Friday Find #3

A friend of mine was visiting from out of town this week. While she was here we got to talking about vampire books, specifically those set in schools. My find for this week are a couple of series that she told me about.

House of Night by P.C. and Kristen Cast

After she is Marked, 16-year-old Zoey Redbird enters the House of Night and learns that she is no average fledgling. She has been Marked as special by the vampyre Goddess Nyx. But she is not the only fledgling at the House of Night with special powers. When she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school's most elite club, is mis-using her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny--with a little help from her new vampyre friends.

1. Marked (2007)
2. Betrayed (2007)
3. Chosen (2008)
4. Untamed (2008)
5. Hunted (2009)
6. Tempted (2009)

Evernight by Claudia Gray

Bianca Olivier is a new student at Evernight Academy, a creepily Gothic boarding school where her classmates are somehow too perfect: smart, sleek and almost predatory. Bianca knows she doesn't fit in.
Then she meets Lucas, another loner, who seems fiercely determined not to be the "Evernight type." There's a connection between Bianca and Lucas that can't be denied. She would risk anything to be with him—but dark secrets are fated to tear them apart... and to make Bianca question everything she's ever believed to be true.

1. Evernight (2008)
2. Stargazer (2008)
3. Hourglass (2010)

There are also the Vampire Academy books by Richelle Mead, which are fantastic, but they aren't new-to-me as I've already read the first two, Vampire Academy and Frostbite.

Labor Day reading

I spent a big chunk of Monday on the train. In that time I read two nooks from start to finish:

Liszt's Kiss by Susanne Dunlap

Author uses composer Franz Liszt's relationship with countess Marie d'Agoult as the jumping-off point for her second (after Emilie's Voice) music historical novel. Neither Listz nor Marie is the protagonist of Liszt's Kiss. That position belongs to the teenage Anne de Barbier-Chouant, a young countess and musical protégé. Liszt uses Anne's lessons as a way to get close to Marie, the dearest friend of Anne's recently deceased mother.

Liszt's Kiss has so much potential, but it falls flat. The relationships in the novel are interesting. Anne has a number of different love interests (including Liszt) each from a different walk of life. Her father, though, is a confusing character. He's not particularly well-drawn and ends up being a bit of a stock character despite the fact that he's supposed to be an enigma. The mystery in the novel is centered around the father, but it (along with the eventual Liszt/d'Agoult coupling) is rushed through at the end of the book with the aid of one too many coincidences. Dunlap could easily have added a hundred pages to the novel and really fleshed out the mystery and the story's conclusion and Liszt's Kiss would have been a much stronger novel.

The Pakistani Bride by Bapsi Sidhwa

I recently received a copy of The Pakistani Bride and decided to read it right away since I've been
intrigued by Sidhwa since I read Cracking India (alternatively titled Ice Candy Man) in college. Though it was published after The Crow Eaters, The Pakistani Bride was the first novel Sidhwa wrote. It was inspired by an article she'd read about Pakistani girl who ran away from an intolerable marriage only to be hunted down in the Hindukush mountains and beheaded by her husband. (my copy of the book included an introduction by Anita Desai, which put the novel in context)

Sidhwa writing is wonderful. She has a gift with language. Her story is well-crafted to show a variety of different perspectives and she's not the least bit heavy handed. The inclusion of a Western character, a liberal American woman who'd married a Pakistani man, is at first look a bit curious, but her role is an important one. She is at once a second Pakistani bride, whose experience mirrors the first's (everything is about degrees in this novel), and a way for Sidhwa to really connect with her Western readers.

The Others

Novels of the Others by Christine Warren

I recently read the first two books in Christine Warren's Others paranormal romance series, Wolf at the Door and She's No Faerie Princess. There are quite a few other books in the series (listed below) and if they are like the first two, I'd definitely be interested in reading them as well. The books, at least the two I've read so far, are engaging reads, and the paranormal stuff isn't so far-fetched as to be completely unbelievable.

The books take place in a world very much like our own, but in which Others (were-animals, witches, vampires, etc.) coexist with humans their true natures hidden. They follow a broad story arch, but each focuses on a different couple. In Wolf at the Door the two protagonists are an Irish werewolf (the guth* of his pack) and a Manhattanite who happens to be a fox woman. In She's No Faerie Princess, a New York werewolf falls for a Sidhe who's heir to both the Seelie and Unseelie courts.

The other Others books:
3. The Demon You Know (2007)
4. Howl At the Moon (2007)
5. Walk On the Wild Side (2008)
6. One Bite with a Stranger (2008)
7. You're So Vein (2009)
8. Big Bad Wolf (2009)

* "in addition to being the pack's ambassador and negotiator, the guth was the keeper of its traditions, its histories, and its stories. He was the pack's living link to its past, as well as their insurance of a favorable future" (Wolf at the Door, 2)

It's Monday! What are you reading?

This past week I finished reading:

• The Embers by Hyatt Bass
• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (see post)
• Incantation by Alice Hoffman (see post)
• She's No Faerie Princess by Christine Warren

I'm currently reading:

• The Pakistani Bride by Bapsi Sidwa
• The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk

Incantation

Incantation by Alice Hoffman

I read Incantation while on the train yesterday. It was a quick read, but a good one. The novel is written for a young adult audience, but I think it will appeal to adults, particularly those who enjoy historical fiction. I've passed on my copy to my mom.

Set during the Spanish Inquisition, Incantation is the story of a teenage girl whose family is denounced as crypto-Jews. It is a multifaceted coming-of-age story: protagonist and narrator Estrella (Ester) is simultaneously becoming an adult (learning the ways of the world) and learning the secret of who she and her really are. While the story is very much situated within its historical milieu, it touches on universal themes like love and hatred, loyalty and betrayal, courage and trust, the nature of evil and jealousy, and the importance of memory and of hope.

Friday Find #2

Another find from Powell's Review-a-day:

Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan

Raised in a sepulchral house where ghosts dwell in mirrors, Meridia grows up lonely and miserable. But at age sixteen, she has a chance at happiness when she falls in love with Daniel — a caring and naive young man. Soon they marry, and Meridia can finally escape to live with her husband's family, unaware that they harbor dark secrets of their own. There is a grave hidden in the garden, there are two sisters groomed from birth to despise each other, and there is Eva — the formidable matriarch and the wickedest mother-in-law imaginable — whose grievances swarm the air in an army of bees. As Meridia struggles to keep her life and marriage together, she discovers long-buried secrets about her own past as well as shocking truths about her new family that inexorably push her love, courage, and sanity to the brink.

Of Bees and Mist is an engrossing fable that chronicles three generations of women under one family tree over a period of thirty years — their galvanic love and passion, their shifting alliances, their superstitions and complex domestic politics — and places them in a mythical town where spirits and spells, witchcraft and demons, and prophets and clairvoyance are an everyday reality. Erick Setiawan's astonishing debut is a richly atmospheric and tumultuous ride of hope and heartbreak that is altogether touching, truthful, and entirely memorable.

- Publisher synopsis

Fun Home

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Dykes to Watch Out for author Alison Bechdel's brutally honest memoir, Fun Home, focuses on her childhood and coming-of-age. The "fun" in the graphic novel's title is both a shortening of funeral (the family runs a funeral home) and wonderfully sarcastic (her home was such a fun place to grow up).

Fun Home is as much about Bechdel growing up and developing her sense of self as it is about her relationship with her father. His untimely and somewhat suspicious death makes her father even more of an enigma and Bechdel struggles to understand both him as a person and how much she had in common with him.

One of the things I like about Fun Home is how literary it is, literary in a very accessible way. Bechdel references both well- and lesser known works of literature and uses lots of uncommon words. She also does things like this bit I photographed from page 106

(click on the image to bring up a larger, more legible version), which follows a panel depicting Bechdel and some of her lesbian friends stopping by a bar in Greenwich Village called Chumley's.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

This past week I finished reading:

• First Impressions by Marilyn Sachs (see post)
• The System of Vienna: From Heaven Street to Earth Mound Square by Gert Jonke
• Wolf at the Door by Christine Warren

I'm currently reading:

• She's No Faerie Princess by Christine Warren
• The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk

word: trilobite

While I was flipping through a copy of Wendy Johnson's Socks from the Toe Up at a local yarn store yesterday a word I wasn't familiar with caught my eye: trilobite. The word first appeared in the title of one of the patterns (Trilobite Socks) and later in a description of the genesis of a second pattern (Sheri's Posies Socks).

Apparently triobites are a well-known (just not to me!) group of extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita frequently found as fossils.

This Guide to the Orders of Trilobites seems like a good place to learn more, especially since it is maintained by a biologist.

Friday Find #1

Taking a cue from Barney of Barney's Book Blog, I'm going to start blogging on Fridays about a book that I've discovered over the course of the week. The featured books may not be new releases. In many cases they'll just be new-to-me books.

My find for this week is: Knitting and Tea by Jane Gottelier

The KnitPicks catalog I received this week featured a few of the patterns from Knitting and Tea knit up in their yarns.* I hadn't heard of this book, but I was intrigued.

Subtitled "25 Classic Knits and the Teas That Inspired Them," Knitting and Tea is more than just a pattern book. Apparently it's also a travelogue that focuses on the history of tea and it has recipes!

Reviewing this book for About.com, Sarah E. White wrote, "The patterns definitely have the feel of the places (and the teas) that inspired them, so if you're a fan of teatime in the traditional sense and the British imperial aesthetic, you'll enjoy this book and the projects in it" (review). I have to admit, I'm even more intrigued than I was before.

* This is one of the things I love about receiving the catalog. I get to preview some of the patterns and see how they look in different (and usually much less expensive) yarns than they're written for.

book clubbing in August

I'd been looking forward to this month's book club discussion for quite some time. Pride and Prejudice was our August selection, but we also decided to allow any of the many P&P spin-offs to add to our discussion.

Those who've read my recent posts will know that I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith and First Impressions by Marilyn Sachs in preparation for our meeting. Other spin-offs read by members included The Man Who Loved Jane Austen by Sally Smith O'Rourke,¹ Pamela Aidan's Darcy novels,² the new P&P comics (art by Hugo Petrus).³ Additionally most of us had read Austenland for our discussion last fall (see post).

We had a great discussion about Pride and Prejudice itself (one of our members had never read Austen before, assuming he wouldn't like it, and his reaction to it was wonderful), societal differences and entail,⁴ the collective obsession with P&P (or is it Mr. Darcy?), the inanity of certain spin-offs,⁴ why we think other spin-offs like Bride and Prejudice work so well, what Austen novels the newly converted should read next,⁵ class issues, whether Elizabeth is typical of a woman of her station (she has a modern sensibility for sure, but were many of her contemporaries more like Charlotte), and the reason for the recent obsession with zombies, among other things.

All in all it was an absolutely fantastic meeting with a varied and engaging discussion.

1. I've read this one, but it looks like I never posted about it on the blog. I'll pull together some thoughts and write a post soonish.
2. An Assembly Such As This, Duty and Desire, and These Three Remain. They come highly recommended by the reader.
3. I only flipped through a few issues, but they look fantastic (isn't the image I included in this post compelling?). I can't wait until they are collected in book form.
4. What a perfect word to feature. entail, in the context of Austen's writing, refers to the settlement of the succession of a landed estate, so that it cannot be bequeathed at pleasure by any one possessor. Mr. Bennet as entail of Longbourn (presumably the entail was set up in an ancestor's will) has free use of the estate during his life, but no control over what happens to the estate upon his death.
5. Sense and Sensbility or Emma depending on mood and inclination.

Life According to Literature (meme)

Another book-related meme that came up on FaceBook (therubycanary of Ruby Ramblings is one of my FB friends; she tagged me):

Using only books you have read this year (2009), answer the following questions. Try not to repeat a book title. It’s a lot harder than you think!

Describe yourself:
The Perks of Being a Wallflower

How do you feel:
Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee

Describe where you currently live:
Among the Mad

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
The Sari Shop

Your favorite form of transportation:
The System of Vienna

Your best friend is:
Aspects of Love

You and your friends are:
Wicked

What’s the weather like:
Snow in August

Your fear:
The Shadow Speaker
far too many good options for this one

What is the best advice you have to give:
The Rest Falls Away

Thought for the day:
Hello, Cruel World

How I would like to die:
God's Mercy

My soul’s present condition:
Reading the OED

First Impressions

First Impressions by Marilyn Sachs

First Impressions is a very quick read. A friend passed me a copy at lunch today and I'm writing about it this evening.

A young adult novel intended to introduce readers to Jane Austen, First Impressions is an interesting Pride and Prejudice spin-off. The protagonist, Alice, is a highschooler who has to read Pride and Prejudice for her honors English class. At first reading Alice hates Pride and Prejudice, viewing it as tragedy: "Sure, Elizabeth and Jane get their guys, and Lydia makes an exciting, scandalous marriage, and the author hopes that Kitty will turn out okay, but Mary... it's a tragedy for Mary" (1). Incidentally she's the under-appreciated and often-ignored third child in a brood of five.

First Impressions is the story of Alice's rereading of Pride and Prejudice over winter break and how it changes her life. There are some fantastical elements (magic is mentioned), but it is clear that it's the novel (or Austen herself) that wields the transformative power, encouraging Alice to be less of a Mary and more like an Elizabeth or Jane.

I was pleasantly surprised by First Impressions. It's not at all what I expected.

I also really liked this quote from Sachs on the book's dust jacket: "Jane Austen comforts me when times are hard, and she reminds me how funny, precious, and delightful this world is, as well as the people (or most of them) in it".

Tomorrow's our book club meeting so expect more on P&P soon!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

This past week I finished reading:

• Overnight Male by Elizabeth Bevarly (see post)
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith (see post)
• The Sisters Mortland by Sally Beauman (see post)

As for current reading...
I'm working on The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk.
Next up: The System of Vienna: From Heaven Street to Earth Mound Square by Gert Jonke

Overnight Male

Overnight Male by Elizabeth Bevarly

I mentioned in this post attending a session at the Society of American Archivists meeting that featured a presentation on sex and sexuality in archives fiction. After the session I requested a couple of the books mentioned in it from BookMooch. There were quite a number of books mentioned in the presentation, but only two were available through the book-trading site.

First up, the romantic suspense novel, Overnight Male...

Overnight Male is the 3rd (and presumably final) book in Elizabeth Bevarly's OPUS* series (after You've Got Male and Express Male), in which the protagonist, one Lila Moreau, finally meets a man who she's able to love.

Lila Moreau, codename She-wolf, is one of OPUS's preeminent agents. She's on the tail of Adrian Padgett, once an OPUS agent himself, who is the single biggest threat to national and international security. She has a plan to take him down on her own until she realizes that OPUS wants her on a short leash: she'll have to work hand in hand with her new partner, Joel Farraday, an OPUS archivist.
And, from their first meeting sexual tension abounds.

I'm not sure, though, if Joel is really an archivist. In Bevarly's world archivists seem to be behind-the-scenes analysts, not those in charge of preserving the records of OPUS.

Overnight Male isn't all that great from a suspense standpoint (the final standoff, if it can even be called that, between the OPUS operatives and Adrian is anti-climatic at best), but it does excel in the romance arena. I think the finale would be even more satisfying for readers who have followed Lila's adventures through the two earlier novels.

* Office for Political Unity and Security

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

I have so much to say about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, "The Classic Regency Romance -- Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!" (title page), that I'm not sure quite where to begin.

Book Club is discussing Pride and Prejudice this month and we thought it might be fun to allow spin-offs since many of us have read P&P before. I'd been curious about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies after all the hype so I that's what I decided to read.

I'll begin by saying that while I do love P&P, I've read quite a few spin-offs before and went into I started Pride and Prejudice and Zombies with an open mind. I understand the premise: there are certain things in Austen's work that could be better(?) explained by the introduction of zombies into the story (like Charlotte deciding to marry Mr. Collins).

In addition class and wealth, in Grahame-Smith's England individuals are judged by their skills in the deadly arts. His Lady Catherine is a famous zombie slayer who advises the royal court on security and looks down on Elizabeth because the Bennett sisters have Chinese martial arts training rather than Japanese.

I can accept that Britain has a zombie infestation and that its citizens need to train themselves to defend the country. It doesn't make sense, however, that Elizabeth and her sisters are sent to the Shaolin Monastery to learn kung fu, let alone that they were able to make the trip to "the Orient" twice. Cost would be prohibitive for the family and travel time similarly unfeasible.

Beyond the fact that the "Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!" is not particularly well integrated into the original storyline, the main problem is that Grahame-Smith isn't able to maintain the essence of Austen despite keeping much of her original text. Mr. Bennett isn't true to character. Elizabeth is surprisingly unsympathetic (Grahame-Smith has her fantasizing about beheading her sister and that's the least of it). I know readers have mixed feelings about some of Austen's heroines (hello Emma), but Lizzy is universally liked.

This is part of a scene that takes place when Elizabeth visits Rosings:

Though discontented with such a beginning, Lady Catherine held the greatest hope for her third and final ninja, the deadliest of the three. But no sooner had she snapped her fingers, than Elizabeth flung her Katana across the dojo, piercing the ninja's chest and pinning him against the wooden column. Elizabeth removed her blindfold and confronted her opponent, who presently clutched the sword handle grasping for breath. She delivered a vicious blow, penetrating his rib cage, and withdrew her hand--with the ninja's still-beating heart in it. As all but Lady Catherine turned away in disgust, Elizabeth took a bite, letting the blood flow down her chin and onto her sparring gown.
"Curious," said Elizabeth, still chewing. "I have tasted many a heart, but I dare say, I find the Japanese ones a bit tender." (131-132)

Not only is this disgusting, but it is completely out of character for Lizzy, even zombie-slayer Lizzy. First of all, why on earth would she kill Lady Catherine's ninja trainers--one by "strangl[ing] him to death with his own large bowel" (130)--when she's just supposed to be sparring? It's practice; they're innocents. Second, eat a still-beating heart in mixed company?!

There are also other inconsistencies, for example: an English housekeeper at Pemberley wears a kimono, but has bound feet. Besides the obvious confusion between Japanese and Chinese culture, a woman with bound feet would be ill-suited for service.

In short, I finished the book, but only because I had to force myself to.

Apparently the same publisher (Quirk Books) has a book called Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters set for a September release. I don't think I'll be reading it.

The Sisters Mortland

The Sisters Mortland by Sally Beauman

As I mentioned last week, when packing for my trip I decided to only take books that I'd be comfortable wild releasing after I was done with them. I'm not sure I should have read another contemporary gothic novel so close on the heels of The Thirteenth Tale (see post), but The Sisters Mortland, which had been languishing on my bookshelves, was one of the ones I packed.

Summer 1967: As an artist paints a portrait of thirteen-year-old Maisie and her older sisters--arrogant, beautiful Julia and brilliant, bookish Finn--Maisie embarks upon a portrait of her own: a secret account of her troubled family and her village friend Daniel. Before the end of the summer, a terrible accident will befall the family.
Winter 1991: As the now-legendary portrait of the Mortland sisters is featured in a London retrospective, Daniel seeks to free himself of his obsession with the mysterious sisters by unraveling the secrets of that fateful summer...

The novel has three sensitive narrators, Maisie, Dan, and Julia. Their accounts are biased and occasionally jumbled and it is only in having them all combined that the truth is revealed. The story of the sisters and that fateful summer is compelling and Beauman draws it out masterfully, offering small clues and teasing hints, only revealing the full extent of the mystery at the novel's end. The tale, however, is haunting.

word: gamine

I came across the word gamine in Patty Jane's House of Curl by Lorna Landvik (I posted about the book here). I don't recall having seen it before.

gamine (adj.)

The feminine form of gamin (French) originally meaning street urchin.
Gaining popularity, the word was later used more generally to describe mischievous young women, slim, boyish, possibly wide-eyed, teasing and unattainable.
"Attractively pert," The OED adds.
Picture a slim girl with a pixie cut.

A number of reference sites online cite gamine as HarperCollins' word of the year for 1899. My brief search did not find any substantive evidence of this.

Apparently Audrey Hepburn was the quintessential gamine.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

This past week I finished reading:

• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai (see post)
• The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory (see post)
• Patty Jane's House of Curl by Lorna Landvik (see post)

and gave up on The Absence of Nectar by Kathy Hepinstall (see post).

As for current reading... I'm just about to finish The Sisters Mortland by Sally Beauman after which I'll get back to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith and The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk.

traveling, part 4

I'm back in Buffalo after a great trip and good conference, though yesterday was a very long day for me.

I finished Patty Jane's House of Curl by Lorna Landvik and left my copy in the seat pocked of the plane I took from Austin to O'Hare.

I'm glad that I finally got around to read Patty Jane's House of Curl especially since I managed to acquire two copies (in my defense, they had different covers) back in 2006. The novel was different that what I expected. For some reason I was under the impression that it would be more of a comedic novel. I'd never read Landvic before. Her books have interesting titles (like Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons and The Tall Pine Polka) so I guess that's where I got my preconceived notions about the book.

In any case, I thought Patty Jane's House of Curl was a very good book, but also a very sad book despite Landvic's breeziness and humor. The story of Harriet (Patty Jane's sister), in particular, was heartbreaking to me. In Patty Jane's House of Curl, Landvic has created a set of fully realized and memorable characters. The only criticism I have of the novel is that occasionally the descriptions are repetitive (as in the cases when Patty Jane wears dress shoes).

I'm still reading the fourth book I packed for my trip, The Sisters Mortland by Sally Beauman.

PSA: book giveaway

Booklogged at A Reader's Journal is having a drawing for The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

I've been hearing lots about this novel (and it's on the voting list for next year's book club selections), so I'd love to get a copy. Depending on how many comments she gets, Booklogged has up to five copies to give away.

Pop over to this post to enter.

traveling, part 3

As I mentioned earlier in the week, the reason I'm traveling is the Society of American Archivists annual meeting. I went to a couple great sessions this morning, one of which was entitled "Archives After Hours (The Light, Literary, and Lascivious Side of Archives)". It was a decidedly fun session. I'm writing about it because one of the presenters, Arlene Schmuland, talked about sex and sexuality in archives fiction.

I am embarrassed to say that I'd only read one of the books she mentioned in her presentation, The Sixteen Pleasures by Robert Hellenga. I took lots of notes and will report back as I have a chance to read the books in question. I'm particularly amused by the idea of sexy archivists as protagonists in romance novels.

traveling, part 2

I chose The Other Queen as my airport bookstore buy because I've read and enjoyed a number of Philippa Gregory's novels (and The Host is not out in paperback yet). I like how Gregory tends to focus on secondary characters (like Anne Boleyn's sister Mary in The Other Boleyn Girl) and themes in British history.

I can't say that The Other Queen is my favorite Gregory book (that honor still belongs to The Constant Princess) or even close, but I did enjoy it.

I'm not sure where Gregory comes down on Mary, Queen of Scots. Her portrayal of Marie Stuart is not particularly sympathetic, but neither is it completely unsympathetic. Though she is one of the three narrators of The Other Queen (and her story is the basis for the novel), Mary is not the star of the novel. The other two narrators--George Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and his wife Bess--are much more significant. After finishing The Other Queen, I have no strong feelings about Mary beyond confusion about her relationship with Bothwell.

What was particularly interesting to me while reading The Other Queen was Gregory's take on William Cecil. It is completely at odds with my impression of Cecil based on Fiona Buckley's Ursula Blanchard mysteries (the first of which is To Shield the Queen). Buckley's opinion of Cecil, while not glowing, is decidedly more positive than Gregory's. This makes me want to delve more into the period to get a better sense of Cecil's character.

I'm not going to wild release The Other Queen because I'm sure that my mom will want to read it.

Edited to add:
I forgot that I wanted to share the opening of the novel:

Every woman should marry for her own advantage since her husband will represent her, as visible as her front door for the rest of his life. If she chooses a wastrel she will be avoided by all her neighbors as a poor woman; catch a duke and she will be Your Grace, and everyone will be her friend. She can be pious, she can be learned, she can be willing and wise and beautiful, but is she is married to a fool she will be "the poor Mrs. Fool" until the day he dies. (1)

That first paragraph is both a taste of Bess and something that made me think of how times have changed and how they've stayed the same.

traveling, part 1

I'm away for a week, visiting family and going to the Society of American Archivists conference. I decided to pack only books that I could wild-release once I was done with them. I stuck two books in my carry-on bag and two in my suitcase.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress was a quick read. I left my copy in the seat pocket of the plane at the end of the first leg of my trip.

I didn't enjoy Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress as much as I thought I would. I can't really put my finger on what didn't work for me: the novel was too short? the ending was unexpected and not particularly satisfying? I hadn't previously known all that much about the re-education that went on during the Cultural Revolution so I found that part interesting.


The Absence of Nectar by Kathy Hepinstall

I packed The Absence of Nectar because it was a mass-market paperback. I gave it the old college try (80 pages or so) on the trip. I do enjoy some thrillers, but this one just didn't appeal to me.

I bought a copy of The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory at the bookstore in O'Hare during my unplanned extra-long layover and left my copy of The Absence of Nectar in the seat pocket of the plane on the second leg of my trip.

Booking Through Thursday - Recent

This week's question and last week's question go quite well together.

What’s the funniest book you’ve read recently?

I'm not sure if this book is the funniest, but it's as good an answer as any... I enjoyed Wimbledon Poisoner by Nigel Williams quite a lot. There were parts that made me laugh out loud (I guess I just "get" the author's humor). I'd definitely be interested in reading other books by Williams.

What’s the most serious book you’ve read recently?

Serious fiction? Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer by Ernst Weiss

To Night

Indie dyer Rainy Days & Wooly Dogs (etsy shop) has a line of sock yarns that I love called "goth socks." She recently did a small series of colorways inspired by dead poets. I was able to snag this skein, inspired by Percy Shelley's "To night" in a trade. I just had to share.

Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,--
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear
Which make thee terrible and dear,--
Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,
Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out.
Then wander o'er city and sea and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand--
Come, long sought!

When I arose and saw the dawn
I sigh'd for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turn'd to her rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sigh'd for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
'Wouldst thou me?'
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmur'd like a noontide bee,
'Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me?'--and I replied,
'No, not thee!'

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon--
Sleep will come when thou art fled.
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, belovèd Night--
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

It's Monday! What are you reading?

This past week I finished reading:

• The Sari Shop by Rupa Bajwa (post here)
• The 5th Horseman by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, which decidedly does not "[take] the Women's Murder Club to the most terrifying heights of suspense they have yet to encounter" as the dust jacket claims

Reading now:

• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith in preparation for Book Club's Pride and Prejudice discussion later this month
• The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk, which will most likely be the August book of the month

newsletters

I subscribe to quite a few book-related newsletters, but Powell's Review-a-day is most definitely my favorite.

Today's review was of Margaret Atwood's forthcoming The Year of the Flood so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to mention both the newsletter and the novel.

Why don't you go check out the review and maybe subscribe to the newsletter?

The Sari Shop

The Sari Shop by Rupa Bajwa

As I mentioned on Monday, I starting The Sari Shop quite a while ago and put it down when I couldn't get into it. I'm pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it as much as I did this time around.

The publisher describes the novel as "a cross between Monsoon Wedding and a Kafka short story." I'm not sure I would describe it that way, but it doesn't ring false. Ramchand, the novel's protagonist, is a bit of a Kafkaesque character, in as much as he is profoundly alienated:

Why had he begun to get the feeling that something was wrong? A feeling that the was being told lies--big lies, small lies, by everyone, all the time, day after day after day. Always the horrible feeling, some gap, something missing something that he didn't know, something that he couldn't see, something terribly important. (21)

But the novel doesn't have the surrealism of much of Kafka's work, nor the humor, at least not in the same degree.

I thought Ramchand was a very sympathetic character, though at times his sensitivity was a bit too acute to be believable. Many of the secondary characters and vividly drawn. The story of Kamla, in particular, was heartbreaking.

Bajwa does a wonderful job bringing Amritsar. Locales, foods, fabrics, they are all described in gloriously vivid detail. What permeates this book, though, is a profound sense of hopelessness as Bajwa unflinchingly showcases the class divide in contemporary India.

PS. The copy I read has this cover, which is simply gorgeous.

Katie Chandler series

After reading my post about Enchanted, Inc by Shanna Swendson, my friend Lizzie offered to let me borrow the next few books in the Katie Chandler series: Once Upon Stilettos, Damsel Under Stress, and Don't Hex with Texas.

I'm so pleased that she did because I really love the series. My biggest disappointment about it is that there probably won't be a fifth book to tie up all the loose ends. Swendson explains why in the FAQ section of her webpage. I also read the books too quickly and one right after the other. I should have spaced them out a bit to make them last longer.

word: brio

I came across the saying with brio in Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer, a novel by Ernst Weiss (a contemporary of Kafka's).

The OED gives the following definition of brio: "Liveliness, vivacity, 'go'." (honestly I'm not quite clear on the "go" part of the definition)

Con brio is an Italian musical term meaning with brilliance, liveliness, or spirit.

Apparently, when referring to a horse brio means controlled spirit.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

Right now I'm actively reading The Sari Shop by Rupa Bajwa (I remember starting this book quite a while ago and putting it down when I couldn't get into it, I'm enjoying it much more this time around). I also have The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg in my purse for emergency reading.

I have a whole host of books that I've started (but not yet finished) reading including Beyond Black and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

Princess

Princess by Jean Sasson

The copy that I read (printed in 1995, I believe) had the following text emblazoned across its front cover: "An Appalling Indictment of the Treatment of Women in Saudi Arabia." It's interesting to note the absence of this text on the more recently-printed editions (like the one pictured in this post). I wonder if that is because many of the shocking revelations contained in the book are now almost common knowledge to Westerners (the target audience) and the climate much different now than when the book was first published in the early 1990s.

The story of one Saudi princess' life, Princess is both horrifying and compulsively readable. "Sultana" tells readers of both of her personal experiences of life inside the royal family and those of other women in her milieu. "Sultana" is a keen, if not impartial, observer of her culture. She points out the glaring double-standards of the righteously religious, the problem of wealth and entitlement, and, of course, the brutal treatment of women.

Russell read the book after I was through and it was interesting to hear his take on it and to compare the things that shocked each of us while reading the book.

Absolutely American

I've been wanting to read Absolutely American by David Lipsky for quite some time so I decided to feature it on the student services blog this month. Kind of appropriate for July with Independence Day and all, it would have been better if I'd gotten my act together a bit earlier in the month though.

Writer David Lipsky's first encounter with West Point came when he was given an assignment to write a feature on the United States Military Academy for Rolling Stone. As Lipsky explains,

The initial idea was for me to spend a few weeks on post, follow around a bunch of plebes, write something short. I ended up staying most of the year.
When that time was over, I didn't believe the story was fully told. I decided to rent a house in Highland Falls, [NY] and stayed until the plebe class graduated four years later--the only time West Point has let a writer in for such an extended tour of hanging out.

The result of that 4-year stint is Absolutely American, a fascinating look at life at the Academy and those who live it.

Absolutely American flows well and is eminently readable. Lipsky is a keen observer and thoughtful chronicler. Even those with little interest in the military will find the book compelling reading.

book clubbing in July

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

We had another great discussion this month with Diane Setterfield's debut The Thirteenth Tale. Well-written and very literary, the book is like a gift to readers.

I have to admit, though, that I didn't enjoy The Thirteenth Tale quite as much as I thought I would. It is very atmospheric and, if I had to put my finger on it, I'd say that I just wasn't in the right mood for a gothic novel. That isn't to say, of course, that I don't think it was a fantastic book. In fact, my only complaint about the book is really a combined grouse about The Thirteenth Tale and Bad Twin (review) and it has to do with the way the two novels mythologize twins, but (without specifying) focus exclusively on identical twins.

My favorite passage from The Thirteenth Tale is this:

Dr. Clifton came. He listened to my heart and asked me lots of questions. "Insomnia? Irregular sleep? Nightmares?"
I nodded three times.
"I thought so."
He took a thermometer and instructed me to place it under my tongue, then rose and strode to the window. With his back to me, he asked, "And what do you read?"
With the thermometer in my mouth I could not reply.
"Wuthering Heights--you've read that?"
"Mm-hmm."
"And Jane Eyre?"
"Mm."
"Sense and Sensibility?"
"Hm-m."
He turned and looked gravely at me. "And I suppose you've read these books more than once?"
I nodded and he frowned.
"Read and reread? Many times?"
Once more I nodded, and his frown deepened.
"Since childhood?"
I was baffled by his questions, but compelled by the gravity of his gaze, nodded once again. [...]
"You are suffering from an ailment that afflicts ladies of romantic imagination. Symptoms include fainting, weariness, loss of appetite, low spirits. While on one level the crisis can be ascribed to wandering about in the freezing rain without the benefit of waterproofing, the deeper cause is more likely to be found in some emotional trauma [...]" [...]
"Treatment is not complicated: eat, rest and take this..."--he made quick notes on a pad, tore out a page and placed it on my bedside table--"and the weakness and fatigue will be gone in a few days." [...]
I reached for the prescription. In a vigorous scrawl, he had inked: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Take ten pages, twice a day, till end of course. (301-303)

I simply adore the idea of a literary ailment and a doctor sensitive enough to diagnose it, especially when it plays so well into the self- parody typical of the gothic genre.

word: abecedarian

I'm not sure which book I was reading when I discovered abecedarian. I know it was an audio book because when I first heard it I wondered how it'd be spelled so my educated guess given the timing would be How Nancy Drew Saved My Life by Lauren Baratz Logsted.

Used as a noun, abecedarian signifies:
1. Something or someone obsessed with matters alphabetical (my favorite of the possibilities)
2. One who teaches or studies the alphabet.
3. One who is just learning; a beginner.

Adjectivally (oh, how I love that word!), abecedarian denotes:
1. Having to do with the alphabet.
2. Being arranged alphabetically.
3. Elementary or rudimentary.

Interestingly enough while looking up the word I also learned that Abecedarians were a 16th century German sect of Anabaptists who disdained all human knowledge. They claimed that to be saved one must be ignorant even of the first letters of the alphabet. (a clearer explanation is available in the Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature by John McClintock, courtesy of GoogleBooks)

The Bad Twin

Bad Twin by Gary Troup

Apparently this book is a tie-in to the television show Lost, the author being one of the characters from the show. I never watched Lost and had no idea this book was related to the show until I started writing this blog post. A friend gave me an audio version of the book because I like audio books and I just went ahead and started listening to it without looking up anything about it.

Bad Twin has this strange introduction (which is the actual tie-in):

It is with a mix of pride and sorrow that Hyperion presents Bad Twin, the last novel by a wonderful author who was taken from us in the very prime of his writing life. As many readers are already aware, Gary Troup has been missing since September 2004, when the jetliner that was carrying him from Sydney to Los Angeles crashed somewhere over the South Pacific. While nothing is more human than to hope for miracles, reason tells us that the author and his fellow-travelers cannot have survived this disaster...

(It goes on to talk about how sad it was that Troup, a confirmed bachelor, had finally found love, etc.). Beyond this inexplicable (to a reader unfamiliar with the TV show) introduction, Bad Twin is really quite good.

The mystery's protagonist is Paul Artisan, a New York-based private detective. He's hired by a CEO and scion of a wealthy family to find his missing twin brother. As he follows the trail left by the enigmatic twin, Artisan realizes that the case is much more complex than he could have imagined.

Artisan is an interesting and sympathetic character. The secondary characters are in many cases well-crafted. While the story is somewhat formulaic at times and is resolved a bit too quickly at the end, there's a lot of good meat to it: references to King Leer and John Locke, philosophizing about purgatory and the dual nature of humans, and a multi-layered mystery that the reader does not figure out before the protagonist.

The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette

The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette by Carolly Erickson

Imagine that, on the night before she is to die under the blade of the guillotine, Marie Antoinette leaves behind in her prison cell a diary telling the story of her life: from her privileged childhood as Austrian Archduchess to her years as glamorous mistress of Versailles to the heartbreak of imprisonment and humiliation during the French Revolution.

I don't have particularly strong feelings about this book. I like the idea of Marie Antoinette leaving behind a secret diary and I think that Erickson was able to give her protagonist a strong voice (even if the diary format was a bit contrived at times, most notably at the very end). While Erickson does not shy away from obvious character flaws, her emphasis is on Marie Antoinette's better qualities. This seems to be both as a result of the author trying to flesh out her character beyond the usual let-them-eat-cake caricature and the natural tendency in us all to think better of ourselves, to shift focus onto our heroic rather than cowardly actions when speaking or writing about ourselves.

I have to admit, though, that even with this first-person retelling of her story, I still can't see Marie Antoinette as a terribly sympathetic character. A similar book, which I think was much more successful, is The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. by Sandra Gulland. It tells the tale of Napoleon Bonaparte's first wife and maybe because we know so little about Josephine (whose given name was Marie Josèphe) her story is much more compelling.

God's Mercy

God's Mercy by Kerstin Ekman

In March 1916, Hillevi Klarin, a young midwife from Uppsala, takes a post in the forbidding wilderness of northern Sweden. Hopeful and naive, Hillevi is unprepared for the life she finds there: the ignorance, poverty, and superstition, the unforgiving elements, and the wide expanses of white. After struggling through disappointment and bewilderment, she settles down and finds a place in the community. One unspeakable thing, however, keeps her from feeling completely at home. This is primarily Hillevi's story. But it's narrated by her foster daughter, the enigmatic Risten, who is part Sámi and known as the girl who was stolen by an eagle.

As Risten interweaves Hillevi's story with her own and that of teenage runaway Elis, a broader narrative emerges, concerned with both the far-reaching consequences of a single event and the us-them dichotomy in all its forms. The result is an atmospheric first novel, set in the same area as Eckman's successful thriller Blackwater.

God's Mercy isthe first in the Wolfskin trilogy.

Read the full review at Library Journal...

The Ear, the Eye, and The Arm

The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer

The year is 2194, and Tendai, his brother, and his sister--the children of Zimbabwe's chief of security--have escaped from their father's estate to explore the dangerous city of Harare. When they disappear, the children's parents call in Africa's most unusual detectives--the Ear, the Eye and the Arm--who have powers far beyond those of other human beings. The children must avoid the evils of the past, the technology of the future, and a motley assortment of criminals in order to return home safely.

Though I'd heard good things about The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm (it's a Newbery Honor Book and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults pick), I only just got around to reading it for the the first time. I thought it was a very good book, I enjoyed it very much and I'd definitely give a copy to a young person in my life, but I have to admit that I wasn't blown away by it. I've read quite a few books set in futuristic Africa in the past few years so that aspect of it the story wasn't particularly novel (for me). The story itself was interesting, especially the fact that while the children sneak out longing to experience and explore the world that their parents inhabit, they get much more than they bargained for as they are forced to encounter both the seedy underbelly of their city and a spiritual realm. I also like how Farmer incorporated a traditionalist community into her future world. I guess my problem--if I could put a finger on it--is that I never for a second doubted that the children would make it home safely.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

Nothing much has changed from last week. I just haven't had all that much time for reading.

Books finished this past week:
- How Nancy Drew Saved My Life (audio) by Lauren Baratz Logsted (post)
- The Manny by Holly Peterson (post)
- The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer

Books I'm currently reading:
- Absolutely American by David Lipsky (will be the book of the month for July)
- Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel (no progress since last Monday)
- Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (for lunchtime reading on days when there's no knitting)
- Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer by Ernst Weiss (for Library Journal, review due this week)
- The Hidden Diary of Marie Antionette by Carolly Erickson (audio)
- Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (no progress since last Monday)

The Manny

The Manny by Holly Peterson

The Manny is one of those books that is perfect for summer. It's light and lighthearted, but not without substance.

36-year-old Jaimie Whitfield has a perfect life. She has her ideal job, a high-powered (but often absent) husband, 2.5 kids, and a house on Park Avenue. But when her 9-year-old son Dylan starts struggling (with school and being around other kids) for lack of a male role model, she has to admit defeat that she can't do everything herself and hire a manny.

The manny charms more than just Dylan and as other areas of her life begin to spin out of control, Jaimie must make some hard choices.

How Nancy Drew Save My Life

How Nancy Drew Saved My Life by Lauren Baratz Logsted

Broken, smashed and stomped in the mud. That's how Charlotte Bell's heart ended up the last time she let her emotions heat up on a nanny assignment. So taking a new position in frigid Iceland, working for Ambassador Edgar Rawlings, might be just what Charlotte needs in order to heal up--and chill out. This time, she's determined to be intrepid and courageous. She's even read all fifty-six original Nancy Drew books in preparation. Unfortunately, she's neglected to find out anything about Iceland or to look into the background of her oddly compelling employer.

When Charlotte stumbles onto the trail of a mystery that only she can solve, she'll need every shred of Nancy's wisdom to keep her life--and her heart--safe!

I listened to the audio version of this book, read by Elenna Stauffer. How Nancy Drew Saved My Life is very chick-lit-y, but I did like it quite a bit. Stauffer was a very good narrator. Protagonist Charlotte is a sympathetic character, more relateable (to me) than I normal find chick lit heroines to me. The storyline was interesting and somewhat realistic. My only real criticism is that there are a number of things that the author never gets around to explaining like why the Icelanders (are people from Iceland really called Icelanders?) like Nancy Drew so much.

book clubbing in June

This month the book club took on Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder. Having enjoyed the book so much myself (see my comments in this post) I was really looking forward to hearing what the other book club members made of it.

I wasn't able to reread the book for the meeting so I kept quiet for the most part not wanting to accidentally spoil things that happen in the later books in the series.

Overall it seemed like most of the book clubbers enjoyed the book and appreciated being made to read it since it wasn't something they would have picked up on their own, but we didn't have the depth of discussion we had last month.

Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee

Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee by Meera Syal

"Like my mum's always said, Life isn't all ha ha hee hee, so if you know there's going to be a few tears, you might as well try and enjoy them" (Chila, 25)

Childhood friends Chila, Sunita, and Tania are as different as three (second generation Indian women living in the UK can be. Tania is a high-powered producer, who snagged a gorgeous white man; Sunita, a mother of two who's let her career take the backseat to her husband's; and Chila, naive enough to believe that, now married, she is going to live happily ever after.

Told alternatively from the perspectives of Chila, Sunita, Tania, and British observers, Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee recounts a turbulent period in the friends' lives. In their mid-thirties, Chila, Sunita, and Tania seem to have settled into the slots they will occupy for the rest of their lives for better or worse. Everything changes, though, when Tania makes a documentary, starring both Chila and Sunita, about contemporary urban Indian life.

I enjoyed this book very much. Chila, Sunita, and Tania are all such full-bodied characters. Their struggles, both those revolving around balancing two disparate cultural expectations and those pertaining to their relationships (romantic and friendly), are real. Syal does a wonderful job of bringing to life the characters, their community, and their personal struggles. I also loved the glimpses Syal gives readers of the British outsiders' view of the Indian expatriate community.

I have Syal's other novel, Anita and Me, on my bookshelf. I tried reading it once, but couldn't get into it. I think I'll have to give it another go.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

Nothing much has changed from last week. I just haven't had all that much time for reading.

I have an audio book on the menu:
How Nancy Drew Saved My Life by Laur Baratz Logsted

Other than that, this will look very similar:
- Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel (no progress since last Monday)
- Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (for lunchtime reading on days when there's no knitting, making progress on this one)
- Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (no progress since last Monday)
- The Manny by Holly Peterson (reading while on the bus)
- Miss Zukas and the Island Murders by Jo Dereske (another book set aside for lunchtime reading)

Among the Mad

Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

Its Christmas Eve 1931. On the way to see a client, Maisie Dobbs witnesses a man commit suicide on a busy London street. The following day, the prime ministers office receives a letter threatening a massive loss of life if certain demands are not metand the writer mentions Maisie by name. After being questioned and cleared by Detective Chief Superintendent Robert MacFarlane of Scotland Yards elite Special Branch, she is drawn into MacFarlane's personal fiefdom as a special adviser on the case. Meanwhile, Billy Beale, Maisies trusted assistant, is once again facing tragedy as his wife, who has never recovered from the death of their young daughter, slips further into melancholia's abyss. Soon Maisie becomes involved in a race against time to find a man who proves he has the knowledge and will to inflict death and destruction on thousands of innocent people. And before this harrowing case is over, Maisie must navigate a darkness not encountered since she was a nurse in wards filled with shell-shocked men.

Among the Mad is the sixth installment in the Winspear's award-winning Maisie Dobbs series, following Maisie Dobbs (2003), Birds of a Feather (2004), Pardonable Lies (2005), Messenger of Truth (2006) and An Incomplete Revenge (2008).

One of the things I usually say about this series is that although the books are mystery novels, they are less page-turning whodunits than well-crafted period pieces that happen to be mysteries. Among the Mad is an exception because, while it is a well-crafted period piece, it is also a page-turner. While all the Maisie Dobbs books are psychological (Maisie is both a psychologist and a PI after all), Among the Mad is more of a psychological thriller. This--coupled with the subject matter of its storyline--may bring a new audience to the series.

The Houdini Girl

The Houdini Girl by Martyn Bedford

When his live-in girlfriend dies under suspicious circumstances, professional magician Fletcher (Red) Brandon is surprised to learn just how little he knew about Rosa and her life before he met her. His grief fuels his desire to truly understand Rosa if only posthumously, leading him into a world he never knew existed.

I really didn't know what to expect from The Houdini Girl. It's quite hard to go into any detail about the book and its plot without including any spoilers. Suffice it to say that The Houdini Girl was much more substantial than I expected it to be. Readers follow Red on his quest to understand the mystery behind her death, discovering as he does the secrets in Rosa's past and the world of which she was once a part.

The Houdini Girl is layered and well-researched. The characters are fullbodied and Red, even at his most unsympathetic, is entirely relateable.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

I've known about "What are you reading? Mondays" (hosted by J. Kay's Book Blog) for a while, but only just decided that I need to play along.

I've been doing an atrocious job of keeping track of what books I've read so I'm going to skip the books-completed-last-week part for this week.

I'm currently actively reading
Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel (just started last night) and
The Manny by Holly Peterson (its fluorescent cover wore me down).

On the back burner I have:
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (for lunchtime reading on days when there's no knitting),
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (slowly slogging through this one - I want to like it so much more than I actually do), and
Miss Zukas and the Island Murders by Jo Dereske (another book set aside for lunchtime reading).

My Best Friend's Girl

My Best Friend's Girl by Dorothy Koomson

Kamryn Matika doesn't need anyone. She's always done a good job distancing herself from other, but after she found out that her best friend slept with her fiance, Kamryn made the wall around her heart impenetrable. A card from her estranged best friend, however, turns her life upside down. Adele is dying and needs Kamryn to take custody of 4-year-old Tegan, the result of the infamous one night stand.

I'm not sure what I was expecting -- maybe something more chick-lity -- but I found the novel both substantive and charming. It deals with issues like friendship, death, betrayal, and forgiveness, while simultaneously warmhearted and realistic.

The only thing I wasn't crazy about was the focus on Nate (the former fiance) in the middle and end of the novel (and Kamryn being so conflicted). But, I can't really complain about that, as I think that Koomson was trying to be true to her protagonist.

The Penelopiad

I decided to feature The Penelopiad on the student services blog this month mostly because I love talking up the Myths series. In pulling together that post, however, I was disheartened to find that the library only has a few of the Myths series books in its collection. The Penelopiad, A Short History of Myth, and Weight and were the only ones I could find in the catalog.

Anyway, here's a quick little write-up.
If you want more of me on the Myths series, check out today's book of the month post and this October 2006 post.

The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Margaret Atwood

In The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood retells the story of Penelope--daughter of Icarius of Sparta, cousin of Helen of Troy, wife of Odysseus--using both the classic narrative of Homer's Odyssey and less well-known versions of the tale. In Atwood's tale, Odysseus is very much a secondary character, with pride of place given first to Penelope and second to the twelve slaughtered maids. This perspective forces readers to consider the other stories contained within a tale we know so well.

In all honesty, I didn't have strong feelings about The Penelopiad. I like Atwood (I can't say "love" here as while I love some of her books, I'm not crazy about others), I appreciate The Odyssey, and I love the Myths series, but this title didn't do all that much for me. I thought certain parts were very strong (particularly the portrayal of Penelope and Helen and the way that all the characters interact with each other in the afterlife), while others were somewhat weak or nonsensical (mostly the sidebars like the courtroom drama).

Booking Through Thursday - Niche

Things have been so busy lately that I've been having a hard time even getting around to posting about the books I have managed to read. Hopefully things will be calming down a bit so I can catch up. In the meantime, it's Thursday...

There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.)

But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.

What niche books do YOU read?

I really like this question and I'm looking forward to blog surfing to find out about all the weird and wonderful niche books everyone else reads.

Unfortunately I don't have anything terribly exciting to report. I have a bev of knitting pattern books and vegetarian cook books as well as some book binding manuals.

Enchanted, Inc.

Enchanted, Inc. by Shanna Swendson

I really liked Enchanted, Inc. in fact I'll go so far to say that I was enchanted by it. It was exactly the right book for me to read this weekend as I tried to relax before a very hectic week.

I thought protagonist Katie was sympathetic, much more so that I usually find chick lit heroines to be. I liked the concept and the way that Swendson incorporated the paranormal into the story.

I definitely look forward to reading the other books in the series (when I get my hands on them). It will be interesting to see how things play out with the love interests as well as how the overall storyline develops.

The Supernaturalist

The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer

In the not-too-distant future, in a place called Satellite City, thirteen-year-old Cosmo Hill is unfortunate enough to come into the world unwanted by his parents. And so, as are all orphaned boys his age, Cosmo is dipped in a vaccine vat and sent to the Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys, where he and all the other orphans are used a guinea pigs.

Cosmo knows that he must escape, even though he has no idea what might be waiting for him on the outside. He plans for the moment when he can make a break. When that moment finally comes, he nearly dies while escaping. But he is rescued by a gang of "Supernaturalists," a motley crew of kids who all have a special psychic ability — one that Cosmo is about to learn he has as well.

This was a fantastic read. Definitely more mature than the Artemis Fowl books (I heard Colfer interviewed on NPR years ago in which he spoke about how he intentionally did not kill of characters in the Artemis Fowl books. This was when the interviewer was talking about the similarities--or not--to the Harry Potter books). Similar, in many ways, to Scott Westerfeld's Uglies.

I'm not sure if Colfer is planning on writing a sequel to The Supernaturalist, but he definitely leaves open the possibility and does it in such a way that the sequel could be different enough from the first to be successful.