holiday books

Happy holidays, everyone! Things are starting to calm down a bit so I thought today would be a good time for a post.

As I mentioned in a recent Booking Through Thursday post, I do like giving books as gifts.

Russell received Gorey's The Haunted Tea-cosy (see this post) with a tea cozy that I knit especially for the occasion (I used this pattern; project on Ravelry). He also received Eyewitness to a Genocide from his wishlist as well as a few other non-wishlist books (A Tale of Two Valleys, which he's already reading, Cryptonomicon, and Quicksilver).*

I gave my sister Super Happy, Crochet Cute. It's a good introduction to Amigurumi-style crochet, something I knew she'd love once she tried it. She was really inspired by one of the advanced projects from the book so I helped her get started on it. She's already nearly done (project on Ravelry)!

I gave my mom Daughter of China by Meihong Xu and my dad Hood, book one of the Raven King trilogy, by Stephen Lawhead. I also snuck a copy of Definitely Dead into my sister-in-law Karina's package since I know she's working her way through the Sookie Stackhouse books.

Lucky me, I also got some wishlist books from various gift givers:
- The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu (I adored her Zahrah the Windseeker)
- Stravaganza: City of Secrets, the 4th Stravaganza book, by Mary Hoffman (love this series!)
- Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero (yum!)
- Yarn Play: Colorful Techniques and Projects for the Creative Knitter by Lisa Shobhana Mason (I need to go through this one more thoroughly, but I think there's a must-knit sweater in it)

* Buying used books is a great way to stick to a budget, provided your giftees aren't the type to get upset/offended by used items.

the right book

Lately I've found myself starting books and then quickly putting them down (a sampling listed below) and struggling when trying to select books from our shelves to start reading. This seems to have more to do with my mood that with the books themselves. Any dark, depressing, or heavy books are out as is much serious, literary fiction, but I've also found myself losing patience with YA fantasy.

Is it the stress of the season (or my life in general)? Is it the dark, dreariness of the weather and winter's short days? Am I just too impatient these days? I don't know, maybe I just need a vacation.

Recently abandoned books:
- The Dead Fathers Club - punctuation (no quotation marks) makes reading difficult, feel horrible for the protagonist
- Nadia's Song - starts with funeral
- Norwegian Wood - slow, hopeless love
- The Passion - begins with character committing suicide
- Search of the Moon King's Daughter - opium addiction, industrial revolution, not going to be a cheery read

Keturah and Lord Death

Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
Read by Alyssa Bresnahan

Martine Leavitt offers a spellbinding story, interweaving elements of classic fantasy and high romance. Keturah follows a legendary hart into the king's forest, where she becomes hopelessly lost. Her strength diminishes until, finally, she realizes that death is near. Little does she know that he is a young, handsome lord, melancholy and stern. Renowned for her storytelling, Keturah is able to charm Lord Death with a story and thereby gain a reprieve — but only for twenty-four hours. She must find her one true love within that time, or all is lost. Keturah searches desperately while the village prepares for an unexpected visit from the king, and Keturah is thrust into a prominent role as mysterious happenings alarm her friends and neighbors. Lord Death's presence hovers over all until Keturah confronts him one last time in the harrowing climax.

I've been listening to the audio version of this book that I received from a BookCrossing friend. I enjoyed the story and Alyssa Bresnahan's reading, but I'd definitely encourage people to read the book themselves before giving or suggesting it to a teen. The ending may make the book quite inappropriate for certain teens. I can't really say more without giving too much away about the plot.

Booking Through Thursday - Generosity

Do you give books as gifts?
Yes

To everyone? Or only to select people?
Not to everyone, but I do tend to give books at one time or another to most people on my gift-giving lists. I don't give books to people who I know don't like to read or people I don't know well enough to have an idea of their taste in books.

How do you feel about receiving books as gifts?
I like receiving books as gifts, particularly ones on my wishlist, but even more so books that I may not have heard about that people know me (and my reading tastes) well think that I'll really enjoy.

book clubbing in December

For this round of book club selections, we decided to include some riskier, more literary titles. Hrabal's Too Loud a Solitude was scheduled for December, mostly because it is short and wouldn't be too daunting a read in the midst of all the holiday craziness. I was looking forward to rereading it, but had no idea how it'd go over with the other members of the book club.

Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal
translated from the Czech by Michael Henry Heim

Too Loud a Solitude is a short, but powerful book. It is the story of Hanta, a man who has spent his entire working life compacting wastepaper. Though he saves books when he can (his apartment is packed with three tons of books), he's weighed down by the loss of knowledge and the innocent lives of the mice he's accidentally compacted, but also by the hopelessness of his (and their collective) life.

Hrabal's rhythmic, repetitive prose offers vivid descriptions of the world in which our protagonist lives. A world where the heavens are not humane, where academics clean the sewers and loved ones can disappear without a trace.

But, in as much as Too Loud a Solitude is the story of a love affair with the written word, it is filled with eloquent descriptions of reading, the first of which appears on the novella's very first page: "Because when I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel" (1-2).

The dark worldview and lack of plot were the turn-offs for some book club members. That being said, I do think that Too Loud a Solitude generated a very good discussion. We discussed how the book is typical of central/eastern European literature of this period, what we as Western readers may have lost in context, how we related to the protagonist, what appealed to and repulsed us about the narrative, and how the protagonist quietly rebelled through his work.

The Haunted Tea-cosy

Seasonally-appropriate fiction for the student services blog this month...

The Haunted Tea-cosy by Edward Gorey*

The Haunted Tea-cosy is classic Gorey and perfect for the holiday season. It is essentially a retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The story begins with protagonist Edward Gravel is interrupted from his correspondence and fruitcake by a human-sized cockroach that seems to have jumped out from underneath his tea cosy. This is the Bahhum Bug** who will introduce Gravel to Gorey’s versions of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.

Gorey has a macabre and wonderfully eccentric sense of humor that makes reading his books quite an experience. While the drawings in The Haunted Tea-cosy are less detailed than Gorey’s usual work, they will no doubt intrigue readers new to Gorey and hopefully inspire them to check out some of Gorey’s other work.

* Expect to see this book here again a little later this month ;)
**This type of wordplay is typical Gorey

Booking Through Thursday - Time is of the Essence

1. Do you get to read as much as you WANT to read?
(I’m guessing #1 is an easy question for everyone?)
Not really, especially this time of year.

2. If you had (magically) more time to read, what would you read? Something educational? Classic? Comfort Reading? Escapism? Magazines?
Well, I have a bunch of educational books on my need-to-read-soon to-be-read pile, but right now some comfort and escapist reading sounds wonderful.

Divas Don't Knit

Divas Don't Knit by Gil McNeil

(It looks like this book'll be published stateside as The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club in March 2009)

Jo Mackenzie needs a new start. Newly widowed with two young sons and a perilous bank balance, she has to leave London to take over her grandmother's wool shop. They arrive in the pouring rain and Broadgate Bay is the kind of Kentish seaside town where the tide went out a long time ago and the dusty old shop is full of peach four-ply. Marmalade mohair, an A-list actress moving into the local mansion and a 'Stitch and Bitch' group will help, but it's not going to be easy. Very large dogs, celebrity, small town intrigues, packed lunches and romance all loom large in Gil McNeil's funny and uplifting novel. Divas Don't Knit turns prejudices and assumptions upside down and tells it how it really is in the world of knit-one, purl-one. Knitting has never been so much fun.

I enjoyed this book very much and I don't think that you need to be a knitter to enjoy it (though if you don't like "women's fiction", you may want to steer clear of it).

Divas Don't Knit is a heartwarming tale. Our protagonist overcomes the loss of her husband and way of life, but in the end rediscovers herself and in the process creates a life filled with family, friends, and community, completely different than her old life, but better.

I'd definitely be interested in reading the sequel, Needles and Purls.

Elsewhere

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

After reading Margarettown (see this post) I was keen on reading more of Zevin's work. I appreciate her perspective and enjoy her writing.

Elsewhere is less complex than Margarettown (this is a good thing especially because the target audience is younger), but no less profound. Its focus is the afterlife, specifically the afterlife of a teenage girl who was killed in a traffic accident.

Zevin seems to deliberately shy away from the issue of religion. The protagonist's admissions counselor informs her that "God's there in the same way He, She, or It was before to you. Nothing has changed" (78). While she is taking the path of least resistance by doing so, I think it makes the book more universally approachable (and ultimately, I think, that's the most important thing).

I really like Zevin's view of the afterlife (though I won't spoil it here for those who haven't yet read the book) and I've been trying to figure out how I would have responded to this book if I'd read it when I was younger (my best friend died when we were nine). I think that I would have responded positively to Elsewhere. I think that I would have found this alternate afterlife comforting, particularly the ways that the dead are able to continue living while in Elsewhere. But I also know that each of us grieves differently and responds to things like this book in different ways so when it comes down to it I can't say for sure that this would be a good book for someone who has recently experienced the loss of a friend or family member. I would easily recommend to those who are not grieving though.

Booking Through Thursday - 5 for Favorites

1. Do you have a favorite author?
I have a few, but for the purposes of this post I'll stick with Milan Kundera.

2. Have you read everything he or she has written?
Nearly, I haven't yet read The Curtain.

3. Did you LIKE everything?
Yes. There are some books that I like better than others, but there are none that I truly dislike.

4. How about a least favorite author?
I've never really thought about this. I just steer clear of authors I don't like and leave it at that.

5. An author you wanted to like, but didn’t?
Hmm... again, another difficult one. There are definitely books that I wanted to like but didn't (Carnevale and Prague come to mind). I'm sure that there are authors I didn't like even though I wanted to, but it seems that I've put them out of my mind.

Cheney Sisters

Cheney of Faire Isle Trilogy by Susan Carroll

The Cheney sisters trilogy--The Dark Queen, The Courtesan, The Silver Rose--follows three "daughters of the Earth" who live during the time of Catherine de Medici. The books are a mix of historical fiction and romance with a touch of the paranormal.

The Dark Queen is the story of oldest sister Ariane, who inherited the title of "Lady of Faire Isle" along with a cache of priceless magical and medical texts are the ire of the Dark Queen Catherine de Medici from her mother.

In The Courtesan, middle sister Gabrielle becomes a famous Parisian courtesan and must decide whether she can risk nearly everything to save the one man she loves.

The series concludes with The Silver Rose, in which the youngest sister Miribelle helps vanquish the great evil that is known as the Silver Rose.

The Cheneys are well-drawn and sympathetic, as are their heroes. The books are engaging, enthralling, and have enough seriousness and historical detail to make them more historical fiction than historical romance (in my opinion).

Half Moon Investigations

Half Moon Investigations by Eoin Colfer

I picked up this book because I like Colfer. I've been reading his Artemis Fowl books for years. I'm also always in the market for audio books. I love listening to them in the car or while doing mindless computer stuff.

One of the things that I love about Colfer is how he's able to write for a younger audience (middle readers, I think), but produce books that are equally appropriate for adults. Half Moon Investigations is no exception. It features a pint-sized detective named Fletcher Moon whose playground cases quickly lead him to a city-wide crime wave and get him into more trouble than he could have possibly imagined.

Half Moon Investigations was a fun read. Of course, I'd figured out the culprit long before Fletcher did, but that really didn't detract from my enjoyment since Colfer throws in a couple of extra curve balls.

Rounding out the novel, reader Sean Patrick Reilly does a wonderful job with the voices, hitting the perfect combination between hard-boiled detective and precocious child.

Sue Monk Kidd

Lately I've been listening to an audio version of The Mermaid Chair, a book I first read in 2005. My reaction to the book at that time is pasted at the bottom of this post (skip it if you don't want to see any spoilers).

Suffice it to say that I thoroughly enjoyed both The Mermaid Chair and The Secret Life of Bees (comments also below), which is receiving so much press right now with the movie coming out. Between listening to my audio book and seeing movie commercials, Sue Monk Kidd has been on my mind quite a bit lately.

I'd love to read another of her novels, because her writing seems like what would speak to me right now, and I was sad when I looked her up to look up find that she hasn't written any more. She's written a number of nonfiction title, most notably The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, but I'm steering away from them. I'm sure that they are fine (and interesting), but that's not what I want from her as an author.

As a reader I respond much more strongly to fiction than I do to nonfiction. I'm also much more likely to loose patience or to skim nonfiction writings. I do like nonfiction, but I don't assume that I'll like an author's nonfiction writings just because I like their fiction.

For Sue Monk Kidd, I think I'll hold off for another novel. I want her imagined worlds rather than her real one. From her, I think that I'm much more likely to be inspired by her subtly through her story-weaving. But, that's just me.

My reaction to The Mermaid Chair, circa December 2005:

I enjoyed this book. It was a quick read. I loved the island and the monastery (although I am not sure that Kidd’s depiction of monastic life is accurate). The combination of myth, legend, and religion in the book is quite wonderful. I also liked how things came together with the explanation of the mother's madness and the father's death. The ending was perfect, although the romantic in me wishes there had been a happily-ever-after for the lovers.

My reaction to The Secret Life of Bees, circa February 2006:

What a lovely book!
Beautifully written and easy to read.
I loved the strong female characters in this book and the "dream world" Lily is able to make for herself with the "calendar sisters".

Spice

With Thanksgiving upon us, I thought it might be nice to have something food related for the student services blog's book of the month.

Spice: The History of Temptation by Jack Turner

In Spice: The History of Temptation, Turner chooses "a more intimate, human focus" for his study of spices and their role in history. He posits that:

It is only by viewing spices in terms of [the] complex overlap of desires and distaste that the intensity of the appetite can be adequately accounted for--why, in other words, the discovers [...] found themselves on foreign shores demanding cinnamon and pepper with the cannons and galleons of Christendom at their backs. (xvii)

This premise--and Turner's gift for anecdote--results to an informative and endlessly interesting book on the place spice has held in human imagination.

Peppered throughout the text are images (photographs of spice-related museum artifacts, maps, and drawings both botanically accurate and imaginatively fallacious) and quotations mostly from contemporaries of the spice age. Also included is an index and copious endnotes, the former making the text more accessible and the latter attesting to the scholarship behind the book.

Nearest Book

A meme that's been doing the rounds on FaceBook this week:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions.

"What special conditions?" - The Dead Fathers Club by Matt Haig

Booking Through Thursday - Honesty

I receive a lot of review books, but I have never once told lies about the book just because I got a free copy of it. However, some authors seem to feel that if they send you a copy of their book for free, you should give it a positive review.
Do you think reviewers are obligated to put up a good review of a book, even if they don’t like it? Have we come to a point where reviewers *need* to put up disclaimers to (hopefully) save themselves from being harassed by unhappy authors who get negative reviews?

This question was suggested by another BTTer, JM who blogs at The Book Stacks. On the blog (this post) she explains what inspired the question. Interesting stuff...

Authors have to understand that by publishing their work, they are inviting others to read and critique it (irregardless of whether they are sending out review copies). Even successful authors get negative reviews, it's in the job description (so to speak). They need to learn to take the criticism and learn from it, use it to help improve their writing.

In any case, I guess that I do my fair share of book reviews (formal and informal). I make an effort not to lie in my reviews, but to be honest and to give each book a chance. That's not to say that I sometimes don't feel guilted (mostly by myself) into softening up some of my critiques.

When I do write negative things about a book, I try also to write something about some aspect of the book that I liked or thought was particularly strong, just so there's at least something positive and it doesn't seem that I'm just trashing the book.

I do think that reviewers--as well as people who publish reviews--feel pressure not to post negative reviews. I know that I've had my reviews (one in particular) edited for harshness. To some extent, though, I think that having a known readership keeps you honest. You're less likely to say glowing things about a book that you didn't let when you know people you know may go get that book on your advice.

I also think that reviewers should be able to choose not to review a book, whether because they didn't like it or don't have anything to say. I know I haven't reviewed all of the advanced reader copies that I've received (but that's mostly because I got overwhelmed by them, having overextended myself, and got indepth-review-specific writers block). I also don't even post informal comments on all the books that I read. Sometimes that's because I didn't like the book. Sometimes it's because I don't think it's worth commenting on. Sometimes it's just because I get lazy or have too many other things happening.

book clubbing in November

I feel like this post should be titled "Why We Hated Saturn". Not that we (meaning the book club) hated Why I Hate Saturn. Hate is really much too strong of a word for our reaction to the graphic novel, it just makes a wonderful play on the title.

In any case, this month was another graphic novel month for my book club. Kyle Baker's Why I Hate Saturn was our topic and we were generally not crazy about the book.

Personally I liked the idea of the crazy sister from Saturn, but thought that Baker could have done more with that aspect of his story. And, I think the cover is fantastic. I just wish that the novel itself was more like what I expect from seeing the cover.

Overall we thought the story was a bit lacking with regard to the plot. We also found it jarringly disjointed (would we have liked it better if we'd read each section as a snippet like serial cartoons?). We also thought that the author - in this book - did not take full advantage of the genre. One of the attendees hit it on the head, I think, when he said that the panels were mostly "talking heads". Additionally, we thought that the protagonist wasn't a very convincing woman (a classic example of a man creating a female character and just not quite getting "it").

We did, however, universally like the section titles. The book also engendered a good conversation about the genre in general and about specific titles that individual attendees thought were good examples (or thought others would like).

Karma Girl

Karma Girl by Jennifer Estep

Carmen Cole is a reporter for a small-time newspaper in a Southern town until she catches her fiance and best friend in flagrante delicto on her wedding day. In their passion they let slip that they are also the town's resident superhero and supervillain and Carmen gets her revenge by unmasking them in the media, an act that immediately transforms her career.

Exposing the secret identities of superheros and villains becomes Carmen's calling. She knows she's truly hit the big time when she's hired by Expose, the biggest paper in Bigtime, New York. Unmasking Bigtime's Fearless Five and Terrible Triad and will be Carmen's most difficult job yet...

Karma Girl is a light, but engrossing read. It combines chick lit with comic-book-style super heroes in a very entertaining way. While some of the plot twists are pretty obvious to the reader early on, others are a bit more surprising.

This book could have easily been over-the-top, but is is grounded by Carmen's character, which is both sympathetic and down-to-earth.

The Tattooed Map

The Tattooed Map by Barbara Hodgson

Reading The Tattooed Map is a sensory experience (much like reading Nick Bantock's novels). It's a novel presented as a travel diary, in which its authors (our protagonists) paste tidbits much like a scrapbook. Surrounding the main text of the story are hand-written annotations as well as pasted-in maps, photographs, and other ephemeral material. Because of that, the reader lingers on each page, making sure to soak up all the details and all of the various meanings that are hidden in it.

I'm not going to try to include a synopsis. Even the ones given by the publisher seem to include too much in the way of spoilers. Suffice it to say that The Tattooed Map is a mystery that both inspires and repels wanderlust. It is remarkably evocative and a joy to read.

Booking Through Thursday - Why Buy?

I’ve asked, in the past, about whether you more often buy your books, or get them from libraries. What I want to know today, is, WHY BUY?
Even if you are a die-hard fan of the public library system, I’m betting you have at least ONE permanent resident of your bookshelves in your house. I’m betting that no real book-lover can go through life without owning at least one book. So... why that one? What made you buy the books that you actually own, even though your usual preference is to borrow and return them?
If you usually buy your books, tell me why. Why buy instead of borrow? Why shell out your hard-earned dollars for something you could get for free?

While I do like libraries (I work in one), I have to admit that I do buy books quite a bit. I was raised by one super-library-patron and one book-buyer so that may be the reason for my being conflicted.

I guess I like to own copies of certain books for a number of different reasons. I like to have my own copies of books that I know that I'll want to read again (my favorite novels, for example). Knitting books are also must-buys if I like a number of the patterns in the book. I guess the main issue is ready access. There are certain books that I like to be able to get my hands on whenever I want without having to make a trip to the library or place an interlibrary-loan request.