Ah.… it’s been a bit of a challenge to get to the computer today. Mostly because I have everyone home — M’s sick, C has a matinee — and everyone’s monopolizing my computer time!! The joys of motherhood. 🙂

The Five Best:
5. Audrey, Wait! (razorbill): “Everybody’s singing ‘Audrey, Wait!’ Audrey Cuttler’s life hasn’t been teh same since that song, ‘Audrey, Wait!’ hit the airwaves. All she wants to do is go to concerts, hang out with her friends, and maybe score a date with the cute boy who works with her at the Scooper Dooper. But now, her ex-boyfriend’s song about their breakup is at the top of the charts and she’s suddenly famous! The paparazzi won’t leave her alone, the tabloids are trying to make her into some kind of rock goddess, and the Internet it documenting her every move! Will Audrey ever be able to have a normal life again? Get ready to find out, because it’s time for Audrey to tell her side of the story.”

This blurb was one of the reasons I started the book. It’s clever and catchy, like the cover. It’s not their fault I didn’t like it. 🙂

4. Grail Prince (Ballantine Books): “The wheel is turning and the world will change. . . . And a son of Lancelot, with a bloody sword and a righteous heart, shall renew the Light in Britain before the descent of savage dark. . . . So spoke the Lady of the Lake. Now her grim prophecy is coming true. King Arthur lies dead, struck down along with Mordred, his son and heir, and the greatest knights of Camelot. Of that peerless company, only Lancelot survives, a broken man who has turned his back on Britain and his forbidden love of Guinevere. Yet one knight, scarcely more than a boy, fights amid the ruins to keep Arthur’s dream alive: Galahad, the son of Lancelot. Before his death, Arthur swore the young knight to undertake a quest: a search for the scattered treasures of an ancient king. On the recovery of these powerful relics–a grail, a spear, and a sword–hinges the future of Britain. But it is the past that torments Galahad. He cannot forget or forgive his father’s betrayal of his king. Nor can he banish thoughts of the intoxicating Dandrane, sister of his friend Percival, from his mind. Yet only a man pure in heart can fulfill the prophecy of the Lady of the Lake. Not since The Mists of Avalon has an author so brilliantly reimagined and brought to life the enduring Arthurian legends. Weaving back and forth through time, from Arthur’s mighty reign and commanding influence to Galahad’s ultimate quest to preserve the destiny of a nation, The Grail Prince is an unforgettable epic of adventure and romance, of clashing swords and hearts set in a magical world as deadly as it is beautiful.”

One of those instances where the blurb is so good that it sets up unreasonable expectations for the book, which isn’t nearly as good. Still. Makes you curious, doesn’t it?

3. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Alfred A. Knopf): “An enchanting literary debut — already an international best-seller. A the height of Mao’s infamous Cultural Revolution, two boys are among hundreds of thousands exiled to the countryside for “re-education.” The narrator and his best friend, Luo, guilty of being the sons of doctors, find themselves in a remote village where, among the peasants of Phoenix mountain, they are made to cart buckets of excrement up and down precipitous winding paths. Their meager distractions include a violin — as well as, before long, the beautiful daughter of the local tailor. But it is when the two discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation that their re-education takes its most surprising turn. While ingeniously concealing their forbidden treasure, the boys find transit to worlds they had thought lost forever. And after listening to their dangerously seductive retellings of Balzac, even the Little Seamstress will be forever transformed. From within the hopelessness and terror of one of the darkest passages in human history, Dai Sijie has fashioned a beguiling and unexpected story about the resilience of the human spirit, the wonder of romantic awakening and the magical power of storytelling.”

Good. Not brilliant, but short, and accurate. Which counts for a lot when it’s an adult book.

2. Crown Duel (The Crown and Court Duet) (Firebird): “Battle on and off the field, with sword and fan, with might and manners… It begins in a cold and shabby tower room, where young Countess Meliara swears to her dying father that she and her brother will defend their people from the growing greed of the king. That promise leads them into a war for which they are ill-prepared, a war that threatens the homes and lives of the very people they are trying to protect. But war is simple compared to what follows, when the bloody fighting is done and a fragile peace is at hand. Although she wants to turn her back on politics and the crown, Meliara is summoned to the royal palace. There, she soon discovers, friends and enemies look alike, and intrigue fills the dance halls and the drawing rooms. If she is to survive, Meliara must learn a whole new way of fighting — with wit and words and secret alliances. In war, at least, she knew whom she could trust. Now she can trust no one….”

Clever way to intrigue, and write about two different books that have been combined into one.

1. Dracula (HarperCollins Publishers): “The punctured throat, the coffin lid slowly opening, the unholy shriek as the stake pierces the heart — these are just a few of the chilling images Bram Stoker unleashed upon the world with his 1897 masterpiece, Dracula. Inspired by the folk legend of Nosferatu, the undead, Stoker created a timeless tale of gothic horror and romance that has enthralled and terrified readers ever since. This illustrated edition does full justice to the dark splendor of Stoker’s novel of the count who feeds off the blood of the living. Stark and powerful relief engraving from renowned illustrator Barry Moser brings to life the story’s most unforgettable moments and characters: the ship of death that brings Dracula to English shores as it pitches upon the sea; the final terrible siege at his Transylvanian lair; and the faces of clever, loving Mina Harker, mad, ravenous Renfield, wise Professor Van Helsing, and of course, Count Dracula himself. Told in letters, diary entries, and news clippings, Dracula maintains an uncanny power over the reader, not only in the chilling charisma of its of-imitated character, but in the pace and fury of its storytelling. Stoker’s novel has inspired countless movies and like its hero, has the power to live forever.”

As good as the book…. makes me want to read it again!

The One Worst:
Just So Stories (Magnum): “‘In the days when everybody started fair, Best Beloved, the Leopard lived in a place called the High Veldt. ‘Member it wasn’t the Low Veldt, or the Bush Veldt, or the Sour Veldt, but the ‘sclusively bare, hot, shiny High Veldt, where there was sand and…’ More? Find in this book ‘How the Leopard Got His Spots,’ and you will be carried along (but always toward the astonishing answer) on a soaring wave of sounds and pictures meant by Rudyard Kipling to be read aloud — and ‘sclusively for children of all ages. And then frolic through other pages to see How the Whale Got His Throat, How The Rhinoceros Got His Skin and even (but don’t really believe it) How the Alphabet Was Made… Kipling wrote the delightfully imaginative Just So Stories in 1902, for his own Best Beloved, his daughter Josephine. But millon have since felt no less loved through his gift to them of his playful wit and the sheer music of his language. The Just So Stories are set, literally, in India, the scene of many Kipling’s books, but they come, in a sense, from a country of magic.”

Ack. Really. It’s bad. But then, the copy was written in 1968. We’ve gotten much, much better since then.

The Other One Worst:
The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights (Farrar, Straus and Giroux):

I’m not even going to bother writing it out. They just took the introduction and used it as flap copy. Lazy, lazy, lazy. Bad copy writers.