Category: General

Lately, I’ve had pretty poor luck picking out good stuff to read. I’ve started and stopped a bunch of books lately,which makes mad because I hate wasting time on crummy stories. Here are two that really disappointed me…

Eye of the Crow: The Boy Sherlock Holmes, His First Case by Shane Peacock. I have long been a Sherlock Holmes fan — Conan Doyle’s stories — read ’em; Basil Rathbone films — seen ’em, own ’em; Jeremy Brett PBS series — the best ever. So, I always pick up new books about the Great Detective, especially if they explore a new facet of Holmes’ character. Some are excellent, like Laurie King’s Mary Russell series. Some are good, like The Case of the Missing Marquess. Some are okay, like The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr. And some, like Eye of the Crow, are not so good. Shifting tenses, poorly constructed sentences, an incongruous lifestyle for the young Holmes character, along with a muddy plot made me start to skim the text after the first three chapters. This story is akin to really bad fan fiction, and I worry that, based on the title, this is the first in a series. Too bad really, because this book has one of the best covers I’ve seen in awhile.

Bitter is the New Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office by Jen Lancaster. This was recommended on another blog I read and I was really looking forward to reading it. However, I was only a few pages into it when I started having flashbacks to my early days at The Hifalutin’ College Up North and the spoiled, wealthy prep school girls who probably grew up to be just like Jen. I had to stop reading when I started thinking about Lacoste, Ann Taylor, docksiders without socks, and Christmas in the Swiss Alps. Shiver runs up spine. I wonder whatever happened to the spoiled rich girl from Boston who stole an amethyst ring out of my room second semester? I’m sure she probably carries Prada.

I’ve been reading lots, and I mean *lots* of childrens and young adult books lately, and I’m in need of a good book for Big Girls. I’m waiting for Bitter is the New Black, recommended over at Canned Laughter, but  I need something now.  Any suggestions? C’mon all your RPL & MCLS readers…give me sumthin good!

A few years ago, the NEA did a survey on the reading habits of Americans, which concluded that literary reading has declined rapidly in the past few decades. In response to that survey, the NEA developed the Big Read grants program which provides funding and programming materials for communities that will implement a regional reading program using selected titles.

Rochester and Monroe County are the recipients of two of these grants. The first, driven by Writers & Books, is scheduled for October-November 2007 and will feature The Maltese Falcon. The second, driven by the Monroe County Library System, is scheduled for the Spring of 2008 and will feature Fahrenheit 451.

I’m very excited about these two events because they both will provide an opportunity for those of us who love to read to share our passion. I will be facilitating some book discussions for The Maltese Falcon at the Central Library, and will be directing the Fahrenheit 451 event, so I hope my readers in Rochester will join in.

Just in case you haven’t seen this….

The Reading Cave — a bookshelf with a built-in reading nook. Not my style, but interesting nonetheless.

No time to write full reviews right now, so here’s a quick-n-dirty lowdown on my weekend reading for the 48 Hour Book Challenge. Started at 4:00 pm Friday, ended 4:00 pm Sunday.

1. Resurrection Men by T.K. Welsh – 214 pages
2. The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan – 312 pages
3. The Bad Quarto by Jill Paton Walsh – 245 pages
4. Sacred Bones by Michael Byrnes – 293 pages
5. The Devil in Amber byMark Gatiss – 245 pages
6. The Hound of Rowan by Henry Neff – 414 pages

Total books read: 6
Total pages read: 1773
Books started but not finished: 1

Okay…

Here’s what’s in my pile of reading for the 48 Hour Reading Challenge.

• Resurrection Men by T.K. Welsh
• The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan
• Sacred Bones by Michael Byrnes
• The Bad Quarto by Jill Paton Walsh
• The Devil in Amber by Mark Gatiss
• The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry
• The Hollow People by Brian Keaney
• The Hound of Rowan by Henry Neff

I’ll be back on Sunday to report…Happy reading everyone!

MotherReader is hosting the second annual 48 Hour Book Challenge June 8-10, and all you readers out there should take this opportunity to do nothing all weekend except read! I threw my hat into the ring last year and spent a very enjoyable weekend getting a head-start on all my summer reading. Here’s my list from last year:

• My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prudhomme – I love Julia even more after reading about her life in France. Boy, those snooty chefs at the Sorbonne must have *hated* her!
• The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall – Can anyone say “Bobbsey Twins?”
• Men of Bronze by Scott Oden – an odd combination of war and sex in ancient Persia & Egypt.
• A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray – Good but not great, bad, but not terrible.
• When the Missisissippi Ran Backwards by Jay Feldman – interesting, and scary, history of the New Madrid fault and the great earthquake that changed the course of a war and a country.
• Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads – excellent treatment of how fads can affect our lives when they’re adopted by the medical, educating and business communities. TQM, the bane of my existence at library meetings during the span of 1998-about 2002 or 2003, is totally skewered.
• Food Court Druids, Cherohonkees, and Other Creatures Unique to the Republic by Robert Lanham – totally hilarious. I think I have a touch of “Happy Monday” in me.

Not sure what I’ll be reading this year, except I know the new Percy Jackson/Rick Riordan book will be in that pile, and perhaps the newest Cotton Malone/Steve Berry thriller.

It seems as though I’ve read more books about people who love books in the last year than ever before. It all started with The Yellow-Lighted Book Shop, segued into John Dunning’s The Bookman series, stopped off in fantasy land with Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart, and most recently took a turn on the bestseller list with The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.

The Thirteenth Tale is the famously omitted story from author Vida Winter’s collection of short stories. Margaret Lea, book lover and amateur biographer, is invited to hear the true life story of England’s most popular author. When Margaret arrives at Winter’s home, she finds a dying woman with one foot firmly in the past. As Vida’s story unfolds, Margaret finds herself drawn into the darkly strange world of the the Angelfield twins. She is unsure of how much is true and how much is flotsam from Vida’s compost pile of story fragments. As Vida tells her story, so does Margaret, who harbors her own untold story.

Setterfields characters are magnificent. The otherwordly existence of the Angelfield family is at once repulsive and fascinating. There are many strands to this story that wave all over the place throughout, but which are all caught up in a neat knot at the end. I was engrossed in this story from the start and — gasp of surprise — didn’t even peek at the end. Good thing too, because I sure didn’t see the truth in Vida’s story until the very end. All in all, this was one of the most satisfying books I’ve read in awhile.

I don’t normally appreciate stories that flip back and forth between two or more time periods or sub plots. I find them distracting and annoying because the transitions are usually abrupt and jarring. Until now, the only book I’ve read that does the transition between present and past skillfully is Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg; Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen is the second.

Gruen tells the story of Jacob Jankowski, a ninety — or is ninety-three? — year old former circus vet whose life takes an exciting turn when a circus sets up shop across the street from his nursing home. The present-day circus sparks memories of Jacob’s own experiences with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, which plunged him right in the middle of love, hate, despair, and wild animals.

Most of the story is told in flashbacks to the summer of 1931, and begins when Jacob’s parents are killed a few days before he’s scheduled to sit his final exams at Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine. Senseless with grief, he hops a train that just happens to be a cab of the Benzini Brothers. When Uncle Al the circus boss discovers Jacob is a Cornell educated vet, he pulls Jacob into the Benzini family and sets him to work caring for the animals in the circus menagerie. Along the way, Jacob falls in love — with Marlena the horse trainer as well as with the animals he cares for — especially Rosie, a bull elephant who only understands Polish.

Back in the present, the older Jacob struggles with the limitations age has inflicted on him, all the while waiting for his family to come take him to the circus. When it becomes clear that his family has forgotten him, Jacob picks up his walker and gets himself across the street to the show. There he meets the boss, who is fascinated to discover Jacob was in the thick of one of biggest circus disasters of all time. During the course of their conversation, Jacob, ever the con-man, convinces the circus boss to take him along for the rest of the season, effectively running away with the circus for a second time.

Gruen has done her homework and includes wonderful details of circus life in the 1930s, including real life stories like the elephant that was responsible for drinking all the lemonade made for the concession stands, and the paralysis — jake leg– suffered by the hard-drinking circus men and associated with drinking Jamaica Ginger Extract while real liquor was outlawed under Prohibition. The story moves quickly and contains enough action to keep the reader satisfied. Highly recommended.