Unbridled © 2009, 247 pages
"No one stays forever," reads the first line of Emily St. John Mandel's debut novel Last Night in Montreal. Certainly Mandel's main character can't stay in one place for longer than a few months, if that. Abducted when she was seven by her non-custodial parent, Lilia spent her childhood in a car--nine years of motels and chain restaurants and public parks, dyed hair and name changes, her picture and her grieving mother on their room's flickering TV screen before they fled again in the middle of the night. The book slowly circles around Lilia's story until we get the whole of it, skipping around in time and among perspectives: Lilia's own, when she was younger; and later we see her mostly through other's eyes--the private detective who became obsessed with her case, his daughter, and Eli, the latest of her abandoned lovers.
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Headline Review © 2009, 352 pages
Peter Kendrick is a charmingly self-effacing Cambridge don who has smashed up his Land Rover's front end at the start of Rosy Thornton's Crossed Wires. The girl behind the phone at his insurance company's call center is Mina Heppenstall, who finds his bumbling and the fact that he'd swerved to avoid a cat charming. From that inauspicious beginning, and after another accident on Peter's part, a long-distance relationship develops between the two, though they're divided by the telephone wires as well as differences in age and station. But they're situations are otherwise similar: both are single parents--Peter's a widower with twins; Mina, now in her 20's, was pregnant at 17.
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Ah, the tornado of 1989. I can't believe it was already 20 years ago. It was the summer before I started graduate school. I was in our apartment in downtown New Haven on the 14th floor--well, 13th really, but they didn't have a 13th floor. David was in New York. We had a big plate glass window facing west, so beautiful sunsets. And in the middle of the afternoon it suddenly got very dark and things like plastic bags were flying around outside the window--which I think was unprecedented, since we were up so high. I hadn't had the TV on so I had no clue we were in fact getting a tornado. I was just amazed at how dark the sky was. And I was making runs back and forth to the bathroom with towels because that big window was leaking like crazy along the edges--also unprecedented. Hanging around by the window may not have been wise, in retrospect, but it did save having to clean up a big mess later.
I think that the white house shown at the beginning of this video may have been a friend's house, which was flattened in the storm.
I'm giving away a copy of my book Trying Neaira for BAFAB. Full details of the contest are here but it's super easy to enter. Just Twitter this:
Win Trying Neaira by Debra Hamel (http://snipr.com/neaira) for BAFAB! RT to enter drawing (details http://is.gd/1kWDB). #neaira
Contest ends on 7/7, but you can enter once a day until then. (Open to residents of the US, England, and Canada.)
Here are the theme-related clues to this week's Sunday New York Times crossword.
ACROSS
23 Give Axl and Pete a break?
33 Tripping over a threshold, perhaps?
45 Pea farmers?
51 Summer apartment with no air-conditioning?
69 Floral Technicolor dreamcoat?
91 Strutting bird on an ice floe?
94 Residents at a Manhattan A.S.P.C.A.?
105 Move a movie camera around a community?
122 Explanation for an interception?
THE ANSWERS
ACROSS
23 FCRYY GUR EBFRF
33 CBEGNY QNATRE
45 GUR CBQ FDHNQ
51 OBVYVAT CNQ
69 SHYY CRGNY WNPXRG
91 FGHQ CHSSVA
94 ARJ LBEX CRGF
105 CNA NOBHG GBJA
122 CNFF PBASHFVBA
The answers are encrypted. To decrypt them, select whichever ones you want to see, throw them into the Crossword Decrypting Widget below, and hit the red button:
It's Saturday, which means it's time for the deblog's Weekly Set Puzzle Challenge! (View a list of winners of the Weekly Set Puzzle Challenge here.)
This week's scores:
How to participate:
a. Download the badge to your own space and link thereto.
b. Include this code in your post:
c. Alternatively, you're not obliged to post it. This is all in fun, after all.
Midnight Ink © 2009, 368 pages
Murder at Graverly Manor is the third book in Daniel Edward Craig's 5-Star Mystery series, featuring hotelier Trevor Lambert. Trevor, between jobs and back in his hometown of Vancouver, Canada, comes across a Victorian mansion turned bed and breakfast with a for sale sign in its yard. Intent on buying the creepy house, Trevor agrees to the bizarre demand of its current proprietress, Lady Graverly, that he live and work at the inn for a month while she decides if he's worthy of the property. It's not a thoroughly pleasant prospect: the allegedly haunted manor is saddled with a violent history. Rumors abound that Lady Graverly's husband, not seen for fifty years, was involved in the disappearance of a chambermaid. There are weird noises at night, the staff are hostile or incompetent, and Lady Graverly herself, who is alternately sweet and scary, is less than forthcoming about her plans for Trevor.
Continue reading at book-blog.com »UPDATE 7/8: And the winner is @Susan_Victoria! But it's certainly not the best news she's had this week.
Okay, I've been thinking that for BAFAB Week this time around I'd give away a copy of my book, Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003). It's the true story (hence the subtitle) of a woman named Neaira who was put on trial in Athens in the 4th century B.C. She wasn't tried in connection with her earlier career as a prostitute, but she was dragged through the mud by the prosecutor, whose speech from the trial survives. (The Sunday Telegraph called it a "gripping story of politics, sex and sleaze in ancient Athens...." This is a book that needs to be read!)
So, if you'd like to enter a drawing to win my book for BAFAB, just Twitter this message (you can enter once per day):
Win Trying Neaira by Debra Hamel (http://snipr.com/neaira) for BAFAB! RT to enter drawing (details http://is.gd/1kWDB). #neaira
Fine print:
1. Contest open only to residents of the US, England, and Canada.
2. I'll hold the drawing and contact the winner on 7/8/09.
3. You can enter once per day through 7/7/09. No entries accepted after midnight eastern time 7/7/09.
Here are the theme-related clues to this week's Sunday New York Times crossword.
ACROSS
23 Battle of Trafalgar hero
38 Oak or ash
60 Lucifer, notably
83 Suffer for acting unwisely
101 New Jersey ecumenical institution
124 Tiny friend of Dumbo
DOWN
17 "The World Is My Home" memoirist, 1991
52 Deadline maker
THE ANSWERS
ACROSS
23 NQZVENY ARYFBA [QVYY]
38 PBNEFR TENVARQ JBBQ [BERTNAB]
60 SNYYRA NATRY [SRAARY]
83 CNL GUR CVCRE [CRCCRE]
101 CEVAPRGBA FRZVANEL [EBFRZNEL]
124 GVZBGUL D. ZBHFR
DOWN
17 WNZRF ZVPURARE
52 ZNANTVAT RQVGBE
The answers are encrypted. To decrypt them, select whichever ones you want to see, throw them into the Crossword Decrypting Widget below, and hit the red button:
David, from upstairs: Call Evelyn's house. There are coyotes in the neighborhood.
Pause.
Me: Old women wanting sex?
Rebecca: That's a cougar, mom.
Anchor Books © 2008, 240 pages
In this ninth installment in Alexander McCall Smith's Botswana series Mma Precious Ramotswe again confronts a series of small problems that come to her attention at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Most disturbing is her receipt of a threatening letter, which refers indelicately to her traditional build and to the over-large glasses of her associate, Mma Grace Makutsi. Mma Ramotswe is also tasked with locating any surviving family of a woman who believes herself to have been adopted, an assignment that turns out to be less straightforward than one would expect. As usual, Mma Ramotswe deals with matters with great wisdom and vast quantities of bush tea. And as usual, McCall Smith's writing is perfectly charming.
Continue reading at book-blog.com »
It's Saturday, which means it's time for the deblog's Weekly Set Puzzle Challenge! (View a list of winners of the Weekly Set Puzzle Challenge here.)
This week's scores:
How to participate:
a. Download the badge to your own space and link thereto.
b. Include this code in your post:
c. Alternatively, you're not obliged to post it. This is all in fun, after all.
The number of books I have to post reviews for has grown, as I finished Cornelia Biddle's Deception's Daughter and Kyle Mills' Lords of Corruption. The latter I went through so quickly I didn't get around to posting a picture of it here.
I started Paul Schmidtberger's Design Flaws of the Human Condition last night and so far it is a treat. You can get a taste of its clever writing from the title of the first chapter heading:
Chapter One. In Which Ken's "Really Great Day," as Preordained by a Starbucks Employee, Fails to Materialize
