grandpa for 2 years) has divulged the story one stormy afternoon in the library of Ashenden manor. Little did they know that Dr. Padraic Collins, Grandpa-dude’s best friend and beloved town doctor, was also in the room as the story was told. Dr. Padriac realized that Drunky McXray-technician didn’t suffocate because he was drunk and couldn’t get up but rather because Dr. Evil was holding him down. So he sets off to find the Evil Doctor and confront him but later realizes…
“What a mistake that was! Now Dr. Ashenden knows I know and will probably kill me” Dr. Padriac Collins laments to his housekeeper of 22 years, Helen Lavery. The next day Dr. Ashenden is killed by his horse after a broken piece of knitting needle is shot into it’s ass.

Okay. Lemme’ just repeat that.

The murderer killed Doctor Ashenden by shooting a broken piece of knitting needle into the ass of his favorite horse, thereby causing the horse to have a heart attack, fall over and crush the Evil doctor to death.

Can I just say, WTF?

Back to the meeting of the usual suspects wherein Dr. Collins confesses first to killing the gypsy in Torrey’s bed, who saw him toss the rest of the knitting needles into the lake (which he did do) and then to killing Thor/Dr. Ashenden out of revenge for what everybody thinks he did to Caroline. He then goes home to eat some cod and mayonnaise salad and cranberry scones.

No, I’m not kidding.

After eating the salad and scones he writes out his confession, leaves a chunk of money to Helen Lavery, his housekeeper, then skips town.

But after he leaves the party we find out that Evil grandpa didn’t actually X-ray Caroline into perpetual sickness for Lo! Jasper McBigHunk found the lonely widow of Drunky McX-ray technician who reveals that he hadn’t the heart to x-ray the poor wee lass so he lied to Evil Dr. Grandpa and said he did. Jasper then produces long-forgotten pictures of Caroline’s unknown cousin (now dead) who had a rare genetic disease that runs in the family and causes the afflicted to be lame in some undefined way. But since Dr. Collins already went home to have his lunch, he doesn’t know that Caroline is lame because of said genetic disorder. Sadly, Rowena still insists on aborting the baby because of said disorder. But wait!

Long long ago in an Ireland far far away…

Evil Dr. Grandpa convinces his newly married daughter (to rock star Tom Keegan, remember?) that instead of having a baby she should adopt one, so as not to pass on his imposed genetic funk er…so that they can be sure the baby is healthy. He promises to leave the Kildare acreage to said child if only they consent to the adoption and no one knows about it besides they three. Parents consent and Evil Dr. Grandpa gets a baby from where else? DENMARK!! I’ve got it! Let’s name her Rowena!
  Later, headstrong Caroline insists on having a baby of her own and TA! DA! Meet lame baby Scott. Did I mention he’s gay? Those are some strong X-rays!

Happy happy joy joy, Rowena no longer has to abort her baby due to it’s immanent lameness (unlike this story…) because it won’t be lame because she was Adopted! Now, she and the father – who is really Flan Finnegan, can get married and live happily ever after just as soon as Flan can prove his innocence of anything even remotely connected with the IRA and/or possibly Sien Fein (not really sure on that point) Which is why Jasper Shaw came to this insane town to begin with.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Well that’s that. Over and done” you would be horribly horribly wrong. You should be right, but you wouldn’t be.

Fast forward four months to the next meeting of Jasper and Torrey (they’ve been jet setting around the globe and have met again in, um Italy? Who cares?) Torrey confesses to Jasper that she never really believed that Collins killed Evil Grandpa-dude so she studied the newspapers for news of gypsies and caught up with Collins delivering gypsy babies while traveling with a gypsy band. She confronted him with her suspicions and he agreed – he hadn’t! It was really Helen Lavery! His housemaid of 22 years!

As it turns out, Lavery, afraid that Collins would be killed by the Evil Dr. Ashenden, went out with a pea shooter (which Collins had had since he was 5) and shot that mighty Thor right in his nether regions with the tip of a knitting needle. I think I need to state that one more time for the record:

She murdered a man by killing his horse by shooting it in the ass with a KNITTING NEEDLE

 and he took the blame because he knew she was innocent in her heart. As they sat and ate cranberry scones Torrey realized that
A) Lavery was traveling with Collins
B) Dr. Collins was a good man and
C) she wasn’t going to turn either of them into the police BECAUSE
D) Collins was 70 years old and
E) She only just now realized he had Lupus (WTF?) and it would be pointless.

Much like this book.

P.S. Worried about what happened to poor, disinherited, gay, lame, Miata-driving brother Scott? Don’t be. As soon as all the hub-bub died down his mother hired him to redecorate Ashenden manor – he’s apparently having a gay old time.

By Susanna Clark, narrated by Simon Prebble

It’s very difficult to describe Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Partly because it was so long and meandering and partly because it was very different from most other books. Let me begin by saying I enjoyed listening to this book immensely. Simon Prebble is a very skilled narrator with many different accents to his credit.
The book begins with a meeting of the York Society of Magicians and an explanation of why gentlemen magicians don’t perform magic (it’s not a very Gentlemanly thing to do) and wind through the lives of several people before it settles at last on Mr. Norrell, a curmudgeonly old magician who manipulates the men of the York Society into giving up their studies of magic. His disposition does not improve.
Eventually we meet Jonathan Strange and watch as he meets his fate in magic. Strange turns out to be the one magician that Norrell cannot silence and is subsequently forced to take him on as a pupil. Strange is everything Norrell is not: enthusiastic, agreeable, outgoing and not in the least bit adverse to small displays of magic for curious Londoners. Together, Norrell and Strange set out to restore English magic to its former majesty and power (though Norrell isn’t as gung-ho about this as Strange)
Along the way we meet several important people: Strange’s wife Arabella, Norrell’s entourage Drawlight and Lascells, Sir Walter and Lady Pole, their manservant Stephen Black and his nemesis (and self-proclaimed Best friend) The Gentleman with the Thistledown hair. All these people, and more, weave an intricate story (including very detailed footnotes, some of which last many pages beyond the original chapter) of how Strange and Norrell bring about the return of English magic.
Due to the rambling and detailed nature of this story I don’t think I can recommend it to a wide audience. Certainly it is worth reading and/or listening to, but if you’ve tried to read The Lord of the Rings and just couldn’t get past the Tom Bombadil chapter I imagine you may find the first third of this book difficult to wade through. If you stick it out an get past the set up to the whole book you will be well rewarded in the end. A long story but worth the time spent on it.