The Clockwork Scarab by Colleen Gleason

Is that a gorgeous cover, or what?  

The Clockwork Scarab is the first in a new Young Adult Steampunk series by Colleen Gleason known as the "Stoker and Holmes" series. Evaline Stoker is author Bram Stoker's little sister and Mina Holmes is the niece of Sherlock Holmes.  The two young ladies are asked to investigate when a girl their age turns up dead and another goes missing.  A scarab is the factor in common at each site.  

Since The Clockwork Scarab was my first foray into the bizarre alternate reality known as Steampunk, I have to admit I had a terrible time just getting used to the idea of a world in which electricity is outlawed and all sorts of crazy gadgets are run by steam.  Next to thwart my efforts was the fact that Evaline Stoker is not only the sister of a real-life author but also counts Victoria Gardella, a fictional vampire hunter created by Gleason, as her ancestor.  And, then, of course Mina is the niece of a fictional character. It all makes one's head spin a bit.

As the misses Stoker and Holmes begin their investigation, something entirely unexpected turns up: a time traveler, who mentions that electricity was never really outlawed . . . not in his world, anyway.  He is also puzzled by the fact that one of the two young ladies is related to a fictional character. 

Lordy. Seriously, there was a bit too much adjustment necessary for the reading of The Clockwork Scarab.  Eventually, though, I got used to the many oddities of the book and began to enjoy the storyline.  Right away, the misses Stoker and Holmes discover a shadowy society of young women led by a person of indeterminate gender who is seeking to resurrect an Egyptian goddess. 

I won't tell you any more about the story but basically you have two girls investigating the deaths of their peers, a time-traveler from just a couple years beyond contemporary time and a secret society.  Mina has been taught well by Uncle Sherlock and it's quite fun to read her observations but Evaline threw me a bit.  She has the skills and strength of her ancestor but there aren't any vampires around.  The Gardellas have nicely nipped that little problem in the bud.  So, she's basically a Victoria Gardella-alike who wears split skirts and tucks sharp objects in various hidden places on her person but her part in the investigation boils down to knowledge of society girls, chasing down clues dropped by a shifty character who may or may not be Cockney and beating up on bad guys when necessary.

****UPDATE****

While The Clockwork Scarab didn't work for me and I felt iffy about recommending it (see my original thoughts, below), Colleen shared a very upbeat letter about her latest book on Facebook and I asked if I could post it, here, to give you an opposing viewpoint:

"Hi Colleen! Merry Christmas! I just wanted to share with you the difference you have made in my daughter's life. [She] has always hated reading, which is hard for me to understand since I have always loved it. (As the daughter of a librarian and working as an editor/proofreader for 16 years, it comes with the territory!) 

"I have always thought that if I could just find something that [my daughter] would enjoy reading, it would open her eyes to all the places reading could take her. Well, we found that in your book, The Clockwork Scarab. She loves it! She told me that she was up til 5:00 this morning, reading, because she just couldn't put it down! That's a first!! Keep up the awesome work, [she] needs more reading material!"

Iffy on recommendation - I had trouble getting into The Clockwork Scarab. Although eventually I did feel like it picked up a bit and I became accustomed to a world of steam-powered funky gadgets and the strange assortment of characters, there was still a mind-bending aspect -- too much going on, too bizarre the way those elements were placed together.  At Goodreads, I gave it an average 3-star rating. 

I was a big fan of the Victoria Gardella Vampire series so I chose to hang in there; but, the story was, unfortunately, also not wrapped up enough to suit me and that is the main reason I don't feel comfortable heartily recommending The Clockwork Scarab.  I'm okay with series books as long as they leave you with some sense of completion. The Victoria Gardella books were wrapped up well.  Hopefully, this is a one-off, the way the book ended up teasing the reader without providing a sense of completion.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Monday Malarkey - Arrivals, last week's posts, things I'm reading and other malarkey

Time for some malarkey and this seems like a good place to start. I need a head pot. Seriously, I do.

I just think a pot like that would look terrific on my living room shelf.  That's a museum pot made by a potter from the Mississippian culture, sometime between the years 1200-1500 A.D.  Is it cool, or what?

Only two books arrived, this week (progress on restraint!):

• This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash - from HarperCollins for review 
• These Wonderful Rumours! A Young Schoolteacher's Wartime Diaries by May Smith - purchased

Great covers on both, don't you think?  Also, note the sticker on the cover of These Wonderful Rumours.  I had no idea this year is Virago Press' 40th year. Wahoo for Virago Books and Happy Birthday to you, Virago!

Last week was a heavy posting week as I've been attempting to do some catch-up:

• October Reads in Review - 2013
• November Reads in Review - 2013
• Tuesday Twaddle - A happy holiday and some fun reading
• N0S4A2 by Joe Hill (review)
• Before I Die by Candy Chang (review)
• The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 3 by HitRECord and Fiona Friday (review and grumpy cat pic)

Since last week's Tuesday Twaddle, I've only managed to finish one book, but it was a good one:

• The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook - This one is showing up on some "Best of 2013" lists and deservedly so, in my humble opinion.

I am currently reading:

• Jack Absolute by C. C. Humphreys - Swashbuckling fun but a bit bloody. Love the Hamlet-quoting Iroquois, Jack's friend Até.
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - Yes, I'm just finally getting around to this one.  
• Another book I don't want to confess to reading till I get a bit farther because it's non-fiction and I'm such a pokey NF reader.

So what about that Calvino?

Sigh.  I keep looking at it and thinking, "Later, later."  But, I will tell you that while I was reading If On a Winter's Night a Traveler (before I hit overload), I found that it was inspiring me in the "giving me numerous writing ideas" sense, so I do plan to finish the book and I'll definitely save it for future rereads.  You should see the number of Post-its crammed into that book.  It's quite a sight.

In other news:

Friday was exciting as my delightful and incredibly-dapper author friend Simon Van Booy did a talk at TEDxBrooklyn.  The 2013 TEDxBrooklyn program was available for live streaming, so I got to see Simon's "How to Write a Book in 18 Minutes" and frantically took notes.  Of course, Simon was brilliant, as always.  What I wrote down is not entirely complete but hopefully the talk will show up in their video section eventually. I will undoubtedly need to make some corrections and/or additions to my notes and it's worth sharing so I'll let you know if/when it shows up. In the meantime, Simon's talk has me pondering my own writing, so I'm thrilled about that.

Also, last week I got my 5th Graze box:

In case you haven't heard of it, Graze is a healthy-snack subscription service and the per-shipment price is very reasonable. If you're looking for gift ideas for a college kid, I highly recommend getting your favorite university student a Graze subscription. After I got my first box and decided it's definitely a good deal, I got a second one for Kiddo.  He loves getting a parcel in the mail every two weeks (otherwise, he only receives bills). Kiddo told me he keeps one of the individually-wrapped snacks in his backpack for times when he can't make it to the cafeteria before it closes, which happens regularly on his busiest days.  I've got a couple friend codes remaining if anyone's interested in signing up.  Just write to my gmail account.

We're finally getting started on Christmas decorating.

While I was searching for some Victorian-style garlands that I bought in an after-Christmas sale last year, I came across a box with a label that made me laugh.  The box contains breakable items (I didn't bother looking inside to see exactly what kind of breakables because it was in an awkward place and, of course, I didn't want to end up breaking everything). On the outside of the box I wrote, "I will die if this box gets smashed." The contents of this box must be very important because elsewhere on the box it says, "Seriously, it will KILL ME if you damage this one." When I'm done decorating, I'm going to have to see what's inside that box . . . carefully, of course.

Happy Monday!

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 3 by Hit Record and Fiona Friday

When I briefly quit blogging and then came back, I was determined not to accept any books for review because it was partly the pressure of feeling like I had to read specific books rather than choosing to read whatever struck my fancy at any given moment that drove me away from blogging. That sensation of pressure was my own fault, of course.  You choose to take on the burden when you say, "Sure, I'll review your book." But, of course, I'm a book fanatic and I have a broad range of interests so it's really not all that surprising that there are so many books that tempt me.  Still, I was doing a terrific job of ignoring requests for review till The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 3.  

I love this series.  Somewhere around here, I have a book of "micro-fiction" (ah, yes, here's a link to the book at Amazon: MicroFiction).  I bought MicroFiction back when it was a new release in the 90s and I've occasionally joined in on challenges to write single-sentence, single-paragraph or six-word stories. Point being, I've been interested in the concept and execution of micro-fiction for a very long time.

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 3 is the third book in this adorable micro-fiction series. I loved the first Tiny Book of Tiny Stories so much it was hard to choose favorite stories to feature on the blog.  The second, The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 2, was thicker but had kind of a sad tone so there weren't quite as many stories that I fell completely in love with but I still enjoyed it immensely. The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 3 returns us to the witty tone of the first book.  

Highly recommended - Stories as short as a single sentence, illustrations that make you stop and think . . . a wicked fun combination.  And, as usual, a great stocking stuffer idea.  I think they put these books out just before the month of stocking-stuffing deliberately.

A few favorites:

Seems to me the less she knows, 

the louder she knows it.

If I had a nickel for every

time I had a nickel and threw 

it away because it was only a 

nickel, I'd have thrown away 

twice as many nickels.*

*Actually, this would result in an infinite number of nickels, as your nickels' nickels would also result in nickels of their own, and so forth.  Please don't do this.  You'd be throwing away a fortune.

Somewhere in this vast 

universe, there grows a boy.

And somewhere in this boy, 

there grows a universe.

Let's call our confusion and panic "self-preservation."

It has a better mouth feel.

Also, it's Friday so here's a cat . . . an irritable cat who dislikes having her picture taken, inside a cat carrier into which she has placed a feathered toy (this is known as "Hunting: indoor version"):

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Before I Die by Candy Chang

Still backtracking to catch up on October and November books.  Before I Die by Candy Chang is a small, coffee-table type book about the author's idea to create a wall covered with the unfinished sentence, "Before I die I want to ______," stenciled repeatedly to enable people to fill in their answers.

The first place a "Before I Die" wall was created was on the side of an abandoned house in New Orleans.  It took some special planning and permission and there were a few hang-ups, but eventually Chang managed to paint the wall. The reaction was surprising. People stopped to think, wrote their answers and talked to each other.  There were problems, of course -- chalk stolen, bad language that had to be cleaned off, walls that became so full they had to be hosed down to give even more people an opportunity to write on them.  But, that first wall was a successful, thought-provoking venture and soon similar walls went up in other cities and gradually the idea spread around the world.  

Before I Die tells about the walls, where they were built, the people who made them, and the sentiments written on the walls. There are photos of people writing on walls and the people involved, as well as some little boxes with quotes from the walls. 

I really enjoyed Before I Die, although there were two things I thought were mildly lacking. I would have liked to see larger, unblocked photos of the walls so that one could sit and read a wall without bodies marring the view (although it is definitely fun to see photos of people writing) and without straining the eyeballs.  Some of the photos are a bit hard to read. You can see some photos of the walls a bit better via a Google image search of Before I Die, though. The other thing I would have liked is to know more about the author's personal story.  I didn't quite understand what loss set the project in motion. I actually reread Chang's intro a couple of times, trying to figure that out, and came out of it thinking the author lost her mother.  I'm not entirely certain, though.

One thing I particularly loved about Before I Die was the fact that as I was reading I realized there were a lot of life wishes that other people wrote on those walls which I've already experienced. What a tremendously uplifting realization. Some of the sentiments are not bucket list wishes, though, but simple things. You can see a few of those in the photo above:  "Inspire someone," and "Hug my boyfriend," for example.

As I was reading Before I Die, I mentally categorized.  You can't help but notice a lot of repetition from one wall to the next and the author actually did some analysis/sorting of similar thoughts.  Math freaks get their charts and graphs!  Cool!  

Recommended - I don't own a coffee table (never have, actually) so I have no place to set out a coffee table book but I do think the book is thought-provoking enough that it would make a fun book to set out in the hope of stimulating conversation.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

N0S4A2 by Joe Hill

Backtracking a bit, here.  I read N0S4A2 by Joe Hill in October and I think the reason I likely did not review it immediately has to do with the fact that it scared the bejeebers out of me and I just wanted to freaking forget Christmasland, but I'm over it, now.

N0S4A2 (besides being a pain-in-the-butt of a title to type) is a chunkster at nearly 700 pages, and I tend to shy away from chunksters.  However, I absolutely loved Joe Hill's short story collection, 20th Century Ghosts.  Oh, wow, look at that link.  I read 20th Century Ghosts way back in 2007, before it was published in the U.S.  Believe it or not, I have not yet managed to get the creepy Button Boy character from one of those stories to exit my mind.  So, I resisted Heart-Shaped Box and Horns.  I just wasn't ready for that level of creepy to return to my world.  Much as I adored Hill's writing and the inventiveness of his stories, I preferred the ghosts and time travel to horror and horror is the road he seems to prefer. And, yet, I knew I was missing some very fine writing by resisting.

N0S4A2 is about Vic, a girl who can travel wherever she wants to go by biking quickly across a wooden bridge. Even after the bridge ceases to exist, it remains in her imagination so she can still go there; it's her special skill to travel via the map within her mind. There are others who have a similar ability and one of them has created a terrifying world called Christmasland.  He is basically a mass-murdering vampire who is convinced that he's doing kids a favor by taking their undead bodies to this bizarre place and killing their families.  Vic, of course, has to save the world from the bad guy.  

Okay, wait, I think I know why I put off reviewing the book (well, another reason). There's a lot to this story.  And, of course, it's not fun mentally revisiting the gore. Why did I keep reading?  Because Joe Hill knows how to create characters a reader really cares about.  But, N0S4A2 is extremely bloody and I confess that I'm surprised I made it all the way through the book, in spite of the incredible characterization and some pretty rocking fine storytelling. And, I'm glad I did hang in there; it does have a knockout ending. I marked a passage to remind me that I thought one of Hill's influences, in this case (he has a tendency to make sly references to books, movies and real people) was the movie The Great Escape. He sprinkled numerous hints to that effect and then actually used the words "our great escape" (to which I said, "Ha!" aloud).  

Recommended particularly to readers who love horror.  Joe Hill is a tremendously skilled and imaginative writer; I admire his ability to create such wonderful and awful characters.  But, the book was too bloody for me.  

The ending of N0S4A2 is exciting and sad and a huge relief at the same time so I'm glad I got to the point of resolution because, damn, that evil bad buy needed killing in a big way.  But, I do think I'll likely avoid Joe Hill in the future until/unless he gets around to writing an unbloody time travel novel in the Jack Finney vein.  One of the stories in 20th Century Ghosts was clearly an homage to Finney and I personally think he could write a brilliant time travel, although I hope he doesn't go wildly overboard as I think his father did with 11/22/63 (personal opinion - loved the time travel; thought the romance was dull).  

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Tuesday Twaddle - A happy holiday and some fun reading

If you've read my November Reads in Review post, you already know I read these three books during the Thanksgiving holiday.  I picked up Hyperbole and a Half on the way to Oklahoma, finished up The Clockwork Scarab (an ARC) and whipped through Labor Day.  

Yesterday, I finished another book I bought at Hastings Books & Music:  Tempest by Julie Cross, a time travel YA that I found writing-weak but plot-manic.  Had the action not grabbed me so thoroughly, I might have abandoned it for its weaknesses but I was quite satisfied with the way it was wrapped up and, problems aside, I would have been perfectly happy to read on if I had the next book in the series.

So . . . Oklahoma.  We went to visit family.  I can't actually remember the last time we were in Oklahoma.  It was nice to go home.  We spent most of our time hanging out, eating, watching football, reading and perusing bookstores, but we also visited Woolaroc Museum (one of my happy places; it holds lots of fond childhood memories).  Woolaroc was decorated for Christmas:

On the way back to Tulsa from Bartlesville (Woolaroc is just outside Bartlesville), I snapped sunsets through a dirty window in a moving car and this one is now my desktop background:

When we arrived home it took this girl 4 hours to speak to me and 6 to fully forgive me for leaving her behind:

Isabel hissed at the cat- and house-sitter, whom she knows perfectly well.  Crazy cat.  I am her only human.  She doesn't really like anyone else at all but she's a total lovebug with me.  Unfortunately, her fears don't seem to be fading with age.  I was hoping eventually she'd relax a little.

There were books waiting upon arrival and plenty purchased. I haven't snapped pics and I've been doing the Bad Thing . . . dragging arrivals off to sort by review date instead of keeping them together so that I can photograph them and list them.  Oh, well.  I do have a few nearby:

• Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, The Middle Ages and Viking Age - from the Everyday Life series by Sterling Books, for review
• A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith and  Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill - from Knopf for review
• Nigella Fresh by Nigella Lawson, a bargain find at Hastings Books - have read about 40 pages of this and am enjoying her chatty style.  I want to read the entire book before settling on favorites to attempt.
• The Ragamuffin Bible - from Zondervan for review.  I totally jumped on this because I've just recently read The Prodigal (which lists Brennan Manning as one of the authors, although Greg Garrett did the writing) and it reminded me of Manning's uplifting way of looking at Christianity. I've read a few of the "meditations" by Manning and I'm already in love with this Bible. He tends to go a little heavy on the ecclesiastical terminology but I like the fact that I have to really engage the brain when I read his thoughts.
• Wool by Hugh Howey (the Omnibus edition) - purchased.  I looked up the stats and found that something on the order of 100 NaNoWriMo books have been published traditionally. Wool (the original short story, from my understanding, as opposed to the entire series) is one of them.  I've been thinking about doing a NaNoWriMo books self-challenge, although I'm not sure I can resist reading Wool right away.  It's been on my wish list for quite a while.  
• Dark Inside by Jeyn Roberts, another NaNo book, via Paperback Swap.  Good timing. 
• Blitz: The story of 29th December, 1940 by M. J. Gaskin - purchased and I've read a little. Blitz is an account of a single day in the London Blitz based on (and occasionally including excerpts from) a number of primary sources. 
• Somewhere in France by Jennifer Robson - from HarperCollins for review

I'll attempt to gather other books for next week's Monday Malarkey.  Yes, there are more -- too many, actually, so I'm back to ignoring offers for review books.  I should never accept them anyway; let's be honest, I have far too many books in my house, as is.

Since I finished a quick YA read, last night, I'm going to dive back into The Aftermath and If On a Winter's Night a Traveler, next, and try to finish those up so I can move on.  

Happy Tuesday!

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

November Reads in Review - 2013

Oh, dear.  I've only reviewed four of these so the descriptions are a bit longer than my normal "Month in Review" blurbs. In some cases this may be the extent of what I end up writing.

 122. The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 3 by HitRecord - Loved this third installment of the "Tiny Book of Tiny Stories" series.  The first was great, second was kind of meh and the third was back up to snuff.  This is the book that pulled me off the "not requesting" wagon. I'm climbing back on, honestly.

123. The Prodigal: A Ragamuffin Story by Brennan Manning and Greg Garrett - The story of a TV evangelist who makes a big mistake but refuses to apologize.  He's thrown out of the church he founded, his wife is paid off (to keep her from speaking to the press) and he ends up being taken home by his father, who is dying but would have forgiven his son, anyway.  A modern retelling of the Biblical "Prodigal's Son," not a perfect book but I particularly loved the fact that the minister learns his lesson yet not everything works out as he'd like it to, in the end.

124. Mousekin's Lost Woodland by Edna Miller - Mousekin's home is razed by the lumber industry and he and the other animals must find another place to live.  I decided this one was too sad -- was looking for secondhand books for my sister's grandson -- so I didn't bring it home and then I decided it was actually the best of the three books I read (I didn't log the other two).  Naturally, I bought the others and decided I'm just going to take them back.  I took Sister a stack of pretty books I reviewed, instead. 

125. The Emperor's Nightingale and Other Feathery Tales by Jane Ray - My favorite children's book of the month, a book of collected tales and poems about or featuring birds, some familiar, some not.  I absolutely loved the author's personal touch.  She retold many of the stories and they sound a lot like the fairy tales of my childhood.  I wasn't as enamored of the illustrations as the stories but I liked them, some more than others. 

126. Death Wish by Lindsey Menges - My niece's first book, a dystopian tale about a woman who works as a "Fairy Godmother" for a corporation that provides the death wishes of people who are tired of living in a world where disease has been eradicated. I was so impressed with this book - great pacing, skilled writing, excellent plot. It needs a bit of editing but I hope someday this book will find its way to traditional publication. Lindsey has labeled it YA but since the heroine is slightly older I think it's probably best classified as New Adult but the story is very clean, lacking sex and bad language and the heroine is in an established relationship (all of which I really, really appreciated).

127. The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse - Bingo falls in love repeatedly, Bertie finds himself engaged to a woman who gives him the shivers and Jeeves continues to save the day.  The Jeeves and Wooster stories are faultlessly entertaining.  So much happens that they feel more like short stories cobbled together, which is fine. Wodehouse makes me smile and sometimes laugh out loud.  I needed an upper and I got it.

128. Transparent Things by Vladimir Nabokov - A man recalls repeated visits to the same village in Switzerland over a span of 20 years.  As I closed the book, I felt like I was left with quite a few questions and then suddenly I realized Nabokov answered them all . . . and understanding made the story twice as creepy.  Not long after reading Transparent Things and feeling completely blown away by Nabokov's writing, as always, I read that he wrote a limited number of words per day and his goal was to make every sentence perfect.  Well, that explains a lot. 

129. A Good American by Alex George (reread) - I suggested that my F2F group read and discuss A Good American after immigration came up in discussion of another book (can't remember which one). I enjoyed revisiting the family saga of the Meisenheimer family as much the second time as the first.  Everyone in my reading group loved it and we had a huge turnout so that's quite a recommendation.  We used the questions from Alex's website as prompts for discussion and I kind of wish we hadn't.  Some provoked interesting conversation and led to thoughts beyond the initial question but others fell flat. 

130. A Great and Complicated Adventure by Tellegan and Ahlberg (reread) - Cute stories, reread specifically to review and loved it as much the second time. 

131. Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh - I grabbed a copy of Hyperbole and a Half on the way to Oklahoma and actually read a good portion of it in the car, even though I normally cannot read in a moving vehicle (I still looked up frequently).  Loved blogger Allie Brosh's memoir about childhood, depression, life with her dogs, a strange experience with a goose, etc.  I've only been to her blog once, when the second part of her depression story went viral and I followed a link.  It made me laugh and I purchased the book solely on the basis of that single post. I'm glad I did.  I absolutely loved the book and was particularly enamored of the stories about her dogs. She is the best kind of pet owner.  Although her pets are far from perfect, when she adopts they're forever pets.  I love her for that alone.

132. Labor Day by Joyce Maynard - A prison escapee asks a lonely, depressed woman and her son, who is unaware of how much he's missing in life, to take him home with them and they agree.  Over the Labor Day holiday, he changes the direction of their lives and leaves a lasting impression.  Such a raw, surprising book.  I absolutely gobbled it up and cannot wait to read more by Joyce Maynard.

133. The Clockwork Scarab by Colleen Gleason (YA) - A steampunk mystery starring two young females.  Mina Holmes (niece of Sherlock) and Evaline Stoker (Bram's younger sis) are asked to solve the mysterious deaths of two young socialites and find another who is missing. A time traveler from the future, Egyptian scarabs, missing girls, a person who wants to bring back an Egyptian goddess . . . there's an awful lot going on in this book, a bit too much for me and the story was not wrapped up enough to suit me.  Eventually, I got into the story but it took a while to get used to that strange, alternate world and in the end I was disappointed.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

October Reads in Review - 2013

I'm still way behind on full reviews but here's a wrap-up of October's reads with links to reviews, where applicable . . . no dragons in any of them:

110. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill - 686 pages of scary gore, but the characters were wonderful.  You couldn't help but root for them.

111. Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano - The first in a new dystopian YA series about life on an island in the sky, Internment.  Beautiful writing, great story, can't wait for the next in the series.

112. A Great and Complicated Adventure by Toon Tellegen & J. Ahlberg - Absolutely loved this book of short stories for children. They don't always feel complete and yet they're so charming and sweet that it oddly doesn't seem to matter.

113. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - Nearly 800 pages.  I could have done without the detail of the protagonist's drug use but I stand in awe of Tartt's writing.  It is quite amazing. One of the most engrossing chunksters I've ever read.

114. Woman in the Dark by Dashiell Hammett - A short "romantic mystery" that has little substance.  While I appreciate Hammett's style, this is not his best.

115. The Compound by S. A. Bodeen - Post-apocalyptic story of a family living in a huge underground compound after wealthy dad says the country has been hit by nuclear bombs.  But, then you find out dad's off his rocker. I liked it a lot but felt like it was missing the depth needed to make it a really great story.

116. Before I Die by Candy Chang (NF) - Thought-provoking look at how people fill out the sentence "Before I die I want to _______"

117. The Radleys by Matt Haig - An abstaining vampire family has issues after the daughter (who doesn't know she's a vampire) decides to go vegan and then has to bite someone in self defense.

118. Seize the Day by Saul Bellow - A day or two in the life of a man who is divorced, has lost his job, hates city life and has a father who thinks his child wants his money. I noticed one reviewer said, "He's just seeking redemption." That makes sense to me.  It's really about a man who wants to get his life straightened out but he doesn't know where to begin. Very different writing from what we see today, heavily internal.

119. The Tilted World by Tom Franklin & Beth Ann Fennelly - My favorite of the month, although there are a lot of great books on this list.  A revenuer, a bootlegging woman and a baby cross paths during the Great Flood of 1927.  Excellent storytelling, the kind that is often so pretty that you find yourself rereading a sentence a couple times, just for the joy of letting it roll around in your head.

120. Blaming by Elizabeth Taylor - My first Elizabeth Taylor was her last, a sad tale of widowhood, an unlikely friendship and a suicide.  Everyone blames everyone else for things that don't go quite right.  While the story is not upbeat, I loved her writing style - especially the way she describes conversations with children.

121. Snow on the Tulips by Liz Tolsma - The story of a man who is lined up to be executed but survives and is sheltered in the home of a woman who lives near the canal where he was shot.  A romance, really, more than a WWII story but it's based on the true story of a man who survived execution and was briefly sheltered.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Going blog silent

Happy Thanksgiving (a wee bit early) to the Americans!  We'll be busy with family, this week, and I've been having a bit of post-NaNoWriMo exhaustion reading block so there's not much malarkey to share, this week.  I may take a couple weeks off blogging while I recover.

This is German food from Alabama, by the way.  Couldn't find a decent turkey photo but I figured since this shot pretty much made me drool on the keyboard it would be a good one for illustration.

It makes me want to hop a plane to Germany or at least take a road trip to Alabama.  Hope all of you have a fabulous week or two.  Happy Reading to all!

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Fiona Friday - New favorite napping spot

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

A Great and Complicated Adventure by Toon Tellegan, illustrated by Jessica Ahlberg

You're going to get tired of all the gushing but I've read so many wonderful books, lately, and A Great and Complicated Adventure by Toon Tellegen is one of my favorites.  A book of children's short stories, it has sweet, simple pen and watercolor illustrations of its animal characters. I took A Great and Complicated Adventure with me to Oxford when we went to visit Kiddo, about a month ago.  Within the 154 pages are 19 short stories.  I loved them so much that I stayed in the car to read while the guys traipsed into Walmart (to get a glass repair kit -- you might remember our windshield got smacked by either a bullet or BB) and finished the reading on my son's futon when we returned to his apartment.

I'm just going to tell you about one of the stories so you can get an idea what they're like.  The first story is about a squirrel and an ant, unlikely friends who continue to show up throughout the book.  And, it begins like this:

One morning, just for fun, the squirrel baked a small cake of beech nuts and honey.  On the cake, in letters of melted sugar, he wrote:  

"Dear Ant,  

How are you?  

The Squirrel" 

"It's the thought that counts," he said to himself.  He stopped for a moment and felt proud of his thought.  "It's a good thought," he thought, "and what's more, it's a surprise.  It isn't the ant's birthday, and there isn't anything else to celebrate.  It's an unexpected thought."

The story goes on with the ant responding in kind, creating a letter of his own for the squirrel, made from cream and stewed chestnuts with letters of oak honey.  The squirrel proceeds to eat his treat and think about how delicious it is, then he wipes away a bit of honey, "the question mark that was hanging from the end of his nose." 

The story doesn't feel entirely complete and yet it does.  It's simply story about friendship and most of the stories in A Great and Complicated Adventure are similar in that they're about friendship, curiosity, creativity, kindness. They are sweet stories.

This book doesn't lend itself well to being propped open for photography, so I held it open to a favorite spread to give you an peek at the illustrations:

Highly recommended - Sweet little stories about friendship and imagination with utterly delightful illustrations.  The stories don't always feel complete in the traditional sense, but the more I read, the fonder I became of the author's unique style and found myself smiling and even chuckling a bit.  When I closed the book, I longed for more.  Such a pleasurable reading experience.  I particularly loved the stories about the unlikely, sunny friendship between Ant and Squirrel.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Emperor's Nightingale and Other Feathery Tales by Jane Ray

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I accepted The Emperor's Nightingale and Other Feathery Tales for review.  Stories about birds seemed a narrow focus, but I love children's books so I figured it would be a fun read.  Admittedly, I'm a bit of a children's book addict but I was actually quite surprised by how much I loved The Emperor's Nightingale. 

Many of the stories in The Emperor's Nightingale, which is also illustrated by author Jane Ray, are familiar classic stories or poems that have been gathered by her over the years, some rewritten, some not as commonly known. One is a poem by Emily Dickinson, one a tale by Oscar Wilde.  What I particularly love about the book is that the stories have the rhythm and style of the fairytales I fell in love with as a child.  I felt very much as if I was being transported back to my childhood as I read them and that's a great thing.  There is very little I treasure more from my memory than how much I loved being read to by my parents.  

You can click to enlarge the interior photos I took. There's an introduction to the book (unfortunately printed on red paper so that it's a bit difficult to read) and then each story/poem has its own little intro.  In the intro to "Jorinda and Joringel" you learn that it's a fairy tale by the Grimm brothers but one that is lesser known.  

I have some particular favorites amongst the illustrations.

At some point, when I was searching for a cover image and coming up flat, I came across a wonderful review which I have not managed to find, again.  The blogger who wrote it talked about knowing Jane Ray as the "wrapping paper lady" because she has designed wrapping paper and about how the illustrations in The Emperor's Nightingale are made using a method I remember from elementary-school art (but which I can't name), in which solid paint is layered over a surface that may be colored or plain and then a design is scratched into the paint.  Some of the illustrations don't appear to have been made that way, but perhaps the slight difference in style simply serves to show the artist's range.

I tend to like more vivid, bright, colorful illustrations in a children's book and Jane Ray's illustrations are  fairly understated in The Emperor's Nightingale, but I still like them immensely.  They're a little uneven in presentation and, in a way, I found that was a good thing because I never knew what I'd see next, when I turned the page.  Plus, I really do like her touch.  However, it was the stories that won me over.  I absolutely adored the stories and poems in The Emperor's Nightingale, to the point that I decided to drag out the reading over three days.  As an adult, you could easily whiz through this book in an hour or less, but I think it's better to read each story slowly, enjoy the rhythm, and spread out the fun.

There are 171 pages of text.  I think The Emperor's Nightingale would make a wonderful bedtime book.  "Only one story per night!" will likely fail.  I can imagine that if this book existed when my children were young enough to demand bedtime stories, they would have insisted that I read, "Just one more!  Just one more!" several times.  But, they're also worth reading over and over and over, again.  Do read the text in the images above, if you can, and you'll see how lovely Jane Ray's storytelling is.

Highly recommended - Whether you're already seeking out Christmas gifts or simply want to read a book that will transport you back to your childhood, The Emperor's Nightingale and Other Feathery Tales is perfect.  It's enjoyable enough that I wouldn't worry about age range beyond making sure a child is past the page-tearing stage and able to sit still on a lap or old enough to happily read on his or her own.  Lovely, rhythmic writing, delightful illustrations and a nice mix of clean tales make The Emperor's Nightingale a pure joy to read.  My copy (sent by the publisher) had a slight binding issue in the inside cover, so if you buy it as a gift I'd recommend double-checking the solidity of the binding before wrapping it.  Whoever ends up with a copy is going to want The Emperor's Nightingale to last for many years, guaranteed. It's a wonderful book.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or phot

Monday Malarkey - Arrivals, blog posts, things I'm reading, things I read

I spent my weekend shopping for furniture, moving a table, cleaning the empty space where the table formerly sat, doing laundry, chopping tree limbs, reading, and watching Dr. Who episodes.  We're just now finishing up Season 4 of Dr. Who.  I flipped through cat photos but never got around to finding a photo I liked for Fiona Friday, so we'll call this malarkey shot a "Fiona Friday on the Way Wrong Day."  It happens.

Writing fell by the wayside over the weekend so today I'm writing furiously, trying to get far enough ahead that Thanksgiving still won't interfere with reaching the NaNoWriMo finish line.  Apparently, I'm very determined to finish, this year.  There have been years that I've been lackadaisical about the whole thing.  This year, I am in a goal-setting fever.  As of 7:24 PM, I'm happy to say I've surpassed 5,000 words and am catching up with my previous goal very nicely.

The books shown with Izzy, above, are about 2-3 weeks' worth of arrivals:

• Going Home, Surviving Home and Escaping Home by A. American (apparently, the A stands for "angry"spelled "Angery"), 3 in a survivalist series.  I'm concerned that the author might be a little wacko, given his pen name and website claiming WWIII is coming, but I like to read about survival so I'm looking forward to the series, which I received for TLC tour.  I'm only required to review one but won't know which one I'll choose till I get into the reading.  It'll be interesting to see if they're appealing enough to read back-to-back.
• Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson - from Paperback Swap was just added to my wish list a few weeks ago and a copy came available pretty quickly.  My last attempt at reading Matheson was a dud (and the reviewers agreed with me that it was not up to his usual standard) but I've enjoyed everything else I've read by Matheson. Somewhere in Time has the advantage of being known as a modern time travel classic.  And, yes, I've seen the movie.
• Rules of Civility by Amor Towles - received via PBS
• Free Bird by Greg Garrett - received via PBS after I read and reviewed The Prodigal and decided to dig into Garrett's backlist.
• Jack Absolute and The Blooding of Jack Absolute by C. C. Humphreys came from Sourcebooks for review.
• Savage Harvest by Carl Hoffman was sent by the author for review and had a nice note attached to the cover. 

I'm probably missing some arrivals since Monday Malarkey has been a sometimes-maybe thing, lately.  

Last week's blog posts:

• A review of my niece's book - Death Wish by Lindsey Menges
• Totally off-the-wall rhino pic
• My review of Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano
• Review of The Tilted World by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly

Currently reading:

• The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook - A tale of post-WWII.  I'm not sure where this is headed but I am about 46 pages in and besotted with Brook's writing. 
• A Good American by Alex George - A reread for my Face-to-Face book club, which meets this week.
• If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino - I haven't touched this one in at least 5 days but I love it; the writing is sharp and funny and sometimes a little mind-blowing. 

Last week I finished:

• The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse - because two friends just happened to mention Wodehouse within the same week and I needed a break from Calvino.  Faultlessly entertaining, that Wodehouse fellow.  Reading a little Jeeves & Wooster was the breath of fresh air I needed.
• Transparent Things by Vladimir Nabokov - A slim book at 104 pages but it packs an oh-my-Lord punch of Nabokovian brilliance.  It is fascinating and creepy. It left me with questions that, after some thought, I decided had already been answered.  I'm still a little afraid of Lolita (which I have not yet read) and yet, at the same time, Transparent Things made me crave more Nabokov.

That's all, for now.  What's up in your world?

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Tilted World by Tom Franklin & Beth Ann Fennelly

I was pretty sure I was going to fall in love with The Tilted World because I figured the combination of Tom Franklin's writing with his poet-wife Beth Ann Fennelly's softening must be a very fine thing. Add to the beautiful writing a setting that has been under-utilized in fiction, some terrific characters and an uplifting love story and something wondrous was bound to happen.  

Sure enough, I was right.  In a nutshell, The Tilted World is about a bootlegger, a federal revenue agent, a baby and a flood.  The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 (link leads to image search to give you a look at flood photos), a killer flood that is well-known to Mississippians but not as widely known elsewhere, is the backdrop.  It should be better known, though, because the Flood of '27 is not only "the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States" but also the reason a series of levees were built along the Mississippi River, preventing similarly huge death tolls during major floods of recent years. 

Dixie Clay thought she was marrying a handsome fur trader who would give her a good life.  But, he turned out to be a con man, a bootlegger and an abuser.  After the loss of her only child, she has slowly lost hope that life will ever improve. 

Two federal revenue agents have gone missing and Dixie Clay suspects her husband may have done more than just pay them off.  When two new revenuers are sent to find out what happened and they come across a murder and an orphaned baby, one of the revenuers decides he must find the child a home.  But, with flood waters quickly rising, it's not quite as easy to offload a baby as it might ordinarily be. Solving a mystery, finding a home for a baby and trying to prevent the bombing of a levee would be hard enough, but with the water rising it's a race against time. 

There are many elements to The Tilted World. It would be hard to describe everything; and, doing so would wreck the reading, anyway. All you need to know is that the characters are remarkably realistic and the story is gripping. Some of the characters lean toward good or bad and some are dubious but everyone has flaws and the main characters bear the weight of their histories in believable ways. The characterization is outstanding, in other words. The story is even better.  There's bootlegging and murder, loss and redemption, terror and kidnapping, adventure and love. At its heart, the love story is tender and beautiful and, of course, so very unlikely that the mere hope the two characters will get together and form a little family takes your breath away. I found The Tilted World absolutely riveting.

Highly recommended - I wanted to reread The Tilted World the moment I finished it.  I may have to toddle up to Oxford to see if I can find an autographed copy. It's definitely one for the good shelves, a 5-star keeper, in my humble opinion. You will feel liked you're covered in mud and ready for a nice, long soak at some point in the reading; the description is that vivid. Although there are some grueling scenes of death and abuse, The Tilted World is definitely a gentler book than Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (link to my review). I hope Franklin and Fennelly will write together, again. 

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano (Book 1 of The Internment Chronicles)

Holy Toledo. I am so freaking far behind you'd think I'd have completely forgotten Perfect Ruin, over a month after I closed it.  But, no.  Lauren DeStefano's memorable latest release starts a new series on a unique world, a floating city called Internment.

Just from the name of the floating city, you can get an idea of what it's like to live there -- a bit like a prison. This island in the sky is ringed by a train track and surrounded by some sort of force field. It's against the law to go past the train tracks and if you try to jump off your little world, you're lucky if you survive at all.  Morgan's brother was a pharmacist before he became a jumper and barely survived, now he's blind and a little bit on the crazy side.

So you've got Morgan, young and betrothed to Basil, living at home with her parents on this tiny little island city in the sky.  Her blind brother and his wife live upstairs.  Her best friend isn't entirely besotted with her own future husband but it's not clear why. Pen is a fabulous character, though. Lauren DeStefano has mentioned that people have written to her, begging her not to kill off Pen. I love that.

The two couples -- Morgan and Basil, Pen and Thomas -- ride the train to school, on dates, shopping, etc., occasionally walking if they feel like skipping the train. Morgan's father is a policeman. Her mother is drugging herself to the gills and sleeping her life away. That's the background, the "normal" in Internment. Then, unsettling things begin to happen: a murder, a fire, the king reassuring everyone that the murderer will be caught.

It's not entirely unexpected that people who can barely see things on Earth below might get a little cranky and feel the urge to escape. After her safety begins to feel threatened, Morgan is totally creeped out. Here she is, stuck and well aware of how damaged you can become when you try to escape, but wanting to get out.  When she meets the young sister of the murder victim and the fellow who is being sought as the murderer, Morgan becomes curious and starts to stay out when she shouldn't, seeking answers. And, when she begins to put the pieces together and bad things start happening to her own family, suddenly escape seems to be the only option. But, is it even possible?

Well, you'll just have to read to find out. There were things I liked about Perfect Ruin and things I didn't but, in general, I loved Perfect Ruin.  It's a quick read that sucked me in.  I cared about the characters and I thought the ending held promise for its sequels.

Highly Recommended - particularly to fans of YA.  I love the idea of a floating island, the characters, the way Lauren DeStefano tugs the reader forward, urgently needing to understand what's happening and why, and I love her writing style. I was less enamored of the scenery as it was described. At the beginning of the novel, I had my own mental image of the architecture on a floating city -- futuristic, shiny and rather beautiful -- and I was quickly disabused of my fanciful architectural notions. I hated to say goodbye to my mental image but it is what it is, this Internment, and I liked the story.  I hope the series holds up.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Totally off-the-wall rhino pic

I knew I probably wouldn't get around to posting anything elaborate, today, but I'll bet you never expected me to stick you with a photo of a rhino.  ;)  

Huzzybuns and I spent a nice afternoon at the local zoo, yesterday.  The Jackson Zoo is struggling but there's still plenty to see. The white rhino entertained us by flopping onto his side, where he let out two tremendous farts, shortly after I took this photo. Because there weren't many people at the zoo, I found that if I shuffled around in the leaves outside his fenced area, he'd turn to look at me. But, apparently, I wasn't all that interesting because he'd just stare for a moment and then turn away. Of course, I had to make that shuffle-shuffle noise several times, just to make sure the rhino was really looking my way because of crunching leaves as opposed to, you know, maybe just being an ADD rhino looking around because he couldn't keep his mind on anything. Yep, it was the shuffling.

Some people are just crying out for attention.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.