From Demonglass to World Peace

Sunrise at 7:58, sunset will be 4:28

27 degrees out there. Everything covered in frost except where the sun settles. Birds EVERYWHERE searching for seeds and insects. I'm going to start having to get serious about the feeder now- we do have that great big water feature that they love, so we're set on having a place for them to drink and bathe. Just need to get out and feed them. There are feeders all over the neighborhood, though, and the flocks of birds we have wheeling in and out of the trees and bushes are testament to that.

First day of the new year, we're going to go out for breakfast, take a walk, and then see True Grit. Good times.

I don't do resolutions well- I always have these grand, sweeping thoughts like, say, work for world peace, when I need to focus on something like drinking more water and cleaning the bird cage more often. Maybe if I am well-hydrated and less-stressed over a bird cage that embarrasses me, I will be calmer and more able to deal with the world peace thing.

So, this year I am going to drink more water and clean the bird cage more often. There. I am also going to send letters, well, postcards-I don't have a lot to say- to all the family members and a few select friends. It's a start, anyway.

I am in the middle of a book called Demonglass, by Rachel Hawkins, a Hex Hall novel. It is really fun. I have a hard time suggesting hardcover books in series like these, supernatural, paranormal romance-y books, but I love to read them, I'm sure someone else will too, so there you go. (Couldn't find cover art for Demonglass.)

Demonglass is the second in a series and I didn't read the first one, don't think I really need to now-but I will. It's a good romp, a nice romantic tangle, I like stories about shifters and weres, and demons are just a little extra thrilling. I find myself wishing I had it in my hands when I am waiting for things, like breakfast, so that proves to me that it's compelling enough to stay with. I am taking it with me to the movies to read while I wait for it to start. I think the author will be on tour for this book in the spring and coming to the store, that's another good reason to read both in the series. Age 12 and up. (Hyperion. $16.99. Available in March, 2011, the first one, Hex Hall is available now.)

Sunrise was at 6:24 today, sunset will be at 7:56! I feel like summer begins when it is light at 8 pm.

The view of the Olympics as I come over the 85th street off-ramp to I-5 is amazing. Like black construction paper torn and pasted against a sky colored easel. When the days are shorter, the mountains are a deep gray against the steel blue of the autumn sky, pale shadows where the snow lays deep.

This is my favorite view and it is so brief, just the time it takes to come out of the little tunnel that leads to the off-ramp, up the slight rise and turn to the south, and there is nothing of the city to interrupt the sight of the mountains, the sky and the slice of Green Lake that is a surprise slick of water as it gleams in the light of the day.

It's a little longer drive to get home but worth every minute.

D. and I went to Port Townsend for our weekend, a little vacation, and stayed in a really old hotel with 12 foot ceilings and a bathroom that had a toilet you had to step up to use. All the doors were shaved at slants to be able to close. We ate and walked and watched the sound and wondered what was going on with the Navy ship across the way.

We had dinner in a restaurant called Sirens and sat in the window, too cold and windy to be out on the deck, and drank Port Townsend IPA and ate handmade food, and read while the sun went down.

Dennis is reading Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes, and he really likes it. Simply, it is a novel about the Viet Nam war. I am sure there is a lot more to it, but I haven't read it yet. People I know and respect who have read it say it may well be one of the best books written about the war yet. The author is coming to our store in May, so I hope I can finish it by then. (Buy a copy of Matterhorn at Third Place Books and we will donate $5 to our local disabled veteran's center.)

I was reading Cory Doctorow's new book, For the Win, and sat leaning closer and closer to the window as the light waned trying to keep reading. I love reading in restaurants and bars, a beer and a book, surrounded by people, being a part of everything while being slightly apart from it all.

For the Win is a really good book! His website says it best, a short and sweet definition: For the Win is a young adult novel about macroeconomics, video games and the labor movement.

It is also a fast-paced adventure story filled with great characters and glimpses into the way people around the world really live.

I am not a gamer, I haven't played a computer game since the first incarnation of Myst and then I don't think I really played, mostly clicked and rolled over things. I think I may have to pull a little time out of the day (I had a picture in my head of a hernia when I typed that, a bulge of something that shouldn't be where it is) to give a game a try after reading this book.

I absolutely, even without knowing anything about games or the world of it, even not knowing the language, could not put this book down. In For the Win, mostly very poor children from all over the world play video games to make their bosses very rich. When it comes time to pay, feed, or care for the workers, the bosses often fire them or close the games down, leaving them without anything. When Big Sister Nor comes to these millions of people who are only known by log in names and whispers to them about forming an organization where they can help themselves to have a better life, the virtual world begins to crash headlong into the flesh one.

Ooh, it was SO good! I have three people lined up to borrow my copy of the book and I am really looking forward to giving it to all the people in my family.

Judy (from work) and I and some of the ReaderGirlz and Nancy Pearl and two librarians had dinner with Cory Doctorow last week (I know, we were so lucky to be a part of this very small group) and got our advanced reading copies signed while we inhaled our meals. I started it that night and really wanted to stay up all night to finish - not something I can do much any more! I can't wait for it to come out (May 11!) so you all can read it, too.

One of the best things about my job is that I get to open the "white box". My heart does a little leap, I get all excitable when I see it sitting next to my desk. In the white box are advanced reading copies from publishers, the books that aren't yet published, that they want us to know about. ABA (American Booksellers Association) member bookstores get these white boxes sent to them once a month and it's like a little birthday party every time.

One of the last boxes was opened in the presence of another children's bookseller, whose name is also Rene, and it was full of KID'S BOOKS! Books of all types are cool, but the YA box really thrills me- One of the best things in this box was a pink and white galley of Sarah Dessen's new book, Along for the Ride. I swooped in and pulled it out of the box, distracting Rene with clever dialogue about the other (almost as good as Sarah's) books that she might really enjoy. In my head, I was yelling, "MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE!"

Since then, many of us have shared the book and it is beginning to fray along the edges. I know there are at least two meal time mistakes coloring the pages and the cover is starting to curl. I love seeing how ARCs and bound manuscripts age as they get read and passed to the next person who would enjoy them. I often keep the ARCs I love up next to the finished copies of the book because all my memories of the story are in the reading copy.

I think Along for the Ride is Sarah Dessen's best book so far! She writes amazing stories about people who are just like us. Reading her books can let you see your life from the outside, giving you a little perspective on stuff.

She has written books about domestic abuse, teenage pregnancy, absent parents, crushes, pretty much everything you'd want to know about. In Along for the Ride, we meet Auden, her professor mother's perfect child, studious, serious, unable to sleep, wandering in the dark waiting for the next day to come and go. Auden decides to spend the summer away from her mother this year, going to live with her father, his young wife, and their new baby to see if she can separate herself from her regular, normal, life.

The moment Auden arrives in the little beach town, she begins to doubt whether this was a good idea. The baby won't stop screaming, her very young stepmother can't sleep and has no idea what to do, and her father is clueless about everything, putting his needs above all else. What is a girl to do? Well, Auden, being an insomniac and at loose ends, walks the streets of her little town all night, getting familiar with the locals, making a few friends, working at a little boutique, and getting to know Eli, another insomniac. Together, Eli and Auden prowl the town working away at their problems: Auden didn't have much of a childhood, she never learned to ride a bike, and Eli feels great guilt about the death of a friend.


Sarah's books have great characters and great plots, they deal with all kinds of relationships between teens and adults, they are funny and hopeful, and we can't recommend them highly enough. I would suggest a month's worth of Sarah Dessen books for this summer's reading. She has eight (nine?) or so books out, now, just enough to keep one occupied for a bit. Although you may want to whip through them all in a week you should savor them, read something else between, because she doesn't always write a book a year! She takes her time writing each one so it may be a while before the next comes in.

All of Sarah Dessen's books are published by Viking Books. Everything is in paperback now except for Along for the Ride which is $19.99. You adults out there who love a good story with great relationships will thoroughly enjoy Sarah's books. They make for very good Mother-Daughter book group fodder, lots of discussion points without the teenage angsty stuff that most adults seem unable to deal with.