Garden of Thought

Just a quick book rec!

I expect there are many people out there for whom this item being in existence is old news, but I was scoping out the kids fiction at my local library (I very much like Avi and was hoping for a title I hadn't read yet) and what did I come across but "Fortunately the Milk" by Neil Gaiman.

Checked it out immediately. Read it all before bedtime. Chortled much. Go forth to your own libraries and pick this up for this great 'bedtime story' expertly spun by the best.

Well, my folks who have been living with us for the past month as 'homeless' people while they looked for a house are off in their RV for the week, checking out an area down south of here for potential real estate, one kid is sleeping in and another is off on a youth retreat... the house is blessedly quiet.  I'll miss them, but at the same time it's nice to have a break.

A couple fic recs: I finally had a chance to just sit and read a couple fanfics last night, a luxury I've rarely had of late. We're in a mild 'Rise of the Guardians' phase here, mixed in with the usual fandoms and ff.net has some quality reads by psychicsaphie for those so inclined. They run a touch intense, well-written and interesting.  Start off with Snowbird then carry on to The Frost Spirit and the Honey Tree.  If you're brave, go to the still-in-progress The King of Cold Mountain, but be warned it has a nasty foe and serious cliffies.

For my fellow Three fans, PandaInTheStars (starpanda of DbyA) has taken Jon Pertwee's love of playing vampires and crossed it over into his Doctor role - take UNIT and Three and consider how it would happen if he were still an unusual entity holing up and working for them, but for different reasons.  .Blood and Tea is also at ff.net.  Everyone stays in character and the action/solve-a-mystery plottiness is good fun. She's working on a sequel as well.

My basil seeds are sprouting and all the wee little bitty basils (basilettes?) are sooo cute and tiny!  I love how they push up the little bits of dirt so some come up wearing them like tiny brown hats.  Welcome to the world, basil, you are very jaunty for babies with leaves hardly bigger than sesame seeds.

The miniature ivy I have nearby is LOVING the plant light I have on the basil trays, it's growing almost visibly in its desperation and desire for the light, twining around the top of it like a shameless lady drooping over her gent at a party.  Tsk!  No shame, ivy, no shame.  Take a page from the shamrock beside you and show a bit of restraint! 

In other news, I'm very happily reading Tennyson's Idylls of the King and enjoying it ever so much.  I've had a copy for a while, but hadn't taken the time to read anything but the collection of shorter poems the publisher used for filler at the back of the book as there were some old favorites there.  The long ballads that make up Idylls are all retellings of various parts of the Arthurian legends and its wonderful stuff.

My college age daughter was saying she felt she needed to read more classics so she could be better versed in what 'everyone' is supposed to have read.  We looked up a number of those 'top 100' reading lists that are published online and going through them one thing was very evident:  they were horribly depressing!  Seriously, anyone who sat down to read through these lists would delve into the depths of cynical depression by the time they were halfway through.  "Why," I asked, "don't any of these lists have a genius like P.G. Wodehouse on them?  Why do they have multiple titles by Depresso-Man Steinbeck but nothing featuring Bertie Wooster?"

So, after seeing multiple depressing, dystopian, cynical and dysfunctional title lists being thrust at tenative exploratory readers who then conclude they "don't like the classics" and wander off to youtube videos how about a list of GOOD books for a change? 

I'll start it off with pretty much the entire works of P.G. Wodehouse, add some Dorothy Sayers and C.S. Forester and say - tell me more!  Classic writers that are witty and funny and upbeat?  yes!!

Also, if any of you happen to know the whereabouts of a reading list that isn't half 'oh no, we're all gonna die' and the other half horrible titles people are forced to read in school programs because the reading lists were assembled in the 50s and never updated, please please show me the way.