The Literary Gothamite

Top Ten Tuesday: Freebie

2013-05-28T12:29:00.002-04:00

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme from The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is a freebie, meaning I get to pick my own. Generally, it's recommended that you peruse the past topics for one you may have missed, etc. Instead, I checked out what my fellow bloggers were posting. At The Broke and the Bookish they posted their top ten ingredients for a perfect day of reading; There were books involved...listed the top ten sequels they're dying to read; and The Zombie Librarian listed the top ten books they'd like to forget and then read for the first time again. But it was Tsuki's Books where I found the topic I wanted to stick with:

Top Ten Books I Haven't Bought Yet, But Desperately Want

This kind of sort of goes hand in hand with a topic covered back in December, but a little different. Also, I'm leaving out the special editions. This is about the books, not the editions. And this is really just a small selection...obviously...I mean, my Amazon wishlist (the one of just books) is about 115 books long so...

1. The Thorn and the Blossom:

A Two-Sided Love Story,

by Theodora Goss

2. The New York Regional Mormon

Singles Halloween Dance:

A Memoir, by Elna Baker

I got hooked on Elna Baker through The Moth podcast.

3. The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea,

by Philip Hoare

4. A Moment in the Sun,

by Jonathan Sayles

5. Pretty Monsters: Stories,

by Kelly Link

6. The Fugitive,

by Massimo Carlotto

7. I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes,

by Jaclyn Moriarty

8. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day,

by Winifred Watson

9. The Twelfth Enchantment,

by David Liss

10. The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc.,

by Jonathan Lethem

Mailbox Monday 5/27/13

2013-05-27T22:08:00.000-04:00

Mailbox Monday is hosted this month by 4theLOVEofBOOKS

This week I received ZERO books. I am saddened.

Last week's giveaway was for a copy of Jennie Fields' paperback edition of The Age of Desire. The winner was:

Shoshanah G

Please check your email for details!

Hopefully I'll get some new books next week. In the mean time, my roommate has gone on vacation and left me with these books to peruse:

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1), by George R. R. Martin

The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1), by Stephen King

California Fire and Life, by Don Winslow

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Favorite Covers of Books You've Read

2013-05-21T12:05:00.002-04:00

Top Ten Tuesday is, as always, brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's Top Ten holds a special place in my heart. I'm a sucker for covers. I've discussed this before (and you will see some covers from when I discussed this in 2011). Sure, you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I often do. Can't help it. Just the way of the world. Whatever.

So this week's top ten is meant for me. :D

Be sure to check out The Book Cover Archive to find some new favorites.

And don't forget to enter this week's giveaway!

Giveaway: The Age of Desire, by Jennie Fields

2013-05-21T11:16:00.001-04:00

You can win your own copy of The Age of Desire by entering this week's giveaway! Winner will be announced on Monday 5/27. ~~Enter by clicking here.~~
This giveaway has ended.

The Age of Desire, by Jennie Fields

(Penguin; On-sale: 5/28/13)

"Now in paperback, a sparkling glimpse into the life of Edith Wharton and the scandalous love affair that threatened her closest friendship, The Age of Desire: A Novel, by Jennie Fields, brings to life one of literature’s most beloved writers, whose own story was as complex and nuanced as that of any of the heroines she created.

Extraordinary coincidences, such as the sudden discovery of more than 100 letters from Edith to Anna, Edith’s governess turned literary secretary and confessor, make Jennie Fields’ own story of writing this novel remarkable. In The Age of Desire, Fields seamlessly weaves these letters and other diary entries throughout a narrative that alternates between the points of view of both women, taking the reader on a vivid journey through Wharton’s exhilarating world."

For more information, please check out www.jenniefields.com.

Mailbox Monday 5/20/13

2013-05-20T19:45:00.000-04:00

This month's Mailbox Mondays are brought to you by 4 the LOVE of BOOKS.

First of all, let's get last week's giveaway out of the way:

For a copy of Deborah Harkness' Shadow of Night, the winner was

Johanna C.

And for the super cute alchemical buttons, the winner was

Jessica P.

Please be sure to check your email for details!

***

This week, I received one book: The Age of Desire, by Jennie Fields

(Penguin; On-sale: 5/28/13)

"Now in paperback, a sparkling glimpse into the life of Edith Wharton and the scandalous love affair that threatened her closest friendship, The Age of Desire: A Novel, by Jennie Fields, brings to life one of literature’s most beloved writers, whose own story was as complex and nuanced as that of any of the heroines she created.

Extraordinary coincidences, such as the sudden discovery of more than 100 letters from Edith to Anna, Edith’s governess turned literary secretary and confessor, make Jennie Fields’ own story of writing this novel remarkable. In The Age of Desire, Fields seamlessly weaves these letters and other diary entries throughout a narrative that alternates between the points of view of both women, taking the reader on a vivid journey through Wharton’s exhilarating world."

For more information, please check out www.jenniefields.com.

BONUS you can win your own copy of The Age of Desire by entering this week's giveaway! Winner will be announced on Monday 5/27. Enter by clicking here.
This giveaway has ended.

***

While you're here, be sure to check out the two reviews posted here at The Literary Gothamite from this week:

A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki
&
Studio Saint-Ex, by Ania Szado

Review: Studio Saint-Ex, by Ania Szado

2013-05-20T08:59:00.000-04:00

Studio Saint-Ex
by Ania Szado
Knopf
368 pp | June 4, 2013

Mignonne Lachapelle has returned to New York City after a year home in Montreal with her mother. She arrives in the wake of a rather bleak discovery: one of her senior-year professors at her fashion school has stolen her designs for a magnificent butterfly-inspired collection, and is pandering it as her own.

Returning to confront Madam Fiche, the plagiarist, she is unexpectedly hired by her as an assistant for her Atellier* Fiche, a job that Mignonne only accepts as a last resort after a number of other fashion houses turn her down for any kind of design position.

It is a meeting of desperations - Mignonne's for a career, and Madam Fiche's for help; and when these women begin to collaborate, it is clear who will be the true beneficiary of their work.

But a forced and difficult collaboration with Madam Fiche is not the only issue at hand in Studio Saint-Ex; Mignonne is also confronted by the arrival of her former lover--a married man, a member of the French Air Force, and a French aristocrat. His friends call him "Saint-Ex," Mignonne calls him Antoine, and his wife Consuelo calls him Tonio. But readers will know him as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the beloved author of The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince, 1943).

Driven by the combined forces of ambition and desire, Szado's fictionalized history is an excursion into the creation of The Little Prince as well as an examination of the fashion world of the 1940s. At first, I believed it was simply the latter. The infamous author's name didn't manage to ring any bells in my head. It wasn't until Antoine begins telling Mignonne the story of the boy he's been sketching on napkins for months that I caught on. But it didn't matter, because Szado's story is beautifully told, even if it hadn't been rooted in historical fact. The seduction and the romance are all real, and beautifully intertwined with the drama from the pressure of the fashion and literary industries.

Mignonne exists in a constant state of tug-o-war between her two loves, and the reader will likely find it difficult to root for either one over the other. Eventually, this conflict leads to what could be a mutually beneficial collaboration with Antoine's wife, Consuela, whose serpentine sensibility threatens to tear the entire fabric of Mignonne's reality to shreds.

This is a very quick read, rife with the kind of imagery that can suck you into a story and never let go. And lovers of The Little Prince will, I'm sure, be enamored by this fictionalized account of the great author, his tempestuous wife, and the love that could have been.

*Atellier, meaning "studio" or "workshop" in French.

Review: A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki

2013-05-18T23:49:00.001-04:00

A Tale for the Time Being
by Ruth Ozeki
Viking Adult
432 pp | March 12, 2013

In Ruth Ozeki's newest novel, a Hello Kitty lunchbox swaddled in a freezer bag washes ashore on a remote island off the coast of Vancouver. The diary found inside is written in purple ink, bound in what was once (symbolically) Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and is accompanied by a handful of other souvenirs, not the least interesting of which is a watch that once belonged to a WWII Japanese kamikaze pilot.

Believing that the bundle may be early flotsam from the devastating tsunami that recently hit Japan, Ruth and Oliver (self-insertions of the author and her husband) begin examining and reading the contents, trying to discover who the owner is and what may have happened to her. On many levels, Ozeki's novel plays with the reader's preconceptions of time and authorship. The style of self-insertion is a tricky one, forcing the reader to seriously reconsider and question the boundaries between fact and fiction, and between past, present and future.

A Tale for the Time Being is a puzzle, built on two alternating narratives that seem almost parallel, though we know fairly early on that they are in fact separated by approximately ten years. But as the young diarist's 104-year-old Zen Buddhist nun great-grandmother Jiko would say: then, now, they're the same.

The struggles of the two women presented are, on the surface, staggeringly different. Ruth is struggling, and has been for some time, with trying to write her next novel - an account of dealing with her late mother's Alzheimer's disease. Nao, our young diarist and purple-ink-toting would-be-francophile, has been struggling with a severe bullying problem at school, her father's affinity for attempting suicide, and her own recent decision to (sometime, in the near future) commit suicide herself. Their problems could not be any more different, and yet Ruth finds herself relying on Nao's narrative.

But just as Ruth believes she is close to finding all of her answers through Nao, the narrative stops. In a passage that could be straight out of what my roommate calls the "infinite parallel meta universe" that is Stephen King's Dark Tower series*, the words simply vanish from the page, and Ruth finds herself contemplating her existence, perhaps as only a character in Nao's narrative. The words have disappeared from the page, and the story is unfinished until Ruth can find a way to affect the past in the present.

Zen Buddhist philosophy serves as a kind of backbone for the novel (Ozeki herself is a Zen priest) but, having gone into it myself knowing almost nothing about that school of thought, you don't need to be enlightened first; Ozeki's footnotes on just about everything will take care of all of that without being preachy. Each lesson is a foothold for Ruth, and for Ozeki's readers.

We're meant to understand that time is not the end, it is the means. Time is not the cage in which we live, it is the freedom by which we live. And, without spoiling it for you, it's once Ruth accepts that lesson that the pieces finally fall into place and the words re-inscribe themselves upon the page.

*In King's Dark Tower series, Stephen King is himself a character within the narrative. The various characters visit him when it is discovered that he is writing their lives. This is also somewhat similar to the existence of all the enchanted forest characters being in Henry's book prior to the curse being broken on ABC's Once Upon a Time.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books Dealing with Tough Subjects

2013-05-14T20:31:00.000-04:00

Compared to last week's topic, things are about to get depressing up in here. Today's subject is about books dealing with tough subjects, whether it be abuse, suicide, grief, or just whatever speaks to you personally.

So here goes...I'll say this now: I don't really want to talk about these...the're all wonderful, but tough/difficult subjects are...subjective, so it's just gonna be titles & authors. Read at your own risk.

1. Atonement, by Ian McEwan

2. The Book of Lost Things, by John Connolly

3. Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia, by Michal Viewegh

4. Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi

5. By Fire, By Water, by Mitchell James Kaplan

6. The Innocent, by Ian McEwan

7. Let's Take the Long Way Home, by Gail Caldwell

8. When Captain Flint Was Still a Good Man, by Nick Dybek

9. Tristessa, by Jack Kerouac

10. Enduring Love, by Ian McEwan

(hint: McEwan's a pretty solid bet)

~~Don't forget to enter this week's giveaway! Click here to enter!~~
this giveaway has ended

Mailbox Monday 5/13/13

2013-05-13T06:57:00.000-04:00

Mailbox Monday is hosted this month by 4 the LOVE of BOOKS.

First and foremost, we have a giveaway winner to announce. The winnder of a copy of Charlie Lovett's new novel The Bookman's Tale is:

Shannon R.

Please check your e-mail inbox for more details!

And don't worry! If you didn't win, The Bookman's Tale will be in bookstores on May 28th.
Pre-order your copy now!

***

Nextly, my haul this week consisted of one and only one book, but one I'm pretty excited about:

Revolutionary Summer : The Birth of American Independence, by Joseph J. Ellis

due out from Knopf on June 4th.

***

Lastly, we have another giveaway, this one for lovers of Deborah Harkness' A Discovery of Witches:

You can either win a copy of the second book in the All Souls Trilogy, Shadow of Night, coming out in paperback this month

you can win these supercute alchemical buttons, also being furnished by Viking/Penguin.

~~enter to win the book or the buttons here.~~

this giveaway has ended

Giveaway: The Bookman's Tale, by Charlie Lovett

2013-05-08T20:34:00.000-04:00

The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession, by Charlie Lovett

Hay-on-Wye, 1995. Peter Byerly isn’t sure what drew him into this particular bookshop. Nine months earlier, the death of his beloved wife, Amanda, had left him shattered. The young antiquarian bookseller relocated from North Carolina to the English countryside, hoping to rediscover the joy he once took in collecting and restoring rare books. But upon opening an eighteenth-century study of Shakespeare forgeries, Peter is shocked when a portrait of Amanda tumbles out of its pages. Of course, it isn’t really her. The watercolor is clearly Victorian. Yet the resemblance is uncanny, and Peter becomes obsessed with learning the picture’s origins.

As he follows the trail back first to the Victorian era and then to Shakespeare’s time, Peter communes with Amanda’s spirit, learns the truth about his own past, and discovers a book that might definitively prove Shakespeare was, indeed, the author of all his plays.

~~The book is due out May 28th. You can win your very own copy by entering the giveaway here. The winner will be announced in next Monday's mailbox.~~

this giveaway has ended

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books When You Need Something Light & Fun

2013-05-07T07:00:00.000-04:00

Top Ten Tuesday is, as always, brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's Top Ten is a little difficult for me. I don't re-read too many books, and those that I do tend to be on the longish end of the spectrum.

I still have a list, but I decided to get some help on this post a friend, Miss Laura Cunningham, whose blog you can check out and bring some love to here. Between the two of us, I'm sure we can manage to find an unorthodox kind of light and fun.

Elle's Top Books When You Need Something Light & Fun

The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkein

Sometimes you can’t beat the feeling you get rereading a book that you read as a child. It feels like going home. And this is that book for me. Wizards, riddles, magic, dwarves, dragons... What’s more fun than a good old-fashioned adventure story?

Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Good Omens is my go-to comfort book. Fun, hilarious, almost heartwarming- well, as heartwarming as a book about the apocalypse can be. So good I named my cats after the two main characters.

The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

This is a book that I love to get lost in. The characters are easy to love, the central mystery is tantalizing, and the atmosphere is heady and thick like summer fog. Easy to read, not easy to put down. I highly recommend, not only this, but all of Zafon’s books.

Short Story Collections, by Neil Gaiman

Fragile Things

Smoke & Mirrors

M is for Magic

When what you’re looking for is “light and fun”, you can’t beat short stories. They give you a glimpse of a story without the commitment of a novel. Be careful, these stories are like potato chips- you’ll start by reading one and, before you know it, you’ll finish the book.

The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

I guess a recurring theme here is “things I read in childhood” and “fabulous adventures”. Oh well. This is one book that you definitely have to read in your lifetime. If you liked the movie, you’ll love it. If you didn’t like the movie... How? Also one time I met William Goldman and cried on him but he was very nice about it. Stand up fella.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

If you want a strong plot-line and deep, driven characters, admittedly, this isn’t for you. But if you want endless spasms of hilarity loosely stitched together by improbable situations, then it’s a perfect match. Very Monty Python-esque humor. Light and fun at its best.

Lauren's Top Books When You Need Something Light & Fun

The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

On this, Laura and I can agree wholeheartedly. Everyone should read it. This and The Neverending Story, though that one is a bit more of a mire. For the record, I've never cried on Mr. Goldman.

The Ladies of Grace Adieu, by Susanna Clarke

This is in the short story way of things. If you like short stories about darker things but not enough to pick up John Connolly's Nocturnes, this is a good start.

From the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.

Definitely Not Mr. Darcy, by Karen Doornebos

I know what you're thinking: Oh god, here comes the Austen. You're not wrong. But I've loved on Doornebos' stellar bit of fluff before. It's kind of wonderful.

Impulse & Initiative, by Abigail Reynolds

I think this one actually goes by the title of To Conquer Mr. Darcy now, which I think is just sad.

The Daydreamer, by Ian McEwan

Sweet short stories by the autor of Atonement. He tried the stories out on his young kids before publishing, so you know they've got a pretty respectable stamp of approval.

Anything by Dave Barry

Seriously. Anything. This includes but is not limited to: his syndicated column in the Miami Herald; the Starcatcher series which he wrote with Ridley Pearson; Dave Barry Slept Here; and I'll Mature When I'm Dead.

Persuasion, by Jane Austen

You knew this was coming didn't you? Look, I know it's not a terribly light book or a terribly fun book (unless you go into it knowing you can ride the wave of Sir Walter and Elizabeth's stupidity) but this book is kind of like my reset button. I'll re-read it simply because I know every word. It's like a palate cleanser. I have two copies in my apartment right now. It's a necessity.

Mailbox Monday 5/6/13 ...and a Giveaway

2013-05-05T22:13:00.000-04:00

Mailbox Monday is hosted this month by 4 the LOVE of BOOKS.

This week's haul includes a galley that is also a giveaway, a birthday gift (my birthday was this Friday!) and a handful of books rescued from my office.

The galley is from Viking: The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession, by Charlie Lovett

Hay-on-Wye, 1995. Peter Byerly isn’t sure what drew him into this particular bookshop. Nine months earlier, the death of his beloved wife, Amanda, had left him shattered. The young antiquarian bookseller relocated from North Carolina to the English countryside, hoping to rediscover the joy he once took in collecting and restoring rare books. But upon opening an eighteenth-century study of Shakespeare forgeries, Peter is shocked when a portrait of Amanda tumbles out of its pages. Of course, it isn’t really her. The watercolor is clearly Victorian. Yet the resemblance is uncanny, and Peter becomes obsessed with learning the picture’s origins.

As he follows the trail back first to the Victorian era and then to Shakespeare’s time, Peter communes with Amanda’s spirit, learns the truth about his own past, and discovers a book that might definitively prove Shakespeare was, indeed, the author of all his plays.

~~The book is due out May 28th. You can win your very own copy by entering the giveaway here. The winner will be announced in next Monday's mailbox.~~

tthis giveaway has ended

My birthday gift (from mi madre) was a book I'm pretty much assuming I'm going to love. I'm not usually swayed by critics, but Stephen King wrote up a brilliant review of this novel in the New York Times, and I just knew I had to have it:

The Accursed, by Joyce Carol Oats

You can read King's review here.

As for the books I rescued from the office, they were:

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle

Because I want to re-read it, and because it's the same edition I read as a kid, and it has the freakiest cover...

Walden, by Henry David Thoreau

Because I needed a copy, so why not?

If On A Winter's Night A Traveler, by Italo Calvino

Because I've never read it.

The Tin Drum, by Gunter Grass

Because I have less of a problem with the book and more of a problem with the film. If you're in the mood to throw up all over everything you own, watch the film. It's in Hulu+'s Criterion collection.

and

Selected Works of Edgar Allen Poe

Because I've been to the Poe cottage in the Bronx twice in the last month or so, and I wasn't sure why I didn't already own something similar.

Review: Pastors' Wives, by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen

2013-05-01T07:00:00.000-04:00

Pastors' Wives
by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen
April 30, 2013
Plume | 368pp

A guest review by Jessica Pruett-Barnett

I wish I could say that I went into reading Lisa Takeuchi Cullen’s debut novel Pastors’ Wives without prejudice. When asked to review it, I said yes without hesitation. As a lifelong Christian of the liberal sort, and as the daughter of two pastors, I am more qualified than most to evaluate chick-lit about the sordid life of the women behind megachurch men; I’ve seen and heard everything that happens behind the scenes. I didn’t expect Cullen to get anything right.

I was wrong. My expectations, shaped from decades of reading Christian novels from stores like The Mustard Seed, led me to believe that Pastors’ Wives would have weak-willed women pretending to be strong while bowing before their husbands (and God, in a Book of Paul way) while spouting Bible verses on every page.

Instead, Pastors’ Wives reads like a secular chick-lit novel that just happens to take place in a megachurch in Georgia. Ruthie moves from Manhattan to an Atlanta suburb when her husband gets a new job as an Assistant Pastor. Candace is in charge of the behind the scenes work at the megachurch, dictated by her position as the Head Pastor’s wife. Ginger is Candace’s daughter in law, married to the black sheep son who does missionary work abroad when not heading his own church. As the year goes by, all of them learn new ways to function as people outside of being preachers’ wives, gaining brains, heart, and courage along the way. The only blah moment in the novel is the semi-forced sub-subplot of Ruthie dealing with her mother’s death and her father’s subsequent remarriage. It isn’t needed and doesn’t shine light on her life as a preacher’s wife.

I have to applaud (insert me applauding right now) Cullen. She created three women who are all Christians yet not bigots. These are not the fundamentalists that dominate the US media, although it wouldn’t take a stretch of the imagination to see that Candace has some conservative views. They preach compassion and actually use it, as seen in a few important plot points that I won’t mention because of spoilers. The research Cullen did for Pastors’ Wives is evident from her details, down to the way that a popular preacher can influence car sales based on the type of car he (almost always a he in terms of megachurches) drives.

You don’t have to be a Christian to enjoy Pastors’ Wives; it won’t preach at you. That is the most important takeaway from this novel: Church isn’t just a building or a steeple, church is people of all types and backgrounds and beliefs. And maybe, just maybe, that’s ok.

Mailbox Monday 4.29.13

2013-04-29T07:00:00.000-04:00

Mailbox Monday is hosted this month by MariReads.

Hello, happy readers! This week I received a handful of books from Knopf in anticipation of their spring & summer 2013 releases. I'm pretty excited about all of these and actually started in on one of them the second I got it, so look for a new review soon!

Stay, Illusion! The Hamlet Doctrine

by Simon Critchley & Jamieson Webster

Due out June 25, 2013

Studio Saint-Ex

by Ania Szado

Due out June 4, 2013

The Girl Who Loved Camellias

The Life and Legen of Marie Duplessis

by Julie Kavanagh

Due out June 11, 2013

Review: The Spark - A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius, by Kristine Barnett

2013-04-10T18:15:00.001-04:00

The Spark:
A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius
by Kristine Barnett
Random House (4/9/13)
272 pgs / $25

When I received Kristine Barnett's The Spark from LibraryThing.com's Early Reviewers program this month, my first reaction was "...why??" I'd remembered requesting it, but couldn't really remember why I'd done so. And I wasn't really in a non-fiction mood, so what was I gonna do? Although worried that my mood wouldn't give me a fair perspective on the book, I dove in anyway, ever so slightly curious.

Very early on, Kristine grabs you and holds on, totally forcing you to not only listen to and embrace this incredible woman's humility, but to acknowledge your own emotions on the subject.

This author is a woman who, despite having two special needs kids, lupus, and incredible financial difficulties (all on top of the regular taxations of life - family loss, the recession, etc.) still manages to put on a happy face for the sake of helping kids. Her message is that, regardless of their perceived abilities, all children should be encouraged to do what they love.

As the book takes you step by step through the diagnosis and subsequent trials of Jake's autism, you find yourself cheering for him, for his family, for this incredible boy who was told by professionals at three that he would never read. He was told by professional after professional that mainstreaming would never be an option but now, at thirteen years old, he's a college student, socially adept and considered to be possibly the smartest person in the world.

You don't need a genius - or even an autistic person - in your life to appreciate Kristine's story, but having a child in your life, or having someone in your life with special needs will certainly enrich your experience. And even if biographies and memoirs aren't your kind of thing (they're not mine at all), memoir is only the beginning of a description of this book. Everyone should read it.

Review: Children of the Underground, by Trevor Shane

2013-04-04T17:00:00.000-04:00

400 pp. Penguin/NAL Trade.$15.00

All rules are broken, all bets are off.

When we left off with the Children of Paranoia series, Maria's lover Joseph had just been killed by one of his best friends while attempting to keep his and Maria's infant son from the clutches of Them, the fighters on the other side of this faceless, nameless war.

In this next installment in the series, Children of the Underground, Maria is on a mission to find her baby, Christopher, and avenge Joseph's death. To do this, she enlists Joseph's childhood friend Michael (his other childhood friend, Jared, is the one who killed him "for the cause.") and The Underground, a group dedicated to "cleaning" persons from both sides of the war who are no longer interested in participating.

This is a great follow-up to the violent, rapid-paced intro to the eponymous Children of Paranoia series. This sequel is sharply-written, the thrill not there for shock value, but tailored, specific, and crafted brilliantly. By mixing the journal format we grew accustomed to in the previous installment with a new, separate perspective (taking place, it turns out, some years later) allows the plot to expand and contract naturally, ridding the plot of the contrived necessity of exposition that its predecessor required.

Like Children of Paranoia, Children of the Underground perfectly sets up the next in the series which will, if the pattern holds, bring us into the present, into Christopher's fight to end the fighting. It is with a Christ-like (or, even, if you will, Harry Potter-like) fashion that Christopher's origins have unfolded. And if Mr. Shane continues to deliver, the remainder of the series should be a pretty impressive ride.

Giveaway Update: Glow

2013-04-02T11:19:00.002-04:00

Penguin Books has now published Jessica Maria Tuccelli's Glow (which I reviewed last year) in paperback (2/26/13) and they've been kind enough to offer up a copy for giveaway.

The winner of this giveaway is

Laura B.

Please check your email for your winning confirmation.

Thanks to everyone who entered - stay tuned for this week's reviews, coming up over the next two days.

Giveaway: Glow, by Jessica Maria Tuccelli

2013-03-29T09:41:00.003-04:00

Hey everyone! Penguin Books has now published Jessica Maria Tuccelli's Glow (which I reviewed last year) in paperback (2/26/13) and they've been kind enough to offer up a copy for giveaway.

The giveaway is open to U.S. residents only, and the book will be furnished by and mailed by Penguin Books publicity.

To enter, please email laurs@theliterarygothamite.com with "GLOW" in the subject line. In the body, please include your first and last name. The winner will be picked by random drawing and announced on Tuesday, April 2nd.

Have a great weekend!!

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Recommend Most

2013-03-26T07:30:00.000-04:00

Top Ten Tuesday is, as always, brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish.

I get asked for recommendations all the time. Whether I'm posting here or not, people know they can come to me, and I'll probably recommend something they'll love.

But sometimes this can drive me a little crazy.

People will ask:

"What should I read next?"

I respond:

"What was the last thing you read? Did you enjoy it? What kinds of things do you usually like?"

Their response:

"oh...historical fiction, non-fiction, romantical paranormal young adult, action, fantasy-mystery, modern, science-fictiony books."

.....................................

Look, I'm not asking you to completely type yourself. It can take years to type yourself. I'm still typing myself. But if you're going to ask what you should read next and expect an answer, have an idea of what you're looking for!

So here are my go-to oh-you-want-an-answer-right-now-but-I-barely-know-you answers:

Historical fiction: The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye

Young Adult/Fantasy: The Princetta by Anne-Laure Bondoux, the Inkeart Trilogy by Cornelia Funke, The Redwall Series, but starting with Martin the Warrior by Brian Jacques, and The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

Non-fiction: Stiff, by Mary Roach, The Age of Wonder, by Richard Holmes

Romantical Paranormal: Glow by Jessica Maria Tuccelli

Modern: A Novel Bookstore, by Laurence Cossé and On The Road by Jack Kerouac

If you've already read all of these or do not see something that interests you, let me know. I'd love to pick your brain and and fine-tune a recommendation for you.

Review: Ghana Must Go, by Taiye Selasi

2013-03-20T12:56:00.000-04:00

Ghana Must Go
by Taiye Selasi
The Penguin Press
March 5, 2013
336 pgs
$25.95 Hardcover/ $12.99 E-Book

New from The Penguin Press this month, Taiye Selasi's Ghana Must Go is a semi-exotic and lyrical examination of a family that came apart at the seams long ago. The parents separated, the children scattered and only now, as the patriarch dies, can the family find a way to become whole again.

As the book moves forward, the story of this complicated African-American family pieces itself together, almost like an unraveled sweater weaving itself back into shape. The perspective switches from person to person with each chapter, and the story is often told in a series of flashbacks that relate to and explain the present. Jessica Maria Tuccelli was successful with this particular narrative form in last year's Glow (and Barbara Hamby even more so in Lester Higata's 20th Century) but Selasi is somewhat less so.

The alternating of past and present is sometimes less than smooth and often a little confusing. And while her choice to tell the story from a variety of perspectives is an excellent way to reveal the fractured past, all of the characters seem to be of one voice - the author's. There is no coloring of the glass, as it were, no refocusing of the voice with the change of perspective.

That all said, the same story told from beginning to end in third-person omniscient would be frustratingly boring, so I can't fault Selasi for trying. Her prose is beautiful and her phrasing poetic. Frankly, Selasi's talents might be better-suited for poetry and verse than for novel-writing.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I had to buy...but are still sitting on my shelf unread

2013-03-19T07:30:00.000-04:00

Brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish: We've all done it in the past and will again in the future. So many of the unread books on my shelves (or worse, packed away in storage) were books I whined about NEEDING but then I either lost interest or forgot about them. It's a bad habit that us bookish folks can't seem to get rid of :) Here's a list of ten books that I've been ignoring for far too long:

The Lincoln Lawyer, by Michael Connelly

Seriously, I own this book, and I think everyone's read it, but me.

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, by Mary Roach

Funny story with this one. I asked for it. My mother bought it and sent it to me. What she didn't realize was that she had purchased the audio book. Not JUST the audio book, but the audio book...wait for it... on cassette tape.

CASSETTE TAPE.

For those of you unsure as to what that is, it's one of these:

We used them back in the stone age, before the dawn of the compact disc.

The Jane Austen Mystery Series, by Stephanie Barron

To be fair, I started reading this series. And then I stopped. I had other shit to do or something. Someday...

Kingdom Keepers III: Disney in Shadow, by Ridley Pearson

Just keeps getting sidelined...in the shadows.

The Little Women Letters, by Gabrielle Donnelly

Wanted it, didn't get it, finally got it on sale during the Borders melt-down, still haven't read it.

The Water Theatre, by Lindsay Clarke

Dunno.

Perfume, by Patrick Suskind

I love the movie they made of this. And I've had the book for a while now...and I just...haven't gotten around to it. Yet.

The Childrens' Book, by A. S. Byatt

I started reading it in, like, January. But it's really complicated and I've put it on hold for now.

An Accident in August, by Laurence Cossé

Fell in love with Cossé's writing with A Novel Bookstore, finally got this, haven't gotten to it yet.

Jane Austen Made Me Do It, ed. by Laurel Ann Nattress

You'd think I'd have...yeah. No. It's on the short-term list, I promise.

Mailbox Monday 3.18.13

2013-03-18T07:05:00.000-04:00

This month's Mailbox Monday is hosted by Chaotic Compendiums.

This week I received for review:

Ghana Must Go, by Taiye Selasi

Published by Penguin Press Hardcover earlier this month.

& Sons, by David Gilbert

Due out from Random House 7/23/13.

and

The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius, by Kristine Barnett

Due out from Random House 4/9/13.

I received the latter two from Random House as part of the Early Reviewers program at librarything.com

Review: Best American Nonrequired Reading (2007), ed. by David Eggers

2013-03-15T18:07:00.001-04:00

The Best American Nonrequired Reading - 2007
Edited by David Eggers
Introduction by Sufjan Stevens
384 pgs
Mariner Books, 2007

Whenever I pick up an anthology, I have this somewhat irrational fear that all of the stories will either a) completely relate to one another (meaning that there's a kernel of a theme I have the task of expounding on--ugh, no thank you) or, b) exist in the same stylistic world (i.e. (a + b) * c = d).

But I think that's why I was drawn to the Best American (Nonrequired Reading) Series, editied by David Eggers: the pieces included are only really tied together by their original publication date. Everything else is a matter of coincidence in the human experience.

The voices in this collection are distinct, different in style and opinion. And the format has a reader-friendly feel to it. And what's nice is, sure, some of these writers are more mainstream now (i.e. Jonathan Ames and Jennifer Egan), but many weren't necessarily as mainstream five years ago; having those voices present is not just refreshing, it's essential.

In the 2007 edition of this series, we begin with an intro by musician Sufjan Stevens who is, in his own right, a multifaceted American voice. Part I of the anthology is free of stories - it's essentially a series of lists, setting the stage for the less-chronicled literature of the previous year.

The theme here is cynicism and humor, the lists ranging from "The Best American New Words of 2006" (with words that now, five years later, one barely thinks of as new-- words like agroterrorism and gastric bypass) and "Best American Creationist Explanations for the World's Natural Wonders" -- you could also call secularism a theme.

Part II is a mix -- fiction and nonfiction, short stories and short interviews-- all interesting, some fascinating and, mostly all, incredibly well-written. All of these pieces have their merit, but the short stories are what stuck with me. Most notably, "American" by Joshua Clark - a naturalistic take on surviving in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; "Selling the General" by Jennifer Egan - a story about parental sacrifice; and two stories about fathers and sons: "Loterìa" by Kevin A. González and "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion an Sacrifice" by Nam Lee.

These latter two share certain similarities-- a sense of a son's abandonment and betrayal by the father, for one--but are distinct in their circumstances and style. Their ethnic flavors--one Latin American, the other Vietnamese, but both American in their pastiche and function. Neither son really forgives his father, but both come to certain terms with who he is, and how much of him is in himself, an examination in the sins of the father, if you will.

Along with the short stories, this section of nineteen pieces includes everything from the short interview format ("What's Your Dangerous Idea?") to graphic novel ("A Happy Death"), from persuasive essay ("All Aboard the Blated Boat: Arguments in Favor of Barry Bonds") to commencement speech (Conan O'Brien's Stuyvesant High School Commencement Speech) from wartime journalism ("The Big Suck: Notes from the Jarhead Underground") to memoir ("Where I Slept"). And while much of the subject matter discussed is more on the serious side, the human coincidence involved also brings in a delightful balance of humor and wit. This is definitely the kind of anthology I want in my library.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books at the TOP of my Spring TBR Pile

2013-03-12T06:30:00.000-04:00

Top Ten Tuesday is brought to you by the folks at The Broke and the Bookish.

I'm currently in the middle of two books.

One, A. S. Byatt's The Childrens' Book, is quite the saga. There are a billion characters and too many plots for me to pin down. My attention span just can't handle it right now. I have a feeling that will be more of a summer book - the kind of thing I can go and lay out in the park or at the beach with.

The other book I'm in the middle of is an anthology - The Best American Nonrequired Reading of 2007, edited by David Eggers. Anthologies have never really been my thing, but right now I'm really enjoying the format.

That's why four books from this series are in my Spring TBR pile - The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 (reading now), 2005, 2008 and 2009. Frankly, if I can get my hands on 2006 before June, I might throw that onto the pile as well! So that's #'s 1 through 4, maybe 5. Let's say 4.

In addition to those, I'm still kind of finding my footing again when it comes to my reading.

For that reason, I'm adding John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things, Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Jane Austen's Persuasion (three of my favorites) to my Spring reading. I'm hoping these will provide the infusion of literature I need in order to get my brain really functioning again for longer periods of time.

That leaves three more books to try and get through by mid-June. For that purpose, my goal will be to cover three titles from Europa Editions -

Laurence Cossé's An Accident in August, Chad Taylor's Departure Lounge, and Edwin M. Yoder Jr's Lions at Lamb House, which I think will, in the future, simply be my excuse for never reading any Henry James.

What's on your spring TBR pile?

Mash-up Fiction: That's "Pulp", not "to a pulp"

2012-12-07T06:18:00.003-05:00

I have this teeny weeny soft spot in my heart for mash-up fiction. Vampires, zombies, werewolves, sea monsters...okay, not so much sea monsters. Although if someone were to mash up Jane Austen and Jaws, I'd probably be there. But because this soft spot is so small, there's not much room for challenging what I like.

If you write a book with any one of these aforementioned beings in the title, I kind of expect it to heavily feature that, and that alone. No one wants to read a book called Gatsby: Werewolf Hunter (I made that up) and have it be partially about zombies. It just doesn't fit. Universes should not cross unless explicitly stated.

So here's where it gets tricky: Jane Slayre. Now...I think "slayer...or slayre" and generally think vampires. Unless it's Buffy. Also, the bloodied heroine on the cover (an edited image of Charlotte Brontë) is holding a stake. And on the cover, right below the title, it says "the literary classic with a blood-sucking twist." Vampires, right?

There are! There are vampires! Aunt Reed and her progeny are all children of the night. The book starts off right. Until it veers into the very wrong. If you've never read the source material, it's a pretty big book and it's pretty dense. This means two things: 1) there's not a whole lot of room to play. If you're going to retain most of the source material AND add supernatural elements, you've gotta integrate it very well and keep any additions slim, and 2) you have to make it move; no one wants to read a 400-page mash up of Jane Eyre with dead spaces (haha). Unfortunately, co-author Sherri Browning Erwin took the latter fact to mean that she had to pack it as full as possible with supernatural beings.

So along with vampires, you've got zombies and werewolves. Let me say that again: vampires and zombies and werewolves (oh my). This makes the poor book just fall apart. If she'd stuck with one lore to kind of tie the whole thing together (one ring to rule them all, if you will) it could have worked. But you've got Jane training herself to kill vampires (with the aid of her slayer/Slayre blood of course!), a school teacher training her to kill zombies (which becomes necessary because, along with Brocklehurst - Bokorhurst, here - being a religious zealot/ asshole, he's also apparently a witch doctor who makes zombies), and then some nonsense about her slayer/Slayre uncle also happening to know shit about werewolves.

It's just...it's a lot. It's a whole lot. And we've got enough going on. I mean...Jane Eyre is already a gothic novel. There is already a sort-of-ghost, and a crazy wife in the attic who burns shit down. Not to mention all the horrible human beings who already play a part in the original. And it's so Emo, it doesn't need any help. Yet here we are. Trying to make things more interesting. It doesn't need it! All this additional stuff does is make Jane more of a bad-ass (which doesn't fit, because she remains emotionally immature) and make Rochester more of a wimp (which he's not!).

This is not me being elitist. I mean, I can be, but this is not that. Mash-up fiction is supposed to be fun. This is not fun. This isn't as bad as Amanda Grange's Mr. Darcy, Vampyr, but it's still not fun. Good mash-up should still retain the potent qualities of the original. For example, in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Elizabeth is pretty bad-ass because of her zombie-killing training in China. But Elizabeth was already pretty bad-ass and put Darcy in his place more than once. It works! This doesn't. This is just messy in all kinds of ways. No more, please.