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Character Love: Constance Contraire

If you have not read The Mysterious Benedict Society books by Trenton Lee Stewart, you’re missing out. The characters are great. And Constance is a real stand out for me and doggie co-owner, Finni. Here is why...

11 reasons why we love Constance Contraire 

She agrees to nothing; 

She rejects rules;

She speaks in poetic meters (most of the time);

She is a nap enthusiast;

She is a tantrum enthusiast;

She’s mentally sensitive;

She loves sweets and is not afraid to demand them;

She’s secure in her complaining;

She’s a girl of few but powerful words;

She’s not afraid to leave the room when she believes the discussion is over (at least for her, even if it’s not technically over); and

She’s not afraid to be herself and doesn’t apologize for it!

How many of you are like Constance, or in some way wish you could be? I’ve got a few of these traits down, like number 1, 6, 7, 8, and 11. But I could really uses some work on 2, 3, 4, 9, and 10. 

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"I believe that censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children’s lives. This fear is often disguised as moral outrage. They want to believe that if their children don’t read about it, their children won’t know about it. And if they don’t know about it, it won’t happen."

-Judy Blume

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It’s Fall Y’all!

Happy first day of fall! Our {me and Finni’s} favorite time of the year. Cool weather is finally arrived! We’ll partake of warm sweaters, fall walks, bike rides, warm drinks and reading books, outside or cozied up inside!

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Now is Banned Books Week: Sept 22-28th

The Dog Gone Bookshop believes in the freedom to read. That this is a right that is fundamental to our constitutional democracy. That’s why we read and sell banned books! According to the American Library Association more books have been challenged in the past few years than ever before. Those challenged books are focused on racial and ethnic diversity as well as gender and sexual identity. You may not realize it...

but to be able to go to any bookstore or Amazon and buy a book is a privilege. There are families, children and adults who can’t simply do that for whatever reason. They rely on public and school libraries for their sources of information, entertainment, or like me when i was a child, a means of escape into worlds real and imagined. I discovered Agatha Christie at my local library in lower school with my father on one of our library trips. I love libraries to this day.

Libraries won’t be saved by standing around and waiting saying, “They should do something.” You are they!!

Here are some real things you can do to support your library and fight the banning of books.

Democracy lives or dies based on the courage of its citizens.

Please share this post or one of your own telling people how to fight banned books far and wide.

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Author Spotlight: L.S. Kilroy

It goes without saying that if we {meaning Finni and I, the Proprietress} at the bookshop like a book, we will probably like the author as well. We clearly want to know how they got involved in writing and what inspired them to create their story. Well, we really liked the Vitruvian Heir, and it seems very apropos to our current political climate despite having been written years ago. Therefore, here is our author spotlight on L.S. Kilroy.

How does she describe herself? L.S. Kilroy is an irreverent sort of person who likes to write about things. Growing up an asthmatic only child in a neighborhood of geriatrics, she made friends with books at a young age because she had to – luckily, she also really liked them. Early exposure to the classics fueled her own writing. At fifteen, a man in a bookstore asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and she replied, “Writer,” without hesitation.

What's your educational background? [I] hold a Bachelor’s degree in English from Merrimack College and a Master’s degree in Writing, Literature & Publishing from Emerson College. 

What is the best thing about being a writer? The best thing about being a writer is the freedom to create whatever I feel like creating. And I think the potential to tell stories that shed some light on the human condition, that reflect social issues, that make people think and inspire a dialogue is, for me, what literature has always been about. People may think it's all just words and that writing is a secondhand experience and reading is an even more removed experience, but I really believe in the transformative effect of books...I mean, if books had no power, ignorant people wouldn't burn them, right?

How do you deal with writer's block? I embrace it. If I can't write, then I stop worrying about it and live my life. Inspiration always comes back.

Where did you get the idea for [The Vitruvian Heir]? When I was a sophomore, my history teacher was telling us about the time when Catherine de’ Medici ruled the French court. She had a group of beautiful female spies called the Flying Squadron (L’escadron Volant), whom she recruited to seduce important men in court and then report back to her. My fifteen-year-old self took this fascinating lesson and formed an idea for a new story. What if a future version of the United States had somehow come under the control of an emperor who commanded that everything be returned to the Victorian and Edwardian periods – women were stripped of rights, had to wear corsets, etc.? And what if, there was a woman who was running this underground circle of female spies trained to extract information from powerful men? What if she was planning a coup? What if she sent her best girl in to charm the emperor himself? But then the girl falls in love with him…That was my teenage sensibility. That story was eventually discarded along with its bedfellows somewhere between high school and college. Then, a couple of years ago, when women’s rights issues were heavy in the media, the germ of this idea resurfaced and became [the book].

The Vitruvian Heir is the first book in the trilogy. I encourage you to start there and continue on to its final conclusion. Make sure to place L.S. Kilroy on your favorite author list.

This interview was reproduced from member questions and answers by the author on Goodreads. Some responses have been edited for clarity and length only.

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What to Read Next: The Vitruvian Heir

In this  dystopian steampunk novel, America has had fractured after a great civil war. In the part now called Vitruvia where our heroine Lorelai lives society has been thrown back to the Victorian era and government is ruled by entirely by men. Women of her upper class are to be married, obedient wives to their husbands and produce children. But on Lore’s graduation day, and on the eve of her unwanted arranged marriage, her friend Spencer’s rebellious sexual choices are about to come to light.

Spencer’s sexual freedom is punishable by death. Lore must get herself and Spencer to Hopespoke where the times are modern and women are free. Little does Lore know knowing freedom is also a dangerous thing. 

In the wake of American women’s real loss of reproductive rights, the Vitruvian heir makes you think where might this country be headed toward? 

Purchase the Vitruvian Heir.

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Now Playing: Nelly Rapp, Monster Agent

This fun middle grade movie, based on the Swedish books of the same name, is now playing on Amazon prime. It’s a story about a 12 year old girl who is staying with her eccentric maternal uncle, whom she has never met, at his castle in the countryside for one week. Nelly soon finds out that he is a part of a group of monster agents (hunters as it were), as was her deceased mother whom she doesn’t remember. Longing to be like her, Nelly goes in search of a monster, only to find a new friend instead… that is until her uncle and fellow monster agents have something to say about it. 

movie studio image

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6 Ways to Read Even More Books

Chances are if you're browsing the Dog Gone Bookshop or any other bookstore, you're already a committed reader regardless of your age, or you know of one. There is nothing more lovers of reading like to do, than purchase and read more books. As we all know, we'll never get to them all. So how can we bibliophiles make even more of a dent into our reading lists. Here are some ways to go about it...

Set some dedicated reading time every day. A great app I use which notifies me when my reading time should begin, and tracks multiple reading stats is Bookly. I highly recommend the pro version it's worth it.

Mentally make reading a priority, just like eating everyday. See number 1.

Always carry a book a with you, whether it's through an e-reader or an analogue book (think Rory Gilmore from the Gilmore Girls series). Then when you have a little down time, be it five minutes or an hour of waiting you have something to read.

Limit your screen time, that includes television, social media, gaming and others (except for reading this blog!). You'll be amazed at how much more reading time you can capture.

Create cozy places to read. They can be outside or inside just as long as you look forward to being in the space and it's relaxing.

Simply add five more minutes to the amount of reading you do everyday. Five minutes over a year is 1,825 more minutes of reading. An average book takes about 4 hours to read. In that time you can read 7 more books per year!

Image by Freepik

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So, please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookcase on the wall.

Roald Dahl

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Create your own visual style...let it be unique for yourself and identifiable for others.

Orson Wells