The Kingdom of Ohio

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The Kingdom of Ohio

The Kingdom of Ohio

By Matthew Flaming

Penguin Group

ISBN: 978-0-399-15560-4

4.75 stars

What happens when two people in love are separated? What happens to the love, the heartbreak? Can time and space shift?

Peter Force, newly arrived in New York City in 1900, finds a job working on the subway system at first breaking rock and then repairing the machines that break and move the earth. One cold evening, he meets Cherie-Anne Toledo, and feeling sorry for her, offers her help. Cherie-Anne tells him an amazing tale of time travel and inventors that he can’t believe but he also can’t tear himself away from her or her story.

Cherie-Anne is a mathematical prodigy and a member of the royal family of the Kingdom of Ohio, a place Peter has never heard of. While he is drawn to both Cherie-Anne and her story, he doesn’t find it in himself to believe her until he sees a few things for himself. Although cautious, he finds himself helping her intrigued by what he has seen and heard.

A lot of famous people make appearances in this book — Thomas Edison, JP Morgan, and Nikola Tesla. Numerous footnotes dot the story adding odd notes and sidebars the narrator feels are necessary for the reader to have a complete understanding. These notes make you wonder about the narrator and his actual role in the story he is telling.

The Kingdom of Ohio is a short book and a very rich one. It’s about love, heartbreak, time travel, science and its impact on the world as well as its consequences. It’s all about what we know and what we think we know. How something as simple as the light bulb can have such an effect on our lives and make us wonder where we are going and what the affect might be.

I wasn’t expecting the story I was told in this book but what I did find was lovely. It’s a grand love story, but not overly mushy or drawn out, that crosses time lines — one solidly rooted in the present and one in the past kindled by old photographs and antiques. It will leave you with a lot of questions in the end about what really happened but in a good way. I highly recommend it.

The Sunday Salon – Weekly/Monthly Wrap-Up

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The round up this week. I finished:

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Magicians & Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett

The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw

This month I read:

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Kingdom of Ohio by Matthew Flaming

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Magicians & Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett

The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw

Tonight I plan to start The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown.

I finished The Girl with Glass Feet this morning and spent the next few hours wondering if I liked it or not. It was a sad book and I wasn’t prepared for that although I should have been. A death hangs over the book and I read quickly hoping to escape it but it happened faster than the ending. I still don’t know what to think of it.

The Lord of Rings Read-Along said goodbye to The Fellowship of the Ring this month and I was pleased to find out that I love this book as much as when I first read it. The story is still fresh even after several re-reads. I plan to do a longer post later in the week so I won’t say more here. I’ll be continuing with the Read-Along with The Two Towers in March.

I’m going to make it a short post since I have a few other things planned for today. I wish you all happy reading.

Library Loot

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It’s a small bit of loot compared to a regular library visit. My trip this week was only to pick up my holds that came in. I’ve got several books at the house waiting for me and didn’t want to check out a lot but I was very excited when my books arrived since I’m really looking forward to reading two of them.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. I broke with tradition and read the inside flap on this one. I’m not sure this sequel sounds as exciting as The Hunger Games but since I found The Hunger Games to be so addicting (as soon as I finished I put this one on hold at the library), I knew had to read it. Katniss and Peeta are back and I’m ready for more.

The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown. This was a Friday Find for me. I couldn’t remember at the time of my post where I heard about it but Eva from A Striped Armchair did a review this week so now I know it was her. Thanks Eva! She gushed about the book and I’m pretty sure I will like it too. I love anything Viking and this one sounds absolutely fascinating.

Isis: A Tale of the Supernatural by Douglas Clegg. I like to browse the new arrivals section when I’m at the library and this one was sitting on the shelf looking very pretty. I love the graphic cover in red, black, and white, and I’ll be honest here, I picked this book up because of the cover. I had no idea what this book was about when I picked it up but decided on the spot it was to come home with me. We’ll see how it goes.

Catching Fire

The Far Travelver: Voyages of a Viking Woman

Isis: A Tale of the Supernatural

Bring anything interesting home from the library this week?

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!

Booking Through Thursday – Why I Read

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Booking Through Thursday asks: I’ve seen this quotation in several places lately. It’s from Sven Birkerts’ ‘The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age’: “To read, when one does so of one’s own free will, is to make a volitional statement, to cast a vote; it is to posit an elsewhere and set off toward it. And like any traveling, reading is at once a movement and a comment of sorts about the place one has left. To open a book voluntarily is at some level to remark the insufficiency either of one’s life or one’s orientation toward it.” To what extent does this describe you?

This doesn’t describe me at all. I don’t read because my life is insufficient in any way. I read for many different reasons, none of which have to do with being unhappy with my life that is so lacking in stimulation and so boring that I need a place to escape to.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to fall into a good book and escape into another world. That’s part of why I read, and my love of fantasy in particular, but I don’t do it because everything around me is so bad that I can’t take it. I also don’t think that reading is a vote in anyway to show that I’m trying to escape — OK, maybe on the metro but that’s another post.

I read because it’s entertaining. It’s educational. It’s enlightening. It’s emotional.

I read because it’s fun. Have you watched any TV lately? It’s all reality crap I can’t stand and refuse to watch so I pick up a book instead. So, maybe I am casting a vote with my reading — against bad TV.

I like to learn new things and I like to discover new interests. I like when a story or a character tugs at my heart and leaves me wondering even after I finish the book.

For some reason, this question annoyed me this morning and I’m not going to go on ranting about it, although I could. I’m just going to say, it’s not a good description of my reading habit and leave it at that.

The Coral Thief

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The Coral Thief

The Coral Thief

By Rebecca Stott

Spiegal & Grau

ISBN: 978-0-385-53146-7

2.5 stars

Daniel Connor, a young medical student from Edinburgh, is on his way to Paris to study at the Jardin de Plantes. During his journey, he meets a mysterious and beautiful woman — Lucienne Bernard — and while he contemplates her and her strange theories, she steals his letters of introduction, coral specimens, and mammoth fossils. He reports the theft of the artifacts to the police and somehow finds himself wrapped up in a mystery full of evolutionary theories, coral, and odd bits about Napoleon.

I didn’t care for Daniel. He was sexist and ignorant and I found I needed to remind myself that this was normal for the time period (1815), at least the sexist part. The main problem I had with him was that he was always complaining. Once he began to mature, he became easier to like but not by much. Lucienne is a very interesting characters though. An evolutionary philosopher and thief, she is always hiding something and is never afraid to step out of line and state sometimes the obvious and sometimes the most arcane of thoughts, especially for a woman at the time. She’s refreshing as far as the story line goes here.

Napoleon plays an odd role and one that never fits into the story for me. The short diary entries add nothing and left more questions (mostly why they were there in the first place) than answers. The vague connection does nothing for the story.

The mystery/thriller sort of ending ramps up quickly and is fairly exciting compared to the rest of the book. I do wish there had been more of that and a little more about the fossils, theories, and why Lucienne felt the need to steal them because I found that part of the story interesting but overall it sort of fell flat for me.

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.

Be careful not to include spoilers. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!

I’m finishing up The Fellowship of the Ring and the last of The Magicians & Mrs. Quent so I thought I’d share a teaser from a book I’ll be starting later this week.

A wind was coming from the north, blowing rain clouds like dust until they coated the sky gray. Henry sat on his cottage doorstep, the wind filling his mouth and nostrils, blowing the compost smells of the bog into his stomach.

The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw, page 115.

The Girl with Glass Feet

Lord of the Rings Read-Along – The Fellowship of the Ring, Part II

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The Lord of the Rings Read-Along is continuing this month with The Fellowship of the Ring. Clare from The Literary Omnivore is hosting the discussion for this book.  She’s posted a second set of questions for all of us participating.

If you’ve been with us since the beginning, how do you feel about the narrator compared to the narrator in The Hobbit?

How’s your pace going? Is it smooth sailing or have you found passages that are difficult to get through?

If you’ve read this series before, is The Fellowship of the Ring, for the most part, as you remembered? If not, is it what you expected or something else?

Are you using any of the extra features- maps and indexes, for instance- in your book?

On with the show…err, book.

The Fellowship of the Ring

If you’ve been with us since the beginning, how do you feel about the narrator compared to the narrator in The Hobbit? I actually like the narrator in this book better than in The Hobbit.  It has a more adult feel to it.

How’s your pace going? Is it smooth sailing or have you found passages that are difficult to get through? It’s smooth sailing.  I have skipped a few songs though — some are just too long for me.  I did read them in The Hobbit and most of the ones in this book too, but sometimes I gloss over them or flip past them entirely.  I know there are a lot of people out there that really love the songs, but, I’m not one of them.  Please don’t hate me for it.  🙂

I haven’t found any passage difficult to get through. Although, I did find The Counsel of Elrond to be a bit windy but wouldn’t really say I got bogged down, just a little bored with all the speeches.  In fact, the most difficult thing I’m dealing with in my reading is not reading the whole book in one sitting!  I’m trying for only 2-3 chapters a night but will admit that it’s not working out exactly as I planned.  I’m finding it very hard NOT to keep reading.

If you’ve read this series before, is The Fellowship of the Ring, for the most part, as you remembered? If not, is it what you expected or something else? I was surprised to find that I didn’t remember as much as I thought I did.  I actually had to laugh at one point because what I remembered was from the movie and not the book.  SPOILER ALERT *****  For instance, in the chapter A Short Cut to Mushrooms, the scene where the Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and Sam are on their way to cross the Brandywine River on the ferry and they end up crossing old Farmer Maggot’s turnip field. After a little dinner and some nice conversation, he takes the four hobbits down to the ferry in his wagon.  I remember this being a huge chase scene with the Black Riders just missing the little hobbits a they make a run for the boat.  Not so!  It’s completely different in the book, and in a way, so much better.  The scene is still tense and you are worried if they will make it, but it fits better.  ***** ALERT OVER

Are you using any of the extra features- maps and indexes, for instance- in your book? No, I don’t really look at the maps while reading. I’ll sometimes skim over them after though.

Clare, our host for The Fellowship of the Ring, has mentioned doing a movie marathon after we finish the read-along and I’m in.  I need to find how how much I remember from the books and the movies!

Are you joining us in the read-along?  Any thoughts on The Fellowship of the Ring?

The Sunday Salon – Thoughts on 3 Books

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The roundup this week. I finished:

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

I’m still reading:

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Magicians & Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett

I’m attempting to read The Fellowship of the Ring slowly but with only a few chapters left, I think I’ll be finishing up in the next day or two. I plan to have a mid-book check-in post tomorrow for the Lord of the Rings Read-Along which talks a little bit more about the book so I won’t say much more here.

I’m reading The Magicians & Mrs. Quent on my Nook. So far it’s so so and moving a bit slow but I’m hoping it picks up soon. I’m about half way through the book and there hasn’t been a mention of Mrs. Quent yet but Mr. Quent has finally shown up. I’m curious as to how a few things will be tied up so I plan to keep reading.

Remarkable Creatures was a lovely book. The last Chevalier book I read was The Girl with the Pearl Earring which I enjoyed and Remarkable Creatures was just as entrancing. The main characters, Elizabeth Philpot and Mary Anning, are endearing. Elizabeth is cold, harsh, and way too outspoken for a woman at the time (around 1810) which sometimes gets her in trouble. She takes a minute to grow on you, but once she does, you’re infinitely grateful for her forwardness and willingness to stand up for what she thinks is right. Mary on the other hand is too trusting and you wish she wouldn’t be. While the book is about Mary’s fossil discoveries of previously unknown sea creatures, the ichthyosaurus and the plesiosaurus, and the ways in which her discoveries changed the scientific community and brought about a discussion of the theory of extinction, the book really is about the friendship these two women forge. Elizabeth is an educated spinster from London with no prospects for marriage and Mary is a poor, uneducated girl from the seaside town of Lyme Regis who hunts for fossils on the beach to sell to tourists. Other than the fossils they both love and obsessively hunt, the two have little in common. You get to watch both grow and challenge the men who want to tell them how to act and what to think. It’s a wonderful read and I recommend it.

Sunday here in DC has dawned bright and sunny and I’m off to enjoy the beautiful day. Happy Sunday everyone.