"The night before he went to London, Richard Mayhew was not enjoying himself."

After reading Un Lun Dun, Eva of A Striped Armchair asked me to compare it to another alternate London story, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. I sadly hadn't read Neverwhere so I moved it to the front of my reading queue. It turned out to be a very fascinating contrast because although these two stories share a similar premise of a London Above and a London Below, the executions of these two stories are extremely different.

The main character of Neverwhere is Richard Mayhew, a Scotsman living a settled but uneventful life in London. One day, an injured girl appears on the ground in front of him while he is walking down the street. For no explainable reason, he takes her home to tend to her. While they are there, a pair of sinister men show up looking for her. Richard lies about her being there and, in fact, she seems to disappear during the time the men are there. He learns her name is Door and that she is not from the London he knows but rather a subterranean London, existing in the Underground tunnels and sewers. Door's family has been murdered and she is on a quest to find out who did it while avoiding the two evil men who are tracking her. When she is on her way again, Richard finds that he is no longer able to return to his old life. Something has changed and he has stopped existing in London Above. So he sets off to help Door in her quest in the hopes that she will find a way to get him restored to his life.

This story is unmistakably Gaiman -- filled with darkness and a strange sense of humor. It's an imagined world but it makes the fantastical seem mundane somehow. This is the opposite of Un Lun Dun in which everything seems magical. Mieville's novel seemed much more in the spirit of Alice in Wonderland where sometimes the nonsense is amusing and sometimes frightening. In Gaiman's world, everything is always frightening. Honestly, I think I prefer the lighter fantasy. I like to be taken away to a world that under at least some circumstances would be a pleasant place to visit. I would be terrified to find myself in London Below!

Strangely, the main characters of both novels willing choose to return to these worlds when their quests have ended -- one of them as a visitor and one as a permanent resident. We see this as well in the Wizard of Oz series when Dorothy returns to Oz, when Alice goes through the looking glass and when the Pevensie children return to Narnia. This would actually be a very interesting thesis topic -- why do these authors send their characters back willingly to alternate worlds where their lives were put in jeopardy?

Can anyone suggest other alternate London novels? I'm enjoying the comparison.

Content to visit the London we know,
K


Buy Neverwhere on Amazon or find it at your local library.

ABC Book Meme

Rebecca at Lost in Books started the ABC Book Meme --

For this meme, you list a favorite book that starts with each letter of the alphabet. If you don't have a book for a letter (such as Z or X) than you can substitute a favorite book that simply has that letter in the title (ex. The Lost City of Z or Hot Six by Janet Evanovich). However, you can only do this a maximum of 3 times. (Z, X, and Q. But not Z, X, Q, and V.) Books can be of any genre from fiction to non-fiction to poetry to textbooks.

Here's my go!

Armadale by Wilkie Collins
Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci by Diana Wynne Jones
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Kiki's Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono
Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Odyssey by Homer
Persuasion by Jane Austen
*The Mysterious Mr. Quin by Agatha Christie
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
*The Double HeliX by James D. Watson
Year of the Griffin by Diana Wynne Jones
*Harry Potter and the Prisoner of AZkaban by J.K. Rowling

This was a great meme! Thanks Rebecca!

Wanting to read more of my TBR list to gain letters,
K

Poe Fridays: The Gold Bug

Our two week reading for Poe Fridays has been The Gold Bug. You can read it here if you haven't yet.

This is the longest story we've read so far but it was definitely one of the easiest and quickest! Some of the short stories (think "Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling") took much longer to decipher. This is a straight-forward story about a treasure hunt, told by a first person narrator. The narrator has a friend who has retired to a very small island barely off the coast of South Carolina. One day he visits the friend who tells him about a unique beetle that he has found that appears to be made of gold. He doesn't have the beetle at the moment to show the narrator so instead he grabs a piece of paper from his pocket and draws a picture and hands it over. The narrator comments that the beetle looks exactly like a skull and hands back the paper. His friend looks at it again and becomes agitated. A month later, the narrator is contacted by his friend and asked to come help him on a short excursion. They end up in the middle of the island, digging in the soil until they come across a couple of skeletons and a treasure chest! The narrator then demands that his friend reveals how he came across the idea that treasure was buried in this place and we are treated to some more of Poe's fascination with detection skills.

This was yet another type of story from Poe. There were a few Gothic touches but overall it was an adventure story. The only issue I had with the story was the dialect assigned to the friend's black manservant. Poe definitely tends to overdo the stereotypical language styles of his non-white-American characters. The servant-- a freed slave --was also written to be quite stupid which was irritating from a modern perspective. It's hard to even excuse Poe based on the times. If you are sensitive to these sorts of portrayals, I would suggest skipping this story.

I've chosen the short story The Devil in the Belfry for next week. It is apparently about the Dutch and has some ridiculously spelled words in it but hopefully it's readable!

Hoping to come across my own treasure map,
K

Our One Year Blog-iversary!

Thank you to our Followers and Subscribers and all of the people who just stop by once in a while to see what we have to say about books and reading! We've had visitors from all fifty states now and seventy countries. Thank you to the person in Wyoming who finally clicked in!

When I started this blog last summer, I decided to give it one year. Now, just over 300 posts later, I'm excited about what we have contributed to the book blogging community. I feel like I am making progress on finding my voice and improving my blog writing style. Thank you for all of the comments and the sense of community. I'm looking forward to discovering more new authors, revisiting some old ones and exploring new books with Z as he gets another year older. I hope you all stick around on this fun book journey with us!

Of course, one of the awesome parts of blogging is getting a comment on something you write so I would just like to give some link love to our regular commenters ... thanks to each of you! If you haven't visited any of these fine bloggers yet, head on over.

Jenners of Find Your Next Book Here, Elizabeth of As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves, Tif of Tif Talks Books, Lenore of Presenting Lenore, Danielle of A Work in Progress, Eva of A Striped Armchair, Juxtabook, Robin of A Fondness for Reading, and the Corbett Family.

Happy reading in the year ahead,
K and Z

"It was the week following Easter in Reading, and no one could remember the last sunny day."

After reading the entire Thursday Next series multiple times, I still wanted to read more from Jasper Fforde. I was wary of the Nursery Crimes series because it seemed just a bit too silly and I didn't really understand how it could be executed well but after finding a hardcover version of the first book, The Big Over Easy, at an unbeatable price, I decided to give the series a go.

This book takes place somewhat in the same England that Thursday Next lives in. However, in Reading, besides the normal crimes and normal police force, there are also "nursery crimes", investigated and solved by the Nursery Crimes Division, currently headed by Detective Inspector Jack Spratt. These are such things as the murder of Mr. Wolff by the three little pigs and a "spinning-straw-into-gold scam" perpetrated by Rumplestiltskin. These people all function in normal society but tend to fulfill their nursery-rhyme-foretold destinies. The main crime in this story is the death of Humperdinck "Humpty" Dumpty. Did he fall or was he pushed? Why was he amassing stock in a footcare products company? Why were the ladies so attracted to an egg? Okay, so that question isn't answered in this book but I wish it had been!

It took a few chapters to acclimate to Fforde's created world but the story was quite interesting and I'm rather glad I finally decided to read this one. I don't think this is a series for everyone because it's a bit far-fetched and silly but at the same time it's hilarious and imaginative. Just like the Thursday Next series, this is definitely something different than anything you've read before. The second book in the series is The Fourth Bear, which I also happened to find in a hardcover at a reasonable price and will probably be reading soon.

Mother Goose was framed,
K


Buy The Big Over Easy: A Nursery Crime on Amazon or find it at your local library.

Mid-Year Review and Trip Pictures

Almost everyone seems to be looking at their six months stats so here are just a few of ours --

I read 66 books totaling 22,509 pages.
The Shadow of the Wind is my 1 re-read this year so far.
28 of the books I read were received specifically for review.
21 of the books I read were borrowed from the library.
20 of the books were classics or re-releases of older titles.
Out of 66, there were only 7 that I would not consider reading again.
13 of the books were youth or YA titles and 2 were non-fiction.
I can't wait to see how this changes over the next six months. I can't imagine not having more re-reads because I love to read books again!

And now, a couple of pictures from our holiday trip to San Juan Island, WA ...









(In order: Cattle Point, English Camp, Lime Kiln State Park, Lime Kiln Point Lighthouse)

Looking forward,
K

"I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping ..."

A few years ago the husband and I discovered the Thin Man movies starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. We loved them for their wit and humor and also the strong detective stories. Powell and Loy are one of those classic Hollywood couples that have perfect on-screen chemistry. So when I was choosing books from the 1000 Books to Read Before You Die list, I knew that I would have to read the source, Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man.

This classic detective story stars Nick Charles, a private detective turned businessman, his darling wife Nora and their terrier, Asta. They are visiting New York for their Christmas holiday and they get involved in a murder investigation due to Nick's former profession. A woman is murdered and her employer is missing. The employer's family is a trio of lunatics and those around them aren't much better. The mystery is strong in this story but what really stands out is the writing. It's incredibly simplistic and plot-driven but at the same time the characters are witty and smart--and usually tight (drunk).

I'm very glad to have read this book for the 1% Well-Read Challenge. It's an amusing look into 1930's culture with visits to the speakeasy, lots of burly cops and some unique slang. This is my fourth book to count toward the challenge and so far, between Rebecca, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Pride and Prejudice and this one, I think that this challenge is really worthwhile. These are books that have taken root in our social consciousness and reading them has given me a better understanding of our own culture. I can't wait to continue with my list!

Wondering if I could ever have a drink before breakfast,
K


Buy The Thin Man on Amazon or find it at your local library.

Let The Books Roll In

I'm away on vacation until later this afternoon so, in lieu of real content or beautiful pictures of San Juan Island (which I will post soon!), I thought I would just share some of my recent book acquisitions with you.

Last weekend I went out and bought Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman after reading Un Lun Dun. I can't wait to compare them!

I got an ARC from Penguin of Ice Land by Betsy Tobin. It seems like a mythical quest-type novel set in Iceland in 1000 A.D. It doesn't release until the end of August, I believe, so I won't be reading it for a bit.

And then I got a few cheap hardcovers in the massive B&N.com clearance -- none of these for more than $3.99 apiece! I always feel a bit guilty for some reason when I get awesome deals like this.

First is The Mammoth Book of New Historical Whodunnits. I own the Mammoth Book of Egyptian Whodunnits already and these are my favorite types of short stories because there's always a plot and resolution! Lynda S. Robinson is the only author I recognize in the collection so maybe this will even lead me to some new authors.

The second book of short stories I grabbed is 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill. These are obviously ghost stories -- which I could read all year long but I will probably save these for the fall.

The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber is one that I keep getting recommended on Amazon based on other books I choose. It's a thriller about books so I knew I would have to read it at some point! Apparently Gruber is a Seattle-ite as well so it will be supporting a local author.

One that I grabbed totally based on the cover is Hippolyte's Island by Barbara Hodgson. There is a naturalistic drawing of a tropical, probably flightless bird on the cover and some worn index letters down the side. Now that it's in my hands, I can see what I've actually gotten in for. This is an illustrated novel full of sketches and drawings and more about a naturalist that rediscovers some tiny islands in the South Atlantic. I think this will definitely find its way into my hands soon! It's a beautiful book.

One author that I have always wanted to try is Amitav Ghosh. They had The Hungry Tide on the list, a novel set in the Sundarban Islands off the coast of India. The main character is a marine biologist and this is another book that just begs to be read in the summer.

I hadn't heard about Guy Gavriel Kay or his book Ysabel until Eva mentioned this book a while back as one of her Once Upon a Time challenge books. She didn't love it but didn't hate it either so I will try it out. It has dark cathedrals and ghosts and lots of ambience so I will probably save this for a fall read as well.

The final book I grabbed is Darwin Conspiracy by John Darnton because I can't resist any novel with "Darwin" in the title. This book is set both on The Beagle and back in Victorian England while Darwin writes On The Origin of Species. What I really need to do is tie this in with my promised reading this year of Origin.

Hopefully I will be reviewing some of these titles for you this summer and fall! They are joining my tall TBR stacks but may make it out sooner than later.

Winding down a short but much needed vacation,
K