The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 1

By Beth Brower, published 2019

It is March 1883 and Emma has just moved back to her childhood home (Lapis Lazuli House) in London as an orphan who has finished school and a three year companionship to a curmudgeonly older relative, and who is a few months away from inheriting the house and property. She will take over from an older male relative who has been living in the house and benefiting from the income since her father’s death seven years before. Her coming of age will boot him out of his handling of the house and money. I’m sure this will be a smooth transition…. 

The novella’s format is diary entries, and details Emma’s observations, thoughts, and feelings. It is a charming little book, and Emma is a witty and entertaining narrator. 

I like that the book is a novella and in a diary/journal format, so we don’t get too in-the-weeds about the events of the story, and it doesn’t go on for too long before we are at the end. It was a perfect little snack of a book.

Brower has released eight volumes thus far, with each volume covering two months of time, so her proposed timeline will cover ~twenty-ish volumes if she continues her current plan (https://www.bethbrower.com/about-3). That is quite a commitment and I wish her the best! 

Howl’s Moving Castle 

By Diana Wynne Jones, published 1986

I re-read this children’s fantasy novel because we have been watching the films of Hayao Miyazaki with a friend and after watching the animated version I couldn’t remember what aspects were part of the book and what aspects Miyazaki inserted/ adapted. 

The story follows Sophie, a young woman who works at her stepmother’s hat shop and is the dutiful oldest daughter (who seems magical despite assuring us that she is super boring and lame) while her younger two sisters go off to work at a bakery and apprenticeship with a witch. 

Sophie is cursed by the Wicked Witch of the Waste to be an old woman and also not to be able to tell anyone she has been cursed. She leaves her day job and discovers the vain Wizard Howl and his titular castle (which does indeed move, and is also connected magically to multiple locations). 

It’s a story about family, knowing yourself, courage, and also magic, obviously. It is also a very 1980’s book. There were aspects I enjoyed and some things which I had a lot of questions about and wanted to know more about. I enjoyed it, but I probably don’t need to revisit it again. 

The movie is also a delight: beautiful, weird, though it leaves some plot threads dangling at the end, though to be fair, the book also ends rather abruptly. I did love the movie’s depiction of the castle as a Baba Yaga’s Hut style building, and Howl’s vanity and general angst is also a highlight.  What I didn’t love was Billy Crystal as the English dub voice of Calcifer, the fire demon. I just didn’t imagine Billy Crystal when I imagined the fire demon, and it was impossible to hear him as anything but Billy Crystal. Small complaint and it might not bother you!