My August books

After I actually managed to keep track of the books I read in July, I decided I'll try to keep this going, so here's my August post.
Again - to me it's interesting to see how many books I have finished in a month (not necessarily started in the same month) and how many I read to the cats which of course takes longer, those are marked with 😸
I might add a little hint here and there why I chose a book, but I'm not going to rate the books because I don't like ratings without an explanation, and I admit I don't have the patience for that right now. The cats also refuse to give ratings 😉

1. "Verschwundene Fracht" = "Cargo of Eagles" by Margery Allingham (completed by her husband Philip Youngman Carter after her death), first published in 1968
(Albert Campion 19)

A village full of smugglers and secrets and finally murder.
Campion and his associates have to solve a case which seems to be connected to the robbery from a yacht years before.

This is part of my vintage crime project for which I got a whole pile of books by Marsh and Allingham.

2. "Der Tod des Narren" = "Death of a Fool" (also as "Off With His Head" by Ngaio Marsh, first published in 1956
(Roderick Alleyn 19)

During the "Dance of the Five Sons", an old folkloristic ritual containing elements of Morris dancing, sword dance, and Mummers play, "The Fool", father to the five sons, is killed.
Alleyn investigates in the small village whose residents don't give up their secrets easily.

This is part of my vintage crime project for which I got a whole pile of books by Marsh and Allingham.

3. "Mord im Atelier" = "Artists in Crime" by Ngaio Marsh, first published in 1938
(Roderick Alleyn 6)

A class of young artists has to witness in shock when their model dies before their eyes, killed by a knife hidden in the drapery on the pedestal she's posing on.
The fact that Alleyn has just fallen in love with the artist holding the class doesn't make the investigation easier for him.

This is part of my vintage crime project for which I got a whole pile of books by Marsh and Allingham.

4. "The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real" by Margery Williams, first published in 1922

A little boy gets a velveteen rabbit for Christmas. At first he doesn't play with it, but one day the nanny gives him the rabbit to sleep with and from then on the rabbit becomes his favorite toy. Will the rabbit become real as the wise Skin Horse has told him?

I've heard of that book so many times, but never read it myself before because it's not a children's classic here in Germany. It was time to invest a few minutes and change that.

5. "The Last Bookshop in London" by Madeline Martin, first published in 2021
 

Grace has to leave the countryside and comes to London just as the city starts preparing for the war with Germany. She get's a job as a shop assistant in a bookshop which will change her life.

A friend recommended Martin's latest book and I thought I'd start with her older ones while being on the waitlist for the new one.

6. "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1883 😸

To speak with Stevenson's words "... learn that it is about Buccaneers, that it begins in the Admiral Benbow public house on the Devon coast, that it's all about a map and a treasure and a mutiny and a derelict ship ... It's quite silly and horrid fun ..."

"Treasure Island" has always been part of my life as one of the "Christmas four-parters" on TV (I still watch it regularly, it's my favorite), but, shame on me, I had never read it.
Now der Dekan is keen on becoming a buccaneer, I should have known that would happen!

7. "Das Todesspiel" = "A Man Lay Dead" by Ngaio Marsh, first published in 1934
(Roderick Alleyn 1)

A young journalist is invited to a weekend party in a country house. It's announced they will play the popular Murder Game, but soon the game becomes gruesome reality.

This is part of my vintage crime project for which I got a whole pile of books by Marsh and Allingham.

8. "The Three Investigators in The Secret of Skeleton Island" by Robert Arthur, Jr. (the books were published attributed to Alfred Hitchcock), first published in 1966 😸
(The Three Investigators 6)  

 
Someone is sabotaging the crew filming on Skeleton Island. Pete's father, who is part of the crew, brings in The Three Investigators. Is there a ghost or pirate treasure or what could be the reason for the sabotage?

I read this series a long time ago and am going through it again bit by bit after writing a blog post about it. This book is the sixth in the series.

9. "The Enchanted Greenhouse" by Sarah Beth Durst, first published in 2025
(Spellshop 2)

Librarian Terlu has been turned into a statue to punish her for magically creating a sentient plant.
Years later, she finds herself alive again on an island with a huge enchanted greenhouse whose magic seems to fail and the lonely gardener caring for it hoping she will be able to help him save it.

I read the first book as well and caught the second one just when it got added at the library.

10. "Mary Poppins in the Kitchen" by P. L. Travers, first published in 1975

Ellen, the maid, is sick, Mrs. Brill, the cook, has to go help her sister whose children are sick, and Mr. and Mrs. Banks are to go on a trip for a week! Who will cook dinner? Well, Mary Poppins of course, with the help of the children and some of her friends and relatives.

Weirdly, I hadn't read this short Mary Poppins book yet.

11. "Skinner's Baby" by Henry Irving Dodge, first published in 1917 😸

The second book in the light-hearted Skinner series (which also inspired a silent movie which is believed to be lost, though) is about the first years of Baby Skinner, the son of Skinner and Honey, and about how the way you train your child can turn out to be surprisingly good for your business.

I read the first book after watching one of the silent movie versions of it and added the others to my list for light reading.
The "training" of the child is quite progressive in some regards given the age of the book.
My librarian's heart liked that this was digitized from the publisher's archive copy - "except by permission of the librarian", aah, the power! 😄

12. "The woman in the hall" by Gladys Bronwyn Stern, first published in 1939

"Visiting" has a different meaning in this book set in the 1920s in England. In Lorna's world, visiting means to take one or both of her little daughters with her to rich and famous people in town to swindle money out of them with invented stories that pull at one's heartstrings - a dangerous game for her, but also for the girls as they grow up.

This was a recommendation by Liz from "Adventures in reading, running and working from home" (here's her review) and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
I saw there's also a movie based on it with Jean Simmons as one of the sisters. Do I want to watch it? I don't know yet.

13. "My Man Jeeves" by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, first published in 1919

This is a collection of comic short stories half of which feature Jeeves and Bertie Wooster and the other half Reggie Pepper, a Bertie prototype.
Bertie Wooster is an English gentleman, one of the idle rich, and Jeeves is his valet whose intelligence saves Bertie and his friends from one or the other pickle.

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings started reading "Jeeves and Wooster" stories, and since my last Wodehouse read had been ages ago, I picked this collection for starters.

14. "Told After Supper" by Jerome K. Jerome, first published in 1891

With the help of "some" Christmas punch, a group of men tell each other ghost stories. After supper.

This is one title I got from my DNF "Ghostland". A short but very fun read with great illustrations, this could definitely become a ritual read for Christmas Eve from now on.

15. "The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew" by Robert Bolt, first published in 1962

A Duke sends one of his knights to the Bolligrew Islands to stand up to the evil baron and a dragon living there.

I read the children's play for an upcoming blog post on the German children's novel based on the play.

16. "Witches Abroad" by Terry Pratchett, first published in 1991 😸
(Discworld 12 - Witches 3)

Why do three witches leave their home in Lancre to fly to Genua and prevent a girl from marrying the prince?
A little hint - stories can be dangerous and so can be mirrors.

It was about time der Dekan started learning something about Discworld, after all he's named after one of its wizards.
This is one of my regular re-reads, but the first time in English.

17. "Mylord mordet nicht" = "Swing, Brother, Swing" by Ngaio Marsh, first published in 1949
(Roderick Alleyn 15)

A big band accordionist gets killed on stage. Alleyn has to find out how, by whom, and why.

This is part of my vintage crime project for which I got a whole pile of books by Marsh and Allingham.
I said I wouldn't rate the books, but to be honest, this is one I could well have done without.

18. "Born a Crime" by Trevor Noah, first published in 2016

Trevor Noah, now famous as a comedian and former host of the "Daily Show", was born in South Africa, son of a Xhosa woman and a Swiss man which was a crime under apartheid. The book tells the story of his growing up under these conditions.

The book was the recommendation of a friend of mine.

19. "The Black Dudley Murder" (US title, in the UK as "The Crime at Black Dudley") by Margery Allingham, first published in 1929
(Albert Campion 1)

During a house party at the remote Black Dudley, the host is killed. Did the obvious crooks, who are among the guests, do it, who exactly are they and what are they looking for?

This is part of my vintage crime project for which I got a whole pile of books by Marsh and Allingham.

20. "The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches" by Sangu Mandanna, first published in 2022

Witches are not supposed to be together in one spot for long in order to prevent exposure.
So when Mika Moon gets the offer to teach three children witches magic, she's not quite sure what's going to happen.

Mandanna's new book had just been added on Overdrive Baden-Württemberg, while being on the waitlist, I thought I'd check out this one for a quick read.

21. "The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood, first published in 1907

In this supernatural tale, the narrator and his friend, the Swede, are on a canoe trip down the Danube when they are forced by the weather to make a stop on a little island full of willows.
Soon, they begin to feel mysterious entities around them.

The novella was one of the titles I took from this month's DNF.

22. "The Windsor Knot" by S. J. Bennett, first published in 2020
(Her Majesty the Queen Investigates 1)

When a musician is murdered at Windsor Castle, the Queen herself investigates - not openly of course - with the help of her assistant Rozie.

I think I stumbled upon this via a recommendation in Overdrive and thought I'd give cozy crime another shot to end the month.


DNF:

"Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country" by Edward Parnell, first published in 2019

From the description: "In Ghostland, Parnell goes in search of the 'sequestered places' of the British Isles, our lonely moors, our moss-covered cemeteries, our stark shores and our folkloric woodlands. He explores how these landscapes conjured and shaped a kaleidoscopic spectrum of literature and cinema ..."

I gave up on page 258 of 405, in the middle of a chapter.
The book is about the journey of the author not only visiting places connected to literature and movies and telling stories of authors, books, and movies - which was what got me interested - but also places connected to his own memories. He's intertwining that with his passion for nature, especially birdwatching, and the tragedies in his life.
While each story in itself was still interesting - else I wouldn't even have come that far -, the mix of them eventually wore me down, and when I found it started to annoy me, I had to stop.

Silent movies - Madame's Cravings or Say, do you know Alice Guy-Blaché?

A few weeks ago, I shared a short with you and said I would be telling you more about the filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché sometime. Well, sometime is today.
First let me share another of her films, though.
This is "Madame Has Her Cravings" from 1906 in which a pregnant lady satisfies her different cravings by taking food, drink, and even a pipe from others while her husband pushing the pram with their first child gets the abuse for it.
In the end, she pushes him and he pushes her and she falls into a cabbage patch from which he then takes the newborn baby - which of course relates to the French legend that girls are born in a rose and boys in a cabbage.



It's a weird little film from our modern point of view (especially the drinking and smoking), but to be honest, I just picked something as a bridge to talk about Alice Guy-Blaché.
Strap yourself in, this is not going to be short.

Alice Guy's father Émile was a bookseller in Chile where his wife Marie's and his first four children were born.
Alice, however, was born in Paris, on July 1, 1873. Émile returned to Chile because of his business and Marie followed, but Alice stayed with her grandmother in Switzerland for a few years, was then taken to Chile and back to Switzerland at the age of 6 to attend a convent boarding school there.

After her parents had returned to Paris because the business went down due to different reasons, Émile died and eventually Alice had to find a job to support Marie and herself. She had trained to be a typist and stenographer and got an interview with the owner of Le Comptoir Générale de Photographie.
The owner wasn't there, but Alice got to see Louis Gaumont who acknowledged her recommendations, but thought she was too young for such an important job to which she replied that it would pass. She got the job.
Gaumont finally bought Le Comptoir together with three others (including Eiffel). He was one of the people in the race of the moving pictures, but the Lumière brothers were the winners. Along with Gaumont, his secretary Alice Guy was invited to their first screening out of courtesy.
As mentioned in my post about Méliès's "Trip to the Moon", the Lumières used the technology for documentaries.
Alice, however, thought it would be nice to tell stories, and Gaumont, albeit thinking that this was a girlish thing to do, allowed her to try it as long as her work as a secretary didn't suffer.

So Guy wrote, directed, and produced one of the first films with a narrative, the "Cabbage Fairy" about a fairy finding newborns in a, right, in a cabbage patch - and she didn't stop there, oh no.

She used all kinds of new techniques, such as close-ups for "Madame Has Her Cravings". Did you know that they already had sound film back then? While Edison recorded on set, Guy pre-recorded on wax record and then they synchronized the sound with the film, for musical shorts for example.
Alice became head of production at Gaumont, she supervised and directed films, not just as the first female director, but the first director to develop narrative filmmaking. She made comedies, movies about feminism - with reversed male and female roles, for example - and family, and she trained directors and writers.

Guy's film about the Life of Christ with 300 extras and early special effects went over budget because a crew member destroyed sets. This could have jeopardized her position if Eiffel hadn't spoken up for her.
So she could go on making successful movies.

In 1906, Alice met Herbert Blaché Bolton from the London branch of Gaumont.
Gaumont sent her to Germany to support chronophone customers. As she didn't know the country and also didn't speak German, Herbert went with her as translator. They got engaged, and when Gaumont sent Herbert to the USA to promote the chronophone, Alice went with him.
The promotion didn't go well and Gaumont came to Flushing, NY, to buy a studio which he wanted to use mostly for music shorts to be made by Blaché. Lois Weber was asked to appear in some of them. Guy, who had a child now and was no longer with the company officially, directed some of them and it is said that she later gave Weber the opportunity to write and direct under her supervision. Remember Lois Weber, the first American female director, from my post here?

Alice wasn't content with just being a mother, however, she still wanted to make films, so she rented part of the Flushing studio and founded the Solax Studios with her husband and a third partner. They made silent movies which were so successful that she had to hire assistant directors, not just comedies or Western movies, but also movies with more controversial topics, such as strikes or antisemitism.
On set, she put up big signs for her actresses and actors simply saying "Be Natural".
Later, they bought land in Fort Lee, NJ, and built a new studio there. New Jersey was the center of the US film industry at the time, not Hollywood.
Guy not only showed strong women in her films, she also wrote about women in film production.

Then came an economic depression and World War I began. Solax was forced to work for other companies. Movies were not an art anymore, they became business. 
On top of that, there was the "Edison Trust" of Edison, Eastman Kodak, and eight other companies who tried to prevent filmmakers using their cameras and film to shoot movies without being part of the trust. That meant either payinf licensing fees or become independent. Filmmakers moved to the West Coast to escape the trust and be able to make movies more cheaply.

The Blachés had to rent the Solax studios out to other companies. Then Herbert left the family and moved to Hollywood with his mistress. Solax was in debt already and then they lost one of their buildings due to a fire as well. Alice got influenza and Herbert had her and the children come to Los Angeles, but they lived separately and also just didn't work well together anymore.
When everything at Solax had to be auctioned off and the couple got divorced, Guy went back to France with the children. She never made a film again. In France she had been forgotten and no one in the industry wanted to hire her. Actually, women got pushed out in general.
Alice wrote to Gaumont asking for a job, but not only didn't she get one, when the company published their history, she wasn't even mentioned in it.
Just as Alice first supported her mother working as a secretary, now her daughter supported her working as one.
In a documentary mentioning Fort Lee studios, only Herbert was credited for Solax.

Guy started working for the Société Parisienne d'Edition.
Gaumont gave her an assignment on the company's beginnings in the film industry. Alice found that in the list of films he had sent her many of those that she directed were credited to one of the male directors. Gaumont said they would have to use her notes in a second edition, but that never happened before his death. An article about the French film industry also didn't mention her. 

Guy was constantly either being ignored by most film historians or her important films were credited to male directors, but others she didn't like credited to her.
She tried to find her films, but no one knew where they were and if they even existed anymore. So many silent films are lost today, destroyed or possibly hidden away in archives.
Then she wrote her memoirs, but no one was interested in publishing them at the time. They were published only after her death.
She also kept trying to find her films when she went back to the USA to live with her daughter, but sadly to no avail.
Alice Guy-Blaché died March 24, 1968.

There were and are people not wanting her to stay forgotten in an industry that is still male-dominated today, forgotten like so many other women achieving big things who got cut out of the picture.
They set out to find and preserve films of her, locate documents and information, and do research about her and her achievements. They made documentaries about her and talked about her.
Well, and now, if you actually made it all the way to the end, you know a little more about Alice Guy-Blaché as well. There would be so much more to tell, but I didn't want the post to get too long.
Maybe I made you curious now, though, I would like that very much.


Selected sources:

1. Alison McMahan: Alice Guy Blaché. On: Women Film Pioneers Project
2. Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché. Documentary by Pamela B. Green. 2018. On the YouTube channel of TodoEsImagen
3. Alice Guy - L'inconnue de 7e art. Documentary for ARTE TV by Nathalie Masduraud and Valérie Urréa. On the YouTube channel of Otro Patrimonio (in French)
4. The Lost Garden: The Life and Cinema of Alice Guy-Blaché. 1995. By Marquise Lepage and Solange Collin. On the YouTube channel of Obscurity
5. Shari Kizirian: Woman with a Movie Camera: The Films of Alice Guy Blaché. Essay. On: San Francisco Silent Film Festival. A Day of Silents 2019

Barbie's Wardrobe - Midnight Blue

I'm not a fashionista. I'm ... you could say... a wearer of clothing. I like my clothes to be comfortable and the right size and possibly not to have holes or spots (that part is not always easy if you have cats).
There are features I love, like pockets in dresses or 3/4 sleeves, but beyond that, I'm fairly undemanding and not adventurous.
That doesn't mean I don't like to look at clothes at all, especially those that I would never be able to wear myself, due to money, my size, lack of occasion, etc. There are still ways to bring Haute Couture into my life, though. I mean Barbie and her friends.
I have always been fascinated by miniatures and Barbie's vintage outfits with their tiny zippers and buttons and buckles and accessories are incredible. This is my "fashion life", either through my own small collection or pictures.
(And yes, I do know Barbie's body isn't natural, I knew it as a child and I never strived to look like her ... if I had, something would have gone wrong).
Let me give you a glimpse in Barbie's wardrobe every, now and then.

1965 was an excellent year. I should know because I was born in 1965, a definite sign of quality.

1965 was also the year the first American Girl Barbie turned up, our model today is from 1966, however. I seriously wish I would have aged as well as she has.

Today she's presenting an ensemble called "Midnight Blue".

The elegant gown has a strapless silver lamé bodice and full midnight blue satin skirt.
It is worn under a wide satin cape of the same color, lined in white satin like the large fake white fur collar.

The ensemble is usually completed with long white gloves, blue open toe mules with heels, a silver dimple purse, and a white graduated pearl necklace.
Unfortunately, this presentation was so spontaneous that we couldn't find the purse and necklace. Okay, you got me. I only have the golden purse and that wouldn't have worked. I'm quite sure that I have the necklace, but another doll is wearing it.
And while I'm in confessing mode, one of the gloves is a substitution (which is too big which I only just noticed again, I really need to get her a proper one), and there's a bit of water damage to the satin in the back.
Fact is that "Midnight Blue" is a hard to find outfit and prices are accordingly high. I was lucky to find this one and it displays beautifully, don't you think? For full disclosure, I edited the doll stand out of the picture, but didn't change anything about the outfit.

 
"Midnight Blue" is one of the elusive 1600s fashions and was only manufactured in 1965 (what did I say?) as #1617.
It was not unusual to have color variations in other countries, such as Japan or Europe, but that doesn't mean those are easier to find. In this case, there's a different blue (some people say that color comes from fading in sunlight, others say it's a variation), but also a "Midnight Pink" and "Midnight Red" (as called by collectors not because the name makes sense, but identifies the design easily).
I would love to have both, but the red even more than the pink.

I always thought this would be the perfect outfit to wear for the opera - maybe "The Magic Flute", after all she looks like a "Queen of the Night" herself!

Barbie is a registered trademark of Mattel, Inc. I am not affiliated with Mattel in any way.


Sources:

1. Sibyl DeWein and Joan Ashabraner: The Collector's Encyclopedia of Barbie Dolls and Collectibles. Paducah, KY, Collector Books, 1994
2. Sarah Sink Eames: Barbie Doll Fashion, Vol. I, 1959 - 1967. Paducah, KY, Collector Books, 1994
3. Vintage Barbie Midnight Blue. On: Fashion Doll Guide
4. Vintage American Girl Barbie Dolls 1965 - 1966. On: Fashion Doll Guide

Book review - Craft Psychology

When I first saw the title "Craft Psychology", I thought this sounded really interesting ... what was craft psychology?
Let's talk about the book by Dr. Anne Kirketerp that was published in English this year.

Kirketerp was already a craftsperson and a craft teacher before becoming a psychologist and working in academia.
Today she runs certified educational courses in craft psychology.
The book isn't just aimed at professionals who use craft in teaching or psychology, but also crafters like you and me who are interested in using their craft more intentionally to achieve well-being.

There are ten chapters:
1. Craft psychology in a nutshell
2. Definitions of and connections between craft and well-being
3. The Craft Psychology Model
4. Central Research Findings in Craft Psychology
5. Methods and exercises
6. Four ways to craft
7. Graduation and Interventions
8. From Utility to Passion: The Role of Crafts Now and Through History
9. Theoretical Foundation of Craft Psychology
10. Brief Summary 

"Craft psychology is the psychology of why people craft. It identifies how craft activities have positive effects on our physical and mental health. It can be used intentionally to effectively promote well-being."
Kirketerp notes that her "focus is primarily the hobby-based work that we do out of pure desire, because we love it and are good at it".

How do you even define craft? There are several definitions by researchers from different fields. Kirketerp herself defines it as "a mastery of passion-driven skills, resulting in products with some form of materiality". Other researchers use the words "skilled", "mastering manual skills", "to do a job well".

Maybe I'm influenced by artists telling people that making art is important and it doesn't have to be good art all the time to learn how to impress yourself and am transferring that thought to craft, but I don't necessarily agree on the "mastery".
No one is good at the beginning (except prodigies), so they are either unhappy with it and drop it altogether or they enjoy doing it so much that they don't care if it's "good" , and they may get better at it or not. I should know what I'm talking about 😉 Sometimes the moment just needs to be right for picking up the right craft.

As you may be able to tell from the chapter titles, this book really isn't about crafting itself, but the psychology behind it. If you like textbooks, you won't have a problem with that, but I have to admit that there were passages I was tempted to skip - I didn't - and others that were interesting because they explained my own behavior or feelings about or during crafting which I simply hadn't thought to analyze before, such as enjoying to get in the "flow", but also feeling like an outsider at my last crafting class some years ago (didn't finish it, never had the urge to join another one).

Kirketerp also explains her Craft Psychology Model showing how benefits of crafting, such as positive emotions, flow, achievement and more, can support well-being and shield against stress and angst, for example.
There are a lot of quotes from other researchers as well explaining different psychological theories or terms. The articles are referenced in the extensive bibliography.

What I had hoped for was a little less theory because some of it was really too repetitive for me.
There are bubbles with quotes from people Kirketerp interviewed, but there are outside of the text itself, without any comment. What I would have liked to see would have been those examples with explanations or some kind of relation between theoretical and empirical data.

I also found it disappointing that only a few crafts were mentioned, the bubbles were mostly about knitting, for example. I used to be an avid knitter for years when I was younger, and in my opinion you can't just compare knitting to any other craft 1:1. That starts with not every project being portable, but also with the setup, with how many tools you need or what size, and it also has an influence on the idea people have of the "meaningfulness" of a craft. 
There is a list of examples of crafts (to be honest, "lubricating brakes" was a surprising one to me) of which not many are mentioned in the text itself.
The author concentrated on the crafts she's doing herself, I get that, but from the title I had expected more.

The book is not that difficult a read, though, even if you are not familiar with psychological research - which isn't a topic I had delved into that much about before - so you can definitely pick up some interesting facts that may make you understand things better.
For me one of those was the explanation of Default Mode Network (DMN) and Central Executive Network (CEN) - two of the brain's networks - which told me why my brain insists on going through everything embarrassing I did since I was 4 if I can't sleep at 2 a.m.

The author also gives you a few recommendations on how to use your craft intentionally. They won't be working for everyone, I know two of them don't for me anymore, but they are interesting nevertheless.
One of them - and actually that was what first caught my attention when the book was announced - is to have at least ten projects going at the same time which differ from each other in the level of challenge or purpose or surroundings (something to work on when you are alone or with others), so you can always pick the perfect one for the moment. If I have that many, they become WIPs that might never get finished. I have the infamous WIP drawer to corroborate that, but maybe I could make them count as part of the ten ...

Kirketerp also recommends not just doing coupled activities meaning you shouldn't always have the TV running - something I do although I usually just block it out once I get into the flow - or an audiobook, etc. while you are crafting.

I'm ambivalent towards the book. I enjoyed reading parts of it, others not so much because they were too theoretical and repetitive for my personal liking.
I would have been interested in some things that are missing (I admit that some of this interest is based on my own experiences, for example that of wanting to craft, but not being able to do it anymore the way I'd like to, and the consequences from that ... sorry if you feel I'm droning on about my thumb, but this has been a massive change for me). I also would have liked to see more crafts covered.

That is just my personal opinion. I don't regret reading the book, but I also don't think I would want to read it again. Maybe I should have made some notes while reading it to keep those, but that's something I'm notoriously bad at, at least with private reading.

Silent movies - Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde

I have a confession to make. I have always been a bigger fan of Stan Laurel than of Oliver Hardy. It's probably that underdog thing again.
That's also the reason why I have Stan on my fan wall of bead loomed portraits, but not Ollie (although I did design pendants of both once).

While Laurel and Hardy appeared in a movie together for the first time in 1921, they did only become an official team in 1927.
My silent movie for today is from 1925 and there's just Stan in it which is a first for me. It's called "Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde".
Am I picking up on last week's post with this? Yes and no. Of course, this is a parody of the 1920 "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" movie, but I found this short film first which then led to the other one. I just thought it would be a good idea to start with the original.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
(you see both "Pryde" and "Pride" in the title)

As usual, here's the plot with spoilers.

"Dr. Stanislaus Pyckle was the most respected man in town - Heaven knows why --" (unfortunately it seems to be the case that the funny intertitles are not original to the film, but at least try to imitate the jokes and puns of that time).

We see Dr. Pyckle in his laboratory walking back and forth, thinking about how to separate Good and Evil in the human mind - surprisingly watched by an audience of men and his lovely lab assistant.

His first experiments don't go the way he wants them - there are a few nice occasions for some slapstick here - but then inspiration strikes and at last he concocts a potion (why do they always have to look so foamy?).

The transformation is a hilarious take on Barrymore's dramatic one. Dr. Pyckle's legs seem to turn to rubber and he jumps through his lab before falling down behind one of his contraptions and getting back up as Mr. Pryde.

With an evil smile, he makes his way into town. And evil he truly is!
His first victim is a small boy with an ice cream cone. Mr. Pryde pulls him towards himself with his cane, steps on his foot to keep him from escaping, and takes his ice cream away. To add insult to injury, he pulls the boy's cap over his eyes.
The horror!

When he hits another boy with a pea shooter, a crowd follows Mr. Pryde to the lab, but he knocks them all out with one single blow from his pea shooter which gives him time to change back to Dr. Pyckle and deny having seen anyone.
Unfortunately, some of the potion has dripped down into the dog's food and turns him into an evil creature ... going for Pyckle's butt.

Do you recognize him from the Buster Brown films?

Pryde's fiendish actions don't end here, he keeps terrorizing the town.
He offers a flower to an old lady, but it's really a blow tickler which frightens her.
He puts a brick under a hat, so the nearing policeman will hit his foot the brick when he tries to kick the hat (instead the brick hits Pryde in the head when he does).
He pops a paper bag behind an unsuspecting woman.
He taunts a man by putting a finger trap on him.
Will he stop at nothing?

This time an even bigger mob follows him to the lab and again he barely escapes by taking the potion.
His lovely assistant is worried about him, though, and asks him to be let in. By now Pyckle who has run out of the potion has changed back to Pryde, so it's him who opens the door. He winks at her, she hits him over the head with a bottle. He slips his head into the necklace she's wearing.
At that moment, the mob arrives at the lab door again and ......!

Yeah, sorry, that's it. Unfortunately, the ending is lost. That is a bit of an anticlimax, but maybe you want to make up your own ending.

I don't mind saying that I really had fun with this, especially after having watched the feature film the day before.
Laurel's slapstick is spoofing Barrymore's slightly over the top Hyde (not that I didn't enjoy that) perfectly.
I think I liked best how he kept stroking his incredible wig.
Oh, and the way he jumped through town.
No, wait! His hands were the best making fun of Barrymore's long fingers.

Okay, so I simply liked the whole short and it made me laugh more than I had expected.
I really wonder what the ending was as the mob got bigger with each little prank Pryde pulled and he had no chance to escape anymore, especially by practically catching himself in that necklace (I bet that was important for the ending).

I don't think you need to see the 1920 film to have fun with this little comedy, but it makes it even better.


Sources:

1. Fritzi Kramer: Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde (1925) - A silent film review. On: Movies Silently, July 1, 2018
2. "prettycleverfilmgal": The Trickster Imp | Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde. On: Pretty Clever Films, June 9, 2011
3. D. Cairns: The Sunday Intertitle: Another Fine Pyckle. On: Shadowplay, September 3, 2017

More than one copy?

From Jonathan Edward Durham on Facebook:
"I recommend no fewer than 4 copies of any beloved book. A paperback for traveling and lending to friends, an eBook for reading with greasy snack fingers, an audio book so you know how the characters' names are actually pronounced, and a pristine hardcover to be buried with you like a pharaoh."

Okay, I'm not sure I absolutely agree here.
For example, I can't read at all with greasy snack fingers, not even on my tablet (not because it's still rather new, but because I'm just weird that way). I prefer printed books, anyway, and feel like a traitor to my own principles, but I couldn't resist the lure of The Internet Archive.
Also I said often enough that audio books are not for me.
I'm not even sure about paperback versus a pristine hardcover, but since chances are zero that someone will build a pyramid, even a small one, for me, I don't think I will have to worry about that, anyway.

Multiple copies of a book, however .... weeeellll ... it may be possible that I do have one or the other ....
Sounds weird to you? There you have it, just more proof that I'm weird. 
In order to possibly make it even weirder, let me tell you that I bought those multiple copies myself. Those weren't gifts from when someone was brave enough to give me a book by a favorite author thinking I didn't own it yet.

Why would I even want to own more than one copy of a book, though?
The following examples are all children's books. That doesn't mean I don't have extra copies of other books at all, but it was the easiest for me to just go through one cabinet and find something for each one of my reasons.

1. "I have been looking for you for so long."

When I was a kid, my best friend had the book "Hand in Hand der Sonne nach" by Betty MacDonald, original title "Nancy and Plum". It was about two orphaned girls escaping a terrible boarding school and finding themselves new parents.
I loved that book and as a grownup I wanted to have it in my collection. Easier said than done, a lot easier! It seemed impossible to find that book. I looked in used book stores, at fleamarkets, no success.
Then the Internet came along. Surely, that was my big chance. Dream on. I looked for it regularly and registered email notifications for used book sites, but nothing much turned up, and when it did, someone else had been faster. This was a very sought after book, and as far as I could see, prices were quite ridiculous for the edition I wanted. Because you know, I didn't want a paperback, I wanted exactly the book I loved as a child, dust cover included if possible.
Finally, it was my turn to be the lucky one. It wasn't horribly expensive and I could hardly believe it was really mine after "only" about 25 years or so of looking for it.
For some reason, I was so used to search for it that I didn't stop right away, though. That's why I have more than one now. Or two. I can always finance my old age selling it if needed, right (yup, obviously still sought after)? Well, at least to finance one day of food the way prices are.
Seriously, though, I have found my peace by now and don't look for it anymore (... very often, but not with the intent of buying, I swear).

2. "I wonder what they are like in English." or "I want at least one set that's looking good."

Sounds like two reasons, but it was actually a mix for this particular set.
I told the story of "The Dark is Rising" last year, what it's about, why it looks so messed up, and why I didn't buy a new copy (for the memory).
It's the green one, you can tell how bad it looks compared to the others.

So eventually I got the English set because the price was okay at the time, I was curious if there were differences to the German translations, and I had one perfect looking set.

I have other books in both English and German. Sometimes I replace the translation with the original, sometimes I start a series with the German translation and then continue in English, either because I don't want to wait for the translation - that's why my Pratchetts are divided in German paperbacks and English hardcovers - or because a series simply isn't translated anymore which always makes me wonder if interest in Germany has waned or what the reason could have been to stop translating an alphabet series at R like it happened for Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone series for example.
I have begun to add the earlier Pratchetts in English as well, though, bit by bit. As long as I still have space available, I don't need to decide if the German paperbacks will have to go, but it will probably happen eventually.

3. "I have more than one edition and I can't stop."

That may be the weirdest reason for some people. Heck, even it even feels a bit weird to me.
Why would you want different editions of the same book? Okay, maybe an older translation and a modern one if there are significant differences and you have fun comparing them, but what other reason could there be?

There's only one example for that in my collection. Again it's a children's book set and that may make the reason a little more obvious. Sentimentality.
If you have read my post about the "Sue Barton" books, you will know that I don't feel that way about all books. In that case, I got myself the old edition and put the newer ones in the public book cabinet, no regrets. I have also done that with some other books. If I found a better looking copy, the old one went unless there is a story connected to it. In fact, I'm about to look through my books to see if there are still extra copies that I simply haven't pulled yet. We aren't talking dozens here, by the way, probably not even ten.

A while ago, I officially admitted in a post that I don't like the "Mary Poppins" movie (the one with Julie Andrews, I haven't seen the ones with Emily Blunt and don't intend to), but that I love the books.
I had forgotten that I had already mentioned the latter in two posts 15 years ago. Maybe I should write about them and their creator P.L. Travers sometime.

Anyhow, as a kid I got those books from the local library and not just once. I loved everything about them, the stories (yes, there is one especially with aged stereotypes which have been changed in revisions) and especially the magic. I wanted some of that magic so badly myself and maybe part of me still wants it today, I don't know, but I still love the books.
I also loved the illustrations, this is how Mary will always look to me.
In a post about children's book illustrations I wrote this: "If you are anything like me, you may remember the illustrations from your childhood and stubbornly refuse new editions with new, maybe more modern ones because these characters are so familiar to you that it's not possible for them to get new faces just like that. ... It might be interesting to have a collection of children's books in which there are several editions of the same books to see what different illustrators made of them."

Funny, I didn't even think to look at my "Mary Poppins" editions then.

The original series has eight books, but my library only had four of them (a fifth had been translated, but I only found that many years later).
They looked like the one of the left with the striped cover that always reminded me of an old-fashioned wallpaper, with a different color for each volume.
I have these first four books in three different editions, a newer English one, an older and a newer German one. In the picture, there are four books because I also have a "book sales club" edition, but they only published the first volume.
I also have one of the other four books in a completely different German edition, and the other three in English because they were never translated as far as I know.

There are small differences between the older and the newer German editions. The new one adapted single words to more modern language, for example Mister and Mistreß Banks became Mr. and Mrs. Banks (you don't often see that translated to Herr and Frau as you might think), and the "Polizist" (policeman) of the new edition used to be a "Schutzmann" (which used to be the official name for uniformed police, still valid today, but not used that much anymore today).
The differences are too small, however, to be a reason for keeping the new ones. Neither are the illustrations. Only the covers are different, not the pictures in the books. At the moment, it's still the story of how and where I bought the books that made me keep the new ones, well, not that new, I got them 35 years ago (at the time I still noted the date in the books). 
I will definitely keep the one "book sales club" edition because it has different illustrations.

Update August 7: Surprisingly, I just got all four volumes of the early edition for a good price, bound in half-linen with dust covers which makes me really happy. From the stamps inside I could tell that I bought them from the original owner. Maybe I should be getting ready to let the late 80s edition go now, what do you think?

If you are still here with me - shaking your head or not -, would you like to compare some illustrations?

This is Mary how Mary Shepard saw her, the original illustrator for the English books.

You may have heard of her father, E. H. Shepard, who did the illustrations for "Winnie the Pooh" and "Wind in the Willows", for example. Actually, he was the one who was approached about "Mary Poppins" at first, but he was too busy to take the job. Travers happened to see a Christmas card with artwork by his daughter who then illustrated all of the books.
It was not an easy collaboration, especially for Mary and particularly at the end, as Travers "saw the illustrations as servants of the texts rather than artworks in their own right" which left Mary quite forgotten when the success of the books is discussed. I will add two sources at the end if you would like to know more and see more illustrations.

My own image of Mary Poppins, however, was shaped by German illustrator Horst Lemke (who also illustrated Erich Kästner's books after Walter Trier's death). His pictures are in both German editions and I love them as much as the books themselves.
Mary is not a warm person. In my old post I wrote "... she is stubborn, she is strict and stern and thinks very highly of herself" - which annoys Mrs. Banks more than once - "and still she is lovable ...". To be honest, I'm not sure anymore that is the right word. The children love her, for the magic and the adventure and because they feel safe with her, and I'm sure she loves them, but she knows she won't be there for them forever.
She only lets her guard down a little when she's with Bert because it's hard to resist his joy in life, I think.
I think Lemke caught that slightly aloof and professional streak in Mary very well.
I don't know if it's because I know the books so well, but can you see how Michael is all jumpy, the older Jane a bit calmer, and how Mary seems to have them under control although she doesn't even have Michael by the hand. Maybe it's the way she holds her umbrella.

This is an illustration by Emanuela Delignon, an Austrian illustrator and graphic designer, for the "book sales club" edition which also works well, but I still prefer Lemke's clearer lines.

Actually, I couldn't find many pictures of Mary in the first English book at all. I would have loved to find the same scene by all three of them for comparison, but this is the best I've got.

Mary Shepard

Horst Lemke

Emanuela Delignon

Are there any books that you have in more than one copy?
Please tell me I'm not the only weird one 😉


Sources on Mary Shepard:

1. Margaret Baguley and Martin Charles Kerby: Mary Shepard: the artist who brought Mary Poppins to life. On: The Conversation, December 24, 2020
2. Shelley Lloyd: Forgotten Mary Poppins illustrator finally recognised after international search reveals rare original drawings. On: ABC News Australia, March 20, 2020