Teaser Tuesdays: The Warden

This week my teaser lines come from The Warden, by Anthony Trollope. First published in 1855, it was the first of his "Barsetshire" novels. This snippet comes from pages 226-227, and since I've just started reading the book, I'm not sure exactly what's going on; but I do agree with the sentiment.

The place seemed much more suitable to his requirements than the room in which he had dined....There were quantities of books, and long rows of sofas. What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Horned Man

This week my teaser lines come from James Lasdun's novel, The Horned Man, although the words belong to another author. I've just started reading the book, and as I flipped through the first few pages, I found this quote that I love; so even though it's actually Lasdun quoting someone else, I just had to use it:

I want to do something splendid.
Something heroic or wonderful, that won't be forgotten after I'm dead.
I think I shall write books.
-- Louisa May Alcott
(p. 10)

And, reader, she did! And I'm so glad!

So far, I'm pretty happy about Lasdun's work, too.



Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Last week I finished two (very different) books:

A Month in the Country, by J.L. Carr

Murder in Mount Holly, by Paul Theroux

No reviews posted yet, but I'll try to get to that later today or tomorrow. One was wonderful, one not so much.

This week, as usual, I have several books going, but today I'm reading:

The Horned Man, by James Lasdun

and continuing with

The Dovekeepers, by Alice Hoffman

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. If you want to let the world know what books you're going to be reading this week, head on over to her blog and leave your link. It's also a great way to discover new books and new blogs.

Booking Through Thursday: Fan Fiction?

This week, BTT asks: "Have you ever written any fan-fiction? If yes, why and for which book(s)? If no, would you like to and for which books(s)?....For that matter, do you ever READ fan-fiction??"

I guess -- given the fact that I had to Google "fan fiction" just to be sure I knew what we're talking about -- my answer to all that has to be "No." Interesting phenomenon, but not really my cuppa.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Dovekeepers

This week my teaser lines come from The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman. I've just started this one, and at first I had my doubts about whether or not I'd be able to stick with it -- it really doesn't sound like my usual read. But after fifty pages I'm still reading, which is a good sign. Hoffman's writing is gorgeous, and the story is intriguing if a little slow-paced. This snippet comes from page 154 -- and yes, a bit more than a couple of lines (sorry).

I married when I was a young woman, too inexperienced to know there was evil in the world. I was happy and I thought happiness lasted....My husband was kind and good-hearted, yet still I was granted more. When my daughter was born, she was so beautiful people stopped in the marketplace to congratulate me on my good fortune. I should have begun to worry then, for as fortune comes to you, so does it slip away.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Last week, I finished one book:

A Fall of Moondust, by Arthur C. Clarke

And put up one review:

Liberty, by Garrison Keillor

This week, I'm reading:

The Dovekeepers, by Alice Hoffman

Picked this one up at the library last week, and just started reading it last night. So far I'm liking it enough to keep going. But it's a very long book, and I'm not sure it's going to hold my interest for 500 pages. We'll see. Here's the description from the publisher's website:

In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and an expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power.

The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. If you want to let the world know what books you're going to be reading this week, head on over to her blog and leave your link. It's also a great way to discover new books and new blogs.

Liberty: A Lake Wobegon Novel

Written by Garrison Keillor
Viking, 2008; 267 pages

I've been holding off on saying anything about this one, hoping to come up with a more positive spin. But I guess I should just go ahead and say this was a real disappointment.

A few years back, I read Keillor's Pontoon, and really enjoyed it. And I was hoping Liberty would be a repeat of that same kind of witty, humorous tale. But with this book, Keillor presents a much darker view of Lake Wobegon and its quirky inhabitants. The humor is more sarcastic and acid in tone, and the people are an unattractive bunch to say the least.

The book is centered around 60-year-old Clint Bunsen and his attempt to oversee Lake Wobegon's annual Fourth of July parade and celebration. He's done the job for many years and maintains firm control of the event. And he was so successful last year that the town actually drew national media coverage. But in order to achieve such stature, Clint has completely reshaped and reinvented the town's traditional July 4th activities, and not everyone is happy about it. There are forces at work to overthrow Clint and bring back the old, familiar (if slightly boring) routine.

At the same time, Clint is going through a late-blooming midlife crisis -- dissatisfied with his work and marriage, and falling into an affair with a beautiful 28-year-old yoga instructor he met in an Internet chat room. The young woman, Angelica Pflame, wants Clint to run away with her to California, the land of his dreams. As Independence Day swiftly approaches, Clint must decide if he can leave his wife and make a new life with Angelica.

Or possibly abandon them all and run for Congress.

Nothing wrong with that storyline -- it could be the basis for some wonderful comedy, especially (one would think) in the hands of Garrison Keillor.

But it's just not funny, and maybe Keillor didn't actually intend it to be. Or maybe I just don't get it because I'm not a middle-aged male. I don't know. But I know this one left me feeling really depressed and glad it was over. I'd give it two stars because the beginning was good, and I do love Keillor's style -- but I'm hoping he's got all that angst out of his system now.

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Booking Through Thursday: Only Five

This week, BTT asks "If you had to pick only 5 books to read ever again, what would they be and why? ... (Such a cruel question!) "

I'm assuming the question means books that I've read and would want to re-read, rather than books I haven't read yet. Right? Well, whatever, it's a cruel question indeed. And almost impossible for me to answer, but I'll give it a go.

I suppose the first book I'd pick would be one of Lewis Carroll's Alice books – Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking-Glass. I love them both, although I think "Looking-Glass" is more interesting than "Wonderland." But either one of those would do (as long as they have the original illustrations by Tenniel).


And I'd have to take along a copy of my other favorite from childhood, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I was introduced to Huck and company when I was about 6 or 7 – my mother read an abridged version to me everyday at naptime, one summer. It put her to sleep quite efficiently, but I was riveted. And I've re-read the full novel on my own many times since then. I own a lot of different editions – none of them rare – some with illustrations, some without. It gets my nomination for Great American Novel, hands down.


Then there would have to be something by Barbara Pym. Just about any one of her novels would qualify as a book I'd hate to be without. I suppose it would come down to a three-way tie: Some Tame Gazelle, A Few Green Leaves, or Quartet in Autumn. I've read QIA more times than any of her other works, but I think I'd choose "Gazelle" as my desert island book – I think it's funnier than the other two, and I've been planning to re-read it anyway. I've always thought that if for some reason I had to flee the planet, and could take only one book with me, it would be something by Barbara Pym ... dear Barbara.


So that's three down. For number four, I'm choosing a book of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. I'd like the entire collected works, but I suppose that might be cheating. But I'd have trouble singling out any one story. As Poe himself would be the first to admit, each one is perfect. So I'm just going to choose any edition of the collected tales and not look back.


And that brings us to number five. A very hard choice. But after all that dark and horrific prose in Poe's works, I think I'd need something a little lighter and, well, hilarious. So I'm going to choose The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody by Will Cuppy (illustrated by William Steig). First read this one when I was about 10 or 11. I bought a paperback copy at the grocery store, and must have thought of it as a children's book. It was one of the funniest books I've ever read and actually taught me a lot about history (and footnotes). I've read it a number of times since then (and wrote a little piece about it for my blog, which you can see here) – it's a great book for dipping-into, without having to read it cover to cover every time. And the illustrations by Steig are a real delight, too.


So that's my five (more or less). Can't help but notice that most of them are childhood favorites, so I guess I haven't matured much. Also, these are the books I'd choose today – tomorrow's picks might be something completely different.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Another slow reading week. Didn't manage to finish the book I'm currently reading -- A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke -- but I hope to do that later today.


No reviews posted, but I've got a couple started; so I'll try to do better with that this week. Mostly what I did last week was sign up for the Victorian Challenge and obsess about what books I might read for that.


And what am I reading this week? Well, besides the Clarke book, I'm not really sure just yet. It's been quite a while since I read a good cozy mystery, and that's sort of what I'm in the mood for right now. So it might be Mrs. Malory and No Cure for Death, by Hazel Holt -- that's a series I'm determined to complete this year.


It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. If you want to let the world know what books you're going to be reading this week, head on over to her blog and leave your link. It's also a great way to discover new books and new blogs.

Reading Journal: 3 February 2012

Some quotes from A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke (1961):

Sooner or later, all astronauts believed, the human race would meet intelligence from elsewhere. That meeting might still be far in the future, but meanwhile the hypothetical 'Outsiders' were part of the mythology of space, and got the blame for everything that could not be explained in any other way. (p.38)

The mind has many watchdogs; sometimes they bark unnecessarily, but a wise man never ignores their warning. (p.51)

He could tell, by the expressions of those around him, that this was the moment that separated the men from the boys. Until that helmet was seated, you were still part of the human race; afterwards, you were alone, in a tiny mechanical world of your own. There might be other men only centimetres away, but you had to peer at them through thick plastic, talk to them by radio. You could not even touch them, except through double layers of artificial skin. Someone had once written that it was very lonely to die in a spacesuit; for the first time, Tom realised how true that must be. (p.69)

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A couple of interesting links:

• Geoff Dyer talks about the cover art on Penguin Modern Classics in "The Art of the Novel"
• Caitlin Flanagan tries to explain the Joan Didion mystique, in "The Autumn of Joan Didion"

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Books-of-Interest list -- Recent Additions:

• 1939: The Last Season of Peace. Angela Lambert
• The Book of Lost Fragrances. M.J. Rose
• Da Vinci's Ghost. Toby Lester
• The Flight of Gemma Hardy. Margot Livesey
• Girl Reading. Katie Ward
• The Haunting of Maddy Clare. Simone St. James
• The House I Loved. Tatiana de Rosnay
  
• The Icon Thief. Alec Nevala-Lee
• The Meaning of Night. Michael Cox
  
• The Solitary House. Lynn Shepherd

Booking Through Thursday: Found Books

This week, BTT asks: "Have you ever read a random book left in a waiting room or on a park bench, etc., and did you like it?"

And my answer is -- I don't think so. If I have, I don't remember it, so I guess the book must not have made much of an impression.

Actually, if I found a book in a waiting room or on a park bench or in any public place, unless it was clearly marked as a giveaway (with a Book Crossing label or something like that), I'd most likely just leave it where I found it, assuming the owner might come looking for it.