Wayward Bookshelf

The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories by Joan Aiken This book caught my eye on one of my last trips to Vromans Bookstore (located in Pasadena, CA and one of my favorite independent bookstores) before I moved across the country, so I grabbed it, packed it for the move, finally got around to reading it, and really enjoyed it. I picked it up over Christmastime while we had family in town because the nature of short stories are perfect for when you only have a few minutes at a time to sit down and read. These stories are great. Quirky, at times magical, at times very realistic, and always relatable. Some of them begin, end, and wrap up quite nicely, while others meander and are very open ended. The varied nature of each tale had me turning from one to the next with a lot of curiosity as to where we were going next. Aiken's voice is spot on and livens the stories but is always sure to give the characters the spotlight. My personal favorites in the collection wer

This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin In the introduction of the book Levitin writes "What artists & scientists have in common is the ability to live in an open-ended state of interpretation and reinterpretation of the products of our work." (p. 5) and I completely agree - at least with the musician part of it since I can't really speak for scientists, but as artists we never stop learning. Even when we've completely mastered a piece of music, each time we play it, it is a new & original interpretation. We may strike the notes just a little differently, or emphasize a phrase another way, we may try it slower or faster or put it through any number of grand or small transformations. And even after all this, it is still the same, mostly recognizable piece of music. One of the ideas that Levitin explores at length through the discussion of many research studies is the human brain's ability to recognize fam