New Release: The Quick

In late-Victorian London, there are all sorts of people -- scholars, shopkeepers, beggars, and, well, vampires. The Quick by Lauren Owen explores the stories of both the hunters and the hunted, the Quick (live people) and the un-dead.

I wanted to love this book based on the published summary but that summary didn't mention one main thing -- that it was a vampire story. This wasn't bad on its own but it made the book sound quirkier and more mysterious than it ended up being. Vampires aren't exactly mysterious anymore. I thought it was a good story but not a stellar one. Owen's love of all things Victorian and her scholarship certainly came through and I do hope that she decides to write about this time period again -- just not about vampires.

Hanging out in the sun,
K

New Release: The Best of Connie Willis

The book that motivated my Short Story Summer project was the brilliant The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories. It's a 450+ page book with only 10 stories and a couple of speeches. But it is a collection of some of the best science-fiction out there and each story is followed by an Afterword that gives us insight into why Willis chose to write them. The common factor? She wrote each of them out of love for the subjects, love for people, love for words.

My favorite story was Fire Watch, a time travel story from my favorite alternate history series (that of Blackout and All Clear) that I had been waiting a while to read ... until I read The Winds of Marble Arch and my mind was blown. It's the type of story that you can't really describe except to say that it is a complete fantasy that is also entirely believable. This will be a collection that I return to regularly.

Above and beyond,
K

Summer Reading, 2014 Style

Summer is almost upon us (Z is done with school after the 19th) and so my thoughts have turned to what I plan to read this summer. I'll be reading Moby Dick until the middle of June but I obviously get to choose some other books to read around and after it. Looking at my shelves, I have decided on ...

Short Story Summer

These are the books of short stories that are sitting patiently on my TBR shelves, some for longer than others. I figure that they're easy to fit in around summer programs and swim lessons.

The Time Traveler's Almanac featuring short stories and portions of stories about time travel, including just about all of the great science-fiction writers ever.

Queen Victoria's Book of Spells, a collection of historical fantasy.

Unnatural Creatures, sixteen stories about fantastical creatures, curated by Neil himself.

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman -- one of the couple of books by him that I haven't read yet.

The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime which promises to expose me to new Victorian authors, hopefully some who are good.

The Mammoth Book of Dickensian Whodunnits and The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits which are pretty self-explanatory.

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, a collection of her takes on fairy tales.

Unexpected Magic by Diana Wynne Jones, which I've read the first five stories of already.

Review-o-Rama

I'll also be working through a few ARCs of books that are coming out in June and July. Some of these are pretty hefty so I need to get going soon!

The Quick by Lauren Owen

The Sea Garden by Deborah Lawrenson

The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

The Visitors by Sally Beauman

The Fortune Hunter by Daisy Goodwin

I'm also going to try and read a book or two for The Estella Project, Season 2. The booklist is up and a few possible reads and re-reads are standing out. For each read (up to three), there's an entry to win a nice prize!

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (re-read)

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez (re-read)

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

Finally, my summer reads for the 100 Chapter Books Project are

Half Magic by Edward Eager

A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

Holes by Louis Sachar

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

If you would like to join me for any of these projects or books, please do! I just hope that it's a nice sunny summer so that my lawn dries out and I can lounge on it as often as I like. And yes, I realize that I just listed 24 books to read this summer. I'm aiming high!

What are your summer reading plans?

Dreaming of iced tea and sunglasses,

K

A Three-Story Trip Through London

Last summer I read eight books that all featured London as part of a personal project to clear books off my TBR and to explore more deeply a city that I love despite never having been there (yet). This spring I've read three more London-centric books that are seriously tempting me to celebrate London Town again this summer.

First, there was Ten Second Staircase, fourth in the Bryant and May series by Christopher Fowler. This is the series that inspired my project last year and I seriously adore it. I have to force myself not to read it too quickly or else I will run out of books far sooner than I would like.

This story is a modern one that includes some details about the division between the kids and scholars of a posh boys' school and the lives and motivations of those less-privileged people living in the estate on the adjoining property. It's not the main focus but I found it to be some of the most interesting bits of this book. The mystery was a good one too (of course) and Bryant and May were their standard non-conforming selves. We even get more of May's granddaughter April in this one. I'll probably pick up book five pretty soon because I just can't resist.

Next was the rather unique The Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stuart, the author of The Tower, The Zoo, and the Tortoise. It delves into the lives of a host of interesting characters who reside in what was called a "grace-and-favor" situation in Hampton Court Palace at the end of the nineteenth century. This was a way for the Queen to grant a dignified living to those upper-class people who had found themselves fortuneless for one reason or another, mainly widows. Though Mink (officially Indian Princess Alexandrina) is young and vibrant, her father the Maharaja has died and she is left with nothing and is therefore grateful to be invited to reside at Hampton Court. She is accompanied by her servant and they settle in nicely, until they find themselves in a bit of trouble after a murder occurs.

Some parts of this story were a bit too coincidental and others a bit too cute. The main romance was silly but funny. But the period details and research were so well done and there was a bit of "girl power"involved in the story which helped make it a really fun read over all.

And finally, I just finished John Rogers' This Other London: Adventures in the Overlooked City. This new release presents a series of ten essays covering ten urban walks that Rogers took around the periphery of London in the last year or so. I really can't adequately describe how fascinating this book was. He brought together history, folklore, geography, pop culture and politics in an amazingly accessible way. By the end of the book, I wanted nothing more than to follow in his footsteps and to explore this great city for myself.

It really is all I can do not to launch a repeat project this summer but I have something else in mind to help with my TBR so I guess I'll just have to sneak a little London in here and there.

Squirreling away my pennies to trade for pounds,
K

Kickoff: Moby Dick: A Whale of a Read-Along

I'm joining Adam of Roof Beam Reader for the next six weeks or so in a read-along of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. This is one of those books that is probably fated to sit on my shelves forever unless I join an event like this. I'm not sure if I'll be posting here along the way or just sharing my thoughts over on Adam's posts. But if you're in the mood to join up, there's definitely still time to get going. He's set us a pace of about 15 pages a day. I'm not sure what that is in nautical miles.

Taking the plunge,
K