Book completed

The Heroine’s Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture, by Gail Carriger. Evidently she’s a best-selling author of romance novels with monsters in them? This was a fun and interesting read. She contrasts the “hero’s journey” storyline with one based on several women’s stories from mythology and tells us that the “heroine’s journey” is about building connections and sharing the win. The hero/heroine label has to do with the type of journey, not the sex or gender of the characters – she uses the recent Wonder Woman movie as her example of the “hero’s journey” and Harry Potter as her example of the “heroine’s journey.” I expect I’ll write some related posts about this in my professional blog.

Book completed

Midnight Bargain, by C.L. Polk. Reread. This book was delightful, so I chose it for my recent bedtime reading. It’s set in a country much like Regency England, except that most men of standing are also sorcerers, having made a pact with a greater spirit that co-inhabits their body and does helpful things at their bidding. Women can’t do that, at least not during childbearing years, however, because a greater spirit would automatically possess the child they carry instead, and in their country that’s a capital crime for the child and its mother. So, upon marriage, women are required to wear a magic-muting collar that also mutes their emotions, basically causing mild depression.

Beatrice is having none of that. She wants to be a sorcerer, just like any man, and makes the lesser bargain with a spirit to help her get there. She needs a particular book to learn how to get a greater spirit, though, since she has no access to the magical school for young men – but when she finds the book, politeness requires she surrender it to another young woman who wants it. The other young woman, Ysbeta, also wants to be a sorcerer. Ysbeta is extremely wealthy, and Beatrice befriends her not only to get access to the book but also because the connection would be great for her father’s business. Meanwhile, Ysbeta has a brother who is gorgeous, also rich, with an ideal personality sympathetic to the female perspective, and who falls head over heels in love with Beatrice. But Beatrice can’t marry him because of that collar problem.

Or can she? Can Beatrice and Ysbeta really have it all?

It’s very entertaining, and the first time I read it I laughed out loud when I read the author’s concluding note, which included the phrase “Pokémon, but make it Jane Austen.”.

Book completed

The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World, by E.L. Konigsburg. I guess this one's part of my ongoing background project to read more of her books; I didn't know anything about it. I was surprised that it was sort of a sequel to the book set on Schuyler Place with the strange towers of art; that is, the main character's parents got married at the end of that one and later divorced. In this one, our guy has just moved to Florida and decides he wants to help with the big project of sorting through his neighbor's mansion full of stuff so she can move to a retirement community. She's a former opera star and a generally entertaining character. Meanwhile, there's something going on about the Nazi art thefts. The story was a bit contrived but also reasonably unconventional, which made it worthwhile.

Day 1174: College Hill

Today's adventure was J's eye doctor appointment. He wanted to check the prescription on his glasses and also he'd like to try contact lenses, since wearing a fencing mask for sword class while he's got glasses on is no fun. Since he was going to have dilated eyes and it's pretty bright outside anyway, I drove him. And while he was doing his eye exam, I went on a walk in the neighborhood.

The eye doctor is at the base of the middle of the east side of College Hill, a generally fancy neighborhood about ten blocks by maybe six blocks. It's named for some long ago college, not the university. I walked up the hill to a dead end and found a pretty little path to the next street:



When I arrived at the little path, I saw a small Steller's jay playing with a scrub jay! Normally the two types of jays are in different neighborhoods. Maybe they were just harassing each other rather than playing; it's probably hard to tell the difference with jays. They didn't stay still to be photographed.

Emerging on the other end of the path, I found that I was in the neighborhood where one of D's friends lived while in high school. There were lots of flowers today; also lots of kids were walking home from the nearby middle school.



Eventually I went back down the hill, where I saw a second unusual sight - a rose bush growing up through what looked to be a peach tree - the rose was about 15' tall!