Month: August 2010

Friday Finds – Fantasy and Strange Roman Habits

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This week, two of my favorite things, a fantasy book and strange facts about Roman life.  And let’s begin…

The House on Durrow Street by Galen Beckett.  This is the follow-up to The Magicians & Mrs. Quent which I read earlier this year.  While I thought parts of The Magicians & Mrs. Quent were a little disconnected, I liked the characters and the world enough to want to read more.  This one comes out on September 28th.  Description from Barnes & Noble: Her courage saved the country of Altania and earned the love of a hero of the realm. Now sensible Ivy Quent wants only to turn her father’s sprawling, mysterious house into a proper home. But soon she is swept into fashionable society’s highest circles of power—a world that is vital to her family’s future but replete with perilous temptations.  Yet far greater danger lies beyond the city’s glittering ballrooms—and Ivy must race to unlock the secrets that lie within the old house on Durrow Street before outlaw magicians and an ancient ravening force plunge Altania into darkness forever.

Cabinet of Roman Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the World’s Greatest Empire by J.C. McKeown.  I love anything about Roman history so this one had to go on the list.  Description from Barnes & Noble: Here is a whimsical and captivating collection of odd facts, strange beliefs, outlandish opinions, and other highly amusing trivia of the ancient Romans. We tend to think of the Romans as a pragmatic people with a ruthlessly efficient army, an exemplary legal system, and a precise and elegant language. A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities shows that the Romans were equally capable of bizarre superstitions, logic-defying customs, and often hilariously derisive views of their fellow Romans and non-Romans.

Friday Finds is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Leave a comment here with a link to your own finds, or share your answers at Should Be Reading. Happy Friday.

My Favorite Reads – The Wordy Shipmates

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Alyce from At Home With Books features one of her favorite reads each Thursday and this week my pick is…

The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell.

From the inside cover: To this day, America views itself as a Puritan nation, but Vowell investigates what that means — and what it should mean.  What was this great political enterprise all about?  Who were these people who are considered the philosophical, spiritual, and moral ancestors of our nation?  What Vowell discovers is something far different from what their uptight shoe-buckles-and-corn reputation might suggest.  The people she finds are highly literate, deeply principled, and surprisingly feisty.  Their story is filled with pamphlet feuds, witty courtroom dramas, and bloody vengeance.  Along the way she asks:

Was Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop a communitarian, a Christ-like Christian, or conformity’s tyrannical enforcer?  Answer: Yes!

Was Rhode Island’s architect, Roger Williams, America’s founding freak or the father of the First Amendment?  Same difference.

What does it take to get that jezebel Anne Hutchinson to shut up? A hatchet.

What was the Puritan’s pet name for the Pope? The Great Whore of Babylon.

Sarah Vowell’s special brand of armchair history makes the bazaar and esoteric fascinatingly relevant and fun.  She takes us from the modern-day reenactments of an Indian massacre to the Mohegan Sun casino, from the old-timey Puritan poetry, where “righteousness” is rhymed with “wildness,” to a Mayflower-themed waterslide.  Throughout, The Wordy Shipmates is rich in historical fact, humorous insight, and social commentary by one of America’s most celebrated voices.  Thou shalt enjoy it.

My thoughts: One caution about the book — if you’re looking for a purely historical read, you won’t find it here. A short book, only 254 pages, it reads more like a dissertation rather than an in-depth historical look at the time period. Her topic is well focused and she doesn’t divert from what she has set out to research — the letters of the men inhabiting the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Don’t get me wrong, what she does fill the page with are wonderful and witty insights that will make you laugh about the sheer silliness of history.

She talks about the sometimes trifling events that made America what it is today and includes a few road trips to examine some things first hand.  While she doesn’t provide much in terms of the history of the very early Puritans, her work is focused on the words of the men (let’s be honest, it was all about the men at the time), one is left with an odd but very insightful interpretation of the types of people who were setting out to found a new land.

Vowell has a few other books out, one in particular called Assassination Vacation that I want to read.  She has a great sense of humor and can make a topic like the Puritans seems like a comedy.

Kraken: An Anatomy

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Kraken: An Anatomy

By China Mieville

Ballentine Books

eISBN: 978-0-345-52185-9

4 stars

Billy Harrow is boring and nothing much happens in his life.  He’s a curator at London’s Natural History museum and has an uncanny ability to make creatures look alive in formaldehyde.  Giving a tour one day to a small group of people, a normal occurrence that comes with the job, he finds the museum’s most famous exhibit, a giant squid, missing.  The cops are called, interviews granted, and no leads emerge.  Billy goes home and tells two friends about the missing squid, or squidnapping if you will, and his odd day.  What follows is a strange tale of squid worshippers, encounters with Londonmancers who predict the city’s future, magicians, gods, familiars, gunfarmers, chaos Nazis, and Star Trek fanatics.

I’m at a loss as to how to describe this book.  In genre terms, it’s fantasy.  It’s a caper of sorts, but it’s really not.  It’s a mystery, but it’s not exactly.  There’s so much going on in this book that I feel that if I talk only about one portion, then I wouldn’t be doing it justice.  On the other hand, if I don’t tell you about it all, then I won’t make it come alive.

My first experience with Mieville’s writing was The City & The City.  It’s a dark, detective, police procedural and even though it wasn’t my regular reading, I enjoyed it.  I thought this would be somewhat the same but it’s not at all.  It’s funny, witty, strange, downright weird, and chaotic in parts.  He takes you to the story’s abyss and pulls you back in.  (Oh, come on, I couldn’t resist.)  There’s a long list of characters that range from the most bland to the oddest of people and one who actually is what his name suggests — a tattoo.  He talks by moving around on a man’s back, slightly creepy but very effective.  There’s a god who flits back and forth into stone statues and the odd Star Trek figurine trying to help Billy track down the stolen squid and at the same time he’s also trying to put down a strike by familiars.  Then there are soothsayers who cut holes in the skin of the city (the asphalt serves as the city’s skin) to read its guts and predict the future.  There are otherworldly hit men and a police force that deals in the supernatural.

Here’s the hard part about this review — I enjoyed this book.  A lot.  Thanks to this book, there are many new words that I want to incorporate into my vocabulary — Google-fu, Krakenists (people who worship the Kraken god), and squipnapping to name three.  Although, admittedly, squidnapping is going to be much harder to slip in during normal conversation.  It amused me, made me think of paperback thriller books you can buy at the grocery store, and made me add Mieville to my list of must-read authors but the books itself is impossible for me describe.

What I can say is that Mieville is a master story-teller able to incorporate a wide range of pop culture along with numerous religious arguments you never really knew you’d find yourself thinking about while reading a book about a giant squid that has been kidnapped.

I spent several days ruminating over this review and I still don’t think I’ve provided anything useful.  It’s strange book but a good mix of everything.  It’s fantasy (the story takes place in an alternate London) but offers so much more.

Here’s what I will say to wrap this up and staunch the bit of a love fest I have going on — if you’re looking for something completely out of the ordinary, try this one.  It won’t disappoint, just make sure you go in with an open mind and a good bit of, “Oh, OK, that’s where we’re going with this.  Then lead on,” attitude.

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.

Today I’ll be starting The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer so let’s all take a look at the first page shall we.

“To tell you the truth, I’d have noticed the guy even if Faye hadn’t pointed him out to me.  He was slicker than the usual Morningside Coffee crowd — off-white linen suit, black silk shirt buttoned to the throat, Jonathan Frazen-style designer glasses — but what made stop wiping table and look just a bit longer was the fact that he was reading a copy of Blade by Blade.” (3)

What are you teasing us with this week?

The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea

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The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea

By Philip Hoare

Ecco: Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

ISBN: 978-0-06-197621-6

4 stars

I’ve always been fascinated by whales — the size, intelligence, and grace of such large animals. As a child I wanted to be a marine biologist, a dream I’m sure that was prompted by a childhood trip to Sea World but that’s a story for another time.

Philip Hoare is an interesting writer. He’s clearly a man in love with his subject and that I can appreciate. He has the same childlike fascination I have with whales and that’s what drove me to this book. Hoare’s also a man obsessed with Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, something I am not. Following Ishmael’s footsteps — yes, the infamous “Call me Ishmael” character of the named book — he takes the reader on a journey to quench a lifelong interest and come to an understanding with an animal we humans only understand through their death.

Interweaving a lot of Melville throughout the first part of the book, it feels a bit like a literature lecture of sorts. While I found Melville’s relationship with Nathanial Hawthorne during his years of writing his famous tome to be somewhat relevant, I also felt like I wanted him to get on with the whale talk. Maybe I was expecting something more scientific but I can’t say that the first part intrigued me as much as the last.

He does get into whaling and what it meant for the world in general and I have to admit that I didn’t really know there were so many uses for a single whale. It’s so much more than just the oil and meat but the skins for shoes, intestines for laces, ambergris for perfume. If you don’t know what ambergris is, well, it’s whale poo. Anyway, I was somewhat aware of the enormous carnage whaling created but when put in terms of lighting Victorian England, the need for whale oil seemed so much more destructive. For a species with no natural enemies, man managed to become the death of these creatures.

I wanted to be blown away by this book and in many ways I was but it also felt like I was left wanting more. It’s a travelogue of sorts and you follow Hoare on his quest to find the meaning of the whale to him. While I found it interesting, I felt it didn’t do much for my quest.

There are some very good facts and he has done his research well casting himself far and wide to discover everything he can from early whaling to the modern day culling to the science of whales. At one point he even communes with a few trying to understand them better.

It’s a good book and a great look at creatures we know so little about. I’m glad to have read it. Hoare has an evocative style that makes you want to turn and ask him a question while reading. This style, even if you have no interest in whales, is enough reason to read this book.

The Sunday Salon – Birthday Wishes, Library Loot, and an Excellent Read This Week

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First — HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

I had to take a moment to wish my Mom a great day today. Love you Mom!

Now, the library loot. I was planning to do this post yesterday but got hung up running a million and one errands yesterday and didn’t find time to sit so today it is.

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. I put this one on hold in the hopes that I would have it for Jenny’s Books’s Diana Wynne Jones Week but it didn’t arrive in time. I’m a few chapters in and enjoying it. This book has been on my list for so long and I was worried that I would be disappointed by it (you know that whole books living up to expectations complex) but it’s good and funny. I thought the main character was going to bother me but once I got to understand her a bit, she’s grown on me and now I find myself happily following her along on the strange little journey she’s taken to find her fortune.

The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer. I will admit that I know nothing about this book. I took it home with me without even checking what it was about but I have a feeling I am going to love it. I read the first few sentences and was completely taken in. When I dropped the books on the table my husband picked it up and asked if he could read it too. Maybe it’s the stark cover or the title, I don’t know, but I can’t wait.

The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner. Oh yes, now I get to found out what happens to Gen. You see, Gen is a Queen’s thief for a neighboring country and he’s managed to fall in love with the Queen of Attolia. Now, in the name of not giving it all away, I’ll stop there but I’m so looking forward to this one.

Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch. I browse the new arrivals shelf when I have time and this one was there with its intriguing cover. It looks sad, depressing, and I’m not sure there is a happy or even a little less depressing end to the story but there was something that made me want to read it. It’s about brothers who live together on a crumbling upstate New York farm. When one dies the other two are suspected of murder.

I had a good week of reading last week. Here’s the wrap-up:

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

The Queen of Attolia was good and I’m looking forward to continuing the series.

The Road. What do I say about this book other than it was probably one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It’s about a post-apocalyptic world where the only survivors are left to fend for themselves in world with nothing left to give. The stark writing mirrors the situation of the characters. It’s sad, disturbing, disgusting, and honestly scared me more than anything I think I may have ever read. At one point I thought I might have to pull a Joey and put the book in the freezer but decided to push on, mostly because I couldn’t put it down. I don’t know if I will ever be able to read another McCarthy book, we have No Country for Old Men on the shelf, and while my husband assures me that it’s not as violent or disturbing, I don’t think I can do it. There is one scene in this book that actually made me put the book down and walk away from it and the hubby seeing this, the following conversation occurred:

“The basement scene.”

“What?”

“The basement scene. That’s what you just read wasn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah. How did you know? I thought you said you didn’t read this one.”

“I didn’t but that scene is legendary.”

“Legendary. Legendary! I don’t think I want to read anymore today. I’m freaked. I think I’ll go watch Shark Week in the bedroom for a while.”

Yes, the basement scene. I plan to include it in my review so I will say no more. Let’s just say I was so glad to pick up Harry Potter after that book. I needed a safe place after that. I still stand by what I said though — fabulous book and one of the best I’ve read.

Next week will be all about whales and kraken so I need to get writing and editing a few reviews.

Enjoy your Sunday fellow readers. 🙂

My Favorite Reads – My Life in France

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Alyce from At Home With Books features one of her favorite reads each Thursday and this week my pick is…

My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme.

From the inside cover: In her own words, here is the captivating story of Julia Child’s years in France, where she fell in love with French food and found her “true calling.”

From the moment the ship docked in Le Havre in the fall of 1948 and Julia watched the well-muscled stevedores unloading the cargo to the first perfectly soigné meal that and her husband, Paul, savored in Rouen en route to Paris, where he was to work for the USIS, Julia had an awakening that changed her life. Soon this tall, outspoken gal from Pasadena, California, who didn’t speak a word of French and knew nothing about the country, was steeped in the language, chatting with purveyors in the local markets and enrolled in the Cordon Bleu.

After managing to get her degree despite the machinations of the disagreeable directrice of the school, Julia started teaching cooking classes herself, then teamed up with two fellow gourmettes, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, to help them with a book they were trying to write on French cooking for Americans. Throwing herself heart and soul into making it a unique and thorough teaching book, only to suffer several rounds of painful rejection, is part of the behind-the-scenes drama that Julia reveals with in inimitable gusto and disarming honesty.

Filled with the beautiful black-and-white photographs that Paul loved to take when he was not battling bureaucrats, as well as family snapshots, this memoir is laced with wonderful stories about the French character, particularly in the world of food, and the way of life that Julia embraced so wholeheartedly. Above all, she reveals the kind of spirit and determination, the sheer love of cooking, and the drive to share that with her fellow Americans that made her the extraordinary success she became.

My thoughts: I have always wanted to be able to cook like Julia Child. Her love of food is contagious in this book and the frank almost off-hand way she tells the story is wonderful. It’s as if she’s sitting next to you telling the story. It’s more than just food but the way food becomes such a large and totally encompassing part of her, and her husband’s, life during their years in France and how a woman, who didn’t know how to cook at all, found herself the icon of French cooking.

I have one of her small cookbooks in my kitchen that is ratty, food stained, and dog earned. I reference it often when I’m trying to cook something I bought and realized had no idea what to do with when I got home. It’s called Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom and is by far one of the best cookbooks I ever bought. She has a way of breaking down a recipe so easily and making it sounds as if you can make the most complicated of dishes with ease.

Memoirs are not a genre I frequent but having watched Julia on PBS for years I had to read this book. It’s just as funny as she is on the show and the stories she tells about learning French, learning to cook, and finding her way in a country and culture very foreign to her is unforgettable. Not only a good cook, she’s a great story-teller as well.

This book was finished after Julia died in 2004 by her grandnephew Alex Prud’homme but none of her voice is lost. The photographs are absolutely fabulous as well.

I don’t have copies of The Art of French Cooking but if you were to ask me what two books I covet most in the world, it would be The Art of French Cooking, Volumes 1 and 2. I should admit that I don’t cook a lot of French food and rarely follow a recipe, I mostly look at recipes for ideas, but these are two books I know I would find use for.

Witch Week – Read for Diana Wynne Jones Week

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Witch Week

By Diana Wynne Jones

Greenwillow Books

ISBN: 0-688-12374-0

4 stars

Diana Wynne Jones is an author I’ve meant to read for a long time. In fact, I’ve had Howl’s Moving Castle on my list for many years now and never got around to reading it. So when I saw that Jenny’s at Jenny’s Books was hosting a Diana Wynne Jones Week, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to read one of her books. A quick library search made me realize I was in for a challenge in just picking a book (she’s a prolific writer) but decided on Witch Week and put Howl’s Moving Castle on hold as well.

Witch Week is about students at a boarding school in England. It’s an alternative England where magic is banned and witches are burned when found. The school, Larwood House, is home to many witch orphans so when a note is found in classroom 6B that says, “Someone in this class is a witch,” chaos begins. The note starts off a flurry of accidental discoveries by students, false accusations are hurled at everyone, and an inquisitor is brought to the school to find the witch.

I started this book with visions of Harry Potter. Boarding school, witches, you know, general Harry Potter stuff. I found a book full of something else entirely. The magic is different and it’s a wonderful sort of magic that comes from being and it’s enchanting to see the students find themselves in the mess they create.

The students. I don’t know where to start with this one because I didn’t actually like any of them at the start. They’re all mean in a way, some catty, some obnoxious and I couldn’t understand why I was supposed to dislike them all. Eventually, I began to see the kids emerge and you do like them more and more. They’re real kids, and by the end, very likable people. The school is full of oddball characters — for instance, Miss Hodge, who wants desperately to marry Mr. Wentworth, another teacher at the school. She’s intent on making him like her and seeing the value in becoming her husband that she’s short sighted about everything else. She’s incredibly annoying and the use of her brain is relegated to finding a husband instead of helping any of the children.

There are some amusing and funny moments along the way that make the story very entertaining. While I was let down by the ending, not in a bad way I was just hoping that it would go another way, I think there is a sequel to this one (Year of the Griffin maybe) and sequels always make me happy so my deal with the ending is minor.

I don’t know why Wynne Jones never made it high up on my TBR but thanks to this week, I now have another author to add to my list and about 40 books to pick from for my next read. That makes me happy I took the time to read this one.