I just read The Buddha in the Attic, which is all kinds of wonderful. [link] It's a poetic little gem of a book about Japanese brides coming to America at the trun of the century. It's told in first person plural ("we"), which seems like it would become gimmicky, but it doesn't. I REALLY loved this book.

I just finished the Farseer trilogy (Robin Hobb) and am now in the middle of rereading Cloud Atlas. I'd meant to reread it before seeing the movie, but since the screening was last night I guess that plan's off.

I have a couple of ARC cookbooks from my MiL, which are great except the page numbers aren't final so there are several recipes with notes like "Serve with spicy tomato jam (page 0000)"

I've been meaning to read Cloud Atlas. I doubt I'll see the movie anytime soon, but it's still a pretty good excuse...

P-C, I'm glad you stuck with it! I re-read it again last week and I was wondering if you'd stayed with it.

My 90 year Mom read Edgar Allan Poe's "The Bells" for a Halloween event. If you are looking for some Poe to read for Halloween that is a little less widely shared than "The Raven", I highly recommend. Some people say it is hard to read, but if you avoid the 20th and 21st century tendency of reading poetry as prose, and deliver it rapid fire and embrace the rhythm and syncopation and alliteration it is actually fairly straightforward. One of the young people listening said it was 19th century rap, and really she had a point. It is almost a week yet to Halloween, and if anyone knows a Goth rapper who would be interested maybe they could make a youtube of themselves reading "The Bells" rap style. I think I will xpost to music.

Tintinnabulation is one of my favorite words, Typo.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is 50 years old.

Catching up after much too long ...

I've loved Josephine Tey's books for a long time. She created some interesting situations and characters. I think my favorite was "To Love And Be Wise".

In regard to Ray Bradbury, one of the stories in "The Toynbee Convector" is set in San Francisco, if I remember correctly. "The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair" ... all I remember clearly is a conversation taking place on one of those really long staircases.

I've read some Shirley Jackson, but it was a long time ago. The original "The Haunting" was seriously scary. The remake ... really kind of a waste of talent. It always irks me when someone takes somethng and remakes it so that it gets changed all out of any resemblence to the original. And some of the changes seem to be for no purpose other than to be different. huh ... we're having problems with the publishers of our magazine doing that exact thing - rewriting stuff to put their "stamp" on it and inserting incorrect information in the process.

drat ... double post.

I finished Something Wicked This Way Comes while the electricity was out. I really enjoyed it. Although, I think I liked the opening few chapters the best; they were so atmospheric. Now what to read next?