Harry Potter has arrived!!

I picked up my copy of Deathly Hallows this morning. I really hope to not hear/read any spoilers before I get a chance to read the book, however, actually having it in my hands, I had to fight the urge to look in the back of the book! I want to savor the story, yet I'm dying to know what happens.

And good news, Harry Potter is going green! Check out this link to learn how!

Happy Potter reading!

More Summer Reading

I'm waiting for UPS to bring my Harry Potter book, so I thought I'd write up a few quick reviews.

No Nest for the Wicket by Donna Andrews - This is the latest in her Meg Langslow mysteries. I really enjoy these, and Wicket was no exception. Meg and her family are lots of fun, there's an evil developer (always fun in a mystery), Duck plays an important role, and the mystery takes place around an eXtreme croquet tournament played by the cream of Caerphilly society. I would recommend starting with the first, Murder With Peacocks just to get acclimated to the Langslow clan, but you can really start anywhere in the series.

Antiques Roadkill by Barbara Allan - This is the first in a new cozy mystery series (Trash 'N' Treasure), and there was a lot to like. I guess I'm interested in reading the follow-up, Antiques Maul, to see if "she" (the author is actually a pseudonym for a husband and wife team) settles down a bit. The constant asides and parenthetical comments were disruptive, and the heroine isn't all that sympathetic. Well, the story is written in first person, and you learn quickly that she had an affair with a married man, this ended her marriage, and her husband has custody of their son. But you don't learn how she feels about any of that, which is weird, because she vents pretty much any other thought that enters her head, including rants about fashion, architecture, and more. She also turns the narration over to her bipolar mother for ten pages, which is unnecessary and tedious. The mystery was pretty well-done, though I did figure it out, at least partly, which I usually don't do. Some of the humor was very well-done, too, and it was enjoyable to read at times. I guess, pick this up if you're desperate for a new cozy mystery.

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin - This is an extraordinary book. It's a YA novel that opens with Liz, an almost-sixteen year old waking up on a boat, with no memory of how she got there. She realizes quickly that she's dead, and the boat is taking her to Elsewhere. (This isn't a spoiler--you can find that out by reading the back of the book.) Read this with a box of tissues handy. It's funny and poignant and beautiful. I don't want to give away any more of the plot, but if the premise sounds at all interesting to you, pick it up. Liz and the supporting cast are wonderfully drawn, and the writing is a delight.

The Coziest Mystery

I have been re-reading Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books, which I know is lame, but I also read Lean Mean Thirteen, which was really funny. More laugh-out-loud than the last couple, I think. But the new book I've just finished is The Tale of Hilltop Farm by Susan Wittig Albert, the first in her Beatrix Potter mysteries. She's the author of the China Bayles herb shop mysteries (Thyme of Death, et al), which I always liked but haven't read recently. Not sure why. At any rate, Hilltop Farm takes place in 1905, when Beatrix Potter visits the town of Near Sawrey, where she has purchased a farm. Wittig Albert clearly did a lot of research on Potter's life, the time period, and Sawrey, cramming in many, many facts and trivia, which spill over into a Historical Note at the end of the book. This series appears to have everything the coziest mystery needs: talking animals (to each other, not to people), villagers with almost unreadable dialects, small-town intrigue, Victorian details like the woman who (gasp) shows her ankles. I found it utterly charming. If you like your mysteries with exciting twists and turns or pulse-pounding suspense or a focus on the mystery at hand rather than the village gossip, well, this is SO not the series for you. But if you find charming tales of village life with historical background and talking animals to be just the thing for a summer read, pick this one up. It was cuter than cute and so fun I didn't care how thin the mystery was.

I have quite a stack of YA, mystery, and romance novels for the summer, so hopefully I'll be posting more frequently now the Evanovich re-reading is over. Not to mention Harry Potter and Thursday Next reviews coming up in the next week or so!

Carol's Summer reading

I tend to read fluff in the summer. However, I decided to read the top two books that Holly mentioned in her blog that was the Tournament of Books - The Road and Absurdistan. The two books were completely different from each other. The Road was a dark depressing post-apocalypse book. Absurdistan was a satirical novel that definitely had its funny parts, but was absurd in the extreme. The Road was well written - each word in each sentence setting the mood. Although it was a depressing book, I actually enjoyed reading it.

I've also read several other books recommended by the bloggers here - Peter and the Starcatchers, which lead me to Peter and the Shadow Thieves and then Dave Barry's novel, Risky Business. I've also read several of the Thursday series by Jasper Fforde. Of course, to satisfy my summer urge for fluff, I just finished Smitten and Hot Stuff by Janet Evanovich. I'm now reading a couple of mysteries - one that is a part of the Dead End Job series, called Murder with Reservations by Elaine Viets.

I also read How to be Good by Nick Hornby - another book recommended by AllisonMarieCat. I have to admit I didn't find it that entertaining. I thought it was just too sad and depressing - too many people trying to find something worthwhile in life and not really getting anywhere. Maybe it was just too realistic in a bizarre sort of way.

One book I would highly recommend if you want to laugh is Lamb: The Bible according to Biff, Christ's Childhood Friend by Christopher Moore. I've read all of Moore's books starting with The Stupidest Angel which was a Christmas gift from Holly. Moore is a bit out there with his werewolves and walking dead and lust lizards, but he is entertaining.

I also read all of the Harry Potter books in the last few months. I hadn't read them before, although I've enjoyed the movies. So, I decided to read them in preparation for book 7 this weekend. I'm on the waitlist at the library - 115 out of 341. I'm hoping it will go fast!

For the Love of Pets

Now, I'm not much of a pet person. We currently are not responsible for any living beings other than our kids. I had a cat growing up, and my dad had a dog. I am much more of cat person. In fact, maybe someday if I can ever convince myself I will actually like cleaning up cat hair from everywhere, we will get a cat. I am not a dog person. At ALL. I never have been. Okay, are you wondering why I'm going on about pets?

Our book club pick for July is Marley and Me by John Grogan. I am little more than halfway through it and I am enjoying it! When it was announced this would be our book, I was not particularly excited and thought I would not be able to relate being the dog non-lover that I am. However, I am really enjoying. Perhaps its that I am amused by the dog's antics and thankful that I am not a dog owner. Obviously, its safe to say this memoir will be enjoyed by everyone, dog lovers and non-lovers alike!

On the same note, just to give cats an equal opportunity on this blog. Several years ago, I read My Cat Spit McGee by Willie Morris. I really loved this book as well. It's a sweet tale of how a dog lover turned into a cat lover. The author also wrote My Dog Skip. For anyone who is a pet lover or enjoys animal memoirs, I recommend these two books as well.

Summer Reading

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I have been reading, just no time to post. Until now! Let's see. I started Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. "Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those character abducts them and tries to force him into service." This kind of reminds me of a Jasper Fforde for kids, but I only got about 50 pages into the the book before I returned it to the library. Not for a lack of interest. It's a fairly long book and I think I was overwhelmed with too many fun books to read this summer. I think this book will be more of a winter book for me. I see it as more of a curl up with a blanket and a nice cup of cocoa type book. Funke has planned a trilogy with the second one, Inkspell, already out. Both books have received excellent reviews. Inkheart: The Movie is in production now, and it seems the third book in the trilogy, Inkdeath will be out January 2008. She also has a number of other juvenile fiction books out that all sound very good. So to those mourning the end of the Harry Potter books, perhaps you might be mildly satisfied with Funke.

I enjoyed another Alexander McCall Smith No. 1 Ladies Detective Series book, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies. I believe its number 6 in the series. I seem to like reading these books in the summer. In fact, I think I've read all of them in the summer. Perhaps its the African setting. It's hot there, its hot here. Who knows. I enjoyed this installment and am looking forward to getting to Blue Shoes and Happiness before the summer is over.

Although I was unable to attend, our book club pick for June was The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Allison reviewed this book earlier in the year and loved it. I was a little more reserved with my feelings. For the first half of the book, all I could think about was Flowers in the Attic. I'm not sure why. It just felt that way to me. Not that that's a bad thing. I loved Flowers in the Attic as a teenager. I did enjoy it a bit more in the second half once I started figuring out where the story was going. This one was just a little difficult for me to get into. I was told the book club all loved it though. So perhaps I was just a bit to hard on this book. It was well written and the characters very developed.

Best novels you've never read...

While perusing Girl Detective during my morning coffee today, I came across a link to an article from New York Magazine. Sixty-one critics list their favorite underrated books of the last ten years.

The Munch Mancini Mystery Series by Barbara Seranella stood out to me as one Allison may be interested in. :-)

It was an interesting list. I recognized about 10 of the books and the rest were foreign to me. The Accidental was on the list, which you may remember I did not particularly like, but it seems the rest of the world did.

There was a link at the end of the article to another listing "Which novels from the past several years will be taught in 50 years?" I have Atonement sitting on my bookshelf. Hope to get to it someday.

Just rambling this morning. Happy Summer Reading!

The Friday Night Knitting Club

Anyone who knits or enjoyed the book Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, this is the book for you! Kate Jacobs has created a well-written book about a group of women who become friends and bond through knitting together. The book takes place in New York City and features different types of female personalities in a wide range of ages. Most of the activity in the book centers around a knitting boutique called Walker and Daugther, started by a single mom who needed a way to make ends meet so she could raise her daughter. Each character in the book represents a different life viewpoint and they all come together.

I feel like this book will appeal to almost any woman reading it. I was not annoyed by any of the characters and enjoyed the book from beginning until end. It didn't quite end the way I may have liked, but it wasn't a bad ending. And like I said before, it sort of gave me a feeling of Angry Housewives in that its a book about female bonding and having a strong group of female friends to lean on. But as much as it may have reminded me of Angry Housewives, it was completely different as well. Also, the overall knitting metaphor is interesting and not at all cheesy. (At least I didn't think so.)

This was our book club pick for May. We have the meeting tonight. I'll add the group's impression of the book tomorrow. :-) Hope you all had a nice long Memorial Day Weekend.

More Jane, Again

Because I am apparently very boring, all I have to post about is finishing two more of Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen mysteries, Jane and the Ghosts of Netley and Jane and His Lordship's Legacy, both of which were excellent. I love this series, and they're not losing their appeal as the series goes on. Fantastic stuff.

Um, I also re-read the Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde, as he has a new one coming out in July. I loved reading them again.

And I'm currently reading Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, which is lots of fun so far. One of my guesses I made during the first book came true, so I was pleased about that.

Other than that, I'm boxing up books for MOVING DAY in three weeks. Ack! I should put together a list of my "give-away" pile to see if anyone here wants any of my books, but I may not have time. They may just be donated to the library.

The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

I really enjoyed Donohue's The Stolen Child from beginning to end. The concept of the book made it a fun read. Sort of a fairy tale for adults.

Changelings or hobgoblins live in the woods for decades until they can find a human child to change places with. They wait for the most opportune moment to kidnap the desired child and then switch places with them. The stolen child becomes a changeling and lives in the woods awaiting his eventual turn to become human again decades later with another child. The changeling who replaces the stolen child in the human world experiences "normal" life but can remember being a changeling and perhaps even recall things from his former human life before he was originally stolen. Confused yet? It is very difficult to describe this book without going on and on. The book is very well written and the character development is excellent. It alternates chapters between the changeling and the stolen child, sometimes having events intersect. Nothing incredibly earthshattering happens so don't except a huge reveal or a big bang at the end of the book. But it is worth reading and a nice break from my normal book choices.

I saw my aunt Carol this weekend and she said she has mostly been reading books that we have recommended on this blog, including The Road. She said it was very well written, but very sad and depressing. Just thought I would pass that along in case anyone is thinking of reading it. :-)

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

I've been a fan of Jodi Picoult's for several years now after first reading The Pact.

I found this latest book of hers to be particularly disturbing, primarily due to the timing of its release and my own timing in reading it. In the book, 17-year old Peter Houghton takes several guns to his high school and kills ten people, injuring many others. As the story unfolds, we learn that Peter was a favorite target of school bullies, dating back to his first day of kindergarten. His attorney takes a novel approach to his defense, describing him as having acted in self-defense due to post traumatic stress and suffering from school bullying syndrome. He likens Peter to the battered woman who kills her husband.

The school violence in this book supposedly happened on March 6, 2007. Obviously, Ms. Picoult could not have known that the Virginia Tech massacre was about to occur, but the commonalities between her fictional account and real-life events left me wondering whether Seung-Hui Cho had read her book and used it as a "how-to" guide. I realize that is unlikely, but it still rattled me. I'm left asking myself whether an actual victim of school bullying would find some sort of rationalization for retaliation imbedded in these pages.

Grayson by Lynne Cox

This was our book club pick for April. A very short read, I finished it in about two hours I think. The book is a memoir of a woman's experience swimming along side a baby whale off the coast of Orange County, CA when she was fifteen. Part of the book is spent guessing about what exactly is swimming next to her. And the rest of it is spent trying to return the lost baby whale to its mother. This one was not really for me. It was short enough that I didn't hate it. But it was really sappy for me. I guess if I'm going to read a memoir, I prefer it to be funny, or very harrowing (like a book about a trip to Everest or Apollo 13 or something). While the story in Grayson is nice, I think it means more to the author than it does for the reader, at least this reader.

I also finished Death du Jour, the second book in the Temperance Brennan series by Kathy Reichs. I don't think it was nearly as good as the first in the series. The second half of the book went much quicker than the first half. There was a lot of information about cults which I found interesting but getting to that part was a bit difficult. The story seemed all over the place at first. I'm sure I'll get around to reading the others in this series though. Hopefully, the next one will be a little better.

I'm looking forward to reading The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs and The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield for our next two book club books. I think I might delve into a little science fiction (or is it fantasy) with my next book, The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue.

More on The Road

The Road also won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. See article here....

Maybe with all the hype I need to see what this book is all about. Dare I say it was also chosen for an Oprah Book Club pick. That is slightly off-putting to me, but well the Pulitzer probably trumps that. :-)

Slightly New Look

I upgraded the template to the book blog today. I added labels to the posts classifying the books. That way if you remember reading a review of a book but can't exactly remember when, who wrote it, or the title, hopefully the labels will help narrow it down. Or you could use them if you're in the mood for a certain type of book and want to see what has been reviewed in the past.

To add labels to your posts, just add the appropriate label in the space at the bottom of the "Posting" window. Or I can always go back and categorize them later.

I used "General Fiction" for anything that didn't fall into the other categories. If anyone wants to break those down a bit, or suggest labels to help me break them down, that would be great.

Also, sidenote. I found another book "rental" website for you to check out. Kirsten suggested zooba.com and the one I found was booksfree.com. This site is also like Netflix but for books. You can subscribe to paperback books or to audiobooks. I would assume you could get the audiobooks and download them to your computer for later listening. For audiobooks, Allison has also recommended audible.com.

As always, Happy Reading!

Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

Go read this book!

Okay, I suppose I should say more than that. This is such a fun read, a prequel to Peter Pan full of swashbuckling adventure. Recognizing characters who will appear in Peter Pan is neat, and the plot is engaging and fun. It doesn't try to imitate the writing style of Peter Pan at all, but it's Dave Barry, so you know it's funny. I'm not familiar with Pearson, but the two of them did a great job setting out the plot that will lead to Peter Pan.

Nick Hornby

Well, I've read How To Be Good and High Fidelity, and I'm now on About A Boy, so I thought I'd post about the two I've read.

High Fidelity - A very nice read. If you've seen the film, you've read the book--it's amazingly faithful, lifting most of the dialogue intact. It's fun to read, anyway, to see how it was translated from London to Chicago.

How To Be Good - This was a funny, funny book about a marriage in trouble, first through infidelity, then through religious conversion. Amazon's review is better than anything I can say about it:

In Nick Hornby's How to Be Good, Katie Carr is certainly trying to be. That's why she became a GP. That's why she cares about Third World debt and homelessness, and struggles to raise her children with a conscience. It's also why she puts up with her husband David, the self-styled Angriest Man in Holloway. But one fateful day, she finds herself in a Leeds parking lot, having just slept with another man. What Katie doesn't yet realize is that her fall from grace is just the first step on a spiritual journey more torturous than the interstate at rush hour. Because, prompted by his wife's actions, David is about to stop being angry. He's about to become good--not politically correct, organic-food-eating good, but good in the fashion of the Gospels. And that's no easier in modern-day Holloway than it was in ancient Israel.

Hornby means us to take his title literally: How can we be good, and what does that mean? However, quite apart from demanding that his readers scrub their souls with the nearest available Brillo pad, he also mesmerizes us with that cocktail of wit and compassion that has become his trademark. The result is a multifaceted jewel of a book: a hilarious romp, a painstaking dissection of middle-class mores, and a powerfully sympathetic portrait of a marriage in its death throes. It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry as we watch David forcing his kids to give away their computers, drawing up schemes for the mass redistribution of wealth, and inviting his wife's most desolate patients round for a Sunday roast. But that's because How to Be Good manages to be both brutally truthful and full of hope. It won't outsell the Bible, but it's a lot funnier.

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

Wow, I'm behind on my book postings!

I finished this book a month ago and haven't gotten around to posting about it. It was a surprisingly gripping read, considering it's billed as a political/social satire of Thatcherite London, which doesn't sound all that involving. The protagonist (but certainly not a hero!) is Nick Guest, a Henry James scholar at loose ends after graduating university. He stays with the family of a university friend, headed by Gerald, a Tory MP, helping out with their disturbed daughter and dabbling in his newfound homosexuality. The backdrop is London in 1983, 1986, and 1987, so the specter of AIDS hangs inevitably over Nick's life. Nick never really "does" anything, in a career sort of way, and seems to drift through life. You might think this would make him an unsympathetic character, but strangely, it illuminates the life of a gay man in a conservative society. Hollinghurst is an extraordinary writer, with rich, precise prose, and this was a pleasure to read. I will be looking for his other novels as well.

Tournament of Books Champion

Cormac McCarthy's book The Road won!

Here's a link to an article on the final judging.

Has anyone read this? It seems to be everywhere these days.

Tortilla Curtain by T. C. Boyle

The book club pick this month was Tortilla Curtain. I've had this one on my shelf for probably at least three years. My stepmom gave it to me thinking I might enjoy it because it take place in Los Angeles. Sorry if anyone out there is a fan of T. C. Boyle, but I think he is a bit arrogant and writes like he thinks he's writing the "Great American novel". I don't know I think he felt he was writing a social commentary on Mexican immigration to the United States and juxtaposed (Mr. Boyle would like that word) it with yuppyville in L.A.

The book is about two different couples. The first is a Mexican couple who crossed the border and are living extremely poor lives camping in Topanga Canyon and begging for work just to survive. The other couple: Mr. and Mrs. Yuppy (my names). They live in a swanky community that abhors anything/anyone who is deemed beneath them. They put up a gate and a stucco wall in the name of security even though, its to keep the riff raff (aka the Mexicans) out.

I did enjoy that the book was set in Los Angeles and was familiar with most of the areas described. I was also familiar to some extent with both sides of the characters. However, I was annoyed at the exaggeration of the characters. I felt like the author thought he needed to make the two couples so extreme in order to get his point across to the reader about the two different worlds they live in. I think the idea of the novel is a good one, but the execution was no good. Unfortunate events happen to both couples throughout the book and escalate toward the end. It is very difficult to read about people when "the hits just keep coming".

I guess it seems like I haven't enjoyed my books lately. I did read the second Cliff Janeway novel (The Bookman's Wake by John Dunning) between Lost and Found and Tortilla Curtain. I liked the second one but the first half of the book was a little slow. It definitely picked up at the end. I found the third one on the bargain table at Barnes and Noble so I'll be reading that soon. Right now I'm about to start the second Temperance Brennen book, Death Du Jour by Kathy Reichs.

Tourament of Books Finalists

	The Road by CORMAC McCARTHY
	v.
	Absurdistan by GARY SHTEYNGART