Books – Coraline, Street Fighters, and The 19th Wife

I've finished 3 more books. You can see the list of books I have read this year here

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Coraline by Neil Gaiman adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell

I highly recommend this book. The original version of Neil Gaimon's Coraline was published in 2002. Last year Gaimon partnered with P. Craig Russell to publish a comic book style version of the book. Amazon calls it a graphic novel. It is a scary book about my kind of girl. Coraline Is brave, independent and she likes to explore. She and her family have just move into a big old house. The first sentence hooked me; "Coraline discovered the door a little after they moved into the house."

Street Fighters by Kate Kelly

Street Fighters is the story of the collapse of Bear Stearns. It was recommended by my friend Todd Jonz  who I interviewed in my podcast in June. I found the book fascinating. I could very much imagine being at Bear Stearns and living through this time. If I was an employee there I would have been so mad at the cowboy executives who apparently never took risk seriously. I read Street Fighters on my Kindle

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

The 19th Wife is really two stories. One is a modern murder mystery about a murder of a polygamist and the polygamist community he lives in. The other story is historical fiction. It is based on the life of one of Brigham Young's wives, Ann Eliza Young, who divorced him and went on to crusade against Polygamy in the late 1800's. I had never heard of her before so I learned a lot about the history of the Mormon church and about polygamy. I enjoyed the murder mystery but found the historical story much too long. It dragged. In spite of that The 19th Wife was worth reading.

HD Honscheid – Artist, Traveler, and Web Site Creater – Marion Vermazen Podcast Episode 4

For episode four of the Marion Vermazen podcast I interviewed my friend HD Honscheid. In this interview HD answered my questions about retirement, moving to the U.S. from Germany and the many different types of art he creates. I enjoyed talking with HD and I know you will enjoy listening to our conversation.

To play the podcast roll your mouse over the bar below and you will see the play button to click on.

Marion Vermazen Podcast – episode 4 – HD Honscheid

Here is a link to HD's personal website.

HD Honscheid

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Aspen trees

Never plant aspen trees near your lawn. Back in August of 2006 I blogged about aspen trees.  A grove of Aspen trees can actually be just one tree because they share the same root system. The aspen is the biggest plant in the world.

The house we bought last year has three beautiful aspen trees in the front yard. Unfortunately they are trying to start a grove of aspen trees in our front grass. This summer the baby aspen trees were growing much faster than the grass.
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In the picture above you can just see the baby aspens. The picture below gives you a close up.

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