1. I want to read Pat Benatar's new book in a major way (this has Christmas list written all over it). You can have your Runaways/Joan Jett love all you want, for my money she was the true rock queen. She talked to the NYT recently about being a fashion icon, wife & mother and serious rock and roller:

Her look, she said last week, represented “my interpretations of what feminism was — it was freedom with no restrictions.” Her kohled eyes, peek-a-boo bangs, clingy tops and killer boots were never intended as a come-on, she insisted. “They were always just for me.”

“It was a power thing,” she recalled. “I wanted to be Robert Plant in every way: the swagger, the open sexuality.” At the time, as she writes in her memoir, “the thought of having a female front person who could compete with male rockers, filling arenas, selling massive amounts of records, was unheard of.”

2. While standing in the midst of the B&N teen section last week I noticed two things: A) I had reviewed hardly any of the books and B) There was so much black and purple on those shelves it was like standing in the midst of a wanna be goth explosion. At first I was concerned that I might be way out of step with the YA audience but then I realized that the world is not all about vampires and more importantly, I'm burned out on them, so my skipping these books was a good thing for all involved. It did bring to mind the many discussions we have had about standout covers however which brought to mind....

3...Prisoners of the Palace: A Novel of Intrigue and Romance About How Princess Victoria Became Queen with the Help of a Maid, a Newspaperman and a Scoundrel by Michaela MacColl. Due out this fall from Chronicle it has an AWESOME cover that stopped me dead in my tracks while paging through the catalog. I'm always up for a good historical and really, it's just too pretty to ignore. (The author studied "multi-disciplinary history at Vassar and Yale which also makes me quite happy.)

4. Gwenda loved Holly Black's WHITE CAT, all the more reason why it should be read far and wide. (I'm looking forward to it.)

BONUS: Behind the cut the absolutely amazing video of Pat Benatar & Martina McBride singing "Independence Day". Prepare to be blown away and keep in mind that Pat was 50 years old when this show ran.