Flowers and bee

Flowers and bee

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Origins of the Calendar - or why December is the 12th month - instead of 10th

The Dance of Time : The Origins of the Calendar by Michael Judge is a great book for those folks who like to spout facts at parties. It is also is fun for those of us who really do want to know why December is the 12th month instead of 10th? (That is because they put in extra months and kept trying to change the names - but everyone kept using the old ones!)

Judge takes a logical approach and first begins his history with how the concept of capturing and notating time began. What religious and pagan festivals played a part and what groups were responsible for keeping or creating the traditions is part of his analysis. Then he goes in depth and does a month by month essay while highlighting the days and traditions that are still carried on today.

Some fun facts for your next shindig : Did you know that Halloween is one of the oldest celebrated pagan festivals - that has not changed much at all in character during that time and it predates Christianity by "at least five hundred years"? And the date has remained the same during that time frame? Did you know that the year used to start on March 25th? And that "New Year's Day" fluxuated between Jan 1 and March 25th until the adoption of the Gregorian calendar reforms - and not even then?

Great book - lots of information - Great read

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Irresistible

What do you get when you mix an ex-Marine and a single mom who helps take care of her elderly neighbor? And give the characters a past that they are not too proud of, but yet make them seem very real and approachable? It's the latest book from Susan Mallery called Irresistible.

Walker and Elissa are not really interested in having a relationship - both are in the "we been burned or hurt before" mode. She is trying to make it on her own. He is a new neighbor. But circumstances intervene and they become friends. And to their growing astonishment, they find they want more.

This is a great story - with good secondary characters that lead the reader to believe that there will be sequel, for he has several other siblings. Well written, with humor - and the plot moves along, and best of all, the leads seem real with problems and doubts like the rest of us. Very satisfying, and I'm looking forward to the other siblings' stories.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Unhooked Generation - Single people running amuck!

Unhooked Generation: The Truth About Why We're Still Single by Jillian Straus has some interesting points. Being single, I thought this book would prove to be thought provoking.

She believes that there are "evil" influences on single folks. Her list of reasons contains the concepts:
- There is too high a celebrity standard
- There is a divorce effect from so many divorces in our culture
- We live in a multiple choice culture which overwhelms people
- There is fallout from delaying marriage
- There are inadvertent problems from feminism
- The strong "cult of I " in our culture

The fact that she worked for Oprah, I thought would produce a interesting twist. So, I was a bit amazed that she blamed so much on feminism. And really, some of the issues - were not really feminist! I think she needed to do a bit more research on the history of feminism.

Does this book help "solve" the problem and provide answers? Not really - but she does raise interesting questions. Some of them I agree with and some I don't. Decide for yourself.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

The Alibi Club

The time is May 1940. There is a rather sordid murder. The victim is an American who works at a rather prestigious law firm. His girlfriend, Sally King, does not believe the police are interested in finding the truth. All of Paris is distracted by the fact that the French and Belgian forces may not be able to hold off the German advance. She believes that her boyfriend was killed because of something in his law firm. She goes to the American Embassy to find help and enlists the services of one of the ambassador's right hand men. And when he starts to look in to the situation - he finds more than he bargins for. Thus begins the web of deception, lies, and truths that took place before the German occupation in The Alibi Club by Francine Mathews.

This mixture of espionage, science, fact and fiction makes a good read. Who else could manage to mix a Josephine Baker homage character with Frederic Joliot-Curie and the race to figure out how to split the atom? She gives us a good sense of the time and place - the rush of refugees trying to escape on the roads south of Paris, the burning of the embassy's papers, the knowledge of what law firms and banks did business with the Nazis and the choices made, of who would stay in Paris and who would go. And meanwhile, Sally is convinced that in this chaos, the killer will go free.

Mathews has a good thriller on her hands here. She manages to weave in a large cast of characters - a mix of real people and made up ones - with the oncoming sense of panic and doom that the Nazi advance brings. Each chapter brings the Germans closer to the city. And the tension in Paris arises. Worth a look.

Monday, December 04, 2006

What Dreams May Come

Believe in the power of dreams? What about dreaming of romance? What if a romance character was there when you woke up? Would you be shocked or just take it in stride? How do you teach a medieval man table manners anyway? Read Knightly Dreams by Sherrilyn Kenyon which is one of the three stories in the book What Dreams May Come. Dreaming is the theme in the other stories by Rebecca York and Robin D. Owens too.

Owens' story of a twist of fate is very good too. It poses the question of what would happen if you had a chance to do things differently the second time around? And if you had a rather fat cat angel working with you? You end up with a story that is funny and serious. And something to think about.

Happy Dreaming. A fun read.

The Manor House Mystery Series

It's World War II in England. The men are off fighting, the Yanks are over here, and rationing is everywhere. Kate Kingsbury's A Bicycle Built for Murder introduces us to her reluctant sleuth Lady Elizabeth. She's a divorcee whose parents were killed in the Blitz and she is now in charge of maintaining Manor House. One of her tenants' daughter is found murdered, and she is asked to look into it -since the the remaining constables are not too eager to have had to have come out of retirement due to wartime. The murder is being blamed on the Yanks, but Lady Elizabeth - mindful of the fact that the Manor is about to have American officers stationed there - tries to remind the locals that the Yanks are not all bad.

The second book is equally as fun. Death is in the Air has a murder of a land girl, but the village is more nervous by the fact that there is a downed German airman on the loose. They would have caught him when he parachuted down, but some folks were a bit distracted by getting the silk of his parachute.

Kingsbury does a great job of giving her readers the flavor of wartime England in the countryside where the London bombings seem so far away. Lady Elizabeth is a great character. She is unsure of herself, but tries to carry on the family tradition anyway in this rapidly changing world. And everyone tries to adjust to wartime deprivations. A great series.