tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56103225039728233332024-03-13T15:19:48.881-04:00The Literary GothamiteBook Reviews | Metropolitan MusingsLaurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.comBlogger333125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-16444892657603267892021-07-09T18:38:00.001-04:002021-07-09T18:41:22.370-04:00Review: Multiverse, by Robert Mercer Nairne<p style="text-align: center;"> You know that thing where white men hit age 35 and are suddenly history buffs? This book is what would happen if a couple of them started a Reddit thread in 2019 and then published it as a novel in an election year. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Multiverse</i> claims to be set in the near-future when America is in a depression, political parties are at life-threatening odds, and the validity of science is in question. It was published in June 2020. Now read that sentence again. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://spotpetins.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Cat-with-String-Toy-1024x1024.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://spotpetins.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Cat-with-String-Toy-1024x1024.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;">String theory is heavily referenced in the novel - I'll get to how that happens later - and I will say this: If the author's intent was not to warn America but to suggest that we are living in a world parallel to this one as a result of some minute change, and if everything in it is meant to be farce, then I applaud you for the attempt and I regret that the writing does not meet the standard needed to portray the events with that tone, because that I might have enjoyed. Instead, we have a thinly-veiled attempt to warn the United States that it is careening towards calamity. The only thing that could have made this novel more spot-on would have been to publish it in 2016. </p><p style="text-align: center;">There's a plot, but boy is it bogged down with descriptions. So many descriptions. So many pages of descriptions. Pages and pages of histories that the characters don't know and which have no bearing on their actions. It was like reading John Steinbeck or John Jakes but without any point, style, or character development. If this had managed to get published seventy years ago, some critic somewhere might have called it naturalistic if they could get through the whole thing, but I don't think it merits the claim that any style or tone was purposely employed. The dialogue is about as constipated and unnuanced as you can get.</p><p style="text-align: center;">There's an obvious surrogate for the forty-fifth president, running for that very office and suggesting that the poor, displaced by yet another collapse of the housing bubble, be taken to camps in the middle of the desert. He's from the Nationalist party which... there's a lot there that goes without saying, I think. </p><p style="text-align: center;">A second party, the Rationalists, seem to consist of the eager and mostly-earnest incumbent president, and scientists - physicists to be specific. I can guarantee that I have never, in all my 36 years, had more than three conversations about modern physicists, but based on this book it seems like everyone knows many physicists by name and knows what they do, has opinions about them, and that they're part of the scientific arrogance elite. Did you notice how annoying it was just there to read the word physicists over and over? That's what the book is like! </p><p style="text-align: center;">The third party is the one that seems to have the most sympathy from the author - the Moralists. There's a lot of explanation in the book about why the Moralists are morally superior to the Rationalists (they have a billionaire on their side, of course they're superior!), and why they're at odds with the Nationalists. But frankly, living here in 2021, I think we can all agree that anyone touting their own morality is very often a Nationalist. I'll digress here. </p><p style="text-align: center;">I cannot express how unimportant and uninteresting the characters are to this story. There's a congressman who drops dead - not important. There's a congressman who gets shot - not important. There's an astrophysicist on her way to Hawaii - not important. There's a billionaire who goes to see an opera - not important, but please enjoy three whole pages describing the plot of that opera. </p><p style="text-align: center;">I'll leave you with one more thing: this was published in June 2020. In the second-to-last chapter of the book things come to a head at a riot. A riot that is eerily similar to the attack on the Capitol in January of this year. I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I'm certainly not suggesting that the author was involved in any way. But the author certainly did a lot of research in his efforts to write this book. So what I'm saying is the evidence must have been there (on Reddit or wherever he got his material). So if this <i>had</i> been a farce about string theory, perhaps it wouldn't have been too wide of the mark. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51mXMzqodaL._SX336_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="338" height="400" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51mXMzqodaL._SX336_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" width="271" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Multiverse</i> is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0974814180?pf_rd_r=2YMTCDMF9FPDYP50JR4S&pf_rd_p=5ae2c7f8-e0c6-4f35-9071-dc3240e894a8&pd_rd_r=57804097-9f51-497c-a2e8-c3984cc7c162&pd_rd_w=11Q4n&pd_rd_wg=iwtKC&ref_=pd_gw_unk" target="_blank">available now.</a> </p>Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-44539610888446709212021-07-09T17:12:00.000-04:002021-07-09T17:12:02.579-04:00Review: A Duel in Meryton: A Pride and Prejudice Variation, by Renata McMann and Summer Hanford<p style="text-align: center;">It's been some time since I dove into an Austen variation and really enjoyed it. Too often we get familiar characters with unchangeable canon character flaws. But Renata McMann and Summer Hanford, authors of <i>A Duel in Meryton</i>, published in 2019, know their audience well and know these characters even better. </p><p style="text-align: center;">Most variation readers are familiar with the trope of giving Colonel Fitzwilliam more stage time, often serving as Darcy's wingman (Bingley being endlessly ineffectual to that end) and helping our leading man elude marriage with either Anne de Bourgh or Caroline Bingley. Though sometimes the Colonel's role is expanded only at Rosings, serving as Darcy's conscience in a way that still fits the original framework. But this Fitzwilliam is landed in a stroke that changes the fortunes of many familiar characters even before the story we know begins. </p><p style="text-align: center;">Having inherited an estate waylaid by financial difficulties in the early chapters of the novel, he arrives in Meryton at Darcy's side as his intellectual equal and social superior. Bingley would fade into the wallpaper and take Jane Bennet with him if it weren't for his wealth being on display while Fitzwilliam keeps his fortunes private and becomes a friendly and familiar face with the families in Meryton in a way that Darcy would never even aspire to.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZmJkYTk1OTYtOWI3Yi00ZWNhLWI2MDQtZDlmYTc1ZDQwYzJkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjcwNDUyODM@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="226" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZmJkYTk1OTYtOWI3Yi00ZWNhLWI2MDQtZDlmYTc1ZDQwYzJkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjcwNDUyODM@._V1_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;">When Mr. Bennet's cousin Mr. Collins arrives his fortunes, too, are much changed from the canon. The impact that his presence has on Mrs. Bennet and the family, in general, could almost be described as unremarkable. But it's in that lack of bluster and fanfare that we're gifted a very real opportunity for character growth, even if we lose the sly wit usually afforded us in depictions of characters of his or Walter Elliot's ilk. I won't say Mr. Collins became my favorite character this time around, but he certainly jumped further up the line. </p><p style="text-align: center;">It's partly through this familiar-but-different Collins that Darcy is able to endear himself to the Bennets and preserve the endgame of the novel without suffering us through too many of the original characters' pitfalls. But Georgiana Darcy has a hand in this transformation too. One could argue that she's a little less true-to-form than some of the other characters with transformations in this iteration, but given how little time is granted her in the original novel, I'm grateful for her presence and impact here, even if she is a little silly. </p><p style="text-align: center;">Overall, the premise is inventive without taking away the reality of the time period, and it was refreshing to encounter these characters when they've been imbued with more self-awareness and less studied ignorance. And while this version of the story highlights George Wickham as the focal villain of the piece, I think there's a subtle and silent jab at another canon character whose absence from the timeline allows their more developed characters to finally live and breathe. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51RJiVElv5L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="400" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51RJiVElv5L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" width="267" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i> A Duel in Meryton: A Pride and Prejudice Variation</i> is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Duel-Meryton-Pride-Prejudice-Variation-ebook/dp/B07WSGQ1TD" target="_blank">available now</a>.</p>Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-66451156130465713932020-08-03T09:00:00.020-04:002020-08-03T09:00:03.641-04:00Review: The Lions of Fifth Avenue, by Fiona Davis<div>Book thieves, and radical feminists, and lions - oh my!</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zUMAzq0Vf3U/XwtLC-3jGdI/AAAAAAAAEFI/3DOtZOuMMbEQaGtZDmnrbABziLYDD1gFACLcBGAsYHQ/s800/lions.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zUMAzq0Vf3U/XwtLC-3jGdI/AAAAAAAAEFI/3DOtZOuMMbEQaGtZDmnrbABziLYDD1gFACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/lions.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">If there's a moral at the center of this richly embellished New York City™ novel by Fiona Davis, I couldn't tell you what it was. But if you're a bibliophile that's never been to the city that never sleeps, look no further for a novel that will sweet talk you into wanting to splurge on a visit of some of its quieter paths - starting with a visit to the very lions of the novel, now called Patience and Fortitude. </span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Much like </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Home Before Dark</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">, Davis' </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">The Lions of Fifth Avenue </em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">is two stories in one. The first takes place in 1913, a short time after the dedication of the main branch of the New York Public Library when women still couldn't vote and were barely allowed to have jobs; here, women engage in discourse and activities that are still radical today. The second takes place in 1993 when there were still enough book stores in one part of town to fill an entire afternoon of visits, women held steady jobs but no one batted an eye at casual sexual harassment in the workplace, and the keys to your family's past were not a simple click-and-search away. </span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></span></p></div><div>Unlike the Sager novel, there's a rather sad thru-line of love that resides at the center of this story - a woeful of example of the way that women have had to, and do, exist and sacrifice in a world of male expectations, and where agency is not granted, but must be taken for oneself. Unfortunately Davis does not really explore that in depth, choosing instead to leave certain freedoms and challenging perspectives in the past and weaving a tale bordering on kitsch. </div><div><br /></div><div><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">I love historical fiction, but my patience wears thin when a character visits specific historical sites and events as if saying LOOK THEY WERE HERE SAY HELLO, HISTORY. What should be anchors in the past turn into overt conveniences, and produce </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">National Treasure</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">-level eye-rolls. Sadie (our gal in 1993 whose attire seems to be vintage frump?) hangs out at CBGB in the East Village when she's feeling blue about her life and her job at the library because of course she does. Her grandmother Laura (whose story of eighty years prior plays harmony) attended </span><a class="_e75a791d-denali-editor-page-rtfLink" href="http://www.impossibleobjectsmarfa.com/fragments-2/heterodoxy" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #4a6ee0; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;" target="_blank"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Heterodoxy</span></a><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> club meetings in Greenwich Village where the seeds of her anarchy were sowed because of course she did. Feminism, it seems, lives downtown.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">The bulk of the story however takes place in midtown, just beyond those titular lions, where some of the most precious literary artifacts are kept in climate-controlled rooms; that is until they're purloined in both past and present, their secrets stowed away as if magicians did the crime. Davis manages to take something as bewilderingly benign as book theft and make it rather fascinating, with dialogue as pretty as the Beaux-Arts facade of the library itself. The race to catch the thieves is engaging and the twists and turns are satisfying in their elegance.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">But in the end, I found myself wishing for more - I wanted more of those pieces of the story that better fit New York as it is and has always been, rather than New York as it has always been imagined to be. I don't need a story like this to end neatly tied in a bow and leaving the reader contented - I want to be left on fire, burning for change that has still not quite come... out of patience, but full of fortitude. <br /><br /></span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sKwd4rjmmaU/XwtD--ydWcI/AAAAAAAAEE8/_7q1H8kPULIB52rr_nwyKY6_dCk-5crHQCLcBGAsYHQ/s500/li.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="331" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sKwd4rjmmaU/XwtD--ydWcI/AAAAAAAAEE8/_7q1H8kPULIB52rr_nwyKY6_dCk-5crHQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/li.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The Lions of Fifth Avenue will be available from Dutton on August 4, 2020. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-35113703155327425082020-06-30T19:13:00.002-04:002020-06-30T19:14:08.822-04:00Review: Home Before Dark, by Riley Sager<div>Not all old houses are haunted; some of them don't even have a history of death on the premises. But those that do never keep the secret for very long. </div><br />At the root of Riley Sager's newest thriller is the battle between one's logical sense-ridden response to an old house, and one's emotional response to its spirit, oftentimes as suggested by popular culture. Logos and Pathos locked in mortal combat. <div><br /></div><div>When, for instance, Maggie Holt learns that her father has not only retained the deed to old Baneberry Hall, but has now left it to her in his will, she has a choice to make: she can either capitalize on the house's fame and sell it outright, or she can go there herself and pursue her demons. And in this case, pathos prevails. Logic and reason fly right out the window. <br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vgC4SvhXkKo/XvvGoOnVi_I/AAAAAAAAEDU/EvveJT8VsV0j-ekctr2i5WJiYk4nNvcWACK4BGAsYHg/s320/bb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="baneberries" border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="320" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vgC4SvhXkKo/XvvGoOnVi_I/AAAAAAAAEDU/EvveJT8VsV0j-ekctr2i5WJiYk4nNvcWACK4BGAsYHg/w320-h240/bb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Much like Eleanor in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, from which Sager draws (in this reviewer's opinion) an overwhelming amount of inspiration, Maggie sees the keys to the house as an invitation - one that she had the opportunity to ignore, one that her mother encouraged her to ignore - that cannot be declined. Anyone operating with sense would just sell infamous manse for whatever they could get, but Maggie is determined to prove to herself that her parents have been lying to her for all these years, about what happened in the house when she was a child. <br /><br />As a narrator, Maggie is hardly reliable. Her memories of the past have been at least partly manufactured by the creative falsehoods of her parents, the burden of which has left her with so much general mistrust and insecurity that it's no surprise that she's still coping so many years later. According to the book her father Ewan wrote (another motif borrowed from Jackson if not outright stolen from Jay Anson), the "House of Horrors" is well-haunted by at least a few of the previous tenants who had met tragic ends on the grounds. By his account, his family ran for their lives when the ghosts threatened young Maggie, something the now-adult Maggie believes has always been a lie. But the real truth, it turns out, is darker even than the secret Ewan lied to protect. <br /><br />The ending leaves no secrets - as with most pop-thrillers, the shadows give way and the house's truth is laid bare in the light. But thankfully Sager resists falling into the tropes of both grotesque sexualization of the main character, and an ending full of sunshine and rainbows, something that many authors with female protagonists seem to have trouble skirting. The story is solid and satisfying without these sexist burdens. If anything, the only thing we might be left wanting is a few more skeletons. <br /><br /><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/#"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iXlGuMYUrGo/Xvu_iYaceJI/AAAAAAAAECE/ZcAj0AmW3zIfAIqK4Ms0w3qsBqYcvn8OACK4BGAsYHg/hbd.jpeg" /></a><br /><br />Home Before Dark by Riley Sager is available now, from Dutton.<br /></div></div>Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-6376741873912987492020-06-14T20:01:00.001-04:002020-06-30T18:39:53.606-04:00REVIEW: The Accursed, by Joyce Carol Oates <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This pandemic has brought its fair share of surprises, not the least of me having time to once again pick up a damn book. I won't tax you with tales of the woes that led to this, only with the results: Having finally read a book I purchased in 2013 thanks to a Stephen King review in the New York Times - Joyce Carol Oates' </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">The Accursed. </i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="inherit"><i><br /></i></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In all honesty, until this morning I could not remember why I had purchased this hefty and confusing novel while it was still in its infancy, and therefore an expensive hardcover. It wasn't until I started checking in with the web to see how other readers had handled this sprawling para-naturalistic story that I ran across King's review, and the Tomer Hanuka illustration at the top, that I remembered quite vividly my initial interest and desire to read what promised to be a strange pastoral gothic anti-romance. <br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v3nOrZrPmTk/Xuadr53OsrI/AAAAAAAAD_E/5LRRRmH3ZSw316rg_2wHIpI6bWLXdLmpACK4BGAsYHg/s531/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-06-14%2Bat%2B5.58.49%2BPM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Tomer Hanuka's illustration for The New York Times featuring a bipedal demon abducting a bride from her wedding." border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="531" height="234" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v3nOrZrPmTk/Xuadr53OsrI/AAAAAAAAD_E/5LRRRmH3ZSw316rg_2wHIpI6bWLXdLmpACK4BGAsYHg/w320-h234/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-06-14%2Bat%2B5.58.49%2BPM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration by Tomer Hanuka for the New York Times</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In fact I can tell you for certain that I probably hit BUY right after reading this line: </div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Joyce Carol Oates has written what may be the world's first postmodern Gothic novel: E.L. Doctorow's <i>Ragtime</i> set in Dracula's castle.</div></blockquote></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I only wish that I could tell you that the book lived up to even that; unfortunately it proves to be more <i>American Gothic</i> than Gothic.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There are definitely shades of <i>Ragtime</i> - the characters of the two novels are contemporaries, yet do not cross paths (save for one mention in passing of Emma Goldman); both have a cast of historical figures corralled into a specific city block of time and space and are forced through a conspiratorial web to interact both with each other, and with original characters; and one gets a sense that Oates, like Doctorow, might be interested in highlighting the causal but deliberate racism that is almost as prevalent in 2020 as it was one hundred and twenty years ago, but she doesn't go nearly as far with it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Unlike <i>Ragtime</i>, however, it's not the realities of society's systemic flaws that'll kill you, it's a vengeful god. Or demon. Or vampire? Or avenging angel. Or what have you. And that's my biggest problem with the novel - the what have you. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">We're presented with a narrator who is purportedly gleaning information from stacks of diaries and records, and yet we get scenes that cannot have been illuminated by said diaries in any way, shape, or form. An example is a scene in which the narrator's own father is confronted by a demon dressed up as Sherlock Holmes (presumably a manifestation of the character's paranoia and determination), after which the character (spoiler alert for many a character in the novel) dies. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">We're presented with a depiction of then-Princeton University-President President Woodrow Wilson's character that is too tepid to be interesting, and yet too scathing to be ignored; yet in the end, he proves so irrelevant to the story that you wonder why on earth he was included at all, except perhaps to give the town of Princeton in 1905 some weight on this side of reality. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P8nU_oq-c8U/Xvu_NHKIt_I/AAAAAAAAEBw/7v9CQskaDhsk9dXFZdQPxlaMaFj74uaPwCK4BGAsYHg/s478/reg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="478" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P8nU_oq-c8U/Xvu_NHKIt_I/AAAAAAAAEBw/7v9CQskaDhsk9dXFZdQPxlaMaFj74uaPwCK4BGAsYHg/s320/reg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woodrow Wilson being useless and looking like Richard E. Grant</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The goings on of the university were the least interesting part of the entire novel and did not help characterize the main themes or plot of the novel except to say "Woodrow Wilson was at such a place when such a thing happened to happen to some other person." The book all-but opens with Wilson being begged by his cousin (who, it is revealed to him subsequently, has mixed parentage) to publicly denounce the lynching of two Black siblings that took place two towns over. Wilson, unsurprisingly, does nothing, the effect of which is also practically nothing. His presence is nothing less than frustrating, and the author's casual throwing-in of a hate crime is maddening.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There are two passages that I saw as noteworthy in this novel, and neither had to do with Woodrow Wilson, despite his unrelenting presence. The first was Upton Sinclair finally meeting his Marxist hero Jack London and being irreconcilably disappointed in the odious man. The other is such a classic trope and manages to be the best thing that Oates writes in the entire novel - a simple game played by a child and a demon, with life on the line. If the book were a painting, these would be the only bits in color. The latter is the only passage where you can believe that the stakes are real, and where you care about the outcome. I could do without nearly everything that comes before, and just about everything that comes after. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Coincidentally, both are scenes that occur outside of the locus of our attention, the latter in an otherwold, and the former in New York City. And perhaps there's something to be said for that. I don't think Oates set out to say that Princeton, New Jersey was the worst place in the world, but I do think she did an awfully good job making the case for it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aFiHMBM7T7o/Xua1TMrzToI/AAAAAAAAD_g/G8JeHuqukSofcWfWoyJR3e7m2Wo-ZzJTQCK4BGAsYHg/s545/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-06-14%2Bat%2B7.39.34%2BPM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="359" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aFiHMBM7T7o/Xua1TMrzToI/AAAAAAAAD_g/G8JeHuqukSofcWfWoyJR3e7m2Wo-ZzJTQCK4BGAsYHg/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-06-14%2Bat%2B7.39.34%2BPM.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Accursed</i> by Joyce Carol Oates was published in 2013 by Ecco, an imprint of Harper Collins</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-32353889032325664822016-08-25T09:00:00.000-04:002016-08-25T09:00:13.842-04:00Review: The Last Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel, by Jack Caldwell<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AklDJ2cHS4g/V7PI3Xi_twI/AAAAAAAAGU0/-Ldb9ViSTm0pssTKCXToxJMrRImgoGYBgCLcB/s400/Pimpernel%2BCover.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AklDJ2cHS4g/V7PI3Xi_twI/AAAAAAAAGU0/-Ldb9ViSTm0pssTKCXToxJMrRImgoGYBgCLcB/s320/Pimpernel%2BCover.JPG" width="209" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J8VE7DC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B01J8VE7DC&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=0395aff85b40db9879f96b0648be023e">The Last Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel: </a><br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J8VE7DC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B01J8VE7DC&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=0395aff85b40db9879f96b0648be023e">Book Two of Jane Austen's Fighting Men</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=am2&o=1&a=B01J8VE7DC" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />,<br />
By Jack Caldwell<br />
2016 | 320 pp</td></tr>
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Jack Caldwell's Austen-verse novels have been a pleasure to read over the last couple of years. <i>Pemberley Ranch </i>is a treat for any lover of <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, but it's Caldwell's <i>The Three Colonels</i> that really stands out as a credit to not only his impressive grasp of history but his clear and apparent love for Austen's characters; and I'm happy to report that his latest novel, <i>The Last Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel</i>, continues in that vein and does not disappoint in the least.<br />
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Looking at the title, you probably aren't expecting this book to live in the same world as <i>The Three Colonels</i>, but that's precisely where it belongs. If you're trying to figure out what Baroness Orczy's preening Pimpernel has to do with Austen's characters, let me remind you that, in <i>The Three Colonels</i>, Caldwell tweaked Jane Austen's timelines just enough to throw the characters into wartime - to just about 25 years after the Reign of Terror ended in France.<br />
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Thus we find some (mostly) minor characters from Austen's <i>Northanger Abbey</i>, <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, <i>Sense and Sensibility</i> and <i>Mansfield Park</i> thrown together with Percy, Marguerite and their children. The timeline is a clever trick on Caldwell's part, giving our author a twofold advantage - for one, by focusing on Austen's minor characters he's allowed more freedom in their actions and, secondly, by setting his novel into a generation after the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel's activities he can still use Orczy's main characters and not upset their thru-line.<br />
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What results is a delightful and effective mash-up of the two styles; a drawing room romance and a heroic mannered melodrama. And, as in the other two Caldwell titles I've mentioned, he yet again shines a light in places Austen left practically unattended. In both <i>Pemberley Ranch</i> and <i>The Three Colonels</i>, Caroline Bingley became a character one could actually talk about; in the latter, Wickham became more developed and Lady Catherine turned out to be human. In this most recent novel, the focus (and, strange as it is to say, hero) is Frederick Tilney - Henry Tilney's profligate brother in <i>Northanger Abbey</i>, whom many consider to be a kind of pre-caricature of <i>Mansfield Park</i>'s licentious Henry Crawford.<br />
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In Caldwell's hands, Frederick - who becomes perhaps a more rehabilitated character than even Caldwell's version of Caroline Bingley - happens to be friends with both Colonel Buford (of <i>The Three Colonels</i>) and George Blakeney - son and heir of one, Percy Blakeney, tying all the relevant threads together and making for a beautifully elaborate, satisfying read. The characters walk from one source to the other, mixing with Caldwell's original characters so effortlessly that one can easily believe that they were all birthed from the same mind.<br />
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The presence of the Blakeneys, their relationship with the Prince Regent, and the dichotomy of Percy's character heighten the social profile of the ensemble overall; the <i>ton</i> becomes almost a separate character - a barometer by which both Orczy's and Austen's characters at times measure their clout or worthiness. It's an effect that is present in the Pimpernel stories, but seeing it affect Austen's characters the way it does is rather new. Sure, we get a glimpse of it in <i>Sense and Sensibility</i> when Marianne shouts Willoughby's name across a crowded room, but this is on a grander scale.<br />
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On top of which, the reader is juggling not only London but Paris as well - it wouldn't truly be a adventure for the Pimpernel if France were not involved, no? And what awaits these characters in France is a story all its own, with twists and turns worthy of both the ladies who inspired it. </div>
Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-15956231459561840532016-08-18T09:00:00.000-04:002016-08-18T09:00:25.827-04:00Review: Say Her Name, by Francisco GoldmanTruth be told, I finished this book some time ago, but it's taken me awhile just to wade through all of the feelings it brought to the surface for me - I don't know that I've been so affected by a book since <i>Atonement</i>, and I honestly don't know if that says more about Francisco Goldman, about the book, or about myself. As with Ian McEwan's <i>Atonement</i>, the narrator has an overwhelming amount of survivor's guilt, though Goldman's approach is significantly more transparent than McEwan's fictional narrator.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004X9YLWC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B004X9YLWC&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=edfaed4e45a24d2167de3962013234f3">Say Her Name</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=am2&o=1&a=B004X9YLWC" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></i>, by Francisco Goldman<br />
Grove Press | 2011 | 288 pp</td></tr>
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I remember reading the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/books/review/book-review-say-her-name-by-francisco-goldman.html?_r=0" target="_blank">New York Times review</a> back in 2011 and feeling so compelled by Goldman's loss - his young wife died tragically only two years into their marriage in what authorities would call a freak accident - that I stopped into the Grand Central Posman Books (now gone) the next day to buy it. I couldn't remember the name of it (a fact which I acknowledge to be incredibly ironic) but I was able to summarize it (no response from the employees) and describe the cover - the guy helping me located the sea-blue hardcover with the shapelessly-draped wedding gown floating beneath the title, and looked at me kind of dubiously as if he either had no idea what I was about, or as if he was judging my choice of book.<br />
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Perhaps that's in part because this tremendous story of tragedy doesn't make for a great best-seller, or even a highly-recommended mass market beach read (actually, in the interest of taste, please maybe don't read this at the beach). It feels so much more niche and complex than that - not something the casual reader would or should pick up.<br />
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Honestly, I'm not sure I was at a point in my life in 2011 where I could have been prepared for it; now that I'm past 30 and have had my share of loss, I know that I appreciate it more than I could have then.<br />
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It's a commitment - truly, I think any memoir or biography or autobiography worth its weight requires more attention than most readers can give, but then I hate to call this novel any of those; it is without question biographical - but the way that Goldman breaks up the tragic tale of his short-lived ardent love and builds it strategically is much more like a fictional novel and, in that aspect, exceeds even McEwan in sparking my emotions. Goldman has even said this is not a memoir - certainly, these events happened, but the telling is him emotionally...not the real him - he cites Faulker to this point: "A novel is a writer's secret self, a dark twin of a man" and so that is how he proceeded with telling his story but also removing himself to a degree and allowing the catharsis to take on a life almost of its own.<br />
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By design (I imagine), their story arrives like waves as high tide approaches - you can see them in the distance as they surge and recede back and forth until the reader is completely saturated, drowning in stimuli. The Times reviewer called this oscillation "restless...the pacing of the grief-struck," which is terribly accurate in this case.<br />
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Goldman, who does not always present himself (or, shall we say, his fictionalish self) in the best light, <br />
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shames himself for his humanity in a way that makes it clear that he is (or, was, at least at the time of writing) still working though his grief. We see the denial, the anger, the bargaining and the depression and it seems, only when he begins to imagine Aura as a spirit in her tree, that he has begun to approach acceptance.<br />
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How can one explain death? How can one begin to understand it? And how can we move beyond it? Perhaps we never do or - as Goldman says - perhaps grief is eternal like a person's name - "Say her name. It will always be her name. Not even death can steal it. Same alive as dead, always."<br />
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While I can't recommend this book for most readers, I encourage you to read about Francisco and Aura - you can read about the Aura Estrada prize <a href="http://www.premioauraestrada.com/letterfran.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and you can read an excerpt "The Wave" <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/07/the-wave-francisco-goldman" target="_blank">here</a>.Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-79154062635039416852016-07-14T09:00:00.000-04:002016-07-14T09:00:28.385-04:00Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams, by Lynne Withey<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams</i>,<br />by Lynne Withey<br />1981 | Touchstone | 369 pp</td></tr>
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When my grandmother passed a few years ago, I inherited some of her books (as the big reader in the family, almost by default). Among them was this one - a book that my mother had given her to read with the note you'll find at the bottom of this post.<br />
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I honestly don't know why I put up with having so many biographies in my possession. I dislike them immensely. They rarely illustrate a full life, especially when it's the life of someone who lived so long ago; we are subject to what was left behind almost incidentally as opposed to recorded, on top of which the writer - who means to interpret and illustrate that life for the reader - often leaves off the least-appetizing bits and inflates the subject's importance.<br />
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I don't deny Abigail Adams her influence. She was assuredly one of the most influential women in early American history, and she definitely suffered for it. But in <i><a href="http://amzn.to/29As4GF" target="_blank">Dearest Friend</a></i> Lynn Withey really makes it feel as if Abigail was the only influential woman of the time, which is incorrect. And while Withey does not shy away from Abigail's personal faults, she does gloss them over by focusing so strongly on her loneliness, as if that were an excuse.<br />
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And from this book, you cannot tell that Abigail and John had any real feeling for one another. The author describes letters between the two of them and often fills space by saying that John did not write often, but still insists that the feelings were strong. In 1981, when this book was first published, this might have been acceptable. In 2016, it doesn't pass muster. I would rather have just read their letters. Instead, it was just a lot of Abigail Adams feeling sorry for herself and trying to control everyone else.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pK7U6WzqbNA/V4JIjMDW5OI/AAAAAAAACzE/V61OoDrTfRYwMLFefWehOnoV8-FcvEPaQCLcB/s1600/IMG_4554.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pK7U6WzqbNA/V4JIjMDW5OI/AAAAAAAACzE/V61OoDrTfRYwMLFefWehOnoV8-FcvEPaQCLcB/s320/IMG_4554.JPG" width="240" /></a>She decides to add rooms to her house, but we don't get an explanation of why. She agrees with her husband's politics (Federalist) until suddenly neither of them do, and then she starts agreeing with the Republicans - but so little is said about what was happening at the time and what could have influenced that change in her vision other than a mention of John Quincy explaining something that we never get the benefit of understanding; it reads more like an outline than a true-to-life story. It's an illustration that is neither complete nor appealing and, as a reader, it is a bit of an affront to my intelligence.<br />
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One note: in the epilogue, Withey mentions that although Abigail did not live to see it (spoiler alert?) <br />
she was the "first and only woman ever to be both wife and mother of American Presidents." In 2001, 20 years after this book was published and 200 years since John Adams vacated the Presidency, Barbara Bush became the second. Though I very much doubt that Mrs. Bush ever had to make as many sacrifices, or was ever called on to advise, as much as Abigail was. I also very much doubt that Barbara would ever be caught hanging her laundry in the east room of the White House.Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-41466856041712395252016-05-31T09:00:00.000-04:002016-05-31T09:00:25.659-04:00Top 10 Beach Reads<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature of <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/" target="_blank">The Broke and the Bookish</a>.</div>
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I love going to the beach; I also just love sitting by the water in general. If I could safely have a kiddie pool in my apartment, I would lay out by it (but unfortunately, kicking up my heels with the sink full of soaking dishes just isn't the same!) I can pretty much read anything poolside, but here are some of my favorites:</div>
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1. <i>Jaws</i>, by Peter Benchley. </div>
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Yes, seriously. I'm already semi-terrified of going in the water, so this one really doesn't do anything to make that worse. </div>
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2. <i>Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort-Of History of the United States</i>, by Dave Barry</div>
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Apparently Dave Barry is not for everyone. This is not a concept I understand. He's the kind of writer that I find funnier every time I pick him up. So if you don't mind looking like an idiot cracking yourself up, this is (probably) for you.</div>
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3. <i>The Secret History of the Pink Carnation</i>, by Lauren Willig</div>
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I've only read the first book in this series, but I have no doubt that Willig's historical flair runs through its entirety. I have to say, though, I'm a little concerned about her running out of color and flower names. Book 10 in the series is <i>The Passion of the Purple Plumeria</i> which just sounds awful, but then it's followed (Book 11) by <i>The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla, </i>which sounds like something the Brontë teenagers made up. </div>
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4. Actually, while we're on that subject - Charlotte Brontë's juvenilia (e.g. <i>The Secret</i>, <i>Tales of the Islanders</i>, etc.) which is fantastical and perfect for reading on and off while you doze by the water. </div>
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<i>5. The Princess Bride</i>, by William Goldman</div>
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But then, I recommend The Princess Bride for all kinds of locations. It's an awfully fun book to just lose yourself in when you're laying out. </div>
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6. <i>The Princetta</i>, by Anne-Laure Bondoux</div>
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A children's epic with adult appeal. It's perfect when you're by the water. </div>
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7. <i>Mariel of Redwall</i>, by Brian Jacques</div>
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You don't *need* to have read the first three books in the Redwall series to appreciate this one, but I strongly recommend doing so. <i>Mariel</i> is great for the beach, though, because we first encounter the title character in a shipwreck, and pirates (naturally) follow. </div>
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<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515I8AFg-TL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515I8AFg-TL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a>8. <i>On Chesil Beach</i>, by Ian McEwan</div>
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McEwan is always a bit dark, but it's a great vacation read.</div>
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9. <i>The Pirates of Barbary - Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the 17th Century Mediterranean, </i>by Adrian Tinniswood </div>
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While it's a fair distance from the classically romantic notions of pirating, it's a great non-fiction read for your beach bag. </div>
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10. <i>Persuasion</i>, by Jane Austen</div>
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Thought I was going to leave Jane out, did you? Foolish mortals. Of course not. <i>Persuasion </i>is my favorite and, as such, I can read it just about anywhere. But the nautical undertones make it an easy to ones' beach reads. </div>
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Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-6868295329924876342016-05-29T15:00:00.000-04:002016-05-29T15:00:28.411-04:00Collected Book Reviews (5/22 - 5/28/16)<div style="text-align: center;">
In addition to TLG's review of Bruce Wagner's <i>The Empty Chair</i>, be sure to check out more from the critics in this week's collected reviews:</div>
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<i>The Thank You Book</i>, the 25th and final book in Mo Willems' "Elephant and Piggie" series, and which Maria Russo acknowledges as a sort of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/books/review/the-thank-you-book-by-mo-willems.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbook-review&action=click&contentCollection=review&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0" target="_blank">"sacramental"</a> experience. Willems is launching a new imprint "Elephant and Piggie Like Reading" later this year. </div>
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<i>Smoke</i>, by Dan Vyleta which Jason Heller cites as being Dickensian in a way, but as also managing to avoid <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/05/24/478679666/smoke-is-a-gloriously-murky-vision-of-the-past" target="_blank">"anything remotely resembling cliché."</a></div>
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Brenda Janowitz's <i>The Dinner Party </i>- based on Marion Winik's review <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2016/05/29/1-book-review-the-dinner-party-accept-invitation-to-this-satirical-look-at-jewish-family.html" target="_blank">("fun premise...hilariously precise")</a> this one sounds like it'd make a great beach read. </div>
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Finally, rather than another review, check out <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/27/scientists-test-reality-of-harry-potter-magic-university-leicester-gillyweed-skele-gro" target="_blank">this report from The Guardian</a> on two new papers that analyze the spells in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, and their likelihood of realistic use. (Seriously, science? It's magic. Back off. Let us have our nice things.)</div>
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Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-33875492369256816092016-05-26T10:00:00.000-04:002016-05-28T11:26:32.925-04:00Review: The Empty Chair: two novellas, by Bruce WagnerI'm warning you right now - there are some recent Game of Thrones spoilers ahead.<br />
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I know - that's not what you came here for. I'm sorry for that. The fact is, when I sat down to write this review, I had no plans of bringing up Game of Thrones. I was simply trying to work out how best to explain Bruce Wagner's compellingly difficult work. Suddenly it came to me - this week's episode "The Door" is the perfect companion piece to this book's backbone. So if Game of Thrones is not your thing, or it is but you still haven't watched this week's episode - sorry - you can skip this review if that's going to spoil something for you. Come on back later. For everyone else, let's dive in (after the break)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Empty Chair: two novellas</i>, <br />
by Bruce Wagner<br />
Paperback, Plume 2014 | 285pp</td></tr>
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The paperback edition of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142181234/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0142181234&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=O6CKWB5OQAF2WHB3">The Empty Chair</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0142181234" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
</i>was published right around the time I was recuperating from my second of three operations on my leg in late 2014. I'd asked the folks at Plume to forward the book to my address in Florida thinking it would give me something new to read while I recovered. Unfortunately the painkillers (and the pain itself) made reading difficult. I wasn't able to dive into a book without distraction for some time after that and, as a result, this book sat on my shelves for another year and a half. Given the subject matter, I'd say that's probably for the best.<br />
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Wagner's novellas are both told as stream of conscience narratives - stories from one man and one woman to a third character "Bruce Wagner" who has absorbed, redacted, found their connecting thread, and married them beneath this binding.<br />
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Charley's story is put forward first and titled "The First Guru." Charley (a gay man) and his wife (it's...complicated) experience a tragedy, seemingly due to their casual but direct approach to religion. Queenie's story follows, titled "The Second Guru." Queenie recounts for Bruce this history of her late lover, and his quest to find a renowned teacher in India. These stories are completely disparate - "told" several years apart, and "occurring" at even further a distance from one another - but their "leitmotif of 'diet Buddhism,'" as Wagner calls it in his preface, remains a baseline throughout the book.<br />
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There is one piece of both stories which, in the end, brings everything into focus so beautifully and violently, that I actually had to take a step back and go back a few pages to make sure I completely understood what was happening. This is not to say that Wagner is unclear in his narrative, but that he has tied the laces at last so subversively that I was caught off guard by it.<br />
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Without spoiling too much of the book (and we're getting to Game of Thrones, I promise), Wagner maintains a focus on the concept of two gurus - two teachers. The abridged principle is this: when one finds one's first teacher, one is then truly lost in a sea of information until the second teacher arrives to make sense of the first. (That's a bit of a hack job on one of the basic principles of Eastern religion, but I'm no expert - sorry again.)<br />
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Here's the Game of Thrones portion of our programming, wherein I use the recent episode as a parallel for Wagner's musings, and hopefully this will help you understand the concept as I did:<br />
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Hodor is an adult man of a single word - "Hodor." We are introduced to him and given no real explanation as to why this is, or whether he ever had another name, or what could have caused this. Hodor's character, as we know him, is the first guru.<br />
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Wyllis' character is the second guru. His story was first, before he became Hodor, but it fills in the gap in Hodor's story for the viewer, finally making this aspect of the tale clearer. It reveals the origin and destiny of that word - "Hodor." It also probably made you cry. It made me cry.<br />
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Queenie's story, although it takes place earlier (as Wyllis' does), shines a startling and unexpected light on Charley's story from several years earlier and thousands of miles away (and made me cry). And that final puzzle piece is slipped in right at the last, like you expected to never get any clarification and then, just there at the end, you suddenly have it.<br />
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There's a lot pretense in this book, almost like William Goldman in <i>The Princess Bride </i>(but a LOT less whimsical). Wagner has expertly separated out these two narrators who hold some similar beliefs, and has made their voices wonderfully individual. Charley's tale is short, sad, and haunting. Queenie's is somewhat longer, more indulgent, and dynamic. As separate stories, they border on tedious. But together they are intricate and bold. Don't let the title fool you - separate novellas they may be, but they are together for a reason; together they are powerfully potent.Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-56044788441420521802016-05-24T09:00:00.000-04:002016-05-24T09:00:12.426-04:00Top 10 Books About Which I Feel Differently Now That Time Has Passed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Top 10 Tuesday is an original feature of <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/" target="_blank">The Broke and the Bookish</a>.</div>
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This week's theme: Top 10 Books about which I feel differently now that time has passed. (less love, more love, complicated feelings, indifference, thought it was great in a genre until you became more well read in that genre etc.)</div>
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This is a tricky one. I feel like most of this is going to be an "it's complicated" situation...</div>
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1. <i>The Tin Drum</i>, by Günter Grass - Yeah, starting with some heavy stuff here. Sorry, not sorry. This was required reading for one of the courses I took in college for my English minor, called "The War Novel." The professor chose to focus on the World Wars, so it was full of O'Brien, Grass, Hemmingway, Celine, Barbusse and - god help us - Proust. Of the ones that I actually read (because I definitely didn't trouble myself with half of them), <i>The Tin Drum</i> is one of the ones I hated most. But nine-ish years on, it's grown on me. You can't make me re-watch the film (LOL nope) but the style and the voice are more appealing now. </div>
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2. <i>Save Me the Waltz</i>, by Zelda Fitzgerald - In high school, I was obsessed with the Fitzgeralds. Ob. Sessed. In 2003, I managed to acquire a disintegrating 1968 paperback of this, the only novel attributed to the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I keep it squeezed on a shelf tightly, between two other books in the hopes that it will keep it from deteriorating further. I love it more with every read. It's clumsy and human in a way that Scott's novels strive to be but almost never achieve.<br />
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3. <i>Lester Higata's 20th Century</i>, by Barbara Hamby - I loved it when I read it in 2010. But now I can't remember why. Almost nothing from it has stuck with me, aside from Hamby's inherent poetry.<br />
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4. <i>Angels and Demons</i>, by Dan Brown - I know. I know. Dan Brown. Dan Brown was once the crown prince of popular fiction. He couldn't write those historical thrillers quick enough for the populace's hunger for them (or Tom Hanks' for that matter). I read <i>The DaVinci Code</i> overnight - in about 6 hours. But <i>Angels and Demons</i> I read over the course of a college semester. I just didn't have the option of not sleeping one night to try and get through it. I think, for that reason, I liked <i>A&D</i> more - because it lived with me longer. But now I honestly could barely tell you what the difference is between the two. Blame Tom Hanks and that awful hair he has in those movies.<br />
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5. <i>The Echo-Maker</i>, by Richard Powers - Another one from college that I'd rather forget. This was for a Contemporary Fiction class (and it was very contemporary, as the book came out the same year as the class) and I thought it was wretched. And something about just the memory of reading it makes me angry. It won awards! It was a Pulitzer finalist! And it was a waste of my time.<br />
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6. <i>Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix</i>, by JK Rowling - As the release of the 7th and final Harry Potter book approached, I re-read all of them. I had done this for the last four books. Up until that time, <i>Goblet of Fire </i>had been my favorite. And then something changed. I honestly can't tell you what it was, but a switch flipped as I re-read <i>Order of the Phoenix </i>that summer, and it was like re-discovering something you'd lost in an old house when you were a kid, that has suddenly turned up in a desk drawer 2,000 miles away. However many years later, still my favorite.<br />
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7. <i>The Color of a Dog Running Away</i>, by Richard Gwyn - When I first read this book, I was sooo into it. But, looking back, it's kind of like <i>The DaVinci Code</i> Lite.<br />
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8. <i>Auraria</i>, by Tim Westover - Loved this book when it came out, still love it, and I wish that more people knew about it!<br />
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9. <i>Mystery on the Moors</i>, by Barbara Michaels - I picked up this 1967 paperback at a Books-a-Million in probably 1999? 2000? It was my first introduction to the gothic novel (<i>Jane Eyre</i> hit my desk about two years later) and I pretty much thought it was the best thing ever. In retrospect, it's not that great. However, I still have my poor (like <i>Save Me the Waltz</i>) disintegrating copy (the cover is now completely gone), and it's another one of those books that I *know* no one else has read, and that makes me a little sad.<br />
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10. <i>Mansfield Park</i>, by Jane Austen - Of all the Austen novels, this one took me the longest to come around to. Fanny is kind of a push-over as far as Austen heroines go, and she's in love with her first cousin which, you know, is weird. Frankly, the damn thing bored me. But when I gave it a second go, I noticed the subtle bite of the narrator's tone, the quiet judgement falling from Austen's pen, and the sweetness of its simplicity. I find that I like it much more now.<br />
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Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-52259758808643740582016-05-22T12:00:00.000-04:002016-05-22T12:00:17.761-04:00Collected Book Reviews (5/15-5/22/16)<div style="text-align: center;">
Our next review will be along shortly! In the meantime, be sure to check out more from the critics in this week's collected reviews:</div>
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<i>LaRose, </i>by Louise Erdrich</div>
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which Mary Gordon praises as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/books/review/larose-by-louise-erdrich.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbook-review&action=click&contentCollection=review&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront" target="_blank">"superb." </a></div>
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<i>Girls on Fire, </i>by Robin Wasserman</div>
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which Michael Schaub says is <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/05/21/477372864/girls-on-fire-is-terrifying-upsetting-and-beautiful" target="_blank">"nearly impossible to put down."</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.vol1brooklyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Sharma_Problems_cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.vol1brooklyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Sharma_Problems_cover.jpg" height="200" width="132" /></a></div>
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Jade Sharma's <i>Problems</i>, which</div>
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the author discusses with Devin Kelly over at </div>
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<a href="http://www.vol1brooklyn.com/2016/05/19/its-good-to-feel-that-stability-ruth-curry-on-the-current-state-of-emily-books/" target="_blank">Vol. 1 Brooklyn</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://nozama.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54ed05fc2883301b8d1e91a24970c-800wi" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://nozama.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54ed05fc2883301b8d1e91a24970c-800wi" height="200" width="132" /></a></div>
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And finally <i>The Bridge Ladies, a memoir</i> by Betsy Lerner, </div>
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about mothers and daughters, <a href="http://www.omnivoracious.com/2016/05/the-bridge-ladies-betsy-lerner-amazon-book-review.html" target="_blank">and their struggles to get along. </a></div>
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Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-32265289010255052632016-04-29T10:00:00.000-04:002016-04-29T10:00:18.754-04:00Review: Charlotte Collins, by Jennifer Becton<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Charlotte Collins<br />A Continuation of Jane Austen's<br />Pride and Prejudice</i>, by Jennifer Becton<br />
published independently, 2010 | 256 pp</td></tr>
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When Jane Austen was alive, one would not yet have conceived the notion of a spin-off. But since her time, secondary characters have made excellent material for just that, whether it's an alternate perspective of a beloved novel's main events, or a continuation of a novel that follows one of the story's side branches, as we have with today's subject - Jennifer Becton's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1453740473/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1453740473&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=5YRN4NYOPMBWQZ5C">Charlotte Collins</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1453740473" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />.</i><br />
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For any lover of <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, this is a delight. Its is constantly pointing in the direction of its inspiration, but it does not suffer for that. It is it's own creature, blossoming from a cutting, as it were, of the original novel - similar, but laying down its own roots - its movement independent of the original.<br />
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The story begins some seven years following the events of<i> Pride and Prejudice</i>. Mr. Collins has died (in a manner suiting his folly) and Charlotte must find her independent way in the world. She will not do so alone, however, for her younger sister Maria seizes on this opportunity to make Charlotte her chaperone as she finds her way through society and attempts to secure a husband of her own. In Jennifer Becton's hands, their tiny world of Kent becomes much larger, and Austen's characters blossom into leading players.<br />
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For many readers, Charlotte and Maria are thankless supporting characters to the Bennet sisters' plot, so seeing them so fully fledged here brings a kind of comfort. Becton's ancillary characters create a new part of the world that is remarkably detailed and bears the sort of witty appraisals one might expect from Austen's own pen (were it not for some of this author's indulgences in 19th century American exoticism and a slightly more passionate portrayal of emotion in general - both common traits in this brand of writing). It is a credit to both Austen and Becton that Charlotte and Maria (and Lady Catherine) have a strength of their own and have no need to stray far from there inherent characterization in this newer continuation. They are all very much the same people, but it is the new story that allows us to see them in full form.<br />
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<i>Charlotte Collins</i> is a real tribute to Jane Austen, with shades of her other novels - most particularly, I found, <i>Persuasion</i> and <i>Sense and Sensibility; </i>but it bears the mark of its home world most of all. I have not found, in my reading of Austen offshoot fiction, a work focusing on a minor character to do so as successfully as Jennifer Becton has managed here. And while I can't recommend this book to someone looking for a fresh or modern Austenesque novel, I think that anyone who loves reading Austen in its original form could give it a go and be the better for it.Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-65873037342334485702016-04-26T09:00:00.000-04:002016-04-26T09:00:19.155-04:00Top 10 Bookworm Delights<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7XfgpW__pE/UEfGed2hAUI/AAAAAAAAA0w/UqHkdHI_5u4CbdczVC-AroMfK0GvsqTGg/s1600/toptentues.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7XfgpW__pE/UEfGed2hAUI/AAAAAAAAA0w/UqHkdHI_5u4CbdczVC-AroMfK0GvsqTGg/s320/toptentues.jpg" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature of <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/">The Broke and the Bookish</a></div>
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This week's theme: Top Ten Bookworm Delights</div>
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Per Jamie at B&B - "These are just some really delightful book related </div>
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experiences in life that can just make me happy on any given day." </div>
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I think any bibliophile could make a longer list, but in the interest of not </div>
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boring everyone else, we'll keep it to 10. </div>
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1. The smell of books - This is a no-brainer. Doesn't everyone love the smell of books? </div>
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Except maybe Fanny Dashwood, of course. There's something very old and homey </div>
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about the smell of a printed page. It's probably got something to do with mold and/or</div>
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getting high off of some spore growing in the spine but, you know what? don't know. don't care. </div>
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2. Hunting for used books - Sure, you could spend hours digging through the </div>
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shelves at Strand, or a place like the old Derby Square Bookstore in Salem </div>
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(now closed, I understand...) but there's something to be said for finding that </div>
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out-of-print copy of the book you had as a kid and haven't seen in years on eBay, too. </div>
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3. Seeing what others are reading on the train - I love peeping over the shoulders </div>
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of my fellow commuters to see what they're reading, even if I can't see the titles. And I </div>
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always smile to myself when I see someone reading a book that I already love. </div>
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4. Finding a favorite dog-eared passage - I am a bit of a cur in the book-lover community </div>
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in that I dog-ear like my life depends on it. Bookmarks can fall out, right? So unless I'm </div>
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using a bookmark that's got a good grip, dog-earring makes a lot more sense. I love it when </div>
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I re-shelf a book after moving things around and come across a spot I had left marked for myself. </div>
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5. Getting to the point in a book where I can bend the spine back - Yes, I am truly </div>
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a mutilator of the books I love so dearly. Not only do I fold the pages whenever </div>
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I please, but I also break the spines. I love the convenience of holding a book in </div>
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one hand when I'm commuting, and I love getting to the point in my book where it </div>
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won't destroy the integrity of its construction if I do this. </div>
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6. Reading during a storm - Truth be told, I also love sleeping </div>
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during a storm. But reading is good, too. </div>
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7. Crying during a book - Or, really, having any kind of real emotion while reading. </div>
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To me, that's the sign of a wonderful book. </div>
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8. Organizing my shelves - I have a very precise way that I like things - </div>
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I like keeping the authors I love most together; that's why McEwan, Kerouac, </div>
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Connolly, Bronte and Dumas all share a shelf. Austen would be there but she has her </div>
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own shelf plus another shelf of Austen-inspired books. But then I also have shelves </div>
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that are arranged by genre - my fantasy shelves - which include the likes of </div>
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Barrie, Pearson, Funke, Jacques, Rowling and Martin. I have a non-fiction shelf. </div>
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I have a shelf of plays combined with some of my favorite contemporary fiction. </div>
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And then I have what I call my Europa shelf. There are only nine Europa Editions there, </div>
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but combined with the colorful spines of my NYRB tomes, and sprinkled with my favorites </div>
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that don't fit in with the likes of McEwan and Austen, it makes for a very pretty picture. A book has to really win me over to fit into my limited shelf space, and to make me re-arrange my collection. Which leads me to....</div>
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9. Getting someone to take a book off my hands - Because I can't keep all the books (and, in many cases, don't wish to keep them) I want to make sure that they go to good homes. I hate having to see a book I once treasured trapped living a life in my office's lending library. Speaking of a which - I have a bunch of books ready to head to the office if anyone is interested...</div>
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10. Their unchanging nature - No matter what happens, a book will always </div>
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conclude in the same fashion. Sure, an author can add a sequel, but that won't change </div>
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your head canon. Yes, other authors can write alternate takes on the same story, but that </div>
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won't change the story itself. George Lucas can try to change the end of your favorite book </div>
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all he wants, but it will still end with "Yub Nub" and Han will always shoot first, because </div>
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you have the written, edited and published truth of the matter. That's an argument for </div>
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paper books over e-books as well, but I feel like that's a fight for another day. </div>
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<a href="http://img.ifcdn.com/images/9ed8a63c5fd8c1d42ceb5969f5c3c7b8c8e425fb5ab3bce5f032bbb60def4124_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img.ifcdn.com/images/9ed8a63c5fd8c1d42ceb5969f5c3c7b8c8e425fb5ab3bce5f032bbb60def4124_1.jpg" height="320" width="257" /></a></div>
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Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-38588165978789052912016-04-24T12:00:00.000-04:002016-04-24T12:00:12.762-04:00Collected Book Reviews (4/17 - 4/24/16)<div style="text-align: center;">
In addition to TLG's review of <i>The Rescuers</i>, be sure to check out more from the critics in this week's collected reviews:</div>
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<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51E9g9fcQEL._SX340_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51E9g9fcQEL._SX340_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="200" width="136" /></a></div>
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Janna Levin's <i>Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, </i></div>
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which Maria Popova praises as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/books/review/maria-popova-reviews-janna-levins-black-hole-blues.html?_r=0" target="_blank">"first-rate."</a> </div>
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<i>Eligible</i> - Curtis Sittenfeld's "<a href="http://www.denverpost.com/books/ci_29768324/book-review-eligible-by-curtis-sittenfeld" target="_blank">crass and raunchy"</a> millennial-updated <i>Pride and Prejudice</i></div>
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<a href="http://media.npr.org/assets/bakertaylor/covers/m/maestra/9780399184260_custom-578bbc1d095b8e35021b8d9f917dc2c92a4140dd-s300-c85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/bakertaylor/covers/m/maestra/9780399184260_custom-578bbc1d095b8e35021b8d9f917dc2c92a4140dd-s300-c85.jpg" height="200" width="132" /></a></div>
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Lisa Hilton (here, L.S. Hilton)'s <i>Maestra</i> which Bethanne Patrick calls <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/04/23/474226257/maestra-is-pure-pulp-madness" target="_blank">"pure pulp madness."</a></div>
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And finally, a review that is from a while back, but which just came to my attention </div>
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thanks to an article about Kirkus being the veritable Statler and Waldorf of </div>
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book reviews (and anything that resembles my spirit muppets must be attended to):</div>
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<a href="https://d1ldy8a769gy68.cloudfront.net/180/978/006/200/620/2/9780062006202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://d1ldy8a769gy68.cloudfront.net/180/978/006/200/620/2/9780062006202.jpg" width="137" /></a></div>
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Claudia Gray's <i>Fateful</i>. While I - and the reviewer - acknowledge that </div>
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this book is from the height of paranormal mash-up fiction, even they sound resigned </div>
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when starting the assessment with <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/claudia-gray/fateful/" target="_blank">"It has come to this: werewolves on the Titanic."</a></div>
Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-14499386553345302692016-04-21T10:00:00.000-04:002016-04-21T10:00:29.385-04:00Review: The Rescuers, by Margery Sharp<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-05yT0IIE9UA/VxQa--ZEWuI/AAAAAAAACts/1gawVTOTkvg4wdxzmUX5927RBt12aLnZQCLcB/s1600/rescuers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-05yT0IIE9UA/VxQa--ZEWuI/AAAAAAAACts/1gawVTOTkvg4wdxzmUX5927RBt12aLnZQCLcB/s320/rescuers.jpg" width="204" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Rescuers</i>, by Margery Sharp<br />Illustrated by Garth Williams<br />NYR Children's Collection, 2011<br />149 pp</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When first published in 1959, Margery Sharp had initially intended <i>The Rescuers</i> for adult readers like her other novels. But ever since its release with illustrations by Garth Williams (<i>Charlotte's Web</i>) it has been increasingly popular with children. Sharp eventually went on to write 8 more books in the series about these mice and their adventures.<br />
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At first glance, this book definitely appears to be a children's book; the New York Review Children's Collection edition from 2011 features Williams' illustrations every fifth page or so. But the themes in this book are overarchingly adult. For those familiar with either of the Disney films inspired by Sharp's novels, be assured that we are talking about a very different story here - there is no Madame Medusa or McLeach in sight. Rather, the primary antagonist is much darker - an anonymous government that has imprisoned (for reasons suspiciously unknown) a Norwegian poet in the deepest dungeon of an impenetrable prison ominously named Black Castle. The Prisoners' Aid Society (in the films, the Rescue Aid Society) is much the same but, as the name might indicate, has a focus on the incarcerated.<br />
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The constant presence of emotionally hopeless poetry throughout the book is probably a bit much for kids. Miss Bianca's torn feelings of whether to continue her life as a pampered pet or resolve to teach drawing to bring in money as the wife of a pantry mouse are positively mature. And the invisible and oppressing government (physically embodied only briefly by a literal fat cat) is a bit abstract for younger readers. But this miniature fantasy is charming, full of bravery and heart - and even a bit of grown-up reality.<br />
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I now find myself facing a curious perspective: Yes, more often than not, the book is better than the film - you'll hear that all the time from professional and amateur critics alike. Even though I have a deep and unflinching love of both films (yes, both) and I still cannot help but have that feeling. Sure, the stories are quite different, but Sharp's witticisms and daring characters now seem to exist beyond the page in name only: here, Bernard is braver, Bianca is humbler, the situation seems fraught with more danger than even the films can portray, and the sweet, neat, comfortably-tied-up endings are nowhere to be found.Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-79842388246142534742016-04-19T09:00:00.000-04:002016-04-19T09:00:00.982-04:00Top 10 Books That Will Make You Laugh (or at least chuckle)<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7XfgpW__pE/UEfGed2hAUI/AAAAAAAAA0w/UqHkdHI_5u4CbdczVC-AroMfK0GvsqTGg/s1600/toptentues.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7XfgpW__pE/UEfGed2hAUI/AAAAAAAAA0w/UqHkdHI_5u4CbdczVC-AroMfK0GvsqTGg/s320/toptentues.jpg" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature of <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/">The Broke and the Bookish</a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
This week's theme: Top Ten Books That Will Make You Laugh (or at least chuckle)<br />
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I'm actually not really into "funny" books - at least not in the "laughing haha funny" sense. I have exactly three books for this list, so I've called for reinforcements.<br />
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My mother said Dave Barry. But Dave Barry is already on my list! Particularly <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345416600/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0345416600&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=VTLPT6L5X57QVJBT">Dave Barry Slept Here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0345416600" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></i>, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0425238989/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0425238989&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=AJHVVVANG3FE3DQG">I'll Mature When I'm Dead</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0425238989" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></i>, and the <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1423123735/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1423123735&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=EK5SNTNLBG7EY2QZ">Starcatchers</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1423123735" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
</i>series which he wrote with Ridley Pearson.<br />
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Jessica (a sometimes-contributor to TLG) said <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316126101/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316126101&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=PNORJ2S4AP5EEYOL">The Diviners</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0316126101" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />.</i>..or maybe the second Diviners. I had no idea what she was talking about, so I looked it up. These are novels by Libba Bray (whose name, I have to assume, is the result of someone drunkenly attempting to spell "Library") and upon looking at them once, I can't tell that they're meant to be funny. But they definitely gave Jess a chuckle.<br />
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My friend Phil brought up Mindy Kaling's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307886271/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307886271&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=GDRUDN6M3UMWX6KG">Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307886271" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
</i>I've never read any of her stuff, but my sister and my roommate both love her as well.<br />
<br />
Elisa said David Sedaris. I believe her, but I've managed to stay away from David Sedaris for all this time, I can't say I'm willing to pick him up now. Elisa also brought up Tina Fey which, well, we all know how I love her. <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DWYPFME/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00DWYPFME&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=UJERNG3LURIOEGQ6">Bossypants </a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00DWYPFME" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></i>is a gem of a book.<br />
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The one that no one else has mentioned (but I will!) is Isaac Oliver's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476746664/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1476746664&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=LOXCVIXSIFGXVVMD">Intimacy Idiot</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1476746664" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></i>. If you haven't picked it up yet, you need to do so. But maybe not in front of the kids. Unless you're a cool parent like that or something. But no, really, maybe not in front of the kids.<br />
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Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-87554414827033482662016-04-17T12:00:00.000-04:002016-04-17T12:00:10.663-04:00Collected Book Reviews (4/10 - 4/17/16)<div style="text-align: center;">
In addition to TLG's review of <i>Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms</i>, be sure to check out more from the critics in this week's collected reviews:</div>
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<a href="http://media.npr.org/assets/bakertaylor/covers/a/a-fierce-and-subtle-poison/9781616205218_custom-84b7a146da80be2a015bd8aa0221aeb40c2c6f65-s300-c85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/bakertaylor/covers/a/a-fierce-and-subtle-poison/9781616205218_custom-84b7a146da80be2a015bd8aa0221aeb40c2c6f65-s300-c85.jpg" height="200" width="132" /></a></div>
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Samantha Mabry's debut novel <i>A Fierce and Subtle Poison</i>, which Caitlyn Paxson calls <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/04/13/472188680/a-fierce-and-subtle-poison-ventures-into-a-strange-and-troubled-garden" target="_blank">"impressive."</a></div>
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<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51h2UcTHHTL._SX349_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51h2UcTHHTL._SX349_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="200" width="140" /></a></div>
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<i>Bucky F*cking Dent</i>, by David Duchovny (yes, <i>that </i>David Duchovny) which is a <a href="http://tucson.com/entertainment/books-and-literature/book-review-duchovny-hits-home-run-with-new-novel/article_404e454d-ae4f-50a3-94ba-1b4b54d7f117.html" target="_blank">"home run" </a>according to Jeff Ayers. </div>
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<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EM8LFgjRL._SX319_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EM8LFgjRL._SX319_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="200" width="128" /></a></div>
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Ian McGuire's <i>The North Water</i> which, if Colm Toibin is to be believed, is apparently a modern work of naturalistic genius. He describes it as a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/books/review/the-north-water-by-ian-mcguire.html?action=click&contentCollection=review&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0" target="_blank">"riveting and darkly brilliant [novel that] feels like the result of an encounter between Joseph Conrad and Cormac McCarthy." </a></div>
Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-61075558798833812082016-04-15T10:00:00.000-04:002016-04-15T10:00:01.162-04:00Review: Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms - The Story of the Animals and Plants that Time has Left Behind, by Richard ForteyI have to begin by saying that reading this book was intensely selfish of me. Being a purely left-brained selection (non-fiction AND science!), I can't imagine that many people who read this post are going to have the same desire to pick up this book as I did, simply upon hearing the title or seeing the Ernst Haeckel drawings on the cover. It's a very niche selection, to be sure. And, actually, while we're here - Thom, if you're reading this (Thom is my roommate), you can stop now. Turn around, bright eyes, this is not a book that you would enjoy. Many fish.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-C6g8p5N4okk/VxBznmBM1CI/AAAAAAAACtM/ynB3NX8zX_gKxg2jDAOsmknjLRspYGrNwCLcB/s1600/hcavw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-C6g8p5N4okk/VxBznmBM1CI/AAAAAAAACtM/ynB3NX8zX_gKxg2jDAOsmknjLRspYGrNwCLcB/s320/hcavw.jpg" width="209" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms<br />The Story of the Animals and Plants<br />That Time Has Left Behind</i>,<br />
by Richard Fortey<br />
Vintage Books | 2012 | 332 pp.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
That being said, reading Richard Fortey's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307275531/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307275531&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=6QXL5NOMAAZO7SCB">Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307275531" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
</i> turned out to be far more enjoyable than even I had anticipated. Maybe endless talk of angiosperms and blue-blooded horseshoe crabs isn't your thing, but if you're going to take a lesson on the subject, I strongly encourage you to pick up any of the prolific Richard Fortey's books. Not only will you find it an extremely rich source of information, but you may even have a good time doing so.<br />
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Fortey - a paleontologist, among other things - brings an easy, pleasant sort of grandfather-scholar approach to dissecting Earth's biological tree, all the way from bacterium to humanoids; he presents history in an unfolding matter-of-fact fashion while also managing to be incredibly personable. There are a lot of scientific names and, if you either never took Latin or you sleepily skimmed through all of your biology lessons, you might think you'd find yourself in some Cretaceous weeds, but Fortey never leaves the reader without a thorough explanation.<br />
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He is, at every turn, rich in his poetic imagery, and he presents every gnarled branch in our history with an amicable humor that might make science fun even for someone less inclined to find it so. As with any effective book on the natural sciences, there are also reference pages at both ends of the book. And Fortey has arranged the chapters in such a way that you feel - all the way to the epilogue - as if you have been on this journey with the author across continents, through fields and rainforests, and deep into the past.<br />
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One cannot help but appreciate the aesthetically pleasing nature of passages like this:<br />
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Compared with human history, the seas are eternal, and the medusae pulse on and on, like an unstoppable heartbeat.</blockquote>
Nor could one lack appreciation for the author's frank observation of the attractions of being Norwegian. Nor ignore this stinging assessment:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To give one example, the curious and venomous platypus claw always seemed to have more to do with reptiles than mammals (who, with the exception of critics, entirely lack venom). </blockquote>
I know what you're thinking..."wait, platypodes (yes, that's the plural) are VENOMOUS?"<br />
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See? This proves my point about Fortey's intellectual appeal: you haven't even picked up this book and already you've learned something new.<br />
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<br />Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-86230990606272295752016-04-12T09:00:00.000-04:002016-04-12T09:00:00.175-04:00Top 10 Books that Every New Yorker Should Read<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7XfgpW__pE/UEfGed2hAUI/AAAAAAAAA0w/UqHkdHI_5u4CbdczVC-AroMfK0GvsqTGg/s1600/toptentues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7XfgpW__pE/UEfGed2hAUI/AAAAAAAAA0w/UqHkdHI_5u4CbdczVC-AroMfK0GvsqTGg/s320/toptentues.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature of <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/" target="_blank">The Broke and the Bookish</a></div>
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This week's theme: Top Ten Books that Every New Yorker Should Read<br />
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New York has a very long history, and there are thousands of books to choose from on this subject, so this is a small sampling. You've likely already read a few of them, but others may be a little off the beaten path for most.<br />
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<a href="http://www.beautifulbookcovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/gatsby-original-cover-art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.beautifulbookcovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/gatsby-original-cover-art.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743273567/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0743273567&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=WF3MPRJLMNRHPLLF">The Great Gatsby</a></i>, by F. Scott Fitzgerald</div>
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Obviously. </div>
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<a href="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327934972l/11890816.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327934972l/11890816.jpg" height="200" width="132" /></a></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0425261255/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0425261255&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=HSSR5I5QV2IIRG5J">The Gods of Gotham</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0425261255" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></i>, by Lindsay Faye</div>
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<a href="http://www.samuelfrench.com/content/images/thumbs/0003558_barefoot_in_the_park_neil_simon_300.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.samuelfrench.com/content/images/thumbs/0003558_barefoot_in_the_park_neil_simon_300.jpeg" height="200" width="122" /></a></div>
Neil Simon's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0573605858/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0573605858&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=L67RCG6N64MBTIVI">Barefoot in the Park</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0573605858" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></i>
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<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GPId4yDmL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GPId4yDmL.jpg" height="200" width="131" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316735698/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316735698&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=GY54HAC3GYIIO3QY">Forever</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0316735698" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
by Pete Hamill<br />
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<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51aYL5vtDqL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51aYL5vtDqL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="200" width="131" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0767931696/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0767931696&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=ISO7HMA3VM6CFA4I">Free for All: Joe Papp, The Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0767931696" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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<a href="http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/media/users/grp224/images/riisother.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/media/users/grp224/images/riisother.jpg" height="160" width="200" /></a></div>
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Jacob Riis' collected photography in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1438296630/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1438296630&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=TMQ3L4MX46TEYNUS">How the Other Half Lives</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1438296630" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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<a href="http://i2.listal.com/image/2616/600full-franny-and-zooey-cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i2.listal.com/image/2616/600full-franny-and-zooey-cover.jpg" height="200" width="123" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316769495/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316769495&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=PV37KHR3TMWRMYYS">Franny and Zooey</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0316769495" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />, by J.D. Salinger (I shan't be including <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i> because, frankly, it's a terrible book).<br />
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<a href="http://images.paperbackswap.com/l/31/6431/9780553146431.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://images.paperbackswap.com/l/31/6431/9780553146431.jpg" height="200" width="122" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812978188/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0812978188&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=UAPE4NE5VOBFBP6P">Ragtime</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0812978188" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />, by E.L. Doctorow</div>
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<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81Saez2gO5L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81Saez2gO5L.jpg" height="148" width="200" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0689878451/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0689878451&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=GJMYRDN7LGG3ILLK">And Tango Makes Three</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0689878451" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> (because it's just the best)<br />
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<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Rr8VyydWL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Rr8VyydWL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="200" width="130" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802136346/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0802136346&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=SVCP4PYD25FCYB6H">Being There</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thelitegoth07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0802136346" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
by Jerzy Kosinski<br />
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There are still, of course, other necessary New York-set books that I have yet to read myself (<i>A Tree Grows in Brooklyn</i>, <i>The Godfather</i>, <i>American Psycho</i>, etc.) but this is a good start. I'm always looking for recommendations - drop me a line if you have any to suggest!</div>
Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-89557247570593096902016-04-10T12:00:00.000-04:002016-04-10T12:00:13.709-04:00Collected Book Reviews (4/3 - 4/10/16)<div style="text-align: center;">
In addition to TLG's review of <i>The Blue Line</i>, be sure to check out more from the critics in this week's collected reviews:</div>
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<a href="http://media.npr.org/assets/bakertaylor/covers/t/thomas-jefferson-dreams-of-sally-hemings/9780525429968_custom-67671a3bd9423cc40e5c6da8b7d809e3b3ccda47-s300-c85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/bakertaylor/covers/t/thomas-jefferson-dreams-of-sally-hemings/9780525429968_custom-67671a3bd9423cc40e5c6da8b7d809e3b3ccda47-s300-c85.jpg" height="200" width="131" /></a></div>
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Stephen O'Connor's <i>Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemmings </i>in which, Jean Zimmerman reports, Sally <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/04/06/471619275/the-agonizing-collision-of-love-and-slavery-in-thomas-jefferson" target="_blank">"comes thoroughly and thrillingly alive."</a></div>
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<i>John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit</i> by James Traub; Joseph Ellis tells us that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/books/review/john-quincy-adams-militant-spirit-by-james-traub.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbook-review&action=click&contentCollection=review&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront" target="_blank">"Traub devotes more space to Louisa Catherine than any previous Adams biographer, in part because she is so omnipresent in [Quincy's] journal."</a> (This is an exciting piece of information, and my birthday is coming...)</div>
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Nina George's <i>The Little Paris Bookshop</i>, now out in paperback. I am extremely empathetic to <a href="http://www.fredericksburg.com/entertainment/arts/books/book-review-the-little-paris-bookshop-by-nina-george/article_99b62389-a890-5e76-9d42-544e3c78a3c0.html" target="_blank">Drew Gallagher's approach to this review</a>, and leaves me intrigued - I may need to pick this one up. </div>
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<a href="http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/roanoke.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/85/18545e72-9e84-5f45-a5b1-8ace8db7b08d/56fc9f5ab8253.image.jpg?resize=300%2C453" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/roanoke.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/85/18545e72-9e84-5f45-a5b1-8ace8db7b08d/56fc9f5ab8253.image.jpg?resize=300%2C453" height="200" width="131" /></a></div>
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<i>The Madwoman Upstairs, a novel</i> by Catherine Lowell in which the author "uses an intermingling of the Brontë novels and their authors, myth and fact, to create a compelling and enjoyable literary mystery and more" <a href="http://www.roanoke.com/arts_and_entertainment/columns_and_blogs/blogs/back_cover/book-review-madwoman-upstairs-blends-st-century-with-th-century/article_6cb05015-773d-5991-81f4-ad06018e3b37.html" target="_blank">according to Lawrence Wayne Markert.</a> (I'll remind y'all again...my birthday is coming.)</div>
Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-46147361833616670182016-04-08T10:00:00.000-04:002016-04-08T10:00:33.457-04:00Review: The Blue Line, a novel by Ingrid BetancourtIn 2008, Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt made headlines when she and fourteen other hostages were rescued after being held by a guerrilla army in the Colombian jungle for over six years. Betancourt detailed her account of those events previously in her 2010 memoir <i>Even Silence Has An End. </i>But in her debut novel of the fictional persuasion she has undertaken the task of telling the story of Argentina's "Dirty War" - a period left out of most classroom history lessons - through the lens of her experience.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Blue Line: A Novel</i><br />by Ingrid Betancourt<br />Penguin Press | 2016 | 368 pp.</td></tr>
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This "war," which Argentinians call the time of "state terrorism genocide" is a blight in the nation's history. Covering the early 1970s through the early 80s, it was a period of uncertainty and terrible truths in the wake of Peron's return from exile, and the subsequent succession of his widow Isabel to the presidency following Peron's death. Marxists and socialists - many of them students - were hunted down and tortured; members of their support networks were assassinated in the streets. And between 10- and 30,000 citizens became "desaparecidos" - the disappeared. Some of them - their bodies would wash ashore in Uruguay after being thrown from a plane. Some of them were tortured and then disposed of into mass graves, and wait even now to be identified. Still others will never be found.<br />
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In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594206589/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1594206589&linkCode=as2&tag=thelitegoth07-20&linkId=3HNNSMDNL46SR6Y5"><i>The Blue Line</i></a> Betancourt merges her own experiences with this history, and creates a character - Julia - who embodies her own personal strength, but who also carries a secret that allows her (and the reader) to foresee the horrible suffering to come as the story unfolds. Julia has inherited her grandmother's gift - visions of the future through the eyes of an unknown source who calls, in one way or another, for help in their future moment. As a child, Julia saves her sister from drowning by teaching her to swim before the disaster she has foreseen can occur. As an adult, she has to confront a vision of her own future - which Mama Fina describes - in order to save another life, only to find herself being broken many more times by the death squadron that ruled Buenos Aires.<br />
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The magical aspect of the story takes a backseat to the horrors of the reality that Julia lives, but her character is stronger for it. What might in another novel be a distraction proves, in this one, to be a comfort - a way by which the reader can prepare themselves for each next step of Julia's perpetually angst-and-anxiety-ridden life. The story, if a shade unbelievable, is harrowing in its brutal descriptions of the horrors of a very real history. Julia, Mama Fina and Theo may not be as factual as that history, but Betancourt brings them to life with a deft vibrancy - an effect, I believe, of an empathy that most of us will thankfully never understand.Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-41880720214086483262016-04-05T09:00:00.000-04:002016-04-05T09:00:01.063-04:00Top 10 Bookish People You Should Follow on Social Media<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7XfgpW__pE/UEfGed2hAUI/AAAAAAAAA0w/UqHkdHI_5u4CbdczVC-AroMfK0GvsqTGg/s1600/toptentues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7XfgpW__pE/UEfGed2hAUI/AAAAAAAAA0w/UqHkdHI_5u4CbdczVC-AroMfK0GvsqTGg/s320/toptentues.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature of <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/" target="_blank">The Broke and the Bookish</a></div>
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This week's theme: Top Ten Bookish People You Should Follow on Social Media (...besides me - links are on the left!)</div>
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Be sure to check these out on Twitter (think of this like a Follow Friday...on a Tuesday...or something):</div>
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1. Antoinette - <a href="https://twitter.com/blackandbookish" target="_blank">@BlackAndBookish</a><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-25G-ZOak164/VwNNMoP8PpI/AAAAAAAACsI/ywP2c9CPN8suzYZN7Z_UXPN3mmedTxoGw/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.12.33%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-25G-ZOak164/VwNNMoP8PpI/AAAAAAAACsI/ywP2c9CPN8suzYZN7Z_UXPN3mmedTxoGw/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.12.33%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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2. Laurel Ann - <a href="http://www.twitter.com/austenprose" target="_blank">@AustenProse</a><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CicFyEUQ8mE/VwNOmhgGmZI/AAAAAAAACs0/O9wAPyXturkv6fil03nzqooreGP6F8yRw/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.35.04%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="157" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CicFyEUQ8mE/VwNOmhgGmZI/AAAAAAAACs0/O9wAPyXturkv6fil03nzqooreGP6F8yRw/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.35.04%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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3. The Booksmith - <a href="http://www.twitter.com/booksmith" target="_blank">@Booksmith</a><br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R7zITAwr6-M/VwNNMuBnSDI/AAAAAAAACsM/-q-kNWTDba0EAtnwOO7Z5-lB22sN8UWTw/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.14.02%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="108" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R7zITAwr6-M/VwNNMuBnSDI/AAAAAAAACsM/-q-kNWTDba0EAtnwOO7Z5-lB22sN8UWTw/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.14.02%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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4. Giselle - <a href="http://www.twitter.com/booknerdcanada" target="_blank">@BookNerdCanada</a><br />
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5. Peter - <a href="http://www.twitter.com/doctorsyntax" target="_blank">@DoctorSyntax</a><br />
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4e6DtFvWPR0/VwNNM0fxDFI/AAAAAAAACsU/YGHMThyZPeYr7U3W5wJGWxwH2q7vnRfGA/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.19.58%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4e6DtFvWPR0/VwNNM0fxDFI/AAAAAAAACsU/YGHMThyZPeYr7U3W5wJGWxwH2q7vnRfGA/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.19.58%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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6. Stephen King - <a href="http://www.twitter.com/stephenking" target="_blank">@StephenKing</a><br />
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7. Candice - <a href="http://www.twitter.com/booksbaconglttr" target="_blank">@BooksBaconGlttr</a><br />
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hdXxaLauDsQ/VwNNNLKpsoI/AAAAAAAACsc/F3Nyrd-ELVcVzpTuABw3AByRIpinumF3A/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.22.35%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hdXxaLauDsQ/VwNNNLKpsoI/AAAAAAAACsc/F3Nyrd-ELVcVzpTuABw3AByRIpinumF3A/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.22.35%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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8. Jessa - <a href="http://www.twitter.com/thebookslut" target="_blank">@TheBookSlut</a><br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ao57WE0M6zs/VwNNNeWDgFI/AAAAAAAACso/k9FBsjpKpSUNblhCeSsrxg4eGYV-LTcYg/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.24.18%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="342" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ao57WE0M6zs/VwNNNeWDgFI/AAAAAAAACso/k9FBsjpKpSUNblhCeSsrxg4eGYV-LTcYg/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.24.18%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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9. John Patrick Shanley - <a href="http://www.twitter.com/johnjpshanley" target="_blank">@JohnJPShanley</a><br />
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eMXyF9EwFf8/VwNNNcFuEsI/AAAAAAAACsg/ObbxgjXwdSMPVODCGNQUDq546XAKFvzww/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.25.46%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eMXyF9EwFf8/VwNNNcFuEsI/AAAAAAAACsg/ObbxgjXwdSMPVODCGNQUDq546XAKFvzww/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.25.46%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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10. Stefan - <a href="https://twitter.com/Stefan_Bachmann" target="_blank">@Stefan_Bachmann</a><br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8Jp6rcZZWKM/VwNNNX5uj-I/AAAAAAAACsk/H0CXj6vOF5MRht0vzwRI0le6O9iPZILJA/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.28.23%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8Jp6rcZZWKM/VwNNNX5uj-I/AAAAAAAACsk/H0CXj6vOF5MRht0vzwRI0le6O9iPZILJA/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-04-05%2Bat%2B1.28.23%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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And if you're not on Twitter, let me know what kind of social media you're into and I'll try to make some recommendations. I'd also love to know whom everyone else is following!</div>
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Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5610322503972823333.post-6865701437728727792016-04-03T12:00:00.000-04:002016-04-03T12:00:03.310-04:00Collected Book Reviews (3/27 - 4/3/16)<div style="text-align: center;">
In addition to TLG's <i>Bossypants </i>review, be sure to check out more from the critics in this week's collected reviews:</div>
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Edna O'Brien's <i>The Little Red Chairs</i> which Joyce Carol Oates calls <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/books/review/the-little-red-chairs-by-edna-obrien.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbook-review&action=click&contentCollection=review&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront" target="_blank">"a work of meditation and penance</a>;" Annalisa Quinn says <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/04/02/472137289/healing-and-horror-sit-side-by-side-in-little-red-chairs" target="_blank">"O'Brien is truly at her best."</a></div>
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Garth Greenwell's <i>What Belongs to You, </i>which Neil Bartlett calls a kind of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/02/what-belongs-to-you-garth-greenwell-review" target="_blank">"intense...updated, gender-swapped re-write"</a> of a Proust novel. </div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HoyzAjsHMqk/VwC8qKGr3mI/AAAAAAAACro/jKUAESX8PGcduzGkEZ743N5ttROnBmRhQ/s1600/gone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HoyzAjsHMqk/VwC8qKGr3mI/AAAAAAAACro/jKUAESX8PGcduzGkEZ743N5ttROnBmRhQ/s200/gone.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
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Mark Leyner's <i>Gone with the Mind</i>, which Charlie Jane Anders says is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/books/review/gone-with-the-mind-by-mark-leyner.html" target="_blank">"a blindingly weird novel: a book-length stand-up routine in which a man free-associates about his life to a mostly empty room, mixing the philosophical and the scatological with abandon."</a></div>
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Finally, there's Lindsay Faye's (<i>The Gods of Gotham</i>) newest novel <i>Jane Steele</i> - inspired by <i>Jane Eyre</i>, but following a much darker path; Bethanne Patrick calls the novel <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/03/26/471343820/this-jane-is-eyres-steely-sister" target="_blank">"delicious."</a> (Note to my readers - my birthday is a month from today...hint hint nudge nudge...)</div>
Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14101490537328642725noreply@blogger.com0