Kelly's [Former] France Blog

Christmas Loot

2012-01-15T13:10:00.001-05:00

This post is a wee bit late, but that's okay. Christmas was a great day in my family for new books. I got 7, Twin got 7, little sis got a few, and my mom got a gift card to a book store. Apparently, though, my Christmas list and therefore the gifts I received had a certain theme to them. I didn't realize this until my mom pointed it out on Christmas morning. Let's see if you can guess the theme:

Firstly, I got this: Best of Ghost Hunters Volume 1 and 2:

Next, this: 50 Classic Horror Movies DVD set:

Then, Criminal Minds Season 1 on DVD:

Followed by some books....

I Am Not a Serial Killer: (noticing the theme yet??)

Skippy Dies:

Mr. Peanut:

So yeah, my mom apparently thinks I'm like obsessed with crime, horror, and dead people. I think she might be worried about me.

But to show you that I'm really not all that bad, I also got these books:

Midnight on Julia Street, The Last Time I Saw Paris, Love Medecine, and Knitting Under the Influence:

Review: Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer

2012-01-13T23:26:00.000-05:00

I had never heard of Georgette Heyer until last January-ish, but when I found out she wrote British mysteries, I knew I needed to give her a try. You see, I love a good mystery. And when they take place in England, I love them more. Especially when they aren't set in like, 2011. And now I'm hooked on Ms. Heyer. Footsteps in the Dark is about a family-3 grown siblings Peter, Celia, and Margaret, Celia's husband, an aunt, and their butler and cook-who decide to spend the summer in a country home they inherited from a distant relative. Immediately, they hear tales from the locals about the home's ghosts, but everyone just laughs it off. That is, until strange things start happening-noises that shouldn't be there, shadows, and a skeleton hidden in a wall. Soon though, the party begins to unravel the mystery. As more information is discovered, they begin to wonder if it is even a ghost at all, but a real person who is very capable of doing them harm.

Heyer's writing is just fantastic. It is full of wit and sarcasm, and grabbed me immediately. She developed her characters very well, and they all had distinct personalities-some very witty, some serious. What I loved was the chemistry between them. Peter, Celia, and Margaret are all siblings, and they act like it even though they are adults. Celia's husband definitely acts the part too. He's close to everyone but also gets annoyed easily at his inlaws. They all seemed so real. I also adored the constable of the small town. Comic relief at its best! I was laughing out loud while reading this at work.

The ghost story/mystery was at times creepy, which I loved. I thought the characters did a good job of solving it. Heyer makes them and the situation so believable. At first, they shrug it off as nothing but an old house creaking, as I would do. But as things progress, they can't help but start wondering.

So favorite quotes:

Page 44: But an afternoon spent by the trout stream did much to restore their spirits. The fish were rising well, and the weather conditions were ideal.

Page 144: "Not quite," Charles said. "We know there is something queer about this house. I don't want to lay undue stress on all that has happened, but on the other hand I don't want to run to the other extreme of pooh-poohing undoubtedly odd proceedings." (I wish people still used that phrase-"pooh-poohing". It is awesome.)

Page 246: Margaret reflected gloomily on the manifold failings of the male sex, and decided that the worst of these was the appallingly blunt questions men asked.

Title: Footsteps in the Dark
Author: Georgette Heyer
Date of Publication: My copy is 2010, originally in 1932
Number of Pages: 347
Genre: Fiction, mystery
Source: Personal Copy

Review: The Book of Illumination by Mary Ann Winkowski and Maureen Foley

2012-01-05T13:01:00.000-05:00

Mary Ann Winkowski and Maureen Foley's The Book of Illumination is the perfect book for fans of the TV show Ghost Whisperer. After all, Winkowski was a consultant for the TV show. This book is the first in what I hope might become a little series. There's already a second book out, The Ice Cradle.

This book follows Anza, a single mom who lives in Boston and works as a bookbinder (awesome, I know). Anza also can see and talk to ghosts. When Anza gets a temp job helping a friend rebind old books at a museum, she soon finds herself in a mystery. What do the two monk ghosts want? And could the answer be in a mysterious ancient text that has gone missing from the museum? Anza will have to rely on her psychic abilities, as well as her ex-boyfriend the cop, to solve the mystery.

This was a super fun, light hearted read. I warmed up to Anza right away. I loved how she was so happy with her life. So often when I read anything about a single mother, she's depressed, angrey at life and at her child's father. Anza is the opposite. She's friends with her son's father. On speaking terms with the man's wife. She even babysits her son's half-sisters. And Anza is completely at peace with her ability to see ghosts. It was refreshing for me to read about a character who was so comfortable in life, even if it's not the life she probably imagined she'd be living.

The mystery itself was also well done. It wasn't super intense, but it left me hanging until the end. A nice cozy sort of mystery with a ghostly twist.

There were some truly lovely moments in the book between Anza and the ghosts. My favorite ghost was Johnny, who had been a butler all his life. He asks Anza for help, which leads to some hilarious and at times touching moments.

All in all, The Book of Illumination is a great book to curl up with by the fireplace. It's no literary masterpiece, but it is perfect if you want to get lost in a good book that leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy inside.

Title: The Book of Illumination: A Novel from the Ghost Files
Author: Mary Ann Winkowski and Maureen Foley
Date of Publication: 2009
Number of Pages: 320
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Favorite Books of 2011

2011-12-31T22:11:00.000-05:00

I so planned on finishing up all reviews this week and starting 2012 all fresh and free. But then I got a flu bug and could not focus on review writing. So anyway, my best of 2011:

While I read a lot of books this year, I didn't have nearly as many "OMG this book is awesome" moments as last year. I think it's just the books I chose to read. A lot that I read last year had been on my list for ages and ages and I was really excited to read them. This year, I read all books I wanted to read (except for school, heh..), and really liked a lot of them, but there were fewer that I loved a whole super duper lot. Here is my list of favorite books that I read in 2011:

Biographie de la faim (A Life of Hunger) by Amelie Nothomb

Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Beneath the Wheel by Herman Hesse

The House on Tradd Street by Karen White

South of Superior by Ellen Airgood

13, rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro

Flight by Sherman Alexie

A Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware

Before Ever After by Samantha Sotto

The Pope's Daughter by Caroline P. Murphy

Leaving India by Minal Hajratwala

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

MWF Seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche

I read a total of 38 books and 3 single short stories (for school..). I'm hoping to do much better next year because I have more free time now :)

End of Year Book Survey

2011-12-26T16:14:00.001-05:00

I saw this survey over at Jamie's blog The Perpetual Page Turner and decided it looked like fun. So I'm doing it. But I have skipped a few questions that I'm too lazy to answer and have a bad memory when it comes to certain things.

1. Best book you read in 2011?
Definitely 13, rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro. I had super high expectations for it, and it surpassed all of them.

2. Most disappointing book/book you wished you loved more than you did?
The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie. The writing was great, but I found the story pretty boring.

3. Most surprising (in a good way) book?
MWF Seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche. Finished it last night and I was suprised from the start how much I was enjoying it. I thought it would be entertaining but silly. Instead, it kinda changed the way I think. Review will be coming soon.

4. Book you recommended to people the most?
A Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware. I think my whole family has now read it. And they all adored it as much as me!

5. Best series you discovered?
Karen White's The House on Tradd Street, The Girl on Legare Street, etc. I've only read the first one so far, but adored it. My sister read the 2nd one and keeps nagging at me to read it.

6. Favorite new authors you discovered?
So many. Ellen Airgood, who wrote a favorite of this year, South of Superior. Minal Hajratwala who wrote Leaving India. Karen White. Elena Mauli Shapiro, Rachel Bertsche. Samantha Sotto who wrote Before Ever After. Amelie Nothomb, who wrote Biographie de la faim and Les combustibles. I'd read anything by them because I heart their writing styles.

7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you?
Leaving India by Minal Hajratwala. I love nonfiction, but this was different than anything else I've read this year. I devoured it and still think about it all the time.

8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book?
13, rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro and Biographie de la faim by Amelie Nothomb. Oh, and Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz. And Flight by Sherman Alexie.

9. Book you most anticipated?
Definitely 13, rue Therese. I remember hearing about it some time in 2010, and then I had to wait and wait and wait for it. And then I bought it in 2011 but waited months to read it because I wanted time to sit and read it in one sitting.

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2011?
What is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman. 13, rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro, Biographie de la faim by Amelie Nothomb.

11. Most memorable character?
Zits in Sherman Alexie's Flight. Minny from The Help.

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2011?
Once again, I'm going to have to go with 13, rue Therese. It was so different but so gorgeous. I also loved the writing in Flight, though I wouldn't call in beautiful. It fit the teenage narrator perfectly.

13. Book that had the greatest impact on you?
I think I'm going to have to say Rachel Bertsche's MWF Seeking BFF. It has made me realize how much I miss hanging out with old friends and how I really need to make some new ones. Also, Dinaw Mengestu's How to Read the Air left me contemplating the relationship in the book and how both people just let it slowly die. It made me change my own behavior in my relationship.

14. Book you can't believe you waited UNTIL 2011 to read?
Hesse's Beneath the Wheel. I loved it and can't believe it's been out my whole life and I never picked it up.

15. Favorite passage/quote from a book read in 2011?
This one from 13, rue Therese I loved:
79: Our shell shock and our thousand-yard stare-we are stunned into quiet by the images that cannot be erased and thus erase all else-our gaze so still and so quiet that it can be ignored, if you wish, you do not have to

listen to our silence.

Digging this trench so hard, the muscle fibers in our backs bursting with the hurt of this: our last ditch effort.

Our shell shock and our thousand-yard stare-

I gaze ever farther than that.

For miles and miles I stare, through everything and straight to you. As I fight, I keep my eyes always on you: I cannot bear the stricken look on your face should you be told that I have died-

Your face-

it is the only reason I am still alive.

And then this one from Before Ever After:
Page 230: "I know there's no magical potion to preserve my life or Sheila's," Dex said, still holding on to Shelley's hand. "And I know that the time will come when her voice won't be as crystal clear in my head. But even when every detail has dulled, I know that I'll always have something that not even time can take away. Pain."

Shelley's hand stiffened against Dex's palm. "And that's a good thing?"

"Yes, because when I've forgotten everything else, I'll feel that ache...that tightness in my throat...that heaviness in my chest...and know that I loved a woman once and she loved me back. It's proof that I existed and so did she."

16. Book read in 2011 that you'd be most likely to reread in 2012?
Ha, probably all the Moliere plays I had to read for a French class. Because I'm hopefully starting grad school in the Fall and will want to brush up on my 15th century French.

17. Book that had a scene in it that had you reeling and dying to talk to somebody about?
There were quite a few of those in A Cottage by the Sea, mainly because I pretty much fell in love with the main male character.

18. New favorite book blog you discovered in 2011?
There are quite a few! But it would take forever to list them all, so I'll list 3 that I am constantly reading and taking book recommendations from:
Audra's blog Unabridged Chick
Brenda's blog Curling Up With a Good Book
And the blog Only Orangery

19. Best moment of book blogging in 2011?
Probably when I emailed 2 authors whose books I adored and really connected with, and they both replied right away saying that they were touched that I connected so much with their books. See, authors need a lot of reassurance too ;) And it's nice to know we're appreciated as readers!

20. Best bookish discovery?
Dog Ears Bookstore in South Buffalo. Way awesome.

21. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals?
I finished one challenge and came like 1 book away from finishing 2 others. I just got side tracked with other books I wanted to read.

22. Book you didn't get to in 2011 but will make your #1 priority in 2012?
The books I wanted to read for challenges but didn't end up reading, like another Georgette Heyer book I have sitting around my house somewhere.

23. Book you are most anticipating in 2012?
It was actually The Technologists by Matthew Pearl. And then last week I got an ARC of it. So ha. I'm reading it now.

24. One thing you hope to accomplish or do in your reading/blogging in 2012?
I really want to connect more with my readers and other bloggers. I've been doing this more than I was last year, but I had a lot going on in 2011 and wasn't quite as active as I wanted to be in this department. I hope to make some new blogging friends that I can talk books with :) And get more involved in the whole book blogging community :)

Review: Leaving India by Minal Hajratwala

2011-12-09T18:45:00.000-05:00

At first glance, Minal Hajratwala's Leaving India seems like your standard memoir about a family immigrating from India to the US. It's anything but. Hajratwala weaves a fascinating and true story of her family-extended and immediate-and how over a few centuries they slowly started leaving India for South Africa, Fiji, China, and many other places, and how her parents both ended up in the States. More than just a family's history though, Leaving India plays out like a self-discovery book. Through each of her family members' stories, Hajratwala is also looking for a piece of herself, and it makes for one awesome read. There is so much I could write about this book, but to stop myself my writing a super long review (because I loved so much and there is just soooo much to discuss), I'll just focus on a few points that are still fresh in my head, since I it seems most of the pages I dog-eared have come undog-eared..

Hajratwala discusses arranged marriages quite a bit throughout the book. After all, pretty much all of her relatives and ancestors had them. What I loved (and can't find the book which sucks because it's a great quote..) was how she explains her peoples' feelings on arranged marriage. Myself and most of my fellow westerners I'm sure don't really understand arranged marriages and feel pity for couples who we think are being "forced" together. It's books like this that completely change my perspective and make me realize how ignorant I really am at times. Hajratwala's take is so different. She says it's just a give for most young Indians. While American girls daydream about meetingthe man of their dreams and the courtship that will lead to marriage, Indian girls know their husband will be picked for them, and it isn't like the end of the world for them.

Of course, what was also interesting in Leaving India was how the most recent generations in Hajratwala's family have been slowly breaking away from tradition. Her mother was able to go to college, her bother and some of her cousins not only did not have arranged marriages, but married into different cultures. And then there's Hajratwala herself. When reading the author's chapter on herself, it's easy to see that she stands apart from her family, an when she came out as a lesbian to her parents, she thought they might disown her. It was heartbreaking to read, especially since, even though her parents have accepted her and still love her, most of her family still does not know about the "secret", which doesn't need to be hidden nowadays in a country like the US. Her family is in some ways so focused on preserving their culture-which is wonderful, I wish my family still had some of our old traditions-but they are perhaps hurting each other by not becoming more open-minded.

Of course, these are all just my own observations. This book can be interpreted in so many ways and enjoyed by people of all cultures and with different interests. You don't have to have Indian heritage to connect with Hajratwala's family. If anything, this book will make you more understanding and accepting of a culture you may know very little about.

A favorite excerpt:
Page 81: To the west, the cool Atlantic swells up toward London, New York, and South Africa's most picturesque city, Cape Town. To the east, the Indian Ocean is several degrees warmer; it gives the coast of Africa from Durban to Mombasa a tropical climate profitable for sugar and tourism, almost homelike for the more than a million Indians who have lived there for generations. This confluence of oceans is a rare coincidence of political and natural geography, where the act of naming does not create an arbitrary border, but gives voice to a natural one.

And yet it is the most fluuid, the most porous of borders. East and west meet a great force, a terrible frothing and crashing of waves. The whitecaps swirl, and as much as one tries to follow a dark wave, it curls under a paler one from the other side; as far as I can track a blue wave, it does not, of course, hold. Like the several great civilizations that have clashed and coexisted in southern Africa over the last two centuries, the waters cannot be segregated.

And who can tell which wave is resisting, which collaborating? The sea reveals no moral; what moves the whole is a greater tide. Perhaps the currents of history are what they are, and we only choose-or think we choose-which side to view them from, and where to take a stand.

Title: Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents
Author: Minal Hajratwala
Date of Publication: 2009
Number of Pages: 352
Genre: Nonfiction
Source: Personal Copy

Shopping Indie: Dog Ears Bookstore

2011-12-04T11:24:00.000-05:00

I introduced the Shopping Indie feature on my blog a few months ago, and then promptly got really busy and forgot about it. I am happy to report that now it has officially begun :)

Yesterday, I was out Christmas shopping and the mall was crazy. I needed coffee. Badly. I knew Starbucks would be rediculous because it's right by the mall, so I decided to head to Caz Coffee Cafe in South Buffalo. Attached to Caz (the entrance is actually inside the cafe) is Dog Ears Bookstore. I am bad and didn't think to take a photo of the outside, so I'm using the photo from their website:

So not only does the cafe have a bookstore inside of it, but it also has really good coffee too. I got a large latte, because I needed one. And they were out of large cups, so they gave me my latte in a gigantic bowl. It was the size of 2 large lattes, and I was a very happy girl. Anyway, the atmosphere was great because there was live music. And Kaz doesn't just have coffee, they have smoothies, hot cocoa, and even breakfast food, sandwiches, and wraps. Highly recommend.

The bookstore is right through the main "dining" room and is super cozy and I felt like I was in a house. It's a small bookstore, but I had no problems finding books I wanted to read. Have you ever noticed how when you're at big box bookstores, you get overwhelmed by the selection and can't seem to find anything?? Happens to me all the time. Here, I found at least 20 books that have been on my list for ages. The man working the counter was super nice and as soon as I walked in asked what kind of books I was looking for, and then he directed me over to where the fiction section is located.

Almost forgot to mention: the bookstore actually supports the Enlightenment Literary Arts Center, which is right above the bookstore and teaches people how to read and how important reading is. The profits made at the bookstore go to the Literary Arts Center. So yay for a good cause!

The bookstore was so homey that I could have spent hours in there, and there are comfy chairs to sit in if you want. I walked away with two books:

And look at the adorable bags they put the books in:

All in all, a great experience, and I can honestly say that I'll be spending a lot of time in the future here. And hey, if the whole cafe and bookstore in one isn't enough for you, just think about this. Caz and Dog Ears are in South Buffalo, Buffalo's big Irish neighborhood, which is filled with Irish pubs with great beer, great people, and awesome food :) If you're ever in town, you definitely need to check it out!

The deets: http://dogearsbookstore.org/
http://www.cazcoffee.com/

Review (sort of) of The Help by Kathryn Stockett

2011-11-27T13:15:00.000-05:00

So I'm not going to do a full-fledged review of The Help because so many other people have reviewed it. But let me just say that it definitely deserves all the hype it's gotten. I ate this book up, I loved it so.

I LOVE the relationship between all the characters. It feels so real. Skeeter's friendship with Aibileen was so special, yet they were always on guard with each other because it wasn't exactly safe to let others see their friendship. Basically, I came super close to crying at a lot of parts in this book.

The writing, also great. I love how Stockett changes her writing style based on which character is narrating. Each narrator has such a distinct personality, I think if I read a passage without being told who was narrating, I'd be able to say which character it was. Stockett definitely has a way of making the reader feel what the characters are feeling. For instance, when Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny are waiting and waiting for the town and Hillie to read and finish the book, I was also feeling the suspense.

So basically, read it, because it is a powerful read that will stay with you for days after you've finished it. Have you read it? What did you think?

Some favorite quotes:
Page 73: "Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision." Constantine was so close, I could see the blackness of her gums. "You gone have to ask yourself, Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?"
She kept her thumb pressed hard in my hand. I nodded that I understood. I was just smart enough to realize she meant white people. And even though I still felt miserable, and knew that I was, most likely, ugly, it was the first time she ever talked to me like I was something besides my mother's white child. All my life I'd been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.

Page 303: There is undisguised hate for white women, there is inexplicable love. Faye Bell, palsied and gray skinned, cannot remember her own age. Her stories unfold like soft linen. She remembers hiding in a steamer trunk with a little white girl while Yankee soldiers stomped through the house. Twenty years ago, she held that same white girl, by then an old woman, in her arms while she died. Each proclaimed their love as best friends. Swore that death could not change this. That color meant nothing. The white woman's grandson still pays Faye Belle's rent. When she's feeling strong, Faye Belle sometimes goes over and cleans up his kitchen.

Page 414: The Sun and Sand Bar is closed and I go by slow, stare at how dead the neon sign seems when it's turned off. I coast past the tall Lamar Life building, through the yellow blinking streetlights. It's only eight o'clock at night but everyone has gone to bed. Everyone's asleep in this town in every way possible.

Title: The Help

Author: Kathryn Stockett
Date of Publication: 2009
Number of Pages: 544
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal copy

Review: Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn

2011-11-23T07:10:00.000-05:00

Set in Victorian London, Silent in the Grave is the perfect murder mystery for a cold night by the fireplace. Or no fireplace, if your mom is like mine and hates the thought of a draft blowing smoke all through the house....Lady Julia Grey is not really all that shocked when her husband falls ill with a seizure and dies. He does, after all, have a heart condition. She doesn't even faulter when a man who claims to have worked for her husband comes forward and tries to warn her that her husband may have been murdered. She shoos Brisbane away and thinks nothing more of the subject until months later when she finds a strange note in her late husband's desk. Together, she and Brisbane set out to find her husband's killer, even if it means opening up secrets about an unhappy marriage and why it ended the way it did.

I loved Silent in the Grave. I mean, strong female main character, great writing, Victorian England. Oh, and also the mysterious Br. Brisbane, who himself has a secret he's trying to keep hidden.

Julia was a very compelling character. In the beginning of the book, she is as her last name says-Grey. She is living in the shadow of an unhappy marriage to a man she once loved but turned out to be a complete stranger. Julia, however, slowly comes into her own identity and by the end is pretty much bursting with color. It's not so much that she's changed, it's more that she's letting out the real Juilia that was pent up inside for so long. I'm excited that this is the first book in a series because it's going to be interesting to see how Julia grows as a person.

The mystery of the murder is in itself very intriguing and well done. In the beginning of the investigation, Julia treats it like a game, despite Brisane's (who actually is a private detective) warnings that they may be dealing with a very dangerous person. As the mystery deepens and they get closer to the truth, Julia realizes that her life really may be in danger. As a reader, my feelings where similar to Julia's. Oh, the murder happened a year ago, this won't be bad. But as the book went on I kept thinking "OMG something bad is going to happen!"

The end of the book leaves a lot of questions unanwers, but in a good way. The reader is left thinking about certain things, like what Julia will decide to do with her life now, or what else Brisbane might be hiding, and the awkward moments between Julia and Brisbane because of their growing attraction to each other. I'm excited to read the next book because I'm sure a bit more will be uncovered in it.

Title: Silent in the Grave
Author: Deanna Raybourn
Date of Publication: 2007
Number of Pages: 512
Genre: Historical Fiction
Source: Personal copy

New Books Coming From France, yay!

2011-11-18T18:43:00.000-05:00

So first of all, thank you all for being awesome and letting me have my time.

I have like 7 book reviews that will be posted in the next few weeks, and I've realized that it's better to write them as I read them or else I will have a huge stack of books to review and then shit happens and I have no time to write them and then nothing gets blogged.

Lesson learned.

Now on to fun stuff:
I have ordered my yearly big box of books from FRANCE!! I am excited. Super. Last year's box had mainly newer contemporary stuff because I hadn't read much of it and wanted to give it a try. I discovered some really great authors, my fave of which is Amélie Nothomb. But Maryse Condé and Philippe Labro were also pretty kick ass.

This year's box contains mostly classics and whatnot, seeing as I am currently in the process of applying to grad school for French lit. I figured I should read some classic-y stuff for that. So, without further ado, the contents of my box of books from FRANCE!!:

1. Les liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) by Pierre-Ambroise-Francois Choderlos de Laclos
2. Le Voyage d'hiver (The Winter Journey) by Amélie Nothomb
3. Oeuvres completes (Complete Works) by Louise Labé
4. L'Amant (The Lover) by Marguerite Duras
5. Le deuxieme sexe (The Second Sex)by Simone de Beauvoir
6. Le rouge et le noir (The Red and the Black) by Stendhal

And #7 I can't put here just yet because it's a gift for Twin for Christmas and she reads by blog because she's pretty much awesome. Most of the time anyway.

Some personal time

2011-11-09T19:19:00.000-05:00

Just doing a quick post because I know I haven't posted anything in a while and wanted to let my readers know that I'm here just haven't had time or energy to post. My grandmother has been very sick these last few months and passed away last Wednesday. I've been dealing with her apartment and the funeral, etc., and I'm just physically and emotionally exhausted. So if it's a little quiet around here a few days longer, don't be surprised <3

Review: Seizing the Enigma by David Kahn

2011-10-22T14:07:00.000-04:00

From page 2: This was the battle of the Atlantic, the only battle in World War II that lasted from the first day of that war to the last.

David Kahn's Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes 1939-1943 is pretty much the go-to book about the enigma machine and the battle to break it's codes during the U-boat wars of WWII, more commonly known as the Battle of the Atlantic. Kahn himself is, as it says right on the cover of my copy of the book, "undoubtedly the world's most respected historian of cryptography." This book definitely showcases his knowledge, not only of the enigma coding device and how it worked, but of it's history, and the history of cryptography (aka secret codes) in general. This book was filled to the brim with information about the enigma, the war, and how the Allied and the Axis powers fought in secret on their homefronts (and often at battle, too) to try and outsmart each other, improve the enigma, or break the ever-changing U-boat codes.

So pretty much, I'm a U-boat nerd. I love submarines in general, but I LOVE U-boats. They are sleek, their history is so interesting, and well, I read whatever I can on the subject. Add in to that the enigma, and I will basically start drooling. Yeah. It's kind of bad. And it all started in 6th grade in 2001 with a little (and AWESOME) movie called U-571. My ALL-TIME. FAVORITE. MOVIE. Say what you will about "historical innacuracies". It's just a movie so they're allowed a bit of leeway. The movie should get more credit because it does hit on some points that are not in a lot of war movies, things like codes and the enigma machine. And, the movie introduced me to the enigma for the first time. And I heart it.

Enough with the fangirl stuff though (sorry about my tendency to ramble on about non-book related stuff. Though there is a U-571 BOOK that came out after the movie which I own and have read like many times.....). This book has so much information about different things relating to the enigma and codebreaking that I think it would appeal to a very large audience. Like technical details about how the machine (and the machines the Brits used to break the codes)? There's a ton of that. Want a general history of codebreaking in war time (even pre WWI)? This is for you. Want a general overview of the war and why codebreaking became so important? Yeah, there's that too. And also great info about certain raids, etc. that happened out in the oceans to try and capture enigma code books. Oh, and real spies who gave secret information in exchange for money. I really loved how Kahn interviewed SO many people before writing the book.

But don't think that the whole book is super technical. It's also in a way an homage to all the people who contributed to the Allies' codebreaking successes in WWII. From the civilian women and men who Kahn interviewed, to the true stories of men who risked death or accepted death because they knew the fate of the war depended on what they were doing, Kahn pays tribute throughout the book by telling their stories. There's the couple who met in the English countryside and the codebreaking headquaters, fell in love, and married. And the young man who drowned as he tried to retrieve enigma code books from a sinking U-boat.

All in all, I highly recommend Seizing the Enigma. I'm super into everything it discusses, so I could barely put it down. But don't be discouraged if, say, you aren't into the enigma's technicalities. Kahn never stays solely on one subject for too long and intertwines things like how the enigma works with how the Brits were trying to solve the code that you'll quickly get back into the history. I'm so glad I happened to see this while waiting in an extremely long line at my school's bookstore and decided to buy it on impulse.

Title: Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes
Author: David Kahn
Date of Publication: 1991
Number of Pages: 416
Genre: Non-Fiction, WWII. Submarines
Source: Personal Copy

Review: Wings by Karl Friedrich

2011-10-03T21:02:00.000-04:00

Sally Ketchum has had it tough. Her mother died when she was very young. Her father was abusive and an alcoholic. And Tex, her boyfriend and the love of her life, died in a fiery plane crash that Sally somehow miraculously survived. Hopefully though, her bad luck might be about to change. World War II is being fought and Sally has been chosen to train as a WASP for the Army. She can hardly believe it-she'll be able to make a living flying planes. But Sally and her new friends at the training school soon realize that there are a lot of men who don't want women in the cockpit, and they want to shut down the WASP program. Sally and her friends, along with Beau, a handsome flight instructor, must keep strong and hope that the program doesn't shut down. After all, the WASP may be the only chance any of them have at a better future.

I wanted to read Wings as soon as I read the plot summary. I am a big WWII buff, especially when it comes to the roles women played during the war. This book didn't let me down. It's not so much a historical fiction account of the WASP as it is a poignant description of women and their place as secondary citizens in society at the time, and I ate it up. Sally is such a real character and is relying on her status as a WASP to help her further her career in aviation. When that dream is threatened, Sally takes it personally, and I don't blame her. I'm sure many women who took on mens' jobs during the war felt the same way as Sally did as the war began coming to a close. They liked their newly found freedom and the independence that having a job gave them. Sally was dirt poor before she began WASP training, and I could really feel her desperation. The author doesn't just give us Sally though. Friedrich develops a set of characters who Sally befriends who are from all walks of life. One, Dixie, is a model, and Sally has a hard time accepting that Dixie wants to fly. Dixie doesn't need the job, but she wants it all the same. Twila and Geri also have different pasts and circumstances than Sally, yet everyone wants one thing in the end-to fly and to succeed as a female pilot in a world governed by men.

I thought Sally's relationship with Tex, and how she still aches from his loss years later, was touching. It didn't seem overly dramatic, like sometimes happens in books where people are grieving. Some might say Sally was stubborn, holding on to Tex and his memory after so long, and at such a young age herself, but I think she was just being true to her heart. Tex was a very special person, and not only to Sally. I thought it was extremely bold and loving of her to keep his memory so near when many women in her situation would have married someone else as a solution to being broke.

Wings is a fast paced novel, and I wasn't bored at all while reading it. It actually reminded me of the WWII books I used to read in middle school. I loved reading those books back in the day and the similarities with this one made me want to keep reading it. The writing was simple but suited the story well. I recommend Karl Friedrich's Wings to anyone interested in the different roles women played on the homefront during WWII, and I think it would be a great book for tweens and teens because it introduces them to the WASP in a way that isn't dry and right out of a history textbook.

Title: Wings: A Novel of War War II Flygirls
Author: Karl Friedrich
Date of Publication: April 1st, 2011
Number of Pages: 304
Genre: Fiction
Source: LibraryThing.com

Review: The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie

2011-09-27T18:39:00.000-04:00

The Enchantress of Florence is set in a beautiful city in the east (India, I think?). The emperor, who has begun to doubt religion and his role as ruler, befriends a mysterious stranger from the west who calls himself only "Mogor dell Amore". The blond traveler has a story to tell. Soon the emperor and his kingdom are entranced by the story of the beautiful and powerful enchantress of Florence.

So, I actually hadn't planned on reading this book. I actually went to the library to get Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, but it was checked out. This story caught my attention and I'm glad I got The Enchantress of Florence, although I was a little bit disappointed by the story.

The story itself is interesting, though a bit hard to follow in the beginning. It at times jumped around locations and time periods without my realizing it. Once I realized what was going on it was easier to understand. I loved the parts of the book that take place in the emperor's kingdom in India, and I also liked reading about the enchantress and her story, yet there were long sections that I labored through because I just wasn't drawn in to the certain parts. Perhaps it's because right before reading this book I read The Pope's Daughter, which takes place in Renaissance Italy, just like certain parts of this book.

I loved a lot of the characters. Rushdie has a way of painting characters that brings out hilarious things about them. For example, everytime I read about the emperor's mother and aunt, I had to laugh. They are both such real characters. I could see parts of my own family members in them. Then there's the emperor himself. He is a ruthless king who wins battles and isn't afraid of killing people, yet through the book, we see him beginning to doubt. He wonders if he's really doing the right thing. He realizes that he doesn't want to be known as ruthless and blood-thirsty like many of his ancestors before him. He begins to doubt his religion. Most important, I think, he starts to want to be a normal person. The emperor plays with using "I" instead of "we" when talking about himself, and there's nothing he wants more than a friend to talk about his thoughts and philosophies with. I felt bad for the emperor because he desperately wants to change himself and his kingdom, yet risks losing a lot if he does.

Despite some issues with the story for me, I really loved reading The Enchantress of Florence. The reason? Rushdie's gorgeous writing. It is beautiful. I love how much humor is in this book, yet the way it's written makes it seem like pretty prose. If you read this book for anything, read it for the writing.

Some favorite quotes:
Page 5: In the day's last light the glowing lake below the palace-city looked like a sea of molten gold.

Page 38: Bhakti Ram Jain proudly held the rank of Imperial Flatterer First Class, and was a master of the ornate, old school style known as cumulative fawning. Only a man with an excellent memory for the baroque formulations of excessive encomia could fawn cumulatively, on account of the repetitions required and the necessary precision of the sequencing. Bhakti Ram Jain's memory was unerring. He could fawn for hours.

Page 73: By then, however, the knowledge was of no use to him, except to remind him of what he should never have forgotten, that witchcraft requires no potions, familiar spirits, or magic wands. Language upon a silvered tongue affords enchantment enough.

Page 308: The sun had not yet risen, but the emperor was up and about. Sikri in shadow seemed to embody the great mysteries of life. It felt to him like an elusive world of questions to which he must find responses.

Title: The Enchantress of Florence
Author: Salman Rushdie
Date of Publication: May 27th, 2008 (my birthday!!)
Number of Pages: 368
Genre: Fiction
Source: Library

Review: The Pope's Daughter by Caroline P. Murphy

2011-09-13T10:31:00.000-04:00

In The Pope's Daugther: The Extraordinary Life of Felice della Rovere, Caroline P. Murphy brings to life a woman who lived during the Italian Renaissance. Daughter of Pope Julius II, Felice lived most of her life in Rome and its surrounding areas. She learned at an early age that it paid to be independent, and decided to live her life the way she saw fit. Murphy uses documents from Felice's time period to put together a woman who fought hard and got independence in a time when women were little more than pawns for men to play with. The Pope's Daughter chronicals her rise from adolescent to a powerful landowner, a woman who survived the sack of Rome and her stepson's jealousy. Read it and get to know the amazing Felice della Rovere.

I have such a hard time reviewing nonfiction. I really can't say anything about the plot. After all, the plot in this case is the actual life of Felice della Rovere. I can't exactly criticize characters. They were real people. However, I can rate the writing and the style, and the way the author presented her information. So here goes.

The author states right in the beginning of the book that she had to make a lot of inferences about the life and person of Felice della Rovere. Although this at first worried me-would the book really be an accurate representation of Felice and her world-those "inquietudes" as they say in French soon fell to the way side. There is very little written about Felice, even by her contemporaries, so at first it seems impossible that Murphy could write a whole book on her life. But Murphy was able to use letters mentioning her that were written by her friends, employees, and acquaintances, and the personal records of business and inventory that Felice herself kept, to paint at least a glimpse of the true Felice. Could some of Murphy's inferences about Felice be wrong? Yes. But because Murphy backs everything up with these sources, it seems highly likely that the real Felice really was at least a bit like the Felice Murphy describes throughout the pages of this book.

As far as writing goes, sometimes when I read nonfiction, the writing is so dense and boring that even if I'm interested in what the book's about, I don't want to keep reading. Murphy's writing was super easy to follow and she explains everything in easy to comprend terms. There are a ton of Italian names and words in this book though (obviously, since Felice lived her whole life in Italy), so if you get annoyed easil by lots of foreign pronunciation and whatnot, you might at times get frustrated. I, however, loved it. I've never taken Italian, but I had a blast trying to say things out loud. I especially love saying "Felice" (pronounced "fel-ee-chay").

I think Felice is a great role model to women everywhere. If you love reading about strong women who take control of their own lives, read this book. Felice was living in a time when women pretty much had no rights (though renaissance Rome was a lot better to women than a lot of places. Felice was able to buy land and run it as long as she had the money to purchase it). Her status as the pope's daughter gave her a taste of independence and power at a young age, and she worked hard as an adult to make sure she stayed independent. She wanted an income besides that of her husband's to safeguard herself and her children against the death of her spouse.

The Pope's Daughter portrays such a strong woman, so I've decided to post some of my favorite quotes about Felice and her personality:

Page 61: There were few who did not comment on her prudentia-wisdom or intelligence. Such a reputation endured throughout her life. The scholar Angelo Firenzuola, writing in defence of the female intellect, cites among the female luminaries of his time: 'the prudentissima Felice della Rovere...of whom with no small amount of praise do men speak, with a resounding voice.'

Page 71: There is something poignant about Carteromacho's account of Felice's fervent desire for books. Over and beyond how books helped her appear to her best advantage in fashionable scholarly circles, they also served as her companions during those times when her father deliberately excluded her from courtly events. Books were a means to shut out the trials of ongoing bargaining, and negotiations for a husband she did not want. Reading was one of the great pleasures of Felice's life.

Page 72: Felice was determined to focus on aspects of her personal identity and social connections that reached beyond a role as wife to an Italian lord.

Page 129: Stazio's description of Felice's emotional state is quite surprising in its candour. Thus far in her life, Felice had performed in public, no matter what she may have felt inside, as a woman who was both proud and resilient....For her to leave Rome in tears is an indication of the deep humiliation she felt from her father's refusal of her request. Life was frequently unfair for women in the Renaissance, but its unfairness on this occasion seemed particularly harsh to Felice. She had proved herself a more than competent estate manager, a shrewd businesswoman, an admired diplomat. All were useful attributes for becoming governor of a city.

Page 172: Felice's inventory reveals her carefully crafted strategy for personal survival. If life with the Orsini did not work out for her, she was still, independently, extremely wealthy.

Page 188: Felice della Rovere had learned the language and cadences of the courtier's voice. Over the previous decades, she had had occasion to plead tearfully with her father and to take a somewhat obsequious position in order to ingratiate herself with Isabella d'Este. She had continually charmed and impressed the humanists and clerics of the Vatican court. Felice could be theatrical if need be: she had vowed to throw herself into the sea rather than be raped and she had wept at her husband's deathbed. But her tone of authority of what endures.

Page 190: Felice, who fought hard for her own rights and possessions, seems particularly angered that another woman should be denied the right to bequeath her own property as she chose. (this is then followed by some examples of Felice receiving and writing letters to the women on her land to help them get what they rightfully deserved)

Page 297: Everything she had done, she had done for the ultimate benefit of others-her children.

Title: The Pope's Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice della Rovere
Author: Caroline P. Murphy
Date of Publication: November 4th, 2006
Number of Pages: 315
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography
Source: Personal Copy

Shopping Indie: My Local Bookstores

2011-09-08T22:58:00.000-04:00

Independent bookstores are an integral part of the bookish community, yet I find that (at least in my city) many people don't realize what indie bookstores are out there. I live in Buffalo, NY, and the city, suburbs, and surrounding region has so many local bookshops selling used and new books to offer the people in my community. I've decided to showcase a different indie bookstore in my area every 2 weeks or so (depending on how busy my life decides to get) for a while until I've exhausted the pretty long list. I'll give a brief description of each store, say what each has to offer, and will personally visit each one to give you an idea of the atmosphere (and buy myself a book or two or three....). I may sometimes even interview owners or employees as well! I hope that this feature will encourage those who live in the area or who visit the area to stop in, buy a book or two at one of these stores, and support the local indie community! And if you don't live in Buffalo, I'd love to see what local book shops your city has to offer!

Look for my first "Shopping Indie" bookstore post coming soon!

Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

2011-09-06T21:52:00.000-04:00

The Hound of the Baskervilles, written in 1902 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of those stories everyone knows, or at least has heard of. I loved matching the old movies of it as a little girl, and I finally sat down to read the book. Sherlock Holmes has been enlisted to help Sir Henry Baskerville, the new owner of Baskerville Hall following the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. What he needs from Holmes? Protection. And the truth behind an old family legend about a hell hound killing off each owner of the estate. Holmes quickly assigns Watson to accompany Sir Henry back to Baskerville Hall. He knows that Sir Henry may face real danger, not something paranormal. Watson reports back to Holmes how things are transpiring until Holmes can get out there himself. Will Sir Henry fall victim to the hell hound, like many of his ancestors before hime?

I adore Sherlock Holmes, I really do. The Hound of the Baskervilles was a great read and definitely lived up to my high expectations. Holmes is just as irritable as always. I loved Dr. Watson's role in this story. He has a big part-protecting Sir Henry from whatever may be lurking out on the moors. And Watson does his duty well. I thought he was a great friend to Sir Henry and showed how much he values his friendship with Holmes through all the letters he wrote him. Dr. Watson really isn't as stupid as the movies sometimes make him out to be. He is friendly with everyone, yet is secretly recounting to his friend in London anything suspicious or out of the ordinary going on.

Holmes was as brilliant as ever. Even though he doesn't really come into the story until near the end, his presence is felt through the whole thing because Watson is constantly talking to him through his letters.

I was surprised by how intense the story was. I mean, I've known the story of the Baskervilles well since I was little because of the many movies, but even so I was on the edge of my seat while reading. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle definitely has a way with words.

Have you read The Hound of the Baskervilles or seen any of the movies? Let me know what you thought!

Title: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Date of Publication: 1902 originally, my copy is from 2003
Number of Pages: 124
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Review: The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie

2011-09-03T11:06:00.000-04:00

Hercule Poirot is enjoying retired life when he receives a startling letter in the mail. It says that there will be a murder in Andover on a specific date, and it's signed "ABC." The murder happens, and soon Poirot and Scotland Yard are looking for a serial killer who kills in alphabetical order. This is his toughest case yet, and he hates that he knows more murders are coming yet cannot stop them.

I liked The ABC Murders but it wasn't as gripping as Murder on the Orient Express. The beginning was a bit slow for me and it took a while to get into. I think part of it was the narration. The book is narrated by Poirot's old friend Hastings, who is in town visiting. I liked Hastings as a character, but he just didn't do it for me as narrator.

Once the murders and investigations got underway though, I was sucked in. Numerous characters are introduced-relatives and friends of the victims-and Poirot uses them to help catch the culprit.

Saying much more would ruin the story, but let me just say that Poirot is just as smart and cunning in this as in Murder on the Orient Express. I really love him as a character and felt for him when he was down and out about not having any clues. The ending of The ABC Murders is, in true Agatha Christie fashion, shocking and unexpected. Although I didn't like it as much as my first Poirot book, it was still a great read and I look forward to more Poirot in the future.

Title: The ABC Murders
Author: Agatha Christie
Date of Publication: 1936 (my copy is from the 1970s)
Number of Pages: 272
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Source: Library

Review: A Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware

2011-08-29T13:34:00.000-04:00

A Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware is an edge of your seat romance with a big mystery and a little bit of magic too. Blythe, a big production designer in Hollywood, has just gone through nasty divorce with her husband, a super famous movie director. Feeling the need to get away from the press and the people she thought were her friends, Blythe decides to travel to Cornwall for an indefinitely long vacation. She finds the perfect location-a little artist's cottage on a large manor estate. It's near the area where her grandmother always said their family was from. Once settled in, Blythe meets the charming Lucas Teague, manor owner. A friendship develops, but so does Blythe's curiousity. She begins to have visions of the manor's past inhabitants. Are these are ancestors trying to tell her the family's secret? As Blythe struggles to find some answers, she also struggles with her growing feelings for Luke and the project they have started together.

To be honest, I thought this book was going to be one of those super lame romances. But it's not lame, and it's so much more than just a love story. Blythe is trying to heal after being hurt by her ex-husband and her family. Luke is also attempting to heal from his past and build a better relationship with his son. The story was captivating and I loved it.

The setting couldn't have been more perfect, too. Ciji Ware paints a gorgeous countryside in Cornwall and makes you wish that you could escape from your hectic life with Blythe. The characters who resided in Cornwall seemed to really capture life there.

And oh the characters. I loved Blythe because she is a famous woman who should be totally confident in herself, but she struggles with her self-image just like the rest of us. The "smaller" characters, like the housekeeper and the gardener, reminded me of my grandparents, so it made sense when Blythe wanted to spend time with them. And then there's Luke. Beautiful, talkative, charming, yet flawed Luke. So it's no secret that on occasion I fall madly in love with a character in a book (it happened last year when I read Cornelia Funke's Reckless). And I feel head over heels for Lucas Teague. He is a funny guy who loves to joke around and make light of things. But he also has a tender heart and deep emotional wounds that sometimes show through. And he has a temper too, but not a bad one. *sigh* Just read the book. I'm ready to read it all over again just to read about Luke again!

So don't be ashamed of your literary crushes, and read this book. And enjoy it. And let me know what you think of Luke. I'm willing to share him ;)

Title: A Cottage by the Sea
Author: Ciji Ware
Date of Publication: 1997 (my copy is from 2010)
Number of Pages: 522
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy (gift from little sister for Christmas 2010!)

Review: Lord of the Far Island by Victoria Holt

2011-08-26T12:07:00.000-04:00

Ellen Kellaway has lived her whole life through the charity of others and her aunt never lets her forget it. Her mother is dead and she hasn't seen her father since she was a baby. Ellen is spunky, smart, and talkative, so when she realizes that she's going to be forced to be a governess, she feels like her freedom is running out. Then as luck would have it, she finds a way out through marriage to a wealthy young man she has known all her life. However, Ellen starts to feel doubtful about her choice in a husband. Then Ellen gets a letter from her father's family. They want her to come live with them on a remote island off of England's coast. Ellen jumps at the chance. Once there though, she can't shake the feeling that something terrible is going to happen. Someone wants her dead, but who?

While I enjoyed the first Victoria Holt novel I read, The Bride of Pendorric, I really enjoyed Lord of the Far Island. I got into the story right away and read it quickly. I felt that the relationship that Ellen developes in this book is so much more believable than Favel's relationship with Roc. She knows the man for a while and can really develope feelings for him. It feels more real. The story was a bit predictable and ran a bit like the Pendorric book, but the development of the relationship as well as the main character herself made the story so much better. This story, and even its ending, seemed so much more natural. I also prefered Ellen over Favel. She is more likeable. She doesn't just fall in love with the first man who swoons over her. Ellen is intelligent, witty, and opinionated, and likes it to be known. She is very adventurous and can stand on her own two feet. My kind of gal if you know what I mean. I liked Favel in the Pendorric book, but she got on my nerves at times because of her dependence on her husband.

I loved the characters and the setting. Holt is able to mesh a scary gothic-esque setting with a beautiful setting. Ellen loves the house and the island because of its beauty but it can also seem foreboding at times because of its isolation. The characters were extremely well written. Slack was my personal favorite. The villagers call him "dumb", but he is so kind and actually very smart. He is brilliant with birds and soon becomes a close friend of Ellen. Holt makes certain characters suspicious to both Ellen and the reader because of subtle little details. The way a person responds to a question or comment, or certain circumstances that are hinted at before something bad happens, makes you start suspecting characters that you thought were good. Unlike the Pendorric book, I had no idea in Lord of the Far Island what was going on or who was up to no good. Bride of Pendorric was suspenseful, but this book was even more so.

I definitely recommend this book. If you read the Pendorric book and weren't super fond of it, you should read Lord of the Far Island. It can be predictable if you've read the other one, but not so predictable that you can't enjoy it and guess what's going to happen.

And now some favorite quotes to showcase Victoria Holt's fabulous writing:
Page 40: I tried not to think about it, but my habit of thrusting aside the unpleasant and deluding myself into the belief that it would never happen was not quite so successful as usual.
Page 156: When a house has stood for seven hundred years much must have happened within its walls. If those stones could speak what tales they would have to tell! And in houses such as this there would have been gaiety and sorrow, comedy and tragedy. I have the feeling sometimes that these emotions have been captured and held within stone walls and that there are times when they cannot keep them secret.

Title: Lord of the Far Island
Author: Victoria Holt
Date of Publication: 1975 (original)
Number of Pages: 336
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Romance
Source: Personal Copy

Computer Woes

2011-08-23T20:56:00.000-04:00

I hate viruses. The computer kind, I mean. One minute, you're vegging out in front of your laptop browsing some translation blogs, next thing you know, a big red box pops up on your screen telling you that you have a bad virus and that you better click it to get rid of the culprit. But you've had this sucker before so you know that clicking on the red box is a bad idea. You think, "well, maybe it'll go away since I didn't click this time....". But then you realize that there's a new program called "Security Protection" on your desktop and you get pissed. Super duper pissed. They've done it again. And this time you didn't even click. And this time you can't even get the internet to stay open for a minute before it closes. This virus is smart. It knows that you have the key to its defeat. The catch is that you have to get to the ultimate geek message board (techspot.com) to download the custom-made killer of this virus. So now you're stuck. What do you do? What any normal semi-computer-literate gal would do. You disconnect your internet connection in the hopes that the virus won't spread. And then you shut down your computer for a few hours or days, until you've regained some composure and are ready to fight back with all you've got. Even if that means calling Dell support and paying $80 for them to remove the virus remotely. Hey, whatever works.

Mini Review: What is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman

2011-08-14T15:36:00.000-04:00

Not much time for writing my usual long reviews because I've been caring a lot for my grandma on the weekends, so this is kind of a mini review with a summary and quick review.

Howard Norman's What is Left the Daughter takes place during World War II in Canada. Wyatt's parents have just commited suicide. Same day, different locations. He goes to live with his aunt, uncle, and their adopted daughter Tilda. There in a small town named Middle Economy, he meets a young German student who will end up changing Wyatt's life for forever. This is a really moving book with a fantastic setting.

I love all things U-boats. It's a weird obsession, but it is what it is. So I adored all the U-boat aspects of this book. During WWII, their were U-boats (German submarines) right off the east coast of Canada and the USA, and this book pretty much revolves around that.

Wyatt is a great narrator. He is awkward and stupid at times, and at others he is very vulnerable. I can't say I liked his character, but I was able to simpathize with him, even after he makes some really awful decisions.

The setting of the book, to me, was awesome. I live right on the border of Canada and the USA and I loved reading a book set in Canada. I also adored all the references to my city, Buffalo. What's better is that my grandmothers both remember the exact radio show that was broadcast out of Buffalo and mentioned numerous times in this book. I thought Norman did a really great job of setting the scene of small town Canada during the war. His writing is really good and descriptive.

Honestly, while I was reading this book, I just liked it. I was enjoying it a lot, but I didn't really know what to think through most of it. After I finished it, though, I realized just how awesome it is. I thought this would be one of those books that you read and then forget about. Instead, I found myself thinking back on this book and it's story and characters weeks after I'd finished it. I'm still a bit "haunted" by certain parts of it, and it's things like this that make a book really great in my opinion. I definitely recommend you read What is Left the Daughter. It might seem slow at times, but it's a very powerful story.

Some favorite quotes (which there were a lot of. I've tried narrowing it down!):
Page 72: At one point, not looking up from the sweater she was folding, she said, "Donald's moved to the shed. Outwardly, I'm trying to be poised about it."
Page 75: "It's a work of art, your packing," I said.
"I've left a little extra room," she said. "One should always leave a little room for a new purchase. I don't count on making a new purchase, but just in case."
Page 81: "Don't sell yourself short," she said. "The way I see it? A poem reaches out exactly halfway, then you reach out halfway, then see what happens."
"Provisional, eh?"
"I only mean if you're thinking willful and generous toward a poem, the poem'll be equally those things back. As for meaning, it'll mean something different to each person. That's all you have to know."
Page 202 (I threw in the Buffalo line following this quote because I wanted to.): Life went along, Marlais. Life just goes along. I'm never late for work. Never late, that's one thing. The other is that every Sunday I listen to the Cavalcade of Radio programs. I tune it in from Buffalo.

Title: What is Left the Daughter
Author: Howard Norman
Date of Publication: 2010
Number of Pages: 264
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Review: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

2011-08-08T11:06:00.000-04:00

Murder on the Orient Express is a gripping murder mystery with a surprising ending. Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is traveling by train through Europe. It is snowing hard, and the train has to stop on the tracks for a few days in the middle of nowhere until it can get past the snow. While stopped, a gruesome murder takes place. Who stabbed wealthy American Mr. Ratchett twelve times? It has to be someone in the same car, yet no witnesses have come forward. Poirot takes it upon himself to solve the murder and interviews and studies all of the passengers. Will he catch the murderer?

I really enjoyed Murder on the Orient Express. It's been years since I've read anything by Agatha Christie, and this was my first Poirot story. I couldn't put the book down because I was so engrossed. I was worried when I picked it up that I might get bored. After all, the entire story takes place on a train. However, Poirot is such an intriguing character and asks the suspects really interesting questions. I could not for the life of me discover who murdered Mr. Ratchett until Poirot revealed it.

I really love Christie's writing. I love a good mystery and crime novel, but often I find that the story undermines the writing. I can let this slide sometimes if the story is really awesome, but thankfully Christie didn't allow that to happen. Even though the story is really what makes the book, the writing is excellent and isn't just tossed on the wayside.

Agatha Christie really is one of a kind. I've never read a story like hers by another author. She is able to weave a web of characters, lies, and half-truths that create the ultimate murder mystery. Murder on the Orient Express was genius in my opinion and I adore Poirot. I'll be reviewing another Poirot mystery in a few weeks. I can't wait to read more from the queen of murder mysteries :)

Title: Murder on the Orient Express
Author: Agatha Christie
Date of Publication: First Publication was 1934, my copy is 2011
Number of Pages: 315
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Source: Personal Copy

Ahh the temptation..

2011-08-06T16:26:00.000-04:00

It's bad. It's very bad. There is a certain French website kind of like Amazon that I use to order all of my books from France that I can't find here or on Amazon.ca (or if I don't like the price from Amazon.ca...). It's called fnac.com and a teacher of mine at Buffalo State College introduced me to it. I heart it. I can get paperbacks for like 4 or 5 euros and ship them to the states. Shipping is based on weight and usually is just about double the book's price. It seems like it would be a lot, but it's not because France has so many affordable "poche" books out there (our trade paperbacks are similar). So once a year, I do a big order of a bunch of books. I usually wait until around Octobr or November. But I want my books now. You see, dear readers, I've read all the books I bought last year. The only French book I have to read until the end of the year is Zola's Au bonheur des dames. And the thought of me finishing it and having NO books en français is pretty horrifying.

Now the catch is that much of France is on holiday for the month of August. If I place my order right at this very instant like I soooo want to do, my books probably won't even ship until September. Trust me. I once ordered books for school from fnac.com in August like my teacher told us to. And then the next day she was freaking out like, "OHMYGOSH did I have you guys order from fnac?? In August??!" It took over a month to get our books. Usually when I order from them, the goods come like within a week. So I guess I could order my books now and I won't be charged until September.. Or I could wait until October or November. Or until I have a new job. But then it's like, maybe I should buy my books before I have to start paying those pesky student loans?? And before I change my car over to my own name and have to start making my own car insurance payments every month without the help of my mom (thanks Mom!).

I guess I'll wait.

Review: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

2011-08-04T17:09:00.000-04:00

I rarely ever read short story collections, which is probably why this review is so hard for me to write. I can't possible summarize and review every story in it. So I will try and do a basic "this is the general jist of it" sort of thing. I absolutely adored Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies and all the stories in it. But I want to review it without telling too much about each story..

Interpreter of Maladies contains nine stories that have one thing in common: love. The kind of love is different though. Lost love, forbidden love, the loss of love, growing to love someone. And each story is powerful yet subtle in its own way. These are quiet stories about relationships, their beginnings, and their ends.

Most of the characters are either from India or have parents from India. In many of the stories, I got a strong sense of homesickness. The characters live for the most part in the United States, far from the country they or their families were born and raised in. The characters were living in a different culture from what they or their parents were raised in. However, thhose characters were also trying to hold on to what they could of their culture.

Lahiri's writing flowed beautifully and left me wanting more. It's understated yet eloquent, and I constantly found myself rereading passages becase of th way they were written.

So that's my first ever attempt at reviewing a short story collection (I think..). I hope I expressed why I loved Interpreter of Maladies so much and why i can't wait to read more of Lahiri. I'm so glad I signed up for the South Asian Challenge this year because otherwise I may have put off reading this gem for years.

A few favorite passages:
Page 19: Something happened when the house was dark. they were able to talk to each other again. The third night after supper they'd sat together on the sofa, and once it was dark he began kissing her awkwardly on her forehead and her face, and though it was dark he closed his eyes, and he knew that she did, too.
Page 127: In November came a series of days when Mrs. Sen refused to practice driving. The blade never emerged from the cupboard, newspapers were not spread on the floor. She did not call the fish store, nor did she thaw chicken. In silence she prepared crackers with peanut butter for Eliot, then sat reading old aerograms from a shoebox. When it was time for Eliot to leave she gathered together his things without inviting his mother to sit on the sofa and eat something first. When, eventually, his mother asked him in the car if he'd noticed a change in Mrs. Sen's behavior, he said he hadn't. He didn't tell her that Mrs. Sen paced the apartment, staring at the plastic lampshades as if noticing them for the first time....

Title: Interpreter of Maladies
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Date of Publication: 1999
Number of Pages: 198
Genre: Fiction, short stories
Source: Personal Copy

Review: Before Ever After by Samantha Sotto

2011-08-02T11:48:00.000-04:00

Samantha Sotto's Before Ever After is a magical story about love, loss, and making the ultimate sacrifice for the person you love. Shelley is still devastated by the sudden death of her husband Max three years earlier when she has an unexpected visitor. A young Italian man named Paolo shows her photos of his grandfather, and when Shelley looks at the photos, it's Max she sees. The catch? There's no way Max could have been Paolo's grandpa because her Max was not that old. But why then does the man in the photos never seem to age? When Shelley and Paolo set off on a journey to try to solve the puzzle, Shelley reminisces about how she and Max met and the stories he told that might unveil the truth about her husband. Is Max still alive and immortal? Shelley hopes (and fears) that she might find him and finally know the truth.

Before Ever After is a beautiful love story. It flips between the present and Shelley's memories of the group tour she took through Europe where she met Max. The stories he told the group at the time seemed like just that, but now Shelley is picking up pieces of who Max really is by remembering the stories. The book was really easy to follow and the flipflopping flowed well.

Sotto is a great writer. She captures Shelley's emotions so well that I could really feel her grief when Max died. I could also feel her disbelief and later her acceptance when she was shown Paolo's photos and started wondering who Max really was.

The flashbacks to Max's stories were my favorite part because they are so vivid and the history of each location and time are really brought to life by Sotto's descriptions. I also learned a little about French history. I looked it up, and "The Bloody Week" of Paris in 1871 that is described in the book really did happen. Info is here. I can't believe that I never heard of this major event in French history, having a French degree and taking countless numbers of French history classes and all that. You learn something new every day!

I'd recommend Before Ever After to anyone who loves a good timeless love story that makes you feel all warm and happy inside, and to anyone who also loves good writing. Let me know your thoughts if you've read it, or if you plan on reading it! It is a truly enchanting story and it made me want to go back to Europe!

Before Ever After by Samantha Sotto is out today, August 2nd, through the Crown Publishing Group! Get your copy today :)

Now some favorite quotes:
Page 83: Shelley had first come to the conclusion that age was a sound when she went hunting for a place after she first moved to London....
Page 230: "I know there's no magical potion to preserve my life or Sheila's," Dex said, still holding on to Shelley's hand. "And I know that the time will come when her voice won't be as crystal clear in my head. But even when every detail has dulled, I know that I'll always have something that not even time can take away. Pain."
Shelley's hand stiffened against Dex's palm. "And that's a good thing?"
"Yes, because when I've forgotten everything else, I'll feel that ache...that tightness in my throat...that heaviness in my chest...and know that I loved a woman once and she loved me back. It's proof that I existed and so did she."

Title: Before Ever After
Author: Samantha Sotto (@samanthasotto on twitter)
Date of Publication: August 2nd, 2011
Number of Pages: 294
Genre: Fiction
Source: ARC from Publisher

Review: Flight by Sherman Alexie

2011-07-30T17:57:00.000-04:00

Flight is a book by Native American author Sherman Alexie, whose writing I was introduced to through the Native American Literature class I took about two years ago at Buffalo State College. I decided to read Flight for my Native American Literature Challenge, which I created to introduce myself to more works by Native American authors. It is the story of Zits, a loner teenage boy. His mom died when he was young, and his dad hasn't been around since Zits was born. Zits hates being in foster care and constantly runs away or does things to get away from his foster families. One day, Zits takes things too far and suddenly finds himself traveling through the past, seeing the history of his family and his people.

I bought Flight about a year ago and I cannot believe I waited so long to pick it up. I connected with Zits and the story immediately and read the book in one sitting. It's the sort of book I could reread over and over and never get sick of. The writing is excellent. It is narrated by Zits, and you'd think that a teenage boy really wrote it. Even so, the writing is deep in its simplicity. A lot of what Zits has to say he says in a very harsh, simple, and mocking way, but underneath is a boy who feels lost and is angry and the world because of what it has dealt him.

Flight seems like your average novel about a teenager trying to find his way, but it really covers so much more than that. A key issue in this novel is one present in a lot of Native American Literature, like in N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn, which I reviewed last year (click title for review). Zits knows he is different from other teens because of his Native American background, yet he also feels far away from his family's roots. He doesn't feel like he belongs anywhere. Another issue that was tackled in this novel is revenge. Is revenge really worth it? When Zits goes back in time, he witnesses many heartless acts that make him want to quickly exact revenge, yet he also sees beautiful acts of kindness for the human race, no matter what the ethnicity. The problems that Zits faces throughout Flight are not uncommon, and I feel that this book could be a favorite among younger readers (and older readers too!). Other kids going through similar situations can read it and think about how Zits handles himself in different situations, whether or not he does the right thing.

I absolutely adored the time travel aspect. It doesn't seem out of place at all in the story, especially because of Zits' reaction to what is happening. He seems just as bewildered as the reader. Zits learns so much about himself, about other people, and about revenge and its effects through the time traveling, and his adventures in the past were my favorite part of the story. I also have a soft spot in my heart for the police officer who tries throughout the book to connect with Zits and get him to realize that he's actually on his side. Zits just sees him as a bad guy, when in reality he feels bad for the kid.

This is a beautiful story and I highly recommend it. So many people can relate to Zits, whether they are Native American or not. Alexie has earned an honored place on my bookshelf because he is able to write a story that tackles tough issues yet is filled with a ton of humor that will leave your stomach sore from laughing. I can't wait to read more from him.

Now for some of my favorite passages:
Page 22: This guy probably thinks I'm just another stupid street kid. A dyslexic drone in the social welfare system. But I'm smart. Really smart. Well, okay, maybe not that smart. I am currently sitting in a jail cell.

People go to jail for a reason. Well, for a couple of reasons. They're in jail because they're stupid enough to commit crimes. And because they're stupid enough to get caught. And so, yeah, maybe I'm smart but I'm also double-stuff dumb. Adults are always telling me I don't live up to my potential.

Page 88: -This is what revenge can do to you.
-I lead those one hundred soldiers down the hill toward the Indian camp.
-We are killers.
-As we ride to the bottom of the hill and race the short distance across the flats toward camp, I can feel Gus's rage and grief leaving my body with each hoof-beat, I lose pieces of my rage, until I am left with only my fear.
-I had wanted to kill, but now I just want to stop.
-I throw away my rifle. I don't want to use it. But I keep riding. I am unarmed. I think I want to die. I think I want Gus to die.
-I think I want to lose this fight.

Title: Flight
Author: Sherman Alexie
Date of Publication: 2007
Number of Pages: 181
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Back from Vacation and new fiction book about Arthur Rimbaud

2011-07-25T14:15:00.000-04:00

I was gone all last week on a family vacation to Cape May, New Jersey. I had every intention of doing some blogging while I was there, but ended up not having internet access. We were paying tons of money for a great beach front hotel, and they wanted to charge us $10 a day for wifi. WTF????? So basically blogging did not happen. It was gorgeous (and HOT!) in NJ and I was sad to leave it behind, but I'm also really glad to be back home with adorable chocolate lab. Plus, when I returned home and we picked up our mail from the post office, this was waiting for me:

It is a fictionalized account of part of the life of French author Arthur Rimbaud, based of course on real life events. It came out last week. I preordered it in like January. When I went on one of my Arthur Rimbaud binges. Because if you've read this blog for a while now, you should know that I have a very unhealthy obsession with Rimbaud and his poetry. I discovered this book in January when I was up til all hours of the morning rereading Rimbaud's poetry for the gazillionth time, and then decided to google him to see what other juicy stuff I could find. This is the same time I discovered that Bob Dylan has a song where he mentions Rimbaud (and Verlaine. The song is called "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go", if you're interested), and also the same night I discovered Leo Ferre and his amazingly awesome record of Rimbaud and Verlaine poems put to music. You might say I have a problem. And you would be correct. Anyway, I'm super excited to read this book. I know a lot of it is going to be fiction, but at least it will hold me over next time I get into one of my Rimbaud binges. At least until I buy that really nice French biography of his life..

I'm slowly catching up on all of the blogs I follow too :)

Happy Bastille Day!

2011-07-14T12:32:00.001-04:00

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with Bastille Day, but it does capture the France I so love and adore. It is La Grosse Horloge et le Vieux Port in La Rochelle, my home for 4 months in 2009 <3

50 Best Books for French Majors and Francophiles

2011-07-13T13:43:00.000-04:00

How perfect that this lovely list comes to my attention in the middle of the Paris in July event?!

I got a very sweet email from one of my blog readers about this wonderful list of books about France. The list is separated into sections: Food, Culture, History and Memoir, Fiction, Travel, and Ex-Pats. Quite a few of these have been on my "to read" list for a while, but there are a ton of books listed that I've never heard of and want to read asap!

So without further ado, the link to the great list of books:

50 Best Books for French Majors and Francophiles (click to go to article)

Review: La traversée by Philippe Labro

2011-07-12T09:24:00.000-04:00

La traversée is a beautifully told story by French author Philippe Labro. I read it in French, and it was my first experience reading anything by Labro. I often feel like I shouldn't praise writing when it's in French, because I'm obviously not a native French speaker and therefore feel like I might not be "feeling" the language quite as well as a native speaker….but I feel the need right now to praise Labro. I LOVED his writing. It was gorgeous. This is sort of an autobiographical novel. The main character (we never get a name, but I pretty much assumed it was the author speaking himself, since he also had an "out of body experience" while in the hospital), retells of his time spent in a semi-coma in a French hospital. While doctors around him are testing him to try to find out what is causing him to be so sick, the main character is left to his dreams and thoughts, and finds himself back in situations he experienced years ago as a young man. He also is fighting for his life, trying to keep at bay the voices telling him that he is going to die. Throughout his struggle in the semi-coma, the main character discovers certain things that give him strength and keep him going. This is a fascinating story about a man who, through illness, discovers what really is important to him and how to keep those things (and people) close to him.

I thought it made total sense that this book was based on the author's own experiences. It truly seems to come from the heart. Sure, some things within the story might be fiction, but the concepts and the things the main character goes through seem so authentic. You just can't make that stuff up. The entire book really is a journey. A physical journey? Well, yes. The narrator finds himself remembering past travels in his youth. But it's also a mental and emotional journey. He is stuck within himself for weeks and is pretty much forced to face facts, and the experience really leaves him humbled. The title of the book itself represents the narrator's journey: "la traversée" in English is "the crossing". This could relate to a lot of things. The narrator crosses continents in his journeys. The narrator comes very close to crossing into the afterlife in the worst days of his illness. And the narrator also crosses over to a better self because of his illness. There is a beautiful passage at the end of the book where the main character is sitting by a fire, just enjoying life and all that it has given him. The fire is so much more than a fire now that he is healed. It represents LIFE. As Labro puts in (though in a much prettier manner), the fire is beautiful, multicolored, irregular, sharp-all the different things that are life. It's not all black and white. It's not all happy. But it is alive, and you've just got to live it.

I was so enamored with La traversée that it left me contemplating it for days. I especially loved the things the narrator discussed as life-savers for him: first, the will to live and resistance. Second, laughing. Third and most important, love and the people who you love and who love you. There are times when the main character is close to giving in and letting go, and then he realizes how selfish he is. After all, he has a wife who adores him, children, friends. As long as he has a say, he won't let himself leave them. I think that's just beautiful.

One of my favorite passages in right in the beginning, at the very start of the narrator's struggle with life and death. He describes hearing two voices in his head: one tells him that death is near, the other that there is so much more life to live.

I believe the translation of La traversée in English is Dark Tunnel White Light. It might be different in different English-speaking countries though?

Here are some fave quotes (believe me, there were a ton! It was hard to narrow them down to post here!). These are rough translations by the way. I can't find my copy of the book at the moment to verify, but I think when I took notes I did just rough translations? Maybe not, I can't remember ha!:
Page 76: The pieces of your life that you see aren't always the most important events of it.
-This quote was really beautiful in context, because the narrator is discussing the images he saw in his out of body experiences. He didn't see himself receiving writing awards. He didn't see himself being praised for directing great movies. He saw himself living daily life, and made him realize what really was important to him.
Page 277: La vie n'est pas un mot. (Life is not a word.)
-As in, you need to LIVE life. It’s not just a word. It's an action. Powerful stuff.
Page 286: La traversee est la vie. (The crossing is life.)
-This refers back to that scene with the fire. Life can be tough, sad, happy, fun. But it's life and you need to take it as it is and live it.

So, I highly recommend La traversée, and I would love to know what you have to say about it if you've read it! Have you read any other books by Philippe Labro?

Title: La traversée
Author: Philippe Labro
Date of Publication: 1998
Number of Pages: 286
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Review: 13, rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro

2011-07-10T10:59:00.000-04:00

Here is a quick summary taken from the author's website. I know I usually summarize books myself, but I can't put it into words quite so nicely:
"Trevor Stratton is an American professor and translator, newly arrived at a Paris university. There, in his office, he discovers a box filled with letters, photographs, and antique objects—a beautiful pair of gloves, a rosary, a silk scarf. Whose life is preserved here? And who has left this mystery for him to find?

The artifacts tell the story of the box’s owner, Louise Brunet, who lived in Paris through both world wars. Trevor is captivated by her tale; her unruly love for a cousin who died in WWI, her comfortable marriage to a man who works for her father, and her passionate attraction to a neighbor in her building at 13, rue Thérèse. But the artifacts tell just a part of the story. Trevor almost deliriously envisions the rest, consumed by thoughts of Louise. Or is it Josianne, his alluring assistant, who rules his imagination?

Memory, passion, and the mysteries of time are entwined in this enthralling novel, a book that transports us not just to Paris but into the mysteries of the past. Elena Mauli Shapiro’s first novel is a masterly exploration, intimate and dramatic, of the stories we imagine about others’ lives and the truths those stories reveal about ourselves."

Basically, I loved this book SO MUCH that there isn't anything I can say about it that will do it any justice whatsoever. I am telling you now, JUST READ IT. I adored it. I read it in like 2 sittings. What I really loved was the writing and how there are actual photos (yes!) of the items in the box. It was great. Elena Mauli Shapiro has such a unique writing style, and she is hilarious a lot of the time too. What was even better was that after finishing the book, while reading the author information, I found out that all the items in the box were real items.

So read the book because it is just SO beautiful. And then read the bit at the end about the author. I was so emotional, let me tell you.

I know I sound crazy because I'm so excited (still after finishing it like a month ago!) about this amazing book, but I definitely say you NEED to read it.

Now for a few fave quotes:
Pages 60 and 107 both contain proper French business lines to end letters with. I know they are boring to most, but I took a French business class and had to painstakingly memorize these bad boys. And let me tell you, they are a lot harder and longer than the typical English "sincerely...".
-60: Je vous prie d'accepter, Cher Monsieur, l'expression de mes sentiments les plus distingues.
-107: En vous remerciant d'avance et dans l'attente et l'espoir de vous lire, veuillez agreer mes salutations les plus chaleureuses.
-79: Our shell shock and our thousand-yard stare-we are stunned into quiet by the images that cannot be erased and thus erase all else-our gaze so still and so quiet that it can be ignored, if you wish, you do not have to
listen to our silence.
Digging this trench so hard, the muscle fibers in our backs bursting with the hurt of this: our last ditch effort.
Our shell shock and our thousand-yard stare-
I gaze ever farther than that.
For miles and miles I stare, through everything and straight to you. As I fight, I keep my eyes always on you: I cannot bear the stricken look on your face should you be told that I have died-
Your face-
it is the only reason I am still alive.

Can I also say real quick that I also loved the Moliere references.
Title: 13, rue Therese
Author: Elena Mauli Shapiro
Date of Publication: February 2nd, 2011
Number of Pages: 273
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Review: French Lessons by Ellen Sussman

2011-07-06T11:21:00.000-04:00

This review is part of Paris in July :)

French Lessons by Ellen Sussman follows three French tutors and their "students" through one day in Paris. The tutors basically walk around Paris with the Americans assigned to them and teach them the French language while showing them architecture and culture. Each individual has some sort of inner turmoil that they can't keep their minds off of during their sessions, and the lessons are in a way a sort of therapy for everyone.

The book is separated into sections by tutor and student, and we follow each pair throughout their day. I wasn't really sure how I was going to like the format, but I think it worked out well. Each pair does their own thing but eventually everyone ends up at the same spot in the end. Each section also flipflopped from the present time in Paris to something from each individual's past. For example, the first American we meet is a woman named Josie who has just lost her lover. While she's on the tour/lesson, she keeps being reminded of things she did with her lover. I thought the book started off pretty slow, but that may be because I didn't connect as well with Josie and her tutor. The other sections I enjoyed a lot more.
I loved the setting of the book. Sussman captured Paris beautifully, and if you read this book for no other purpose than that, then I think you'll be happy. I was reminded quite often of my favorite food and beverages from France. The characters drink cafe creme (jealous!!!) and eat pain au chocolat (whyyyyy the temptation??!).

One thing I really enjoyed about French Lessons is how each character seems to be having just an ordinary day in Paris, but this day ends up being sort of a turning point for everyone. Their problems aren't solved, but they all realize something that they need to change, or find some hope for the future and strength to start overcoming their problems. It also seemed to me like each pair (tutor/student) seemed to help each other unknowingly. Just being with a stranger who knows nothing about the other's plight seemed to be good for everyone. The book seems like it's going to be very lighthearted, but once to start reading you realize it's about much more serious emotions like love, loss, grief, and hope.

I did have some qualms with the book. It was by no means perfect. The writing for example wasn't anything exceptional. There were times when things seemed a little bit unclear. I also wish that the author had elaborated a bit more on certain things. The whole premise of book seems a bit "fairytale-esque" at times too. It's not likely that 3 tutors with problems will get 3 students with problems and sort of solve things on the same exact day. But this is fiction, so if you don't think too hard about it, it's okay. I also thought that the writing was a little bit choppy. Scenes and thoughts seemed to jump around a lot.

I think this is a great summer beach read, especially if you want something a bit more "fluffy" where everything is straightforward. Like I said above, the setting alone made me want to read this and it didn't disappoint in that respect. All in all, not a bad book, but definitely not for everyone.

Title: French Lessons
Author: Ellen Sussman
Date of Publication: July 5th, 2011
Number of Pages: 256
Genre: Fiction
Source: ARC from Publisher

These are a few of my favorite French things....

2011-07-01T12:48:00.000-04:00

Can't you just hear that song from the Sound of Music playing right now?? To kick off Paris in July, I'm posting a list of some of my favorite French things! A lot of these photos are actually ones that Twin took when she went to France, because I wasn't smart enough to take photos of a lot of things, like food.

French wine that is sold in the grocery store and is super cheap and super awesome:

Fresh baguette and affordable French cheese:

Cafe Creme:

Bakeries and Pastry Shops:

Things that totally remind me of Emile Zola and the class I took on him:

French money (Euros):

Medieval Architecture:

Some things I don't have photos of:
-Pain au chocolat
-Macarons
-Sitting outside all the time at cafes
-The market
-The language
-The people
-The culture

And the best for last (which my sis and her BF found on a road in southern France......), really awesome tourbus company names:

Welcome to Kelly's France Blog's month-long celebration of Paris in July!!

Review: Rêves amers by Maryse Condé

2011-06-27T13:28:00.000-04:00

Rêves amers was my first experience reading Maryse Condé and I really enjoyed it. This story follows young Rose-Aimée from her little poverty-stricken village in the Haitian countryside to the bustling city of Port-au-Prince, where she must work to provide for her family. Rose-Aimée's employer is really mean and she ends up running away and finding her friend Lisa. Together, they devise a plan to ensure that they will never again have endure the harsh realities of what is known in Haiti as "restavek".

So, this book was pretty short and to the point, but it was by no means lacking. The story was pretty powerful, but not so complex that you have to be an "adult" to read it. I think it would actually be a great book for middle-grade kids to read to learn a bit about restavek. For those of you unfamiliar with restavek, it's aHaitian term for a very common practice: wealthy people basically buy children to work for them in their homes, usually under really harsh conditions. I have a friend who also just graduated from Buff State with a French degree who did an independent study on restavek, and she said once how upset she always got while reading books about it. More information on restavek can be found here. Like I said, this story doesn't have a super horrific restavek story, but it's a good introduction to it.

Rose-Aimée and her friend Lisa are at once likeable characters. They are both only 12 or 13 years old and already have to work hard for their families. They desperately want to make a better life for themselves in a place where hardship is just a part of life. I wasn't surprised at all when they decided to travel illegally to the United States. Haiti is such a poor country and the US probably seemed like a fairytale land to these young girls. They are constantly surrounded by two extremes in Port-au-Prince: the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor, as quoted from page 15 (I've translated from French to English): "Inequality, contrasts=that was Port-au-Prince." Another quote that really stuck with me is this (page 42, also translated): "Why are some people rich, and others so poor that they must leave their own country to find a means of surviving? Rose-Aimee had turned this question over in her mind many times, but could not find an answer to it."

The ending of this book was very abrupbt and not at all what I had expected. Though honestly, did I really expect a fairytale ending?? I didn't even cry even though it was pretty sad because it seemed so normal and everyday for people like Lisa and Rose-Aimée. I do wish that Condé had gone a little more indepth into the story. I feel like it could have been a lot more intense if certain things had been elaborated on. At the same time though, the quick storyline and lack of elaboration makes the story seem more real, like these are real people we are watching trying to escape a country they love but can no longer live in.

Some more favorite quotes (translated from French):
Page 62: "However, the spectacle of all this misery did not discourage Rose-Aimee. On the contary. She felt a new will wake inside of her."

Page 73: "Who made the world? They say it was God. But why did he not give all creatures the means to savour beauty? Why do some people only think of eating, of dressing, of surviving, without the power to ever lift their heads to admire the leaves on the trees, the vividness of the flowers, the splendeur of the rivers?"

The original name of this book was Haiti cherie in French and it was orginally published in 1987. I can't find any information about a translation into English, so I'm assuming there isn't one? In any case, if the current title were to be translated, it would be Bitter Dreams.

Title: Rêves amers
Author: Maryse Condé
Date of Publication: 2005
Number of Pages: 80
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Omg I'm slacking again (or really just too busy to remember to post)

2011-06-23T21:50:00.000-04:00

I have a few reviews written and scheduled so I haven't totally forgotten to blog ;) The read-a-thon I participated in last weekend went really well. I finished 3 books the first day. I would have finished 3 more the next day I'm sure but then family stuff happened.

Gramma is going into assisted living when she gets out of rehab this time. I know it's for the best, but this sort of reinforces how bad off she really is now. I have a month to empty out her apartment and it's going to be super hard. I can't let my uncle sell all the beautiful old pieces of furniture that she's had since she married my grandpa :( But my house doesn't have the space for it. So I might indeed be moving out sooner rather than later just so I can find a home within our family for this lovely furniture. I guess I could put it in storage for a month or two if it came to that though.

So I guess the point of this post is that I might not be posting as much as I had been wanting to for the next month or so because of everything that's going on. I'm going to spend as much time with Gramma as possible (like always) because you never really know how long your loved ones are going to be with you <3

(and sorry for such a personal post. I guess I'm just an emotional wreck this week and had to get it out. Father's Day was this past Sunday and we have no fathers left in the family to celebrate with. So that sucked too..)

And I will now end my mope.

Read-a-thon Updates

2011-06-17T14:55:00.000-04:00

I'm condensing all my updates for the Spring into Summer read-a-thon in this one post :)

Update #1 (2:00 PM my time)

Total Books Read: 1
Total Pages Read: 198
Total Time Read: 4 hours
This is my first update :) I'm having a blast sitting aroun doing nothing but reading, but I have to run to my Gramma's now to help her make dinner. It'll be nice to take a little break.

By the way, the book I finished was Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, and it was awesome.

Spring into Summer Read-a-thon starts today!

2011-06-17T09:53:00.000-04:00

The Spring into Summer Read-a-thon, hosted by SqueakyBooks, starts for me in just a few minutes. I'm really excited to have an excuse to do practically nothing but read for 36 hours. I do need to stop by my Gramma's house for a few hours to make her dinner, and possibly on Saturday morning too to make her lunch, but besides that, I have no other obligations, which means that I should be able to get in quite a bit of reading.

I have a pile of books that are just waiting to be read. I probably won't get through them all, but I'd like to finish at least 2 or 3. Here they are:

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

Reves amers by Maryse Condé (this one is in French)

Flight by Sherman Alexie

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Big Snow by David Park

So there's the list. All but the last one are on my challenges. I can't wait to start reading! I'll probably post about 2 updates both today and tomorrow, depending. I don't want my blogging to take away from my reading time. I'm going to condense all updates into one post because I don't want to clog up anyone's reader :)

Some Bookish Ramblings

2011-06-15T10:41:00.000-04:00

So I am currently reading this:

But I'm not really feeling it. Which I don't understand, because I like the story, and I like the setting, and I like the writing. There's just something bothersome about it. I'm sure I'll have it pinpointed by the time I finish the book..

So last night I randomly picked up this:

I've been wanting to read it since I first heard about it last year, and I bought it the day it came out a few months ago. But I wanted to wait to read it until I knew I'd have the time to really sit down and focus on the book, because I knew I'd love it. I mean, come on. France. French letters (in French in the book that I can actually read without the translations that follow!). Yeah, it's awesome. Oh and did I mention the WWI romance? I'm guessing it ends tragically. LOVE IT. So yeah. I love it. I read half the book in one sitting last night and would have continued and probably finished it if Twin hadn't come up to my room (we are sharing my room for now until her room gets repainted. It better be finished soon!).

And in other bookish news, look what's coming out later this month:

I was looking through my mom's Good Housekeeping magazine and this was listed under their summer reads section as the best "book to curl up with". It comes out June 28th and I need it. Like now. For more info, go to the author's website.

So that's that. Hope you are all having a great Wednesday. I always have great Wednesdays, because I'm always off on Wednesday!

Review: South of Superior by Ellen Airgood (and it's out today!)

2011-06-09T08:09:00.000-04:00

Ellen Airgood's stunning debut, South of Superior, is a book you won't want to miss. Madeline Stone feels very alone in the world after her adoptive mother passes away, so when she gets a letter in the mail from her biological grandfather's girlfriend Gladys asking if she'd be willing to move to a small town in Michigan to help care for her sister Arbutus, Madeline decides to go with it. She finds herself in tiny McAllister, on the coast of Lake Superior. As Madeline settles in, she slowly becomes acquainted with the town's inhabitants and their way of life, and she starts to feel more and more like a local herself. Even though most of the people in McAllister have little or no money, they teach Madeline that happiness can come from the most unexpected places.

South of Superior is absolutely beautiful, and I had a really hard time planning this review because I know I won't do the book justice. Airgood's writing is fantastic (I can't believe this is her debut novel!) and I found myself lost in her descriptions. She captures the small town and its inhabitants perfectly and I felt like I was right there with them. It actually made me want to move to a small little town in Michigan because it felt like home. I connected right away with the characters too, especially Gladys, Arbutus, and my favorite, Mary. Mary and Gladys especially are very tough women who have been through a lot. They may not seem very likeable, but the reader still loves them. They grew up in hard times, and those hardships made them who they are.

There was a little subplot where Madeline finds out about her own family and her past. She was abandoned as a baby and all her life has felt extreme anger toward the family that left her behind. However, as the story progresses and she learns more and more about her family and their own hardships, she starts to accept and even sympathize with them. She struggles with this realization.

South of Superior paints a portrait of life's ups and downs. I love it because nothing is magically resolved. Instead, throughout the story, the characters are just trekking through life, just trying to make ends meet. However, there is hope, even if there isn't money. This story is heartwarming but not sugarcoated. Life is very hard for these people, but they accept their lives and all the twists and turns that life brings. Madeline has to learn this herself-to accept what she has and to be happy and grateful for what she has, instead of dwelling on things she can't change.

This is a must read and I can't recommend it enough. It made me feel really warm inside and taught me a really important lesson about accepting what life throws at you, which I was really needing because I've been letting things that are out of my control let me down. So thank you Ellen Airgood for helping me find my new mantra, "What you have to do here, you have to accept."

Some favorite quotes: (my quotes are from the ARC that I received and may have been changed before publishing the final copy. I'll update when I have the time to go to the bookstore and find the nice new hardcover copy.)

-Madeline felt as though hole had opened in the fabric of her fledgling life here; it must've felt the same way to Greyson. But it was a hole she'd just have to figure out how to mend, or jump over, or live with. They both would.

-She stared at her feet. And then she said, "What you have to do here, you have to accept. You have to-lay down before the way things are."
Madeline went still, her hands at rest in the pan. "I'm not sure what you mean."
"If you want to have things your way, the way you want them, you don't want to stay here. That's not how it is. But if you can accept the way things are, well then."

South of Superior by Ellen Airgood is out today from Riverhead Books! Go get yourself a copy and let me know what you think!
Title: South of Superior
Author: Ellen Airgood
Date of Publication: June 9th, 2011
Number of Pages: 384
Genre: Fiction
Source: ARC won from LibraryThing.com

Review: Molière by Christophe Mory

2011-06-07T15:21:00.000-04:00

I had to read this biography of the life of the French playwrite Molière for my Molière class this past semester. It was very interesting, but not really an actually biography. As my teacher put it, it's "la biographie mythologique" of Molière. As in, it highlights the main points in Molière's life, like his childhood and his time writing plays. But Mory also makes a ton of presumptions about the life of Molière. You can't read Molière as if it were a textbook, because it's not. The author puts thoughts and words into Molière's mouth and presumes that all of his plays are inspsired by events in Molière's life. I'm sure a lot of this is true, but because it's all presumption, you can't believe everything to read in it.

This book was an invaluable source for information on the time period. If you are interested in Louis XIV, "le roi soleil", this book has a ton of information about his court and about what Molière did for him. Mory assumes that Louis and Molière were pretty close because of Molière's position as "le tapissier du roi" and also because he had the official "troupe du roi", and I have to say I wouldn't be surprised if they were pretty close. Louis XIV did after all give Molière's troupe a theatre that they could have for ever and always after the death of their main actor and playwrite.

The relationships that Molière had with his friends, family, and lovers also play a big role in this biography. A lot of this information is pretty reliable because of first hand accounts from other members of Molière's troupe, but I'm sure of lot of this was also speculation on Mory's part. Mory was really good at capturing these people and their personalities, and I got really emotional towards the end when Madeleine (Molière's best friend and past lover, and also the co-founder of his troupe) died, and then again when Molière died exactly one year later.

What really made this book, and what I think drew my teacher to it and makes it a great book for all Molière scholars to read, is the invaluable information on Molière's plays. Mory discusses what was going on culturally and politically and in the court of Louis XIV when each play was written. He writes in detail about how well the plays were each received and about the costumes and stage decorations used for each one. If you are interested in 1700th century theatre or you are studying Molière, this book is perfect for you to read.

I read this book in French and I'm not sure if there is an English translation out yet. This seems to be the #1 book on the life of Molière even though a lot of it is speculation, so I wouldn't be surprised if a translation was available in the future. (LOL can I please be hired to do the translation?! I need a big girl job..)

Title: Molière
Author: Christophe Mory
Date of Publication: 2007
Number of Pages: 374
Genre: Nonfiction, Biography
Source: Personal Copy

Spring into Summer Read-a-thon!

2011-06-06T10:08:00.000-04:00

It is the perfect time for a read-a-thon, and since I have no plans for June 17th and 18th, I've decided to sign up for the Spring into Summer Read-a-thon hosted by Enna Isilee of Squeaky Books!

I plan on reading a few books that have been sitting around my room for a while that I just haven't had a chance to read. It's going to be fun!
My reading plan:
I plan to participate on: BOTH DAYS (hopefully quite a few hours both days!)
I plan to read: At least 2 books, but hopefully 3
I hope to read: A few books from the challenges on my "Challenges" page that I haven't gotten to yet.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Review: Les Combustibles by Amelie Nothomb

2011-06-03T12:24:00.000-04:00

Les Combustibles by Belgian author Amelie Nothomb asked readers an interesting question. What would you do if you had to burn all the book in your library to stay warm? This short book (just 89 pages) follows a professor, his assistant Daniel, and a student Marina as they struggle to survive in a war-torn and poverty stricken country. It is winter, and the only thing left for them to burn are the books in the university's library. The professor doesn't want to burn the books, at least not the ones he likes. Marina on the other hand could care less and wants them all burned as quickly as possible to keep her warm. Daniel cautions against burning them all at once, since each book will burn within minutes and they'd be without any source of heat for the rest of the winter. Eventually, they decide to burn one book each evening. As the days go by, the three characters argue over books and about life.

I am having the hardest time writing a review of this book, and I think you should all just go out and read it because it's really good and there's no way I can hit everything I would like to discuss in this review. I wasn't sure at first if I'd like the format of the book. It's written like a play, just dialog with only some brief "stage directions" sometimes telling you what the character's actions are. It ended up working out really well for this story. The whole book is really a long argument amongst the three characters. And it's all centered around the books and the war.

The professor, as I mentioned above, doesn't want to burn the books. He says that reading is what gives him warmth, and without books, they won't have anything to occupy their time. He states, "if we burn the books, then we've truly lost the war." He struggles with his decision of what to burn and what to keep. He asks an intriguing question to his fellow housemates in the library- "instead of 'what book would you want on a desert island', you should ask, 'what books do I have no problem burning?'"

The characters try desperately to keep some sense of their former lives before the war, and part of this involves reading books and discussing them. The professor constantly stresses how much they need to stick to their usual pre-war routine as much as possible, but Marina is ready to give up and wants to run out and get herself shot dead. The professor tries reasoning with her, saying, "the war will end someday, and you'll still be living and have to go on with life." Marina says that's impossible. How can life just go back to normal after such a horrific war? I thought about this scene a lot because the professor is so right. Marina no longer dreams about her future or having children or finishing school. She can't get passed the war. But sometimes you need to hold on to your hopes and dreams in order to stay sane and keep going day after day. As the professor puts it, "C'est la vie, mon enfant." ("That's life, my child.")

One thing I noted as I read was how as the books dwindled away, the lives of the three characters seemed to get less and less "normal". By the time they have just a few left, they are all close to giving up. I couldn't help thinking that it was because the books were almost gone. Yes, that meant that they would have no source of heat. But it also meant that they would have no more semblance of the lives they lived before the war. No more "normal" while stuck in the war. The books fueled the fire, and their minds.

I won't give away the ending, but I will say that this was a remarkable book and one that left me thinking for days after reading it. I'm the kind of person who believes that some form of normalty when faced with a bad situation is a way to keep on coping. When a loved one passes away, you keep at your normal every-day routine as much as possible, and it keeps you a little bit more sane. The books to me were a way to keep the characters sane during the harsh realities of war. I'm once again blown away by Amelie Nothomb, and I can't wait to order another box of French novels later this year, because a few more of hers will definitely be coming home to me!

Title: Les Combustibles
Author: Amelie Nothomb
Date of Publication: 2002
Number of Pages: 89
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

In which I begin reading Zola's Aux Bonheurs des dames (Or The Ladies' Delight)

2011-06-01T17:43:00.000-04:00

That's right. I picked up this little treasure (en francais, bien sur) at a book store in NYC when I went with French Club a few months back. I was super excited to find a Zola book in French. And it only cost me $2. Aux Bonheurs des dames is translated in English most often as either The Ladies' Delight or The Ladies' Paradise, which makes sense if you know what the book is about.

I can't wait to dig in. The premise of the story is basically that there is this huge department store built in a busy location, and the proprietor has everything set out just so so that all the ladies want to come to his shop instead of all the other little boutiques. I'll be looking at the conflict between the little stores and the big stores, but it looks like there's gonna be a lot more to this book :) I might keep you updated as I go along. It depends on either 1) How lazy I am or 2) How engrossed I am in the story.

Wish me luck! If you want more info on the book and it's plot and the Rougon-Macquarts, you can easily find heeps of info on wikipedia simply by typing in the book's title (and searching with the French title still takes you to the English page).

Paris in July!

2011-05-30T13:03:00.000-04:00

I am super excited to announce that I will be participating in this year's Paris in July blogging event, hosted by Thyme for Tea and Bookbath! (Thank you for hosting! You are awesome!) Paris in July runs from July 1st through the 31st and during July I will be posting numerous things about Paris and France. I've already got a lot of fun things planned, including reviews of French books, reviews of books that take place in Paris, posts about French food and music, and so much more. I am beyond excited, if you can't already tell.

Tamara at Thyme for Tea has asked participants to post some recommendations before Paris in July officially begins in July. So I've decided to post about a wonderful French singer who I've just recently discovered, named Leo Ferre.

I discovered him quite by accident (or not totally by accident because I was googling French poet Arthur Rimbaud who I'm a bit obsessed with) and discovered that this French singer from around the 1960s put a bunch of Rimbaud's poetry to music. I needed it. Itunes has plenty of Leo Ferre, but not what I was looking for. So I checked ebay and found the 2 volumes of the record and finally have them at home with my new turntable and was finally able to take a listen!

Leo's voice is gorgeous, and mixed with Rimbaud's beautiful poetry, it's enough to make me melt. For real. The album I have is extremely hard to come by, at least in the USA. Perhaps it's more readily available in France? Anyway, Ferre's music is so beautifully and typically French that I'm a bit obsessed and am on the lookout for more of his records. You can find him on itunes (just not the Rimbaud/Verlaine stuff like I said). Here's a youtube video I found of Ferre doing a song to the words of Baudelaire's "Albatros", one of my favorite poems ever. It kinda shows his style, but my album is a bit more "jazzy".

I can't wait to share more fun French stuff with you all once july comes around!

Review: Les Femmes Savantes by Molière

2011-05-20T12:21:00.000-04:00

Les Femmes savantes is a hilarious play that Molière wrote in the last years of his life. I really want to review it, but I am all Molièred out, so this will probably be a really short review. I loved this play, possibly even more than I loved Le Tartuffe. Henriette, the youngest of two girls, wants to marry Clitandre. Her older sister Armande, who claims to care only for learning and philosophy, basically shoots her down and says it's not going to happen because Clitandre still loves her. Clitandre does, in fact, want to marry Henriette, and he goes to her father to ask for permission. Chrysale immediately says yes, but everyone is concerned. They want him to speak to his wife, Philaminte. She wears the pants in the family and Chrysale is afraid to go against her. She wants Henriette to marry her friend Trissotin, who loves bragging about how smart he is. Throughout the play, the 2 sides are trying to marry off Henriette to the man of their choice before she can marry the other.

The title indicates that there are some smart ladies in the house. That is true, but it's more making fun of them than praising them. Philaminte, Armande, and Bélise (Armande's aunt and Chrysale's sister) are the "smart women". They are very intelligent, but they don't learn because they enjoy learning. They learn so that they can brag about how smart they are to everyone. There is a hilarious scene where the cook runs to Chrysale saying that Philaminte wants to fire her. When Chysale confronts his wife, her reason for wanting the cook gone is that she doesn't speak with proper grammar (and at that time, the French language was just beginning to be codified and grammar/pronunciation rules put into place, so to say that someone isn't using proper grammar is just funny since the "proper" French wasn't wide spread yet).

One of the morals of the story is that learning for the sake of learning is great, but learning just so you can flaunt your intelligence in front of everyone is stupid. And believe me, it is. When "les femmes savantes" think they are talking very intelligently, they sound hilarious.

I'm sure this play has taken a lot of flak over the years from people claiming it's anti-women because of it's subject matter and title, but I honestly don't think that Molière was "trying to put women back in their places". Just because the people in the wrong in this play are women doesn't mean that Molière doesn't want women learning and wants them to only stick to household chores and having babies. He was very close to the women in his life, and the co-founder of his theatre troupe was a woman. If you look at the bigger picture, you'll see that the underlying moral of the story can relate to both women and men.

Have you read or seen this play? If so, what are your opinions of it?

Title: Les Femmes savantes
Author: Molière
Date of Publication: original in 1672, my copy is from the 1990s
Number of Pages: 185 (5 acts)
Genre: play, comedy
Source: Personal Copy

Review: The House on Tradd Street

2011-05-18T12:24:00.000-04:00

The House on Tradd Street by Karen White is a fun, chick lit-esque ghost story/mystery set in Charleston, South Carolina, one of my most favorite places ever! (for numerous reasons. Though my family is probably recalling as they read this my "Mr. Hottie" chronicles....but that's a whole nother story and it's kind of too embarrassing to share on the internet. But I digress....) Melanie Middleton is a middle-aged woman who has a very successful career as a realtor. Her specialty-old historic houses. So when she suddenly inherits an old house with a ton of history on Tradd Street, you'd except her to be ecstatic. But there's a catch. Melanie has the unique ability to see ghosts, and she doesn't like it at all. That's why, while she sells beautiful old homes, she prefers to live in a brand new, plain white condo. With her inheritance, she must restore and live in the old house for at least one year, and she's not happy about the ghosts she keeps seeing in it. With the help of historical real-life mysteries writer Jack Trenholm, Melanie reluctantly starts to uncover the house's secrets. One major problem-one of the home's ghosts doesn't want her digging around in the past. What will Melanie uncover?

I truly loved The House on Tradd Street. It's such a fun book. It's light-hearted yet serious at the same time. This was my first experience with Karen White, and I really enjoyed it. I'm really picky about my ghost stories, but this one was perfect. The ghosts were mysterious and creepy, but no so involved in the story that they stopped acting like ghosts. I also enjoyed Melanie's psychic abilities. She really hates seeing ghosts, but sees them so often that it's normal to her.

Melanie herself was a really likeable character. She can be a complete bitch and is extremely stupid at times, but she's also very insecure and afraid to face her own emotions. She is almost 40 but acs like a child when she's with her parents because of the tension between them. I really loved how Melanie kept denying to herself her feelings for Jack. All of this made Melanie seem real. Her friends were all great too, and they were very funny.

One thing that annoyed me (in a good way though-not in a "OMG I need to stop reading this book" kind of way) was Melanie's relationship with the mysterious Marc Longo. He is the grandson of Joseph Longo, who the former owner of the house on Tradd supposedly ran off with. But there's much more to that story. Priceless diamonds and money problems are involved, and I kow Melanie was smarter than she acted, but I think she just wanted to make Jack jealous. I kept thinking, and so did Jack, that Marc was up to something, and Melanie just would not believe it.

I highly recommend The House on Tradd Street. Even though it deals with ghosts and an old mystery, it feels like it's a really story that could happen to any of us. I think that's because the characters all seem so real and the setting is in a place I'm familiar with and love. It's a heartwarming story about timeless love, loss, and uncovering the truth. A great book to bring on vacation or read in a hammock, you won't want to put it down. I can't wait to read the next book with Melanie Middleton, which also takes place in Charlston, The Girl on Legare Street.

Title: The House on Tradd Street
Author: Karen White
Date of Publication: 2008
Number of Pages: 352
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Graduation!!!! Yayyyy!!!!

2011-05-16T14:43:00.000-04:00

So I graduated from college on Saturday!! Yay! It was kind of embarrassing walking across the stage because there was this huge screen that showed each student as they walked. But I did fine. My friend from French was worried the whole time that her cap was going to fall off as she walked across the stage, and then, it did. And I had to try really hard not to die of laughter as I walked across the stage. I would LOVE to know why they even bother to have us put the phonetical spelling of our names for pronunciation purposes if the guy announcing our names doesn't even bother to read them anyway and mispronounces both mine and Twin's last name. Seriously?? And he was Twin's minor advisor, so he totally knows how to pronounce it. Oh well.....

It was a rainy day, but it stopped raining just long enough for my mom to take some photos on Buff State's campus. The first one is of me and Boyfriend (but shhhhhhh! He might not like that I'm posting a photo of him. What he doesn't know can't hurt him. Isn't he adorable?!)

The second one is of me and Twin :) We don't look very much alike in it because I'm wearing glasses and her heels were way higher than mine. We were kinda making funny faces because we wanted to hurry up and take the photos because people were trying to walk past us but had to wait until my mom took the photos.

So now I'm a graduate with way too much time on my hands. I desperately need a big girl job with more than 4 hours a week. Because that's all I'm working this week and it sucks.

More reviews coming this week!

Review: Pray for Silence by Linda Castillo

2011-05-16T10:46:00.000-04:00

Pray for Silence is the second novel Linda Castillo has written with character Chief of Police Kate Burkholder as the main character. Not much happens in the small community of Painters Mill, where many inhabitants are Amish. Kate and her colleagues are shocked when they find a whole Amish family gruesomely murdered in their own home. Why were they murdered? And what secrets did the family have that could have led to their deaths? Kate puts herself in harm's way to find the person who committed the heinous crime, and she is joined by State Agent John Tomasetti, her boyfriend who has some problems of his own to deal with.

I picked up Pray for Silence thinking it would be a nice no-brainer to read during the semester. I figured it was a murder mystery, and it couldn't be that intense, right? Wrong! The book was fast-paced and extremely gruesome, and it kept me wanting to read more. Surprisingly, it took me almost the whole book to figure out who the killer was, and I loved all the new suspects that kept popping up.

I really loved Kate and her ability to relate so well with the victims. As a cop, she tries not to because it often makes things too emotional. As she is the narrator though, readers get a look inside her head. Growing up Amish heself and going through much of what one of the dead girls went through, Kate is determined to find the killer, even if she acts really stupid and risks her life to do so.

I thought Castillo did the whole Amish thing quite nicely. I usually shy away from books about the Amish because they often seem kind of cheesy and fake. This novel was different. Perhaps it's because Kate herself talked about the Amish like it's a normal thing. I'm not sure, but I liked it.

Castillo definitely knows how to write a good murder mystery. This was definitely not what I expected, but in a good way. Like I said above, I didn't figure out who the murderer was until the end, and I usually can guess long before then. Another thing I loved is that you don't need to read the first Kate Burkholder book, Sworn to Silence, before reading this one. There was enough background info given in this one that I knew what was happening, and it didn't have a super long summary of the first book in the first chapter, which was great because that can get annoying.

All in all, a great entertaining read. Just don't pick it up if you're weak in the stomach! I plan on reading Sworn to Silence soon!

Title: Pray for Silence
Author: Linda Castillo
Date of Publication: 2010
Number of Pages: 320
Genre: Fiction, murder mystery
Source: Personal Copy

Review: No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

2011-05-13T15:33:00.000-04:00

Thank you Blogger for being a royal pain in the butt. I definitely typed, saved, and posted this review on Wednesday, and I even checked afterwards to see if it was posted. And when I just looked, it wasn't posted, nor was my full review saved. The only thing saved was the picture. *sigh* At least recycling day isn't until Tuesday because I found my original hand-written review in the recycling bin and am now retyping it. Better work this time!

Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men is a frightening and dark story of a man hunt. Set deep into the south of Texas in the 1970s, war vet Llewellyn Moss stumbles upon a mass-murder scene in the middle of the desert. Nearby he finds a suitcase with a ton of money in it. As soon as he makes the decision to take the money, he knows that someone will come after him. Llewellyn takes off and throughout the story is persude by a really scary gunman, the local sheriff, and a bunch of other violent people. This book is filled with violence, but it's one you won't want to pass up.

My first experience with Cormac McCarthy was his book The Road. I was immediately drawn to his writing style. I'd been wanting to pick up another of his novels ever since. I saw the movie No Country for Old Men with Boyfriend shortly after it was released and loved it. Realizing that the book was probably even better than the movie, I decided to give the novel a try. I am so glad I did!

The moment I picked up the book, it drew me into its world. McCarthy captures his characters and setting so well you feel like you are there. I truly thought when I first saw how much southern dialect he wrote with that I'd get super annoyed and go crazy. I usually hate it when authors mispell words when characters are speaking so that readers can hear how exactly they speak. Usually, I have to read dialogs out loud just to understand them. With McCarthy's style, I understood everything completely and actually loved it. It's hard to explain because that deep Texan accent is definitely present in his writing, but it's not so insane that I have to read it out loud. It added so much to the story and to the characters, and I don't think I've read anyone who does it as well as McCarthy.

I loved the characters. The sheriff, because of the chapters that are in his point of view, becomes quite an endearing character, even with all his rough edges. Llewellyn was a great guy even though he stole the money. He wants it so that he and his wife can have a better life, and even when he gets violent, you can't help but cheer for him. The bad guy, Chigurh, is probably one of the scariest people I've ever read about. He is sneaky and just plain evil.

The only thing I'd warn readers about this book is that the chapters where the sheriff is speaking in present tense and are italicized can be confusing. I had already seen the movie and I understood from that that those chapters are actually him speaking to a reporter after the fact. Really though, the book makes no mention of this, and I can totally picture him sitting on a rocker on his front porch telling this story to whoever came by for a visit. If you don't realize that it's the sheriff telling the story after it's all over and done with, it can be very confusing.

I absolutely adored this book and talked about it for weeks at home and at school. My mom now has it sitting next to her chair in her "to read" pile. Yes, it's violent and bloody, and disturbing, and dark, but it is so worth it. I promise you won't regret reading No Country for Old Men.

Now for some favorite quotes:
Page 124: It is community and it is respect, of course, but the dead have more claims on you than what you might want to admit or even what you might know about and them claims can be very strong indeed.

Page 127: The face that lapped and shifted in the dark liquid in the cup seemed an omen of things to come. Things losing shape. Taking you with them.

Page 283: I've told my deputies more than once that you fix what you can fix and you let the rest go. If there aint nothin to be done about it it aint even a problem.

Title: No Country for Old Men
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Date of Publication: 2006
Number of Pages: 271
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Using Books for Warmth

2011-04-24T22:40:00.000-04:00

Hello readers! I'm trying to calm myself down and get away from a stupid dance appreciation assignment I have to do so I decided to hop on here quickly and discuss a bit about a book I'm attempting to find the time to finish. (But first, how unfair is it to put in a class description that there is no dancing and it's all just dance history, and then make us do lots of dancing and base our grade on it???? I've never taken a dance class in my life and I'm getting close to making a huge hissy fit over this.)

The book I'm reading deals with a very interesting (and sort of scary) question. If you were trapped in a library in a wartorn town during wintertime with nothing left to use as firewood and heat except books, would you be able to burn them? And which books would you choose to burn? It's a question I've been pondering since I started reading the book.

I guess at first it seems like an easy question. I at first was like, "Ha yes, Catcher in the Rye, I'm burning YOU!!" But then I got to thinking about how much it would really hurt to burn books I disliked reading in school. Yes, I hated the book. But at the same time, I understand why it's so well loved and admired and still taught in schools. And the thought of burning it just for a few minutes of warmth seems quite unbearable.

One of the characters in the book put it best: You don't need a fire for warmth when you've got the books and the stories they tell all around you. Reading in itself can be like food and like heat because it takes you away to a different time, a different place.

What are your thoughts?

Crazy Busy!

2011-04-10T21:58:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to let my lovely readers know that I haven't disappeared! I haven't had much time lately to write up any reviews. I've got just a month (ONE month!!) left of undergrad studies, and it's left me with loads of homework (mostly reading). I've got some reviews almost finished that will hopefully go up this week, but don't be surprised if I'm not around quite as much for the next month.

Commencement is May 14th :) Yay!!

And this coming weekend, I'm taking a trip to NYC with the Buffalo State French Club! We always try to do things French-related, but usually end up shopping, heh.

So I will hopefully be posting some stuff soon, and once I'm an official college grad, I'll be posting lots more!

Review: The Artificial River by Carol Sheriff

2011-03-25T09:46:00.000-04:00

I don't review many non-fiction books, mainly because they are usually being read for school and I get really sick of whatever it is I usually have to read for school. But I had to read The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862 for a class on New York State history, and I ended up loving it. As a lot of you know, I live in Buffalo, NY, the last stop on the Erie Canal, so the canal has always been close to my heart (because my city is close to my heart, and it's great here, and you should come and visit it!). Artificial River chronicals the building of the canal across the state and focuses on how it was both progress and a frustration for the people living along it. Filled with an insane amount of info, from what cities like Buffalo and Rochester used to be (pretty much nothing but a few shacks) to primary sources depicting real life and real opinions at the time the canal was built and afterwards, this book is a treasure trove for anyone interested in NYS history or the Erie Canal.

I really liked reading about what people living along the canal route thought of it. At first, many people were ecstatic. The canal would bring mail a lot faster than roads, and farmers would be able to transport their goods to more markets. Entrepreneurs were able to set up their own businesses along the canal, and the construction of the canal and subsequent boom in business employed tons of people. The canal could also be frustrating though. Farmers' land was sometimes ruined or taken from them. The canal sometimes broke in places and flooded the land, and boats would be stuck waiting in long lines while repairs were made. Also, because of Upstate New York's cold temperatures, the canal had to be shut down every winter when it froze over. This frustrated settlers in remote areas because they had gotten used to fast news from loved ones in New England or Europe during the warm months and didn't like the long wait for letters all winter.

Child labor was also an issue on the canal. Young boys and sometimes girls lead the horses who pulled the boats. They were mistreated and often abused by boat captains, and they were surrounded by the canal workers, ruffians with bad manners who many living along the canal didn't like at all. These are just a few of the conflicts of progress that the canal brought with it. Much more in discussed in the book.

As mentioned above, one of my favorite things to read about in Artificial River was the building up of towns and cities along the canal routes. Buffalo, Lockport, and Rochester are mentioned frequently, but so are many other canal towns stretching across the state.

I think anyone who likes canal or NYS history will enjoy this. It's non-fiction, but it's not insanely heavy. It's written in an easy to understand way, and I loved how Sheriff kept all the spelling mistakes in primary sources that are quoted. It helps to show who these people along the canal were. They weren't all great spellers, but they were intelligent people nonetheless, and they were people who wanted a better life for their families. Many of them had lived through or had relatives who lived through the American Revolution, and they felt very strongly about their property rights. When parts of their land were taken away for the canal, they expressed their unhappiness (I'm ignoring for the purpose of this review the fact that the land had once belonged to Native Americans, who were forced off of their homelands).

Artificial River ends with the railroads and how they eventually surpassed the canal. As Sheriff put it, "If the Erie Canal compressed distance and time, the railroads annihilated them" (page 173). I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can't wait to read about more NYS history in my class.

And oh yeah, how awesome is the name "Cadwallader"??! Never heard that before reading this book! (and yes, it's a first name)

Title: The Artificial River
Author: Carol Sheriff
Date of Publication: 1997
Number of Pages: 177
Genre: Non-Fiction, Erie Canal
Source: Personal Cop

Review: A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (aka I love me some Sherlock Holmes)

2011-03-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

I've always had a thing for Sherlock Holmes. I chalk it up to Basil Rathbone and his dreamy good looks and awesome acting. A Study in Scarlet was my first ever attempt at reading a Sherlock Holmes story, because up until I read it, I'd only seen movies! (the best are with Rathbone, but I was surprised by how much I adored the newish Holmes movie that came out a few years ago with Robert Downy Jr.)

A Study in Scarlet is the first Holmes mystery, and it's actually the story where Holmes and Watson first met. I loved reading about their introduction and their first few weeks as roommates, and about how fascinated Watson was by Holmes' capability of deduction. Holmes is asked by the police to help them solve a murder. The body seems to be unmarked, and is in a vacant building with a word written on a wall in blood. Holmes is happy to help, though he's sure Scotland Yard will take all the credit when he solves the case. Holmes invites Watson to come along, and here we have their case together! After a second body is found, the police are a bit flustered, but Holmes presses on in his search for the murderer.

I loved A Study in Scarlet! The story was great, and while it did have its flaws, it was very entertaining. I was surprised by how similar Holmes and Watson were in this book compared to movies I've seen. It's nice to see that the films portrayed them so accurately. Sherlock Holmes is definitely a brooder. He is always sitting alone, lost in his thoughts. He's also very smart and notices the tiniest of details, which I'm sure came in handy back before forensic science was around to help solve crimes. Watson is shocked when they are first introduced and Holmes knows right away that he fought in Afghanistan. A little later in the book, Holmes explains:

Page 18: "You appeared to be surprised when I told you, on our first meeting, that you had come from Afghanistan."
"You were told, no doubt."
"Nothing of the sort. I knew you came from Afghanistan..........The train of reasoning ran, 'Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly, in Afghanistan.'"

Part 2 of the story was slow and boring at first. It totally leaves Holmes, Watson, and England, and you are suddenly in Utah. I was confused until I realized that this part was explaining everything that led up to the murders. After the scene was set and things got rolling, that part became really interesting, and I couldn't wait to find out how this all came to be.

As I mentioned above, Sherlock Holmes has a knack for details. It helped him solve these murders when the police detectives were too busy jumping to conclusions. What I also really enjoyed about this is how Holmes, upon making a discovery, would keep it to himself. Sometimes he remarked to the police or to Watson about a small clue he'd found, but he always waited to explain himself. In the end, Holmes new how everything had happened long before the police.

I liked the author's writing style because it went well with Holmes' personality. There were a few factual errors, which were pointed out in footnotes by the editor, but they didn't interfere with the story or its entertainment value. I read parts of the intro, which in my Barnes and Noble Classics edition is by Kyle Freeman. It has a lot of interesting details about people in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's life that he may have based his characters off of. Watson, many believe, is Doyle himself, while Holmes may be a mixture of people, including one of the author's former teachers.

If you love mysteries or are a fan of the Sherlock Holmes movies, I think you'll love this story.

Title: A Study in Scarlet
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Date of Publication: 1887 original, my Barnes and Noble Classics edition is from 2003
Number of Pages: 96
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Getting the Creative Juices Flowing

2011-03-22T13:00:00.000-04:00

I'm working on a French essay that's due in my teacher's inbox tomorrow by midnight, and I constantly have to stop and rethink what I'm doing and take breaks and just put off writing more. Sometimes papers, and reviews for that matter, just don't seem to flow like they should. So I have a question for you:

How do you get your creative juices flowing? Or better yet, how do you get things flowing in general?? Sometimes no matter how hard I try, I can't get a paper to come out sounding like it should, and I wonder if there is something that you do that helps when you are in a similar situation.

For me, the answer is usually quite simple. I take a break. I have some coffee (or wine, or in this case because it was so recently St. Patrick's Day, Guinness). Then I go back to my paper. Sometimes I have to do this after each paragraph. Sometimes I only need to do it once and then the rest of my paper comes out really quickly and sounds really nice.

Reviews for me are usually much easier to write because I really like writing them. Sometimes though I am so burned out from schoolwork that it's hard for me to get all my thoughts together to write a coherent review. When that happens, I usually just force myself to start writing anyway, and after a wee bit, everything comes into focus and the writing comes easier.

Sometimes writing just doesn't happen at all, or if it does, it doesn't sound very nice at all. When that happens, I usually have to take a long break. With essays for school, this sucks when the essay is due the next day, which is why I try to start the essay well in advance (which doesn't always happen, as hard as I try. I used to be and am still to an extent a huge procrastinator).

So dear readers, what do you do when you are in a similar situation? I'd love to hear what you all have to say!

Review: The Curse of the Spellmans

2011-03-21T13:00:00.000-04:00

Lisa Lutz has charmed me again with Curse of the Spellmans, the sequel to one of my favorite reads ever, The Spellman Files. In this book, main character Izzy Spellman has gotten herself into deep water. She is a private investigator in a family with a private investigating business. Her problem? She can't seem to keep herself out of jail. One more arrest and she could lose her P.I. license. But Izzy isn't about to stop snooping on her ex-boyfriend turned possible murderer. She'll do whatever it takes to get to the truth. This witty and funny novel is fast-paced and will keep you laughing from beginning to end.

I was so excited when I saw this book for super duper cheap at bookcloseouts.com in November, and I had to buy it. I read the first book years ago when a book-of-the-month club my mom is in sent her the wrong book. She decided to keep it, and I read it and fell in love with the Spellman family. They are a quirky bunch, each with a very distinct personality. Izzy, the narrator, has always been my favorite character for her wit and major attitude problems.

One of the things I love about this book (and the first one as well) is its format. Because Izzy is a P.I., the whole book is pretty much written like a long case file. I especially love the footnotes at the bottom of the pages, where Izzy explains stories, TV shows, and family members. It's such a unique (and often super funny) way of telling a story, and Lisa Lutz does it perfectly. Another thing I really appreciate is Izzy's obsession with an old TV show called Get Smart. I haven't had the honor of seeing it yet, but I myself am obsessed with a TV show from around the same time period called The Man From U.N.C.L.E. In The Spellman Files (book 1), Izzy was constantly referencing Get Smart episodes. Curse of the Spellmans doesn't refer to it as much, but it does include a lot of hilarious scenes (and footnotes!) about the TV show Dr. Who, which I've never seen but am now very compelled to.

While reading book 2, I loved examining how the characters have grown and developed since book 1. They are all still as funny as ever, but in this book I really feel like I know them. They are also very real because they have very real faults, just like you and me (because *gasp* even the best of us are not perfect!). One of my favorite things in Curse of the Spellmans was the relationship between Rae (Izzy's 15 year old little sister) and Henry (a friend of Izzy's who is a 40 something year old detective). Rae for some reason thinks Henry is her best friend and is constantly at his office and apartment. Henry should be really annoyed, but he actually turns their meetings into something constructive. He makes Rae do her homework and helps her study, something her family could never get her to do. Their relationship is so sweet and so well developed, and I love it because it's so innocent. They really are just friends, and it's funny when Rae's teachers just can't comprehend that. I also love how confused Izzy got over the situation at times. Some chapters are supposed to be transcripts from recordings she makes of Rae and Henry's conversations (she is of course a P.I. and also investigating her weird family members), and those chapters had me laughing really hard. Rae and Henry are so cute together.

Here is a passage about the Rae-Henry relationship:
Pages 24-25: (Izzy is narrating) The primary conflict between Henry and my sister was how they should go about defining their relationship-not to each other, but to other people. The first time this problem arose was when Henry's boss, Lieutenant Osborn, entered Stone's office shortly after Rae's arrival.
"Henry," the lieutenant said pleasantly, "is this nice young lady an informant?"
To which Rae, genuinely flattered, replied, "No. We're just good friends."
The lieutenant gave Inspector Stone a double-take, handed him a case file, and left the office with a cordial nod of the head.
"In the future, Rae, it's probably best if you don't refer to me as your friend."
"But we are friends, right?"
"I guess so," Stone reluctantly replied, unable to come up with another definition. "But just don't say it out loud."

This book was great. Because of it's format, it's a super quick read. I read it in one weekend when I was sick with a nasty cold and sore throat. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves funny books, a good mystery, and seriously witty and sarcastic characters. I'm super psyched that there are two other books in the series out now! I really, really enjoyed Curse of the Spellmans!

A fave quote:
Page 84: (Izzy, on her arrests for snooping on her very suspicious-looking ex-boyfriend) "I have many flaws, but I suppose the only one that truely damages my life is that I believe all questions have answers and I believe that I am entitled to those answers."

Title: Curse of the Spellmans
Author: Lisa Lutz
Date of Publication: 2009 for paperback edition
Number of Pages: 480
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Weekend Reads

2011-03-19T22:29:00.000-04:00

It's been another crazy week at my house! I've barely been home because of work, group projects, and tons of French Club fun (and presentation prep!). I'm SO glad it's the weekend! Tomorrow (Sunday) French Club is doing a presentation for the Alliance Francaise de Buffalo on the history and culture of Corsica. Should be fun and interesting, except for the part where they forgot to tell us that we had to present the same day as the St. Patrick's Day parade!! And there are at least 3 presenters (myself, Twin, and a friend) who are hardcore Irish and need to be there. Luckily, we are the first presenters and are going to sneak off as soon as we can to that parade and all the green beer we can drink!

I have as usual been reading a ton lately, but mostly for school. I've managed to sneak in some pleasure reading though, so reviews should be posted this week. I should be writing an essay right now but I think I'm going to postpone that until later and work on reviews :)

On a really awesome note, I'm a member of a website called Ravelry. It is awesome, and it is for knitters, crocheters, weavers, dyers, etc. I participate every year in a St. Patrick's Day swap, and I got my packages from my awesome swapper! She was absolutely amazing. Remember that review I posted a few weeks ago of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice? I mentioned how I would really love to read it in German, Mann's native language. My swapper just happened to be from Germany, and look what she sent me!!!!

It's Der Tod in Venedig, the German version!!!!! Best swap partner ever! I was seriously comletely shocked and excited when I opened my package and saw this :) I can't wait to start reading it. I think I'll save it for summer. It will be awesome practice and it will totally help me build my German vocabulary and grammar :) Can you tell I'm really excited?! Love the cover, too!

Hope you all had a great week and weekend! Reading anything good yourselves? Do you have anything exciting going on this coming week? My night class this Wednesday was cancelled, so I get to go home at 4:15 instead of 8:10! Yay!

Literary Blog Hop-What must I read before I die?

2011-03-19T15:56:00.000-04:00

The Literary Blog Hop is a biweekly hop hosted by The Blue Bookcase. Anyone who reviews a lot of literary or classic books can participate! For more information or to join in, head over to The Blue Bookcase!

This week's question comes from the wonderful Deb Nance over at Readerbuzz:
What one literary work must you read before you die?

Well this is actually kind of a hard question for me. There are so many books I really want to read! I guess if I had to choose, I'd pick Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I would read it in French. I've wanted to read this one for ages and hopefully will someday get around to it! So many of my friends love the play (I think maybe it's a musical??) and talk about it a lot, but I don't know much about the story or what it's about (I know I know, shame on me..). I'm pretty sure it will be awesome though, and that's why I choose this book :)

Review: Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

2011-03-11T17:51:00.000-05:00

Death in Venice is a novella by German author Thomas Mann. I read the translation by H.T. Lowe-Porter, which I liked, though I'd love to eventually read this in its native tongue because there were some parts that seemed awkward. It could just be Mann's own style, but it might be the translation. My teacher also did mention that there are parts that the translator changed up a bit. I'm pretty sure that Lowe-Porter's translations of Mann's works are the most widely read and accepted.

Death in Venice follows Gustave von Aschenbach from Munich, Germany to Venice, Italy. He is a famous writer who is known for his hard work ethic and beautiful prose. One day he is out walking near his home and sees a foreign-looking man. Aschenbach, about 50 years old, suddenly has a yearning to travel, and so he eventually ends up in Venice. He stays for quite a while in a hotel, where he becomes obsessed with a tennage boy named Tadzio. Aschenbach can't take his eyes off of the god-like yet sickly young man. Even rumors of a cholera outbreak can't diminish his obsession and love for the boy.

I really liked Death in Venice, though the beginning was super slow for me and it took me some time to get into. Aschenbach ponders a lot about his profession as a writer and what it means to be an artist. Which was fascinating the first time and then got a little old. The story picks up once he gets to Venice, and it's interesting as you read to notice how he slowly loses parts of himself and becomes more and more obsessed with Tadzio. There are also hints throughout about him slowly becoming ill. I pitied Aschenbach a lot until I realized he was happy in Venice. He could leave and go back to his old life, but after a certain point, it's too late and you realize taht Aschenbach is never going back (and let's face it, I didn't give anything away, since the title states that this story is about a death in Venice).

The imagery in Death in Venice is beautiful. I've never been to Venice, but I could easily picture parts of the city as I read. This is a very quick read, but it's a great one once you get past the slower parts. I thought it was very profound in that Aschenbach has this brilliant and successful career, yet he doesn't seem to want to go back to it. I think it just wants to be at piece and not toil with his perfect writing any longer. At any rate, the passages about being an "artist" I think are super important, especially if you are going to read more Mann because it seems to be a recurring theme in his writing, even though it gets old after you've read the same thing already.

Some favorite quotes:
Page 18: Wrapped in his cloak, a book in his lap, our traveller rested; the hours slipped by unawares. It stopped raining, the canvas was taken down. The horizon was visible right round; beneath the sombre dome of the sky stretched the vast plain of empty sea. But immeasurable unarticulated space weakens our power to measure time as well: the time-sense falters a grows dim.
Page 45: Thought that can merge wholly into feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought-these are the artist's highest joy.

Title: Death in Venice
Author: Thomas Mann
Date of Publication: Originally in 1911, my copy is from 1989
Number of Pages: 73
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Review: Le Tartuffe by Molière

2011-03-01T23:52:00.000-05:00

Over the next week or so, I'll be posting short reviews of some of what I've been reading for school. They are mainly novellas, and plus I'm sick of discussing them in class (though I loved them all), so that's why they are "quick" reviews. Today's review isn't really all that short, but it's much shorter than it could be.

The first play I got to read in my Molière class is Le Tartuffe, sometimes called L'Imposteur (or The Imposter in English). I have a whole long post planned just on Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, aka Molière, so I'm not going to get in depth into his life right now. I will say that after Le Tartuffe was first played in 1664 at Louis XIV's "fête des plaisirs de l'île enchantée", it was banned from being played publicly. This first version contained just 3 acts. Molière later revised it to the 5 acts we know today. Why was it banned? Because of it's subject matter. Le Tartuffe is about a "faux dévot", or someone who pretends to be very religious and charitable when really she is just greedy and only cares about herself. The faux dévot in this play is named Tartuffe, and I could do a whole blog post just on the different reasons why Molière may have chosen that as his name, but I won't, because it's really not important. Tartuffe uses his disguise as a pious man of the Church to get ahead in life. Molière basically based Tartuffe's character off of many prestigious men who were members of a secret religious society. Long story short, the vast majority of these people acted charitably and religiously, but only so that they could benefit and get ahead. Le Tartuffe was finally unbanned in 1669 after Louis XIV finally was able to dismantle the society, and the play became an instand and huge success.

So that was a lot of background dumbed down. It's hard to talk about the play without the background info, and I hope you thought it to be as interesting as I did :)

I think I mentioned at the start of this semester how I much I HATE reading plays. I take that back. I LOVED Le Tartuffe! It was hilarious. It is about a man, Orgon, who is blind to the lies that Tartuffe tells him. He thinks the world of Tartuffe, and Tartuffe knows it. In fact, Orgon even takes Tartuffe's word over those of his own family members. Most of Orgon's family and servants can't stand Tartuffe and know he's a fake, but Orgon doesn't listen to them. He decides to marry off his daughter to Tartuffe and after banishing his son Damis (because Damis tried telling him the truth about Tartuffe), Orgon decides that Tartuffe will become his inheriter. Orgon's daughter Mariane is devestated because she loves a man named Valère. However, Mariane refuses to speak up against her father. So her servant Dorine (my favorite character-she is SO funny) hatches up a plan to make Orgon rethink the marriage. Tartuffe hits on Elmire, Orgon's wife, and basically says he wants to sleep with her. Orgon of course doesn't believe what he hears. His family and servants keep speaking up about the problem. Will Orgon listen? What will happyen to Tartuffe? And will Mariane get to be with Valère, her lover? All these questions and more are answered with the surprise ending! But you'll have to read it or see it yourself because I'm not giving anymore away.

So if you can't tell, I definitely recommend Le Tartuffe. I read it in French, but it's easy to find in English. I laughed so much my stomach hurt when I read it. Molière definitely has a way with words, and I can't wait to read the next play for my class, Le Misanthrope.

Molière definitely gets you thinking both during and after reading this play. One questino in particular that I'm pondering is this: does Molière say anything about speaking up vs. being quiet in Le Tartuffe? Do those who speak up and tell the truth get out ahead of those who keep their mouths shut? Or is it the other way around? It's something to think about, especially because I have a paper due on the topic in a week.

If you don't love Le Tartuffe for its humor, you'll probably love it for the way Molière creates strong female characters who aren't afraid to speak their minds (and yes, I'm talking to you Dorine!), something that wasn't super common in plays back in the 17th Century.

A fave passage, though it's in French (sorry in advance!):
Page 54: Dorine: "Le soir, elle eut un grand dégout, et ne peut au souper toucher a rien du tout, tant sa douleur de tête était encore cruelle!"
Orgon: "Et Tartuffe?"
Dorine: "It soupa, lui tout seul, devant elle, et fort dévotement il mangea deux perdrix, avec une moitié de gigot en hachis."
Orgon: "Le pauvre homme!"

The scene goes on like that for a while, with Dorine explaining how Orgon's wife was sick while he was away. Everytime she says something about Elmire, Orgon asks how Tartuffe was. Dorine responds with something about how he is doing well and eating and drinking a lot and is happy, and Orgon will just be like, "Oh, the poor man!" Hilarious. I need to see this play on the stage!

Title: Le Tartuffe
Author: Molière
Date of Publication: Originally 1669 with 5 acts, but my copy was published in 2008 by Flammarion
Number of Pages: 147
Genre: comedy (a play)
Source: Personal Copy

Review: Bride of Pendorric by Victoria Holt

2011-02-19T14:04:00.000-05:00

Bride of Pendorric is one of those classic romantic suspense novels that my mom and grandma read years ago and loved. I love these kinds of books. I really, really do. More for the entertainment value that the writing. These books to me are very comforting, much in the same way I love and reread Jamaica Inn by Daphne DuMaurier whenever I need a no-brainer read and am in a downer mood.

This is the story of Favel, an English girl who has spent her life (except for some years in school) on an island near Italy. Her father is an artist. Her mother died a few years ago and Favel has taken her place ever since. The family isn't doing well financially. The a handsome, mysterious man comes to the island and takes an interest not only in her father's artwork, but in Favel herself. Soon, they are married. Right before Roc Pendorric and Favel are to leave for Cornwall, English, where the family estate is located, Favel's father dies. She is devastated, and a little bit nervous about the weird events surrounding his death. When Favel arrives at Pendorric, she is met by an eccentric but loving family. Soon though, weird things start happening. Is the story about the Pendorric ghost true? And if so, is she the next Pendorric bride to fall victim to the famly curse? As her new husband becomes more and more distant and creepier things start to happen, Favel realizes that her life is in danger. Someone is trying to kill her, and not a ghost.

For pure entertainment value this book is pretty awesome. It had me captivated through most of it, though in the beginning I was really annoyed with how quickly Favel was swept off her feet and suddenly in love with Roc. While it's nice to daydream about, I don't really like the whol idea of falling in love as soon as you set eyes on someone and marrying them. Because seriously, you don't know them. Heck I've been with Boyfriend for 4 years now and I can't fathom marrying him yet. So that part of it was kind of annoying, but the rest was great. The writing was pretty good too. The descriptions of the Pendorric estate and the moors were beautiful and really thorough. I could easily imagine all the locations in this story because of Holt's descriptions.

As for the story itself, it was a lot of fun to guess who the ghost really is. I thought for a long time that is was one certain person (who I shall not name because I don't want to give things away), and then I thought, "hmm, maybe it's this other person.." And then all of a sudden it all came together, and I knew who it was before Favel did and I was like, "Favel! This person is trying to kill you!!". It was intense towards the end, let me tell you.

I do wish that I had been warned about the twin stuff in the book. I have a twin sis and I try not to read anything where one twin is dead. However, this book actually is an exception to that rule because of the great way that they were portrayed. The living sister was so sentimental about her dead twin and for some reason because of it I felt okay with it.

Despite a few flaws (or maybe just my feminist beliefs on relationships and marriage, lol), I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the other book I have by Victoria Holt soon. I had a few qualms with the very end of the story, but if I explain them, I'll give a lot away. If you want to chat about it, I'm on Twitter ;)

Title: Bride of Pendorric
Author: Victoria Holt
Date of Publication: 1963 (original)
Number of Pages: 336
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Romance
Source: Personal Copy

Review: How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu

2011-02-15T22:22:00.000-05:00

Wooh. Long time no blog. What with lots of school work, the 4 year anniversary with Boyfriend, and French Club stuff (and now trying to find a new president because the one we've had since September suddenly had to step down), I haven't had anytime at all to blog. I've been reading, but mainly stuff for school. I do have some reviews to post, like this one today, but it's just been really hard to find the time to write them. So sorry if you won't be hearing from me much! I'm sad that I don't have more time to devote to my blog right now, because it seriously is sometimes the only thing that keeps me sane when I have lots of stressful things going on.

But anyway, on to the review. I've been doing homework nonstop since getting up this morning, so please ignore anything that makes no sense ;)

I'm really surprised that there hasn't been more hype about Dinaw Mengestu's How to Read the Air. I thought it was brilliant and beautifully written. It's about a man named Jonas (who is also the narrator), who lives in New York City and works as a subsitute English teacher. But really, it's so much more than that. The story opens in the 1970s with the beginning of a trip his parents, recent Ethiopian immigrants, are taking from their new home in Illinois to Nashville, Tennessee. Right away we learn about the problems that Mariam and Yosef have. They can't communicate with each other and they are very unhappy together. The novel flip flops back and forth from Jonas' life in modern day NYC to his parents' lives back in the day. Both their stories are quite disfunctional, but they are told in a way that makes you feel really sad for them all.

The first thing that I noticed when I started reading this book was the writing. It flows so well. It's a very quiet, subtle story, but when you finish it, you're kind of like, "wow." Even though it's quiet, it's intense. Jonas' parents fled war-torn Africa to make a better lives for themselves, and their characters reflect all the heartache that they went through. Jonas' father is abusive, but the way we learn his story through Jonas makes you almost pity him. His mother in a way aggravates things and is very unhappy with her husband. I'm sure she loved him once, and throughout the story I kept reading because I kept asking myself, "what led them to this?" They were married too soon and didn't get to spend enough time together right after their marriage. It's heartbreaking to think that they could have been extremely happy together if things had played out differently.

The disfunction in his homelife is reflected in Jonas' relationships later on in life. He basically doesn't know how a real relationship works and everything he does just makes things worse and draws lines between himself and his wife. He lies to make things better, but they can only get worse. I think he wants to make his wife happy so badly that he lies and says whatever she wants to hear. Very slowly, we start to see their relationship faulter. They become more and more distant with each other. While all this is going on, we are also learning about Jonas' past and his parents. I think this made the story really interesting because we are always going back to the past and seeing what his parents did wrong that may now be effecting him.

There were times where I became very frustrated with Jonas and just wanted to scream, "dude, you are screwing up! Tell the truth, don't ignore your wife, blah blah blah...!!!!!" Of course, I could have done all the screaming I wanted and he wouldn't have listened. Jonas is only human and he makes mistakes. It's just that his are all pretty small, so he doesn't realize he's messing up his life until much later when all his little mistakes pile up on top of each other. Another thing that sometimes got to me was Jonas' total lack of effort. Sometimes he just wouldn't even try to make things better between himself and his wife. This is I'm sure a direct effect of his parents' strained relationship, but it still annoyed me to no end.

Even though I got annoyed with Jonas, I couldn't really blame him for anything that happened. I was close to tears sometimes because I felt so bad for not only him, but his wife and his parents. I highly recommend this book. As I said above, I really am shocked that it hasn't had more press. I haven't read many reviews of it in the blogging community. I say do yourself a favor and read it. It's a very quiet story, but it's a very powerful one.

And now for some favorite quotes (my copy is an ARC and I haven't gotten around to buying myself a final copy, so please be aware that some of the things I quote may have changed, and are probably on different page numbers now):

Page 92: We persist and linger longer than we think, leaving traces of ourselves wherever we go. If you take that away, then we all simply vanish.

Page 140: The air smelled different here-dead, damp leaves, mud, even the trees gave off a scent of their own. She walked a few steps farther, until she was more in the forest than out, and looked back at the spot she had just left. How completely different it seemed from this perspective. The stone that she had been sitting on wasn't that large or rough at all.

Page 195: My father was never an exceptionally cruel man, despite so much of what he said and did in his life, and here is further proof of that. A simple thank-you set his heart briefly racing, although he wouldn't have known how to say in which direction.

Page 206: In our rush to presumably better ourselves we had both missed what had otherwise always been obvious-that it often didn't take much more than careful consideration of each other's needs to secure a degree of happiness.

Title: How to Read the Air
Author: Dinaw Mengestu
Date of Publication: October 14th, 2010
Number of Pages: 320
Genre: Fiction
Source: Review Copy from LibraryThing.com

Weekend Reads

2011-01-30T11:18:00.000-05:00

The first week of school is finally over. I both love and hate the first week of a new semester. You are excited for your new classes, but not very happy to have homework. This is also my very last semester EVER at Buffalo State College and as an undergrad. It's exciting! But also scary.. I do plan I doing grad school, but not until 2012 (if the world still exists, hahaha. Aren't you sick of people freaking out over the 2012 crap??!).

I'm only taking one French class this semester. It's the only one being offered that I haven't taken! And it's on Moliere *gulp*. Yes people that's right. I'm spending a whole semester reading PLAYS! And I hate readidng plays! But I'm determined to enjoy myself. In fact, I think me and Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (that's his real name) are going to be bestest best friends by the time May rolls around. The only problem?? So far the "mythological biography" of Moliere written by Christophe Mory is really, really boring. But so far I'm just on his childhood, and I think once I get to the part where he's, ya know, working as the Roi-Soleil's tapissier, it'll get much more interesting. I really can't wait for him to go to jail for a month because he can't pay he debts. It's gonna be good.

So we're reading this 300+ biography of Moliere (which is kinda not all true because the author makes a lot of assumptions of his life..), plus 3 plays. I can't remember their names right now though.

I'm also taking a German literature in translation course. I like it a lot so far. I wish I could read in German, but I'm not at that level yet. I definitely feel like I'm missing something by reading the translations though. My teacher gives us a few pages each class of the German version and I always feel like the English is leaving something out.. It switches paragraphs around and whatnot. Someday I'll be reading in Deutsch though, so it's all good. We're reading Death in Venice by Thomas Mann right now, and then one or two of his other short stories. Then we're reading some Hesse, Brecht, and I can't remember the last person.

Oh and I'm also taking a fun Criminal Law course which I love. It's like right out of Law and Order. So I'm totally in my element ;)

Hope you all had a great weekend! I'm off to finish up my homework!

Review: Biographie de la faim by Amelie Nothomb

2011-01-29T13:01:00.000-05:00

Can I just say, isn't that a beautiful cover?! It's partly what drew me to this book. Well, actually, it is what drew me to it! I bought it and had it shipped from France without even knowing what the book was about. I'm SO glad I took the chance!

Biographie de la faim (literally meaning Biographie of Hunger, but translated as The Life of Hunger) was my first experience with Amelie Nothomb. A Belgian author who spent her childhood abroad in places like Japan, China, New York City, and Bangladesh, Nothomb is a "cult favorite" and has fans pretty much world wide. Her parents were Belgian diplomats, which explains her childhood spent living in different cities. Biographie de la faim is an autobiographical novel detailing her childhood living in hunger. This isn't necessarily a hunger for food, but a hunger for more. Nothomb was born in Japan, and after leaving it, has a hunger for the place she thinks of as her home. The book chronicals her childhood and the things she longed for and had a hunger for.

I cannot really explain just how much I love this book. It is filled with dark humor. I really loved Nothomb's sections about her early childhood. The portrait she paints of herself as a little girl is both priceless and hilarious. There are also parts that are a bit more intense and serious, like the eating disorder she had as a teenager.

I was sucked in right from the beginning of this book. Nothomb begins this novel talking about hunger. She talks about two different groups of people: those who never have to worry about food and hunger, and those who do. She uses a tropical island plentiful with food and plants as an example of a group of people who never have to worry or even work for their food. It was very interesting to read, and a great introduction to the rest of the novel about her own hunger.

Nothomb talks about her own hunger throughout the book. She says on page 19, "La faim, c'est moi." Basically "I am hunger" or "hunger is me." She says she has more than just a hunger for food, but a hunger for more. And I especially appreciated the parts where she mentioned Arthur Rimbaud, my favorite French poet :)

Sorry if this review is really repetitve. I just adored this book so much that it's hard to write a really in depth review of it. I'm so glad I have another Nothomb novel waiting for me on my shelf. I have high expectations for it, and if it's anything like Biographie de la faim, I know I won't be disappointed.

If you read in French, read this! If you read in English, you can find it on Amazon by searching "Amelie Nothomb Life of Hunger". Have you read anything by Nothomb?

For more information on the author and this book, here is a fascinating article/interview I recently found.

Title: Biographie de la faim (The Life of Hunger)
Author: Amelie Nothomb
Date of Publication: 2004 (English I think is 2007)
Number of Pages: 190
Genre: Autobiographical Novel
Source: Personal Copy ordered from Fnac.com

Literary Blog Hop: Reading Books for School

2011-01-21T12:04:00.000-05:00

The Literary Blog Hop is hosted by The Blue Bookcase. It is for blogs centered around classic and literary book reviews and discussions. If you are interested in participating, visit The Blue Bookcase :)

This week's question is:
Discuss a work of literary merit that you hated when you were made to read it in school or university. Why did you dislike it?

Heh. Let's just say that me and school readings haven't always gotten along. In high school, I can honestly say that I disliked most of the required books. I absolutely hated The Catcher in the Rye and never even finished it. I couldn't stand Holden and finally just had enough of him. I also never finished Flowers for Algernon. I felt SO bad for that poor mouse and am totally against animal testing and whatnot and my heart was breaking, so I put that down. I hated The Crucible but did finish it. I thought the characters were being idiots (I know I know, it's based on true events and all that.....but it still made me mad that everyone was being so dumb!). In college I had to read Robinson Crusoe. I don't think I got even half way through it. It seemed really ridiculous and fake to me. Really Robinson? You're on a deserted island and you are building a table and chairs? I understand that maybe he wanted to feel like he was home, but..I think I'd be working more on food and clothing and the like.

I know you may be wondering, "Kelly, if you didn't even finish a lot of these school books, how did you pass the tests?" Good question. With Robinson Crusoe, it was a British lit class, and the test was super easy. You got to pick the essays you wanted to write. So I just picked the essays for the stuff I had actually read. For the high school books, we discussed the books SO much in class that you really didn't need to read them. Not to say that I'm a bad student. I usually did finish books. I always did the readings except for those 2 books listed above.

I just thought of one more book I had to read that I couldn't stand, and that is Phedre by Jean Racine. I had to read it last Spring for a French lit class. And I couldn't stand it. I did finish it though, because I'm such a good French student ;) I do not enjoy reading plays, and Phedre was a play, and the story was in my opinion stupid and boring. It was also based on Greek or Roman gods or something like that, which I find sort of boring. I kept thinking, "well, you COULD do this, instead of that, and everything would be okay.." (Much like the way I feel when my family is all watching Pretty Little Liars and I'm like "How can you all be addicted to this show? All they need to do is ignore A and go to the police and blah blah blah..") *sigh*.

I love reading the classics, I just really hate it when books are forced down my throat. Most of what I read in high school I didn't like, and I think it was mostly because teachers talked about each chapter wayyyy too much, and they focused on things that sometimes really didn't matter. I sometimes wonder if I had read any of these books on my own, if maybe I would have enjoyed them a lot more.

What are you thoughts? Did you dislike any of the same books as me? If not, what did you hate? I can't wait to visit the blogs of my fellow hoppers to see what you all have to say!

Review/Gush: The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor

2011-01-19T18:22:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I know I said I'd do a review for this book, but I still can't really summarize my feelings for it. It's just all awesomeness. So I'm just going to summarize the book for y'all, and then if it looks interesting to you, try it for yourself :) If you love it like me, let me know! If you didn't like it, let me know that too! I love seeing different opinions on books. Makes it fun to read about why some people love books and others dislike the same ones. Do you agree?

It is very rare that I stumble across a book this insanely awesome. I couldn't put it down, and thus stayed up very late one night to finish it. The Anatomy of Ghosts is a slow-building mystery set in England in the 1780s. It mostly takes place in Cambridge. It follows bookseller John Holdsworth, who has recently lost his young son, his wife, and his bookstore. Running out of money to live on, he really has no choice but to accept an offer of employment from wealthy Lady Anne Oldershaw. Recently widowed herself, she hires Holdsworth to catalog and estimate the value of her late husband's library. There is just one catch. Before she will allow Holdsworth to work on the library, she sends him on a mission to Cambridge to bring back her son Frank, who is now in a mental home after seeing a ghost on his college campus. It seems everyone has a secret. Was the ghost a woman who was murdered? And what role might the secret society Holdsworth keeps hearing about play in everything? Was the ghost really a ghost in the first place?

While this isn't the fastest paced book out there, I thought it flowed very well for the story. You only find out a bit a information at a time, and then you are compelled to keep reading to figure out what is going on. With each new bit of information, you'll start making your own assumptions about what happened. I was totally surprised at the end and did not see what happened coming, though looking back, I really should have because I think the info to suggest it was right there all along.

In any case, I highly recommend this book. It is super entertaining, even if there were a few parts where the writing lacked. I read an ARC copy of this book though, so it may have been edited.

Some favorite quotes:

Pg. 25: 'Pooh,' Ned bellowed. 'Books are not luxuries. They are meat and drink for the mind.'

Pg. 29: ....as usual her face was completely white, a monochrome intrusion in a colourful world.

The Anatomy of Ghosts was written by Andrew Taylor and will be in bookstores on January 25th. Don't forget to buy your copy!

Title: The Anatomy of Ghosts
Author: Andrew Taylor
Date of Publication: January 25th, 2011
Number of Pages: 432
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Source: Advance Readers Copy from Publisher

Francophone Literature Essentials: What's to Come

2011-01-15T13:17:00.000-05:00

I'm assuming most of my readers know that I am a French literature major and that I read a lot of French lit. I'm graduating with my B.A. in May (fingers crossed, lol!) and have decided to take a year off before going to grad school. I need to read a lot of French lit anyway before applying. In the mean time, I've decided to make a list (a long list) of essential Francophone (that is, anything French from any French-speaking countries) literature. It's slowly starting to come together. When it is finished, it will be a very complete list of Francophone authors and literary works that anyone interested in French lit and culture should read. It's based partly on what I've learned in school, partly what I've researched, and, well, partly on my opinion. So it's not really a "must-read" list. It's more a guide for anyone interested in French stuff. From the Middle Ages to today.

It will hopefully be up soon, and I hope you all spread the word to anyone who likes French lit. :) I've been working hard on this and I hope it's helpful to not only myself, but others too.

I've been slacking on posting reviews lately because I've been busy with this and with work. But look forward to a bunch of reviews coming this week!

Literary Blog Hop: Reading Roots

2011-01-06T18:06:00.000-05:00

The Literary Blog Hop is hosted by The Blue Bookcase and is open to anyone who primarily reads classic literature and literary fiction. If you would like to participate or see if your blog qualifies, head over to The Blue Bookcase for more information. The girls over there are so sweet and always have great reviews posted.

This week's question comes from Deb Nance over at Readerbuzz:
How did you find your way to reading literary fiction and nonfiction?

I think this is a very interesting topic and am looking forward to seeing how the other "hoppers" found their way to reading literary books. I personally have no one answer to give. My parents were both huge book worms when I was growing up. My dad preferred nonfiction, especially historical nonfiction. He would occasionally pick up a classic fiction book to read. My mom reads tons of fiction, but a huge plethora of genres. She loves her literary fiction, but will also read mystery, crime, and detective novels. I think she'll read whatever she can to get her mind off of work.. So I was influenced to read both fiction and nonfiction from an early age, though I didn't always read literary books. I read a lot of YA books when I was younger and quickly got tired of the same old story lines and (sometimes very bad) writing. That's when I first started reading "grown-up" books. I eventually found that there were certain types of books that I was more drawn to, that I loved so much because of beautiful writing and stories. I still read a variety of different types of books, but I love literary fiction the most and read it as much as possible.

As for reading classics, I'd have to say a lot of that is thanks to both my grandparents and my teachers growing up. My grandparents always had some of the classics on their shelves, and although I never read them as a child, I remember always seeing them and pretending to teach an invisible class about them (hehe). My grandparents also loved old classic movies and always reminded me and my sisters about how awesome older things really can be. My teachers growing up made it fun to learn about the authors of "classic" books. When I was older, I started reading Jane Austen and the like-people I had learned about in elementary and middle school-and discovered I really loved it.

So that is my long answer to this week's question :) It could have been a lot longer though. I had so much fun thinking back on how I "found" literary fiction and nonfiction. I'm off to read what all you other hoppers have to say!

Review: How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator

2011-01-05T17:16:00.000-05:00

I don't usually read self-help or how-to books. However, I made an exception for Corinne McKay's book How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator. I follow McKay's blog, Thoughts on Translation, and found her first through her website, Translate Write, while researching freelance translation. McKay is a member of the American Translators Association and frequently talks at their conferences. McKay was a high school French teacher for 8 years before making the decision to work from home translating documents from French into English. After a lot of hard work, she is now quite successful. She wrote this book a few years ago to help aspiring freelance translators start their businesses.

This book was a god-send for me. For years, I've wanted to work towards freelance translating. I know I have the language and writing skills. My major concern was just getting started. How do I find my first clients? How do I market myself? How exactly does one do translation as a full-time job? And especially, what about those pesky taxes?

This book answered all my questions and then some. It was so informative, and you can tell that McKay has really "been there and done that". McKay gives examples of translation-related resumes and cover letters, as well as invoices and terms of service letters/emails to clients. She talks about office set-up (not something I really needed to know, but is great if you want ideas for working more efficiently and I may take into consideration someday if ever I have my own place with my own office). I especially loved how she always listed resources, like links to associations translators can join, links to software programs that aren't necessary but are extremely helpful to translators, information about getting certified, both as a translator and interpreter, and a ton more.

If you have ever considered freelance translation as a career path, or are fluent in a second language and looking to increase your income or even start a fun money-making hobby, this book is definitely for you. I cannot emphasize enough how helpful this book has been to me. I'll definitely always keep it handy as I start to build my own career as a freelance translator. To order your book, type in Corinne McKay's name or the book title at Amazon.com. For more information about the author and her experience as a freelance translator, visit her website. And don't forget to check out her blog, where she is always posting new and interesting information and tips for freelancers.

Title: How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator
Author: Corinne McKay
Date of Publication: 2006
Number of Pages: 137, including Glossary
Genre: Nonfiction, how-to
Source: Personal Copy

Weekend Reads and Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T12:37:00.000-05:00

.First, I'd like to say Happy New Year! I think everyone should follow in the footsteps of a wonderful blog called Readerbuzz and make HAPPINESS their main goal of 2011!

This week, surprisingly, was filled with quite a few blog posts and reviews from me. I say it's surprising because I didn't think I'd have much time to post anything. Happily though, I was wrong! I listed some of my favorite reads of 2010, which was really hard to do. I really loved most of the books I read. Then I posted a somewhat vague review of The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray. It's the last in a trilogy and I didn't want to give too much away (thus the "vagueness"). I then did a post of books I received for Christmas. I'm so excited for reading in 2011 because I've got some awesome looking books lined up! And I ended the week with a quick little post about my love for The Anatomy of Ghosts, which I just finished and adore. Review coming this week.

Now I don't like to do the whole "resolution" thing, but this year I would like to highlight some goals I'd like to accomplish in 2011. For one, make this the year of happiness, as stated above.

I would also like to incorporate more reading en francais ("in French" minus the accent on the "c" because my laptop doesn't do accent codes..). This year I read a few books in French, but I hope to increase that by a lot this year. I bought 5 books from a French book site, plus my sister brought me back a few from her study abroad trip. I'm all set ;)

And finally, I'd like to take more time to just read. And read books I want to read. I don't accept/ask for very many review books, but I'm afraid that if I don't start setting boundaries now, eventually it will get totally out of control and then I'll be reading books I'm not enjoying just so I can review them for publishers. My goal for this year is to edit my review policy. I'm not going to 100% for sure review every book I receive for review. If I read the book, I'll review it. If I find I just don't want to read the book, I won't. I'm a picky reader and I don't want too many review books from publishers to mess that up ;)

Happy New Year to you all, and I wish you all a great 2011, full with lots of joy and happiness! What are your goals for 2011?

The Anatomy of Ghosts-You Just Need to Read It!!

2010-12-30T19:12:00.000-05:00

Yes that's right. I'm telling you what to do ;) This isn't my actual review of The Anatomy of Ghosts (that will be up in a few days). This is just my OMGIJUSTFINISHEDITANDITSAWESOME!! post. For real.

This is soooo up high on my favorite books read in 2010 list! I already posted that list a few days ago because I didn't think I'd have the time to finish anymore books this year, but....I was up until the wee hours of the morning yesterday (er....this morning..) finishing The Anatomy of Ghosts. And it is AWESOME. It is a MUST-READ. It is FABULOUS. I think it comes out January 21st or something like that. Go read it, because it's possibly my favorite book of 2010 (which is funny because it's actually not out until 2011....).

Just read it. It's called The Anatomy of Ghosts, and it's by Andrew Taylor.

Starting the New Year off Right

2010-12-29T10:43:00.000-05:00

Christmas and my loving family and friends have ensured that I will be starting off 2011 with plenty of books. I received five books from my family for Christmas, and two gift cards to Barnes and Noble, thanks to my mom and Twin's boyfriend. I'm still deciding which books to get with the gift cards. Here are the wonderful books I received:

Three books from my Wishlist: (I always list about 5 books on my X-mas and B-day lists for my mom, and tell her to choose one or two.)

Pray for Silence by Linda Castillo

Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

Letters from a Lost Generation: First World War Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends by Alan Bishop

Then Little Sis bought me this one, which looks really good:
A Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware

And Twin brought me this back from France, complete with excerpts from Last of the Mohicans. And anyone who took Lit. of American Conflict with me and Mr. Perrelli my senior year of high school knows it's gonna be a riot to read in French. Trust me, if you want a laugh, read Last of the Mohicans. If you want to cry, watch the movie.
15 Westerns (by various authors, translated and compiled by Claude Appell and Yvonne Girault)
No photo because the book is from the 70s and she found in at the market ;)

Review: The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray

2010-12-27T14:01:00.000-05:00

This is going to be a very short review. For one, it's book 3 in a trilogy, and I don't want to give anything away about how the series ends for those of you who haven't yet read this book. I also don't want to give too much away about the two previous books because I know a few people who read this blog want to start reading the Gemma Doyle Trilogy (like Little Sis). So, here is the synopsis and review in a nutshell.

The Sweet Far Thing is the end of the much loved Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray. I put off reading it for….3 years(?) because I loved the first two so much, and as many of you probably know, I hate finishing a really great series. Gemma at this point has been in England about a year, and it's been about the same time since her mother's death back in India. Her friends from the last two books are also in this one (Ann, Felicity, and my favorite, Pippa). Kartik, the mysterious young Indian man also reappears here. Gemma at this point has sole control of the Realms, or so she thinks. She has promised to share her powers with all the tribes in the Realms, but starts to doubt her own plans when the Realms' magic starts acting weird. Gemma and her friends will have to come face to face with whatever evil is lurking in their once peaceful world, putting themselves and the ones they love in danger. Will they succeed, and at what costs?

Once again, Libba Bray has not let us down. Her writing is beautiful and really captures the scenery of the countrysides and London's streets (and society life) back in the late 1800s. This book for me started a little bit slow, but I'm 100% positive that it's just because I read the last book like….3 or 4 years ago and was having issues for a little while remembering where I left off in the story. Once I refreshed my memory, the book went a lot faster and I couldn't put it down. I read the last 400 or so pages in one sitting.

I love how I could see the characters evolve. In a way, taking so long to finally pick up this last book helped me to see how much the main characters changed from the first book. I remembered their quirks and their faults, and slowly, as I read this, I saw the characters "grow up." Which, ya know, makes sense, because Gemma and Felicity are about to make their "debuts" to the queen in this book. They truly are becoming young women, and by the time the book ends, they definitely are grown up.

I, of course, bawled my eyes out during this book. I knew it was probably going to happen. I burst in to tears shouting "WHAT?! THAT CANNOT HAPPEN!!" and my mom started yelling at me because as she put it, "It's just a book. You shouldn't cry over a book." Which is funny, because all she does is read too. I replied, "BUT MOMMY, IT'S JUST SO SADDDDDD!". And she was like, "Oh."

So there, no spoilers. Except you know that I cried and that it is sad. PUHLEASSEEEE, if you've read this and want to chat with me about it, email me, or find me on Twitter. Because I was a bit in shock for about, oh….a week. I loved the book, and I understand why it ended the way it did. But still. Twin of course was still in France when I finished this, so I couldn't just call her up and be like "OMG we need to talk about this!" She loves these books too, and I remember her crying when she read in back in 2007 too.

I definitely recommend the Gemma Doyle Trilogy to all of you. Young Adult books are not usually what I choose to read, but these are so good that I barely noticed they were "young adult."
Oh, and sorry if this review is kind of not really much of a review and more just me and my train of thought explaining my reaction to the ending. I've now calmed myself down ;)

Some favorite quotes:
From The Rose of Battle, a poem by W.B. Yeats:
"Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled
Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring
The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.
Beauty grown sad with its eternity
Made you of us, and of the dim grey sea.
Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait,
For God has bid them share an equal fate;
And when at last, defeated in His wars,
They have gone down under the same white stars,
We shall no longer hear the little cry
Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die."

Pg. 47 (Gemma as narrator): We take such pains to be polite. We never say what we mean. For all it matters, we could greet each other and speak only of cheese- "How was your Limburger, miss?" "Salty as a ripe Stinking Bishop, thank you." "Ah, very cheddar, miss. I'll have your Stilton brought to your Camembert, then." -and no one would likely notice.
"Your grandmother waits for you in the parlor, miss."
"Thank you." I cannot help myself. "I'll see myself into the Muenster."
"As you wish, miss."
And there are are, though it is a pity my wickedness has been wasted with no one to appreciate it but me.
(I LOVE Gemma's wittiness. She says the most hilarious things in this book, which can be embarrassing if you're reading it in public and start laughing out loud..)

Pg. 673: (Gemma and her brother, Thomas, arguing.) His eyes widen. "And you would take her part against me, your own blood?"
Blood is thicker than water. That's what they say. But in truth, most things are.

Title: The Sweet Far Thing
Author: Libba Bray
Date of Publication: 2007
Number of Pages: 832
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Source: Borrowed from a Friend

Wrapping up the Year

2010-12-26T17:06:00.000-05:00

First, am I spelling "wrap" correctly?? I'm a bit braindead at the moment and it just doesn't seem like I'm using the right form of it..

2010 will soon be coming to an end, so I decided to look back on everything I read this year to try and pick some favorite reads of the year. Boy was it hard. Instead of picking one or two awesome books, I'm going to list a bunch of favorites that are definite must-reads (and rereads in the future pour moi). I'm always surprised by how many books I read and truly adore, and then I remember that it's probably because I'm such a picky reader. If I'm bored, I'll read anything, but for the most part I only read books that I REALLY want to read.

My Favorite Books of 2010 (links lead to reviews on my blog):

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray (review coming tomorrow!)

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Reckless by Cornelia Funke

The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Books of Pellinor (The Crow and The Singing) by Alison Croggon

Waiting for Columbus by Thomas Trofimuk

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

I realize this is a really long list.....and there are still books that I had to leave off because I didn't want the list to be even longer. If you want any good books to read next year, feel free to take some ideas from this list :)

Review: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

2010-12-19T12:35:00.000-05:00

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters is a book I'd been dying to read for ages. I remember seeing my first review of it in the Buffalo News sometime back in 2009. After getting really sick of waiting for it to be free at my library, I finally decided to buy it. Of course it didn't help that I had a 50% coupon from Borders and bought a few other books with it..

This is my kind of book. It is creepy, and it is a ghost story. But it is different from a lot of ghost stories. It's about Dr. Faraday, a family doctor in a small town in England. He gets called one day to Hundreds Hall, an old manor that used to be gorgeous and always hosting lavish parties. Now, with the man of the house dead and the family fortune dwindling, the house is in disrepair, and so is the small family that still lives in it. Dr. Faraday is very welcome by the family, and soon he starts taking regular visits to the Hall. He and the family become very good friends. Then something strange starts to happen. Is the young, war-wounded son going crazy, or is there really an "infection" in the house, as he claims? As time goes by, things start to get even stranger, and the story starts to unravel with a possibly disastrous end.

The plot of The Little Stranger was brilliant and kept me really captivated. We only get little "glimpses" of the house's weird events throughout the book, so you want to keep reading and reading. The title hints that the house is haunted by a little girl's spirit, and that's originally what I thought it was about too. Though some of the characters think that the ghost might be a child who died years ago in the house, we as readers never see the ghost, if there even really is one.

Which brings me to another thing I really loved about the book. Is there really a ghost? We never see it, Dr. Faraday never sees it. But there is a feeling in the house that is unmistakable. Some of the characters wonder if the house itself is what's haunting the family. The house has fallen so much from it's former glory, and the characters struggle daily with its upkeep. They hide strong feelings of resent. Could the energy of the family's pent up anger and frustration be bringing the house to life? It's something to think about, and something you won't be able to solve when the book ends.

I loved the setting of The Little Stranger. It takes place in the English countryside just after World War II. The family is struggling with what I'm sure many former elite families were really dealing with at the time. They have lost the family fortune and are now struggling to find their place in a new society that is nothing like their former lifestyle. I'm very interested in this change in English society and might be reading up more on it in the future.

Sarah Waters is an impeccable writer. I started reading The Little Stranger on Halloween because I was in the mood for a subtle yet bone chilling read, and this definitely did it for me. Her descriptions of Hundreds Hall are enough to make me not want to go there. Here is one of them:

Pg. 5: "My heart began to sink almost the moment I let myself in to the park. I remembered a long approach to the house through neat rhododendron and laurel, but the park was now so overgrown and untended, my small car had to fight its way down the drive……The house was smaller than in memory, of course-not quite the mansion I'd been recalling-but I'd been expecting that. What horrified me were the signs of decay. Sections of the lovely weathered edgings seemed to have fallen completely away, so that the house's uncertain Georgian outline was even more tentative that before…."

This book was filled with descriptions like that one.

One thing I noticed in the book that interested me but I don't recall seeing in other reviews of it was Dr. Faraday's relationship with Hundreds Hall. To me, he seemed to almost because a little bit obsessed with it. He wanted to live in it with the family, and he didn't want the family to leave it even though it seemed like the house was slowly consuming them. Could it be because he grew up poor and worked hard to become a doctor, and he was so close to being one of the "elite class"? He struggles with his feelings about his social "status" a lot throughout the book.

I really loved this book, and its ending. It was a shocker, but not a total shocker. More like a "oh no you didn't!" sort of thing, where you knew it was probably going to happen, but were still shocked that it did happen. This is going down as one of my favorite reads of 2010, and you should also go read it if you haven't already! If you read The Little Stranger, what did you think of it? My mom liked it, but thought it was very "disturbing". I understand what she means, but I think I love the book because it's disturbing.

Some quotes:
Pg. 170: "It can do what it wants to me. For so long as I can keep it, you see, in my room, I can contain the infection. That's the vital thing now, don't you agree? To keep the source of the infection away, from my sister and my mother?"

Pg. 277: "'That girl Brenda I met tonight: I don't much like her, you know.'
I said, 'You don't? I'd never have guessed. You greeted each other like long-lost sisters.'
'Oh, women always go on like that.'
'Yes, I've often thought it must be exhausting to be a woman.'
'It is, if you do it properly. Which is why I so seldom do...'"

Title: The Little Stranger
Author: Sarah Waters
Date of Publication: 2009
Number of Pages: 528
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

A Christmas Carol Read-a-long: Stave 2

2010-12-06T20:10:00.000-05:00

I read Stave 2 of A Christmas Carol in one sitting because I just could not put it down. It covers Scrooge's visit by the first spirit. I once again loved Dickens' writing style, and he was able to capture Scrooge's emotions beautifully. I really loved Scrooge's confusion when he first wakes up and then hears the clock going off. And what I really, really loved was getting a glimpse into hard, mean Scrooge's past, when he was a nice, joyful child and young man who enjoyed Christmas and being with friends and family. With each glimpse of Christmases past, we see how Scrooge is slowly sinking into his greed and isolation. I think I'm with Sheery in feeling that losing his Belle, the woman he loved, was probably one of the last straws before he became who he is in the present story. It's sort of like losing his good friend in life, he lost all connection with the outside world and lost himself in his greed.

One of my favorite passages is when the first spirit shows him his last encounter with Belle:
"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you were another man."
"I was a boy," he said impatiently.
"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are," she returned. "I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you."
"Have I ever sought release?"
"In words. No. Never."
"In what, then?"
"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight...."

I never would have thought that Dickens could write such heart-wrenching words. As I read this, I could really feel what Scrooge's poor fiancee was going through, giving up the man she once loved and had hoped to have a long and happy life with. (Mind you, I'm sometimes a sucker for a good sappy and heart-breaking love story..)

I'll be posting my thoughts on Stave 3 later this week :) For more info on the read-a-long, or to read what others have to say about A Christmas Carol, stop by Sheery's blog.

Literary Blog Hop: Favorite Poem (In which I rave of Arthur Rimbaud)

2010-12-02T10:17:00.000-05:00

Oh admit it. You all knew it was coming. This week's question is "What is your favorite poem and why?" Seeing as my blog's name is Kelly's FRANCE Blog, you must have guessed it would be a French poem. By none other that Arthur Rimbaud, by literary love and obsession and crush. I seriously get teary-eyed sometimes when I read about him and how he really was taken from us too soon :(

Anyway, a little introduction here. The Literary Blog Hop is a wonderful new hop started by the lovely ladies over at The Blue Bookcase. If you consider your blog to be "literary", stop by their site and start hopping too!

My favorite poem by Rimbaud is a poem called "Ma Bohème" ("My Bohemia" in English). I'll post it first in French and then in English :)

Ma Bohème
(Fantaisie)

Je m'en allais, les poings dans mes poches crevées;
Mon paletot aussi devenait idéal;
J'allais sous le ciel, Muse! et j'étais ton féal;
Oh! là là! que d'amours splendides j'ai rêvées!

Mon unique culotte avait un large trou.
-Petit-Poucet rêveur, j'égrenais dans ma course
Des rimes. Mon auberge était à la Grande-Ourse,
-Mes étoiles au ciel avaient un doux frou-frou

Et je les écoutais, assis au bord des routes,
Ces bons soirs de septembre où je sentais des gouttes
De rosée à mon front, comme un vin de vigueur;

Où, rimant au milieu des ombres fantastiques,
Comme des lyres, je tirais les élastiques
De mes souliers blessés, un pied près de mon coeur!

My Bohemia
(Fantasy)

I went off, my fists in my town pockets;
My overcoat too, became ideal;
I walked beneath the sky, Muse! and I was your liege;
Oh ho! what splendid love affairs I dreamed of!

My only pair of trousers had a wide hole.
-A daydreaming Hop o' My Thumb, I strung out rhymes
As I went along. My inn was on the Big Dipper.
-My stars in the sky had a sweet rustling

And I listened to them, as I sat by the roadsides,
Those good September evenings when I felt drops
Of dew on my forehead like a heady wine;

When, rhyming amid the fantastic shadows,
Like lyres I pulled the elastic bands
Of my wounded shoes, a foot close to my heart!

Not the greatest translation out there, but it'll have to do. This poem has so much meaning, especially if you've studied his life. Rimbaud spent time living the "Bohemian" life on the road, with poet Paul Verlaine, his lover. It was a great time in Rimbaud's life, but also not really..Verlaine had a lot of outbursts and tried shooting Rimbaud once (Verlaine went to prison). This poem captures the beauty and happiness of being outdoors and living the Bohemian lifestyle. And I heart it.

Other poems that I could have mentioned include Le Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Boat) by Rimbaud, and a poem I memorized when I had my French Honors Society Ceremony thing and had to read it aloud: L'Automne by Lamartine. But Ma Bohème always strikes a chord within me, so I chose to talk about that one :) The translation of it really won't ever do it justice because in my opinion, if you're reading Rimbaud in English, you're just not getting the full meaning of his words. But that's just my two cents ;)

And now a photo of him. I feel weird saying this because I'm now 21, and he was probably 15 or 16 when this photo was taken, but how adorable is that face?!

I'm so happy to be back on the Literary Blog Hop! I havent' had time to participate the last few weeks, and I really wanted to. There were some great discussion questions :)

2011 South Asian Challenge

2010-12-01T10:02:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting to get more "worldly" with my reading and planned on reading some books by South Asian authors next year anyway, so why not sign up for one more challenge.. For more info on it, or to sign up yourself, please visit S. Krishna's Books. It's a wonderful blog that I read daily, and Swapna reviews a ton of different books, many of which I've never heard about until reading her reviews!
I will be doing the South Asian Explorer Level, reading 5 books by South Asian writers. I haven't chosen my books yet but I'm really excited to start reading for this challenge!

My Book Picks for 2011 Challenges

2010-11-29T11:14:00.000-05:00

I like to have a definite list of my challenges before they start. If I have a list of exactly what I want to read, it's harder to stray. Plus, if I don't make a list, I end up forgetting about the challenge and not reading anything for it. So here is what I've come up with:

2011 TBR Challenge:
1. The Bride of Pendorric by Victoria Holt
2. Lord of the Far Island by Victoria Holt
3. The Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz
4. The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox
5.Seizing the Enigma by David Kahn
6. The Pope's Daughter by Caroline P. Murphy
7. Biographie de la faim by Amelie Nothomb
8. Reves amers by Maryse Conde
9. Les Combustibles by Amelie Nothomb
10. La traversee by Philippe Labro
11. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
12. What Is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman

2011 First in a Series Challenge:
1. The House on Tradd Street by Karen White (Tradd Street Series)
2. The Book of Illumination by Mary Ann Winkowski (The Ghost Files)
3. Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn (Lady Julia Grey Series)

2011 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge:
1. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
2. The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
3. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
4. A Study in Scarlett by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
5. Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer
6. Murder in Hospital by Josephine Bell

Have you decided on any 2011 challenges and made your book lists yet??

Weekend Reads: Shopping and Reading Challenges

2010-11-28T12:06:00.000-05:00

Yay for Thanksgiving and awesome online sales :) I hope you all had a great holiday (if you're American, otherwise I hope you still had a great week!). I enjoyed Thanksgiving at my uncle's house in Rochester. He is obsessed with French wine, and he just kept pulling out bottles of the stuff! I probably had 6 glasses throughout the day. And I usually only drink one or two..
Today, I decided to head over to a website I hadn't yet bought anything from, but which I was already loving because of it's low book prices, bookcloseouts.com. Until Tuesday, they have an extra 50% off a ton of their books, and those books are already insanely discounted! I got 8 books for $20, people. It was beautiful. 4 of those books were for family members for Christmas. Boyfriend got a book on beer, Mom got a book on coffee and tea, and Twin, well, I can't say what Twin got because she reads my blog.

I never head to the stores on Black Friday because it's insane, and I feel bad for the workers. Unless, like Twin, they make commission. Twin is in France right now, but usually in the Sears Shoe Department, she gets a shit load of money in commission after working Black Friday.

Now onto the next topic: Challenges

I really like challenges, as long as I don't overdo it and I read books I like and want to read anyway. And since it's almost the end of the year, I figure I'll decide what challenges to do for next year now. I'm going to do the TBR Challenge again, where you pick 12 books you haven't gotten around to reading and read those in the course of a year. I don't remember the site that was doing it because I never actually signed up (I made my list of books to read when I was in France, before I converted my blog to a book blog), so if you know, let me know ;) I also just signed up for the First in a Series Challenge. I like to be reading at least one or two series at all times because if I really like the series, I can fall back on a book in it when life gets stressful, and I'll know that I'll like the book. I've already finished 1 of my favorite series this year, and I'm right on track to finish 2 more. So I think I need to find me some new series to start loving. You can sign up here. I'll post later on what I want to read for both the challenges. Lastly, I decided to do the 2011 Vintage Mystery Challenge, because I have a lot of Agatha Christies and The Hound of the Baskervilles sitting on my shelves, and it'll be an excuse to finally read them :) You can sign up for that one here.

Oh, and just so you can all bawl your eyes out and sigh like I did, here is a link to what some are calling the most touching love letter of the American Civil War. You might want some tissues at your side.

A Christmas Carol Read-A-Long: Stave One

2010-11-26T20:56:00.000-05:00

The read-a-long at Sheery's Place of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol has begun. I pretty much devoured Stave One, and I want to get this post up before I continue reading :) To hear what others in the read-a-long have to say, visit Sheery's blog.

The beginning of A Christmas Carol was awesome, to say the least. I've never read any Dickens before, and now I'm thinking "well why the hell not?!". He is brilliant. And I'm officially going to stop listening to my whiny friends when they start going, "mehh. Dickens is so boring and I hate the way he writes and he just sucks and...blahblahblahblah...".

As I'm sure most people know, the story opens up with Scrooge at work on Christmas Eve. He is super duper nasty, just like in the movies. But I feel like he's a lot meaner in the book. Just listening to (or read, I guess..) this: "Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-containd, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas."

Now that is what I call a really great description. And the whole book (or at least what I've read of it) is filled with them. Dickens is a fantastic writer, and even though I know what happens because I've seen the Disney movie (loooovvvvveeee that cartoon!) a million times, I was still on the edge of my seat while reading. Scrooge is nasty, and Dickens' writing brings it out in him so well.

I also am really loving the way Dickens will intervene in the story to add information. At the start of the chapter, he goes off on a tangent about how doornails aren't really that "dead" to him, and the phrase should be "dead as a coffin-nail". It had me cracking up.

Another part of the writing that I'm currently in love with is how Dickens pretty much tells us what is going to happen ahead of time. The story starts with "Marley was dead, to begin with." And then a whole long explanation about how Marley was definitely dead, and Scrooge definitely knew he was dead. So that, of course, once Marley's ghost shows up, we're not like, "Well, what if Marley faked his death??"

So far, I am loving A Christmas Carol, and I'm off to start reading Stave Two. This book would be perfect for reading aloud. I'm going to my grandmother's tomorrow and I'll see if maybe she'd like me to start reading it aloud to her :)

I hope all you Americans had a great Thanksgiving!