The Golden Specific

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by S. E. Grove
First sentence: “Dear Shadrack, You ask me for news of the Eerie, and I can tell you that there is no recent news of them in the Indian Territories.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: The Glass Sentence
Review copy provided by the publisher rep.
Content: It’s a long book, and it’s one of those that take some investment. Probably not for the younger end of the middle grade spectrum, even if it’s in the Middle Grade section (grades 3-5) of the bookstore. I’m actually wondering if these might do better in the YA (grades 6-8) section, with the Philip Pullman books…

I’ll be honest: I don’t really remember what happened in the first book. The good thing? You don’t really need to. There’s no real sum-up at the beginning (thank heavens!) but you get the sense, fairly quickly, about what’s going on. And Grove is nice enough to let us know what we need to know as the book progresses.

Which helps, because there are three story lines going here. One is Sophia’s continuing quest to figure out what happened to her parents 10 years ago. This involves going to restricted libraries and ending up across the Atlantic (accidentally by herself) in the Papal States, looking for the lost land of Ausentintia. (I read that Austen-tia every. single. time.) Her adventures there are weird and wild, and the way Grove messes with time, religion, and fantasy are quite mesmerizing. She makes new friends, particularly Errol and Goldenrod, who are fascinating additions to the world Grove has built.

The second story line is related: it’s the diaries that Sophia goes looking  for, the writing of her mother that Sophia was looking for. (This is a second in a trilogy, so there’s a lot of loose ends.) This was the least interesting part to me; yeah, I was curious about Sophia’s parents, but not especially invested in their journey, so to have the story I was interested in interrupted with this one was a bit annoying.

The third — and my favorite this time around — story line was that of Theo, who stays behind in Boston, and attempts to prove that Sophia’s uncle Shadrack didn’t, in fact, kill the prime minister. It’s a fascinating plot line, full of deceptions and intrigue. Additionally, it has the most intriguing characters; Theo’s new friend, Nettie, is the daughter of the police inspector, and absolutely delightful.

I don’t know if it’s as strong as The Glass Sentence was, but I do think that this will be a compelling series once it’s completed.

Finding Audrey

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by Sophie Kinsella
First sentence: “OMG, Mum’s gone insane.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there
Content: It has six f-bombs, all near the end of the book, and nothing else. So, I’m torn: do I leave it on the YA shelves (grades 6-8), where it thematically belongs? Or do I move it to Teen (grades 9+) where it’s not quite edgy enough, but it fits language-wise? Tough call.

Audrey doesn’t leave the house. Doesn’t talk on the phone. Doesn’t talk to people (outside of her therapist and her family). Doesn’t look people in the eye (in fact, she prefers to wear dark sunglasses all the time). She hasn’t done any of these things since the “incident”. And she prefers to keep it that way.

Before I go much further I have to interject: this is a hilarious book. Perhaps it’s because I love All Things British, but I was thoroughly charmed by Audrey and her family. It is possible to take something serious (like bullying — though you never really find out what happened, and that’s okay) and severe anxiety and to be, well, warm about it.

Maybe I should make a second diversion: I adored Audrey’s family. From her gamer older brother (with his mile-wide sarcastic streak) to her absolutely adorable four-year-old younger brother (adorable!) to her completely clueless dad (probably stereotypical, but it worked), to her over-protective mom (I will stand by my statement that the best way to be a good parent is to read YA books), they were all entertaining. Kinsella definitely wrote this with love.

(It reminded me, in some ways, of the Casson family books. That makes me happy.)

The arc of the novel is Audrey’s “recovery”. It’s aided by Linus, one of her brother’s friends who takes an interest in her. He supports her and pushes her to try new things, to somehow get a grip on her anxiety. I really liked that Audrey was never “cured”: she learned how to handle her fears and her body’s reaction to them, but they were always still around, which was not only realistic but somewhat of a relief.

Yes, things were kind of tied up in a nice bow at the end, but that’s kind of expected and I didn’t mind. In fact, I really quite enjoyed this.

11 #QuietYA Books Worth Checking Out

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I was looking for an idea for a list this morning when I stumbled upon the #QuietYA hashtag. I’d seen it around, sure, but it hit me that using it might make a good list. Then I discovered that as of late, I’ve been leaning towards the books that are getting a lot of buzz. It’s the tendency in bookselling, I think, to get on whichever bandwagon (right now? Go Set a Watchman and adult coloring books) is the most current one.

But going through my backlist (nearly 11 years now!) was a good thing. It reminded me that I used to read a lot more contemporary YA (I tend to lean toward the fantasy now), and a lot more smaller books, ones that have less press behind it. Something to think about.

But for now, here’s 11 books I consider flying under the radar (at least here in Kansas) and definitely worth reading.

Kissing in America

Gabi a Girl in Pieces
OCD, the Dude, and Me
Between Shades of Gray

Trash
Bamboo People
The Chosen One
Ten Cents a Dance
Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of Nature
Fly by Night
Jackaroo

What are some other good #QuietYA books that you’ve read?

Gone With the Wind

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by Margaret Mitchell
First sentence: “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s mild swearing, and a LOT of the n-word. Take it for what you will. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

I first read this when I was 15 or 16. I don’t remember why I picked it up, just that I did. I don’t remember what I thought of it, but it couldn’t have been much, since I really had no desire to ever visit it again. (I think I’ve seen bits of the movie.)

We picked this one for my in-person book group, partly because no one had read it in a long time, and partly because Samantha Ellis wrote about it in How to Be a Heroine. And so I began the slog.

Because it was a slog. It’s so sexist and racist, I couldn’t stand to read it for long periods of time. It really is Old South — and there’s still a lot of the Old South in the south — and that’s just hard for me to understand. Eventually, I took to looking at it as a sociological study: why was the Old South the way it was. Why couldn’t they shake their prejudices and adapt? Why were they still stuck in the Way Things Were and that’s they way They Always Should Be?

And Scarlett… on the one hand, she’s an incredibly feminist character: a person who is willing to do what needs to be done, in the face of the Patriarchy and Public Opinion; a person who flies in the face of convention. It’s amazing how modern she is.

But she’s also mean and cruel and opportunistic. And hung up on a fantasy that she needed to move past.

Maybe, though, that’s the point? That only the cruel people are successful? I don’t know.

In the end, I didn’t like it, not just because of the content, but because it was SO LONG. Seriously: knock 700 pages off of this book and maybe it’d be a decent story.

There will at least be a lot to discuss.

The Little Paris Bookshop

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by Nina George
First sentence: “How on earth could i have let them talk me into it?”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s a few sex scenes, mostly tasteful, though it gets somewhat crude once. There are also several instances of mild swearing. It’s in the adult section for thematic reasons.

Jean Perdu (which is French for lost) owns a small bookshop on a barge floating in the Seine in Paris. His specialty is figuring out what a person needs to read and then “prescribing” the Right Book for the malady. He calls his store the Literary Apothecary and has had some measure of success.

With everyone but himself.

His great love, Manon, left him 22 years ago, and Jean’s life has basically frozen since then. Sure, he’s lived — he’s in his 50s now — but he’s not Lived. And then he meets Catherine, and his life starts unthawing (but not in the way you think at first). He ends up on a boat trip (river trip?) down to the south of France to find Manon’s memory (she died soon after she left him) and to properly grieve.

This book is being billed as a bookish book, and it is in a way. It’s about the power of stories and narrative to help us through all times — both the good and the bad. But, it’s more about the healing power of grief. How, if you don’t let yourself grieve for what is lost then you can never move on, never really live again.

It’s very French, as well.  (A co-worker, who is very knowledgeable in All Things French, mentioned that this is a homage to Jean de Flourette and Manon of the Spring, both of which I saw when I was at BYU and probably should hunt down again.) There’s is a slight magical realism thread through it, in the way Jean could find the right book, to the power of food and company. It gets bogged down in the middle, during the river trip, and Manon’s travel journals, while providing some interesting insight to her and Jean’s relationship, interrupt the flow of the book.

That said, it was enjoyable, though it’s not my favorite bookish book about books.

The Conference of the Birds

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by Peter Sis
First sentence: “
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s nothing. I found it in the kids poetry section, but it’s more an adult poem; something to ruminate on. So I moved it to the adult poetry section.

So, I blame Books on the Nightstand bingo for this. I started my card back in May, and the one I ended up with has a square for “written for adults but with illustrations”. I had no idea what to do with that. Then, we got a competition of sorts going at work (we all have bingo cards going and the first one to blackout wins… something), and I was doing inventory in my sections (the kids books are basically my fiefdom. Seriously. I have had  many coworkers tell me they just “don’t mess with Melissa’s sections”.) and discovered this book. It’s not a children’s book, so it fits the bill: adult book, with illustrations (but not a graphic novel).

Bascially, it’s an adaptation of a 12th-century Sufi poem, about an epic flight of birds, who fly through thick and thin, through days, through the deepest despair, in order to find their True King, Simorgh. You can pretty much sense the allegory dripping off of this poem (Deeper Meaning for my mother). And I’ll admit: I needed to read this poem this week. It gave me the reminder that I can get through all the valleys of my life, and maybe there will be fulfillment in it all.

But, what I truly loved was Peter Sis’s art. The book itself is gorgeous: thick pages, that are just luxurious to touch (and should be, with such a high price for a slim book). And the paintings were done in muted earth tones, with layers of depth to them (at least to my untrained eye). It’s a book I could imagine going back to when I just wanted to page through something lovely.

It’s not something I ever would have picked up on my own, so I’m grateful for the extra push from the bingo game. Sometimes getting outside of your comfort zone is a good thing.

State of the TBR Pile: July 2015

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I’ve been super busy at work. Between Saturday Storytime, getting our local Where’s Waldo up and running, and hoping people sign up for our day camp (and then making sure our teachers — pulled from the community — are set), there’s been a lot to do.

That said, I had a little crowd on Saturday for storytime (in which we read The Princess and the Pony. Hilarious!), the Waldo seems to be going well (need to plan the ending party!), and from all accounts, the first camp session went well. So, maybe it’ll be a good month overall.

(And it’s Harper Lee week this week, too!)

(I haven’t got much reading done this weekend, though. I’ve been listening as much as possible to panels at SDCC. And I saw this and this and this — yes, they are all Nathan Fillion links — all of which made me very happy.)

My pile is a mix right now of bingo books (we’ve got a bit of a bookseller challenge going on right now) and Autumn Kid’s Next books (though the deadline is the 15th. I don’t know how much I’ll get read).  Here’s what’s on it:

Trouble is a Friend of Mine, by Stephanie Tromley
Husky, by J. E. Sayre
The Joy of Living, by Yongey Mingyur
Milo Speck, Accidental Agent, by Linda Urban
Blink, by Malcom Gladwell
The Wand and the Sea by Claire Caterer
The Tenderness of Thieves, by Donna Freitas
Confessions of an Imaginary Friend, by Michelle Cuevas
George, by Alex Gino
Walk on Earth a Stranger, by Rae Carson

What’s on your TBR pile?

Between You & Me

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Confessions of a Comma Queen
by Mary Norris
First sentence: “Let’s get one thing straight right from the beginning: I didn’t set out to be a comma queen.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s a passage with about four F-words, and then a whole chapter on swearing. It’s in the Literary Reference section of the bookstore.

I am not an expert grammarian. I didn’t really pay attention in school when it came to the parts of a sentence or how things are ordered, or when to use (or not use) commas (which I use much too abundantly). But, a good book on grammar? I love that. I don’t know what it is, why I adore learning about this obnoxious language of ours, but I do.

And Between You & Me is a great book on grammar. (Which means I adored it.)

Mary Norris has been a copy-editor at the New Yorker magazine for the past thirty years, so she has some credibility. But, what she also has is a terrific voice. It’s not only readable, she has a snarky streak that is just endearing. She recounts a bit of the history of her time at the magazine, their style differences with the New York Times, and a little bit about how she ended up as a copy-editor. All of which is fascinating.

But what I really enjoyed was a refresher on grammar. Her chapter on commas (where she took on both Melville and Dickens). Or a whole one on apostrophes. (Where she came up with this: “If you are going to put a sign with your family’s name on it in front of your house, as if to say ‘Our House,’ then you wan the plural possessive: The Volts’. And if your name ends in an s you still want the plural, even if it looks terrible: The Norrises’. And if you don’t like it, simply refrain from putting a sign with your name on it in front of your house.” I almost stood up and cheered.) And even the chapter on cursing was entertaining.

I could go on, but i won’t. I’ll just say this: read it. You won’t regret it.

Armada

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by Ernest Cline
First sentence: “I was staring out the classroom window and daydreaming of adventure when I spotted the flying saucer.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: July 14, 2015
Review copy pilfered off the ARC shelves at my place of employment.
Content: There’s a lot of swearing, of all sorts. If you have a problem with that, then you probably shouldn’t be reading this. It’ll be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies to quote was The Last Starfighter. (I know: there’s no accounting for taste.) I swear my brothers and I watched it over and over again the summer of 1985 or 1986) and there were lines that incorporated themselves into our everyday lingo (“I’ve always wanted to fight a desperate battle against incredible odds.”). But, when I tried to show it to my kids, I cringed: it’s a pretty bad movie.

So, when I started Armada by Ernest Cline, I cringed: he’s pretty much riffing off the idea behind Last Starfighter (and Ender’s Game): video games, believe it or not, have been training for the impending alien invasion, and since the mid-1970s (it’s set in 2017, as far as I could figure), the top players of the game Armada have been recruited to serve as the Earth’s Defense.

Zack Lightman is one of those players. He’s been obsessed with games, and specifically Armada, since was was old enough to realize that his father — who died when Zack was barely one — was a gamer and Zack wanted to emulate him. Zack’s crawled up the ranks in Armada, until he’s the 6th highest ranked player in the world. And then: he sees a spaceship, one straight from Armada. That’s when his life gets really weird.

Like Ready Player One, this one has a litmus test. If you like/get the following passage, this book is probably for you:

In that moment, I felt like Luke Skywalker surveying a hanger full of A-, Y-, and X-Wing Fighters just before the Battle of Yavin. Or Captain Apollo, climbing into the cockpit of his Viper on the Galactica‘s flight deck. Ender Wigging arriving at Battle School. Or Alex Rogan, clutching his Star League uniform, staring wide-eyed at a hanger full of Gunstars.

I won’t give away too much more of the plot except to say this:  it took a while to get into it, but I was glad I kept with it. I liked the direction that Cline took it in the end.  A good read.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

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by Ransom Riggs
First sentence: “I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s a few swear words and general creepiness. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) because that’s where adults want to find it, but I wouldn’t be adverse to giving it to a 7th or 8th grader.

I read this one by request of one of my fellow booksellers; she’d picked it for her summer teen book group and couldn’t make a session. So, I’m filling in.

I know the rest of the world has read this already, so I’ll spare much of the plot. I’ll just say that Jacob has grown up on his grandfather’s stories of the boarding school he stayed at in England during World War II. They weren’t normal stories, and the other children weren’t normal children. But Jacob thought that’s all they were: stories. That is, until his grandfather ends up dead in his garden, Jacob feels like he’s slowly going insane. So, he heads off to this island off the coast of Wales (or some place sufficiently secluded and broody and English-y) to find out the truth for himself.

Yes, the format was clever. Riggs intersperses (real) creepy, weird, old photographs and it’s quite unique how he incorporates the pictures. But, that’s all it was: clever. I never got past the whole “I’m supposed to be loving this?” feeling. Maybe it’s too much hype. Or maybe it was his writing. Or maybe it was just the mood I’ve been in, but this one fell flat.

On the other hand, that might make for more interesting discussion at the book group….