The Thirteenth Tale

   The Thirteenth Tale is one of my all time favorite books. First of all the main character is a girl that loves books. Margaret Lea and her father have a bookstore and live a pretty pleasant (books and tea and such) but uneventful life when Margaret is summoned by the well known and reclusive author Vida Winter to write her biography. The Tale Miss Winter tells makes it impossible to stop thinking about the story even when the book itself is out of sight.

I came across this a few years back when it just released and put on the Barnes and Noble recommended read of the month list. After reading it once I had immediate intentions of reading through again, but other books came along so I took some time to forget the details before delving back into it. I have to say here that the first time I read it I finished the second half of the book in one sitting. Hours and hours straight through the middle of the night. The second time around I listened to it on cd. The audio version is very well done and read by two separate people to distinguish between the present day as told by Margaret and the past related to us by Miss Winter. I wasn't even through the book before I was thinking of listening (or reading) it again to look for the important details that seemed minor the first (and second) time through.

If you love books for the stories but don't quite as much love the feel and smell and weight of the actual book, don't get bogged down in the first few chapters as Margaret describes herself. Other have told me they had this problem and after not "getting into the story" near the beginning they put the book away and missed out on an interesting tale of a secluded household and it's twins.

The Accidental Leave of Absence

I had no intention of disappearing back into reality and locking the metaphorical door to my online creative escape (I'll give you a hint here since this sentence is declining into something without meaning, the creative escape is The Owl), but somewhere amidst the pile of a fabric scraps I buried the words that used to compose paragraphs for your reading pleasure. Basically I've been sewing a lot. AND the tiny monster has forced me to keep the computer closed during all his waking hours. And there are LOTS of hours when he is awake. And a few days turns into several days that make a week and two weeks and a month and two months and.... and then the weather (FINALLY) cools off and I sit in the dim light filtering through the overcast gloom and then filtering again through the solar screens on the windows drinking Earl Grey and reading a book that makes me laugh. Out loud. I can't wait to share this book now that it's done that so others can laugh too, but what about the line up books I've been reading and not reporting on. After all, there are 39 people (and their friends) stuck rereading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (although I hope some of my higher achieving readers were able to move on to the sequel without my prompting) waiting ever so hopefully for some literary direction.