Book Recommendation - The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

 I recently recommended "The Light Pirate" to my sister Enid.  She wrote an awesome review of it here:

Life on the Avenue: Book Review: "The Light Pirate" by Lily Brooks-Dalton (renovatinglpa.blogspot.com)

Interested?  Why not ask your local library to order it for you

Letter from Key West, May 28 2020

102,137 Deaths in USA from Covid19

Life continues...remotely

Today Enid in Ireland, myself in Key West, joined The Author's Guild and watched Margaret Attwood in Toronto, and Judy Blume in Key West, being celebrated.  The moderator was Andrea Pinkney Davis in New York so it sure was an international affair.

The link to the recording is here.  I hope it is still available when you are reading this blog, it is a very enjoyable hour or so.

They are both such wise, smart and humorous women.  Margaret Attwood in particular has a great wit about her and quite a glint in her eye; "the others might find out" when declining to name her favourite character!  Judy Blume declining too "it is like being asked who my favourite child is".

I liked hearing they were both from a family of readers and were "allowed" to read anything they wanted and could handle, which they took advantage of - Judy reading from her parent's bookshelf and Margaret raiding the bookshelf of the parents of the children she babysat for.  I can relate to doing both those things, growing up in a reader family myself too.  

That also reminded me of the "Young Adult cart" that existed in our local library when I was about nine or ten.  All of the young adult literature books (or maybe just some, the risque ones i.e the Judy Blume's lol!)  were stored on a little book trolley behind the main desk.  So if you were over fourteen you could show your library card and they would wheel the cart out for you to choose your books. Oh what different times we lived in eh?!!!  

Well I don't remember exactly what happened, first of all I think my mother was like "oh just use your older sister's card to get books from there", or at some point I think she said to the librarian, it's fine, I give my permission, just let the twins borrow from the cart if they want.  I think if Judy Blume (and Margaret Attwood) heard this they'd get a kick out of it!

All in all a great tribute to them - in their own words really - it was literally a conference call meeting between the three of them, see pic below.

And of course a lovely thing to watch along with Enid. And then talk about with her afterwards, when of course I reminded her that, sure don't we know Judy personally, having met her a few times now ;) That is a joke, of course we don't know her, but my God she has been the most wonderful gracious person and so giving of her time and thoughts and conversation the times we have met her.

Thanks for the invite to watch this Enid! Great idea!

Stay well friends. 

Ps. Click here if you want to see my handmaid's costume which I wore for a protest outside the Irish Government iro the 8th Amendment (repealed!)

Have Judy Blume and Meg Cabot ever met?

On Sunday just gone, the journal.ie sent me an email entitled "Long Reads" where they had a round-up of 6 or 7 different articles from during the week, published by various news and publishing outlets.  They summarized each one and gave an idea of how long it would take to read (e.g. 25 mins/31 mins etc).

So first of all, each article looked well chosen and interesting. And secondly because I am (a) disgustingly competitive and (b) pride myself on being a very fast reader, I took it as a challenge to read each article in a minimum of half the time they suggested it would take.  Yep.  That's the kind of petty I am.  Sorry.

The last one, it being the anniversary of 9/11 last week, they linked to Meg Cabot's blog post written around, or soon after September 2001. This, I thought was going to be "just someone's blog" but what would be of great historical interest to read - a capture of what someone was going through at an awful point in time.

So I am reading the blog.  And crying. It's a horrific tale of course, and she tells it from a couple of different, equally personal, perspectives. As I am reading, battling through the tears, I am like "who is this writer"??  This is no hobbyist blogger (like me and this silly little ol' blog of mine). This is someone with pure talent and real skill.

At the point where she mentions she now lives in Key West I put her name into google.  Meg Cabot, she of the Princess Diaries series, only one of the most popular teen writers of the last decade.  My generation had Judy Blume, millennials have Meg Cabot. And they both live in Key West.

So yes I am a week or so late in linking to this.  But really the message is timeless.  I leave you with the words of Meg Cabot, the introduction to her September 11th post, and the link to her blog:

"This year is the eighteenth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93.

Every year in remembrance I post this essay about my experience living in Manhattan a few dozen blocks from the World Trade Center on 9/11.  I think it’s important that we don’t allow the memories of those we lost (or the brave acts that so many men and women performed) on that day be forgotten.

So if you have a few extra minutes in your day, please read on. And if you think what you read was important, please share it with a friend".

Full blog post here

Tropic Cinema/Judy Blume/Rocketman/Key West

Yesterday I had a couple of hours spare to myself so I took myself off to see Rocketman at the Tropic Cinema in Key West...
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…ummm, so I'm coming back to this blog after an hour or so has passed since that first line above.  The Tropic Cinema got me thinking about Judy Blume (she, and her husband George Cooper conceived and funded it), and that got me to reading articles about Judy Blume. This Guardian one here was particularly enjoyable. The last hour of my life has been a good one!

Hey did I ever mention that I have met Judy Blume?! In fact, I've met her twice.  My second meeting with her was extremely special to me because I told her about what was going on in Ireland in respect of the fight for Irish women's rights and bodily autonomy at that time, which she listened carefully to, and pinned on a badge that I brought her showing her support for the referendum to Repeal the 8th Amendment.  She was awesome both times.
How friggin' lucky am I???

Well I better get back on topic and tell you how much I loved Rocketman.  I thought it was great and would actually go see it again straight away (if you are a regular reader of my blog you will know how obsessive I get about films that I like and how I like to see them multiple times...case in question..La La Land!!! Which I saw about six times over three weeks in the cinema!!).

I thought it was heartbreakingly sad, but also theatrical, fantastical and ultimately uplifting - by the end.  I recommend this film thoroughly, go catch it in the cinema before it closes!

In the unlikely event of receiving a surprise package

Please excuse me if this post sounds a little  hysterical but truth is when I saw it I WAS hysterical.

 

I came home from work and there was a little small package waiting for me.

I never get parcels!!! Well certainly I never get parcels that I don't know about. I am not a massive online shopper - I like browsing and pottering too much - so again a parcel delivery is unusual for me.

 

Upon examining the parcel I did work out who and what it was.  It was from the Book Depository so I figured it was a book (doh!) and I figured it was from Enid the most amazing twin sister ever - a couple of weeks previously she had put an offer on facebook where you like and share her status about sending a book to someone and you get 6 back....yadda yadda yadda, or something like that...the crux of it being that books are being bought and shared around the world and hey that is no bad thing eh!

 

But I was intrigued what the book would be!  What did she choose for me??

 

I ripped it open and THIS appeared!

 

 

How lucky am I to get to re-read and OWN this great book.

 

Enid is a librarian and recommends me superb books all the time.

I should have known that of course it would be a perfect choice.  And it was.

What I've been reading

 I used to be an incredible reader.  When I was a young girl and a teenager I used to devour books at in incredible rate.  Things went bad in my 20's, and sad to say went even worse in my 30's.  But lately I have been doing much better and I am really pushing myself to get back into something I used to love so much.

First up was the fabulous Judy Blume's fabulous "In the Unlikely Event".  I thoroughly enjoyed this book although strangely enough it took me longer to get into than I thought it would.  Judy Blume sketches characters so well and the storyline is so interesting (based on a true story) that once I eventually started getting a hang of all the characters (there are a lot!) I was hooked.  An all round enjoyable read.

 

 

  I started reading this Monday during my lunchbreak and I finished it that evening.  A combination of a great story and a very quick read.  It's the epitome of a thriller and I'd also recommend this book to you if you have not read it already.

 

I am also in the middle of Mary Berry's autobiography, and a book by Paul Williams about the vile Graham Dwyer who murdered poor Elaine O'Hara.  Enjoying the Mary Berry one.  I am loathe to use the word "enjoy" for the other book bearing in mind the awful subject

 

I like to read multiple books at the one time as you can see,

 

I hope you enjoyed my mini reviews. Have you read any of these books? Let me know what you thought of them!