Today is the hub of two 'special' days. Yesterday, or so the Calendar of Special Days tells me, was Tweed Day. I found just one book to include: The Alto Wore Tweed: a Liturgical Mystery, by Mark Schweizer. What a hoot! There is a story within a story: the main character is writing a mystery in the style of Raymond Chandler (be on the lookout for many cliches). There are puns and silly names (Pete Moss, Barb Dwyer). The victim was poisoned, but by whom, and how? Then there are the balloons purchased for a party. Balloons in the shape of a nude female. They escape from under the tarp and show up at the most, um, interesting times. There's an owl who uses an automatic door, a 'battle' of live creche scenes, and a bagpiper who wears long, red underwear. A totally fun discovery I made because I did a search using 'tweed' !! :-)

Tomorrow is Easter so the focus this post from here on will be eggs. ;-)

The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes, by DuBose Hayward with pictures by Marjorie Flack. It would also fit well with the posts on working women as it's about the mother of 21 who still has the time to deliver Easter eggs. This is a favorite from my childhood.

For a good history of the Faberge egg, try Faberge's Eggs: the Extraordinary Story of the Masterpieces That Outlived an Empire, by Toby Faber. Nicely detailed, and with a good bibliography, appendixes, etc. this book follows the famous egg from conception to gift to life after the Romanovs. (Note: I did find it a bit confusing from time to time, mostly due to the number of folks named Alexander (or the female version) and family names that were used over and over).

The wife of a coworker (long ago now) made incredible designs on her Easter eggs. It was called pysanka, a wax-resistant technique (makes me think of batik). They were Ukrainian Easter eggs and she used traditional folk designs. They were stunning, but I did not find any books (at least locally) to read. If you do a goggle image search, however, you can see what these eggs look like.

For the mystery lovers there's The Easter Bunny Murder, by Leslie Meier, and Eggsectutive Orders by Julie Hyzy. :-)

Reading Hermit With Dog