Unread Authors

The Second Unread Authors Challenge

2009-02-01T00:18:00.001-05:00

Behold! The Second Unread Authors Challenge is upon us!

Last year I ran this challenge from September to February, and the premise was this: almost all of us have authors who we have long meant to read, but somehow never gotten around to. Perhaps you have always been intrigued but intimidated by their work. Perhaps "required reading" and your favorite authors have taken up most of your time. Perhaps they have been sitting on your shelves for years, continually trumped by new fascinations. Well, now is their time.

The rules:

The challenge will run from August 1, 2008 to January 31, 2009. You may join at any time before or during those six months.
During those six months, read at least SIX books by an author whose work you have never read before.
You may choose six different "unread" authors to introduce yourself to, or you may choose just one or two and explore their work in greater depth.
Authors may be drawn from any genre of literature. The only requirement is that they be authors whose work you substantially regret not having read yet.
Your choices may overlap with other challenges you have underway.

To join the challenge:

Make your list of at least six unread authors or works.
Write a comment in response to this post expressing your immense, irrepressible desire to join the Unread Authors Challenge. If you have a blog, include a link to the entry in which you lay out your challenge goals. (Be sure to link to the specific entry, rather than to the blog as a whole, for the ease of those who want to view your choices.) If you don't have a blog, type out your list in the comment.
If you would like to join the Unread Authors Blog (which will allow you to post copies of your list and any reviews you write directly to the blog), and you are not already a member, include an email address. I suggest using the format "email AT email DOT com" to avoid evil bots who seek out your email address for their own nefarious purposes. I will then send an invitation to join the blog's authorship to that email address.

Feel free to browse the entries below from last year's challenge participants for inspiration. Enjoy your flirtations with the new and long-ignored!

Book #5!

2009-01-31T17:24:00.002-05:00

Jonathan Stroud. The Amulet of Samarkand
Date read: 1/30/2009
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fantasy

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this fantasy featuring the djinii Bartimaeus. I liked his footnote asides and his trying to fulfill his missions without getting caught. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, The Golem's Eye.

Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson - Wendy's Review

2009-01-06T23:45:00.001-05:00

We were going out stealing horses. That was what he said, standing at the door to the cabin where I was spending the summer with my father. I was fifteen. It was 1948 and one of the first days of July. Three years earlier the Germans had left, but I can’t remember that we talked about them any longer. At least my father did not. He never said anything about the war. - from Out Stealing Horses, page 15 -

In his sixty-seventh year, Trond Sander purchases a house in the Norwegian countryside and seeks the solitude and silence for which he longs.

All my life I have longed to be alone in a place like this. Even when everything was going well, as it often did. I can say that much. That it often did. I have been lucky. But even then, for instance in the middle of an embrace and someone whispering words in my ear I wanted to hear, I could suddenly get a longing to be in a place where there was only silence. - from Out Stealing Horses, page 5 -

Trond’s only company is a dog named Lyra and an older man who lives in a cabin near the river not too far from Trond’s home. There in the desolate and beautiful wilderness and as he gets to know his neighbor, Trond begins to remember the summer of 1948 when he was fifteen years old and on the cusp of becoming a man. It is these memories which drive the novel forward - a slow unraveling of one fateful summer where everything changed. As Trond reveals the multiple layers of his past, he comes to grips with his present and begins to gain an understanding of the man he has become.

Out Stealing Horses is in part about a boy’s relationship with his father which is both touching and compelling. Trond’s father is a complex man with a mysterious past - a man who worked for the Norwegian underground during the Nazi occupation, and who has formed connections which the young Trond is just beginning to understand.

Of course I had my father, but it was not the same. He was a grown man with a secret life behind the one that I knew about, and maybe even one behind that, and I no longer knew I could trust him. - from Out Stealing Horses, page 174 -

Petterson seamlessly moves between the past and present, gradually revealing each character and putting together the pieces of Trond’s life. This is a novel rich with emotion, one that explores pain, betrayal, identity, and loss. The language of the novel is evocative, simple and luminous.

I was mesmerized by this book. Seemingly a simple tale, it later reveals itself to be a complex study of grief and loss. This is not a book to be read quickly, but one which should be savored.

Highly recommended.

Music and Silence, by Rose Tremain - Wendy's Review

2009-01-06T23:33:00.003-05:00

He remembers now how his dreams for Frederiksborg preoccupied him. He remembers how, in a single night, he understood that the architecture must strive for order and unity, and proceed in a gradual way, like a piece of music, across the linked islands, towards a climactic structure, and how, at dawn, he woke his Dutch architect, Hans Steenwinckel, and showed him a flurry of drawings. “Hans,” he said, “we must respect what the land is telling us. The logical axis, the logical progression of the buildings, is towards the north, and so this is where the climax must arrive. This is the place that the King must occupy. Beyond it, there must be nothing else; only the light on the water, the diminuendo and then silence…” -From Music and Silence, page 259-

King Christian IV was the King of both Denmark and Norway from 1588 until his death in 1648. Known as a reformer, King Christian IV implemented a series of domestic reforms, built new fortresses, and initiated a policy of overseas trade during his nearly 60 years as Monarch. The year 1629 ushered in a period of financial distress, and domestic unhappiness when the King discovered his second wife - Kirsten Munk - was sustaining an extramarital affair with a German officer. King Christian IV ultimately expelled Kirsten from Copenhagen to live out her days in Jutland - the western, continental part of Denmark which separates the North Sea from the Kattegat and Baltic Sea.

It is this part of King Christian IV’s reign (1629 - 1630) which serves as the backdrop to Rose Tremain’s Whitbread/Costa Award winning novel Music and Silence. This lush story is told from multiple points of view. The manipulative and seductive Kirsten Munk is introduced through her journal entries.

Well, for my thirtieth birthday I have been given a new Looking glass which I thought I would adore. I thought I would dote upon this new Glass of mine. But there is an error in it, an undoubted fault in its silvering, so that the wicked object makes me look fat. I have sent for a hammer. -From Music and Silence, page 7-

Her self-centered musings create a character who is perhaps one of the most intriguing villains in literature…one who is blackly humorous, yet ultimately sad.

The reader also meets Peter Claire - an English lutenist who arrives in Denmark to become part of the royal orchestra - only to become smitten with Kirsten’s female companion Emilia. Throughout the narrative, Tremain intersperses the life of the King in his youth (and his friendship with Bror Brorson which haunts him), with his dreams, turmoils and fears of adulthood.

In Tremain’s competent hands, this historical novel becomes a symphony of romantic twists and turns, and a saga which encompasses all the excesses and political intrigue of royal life in seventeenth century Europe. Tremain explores such complex themes as order vs. chaos, love vs. hate, dreams vs. reality, and betrayal vs. loyalty - all through the metaphor of music and silence. The novel’s thematic elements are connected beautifully to setting, as when King Christian journeys to Norway to spearhead the development of a silver mine during the harsh winter months. He gazes at a waterfall - the Isfoss - which has frozen solid, and imagines the tiny crystals of ice forming in the roaring water.

They acquire thickness, length and weight. The water is transparent clay, moulding them, layer upon layer, and as the layers accumulate, the roar of the river has become muffled. The human ear has to strain to hear it. And then, in the space of a single night, it falls silent. -From Music and Silence, page 107-

It is the beauty of these kinds of images which transform Tremain’s novel from an historical piece of fiction into an extraordinary work of literature. Music and Silence is exceptionally wrought - a delicious tale which I highly recommend.

Wendy's PART II Challenge List and Wrap Up Post

2009-01-06T20:50:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: JANUARY 6, 2009 - CHALLENGE COMPLETED!

Many thanks to Ariel for hosting this fun challenge. I ended up reading a total of 9 books from 6 different authors. By far, my favorite authors from this challenge are Per Petterson, Kate Grenville, Rose Tremain, and Daphne du Maurier…all authors I will visit again in my reading!

******************

Here are the authors I read:

Per Petterson (COMPLETED Out Stealing Horses January 6, 2009; rated 5/5; read my review)
Pat Barker (COMPLETED the WWI Trilogy consisting of Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road - December 25, 2008. Click on the titles to read my reviews and see my ratings)
Kate Grenville (COMPLETED The Secret River October 13, 2008; rated 5/5; read my review)
Rose Tremain (COMPLETED The Colour August 25, 2008; rated 5/5; read my review; COMPLETED Music and Silence October 10, 2008; rated 5/5; read my review)
Daphne Du Maurier (COMPLETED Rebecca November 7, 2008; rated 5/5; read my review)
Alice Munro (COMPLETED The View From Castle Rock September 26, 2008; rated 4/5; read my review)

The Ghost Road, by Pat Barker - Wendy's Review

2008-12-26T14:35:00.002-05:00

Hallet was lying on his back, hands clasped behind his head, nothing much visible from Prior’s angle except his chin. How appallingly random it all was. If Hallet’s father had got a gleam in his eye two years later than he did, Hallet wouldn’t be here. he might even have missed the war altogether, perhaps spent the rest of his life goaded by the irrational shame of having escaped. ‘Cowed subjection to the ghosts of friends who died.’ That was it exactly, couldn’t be better put. Ghosts everywhere. Even the living were only ghosts in the making. - From The Ghost Road, page 46 -

The Ghost Road is the third and final book in Pat Barker’s WWI trilogy - and it is by far the best of the series. The novel takes place in the waning months of the war and continues the story of Billy Prior who has returned to the front lines in France along with Wilfrid Owen (who previously spent time with Prior at Craiglockhart recovering from a breakdown). Neither man believes in the war, but are there out of duty to fight side by side with their comrades in arms. Psychiatrist Dr. Rivers continues to play a prominent role in this novel, seemingly safe from the war at his post in a London hospital. Dr. River’s memories of a time spent studying headhunters in the South Pacific run parallel to Billy’s story.

Barker weaves these two story lines together, deftly showing a culture of death and war amongst the South Pacific tribe linked to the mentality of modern society which supports the war in France.

Head-hunting had to be banned, and yet the effects of banning it were everywhere apparent in the listlessness and lethargy of the people’s lives. Head-hunting was what they had lived for. Though it might seem callous or frivolous to say so, head-hunting had been the most tremendous fun and without it life lost almost all its zest. This was a people perishing from the absence of war. - from The Ghost Road, page 207 -

Barker’s prose is harsh yet poetic - a ying and yang style which draws the reader into the lives of the characters.

The roar of the approaching train startled the birds. They rose as one, streaming out from under the glass roof in a great flapping and beating of wings, wheeling, banking, swooping, turning, a black wave against the smoke-filled sky. Prior and Sarah watched, open-mouthd, drunk on the sight of so much freedom, their linked hands slackening, able, finally, to think of nothing, as the train steamed in. -from The Ghost Road, page 85 -

Billy Prior is a largely unlikeable character with his gritty, sardonic view of life - and yet he becomes a sympathetic symbol of all that is wrong with war. And as the reader turns the final pages, it is with the conviction that war is not worth it.

The Ghost Road is a simply wrought, yet beautifully constructed anti-war novel which is graphic and disturbing. Barker spares her reader nothing and shows the violent nature of human beings in the depiction of loveless sex and ruthless battles. This novel - which won the 1995 Booker Prize - should be read as part of the larger trilogy to gain its full impact.

Highly recommended with a caution that some readers may be offended by violence, graphic sexual scenes and realistic language.

The Eye in the Door, by Pat Barker - Wendy's Review

2008-12-26T14:32:00.001-05:00

It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognize the thoroug and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both…

- from The Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by R.L. Stevenson -

The second novel in Pat Barker’s WWI trilogy - The Eye in the Door - is all about duality. Set in the spring of 1918 with Britain fearing defeat at the hands of Germany, the book centers around the British government’s effort to find scapegoats to blame in the guise of pacifists and homosexuals. Barker uses the historic trial of Maud Allan vs. Pemberton Billing as the central event around which the plot weaves. The trial was a sham of sorts - with the lead Justice losing control over the court and the star defense witness for Billing being Harold Spencer - a lunatic who was obsessed with ‘women who had hypertrophied and diseased clitorises, and therefore could be satisfied only by bull elephants.‘

Do you know we actually sat in dug-outs in France and talked about that trial? The papers were full of it, I think it was the one thing that could have made me glad I was out there, I mean, for God’s sake, the Germans on the Marne, five thousand prisoners taken and all you read in the papers is who’s going to bed with whom and are they being blackmailed? God. - from The Eye in the Door, page 221-

In this second novel, Barker brings back Billy Prior who is working for the Ministry of Munitions (having been unable to return to the fighting in France due to uncontrolled asthma). Billy’s role of government “spy” to uncover pacifists and homosexuals conflicts with his own confused identity - he has a girlfriend, but engages in homosexual relationships. In addition to Billy, Siegfried Sassoon (a poet and war hero) and Dr. Rivers (noted psychiatrist) also make a return to the pages of this sequel.

Thematically, Barker focuses on the paranoia rampant in British society during this time in history. The notion of duality is played out for each character - with Billy having unexplained blackouts where his alter ego carries on without his input; as well as the disassociation of Sassoon’s personality (pacifist vs. military officer).

Siegfried had always coped with the war by being two people: the anti-war poet and pacifist; the bloodthirsty, efficient company commander. - from The Eye in the Door, page 233 -

Even Dr. Rivers suffers from a conflict with the two sides of his personality and begins to question whether the integration of self is advisable.

Perhaps, contrary to what was usually supposed, duality was the stable state; the attempt at integration, dangerous. - from The Eye in the Door, page 235 -

The Eye in the Door is a complex, psychological novel about the impact of war on the minds of soldiers. But it also goes deeper to explore the idea of the dual nature of an individual. This is a dark novel which can be dry and difficult to read at times. Barker’s writing is good, her characters are complicated…and yet I felt myself drifting at times.

For those readers who enjoy historical fiction which is also deeply philosophical, this is a novel worth reading. I should also add a cautionary note that there is some graphic sex described in the novel which may be offensive to some readers.

Regeneration, Pat Barker - Wendy's Review

2008-12-26T14:31:00.001-05:00

I have seen and endured the suffering of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. - from A Soldier’s Declaration by S. Sassoon, July 1917 -

Regeneration is the first book in Pat Barker’s World War I trilogy. Siegfried Sasson was an historical figure, a noted poet and decorated war hero who penned the Soldier’s Declaration - a refusal to continue serving as a British officer based on the moral grounds that the war was a misguided effort contributing to the senseless slaughter of men. Spared a court martial, Sassoon was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland where the famous psychiatrist Dr. William Rivers was assigned the task of “curing” him from insanity in order to send him back to France and the front line.

The novel, however, is less about Sassoon and more about the psychological effects of war. Barker shows us the shell-shocked and mentally damaged patients through the eyes (mostly) of Dr. Rivers. Billy Prior arrives at the hospital unable to speak. A young soldier by the name of Burns is so traumatized by his experiences he is unable to eat without vomiting. The reader meets yet another soldier who is “paralyzed” even though his spinal cord is physically undamaged. In sensitively revealing the psychic injuries of the characters, Barker asks the essential question: Is war worth the toll it takes on those who sacrifice for it? Even Rivers, who is tasked with restoring men to duty, begins to question the morality of war.

His body felt like a stone. Rivers got hold of him and held him, coaxing, rocking. He looked up at the tower that loomed squat and menacing above them, and thought, Nothing justifies this. Nothing nothing nothing. - from Regeneration, page 180 -

Pat Barker’s strength is in revealing the emotions of her characters without being maudlin. Often she employs dialogue between doctor and patient to reveal the the horror of war and its impact.

‘You wait, you try to calm down anybody who’s obviously shitting himself or on the verge of throwing up. you hope you won’t do either of those things yourself. Then you start the count down: ten, nine, eight…so on. You blow the whistle. You climb the ladder. Then you double through a gap in the wire, lie flat, wait for everybody else to get out - those that are left, there’s already quite a heavy toll - and then you stand up. And you start walking. Not at the double. Normal walking speed. ‘ Prior started to smile. ‘In a straight line. Across open country. In broad daylight. Towards a line of machine guns.’ - from Regeneration, page 78 -

Regeneration is a war novel which is set not on the battlefield, but inside the minds of its characters - many of whom are historical figures. I found it to be a slow start - it is a drama that slowly reels the reader into the story. Regeneration is written with compassion and a subtle tension which reveals a sometimes barbaric and disturbing period in the history of psychiatry. Barker writes with honesty and has created a novel which pricks at the conscience.

Regeneration was long-listed for the Booker Prize in 1991.

Recommended for those readers interested in historical fiction, particularly during World War I. Those interested in psychology will also find this novel a fascinating character study.

Book #4!

2008-11-22T21:22:00.002-05:00

C. J. Westwick. Emerald Enigma
Date read: 10/19/2008
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Thriller

My thoughts:

This book was an engaging thriller with lots of twists and turns. I liked the sense of being in the thick of adventure with Bret and his friends, especially the scenes on the boat in Colombia.

Rebecca - Wendy's Review

2008-11-08T14:41:00.002-05:00

The house was a sepulchre, our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins. There would be no resurrection. When I thought of Manderly in my waking hours I would not be bitter. I should think of it as it might have been, could I have lived there without fear. I should remember the rose-garden in summer, and the birds that sang at dawn. Tea under the chestnut tree, and the murmur of the sea coming up to us from the lawns below. -From Rebecca, page 4-

She was in the house still as Mrs. Danvers had said, she was in that room in the west wing, she was in the library, in the morning-room, in the gallery above the hall. Even in the little flower-room, where her mackintosh still hung. And in the garden, and in the woods, and down in the stone cottage on the beach. Her footsteps sounded in the corridors, her scent lingered on the stairs. The servants obeyed her orders still, the food we ate was the food she liked. Her favourite flowers filled the rooms. Her clothes were in the wardrobes in her room, her brushes were on the table, her shoes beneath the chair, her nightdress on her bed. Rebecca was still the mistress of Manderley. -From Rebecca, page 237-

Dapne du Maurier published her gothic novel Rebecca in 1938 to wide popularity. Set on the English coast of Cornwell sometime in the 1920s, the novel centers around the isolated estate of Manderley. A young woman meets and quickly marries Maxim de Winter, a recent widower who is apparently struggling to get over the unexpected drowning death of his first wife, Rebecca. The second Mrs. de Winter (who is never identified by her Christian name) narrates the story. When she arrives at Manderley she is confronted by the mystery surrounding Rebecca’s death. She meets Mrs. Danvers - the weird and frightening housekeeper of Manderley:

Something, in the expression of her face, gave me a feeling of unrest, and even when she had stepped back, and taken her place amongst the rest, I could see that black figure standing out alone, individual and apart, and for all her silence I knew her eye to be upon me. -From Rebecca, page 68-

As the novel progresses, the secrets of the house and its former mistress are uncovered. Moody, beautifully atmospheric and filled with tension, du Maurier’s magnificent writing immerses the reader in a dark tale of love and hatred. Rebecca’s ghost hides in the shadows and hovers in the minds of all the characters, entwined in the corridors of Manderley.

Rebecca is the definitive gothic novel where the house becomes just as much a character as Max de Winter, Mrs. Danvers, the shifty Favell, and the servants who populate its many rooms. Spooky and convincingly rendered, it is a book which enchants from beginning to end.

Harper Collins has re-published this classic novel in a 2006 volume which includes a note from the Author, an essay by du Maurier whereby she describes the real Manderley, and the original Rebecca Epilogue…all of which add insight and interest into the writing of the book.

Rebecca is one of those novels which everyone should read at some point in his or her life. Highly recommended, especially for readers who love Gothic Fiction and classic literature.

The Secret River, by Kate Grenville - Wendy's Review

2008-10-13T21:20:00.002-04:00

They call this Broken Bay, Blackwood said. River comes in yonder. He pointed ahead, where Thornhill could see only confusing stretches of water and thickly forested headlands. Best hidden river in the world, Blackwood said with satisfaction. Never find your way in nor you’d been shown like I’m showing you.

Looking inland, where gusts of wind scraped at the water, Thornhill strained to find that secret river. -From The Secret River, page 100-

Kate Grenville’s novel The Secret River was short listed for the 2006 Man Booker Prize and won the 2006 Commonwealth Prize. Once you’ve read this harrowing and gorgeously constructed story, you will understand why.

Set in the early part of the nineteenth century, the novel tells the story of William Thornhill - a boy born into poverty along London’s Thames River who learns to steal early on to ensure his survival. Illiterate and quick to anger, William must learn to sustain himself in the face of hunger and cold. He finds his strength as a waterman, paddling hard against the unforgiving waters of the Thames, and turns away from towering spaces of Christ Church.

It was a place with no charity in its grey stones for a boy with the seat out of his britches.

He could not understand any of it, knew only that God was as foreign as a fish. -From The Secret River, page 10-

Then one day, Will gets caught stealing lumber. After a short trial, he is found guilty and sent to a penal colony (along with his young wife Sal and their infant son) in New South Wales. This new land is as beautiful as it is foreign.

For every one of the years of his life, this bay had been here, filling its shape in the land. He had laboured like a mole, head down, in the darkness and dirt of London, and all the time this tree shifting its leathery leaves above him had been quietly breathing, quietly growing. -From The Secret River, page 80-

For William, the vast and unsettled landscape of New South Wales becomes a place where he believes his dreams may grow.

A chaos opened up inside of him, a confusion of wanting. No one had ever spoken to him of how a man might fall in love with a piece of ground. No one had ever spoken of how there could be this teasing sparkle and dance of light among the trees, this calm clean space that invited feet to enter it. -From The Secret River, page 106-

As Will and his ever increasing family begin to scrape out a space of their own along the secret river, there seems to be only one thing standing between Will and his dreams: the native people.

Grenville shows the wide gap between English and Aboriginal cultures…and the tremendous misunderstanding fueled by an inability to adequately communicate. Her prose is magnificent as she describes the land of Australia and gradually builds the tension between the characters, before bringing the novel to its inevitable and devastating conclusion. I was completely absorbed by this historical piece of work which is evocative, poetic and pulsing with the life of a time far in the past. It is a novel which explores the moral wilderness of a man in parallel with the physical wilderness of a new country. It is a story about choices, dreams and sacrifice. A pioneer tale which translates well in today’s environment of cultural divides and racial differences, The Secret River is a must read.

Highly recommended.

Book #3!

2008-10-09T08:56:00.002-04:00

Jennifer Traig. Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood
Date read: 8/30/2008
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Memoir

My thoughts:

Funny and poignant, this honest book about obsession, family and overdoing religious ritual made me both laugh and think.

2nd book!

2008-10-03T15:41:00.004-04:00

A. A. Attanasio. Wyvern
Date read: 8/29/2008
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Adventure

My thoughts:

This was a beautifully written epic story about life, death, love and self-discovery as Jaki Gefjon struggles to unite the teachings of both the jungle and the sea. I especially liked Jaki's interactions with his mentors Jabalwan and later Captain Pym.

The View From Castle Rock, by Alice Munro - Wendy's Review

2008-09-28T15:06:00.002-04:00

These are stories. You could say that such stories pay more attention to the truth of a life than fiction usually does. But not enough to swear on. And the part of this book that might be called family history has expanded into fiction, but always within the outline of a true narrative. With these developments the two streams came close enough together that they seemed to me meant to flow in one channel, as they do in this book. -From The View From Castle Rock, Introduction-

We can’t resist this rifling around in the past, sifting the untrustworthy evidence, linking stray names and questionable dates and anecdotes together, hanging on to threads, insisting on being joined to dead people and therefore to life. -From The View From Castle Rock, Epilogue-

The View From Castle Rock is an interesting combination of fiction and truth - Alice Munro delves into her family background, digging up her ancestors and her childhood to create a series of linked stories which explore family connections, poverty, adversity and understanding of ordinary lives as part of a bigger history.

The collection begins deep in the Ettrick Valley, just south of Edinburgh Scotland. Munro visits a cemetery on a cold, rainy day and locates the headstones of her relatives.

Also, among various Laidlaws, a stone bearing the name of Robert Laidlaw, who died at Hopehouse January 29th 1800 aged seventy-two years. Son of Will, brother of Margaret, uncle of James, who probably never knew that he would be remembered by his link to these others, any more than he would know the date of his own death. My great-great-great-great-grandfather. -From The View From Castle Rock, page 6-

In this first story, the reader is introduced posthumously to the characters who will make up future stories in the collection. Each new story moves the reader further into the present. In the title story: ‘The View From Castle Rock‘…Munro gives the reader a glimpse into what prompted the emmigration of her family from Scotland to Canada. A young boy follows his intoxicated father up the steep, uneven stone steps of an ancient castle and onto a roofless tower.

The sun was out now, shining on the stone heap of houses and streets below them, and the churches whose spires did not reach to this height, and some little trees and fields, then a wide silvery stretch of water. And beyond that a pale green and grayish-blue land, part in the sunlight and part in the shadow, a land as light as mist, sucked into the sky.

“So did I not tell you?” Andrew’s father said. “America. It is only a little bit of it, though, only the shore. There is where every man is sitting in the midst of his own properties, and even the beggars is riding around in carriages.” -From The View From Castle Rock, page 30-

Munro’s strength in these early stories is her ability to set place and time for the reader. She writes lush descriptions and peoples her prose with complex characters. When Walter, a young boy aboard a ship bound for America, writes in his journal ‘And this night in the year 1818 we lost sight of Scotland‘ the reader feels the anticipation as well as the sadness of saying good-bye to one’s homeland in search of a better life. Munro uses real documents (such as Walter’s journal) to help piece together the history of her family and there are times when it is difficult to ascertain what is fact and what is fiction.

And I am surely one of the liars the old man talks about, in what I have written about the voyage. Except for Walter’s journal, and the letters, the story is full of my invention.

The sighting of Fife from Castle Rock is related by Hogg, so it must be true. -From The View from Castle Rock, page 84-

Munro completes part I of her collection with the story ‘Working For A Living‘ which recollects of her father’s boyhood in the town of Blyth. Part II introduces Munro herself to the collection in the story ‘Fathers‘ - a painful look at the fine line between discipline and abuse and a girl’s relationship with her father.

‘Lying Under the Apple Tree‘ is about the coming of age of a young girl…the innocence of youth vanquished. The ideas of God, church values (morality) and sin weave themselves through this story. Munro also skillfully introduces nature into her theme of growing up and the recognition of one’s sexuality. Her use of dirt as a symbol is effective in introducing the concept of sex vs. a girl’s fantasies vs. the realities of love.

“Dirt,” my sister whispered to me when I got home. “Dirt on the back of your blouse.”

She watched me take it off in the bathroom, and scrub at it with a hard bar of soap. We didn’t have running hot water except in the winter, so she offered to get me some from the kettle. She didn’t ask me how the dirt had got there, she was only hoping to get rid of the evidence, keep me out of trouble. -From The View From Castle Rock, page 203-

In ‘Hired Girl‘ Munro continues to explore the idea of a young woman on the cusp of adulthood. In addition she builds on the idea of place - physical place vs. one’s place in society. This concept of there being barriers between classes, is one of the main themes of Munro’s collection and in ‘Hired Girl‘ she emphasizes this idea.

I did not yet understand that maids didn’t have to find their way anywhere. They stayed put, where the work was. It was the people who made the work who could come and go. -From The View From Castle Rock, page 231-

The final stories of Munro’s collection are dedicated to her early marriage (’The Ticket‘), and her maturation into a woman who is capable of looking at her history and life in the harsh light of reality (’Home‘ and ‘What Do You Want to Know For?‘). Munro’s recollections of her father in his later years and the home where she grew up being modernized, are touching exposes on what it means to finally be an adult and no longer be protected by the innocence of childhood. Munro writes:

The past needs to be approached from a distance. -From The View From Castle Rock, page 332-

The View From Castle Rock does that - in exploring her roots, Munro has succeeded in creating a unique blend of stories which look at one family’s history in the context of a bigger picture of what it means to live on the edge of poverty, connect to family, and create a life with meaning and understanding.

Recommended.

First book finished!

2008-09-13T19:50:00.002-04:00

Eleanor Mathews. Ambassador to the Penguins: A Naturalist's Year Aboard a Yankee Whaleship
Date read: 8/24/2008
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Nonfiction

My thoughts:

This book combined many of my interests - ships, Antarctica, the naturalist's wonder and interest in the animal world. I liked following Murphy's voyages both literal as he learned about the ways of whaling on the brig Daisy and emotional as he wished to get home to his new wife, Grace.

The Colour, by Rose Tremain - Wendy's Review

2008-08-26T12:50:00.003-04:00

For a few moments, the sun disappeared behind a cloud, and in the shadow, nothing of it was visible, only the shingly mud and the herringbone imprints of the ducks’ feet. But Joseph knew that he’d seen something. He stood without moving, waiting for the sun to come out again. It returned and sparkled on the water, dazzling him. He had to close his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again, he’d forgotten the precise spot where the colour had revealed itself. Then he saw it once more, a minute patch of shining yellow dust. -From The Colour, page 57-

In 1864, a newly married couple - Joseph and Harriet Blackstone - travel with Joseph’s mother Lilian from England to New Zealand to begin their lives together. For Harriet, it is the beginning of a future, a dream about her own home in the beautiful wilderness of New Zealand, a chance to have a garden and animals and to create something out of her life. For Lilian, the move represents failure and loneliness where she must give up her comfortable existence in England, be forced to piece back together the shattered remains of her china, and live on dirt floors in a cob house which leaks. For Joseph, the move to New Zealand is an escape from his past - a past he has buried and hidden from everyone - and a chance to heal his guilt and make his mother (finally) be proud of him.

Joseph Blackstone longed to do something that would please his mother. Something definitive. Something which would undo all that he’d done wrongly or inadequately in the past. He thought that if he could achieve this, then he would rest. -From The Colour, page 55-

The inhospitable and breathtaking land of New Zealand seems pitted against these people almost from the very first when Joseph mistakenly builds his home on an exposed hill instead of the protected flats. Then one day Joseph discovers gold dust in the creek near his home and keeps it a secret from both Harriet and Lilian. It becomes an obsession which promises his redemption and one which will finally drive him to the other side of the Southern Alps where a Gold Rush is underway.

Rose Tremain writes extraordinary prose which thrusts her reader into the midst of a stark and unforgiving environment. She develops her characters flawlessly - uncovering Joseph’s motivations, desires and finally his devastating secret as he struggles to find gold among desperate men. Joseph’s loss of love and morality is heartbreaking.

He felt that contentment was present in every other creature and every other thing - in the waterbirds which drank from the river, in the rats which scurried around his claim, looking for food, and in the songs the Glaswegian miners sang in the evenings. He alone lacked it. -From The Colour, page 223-

Harriet Blackstone is a raw character who grows before the reader’s eyes from an uncertain individual to a woman of courage and fortitude. In Tremain’s hands, Harriet is fully realized.

Better that we never know (she wrote to her father) what lies beyond the next hill. For the answer might come back “nothing.” And I confess that, having travelled across the world, I do not feel I would be content with that “nothing.” My habit of looking at the mountains has not gone away. They are so fine. I wish that I could paint a picture of them for you. And they Contain a mystery: that is what I feel. And I ask myself: Is the mystery they contain the mystery of my life? -From The Colour, page 168-

Lilian, too, grows from a difficult woman into one the reader comes to respect. Faced with the loss of everything she knows, she eventually puts aside the broken pieces of her life and strives to make something of what she has been given.

Thematically The Colour revolves around the power of nature, love and desire, materialism vs. inner contentment, and the connection between cultures. Tremain introduces a Chinese man who has left his family in China to join the Rush - not as a seeker of gold, but as a gardener providing sustenance for the miners. There is also Pare - a Maori woman who develops a mystical relationship with a small boy whom she once cared for. Despite the wide scope of theme and character in this novel, it never feels scattered. Tremain connects all the threads for her readers, giving them a book which is illuminating and satisfying. Tremain is a gifted storyteller, and in The Colour she combines all her talents and creates a novel which resonates with the reader.

Highly recommended.

Sycorax Pine's Second Challenge List

2008-07-22T01:03:00.001-04:00

Last year I failed spectacularly in my goals (amidst, in my own defense, the madness the surrounded the completion of my dissertation), so I will address my list this year with new found zeal. Many parts of my lists make look familiar from last year, although I was spurred on (during at after the period of the challenge) to read a number of authors from my list.

I list six authors on the primary list below with (in parentheses) ideas about which book I might start with). After that I have listed a number of "extra credit" or alternate authors/works.

Laurence Sterne (Tristram Shandy)
Friedrich Durrenmatt (The Physicians or The Visit)
Orhan Pamuk (My Name is Red)
Richard Powers (The Gold Bug Variations)
China Mieville (Perdido Street Station)
Doris Lessing (The Golden Notebook)

Alternates/Extra Credit:

John Fowles (The Magus)
Joyce Carol Oates (Bellefleur)
Stendhal (The Red and the Black)
Iris Murdoch (The Black Prince)
Nadine Gordimer (Burger's Children)
Tim Winton (Cloudstreet or Dirt Music)
Peter Carey (Oscar and Lucinda or True History of the Kelly Gang)
Marilynne Robinson (Gilead)
Caryl Phillips (Crossing the River)
J.M. Coetzee (Disgrace)

Jan (in Edmonds) Unread Authors from 9/1/07 - 2/29/08

2008-03-05T21:34:00.004-05:00

Thanks so much Ariel for the invitation to officially join this group. I'm so excited because, for one thing, the acceptance of your invitation puts Unread Authors on my dash board which answers the question I had about how do I get a group listed on my blog site. Here's what I've read for Unread Authors during the time of the challenge:

Unread Authors (6) 9/1/07 - 2/29/08)

1. Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift (9/07)
2. Vanity Fair - W. M. Thackeray (10/07)
3. The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama (9/07)
4. A Long Way Gone - Ishmael Beah (10/07)
5. The Secret - Rhonda Byrne (9/07)
6. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (9/07)
7. Margaret Ayer Barnes - Lloyd C. Taylor (9/07)
8. Last Orders - Graham Swift (12/07)
9. True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey (12/07)
10. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje (12/07)
11. Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai (12/07)
12. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See (1/08)
13. The Sea - John Banville (1/08)
14. Atonement - Ian McEwan (1/08)
15. The Master - Colm Toibin (1/08)
16. Black + Blue - Kamau Brathwaite (2/08)
17. Thresholds/Umbrales - Claibel Alegria (2/08)
18. The Inflammation Syndrome - Jack Challem (2/08)
19. The Wisdom of Yo Meow Ma - Joanna Sandsmark (2/08)

Jan (in Edmonds)
check out my blogspot for reviews of these books
http://jottingsfromjan.blogspot.com

The Unread Authors Blog

2008-02-29T01:14:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Unread Authors Blog, a group blog designed for participants in the Unread Authors Challenge to post their reviews and thoughts, and for anyone to read and comment on them!

The challenge asks its participants to read at least six books in six months (September 2007 to February 2008) by authors whose work they have never previously read. New members are welcome at any time.

For the full rules and guidelines, go here; to join the challenge, follow the directions in the "rules" post.

For an updated list of participants in the challenge, with links to their blogs, click here.

A few guidelines for using the blog:

Participation in the blog is NOT REQUIRED from challenge participants. If you have a review or thoughts about the books you are reading for the challenge, feel free to post them here, or cross-post them from your other blog. Polling indicated that the majority of participants would like a challenge blog, but if you would just like to lurk, read, and leave comments, that is MORE than fine.
To become a co-author of this blog (and gain the ability to post), leave a comment below this post that contains your name, blog, and email address (to avoid acquiring spammer friends, I suggest writing out the punctuation marks. Example: myemailaddress AT gmail DOT com.). You should receive an email soon inviting you to join the blog.
Please label all your posts with your name and any other relevant labels (for instance, your challenge "To do" lists should be labeled "lists"). Reviews should always be labeled by the name of the unread author, as well as your own.

I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts on their authors, many of whom are as new to me as they are to you!

Alentejo Blue - Wendy's Review

2008-02-22T17:45:00.002-05:00

She wore her black slingbacks and a white cotton dress with blue flowers that matched the paint that framed the door. Alentejo blue. here she was, in a picture, in a moment, setting out for the rest of her life. -From Alentejo Blue, page 131-

Monica Ali's novella - Alentejo Blue - is a collection of moments lived by its vast array of characters. The Alentejo region of Portugal -located in south-central Portugal and known for its tiny, medieval villages - is the perfect setting for Ali's book, which seems to be a collection of interconnected, short stories. Ali is adept at exploring her characters' inner lives. The reader is gradually introduced to the inhabitants of the fictional town of Mamarrosa: Joao, an old timer who has seen the days of Communism and remembers the revolution of the peasants; Vasco, the baker whose obesity and compulsion with eating hides his painful losses; Teresa, a young woman who longs to break away from the village of her birth; Sophie and Huw, an engaged couple whose holiday to Portugal uncovers the deeper issues of their relationship; Elaine, a middle-aged English woman seeking meaning in her tired marriage; Stanton, the alcoholic writer living a shallow existence; and the Potts family, living a dysfunctional existence far from their home in England. As the novella unwinds, the reader glimpses the connections between characters and the main themes evolve.

There is a theme of "old" world vs. "new" - highlighted by the elderly, traditional members of the village vs. the youth and tourists. Change is in the air, but it is unclear whether it will be for the best, or will simply disrupt the flow of village life.

So we stay as we are and watch the shadows lengthen and smell the evening loaves being baked and fell the sun slipping low, blushing over our necks like the first taste of wine. -From Alentejo Blue, page 94-

Ali's lyrical prose transports the reader into the countryside of Portugal.

The plains spread out on either side. Here and there a cork oak stood grieving. The land rose and fell in modest dimensions. Now and again a gleam of machinery, glittering drops of water on an acacia, a giant eucalyptus shedding its splintery scrolls. Field upon field upon field, wheat and grass and fallow, on and on and on, and in this flat composition there was a depth, both sadness and tremulous joy. -From Alentejo Blue, page 163-

This novel was listed as a 2006 New York Times Most Notable book - and I think it is deserving of that honor. Ali is a gifted writer with great understanding and sensitivity to her characters - picking up Alentejo Blue was like relaxing into small town life, chatting with the neighbors and observing the ebb and flow of the days beneath a Portugal sun. I will be reading more of Ali's novels in the future.

Highly recommended; rated 4.5/5

Wendy's Challenge List and Wrap Up Post

2008-02-22T14:40:00.000-05:00

I completed this challenge today! I read five (5) books from my original list and one (1) book from my alternates list.

I enjoyed all the new authors I read, rating 4 of the 6 a high 4.5/5 (highly recommended), and 2 of the 6 a 4/5 rating (recommended).

My favorite part of the challenge was adding to my "new to me" author list. For a long time I was stuck in a rut of only reading those authors I was familiar with...in 2007, I decided to branch out and try to read more new authors. This has really expanded my reading, and added to my favorite authors to choose from.

I would definitely participate in this challenge were it to be offered again. Thank you Ariel for hosting a fabulous reading challenge!!

******************************************************

I'm very excited to participate in this challenge. All six books I chose are already on my TBR pile...this is the perfect excuse to knock a few book off the mountainous heap of literature spread out across my bedroom!

My six challenge books are:

1. ~~Alentejo Blue, by Monica Ali~~ (finished February 22, 2008; read my review)
2. ~~The Blackwater Lightship, by Colm Toibin~~ (finished November 9, 2007; read my review)
3. ~~Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak~~ (finished November 24, 2007; read my review)
4. What the Dead Know, by Laura Lippman
5. ~~The Good Earth, by Pearl Buck~~ (finished November 28, 2007; read my review)
6. ~~The Night Watch, by Sarah Waters~~ (finished February 12, 2008; read my review)

Alternates and Extras:

Stones From the River, by Ursela Hegi
A Woman in Jeruselum, by AB Yehoshua
The Lizard Cage, by Karen Connelly
All Aunt Hager's Children, by Edward P. Jones
~~The Emperor's Child, by Claire Messud~~ (finished December 12, 2007; read my review)
A Bend in the River, by V.S. Naipal

STRIPPED - Brian Freeman

2008-02-20T18:48:00.003-05:00

http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/stripped-brian-freeman.html

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

2008-02-20T09:50:00.002-05:00

After nearly three weeks of reading, I have finished the 876 page epic tale that is “The Mists of Avalon” by Marion Zimmer Bradley. While it was not one of my original selections, it does qualify as my 6th and final selection in Sycoraxpine’s “Unread Author” challenge.

(you can read my entire review, here)

Thanks so much for hosting this challenge; I'm very much looking forward to the next round, later in the year.

THE NYMPHOS OF ROCKY FLATS - Mario Acevedo

2008-02-19T21:40:00.001-05:00

http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/nymphos-of-rocky-flats-mario-acevedo.html

Done!

2008-02-19T15:34:00.001-05:00

I finished A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray the other day, and, being far too lazy to post here, am just going to link you.

That, of course, means I have completed the challenge! ^^ Yay! I had soooo much fun, we really should do it again.

~Nicole

My Final Author was Philippa Gregory

2008-02-19T14:53:00.008-05:00

Philippa Gregory wasn't on my original unread authors list for this challenge, but she is a new-to-me author, and I just finished reading her historical novel The Other Boleyn Girl. I've reviewed it here, and I expect I'll be reading more of Gregory's books.

This is my sixth - and final - book for this challenge. I'll link to a wrap-up post on my book blog shortly. I look forward to participating in another round later this year. Thanks, Pour of Tor!

HOUNDING THE MOON - P R Frost

2008-02-17T10:38:00.002-05:00

http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/hounding-moon-p-r-frost.html

Marked

2008-02-13T14:54:00.002-05:00

[Original Post on WORD for Teens]
Marked
By P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

Thanks to She Who Loves Books for lending me another vampire novel!

Zoey Redbird lives the normal teenage life - her two biggest worries are the huge geometry test tomorrow and her crazy ex-boyfriend who's intent on winning her back. Oh, of course there's the minor factor of the fact that vampyres run the city and a person could be Marked as a vampyre-to-be any second now, but that's not for Zoey to worry about. She couldn't possibly get Marked, right? Right?

Um, wrong. Very wrong.

Not only is Zoey Marked to be a vampyre, but she has been chosen by the goddess Nyx to be her eyes-and-ears in the world. Once she arrives at the House of Night - the school that teaches you how to be a vampyre, properly - she finds out that things aren't just 'Turn into a vampyre and drink blood'. Some people survive the Change into a vampyre, and some don't. Oh, don't forget that the beautiful Aphrodite, leader of the Dark Daughters, has it out for her because her Aphrodite's ex-boyfriend has a crush on Zoey...

I liked this book from page one. It was different - even the way the spelled vampyres was different. Around chapter two, I was going What does this have to do with anything? but everything was pulled together later on in the book. The characters had their flaws, but some, like Aphrodite, seemed to be entirely made of flaws and was missing a benefit to their character, which is really annoying. Characters with only flaws are just as annoying as perfect characters.

Grade: A-

The Night Watch - Wendy's Review

2008-02-13T14:16:00.002-05:00

'I go to the cinema,' said Kay; 'there's nothing funny about that. Sometimes I sit through the films twice over. Sometimes I go in half-way through, and watch the second half first. I almost prefer them that way - people's pasts, you know, being so much more interesting than their futures.' -From The Night Watch, page 110-

In The Night Watch, Sarah Waters has created tension and mystery by peering backwards into the past - beginning in 1947 and regressing back in time so that the end of the novel is actually the beginning of the story. This structure is at once unsettling and fascinating.

The novel spins around four Londoners and their significant others and explores the impact of war on relationships. The reader is introduced to each character - Kay, Helen, Viv and Viv's brother, Duncan - immediately following WWII in the year 1947. Each character carries secrets and is struggling with events in their history which are undisclosed to the reader. As the novel progresses, Waters carefully unwraps the past, drawing the threads of the characters' lives together to create a stunning expose about sexuality and the tenuous nature of love amid the historical significance of war.

One of the aspects of the novel which touched me was the exploration of the repercussions of war on youth.

How long did they have to go on, letting the war spoil everything? They had been patient, all this time. They'd lived in darkness. They'd lived without salt, without scent. They'd fed themselves little scraps of pleasure, like parings of cheese. Now she became aware of the minutes as they passed: she felt them, suddenly, for what they were, as fragments of her life, her youth, that were rushing away like so many drops of water, never to return. -From The Night Watch, page 357-

Waters' prose - nuanced and full of empathy for her characters - is a bit like reading a narrative poem. Her descriptions set the reader into the novel, revealing the beauty of the human spirit amid the horror of night-time air raids and causalities. The story is a beautifully rendered, character driven look at World War II from 1941 to 1947.

The Night Watch was shortlisted for the Booker and Orange Prizes - and it is easy to see why. This was my first Sarah Waters novel, but it will not be my last.

Highly recommended; rated 4.5/5.

The Bookseller of Kabul Offers Unflinching Look At Afghanistan (A Review & A Giveaway!)

2008-02-13T10:41:00.004-05:00

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

There are some countries I am content to "see" only through books and movies. Afghanistan is one of them. Often books about a country make me want to visit, but The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad had the exact opposite effect. Although the culture she describes is fascinating, I prefer to learn about it from the comfort and safety of my living room couch.

Seierstad is a Norwegian journalist who entered Kabul in 2001. She had been in Aghanistan for six grueling weeks, following Northern Alliance commandos through mountians, desert and steppes as they moved against the Taliban. After the grimy adventure, she happened upon an oasis in the country's capital city - a bookshop where she found it "refreshing to leaf through books and talk about literature and history" (ix). Although the books were interesting, she found their owner, Sultan Khan, to be an engaging storyteller, a veritable "history book on two feet" (x). Seierstad made him a proposal: If he allowed her to live with his family temporarily, she would write a book about him. He agreed. Thus, began her 3-month visit with a family she describes as typical in some ways, not in others.

As Seierstad began her stay, she observed the pecking order in the Khan Family: Sultan ruled his multi-generational family (his household included his mother, his sister, 2 wives, and his own children) with an iron fist. His sons did not attend school, but worked in their father's bookshops, despite their own dreams. Women had even less choice - they remained home, cooking, cleaning and waiting on the men. Sultan's word was law. No one dared oppose him. The man, himself, was an enigma. He had risked his life to save books from destruction by Kabul's religious fanatics, and considered himself open-minded on the subjects of education and women's rights. Yet, he denied his own children opportunities to learn and made sure all of his women were kept in their proper places.

The book shifts its focus constantly, highlighting different members of the family, who in turn represent various sections of Afghanistan society. Trying to sort out the names and relationships of all the individuals will make your head spin, which must echo the reality of living with a dozen or more people in a cramped city apartment. There is Rasul, Sultan's eldest son, who resents having to work for his demanding father. He takes his anger out on his aunt, Leila, who is only 3 years older than him, but the lowest creature on the Khan Family food chain. Then there is Mansur, also crushed under the thumb of his father. He desires only to get an education and see the world, but his future has already been carved for him. Leila's is the most tragic situation - as Sultan's younger sister, she is the family's slave, working tirelessly for the men who torment her. When a young suitor sends her love notes, she becomes excited, but terrified. If Sultan finds the notes, she will be beaten as contact between unrelated men and women is strictly forbidden. Her marriage will be treated as a business deal between the men of her family and her fiance's - she has no say in the matter. As these decisions are made, she feels "how life, her youth, hope leave her - she is unable to save herself. She feels her heart, heavy and lonely like a stone, condemned to be crushed forever" (282).

Through the various members of the family, we are given an intimate and troubling portrait of Afghanistan. The country emerges as a weary land, sagging under the plague of endless war and greedy leaders. With the possible exception of Sultan, all members of the Khan Family appear deeply unhappy with their lots in life. Afghan men, especially, are portrayed as cruel hypocrites - men like Sultan welcome progress on one hand while holding their wives' and daughters' heads under the water with the other. To me, and I think to Seierstad, this dichotomy is one of the most intriguing and odious things about Afghan culture.

I found this book to be many things - fascinating, compelling, disturbing, heart-wrenching, depressing - but it offers an unparalleled look inside a society that is notoriously closed to outsiders. Like all glimpses into other cultures, the book helped broaden my world view, and like any trip abroad, it made me realize once again how blessed I am to live in The United States of America. For this, if for nothing else, it is worth the read.

Grade: B

**Don't forget - I'm giving away my copy of this book. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post and I will enter you into the drawing. I will draw a name on February 25, so entries need to be in by midnight on the 24th. Good luck! Only comments on Bloggin' 'Bout Books (not Unread Authors challenge blog) will be considered.

Glass Houses

2008-02-11T20:24:00.002-05:00

[Originally Posted on WORD for Teens]
Glass Houses (The Morganville Vampires - Book 1)
By Rachel Caine

She Who Loves Books lent me this novel as well. I believe she has a vampire fetish... it's just my guess, though, seeing as she also lent me Marked and Vampire Academy. But hey, it's just a guess!

Glass Houses is - you guessed it - a tale about the Morganville vampires. Morganville, Texas - a place in the middle of nowhere where the worst thing you have to worry about is Monica, the school pretty-girl and bully. Or so super smart, advance placement sixteen-year-old Claire Danvers believes.

After an attempt on her life by Monica, Claire flees the college dorms and searches out a new home. The Gone with the Wind meets 'Munsters' home isn't exactly what you would call the friendliest looking place, and the people that live their are even weirder.

Eve, the Goth girl, is the first one to invite Claire into the house - and the first one to warn her about the vampires. Shane is the lazy, handsome boy of the house, and Micheal has a tendency to vanish into mist when the sun comes up. (Literally.)

So when the vampires begin hunting out Claire, it's this assortment of odd friends that have her back. But will they remain long enough to keep her alive?

I did enjoy this book immensely. Some of the characters were a bit two-dimensional, without much emphasis or thought, but she hit it right on the dot with Monica and her gang. Claire reminded me a bit of Bella from Twilight without the 'I love a vampire' bit. All in all, it was a good book, full of action and just a tad of romance, but the characters could have been a bit more fleshed out. And, besides, she left the book in a cliffhanger - and that's just not nice!

Rating: B+

Glass Houses

2008-02-11T20:24:00.001-05:00

Glass Houses

2008-02-11T20:24:00.000-05:00

CITY OF MASKS - Daniel Hecht

2008-02-10T17:52:00.000-05:00

http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/city-of-masks-daniel-hecht.html

Superb ghost story!!

To Catch a Pirate

2008-02-09T18:20:00.000-05:00

[Original Post on WORD for Teens]
To Catch a Pirate
By Jade Parker

She Who Loves Books lent me To Catch a Pirate a few days ago and, I must say, she has great taste in the topics of books. Vampires and pirates. Nice combination, if I do say so myself.

To Catch a Pirate follows the tale of Annalisa Townsend. The young girl is traveling with her father with treasure given to her father by the king himself for the use of building a palace or something on an island when the pirates attack. Sent to the ship's hold to hide, Anna is discovered by the pirate's right hand man, James Sterling. Anna is told to be silent and, when James reaches for her necklace - the only thing she has left of her mother- she speaks, telling him to take anything but the necklace.

He steals a kiss instead.

Years pass, and Anna is hunting down James Sterling and the captain of his ship, for she needs the treasure that he and his mates stole to prove that her father is not a traitor. She does catch him, and almost everything goes as planned.

Except for the little itty bitty 'I've fallen in love with the pirate' bit. Of course, it's only after this that her plans disintegrate into little pieces.

You can't not love this book - it's about pirates, for pete's sake! Everybody loves pirates. It had a pretty good plot line, but the characters were a bit weak, and I couldn't picture everything as well as I normally can.

Rating: B++

Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging

2008-02-07T17:17:00.000-05:00

[Original Post on WORD for Teens]
Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson
By Louise Rennison

Do you know how hard it is to read a book and try not to laugh in the dead silence of a classroom?

Well, it's hard. Very hard.

Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson is one of the funniest stories I've ever read. Georgia's 'diary', so to speak, starts off with the telling of how what was supposed to be a fun costume party turned into a nightmare. Honestly, it might have been her idea to go dressed as an olive, but her best friend didn't do anything to discourage her.

The further the story progresses, the harder it is not to laugh. Georgia has a mad cat named Angus who has the tendency to attack the neighbor's poodle, a little sister who's favorite bathroom is the corner of Georgia's room, and the guy of her dreams works in a grocery - and he is, as Georgia so aptly puts it, is a 'Sex God.'

Georgia's escapades with levitation and finding out that her school janitor poses for dirty magazines has to be some of the best material I've ever read. It's well written, the characters are loveable, and it was soooo hard not to laugh out loud.

Grade: A+

Neotopia: The Enlightened Age

2008-02-06T16:37:00.000-05:00

[Original Post on WORD for Teens]

Neotopia: The Enlightened Age
By Rod Espinosa

Normally I don't read manga books, or anime stories, or graphic novels, or whatever you want to call them. They just aren't my thing.

But, since the YA Literary Challenge says we have to have a graphic novel, well, I just had to read a graphic novel!

Neotopia: The Enlightened Age follows the story of Nalyn, who is pretending to be the Grand Dutchess of Mathenia. Ki-Ek, Nalyn's dolphin friend, and Nimn, a faerie, are the only two beings who know who she truly is. The story starts off with Nalyn running into Philios, who is flying around in a jet-pack. After having the jet pack destroyed, something happens - it is alerted to them that another country is attacking.

I mean, the book was alright. The plot line was okay, but not very original, and the characters were likable. I found it a bit boring and had to struggle to get through it.

Grade: C

~Nicole

Welcome... to me!

2008-02-05T17:04:00.000-05:00

Warning: Insanity has arrived.

'ello! I DOTH HATH ARRIVED! Or... something like that...

'tis Nicole from WORD for Teens. Just wanted to alert everybody that I am, indeed, alive, kicking, insane, and ready to participate!

Yeah...

~Nicole

Apologies and a question

2008-02-05T10:13:00.000-05:00

Hi, everyone! I hope that you have been enjoying the challenge. It certainly looks like everyone has been reading some amazing books; I am filled with admiration.

I wanted to write and apologize for my unwilling absence from the challenge; I can only say by way of excuse that I have been caught up in the horrors of dissertation-finishing and job-getting (in addition to my normal work of teaching) since September and have been desperately missing my blog life. Hopefully the mad frenzy of activity will be over soon.

So here is what I need to ask: I still have a lot of unread authors to read, and I am overwhelmed by sadness at being kept (boo to work!) from participating in this challenge as I would have like to, so I was thinking of making this a regular (or at least periodic) challenge. Would anyone be interested in joining me if I held another round of unread-author-reading from, say, July to December of this year? Let me know what you think.

Laura's Challenge Wrap-up

2008-02-03T19:49:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Ariel at for sponsoring the Unread Authors Challenge! For this challenge -- the first one I've completed in 2008 -- I read 7 books by new-to-me authors:

The Yacoubian Building, by Alaa Al-Aswany (completed 9/19/2007 - review)
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, by Ann Fadiman (completed 9/19/2007 - review)
When the Emperor was Divine, by Julie Otsuka (completed 10/12/2007 - review)
Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys (completed 11/16/2007 - review)
The Art of Mending, by Elizabeth Berg (completed 12/14/2007 - review)
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe (completed 1/17/2008 - review)
The Secret River, by Kate Grenville (completed 2/3/2008 - review)

Favorite book: Oh, this is a close one. I loved Ex Libris, but as a collection of essays it's really quite different from my other selections. So I will cheat and choose The Secret River as another favorite.

Least favorite book: The Art of Mending. I found this book to be a bit trite and cliche.

What I learned: I read more "unread authors" than familiar ones. When I started the challenge, I thought I might list other new authors in my challenge post. However, it quickly became apparent that I'd be listing almost every book I read. While I do read multiple works by certain authors -- Jane Austen & John Steinbeck, for example -- I usually don't read series, and I don't tend to get on a "kick" reading a certain author's entire oevre.

This was a fun challenge that helped clear out my TBR stack a bit. Thanks Ariel!

Laura's Review - The Secret River

2008-02-03T19:34:00.000-05:00

The Secret River
Kate Grenville
334 pages

Set in Australia in the early 1800s, The Secret River is the story of William Thornhill, a London riverboat driver sent to Australia after being convicted of a crime. He is accompanied by his wife Sal, who acts as his "master" as required by law. During his twelve month sentence he finds work on a riverboat and, after serving time, buys his own boat and becomes an independent businessman running goods on the river Hawkesbury. Like many "emancipists" of that time, he also stakes his claim to a large parcel of land. The only problem is, the native people claimed it years before. The white settlers demonstrate remarkable hubris, assuming they have a right to the land and shoo-ing the startled natives away.

William embraces life as a free man, but Sal longs for home. When he buys a 100-acre parcel, he extracts a promise from Sal to stay for five years. She believes they will then return to London, but William never takes his part of the bargain seriously. Sal notes each passing day by marking a tree with a knife. "The unspoken between them was that she was a prisoner here, marking off the days in her little round of beaten earth, and it was unspoken because she did not want him to feel a jailer. She was, in a manner of speaking, protecting him from herself." (p. 150) The book's title comes from this and other unspoken secrets between the couple. As time passes, more and more goes unspoken: the size of the native camp on their land, the details of atrocities between whites and native people, the prejudiced and often violent behaviors exhibited by their neighbors. But Sal is no fool, and is well aware of the escalating tensions and the danger to her family.

Grenville keeps a low- to medium-grade tension running throughout the novel. Some of the tension comes from the very act of survival in the Australian wilderness, and the stress between William and Sal. But the primary conflict is direclty with the native people. While William demonstrates a growing awareness of the natives as human beings, as it says on the book jacket, "to keep his family safe, he must permit terrifying cruelty to come to innocent people." The book's denouement portrays the Thornhills' lives years after this "terrifying cruelty." It is somewhat disappointing, as it's unclear how he and Sal resolved their differences. But the outcome is probably quite true to that period in history. This is a memorable book, well deserving of its Commonwealth Prize and Booker Shortlist recognition. ( )

My original review can be found here.

THE DOLLMAKER -Amanda Stevens

2008-02-03T01:29:00.000-05:00

http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/dollmaker-amanda-stevens.html

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

2008-02-01T19:46:00.001-05:00

I've finished my fifth book for this challenge, finally reading one of Shannon Hale's young adult fantasy novels. Princess Academy was delightful! You can read my full review here. I will definitely be reading more of Hale's books.

Nothing but the Truth (and a Few White Lies)by Justina Chen Headley

2008-01-26T02:18:00.000-05:00

Justina Chen Headley wasn't on my original list of possible authors for this challenge, but I stumbled upon her not too long ago and read her debut novel Nothing but the Truth (and a Few White Lies) this week. You can read my review here. I am definitely going to be reading more of Headley's work!

Ode To A Man, Credit to His Legacy

2008-01-25T22:16:00.000-05:00

(image courtesy of Amazon.com)

I finally finished Joseph Smith, Rough Stone Rolling: A Cultural Biography of Mormonism's Founder by Richard Lyman Bushman, which I read for both the Unread Authors Challenge and the Triple 8 Challenge (and because I was really interested in the subject, of course). It took me about a month to get through it, not because it was boring, but because it is (very densely) packed with information. It required more of me than most things I read, so I wanted to give it the attention it deserved.

Basically, the book is a biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (a.k.a. the Mormons), but it's not a traditional recap. Bushman labeled it a "cultural biography," which seems to mean it's an examination of a people/culture instead of just one member. While the book begins with Joseph's birth and ends with his death, it's really not as much about him as it is about the church he created. In a nutshell, Joseph was a boy who felt troubled about religion. He really didn't believe in any of the churches prominent in his day. Confused, he turned to the Holy Bible for answers, where he found a scripture in James which exhorted him to ask God for answers. When he prayed, Joseph said he saw a vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ in which he was told to join no church. He was told he would be given more instruction concerning God's wishes for him, and he was. Through visions and revelations, he was commanded to start a church, which he did. Because he claimed he had spoken with God, Joseph was ridiculed. Yet, people were attracted to Mormon theology and soon Joseph had a large following. He was a man of the people, loved and revered by the Saints (as the Mormons called themselves) as a prophet of God. Outsiders, however, considered him a charlatan, and continually sought the destruction of him and his people. Still, he soldiered on, receiving revelations, publishing scripture (predominantly The Book of Mormon), building cities and temples, leading his people, even running for President of The United States. A controversial figure always, he was martyred in 1844, after which the presidency of the church went to Brigham Young. Today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a thriving church known worldwide.

In retracing Joseph's steps, Bushman uses a plethora of sources from interviews to journals to newspaper accounts to original church documents. The amount of information he presents is staggering (the book is 561 pages long, with 177 pages of appendices and indexes). He analyzes Joseph's actions, revelations and policies in great depth. I've been a member of the Church for 32 years, and I've never read a history as complete as this one. Plenty of the information was new to me.

Richard Lyman Bushman is an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He acknowledges that, as such, "pure objectivity is impossible" (xviii). However, I think he did an admirable job of presenting every side of Joseph Smith. He didn't shy away from situations which showed the prophet in an unflattering light, or ignore criticisms from Joseph's contemporaries. He presented the facts and, in effect, said, "Choose for yourself."

I expected Rough Stone Rolling to be a straight biography of Joseph Smith, and it wasn't. I would have liked more information about his personal life, family history and private thoughts. Obviously, there are other biographies out there (including one by Joseph's mother) that contain this information, but I wanted a little more from Bushman himself.

All in all, it was a thoroughly insteresting study that I, personally, found fascinating. Will it appeal to a non-LDS reader? I don't know. Some people's highest praise of a biography/memoir is that it "reads like a novel." This one doesn't. It's not a book that will keep you on the edge of your seat, but it is a fascinating, thoroughly researched biography of a man who lived and died in the service of his God. The man who was so reviled in his time left an incredible legacy - one to which Richard Lyman Bushman does great honor in Rough Stone Rolling.

Grade: A

(This post is also on Bloggin' 'Bout Books)

2008-01-23T11:08:00.000-05:00

Reading Ivan Doig's The Whistling Season is like watching a low-budget film. Without special effects or a dramatic score, the film relies solely on the strength of the story. The screenwriter's
words alone must capture and captivate the audience. Doig's novel is like one of those films. His words engage, entertain and satisfy; no cheap stunts are needed to carry the story along.

The novel opens with 61-year-old Paul Milliron pondering an unpleasant task: as superintendent of schools, he must inform residents of rural Montana that their country schools are closing. A product of just the sort of school he's been ordered to dismantle, Paul is dismayed by the job he must do. To ward off his despair, he lets his mind wander back to his own school days in Marias Coulee, Montana.

His memory takes him back to one banner year: 1909. That was the year his widower father answered an ad for a housekeeper which boldly proclaimed, "Doesn't cook but doesn't bite." Neither Paul nor his two younger brothers know what to expect, but they are shocked when stylish Rose Llewellyn steps off the train accompanied by her equally elegant brother, Morrie. Before the Millirons know it, the pair have firmly ensconsed themselves in prairie life. Rose puts the bachelor farmhouse in order, while Morrie brings his fancy Chicago education to the local one-room schoolhouse. Under Morrie's tutelage, Paul's passion for learning ignites, but not all of his experiences will be in the classroom. As the school year unfolds, Paul experiences death and terror and heartache and wonder. Most of all, he discovers that things are rarely what they seem, not even a kindly housekeeper and her dandy of a brother.

Although it does have a little mystery, The Whistling Season is no edge-of-your-seat thriller. It's a meandering, lyrical tale that won't be rushed. The pleasure is really in the journey, as Doig's every word is poetic and masterful. His characters are real and endearing, as charming as they are sympathetic. Their stories are told with a warmth and humor that enchants and affirms. Simply put, the novel is a masterpiece of old-fashioned storytelling.

There were a few things that bugged me about the book. Although I loved Doig's gentle style, I found it lacked focus at certain points. When Rose and Oliver met, I had the story pegged as a romance, but it really wasn't. The spotlight oscillates from the pair to Morrie to the plight of rural schools and back again. I would have liked smoother transitions between the various plots and themes. Sometimes the juxtapositions just felt too abrupt and jarring.
Overall, The Whistling Season is a triumph of storytelling, a beautiful tale as charming as, say, a one-room schoolhouse in rural Montana.

Grade: B+

(This review is also posted here)

The Kite Runner

2008-01-20T07:33:00.000-05:00

"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975..."

I knew after I read this opening line, I would expect something great from this story. And I wasn't disappointed.

In this debut written by Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner is a story about two motherless boys who shared the love of kite running. Growing up in Kabul, they treated each other like brothers. Amir is the son of a wealthy businessman while Hassan is the son of the household servant. Amir often takes life for granted while Hassan is a simple and humble boy who always look up to Amir. But Amir isn't really happy, and he wants to win his father's approval badly by proving himself that he has the makings of a man. He figured that by winning the kite-fighting tournament he would be able to gain his father's approval, although deep in his heart he had wondered why his father treated Hassan better than himself.

Amir finally won the tournament, and Hassan ran after the opponent's runaway kite because both of them knew he was good at it (tracking down the kite that is). Unfortunately, the neighbourhood bullies Assef and gang managed to catch up on him, due to an incident that happened some time ago when Hassan had stood up to them. Amir was too terrified to do anything then, and it seemed that history is repeating itself when he witnessed his childhood buddy being bullied and raped by Assef. Thereafter, Hassan and his father decided to leave town and Amir continued to haunt by his cowardice and guilt through his adulthood, where by then he and his father had fled to America and started a new life.

Then Amir received word from Rahim, his father's old business partner from Pakistan that he wanted to meet him, and that there was a way for Amir to make things right. Soon, Amir would learn the truth about what had happened to Hassan throughout the years, and what he would do to redeem himself...

The Kite Runner is beautifully written, filled with memorable characters and an unforgettable story that will have you mesmerized. It is also thought provoking and emotional that will cause a lump in your throat even after you have closed the book. I am looking forward to the movie version which will open end of this month and can't wait to read the next release A Thousand Splendid Suns.

(You can also read this review here).

The Truth Machine by James L. Halperin

2008-01-19T08:15:00.000-05:00

I chose to read “The Truth Machine”, James Halperin's debut science fiction novel, as my 5th selection for Sycoraxpine’s “Unread Author’s Challenge”. I had high hopes for this speculative novel, and had very much been looking forward to the chilling “history of the future” that has been billed as our generations “1984”.

(you can read my review here)

Laura's List

2008-01-18T21:30:00.000-05:00

I recently vowed not to sign up for another challenge unless it supported my efforts to work off my TBR pile. This one fits the bill, since I have several TBRs written by new-to-me authors. And, none of these books overlaps another challenge. Here's my list:

The Yacoubian Building, by Alaa Al-Aswany (completed 9/19/2007 - review)
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, by Ann Fadiman (completed 9/19/2007 - review)
When the Emperor was Divine, by Julie Otsuka (completed 10/12/2007 - review)
Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys (completed 11/16/2007 - review)
The Art of Mending, by Elizabeth Berg (completed 12/14/2007 - review)
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe (completed 1/17/2008 - review)
The Secret River, by Kate Grenville

As "extra credit," I will also list any other new authors I read during the challenge period.

Laura's Review - Things Fall Apart

2008-01-18T21:13:00.001-05:00

Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe
209 pages

Okonkwo is a Nigerian tribesman, well-known and respected in his community, Umuofia. He has risen above his father Unoka's reputation as a lazy do-nothing. He has three wives and several children. And yet Okonkwo is insecure and easily angered. His anger gets the better of him, and he is exiled from the community for seven years. When he returns, white missionaries have settled in the area, threatening the peace and livelihood of the native people.

The first part of this book is a slow reveal of Nigerian village life. Daily chores, rites of passage. and descriptions of spiritual life are strung together in an almost disjointed fashion. By developing such a vivid picture in the reader's mind, Achebe is then able to quickly show the contrast and impact of the missionaries. This classic work has been on my TBR pile ever since I read Half of a Yellow Sun last year. I had very high expectations, especially since this is one of the "1001 books to read before you die", but it failed to live up to my expectations. In the end, I found it to be "just OK." ( )

My original review can be found here.

Gautami's reads

2008-01-15T11:52:00.000-05:00

I finished 7 books by Jodi Picoult. To think I had not heard of her before July 2007! These are all read after 24th September, 2007 in the same order they are listed here. Do click the titles for the reviews!

Specials by Scott Westerfeld

2008-01-12T00:32:00.000-05:00

This is now the third book I've read by previously "unread author" Scott Westerfeld. I've posted a brief review here. I'm eager to read more of his work!

SHADOW DIVERS - Robert Kurston

2008-01-06T20:40:00.000-05:00

http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/2008/01/shadow-divers-robert-kurston.html

Super good and I normally don't like nonfiction. Highly recommend this one.

The Survivors Club by Lisa Gardner

2008-01-03T11:21:00.000-05:00

THE SURVIVOR'S CLUB was my introduction to Lisa Gardner, which I read as my 4th selection for sycoraxpine‘s Unread Authors challenge, and what I’m calling my 79th and final read of 2007; technically, I finished it on Jan. 1, but I “read” it in December...

(You can read my review here.)

Update

2007-12-30T14:27:00.000-05:00

I've been slacking off, but here's the update:

Finished:
Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
The Guardians - Ana Castillo (review is here)
The Plague Year - Jeff Carlson

To read by February:
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
High Fidelity - Nick Hornby

unless I come up with two alternates :-)

A Redbird Christmas - Fannie Flagg

2007-12-23T08:29:00.001-05:00

http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/2007/12/redbird-christmas.html

A super warm book. I will be looking for more by this author.

-V-

Challenge Wrap-Up

2007-12-19T09:43:00.000-05:00

I finished early, but I thought I would post my wrap-up while it is fresh in my head. Thanks to Sycorax Pine for hosting!

The challenge: Read at least six books by authors you had never read before, from September to February.

My finished challenge books are:

A Woman in Jerusalem - A.B. Yehoshua
Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreeland
God Is Dead - Ron Currie, Jr.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Eragon - Christopher Paolini
Esperanza Rising - Pam Munoz Ryan

The best book: That's really hard to say. I really enjoyed quite a few of them for different reasons. Esperanza Rising was a great children's/young adult book; but Jonathan Strange, God Is Dead, and A Woman in Jerusalem were all quite good as well.
What book could I have done without: Eragon. I am not a fan of Christopher Paolini's writing. I was also not impressed when I saw that he wrote the forward to a new release of John Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights. I debated picking up Eldest, but couldn't muster the energy.
Any new authors? They are all new to me, that's the point of the challenge!

Laura's Review - The Art of Mending

2007-12-15T07:56:00.000-05:00

The Art of Mending
Elizabeth Berg
237 pages

First sentence: It is a photograph of a staircase that I took with my Brownie camera over forty years ago.

Reflections: Laura Bartone, a 50-something married mother of two, returns to her hometown for an annual family gathering with her parents, brother, and sister. When Laura's younger sister Caroline asks for a meeting with Laura and their brother Steve, the reunion begins to take on a different tone from past events. Caroline surfaces emotional events from their childhood, which differ greatly from Laura and Steve's experiences.

The Art of Mending explores family relationships; specifically, how children's views of past events affect their journey to adulthood, and the nature of adult parent-child relationships. Its title is a metaphor for healing, taken from a passage discussing the domestic pleasures of ironing and mending:
...there's an art to mending: If you're careful, the repair can actually add to the beauty of the thing, because it is testimony to its worth (p. 14)

Berg writes lovely descriptive prose. Yet while this book held promise, it did not live up to my expectations. The characters lacked depth, and none were particularly likeable. The plot was formulaic and predictable. Worst of all, this book was manipulative, blatantly tugging at the reader's heartstrings. I can do without that ... ( )

My original review can be found here.

The Emporer's Children - Wendy's Book Review

2007-12-13T11:42:00.002-05:00

"Well, then." Ludovic sat up against the headboard, cleared his throat. "As parents, we visit our complexes, whatever they may be, upon our children - our neuroses, our hopes and fears, our discontents. Just the way our broader society is like a parent, and visits its complexes upon the citizenry, if you will." - From The Emperor's Children, page 205 -

The Emperor's Children is an intellectual miasma about the superficiality of the privileged classes - and the subsequent collision of values between the haves and have nots. Set in New York City in 2001, the book explores the lives of five major characters: Marina - a rich and spoiled pseudo-journalist; Julius - a gay, confused free lance critic; Danielle - a television producer with attitude; Frederick "Bootie" Tubb - an idealistic and slightly creepy college drop out; and Murray Thwaite - a middle aged, liberal "emperor" who has made a name in journalism. The novel is narrated in alternating points of view and spans a period of half a year, tying together (with an artistic flair) the rather superficial threads of each character's motivations and lives. None of these characters is especially likable, but all are compulsively readable.

Messud creates a novel about the upper classes: their attitude of entitlement, their petty betrayals, their focus on power. In doing so, she reveals some interesting truths about humanity. I enjoyed her observations about higher education:

The Land of Lies in which most people were apparently content to live - in which you paid money to an institution and went out nightly to get drunk instead of reading the books and then tried to calculate some half-assed scheme by which you could cheat on your exams, and then, at the end of the day, presumably simply on account of the financial transaction between you, or more likely your parents, and said institution, you declared yourself educated - was not sufficient for Bootie. - From The Emperor's Children, page 55 -

...about raising children and giving them everything their hearts desire:

Murray Thwaite had little patience for this. He suddenly saw his daughter as a monster he and Annabel had created - they and a society of excess. - From The Emperor's Children, page 66 -

...and about high tech, computerized corporate America:

The company, it seemed, engaged in middle man activity, the procuring of rights - of abstractions - that permitted, elsewhere, the actual trading of information (also abstract) for huge sums of money. Which was, of course, itself abstract. It was a though the entire office were generating and moving, acquiring and passing on, hypotheticals, a trade in ideas, or hopes, to which value somehow accrued. - From The Emperor's Children, page 60 -

Messud has written a sharp, witty expose that intrigued me. Her writing is observant, her characters complex and well developed. Although this is not the type of book I usually enjoy, I found myself unable to put it down.

Rated 4/5; Recommended.

Slay Bells - Kate Kingsbury

2007-12-13T09:35:00.000-05:00

This covered Christmas Challenge and Unread Authors Challenge. I hope to find the others from my list for this challenge, 'honor bound' to keep to my Christmas books this month. January and February will be for the new ones. I can only hope to find those under the tree, even if it's in giftcard form.
Slay Bells - Kate Kingsbury was okay. A holiday themed cozy mystery, it was what it was and not much more. If she has written any other holiday themed for this series, I wll read them, but not any of the rest of it.

Challenge Complete (SuziQ)

2007-12-11T23:05:00.000-05:00

I'm officially done with the Challenge - thanks for the fun. Here's a copy of my Wrap-Up post.

This was my original list:
· Tess Gerritsen - The Surgeon
· Erica Spindler – Forbidden Fruit
· Linda Barnes – A Trouble of Fools
· Chris Bohjalain – Buffalo Soldier
· ~~Cory McFayden – Shadow Man~~
· ~~Robert Crais – The Monkey’s Raincoat~~

But I ended up substituting the two Hometown Challenge books for the last two on the list so I could wrap up this challenge this month – so these two were included instead.
· April Henry - Circles of Confusion
· Chelsea Cain – Heartsick

The best book: Hard to choose because the genre differences make them hard to compare

What book could I have done without? Forbidden Fruit was my least favorite.

Any new authors? All were new authors by definition of the challenge

Books I did not finish: Finished them all. Even though I changed my original list, I still plan to read both of those books soon.

What did I learn? That I’m enjoying the fact that these challenges are making me actually pick up and read some of those books that have been languishing on my TBR list for far too long. A Trouble of Fools, The Buffalo Soldier and The Surgeon have all been on my list for a long time and I was glad to finally read all three of them.

Thanks to Por of Tor for the kick in the TBR

Heartsick by Chelsea Cain - SuziQ's review

2007-12-09T19:20:00.000-05:00

Published: 2007
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Pages: 324

I already knew of Chelsea Cain from reading her weekly column in the local paper. I had missed the fact that she’d written this book till Joy clued me in about it. This was certainly not the same as her newspaper columns!

This thriller grabbed me in the first few pages and I hated to get off the train and go to work because I wanted to keep reading. Fair warning – it’s a bit gruesome in places.

Two years ago Detective Archie Sheridan was kidnapped and tortured for 10 days by the very serial killer he’d been hunting for years. That killer, Gretchen Lowell, is safely tucked away in prison, but Archie is called back from his medical leave to head up the team investigating a new serial killer in town. This time, hoping to fend off media criticism, a newspaper reporter is assigned to profile Archie and the investigation. Susan Ward is a pink haired smart mouthed young reporter who doesn’t necessarily do what she is told.

The story of Archie’s previous ordeal with Gretchen is interwoven with the present time investigation. There are plenty of familiar local references for Portlanders without being too insider-ish for folks not from this area.

The Buffalo Soldier by Chris Bohjalian - SuziQ's Review

2007-12-06T12:42:00.000-05:00

Published: 2002
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 420

Two years ago Laura and Terry Sheldon’s twin 9 year old daughters died in a flash flood. Now they are foster parents to a 10 year old African-American boy named Alfred. Terry and Laura are still dealing with their grief and guilt over the loss of their daughters. Alfred is a child of the system who has lived in too many households in his young life. He is a quiet loner who has never really felt like he belongs anywhere. Paul Hebert, the retired professor who lives next door to the Sheldon’s takes an interest in Alfred and they find a common interest in the story of The Buffalo Soldiers Cavalry unit.

This book is told in several different voices – Laura, Terry, Alfred, the neighbors and also the woman whose involvement with Terry threatens what remains of the Sheldon’s marriage. It’s not just about the foster care system, nor is it about a couple dealing with their grief, guilt and marital tensions. It is about each of the characters and their fears, doubts and needs in terms of what family means to them.

There is sadness in the loss of the Sheldon girls and the impact that has on their parents as well as people who knew them and even Alfred, who never met them. There is joy in the relationship between Alfred and Paul Hebert. There is heartache in many of the characters as their relationships are tested.

. . . and every minute he felt like he was walking on glass. You moved slow in this house, as if everything – and that included the people – was just about to break.

I thought this was a very good book. I found it to be touching in many places and thought provoking for many reasons.

On Strike for Christmas - Sheila Roberts

2007-12-05T09:28:00.000-05:00

Finished this last night. It makes for a super bedside book as it let me go to sleep with a grin on my face.
http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/2007/12/on-strike-for-christmas-sheila-roberts.html

Circles of Confusion by April Henry - SuziQ's review

2007-11-30T22:17:00.000-05:00

Published: 1999
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 333

This one was added to my list when I was looking for Portland authors and settings for the Hometown Challenge. Since it’s also a new author, I’m substituting it in for the Unread Authors Challenge too.

Claire Montrose is leading a predictable life in Portland, Oregon. Although her job is unusual (approving or rejecting vanity license place applications for the Dept. of Motor Vehicles) she's been there long enough to be bored with it. When Claire's Aunt Cady dies and leaves everything to Claire, things become less predictable.

Aunt Cady didn't have much more than a trailer filled with junk, but under the bed, Claire finds an old suitcase containing a bracelet, her aunt's diary, some pamphlets from Nazi Germany and a small painting that takes her breath away. Claire's boyfriend is sure the painting is junk, but her roommate (an elderly survivor of Dachau) and a local antiques dealer are not so sure.

When Claire decides to take the painting to New York to research it's history and how her aunt came to possess it, she soon finds herself in the middle of a mystery and apparently in some serious danger.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's a light cozy style mystery, but one that kept me entertained and turning the pages. I will most definitely be looking for and reading more of April Henry's Claire Montrose series.

The Good Earth, by Pearl Buck - Wendy's Review

2007-11-29T19:17:00.001-05:00

Moving together in perfect rhythm, without a word, hour after hour, he fell into a union with her which took the pain from his labor. He had no articulate thought of anything; there was only this perfect sympathy of movement, of turning this earth of theirs over and over to the sun, this earth which formed their home and fed their bodies and made their gods. The earth lay rich and dark, and fell apart lightly under the points of their hoes. Sometimes they turned up a bit of brick, a splinter of wood. It was nothing. Some time, in some age, bodies of men and women had been buried there, houses had stood there, had fallen, and gone back into the earth. So would also their house, some time, return to earth, their bodies also. Each had his turn at this earth. They worked on, moving together - together - producing the fruit of this earth - speechless in their movement together. -From The Good Earth, page 31-

Pearl Buck's novel The Good Earth was published in 1931 and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932. It has been surrounded by controversy (mostly in China where Buck's work was banned for many years because of the perceived vilification of the Chinese people and their leaders). Having arrived in China as the child of missionaries, Buck grew to love the country. In 1935 she returned to the United States with hope of one day returning to the Orient...but this was never to be. She was denounced by the Chinese government in 1960 as "a proponent of American cultural imperialism." Later, just nine months before her death, her visa to return to the country of her childhood was denied. In 1938 she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature. More about Buck's life and work can be found in this excellent article published by Mike Meyer of the New York Times.

The Good Earth is the saga of Wang Lung, who is a poor farmer dependent on the land for his survival, and his extended family. The novel begins with this complex character as a young man when he marries a slave girl, and then follows him as he grows into a man with a family and wealth beyond his imaginings. Wang Lung is a man with a compassionate heart. I was touched by the love of his children, especially that of his developmentally delayed oldest daughter who he calls "the poor fool." In one scene, the family is faced with starvation and Wang Lung gives up his own food for his daughter...something that would have been highly unusual at that time in China.

Only a few of the beans did Wang Lung hide in his own hand and these he put into his own mouth and he chewed them into a soft pulp and then putting his lips to the lips of his daughter he pushed into her mouth the food, and watching her small lips move, he felt himself fed. -From The Good Earth, page 85-

Later, as he gains wealth, Wang Lung loses his path - and his inner goodness is challenged.

Wang Lung's pragmatic wife O-Lan represents the strength of the Chinese women during a time when women were considered to be a man's possession and slave. Throughout the novel, the idea of the cyclical nature of life is repeated, establishing a natural rhythm for the story.

Buck writes in simple prose which reads more like the oral tradition of story telling than a novel. Her understanding of character is evident throughout - and no character is all good or all evil.

I immediately was captivated by Buck's story; and even though at times the abuse and mistreatment of women was hard to read, I found I could not put the book down for long.

Buck wrote two sequels to The Good Earth: Sons (1931) and A House Divided (1935). I have put both on my wish list for future reading.

The Good Earth is a book I can highly recommend for its insight into Chinese culture during the early part of the 20th century, and for its high readability. Rated 4.5/5.

Coldheart Canyon -Clive Barker

2007-11-28T08:16:00.001-05:00

Listened to my first, and likely my last, Clive Barker book. Coldheart Canyon was an uneven humdinger. I was introduced to some interesting characters who were alternately crapweasels or heroes. I became exhausted at some of the sexual acrobatics of some (and I am not a prude by any stretch of the imagination) and felt the need to fastforward through sections at times. I was tempted to stop listening and return it unfinished to RecordedBooks, but I persevered. I had Thanksgiving week to rest from it and that likely helped. I am glad I stayed with the book until the end, the last tape was probably the best.

Favorite characters Katya: (EVIL) and Tammy (strong) and Maxine (tough broad)

Doctor Zhivago - Wendy's Book Review

2007-11-25T13:42:00.001-05:00

It snowed hard throughout the month
Of February, and almost constantly
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned
-From the poems of Yurii Zhivago-

First published in Italy in 1957, Boris Pasternak's sweeping epic Doctor Zhivago stirred controversy in his native Russia. Set in Moscow and the Ural Mountains, the novel tells the story of a poet-physician whose life is defined by the Bolshevik Revolution and its aftermath. The novel's underlying criticism of the Bolshevik party led to it being banned until 1988 in Russia. When Pasternak was chosen for the esteemed Nobel Prize for Literature, his native Russians protested so much that the author declined the honor. Felt to be largely autobiographical, Doctor Zhivago reveals much about its author's philosophical ideology and personal life.

The novel opens with the suicide of Zhivago's father just before the Russian Revolution when Zhivago is still a young boy. Pasternak reveals early on that the novel will be about truth and sacrifice; about one man's beliefs and how he lives with his choices.

I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats - any kind of threat, whether of jail or of retribution after death - then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer in the circus with his whip, not the prophet who sacrificed himself. But don't you see, this is just the point - what has for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but an inward music: the irresistible power of unarmed truth, the powerful attraction of its example. -From Doctor Zhivago, page 42-

As the story develops, the reader is pulled into the life of Zhivago, who matures into a young man, loses his wealth, marries his childhood sweetheart, becomes embroiled in the fast accelerating revolution and finds Lara, his true love. The overriding theme of the novel is the importance of the individual vs. the rules of the state and the terror inflicted on the masses in the name of a political ideal.

Everything in Yura's mind was still helter-skelter, but his views, his habits, and his inclinations were all distinctly his own. He was unusually impressionable, and the originality of his vision were remarkable. -From Doctor Zhivago, page 64-

Pasternak writes prose like the poet he was - painting the chaos of the times on wide brush strokes of beautiful description.

Everything was fermenting, growing, rising with the magic yeast of life. The joy of living, like a gentle wind, swept in a broad surge indiscriminately through fields and towns, through walls and fences, through wood and flesh. Not to be overwhelmed by this tidal wave, Yurii Andreievich went out in the square to listen to the speeches. -From Doctor Zhivago, page 141-

Throughout the novel, the idea of fate - of being swept along with the tide of the times - is often repeated. Characters re-emerge in unusual ways, seemingly by coincidence - and yet we are left with the idea that some things cannot be chance and nothing is coincidental. The characters seem to be victims of the Soviet ideology.

"Let's try to think. Though what is there that we can do? Is it in our power to avert this blow? Isn't it a matter of fate?" -From Doctor Zhivago, page 409-

Most people think of Doctor Zhivago as a love story. The love between Lara and Yurii spins throughout the novel, and reminds the reader again about the power of the individual even during tumult and upheaval. But, calling Doctor Zhivago merely a love story would be undervaluing its bigger messages. The novel is full of wonderful passages and beautiful prose; and defines a generation of Russians during a cataclysmic time in history.

Certainly a classic and one which will stand the test of time - Doctor Zhivago is a must read for anyone who strives to better understand the Russian Revolution and who has a love of great literature.

Highly Recommended; rated 4.5/5.

Hissy Fit - Mary Kay Andrews

2007-11-25T10:13:00.000-05:00

http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/2007/11/hissy-fitwhat-fun.html

An inadvertant choice for Unread Authors, but it fits. I have never read Mary Kay Andrews and I will definitely be looking for and adding more of her work.

The Wrong Man by John Katzenbach

2007-11-24T12:11:00.000-05:00

What would you do if you find your daughter met an obsessive stalker who wouldn't let her out of his life? And how far would you go to save her before everything is too late and someone will be hurt? You will probably ask these questions if you read The Wrong Man.

Scott Freeman thinks her daughter has a secret admirer when he first picked up an unsigned note that read: No one could ever love you like I do. No one ever will. We were meant for each other and nothing will prevent that. Nothing. We will be together forever. One way or another. Being a college professor, he always tell himself to be rational, but the contents of the notes made him uneasy, so he decided to seek the truth with the help of his ex-wife, Sally and her partner, Hope.

Before this, Ashley supposed to have a wonderful life. She is a beautiful and bright history art student, but she made a mistake of having a fling with an attractive blue-collar bad boy one night and from then onwards, her life becomes a nightmare.

Michael O'Connell thinks he is in love with Ashley after the day he has met her. He wouldn't leave her alone and claims to make her his despite she has told him many times that their relationship wasn't anything but a one-night stand which didn't mean to be happened. He would make anyone's life miserable if one gets too close to her. Desperate, Ashley has no choice but to seek help from her father, whom in turn asked Sally and Hope for advice and opinions.

But they had underestimated Michael, for he is a clever and cunning young lad and has a vast knowledge of computer skills and others such as picking locks and so forth. Soon, they find themselves getting into serious trouble as Michael finds several ways in messing up their work life.

And when everything fails and they couldn't find enough evidence pointing towards Michael, that is the time that they decide to take things into their own hands and they will do anything to drive Michael out of their life, even though if it means someone has to die.

I felt I was riding on a roller coaster when reading The Wrong Man because I wouldn't know what to expect next. Although I find the story chilling, yet I was drawn to the intrigue and the excitement and can't wait to find out what would happen in the end. And the best part is, nothing beats the ending because it ends with a twist, and I didn't see it coming.

John Katzenbach has left me a deep impression with this book. I will definitely keep a look out for his other books in future.

(My original review can be found here.)

An Acquaintance With Darkness - Ann Rinaldi

2007-11-19T10:43:00.001-05:00

It's YA and a great premise, but I was getting fed up with the spoiled brat main character. Glad to be done with it and moving on to something else.

Laura's Review - Wide Sargasso Sea

2007-11-17T06:55:00.000-05:00

Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys
266 pages

First sentence: They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.

Reflections: Wide Sargasso Sea is well-known as the "prequel" to Jane Eyre. Rhys tells the life story of Antoinette Mason, a Creole who becomes the mad woman in Jane Eyre. The story itself is quite short (113 pages). My copy, a Norton Critical Edition, contained considerable supplementary material. Relevant excerpts from Jane Eyre helped refresh my memory and made the necessary connections between the two books. An essay by Rachel Carson described the natural phenomenon of the Sargasso Sea. There were also several essays of literary criticism analyzing this work, and numerous letters written by Jean Rhys.

As the supplementary material indicates, this book has received considerable acclaim, and been the subject of widespread analysis. Although I found Wide Sargasso Sea to be a mildly interesting read, and enhanced certain aspects of Jane Eyre, it fell short of my expectations. It was interesting to consider how Mr. Rochester and Antoinette came together, but their relationship was poorly developed. The reasons for Antoinette's descent into madness were unclear, and I found it difficult to identify or sympathize with the characters. ( )

My original review can be found here.

A Trouble of Fools by Linda Barnes

2007-11-10T20:33:00.000-05:00

Published: 1987
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 203
Challenge: Unread Authors Challenge #3

Carlotta Carlyle is a 6’ 1” tall redheaded former Boston cabdriver and ex-cop turned private investigator. Business has been slow, so when the elderly Margaret Devens shows up wanting someone to find her missing brother, Carlotta decides to take the case. When two thugs beat up Margaret and Carlotta finds out there’s a hidden pile of cash involved, it’s clear that this isn’t a run of the mill missing persons case.

It’s not that I’m scared. I can take care of myself. I grew up in Detroit and compared to the kids of the Motor City, most of the punks around here don’t know what tough means. I’m not scared of the streets. Maybe I’m afraid of the great I-Told-You-So. You know how it goes: “Gee, Carlotta, none of this would have happened if you’d had the sense to stay indoors.”

Carlotta is a fun character and I look forward to reading more of this series. This first book introduces us to characters from both of Carlotta’s former jobs – the cab company and the Boston police. There’s also a bit of a side story involving a young girl that Carlotta mentors through the “Big Brothers/Big Sisters” organization. It’s a quick and fun read.

Halfway - by SuziQ

2007-11-10T20:27:00.000-05:00

I just joined the blog so here's a status report. I've read 3 of my 6 books for this challenge:

This was my original challenge post - I've linked my reviews for the first two books and will post a copy of my third here:

So – here I am with the Southern Reading Challenge recently completed and nearing completion of the Summer Mystery Challenge – that means there’s room for new challenges on the TBR list.

The Unread Authors Challenge is being sponsored at Sycorax Pine. It runs from September 1, 2007 through February 28, 2008. Participants need to read six books by authors they have never read before. I’m choosing to read six new-to-me authors (one a month for the duration of the challenge).

I’ve got a few unread authors already scheduled for other challenges, so rounding out the list with a few more from my ever-growing TBR list wasn’t difficult at all. One thing I can count on from my fellow bookbloggers is a never ending supply of new authors I want to read.

Books I’m planning for this one:
· Tess Gerritsen - The Surgeon
· Erica Spindler – Forbidden Fruit
· Linda Barnes – A Trouble of Fools
· Chris Bohjalian – Buffalo Soldier
· Cory McFayden – Shadow Man
· Robert Crais – The Monkey’s Raincoat

Song of the Sparrow

2007-11-10T12:02:00.000-05:00

Sandell, Lisa Ann. 2007. Song of the Sparrow.

Song of the Sparrow is a wonderful verse novel that retells the story of Elaine the Lady of Shalott. While the literary tradition has her as beautiful but essentially weak and desperate, Sandell's Elaine is strong, brave, and while she, for a time, is lovesick on Lancelot, she is not too desperate or clingy. (Not, I'll die without his love desperate.) Meet Arthur, Elaine, Gwynivere, Lancelot, Tristan, and Gawain in this new telling of love and war. The poetry is powerful and quite effective in communicating the behind the scenes emotions as well as capturing the senses--especially the sights and sounds of battle camps and war.

Here is a snippet from the tenth chapter:

I wish I could go back to that time,
when my mother would smile
the gentle smile that told me,
all is right and well.
Back to that time when I was
young
and loved
and safe.
When we were all safe.

That things change,
that people change,
and die,
that we grow older,
that life brings the unexpected,
the unwanted,
oh,
some days it feels me with
a measure of lightness, for
I will be a woman soon.
But other days,
the very thought
of growing older,
of not being that small girl
who danced over river rocks,
whose brothers held her hands,
whose mother lived,
the very thought of it
crushes me,
till it is stopped,
by the world
outside
my memories.

Total Constant Order

2007-11-10T12:01:00.000-05:00

Chappell, Crissa-Jean. 2007. Total Constant Order.

Frances Isabelle Nash (Fin) is a teen under pressure. Within the past year, she's moved from Vermont to Florida, her parents have divorced, and she's feeling overwhelmed with urges to count and draw. These 'strange' compulsions to flick light switches, to draw objects with a certain number of points, or draw things a certain number of times, have been increasing over the past few months. Fin is also finding it more and more difficult to sleep.

Under much duress, Fin starts seeing a therapist who prescribes Paxil. But Fin discovers that prescription medications can sometimes have side effects that just aren't worth it. Around the time that she's trying to come to terms with having obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), she meets a boy who changes how she views everything: Thayer.

To read the rest of the review where I discuss how much Thayer impacts her life....visit The Edge of the Forest October/November edition. If you're reading this posting later...after the fact...then look for it in the Edge of the Forest archives.

A Crooked Kind of Perfect

2007-11-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

Urban, Linda. 2007. A Crooked Kind of Perfect.

I read this book initially for Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon. Now, less than a week later, I have reread this little gem of a book. It's a book that I would describe as practically perfect in every way. (I don't know if Linda Urban would want me to stress the near-perfect part since the message of the book seems to be that nobody can be perfect, that life isn't perfect. But even the message seems perfect to me.) Our heroine, Zoe Elias, is ten-going-on eleven. She has one dream--a very big dream. She wants to play the piano. In what could be one of the best openings of all times we read about "How It Was Supposed To Be" versus "How It Is."

I was supposed to play the piano.
The piano is a beautiful instrument.
Elegant.
Dignified.
People wear ball gowns and tuxedos to hear the piano.
With the piano, you could play Carnegie Hall. You could wear a tiara. you could come out on stage wearing gloves up to your elbows. You could pull them off, one finger at a time.
Everybody is quiet when you are about to play the piano. They don't even breathe. They wait for the first notes.
They wait.
They wait.
And then you lift your hands high above your head and slam them down on the keys and the first notes come crashing out and your fingers fly up and down and your foot--in its tiny slipper with rubies at the toe--your foot peeks out from under your gown to press lightly on the pedals.
A piano is glamorous. Sophisticated. Worldly.
It is a wonderful thing to play the piano.

The next chapter...Zoe's reality...

I play the organ.
A wood-grained, vinyl-seated, wheeze-bag organ.
The Perfectone D-60.

That's it. The entire second chapter. What a statement! But I better watch my exclamation points in this review, just in case Zoe (or her creator) is reading. Zoe really doesn't like the excessive and unnecessary use of exclamation points.

Zoe's life isn't perfect. She wants to play piano, but she's stuck with the Perfectone D-60. She wants to be playing real music. She's stuck with beginning level songbooks like Television Themesongs and Hits from the Seventies. And her social life? Well, she's been recently dumped by her best friend because her friend's interests are changing--lip gloss, tv, music, clothes, and boys. That leaves Zoe with no one to sit with at lunch, doesn't it?

Enter Wheeler.

Usually, Wheeler Diggs is a mess.
Except his hair.
On anybody else, his curly hair might look goofy, but on Wheeler Diggs it looks just the right kind of wild. And it's dark, which makes his blue eyes look even brighter. And his smile, which is kind of lopsided, looks like he's trying not to smile, but he can't help it.
Which is why, sometimes, every once in a while, somebody will smile back. And sometimes, most of the time, those people will get punched in the stomach. Which is why even the kids who sit with him at lunch are a little bit scared of him and why, really, Wheeler Diggs doesn't have a best friend, either. (58-59)

Wheeler and Zoe are the unlikeliest of friends. But when he follows her home from school one day--to get his hands on some more of her dad's cookies--it's the beginning of an odd but satisfying friendship. Though Zoe doesn't admit this for the longest time. In this book, the reader sees if practice really does make perfect. . .and if wishes really can come true.

The characters, the relationships are about as perfect as can be. I've never seen family dynamics so well captured, so well displayed. Linda Urban has created memorable, authentic characters. The book has it all--moments of happiness, frustration, disappointment, loneliness, and joy. And plenty of humor!

It kind of goes without saying, but for the record...this is one that I love, love, loved!

Linda Urban's website is great too! (I better watch those exclamations.) You can find the recipe for Bada-Bings cookies. You can read her thoughts on writing 'the perfect' book. (She writes in part that: "There is no perfect book. But there is a novel to be written that is perfectly you.")
And of course, you can find out more about Linda Urban on her bio page. She also has a livejournal page where you can read her latest thoughts.

Before, After, and Somebody In Between

2007-11-10T11:49:00.001-05:00

Garsee, Jeannine. 2007. Before, After, and Somebody In Between.

This book is a good book. But it is essentially the story about a young teen girl with an identity crisis. Her name is Martha. Martha Kowalski. Never has a teen girl hated her life more. Her drunk and neglectful mother. Her mother's abusive mother. Her equally impoverished neighbors living in the tenements. Her school. Her classmates. Nothing at all is going right in her life. She has one or two friends. But their lives are equally messed up. One has a mother dying of AIDS, one has been abandoned my a mother addicted to drugs. The last one also lives in an abusive environment where they beat a toddler. So who would want to be that girl if given another option. Certainly not Martha. When Martha is given--through dire circumstances--the opportunity to transform into Gina Brinkman, she jumps at the chance. Gina lives in a nice neighborhood. A rich neighborhood. Gina goes to an elite school. Gina has nice clothes and a bathroom all her own. (If I recall correctly.) Gina is a material girl. She can have a thousand luxuries that are new to her. And most of all, she feels like she's escaped the harsh realities of her life. But life is never that easy. Never that black and white. Never that clear cut. Who is she really deep down inside? What kind of girl is she?

This book has many ugly sides to it--the alcohol, the drugs, the physical and verbal abuse, sex, violence, etc. Martha is a character that doesn't really embrace the truth if she can get away with a lie. She lies. She lies a lot. Sometimes to other people. Sometimes only to herself. This is another book that shows that actions have consequences. Big consequences. And that life is full of hard choices. Choices you'll have to live with the rest of your life.

Overall, I liked it. It was well-written. This is a very human, very frail, sometimes cruel, sometimes naive narrator.

The Blackwater Lightship - Wendy's Review

2007-11-09T19:48:00.001-05:00

The Blackwater Lightship. I thought it would always be there. -From The Blackwater Lightship, page 192-

Colm Toibin's novel The Blackwater Lightship was shortlisted for the Book Prize in 1999. Set on the coast in Ireland near Dublin, the novel centers around Declan, a young homosexual man dying of AIDS whose sister, mother and grandmother come together to care for him. Declan's sister Helen narrates this tale of heartache, loss, redemption and healing.

Toibin's simple, luminous prose captures the discomfort and estrangement between the family members. Helen's voice is at once sad, angry and contemplative as current events bring up memories she has worked hard to forget. After years of estrangement, her brother's impending death brings them back together and forces them to deal with the past.

She did not know how her grandmother would respond to their arrival. She realised that for the first time in years - ten years, maybe - she was back as a member of this family she had so determinedly tried to leave. For the first time in years they would all be under the same roof, as though nothing had happened. She realised, too, that the unspoken emotions between them in the car, and the sense that they were once more a unit, seemed utterly natural now that there was a crisis, a catalyst. She was back home, where she had hoped she would never be again, and she felt, despite herself, almost relieved. -From The Blackwater Lightship, page 106-

Toibin's slowly evolving novel looks at the fragility of family relationships and the desire to return "home" when we are most vulnerable. Lighthouses are commonly symbolic as beacons of safety or, in dreams, as beacons of truth - and so it is no surprise that The Blackwater Lightship is about both finding a safe haven and uncovering the truth.

This novel is melancholy and moody, but in the end I felt a sense of satisfaction and hope; the feeling that even in the face of death, healing and redemption are possible.

Recommended; rated 4/5; read my original review on my blog.

The Historian (Mo's review)

2007-11-09T15:16:00.000-05:00

I have just finished reading Elizabeth Kostova’s debut novel and a 2006 Book Sense Award winner, “The Historian”, which was my fourth selection in for the Book Award Reading challenge, and because it has taken me an unanticipated three weeks to complete this tome, I am also going to include it as my third selection for sycoraxpine’s Unread Author challenge as well.

(you can read my complete review here)

Eragon - Christopher Paolini

2007-11-09T11:04:00.001-05:00

Title: Eragon
Author: Christopher Paolini
Country: America
Year: 2003
Rating: C
Pages: 509

First sentence: Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world.

Challenge book? I read this for the Unread Authors Challenge.

Short summary: Farm boy finds strange stone under strange circumstances. Stone is actually a dragon's egg, it hatches, and a dragon is born. Boy and dragon set out on an adventure to help save their world from evil.

What did I think: This one was just okay. Not bad, not great. This may sound weird, but I felt as if Eragon read like a King's Quest video game; all the plot points felt too pre-determined, as if he was going on a series of tasks to get to the next level and eventually "win". The plot was incredibly predictable, which is disappointing in any genre, but especially fantasy. The characters felt somewhat flat, especially Eragon. The writing, well, it was obvious that it was written by a teenager who may lack some life experiences, and the book screamed for better editing. I can see why how Eragon could be popular with kids, but as an adult, I will not be picking up the second book in the trilogy, as I had originally planned.

Another Scott Westerfeld Novel

2007-10-28T02:16:00.000-04:00

I decided to read Pretties, the second book in the Uglies trilogy - which somehow now has four books - as my second book for this challenge. (I've posted a very brief review here.) I am enjoying Westerfeld's work and plan to finish the Uglies series as part of this challenge.

Completed 6 books, but still going... (3M)

2007-10-26T23:45:00.001-04:00

I finished this challenge with 6 books of new-to-me authors. I'll continue to post links to reviews here, though, of new, unread authors until the end of February. I should have most of the list below completed by the end of December, with even more new-to-me authors through February.

1. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
2. Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather by Gao Xingjian
3. Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
4. History of Love by Nicole Krauss
5. Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
6. Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos

Alternates/Extras:

Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller FINISHED
Bud, not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis FINISHED
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad FINISHED
Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright FINISHED
Middlesex--Eugenides FINISHED
Half of a Yellow Sun by Adichie FINISHED
Never Let Me Go--Ishiguro
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol Vol. 1 FINISHED

Another book finished!

2007-10-19T16:04:00.001-04:00

Keri Arthur. Full Moon Rising
Date read: 10/5/2007
Rating: 3* = good
Genre: Paranormal Romance/Fantasy

My thoughts:

This was a good mix of paranormal mystery and romance. At times I worried that Riley's urges would hinder her, but she was able to use them to her advantage or resist them when she needed to. I also liked many of the characters, specifically Riley, Quinn, Rhoan, Jack and Liander. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, Kissing Sin.

Thirteen Reasons Why

2007-10-17T19:14:00.000-04:00

Asher, Jay. 2007. Thirteen Reasons Why.

Hello, boys and girls. Hannah Baker here. Live and in stereo...No return engagements. No encore. And this time absolutely no requests...I hope you're ready, because I'm about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why my life ended. And if you're listening to these tapes, you're one of the reasons why....I'm not saying which tape brings you into the story. But fear not, if you received this lovely little box, your name will pop up...I promise. (7)

Before Hannah Baker ended her life with an overdose of pills, she wanted to leave behind a message. She recorded seven tapes--thirteen sides--that revealed bit by bit her drama and why she, in the end, felt like she had no other options. Clay Jensen is one of the tape's recipients. He is our narrator or guide through this listening experience. We hear Hannah's words alongside his thoughts and words. Hers are italicized. His aren't. He came home from school one day to find this package--a shoebox wrapped in paper and mailed--on his front porch. And from the time he first hits play...his life will already never be the same.

I wish I'd never seen that box or the seven tapes inside it. Hitting play that first time was easy. A piece of cake. I had no idea what I was about to hear. But this time, it's one of the most frightening things I've ever done. I turn the volume down and hit play. (9)

Clay Jensen at first feels like it's some kind of mistake. He never did anything to Hannah. He worked side by side with her at the movies. They made small talk. And one night--at a party--they made out. That's it. Why would he be to blame for her death? He couldn't, could he?

As the story unfolds, the reader learns that some actions have unforeseen consequences. A bit of gossip here or there, a rude word there, etc. Some were quite malicious--like her first boyfriend whose imagination got carried away with him. He ruined her reputation after their very first date. And why? Because he liked to talk big with the guys. Or how about the guy who labeled her the hottest a** in class? From then on, guys who were practically strangers tried to get away with grabbing her butt. Or how about the peeping tom who stalked her outside her bedroom window? Some people on the tapes are evident creeps and jerks...others seem more shocking.

Thirteen Reasons Why is without a doubt one of the best books of the year. Why? It isn't because it's sad. It isn't because it's about suicide. It isn't because it's dramatic. It's because it's well-written; it's real. The characters--from Hannah and Clay through all of the minor characters that come up as "reasons" such as Justin and Brent and Jenny--are so real, so well-developed, so human. The story is haunting and it's easy to understand why Clay's life will never be the same. How Hannah's death and life have changed him. Clay couldn't stop until he'd heard the tapes; I couldn't stop from reading til her story was through. It was very gripping, very haunting.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

2007-10-17T17:03:00.000-04:00

Title: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Author: Susanna Clarke
Country: UK
Year: 2004
Rating: A-
Pages: 782 pgs.

Review can be found here.

This is my third book for the Unread Authors Challenge, halfway there!

Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreeland

2007-10-17T16:59:00.000-04:00

Title: Girl in Hyacinth Blue
Author: Susan Vreeland
Country: America
Year: 1999
Rating: C-
Pages: 242 pgs.

First sentence: Cornelius Engelbrecht invented himself.

Review can be found here.

Moving Right Along

2007-10-15T20:46:00.000-04:00

I have two challenge books under my belt. So glad I chose both of them.

The Tunnels - Michelle Gagnon is a debut novel and a very well done thriller. I cannot wait to read everything else she writes.

Better Than Chocolate - Bruce Golden surprised me. I expected to like it, but I really liked it. I like science fiction from time to time and I love mysteries. This one was a super combo of the two and funny to boot. The author emailed me after he saw my blog comments. I thought that was pretty nifty.

I am looking forward to my other choices in the very near future. Lord help me, I hope I kept my list somewhere.....it's so much fun to be blonde.....

Kristen' Review -- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

2007-10-13T22:08:00.000-04:00

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on Amazon
by Muriel Spark :: Everyman's Library :: 2004 :: 512 pp. :: $18.69

I don't know what I was expecting from this novel. Something prim and old-fashioned, from the "Miss Jean Brodie," something long-drawn-out and Dickensian, from "Prime"; really, I sort of expected to be bored. This was why Spark had remained on my list of authors to be read for so long.

In any case, I was very much not bored. The novel does take place at a prim, old-fashioned boarding school and spans a long period of time, but it's far from prim or old-fashioned itself. Rather, it reads like (what it is:) a New Yorker story stretched out into a novel. Spark tells of the five girls who make up the "Brodie set," a group of young women being educated by a woman named Miss Jean Brodie, who is in her prime, and who is, essentially, the school nutcase. The mystery of the novel is which of the girls betrayed Miss Brodie.

Really, though, far from a mystery, this is a sort of group coming-of-age novel. The girls' minds are opened by Miss Brodie to all sorts of insights about life -- particularly love and sex -- that they are not quite ready for. At first Miss Brodie is their absolute hero. Then, as they grow older, they learn to be skeptical. They learn to judge for themselves. And it's never quite clear whether Miss Brodie herself got crazier, or whether the girls just couldn't recognize it before.

The voice is quiet and sure and graceful in its quirkiness. It describes the five girls of the "Brodie set" in terms of what they are famous for, repeating each often -- whether they are famous for sex, stupidity, mathematics, etc. -- and this is certainly one of the most memorable stylistic tics of the book. In general the narration is distant and playful, not quite omniscient, but close to the girls' perspective, drawing closer, later on, to the mind of one of them without quite entering it.

I don't want to describe this book too much for fear of giving it away, and yet the only way I think I can tell why I loved it is to... give it away. Let me leave off the review with a quotation, one of the most memorable passages in the book. It describes the death of one of the girls years after the main events of the novel (we find out the futures of the other girls, too, though not quite as memorably as this).

"...[She] never again referred her mind to Miss Brodie, but had got over her misery, and had relapsed into her habitual slow bewilderment, before she died while on leave in Cumberland in a fire in the hotel. back and forth along the corridors ran Mary Macgregor, through the thickening smoke. She ran one way; then, turning, the other way; and at either end the blast furnace of the fire met her. She heard no screams, for the roar of the fire drowned the screams; she gave no scream, for the smoke was choking her. She ran into somebody on her third turn, stumbled, and died. But at the beginning of the nineteen-thirties, when Mary Macgregor was ten, there she was sitting blankly among Miss Brodie's pupils."

It's this kind of thing, this strange telescoping through time, that made the novel so magical. As if all the things that happened in the girls' lives, though completely separate and not causally related, were still, somehow, contained and made meaningful within each moment of their childhoods.

In Summary: Highly recommended when you're in the mood for something different.

My original review is here.

Laura's Review - When the Emperor was Divine

2007-10-13T08:17:00.001-04:00

When the Emperor was Divine
Julie Otsuka
144 pages

First sentence: The sign had appeared overnight.

Reflections: Imagine that a member of your family is taken away in the middle of the night, wearing only his robe and slippers. When the Emperor was Divine tells the story of a Japanese-American family immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Each chapter is written from a different point of view: the mother who, after reading a public notice, systematically packs belongings and hides beloved family treasures. The daughter, travelling by train to the internment camp. The son, coping with daily living in the camp. And both children, upon returning to their home, school, and town:

We used to try and imagine what it would be like when we returned home. Our phone would ring off the hook. (How was it?) Neighborhood ladies bearing angel food cakes would line up at our front door to welcome us back (Yoo hoo, we know you're in there!). ... We would accept all invitations. Go everywhere. ... But of course it did not happen like that.

Julie Otsuka's slim novel captures the emotion and trauma of this dark period in American history. The country was reeling from an attack on its own soil. Those resembling the attackers were considered evil spies. Citizens of specific ethnic origin were rounded up and sent to camps -- prisons, really -- ostensibly to protect the American people.

Is this really any different from the country's response to the events of September 11, 2001? Will we ever learn? ( )

My original review can be found here.

My first review..

2007-10-13T00:11:00.001-04:00

This is the first one on my list that I completed. Wow! I have never read any thing by John Connolly and this was a wild ride. I also never really read books of this genre but I had given the book to my husband for Christmas last year and he kept urging me to read it. It was very gruesome at times but the plot had me hooked from the get go.
A young English boy loses his mother to a long illness just as WWII begins. His mother has passed on a love of books and books become magic to him--magical books that he can hear whispering all around him in his room. To escape a terrible relationship to his new step-mother and step-brother he enters a secret portal in to a different world...a world where famous fairy tales play out, but with little twists. David must find a way back home and along the way he learns lessons in bravery, loyalty and honor.

Jailbird (Kurt Vonnegut)

2007-10-11T20:16:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone! I just finished my first book of the challenge, Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut, and my review is up at my blog. My original list is here and I had listed Cat's Cradle for Vonnegut, but it was checked out of the library, so I ended up with this one, which I enjoyed but wasn't 100% impressed by.

Plague Year - Jeff Carlson

2007-10-07T16:03:00.000-04:00

My review is up at my regular blog. Next up: The Guardians.

Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz

2007-10-06T08:43:00.000-04:00

I’ve recently finished reading Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz as part of a round-robin in which I’m participating, and opted to use it as my second selection for Pour of Tor’s Unread Authors reading challenge as well.

you can read my full review, here

Two-thirds done!

2007-10-03T15:11:00.000-04:00

So far, I've read 4 out of 6 books:

Patrick Suskind. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Date read: 9/9/07
Rating: 3* = good
Genre: Historical Fiction/Thriller

My thoughts:

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille - human or monster? Both? Just when I found myself feeling sympathetic to this young man who grew up without human kindness, the monster side of him would emerge and I could sense his scorn for people he fooled with his pretense of humanity. This was a beautifully written book about the importance of smell that we all take for granted and how one man with an incredible gift took advantage of people.

David Sinclair. Sir Gregor MacGregor and the Land That Never Was
Date read: 9/21/2007
Rating: 3* = good
Genre: History/Biography

My thoughts:

This was an informative account showing how one persuasive man with a well-written, descriptive document exploited people's greed and gullibility. Other major topics include the independence movements in Central and South America in the early 19th century and the eagerness of Europeans to help militarily and financially. Sinclair wraps up the book nicely in his analysis of how MacGregor started becoming caught up in his own fantasy towards the end.

Gena Showalter. Awaken Me Darkly
Date read: 9/22/2007
Rating: 3* = good
Genre: SF

My thoughts:

This book was a good mix of police procedural and science fiction. It had a futuristic setting featuring aliens alongside humans with a nice dash of romance. I liked learning Mia's history along with her as her powers are gradually revealed.

Emma Bull. War for the Oaks
Date read: 9/29/2007
Rating: 4* = great
Genre: Urban Fantasy

My thoughts:

This is a beautiful written book that is both poetical and fantastical. liked the mix of music and magic. All the characters were well defined, and I especially liked Eddi, Willy and the phouka.

The White Road by John Connolly

2007-09-30T12:12:00.001-04:00

My first selection for this challenge was John Connolly’s “The White Road”, and while I found it to be an intensely interesting tale, I would not recommend that others who are unfamiliar with Connolly’s writing begin with this one.

You can read my review, here

A Woman in Jerusalem - A.B. Yehoshua

2007-09-24T12:37:00.000-04:00

Title: A Woman in Jerusalem
Author: A.B. Yehoshua; translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Halkin
Country: Israel
Year: 2004
Rating: A
Pages: 237 pgs.

First sentence: Even though the manager of the human resources division had not sought such a mission, now, in the softly radiant morning, he grasped its unexpected significance.

A Woman in Jerusalem, a novel by A.B. Yehoshua, takes place in Jerusalem around 2002. An immigrant woman is killed by a suicide bombing at her local market. Her body lies unidentified for a week, the only clue to her identity a bloody pay stub from a local bakery. After a tabloid newspaper article is written about the bakery's callousness towards her death, the human resource manager is sent on a mission to identify the woman and return her body to her family.

The complete review can be found here.

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

2007-09-22T15:06:00.000-04:00

This wasn't on my original list, but I did add it later as an alternate, and naturally read it first. The review is here.

Catching Up

2007-09-22T14:55:00.000-04:00

I've finished Long Ago in France and reviewed it here. Also finished Season of the Witch and posted my review.

Started Emily Dickinson is Dead, but I didn't like it at all, so it has been discarded. I'd looked forward to this mystery, but found it just plain silly.

Still reading The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher, but this one will take a while to complete since it contains 5 of Fisher's books in one volume.

I'm making progress, but will have to make a substitution for Emily Dickinson Is Dead.

Long Ago in France: The Years in Dijon M.F.K. Fisher (finished)
The Art of Eating M.F.K. Fisher
Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales Marie-Louise von Franz
Emily Dickinson Is Dead Jane Langston (discarded)
Dissolution C. J. Sansom (finished)
Season of the Witch Natasha Mostert (finished)

I'm enjoying checking out everyone else's books. Leading to more Unread Authors!

My list::

2007-09-22T13:45:00.000-04:00

I am joining a bit late but am finally getting my act together and my list!
Here it is:

When Light Breaks

the Dandelion clock

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel

The Book Of Lost Things

One Hundred Million Hearts

The Yokota Officers Club

A Fall Togethe r