this is the cover for the teenage years, I picked it over the early years because its really cute!!
The Evil Dark Lord is cursed by a rival wizard and sent to Earth (aka the Pit of Despair) in the body of a short and pudgy 13 year old. His magic is gone, even his Ring of Power is broken. Dark Lord has become Dirk Lloyd, due to a miscommunication between himself and the cops that found him in a grocery store parking lot.
Dirk is sent to live with foster parents and forced to start the 7th grade. He walks into his first class announcing, “I am the Great Dirk! You may call me Master!” The kids start cracking up, and Dirk has to face a world where no one fears him. Dirk makes a couple of friends including his foster brother, Chris, and a goth girl named Sooz and together, they try to figure out a way to get Dirk about to his home, the Darklands.
This is, hands down, the funniest book that I’ve read in a long time. Perfect for the most reluctant readers and fantasy fans. I would say its good for 5th grade and up, nothing too scary happens and kids will love it. Dark Lord: The Early Years is the first of the series and I can’t wait to read more!
Launch Parties in NYC. Well…it’s a thing. Its usually an after work event that involves free drinks, some kind of giveaways, and lately, a photo-booth. I’m not complaining. Free drinks and an early night? I’m in!!
Sarah took me to the launch party for BuzzFeed DIY. BuzzFeed is super addictive, it is a website that takes hours away from your day! And now that there is a DIY section…I’m sunk! Just look at this page they have on cakes that are based on classic books!!
Some tips for going to a launch party:
Stop at Sephora after work to put on fancy lipstick (for free). It will put you in a party mood, even after you spent the day at the reference desk.
Order of operations at the party: 1) get your free drink 2) hit up the photo-booth
Bring business cards, even if you are a librarian. I always forget that non-librarians think that my job is really cool!
Find the older looking people at the party…they are the ones with interesting projects and things going on…the rest of the party is comprised of 22 year olds that are using the party to pre-game (no shade)
Have an “after launch party” eating plan. You will be dying for some french fries. Sarah and I went for classic New York at Katz’s Deli. I could write a whole post on how many rules there are at this place. Just know that you are going to be confused when you get in. But just get a chocolate egg cream and everything will be okay.
We had a guest come in during our last Crafternoon and taught us how to make quesadillas. Now as many people already know, I invented the quesadilla 20 years ago when I melted Kraft American cheese in a tortilla in the microwave after school. I was as surprised as anyone to find out that it has become a world-wide craze!
I was on edge watching the kids chop and dice but they loved it. They got to chop and cook garlic and onion, dice peppers, carrots, mushrooms, and of course…shred the cheese!! I’m actually surprised we had cheese left over for the quesadillas with all the secret snacking (present company included) but each kid got their own cheesy, gooey, and veggie filled snack! Vegetables in the library?!? That’s a first!
Thinking about putting some more art up in my apartment but I don’t want to buy it. Maybe I can make something like this, using stamps and paint. Hmmm…something to think about.
Who doesn’t like roses?!? I especially like them when they are slightly over-bloom and big and soft. So it was a perfect time to visit the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens with my friend Sarah and her boyfriend Ben. We wandered around and took too many picture of plants. And then pictures of each other taking pictures of plants. And we even got a couple of ourselves!
Inside tip for Brooklyn touring…for twenty bucks you can get a pass for the gardens and the Brooklyn Museum. Yes, the museum is suggested donation but it feels classy to play ten bucks each. So I guess it really isn’t much of a tip but still…if you go the the gardens, go to the museum. That’s what Sarah and I did. I wanted to go because there was a John Singer Sargent exhibit up and I’m a fan. But I ended up being more excited about the El Anatsui exhibit which I had forgotten was there! So many picture of amazing work made up of bottle caps and cans. I couldn’t believe it!
Trent mentioned the movie Straight Talk in my last post and my coworkers and I have been looking everywhere for a copy so we can screen it in the library, no luck. BUT you can watch it all on YouTube:
Oh…How I WISH this could be a series. But how many times can you convince your boyfriend to read a Nora Roberts romance novel?
My old-school Private Scandals cover!
Trent rivals my Mom and Nana when it comes to blog readership, even during my series about Nora Roberts novels. I thought that was really sweet of him, especially all of his comments on some of the books that I wrote about. What I didn’t expect was for him to actually read one! Try to imagine a grown man visiting his local library and asking for Private Scandals, a romance novel published in 1994. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that there was no way that a library had a copy of that book that was in one piece, usually 2008 is our cut off for books that aren’t falling apart and a mess. But he found one, thanks the the hard core binding of the New Albany-Floyd County Public Library system.
Just to recap, Private Scandals is the story of Deanna Reynolds, an up and coming journalist in Chicago who takes a chance and dives into the world of syndicated talk shows. As her star starts to rise she becomes a target for her former mentor, Daytime Queen Angela Perkins, who is determined to stay on top, and a mystery stalker who becomes more and more obessed as time goes on. Deanna also captures the eye of Finn Riley, a rough and ready foreign corespondent, who is super hot and a CATCH.
So what did Trent have to say about Nora’s early 90’s masterpiece? Read on for our interview:
Q: How would you describe this book to a first time Nora Roberts reader?
“Private Scandals” is a romance novel set in early Nineties Chicago and follows the trials and tribulations of an ambitious woman named Deanna set on making her name in television. She becomes a talk show host because, we are told, she has incredible warmth and empathy. The character, however, is written coldly and it became difficult for me to see why our main romantic interest is in fact interested in her. It is bizarrely paced and the prose is patchy. The specifics of the end of the book were so surprising that I felt the author must have been equally surprised as well. However, it is a fun story in its own way, and I enjoyed reading it. It was interesting, as a non-targeted male reader, to study the way that the romantic male lead was constructed. It is an idealized, note-perfect male archetype, to be sure, but the popularity of Roberts’ novels suggests that there is a reason such an archetype is featured. I honestly would recommend this book to young men for that reason. In other words, this is a book for girls, which is why boys should read it.
Q. What characters in this story have the best chemistry?
This is an easy one for me. Angela Perkins and her assistant/producer/lover in New York. What’s his name? At any rate, they are written both individually and as a couple to be derided and pitied. But they have a symbiosis that is completely lacking in the Deanna/Finn relationship. I suppose…Ed is it? [It's Dan]…is painted as the parasite but oft times the host benefits as well, as here. In other words, I find their relationship entirely believable. In third place I would put Finn and Deanna, one slot below [the stalker] and that lock of Deanna’s hair.
Q. Where do you think Finn Riley ranks among all time romantic heroes?
Hmm. As noted, I think Finn is valuable as an example of what the author and many of her readers think of as an ideal man. I definitely bought into him as someone to be desired, but I think he’s less successful as a character. If he ever showed any reluctance–which he would later overcome of course–he’d be closer to the Han Solo archetype. Freewheeling bad boy that while dangerously attractive is actually pretty centered and loving and loyal. As it is, he’s a masculine journalist who has likely read both “Iron John” and “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.”
Q. Private Scandals takes place in the early 90s in Chicago, give me some of your favorite 90s references from the book.
I’ll do you one better. As an early Nineties cultural artifact, I think it’s instructive to think of “Private Scandals” in partnership with it’s pop art sister-from-another-mister, the 1992 Dolly Parton film vehicle “Straight Talk”. In the latter as in the former, a corn fed beauty comes to Chicago and winds up as a talk show host sensation. Although Dolly has more reticence and less initial ambition than Deanna, there are many fun parallels to be enjoyed. And ultimately, in each instance, in the process of finding her own voice, our tough-as-nails but feminine heroine helps the hoi polloi find their own voices, too. We came very close to having talk-show-in-early-nineties-Chicago become an actual genre! If you don’t have time to watch the whole movie, give the accompanying “Straight Talk” music video a listen. You can find it here
. She actually references both Oprah Winfrey and Phil Donahue in the lyrics. Seriously.
Note: I can’t believe I haven’t seen this movie! Sadly, the library does not have a copy.
We had a blast making paper flowers at the library, and it couldn’t have been easier! I bought a pack of tissue paper and dug out some pipe cleaners (we always have pipe cleaners at the library) and we went to town. At first, the teens were rolling their eyes at such a simple project…baby stuff! But a bouquet of flowers later, they were hooked!
They took some of their flowers home, the rest were pinned to a blooming bulletin board in the teen space. I used an online tutorial like THIS, to make the flowers but now I want to try something fancier. Maybe something from this book that my friend Sarah told me about:
So beautiful!! I hope the library gets a copy soon!!
I want to make a blanket using granny squares. I think it would be cute! And I could add mine to the afghan collection I have from my great grandmother. What is going one with me?! First reading Henry James and now making granny square afghans?! I think getting my own apartment has really made me want to nest. So this tutorial from the blog Meet Me at Mikes is on my list for this summer!
I started a Crochet Club at the library and the girls are really getting into it. We are working on a simple pouch right now but maybe as time goes on I could use books like THIS or THIS for some granny square inspiration!
In an effort to get librarians off the desk and moving around, NYPL has instituted a new walking program where you get prizes for walking around 8,000 steps a day. I think the average day of walking has something around 2,000 steps? Don’t quote me on this. All the branches made up teams, which I think is WILDLY UNFAIR since a “branch” like Mid-Manhattan as something like, 25 members…but I guess that’s not the point. The point is that we are getting active!! I downloaded a pedometer app on my phone but don’t really like using it. So I just try to add in an hour of walking during the day, which takes me to around 8,000-ish steps every day. I squeeze in the extra hour by walking on my lunch break and getting out a stop early on my train commute. Which brings me to my daily walk through Washington Square Park.
green on a rainy day
a peek at some beautiful old-timey townhouses
artsy monument shot
Not a bad way to get to work! Especially on a Saturday. Washington Square Park is obviously an NYC icon and is always busy with toursits, street performers, weird old West Village locals and NYU students. Its also the backdrop and home for so many great writers and artists. And you know, now that I’m thinking about it, its the namesake of Washington Square by Henry James. A book that I’m always about to read. Looks like I have a new summer goal!
