RIP Read #15: New Release: What Alice Knew

I'm definitely on the fence when it comes to historical fictions that use real-life people as characters.  When it is done well, I think it is a fantastic way to make history accessible.  When it's done poorly--for example, taking too many liberties with facts and personality--it's infuriating.  And then there are the novels that take historical figures and put them into entirely fictitious situations.  I'm on the fence with these too!  The newly released What Alice Knew by Paula Marantz Cohen thankfully falls on the greener side of the fence.

Henry James (the author) and his invalid sister Alice live in London.  When the Jack the Ripper killings start escalating, their brother William is invited over from the States by Scotland Yard and asked to use his psychological expertise in identifying the killer.  His siblings can't resist the opportunity to join him in the hunt for someone who may be in their own social circle.  They each use their unique viewpoints to lead one another toward a shocking discovery.

This was an interesting introduction to the Family James.  I knew nothing about any of their personal lives before reading this.  I, of course, ended up doing a bit of research during my reading and found nothing to upset me which is always a good sign!  The actual story was alright but didn't completely grab me.  Still, it was an entertaining read and a different viewpoint on the Ripper story than I have read before.  I'm more interested in finding out more about the James family and will be looking for other works about them.

Convincing my siblings to join me in a bit of sleuthing,
K


Support our site and buy What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper on Amazon or find it at your local library.  We received a copy for review from the publisher.

New Release: The Tower, The Zoo and The Tortoise

As a break from my towering RIP stacks, I decided to squeeze in a read of Julia Stuart's new novel, The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise (Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo in the U.K.).  I was a bit hesitant when I saw that Teresa quit reading it halfway through because we have mostly similar tastes.  However, this will be one where we will have to disagree because I thought it was charming and I finished it with a smile on my face.

Balthazar Jones is a Beefeater at the Tower of London.  He's been having trouble caring about his job ever since his son died and his marriage is also suffering.  He's not sure how to turn things around when a surprise job lands in his lap -- the Queen wants to relocate the animals that she has received as gifts from various heads of state from the London Zoo back to the Tower, recreating the menagerie that once existed there.  Balthazar is assigned to be Keeper of the animals based solely on the fact that he is the owner of the world's oldest tortoise, Mrs. Cook, who is one-hundred and eighty-one years old.  While following Balthazar's adventures in zookeeping, we also spend time with some of the other residents of the Tower and experience many highs and lows with them.

This is a quirky but thoughtful novel.  It had a few flaws (for example, repetitive descriptions of locations and items) that I'm hoping were corrected in editing.  The details of life working at the Tower of London and also the London Underground Lost Property Office (where Balthazar's wife works) were interesting though presumably exaggerated a bit!  And while there were certainly things that seemed a bit too convenient or not very likely, I was able to suspend my disbelief and truly enjoy this story.  It was the perfect escape from my recent dark reads.

Sympathizing with life in damp quarters,
K


Support our site and buy The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise on Amazon or find it at your local library.  We received an advance reading copy from the publisher but plan to acquire a final copy of our own.

Away for the Day

photo by K

We're off at a wedding today so you'll just have to make do with this spider for company.

Enjoying a little time out of the office,

K and Z

RIP Reads #12, 13 & 14: Scary is the New Fun

Right at the beginning of September, I went and grabbed a few Halloween books from the library before all of the good ones were taken.  We ended up with a good bunch, starting with The Haunted Ghoul Bus, written by Lisa Trumbauer and illustrated by Jannie Ho.

A young boy, dressed up for Halloween, is waiting outside for the school bus.  He's not really paying attention and ends up jumping on the Ghoul Bus instead!  At first he's terrified by the mummy driver and the monster children--werewolves, vampires, skeletons, witches and more--but then he notices that they are having fun just like he and his friends do on the way to school.  Eventually he joins in the fun and ends up dancing and telling stories to his new spooky friends.  He's only disappointed when the driver won't let him off at the Ghoul School!  He gets taken back to his own school where he tells his friends of his amazing adventure.

This is a really cute book with wonderful illustrations.  The characters are cute with just a touch of the gruesome (as you can see by the worms crawling out between the mummy's bandages on the cover!).  The pages are thick and have raised images that are glossy on a matte background which makes this book seem just a little bit more special.  I was also surprised by the length of this one.  At twenty-four pages it certainly seemed a bit longer than your average picture book but was well worth the extra time!

 Our next choice was the very cute A Very Brave Witch by Allison McGhee and illustrated by Harry Bliss.  A young witch tells the story of how her community is terrified of humans and all of the unnatural things they do.  They don't wear pointy hats, they are afraid to fly and they aren't green!  Eeew!  But the witch girl is still curious about humans and she heads out on Halloween night to find some.  Not only does she find that humans aren't scary but that they aren't half bad as friends either.

This is a fun story about judging others for yourself and not believing everything you've been told.  It's a great social lesson told in a non-standard way -- as a Halloween tale!  The illustrations are very engaging and there are some jokes for the adults in there too -- like a copy of Munch's The Scream on the witches' wall and a display of "human politician masks" featuring Nixon and Carter.  Too silly!

Finally, we turned to the current favorite around the house, Spongebob Squarepants, and endured The Big Halloween Scare.  This story is taken directly from an episode of the show so Z was quite excited.

Spongebob is almost ready to head out on Halloween but he doesn't have a costume.  He wants to be really scary and Patrick suggests he wear a ghost costume.  Spongebob puts on a sheet and some wooden clogs, goes out and soon finds that his costume isn't quite as terrifying as he had hoped it would be.  Eventually he unwittingly scares everyone in a really gross way.

As you can probably guess, there isn't really a point to this book.  It's just a bit of fun for a holiday that has no real point any more either!

For next week, we are planning to share a special book -- one of my childhood favorites that I was able to buy for Z this year.  He absolutely loves it already!

Sharing the scary,
K and Z


Support our site and buy The Haunted Ghoul Bus, A Very Brave Witch, and The Big Halloween Scare on Amazon or find them at your local library.  We borrowed our copies from the library.

RIP Read #11: New Release: Stories

Quick review today -- I'm swamped and falling behind in blog and life tasks!

Oh, how I wanted to love this collection of Stories, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio.  But of the 27 stories, I skipped ten of them after reading anywhere from the first page to the first half of the story.  Of the remaining 17, I thought one deserved a 5/5 rating and four deserved a 4/5.  That's only five stories that I really enjoyed and would want to read again.

The highlights were a story by Gaiman called The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains, Samantha's Diary by Diana Wynne Jones and stories by three new to me authors -- Carolyn Parkhurst, Tim Powers and Kurt Andersen.  In the honorable mention category, Joanne Harris and Kat Howard's stories were strong threes.

There's plenty in this volume if you're looking for RIP short stories.  You can read about vampires, serial killers, evil twins, murder and more.  I found the overall collection to be a bit depressing and not extremely original.  In fact, there was one story that I could have sworn that I had read before but I think it was just extremely similar to one of the recent flash fiction pieces I read.  However, there will definitely be readers that look for something different in a short story than I do that will probably find much more to enjoy in this book than I did.  Please don't avoid it solely on the fact that I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to!

Keeping it short for the shorts,
K


Support our site and buy Stories: All-New Tales on Amazon or find it at your local library.  We borrowed a copy from the library.

RIP Read #10 and RIP Film #2: Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief

I'm finding it impossible to think of any other way to write this post than as a big fat rant.  I'm sure any of you that have read the book and seen the film will agree.  Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief, first book in the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series, is smart and fun and a great read.  The film is complete crap.

If you aren't familiar with the series, Percy Jackson is a boy who has had trouble all his life with a learning disorder, a loser of a stepfather and just general problems of not fitting in.  One day, when a teacher turns on him and reveals herself to be a monster, Percy's life is changed forever.  He begins a quest to find his true nature and to reestablish peace between gods that he thought never existed.  This is a great series for introducing kids to Greek mythology and for showing them how their weaknesses may actually be strengths.  There are a wide variety of strong characters and some smart action.  I enjoyed the way the story unfolded and I'm sure I will be continuing with this series and even picking up Riordan's new Egyptian mythology series as well.

The writers of the screenplay for the Percy Jackson film apparently didn't enjoy the book as much as I did, though, because they decided to change almost every single thing in it.  A wonderful scene when Percy fights the dastardly teacher with the help of an unlikely weapon?  Gone.  A rival at the camp he attends that inadvertently gives him the clue to his heritage?  Not in this film.  A god whose actions were the basis for the entire book?  Not there either.  Almost every character was changed in the film and not a single one for the better.  Percy was more of an ass and his friends, instead of being unique individuals, became boring and stereotypical.  Almost every scene in the book was changed or deleted and the kids used their swords instead of their brains.  For anyone who thought that the minor changes to the Harry Potter films were inexcusable, you wouldn't be able to stomach this for even the first few minutes.  If I hadn't been planning to post about this film, I would have turned it off then as well.

Verdict: Grab this book if you're at all interested in the premise.  You might be pleasantly surprised at how engaging it is.  And, for the love of Zeus, avoid the movie.  I don't think I would have even liked it much if I hadn't read the book.

(And if you're wondering, I'm counting this as an RIP read due to an awesome trip to the underworld, a good deal of peril and a few encounters with some truly frightening creatures.)

Petitioning for a "very loosely-based on" label,
K


Support our site and buy The Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book One: Lightning Thief Deluxe Edition on Amazon or find it at your local library.  We borrowed our copy from the library but will probably buy the set for Z's shelves.

Starred Saturdays: week of September 19

Today is one of those days that I wish I was in the southern hemisphere.  Then I would be looking forward to spring instead of dreading autumn.  It's already colder and wetter here and I have a feeling we're in for a long winter.  On the upside, I stocked up today on hot cocoa mix.  I like to make the best of things.

(Side note: This week might be slim on posts.  It's my best friend's wedding next Saturday and I have a lot to do to get ready!)

And the award for coolest weather event ever goes to ... Volcano Tornados!

The marine biologist part of me really wants to eat at this underwater restaurant.  The claustrophobic part is already feeling panicky and has cancelled our reservation.

Heavy.com found what they believe are the 20 worst children's book covers.  I'm not sure it's just the covers that are bad. (And I got the link from EW's Shelf Life.  I don't really spend much time on sites with ads for fake wrestling and Maxim's best bikini ladies.  Just ignore that part.)

I dare you not to spend forever looking at The NYT's Interactive Literary Map of Manhattan.  It's got markers and quotes where fictional events happened in Manhattan.

Do you know about Tilt-Shift -- using trick photography to change the viewers perception?  Well, if you want to weep tears of joy, check out this Tilt-Shift Van Gogh collection made by an art student. (via Flavorwire)  Here's my favorite (well, one of them anyway -- this Starry Night also blows my mind) --

Oh, what the hey -- here are some more tilt-shift photos.  Remember, these are all real scenes not models.

Better work avoidance through web browsing,
K

RIP Read #9: The Little Stranger

It turns out that I couldn't wait any longer to pick up my next Sarah Waters book after a rather good experience with Fingersmith.  Now, I'm even a bigger fan of Waters after reading The Little Stranger.  It was a perfect study of post-war England with a touch of unexplained darkness.

If you're one of the few who hasn't heard of this story yet, it's about the Ayres family--mother, daughter and son--who are coping with the deterioration of their home, Hundreds Hall, war injuries (both physical and mental) and a possible malicious presence in their home.  Told by the local physician, Dr. Faraday, this is a story of love, obligation and change.

I don't think I can praise this book enough.  When I was about a third of the way through it, I sat back at one point and thought "this is exactly the book that I want to read" and not just because it was a wonderful RIP read.  It was simply a perfect picture of the changing times in the years after World War II -- both for the nobility and for women.  I'm still looking forward to Affinity but, for now, this is my favorite Sarah Waters novel.

Watching it all fall down,
K


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