Life is Messy by Matthew Kelly - This book was a gift from someone I love, so I read it. Never would have chosen it for myself, and certainly never would have bought it. The book consists of 78 very short chapters (for lack of a better term), ranging from a half-page to five pages in length. They read almost like journal entries of someone dealing with some kind of (undescribed) painful life situation, with a lot of banality. The best part of the book is a segment Kelly didn't even write, when he quotes (in its entirety) Portia Nelson's "Autobiography in Five Short Chapters," which, for me, was new. Not sure what I'm going to do with this book - maybe pass it on to a mental health professional I know so she can pass it on to a client who might benefit from it, despite the platitudes.
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins - I first read this book in 2002 with the book club I belonged to back then. When I created my LibraryThing account five years later and recorded the book, I gave it five stars. I saw a mass market paperback copy of the book at a Friends of the Library sale some years later and picked up the book for a quarter to re-read it - and finally got around to doing so this month.
The book has four storylines that all come together at the end. Priscilla is a divorced struggling waitress in Seattle who works on a perfume on the side. Priscilla's stepmother, Lily Devalier, owns a perfume shop in New Orleans, and is working on a perfume too, assisted by V'Lu Jackson - who knows Marcel "Bunny" LeFever, who is the scent genius of the LeFever perfume company in Paris.
The longest and most interesting story belongs to Alobar, a king somewhere in Bohemia sometime in the Middle Ages, who escapes a prescribed death (simply because his hair is turning gray) and seeks immortality. Along the way, he encounters Kudra in India, who escapes suttee because she, too, wants to continue living. Their adventures over the next thousand years are the most interesting parts of the book.
There are a few interesting bits of philosophy. On page 157, in speaking directly to the god Pan (a character in the book), Robbins speaks of his former followers as "trading the live wood of the maypole for the dead carpentry of the cross."
And on page 197, Dr. Wiggs Dannyboy (another character, who's involved with Priscilla and seeking out eternal life through his Last Laugh Society), says "the will to live cannot be overestimated as a stimulant to longevity. Indeed, Dr. Dannyboy goes so far as to claim that ninety percent of all deaths are suicides. Persons, says Wiggs, who lack curiosity about life, who find minimal joy in existence, are all too willing, subconsciously, to cooperate with - and attract - disease, accident, and violence."
There's lots of sex in the book (after all, it *is* one of the keys to immortality), and here's a relatively clean, fun monologue by Wiggs from pages 272-273, while he's trying to get Priscilla's dress unzipped: "'Ahh, I do love zippers. Zippers remind me o' crocodiles, lobsters, and Aztec serpents. I wish me tweeds had more than the single fly....Zippers are primal and modern at the very same time. On the one hand, your zipper is primitive and reptilian, on the other, mechanical and sleek. A zipper is where the Industrial Revolution meets the Cobra Cult, don't you think? Ahh. Little alligators of ecstasy, that's what zippers are. Sexy, too. Now your button, a button is prim and persnickety. There's somethin' Victorian about a row o' buttons. But a zipper, why a zipper is the very snake at the gate of Eden, waitin' to escort a true believer into the Garden. Faith, I should be sewin' more zippers into me garments, for I have many erogenous zones that require zipper access. Mmm, old zipper creeper, hanging head down like the carcass of a lizard, the phantom viper that we shun in daytime and communicate with at night.'"
Not sure if I'd give it five stars today, but it's still a fun read.
Little Leonardo's Fascinating World of Astronomy by Sarafina Nance, illustrated by Greg Paprocki - early reviewer - This nonfiction science book has engaging, almost cartoon-like illustrations by Greg Paprocki that are reminiscent of Little Golden Books. They accompany a vocabulary-rich text by astrophysicist Sarafina Nance. These vocabulary words are in all caps in the text, and are further defined in a two-page glossary at the end of the book. The book also includes a brief biography of Leonardo daVinci, as well as a page with one-paragraph biographies on five non-white-male astronomers.
The stated age range for the book is 4-8. I feel 4-to-5-year-olds, especially in a school or other group setting, are too young for this book. The vocabulary, in my opinion, is a little too much for that age. I'd use the book for ages 6-10 (or about first through fourth grades) instead. I learned a lot from this book (I'd never heard of the Big Splash theory, for example, nor of four of the five astronomers highlighted), and some of the vocabulary was new for me.
That being said, I was bothered by the capitalization of the word "universe" throughout the book. NASA's style guide says not to capitalize the word. The International Astronomical Union says "the names of individual astronomical objects" should be capitalized, but it's not clear if the word "universe" falls in that category or not. Apparently there are a lot of opinions on this issue, and mine is that far too many words are randomly capitalized nowadays, especially by failed politicians.
The Art of Protest by De Nichols - early reviewer - Author De Nichols and five other artists contributed to this 80-page book about protest art aimed at ages 10 and up. The book has four main sections - why art matters in social movements, what exactly is protest art (definitions and examples of protest art and its components), youth leadership and protest art around the world, and protest art beyond today.
Each chapter ends with "Try This" section with some suggested activities. The book ends with brief biographies of each artist, and source notes and image credits (although you have to look at the verso page to see which illustrations were done by which illustrator. I liked all of the work by Adam Allori (who is not even listed on the cover as one of the contributing illustrators), and the collages by Diego Becas used on the double-page spread (pages 54-55) about the Parkland student activists.
Each chapter ends with "Try This" section with some suggested activities. The book ends with brief biographies of each artist, and source notes and image credits (although you have to look at the verso page to see which illustrations were done by which illustrator. I liked all of the work by Adam Allori (who is not even listed on the cover as one of the contributing illustrators), and the collages by Diego Becas used on the double-page spread (pages 54-55) about the Parkland student activists.
One gripe I have about the book is how it's bound. It has heavy cardboard covers, but no spine. It might be difficult to put a shelf label on it for library use, and I'm not sure how well it would hold up to circulation. However, I can definitely see this book being added to the classroom shelves of a middle- or high-school art or social studies teacher.
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