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Laurence, Margaret. The Fire Dwellers. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1969. Print.

Sometime in September I realized that I had accidentally stopped reading fiction, and that I didn’t like not having a book by my bedside table to pick up at night.  (Non-fiction is no good for bedtime reading for me).  This was somewhere in my recommendations from LibraryThing, and I liked the idea of working my way through Laurence again.

I don’t know why I didn’t start at the beginning of her works, but perhaps I just took what was recommended.  In any case I think it’s quite possible that I had not read this book before.  Stacey MacAindra is a married mother of four in the 1960s, with a nice house and family and a hard-working husband.  Once I got used to the style of the book, where Laurence uses different formatting to interweave Stacey’s thoughts and flashbacks into the narration and conversation, I was drawn in to her life.  Once when I put the book down to turn out the light I commented to my husband that it was making me grateful for my life; Laurence so accurately and powerfully portrays the pain of the tiny, almost invisible hurts of a mid-century housewife.

Although there is drama on the periphery of the story, it’s not the focus.  What’s left unexplained didn’t bother me the way it does in other books; I think that’s Laurence’s genius.  The afterword of this edition, by Sylvia Fraser, is also excellent and worth reading.  Fraser quotes reviews of the book from when it came out (a particular unflattering one from a male CBC reviewer) and compares his predictions of the life of the book to its actual history.  Although it may have been denigrated by some for not having bigger or weightier subject matter, I agree with Fraser that the interior life of ordinary people is worthwhile material.

Woodbridge, Sally Byrne. Bernard Maybeck: Visionary Architect. New York: Abbeville, 1992. Print.

Maybeck was mentioned in the introduction of Jim Tolpin’s The New Cottage Home, and my interest was piqued enough to put this book on hold at the library.  As I recall, he was mentioned in the context of someone who greatly influenced American architecture early in the 20th century, being mentioned in the same breath as Greene and Greene, and Alexander Jackson Downing.

This book was interesting, but I wouldn’t say ultimately what I was hoping for.  I had hoped that by going further back I would find an architect who designed houses that actually worked, rather than artistic statements.  When I got to a building he designed that had the rafters poking out through the roof, shingled separately so that they looked like little birdhouses shooting out from the main roof, I had to put the book down.

In reading a later book I think reading about Greene and Greene might be the next logical step, although there might be a little too much choice in that case.  If you want to read about Maybeck, this does seem to be the definitive work.

Wing, Charles. The Visual Handbook of Building and Remodeling: a Comprehensive Guide to Choosing the Right Materials and Systems for Every Part of Your Home. Newtown, CT: Taunton, 2009. Print.

I could have sworn I’d recorded this book before, especially when I went through the list of building books I recorded last September.  I’m sure it was in that batch, but it must have either gotten missed, or was a little earlier than I started recording.

In any case, this book deserves to be recorded twice, but once will have to do!  As a visual learner, I benefit greatly from Wing’s careful illustrations.  He starts at the beginning, with site planning and diagrams of wind direction for the US, for example, and detailed charts showing exactly where you should plant what height of trees to block winter gale winds.  There is information on clearances for kitchens and baths, spans for various types of joists, R-values for insulation, and everything in between.  Some topics have installation tips and diagrams, although it’s intended more to help you decide what to use, not as a comprehensive guide to using it all.

Highly recommended for anyone building or renovating a new or old house.

Spence, William Perkins. Constructing Bathrooms. New York: Sterling Pub., 2001. Print.

I have to say this was an odd book.  The best thing about it is the miniature pedestal sink on the cover, unfortunately.  It came across as outdated, even though it’s only 10 years old.  The information was poorly organized, and many times discussions that I thought should be together were separated into two far-flung chapters (there were two different chapters with example floor plans, for instance).  His floor plans emphasized open space with no indication of how to make it look like anything other than a ballroom with fixtures.  The majority of the pictures appeared to be reprints from bathroom fixture manufacturers, rather than being of real bathrooms showing real layouts and ideas.  The balance of the photos were amateurish.

A disappointment, and not recommended.

Easy Upgrades: Bathrooms. New York, NY: Time Home Entertainment, 2010. Print.

I’m not sure why this book is called “Easy Upgrades”, although I assume it’s because it’s in a series of that title (there’s a kitchen one out now too).  It made me think it was going to be about quick and easy things you could do to update your bathroom *without* ripping everything out, but as you can see from the orange starburst saying “26 real-world BEFORE and AFTER Projects”, it’s really about gutting your bathroom and starting over.

Not totally, to be fair.  They did feature a few bathrooms where fixtures were retained, or stayed in the same place to save on plumbing costs.  In the main, though, it was a standard book on renovating your bathroom.  The content was good, the pictures great, and there were lots of useful ideas; just as you would expect from the “This Old House” people.  I’d look at it again but don’t need it on my shelf.

Sellery, Bruce. Moolala. ; Why Smart People Do Dumb Things with Their Money – And What You Can Do about It. McClelland & Stewart, 2011. Print.

I heard of this book through Ramit Sethi, a blogger who writes about money, both saving it and making it.  Sethi is big on the psychology of money, and recommended this as a book that will actually help, since it addresses that side of money management.

I got the book out of the library, read it in a week, and asked my husband to read it too.  When I had to return it after 9 weeks, I promptly put it on hold again, and I’ll have to take it back again tomorrow.  I plan to put it right back on hold again!  We’re working our way through it, chapter by chapter, reading it together and doing the exercises.

I like the way Sellery starts with motivation and accountability, which as a teacher I know makes all the difference if you actually want to get people to learn something or change their behaviour.  If I tell you that Sellery wants you to talk to your “community” as part of your financial planning, I risk making you not want to read the book, but it will illustrate how the advice is outside of what you normally get in a financial planning book.  Don’t worry, he gets into the guts of dealing with a financial advisor and ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds), so it’s useful all around.  Highly recommended.

James, P. D. The Black Tower. New York: Scribner, 1975. Print.

This is one of those books that I read unintentionally, just because my mother happened to leave it sitting out at their house.  I’ve heard James’ name, of course, but never happened to have read any of her books.  I’m not usually a big reader of mysteries.  Although I occasionally pick one up and usually enjoy them, it often seems like I’m missing something by not being familiar with the genre – I will miss details that an experienced reader would notice.  Since I don’t like feeling like an outsider, it keeps me from picking up another one until a year or two has passed.

I did like this book, though, about a police inspector in the UK (Adam Dalgliesch, whose name never really settled into a pronunciation in my mind) who goes to visit an old friend and finds he has recently died.  The inhabitants and staff of the big house nearby, which has been turned into a rest home, are the only real possibilities for suspects.  As usual there were clues which I didn’t pick up on, but I sympathized with many of the characters and disliked the ones I was supposed to, so the ending was satisfying.

Hartley-Brewer, Elizabeth. Raising Confident Boys: 100 Tips for Parents and Teachers. Cambridge, MA: Fisher, 2001. Print.

I liked how this books was arranged, with two-page spreads for each of 100 tips.  They were arranged into logical blocks in the chapters, with an introductory explanation for each chapter.  The second page for each tip was divided into two columns, with one for specific ideas for parents and the other for teachers.  Of course some nuances suffer when you force each tip to fit into exactly two pages, but in general it gave good digestible chunks that could be easily read and thought about on the subway.  I made many little notes picking out quotes I liked (e.g. “claiming they know it already or have no need to know are self-protection strategies”.)

There wasn’t really anything in here that I didn’t know already, but a lot of it was perfect reading material for the time I picked up the book, when I was over-stressed by boys at school and boys at home.  This book gave me perspective and little things I could change immediately, which both repaired my confidence and helped ease my day-to-day burden.  I would recommend it for any parent who is worried about their boy(s), although I think I found it less helpful as a teacher.

Nisbett, Jean, and Alec Nisbett. The Modern Dolls’ House. Lewes: Guild of Master Craftsman, 2004. Print.
I got this off the library shelf, wondering as usual whether they meant “modern” or, less likely, “Modern”.  It’s awkward having a style of architecture with a common word as its name, and decidedly inconvenient that the style is getting to be a century old now, so that “Modern” architecture is no longer actually modern.

Anyway, if I have totally confused you, this book would help.  It covers dollhouses decorated in 20th and 21st century styles, including Modern, Art Deco, Art Nouveau, 80s and 90s.  Because she goes into detail about what makes each style recognizable, it’s a good resource for me just learning about these architectural and design styles.

The book covers not just houses, but offices, stores, hotels, restaurants, and even a museum (a good idea if you have a bunch of miniatures of one type).  Quite early on in the book she discusses Edwardian exteriors and interiors, useful for me with my 1913 farmhouse and 1914 city house.  When she points out that floors were usually bare wood with a carpet square in the middle, for instance, the little light bulb goes on in my head pointing out that that’s why the wall-to-wall carpeting in our hallway has never looked quite right to me.

Now that I know that the style I’m looking for is called “Edwardian”, I have lots more books on hold at the library, and I’m indebted to Nesbitt!

Gabaldon, Diana. Drums of Autumn. New York: Delacorte, 1997. Print.

Since this is the fourth in a series, I would have thought I would have reviewed at least one of these before.  Searching shows not, though, so I apologize for the disconnection in this record.

I was given Outlander as a gift quite some time ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I had not heard of it, but it seems to have quite a fanatical following.  As an example, Amazon.ca tells me it’s #30440 in books, but LibraryThing ranks it 229 in popularity.  That says to me it’s popular with people who like books and like to write about them (i.e., people like me, I guess).

I think I can best describe it as a sprawling mix of fantasy, historical fiction, and romance.  The books do seem to be impressively well researched and detailed.  The next three have followed that pattern, and if I’m not mistaken they keep getting longer each time – there is no risk of Gabaldon running out of material, I think!  In the first book, the main character Claire accidentally walks through a standing stone circle and ends up 200 years in the past.  She falls in love with Jamie Fraser, in that kind of grand passion that occasionally has me rolling my eyes, but leads to lots of great adventures.  I did get annoyed in this book at a plot device that had a communication mistake lead to a long, drawn-out disagreement that took a couple of hundred pages to resolve.  But in general it was a good read, especially for summer.