Once Upon a Bookshelf

This collection was edited by Rea Wilmshurst. Apparantely, all of these stories are all more of the darker side of Montgomery’s writing, and aside from a couple of chapters in her well-loved books I would totally agree with that. However, all in all they were definitely more charming than creepy (especially compared to my other RIP reads). They do have elements of RIP-challenge-worthy stuff: ghosts, witches, murderers… but they also had amusing drunks, cute love stories, and whatnot, so it’s a little all over the place. And nothing is really truly scary, as to be expected from Montgomery.

There were a few stories in particular, though, that were very gothic in feeling, and you can see how earlier gothic writers influenced her. The one that sticks out the most in my mind is Some Fools and a Saint. In this story, a new pastor comes to a small town and is boarding in a house that all the locals say is haunted. You can hear a cradle rocking when it isn’t, a violin is heard playing in different places in the house, curses written in blood are sent to the inhabitants of the house. The pastor is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, and I have to say that the ending quite surprised me. It reminded me a little of The Thirteenth Tale and the like.

And, typical to Mongomery, there were phrases, sentences, paragraphs that were just so … true and right.

It was a rainy afternoon, and we had been passing the time by telling ghost stories. That is a very good sort of thing for a rainy afternoon, and it is a much better time than after night. If you tell ghost stories after dark they are apt to make you nervous, whether you own up to it or not, and you sneak home and dodge upstairs in mortal terror, and undress with your back to the wall, so that you can’t fancy there is anything behind you.

Overall, I thoroughly and completely enjoyed this. It wasn’t my favourite of her short story books, but it was charming and a nice, light read.

John Hughes is brilliant. Sixteen Candles? One of my all-time favourite movies. I may have had a bit of a crush on Jake Ryan, and yes, deep down, I may have wanted to be just like Molly Ringwald.

I may have been a (really) little kid when most of the movies written about in these essays were first released, but that doesn’t mean I can’t love and appreciate them as much if I had seen them all in theatre.

This book is a collection of essays on those films that became such well-known and well-loved movies. It mostly focuses on Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but there are some mentions of Weird Science, Some Kind of Wonderful and Uncle Buck in there as well. The foreword was written by the lovely, talented Ally Sheedy, and it really showed how much she respeced Hughes and enjoyed working with him.

As with any collection by numerous people, there were essays I did not enjoy, and others I loved. Make a Wish: The First Kiss Lasts Forever (written by Mary Sullivan) was my favourite; she analyzed and compared some of John Hughes’ movies (as well as what she herself was going through during that time period) to the Cinderella story. It always amuses me to see how much what we watch and read today has to do with those classic fairy tales or myths, and next time I sit down and watch any of those movies, I’m definitely going to be thinking about Cinderella.

Another one I quite enjoyed was by Moon Unit Zappa - How John Hughes Altered My Life - although, at times it came across that she was trying to impress the reader with everyone famous that she has met.

This was definitely a thought-provoking read, and I will view the movies just a little bit differently next time I watch them.

Ah, the search for Dracula. Definitely not the first of those sorts of stories, but with a bit of a different twist.

The story is told through a series of stores and letters told/written by Paul to his daughter, explaining to her the story behind a book she found in her father’s library - a book that is completely blank except for an image of a dragon in the center. The stories tell of how Rossi, Paul’s advisor at university, disappears, and the ensuing search Paul goes on to find him, all the while being persued by vampires who want him to stop the search. Paul is accompanied by Helen, Rossi’s daughter, and the story is as much a tale of Dracula as it is of the love story between Paul and Helen (quite beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time).

I have mixed feelings about this book. Really mixed feelings.

I have always had a very impressionable mind. A very active imagination. I cannot watch scary movies because I won’t be able to sleep afterwards for days. Books, however, normally don’t bother me to the extent where I lose sleep. I don’t think a book has given me nightmares in a long time. And then along came The Historian, and I couldn’t sleep most nights for fear that vampires would appear in my apartment. Needless to say, it took me a very long time to read this book as I couldn’t read it past dark.

On the other hand, it was dripping with atmosphere. The writing was fabulous; things fell into place a little bit too easily for me, but it helped the story move along a little bit faster. It was, quite possibly, the perfect book for this challenge. A lot of the vampire books I’ve been reading lately are very much the sort of book where vampires aren’t as bad as they should be - they make vampires more romantic and sensual. This one certainly didn’t romanticize the monsters, and that certainly impressed me.

I also really enjoyed how it brought those blank books (with the exception of the image of the dragon in the center) into the story. I love why all these people were given the books, and who gave the books to them, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read The Historian yet.

I guess I am officially finished the RIP challenge, but there are still a couple of other books that I want to read before the end of the challenge, so I’m just going to keep on plugging away and hopefully get rid of a few more books that I’ve been meaning to read for a long time.

There are pros and cons to reading challenges. On one hand, I get to work my way through my already huge TBR pile while discovering books that other people read for the challenge to replace those books that I read from my TBR pile in the first place. On the other hand, it is sometimes quite difficult to stick with one theme for such a long period of time. That said, I’m quite happy the next challenge I’m going to be participating in doesn’t start until the RIP II challenge finishes. And I’m already looking forward to it! The Seafaring Challenge I focuses on all things nautical. Christina, the organizer, says that these books can include anything relating to:

naval officers, pirates, buried treasure, U-Boats, submarines, sailors, dragons, fairies! There can even be “fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…”!

I haven’t decided yet whether I will be participating at the Second Rank: Captain level or the Fourth Rank: Admiral level. It all depends on whether I get my hands on two more books before the end of the challenge. ;)

At any rate, I plan on reading the following two books:
• Scott Lynch’s Red Seas Under Red Skies. This is the second book in the Gentlemen Bastard Sequence. I’ve heard mixed reviews about it, so I’m not entirely sure what to expect from it. But there are pirates, apparantely.
• Kai Meyer’s The Wave Runners. Picked this up while in Stratford this summer. A couple of kids aboard a pirate ship? Sounds like fun to me.

And, if I decide to go for the Admiral level, I’ll include:
• Patrick O’Brian’s Post Captain. I haven’t read the first one in this series, but Rachel says I ought to start with the second or third book as the first is a little dry, and I trust her judgement when it comes to Aubrey and Maturin.
• Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I’ve never read this book, but have always meant to, so this might be the perfect time to actually get around to it.

Of course, I could change everything but that’s how it’s looking now.

(Also, I think I may kick the challenge off with a Horatio movie marathon on the first weekend of November… Just throwing that out there so everyone knows.)

On Saturday night, my mother and I went to see Loreena McKennitt in concert at the JLC. This is the first time I’ve seen her in concert, and I must admit that I was completely blown away. Her voice is almost too perfect. Seriously. It’s gorgeous. But it wasn’t just that - the musicians were all brilliant too. What was really nice was the fact that although I only have a small selection of what she’s done, I could recognize most of it.

I think the reason I love McKennitt’s music so much is the fact that it is music you can dream to. Not so much the stuff where she’s playing the piano (that brings other kinds of dreams, perhaps), but listening to her other music can lift the veil between our world and Middle Earth, Narnia, or other wonderful, magical worlds. It sets free your imagination and mind and lets you dream of different places and times. This was even more apparent in concert than it is when listening to her albums.

The concert felt so short, but they must have played about 2 1/2 hours. It was definitely over way too quickly, and if I ever get another chance to see her, I certainly won’t hesitate a second about whether I should or not. It would definitely be worth it to see her in concert numerous times.

(On a slightly related note, she sang The Highwayman, and I couldn’t remember - does Anne read that in the first miniseries, or the second? She also sang The Lady of Shalott, so it was a bit of an Anne-ish evening.)