Long Time Loves: Agatha Christie Mysteries

In honor of Goodreads' 2017 Mystery and Thriller Week - as well as the recent release of photos from the set of Murder on the Orient Express - I thought I'd dive into one of my oldest novel fixations... and no, it isn't Nancy Drew!

It started when I was in middle school... two of my best friends, Jule and Megan, were total Anglophiles - mainly because both of their families had direct-transplants from Britain - and it colored a lot of our mutual interests (like breakfast tea!). Especially when Megan had sleepovers at her house, we loved listening to The Beatles, watching British television (more Red Dwarf than Doctor Who), and, of course, talking about Agatha Christie novels.

Both Jule and Megan had their favorites long before we founded our little group, which meant I had some serious catching up to do, spawning the second largest collection in my already-voluminous bookshelves (the first of which is, of course, Nancy Drews. You can tell that I definitely have a type.). Pretty soon, I had already amassed over 30 titles, picking up at least one or two every time I visited a bookstore, especially when I went on vacation.

My obsession lasted a little over 20 books in, until we got to high school. With that, we splintered, at least for the time being: Megan went off to a local Catholic high school, while Jule and I stuck close with a larger friend group we'd been in the middle of since middle school, as well. While I still loved reading mysteries in my own time, I wasn't talking about books with my peers as much (unless we were the ones writing them: this was the same friend group that introduced me to NaNoWriMo!).

From that point, my love of mysteries developed in various directions: with the popularity in Sherlock Holmes stories in movies and television that hit when I was in high school, I started gravitating towards that particular British standby, Arthur Conan Doyle, while my Dad's love of local mystery writer Aaron Elkins led me to one of my other favorite mystery-solvers, forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver.

I recently read an Agatha Christie that had long been sitting on my shelves, in my favorite way to do so: with the accompaniment of tea, in one afternoon. It's my enjoyment of that particular novel - Mrs. McGinty's Dead - that prompted me to write this blogpost: while the titles are long-missing from both my blog and Goodreads backlog, it's because for a long time, I powered through these so quickly that I didn't know how to go about discussing them!

So, it's an old love, and a long-term one, and one that I know I can always come back to in the case of needing a little buffer room in my reading habits. At the end of the day, Agatha Christie was known as the "Queen of Crime" for a good reason: her prolific canon of work, as well as the standard of excellence they were known for, have made Christie a standby in the overall mystery genre, as well as my own bookshelves.

I thought I might as well brainstorm a list of why these particular mystery novels will always chart among some of my favorites. Hopefully, you can find a good reason or two to pick up a copy yourself!

• They follow the classic mystery-solving format. While the typical plot progression of your standard mystery novel might come off as formulaic for casual fans in the genre, for those of us with the power to power through multiple Scooby Doo episodes in one sitting, it's par for the course. After the grand reveal at the end of the novel, it's nice to reflect on the straight-forward nature of the overall story... one of the reasons they serve as a great palate-cleanser for me is because it still can be engaging, without needing to color too far outside the lines. 
• They're essentially period pieces, and are so totally British. Mrs. Christie's canon stretches through several decades, but each still retains a quaintly historical and distinctively English tone. I think this is why they often lend themselves so well to film adaptation... it's always a sure bet with a '30s or '40s fashioned Brit mystery! 
• Her characters are classic, yet not: instead of a hard-boiled footprint-follower or dogged detective typical to the Mystery and Thriller genres, we get genial Belgian Hercule Poirot, and unsuspectingly sharp granny Jane Marple (who is also probably the reason behind my high school obsession with reruns of Murder, She Wrote). Even Tommy and Tuppence, some of her lesser popular detectives, are pure fun! So while they now set a standard for mystery protagonists, they still stand out as novelty voices in a novel genre. 
• She absolutely defined the Mystery game. Christie laid the groundwork for modern mystery novels, and her impact gave credence to the legitimacy of an entire genre. There are awards named after her, and some of your favorite contemporary authors probably hold her up as the stuff of inspiration, too.

And to think: during a period of history that stretched for multiple decades, there were both new Nancy Drews and new Agatha Christies coming out at the same time! Still, I think I may have got it better now: I don't have to wait for any new book releases, and can carefully collect the installments of each, from a few more comfortable decades away. 

Are you a fan of mystery novels? Who is your favorite author? What's your favorite Agatha Christie story? Let me know, in the comments below!

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: A Celebration of Mystery Writers in Washington State

I truly believe that it should be a well known fact, that just like our apples, Washington makes great mystery writers, better than anywhere else. 

Let me explain: our state already has our specific library shelf's full of truly great authors. Sherman Alexie, champion of Native American youthful voice, through novels like The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, is one of my personal favorites, and currently lives in Seattle. Others, like Frank Herbert, author of (in my personal opinion) the greatest science fiction epic of all time, Dune, hails from my own home city of Tacoma. We already know that some truly great authors are grown right here, in the best part of the PNW.

However, there's a distinct subset within that canon that stands out to me, in the mystery section of the library. Therefore, in an attempt to convince you, here are some of my favorite masters of intrigue, straight from our gorgeously green state!

TROUBLE IN TACOMA

For starters, let's take it back to T-Town with Erik Hanberg: City of Tacoma Parks Commissioner by day, author of the "Arthur Beautyman" series by night. His novels have followed the titular computer-hacker-slash-detective through three novels already, with The Saints Go Dying released in 2010, The Marinara Murders in 2011, and The Con Before Christmas in 2012; all self-published, and all marked with quick pace, realistic dialogue, character interest, and unpredictable plot turns (check out my review of The Marinara Murders back in January 2012!).

Erik gets bonus points for his other projects, too, including the books The Little Book of Gold and The Little Book of Likes, nonfiction guides involving fundraising and social media (respectively) for small, nonprofit organizations, as well as his newest novel, The Lead Cloak, a science fiction adventure that debuts on October 15th (which is my birthday, in case anyone's forgotten).

**Also, Tacoma's elected officials get a second honorable mention of sorts with Mark Lindquist, City of Tacoma Prosecutor and part-time author, whose book The King of Methlehem (published by Simon and Schuster in 2007) is quite thrilling, but doesn't necessarily qualify as a straight-shot mystery to me. Still, he's got some serious resume: Sad Movies (1987, Atlantic Monthly Press), Carnival Desires (1990, Atlantic Monthly Press), and Never Mind Nirvana (2001, Random House) all did pretty well for themselves.

RAINY CITY SAVIOR

Yet another Tacoma-born author, Earl Emerson, chose to focus his time, instead, on Seattle, with the Thomas Black mystery series. The Rainy City, the first of the series, was published in 1985, while the latest - the thirteenth in the series, Monica's Sister - was published just this past summer. His work features actual Pacific Northwest settings in all their gritty glamour, described on point, and main character - in the first few novels, at the very least - even lives in the University District! Dark and suspenseful, these mysteries are tensely realistic, and are notable for their dedication to the description of their setting.

Mr. Emerson also writes the "Mack Fontana"series, as well as the "Fire Thrillers" series, taken from his time spent as a lieutenant with the Seattle Fire Department.

ALPINE AUTHORESS

Mary Daheim, a Seattle-based mystery author, actually got her start in bodice-ripping historical romances. However, after a string of them proved unfulfilling to her writing talent, she started working in her favorite genre, and it's a good thing she did: her very first mystery novel - Just Desserts, from the "Bed and Breakfast series," starring Judith McMonigle - was nominated for an Agatha award! The series has continued onwards with 28 novels in total.

However, those aren't her only claim to mystery fame. Her "Alpine" series - starting with The Alpine Advocate in 1992, starring Emma Lord - has seen a total of 24 novels, set in the small town of Alpine, WA. Here's the catch: as of the time of her writing, the real Alpine no longer existed. She resurrected the town in her novels, and 2008, the old town itself was rediscovered... by a group who called themselves "the Alpine Advocates"! Talk about author loyalty.

She's also a University of Washington alumna, and was one of the first female editors of The Daily (the UW campus daily paper), which makes her one of the coolest people in the entire world, essentially. She was inducted into the UW Department of Communications Alumni Hall of Fame in 2008. Sounds like its time for a campus scavenger hunt, to me...

MAKE NO BONES ABOUT IT

Finally, we'll finish off the list with one of my absolute favorites: Aaron Elkins, author of one of my favorite mystery series in the whole world, starring Gideon Oliver, the Skeleton Detective, a forensic anthropologist from Washington. Technically, Elkins himself ISN'T from our lovely state, but he lives here now, in Sequim, and that's a good enough reason for me to take a moment to talk about a super awesome author. 

So, how's this for story time: my dad actually was the first in my family to love this series, to the point where out of the thirteen or so copies we own, at least six of them are signed (if I'm remembering correctly, the legend goes that my dad sheepishly approached Elkins at a writer's conference or something or other with a couple of copies expressly purposed for the occasion, and Elkins patiently signed all of them for him). My dad passed on the copies - and the obsession - to me, and now I've got Fellowship of Fear - the first of them, from 1982- sitting on my desk right now, ready for a reread. Don't believe me?

"To Andrew - Here's to a skeleton in every closet. Aaron Elkins" 

Elkins has now retired this hero with the 17th novel in the series, Dying on the Vine, released in 2012. However, that doesn't mean he's done writing: he has also produced the "Chris Nordgren" novels, as well as the "Lee Ofsted" series, and is currently working on the "Alix London" series, as well, which he writes with his wife, Charlotte. He has also produced three stand alone novels, called Loot, Turncoat, and The Worst Thing.

***

So this October, if you're looking for some murder and mayhem to cozy up to the fire with on a windy day, might I recommend some homemade mysteries, fresh from your own beautiful backyard of Washington state?

Creepy Kids

It's been pretty gloomy here at home ever since summer really started, and the constant cloud cover has got me pretty bummed. With bookshelves ever serving as a first class ticket to, well, other minds, I decided to take a trip to someone else's head for a couple of days, some one whose mind wasn't overly crowded with discontent like mine. Yet, wouldn't you know it, my subconscious steered me right towards the downright gloomiest book in my bookcase: Ransom Rigg's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. 

This novel follows the story of seventeen-year-old named Jacob, from his painfully dull existence in Florida, to a mysterious island off of the coast of Wales, in search of answers for the murder of his grandfather, and the truth behind the strange stories the old man used to tell him... Tales about a boy who was inhabited by bees, a brother/sister duo whose were much mightier than their size would suggest, a girl who could levitate and another who could control plants, and most special still, a girl who could control fire, all living in an orphanage during WWII. However, the reality he finds, is even stranger than the stories, and it soon becomes clear, that in facing the truth, he must also face a future different from anything he has ever known.

The novel was incredibly fast-paced, with nary a dull moment or pause in action, with plenty of suspense pulling the story forward at every step. While the constant movement might have been construed as sloppy or a little too frenetic at key points, the effect was, overall, fitting of Jacob's rapidly changing world view. In fact, that's what this book served as, primarily: not a world-builder, but definitely a world-changer. A lot of it, especially in the middle, assisted in the transition of the construction of Jacob's reality into one of an altered semi-reality... Still, this endless flow of movement and change got a little hectic, and I would have appreciated a little more demonstration of the world than oration of its composition. You know, showing, rather than telling. (Then again, this maybe because it is a YA fantasy, and the length and believability might have been called into questioning on that count).

The characters are incredibly intriguing, the descriptions are vivid (and that's saying something, that Wales and muddy bogs and creeping fog can ever be described as "vivid"), and the plot was very interesting, with multiple layers, and a lot of twists and turns. The ending especially was incredibly suspenseful, but the plot twist was a little too expected and poorly orchestrated for my taste. It was obvious to spot, but it didn't detract from the ending too much.

The best aspect of the book by far was the photos from which the book originated. The fact that the plot was cobbled together from strange snippets and odd photos found at random garage sales and flea markets, was SO COOL, and definitely served as a super unique origin for this super unique story. The best part is, there's even more of the origin story present in the back of my copy...

I was sent this book through Goodreads, as the novel moves forward from it's status as a New York Times Best-Seller in hardcover, into paperback form, in preparation for the release of it's sequel, Hollow City, come next January 14th. This edition of the already-popular novel includes an extensive Q&A with Mr. Riggs in the back of the book, even more creepy pictures - those not used in the novel itself, as well as others hinting at the fates that await the children in their next adventure -  and a fairly large chunk of the first chapter of the sequel as well. The extra materials were just as cool as the book itself, as the Q&A detailed even more of the amazing origins of the novel, and that was the part I liked best.

Though maybe a little unsuited for those who don't like overly predictable novels, this is a good, creepy read for the YA Fantasy/Horror types, as well as adults who are willing to sit through some drudge-y info-dumping and teen romance. At the end of the day, it was still a pretty welcome distraction for me.

The Novel and the Movie: The Maltese Falcon

In the ever-involved interest of trying new things, I thought maybe the time had come for a direct and objective contrast to the sometimes over-trusted phrase, "The book is always better than the movie." Sometimes, maybe the movie is just better than the book? In this new series, I'll experience a story, in the forms of both the original printed novel, and the subsequent movie adaptation, and make my own judgement as to which was better, going into detail on the why one worked or didn't work, in an effort to give each a fair shot in telling their tale.

This series was inspired by the latest source of inspiration for my College Fashion "Looks from Books" series: The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett. Written in 1930, and adapted three times by 1941, this book has some serious street cred in both the book and movie industries, and adapting its key thematic elements for college students to wear was some significantly hard work, without weighing in the benefit of suspense and visual inspiration that the 1941 adaptation - starring the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor - provided so bountifully. (Click for the link to my article here.)

THE NOVEL:

A densely-packed and quick-paced detective story, full of the genre's typical ingredients for intrigue: a gorgeous mystery lady, telling lies and covering up schemes, but all with a schoolgirl smile that you just can't help believing; a strange mystery foreigner, seeking a  strange mystery artifact, with a quick hand for a gun and an eye for his gunmen; a fat mystery collector also seeking said strange mysterious artifact; and at the center of it all, Sam Spade, prolific private detective.

Like solving a puzzle from the center outwards, Spade pieces together a mystery involving legendary lost treasure by double-thinking his opponents and smacking people around like speed bags. Ruthless but never reckless, Sam always gets his man... especially when the chase ends up being the end of his partner.

A fully-formed and hole-less mystery (rare, honestly), whose distinct emphasis on visual focus and deliberately innovative forms of description paint a landscape of crime and dark doorways with questionable intents lying on either side. Suspenseful, solid, sure to suck you in completely, Dashiell Hammett launches a legacy in an often "cheap" genre.

THE MOVIE: 
Humphrey Bogart smolders and Mary Astor simpers through this film classic, as the two leads, Sam Spade and Brigid O'Shaughnessy, respectively.

Bogart tackles the iconic role with tenacity and focus, and physically represents the character description of Sam Spade to perfection; however, sometimes he comes of as manic and over-bearing where the strength of the character should have lied in solid stoicism and composed calm. Astor makes for a convincing damsel-in-distress, but  takes some of the edge out of the "femme fatale," by whimpering and waffling between the doe-eyed waif and the wanton honeypot in an exaggerated attempt to come off as manipulative. Her true power lies in her otherworldly ability to reflect emotions through her facial expressions, and I feel like we could have gotten through the movie solely based on her numerous soft-focused close-ups.

Both characters seem mistreated by the script, which alters key scenes in the hopes of skewing power and responsibility more in the favor of the male lead (common practice for a still man-centric media back in the '40s). The scandalous nature of the plot is continually dulled by the deliberate soothing of the story line to comply with the cultural status quo back in 1941, muzzling some of the more notable moments within the tale, and thus taking away some of the edge so apparent in the novel.

The movie is considered highly by virtually everyone, and was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture. It was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1989.

THE VERDICT: 

Well, so much for striking off this series by depicting a balance, but in my opinion, the book overwhelmingly overrides the movie: the detective and mystery genres themselves exist to inspire suspense, and in relation, the novel allows for a lot more cool-headed calculation than the noisy and over-acted film.

However, that being said, the adherence to the plot of the novel in itself is wholly remarkable - despite its dallying deviations - because you'd never see something that stuck so close nowadays. The disappearance of the subtleties and nuance of the novel is what I mourn in the film category, but even so, it's a solid work of cinema, and definitely worth an hour and forty minutes of your time.

Dead Tired

Only a few days back to school, and I already feel like spending most of the day in bed.

It's not the classes, those are amazing. They're all in a row, straight off, starting at 9:30 am, and ending shortly after lunch, so I don't have any giant gaping holes in my schedule like I did last quarter, and besides, check out what classes I'm taking: Water and Society, English 297 AND 301 (pre-reqs for the major!), and Dinosaurs. Yeah, that's right, Dinosaurs. Nothing, in terms of schoolwork, is getting me down, as the readings are fabulous, the topics are engaging, and I have friends - or am already making friends - in all of my classes. There's no problem with school itself.

I think it's partially to do with the fact that I really wore myself out over break. Not everyone considers tackling an almost 1,000 page Russian drama for Christmas, and it was a real journey, not only to read the whole novel, but also adapt it for College Fashion (for my first-ever post, no less), as well as review it for this blog. While I did find it all a very rewarding experience, I don't think I'll be attempting that kind of a marathon again any time soon.

Instead, I chose to retreat to the comfort zone, and bury myself in my favorite genre - also rife with those 6 ft. under - with a good cup of tea. Several good cups of tea later, I retreated from the novel mentally replenished, and ready to get back to work.

The novel was this: Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, one of the best - in my opinion - of Agatha Christie's canon, and one not starring either of her most famous mystery-solvers, Poirot or Marple, either. Instead, the novel focuses on young Bobby Jones, the son of a vicar, and his childhood friend, Lady Frances Derwent, and their attempts to expose a devious drug ring and unmask a murderer by following the trail of corpses left behind, all without becoming corpses themselves.

In many ways, it was simply a typical, yet no less thrilling, Agatha Christie mystery, involving many familiar thematic elements of the mystery genre at that time period, including shadowy figures, sinister doctors, eerie mist, daring escapes, close shots, and the femme fatale. However, as this was one of Christie's first mysteries published after her second marriage, this time to archaeologist Max Mallowan, the witty banter and jokes prevalent throughout the book also bespeak a certain  lightheartedness perhaps not present in her later books. And say whatever you want about the caliber and quality of the series novel, the mystery genre, or this masterful combination of the two, but I believe that this is one of the most fun Agatha Christie's career.

Anyways, a nice, quick read, leaving me feeling refreshed and ready, to face the onslaught of reading coming at me from two different English classes. :) I'm so excited!

Shadows and Rain

As I am currently living in Seattle, you cannot imagine my immense gratitude and relief when it finally started to rain two days ago.

The city has been clouded over with the distinct lack of clouds since school has started. The unnatural sunshine and prolonged summer temperatures have been keeping me awake at night in an unseasonably warm sweat. Each time I dropped another ice cube in my tea, another little part of my soul flaked off, like the dry skin that came with the unwelcome heat, the heat that kept me in tee shirts, instead of in my prized, oft-worn sweaters. The brightness blinded me to all books - school-related or otherwise - and I was suspended in time, just like my favorite season, who was still anxiously waiting for its leaves to change, and its carved pumpkins to appear on doorsteps. Now that the weather has finally caught up with the calendar, I am released from the stupor of the clashing seasons, and I can actually focus.

To a point. It may be argued that what emerged from the new-found morning fog was a misdirected focus; instead of an actual attentiveness to the tasks at hand (namely, managing to pay attention to Appreciation of Architecture lectures...), instead of applying myself to the textbook and keyboard, as I should have... I was desperate for more gloom. Suffering under this odd ailment - desiring the murky and cold, and despairing of all that was clear and warm - I turned to the book that mentioned both darkness and seasonal weather changes in its title (it's allure only magnified by the fact that Stephen King's quote was on the cover): The Shadow of the Wind: A Novel, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

Largely taking place in the heavily political post-war decade of 1945 to 1955 in Barcelona, Spain, the story follows the trial and travails of the love life of young Daniel Sempere, a teen trying to avoid the pitfalls of friendships and relationships, while keeping hidden the secret he has sworn to protect: a mysterious book, the Shadow of the Wind, of which only one manuscript exists. The rest - as well as the rest of the collective works of it's secretive author, Julian Carax - have been meticulously burned, by a man scarred by fire, operating under the name of one of Carax's villians, representative of the devil. What follows is a tangled web of many characters, their lies, and the timelines in which they operate, and the great question, of whether they can unravel the mystery before their time runs out.

I'm not entirely familiar with any European literature - especially recent literature - that doesn't come from England. I'm used to the Gothic, and the Romantic, and everything that has to do with the prude and privileged ladies of Austen and the Brontes. I was unprepared for this book - which was a bestseller in Spain and France, among other places, before being translated into English - and its... well... differing sensibilities. What I'm talking about are lines like these:

"You're a dish fit for a pope, Rocito. This egregious ass of yours is the Revelation According to Botticelli." 

You see what I mean? Not to say that this line didn't leave me laughing uproariously... it's just that the book displays an abundance of that sort of mindset. And if anyone has heard me complain about the Game of Thrones before, it's like this: I just have a minor problem with major intrigue being upstaged by the inability to keep certain things to yourself. But that's just my point of view.

The rest was great, though. Instead of existing on some limited scope and scale, it existed - to me - in some supernatural soap opera, populated with nefarious characters of dubious origins, liars and double crossers, those who looked like angels and those who acted like angels, those whose religious piety concealed a broken soul. The grandiose nature of the entire novel, the infinite supply of source material, was interesting, as most of what I've been reading recently seems kind of limiting in comparison. The strange, almost postmodernist view of the politics at the time, especially in reference to the corruption in government, which is a hefty topic in itself, took a backseat, when it came to the paranormal and the mystical. The result was a hodgepodge of the religious and the secular, the magical and the evil and the real. This novel contained a lot of varying elements, all moving and acting of their own accord, with their own connotations and purpose.

The problem is that the result of that grew a little too hectic. Towards the ending, I got the vague impression of sending sand through a sieve - throwing a million little particles your way a mile a minute - in the hopes that something is going to fill all the holes. Simply by reading it, I was finding suspense not only in the story itself, but as an outsider thinking, "come on, it's been a great one so far, don't let it all fly out of hand now...don't stuff the ending so full of surprises you'll blow your own story to bits." Thankfully, the acceleration finally stopped, and the story came together at the end. Unfortunately, in a double blow to my heart, it was a predictable outcome. So I had endured such stress at the hands of frenetic plot movement, then frustration through the stagnation as the exact same ending I had predicted came to fruition?

Believe it or not, the masterful imagery and inventive storytelling made it all worth it, and I'm not joking. Normally I'm a stickler about the "moral values" and "plot consistency and regularity" things, but this one was probably the exception. The length was pretty fantastic, too, as it was small enough for me to finish within the span of a week, and yet, it was long enough to let me get familiar with the texture of its binding and the font on its pages. A large-portioned meal, but a tasty one. Maybe I'm just feel so much gratitude for the man who mentally sent me to Barcelona for the past week, but it was a nicely worded vacation, and I appreciated the gloom.

Now, back to my rain. :)

Fresh Start, New Haul

The current state of my desk, while far improved from the hazardous topography it displayed during the school year, is by no means organized. While there are now no old papers mindlessly shuffled around the flat expanse when attempting to reach the necessary book or journal, there are approximately 30 or so new books stacked up, waiting to be read, sorted, or tossed into someone else's room. Amazingly enough, I am only responsible for the purchase of about a third or so of these new novels: the rest I can blame on my parents.

After rummaging around in some of the boxes crowding the garage a few weeks ago, looking for an old container of floppy disks with which to confuse my brother's highly capable class for his Microsoft project, my Dad stumbled across some remnants of bookcases past. I stood beside him as he combed through paperbacks, like the commemorative 1984 edition of George Orwell's 1984, or Robert Ludlum's entire Bourne collection, or what seemed like endless installments in Aaron Elkins' Gideon Oliver mystery series. The vast majority of the latter were all even signed, and all with different inscriptions (my Dad attempted to recall exactly at what sort of convention it was, that he must have accosted one of his favorite writers, begging for about 10 different books to be signed). Along with some Stephen King, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (the special movie-release edition), Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and James A. Michener's Mexico, these books build the first tower of pages on my desk.

The next stack is the only one of the three which bears my signature: I picked them out, lovingly and carefully, of the enormous wonderland and book-fiend mecca that is Portland's Powell's City of Books. Stumbling blindly, overwhelmed by one of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever laid eyes on, I snatched about eight books and a tee shirt out of the stacks, before almost collapsing in the checkout line, overcome with emotion (Just kidding. We hadn't had breakfast yet, and the dramatic episode was shortly remedied in the Zeus Cafe of the Crystal Hotel, Portland's extension of McMenamin's). Anyways, the mix of classics and new classics was accompanied by some books for my siblings: for the young bro, the Book of Perfectly Perilous Math (seriously, one of the best-loved presents I've ever given him), and for the second sister, one of my favorite books at her age: Scott Westerfield's So Yesterday (ditto). We returned to Washington with about thirty pounds of pages, and an equal amount of Voodoo Doughnuts.

My father's stack lies to the left, while my own occupies the right. (Not pictured: Mrs. Dalloway, whom I have temporarily misplaced...)

My mother, on the other hand, doesn't usually share her reading with the likes of me, unless it involves the classics. You see, this hospital administrator was once an English major (like I will be, starting this fall) and has a "slightly more developed" sense of reading material (ouch, right?). So, when I walked into my room and found a mess of eleven books perched precariously on my bench, I was a little stunned. When I asked her about it later, she explained that these were all books she had bought, and then lent out to my ravenous reader Grandma, and my aunt K. Now that they were back in her possession, with firm assurance that they were all good, she thought that I might want to leaf through a couple. And, she sniffed, this may be a way of getting me into more "adult" books, instead of the slightly-less-quality teen material I read all the time (OUCH, Ma). So, I've got a couple of those.

Mom's stack. Not pictured: Mark of the Lion: A Jade del Cameron Mystery, by Suzanne Arruda. Ma's currently got that one, but I don't know for how much longer (she was complained that it read like a grown-up Nancy Drew. Once again, OUCH, Mom!). 

Anyways, that's how I'm getting my summer started. More plans, more fun on the way. However, while you may have noticed that I DID NOT fulfill my school year goal of reading 50 books (I only got to 36...), I will not be trying again this summer... but that doesn't mean I won't continue to challenge myself with reading. I just have to acknowledge that I have a lot of plans, and new projects in the works, so I won't be able to, say, read 30 books (However, I will read 25.) Just on my own time. :) 

Let's get the summer started!