Harry Potter party favor: pretzel wands

I'm no Pinterest queen, but my friend Dana wanted to have a Harry Potter birthday party for her daughter. Now, you can find tons of Star Wars and Frozen party supplies, but since the Harry Potter books and movies have been out for years, their product licenses haven't been renewed, and hardly any party stores have any HP materials. So it's a DIY party for the most part--our local grocery store does do HP cakes with plastic figures on them, so they've apparently kept paying the license fee.

Anyway, I made wands for each Hogwarts house, dipped in white chocolate and then rolled them in sugar or sprinkles showing the main color of their house's crest--red for Gryffindor, green for Slytherin, blue for Ravenclaw and yellow for Hufflepuff. I also rolled some in rainbow sprinkles for any Hogwarts faculty, parents or random Muggles who wander by.

I also printed out each house's crest, and the main Hogwarts logo, and taped them on the glasses for each house.

Dana bought some of those gold-foil wrapped Ferraro Rocher hazelnut-chocolate candies and cut out a pair of wings for each one. Voila, golden snitch!

Pop some pop culture under your tree

Need a holiday gift? How about giving a childhood friend Brian Bellmont's and my two pop-culture books? The perfect present for the best pal who buried your Barbie out back, or fought with you over Shrinky Dinks, or shared a Marathon bar with you.

The books are "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," and "The Totally Sweet '90s," and I'd love for you to buy one or both.

Windows into the future

My latest review for The Seattle Review of Books is of the Microsoft Research-inspired "Future Visions." My favorite line is " And then, thanks to PowerPoint, we successfully shut down Dr. Evil’s killer robot!” But kidding aside, the sci-fi anthology is excellent, and free.

Here's my writeup.

My second favorite line is the 3M reference, amiright, Minnesotans?

Life seen through a View-Master

So I'm back in the freelance-writing game after being laid off from NBC earlier in the year. My first story is. of course, something related to retro toys. I review the biography of William Gruber, who invented the View-Master, as written by his daughter, Gretchen. It's in the Seattle Review of Books.

 As I note numerous times in the review, don't expect a lot about the toy--it's a book about the inventor, not the invention. Still, he led an interesting life--and once belonged to the Nazi party, and was later investigated by the FBI for that and other pro-German leanings.

The book is "View Master: The Biography of William B. Gruber," and you can get the Kindle version for less than $5.

Rave review for 'The True Meaning of Smekday'

So Kelly and I saw the newish kids' movie "Home" twice, and it's hilarious and sweet, with Jim Parsons' dorky Sheldon voice just perfect as the oddball alien, and Rihanna and J.Lo surprisingly good in their parts as well.

Turns out it's based on a children's chapter book called, "The True Meaning of Smekday" by Adam Rex, which is awesome and worth a purchase and read in its own right. Kelly and I were reading it aloud last night and Rob kept overhearing lines and laughing out loud.

Don't think if you've seen "Home," you've read the book. It's very different from the movie--same general plot, but the book goes off in so many wonderful different directions and has so many hilarious jokes. The character voiced by Parsons is called Oh in the movie, ("I have been given this name by my many, many friends," he brags, as they cut to a montage of other Boov moaning "oh...." in disgust as he shows up.) But in the book, he announces that his Boov name cannot be pronounced by humans who don't have two heads, so he selects the name "J.Lo." Which makes the fact that J.Lo ends up playing Tip's mother ("My-mom!") all the funnier.

The main character, Tip, writes it as a series of essays telling future humans about the Boov invasion ("Smekday" is what they rename Christmas, after their leader, Smek.), and that format helps make it so delightfully quotable.

Examples: "At the time, I lived in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was on the eastern side of the United States. The United States was this big country where everybody wore funny T-shirts and ate too much."

"I had learned to drive our car short distances by nailing cans of corn to my church shoes so I could reach the pedals. I made a lot of mistakes at first, and if anyone was walking on the sidewalk at 49th and Pine after dark on March 3rd, 2013, I owe you an apology."

If your kid is anywhere in the 6-11 age bracket, read this to them or with them, whether or not you see "Home." You will want to come into the out now.

Between the crosses, row on row

Now this, people, is a book dedication.

It's from Frances Parkinson Keyes' wonderful "Came a Cavalier," which I'm now reading, and though it's out-of-print, you can buy it for all of one penny (plus shipping) at Amazon.

Here's just one Amazon review:

"Some books are destined to become timeless from the moment they are written. Came a Cavalier is one of them. Having read this as a pre-teen, it has stuck in my mind all these years. I often tried to remember the name of it but was so young when I'd read it that I had no idea the author was so famous for her books. I often tried to find it, but had little details other than "a young American nurse in WWI", which immediately made people say "Never heard of it" thinking perhaps, that WW I had been so long ago, they couldn't possibly have read anything about it. However, I lucked out when someone recognized my few details and led me to the title and author. I immediately went to Amazon hoping that they could get it for me and lucked out again. I sat down and re-read the entire thing in 2 evenings, lost back in the lives of Constance and Tristan, the terrible losses they incurred, the deep devotion for each other and their home and the far away days when I myself was only a young girl enjoying a "grown up" book. The story line itself is filled with every human emotion, the characters so true to life that each one you will already recognize as someone in your own lives; their habits, their foibles, their attitudes are familiar to all of us. Ms. Keyes makes stories come to life and the events of World War I may now only seem to be a few lines in history books, but the cruelties, the horrible loss of men, the leading up to World War II and the atrocities committed against the people of France, the traitors, the heroes...they are all here in this wonderful book. If I had a daughter I would see that she read this for simple enjoyment and received a lesson in history at the same time. Thank you Amazon for carrying not only the "new" authors, but the well loved and long enjoyed ones too!"

You may also find reading about the author to be pretty fascinating -- I did. (I keep pronouncing "Keyes" as if it's "keys," but apparently it rhymes with "skies.") I find a certain peace in the older books, reminding us that our ancestors came through world wars, and surely we can get through our own issues, big and small. Now I want to read all of her other books as well.

Yes & No Books, for ages 7-77

Oh man, did I spend a lot of boring car trips engrossed in these invisble-ink yes and no books

They're no Minecraft, kids, but we old folks had simpler tastes. Get off mah lawn.

78-year-olds, sorry, you're too old for these. YOU KNOW THE RULES. THEY'RE RIGHT THERE ON THE COVER!

Tales from the killing streets

OK, even if you think you don't like true-crime (which ... this isn't, in the traditional sense), you need to read "Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America," by Jill Leovy (she was on "The Daily Show" in January).

Both Rob and I are reading it, and I just can't put it down. Reminiscent in some ways of David Simon's "Homicide" -- it's the tale of one murder, yes, but it's wrapped in a thoroughly reported and fascinating look at policing in South Central, racism in America, violence in the inner city, and the personal stories of numerous people whose lives have intersected under a sunny sky in a bloody paradise.

Don't miss it.

Hobbes ol' buddy, let's go exploring

I've been in a Calvin and Hobbes mood lately, and was thrilled to learn that "Exploring Calvin and Hobbes: An Exhibition Catalog" will be published in March.

It's an accompaniment for a 2014 Ohio museum exhibit, but you can bet that plenty of us who just miss the little guy and his tiger buddy will be picking it up even if we've never set foot in the Buckeye State. And the title is extra-awesome because not only does it suggest exploring the whole world of that wonderful strip, but because it's a nod to the final line in the final strip, published in 1995.

That damn Giving Tree and other kids' books

I haven't read all of these to Kelly, but I'm sure familiar with them all. And the writer gets bonus points for a) being an unemployed parent of a 7-year-old, like me, b) some fairly classic Memphis and "Barney Miller" gags, and c) aptly explaining the difficulties of getting your kid to understand the puns in "Amelia Bedelia." Kids who've never heard of dusting powder or dressing a chicken start looking at you funny around the third page.

Choose your own Choose your own Adventure movie

There's going to be a Choose Your Own Adventure movie? Loved those books. They're mentioned in our first book, "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops?"

You can still buy Choose Your Own Adventures -- even for Kindle.

Come aboard, we're expecting you

Love this: Captain Stubing (Gavin McLeod, also Murray Slaughter) has a perfectly named book coming out in October: "This Is Your Captain Speaking."

Ann Rule suing Seattle Weekly

So Ann Rule is suing one of our city's local alt weeklies over an article written by the fiance of one of the killers she wrote about. This is such an odd story. I read the book and the fiance's defensive article and come on! He's her FIANCE. What is he going to say? Hardly an objective opinion.

I will always love Ann Rule -- no one has mastered the tricky true-crime genre like she has. And that is one bloody awful caricature of her.

A new Donna Tartt book!

Many of you know that "The Secret History" is my all-time favorite book. (Did NOT like "The Little Friend.")

Anyway, Donna Tartt has a NEW BOOK coming out Oct. 3, "The Goldfinch." Please please let it be more like TSH and less like TLF...

The plot sounds promising...

"It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art. 

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a novel of shocking narrative energy and power. It combines unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and breathtaking suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher's calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is a beautiful, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate."

Apparently Tartt herself is charming and self-deprecating when speaking.

Library without books

On the Gen Xtinct Facebook page and in Brian's and my books, we focus on things that are slipping out of our lives, from pay phones and pen pals to metal lunchboxes.

Here's another one I honestly didn't see coming: Benilde-St. Margaret's, a Catholic high school not far from the one I attended in the Twin Cities, has hardly any books and magazines in its library. Kids don't use books for research any more, they use computers.

I get it, but it's one of those moments that screams, TIMES ARE CHANGING.

Still waiting for the next 'Secret History'

If you know me at all, you know that I am semi-obsessed with Donna Tartt's "Secret History." (Her second book, "The Little Friend," was dullllllll, while I've read "Secret History" approximately a jillion times.)

I've been waiting for her to write something along the lines of TSH again, and am so sickly obsessed that this little news item on Galley Cat made me happy because even though there's no publication date, at least there's word that she's writing, and a cool-sounding plot summary.

"The new novel, as yet untitled, is a story of loss and obsession about a young man, guilt-stricken and damaged after the death of his mother, and the growing power that a stolen piece of art exercises over him, drawing him into an underworld of theft and corruption where nothing is as it seems."

Book I can't put down

I've been addicted to reading only books I can get on my iPhone Kindle app these days, but here's a 1300-page book that I bought as a used paperback and cannot put down, and stayed up till 2 a.m. reading last night. Highest recommendation I'm handing out these days, plus it's cheap and easy to find at your local library or thrift store.

I adored Anton Myrer's "Last Convertible" years ago -- it's a beautiful tale of young friends in a lost time. But now I'm deep into Myrer's "Once an Eagle," a breathtaking book about, of all things, a professional soldier, who gets his start before WW 1 and is exactly the kind of military man you want every single military man (or woman) to be. Brilliant. A fevered student of history. Willing to look at warfare as a chess game, seeing many moves ahead. Brave. Loyal. No fan of fighting for fighting's sake, but willing to do the tough things in order to bring an end to the war he's in.

One of the critics calls this book "America's War and Peace." It's required reading for many West Pointers. The New York Times wrote that "for the military, it was not just a book, but a revelation."

There's also a miniseries, apparently, with Sam Eliot as the hero, Sam Damon. And a fan page that has clips from it.

Read it. Then read "Last Convertible." Between them, they may take months, but you'll love having books that you can't wait to get back to. They're old-fashioned, none of this post-modernist style or artsy writing, but you'll keep compulsively turning pages till you've turned them all.

When writers collide

For a while, I was all but obsessed with Melanie Thernstrom's "The Dead Girl," the book she wrote about the murder of her high school best friend, Bibi Lee.

She also wrote "Halfway Heaven," about a murder at Harvard where a student from Africa murdered her roommate, from Vietnam, because she felt her moving away from her and desperately wanted a friend.

But I was floored to come across Thernstrom's name in this Beth Karas story, about plaigiarist Steven Glass, and to find her not only defending him, but having chosen him as godfather to her children. Reading it does give you a picture of Glass that you certainly don't get from the Hayden Christiansen portrayal in "Shattered Glass." His parents sound cold and horrible, though they do not speak to defend themselves in the article, so who knows?

What I'm reading

I'm reading a little bit of everything these days.

Dan turned me on to Michael Crichton's "Micro," which is about an evil company that can shrink people, and very reminiscent of a more violent "Dr. Shrinker." It was written from notes found in Crichton's archives after he died, and it's not quite like one of his books, and as such, it feels off somehow, but it's not bad.

I finally went back and read books 2 and 3 of "The Hunger Games" series, "Catching Fire" and "Mockingjay." Was not crazy about the first "Hunger Games" book but kind of made myself read the second one and then couldn't wait for the third. Nice thing about ebooks, you can just snatch it up right when you get done with the preceding book, no matter what time of night it is or where you are.

Life and death in Formula 1

My husband Rob is a Formula 1 junkie, and I bet he'd heartily enjoy this book: The Limit: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit

Which reminds me: If you haven't seen the movie "Senna," rent or borrow or buy it, even if you know nothing about Formula 1. It's crazy good.