First, feast your eyes on some lovely clips from the 3rd season of Downton Abbey, the show that has captured the imagination of nearly everyone that I know:
A pair of brief new clips from the third season of Downton Abbey
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14307665
have been released. Indiewire noted that the potential to watch Shirley
MacLaine, as the mother of Elizabeth McGovern's Countess of Grantham,
"trade barbs with Maggie Smith is certainly enough to have us setting
the DVR for new episodes." The first clip "sets the scene for MacLaine's
arrival, and the second sees her doing the impossible, leaving Smith's
Dowager Countess speechless."
Second, I wish I had read this before I made my annual Powell's pilgrimage a month or two ago!
The Portland Mercury reminds us all that there are other bookstores in
Portland, Ore., besides Powell's Books
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14298318:
"While that local juggernaut might be the automatic go-to for locals and
tourists, visiting--and supporting--Portland's other bookstores is a
fantastic way to spend a few hours. Or a day. Or a week." The Mercury
highlights 20 stores in and around Portland, including Annie Bloom's
Books, Broadway Books, A Children's Place, Monograph Bookwerks and
Murder by the Book.
"The Prisoner of Heaven" is the third book by Carlos Ruiz Zafon that has to do with Daniel Sempere, his family and the wonderful Cemetery of Forgotten Books. I loved his first novel, "The Shadow of the Wind" so much that it is on my list of all-time favorite novels, which is no mean feat. Then I read "The Angel's Game" when it came out, and I was disappointed because all the charm and light and joy had gone out of his characters and his prose...the book seemed very murky and obsessive and filled with pain. So I approached "Prisoner of Heaven" with some trepidation...would it fall flat or be as powerful as the first novel?
The answer is that it is better than Angel's Game, but not as wonderful as Shadow of the Wind, unfortunately. Still, I did enjoy getting to know Ferme and Daniel and some of the other characters better, but I didn't get my Cemetery of Forgotten Books fix until the final chapter, which left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. Readers also spend a lot of time in a prison that seems similar to the one in "The Count of Monte Cristo" except there were more tortuous and painful things to ascribe to it. Ferme escapes the same way that the Count of Monte Cristo does, except he has to scramble out of a lime pit full of dead bodies and make his way into town. Not being a fan of horror fiction, books about war or books about the dark underbelly of Spanish politics, I found a lot of the chapters almost too grotesque to read, full of pointless butchery and cruelty. But Zafon's prose is still beautifully translated, and he never fails to leave the reader without a solid ending. All in all, I would recommend this to those who loved Shadow of the Wind, with the caveat that it really should be read by adults only.
The Truth of All Things by Kieran Shields was a bit of a conundrum, because it was hailed as being "steampunkish" while also providing a protagonist who was like Sherlock Holmes as a Native American. Somehow the mystery was all linked to the Salem Witch Trials of the 17th century, while the story takes place 200 years later. Also, a lady historian and a deputy marshal named "Archie Lean" were to be the protagonist's assistants in solving the crime. At the outset, a bit of a head-scratcher, with all those genres and classic mystery characters combined in one novel.
Turns out that Shields was able to pull off quiet a magic act in mixing and matching the characters, the mileau of 1892 and a fiendish plot to bring back a 'black magician' who was hanged at the Salem trials 200 years before. A book of black magic and spells is also involved in the case, and Shields keeps the reader guessing right down to the final chapter, with it's terrifying showdown. The fact that this all takes place in or around Portland, Maine, makes it all the more interesting. I could tell that Shields had done his homework, researching the Salem Witch trials and the testimony of the girls who accused so many people and doomed them to hanging or worse. There was also plenty of Native American lore, and information on what happened to the Abenaki Indians of the area when white settlers ran them out of town after several massacres of earlier settlers. Out of all the characters, I must say Perceval Grey remained something of a cipher, and I think the author intended that to be the case. I also enjoyed Helen Prescott, until she became rather hysterical toward the end. Still, I think there is room for romance between the two characters, and I hope that Shields explores that in further mystery novels about the cool, logical and unrufflable Mr Grey. I would recommend this book to those who like American history, Native American history, are interested in the Salem Witch Trials and anyone who enjoys a mystery that has tinges of Jack the Ripper. Fascinating stuff that will keep you wondering until the final page.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
A Wanted Man by Lee Child
Disclosure note: I was provided with an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of "A Wanted Man" by Lee Child by the wonderful folks at Shelf Awareness.
Anyone who knows me realizes that I am not a huge fan of the suspense/thriller genre. Those who write this genre seem to have a penchant for hard-bitten men who are violent, ruthless, sexist and always on the edge of becoming an "anti-hero."
However, there have been a few suspense/thriller novels that I have read and enjoyed, such as "Loser's Town" by Daniel Depp that surprised me with a nuanced protagonist who wasn't such an outright jerk that he made me want to throw the book against the wall in protest.
So I picked up the 18th book in Lee Child's Jack Reacher series with some trepidation this morning at 9:30 am.
I finally looked up at the clock at 3:40 pm and discovered I was on page 320, only 100 pages from the end of the novel. I finished an hour later, breathless from the breakneck speed of the plot and reeling from the intensity of the story, told in prose that reads like a movie script.
Never having read a Lee Child book, I must say I think that there needs to be a warning on the cover: "Be aware that this book will grab your attention from page one and not let it go until page 416; go to the bathroom and eat something before you begin!"
Child's protagonist Jack Reacher is a tall, big man, former military police and a history buff with a vast knowledge of American historical trivia locked inside his head. He has just enough charm and intelligence to talk his way into and out of most trouble, which is a good thing, as he starts the novel with a nose that has been smashed into his face with the butt of a rifle. He has tried to set the broken bones with duct tape, but realizes as he's hitchhiking through Nebraska to get to Virginia that the duct tape makes him look sinister. So he rips it off and waits through a number of squeamish drivers before he is picked up in a car with three people, two men and a woman who are dressed alike and claim to be on a kind of corporate retreat.
Meanwhile, a man is found murdered in a pump room and an eyewitness claims to have seem three men go into the pump room and only two come out. What might seem to be a simple homicide is found to be a matter of international terrorism and soon Reacher is embroiled in a search for the murderers that takes him through most of the Midwestern states, (including Iowa, hurrah!) with two FBI agents and nothing but the clothes on his back and his military training to get everyone out of trouble.
Each chapter escalates the tension and provides twists to the characters and plot that you don't see coming until they're staring up at you from the page. Though there is a bit of sexism to Reacher (he's very judgmental of the women who appear in the book, and the author makes it clear that the more sympathetic woman character has been working undercover as a stripper. I find it bizarre that so many male authors seem to find strippers, prostitutes and 'fallen' women so enticing and so representative of the flower of true womanhood, as if sleaze is the only path to sainthood or desirability), he's not without a conscience, and when one of the female FBI agents is killed, he says, after being offered the opportunity to retreat to safety: "If I come back with you, I am guaranteed to die of shame."
So Reacher goes all GI Joe on the terrorists, killing with precision and utter calm. The descriptions of gore and how people die when shot in various places were not really as nauseating as I expected them to be, but that said, I can only assume the machinery/gun/gore narration in the novel will be appreciated by a more masculine audience, or by women in the military for whom battle descriptions are thrilling reading. Despite that, I would say that I enjoyed about 75-80 percent of "A Wanted Man" and if, as it says in the back blurb, the Jack Reacher novels have been optioned for movies by Hollywood, I imagine I could be persuaded by my husband and son to go see the movie version of handy Jack. Meanwhile, if you'd like to read this novel, here's the link to amazon to pre-order it before it comes out on 9/11. http://www.amazon.com/Wanted-Man-Jack-Reacher-Novel/dp/0385344333/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345169158&sr=1-1&keywords=a+wanted+man
Anyone who knows me realizes that I am not a huge fan of the suspense/thriller genre. Those who write this genre seem to have a penchant for hard-bitten men who are violent, ruthless, sexist and always on the edge of becoming an "anti-hero."
However, there have been a few suspense/thriller novels that I have read and enjoyed, such as "Loser's Town" by Daniel Depp that surprised me with a nuanced protagonist who wasn't such an outright jerk that he made me want to throw the book against the wall in protest.
So I picked up the 18th book in Lee Child's Jack Reacher series with some trepidation this morning at 9:30 am.
I finally looked up at the clock at 3:40 pm and discovered I was on page 320, only 100 pages from the end of the novel. I finished an hour later, breathless from the breakneck speed of the plot and reeling from the intensity of the story, told in prose that reads like a movie script.
Never having read a Lee Child book, I must say I think that there needs to be a warning on the cover: "Be aware that this book will grab your attention from page one and not let it go until page 416; go to the bathroom and eat something before you begin!"
Child's protagonist Jack Reacher is a tall, big man, former military police and a history buff with a vast knowledge of American historical trivia locked inside his head. He has just enough charm and intelligence to talk his way into and out of most trouble, which is a good thing, as he starts the novel with a nose that has been smashed into his face with the butt of a rifle. He has tried to set the broken bones with duct tape, but realizes as he's hitchhiking through Nebraska to get to Virginia that the duct tape makes him look sinister. So he rips it off and waits through a number of squeamish drivers before he is picked up in a car with three people, two men and a woman who are dressed alike and claim to be on a kind of corporate retreat.
Meanwhile, a man is found murdered in a pump room and an eyewitness claims to have seem three men go into the pump room and only two come out. What might seem to be a simple homicide is found to be a matter of international terrorism and soon Reacher is embroiled in a search for the murderers that takes him through most of the Midwestern states, (including Iowa, hurrah!) with two FBI agents and nothing but the clothes on his back and his military training to get everyone out of trouble.
Each chapter escalates the tension and provides twists to the characters and plot that you don't see coming until they're staring up at you from the page. Though there is a bit of sexism to Reacher (he's very judgmental of the women who appear in the book, and the author makes it clear that the more sympathetic woman character has been working undercover as a stripper. I find it bizarre that so many male authors seem to find strippers, prostitutes and 'fallen' women so enticing and so representative of the flower of true womanhood, as if sleaze is the only path to sainthood or desirability), he's not without a conscience, and when one of the female FBI agents is killed, he says, after being offered the opportunity to retreat to safety: "If I come back with you, I am guaranteed to die of shame."
So Reacher goes all GI Joe on the terrorists, killing with precision and utter calm. The descriptions of gore and how people die when shot in various places were not really as nauseating as I expected them to be, but that said, I can only assume the machinery/gun/gore narration in the novel will be appreciated by a more masculine audience, or by women in the military for whom battle descriptions are thrilling reading. Despite that, I would say that I enjoyed about 75-80 percent of "A Wanted Man" and if, as it says in the back blurb, the Jack Reacher novels have been optioned for movies by Hollywood, I imagine I could be persuaded by my husband and son to go see the movie version of handy Jack. Meanwhile, if you'd like to read this novel, here's the link to amazon to pre-order it before it comes out on 9/11. http://www.amazon.com/Wanted-Man-Jack-Reacher-Novel/dp/0385344333/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345169158&sr=1-1&keywords=a+wanted+man
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Bookstore Magic and a Great Movie
Book Shop Magic!
"When I say, 'local bookstore,' odds are good the first thing that comes
to mind is not a book you've bought, but a person, a sense of place,
even just a vague cozy feeling," wrote Wendy Welch in a Huffington Post
piece headlined "The Importance of Local Bookstores
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14112649."
Welch, whose book The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of
Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book will be
published by St. Martin's in October, is co-owner of Tales of the
Lonesome Pine Used Books, Big Stone Gap, Va.
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14112650.
"When people come into our 39,000-volume-strong shop, their breathing
changes," she observed. "Their expressions soften, steps slow, eyes stop
darting. Hands unclench from cell phones as they mutter, 'Call you
later.' And then they just stand there, letting their eyes drift over
the shelves while that indefinable bookshop magic does its work....
[I]ndependent bookstores help us find the others like us. Booksellers
hear customers' voices in the shop, and hook them up with the voices
they will value on the printed page. It's so much more than a sale. It's
an affirmation."
This is probably the only reason I'd go to Paris, France:
Paris is your best bet
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14168890
if you're an international traveler looking for a library or bookshop,
according to the World Cities Culture Report 2012. The "importance of
public libraries is explored with Paris coming way out top in numerical
terms. It has 830 public libraries compared to Shanghai's 477, London's
383, Tokyo's 377, Johannesburg's 234, New York's 220, Sydney's 154 and
Berlin's 88. Paris also has more bookshops--1,025 to London's 802,
although Tokyo has the most (1,675); Shanghai has 1,322 and Johannesburg
has 1,020," the Guardian reported.
Last night I watched a wonderful movie that has earned a place on my "Favorite Movies of All Time" list, called "Letters To Juliet."
Though the only real "star" in the movie is the still-lovely Vanessa Redgrave, the movie has wonderful actors who do a fine job in their roles. The story is basically that a young woman who is on the cusp of her nuptuals to a young Italian man goes with him on a buying trip to Italy and discovers that there is a wall in Verona where young women paste letters of grief about love next to a statue of Juliet from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. A group of 5 Italian women calling themselves the Juliet Society takes down the letters every afternoon and writes letters back to these young women, giving them advice on their love lives, ostensibly from "Juliet." The young woman inadvertantly discovers an old letter, written 50 years ago by an American woman named Claire, who failed to show up for a rendezvous with her Italian amour, and our heroine decides to join the Juliet Society and write back to Clarie. A week later, Claire's snotty British grandson shows up at the society and chews the heroine out because his grandmother traveled back to Italy with him to find her one true love from 50 years ago. Thus begins a trip of laughter, tears and falling in love for the three as they traverse Italy in search of Claire's lost love. Of course, the beautiful scenery of Italy charms the eye as the characters win our hearts and there's a lovely HEA ending. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who adores Italy, romantic movies and a good story, well told.
"When I say, 'local bookstore,' odds are good the first thing that comes
to mind is not a book you've bought, but a person, a sense of place,
even just a vague cozy feeling," wrote Wendy Welch in a Huffington Post
piece headlined "The Importance of Local Bookstores
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14112649."
Welch, whose book The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of
Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book will be
published by St. Martin's in October, is co-owner of Tales of the
Lonesome Pine Used Books, Big Stone Gap, Va.
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14112650.
"When people come into our 39,000-volume-strong shop, their breathing
changes," she observed. "Their expressions soften, steps slow, eyes stop
darting. Hands unclench from cell phones as they mutter, 'Call you
later.' And then they just stand there, letting their eyes drift over
the shelves while that indefinable bookshop magic does its work....
[I]ndependent bookstores help us find the others like us. Booksellers
hear customers' voices in the shop, and hook them up with the voices
they will value on the printed page. It's so much more than a sale. It's
an affirmation."
This is probably the only reason I'd go to Paris, France:
Paris is your best bet
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14168890
if you're an international traveler looking for a library or bookshop,
according to the World Cities Culture Report 2012. The "importance of
public libraries is explored with Paris coming way out top in numerical
terms. It has 830 public libraries compared to Shanghai's 477, London's
383, Tokyo's 377, Johannesburg's 234, New York's 220, Sydney's 154 and
Berlin's 88. Paris also has more bookshops--1,025 to London's 802,
although Tokyo has the most (1,675); Shanghai has 1,322 and Johannesburg
has 1,020," the Guardian reported.
Last night I watched a wonderful movie that has earned a place on my "Favorite Movies of All Time" list, called "Letters To Juliet."
Though the only real "star" in the movie is the still-lovely Vanessa Redgrave, the movie has wonderful actors who do a fine job in their roles. The story is basically that a young woman who is on the cusp of her nuptuals to a young Italian man goes with him on a buying trip to Italy and discovers that there is a wall in Verona where young women paste letters of grief about love next to a statue of Juliet from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. A group of 5 Italian women calling themselves the Juliet Society takes down the letters every afternoon and writes letters back to these young women, giving them advice on their love lives, ostensibly from "Juliet." The young woman inadvertantly discovers an old letter, written 50 years ago by an American woman named Claire, who failed to show up for a rendezvous with her Italian amour, and our heroine decides to join the Juliet Society and write back to Clarie. A week later, Claire's snotty British grandson shows up at the society and chews the heroine out because his grandmother traveled back to Italy with him to find her one true love from 50 years ago. Thus begins a trip of laughter, tears and falling in love for the three as they traverse Italy in search of Claire's lost love. Of course, the beautiful scenery of Italy charms the eye as the characters win our hearts and there's a lovely HEA ending. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who adores Italy, romantic movies and a good story, well told.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
A Trip to Powell's City of Books in Portland, plus Tons of Tidbits
Just this past weekend, my husband, son and I drove to Portland, Oregon for my annual pilgrimage to get books, and for my husband to retrieve his older brothers ashes, police report and death certificate.
I managed to take with me a large box of books and a bag of books for store credit, and I got over $110 to try and get my lengthy wish list fulfilled. I got all but one of the books, and was thrilled to get a package from the Science Fiction Book Club yesterday when we got home, so that adds three books to my towering stack of wonderful reading. I also got a "7 Year Pen" that purports to not run out of ink, guarenteed, for the next 7 years. Considering how much writing I do by hand, I plan on putting this white, bespeck-ed beauty to the test, ASAP.
Meanwhile, RIP Maeve Binchy, the lovely Irish author of "Circle of Friends" and dozens of other great books, who died on Sunday. She was 72.
Here's a ton of tidbits from Shelf Awareness that I've been saving:
"Without libraries, we'd be dumb,"http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13964715
sang Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman (co-authors of Why We Broke Up) in
their ode to libraries, which they performed during the American Library
Association's convention last month.
A perfect introduction to this brief tour of libraries that range from
large to small, and are sometimes located in unlikely spaces:
Searching for "libraries that were born from unused and abandoned
structures, from the large (drill halls and supermarkets) to the small
(phone booths and shipping containers)," Flavorwire highlighted "10
wonderful libraries repurposed from unused structures
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13964716."
In Bolton, Vt., the "prettily painted boxes on posts
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13964717
look like oversized birdhouses--except they have glass doors that allow
passersby to see they are filled with books." The Burlington Free Press
noted that the project is an outgrowth of the Little Free Library
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13964718 movement that started in Wisconsin.
Bookyard, a vineyard-turned-outdoor-library
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13964721
by Italian artist Massimo Bartolini in Ghent, Belgium, was also
showcased by Flavorwire.
I completely understand Robert Gray's lament here:
Robert Gray: Open Endings--The Art of the Unfinished Read
We're finished! I know we had fewer than a hundred pages remaining until
The End, but I can't go on like this. You were a fine book, with fully
developed major characters, engaging minor ones, a setting that
enveloped me in a deeply resonant sense of place and a plot that
unfolded dramatically. It's not you; it's me.
After a couple of decades in the book trade, I've become resigned to the
unfortunate reality that I often "bail out" of books--even those I'm
enjoying--for reasons rational and irrational. Maybe I lose a little
reader's momentum in the early chapters, or a potentially more
intriguing book comes along to tempt me; maybe the protagonist says
something that ticks me off or my to-be-read pile nags me into looking
for any excuse to head for the exit at intermission. Buffet reading was
part of the job description when I was a bookseller. It was a survival
tool. And yes, sometimes I even told a customer "I'm reading it" when I
had bailed long before.
An "unfinished" book is a different thing altogether because a much more
substantial commitment is required to reach the unfinishing point. If
bailing is a rational decision, unfinishing is subconscious and often
inconclusive.
"There are lots of books I've never finished," Roddy Doyle
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13964756 has said. "But there's only
very few I've said I'm never going to finish, and a pile of books I'm
going to get around to finishing."
Interesting that they've applied a movie review format for book reviews here. I certainly wish some of the review services that I write for would apply this: http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/idreambooks-applies-rotten-tomatoes-model-to-book-reviews_b54320
There are some awesome bookstores in America (and elsewhere)...take a look!
'10 Truly Unique Bookstores in America'
"Bookstores outside the mainstream give cities across America (and the
world!) a dose of local spice and build supportive communities of
like-minded individuals," observed the OnlineDegreet.net blog in
highlighting "10 Truly Unique Bookstores in America
."
The blog also noted that while "many of them do carry popular literature
from major publishers, their true calling lay with offering a haven for
hobbyists, professionals and fans from oft-ignored or overlooked
markets. And the United States is certainly better off because of it."
Another great idea:
From a delightful, thoughtful post on the Rumpus called "Bartending,
Booktending: Three Years at Red Hill Books
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14060526,"
in which Michael Berger looks back on his three years working at the San
Francisco bookstore.
"Under most circumstances it would be considered rude to eavesdrop, a
rent in the fabric of urban etiquette in which strangers remain
strangers. But in a bookstore, the books themselves become
interlocutors. So does the bookseller, who becomes a hub of all possible
inter-stranger conversations because he or she is the one person who
people talk to first. The bookseller is a stranger you're encouraged to
talk to; then other people can overhear what you're talking about and
are invited to join in. In some sense, the bookseller can orchestrate an
unlimited amount of enriching encounters between strangers and between
strangers and herself. The purpose is to create camaraderie, which is
conducive to good business and good citizenship. And it makes the hours
more pleasant which is good for everyone.
"[One] time, quite miraculously, it turned out that three people in the
store who did not know each other at all had all lived at one time in
Newton, Massachusetts. This brought them together round my counter in a
swirl of laughter, awe and reminiscences. Street names and markets and
museums I had no clue about were savored. They all ended up buying
something too."
There has been a lot of buzz about this movie flying around the internet, and I plan on going to see it, if for no other reason than it looks fascinating, and yes, the extra-long trailer is worth the time you spend watching it:
Cloud Atlas: Extended Trailer a Big Draw for Book Sales
"And, boy, what a trailer," exclaimed Indiewire as it showcased a
six-minute trailer http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14060547
for Cloud Atlas http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14060548,
the adaptation of David Mitchell's novel by Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer
and Andy Wachowski. The film, which will make its world premiere at the
Toronto International Film Festival, stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim
Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Bae Doona, David
Gyasi, Susan Sarandon, Keith David, James D'Arcy and Hugo Weaving. The
movie will be released here October 26.
"As big fans of the book, we've wondered for some time if the filmmakers
would be able to come anywhere close to its material, but we have to
confess that this is pretty stunning, for the most part," Indiewire
noted. "The production values look incredibly high, the scope and
ambition and variety is like nothing else we've seen in a long time, and
the cast, aided by some excellent make-up, look to be rising to the
occasion."
In addition to the trailer, 20 new images
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14060549
from the movie, as well as a "motion poster," have been released,
"giving us a closer look at many of the cast members in their various
multiple roles," Indiewire wrote.
Being the HUGE fan of Glee that I am, I couldn't resist posting this--go Chris!
Fans of Chris Colfer packed the Joseph-Beth Booksellers store in
Cincinnati, Ohio, on Sunday, where the Glee actor signed copies of his
first novel, The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell (Little, Brown Books
for Young Readers).
The store sold more than 800 copies of the book
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14071750,
according to the Community Press. "We would have sold even more if Chris
didn't have a plane to catch," Michael Link, Joseph-Beth's publisher
relations and events manager, said. Joseph-Beth celebrated Colfer's
presence in other ways: on Sunday, the store's Bronte cafe featured
Glee-inspired food, including slushies, a "Breadsticks Special,"
Mercedes's chili cheese tots and My Happy Happy Unicorn.
I managed to take with me a large box of books and a bag of books for store credit, and I got over $110 to try and get my lengthy wish list fulfilled. I got all but one of the books, and was thrilled to get a package from the Science Fiction Book Club yesterday when we got home, so that adds three books to my towering stack of wonderful reading. I also got a "7 Year Pen" that purports to not run out of ink, guarenteed, for the next 7 years. Considering how much writing I do by hand, I plan on putting this white, bespeck-ed beauty to the test, ASAP.
Meanwhile, RIP Maeve Binchy, the lovely Irish author of "Circle of Friends" and dozens of other great books, who died on Sunday. She was 72.
Here's a ton of tidbits from Shelf Awareness that I've been saving:
"Without libraries, we'd be dumb,"http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13964715
sang Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman (co-authors of Why We Broke Up) in
their ode to libraries, which they performed during the American Library
Association's convention last month.
A perfect introduction to this brief tour of libraries that range from
large to small, and are sometimes located in unlikely spaces:
Searching for "libraries that were born from unused and abandoned
structures, from the large (drill halls and supermarkets) to the small
(phone booths and shipping containers)," Flavorwire highlighted "10
wonderful libraries repurposed from unused structures
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13964716."
In Bolton, Vt., the "prettily painted boxes on posts
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13964717
look like oversized birdhouses--except they have glass doors that allow
passersby to see they are filled with books." The Burlington Free Press
noted that the project is an outgrowth of the Little Free Library
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13964718 movement that started in Wisconsin.
Bookyard, a vineyard-turned-outdoor-library
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13964721
by Italian artist Massimo Bartolini in Ghent, Belgium, was also
showcased by Flavorwire.
I completely understand Robert Gray's lament here:
Robert Gray: Open Endings--The Art of the Unfinished Read
We're finished! I know we had fewer than a hundred pages remaining until
The End, but I can't go on like this. You were a fine book, with fully
developed major characters, engaging minor ones, a setting that
enveloped me in a deeply resonant sense of place and a plot that
unfolded dramatically. It's not you; it's me.
After a couple of decades in the book trade, I've become resigned to the
unfortunate reality that I often "bail out" of books--even those I'm
enjoying--for reasons rational and irrational. Maybe I lose a little
reader's momentum in the early chapters, or a potentially more
intriguing book comes along to tempt me; maybe the protagonist says
something that ticks me off or my to-be-read pile nags me into looking
for any excuse to head for the exit at intermission. Buffet reading was
part of the job description when I was a bookseller. It was a survival
tool. And yes, sometimes I even told a customer "I'm reading it" when I
had bailed long before.
An "unfinished" book is a different thing altogether because a much more
substantial commitment is required to reach the unfinishing point. If
bailing is a rational decision, unfinishing is subconscious and often
inconclusive.
"There are lots of books I've never finished," Roddy Doyle
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13964756 has said. "But there's only
very few I've said I'm never going to finish, and a pile of books I'm
going to get around to finishing."
Interesting that they've applied a movie review format for book reviews here. I certainly wish some of the review services that I write for would apply this: http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/idreambooks-applies-rotten-tomatoes-model-to-book-reviews_b54320
There are some awesome bookstores in America (and elsewhere)...take a look!
'10 Truly Unique Bookstores in America'
"Bookstores outside the mainstream give cities across America (and the
world!) a dose of local spice and build supportive communities of
like-minded individuals," observed the OnlineDegreet.net blog in
highlighting "10 Truly Unique Bookstores in America
The blog also noted that while "many of them do carry popular literature
from major publishers, their true calling lay with offering a haven for
hobbyists, professionals and fans from oft-ignored or overlooked
markets. And the United States is certainly better off because of it."
Another great idea:
From a delightful, thoughtful post on the Rumpus called "Bartending,
Booktending: Three Years at Red Hill Books
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14060526,"
in which Michael Berger looks back on his three years working at the San
Francisco bookstore.
"Under most circumstances it would be considered rude to eavesdrop, a
rent in the fabric of urban etiquette in which strangers remain
strangers. But in a bookstore, the books themselves become
interlocutors. So does the bookseller, who becomes a hub of all possible
inter-stranger conversations because he or she is the one person who
people talk to first. The bookseller is a stranger you're encouraged to
talk to; then other people can overhear what you're talking about and
are invited to join in. In some sense, the bookseller can orchestrate an
unlimited amount of enriching encounters between strangers and between
strangers and herself. The purpose is to create camaraderie, which is
conducive to good business and good citizenship. And it makes the hours
more pleasant which is good for everyone.
"[One] time, quite miraculously, it turned out that three people in the
store who did not know each other at all had all lived at one time in
Newton, Massachusetts. This brought them together round my counter in a
swirl of laughter, awe and reminiscences. Street names and markets and
museums I had no clue about were savored. They all ended up buying
something too."
There has been a lot of buzz about this movie flying around the internet, and I plan on going to see it, if for no other reason than it looks fascinating, and yes, the extra-long trailer is worth the time you spend watching it:
Cloud Atlas: Extended Trailer a Big Draw for Book Sales
"And, boy, what a trailer," exclaimed Indiewire as it showcased a
six-minute trailer http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14060547
for Cloud Atlas http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14060548,
the adaptation of David Mitchell's novel by Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer
and Andy Wachowski. The film, which will make its world premiere at the
Toronto International Film Festival, stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim
Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Bae Doona, David
Gyasi, Susan Sarandon, Keith David, James D'Arcy and Hugo Weaving. The
movie will be released here October 26.
"As big fans of the book, we've wondered for some time if the filmmakers
would be able to come anywhere close to its material, but we have to
confess that this is pretty stunning, for the most part," Indiewire
noted. "The production values look incredibly high, the scope and
ambition and variety is like nothing else we've seen in a long time, and
the cast, aided by some excellent make-up, look to be rising to the
occasion."
In addition to the trailer, 20 new images
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14060549
from the movie, as well as a "motion poster," have been released,
"giving us a closer look at many of the cast members in their various
multiple roles," Indiewire wrote.
Being the HUGE fan of Glee that I am, I couldn't resist posting this--go Chris!
Fans of Chris Colfer packed the Joseph-Beth Booksellers store in
Cincinnati, Ohio, on Sunday, where the Glee actor signed copies of his
first novel, The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell (Little, Brown Books
for Young Readers).
The store sold more than 800 copies of the book
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz14071750,
according to the Community Press. "We would have sold even more if Chris
didn't have a plane to catch," Michael Link, Joseph-Beth's publisher
relations and events manager, said. Joseph-Beth celebrated Colfer's
presence in other ways: on Sunday, the store's Bronte cafe featured
Glee-inspired food, including slushies, a "Breadsticks Special,"
Mercedes's chili cheese tots and My Happy Happy Unicorn.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter and The Lion is In by Delia Ephron
First, I need to post some items I've been collecting from Shelf Awareness:
I am thrilled an amazed that a new bookstore has opened in my native state of Iowa, and that it is in a place called "New Bohemia," which is hilarious if you know anything about Iowa, the least bohemian place in the US. Still, my mother is from a small town near Cedar Rapids, so I suppose a bunch of earthy hippy types could settle down there...they'd raise some eyebrows, but I imagine they will get along well with the younger generation.
Congratulations to New Bo Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13879446, which held a grand opening last Saturday that was dubbed "an enormous success by owner Mary Ann Peters on the shop's Facebook page. A division of Iowa City's Prairie Lights http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13879448, the bookshop is located in the historic New Bohemia http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13879449
neighborhood of Cedar Rapids, at 1105 3rd St. SE.
Due to my husband's need to drag me into the 21st century, I own a Nook, which I don't use much, but now it appears I need not have gotten one at all, since Barnes and Noble has designed an interface for reading books on iMac computers.
Barnes & Noble has unveiled Nook for Web
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13942297, a
browser-based platform that allows people to read B&N's digital titles
on their PC or Mac computers. No sign-in, software download or Nook
account is required to begin reading. The company also noted that
support would be coming this fall for Internet-enabled tablets,
smartphones and other mobile devices.
To promote Nook for Web, B&N is offering six Nook books that can be
downloaded free on any browser through July 26: Map of Bones by James
Rollins, Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell, The Vow by Kim Carpenter,
The Boxcar Children Summer Special by Gertrude Chandler Warner, Brave by
Tennant Redbank and Perfect Island Getaways by Patricia Schultz.
This is such an honest quote that it reverberated through me as a truism:
It's from The Hours by Michael Cunningham,
in Virginia Woolf's first section: "It is more than the sum of her
intellect and her emotions, more than the sum of her experiences, though
it runs like veins of brilliant metal through all three. It is an inner
faculty that recognizes the animating mysteries of the world because it
is made of the same substance, and when she is very fortunate she is
able to write directly through that faculty."
This made me laugh, because I believe that independent bookstores need to be tough to survive in this terrible economy: "Badass ninjas survive. I think independent booksellers will survive and
if you don't want to help them, then that's fine. I will. And a lot of
other badass people will, too. But in case you're an author and you
never realized just how important they are... or in case you have one in
your town and you never really realized that they were helping your
community by just being there and having the gonads to operate, then I
hope this post helped you see that."
--Author A.S. King in her Writer Unboxed blog post headlined "All the
Badass Ninjas Hang Out at Planet Independent Bookstore http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13953818
I read "Beautiful Ruins" over a 10 day period because it is, for all its popular contemporary fiction attributes, a densely written novel, full of sly truths and profound wisdom that isn't immediately evident, but instead sneaks up on the reader and pounces when they least expect it.
It's the story of an American starlet who gets pregnant by a famous actor during the 1960s and flees to Italy, where she meets Pasquale, the owner of the "Adequate View" hotel, and Alvis Bender, a man fleeing his memories of the war, who is attempting to write a book, but never gets farther than one excellent chapter. We also meet the other crazy Italians who live in nearby villages and we meet Michael Deane, a Hollywood film producer and his unlucky assistant, Claire. Then there is Shawn, a niave man who wants to sell a script on cowboy cannibals to Dean, and Pat, the starlet's son, who is, until the end of the book, a total junkie screw-up. Author Walter deftly weaves these people's stories together, from the cynical to the ridiculous, in a satisfying tapestry that seethes with vibrant life, crushed dreams, hopes, fears, love and redemption. Though there were some moments that dragged a bit, the book was well worth sliding over those parts to get to the good stuff, the revelations and HEAs. I'd recommend this book to anyone fascinated by Europe in the 1960s, or by what really goes on in the mind of those sleazy Hollywood producers and directors. An A-, mainly for the draggy bits.
"The Lion is In" by Delia Ephron was an amazingly fast read, a sort of "Thelma and Loiuse" meets "Water For Elephants" and any other road trip, life-changing novel you've ever read. The story is about Lana and Tracee, two best friends who've been raising one another since childhood, due to a couple of horrible absentee parents on Tracee's side, and an alcoholic absentee mother on Lana's side. Tracee becomes a kleptomaniac to deal with her abandonment, and Lana becomes an alcoholic who finally betrays the only person she loves, her father, when she steals all of his money to go on a disastrous bender. Tracee and Lana flee their small town after Tracee steals a diamond necklace and a wedding dress, and the duo encounter Rita, a ministers wife fleeing her rigidly conformist life and domineering husband, on the road to nowhere. After Lana crashes their car, the three gals find a broken-down bar that has an old, broken-down lion caged inside, and once they decide to work at the bar to earn enough to fix the car and continue their road trip, lives begin to change as each character who interacts with the ladies comes to realizations about their lives as the ladies themselves do, as well. Delia Ephron, like her late, great sister Norah, is a divine storyteller, a writer whose prose seems to flow effortlessly into a seamless plot. In reading books from either, you don't realize you've been captivated by the characters and engrossed until you're two-thirds of the way through the novel and you look up and realize that the day is almost over, and you've done nothing but delve into the book, intending to read only a chapter or two. Like Norah, Delia has also written award-winning movie scripts, and that would account for the flawless dialog that peppers her novels, making the characters seem so real you almost feel you've met them and had a conversation with them before you picked up the book. The HEA is quite satisfying, as is the warmth and humor that pervades this enchanting novel. I'd recommend it to those who like chick lit in general and stories about women and second chances. A solid A of a novel.
I am thrilled an amazed that a new bookstore has opened in my native state of Iowa, and that it is in a place called "New Bohemia," which is hilarious if you know anything about Iowa, the least bohemian place in the US. Still, my mother is from a small town near Cedar Rapids, so I suppose a bunch of earthy hippy types could settle down there...they'd raise some eyebrows, but I imagine they will get along well with the younger generation.
Congratulations to New Bo Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13879446, which held a grand opening last Saturday that was dubbed "an enormous success by owner Mary Ann Peters on the shop's Facebook page. A division of Iowa City's Prairie Lights http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13879448, the bookshop is located in the historic New Bohemia http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13879449
neighborhood of Cedar Rapids, at 1105 3rd St. SE.
Due to my husband's need to drag me into the 21st century, I own a Nook, which I don't use much, but now it appears I need not have gotten one at all, since Barnes and Noble has designed an interface for reading books on iMac computers.
Barnes & Noble has unveiled Nook for Web
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13942297, a
browser-based platform that allows people to read B&N's digital titles
on their PC or Mac computers. No sign-in, software download or Nook
account is required to begin reading. The company also noted that
support would be coming this fall for Internet-enabled tablets,
smartphones and other mobile devices.
To promote Nook for Web, B&N is offering six Nook books that can be
downloaded free on any browser through July 26: Map of Bones by James
Rollins, Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell, The Vow by Kim Carpenter,
The Boxcar Children Summer Special by Gertrude Chandler Warner, Brave by
Tennant Redbank and Perfect Island Getaways by Patricia Schultz.
This is such an honest quote that it reverberated through me as a truism:
It's from The Hours by Michael Cunningham,
in Virginia Woolf's first section: "It is more than the sum of her
intellect and her emotions, more than the sum of her experiences, though
it runs like veins of brilliant metal through all three. It is an inner
faculty that recognizes the animating mysteries of the world because it
is made of the same substance, and when she is very fortunate she is
able to write directly through that faculty."
This made me laugh, because I believe that independent bookstores need to be tough to survive in this terrible economy: "Badass ninjas survive. I think independent booksellers will survive and
if you don't want to help them, then that's fine. I will. And a lot of
other badass people will, too. But in case you're an author and you
never realized just how important they are... or in case you have one in
your town and you never really realized that they were helping your
community by just being there and having the gonads to operate, then I
hope this post helped you see that."
--Author A.S. King in her Writer Unboxed blog post headlined "All the
Badass Ninjas Hang Out at Planet Independent Bookstore http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13953818
I read "Beautiful Ruins" over a 10 day period because it is, for all its popular contemporary fiction attributes, a densely written novel, full of sly truths and profound wisdom that isn't immediately evident, but instead sneaks up on the reader and pounces when they least expect it.
It's the story of an American starlet who gets pregnant by a famous actor during the 1960s and flees to Italy, where she meets Pasquale, the owner of the "Adequate View" hotel, and Alvis Bender, a man fleeing his memories of the war, who is attempting to write a book, but never gets farther than one excellent chapter. We also meet the other crazy Italians who live in nearby villages and we meet Michael Deane, a Hollywood film producer and his unlucky assistant, Claire. Then there is Shawn, a niave man who wants to sell a script on cowboy cannibals to Dean, and Pat, the starlet's son, who is, until the end of the book, a total junkie screw-up. Author Walter deftly weaves these people's stories together, from the cynical to the ridiculous, in a satisfying tapestry that seethes with vibrant life, crushed dreams, hopes, fears, love and redemption. Though there were some moments that dragged a bit, the book was well worth sliding over those parts to get to the good stuff, the revelations and HEAs. I'd recommend this book to anyone fascinated by Europe in the 1960s, or by what really goes on in the mind of those sleazy Hollywood producers and directors. An A-, mainly for the draggy bits.
"The Lion is In" by Delia Ephron was an amazingly fast read, a sort of "Thelma and Loiuse" meets "Water For Elephants" and any other road trip, life-changing novel you've ever read. The story is about Lana and Tracee, two best friends who've been raising one another since childhood, due to a couple of horrible absentee parents on Tracee's side, and an alcoholic absentee mother on Lana's side. Tracee becomes a kleptomaniac to deal with her abandonment, and Lana becomes an alcoholic who finally betrays the only person she loves, her father, when she steals all of his money to go on a disastrous bender. Tracee and Lana flee their small town after Tracee steals a diamond necklace and a wedding dress, and the duo encounter Rita, a ministers wife fleeing her rigidly conformist life and domineering husband, on the road to nowhere. After Lana crashes their car, the three gals find a broken-down bar that has an old, broken-down lion caged inside, and once they decide to work at the bar to earn enough to fix the car and continue their road trip, lives begin to change as each character who interacts with the ladies comes to realizations about their lives as the ladies themselves do, as well. Delia Ephron, like her late, great sister Norah, is a divine storyteller, a writer whose prose seems to flow effortlessly into a seamless plot. In reading books from either, you don't realize you've been captivated by the characters and engrossed until you're two-thirds of the way through the novel and you look up and realize that the day is almost over, and you've done nothing but delve into the book, intending to read only a chapter or two. Like Norah, Delia has also written award-winning movie scripts, and that would account for the flawless dialog that peppers her novels, making the characters seem so real you almost feel you've met them and had a conversation with them before you picked up the book. The HEA is quite satisfying, as is the warmth and humor that pervades this enchanting novel. I'd recommend it to those who like chick lit in general and stories about women and second chances. A solid A of a novel.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Sunday, July 08, 2012
Finally Found Books Opens in Black Diamond
Hurrah, Finally Found Books opened yesterday in Black Diamond, WA, during its annual Miner's Day celebration, attended by myself and my son, Nick. I will say that I only purchased 3 books, (costing a mere $16 for all three) which was very restrained of me, considering I was surrounded by rooms full of stacks of books I'd not perused before. Nick had a free cupcake and some ice cream, and we went to several garage sales, too. It was heartening to see so many of my neighbors at the new bookstore, because we all need to work together to make this community store a success!
Todd Hulbert is opening Finally Found Bookshttp://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13832757, a used and
new bookstore, in Black Diamond, Wash., tomorrow, according to the Maple
Valley Reporter.
Hulbert bought Baker Street Books earlier this year (Shelf Awareness
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13832758, April 27,
2012) and closed it April 30 to install new shelving, reconfigure the
store and absorb some 100,000 volumes that he had in storage. The new
store has added categories and subcategories of fiction, increased
sections with textbooks, religion, self-help, parenting, travel, how-to,
home improvement and biography as well as added more children's, teen
and YA titles.
Here's my Summer Book Wishlist:
Scones and Bones, Laura Childs
Goodbye For Now, Laurie Frankel
Shadow of Night, Deborah Harkness
Jesus' Son, Denis Johnson
Dragon Ship, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Between the Lines, Samantha Von Leer
Cone Name Verity
Stoner, John Williams
Shout Her Lovely Name, Natalie Serber
The Lion Is In, Delia Ephron
Chapman's Odyssey, Paul Bailey
The Prisoner of Heaven, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
In other news, summer has finally arrived in Maple Valley, and we are sweating and hoping for a return of rain already.
Todd Hulbert is opening Finally Found Bookshttp://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13832757, a used and
new bookstore, in Black Diamond, Wash., tomorrow, according to the Maple
Valley Reporter.
Hulbert bought Baker Street Books earlier this year (Shelf Awareness
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13832758, April 27,
2012) and closed it April 30 to install new shelving, reconfigure the
store and absorb some 100,000 volumes that he had in storage. The new
store has added categories and subcategories of fiction, increased
sections with textbooks, religion, self-help, parenting, travel, how-to,
home improvement and biography as well as added more children's, teen
and YA titles.
Here's my Summer Book Wishlist:
Scones and Bones, Laura Childs
Goodbye For Now, Laurie Frankel
Shadow of Night, Deborah Harkness
Jesus' Son, Denis Johnson
Dragon Ship, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Between the Lines, Samantha Von Leer
Cone Name Verity
Stoner, John Williams
Shout Her Lovely Name, Natalie Serber
The Lion Is In, Delia Ephron
Chapman's Odyssey, Paul Bailey
The Prisoner of Heaven, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
In other news, summer has finally arrived in Maple Valley, and we are sweating and hoping for a return of rain already.
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Tin Swift, RIP Norah Ephron, and Downton Abbey
Rest in peace, Nora Ephron, one of my favorite writers. Her work was infused with wit and charm. We shall not see her like on earth again.
Nora Ephron, http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13750729
essayist, novelist, humorist, journalist, playwright, Oscar-nominated
screenwriter and movie director "in the Dorothy Parker mold (only
smarter and funnier, some said)," died last night, the New York Times
reported. She was 71.
A Facebook post from Alfred A. Knopf/Vintage Books
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13750730
observed that Ephron "brought an awful lot of people a tremendous amount
of joy. She will be sorely missed." Her books include Heartburn, Crazy
Salad, I Feel Bad About My Neck and I Remember Nothing.
Ephron also wrote and directed You've Got Mail, the 1998 movie that
centered on an online romance between Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) and Kathleen
Kelly (Meg Ryan). Fox worked for his family's Fox Books, a major chain,
and Kelly owned a children's bookstore in New York City that was
suffering because of a new Fox Books that opened around the corner. For
a time, neither knows the true identity of the other online persona.
Much of the movie was filmed on location, including a faux Fox Books
branch in the old Barney's store on Seventh Avenue and 17th Street.
I can hardly wait for season 3 of Downton Abbey on PBS, especially since the delightful Shirley MacLaine will be on the show as Lady G's mother and the girls grandmother. I imagine she will bring all her sass and spice to the scenes with the fabulous Maggie Smith!
Shirley MacLaine was honored by the American Film Institute recently with a
life-achievement award. As Elizabeth McGovern spoke about MacLaine's
upcoming role on Downton Abbey's third season, she shared the first
official look at her on-screen mother
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13734782
"going head-to-head" with the always delightfully intimidating Maggie
Smith. "Is it 2013 yet?" asked Entertainment Weekly.
I watched the first installment of this movie and didn't find it awful at all, so I am thrilled they are making a sequel...John Gault lives! (I read all of Ayn Rand's books as a teenager, and loved them).
"What happens when your first movie dies at the box office, gets savaged
by critics and makes barely a blip on the cultural radar? If you're
producers John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow, you spend even more money on
the sequel, cross your fingers and hope for the best," Indiewire noted
in featuring a teaser trailer for the second installment of the film
adaptation of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13750756.
The movie will be released October 12.
Tin Swift, the sequel to Devon Monks wonderful Steampunk fantasy Dead Iron, was quite a roller-coaster ride through the wild west, with airships powered by steam and 'glim' and unusual weaponry, plus the reappearance of Mr Shunt and his strange undead minions.
Cedar Hunt, his brother the werewolf Wil, Rose, Mae and the crazy Madder brothers set off in search of the infamous "Holder" a weapon that has the power to unmake the world in the wrong hands. They are also bound to head to Kansas to take Mae back to her witches coven so she can be unbound to them and they will stop trying to make her insane every time she uses a spell.
Along the way, Rose gets caught by a bomb set by Mr Shunt, and a piece of the Holder is lodged in her shoulder and promises to kill her, just when she's met the love of her life, Mr Marshall Lee Hink, steamship pilot and 'president's man'. Meanwhile, Cedar and Mae finally express their feelings for one another and the adventurers end up fighting their way out of a mountain fortress. All in all, an exciting, fascinating book that has to be devoured in one sitting. Devon Monk knows how to tell a tale to keep pages turning long into the night. Great stuff. A well deserved A!
Nora Ephron, http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13750729
essayist, novelist, humorist, journalist, playwright, Oscar-nominated
screenwriter and movie director "in the Dorothy Parker mold (only
smarter and funnier, some said)," died last night, the New York Times
reported. She was 71.
A Facebook post from Alfred A. Knopf/Vintage Books
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13750730
observed that Ephron "brought an awful lot of people a tremendous amount
of joy. She will be sorely missed." Her books include Heartburn, Crazy
Salad, I Feel Bad About My Neck and I Remember Nothing.
Ephron also wrote and directed You've Got Mail, the 1998 movie that
centered on an online romance between Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) and Kathleen
Kelly (Meg Ryan). Fox worked for his family's Fox Books, a major chain,
and Kelly owned a children's bookstore in New York City that was
suffering because of a new Fox Books that opened around the corner. For
a time, neither knows the true identity of the other online persona.
Much of the movie was filmed on location, including a faux Fox Books
branch in the old Barney's store on Seventh Avenue and 17th Street.
I can hardly wait for season 3 of Downton Abbey on PBS, especially since the delightful Shirley MacLaine will be on the show as Lady G's mother and the girls grandmother. I imagine she will bring all her sass and spice to the scenes with the fabulous Maggie Smith!
Shirley MacLaine was honored by the American Film Institute recently with a
life-achievement award. As Elizabeth McGovern spoke about MacLaine's
upcoming role on Downton Abbey's third season, she shared the first
official look at her on-screen mother
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13734782
"going head-to-head" with the always delightfully intimidating Maggie
Smith. "Is it 2013 yet?" asked Entertainment Weekly.
I watched the first installment of this movie and didn't find it awful at all, so I am thrilled they are making a sequel...John Gault lives! (I read all of Ayn Rand's books as a teenager, and loved them).
"What happens when your first movie dies at the box office, gets savaged
by critics and makes barely a blip on the cultural radar? If you're
producers John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow, you spend even more money on
the sequel, cross your fingers and hope for the best," Indiewire noted
in featuring a teaser trailer for the second installment of the film
adaptation of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13750756.
The movie will be released October 12.
Tin Swift, the sequel to Devon Monks wonderful Steampunk fantasy Dead Iron, was quite a roller-coaster ride through the wild west, with airships powered by steam and 'glim' and unusual weaponry, plus the reappearance of Mr Shunt and his strange undead minions.
Cedar Hunt, his brother the werewolf Wil, Rose, Mae and the crazy Madder brothers set off in search of the infamous "Holder" a weapon that has the power to unmake the world in the wrong hands. They are also bound to head to Kansas to take Mae back to her witches coven so she can be unbound to them and they will stop trying to make her insane every time she uses a spell.
Along the way, Rose gets caught by a bomb set by Mr Shunt, and a piece of the Holder is lodged in her shoulder and promises to kill her, just when she's met the love of her life, Mr Marshall Lee Hink, steamship pilot and 'president's man'. Meanwhile, Cedar and Mae finally express their feelings for one another and the adventurers end up fighting their way out of a mountain fortress. All in all, an exciting, fascinating book that has to be devoured in one sitting. Devon Monk knows how to tell a tale to keep pages turning long into the night. Great stuff. A well deserved A!
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Enchantments, Caleb's Crossing and Vox
Epilogue--The Future of Print is a beautiful
documentary short about the world of print and a moving tribute to
books, booksellers and book makers. The student project was "built upon
interviews with individuals who are active in the Toronto print
community and questions whether or not they expect to see the
disappearance of the physical book within our lifetime.
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13706964
The three books I've just finished are Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison, Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks, and Vox by Nicholas Baker.
I've read three other books by Geraldine Brooks, starting with the stunning Year of Wonders about the bubonic plague in England, followed by March, and People of the Book. Brooks is nothing if not thorough in her historical research, and such meticulous historical details always gives her fiction a feeling of being real and true. Caleb's Crossing is the fictionalized account of the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College in the 17th century. Though the book is ostensibly about Caleb, a Wopanaak native living on what would eventually become Martha's Vineyard, the story is told from the perspective of Bethia, the local ministers daughter and bright renegade who basically steals her education by listening in on other's lessons. She manages to confound or work around a number of strictures to Puritan society, especially where women are considered chattel to be married off to whomever their fathers or brothers choose for them. I found Bethia's story fascinating, and Brook's shining prose, though journalistic in tone, manages to make the plot move faster than a greased piglet at the county fair. I highly recommend this book to those who find US history fascinating, and to those who are interested in the history of Native Americans in this land. A definite A.
I must first point out that I do not, generally read erotica or porn, because it tends to be poorly written and laughably absurd, but I'd read that Vox, by Nicholas Baker, was intelligently written, witty and fun, so I decided to give it a shot. I was, in fact, surprised by how much I liked this book, which is hilariously witty, full of fun and sexy as heck. This slender volume is basically a conversation between two unnamed people on a sex chat line that goes on for hours. The woman and the man are both smart enough to not fall into any stupid cliches, (I have always hated it when romance novels call body parts by euphemisms like "throbbing manliness" for penis--just call it what it is, for heavens sake!) but instead carry on a very candid conversation where they confess their fantasies and their needs to one another, and in the process reveal their vulnerabilities to one another. There's a backwash of tenderness in the way they seem to care for one another over the course of the conversation, and when they finally are finished with the conversation, the reader is left breathlessly wondering what the fallout will be in each of their lives. Will the guy call the woman on her land line now that he actually has her real number? Will they ever meet in person? Will they start a relationship? The cagey Mr Baker leaves the reader yearning for more. I'd recommend this book to those adults who enjoy the erotic power of words, and it, too, deserves an A.
Enchantments is the story of Masha, one of two daughters born to Grigory Rasputin, the mad monk of St Petersburg Russia. The story takes place in the final days of Tzar Nicholas and Alexandra, around 1917, right after Rasputin was murdered and his daughters taken to the Imperial Palace for their 'safety's sake' to live with the Romanovs. Alexandra had hopes that her savior Rasputin's daughter would be able to help her hemophiliac son as her father had done for so many years. Unfortunately, Masha's only talents are with bareback horseback trick riding and storytelling, so readers are treated to a 1001 Nights style of stories that she tells to the heir to the throne, Aloysha, while he recovers from injuries inflicted on himself by playing at such things as riding a tea tray down the stairs and running into a banister with his leg.
Fortunately, Masha is unsparing in her tales of what her famous father was really like (more of a divinely-touched smelly homeless peasant whose healing abilities were fueled by his rampant sexual addiction), what Alexandra and Nicholas' courtship was like, the rise of the Bolsheviks, the cruelty of the red army, who eventually executed the royal family, cut their bodies up and threw them down a mine shaft, and the enormous contrast of the wealthy lifestyles of the few with the famine and poverty of the many Russians trying to survive. Though her prose is elegant, Harrison tended to float off into lengthy descriptions of the countryside, or the towns, or snow that seemed to be almost like drug-induced fever-dreams. Though they were rich with imagery, they slowed the plot to a crawl at times, and I ended up skimming parts of the book that I felt read like gilding the lily. Once the plot moves toward the final two chapters, it's moving at a clip, and yet I was disappointed with the ending, because we don't find out what happened to our intrepid protagonist. Still, I would recommend this book to all those who enjoy Russian history and Royal history, or any historical fiction that is based in fact. I'd give the book a B+.
documentary short about the world of print and a moving tribute to
books, booksellers and book makers. The student project was "built upon
interviews with individuals who are active in the Toronto print
community and questions whether or not they expect to see the
disappearance of the physical book within our lifetime.
I've read three other books by Geraldine Brooks, starting with the stunning Year of Wonders about the bubonic plague in England, followed by March, and People of the Book. Brooks is nothing if not thorough in her historical research, and such meticulous historical details always gives her fiction a feeling of being real and true. Caleb's Crossing is the fictionalized account of the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College in the 17th century. Though the book is ostensibly about Caleb, a Wopanaak native living on what would eventually become Martha's Vineyard, the story is told from the perspective of Bethia, the local ministers daughter and bright renegade who basically steals her education by listening in on other's lessons. She manages to confound or work around a number of strictures to Puritan society, especially where women are considered chattel to be married off to whomever their fathers or brothers choose for them. I found Bethia's story fascinating, and Brook's shining prose, though journalistic in tone, manages to make the plot move faster than a greased piglet at the county fair. I highly recommend this book to those who find US history fascinating, and to those who are interested in the history of Native Americans in this land. A definite A.
I must first point out that I do not, generally read erotica or porn, because it tends to be poorly written and laughably absurd, but I'd read that Vox, by Nicholas Baker, was intelligently written, witty and fun, so I decided to give it a shot. I was, in fact, surprised by how much I liked this book, which is hilariously witty, full of fun and sexy as heck. This slender volume is basically a conversation between two unnamed people on a sex chat line that goes on for hours. The woman and the man are both smart enough to not fall into any stupid cliches, (I have always hated it when romance novels call body parts by euphemisms like "throbbing manliness" for penis--just call it what it is, for heavens sake!) but instead carry on a very candid conversation where they confess their fantasies and their needs to one another, and in the process reveal their vulnerabilities to one another. There's a backwash of tenderness in the way they seem to care for one another over the course of the conversation, and when they finally are finished with the conversation, the reader is left breathlessly wondering what the fallout will be in each of their lives. Will the guy call the woman on her land line now that he actually has her real number? Will they ever meet in person? Will they start a relationship? The cagey Mr Baker leaves the reader yearning for more. I'd recommend this book to those adults who enjoy the erotic power of words, and it, too, deserves an A.
Enchantments is the story of Masha, one of two daughters born to Grigory Rasputin, the mad monk of St Petersburg Russia. The story takes place in the final days of Tzar Nicholas and Alexandra, around 1917, right after Rasputin was murdered and his daughters taken to the Imperial Palace for their 'safety's sake' to live with the Romanovs. Alexandra had hopes that her savior Rasputin's daughter would be able to help her hemophiliac son as her father had done for so many years. Unfortunately, Masha's only talents are with bareback horseback trick riding and storytelling, so readers are treated to a 1001 Nights style of stories that she tells to the heir to the throne, Aloysha, while he recovers from injuries inflicted on himself by playing at such things as riding a tea tray down the stairs and running into a banister with his leg.
Fortunately, Masha is unsparing in her tales of what her famous father was really like (more of a divinely-touched smelly homeless peasant whose healing abilities were fueled by his rampant sexual addiction), what Alexandra and Nicholas' courtship was like, the rise of the Bolsheviks, the cruelty of the red army, who eventually executed the royal family, cut their bodies up and threw them down a mine shaft, and the enormous contrast of the wealthy lifestyles of the few with the famine and poverty of the many Russians trying to survive. Though her prose is elegant, Harrison tended to float off into lengthy descriptions of the countryside, or the towns, or snow that seemed to be almost like drug-induced fever-dreams. Though they were rich with imagery, they slowed the plot to a crawl at times, and I ended up skimming parts of the book that I felt read like gilding the lily. Once the plot moves toward the final two chapters, it's moving at a clip, and yet I was disappointed with the ending, because we don't find out what happened to our intrepid protagonist. Still, I would recommend this book to all those who enjoy Russian history and Royal history, or any historical fiction that is based in fact. I'd give the book a B+.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Jeopardy, Iowa State Bookstore Closing, Kindles
From Shelf Awareness comes this query, to which my answer is a resounding YES!
Want to spend the night in a British bookshop? The Sanctuary Bookshop
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13666217
in central Lyme Regis (the "Pearl of Dorset") features "ten rooms of
books on four floors... a reading room with comfortable armchairs, a
cozy fire, a floor of books mostly $1 or less, and, if desired,
some overnight accommodation for book lovers." It is located in the
region where adaptations of John Fowles The French Lieutenant's Woman
and Austen's Persuasion were filmed.
I watched this local gal win a pile of cash on Jeopardy, and was right proud of her prowess:
Last Thursday, after back-to-back winning nights--for a grand total of
$59,198--on Jeopardy, Kathy Wright of the University Bookstore, Seattle,
Wash., lost. Incidentally, one of her choices was in the category
"websites from A to Z." For $200, the question was "It started as an
online bookstore run from Jeff Bezos' garage."
Wright noted that her correct answer, "Amazon.com," was "muttered
through clenched teeth, grudgingly." She added, in a reference to
longtime Jeopardy winner Ken Jennings's comment after losing to IBM's
Watson last year, "I want to let people know that what I meant to add,
but didn't, was 'I, for one, do NOT welcome our new computer overlords.'"
On a sad note, I have been to this bookstore when I was growing up in Iowa, and I think it is terrible that it's closing down.
The Campus Book Store, Ames, Iowa, is closing
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13675408
after 39 years in business, the Iowa State Daily reported. All
merchandise is discounted 50% and fixtures, displays and shelving are
for sale.
Floyd and Sandra Ballein, the founders and owners of the store, which
serves Iowa State University, had no comment on its closing.
This sounds like an awesome initiative to get kids in other countries reading
and learning from an e-reader. In a side note, my husband Jim just bought Amazon's Kindle Fire,
and has been loving its many applications.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff
Bezos are holding a press conference on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.,
to announce the launch of the Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13666196,
paidcontent.org reported.
According to the State Department, the "public-private partnership with
Amazon and the U.S. government" is intended to create "a global e-reader
program that introduces aspects of U.S. society and culture directly to
young people, students, and international audiences in new ways and
expands English language learning opportunities worldwide."
Under a no-bid contract that is still in a "pilot program" phase, the
State Department will pay $2.29 million to Amazon in the first year of
the program for 2,500 Kindles, content, support and more. Over five
years, the full cost of the program could be $16.5 million for 7,000
Kindles a year.
This is a funny video of a woman trying to explain her novel to several famed
Seattle booksellers, which is no easy task for even the most prominent authors.
Where'd You Go, Bernadette: A Novel
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13687696
by Maria Semple (Little, Brown), via Entertainment Weekly, in which
Semple, an Arrested Development writer, tries pitching her upcoming book
to Seattle booksellers and others. Includes appearances by actor Tom
Skerritt and cameos by Elliott Bay's Rick Simonson and Karen Maeda
Allman, University Bookstore's Stesha Brandon and Matthew Simmons and
Hugo House's Brian McGuigan. Hilarious.
Want to spend the night in a British bookshop? The Sanctuary Bookshop
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13666217
in central Lyme Regis (the "Pearl of Dorset") features "ten rooms of
books on four floors... a reading room with comfortable armchairs, a
cozy fire, a floor of books mostly $1 or less, and, if desired,
some overnight accommodation for book lovers." It is located in the
region where adaptations of John Fowles The French Lieutenant's Woman
and Austen's Persuasion were filmed.
I watched this local gal win a pile of cash on Jeopardy, and was right proud of her prowess:
Last Thursday, after back-to-back winning nights--for a grand total of
$59,198--on Jeopardy, Kathy Wright of the University Bookstore, Seattle,
Wash., lost. Incidentally, one of her choices was in the category
"websites from A to Z." For $200, the question was "It started as an
online bookstore run from Jeff Bezos' garage."
Wright noted that her correct answer, "Amazon.com," was "muttered
through clenched teeth, grudgingly." She added, in a reference to
longtime Jeopardy winner Ken Jennings's comment after losing to IBM's
Watson last year, "I want to let people know that what I meant to add,
but didn't, was 'I, for one, do NOT welcome our new computer overlords.'"
On a sad note, I have been to this bookstore when I was growing up in Iowa, and I think it is terrible that it's closing down.
The Campus Book Store, Ames, Iowa, is closing
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13675408
after 39 years in business, the Iowa State Daily reported. All
merchandise is discounted 50% and fixtures, displays and shelving are
for sale.
Floyd and Sandra Ballein, the founders and owners of the store, which
serves Iowa State University, had no comment on its closing.
This sounds like an awesome initiative to get kids in other countries reading
and learning from an e-reader. In a side note, my husband Jim just bought Amazon's Kindle Fire,
and has been loving its many applications.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff
Bezos are holding a press conference on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.,
to announce the launch of the Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13666196,
paidcontent.org reported.
According to the State Department, the "public-private partnership with
Amazon and the U.S. government" is intended to create "a global e-reader
program that introduces aspects of U.S. society and culture directly to
young people, students, and international audiences in new ways and
expands English language learning opportunities worldwide."
Under a no-bid contract that is still in a "pilot program" phase, the
State Department will pay $2.29 million to Amazon in the first year of
the program for 2,500 Kindles, content, support and more. Over five
years, the full cost of the program could be $16.5 million for 7,000
Kindles a year.
This is a funny video of a woman trying to explain her novel to several famed
Seattle booksellers, which is no easy task for even the most prominent authors.
Where'd You Go, Bernadette: A Novel
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13687696
by Maria Semple (Little, Brown), via Entertainment Weekly, in which
Semple, an Arrested Development writer, tries pitching her upcoming book
to Seattle booksellers and others. Includes appearances by actor Tom
Skerritt and cameos by Elliott Bay's Rick Simonson and Karen Maeda
Allman, University Bookstore's Stesha Brandon and Matthew Simmons and
Hugo House's Brian McGuigan. Hilarious.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Three New Books and a Great Local Quote
"At home here in Washington State, I continue to relish the Seattle Arts
and Lecture series inside the same grand Benaroya Hall where the
symphony performs and Pearl Jam cut a live album. For me, it really
doesn't even matter who the author is. What inspires me is the crowd,
that up to 2,000 people come out to hear prominent and promising
authors. There are some belly laughs and standing ovations, but mostly
there's the gentle hum and murmur of the stimulated minds of intense
readers coming together to listen to and think about words. In these
days of electronic mania and shrinking attention spans, just being there
can make you feel like you are part of some intelligent and subversive
cult."
--Jim Lynch http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13605840,
whose latest book is Truth Like the Sun, writing for the National Post's
Afterword blog
The above is true of this wonderful state I live in...people here support books and reading, which makes this a bibliophiles paradise!
This past week I read "Need" by Carrie Jones, "The House at Tyneford" by Natasha Solomons and "The Haunting of Maddy Clare" by Simone St James, (*which strikes me as a rather flimsy pen name).
"Need" is a YA paranormal romance that is somewhat similar to the Twilight series in structure, replacing evil pixies and shape shifters for vampires and werewolves, and trading a young girl's journey to Maine for a young girls journey to Washington state. Fortunately, that's where the similarities end, for the most part, as our teen heroine Zara isn't as dull, stupid and wimpy as Bella, and the prose is quite readable, while the zippy plot seems almost plausible.
Zara, who has just lost her beloved stepfather, feels so numb and out of it that she can hardly muster enough ire to protest when her mother sends her away to her grandmother's house in Northern Maine. While there, Zara meets Devyn, a kid in a wheelchair, and Issie, a goofy hyper-active girl who manages to worm her way into Zara's heart. She also meets Nick, a handsome guy whose touch thrills her, and Ian, another handsome teen who competes for her attentions with Nick. There seems to be a strange man who keeps shadowing Zara, though, and she hears his voice whenever she's outside, begging her to "come to me" and generally creeping her out. Soon the trio of Devyn, Issie and Zara discover that the mysterious man is an evil pixie who leaves gold dust in his wake, and who is seeking his "queen," without whom he is forced to abduct teenage boys and suck the life out of them to fulfill his 'need.' Unsurprisingly, Nick turns out to be a werewolf, yet Zara's grandmother is a were-tiger and the school secretary is a were-bear (Devyn is the oddest of the bunch as a were-eagle). The group must fight off the evil pixies and Zara must face her destiny before the end of the story, which has three sequels. I found this first book in the series to be a pleasant enough read, not too full of cliches and bad prose to want to toss it, yet not really rising far enough above the Twilight stereotype to warrant lavish praise or longevity in the YA paranormal romance genre. That said, I plan on reading the next two books in the series, just to see how tough little Zara fairs. I'd recommend this as a good alternative to Twilight, (it is certainly better written) and I'd give it a solid B.
"The House at Tyneford" was a delicious novel for those of us enamored and yes, somewhat obsessed, with "Downton Abbey." It is the story of Elise Landau, a spoiled Viennese Jewish girl who is sent to the English countryside at the beginning of World War 2. Though she has had no training and has never had to work before, she's employed at an English mansion, Tyneford, as a maid. While there she encounters the perfectionist butler, the stiff chatelaine or house manager, and the Lord of the manor, Mr Rivers and his handsome son, Kit. Of course, Kit being the rebellious son, falls for Elise and though they plan on marriage, the war gets in the way, and when Kit is killed, Elise has to deal with her grief over not only his death, but the death of her beloved parents in a Jewish ghetto. Though Elise, now called "Alice" triumphs in the end, I found it heartbreaking that the beautiful English manor was requisitioned by the British military and never returned to its rightful owners, something that apparently happened all too often in the real English countryside during WWII. Still, a fascinating and engrossing tale that I'd recommend to all Downton Abbey fans and to readers of historical romance. The House at Tyneford deserves an A-.
Finally, "The Haunting of Maddy Clare" was a page-turning thriller/mystery/paranormal romance that I wasn't expecting to love as much as I did. The prose is mesmerizing and the plot flows like silk in the breeze, so swift and yet gentle that you don't realize you're completely engrossed until you look up at the clock and find that hours have slipped by.
Sarah Piper is a lonely young woman barely making ends meet in 1920's, post WWI England, when she accepts work (she is listed with a temp agency) for a young charismatic man named Alistair Gellis, who happens to be an author and a ghost hunter. There's the ghost of a young maid who hanged herself in the barn in a small hamlet in the English countryside who is haunting a couple of little old ladies. Apparently these ladies took in the maid when she appeared at their doorstep traumatized and covered in mud. Gellis, whose assistant Matthew Ryder, is away visiting his sister during labor, needs a woman to "talk" to the maid's ghost, who is said to hate men and refuses to talk to them or do anything but drive them violently away. Sarah, who is somewhat "sensitive" to paranormal phenominon, actually hears the ghost speaking to her and has visions of what happened to the maid, Maddy Clare, who seeks revenge for her rape and murder. During the course of the novel, we see Sarah grow as a person, and fall in love with Matthew, as well as taking on the task of finding justice for Maddy. This is the kind of novel I like to read to take my mind off of something dull or unpleasant, because it is so riveting you forget your surroundings, your pain and anything else that stands between you and finding out what happens to Sarah and Maddy's ghost. I recommend this book to historical mystery lovers and to those who find a paranormal romance with mystery woven throughout fascinating. I'd give the novel an A, and I hope to encounter Ms St James' other works.
and Lecture series inside the same grand Benaroya Hall where the
symphony performs and Pearl Jam cut a live album. For me, it really
doesn't even matter who the author is. What inspires me is the crowd,
that up to 2,000 people come out to hear prominent and promising
authors. There are some belly laughs and standing ovations, but mostly
there's the gentle hum and murmur of the stimulated minds of intense
readers coming together to listen to and think about words. In these
days of electronic mania and shrinking attention spans, just being there
can make you feel like you are part of some intelligent and subversive
cult."
--Jim Lynch http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13605840,
whose latest book is Truth Like the Sun, writing for the National Post's
Afterword blog
The above is true of this wonderful state I live in...people here support books and reading, which makes this a bibliophiles paradise!
This past week I read "Need" by Carrie Jones, "The House at Tyneford" by Natasha Solomons and "The Haunting of Maddy Clare" by Simone St James, (*which strikes me as a rather flimsy pen name).
"Need" is a YA paranormal romance that is somewhat similar to the Twilight series in structure, replacing evil pixies and shape shifters for vampires and werewolves, and trading a young girl's journey to Maine for a young girls journey to Washington state. Fortunately, that's where the similarities end, for the most part, as our teen heroine Zara isn't as dull, stupid and wimpy as Bella, and the prose is quite readable, while the zippy plot seems almost plausible.
Zara, who has just lost her beloved stepfather, feels so numb and out of it that she can hardly muster enough ire to protest when her mother sends her away to her grandmother's house in Northern Maine. While there, Zara meets Devyn, a kid in a wheelchair, and Issie, a goofy hyper-active girl who manages to worm her way into Zara's heart. She also meets Nick, a handsome guy whose touch thrills her, and Ian, another handsome teen who competes for her attentions with Nick. There seems to be a strange man who keeps shadowing Zara, though, and she hears his voice whenever she's outside, begging her to "come to me" and generally creeping her out. Soon the trio of Devyn, Issie and Zara discover that the mysterious man is an evil pixie who leaves gold dust in his wake, and who is seeking his "queen," without whom he is forced to abduct teenage boys and suck the life out of them to fulfill his 'need.' Unsurprisingly, Nick turns out to be a werewolf, yet Zara's grandmother is a were-tiger and the school secretary is a were-bear (Devyn is the oddest of the bunch as a were-eagle). The group must fight off the evil pixies and Zara must face her destiny before the end of the story, which has three sequels. I found this first book in the series to be a pleasant enough read, not too full of cliches and bad prose to want to toss it, yet not really rising far enough above the Twilight stereotype to warrant lavish praise or longevity in the YA paranormal romance genre. That said, I plan on reading the next two books in the series, just to see how tough little Zara fairs. I'd recommend this as a good alternative to Twilight, (it is certainly better written) and I'd give it a solid B.
"The House at Tyneford" was a delicious novel for those of us enamored and yes, somewhat obsessed, with "Downton Abbey." It is the story of Elise Landau, a spoiled Viennese Jewish girl who is sent to the English countryside at the beginning of World War 2. Though she has had no training and has never had to work before, she's employed at an English mansion, Tyneford, as a maid. While there she encounters the perfectionist butler, the stiff chatelaine or house manager, and the Lord of the manor, Mr Rivers and his handsome son, Kit. Of course, Kit being the rebellious son, falls for Elise and though they plan on marriage, the war gets in the way, and when Kit is killed, Elise has to deal with her grief over not only his death, but the death of her beloved parents in a Jewish ghetto. Though Elise, now called "Alice" triumphs in the end, I found it heartbreaking that the beautiful English manor was requisitioned by the British military and never returned to its rightful owners, something that apparently happened all too often in the real English countryside during WWII. Still, a fascinating and engrossing tale that I'd recommend to all Downton Abbey fans and to readers of historical romance. The House at Tyneford deserves an A-.
Finally, "The Haunting of Maddy Clare" was a page-turning thriller/mystery/paranormal romance that I wasn't expecting to love as much as I did. The prose is mesmerizing and the plot flows like silk in the breeze, so swift and yet gentle that you don't realize you're completely engrossed until you look up at the clock and find that hours have slipped by.
Sarah Piper is a lonely young woman barely making ends meet in 1920's, post WWI England, when she accepts work (she is listed with a temp agency) for a young charismatic man named Alistair Gellis, who happens to be an author and a ghost hunter. There's the ghost of a young maid who hanged herself in the barn in a small hamlet in the English countryside who is haunting a couple of little old ladies. Apparently these ladies took in the maid when she appeared at their doorstep traumatized and covered in mud. Gellis, whose assistant Matthew Ryder, is away visiting his sister during labor, needs a woman to "talk" to the maid's ghost, who is said to hate men and refuses to talk to them or do anything but drive them violently away. Sarah, who is somewhat "sensitive" to paranormal phenominon, actually hears the ghost speaking to her and has visions of what happened to the maid, Maddy Clare, who seeks revenge for her rape and murder. During the course of the novel, we see Sarah grow as a person, and fall in love with Matthew, as well as taking on the task of finding justice for Maddy. This is the kind of novel I like to read to take my mind off of something dull or unpleasant, because it is so riveting you forget your surroundings, your pain and anything else that stands between you and finding out what happens to Sarah and Maddy's ghost. I recommend this book to historical mystery lovers and to those who find a paranormal romance with mystery woven throughout fascinating. I'd give the novel an A, and I hope to encounter Ms St James' other works.
Friday, June 08, 2012
RIP Ray Bradbury, Plus Two Fantasy Novels
Author Ray Bradbury died on June 5 at age 91. Ray Bradbury was one of the best writers ever to grace our planet. He was a master of the short story, which is, in my opinion, one of the hardest forms of fiction to write, and he wrote classic works of science fiction that were read by people who normally would never touch a genre novel. The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, were all books that I read and loved throughout my teen years. His story "Uncle Einar" made me weep, as did many of his other wonder-filled short stories, from "The Veldt" to his short story about the vampire family that was shamelessly ripped off by Stephanie Meyer for her "Twilight" series. When Jim and I visited Los Angeles in 1994, we made a pilgrimage to the Bradbury Building, where they filmed the Outer Limits episode, "Demon With a Glass Hand" and part of "Blade Runner." Those who are bibliophiles and other writers/authors mourn with me, as we shall not see his like ever again. Rest in Peace, Mr Bradbury.
Ray Bradbury
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13579334,
the internationally--perhaps even universally--acknowledged master of
science fiction "whose imaginative and lyrical evocations of the future
reflected both the optimism and the anxieties of his own postwar
America," as the New York Times put it, died on Tuesday after a long
illness. He was 91.
His best-known works included Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles,
The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He received
the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution
to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts and the 2007
Pulitzer Prize Special Citation.
"By many estimations Mr. Bradbury was the writer most responsible for
bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream," the Times
observed, noting that more than eight million copies of his books have
been sold in 36 languages.
In July, Morrow is publishing Shadow Show: All New Stories in
Celebration of Ray Bradbury edited by Sam Weller and Mort Castle
consisting of short stories by 26 authors, including Ramsey Campbell,
Harlan Ellison, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Audrey Niffenegger, Dave
Eggers and Jacquelyn Mitchard.
"[Wednesday] afternoon I was in a studio recording an audiobook version
of a short story I had written for Ray Bradbury's 90th birthday. It's a
monologue called 'The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury,' and was a way of
talking about the impact that Ray Bradbury had on me as a boy, and as an
adult, and, as far as I could, about what he had done to the world. And
I wrote it last year as a love letter and as a thank you and as a
birthday present for an author who made me dream, taught me about words
and what they could accomplish and who never let me down as a reader or
as a person as I grew up."
--Neil Gaiman
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13587342
in a Guardian essay remembering his friend, who died earlier this week.
From Shelf Awareness comes a great list of audiobooks:
The Audio Publishers Association announced this year's Audie Award
winners Tuesday night. Tina Fey's memoir Bossypants was a double winner,
earning Audio Book of the Year honors as well as a win in the
biography/memoir category. Check out the complete list of Audie winners
and finalists here http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13579355
I just finished reading "Among Others", which I adored, as I was a teen in the 70s, and I felt much the same way about science fiction and fantasy as does the protagonist, Mori, who lost her twin sister and still manages to see the good in life and in the fair folk. She loves reading as much as I did, and I could identify with her scouring the library and the bookshops for new things to read. I could also identify with her being bullied and picked on, as I was treated much the same way in high school. Though her mother was horrifically insane and evil, and my parents were never abusive to that extent, I did have to deal with my parents divorce and their horrible way of putting me in the middle and blaming me for things that were not my fault. So I could identify with Mori on that front, too.
Among Others by Jo Walton
Tor, 2011. 9780765321534.
Reviewed by Bill Barnes of Unshelved
Morwenna and her twin sister practiced magic with the fairies in the overgrown industrial ruins of Wales. Then something terrible happened. Now she's alone, with a crippled leg, being driven to boarding school in England by a father she only just met.
Why I picked it up: Mori's world revolves around the science fiction and fantasy novels she reads. It takes place in 1980, just two years before I moved to England, and the books she reads are the ones I read by Heinlein, Niven, Le Guin, and so on. I couldn't resist.
Why I finished it: Mori is the nerdgirl I always hoped to meet. I was a little jealous when she meets a boy at a sci-fi book club. But Mori really can do magic, and she bides her time, dealing with the petty politics of boarding school while preparing for the inevitable rematch with the being that killed her sister.
I'd give it to: Nigel, the first friend I made when I moved to England. We were both strangers in a strange land, and he'll be freaked out by the nostalgic smells and sounds Walton evokes, especially the sweet buns, for a long time the only food in England worth eating, which Mori and the other girls consume in quantity.
I also read Ann Aguirre's latest Corine Solomon novel, "Devil's Punch" and I was surprised at how deftly Aguirre managed to tie up loose ends while weaving in an original and often scary tale of Corine's battle to save her young friend Shannon literally from Hell, where the politics aren't quite what you'd think they are. Her relationship with Chance was also renewed and solidified, and even though she's taken over by the Queen of the Demons, Chance still loves her unconditionally. Though it had a sad ending, I am really looking forward to the next installment in this series.
Ray Bradbury
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13579334,
the internationally--perhaps even universally--acknowledged master of
science fiction "whose imaginative and lyrical evocations of the future
reflected both the optimism and the anxieties of his own postwar
America," as the New York Times put it, died on Tuesday after a long
illness. He was 91.
His best-known works included Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles,
The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He received
the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution
to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts and the 2007
Pulitzer Prize Special Citation.
"By many estimations Mr. Bradbury was the writer most responsible for
bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream," the Times
observed, noting that more than eight million copies of his books have
been sold in 36 languages.
In July, Morrow is publishing Shadow Show: All New Stories in
Celebration of Ray Bradbury edited by Sam Weller and Mort Castle
consisting of short stories by 26 authors, including Ramsey Campbell,
Harlan Ellison, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Audrey Niffenegger, Dave
Eggers and Jacquelyn Mitchard.
"[Wednesday] afternoon I was in a studio recording an audiobook version
of a short story I had written for Ray Bradbury's 90th birthday. It's a
monologue called 'The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury,' and was a way of
talking about the impact that Ray Bradbury had on me as a boy, and as an
adult, and, as far as I could, about what he had done to the world. And
I wrote it last year as a love letter and as a thank you and as a
birthday present for an author who made me dream, taught me about words
and what they could accomplish and who never let me down as a reader or
as a person as I grew up."
--Neil Gaiman
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13587342
in a Guardian essay remembering his friend, who died earlier this week.
From Shelf Awareness comes a great list of audiobooks:
The Audio Publishers Association announced this year's Audie Award
winners Tuesday night. Tina Fey's memoir Bossypants was a double winner,
earning Audio Book of the Year honors as well as a win in the
biography/memoir category. Check out the complete list of Audie winners
and finalists here http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13579355
I just finished reading "Among Others", which I adored, as I was a teen in the 70s, and I felt much the same way about science fiction and fantasy as does the protagonist, Mori, who lost her twin sister and still manages to see the good in life and in the fair folk. She loves reading as much as I did, and I could identify with her scouring the library and the bookshops for new things to read. I could also identify with her being bullied and picked on, as I was treated much the same way in high school. Though her mother was horrifically insane and evil, and my parents were never abusive to that extent, I did have to deal with my parents divorce and their horrible way of putting me in the middle and blaming me for things that were not my fault. So I could identify with Mori on that front, too.
Among Others by Jo Walton
Tor, 2011. 9780765321534.
Reviewed by Bill Barnes of Unshelved
Morwenna and her twin sister practiced magic with the fairies in the overgrown industrial ruins of Wales. Then something terrible happened. Now she's alone, with a crippled leg, being driven to boarding school in England by a father she only just met.
Why I picked it up: Mori's world revolves around the science fiction and fantasy novels she reads. It takes place in 1980, just two years before I moved to England, and the books she reads are the ones I read by Heinlein, Niven, Le Guin, and so on. I couldn't resist.
Why I finished it: Mori is the nerdgirl I always hoped to meet. I was a little jealous when she meets a boy at a sci-fi book club. But Mori really can do magic, and she bides her time, dealing with the petty politics of boarding school while preparing for the inevitable rematch with the being that killed her sister.
I'd give it to: Nigel, the first friend I made when I moved to England. We were both strangers in a strange land, and he'll be freaked out by the nostalgic smells and sounds Walton evokes, especially the sweet buns, for a long time the only food in England worth eating, which Mori and the other girls consume in quantity.
I also read Ann Aguirre's latest Corine Solomon novel, "Devil's Punch" and I was surprised at how deftly Aguirre managed to tie up loose ends while weaving in an original and often scary tale of Corine's battle to save her young friend Shannon literally from Hell, where the politics aren't quite what you'd think they are. Her relationship with Chance was also renewed and solidified, and even though she's taken over by the Queen of the Demons, Chance still loves her unconditionally. Though it had a sad ending, I am really looking forward to the next installment in this series.
Monday, June 04, 2012
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, and The Final Solution by Michael Chabon
I can relate to this quote, having just started on a new Crohn's medication, and I'm feeling all sorts of new pains in my abdomen.
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” Khalil Gibran
I'm a huge fan of the new BBC TV series, "Sherlock" and I just recently learned that there will be a new American TV series about Sherlock Holmes called "Elementary." Here's the scoop from Shelf Awareness:
Given the recent success of the BBC/PBS Masterpiece Mystery series
Sherlock, Elementary http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13503649
"has either the misfortune or, I'm sure according to CBS, the great luck
to arrive this fall" as yet another contemporary incarnation of Arthur
Conan Doyle's legendary detective," Indiewire reported.
In the CBS version, which is set in New York City, Jonny Lee Miller
plays Holmes and Lucy Liu will have the "genderflipping" role of Joan
Watson. The pilot was directed by Michael Cuesta (L.I.E.).
Indiewire noted that the "Miller's take on Holmes, while eccentric, is
less prickly than Cumberbatch's U.K. version. Incidentally, Miller and
Cumberbatch starred opposite one another in Danny Boyle's National
Theatre stage production of Frankenstein, alternating between the roles
of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature."
I wanted to shout YES when I read this quote:
"The ring is small, the punches come fast and relentlessly, the contest
is a mismatch, but why shouldn't we keep swinging? Good independent
booksellers are still capable of finding talented readers in quantity
for great books, books that might not find their way through the valley
of the shadow of remainder death without our help."Robert Gray
I've finished two fascinating books this past week, Michael Chabon's "The Final Solution" which is about Sherlock Holmes at the end of his life, and "The Art of Fielding" by Chad Harbach, which has received a ton of hype and awards, including being named the NYTimes "Best Book of the Year" (I am assuming for last year, since the book is out in paperback now).
The Final Solution is a slender volume, but one that packs a hearty punch for its size. Chabon never calls his protagonist "Sherlock Holmes" but instead tells us all manner of little details about him, each an indellible part of his character, so that we know it is Holmes, albeit a decrepid and ancient Holmes, that we're dealing with. Chabon masterfully uses prose that is nearly exactly the same as Arthur Conan Doyle's, so we're plunged into the mystery with the feeling that we've landed in familiar territory.The story revolves around a young Jewish mute who is removed to England during WWII with his African Gray Parrot, Bruno, a clever bird who has memorized some secret numbers and is being hunted by several different people, one of whom resorts to murder to obtain the bird. Holmes sets out not to solve the murder so much as to find Bruno and return him to Linus, his owner.
I highly recommend this book to Holmsian scholars and fans, from ages 12 to 95, who love to watch a master sleuth solve a mystery.
I was prepared to loathe "The Art of Fielding" because it is a book about baseball, and I am not a sports fan, and it takes place in the Midwest (Wisconsin) at a small, liberal arts college, and having attended a small liberal arts college in the Midwest (Iowa) I feared that here was yet another author set to make Midwestern people sound like laughable rubes and dupes (are you listening, Jane Smiley?).
Fortunately, I was wrong about the book, and from the first chapter, I was enchanted by the characters and their lives, as well as the strong and luscious prose that read like a cross between John Steinbeck and John Irving with a soupcon of WP Kinsella's Shoeless Joe and the Iowa Baseball Confederacy thrown in for spice.
The story takes place at Westish College, run by the handsome and affable Guert Affenlight, who has inexplicably fallen in love with a student, the lithe and wise Owen Dunne, though Affenlight has never been attracted to men before, and has a daughter, Pella, who is Owen's age. The protagonist, Henry Skrimshander, ends up being room mates with Owen, mainly because he starts school so late there are no other rooms left. Henry is something of a baseball phenom, a shortstop who never misses a ball, and he's discovered by Mike Schwartz, the college jock whose mentorship has lead many of the colleges athletes to scholarships. As it says on the back of the book "As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process, they forge new bonds and help one another find their true paths."
What the author doesn't tell you in that blurb is that we learn so much about the human spirit, the human capacity for love, and sacrifice, tragedy and triumph that you're left breathless with awe by the end, tears pouring down your cheeks, having fallen in love with these people and having prayed for their success as you would a beloved family member. I don't know how else to say it, but this is a GREAT book, one that is destined to be a classic, and one that will be read for decades to come by young and old, ebook and dead-tree readers alike. It gets an A+, and even if you don't like baseball, please read it, just for the stunning prose and wise characters alone. If you aren't crying by the time Owen, known as "Buddha" by the team, says, "You told me once that a soul isn't something a person is born with, but something that must be built, by effort and error, study and love. And you did that with more dedication than most, that work of building a soul--not for your own benefit, but for the benefit of those who knew you," you're not human.
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” Khalil Gibran
I'm a huge fan of the new BBC TV series, "Sherlock" and I just recently learned that there will be a new American TV series about Sherlock Holmes called "Elementary." Here's the scoop from Shelf Awareness:
Given the recent success of the BBC/PBS Masterpiece Mystery series
Sherlock, Elementary http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13503649
"has either the misfortune or, I'm sure according to CBS, the great luck
to arrive this fall" as yet another contemporary incarnation of Arthur
Conan Doyle's legendary detective," Indiewire reported.
In the CBS version, which is set in New York City, Jonny Lee Miller
plays Holmes and Lucy Liu will have the "genderflipping" role of Joan
Watson. The pilot was directed by Michael Cuesta (L.I.E.).
Indiewire noted that the "Miller's take on Holmes, while eccentric, is
less prickly than Cumberbatch's U.K. version. Incidentally, Miller and
Cumberbatch starred opposite one another in Danny Boyle's National
Theatre stage production of Frankenstein, alternating between the roles
of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature."
I wanted to shout YES when I read this quote:
"The ring is small, the punches come fast and relentlessly, the contest
is a mismatch, but why shouldn't we keep swinging? Good independent
booksellers are still capable of finding talented readers in quantity
for great books, books that might not find their way through the valley
of the shadow of remainder death without our help."Robert Gray
I've finished two fascinating books this past week, Michael Chabon's "The Final Solution" which is about Sherlock Holmes at the end of his life, and "The Art of Fielding" by Chad Harbach, which has received a ton of hype and awards, including being named the NYTimes "Best Book of the Year" (I am assuming for last year, since the book is out in paperback now).
The Final Solution is a slender volume, but one that packs a hearty punch for its size. Chabon never calls his protagonist "Sherlock Holmes" but instead tells us all manner of little details about him, each an indellible part of his character, so that we know it is Holmes, albeit a decrepid and ancient Holmes, that we're dealing with. Chabon masterfully uses prose that is nearly exactly the same as Arthur Conan Doyle's, so we're plunged into the mystery with the feeling that we've landed in familiar territory.The story revolves around a young Jewish mute who is removed to England during WWII with his African Gray Parrot, Bruno, a clever bird who has memorized some secret numbers and is being hunted by several different people, one of whom resorts to murder to obtain the bird. Holmes sets out not to solve the murder so much as to find Bruno and return him to Linus, his owner.
I highly recommend this book to Holmsian scholars and fans, from ages 12 to 95, who love to watch a master sleuth solve a mystery.
I was prepared to loathe "The Art of Fielding" because it is a book about baseball, and I am not a sports fan, and it takes place in the Midwest (Wisconsin) at a small, liberal arts college, and having attended a small liberal arts college in the Midwest (Iowa) I feared that here was yet another author set to make Midwestern people sound like laughable rubes and dupes (are you listening, Jane Smiley?).
Fortunately, I was wrong about the book, and from the first chapter, I was enchanted by the characters and their lives, as well as the strong and luscious prose that read like a cross between John Steinbeck and John Irving with a soupcon of WP Kinsella's Shoeless Joe and the Iowa Baseball Confederacy thrown in for spice.
The story takes place at Westish College, run by the handsome and affable Guert Affenlight, who has inexplicably fallen in love with a student, the lithe and wise Owen Dunne, though Affenlight has never been attracted to men before, and has a daughter, Pella, who is Owen's age. The protagonist, Henry Skrimshander, ends up being room mates with Owen, mainly because he starts school so late there are no other rooms left. Henry is something of a baseball phenom, a shortstop who never misses a ball, and he's discovered by Mike Schwartz, the college jock whose mentorship has lead many of the colleges athletes to scholarships. As it says on the back of the book "As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process, they forge new bonds and help one another find their true paths."
What the author doesn't tell you in that blurb is that we learn so much about the human spirit, the human capacity for love, and sacrifice, tragedy and triumph that you're left breathless with awe by the end, tears pouring down your cheeks, having fallen in love with these people and having prayed for their success as you would a beloved family member. I don't know how else to say it, but this is a GREAT book, one that is destined to be a classic, and one that will be read for decades to come by young and old, ebook and dead-tree readers alike. It gets an A+, and even if you don't like baseball, please read it, just for the stunning prose and wise characters alone. If you aren't crying by the time Owen, known as "Buddha" by the team, says, "You told me once that a soul isn't something a person is born with, but something that must be built, by effort and error, study and love. And you did that with more dedication than most, that work of building a soul--not for your own benefit, but for the benefit of those who knew you," you're not human.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Nebula Awards and Diary of a Mad Fat Girl
This is true:
"Each book has a story, or rather history. As objects, they are
tangible, tactile, solid. Their spines creak as you open them and their
pages lie as individually as a woman's hair on a pillow. So it is with
most every book....
"Not that I've anything against e-books and Kindles. Some day I'll
likely buy one and be thoroughly impressed. But can you throw it at the
cat or flatten a roach, can you hide things in it, use it as a filing
system, or dribble wax onto the back cover and stick a candle on it to
enhance the atmosphere of a faraway room and, in those flickering
shadows, make love?"
--Grant Buday, from his essay "Old Paper"http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13432493 in the latest issue of Brick
Having been a science fiction and fantasy reader for over 40 years, I had to post this year's Nebula winners, noting that Neil Gaiman's wonderful Dr Who episode in which the TARDIS came to life in a woman's body, won the Bradbury award. Amen.
The winners of this year's Nebula Awards
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13448386, sponsored
by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, are:
Novel: Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)
Novella: "The Man Who Bridged the Mist" by Kij Johnson
Novellette: "What We Found" by Geoff Ryman
Short Story: "The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu
Bradbury: Doctor Who--"The Doctor's Wife" by Neil Gaiman, directed by
Richard Clark
Norton YA: The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)
Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee was an impulse by at the MVG library book sale, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Usually, books that purport to be about fat girls aren't about larger women at all, and while the protagonist, Ace Jones, doesn't really qualify as fat, in my opinion, being only 20 pounds overweight (which seems to just make her curvy), she does have the proper attitude toward people making assumptions about her and trying to get her to lose weight or eat foods that she finds loathsome. Ace refuses to let anyone define her or get the better of her, and she spends a lot of time in this book telling people off, especially those who deserve to be told off. She has a "chiweenie" dog named Buster Loo and an ex-boyfriend that she's still in love with named Mason. She's got a kick-arse attitude and a salty, witty mouth that seems to get her into and out of trouble in equal measure. As a literature teacher, she's got quite a bit of drama inherent in her soul, and a need for romance and independence. She also has two friends, Chloe and Lilly whom she manages, with the help of the local wealthy Southern widow, to get out of bad/abusive relationships. Of course, there's an HEA, complete with marriage proposal, but the whole point of this book is the hilarious roller-coaster ride that is the life of Ace Jones in Bugtussle, Mississippi. Highly recommended for fans of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and Jennifer Wiener's Good in Bed.
"Each book has a story, or rather history. As objects, they are
tangible, tactile, solid. Their spines creak as you open them and their
pages lie as individually as a woman's hair on a pillow. So it is with
most every book....
"Not that I've anything against e-books and Kindles. Some day I'll
likely buy one and be thoroughly impressed. But can you throw it at the
cat or flatten a roach, can you hide things in it, use it as a filing
system, or dribble wax onto the back cover and stick a candle on it to
enhance the atmosphere of a faraway room and, in those flickering
shadows, make love?"
--Grant Buday, from his essay "Old Paper"http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13432493 in the latest issue of Brick
Having been a science fiction and fantasy reader for over 40 years, I had to post this year's Nebula winners, noting that Neil Gaiman's wonderful Dr Who episode in which the TARDIS came to life in a woman's body, won the Bradbury award. Amen.
The winners of this year's Nebula Awards
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13448386, sponsored
by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, are:
Novel: Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)
Novella: "The Man Who Bridged the Mist" by Kij Johnson
Novellette: "What We Found" by Geoff Ryman
Short Story: "The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu
Bradbury: Doctor Who--"The Doctor's Wife" by Neil Gaiman, directed by
Richard Clark
Norton YA: The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)
Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee was an impulse by at the MVG library book sale, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Usually, books that purport to be about fat girls aren't about larger women at all, and while the protagonist, Ace Jones, doesn't really qualify as fat, in my opinion, being only 20 pounds overweight (which seems to just make her curvy), she does have the proper attitude toward people making assumptions about her and trying to get her to lose weight or eat foods that she finds loathsome. Ace refuses to let anyone define her or get the better of her, and she spends a lot of time in this book telling people off, especially those who deserve to be told off. She has a "chiweenie" dog named Buster Loo and an ex-boyfriend that she's still in love with named Mason. She's got a kick-arse attitude and a salty, witty mouth that seems to get her into and out of trouble in equal measure. As a literature teacher, she's got quite a bit of drama inherent in her soul, and a need for romance and independence. She also has two friends, Chloe and Lilly whom she manages, with the help of the local wealthy Southern widow, to get out of bad/abusive relationships. Of course, there's an HEA, complete with marriage proposal, but the whole point of this book is the hilarious roller-coaster ride that is the life of Ace Jones in Bugtussle, Mississippi. Highly recommended for fans of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and Jennifer Wiener's Good in Bed.
Monday, May 14, 2012
The Aviary Gate and The Year of Pleasures
This past Mother's Day weekend, I finished reading Elizabeth Berg's "The Year of Pleasures" and Katie Hickman's "The Aviary Gate."
I've read three other books of Bergs, The Art of Mending, Talk Before Sleep and Durable Goods, but I only enjoyed The Art of Mending, so I wasn't going out of my way to find more books by Berg, really. Then I decided to put The Year of Pleasures on the reading list for my Tuesday night book group at the Maple Valley Library, and figured I could get a leg up by reading it before next month's meeting. I am so glad I did, because Berg's magnificent prose and strong characters kept me turning pages into the wee hours. The story is about Betta Nolan, a woman who was in one of those "once in a lifetime" relationships where the love is so strong between two soulmates that they become a world unto themselves and don't fraternize with friends or relatives. While this exclusionary life seems idylic at first, I think it became evident to Betta that, once her husband died of cancer, she was left heartbroken and depressed because she had no one to talk to about her grief and her decision to move to the Midwest.
It seems Betta and her late husband had discussed moving from Boston to a small town in the Midwest to retire and perhaps run a store together for fun one day, so Betta feels compelled to keep that promise, though she has no idea how to fulfill her vision of creating a new life without her husband. This seemed the only major flaw in Betta, as far as I could tell, but it was a huge one, in that she seemed so helpless and clueless without a man in her life. Still, when Betta drives to Stewart, Illinois, and finds the house of her dreams, everything seems to fall into place for her, including having an adorable neighbor boy come to help her, she reconnects with her college buddies and even makes friends with the stout real estate agent, though she acts snobbish about weight throughout the book (which only makes her seem more unstable and unlikable).
Having grown up in small towns in Iowa my whole life, the characters and their actions toward a new widow in town rang true to me, and I was delighted that Berg made mention of how cheaply one can live in small Midwestern towns vs big cities. Berg's prose is golden, and I'd recommend this to anyone who has had to start life over after the death of a loved one.
I am looking forward to the discussion next month with my fellow bibliophiles at the library!
The Aviary Gate was an impulse buy from the book sale rack a the library, as it has a 'chick lit' kind of cover, with a sultry woman in harem silks staring our from a painting with a doleful gaze.
Like AS Byatt's Possession, this book tells the tale of an Englishwoman, Celia Lamprey, who is taken after a shipwreck into a sultans harem as a concubine, or sex slave, surrounded by cutthroat harem women and eunnuchs who plan on using Celia for their own agenda. Meanwhile, in present day, a young woman finds one of Celia's letters in an old manuscript and goes on a hunt for more information about Celia and her long lost fiance, the merchant Paul Pindar. Apparently they were both in Constantinople (in the 16th century) at the same time, so Celia attempted to do the unthinkable and see her fiance one more time before giving herself to the sultan, who is described as a grotesque, obese bully.
I was surprised by the high quality prose in this book, and by the swift and intelligently-formed plot. The characters are all beautifully drawn, created in such a way that the reader cares for them and their fates, though we realize that not all of them will meet a good end. Though we are left wondering whether or not Celia and Paul ever did meet, the author still manages to come to a complete ending that is satisfying and heartfelt. I'd recommend this book to those who enjoy historical fiction and historical romantic fiction.
I've read three other books of Bergs, The Art of Mending, Talk Before Sleep and Durable Goods, but I only enjoyed The Art of Mending, so I wasn't going out of my way to find more books by Berg, really. Then I decided to put The Year of Pleasures on the reading list for my Tuesday night book group at the Maple Valley Library, and figured I could get a leg up by reading it before next month's meeting. I am so glad I did, because Berg's magnificent prose and strong characters kept me turning pages into the wee hours. The story is about Betta Nolan, a woman who was in one of those "once in a lifetime" relationships where the love is so strong between two soulmates that they become a world unto themselves and don't fraternize with friends or relatives. While this exclusionary life seems idylic at first, I think it became evident to Betta that, once her husband died of cancer, she was left heartbroken and depressed because she had no one to talk to about her grief and her decision to move to the Midwest.
It seems Betta and her late husband had discussed moving from Boston to a small town in the Midwest to retire and perhaps run a store together for fun one day, so Betta feels compelled to keep that promise, though she has no idea how to fulfill her vision of creating a new life without her husband. This seemed the only major flaw in Betta, as far as I could tell, but it was a huge one, in that she seemed so helpless and clueless without a man in her life. Still, when Betta drives to Stewart, Illinois, and finds the house of her dreams, everything seems to fall into place for her, including having an adorable neighbor boy come to help her, she reconnects with her college buddies and even makes friends with the stout real estate agent, though she acts snobbish about weight throughout the book (which only makes her seem more unstable and unlikable).
Having grown up in small towns in Iowa my whole life, the characters and their actions toward a new widow in town rang true to me, and I was delighted that Berg made mention of how cheaply one can live in small Midwestern towns vs big cities. Berg's prose is golden, and I'd recommend this to anyone who has had to start life over after the death of a loved one.
I am looking forward to the discussion next month with my fellow bibliophiles at the library!
The Aviary Gate was an impulse buy from the book sale rack a the library, as it has a 'chick lit' kind of cover, with a sultry woman in harem silks staring our from a painting with a doleful gaze.
Like AS Byatt's Possession, this book tells the tale of an Englishwoman, Celia Lamprey, who is taken after a shipwreck into a sultans harem as a concubine, or sex slave, surrounded by cutthroat harem women and eunnuchs who plan on using Celia for their own agenda. Meanwhile, in present day, a young woman finds one of Celia's letters in an old manuscript and goes on a hunt for more information about Celia and her long lost fiance, the merchant Paul Pindar. Apparently they were both in Constantinople (in the 16th century) at the same time, so Celia attempted to do the unthinkable and see her fiance one more time before giving herself to the sultan, who is described as a grotesque, obese bully.
I was surprised by the high quality prose in this book, and by the swift and intelligently-formed plot. The characters are all beautifully drawn, created in such a way that the reader cares for them and their fates, though we realize that not all of them will meet a good end. Though we are left wondering whether or not Celia and Paul ever did meet, the author still manages to come to a complete ending that is satisfying and heartfelt. I'd recommend this book to those who enjoy historical fiction and historical romantic fiction.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Tribute to a Bookstore
This could be a tribute to most of the bookstores that I frequent, and have become involved with over the past 47 years since I learned to read at age 4. I believe most bibliophiles would agree that bookstores and libraries are holy places for us, the fierce book lovers of the world.
In honor of Broadway Books, author Brian Doyle offered the following tribute:
I was in my favorite independent bookstore in Oregon recently, pawing
through the produce and surreptitiously looking to see if the
proprietesses had left any unattended cookies, when I had A Roaring
Epiphany. I realized that the store was a village green for ideas. A
story-common. A crossroads for voices and songs and debates and
memories. A chapel filled with ink. A pub without beer, mostly. I have
seen dogs reading graphic novels there. I have seen people laugh and
weep. I have seen people hug the proprietesses when said proprietesses
found or suggested Exactly the Right Book for the left-handed
Samoan-American boxing-maniac great-grandmother with a Sarah Palin
tattoo on one bicep and Dave Eggers on the other. I have heard poets
chant there. I have heard small children reading aloud, the coolest
sound in the world. I have heard nutty essayists shouting and telling
lewd stories with high glee and burble. I have seen a child buy a book
and sit down on the floor and start reading it immediately. I have seen
young people read their own work aloud for the first time in their whole
blessed lives. I have seen the proprietors work twelve hours a day. They
have worked awfully hard for inconsiderable coin for twenty years. They
are story ambassadors. They are hope agents. They are imagineers and
dream-merchants. They embrace technology and figure how to dance with
it. They are word-shepherds and story-savers. They do brave crucial
nutritious amazing necessary holy work. If no one savored and treasured
and bought and sold and swapped and talked and argued about books in
little cool energetic flavorful cheerful clean entertaining bookstores
owned by the people who run them then we would starve for all sorts of
lost books and stories and we would have only stories yelled at us from
screens and stories sold to us by cold pollsters and that would be a
reduction and dilution of the nation and species we are. If we did not
have independent bookstores we would be even more herded prey to the
most brilliant marketers among us than we are now and that would be a
great shame. We do not publicly laud and shout our praise for the
crucial work of independent booksellers as much as we should. But today
I will. Today, after twenty years of Broadway Books, I take the rare
chance of speaking for my fellow writers, and my fellow readers, and my
fellow citizens, when I say hey, Broadway Books, thanks, and hey,
cheerful brave proprietesses, thanks, for your hard work, and brave
insistence on story, and witty generosity, and the cookies. Well done.
Very well done. Is there any more beer?
Brian Doyle is a Portland author who has many times been allowed to
chant, sing, shout, mutter, mumble, burble, stutter, shamble, amble,
grumble, stammer, shout, whisper, guffaw, and giggle in the friendly
confines of Broadway Books, in Portland, Ore., long may it wave.
In honor of Broadway Books, author Brian Doyle offered the following tribute:
I was in my favorite independent bookstore in Oregon recently, pawing
through the produce and surreptitiously looking to see if the
proprietesses had left any unattended cookies, when I had A Roaring
Epiphany. I realized that the store was a village green for ideas. A
story-common. A crossroads for voices and songs and debates and
memories. A chapel filled with ink. A pub without beer, mostly. I have
seen dogs reading graphic novels there. I have seen people laugh and
weep. I have seen people hug the proprietesses when said proprietesses
found or suggested Exactly the Right Book for the left-handed
Samoan-American boxing-maniac great-grandmother with a Sarah Palin
tattoo on one bicep and Dave Eggers on the other. I have heard poets
chant there. I have heard small children reading aloud, the coolest
sound in the world. I have heard nutty essayists shouting and telling
lewd stories with high glee and burble. I have seen a child buy a book
and sit down on the floor and start reading it immediately. I have seen
young people read their own work aloud for the first time in their whole
blessed lives. I have seen the proprietors work twelve hours a day. They
have worked awfully hard for inconsiderable coin for twenty years. They
are story ambassadors. They are hope agents. They are imagineers and
dream-merchants. They embrace technology and figure how to dance with
it. They are word-shepherds and story-savers. They do brave crucial
nutritious amazing necessary holy work. If no one savored and treasured
and bought and sold and swapped and talked and argued about books in
little cool energetic flavorful cheerful clean entertaining bookstores
owned by the people who run them then we would starve for all sorts of
lost books and stories and we would have only stories yelled at us from
screens and stories sold to us by cold pollsters and that would be a
reduction and dilution of the nation and species we are. If we did not
have independent bookstores we would be even more herded prey to the
most brilliant marketers among us than we are now and that would be a
great shame. We do not publicly laud and shout our praise for the
crucial work of independent booksellers as much as we should. But today
I will. Today, after twenty years of Broadway Books, I take the rare
chance of speaking for my fellow writers, and my fellow readers, and my
fellow citizens, when I say hey, Broadway Books, thanks, and hey,
cheerful brave proprietesses, thanks, for your hard work, and brave
insistence on story, and witty generosity, and the cookies. Well done.
Very well done. Is there any more beer?
Brian Doyle is a Portland author who has many times been allowed to
chant, sing, shout, mutter, mumble, burble, stutter, shamble, amble,
grumble, stammer, shout, whisper, guffaw, and giggle in the friendly
confines of Broadway Books, in Portland, Ore., long may it wave.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Sookie Stackhouse and a Witty Harper Lee
I love Harper Lee, and I sincerely wish I'd have had the chance to meet her, I imagine we'd have gotten along like a house on fire:
Quotation of the Day
Harper Lee: 'Problem Is One of Illiteracy, Not Marxism'
"Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that To Kill a
Mockingbird spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code
of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of
all Southerners. To hear that the novel is 'immoral' has made me count
the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better
example of doublethink.
"I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism.
Therefore I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that
I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover County School Board in any
first grade of its choice."
--Harper Lee, in a 1966 letter
to the Richmond, Va., News Leader in response to the Hanover County
School Board's decision to remove her novel from school libraries,
alleging that its contents were "immoral."
My book group is reading "The Graveyard Book" in October, and I am hoping they'll enjoy it as much as I did. From Shelf Awareness:
Disney "made a high six-figure deal" for Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard
Book
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13302603,
the ghoulish riff on Kipling's Jungle Book, according to Deadline.com.
Henry Selick (Coraline) will direct the project, which is "a priority
for the studio."
Yum! Bacon and books, two of my favorite things!
Cool Carnivorous Idea of the Day: Bacon in a Bookstore
How about some bacon brownies, chocolate coconut bacon or white
chocolate bacon pretzel rods? Books of Wonder
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13339056
children's bookstore in New York City
"is playing host to the Baconery
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13339057,
a previously online-only outfit that specializes in bacon-themed
sweets," Page Views reported.
Jonathan Drucker, the bookshop's marketing manager, said the partnership
will allow Baconery proprietor Wesley Klein full use of shop's
café kitchen. Drucker hopes this will become a "permanent
arrangement," though he admits the bacon production does cause a "rather
unctuous" smell in parts of the store, Page Views noted.
Finally, I just finished Charlaine Harris' "Deadlocked" the 12th Sookie Stackhouse novel in her body of work. I was a huge fan of Sookie books until that dreadful "True Blood" series came to HBO, starring Anna Paquin, who isn't even buxom or really pretty enough to be Sookie, and some other actors inappropriately cast in what is just an excuse to get paranormal pornography onto TV. Ever since True Blood, Harris' books have read like screenplays just waiting for a scriptwriter to condense them for TV. Sookie isn't as smart as she used to be, and the other characters seem more one-dimensional as well. Still, I keep reading the books because I keep hoping that Harris will quit phoning it in and get back to making Sookie the charming young woman we've come to know, instead of a gore-spattered, back-woods nymphette.
I gather that the next book will be the last in the Sookie series, and I suppose that is why this book tied up a lot of loose ends in previous plots. We learn that Eric isn't really a good match for Sookie because he's loves power and ambition more than he loves her (I could have told you that several books ago) and that the Fairies are duplicitous and cunning, while Sookie's boss, Sam, is a wonderful shapeshifter who has terrible taste in mates (something else I could have told you several books ago). I hope that, now with the Fae situation sorted, that Sookie will end up with Bill Compton, because of all the men she's been involved with, he's been the one who cared for her the most. At any rate, Deadlocked was a fast and fun read, though somewhat dumbed down, and I recommend it to all Sookie fans who want to know what really motivates the 'supes' in Sookie's life.
Quotation of the Day
Harper Lee: 'Problem Is One of Illiteracy, Not Marxism'
"Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that To Kill a
Mockingbird spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code
of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of
all Southerners. To hear that the novel is 'immoral' has made me count
the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better
example of doublethink.
"I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism.
Therefore I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that
I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover County School Board in any
first grade of its choice."
--Harper Lee, in a 1966 letter
to the Richmond, Va., News Leader in response to the Hanover County
School Board's decision to remove her novel from school libraries,
alleging that its contents were "immoral."
My book group is reading "The Graveyard Book" in October, and I am hoping they'll enjoy it as much as I did. From Shelf Awareness:
Disney "made a high six-figure deal" for Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard
Book
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13302603,
the ghoulish riff on Kipling's Jungle Book, according to Deadline.com.
Henry Selick (Coraline) will direct the project, which is "a priority
for the studio."
Yum! Bacon and books, two of my favorite things!
Cool Carnivorous Idea of the Day: Bacon in a Bookstore
How about some bacon brownies, chocolate coconut bacon or white
chocolate bacon pretzel rods? Books of Wonder
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13339056
children's bookstore in New York City
"is playing host to the Baconery
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13339057,
a previously online-only outfit that specializes in bacon-themed
sweets," Page Views reported.
Jonathan Drucker, the bookshop's marketing manager, said the partnership
will allow Baconery proprietor Wesley Klein full use of shop's
café kitchen. Drucker hopes this will become a "permanent
arrangement," though he admits the bacon production does cause a "rather
unctuous" smell in parts of the store, Page Views noted.
Finally, I just finished Charlaine Harris' "Deadlocked" the 12th Sookie Stackhouse novel in her body of work. I was a huge fan of Sookie books until that dreadful "True Blood" series came to HBO, starring Anna Paquin, who isn't even buxom or really pretty enough to be Sookie, and some other actors inappropriately cast in what is just an excuse to get paranormal pornography onto TV. Ever since True Blood, Harris' books have read like screenplays just waiting for a scriptwriter to condense them for TV. Sookie isn't as smart as she used to be, and the other characters seem more one-dimensional as well. Still, I keep reading the books because I keep hoping that Harris will quit phoning it in and get back to making Sookie the charming young woman we've come to know, instead of a gore-spattered, back-woods nymphette.
I gather that the next book will be the last in the Sookie series, and I suppose that is why this book tied up a lot of loose ends in previous plots. We learn that Eric isn't really a good match for Sookie because he's loves power and ambition more than he loves her (I could have told you that several books ago) and that the Fairies are duplicitous and cunning, while Sookie's boss, Sam, is a wonderful shapeshifter who has terrible taste in mates (something else I could have told you several books ago). I hope that, now with the Fae situation sorted, that Sookie will end up with Bill Compton, because of all the men she's been involved with, he's been the one who cared for her the most. At any rate, Deadlocked was a fast and fun read, though somewhat dumbed down, and I recommend it to all Sookie fans who want to know what really motivates the 'supes' in Sookie's life.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Only Good Book News This Week
I bring you great tidings of joy, fellow bibliophiles! Herein are articles about Baker Street Books revitalization by a new owner (Hurrah! There will still be a bookstore within shouting distance of Maple Valley!) and Poetry, World Book Night in Iowa and all over the place (who can resist free books?) and literary tourism, something I've long dreamed of getting into. By the way, I cornered the new owner, Todd Hulbert, at the farewell for Mr Charles, and told him that I'd be willing to volunteer to help stock the shelves or whatever he needs doing, just to give the store a good head start.
Baker Street Books: New Owner Solves the Case In a plot twist worthy of Arthur Conan Doyle, patrons of Baker Street Books, Black Diamond, Wash., gathered last Sunday "to mourn its closure, celebrate the joy the business had brought to the community as well as its owner, when it was announced that Kent resident Todd Hulbert was the white knight who had purchased the business http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13263914 from owner Bob Charles," according to the Reporter. "My specialty is in Internet marketing," said Hulbert, who owns an online clothing and apparel business, as well as 150,000 books that will now have a home. "Books fit so beautifully into that. I wanted to get into the online book business, so I started buying very large lots of books all up and down the West Coast." Charles announced in March that the store would close. "I had been thinking about it the past six or seven months, business had been going down because of the economy and people switching to e-books," he recalled. "Then on March 8 I took a tumble and fell on my back. I like to joke that the bookstore was getting even with me." Hulbert plans to close the store for 60 days to make some upgrades, then reopen in July under a new name, Finally Found Books. "Bookstores are integral to any community," he said. "Having a bookstore within any community is important. Books are so important. This particular store is an icon within the community because it's been around so long."
Here is a lovely quote from a poet to finish out national poetry month, April: Bulgarian poet Nikola Madzirov. Here’s him on translation, in an interview for the California Journal of Poetics: "There are many poems in which we can recognize ourselves without having written them, just as there are cities where we have imagined ourselves much earlier before we travel there. The translator is a silent deconstructor, a night guard of the bridges of difference and understanding."
World Book Night is a big hit in my home state of Iowa, which is no surprise, as Iowa's always been a state of readers: In Iowa, more than 100 people http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13241937 attended a WBN event outside the Clinton Public Library, and library director Amy Birtell told the Herald she "would like to start up book discussions based on the books dispersed." "We had people waiting for the 6 p.m. time," she added. "The Hunger Games was definitely a hot one."
"Tonight, all over this country, thousands of people are distributing books in celebration of World Book Night. We would like to thank everyone who volunteered as a giver here in our area, and we hope that you will share photos or stories to share about your experience. "Each day we take pleasure in suggesting great books to read to our customers. Today, thanks to the generous support of all of the authors and publishers of thirty fantastic books, many, many people will experience the joy of passing on a great book to someone else." --Next Chapter Bookshop, Mequon,
Wis. (e-newsletter)
"Sometime today, if you're lucky, somebody will shove a paperback book
in your face
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13227477
and demand you take it home and read it. There are worse fates that
could befall a person," the Riverfront Times in St. Louis noted, adding
that staffers from the RFT would be participating, but "before that, we
stopped by the Arch to check out the ReadMob, organized by the St. Louis
Independent Bookstore Alliance. About 150 people, including a couple of
busloads of students from Christ Community Lutheran School, gathered on
the Arch steps at 12:30. The booksellers had marked off, with chalk,
where everyone should plop their butts down to read so their bodies
would spell out 'Read Books.' So many people showed up, the crowd had to
form the letters twice, so everyone would get a chance."
"It was so much better than I expected," said Jarek Steele of Left Bank
Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13227478, who, along with Nikki Furrer of
Pudd'nhead Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13227479 directed the readers
into position. "It was beautiful!"
"It got really quiet," said Left Bank's Kris Kleindienst, Steele's
co-owner. "Everybody was reading. I'd like to stay and read for a
while." Check out the very cool ReadMob video here
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13227480.
I really wish that book lovers would head to the Pacific Northwest for something better than those awful Twilight books, but I suppose as long as they're reading, I should not complain:
Fans of Twilight head to the Pacific Northwest. Monroeville, Ala., is
marking the 50th anniversary of the movie release of To Kill a
Mockingbird with events for literary tourist. And devotees of The Help
flock to Greenwood, Miss., a state that--as home to William Faulkner,
Tennessee Williams, Richard Wright, Eudora Welty, Willie Morris and
Shelby Foote--has become a "literary mecca" for tourists, Richard
Howorth, owner of Square Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13227511, Oxford,
told Reuters.
"Literary tourism's been going on in this town since before Faulkner won
the Nobel Prize in 1950 because he created this mythical kingdom of
Yoknapatawpha," Howorth said. "People were curious about it. They came
from all over the world to see Faulkner's home."
Baker Street Books: New Owner Solves the Case In a plot twist worthy of Arthur Conan Doyle, patrons of Baker Street Books, Black Diamond, Wash., gathered last Sunday "to mourn its closure, celebrate the joy the business had brought to the community as well as its owner, when it was announced that Kent resident Todd Hulbert was the white knight who had purchased the business http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13263914 from owner Bob Charles," according to the Reporter. "My specialty is in Internet marketing," said Hulbert, who owns an online clothing and apparel business, as well as 150,000 books that will now have a home. "Books fit so beautifully into that. I wanted to get into the online book business, so I started buying very large lots of books all up and down the West Coast." Charles announced in March that the store would close. "I had been thinking about it the past six or seven months, business had been going down because of the economy and people switching to e-books," he recalled. "Then on March 8 I took a tumble and fell on my back. I like to joke that the bookstore was getting even with me." Hulbert plans to close the store for 60 days to make some upgrades, then reopen in July under a new name, Finally Found Books. "Bookstores are integral to any community," he said. "Having a bookstore within any community is important. Books are so important. This particular store is an icon within the community because it's been around so long."
Here is a lovely quote from a poet to finish out national poetry month, April: Bulgarian poet Nikola Madzirov. Here’s him on translation, in an interview for the California Journal of Poetics: "There are many poems in which we can recognize ourselves without having written them, just as there are cities where we have imagined ourselves much earlier before we travel there. The translator is a silent deconstructor, a night guard of the bridges of difference and understanding."
World Book Night is a big hit in my home state of Iowa, which is no surprise, as Iowa's always been a state of readers: In Iowa, more than 100 people http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13241937 attended a WBN event outside the Clinton Public Library, and library director Amy Birtell told the Herald she "would like to start up book discussions based on the books dispersed." "We had people waiting for the 6 p.m. time," she added. "The Hunger Games was definitely a hot one."
"Tonight, all over this country, thousands of people are distributing books in celebration of World Book Night. We would like to thank everyone who volunteered as a giver here in our area, and we hope that you will share photos or stories to share about your experience. "Each day we take pleasure in suggesting great books to read to our customers. Today, thanks to the generous support of all of the authors and publishers of thirty fantastic books, many, many people will experience the joy of passing on a great book to someone else." --Next Chapter Bookshop
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Baker Street Books Pot Luck Fundraiser and Other News
Baker Street Books in Black Diamond is closing this Sunday, April 22, forever. I am heartbroken about this, but even worse is the fact that the owner, bookseller Bob Charles, fell off a ladder early last month and broke several vertebrae in his back, and has had to have surgery. While he's been ill, Deanna, a friend of his, has run the store and has been selling the books at 50 percent off. She has decided to have a potluck fundraiser for Mr Charles from 1-5 pm on Sunday, and I plan to attend, though I don't think I will be able to donate any money to the fundraiser to offset the cost of his health care. But I can bake and bring something and wish him well. Recently I cam across this blurb about the Bodhi Tree bookstore in California that closed recently, and it expresses just how I feel about Baker Street Books closing its doors.
"Bodhi Tree was a place of serendipity. For many of us it was our first choice for gift buying. Not only was the selection marvelous, but the store had a strange way of fitting you with the right gift at the right time. If you were sensitive you didn’t have to ask for help. As you explored you would be drawn to that perfect gift. The book someone most needed to read." Ronnie Pontiac
Wow, a musical based on a Stephen King novel? I'd love to see that!
Stephen King's first theatrical venture, a musical titled Ghost Brothers
of Darkland County
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13174522,
held its world premiere last week at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta,
the Telegraph reported. The production, which features music and lyrics
from John Mellencamp and musical direction by T Bone Burnett, runs
through May 13.
"I wanted to try something that was a little bit risky and something
that was outside my comfort zone," said King. "We are way out there. We
are risking our necks on this. For this show, we wanted a place that was
cosmopolitan but not out of touch with country roots, and Atlanta looked
to me like the middle of the bullseye."
A Ghost Brothers of Darkland County album, produced by Burnett, will be
released later this year, with tracks by Elvis Costello, Kris
Kristofferson, Sheryl Crow, Taj Mahal and Rosanne Cash.
I found this bit to be hilarious, from Shelf Awareness:
"You claim to be friends with a friend of mine, but that friend of mine
hates you. (+$100)." In a New Yorker "Shouts and Murmurs" piece, Adam
Mansbach tackled the thorny issue of book blurb requests with a "Dear
Novelist" letter and "new, comprehensive pricing system
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13196903."
Even though his tongue is planted firmly in cheek (more or less), the
list could still send a few shivers up the spines of many a
blurb-hunting author.
I didn't really need another reason to love Portland, Oregon, but this is a great idea for a bookstore:
Among the Huffington Post's "six quirky reasons to fall in love with
Portland http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13174498"
is Reading Frenzy http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13174499:
"As much as you gotta love Powell's City of Books, the largest independent bookstore in the world, Portland has an even quirkier bookstore just a block away from
the 1.6-acre original. Started in 1994 in the office of an auto body
shop, Reading Frenzy specializes in self-published and independent
books, comics and graphic novels. It also offers workshops for aspiring
artists and publishers, particularly in the anarchist and social
commentary vein, as well as art openings, the first being Dishwasher
Pete's collection of macaroni and cheese boxes, and its own Show & Tell
Press."
"Bodhi Tree was a place of serendipity. For many of us it was our first choice for gift buying. Not only was the selection marvelous, but the store had a strange way of fitting you with the right gift at the right time. If you were sensitive you didn’t have to ask for help. As you explored you would be drawn to that perfect gift. The book someone most needed to read." Ronnie Pontiac
Wow, a musical based on a Stephen King novel? I'd love to see that!
Stephen King's first theatrical venture, a musical titled Ghost Brothers
of Darkland County
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13174522,
held its world premiere last week at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta,
the Telegraph reported. The production, which features music and lyrics
from John Mellencamp and musical direction by T Bone Burnett, runs
through May 13.
"I wanted to try something that was a little bit risky and something
that was outside my comfort zone," said King. "We are way out there. We
are risking our necks on this. For this show, we wanted a place that was
cosmopolitan but not out of touch with country roots, and Atlanta looked
to me like the middle of the bullseye."
A Ghost Brothers of Darkland County album, produced by Burnett, will be
released later this year, with tracks by Elvis Costello, Kris
Kristofferson, Sheryl Crow, Taj Mahal and Rosanne Cash.
I found this bit to be hilarious, from Shelf Awareness:
"You claim to be friends with a friend of mine, but that friend of mine
hates you. (+$100)." In a New Yorker "Shouts and Murmurs" piece, Adam
Mansbach tackled the thorny issue of book blurb requests with a "Dear
Novelist" letter and "new, comprehensive pricing system
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13196903."
Even though his tongue is planted firmly in cheek (more or less), the
list could still send a few shivers up the spines of many a
blurb-hunting author.
I didn't really need another reason to love Portland, Oregon, but this is a great idea for a bookstore:
Among the Huffington Post's "six quirky reasons to fall in love with
Portland http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13174498"
is Reading Frenzy http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13174499:
"As much as you gotta love Powell's City of Books, the largest independent bookstore in the world, Portland has an even quirkier bookstore just a block away from
the 1.6-acre original. Started in 1994 in the office of an auto body
shop, Reading Frenzy specializes in self-published and independent
books, comics and graphic novels. It also offers workshops for aspiring
artists and publishers, particularly in the anarchist and social
commentary vein, as well as art openings, the first being Dishwasher
Pete's collection of macaroni and cheese boxes, and its own Show & Tell
Press."
Thursday, April 12, 2012
April is Voting and Poetry Month
I've always loved poetry, and as a failed teenage poet, I think I developed a deep appreciation of real poets and how difficult it is to find the perfect word to build an insightful, beautiful poem. Since this is National Poetry Month, the first poem I'll share with you is from Stolen Air: The Selected Poems of Osip Mandlestam, translated by Christian Wiman.
The Necklace
Take, from my palms, for joy, for ease,
A little honey, a little sun,
That we may obey Persephone's bees.
You can't untie a boat unmoored.
Fur-shod shadows can't be heard,
Nor terror, in this life, mastered.
Love, what's left for us, and of us, is this
Living remnant, loving revenant, brief kiss
Like a bee flying completed dying hiveless
To find in the forest's heart a home,
Night's never-ending hum,
Thriving on meadowsweet, mint, and time.
Take, for all that's good, for all that is gone,
That it may lie rough and real against your collarbone,
This string of bees, that once turned honey into sun.
(November 1920)
This next poem is refreshing:
The Trees by Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
If you're a member of Goodreads, please don't forget to vote for my book blog in the Goodreads IBBA:
Voting for finalists for the first Independent Book Blogger Awards
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13123734, recognizing "the amazing
talent in book blogging today," have begun and will run through April
23. The awards will be given in four categories--adult fiction, adult
nonfiction, children's/YA and industry news--and are sponsored by
Goodreads and the Association of American Publishers. Winners will be
chosen by a committee of industry representatives and announced about
May 8. Winners in each category receive a free trip to BEA in New York
City.
I just finished "13 Rue Therese" by Elena Mauli Shapiro yesterday, and I must say I was surprised by the ending of this thrilling literary fiction title.
The book is mainly the story of Frenchwoman Louise Brunet, told through the fevered imaginings of Trevor Stratton, a professor who discovers a box of artifacts(such as letters, coins, gloves, envelopes, scissors, etc) that belonged to Brunet, and feels compelled to write letters that detail the history surrounding each one. Stratton doesn't know he's been left the box by Josianne, his clerk, but eventually figures that out as his narrative of the artifacts gets steamier with erotic interludes.
I found that the short chapters focusing on one artifact at a time lead me to stay up late, turning pages to find out what would happen to Louise next; would she leave her boring husband, Henri for her sensual and married neighbor? Would she become pregnant from their affair? What happened to her cousin Camille, her first love, during WWI? The answers come swiftly and imaginatively in this robust novel written in saucy prose that winks at the reader and invites them to journey with Louise to find satisfaction for herself, and for Trevor Stratton, who comes alive with love and lust for Louise, though she's long dead. Juicy and clever, this novel deserves an A and a recommendation for all those who find ghosts in the objects of a bygone era.
The Necklace
Take, from my palms, for joy, for ease,
A little honey, a little sun,
That we may obey Persephone's bees.
You can't untie a boat unmoored.
Fur-shod shadows can't be heard,
Nor terror, in this life, mastered.
Love, what's left for us, and of us, is this
Living remnant, loving revenant, brief kiss
Like a bee flying completed dying hiveless
To find in the forest's heart a home,
Night's never-ending hum,
Thriving on meadowsweet, mint, and time.
Take, for all that's good, for all that is gone,
That it may lie rough and real against your collarbone,
This string of bees, that once turned honey into sun.
(November 1920)
This next poem is refreshing:
The Trees by Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
If you're a member of Goodreads, please don't forget to vote for my book blog in the Goodreads IBBA:
Voting for finalists for the first Independent Book Blogger Awards
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13123734, recognizing "the amazing
talent in book blogging today," have begun and will run through April
23. The awards will be given in four categories--adult fiction, adult
nonfiction, children's/YA and industry news--and are sponsored by
Goodreads and the Association of American Publishers. Winners will be
chosen by a committee of industry representatives and announced about
May 8. Winners in each category receive a free trip to BEA in New York
City.
I just finished "13 Rue Therese" by Elena Mauli Shapiro yesterday, and I must say I was surprised by the ending of this thrilling literary fiction title.
The book is mainly the story of Frenchwoman Louise Brunet, told through the fevered imaginings of Trevor Stratton, a professor who discovers a box of artifacts(such as letters, coins, gloves, envelopes, scissors, etc) that belonged to Brunet, and feels compelled to write letters that detail the history surrounding each one. Stratton doesn't know he's been left the box by Josianne, his clerk, but eventually figures that out as his narrative of the artifacts gets steamier with erotic interludes.
I found that the short chapters focusing on one artifact at a time lead me to stay up late, turning pages to find out what would happen to Louise next; would she leave her boring husband, Henri for her sensual and married neighbor? Would she become pregnant from their affair? What happened to her cousin Camille, her first love, during WWI? The answers come swiftly and imaginatively in this robust novel written in saucy prose that winks at the reader and invites them to journey with Louise to find satisfaction for herself, and for Trevor Stratton, who comes alive with love and lust for Louise, though she's long dead. Juicy and clever, this novel deserves an A and a recommendation for all those who find ghosts in the objects of a bygone era.
Monday, April 09, 2012
Great Ideas and Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear
This is a brilliant idea, and one that I wish a bookstore like Island Books would start, because I would join in a heartbeat! What is not to love about having a personal bookseller send you a good book every month?!
Bookseller Liberty Hardy
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13095907 is the resident "Veloci-reader" at RiverRun Bookstore, Portsmouth, N.H. She helps customers find the "book you didn't know you had to
have--delivered to your door" as part of RiverRun's Paperback to the
Future program. http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13095909
For $20 per month (or $100 for six months), Hardy "will interact with
you via e-mail to get a sense of your reading taste. Then, using a
complex, furtive, and unscientific formula, we will send you a paperback
book to read. It will be a surprise! It's 90% likely that you will have
never heard of it, and 100% guaranteed that you will like it. Or your
money back.... The longer this goes on, the more we'll understand what
you like to read: we'll be right inside your brain!"
This is true, and I completely agree, from Shelf Awareness:
Promising not to give "another save-the-bookstore rant," nor to "wax
nostalgic about an almost-extinct breed of shopping destination or beg
you to support it as an act of charity," the Boston Globe's Christie
Matheson offered "10 (and a half) reasons
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13116626
why you'll get a lot more than books if you buy from local stores":
1. They entertain your kids.
2. They stock literary treasures.
3. They bring celebrities to town.
4. They educate you.
5. They have real people on hand to help you.
6. They offer great book groups.
7. They can help you write.
8. They keep you in the know.
9. They reward loyalty.
10. They support your community.
10.5. They sell online, too
I had to read "Three Cups of Tea" for my book group, and I have to say that I didn't really see the point of what Mortenson was doing in building schools in the "stan" countries like Afghanistan, particularly to educate girls, when women in Middle Eastern Islamic society are not allowed to actually DO anything with their education, and must wear clothing that covers them from head to toe. They can also be murdered for the flimsiest of reasons, from just looking at a man who isn't in their family to reading a book that isn't allowed. I would think it would make more sense to free women from the confines of insane male-dominated religious zealotry first, before trying to educate girls who won't get to do anything with their education but be married off at an early age and then be used as a birthing machine and housekeeper. So I wasn't surprised to see the 60 Minutes piece on Greg Mortenson using the money his foundation made for his own aggrandizement. I had that guy's number as soon as I read the first chapter of his book. My only disagreement with the paragraphs below is that I do not feel his foundations mission is worth saving. Fighting for women/girls equal rights would be much more effective, I believe.
A Montana attorney general's investigation
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13103108
into Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and head of the Central
Asia Institute, the Bozeman, Mont., charity that he created to build
schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has found that Mortenson "failed to
reimburse his organization for more than $1 million in travel and
book-related expenses going back several years" and that Mortenson "had
significant lapses in judgment resulting in money donated to CAI being
spent on personal items such as charter flights for family vacations,
clothing and internet downloads," CBS News reported.
Under the terms of a settlement with the attorney general, Mortenson is
paying the Institute $1 million, has resigned as executive director and
while he can be employed by the Institute, he may not have any position
involving financial oversight. At the same time, current board
members--allies of Mortenson--are stepping down within a year and will
be replaced. The Institute has cooperated with the attorney general's
investigation.
Last year 60 Minutes charged that Mortenson had fabricated parts of his
story in Three Cups of Tea, spent many donations to the Institute on
personal expenses and had the Institute buy copies of his book for
distribution to others--while pocketing royalties on those purchases.
All parties, including 60 Minutes, agreed that the Institute's mission
made it worth saving.
And Finally, I finished the latest Maisie Dobbs mystery several days ago, "Elegy for Eddie" which is the 9th book in the series, and as usual, I loved getting into Maisie's world of post WWI Great Britain, and I always love her calm demeanor and compassionate nature.
In this installment, Maisie is set upon by the Coster mongers of London to find the killer of a "simple" fellow with a gift for horses, who was actually born in a horse stable after his mother was raped. Unfortunately, Maisie's partner, Billy Beale, gets set upon by thugs who beat him nearly to death, which sets off Billy's mentally unstable wife, Doreen, who screams and freaks out and blames Maisie for all of Billy's problems. There follows as lot of Maisie apologizing for helping others with her newfound wealth, including the Beale family, by getting them out of their moldy digs in Shoreditch, which were causing their children to become ill, as children will in the slums, and establishing them in a clean newer home in a better neighborhood. This must be some kind of wierd national eccentricity of the British people, because I really believe that Maisie had NOTHING to apologize for! She'd done her best to help others in ways that were appropriate and kind, and hadn't forced them to bow down to her or for anything at all in return, yet she gets lambasted by all the authority figures in the book for being helpful. So she should just let the Beale family waste away and have their children sicken and die of preventable disease, because of the 'pride' of the mentally ill Doreen? Really? That makes NO SENSE at all.
I also do not understand Maisie's problem with marrying James Compton, who is to the manor born, because Maisie is now independently wealthy and on a social par with him, and yet she seems to be afraid that he will force her to give up her investigating business to have children and be the lady of the manor, which I seriously doubt he'd do. Strong as she is, I think Maisie can be married, have children and still have a career, all at once. She's not getting any younger, and if she's going to have a family, she should do it now, especially since war, (WWII) is on the horizon. Great Britain will be in that war for 6 plus years, so if she doesn't get cracking now, she will likely be a spinster and be involved in the war as a spy or a nurse.
Still, with it's hesitations and apologies, Elegy for Eddie is a wonderful read, full of warm and loving characters and scoundrels with dark hearts. It deserves an A, and should be read by all who enjoy a women-centered mystery.
Bookseller Liberty Hardy
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13095907 is the resident "Veloci-reader" at RiverRun Bookstore
have--delivered to your door" as part of RiverRun's Paperback to the
Future program. http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13095909
For $20 per month (or $100 for six months), Hardy "will interact with
you via e-mail to get a sense of your reading taste. Then, using a
complex, furtive, and unscientific formula, we will send you a paperback
book to read. It will be a surprise! It's 90% likely that you will have
never heard of it, and 100% guaranteed that you will like it. Or your
money back.... The longer this goes on, the more we'll understand what
you like to read: we'll be right inside your brain!"
This is true, and I completely agree, from Shelf Awareness:
Promising not to give "another save-the-bookstore rant," nor to "wax
nostalgic about an almost-extinct breed of shopping destination or beg
you to support it as an act of charity," the Boston Globe's Christie
Matheson offered "10 (and a half) reasons
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13116626
why you'll get a lot more than books if you buy from local stores":
1. They entertain your kids.
2. They stock literary treasures.
3. They bring celebrities to town.
4. They educate you.
5. They have real people on hand to help you.
6. They offer great book groups.
7. They can help you write.
8. They keep you in the know.
9. They reward loyalty.
10. They support your community.
10.5. They sell online, too
I had to read "Three Cups of Tea" for my book group, and I have to say that I didn't really see the point of what Mortenson was doing in building schools in the "stan" countries like Afghanistan, particularly to educate girls, when women in Middle Eastern Islamic society are not allowed to actually DO anything with their education, and must wear clothing that covers them from head to toe. They can also be murdered for the flimsiest of reasons, from just looking at a man who isn't in their family to reading a book that isn't allowed. I would think it would make more sense to free women from the confines of insane male-dominated religious zealotry first, before trying to educate girls who won't get to do anything with their education but be married off at an early age and then be used as a birthing machine and housekeeper. So I wasn't surprised to see the 60 Minutes piece on Greg Mortenson using the money his foundation made for his own aggrandizement. I had that guy's number as soon as I read the first chapter of his book. My only disagreement with the paragraphs below is that I do not feel his foundations mission is worth saving. Fighting for women/girls equal rights would be much more effective, I believe.
A Montana attorney general's investigation
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz13103108
into Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and head of the Central
Asia Institute, the Bozeman, Mont., charity that he created to build
schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has found that Mortenson "failed to
reimburse his organization for more than $1 million in travel and
book-related expenses going back several years" and that Mortenson "had
significant lapses in judgment resulting in money donated to CAI being
spent on personal items such as charter flights for family vacations,
clothing and internet downloads," CBS News reported.
Under the terms of a settlement with the attorney general, Mortenson is
paying the Institute $1 million, has resigned as executive director and
while he can be employed by the Institute, he may not have any position
involving financial oversight. At the same time, current board
members--allies of Mortenson--are stepping down within a year and will
be replaced. The Institute has cooperated with the attorney general's
investigation.
Last year 60 Minutes charged that Mortenson had fabricated parts of his
story in Three Cups of Tea, spent many donations to the Institute on
personal expenses and had the Institute buy copies of his book for
distribution to others--while pocketing royalties on those purchases.
All parties, including 60 Minutes, agreed that the Institute's mission
made it worth saving.
And Finally, I finished the latest Maisie Dobbs mystery several days ago, "Elegy for Eddie" which is the 9th book in the series, and as usual, I loved getting into Maisie's world of post WWI Great Britain, and I always love her calm demeanor and compassionate nature.
In this installment, Maisie is set upon by the Coster mongers of London to find the killer of a "simple" fellow with a gift for horses, who was actually born in a horse stable after his mother was raped. Unfortunately, Maisie's partner, Billy Beale, gets set upon by thugs who beat him nearly to death, which sets off Billy's mentally unstable wife, Doreen, who screams and freaks out and blames Maisie for all of Billy's problems. There follows as lot of Maisie apologizing for helping others with her newfound wealth, including the Beale family, by getting them out of their moldy digs in Shoreditch, which were causing their children to become ill, as children will in the slums, and establishing them in a clean newer home in a better neighborhood. This must be some kind of wierd national eccentricity of the British people, because I really believe that Maisie had NOTHING to apologize for! She'd done her best to help others in ways that were appropriate and kind, and hadn't forced them to bow down to her or for anything at all in return, yet she gets lambasted by all the authority figures in the book for being helpful. So she should just let the Beale family waste away and have their children sicken and die of preventable disease, because of the 'pride' of the mentally ill Doreen? Really? That makes NO SENSE at all.
I also do not understand Maisie's problem with marrying James Compton, who is to the manor born, because Maisie is now independently wealthy and on a social par with him, and yet she seems to be afraid that he will force her to give up her investigating business to have children and be the lady of the manor, which I seriously doubt he'd do. Strong as she is, I think Maisie can be married, have children and still have a career, all at once. She's not getting any younger, and if she's going to have a family, she should do it now, especially since war, (WWII) is on the horizon. Great Britain will be in that war for 6 plus years, so if she doesn't get cracking now, she will likely be a spinster and be involved in the war as a spy or a nurse.
Still, with it's hesitations and apologies, Elegy for Eddie is a wonderful read, full of warm and loving characters and scoundrels with dark hearts. It deserves an A, and should be read by all who enjoy a women-centered mystery.
Monday, April 02, 2012
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