BOOKS - August

It's book post time.

Want more? Of course you do. Here you go: July, May and June, April, March, February's, January's... and, well, you can browse through everything before that under the books tag - here.

Let's start off with the awesome assortment of books I discovered over the course of the previous month (the ones that I want to add to my bookshelf and read)....

The Slug by Elise Gravel.

Moomin on the Riviera by Tove Jansson.

Uni the Unicorn by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Brigette Barrager.

And Two Boys Booed by Judith Viorst and Sophie Blackall.

Edward Hopper Paints His World  / Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes / Happy Birthday Madame Chapeau

Worn Stories: Sartorial Memoirs as told to Emily Spivack.

The Secret Diary of Tiddles Aged 3 3/4 by Gemma Correll.

Not Very Scary / Santa Clauses: Short Poems from the North Pole

Greenglass House by Kate Milford, illustrated by Jaime Zollars.

Fleabrain Loves Franny by Joanne Rocklin.

Very Little Red Riding Hood / Worst in Show / Give and Take

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton.

Flashlight by Lizi Boyd.

Just Add Color: Mid-Century Modern Mania with artwork by Jenn Ski.

Just Add Color: Circus with artwork by Sarah Walsh.

Just Add Color: Folk Art with artwork by Lisa Congdon.

more Just Add Color coloring books - Mid-Century Modern Animals / Botanicals / Day of the Dead / Mid-Century Modern Patterns / Geometric Patterns / Carnival

Swedish Wooden Toys by Amy F. Ogata and Susan Weber.

The Secret Place / Lock In / The Swap / Into the Grey

Blackfin Sky by Kat Ellis.

I Want to Be a Ballerina / Baking Day at Grandma's / Littleland: Around the World / Go to Sleep, Little Farm

Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms by Katherine Rundell, illustrated by Melissa Castrillon.

Easy Gourmet / Candy Aisle Crafts / Seriously Delish

Kiddie Cocktails by Stuart Sandler, illustrated by Derek Yaniger. 

Flo & Wendell Explore / More and More / Specs for Rex

Blown Away by Rob Biddulph.

Moonhead and the Music Machine / Kill My Mother: A Graphic Novel

Hug Machine by Scott Campbell.

Bad Apple's Perfect Day / The Way to the Zoo / Aw, Nuts!

The Smallest Girl in the Smallest Grade by Justin Roberts and Christian Robinson.

The Haunted Library / The Haunted Library: The Ghost in the Attic

The World of Mamoko: In the Time of Dragons by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski.

Now on to the books I read over the course of August.

Not a lot this month.

• I loved all the interviews in Poking A Dead Frog 
• I sped through More Than This in one wonderful sitting 
• The Night Gardener is a genuinely spooky children's book 
• And Gone Girl? Well, I love making myself more paranoid than I already am by reading bushels of mystery / murder-y books. Back when Gone Girl first came out my expectations were high (I liked Gillian Flynn's two previous novels) - but I didn't get around to reading it very quickly. And then some people whose opinions I trust read it and weren't very enthusiastic, so I moved it out of my to-read-soon pile. AND THEN (and then and then and then) the movie release date started creeping closer, so I thought "Read it, Mal" and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The end. A very eloquent review, I know. 

Over & out.

BOOKS - March

It's book post time.

Want more? Of course you do. Here's the February book post, January's, the November / December one, the October edition, September's (plus the picture book one), the June / July / August one (and the picture book one) and here's one with links to all the rest.  You can always browse through everything filed under the "books" tag here.

Let's start off with the awesome collection of books I discovered over the course of the last month...

(scroll allllllllll the way to the bottom to get to the books that I actually read)

Shh! We Have A Plan by Chris Haughton.

At the Same Moment, Around the World by Clotilde Perrin.

What Can A Crane Pick Up? by Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Mike Lowery.

New Icons of Fashion Illustration by Tony Glenville.

U is for Underwear by Jesse Levison / President Taft is Stuck in the Bath by Mac Barnett and Chris Van Dusen / Presto Change-o!: A Book of Animal Magic by Edouard Manceau

The Modern Magazine: Visual Journalism in the Digital Era by Jeremy Leslie.

Bad Bye, Good Bye by Deborah Underwood and Jonathan Bean.

New York Jackie: Pictures from Her Life in the City edited by Bridget Watson Payne / Creative Block: Get Unstuck, Discover New Ideas by Danielle Krysa / Sitcom: A History in 24 Episodes from I Love Lucy to Community by Saul Austerlitz

How to be an Illustrator by Darrel Rees (I'm never going to be an illustrator - but this book still looks great so I included it for your sake).

Meanwhile, in San Francisco: The City in Its Own Words by Wendy MacNaughton.

Infographics: Human Body by Simon Rogers, Jenny Broom and Peter Grundy / 100 Bears by Magali Bardos / Let's Paint by Gabriel Alborozo

Troll Swap by Leigh Hodgkinson.

The Fly and The Worm by Elise Gravel.

Eerie Dearies: 26 Ways to Miss School by Rebecca Chaperon.

The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld / Wish Her Safe At Home by Stephen Benatar / Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun / Love and Treasure by Ayelet Waldman

À la Mère de Famille: Recipes from the Beloved Parisian Confectioner by Julien Merceron, Sophie Pechaud, Julie Serre and Jean Cazals.

Mount Terminus by David Grand.

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer / One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak / Frog Music by Emma Donoghue

Hello, New York: An Illustrated Love Letter to the Five Boroughs by Julia Rothman.

The Riverman by Aaron Starmer (cover by Yelena Bryksenkova).

Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham / Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi / The Best of McSweeney's Internet Tendency

Sparky by Jenny Offill and Chris Appelhans.

The Last Wild by Piers Torday.

Airstream Living by Bruce Littlefield and Simon Brown / The Original VW Camper Cookbook by Lennart Hannu, Steve Rooker and Susanne Rooker

Moo Hoo by Candace Ryan and Mike Lowery.

Flip Fashion: The Mix-n-Match Lookbook by Lucille Clerc.

 Matteo Pericoli's London for Children / A Walk in Paris by Salvatore Rubbino

First Prize Pies: Shoo-Fly, Candy Apple & Other Deliciously Inventive Pies for Every Week of the Year (And More) by Allison Kave and Tina Rupp.

The Little Leftover Witch by Florence Laughlin / The Odd One Out: A Spotting Book by Britta Teckentrup / Hidden: A Child's Story of the Holocaust by Loic Dauvillier, Greg Salsedo and Marc Lizano

Eggs on Top: Recipes Elevated By An Egg by Andrea Slonecker and David L. Reamer.

A Fairy Tale by Jonas T. Bengtsson.

The Glassblower's Children by Maria and Harald Gripe / The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat / Outdoor Wonderland: The Kids' Guide to Being Outside by Josie Jeffery, illustrated by Alice Lickens

Tools Rule! by Aaron Meshon.

Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald (cover by Yelena Bryksenkova).

I read a ton of books in March for two reasons: #1 - I had to (finally) get all of my wisdom teeth yanked out, so I spent a solid 5 days sitting in bed eating soft food, watching movies and reading. Soon after I recovered from that joyous event, my computer broke: a lot of reading occurs when the internet can't beckon you.

Here are some of the books I particularly enjoyed reading...

I continued my read-all-of-Stella-Gibbons's-works journey with Starlight - definitely not my favorite book of hers, but - as always - great characters.

The Where, the Why and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science - an attractive and informative book.

The Making of Fantastic Mr. Fox - blatantly not as stuffed with wonderful facts as The Wes Anderson Collection is, but if you adore Fantastic Mr. Fox as much as I do, it's delightful. And apparently it's now out of print (I've had it hanging around unread for quite some time), so if you're interested you should buy a copy before it gets super-expensive.

I read the first Scott Pilgrim book quite awhile ago and got around to zipping through the rest of them in my conked out, post-tooth-removal-heavy-duty-painkiller phase (when I couldn't handle reading anything more substantial and paragraph-y).

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (just begging to become a movie... apparently Todd Field may be making it).

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley. The Art of Wreck-It Ralph. Miss Bianca in the Antarctic by Margery Sharp.

The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith - (I thought that the first half of this book was almost THRILLINGLY well-written, but my intense admiration petered out a bit as it progressed. Still! Very good, and I can't wait to see how Todd Haynes translates it into a movie - he did such an awesome job with Mildred Pierce. Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett are perfectly cast.)

Wildwood Imperium by Colin Meloy. Broken Harbor by Tana French. Moomin Book 7 by Lars Jansson.