Flowering Trees and Sparkling Seas: The Power of Prince Edward Island

You know how you read a book and it turns out to be bad?  And then you read another book, and that one's bad too?  And they're both so bad that you want to forget about them and most certainly not blog about the experience?  Well, that's what happened to me last week.  So I turned to a tome that could never let me down: The Landscapes of Anne of Green Gables.

In this pictorial treasury, creative writing professor Catherine Reid highlights the life and times of Anne of Green Gables author L. M. Montgomery.  Which was a delight and a comfort to me because Anne of Green Gables is my favorite book.  Reid weaves passages from Montgomery's -- scratch that, Maud's -- books and journals with photographs of her beloved Prince Edward Island in a way that makes you feel like you're there.  Unmatched in its unkempt beauty, this smallest of the Canadian provinces beats at the heart of Maud's classic novel.  Anyone who's read and been changed by Anne of Green Gables knows that it's Anne's connection to the natural world that makes her story so special.  For this eleven-year-old orphan, every earthly thing brims with whimsy.  Flowers are friends, forests are haunted, and brooks always mind their manners.  Humans have failed Anne for so long that she turns to nature for strength and solace.  And the same was true for her creator.

Although not an orphan, Maud was raised by her grandparents and suffered from a series of hardships, including depression.  Writing about rainbowed skies, ice crystal-cast woods, and rioting gardens -- and a girl who wouldn't let life beat her -- transported her to a more welcoming world.  Even the title of her most famous book showcases the color of nature, rebirth, and second chances.

The other night, I was crafting and re-watching You've Got Mail, which is a movie I thought I didn't like (random, I know, but stay with me), when I was struck by the scene where Meg Ryan's Kathleen Kelly is closing her bookshop for good.  One customer tells her that Kathleen's mother, who owned the shop before her, sold her a copy of Anne of Green Gables and advised her to read it with a box of tissues.  Then the woman starts sobbing, and Kathleen produces some Kleenex.  By that point, the movie was already growing on me (due in no small part to Kathleen's confession that daisies are the friendliest flower), but that cinched it.  Because anyone who understands Anne -- from Kathleen Kelly to Nora Ephron to that crying customer -- can't be all that bad.

And Reid, to use Maud’s own parlance, tops this list as a true kindred spirit.  Her love and reverence for Maud and Anne radiate from every page of her heartfelt tribute. 

In Anne of Green Gables, Anne famously says, "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."  And although, as you know, I'm no fan of fall, I appreciate the sentiment.  

Because I'm so glad to live in world where there's Anne and Maud and Prince Edward Island.    

More Than Nerds: Sharks Mate for Life

Book people are the best people (yes, even better than fashion people).  So, when I started reading Emily Henry's latest, Book Lovers, I knew I was in for the kind of banter that burgeons between people who make their living in letters.

New York City publishing powerhouses Nora-named-for-Nora-Ephron Stephens and Charlie Lastra are an odd couple.  No, she's not a loveable kook whereas he's an acquired-taste curmudgeon, nor is she the straitlaced sophisticate to his irresistible man child.  Instead, both can be kindly described as stick-in-the-mud corporate sharks.  Although to be fair, only Nora is actually nicknamed The Shark.  So yeah, no Oscar, two Felixes.  In other words, these two are made for each other.

Not that they see it that way.  Or are even a couple.  Nora thinks that she's finally escaped her cold-hearted colleague when she and her sister land in rural North Carolina for some summer R&R.  But then Charlie rears his oh-so-handsome head just as Nora is hate-texting him, throwing her lazy vacay -- and her plans to snag a Hallmark hometown hottie -- for a loop.  Still, both Nora and Charlie are too prickly for most people to understand let alone tolerate, so it isn't long before they realize that they're cut from the same page proofs.  Not since Gone with the Wind has a story made such a strong case for "like goes with like."  So fine, they like each other.  But why should we like them?  (The last time I checked, people want to swim with dolphins, not sharks.)  Because they're book people.  And behind every book person is someone who's been hurt and found what she needed in fiction.  Nora puts it best:

"Daily life was unpredictable, but the bookstore was a constant.  In winter, when our apartment was too cold, or in summer, when the window unit couldn't keep up, we'd go downstairs and read in the shop's coveted window seat.  Sometimes Mom would take us to the Museum of Natural History or the Met to cool down, and I'd bring my shredded copy of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler with me and think, If we had to, we could live here like the Kincaid siblings." (225)

It's the rare book that can drop inconvenient trope truths and retain its lighthearted status, but Book Lovers does it with style.  Because although it isn't easy for everyone to accept that opposites don't always attract, not all career women are heartless, and sometimes small towns are more depressing than darling, Henry shows us the world as it is but also as we'd like it to be, through the spell of her snarky-sweet prose.

Oh Henry, you've done it again.

Silver Screen Dream: Reel Romance

Fabulous Felt Filmstrip Barrettes

Top: Candie's, Kohl's

Cami: Macy's

Skirt: Delia's, Dolls Kill

Shoes: Ami Clubwear

Wallet: Betsey Johnson

Belt: Wet Seal

Necklace: The Tote Trove

Last week, I read a novel by a new (to me) author, which is always exciting.  It's called Waiting for Tom Hanks, and it's by Kerry Winfrey.  The main character is Annie, a Midwestern rom-com-obsessed aspiring screenwriter who's waiting for Mr. Right -- which, to her, means a guy like Tom Hanks.  (Quick aside.  Annie's fixation isn't as weird as it may seem.  I remember reading a Glamour article that said when women say they want Tom Cruise, what they really mean is they want Tom Hanks.  Of course, this was back before I gave up on magazines.  And before Tom Cruise jumped on that couch.)  But when Annie scores a gig as an assistant on a movie set, she collides, coffee cup in hand, with alpha actor Drew Danforth (meet cute, check!), causing her to rethink her plans for landing a self-deprecating copilot.  Sure, Annie has misgivings of the classic rom-com heroine's but-this-wasn't-the-plan! variety.  But she also has the classic feisty BFF who Will.  Not.  Let.  Her.  Squander this opportunity.  So, she and Drew strike up a friendship that turns into more.  Their rapport is surprisingly easy, which I didn't quite trust, as Hollywood is reputed to be something of a dream-crushing shark tank.  But I banished my inner cynic, choosing to believe that love could bloom between a girl who lives with her Dungeons and Dragons-playing uncle and a guy who gets paid to French models.  Drew encourages Annie in her screenwriting endeavor, going as far as to talk her up to the director.  It's sweet and nice and something that you wish could happen.  Still, their romance isn't without problems.  For one, there's the ever-present paparazzi (so pesky!), and for another, Annie discovers a secret about her dead mother's past (somehow, these things always surface).  It forces her to shake her fantasy -- i.e. all those things she thought she wanted -- to get to her reality.  Which, this being a rom-com, ends up being a lot like her fantasy anyway.

Waiting for Tom Hanks is breezy and quirky and has lots of heart.  And something Annie said stuck with me.  She loves rom-coms in general and Nora Ephron rom-coms in particular because they're not about everything being sewed up at the end.  They're about women finding a partner to help them weather life's storms.  It's not that the guy is the be-all-end-all.  It's that having someone along for the ride makes the ride easier.  And I think that's something that everyone - whether they watch rom-coms or sci fi or anime -- can agree on.

And now for a walk-on from my Fabulous Felt Filmstrip barrettes!  Black and yellow and solidly square, they represent any movie anyone wants to see.  I like that they have that old-fashioned, outdated tech look, like, say, a rotary phone or boombox.  I mean, no one wants a cute little likeness of an iPhone or Alexa, right?  Unless maybe it's a barrette of what Alexa's face looks like.   

I'll tell my people to get on it.