Best Eclectic Book Blog

Sep 142010

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Wow, I am really, really honored to have been chosen Best Eclectic Book Blog! There are so many amazing blogs in this category that I’m really overwhelmed. Thank you to everyone who registered as an eclectic book blog and voted me onto the short list, as well as everyone in the community who voted for me from among the other fabulous blogs on the shortlist. Really, they are all worth your time to visit as well, so I want to share the shortlist with you one more time:

eclectic/eccentric
write meg!
STACKED
Iris on Books
Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Books
Devourer of Books
Find Your Next Book Here

Bloggers I Treasure

Sep 132010

4987147550 c3a8c4b790 m picture Welcome to BBAW 2010!

Today we were asked to write about bloggers we have discovered in the past year since BBAW 2009. Actually, I believe we were asked to write about a blogger we have discovered, but I haven’t always been the best at following directions. To just pick on fantastic blogger is too hard. Actually, to just pick five fantastic bloggers would be very difficult, so I’m going to highlight to you the new-to-me this year bloggers who became my best bloggy buddies in 2010.

In no particular order:

Michelle – My Books. My Life
Oddly enough, Michelle and I originally bonded over the fact that in February I read 3 books set in Ann Arbor, Michigan back to back. I mentioned it on Twitter and she, former Ann Arborian (is that a word? I somehow doubt it) Ann Arborish (since she usually lived around, not in the city) that she is, was intrigued. Thus began a beautiful friendship, only cemented by our commiserating over our back pain around the same time.

Sandy – You’ve Gotta Read This
Sandy and I bonded through the pain and endurance of being on a team together for the Game On Diet. She is now one of my go-to people for audiobook recommendations (and she’s about to win best audiobook blog, check her out!)

Michelle – That’s What She Read
Um, I honestly can’t remember what Michelle and I bonded over (help me out, Michelle?). I guess we just chatted on Twitter and sort of clicked. You should all be glad for the direct message function on Twitter, because we like to use one another as sounding boards when we’re frustrated and, really, you don’t want to read all of that.

Allie – Hist Fic Chick
I had corresponded a little with Allie towards the beginning of 2010, but our friendship really took off at BEA, when we went out to dinner together twice. The second night I’m pretty sure we drove Lenore and Natasha crazy with our incessant historical fiction chatter.

Please check out my wonderful bloggy buddies!

For the King’s Favor by Elizabeth Chadwick – Book Review

Sep 132010

For the King’s Favor by Elizabeth Chadwick
Published by Sourceboks

When Ida de Tosnay’s wealthy father died, she became a ward of King Henry II. Ida’s arrival at court followed closely on the heels of the death of the King’s mistress and great love, Rosamund Clifford, and Henry decided quickly that the young girl would be the perfect salve for his wounded heart. Unfortunately, a young girl with no family does not have much choice when chosen by the King to share his bed, whatever her opinions are on the subject. At the same time, Roger Bigod is having problems of his own. Upon the death of his father, Roger inherits his estates and the earldom he hopes the family will regain after his father’s treason against the King, but Roger’s stepmother is determined that her sons will inherit and that Roger will be left penniless. As they are thrown together at court, however, a tentative attraction begins to form between Ida and Roger. Fearing that she will eventually be pawned off on a husband she has no choice about, Ida decides to take matters into her own hands and arrange a marriage with the kind Bigod – with Henry’s approval, of course. Their union can bring the two happiness, but they must still navigate the treacherous waters of the late 12th and early 13th centuries, attempt to restore the Bigod name, and maintain the favor of their King(s).

I swear, each Elizabeth Chadwick book I read is even better than the last. Chadwick breathes such life into characters so long dead; to read one of her books is to have a peephole on the past. Part of her magic is that she lets the innate drama of history shine through, without feeling the need to imbue events with additional conflict to make for a more sensational story. Chadwick’s approach has the benefit of letting the reader connect with people who lived hundreds of years ago, and yet still had many of the same essential concerns that we do today.

In “For the King’s Favor,” Chadwick does what she does to full effect. I was fully engaged and invested in the lives of Roger and Ida, even more so than I was for William Marshal. I highly recommend this, and can’t wait for Sourcebooks to release more of Chadwick’s books in the United States.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

TSS: BBAW Approaches!

Sep 112010

BBAW starts tomorrow, are you excited? I am! I’ll be participating in a few of the daily topics, and of course visiting other blogs as much as possible.

So, I only had one day last week that I actually went into work, and I really thought I would get a lot of reading done. Unfortunately, not so much. I have little recollection of last Tuesday, other than the AWESOME book club we had right here for “The Live You’ve Imagined” by Kristina Riggle, but Tuesday night I only got 3 hours of sleep, then I worked Wednesday. Thursday and Friday were both great days – Daniel and I got to meet Sandy from You’ve Gotta Read This on Thursday and check out The Book Cellar, then on Friday we got to head down to The Bookstore for a bit before heading to hubby’s school to take Daniel to Calculus.

Events seemed to conspire to keep me from reading very much, but I did end up having a decent week, just not as great as I had hoped. Still, I managed to finish and review:

And also finished:

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Which I will review next week and two audios:

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Out of the Shadows by Joanne Rendell – Book Review

Sep 092010

Out of the Shadows by Joanne Rendell
Published by NAL Trade, an imprint of Penguin

All her life, Clara’s mother has told her about their family’s alleged connection Mary Shelley, a story that Clara largely ignored. After her mother dies, though, Clare feels driven to discover whether her mother’s stories are true. And really, it is just as well that Clara has something other than just her work to occupy her, since her fiancé Anthony is extremely tied up in his research for a new cancer drug.

“Out of the Shadows” is the second of Rendell’s three books I have read, and I’m sold. I will absolutely be reading her first book, as well as whatever else she comes out with. Although her characters tend to be New York academics, her stories are not derivative , even of one another. In “Out of the Shadows,” Clara is a young woman searching for her identity and a way to connect with her mother and her past. One of my favorite thing about Rendell’s books is that her protagonists’ romantic lives are secondary to the story, they are part of these women’s lives so they must inform the story, but they are not the main focus.

In addition to Clara’s storyline, Rendell also included small snippets of Shelley’s young life, up through her meeting of Shelley. Although I did not find these sections as engaging as Clara’s storyline, they did add a depth to the work as a whole and helped to give a feel for the woman about whom Clara was searching for information. This look at Mary Shelley’s life also gave “Out of the Shadows” more power when it began to explore many of the same themes as did Shelley’s seminal work, “Frankenstein.”

Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

Virtual Book Club Author Talk – Kristina Riggle, Author of The Life You’ve Imagined

Sep 082010

4698130015 0bdd9802f5 m picture If you missed it, yesterday was our virtual book club for “The Life You’ve Imagined” by Kristina Riggle. Please feel free to go back and add any thoughts you might have if you weren’t able to discuss yesterday. Today we’re actually getting the opportunity to ask Kristina Riggle some questions about the book. I’m going to start with some based on yesterday’s discussion, but please feel free to add more in the comments, or respond to her responses, and Kristina will pop in as she’s able to shed some more light on things for us.

What made you give Cami a gambling addiction? I just haven’t been able to get over how different that was from anything else I’ve read recently. It seems like everyone in the book club agrees that it worked very well in “The Life You’ve Imagined,” but other people were surprised to read it as well.
As a follow up, Cami’s future seemed to be to be the most ambivalent of all of the women, and another reader mentioned that she was really concerned for Cami not seeming to have a plan in place to deal with her addiction. What was the reason you chose to leave her like that and not wrap up her story more?
And ONE more about Cami: did you have to do a lot of research about gambling and gambling addiction to write her story?
A question from Bookfan: “Would you consider writing Maeve’s story – from where it leaves off at the end of TLYI? I’d love to see where you’d take her!”
There was some debate over whether people wanted – at any point – for Amy to break things off with her fiance. Did you ever secretly want her to, or think about taking the story in that direction?
A question from Shonda: “What was the significance with trailers? Sally lived in one and it burned. Maeve met Robert in one on the land he wanted to buy. While reading, I thought this is important, but I couldn’t figure out why.”
The men of Haven, everyone seems to want to know about them, and many people seem to think there really aren’t any good ones. Thoughts?

If anyone else has any questions, ask away!

The Life You’ve Imagined by Kristina Riggle – Virtual Book Club

Sep 072010

4698130015 0bdd9802f5 m picture Welcome to the virtual book club for Kristina Riggle’s new book, “The Life You’ve Imagined’! If you’re not sure just what exactly we’re doing here, I gave away 20 copies of “The Life You’ve Imagined” for people to read the book and participate (sponsored by Harper Collins), but receiving the book from me isn’t a prerequisite to participation, anyone who has read the book is welcome to join in! In fact, I have two copies of Riggle’s debut, “Real Life and Liars” to give away to people who participate today and tomorrow. If you need more background on the book, you can read my review, which also hosts a Mr. Linky with other reviews of this book, so check those out, or leave your own review if you’ve written one.

Here’s what’s happening: respond to any or all of the questions in the comments below. As you are able, read through the comments other people have left (you may want to make sure that ‘notify me of follow-up comments’ is checked when you leave your comment), and respond to them. If you use the ‘reply’ link in their comment, your comment will show up right below their to make it obvious you are responding to them. Discuss! Have fun! Grab a glass of wine if you want! If you haven’t read this book yet, remember, there will quite likely be spoilers. Such is the nature of a book club. As is also the nature of a book club, these questions may be colored by my own experiences with the novel, or by reviews I have read. Feel free to take any question in another direction, or disagree with my basic premise.

General thoughts?
The title of this book is taken from a misquote of Thoreau. Do you think it fit the story? How or how not?
Maeve was quite obvious about not being able to disengage herself from the past for a great deal of the book. What do you think held her there? Do you think any of the other women suffered the same problem?
What were your impressions of the men in this book, what did you think about how they were portrayed?
I thought Cami’s storyline was sort of a gutsy one, I don’t remember ever having seen a young woman with a gambling addiction portrayed in literature, or even on TV. It is always either older women (and only Marge Simpson that I can think of) or men. Why do you think Riggle chose to give her a gambling addiction? How did it inform her actions as a character?
Multiple old relationships come back to life in “The Life You’ve Imagined,” both romantic and otherwise. Did you think these were portrayed in a realistic fashion? What is realistic to expect from an old friendship? Romantic relationship?
What did you think about the ending? Were you satisfied? Did it wrap things up too much? Not enough?
If you could ask Kristina Riggle one thing, what would it be?
What else struck you about this book that you would like to discuss?

By the way, thanks for the inspiration for this book club go to Trish from HeyLady.net and her Reading Series for “The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott” by Kelly O’Connor McNees

What Alice Knew by Paula Marantz Cohen – Book Review

Sep 062010

What Alice Knew by Paula Marantz Cohen
Published by Sourcebooks

The year is 1888 and London is being terrorized by Jack the Ripper. For now only prostitutes are being targeted, but the citizenry is worried that the fiend may branch out. Scotland Yard is at a loss, so they decide to call in William James, the American professor of philosophy and the emerging field of psychology. It is James’ understanding of psychology that they hope will help them find the culprit. William just happens to be the older brother of novelist Henry James who, together with their younger invalid sister Alice, join in the hunt with William. William is the expert in psychology and works with the police, Henry does reconnaissance in Society, and Alice is the driving force between the siblings’ investigation.

This would be a fun book to pick up around Halloween, an interesting look at some of history’s most gruesome unsolved murders. I enjoy the interplay between academic and literary figures and the history that takes place around them, even if they were not involved with it – as long as it seems reasonable. Cohen definitely made the James siblings’ interest in and investigation of the Jack the Ripper murders seem at least plausible. I also appreciated how masterfully Cohen gave each of the siblings a strong and individual voice.

Well written, interesting historical fiction, especially if you enjoy whodunit theories of historical memory, as I do.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

August 2010 Reading Wrap-Up

Sep 052010

Okay, no more complaining about slow reading, because August was a *banner* month. TWENTY THREE BOOKS. Read’em and weep…no pun intended. Five audiobooks, for almost 3 days of listening, and 18 print books of over 5,300 pages. Don’t ask how, I have no idea. Even better, I’ve already reviewed almost all of them.

I’m feeling quite accomplished at the moment, if you can’t tell.

After my list of what I read this month, you’ll find a list of the other reviews I posted this month.

What I Read:

Audiobooks
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, narrated by
How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson, narrated by
The City & The City by China Mieville, narrated by John Lee
Kraken by China Mieville – review pending
Body Work by Sara Paretsky – review coming in October

Fiction
Simply From Scratch by Alicia Bessette
29: A Novel by Adena Halpern
Kapitoil by Teddy Wayne
What He’s Poised to Do by Ben Greenberg (short stories)
Lake Overturn by Vestal McIntyre
Lean on Pete by Willy Vlautin
The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise by Julia Stuart
The Life You’ve Imagined by Kristina Riggle
Dracula in Love by Karen Essex
American Music by Jane Mendehlson
Numb by Sean Ferrell

Young Adult/Middle Grades Fiction
Dangerous Neighbors by Beth Kephart
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Mystery/Thriller
The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva

Historical Fiction
The Report by Jessica Francis Kane
The Gendarme by Mark Mustian

Memoir
Everything is Going to be Great by Rachel Shukert
Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell

Pick of the Month:

It has been a long, long time since I have had such a difficult time picking a favorite book for the month. Of course, it has also been a long, long time since I finished 23 books in a month, too. I considered Rachel Shukert’s Everything is Going to be Great, The Life You’ve Imagined by Kristina Riggle, and Lake Overturn by Vestal McIntyre.

The winners, however, is: The Report by Jessica Francis Kane, partly because it was such a sleeper hit, and The City & The City by China Mieville, which was just a phenomenal audiobook..

Honorable mention to The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva and Body Work by Sara Paretsky, both of which made me want to read all of the previous books in both of these prolific series.

What I Posted:

Announcements/Specials
An Interview With…Me!
My Kind of Book: A Celebration of Chicago Literature

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Fiction
The Stuff That Never Happened by Maddie Dawson
The Time it Snowed in Puerto Rico by Maddie Dawson

Historical Fiction
The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory

Note: Some of these books were provided to me for review.

Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer – Audiobook Review

Sep 032010

Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer, narrated by Maureen O’Brien
Published in audio by BBC Audiobooks America

Synopsis:

Siblings Peter, Margaret, and Celia, and Celia’s husband Charles have just inherited a ramshackle old house from their uncle. It is a bit primitive, without electricity or phone, but what is really worrying, to the women in particular, are the stories of a ghostly and dangerous monk who haunts the house and the grounds. Peter and Charles are less convinced about the existence of ghosts, so when odd things begin happening, they are sure that there is a logical explanation for the whole thing, and set out to discover what it is.

Thoughts on the story:

I love Heyer’s mysteries so much, even if they are quite general quite predictable. In a mixed blessing, this one had decided less silly characters than the other Heyer mysteries I have read (“Death in the Stocks” really took the cake for insipid yet fun characters, although they also made an appearance in “They Found Him Dead“). This one was a bit different than the others, since there was less of a strong police presence investigating the crime and more a focus on the effected family trying to figure out what, exactly, was going on. And, to my surprise, the ending of “Footsteps in the Dark” was not nearly as predictable as the other two. I was completely wrong in my guess as to whom the Monk was, although I figured out the true occupation of another character quite a long time before Heyer’s reveal.

Thoughts on the audio production:

I’m so-so on Maureen O’Brien as narrator in this production. On one hand, her voice was just as I might have imagined the one belonging to one of Heyer’s stories. On the other hand, she spoke far too quickly in the beginning, so much so that I considered using my iPod to slow down the speed of the audiobook. I’m still not sure whether she slowed down or I simply acclimated to it, but I had a difficult time catching what she said initially. Now, this does fit the feel of Heyer, but it also impeded the listening process, so on the whole I think it was a negative. Also, one of the secondary characters were French, and her French accent was absolutely painful, really the stereotypical bad French accent.

Overall:

Not mind blowing in story or narration, but still quite enjoyable. Heyer mysteries are a great palate cleanser, I really need to get a backlog of them both in print and audio.

Buy this book from:
BBC Audiobooks America

This review was done with a book received from the library.

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