Category: Ruminations

Saturday Snapshot: Bookish Places

On By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot25 Comments

One of my favorite things to do on trips is to visit places I’ve read about in books.  Somehow, having a fictional event set in a real place makes that place so much more interesting!  Maybe it’s because I read about so many fantasy or sci fi places I’m obviously never going to go 🙂 so it’s especially fun when I can go somewhere real.

Everywhere I turned on my trip to New York, I seemed to be seeing something I knew from a book or a movie or just the cultural consciousness.  Naturally I took pictures of everything!  But I’ll just share a couple today.  🙂

First, the fountain in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It’s lovely in its own right, and all the more interesting because Claudia and Jamie took a bath in it while they were hiding out at the Met, in From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg.

Next on the museum tour, the Natural History Museum.  It’s featured in The Night at the Museum, but personally I was more interested in it as Caroline’s museum.

In The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline by Lois Lowry, Caroline is an eleven-year-old girl and aspiring paleontologist who goes to the Natural History Museum every week.  She knows all the exhibits and everyone who works there.  It’s clearly a second home for her, and I felt that a bit vicariously, even though it was my first trip.  And anyway, who doesn’t love seeing dinosaurs?

I’ll save some other places for another week…  In the meantime, check out more Saturday Snapshots on At Home with Books!

Saturday Snapshot: Late-blooming Orchid

On By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot21 Comments

I’ve been waiting a year and a half for my orchid to bloom–and it finally did!  It had lovely flowers when I first got it, and I was told that it would probably bloom again in a year.  Well, it didn’t…and I waited…and didn’t quite have the heart to toss it out…and finally this spring it burst out with buds.  I’ve been watching it like a hawk for three weeks as bud after bud opened, waiting for the perfect moment to take a picture and share with all of you!

I count twelve blooms, plus one more bud I think will open, and two tiny ones that might.  I guess it was worth the wait!

Visit At Home with Books for more Saturday Snapshots.

Saturday Snapshot: Book Loot

On By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot30 Comments

Last weekend I went to my library’s Warehouse Sale, so I thought–why not show off the treasure?

That’s 17 books, for a total price of…$19.50.

I LOVE the Library Warehouse Sale.  It’s literally a warehouse full of books.  The library opens it up every two months or so, and I usually try to make it over to spend a couple of hours wandering the shelves.  The selection is good and the prices are amazing, between 50 cents and two dollars.  I shop used book stores a lot, so I have a pretty good idea how much all of this would have cost somewhere else…I’d say a fairly conservative estimate puts the value around a hundred dollars, for the same copies elsewhere.

Definitely a good deal, and plenty of hidden treasure in among all those shelves!  At the top I have five new-to-me original Star Trek books; I’ve been hunting, not very successfully, for good ones to try, so these were excellent finds.  Under those, AVI and Vivian Vande Velde with two books I know are excellent (and in like-new condition), and Aria of the Sea somehow lured me in even though I almost never buy unread books (barring a series like Star Trek, or a reliable author like Burroughs).

I have the complete Grimms, but no Andersen, so that lovely old copy was a great find.  I’ve been hunting (not very successfully!) for a copy of Huckleberry Finn ever since my copy fell apart–I swear I saw them everywhere until I actually needed to buy a copy.  This one smells amazing, all old book musty, and when I saw there was a matching copy of Tom Sawyer I couldn’t resist them both.

I poked through the picture books for treasures and decided to expand my James Stevenson collection, resulting in the five you see up there.  He wrote and illustrated the Grandpa and Uncle Wainey series, and is wonderfully clever.  I appreciate good stories regardless of target age group.

And the behemoth at the bottom, How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.  I already had the abridged version and know he’s excellent, so I thought I’d just go for the complete one.

So there you have it–book loot!  I can always rely on the Library Warehouse Sale to overfill my bookshelves, and let me check off a few more favorite books I’ve been meaning to buy.  Anyone else have favorite places they go to look for bookish treasure?

And check out At Home with Books for more Saturday Snapshots!

Saturday Snapshot: Birthday Presents

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations, Saturday Snapshot25 Comments

With my birthday yesterday, I thought a picture of some very cool presents would be appropriate for Saturday Snapshot!

I didn’t realise until I took this photo what very British-themed gifts I got this year–I guess my family knows my interests!  I’m planning a trip to London this fall, so the London guidebook, map and journal are quite appropriate.  That’s a “Disappearing TARDIS” mug from Doctor Who (more on that in a moment), and a Wizard of Oz CD.  You’re about to tell me that L. Frank Baum was American…and he was, but it’s Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Wizard of Oz, performed in London, with Michael Crawford in the title role.

The TARDIS is the Doctor’s time (and space) machine (it’s bigger on the inside), which appears and disappears.  In this case, when you add hot water.

The TARDIS disappears on one side...and appears on the other!

I had fun snapping those pictures.  🙂  And what could be more British than drinking tea in a Doctor Who mug?

Visit At Home with Books for more Saturday Snapshots!

Birthdays!

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations6 Comments

Today is rather exciting–not only is it Friday the Thirteenth, it’s my birthday.  🙂

I love keeping track of the birthdays of some of my favorite authors and celebrities, and celebrating if I can (which usually means reading or watching something relevant).  Since it’s my birthday, I thought I’d share about some other birthdays.

January 18: Cary Grant, 1904 – My favorite actor, January 18th is the perfect opportunity to watch Bringing Up Baby or Arsenic and Old Lace.

January 19: Michael Crawford, 1942 – The original Phantom in London and on Broadway, I have enough of his CDs to spend an entire day listening to them.

March 17: Lawrence “Titus” Oates, 1880 – Titus went to the South Pole with Captain Scott, and is a major character in The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean.  He also brings many people to this blog; his name is a frequent search term in WordPress’ stats.

April 23: William Shakespeare, 1564 – I once had a Shakespeare class which met on Shakespeare’s birthday.  I brought cookies, even though I knew my professor wasn’t a Stratfordian.

June 9: Johnny Depp, 1963 – I have, erm, lots of movies on my shelf to choose from to celebrate Johnny’s birthday.

September 1: Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1875 – And I have even more books by Burroughs…

November 30: This one is interesting, because a remarkable number of my favorite people were born on this date – L. M. Montgomery (1874), Winston Churchill (also 1874!), Mark Twain (1835), William Bouguereau, my favorite painter (1825), and Mandy Patinkin (1952), who forever endeared himself to me as Inigo Montoya.  It’s rather a busy day!

Do you celebrate the birthdays of anyone from history or literature?  It’s fun–like putting extra holidays on the calendar!