erin

flax-golden tales: the chandelier rebellion

the chandelier rebellion

The chandeliers went on strike but no one noticed, assuming it was the age of the wiring or faulty bulbs and not a calculated withholding of light.

The list of demands appeared on the dining room table on a Thursday morning. It was a comparatively short list. Regular polishing. Appropriate use of dimmer switches and more frequent dinner parties.

The household was given until the following Monday to comply or respond in writing.

Only everyone who read the list thought it was a joke, though no one would admit to writing it. By Thursday evening it had been crumpled and thrown away.

On Monday morning the chandeliers pulled themselves down from the ceiling and walked out of the house.

They still haven’t come back.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

By erin, ago

june is audiobook month

I don’t listen to as many audiobooks as I’d like to but I still flipped when I found out that Jim Dale was going to narrate the audio version of The Night Circus. For a few reasons, including the fact that he narrated the short-lived but beloved-by-me Pushing Daisies and also he was Barnum in Barnum and I was a clown (seriously) in a production of Barnum when I was in high school. (Seriously, it involved pink and yellow polkadots and I had pigtails, and is likely one of many reasons there are no clowns in my circus.)

He has the most fantastic storyteller voice. If you haven’t heard it, have a listen:

 

I love the audio of The Night Circus so much I sometimes want to rig my iPod at readings so Jim Dale can read instead of me. He does all the accents, while I avoid reading the sections with lots of dialogue.

(Jim also narrates all the Harry Potter audiobooks. You know, if you haven’t read Harry Potter or want to have someone re-read them to you. That’d be a fun June is Audiobook Month activity, I’m just sayin’.)

So, in summary: I can’t believe it’s June already and listening to books is like childhood bedtime stories all over again and if you haven’t listened to an audiobook in a while, it is a perfect summery month to do so.

 

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: keeping time

keeping time

I put time away.

I locked it in a cabinet. An old cabinet, painted to look older than it is, with a lock and a key. I put the key on a chain around my neck.

The cabinet has a glass door so I can see inside to check that time is still there.

I want to be sure it doesn’t get away from me again.

I put time away so it would stop.

So everything will remain just as it is.

As it was.

So you can stay.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

By erin, ago

post-holiday

So the post-holiday post has been delayed until now because, as I mentioned on Twitter, my grandmother passed away last week.

She was 95 years old and until recently was still going up & down her stairs in South Boston. It was not terribly unexpected but that does not make it any less sad and I will think of her when I have cups of tea, which is frequently.

I looked through my computer for photographs and while I don’t have any recent ones, I did find this, which I love (I never knew my grandfather but apparently he had fabulous hats):

Thank you to everyone who sent kind words and condolences via Twitter, they are much appreciated.

 

So, probably obvious but I lost most of my post-holiday, pre-Book Expo week to catch up on things. I will likely not catch up on emails or Twitter replies or things like that any time soon, my apologies. I have to do things like pack. And unpack, I’m not even properly unpacked yet.

Regarding Book Expo America next week: yes, I will be there. Last I checked I wasn’t on the list of authors on the website but I really do have a signing on Wednesday at 11:30am in the Random House booth. Haven’t signed things in a while, maybe more letters will be legible in my signature. Probably not, though.

 

If you hadn’t figured it out from the periodic palm trees popping up on Twitter, I spent the last few weeks in Florida. Mostly around Fort Lauderdale with a few excursions to Miami for art deco architecture research. I will try to post more photos at some point soon(ish).

I read and I wrote and I flounced around on beaches and I actually got to relax for a change which was splendid. Proper book-centric post forthcoming but the book I enjoyed the most was Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer. It’s fascinating and also has a very pretty cover.

Speaking of books, while I was away the circus was chosen for the Huffington Post Book Club. I am delighted, of course, though I feel slightly bad as it was the only one of the nominated books not yet out in paperback but I hope all the book club readers enjoy it. Also in UK book club news, the circus was chosen for the Richard & Judy Summer Book Club which is also delightful and flattering and I hope everyone reading it in the summer finds it an autumnal sort of escape.

I will likely not manage a proper Florida recap, but I did have one of the loveliest meals I’ve ever at Market 17 (the dessert involved this, it was magic!) and I would totally go back to dine in the dark. Also I saw more butterflies than I’ve ever seen before in my life and I narrowly escaped an attack by a small pink lizard and I watched ducklings learn to swim. Not all at the same time.

And I watched the sunrise from the seashore while wearing a matching dress. I miss the sound of the waves already.

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: wish dish

wish dish

I blame Dr. Seuss.

It’s a belief that solidified in my head after all the rhyming, the fish wish dish stuff.

I was easily influenced by rhyming things. My mother says I used to try to put a hat on the cat and cry when he wouldn’t wear it.

(My mother can’t stand Dr. Seuss. Or Curious George, but I never cared much for him either, with that weird yellow hat guy.)

I don’t try to force fedoras on kittens anymore but that dish wish thing stuck in my mind.

It stuck without the fish, and with a technicality: you have to break a dish to make your wish properly.

I know it sounds silly, but broken dish wishing works.

Though it means I constantly have to stock up on dishes.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: a saturday afternoon quest for power

a saturday afternoon quest for power

It’s a stupid thing to search for, she tells me, for about the hundredth time since we started walking.

I ask her if it would be better to search for Knowledge and she says that it would.

Well, Knowledge is Power, isn’t it? I ask, and that shuts her up for a good half an hour but after we find the next marker (a rock this time, engraved instead of painted and half-hidden in the grass) she starts up again.

How do you know you’ll get to keep it if you find it? she asks.

I’m not sure but I don’t tell her that.

We’ll figure that out when we reach it, I say.

Then she asks if we have a big enough bag if we need to bring it home and I worry that I haven’t thought this through properly.

I suggest that she look for shapes in the clouds, distracting her while I search for the next sign with another arrow to point the way.

She finds a pirate ship and a dancing bear.

I start to wonder what it is I’m looking for.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

By erin, ago