The Sunday Salon – Buying Books

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There is a book buying ban currently in place at our house.  We have a lot of books and only so much space so we thought it best not to buy anymore, for the time being.  I faithfully use the library, and while there are still review copies that find their way through the door, for the most part, I have only bought about five books this year.  I am proud of myself because, let’s face it, for anyone that loves and adores books of all shapes and sizes, that’s a nearly miraculous feat.

However, I mention this because I’m being tested.  Yes, there are always books that I want to buy but if I can get a copy from the library, I do, and if I read and enjoy the book, all the better.  All last week and the week before there have been reviews of Mockingjay (If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s the third in The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins.) and I’ve read the reviews, even the ones with spoilers because I love spoilers, and I want to read it — right now.  I put it on hold at the library but I’m #48 (now 26 I think) in the queue so the way it stands, I may not get a chance to read it until sometime in 2012.  The world could end by then, at least if you believe the Mayans.  There is another book that I so much want to read too and I’m thinking of breaking the pact, temporarily of course, and buying both so I can satisfy my need to know.  That doesn’t make me a bad person does it?

I thought I’d also do a reading wrap-up from the last two weeks and all of August.

The last two weeks, I’ve read:

The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America by Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith

Achilles by Elizabeth Cook

Life in Medieval France by E.R. Chamberlin

The House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara

In August, I read:

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

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

Howls’ Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer

The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America by Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith

Achilles by Elizabeth Cook

Life in Medieval France by E.R. Chamberlin

The House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch was a DNF for me.  I couldn’t get into it and I gave up.

August was full of wonderful books and I would be really pressed to pick a favorite, so I won’t.

Now, I must go and re-write several of the reviews that recently got eaten by my computer.  I tried recovering them but no such luck.  I’m annoyed because they were very good reviews.  Plus, I have a backlog of five reviews to write and three to re-do that I’d like to get a start on before going off to the museum.

Happy Sunday, and if you’re in the U.S., enjoy the Labor Day holiday.  Don’t ya just love having Mondays off…

Howl’s Moving Castle

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Howl’s Moving Castle

By Diana Wynne Jones

Greenwillow Books

ISBN: 0-06-029881-2

4.5 stars

Howl’s Moving Castle has been on my list of books to read for a long time, too long in fact.  I finally got around to reading it and found a lovely story complete with fantasy, magic, and wonderful characters.

Sophie Hatter lives in a small town called Market Chipping in the land of Ingary.  Market Chipping is not far from the land of the Witch of the Waste, a very spiteful and mean witch, and Wizard Howl’s moving castle which roves around the mountainside outside of town.

Sophie is the oldest of three daughters of a well to do family that owns a hat shop.  Sophie knows that as the oldest she will be the one to fail first and is happy to see her sisters seek their fortunes instead of herself.  When their father dies many things change for the small family, and with her sisters set up in safe places where they will be able to find happy futures, Sophie stays to work at the hat shop.  She unknowingly sells a hat to the Witch of the Waste who turns out to be an unhappy customer and returns to turn her into an old woman.  Disgusted with her new situation, she decides to set out and seek her fortune.  As an old lady she figures she has nothing left to worry about.  With Wizard Howl’s castle in her sights, she chases it down and settles in making herself indispensible to Howl, his assistant, and the fire demon that inhabits and powers the castle fireplace.

When I started this book I was a little put off by Sophie who was content to be last and willing to believe that she shouldn’t have a good fortune awaiting her.  She’s down on herself, has no confidence, and while talented when it comes to designing and decorating hats, she thinks nothing will come of it.  Being an old lady makes her drop all inhibitions and she begins to speak her mind, take chances, and look for opportunities.  She becomes infinitely more likable when she’s old.  Howl is also an interesting character and not at all what everyone thinks but the most likable character for me was the fire demon Calcifer who Sophie befriends, mostly by bullying him into doing what she wants.

Howl’s Moving Castle is a great warm-hearted fantasy.  There are characters to get attached to and the story of these people thrown together and tormented by the Witch of the Waste, all for different reasons and all unaware of the others’ problems, is a good tale.  In the end, everything that Sophie thought she could never have because she simply didn’t feel herself worthy, changes for her and she sees herself, her family, and her friends in a whole new way.  Happy endings sometimes are the best.

I’m a repeat reader of authors that I like and Diana Wynn Jones will become one of those authors that I repeatedly re-read.

My Favorite Reads – The Shipping News

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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 Shipping News by Annie Proulx.

From the back cover: At thirty-six, Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman, is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife meets her just desserts.  He retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle’s struggle to reclaim his life.  As three generations of his family cobble up new lives, Quoyle confronts his private demons — and the unpredictable forces of nature and society — and begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.

My thoughts: I haven’t thought about this book in years but when I was flipping around the movie channels about a week or so ago, I came across the movie and remembered how much I loved this book.

Quoyle is such a sad character but you love him, mostly because you feel so bad for him at the beginning, but when he starts to realize that life has some good parts, you really love him.  The family dynamics are fantastic and you can laugh, get annoyed, and cry at all their lives.  I also adored the way Proulx adds cultural touches to the book that feel so right and not added on to fit with the setting.  Everything and everyone belongs.

This book was published in 1993 but if you see a copy around, give it a try.  You’ll be delighted and justly rewarded.

The Thieves of Manhattan

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The Thieves of Manhattan

By Adam Langer

Spiegel & Grau Trade Paperbacks

ISBN: 978-1-4000-6891-3

4 stars

Ian Minot is an author; an author that works in a coffee shop to pay the rent and stares at a blank computer screen on his writing days.  His girlfriend is a gorgeous, Eastern European woman and a much better writer than he is.  He expects her to dump him at any moment.  He wants to write the truth, but unfortunately for him, his life isn’t the stuff great books are made of.  He struggles looking for inspiration becoming bitter with his chosen career wondering if it might be better for him, and any potential readers he might acquire, to quit now.

When a man named Blade publishes a gritty memoir detailing all the crime, prison time, and retched things he’s done in his life, Ian takes offense telling anyone who will listen than the guy is a liar and the whole book is a fraud.  When his girlfriend gets a book deal, life gets even worse for Ian.  That’s when the confident man walks into his life with a proposition that will change his existence — together, the confident man and Ian, will pass off the confident man’s fiction novel as Ian’s memoir and wait for the cash and critical acclaim to roll in.  With nothing to his name and no coffee shop job left, Ian agrees to the scheme and finds out that the truth is not always what one believes.

The Thieves of Manhattan is a wry look at the publishing industry and the problems inherent in the industry, as well as, the silly stereotypical people and behaviors that inhabit it.  I found the first part of the story a bit slow.  Ian is a complainer and not all that easy to like which seems to be the way he likes it, but once the confident man steps into the picture, it picks up and takes an interesting turn.  You see it coming but Langer writes in such a way that makes it fun to read even when see (or think you see) how it will all end.

Langer makes up a lot of terms and uses industry jargon and includes a glossary in the back of the book.  At first I thought it was amusing, but quickly found it annoying and pretentious.  He uses the terms too freely and too often and they lose their entertainment value early on.  At least this was the case for me, could be different for others.

Overall, it’s a great quick read that lambastes the publishing industry for all its problems and all the crap that it publishes.  The main character doesn’t hold himself up as some honest, wonderful writer, and even though he goes along with the scheme he manages to get himself involved in, he doesn’t ever think of himself as better.  Just someone that broke into the system by fraud and found a way out of using the same corrupt system that got him in.  It’s an interesting read.

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.