Bookgirl's Nightstand | When I'm not reading books, I'm making them.

Tuesdays To Die For

iliana Nightstand February 16, 2010

I just came home from a very fun evening with my mystery book group. We discussed Black Fly Season by Giles Blunt, which received mainly favorable reviews by everyone (my review to come). I will say for now that I really liked it and would like to go back to the beginning of the series and learn more about the main character. I believe this book is the third in the series.

Anyway we also got to nominate and vote on our upcoming reads and I’m very excited about most of the choices. I was chit-chatting though and didn’t catch the order of when we’ll read the books but in the next few months we’ll be reading books by Andrea Camilleri, Craig Johnson, Colin Cotterill, and Per Wahloo & Maj Sjowall.

Our next two reads are Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith for March and The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny for April. Of course I’m most excited about the Penny book as I’m a big fan of Inspector Gamache and have been looking forward to this book.

All this talk about mysteries makes me want to start another one right now but I also really want to start Outlander. Oh well, I’ll tell you later which book I started.

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What I Got

iliana Nightstand February 15, 2010

Last week I know I had asked you guys for some help in finding a good love story and I didn’t forget about your suggestions. I added all books I hadn’t read to my wishlist but I thought I’d also treat myself to one book. So guess which one did I go for?

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I’ve read countless reviews on this one and have heard it being recommended over and over again so I thought it’s time to give it a try. I just didn’t realize what a chunky book this is at 850 pages. Can I count this as two books? Just kidding.

Unfortunately I haven’t started it yet because, yes, I’m still trying to finish my mystery book. You’d think I wasn’t enjoying it and actually I quite like it, it’s Black Fly Season by Giles Blunt in case you were wondering, it’s just that my reading has been a bit slow going lately.

For now I’ve got my cup of tea ready, I’m all comfy and ready to finish Black Fly Season tonight.

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Art & Craft

iliana Nightstand February 14, 2010

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. My weekend was nice but just seemed to fly by. We had a great time checking out the Hatch Show Print exhibit at the AMOA.

Hatch Show Print is still a working letterpress and design shop creating posters today using the same lettepress methods they started with since the company was founded in 1879. Many of the posters we saw were for musicians, state fairs, vaudeville programs and picture shows.

I loved seeing the hand-carved wood blocks that were on display next to some of the posters. Such great work. I tell you, one of these days I really do want to take a class on letterpress. How fun would that be?

But that’s not all, today as my Valentine’s gift my husband got me a book that had been on my wish list since last year, Book + Art: Handcrafting Artists’ Books by Dorothy Simpson Krause. While there are instructions on making some book structures, this is really more about taking a blank book and making it your own by using a variety of mixed media techniques. Basically adding some meaningful content to your book structure.

I haven’t really tried doing much of this before, just a book here or there, and I don’t think I’ve even finished one so hopefully this book will inspire me to try again. I think what has stopped me in the past is that I haven’t really paid attention to what I would like to focus on for a project like this.

Anyway, so that’s the scoop. Oh yes, and I still need to finish my book for mystery book group night. So have a great start of the week everyone and more book talk soon.

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