Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of vintage photographs. I stumbled across Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs recently and I'm still thinking about it. The fact that the author based the story around found photos from his collection fascinated me. As a collector myself I have often wondered about the stories behind anonymous photos. Part fantasy, part adventure, part eccentric photo collection, I think it is a story that will surprise and enchant many.

irkbooks.com/book/miss-peregrines-home-peculiar-children
http://www.ransomriggs.com

artist Christoph Niemann

In 2008, illustrator and designer Christoph Niemann began Abstract City, a visual blog for the NewYork Times. His posts were inspired by the desire to re-create simple and everyday observations and stories from his own life that everyone could relate to. In his hands, mundane experiences such as riding the subway or trying to get a good night’s sleep were transformed into delightful flights of visual fancy. The struggle to keep up with housework became a battle against adorable but crafty goblins, and nostalgia about New York manifested in simple but striking LEGO creations. This brilliantly illustrated book of reflections on modern life includes all 16 of the original blog posts as well as a new chapter created exclusively for the book.

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/03/abstract-city-christoph-niemann/

book review

"Raw, dark, and powerful. Southern Gothic at its best. Puts one in mind of Erskine Caldwell and Flannery O'Connor." - Fannie Flagg

Missing my Southern family over Christmas lead me to dip into the new book by Jenny Wingfield.

It takes you to another place, another time and you can imagine being a child growing up in the wilds of farm country.

It does contain a very disturbing character with hard to read scenes but is still 'unputdownable.' Highly recommended.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Homecoming-of-Samuel-Lake-Fan-Page/252819031399619

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

This book has been out for a while and there is also the movie but I just finished reading it!

It's a coming of age story set in China's Cultural Revolution. The book follows the life of two boys going through "re-education" in a primitive mountain village set during China's Cultural Revolution. It is a story about youth and love and courage, but mostly it's about the transformative power of books. These city boys begin their village life with endless work, such as working the fields and coal mines all day, finding relief only when they discover a hidden stash of European novels.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/10/28/RV236755.DTL

book review

Just finished a wonderful book. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize this year. Looking forward to reading more from this author.

The book is narrated by July, a slave girl born on a Jamaican sugar plantation in the nineteenth century, this is the story of her life during and after the last years of slavery:

‘You do not know me yet. My son Thomas, who is publishing this book, tells me it is customary at this place in a novel to give the reader a little taste of the story that is held within these pages. As your storyteller, I am to convey that this tale is set in Jamaica during the last turbulent years of slavery and the early years of freedom that followed.’
http://www.themanbookerprize.com/

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

Graphic novel and autobiography Persepolis I & II are the story of the author’s childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and the war with Iraq.

It's an eye opening view of her country rarely experienced here in the US. It was recently made into a movie. Highly recommended. Author interview:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/marjane-satrapi-of-madness-and-mullahs-409478.html

plant dyed fabric

Beautiful plant dyed fabric of India Flint.

"As a small girl I loved to sit on the front stoop with my grandmother, listening to her telling stories as the sun gradually set. My favourite was that of the princess who finds herself alone in the forest and must make her clothing from what she can find…leaves, grass and wisps of fur caught on the bushes. I imagined the dress of leaves pinned together with thorns, bejeweled with luminous beetles and dewdrops. This was my dream dress and featured heavily in the drawings that covered my schoolbooks..." (from HandEye magazine)

Australian textile artist India Flint is an artist and writer specializing in bio-regional, ecologically sustainable plant dyes. http://www.indiaflint.com

Her book Eco Colour: The essence of plants bursts forth in magnificent hues and surprising palettes. Using dyes of the leaves, roots, and flowers to color your cloth and yarn can be an amazing journey into botanical alchemy. InEco Colour, artistic dyer and colorist India Flint teaches you how to cull and use this gentle and ecologically sustainable alternative to synthetic dyes. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8152509-eco-colour

recent book

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber

"An essential American story etched in vividly remarkable prose, of a unique period in our history, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree beats with the timeless heart of human endeavors, yet drops us seamlessly into particular spaces and times, a grand achievement of the first rate. Some will call this a novel of race, some will see the futility of the dustbowl settlement, some will believe it to be a tale of a strong woman. It's all of these and so much more, most clearly a tale that will hold and resonate on many levels." -Jeffrey Lent, author of In the Fall

I just finished this last night and it was a good read - it left me guessing about the future of the characters. I wonder if she'll do another book as a continuation of the story.

Have you read any good books lately that you would recommend?

recent books

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

“On the eve of the first world war, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman had promised to look after her - but she has disappeared without a trace.” This book reminded me of The Secret Garden which I loved as a child. Part mystery, part fairy tale - this was a light, entertaining, if at times predictable, summer read. http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Kate-Morton/44584540

How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly by Connie May Fowler

Free Book Friday's interview with the author:

"I created a character who, when the books opens, is in the throes of experiencing a major life crisis. And though her anemic marriage is the catalyst for the crisis, Clarissa is surely the sum of all that has come before her. But the novel needed to unfold in a twenty-four hour period. So I had to find economical ways of infusing her present crisis with reverberations from her past. In terms of how was it easier, I think because I had written about ghosts and spirits in other books, the ghosts in How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly were a joy to write. However, writing the scenes in which I reveal how they died was emotionally wrenching. I cried for days."

http://www.freebookfriday.com/2010/09/how-clarissa-burden-learned-to-fly-by.html