Thursday, April 24, 2014

Blog Break

Hi all!  

I've missed chatting with you here.  I am taking a short blogging break until early May.   Looking forward to catching up with you then!

Trish

Monday, April 14, 2014

Music Monday - "Summer Days" by the Partridge Family


Disclaimer:  David Cassidy was my first big crush.  I was pretty sure that I would grow up to marry him.  Although it seems that may not happen, I still love several of the Partridge Family songs I grew up with, and "Summer Days" may top the list.  Yes, it is bubblegum pop, but it also is a fun early 1970's (1971) pop song.  Someone mentioned this on Facebook yesterday, and it has been stuck in my head ever since - so I'm passing it along to you. 

Do you remember the Partridge Family?  Were you a Partridge Family or Brady Bunch fan as a kid?  I loved them both.  The Brady Bunch was closer to real life, but the Partridge Family - well, it had David Cassidy.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Friday Fave: Shorpy Historical Photo Archive

Happy Friday!   My Friday Fave this week is one of my favorite websites.  Shorpy is a collection of vintage photos.  It is a gallery that you can scroll through or search by keyword, and you will find some amazing photos with information about the picture's history.  For instance, here are some fun photos that came up from a search for Christmas window:  vintage Christmas here.  This is the kind of photo that I especially enjoy:  a Woolworth dimestore Christmas display from the 1920's.  You can also sign up for a daily newsletter, with different photos featured daily.  

My father was a talented photographer, and I have always loved photography.  While I don't have a gift for taking beautiful photos, I do appreciate them.  They combine my interests in vintage artifacts and social history.   I have a small collection of vintage photos in my store (some are RPPC postcards):  vintage photos at Birdhouse Books.   The photo above is from my store, and it features a man with two English Springer Spaniel puppies.

Do you enjoy vintage photos?  What types of photography subjects interest you?

Monday, April 7, 2014

Music Monday - "Travelin' Prayer" by Dolly Parton

Happy Music Monday!   I am happy to share one of my favorite songs with you today.  "Travelin' Prayer" by Dolly Parton is from her bluegrass album, The Grass is Blue (1999).  It is a cover of a Billy Joel song, but she makes it her own with the long instrumental intro (the singing starts around 1:10 on the video) and her distinctive voice and phrasing.  I really like bluegrass music, and highly recommend the three bluegrass albums that Dolly released between 1999 - 2002:  The Grass Is Blue, Little Sparrow, Halos & Horns.  I hope you sit back with some sweet tea to enjoy this great song!

Friday, April 4, 2014

Friday Fave: Fantastic Fiction

Happy Friday!  Hope you're having a great day.

My Friday Fave this week is the website Fantastic Fiction.  This site is a great resource for readers, with bibliographies of other 30,000 authors. If you enjoy reading series of books, as I do, you can look up an author or book at this site, and then find out the series order.  

You can see good examples here:  Laura Ingalls Wilder (the Little House on the Prairie books for children) and Mazo de la Roche (the Jalna series, a wonderful family saga set in Canada, 1854 - 1954).  

I hope you enjoy this site as much as I do.  Just be warned - your "To Be Read" list is sure to grow!

What is your favorite series of books?  Please leave a comment below.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Rereading: So Nice I Read It Twice

There are two types of book lovers:  those that reread, and those that don't.  Count me in as an enthusiastic rereader.   Rereading to me is comfort food, like buttered biscuits or Motown music or an afternoon nap.  

My Kindle has only enhanced my love of rereads.  Now I can carry a little portable library with my favorite books.  This is a booklover's dream.

Here is a list of books that I have reread a number of times.  Vintage children's books are my first reading love, and that is reflected in this list.

Children's Books

Nancy Drew (I grew up with the matte cover books with yellow spines)
the Ginnie and Geneva series - Catherine Woolley
The Luckiest Girl - Beverly Cleary
the Betsy-Tacy series - Maud Hart Lovelace (my all-time favorite series)
the Little House books - Laura Ingalls Wilder
the All of a Kind Family series - Sydney Taylor
the Keeping Day series - Norma Johnston
Caddie Woodlawn - Carol Ryrie Brink

The Witch of Blackbird Pond - Elizabeth George Speare
A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett
the Five Little Peppers books - Margaret Sidney
Gone Away Lake and Return to Gone-Away - Elizabeth Enright
the Betsy and Billy series - Carolyn Haywood
children's mysteries by Georgia author Wylly Folk St. John
Beverly Cleary's books - especially Ramona the Pest and Beezus and Ramona
the Narnia books - C.S. Lewis
the Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Cheaper by the Dozen - Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr., and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Indian Captive - Lois Lenski
The Witch Family - Eleanor Estes
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - E.L. Konigsburg
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth - E.L.
Konigsburg
The Borrowers - Mary Norton
Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren
The Crystal Tree - Jennie Lindquist
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Velvet Room - Zilpha Keatley Snyder


Teen Books

the Franzons series by Thyra Ferre Bjorn
Red Sky at Morning - Richard Bradford
The Cheerleader - Ruth Doan MacDougall
Seventeenth Summer - Maureen Daly
Meet Me in St. Louis - Sally Benson

Seventeen - Booth Tarkington
I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith 

Books for Grown-Ups
 

A Room With a View - E.M. Forster
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Rebecca - Daphne DuMaurier
Diana - R. F Delderfield
Jubilee Trail and Calico Palace - Gwen Bristow
The Winthrop Woman - Anya Seton (I love many of her books)
Portrait of Jennie - Robert Nathan
the Jalna series - Mazo de la Roche (my favorite adult series - highly recommended for anyone who loves family sagas)

Gospel - Wilton Barnhardt
Possession - A.S. Byatt
Time and Again and From Time to Time - Jack Finney
The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler (probably my most re-read book)
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough
The Best of Everything - Rona Jaffe
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (my favorite classic novel)
 

I would love to hear from you.  Are you a rereader?  What books do you enjoy reading again (and again)?