Some scenes will be painful to watch, but I’m looking forward to the special effects on the Spectors.

The special effects, especially the ones involving Iorek Byrnison are truly remarkable, and I was worried for the young children all around during the fight scenes. The little one next to us breathed a huge sigh of relief after Lyra escaped from certain calamity, to the amusement of those all around.

For those familiar with the book, necessary deletions and combinations of events might be confusing, but it’s a film to be caught up in immediately, and it never lets up.

If you ignore the religious quibbles, and just go because it’s the holidays, when we could all use a little fantasy, then it’s sheer fun. If you’re feeling that it should totally be faithful in every way to the book, you’ll emerge grumpy and humbuggy. But you’ll still like Iorek and Lyra.

Family members have insisted over the years that I must see this or that on the big screen. I much prefer the comforts of home, but for this movie, I’ll be at the theater, squirming with excitement. I may have to go two or three times. Perhaps I’ll read the book again for the third time.

One of the libraries I frequent had The Golden Compass in the children’s section, and The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass in the young adults. After reading the trilogy, I went back to the children’s section, and looked for the Sally Lockhart series. Alas, the library only had The Ruby in the Smoke, The Shadow in the North, and The Tiger in the Well. But I found Count Karlstein. Loved them all.

I spent a lot of time in the kids’ library, what with Harry Potter and all. It was there that I found the film Spirited Away. And of course, the secret of that room was very simple: hardly anyone was at the computers in the evening, as opposed to the packs in the main rooms.

By Ann-Marie MacDonald. Perhaps the darkest of the dark books I read over the summer (others were She’s Come Undone, I Know This Much is True - both by Wally Lamb, The Haunting of L by Howard Norman, and The Geographer’s Library by Jon Fasman.)

At the beginning of the summer I did not say, Well, let’s see how utterly down I can get just through the power of fiction. I went to a library sale or two instead of being guided by shelf placement or book lists. Were these in a bin diabolically arranged by a sadistic librarian?

About halfway through the book, I summarized the plot to a family member, who wondered why I would want to continue if it was bothering me so much. Due to the brilliance of the writing and a mesmerizing cast of characters, I was unable to stop. Their fates will take your breath away. And of course, when it ended, I was bereft.

Was it the roasted beets (been in the fridge a while), the pasta sample at Costco, the bite of mysterious melon at the Palo Alto market from the fingers of the vendor, the bowlful of pistachios after dinner? Whatever, my poor stomach began lurching around at 10 last night. After a few minutes, I realized the cookbook I was reading was not the proper material. Tried The Barbarians are Coming by David Wong Louie, in which the hero is a chef. Bad idea. Salivating a lot.

Took some Pepto-Bismol. Two seconds later, decided that was probably the worst thing I could do. Even when I’m not queasy, taking that stuff kind of repels me.

Got back on the web to see the best approach to stop nausea because throwing up is not my favorite thing to do. Google produced many links with the word ‘vomit’ prominently featured. Really bad idea. Salivating more.

Got emails from friends, one just lost her dad. Set about composing a sympathy note. Unable to focus.

Finally, I just leaned on the bathroom wall and waited. Afterward, I was afraid to go to sleep, thinking I would just have to get up again. A few seconds later, my system said, ‘Get ready, this time it’s going to be coming out one end or another.’ I could have used more specific information, but grabbed Taylor’s Guide to Roses, and went back to the bathroom.

Taylor saved me. I looked carefully at every lovely rose, noted which photos were not in proper register, noted which I’d love to have in my garden, even looked at all the old roses, knowing they would never survive in my shady yard. Meanwhile, the system subsided, and I went to the garage to get a warm 7-up.

All night I dreamed of a screen with the upper third in kind of a noisy abstract of random marks. I had to stay in that upper level in order to be stable. I guess my system was still trying to talk to me.

This afternoon I had to polish a silver spoon and fork for a photo. It is my fate (and that of Ishiguro fans everywhere), perhaps, to think of Stevens from The Remains of the Day whenever I reach for the silver polish. Just as I can no longer listen to Boz Scaggs sing Never Let Me Go without thinking of Ishiguro’s unsettling book of the same name.

At the garage sale down the street, Wally Lamb’s I Know This Much is True was on display. The seller and I had quite a discussion about the pros and cons of the book. We both agreed it was an exhausting read.

I read it on the heels of his earlier work, She’s Come Undone, with another flawed but fascinating main character. Not good choices for light summer reading, but I’m glad I got through both.

The only books that might be classified as such were The Monk Downstairs by Tim Farrington, and of course, Scott Smith’s The Ruins. Rose’s Garden by Carrie Brown. The Haunting of L by Howard Norman is too dark to qualify, ditto The Geographer’s Library by Jon Fasman.

After trying to get through award winners from say, the Man Booker awards list, I went back to the random book sale method. All the libraries around here have wonderful sales with by-the-bag days. A couple of bags ($4 - $5 each) will get me through months of reading with happy surprises guaranteed. These generally get donated back to the libraries, so it’s a good situation all around.

In the queue: Harry Potter, a 7-day book from the library which I foolishly checked out just before leaving on vacation, thinking it would be fun on the plane. This was the weighty hardback version, rejected at packing time. There’s a waiting list for Harry, but the deal is, if you can find it on the shelf or a sorting rack, it’s fair game.

After finishing ‘A Certain Slant of Light’ by Laura Whitcomb, I dove into ‘The Ruins’ by Scott Smith. I found the former more intriguing than the latter, but Smith’s band of luckless characters and awful villain kept me up long past my bedtime for three nights.

Perhaps I’ll just finish watching ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ this evening and avoid the stack of books on the nightstand.

Today my head feels the size of a weather balloon. But I can breathe most of the time without sound effects, and have made it through the day napless so far. The two times I dozed off before lunch don’t count. My work was unusually dull plus the effects of all those antihistamines haven’t worn off.

Nory makes me laugh, and that’s something. Yes, I did read Vox, and also Checkpoint. Working my way through all of Baker’s books.

Last night I finished Mother of Sorrows by Richard McCann.

It takes me roughly twice as long to finish an ‘easy’ sudoku when I have a cold.

And the last, if I had my druthers. One son got me a Jamba Juice card for my birthday, the other just ran down to get me a giant Coldbuster, which I am testing immediately. I’ve been told that the Farscape two-parter I began watching last week is not a good idea for someone who is prone to nightmares during colds.

I’ll never forget the last flu I had when I picked up a Harry Potter for some light reading. That night, a host of dementors appeared in the bedroom while I cowered against the wall trying to hide from them.

By James Gleick, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami and Lost in Translation by Nicole Mones.

When I’m not doing other stuff that is.

Why you shouldn’t give a striped tie to a business associate in the UK, why a light-colored suit is a no-no in Japan and tips for the job-hunter whose potential employers take him out to a meal.

Such a meal can be a minefield of etiquette testing, and one applicant loses his chances when he wads up the foil around his baked potato and leaves it on the table.

So what exactly is the right way to deal with the foil other than bouncing it off the salt and pepper shakers?

By Haruki Murakami, here’s the first chapter. Last night I got through the infamous Chapter 16, the one some advise that you skip if you don’t care for violence.

By following, I mean got up from his seat to stand next to me as I looked in the stacks, edging ever closer till I turned on my heel and moved off. After giving him time (about 15 minutes) to find what he was looking for and making sure he was no longer there, I went back to the same spot, and here he comes, rising from his seat to try again. Then he lurked near the front as I checked out my stuff.

Hey you. Jeez. You seriously creeped me out.

By the weekend, I should know lots more about adding more umami to my food.

Some eat their young. Some eat their neighbor’s young. Others never allow one twin to survive. And then there are rabbits.

If rabbits could write books, and if rabbits were voracious readers, warren shelves would be filled with such titles as ‘How to Mother in Two Minutes’ or ‘The Two Minute-Mom’, or ‘Two-Minute Mothering for Dummies’. For overachieving rabbits, ‘Mothering in Less Than Two Minutes’.Well, you get the drift. Not to mention the videos. Or the soundtrack to the film version.

Most of my movies come from Netflix these days, but tonight I ran into the library to return some things. Then I found a few books and an old movie on DVD. The movie container has to be opened by a librarian before a borrower can check it out on the self-service machines.

I set the book bags down on the floor at the end of the librarian counter. Mostly because I didn’t want to put them by the machines as they are usually being used.

After the librarian gave me the DVD, I went about three steps over to where the book bags were. Here’s the dialogue:

Librarian: M’am. M’am! You are to check the DVD out on the machines here.
Me: I will when I pick up my books.
Librarian: I’m sorry, I can’t let you leave this area and go back in the stacks.
Me: I’m not going back in the stacks, I’m picking up my books (bend down to the bags).
Librarian: M’am, I’m not allowed to let you loose back there.
Me: I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here getting my books.
Librarian: You have to use the machines right there, right after I give you the movie. You can’t go back.
Me: I’m not going back. I’m picking up my books. See?
Librarian: Oh. Sorry.

Hooray for Netflix!

Can people really memorize entire books? Individuals can make claims, but how many have actually been tested?

By Dai Sijie. The book on my list was Mr. Muo’s Travelling Couch by the same author, so I got both. Balzac is his first novel.

By Michael Cunningham, close to the end. Next up, The Snowfly by Joseph Heywood.

They have the whole sky to play in.

I managed to steal some reading time this afternoon, William Langewiesche’s A Meditation on Flight. specifically the part where he explains how airplanes turn. For a brief time then, I was also in the sky, leaning, picturing how a plane rolls over so easily, then rights itself.

I went to a different library tonight, and removed myself from the nonfiction section long enough to find the Yann Martel, A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham, and The Probable Future by Alice Hoffman.

For my nonfiction fix, I got Inside the Sky, A Meditation on Flight by William Langewiesche.

But since I no longer have spare time, I don’t know when I’ll get to read them. Perhaps most days, I’ll just stare at the covers, and wish that life would slow down a bit.

By Jordan Crane. What sold me: the scary-looking pink cloud.

In Belgium, librarians are becoming cupids as bib-dating (what the Dutch call library dating) rears its bookish head.

A library spokesman likens it to speed-dating with a twist.

Here’s a sampling.

By Robert Hicks. It just might be the best book I read this year. I finished it last night, staying up well past my bedtime.

Here’s the Prologue.

Mary Poppins, the Queen of Hearts and the White Rabbit, Peter Pan, Paddington Bear, Mrs. Tiggywinkle - do you see a pattern here? All will be guests at the Queen’s birthday party June 25, as part of a celebration of British children’s literature.

Two thousand kids will be there. I hope they all have cameras. Her Majesty knows how to throw a party!

It would help if my connection problems were over, and I didn’t have to spend the first hour trying to cobble together something that will work.

If only I didn’t have such interesting books (The Widow of the South) that keep me up past a decent bedtime.

The neighbor’s pine tree is dispensing its bountiful load of pollen, and until the antihistamines kick in, I’m unable to do much more than try to breathe. The pills make me sleepy, headachy, and grumpy.

I finished The Good Priest’s Son by Reynolds Price last night (very good), and not having much else to read, snuffled and snorted my way to the library after supper. The route there is lined with acacia trees in full bloom, the carpets in the aisles chock full of the tracked-in pollens. I beat a hasty retreat, but not before finding

The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks
The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich
English as She is Spoke by Jose de Fonseca & Pedro Carolino

The pills will make me sink into a profound stupor, from which it will be difficult to wake. I am sticking to the 5:30 a.m. rising time, because I made the resolution.

Do you listen to audiobooks in the car? On the train? On your walk?

Here are the top 10 choices for 2005.

The Good Priest’s Son. Here’s the first chapter.

Boz Scaggs. And everytime I hear the song, I think of the book by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Some people can’t leave a classic alone. Now it seems that some are offended by the author’s photo, which shows Clement Hurd with a cigarette. The publishers recently had the cigarette digitally removed.

Critics are having a field day.

By Jeremy Narby
The Good Priest’s Son by Reynolds Price
Buongiorno! Breakfast and Brunch Italian Style by Norman Kolpas
Encyclopedia of Knitting by Donna Kooler

And maybe the new Michael Crichton, State of Fear.

He doesn’t look a day over - well, he doesn’t appeared to have aged at all!

If only we are so well preserved when we get to 80.

There’s still time to get to the bookstore and pick up a few.

It’s a good source for used movies, which now take up all the wall space near the bathrooms. But I didn’t find any I had to have.

In the physics section, I was peacefully minding my own business, looking at the bottom row, when this guy moved into my space. This seldom happens here where the aisles are so narrow. But there he was, about two inches to my left, effectively blocking my ability to pull out books.

When this happens at the library (and women do this too), I sigh and move on, coming back later. But this fellow was just an arrogant jerk. I got up, and started pulling out oversized books just a hair shy of the back of his knees. He did move, but not much.

That was because he was hindered by his supreme arrogant jerkiness.

It always bothered me that the little rabbit had such a big, big room, one with a fireplace even. But that’s not all that concerns some people.

For the average American, this diet would take some getting used to. It’s based on lots of fresh fish, tofu, fresh veggies, soy, and brown rice.

For many years at our house, the Berenstain bear books were as much a part of naptime and bedtime as blankets.

Stan, who created the series with his wife, Jan, died Saturday of cancer.

Another visit to the library, a different one, where I found

Baking Illustrated by the editors of Cooks Illustrated
Feast, by Nigella Lawson
Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin
More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin
French Cooking in 10 Minutes by Edouard de Pomiane

Can’t tax a brain with a cold that won’t leave.

The Kitchen Detective by Christopher Kimball
Here in America’s Test Kitchen by Christopher Kimball
Nobu the Cookbook, by Nobuyuki Matsuhisa

Turkey Marsala and a dark brown fried rice, the result of too heavy a hand with the wrong kind of soy sauce. My college-aged son was nostalgic for ‘movies I watched over and over when I was little’. Back in the day when he was in elementary school and anxious to start the book, I decided to read it to him instead, acting the overly protective parent. I recall sitting out in the yard, trying to calmly move through the really frightening chapters, as he sat, agitated and totally frustrated that I was reading so slowly.

We did remark that it was our second Sam Neill movie in as many evenings, and touched on his horror movie, In the Mouth of Madness. I remember running from the room when he and my other son, the horror movie buff, cackled their way through.

First chapter of a very amusing book

It pushed its way through a crack in the asphalt, and thrived despite its unyielding environment. Someone with a cruel heart slashed it, and locals are grieving as they try to keep the plant alive.

A brave vegetable. Harsh circumstances. Beloved by an entire town. Violence. A bad person. A cliff-hanging ending. With a bit of tweaking, sounds like a great children’s book.

The first chapter of an entertaining read.

In one of those brainless moments I get when I’m hungry and far from food, I took a look at the title and thought, how can someone write a whole book about toast? Then I flipped through a bit, realized I had read Slater before with great appreciation, and brought it home.

I could write a book on brainless moments.

Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl
Milk by Darcey Steinke
Down Home Southern Cooking by LaMont Burns (it has recipes for both chitlins and fried hominy)
Jamba Juice Power by Kirk Perron (because I’d like to fix a small smoothie)
Tom’s Big Dinners by Tom Douglas (the recipe that cinched it was Duck-fried Jo Jos)

A very thought-provoking book.

Is very hard to put down.

I’ve been meaning to get to this book by Kazuo Ishiguro, which I found at the library last night. In the children’s movie section, I picked up Spirited Away.

There should be at least two hours at the end of the day when a person can read without getting sleepy.

Here is the first chapter.

There were three small children running and yelling up and down the corridors and aisles. The parents were around, but pretending not to belong to them. Most of the patrons didn’t care because they were terribly ill with upper respiratory infections, and should have stayed home. The grumpy librarian was training a new person. She was not intimidated by him, but I felt sorry for her just the same. Normally we use the machines, but I had a stupendously huge fine to pay.

For the next week or so, I’ll be reading:

Heavenly Intrigue by Joshua Gilder and Anne-Lee Gilder
The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve
Land of Plenty, Authentic Sichuan Recipes by Fuchsia Dunlop
American by Williams-Sonoma

And when my ankle is not bothering me,
Robotics Demystified by Edwin Wise.

When the kids were young, I read Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series to them. If you are familiar with these books, you’ll know that she sprinkles a lot of Welsh words into her stories.

I loved the books, but had to struggle mightily to get through the Welsh.

If you like a certain kind of music, these preference searches can help you find more along the same lines. Same for books and gifts. But sometimes the system goes a bit awry when you buy a one-time gift for someone other than yourself.

In an age of overwhelming choices, it’s reasonable to expect some help based on collaborative filtering. Detractors say that such filtering limits the interest range of individuals.

From the first page to the last, it can be read in 100 minutes. For Christians in a hurry. The publishers expect it to be a best-seller.

Nothing taxing or the slightest bit on the heavy side, so I found myself in the cookbook section at the library tonight. Here is what I got:

Firehouse Food, Cooking with San Francisco’s Firefighters, by George Dolese & Steve Siegelman
Never Eat Your Heart Out, by Judith Moore
Easy Family Recipes From a Chinese-American Childhood, by Ken Hom
Chinese Seasons, by Nina Simonds

I didn’t get much farther, because the ankle is not happy with this kind of weather, and wanted to go home.

He was onto the most exciting adventure of his life, that of aboriginal whaling, in which hunters armed only with harpoons stalk whales. But inside his chest, his artificial heart valve had detached from his aorta, and he was far, far from home.

Last night, in serious pain from the twisted ankle, I propped it up on some pillows. And settled in with these books, which are not usually the kind I settle in with. In Flight 1, I looked at the work of Khang Le and Chris Appelhans, and In Flight 2, Justin Ridge, Phil Craven, Matthew Woodson, and Jake Parker (The Robot and the Sparrow). Can you become smitten with a little robot who loves a sparrow?

From Gordon Grice, who wrote one of my favorite books, The Red Hourglass.

So far, there are five machines which carry 25 titles, including The Odyssey and The Wok Cookbook.

Fried Chicken, an American Story, by John T. Edge, and Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, by Rupert Sheldrake.

Also, The Love Letter, by Cathleen Schine, because you can’t live on fried chicken and dogs alone.

Philip Pullman’s trilogy gets a new director for the first installment. Anand Tucker (Hilary and Jackie) gets the nod after a presentation that showed how he would handle the very tricky special effects.

In the pool, in the tub, now there are DuraBooks.

The little black-headed birds are still in the yard, trailed by their young. I’ve not had time to look up what they are, but the young are much bigger than the parents, and don’t look like them. They still use their hunger cry from their nest days, and are clumsy when they fly. The poor parents are frantically looking everywhere for food to quiet the big babies. I wonder if some larger bird left eggs in their nest. Time to get out the Sibley’s guide.

A cookbook by an 80-year old herpetologist has recipes for iguana, snake, and poison-dart frog. Mmmmmm.

Light on Snow, by Anita Shreve. About a young girl and her dad who find an abandoned baby in the snow. Maybe I should stick to magazines. Lately, the two books I’ve chosen feature a girl/woman who’s lost her mother. Not the best choices, but I didn’t know.

Still, it’s an excellent read.

Since my mom first entered the hospital, she has been moved from one section to another relative to her stability. She was in the intensive care unit for a few days, graduated to critical care, and is now in transitional care. These units have the sickest patients, most of them elderly.

She is mostly asleep when I’m there, so I bring lots of reading material. The book I chose, The Goodbye Summer, by Patricia Gaffney, features characters in an assisted-living kind of home. Normally, I find her work very entertaining, but this time, under the circumstances, the book made me even sadder. So I was blinking back tears yesterday, which was not a good thing for my mom to see when she woke up. No wonder she told me to go home.

Readers have often wondered why Arthur Conan Doyle allowed him to die. A screenwriter offers his theory, which involves Doyle’s father’s mental illness, and his wife’s consumption, diagnosed too late.

When the boys were little, we read The Tales of Uncle Remus by Julius Lester with Jerry Pinkney illustrations. Here is an excerpt, How the Animals Came to Earth, in which Brer Rabbit gets in a fight with Sister Moon.

Voices From Chernobyl, by Svetlana Alexievich, translanted by Keith Gessen. Absolutely riveting. The first account, by Lyudmilla Ignatenko, wife of one of the first firemen on the scene, is excerpted at the Paris Review.