Geeky Quote Redeux #1

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I loved this geek the first time around, and am more than happy to throw my lot in for another week filled with quotes. Hope you enjoy the ones I find. Pop by the Geek site to get links to the others who are participating.

Lets get this started with a quote from the book the movie M and I are going to see today (because it’s at the cheap theater) is based on:

“This book taught me, once and for all, how easily you can escape this world with the help of words! You can find friends between the pages of a book, wonderful friends.” — Cornelia Funk (Inkspell)

Bee Season

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by Myla Goldberg
ages: adult
First sentence: “At precisely 11 a.m. every teacher in every classroom at McKinley Elementary School tells their students to stand.”

Ever have the experience where a book starts out relatively promising — not great, but good, and with potential — and so you keep reading. Then, about halfway through, you start wondering where this is all going, but because of the initial promise, you keep going. Then, a few dozen more pages later, you realize that the book is going nowhere slowly, and so you start skipping around (say, reading the end just to see if it’s good or not). But, then, you read something that is mildly confusing or interesting (how on earth did she come to make that decision? Or, why is she doing that!? Or, is she completely nuts, or am I reading this wrong?), and so you go back and begin plodding through again. But, by the time you make it to that interesting decision or situation, it’s no longer intriguing. In fact, by the time you finally close the book, you’re tearing your hair out, wishing you would have just stopped halfway through, lamenting the time that you can’t get back. In fact, the more you think about it, the worse the book is, the more annoyed you are that you’ve even attempted it. In fact, you wonder why you even try adult fiction, if this drivel is all there is. Granted, that will probably wear off in a day or so, but right now, right after finishing it, you just want to go and scrub your brain out with a good Hilary McKay book.

Ever read a book like that?

(I just did.)
(More coherent thoughts are over at the Jewish Literature Challenge Blog.)

A Couple of Quick Things

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One: There’s still time to enter my inaugural Operation Clean Out Closet (hereby christened OCOC) giveway of Jessica Day George’s Princess of the Midnight Ball. The drawing’s Friday, March 6th (that’s tomorrow!)… go here for details.

Two: This month’s Estella’s Revenge is up. One of the fun things working a bit behind the scenes is seeing how, when you’re afraid that there’s going to be hardly anything in this issue, people can come through last minute, and suddenly there’s a great issue bursting at the seams with features, columns, and (of course) reviews (in the category of “books I really would LOVE to read, but can’t because they’re not out in the US”, check out Elaine’s review of The Madonna of the Almonds. Sounds heavenly.)

My stuff… I interviewed Joshua Henkin, one of the nicest and most interesting authors I’ve talked to in a while. I also have three reviews: two YA winners — The Parliament of Blood and Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One Before — and one so-so nonfiction — Somewhere in Heaven.

Go check it out! (And don’t forget to enter my giveaway!)

To Catch a Mermaid

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by Suzanne Selfors
ages: 8-12
First sentence: “Boom Broom awoke to find his little sister, Mertyle, looking for spots.”

It’s Friday the 13th, the day of the school Kick the Ball Against the Wall championship, and Boom Broom just knows he’s going to win. Except it seems the universe it out to get him. It’s not enough that his mother was stolen by a freak twister a year ago. Or that his father hasn’t come out of the attic since the accident. Or that his sister, Mertyle, has been coming up with increasingly inane (but creative) sicknesses to get out of school and stay home and watch game shows. Or that the housekeeper his father hired, Halvor, is a Direct Descendant of Vikings and refuses to cook or eat anything that isn’t fish, rye bread or marmalade.

No, today, of all days, Boom has to kick an apple through the window of Mr. Johnson’s house, which leads to him being late to school, which leads to him missing the Kick the Ball Against the Wall championship, which leads to him loaning his best friend, Wing, $7 of the $10 Halvor gave Boom to buy dinner (fish, of course) so he could pay off a bet, which leads to him rummaging through the reject bucket at the docks, which leads to him bringing home the one thing that will change their lives: a merbaby.

It’s a whimsical book, with absurdities and magic flowing freely throughout. Selfors has a way with descriptions, with situations that while not laugh-out-loud funny (for me, at least) are at least amusing in their absurdity. That said, there’s a dark streak running through the book; the neighbors across the street are delightfully snotty and bossy, and all that goes wrong for Boom in the weekend works most satisfactorily toward the lovely, happy conclusion.

In short: an absolutely delightful little book.

Library Loot #9

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Okay, so I caught up enough on my books at home, and I started putting holds on books again. And, of course, they all came in at once! I suppose I’ve got enough to read for the rest of the month…

For A/K:
One Day, Two Dragons, Lynne Bertrand/Illus. Janet Street
A Birthday for Cow!, Jan Thomas**
Grace for President, Kelly DiPucchio/LeUyen Pham**
Holly’s Red Boots, Fracesca Chessa**
Erika-San, Allen Say
We’re Going on a Lion Hunt, Margery Cuyler**
The Birthday Dance Party (that’s this week’s Dora book)

For C:
Excalibur, Hudson Talbott
Lancelot, Hudson Talbott

For M and/or C:
Outlaw Princess of Sherwood, Nancy Springer

For M:
Skinned, Robin Wasserman*
The Light of the Oracle, Victoria Hanley*
The Mislaid Magician: or Ten Years After, Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
Chaos, Ted Dekker

For me:
Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson
Permanent Rose, Hilary McKay (yay!)*
So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading, Sara Nelson
The Ridiculous Race, Steve Hely and Vali Chandrasekaran
The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy
Banker to the Poor, Muhammad Yunus

The roundup is at A Striped Armchair.

*Ones that M eventually read.
**Picture books we really liked.

Teaser Tuesday, March 3

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  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
  • Please avoid spoilers!

    • Happy March! I don’t know if I should do this, but I’m going to, anyway, because I need help deciding. Graceling is one of those books that leave you baffled as to what to read next. So, what I’m going to do is put up teasers for the three books I’m considering picking up next. Tell me, from the teasers, which one you think would be most interesting. To be fair, I’ll pick a teaser off the same page for all three.

    From The Seems: the Split Second, by John Hulme and Michael Wexler. page 25:

    On the saem Mission where he had squred off against Thibadeau and fixed a nasty Glitch in Sleep, Becker had also made a friend named Jennifer Kaley. She had been scheduled to receive a Dream that night — a Dream to help her cope with a difficult time in her life — but Becker had accidentally destroyed it.

    From To Catch a Mermaid, by Suzanne Selfors, page 25:

    On their way back to class, Boom and Winger passed the girl in the green sweater. She was taking very small steps toward Principal Prunewallop’s office and sniffling.

    From Bee Season, by Myla Goldberg, page 25:

    Besides, he really wants to be able to walk around for hours naked from the waist up, even outdoors, and not think about it. “You’re not listening,” Eliza complains, tossing a sock in Aaron’s general direction but hitting him in the left nipple, an unintentional bull’s-eye.

    So, which one should I read?

    The roundup is as Should Be Reading.

    Graceling

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    by Kristin Cashore
    ages: 13+
    First sentence: “In these dungeons the darkness was complete, but Katsa had a map in her mind.”

    When Abby commented on the Library Loot post that she loved Graceling, I knew it was good. It was a Cybil’s fantasy finalist, and practically everyone who has gotten their hands on it loved it. The question was (after I pried it out of M’s hands… she kept picking it up every time I put it down, and she’s already read it twice!): does it live up to the hype.

    Well. Yes. It does.

    First, let me say that reading this book was a test of my self control. I started it Saturday night after I got the kids in bed, and I stayed up until after midnight reading. I was only halfway done. Sunday is normally crazy for me, and I didn’t get a chance to get back to it until evening. I can’t tell you how torturous this was. All I wanted to do was play hookey, shut myself in my room and finish the dang book. And then, today… it was calling… it was pleading… and so I finally caved, put on a movie, and read it to it’s very satisfying conclusion.

    Oh, do you want to know the story?

    I’ll give you the basics (trust me: the less you know, the better the book). Kasta is our heroine, and she is Graced — a magical ability that sets her apart from other people; Gracelings are recognized for their different color eyes — with the ability to kill. She’s her uncle, King Randa’s, strong-arm, performing executions, beatings, whatever he needs. On the side, she’s part of a Council, a secret movement to help citizens in the seven kingdoms. She rescues the Liendan king’s father from the dungeons of another king, which sets off a chain of events that will not only change her life, but change the fate of several kingdoms.

    I loved the action — M asked me what my favorite part was, and I had to admit that I loved the fighting scenes. Cashore has a way with words that vividly portrays action, and I was on the edge of my seat most of the time. Which brings me to point number two: I loved the tension, the twists and turns. The “bad guy” is truly horrible, evil, and malicious, and even though he only shows up a couple of times, both times I was biting my nails with the tension of it all. And I loved the romance. Not since Crown Duel have I read a fantasy romance that was as intriguing and satisfying as this one is.

    All of this is a very rounabout way of saying what M announced the first time she finished the book: it’s awesome and we have to own it.

    Operation Clean Out Closet: Book Giveaway

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    I have been noticing over the past little while that my book pile on my closet shelf — the books I’ve read, mostly enjoyed, but have no desire to keep — has grown to monumental proportions. Sure, I could sell (some of) them at a used book store, or put them on Book Mooch, but I think I’d rather get rid of them by degrees, and pass them on to some other appreciative reader. This will be a weekly event for a while (until the pile is gone, at least), so if you don’t like this week’s book, check back next. 🙂

    Up for grabs…

    an ARC of Jessica Day George’s Princess at the Midnight Ball. (Here’s my review, as well as a sampling of others: Becky’s Book Reviews, Deliciously Clean Reads, Presenting Lenore, The Magic of Ink, and Wands and Worlds.)

    To enter, leave a comment (with a valid email, if it’s not readily available on your blog) by 7 a.m. Friday (US Central time) answering the question: which is your favorite fairy tale re-telling or re-imagining (see Charlotte’s review for a good definition)? It’s open to both US residents and international readers, and I’ll put your name in a second time if you spread the word on your blog.

    I’ll pick (or rather, one of the girls will) the winner on Friday.

    Good luck!

    Well-Seasoned Reader Challenge Roundup #8

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    We’re entering into the final stretch: only 31 more days. I’ll set up a finisher’s post where you can leave links within the next day or so (along with finisher’s prizes announcements).

    As for the quote of the day, I think I’ve done enough from the travel part, and not enough of food. I need to rectify that. (Maybe March will be food month. Got any quotes for me? Send them to mmfbooks AT gmail DOT com.)

    “He showed the words “chocolate cake” to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. “Guilt” was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: “celebration.” — Michael Pollan

    As for reviews, my wish came true, and we have quite a few this week!

    Katrina visited North Korea with the graphic novel, Pyongyang, by French writer Guy Delise. Unfortunately, the visit (and the book) disappointed. Katrina writes, “Now, I’m not saying that North Korea is amazing or politically correct, in fact I know so little about the place that I couldn’t make an educated comment on the country, but I can say that Delise is negative about the place from the opening to the end of the book. He never says a single positive thing about the country or the people that he meets, instead he mocks their views, behaviour and culture.”

    W7 read a Graham Greene book, Doctor Fisher of Geneva or the Bomb Party. She describes the book this way, “This rather thin book describes one small part of the life of a toothpaste millionaire who lives in Geneva and who is a pretty cold and weird character. Most of all this man “entertains” himself by having parties to which he invites a small group of faithful acquaintances – he refuses to call them friends. And these parties are designed as experiments to see how far the greed of rich people will take them.” She quotes from the book about happiness and unhappiness, and comments, “It is so hard to describe happiness, and so easy to describe unhappiness.” Which I think is so true.

    She also read Adrift on the Nile, by Naguib Mahfouz. She writes, “Naguib Mahfouz is a fabulous writer, or is this too obvious since he is a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature? He writes stories which could nearly be taken to be simple. As you read his work though you cannot help but know that everything is a metaphor, everything is a parable but you cannot tell for sure what the message is, if there is one really and if what you read in it tells you more about yourself or about Naguib Mahfouz.” Obviously, I need to find a book by this man.

    Mrs B. read My Life in France (many participants have visited France for this challenge, too…) by master chef Julia Child. Mrs B. comments that it’s a gem of a book — about Julia’s experiences in France and how she learned to cook the French way. She comments about the book, “. It is such an encouragement to hear about a woman beginning the most important and influential segments of life around the age of 40…makes me feel like there’s all the time in the world.”

    Amira throws out one of of her favorite books: The Reindeer People: Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia by Piers Vitebsky. She writes, “It’s too rare a combination to have a scholar like Piers Vitebsky who can write an engaging book for the general public. Not that this book is unique in that way, but it’s unusual. This really is the book to read if you’re going to read something about Siberia. Highly recommended.” She also found a Soviet-era guidebook to Bishkek (where she and her family lived for a year), Frunze, and commented, “It’s easier to imagine that the author was exaggerating than that Bishkek ever was a “City of Smiles,” at least for tourists.”

    Erin read Three Cups of Tea, about Greg Mortenson’s quest to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She has a personal connection to the book, since her husband served in Afghanistan with the military, and actually saw the situation first hand. Erin writes, “[T]he idea that education of girls is the way to save the world is just fantastic. Honestly. Believe the hype, give this book a try.” (As I’ve long said, it’s not a brilliant book, but it’s a really good cause. Read the book and then give the man some money. He will do much good with it. Sorry for the soapbox.)

    Becky tackled Don Quixote, and is not sorry she did. She writes, “Did it live up to my expectations? Was it everything I wanted it to be? Yes. And then some. I expected it to be a bit on the absurd side, a bit over the top. A book that explores the fine line–and not so fine lines at times–between sanity and insanity, wisdom and folly. But what I didn’t expect was the humor. I didn’t expect the book to be as entertaining as it was.”

    Two people tackled Hanna’s Daughter, by Marianne Fredriksson: Corinne, who said: “I’m still reeling from the depth of this book.” (Can’t get much better than that.); and Amira, who said: “It’s probably not the sort of book I would have picked up (mother-daughter relationships), but it was worth the time to read it.”

    And lastly, but definately not leastly, Kristi checked in with four reviews: Lessons from San Quentin, by Bill Dallas; The Spring of Candy Apples, by Debbie Viguie; Trail of Crumbs, by Kim Sunee; and Fruit of My Lipstick, by Shelley Adina.

    I like what Kristi said about Trail of Crumbs: “Her book is doctored with tales of wonderful foods in exotic (to me) places. At the ends of many of the chapters are recipes of what sound like delicious dishes. I hope someday to have the courage to try some of them.” For me, that’s the real essence of a good food book!

    Only four weeks left!

    February Jacket Flap-a-Thon

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    I have nothing witty to stay to begin. Generally, February is better than January in my book, but for some reason, I never really got a grasp on the month. Nothing drastic or dramatic, just couldn’t shake a general funk. Thank heavens for books….

    Indigo’s Star (Margaret K. McElderry Books): “IT’S BACK TO SCHOOL FOR THE START OF A NEW TERM, AND THE ECCENTRIC CASSONS ARE UP TO THEIR OLD TRICKS! Indigo, having just recovered from a bout of mononucleosis, must return to school after missing an entire semester. Only his younger sister and loyal sidekick, Rose, knows why he’s dreading it so much. As it turns out, the school bullies are eagerly awaiting Indigo’s return so that they can pick up where they left off — flushing his head in the toilet. But Indigo hasn’t counted on meeting Tom, an American student who is staying with his grandmother in England for the year. With his couldn’t-care-less attitude and rock-and-roll lifestyle, Tom becomes Indigo’s ally, and together they work to take back the school. Meanwhile, eight-year-old Rose is desperately trying to avoid wearing horrible glasses, nineteen-year-old Caddy is agonizing over her many suitors, Saffy is working overtime with her best friend, Sarah, to protect Indigo from the gang, and with their father, Bill, in London at his art studio, their mother, Eve, is just trying to stay on top of it all!”

    Actually, this is a good bad one. M read the blurb and had no interest in reading the book. (Her exact words: “I have no desire to read about heads being flushed in toilets.”) It was only after I read it, gushed, cajoled and reminded that she actually read the book. And loved it.

    Princess of the Midnight Ball (Bloomsbury): “A tale of twelve princesses doomed to dance until dawn… Galen is a young soldier returning from war; Rose is one of twelve princesses condemned to dance each night for the King Under Stone. Together Galen and Rose will search for a way to break the curse that forces the princesses to dance at the midnight balls. All they need is one invisibility cloak, a black wool chain knit with enchanted silver needles, and that most critical ingredient of all—true love—to conquer their foes in the dark halls below. But malevolent forces are working against them above ground as well, and as cruel as the King Under Stone has seemed, his wrath is mere irritation compared to the evil that awaits Galen and Rose in the brighter world above. Captivating from start to finish, Jessica Day George’s take on the Grimms’ tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses demonstrates yet again her mastery at spinning something entirely fresh out of a story you thought you knew.”

    Perhaps I notice this because I read a lot of Bloomsbury books, but the folks there really know how to pique a reader’s interest without giving too much away.

    Matrimony (Vintage Contemporaries): “It’s the fall of 1986, and Julian Wainwright, an aspiring writer, arrives at Graymont College in New England. Here he meets Carter Heinz, with whom he develops a strong but ambivalent friendship, and beautiful Mia Mendelsohn, with whom he falls in love. Spurred on by a family tragedy, Julian and Mia’s love affair will carry them to graduation and beyond, taking them through several college towns, over the next fifteen years. Starting at the height of the Reagan era and ending in the new millennium, Matrimony is a stunning novel of love and friendship, money and ambition, desire and tensions of faith. It is a richly detailed portrait of what it means to share a life with someone — to do it when you’re young, and to try to do it afresh on the brink of middle age.”

    I like this because the book is about such normal, everyday things which are hard to summarize. But, the copy does a good job with this.

    The Trouble Begins at 8 (Greenwillow Books): “Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth.” So begins Sid Fleischman’s ramble-scramble biography of the great American author and wit, who started life in a Missouri village as a barefoot boy named Samuel Clemens. Abandoning a career as a young steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, Sam took a bumpy stagecoach to the Far West. In the gold and silver fields, he expected to get rich quick. Instead, he got poor fast, digging in the wrong places. His stint as a sagebrush newspaperman led to a duel with pistols. Had he not survived, the world would never have heard of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn—or red-headed Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens adopted his pen name in a hotel room in San Francisco and promptly made a jumping frog (and himself) famous. His celebrated novels followed at a leisurely pace; his quips at jet speed. “Don’t let schooling interfere with your education,” he wrote. Here, in high style, is the story of a wisecracking adventurer who came of age in the untamed West; an ink-stained rebel who surprised himself by becoming the most famous American of his time. Bountifully illustrated.”

    My only quibble is the “Bountifully illustrated.” Huh? (They weren’t even really illustrations, more a combination of photographs and reprinted cartoons.) But the rest is a good teaser inviting readers to learn more about Mark Twain.

    Other books read this month:
    Everything Beautiful
    Beside a Burning Sea
    Maus I and Maus II
    Skeleton Creek
    The Dragonfly Pool
    Madame Pamplemousse and Her Incredible Edibles
    Becoming Jane Austen
    The Adventures of Boone Barnaby
    The Four Agreements
    The Graveyard Book
    The Bermudez Triangle
    A View from Jerusalem
    Dear Julia
    Chocolat