by its cover:: the cheese monkeys

By Its Cover is independent book review column. Selections are mostly made based on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new favorite authors and books.



This one I totally picked due its cover...and because it had a uber-minor mention of Connecticut. Enjoy!

Title: The Cheese Monkeys
Author: Chip Kidd

I think this book marks the first time that upon completion my reaction couldn't be clearly placed on the love/hate spectrum. I didn't clutch it lovingly to my chest as I would have Jane Eyre. I didn't want the hours back that I'd spent reading it like I did when I finished The Little Town that Stood Still (I still contend that something was lost in translation with that one). It was not a feeling of pride for having finished as with Dickens. It wasn't passing neutrality as with chick lit. I paused, turned the tome in my hands and thought.

It's a beautiful book, in the physical sense. Kidd, it turns out, is a well-known graphic designer turned novelist. So this story probably has some autobiographic touches. I want a copy just to look at the cover art and the arrangement of the droll, expected, skipped-over bits of the book (acknowledgements printed along the covers edge, the image-based titling). Normally writers are concerned with carefully piecing their plot points. Kidd took an extra step to tweak the layout of the age-old novel. The risk was worth it.

As for content, the enigmatically named book (he never does fully explain cheese monkeys but that's not point) tell the tale of a nameless protagonist during his first year at a state university. He's studying art, to the discomfiting chagrin of his parents and the disillusion humor of himself. Kidd made me laugh by page 10. He kept me turning the pages, sneaking away to find out what odd assignment or social snafu would happen next. I yielded my emotions to his words, cringed and cracked up on cue. He won.

It shows the extremes of art (and in that way...of life), from hare-brained conceptualism to harsh thought-driven design. Another critic called The Cheese Monkeys a 'coming-of-age story'. I'm not sure it goes far enough to be that to me. The main character does come into the story a 'wide-eyed' youth and by the end is a little...well, experienced. But the book and its collection of characters and their lessons did make me think, they evoked emotion, horrified, thrilled and shocked me...the way art should.

By Its Cover- The Storm by Frederick Buechner

By Its Cover is independent book review column. Selections are mostly made based on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new favorite authors and books.



Title: The Storm
Author: Frederick Buechner

Sometimes you read a book and upon finishing it you squeal a little squeal, cry a little tear, sigh a little sigh, each in complete contentment. Then immediately you want to read it again. That's how I felt about The Storm.

It's the quietly told story of Kenzie Maxwell, a man of nearly 70, thrice-married and kinda of shiftless. He's had some late success as a writer. But the story is more about the past and his group of loosely related relatives.

Twenty years ago, while working at a shelter for teenagers run by his brother, Kenzie became romantically involved with a 17-year-old girl named Kia. She gets pregnant and has a child, a girl named Gabrielle...called Bree. During the birth, Kia dies.

This scandal forces the brothers apart and Kenzie to leave the city. As so it goes until it comes near Kenzie's 70th birthday. He's married now, to wife #3. They live with her adult son on a gated community sort of island off the coast of Florida. Bree, who's been raised by Kenzie's sister, has been invited for the occasion. Dalton- the brother, and his stepson, have been summoned to the island by its proprietress...he's her lawyer. So a family reunion is all but imminent. How will it go off? Dalton's never harbored any anger or resentment toward Kenzie. Can they be reconciled? Can sense be made of this disjointed family?

This, to me, is what The Wasp Eater tried to be: dreamlike and lucid. Buechner's style is enveloping and deftly takes you in the heads of each member of this small cast. Much of the book is relating the backstory of the characters, yet it doesn't have the feel of a history book. It's distinct, thoughtful and well-crafted, full of emotion and wonder in its own still way. I enjoyed it.

By Its Cover- Scoop - Pt. 1

By Its Cover is my completely independent 2-part book review column. Selections are made based entirely on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new authors.

Title: Scoop
Author: Rene Gutteridge

Made my center-of-town circuit, hitting the bank and library this time, and picked up a new book to review. Again, it's not one of those super-deep books, but I just saw Tess of the D'urbervilles and Wuthering Heights. (Wuthering Heights has been the cause of some recent guilt.) So light book it is. At least it's appearing that way so far.

Besides its cover, I chose it because one of the characters was homeschooled (as was I). She's also coulrophobic. haha. I'm busy with photo-ing new items and rephoto-ing old items as well as knitting and job hunting and writing again, and trying to spend less time on the computer while promoting my shop more and starting a new jigsaw puzzle and...reading will get squeezed in. :)

Full review to come.

By Its Cover- The Book Shelf

By Its Cover is independent book review column. Selections are mostly made based on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new favorite authors and books.


Coming Soon!
The Dirt
_{Lori Culwell}


The Book Shelf:
By Nightfall
_{Michael Cunningham}

Twins: A Novel
_{Marcy Dermansky}

The Cheese Monkeys
_{Chip Kidd}

Notes of a Baseball Dreamer
_{Robert Mayer}

The Storm
_{Frederick Buechner}

Hollywood Car Wash
_{Lori Culwell}

Walking in Circles Before Lying Down
_{Merrill Markoe}

The Real Minerva
_{Mary Sharrat}

The Wasp Eater
_{William Lychack}

ScoopPt. 1 Pt. 2
_{by Rene Gutteridge}

Love and Other Near Death Experiences Pt. 1 Pt. 2
_{by Mil Millington}

Stupid and Contagious Pt.1 Pt.2
_{by Caprice Crane}

The Little Town Where Time Stood Still Pt.1 Pt2
_{by Bohumril Hrabal}

By Its Cover- Stupid And Contagious pt. 1

By Its Cover is my completely independent 2-part book review column. Selections are made based entirely on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new authors.

title: Stupid and Contagious
author: Caprice Crane

This is probably a chick lit book. On opening the front cover I was greeted with the chick-lit library book smell: dozens of perfumes from previous readers blended together into an almost noxious fume. (that is not a knock on the book itself.)

I was hooked by the first paragraph- and the cover- and stayed up late zipping through the first 30 pages or so. It's proving an easy read so far. After the pseudo-philosophical historical conundrum that was the last book I slogged through for BIC, I needed something like this.

Hope to post a full review in a week or so.

By Its Cover- Hollywood Car Wash

By Its Cover is independent book review column. Selections are mostly made based on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new favorite authors and books.

Title: Hollywood Car Wash
Author: Lori Culwell

[plot]
Midwestern college student and aspiring-indie-films-actress, Amy Spencer, auditions for the lead role in a new TV series. Soon she's on an plane to California, put up in an exclusive hotel and show to the network studio where...she gets the job!

Of course they say they hired her for her acting ability, but she's quickly put through the 'hollywood car wash'- diets, hair color, plastic surgery- to make her more marketable, the enviable 'ideal'. The question ever before her is how much is she willing to give up, how far from her true dream will she go before she gets off the wild ride?

[op ed]
I got this book in a ThisNext giveaway. (My copy is signed by the author, eep!) It's an easy read, I breezed through it in about a week. Must confess that I am impressed.

Hollywood brings to mind high-priced shallowness where image is everything but almost none of it is real. This book does prove that, but plopped in the center is a girl, Amy, with a lot of character who's continually amazed by the lengths the team of people assigned to creating her brand go to to fool people and change her into a young Hollywood clone.

It's far from smooth sailing for Amy, therefore it's not a Cinderella story. Which is what I expected. It's grittier, lonelier, a touch depressing. There is a liberal helping of glam, and it comes close to name-dropping in regards to some 'oh-no-they-didn't' scandals. In general I find it hard to feel bad for celebrities but I did feel bad for Amy at times. made me smile too. She's a fighter. She kept going, she didn't give up. I liked that.

I'd read it again.

By Its Cover- Love and Other Near Death Experiences Pt. 1

By Its Cover is my completely independent 2-part book review column. Selections are made based entirely on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new authors.

Title: Love and Other Near Death Experiences
Author: Mil Millington

I worked with a guy named Mil once. He was Turkish, looked good in red, talked about laundering money, and was 6'5". I felt incredibly short next to him. Anyway, though it's probably a pen name, in this case, or I feel extraordinarily sad for the poor guy, I got it because of the author's name.

It's British pop-trendy near chick-lit. I can't imagine what guy would read it despite the fact that the main character is a guy. It's similar to the last book I reviewed, which I why I hesitated to use it, I do read more than fluff...or intended to. However the genre's flashy covers stand out in shelves of worn-spine classics.

So far, and this is no Yank-bias, Stupid and Contagious was better. These books are heavy on conversation, and it needs to be short and quirky. This lingers, the way a real convo would, but you don't want to read real convos. It fumbles a little in the prose areas, too. And it's not helped by the fact that I'm simul-reading Persuasion by Jane Austen.

Full review to come.

By Its Cover- Love and Other Near Death Experiences- Pt. 2

By Its Cover is my completely independent 2-part book review column. Selections are made based entirely on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new authors.

Title: Love and Other Near Death Experiences
Author: Mil Millington

Part One

He could have died, Rob, the main character. But he didn't. He had to return towels and got tied up in traffic. So he was late to the pub, that ended up getting smashed to bits...hence the traffic. That he 'missed' death, by a set a fluke-ish missteps, sets him to wondering just how much weight he should put on the mundane everyday decisions. It hampers his relationships, his work, his life. So he sets off on a journey unto himself with an ex-Marine (yeah, it's a British book, but the guy comes over from Nebraska...long story).

That's the plot.

My opinion is that it kinda was pithy. Maybe I expect too much from books. Maybe I'm too geared into literature to give modern fiction any props. Maybe I don't get British humor. Maybe I'm out of touch with how people act and think in the world. Maybe it just wasn't good. Maybe one of the secondary characters was enormously grating. Yeah, a pointless cruel character, one that is supposed to multi-dimensional and yet just refuses to submit to change, can ruin a book. The kind where, when someone asks what you think of the book you say, "It would have been better if so-and-so hadn't been in it." This had one of those...and a whole lot of cussing. (again, call me a prude but I'd feel wrong if I didn't let you know.

Mr. Millington redeemed his book some by mentioning Jane Eyre, one the books I love more than any, near the end. And there was a Mansfield Park shoutout. Still...I'll pass on his other books.

By Its Cover- The Wasp Eater

By Its Cover is my completely independent book review column. Selections are made based entirely on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new authors.




Title: The Wasp Eater
Author: William Lychack

I chose a smaller book this time, simul-reading this with The Godfather, not sure I'd be able to finish both in the loan time.

The story tracks that of a young boy and his parents after his mother finds out his father cheated on her. She throws him out the house. The remainder of the book has the boy feeling torn between the adults, wanting them back together, wanting to be with one or the other and feeling guilty.

For as simply told as The Godfather was, this was far more lyrical. It seems to skip along like a rock on a pond, dipping into feelings and the scenery of the moment before sailing off again. In those contact points it was brilliant. The cover said it 'is at one time lucid and dream-like'. But it's confusing, how it would jump between thought sequences, the future and reality...which was really happening?

The father as the best drawn character. I felt sorry for him, rough and tumble guy who appeared to momentarily lose his way. I really wanted him to get his family back. I wanted his wife to forgive him.

There also felt like there were things left unsaid in hopes that the reader would infer them. It didn't really work. There was just too much missing...or it was too short, too conflicted to feel real.

By Its Cover- Stupid and Contagious pt.2

By Its Cover is my completely independent 2-part book review column. Selections are made based entirely on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new authors.

Title: Stupid and Contagious
Author: Caprice Crane

Part One

I finished this blindingly fast, as is often the case with chick lit books. They're heavy on conversation- short, quippy/quirky dialogue that's a breeze to read. At points it was laugh-out-loud funny.

There were two main characters, a guy and a girl. Yeah, you can see where this is going. It's told in a kinda past/present first-person narrative, usually in alternating chapters. I think this was a risk because first person is such an intimate way of telling a story. The cover says the girl, named Heaven, is the 'sexy heroine'. But I think the guy, a late-twenty-something aspiring inventor/record producer named Brady, completely upstages her. He's a more full-drawn character, for as deep as chick-lit gets. Or perhaps it was my budding entrepreneur-ness that connected, in the reader-ly way, with his trying, failing and flailing.

There is a good deal of language in this. Call me a prude, (and a frequent reader of old British classics) but I felt I should let you know. Some of the plot points felt contrived or forced page-eaters that could have been left out- the original firing of Heaven, the Kurt Cobain gun incident. And the ending could have been a little less fairy-tale if only one of the two things happening. Rarely in life do you get it all. But I guess we read books, fiction books, to escape life.

by its cover- twins

By Its Cover is independent book review column. Selections are mostly made based on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new favorite authors and books.

Twins: A Novel by Marcy Dermansky

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


This is an ugly story about pretty girls: blond, blue-eyed, tall. It has many of the 'first novel' faults: it's messy and at times painfully redundant. In a book titled Twins I don't know why Ms. Dermansky felt the need to reminds that the girls were identical twins on nearly every other page. We get it.

I didn't find any part of the book funny, which bummed me out as promises of humor prompted me to select this tome from my library's shelves. There were comical bits...but in the completely farcical way i.e., "there's no earthly way situations/people like this could be allowed to exist."

It had moments where I could see the style that the author was going for. I could see what she was trying to do. But as most of them came late in the book...almost too late for me, she fell woefully short.

The idea of the necessity for separation from those who are supposed to care for/about us so we can learn to truly care for ourselves as individuals does strike home for me. It's a painful lesson no matter what the circumstances. But the overall story of Twins, the obsession and the clinging, led to me barely caring whether any one in this story got themselves sorted or not.



View all my reviews

By Its Cover- Walking in Circles Before Lying Down

By Its Cover is my completely independent book review column. Selections are made based on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new authors.



It's been a while since I've done a BIC. I was working by way through 1600 pages of Charles Dickens. Not easy. As to the review:

[plot]
This book is like Must Love Dogs with a side order of telepathy/human-to-animal psychic-ness. After breaking up with her boyfriend, twice-divorced Dawn, begins to think that her new rescue pup is talking to her. Not just him, actually, but all dogs. That freaks her out at first, but then she finds it comforting.

So it meanders along, introducing her Life Coach-to-the-stars sister, serial entrepreneur mother (who never quite succeeded at any of them) and bed-hopping father. Yep, her family's something of a mess.

Without giving away too many plot points, it comes down to her having to chose between her reconciled ex and the other guy, you know, the John Cusack-good guy that she's supposed to be with.

[op ed]
My opinion is a little tainted. I didn't like Must Love Dogs. (the two are NOT affiliated) The timeline in Walking in Circles was hard to follow, probably because I think too much. Too many of the numbers...didn't add up. (pun intended) There was a paragraph she used multiple times, like the quote about Halley's Comet in Must Love Dogs, that was used one too many times. You have to be careful with quotes. Too many or too often and they lose their punch.

The John Cusack-good guy was endearing as was the wayward co-worker of Dawn's. I have a way of falling for secondary characters. Dawn herself never quite made the break into her own that she needed. The other characters who dominated who she was got lives of the own that took them away so she was allowed to develop. But she didn't do the changing herself, she was passive, would leave and let them decide.

The mother and sister make this very eccentric, to little semi-prude me anyway. A decent beach read, quick easy and light. Not high on my list, though.

by its cover- notes of a baseball dreamer

By Its Cover is independent book review column. Selections are mostly made based on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new favorite authors and books.

Title: Notes of a Baseball Dreamer
Author: Robert Mayer

Robert Mayer grew up a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, from childhood until they moved to LA. This book is a memoir, chronicling his life and his passion for his team(s) and the game. Told in 9 chapters and an epilogue and prologue (pre- and post- game?), Mayer carefully recounts his days as a child in the Bronx as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan and all the pain that entitled. The memoir continues through to present day (at the time of publication), covering not just his dedication to mastering the game but also other milestones of life: being in high school, first love, losing a parent, getting married...finding yourself. All is intertwined and often related back to some aspect to the game, but it's done subtly, tastefully. His multiple timelines carried out in each section with each story with each chapter, each scene, being meticulously crafted, stitched together, completing itself...something like a baseball.

This book moves me to the point where I feel anything I type will not do it justice. I'm a baseball fan, for the team that Mayer hates (Yankees). During a not-so-good time in my life, the daily games of baseball, tracking the players and the teams were the only thing I cared about. Then came winter...and no baseball. So I made frequent trips to the library reading books about baseball to fill the void. That's when I found this book, under it's old title Baseball and Men's Lives: True Confessions of a Skinny-Marink. I was...at the title of this blog suggests...intrigued by the title. 'Skinny-marink' had been part of a song I'd learned as a child. But I never knew what it meant. Unfortunately Mayer doesn't either.

I'm currently on my second reading and I'm finding it just as transporting as the first time. Gone are the days when baseball alone filled my life. I have school, and a budding craft business...or two. This book is still dear to me. Normally, I don't go for memoirs or non-fiction books. But this one is special. It's the only book that I've gotten from the library and then had to purchase for myself. The list of other library 'must-haves' is short.

By Its Cover- Scoop- Pt. 2

By Its Cover is my completely independent 2-part book review column. Selections are made based entirely on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new authors.

Title: Scoop
Author: Rene Gutteridge

Part One

I liked this. Perhaps it appealed to me because of my generally conservative background. It was quirky and funny and made me think. Which is what a good book should do.

It takes place in a news station. So there are all the social politics, (and other tics), strained relationships, work friends, etc. The lead anchor has a bad run in with Botox and goes missing. A series of other seemingly unconnected mishaps lead to a fairly interesting conclusion. It's a sort of quiet book. A beach read. (Shouldn't mention beaches now. It's freezing in CT.)

Thinking about changing up the format of BIC, only doing the review portion. Next book will be The Wasp Eater.

By Its Cover- The Real Minerva

By Its Cover is my completely independent book review column. Selections are made based entirely on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new authors.

Title: The Real Minerva
Author: Mary Sharrat

I chose this because one of my Etsy friend's name is Minerva and she's awesome. :)

So it's set in the 1920s for most of the story. But little is said or done that couldn't have made it set today, which is a little sad...I'll explain in a minute.

It takes place in Minerva Minnesota and tells the story of a mother and daughter, a mother and daughter, and mother and daughter: Barbara and Penny, Cora and Phoebe, and to a lesser but no less tragic degree, Hazel and Irene. Barbara and Penny live with Irene and her family as hired help. Cora is staying at her grandfather's farm on the edge of town. Hazel is locked away in a mental institution, suffering from a malady that doesn't allow her to fully wake up or fully sleep.

Their paths further intersect when Penny runs away from her mother, angry that she, Barbara, and Irene's father, their employer, are having an affair. She ends up 21 miles away, at the Maagdenbergh farm just after Cora has given birth to her baby girl.

Penny stays on as a hired hand, helping Cora care for the baby and the house. She vows in her heart to protect them as she learns, first secretly and then more openly, of Cora's past. On the other side of town, Barbara's story continues with her falling in love with Mr. Hamilton and Irene seeing that as the ultimate affront to her sick mother memory so she...well, I won't give away the ending.

The part that saddens me is the way the town looks down on Barbara and Cora is pretty much the same as it would be now, only people may be less vocal about it. Progress, where art thou?

I'm sure someone could give this a more political literary analysis. I chose to take it as it is, not looking for hidden meanings or inferences. It's beautiful and a little haunting. I enjoyed it.

By Its Cover- Little Town Where Time Stood Still- pt.2

By Its Cover is my completely independent 2-part book review column. Selections are made based entirely on the book's cover. I'm testing the old saying in my quest to find new authors.


Part One
If you know me, you know it rarely takes me long to finish reading a book. Even Anna Karenina I finished in the 3-week library lending period.

It was a dual edition, it had The Little Town Where Time Stood Still and Cutting It Short. It takes place in a small Czech village. At times it was sheerly brilliant, the imagery and the language, at other graphically disturbing, a chapter about a pig-killing. I felt like I missed something. Maybe something was lost in translation, maybe I'm too straightforward to see the genius that was said to be Bohumril Hrabal.

I'll try the 'random book selection' thing again. Hopefully, it will be more of a success for me.

by its cover- by nightfall

Title: By Nightfall
Author: Michael Cunningham

This is the story of Peter Harris, his wife Rebecca and her much younger brother, Mizzy. Peter and Rebecca's marriage has lost its luster. For Peter, an art dealer in New York City, this could prove fatal to the relationship. So he goes on a search of sorts for new beauty, true beauty which he believes to be rather trapped in youth. His quest takes him outside of his marriage, but not outside of the family. To be like Mizzy is what he wants...or perhaps it is better stated that he wants to possess what Mizzy has and lacking that, possess Mizzy himself.

The main character (I cannot call him a protagonist because I'm not sure that he was that good), has all the things that would enable him to make a life change: money, connections, education. But instead he just meanders the streets of SoHo, develops a here-again-gone-again stomach issue and thinks himself miserable. I will admit that my current frame of reference tainted my perception of this 'conflict'. Struggles have abound for those in my social and family circle in trying to get to a place where they can afford to change their lives. The recession hit us hard. Subsisting was task enough. With all of his advantages, I had very little patience for Peter's pithy discontent. I wanted to say, "Educated, employed adult, be the change you want to see in the world!"

I found the book pretentious and grasping. The word 'desultorily' appears twice in the span of two pages. The use of not-well-known artists is liberal. While that fits with Peter's career as an art dealer, it made me feel left out, particularly when Cunningham would use an artist's work in simile. The style, the slow pacing told that the author it wanted to be philosophical and contemplative, perhaps a commentary on our culture's fascination with one aspect of beauty captured in youth and newness. But the first-person narrative keeps the reader trapped in Peter's head. It's unfortunate because he is the least interesting person in his life.

Peter remains largely unchanged, selfish and kind of childish in this 'woe is me' state until a few paragraphs from the end. The miscommunication, or more fairly, the missed communication, between Peter and his wife reaches it pinnacle at this point. For some reason he believes that he should be free to pursue what he feels is missing in their relationship, but his wife is not allowed the same because...he doesn't want her to be?

It's as though the fumes from his gallery and the dust from the pieces and their packing materials that are moved in and out clouded Peter's eyes and stopped up his reasoning to be mindful of the fact that there is no one set form of beauty. There is beauty in change, age, and the frozen statue. Working, living with art, in a place like New York City, he should know this. He doesn't need to search for beauty, it is there if he would be look...really see. Perhaps that is the irony Cunningham meant to reveal: how blind we can be to something that our circumstances say should be obvious to us.

By Its Cover- Little Town Where Time Stood Still pt. 1

Firstly, Happy October!

September was a rather booming month for me. Very thrilling stuff. October has promise. I can't wait to delve in.

One hobby-ish thing I have is reading. I love to read. I started pre-school at 3 with the goal of learning to read. Hence, the first day was a little disappointing. Heh.

At any rate, lately, I haven't gotten to it nearly enough. But being busy with elpy work is wonderful. I just finished re-reading Pride and Prejudice. That is one of Jane Austen's finest. I didn't want to re-read any of other books I have, so I went to the library.

Deciding to pick something random by someone I'd never heard of, I got Little Town Where Time Stood Still by Buhomil Hrabal. I'll let you know how it is.

Sinking In

I recently read a book that I didn't much like. I do this often (perhaps more often than I should). Such is the risk I run give that I choose many of books I read at random (see my old By Its Cover reviews). So I feel that finishing is what I owe the author. It's also a kind of punishment myself- should the pick turn out sour- for not having a better plan for attacking the library stacks.

My reading criteria for completion:

• If I get past halfway, I usually finish the book.
• If I have an outlandish goal set on Goodreads (it's 75 this year, I'm almost halfway done) and whether I'm behind schedule or not... I usually finish the book.
• If I've added the book to my Goodreads' currently reading shelf, I usually finish the book.
• If someone recommended the book to me, I usually finish the book (though if it's part of a series I may not continue with the series).

The writing has to be really poor, the characters completely unlikeable (fiction) and the story completely uninteresting (both fiction and non-) for me to quit. Or I have to be against the library limit on renewals.

The main character in The Body Artist by Don DeLillo is a sort of yogi/contortionist performance artist. Between DeLillo's disjointed writing style and the oddness of the story (there's a suicide, a random elf man, poor conversation), I didn't connect with the book. But I find myself thinking about the artist character. Maybe it's more thinking a little like her. I find myself stretching more and thinking inwardly. I couldn't attempt the poses she did (or imagined she did). But I can move and feel and see and I'm reminded what an amazing thing a body is.

I didn't like the book. But it has had an effect, left ripples, echoes. I like when a book, movie, piece of art, does that.

purpose defined

As you know, posts have been sporadic at best here on the ole blog. And I'd do the customary apology...then forget to post for another week. I didn't know where I was going with it, or with my shop...but that's another story. It had gone through name changes and URL changes and template changes. I'd added themed posts...and taken them away. I'd added feature posts...which had proven to be the one reason I kept posting. I found cool things and had to share.

Around Christmas, I found ScoutieGirl's ebook on blogging, I took some time to think about the purpose of this blog. Should I restrict it shop news? Should I stop with the By Its Cover posts? Should I keep doing Seller Tips? Should I not mention sports at all...or TV, or Twitter, or silly random thoughts?

I follow my share of blogs. And I love them all for different reasons, reactions they elicit from me. But the main reason was because through the posts I got to know the people behind them. Sometimes in a more personal way, sometimes professional. But their blogs were and are a reflection of them. And so, too, should mine be. elpy IS a part of my life, but so is reading, and the Yankees, and Masterpiece Theater.

So what is the purpose of Not Rachel? Simply this:

A way for you to learn about things that are beautiful, inspiring, thought-provoking, silly or in some other way interesting, to learn about me- Rebecca...not Rachel. (honestly, I get called 'Rachel' a lot.) Do share with me!

Post Picture: A twirling stack of coasters in the sun. One of mine. Because the blog is in motion again.