01. This weekend I went to three different book stores and didn't buy anything -- a feat nothing sort of REMARKABLE. Here are some of the things I thought about buying:

• A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore -- Lorrie Moore is like one of my all-time favorite authors. It's killing me that this -- her new novel -- has been out since September and I still haven't read it! Seriously! I am dying!
• Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
• The Collected Works of Flannery O'Connor
• The Wild Things by Dave Eggers (my boyfriend and I saw this movie this weekend, I gave it a 3 out of 5 stars, he gave it a 3 out of 4 stars).

02. I'm in love with the photography for the new Dear Creatures lookbook. Expect stuff made with these soon! (via Oh Joy!)

03.I know I've mentioned Caitlin Shearer on here before, but I just wanted to say that I've really been enjoying her blog, Caitlin Quiet, lately. & though it's been a few months since it was last updated, I'm also really digging her artist interview project, Priviledge House.

04. What is your favorite thing to eat? Mine is probably soup. Now that the weather is getting cold, I've been craving soup like nobody's business. Favorite soups include: tomato soup, lentil soup, wedding soup, tortilla soup, sopa azteca, and many, many more. Do you have any soup recipes that you think I should try?

05. I am deeply, deeply coveting pretty much everything in Septembear's Etsy shop. Rebecca also has a very sweet blog here.

It is dreary out today -- dreary, cold, rainy. It's a perfect day to stay inside and read (right now I'm about halfway through A Natural History of Unicorns, it's the first non-fiction book I've read in awhile (that doesn't fall under the category of "memoir") and I'm really enjoying it.) Anyway, I've love to stay inside and read, but I have to attend a work function tonight, which means that I have roughly 30 minutes to make this post happen.

I read Suzanne Berne's novel A Crime in the Neighborhood this past summer. I purchased a used copy on a whim because I liked the small size (but sturdy feel) of the hardback edition and because I was intrigued by this blurb on the inside front cover:

How do crimes that we witness or commit as children continue to haunt us years later? Can we ever escape the wrongs we've done, or the wrongs done to us? Marsha Eberhardt, a child of the seventies -- of the first generation to grow up believing there's no such thing as "good" government, "safe" neighborhoods, or "stable" families -- finds herself turning this question over and over in her mind.

A Crime in the Neighborhood is the story of Marsha, a young girl coming of age in the 1970's whose neighborhood is rocked by the molestation and murder of a local boy. In the typical fashion of a young girl, Marsha finds herself consumed by the incident, determined to bring someone, anyone to justice.

Here's an excerpt from the first chapter. Because it deals with graphic, potentially triggering themes, I've placed it ( under a cut. )

& of course we have last week's recs/recently read books...

hensfourth is reading The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
wicked_liz recs Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr and Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
glitteringkiss recs Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
anotherplay recs The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll, The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, and Secret Scribbled Notebooks by Joanne Horniman

As always, feel free to recommend favorite books and recent reads in the comments!

I've posted about Amy Earles once before (actually, it was just over a year ago, you can see the post here). At first I wasn't sure that I wanted to duplicate content here, but then I thought, "Yeah, it's the same artist, but the art is all new," & Amy is one of my favorites & the last post on her work got a pretty good response, so, you know, why not? I know I'm interested in what Amy's been up to & I hope that you are too.

I was browsing Amy's blog as well as her Flickr and whoa! She has some really gorgeous fall/Halloween projects posted &, just like her previous work, everything is beautiful with some unsettling, dark undertones.

The above piece ("Bee Saint") isn't Halloween themed, but I plucked it off of Amy's Flickr because I loved the way it looked -- the references to religious iconography, the hive as the heart... I would love to see a finished version of this!

Anyway, some more work by Amy is ( under the cut, some not safe for work. )

I also whipped up a few friends only banners and a measly two icons. You can find them ( under this cut. )

Lastly, I have three profile codes. Feel free to edit anything you'd like on the codes (banners, fonts, colors, etc.) If you have questions about how to use the codes or if you tried to use one & it looks funny, feel free to comment here and I'll do what I can to help you out.



Up above you can see a sample code, the rest of the codes (& the html you need to install them) are ( under the cut. )

If you use any of these icons, banners, codes, etc., please be sure to credit Amy Earles and lemonadepoem. Thanks! Also, if you'd like to own work by Amy, check out her Etsy shop.

01. Gorgeous letter press prints of state birds (and other whimsical things) at Dutch Door Press on Etsy. (via Oh Joy!)

02. On Thursday night I saw Sufjan Stevens at one of my favorite small concert venues. The show was, as I had hoped it might be, pretty remarkable. I got to hear some old favorites like "Casimir Pulaski Day" and "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" but was also blown away by some awesome new songs, particularly "There's Too Much Love" which you can hear at I Guess I'm Floating (you can listen to the track via streaming audio or you can watch a video of Sufjan performing). For more on the Sufjan show, you can check out Side Ponytail.

03. The Wall Street Journal's recent article Girls and Dieting, Then and Now checks in on girls who were interviewed regarding body images back in 1986, when they were in the fourth grade. (via Nubby Twiglet)

04. You may have already heard, but Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer's Body) has secured the rights to a film adaptation of Sweet Valley High. Honestly, I'm pretty bummed about this, mainly because I'm not a huge Cody fan. Anyway, for those of who have a lingering attachment to Sweet Valley, definitely check out the Dairi Burger on WordPress. The Dairi Burger turns a critical eye to SVH &, occasionally, other young adult media (including YA serial fiction as well as television).

05. While some of the recent blogs on Bitch have left me cold, I am all about the most recent blog in their smART series on women artists. If you're interested in photography, be sure to read this post on Carrie May Weems, it's really, truly amazing.

So, it's been over a month since the last Summer Reading Society post. I really wish that I could've done more with the SRS, but starting my new job & moving basically took over my life with very little warning. But, if there's one thing to be gained from a house with no television and inadequate/unstable internet access, it's an abundance of reading time. I just finished reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog and started Watership Down, which I'm already really enjoying (maybe because I love rabbits?).

Anyway, I was really struggling with a book to post about today, mainly because I want to make sure that I restrict my posts to books I've actually read (ideally more than once) and really enjoyed. I usually end up sitting on the floor in front of my book shelves for awhile thinking, "Is this readable? Would I want to actually tell someone to read this?" and blah, blah, blah. The truth is, when I am left inconsolable and want to take my mind off of things I tend to turn to books I loved when I was young & many of the books I loved when I was young were written by Roald Dahl.

The Witches is a particular favorite of mine -- I can't count how many times I've read it. I love the story of a young boy and his grandmother, a witch hunter, and their quest to bring down the grand high witch. I love Dahl's absurd humor and Quentin Blake's remarkable illustrations. Really, if you didn't read this as a kid, read it now, and if you read it as a kid, read it again. For now, here's chapter one.

A Note About Witches:

In fairy-tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks, and they ride around on broomsticks.

But this is not a fairy-tale. This is about REAL WITCHES.

The most important thing you should know about REAL WITCHES is this. Listen very carefully. Never forget what is coming next.

REAL WITCHES dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women. They live in ordinary houses and they work in ORDINARY JOBS.

That is why they are so hard to catch.

A REAL WITCH spends all her time plotting to get rid of the children in her particular territory. Her passion is to do away with them, one by one. It is all she thinks about the whole day long. Even if she is working as a cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman or driving round in a fancy car (and she could be doing any of these things), her mind will always be plotting and scheming and churning and burning and whizzing and phizzing with murderous bloodthirsty thoughts.

"Which child," she says to herself all day long, "exactly which child shall I choose for my next squelching?"

A REAL WITCH gets the same pleasure from squelching a child as you get from eating a plateful of strawberries and thick cream.

She reckons on doing away with one child a week. Anything less than that and she becomes grumpy.

One child a week is fifty-two a year.

Squish them and squiggle them and make them disappear.

That is the motto of all witches.

Very carefully a victim is chosen. Then the witch stalks the wretched child like a hunter stalking a little bird in the forest. She treads softly. She moves quietly. She gets closer and closer. Then at last, when everything is ready... phwisst!... and she swoops! Sparks fly. Flames leaps. Oil boils. Rats howl. Skin shrivels. And the child disappears.

A witch, you must understand, does not knock children on the head or stick knives into them or shoot at them with a pistol. People who do those things get caught by the police.

A witch never gets caught. Don't forget that she has magic in her fingers and devilry dancing in her blood. She can make stones jump about like frogs and she can make tongues of flame go flickering across the surface of the water.

These magical powers are very frightening.

Luckily, there are not a great number of REAL WITCHES in the world today. But there are still quite enough to make you nervous. In England, there are probably about one hundred of them altogether. Some countries have more, others have no quite so many. No country in the world is completely free from WITCHES.

A witch is always a woman.

I do not wish to speak badly about women. Most women are lovely. But the fact remains that all witches are women. There is no such thing as a male witch.

On the other hand, a ghoul is always a male. So indeed is a barghest. Both are dangerous. But neither of them is half as dangerous as a REAL WITCH.

As far as children are concerned, a REAL WITH is easily the most dangerous of all the living creatures on earth. What makes her doubly dangerous is the fact that she doesn't look dangerous. Even when you know all the secrets (you will hear about those in a minute), you can still never be quite sure whether it is a witch you are gazing at or just a kind lady. If a tiger were able to make himself look like a large dog with a waggy tail, you would probably go up and pat him on the head. And that would be the end of you. It is the same with witches. They all look like nice ladies.

Kindly examine the picture opposite. Which lady is the witch? That is a difficult question, but it is one that every child must try to answer.

For all you know, a witch might be living next door to you right now.

Or she might be the woman with the bright eyes who sat opposite you on the bus this morning.

She might be the lady with the dazzling smile who offered you a sweet from the white paper bag in the street before lunch.

She might even -- and this will make you jump -- she might even be your lovely school-teacher who is reading these words to you at this very moment. Look carefully at that teacher. Perhaps she is smiling at the absurdity of such a suggestion. Don't let that put you off. It could be part of her cleverness.

I am not, of course, telling you for one second that your teacher actually is a witch. All I am saying is that she might be one. It is most unlikely. But -- and here comes the big "but" -- it is not impossible.

Oh, if only there were a way of telling for sure whether a woman was a witch or not, then we could round them all up and put them in the meat-grinder. Unhappily, there is no such way. But there are a number of little signals you can look out for, little quirky habits that all witches have in common, and if you know about these, if you remember them always, then you might just possibly manage to escape from being squelched before you are very much older.

So that's that! Now, as usual, I want to know what all of you have been reading! Comment with your most recent read or the best book you read over the summer. I'll post everyone's recs next Wednesday.

(The image used for the header is by Nury Lee!)

Another post? So soon? I know! I'm surprised myself. I'm really trying to get back into the swing of regular posting, so we'll see how it goes. Anyway, today I have several pieces by Unity Coombes, all of them culled from her absolutely gorgeous Flickr photostream. The above (called "Six Women Who Love Buddy Holly" or something like that) is one of my favorites. Unity's work is largely inspired by 1950's Britain and you can see more of it on her website. Unity also has a Folksy shop featuring postcards and buttons.

( Some more work by Unity )

Finally! After all this time! An art post! (A quick scroll through recent entries reveals that I haven't posted any artwork since July. For shame!) Full disclosure: I'm not quite up to icon making just set, but hopefully you'll see the return of icons and profile codes and things like that soon.

Anyway, today I'm posting water colors by Sister Planet (honestly, I have no clue what her real name is, Sister Planet appears to be what she's going by on Flickr, though, so we'll just work with that). All of these pieces are from her New Wave set, which I am basically in love with. (Honestly, one of the big reasons I haven't posted much art recently is because I haven't seen much that's really made me stop and go, "Oh my god, I love that!" but oh my god, I love this!) So, here are a few of my selected favorites and if you'd like to see more, check out Sister Planet's Flickr. Sadly, I couldn't find a link to an Etsy shop or a webpage, so you'll have to content yourself with what she's posted on Flickr.

( More by Sister Planet )

Whoa, it's been nearly a month since the last Sunday Sundries! I'm so sorry about my poor internetting skills -- as I've said (over and over), I'm still negotiating a new job and a new home. My housemates and I still haven't invested in our own internet connection (hopefully this week!), but I'm trying to use my spare time to: listen to records, read more, and try my hand at embroidery.

01. I'm sure you've heard the news, but there's an impending Pavement reunion! I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about this (initially excited, then wary about some crummy Pixies-style argumentative money-grubbing reunion tour), but my boyfriend and I have bought tickets for the fourth (and final, at least, as of right now) New York show and my excitement is on the rise. For those of you new to Pavement, check out the video for their classic single "Cut Your Hair". You can also check out this post (visible to members only) for Pavement's album, Terror Twilight.

02. Lately my boyfriend and I have been discussing the whole deal with Courtney Love licensing Kurt Cobain's image to Activision for use in a Guitar Hero game. I really recommend checking out this post on the Bitch website for an interesting take on Courtney Love's handling of Cobain's estate that draws a neat parallel between Love and Yoko Ono. I thought that this bit was especially thought provoking:

Fanboys refusing to believe, on some level, that these mere wives had a more important connection and a more intimate knowledge of their favorite rock stars (the kind of connection that comes with, say, sleeping in the same bed with someone, and swapping spit on a regular basis, and using the same bathtub, and raising a child together) than they, the fans, do - that they might have more of a vested interest, more of a right to the estate than anyone else. Fans being outraged that their attitude toward their husbands is not one of unlimited deference, that they have not become reverent priestesses of the Great Man. (In point of fact, neither of the Great Men were apparently all that reverent about their own music; Lennon didn't believe in Beatles, after all, and Kurt Cobain thought the Weird Al Yankovic parody of "Teen Spirit" was hilarious.) It's openly misogynist, this stuff. And I suggest to you that Cobain and Lennon, who were both feminists, would have been more disappointed in it than anyone else.

03.My boyfriend is a big Yo La Tengo fan, which is why we ended up renting Adventureland (Yo La Tengo handled the music for the film). Honestly, I wasn't expecting to like it, but I thought it was a really sweet & well-handled coming of age story that also happened to be pretty funny. I don't think that the trailer accurately represents the tone (or quality) of the movie overall, but you can check it out on the official site if you're so inclined. And, oh my god, the soundtrack is so, so good (Replacements, Big Star, Husker Du, Lou Reed).

04. Do yourself a favor and buy some letterpress from the Cloudy Collection.

05. I know I mentioned it in a previous post, but in case you missed it, I've been blogging about music here. I'll still be posting music to this community, but expect to see more over at Side Ponytail.

First off, I'm sorry that there weren't any posts this week! I'm working full time and getting ready to move, so my days (and nights) have been super-hectic. Right now I'm actually taking a break from cleaning my weight in dustbunnies and old year books out from under my bed so that I can move it to my new place. Hopefully when I'm all settled, I'll be posting like crazy again!

01. I know I've linked to community member xseitanistx's fabulous blog XveganXparty before, but I'm going to do it again & no one here can stop me! Seriously, her recent posts have been blowing my mind! Check out her post on picnics (with suggestions for snowday picnics, romantic picnics, picnics in secret forts, and more), her recipe for homemade vegan pop tarts, and her tips on surviving as a vegan during your college years.

02. Speaking of xseitanistx, a week or two ago she sent me an e-mail pointing out this great post at Pikaland about Natalie Perkins' magazine doodles. Natalie's work is too cute -- with just a touch of self-consciousness and acerbic wit.

03. Also via Pikaland, I am loving the illustrated quotes on Quoteskine.

04. My latest musical joy has been the Smith Westerns. I saw them play a show with Los Campesinos! and Girls a couple of weeks ago (Girls are also a real delight) and have had their songs in my head ever since. Their LP is out now on Hozac records and I definitely suggest giving it a spin.

05. &, of course, how could I talk about dust bunnies and moving without talking about My Neighbor Totoro? Totoro was a favorite childhood movie of mine & I still love to watch it every now and then, especially on dismal, rainy days. Here's one of my favorite cleaning/moving related scenes.

01. Amazing crocheted food by Kate Jenkins! Unfortunately, you can't link directly to images, but my favorites are the stitch berry jam and Kate's breakfast plate. Absolutely fabulous work! (via Drawn!)

02. 20x200 is one of my favorite places to buy artwork and they just released two fabulous new prints by Jill Bliss. You can buy them here and I can tell you what, they are going fast! If you're a Jill Bliss fan, this is a great chance for you to snap up some economically priced artwork.

03. My Love for You is a Stampede of Horses has just posted a selection of new work by Catherine Ryan and it is fabulous! I'm especially entranced by the last two pieces.

04. Yesterday morning I went to one of my favorite local record stores and picked up tickets to Sufjan Stevens' now sold-out fall tour (well, not entirely sold out -- you can still get tickets for the Portland show, but who knows how long that will last?) Anyway, in celebration, here's a video of Sufjan and the Illinoisemakers from way back when performing "Jacksonville."



05. A Journey Round My Skull is my new favorite blog for random, surrealistic images. Everything is drawn from books -- book covers, inside illustrations, etc., and there is some really amazing stuff to be found.

06. Lastly, I am super-stoked about the return of Mad Men tonight -- it's one of the few tv shows that I actually commit to watching as it airs (it's been that way since it starting airing two years ago!) -- so I was totally psyched when RMJ over at Deeply Problematic posted a Mad Men reading list aggregating recent posts that seek to critically address Mad Man.

I hope you're all having a great weekend & I'll see you during the week with regular posts.