W… W… W… Wednesdays & See Ya Next Week…

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W… W… W… Wednesdays asks three (3) questions:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll be reading next?

And this week’s books are…

Currently reading – In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield

Recently finished – The City & The City by China Mieville

Reading next – Shakespeare Undead by Lori Handeland

W… W… W… Wednesdays is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Leave a comment here with a link to your own W… W…W… Wednesdays post, or share your answers at Should Be Reading.

And…with that my readers, I’m taking a break for a few days. We’re celebrating our anniversary this weekend and that means a break from everything electronic. Enjoy the long holiday weekend (if you live in the U.S. that is) and if you’re at BEA, I can’t wait to hear about your new finds.

Here’s to some great reading!

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.

1.) Grab your current read

2.) Open to a random page

3.) Share two teaser sentences from that page

4.) Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

This week, two teasers!

First up, The City & The City by China Mieville.

“I told Dhatt a place — I did not know the address, had to describe it in vague topography, which he recognised — a pieces of parkland walking distance from where Yolanda hid, to meet me at the end of the following day. “Anyone asks, tell them I’m working from the hotel. Tell them about all the ridiculous paperwork hoops they make us jump through in Besźel, that keeps me busy.”” (page 211)

Next, In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield.

“Henry could remember his own birth. Crushing pressure, heat, and then the contact with the sea, terrifyingly cold — but at the same time a release from constriction, the instant freedom of the skin.” (page 3)

What are you teasing us with this week?

The Swan Thieves

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The Swan Thieves

The Swan Thieves

By Elizabeth Kostova

Little, Brown and Company

ISBN: 978-0-316-06578-8

2.75 stars

I wanted so much to love this book. I really did and I really tried. It took me ten days of trying and, in the end, I just didn’t find the chemistry that I was so hoping for. I won’t say that I was disappointed, but I was not won over either. I think the word I’m looking for is meh.

At the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, a renowned painter named Robert Oliver attacks a painting in the gallery’s collection. Arrested and confined to a mental hospital, he refuses to speak about the incident or say anything at all for that matter. His doctor, Andrew Marlow, is known as the man who can get anyone to talk. Unfortunately, his reputation fails him with Robert. A painter as well, Marlow’s determination to find out what happened and a general personal and professional curiosity drives him to figure out the mystery behind Robert’s actions and the painting he attacked. He ends up on a strange journey that leads him to all the women in Robert’s life to find answers to a mystery he didn’t even know existed.

Kostova’s first book, The Historian, is one of my favorite books but here, I didn’t find that same adoration. The book was slow, lacked drama, and the characters where underwhelming. The descriptions of the paintings and the actual acts of painting where interesting but not enough to really hold my attention. There are flashbacks to the late 19th Century and I found these sections captivating but they felt too few and far between for me to get attached to the people involved. And when the twist comes (Yes, there’s a twist and, no, I’m not giving anything away here.), it fell flat for me because I felt I already knew it. I didn’t think there was anywhere else to go with it and it wasn’t enough for me to really feel anything about it at the point.

I will say this, Kostova has a wonderful way with words and I found myself being lulled into the story even if I didn’t feel compelled by what was happening. I know that may sound contradictory, but it’s the truth. I may not have fallen for this book, but I still enjoyed her use of the language.

Many people loved this book and I bought it the day it come out and waited to read it until now. I read numerous reviews extolling it’s qualities and wanted to wait until the hype died down so that I could enjoy this book without the words and thoughts of others floating around in my head. I’m glad I did that but I’m also sad I didn’t enjoy it more. Sometimes these things happen. I’ll still be eagerly waiting for Kostova’s next book though.

The Sunday Salon – Lazy Days

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Life seems to be slowing down, slightly, which means I’ve had a bit more time to read this week. I finished:

Persuasion by Jane Austen

The Summer We Read Gatsby by Danielle Ganek

I’m back to reading The City & The City by China Mieville which I stopped and started again to finish The Summer We Read Gatsby which is due for review.

Persuasion was enjoyable and typical Austen fare — girl, boy, letters, and love with a few annoying characters to liven up the story. The Summer We Read Gatsby was a fun, chicky sort of book with some fabulous characters, the beach, and a little romance. It was just the right book at the right time for me. The City & The City is not my normal fare but I have to say that Mieville is a talented writer and I plan to pick up more of his stuff when I finish this one.

It’s been a very lazy weekend for me but it was what I needed. There’s nothing better than a day spent with a book and that’s pretty much been my weekend with the exception of a long nap. And who doesn’t love a nap? 🙂 There’s some writing that I need to knock off today but now that I’ve got myself upright and moving, I think I can easily accomplish the job and get back to my lazy pose on the couch. There was talk of a trip to the gym but I think we’ve given up that thought for today.

Here’s to a good week of reading. Happy Sunday.

Library Loot – Smiles All Around

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It’s been weeks, looong weeks, since I’ve been to the library. I made a promise that I would read all the books that I’ve recently bought, received as gifts, and wantonly ordered with the abundance of holiday gift cards we had on hand. Well, I’ve succeeded. OK, so not entirely, but I’m down to two books, or some silly nonsense like that, and decided that I would test out my luck with a few library holds.

Here are my goodies…

In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield. I’ve had this book on hold since February. I was so excited (No, really you have no idea how excited I was.) when the library sent me a note saying it was ready for pick up. Alternate reality with mermaids! I can’t wait. I almost started this one on the train home but for once it was running on time…

Graceling by Kristin Cashore. I saw that my library has this one and I put my name in for it and, wow, did it arrive fast. I thought I’d be in line behind 20 people for this one but no, library luck was with me. I’ve read a lot of good reviews of this one and really hope it holds up.

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart. After I finished Hollick’s Pendragon’s Banner series, I went into Arthur withdrawal. I decided to take a look at a few older books and found this one circa 1970. It’s more about Merlin than Arthur but that’s what was so appealing for me. I also love the very 70s cover design as well.

The Conquest by Elizabeth Chadwick. Even though I have decided this summer with be a renewal with my love of the fantasy genre, I decided on a whim to see if the library had any Chadwick on the shelves. My library doesn’t have many of her books and they always seem to be checked out but today I found The Conquest waiting on the shelf just for me.

I was also hoping for two more books but no luck but I’m so pleased with my haul this week. Ah, smiling…

In Great Waters

Graceling

The Crystal Cave

The Conquest

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

My Favorite Reads – The Sex Lives of Cannibals

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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 Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift on the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals

From the back cover: At the age of twenty-six, Maarten Troost – who has been pushing the snooze button on the alarm clock of life by racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs – decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to Tarawa, a remote South Pacific island in the Republic of Kiribati. He was restless and lacked direction, and the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better. The Sex Lives of Cannibals tells the hilarious tale of what happens when Troost discovers that Tarawa is not the island paradise he dreamed of. Falling into one amusing misadventure after another, Troost struggles through relentless, stifling heat, a variety of deadly bacteria, polluted seas, toxic fish – all in a country where the only music to be head for miles around is “La Macarena.” He and his stalwart girlfriend, Sylvia, spend the next two years battling incompetent government officials, alarmingly large critters, erratic electricity, and a paucity for food options (including the Great Beer Crisis); and contending with a bizarre cast of local characters including “Half-Dead Fred” and the self-proclaimed Poet Laureate of Tarawa (a British drunkard who’s never written a poem in his life).

I haven’t read many travelogue type books but, of all the ones I have read, this one was probably the funniest. Troost takes situations that would make most people what to run (and possibly cry) and turns them into very funny stories. I remember laughing out loud while reading this book. Now, if you’re looking for something that’s going to give you a history of the island, it’s natives, etc. this probably isn’t for you. If you’re looking for a funny book that recounts a new living experience on the part of the author, this one’s a good read. When I finished, I can’t say that I added Kiribati to my list of places I would like to visit in this world, but it did make me want to travel.

Shadow of the King

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Shadow of the King

Shadow of the King

By Helen Hollick

Sourcebooks, Inc.

ISBN:1402218907

5 stars

Veni, vidi, vici. I came, I saw, I conquered. Helen Hollick’s Pendragon’s Banner series is one of, if not the best, Arthurian re-tellings that I have read so far. She takes a well-known story and makes it fresh and exciting.

Shadow of the King is the third book in the Pendragon’s Banner series following The Kingmaking and Pendragon’s Banner. You can read my review of The Kingmaking here and Pendragon’s Banner here.

Picking up where Pendragon’s Banner left off, Arthur has brought peace to Britain but has been talked into going to Gaul to protect interests that are not his own. While there, word reaches him that Gwenhwyfar has become sick and he believes her to be dead. He falls into a deep depression and wonders why he ever let himself be talked into leaving his home. He throws himself into the battle wishing to die and all but succeeds. Morgaine, a healer once known as the Lady of the Lake and, unbeknownst to Arthur, the mother of one of his sons, offers to stay behind and bury him while the others try to outrun the approaching enemy. What Morgaine knows that the others don’t is that Arthur is still alive. She nurses him back to health and, knowing he has nothing left to return to, he stays in Gaul living unhappily without his wife or kingdom.

Gwenhwyfar, who survived her illness, now lives a life almost a mirror image to Arthur’s sad existence. When others convince her that she must re-marry to protect what is left of Arthur’s kingdom and herself, she stalls and has trouble getting over the feeling that Arthur isn’t dead. When a man tracks her down to tell her that Arthur lives, she leaves everything to find him. Unfortunately, when Gwenhwyfar finds him, he’s not the Arthur she knew and he tells her that he won’t be returning. Heartbroken, she decides she needs to live even if he will not and leaves. When circumstances convince Arthur he needs his life back, he finds Gwenhwyfar and they both begin to recover from the emotional wounds of their separation. They return home to find one more fight that needs to be fought. When his son by his ex-wife Winifred makes a move to take over his kingdom, Arthur overcomes his fear and leads his men to defeat, but not destroy, his son leaving the door open for a final battle that everyone knows will bring about an end to a world they all know.

I was truly sad to see this series end. While Arthur is tempered in book three, he’s still that brooding man I fell for in the previous two books. Gwenhwyfar becomes the strong one and a great ruler in her own right. Hollick takes the tale of Arthur and moves it to epic proportions of a different nature. Yes, some of the same faces appear in this story as in others but it has a new feel to it and one I couldn’t get enough of.

If you like historical fiction and especially Arthurian legend, Hollick’s trilogy is not to be missed.

Pendragon’s Banner

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Pendragon's Banner

Pendragon’s Banner

By Helen Hollick

Sourcebooks, Inc.

ISBN: 1402218893

5 stars

Pendragon’s Banner is the second book in the Pendragon’s Banner series following The Kingmaking. You can read my review of The Kingmaking here.

Arthur, Arthur how I do adore thee. Yes, you’re an arrogant, self-centered, whoring barbarian at times but somehow none of that matters. I’ve come to expect you to be this way.

In book two of this series, Arthur has taken up the mantel of King, Gwenhwyfar has given him sons to carry on the Pendragon title, but he still refuses to settle down preferring to fight knowing the minute he stops it might be the end of him and his reign. When the tragic death of their youngest son pushes Arthur and Gwenhwyfar apart, he finally comes to the realization that being Supreme King may not mean anything without his wife and family. Tragedy and heartache follow both Arthur and Gwenhwyfar, political problems arise and fester, and Arthur is constantly watching his back afraid one his own may try to take his kingdom from him. Even after settling down in the beloved Summer Land, Arthur still fights — with his wife, for his kingdom, and his own worries and fears about what he is doing to lead his people.

While the relationship between Arthur and Gwenhwyfar is tempestuous, I like it. She’s a match for him in strength, anger, love, and stubbornness. While there is much to love about Gwenhywfar, there is much to hate in two other women Arthur can’t seem to extricate himself from — his ex-wife Winifred who still calls herself the Pendragon’s wife, and Morgause, his father’s ex-lover and his aunt. Both women cause so much pain and destruction wherever they go. They are so annoying yet so riveting.

I liked the liberties Hollick took with this story, and while it’s more realistic, I also enjoyed the small throw backs to some of the original more fantasy oriented tales. For instance, at one meeting of the Council, Arthur mentally notes how he dislikes the Roman bleacher type seating arrangement for the meeting and makes an internal comment about building a round table so he doesn’t have to turn around to see who is speaking. His sword, while not named Excalibur, has a long Saxon name and a lovely legend to go with it as well.

As I said, Arthur can be a dolt of a man, especially with his own wife. He can’t ever seem to find the words I love you or I’m sorry. He’d rather show anger than fear and while I don’t like admitting it, I couldn’t get enough is his debauched ways. He’s not overly kind or gentle but after meeting this Arthur, I don’t know if I want the old version back.

This series is fast becoming my favorite Arthurian re-telling.