Taking Umbridge

J. K. Rowling offers a profile on Dolores Jane Umbridge
 
from http://www.today.com/books/j-k-rowling-writes-harry-potter-halloween-tale-profiling-malicious-1D80248516

The story of Dolores Jane Umbridge
Dolores Jane Umbridge was the eldest child and only daughter of Orford Umbridge, a wizard, and Ellen Cracknell, a Muggle, who also had a Squib son. Dolores’ parents were unhappily married, and Dolores secretly despised both of them: Orford for his lack of ambition (he had never been promoted, and worked in the Department of Magical Maintenance at the Ministry of Magic), and her mother, Ellen, for her flightiness, untidiness, and Muggle lineage. Both Orford and his daughter blamed Ellen for Dolores's brother's lack of magical ability, with the result that when Dolores was fifteen, the family split down the middle, Orford and Dolores remaining together, and Ellen vanishing back into the Muggle world with her son. Dolores never saw her mother or brother again, never spoke of either of them, and henceforth pretended to all she met that she was a pure-blood.

An accomplished witch, Dolores joined the Ministry of Magic directly after she left Hogwarts, taking a job as a lowly intern in the Improper Use of Magic Office. Even at seventeen, Dolores was judgemental, prejudiced and sadistic, although her conscientious attitude, her saccharine manner towards her superiors, and the ruthlessness and stealth with which she took credit for other people's work soon gained her advancement. Before she was thirty, Dolores had been promoted to Head of the office, and it was but a short step from there to ever more senior positions in the management of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. By this time, she had persuaded her father to take early retirement, and by making him a small financial allowance, she ensured that he dropped quietly out of sight. Whenever she was asked (usually by workmates who did not like her) 'are you related to that Umbridge who used to mop the floors here?' she would smile her sweetest, laugh, and deny any connection whatsoever, claiming that her deceased father had been a distinguished member of the Wizengamot. Nasty things tended to happen to people who asked about Orford, or anything that Dolores did not like talking about, and people who wanted to remain on her good side pretended to believe her version of her ancestry.

In spite of her best efforts to secure the affections of one of her superiors (she never cared particularly which of them it was, but knew that her own status and security would be advanced with a powerful husband), Dolores never succeeded in marrying. While they valued her hard work and ambition, those who got to know her best found it difficult to like her very much. After a glass of sweet sherry, Dolores was always prone to spout very uncharitable views, and even those who were anti-Muggle found themselves shocked by some of Dolores's suggestions, behind closed doors, of the treatment that the non-magical community deserved.

As she grew older and harder, and rose higher within the Ministry, Dolores's taste in little girlish accessories grew more and more pronounced; her office became a place of frills and furbelows, and she liked anything decorated with kittens (though found the real thing inconveniently messy). As the Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge became increasingly anxious and paranoid that Albus Dumbledore had ambitions to supersede him, Dolores managed to claw her way to the very heart of power, by stoking both Fudge's vanity and his fears, and presenting herself as one of the few he could trust. 

Dolores's appointment as Inquisitor at Hogwarts gave full scope, for the first time in her life, for her prejudices and her cruelty. She had not enjoyed her time at school, where she had been overlooked for all positions of responsibility, and she relished the chance to return and wield power over those who had not (as she saw it) given her her due.

Dolores has what amounts to a phobia of beings that are not quite, or wholly, human. Her distaste for the half-giant Hagrid, and her terror of centaurs, reveal a terror of the unknown and the wild. She is an immensely controlling person, and all who challenge her authority and world-view must, in her opinion, be punished. She actively enjoys subjugating and humiliating others, and except in their declared allegiances, there is little to choose between her and Bellatrix Lestrange.

Dolores's time at Hogwarts ended disastrously, because she overreached the remit Fudge had given her, stepping outside the bounds of her own authority, carried away with a fanatical sense of self-purpose. Shaken but unrepentant after a catastrophic end to her Hogwarts career, she returned to a Ministry, which had been plunged into turmoil due to the return of Lord Voldemort. 

In the change of regimes that followed Fudge's forced resignation, Dolores was able to slip back into her former position at the Ministry. The new Minister, Rufus Scrimgeour, had more immediate problems pressing in on him than Dolores Umbridge. Scrimgeour was later punished for this oversight, because the fact that the Ministry had never punished Dolores for her many abuses of power seemed to Harry Potter to reveal both its complacency and its carelessness. Harry considered Dolores's continuing employment, and the lack of any repercussions for her behaviour at Hogwarts, a sign of the Ministry's essential corruption, and refused to cooperate with the new Minister because of it (Dolores is the only person, other than Lord Voldemort, to leave a permanent physical scar on Harry, having forced him to cut the words 'I must not tell lies' on the back of his own hand during detention).

Dolores was soon enjoying life at the Ministry more than ever. When the Ministry was taken over by the puppet Minister Pius Thicknesse, and infiltrated by the Dark Lord's followers, Dolores was in her true element at last. Correctly judged, by senior Death Eaters, to have much more in common with them than she ever had with Albus Dumbledore, she not only retained her post but was given extra authority, becoming Head of the Muggle-born Registration Commission, which was in effect a kangaroo court that imprisoned all Muggle-borns on the basis that they had ‘stolen’ their wands and their magic.

It was as she sat in judgement of another innocent woman that Harry Potter finally attacked Dolores in the very heart of the Ministry, and stole from her the Horcrux she had unwittingly been wearing. 

With the fall of Lord Voldemort, Dolores Umbridge was put on trial for her enthusiastic co-operation with his regime, and convicted of the torture, imprisonment and deaths of several people (some of the innocent Muggle-borns she sentenced to Azkaban did not survive their ordeal). 

Birthday: 26th August
Wand: Birch and dragon heartstring, eight inches long 
Hogwarts house: Slytherin
Special abilities: Her punishment quill is of her own invention
Parentage: Muggle mother, wizard father
Family: Unmarried, no children
Hobbies: Collecting the 'Frolicsome Feline' ornamental plate range, adding flounces to fabric and frills to stationary objects, inventing instruments of torture

J. K. Rowling's thoughts on Dolores Jane Umbridge
Once, long ago, I took instruction in a certain skill or subject (I am being vague as vague can be, for reasons that are about to become obvious), and in doing so, came into contact with a teacher or instructor whom I disliked intensely on sight. 

The woman in question returned my antipathy with interest. Why we took against each other so instantly, heartily and (on my side, at least) irrationally, I honestly cannot say. What sticks in my mind is her pronounced taste for twee accessories. I particularly recall a tiny little plastic bow slide, pale lemon in colour that she wore in her short curly hair. I used to stare at that little slide, which would have been appropriate to a girl of three, as though it was some kind of repellent physical growth. She was quite a stocky woman, and not in the first flush of youth, and her tendency to wear frills where (I felt) frills had no business to be, and to carry undersized handbags, again as though they had been borrowed from a child's dressing-up box, jarred, I felt, with a personality that I found the reverse of sweet, innocent and ingenuous. 

I am always a little wary when talking about these kinds of sources of inspiration, because it is infuriating to hear yourself misinterpreted in ways that can cause other people a great deal of hurt. This woman was NOT 'the real Dolores Umbridge'. She did not look like a toad, she was never sadistic or vicious to me or anyone else, and I never heard her express a single view in common with Umbridge (indeed, I never knew her well enough to know much about her views or preferences, which makes my dislike of her even less justifiable). However, it is true to say that I borrowed from her, then grossly exaggerated, a taste for the sickly sweet and girlish in dress, and it was that tiny little pale lemon plastic bow that I was remembering when I perched the fly-like ornament on Dolores Umbridge's head.

I have noticed more than once in life that a taste for the ineffably twee can go hand-in-hand with a distinctly uncharitable outlook on the world. I once shared an office with a woman who had covered the wall space behind her desk with pictures of fluffy kitties; she was the most bigoted, spiteful champion of the death penalty with whom it has ever been my misfortune to share a kettle. A love of all things saccharine often seems present where there is a lack of real warmth or charity. 

So Dolores, who is one of the characters for whom I feel purest dislike, became an amalgam of traits taken from these, and a variety of sources. Her desire to control, to punish and to inflict pain, all in the name of law and order, are, I think, every bit as reprehensible as Lord Voldemort's unvarnished espousal of evil. 

Umbridge's names were carefully chosen. 'Dolores' means sorrow, something she undoubtedly inflicts on all around her. 'Umbridge' is a play on 'umbrage' from the British expression 'to take umbrage', meaning offence. Dolores is offended by any challenge to her limited world-view; I felt her surname conveyed the pettiness and rigidity of her character. It is harder to explain 'Jane'; it simply felt rather smug and neat between her other two names.

My shelves

LIST OF AUTHORS ABOUT WHOSE WORKS I GET RABIDLY EXCITED
jane austen, everything
laura kinsale, everything
cara mckenna/meg maguire, almost everything
joanna bourne, everything
laurie r. king, mary russell series
julia spencer-fleming, everything 


LIST OF AUTHORS WHO BRING IT
curtis sittenfeld
feminists in comedy today (e.g., poehler, fey)
dorothy l. sayers
tana french

You're welcome for making your life the best place ever to live

http://www.buzzfeed.com/colinheasley/i-am-in-no-mood-to-give-consequence-to-young-ladies-who-are

ATTENTION all Duggars okayish with explicit sex scenes and who don't think red nail varnish is too, too whore-y

have i got the book for you: Bygones by lavyrle spencer.

*** FIRST UPDATE, LESS THAN SEVENTY PAGES IN, 10.15.14 ***

oh, m'god, y'all, i'm not sure i'm going to be able to DO this. i was blown away by lavyrle spencer's Morning Glory -- a POEM of a book; broke my heart. so when i saw a shelf full of spencer at my local Goodwill a few months back, i picked out some paperbacks. hardly five pages in to this one, i was ready to throw it against the wall. it has aged BADLY, people.

oh, how, you ask?

THE STYLE:

• raspberry pumps paired with matching leather gloves
• the cute fiance sports "naturally curly brown hair, crew-cut on top and trailing in thinned tendrils over his collar." MULLET COUNT: 1
• kitchen newly redone with white Formica cabinets and a new vinyl floor in shades of seafoam blue, the new furniture a blend of smoky blues and apricots; "the window treatments were lavish above, simple below: great billowing valances in a busy blue-and-apricot floral, paired with pleated horizontal blinds of pale apricot."
• the cute son's "hair was black, like his father's, and dressed with something sheeny, spiked straight up and finger-long on top, slicked back over the ears and trailing in natural curls below his collar in back. randy was an eye-catcher. . . . he adopted the rough-cut look of the unshaved young pop singer george michael." PEOPLE. WHEREFORE ALL THE MULLETS. I CAN'T. SOMEONE NEEDS TO ETERNAL SUNSHINE MY MIND OF THE EIGHTIES. MULLET COUNT: 2 MANY
• mom's favorite shop clerk, who creates "a positive first impression when customers walked into the store," sports "sculptured garnet fingernails bearing tiny rhinestone nail ornaments that flashed as her hand rested on the railing."
• "When Bess came to the door Paula Abdul was blasting 'Opposites Attract' from the CD player, and Randy was standing before his dresser adjusting the knot in a skinny gray leather tie. He was dressed in baggy, pleated trousers, a silvery-gray double-breasted sport coat and a plaid shirt in muted shades of purple, gray and white. He'd put something on his hair to make it glossy and though he'd said he'd had it cut, as promised, it still hung to his collar in natural ringlets . . . looking spiffy for once." THIS ≠ SPIFFY

THE LOWBROW:

• personal libraries consisting of five stephen king novels. y'all, i love stephen king as much as the next book junkie, but i also kept my copy of to kill a mockingbird from the time i read it with my fifth-grade class, you know?
• a Fancy Meal consisting of: (1) cheese ball with Ritz crackers, (2) beef stroganoff, (3) corn pudding. i mean, on their own, maybe? but, like, in a menu? . . . and "corn pudding" = "nutritious vegetable side"? . . .
• a Buick Park Avenue and a Cadillac Seville are the motorcars of choice for conspicuous, fairly tasteless middle-american consumption. take note, Heartland!!

THE HELLISH SEXISM:

• he's bitter that she "left her family" -- read: she decided in her thirties that she wanted a career and so started taking college classes during the day, which meant she wasn't there to single-handedly raise their two children and warm her husband's fucking toaster strudel for him. UM. NO.
• his cheating isn't what RUINED the marriage, you see; he only cheated because he felt NEGLECTED when she went to COLLEGE. my spork is at the ready; his jugular is looking REALLY soft.
• she's constantly turning down food because she's ten pesky pounds overweight! see what the author did here? she maintained the heroine's required neurotic self-loathing and body dysmorphia (we aren't allowed to ever be at peace with our bodies; it's a WAR, ladies), but only TEN pounds overweight is code to the rest of us ladies reading this novel -- "oh, she's GORGEOUS! ten pounds is NOTHING! i've got twenty-five extra pounds i could give you right now!"
• the husband's mistress is "ten pounds underweight." women versus women, no one's healthy, everyone's either too fat or too thin. well, every woman, anyway.
• cute fiance on gender roles: "you'd be surprised how many girls today can't even boil water. when i found out [my fiancee] could cook i told my mother, i think i've found the girl of my dreams." darling, i hope you step out on her if she ever leaves the frying pan soaking in the sink in favor of community college evening classes!!
• "toward the end of their marriage, when she'd been caught up in the rigors of studying for her degree and maintaining a domicile and a family of four, he had said during one of their fights, 'look at you, you don't even take care of yourself anymore. all you ever wear is blue jeans and sweatshirts, and your hair hangs in strings. you didn't look like that when i married you!" at which point i shot him in the chest with a copy of something by betty friedan and a book cannon. RIP, douchebag.

THE GROSS RACIST UNDERTONES:

• cute fiance is "all american," which we all know is code for white (because people of color aren't allowed to be totally american; they're fake, part american).
• it was super cute when as a child the daughter dragged around the neighborhood a little BLACK doll she called gertrude -- get it? she's WHITE! the doll was BLACK! kids. *benevolent head shake*

THE GROSS HOMOPHOBIC UNDERTONES:

• the host at the restaurant was "effeminate," y'all. our heroine is raising an eyebrow.

THE GENERAL GROSS EARLY-NINETIES BOURGEOIS/CHRISTIAN-RIGHT MORALS THAT ARE SUFFOCATING AND HATEFUL AND NARROW:

• mom: "i can't pretend this is anything but terrible, our only daughter and a shotgun wedding." oh, shut up. i'm sorry you're horrified. but once you're done pulling your perfectly coiffed head out of your ass, maybe you can realize that it's not all about you playing Real-Life Dollies and that your child needs your support as she navigates several major life changes simultaneously. m'kay?
• mom has been exclusively seeing "keith" for three years now but won't let keith spend the night, because her deadbeat nineteen-year-old, randy, might figure out she's sexually active. oh, sighhhhhhhhhhhhh. now i see why mom is so bent out of shape about daughter getting knocked up out of wedlock. THEY DON'T TALK ABOUT SEX HERE.

THE WEIRD, POORLY CHOSEN MOMENTS TO INFUSE BACKGROUND DETAIL WITH "ART":

• "on saturday night, bess took pains with her hair. It was nearly shoulder-length, its shades of blonde as varied as an October prairie.* she curled it only enough to give it lift, and pouffed it out behind her ears, where it billowed like the sleeves of a choir gown caught in the wind."

* book is set in greater minneapolis metropolitan area.



WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED FROM THE FIRST SIXTY-SEVEN PAGES OF THIS NOVEL:

• using labels and explicitly dressing your characters doesn't often paint them as the elegant paragons of style you want them to be, author: rather, it dates them immediately and shows the limits of your class experience, which can be awkward and weird and will immediately take bunches of your audience out of the story.
• same with descriptions of decor, popular-cultural icons, favorite brands and labels -- don't go into it unless you're cool with your book written in 2014 only sounding relevant 'til mid-2015.
• take a feminist-theory class. i'm not saying you can't have sexist complications and heartland mores in your book; i'm just saying you might not want to make it quite so clear you're CHAMPIONING them is all

*** HOMEWORK ***
watch the first season of Mad Men. now drive to broadway, go to TKTS, and watch Jersey Boys.

1. in which show were women treated as second-class citizens? (ANSWER: Both)
2. in which show were the writers AWARE they were treating women as second-class citizens? (ANSWER: Mad Men)
3. which show used the treatment of women as a commentary on sexism? (ANSWER: Mad Men
4. which show's writers had a used condom, a cracked leather jacket stinking of body odor, and a meatball sub where its sense of nuance and egalitarianism were supposed to be? (ANSWER: Jersey Boys)

now, go forth and kick ass, writers. and, self, be aware.

This is good news

 

More Potter

J. K. Rowling is serving up another dose of Harry Potter for her die-hard fans, this time in the form of a biography of one of her favorite, albeit lesser-known, characters in the Harry Potter universe. The story comes from Pottermore.com, the online home for the world of Harry Potter, which shared her latest story exclusively with TODAY.com.

Celestina Warbeck is one of my favourite "off-stage" characters in the Harry Potter series, and has been part of the Potter world ever since its inception, making an early appearance in the short-lived Daily Prophet series I produced for members of the equally short-lived fan club run by my British publisher, Bloomsbury. Although we never lay eyes on Celestina during the whole seven volumes of the Potter books, I always imagined her to resemble Shirley Bassey in both looks and style. I stole her first name from a friend with whom I worked, years ago, at Amnesty International's Headquarters in London; "Celestina" was simply begging to be scooped up and attached to a glamorous witch.

from http://www.today.com/books/j-k-rowling-writes-new-harry-potter-story-about-singing-1D80069158

Roma, butter pastries, and compagne di stanze

read this: When in Rome by Cara Mckenna -- a free short story, available online.

mckenna's my favorite contemporary-romance-writing boo. her stuff is really good -- modern, heartfelt, and funny. so happy to find this tasty morsel online. 

indulge, kittens!

Recently compiled

Subject: Psycho reads

Dearest [redacted],

True to my word, following are a list of Creepy Reads that I have loved (or at least solidly enjoyed).

 

TTFN,
DJ

Books on Sociopathy, Serial Killers, or True Crime that Will Chill You to the Core (or Perhaps Excite You, in Which Case You Are Likely a Sociopath and Please Don't Hurt Me)

• The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout -- Sociopathy is clearly defined and identified, most strikingly when Stout, a Harvard professor of psychology, helps us understand that most sociopaths aren't violent, just really, really selfish, and damaging (this is where I first read the suggestion that sociopathic therapists can wreak great havoc in their patients; chilling!).
• The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson -- A funny and readable exploration of how present-day society diagnoses and deals with sociopathy, made even more enjoyable by Ronson's bumbling, neurotic persona.
• Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend by Barbara Oakley -- Oakley takes a particularly biological view to sociopathy, which parts I confess sort of made my eyes glaze over, but those portions of the text are interspersed with wonderful segments diagnosing horrible people through history, including her own terrible, awful, destructive late sister.
• The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence by Gavin de Becker -- De Becker is apparently a safety consultant to the stars, and he's made his bread by identifying, analyzing, and offering suggestions for blunting violent sociopathic elements in our society. Happily, he doesn't read as too woo-woo or alarmist; I recall his voice as maintaining a factual, if perhaps urgent, tone that I found informative.
• Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight by "M. E. Thomas" -- Not the best-written or most believable book (I mean, would you trust much of anything told to you by a self-described sociopath with an agenda?) but certainly a fun concept.
• Columbine by Dave Cullen -- The primer about the Columbine massacre, with particularly stunning and detailed attempts at diagnosing Klebold (suicidal depressive) and Harris (self-loathing sociopath).
• The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy; The Shocking Inside Story by Ann Rule -- A crime writer in Seattle for various pulp publications, Rule HAPPENED to befriend Bundy and then separately HAPPENED to be hired to begin writing about this crazy string of murders in the PNW that turned out to be perpetrated by her buddy, Bundy! Amazing kismet. Rule's writing is sometimes round-about, but the story itself is so astounding that this book will keep you up nights (after which I recommend you pile empty suitcases in front of your bedroom door and sleep with the lights on. For safety).
• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote -- Capote's exploration of a true-life mass murder in 1959 Kansas marks the beginning of the entire true-crime genre in literature. His prose is usually engaging and always literate, and the whole thing becomes a psychological morass when Capote falls in love with one of the perpetrators as he interviews him over time in prison.
• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson -- Rumor has it that Leonardo DiCaprio optioned this book and is working on a screenplay, which thought alone terrorizes me. This is a seriously, seriously disturbing book. Actually, two-thirds of it is about the planning for and execution of the great Chicago World Fair in 1893 or other orbital stories, but the one-third devoted to the truly evil H. H. Holmes is SO disturbing that I -- a connoisseur of bad-guy histories -- doubt I could have read a book devoted to him alone. The more bland, G-rated portions served as a sort of mental sorbet for the hideous Holmes bits. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
• Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill -- I include this unlikely entry because after reading it I firmly believe that Miscavige Hill's uncle, David Miscavige, the current leader of Scientology, is a sociopath and that his diseased psyche has informed every part of the church at this point. The prose is sort of indifferent, but Jenna's story is so insane as to be riveting.
• Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright -- So, I was unable to finish this book before I had to return it to the library, but what I did read was fascinating and horrifying, and one of these days I will check it out again and finish it; it's worth it. It's a detailed history of L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's founder. And like David Miscavige after him, I believe Hubbard was a complete sociopath.
• The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty -- So, okay. See, I was raised Catholic by parents who taught me that the Devil and possession and evil spirits were all real and a real threat, so when I encountered the movie years later, after I'd discarded or at least begun to heavily doubt these beliefs, I was still HORRIFIED. Blatty claims the book is all true (I will let you judge that claim for yourself), based on real events that transpired among an unnamed family in middle America, which claim, naturally, was enough to suck me in. Read it as fiction, read it as history-with-a-cellar's-worth-of-salt, but if you are impressionable and credulous (as I am), you should read about The Original Sociopath, Beelzebub. Am I right? (TRUE STORY: My copy has a particularly demented picture of a possessed child on the cover, and so I had to cover the spine with a Post-It note to keep from getting creeped out every time I entered the library, as my eyes would invariably go to it.)
• The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston -- This is a bizarre book in that it seeks to unravel the mystery of a series of still-unsolved murders that took place in Tuscany over the '70s and '80s but the author, an American who moved his family to Italy, ended up getting entangled in the investigation when the Italian prosecutor, Mignini, began persecuting him, insisting he was somehow helping cover up the crime. Bizarre. Upsetting. And, of shocking note, Mignini is the SAME prosecutor who accused Amanda Knox of murdering Meredith Kercher in a satanic sex orgy gone awry, the SAME accusations he lobs against the perpetrators of this book's crimes! It was actually reading this book, and seeing how Mignini is so unprofessional and unhinged, that actually convinced me that Knox had been railroaded and is innocent. So, this book is a worthy read on multiple levels -- the creepy evil of the original Monster of Florence, the disturbed psychology of the prosecutor Mignini, and how all of this informs the ongoing Knox case.
• Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic by Alexander Stille -- Okay, so, putting this book on this list is a stretch, and I have a feeling that anyone who's not a serious italophile might find it a slog, but I am passionate about it, an examination of the violent Mafia wars in Sicily in the '80s -- sociopathy aplenty! -- and the two incorruptible judges who sought to fight them, almost single-handedly, and were murdered for their trouble but managed to change all of Sicilian culture in the doing. I still get weepy every time I visit Sicily and we pass the spot on the highway where Judge Giovanni Falcone and his wife were murdered; a few hundred yards away, in the rocky, hilly countryside from which the mafioso triggered the bomb that killed them, now stands a huge sign that reads "No Mafia." Ugh. CHILLS.

Serial-Killer Fiction
I won't go into huge detail on all the awesome serial-killer crime fiction that's out there (The Internets don't have enough space!), but suffice it to say that

• Thomas Harris's Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs are really, REALLY well-written and worth losing sleep over;
• I've found everything by Giles Blunt (starting with his wonderful Forty Words for Sorrow) to be just beautiful and horrifying; he does creepy-serial-killers-murdering-people-in-icy-cold-places just wonderfully; fantastic winter reads;
• and Tana French's whodunits about the (fictitious) Dublin Murder Squad are very literate and usually very well formed.

There you go! I'll stop now before the world runs out of pixels.

Rita Skeeter's at it again

ooh, what fun!

Dumbledore’s Army Reunites at Quidditch World Cup Final
By the Daily Prophet’s Gossip Correspondent, Rita Skeeter

from http://www.today.com/books/read-j-k-rowlings-new-post-latest-harry-potter-gossip-1D79887288
 
There are celebrities – and then there are celebrities. We’ve seen many a famous face from the wizarding world grace the stands here in the Patagonian Desert – Ministers and Presidents, Celestina Warbeck, controversial American wizarding band The Bent-Winged Snitches – all have caused flurries of excitement, with crowd members scrambling for autographs and even casting Bridging Charms to reach the VIP boxes over the heads of the crowd. 

But when word swept the campsite and stadium that a certain gang of infamous wizards (no longer the fresh-faced teenagers they were in their heyday, but nevertheless recognisable) had arrived for the final, excitement was beyond anything yet seen. As the crowd stampeded, tents were flattened and small children mown down. Fans from all corners of the globe stormed towards the area where members of Dumbledore’s Army were rumoured to have been sighted, desperate above all else for a glimpse of the man they still call the Chosen One. 

The Potter family and the rest of Dumbledore’s Army have been given accommodation in the VIP section of the campsite, which is protected by heavy charms and patrolled by Security Warlocks. Their presence has ensured large crowds along the cordoned area, all hoping for a glimpse of their heroes. At 3pm today they got their wish when, to the accompaniment of loud screams, Potter took his young sons James and Albus to visit the players’ compound, where he introduced them to Bulgarian Seeker Viktor Krum. 

About to turn 34, there are a couple of threads of silver in the famous Auror’s black hair, but he continues to wear the distinctive round glasses that some might say are better suited to a style-deficient twelve-year-old. The famous lightning scar has company: Potter is sporting a nasty cut over his right cheekbone. Requests for information as to its provenance merely produced the usual response from the Ministry of Magic: ‘We do not comment on the top secret work of the Auror department, as we have told you no less than 514 times, Ms. Skeeter.’ So what are they hiding? Is the Chosen One embroiled in fresh mysteries that will one day explode upon us all, plunging us into a new age of terror and mayhem? 

Or does his injury have a more humble origin, one that Potter is desperate to hide? Has his wife perhaps cursed him? Are cracks beginning to show in a union that the Potters are determined to promote as happy? Should we read anything into the fact that his wife Ginevra has been perfectly happy to leave her husband and children behind in London whilst reporting on this tournament? The jury is out on whether she really had the talent or experience to be sent to the Quidditch World Cup (jury’s back in – no!!!) but let’s face it, when your last name is Potter, doors open, international sporting bodies bow and scrape, and Daily Prophet editors hand you plum assignments. 

As their devoted fans and followers will remember, Potter and Krum competed against each other in the controversial Triwizard Tournament, but apparently there are no hard feelings, as they embraced upon meeting (what really happened in that maze? Speculation is unlikely to be quelled by the warmth of their greeting). After half an hour’s chat, Potter and his sons returned to the campsite where they socialised with the rest of Dumbledore’s Army until the small hours. 

In the next tent are Potter’s two closest associates, the ones who know everything about him and yet have always refused to talk to the press. Are they afraid of him, or is it their own secrets they are afraid will leak out, tarnishing the myth of He Who Could Not Be Named’s defeat? Now married, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger were with Potter almost every step of the way. Like the rest of Dumbledore’s Army, they fought in the Battle of Hogwarts and no doubt deserve the plaudits and awards for bravery heaped upon them by a grateful wizarding world. 

In the immediate aftermath of the battle Weasley, whose famous ginger hair appears to be thinning slightly, entered into employment with the Ministry of Magic alongside Potter, but left only two years later to co-manage the highly successful wizarding joke emporium Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Was he, as he stated at the time, ‘delighted to assist my brother George with a business I’ve always loved’? Or had he had his fill of standing in Potter’s shadow? Was the work of the Auror Department too much for a man who has admitted that the destruction of He Who Could Not Be Named’s Horcruxes ‘took its toll’ on him? He shows no obvious signs of mental illness from a distance, but the public is not allowed close enough to make a proper assessment. Is this suspicious?

Hermione Granger, of course, was always the femme fatale of the group. Press reports of the time revealed that as a teenager she toyed with the young Potter’s affections before being seduced away by the muscular Viktor Krum, finally settling for Potter’s faithful sidekick. After a meteoric rise to Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she is now tipped to go even higher within the Ministry, and is also mother to son, Hugo, and daughter, Rose. Does Hermione Granger prove that a witch really can have it all? (No – look at her hair.) 

Then there are those members of Dumbledore’s Army who receive slightly less publicity than Potter, Weasley and Granger (are they resentful? Almost certainly). Neville Longbottom, now a popular Herbology teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is here in Patagonia with his wife Hannah. Until recently the pair lived above the Leaky Cauldron in London, but rumour has it that Hannah has not only retrained as a Healer, but is applying for the job of Matron at Hogwarts. Idle gossip suggests that she and her husband both enjoy a little more Ogden’s Old Firewhisky than most of us would expect from custodians of our children, but no doubt we all wish her the best of luck with her application. 

Last of the ringleaders of Dumbledore’s Army is, of course, Luna Lovegood (now married to Rolf Scamander, swarthy grandson of celebrated Magizoologist Newt). Still delightfully eccentric, Luna has been sweeping around the VIP section in robes composed of the flags of all sixteen qualifying countries. Her twin sons are ‘at home with grandpa’. Is this a euphemism for ‘too disturbed to be seen in public’? Surely only the unkindest would suggest so. 

Sundry other members of the Army are here, but it is on these six that most interest is focused. Wherever there is a red head one may make an educated guess that it belongs to a Weasley, but it is difficult to tell whether it is George (wealthy co-manager of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes), Charlie (dragon wrangler, still unmarried – why?) or Percy (Head of the Department of Magical Transportation – it’s his fault if the Floo Network’s too busy!). The only one who is easy to recognise is Bill who, poor man, is grievously scarred from an encounter with a werewolf and yet somehow (enchantment? Love potion? Blackmail? Kidnap?) married the undeniably beautiful (though doubtless empty-headed) Fleur Delacour. 

Word is that we shall see these and other members of Dumbledore’s Army in the VIP boxes at the final, adding to the glitz and razzmatazz of a gala occasion. Let us hope that the behaviour of two of their younger hangers-on does not embarrass them, heaping shame on those who have previously brought honour to the name of wizard.

One always hesitates to invade the privacy of young people, but the fact is that anyone closely connected with Harry Potter reaps the benefits and must pay the penalty of public interest. No doubt Potter will be distressed to know that his sixteen-year-old godson Teddy Lupin – a lanky half-werewolf with bright blue hair – has been behaving in a way unbefitting of wizarding royalty since arriving on the VIP campsite. It might be asking too much that the always-busy Potter keep a tighter rein on this wild boy, who was entrusted to his care by his dying parents, but one shudders to think what will become of Master Lupin without urgent intervention. Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs Bill Weasley might like to know that their beautiful, blonde daughter Victoire seems to be attracted to any dark corner where Master Lupin happens to be lurking. The good news is both of them seem to have invented a method of breathing through their ears. I can think of no other reason how they have survived such prolonged periods of what, in my young day, was called ‘snogging.’ 

But let us not be severe. Harry Potter and his cohorts never claimed to be perfect! And for those who want to know exactly how imperfect they are, my new biography: Dumbledore’s Army: The Dark Side of the Demob will be available from Flourish and Blotts on July 31st. 

For more original writing about the Quidditch World Cup Finals and other information about Harry Potter's world, visit Pottermore.com. 

Summer lovin'

check it, peeps!

http://jezebel.com/so-you-want-to-get-into-romance-novels-start-here-1597552701

 

for an excellent start on the genre i'd recommend anything by

1. laura kinsale (historicals)
2. cara mckenna (erotic contemporaries)
3. or meg maguire (one of mckenna's pen names; romantic longer-form contemporaries).

get reading, lovelies!

Lit-Comp flashback

from http://popchartlab.com/products/a-diagrammatical-dissertation-on-opening-lines-of-notable-novels

thanks, jak!

I don't know what this is from?

but i rejoice in it.

#PerfectEncasulationOfMyFeelings

My new, favoUrite idea

“It all started when Warner Bros. came to me with the suggestion of turning Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them into a film. I thought it was a fun idea, but the idea of seeing Newt Scamander, the supposed author of Fantastic Beasts, realized by another writer was difficult. Having lived for so long in my fictional universe, I feel very protective of it and I already knew a lot about Newt. As hard-core Harry Potter fans will know, I liked him so much that I even married his grandson, Rolf, to one of my favourite characters from the Harry Potter series, Luna Lovegood. As I considered Warners’ proposal, an idea took shape that I couldn’t dislodge. That is how I ended up pitching my own idea for a film to Warner Bros. Although it will be set in the worldwide community of witches and wizards where I was so happy for 17 years, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is neither a prequel nor a sequel to the Harry Potter series, but an extension of the wizarding world. The laws and customs of the hidden magical society will be familiar to anyone who has read the Harry Potter books or seen the films, but Newt’s story will start in New York, 70 years before Harry’s gets underway. I particularly want to thank Kevin Tsujihara of Warner Bros. for his support in this project, which would not have happened without him. I always said that I would only revisit the wizarding world if I had an idea that I was really excited about and this is it.” 

—J. K. Rowling

Bribing the Muse

oh. i just can't tell you how happy this makes me.

come on, lo! you can dooooo it!

from https://www.facebook.com/pages/Laura-Kinsale/159499280877249

Bogus!

a'ight, presses specializing in erotic fiction. it is time to up your effing marketing game. your covers are sad. your blurbs are misleading and lowest-common-denominator-y. and now you're stealing each others' art?

 

we understand that this whole e-reader liberation of women's sexuality has been a financial bonanza for you. but would you PLEASE put SOME effort into the packaging?? 

i want to love a book for its cover, dammit!

Please enjoy this cover.

 

i mean, his hair.

welp, off to buy my man a weave . . .

One of these things is not like the other

in my Goodreads list of four-star reviews!!!

 

who says my literary tastes aren't varied?

Of particular note

*respectful silence*

Listageddon: Or, what we ought to be reading at the end of 2012

the best books of 2012: in many genres, according to lots and lots of different sources,* for you, dear reader; an ongoing compilation


recommended by three or more outlets


2312: a novel by kim stanley robinson -- B&N


A
the age of miracles: a novel by karen thompson walker -- B&N

alif the unseen by g. willow wilson -- NYT

all we know: three lives by lisa cohen -- NYT, PW

almost never by daniel sada, trans. katherine silver -- NYT

american dervish by ayad akhtar -- HP

an american spy by olen steinhauer -- NYT

american tapestry: the stories of the black, white, and multiracial ancestors of michelle obama by rachel l. swarns -- NYT

american triumvirate: sam snead, byron nelson, ben hogan, and the modern age of golf by james dodson -- NYT

arcadia by lauren groff -- BP, NYT, WPBR

are you my mother? a comic drama by alison bechdel -- B&N, NYT 

the art book: new edition by phaidon press -- B&N

the art of daniel clowes: modern cartoonist by daniel clowes, ed. alvin buenaventura -- B&N, WPBR

the art of fielding by chad harbach -- GQ

as if by michael saler -- HP

astray by emma donoghue -- BN

at last by edward st. aubyn -- BN, NYT


B
the barbarous years: the peopling of british north america; the conflict of civilizations, 1600–1675 by bernard bailyn -- PW

barack obama: the story by david maraniss -- NYT 

batman: earth one by geoff johns, ill. gary frank -- BN

the beautiful anthology: essays, stories, and poems ed. elizabeth collins -- DC

beautiful ruins by jess walter -- B&N, H, NYT

behind the beautiful forevers: life, death, and hope in a mumbai undercity by katherine boo (interesting note: kitty boo penned the pulitzer prize–winning expose' of the broken d.c. systems that lead to the abuse of people with mental disabilities, which i've read multiple times and posted here and here. she's amazing.) -- A, B&N, NYT, WPBR

belzoni: the giant archeologists love to hate by ivor noel hume -- NYT 

billy lynn's long halftime walk by ben fountain -- A, H, NYT, WPBR

birds of a lesser paradise by megan mayhew bergman -- HP

the black count: glory, revolution, betrayal, and the real count of monte cristo by tom reiss -- NYT

blasphemy by sherman alexie -- NYT

blood, bones, and butter: the inadvertent education of a reluctant chef by gabrielle hamilton -- GQ

the book of mischief: new and selected stories by steve stern -- NYT

breasts: a natural and unnatural history by florence williams -- NYT

bring up the bodies by hilary mantel -- BN, PW, NYT, WPBR

broken harbor by tana french -- B&N, WPBR

building stories by richard ware -- B&N, NYT, PW, WPBR 

by blood by ellen ullman -- B&N, NYT 

by the iowa sea by joe blair -- BP


C
canada by richard ford -- B&N, NYT, WPBR

carry the one by carol anshaw -- BP, NYT

city of bohane by kevin barry -- NYT

crimes in southern indiana: stories by frank bill -- GQ

collected poems by jack gilbert -- NYT

coming apart: the state of white america, 1960–2010 by charles murray -- NYT


D
dancers among us: a celebration of joy in the everyday by jordan matter -- B&N

daniel fights a hurricane by shane jones -- DC

darwn's ghosts: the secret history of evolution by rebecca stott -- NYT

days of destruction, days of revolt by chris hedges and joe sacco -- WPBR

dc comics: the new 52 by dc entertainment -- WPBR

dear life: stories by alice munro -- NYT

defending jacob by william landay -- B&N

detroit city is the place to be: the afterlife of an american metropolis by mark binelli -- PW

the devil all the time by donald ray pollack -- GQ

the devil in silver by victor lavelle -- NYT, PW

devil in the grove: thurgood marshall, the groveland boys, and the dawn of a new america by gilbert king -- B&N

a disposition to be rich: how a small-town preacher's son ruined an american president, brought on a wall street crash, and made himself the best-hated man in the united states by geoffrey c. ward -- NYT 

district comics: an unconventional history of washington, d.c.  ed. matt dembicki -- WPBR

the diviners by libba bray -- DC

the dog stars: a novel by peter heller -- B&N

dora: a headcase; a novel by lidia yuknavitch -- DC

double cross: the true story of the d-day spies by ben macintyre -- B&N

drama by raina telgemeier -- WPBR

drawn together by aline and r. crumb -- WPBR

drift: the unmooring of american military power by rachel maddow -- B&N


E
the elephant keeper's children by peter hoeg -- HP

enchantments by katheryn harrison -- NYT

the end of your life bookclub by will schwalbe -- A, B&N 

the expats by chris pavone -- BP


F
far from the tree: parents, children, and the search for identity by andrew solomon -- B&N, NYT

farther away: essays by jonathan franzen -- HP

the fault in our stars by john green -- A, BP, HP

the fear: robert mugabe and the martyrdom of zimbabwe by peter godwin -- GQ

flagrant conduct: the story of lawrence v. texas; how a bedroom arrest decriminalized gay americans by dale carpenter -- NYT

flight behavior by barbara kingsolver -- NYT

the flight of gemma hardy by margot livesey -- BP

fobit: a novel by david abrams -- B&N, NYT

the folly of fools: the logic of deceit and self-deception in human life by robert trivers -- NYT

the forgetting tree by tatjana soli -- NYT

forgotten country by catherine chung -- BP


G
gatherings of waters by bernice l. mcfadden -- NYT

girl walks into a bar: comedy, calamities, dating disasters, and a midlife miracle by rachel dratch -- DC

god's hotel: a doctor, a hospital, and a pilgrimage to the heart of medicine by victoria sweet -- B&N

gods without men by hari kunzru -- B&N, NYT

gone girl by gillian flynn -- A, B&N, H, HP

good american by alex george -- BP

the grey album: on the blackness of blackness by kevin young -- NYT

a grown-up kind of pretty by joshilyn jackson -- BP

gypsy boy by mikey walsh -- BP


H
haiti: the aftershocks of history by laurent dubois -- NYT

happiness is a chemical in the brain by lucia perillo -- PW

hello goodbye hello: a circle of 101 remarkable meetings by craig brown -- B&N

HHhH by laurent binet -- NYT

a hologram for the king by dave eggers -- A, H, NYT

home by toni morrison -- NYT

hope: a tragedy by shalom auslander -- BP, NYT

house of stone: a memoir of home, family, and a lost middle east by anthony shadid -- WPBR

how children succeed: grit, curiosity, and the hidden power of character by paul tough -- NYT

how music works by david byrne -- NYT

how should a person be? a novel from life by sheila heti -- H, HP, NYT


I
immobility by brian evenson -- HP

in one person by john irving -- NYT 

the invisible ones by stef penney -- BP

iron curtain: the crushing of eastern europe, 1944–1956 by anne applebaum -- NYT, PW, WPBR


J


K
kayak morning: reflections on love, grief, and small boats by roger rosenblatt -- NYT


L
a land more kind than home by wiley cash -- NYT 

the last lion: william spencer churchill; defender of the realm, 1940–1965 by william manchester and paul reid --  B&N

the layered garden: design lessons for year-round beauty from brandywine cottage by rob cordillo, david l. culp, and adam levine -- B&N

the leftovers by tom perrotta -- GQ 

the light between oceans: a novel by m. l. stedman -- B&N

life in color: national geographic photographs by annie griffiths -- B&N

the lifespan of a fact by john d'agata and jim fingal -- HP

lincoln's code: the laws of war in american history by john fabian witt -- NYT

little america: the war within the war for afghanistan by rajiv chandrasekaran -- NYT

lone wolf by jodi picoult -- BP


M
magnificence: a novel by lydia millet -- B&N

marbles: mania, depression, michelangelo, and me; a graphic novel by ellen forney -- WPBR

marigold: the last chance for peace in vietnam by james G. Hershberg -- WPBR

the marriage plot: a novel by jeffrey eugenides -- GQ

married love: and other stories by tessa hadley -- NYT

memoir of a debulked woman: enduring ovarian cancer by susan gubar -- NYT

the middlesteins by jami attenberg -- A

modern cuisine at home  by nathan myhrvold and maxime bilet -- B&N

morality by christopher hitchens -- A, B&N

my friend dahmer by derf backderf -- B&N

my heart is an idiot: essays by davy rothbart -- DC, HP

my poets by maureen n. mclane -- NYT


N
the night swimmer by matt durant -- BP

ninety days: a memoir of recovery by bill clegg -- HP

no animal we could name by ted saunders -- DC

no one is here except all of us by ramona ausubel -- BP, HP

nw by zadie smith -- NYT


O
the obamas by jodi kantor -- NYT

object lessons: the paris review presents the art of the short story ed. the paris review -- HP

oddly normal: one family's struggle to help their teenage son come to terms with his sexuality by john schwartz -- NYT

the odds by stewart o'nan -- BP

on a farther shore: the life and legacy of rachel carson by william souder -- NYT

office girl: a novel by joe meno -- DC

the one: the life and music of james brown by r. j. smith -- NYT

on saudi arabia: its people, past, religion, fault lines—and future by karen elliott house -- NYT

on the spectrum of possible deaths by lucia perillo -- NYT

open city by teju cole -- GQ 

the orphan master's son by adam johnson -- BP, B&N


P
page 1: great expectations by graphicdesigns& -- HP

the passage of power: the years of lyndon johnson by robert a. caro -- B&N, H, NYT

the patriarch: the remarkable life and turbulent times of joseph p. kennedy by david nasaw -- NYT

pearls freaks the #*%# out: a (freaky) pearls before swine treasury by stephan pastis -- WPBR

penelope by rebecca harrington -- DC, HP

people who eat darkness: the true story of a young woman who vanished from the streets of tokyo by richard lloyd parry -- NYT, PW

phantom by jo nesbo -- B&N

the power of habit: why we do what we do in life and business by charles dughigg -- B&N

prague winter: a personal story of remembrance and war, 1937–1948 by madeleine albright -- B&N

pulphead: essays by john jeremiah sullivan -- GQ

pure by julianna baggott -- NYT


Q
quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking by susan cain -- B&N


R
ragnarok: the end of the gods by a. s. byatt -- B&N

the receptionist: an education at the new yorker by janet groth -- DC

red brick, black mountain, white clay: reflections on art, family, and survival by christopher benfrey -- NYT 

reinventing bach by paul elie -- B&N

reporting the revolutionary war: before it was history, it was news by todd andrlik -- B&N

the right-hand shore by christopher tilghman -- NYT

the round house by louise erdich -- A, NYT, PW

rule and ruin: the downfall of moderation and the destruction of the republican party; from eisenhower to the tea party by geoffrey kabaservice -- NYT


S
sad desk salad: a novel by jessica grosse -- DC

sailor twain: or, the mermaid in the hudson by mark siegel -- B&N, WPBR

salvage the bones by jesmine ward -- NYT

san miguel by t. coraghessan boyle -- NYT

saul steinberg: a biography by deirdre bair -- NYT

seating arrangements: a novel by maggie shipstead -- B&N, DC

the second world war by antony beevor -- B&N

shadow of night: a discovery of witches by deborah harkness -- B&N

shine shine shine by lydia netzer -- NYT

shooting victoria: madness, mayhem, and the rebirth of the british monarchy by paul thomas murphy -- NYT

short nights of the shadow catcher: the epic life and immortal photographs of edward curtis by timothy egan -- NYT

shout her lovely name by natalie serber -- NYT

the signal and the noise: why some predictions fail—but some don't by nate silver -- B&N

silent house by orhan pamuk -- NYT

the sleepy hollow family almanack by kris d'agostino -- DC

the smitten kitchen cookbook: recipes and wisdom from an obsessive home cook by deb perelman -- B&N 

the snow child by eowyn ivey -- BP

the social conquest of earth by edward o. wilson -- NYT

sometimes there is a void: memoirs of an outsider by zakes mda -- NYT

spillover: animal infections and the next human pandemic by david quammen -- B&N, NYT

the starboard sea by amber dermont -- BP, NYT

stories i only tell my friends by rob lowe -- GQ

suddenly, a knock at the door by etgar keret -- HP

sweet tooth by ian mcewan -- NYT

swimming home by deborah levy -- HP, NYT

swimming studies by leanne shapton -- HP


T
talulla rising by glen duncan -- B&N

the taste of war: world war ii and the battle for food by lizzie collingham -- NYT

telegraph avenue: a novel by michael chabon -- B&N, H, NYT

the testament of mary by colm toibin -- NYT 

the things that matter by nate berkus -- B&N

this is how you lose her by junot diaz -- B&N, HP, NYT

thomas jefferson: the art of power by jon meacham -- B&N, NYT

three strong women by marie ndiaye, trans. john fletcher -- NYT

tigers in red weather: a novel by liza klaussmann -- DC

the tiger's wife by tea obreht -- GQ

toby's room by pat barker -- NYT

turing's cathedral: the origins of the digital universe by george dyson -- B&N


U
the underside of joy by sere prince halverson -- BP

V
victory: the triumphant gay revolution by linda hirsham -- NYT


W
watergate by thomas mallon -- NYT

we only know so much: a novel by elizabeth crane -- DC

what we talk about when we talk about anne frank: stories by nathan englander -- NYT 

when god talks back: understanding the american evangelical relationship with god by t. m. luhrmann -- NYT

when i was a child i read books by marilynne robinson -- HP 

where'd you go, bernadette? a novel by maria semple (note: bff 'netta recommended this to me a few days ago. you go, 'netta, literary tastemaker!) -- B&N, DC

why be happy when you could be normal? by jeanette winterson -- B&N, NYT

why does the world exist? an existential detective story by jim holt -- NYT

why nations fail: the origins of power, prosperity, and poverty by daron acemoglu -- WPBR

wild: from lost to found on the pacific crest trail by cheryl strayed -- B&N

wild girls: a novel by mary stewart atwell -- DC

wind through the keyhole: a dark tower novel by stephen king -- B&N

winter journal by paul auster -- H

winter of the world by ken follet -- B&N

wizziwig: portrait of a serial hacker by ed piskor -- B&N

a wrinkle in time: the graphic novel by madeleine l'engle, ill. hope larson -- B&N


X


Y
the yellow birds: a novel by kevin powers -- B, HP, NYT

young house love: 243 ways to paint, craft, update, and show your home some love by sherry petersik and john petersik -- B&N


Z
zona: a book about a film about a journey to a room by geoff dyer -- HP



 * Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, BookPage, DailyCandy, GQ, Hollywood.com, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Publisher's Weekly, The Washington Post Book Review,