To begin, this building is not in Asakusa, it’s in Ginza, but isn’t it pretty?
Anyway, enough of that. Yesterday we took a couple of B’s co-workers who were in town for business to Asakusa to look around. We did not realize that there was a festival going on, which only made it cooler.
On the way, we took Zoe’s train. She was very excited since we don’t usually go on her line. The other train on this sign is Bruce and Tiny’s (D for Daddy, T for Tiny). Tiny also has her own line- TY the Tokyo Toyoko line, and I have the M line- and I can’t remember which one that is right now. Obviously we don’t go on it very often.
In Asakusa at the Senso-ji temple.
The guys wanted to go into the temple and Tiny didn’t, so she and I sat outside taking pictures of ourselves.
And things around us.
Then we all went and explored all the lovely food stalls. The girls got shaved ice.
Jimmie, this picture is for you.
Choco covered bananas.
Spiral cut potatoes of goodness.
SQUIIIIIIIIIID. (I actually love this picture and may print it out to put on my wall. This says something about me, I know.)
Adorable baby that I don’t know.
There were a bunch of people going around making music in various forms and carrying the portable shrine.
This is the portable shrine:
Men wearing no pants.
Kids playing music.
More men in no pants.
More shrine.
by Nancy Springer : This is another in the Enola Holmes series, and in this one John Watson goes missing. Enola’s had run ins with him in the past and liked him, so she gets involved in the search even though she’s afraid it might all be a trick by Sherlock to get her to show herself. It’s well done, and the mystery at the core of it is clever.
by Catherine Crawford: This is firmly in the realm of “cultural parenting”- the American author (living in Brooklyn) decided to parent the “French way”, and this book is about her experiences. I am intrigued by the French way of parenting, so it was very interesting to see how it played out, practically sp eaking, on a day to day basis. My favorite quote from the book comes from a vacation the family takes to an island where there won’t be constant entertainment for the kids.
by John Baxter: Once I start reading about France it’s hard for me to stop reading about France. Baxter is a writer who also gives walking tours of Paris, and this book is about his experiences with that and different walks he’s taken. Makes me want to go to Paris RIGHT NOW! A funny note, I was in the middle of this book when we got to Tokyo, and from our apartment window you can see the Tokyo Tower, which was fashioned after the Eiffel Tower. So I’d look out the window and pretend I was in Paris. 
by Christopher Isherwood: Berlin seemed a good follow up to Paris in Tokyo. This is the book that I am A Camera and Cabaret were based on, and deals with a British ex-pat’s experience in Berlin leading up to WWII. The writing is evocative, and Sally Bowles is a bit of a jerk, but I suppose she was in the films too.
by Wendy Mass: I have no idea why I got this book (perhaps it was a Kindle daily deal?) but I’m so glad that I did. It’s a middle grade book about four kids who get to go to a candy factory to work on their entries for a candy making contest. One of them actually lives at the factory, he’s the son of the owners, and it’s his perspective that the book starts with, as the other kids show up and he tries to figure them out. The perspective shifts from kid to kid with each section, and as it does, information that was left out by previous narrators gets filled in, and what gets mentioned and what doesn’t becomes a fascinating puzzle as each kid has their own secrets and reasons for wanting to win. It’s complex and well told and absolutely delightful. I’m waiting to read it to the girls until they’re a little older- there are some aspects that are a little heavy though they all end up resolved, (one boy carries a huge amount of guilt over a disturbing incident, for example).
by Kristin Kladstrup: Another middle grade book, this one started out really strong and was solid, if not quite as magical as I’d hoped. A girl moves with her family into the house of her aunt, where years before, her uncle (the aunt’s brother) disappeared. According to the aunt, one night he got into a rowboat in the front yard and rowed away. The problem is that the house is on a hill in the middle of a field, with no water anywhere around. When the girl finds a book with the power to make beginnings of stories become real, she finds out what happened to her uncle, but makes her father disappear, and the adventure is on.
by Dan Elish: And another middle grade book. I was on a bit of a streak. This one was cute- about a school for super geniuses, run by a Steve Jobs type mogul who comes out with marvelous new products every couple of years. The main characters are three friends who find themselves solving a huge conspiracy in the midst of trying to finish their big project for school. The characters are fun, there are musical, mechanical, artistic, mathematical geniuses running around the school, and the adventure the kids find themselves embroiled in is clever.
by Justin Richards : This is a spin off Doctor Who novel that appears in The Angels Take Manhattan episode. The story is not the story of the episode, but another set in the same Manhattan, and featuring River as Melody Malone. Richards does an excellent job of capturing River’s voice, and the book is a blast to read. Super pulpy, super silly, super River. For example,
by Helen Oyeyemi : This book was perplexing. Even once I’d finished it I wasn’t sure what exactly had gone on. I don’t know that it completely succeeds at what it’s trying to do, but the language was interesting enough that I kept reading, so that definitely says something. It’s about writers and muses and marriage and how all of those things fit together or don’t. But it has one of my new favorite quotes:
by Diane Setterfield: Oh, this book was good. A bookish young woman (Margaret) gets invited to stay with a reclusive author (Vita) who is a notorious liar when it comes to her personal history, and is asked to write her biography. As the story progresses we get Vita’s story of her life, but both Margaret and the reader have to try to sort out what is real and what isn’t, because something is off about the story we’re getting. And what a story it ends up being. Vita’s books are described as impossible to put down, and Setterfield manages to create the same thing with her book. The language is gorgeous, the story engrossing. Favorite lines:
by Yann Martel: I don’t really know exactly what to say about this book. It’s good. It’s powerful. It’s painful. The idea at its core is that there should be more diverse ways at looking at the Holocaust in art, of processing it, of grappling with it. One of the characters in the book says that there are war thrillers, war comedies, war romances, war science fiction, war propaganda, and that we talk about war “in may ways and for many purposes. With these diverse representations, we come to understand what war means to us.” He continues that the Holocaust is generally only represented by historical realism- the same story, in the same place, featuring the same people.
