Your World... And Welcome to It: A Rogue's Gallery of Interior Design by Patrick Mauries

Fashion designer Christian Lacroix has done the illustrations for this cheeky satire of home decor from the 60s through the 80s. Mauries' witty essays on styles like Disco Deco, Lofty Aspirations, Minimalism to the Max and Shabby Chic don't appear to have lost much in their translation from French to English.

Regarding the Shaker esthetic: "Everything the average home of today needs - spinning wheels, wooden brooms, farm tools - were suddenly transformed into works of art by the Good Fairy of Utility, who works only in cherrywood or pear." I googled unfamiliar names as I came across them. For example, in Sure-Fire Chic, ("They limit their palette to a range that can't miss: gray, beige, gray-beige, white, and the mother of all colors - black") Eileen Gray rugs and Reitveld chairs were mentioned. I image googled and discovered that I recognized their work, only not by name. So, between the entertaining words and whimsical drawings and the impromptu bit of design education via the internet that it spawned, I had a great time with this book.

Because I Am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas

Anke is fourteen, the youngest in her family. Her father is violently abusive to her older brother and sister and to her mother, but he ignores her. Anke feels like a powerless bystander, even while defying her father behind his back, playing volleyball against his wishes. Anke's confidence and courage grow along with her ability on the volleyball court. Is she strong enough to take action against her father?

This story is told in poems, so it is a very quick read. Read-alikes: Touching Snow by M. Sindy Felin; Burned by Ellen Hopkins; When She Hollers by Cynthia Voight and Such a Pretty Girl by Laura Weiss. Grade 7 - up.

The Rose Grower by Michelle de Kretser

It isn't often that I give up on a book partway through, but that's what happened in this case. (I made it to page 80.) I liked another of de Kretser's books - The Hamilton Case - which was set in historical Sri Lanka. The Rose Grower is set in Gascony during the time of the French Revolution. Earlier this year, I spent three weeks hiking through the same places mentioned in the novel, so that was another appeal factor for me. Plus, there is Sophie, the rose grower of the title, who is a passionate gardener, determined to breed a dark red repeat-blooming rose. Botany and gardening hook me every time.

Except for this time. It isn't a bad book, it just isn't the book for me, right now. It's about an aristocratic family that has fallen on hard times - and times are about to get even harder, with the revolt of the peasants imminent. There are three daughters: Claire, Sophie and Mathilde. An American artist, Stephen, crashes his hot air balloon near their estate and then falls in love with Claire, the beautiful one, and she returns the attraction, although she is already married (to a brute who isn't around much). Sophie pines for Stephen's attention while a local doctor, Joseph, is secretly pining for Sophie. Ho hum. All that mushy, unrequited love stuff turned me off and I found I didn't care about the characters at all. Except for Mathilde, the youngest, who quotes Rousseau and is leaning towards vegetarianism.

I would recommend this to readers who like Jane Austen.

The Starry Rift: Tales of New Tomorrows edited by Jonathan Strahan

Australian editor Strahan has assembled a fine anthology of original science fiction stories. (I noticed that his name can be re-arranged to 'Starman' with one letter substitution... coincidence?) He has included writers from Canada, England, Ireland, Wales and the U.S.A as well as Australia: great YA authors like Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman, Margo Lanagan and Scott Westerfeld.

In the introduction, Strahan writes: "Although people think that science fiction is about the future, it's not. Like all fiction, it's about its own time. It's about the world we live in - what we think and feel about it, and how we think or fear it might change in the coming years." The stories in this anthology are full of ideas and most of them are cracking adventure tales also. I read one every few days or so (in between reading other things) and I found each one taking up the size of novels in my head as I thought about them afterwards.

Grade 7 up to adult.

What It Is by Lynda Barry

What is an idea made of? What is an image? What is the source of memory and imagination? What happens in our heads when we compose words or create anything? What happens in our heads when we read something? What are thoughts? How is thinking different from experiencing?

These are the kinds of questions Barry explores in What It Is. Her collage style may present an obstacle to people approaching this book with the left side of their brains, but her goal is to get people to play, to overcome internalized self-criticism and to embrace the notion of not-knowing-where-the-pen-is-taking-you. A right-brained way of acting.

"I have found that writing by hand slowly is faster than a computer-way of doing it, though I know it's not easy the way a computer is easy. Tapping a finger is not as complicated as making an original line in the shape of an S. Different parts of the brain are used when we make an S by hand and more of the body than a finger tap - and - images seem to come from this kind of being in motion." (Handwritten, with some letters coloured-in, some in all caps, some underlined, etc.)

This is the second time I've read this book and I know I'll be reading it again when I feel like being inspired to create.

[Barry's captions in the fuzzy image above: 1. "I want to write... but how to begin? Let me think about it..." 2. "Gotta think of a story worth writing..." 3. "TEN YEARS LATER. Shh! Still thinkin'."]

The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst

My sweetie and I will be travelling to the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival later in October. We've already got tickets for six events and Robert Bringhurst will be speaking/reading at two of them: The Look of the Book (with Seth and Audrey Niffenegger) and the Poetry Bash (with Carol Ann Duffy, Xi Chuan, Gregory Scofield and others).

The Elements of Typographic Style is pretty much the bible for its field. I read it some time ago (it was first published in 1992) and decided to revisit it recently. Bringhurst writes with clarity, passion and humour. He loves the printed word and celebrates when it is presented with grace and beauty. So do I. The printing museums in Antwerp and Lyon have both enthralled me.

Bringhurst's aim for typographers is to "induce a state of energetic repose which is the ideal condition for reading." He warns of "typographical slums," "hyphens like refugees" and texts like "shrink-wrapped meat." It isn't all about the fonts, either: "Perhaps fifty per cent of the character and integrity of a printed page lies in its letterforms. Much of the other fifty per cent resides in its margins." Yay for white space!

I'll close with a quote about one of my pet peeves when I'm editing: double spaces after a period. "In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit." To my dear blog readers, may you take note.

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

This second book in the Chaos Walking trilogy sustains the tense pace of the first, picking up the action directly from the cliff-hanger ending of The Knife of Never Letting Go. Todd and Viola are separated, but struggle to return to each other. They also battle to maintain their individuality in a violent world where the pressure to conform is immense. A world where thoughts can read by others and self control also means a disciplined mind. A world where the war is men against women. Grade 9 and up.

Ness is a gay man and dedicated The Ask and the Answer to Patrick Gale (also gay), so I hoped there would be some gay content, as there was in the first book - where Todd was raised by two men who loved each other - but there wasn't. I have no complaints about the storyline, however, and the gender themes certainly have a queer sensibility. Indeed, The Knife of Never Letting Go won the James Tiptree, Jr. prize last year (among other awards). That's an award given to books that expand or explore our understanding of gender.