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Nursery Tales: The Starting Gate

Now that we know to expect a little girl, hubby and I are turning our attention to one of the big projects of pregnancy: furnishing and decorating the nursery.  I’ll get into our general plans and our to-do list in a moment, but first, the horrifying “before” picture:

Eeks.  That’s truly frightening, no?  We’ve got a room with the potential to be very, very cute, but which is still housing bookshelves, a cello and two violins… and which has also become a dumping ground for piles of hand-me-downs I got from a generous friend who’s done having kids.  And it all needs to move OUT (although many of those hand-me-downs will be moving back IN once they have designated stash spaces), and then we’ve got to fill this room with cute baby furniture and decor.  Whew, this is going to be a big job.

Here’s what we’re currently thinking in terms of priorities:

1) Safety first – obviously.  We’re in the process of researching the safest, coziest cribs and other baby accoutrements so that we can feel completely secure about stashing the baby in there and letting her sleep without hovering over her constantly.

2) Lots of storage.  The little miss is already spoiled with toys and clothes, and there’s no sign of the spoiling slowing down anytime soon (especially when she arrives and instantly melts her daddy’s heart – we all know that’s coming).  I’m planning to install a closet system to keep all those teeny dresses and adorable little sweaters and rompers organized.  And instead of a changing table, we’re going for a regular dresser with a changing pad bolted to the top – both for additional storage space and so that she can use it into her toddler years and beyond (sans changing pad, obvi).  And on a related note…

3) Books in full view.  Since kiddie books are thin, instead of displaying them spine-out, I’m planning to install photo ledges as shelves and prop the books up with their covers facing out so the little miss can enjoy the pictures.  And we will also work some decor elements in there – like maybe wooden letters that spell out her name?  (Which – sorry – won’t end up in our nursery reveal post before she’s born, both because we’re not certain we’ll have a final name choice by then anyway and because we’ve decided to keep our decision to ourselves so that we can introduce her to everyone when she arrives in the world.)

4) Easy access to toys.  I’m not sure how I’ll accomplish this yet – a cube shelving system?  Canvas bins?  Baskets?  I’ve got my eyes open for toy storage that works with whatever decor we settle on and keeps the peanut’s toys neat and orderly, but lets her see her stuff and get to it easily at playtime.  (That’s more for when she’s older, but I don’t want to be constantly re-shuffling her room and messing up her mojo once she arrives.)

As for decor decisions… I don’t know how we’re going to decorate the nursery just yet, aside from those practical points above.  Before we learned that the peanut is a girl, I had my eye on some adorable gender-neutral bedding that I thought would work perfectly in a blue and yellow nursery, and that I could reuse down the road if I ended up with a second peanut of a different variety.  I think if we were having a boy this time around, I’d still be inclined to go this route, and the practical side of me is even now.  But there’s a little voice in my head saying things like “A lavender nursery with floaty white curtains would be so PURTY!”  I’m trying to beat that little voice back, but it’s a challenge.  (She’s persistent.)  So we’re still on the fence about whether this room will be a haven for babies of all stripes, or a girly paradise.

Now, without further babbling, here’s the appallingly long nursery to-do list:

  • Research, purchase and assemble crib and dresser.
  • Decide on color scheme.
  • Move blue chair upstairs or buy glider to match alternate color scheme.
  • Paint walls (and maybe ceiling?).
  • Purchase and hang window treatments.
  • Install closet system.
  • Figure out lighting and install as necessary.
  • Install photo ledges (and fill with books!).
  • Nail down toy storage plans.
  • Acquire bedding and decor elements.
  • Unpack and put away baby’s toys and clothes.
  • Clean everything thoroughly.
  • Insert baby.

Whew!  Am I missing anything?  I hope not, because that’s a daunting enough list as it is – and with less than 17 weeks to go, there’s no time to lose.  Now I need a nap.  Stay tuned for progress updates!

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On Being a Reading Mom

 Hey baby girl… I hope you like stories.

I expect life to change in many ways when baby arrives. Date nights will be rare, meals will be quick and simple, and travel will be more kid-friendly than cathedral-heavy. I’m ready for those changes, and I welcome the new adventures that parenthood will bring.

But there’s one thing I’m hoping doesn’t change too much: I still want to read. As much as possible.

I can imagine my life – at least the foreseeable future – without the fancy dinners, nights at the symphony, and days spent rambling around European cities (on vacation) or my own little town of Washington, D.C. But I can’t imagine my life without books. I know that it’s going to be a challenge, and that my reading will be dropping off sharply during my baby’s early life. I probably won’t be pounding out as many blog “book reviews” or churning through eight to ten tomes every month. For me to hope that my reading habits would stay the same is just unrealistic, and I’d be setting myself up for a major disappointment.

The fact is, I have NO IDEA what my life will look like when October rolls around. I could get a great sleeper that gives me uninterrupted evening hours for reading… or I could get a challenging baby who won’t go to bed no matter how much I beg and plead. Sitting here, on the mom-to-be side of the great divide, I just can’t tell you “Here is when I plan to get my read on, and that’s how it’s going to be.” Because I really don’t know, and I won’t know until I’m in the thick of it. One thing I do know is that it’s going to be hard to squeeze books into life with an infant. Right now I read on my commute while hubby drives – but I expect to spend most of my post-baby commute making sure the kiddo is comfortable and entertained (anything to keep her from screaming in the car, right?). And on my lunch hour – but once I’m back at work, I’m planning to go over to our daycare at lunchtime to see the baby as much as possible. And while I make dinner – well, no comment on this one; I’ll be lucky to get a reasonable dinner on the table at all for awhile, I expect. And after dinner – when bathtime and bedtime rituals will take over. Where does that schedule leave room for books? I’ll have to get creative, it seems.

That said, I REALLY want to be a reading mom. And I’m committed to making that happen. Here’s why:

…For my own sanity… Yes, it’s hard for many moms to get their Me Time in. There’s always something to do. My own mom used to say “A mother’s work is never done.” (Maybe it is now that my brother and I are both independent and out of the house.) But I hope and pray that I’ll be able to cut myself off from housework for at least a little while each day – if the baby helps me out by going to sleep – and sit down with a book. I haven’t experienced motherhood yet, but I have experienced tough jobs with long hours and I know that reading – even just a little bit before bed – helps keep me sane. I firmly believe that moms need to make at least some time for themselves, to do something they enjoy – for one thing, they deserve it, and for another, I think that keeping up at least one of my own interests will make me a better, more well-rounded mom.

…To set an example… This might be even more important. I want my baby to grow up surrounded by books, and to live in a world where stories and reading are a part of life. That’s the childhood that my own mom gave me, and that’s what I want to give my little girl. Along those lines, it’s going to be important for me both to read WITH the kiddo every day (stay tuned for our favorite bedtime stories to be featured on the blog), and for the kid to see ME reading to myself – to see that I make reading a priority in my own life. Whether that’s sitting with a book in my lap while I keep an eye on my offspring on the playground a few years from now, or picking out my own book when we motor by the library for story hour, I want the kid to understand that books can enrich her life – and what better way to get that message across than to embody it?

…To educate myself… Oh, I’ll never stop reading fiction; I love it too much. But since getting pregnant I’ve also been all about reading books to help me make sense of this pregnancy-and-mommyhood journey. It starts with “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and “Your Pregnancy Week By Week” – my two pregnancy bibles – but I’m planning to read a LOT of books about early child development and parenting. I know that every kid is different, but I want to be armed with all the information I can be. Like I said, I really don’t know how things will shake out when the baby is born. But I hope I can be a reading mom. I plan to set an example for my kid by eating well and living an active lifestyle, but also by reading. I hope to instill in the baby the same love of reading that I’ve had since I was a toddler myself.

Do you have any tips for me, to make the transition from “reader” to “reading mom” easier?

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The Afternoon Tea Experience

The English do love their hot beverages!  (Not everyone does, I’m sure, but there does seem to be a widespread ritual of drinking tea, coffee, or cocoa on a daily basis.)  And since I love tea, too, we tend to be in agreement.  There are few restaurants in England where you can’t get a little pot of tea anytime you want it, and the tea ritual for a traveler could be anything from popping into a cafe for a morning cup, to a welcoming brew prepared by your B&B hosts, to a small or large afternoon tea in just about any location you can imagine.  I’ve had all of the above, and then some.

But I want to talk about the “traditional afternoon tea,” because it’s really a different plate of scones altogether, and so delicious.  At the fancier tea salons, you’ll be confronted with choices immediately – do you want a “cream tea,” which tends to be just a pot of tea and a scone or two (boiling the experience down to its most essential elements, in my opinion), an “afternoon tea,” in which the tea comes with a three-tiered plate of goodness (sandwiches on the bottom, scones in the middle, pastries on top, and you eat your way up), or a “champagne tea,” which is the afternoon tea with a glass of champagne added to increase the decadence by a factor of ten?  Personally, I like to stop for a cuppa on most days of my trip, so I’ll usually go for the simple cream tea – no need to get over-full.  But at least once or twice, I want the full-on afternoon tea experience, and at 5:00 p.m. it can easily stand in for dinner.  (Try to eat afternoon tea and then go to a restaurant at 7:30.  Go on, I dare ya.)

So let’s imagine that you’ve walked into one of the fancier tea establishments – the Orangery in London, for instance (or the Ritz or Savoy or Harrods), or the Pump Room in Bath, perhaps.

You decide to go for the full-on afternoon tea, and here’s what comes to your table:

Think you can eat all of that?

My first “afternoon tea” was in Keswick in 2008.  It wasn’t our first stop on our northern England road trip – that was York, but we were too jet-lagged and busy seeing the town to really focus on tea.  So once we got to the Lake District, we made it a point to have an afternoon tea.  We popped into a little bakery on Keswick’s main drag, with a tearoom upstairs.  I was looking forward to the tea sandwiches, and the pastries, and obviously the tea itself, but not to the scones.  The only scones I’d had were the doorstops that Americans tend to bake and then try to pass off as fluffy biscuits (c’mon, fellow Yanks – admit it; we’re not fooling anybody with those bricks).  So I had the entirely reasonable idea that I hated scones.  However, because we were in England, I told myself I was going to be a good, open-minded traveler and try scones in their native habitat.  I couldn’t have been more shocked – they were nothing like I was used to at home.  Warm, soft, and buttery, studded with currants – those scones were divine.  I piled my bites with clotted cream and sweet jam, and scones became my second-favorite part of an afternoon tea (the tea itself must always come first, of course).

So yes, let’s talk about the parts of an English afternoon tea.  First, there’s the tea.  In most establishments, it will come in a pot, brewed loose-leaf style, with a little strainer for you to pour through.  (Try not to drip on the table.  Then, if you figure out some magic method for pouring tea through a strainer without dripping on the table, please tell me what it is.)  You’ll get a little pot of sugar (bonus points if it comes in cubes) and a small pitcher of milk (generally not cream; cream is for coffee).  Fix yourself a cup however you like it.  When at home, I usually take my tea black, because I like to actually taste the flavors of the brew… but in an English afternoon tea, I treat myself to cream and one lump of sugar, because why not?  (Sometimes I’ll start off black and add sugar later as the brew becomes stronger from sitting in the pot.)

Once you have your tea fixed and have fortified yourself with a sip or two, turn your attention to the tower of treats in front of you.  Start on the bottom with the tea sandwiches (and note – usually at least one of the sandwiches will be some form of meat; if you’re vegetarian simply let your server know when you order and they will gladly fix all veggie sandwiches for you).  Once you’ve gotten through the sandwiches, it’s time for the fun part: SCONES!  Everyone has their own way of eating.  Some slice them like mini loaves of bread.  I personally like to pull off tiny bites and save the top crust for the last part.  You finish with the pastries – if you have room, that is.  (This is where a big guy comes in handy to bring as your date.  You can usually convince him to do the heavy lifting on the pastries and just beg a bite or two.)  Have you finished eating?  Do you have room for dinner?  (HA!)

Roll on back to your hotel and reflect on the fabulous treat you just had.  No one does afternoon tea like the English do.  Cheers!

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Recipe Rewind: Lemon and Almond Semifreddo

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Here’s another one from the archives that I thought would be fun to pull out as the mercury climbs all up and down the Eastern seaboard.  Yesterday on the radio, the host said “Today is the first day of summer,” and while that’s technically correct, it feels like summer took up residence in D.C. several weeks ago… at the very least.  Even walking outside for frozen yogurt is heat headache-inducing.  So make this semifreddo in the air-conditioned comfort of your own kitchen.  If you’re not sweltering right now, I’m jealous of you.  But you can still have semifreddo.

For dessert on our anniversary, I wanted to make something simple and refreshing (it is August in DC, after all), something that seemed special and unusual, and most of all, something that wouldn’t require me slaving over the stove when I ought to be drinking wine and relaxing with hubby.  A semifreddo perfectly fit my requirements.  I had made one before – once – a few years ago for an Easter dinner with my parents and their close friends (practically my second set of parents) and it had been the most popular dish of the meal.  I started thinking back to that semifreddo and wondering why I don’t make them more often.  They are simple, easy, light, refreshing, and people go crazy for them.  Plus, semifreddo is a frozen dessert that doesn’t require me to lug out my ice cream maker.  What more could I want for an anniversary dessert?  I whipped this up early in the morning before work and it sat in the freezer all day.  10 minutes of beating eggs and cream in the morning, and dessert was just about done.  It doesn’t get much better than that!

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Lemon and Almond Semifreddo

4 egg whites (be sure they are very fresh and don’t drop any shell, because they won’t be cooked) 1 1/4 cup powdered sugar, divided 1 1/2 cups chilled whipping cream 1 teaspoon lemon zest 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon (I like ceylon) 1 cup coarsely ground almond tea biscuits (or amaretti) 1 package frozen raspberries, thawed

  • Puree the raspberries with 1/4 cup of powdered sugar.  Press through a fine mesh strainer to remove seeds.  Cover and chill, up to 2 days.
  • Line a loaf pan with 2 layers of plastic wrap, leaving considerable overhang.  Place in freezer to chill while you proceed with the recipe.
  • Using a hand mixer, beat egg whites until soft peaks form.  Add 1/4 cup of powdered sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.
  • Using the same beaters, but a different bowl, beat cream until soft peaks form.  Add remaining sugar (3/4 cup) and beat until stiff peaks form.  Fold a large spoonful of the whipped cream into the beaten eggs, then fold the beaten eggs into the cream in 2 additions.  Add cinnamon, lemon zest and 3/4 cup of the crushed biscuits into the mixture and fold gently until the flavorings are distributed throughout.
  • Transfer mixture into prepared loaf pan, cover with the overhanging plastic wrap, and freeze at least 4 hours and up to a day.
  • To serve, unmold and peel off plastic wrap.  Slice and our raspberry sauce over, then sprinkle reserved biscuit crumbs over slices.

Yield: Serves 8-10 (or 2 for an anniversary, with considerable leftovers!)

Source:  Adapted from Epicurious.com.

Note: I think this would also be nice with sliced almonds substituted for the crushed tea biscuits, but my husband doesn’t care for nuts running amok in desserts, so I stuck with the recipe’s recommendation on that one.  If you try substituting sliced almonds, though, tell me what you think!

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Sugar and Spice…

…And everything nice…

That’s what little GIRLS are made of!

Y’all, there are some excited grandmas up in here.  Woe betide anyone who gets between these ladies and the tiny dresses at Baby Gap.  Oh, and hubby and me?  We’re pretty excited too.  Neither of us has stopped smiling since we got the news.

Hurray for baby girl! 

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1001 Books

Have you heard of the “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die” list? It’s a list of… well, what it says: 1001 books that the list-makers have decreed everyone should read during their lives.  I’ve been aware of the list for a few years now and it floats around the periphery of my mind when I’m deciding what to read next.  I alternate between thinking “What a fun challenge!” and “That’s nuts, it would take my entire life to read all of these and I’d never be able to read anything else, and anyway, why should I listen to some random stranger about what to read?”

Last weekend I decided it would be fun to just have a look-see at the list, and figure out how many of the books I’d already read.  And oh, friends, it wasn’t pretty.  Here are the titles I’ve read from the 1001 Books list:

2000s
Saturday – Ian McEwan
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Life of Pi – Yann Martel

1900s
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
The Cider House Rules – John Irving
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
White Noise – Don DeLillo
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy O’Toole
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
Animal Farm – George Orwell
Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
Loving – Henry Green
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
Out of Africa – Isak Dineson
Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Trial – Franz Kafka
Billy Budd – Herman Melville
Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair

1800s
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
Tess of the d’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
The Scarlett Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Bronte
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Agnes Grey – Anne Bronte
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Dead Souls – Nikolai Gogol
The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
Emma – Jane Austen
Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

1700s
Candide – Voltaire
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift

By my count, that’s 77 out of 1001 books.  Not even ten percent.  Ouch.  It doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me that the vast majority of my books are from the 1900s, with the 1800s coming in as a close second.  (This is the “original” list, by the way – it gets revised periodically.  Keeping up with the revisions seems to me like a good way to drive yourself off the deep end, so I wouldn’t bother with it.)

So, do I want to go after the 1001 Books list?  Meh.  There are a lot of books on the list that I’d been wanting to read anyway, and I’m sure I’ll get to those sooner or later.  And I definitely think it would be fun to keep tracking my progress against the list.  But am I going to make it an official goal?  Or decline to read other books because they’re not on the list?  Nope.  Still, I’m going to pay a bit more attention to the list and see what kind of progress I can make on it.  I do have a lifetime to get through it, after all.

Have you ever tried to read through a pre-determined list of titles?  Are you tackling the 1001 Books list?  Spill.

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Favorite Summer Recipes

The heat has cranked up on most of the East Coast and we’re all doing our best to stay cool.  Aside from running through the neighbors’ sprinklers as they water their lawns (my favorite summer pastime), I’m keeping my cool by putting together fresh, light meals that lower my body temperature and my summer stress levels.  Here are some old summertime favorites:

Cucumber Coolers – a light and refreshing beverage (non-alcoholic for the preggies out there, but you could tip in a little bit of vodka and make a cocktail if that’s your style).

Mediterranean Bean Dip – a tasty, healthy dip to bring to your next backyard barbeque, along with veggie crudites.  Yum!

Capery Salad – Briny, pickley goodness, fresh and fun for summer.

Refreshing Orzo Salad – Pasta salads are a summer essential, no?  This one is tart and lemony, inspired by my mom’s Grecian Orzo, and makes a perfect side when you’re grilling out.

Peach and Raspberry Pie – It wouldn’t be summer without peaches!  This pie is tart and sweet and oh so fabulous.

Blueberry Cobbler – Summer requires dessert choices, methinks.  If you’re a blueberry fan, this cobbler will be right up your alley.

Hope your summer is delish!

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Soon…

…We should be finding out whether we’re having a girl-peanut or a boy-peanut.  Soon I’ll be able to use actual pronouns when talking about the baby – “he” or “she” instead of “it.”  Soon I’ll be planning a cute little girl or boy nursery and buying little dresses or tiny button-downs.  I can’t wait.

(Of course, this all depends on whether the baby decides to cooperate.  During our last ultrasound back in April, it was pretty obstreporous – we almost had to reschedule.  So we’ll see how this one goes…)

As the day gets closer, our family and friends have been placing their bets and almost all are voting “girl.”  (I don’t know why.  Wishful thinking?  Most of these people haven’t seen me at all for the entire pregnancy, so they have no idea how I’m carrying or what I’m craving or about any of those other old wives’ tales.)  Fortunately, I know that all anyone really wants is for the baby to be healthy and happy, so I’m not too worried that there will be legions of disappointed people if it turns out to be a boy.

And me personally?  I was shocked at how many people have asked me if I “have a preference” or if I’m “hoping for one or the other.”  And also at how many people, in response to my “Nope, I couldn’t care less as long as it’s healthy,” have winked and elbowed me and said “Yeaaaaaah, of course, but really, if you could choose… what do you want?  Boy or girl?”  (Pregnant Chicken says that I should respond with: “Actually, I’m hoping for a kitten that can burp glitter.”  Maybe the next pregnancy.)

Really, REALLY, I’ll be thrilled no matter what, and so will hubby.  We’ve waited a long time for this baby, and we’re going to be equally ecstatic whether it’s a boy or a girl.  No disappointment here, no matter what!  (Well, I’ll be a little bummed if the baby is shy during the ultrasound and won’t show us one way or the other what to expect.  Come on, baby, you’ve got a host of grandparents who want to start planning!)  In fact, I don’t even have a vision in my head about the baby – boy or girl, who it will look like (oh, let’s be real – it’s going to look like hubby; his genes are so powerful that I don’t stand a chance) or anything.  I haven’t even really dreamt about the baby, although hubby has (interestingly, in his dream the baby was a boy, even though he’s convinced it’s a girl).  Now that the big ultrasound is approaching, I’m getting more and more excited to know one way or the other – not because I have a preference, but just so I can start imagining my peanut as a little boy or a little girl.

But… just because it’s fun… here’s how some of the old wives’ tales shake out:

–How I’m carrying: It’s sort of hard to tell, but so far I seem to be carrying pretty low and out in front.  BOY.

–Cravings: Mainly dairy, which doesn’t mean anything except that the baby wants plenty of calcium for strong bones so it can kick me harder.  But I’m also all about fruit and have been since the beginning, and for awhile I was a bit of a chocoholic.  (That’s over, thank goodness.)  GIRL.

–Chinese gender predictor: I tried it out as soon as I got my positive pregnancy test back in February and it said unequivocally BOY.

–Baby’s heart rate: It’s never been below 158, which sounds like a GIRL.

–Morning sickness: I never had any to speak of.  (Relief!)  My mom never did either, with me or my brother, so my doctor thinks my good luck is hereditary.  But the old wives say that lack of morning sickness means BOY.

Yeah, the old wives’ tales mean nothing at all.  But it’s kind of amusing to see which way they go.  And if all goes well tomorrow, we’ll be finding out one way or the other which of those old wives’ tales held true for me… of course, you know I’ll share it with you when we do find out.

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Bookish Confessions

Fellow bibliophiles, is there anything about your reading life you’re embarrassed to admit?  Today’s the day I’m admitting to my bookish confessions.  Feel free to join in!

1) I can’t pronounce the word “library.”  This is REALLY embarrassing for me, considering how much time I spend there.  Every so often I get it right, completely by accident, but at least 95% of the time it comes out “li-berry,” or sometimes just “libry.”  I have no idea why.  In college all the cool kids shortened “library” to “libe,” which really worked for me.  I was able to get through four years of “hitting the libe” without anyone knowing that the word “library” gives me fits.  And now I’ve told the Internets.

2) I’ve never been able to bring myself to read Lolita or The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay because I’m a lepidopterophobe.  Any book that involves butterflies or moths as a major plot point just sounds way too scary for me.

3) I’ve read six of the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon, but I’ve never admitted it on Goodreads… or to anyone without swearing them to secrecy.  I even had a favorite: Voyager.  I have not actually read beyond A Breath of Snow and Ashes, so I think I may have kicked the habit.  I’m no book snob, but I’m pretty embarrassed that there was once a time that I was completely obsessed with Jamie Fraser.

4) I have a small-but-growing collection of Angelina Ballerina books.  And they’re not relics from childhood; I actually purchased them as an adult.  With money I earned as a lawyer.  Yep.  (I just love the illustrations so much – the sweet details, the soft colors and the cute little mice.)  But I hid the books at one point so a houseguest wouldn’t come across them, and now I can’t find them.  And yes, I am actively searching for them.  For the baby, of course.  (Okay, okay, for me.)

5) I have routinely bought books based on seeing Rory Gilmore read them on “Gilmore Girls.”  (For instance, I started reading the Jeeves books after Rory told Richard that she was “very into P.G. Wodehouse.”)  MANY of the books on my shelves were Rory “recommendations.”  And not just books.  I own a “Reading is Sexy” t-shirt that I saw Rory wear and then simply had to have.  (What?  Reading is sexy.)

There, now you know my secrets, so tell me one of yours.  It’s only fair.

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THE SPELLMAN FILES

Isabel (“Izzy”) Spellman is a private investigator because it’s all she knows how to do (aside from drink, that is).  Raised from early childhood to enter the family business, Spellman Investigations, Izzy resents her career but can’t really picture her life without it.  The same goes for her family – bosses Mom and Dad, lawyer brother David (hobbies include being perfect, negotiations, having perfect hair, and being perfect), little sister Rae (hobbies include eating copious amounts of sugar and sneaking out of the house to conduct “recreational surveillance” on strangers) and drunk Uncle Ray. 

Recovering from an adolescence filled with marijuana use and “creative vandalism” alongside her best friend, Petra, Izzy is now a slightly more mature 28-year-old who has (more or less) accepted her lot in life and her nutty family – until she snaps, having grown tired of Mom and Dad tracking her in an effort to find out the details about her new boyfriend.  Having had enough, Izzy turns in her notice and is told that she can quit after she solves a 15-year-old disappearance which her parents believe to be an impossibly cold case.  Izzy, however, isn’t deterred.  She agrees to work on the case for four months, during which time she begins to believe it can be solved.  But as Izzy closes in on her quarry, someone much closer to her disappears and the family begins to unravel.

I’d heard The Spellman Files described as “Harriet the Spy for adults.”  Since I loved “Harriet the Spy” I was all in.  Reviews were mixed on Goodreads, but I can honestly say that I really, really enjoyed reading about the crazy Spellmans – most of all the charming, maddening little Rae.  They have more than their share of issues – this is one dysfnctional family – but underneath the surveillance, the taillight-smashing, the room-bugging and the lock-picking, this is a family that really loves one another.  Every character is deeply flawed, but none in such a way as to make them unsympathetic.  Izzy, described by one of her short-lived dates as “a cross between Dirty Harry and Nancy Drew,” is the obvious star of the book, but she can only be who she is because of Mom and Dad, David, Petra, Uncle Ray and especially little Rae.

The main complaint about The Spellman Files (at least, among Goodreads reviewers) seems to be that the plot really only starts to move about halfway through the book.  That’s true – the first part of the book is heavy on character development, light on plot.  I have two things to say about this: first, this is the first book in a series and series authors always get off to a slow start while they set up multi-book storylines and introduce supporting characters; and second, I have a high tolerance for character development and for me, these characters were entertaining enough that I was perfectly happy to read their backstories for half the novel.  I do hear that the plots start moving much more quickly in subsequent books, which is great, but I wasn’t bothered by the slower pace of this one at all.

Great literature The Spellman Files is most certainly not.  But what it is… is pure, riotous, car-chasing, background-checking fun.  I’d recommend The Spellman Files to anyone looking for a light summer read or wanting to check out mentally and spend a few hours with a truly nutty family (and trust me, yours won’t seem so bad after you read about Izzy’s parents bugging her apartment).  I’ll be seeking out the rest of the books in this series.

I am submitting this review to the What’s In A Name? challenge hosted by Beth Fish Reads, in the category “Something in a pocket, purse or backpack.” 

Get the book!  The Spellman Files, by Lisa Lutz (not an affiliate link)

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