In-between reads, then back to business.

Whilst waiting for a package from my mom containing some childhood faves, I passed the time with Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners (about which I can say nothing I haven't said about Link before: SHE IS BRILLIANT. READ HER NOW) and Donna Tartt's The Secret History, which charmed me from the first appearance of the central characters, a bunch of dissolute classics majors, as they discussed Greek cases. Yay for aorists!

The package arrived, laden with goodies: I decided to read them in chronological order of publication. First up, The Borrowers, by Mary Norton (1952). I guess it's not surprising that children love worlds in miniature, as a way of imagining adult roles through play, but MAN, did I ever love miniatures when I was little! The Borrowers' repurposing of blotting paper and safety pins and cigar boxes. Colleen Moore's fairy castle at the Museum of Science and Industry. The dollhouse my grandfather built, white with blue trim.

And I am so excited to learn that Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli has adapted the book, for a summer 2010 release! Although I still have fond memories of the mid-90s miniseries with Ian Holm as Pod.

Now, speaking of miniatures, I'm reading 1960's The Cricket in Times Square, by Gary Selden, with illustrations by Garth Williams. I need to take a picture of the bookplate in this one: the handwriting on it's positively embryonic. I must have been four or five when I decided this was a book worthy of being belonged.