Leafing Through Life

From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant by Alex Gilvarry

2012-01-29T08:05:00.000-05:00

Agh, has it been a week since I finished this? Am I already failing at my New Year's Resolution to not neglect my reviews for weeks or months? I can't let it happen - not yet!

When Boyet "Boy" Hernandez moves to New York City from his native Phillippines, he's certain he's entered the land of opportunity. Boy, who has a passion and a talent for designing women's clothing, knows the only place to hit it big is in New York. His dreams are filled with Bryant Park's Fashion Week tents, and he's more than eager to get down to making a splash in the New York fashion scene. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it looks. Finances exile Boy to Bushwick rather than the hipper Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg, and Boy is left to labor on his line in obscurity until he makes the acquaintance of his sketchy downstairs neighbor. Ahmed Qureshi spends his time at home clad in a dishdasha and aqua shoes, but he's an important fabric importer who wants suits that will make a splash in society, and he thinks Boy is just the one to produce them. From then on, despite some reservations about Ahmed's character, the two are in business together. Little does Boy know that his naive willingness to adopt Ahmed as the chief investor for his women's fashion line will eventually land him in a world of trouble.

Gilvarry's novel takes place in the wildly paranoid post-9/11 world. With Guantanamo Bay slurping up would-be terrorists indiscriminately, and the Patriot Act making it easy and legal to monitor even the most innocent of conversation and correspondence, Gilvarry's entertaining satire featuring the hapless Boy is both ridiculous, yet not so far from the truth about the United States in the wake of the attacks. In Boy, Gilvarry has created a unique character that plays perfectly in his tale. Boy, an adamantly straight women's fashion designer, is so single-minded in pursuit of his dreams that he's willing to believe with only fleeting doubts that the fast-talking Ahmed really just is a Canadian businessman with all the right connections.

Boy, who thinks that a fertilizer bomb sounds like something made up, hardly blinks an eye at Ahmed's apartment filled to the brim with the stuff until he finds himself detained at Guantanamo Bay for his association with terroristic activities. Ahmed is obviously trouble but then, he is also an enthusiastic, charismatic and most entertaining terrorist who drives around in a ZipCar (a Toyota Prius to be exact), makes paninis for lunch, and dishes about his home in Nova Scotia where the sun stays up for six months at a time and everyone comes out of their huts and igloos to watch it go down before their six months of night. Ludicrous? Maybe. Hilariously incongruous? Definitely. Twisted though it may be, if I had to name my very favorite part of the book, it would most likely be Ahmed and his antics.

From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant (FtMoaNEC) is a smart, funny, and vaguely frightening picture of the post-9/11 U.S. where an agent named Ben Laden, an apartment with a storage area turned bedroom called a "sleeper cell," and a liason with a guy who's making a deal with the ASPCA seem harmless enough but are enough to put an innocent away in Guantanamo Bay. Admittedly, the book drags a little through the parts where Boy laments his unfortunate detention, and it seems as if Gilvarry is trying to add drama where no drama needs added, but the parts where Boy recounts what led him to this unfortunate turn of events really pop. At the end of the day, though, FtMoaNEC evokes and harpoons the Big Brother-esque age of the Patriot Act so well that the very act of posting this review, chock full of buzz words like terrorist, Guantanamo Bay, and fertilizer; seems like an act of bravery.

(Thanks to the publisher for the review copy!)

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Debuts

2012-01-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

This week is freebie week for Top Ten Tuesday with The Broke and the Bookish. Participants get to choose their own top ten topic or re-visit an old one we didn't get the chance to participate in. Having not participated in all that many Top Ten Tuesdays and being lacking in a certain amount of creativity, I've elected to choose and oldie but a goody - best debuts. I love reading a new author's work first published work and discovering a potential favorite. Actually, I think discovering authors' excellent first works before the rest of the world has a chance to tell you how great they are is one of blogging's greatest pleasures for me. So, I give you some of my very favorite debuts!

1. The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips - I fell in love with the characters in this novel. I'm so excited to read Phillips' new book, Come In and Cover Me.

2. After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell - I have never cried harder at a book than I did the end of this one, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I was so surprised by how O'Farrell's style of writing had wrapped me up so tightly with her main character that I felt so strongly for her by the end. It totally sneaks up on you, but it's incredible.

3. Spilling Clarence by Anne Ursu - Actually, I read Ursu's other book The Disapparation of James first, but this one is better. It's all about a pharmaceutical accident that causes all the people in a town to remember all of their memories, the ones they'd forgotten, the ones they've repressed, all of them. I love how Ursu uses off the wall ideas like not being able to repress memories or the actual disappearance of a kid at a circus to explore serious themes.

4. The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty - I read Laura Moriarty's second novel, The Rest of Her Life, first, but this one appealed to me on a much more visceral level. I saw parts of myself in the narrator that made this hit weirdly close to home even though the narrator's life bears little resemblance to my own.

5. Sweetsmoke by David Fuller - For some reason, I always forget Sweetsmoke when I'm making lists of great books. This book makes the Civil War South and life on a slave-holding plantation leap off the page, plus it's got a great main character and an intriguing mystery angle, too.

6. The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue - I love books that can tell a compelling story and get you to really think about things, too. I loved this story about a changeling and the boy he replaced that is so much more and makes you think about childhood, memory, music, art... Great stuff!

7. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray - I loved this so much that I can't believe that I haven't gotten around to finishing the rest of the series. The boarding school, the magic, the atmosphere plus page-turning suspense made this one a hit with me. Too bad I suck at series, the rest of this one is lurking on my TBR shelf.

8. The Gendarme by Mark Mustian - This was a debut that I picked up at BEA a couple years ago. It's great historical fiction told in flashbacks about a Turkish gendarme who falls in love with an Armenian deportee during the Armenian genocide. I really liked how the story was told in retrospect, and I'd love to see more from this author.

9. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff - This book was full of stuff I don't normally like - no quotation marks, random capital letters, and a bit of incest. And it was great, super great, too. I'm looking forward to Rosoff's latest, There is No Dog.

10. The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister - I loved how Bauermeister gave equal attention to all of her many characters, how she showed food's power to change their lives, and the descriptions are downright delicious. Plus, I'm happy to report that her second book, Joy for Beginners, is very nearly as excellent as the first.

What are some of the best debuts you've discovered?

Loose Leafing: Where AM I?

2012-01-22T08:09:00.000-05:00

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you feel like you were never home? I mean, I know I've been home this week but sparingly, very sparingly, so sparingly it seems like since last Sunday morning I've been home for a grand total of four hours that wasn't spent sleeping, because sleeping time totally doesn't count, right? I've been working, working late, working out, eating out, buying books at the winter library book sale (Bad Megan!), but I've hardly been home, and when I have been, I've been doing chores and paying bills and doing all sorts of things that leave me feeling like I've hardly had a few minutes in a row of downtime. That said, it's nice to be enjoying a much more easy-going weekend. We've just had our first real snow storm of the winter, and it's delightful to be inside catching up on the blogging I've been neglecting and getting into my latest read, The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin while the world outside is all pretty and white.

Random.org, which is picking me books from my own shelves this year, apparently feels like I should be getting in touch with my YA collection. First it was Tiger, Tiger and now The Rules of Survival, which is, so far, an excellent novel about three kids who are looking for a way to escape or at least survive being abused by their mercurial mother. I have a feeling I'm definitely going to like the book, but I'm kind of twisted because I sort of hoped Random.org would pick me a few that wouldn't pass the 50 page test so I could get down to this clearing my shelves thing. Oh well. I guess I'd win either way!
In between all the working and the other working and the more working, I managed to finally finish off Alex Gilvarry's From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant. This was a review copy offered to me by the nice folks at Viking accompanied by this entertaining trailer (be warned, though, the language is not quite all PG) ...

The book is an entertaining mix of the funny and the sad as it follows the hapless Boy Hernandez while he tries to make it as a designer in the New York fashion industry, but has his rise to fame interrupted in a most unusual way. It definitely nails the post-9/11 terrorism hysteria satire, and Boy is unique character with a convincing voice, but I have to admit that the book dragged a little for me, so I'm looking forward to a quick YA read. Watch out for the full review of FTMOANEC (the title is long!) later this week, in accordance with my blogging resolutions. ;-)

Also be on the lookout for my Bad Megan acquisition post, since my trip to the library book sale was, as usual, quite fruitful indeed. I came away with 22 new (used) books to add to my collection, most of which are trade paperbacks, my most beloved of all book formats. I'm totally over hefty hardbacks, and while I love the size of mass markets, I hate how they don't hold up well to use. Ah, but the trade paperback, is there anything better?

No, seriously, is there? What's your favorite book format?

Open Wounds by Joseph Lunievicz

2012-01-15T08:30:00.000-05:00

Cid Wymann has hardly been out of his apartment until the day he secretly follows his grandmother to her Saturday church services. Little does 7-year-old Cid know that this small feat of daring will open up a whole new world, because, you see, his grandmother isn't bound for church at all, but to the matinee of Captain Blood. On this day, Cid falls in love with the world of film not to mention that of swashbuckling sword fighters.

Life isn't easy for Cid, though. His father is a drunk, and his grandmother is so strict she hardly lets him out of the house. Just as Cid is making his first friends in Siggy Braun and Tomik Kopecky who band together to battle the bullies in their Queens neighborhood, Cid's father disappears and his grandmother dies leaving him orphaned. When Cid ends up an orphanage, he learns that he can't count on anyone and that the easiest way to solve problems is with his fists. Cid's on a long road to nowhere when his badly wounded World War I vet cousin, Winston "Lefty" Leftingsham shows up and makes of himself an unlikely hero. A former Shakespearean actor, Lefty takes Cid under his wing and introduces him to acting and soon enough has him practicing fencing with a down on his luck, drunken Russian fencing instructor, who once taught fencing to the Tsar's court but now finds himself in exile.

Open Wounds is one of my favorite YA reads of the year, nay one of my favorite reads of the year period. Lunievicz brings Depression/World War II Era New York City vividly to life. You can feel the cold wind buffeting Cid and his grandmother when they come up from the subway where a sign cautions to "hold your hat." Everything from Cid's hard-up Queens neighborhood where his neighbors on the verge of eviction mount a last stand against the police to the "Jewish Quarter" of the Lower East Side where Siggy ends up trying to make ends meet by selling pickles is perfectly detailed.

Lunievicz's characters leap off the page. They are perfectly unique, fierce on the outside but with hearts of gold that render them hugely sympathetic as their histories are revealed. Cid is lost and damaged after a childhood of being abused and abandoned. He's grown a tough outer shell, but his childhood love of movies and his dreams of fencing are still alive. Lefty is not the savior every kid dreams of, rather he is a badly disfigured eccentric veteran whose morphine habit and rough exterior make him hard to get close to, but he's much more than that as Cid (and readers!) get to know. Cid's fenching instructor, Nikolai Varvarinski, is a sloppy drunk, but a gifted teacher, and even he is more than what he seems. Each character has a carefully drawn backstory, which is slowly revealed, that informs their actions.

Readers will find themselves unable to resist rooting for this misfit crew as they prepare Cid for an ultimate fencing showdown that will resolve much unfinished business from his past. I was utterly captivated by this redemptive coming of age story. There's struggle and triumph, laughter and tears. Lunievicz has crafted a story that it's easy to get lost in, full of characters that should be unlovable or even downright repellant, but who feel like family when the last page is turned.

(Disclaimer: I met Joe Lunievicz at a BEA event, where we enjoyed a lovely evening at Serendipity 3 compliments of JKS Communications. He is super-nice, and I picked up a copy of the book from the Book Blogger Con swag pile with some trepidation because, for some reason, I worried I might not like it and would have to write a "meh" sort of book review, which I would have done, because that's what I do when the book calls for it. But I need not have worried, and really, *you* need not worry, because I am in no way compromising my reviewish integrity by saying I loved this book because I really did. Is this overkill on the disclaimer front?)

Waiting on Wednesday: The O'Briens

2012-01-11T06:45:00.001-05:00

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

The O'Briens by Peter Behrens

Pantheon, March 6, 2012

Synopsis:

An unforgettable saga of love, loss, and exhilarating change spanning half a century in the lives of a restless family.

The O’Briens is a family story unlike any you have read, a tale that pours straight from the heart of a splendid, tragic, ambitious clan. In Joe O’Brien—backwoods boy, railroad magnate, patriarch, brooding soul—Peter Behrens gives us a fiercely compelling character who exchanges isolation and poverty in the Canadian wilds for a share in the dazzling possibilities and consuming sorrows of the twentieth century. When Joe meets Iseult Wilkins in Venice-by-the-Sea, California, the story of their courtship—told in Behrens’s gorgeous, honed style—becomes the first movement in a symphony of the generations. The O’Briens is the story of a marriage and a family moving through history—from the first flying machines, through two world wars, to the election of JFK—told with epic precision and wondrous imagination.

What are you "waiting on" this Wednesday?

Tiger, Tiger by Lynne Reid Banks

2012-01-09T07:12:00.000-05:00

Come one, come all to the new year in Leafing Through Life book reviewing, wherein I attempt to perform the astonishing feat of reviewing the last book I finished before flipping the last page of my current read. In keeping with the new year, my very first book, Tiger, Tiger by Lynne Reid Banks came from my very own shelves (or maybe I mean "from a cardboard box that's become an extension of my shelves"). Actually, it was not quite the very first book of the year seeing as Greg Iles' Blood Memory and Massimo Carlotto's The Goodbye Kiss both got the axe before Tiger, Tiger finally passed the 50 page test with flying colors. Here's to at least making room for the books in the boxes. Oy.

Tiger, Tiger starts off with a bang as two young tiger cubs are torn from their lush jungle home and dropped into the unknown of Ancient Rome. One is destined to fight for its life in the Colosseum, the other is bound for a much cushier life as the showy pet of the Caesar's beautiful young daughter Aurelia. Little does Caesar know that his twin tigers will prove the catalyst for some most unusual and unwelcome happenings, and that when circumstances bring the two cats together again, the results could change an empire.

The tigers, who are important enough to the story that they command a portion of the narration all to themselves, are ultimately a backdrop for young Aurelia's story. Aurelia, daughter of the most powerful ruler of the most powerful empire, at 12 years old is already beautiful and even wise for her age. She knows that even though she is young, the effect of her power on servants and slaves is profound. She is too beautiful to be even be left alone with any man without her father's express permission, so when her new pet tiger comes with a young male keeper, the chain of events is not unsurprising, but young Julius is a slave, and Aurelia, while just within reach, is strictly off-limits.

Tiger, Tiger, though it tends toward the overly predictable, is still an enchanting piece of middle grade historical fiction that follows a princess as she comes of age in Ancient Rome. Banks' Rome is vividly portrayed both in its opulence and its barbarism. Aurelia's personal space is vast, and her tiger, Boots, is given a bejeweled collar even while slaves, gladiators, and Christians are sent into the Colosseum to be mauled to death by Boots' brother Brute all at simple thumbs up or thumbs down from Aurelia's father, the all-powerful Caesar.

Through Aurelia's eyes, the terrors of the Colosseum are revealed with happenings so awful and disgusting that Aurelia is left unable to so much as look her father in the eye with love. The love story is sweet, chaste, and ultimately more powerful than expected. Aurelia herself is a great character, gentle and caring and quite unprepared for the barbarism that sustains her father's empire. She possesses the perfect marriage of childish foolishness that has far-reaching implications and a wisdom beyond her years as she navigates her growing knowledge of the awful things her father's and her own power is built upon.

Tiger, Tiger is a captivating story of much more than just tigers that opens a window on Rome that will make ancient history accessible and even enjoyable to younger readers - and older ones, too.

Little Princes by Conor Grennan

2012-01-04T07:37:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make. For most of 2011, I was frightened of reading non-fiction. You may have heard the one about how I'm a slow reader, especially slow by book blogging standards. After a few so-so non-fiction reads that dragged down the pace of my already turtle-ish reading speed to a distinctly unenjoyable creepy crawl, you might be able to understand my reluctance to take a chance on anymore non-fiction that had the potential to easily derail my reading momentum.

The thing is my reading past is littered with some extremely fantastic non-fiction reads, but for most of 2011 I let a few bad apples ruin the whole crop for me. Despite my irrational fears and probably against my better judgement, I requested a copy of Conor Grennan's Little Princes for review from William Morrow Paperbacks. When I'm not pathologically avoiding non-fiction, Grennan's story of rescuing trafficked children in Nepal is just the sort of non-fiction to which I'm drawn. Just my luck, it arrived in the mail just after I'd finished tearing through Mockingjay and was ready for something totally different. Something...perhaps non-fiction? I'm so glad that all the planets aligned, and I picked up this book for my last read of 2011 because I loved it and I think maybe, just maybe, it's broken through my foolish fears and opened up the world of non-fiction for me again.

Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal
by Conor Grennan
William Morrow Paperbacks

Conor Grennan's unexpected journey began with a trip around the world. To quiet the naysayers who thought spending his life savings on world travel was a touch on the irresponsible, self-indulgent side, some volunteering was in order. To his credit, Grennan didn't elect to spend his time comforting koalas, he signed up for a few months volunteering at an orphanage in civil war-torn Nepal. There he discovered that many of Nepal's orphans are not orphans at all but children trafficked away from their distant homes for the gain of men who would promise desperate parents a safe haven for their children. These parents, believing they could save their children from becoming drafted into the Maoist rebel army and have them be educated and fed in distant Kathmandu to boot, sacrificed everything to send their children to "safety." Safety, however, turned out to be more like slavery to the greedy men who were pleased to line their own pockets with the profits from begging children and destitute families.

Little did Conor realize how much he would come to love the kids at the Little Princes Children's Home in Godawari, kids who would pile on new volunteers at the least provocation, who good-naturedly ribbed culture-shocked Conor, kids who were so far from home and family but who managed to be joyful anyway. Little did he expect that after his year of world travel, he would find himself returning to Little Princes for another stint of volunteering. He could hardly have imagined that seven trafficked kids he promised safety would see him rejecting the luxuries of first world living in favor of returning to Nepal to start a children's home of his own and to attempt an improbable quest to reunite trafficked children with their parents in the distant, isolated region of Humla.

Grennan's story is downright inspiring. He draws out the kids' personalities vividly in his writing, and it's easy to understand how one could be passionate about saving them despite the odds. Grennan's memoir is peppered with humor, with suspense, danger, and even a surprising and genuine love story.

Most impressive, though, is Grennan's honest telling of his story and the transformation of his character from his first time stepping through the gate at Little Princes to who he became through working at the would-be impossible task of finding 7 missing children among thousands. Grennan tells it like it is starting with his not-so-honorable reasons for volunteering in the first place, giving us all the embarrassing details of trying to fit into a new culture with a bunch of kids whose names he can initially barely remember, and not shying away from the huge emotional attachment he had to these kids after only a few weeks. He makes no secret of initially using his volunteering in Nepal story to woo women at bars, is unapologetic about his non-interest in getting married and having kids of his own. By the time the last page is flipped, readers will feel like they really know Conor Grennan, that they were there watching as stopped being a something of a self-involved boy and became a passionate, self-sacrificing man. Readers won't be able to help liking him, despite and perhaps because of how freely he describes his failings alongside his triumphs.

Little Princes somehow manages to be a compulsively readable story about a painful problem, a tribute to children with spectacular resilience, and a portrait of an average guy who became a hero for children in Nepal.

And in even more good news, if you happen to buy a copy, not only will you have the pleasure of reading a fantastic book, part of the proceeds will go to Grennan's non-profit, Next Generation Nepal, to keep doing the good work that you'll be reading about in the book.

(Thanks to William Morrow Paperbacks for sending me a copy for review!)

Reflection and Resolution

2012-01-02T09:13:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year, all! I hope you all enjoyed some New Year's revelry, or at least some quality long weekend reading time. I know I've enjoyed a good deal of both. But now, here at Leafing Through Life, it's time to get back down to business. For me that means reflecting on the reading and blogging of 2011 and then scheming about how to make 2012 an even better reading and blogging year. I'll be honest, I don't usually write one of these posts. For one, true reflection on last year's reading requires me to divulge the paltry amount of books I manage to read in a year. This is in comparison to all the especially voracious readers of the book blogging world rather than the general public, of course. Hopefully. I also usually take a hard line against any but the most vague resolutions because, you know, who likes to fail at publicly stated goals?

But enough talk, I'm biting the bullet this year, and writing the recap and the resolutions. Go big or stay home, right?

Here it goes...

In 2011, I read a grand total of 44 books and 12,218 pages. While I'm busy making myself look bad, that books read number is actually higher than any one of the past 3 years. Which is good, but there's still some room for improvement.

Of those 44, I managed to review only 33 in the confines of 2011, though 2 more reviews are currently in the works.

Now for some wild disparities...

39 books read were fiction, only 5 were non-fiction. (Oh non-fiction, where have you gone? I miss you, but I find you kind of scary...)

A paltry 10 were plucked from my own shelves (10!!). (I will not tell you how many unread books are on my shelves. I want to retain some small bit of dignity by the end of this post.) The rest (34 books) of this year's reading were in some respect or another review copies (offered to and accepted by me from publishers/authors/publicists, requested from Shelf Awareness, or picked up at BEA). How did I not notice this happening??

And some less wild disparities...

This year the ladies ruled with 25 of my reads being authored by women and only 16 by men (3 more by both).

29 books written for "grown-ups," 15 for a younger audience - children's, middle grade, YA. (Finally, a breakdown that I find fairly acceptable!)

2011 was a fair reading year in terms of quality with a good balance between, 5, 4, and 3 star reads (But a few 2 star reads snuck in there, too. Yikes!). More importantly, though it was a big year for self (shelf?) discovery. I rarely truly crunch my numbers, so honestly, it's kind of shocking to see those huge disparities, and it's definitely something I intend to change up a bit. In other news, 2011 started off to be a good blogging year, but things kind of went seriously south in places, and I admit I was not feeling the joy of blogging so much as feeling the guilt of not being where I thought I should be. In the interests of a less disparate year and also a more guilt-free blogging year, I give you...resolutions!

I hereby declare that this year, I will attempt to...

Read more non-fiction. I like non-fiction. I will no longer let a few bad apples frighten me away from lots of non-fiction books I have the potential to really enjoy.

Read and/or get rid of more books from my own shelves. My shelves are long overdue for an overhaul. There are tons of great books that I haven't gotten around to reading yet for no especially good reason except for all the other shiny new books I've been reading. Additionally, there are tons of books that I'm probably ready to let go, but I can't seem to set them free without at least giving them a 50 page chance. This year I'd like to make at least every other book that I read be a book that I've had for more than, say, 6 months, and I'd like to use Random.org in conjunction with my LibraryThing library to make sure I'm picking up some of those books that I'm on the cusp of getting rid of.

Embrace the DNF. This is especially important in light of the previous resolution. I don't give up on books that aren't doing it for me nearly as often as I ought. This year, as I read from my own overburdened shelves, must be different. Bad or "meh" books will be given no quarter, they'll be given away. So far, so good. 2 days into the year and I've already DNFed two "no longer my cup of tea" books from my shelves.

Show some restraint. With review copies (and book acquisition in general). I'm a long way from giving up review copies. I love the new and the shiny and the delectable feeling of having found a great book early in its "life." That said, the time has come to stop "giving a chance" to books that walk the fine line between something I think I'll like and something I worry that I won't. Discernment needs to be the name of my game this year.

Write reviews within a week of finishing the book. This is going to be my loftiest goal, I think. I've always benefited from a little bit of "marination" between reading a book and writing about it, but this year it got out of hand and turned into downright avoidance of writing reviews once the week long window had closed, until it became months between the reading of the book and the subsequent reviewing of it. I end up feeling like a jerk because I actually have some great books that are still waiting for me to review them because my reviewing mojo wandered off sometime in the middle of 2011. I think not waiting too long to write my reviews will do wonders for my relationship with my blog which was, unfortunately, plagued by guilt for much of this past year.

There, I've done it, forthrightly admitted the extent of my turtle-y reading pace and even publically stated some goals. Is there anything you're looking forward to changing/improving about the way you read and blog this year?

Merry After Christmas!

2011-12-27T06:44:00.000-05:00

Season's Greetings, all!

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas (or whatever else you might happen to celebrate this time of year)! I spent some great time with my family this year, and got a bunch of great gifts like a Wii Fit and the complete paperback boxed set of Harry Potter books that I've been itching to have ever since I had to give back the first five that I'd borrowed to read. I know I had a great Christmas season and an excellent holiday, but I am more than ready to get my life back on track. It seems I've been letting a ton of things slip, not least the blog you see before you, while I've been frantically bouncing between one Christmas thing and another.

This month has been a colossal blogging failure. That said, I have good news! I think its rejuvenation is on horizon because, you see, though I may not be blogging, I have been reading and enjoying it more than I have since something like a few months ago. I'm imaginging that this whole loving reading thing combined with that inevitable "I'm going to do everything better, faster, stronger, etc!" feeling that comes with the new year will help me get back on track.

I've been thinking about this year's reading and mulling over some loose blogging and reading goals for next year. Once I hash them out in my head, expect to see a post here. Hopefully if I actually publish a few goals this year, it will help me to keep to them a little better. I'm also considering the recipients for this year's Leafy Awards, to be bestowed early in the new year. And yet more, I'm considering, you know, actually reviewing some books here at some point. My reviewing mojo has been way, super off in the latter part of this year, and believe you me, the when and the how of book reviewing are two things I'm really working over for that goals post.

So what's new, everybody? Get any great bookish Christmas plunder? Do you have any admirable reading and blogging goals that I, too, can aspire to for next year?

Loose Leafing: Christmastopia!

2011-12-11T14:27:00.000-05:00

Hello, blog, it's me, Megan! I know, content around here has been sparse lately. As usual, I have just buckets of excuses several of which involve me never being home, several others of which involve Christmas, still others of which can be blamed on the TV, and one more that can be blamed on Damn You Auto Correct! Well, that last one is pretty self-explanatory. Nonetheless, this week is likely to be more of the same, ergo, I am writing this post to assuage any fears that I may have just fallen off the face of the earth. Because I'm sure you were totally just worrying about that, right? Because you have nothing better to worry about? ;-)

First, Christmas. It's coming. I'm not ready. We got a (real!) tree that we decorated while drinking wine (one of the great new holiday traditions!). I've been to see a local production of The Santaland Diaries, and we even finally made it to the Christkindl Market in local Mifflinburg where we devoured delicious German foods, drank hot mulled wine, and purchased some items from local crafters all while marveling at things like an itinerant Christmas tree.

In between all this and you know, working at my job, I've managed to order a few presents, and even buy a few in person, but they are decidedly not enough, and I am totally stalled in the whole Christmas gift inspiration thing. Despite the fact that there are no good bookstores that I know of less than 45 minutes away from my house, buying the books is the easy part. ;-) I'm afraid, though, that I've stumbled into one of the pitfalls of online shopping. The books that I ordered from Barnes and Noble (in my valiant but only token effort to patronize an online business other than the dread Amazon) arrived without incident on Wednesday. Yesterday I tracked the CDs which departed for here via "Smart Mail" the same day. These CDs, if they ever get here, will be more well-traveled than I am. I live in Pennsylvania. The CDs started their journey in Kentucky, traveled to Maryland (almost here!), and then they went to..... California? There they have been cooling their ~~heels~~ cases (?) for several days now. I beg to differ on the assumption that this mail is "smart." If they don't start working their way back across the country tomorrow, somebody will be receiving an irate phone call from this Christmas shopper.

In other news, my mother, who doesn't share any of my reservations about Amazon purchased this beauty for our (male) dog for Christmas (in theory). Here is the promotional photo (compliments of Amazon.com):

Here is the photo that made my dad and I eat our words ($80??? It's pink???) as Rudy happens to thoroughly enjoy what we are now affectionately referring to as the "Barbie Hut."

Mom 1, Dad & Megan 0.

And here is what I stumbled upon this morning...

Rudy 1, Barbie Hut 0.

On the reading front? I'm finally giving myself the gift of The Hunger Games series this holiday season. Okay, actually my aunt (hello, stealth blog reader! LOL!), the one who always buys great books as gifts (see previous post), gave them to me last holiday season, but I am giving myself the gift of actually reading them this holiday season. So I can join the rest of the free world. And what says Merry Christmas more than a pack of starving teenagers slaughtering each other in a woodsy future arena? But seriously, I just finished the first book, and loved it as much as everyone said I would. Really, the only reason you're seeing me now is that I've briefly come up for air between books.

These are the perfect holiday season books because during this time of year reading time isn't found, it's made, so I needed something totally engrossing that would keep me reading despite the odds, and I've looked in the right place! Unfortunately, I've "made" my sleeping time into reading time, my blogging time into reading time, my eating time into reading time, my Christmas shopping time into reading time, my...well, you get the idea. This is killing my noble goals of closing out my backlog of reviews before the end of the year and giving my Christmas shopping a tendency toward the uncreative and easy to buy gift cards, but jeez, am I enjoying it!

How's December treating you? Are you crazy busy like me? What great books are getting you through?

Top Ten Tuesday: Childhood Favorites

2011-12-06T19:22:00.001-05:00

I'm late, I'm late! But this week's Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and the Bookish is too good to miss. It's all about our childhood favorites, and I'm excited to share 10 of the best books I grew up with.

1. White Fang by Jack London - Okay, maybe it started with the movie with young Ethan Hawke, but I liked the book quite a bit, too!

2. Little House on the Prairie Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder - When I was a kid, I had one of those tiny chalkboards, and one of the things I did to pass my lonely only child time when I was young was to transcribe Little House in the Big Woods on my tiny chalkboard, in small pieces of course. Is that weird? Okay, yes, but in short, I loved these books. I can't believe I gave them away when I got older!

3. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg - I love Chris Van Allsburg's books. This was my first one given to me by my aunt for Christmas. She was always the best at picking me out a decent book or few for the holidays. Van Allsburg's books are just magical. This one, Jumanji, Just a Dream...loved them when I was a kid, and I still love them now!

4. Animalia by Graeme Base - This is another great book my aunt got me. It's got it all. Stunning illustrations. A clever animal alliteration for each letter of the alphabet. And if you didn't feel like reading or ogling the pretty pictures, you could always search for the kid in the striped shirt hidden in every picture.

5. Goosebumps Series by R.L. Stine - I devoured these when I was a kid. Couldn't get enough of them.

6. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst and Ray Cruz - There's plenty of kids books out there with sugary sweet messages. This one tells it like it is. Some days just suck, but maybe (hopefully!) you'll laught about it later like you'll laught at this book.

7. A Break With Charity and pretty much anything else by Ann Rinaldi - I credit Ann Rinaldi with a healthy portion of my love for historical fiction. When I read her books, I felt just like I was in whatever portion of history she was telling about. A Break With Charity is about the Salem Witch Trials which are very interesting to start with!

8. The Cat Who... books by Lilian Jackson Braun - For whatever reason, when I was in middle school, the library just began getting nice, new copies of these books in, and I was totally hooked on them. I'd never even *had* a cat, but I had a great time reading about Jim Qwilleran and his feline sleuths.

9. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell - I can't believe I almost forgot this one. This story, told by a horse, is one I'd gladly read again.

10. Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli - "Maniac" is an orphan who becomes a legend in his small town. He's super-fast, he can untie impossible knots, and hit the pitches no one else can. Here's another one that's due for a re-read!

Honorable mentions (meaning, I forgot them, and remembered them after the post went up and couldn't believe I'd forgotten them in the first place): Something Big Has Been Here by Jack Prelutsky (I can still recite the title poem from memory!) and Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein (If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hope, a prayer, a magic bean buyer. If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire... Love this book, too. Sooo much!)

What books do you have the fondest memories of reading as a kid?

The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

2011-11-29T08:15:00.000-05:00

That's why I'll never forget the first time I saw Kai. He was standing in the open road drinking a glass of water like it didn't matter - water from an old plastene cup.

When Vera first spies Kai, he is dumping the remains of a cup of water into the dust near her Republic of Illinowa home. This very act is unheard of, illegal, grotesque even, in a world where severe water shortages have divided what was the United States into several warring republics. In Vera's world, the Breadbasket of the United States has been transformed into desert, the moisture-less air is practically poison to breathe, and most adults can be referred to as "shakers" because the years of constant thirst have taken their toll. Kai is a mystery. The son of a driller, he travels in a limo with a bodyguard, yet relishes the humble company Vera and her family have to offer. He even claims to know the location of a secret river, something that has fallen to the status of mere myth in a world where people depend on the government's paltry rations of the world's remaining water to survive. Unfortunately, before Vera can figure out Kai's story or her feelings for him, he disappears.

The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher is a fast-paced, thrill a minute dystopian that leaves virtually every chapter at a cliffhanger as Vera and her brother, Will, embark on a desperate, often nearly hopeless journey to find Kai. In their journey, they come upon all kinds of humanity from the unexpectedly righteous to the dangerous to the greedy and merciless, all locked in a battle for water and wealth that must be won by whatever means possible. Stracher's world without water is terrifying. The greed and power-mongering caused by such a severe shortage of what we truly require to survive is realistically drawn. Stracher's vision of the political and economic implications of the panic caused by the dwindling of one resource nations once treated as infinite is wholly believable.

Unfortunately, much of the rest of the book isn't. Maintaining such a fast pace to the story results in a great many contrivances. The times that Will and Vera are saved from an impossible situation at the last possible second by an unlikely occurrence are practically innumerable. In fact, the very premise of the story asks readers to rely on a quickly and thinly constructed fascination with Kai's improbable knowledge of where to find water and a possible blooming romance between Vera and Kai. The beginning rushes through this crucial set-up period, and this makes Will and Vera's sudden eagerness to find and save Kai on their own seem that much more inexplicable. Vera herself is a lovable enough narrator that you can't help cheering on, but the lack of a very distinctive voice makes it seem that the story could just as easily have been narrated by anyone.

Until the politics and economics are fleshed out midway through the novel, Stracher's future feels a little flimsy, driven more by the awkward renaming of everyday things than by explanation. Inexplicably giving something old, a clever new name doesn't quite manage the daunting task of creating a future earth. For example, the pedicycles Will and Vera use to get around. There's no reason given to think that a pedicycle is anything more than a simple bicycle with a new name that seems meant to say "Hey, look, it's the future. We call things different names now." That said, I will say that the new name for synthetically produced avocados - quasi-vocados - put a smile on my face.

Despite some problems, The Water Wars is an entertaining, extremely fast-paced adventure that readers will race through. Stracher's got a good handle on the way human nature might restructure a world with a profound shortage of water - the wars that would take place, the companies that would spring up to take advantage of the situation, the bribery and thievery that would become a daily threat to society. For readers who might prefer a more action-packed dystopian story than the more slow-burning, character-driven ones that I seem to prefer, The Water Wars has all the right stuff, but this reader was left just a little lukewarm.

(Thanks go to the publisher, Sourcebooks, for providing me with a copy for review.)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

2011-11-22T22:19:00.000-05:00

Or, "Look, Megan Read a Classic!"

Yes, this happens once in a while. I actually sit down and read a book that has gained some notice as a classic of literature. Usually, it's my book group's fault. I require a little extra motivation and explanation to attempt a classic, so when the book group that I on again off again participate in reads one that I already have on my shelf, I attempt to join in. That is how it came to be that I killed almost all of September reading The Grapes of Wrath which, I think, would throw a curve at the speediest of readers. You see, I like a good depressing book, but The Grapes of Wrath tends toward the downright frustrating, and September was a frustrating, depressing sort of month to start with, without dealing with the Joad family's Great Depression misfortunes.

Once upon a time, I read Steinbeck's East of Eden, and to this day, should you ask me to tell you my favorite books, it would make the list. In high school english classes whenever I was handed a reading list of classics from which I could choose my own book, rather than having a specific one assigned, I had an astonishing habit of picking books for myself that I loathed far more than the ones specifically assigned. I don't know if it was pure bad luck or if I just didn't know my tastes so well back then, but it was almost a guarantee that if I chose the classic myself, it would surely not be a good match for me. Then, one time, I chose of East of Eden, a doorstopper of a book that everyone thought I was crazy for attempting, and I somehow loved it. I remember tuning out everything going on in the cafeteria and even reading it at lunch, so absorbed was I in the story. Having enjoyed E of E so much, I've long meant to read The Grapes of Wrath, it being, arguably, Steinbeck's more widely appreciated novel. I'm sad to report that it didn't have the effect that E of E did on me, but that's not to say that I, too, didn't appreciate it.

(Ahem - be aware, there are probably a few spoilers in here somewhere...)

In The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck tells the story of one family, the Joads, who have been evicted from their dry Oklahoma land during the Great Depression and have been forced to choose to migrate to California where there are supposedly jobs for the taking in a veritable land of milk and honey. Steinbeck introduces us to the Joads as they hopefully make ready to travel the width of the country in a cobbled together jalopy with what little money they were able to get from selling off most of their belongings. In dialogue rich with realistic dialect, we come to know Tom, recently paroled from prison for killing a man; his Pa, a man nearly beaten down from his circumstances; Ma, a woman with an iron will who will stop at nothing to keep her family from falling apart; his sister pregnant Rose of Sharon whose husband is full of dreams for their future; and Uncle John who has spent a lifetime trying to face or escape his imagined sin. Through the pages, readers come to an intimate knowledge of the family as they head west helping who they can though they are struggling to make it themselves. It's perhaps because readers come to know and love the family in all its strengths and its failings that makes The Grapes of Wrath a difficult read to swallow.

Each time it seems that the Joads might finally catch a break, the work dries up, the stream floods, the picking doesn't pay enough for even one decent meal. Tragedy follows in their footsteps, and it's infuriating because despite the fact that you know somewhere in your mind that things aren't on track to work out, Steinbeck's populist rhetoric and his assurances that the men are still angry, and therefore not beaten, gives readers reason to hope that things can and will turn around. There is always a growing impression that perhaps finally the men are ready to combine their great numbers to force the changes that will give them the chance at life they thought they were getting when they set out for California.

There is absolutely no subtlety nor any particular artfulness to be found in the Joads' story. Never for a moment do readers need to wonder where Steinbeck stands on the events that are taking place. Steinbeck is more than eager to hammer his points home as he preachily derides the corporate farmers whose tractors and hired hands eliminate the connection between men and the land that sustains them. He flays California landowners whose vast fields of hardy crops do nothing for the migrants starving for lack of work. He paints heavy handed pictures of people starving in Hoovervilles even while farmers discard crops to to maintain prices.

If, indeed, there is art in Steinbeck's American classic, it lives in the alternating chapters where Steinbeck interrupts his telling of the Joads' journey, to generalize the very much shared experience of the thousands of migrants who fled to California during the Depression. In them, he captures the haggling for a junk car, the staggering number of people heading west fed only on dreams, the growing anger of powerless men, the etiquette of camping, and even the dances that give struggling families a break, however brief, from their sufferings. In these chapters, Steinbeck lets the many voices be heard, he paints pictures with dialogue, and his words even carry the very rhythm of the dance.

There are many things to like and to dislike about The Grapes of Wrath. It is preachy, heavy handed, depressing, frustrating, perhaps even exaggerated, but it is also a profound, and perhaps even hopeful story, of a family's strength in the face of unbelievable struggle. Steinbeck's writing gives poetry to populism, and even now, The Grapes of Wrath has the enduring power to cause the righteous anger that can bring about change that so much of society still desperately needs.

Pre-Thanksgiving Loose Leafing

2011-11-20T09:10:00.000-05:00

Here it is, Loose Leafing take two, wherein I write about whatever I darn well feel like. Look for it to become a regular thing, because, well, I kind of like it. I've got pictures this time. Are we excited?

Choco-Turkey is ready for Thanksgiving. Are you?

It's hard to believe, I mean, really hard to believe that Thanksgiving is only days away and the holiday season is pretty much upon us. As far as I can tell, I've never been less ready. I'm usually a total Christmas nut, but I'm having a hard time wrangling myself into the mood for it despite the fact that I'm busy cramming my schedule full of Christmas-y activities. I got out my Christmas music this week when my new Glee Christmas Album came, but where I'm usually chomping at the bit for Christmas music, this year I'm kind of meh about even that. Here's hoping for some Christmas spirit, pronto!

In follow up from last time's Loose Leafing post, not only is the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree indeed taken from somebody's yard in a town across the river from where I live (10 minutes away tops), it also happens to have belonged to my mom's great aunt, which apparently I probably shouldn't admit to because in the interviews the family's done, they've made us all look like a pack of bumpkins. But, whatever, I'm totally famous by proxy now. You can have my autograph. For a small fee, of course. ;-)

I am getting excited about Thanksgiving though, especially with the arrival of Choco-Turkey. Choco-Turkey is, by far, the best of my family's newer holiday traditions. A couple years ago my parents and I were window shopping in a small local town and wandered into a Purity Candy store where we discovered that they make chocolate turkeys in all sizes. Obviously, when one sees a large chocolate turkey, one must have it, so we got one that year and have gotten one every year since. It drives my younger cousins crazy having to wait for someone to liberate Choco-Turkey from his wrap and chop him up into reasonably sized pieces, and with good reason, because Choco-Turkey is delicious.

Here's a sad, sad story. I can't wait for re-runs on TV. You see, I love TV too much, or at least my parents do, and since I live with them and am a sheep, I love it by default. During the summer months my mom mourns the loss of new TV episodes while I can barely contain my glee because, at last, I've got free time for other things, you know, like this reading and blogging stuff that I love so much. Each year, I am determined to add fewer shows to my TV watching plate which, this year in particular, has been a dismal failure. You see, there are too many good new shows that I just had to add to my already overflowing crop of old favorites. Now I'm hooked on Pan Am, Once Upon a Time, Revenge, and The New Girl in addition to all the old favorites - Castle, Criminal Minds, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, The Big Bang Theory, The Mentalist and more(!!). Yikes! So, yeah, I need a few holiday season re-runs to get my life back on track and my Christmas shopping done. What excellent TV shows are you into this season?

In reading news - I am actually managing to fit in some of that too (thank goodness for lunch breaks!) - I finished The Legacy by Katherine Webb which I think I actually appreciated more for my being a slow reader (for a change). I'm near to finishing Cameron Stracher's The Water Wars which is entertaining with a few drawbacks. In between, I've been shuffling in a story or two by various authors from The Chronicles of Harris Burdick based on Chris Van Allsburg's mysterious illustrations. The stories are deliciously fantastical and not to mention slightly off-center, and I'm much enjoying my brief interludes with them.

Now, I'll leave you with a picture of my cat because that's what all the cool bloggers do, right? It's not a particularly good picture, I swear my house isn't that sickening shade of yellow, though I'm sad to admit that the carpet unfortunately is. I took this picture through the banister rungs on the stairs where Merlin tries to attract some love and attention and (now) photo-ops from unwitting passers-by.

Here's Merlin. That's his "fat, dark, and catty (not to mention legless)" look.

Hope you all have a great week and a happy holiday (if you're celebrating on Thursday)!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Have Been on My Shelves Forever

2011-11-15T06:44:00.003-05:00

I like today's theme for The Broke and the Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday. It's all about those books that have spent many long years on our shelves but have never managed to get read. It definitely lead to the dawning realization that I have had some of my books for a looooong time, so long that I don't even know when or how I came into possession of them, only that I've also intended to read them for a loooong time. Here are some of my more long-neglected books...maybe you can help me decide if they're really worth hanging onto for that elusive future read!

1. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - I think this one landed on my shelves back in the major heyday of Oprah's Book Club when my mother and I were discovering the wonderful world of literary fiction. I want to read it, but I've read so many mixed reviews that I'm kind of skeptical.

2. Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice - I can't remember a time when this book wasn't on my shelf. Most books I can at least remember when I acquired, not so with Interview With the Vampire. I saw the movie and liked it, and I've always wanted to give the book a shot, but then the mass market paperback has super tiny print that always manages to scare me off before I get very far.

3. A Son of the Circus by John Irving - This is the first of many John Irving books that I've purchased over the years that I've subsequently never read. Luckily, my mom's kind of a fan, so they're not all going to waste while they await my attentions.

4. Skeleton Crew by Stephen King - I love Stephen King, and I've even started this book a few times. The first story, "The Mist," I've read several times, and it's deliciously disturbing, but I never seem to get much further.

5. Seize the Night by Dean Koontz - I should probably just get rid of this one, but Dean Koontz is one I go to for easy (dare I say "comfort"?) reading whose books I tend to enjoy if I can manage to get past his wildly awkward metaphors.

6. Marlfox (Redwall Book 11) by Brian Jacques - The Redwall books were some of favorites when I was younger, but despite the fact that I've kept collecting them over the years, they've kind of fallen into that abyss between what I used to read and what I read now. I'd love to read the rest of the series, though, and this is about where I left off. In fact, I wouldn't mind reading this whole series all over again. It's full of good memories!

7. The Chamber by John Grisham - When I was in high school, I looooved John Grisham. I spent a few good nights with the likes of A Time to Kill and The Client. I haven't read Grisham in forever, but I can't bring myself to part with this one that my parents say is their favorite of his books. Unfortunately, I haven't quite managed to read it yet, either.

8. And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts - As I was combing my collection for the long-neglected I noticed this one that's been gathering dust on my shelves for far too long, has an impressive 4.38 stars rating on Library Thing. When I stop being such a slacker about reading non-fiction, I think this one should probably be up first!

9. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon - I've heard so many good things about this series that I have half of it sitting on my shelves. I've got a total thing for Scotland, so this is probably going to be right up my alley, but it's kind of hunormous and therefore inconvenient to carry to work for lunchtime reading and therefore has been sitting neglected on my shelves for far too long.

10. She Walks These Hills by Sharyn McCrumb - I started reading Sharyn McCrumb's mysteries set in Appalachia in high school, too, starting with The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter which I really liked. I've been collecting them ever since. Soon maybe I'll even read them starting with this one that I've had the longest.

So - those are the books that have been awaiting my reading attentions the longest. Have you read and loved any of them? Are there any I should just give up and chuck on the donation pile?

The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

2011-11-13T08:31:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe that 10 years ago, there was no Facebook. We didn't live to take the better, more exciting profile picture. We didn't endlessly overshare our lives in sentence-long status updates. There was no one writing on our Walls, "liking" our posts, or tagging embarassing photos of us. It wasn't nearly so easy to "stalk" the people we knew back when. In fact, it was nearly unimaginable to think that we'd share so much of our lives in a place where everyone could see. Imagine how much you could find out about yourself if you stumbled upon your future Facebook page years before Facebook was even invented, and then you've stumbled upon the clever premise of The Future of Us.

It's 1996 when Emma gets her first computer, and when her next-door neighbor, Josh, stops by to volunteer one of those America Online 100 free hours CD-ROMS, Emma dutifully waits out the hours long install, and dials up to the internet (Ah, the good ol' days!). Upon logging on for the first time, Emma mysteriously stumbles upon, you guessed it, a Facebook page for a woman that seems stunningly like her. In fact, it is her, only 15 years in the future. Thinking it's a stupid prank, Emma demands that Josh look, too, and soon the pair are wrapped up in their future lives which are being all-too-easily altered by even the smallest ripples of what they are doing in 1996.

The Future of Us is a clever tale that should have wide appeal. Readers from my generation who remember logging onto AOL for the first time with the sound of a dial-up modem ringing in their ears will get a kick out of all the vaguely nostalgiac references to the things that remind us of our own teenagerhood. I mean, who doesn't get a laugh out of the stone ages when we had to get off the internet if we wanted to make a phone call, at least until we got that coveted second phone line? Today's teenagers should fall in love with Emma and Josh, neighbors and former best friends whose relationship has grown more than a little awkward since some signals were misread and hearts were broken. It's easy to relate to these two teens who are neither super popular nor super losers.

Whether you're young or old, it's not hard to understand Emma's obsession with whether she'll be happy in the future and Josh's desperation to hang on to a future that's beyond his wildest dreams. The suspense of waiting for their next look into their futures keeps the pages turning even as the tension of preserving or obliterating their Facebook futures drives the two friends apart. Asher and Mackler's story pops with realistic dialogue and is a fun read that reminds us that happiness isn't out there somewhere waiting to happens, sometimes it's right in front of our eyes.

The Future of Us hits bookstore shelves November 21st.

Loose Leafing

2011-11-05T13:00:00.003-04:00

Ok, so, once upon a time when I started my blog, I started it with the idea that it would be about my life and books. As the years went by, I started to buy into the lie that my blog needed to be focused, and that if I mixed in all these silly "life" things on my blog, my "book blog" would have no street cred. (Heh heh, a book blog with street cred. That's funny...). Then I made (over and over again) the stunning realization that I prefer book blogs where I get a glimpse inside the minds and lives of the blogger behind the book reviews. Given this staggering~~ly obvious~~ realization, added to my dismal dirty little secret (shhhh, don't tell) that if I manage to read a whole 4 books in a month that's considered a big win in Meganland (yes, all you proper book bloggers put me to terrible shame), I've decided to loosen up and bring back the random life stuff. Probably once a week. If I can think of some good random life stuff.

- I went to the chiropracter this morning and when I scheduled my next appointment it came up for December 10th. December 10th! Can anybody tell me where this year went? And shouldn't I be out Christmas shopping??

- Today I faced one of my life's great fears. The automatic car wash. Stop laughing. I'm not talking about just any car wash that you drive into and the nice little automated arm goes around and sprays your car with any number of mysterious chemicals. I'm talking the one where you have to drive onto the little conveyor thing and put your car in neutral and it tows you through while any number of mysterious chemicals are sprayed on your vehicle and big floppy heavy duty cloths beat on your car and then some guy towel dries your shiny clean vehicle at the end. For some reason, I've always been mildly petrified about this particular car wash - maybe it's the stage fright of knowing when to put your car in neutral, how to maneuver your wheels into the conveyor-y grooves, when to drive away at the end. I mean, jeez, I don't want to look any more idiotic than some moron who would pay 13 freaking dollars for a car wash already looks. However, today I was feeling brave and forked over an exorbitant amount of money to try out the wash. It was not so terrifying, and my car looks like new, but now I have a new fear to face. Am I becoming one of these people who will actually pay $13 for a car wash? Jeez.

- One of the front page headlines on today's local (small town) paper has to do with conjecture that a big evergreen tree from what looks to be somebody's yard in the tiny town across from the river from where I live is being plucked for use in New York City's Rockefeller Center this Christmas. The transporting crew is the crew that normally does this apparently, and they have been taking care of said tree for months now according to the paper, and when asked about the destination of the tree, crews give a number for an NYC publicist. Could it be true? Magic eightball says....Ask again later.

Say, where'd you get that tree?

- Did you know that if you spend a grand total of two hours being wildly productive on a Saturday, it totally makes you feel like it's acceptable to do absolutely nothing of consequence for the rest of the weekend? I'm not sure if this is true, it's probably not, but if I don't accomplish anything until Monday, I'm pretty sure I won't feel too guilty.

- I think I'm trying to make a triumphant return to doing Zumba next week. I'm a little nervous because whenever I attempt to give Zumba a shot, one of two things happens... A) I attend the class, love it, get hooked on it, lose some weight and a month later the only class I have time to go to is suddenly and sometimes inexplicably cancelled forever or B) I manage to fall deathly ill or injure myself in some utterly unrelated way that renders me far too physically infirm to attempt anything more physically demanding than getting out of bed. Wish me luck, I'm afraid I'm going to need it.... ;-)

- Okay, a bookish tidbit for those that are hanging in there with me. I've been reading The Legacy by Katherine Webb since last weekend, and it is absolutely perfectly atmospheric and has reminded me how much I dearly love books where you get to roll around in the perfectly pitched atmosphere of the story.

So, what's going on in your life? Or perhaps, you'd like to recommend for me a few good atmospheric books...?

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Had VERY Strong Emotions About

2011-11-01T07:15:00.001-04:00

This week's topic for the Broke and Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday is all about books that inspired very strong feelings in us. I love doing the TTTs, but I'm starting to feel like I'm always writing about the same books. I'm always going on about the books that made me laugh or cry or both because those are usually the books I like the best, but I thought I'd take a different tack this week and write about books that made me angry. Not usually angry because they were so bad - just angry because they hit a nerve, or they're so realistic about the people are that I ended up "frustrated" angry, or maybe just angry that authors are using perfectly good books to push an agenda. Anyhow - here's a list of ten books that made me really angry.

1. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III - I always tell people that this is a book I'd like to throw against the wall, and not because it was bad. Rather this book is my poster child for characters that are so vivid and realistic having a conflict that is so vivid and realistic that it actually makes you angry because you're so frustrated that they can't seem to get around themselves to solve their problem. Kind of like people in real life.

2. A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs - This book is all about Burroughs' father who is, to put it simply, an emotionally abusive jack@$$. It's so well written that there's no way you don't end up kind of terrified of and totally furious at this father who is so terrible to his own child.

3. The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty - Here's another book that suffers from House of Sand and Fog syndrome. The mothers and daughters and their conflicts and misunderstandings and good intentions gone awry are so well-drawn that you can't help being frustrated that they just can't seem to love each other quite right.

4. The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty - A Laura Moriarty double whammy! The narrator in this book totally struck a chord with me. I related so much, too much even, so that every slight against the narrator made me angry on her behalf. But make no mistake, I loved this book. It was a good kind of angry.

5. The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens - Okay, I, as a rule, enjoy depressing books. Depressing stories of the unfortunate Irish immigrants are often especially right up my alley. This one made me mad because it was actually too depressing. Even a sad story needs a bright spot or two once in a while.

6. The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman - And here we have the last book of the His Dark Materials series. I loved the first part of the series, but by the time the third book rolled around, I was kind of frustrated that Pullman's anti-religious agenda seemed to overwhelm the great storytelling.

7. No Matter How Loud I Shout by Edward Humes - Want to work up a righteous anger at the way underprivileged juveniles are dealt with by justice system? Read this book!

8. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult - The ending! I mean....jeez!

9. The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky - This book is about pretty much the nuttiest mother ever. If your jaw doesn't drop at just how ludicrous and anger-inspiring she can be, then this book would not be near so great as it is! Weird, huh?

10. The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine - And more righteous anger! Child sex slavery painfully realistically depicted. If you can read this book without getting angry, you should maybe probably be worried about yourself. Just sayin'.

Do you have any books that get you angry?

Dear Bully edited by Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones

2011-10-31T07:22:00.001-04:00

Happy Halloween, everyone! I don't have a creepy, gothic Halloween-y tale to share with you today, but that's not to say that I didn't read a book about something scary. There's not much scarier than a school bully, or a grown-up bully, or, well, any bully at all, and Dear Bully is chock full of them...

The statistics are staggering, jaw-dropping things. "Every seven minutes a child is bullied on a school playground, with more than eighty-five percent of those instances occurring without any intervention." Sure, everybody has probably dealt with a bully or been a bully sometime in their life, but bullying is so ingrained in our consciousness that it's foolishly viewed as some twisted rite of passage, a character-building opportunity to emerge on the other side as a stronger, thicker-skinned person, a person better equipped to deal with the difficult people life is guaranteed to throw at you.

Instead, though, we have hundreds of thousands of kids who are terrified to go to school lest they be bullied. Instead, we have kids who have been so isolated and demeaned by bullies at school and online that "a child commits suicide once every half hour" and more than 100,000 who bullies have made to feel so powerless that they feel they need to carry guns to school. If merciless torture of anyone who is even the slightest bit different is a rite of passage, then it is surely a rite that is far too heavy a burden on kids growing up today. Dear Bully is a compilation of 70 stories from YA authors about their experiences with bullying both as the bullied and as the bully. It is an assurance to kids that have been made to feel totally alone that they aren't and call to action for a nation that has turned a blind eye to bullying for too long.

The stories in Dear Bully come from a variety of well-known YA authors including Lauren Oliver, R.L. Stine, Alyson Noel, Megan McCafferty, and many more come in a variety of forms, as poetry, as stories, as letters, and even in pictures. Each is powerful in its own way, and the collection as a whole runs the full gamut of emotions, causing horror at the cruelty kids are capable of, tears at the bravery and kindness of those courageous few who were willing to step into the crosshairs of bullies to rescue their friends, and even smiles of relief at these many talented authors who emerged from their torturous days of middle and high school to take refuge in and write stories that would help the kids that they once were learn that the lies bullies tell couldn't be further from the truth.

If I have one complaint about some of the stories, it is that they depict mind-blowing abuse, show teachers and parents ignoring or brushing off bullying situations, describe how totally isolating bullying can be and then exhort kids to step up to stop it. While I understand the sentiment, this is one of the things that is so easy to write about in hindsight but so difficult to do at the time of the bullying. It's easy to say that you should tell the teacher or you should befriend the bullied or you should stand up to the bully, and really these are the kinds of things that should be done and should make a difference. That said, after you've just told a story where a bully beat you up or told atrocious lies about you that alienated all your friends, and the teacher said, "pull yourself together" when told the situation, it seems like a pretty hard sell to get kids to take a stand.

Aside from this one gripe that only applies to a few of the pieces, I would say that this collection is a must read for everyone who has ever dealt with a bully, been a bully, had a friend or a child who is or might be a victim of a bully's cruelty. The stories succeed in showing bullied kids that they aren't alone, that things do get better. Others reveal the intense regret that schoolyard bullies might one day come to feel once they emerge from an environment where being unique couldn't be more wrong. All endeavor to show kids that regardless of the pain words might inflict, they are worthwile and loved, that it's possible to stand up for themselves, and that doing what's right, even when it might be downright terrifying, can be the most liberating of all.

(Thanks to Eric and Co. at Planned TV Arts for sending me a copy of Dear Bully for review!)

Blogiversary Giveaway Winners!

2011-10-24T21:42:00.001-04:00

With a guest appearance by Shoofly Pie! Okay, yes, that's kind of random, but on Saturday during the Readathon, I was munching on Shoofly Pie. This drew some curiosity from people who don't know what the heck it is and possibly a demand for a picture of said pie. Luckily, I hadn't quite finished it off, so here's a picture, because what Raych wants, Raych gets, and Raych wishes a picture of pie (okay maybe not this pie, but the other pie was previously devoured). ;-)

Okay, I didn't say it was a great picture. I was kind of in a hurry to eat it, you know. Anyway, Shoofly Pie is fluffy, molasses based pie. Most of the ones I've had have a kind of crumby topping, which is, it seems, not mandatory among Shoofly pies. It's apparently a Pennsylvania Dutch-y sort of dessert. My dad thinks it's "old" of me to like it, like I'm too young to appreciate a good Shoofly Pie.

Okay, enough about pie! I promised winners, and here they are!

Gwen B. wins a copy of The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

Florinda gets the copy of The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

and

Amanda snags the copy of Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister

Thanks to all who entered and wished me a happy blogiversary, I wish I had a book for all of you!

Read-a-thon Wrap Up

2011-10-23T09:33:00.000-04:00

Reading Now: The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

It's been __45__ pages and __60__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 6 hours 50 minutes

Cumulative Pages Read: 318

Books Completed: 1 - Carry Yourself Back to Me by Deborah Reed

End of event meme

1.Which hour was most daunting for you?

Hour 9? I needed a power nap. Or perhaps Hour 17 when I decided finishing the book I was reading was hopeless and just gave up and went to bed?

2.Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

I'd say The Future of Us because it really is interesting, but it kind of turned into my Read-a-thon archnemesis that eventually defeated me, so maybe not?

3.Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

I dunno - twist more people's arms until they agree to cheerlead. ;-) That 69 cheerleaders to 442 readers is a pretty hefty imbalance. Not that the cheerleaders didn't do a great job! You all did...which is why I want more of you! Muah!

4.What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?

Loved the cheerleading HQ site. It was super helpful that it was updated to reflect those who signed up but didn't end up participating. It was always a drag having to click through a bunch of non-participants just to find one reader to cheer on. Great job on that, guys!

5.How many books did you read?

I finished one I already had started and was in the middle of two by the end of the 'thon.

6.What were the names of the books you read?

See above plus Dear Bully Ed. by Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones

7.Which book did you enjoy most?

The Future of Us

8.Which did you enjoy least?

N/A

9.If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?

I wasn't, technically. So I'll just say, Great job, Cheerleaders!

10.How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

I love the Read-a-thon, and I'm sure I'll participate again if my schedule allows. That said, when I started participating in the Read-a-thon it was more as a cheerleader, and I think I might go back to that. It's fun being more involved with the community aspect of the 'thon. Plus, no matter how much I try to tell myself it's not a numbers game, I always end up a little depressed by what a slow reader I am. So, yeah, maybe I'll go back to cheering with a little reading on the side to save my sanity!

Did you participate in the Read-a-thon? How'd it go for you?

Read-a-thon Hour 14 Update

2011-10-22T21:18:00.001-04:00

Reading Now: The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler alternating with Dear Bully Ed. by Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones

It's been __92__ pages and __120__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 5 hours 50 minutes

Cumulative Pages Read: 273

Books Completed: 1 - Carry Yourself Back to Me by Deborah Reed

Eating?: Couple pieces of cheese and a piece of shoo-fly pie

And we've passed the midway point, so the mid-event meme!

1. What are you reading right now? Mostly The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
2. How many books have you read so far? I've finished one, but I didn't read all of it today.
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? I'm not sure how much of the second half of the Read-a-thon I'll be awake for, but really I'm just hoping to finish at least one of the books I have started - The Future of Us and Dear Bully
4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day? Not really. And I didn't quite free up the *whole* day...
5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? Hmmm, my mom interrupted me to chat this morning just when I was getting started. I yelled at her but ended up chatting anyway. Then there was a quick trip to Pumpkinpalooza where I soothed my anguish at stepping away for the Read-a-thon by eating lots of yummy food
6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? I don't know why, but I'm always surprised at how little I manage to get read in a very long time. Newsflash - Read-a-thon day doesn't actually make you a faster reader.
7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? The Magic 8 Ball says "Ask again later."
8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year? I think maybe next time I won't read, and I'll just sign up to cheer. I love the reading, but I like to feel more connected to the internet-y goings on, too!
9. Are you getting tired yet? Not really. I may have had a short power nap this afternoon that got me back on track!
10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered? Nothing I can think of off the top of my head!

Read-a-thon Hour 10 Update

2011-10-22T17:55:00.000-04:00

Reading Now: The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler alternating with Dear Bully Ed. by Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones

It's been __91__ pages and __109__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 3 hours 50 minute

Cumulative Pages Read: 181

Books Completed: 1 - Carry Yourself Back to Me by Deborah Reed

Eating?: Triscuits, a piece of blueberry custard pie, glass of water (gotta stay hydrated!)

Very happy with my decision to alternate The Future of Us with Dear Bully. Actually, I've been going much heavier on The Future of Us, though. At first, I thought the tiny print in the ARC was going to be an issue, but the story of two high schoolers in 1996 discovering the Facebook pages of their future selves grabbed me, and I stopped noticing the print so much.

All the early internet nostalgia is so funny. It's hard to believe how much things have changed technology-wise since we dialed-up and installed that free for so many hours AOL for the first time! I can just barely remember my mom telling me to get off the internet because people might be trying to call on the phone. I'm kind of filled with nostalgia and stuff except for, uh, that really slow dial-up internet and the really slow computer I had to go with it... Glad things are speedier now or Readathon cheerleading would be a huge drag!

Speaking of cheerleading, I'm off to do some.

Read on, my friends!

Read-a-thon Hour 7 Update

2011-10-22T14:50:00.000-04:00

Reading Now: The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

It's been __11__ pages and __17__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 2 hours 1 minute

Cumulative Pages Read: 90

Books Completed: 1 - Carry Yourself Back to Me by Deborah Reed

Eating?: French fries, Chocolate vanilla peanut butter fudge, fresh-squeezed lemonade, a steak sandwich, and a spring roll.

All right, you caught me. I obviously didn't get much reading done in the last few hours. I may or may not have wandered off to Pumpkinpalooza to eat a long lunch. I brought back fudge and pie for this evenings Read-a-thon eating, though.

A wise commenter or two said that Dear Bully is probably good for dipping into and out of, so I'm switching to The Future of Us for a while to keep it light. Now, enough slacking and back to the books!

Read-a-thon Hour 3 Update

2011-10-22T10:53:00.000-04:00

Reading Now: Dear Bully Ed.by Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones

It's been __79__ pages and __104__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 1 hours 44 minutes

Cumulative Pages Read: 79

Books Completed: 1 - Carry Yourself Back to Me by Deborah Reed

Eating?: Quaker Oatmeal Squares for breakfast and a snack of Welch's Berries 'n Cherries fruit snacks. Yum!

Despite obvious efforts from my parents to sabotage my Readathon, I have managed to get some reading done over the past 2 and some hours. I finished the book I already had started prior to the Readathon, Carry Yourself Back to Me which was good but I have to admit I definitely didn't love it. I'll give it points for reminding me that I need to read more books that leave me smiling instead of crying, though.

Speaking of crying - okay, maybe not quite crying but more like open-mouthed gaping, I just started and devoured the first almost 50 pages of Dear Bully, a collection of 70 authors stories about bullying. Ellen Hopkins wrote the introduction, and she included a few statistics that are just jaw-dropping no matter how many times you might encounter them. So far, I'm really impressed with these short pieces about being on both sides of the bullying situation.

I can't decide whether I wanna keep at it and read it straight through or just dip in and out of it all day and read another book in between. While I decide, I think I'll go do some cheering!

Keep up the great reading, all!

Readathon!

2011-10-22T08:22:00.000-04:00

Good morning, all! It's time to read! That's right, today is the day of Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon. I am, of course, participating - this time as a reader. I will be tracking my progress today until, I'm guessing, midnight or so, so expect a few more posts than usual because I'm not that person who posts the one post and then updates it all day. I promise that by tomorrow all will be back to normal around here, so if you could care less about my reading progress today please accept my apologies and feel free to mark all these bad boys read tomorrow morning and we can go on about our normal, light posting routine.

All right, now that all the apologies are made - how about an introductory meme?

1)Where are you reading from today? - Bloomsburg, PA, USA

2)Three random facts about me…

- I'm being a punk today and starting out finishing the book I was already reading. I figure it'll give me an early boost because it's so much easier reading a book that you're already in the middle of. I've only got about 30 pages left. Okay, the truth is I meant to finish it yesterday and totally failed. What do you want from my life?

- I might take a little break to go to something called Pumpkinpalooza today. Probably for lunch. There will be pumpkin catapulting and pumpkin pie eating contests and pumpkin shot putting. I mean, you can't miss that, can you? Well, maybe you can, but the jury's still out.

- I really like Bath and Body Works hand soap. Okay, that's really random. And no I was not paid to say it. ;-)

3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours? - 12ish

4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)? - My goal is to have fun!

5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time? - Don't get too caught up in the numbers game (see question above). I track my numbers, but I don't put too much stock in them. It's not a competition (even with myself), so getting caught up in comparing # of pages or books read is usually just an exercise in frustration. Just enjoy a day where you have the perfect excuse to do nothing but blog and read!

Now, I better go get reading! Hope you have a fantastic day whether you're readathonning or not!

Waiting on Wednesday: A Train in Winter

2011-10-19T06:45:00.000-04:00

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by Caroline Moorehead

Harper, November 8, 2011

Synopsis:

They were teachers, students, chemists, writers, and housewives; a singer at the Paris Opera, a midwife, a dental surgeon. They distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, printed subversive newpapers, hid resisters, secreted Jews to safety, transported weapons, and conveyed clandestine messages. The youngest was a schoolgirl of fifteen, who scrawled “V” for victory on the walls of her lycee; the eldest, a farmer’s wife in her sixties who harbored escaped Allied airmen. Strangers to one another, hailing from villages and cities from across France, these brave women were united in hatred and defiance of their Nazis occupiers.

Eventually, the Gestapo hunted down 230 of these women of the French Resistance and imprisoned them in a fort outside Paris. Separated from home and loved ones, these disparate individuals turned to one another, finding solace and strength in friendship; their common experience conquering divisions of age, education, profession, and class.

In January 1943, they were sent to their final destination: Auschwitz. Only forty-nine would survive.

Interweaving original sources, archival research, and in-depth personal interviews, A Train in Winter is the riveting narrative of this remarkable band of sisters, patriots whose love fortified them in the face of deprivation, horror, and death.

What are you "waiting on" this Wednesday?

Everything Happens Today by Jesse Browner

2011-10-18T06:56:00.000-04:00

You know, it's helpful when you're about to leave on vacation if the internet actually works, so you can, you know, line up a post or two for the time you're going to be gone. I meant to have this for you last week before I dashed off for a long weekend in Niagara Falls, but you know what they say about the best of intentions. I'm happy to report that the internet appears to be working again (yayyy!), and I have an excellent book to review for you - Everything Happens Today by Jesse Browner.

P.S. Thanks for all the happy blogiversary wishes. Again, if my internet hadn't been sucking for the last week or so I would have been way more interactive with all you awesome people. I'll announce winners for the giveaway tomorrow!

Wes is seventeen, but he feels much, much older the night that he takes the long walk home from an Upper East Side apartment to his house in Greenwich Village. For an average seventeen year old guy, the night he loses his virginity would be a momentous occasion. Wes, however, is anything but average as we come to find out during the course of the next day of his life as he reflects on losing his virginity to the "wrong" girl, nurses his terminally ill mother, tries to make a deadline for a revised paper about War and Peace, and attempts to cook a bizarre meal that will bring his whole fragile family to the table. In the course of one ordinary yet extraordinary day, Wes grows up and learns some important lessons all while readers are treated to a unique and extremely vividly drawn family and a main character whose unexpectedly deep thoughts about life and love appeal to our own experience.

Through much of the reading, Everything Happens Today inspires mixed feelings. On one hand, Browner's choice to write his novel without chapter breaks has the tendency to make Wes's narrative monotonous, and gives the impression that Wes's sometimes incessant navel-gazing will proceed in circles without breaks or ends indefinitely not unlike Borges' Library of Bable, an illustration Wes is particularly drawn to. On the other hand, getting inside Wes's thought-pattern and learning the reasoning that drives him is what ends up making Everything Happens Today stand out. Wes is a more or less typical teenager who spends a little too much time with his iPhone, wonders if he is good enough for the girl he loves (or if what he feels for her is even truly love), and gets frustrated with his family, but Wes is also a bookish, thoughtful sort of guy who loves his family sacrificially, wants to be a truly good person, and struggles with the decisions he's making as he works his way into an unstoppable adulthood where his dearest wish is that he not become his father. In short, Wes is a lovable narrator both despite and because of his perpetual over-thinking, and he will make readers root for him that he might come to an understanding and an acceptance of his life such as it is.

Even though Wes is the heart and soul of the book, Browner creates a cast of secondary characters - Wes's parents, his sister, his best friend, the girls he might or might not be in love with - that leap off the page. His beloved little sister comes off just as quirky and innocent as intended. His father shuffles through a life populated with broken dreams and unmet potential that Wes himself loathes. His ill mother is a fragile shell of herself whose former life is barely visible beneath her current circumstances. His friend is the perfect well-intentioned meddler. The girls he falls for are as much fully fleshed out characters in their own right as they are lessons in what love really looks like for the hapless Wes.

It would be lying to say that Wes's deep thoughts combined with their lack of chapter breaks don't make Everything Happens Today a little difficult to tackle. That said, what I've come to appreciate about the Europa Editions books that I've read thus far, is that they make me think and work at them a little before yielding what is nearly always a rewarding, if somewhat atypical, reading experience. I'm fully convinced that readers will fall in love with loyal, well-intentioned Wes, just as I did, and be caught up in and ultimately charmed by this unusual tale of coming of age today.

(Thanks to Julia at Europa for my review copy!)

Top Ten Tuesday: Again for the First Time

2011-10-11T07:30:00.000-04:00

Greetings all and welcome to another Tuesday with a great top ten topic from The Broke and the Bookish. A couple weeks ago we did "Books We'd Love to Reread," this week, a similar but really totally different topic - books we'd love to read again for the first time. I find that the books I want to reread are books I want to wrap up in and get comfortable, but the books that I'd most like to read again for the first time are ones that really made me feel something really strongly that I'm convinced probably can't be re-created quite the same way on a second reading.

1. After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell - I loved this book so much the first time I read it. I finished it on Christmas Eve a few years ago, and it made me ugly cry like no other book I've ever read. (I should mention that I do like that quality in a book.) It's so tragic...and hopeful, and the way the story's told just makes it punch you in the gut.

2. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien - Especially The Return of the King. I can't even talk about it without getting all spoilery, buth ah, so good. I wanna feel that way again.

3. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff - This seems to be one of those books that you either love or hate. There are cousins in love (which is shockingly not gross), no quotation marks, and an inexplicable occupation by some enemy. The narrator, Daisy, is so real and so cynical and sarcastic from the start, and she undergoes this huge transformation in this really unusual situation, and it's all incredibly profound and emotionally wrenching. And wonderful. Yeah.

4. City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell - This is a novel I read last year about Christian missionaries in China. I wish more people would read this (especially Christians), because it's so good, and the way it shows its characters (based on the author's grandparents) having their beliefs put to the test again and again and passing with flying colors is so refreshing and tearjerking.

5. The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen - This is the first book I ever read about the Holocaust. It's basically a time-travelly book-long reason to remember some of the darkest days in history. It sparked a fascination in me for all books Holocaust just because of how real it made it all for me.

6. The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy - And this is probably the best Holocaust novel I've read since. Somehow Murphy turns Hansel and Gretel into not just a believable Holocaust story, but a really, really powerful one. It does one of the things I love in a Holocaust novel and really shows you how ordinary people became heroes in the face of overwhelming opposition.

7. The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips - I loved the family in this book. I'd love to meet them all over again!

8. Fat Kid Rules the World by K.L. Going - I swallowed this book in one gulp. It's all about a fat kid who thinks he's totally worthless and a kinda homeless guitar prodigy with a band that needs a drummer. I'd love to read this again and slower and just enjoy that moment when these two characters realize how badly they need each other. It's perfect.

9. Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger - This is one of those books that I feel like could never be as good as the first time. Once you know what happens at the end (even though you suspect it as the book progresses anyway), there's no going back, it just can't be as good as it was the first time. It's about an annoying but lovable kid who irritates a major league baseball player into becoming his friend. Told mostly in letters it is hilarious, heartwarming, and heartbreaking. Just talking about it makes me want to read it again.

10. The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen - I read this book at just the right time. So much of Macy's story hit home for me that I found myself in tears again and again because I liked her so much and because I really felt like I could relate.

What books would you like read again for the first time?

P.S. On a side note - it's my blogiversary, and I'm giving away a few books. Check it out?

Four!

2011-10-09T08:00:00.001-04:00

It's hard to believe this day has come. It's even harder to believe I remembered that it came and am writing a post about it seeing as I usually am off looking at shiny things or other such distractions for the attention span impaired while my blogiversary skates by with little fanfair. I'm not forgetting this year, though. That's right - this week Leafing Through Life is four. Four years old. It was four years ago today that I wrote my first book review for my own little corner of the interwebs. Little did I know the journey that I was beginning and that I'd still be at it four year later.

You see, I, as a person, am not blessed with a great deal of stick-to-it-iveness when it comes to things that life doesn't require me to do. With a flightiness I've more than likely inherited from my mother, I have the tendency to bounce from obsession to obsession. I'm all in for a little while, but once the thrill is gone, I'm on to the new thing. Not so with book blogging. I've finally found a hobby that stuck to me. It's had its highs and lows, and I've neglected it for other pursuits along the way, but I've never abandoned it completely, and with good reason - it is, by far, the most rewarding hobby I've ever put my hand to.

As I start my fourth year of blogging, I just want to thank all of you have taken the time to read some of my ramblings here, to befriend me, to encourage me whenever things haven't been going well, to send me a book, to make me feel like what I do actually matters and generally make this whole blogging thing the most worthwile of pursuits. Thanks, also, for making the book blogosphere the great place to be that it is, so that even when I think I might ponder giving it up, the connections, the recommendations, the friends keep me coming back.

To show my gratitude (and also because I just haven't done it in a while), I've got a few books to give away, because hey, what's a good celebration without presents?

I've got two gently used ARCs of a couple of my favorite reads from this year that I'd love to share with some other readers...

Sparrow Road by Shelia O'Connor (Read my review)
Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister (Read my review)

and also a pair of (never used) duplicate ARCs...

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick Dewitt
The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

The giveaway is open internationally. You can enter for all 4, but you can only win one. Just leave me a comment letting me know which ones you're entering for as well as some way to get in contact with you should you win. I'll take entries through midnight (EST) on Monday October 17th and will announce winner shortly thereafter.

Kid Konnection: Butterfly Tree

2011-10-08T12:31:00.000-04:00

Kid Konnection is a Booking Mama's weekend feature dedicated to all things children's books.

Butterfly Tree by Sandra Markle, Illustrated by Leslie Wu
Peachtree Publishers
Ages 4-8

When you're making a memory, you want it to last as long as possible.

One September day, while Jilly is on the shores of Lake Erie throwing a stick for her dog, Fudge, she notices an orange cloud coming closer to the beach. At first, she worries that it's smoke from a fire or volcanic fallout or even an alien spacecraft. When she tells her mom about it, though, the two hurry off into the woods in search of the mysterious orange cloud. Just when Jilly is ready to turn back, the two discover an ordinary tree covered in orange leaves, but when Fudge races through chasing a squirrel, the tree suddenly bursts into a magical flurry of monarch butterflies.

Markle's verse vividly renders a memory of the migrating butterflies drawn from her own childhood. Her detailed descriptions capture the atmosphere of the woods and the magic of discovering something for the first time. Wu's illustrations are perfectly suited to the story. Her beautiful impressionistic paintings reveal the perfect cast of the light and the motion of a hundred fluttering butterflies but with soft edges that gives the sense of a rare, beautiful moment being viewed throught the lens of memory.

Young readers will be taken in by the bright colors and the suspense in the search. Older readers might well be reminded of the wonder and the opportunities for discovery that nature offered us when we were children and still today if we slow down long enough to see.

Beautiful book!

(Thanks to Peachtree Publishers for sending me a copy!)

Ready to Read?

2011-10-02T07:36:00.000-04:00

Arguably my favorite book blogging event is coming up in a few short weeks. Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon takes place on October 22nd this year, and as of yet, I haven't stupidly made plans that totally (or even mostly) prohibit me from spending a gloriously guiltless day of reading and blogging for as much of 24 hours as I can handle. The first Readathon took place in October 2007 when my was just a baby and was how I really started to meet some of the bloggers that I still love! Therefore, of course, I have a total soft spot for it.

I am busy at work assembling a pile of easy and absorbing reads to fill my Readathon day. I think I'm going to be aiming mostly at YA this time, because it's easy and also because I'm totally craving a bunch of YA since it seems to be very much lacking from my reading this year for no apparent good reason.

I hope you're planning on Readathon-ing this year, whether you're a veteran or a newbie. It's fun for all, and you only have to read as long as it's fun, and, believe me, it's fun for quite a while. You can enjoy the encouragement of cheerleaders as you creep into your 23rd straight hour of reading, or cheer on your fellow readers before you chuckle softly to yourself at the insane souls who are really going to stay up all night reading as you tuck yourself into your warm, welcoming bed (at a decent hour - LOL!) to sleep until it's time to catch up with everybody early the next morning when people are still reading.

That's my pitch - it's great fun and I hope to see you on Readathon day, so head on over and sign up to read or, if you'd rather, to cheer on the readers (which, is at least as fun as being a reader, if not occasionally more fun!).

So, will I be seeing you on Readathon day? =D

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Want to Reread

2011-09-27T06:58:00.000-04:00

This week's topic for The Broke and Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday involves something I don't do a whole lot of - rereading. I've always been the sort of reader that's kind of once and done. I read a book, and then, much more often than not, I give it away rather than holding on to it. With so many great new books coming out every day and only so long of a life in which to read them, I'll admit that often, to me, rereading seems like a waste of precious time. That said, there are a few books (and whole series!) that I'd like to revisit sometime when (as they always seem to) my priorities change and I'm thirsting for something I know I've loved and stand to get more out of on a second reading.

1. The Harry Potter Books by J.K. Rowling - I know bloggers who have already reread these several times, maybe once for each new book coming out, or for the debut of a new Harry Potter movie. I've been tempted to do likewise, but have never really made the time, but I plan on it someday!

2. The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue - I actually gave this book an "award" for making me want to re-read it the moment I was finished with it. It's a fantastic lit fiction book about changelings with oodles of layers and nuance that I'm sure I could get even more out of on second reading. In fact, the author even sent me an extra copy so I can have the privilege of re-reading it. How awesome is that?

3. The Other Side of You by Salley Vickers - Another book I loved with lots of layers that could totally benefit from a second reading.

4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith - I read and liked this book when I was in middle school, but I'd love to revisit it as an adult.

5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - This is another classic that I read when I was much younger. Everybody seems to love it so much, but I don't recall being that impressed. I think reading it again as a grown-up would give it a much fairer shake.

6. The Redwall Series by Brian Jacques - I read a bunch of this series about the noble and heroic animals of Redwall Abbey when I was younger. I loved them and their great feasts and quaint way of speaking. I made my Dad read them. I have a few left to read in the series, but I feel like I need a refresher first.

7. East of Eden by John Steinbeck - I read and loved East of Eden in high school. I haven't read a Steinbeck before or since that I've enjoyed as much, but I barely even remember the bare bones of the plot. Time for a reread!

8. The Little House on the Prairie Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder - I was crazy about these books as a kid. Crazy about them! A few years ago I finally gave them away, and now I desperately wish I hadn't. So many memories.

9. Insomnia by Stephen King - I went through a major horror phase in high school, and what's horror without Stephen King? I recall Insomnia being one of my favorites. I was totally fascinated by all the auras and things. If I can't revisit this one, I'd at least like to get back in touch with some new Stephen King books.

10. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene - One of my favorites of high school required reading. It's one of those books that impressed me with its ability to put a little hope in a hopeless situation.

What books are you hoping to reread?

You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl by Celia Rivenbark

2011-09-25T08:47:00.001-04:00

I'm trying to cover all my bases here, so, since I reviewed a book this week that I finished months ago, I'm going to do the flip side, too. I'm reviewing the book I finished today. Absurd? Maybe not for you, but definitely for me. I have always been the sort of ~~procrastinator~~ reviewer that a takes a few days between the completion of a book and the writing of the review. I was always of the opinion that this ~~procrastination~~ letting my thoughts about the book marinate a few days lead to better, more thoughtful reviews. And perhaps they did. Of late, though, the ~~procrastination~~ marination leads mostly to reviews just about never getting written. This is the type of madness with no method that simply must stop, therefore I am coming to you live (well, probably not live since this will most likely end up becoming a scheduled post - methodic madness!) with Celia Rivenbark's southern-tinged (marinated?) book of humorous essays.

Humorous essays? Really? Why, yes. Because for once in my life I actually knew myself and my own reading weakness. What is this self-awareness? Things really are getting crazy around here. I've alluded, on Twitter, to the fact that I have spent the last almost month slogging through The Grapes of Wrath in hopes of making a triumphant return to a book group I am more or less (but mostly less) involved in. When I was on the cusp of starting this lengthy classic novel journey, the lovely Emily from Wunderkind PR showed up in my e-mail box offering me You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl for review. A little light bulb flashed on above my head, and I thought, what better way to break up the reading of a lengthy classic (the likes of which I haven't tried in quite some time) than with some humorous essays. Of course, it didn't go exactly as I planned because I am no good at book polygamy, but once I flipped that last page of The Grapes of Wrath, I was all over these essays. I needed their light, readable, laugh out loud-ness to recover from my many weeks with the Joads and their many hardships.

The essays in You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl leave no stone unturned as they poke fun at everything and everyone from snuggies to crazed science fair parents to all the "Loonies on the Learning Channel" to society's weird obsession with cuteness that threatens to put Rivenbark's trademark snark out of business while everyone tunes into the latest YouTube viral video. In just a few pages each, Rivenbark's essays can have readers laughing out loud at a variety of topics as we try to keep up with Rivenbark's stream-of-consciousness rantings that swing rapidly from Oprah to the art of writing discipline with the sort of lengthy attention span that would only a gnat could envy. Rivenbark never lingers too long on harpooning any one subject, which is refreshing. (Especially after finishing The Grapes of Wrath)

You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl is the perfect antidote for too much deep, dark reading. Rivenbark's writing is compulsively readable, entertaining, and, at times, downright laugh out loud funny. If you've got a bitter sarcastic streak, a cynical eye for some (most?) of the clowns on TV these days, or you just need a breather from books that take themselves too seriously, definitely pick up a copy of You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl!

And just out of curiosity, if you're a blogger/reviewer, when do you write your reviews? Right away or wait a few days? (or months? LOL)

Touch by Alexi Zentner

2011-09-21T07:19:00.000-04:00

Wow, last week passed in a whirlwind. I only got 2 days of Book Blogger Appreciation Week in before I got swept away. Thanks again to everyone who stopped by and left a comment, it was a pleasure to meet a bunch of new bloggers, and I hope to be paying many of you visits shortly. If you're one of a few new subscribers that have appeared since those lovely two days of BBAW, thanks for sticking around. I hope you will talk to me so I won't feel like I'm swimming around in a fish tank all on my own. ;-)

Now, I'm going to try something I've been very lax about doing in the past few weeks. We'll say weeks. We might mean months. Or something in between weeks and months. Is there something between weeks and months? Forgive me, I digress. I am about to attempt reviewing a book (!!) I read a good time ago, and I'm attempting to psych myself up for it, but really I may just be procrastinating.

Nonetheless, ~~weeks~~ months ago I read a book called Touch by Alexi Zentner. Previous to that I had posted a Waiting on Wednesday post about it, after which I fell profoundly in love with its cover in all its incarnations. Then, after hyping the book mercilessly to myself for a couple months, I actually got and read a copy which, unsurprisingly, did not measure up to all my self-hyping. So then I put it on the backburner for a long time, and then all the sudden here it is on the longlist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and I'm thinking maybe it's time to revisit Touch after all.

Zentner's debut finds Stephen Boucher, an Anglican minister, returned home to keep watch by his mother's deathbed. As Stephen waits for his mother's inevitable passing, he has many long hours to contemplate his past in Sawgamet and to reflect on how his and his family's lives are woven inextricably into the fabric of a place fraught with myth and mystery. From the moment Stephen's grandfather Jeannot is halted in his westward progress through the virgin territory of British Columbia by his dog Flaireur's refusal to go on any further, Sawgamet takes a firm hold of the Boucher clan.

Sawgamet is richly drawn, a coldly beautiful town filled with ghosts and the darkly magical, a character in its own right. In fact, the strength of this novel lies in Zentner's ability to imbue the gold rush town turned logging town into a place crawling with the mystical. It's easy to picture ghosts, some well-meaning most not, lurking in Zentner's frozen wilderness. Stephen's own memories of his childhood complete with a tragic accident and his grandfather's mysterious return after years of absence are melded with the stories he's always been told of his grandfather and grandmother, stories of impossible magic, burning chemistry, and unexplained treasure.

Stephen's memories ground the story in the realities of a logging town, filled with men carving out a living from the region's dangerous lumber industry. Try though he might, he can no longer cull the truth from the fiction, but the stories have taken on lives of their own, and it's the stories that make Touch soar. As much as the stories with their mythical proportions do transfix, Touch is one book that might very well benefit from one of those diagrams that map out the family tree that sometimes crop up within the first few pages of books. Perhaps with that, I would have wasted much less time and brain power trying to pin down who was related to who and could have dedicated myself to fully enjoying Zentner's tale, parts of which I'm sure went over my head while I was busy trying to figure out who exactly Stephen's uncle was married to. Also, it sometimes seemed that the characters, who should be ultra-sympathetic, sometimes held the reader at arm's length. While I appreciated their stories, I rarely felt like I was fully involved with them. Aside from my own obsessiveness about the family tree, though, Touch is a hauntingly beautiful tale filled with the elusive magic of storytelling.

Fancy hearing some other opinions?

She Reads Novels
Reading Matters
Book Bliss
KevinfromCanada

Oh, how important are the reviews anyway? Wouldn't you pick up this book based on the pretty covers alone? Which is your favorite? Or are you that rare creature that really doesn't judge a book by its cover?

BBAW: Interviewing Eva from A Striped Armchair!

2011-09-13T08:07:00.000-04:00

It's day two of Book Blogger Appreciation Week, and that means the time-honored tradition of book blogger interview swap day. On my third time out for BBAW book blogger interviews, I've finally gotten an interview partner whose blog isn't new to me. In fact, I've been reading Eva's blog, A Striped Armchair for at least as long as I've been blogging myself. As the years have gone on, I've become more and more of a huge fan of Eva's fantastic blog where I can always find a book recommendation to feed my hunger for anything from world lit to popular science. I'd be lost without Eva in my feed reader, so it's a particular joy and privilege to be interviewing her for BBAW today. So, without further ado...

How did you get started book blogging?

Over Christmas break of my senior year of college, I was surfing the
web and came across Iliana's book blog. I knew about blogs before as personal journals (I kept one for friends & family when I studied abroad), but I hadn't realised there were book blogs! I checked out her blogroll and was delighted to see that there were all these wonderful people on the internet who were happily nerding out about books together. Pretty soon, I decided I had to join in the fun, so I waited until January 1, 2007 and then started my own blog. I couldn't think of a good title, but I was too impatient to wait until perfect inspiration struck, so I just named my blog after my then-favourite chair.

You've been book blogging for quite a while now - longer than me and I feel like I've been book blogging for quite a while! I know there are times when it's been tough to keep at it, so what drives you to *keep* book blogging even when the going gets tough?

Not that much longer than you! :) But yes, it'll be five years come next January, which is insane to me: I'm not usually known for my follow through. What makes me stick with it are the friendships I've made with other book bloggers: they're such an important part of my life. They celebrate my triumphs and share my setbacks and in between fill up my wish list with the most wonderful sounding books. I also love having a more examined reading life, but really it's the people and sense of community that I can't live without.

What's the biggest change you've seen in the book blogosphere since you started blogging? What's the most the same?

Ohhh: so much has changed! Publishers and review copies are a much bigger deal, memes have become weekly events instead of one-time survey/questionnaire things, challenges have gone from shorter time periods to mainly annual and now seem to be going back to shorter 'events', feed readers are ubiquitous, read-a-longs have supplanted challenges in popularity, and of course the blogosphere has grown exponentially, which has led to more 'subgroups' of bloggers. But the love of books and reading is still what drives us: that combination of unabashed nerdiness and passionate bibliophilia still defines the book blogosphere to me.

What's one super-excellent book you probably would not have read if not for a book blogger (or few)?

If I think about this too hard, I'll be here all day, so I'm just going to say the first one that sprung to mind: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. I'd never heard of Jansson before other bloggers mentioned her (in fact, I thought she was a man for the longest time), and I just loved that book! Definitely one I'll be rereading often in the future whenever I'm in need of some comforting.

Is there one book that you believe everyone should read? Which one and why?

Oh dear…too many possibilities, especially for someone as interested in social justice as myself! Too bad I can't think of one book that includes feminism, antiracism, environmentalism, and global awareness, hehe. See: I let myself think about this one, and now I'm just paralysed with indecision. But I'm going to go with Food Matters by Mark Bittman: it's a book that lays out the health and environmental reasons for cutting back on the animal products in your diet without mentioning the horrors of how animals are treated (Bittman assumes you already know that), and lays out smart ways of doing just that. Bittman himself eats vegan before 6pm, then whatever he wants for dinner and dessert. I often feel frustrated that vegetarian and vegan diets are seen as an either/or issue, and Bittman neatly solves that problem. He also includes a number of delicious recipes, and the book is just very inspiring! I think if everyone read it, we'd see a huge change in eating habits that could help solve the nastier aspects of factory farming. Or at least, a more rational discussion of the issues.

Lastly, what's the best piece of blogging advice you've ever given or been given?

Blogging is a hobby, "an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure": keep it guilt free! :D

Thanks, Eva!

BBAW: Who Makes a Community

2011-09-12T08:17:00.000-04:00

Today is the first day of the fourth year of Book Blogger Appreciation Week, an annual celebration of book bloggers and the role they play in "the promotion and preservation of a literate culture actively engaged in discussing books, authors, and a lifestyle of reading." I'll have a few of the daily post topics for you this week, but if you want to get closer to the action, head over to the BBAW website for more.

Today's blogging topic is all about community...

While the awards are a fun part of BBAW, they can never accurately represent the depth and breadth of diversity in the book blogging community. Today you are encouraged to highlight a couple of bloggers that have made book blogging a unique experience for you. They can be your mentors, a blogger that encouraged you to try a different kind of book, opened your eyes to a new issue, made you laugh when you needed it, or left the first comment you ever got on your blog. Stay positive and give back to the people who make the community work for you!

It takes all kinds to make a community, and I do so hate to single some out at the expense of others, but so it always goes. I think all of us who make the time to be a part of it have something to offer the book blogging community, but for the purposes of this post, I'm going to give a random sampling of bloggers who I think, off the top of my head, are exemplifying some great aspect of being a book blogger.

Power Commenter - Kathy at Bermudaonion's Weblog. Kathy is the kind of commenter that I can only wish to be. It seems like every blog I venture to comment on, she's been there already, and whenever I have a post that seems like it's going to get only a chorus of crickets as a response, Kathy's comments reassure me that I'm not just talking to myself. I'm continually impressed by how she is a rockstar when it comes to being engaged with the community of bloggerdom.

The Meme You Like to See in Your Google Reader - In a blogosphere riddled with weekly memes, Top Ten Tuesday at The Broke and the Bookish has got to be the best meme I've seen since Dewey's Weekly Geeks was in its hayday. The gang at The Broke and the Bookish does a fantastic job of cooking up great weekly topics, and the posts of the people that participate are always interesting, and I love that they often start conversations instead of just those "Oh, that sounds good" comments. From what I've seen, Top Ten Tuesdays are great for the community!

The Dystopian Diva and the Small Press Princess - Lenore at Presenting Lenore and Marie at The Boston Bibliophile are two ladies I'd love to single out because they show just how much buzz even one book blogger's voice can generate for a genre or a publisher when they're willing and able to put the time and effort into sharing something they love. Lenore, whose own dystopian YA novel will be published next year, just wrapped up Dystopian August where she reviewed many dystopian stories and interviewed countless authors to preview their upcoming books in this "genre," one I happen to love.

Marie showed her enthusiasm for Europa Editions, a great smaller press, with a two week Publisher Spotlight that included reviews of Europa titles as well as interviews with Europa authors and Europa's editor-in-chief. She then followed it up this summer by pioneering a Europa Editions Challenge.

The Thoughtful Reader - Amy at Amy Reads stands out as one of many bloggers who writes the sort of posts who make us think twice about taking books or publishing at face value. Her posts are the sort that start and continue conversations about things like diversity in publishing and authenticity in books.

All these bloggers are bright, shining examples of what the rest of us book bloggers are doing on a more limited scale on a daily basis - engaging with each other in community, sharing our passion for the books and publishers we love, and thinking critically about what we're reading, why and even how we're reading it.

Thanks, ladies!

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Come In and Cover Me

2011-09-07T07:15:00.001-04:00

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

I was such a huge fan of The Well and the Mine that I was super-excited to see a forthcoming novel from Gin Phillips!

Come In and Cover Me by Gin Phillips
Riverhead, January 12, 2012

Synopsis:

When Ren was only twelve years old, she lost her older brother, Scott, to a car accident. Since then, Scott has been a presence in her life, appearing with a snatch of a song or a reflection in the moonlight. Now, twenty-five years later, her talent for connecting with the ghosts around her has made her especially sensitive as an archaeologist. More than just understanding the bare outline of how our ancestors lived, Ren is dedicated to re-creating lives and stories, to breathing life into those who occupied this world long before us. On the cusp of the most important discovery of her career, it is ghosts who are guiding her way. But what do two long-dead Mimbres women have to tell Ren about herself? And what message do they have about her developing relationship with a fellow archaeologist, the first man to really know her since her brother's death? Come In and Cover Me is the moving story of a woman learning to let go of the past in order to move forward with her own future.

Written with the same warmth and depth of feeling that drew readers to The Well and the Mine, Phillips's debut, Come In and Cover Me is a haunting and engrossing new novel.

What are you "waiting on" this Wednesday?

Kid Konnection: A Storm Called Katrina

2011-09-03T07:22:00.000-04:00

Every Saturday, Julie at Booking Mama hosts a feature called Kid Konnection -- a regular weekend feature about anything related to children's books. This week, I'm trying it out for the first time because I'm also reviewing a real, live children's book for the first time. What else can I do when Peachtree Publishers sends them to my house and they are so lovely and colorful? Anyhow, what I'm trying to say is - be gentle, world. ;-)

A Storm Called Katrina by Myron Uhlberg, illustrated by Colin Bootman
Peachtree Publishers
Ages 7-11

Louis Daniel is a 10-year-old boy growing up in New Orleans who dreams of one day being able to play his beloved cornet just like the great Louis Armstrong. When Hurricane Katrina hits, Louis and his family have to hurry to escape surging floodwaters leaving behind everything, but Louis manages to grab his horn as they’re going out the door. Little does he know how handy it will come in for his family as they head for shelter at the Superdome.

A Storm Called Katrina is a gentle introduction for younger readers to the catastrophic hurricane. Uhlberg gives the briefest of glimpses at the hardest topics – coming upon a “pile of clothes” that once was a person, spotting an abandoned pet floating on the flood waters, and the degenerating conditions at the Superdome. Colin Bootman’s illustrations do a fine job of depicting the family’s treacherous escape from the flood waters and the chaos and suffering that soon ensued within the Superdome shelter. If I have one objection, it is that the ending seems too pat, even for a very young audience. It gives the impression that, even after escaping their flooded street on a floating piece of porch, it was a simple thing to just head home after the storm. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it seems misleading to reduce the aftermath of Katrina into a brief, happy “We’re going home.” Other than this, A Storm Called Katrina is a beautifully illustrated glimpse into a terrible event with a courageous and clever hero to boot.

Top Ten Tuesday: Tops on my TBR for Fall

2011-08-30T07:12:00.000-04:00

This week's topic for The Broke and the Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday is Top Ten Books That Are On The Top Of My TBR List For Fall. If you know me at all, I'm not one to hold myself to a very strict reading plan, so really, I have no idea what I'll actually be reading as fall rolls around. That said, I thought this might be a great opportunity to give a little love to the ARCs I brought home from BEA, many of which will release this fall. Here are 10 of the ones I'm most excited about, and I certainly hope there will be time for several of them in my fall reading "plan."

1. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (Little, Brown and Co., Sept. 7) - I'm a huge baseball fan, so when I heard about this story of a would-be big leaguer playing ball at a small college where a throw goes awry and changes the lives of five people, I knew I had to check it out.

2. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday, Sept. 13) - I'm also a sucker for a circus story. There's just something about them. And this one's got some magic to it, too. Two magicians who have been raised to compete are dueling and...falling in love? Yes, please.

3. The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen (Mulholland Books, Sept. 28) - I advertise this author's last book like I'm getting paid to do it (I'm not, I swear!). I'm going to rein myself in this time and just talk about this book. It's about Zed, an agent from a future where there are no problems. To get to that future, though, all the crises that ever happened, must, well, happen. It's Zed's job to see to this. Sounds deliciously mind-bendy.

4. Touch and Go by Thad Nodine (Unbridled, Sept. 27) - Not that I wholeheartedly recommend it, but if you're cruising around BEA and stumble upon the booth of a publisher whose books you have failed to ever actually read but recognize from all the praises bloggers have been singing about their titles, you can, um, say that. Sure you might look like an idiot at first, but then you might actually have a decent conversation and walk away with a book about a blind guy going on a road trip with his friends to deliver a handmade casket. Sounds different, right? And good.

5. How the Dog Became the Dog by Mark Derr (Overlook, Oct. 13) - I stumbled upon what looked like the last ARC of this book on Overlook's table the first day of the show. I couldn't manage to wipe the "I want" look off my face, and I was thrilled when they offered me the copy of this book about how our canine friends evolved to be, well, our canine friends. Derr suggests that dogs being "man's best friend" was somehow evolutionarily meant to be. I'm definitely curious!

6. How To Save a Life by Sara Zarr (Little Brown Books for Young Readers, Oct. 18) - Let's forget for a moment what this book is even about. This book has such a great cover that I would read it for that alone. For sure. Not enough for you? Well, then it's about a teen whose dad dies and whose mother then goes and adopts a baby, presumably to fill the hole. Plus the young birth mother of said baby looks to be the other main character. Sounds good and like it could be really profound.

7. The Future of Us by Carolyn Mackler and Jay Asher (Razorbill, Nov. 21) - It's a story about a girl who, in 1996, installs AOL for the first time and stumbles upon the Facebook page of her future self. I started reading this while I was in line for signings, and I got a huge kick out of all the references to early internet. It's a super clever premise, and I can't wait to finish it.

8. You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik (Europa/Tonga, Aug 30) - I've got a growing fascination with Europa Editions books after reading two big winners this year thus far. You Deserve Nothing is the first published under Europa's new Tonga imprint that uses prominent contemporary writers as guest editors. Alice Sebold is the editor of this one. The idea of this is enough to draw my attention, but this book about a teacher in Paris who brings out the ethical sides of his students, but can't quite live up to the ideals he teaches sounds good all on its own merit.

9. Child Wonder by Ray Jacobsen (Graywolf, Sept. 27) Okay, I'll be straight with you. I'm in love with this cover, too. The book's about a kid growing up in 1960s Norway. Because I love getting my fix of books that happen in places that aren't...here.

10. Calling Mr. King by Ronald De Feo (Other Press, Aug. 30) - A hit man gets passionate about art and architecture which isn't a great plan because, well, he's a hit man. It's about a hit man who wants to be someone else, who's curious?

What will *you* be reading this fall?

Reading at Random: That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx

2011-08-28T16:45:00.000-04:00

I had big plans for this weekend that involved New Jersey. Unfortunately, a certain hurricane had some different plans, so now I am home "enjoying" a rainy (but mostly uneventful) Pennsylvania weekend with mountains of books, a stack of which have been not-so-patiently waiting for me to review them, looking at me with evil intent. I spent last weekend attempting to root out some books I consider myself less and less likely to read from a collection that has become so overwhelming that it actually makes it hard to sit down and read one book because the pressure of hundreds of others is such a dreaded distraction. I culled a pitiful 50 from the stacks, leaving hundreds more. It's a good start, I guess, and a good way to avoid the fact that I've been having terrible "reviewer's block" (if that is even a real thing), but now it's time to try and free myself from the review backlog. First up, since this is going to be a pretty wet weekend in the northeast, I thought I'd tackle a book that takes place in a much drier location.

That Old Ace in the Hole is my very first experience with author Annie Proulx. Proulx is one of those authors whose work I've been collecting, but not really reading. When I came back from BEA this year, I felt kind of ARCed to death, so I fled to my LibraryThing catalogue, and with the help of Random.org picked out a random book from the many books I own that were not published this year. Random.org helpfully chose That Old Ace in the Hole from an overwhelming array of options, and I could not have been happier with the choice.

That Old Ace in the Hole features Bob Dollar, a hapless recent university grad from Denver, Colorado. Armed with a diploma and a desire to work at a position better than clerk at his Uncle Tam's junk shop or a lightbulb inventory manager, Bob more or less aimlessly stumbles into a job scouting out hog farm sites in the Texas Panhandle for a company called Global Pork Rind. Since hog farms are not exactly pleasant to have next door or otherwise upwind, Bob's task is to clandestinely infiltrate a Panhandle community and do his scouting under the radar.

That's how Bob finds himself in Woolybucket, Texas crashing for $50 a month in the rundown bunkhouse of the ever-loquacious LaVon Fronk. Bob's sure that scouting out a site for GPR will be a piece of cake, especially considering he's bunking with the town gossip who surely will give him some tidbits about who's looking to sell out of failing, too-dry ranch land. Soon, though, Bob is losing sight of his purpose as he falls into Woolybucket's rhythms and begins to find that, this place, seemingly destined for hog farms and drought, is beginning to feel like the home he never had.

Proulx's Woolybucket is full of outsized characters whose parents and grandparents and great grandparents before them have their histories woven inextricably into the Panhandle. In his adventures, Bob finds himself chatting with a quilting circle of ladies who produce one quilt per year depicting a religious scene to be raffled off at the town's Barbwire Festival. He works part time for Cy Frease who opened his restaurant, the Old Dog, because he was sick and tired of "the pukiest shit-fire-and-save-the-matches goddamn grub this side a the devil's table." He listens to LaVon Fronk go on about the history of ranching in the Panhandle in between town gossip. He listens to old-timer Tater Crouch's barely true memories of his cowboying youth. Proulx brings to life a community, a way of life, a landscape that seems to be utterly unique and unfailingly entertaining. Proulx imbues the town with personality and captivating characters who get themselves into some ridiuculous small-town situations, but it never comes off as too quaint or sugary-sweet like some small town stories that seem to try too hard. Rather, it's easy to fall in love with the people who have staked out a tough life in the Panhandle, who have steely strength below their mostly friendly and welcoming exteriors. I was so absorbed in Proulx's small town and so in love with its characters that when the book ended, I was sad to see them go.

In case you couldn't tell, I loved That Old Ace in the Hole. It is a story that serious and funny at the same time. The people are real, if exaggerated, and the rip-roaring tales they tell smack of the sort campfire-side story-telling that I've always loved.

Here's to taking a few days off from the new and digging into the stacks for some of that older gold.

What's the best book you've read recently that wasn't published recently?

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Unreviewed Books

2011-08-23T07:00:00.000-04:00

Okay, so, I haven't written a post since my last Top Ten Tuesday. Major blogger's block. But I'm back, and here's hoping this will get my blogging juices pumping again. This week the folks over at The Broke and the Bookish are asking for our Top Ten Books We Loved But Never Reviewed. Most of mine come from the books I read before I started blogging. Here are some "oldies" but goodies!

1. The Other Side of You by Salley Vickers - This book gave me a lot to think about, and I wish that I had been blogging when I read it because I think a review would have really helped me sort out my thoughts about what I ultimately found to be an excellent read.

2. Small Island by Andrea Levy - I read this very shortly before I started blogging, and it might be among the first books that I thought, "Hey, this might be fun to review!" I always moan and complain about books that use several narrators but offer up no meaningful distinction between their voices. Small Island is my poster child for multiple narrators done well.

3. Wonder When You'll Miss Me by Amanda Davis - I'm a nut about circus stories, and I loved this one about a girl with extremely low self-esteem who has an extremely traumatic experience and then runs away to join the circus. There is circus stuff and redemption and it's very excellent. And I am super-bummed because the author has since passed away, so I won't get to enjoy any more of her work. =(

4. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene - A book I must re-read. It's about the last priest in Mexico. I've never read a book that's simultaneously so hopeless and so hopeful.

5. Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty - This is one of the few leisure reading books that made their way into my time in college. I read it in one night. It's all in letters and notes between mother and daughter as well as the main character's best friend, and many tongue in cheek made up organizations (i.e. The Cold Hard Truth Association) with important and hysterical advice and instruction for Elizabeth, the protagonist.

6. That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx - I intend to actually getting to review this one. This is my first time out with Annie Proulx and surely won't be my last. It's all about a hapless young man called Bob Dollar who gets a job trolling the Texas panhandle for noxious hog farm sites, but ends up falling in love with an unusual community and way of life instead. The characters are super well-drawn and some of the tangential stories remind me of the sorts of tales you might hear around the campfire.

7. Peace Like a River by Leif Enger - I wish I'd reviewed this book because I loved it, but now I barely remember what happened in it. All I remember is it being about miracles and faith, and it's sort of To Kill a Mockingbird-esque and there's a scene where the father is pacing on a truck bed while praying fervently with his eyes closed, and even though he walks off the edge of it, he never falls. It's a scene you don't forget.

8. Kindred by Octavia Butler - I loved Kindred. For one, I am a huge sucker for historical fiction/time travel stories and Kindred has got to be among the best. It's one of those books that I definitely feel like I should go back and read again because there was so much going on in it. The protagonist, Dana, an African American woman, is transported back in time to slave-era Maryland where she has to suffer as a slave until her unexpected return to the present. Why's she time traveling? To save a white child of slave owners from dying...again and again. See what I mean? It's good.

9. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh - Why do I wish I would have reviewed this one? Because, really, I'm so surprised that I even read it much less liked it. This book is so not me. It's written in nearly incomprehensible Scottish dialect. It's profane. It's gritty. It's full of disturbing pictures of addiction. It's gross really. And I thought it was fantastic. It was gritty in a very real way. I felt unexpected sympathy for the scumbag narrator. Even the nearly incomprehensible Scottish dialogue was entertaining once I got the hang of it. (Reading it? I recommend spending some time alone and reading it aloud until it stars to make sense. Worked for me!)

10. The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett - I have very few "favorite authors." I am just not a huge "author" person who falls in love with an author and must read all their books, so being considered one of my favorites is a rare and dubious honor. Bel Canto is great, but I prefer this story of the magician's assistant who falls in love with her gay best friend and employer. The relationship is so well brought to life and the journey she takes to discover his dark past is compelling.

Top Ten Tuesday: Underrated Books

2011-08-09T07:35:00.001-04:00

I'm breaking with tradition today and actually doing another Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and the Bookish before, like, a month or two has passed since the last one. Today we're singing the praises of the books we think are underrated or underloved.

1. The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen - This is the book that I always use to answer this question. Mullen's other book, The Last Town on Earth, seems like it was huge compared to this one which I repeatedly moan and groan that more people haven't read. It's about Great Depression bank robbers. It's action-packed, there's an interesting love story, and plus, the protagonists keep, well, not dying, at least not for good. You can read my further ravings both here and here.

2. Black & White by Dani Shapiro - I read this a few summers ago, I think, and it sticks in my head. It's about a daughter who has continually been the subject of her mother's art and the very considerable strain that has put on their relationship. When the mother falls ill, the daughter has to confront the past. I recall it being well-told in flashbacks and asking interesting questions about whether the mother really loved the daughter or loved the inspiration her daughter provided.

3. City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell - I read this story of a missionary couple in early 20th century China last summer, and I was totally blown away. It's an incredible portrait of a marriage, a penetrating look into historical China, and and a beautiful picture of faith in action. I cried repeatedly. I loved it. Why haven't you (and you and you) read it?

4. The Road Back by Erich Maria Remarque - This is All Quiet on the Western Front's unloved step-child, or something like that. I bet you didn't even know Remarque had written another great book, unless you've read about it here where I'm always shoving it in people's faces. It's a really excellent read about post-World War I Germany and the soldiers trying to fit back into civilian life after many years at brutal war.

5. Pied Piper by Nevil Shute - Nevil Shute's other books (e.g. On the Beach) are much more popular than this one seems to be, but Pied Piper is fantastic. It's the story of an elderly man on holiday at just the wrong time who unwittingly ends up helping a bunch of children escape World War II occupied France. The juxtaposition of the danger of occupied France with the innocence of the children while the old man tries to account for the two is pitch perfect. I get the impression that both this and the previous book aren't widely available, but they should be because they still could find a great many appreciative readers, in my humble opinion.

6. The Cactus Eaters by Dan White - The author's memoir of his adventure hiking the Pacific Crest Trail is hilarious, but also informative in a way that is not clunky and awkward. He also does a fine job with portraying the kooky trail regulars without judging them, because, hey, the trail makes him kind of kooky, too.

7. Ellington Boulevard by Adam Langer - This book captures the spirit of New York City and the draw it has for dreamers who are sure it's the place to make something of themselves, all this against the New York City that's a little crueler and tempts the dreamers to sell out to the highest bidder just to get by. Plus, there's this quote. That I love. A lot.

He still loves the sense of possiblity that permeates every building and block. He loves the view of the Hudson from Riverside Park, loves watching the ducks paddle in the Central Park pond, loves the almost-too-pungent scent of gingkos on Manhattan Avenue in the summer. He loves watching his dog's tail wag when he pulls Ike toward Strangers' Gate. He loves the sounds of baseball games in Morningside, mah-jongg tiles on 107th Street, playing cards outside the Frederick Douglass Apartments, the subway underfoot, the flutter and clang of the flags atop the Blockhouse -- every bit of it is music.

8. The Reluctant God by Pamela F. Service - This is a leftover from my middle school years. There is Egypt and Egyptian princes and Egyptian artifacts and time travel and a race against time, and I could read it again and again (and again!)

9. The Other Side of You by Salley Vickers - A story with so many compelling layers that I (the non-re-reader) kept it to re-read. It's about a psychotherapist and his suicidal patient and how they help each other uncover their tragic pasts. Plus, it totally gave me a thing for Carravagio paintings.

10. Open Wounds by Joseph Lunievicz - The, um, 4 of us who rated this on LibraryThing all really loved this book. I met the author at BEA. He is super nice so I'm so happy that I loved his book which is historical YA set in New York City. There are lots of fascinating, unusual characters, great friendships, Shakespeare, sword-fighting, and coming of age. If you want to read some YA that is next to nothing like all that other YA you've been reading but is still incredibly awesome, read this. If you're looking for some YA for the slightly older teenage boys in your life, look no further, and rest assured that if you happen to be a not so YA girl, you will certainly like it, too, of course!

Shameless Gushing about The Call by Yannick Murphy

2011-08-07T08:18:00.000-04:00

I didn't mean to read The Call the day that it came in the mail from Harper Perennial. Really, I didn't. I had other plans. I had another book started already, and I am monogamous with my books. I don't *do* two at a time. I made a mistake, though. I opened it up, as I am wont to do, and read the first few sentences...and found myself reading the first few pages...and then the whole book.

It was all wholly unexpected. I was sick and grumpy and on the cusp of a massive funk, reading and otherwise, and thoroughly credit The Call with rescuing me from my funk. I finished it and immediately began recommending it to my friends. I am fully prepared to gush shamelessly about its awesomeness but am failing to see a way to do so that's coherent...at all. Maybe someday I'll write a real, decent review with skillful writing, penetrating thoughtfulness, and maybe the tiniest bit of objectivity. Today, though, I'm opting for the gushy post, signified by me writing in the second person to tell you how you should/will feel about The Call. Consider yourself warned.

So, there's this vet in rural New England and he keeps a journal of his daily calls to farms to treat various large animals, but soon it gets more detailed, including not only his calls but the details of his daily family life, his musings as he drives from place to place, his fascination with what he is sure is a spacecraft looming over his house with blinking lights. When tragedy strikes, his journal becomes even more detailed covering hopeless days at the hospital, asking for answers from the mysterious spacecraft, all while carrying on with motions of daily life.

Okay, it doesn't sound exciting. In fact it sounds a little strange when you try to summarize it, which is one of the obstacles I'm facing when recommending it. But let me assure you, it is great. It is fascinating. It is heartwarming. You will hear your own internal musings in David the vet's mental wanderings. You will wholly believe that there is a spacecraft hovering over his house, and when a mysterious stranger shows up and he starts seriously referring to him as the "spaceman," you will totally buy it. You will laugh at the antics of his wife, son and two daughters and the assorted creatures he treats as well as the ones who live in his house, but more than that you will fall in love with the way he talks about them. In short, you will fall in love with the unusual way Murphy has chosen to tell her story because, with the characters she's created, everything about it just works.

Murphy's story is heartbreaking and heartwarming. In 200 or so short pages, she creates a family that you wish lived next door, that you won't be able to get enough of. You will be sad when it's over. You will certainly laugh, you might very well cry. You will be blown away by the story's simple wisdom, its respect for the joys of a simple life with a family you love, and its lighthearted, honest dealing with life's really hard stuff.

The Call is the oddest sort of book. It's a quiet, understated story, not so very earth shattering at all, but every little bit of it leaps off the page. Finishing this book made me feel good about life and love and families and everything and like even when things get hard, good can still win (or at least not lose), and we can all make it to the other side if we can just remember to laugh at life once in a while, stick together, and do the right thing when the opportunity comes along.

The Call is, for certain, one of the best books I've read this year and one that you just have to read to believe. Look for it at your bookstore or library. It's got a bright orange cover. You can't miss it, and, really, you shouldn't.

If my gushing doesn't convince you, here are a couple more articulate views...

Beth Fish Reads
A Musing Reviews

(Thanks to Erica at Harper Perennial for sending me a copy for review!)

Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy

2011-08-02T07:17:00.000-04:00

How can you not be curious about a book title like this? There's something even in the title that is tantalizing and a little haunting. The title, the cover, the many wonderful things I heard about his stories, which I've not yet read (but intend to!) all conspired together to make sure I requested Everything Beautiful Began After from Harper Perennial.

For those who are lost, there will always be cities that feel like home. Places where lonely people can live in exile of their own lives - far from anything that was ever imagined for them.

Everything Beautiful Began After is the story of the unlikely friendship of three people who meet in Athens, three people running from their pasts and trying to find themselves and create new lives in an old city. Rebecca, a shy girl and talented artist from the French countryside loses herself as she caters to her passengers on Air France flights. She comes to Athens to find inspiration for her painting and to find her true self that she had locked tightly away. George, from the American south, grew up in boarding schools where what love could be found was always at a distance. Even in Athens, he buries his sorrows and loneliness in liquor and his passion for ancient languages. Henry, an archaeologist, searches for the bodies of the long dead for clues to lost civilizations, but really is searching for absolution from an unspeakable tragedy from his past.

Together, the three find the love and joy that have been missing from their lives. Their time together in Athens shines bright as the one time they can remember that they were all truly happy. However, when tragedy strikes, both the strength and the fragility of their bonds are revealed, the secrets of three people who hardly had the chance to know each other at all bubble to the surface, and send the characters on unexpected journeys that will change the courses of their lives forever.

The real Rebecca lay beneath, smuggled onboard each flight inside her uniform, waiting for the moment to reveal herself.

But such a moment never happened, and her true self, by virtue of neglect, turned from the world and slipped away without anyone noticing.

If a philospher and a talented novelist got married and had a baby, it would be Everything Beautiful Began After. At first the prose seems like it could be too much; too flowery, too overwrought, but then you realize it's kind of delicious and you want to roll around in it. At first, the dialogue seems the slightest bit unrealistic. You find yourself thinking, "Are there people that really talk this way?" But then you think that maybe even if people don't talk this way, they still could. Perhaps in a surreal Athenian summer ordinary people could give voice to the extraordinary thoughts rolling around in their heads that they might otherwise leave just as thoughts. Then you realize you are absolutely relating to these big things that they're saying that you don't imagine people say. Everything about Everything Beautiful Began After feels slightly exaggerated to great effect. There's a purity of emotion in it that will take readers by surprise, perhaps confuse them, but ultimately leave them satisfied.

"Loneliness is like being the only person left alive in the universe, except that everyone else is still here."

Van Booy's novel is a triumph. Athens comes alive in his hands, a place with softened edges that seems almost unreal and is the perfect context for Van Booy's tale. Van Booy doesn't settle for telling his story in just one way but easily shuffles between third and second person narrations, and even first person by way of Henry's typewritten letters from around the globe. Rarely have I been so impressed with a second person narration as I have in this book. It brings to life the immediacy of grief and the surreal distance that accompanies it. The book deals heavily in the pain of grief but never abandons moments of humor in favor of total melancholy. On the whole, Everything Beautiful Began After is a beautiful, richly textured work that chronicles the lives of three unforgettable characters brought together and torn apart by a summer in a city that will always feel like home.

Humans may come and go - but the thread of hope is like a rope we pull ourselves up with.

Highly recommended!

Here's to Borders 120

2011-07-31T09:27:00.001-04:00

Once upon a time, just shortly before my life as a book blogger began, I sold books at Borders. If it had paid maybe even $4 more an hour, I'd be about to lose my job, too. Instead, I sat in the Boston bedroom that I was subletting for $500 a month and thought, "there's no way I can make it through the winter on this paycheck." So, I quit the best job I've yet to have and beat a path home to Pennsylvania to work as a soulless healthcare underling, but that's another story.

Borders 120 is the really big one with the perpetually malfunctioning up escalator at Downtown Crossing in Boston. The first time I saw it, I was on my way to a temp agency for my initial interview trying to find someplace to make a few bucks so I could keep making rent while I looked a for a "real" job. What better way for a booklover to soothe their pre-interview jitters than by perusing the bookshelves of, perhaps, the largest bookstore she'd ever laid eyes upon?

Life went on as scheduled. I got my first temp job, but I also applied for a job at that Borders. Before long I was having an interview with a guy named Alex who, of all the many interviewers I've faced in all my job hunting, was, oddly, the most intimidating because of the total lack of rhyme or reason to his interview. I left feeling like a moron, but within days I was blowing off my next shot at a temp job because I was about to start working at a bookstore, the biggest bookstore I'd ever seen. Within a month I was selling books, brewing Seattle's Best, and enjoying a 33% employee discount with the few extra dollars I could manage to save from things like food and housing.

I'll admit that this Borders has a warm, glowy spot in my memory, which is not to say it didn't face its share of problems. For one, if you've been there and seen the up escalator working, you're one of the few and the proud. For two, the homeless population was allowed to enjoy the same sitting around sipping coffee rights as everybody else which, while humane, was also stinky and sometimes a bit druggie and you wouldn't be feeling terribly benevolent about it while reshelving the 50 magazines a lady your fellow employees had christened "Smelly Nelly" had grabbed to keep her company for a long day on the mezzanine. For three, there were those few times with the front of store smelling like sewage and the elevator smelling like....okay, it wasn't an olfactory paradise. Okay, it wasn't probably wasn't paradise-y at all, but you'd be hard pressed to get me to believe it. It just had....personality. Yeah, that's what we'll call it.

It was, however, packed with books and music and intelligent well-read people with the passion and talent to sell them, who all had the sense of humor you needed to deal with the swarms of impatient business people, non english-speaking tourists, homeless folks, and the occasional outright scumbag that downtown Boston has to offer. This was a place where, if somebody came in looking for a yellow book about world leaders someone had profiled in the paper last week, someone would be able to help you find it. A place where it was so busy most days that if somebody said "excuse me" to you on the street while you were on your way home, you turned around ready to find them a book. A place where I spent a whole day doing nothing but ringing up copies of the last Harry Potter book for everybody in the city, or so it seemed. A place where if somebody came in looking for a periodical that your brain couldn't have imagined existed even in the most twisted of fever dreams, you could call out over the walkie talkie and one of ten guys named David could take you straight to it. A place where all the early employees went to lunch at the same time and could all sit in the break room for an hour and read our own books without speaking a word or spend the whole time talking about books or music or what was going on in pop culture regardless of the different backgrounds we were coming from.

It was a place that served as a waystation for people chasing bigger futures or earning a few extra bucks after their day jobs, it was a place where marriages started, it was a place where I made the most unlikely of friends, not the least of which was the guy they skeptically put me to work with making lattes on Saturday mornings. A guy who couldn't have been less like me, but who I literally had the best times with talking over political conspiracy theories while sampling out frozen drinks that didn't even exist on the menu.

In short, it was the place where I learned that even when the people around me were nothing like me, books made us into a creepy little family. My job at Borders made me appreciate all different kinds of people, all different kinds of books. I'll miss all the Borders stores, including the one closest to my hometown which will leave a huge hole in an already bookstore-light area, but there's a special spot in my heart for the old action-packed 120 and all the wacky characters that I came to know and enjoy when I was working there. Somehow, losing 120 isn't just losing a bookstore, it's the passing of an era.

Here's to you, Borders - you were great while you lasted. You gave me six months of a surreal dream job coming true, years of great book shopping, and a lifetime of appreciation for a diverse community of people who know that if you're not reading, you're not living.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Tackling Tough Issues

2011-07-26T07:00:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been a while since I did my last Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and the Bookish, so I was racking my brain to come up with 10 good issues novels to make a list for this week's "Books Tackling Tough Issues" topic. That got me nowhere, but eventually I remembered that non-fiction books are books, too (I know, I know, I'm sick okay? Cut me a break!), and it so happens that a fair few of my favorite non-fiction reads deal with some tough issues. Fear not, though, I didn't forget to include the few novels I scraped up for my list.

1. The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta - This is the first book I thought of when I thought "issue" book. Perrotta tackles abstinence education in such a balanced way that you won't be able to help being pissed off regardless of which side you're on.

2. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson - I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir with this one. If you haven't read this YA about a girl dealing with her rape, you probably don't need me to tell you to because those other thousand people probably got to you first. But, you know, just in case.

3. Dreamland by Sarah Dessen. - Another YA, Dreamland tackles dating violence. It wasn't my favorite Dessen, but she handles the issue well.

4. Complications by Atul Gawande - The US healthcare system is an issue right? Gawande doesn't take on the whole thing at one shot, but his essays address issues like doctors' fallibility and uncertainty. The book is entertaining and useful should you ever need the attention of medical professionals.

5. Banker to the Poor by Muhammud Yunus - Yunus writes about realizing how the field of economics does so little to help the desperately poor and proposes the solution that became the micro-credit movement.

6. No Matter How Loud I Shout by Edward Humes - I read this for a class while I was still in college, but I'd read it again in a heartbeat. The juvenile justice system is a huge issue, and this book talks about it in a way that is totally engaging and gives you the real human stories behind the failing of the system.

7. Picking Cotton by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton - Okay, I've got a thing for justice system issues, perhaps. This one is about a woman who mis-identified her rapist and sent him to prison for years before the mistake was discovered and the verdict reversed. It calls into question our reliance on eyewitness testimony as well as our ability to be impartial when it comes to judging guilt or innocence and explores its consequences for the justice system.

8. When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert - This one does an excellent job of exploring how, when we try to help people/communities/countries we feel are less well off than us, we tend to go about it all wrong. It questions our motives - to help others or feel good about ourselves? To help people create workable systems of their own or make them dependent on us?

9. Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman - This one is an approachable, engaging memoir about the author's time in low-security women's prison that deals with the issue of how prisons are preparing inmates to re-enter society, or, well, not, as the case seems to be and the obvious repercussions of that failure.

10. The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine - Ok, one more novel. This is an unflinching look at sexual slavery/child prostitution.

How do you think? What books do a fantastic job of highlighting issues?

Tabloid City by Pete Hamill

2011-07-25T09:06:00.000-04:00

This is the second time this year that I've done this. You know, the one where I think an author is one I should like, so I acquire practically their whole catalog, never actually read it, then request a review copy of their latest release because I've somehow deluded myself into thinking I'm a huge fan of the author's work. Luckily, I must know what I might like because despite the fact that I own several of Pete Hamill's books and hear great things about them, I'd never actually read one until Tabloid City, and now I'm glad to have more of Hamill's work already waiting on my shelves. I could be wrong, but from what I've read about his books Tabloid City seems like it might be slightly off Hamill's beaten path. Most of his titles seem to have a historical aspect, but Tabloid City is very current but for some of its characters' nostalgia for the New York City of their youths.

Tabloid City is a day in New York City, and what a day it is. It starts just after midnight with Sam Briscoe, editor of the last slowly dying afternoon tabloid in New York City, contemplating the next day's headlines. He's a newspaperman from way back who longs for the days when the papers weren't being encroached upon by an army of websites. He pines for the days of smoky newsrooms filled with activity, for headlines that people were eager to read instead of the same old bad news. But Sam is just one of many characters that populate the pages of Tabloid City. Its pages are filled with characters ranging from a wealthy socialite and philanthropist to a Muslim extremist to a war veteran bent on revenge to a police officer whose own son has gone wrong all of whose paths will cross in the shadow of murder all in Hamill's one day in New York City.

Tabloid City is not told in chapters but in minutes. The story is not written in first person style, nonetheless every few pages, marked by the new time, the perspective changes to a different character, covering dozens of characters. This style is perfect for the story Hamill is trying to tell. It, plus its present tense storytelling, conveys the urgency, the quickness with which momentous changes occur in a city that pulses with life at all hours. It captures a cross-section of the city's denizens and their complicated, often distant, relationships. Hamill is a champion at bringing his city to life. Many of the things that make New York unique find their way into the pages, and the gritty daily grind of the city that never sleeps is palpable through the eyes of longtime residents who have grown weary of their anonymous struggle against its changing face. Hamill paints a picture of New York struggling in recession and of people who are relentlessly nostalgic for lives that they used to live in a New York that was, if not simpler, than at least more real.

Tabloid City is about New York, a city where changes are always only minutes away, but a city that longs for its own past. It's also about humanity. The characters here are anything but lovable. They are angry, they are mysterious, they are hurting, needing, lost, vengeful, but, above all, real. Each is hurtling along toward their destiny in an unforgiving place, a place they can't help but love. Tabloid City does have somewhat of a thrilling end, but the journey is the better part.

(Thanks to Anna at Hachette for sending me a copy for review.)

Reset

2011-07-23T17:30:00.000-04:00

Photo Credit

This is one of those posts that after I've written and posted it, many of the kind and forgiving bloggers of the world will assure me was totally unnecessary. I've decided that it is necessary, if only for my mental health, but if, for your mental health, you elect to pass it on by in favor of bloggers actually writing about books and reading and things, I can't say that I'd blame you. There, you've been duly warned.

I don't know if my absence around the blogosphere and maybe even especially right here on my own blog has been as glaring as I tend to think it is when I'm getting down on myself about not being a consistent enough blogger, but I feel very absent from all things blogging. I feel like I keep either phoning in posts or not writing them at all, and when I do write them, I end up not replying to my commenters despite my best intentions. Usually, it would be easy enough to blame these sorts of things on my own personal failings, of which I have plenty, but this summer, I'm just struggling with so many stupid things that it's making it hard to keep up with the things that I love.

I love reading and I love blogging, and I promise you this is not one of those, "I'm about to scrap my blog - please talk me back from this dangerous precipice!" sort of posts either. Ever since returning from BEA, I've been excited about the prospect of being a better blogger as that sort of thing always does to me, just one of the many reasons why I go. Unfortunately, since then, I have been really sick not once but twice (the worst of which has been just this past week - nothing serious though), had family members who have been really sick that I've been trying to help out where I can, I've injured my back badly and aggravated my previously injured wrist, applied for and interviewed for a new, hotly contested, position within my company that ended with me still in my current position but not before turning into an ugly mess resulting in a department where the morale is now worse than ever. It seems like it took summer so long to get here this year, and now that it's here it's an incomparable suck-a-ganza that just won't stop. It's gotten to the point where my mounting frustration over not being able to blog the way I want, and the ever-growing list of posts I want to write is overwhelming me so much, that when I do have the time to write, I can't seem to find my voice.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I love this blog. I've come to terms with the amount of time I can give to it regularly, which, though it is not the amount of time I'd like to give to it, is still some of the best time I have to give. It makes me feel like what I have to say is worth something. It gives me a part of my life that I'm still passionate about, and it connects me to people who understand what it is to find life in books. If I'm not here because I'm giving time to my family or my friends, I can deal with it, but it eats away at me when the reason I'm nowhere to be found here is because I'm giving all my good time to my thankless job or to housework or running errands or, even better, to seeing doctors, laying on a heating pad, or picking up other people's prescriptions. So, to everybody who has commented lately and been disappointed by my lack of response, to everybody who thinks I must have given up reviewing books completely (since it's been so long), and to everyone whose e-mail has gone unreplied to while I've been trying reset the bowling pins of my life (and failing) thanks for your patience. I am beyond frustrated that the crummy stuff of life has kept me from doing things here like they ought to be done, and I apologize.

Thanks for bearing with me through this message and through my very flaky blogging behavior, of late. I feel like I've been lumbering along laboring under a weird, amorphous burden of guilt that nobody's forcing me to carry, and I'm hoping that the simple act of posting this post will clean the slate for me, and I'll be able get up, dust myself off, and get myself back to the blogging at hand.

Okay, back to your normal programming. Thanks, everybody!

The Girl Who Loved Books Too Much

2011-07-17T09:22:00.000-04:00

It's library book sale season in the land without bookstores. I shouldn't go, I can't go. I don't even have places to put the boxes of books anymore much less actual shelf space. Alas, my mother has begun an endeavor to sell used books on Amazon, and she desires "moral support" on her inventory gathering quests. I told her she should find someone else because taking me to a book sale is something like taking an alcoholic to the bar, and she frequently finds that rather than helping her, I've slunk away to, um, have a drink, we'll say. Let's just say, I've been supporting the local libraries with some abandon, and the kind givers of books to such causes read really good books.

Now, the rundown in pictures, commentary, and even some blame!

The Widower's Tale by Julia Glass - I liked Three Junes away back when I read it, and would like to dip into Glass's other work.
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver - The blogosphere's been abuzz about this YA hit for so long that I snatched it up hastily.
Dream When You're Feeling Blue Elizabeth Berg - Sheila made my do it!
Faithful Place by Tana French - Lesley's fault I bought this one.
Copper Sun by Sharon Draper
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell - It's probably Rebecca that really made me want to give Sarah Vowell a shot.
Petropolis by Anya Ulinich
The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
Zoo Story by Thomas French - I'd seen this one around a few times, but I think it's Diane's review that made it jump off the shelves and into my hands.
This is Where We Live by Janelle Brown - I discovered this one on the public bookshelf at work. I read the author's other book All We Ever Wanted Was Everything. That plus both her book covers have desserts on the covers, which seem to be totally irrelevant to the books but somehow also unexpectedly appealing. And did I mention it was free?
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick - There may be a few book bloggers out there that haven't raved about this one. I'm not sure I've met them, though.
The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham - Horrors! How did this get here, especially given my lingering unlove of Maugham? Methinks Amanda's to blame for this madness, whether she's still blogging about books or not!
How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman - This one was really popular when I was in charge of maintaining the health section while working at Borders. Now I work with lots of doctors, so I'm even more curious.
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich - Yeah, I totally bought this one before. Oops.
Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving - That Book Lady made me by this one, too. Plus, John Irving is one of those authors whose books I seems to collect and rarely read. My mom usually likes them, though...
The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper - Here's some blame for Debi's blog 3 to 4 incarnations ago.
The Story of Edgar Swatelle by David Wroblewski - Curious about modern day re-telling of Hamlet. That *is* what this is, isn't it?

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman - This is another from my days babysitting the health section at Borders. I've got a thing for bio-ethical quandaries, and I've heard numerous good things about this book.
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel - The Booker Prize made me do it.
Little Bee by Chris Cleave - I don't know what this is even about, but sooo many people recommend it.
The Little Book by Selden Edwards
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss - Okay, I'd never heard of this one when I picked it up, but I was still in my "western" happy place from reading Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole that it called out to me.
What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones - Because I totally read novels in verse (like, once ever)
Garden Spells Sarah Addison Allen - It's about time I tried SAA, right?
East of the Sun by Julia Gregson
Mrs. Somebody Somebody by Tracy Winn - This and previous are both LibraryThing Early Reviewer books that apparently stuck in my head!
Tinkers by Paul Harding - Hello, Pulitzer winner!
The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese - Hey, it's that guy that wrote Cutting for Stone!
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen - Can you believe this popped up on the community shelf at work? All the talk about it got me just curious enough to lug this massive hardback around in my purse for a day.
The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray by Walter Mosley
Clara's War by Clara Kramer - I'm all in for good books about the Holocaust, and Becky said this is one. I had to wrangle this one out of my mother's bookselling hands. Phew, close call.
Eulalia! by Brian Jacques - I've been in love with the Redwall books since I was in middle school, but I've still got a few left to read.
Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich - Wendy made me get this one. Plus, my lingering happy feelings over The Master Butchers Singing Club by the very same author.
Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian - Read and liked Midwives once upon time, and now I'm back for more.
(not pictured)Lottery by Patricia Wood - I remember a very glowing review from Lesley back when I was a baby blogger turned me onto this one. Not pictured because by the time I took the picture, my mom had already snatched it out of my hands to read.

All right, that's it for now. But there may or may not be another book sale coming up next week...

So, book lovers, how'd I do? =)

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Nanjing Requiem

2011-07-13T07:46:00.000-04:00

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin
Pantheon, October 18, 2011

Synopsis:

In 1937, with the Japanese poised to invade Nanjing, Minnie Vautrin-an American missionary and the dean of Jinling Women's College-decides to remain at the school, convinced that her American citizenship will help her safeguard the school and the welfare of the Chinese men and women who work there. She is painfully mistaken. In the aftermath of the invasion, the school becomes a refugee camp for nearly 10,000 homeless women and children, and Vautrin must struggle, day after day, to intercede on behalf of the hapless victims. Even when order and civility are restored, Vautrin remains deeply embattled, and she is haunted by the lives she could not save.

With extraordinarily evocative precision, Ha Jin re-creates the terror, the harrowing deprivations, and the menace of unexpected violence that defined life in Nanjing during the occupation. In Minnie Vautrin he has given us an indelible portrait of a woman whose convictions and bravery prove, in the end, no match for the maelstrom of history. At once epic and intimate, Nanjing Requiem is historical fiction at its most resonant, from one of the most acclaimed Chinese American writers of our time.

What are you "waiting on" this Wednesday?

The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison

2011-07-06T08:23:00.002-04:00

It's a coming of age story! And a love story! It's set during World War II! It was shortlisted for the 2010 Orange Prize (my go to prize!), and I'm reading it for Orange July! By rights it should have been a book that I loved, but I have to admit that it might not have been the book for me.

"I wonder what becomes of the Annas of this world."
"They find it hard to meet anyone who will take life as seriously as they do."

The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison starts off with 8-year-old Anna Sands being evacuated, like many other London children during World War II, to the English countryside to escape the impending German attack. Anna pictures herself on a sunshine-filled beach holiday but instead finds herself in a school set up in a sprawling Yorkshire mansion, Ashton Park. There, wealthy, childless Thomas and Elizabeth Ashton are attempting to rejuvenate their lives and their love by surrounding themselves with children in need of their help. During the course of her time at Ashton Park that spans several years of the war, Anna finds herself much more entangled in Thomas's tragic love story than even she will ever understand.

The novel gets off to a promising start with Anna embarking on a new adventure. Alison's lush prose evokes a magical, if practical, refuge in the far-reaching grounds of Ashton Park. Anna is taken with Elizabeth, who is all beauty and poise in public, and with Thomas, whose gentle demeanor and impeccable manners cover over a lifetime of pain and heartbreak. As the story wears on, Anna begins to glimpse the darker underbelly of life with a couple whose union was fragile at best, and put under stress by Thomas's struggle with polio, his inability to walk afterwards, and finally the couple's inability to have children. It seems that Anna is always on hand to witness the unfolding of events as the couple disintegrates and each begins to search for fulfillment from others. Elizabeth throws herself at any man that might impregnate her, while Thomas discovers a love that stimulates his heart and his mind in a way he never believed possible.

By its midpoint, the book had begun to frustrate me. Alison's writing is technically beautiful, but at times it seemed an excess of words kept me from ever truly engaging with the characters, who never really came to life, or becoming involved with their situations. A steady stream of commentary from an overintrusive narrative voice built up a wall of words that made the mid-section of The Very Thought of You, the part that depends on your sympathies to succeed, boring and trite. Instead of being captivated at Thomas's joy at finding his one true, if forbidden, love, I was eager to put the chapters of their mooning over each other with an army of true love cliches (fluttering limbs, a world lit up with love, the pressing of flowers into books with sentimental messages) behind me. That, and Anna's popping up at the most inopportune and inappropriate of times to bear witness to adult drama well beyond her years was bothersome to me.

In its final chapters, The Very Thought of You gains back some ground as it follows its characters into a later time. Thomas's lasting love and the profound impact the wartime years at Ashton Park had on Anna well into her adulthood are far more compelling. While I didn't love the book, by the time I turned the last page, I'd arrived at a fragile acceptance of the story's imperfect, broken characters who so often failed in their search for love. The Very Thought of You, is, as it promised to be, a haunting story, but never for the reasons you might expect.

Want some other opinions?

Nomadreader
Books in the City
The Magic Lasso
Eve's Alexandria
Books Please

(Thanks to Cristina at Atria Books for sending me a copy for review!)

"Waiting On" Wednesday: The Beginning of After

2011-06-29T07:00:00.000-04:00

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

The Beginning of After by Jennifer Castle
HarperTeen, September 6, 2011

Synopsis:

Laurel’s world changes instantly when her parents and brother are killed in a terrible car accident. Behind the wheel is the father of her bad-boy neighbor, David Kaufman, whose mother is also killed. Now, Laurel must navigate a new world in which she and her best friend grow apart, boys may or may not be approaching her out of pity, overpowering memories lurk everywhere, and Mr. Kaufman is comatose but still very much alive. Through it all, there is David, who swoops in and out of Laurel’s life and to whom she finds herself attracted against her better judgment. She will forever be connected to him by their mutual loss, a connection that will change them both in unexpected ways.

What are you "waiting on" this Wednesday?

Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan

2011-06-26T09:05:00.000-04:00

The only child of a devout Catholic father who nonetheless failed the priesthood and a mother so terribly wounded by a community that still judges her for her family's past sins that the family hardly mixes with their neighbors, young Ellie Flaherty's childhood is a drab and loveless affair. It's no wonder, then, that when Ellie's mother lets her out, as an act of charity, to play with John Hogan whose parents have both passed away from TB, that she quickly falls in love with his easy smile and his awe at the nature that surrounds their village in Ireland. The pair are best friends through their school days, but when John leaves for Dublin to apprentice with a carpenter, Ellie wonders if she's lost him for good, but she need not worry, for when they meet again their love is stronger than ever, and soon the pair are married.

Married life isn't easy in their rural Irish home during the Irish rebellion, and John, a soldier for the Irish Republican Army, is severely wounded. The only way John will walk again is with an expensive operation, and Ellie knows the only way to afford it will be for her to join a friend working as a lady's maid in America. Soon enough, Ellie is being seduced by the promise, independence, and society of life as a young woman in New York City during the Roaring 20s. Will Ellie be able to return to a life of poverty in Ireland with her one true love, or will the siren call of the city of dreams lure her into a new life altogether?

Ellis Island is Ellie's story, and hers alone. Though the pages of Ellis Island are full of characters, her Irish family, her husband John, her rich employer Isobel Adams, and her friends from her typing job, not to mention the charming Charles Irvington who would woo her given the chance, Ellie's character is the only one that truly jumps off the page. The rest, while fleshed out enough, merely give structure to Ellie's journey, not just from Ireland to America, but from thoughtless, selfish childhood to accepting, understanding adulthood. Kerrigan's Ireland and 1920s New York City are almost like characters themselves, and Kerrigan draws out the wonder and the fast pace of a city on the rise just as well as she pictures for us the quaint, if sometimes desperately poor, Irish countryside. The contrasts between Ellie's two lives are sharp, but Kerrigan ultimately manages to show the great value in both of them.

Ellis Island is littered with the sort of coincidences that might make the story seem contrived but for the impression that Ellie's story is so human and turns out the way so many human stories do. Ellie's story reveals a life peppered with joys and haunted by regrets and thoughts of what might have been. Ellie's coming of age mirrors so many in that we come to understand the lives around us, and we don't just "settle" but learn to love even the small joys that our lives have to offer us. Ellis Island was a little lighter fare than perhaps I was expecting but is ultimately an enjoyable historical love story that brings the 1920s to life and gives us a memorable character finding herself during a captivating time in history.

Ellis Island releases on June 28th.

Thanks to Mary at Harper Paperbacks for sending me a copy for review!

Check out other reviews at...

Lovely Treez Reads
Sam Still Reading

Top Ten Tuesday: Reasons I Love Being a Book Blogger!

2011-06-21T07:00:00.001-04:00

The bloggers over at The Broke and the Bookish are celebrating their one year blogoversary this week (Congrats, by the way!). In honor of the occasion, the topic of this week's top ten list is the "Top Ten Reasons I Love Being a Book Blogger." Should be a piece of cake, right? =)

1. Other Book Bloggers - They're book nuts, just like me! When you meet them it's like meeting old friends that you've never technically met before.

2. The Community - I especially love when practically the whole book blogosphere gets together for stuff like the 24 Hour Readathon and Book Blogger Appreciation Week.

3. Being in the Know about the New - Okay, maybe swimming in review copy commitments isn't always ideal, but I love keeping up with the new and exciting books coming out before or as they arrive on the scene with the help of my favorite book bloggers.

4. First Rate Book Recommendations - Where else can you find people that seem to have the exact same taste in books as you where every book they love, you can bet you'll love it, too? Even more, where else can you find people who can talk so passionately and coherently about the books that they love that you find yourself picking up books to read that you wouldn't have given a second thought before?

5. Having Your Bookish Horizons Broadened - Book bloggers have gotten me to try short stories. And audiobooks now, too. Can't wait to see what's next!

6. BEA/Book Blogger Con - I've been there 2 years now, and would happily go again! All the books and book bloggers and bookish people and bookish events and everything all in one place. It's a book person's paradise and something I never would have even dreamed about before book blogging made it a possibility!

7. The Books - Okay, a shallow reason for loving being a book blogger, but I can't deny that getting the occasional advance copy of a book that I'm super excited about is worth loving!

8. Getting to Talk About Great Books - Is its own reward. And sometimes people even read my ramblings and comment on them. Double win!

9. Twitter - I never would have joined without the help (or is it peer pressure??) of book bloggers who always seem to having great fun or hatching brilliant plans on Twitter. Now whenever I feel like "talking" or getting an answer to a random question or whining or whatever, there's a friendly tweeting book blogger to chatter at.

10. Feeling Normal - When you spend all day with people who couldn't care less if they read a book this year, you start to feel like maybe, just maybe, you're the freak. So, it's nice to be in the company, however virtual, of people who don't think you're crazy if you think it's a first rate crisis if you forgot to put a book in your bag to keep you company on your lunch break or who don't look askance at you if you have a few shelves double stacked with books. It's good to have friends that enable my "book problem."

What do you love about being a book blogger? Or a book lover in general?

The Audio Experiment

2011-06-19T09:32:00.000-04:00

I have a confession to make. Up until this month, I'd never listened to an audiobook. I appreciate many bloggers' love for them and understand how they would be a welcome diversion on a long commute or while going through the motions of housework, but to me, it seems like cheating, like not really reading. Besides, I told myself, I don't retain things as well when I'm hearing them instead of reading them, especially if I'm tired or distracted, which would probably be the times I'd be trying to listen anyway.

When I arrived back from BEA and discovered Audiobook Week was upon us, I was none too excited. "Great," my selfish inner monologue mumbled, "a whole week of posts that have no bearing on me and the things I like." But then, there's always that thought lurking, that one that says, "Well, if everybody else likes this stuff so much, then I must really be missing out on something." You may remember I fell down that slippery slope at least once before, and have since come to a grudging truce with short stories. It was probably that lurking thought that drove me to pick up the free Martin Misunderstood audiobook from the Book Blogger Convention swag tables, and it was probably Audiobook Week that drove me to pluck it from its box and stick it in my car stereo for my drive to work. "It was free," I thought, "What do I have to lose?"

Martin Misunderstood is a short novel about epic loser Martin Reed. Martin is a pudgy accountant at Southern Toilet Supply where he commands respect from no one and draws ridicule from everyone from Unique, the employee that he hired that refers to him exclusively as "Fool!" to the insurance man who is dragging his feet helping Martin get rid of the "Twat" scratched into his car door. Even in middle age, Martin still lives with his mother, Evelyn, an old battle-axe whose one purpose in life seems to be demeaning Martin. When he leaves for work one morning, and discovers his car has been seemingly vandalized yet again, it seems his troubles have just begun because, when a co-worker turns up dead, the hapless Martin finds himself the prime suspect. And that's okay with him, as long as he gets to spend more time in the company of the lovely An Albada, the detective on the case.

Martin Misunderstood was a wise choice for getting my audiobook feet wet, all around. It was free, it was short (only 2 and half hours), and it's not the sort of book I normally read so I if I disliked listening to it, hey, I wouldn't have ruined a book for myself that I otherwise would have read. I'd heard of Karin Slaughter and associate her with the mystery/thriller sort of books that I used to read way more often than I do now. By all accounts, the book is nothing to shout about, but I have to admit, that while listening, I was fully absorbed and Wayne Knight's (of Seinfeld fame) narration combined with Slaughter's black humor had me laughing out loud at times. My commute flew by, and I even found myself lingering in the car, since, of coure, the mystery was being revealed just as I was pulling into my driveway.

That said, there were other times that I'm glad that my windows were not down when I was listening to it. There were at least two wicked raunchy sex scenes (particularly distasteful when read aloud, yikes!), which you would hardly expect in a book about a loser as epic as Martin, and the language was a little rough to boot. Even with those drawbacks, I have a feeling I still enjoyed listening to Martin a good deal more than I would have enjoyed reading it.

All in all, I think I can see myself listening to more audiobooks, but I doubt I'll become a prolific reviewer of them. It's true that I don't process something I'm listening to while battling traffic as well as something I read, and it kind of bothered me that I didn't always know the definite spelling of the characters' names for reviewing purposes. I admit now, though, that maybe listening to some lighter fare (on the order of Martin Misunderstood) or maybe "re-reading" some old favorites via audio might just be a great way to redeem all the time I feel like I'm wasting driving to and from work.

Oh, book blogging, there you go again making me try new things. I think like it.

What do you read or what bookish things do you do now that you never would have considered had it not been for book blogs?

And, if you're an audiobook lover, what do you recommend for the audiobook newbie should I decide to take up my library card and get in deeper with this whole audiobook thing?

Matched by Ally Condie

2011-06-17T08:35:00.002-04:00

Cassia Maria Reyes lives in a world where everything is fiercely regulated by the powerful Society. The Society decides where Cassia is best suited to work, who is her best genetic match for marriage, and that she won't pass her eightieth birthday, the ideal age at which the Society has decided people should die to spare them indignity. Despite its many restrictions and its ever-watchful nature, Cassia never feels trapped or limited by the Society, rather she feels safe and looks forward to the day of her Match Banquet with eagerness. When she finds that she is to be matched with her best friend, Xander, things have never looked better. That is, until she glimpses the wrong face when she views the microcard that contains the details of her match. A brief glimpse of Ky Markham's face in place of Xander's is all it takes to bring Cassia's carefully sheltered life tumbling down around her and leave her swirling in a vortex of questions she was never meant to ask.

The dystopia in Ally Condie's Matched is downright frightening in its possibility. In Cassia's world, no decisions are left to chance. In her world there are only the Hundred Poems, Hundred Songs, Hundred Stories that designated committees have deemed worthy to pass down through the generations, as the rest would only serve to clutter and overwhelm citizens' minds. Children are no longer taught to write their own words, only to regurgitate those of others. Love and passion are no more in a world dominated by the Society. Girls and boys are matched based solely on their genetic qualities, practically placed together to ensure the health and endurance of the human race.

Matched is a fascinating look at a world gone so right that it's wrong. The thought of a world where one makes no decisions, and there is no unpredictability is as interesting as it is frightening. Watching what turns out to be the most fragile of strands that bind this world together come unraveled through Cassia's eyes as she begins to consider that a different life, a life more like the lives we know now, might be possible, make Matched an exhilarating page-turner of a book. Cassia herself, is a strong narrator, a girl testing the limits of her independence in a world where her every move is controlled by a higher authority, whether she realizes it or not. The relationship that develops between Cassia and the mysterious Ky is powerful in its chemistry, a force that people in the Society have little experience with, and in its questioning of the values that the Society holds dear.

But let's step out of this nice, carefully written, ungushy review for a moment so that I can level with you and tell you IjustreallywantKytobemyboyfriend, mmkay? Strong and sensitive and vulnerable all at once, smart, artistic, "bad" in a way that's oh so good. Plus he's got pretty eyes. Yes, please. Okay, just had to get that out. Back to thoughtful, analytic reviewing.

Matched is an utterly compelling look at a world that might be far away from our reality but at the same time could be oh-so-close. Cassia's will to break free from the constraints of the Society she always believed kept her safe is at the heart of what, I'm confident, is going to be an incredible series.

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Hand Me Down World

2011-06-15T07:19:00.001-04:00

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones
Bloomsbury, September 27, 2011

Synopsis:

This is the story of a young African mother’s journey to reclaim the infant son heartlessly stolen from her. Beginning in Tunisia, where she is employed as a hotel maid, the novel follows her as she makes an illegal, near-death crossing of the Mediterranean, then up the length of Italy, across the Alps, and on to Berlin, where her child has been given a new home. We learn the mother’s story through the people she meets along the way, human links in the perilous chain of her journey: a taxi driver, a hunter, a snail collector, a street performer, a blind man. Most are generous, some malevolent, but all write their own deeply personal needs on the nearly blank slate of a mother whose needs are greatest of all. Finally, the woman herself picks up the narration, retelling her story in her own words. And only then do we understand the extent of the sacrifices she has been willing to make for the love of her child.

After eight novels, and following on the heels of his award-winning, bestselling Mister Pip, Hand Me Down World confirms Lloyd Jones’s stature as one of the most provocative and important writers today. Dazzling in its literary effects, powerful in its emotions, this is a masterwork of contemporary fiction.

What are you "waiting on" this Wednesday?

Reviewlettes Again!

2011-06-10T09:09:00.000-04:00

Adding "lettes" to a word just makes it more fun, doesn't it? I know some of you agreed when I posted my last reviewlettes post. That said, I went to reply to your lovely commments to further rhapsodize about 'lettes, and Blogger was having its breakdown and not allowing comments, so instead I wandered off to look at shiny things as I am wont to do. The writing of the reviewlettes was relatively pain-free and actually did not leave me feeling guilty for skipping out on the longer reviews, so guess what? I'm going to try it again. Three more for you today, and all YA. Here it goes!

Kyriel's job is Hell. Seriously. Kyriel is one of the Fallen, a demon responsible for tormenting the damned for all eternity. His function is to "echo souls' regrets back at them, thus letting them feel the full burden of their shame, guilt, and sorrow." Kyriel has always been a witness, but he thinks it's high time he got to experience some of the sins he's only heard about, so he steals the body of a high school guy mere seconds from dying and embraces the human experience. Overall, A.M. Jenkins' Repossessed didn't really satisfy me. Often books that rely on recounting the minute details of the human experience from the inexperienced eyes of some other just don't work for me, and such is the case here. Kyriel's descriptions of his experiences in Shaun's body seemed a little wooden and boring. I've done these things, so unless they're described in a particularly clever way, it loses my interest. That said, there were definitely some good points to Repossessed. For example, seeing the reviled demon's desire to do some good while he's got the power to even attempt to make a change is refreshing. Also, Jenkins uses Kyriel's mostly lightheated story to explore some of our beliefs about God and the devil as well as asking some profound questions about just how much God notices what's going on His creation. Repossessed definitely offers up a clever premise, but, in my opinion, it doesn't always live up to its promise.

Firelight is the first book in a series about modern descendants of dragons, the draki. Draki have developed the power to transform themselves into human form to hide from the men who would hunt them to extinction for profit. Jacinda, our narrator, is the last fire-breather of her pride and the victim of her pride's high expectations. She is already promised in marriage to Cassian, the son of an elder, doomed to a life of breeding to produce another fire-breather until one day, after a forbidden daylight flight, everything changes. Cornered by hunters, Jacinda is sure she is moments from death, until the hunter sent to find her spares her. Soon, Jacinda is being swept away from her home by her mother and sister to a place where she is forced to deny her very nature to survive, but when the very hunter who saved her life shows up in her new life, problems aren't far behind. Firelight is a fantastic start to a new YA series. The draki's nature and way of life is cleverly fleshed out. There is, of course, a convincing forbidden love story between two characters with undeniable chemistry. Jacinda makes a great narrator, pulled in so many different directions by all the people around her, yet determined to stay true to herself and her own draki nature. There's plenty of action and suspense to keep the pages turning, but never at the expense of the characters' development. I'm looking forward to reading more about Jacinda and the rest of the draki!

Last up is Blind Faith by Ellen Wittlinger. Blind Faith tells the story of Liz Scattergood who has just lost her grandmother, Bunny. Liz's mother is taking the loss particularly hard, having been the best of friends with her mother. When she finally gets up after days on end in bed, it's to try out a spiritualist church that promises to help her communicate with the dead. Liz and her father are skeptical, but Liz attends, just to see, and finds herself wondering if communicating with the dead isn't possible after all. Unfortunately, the church, instead of offering her answers, just gives her more questions.

In the meantime, Liz gets to know the newly moved in grandchildren of her prickly next door neighbor, Mrs. Crosby. Bubbly Courtney and angry Nathan are just the diversion Liz needs from all the problems she has at he own house, that is, until she discovers that Courtney and Nathan's mother is terminally ill, and a whole new legion of questions are unleashed, about life and death and love. Despite his own prickly exterior, Liz finds herself falling for Nathan, and before she knows it, she's wrapped up in a whole other family about to endure a crippling loss. Wittlinger takes on a lot in Blind Faith, dealing with death and dying, God, faith, the afterlife, mediums, mother/daughter relationships, and love all in one shot and does it remarkably successfully. In fact, if I had one complaint about this book, it's that all of Wittlinger's strings are tied up a bit too well. It's rare that you see all these sloppy issues cleared up so tidily in less than 300 pages. Even so, Wittlinger does an admirable and graceful job of asking questions about faith, unearthing the sensitive topic of dealing with terminal illness, and exploring the the unique mix of joy and pain that lurks inside all too many mother/daughter relationships. Not my favorite Wittlinger, but still definitely worth a read!

Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister

2011-06-07T07:17:00.001-04:00

So, enough with all this BEA stuff, already, right? It's time to get back in bed with my review backlog which keeps adding up because, um, I keep reading books. Hard to believe, isn't it?

Actually, I'm very excited to be talking about Erica Bauermeister's new book Joy for Beginners. I really enjoyed her debut, The School of Essential Ingredients, so imagine my glee when Erica herself wrote me with an offer of her newest. It had big shoes to fill to follow in the footsteps of The School of Essential Ingredients, and I'm happy to report it doesn't disappoint. Exactly the opposite, in fact.

When Kate's friends come together over dinner to celebrate Kate's victory over breast cancer, they get a little more than they bargained for. Kate's daughter Robin wants her to take a terrifying white-water rafting trip, and having just dodged death, Kate can't fathom taking such an unnecessary risk. To persuade her, her friends each agree to do something scary or difficult, and Kate gets to choose.

The book follows each of the seven women as they undertake the tasks that Kate has chosen for them. I admit, at first, that I was reluctant to believe that Kate could so perfectly choose just the things that would lead her friends to challenge themselves and be renewed, but as the book moved on, and the bands of friendship between the group were more illuminated and finally, when Kate's own Grand Canyon rafting trip takes place, it all comes to seem natural and perfectly woven together.

Bauermeister gives each woman her own section of the book, gently fleshing out each character and drawing her connection to the others. Kate's wise choices of tasks are revealed, and though some seem less than challenging to the average woman, each task is loaded with emotional hurdles for characters who have struggled and who have lost or given up parts of themselves just going through the motions of life. In the process of taking on Kate's challenges, the women discover parts of themselves that they had either intentionally or unwittingly locked away, parts where joy is so tangled in fear and pain that they could hardly hope to unravel them.

By the end of the week, Sara had decided that her feet and eyes and nose were much more interesting guides than a map. Over the years, she had forgotten what it felt like to walk with the delicious purposelessness of going nowhere. But now she remembered, and she spent hours simply moving, reveling in the feeling of the muscles of her legs, the swing of her arms agains her body. She stopped only to eat, or to take pictures - the smooth brown surface of a cat mask, the light caught in its curves; the middle-aged couple oblivious to the world, sitting on a park bench, her legs draped across his lap, his fingers on her ankles. A family eating Sunday lunch, the aroma of their meal drenching the air in a scent so warm and round and golden it made breathing feel like eating.

How long had it been, she wondered, since she had seen the world like this?

That's just it, though, in Joy for Beginners, the women, with Kate's help, begin to uncover the strength, the capability, the joy they had forgotten existed. All throughout, Bauermeister's writing with its almost ethereal quality imbues the characters' journeys with a kind of everyday magic with the power to make readers smile and cry, occasionally at the same time. It's easy to recognize yourself or any of the women you know in Bauermeister's characters, which makes Joy for Beginners that much more of a personal read. On the whole, Joy for Beginners is an emotionally satisfying tale of self-discovery and the power of true friendship that I can't recommend highly enough.

Check out Joy for Beginners when it hits shelves on June 9th!

BEA 2011 Day 3 + Book Blogger Con!

2011-06-05T09:27:00.001-04:00

Day 3 at BEA was a bit more on the chill side. There weren't as many people around and that seemed to make everything a little more relaxed. In the morning rush (which was not as rushy unless you were getting squished to death in the Harper booth), I finally managed to snag a copy of The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen. I had heard ARCs would be available on Wednesday afternoon, but for all my lurking I didn't see any. Anybody who has listened to me go on and on (and on and on...) about Mullen's last book, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, must know that Mullen's new book would be a must have for me. When I finally spotted it on Thursday morning I snapped up a copy with glee (but don't worry, no one was harmed in my pursuit of this book - though I did hear some horror stories about bad behavior that wasn't mine).

The more relaxed atmosphere allowed me more time to wander the show floor at leisure. I got to talk with some people at the Europa booth. During my time blogging, Europa has worked its way into my heart as one of my favorite small presses. I love the look and feel of their books, along with, of course, their content, so I was happy to come away with two books, one of which is the first release of their new imprint, Tonga, You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik.

I also waited in another one of those long lines that prompts the continual asking of the "Who are you in LINE for?" for Melissa Marr. By the time we got to the front of the line, the friendly librarian behind me in line and I agreed that we could be very rich if only we had charged a quarter everytime we said, "Melissa Marr."

By then, I'd run out of room in my shipping box, and did not wish to ship another, so I slipped away to mail my box and then hiked to lunch with a bunch of bloggers - Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness, Heather from Age 30+ ...A Lifetime of Books, Jenny from Jenny's Books, Ash from English Major's Junk Food, Teresa from Shelf Love, Rebecca from Rebecca Reads, Memory from Stella Matutina, and Anastasia from Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog. And I've probably forgotten someone. If so, please forgive me (and remind me)! The walk was long, but the company and the food were both great, plus Ash and I discovered that red shirts with white polka dots are not as distinctive a wardrobe choice as we might have imagined.

Me and Ash in our polka dots
(Thanks again to Heather for the photo!)

Following was the Book Blogger Con reception where I met a bunch of bloggers, many of them new to me, but ultimately ended up with a pair of Colleens - one from Books in the City and the other from Col Reads. Books in the City Collen was going to take me on my first city bus ride to an Atria event at Simon and Schuster, but at the last minute, we hopped the shuttle bus with Kathy from Bermuda Onion, Julie from Booking Mama, and Candace from Beth Fish Reads.

The Atria blogger happy hour event was fantastic, with Mexican inspired cuisine catered by Aaron Sanchez that included some of the most incredibly delicious guacamole ever. It was wonderful (if a bit surreal) to be able to sit down and relax and chat and eat while meeting authors and publicists who actually circulated around to us. It was a nice way to wrap up a few very busy days at BEA.

But wait, the story doesn't end there. Once "my" Colleens left, I took up with Florinda and Jill from Rhapsody in Books to devour some delicious baked goods from Magnolia Bakery in bustling Rockefeller Center. The red velvet cupcake was to die for, seriously. But I still needed more sugar, so I hiked up to Serendipity 3 where Heather had signed me up to be her +1 at a get-together arranged by JKS Communications. I finally got to sip on a Frozen Hot Chocolate that I'd been meaning to try for so long among a few bloggers and a pair of authors. It was a great time, and I enjoyed hearing about the reasons the other bloggers at my table started blogging as well as hearing from the two authors, Joe Luniecvicz and Chitoka Webb, about their books. Another great event!

Me and the last of the frozen hot chocolate
(Again, I'd be lost without Heather and her camera.)

Evening. Morning. Next day. Book Blogger Con.

I won't say much here, really. I was about to head to Boston, so I could only attend the first half of the day at Book Blogger Con. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't totally beat and so didn't get nearly as much out of it as I could have. Just the same, Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books gave a great, entertaining keynote speech that not only kept me awake but engaged despite my dilapidated state after a few packed full days.

After that I sat in on the Ask a Publisher or Publicist panel, the first portion of which was composed of representatives of some of the major publishing houses, the second of publicists and representatives of smaller publishers. Here I learned that honesty is encouraged even if that means a (respectful) negative review because it has the potential to generate conversation, publishers *do* like to hear about your reviews of their titles that aren't brand new, many are eager to arrange to provide you some blog content if you're in need of a guest post or something, and that Michael Reynolds of Europa Editions would dance naked in Times Square to get some attention for Europa titles. No, really! He said that! Unless I was delirious by then...

Thus ends my BEA recap, but I'm sure you haven't heard the last of it. I'm looking forward to spotlighting some of the many books I gathered during my time at BEA. Until then - happy reading!

BEA 2011 Day 2

2011-06-03T07:08:00.000-04:00

On the second day of BEA (the publisher gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree! Or not.), I rose early (but not nearly as early as some) to get in line for the show floor. I did this to practice for a long day of waiting in lines so long that people repeatedly asked, "What's this LINE for?" Some answers? Crossed by Ally Condie, The Leftovers by Tom Perotta, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and Chris Van Allsburg!

I was desperately in love with Chris Van Allsburg's beautifully illustrated books throughout my childhood, so I was eager to get in line for his signing. The publisher was giving away copies of The Chronicles of Harris Burdick in which numerous big name authors put stories to Van Allsburg's formerly wordless The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. It looks fantastic, and I can't wait for it to arrive in my box of books that will hopefully have arrived at my house by the time this posts. Additionally Chris was signing nice posters of the book cover. Honestly, I've been enamored of his work for so long, he probably could have been signing used paper cups and I would have stood in line for it, but the poster is much much much better.

After much line standing and book acquiring, I stashed my books in the shipping room and headed back to the hotel. After a short rest, and a lengthy effort at getting a cab, Heather and I finally made it to the (again, packed!) Harper Collins Celebration of Book Bloggers event. There were drinks and tote bags with books in them and, of course, bloggers galore. I finally got to meet, in passing, Shanyn from Chick Loves Lit who I'd been excited to meet ever since I interviewed her for last year's Book Blogger Appreciation week. I lurked (lurking is another of my many worthless skills) by a table until I was able to join it and spent some time chatting with Teddy Rose from So Many Precious Books, So Little Time and Jenn from Picky Girl among others.

Shortly thereafter, Heather invited me along to dinner with a bunch of bloggers at a nice Italian place called Bice. There were 11 of us there, but I spent most of my time talking with Sheila from Book Journey, Florinda from The 3 R's Blog, Alison from Alison's Book Marks, Ann from Books on the Nightstand, and Michelle from Red Headed Book Child.

Here we all are! (Thanks to Heather for the photo!)

Reagan (Miss Remmers' Review), Heather, Me, Sheila, Florinda, Michelle, Alison, Ann, Stacy (A Novel Source), and Natalie (Coffee and a Book Chick).

At the end of the evening, we stuffed illegally many of us into a cab, and headed back to the hotel.

And that was the second day! Stay tuned for Days 3 and 4 which I will attempt to squish into only one post. Crazy, no?

BEA 2011 Day 1

2011-06-01T07:51:00.000-04:00

Greetings one and all, I am freshly returned from BEA, Book Blogger Con, and Boston and am ready to regale you with tales of books and bookish adventures. Unfortunately, immediately upon my return from my city adventures, I fell ill with a headcold, but hopefully this post will not reflect my foggy state of mind.

My trip got off to an inauspicious start when I drove my car to the train station in New Jersey (where I would be returning via Amtrak) and found the rather large parking garage to be completely full. After an hour long rigamarole that involved my driving around the garage at length anyway, being directed to an outer surface lot that was also full, and finally being parked on the grid lines in the best spot in the garage, I ascended the train platform to wait for an NJ transit train to deliver me to the city nearly an hour after I had intended to depart. While loitering on the platform, I got a call from my hotel roomie, Heather, informing me that my other hotel roomie, Amanda wouldn't be coming after all. Let's just say, by the time I got on the train I was sorely in need of some bookish cheering up.

Some hour later I arrived at Heather and I's compact Best Western hotel room, dropped off my bags, and hustled off to the Javits past carriage horses, and a collision repair center for taxicabs on one side and the vehicles of the masses on the other. I'm pretty sure there was a gentlemen's club nestled between the damaged automobiles, too. The street definitely had character, but at a half a block from the convention center, it beat all for convenience and value.

So onto the show floor I went, at which point a lunch time lull had descended allowing me to wander the floor and get my bearings and worry about where in the heck all the books were simultaneously. I made the mistake of wandering too close to the L. Ron Hubbard booth and its representative became the official first person I talked to. Somewhere around that time I finally happened on a book I was dying to have. I'd been looking forward to Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding ever since I heard it was being buzzed at BEA. When I saw the author signing I stumbled into a very short line and walked away with this book in my hand.

Shortly thereafter I happened upon Diana Abu-Jaber's signing of her buzz book, Birds of Paradise, which I eagerly got in line for. Somehow, and surprisingly unawkwardly (I am usually very talented at being awkward) the subject of my blog came up, and I bestowed upon her my very first business card of the show. This was so unexpected that I hadn't even remembered to put cards in the back of my ID badge, so the formerly missing awkwardness ensued as I attempted to dig a card out of my bag.

Enough of this longwindedness, though. People at booths were talked to, a reasonable amount of books were acquired. I attended the standing room only YA Editors Buzz where I heard all about a bunch of really great sounding YA titles only one of which I actually acquired over the course of the show. How'd that happen? With the Adult Editors Buzz titles it seemed I couldn't turn a corner without tripping over a pile of them for the taking. I managed to grab a copy of Laini Turner's Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but am looking forward to acquiring the others by other means when the time comes, after hearing them so glowingly presented.

A few books later, I started a shipping box at the Javits and headed back to the hotel to meet up with Heather. We ate a delicious and expansive dinner at a diner with an immense menu and got to know each other before we met up with Reagan to attempt a subway trip to the very packed Bookrageous Bash. Despite our inexperience with the NYC subway, we made it there (and back!) in one piece without getting lost even once. We were rewarded with drinks and shouted conversations with newly met bloggers which was good times but kind of really hot and crowded and uber-loud. Nonetheless, what conversation I did manage to have with Reagan, Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness, Cass from Bonjour, Cass!, and others was fun!

And then there was sleeping, and then there was morning, the second day....

In the interests of keeping this short-ish, I think perhaps it is wise to divide this recap into days. Look for more in the near future!

On My Way to BEA!

2011-05-24T07:00:00.000-04:00

Greetings all! By the time this posts, I'll be on my way to BEA 2011 and after that on to Boston to visit a friend. My plans include much being out and about, so your best chance of finding me this week, if you're not at BEA, is probably via Twitter.

For the record, here I am, in polka dots. If you see me at BEA, please say hi! I'm really very nice, but can be on the shy side.

If you've already seen me and said hi and have come into possession of one of my overabundance of business cards, thanks for stopping by my blog!

My name is Megan and I've been blogging here at Leafing Through Life since 2007. I have a full time job in the medical field by day, but much of the rest of the time I love reading and writing about everything from literary to young adult fiction. If you're interested in finding out more about the types of books I like to read and review, please check out my review policy.

For a taste of my book reviewing, try these...

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
Family Sentence by Jeanine Cornillot

Questions? Comments? Feel free to send me an e-mail at sweeme06 at yahoo dot com.

Here's wishing everyone, whether you're at BEA or not, a fantastic week!

"Waiting On" Wednesday: State of Wonder

2011-05-18T07:00:00.001-04:00

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Harper, June 7, 2011

Synopsis:

Years ago, Marina Singh traded the hard decisions and intensity of medical practice for the quieter world of research at a pharmaceutical company, a choice that has haunted her life. Enveloping herself in safety, limiting emotional risk, she shares a quiet intimacy with her widowed older boss, Mr. Fox, and a warm friendship with her colleague Anders Eckman. But Marina’s security is shaken when she learns that Anders, sent to the Amazon to check on a field team, is dead—and Mr. Fox wants her to go into the jungle to discover what happened.

Plagued by trepidation, yet propelled by her sense of duty, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the unknown, down into the Amazonian delta, deep into the dense, insect-infested jungle to find answers from the company’s research team. Led by the formidable Dr. Annick Swenson, the scientists are looking into the development of a new drug that could have a profound impact on Western society. But the team has been silent for two years and the daunting Dr. Swenson does not like interlopers inserting themselves in her work, as Marina well knows. The eminent and fiercely uncompromising doctor was once her mentor, the woman she admired, emulated, and feared. To fulfill her mission, Marina must confront the ghosts of her past, as well as unfulfilled dreams and expectations—a journey that will force her to make painful moral choices and take her deep into her own heart of darkness.

A rich narrative dense with atmosphere and full of deeply realized characters, packed with amazing twists and surprises—encounters with an anaconda, cannibals, death, and birth—State of Wonder is Ann Patchett’s most enthralling and confident novel, a tale that will leave readers in their own state of wonder, examining their own values and beliefs.

What are you "waiting on" this Wednesday?

Reviewlettes, Ahoy!

2011-05-11T07:33:00.002-04:00

I have one thing to say about tiny informal reviews. I don't mind it when you write them, but I feel like I'm cheating when I write them. That said, the time frame on my review backlog is just really ridiculous, and this month is crazy busy, so I'm cheating, but I promise I'll make cutesy categories and keep it interesting for you, mmkay?

Review Pitch Fail - Once upon a time, someone sent me a pitch for a review copy of The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. I thought, "Hmm, sounds interesting" then instead of answering the e-mail, I wandered off to look at shiny things until a later date at which it would have seemed indecent to reply. Stupid me. The Art of Racing in the Rain is one of those rare books narrated by an animal that doesn't bury readers in cheese. Enzo, the furry narrator in question, is a wise old soul of a dog whose love, loyalty, and understanding illuminate the realities of a family, Enzo's family, much better than any human narrator could possibly aspire to do. Told as he looks back over his life with race car driver Denny Swift, Denny's wife Eve, and the couple's daughter Zoe, Enzo tells a terribly honest version of a life fraught with joys and hardships. Through Enzo, Stein draws out each character's most admirable qualities but without shying away from or making excuses for their weaknesses either. The Art of Racing in the Rain is funny and touching and had me in tears by the end. Enzo is the dog we all imagine and wish our own dogs could be when we look into their eyes and wonder just how much they understand.

Dystopian Delight - In Wither by Lauren DeStefano, Rhine Ellery lives in a world where a virus allows males to live only until age 25 and females only to age 20. To sustain the population and ostensibly to find a cure, girls are being forced into polygamous marriages with those young men with the means to purchase a few wives. Rhine herself is robbed from the life she is eking out with her twin brother Rowan to become one of four brides to Linden Ashby, son of a sinister doctor who will use whatever nefarious means necessary to conduct his research. Wither is a vivid and, at times, frighteningly possible tale of a world where girls are again only valued for the offspring they produce. Though the story takes place almost entirely in the Florida mansion in which Rhine and her sister wives are held captive, the setting leaps off the page, portraying just the sort of forgotten paradise that might tempt girls to forget their lives and embrace a life of virtual enslavement. Rhine and her sister wives Jenna, Cecily, and Rose are compelling characters who are well fleshed out and sympathetic. Even Linden, a sensitive architect wrapped up in a mess hardly of his own making, inspires sympathy from the reader lending credence to the difficulty of Rhine's choice whether to surrender to this luxurious life that's been forced upon her or to flee back to the life she knew. If good stories and/or dystopia are your thing, Wither is not to be missed. This is one book I'm glad is a part of a series!

Christian Non-fiction? How did you get here? - When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert is a Christian perspective on helping the poor that might well stand to benefit anyone, Christian or otherwise, who has tried to help someone they perceive to be less well-off then themselves. In today's world where the prevailing method of helping people is an impersonal rubber stamp of "I built X many houses and schools" or "I helped get food to X many children" that serves the giver more than the recipient, Corbett and Fikkert ask us to consider spending the time necessary to tailor our help to a community's needs and, even more, incorporate those being helped into the process so that they will be empowered to seek and maintain lasting change for their communities even after the outside help leaves. Corbett and Fikkert's book wisely advises its readers to always consider themselves to be just as needy in one way or another as the people they are helping thus avoiding the almost-inevitable God complex, the unwelcome guest that always comes along with our better intentions of helping people who have been rendered unable to help themselves. When Helping Hurts is a definite must-read for anyone who wants to create lasting and empowering benefit from the help they have to offer those less fortunate.

Okay, 3 reviewlettes in one day seems like plenty. Especially since they aren't that short. What did you expect? They're short for me. It was surprisingly painless, and I feel much like much less of a cheat than I expected. I could get used to this.... ;-)

BEA, Book Blogger Con, and Other Bad Excuses

2011-05-08T11:44:00.000-04:00

Greetings, Blogosphere! Oh how I have been missing you!

You see, all winter, I did pretty much nothing but stay home and read and blog and read blogs. I even managed to form myself into a fairly consistent poster, if not a frequent one. Then April came, and I started doing things and making travel plans and the pace of life started to pick up. Then May came and the pace of life spun out of control and will probably continue to do so.

I finally decided that BEA and Book Blogger Con are indeed in the cards for me this year. I'm all registered up and ready to go. Okay, maybe not ready to go. Maybe in a planning fervor attempting to be ready to go. It's really not long now. I managed to totally luck out and now have two great roommates with a possible third to come.

Ironically, registering for BEA/BBC and all the plans that need making and the logistics that need working out make me into a terrible blogger. I've been so busy figuring what to do and who to see and when to see them and how to get there that I haven't had much time left for actual blogging. I'm sure I'll get back on my blogging horse. If not this week, then the week after, and if not that week then definitely after BEA. But trust me, I have not forgotten you, dear blogosphere, and I shall be back right after I finish dogsitting, planning travel to NYC and Boston, making caramel apples (ARGH!), trying to get a new job, having ginormous yard sales to raise a few extra bucks to pay for my travel extravaganza and so on.

That all said, if you're going to BEA and want to meet up for lunch or dinner or to wander the show floor together or some other enticing activity, please send me an e-mail at toadacious1 at yahoo dot com. I'm planning to be in NYC from around noon on Tuesday May 24th until around 1 on Friday the 27th, and I'd love to put some more faces with names. I fully intend to e-mail some people to twist their arms until they agree to hang out with me, but it seems the harder I try the more things are getting left until the last minute, so if you want a BEA buddy please don't hesitate to send me an e-mail, and we can skip the whole late in the game arm-twisting thing. ;-)

In other news, the book keeping me company this week that was from hell (the week, not the book!) has been Tabloid City by Pete Hamill. I'd heard that Hamill writes New York so well, and now I see that it's absolutely true. From what I've read so far, I'm eager to dig into Hamill's other books, many of which are languishing on my shelves. In terms of subject matter Tabloid City isn't exactly happy, but it's still probably been one of the best things about my week and a book that's getting me in that New York state of mind. Perfect timing!

I'm off to take my mom to the movies for Mother's Day shortly. Hope all you mommies are having a great Mother's Day!

Have a lovely day, all, and happy reading!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I'm So Glad Were Recommended To Me

2011-05-03T07:05:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been about a month since I did my first Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and the Bookish, so I suppose maybe it's time I gave it another go. This week's topic is "Books I'm So Happy Were Recommended To Me," so here are 10 books that I'm so glad I got a few nudges or perhaps a strong shove from people to read, else they might never have ended up in my hands, let alone become some of my favorites!

1. Complications by Atul Gawande - I'm not sure who put this on my radar first, but I'm pretty it's when Eva wrote about it that I knew I shouldn't wait any longer to read it. It's the first non-fiction book I've read in the space of a weekend, I think, ever. Gawande tells tales and asks important questions about the U.S. health care system in a way that's incredibly readable. (My Review)

2. Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer - I think Becky gave me the push I needed to go buy this one. So glad I did. I can't remember the last time I got so caught up in a book. (My Review)

3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien - My dad nagged me to read these since about as soon as I could read chapter books. When I finally gave in, they became one of my total favorites!

4. After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell - This is one of those books that somebody was so taken with on Bookcrossing that they persuaded me with their sheer enthusiasm for it to join a bookring for it. I loved it, and now count Maggie O'Farrell among (the few the proud) my favorite authors. (My Review)

5. Fat Kid Rules the World by K.L. Going - Susan at West of Mars loved this book, and as a result so did I! (My Review)

6. Pied Piper by Nevil Shute - I'd heard of this author's more famous works, but never even knew this one existed until my book club leader who teaches it to his high school classes picked it to read the year before last. And it's so good. (My Review)

7. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene - Okay, so this book wasn't so much recommended to me as forced upon me as required reading in high school, but it's one of the few, the proud that instead of actively resenting, I actually loved and imagine myself rereading some day (which is a big deal if you're at all familiar with my reading habits).

8. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett - Okay, so this isn't even my favorite Ann Patchett book, but it introduced me to one of the few authors I count among my favorites. Not to mention getting my attention on the Orange Prize, my favorite literary award to follow.

9. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - I had not ever even heard of Neil Gaiman until I started getting involved with Book Crossing. This is the book that totally hooked me!

10. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn - This one I attribute to my Bookcrossing days, too. A kind of a graphic disturbing tale of circus freaks is not exactly the sort of thing one picks up without a little outside prodding. I'm glad I gave it a shot, it's one of those books that, while disturbing, is absolutely compelling, too.

How about you? What are some books that you might never have picked up that you ended up loving because of someone's recommendation?

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky

2011-04-25T08:07:00.001-04:00

This week was supposed to be the perfect working vacation, full of reading and blogging catch-up and all sorts of great wonderment. I finally got that dog-sitting gig that people dream about. Two lovable little Yorkies, a dog door that opens onto a huge fenced in backyard, a house and a TV and an internet connection all to myself, and some cash to boot. Sounds great, right? Too bad one of my charges is the Houdini of Yorkshire Terriers. I'd been here for all of 2 hours when he made his first escape. I patrolled the perimeter and blocked any potential escape routes I could find. Then I left and hoped for the best. All was well.

The next morning, I found him on the wrong side of the fence again. I reclaimed the delinquent doggie, stalked all about the yard like a crazy person using assorted objects to block more possible escape routes. With pants wet up to mid-calf, I arrived 15 minutes late to church. Returned from Easter dinner, dogs present and accounted for. All is well, right? Not so much, he got me again. Once again retrieved delinquent doggie and blocked even more unlikely escape routes (he's good, Yorkie Houdini, very good). For the moment I've got the dog door shut, and am enjoying some relative peace. Here's hoping the coming week isn't full of repeat performances. The damage is already done anyway. Anytime they go out, I'm riddled with paranoia regardless of whether my half-baked escape foiling has its desired effect. The owners don't seem to be half as panicked as I am. Good for them. I am a basket case.

The point of this story is to warn you that yet another week is likely to go by unmarked by my pitiful efforts at regularly updating ye olde blog. Here I am, though, to attempt to churn out a review before unleashing the hounds again.

Once upon a time, okay, last year, I received for reading and reviewing purposes, Alina Bronsky's Broken Glass Park. As always, I was very taken with the lovely Europa paperback edition, but despite its being enjoyed by many a blogger, I was a little meh on it. The narrator kind of frightened me, but the writing was top notch, so when a chance to review her latest, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine came along, I didn't hesitate, and I'm glad of it. Don't get me wrong. This narrator is probably even more frightening, but perhaps I'm getting used to it.

Rosalinda Achmetowna only wants the best for the people she loves. Really, everything that she does so well is all for the benefit of her "ugly" daughter, Sulfia, her hapless husband, Kalganow, and her beloved, willful granddaughter Aminat. She is determined to find her daughter a husband, whatever the cost, and she knows she must rescue her granddaughter from Sulfia's "incompetent" parenting.

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine is Rosa's story as told by Rosa herself. Her ill-conceived helpfulness is something that her family members hope only to escape. Readers will cringe and occasionally laugh at Rosa's twisted idea of benevolence as she tries to woo perspective husbands to her perpetually cowed daughter with everything from extravagant dinners, small briberies, and forceful threats. Readers will be appalled but absorbed in the telling as Rosa uses her cleverness and wiles to escape the Soviet Union when she extorts sponsorship for she, Sulfia, and Aminat from a German man visiting to collect recipes for a cookbook about Tartar cuisine. Rosa's games are dangerous and self-serving indeed, though it will take dreadful outcomes to make her see the cruel realities of her actions.

Bronsky's got an incredible talent for telling a story from a totally believable point of view of an extremely vivid, if bizarre and eye-poppingly self-deceived, narrator. Rosalinda is a domineering mother of epic proportions, a woman who "selflessly" afflicts all her loved ones with her inflated ego and with those things that she thinks are best, that to most people with sense, are completely crazy and undeniably reckless. She is a terribly unreliable narrator, but an incredibly unique one that makes for a cleverly told story. Despite her behavior, which is sometimes utterly repellent, readers will be loathe to look away from a story rife with personality and dark humor.

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine is not going to be a book for everyone. Bronsky is an undeniable talent, but the brutal honesty of her stories can be something of an acquired taste. It's easy to be appalled at the many terrible things Rosa does in her quest to do "the best things for everyone," and really, it seems as if that is, in fact, the point. At the same time, though, readers might find Rosa to be, despite all odds, a sympathetic character. On the whole, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine is a disturbing tale told in the cleverest way with a unique narrator whose compelling voice will help you forgive a multitude of sins.

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine hits shelves April 26th.

(Thanks to Kat at Regal Literary for providing me with a review copy!)

Sparrow Road by Sheila O'Connor

2011-04-20T08:30:00.002-04:00

When Raine O'Rourke finds out her mother has signed her up for a summer at a ramshackle old mansion called Sparrow Road, she's desperate to escape. Raine can hardly believe that she's being forced to give up a summer with her beloved Grandpa Mac at his store in Milwaukee to spend long days in a mysterious country mansion while her mom cooks and cleans for a bunch of live-in artists. Even worse, the artists demand silence which means, no TV, no radio, no talking. What good could come of a summer spent like that? More good than Raine could ever have expected, as it turns out.

You can see, taste, and feel O'Connor's idyllic country summer at Sparrow Road. The long, silent days filled with mysteries and dreams stretch out like magic luring readers into Raine's journey of imagination and self-discovery. The surreal, almost dreamlike quality of a summer at Sparrow Road balances a story filled with unpleasant truths about lives lived at a former orphanage and Raine's own troubled past.

Let's just get to the point, though. I loved Sparrow Road. It's not surprising that you can often expect that the younger an audience a book is aimed at the more things like character development get neglected in favor of action. Not so with Sparrow Road. These characters leap off the page. Raine is a vivid protagonist coming to terms with family secrets. Her mother is a steady presence who wants to do the right thing but is still working out just what that is. The artists aren't the dark and broody sort, but the sort that burst off the page with their uniqueness and the joy they find in the act of creating. Josie, Diego, and even slightly loopy Lillian all do their part showing Raine how to get in touch with the art that's inside of her.

Even though O'Connor doesn't scrimp on her characters, there is still plenty of action to keep the pages turning as mysteries unfold and still other characters reveal themselves to be more than they seem. O'Connor skillfully weaves clues into her story keeping readers hungry for more. Sparrow Road is, above all, a satisfying read, filled with love and committed to revealing the ghosts of the past. It is the kind of book I would have loved as a kid and a book that I love now, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to both the young and the young at heart.

Sparrow Road hits shelves May 12!

(Thanks to Stacey at Penguin Young Readers Group for the review copy.)

The Ingram Interview by K.B. Dixon

2011-04-16T08:18:00.000-04:00

Behold, the mythical midweek book review (ironically posted on a weekend)! I'm not talking about a book review posted midweek. That's just a trick of scheduling. I'm talking about the book review actually written on a week night after working and running errands to the grocery store and emptying the dishwasher and loading the dishwasher again and maybe watching that Dancing With the Stars results show. Seeing a weeknight written book review here on Leafing Through Life is akin to seeing a unicorn traveling the Pennsylvania Turnpike in search of a good Cinnabon (the only really worthwhile reason for traveling the turnpike, of course) or actually finding that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow before the leprechaun. It's a mark of the utter nightmare my review backlog (further exacerbated by the whole "Ow, my wrist is destroyed at the tender age of 27!" thing) has become that this post even exists such as it is. Enough of this, though. I've got books to review. Lots of them. And they refuse to review themselves!

Last year, author K.B. Dixon sent me a copy of his book, A Painter's Life for review. It was a short, unusually written book full of quirk and flashes of brilliant insight. Having enjoyed it, when he contacted me with an offer of his latest, The Ingram Interview, I was happy to accept.

The Ingram Interview is a compact book that begins shortly after retired English professor Daniel Ingram is asked to leave his assisted-living home for being too much of a downer for the other residents. Told entirely in an interview format that recalls the most self-indulgent of inane documentaries, the interview follows Ingram as he moves in with a former student, an indie filmmaker, and his girlfriend, attempts to find a new assisted-living facility, cobbles together his memoirs and attempts to reconcile with his mostly absent ex-wife.

Ingram's is an interesting perspective on life and old age. As an aging, infirm retiree he's turned from literary analysis to cynically analyzing the people and things around him, and to reflection on the minutiae of his past. Ingram's slightly pompous dissection of the mundanity of everyday life are an interesting and sometimes humorous juxtaposition.

Who is Colin Wake?

The man who is supposed to take my picture for the Greenhurst Alumni Magazine... He wants to make me look if not famous, at least significant - like someone from an earlier, more serious time. He posed me just off to the left of an ornately framed window, my chin up, my focus on posterity.

I don't like the finished product at all. I look grave and unhappy - like someone channeling Sartre or waiting in line at the post office.

If you're interested in reading a book that's a little different but still smart and entertaining, definitely give Dixon a try. Dixon's clever treatment of everyday events that you and I can easily relate to is there in The Ingram Interview, just as I enjoyed it in A Painter's Life. That said, I would probably urge you to start with A Painter's Life rather than The Ingram Interview. While I enjoyed the book, I found it harder with The Ingram Interview to keep track of the characters that pop up in the interview at various times, and it added to to a pre-existing feeling that it was all just a touch over my head, whether it really was or not.

Me, I am afraid of all sorts of things: I'm afraid I will be late; I'm afraid the refrigerator will stop working; I'm afraid the car will stop working; I'm afraid the television will stop working; I'm afraid I will have to have a filling replaced or a tooth pulled; I'm afraid the price of my favorite wine will go up; I'm afraid the bookstore on the corner will close; I'm afraid the waitress at my pizza place will leave; I'm afraid I will make a wrong turn, get lost, and as a consquence, have a part of my life - a part I will never get back - eaten by anxiety and stress.

(Thanks to the author for the review copy!)

Read-a-thon Hour Update the Last

2011-04-10T09:12:00.001-04:00

Reading Now: my computer screen

It's been __64__ pages and __60__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 6 hours 8 minutes

Cumulative Pages Read: 326

Books Completed: 2 - Blind Faith by Ellen Wittlinger and Sparrow Road by Sheila O'Connor

Eating?: No eating, just drinking water!

I surprised myself last night. I posted my last update in Hour 16, but I made it well into Hour 18. A quick cheerleading run around the blogosphere actually gave me a good second wind (there's just something about cheering in the late night), and if I hadn't had so much to do today, I feel like I could have definitely even started another book after finishing Sparrow Road with ease. Speaking of Sparrow Road, it doesn't hit shelves until the 12th of May, I believe, but when it does, definitely get your hands on a copy. Because it is so good. I want to say many other things about just why it's so good, but I'll save them for my review. It made me smile and cry and wonder and when the summer ended in the book, even I missed it. That is all.

And now for the end of event survey thingy...

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?

Hour 15 for sure. It was only 10PM, and normally I would have plenty of steam to keep going past midnight, but when I got back from Zumba, I was so beat I didn't know if I'd make it much further. Thankfully a hot bath and some cheerleading got me back on track!

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

Sparrow Road by Sheila O'Connor definitely made for a good one!

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

Seems like I heard about a lot of clamoring for more organization from the cheerleaders. It might be helpful to have a list of actively participating readers at the start. I was using the sign-up page to cheer for a while, and more than a few people who had signed up gave no indication that they were actually participating in the Readathon which was kind of a frustrating waste of time, but I didn't want to miss anybody who, for some reason, hadn't done the beginning meme either. *helpless shrug* With the amount of readers reading these days, it seems like a little more organization is called for so no reader goes uncommented on!

This is by no means a personal complaint. As a reader, I got plenty of support and appreciated everybody's great comments, and I know many, many readers did. All you cheerleaders did do a fantastic job! This is just a bit of what I struggled with and what I saw people saying around Twitter. =)

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?

The hosts and the mini-challenges were great (even though I didn't have time to participate in many). Thanks for all your hard work guys!

5. How many books did you read?

1 and a half...

6. What were the names of the books you read?

Sparrow Road by Sheila O'Connor, Blind Faith by Ellen Wittlinger

7. Which book did you enjoy most?

Sparrow Road

8. Which did you enjoy least?

No least. They were both good reads!

9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?

I was only cheering unofficially during my breaks from reading, but from what I saw of the cheerleaders, they did a nice job!

10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

Very likely. I've had tons of fun in both roles before, so I guess it depends on how the mood strikes me.

Thanks again to all the organizers and hosts and helpers for all your hard work making a great event for us to all have fun together and continue to honor Dewey by coming out to read as a community year after year. I hope and I believe that she would be proud. =)

Read-a-thon Hour 16 Update

2011-04-09T23:29:00.000-04:00

Reading Now: Sparrow Road by Sheila O'Connor

It's been __22__ pages and __30__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 5 hours 8 minutes

Cumulative Pages Read: 266

Books Completed: 1 - Blind Faith by Ellen Wittlinger

Eating?: Had a burger and some chicken fryz on my way back from the Zumbathon (way to kill a good workout right?)

I arrived back from the Zumbathon with negative energy. If you're considering a mid-Readathon Zumbathon for your next Readathon, may I advise you to think twice?

I decided to take my game to the tub for some cleansing, rejuvenating bathtub reading. Though I didn't get a great deal of reading done tubside, I am mildly rejuvenated, but I'm afraid the end might still be near for me. I'm going to try and dig deep and put away at least the last 60 or so pages of Sparrow Road before I shut the door on this Readathon.

If this ends up being my last update, good luck if you're pushing on through the wee hours of the thon! Drink lots of water and caffeine-y things! Pick mindless books! Turn up the volume on your Tweetdeck alerts so they will jolt you from the occasional stupor! Prop your eyelids open with toothpicks! Okay, some of these ideas are better than others. The bottom line is, though, keep on reading on. You can do it!

Good luck and goodnight (I think?)!

Read-a-thon Hour 9 Update

2011-04-09T16:32:00.001-04:00

Reading Now: Sparrow Road by Sheila O'Connor

It's been __70__ pages and __78__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 4 hours 38 minutes

Cumulative Pages Read: 244

Books Completed: 1 - Blind Faith by Ellen Wittlinger

Eating?: String cheese and a glass of water

Still enjoying Sparrow Road, but it's time for my Readathon intermission. I paid for the Party Hearty Zumbathon weeks ago, and now must go and Zumba for a few hours. I guess it's a good thing that even though I'm not really reading for charity today, I'll at least be Zumba-ing for it! Here's hoping all the physical activities invigorate me, and I don't come home all broken down and feeble. I'd love to be able to fit a few more hours in tonight, though the full 24 probably won't happen.

It's been a little less easy to make the most of my reading time with other people in the house and having to get myself into gear for Zumba, but it's still way more reading and blog fun than I would normally have on a Saturday, for sure!

Happy reading all, and hopefully I'll see you later for more quality reading time!

Just keep reading, just keep reading..... =D

Read-a-thon Hour 6 Update

2011-04-09T13:27:00.000-04:00

Reading Now: Sparrow Road by Sheila O'Connor

It's been __88__ pages and __112__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 3 hours 21 minutes

Cumulative Pages Read: 174

Books Completed: 1 - Blind Faith by Ellen Wittlinger

Eating?: Peanut butter wafers, potato chips, and another glass of orange juice

Sparrow Road is killing me, for real. It's a story that takes place during the summer in the country, and it's making me crazy because now I want it to be warm and beautiful outside even more, and, uh, it's not. Not even warm enough to read outside. *sigh*

It's definitely the sort of book I would have loved as a kid (and maybe as an adult too). Full of magic and mystery and beauty and big old houses and bright characters and getting in touch with your imagination. I'm excited to see where it goes!

Time for more cheering and getting dressed and then it's back to the books. Hope you're having a good Readathon so far!

Read-a-thon Hour 3 Update

2011-04-09T10:16:00.000-04:00

Reading Now: Sparrow Road by Sheila O'Connor

It's been __86__ pages and __89__ reading minutes since my last update.

Total Time Spent Reading: 1 hour 29 minutes

Cumulative Pages Read: 86

Books Completed: 1 - Blind Faith by Ellen Wittlinger

Eating?: Bowl of cereal, pack of peanut butter crackers, 1 glass orange juice, 1 glass water

Blind Faith is the book I've been reading all week, so I only had those 86 pages to go when I started the Readathon this morning. I kind of like this starting with a book already in progress. I didn't have to waste time getting over the hump in terms of introductory chapters before you get into the meat of the story. It definitely gave me a boost at the start!

I enjoyed Blind Faith quite a bit. It's a good story about dealing with death, figuring out what to believe, and how to be what the people around you need sometimes. It even had me almost crying a couple times, which is a good thing, but maybe not for the Readathon because almost crying always makes me a little sleepy.

Now for a bit of cheerleading, and then onto the next book! Happy reading!

Time to Read!

2011-04-09T08:29:00.000-04:00

That's right - the Readathon is upon us. But you knew that already, didn't you? I'll be posting my updates today while I read, so there will obviously be a lot more posts than usual here today. Don't panic, though, I'll be back to my usual light posting in no time! ;-)

Good luck everybody who's reading (and cheerleading) today! Hopefully I'll get to pay some of you a visit a little later on.

Wanna hear a little about me?

1)Where are you reading from today?

Bloomsburg, PA, USA

2)Three random facts about me…

- I'm interrupting my Readathon to go to a Zumbathon later today. I kind of resent it, but alas, I paid for it many moons ago, and my friends are expecting me.
- For some reason, I've been in DC during both of last year's Readathons. This year I got my DC vacation over with last weekend. It was one of those vacations that you hope you laugh about later.
- I have a dog named Rudy and a cat named Merlin. Hopefully they don't bother me too much while I'm trying to read!

3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?

Um, 4. One that I already started, one that's a children's book, and 2 others. That's just the immediate pile. There's plenty more where they came from. And the chances of me even attempting the full 24 hours are, well, slim and none.

4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?

I just came to have fun!

5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?

Have fun with it. Don't fall into the "it's a competition" mindset where you feel like you have to read so many books or for so much time that you forget that, hey, you get to spend a whole day reading and hanging out with your bloggy buddies.

All right. Enough messing around! It's time to read!

Readathon and Randomness

2011-04-06T07:52:00.001-04:00

So, I guess all the plates I was juggling finally dropped and smashed. We all knew I couldn't maintain this guise of the consistent blogger forever, right? I'm that person who has the best of intentions to write one of those "be back soon" messages when I go on short vacations because I'm not the sort of person who has a nice backlog of schedule-able posts to regale you with while I'm driving about the nation. Unfortunately, I'm also the sort of person with a job and a penchant for leaving everything until the last minute and trying to frantically pack and prepare while still fitting in that musical episode of Grey's Anatomy. And the person who throws their wrist totally out of whack playing Wii table tennis causing an unexpected moratorium on extra-curricular typing.

So yeah, went on a wildly dysfunctional long weekend to DC with my family. Am back, having reflected (darkly) on the mud pit of the currently under renovation reflecting pool. The weekend was riddled with kicks in the head such as the hop on hop off bus tour that picked up at the wrong spot and never actually delivered you to the places where cherry blossoms were to be seen like it said it would, freak hail storms, and the above mentioned Lincoln Memorial ~~reflecting pool~~ mud pit. In moments of weakness, I was brought to texting and tweeting angry messages from the Lincoln Memorial steps like a sulky teenager, even though it's usually one of my favorite places. Nonetheless, my vacation for better or for worse has come to an uneventful end. My wrist has healed sufficiently that the sight of a computer keyboard doesn't give me the shakes anymore. That can only mean one thing. It's time to get back up on my blogging horse.

Luckily, while I have been crap at blogging, I've been fairly successful at reading fairly good books, so there will be reviews once I organize the massive pit of untamed reading material currently vomited all over my desk. In the meantime, you may have heard of this little thing called the 24 Hour Readathon that's coming up this Saturday. It's been a long time since I've even been home for a Readathon making it difficult to participate in the event I have such a soft spot for, so I figured I better not let the opportunity pass me by, and I finally signed up. I am A) not making a plan B) not buying special snacks, C) taking a mid-Readathon intermission for a Zumbathon (it's a day of "athons." What can I say?) after which I may or may not continue to read depending on the way the wind is blowing. I will however be reading and blogging and hopefully having tons of fun out and about in the blogosphere with the time I do have.

Hopefully my wrist holds up and I can get organized and back on track with some haste. I'll see ya during the Readathon, if not before. You are signed up, aren't you? ;-)

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Doc

2011-03-30T07:00:00.000-04:00

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Doc by Mary Doria Russell
Random House, May 3, 2011

Synopsis:

The year is 1878, peak of the Texas cattle trade. The place is Dodge City, Kansas, a saloon-filled cow town jammed with liquored-up adolescent cowboys and young Irish hookers. Violence is random and routine, but when the burned body of a mixed-blood boy named Johnnie Sanders is discovered, his death shocks a part-time policeman named Wyatt Earp. And it is a matter of strangely personal importance to Doc Holliday, the frail twenty-six-year-old dentist who has just opened an office at No. 24, Dodge House.

And that is where the unlikely friendship of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp really begins—before Wyatt Earp is the prototype of the square-jawed, fearless lawman; before Doc Holliday is the quintessential frontier gambler; before the gunfight at the O.K. Corral links their names forever in American frontier mythology—when neither man wanted fame or deserved notoriety.

Authentic, moving, and witty, Mary Doria Russell’s fifth novel redefines these two towering figures of the American West and brings to life an extraordinary cast of historical characters, including Holliday’s unforgettable companion, Kate. First and last, however, Doc is John Henry Holliday’s story, written with compassion, humor, and respect by one of our greatest contemporary storytellers.

What are you "waiting on" this Wednesday?

Old Filth by Jane Gardam

2011-03-28T08:11:00.001-04:00

Have you ever read a book and then arrived at the end surprised at how few pages it had? A story that feels so much larger than it seems could be contained in so few pages? Such is Jane Gardam's Old Filth. When I turned the last page of the book, it seemed impossible that Gardam created such a larger than life character in only 289 pages.

Before I start the review, I have ~~a story to tell~~ a confession to make. Old Filth along with its companion, The Man in the Wooden Hat was sent to me for review almost a year ago by the fine folks at Europa Editions, whose books are so lovely in their construction (and content!) that I begin to love them before even reading the first page. I started Old Filth in long ago last year and made it through about 60 pages before I sat it aside. You see, Old Filth is a fantastic book, and it reads almost like a classic, and in keeping with that reputation, requires some actual effort at comprehension and a little extra time to really relish the prose. In the run-up to summer last year, it was particularly ill-suited to me, so I put it aside for a later date, not figuring it would be quite this much later.

In the end, though, I'm glad (if somewhat ashamed) that I put it off, because I knew I wouldn't like it if I trudged through it then, but in the late winter when I was hungering for something of substance, Old Filth was just the thing. It might be a year late, but it's going to be a heck of a lot more positive of a review, too. So, I'm sorry Europa folks...I think?

Old Filth is the story of Edward Feathers born shortly after the end of World War I, the son of a mother who died shortly after childbirth in the British colony of Malay and his father, a distant District Officer of the colony. At 4, he's sent back "Home" to England for schooling only ever to see his father, who never seems to have loved him anyway, for one more fleeting moment. Effectively orphaned, Eddie grows up alone, constantly estranged from those around him for one reason or another. His unhappy past doesn't keep him from success, however. Despite failing as a lawyer in London he becomes a successful lawyer and a judge in the Far East - hence his name, an acronymn for Failed In London Try Hong Kong. The opening pages of the book find Filth a retired but still unassailable old barrister whose reputation has grown to such mythic proportions that it obstructs the hard truths of a man so damaged by his past that he has found himself forever unable to love. It's only as Filth toddles gracefully into old age that he can begin to rediscover the parts of himself that he has locked away and come to terms with the dark secrets that made him the man he became.

Old Filth is everything a good character study should be. The book starts out with an elderly, retired Filth who is famous among his peers but also a profound mystery. Then it begins to deconstruct the facade he's constructed, peeling back layer after layer and we begin to know and understand the man even as he unlocks the doors on his past and begins to rediscover himself. Gardam's crisp, clear prose weaves effortlessly between past and present tying together memories of the past and behaviors of the present thereby giving readers a full picture of a fragile boy always destined to lose those he loved, a boy with unthinkable secrets who became a man that always held himself at a distance from those he could have loved.

By the end of the book, Filth feels like a friend with his secrets laid bare before us. Your heart will break again and again for him as he endures confusion and rejection as he tries to make connections with people whose concern for him is fleeting. You will be proud of the successful, polished, determined gentleman he became even despite circumstances that could have crushed him again and again. In short, Filth is a complicated, vivid character that smacks of reality, and a man you, like me, will begin to miss as soon as you turn the last page.

(Thanks again to the publisher for sending me the book to review.)

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Pet Peeves

2011-03-22T08:00:00.000-04:00

It's always a ton of fun seeing the bookish top 10 lists coming out of The Broke and the Bookish's Top Ten Tuesdays. At last, I'm getting around to participating! This week's topic is...

Bookish Pet Peeves

1 No quotation marks - It takes a good, good story to make me forget that there are no quotation marks in a book. Not having them just irritates me. It seems pompous. Like "I'm too good for your silly little quotation marks. Quotation marks are for talentless hacks bound by the common conventions of writing! Not I, my friends, NOT I!" Yeah, so, quotation marks are a big issue with me, so much so that when my blog was young, I may or may not have written a sort of love letter to them.

2 Classic spin-offs - I like Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. I have less than no interest in reading any elaborations or re-imaginings of these classics, but they're everywhere, and I'm afraid I'm tired of even seeing them.

3 Super long chapters - Okay, so. I have a job and many other things to do. That means I'm forced to read in fits and starts throughout the day. Chapter ends give me something to shoot for.

4 Super SHORT chapters - This chapter's too long. This chapter's too short. I know, I know. I'm a real Goldilocks of the book world, but I like my chapters to be just right. When they're too short, it just breaks up the flow of the story.

5 Super tiny print - There are no prizes for how many words you can squish on a page. Don't make your print so tiny that my head starts to hurt when I'm reading. Especially if you're publishing something that's a little dense and requires a little extra effort anyway, like a classic. Sadly enough, classics happen to be a pretty common offender on this count.

6 Movie tie-in covers - Ugh. Do I even need to comment on this?

7 Bad covers on good books - Speaking of covers, doesn't it just break your heart, knowing that a good cover goes a long way in getting anybody to pick up a book, to see a really great book with a really lame cover? A book you ended up loving but you know that you would never even have considered picking up on a whim at the bookstore because the subpar cover never caught your eye or worse, caught your eye and made you cringe.

8 Multiple narrators that all sound the same - There's nothing more disappointing than a novel with a bunch of first person narrators and they all sound the same and you have to be told when they're changing, and you still find yourself confused. On the flip side, when multiple narrators are done well with distinctive voices, they add up to some of my favorite books. It's a fine line, I guess.

9 Bad editing - I know mistakes happen from time to time, but it's so distracting when a character's name changes or a some big grammar or spelling flub goes undetected in a finished work.

10 Preachy books - I'm pretty smart. How about you tell your story and trust me enough to get your point on my own?

What bookish things make you crazy?