knitting books!

Two books I ordered for my birthday arrived yesterday.

Big Girl Knits by Jillian Moreno.
Subtitled "25 Big, Bold Projects Shaped for Real Women with Real Curves," the book is filled with figure-flattering patterns (the first top I plan to make is the Cherry Bomb tank from this book) and has what looks to be an amazingly helpful style guide. I've wanted this book since before I learned how to knit. My friend Janelle (who, incidentally, is the one who taught me to knit) wrote a great review of the book last year (read it on her blog).


Romantic Hand Knits by Annie Modesitt.
Russell actually happened across this book in the store when he was trying to buy Big Girl Knits (which was out of stock). With a subtitle like "26 Flirtatious Designs That Flatter Your Figure" (and the sexy skirt on the cover) of course he thought the book was a must-have. When he told me about it, the first thing I did was check out Janelle's blog to see what she thought of the book.

Needless to say, I'm very excited about these two new additions to my library. As my knitting skills increase I hope to make a number of the patterns for myself.

Booking Through Thursday - Decorum

Yesterday was so crazy that I completely forgot about Booking Through Thursday. Well, better late than never...

Do you have "issues" with too much profanity or overly explicit (ahem) "romantic" scenes in books? Or do you take them in stride? Have issues like these ever caused you to close a book? Or do you go looking for more exactly like them?

Personally, I actually have more issues with explicit violence in books. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't appreciate a juicy romance novel as much as the next woman. However, I think that sometimes those scenes are unnecessary and overdone (like in MaryJanice Davidson's Undead series). Right now I can't think of a book I've started to read lately that I put down because I was offended about this kind of stuff. Even if I don't particularly like something I usually push through because it is rare for me to give up on a book once I've actually gotten into it.

The Day of Battle

Volume Two of the Liberation Trilogy, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-44 by Rick Atkinson

The Day of Battle is divided in to four parts. In the first part, Atkinson covers the Sicily campaign. In part two, he covers the British 8th Army invasion of Italy at the toe, the invasion of the American 5th Army at Salerno, and the Allies' battles at the Bernhardt Line centred around the town San Pietro. In the part three, he covers the failed attacks to capture of the town of Cassino and the abbey on Monte Cassino as well as the Anzio invasion and the German counter attacks on the beachhead. Finally, Atkinson covers the breakout at Cassino and the Anzio beachhead as well as the capture of Rome.

It is not necessary to have read the first book in the Liberation Trilogy, An Army at Dawn, to understand this second volume. If a person appears in the first volume, Atkinson reintroduces him in the second (though the information given at the introduction is not exactly the same).

When Atkinson writes about the battles, his descriptions are like better-written, less dry after action reports. He focuses the history on the command personal, the Allied and German generals (who he criticizes and praises equally); but he peppers that narrative with personal experiences from the enlisted ranks, lower ranked officers, and reporters showing how they viewed the events around them.

Atkinson ends the book at the traditional ending point of histories on the Italian campaign, with the fall of Rome. Only in the epilogue does he briefly cover the rest of the campaign until the war ends. This makes me wonder whether he will write about it the upcoming third volume. Atkinson already has a lot to cover in the third volume, starting with the preparations for D-Day, the Normandy campaign, the race across France, invasion of southern France, the Battle of Bulge and the fall of Germany; more, perhaps, that can be contained in one book.

This book is a great for what I call good general history, by which I mean that it gives a good overall history, but also has a bibliography that readers be used to learn more about the topic.

There are a couple small errors I noticed while reading The Day of Battle. On page 439, when Atkinson writes about monks of the Abbey of Monte Cassino contemplating the mysteries of the rosary, he includes the luminous mysteries, which were introduced Pope John Paul II. Additionally, on page 536, Atkinson refers to a historical battle occurring in the First Punic War with Hannibal, but Hannibal fought in Italy only in the Second Punic War.

My only other criticism is on how the references were handled in this book. Atkinson uses endnotes, which are grouped by page and marked by the first three words of sentences they are supporting. This made checking references slow and tedious; the reader can not see quickly the where the references are placed in the text. However, I really like the maps that are being used so far in this series.
On a small note, I finished this book on June 5th, the anniversary of the fall of Rome to the US 5th Army, the same point at which the book's narrative ends.

Reviewed by Russell Morse
I expect to be featuring Russell's reviews periodically on the blog (I've convinced him to start writing reviews), which should mix things up a bit as he tends to read different genres than I do.

Series Swap

Right now I'm taking part in a series swap on BookObsessed.com. This is like a normal swap (explained in the swap FAQ), but with an offering of three books from a series (preferably the first three books in the series).

I'm offering Colin Cotterill's Dr. Siri Paiboun Mysteries:
1. The Coroner's Lunch (2004)
2. Thirty-Three Teeth (2005)
3. Disco for the Departed (2006)

I'm just finishing Thirty-Three Teeth and I have to say that I'm really enjoying the series so far. The books are different and I really just love the setting and the supernatural elements that appear throughout the stories and within the lives of the characters.


Here's the description of The Coroner's Lunch:
Laos, 1975. The Communist Pathet Lao has taken over this former French colony. Dr. Siri Paiboun, a 72-year-old Paris-trained doctor, is appointed national coroner. Although he has no training for the job, there is no one else; the rest of the educated class has fled.

He is expected to come up with the answers the party wants. But crafty and charming Dr.Siri is immune to bureaucratic pressure. At his age, he reasons, what can they do to him? And he knows he cannot fail the dead who come into his care without risk of incurring their boundless displeasure. Eternity could be a long time to have the spirits mad at you.

"A wonderfully fresh and exotic mystery. [...] If Cotterill [...] had done nothing more than treat us to Siri's views on the dramatic, even comic crises that mark periods of government upheaval, his debut mystery would still be fascinating. But the multiple cases spread out on Siri's examining table [...] are not cozy entertainments, but substantial crimes that take us into the thick of political intrigue." – The New York Times Book Review

Booking Through Thursday - Friendship

This week's Booking Through Thursday question is actually inspired by Buy a Friend a Book Week. If you don't know anything about Buy a Friend a Book Week definitely check out the program's website (or read about it in this post).

Anyway, here's the question:
What book would you choose to give to a friend and why?

The easiest thing for me to answer this question would be to link to my BAFABW posts from last year, but I will behave myself and actually write out an answer here.

It seems to me that I have two different ways of gifting books. I'll either send something from a person's wishlist (but 9 times out of 10 it'll be a book that I think I'd also like reading) or I'll pick out something I think they'll like (I really only do this with children and people I know relatively well). Someone like a brother-in-law would get a book following the first method. Someone like my mom would get a book following the second method. And, when I'm gifting books to someone like my dad, I'll do a bit of both.

After posting this, something else occurred to me so I'm jumping in here again. Sometimes I'll like a book so much that I'll pick up multiple copies and gift them to everyone that I think might remotely like it. Most recently I've done this with Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu.

Happy Birthday

Today may be Google's 9th birthday, but September 27th was mine long before.

I haven't received all my presents yet, but I have gotten a few books so far.

• Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary: Or Why Can't Anybody Spell? by Vivian Cook


• Firestorm by Rachel Caine, the fifth book in the Weather Warden series (now I have a great excuse to buy books 2-4)


• Piratica by Tanith Lee

My sister also got me the Love of Learning Willow Tree figurine to celebrate my love of books.

book clubbing in September

It's that time of the month again. My book club met today and we discussed Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

Richard Mayhew is a young businessman with a good heart and a dull job. When he stops one day to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk, his life is forever altered, for he finds himself propelled into an alternate reality that exists in a subterranean labyrinth of sewer canals and abandoned subway stations below the city. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere.

Neverwhere received a pretty positive response from the book club. We all liked it, some more than others, and because of that (as is typical for us) our discussion about the book itself wasn't that in depth. That's not to say we didn't have a good discussion, we just got off track a bit talking about graphic novels and the Millennials and movie adaptations and ...

Personally I liked the book, but found it a bit slow. Though that's probably because (as usual) I waited until the last minute to read the book so I couldn't put it down in favor of something that was better suited to my mood.

My impressions of the book, however, we're definitely affected by the fact that I'd read China Mieville's Un Lun Dun relatively recently. The concept behind Un Lun Dun and Neverwhere is similar, with an alternate world existing beneath our feet. Un Lun Dun's un-London is a bit more fantastical (and the novel a bit more playful as it is geared toward a different audience). I enjoyed Un Lun Dun, but after reading Neverwhere I know exactly how much Mieville is indebted to Gaiman

The Blacksmith's Daughter

The Blacksmith's Daughter by Suzanne Adair

Suzanne Adair follows up her award-winning debut with another, subtler, high-stakes adventure tale.

Set against the backdrop of the American Revolution, The Blacksmith's Daughter is the story of seventeen-year-old Betsy Sheridan, a neutral who can’t help getting involved in rebel intrigues. Happily married to a successful cobbler, Betsey is pregnant with her first child when her seemingly-perfect life starts to fall apart.

Her uncle and both her parents are on the run after being incorrectly labeled as rebel spies. Betsey is implicated in their activities when her uncle drops by to assure her of their safety. With British officers of her case, Betsey discovers that her husband has been keeping secrets from her and, though posing as a loyalist, is involved in a rebel spy ring. When her house is first vandalized and then burned to the ground, Betsey realizes how tenuous her safety in Camden is. Knowing that she must do whatever it takes to keep her unborn child safe, Betsey is determined to leave town. Torn between a desire to reunite with her parents and her duty to her husband, it seems like there are no simple decisions in this time of war.

Filled with adventure, romance, and abundant historical detail, The Blacksmith's Daughter is a page-turner. What sets it apart from most historical thrillers, however, is its cast of substantive characters. Protagonist Betsey is sympathetic, if a bit impetuous. The secondary characters--from the villainous Lieutenant Fairfax to minor actor Josiah Carter--are all carefully drawn and fully realized. Additionally Adair puts her novel in context with a historical afterword and bibliography.

While The Blacksmith’s Daughter follows Adair’s first novel, Paper Woman, it does stand on its own. Paper Woman takes place immediately before the action of The Blacksmith's Daughter, but it focuses on Betsy’s mother Sophie Barton, who is only a minor character in The Blacksmith's Daughter. The novels are also written in such a way that if readers encounter the second novel first, they can go back and enjoy Paper Woman without fear of knowing too much about the plot of the first novel.

Suzanne Adair is a colonial and Revolutionary War reenactor. Her first novel, Paper Woman, won the 2007 Patrick D. Smith Literature Award, given by the Florida Historical Society.

Read my review at Front Street Reviews...

Booking Through Thursday - Sunshine & Roses

Imagine that everything is going just swimmingly. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and all’s right with the world. You’re practically bouncing from health and have money in your pocket. The kids are playing and laughing, the puppy is chewing in the cutest possible manner on an officially-sanctioned chew toy, and in between moments of laughter for pure joy, you pick up a book to read...
What is it?

This question is the reverse of last week's and, if anything, I think my answer is even more nebulous this week. If I'm content, I'm not sure that it matters what I read. Though, thinking about both of these questions, it occurs to me that I may read less when I'm at both extremes than I do usually (too depressed/out of it to read, too bouncy to want to sit still).

That being said, today has been a crazy day and I'm looking forward to curling up on the couch and doing a little reading and a little knitting and just relaxing.

Labyrinth

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

I have to admit that I started this one without the faintest idea what it was about (beyond "three secrets, two women, one grail," which couldn't be ignored on the front cover; I didn't read the back cover text). Obviously I knew something about it when I added it to my wishlist (right after it was first published), but since then I'd managed to forget whatever it is that I knew. Kate Mosse was one of the co-founders of the Orange Prize and, honestly, I'd give her a try just because of that.

Set both in modern day France and 13th century Languedoc, Labyrinth is a historical thriller revolving around the mystery of the Grail. What sets it apart from the other bestsellers with which it will be inevitably grouped is Mosse's understanding and evident love of the area in which the story is set (as well as her writing).

The one thing that was a bit annoying about the book was that (justifiably for plot reasons) Mosse holds out on explaining what the Cathar's truly believed until fairly late in the narrative. This probably wouldn't be a problem for readers familiar with the period, but for me I had a hard time understanding the justification for the crusade (which is the backdrop of the historical part of the novel) without knowing the extent of the heresy.

In any case, Labyrinth may be the best kind of historical fiction, the kind that makes you want to learn more about the period in which it was set. I'm actually kind of interested in reading Greg Mosse's Secrets of the Labyrinth despite the fact that I don't particularly care for spin-off books. Though I'll probably just see if Russell has anything on the period kicking around in his book collection.

Though this is really only tangentially related, I have to say that reading this book (in which the city of Carcassonne features prominently) made me want to break out Carcassonne, a fantastic euro board game...

Booking Through Thursday - Comfort Food

Okay . . . picture this (really) worst-case scenario: It’s cold and raining, your boyfriend/girlfriend has just dumped you, you’ve just been fired, the pile of unpaid bills is sky-high, your beloved pet has recently died, and you think you’re coming down with a cold. All you want to do (other than hiding under the covers) is to curl up with a good book, something warm and comforting that will make you feel better.
What do you read?

Ideally I'd head for something that is really untaxing and has a happy ending. I haven't been doing a lot of rereading lately - I'll just browse my BookCrossing bookcase (yes, I have a whole bookcase devoted to BookCrossing books) and pick out a YA or chick lit title that doesn't look too annoying or a cozy mystery. Sometimes I'll choose fantasy or historical fiction just to get away from myself and the situation.

As for specific titles...
Cecilia Ahern's PS, I love you really helped me through the aftermath of my cousin's unexpected death. I've also found Katie Schneider's All we know of love particularly comforting.

series

It's probably quite obvious that I haven't been getting a lot of serious (read: assigned) reading done lately. I've been a bit of an escapist and I've been drowning myself in quick, untaxing reads many of them series books. So here's a look at what I've been reading lately.

Maggie Sefton's Knitting Mysteries.
So far I've read the first three: Knit One, Kill Two, Needled to Death, and A Deadly Yarn. The fourth book in the series, A Killer Stitch, is next on my list (I'm going to start it right after I publish this post).
I don't typically read a lot of cozies, but I do like this series. I can really relate to its protagonist, a young professional who is addicted to coffee and just learning to knit. After the second book I was worried that the series would end up being unforgivably formulaic (there were too many similarities between the crimes in the first two books), but I'm pleased to report that A Deadly Yarn deviated a bit.

Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris
My coworker and I are actually both reading this series now. So far I've read Dead Until Dark, Living Dead in Dallas, Club Dead, Dead to the World, and Dead as a Doornail.
I like this series much better than most of the other paranormal series I've picked up. Sookie is pretty down-to-earth, the author is inventive, the secondary characters are pretty well-drawn, and there isn't an unnecessary amount of sex. The overarching story, however, is a bit of a mystery to me. Just today my coworker and I were arguing over the identity of Sookie's intended love interest. Though my coworker has cast the role, I'm not altogether sure. We both agree, however, that it's not Bill.
I'm not going to run out and purchase the other books in the series (so far Definitely Dead and All Together Dead), but I'll read them when they come my way.


I also just finished the first of Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie mysteries, The Sunday Philosophy Club.
When I was in Chicago, my aunt gave me the audio version, which we started listening to on the way home. Russell didn't care much for Isabel and her internal monologues on ethics and philosophy. I will say that she grew on me. Yes, the monologues got a bit tiresome, but I found Isabel to be an interesting character (and I liked McCall Smith's inclusion of what my dad would call SAT-words).
One thing that occurred to me as I was listening to the book is how different Isabel is from Precious Rambotswe (star of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency books). Not that I expected them to be similar, but I found it interesting that while McCall Smith's core audience probably has the least in common with Precious, she may very well be his most sympathetic protagonist (I don't know anything about the 44 Scotland Street series, though, so I could be completely off base).
So far there are three others in the series: Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, The Right Attitude to Rain, and The Careful Use of Compliments. I won't go out and buy the books, but I did put them on my BookMooch wishlist so hopefully I'll be able to snag them if they are listed. In the meantime I'll probably give the Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld books a go. They've been hanging around my bookshelf for a while now.

Booking Through Thursday - Goldilocks

Are you a Goldilocks kind of reader?
Do you need the light just right, the background noise just so loud but not too loud, the chair just right, the distractions at a minimum?
Or can you open a book at any time and dip right in, whether it’s for twenty seconds, while waiting for the kettle to boil, or indefinitely, like while waiting interminably at the hospital–as long as the book is open in front of your nose, you’re happy to read?

Hmmmm... this is a really interesting question and I'm not sure that I have a direct answer. Usually I'm not, but sometimes I am. There are times when it feels like I am just too distracted to read -- I'm antsy, I get up, walk around, disturb the cats, thinking of a million unimportant things I *need* to do at the moment -- but usually I can just set myself down and get into my book, provided it's something I want to read (though I will admit that I sometimes have a hard time in public places when it is very noisy). Then again, with stuff that I have to read (like certain boring articles when I was in school), I get into Goldilocks mode. So, like I said, no direct answer.

mail

I had my mail held while I was away in Chicago last week.
Today, when the mail was delivered, I had the most wonderful little mound of parcels some of which included books (of course).

I received two BookCrossing books:

• Among the Belivers: An Islamic Journey by V.S. Naipaul


• What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin

I also received two wishlist books (which have just been added to my LibraryThing collection) that I'd requested through BookMooch:

• The Garden of Eve by K.L. Going


• Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws by Kate Bornstein

I just had to share.

SAA Publications

Here are a couple of new titles that I wanted to pick up from the Society of American Archivists Publications booth:

- Architectural Records: Managing Design and Construction Records by Tawny Ryan Nelb and Waverly B. Lowell
- Archives and Justice: A South African Perspective by Verne Harris

I'll have the boss order the architectural records book for our book collection at work, but the Harris volume is going to have to go on the wishlist.

(Belated) Booking Through Thursday - Statistics

Ok, I'm a bit late with my Booking Through Thursday entry this week. I've been in Chicago and so busy conferencing and meeting up with family and friends that it slipped my mind yesterday.

There was a widely bruited-about statistic reported last week, stating that 1 in 4 Americans did not read a single book last year. Clearly, we don’t fall into that category, but... how many of our friends do? Do you have friends/family who read as much as you do? Or are you the only person you know who has a serious reading habit?

Russell actually sent me the article in question when it first appeared. I was horrified. I read 200 books in 2006 and have read 130 books so far this year (see my BookCrossing bookshelf for a list).

Now, as to this week's question: Russell is a voracious reader (though he reads primarily nonfiction; I just queried him, he thinks he reads at least 100 a year). My parents both read a lot (as I discussed last week). My sister doesn't read much (her strain of dyslexia makes reading hard), but she does read at least one book a year. One of my nieces, who is in 2nd grade, gets in trouble for reading during lessons. The rest of my inlaws are a mixed bag: a couple don't read at all, a couple read voraciously, and everyone else falls in the middle.

Most of my friends read, a few as much as I do (but those are people I met through BookCrossing and are true book addicts). In fact, I can only think of two friends who've professed a dislike of reading - one is doing his medical residency and probably wouldn't have time to read even if he wanted to and the other definitely read a book in the last year because I found one I thought he'd like and had it sent to him (I nagged him until he read it and he did actually like it).

Booking Through Thursday - Indoctrination

When growing up did your family share your love of books? If so, did one person get you into reading? And, do you have any family-oriented memories with books and reading?

I was definitely indoctrinated as a child. My parents are both big readers. My dad reads primarily fantasy and science fiction. My mom loves historical fiction and books set in far-off lands, but also reads mysteries and a variety of other genres. I was a frequent visitor to my local library. I actually remember quite vividly getting my first library card when I was in kindergarten (though that's not particularly family-oriented).

When I moved out, every time I came home to visit I'd find a couple little piles of books in my room, titles that my mom and dad thought I'd enjoy. Now that I'm out of school with more time for leisure reading (and because I'm so involved in BookCrossing), things seem to be switched. I'm constantly recommending books to my parents and every time I see my mom I hand over a huge shopping bag full of books for her to read (I'm like her own personal lending library!).

book clubbing in August

I simply can not believe that it is almost the end of August. Where has this summer gone?

In any case, we had another book club meeting today during which we discussed Arthur Phillips' The Egyptologist.

Set in primarily in 1920s Boston and Egypt, The Egyptologist is the tale of a fanatical Egyptologist searching for the tomb of an apocryphal pharaoh against the backdrop of Howard Carter's famous exploits in the Valley of the Kings.

I came to The Egyptologist warily. I liked the concept behind the novel, but I was expecting not to like it because I had a lot of trouble his first novel, Prague (I started it on four different occasions, but never managed to get through it, which is very rare for me). I am, however, happy to report that I did enjoy The Egyptologist though I did end up rushing through it since a huge ARC arrived along with a very short deadline.

In any case, we all liked the book though we were a bit confounded by it. Half of us who'd finished it (myself included) had figured out the "mystery" early on, but we did not think that detracted from the book. We loved the combination of unreliable narrators and experience of hearing various versions of the same story and having to sort out the "truth" for ourselves.

I'd definitely recommend this one and I know exactly who I'm going to pass my copy to next.

Until I Find You

Until I find you by John Irving

I've been listening to the audio version of this book (unabridged on 28 CDs, 35.5 hours, read by Arthur Morey) for quite some time now. I just finished it this afternoon.

Skipping the plot summary since this isn't a full review, it's hard for me to say what I think about this book. The writing, as expected, is very good, the characters are well-drawn, and there are many things that I liked about it. For long stretches of time, however, I really hated the book and only kept listening because I was invested in it, thinking all the while that maybe this particular book would have been better abridged (that's a very bad sign for me since I really dislike abridged books).

Jack's school years were really hard on me, I hated hearing about everything that happens to him and all the various ways that he is compromised sexually. And I have to say that there is altogether too much sexual disfunction in this book. Even after Jack survives being molested in various ways by various people it continued to feel like Until I find you was simply a history of Jack's sexual disfunction. However after a certain point things seemed to shift, I felt like I could handle Jack and his life, and I really started liking the story and at the end I was left wanting more. Irving makes us suffer through all the not-so-good parts of Jack's life and then leaves us hanging right when all that suffering begins to seem worthwhile.

I can definitely say that Arthur Morey renders the book wonderfully, but beyond my feelings are very mixed.

Booking Through Thursday - Monogomy

Since I've been lax about updating my blog lately (and because I really like the idea behind this meme), I thought I'd start participating in Booking Through Thursday.

This week's question is -
One book at a time? Or more than one? If more, are they different types/genres? Or similar?

I used to be much more strict about only reading one book at a time, but now I'm regularly balancing at least three. However I try to make sure they are of different genres or have different enough plots that I don't confuse them. Right now I'm reading a paranormal romance, a literary novel, a cozy mystery, and listening to an audio book. I've started a couple others, but I'm not actively reading them at the moment.