Month: August 2010

Teaser Tuesdays

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

Back from vacation in time for a Tuesday Teaser.  I started Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara last night so that’s what I’ll be featuring today.

“It looked like Julian was going to have a good party some time between Christmas and New Year’s, because he has asked Ed Charney, the big shot, if he could get him a case of champagne, good champagne, and deliver it the day after Christmas.  Ed, of course, said he’d be only too glad to get some good champagne, and he had attended to the matter himself.” (17)

Announcements and Stuff

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I’ve been a little out of pocket the last few days and haven’t been able to post or stop by other places to comment. Turns out, that’s also going to be the case until next week too.  We’ve decided to take advantage of the last remaining days of summer so it will stay a bit quiet around here until September rolls around.  I have a few things planned and hope to get those reviews scheduled before unplugging the laptop for a much needed break.

Also, I wanted to say thanks to my readers who’ve stopped by the last year.  Today, as it turns out, is my one your anniversary here at Just Book Reading.  I can’t believe it’s been that long already.  So, thanks to everyone for being a reader.  🙂

I’m off now and will see you in September.  Enjoy the last bits of the summer.

Teaser Tuesdays

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

I’m currently reading Life in Medieval France by E.R. Chamberlin, and while interesting, it’s more like a textbook and not really good for teasing.  Instead, I’m going to share from a book I’ll be reading later in the week — The House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier.

“The first thing I noticed was the clarity of the air, and the sharp green colour of the land.  There was no softness anywhere.” (1)

What are you teasing us with this week?

Library Loot – August 20th Edition

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This week’s library loot is an odd mix of books — Anglo-Saxons, French medieval history, time travel, Greek mythology, and the Jamestown settlement.  I’m at a bit of a loss to explain how I ended up with this lot, sooo, instead of waiting for me to come up with something witty, let’s just get to the loot.

The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America by Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith.  I was doing a general history search since I’ve been feeling a little historically deficient lately and found this.  I started it earlier in the week and so far it’s very interesting.

Achilles by Elizabeth Cook.  This one’s fiction and looks like a tasty little bit of reading.

The House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier.  Time travel, 14th Century France — there is nothing more that I want in a book.

Life in Medieval France by E.R. Chamberlin.  This is sort of a reference book and doesn’t have any cover art so enjoy the red little beauty I found as a place holder.  Oddly, for a book with no cover artwork, there are a ton of photos inside.

The Anglo-Saxons by James Campbell, Eric John, and Patrick Wormald.  I picked this one up for A Tournament of Reading Challenge.  Again, amazed by the amount of pictures in this one too.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg and Claire that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

By J.K. Rowling

Scholastic

ISBN: 0-439-06486-4

5 stars

Ah, the second book in my Harry Potter re-read this summer and what a wonderful story this one is.  OK, I’ll probably say that about all of them so get over it now.  Before I forget to mention it, there will be a number of spoilers in this one so stop reading now if you prefer not to know.

The short re-cap of this installment — Harry joins Ron and Hermione for their second year at Hogwarts.  Harry finds out he’s a parseltongue (he can talk to snakes) and starts to hear voices, student turn up petrified, and the Chamber of Secrets is rumored to have been opened by the heir of Slytherin.

Flying cars, the Whomping Willow, and Dobby the house elf.  Dobby is probably one of my favorite characters, just below Ginny Weasley.  When he died in book seven, I was so upset, maybe even more upset than when Dumbledore died because I wasn’t expecting it.  He’s amusing, sort of pathetic, and shows you just how awful the Malfoy’s are as a family.  It’s not just Draco, it’s all of them.  We learn more about Hagrid and we get to see how nasty some of the creatures are that he loves so dearly.  I’m with Ron all that way on this one; I prefer the dragon to the gargantuan sized spiders.  They are way too creepy, crawly, and there is something very disturbing about all those all those eyes looking back at you.  Ginny joins the rest of the Weasley clan at school in year two and I love her shyness and the crush she has on Harry.  It’s so cute.  Still hating Snape as I expected to.  Nasty, mean, greasy, undermining — I have nothing nice to say about him and that will not be changing.  I know what’s coming and re-reading makes me dislike him ever more than ever.  The Weasley twins set off more fireworks in this one and it’s nice to see their future in humor retail emerging.  Such talent these two boys have for destruction but it’s all in good fun and someone has to be the comic relief.

Details, details, details.  Rowling does such a great job of putting so many tiny hints in these books.  First, the idea that Harry can talk to snakes appears in the Sorcerer’s Stone when he unleashes the snake at the zoo and now it’s explained even more here by Dumbledore when he tells Harry that part of Voldermort’s power was transferred to Harry when he attacked him.  What I like even more is that it’s left out there for us to wonder what will happen with that bit of information later.  I also like the mention of werewolves in this one preparing us for a new professor in book three which I will tell you now is my favorite.  🙂

Not having read these early books in such a long time makes me very happy to be doing so now.  They are a treat to read and a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.  I can easily classify this series as a comfort read.

Teaser Tuesdays

/ justbookreading / 8 Comments

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

Today I’m starting Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch.

“My brother Vernon went on ahead.  I woke up and felt for him but the bed was dry and my brother Creed was already up.  He had his overalls on and he was telling me that I had to get up too because it was after four-thirty and the cows wouldn’t wait.” (3)

What are you teasing us with this week?

The Queen of Attolia

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The Queen of Attolia

By Megan Whalen Turner

Greenwillow Books

ISBN: 978-0-06-084182-9

4 stars

I read The Thief, the first book in Whalen Turner’s series, back in March of this year.  I liked it but wasn’t blown away at the start.  The more I thought of it though, the more I liked it which was what make me want to read The Queen of Attolia.

Eugenides, the Queen of Eddis’s royal thief, is caught once more, this time by the queen of Attolia.  Captured sneaking out of her castle, he’s thrown in prison, and as punishment, she cuts off his hand and returns him back to his queen.  Thrown into a depressive state over the loss of his hand, and essentially his livelihood, he hides from everyone and everything.  When he finally manages to pull himself out of his stupor, he finds his country at war with Attolia, and several other neighboring countries threatening war, and he feels he must finds a way to bring peace.

Megan Whalen Turner is very good at weaving an intricate tale that allows you get lulled into a story only to be taken aback by a small confession from a character.  Yes, it was probably something I should have seen coming, but I was content to ride this one out waiting patiently to see how it would end, which is very odd for me.  To be honest, there’s not a lot of action in this book even with the wars going on.  There’s a lot of strategy talk though but there’s something interesting about it that I when I got to the end I wanted to pick up The King of Attolia right away.  While it may not be a huge cliff hanger at the end, it’s enough that you want to know how things will be working out.

What I really enjoy about these books are the stories within the story.  Characters tell tales, mostly about their gods and goddesses, but I find these fables so wonderful.  It provides great background for some of the actions of the main characters and you do see the stories mirroring each other in some places.  Whalen Turner brings a nice balance to the religious aspect and while it isn’t overt, it’s interesting to see how each character deals with their beliefs.  I don’t usually care for religion in my fiction but it’s subtle and so well blended that it feels more a part of the story rather than an add on.

I’m reading The King of Attolia and will be hoping that my library has A Conspiracy of Kings, the fourth book in the series.

The Sunday Salon – A Short Post

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This is going to be a short post today.  Thanks to work and life, I didn’t get much reading in last week. I read two books and they were rather short ones at that.  I finally got around to reading Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones which was lovely and I’m sorry I waited so long to read it. I also read The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer which wasn’t bad either.  The Thieves of Manhattan is about the publishing industry and was a tart, little book full of sarcastic and biting remarks about the industry which I found quite entertaining.  I used to work for the publishing industry’s lobbying group and some of the comments/insights from the book were even funnier having met and worked with some people in publishing.

The King of Attolia which I’m reading now is moving along rather slow but that has more to do with me being tired than the book itself.  If I can, I plan to steal a few hours later today.  Maybe after a nap…

I made an attempt to update my challenge page recently and found I’ve completed or have come very close to completing most of the challenges except one – A Tournament of Reading.  I put several history books on hold at the library last week with the intention of reading them for the challenge so we’ll see how that goes in the next few weeks.  I wasn’t able to find everything I had on my list but I found a few that look good so I’m going with it.

Since I have a bit of work to do and still want to get some reading in later, I’m calling it.  Happy Sunday.  Next week I plan to have more to share.  🙂