Welcome, fellow readers, to blustery, wet March and it's unpredictable weather that is perfect for reading!
I know for many in the US, there's still snow on the ground, but here in the PNW, we've had barely a dusting of snow, while instead there's been wind and slushy rain/ice storms aplenty. So it's still cold, it's just wet and slippery and cold (with perpetually gray skies). I have been busy with a lot of things in our house pertaining to my husbands health and mine, so I've not been able to post any reviews until today. But there's plenty of tidbits and reviews to post today...so here goes.
My mother and I are both big fans of Ruth Reichl's books, especially her non fiction books about food and restaurants and her work as a food critic for the NYT. I would love to get my hands on a copy of this novel, which I imagine is sublime.
Review:
The Paris Novel
Ruth Reichl's second novel is a
touching story of how a woman who
suffered childhood abuse and neglect
finds home and purpose. The Paris
Novel is also a love letter to a world
city.
In 1983, Stella, a New York City copy
editor in her early 30s, seems
strangely untroubled by the news of her
estranged mother's sudden death.
Then again, Celia St. Vincent was cold
and aloof; "I was not born to be
anyone's mother," she always said.
A self-made woman who rejected her
working-class Italian American
background, Celia became a sophisticated
personal shopper. She never told Stella
anything about her father, but a
string of boyfriends came and went,
including one who molested
seven-year-old Stella.
Celia's sparse will leaves Stella
$8,000, with instructions to go to
Paris. Reluctantly, Stella complies. On
her first day there, she wanders
into a dress shop whose proprietress
acts as if she's been expecting her
and insists she try on a $6,000
Christian Dior. As in a fairy tale, the
stars align thus wherever Stella goes.
At Les Deux Magots, she meets
Jules Delatour, an elderly art
collector who becomes her friend and
patron. A similar father figure is
George Whitman of Shakespeare and
Company, who takes her under his wing.
Now a "Tumbleweed," she stays at
the English-language bookshop in
exchange for occasional work. George's
plucky daughter, Lucie, is like an
alternative version of Stella had she
ever experienced parental love.
Reichl (Delicious!) crafts a cozy
atmosphere full of lavish meals--escargots, foie gras, ortolans, and
fine wines--as Jules educates Stella, who has a fine
palate, in classic French cuisine. "You
always look for reasons to be
unhappy," a character observes to
Stella, but she learns to take joy in
art, fashion, and food. She also
embarks on two quests: to find traces
of Victorine Meurent, the muse depicted
in Edouard Manet's
Olympia, and a painter in her own
right; and to locate her own father,
allegedly an impetuous chef Celia met
on a trip to Paris. The outcome of
both is in keeping with the novel's
wish-fulfillment mode. Happy
coincidences can be forgiven; think of
it as the universe making up for
Stella's traumatic past.
There are delightful cameo appearances
from James Baldwin, Allen
Ginsberg, and other historical
characters (detailed in an author's
note). Francophiles and armchair
travelers alike will relish the chance
to tour Paris's famous churches,
museums, and restaurants. --Rebecca
Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader
and blogger at Bookish Beck
I loved Weir's The Martian, and though I didn't like Artemis, his sophomore effort, I loved Project Hail Mary. I'm thrilled that this story, which is similar to a great movie from the 80s called Enemy Mine, with Louis Gossett Jr and Denis Quaid. I cried at the end of that movie, and I cried at the end of Project Hail Mary, which is a good sign, as I find good art, in all its forms, moves me to tears.
Project Hail
Mary by Andy Weir Becomes a Movie
The story: Ryland
Grace is a teacher-turned-astronaut on a last-chance mission to save
Earth. When he wakes from cryostasis with no memory, he discovers he
is the only survivor left on board. He must puzzle out who he is and
what they were doing on this ship in order to save his home planet.
The
latest: Hollywood sent Matt Damon to space in the adaptation of The
Martian by Weir, and now Ryan
Gosling is set to blast off for Project Hail Mary,
with Phil Lord and Chris Miller directing.
I read Neuromancer in the 90s, about 10 years after it was published, but I knew of it's impact in creating the cyber-punk movement years before, when I lived in Florida and used to scour the used bookstores for science fiction gems. I will be excited to see how it's translated to the screen on Apple+.
TV:
Neuromancer
Apple TV+ has ordered a series
adaptation of the William Gibson
award-winning novel Neuromancer
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscQeNxuQI6a9vIk91Gw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6nAX8espoMLg-gVdw.
Variety reported that the 10-episode
series is from co-creators Graham
Roland (Dark Winds) and J.D. Dillard.
Roland will also serve as
showrunner, while Dillard will direct
the pilot. Skydance Television is
co-producing with Anonymous Content.
According to the official logline, the
series "will follow a damaged,
top-rung super-hacker named Case who is
thrust into a web of digital
espionage and high stakes crime with
his partner Molly, a razor-girl
assassin with mirrored eyes, aiming to
pull a heist on a corporate
dynasty with untold secrets."
"We're incredibly excited to be
bringing this iconic property to Apple
TV+," said Roland and Dillard in a
joint statement. "Since we became
friends nearly 10 years ago, we've
looked for something to team up on,
so this collaboration marks a dream
come true. Neuromancer has inspired
so much of the science fiction that's
come after it and we're looking
forward to bringing television
audiences into Gibson's definitive
'cyberpunk' world."
I've read a couple of Helen Simonson's books, and I enjoyed her first book tremendously. This latest effort sounds right up my alley, with lady motorcyclists and pilots after The Great War (WW1) in 1918-1919. I'm hoping to find a copy one day soon.
Book
Review: The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and
Flying Club
The summertime beach resort setting
could not be more dazzling for Helen
Simonson's marvelous third novel, The
Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and
Flying Club, a historical drama
navigating topics of class and women's
rights in England after World War I.
Strong on comic relief, the plot
unfolds for the most part at the
perfectly respectable, if not top of
the line, Meredith Hotel in the British
seaside town of Hazelbourne on
the eve of Armistice celebrations.
Here, Simonson summons an impressive
and entertaining cast of
trousers-wearing female motorcyclists, snooty
aristocrats, one particularly pompous
American and, at the center of it
all, a young woman from a farming
family struggling to define the next
phase of her life.
Constance Haverhill recently lost her
mother, and her home as well.
During the war she managed her
benefactor Lady Mercer's estate, but now
the job will go to a returning veteran.
She'll have to find employment
and a new home soon, but in the
meantime, she is to serve as a companion
to Mrs. Fog, Lady Mercer's mother, as
she recovers from influenza at the
Meredith. Constance is soon befriended
by the delightfully
unconventional Poppy Wirrall, owner of
a motorcycle club and a women's
taxi service made up of former female
"despatch riders." Poppy's
glamorous mother lives at the hotel,
while her handsome but prickly
brother, Harris, an aviator, struggles
to reclaim his independence after
losing a leg in the war.
Matters take an alarming turn when Lady
Mercer unexpectedly arrives at
the Meredith and puts a stop to
Constance's and Mrs. Fog's fun. Lady
Mercer, a clever caricature of
aristocracy behaving badly, is matched
only by her daughter's boorish
Washington politician husband, Percy. As
the much awaited "Peace Day"
events get underway, Constance vows to
forge her own postbellum legacy,
starting with affairs of the heart that
take her in unexpected, yet truly
wondrous, new directions, while the
newly recuperated Mrs. Fog announces an
amorous surprise of her own.
Dazzling sunshine and gloriously green
countryside, the backdrop for
Poppy's and Constance's adventures,
bathe the story in a warm light,
even as Poppy's purchase of a damaged
warplane causes friction among
club members and money troubles drive
Harris further into despair.
Simonson (The Summer Before the War)
expertly probes cultural tensions hindering her characters' efforts
at post-war reinvention, including the immense human cost of combat,
the hypocrisy of letting women work during wartime but not afterward,
and class differences that place Constance at a steep societal
disadvantage. --Shahina Piyarali
I am an Iowa native, and my dad got his master's degree from the University of Iowa, and was a lifelong U of Iowa Hawkeyes football fan. Though I decided not to attend the U of Iowa for my own college education, I have always been fascinated by the famous and infamous writers that the Iowa Writer's Workshop has spawned and spurned (legend has it that they flunked Tennesee William's play The Glass Menagerie, which went on to become a huge hit that was filmed and mounted as a play for decades all over the country). This project to preserve the history of booksellers and the history of the book is wonderfully ambitious and I hope it will be extremely successful.
Bookseller
Oral History Project Finds Home at University of Iowa Library
The Bookseller Oral History Project
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscQePxr4I6a9vKxh-Hw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6nAXcf2poMLg-gVdw,
which collects interviews with
current and former booksellers about
their historical experiences,
insights, and perspectives, will be
part of a new initiative to build an
archive on the history of bookselling
at the University of Iowa
Libraries Special Collections and
Archive. The Project's audio files and
transcripts will eventually be
available to researchers and the public.
The University of Iowa Library Special
Collections is expanding its
archive with a focus on the history of
bookselling. Beginning with the
Bookseller Oral History Project, the
Library seeks donations of papers
and other materials that document and
preserve the history of
booksellers and bookstores. Prairie
Lights Books, Iowa City, Iowa, and
Rainy Day Books, Fairway, Kan., are
making the first contributions,
committing to donate more than 40 years
of materials to the collection.
Other independent bookstores, past and
present, are encouraged to
participate.
The University of Iowa is home to the
Center for the Book and the
Library's special collections has an
extensive archive on the history of
the book, which includes records from
the Iowa City Book Festival, Torch
Press Book Shop, as well as papers and
manuscripts from numerous Iowa
Writers' Workshop alumni.
We read this book in my Tuesday night book group a year or so ago, and everyone loved it. I'm looking forward to this TV/Streaming version's debut on 3/29.
TV:
A Gentleman In Moscow
Showtime has released the official
trailer A Gentleman In Moscow
https://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/x/pjJscQeAl7gI6a9vKxFxTw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6nAUpbwpoMLg-gVdw,
based on the bestselling 2016 novel by Amor Towles, Deadline
reported. The eight-episode series, which debuts March 29, stars Ewan
McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov; Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Anna
Urbanova; Alexa Goodall as Nina; Johnny Harris police officer Osip;
and Fehinti Balogun as Mishka.
The Lucky List by Rachael Lippincott is a delightful YA romance/coming of age story with prose so fluid and dynamic that I couldn't put it down. Here's the blurb: Although this is barely a SPOILER (anyone with half a brain will realize that Em is a lesbian by the 75th page of the book) I found Emily's willful blindness to her attraction to Blake, her new female friend, to be a bit strange and stupid, especially in this day and age, when it's much more mainstream to be a member of the LGBTQ community. That said, Em does live in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, and she's been pitied for the loss of her mother to cancer, and villified for breaking up with Matt, a boy that everyone likes, but with whom she has zero "sparks" of sexual attraction. Those two emotional gut punches could, realistically, blind someone to their own needs/desires out of pain and shame alone. Add to that her determination to follow her mother's teenage "bucket list," which she hopes will help her figure out how to move forward with her life, and you have the makings of a complex and riveting love story that allows readers to remember their own youthful adventures and sexual discoveries. The prose is gossipy and mesmerizing, which helps the breakneck speed of the plot along its greased rails. I'd give this heartwarming love story an A, and recommend it to every teenager (or adult) who wonders what they're missing by not taking risks in life.
Kingdom of Blood and Salt by Alexis Calder is an enemies to lovers fantasy romance that has "dark" or horror elements interwoven through it, and a few "spicy" (read:pornographic) sex scenes laden with cliches added to later chapters just to keep things interesting (and to take the book from PG-13 territory to R rated adult romance within a few mentions of light BDSM between the main characters). Here's the blurb:
After spending years training to defend my people from our enemies, I never expected that my enemy would be the one keeping me alive.
Athos is the last human city. A treaty with the Fae keeps the fae, the vampires, and the wolf shifters at bay, while we fight against the dragons at our border. Being a human in this world is dangerous and we all make sacrifices to survive.
When the delegation sent by the Fae King arrives to claim the human tributes required by our treaty, I never expected to forge a connection with their leader.
Ryvin is as dangerous as he is handsome. I know he’s my enemy, and I know I’m supposed to hate him, but with each passing day, he’s more difficult to resist.
But things are changing in Athos. Humans no longer want to bend to the Fae King.
Alliances blur and centuries of lies begin to unravel.
And I’m faced with a choice.
No matter how much I hate him, Ryvin might be the key to preventing war.
But it may mean sacrificing everything….
Kingdom
of Blood and Salt is the first book in a fantasy romance trilogy with
fae, vampires, and shifters. This enemies to lovers series contains
violence, mature language, and spice. This is an adult fantasy romance
and steam level will increase as the series progresses. Mind the cliff.
House of Roots and Ruin by Erin A Craig is a YA "Gothic" romance, which means there's something supernatural or with weird "powers" involved, and the main character is going to be terrified for much of the novel. Here's the blurb: A modern masterpiece, this is a classic Gothic
thriller-fantasy from bestselling author Erin A. Craig, about doomed
love, menacing ambition, and the ghosts that haunt us forever.
In a manor by the sea, one sister is still cursed.
Despite dreams of adventures far beyond the Salann shores, seventeen-year-old Verity Thaumas has remained at her family’s estate, Highmoor, with her older sister Camille, while their sisters have scattered across Arcannia.
When their sister Mercy sends word that the Duchess of Bloem—wife of a celebrated botanist—is interested in having Verity paint a portrait of her son, Alexander, Verity jumps at the chance, but Camille won’t allow it. Forced to reveal the secret she’s kept for years, Camille tells Verity the truth one day: Verity is still seeing ghosts, she just doesn’t know it.
Stunned, Verity flees Highmoor that night and—with nowhere else to turn—makes her way to Bloem. At first, she is captivated by the lush, luxurious landscape and is quickly drawn to charming, witty, and impossibly handsome Alexander Laurent. And soon, to her surprise, a romance . . . blossoms.
But it’s not long before Verity is plagued with nightmares, and the darker side of Bloem begins to show through its sickly-sweet facade.
In a manor by the sea, one sister is still cursed.
Despite dreams of adventures far beyond the Salann shores, seventeen-year-old Verity Thaumas has remained at her family’s estate, Highmoor, with her older sister Camille, while their sisters have scattered across Arcannia.
When their sister Mercy sends word that the Duchess of Bloem—wife of a celebrated botanist—is interested in having Verity paint a portrait of her son, Alexander, Verity jumps at the chance, but Camille won’t allow it. Forced to reveal the secret she’s kept for years, Camille tells Verity the truth one day: Verity is still seeing ghosts, she just doesn’t know it.
Stunned, Verity flees Highmoor that night and—with nowhere else to turn—makes her way to Bloem. At first, she is captivated by the lush, luxurious landscape and is quickly drawn to charming, witty, and impossibly handsome Alexander Laurent. And soon, to her surprise, a romance . . . blossoms.
But it’s not long before Verity is plagued with nightmares, and the darker side of Bloem begins to show through its sickly-sweet facade.
I did feel sorry for our female protagonist, Verity, who, with a name like that, is bound to uncover the Truth about Bloem and her family estate of Highmoor. My problem with Verity is that she seemed so "fainting couch" young woman who was scared of every shadow and thump in the night that I'm surprised she didn't have a heart attack and die within the first half of the novel. I'm not a huge fan of young spineless women, preferring those who are full of grit and determination who don't scare easily, or at all. And I kept hoping that Verity would tell her older, controlling B*tch of a sister to go jump off a cliff somewhere, because Camille refused to allow Verity to actually do anything with her life or go anywhere, under the guise of "protecting" her. (SPOILER) of course, I figured that Alex was one of a set of triplets by the time I was halfway through this twisty novel, though I found the "evil triplet bent on murder" to be more than a bit facile. The prose is straightforward "haunted mansion" fare, and the twisty plot turns happen so fast you might get mental whiplash if you're not careful. The ending had a "twitchy" surprise that I laughed at because I was expecting it. I'd give this gothic novel a B-, and recommend it to those who like dark haunted manses and spooky characters within a romantic framework.
Forged by Magic by Jenna Wolfhart is a cozy fantasy romance (now called "romantasy" in the book industry), about enemies to lovers Daella, a half Orc female with Rivlin, an Elven male, who are thrown together when Daella's ship goes off course. Daella is tasked (by her evil frost giant master) with finding and killing those with outlawed dragon magic. Inevitably, her grumpy Elven love interest shows her how great dragons really are, and helps free her from her master, who has implanted her with a frozen bomb in her hip that he threatens to trigger, killing her with ice, unless she completes her murderous task. Here's the blurb: Wolfhart's prose is clean and clear as a prism on a sunny day, and her plot moves at a determined pace that doesn't let up until the final chapter. I enjoyed the slow burn romance between the main characters, but I felt a bit shortchanged on their backgrounds, especially Daella's half Orc, who, according to the book cover, looks more like an Orion Slave Girl from Star Trek than an actual Orc from any other franchise, like Shrek, where Fiona and all the other Orcs are shown as plus-sized creatures. Here again is my most-hated trope on display, that of the female protagonist in every romance novel having to be thin (or athletic with muscles, or lithe and fit like a gymnast) and short/petite in order to be thought of as sexy or worthy of a relationship (or even worthy of the attention of the male protagonist, even if he's physically hideous). This infantilizing of women in romance novels has got to stop, because it plays on old misogynist ideals that date back centuries, when women were considered property and able to be sold into marriage when they were barely in their teens (so long as they'd begun menstruating, they were considered old enough to be brood mares for some pedophilic old men). It disgusts me that the romance novel industry still caters, in large part, to this horrific "ideal" that sets women's rights back centuries. For shame, publishers! Still, this novel wasn't bad for a supposed cozy romantasy. I'd say that it skirts on the edges of being "cozy" due to the sex scenes, but I enjoyed reading it, nevertheless. I'd give it a B-, and recommend it to anyone who likes Travis B's books.
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