(With apologies for not always being as current as it should be)
What We’re Reading, Watching, Listening to, and Playing with:
As of February 2013:
Reading
Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley, the latest Flavia de Luce, a series Laura very much enjoys
The Kirtland’s Warbler: The Story of a Bird’s Fight Against Extinction and the People Who Saved It by William Rapai; one of Laura’s Christmas presents which she just finished up
Noel Perrin’s collected essays on farming (Tom’s Christmas present): First Person Rural: Essays of a Sometime Farmer; Second Person Rural; Third Person Rural; Best Person Rural; Last Person Rural. Noel Perrin has always been a favorite of mine so I was glad to be able to get Tom hooked.
Top Gear 2013 Official Annual (boys)
How Things are Made: From Automobiles to Zippers by Sharon Rose and Neil Schlager (Davy)
Watching
“My Family and Other Animals”, the most recent Masterpiece Theater version, again
Listening To
Lioness: Hidden Treasures by Amy Winehouse
Audiobook of Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time, read by Derek Jacobi; from BBC Audio, unabridged on six discs
Playing With
Fishing tackle and ice augers
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Hey, an update! Well, an update in progress. As of June 2009:
What We’re Reading, Watching, Listening to, and Playing with:
Reading
Stuffed: Growing Up in a Restaurant Family by Patricia Volk (Becky)
Speaking of being stuffed — The Foie Gras Wars: How a 5,000-Year-Old Delicacy Inspired the World’s Fiercest Food Fight by Mark Caro (Becky), a birthday gift from my father. By the way, I returned the favor and sent him for his recent birthday Nicolas Freeling’s The Kitchen Book/The Cook Book (David Godine reprint, 1991).
Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw (Becky)
The Snoring Bird: My Family’s Journey Through a Century of Biology by Bernd Heinrich (Becky), which I got at BookCloseouts; I’m hoping I can finish this shortly and get to Heinrich’s newest, Summer World: A Season of Bounty
An Unlikely Friendship: A Novel of Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley by Ann Rinaldi (Laura), which I also got at BookCloseouts
Quilling for Scrapbooks and Cards by Susan Lowman (Laura)
Songbird Journeys: Four Seasons In the Lives of Migratory Birds by Miyoko Chu (Laura)
Fire, Bed & Bone by Henrietta Branford (Daniel); the story of Wat Tyler and the Peasants’ Uprising, as narrated by a dog. No kidding.
Watching
“Due South” with Paul Gross; the kids adore Benton Fraser. Thank you kindly.
“The Belle of Amherst” with Julie Harris
“The Arrow” with Dan Aykroyd
Listening to
Birding podcasts (Laura)
“Key Principles” from the duo Nathan (Laura)
Kingfisher Days by Susan Coyne (Laura and Becky); I’ve long loved the book but this is the perfect thing to listen to while working in the garden on a Canadian summer day, and Laura is being taken by the magic, too.
“Appalachian Journey” with Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Mark O’Connor, Alison Krauss and others
“Appalachia Waltz” with Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O’Connor
“Vinyl Cafe” story CDs written and performed by Stuart McLean; the preferred bedtime listening for all three kids.
Playing with
Kittens
The new inflatable dinghy
The new-to-him telescope-without-tripod which Davy received for free at a garage sale
The tent, where the boys have started camping out overnight
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New York, Autumn 2008: Planning for our trip
This year’s readalouds:
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden (a re-readaloud)
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg (a re-readaloud)
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George; the link is for a modern paperback, though we have a grand old 1959 library hardbound with lovely pen and ink drawings, which stays open nicely for reading and picture perusing.
The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
The Water Horse by Dick King-Smith; I linked to the older library edition, with the illustration of two boys and the water horse. I’m not keen on movie tie-ins, so I avoided linking to the new movie tie-in paperback.
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What We’re Reading, Watching, Listening to, and Playing with:
Reading
Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker by Stacy A. Cordery
The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty by Wilfrid Sheed
Watching
“Waitress” (2007) with Keri Russell, Adrienne Shelly, Nathan Fillion, and Andy Griffith; directed by Adrienne Shelly
“The Steve McQueen Collection”: The Great Escape, Junior Bonner, The Magnificent Seven, The Thomas Crown Affair
Listening to
“That’s Entertainment” six CD box set, fortunately bought before Amazon hiked the price by $30
Playing with
Farm School, Farm House 
I am the cameraman that filmed the BBC 2 Natural World “Lobo -The Wolf That Changed America that was recently shown hAere in the UK. I am really impressed with how much research you have done on Ernest Thompson Seton and see that you read the article by Steve Gooder and that youwould really like to see my film. If you give me an address I will happily post you a DVD of the film so that you can watch it. It will go out on PBS but not for many months so you guys could be the first to see it in Canada. Very impressed with your site and what you are doing.
Best wishes. Ian McCarthy