Sunday, January 26, 2014

Completed: Purple Hibiscus

Kelly,

I had a rare two-fer yesterday: I finished up the last 50 pages a ToBX book, The Tuner of Silences; then I started and completed my replacement January book, Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. 

As you know, my intended January book was Snow, but I was struggling with it. It was one of those books where the main character mostly wanders around and interacts with people, and sometimes those people tell their own stories, and then there's more wandering around. I found myself wanting something to happen! But I feel bad about it. I do know that they way a story gets told is different in other cultures, but in this case, I just wasn't in the right space. Usually, I will abandon books that aren't working for me, but I try to finish TBR books. I'm glad you encouraged me to move on. I wasn't enjoying it. And, I LOVED Purple Hibiscus

Funny story about Purple Hibiscus, which is written by the author of one of our 2013 favorites, Americanah. Last year, the chair of the English department was looking for new books for their global lit class for 10th graders. She asked me (because I read all. the. books.) if I knew of any books written by a non-Western author, set in another country, ideally featuring a female protagonist, and appropriate for early high school. In other words, the needle in the literary haystack. I thought about it for a minute and suggested they try Purple Hibiscus, which I had just bought but hadn't yet read. They ended up choosing it! Hah--I feel like one of my primary services to the upper school English department is my extensive book knowledge. 

Then last summer we both read and loved Americanah. Purple Hibiscus was on my TBR list, so I thought I should prioritize it, but my copy was making the rounds of the upper school English teachers. It fell off my radar again.  After Beyonce sampled Adichie on her new album (which is great, by the way) I decided to read it in December but I couldn't find it. Just last week when you encouraged me to quit Snow, I saw it in Darrell's car and actually said "A-ha!" out loud. Finally, the timing was right!

The novel is about a 15 year old girl in Nigeria, Kambili. She comes from a very wealthy and devoutly Catholic family. Her father owns a newspaper and several factories. She seems to have everything. However, Kambili's home is quiet and full of fear. Her father is obsessed with his vision of what it means to be a good Christian, and he's willing to beat obedience into his wife, son, and daughter. The story takes a turn with Kambili and her brother, Jaja, are allowed to visit their Aunt Ifeoma, a university professor who lives a few hours away. Suddenly, they see what it's like to live in a household full of light and laughter. 

I definitely enjoyed the book. It was a super fast and easy read, and although it's clear that Kambili's father is physically abusive, with a few notable (and upsetting) exceptions those scenes happen mostly off stage. We see the aftermath and the terrible toll the abuse has on the family, but this is not a book that feels the need to give long, in-depth descriptions of abuse. I think that's partly a feature of Kambili's first person narration. She doesn't know how to understand her father's abusive nature, and so she turns away from it. She loves him and she loves God, there's a part of her that does feel he is "right" even if she doesn't understand it.

There are other things about Eugene (that's the Dad) that make him a pretty interesting character. He's clearly a symbol of a certain type of African, one who embraces his colonizers. No one is more devout. He trusts the white priests over the Nigerian ones, and he prefers to speak English in a crisp British accent and frowns upon those who speak the native language, Igbo. His Catholicism is so rigid that he has cut off his father for being a heathen and refusing to convert. Eugene won't allow his children to see their grandfather for more than 15 minutes at a time or eat or drink anything from his home. He fears that the old, "heathen" ways will corrupt his children and perfect family.

The best parts of the book are with Aunty Ifeoma. Her home is poor, but she listens and teaches her children to question rather than to blindly obey. Kambili and especially Jaja change after spending more time with their family. It's a nice coming-of-age story.

I guess I'd say that I have 2 minor complaints. One, Kambili develops a crush on a Nigerian priest when she's with her aunt. Honestly, it just seemed super creepy and had an uncomfortable Thornbirds vibe to it. Ew. (By the way, I only watched part of that clip. It's *HIGH-LARIOUS*). At one point, her cousin makes fun of her crush and says, "Oh, all the girls in church have crushes on him. Even some of the married women. People have crushes on priests all the time, you know. It's exciting to have to deal with God as a rival" (220). I must say, that's a pretty funny line and probably has some truth in it. But still. Descriptions of the legs, arms, and chest of a priest? No thanks. LUCKILY, nothing happens, but it still was just kind of weird. I guess, given her religious upbringing, it makes a sort of sense. Meh.

Finally, there's sort of a shocking event at the very end that seems a little forced; and the way it plays out is very different from the rest of the book. In real life, sudden and surprising events do happen. But in a book, it's hard not to think the author was like, "How am I going to end this thing?" It wasn't terrible. We've discussed before how hard it is to stick the landing. It was a solid read and it was thought-provoking. I'd recommend it.

Jenny

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Kelly's Book 1.14: On Writing

Dear Jenny,

Does this feel like déjà vu? Didn't I already post a preview of my Book 1.14? Yup. But there has been a change of plans!

After reading one chapter of Don't Know Much About History, I knew that I couldn't do it all in one month. Conveniently, it's got 12 chapters so I'll read one per month and tell you all about it in December (or maybe do some mini-reports along the way... depends on how I'm feeling).

I didn't like the unsettled feeling that I would have all year if the numbers of my books did not correspond with the actual month numbers (Yeah, yeah. I've got my issues.), so DKMAH will be my 12.14 book and this post is about my new 1.14: On Writing by Stephen King.

When I first heard about this book, I wasn't that interested because I'm not a writer (of fiction) (I am, of course, a writer of blog posts) (and emails and comments and... oh, you know!) but it turns out that the book is also a memoir (it actually says so right in the subtitle: On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft) and I am interested in Stephen King, so I picked it up.

My favorite King novels have been the non-horror ones (like 11/22/63 and Joyland -- so good!) and I am totally amazed by his ability to create memorable characters (I still think about the crew from It and I read that book over 25 years ago). I, myself, could not invent a completely made-up story to save my life (seriously -- making up a story? Can. Not. Do. It.) so I am pretty curious to get into the head of a guy who not only can do this, but often does it spectacularly.

I also thought this would be a good one to read with the ToB coming up, since there is usually a lot of discussion about authors and writing during the book-y talk, so it seems like it might be pertinent.

love,
kelly

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Gearing Up for ToBX!

Kelly,

Well, the good news is that they released the short list for the ToBX this morning. Yahoo! The bad news is that we are not in good shape! I've only read 5, and you've read 2. I'm starting school, you're starting crafting! What's going to happen?

All right. Let's take a moment to mourn the unbelievable fact that Americanah was not included.

And now a moment of joy that neither of us will ever have to think about Tampa again.

Of the contenders, I've read  At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcón, The Dinner by Herman Koch, The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, and Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.

I'm mostly happy because 3 of these were end of the year/winter break reads for me. So I was pretty successful at selecting from the Long List there. The only "wasted" read was The Flamethrowers, because I would have definitely abandoned it, but I was sure it would make it. Oh well.

Of the remaining, I ordered a few using holiday gift cards: The Tuner of Silences by Mia Couto, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid, The Son by Philipp Meyer, and A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. My guess is that I'll tackle How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia first. I've heard good things about it, and let's face it, it has a killer title.

I know that the library at school has Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, and The Good Lord Bird by James McBride.

That leaves the following *four* that I've never heard of: Woke Up Lonely by Fiona Maazel, Long Division by Kiese Laymon, Hill William by Scott McClanahan, and The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara. This group can go either way, I guess. I usually try to make time for these, because they tend to be outside of my "usual" fare as a reader. Some of these types of ToB selectons have been some of my favorites, others I have hated the most.

I guess we'll see where that leaves me come March. The one I'm willing right away to leave on the road is The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. I just thought Eat, Pray, Love was so annoying. I can't imagine making time for this one. Last year, by the end, I had finished an impressive 17 of 18, but I don't think I'll get that lucky this year.

Jenny

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Kelly's Book 12.14: Don't Know Much About History

Dear Jenny,

This book has been in the TBR rotation for the past two years and on my TBR shelf for far longer (almost 10 years, so I'll be missing recent history...) This year, I am doing it!

Although... with my commitment to abandoning books in 2014, this may also be the year that I finally say, "Forget it. This book is not for me."

But I'm going to give it a chance, at least. Stay tuned to see how it goes!

love,
kelly

Edited on January 8, 2014 to add:
This book is now my "final" book for the year -- I will read one chapter per month and report on the whole darned thing in December. Accordingly and confusingly, I have now dubbed it "Book 12.14."

Friday, January 3, 2014

2013: My Epic Year of Books


Dear Jenny,

At the end of the year for the past few years, you have reported how many books you read that year (2011 and 2012), which has prompted me to look at my Amazon and Audible accounts and make a rough guess. In 2012, I read about 50 books based on that unscientific figuring.

At the beginning of 2013, I started writing down the books that I read. Part of that was that I moved to a city with an awesome library, so I committed to using it and I wanted to track my progress on that goal. At the halfway point, I realized I was slated to read 100 books this year, so... I went for it.

Yup -- I consumed a total of 100 books in 2013 (counting all 19 volumes of The Walking Dead as one book). Of those, nearly half (48) were aBooks. Surprisingly (to me) only 12 were eBooks, leaving 41 as good old-fashioned pBooks -- if you had asked me before this moment, I would have guessed that I don't read many pBooks anymore, but I guess I do! Aaand... 31 were books from the library. (Of those, 6 were aBooks and the rest were pBooks.) So my library goal was a pretty successful.

The reason that I managed to read so much this year? Because I didn't do much else! As you know, I  now exercise a lot, which is makes for good quality book time (aBooks when walking and e/pBooks on the bike) but -- and this is really the key -- I didn't make anything this year! I usually spend a lot of my free time crafting and I read books instead this past year. I will tell you right now that that is going to change in 2014, so I anticipate returning to my usual number as more of my time is spent making, rather than reading.

One nice thing about keeping a written list this year was that I could refer to it whenever anyone asked me for a book recommendation (that question always makes me draw a blank -- so weird) Here are a few of my favorites from 2013,  in no particular order:

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Thank you for recommending this book to me. Awesome story and a fantastic narrator on the aBook. I think this is one of those books made better by listening to it. The accents brought so much to the story and when I saw some of the names spelled later, I realized I totally would have butchered the pronunciations in my head. Heh.




Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Terrific YA book that transcends the "YA" genre. Partially because it's set in the 80s, so anyone who grew up in the 80s is transported (mix tapes, baby!) but partially because of how the characters' lives (especially Eleanor) are drawn. Her family life is a disaster and the description was so poignant. I really loved this book.




Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell

Really fun little read about time travel plus a decent mystery. I enjoy time travel books, so this was right up my alley.







Wool by Hugh Howey

SF book about a dystopian future with a good story and great characters. I really enjoyed this book, but there have since been two more books in the saga that don't seem to be living up to the hype, so I'm probably done.





The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Original and imaginative story about two supernatural creatures who seem completely unrelated, but end up developing a neat, unexpected relationship.






The Initiates by Etienne Davodeau

Very cool graphic novel wherein a graphic artist and a winemaker "exchange jobs" (sort of -- more like educate each other about their jobs) for a year. And then, of course, the artist creates this book all about it. Fascinating information about both wine and graphic novels, two topics I enjoy. I recommend this book for anyone looking to get into graphic novels, since it's got a great appendix that lists all of the novels recommended/read throughout the book.


The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

I don't really have to tell you about this -- it won the ToB and the Pulitzer and it's by far the book I have recommended the most this year and everyone who has read it has really enjoyed it. The narrators on the aBook were fantastic and it was great to actually hear the booming voice of the loudspeakers. The only thing I cannot believe is that I read this in 2013 -- it was one of my first of the year and it seems sooooo long ago now!



Those are my Top 7 and that's a weird random number, but I'll leave it at that.

Aaaand... I have said it before, but I will say it again: 2014 is my year to start abandoning books (with abandon!) I slogged through a couple this year (Jonathan Strange and Little, Big come to mind) that I should have ditched after 50 or so pages. I did manage to abandon an aBook or two sooo... I'm getting there!

Soooo... Other than Americanah, what were your favorites this year?

love,
kelly

Thursday, January 2, 2014

The Return of the Preview Post

Kelly,

We talked about returning the "preview post' and I think it's a great idea. I'll even call it a New Year's Resolution. So until we get the ToBX list, this will keep me busy.

I tried to do a couple of things with my list this year. One, I tried to include books by non-American, non-Western authors. I'm always talking about my reading rut, and actually putting some of these books on my list should be a good way to change it up. This year's list is 4 non-fiction books (if you count the Madonna book as non-fiction, that is. Snerk.) Of the ten remaining novels, four of them are by non-Western authors. I don't usually pick alternates, but I definitely want to read all of these four this year!

One book on my list is Please Look After Mom, which won the Man Asian Prize in 2011. The Man Asian prize is the equivalent of the Booker or National Book Award. Knowing which books to read from another country can be difficult, and so looking at prize winners seems like a good strategy. There's also a Best Translated Book Award, which might be another avenue for finding new books.

I also included All The Names by Porgeguese writer Jose Saramago. I was really on the fence about whether to include this one or the sequel to Blindness, called Seeing. I think part of it that Blindness was so emotionally wrenching, and I wasn't quite ready to return to that world. I'm hoping All the Names is a little less...harrowing. 

My one return book this year is by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Of course she wrote my favorite novel of 2013, Americanah. As I said in an earlier comment, I intended to read Purple Hibiscus in December, but forgot it at work. All of the sophomores read it this year after I recommended it to the English department as a book that might fit in their global lit course. Did you hear about the huge boost Adichie got when Beyonce sampled her TED talk, We Should All be Feminists on her new album? Interestingly, it's her TED talk called The Danger of a Single Story that I'm more familiar with---that any decent English teacher is more familiar with! It's great, and if you've never seen them, you should check them out.

That brings me to the book I'm going to tackle first, Snow by Orhan Pamuk It's always so hard to know which book to read first in a year! But this year, given the *insane* amount of snow that we've had in Chicago so far, it seems like the obvious choice! How can you not read a book called Snow when your world looks like this?

Pamuk is from Turkey and won the Nobel Prize in 2006. I've never read anything by him before, but Snow is a book I've seen referenced by other reviewers and authors. I'm looking forward to it.  I've had this book on my shelf for at least 6 years. I know that because our old neighbor, Laura, gave it to me to read at the same time as Await Your Reply. I enjoyed that one a lot last year, so maybe I should trust her instincts. I did return Await Your Reply to her after finishing it, and it was pretty funny. She was so happy to see it again, "Oh! I remember that I really liked this book!" I'll finish this one and give it back to her and she'll probably wonder what else I've been keeping from her!

One other thing you'll notice is that there are far less non-fiction books this year than in previous years. I think I'm worried that starting grad school (exciting!) will suck up a lot more of my free time, and maybe I won't have as much time for big 800 page tomes about whatever war I'm into this year. I have a few longer ones, but figured it was a good year to put more fiction on the TBR list. In fact, I'd love to finish Snow before my first class on the 9th!

As for snowy Chicago, a bit of an explanation: I took the first picture of the boy and his buddies (one of them is out of the picture) sledding this afternoon. LOTS of snow! Here's another hilarious thing, we were then driving to pick up D at work, and the kids see one of the library reading rooms on campus and said, "Wait! Why didn't we sled on that?" It's a huge glass dome and it did look like a massive igloo. I could see why the kids thought it would be a perfect sledding hill: quite majestic, and wildly dangerous! Here's a snowy picture of the library versus its regular appearance. I keep thinking it must be *awfully* cold in there when it's all snow covered! Not to mention that the light must be just fantastically strange. I wish I worked at the University so I could peek in there and see it. Maybe I can convince D to sneak me in there tomorrow---but I promise to leave the sleds at home!

Jenny


Kelly's TBP List [2014 edition]

Dear Jenny,

Well, I have attempted this project twice now so far -- once in 2012 and again in 2013. My rate of success has only been two books per year so far. Oh, well. I won't be deterred -- this is my year to peruse! (And if it's not, oh well -- are the Perusal Police going to arrest me?)

I covered two last year and I acquired a single additional TBP book, so my number now stands at 13. My newest is 100 Years of Fashion and I should totally plan to peruse that the month I read Tim Gunn's Fashion Bible.

As a refresher... these are art books I own that I haven't made time to peruse so I have created this "To Be Perused" (TBP) list to motivate me to crack these open. I will attempt to peruse one per month and report on it here.

Now that I have done four of these, I know that part of the reason I get bogged down is that I like to post a lot of photos and that takes way more time than a text-only post. Not making any excuses, but I do need to make sure I leave more time for the write ups.

Without further ado, here are my TBP books:










(Click to see that bigger.)

 In alphabetical order, they are:
  1. 100 Years of Fashion by Cally Blackman
  2. Art for the People: The Rediscovery and Preservation of Progressive and WPA-Era Murals in the Chicago Public Schools, 1904-1943 by Heather Becker
  3. Art of Modern Rock by Paul Grushkin
  4. The Audrey Hepburn Treasures by Ellen Erwin
  5. Decorate: 1,000 Design Ideas for Every Room in Your Home by Holly Becker
  6. Design*Sponge at Home by Grace Bonney
  7. East Bay Then and Now by Dennis Evanosky
  8. Helvetica and the New York City Subway System: The True (Maybe) Story by Paul Shaw
  9. Lost Detroit: Stories Behind the Motor City's Majestic Ruins by Dan Austin (Author), Sean M. Doerr (Photographer)
  10. Plymouth in Vintage Postcards by Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens
  11. Prom by Mary Ellen Mark
  12. Punk House: Interiors in Anarchy by Abby Banks
  13. Robert Bechtle: A Retrospective by Janet Bishop
Lucky 13! This is my year, babe! Heh. 

love,
kelly

Kelly's TBP 2.13: Pictoplasma

[I started this post in March 2013! Not long after that, I got a new computer and was just plain lazy about photo management. Finally worked it all out, so I'm publishing at the end of 2013 beginning of 2014...]

Dear Jenny,

Bill gave me this book, Pictoplasma, several years ago (Eight? Nine? It's crazy how long I've been letting some of these books languish on my shelves unread!) (Guess that's the point here, right?) He bought it for me because I like illustrations and characters and he was spot on -- this puppy is right up my alley. I was especially drawn to the "cute" characters, although there were plenty of non-cute guys in here, as well.

This book was published in 2001 and I thought it would show its age, but I was happy to see that, for the most part, it did not. I poked around and found that there have been a couple of updated versions since then, including the most recent, The Character Compendium, in 2012.

One especially great part of this perusal was that I took the time to look up a lot of the artists I'll show you below... some have disappeared, but some have really gone far and have some great stuff -- there were some "falling down the rabbit hole" moments for me here. Good thing you're on spring winter break -- care to take some time in the rabbit hole with me?

The book was divided into five chapters: Free Hand Drawing, Pixel, Vector, 3-D, and Encyclopedia.

Chapter 1: Free Hand Drawing

As you'd suspect from the name, these are illustrations drawn by hand -- definitely the most organic of the illustrations in the book.

I frigging love this dancing cat -- he's about 1x1" and totally jamming to his headphones:
He's attributed to someone/thing called "Virushead," but I couldn't really find anything about that on the Internet. Sooo... moving on...

This other kitty also cracked me up. He's Snowcat and he's super cute.

The way his ears are drawn reminded me of a pretty hilarious web comic called Simon's Cat. Have you ever seen it? If not, be prepared to waste some time laughing your butt off at these films (if you don't have a whole day, two of my favorites are Cat Man Do [which appears to be the very first one] and Double Trouble. I seriously laugh out loud when I watch these -- he really nails cat behavior!)

Anywhooo... back to the book!


Chapter 2: Pixel

The pixel characters can be so interesting because sometimes they ask and answer the question: What is the barest amount of information we need to recognize something. Behold...  Pixelized Scully and Mulder. Ha!

Craig Robinson is the artist behind Mulder and Scully as well as hundreds of other pixelated famous people. Have you see his work before? He had a book called Minipops in 2004 and there's an app too. If you've got some time, check some of them out -- really great stuff.

While you're there, take a look at the rest of his portfolio -- super diverse and interesting (warning: giant rabbit hole at that link. Seriously huge.)

Just a few of my favorites from his site (although it's hard to pick -- this guy is prolific and brilliant): Beastie dots, Five answers to the same question, How I will catch Jon Bon Jovi (hahahahaha), On this day (combining things that happened on the same day but different years), Batman and Robinson ("One panel cartoons of [the artist] hanging out with the Dark Knight"), and this little project: photos of misspellings of "Craig" on his coffee ("Wreck" -- HA.)

Ok! Gotta be done with Robinson there -- I could talk about that guy all day.

Moving on to someone else here... sometimes pixel art acts like pointillism: hard to recognize the photo at first, but then, at a longer glance, easier to see what is going on. Like this guy, riding his magic carpet:


That's by a guy named Christof Täschler  (looks like he does a lot of UX Design work now, so his portfolio isn't quite as fun).

And I thought this was just a really neat way to use the pixels -- the different treatment in the "hair" vs. the faces is great:

(Click to see that one bigger -- the hair is fun.) The artist is listed as "Fake ID, LLC" which gets some... unusual hits. The URL listed in the book is not longer valid and the one other company going by that name doesn't seem to be doing this.

Chapter 3: Vector

Let's move on to the vector -- the smooth evolution of pixel drawings. Overall, these are probably my favorite kind of illustration.

Oopsy, I said the F Word cracks me up:

Here's where I went down a yet another rabbit hole... tracing the illustrator of Oopsy Daisy. The company listed is Cosmic Debris, but if you try to find *that*, you get directed soundly to Emily the Strange, who seems to be the most popular character to come out of that particular collaborative.

Not to be deterred, I kept looking and I'm glad that I did. The actual creator of Oopsy Daisy (and Emily the Strange) is Brian Brooks. In 2006, this really interesting article ran in the East Bay Express all about him and his relationship with Cosmic Debris and his art. Here's his site to see more of his portfolio, although it's mostly paintings (vs. illustrations).

This next illustration came from Cosmic Debris, as well -- a division called Yum Pop which seems to be defunct now:

(I like the coffee flexing his muscles.)

This next guy is great -- his caption says "Shit, the wrong one" and he seems to have some sort of little kitty on his head... perhaps "driving" him?


That artist is François Chalet.  It looks like his website is now dead, but he posts new stuff on his twitter account.

Love the hair and the smile on this dog:

That artist is Konstanze Läufer-Wiest  Not a ton of examples of her work on that site, sadly. But what is there is fun.

And finally, this smiling girl makes me happy:


This gal is attributed to the design group Rinzen. The navigation on their site is truly bizarre (hover over the colored lines at the top, then realize that there are tiny, hidden, clickable squares up there, indicating content. What?) but I did poke around a little. I love some of their word designs like Frankly! and Solar Powered. There's more to see, but I didn't poke around too much -- that navigation is really tiring.

Chapter 4: 3D

This was by far the most dated section of the book -- I think because 3D rendering is a technology that has come so far in the past decade. (Think about what Pixar has done during that time, right?) So a lot of these pieces definitely screamed "Cutting edge in 2001" to me. That being said, here was one that mad me laugh -- remind you of anything?


[Whew! I'm slowing down here... do you see why it took me nine months to finish this post? Let's wrap this puppy up...]

Chapter 5: Encyclopedia

The final section was fantastic -- one theme, several drawings. For instance, here are the bunnies, bees, bears and dogs... so great!

(Click to see that larger -- I especially love the 3rd bunny from the left. Ca-yooot!)

Aaand... final random thoughts...

All of this happened right at the same time I discovered the app iMadeFace. Immersed in illustration as I was when perusing this book, I felt like it that sort of related to a lot of this -- it's an app used to create a cartoon version of your face. It's surprisingly fun.

Bill's version of me is on the left (this was from March -- funny how different my hair actually looks now. I should have him do another one!)  And I did the version on Bill on the right (he's not nearly this mean looking, but it was the best I could do with the options - Ha!):

(We are very serious.)

And my final note (this time I mean it!) is that from the Pictoplasma website, there is a link to the Pictoplasma Etsy shop which has tons of great stuff... this guy cracks me up, the heart factory is adorable, this print is fantastic, and I just love these tentacles (no, really!)

Whew! This post took me forever to get published. Since I actually perused this book in 2013, I am going to keep it marked as 2.13. And I am going to re-visit the TBP list in 2014 -- third time is the charm, right?!

love,
kelly