Book review: Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar.

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Gwendy’s Button Box – Stephen King and Richard Chizmar – 2017 Cemetery Dance Publications, Maryland

Packed into this compact novella is a coming-of-age story about fate, destiny, and choice – themes Stephen King has explored in the past with similar sensitivity and outrageous aplomb (usually both at once).  When twelve-year-old Gwendy meets a stranger who gives her an astonishing gift, her life – and the lives of others around her – change in irrecoverable ways.  Going through adolescence is difficult enough…but then there’s the button box to contend with.  This entertaining read is familiar territory for King fans: alternately humorous, nostalgic, and suspenseful.  I’m not sure which parts Richard Chizmar worked on, but I’m intrigued enough to check out some of his short story collections.  (His latest as of this post is called A Long December).

Book Lovers

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Blog love, for sure! Such a beautiful post for National Book Lovers Day!

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Today is National Book Lover’s Day. I had it saved on my calendar from last year.Dr. French has a post this year on the subject and he was the one who alerted me to this great day last year. I am always ready to celebrate a book.

This has been hanging on my walls for 15 years through many moves

I have often threatened to show photographs of my small book collection. It’s a good thing that my shelves have been culled and many passed on. There is a box waiting at the back door to go to “The Friends of the Library” bookstore. They sell used books so the library can buy new offerings.

One side of the living room

I have loved books since I discovered them at about the age of 12 when my parents bought eight for my Christmas gift. I had four Donna…

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Book review: The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny.

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The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny (2007, Headline Book Publishing, Great Britain)

The Cruelest Month, the third installment of Louise Penny’s much-beloved Chief Inspector Gamache series treads the familiar woods and shops of the village of Three Pines, and brings back all of our favourite characters to solve a freaky murder involving a creepy old house and an Easter séance.  As Gamache and his investigative team work to undercover the identity of the killer, Gamache is forcibly confronted with the violent demons of his past. Although this sub-plot has been an undercurrent in the previous books, things boil over and revelations abound in The Cruelest Month, adding to the drama and urgency of the case at hand.  As always, I’m awestruck with the clever way Penny builds her books – her gift of pacing and characterization is positively criminal (see what I did there?).

Book review: The 2016 Long Lunch/Quick Reads Anthology, edited by Lisa Murphy-Lamb et al.

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“Book Review August and Possibly Part of September” doesn’t really have a zippy ring, but here goes….  I should note that all of the books I’m going to post about over the next few weeks have been read in the past year and a half, and there is quite a eclectic jumble of genres, audiences, etc..  If you’ve been following Flowery Prose for a while, you’ll already know that my reading tastes are pretty wide-ranging.  I hope there will be something here that will pique your interest!  

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The 2016 Long Lunch/Quick Reads Anthology – Edited by Lisa Murphy-Lamb, Paul DiStefano, and Doug Neilson (2016, Loft on Eighth Calgary)

This collection of twelve stories and poems from both established and new Calgary writers is a delicious treat (pun intended!), a showcase of talent born out of the Loft 112 Creative Hive, a local writer’s group.  Put on your walking shoes and explore the city of Calgary, from the hidden spaces of the Calgary Stampede and the end of childhood, to a park bench by the cancer clinic, a suddenly crowded lane in a swimming pool, and the foot of a graffiti-scrawled underpass downtown. It’s all a bit gritty, unsettling, and heart-wrenching – you’ll see.  Standouts (for me): Doug Neilson’s devastating “Hymenoptera,” “At This Confluence,” the eloquent, elegant series of poems by Jessica Magonet, and poet Diane Guichon’s urban snapshots, “Sidewalk Litanies.”

Home sweet home.

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Closing time at the library. A girl of about four years old and her father have just finished using the self-checkouts and are heading towards the door. The girl looks up at her Dad and asks, “Why are they closing the library?”

He responds, “Because the people who work here have to go home.”

She frowns. “But why can’t they live HERE?”

Why not, indeed? Massive square footage, open concept, tons of natural light, a fireplace, comfy chairs, and thousands of books.  I can see where she’s coming from…..  😉

Flowery music.

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A song I hadn’t heard in eons came on the radio the other day and I got to thinking about song titles and then that somehow morphed into thoughts about the garden, as pretty much everything does…  At any rate, this post is the result of my brain meanderings, and hopefully some fun for everyone who participates.

Let’s come up with songs that have “flowery” subjects in the titles!  It’s a chance to perhaps hear some tunes we haven’t in a long while, some awesome ones and some maybe a bit more middling….  😉

THE RULES: Songs must have a variation of the words “garden” or “flower,” or the name of a specific flower, vegetable, fruit etc. in the TITLE.  (Not in the lyrics).  Otherwise, everything and anything goes (well, except the really offensive stuff – let’s keep this above board). 

Go ahead and post the title of the song and the name of the artist in your comments. I will try to track the song down on You Tube and put a link to it up on the actual blog post.  This may take a few days, especially if we get a lot of selections, but I will work on it as quickly as I can.  I think WordPress has a playlist feature as well so if this takes off nicely, I will see about setting up something more permanent to put in the sidebar at some point.

I’m hoping everyone has a “flowery” song or two (or more) to suggest – have fun submitting your choices and having a listen!

I’ll start us off:

Seal – Kiss From a Rose

Fran Healy – Buttercups

Scott Mackenzie – San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) 

Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand – You Don’t Bring Me Flowers 

Poison – Every Rose Has Its Thorn

Nana Mouskouri – Roses Love Sunshine

Tom Petty – Wildflowers 

Your turn!  🙂

 

 

Indignant Cove

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I’m spreading a little blog love during the month of July! I’ll be reblogging recent entries from some of my favourite bloggers – I encourage you to click through and check out more of their work. Enjoy! ~Sheryl

OldPlaidCamper

Scout and I often end up at Indignant Cove, and often on a Monday evening. Mrs. PC is at her exercise class, keeping healthy and in shape, thinking about the future, all that stuff about using it now so you still have it later. I get a bit hot under the collar thinking about exercise, and tend to wander off with the dog to find a quiet place to sit and think about a healthy future. Meditation burns calories, yes?

DSCF7388 Be nice to stop here, rest a bit

A gentle – I mean a very brisk and pacy – walk along the Wild Pacific Trail, and we end up at a small shell, gravel and rocky beach overlooking the ocean. Scout gets to chew as many sticks and logs as she can – crunches? – and I clamber and stumble about a bit, huffing and puffing and getting quite exercised…

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