The Literary Gothamite

Monday Mailbox: The Multiple Giveaway Edition

2012-02-13T00:04:00.000-05:00

Monday Mailbox is hosted this month by Metroreader.

I did not receive any new books this week. Lame. I know. BUT I wanted to make everyone aware of the two giveaways happening this month here at The Literary Gothamite.

The first is for the book I reviewed in yesterday's post, Drifting House by Krys Lee. You can read about that here. And you can enter the giveaway here. The winner will be announced this Friday, February 17th.

The second is for the upcoming release of Christina Alger's The Darlings. From the press release:

THE DARLINGS is one of the first novels set during the fall of 2008, when New York is newly reeling from the financial crisis. It follows the interwoven stories of the Darling family, two eager SEC attorneys and a team of journalists, as they race against one another over the course of one weekend to uncover—or cover up—the truth. Compared by Library Journal to the novels of Dominick Dunne and Tom Wolfe, THE DARLINGS is part family drama, part corporate thriller, and offers an irresistible glimpse into the highest echelons of New York society—a world seldom seen by outsiders.

The Darlings will be released on February 20th, which is when I'll announce the giveaway winner. You can enter the giveaway here.

Review & Giveaway: Drifting House, by Krys Lee

2012-02-12T19:31:00.000-05:00

Hello there boys and girls. I'm sorry for the radio silence...I've been detained with sick/gym/work/mess/catching-up-on-dance-moms/sleep...ness. It's no excuse, but it's my excuse. Onward...

Krys Lee makes a startling and beautiful debut with Drifting House, a collection of short stories about the human experience as seen through the filter of the differences between American and Korean cultures.

Without artifice, and without judgement, Lee picks her way through the lives that inspire her and transforms them on the page with bold, ravishing brush strokes from which you cannot look away. Innocence, pain, savagery and bliss are all portrayed with a fragile frankness that reminds us that we are all of these things, sometimes all at once. This is what it is to be human.

Whether the story is about a little boy who knows everything, or a woman who knows too much the theme seems to be a personal and unrelenting honesty or, rather, freedom through self-revelation and honesty. A thematic oldie, but a goodie.

Thanks to the generosity of the folks at Viking, I'm holding a giveaway for a brand new copy Drifting House this week.

The contest is open to US & Canadian residents until 11:59PM on Thursday, February 16th. You can only enter one time, but you can get an extra entry by linking the giveaway on Twitter (just make sure you mention @lalalalaurs)!

The contest winner will be selected randomly and an announcement will be made here on Friday, February 17th.

Click here to enter.

Review: The Kama Sutra, attributed to Vatsyayana, in a new translation by A. N. D. Haksar

2012-02-02T08:17:00.002-05:00

The Kama Sutra
attributed to Vatsyayana
translated by
A. N. D. Haksar
Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition

The Kama Sutra is one of the most popular and most controversial written works in history. Its exotic yet universal nature is appealing to a wide range of personalities, and its reputation as a visual how-to for sexual amusement is well-known.

There are hundreds of versions of the illustrated Kama Sutra, with various styles and for a plethora of target audiences. But despite its cliché, The Kama Sutra was originally considered the mark of a well-rounded education. And if you’re looking for the cliché, you won’t find it here.

The Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, newly translated by A. N. D. Haksar, and published this week, is a focus on the work’s original historical and social importance, rather than a collection of sexual positions. In fact, the closest you’ll get to any of that is on the cover, designed by Malika Favre. The interior is all a linguistic dance around the methods and means of seduction, marriage and passion. But for all that, for all that it could be, it’s rather dated and lackluster.

The sexist nature of the original work does not translate well for a twenty-first century audience. Sure, sex is sex and it hasn’t changed a whole lot in the last 50,000 years, but the idea that a man must bewitch a woman or that forcible marriage (by way of kidnapping, rape, and/or murder) is necessary, or that it’s okay to seduce the wife of another man if that man has treasure that belongs to you…these ideas are crude, dated, sexist and just plain uncomfortable. Even the more benign concepts of marriage, which establish women as the keepers of the home and maintainers of a sanctuary for their husbands, are now (though perhaps most recently of all the changes) outdated.

Add to that the descriptions in the chapter on “Esoteric matters” (wherein we learn that a certain powder “…when mixed with monkey shit and sprinkled over a virgin girl, ensures that she is not given to another man.”) and you’ve got a relatively unattractive volume of advice on sexual socialization that has little bearing on today’s world.

Monday Mailbox #36

2012-01-30T03:22:00.000-05:00

Monday mailbox is hosted this month by At Home with Books.

Got a couple of fun ones this week...I'm afraid the second one is a little...uh...graphic. You've been warned.

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star, by Heather Lynn Rigaud

I won a signed copy from Addicted to Jane Austen over the holidays. I'll spare you the silly plot description on the back cover...I think it can all be summed up in the final sentence: "But as the days and nights heat up, it becomes clear that everyone is in for a summer to remember." Oh goody. Looks like a quick, funny, sexytime read.

Kama Sutra, attributed to Vatsyayana

a new translation by A. N. D. Haksar

Uhhh yeah. This is an ARC of the Penguin Classics edition...this new translation comes out I believe tomorrow. I'm afraid the cover is as colorful (and graphic) as it gets. There are no pictures on the inside. It's a new translation of the classic controversial work, but it doesn't come with diagrams. I'll have more on this, on Thursday.

Monday Mailbox #35

2012-01-23T01:53:00.003-05:00

Monday Mailbox is hosted this month by At Home With Books.

I hate being sick. Makes my head groggy. Makes me forgetful. I received two ARC's this week, and they're both in the room I'm not typing in right now, and I've had to get up three times to get the titles right because I keep forgetting what they are. Mess.

The Darlings, by Christina Alger

The Darlings is Christina Alger's debut novel, due out on February 20th.

From Viking:

THE DARLINGS is one of the first novels set during the fall of 2008, when New York is newly reeling from the financial crisis. It follows the interwoven stories of the Darling family, two eager SEC attorneys and a team of journalists, as they race against one another over the course of one weekend to uncover—or cover up—the truth. Compared byLibrary Journal to the novels of Dominick Dunne and Tom Wolfe, THE DARLINGS is part family drama, part corporate thriller, and offers an irresistible glimpse into the highest echelons of New York society—a world seldom seen by outsiders.

There will be a giveaway for this book in mid-February. Stay tuned!

The Old Romantic, by Louise Dean

Dean's novel came out last year, and this is its first paperback edition, due out from Riverhead Trade on February 7th. Don't you just love the cover? The watercolors with the slight skew and the uneven coloring...I love it!

Review: A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness

2012-01-21T00:30:00.001-05:00

A Discovery of Witches, a novel
by Deborah Harkness
Penguin Books
Now available in paperback

All vampire stories of the last century and a half may be called derivative. Mythology and folklore aside, any vampire novel you come across today may trace it roots back to the poems and short stories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The best known is probably Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) but there were many instances of vampires in fiction prior to that. The stories (especially now) are often very similar: vampires drink blood; they seduce young women; they're often beautiful, poised and rich; they move very quickly; they burst into flames with the sun...

In more recent years, vampires have become something else - especially in literature. They still drink blood but, more often than not, they have a conscience that keeps them from drinking human blood with any regularity. This is a way for an author to get around what is now a kind of boring bump in the night story about vampires who sleep in coffins, but it's also something that teenagers and young adults seem to gravitate towards -- this idea that these humanized monsters who were once human can also feel...it's very angsty...it's very teen drama...teenagers who find themselves as outsiders, and on the fringes, are keen to identify with these pale, beautiful creatures who are just so misunderstood.

Take the Twilight saga for example: little girl lost moves to a new town, people like her but she just feels so very not like everyone else, and then she meets this handsome pasty glittery thing who wants to make all her dreams come true...except he also wants to drain her of her lifeforce: teen drama.

Deborah Harkness' A Discovery of Witches has a similar modus operandi: young woman, on the fringes because she herself is a witch (or, in Diana Bishop's case, denying that she is a witch) bewitches (haha) a vampire with her beautiful ordinariness...he wants to protect her and love her...but also wants to drain her of her lifeforce. Like I said, the stories are often very similar. And while reading A Discovery of Witches, you might find (as I did) many (oh so many) parallels between it and Stephenie Meyer's tetralogy.

Some Basic Examples:
1. Matthew creeps into Diana's apartment and stares at her while she sleeps.
2. Like Bella, who does not see her own beauty (gag me), Diana sees herself as a "gauche country mouse" next to her vampire love.
3. Diana tells Matthew “You won’t hurt me” – literally ripped from the Twilight headlines - if it's not in the books, it's definitely in the movie.
4. “The Congregation” is basically the Volturi, and Ysabeau points out that they can't interfere if Diana is also a vampire...sound familiar?
5. Marcus' rebirth is almost the same as Edward's story of becoming a vampire.
6. Both Matthew and Edward proclaim that their immortal lives will end when their mortal love dies.

And those are just the ones I marked with post-its. There were plenty more.

But even given its core structure as basically a chip off of the Twilight block, there's something more here. Literally. This is not just about vampires. There are three kinds of "creatures" other than humans - vampires, witches and daemons. And none of them adhere strictly to their classical roots. Harkness has created a world full to the brim with magic, a powerful and ancient magic at that. And its a world all her own. There are extensive histories and anecdotes along the plot's path - it's a little gratuitous, but it's never too much. These instances and facts are interesting and motivate the reader to keep moving along. It's got a bildungsroman feel to it, which can draw comparisons with J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, but it's less about learning particular spells and more about learning just how powerful Diana is without them.

And the characters, as many as there are, each with their separate and explained histories, are all so very individual. Even her architectural structures have character. The Bishop home is quite possibly my favorite character in the entire book. Harkness' writing, compared with Meyer's, is lush and romantic like her story. This is not a teen melodrama. This is not little girl lost. It crackles with energy and leaves room for zero dull moments. There was not a single instance (unlike with New Moon) when I wanted to skip ahead to the "good parts." Diana is not a misunderstood girl at a new school - she's a well-established scholar, a strong and sympathetic and powerful woman, who cannot yet conceive of how very powerful she is.

I've heard a lot of people suggest that A Discovery of Witches is "Twilight for adults." Well I've seen some pretty advanced-in-age women clamor over Twilight, so I don't think the metaphor works. Rather, this is definitely a much more mature book than the entire Twilight series put together. The romance is slower, more patient. The characters are strong, lacking in whininess (unless that's a facet of the character in particular) and commanding. And the plot...well the plot is pretty similar to a lot of things because it's tried and true. But the best part is that there are still two whole novels left...all this exposition, all of this derivativeness, it has a chance to go away now. Harkness was able to take two characters - very similar in basic structure to Meyer's eye-rollable Bella and Edward - and actually made me want to read two more books about them.

Book 2 of the series (named The All Souls Series), Shadow of Night is due out in hardcover this summer.

Top Ten Books I'd Recommend to Someone Who Doesn't Read

2012-01-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's Top Ten is meant to be the "Top Ten Books I'd Recommend to Someone Who Doesn't Read X", that is to say, to someone who doesn't read a certain genre like YA or Fantasy or Horror... but the thing is I know a number of people who, for whatever reason, just don't read books. And so these are the books I would recommend should they wish to pick up a book, should they seek my opinion for something to read that will move apace, keep them interested, and be fulfilling.

1. The Star Rover, by Jack London

This one is not an obvious choice, and for people who have heard of Jack London, The Star Rover is not one that often comes up in discussion. Most people think of Call of the Wild, or The Sea-Wolf, or The Iron Heel, or even Martin Eden. But The Star Rover (published as The Jacket in the UK) is one of my favorites. I'd have never heard if it if it hadn't been for Professor Furer. Told in first person narrative, it can swing wildly between focuses at times, but some of the writing is simply glorious.

2. Jane and the Damned, by Janet Mullany

On a lighter note, this one is both an easy and fun read. Whether you love Jane Austen, or you hate her, or you don't care either way, this is an undeniably fun book. And if you do love Jane Austen, there are so many nuances for you to appreciate!

3. The Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark, by Ridley Pearson
It's fun, it's an awfully quick read, and it's YA Fiction so really all ages will enjoy it - even my 10-year-old cousin, who pretty much hates reading, loves this book. And if you're like me and basically grew up in Disney World, it's extra special.

4. French Leave, by Anna Gavalda

A short and sweet read, full of some stupendous banter. It's the kind of book that engenders camaraderie and sister/brotherhood. One of those novels about screwed up families that doesn't end up making you want to tear your eyes out or jump off of a bridge.

5. Big Sur, by Jack Kerouac
Okay, I may be asking for a little much with this one. If you've maybe decided to stop reading for good because of Kerouac, then maybe this is not the book for you. If you've maybe decided to stop reading for good because of Marcel Proust, then maybe Kerouac is not the author for you. I hate Proust as much as the next Frederick Harris student, but Kerouac...oh Kerouac. This book is, to me, a little more accessible than On The Road or Dharma Bums - anyone can identify with the ravages of drunkenness, right? There's also Kerouac's glorious onomatopeic poem "Sea" - Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur - which contains one of my favorite passages in poetry:

No human words bespeak

the token sorrow older

than old this wave

becrashing smarts the

sand with plosh

of twirléd sandy

thought--Ah change

the world? Ah set

the fee? Are rope the

angels in all the sea?

Ah ropey otter

barnacle'd be--

Ah cave, Ah crosh!

A feathery sea

6. Nocturnes, by John Connolly

You have to be in the mood for some dark stuff. This collection of short stories is dense, but extremely fulfilling. And, because it's not a whole novel (I would have suggested The Book of Lost Things, but that's more for you actual book-lovers) you can put it down between stories! Besides, doesn't everyone love dark stuff these days? I mean actually dark stuff, not Twilight.

7. The Daydreamer, by Ian McEwan

This is a nice light read for those who would love to say that they've read McEwan but don't have the constitution to withstand the hot air balloon scene in Enduring Love or any of the scenes in Atonement. I love those books, but you've really got to have the emotional fortitude of a...I'm not sure what...but some killer emotional fortitude to get through those books with your sanity. But The Daydreamer is great if you want something kind of cheery or something, even, that you could read to your kids - McEwan did! If you're looking for some McEwan thats maybe a little less cheery, but which is not going to make you curl up on your bed and sob, my suggestion would be In Between the Sheets.

8. M*A*S*H: A Novel About

Three Army Doctors, by Richard Hooker

This one really needs no explanation. If you've ever seen the film or the TV series, then you know what this book is. And if you've never seen the film or the TV series, don't speak to me. I do want to say however that, as amusing as the TV cast really and truly is, the film cast (Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould and Tom Skerritt) is also fantastic, and you should watch the film at least once...and read the book.

9. Tabloid City, by Pete Hamill

Pete Hamill is an incredible NYC author, an his novels move along quite quickly, without too much fuss, without too many character arcs. His dialogue is realistic, his prose is simple but beautiful, and this novel would be pretty engaging I think, even for those who don't care to be too engaged too often.

10. The Princess Bride (S. Morgenstern's

Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure),

by William Goldman

You probably love this movie. I don't actually know anyone who doesn't love this movie on some scale. My mother doesn't remember watching most of it, but she can quote Inigo Montoya with the best of 'em. It's a classic. Bear with William Goldman's silly "I didn't write it, Morgenstern did" hullaballoo, and try to get past the differences between the novel and the movie - there aren't too many, but it might confuse you at first. But try you best. The story is totally worth it.

Review: The Last Nude, by Ellis Avery

2012-01-16T23:38:00.000-05:00

For the record, the image on the cover
is not "Belle Rafaela" but "The Dream",
also by Tamara de Lempicka.

New from Riverhead this month, Ellis Avery's The Last Nude is a sensual artistic study of a young girl's rise to womanhood in (always) the wrong hands. Set up similarly to Tracy Chevalier's Girl With a Pearl Earring or Kelly Jones' The Woman Who Heard Color, the novel involves a heady dose of both historical accuracy (there are real paintings that you can reference) and imaginative realism which make the story move along at a decent pace with beautiful imagery.

The story takes place in Paris in 1927, between the wars, before the crash of '29, in the Jazz Age - a period of liberal artistic expression and freedom. It's the time of Ernest Hemingway and Thornton Wilder, of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. One sunny afternoon, painter Tamara de Lempicka selects narrator Rafaela to be her model, her muse and, eventually, her lover. She paints her a number of times over the course of the next several months, but her magnum opus is "Belle Rafaela" which de Lempicka paints two separate times with Rafaela posing...this leads to a bundle of money for Lempicka, fame, and the main drama of the novel.

"La Belle Rafaela"

The parallels with Girl With a Pearl Earring are almost too clear (though both novels are works of historical fiction, we have really no information about either de Lempicka or Vermeer's model) and Vermeer's paintings even make an appearance in a book that Rafaela flips through. But whereas the sexual tension of the Chevalier novel really works towards its advantage, there's almost no sexual tension in Avery's novel. We hear Rafaela's thoughts about Tamara - we're there with her in Tamara's bed* - but their relationship is somewhat cold. And when Tamara reveals herself to not be everything Rafaela thought she was, the reader can hardly be expected to show surprise.

Avery tacks on an extra 55 pages or so at the end ("Part Two") in which we're re-told the story from Tamara's point of view. Tamara is much older now - almost on her death bed - but she recalls for us both her reasons for doing what she did, as well as what we don't know about what happened after the events of "Part One." It seems that this extra bit was added to create depth, another dimension to the story maybe. But what it comes across as is an exculpatory mess of excuses that Tamara has for herself. It only makes the story seem even colder.

Rafaela, on the other hand, is warm and passionate despite the world's treatment of her. She's worth rooting for and her slow maturity from childlike observations to womanly righteousness makes her a valuable narrator. If you don't read it for anything else, read it for her.

*Yes, you can expect some lesbian love scenes. I completely skipped the back cover before I started in on this book and was therefore totally confused when I got almost 40 pages into the book and found myself in the middle of their amour. It was fairly uncomfortable not being prepared for it...but now you've been warned.

Monday Mailbox #34: Christmas, the 4th and final part

2012-01-15T23:06:00.000-05:00

This month's Monday Mailbox is hosted by At Home with Books.

Received the last of my Christmas gifts this week, and also something to get started on the non-Christmas mailbox...

Broadway Musicals:

The 101 Greatest Shows of All Time,

by Ken Bloom & Frank Vlastnik,

Foreward by Jerry Orbach

This is another one my mom ran across when getting the Jerry Orbach biography for me. This book is ENORMOUS. Someday, I shall read it. For now, I'm flipping through and looking at the amazing pictures.

Trees: Visual Reference Guides,

by Colin Ridsdale, John White and Carol Usher

This was in my stocking. It's not really my style, but I guess I could bring it the next time I go camping. (I don't really go camping.)

Drifting House,

by Krys Lee

First ARC received in 2012! This comes out in February, and there will be a giveaway prior to that - stay tuned!

Top Ten Authors I Wish Would Write Another Book

2012-01-10T09:54:00.000-05:00

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

1. Pamela Aidan - The Mr. Darcy, Gentleman trilogy is SO good...I think she could probably do an amazing job with Persuasion...it would probably be hard to match the Darcy trilogy, but if anyone is up to the task, it's the author.

2. Cornelia Funke - Okay so...really it's more that I need to read her other books...but I want her to keep writing, because I love them.

3. Karen Doornebos - Seriously, though. Definitely Not Mr. Darcy was awesome, and I want more.

4. Jack Caldwell - Okay, so he's got The Three Colonels coming out in March...but I want it now. Please.

5. Trevor Shane - Another one that doesn't reeeeeally count because I know he wants Children of Paranoia to flesh out into a series...I assume he's working on it. I hope he's working on it.

6. Charlotte Brontë - I think she could have maybe benefited from writing a novel from someone else's perspective other than a young girl/woman who's been wronged, etc. And maybe from not writing Shirley.

7. John Connolly - Another collection of short stories à la Nocturnes yesplzkthnxbye.

8. Susanna Clarke - I think I read somewhere that she's supposedly working on her next novel. I would even take another collection of short stories like The Ladies of Grace Adieu..

9. Alexandre Dumas, père - Anything, really. I'd read it.

10. Richard Gwyn - Again, doesn't really count. I realized that I hadn't even looked him up since I read The Colour of a Dog Running Away, and when I did I discovered that he published Deep Hanging Out in 2007, which means I should go ahead and read that...but I still hope he publishes something else, too. :D

Review: The Western Lit Survival Kit: An Irreverent Guide to the Classics, from Homer to Falkner, by Sandra Newman

2012-01-09T11:28:00.000-05:00

With a wit akin to Dave Barry's (at least, for the first half of the book), Sandra Newman takes a big old stab at literary history with The Western Lit Survival Kit, new this past week from Gotham Books. Using a series of ratings (on a work's importance, it's accessibility/difficulty and its fun), Newman holds her readers' hands through the minefield of Western literature from the starting point of the Greeks and Romans, all the way up through the first half of the twentieth century.

This is a comprehensive analysis, but not wholly inclusive. She spends a lot of time on writers whose works are most read and most analyzed (did we really need an entire chapter on Shakespeare?) and almost no time on authors whose works had an impact on other writers but aren't studied so much. She states very early on (in good humor) that, for the purposes of this book,

Western literature is what you traditionally learn about when you go to college to study literature. This book wil not redress imbalances or redefine canon...the present author, like everyone else, would be happier if Western literature were not quite as white and male as it is. Like almost everyone else, however, there is nothing I can do about it...

Newman says towards the end of the book (as we get into the twentieth century) "We will only deal with authors who have been properly canonized; those works that have begun to ossify in a suitably grand pose." For this, she chooses a handful of poets that I've never heard of (and I've studied literary history fairly extensively), another handful of poets that I have heard of, then James, Stein, Kafka, Eliot, Pound, Joyce, Proust, Woolf, Fitzgerald, Hemmingway and Faulkner. She only includes writers of the twentieth century who were born in the nineteenth century. Steinbeck is left out even though his works are not only important, but also some of the best non-derivative writing we have in the twentieth century.

Not only that, but Newman claims (in an earlier chapter) that "Stephen Crane's work is the most important American contribution to the genre of Naturalism." There's really no other mention of Naturalism for the rest of the book...she puts Stephen Crane on this pedestal (and rightly so, his work is definitely important), but then ignores Steinbeck, Wharton, Chopin and even Upton Sinclair, whose canon is both extensive and terribly important.

She leaves out Sylvia Plath, Ambrose Bierce, and mentions Richard Wright, but leaves him out. Jack London isn't even on her radar, which is weird. I was only an English minor in college, but I studied a lot of writers that she has decided to leave out. Many of these are women and minorities, which frustrates me because of her earlier statement of not being able to do anything about how white and male Western literature is. Charlotte Perkins Gilman is left out, Charles Chestnutt and Paul Lawrence Dunbar are left out, Zitkala-Sa and Sui Sin Far are left out...these are writers who are not only studied, but who defy convention...and Newman just passes them by.

As for her ratings system, it's a bit confusing. Starting with Chapter 2: "Ancient Rome: When the World was Ruled by Italians," she switches from using a rating for Accessibility to a rating of Difficulty, without any explanation for it. She does it in a couple of chapters and, when it happens, it almost reads more like a judgement, and less like an evaluation.

All in all, this is a great book if you've actually read much of the material discussed - you'll probably laugh your head off for half of it. If you haven't read the majority of the works, the jokes will be kind of empty, but also you'll be missing out on a huge chunk of literary history that Newman left out. This book should not be used like Cliff Notes or whatever the kids are using these days, and it should not be used to help you study for that midterm in your Romantics class. It's also not a great book if you want to understand anything past about 1850. Anything after that has been either left out or seriously cheated in its representation, with the exception of James Joyce whom Newman seems to love.

If you've read this book and are curious about those Newman left out, here's a list of those that probably should have been mentioned, even given her limits about being ossified, and given her unspoken requirement that none of them should have lived past about 1972 (Ezra Pound is the latest-living author mentioned, all others died prior to him). Some of these were blanketed over by generalizations in the book... I apologize if any of these were mentioned or discussed in the book, contrary to what I remember reading, and I apologize if I left anyone of merit out of this list. I'm linking to wikipedia so that, if you've read this book, you can read everything you probably would have read from Newman...but there are probably fewer jokes.

Louisa May Alcott*
J. M. Barrie
L. Frank Baum
Ambrose Bierce
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Lewis Carroll
Charles Chesnutt
Kate Chopin
Wilkie Collins
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Paul Lawrence Dunbar
Sui Sin Far
E. M. Forster

Kenneth Grahame
Aldous Huxley
C. S. Lewis
Carson McCullers
George Orwell
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Sylvia Plath
Ann Radcliffe*

Upton Sinclair
John Steinbeck
Robert Louis Stevenson*
Bram Stoker
Jules Verne
H. G. Wells*
Edith Wharton
Richard Wright
Zitkala-Sa

* I'm fairly certain they or their works were mentioned, but never actually discussed.

Monday Mailbox #33: Christmas Part 3

2012-01-08T23:24:00.000-05:00

Monday Mailbox is hosted this month by At Home with Books.

Still more books coming in from Christmas - huzzah!

Jerry Orbach: Prince of the City, by John Anthony Gilvey

self-explanatory

Writing about Literature: a portable guide, by Janet E. Gardner

Mine is actually the first edition, with a blue background. Not this second edition pukey color thing. I think (and I hope I don't have this wrong and get hit by an offended party, but I think) that my sister gave me this for Christmas from her pile of books that she wanted to get rid of - stuff she'd had in college, etc. Anyway, I'm pretty sure...mostly because there's an imprint on the cover, as if someone wrote on a post it stuck to the book...I can see my sister's handwriting and I can read "Running Errands" with a heart... also, I remember her telling me that's where this book came from. Anyway, it'll either be a helpful tool, or it'll offend me. Like one of those paper bag...grab bags! at parties? Yeah....anyway. YAY Christmas! Everyone should be able to celebrate the holidays long into January. We shouldn't just leave the gift-giving to December 25th! I say this out of pure selfish reasoning: I want more presents. :D

The Club Dumas, by Arturo Pérez-Reverto

Picked up this one at work. I love Dumas...I figure I'm probably the target audience.

Peering into 2012

2012-01-06T09:06:00.000-05:00

Well 2012 arrived whether I was ready for it or not. And I was not. Hence why my 2012 post is coming 6 days into 2012. Oh well. Whatevs. Ew I just said whatevs.

Anyway.

As with last year, I'm not sure how realistic this list is. It's simply my wishlist. My goal this year is 70 books. For my sanity's sake I was going to only post half of those, this way I wouldn't freak out when I tack on some more. But that's not happening. So, without further ado, my reading wishlist (in no particular order) for 2012:

The Bridge to Never Land, by Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson (yeah, finished that one already)

The Western Lit Survival Kit, by Sandra Newman (already halfway done)

The rest of Stephanie Barron's Being a Jane Austen Mystery series (I have 7 books left)

The Last Nude, by Ellis Avery

A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness

Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability, by Patricia White

The Gods of Gotham, by Lyndsay Faye

Remember How I Love You, by Jerry Orbach and Elaine Orbach, with Ken Bloom

Scarlett, by Alexandra Ripley

The Children's Book, by A. S. Byatt

The Kingdom Keepers III, by Ridley Pearson

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

The Little Women Letters, by Gabrielle Donnelly

To be Queen, by Christy English

Daughters of the Witching Hill, by Mary Sharratt

Say Her Name, by Francisco Goldman

Fated, by S. G. Browne

Three Stages of Amazement, by Carol Edgarian

The Lincoln Lawyer, by John Connelly

Every Dead Thing, by John Connolly

The Siege of Krishnapur, by J. G. Farrell

The Jungle Books, by Rudyard Kipling

The Water Theatre, by Lindsay Clarke

Jerry Orbach: Prince of the City - His Way from The Fantastics to Law & Order, by John Anthony Gilvey

A Breath of Eyre, by Eve Marie Mont

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern

Perfume, by Patrick Suskind

The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino

An Accident in August, by Laurence Cossé

Blueprints for Building Better Girls, by Elissa Schappell

Big Girl Small, by Rachel DeWoskin

The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes

Swamplandia!, by Karen Russell

Clara and Mr. Tiffany, by Susan Vreeland

Ten Thousand Saints, by Eleanor Henderson

This Beautiful Life, by Helen Schulman

The Tiger's Wife, by Téa Obreht

Charlotte Collins: A Continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, by Jennifer Becton

Sister Queens, by Julia Fox

Stay Awake, by Dan Chaon

The Age of Insight, by Eric R. Kandel

New York Diaries 1609-2009, ed. by Teresa Carpenter

The Thorn and the Blossom - A Two-Sided Love Story, by Theodora Goss

Birds of a Lesser Paradise, stories by Megan Mayhew

The Street Sweeper, by Elliot Perlman

Hope: A Tragedy, by Shalom Auslander

Island of Vice, by Richard Zacks

The Angel Esmeralda, Nine Stories by Don DeLillo

The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides

First Love, Last Rites, by Ian McEwan

The Comfort of Strangers, by Ian McEwan

The Imitation Game, by Ian McEwan

The Gates, by John Connolly

Believing is Seeing (Observations on the Mystery of Photography), by Errol Morris

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, by Candice Millard

Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author,Who Went in Search of Them, by Donovan Hohn

Panorama, by H. G. Adler

The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain

The Peach Keeper, by Sarah Addison Allen

Open City, by Teju Cole

All the Time in the World, by E. L. Doctorow

Horoscopes for the Dead, by Billy Collins

Hit Lit: Cracking the Code of the Twentieth Century's Biggest Bestsellers, by James W. Hall

2011 Recap

2012-01-05T23:07:00.001-05:00

Alright. Recap time. The only challenge I really finished was the Historical Fiction challenge. I got through 4 out of 11 Stephanie Barron books, and through I think 4 books and 2 films for the Sense & Sensibility bicentenary challenge. I think the lesson learned here is: challenges aren't really for me unless they're ones I set for myself. In 2009, I finished 42 books. In 2010, I finished 59 books (minus one that was actually unfinished). In 2011, I beat that: I finished 65 books...over 20,000 pages. That's an average of 316 pages/book. An average of 5 books/month. That's a lot for me. But I know I could have done ever better if I'd not let autumn get to me. Damn autumn slump. Anyway, here's 2011's list. My 2012 list will make up my next post.

Being a Jane Austen Mystery Series, by Stephanie Barron:
Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, by Stephanie Barron (289 pgs)
Jane and the Man of the Cloth, by Stephanie Barron (375 pgs)
Jane and the Wandering Eye, by Stephanie Barron (320 pgs)
Jane and the Genius of the Place, by Stephanie Barron (361pgs)

Sense & Sensibility Bicentenary Challenge:
Willoughby's Return, by Jane Odiwe (352 pgs)
Eliza's Daughter, by Joan Aiken (352 pgs)
Brightsea, by Jane Gillespie (160 pgs)
Sense & Sensibility, by Jane Austen (400 pgs) (re-read)

Giveaways/ARC's/Galleys/Early Reviewers from LibraryThing:
By Fire, By Water, by Mitchell James Kaplan (277 pgs)

PPZ: Dreadfully Ever After, by Steve Hockensmith (287 pgs)

The Sweet Relief of Missing Children, by Sarah Braunstein (376 pgs)
What I Learned Under The Sun, by Kyle L. Coon (233 pgs)

Expiration Date, by Sherril Jaffe (200 pgs)
The Haunting of Wolfe Haven, by Debbie A. Heaton (221 pgs)
Tabloid City, by Pete Hamill (278 pgs)
Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim by Mark Twain & W. Bill Czolgosz (288 pgs)
French Leave, by Anna Gavalda (108 pgs)
The Pumpkin Eater, by Penelope Mortimer (224 pgs)
The Meowmorphosis, by Franz Kafka & Coleridge Cook (208 pgs)
The Judges of the Secret Court, by David Stacton (255 pgs)
Silver Girl, by Elin Hilderbrand (416 pgs)
The Beginners, by Rebecca Wolff (304 pgs)
The Twilight Mystique, by Amy M. Clarke (247 pgs)
Second Reading, by Jonathan Yardley (256 pgs)
Minor Snobs, by Daniel Amory (134 pgs)
The Foreigners, by Maxine Swann (272 pgs)
Definitely Not Mr. Darcy, by Karen Doornebos (374 pgs)
Incognito, by Gregory Murphy (320 pgs)
The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, by Alina Bronsky (304 pgs)
Just My Type, by Simon Garfield (356 pgs)
Pirates of Barbary, by Adrian Tinnisman (303 pgs)
Pirate King, by Laurie R. King (300 pgs)
Changó's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes, by William Kennedy (326 pgs)
If Jack's in Love, by Stephen Wetta (368 pgs)
Fezariu's Epiphany, by David M. Brown (386 pgs)
Dancing with Mrs. Dalloway, by Celia Blue Johnson (256 pgs)
A Study in Sherlock, ed. by Laurie King and Leslie Klinger (400 pgs)
Pumpkin Roll, by Josi S. Kilpack (368 pgs)
The Woman Who Heard Color, by Kelly Jones (400 pgs)
Guerilla Leader: T.E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt, by James J. Schneider (368 pgs)
The Death of King Arthur - The Immortal Legend by Sir Thomas Malory, a retelling, by Peter Ackroyd (316 pgs)
The Rape of the Muse, by Michael Stein (168pgs)

Other Fiction:
Hood (The King Raven Trilogy, Book 1), by Stephen R. Lawhead (496 pgs)
Pemberley Ranch, by Jack Caldwell (384)
PPZ: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, by Steve Hockensmith (288 pgs)
The Innocent, by Ian McEwan (270 pgs)
Jane and the Damned, by Janet Mullany (304 pgs)
A Novel Bookstore, by Laurence Cossé (424 pgs)
Summer of Storms, by Judith Kelman (304 pgs)
Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier (380 pgs)
Some Assembly Required, by Lynn Kiele Bonasia (321 pgs)
Under the Boardwalk, by Carly Phillips (304 pgs)
Scarlet (The Raven King Trilogy, Book 2), by Stephen R. Lawhead (464 pgs)
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck (118 pgs)
Tales of the Islanders, by Charlotte Brontë (92 pgs)
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling (784 pgs)
Tuck (The Raven King Trilogy, Book 3), by Stephen R. Lawhead (464 pgs)
The Phantom of Pemberley, by Regina Jeffers (336 pgs)
Emma Brown, by Clare Boylan (448 pgs)
Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella (320 pgs)
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (281 pgs)
Skipping Christmas, by John Grisham (208 pgs)

Other Non-Fiction/Comedy/Memoir:
The Big Sort, by Bill Bishop (384 pgs)
A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen, by Susannah Carson (320 pgs)
I'll Mature When I'm Dead, by Dave Barry (272 pgs)
Garlic & Sapphires, by Ruth Reichl (352 pgs)
Let's Take the Long Way Home, by Gail Caldwell (208 pgs)

Number of pgs completed: 20,568

Review: The Bridge to Never Land, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

2012-01-05T07:17:00.002-05:00

The first novel of Barry & Pearson's "Peter and the Starcatchers" series to drop the P & S title, The Bridge to Never Land manages to be true to the P & S name while respectfully resembling the inspiration for the series: the works of J. M. Barrie. Whereas its predecessor (in both publication and chronology), Peter and the Sword of Mercy, seemed to miss the mark in terms of continuity and quality, The Bridge to Never Land simply soars.

Over an hundred years has passed since the last installment, wherein Wendy seeks out Peter to help save her mother, Molly Darling née Aster. Sarah and Aidan, siblings living in present day Pennsylvania, happen upon a piece of paper during one of their brother-sister spats. This paper is a clue, a puzzle, that sends them on a mad dash over two continents, into an alternate universe and, in pure Ridley fashion, to Disney World.

Aiding the pair is physicist J. D. Aster (of the starcatching Asters, of course). But even as they are running from the police, the F.B.I, and Disney security (all of whom believe that the siblings were abducted by Aster) they are pursued by a villain that fans of the series know well - not Hook/Black Stache, not Mr. Grinn, but the very chimera of villains: the shadow-stealing Ombra, himself. Weakened by the battles with Peter and the starcatchers a century ago, Lord Ombra has lay in wait, scouring the earth for the first hint of starstuff, the strange and powerful material unknown to science, that turned fish into mermaids and makes children fly; a material that, in the wrong hands, is deadly.

Young fans of the series will find that, as with Harry Potter, the modern twist on an old kind of magic is inviting and refreshing.Traditionalists will embrace the presence of the mystical island called Never Land and its inhabitants, and there's even something special in there for the loyal Disneyites among us. And yes, there's room for a sequel.

Review: The Rape of the Muse, by Michael Stein

2012-01-04T09:44:00.000-05:00

Just a note - I realize I'm behind in my blogging for the beginning of the year. I haven't recapped, I haven't looked ahead, and I'm behind by two reviews ALREADY. This is all in part due to the fact that this particular review was written, and then my thumb drive crapped out. So I had to write it again. Fun fun fun til her daddy takes the T-Bird away. Anyway, I can only hope the re-write is equal to the original.

Despite a face that only a mother could love, Michael Stein's The Rape of the Muse is not a work of terror or murder, or even thrill--it is, rather, a kind of sedate little novel in which the characters appear rather flat, overshadowed by the author's vision, and bloated with his artistic passion.

This is actually not a bad thing. Rather than being the true focus, the characters are rather vehicles for the debate at hand: What is beauty? Who has it? Who can destroy it? Narrator Rand seems to seesaw between the pursuit of beauty, and lust. Meanwhile his mentor, Montrose--a selfish being matched only by the acidic fictional Rosa from Alina Bronsky's The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine--seems constantly at odds with everyone, but especially with his best friend of thirty years, Simon Pruhar, whose own pursuit of beauty is undermined by his desire for fame and acknowledgement.

The story is based on a real case: Silberman vs. Georges regarding The Mugging of the Muse, from the 1970s. Stein includes the legalese of the inspiration, by also puts his own spin on things by infusing the trial speeches with a passion for beauty and art not often expressed by crotchety self-serving characters (outside of, perhaps, the grandstanding sometimes seen on shows like "Law & Order"). But, as with any piece of art, we must understand Stein's work as an allegory. That is to say, made in one form to represent another: sure, it's about a bunch of artists all fighting for freedom of expression, but deep down it's about friendship and hatred, and how those things must and do coexist in a world where beauty--the pursuit of beauty--is the only honorable pursuit.

In a world where we've moved past the groundbreaking changes that Montrose is attempting by switching from sculpture to graphic art, the value of this novel's message about art may be too late, but Stein's keen observation of humanity and it's quirks is timeless.

Monday Mailbox #32: Christmas, Part 2

2012-01-02T09:51:00.000-05:00

Monday mailbox is hosted this month by At Home with Books.

After we finished opening gifts this year, I made a mad dash to fit all of my new things into five priority mail flat rate boxes. I celebrate Christmas with my Family in Florida, but I live in New York...so this is pretty much always a requirement. This means that I kind of get Christmas several times over, over the next two weeks, as packages arrive with all of my books and other presents. With the weird holiday schedule this weekend, I've only received one box so far, but it had a bunch of books in it - mostly ones I hadn't put in last week's MM - yay Christmas!!

Remember How I Love You:

Letters from an Extraordinary Marriage,

by Jerry Orbach and Elaine Orbach,

with Ken Bloom, and with a foreword by Sam Waterston

I had asked for Jerry Orbach's biography for Christmas - which is kind of hilarious because I pretty much detest biographies and autobiographies, but I will always make an exception for Jerry Orbach. My mom, when she was buying that one for me, came across two other books that alibris suggested. This was one of them. I haven't decided, yet, whether I'll read this or the biography first...

The Bridge to Never Land,

by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

I had heard of this book, but had kind of assumed (not seeing an image of it) that it was one of the Never Land Books that Barry & Pearson wrote to accompany the Peter and the Starcatchers series. But actually this is a sequel to the original series. It still involves Never Land and Peter and even some Starcatcher business, but it's modern-day...and I've just finished it, and it's fantastic. Review to follow shortly.

The Berenstain Bears Series, by Stan and Jan Berenstain:

The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble With Friends

The Berenstain Bears and the Truth

The Berenstain Bears Go to School

The Berenstain Bears in the Dark

The Berenstain Bears Learn about Strangers

The Berenstain Bears: No Girls Allowed

I had these books when I was a kid. I'm not sure whatever happened to ours. Maybe we sold them in a yard sale. Maybe we gave them to the school library. But my sister and I can remember them pretty vividly. For Christmas, my mom put 12 in a gift bag and told Rory and I that we should share. So we divvied them up, taking certain ones because we remembered them best. I can remember seeing myself and my friend...whose name can't remember...in the Trouble with Friends book. I can distinctly remember my grandmother (my father's mother, who passed away twenty years ago) pointing to one of the bears on the cover of ...Learn About Strangers and saying that one's me...it looks like me...look, it's grandma. I'm so excited to add these to my collection of children's books, books that I want more than anything to pass on to the next generation.

2011: End of Year Book Survey

2011-12-31T08:23:00.000-05:00

This is hosted by The Perpetual Page-Turner

1. Best Book You Read In 2011?

This is a tough one. I read many books that I loved.
My favorites, I think, would be
A Novel Bookstore, by Laurence Cossé
The Judges of the Secret Court, by David Stacton
Just My Type, by Simon Garfield
Willoughby's Return, by Jane Odiwe

2. Most Disappointing Book/Book You Wish You Loved More Than You Did?
Fezariu's Epiphany, by David Brown

3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2011?
Definitely Not Mr. Darcy, by Karen Doornebos

4. Book you recommended to people most in 2011?
The Judges of the Secret Court, by David Stacton

Pemberley Ranch, by Jack Caldwell
Jane and the Damned, by Janet Mullany

5. Best series you discovered in 2011?
Stephen Lawhead's King Raven Trilogy

6. Favorite new authors you discovered in 2011?

...well, new to me!
Janet Mullany
Laurence Cossé
Jane Odiwe

7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you?
Second Reading, by Jonathan Yardley

8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2011?
Tabloid City, by Pete Hamill

9. Book you most anticipated in 2011?
A Novel Bookstore, by Laurence Cossé

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2011?

11. Most memorable character in 2011?
Rebecca Bloomwood (Confessions of a Shopaholic)

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2011?
Changó's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes, by William Kennedy

13. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2011?
Tabloid City, by Pete Hamill

14. Book you can't believe you waited UNTIL 2011 to finally read?
Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2011?

So Stanton, one of the new men, those selfless figures who want nothing for themselves but the prerogatives of their office, in which, soft shelled themselves and weak, they lurk like cuttlefish, ready to grasp anything that comes by to nourish their enormous self-importance.
The Judges of the Secret Court, by David Stacton

16. Book That You Read In 2011 That Would Be Most Likely To Reread In 2012?
Jane and the Damned, by Janet Mullany

17. Book That Had A Scene In It That Had You Reeling And Dying To Talk To Somebody About It? (a WTF moment, an epic revelation, a steamy kiss, etc. etc.) Be careful of spoilers!
Jane and the Man of the Cloth, by Stephanie Barron. That's all I'm saying LOL

Monday Mailbox #31: Christmas, Part 1

2011-12-26T22:52:00.000-05:00

This month's Monday Mailbox is hosted by Let Them Read Books.

Happy Holidays, everyone! Sorry this post is a bit late today. I was travelling most of the day and then decided I needed to rest and watch some movies. But now I can bring you part 1 of my Christmas take:

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

It's edited by Laurel from Austenprose and it looks like a lot of fun...except the Amanda Grange bit. Sorry, I don't think I can ever let her live down Mr. Darcy, Vampyre....among other things.

The Water Theatre, by Lindsay Clarke

I think someone had this in their Monday Mailbox a few weeks ago...when I saw it I immediately added it to my wishlist. Yayyy Christmas!

The Inkheart Trilogy, by Cornelia Funke

These come in a boxset and they've been in my wishlist for a while. I'd kind of given up on getting them, but I decided to give them until Christmas (after which I would just buy them myself. I did go ahead and buy myself the DVD of Inkheart) but, as it turns out, I was gifted them. Again, yayyy Christmas!

UnInvited:

Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability

(Theories of Representation and Difference), by Patricia White

Don't laugh. I'm not gay, nor am I terribly terribly interested in lesbian representability. However, this book does focus on three of my all-time favorite films: Rebecca (1940), All About Eve (1944) and The Uninvited (1944). I don't remember how I stumbled across this book online, but to find a book that discusses The Uninvited (which is one of those films that I feel like I and about 10 other people have ever seen, and no one's quite sure it actually exists even though it's kind of brilliant)...I just had to have it. I had to. But throw some Rebecca and All About Eve in there, and I think just about anyone could be sold on this one.

Kingdom Keepers III: Disney in Shadows, by Ridley Pearson

Kingdom Keepers is one of those series that you should absolutely love if you grew up in Orlando, going to Disney all the freaking time. If you know Disney like the back of...actually that doesn't really work for me...but let's say you know Disney better than you know your face in the mirror...this series is for you. There's a fourth one out now, but I've been waiting so long for this one, the fourth will just have to wait a little longer.

The Princetta, by Anne-Laure Bondoux

I reviewed this over a year ago, but I love the book and I love the cover. The hardcover was pretty cheap online, so I bought this one for myself for Chritmas. Yayyy Christmas!

To be continued...

Monday Mailbox #30 - Giveaway Winner Announcement

2011-12-19T00:39:00.000-05:00

This month's Monday Mailbox is hosted by Let Them Read Books.

This week I received two books from Nicole over at Confessions of a Book Lush. She was getting rid of a bunch of things, giving away a pile of books she no longer required. So I ended up with:

The Water's Lovely, by Ruth Rendell

and

The Life Before Her Eyes, by Laura Kasischke

This one has a movie adaptation, so I guess I'll have to see it if I end up liking the book.

And I know that a lot of Monday Mailboxers insist that library books don't count, but I say they do. This week I borrowed an e-book (because getting to the library to pick up a book was proving to be too much, and take too much time - on their part...like actually confirming the hold).

The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman

This one is for the Sense & Sensibility Bicentennial Challenge.

Finally, I received my new paperback copy of A Discovery of Witches this week! And there was the giveaway of course...so someone else will be getting one as well! I'm happy to announce that the winner of a newly published paperback copy of Deborah Harkness' A Discovery of Witches is:

VAL K.

Congratulations!

Please check your e-mail for the winning confirmation, and respond with your shipping info so that Penguin Books can get that out to you.

Thank you so much to everyone who participated. If you still want a copy of A Discovery of Witches in paperback, it goes on Sale next Tuesday, December 27th. Pre-order yours now!

Pride and Prejudice: Not Another Teen Movie

2011-12-18T13:06:00.000-05:00

You know how sometimes you wake up in the morning with a hint of what you were dreaming about, and then you mull it around in your brain all day? This morning I woke up, not quite remembering what I had dreamt, but knowing that I must consider this: What if Pride and Prejudice were written today? I lay in bed thinking it over for a while, photoshopped images running rampant in my head. And I knew that I had to release these thoughts to the internets. So here we are. This is what my crazy mind has come up with:

Pride and Prejudice, by Stephenie Meyer (author of the Twilight series)

Pride and Prejudice, by J. K. Rowling (author of the Harry Potter series)

Pride and Prejudice, by Sara Shepard (author of the Pretty Little Liars series)

Pride and Prejudice, by Suzanne Collins (author of the Hunger Games trilogy)

You're welcome.

Being the Fourth Jane Austen Mystery: Jane and the Genius of the Place, by Stephanie Barron

2011-12-15T00:26:00.001-05:00

When reading Austen, it's often easy to forget everything that was happening in her world. The politics of the time go mostly unremarked in her books (with a few momentary glaring exceptions...I'm thinking this second of Persuasion and Mansfield Park); one hardly expects talk of a French invasion.

I think that's why Barron's series is so special - it's a little bit of Austen's real life, a giant sprinkling of her books, and a smattering of political intrigue. One minute you're saying "Hey - that line's from Captain Wentworth's letter in Persuasion," and in the next you're trying to figure out who killed the French lady.

Jane and the Genius of the Place occurs a few months after the passing of her father, while she spends some months with her brother Edward's family near Canterbury. While at the famous Canterbury Races, a woman is killed and, as honorary Justice, Edward and his family are dragged into the fray. What ensues is a twisted tale of spies, death and...wait for it...cross-dressing.

This book was perhaps less romantic than the Second in the series. And with no Lord Harold in sight for 99% of the novel, it was lacking in a certain amount of witty exchanges. But the murder, intrigue, and then more murder kind of made up for his absence. And there were all kinds of gems for Janeites to find - glimpses of Darcy, of Wentworth, Mrs. Elton, Mr. Collins, Mr. Rushworth and even Lady Catherine. Barron's edge is in mixing these characters of Jane's invention with the real historical figures featured in the novel. Because so much of Austen's correspondance was destroyed, we will never truly know what her interactions with these people were like, nor what persons were definite inspirations for her work. But Barron's novels make a rather fun game of guessing.

A Quick Bookish Survey

2011-12-14T22:05:00.000-05:00

I've been dragging my feet through the book I'm reading right now. Not that I'm not loving it, but that I've been sick and...you know what, not important. My point is that when The Broke and the Bookish posted this wee little survey earlier today I thought - perfect! Another way to procrastinate my way around this book review. Phew. That was a close one. And so, without further ado, a quick bookish survey:

1. The Book I'm Currently Reading:

Jane and the Genius of the Place - Being the Fourth Jane Austen Mystery, by Stephanie Barron

I'm much further behind on this series than I should be, but I'm truckin along. I don't expect to get past the fifth one by the end of the year, but I'm planning to have all eleven of them done by the end of February. Eleven. I can't believe there are eleven books in this series.

2. The Last Book I Finished:

Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen

Obviously a re-read, this was part of my Sense & Sensibility Bicentennial Challenge...another reading challenge that I'm not doing so well with this year. Procrastination will do that. But I'm hoping to get through at least two more books for a grand total of 6 books and 2 movies which, again, I think is decent.

3. The Next Book I Want to Read:

WANT to Read:
The Children's Book, by A. S. Byatt
WILL Read:
The Rape of the Muse, by Michael Stein

I've wanted to read The Children's Book for so long now, but I promised I would get through the Stein book by the end of the year...ho hum.

4. The Last Book I Bought:

The Princetta, by Anne-Laure Bondoux

Because it's been on my wishlist forever and no one ever buys it for me...so I took matters into my own hands, added a cheap copy to one of my Christmas shipments so that I could get free shipping, and now it's waiting for me in Florida. Like a bonus Christmas gift! I'm so happy. :D

5. The Last Book I Was Given:

Summer of Storms, by Judith Kelman

This one was actually hard to determine. I had to go back through all of my Monday Mailboxes and figure out if I had been given any books in the last year (since last Christmas) that weren't won from contests or found in my office's lending library, or sent to me as ARC's....because those don't count. And back in April I had described this book as being given to me by the gods of my apartment building (i.e. left by one of the other tenants) so I'm going with it.

Best Book Covers of 2011

2011-12-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

Well...maybe not the best. Certainly my favorites, but probably not the best. Aesthetically, I know I'm drawn to certain colors more than others. And I know I favor certain styles over others. So I'm predisposed to be in disagreement when Publishers Weekly says that Helen DeWitt's Lightning Rods is one of the best covers of 2011 when it looks an awful lot like the new printing of Franz Kafka's The Trial by Schocken Books, and both of them look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Even Johnny's terrified.

So again, these are MY favorites. Some will probably coincide with the fancy pants critics, others will not. And actually only five of these are in my personal collection(*)...which means I have books to buy...

The Man with the Golden Gun, by Ian Fleming
Cover redesigned by Penguin UK.

(Penguin UK redesigned the entire 007 collection in this fashion. I've got one more in this list, but you can see all of them here.)

The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes
This version of the cover by Random House Canada.

If Jack's in Love, by Stephen Wetta*

Amy Einhorn/Putnam

On Her Majesty's Secret Service, by Ian Fleming
Cover redesigned by Penguin UK

The Woman Who Heard Color, by Kelly Jones*
Berkley Trade

Blueprints for Building Better Girls, by Elissa Schappell
Simon & Schuster

How the Dead Live, by Derek Raymond
Cover redesigned by Melville House.

The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, by Benjamin Hale
TWELVE

Three Stages of Amazement, by Carol Edgarian*
Scribner

The End of Everything, by Megan Abbott

Reagan Arthur Books

The Beginners, by Rebecca Wolff*
Riverhead Hardcover

The Waves, by Virginia Woolf
Cover redesigned by Penguin UK.

(This is another one where Penguin UK released a redesigned series. I have another one of this set on this list, but you can see all of them here.)

Delirium, by Lauren Oliver

HarperCollins

Silver Girl, by Elin Hilderbrand*

Reagan Arthur/Back Bay Books

Big Girl Small, by Rachel DeWoskin

Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Sugar in my Bowl, by Erica Jong

Ecco

Clara and Mr. Tiffany, by Susan Vreeland

Random House

Orlando, by Virginia Woolf

Cover redesigned by Penguin UK

Top Ten Books I Want to Give as Gifts

2011-12-13T00:00:00.000-05:00

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's theme: Top Ten Books I Want To Give As Gifts (and to whom...even if you won't actually give them!)

I've taken that little clause to heart - these are ten books that I want to give but, for various reasons, shall not.

1. Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen (to my cousin Gabriella) - Gabriella is thirteen years old, which is about two years older than I was when I first read Pride & Prejudice. She's not much of a reader, and much of what she does read is (sigh) YA fiction that doesn't have much merit. I would give this to her in an instant. But she wouldn't appreciate it, which makes me sad.

2. MASH, by Richard Hooker (to my mother) - My mom loves the series, but I'm not sure if she's ever read the book. In any case, if she wanted it, I would lend her my copy. But I'm not gonna go out and buy it if she's already read it.

3. Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie (to Rick Perry) - By now you've probably seen the ridiculous anti-gay "Strong" Rick Perry for President commercial where he's wearing Heath Ledger's coat from Brokeback Mountain, and which features music by a gay composer. Yeah. Good times. Anyway, Rick Perry is a douche, and I think he lacks imagination. I would give him Peter Pan for two reasons. 1) I think he could benefit from its fantasticality. 2) I think it's be an hilarious addition to his commercial.

4. Fezariu's Epiphany, by David Brown (to Nathan Fillion) - Because he's into this sci-fi stuff and he might actually like it, whereas I felt it read like a video game. Also, Nathan Fillion is pretty.

5. The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen (to Jane Austen) - for editing purposes.

6. Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger (to the crazy I dealt with last week who kept demanding something I couldn't give them) - I hate this book. And I hate this person. Also I think their selfish disregard for others is a perfect parallel to the novel. And I'm hoping I could find a hardcover copy so I could chuck it at their head.

7. Peter and the Sword of Mercy (Peter and the Starcatchers #4), by Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson (to Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson) - I would like to give this book back and ask them to fix it.

8. Brian Jacques' Redwall series (to my cousin Michael) - Michael is ten years old and, like his sister, is not much of a reader. When I was just a little older than him, these books were the most amazing things to me...they gave me something to turn to when I hated everything around me. I think he might come to like them. But I fear they would just sit in a corner.

9. The Last Flapper, a play by William Luce (to Keira Knightley) - If the Fitzgerald biopic The Beautiful and the Damned EVER gets off the ground with the previously announced Knightley as Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, she's going to need to learn to act. She's also going to need this play.

10. The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, by Mo Willems (to everyone) - Because it's just the cutest darned thing and everyone deserves to have a little giggle during the holidays.

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DON'T FORGET!

You can still enter for a chance to win a new paperback copy of A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, from Penguin Books. Open to US residents. Entries will be accepted until 11:59PM on Sunday December 18, 2011. And remember, you can only enter once, but you can get a bonus chance to win by mentioning the event and linking to this blog on Twitter (make sure you mention @lalalalaurs)!

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