A Trip To The Bookstore

This past Saturday, Richie and I headed up to Market Common Myrtle Beach to do a little birthday shopping for me. What? I know my birthday is three weeks away, but I knew what I wanted, so Richie and I went to pick it up. I'm a big girl now, and I don't need presents ON my birthday. What's important is that I get presents. Sheesh.

Anyway, our first stop inside Market Common was this great store called Blue Mer. With all the pretty colors and preppy clothes, I could have purchased everything in the store. But I was there on a mission--to purchase a Vera Bradley wallet. Richie was very patient as I browsed through every single Vera item the store offered, even though I was just there for a wallet. This is what I ended up purchasing:

http://www.verabradley.com/Site/Store/ProductDetail.aspx?colorid=7&sku=223%3a7


I can even carry it as a purse on it's on, which I did the next day at church.

After leaving Blue Mer, Richie and I had lunch at P.F. Changs. We'd never eaten there before, and with us both loving Chinese food, we decided to give it a try. The shrimp dumplings were the best I'd ever tasted. I could have embarrassed myself with those dumplings, and ordered them six more times during the same setting, but I held back and enjoyed our Seasame Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork. During lunch, I convinced Richie to walk into Barnes and Noble, instead of us driving straight over to Bass Pro Shops. He indulged me and said yes--on the condition that we didn't stay in there for six hours.

Those of you who know me well know that I literally could stay in that bookstore for the entire six hours and still need more time. I've made no secret that Barnes and Noble is my favorite bookstore, although I like the one in Mount Pleasant better than the store in Market Common.

My trip turned out to be very successful--two books! "Carolina Girls" by Steve Brown, which about four girls who spend summers at Pawleys Island during the 1960s, and "The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane" by Katherine Howe, about a Ph.D. candidate who makes a startling discovery about The Salem Witch Trials, turning everything she thought she knew upside down. A trip to Wal-Mart later that day to pick up some groceries also ended up fruitful, with "Sundays At Tiffany's" by James Petterson winding up in the cart. Victory!

I'm trying to finish up "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb. Normally, I read through books the way water might run through your hands, but this one is more difficult for me, because the main character goes through so much in her short life that's it's almost unbearable to read at times. I've been working on this particular story for over a month now.

On the other hand, maybe by the time I've finished "She's Come Undone", "Return to Sullivan's Island" by Dorothea Benton Frank will have arrived on my doorstep!

Toodles!

What's been running through my head

1. I'm excited to have 'that blogging feeling' again. I actually made a list of things I want to blog about!

2. I have A LOT of books to read, and many more to acquire.

3. I might have recently become curious/obsessed with the Charlaine Harris series.

4. How do you write about the one thing that scares/intrigues you the most without sounding like all the other things you've read about the subject? Oh, wait. I think I just gave my main character a new personality trait. Awesome.

5. Richie is extremely indulgent and patient with my obsessions. He spoils me, and I am extremely appreciative.

Toodles!

Books

I finally finished Son of A Witch! It took me forever to finish this book. I found the pacing so slow. Maybe that's because I didn't know where Liir's story was going to take him, unlike Wicked, where we knew Elphaba's fate from the first page.

SoAW ended abruptly, and it left me with a lot of questions. How did Shell become Emperor? Where is Nor? What happened to her after she left Southstairs? And Candle, where did she go? Why did she decide to leave? For that matter, what about Trism? And what did Liir name the baby? I wish that there had been a epilogue.

Anyway, that's over now, and I've decided to take a short break from Gregory Maquire. The book on my nightstand now is Heroines, written by Eileen Favorite. Here's the rundown from the official website:

Watergate is breaking news, but at the Prairie Homestead, a boarding house in Illinois, there are more immediate concerns. A distraught Emma Bovary has arrived unannounced, and Anne-Marie and her daughter Penny have wrenched themselves from television coverage to attend to their new guest.

But if there's one rule at the Prairie Bluff Homestead, it's never meddle in the lives of the Heroines, however cruel the destinies to which they are bound. There's nothing to be done for poor Emma, save for the provision of tea and a sympathetic ear.

Adolescent angst can't compete with beautiful and grief-stricken, and Penny, a moody thirteen, knows she's no competition against such ethereal creatures as Blanche DuBois and Scarlett O'Hara. Hurt and excluded, she strikes out one night across the prairie to cool her hot head.

But when she arrives at the forbidden woods, she's in no mood to obey her mother's second rule, never to enter--and she soon finds herself in a world of very real heroes and villains, an unwilling heroine in her own terrifying story.

I could not resist a book in which classic figures from literature come together. I have been dreaming of a book like this to come along. It's my geek dream come true! It's so meta, like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, except in novel form.

Seriously, I think I have a problem. I just keep thinking that I need books to read by the pool this summer, because magazines get sweaty and messy. I found that out the hard way last summer with Vogue.

Once I'm done with Heroines, I'll make a short visit back to Maguire with Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, another "fractured fairytale", this time retelling the story of Cinderella. What I'm really looking forward to, though, is getting to read Bull's Island, by my favorite author, Dorothea Benton Frank, who sets most of her novels in the Low Country of South Carolina.

What are y'all going to read this summer?

Toodles!

Obsession Tuesday

Wow! I feel like it's been so long since I've written one of these. Good thing that I'm constantly obsessed with something so I can write...

Watching:

Lennon/McCartney night on American Idol: I've been jittery and bubbly about this since Seacrest announced it two weeks ago. On the one hand, I'm a huge Beatles fan, and I can't wait to hear a select few contestants takes on these classics. On the other hand, I'm a huge Beatles fan, and I'm worried that a few of the contestants will completely ruin the songs of my favorite band. Things I'd like to hear: Amanda Overmyer singing "Helter Skelter"; Jason Castro singing "Yesterday" (even though I know David Archuleta will snag that one up!); Brooke White singing "I Want To Hold Your Hand"; and Michael Johns singing "Revolution".

Reading:

Son of A Witch, by Gregory Maguire. I'm slowly but steadily collecting his works, but I had to read the sequel to Wicked first. In Wicked, we knew what fate had in store for Elphaba, but for Liir, the boy she left behind, life is literally a blank page. Liir is such an interesting character, too. He's quite morally ambiguous (at least where I'm reading now), unlike his mother-figure (Or actual mother? I don't know yet!) Elphaba, who so staunchly fought for what she believed in, even if she ultimately failed.

Doing:

Finding a basic wardrobe, or "Closet Essentials" as Tim Gunn calls them. My goal is to have one of those wardrobes that you can build on as the seasons bring new looks and new trends. I'm tired of standing in front of my closet, fretting and pining over what to wear. I feel like having a core wardrobe of essentials can help me alleviate that problem. But I don't want cheaply made things--I want things made of quality, that are going to last me, because it's the heart of my wardrobe. I don't need 3 pair of black pants that are going to fall apart in a year. I really don't like wearing black pants with anything except a white shirt (and it has to have a jacket or else I'll feel like a part of the wait staff at a restaurant) or a black shirt anyway. If I do, I usually end up feeling like I look like one of the Golden Girls. I like to wear khaki pants or brown pants with most colors. I feel less severe. Of course, this is all dependent on me reaching my goal weight, which should be right around the time that the new fall collections are out.

Toodles!