RIP IV Challenge

I should definitely not be doing this. I've got more than a dozen books already lined up to read this fall, for various challenges I've got going. So one more challenge is probably not a good idea. But Carl V at Stainless Steel Droppings has announced the start of the R(eaders) I(mbibing) P(eril) IV Challenge, and I j(ust) c(an't) r(esist). (Also can't resist that gorgeous banner with artwork by Jennifer Gordon.) Many thanks to Carl for hosting this again.

The challenge runs for two months, from September 1 through October 31, and there are multiple reading levels, or "perils" to choose from, and several different subgenres (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Dark Fantasy, Gothic, Horror, Supernatural). You can read all about the guidelines and join the fun by visiting the challenge announcement page at Stainless Steel Droppings.

I'm going to throw caution to the wind and sign up for Peril the First (read four books of any length, from any of the subgenres). That may be wishful thinking on my part, but no guts no glory – right? Haven't made a final choice of books yet, but my main list includes:

From Doon with Death. Ruth Rendell
The Horned Man. James Lasdun
The Lair of the White Worm. Bram Stoker
The Man in the Picture. Susan Hill
The Woman in Black. Susan Hill
We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Shirley Jackson

The list includes choices from several different subgenres. And, since I love making lists almost as much as I love reading the books themselves, you had to know I'd have a list of other possibilities. So, a few backups:

Bleeding Heart Square. Andrew Taylor
Cemetery Dance. Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Dark Echo. F.G. Cottam
Her Fearful Symmetry. Audrey Niffenegger
Lethal Legacy. Linda Fairstein
Mr. Murder. Dean Koontz
Requiem. Graham Joyce
The Book of Air and Shadows. Michael Gruber
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. H.P. Lovecraft
The Forgery of Venus. Michael Gruber
The House Next Door. Anne Rivers Siddons
The House of Lost Souls. F.G. Cottam
The Real Opera Ghost and Other Tales. Gaston Leroux
The Little Stranger. Sarah Waters
The Séance. John Harwood

And now I'm off to have my head examined. Oops! I mean off to start reading those scary stories.

Teaser Tuesdays: Death Goes Right On Dancing

Well, since I'm still reading the same couple of books I've been reading for quite a while now, my teaser for this week comes from the same book as last week's – Dance of Death by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Looks like this is one I'll be finishing up at the beach later this week – but that's OK because it should be a great beach read. Anyway, here's my teaser:

"Out of habit, he glanced in his rearview mirror to see if he was being followed. There was no evidence of it, but – as Proctor well knew – the lack of evidence of being followed was not evidence of a lack of being followed." [p. 279]

Yes, and just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you, right? There's probably a point to be made there about invisible weapons of mass destruction, too, but it's much too early in the day to take that on.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB17 at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or participate yourself, head on over to her blog. And these are the rules: Grab your current read; Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given! Please avoid spoilers!

Tuesday Thingers: Updating Books in a Hurry

This week's topic for the Tuesday Thingers group is about updating the books in your LibraryThing listing:

Were you aware that you could edit the book details from the cover images under Your Library? Do you have a quick way you like to update books that are already in your library?

Well, generally when I want to edit a book in my LT library, I just search for that book in my list and then hit the "edit" icon. But I did know that you could change the cover selection by clicking on the cover image in your book list. And that, of course, brings up the book page where you can edit all the other information, too. So I guess I did know about this feature, even though I didn't know I knew!

And Wendi also asks: Do you have any topics/areas you'd like to explore on Tuesday Thingers or general blog/book topics for the coming weeks?

I don't really have any very original suggestions for topics, but I do think there are some interesting things to be found on the statistics page that might be fun to look at – stuff I didn't realize they'd added. For instance, under Common Knowledge on your statistics page, you can check out all the different characters and places in your library, as well as some of the events – World Wars I and II, and the American Civil War figure prominently in my library even though I like to think I don't read war books. My husband must have snuck those in!

Tuesday Thingers is hosted by Wendi of Wendi's Book Corner. If you'd like to see more or participate yourself, head on over to her blog and leave a comment.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Well, today I'm still reading John Updike's Rabbit Is Rich. I've been reading John Updike's Rabbit Is Rich for three weeks now. And it looks like I'll be reading John Updike's Rabbit Is Rich for the next three weeks, if I keep going at this rate. Nothing to do with the book – it's very enjoyable. I just haven't been able to settle down to reading for any length of time, for some reason.

But I may take a little break from Rabbit and his tribulations this week, because we're headed for the Delaware coast in a couple of days. So I'll probably be looking for something a bit lighter for beach reading. I'm planning to take along at least two or three books – a main read, and a couple of back-ups. And I'm assuming I'll probably pick up a few books along the way; I usually do, although most of the area bookstores I always enjoyed browsing have closed in the last couple of years.

Haven't made my final pick yet, but this is my short list.

• Dance of Death, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I'm actually about halfway through this one, so I'm pretty sure I'll be taking it along.
• Victory Over Japan, by Ellen Gilchrist. This would be a good choice because it's a book of short stories and can be dipped into for short bursts between naps in the sun and dips in the surf. Besides, I'm reading it for a challenge that ends in a few weeks.
• The Inn at Lake Devine, by Elinor Lipman. I've had this book on my TBR list for years now – ever since I read Lipman's The Ladies' Man, which I loved.
• The Atlantis Revelation, by Thomas Greanias. I have an ARC of this and really should get it read as soon as I can. The only problem is that it's a hard cover, and I really prefer to take paperbacks to the beach.
• Fer-de-Lance, by Rex Stout. I started this one back at the beginning of the summer, but never managed to finish it. So it's a likely candidate.
• The Romance Readers' Book Club, by Julie L. Cannon. I really don't know much about this novel – just picked it up from one of the bargain bins at Border's a couple of months ago. Just sounds like it would be a great summer read.

So, those are my choices for this week's reading matter. The list may change, of course. And I definitely won't be getting all of them read. In fact, if we get really good weather while we're there, I may devote most of my time to sunning and beachcombing and general time wasting. I'm really good at that last one.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly event hosted by J. Kaye of J. Kaye's Book Blog. To find out what everyone is reading, or to participate yourself, head on over and leave a comment.

Friday Finds: 21 August 2009

For some reason I don't have many new finds this week. Just two, really – one fiction and one nonfiction.

Fiction first. Selden Edwards' novel The Little Book isn't really new; it came out last year, but I'm just now hearing about it. The publisher's description calls it a story of a man's "dislocation in time." Sounds like part sci-fi and part mystery tale, which would make it a perfect book for me.

And my nonfiction find is Fred Kaplan's 1959: The Year Everything Changed, which was published earlier this summer. Kaplan argues that instead of focusing entirely on the cultural changes of the '60s, we should really look at 1959 as the year "that ushered in the wave of tremendous cultural, political, and scientific shifts that would play out in the turbulent decades that followed." Well, of course, the culture was beginning to change even before 1959, but it's an interesting theory and the book sounds like a great read. Especially for those of us who actually lived through the period. Yes, the codgers, to be more precise.


Friday Finds is a weekly event hosted by mizb17 at Should Be Reading. Participants are asked to share with other bloggers about the new-to-you books found during the week - books you either want to add to your TBR list, or that you just heard about that sound interesting.

Booking Through Thursday: Recent Best

Well, yes, I did see this one coming. This week's BTT topic is (wait for it…) "What’s the best book you’ve read recently?"

This one is pretty easy for me. The most recent book I've read was Linwood Barclay's new thriller, Fear the Worst. And it's also the best book I've read recently. I had never heard of Barclay before I received the advance readers' copy, but now I'll certainly be looking for more of his books.

Choosing Fear the Worst as my "recent best" is saying quite a lot, because I've read several really, really good books this summer, starting back in June with Katie Kitamura's The Longshot. I believe Kitamura's debut novel hasn't really gotten the promotion it deserves. I was expecting it to create more of a stir, because it's a very moving, well-written book. Possibly the subject matter is keeping it from a wider readership, and that's a shame.

One other book I've recently enjoyed is Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant. I'll probably have a review of that one up later today. Dunant's tale of women coping with life in a 16th Century convent surprised me because I'm not usually a big fan of historical fiction. But I guess now and then it pays to step out of that famous comfort zone, doesn't it?

Teaser Tuesdays: Dance of Death

August 18th already! What's going on with this summer, ya'll? It's moving way too fast. And somewhere back around the middle of July I got behind with my reading schedule, and really never have been able to get back on track. Actually, I'm having trouble just finding the track. Bummer.

Did I say "bummer"? OK, no more Woodstock anniversary shows for me.

This week I'm still mainly reading Updike's Rabbit Is Rich, but since I used that one for last week's teaser, I thought today I'd use the other book I've got going at the moment, Dance of Death by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It's one of those books I started last month and never managed to get through. I'm enjoying it a lot – as I've said once or twice before, I'm a huge fan of Aloysius Pendergast – but at the rate I'm going, I'll be finishing it up sometime around New Year's Eve.

OK, moving on. This snippet comes from page 107:

"He paused in the doorway of the restaurant, looking at her. The morning sunlight had turned her glossy black hair almost blue, given her pale skin the sheen of fine marble."

I've noticed that black hair is almost always "glossy" in these Preston/Child books – at least when it's on the head of a female. Which makes it sound like they've all been greasing themselves down with Vaseline or something. But the fact that her hair is "almost blue" is a very descriptive little addition. Sounds like maybe he's having a rendezvous with Veronica from the old Archie comics, doesn't it?


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB17 at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or participate yourself, head on over to her blog. And these are the rules: Grab your current read; Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given! Please avoid spoilers!

Booking Through Thursday: Recent Worst

This week's BTT question is: What’s the worst book you’ve read recently?

As opposed to your all-time worst. Which is good because I've lived a really long time and read some real stinkers over the years. I couldn't possibly choose just one of those as THE worst, and if I listed ALL of them, I'd be here all day.

So, define "recently." Are we talking this month? This week? Well, I'm a slow reader and I don't read the tons of books that a lot of bloggers manage to get through. So I'll say for me recent is this year. And looking back over my reading year, I don't find that many clinkers. And worst? By what standard? OK, don't go there, Joy. No sense airing your blasted obsessive-compulsive problems in this venue.

All righty. Of the 30-odd books I've read so far this year, there were only three that really didn't appeal to me: The Book of God and Physics by Enrique Joven, The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist, and The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy. (Oops – that reminds me – I've never posted my review of the Dundy book. Well, I posted it at Library Thing, but not on my blog. Have to get on that later today.)

None of those books was awful; just not as entertaining as I would have liked. And they each had their "good parts." But if they hadn't been advance copies, I probably wouldn't have finished any of them. Which brings me to the books I've started this year, but put aside because they just didn't grab me. Several of those, too.

Ah, but that's a question for another Thursday, isn't it?

Review: Fear the Worst

Written by Linwood Barclay
Random House / Bantam Books, 2009
This review refers to an advance reader's copy of the book.

From the publisher's description (Random House Canada website):
Seventeen-year-old Sydney Blake’s summer is shaping up to be typical for a teenager: she’s spending it with her father, and she has landed a part-time job at a local hotel. One night, Syd fails to come home from her shift, and her father Tim is a bit alarmed. However, that alarm turns to full-on panic after he visits the Just Inn Time hotel and the manager claims that Syd has never worked there. Grilling his daughter’s friends for clues leads Tim nowhere – except to threats against his life – and as he frantically chases every lead, he can’t help but wonder if Syd is even still alive. Despite a growing list of unanswered questions, all Tim knows for certain is that he must continue searching for his daughter – no matter how high the stakes become.

This book kept me up way too late. But that's a good thing. I love it when a book has me sitting there, cruising through the pages at 2AM. And right from the start, I knew Linwood Barclay's Fear the Worst was going to be one of those wee hours books. I finished it in just a couple of sittings, and for a snail's pace reader like myself, that's a remarkable tribute to a wonderfully exciting read.

The book had plenty of plot twists and surprises, and the suspense factor was pretty high all the way through. And only one of my suspects turned out to be involved in the crime, so I would give this one high marks on the whodunit scale. Plus, I really came to like Tim Blake during the course of the novel. He was very human and therefore slightly flawed, but he was completely believable in his fury and desperation over his daughter's mysterious disappearance. But he wasn't the only attractive or interesting character in the book – in fact, they were all interesting. This isn't one of those books where all the minor characters seem like interchangeable parts. Barclay has a way of creating personalities with just a short description or a few lines of dialogue, while making each one distinct and fascinating. Just like real people.

The one complaint I have is that I felt the ending was a bit abrupt. It's not that the ending isn't satisfying – it is. But the mystery really builds right up to the final few pages. I would have welcomed another short chapter or epilogue – just something to let us readers decompress and maybe find out what happened after the big reveal. Well, it's great when a book leaves you wanting more, isn't it?

I read an ARC of the book, so I'm going to play by the rules and not include any quotes. Too bad, because for a book about a really horrendous subject, there's quite a lot of humor along the way – although it can be a little dark, of course. Especially that part about the blow-up doll. OK, that's all I'm gonna say about that. You'll have to read the book to find out more. And I recommend you do just that.

Tuesday Thingers: To Help or Not?

This week, Wendi is asking the Thingers group about the Help button that now appears on each LT page. She says: "This week's post is more of a challenge - I challenge you to go to a page and click the help button to see what comes up!" And she asks these questions: "Did you use the Help button? Did you get some good information on the page you were on? Did you use the edit feature to add/edit any of the information on the page?"

I had seen the little Help button, but hadn't really paid any attention to it until now. So I did some checking, and I have to say it makes me a little nervous. The blog says Help Thing is "available for everyone to edit." Everyone? Is that really a good idea? I think it's nice that the LT staff wants to allow members to have some control and input, but it just seems to me that sooner or later this is going to lead to massive screw ups, isn't it? I think they might just be making more work for themselves down the line, but I guess that's their decision, right?

Since I was just browsing, I didn't really get any information on the pages I looked at. And no, I didn't use the edit feature – and I doubt I'd be likely to do any editing. I'm not a techie, so I'm usually a little skittish about messing with anything that smacks even vaguely of HTML.

Tuesday Thingers is hosted by Wendi of Wendi's Book Corner. If you'd like to see more or participate yourself, head on over to her blog and leave a comment.

Teaser Tuesdays: Taking a Peek

This week I'm starting John Updike's Rabbit Is Rich. I've read some Updike in the past, but mostly his short fiction and essays – this will only be the second of his novels I've attempted. I'm reading this one for the Battle of the Prizes Challenge – the book won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1982. I've always liked Updike's writing style, but I've never really been able to get interested in the "Rabbit" books in the past, so I'm not sure how I'll feel about this one; but I'm determined to stick with it.

This fairly long snippet comes from page 285 – I know it's more than two lines, but I couldn't decide just where to cut.

He has an urge to look into the medicine cabinet framed by the rim of showbiz bulbs and waits until a gale of laughter from the drunken bunch in the living room arises to drown out any possible click of him opening the mirror-door. Click. The cabinet has more in it than he would have supposed: thick milk-glass jars of skin cream and flesh-tint squeeze bottles of lotion and brown tubes of suntan lotion, Parepectolin for diarrhea, Debrox for ear wax control, menthol Chloraseptic, that mouthwash called Cepacol, several kinds of aspirin, both Bayer and Anacin, and Tylenol that doesn't make your stomach burn, and a large chalky bottle of Maalox. He wonders which of the Murketts needs Maalox, they both always look so relaxed and at peace.

Naughty, naughty! Of course, I've never snooped through anyone's medicine cabinet. Honest. And I'm sure you haven't, either – right?


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB17 at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or participate yourself, head on over to her blog. And these are the rules: Grab your current read; Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given! Please avoid spoilers!

The Sunday Salon: Back from the Dead

It's been a while since I checked into the Salon. Actually, I haven't done much blogging or reading for the last three weeks or so. I haven't sworn off it, or anything. Just been busy with other stuff. Mainly family history stuff. One of M's aunts had a request from one of the other older members of the family for some genealogy information, and since I now seem to be the repository for that kind of data, I agreed to put together a package of photos and other leaves from the family tree. It's been a lot of work pulling it all together, but fun, too – I'm a hopeless family history freak. But by the end of the project, I did start to feel all those ancestral ghosts crowding in on me!

So my summer reading has been somewhat curtailed. But I still managed to finish two books this week – Ariana Franklin's Grave Goods (aka: Relics of the Dead), and an ARC of Fear the Worst by Linwood Barclay. That last one is due out this week, so I just got it read in the nick of time. Hope to get reviews of both posted tomorrow, but for now I'll just say I loved both of them. In fact, I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed Grave Goods because I'm not usually terribly fond of historical fiction. But I've also just recently finished Sarah Dunant's Sacred Hearts, another historical fiction work, which I also thoroughly enjoyed. (Oops! Need to get a review of that one up, too.) So maybe an old dog can learn new tricks – or at least learn to enjoy new things.

But this week, I'll be back to old friends. I'm starting John Updike's Rabbit Is Rich – reading it for the Battle of the Prizes Challenge. I've always enjoyed Updike, although I've mostly read his short fiction and essays in the past; this will only be the second of his novels I've tried. And then I'm also getting back to a book I started a couple of months ago and put aside for other stuff – Dance of Death, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Now that's one I know I'm gonna like – after reading Brimstone earlier this year, I have fallen deeply in love with Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast. And since I last saw him being apparently killed off by his evil brother in the earlier book, I'm looking breathlessly forward to his resurrection in this one.

Oh, and please don't tell my husband about that "deeply in love" bit.

Friday Finds: 7 August 2009

This week I added four more books to my "new finds" list. Don't know that they'll all be going on my TBR pile, but they look like definite possibilities.

Two of the books have been out for a while, although they're new to me. Lisa Jackson's Malice is from earlier this year, but I managed to miss hearing about it until now. And Ariana Franklin's City of Shadows was first published in 2006, but since reading her Grave Goods last week, I've become a fan and thought I'd like to take a look at one of her stand-alone novels – something not in the Mistress of the Art of Death series.

Alice I Have Been, by Melanie Benjamin, won't be published until next January, but I'm already looking forward to it. I've always been an Alice in Wonderland fan, so this is one I'm pretty sure I'll read.

And Frank Portman's Andromeda Klein is due out a little later this month. I don't read much young adult fiction anymore, but this one sounds like a really fun book. I first heard about it over at Kristen's blog, Bookworming in the 21st Century – it was one of her Friday Finds last week. Is it OK to pilfer someone else's Finds? I hope so. And I hope Kristen doesn't mind. Maybe we could just consider it a form of bloggy recycling.

Friday Finds is a weekly event hosted by mizb17 at Should Be Reading. Participants are asked to share with other bloggers about the new-to-you books found during the week - books you either want to add to your TBR list, or that you just heard about that sound interesting.

Booking Through Thursday: Recent Serious

I suppose I should have expected this week's Booking Through Thursday topic, given last week's question about humorous books. Today we have:

What’s the most serious book you’ve read recently?

I think this might be more difficult than last week's question because "serious" can mean different things in different contexts, and to different people. Also, most of the books I've read lately have been in the "popular fiction" category, with a heavy emphasis on mysteries, whodunits, thrillers, and the like. Not much classic lit, nonfiction or other really serious writing. As I've said before, I tend to shy away from books without at least some humor in them. If a book's blurb claims it's "a fascinating look at real life, written with gritty honesty and leaving no brutal detail unexplored," then I know it's not for me.

Looking back over my reading list for this year, I can really only come up with a few that I'd call serious: Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist, and The Longshot by Katie Kitamura. And of those three, only Kitamura's wonderful debut novel would get my recommendation as a great read.

And for a nonfiction title, I'd have to go all the way back to last year – I think the last nonfiction book I read was The Concord Quartet, by Samuel A. Schreiner, Jr. I've got lots of nonfiction works on my TBR list, but I just never seem to get to them. I guess I'm just not a serious kinda gal.

Teaser Tuesdays: Fearing the Worst, Hoping for the Best

This week, I'm still reading Grave Goods by Ariana Franklin. Hope to finish it later today. Well, I haven't gotten much reading (or blogging) done lately because of this genealogy project I've been working on. Yes, I know – excuses, excuses! Anyway, since I've already used that one for a couple of teasers I thought I'd move on to the book I'll most likely be starting next – Linwood Barclay's Fear the Worst. The copy I'm reading is an ARC, so you have to remember these quotes haven't been checked against the actual published version.

The book is a mystery novel centered around the search for the narrator's missing teenaged daughter. And I probably should start off with an "Adult Content" warning! Here's what I found when I gave it my first random glance:

"I'd rather kill myself than move back in with my parents. Things keep going like this, I'll be making sperm bank donations to get lunch money." [p. 50]

So, since that one was a bit unsavory, thought I'd look for something a little less X-rated, and here's what I came up with (!!!):

The woman looked my way briefly but turned her head before we could make eye contact. You don't want to be making eye contact with men coming out of XXX Delights. [p. 33]

Hmmmm. Do I really wanna read this one? Well, after all that Medieval treachery in Franklin's historical whodunit, at least this will be something completely different. But it certainly looks like the book's title is pretty accurate!


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB17 at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or participate yourself, head on over to her blog. And these are the rules: Grab your current read; Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given! Please avoid spoilers!