Teaser Tuesdays: Cards on the Table

This week I'm taking my teaser lines from Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie. It's a Hercule Poirot mystery, and it also features his friend and occasional assistant sleuth, Ariadne Oliver. Mrs. Oliver is a writer of detective stories who was a sort of alter ego for Christie, and she's always been my favorite of Dame Agatha's characters. In this snippet (more than two lines, but they're good ones), Mrs. Oliver is explaining about her story-telling methods and how real-life crime differs from that depicted in her novels:

"What really matters is plenty of bodies! If the thing's getting a little dull, some more blood cheers it up. Somebody is going to tell something – and then they're killed first! That always goes down well. It comes in all my books – camouflaged different ways of course." (p.51)

Well, I'm only a few pages into this one and so far there's only been one murder. And things never really get dull in an Agatha Christie novel. But I'm sure the bodies will start piling up eventually.


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 a comment here.

It's Monday! What Am I Doing?

Do you hear that? That tapping? No, it's more like a rattle. Something shaking or quivering and making a tap-tap-tap-tap-tap sound. Every time I make a move. It's driving me nuts. But I can't figure out where it's coming from. Just a second while I change chairs.

OK. Starting over. Now then, what's been going on? Well, we got the bedroom rearranged. Got a lot of stuff stored. Got rid of a lot of junk. Got my work area out of the bedroom and into the study.... I know that's not what you want to hear about, but that is why I haven't been getting much reading done so far in September. Well, that and all that U.S. Open tennis I've been watching. But that's all behind me now and it's back to the books – or, as George Costanza would say, I'm back, baby, I'm back!

So, here's how things stack up:

• Last couple of weeks -
  
  Finished All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang (should have a review up shortly)
  
  Finished The Inheritance by Simon Tolkien (ditto on the review)
  
  
• This week -
  
  Reading Anne Fortier's Juliet which I started last month.
  
  
• In the wings -
  
  Too much to choose from, as usual. But I'm thinking it'll probably be something for the RIP/V Challenge, so some of the possibilities are Stephen King's The Dark Half which I got from the library last week, or Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which has been on my TBR list for decades now (I'm determined to get it read this year). Or maybe something by Agatha Christie – haven't read anything by Dame Agatha in several years, and I've got a sudden hankering for some nice cozy Marple or Poirot.
  

So that's my reading life at the moment. Now if I can just figure out where that tapping is coming from (it obviously wasn't the chair) – I'll be able to get back to it.

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: Disaster!

This week's BTT question: You’ve just dropped your favorite, out-of-print book into a bathtub, ruining it completely … What do you do now?

If I lost a favorite book to some disaster (watery or otherwise), I would first of all probably swear a lot. Then I'd be very depressed – maybe even shed a few tears. Then I'd start looking online for a replacement – ABE Books, Amazon, eBay – all the usual places. I might also check the used-book stores in this area, although there aren't many of those left.

But I take showers, so I would never be presented with the problem of books dropped in the bath.

And if I did take baths, my favorite out-of-print book would never come near the water.

"Waiting On" Wednesday: A Nose for Justice

This is my first time joining in on "Waiting On" Wednesday. Hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, WOW is a weekly meme that "spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating."

And the book I'm eagerly anticipating is:


A Nose for Justice
By Rita Mae Brown
Publication Date: 21 September 2010

Product Description (from Amazon.com):

Explosive sabotage and the startling unearthing of a hundred-year-old skeleton on a Nevada ranch thrillingly start off this debut novel in a tail-wagging new series from New York Times bestselling author Rita Mae Brown.

With the ruins of her high-powered Wall Street job now far in the rearview mirror of her rented silver Camaro, thirty-two-year-old Mags Rogers arrives at her great-aunt Jeep’s sprawling Wings Ranch to reassemble her life. In the passenger seat, with his suspicious nose to a cracked window, is Mags’s beloved wirehaired dachshund, the urbane Baxter.

Mags was named for her great-aunt, Magdalena—though everyone calls the spry octogenarian rancher Jeep. From piloting planes in World War II to discovering one of America’s largest gold deposits, Jeep has enjoyed a lifetime jam-packed with love and adventure, and she’s not done yet. At her side—to Baxter’s low-down distress—is Jeep’s loyal German Shepherd mix, King. The growlings are mutual: King sniffs that Baxter is a “fuzzy sausage.”

Meanwhile, someone pipe-bombs Red Rock Valley’s pumping station, endangering the water supply near and far. Deputy Pete Meadows links the sabotage to a string of local murders, but he doesn’t yet know if it’s a corporate plot or twisted eco-terrorism. He’s also called out to Wings Ranch when human bones are dug up in Jeep’s barn; the dead man’s ring identifies him as an elite Russian military officer from the late 1800s, apparently knifed to death. In her search to find out whodunit, Mags uncovers fascinating history about Jeep’s ranch, including an intriguing connection to Buffalo Bill.

Mags and Pete have mysteries to solve, among them why they are so drawn to each other. Baxter and King team up when it comes time to protect their humans. And all the while, Jeep Reed, the sassiest wit in the West, has a bold plan for Red Rock Valley in which they all will play a part.

I love the Mrs. Murphy mysteries Rita Mae Brown writes (with the aid of Sneaky Pie Brown, her pet tabby cat). So this new series is something I'm really looking forward to, even if it does take the spotlight off those clever kitties.

Random Notes: Awards and Prizes

Saw a notice in this morning's Shelf Awareness newsletter – this year's Man Booker Short List has been issued:

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey (Knopf)
Room by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown)
In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut (Atlantic Books)
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (Bloomsbury UK)
The Long Song by Andrea Levy (FSG)
C by Tom McCarthy (Knopf)

I'm not sure how many of those have been released here in the US. The news caught my attention because I just received a copy of Room, which I haven't started yet (but it sounds really intriguing). The winner will be announced October 12. You can read more about the list here.

And the Hugo Award winners for this year have been announced. I don't read as much sci-fi as I once did, but I still like to keep up with the major publications in the genre. This year there was a tie for the Best Novel award, between The City & The City by China Miéville and The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi.

The award for Best Novella went to "Palimpsest" by Charles Stross; "The Island" by Peter Watts won the award for Best Novelette; and the Best Short Story award went to "Bridesicle" by Will McIntosh. Read about the rest of the winners and the Hugo Awards in general here.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Inheritance

My teaser lines this week are from The Inheritance by Simon Tolkien (grandson of JRR). It's a mystery novel and I'm enjoying it a lot so far, even though most of it is much less other-worldly than this passage (more than two lines, but I couldn't decide what to cut):

It was the house that was the problem. . . . The house seemed to be watching him. In defiance he had started taking pictures of it, concentrating particularly on the shadowy times of day – just before dusk and after the dawn – and had then found himself examining his prints for apparitions. (p. 44)

Have you ever taken a photo and then found something (or someone) in it you didn't expect to see? I have, although in my case it's not usually anything ghostly – more in the UFO category.


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 a comment here.

Booking Through Thursday: Film to Paper?

This week's Booking Through Thursday topic is about movies made from books: Even though it’s usually a mistake (grin) … do movies made out of books make you want to read the original?

To start with, I should say that, ideally, I prefer to read the book first, and then see the film. But since conditions are very rarely ideal, I do usually end up seeing the film adaptations before I read the book (or, even more frequently, instead of reading the book).

Sometimes seeing the movie first will do just the opposite – convince me that the book really isn't something I want to spend any time on. I suppose that's unfair – most film adaptations leave much or most of the original book far behind. But the movies do sometimes have that effect.

This is an interesting question for me because I've been thinking a lot about books-into-movies this week, since seeing the DVD of Roman Polanski's latest film, The Ghost Writer. It's really a great work that didn't get enough attention because of the unfortunate personal drama that was swirling around Polanski at the time he was making it. It's an adaptation of Robert Harris' political thriller, The Ghost, and Polanski worked closely with Harris on the screenplay. And after seeing the film and a short documentary about the making of the film, now I really want to read the novel. (Polanski's film The Ninth Gate, an adaptation of Arturo Pérez-Reverte's novel The Club Dumas had that same effect – for which I'll be forever grateful.)

So I guess my answer to the question would be: sometimes but not always. Which seems to be my answer to most of these BTT questions. Well, decisiveness is so over-rated, don't you think?

And what about you? Do movies ever influence your reading? (Please feel free to leave me a link to your BTT post in a comment here.)