The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger – Audiobook Review

Apr 082011

The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger, narrated by Rosalyn Landor
Published in audio by Blackstone Audio; published in print by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

Synopsis:

After losing her parents in a train crash, Sally was sent rather young into service, where she began as a scullery maid. Eventually she found herself as the lady’s maid to Lady Duff Gordon, and travels with her lady to Egypt. Lady Duff Gordon has tuberculosis and decides that she cannot stay alive in the cold English climate, and heads to Luxor, Egypt for her health. While there, Sally falls in love with Omar, Lady Duff Gordon’s dragoman. As much as Lady Duff Gordon gives in to the Egyptian way of life, Sally does even more so, entering into a romantic relationship with an Egyptian man – a relationship which her lady does not approve of at all.

Thoughts on the story:

Although fascinating to experience late 19th century Egypt, and to see the late 19th century interactions between Egyptians and Europeans, the first person narrative really slowed down the first section of the book. Everything was simply Sally observing what was happening around her without much action. Eventually the pace picked up, but I spent a good amount of time at the beginning of “The Mistress of Nothing” wondering when something would happen.

Thoughts on the audio production:

Rosalyn Landor is a talented narrator who infuses her words with emotion, but even she could not keep me interested during the slow points of the narrative. For my complete thoughts, please see my review at Audiofile Magazine.

Overall:

I recommend this in print or audio for the historical fiction fan who is interested in getting a feel for the interactions between Europe and Egypt in the late 19th century, but be warned that the beginning starts slowly.

Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound: Print*

Source: Audiofile Magazine, 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.

Friendship Bread by Darien Gee – Book Review

Apr 072011

Friendship Bread by Darien Gee
Published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House

Julia Evarts’s life is basically falling apart. She has her husband Mark and her daughter Gracie, but she can’t enjoy them, not since her son died, just months before her daughter’s birth. Since that time her grief has crippled her, she can’t work, she can barely care for her daughter, and her husband is like a stranger to her. And then, one day, someone leaves a bag of friendship bread starter on her doorstep. With every ounce of insistence a five-year old can muster, Gracie cajoles Julia into making the bread and, to everyone’s surprise, Julia has fun with it. Before too long she is venturing to the new tea shop in town, and befriending Madeline and Hannah, both new transplants to Avalon.

As the friendship bread begins to make its way around the town of Avalon, it brings people together as well as pulling people apart. Women are coming together all over town in order to find new ways to use their starter. Of course, there are also people running away from their friends and neighbors because they can’t handle even one more bag of starter.

Early on in Friendship Bread I wasn’t really sure about it. For one thing, there are a great many characters. In addition to Julia, Mark, Madeline, and Hannah, Julia’s sister Livvie and her friend, a reporter named Edie are also main characters. Besides all of these people who have significant story, there are alternating chapters with other members of the community once the bread begins to circulate. In addition, it is a little more uplifting than I typically like. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it was obviously uplifting from the beginning, more so than I typically read.

Except then, Friendship Bread completely sucked me in. 100%. The past tragedies of the citizens of Avalon tugged at my heart-strings, and then when things got really uplifting, it was enough to bring tears to my eyes. Darien Gee created something pretty fantastic here to move me so much with something that initially seemed somewhat lighter than I typically prefer.

Recommended

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: 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.

Oh, D.E.A.R. – Series

Apr 062011

Do you remember D.E.A.R? At my elementary school that meant “Drop Everything And Read,” something we typically did for 10 or 15 minutes every day. Best part of my day, really. As my TBR and Library piles are battling for supremacy and trying to sneak in around the review copies who have staked out places on my calendar, I’m thinking back to the simpler days of D.E.A.R., when I believed I had time to get to any book I wanted. And that, of course, got me fantasizing about a world where I really could just Drop Everything And Read for more than just 15 minutes a day.

I haven’t always been the biggest series fan. I was really when I was younger, because I craved the consistency of characters and style. As I matured as a reader, I started to find the courage to branch out and try new authors and meet new characters, especially as I got to know publishing houses and imprints better, which helped me know right away whether I was likely to enjoy a book or not.

But then I read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, and suddenly I understood the draw of series again. I very much wanted to follow the continuing saga of Claire and Jaime, to see everywhere life took them. Suddenly I wanted MORE SERIES! I asked for recommendations for addictive series and received lots of great responses. Now I’m turning into a bit of a series fiend – especially after blowing through the Maisie Dobbs series already this year. I’ve joined fictfact.com to keep track of them all, I just wish I had more time to read them all. If I could just Drop Everything And Read, here are a few of the series I would start or complete:

To start:

The Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

In medieval Cambridge, England, Adelia, a female forensics expert, is summoned by King Henry II to investigate a series of gruesome murders that has wrongly implicated the Jewish population, yielding even more tragic results. As Adelia’s investigation takes her behind the closed doors of the country’s churches, the killer prepares to strike again. (The Mistress of the Art of Death)

The Mistress of the Art of Death
The Serpent’s Tale
Grave Goods
A Murderous Procession

The Iron Fey by Julie Kagawa

Meghan Chase has a secret destiny—one she could never have imagined…Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan’s life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school…or at home.

When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she’s known is about to change.

But she could never have guessed the truth—that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she’ll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face…and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart

The Iron King
The Iron Daughter
The Iron Queen
The Iron Knight (not pictured)

The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

Meet Isabel “Izzy” Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors — but the upshot is she’s good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family’s firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people’s privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman. (The Spellman Files)

These made my list because I just finished Lutz’s HILARIOUS Heads You Lose and am dying to read more of her work.

The Spellman Files
Curse of the Spellmans
Revenge of the Spellmans
The Spellmans Strike Again

To Complete:

The Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.

NOW, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives-the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.

This one is cheating a little, because the only reason I haven’t finished it is that the next two books haven’t been released yet!

Feed
Blackout (coming June 2011)
Deadline (coming January 2012)

Thursday Next by Jasper Fforde

In Jasper Fforde’s Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Bronte’s novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde’s ingenious fantasy-enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel–unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix. (The Eyre Affair)

The Eyre Affair
Lost in a Good Book
The Well of Lost Plots
Something Rotten
First Among Sequels
One of Our Thursdays is Missing

What series would you grab if you could Drop Everything And Read?

Thanks to Michelle from My Books. My Life. for her inspiration for this post.

The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer – Book Review

Apr 052011

The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer
Published by Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin

I read The Uncoupling for an episode of What’s Old is New. You can check out our interview with Meg about the book, and if you’ve already read it, check out our spoilery outtakes.

Stellar Plains, New Jersey is a relatively happy town. Dory Lang and her husband Robby are certainly happy, even if they do wish that their teenage daughter would read a bit more. Still, they are happy with their lives, with their jobs as high school teachers, with their relationship. Then Fran Heller enters all of their lives as the high school’s new drama teacher and decides to put on Lysistrata as the school play. Suddenly, Dory has no desire to sleep with her husband, which has never been the case in the entire time they have been together. She isn’t the only one, either, all over town women are turning away from their husbands, boyfriends, and lovers. Suddenly the little flaws that have been overlooked in everyone’s relationships are front and center, and sex is nowhere to be found.

At its height, it was a knockout of a spell, fortified by a classic work of literature – a play that had lasted since 411 B.C., and which lasted even now, in this age of very different gratifications. -p. 246

Wolitzer’s prose is phenomenal. I am typically a reader who requires a mixture of good writing and good plot and character development in order to love a book, but I think I could have loved The Uncoupling even if the plot had been completely uninteresting, the writing was good enough to suck me in and keep me reading compulsively all on its own. The quote above is, I think, a perfect example of the compelling style of prose – in addition to containing a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree.

And then there was the fact that the prose was not the only thing that The Uncoupling had going for it. Certainly the book uses the famous Aristophanes play, Lysistrata, as a jumping off point, but it is not about a sex strike in order to end war. Instead, it is an examination of love and sex, of relationships and desire, and how the waxing and waning of one element can have such great consequence for another. So many relationships are examined that a reader would be hard-pressed to become emotionally involved in more than one or two (likely those of Dory and Robby, or their daughter Willa and her boyfriend Eli), but all of the characters are fully realized, even those with extremely minor roles, which lends a richness to the story as if the reader was actually a part of the town of Stellar Plains, watching this spell strike all of his or her neighbors.

I absolutely adored The Uncoupling, it offered me the full package of what I believe makes a book worth reading: prose, characters, plot, and something to connect with on a deeper level. This is a book I can very highly recommend, and one that is likely to make an appearance on my ‘best of’ list at the end of the year (and likely that of many other people as well).

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: 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.

Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward – Book Review

Apr 042011

Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward
Published by G.P. Putnam & Sons, an imprint of Penguin

Lisa Lutz, author of the Spellman comedic crime novels, wants to write her next book with a collaborator. You know, each of them writing alternate chapters so that they figure out ‘who done it’ right along with the the reader. Sounds like a lot of fun, right? Except she asks her ex, David Hayward, who is a poet without any experience writing novels – crime or otherwise. He agrees, but things quickly get snarky, to say the least. Still, in the midst of footnotes and terse notes back and forth between chapters, Lisa and David do get their story going. Paul and Lacey are orphaned siblings living in Northern California when a dead, headless body ends up on their property. Except they can’t exactly call the cops, since Paul makes their money by growing marijuana. They try dumping the body, but when it ends up back on their property, Lacey realizes she has to get to the bottom of this, especially when she realizes who the body belonged to.

Heads You Lose is made of pure hilarity and win. Seriously. As far as the actual story goes, Heads You Lose is very compelling. The mystery is set up surprisingly well, given that the authors are supposedly alternating chapters without an outline, with no more guidance than what has already been written. Likewise, the characters are interesting and relatable, even as some of them get caught in the crossfire of warring authors and experience more personality changes or resurrections than one might otherwise think likely. If this story had been the entire story, I would likely have still read and enjoyed Heads You Lose.

Except that wasn’t the entire story. The interplay between Lutz and Hayward is what took Heads You Lose from enjoyable to fantastic. I lived for the footnotes, which served as asides from the author who was reading the chapter for the first time. and the notes back and forth between the two authors at the end of each chapter. Occasionally they worked well together, but at other times things became bitter and snarky and oh so much fun. After being criticized by Lutz for being overly erudite for a mystery novel, one of Hayward’s chapters is written in large, double spaced text with a very Dick and Jane style. Obviously this didn’t particularly advance the mystery, but it was a fantastic chapter to build the tension between the co-authors, which is as much the story as the mystery is. Also from Hayward, is this snarky little message to Lutz, in reference to her assertion in one of the notes that there were plenty of other writers she could have asked to collaborate:

P.S. About your stable of would-be collaborators, I don’t doubt that all of those authors are adept at building and resolving intricate mysteries. But I’d argue that bringing a psycho to justice on the page and cowriting a book with one require different skill sets.

I heard a little rumor that this might be the start of a new series for Lutz and Hayward, and I sincerely hope that this is true, but whether it is or not, Heads You Lose stands very well on its own, no annoying loose threads that are not tied up. In the meantime, while I’m waiting to hear the announcement of another book, I’m just going to go and read all of Lutz’s Spellman books in hopes of reclaiming the awesome.

Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: 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.

March 2011 Reading Wrap-Up

Apr 032011

I’m changing up the format of my monthly wrap-ups a bit for 2011. Instead of listing everything I read and linking to what has been reviewed, I will first be listing the books reviewed over the last month, and will include unreviewed books below, so you can see what will be coming up!

March was a really fabulous reading month. I finished 22 books, including 18 in print and 4 in audio, for a total of almost 5700 pages and close to 60 hours of audio. I started a few of these in February and just finished in March, but overall a really great reading month. You’re in for some very enthusiastic reviews in April, because some of those unreviewed books below were fabulous.

What I Reviewed:

Audiobooks
Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell, narrated by Sarah Vowell, John Slattery, Paul Rudd, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, John Hodgeman, Catherine Keener, Keanu Reeves, Maya Rudolph

Fiction
Christian Lacroix and the Tale of Sleeping Beauty by Camilla Morton
Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon
Angelology by Danielle Trussoni
Picking Bones from Ash by Marie Mockett
The Atlas of Love by Laurie Frankel
The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht

Mystery
Learning to Swim by Sara J Henry
Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear
Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear
An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear
Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear
Hail to the Chef by Julie Hyzy
The Girl in the Green Raincoat by Laura Lippman

Historical Fiction
The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead by Paul Elwork
Sins of the House of Borgia by Sarah Bower
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

Nonfiction
Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun by Liza Bakewell
Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution by Holly Tucker
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
She Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor

Saturday Story Spotlight
Will You Wear a Blue Hat? by Scholastic
Touch and Feel Baby Animals by DK Publishing
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Three Hens and a Peacock by Lester A. Laminack, illustrated by Henry Cole

Other Posts/Guest Posts:
“The Blood of a Lamb” by Holly Tucker, author of Blood Work

Pick of the Month:

Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

I’m choosing Among the Mad partly on its own merit, and partly as a representative of its series. I am absolutely loving the Maisie Dobbs books, and I am so happy that I was encouraged to join the readalong that Book Club Girl is hosting. I can’t believe I’m nearly caught up on the series, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do for the next year while waiting for the next book. Among the Mad was a particularly good entry in the series, though, I could barely put it down.

Spot’s First Easter – Saturday Story Spotlight

Apr 022011

Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, my feature where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy.

Spot’s First Easter by Eric Hill
Published by Putnam Juvenile, an imprint of Penguin

Lift the flap books in general are a huge hit in our house, as are the Spot books in particular. In Spot’s First Easter, Spt and his hippo friend Helen are looking for the eggs hidden by the Easter bunny.

There are lots of reasons to like Spot’s First Easter. Of course, there is the beloved familiar character, and the joy for a toddler of getting to lift the flaps and see what is underneath. Then, there’s the introduction to the idea of searching for Easter eggs, which we’re capitalizing on before a couple of egg hunts this year. Finally, there is a math component that can be added for older kids. We know right away that the Easter bunny hid six eggs, once Spot and Helen find two, how many are left? This is written into the book at the midpoint, but parents can work it in throughout the text to support pre-subtraction skills.

A great book for the secular side of Easter, although I wish it wasn’t Spot’s First Easter, since it probably will be better for most kids’ subsequent Easters.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Personal copy
* 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.

The Mapping of Love and Death by Jaqueline Winspear – Book Review

Apr 012011

The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear Published by Harper Perennial, an imprint of Harper Collins

My reviews of the first six books in the series: Maisie Dobbs, Birds of a Feather, Pardonable Lies, Messenger of Truth, An Incomplete Revenge, Among the Mad.

The son of an American mother and a British father raised in the United States, Michael Clifton feels the need to fight for his father’s country as soon as he hears about the outbreak of World War I. As a mapmaker, he has skills that are invaluable to the war effort. Unfortunately, Michael goes missing during the war with his entire company. When they are discovered, dead in a bunker, Michael’s family is able to retain his personal letters and journal and discover that he was involved with a nurse during the war. Hoping for someone who can serve as a connection to their son, the Clifton’s engage Maisie’s services to find the girl, but looking over the autopsy, Maisie can see that there is a bigger mystery: Michael was murdered before the bunker was bombed.

This was another well-put together case and mystery for Maisie, Winspear is doing a fabulous job keeping the mysteries fresh and the cases unique. However, in this case, I barely paid attention to Maisie’s case because of some interesting personal developments. Maisie’s personal emotional growth has been happening slowly over the past few books, ever since a case took her to France in Messenger of Truth, first as she came to terms with her psychological scars from the war, then as she began to try to live a richer life in the present. Without being too specific or introducing spoilers, The Mapping of Love and Death holds some progress in this area, a means of progress that had not occurred to me, but which make me incredibly happy.

I’m not sure what higher praise I can give to this series than to say that I’ve been reading one of Winspear’s books every two weeks for the last two and a half months, and I cannot wait to read the next book, and I have no idea what I’m going to do when I do, because then I’ll have to wait an entire year for the next book.

Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Personal copy.
* 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.

Newer Entries

Devourer of Books

The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger – Audiobook Review

Friendship Bread by Darien Gee – Book Review