A few good, recently published books

I’ve gotten quite behind in posting links to the books I’ve been reviewing for 1776 Productions (the company who publishes monthly book review newspapers in San Francisco, Sacramento, and San Antonio).   I want to catch up a little so I can rave about some of the books I’m currently reading for upcoming issues.  For time’s sake, I’m just going to post links to reviews I wrote of books I really enjoyed reading.

Published November 2009

Published September 2009

Published September 2009

Published November 2009

Published July 2009

If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy reading:

Favorite books of 2009

July’s edition of the Sacramento Book Review

A sight few have seen?

A Joshua Tree with a rare accessory: snow

Last week here in the Inland Empire, it rained and rained and rained and rained.  Despite growing up and attending college in the two most notoriously rainy states, I’ve only twice seen rain as hard as I did last week.  (If you must know, those times were in on the coast in Virginia during hurricane season and in the middle of Wyoming in the middle of the summer).  The desert soil is out here is just not suited for that kind of precipitation and the roads at my work flooded in seconds and there was even talk of tornadoes. 

A lot of rain in the L.A. basin and Inland Empire means a lot of snow in the San Bernardino Mountains, which are just 45 miles from where we live in Redlands.  Eric and I went to bed Friday night dreaming of powder, and lots of it. 

6 a.m. Saturday morning: the roads to the mountains were closed.

7 a.m. : still closed

8 a.m.: still closed

9 a.m.: we got the hint

We went out to Joshua Tree National Park instead, prepared for a nice long, light, fast hike.   Little did we know, we’d be hiking in the snow in the middle of the desert where just two weekends ago we were rock climbing in t-shirts.  It was wonderful.

A closer look at the snowy beauty

Favorite books of 2009

On this last day of 2009, I want to share some of my favorite books that I read in the past year, a year in which I’ve read like a fiend.  Once I began my new job in May, the length of my commute was enough that I was finishing a book on tape every week.  I reviewed new books for the Sacramento Book Review magazine, sometimes up to eight a month.   Plus, with the Eric and I spent at the beach this summer, I was starting and finishing novels in the course of a weekend.

I don’t know the exact number of books I read this year because I can’t remember them all (New Year’s Resolution #1: keep a book list) but from the quick brainstorm estimate, the number has to be near 75.  Here are my favorites:

Favorite books that I reviewed and were published this year:
Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner  (women’s fiction)
The Palace of Strange Girls by Sallie Day   (literature)
Perfect Fifths by Megan McCafferty  (crossover young adult/ women’s fiction)
Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick (young adult)

Favorite literary book:
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Favorite chicklit book:
Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger

Second favorite chicklit book:
Something Blue by Emily Giffin

Favorite chicklit author:
Megan McCafferty for the last three of her now five book Jessica Darling series (I will definitely read the first two in 2010)

Favorite literary author:
Gearldine Brooks for both March and The People of the Book

Favorite non fiction book: 
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

What were your favorite books you read in 2009?  Do you have any new favorite authors?

New Zealand Natural

New Zealand Natural ice cream parlor in Huntington Beach, California.

It’s probably a naughty and sidetracked thing I’m doing right now, writing a blog entry when I’m supposed to be only working on my book, but a scoop of ice cream this weekend moved me to write a post.  Besides, Eric had to work on Saturday and Sunday (because of the big Station Fire north of Los Angeles) and I had two days of dedicated work on the book.  And, now, I’m a quarter of the way through the tedious second-draft editing. 

Well, to be technical, I’ve finished editing Chapter 8, which would be a quarter if there were 32 chapters in the book, but there are actually 33 chapters, and that’s before I added “Chapter 6a” between Chapters 6 and 7.  So without the use of a calculator, where does that leave me?  Exactly.  Which is why I’m calling this the successful completion of a quarter of the second draft. 

I’ve also been starting to search for agents that might be a good fit for the book.  And strangely enough, one agent I was looking at this weekend was the agent for the book Haunting Beauty by Erin Quinn, which is one of the books I’m reviewing for the October issue of San Francisco Book Review.  I’m getting the feeling that the world of publishing is a small one…

And now, back to the ice cream.

Eric and I spent the day at Huntington Beach yesterday and afterwards I insisted we stop at this neat ice cream shop called New Zealand Natural.  I had a scoop of Lime Vanilla and it was out-of-this-world good.  So good that I did a little research online when we got home.  Turns out New Zealand Natural is a franchise from, you guessed it, New Zealand and Australia, which has recently expanded to the United States.  It seems like most of their stores are in the L.A. area, but it looks like they have a lot more coming in other areas soon. 

Their website justifies the ‘natural’ part of their title because all ice cream is made from milk from New Zealand cows fed on natural New Zealand grass.  I’m not sure if this translates to ‘natural’ as in ‘organic’ but I’m not too concerned.  It was really, really good ice cream.  As in on-par-with-gelato-in-Italy good.  If you see a New Zealand Natural franchise come to your area, I recommend stopping by for a taste!

Mid-August update

I can’t believe two weeks have past since my last post!  In those two weeks I’ve been hard at work on the second draft of my book.  I’d like to say that I’m almost done with my revisions, but the truth is, I just finished revising chapter four this morning.  I still have 28 chapters to go.    

Revising is much slower work than the freewriting style of the first draft where I’d produce five single-spaced pages in about two hours.  Now, in the same period of time, I’ll only finish one of two pages of editing.  I’ve made a couple of major plot changes in this second draft, and this requires significant additions in some places and deletions in others.  Nevertheless, it is exciting work and I really like how chapters one through four have matured.

So…

In order to keep my focused on chipping away at the second draft, I’m going to pause this blog for a little while.  I’ll still post occasionally, but not with the frequency or regularity as I had been. 

To make it easier for you, I added an e-mail subscription option to my sidebar (thanks, Ali, for the technical assistance!).  If you sign up there, you’ll get an e-mail each time I post, plus there will be a handy link in the body of the e-mail that will direct you to the new entry.  This way, you’ll also know when I’ve returned to regular posts, as well as my latest writing news. 

To sign up, just click the link under “E-MAIL UPDATES!” at the top of the sidebar on the right.  A new browser window will appear, and depending on your security settings, the window may be an error page.  On that page, there will be a link labeled, “Open this content in a new window.”  Click that and you’ll be able to add your e-mail address to my list. 

Let me know if you have any technical problems with this.  If I can’t help you, I’ll at least add you to an old-school mass e-mail list!

What’s the difference between ‘cruelty-free’ and ‘not tested on animals?’

Two of my initial “Just Writing” blog entries were about bath and beauty products.  The first was a product review for an indie bath and beauty company called Vintage Body Spa.  The second contained the results of my sleuthing on products with vague animal testing claims like “final product not tested on animals,” or, worse, products that didn’t state whether they tested on animals or not.  (Finding: companies that do not make this declaration DO test on animals).

A little detail has been nagging me since I wrote the animal testing blog: the Lavender Vanilla Butter Bar that I reviewed for Vintage Body Spa is not labeled either way.  I have a guilty conscious about promoting a product on my website that is tested on animals, so I contacted the company.  The owner, Alyssa, returned my e-mail right away, assuring me that Vintage Body Spa is cruelty-free / not tested on animals, so I can rest easy about that concern.

But now I’m curious about another animal testing subtly: what is the difference between “cruelty-free” and “not tested on animals.” Or are the terms interchangeable?

“Not tested on animals,” seems straightforward enough.  I looked up the definition of “cruelty-free” on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

Developed or produced without inhumane testing on animals

In my opinion, this is still vague, and I’m not convinced that “cruelty-free” is the same thing as “not tested on animals.”  I’m sure some companies use “cruelty-free” because it is a catchier term than other verbiages, but I wonder if some companies use it because they DO test on animals but do it in a ‘humane’ way, if that is possible.  And, I wonder, who makes the determination whether the testing is humane?

Here’s what Caring Consumer, PETA’s animal testing website, has to say about the matter:

Labels can be deceiving, so be careful. No specific laws exist regarding cruelty-free labeling of products, so companies can take liberties. While it is unlikely that a company would put blatantly false information regarding its animal-testing practices on its products, the statements it does make may not be fully informative and may indeed mislead consumers. For example, the label on Clairol’s Herbal Essence shampoo states that it is not tested on animals; Clairol, however, does test other products on animals.

If the label on a company’s product says that it is not tested on animals and the company isn’t on either of PETA’s lists, please share the company’s contact information with PETA so that we can formally inquire about the company’s animal-testing policy. Likewise, if you communicate with a company that claims to be cruelty-free but is not on our list, please ask for a statement in writing and copy the statement to PETA. We will communicate with the company to see if it meets all our cruelty-free criteria.  Meanwhile, PETA recommends purchasing products made only by companies on our “Don’t Test” list.

It seems that the only way to be really sure a product is not tested on animals is to look on a list, or to make sure the product has the Leaping Bunny logo on the back.

The Leaping Bunny logo is the result of coalition of animal protection groups from Europe and North America that disapproved of vague and un-enforced animal testing statements:

This coalition recognized that statements made by companies claiming their products are not animal tested can often be misleading, causing considerable confusion among consumers. For example, product packaging may state ‘This product has not been tested on animals.‘ However, even though an end product may well be free from animal testing, the individual ingredients may not.

The coalition developed the Humane Cosmetics Standard and the Humane Household Product Standard.  Products that obey the standards get to use the Leaping Bunny logo.  Some of the criteria include:  

• No longer conduct or commission animal testing
• Apply a verifiable date after which none of the products or ingredients have been animal tested
• Be open to an independent audit through the supply chain and adhere to your animal testing policy and the Standard’s strict criteria

Philoprogenitive

Philoprogenitive was today’s Merriam-Webster word of the day.  It means:

1 : tending to produce offspring : prolific
2 : of, relating to, or characterized by love of offspring

It’s a timely word, with Octumom’s reality TV show on the horizion and Jon & Kate Plus 8’s new 40-episode deal with TLC that began two days ago.  Nothing like some hot entertainment news to make a ten-dollar word stick in my mind forever!

Philoprogenitive, by the way, is pronounced  fill-uh-proh-JEN-uh-tiv.

Hail on the trail

A bad sign?

My imagination working overtime as always, I envisioned two disastrous wilderness emergencies for our San Gregornio backpacking trip with friends last weekend.  And much to my surprise, both of my admittedly farfetched “what if” situations actually happened, though in thankfully less dramatic proportions.  The imaginary scenarios:

1.  Lighting ripping though the sky in a sudden and completely unforeseeable storm of the century at the exact moment we summitted the crest of the tallest mountain in Southern California, with us and our five pairs of metal hiking poles serving as a gigantic lightening rod. 

2. A raging forest fire sweeping through the bone-dry San Bernardino Mountain Range, leaving us to fry at our campsite, 6.6 miles from our vehicles which were parked 7 primitive road miles away from the highway which was 24 miles from the nearest town.

What actually happened:

When the hail was still small (Stacey Cooper pictured)

1a.  A storm began rumbling well before we stashed our backpacks at the trail crossing.  We started up the San Gregornio trail anyway, prepared to turn back if the storm didn’t eventually pass.  Two miles from the peak the hail started.  Once the thunder crashes lined up with the lightning flashes (ie. storm directly overhead) and the hail became torrential, we went back down the trail–fast!  Hail instantly covered the trail, making our descent more like a ride on a Slip ‘N Slide covered with a thick layer of Dippin’ Dots.  But it’s a good thing we weren’t ’safe’ in our campsite because–

The smoldering tree

2a.  One of the lightning strikes had hit a tree not a quarter mile from where we’d later pitch our tents.  It looked like the remains of a campfire the morning after, except vertical, smoking and some small occasional red flames.  The fire had eaten through most of the base of the tree and it was leaning on its neighbor tree.  Shards of trunk and bark lay scattered on the ground like Pick Up Sticks from where the force of the bolt had ripped them from the tree.  Yikes!!  Another scary fact: the tree that was hit was shorter than either of the to trees in the immediate vicinity.  So much for feeling safe in lightning if you’re not the tallest thing around. 

Other than the two incidents, things went smoothly and we had a lovely backpacking trip in a beautifully secluded wilderness campsite. 

The view from Mine Shaft Flats Campground

An Inland Empire oasis

My drive to work through San Timeteo Canyon and citrus groves

This is a post to mitigate my initial Inland Empire post.  I concede that there are places here that are the exception to the Inland Empire norm of rundown buildings, traffic, smog, violence, heat, and desert scrubland.  Our town, Redlands, is a notable exception. 

Citrus barons established Redlands in the late 1800s, making arts a priority in the city.  Still to this day, we enjoy free, bi-weekly concerts in the beautiful outdoor amphitheater just a block from our cute, 1920s duplex.  The amphitheater marks the beginning of downtown, which is a real downtown with independent shops.  The downtown closes to traffic every Thursday for a hopping evening farmer’s market.  

The real charm of Redlands is not in the downtown but in the neighborhoods.  Imagine the cute, well-groomed historic district in your town and imagine the whole city looking that way.  Every house is adorable and unique.  There are dollhouse Victorians, Craftsman Bungalows, both Italian and Spanish style adobes, brick apartments, modern Art Deco homes, and even some gothic style here and there.

The streets are lined with trees.  Big trees, because they were planted a century ago.  Some streets are lined with stately Cyprus, others with the thickest-trunked palm trees I have ever seen.  In our yard alone, Eric has identified:

Just after sunset in our new neighborhood

 

2 Queen Palms

1 King Palms

2 Orange trees

1 Lime tree

1 Pomegranate tree

 

 

 

 

 

While most people here must commute to work on the interstates, I drive a curvy two-lane highway through a small mountain pass on which I have never experienced traffic.  And, by the way, part of my drive is through an orange orchard. 

It is sunny all the time here and we are within two hours of the ocean, Joshua National Park, San Diego (our favorite city), the mountains, and the forest.  Okay, I’ve come to a new conclusion about our new home in the Inland Empire: it’s not so bad.

A Durango wedding dinner party

The newlyweds

I spent last weekend in Durango, Colorado, with my best friend Kelly, for her wedding dinner party at a lovely villa restaurant about ten miles outside of town.  Congratulations to Kelly and Jonathan! 

Durango is a great town and I was so happy to have an excuse to visit.  It has the cutest Western-style downtown that is always bustling with locals and tourists transiting between the awesome restaurants, tasteful gift shops, galleries, and upscale (but not out-of-this-world expensive) boutiques.  Also downtown is the train station for the town’s main attraction: the vintage, narrow gauge, steam locomotive that runs between Durango and Silverton. 

Durango & Silverton train

The other great thing about Durango is its proximity to the wilderness.  The unique isosceles-triangle peaks and mesas of the San Juan National Forest can be seen from all points in town. There are trails all around, often with trailheads right in the neighborhoods.  The Animas River (popular for rafting and kayaking) runs through the heart of the city.  Big Colorado skiing is just minutes away at Durango Mountain Resort.  The town itself has a close-to-nature feel with plenty of organic grocery stores and Durango citizens perpetually tooling about in their cycling spandex and hiking gear.  

But, as Kelly points out, there are two problems with living in Durango: it is isolated (four hours from the nearest major city and airport) and it is expensive.  However, for a visitor like me, these two problems are invisible and I very much enjoyed my third visit to this idyllic town.