Once Upon a Bookshelf

The Spanish Bow is the story of Feliu Delargo. Born in 1892, the book follows his life as he grows up in a small Spanish villiage, follows his journey to becoming a world-renowned cellist, and follows his life trying to use his fame to try to make his world a better place. We get to see how WWI, the Spanish Civil War, and WWII all effect his family, his professional life, and his friends.

First, let me say that this book has one of my two favourite opening hooks that I’ve managed to stumble across this year:

I was almost born Happy.

I positively love that sentence. It goes on to talk about how the main character was almost named “Feliz”, but really it could mean almost anything as a first sentence. It just completely sparked the imagination, and dragged me into the book immediately. Unfortunately, about a third into the book, I found that it started to drag a little bit. But the last third of the book really picked up again.

This book was certainly more of a character-driven book than plot-driven. It does of course help that the book follows one man from birth through until he is about mid 80’s, but even the other characters were all so well developed too. I love that two of the main characters who performed so brilliantly together were the opposite in every other respect - manners, personality, political stances, etc. It certainly gave different perspectives to everything that was happening in their world.

But by far, my favourite was everything relating to Aviva - a young woman who is a bit of a violin prodigy. She struck me as a very Ophelia-ish character. I don’t want to spoil anything about her, but suffice to say we do get to watch her go a little mad.

It’s hard to believe that The Spanish Bow was Romano-Lax’s first novel. She does have roots in journalism, and you can see that in her writing, but still. I’ll definiely be looking forward to more of her books.

Yup, that’s me. HOWEVER. Christopher Plummer returning to Stratford deserves quite a bit of excitment as I love him and missed him last time he was at the Festival and vowed that the next time I would have to see him. So he’s going to be there next year huzzah! (Yes, I’m all bouncy now. And will be for the rest of the night. It’s fun.)

ALSO. Yay Serenity Collector’s Edition on DVD released today! Yay!

AND. Radio stations that play only stuff from musicals is the greatest thing in the history of ever. Except for perhaps the Doctor. Yes.

Midway through Carl V’s R.I.P. challenge last year, I decided that I had wished I had joined it. I didn’t, but it certainly gave me something to look forward to this year. For the past few months, I’ve been keeping my eyes open for books I want to read for the challenge, and huzzah! Now that it has been announced, I’m quite excited for the next two months. Gothic fiction is something I go in spurts with, and this year it seems like I’m getting back into my love for it, so most of what I’m reading for the challenge will be somewhat gothic in nature.

R.I.P. II is a September 1st through October 31st celebration of all tales gothic, eerie, creepy, and dark. Tales that one reads in the dark of night, experiencing delicious shivers of terror and suspense at each creak of the floorboards or each gust of wind.

I’ve decided to go with Peril 1 for the challenge, and I will be reading the following books:

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (a re-read)
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
Prowlers by Christopher Golden

Possible Additions:
Among the Shadows by L.M. Montgomery
Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause
Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
Mirrormask by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean
Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

In all honesty, I want to read all of my possible additions for this challenge, but I doubt I’ll have the time… but if not for the challenge, definitely soon. One of the main reasons that they’re in the additions list, and not one of the books I’m definitely going to read for the challenge is that I already own all of the ones I’m going to read for the challenge, and have to go on a hunt for the rest.

It’s been a really good weekend. Not too eventful, but still fun. I went back to London - family was having a bbq, and I haven’t seen some of the family since Christmas, or last summer, or something like that. Extended family, I mean. It’s usually quite amusing, and they always have some really entertaining stories to tell.

I also went shopping. A new store opened in town that I really wanted to check out. Well, let me tell you - I walked in the doors, and I got tingly. Deep dark secret: one of my favourite things to do is organize stuff. Seriously. And the whole store was organization stuff and storage stuff, and it was so lovely. Some quite lovely DVD orgainzers, and an over-the-door 30-pairs-of-shoes holder, both of which I need to go back and get at another point as I couldn’t afford those along with everything else I bought while shopping (shelves, clothes, shoes, etc.).

On Saturday night, my friends and I went to see Stardust. They had already seen it, but really wanted to see it again - a surprise as they normally don’t like the fantasy stuff. But I should have stuck with my decision to wait until it was out on DVD to see it. Really. Not that I didn’t like it, or I thought it wasn’t a wonderful movie, but I spent the whole time comparing the book to the movie. And every time something wasn’t exactly the same way it was in the book, I got just a little bit annoyed. I wish I could turn the habit to compare the book and movie all the time off, but I’ve yet to learn how to do that. Other than being slightly annoyed over certain things, I quite enjoyed it though. It was very pretty, and the acting seemed to be good. I liked the music in the movie quite a bit too - especially the classical stuff.

Oh, I also saw Blood and Chocolate, and because I haven’t read the book that movie was based on, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m not normally a fan of werewolves (with the exception of one Remus Lupin), but it was so beautiful. I’m going to want to read the book now…

I don’t normally blog about the Graphic Design and reference books I read, but I couldn’t pass up a chance to share this one. If you’re a fairly new Graphic Designer, or studying Graphic Designer, this is a positively wonderful little book. Heck, even if you’re a veteran Graphic Designer or someone who even just understands typography and wants to improve themselves for kicks, this is a good book to pick up. Because it’s more than just reference - it is so amusing.

The book is split up into two different parts, The Ten Commandments of Typography, and then, flipped over and upside down is Type Heresy: Breaking the Ten Commandments of Typography. The first half talks about the rules you should abide by in typography - “Thou shalt lay headlines large and at the top of the page” and “Thou shalt employ no other type size than 8pt to 10pt for body copy” for example - and gives example of each of the rules in use. The other half of the book, obviously, talks about breaking the rules and why you should break the rules - again providing lovely examples of how it can be done.

The main points brought across in this book is that you need to know the rules before you can successfully break them, and that continually following them, without pushing yourself to go further, can make the stuff you design quite boring. If a designer makes the text look interesting, it’s going to not only bring the reader back to read it again, but it should also help to “stimulate our sense as well as engaging our intellect.”

This book is worth buying for the Prefaces* and the Introduction. They are very amusing and left me with a small smile on my face:

Satan is the adversary of God. Thus, Satan is typographic evil personified. . . Satan, or the devil as he is often called, was allowed to set up his own design kingdom in Hell and to send out Fallen Angels to prowl the earth for converts to the dark side of typography. The demonic world seems to have been allowed for one purpose only: to tempt humans to turn away from God’s rules. Many believe that Satan can ‘possess’ designers. Possession is bodily invasion by the devil, who forces a designer to break the rules of typographic design.

* The plural in Prefaces is due to there being on in both the Ten Commandments of Typography and the Type Heresy sections.