Bonnie Parker in all her glory. I know you're not supposed to glamorize killers and crime - and I really really don't want to but man....she looks so freaking cool. (I'm so sorry I wrote that. I swear it. But come on - she doesn't even look real does she?)

Jenny D. is back from Antarctica and in addition to her usual lively literary posts has been writing at her other blog about running (and swimming!) in the extreme cold. Be sure to check out the penguin feathers she "brought back" for my son.

Here's a timely note for those who read my entry on Canadian tar sands and US coal mining last week: the EPA has put a hold on all new permits for mountain-top removal until they can be reviewed for environmental impact. I do still need to read Andrew Nikiforuk's new book, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent. Becky chimed in with a comment on that earlier post that he is a great writer so I'm looking forward to it. (Looks like she has other problems now in addition to the tar sands. "Nuclear Renaissance" my ass. I wish we wouldn't look at nuclear power without considering just how costly it can be.)

Two books from the recent copy of Booklist that caught my eye:

A Narrative Compass: Stories That Guide Women’s Lives: "...The result is a collection of 19 fresh and surprising essays that blend the personal with the critical, historical, and social. Yes, as one would expect, Little Women is discussed, as are fairy tales. So is Castaneda’s The Teaching of Don Juan in anthropologist Glass-Coffin’s inquiry into shamanism. Hinduism expert Wendy Doniger was 12 when her mother gave her a copy of A Passage to India; she writes, “It changed my life.” In each elegant interpretation, the author traces the ripple effects of a story that thrilled or provoked her, a story that became a catalyst for a lifelong passion, and a story that became a virtual home, to return to for clarification. Rich and mind-opening testimony to the profound, even chthonic power of tales well told."

Be warned on that one - it has the cheesiest cover I have ever seen. I don't know what the hell they were thinking.

The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food--before the National Highway System, before Chain Restaurants, and before Frozen Foods, when the Nation’s Food Was Seasonal, Regional, and Traditional--from the Lost WPA Files. Edited by Mark Kurlansky: "...Kurlansky, the author of best-selling books about salt, cod, and oysters, discovered these gems in a two-foot-high stack of the “raw, unedited manuscripts” for an inspired but never completed WPA endeavor titled America Eats. As he explains in his invigorating introduction, the Federal Writers’ Project sent starving writers of all stripes (Nelson Algren, Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, and other who qualified just because they could type) across the country to gather information about “American cookery and the part it has played in national life.” The results are vivid and playful dispatches from pre-interstate, pre-fast-food America, when food was local and cuisine regional. Kurlansky selected zesty writings, factual and imaginative, describing barbecues, fries, and feasts; profiling families; and defining New York City luncheonette slang (“blind ’em” means two eggs fried on both sides). Fun, illuminating, and provocative, this historic reclamation appears while we’re in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the one Franklin D. Roosevelt fought with his job-creating stimulus package and while we’re grappling with a plague of unsafe food and environmental woes associated with industrial agriculture. But don’t despair. Whip up Ethel’s Depression Cake, and throw a bailout party."

This isn't a political blog (perish the thought) but Rep Michele Bachmann is such a twit that I can't resist linking to this. You have to watch the video of her demanding an answer from Tim Geithner the other day as to what the constitutional basis was for his actions in the bailout. Geithner kept trying to explain that Treasury was doing what Congress told it to do - and she kept asking where it said in the Constitution that he could do that. I swear the guy must have been dying to say "YOU ARE SO STUPID!" Minnesota, you must be so proud. (Allow me to be smug, with Gov. Palin turning down money for special education and than saying she didn't reject it - just refused to accept it - well, I have to make fun of other states whenever I can.)

Betsy did her usual impressive job posting on the Penguin Young Readers Group Librarian Preview the other day. What sounds awesome? How about Mission Control, This is Apollo: The Story of the First Voyages to the Moon by Andrew Chaikin and Alan Bean; The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen by Delia Sherman (sequel to Changeling) and The Morgue and Me. I have no idea what that one is about but Betsy is right, the cover is killer. She is also right about the new cover for Audrey, Wait....it is common, ordinary, pedestrian and completely forgettable.

Say what you want about Bonnie Parker but she was never ordinary. Take a hint Penguin - steer away from lameness.