Starred Saturdays: week of January 24

January is coming to an end and it's been a big news week.

The iPad is the talk of the town.

JD Salinger passed away after a long life at the age of 91.  The New Yorker is offering free Salinger short stories online to subscribers.  Shelf Life had a short tribute by Stephen King.  The Millions recommends not worrying about if Salinger has unpublished works but just reading his already released books.  And The Onion has something to say too.

And LOST comes back for its final season this week.  io9 has given bookish types a way to gain some insight into the show by reading Shusaku Endo.  Or you could just buy the shirt.

A couple of UK bloggers have started a book club in response to the less than stellar TV Book Club program that has begun to show over there.  Here is the book list and schedule.  I'm going to participate as much as I can as I have never been in a book group before and I want to try one out.

And another time sink for any of you computer bound people -- the website Hey Oscar Wilde!  It's Clobberin' Time!!!.  Spend your time checking out artist sketches of authors and their fictional characters.  I love this version of Chrestomanci!  (via Jacket Copy)

Putting this month and a literary giant to rest,
K

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."

I was very excited when the Tolkien Read-Along was announced. It's been years since I read any of these books and, as is the case with almost every book I read -- even those I love, I had forgotten most of the stories.  I usually remember the gist of the book but none of the details.  This made my reading of The Hobbit all the more exciting because so many parts were almost new to me again.  There were characters that I met again for the first time and others that I visited again after a long absence.  It was very satisfying.

I think the thing that stood out the most to me in this reading was the briefness of each part of the story. The scenes built quickly and then resolved in a timely manner. Any time that the adventurers were waylaid for longer periods, the narrator glossed over it with a few simple sentences. This really could have been a much longer and drawn out novel but I appreciate that it wasn't. Much of the beauty of this book is the simplicity of Bilbo Baggins and this is reflected in the simple manner of storytelling.

I'm very glad to have read The Hobbit again and I can't wait to continue through The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The storytelling is incredibly different in those books but satisfying in its own way.

There and back again,
K


Support our site and buy The Hobbit on Amazon or find it at your local library. We have owned our copy for many years.

The Book List Meme: Three Fictional Worlds

Three Fictional Worlds I Would Like To Hang Out In

1. Wonderland (from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll) - Singing flowers, borogroves and momeraths?  I would love to see them!  I might even attend a tea party or two while I'm there.

2. The Series Worlds (from The Chronicles of Chrestomanci by Diana Wynne Jones) - I love the idea of average worlds where magic is just taken for granted and used for both good and evil but mostly just for neutral uses.  There's also an incredible variety between the worlds and if you were able to travel between them, it would be amazing.

3. The Hundred Acre Wood (from Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne) - Doesn't this seem like the perfect place for reading, quiet walks and a pot of honey?

And yes, Hogwarts was a definite runner-up!

Drifting away to an imaginary place,

K

Hello Japan! Challenge: Music To My Ears

For this month's Hello Japan! challenge, Tanabata asked us to listen to any type of Japanese music.  I was hoping to be able to attend a local Taiko performance but the two Seattle groups had schedules that were not compatible with ours.  Z and I saw a performance by One World Taiko this last summer and loved it.  We were outside on a warm day and had dragonflies zooming overhead.  It was the perfect setting for the performance.  But since we weren't able to listen to this traditional Japanese drum music, we decided to go the opposite way with this post!

I don't think there is any music category more diverse than anime theme songs.  Many are pop songs but there are also hard rock/metal songs, soaring ballads and more typical rock songs.  Since there are types of anime for all ages and all viewers, I thought I would share the theme songs from some of our family favorites today.

One show that I enjoyed a few years back (and have been thinking about revisiting soon) is Blue Seed.  It's about a high school girl who fights a supernatural plant monster with the help of a mysterious warrior while running from government agents.  The theme song is called Carnival Babel and is performed by Takada Band.  It's definitely a pop song.



The lyrics are very interesting in this one because the first phrase is in English but the rest of the song is in Japanese.  Here are the first four lines and I dare you to make sense of them!

Mysterious Tokyo
Take it easy dangerous night
Mysterious Tokyo
Pick me up foxy night game

The rest of the lyrics relate somewhat to the story and are rather beautiful.  Here is an excerpt --

The moonbeams freeze over, inviting us to another night
The horns are exposed to the beat of the cold city.

A labyrinth has got a silence more tedious than loneliness
Leaving my body for pleasure, this night is gonna shine in a sea of illumination.

The blue, blue moment has begun to melt
My future rises up fleetingly now
Life glitters as much as light, and then it burns off.

One of T's favorite animes is Big O.  This show might have the best lead man ever in Roger Smith.  And the style of this song is much different. It's half in English, half in Japanese and makes ample use of the show title.  It also borrows significantly from the Flash Gordon theme song by Queen.  It's written and performed by Nagai Rui ---whose favorite band happens to be listed as, you guessed it, Queen.



The final one I'll share with you today is Z's favorite anime song and it's the theme song to My Neighbor Totoro, an amazing and adorable film by Hayao Miyazaki.  I'll admit that it's one of my favorite films of all time.  When Z was a baby and would have a particularly bad night, this movie (with the Japanese dialogue) almost always calmed him down.  First here is the English version of Stroll, performed by Azumi Inoue --



And here it is in the original Japanese (with English subtitles).  As you can see, the lyrics were changed quite a bit for the English version to fit the rhythm of the song but both versions are happy and light.



Are there any anime theme songs that you particularly enjoy or is this something completely new to you?

Wondering how long these will be stuck in our heads now,
K and Z

Review Postponed: The Case of the Missing Books

Last week I read the first in Ian Sansom's Mobile Library Mystery series, The Case of the Missing Books.  I bought the first three books in the series (the fourth has just been released) because I thought it would be a sure fit for me.  Israel Armstrong, a young London librarian down on his luck, finds an opportunity in Northern Ireland that he doesn't think he can pass up -- until he arrives and finds that the library has been closed and he is expected to operate a mobile library instead.  Even worse, the books are nowhere to be found.  And it also doesn't help that he is a socially awkward Jewish-Irish hybrid who is having trouble understanding the language and ways of the small town he finds himself in.

I wanted to love this book but I didn't.  Some of the characters grew on me by the end of the book but sadly the main character never did.  And yet there was just enough in this book to make me curious enough to want to read the next one in the series.  I need to see if Israel grows into a character that I will want to keep following through more mysteries.  So I have decided to reserve judgment on the Mobile Library Mysteries until I have read at least one more book in the series.  The reviews seem to get slightly better as the series progresses and I hope my opinion improves as well!

Giving this series another try because I want to,
K


Support our site and buy The Case of the Missing Books on Amazon or find it at your local library. We bought our own copy.

"We called him the Professor."

You're probably about to see a number of reviews around for Yoko Ogawa's short novel The Housekeeper and the Professor.  It was this month's selection for the Japanese Lit Group and it's a wonderful book.

A story of everyday life featuring not so ordinary characters, this book is told from the point of view of the "housekeeper" -- a nameless woman whose difficult upbringing and young pregnancy has given her very little advantage in life.  She receives a new assignment one day to work for the "Professor".  He lives in a cottage adjacent to the home of his sister-in-law and has a unique brain injury from a car accident years before -- his short-term memory only lasts for eighty minutes.  He wears a suit covered in small notes that remind him of the little things in life.  He is a difficult assignment in some ways but easy in others, in that he spends most of his time working on mathematical problems that he finds in a magazine.  The housekeeper is fascinated with him and with the way he introduces her to the world of numbers and mathematics.  When he insists that her ten year old son also come to the house after school, a unique relationship is formed between the three people.  And yet, the question remains if they have a true friendship or not due to his limitations.

I am finding it hard to choose the right words for this discussion.  It is a touching story that is unique in its exploration of friendship, motherhood and a life that is anything but ordinary.  I was surprised by how deep this book went in such a short time.  I really felt like I knew these people and understood their trials and lives.  This is also a new view of modern Japanese life for me -- complete with small details like meals and weather.  I enjoyed these aspects of the book just as much as the characters.  Finally, as I try to remember to do in any stellar translated work that I read, I also want to give credit to Stephen Snyder, the translator for this novel.  This book is very accessible to all readers.

Living a life segment of my own,
K


Support our site and buy The Housekeeper and the Professor on Amazon or find it at your local library. We bought our own copy.

Starred Saturdays: week of January 17

Another Saturday, another set of links ...

This is being fought out in the online news business but obviously affects most bloggers -- the right to link. (via Oxford University Press blog)

Author R.N. Morris has a fantastic tale about a "Missed Connections" ad and his first book The Gentle Axe.  Very sweet!

Heading to BEA in NYC?  (May 25-27)  Don't miss the Book Blogger Convention. (May 28)  I really, really want to go but am also considering going to the BlogHer Conference (Aug 6-7, also in NYC) and have a wedding to go to in Pennsylvania in October.  Too many trips, not enough moolah!  (via Online Publicist)

The Millions considers "The Problem With Prizes" -- more specifically, why the International Booker when it's only for English language books?  And what about all the other somewhat bogus prizes out there?

The last person alive who personally knew Franz Kafka is 106 years old.  She says he was "slightly strange".  This is almost a side note, though, to her amazing life story. (via The Millions)

Celia is not just a book blogger, she's a baker and I am going to make her brown sugar almond cookies -- and they are going to be yummy!

And since I seem to be adding a visual treat each week, I will let you enjoy the haunting and beautiful animal photographs of Giacomo Brunelli.  (warning: a couple of the animals appear to be and are probably dead) (via io9)

Did I mention I'm making cookies?

K

Wrap Up Post: Poe Fridays

Has it been one year already?!? Well, here we are at the end of Poe Fridays. I hope that my personal challenge has inspired a few of you to explore some of the poems or short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Thank you to Elizabeth, Tif and Linda for playing along at least some of the time.  And thanks to Rob for his Poe expertise.

I'll admit that it was hard to read something almost every week but it was well worth it!  Here are all of the poems and stories that I read and mostly enjoyed.  I had very few bad experiences in this and many surprisingly good ones.  I hope to keep Poe in a more regular rotation in my reading so don't be surprised if a review shows up every once in a while!

A Dream Within a Dream (poem) - 1/23/09

Annabel Lee (poem) - 1/30/09

The Tell-Tale Heart (short story) - 2/6/09

The Black Cat (short story) - 2/13/09

Hop-Frog (short story) - 2/20/09

Never Bet the Devil Your Head (short story) - 2/27/09

The Angel of the Odd (short story) - 3/6/09

The Fall of the House of Usher (short story) - 3/13/09

Lenore (poem) - 3/20/09

The Sphinx (short story) - 3/27/09

The Cask of Amontillado (short story) - 4/3/09

The Oval Portrait (short story) - 4/10/09

The Murders in the Rue Morgue (short story) - 4/17/09

Three Sundays in a Week (short story) - 4/24/09

Why The Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling (short story) - 5/1/09

To One in Paradise (poem) - 5/8/09

Berenice (short story) - 5/15/09

To My Mother (poem) - 5/22/09

The Assignation (short story) - 6/5/09

Diddling (short story) - 6/12/09

The Island of the Fay (short story) - 6/19/09

An Enigma (poem) - 6/26/09

The Gold Bug (short story) - 7/10/09

The Devil in the Belfry (short story) - 7/17/09

Morella (short story) - 7/24/09

Bridal Ballad (poem) - 7/31/09

Mesmeric Revelation (short story) - 8/14/09

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (short story) - 8/21/09

The Sleeper (poem) - 8/28/09

Eldorado (poem) - 9/4/09

The Spectacles (short story) - 9/11/09

The Premature Burial (short story) - 9/25/09

The Haunted Palace (poem) - 10/2/09

Some Words With a Mummy (short story) - 10/9/09

Ulalume (poem) - 10/16/09

The Pit and the Pendulum (short story) - 10/23/09

The Raven (poem) - 10/30/09

William Wilson (short story) - 11/6/09

The Oblong Box (short story) - 11/13/09

The Bells (poem) - 11/20/09

The Purloined Letter (short story) - 12/4/09

Ligeia (short story) - 12/11/09

X-ing a Paragrab (short story) - 12/18/09

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket - 1/8/10

The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether - 1/15/10

Merely this and nothing more,
K

The Book List Meme: Characters I Love to Hate

This is the second of Rebecca's Book List Memes.  I couldn't think of a list for the first one but this one was fairly easy.  So without further ado ...

Three Characters I Love To Hate

1. Lydia Gwilt from Armadale by Wilkie Collins

2. William Collins from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

3. Phoebus Daunt from The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox

Miss Gwilt was the obvious choice here.  No character is more odious than she -- but in such a delicious way!  Mister Collins is revolting in every way possible and you can't help but smile every time he is insulted to his face.  And Phoebus Daunt -- oh how easy it is to hate what he makes Edward Glyver eventually do.

I love to hate you ... and you ... and you,

K

"Dearest Kate, It is dreadfully flat here since you have been gone ..."

I knew from the dedication page of Sorcery & Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot that I would love this book --

The authors wish to dedicate this book to Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Ellen Kushner, all of whom, in their several ways, inspired us to create it.

And the authors, Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, have indeed created a young adult novel that is part Jane Austen, part Georgette Heyer and a bit of Diana Wynne Jones. I am in love with this book and can hardly wait to get my hands on the two remaining books in the series.

Written in an epistolary style as letters between cousins Kate and Cecelia, this is a tale like many others but also like no other.  It is 1817 and Kate and her beautiful younger sister Georgina have gone to London for the season while Cecelia has been forced to remain at home due to a bit of trouble she got in recently.  Though apart, the young women soon get entangled in the same messy situation -- a spat between warring wizards.  Due to Kate and Cecy's quick instincts and complete honesty with each other, they may just be the ones to foil all the intentions of the more skilled magicians -- and of course they each might also find love.

I think this was a fantastically written story and it was created in a unique way.  The two authors started this as an exercise called a Letter Game where each author takes on a persona and they exchange letters, creating a story without having ever discussed a plot.  Once they got going with this exercise, they fell in love with Kate and Cecelia and ended up with a complex and compelling story and enough writing to just do some slight editing and turn it into a book.  I think it is wonderful that each letter writer has its own author, therefore giving them distinctly different voices.  However, they also really come across as cousins and friends and are extremely likable.  The book does indeed have the period details and characters (the vicar, the titled neighbor, the spinster aunt) of Jane Austen, the convoluted but inevitable romances of Georgette Heyer and the light and easily accepted magic of Diana Wynne Jones.  I adored this book and look forward to the continuing stories of Kate and Cecelia.

Enchanted by this story,
K


Support our site and buy Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot on Amazon or find it at your local library. We borrowed our copy from the library but will be buying our own copy soon.

"It was bitter cold, the air electric with all that had not happened yet."

I almost quit reading A Reliable Wife after the first fifty pages or so. I thought the transitions between character stories were choppy and unbalanced and the backstory seemed repetitive. The characters weren't likable so I didn't really care what happened to them. I wasn't sure why Robert Goolrick's book was a bestseller at all -- and then I got caught up in the story and pushed through to the end.

Ralph Truitt is a wealthy Wisconsin businessman who is missing only one thing in his life -- a wife. He had one twenty years before but she died and Truitt never remarried. Now he feels the need for the closeness of marriage in his life so he places an ad in a major newspaper -- "Country businessman seeks reliable wife". Among the responses is one from Catherine Land which starts "I am a simple honest woman". Along with a homely photograph, Catherine's letters make her seem like the perfect choice for Truitt. He is disappointed then when she arrives and is not, in fact, homely but rather beautiful. He would be even more disappointed if he knew she had a small bottle of arsenic in her bag and plans to kill Truitt for his money.

I definitely think the writing improved as the book progressed which was why I was able to stick with it. The characters became more complex though I'm not sure I could say that they improved. Still, it was enough of a transition to make the book readable again. For me, the book was really redeemed only within the last few pages. I liked Goolrick's method of closure to this complex and dark story and my impression of the entire novel was raised in the final moments of reading.

But what really intrigued me was his one page tribute at the end of his story to a book called Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy. This book inspired Goolrick's story with its portrayal of the bleak and violent Wisconsin winters. This was the part of the novel that brought the sensational plot back down to Earth -- although to no Earth where I would want to live. Still, it is the specificity of the setting that really makes this an American Gothic tale. As you have probably noticed, I have very mixed feelings about this book so I will leave the decision to read it or not fully up to each of you!

Determined to live my life in sunshine,
K


Support our site and buy A Reliable Wife on Amazon or find it at your local library. We received our copy unsolicited from the publisher.

A Moment of Silence

Photograph by Moneta Sleet, Jr., the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize or indeed to be given any award for journalism.  He received the award for his photograph of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s widow at his funeral.

MLK

lyrics by U2

Sleep

Sleep tonight

And may your dreams

Be realized

If the thunder cloud

Passes rain

So let it rain

Rain down on him

So let it be

So let it be

In memory of him,

K

Bookish Pet Peeve #1: "By the author of ..."

I'm not really sure how many Bookish Pet Peeves I have but I thought I would start this irregularly published feature for some fun ranting time.  Today's discussion -- "By the author of ..."

I don't have a problem with a lesser-known previous work by an author having this sort of labeling on the cover after the author has a bestseller.  It may inspire readers to pick up something in an author's back catalogue.  And of course future books by the same author or books continuing in the same series are fair game.  Yesterday, however, I encountered an instance when I found that I don't appreciate this labeling.  I went to start a book I have checked out from the library and it has "By the authors of ..." on the cover.  I panicked, thinking I had missed the first book in the series (since this is a pairing of two authors specifically for this series).  I quickly went online to look up the mentioned title only to find that it is the second book in the series that is mentioned on the cover of the first book in the series.  How exactly is that helpful?

Bookish Pet Peeve Number One:  Book covers that have a later book in the same series called out on the cover with a "By the author of ..."


Have you encountered this before?  Is this something that would bother you, my dear readers?


Paving the road to cranky old woman,
K

Starred Saturdays: week of January 10

I hope that this finds everyone well this week.  It's been a tough one with the tragedy in Haiti and I hope that everyone is doing what they can to help.  If you aren't sure which organization to donate to, you can visit CharityNavigator.org to find out what each group is doing in the country and how reliable they are.

Tif of Tif Talks Books has launched a new site, Literary Locals.  She needs help compiling the locations of authors so that she can create a directory for readers who want to support local authors.  There is a short survey that you take to submit each author.

An Irish book publisher and a bookselling chain have joined forces with breakfast cereal maker Kellogg's to give books to children instead of toys when they buy cereal. (via Jacket Copy)

The shortlists are out for the 2009 Cybils -- awards given by the kidlit blogging community to children's and young adult books. (via PBS Booklights)

Here's a piece on why more books in translation don't come to the American market.  It's quite a comprehensive analysis.  (via The Millions)

Oh, you knew it was coming ... Android Karenina.  June 2010. (via EW Shelf Life)

Wondering where your job ranks in a list of 200 jobs?  If you are a librarian (number 46 on the list), maybe you should reconsider and become a parole officer (number 29) instead.  And our author friends are in real trouble at number 74. (via io9)

If you have a LOT of free time (I'm not kidding ... you need a ridiculous amount of free time), check out Strange Maps.  They are the source of our picture of the week -- a laundry South America. (via Design For Mankind)

Thinking and acting globally,

K

Poe Fridays: The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether

Welcome to our last Poe Fridays post!  For my final short story, I decided to go with a slightly humorous one -- The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.  If you would like to, you can read it here.

A young man is traveling through France and decides to stop at a private asylum for a tour.  He is excited to see the methods in action of this particular facility -- the so-called "system of soothing".  This is a method where the inmates are given free reign and are indulged and even encouraged in their lunacies.  He is a bit disappointed when he finds that the facility's method has been recently changed but is curious nevertheless.  The director offers to give him a tour after dinner but the young man becomes suspicious during dinner that he may already be on the tour as the other people at the table are a bit odd.  He eventually finds out that he doesn't even know the half of it.

This was a great story to wrap up my journey with Poe.  It was funny with a good dose of crazy.  So, be sure and leave a comment and let me know what Poe you chose to read this week!  Next week will have a summary post with links to all of the readings in case you are curious about anything we read.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Poe,
K

Book v. Movie: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

In a slightly different format, here is a new Book versus Movie installment.

Title: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Format: Book, 2-D

Main Characters: Grandpa (storyteller), Mom, Henry (brother) and I (narrator)

Town of Chewandswallow: Fictional

Food Weather: Natural occurrence

Disaster Plan: Evacuate town and move to a place with supermarkets

Title: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Format: Movie, 3-D

Main Characters: Flint Lockwood (inventor), Sam Sparks (weather girl), Earl Devereaux (cop), Mayor Shelbourne (mayor), Steve (monkey)

Island of Chewandswallow: Real

Food Weather: Science experiment gone wrong

Disaster Plan: Take a flying car into the science experiment turned meatball in the sky, fight evil giant roasted chickens and spray liquid shoes onto out-of-control food machine

So, obviously we will call the movie "loosely based" on the book.  They share the same title and, well, a giant pancake on the school.

Verdict: These two are so different that it's impossible to compare them.  The book is a classic and should be in every home library.  The film is a fun and silly story that should be watched at least to enjoy the voice of Mr. T (the cop).

Z says mom wants ice cream to fall from the sky ... he's right!

K and Z

Support our site and buy Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (the book) and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (the movie) on Amazon or find them at your local library.  We own a copy of the book and are borrowing the movie from Netflix.

"Oh yes, we're here."

I am normally not influenced to read a book by its having been considered for or having won awards.  I am happy when a book I have already enjoyed receives an award but it doesn't usually change whether I will choose a book in the first place.  That being said, award-nominated books do tend to gain a certain visibility and clout and when I was offered Simon Mawer's Booker-nominated novel, The Glass Room, I was definitely curious.  I'm happy to have given this book a chance.

The titular Glass Room is part of the Landauer House, built in an unnamed Czechoslovakian city for Viktor and Liesel Landauer in the 1920s.  Viktor is the owner of a very successful motor car company and is also a non-practicing Jew.  Liesel is a German and a Christian who sees nothing wrong with marrying the man who she fancied as a young teen.  When they go to Venice on their honeymoon, they happen to meet Rainer von Abt, a very modern architect who offers to build them a dream house.  What he gives them is much more -- a home of transparency and light.  However, the house also masks the secrets of its owners and leaves them visible ten years later when the Nazi Germans come to Czechoslovakia.  Though the Landauers flee, the house remains and lives its own life through the times of the Nazis and the Communists.

The writing in this book is very simple and clear -- like the Landauer House and its Glass Room.  The most poignant writing of the entire book, though, is in the Afterword where Mauer explains that the German concept of "room" is not a single space with four walls and a function but is more than that.

 "It is spacious, vague, precise, conceptual, literal, all those things.  From the capacity of the coffee cup in one's hand, to the room one is sitting in to sip from it, to the district of the city in which the cafe itself stands, to the very void above our heads ..."

This description could really also apply to the novel.  Though the story seems straight-forward--the story of a marriage and a house--there are much deeper layers and more space in the story.  Some parts made me uncomfortable, some sad and others made me ill.  And yet, there was also a light that penetrated through the story -- a hope for the survival of a people, for the happiness of individuals and for the advancement of the civilized world.

The story begins with Liesel's return to the house thirty years after abandoning it so some things are already expected but the strength of the story is in seeing how the details unfold.  Based on Mawer's writing in this book, I will definitely be looking into his others.

Seeing the light past the darkness,
K


Support our site and buy The Glass Room on Amazon or find it at your local library.  We received our copy from the publisher.

Show Us Some Comment Love

Hooray! It's Delurking Day (at least according to some people -- there doesn't actually seem to be anything official about it)! So while I'm out making myself seen on some blogs that I quietly read, use this chance to leave us a comment letting us know you're there.

I would love to get your name (or online alias), blog address (if you have one -- so that we can come visit you too!) and if you're feeling up to it, a book recommendation for K or Z based on what you know of us through the blog.

If a recommendation doesn't come to mind, just tell us some place in the world that you wish you were right now.  Although we can't complain too much about the unseasonably warm weather in Seattle, we're voting for this place ... Laie Point on Oahu, Hawaii.  (photo credit to my brother, B)

Happy commenting,
K and Z

LOTR Read-Along: The Hobbit Intro Post

I'm very excited to be participating in the Lord of the Rings Readalong over the next four months!  I believe that the last time I read the books was right before the first Peter Jackson film came out in 2001.  That was my second reading of the four books.  The first time was in college in the early 90s because T (my boyfriend at the time, now my husband) had a set of the books and I was curious.  Those, in fact, will be the books that I am reading again for a third time now!  Eva, the host this month of The Hobbit reading, asked for a picture of the version each of us is reading so here is mine ... a little blurry because I took it on the iPhone.

These appear to have been printed in 1986.  The edges are yellow (apparently on purpose as they are uniformly bright) and The Fellowship of the Rings is the only one that is a little worse for wear.  It probably spent time in T's backpack at some point.

Although I didn't read these books until college, I watched the old films many times as a kid -- the 1977 animated Hobbit and, less frequently, the 1978 Lord of the Rings movie.  Anyone who grew up in Southern California in the early 1980s couldn't have missed these since they were shown on many Saturday afternoons each year.

So, yeah ... I love Bilbo, am terribly creeped out by Gollum and love to imagine Smaug in all of his glittery splendor and I am definitely going to read this straight through -- probably in a week or two when I get some ARCs out of the way.  Are any of you participating or have you read these before?

Booking passage to Middle Earth,
K

Starred Saturdays: week of January 3

Are we all settled back in after the holiday break?  I'm glad to have everyone returning to their blogs because the reader was a bit sparse for a while there!

There is a television book club starting up in the U.K., non-imaginatively called The TV Book Club.  I wonder if this sort of show would ever even be considered in the U.S. on a national network.  Yeah, probably not. (via Jacket Copy)

The answer to my previous question is really in this example ... when we in the U.S. bother to put things other than unhealthy snack foods in vending machines, we might be able to manage a national book club.  (via Shelf Talk)


It's not too late to get in on the Lord of the Rings Read-along -- starting with The Hobbit this month and continuing through the trilogy over the next three months.  My starting post will probably go up tomorrow.


I loved last year's Top 100 Picture Books Poll (here are our Top Ten, eight of which made it to the list) at A Fuse #8 Production.  Now Betsy has started the Top 100 Children's Fictional Chapter Books Poll.  We're already working on our list!  Personal top ten lists are due in to her by January 31 and entries must be for chapter books appropriate for ages twelve and under.


It's CES (Consumer Entertainment something) Week in Las Vegas and the talk of the show are e-book readers -- being talked about here and here among other places.  I'm still waiting and hoping the Apple announcement later this month is for a media tablet because I'm not a big fan of single use devices.  If I'm going to get a gadget, I want it to be good for maybe books, music and movies.


Stereotyping People By Their Favorite Author? Funny!  My favorite?  "Richard Dawkins: People who have their significant other grab them under the table in order to shut them up whenever someone else at a dinner says something absolutely ridiculous and wrong."  (via Chronicle Books Blog)


If you have an iPhone and you like to go to book events, try out LibraryThing's new Local Books app.  I think it's only so-so at this point because a lot of indie bookstores haven't taken ownership of their locations yet and posted events.  But I think that the fact that the app exists now will get most of them onboard.  I expect this app to be awesome in about six months.  (article about it at Jacket Copy)


And my visual gift of the week, photographs of man-made lightning by Hiroshi Sugimoto!  The rest of his portfolio is stunning as well. (via io9)

S is for Saturday and sleeping in,
K

Poe Fridays: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

Welcome back to Poe Fridays. For this week's discussion we tackled Poe's longest story, the novella-length The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. You can read it here.

So, I have to say that this was a lot less painful than I was led to believe it would be. It got a bit silly toward the end and I skimmed a bit when he started getting too technical on cargo holds or bird rookeries but, overall, it was just an adventure story. Our main character is a young man who sets out to sea against the wishes of his family. The gist of the story is that he would have been better off staying at home. Just about any calamity that can befall one at sea, happens to our poor lad.

On a tangent, I was interested to read that one of the boy's ships chose to look for the Aurora Islands. I learned about them when I read Hippolyte's Island this past year -- the story of a man who travels alone to the islands, finds them and then returns home to write about his journey. I didn't know that they were an actual set of phantom islands.

With next week being our last Friday before Poe's birthday and therefore our last Poe Friday (although I will post a summary of everything I read on the following Friday), I am offering it as a free day -- choose whatever Poe poem or story you would like to read and write about. Maybe there was something that we have already read that you loved and want to re-read? Or have you just been following along and would like to choose one thing to read before this ends? Perhaps I've even skipped one of your favorite Poe writings and you want to remedy it now. Whatever the case, I would love to see some participation next Friday for our final celebration of this great author. And if you were wondering, I haven't decided yet what I'm going to read but I think it might be a re-read!

Choosing to stick to dry land,
K

New Release: The Swan Thieves

After loving The Historian a few years back, I couldn't wait for Elizabeth Kostova's next novel. Though it is about quite a different subject (Dracula versus Impressionist painters), I enjoyed The Swan Thieves as well. This is a novel with multiple narratives, one in the past and one in the present. While some other recent novels that used this technique have suffered from one weaker story, I felt that there was more of a balance of quality in this novel.

Andrew Marlow is a psychiatrist and amateur painter who has taken on a new patient as a favor to a friend. The man, semi-renowned painter Robert Oliver, was caught right as he was attacking an Impressionist canvas at the National Gallery of Art. Though Marlow's talent lies in getting people to talk, Oliver's decision to not speak a word foils his treatment. Instead, Marlow has to figure out for himself what events led up to Oliver's art-defiling outburst. Through interviews, research and a bit of luck, he not only reveals the demons haunting Robert Oliver but also solves a mystery from the past.

Told mainly through letters and interviews, I enjoyed the flow of this novel. I thought the story in the past was strong and touching. I haven't mentioned it in the summary because I think it is best experienced without any spoilers. All I will say is that it is the story of a female artist in late nineteenth century Paris. I thought the language and actions seemed authentic. I also thought the writing in the modern story was strong although some elements of the plot were not. It was hard to believe that a professional psychiatrist would realize that his actions were unhealthy and most likely unethical and yet continue with his choices. There was nothing he did that was terrible but I just found myself annoyed in a few places. Overall, though, I thought this was a good read but not as strong as The Historian. I will definitely be looking forward to Kostova's next novel and hoping that the wait is less than five years long this time!

Remembering to stop and stare at the canvases,
K


Support our site and buy The Swan Thieves on Amazon or find it at your local library. We received a review copy from the publisher.

Comics for Fun and Learning

A few weeks ago, Z and I went to the library and ended up with an early reader level comic book.  He loved it so much that I looked for more this last time we went and found that the first one is part of a great series called Toon Books. From their website --

We are thrilled to introduce our new collection of TOON Books from the Little Lit Library. TOON Books represent a whole new approach to books for emerging readers—a rethinking as radical as the first time Theodor Geisel put a hat on a cat.

TOON Books are the first high-quality comics designed for children ages four and up. Each book in the collection is just right for reading to the youngest child but perhaps more remarkable: this is the first collection ever designed to offer newly-emerging readers comics they can read themselves. Each TOON book has been vetted by educators to ensure that the language and the narratives will nurture young minds. Our books feature original stories and characters created by veteran children’s book authors, renowned cartoonists and new talents, all applying their extraordinary skills to fascinate young children with clearly told tales that will welcome them to the magic of reading.

At the K-1 level, we ended up with Jack and the Box by renowned artist Art Spiegelman.  Jack is a little bunny whose parents give him a box as a gift.  He's startled when a it turns out to be a jack-in-the-box.  This is no ordinary Jack, though ... it's Zack, a wacky, sproingy clown who takes things literally and likes to cause trouble.  It's a bit reminiscent of The Cat in the Hat except without the Cat's oblivious good nature.  Jack has to learn to watch what he says because Zack just might make the worst of it!  By the end, though, everything is okay and back to normal.

Z liked the art on this one but I'm not sure he really connected with the story.  We'll try it again another day!

From the Grade 1-2 set, we got Benny and Penny in Just Pretend by Geoffrey Hayes.  I saw this book last year when I volunteered in the school library but I never really read it.  Benny and Penny are mouse siblings -- Benny is the older brother and Penny the younger sister.  Benny is out having a fun day playing pretend pirates but Penny disrupts his game.  So Benny offers to play hide and seek with Penny but really takes off, leaving her alone for a long time.  Eventually, he feels guilty, goes and finds her and sees what value she brings when they play together.

Z liked this one but, since he is an only child, I don't think that he really understood why Benny was being mean to Penny.  This would be a fantastic choice for warring siblings though -- both the older and the younger.  There are lessons about playing together, not being a pest and not using mean words to each other.  The text is very simple in this one and the drawings are detailed and interesting on their own.

Finally, the one that started it all for us (and happens to be at the Grade 2-3 level) is Otto's Orange Day by Frank Cammuso & Jay Lynch.  Z loves this one!  Otto's favorite color is orange (as is Z's).  He colors things orange, sings songs about orange and plays with orange toys.  One day, he gets a package from a distant aunt and inside is a small lamp.  Otto rubs the lamp and out comes the genie -- offering only one wish to Otto.  He thinks about wishing for something orange but goes one better -- wishing that everything could be orange!  At first he loves it but then he realizes that not everything is better when it's orange and even the color loses some of its lustre when everything else is the same.

Z thought this was a hilarious idea!  I wonder if he had thought about everything being orange before this.  This one is a bit longer and is broken into three small "chapters" but since it's a comic, it's really not too taxing for younger kids.  The artwork is amazing in this one and I have a feeling that it's going to be a fight to take it back to the library.  I may end up having to buy Z a copy of his own!

I honestly did not ever consider getting Z to read comics but these have great stories just like most picture books and I think they do a great job of keeping his attention with the multiple scenes per page.  We aren't going to go to an all comic reading plan but we can definitely put them into the rotation!

Enjoying pictures that are worth at least a few words,
K and Z


Support our site and buy Jack and the Box, Benny and Penny: Just Pretend and Otto's Orange Day on Amazon or find them at your local library. We borrowed all of these from the library.

New Release: The Magicians

I have had this book sitting on the table waiting for review for a month. I can see what Lev Grossman was trying to accomplish with The Magicians but I think that the book is mis-marketed. I also think that this novel was lacking one important thing -- a sense of magic.

Quentin is a high school senior, on his way to an alumni interview for college. When he arrives to find the interviewer dead and a mysterious paramedic hands him an envelope, there is no going back to a normal life. He chases a piece of paper down an alley and somehow ends up on the grounds of Brakebills College, a college of magic. As Quentin tries to learn spells and find what his magical strengths are, he also has to grow as a person and decide which parts of his youth to abandon and which to preserve.

I'm not sure exactly what to say about this book. I went into it hoping for something magical and ran into a depressing world of wasted talent and disappointment. I kept reading because I wanted to know what happened but then wished I could take it back at the end and not know. This was billed as an "adult Harry Potter" but there was none of the joy or hope that were present in that series. There was no battle of good and evil -- just the descent into mediocrity of a group of students with incredible potential. It also incorporates a large amount of a Narnia-like lore but in a bleak and terrifying way. The only adult thing about this book is the liberal sprinkling of profanity, liquor, drugs and sex. The characters themselves are immature and selfish.

I finished my reading of this book with a profound sense of sadness -- both for the characters in the book and because I didn't find what I was looking for. I read in an interview that Grossman wants to make this into a trilogy and I really couldn't say if I would read two more books set in this world or not. This book comes out in paperback in April.

Thinking that magic and joy are possible for all ages,
K


Support our site and buy The Magicians on Amazon or find it at your local library. We bought our own copy.

New Release: The Dark Matter Directive

Some books have an optimal place and time for reading them. I can tell you that this new release, The Dark Matter Directive by D. Charles Wilson, should not be read while you are sitting alone in your car in a dark airport waiting lot on a rainy night. Though I was slightly traumatized by this bad choice, I couldn't close the book. The story is compelling and this is a good YA horror story.

I'm going to use the Amazon product description here because this is a complicated book that I'm having trouble summarizing!

When fourteen-year-old Eric Jessing wakes up one morning and finds the bathroom mirror has turned an endless black, he's clued in that things are about to get very interesting. A string of frightening and unexplainable occurrences follow that lead their dad, Matt, to feel his sons need protecting. After he ushers them out of the house, he calls a local psychic hoping for a sympathetic ear and a way to stop what seems like psychic phenomena. Unfortunately, what Matt learns is that his kids were born with a special gift: the ability to draw in and deflect dark spiritual energy like a pair of paranormal lightning rods. Worse, a particularly nasty entity called `The Red Horseman' has noticed, and sets out to absorb their ability. Directed to a renowned physicist and bookseller named Harker Jeffries, the boys learn that a secret society of children like themselves exist all over the world and have been at war with each other for thousands of years.

This book was originally intended to be the epitome of adult horror but then the author decided to take out the strong violence and reformulate it into a YA horror story. It is certainly successful as that with a real life or death situation for these brothers. One problem I had with the book though is that there were too many plot threads, too many directions, that were thin and could have been more fully developed. Some parts left me wanting a longer book but, honestly, this was about the length limit that I could stomach. I don't mind aliens and creatures and all sorts of other science-fiction darkness but I always have a problem when it comes to true evil. Yet this had enough of a mix of science and the supernatural for me to give it a chance and mostly enjoy it. Next time though I'm going to save a book like this for a sunny, summer day!

Moving back into the light,
K


Support our site and buy The Dark Matter Directive on Amazon or find it at your local library. We received our copy from a publicist.