Review: The Wicked Day

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The Wicked Day is the fourth and last book in Mary Stewart's Arthurian saga, following the three books that make up her Merlin trilogy.  Stewart's Merlin trilogy is my favorite Arthurian retelling- I read it about five years ago, but I was never able to bring myself to finish the series.  I don't know if this happens for any other Camelot fan, but it's always hard for me to read the last book in an Arthur series because it's very sad and I like to escape that fate as much as possible.

But recently, I looked at my shelf and The Wicked Day begged me to finally pick it up, so I did.  And while the story is sad and fateful, I enjoyed it.

The Wicked Day tells the story of Mordred, Arthur's son by his half-sister Morgause.  He grows up on an isolated island in the Orkneys with foster parents, until Morgause decides she wants to be involved in his rearing so that she can use him as her tool to bring down King Arthur.  She takes Mordred and her other sons with her to Camelot, where Mordred meets his father.  Everyone in Britain knows Merlin's prophecy that Mordred will be Arthur's downfall- but even so, father and son become close confidantes and Mordred struggles against the knowledge that some way, some how, he will be the one to kill his beloved father.

Review: High Rising

My goodness, how was Angela Thirkell sitting on my bookshelf for so long without me realizing that I should pick her up and put every single book she's written immediately on my TBR pile?

I don't know where I first heard about Angela Thirkell or even how I got the one book of hers I do own, High Rising.  But I am thrilled to know she has written dozens of books and I think she may be yet another Georgette Heyer to me- a true comfort read full of humor and wit and kindness.

High Rising is where Laura Morland lives.  Laura is a middle-aged widow, mother to four sons, who writes fun and thrilling stories that revolve around the fashion industry in 1930s England.  Her youngest son, Tony, is eight years old and talks about nothing but trains- to an exhausting degree.  She also has many friends in the neighborhood, including her secretary Miss Ann Todd, her good friend and fellow author George Knox, her hilarious maid Stoker, her publisher Adrian Coates, and many more.  But George has a new secretary who seems a bit deranged and likely to ruin all that Laura values about her home life.  High Rising is a quiet, gentle story that follows Laura's attempts to understand George's secretary, "the Incubus," and help all her friends to happiness along the way.

Sunday Salon: Follower Power!

The term "follower" is a loaded word in blogosphere.  The question, "How many followers do you have?"  Have you ever done a quick check on a Blogger sidebar to see what the Google Friend count is?  Or maybe you see a follower count and feel skeptic.  "What?  This blog has a bajillion followers, and mine only has 500?  Clearly, this blogger is cheating somehow."  Or the opposite.  "This blog only has ten followers, I'm not going to spend much time here as I don't know how much staying power the blogger has yet."  Or, "Wow, this amazing blog has hardly anyone commenting!  How is that possible?"

Some people get really into follower counts.  There are contests or prizes when a blog reaches a certain number of followers.  "I'm close to 50/100/300/1,000 followers!  Follow me, too, and be entered for a chance to win a free book once I hit the golden number."

But when bloggers are asked, point-blank, do followers matter?, many deny it.  Most say they'd rather have a small core of good commenters to spark discussion, not thousands of followers who don't say anything.

Review: To Kill a Mockingbird

My goodness, I love this book!  To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is the book that inspired me to host the Flashback Challenge, along with The Phantom Tollbooth.  I loved this book when I first read it my freshman year of high school, but I have not reread it until now.  I love it still.

To Kill a Mockingbird is famously the only book Harper Lee has ever written.  I don't blame her.  It's not the sort of book one can follow up easily.  

For those who may not be familiar with the premise of the novel, I will try to summarize it for you, but know that it is a very episodic novel, so for me, it's hard to summarize.  To Kill a Mockingbird is set in Maycomb County, Alabama, where Jean Louise Finch (called Scout) is growing up during the Great Depression with her brother Jem, her best friend Dill, her father Atticus, her maid Calpurnia and a great many other relatives and neighbors.  The story meanders through many different events and non-events, including the terror the children feel for a reclusive next-door-neighbor and having to learn via the Dewey Decimal Method at school.  But the central story involves Atticus Finch defending a black man in a rape trial, and the backlash to that act, and lessons learned from it.

With Reverent Hands: Empress of the World

I bring you with reverent hands / the books of my numberless dreams.

-WB Yeats, "A Poet To His Beloved"

WB Yeats, I'm sure, gave books to his beloved that he valued highly himself, and that he handled with reverence.  If you had to recommend a book you revered to someone, what would it be?
 
I'm asking you to highlight one book.  One book that you adore, that you prize, that changed your life, that you would save from a burning building, that you found serendipitously on a library shelf or at a used bookstore, looking lonely and ignored.  A book that thrills you but that, you have come to realize, no one else has really ever heard of, much less read.  With Reverent Hands is all about those books- the ones that deserve a wider audience than they are given and that you want everyone to go out and read, even if they are out of print.

This week's post is by Jodie, who blogs at Book Gazing.  I don't even know when I first starting reading Jodie's blog, but I really enjoy it.  She reviews such an interesting array of books, updates us on her flowers, and wears trendy clothes.  Like me, she also has an obsession with sprinkles.  She's a lot of fun to follow and I'm so glad she's here for a visit!

What book are you highlighting? 

Empress of the World by Sara Ryan

Review: Bone - Out From Boneville

Jeff Smith's series of graphic novels begins with this one, Bone:  Out From Boneville.  In it, Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone have been kicked out of Boneville after a mayoral race picnic gone wrong.  They get lost in the desert, and after a herd of locusts separate them, Fone Bone is left on his own in a lush green valley that is home to talking bugs, a giant dragon and very ugly and stupid rat creatures that want to cook him into a quiche.  Fone Bone makes friends easily, though, and soon is at home in the valley, though he still wants to find his cousins and he misses Boneville (a city that, strangely, no one else has heard of).  But he's always on the lookout for his cousins, and he's always just one step ahead of trouble.

I read this as my second book for the Graphic Novel Challenge.  To me, Bone is the traditional graphic novel story.  It's aimed at a younger audience, combines fantasy and realism, is fun and full of adventure.  While I have really enjoyed the two graphic memoirs I've read previously, it was fun to read something that was more what I think "normal" (yes, I know that's a loaded term to use, Ana!) in terms of graphic novels.

Review: Rain Village

Rain Village, by Carolyn Turgeon, was my choice for the first ever Spotlight Series on Unbridled Books!  The story piqued my interest immediately.  Tessa Riley is a very small 12-year-old living in a Kansas farming village with her very tall family.  Her parents are very religious and don't think that Tessa or her siblings need to know anything besides how to farm land and sew.  But Tessa is so small that she cannot help with the farming.  So instead, she starts working with the new librarian, the sexy and fascinating Mary Finn.

Mary helps Tessa find herself, discovering a deep core of strength and self-esteem.  Mary teaches Tessa to read and tells her stories about her home, Rain Village, and her stint as an acrobat in the Velazquez circus.  These hours with Mary help Tessa deal with difficult conditions at home, but eventually Tessa must set out on her own.  She does so, escaping to join Mary's former circus troupe and making a home for herself there.  But even after making a new life for herself, she finds she can't quite keep the old life out.

With Reverent Hands: Illyrian Spring

I bring you with reverent hands / the books of my numberless dreams.

-WB Yeats, "A Poet To His Beloved"

WB Yeats, I'm sure, gave books to his beloved that he valued highly himself, and that he handled with reverence.  If you had to recommend a book you revered to someone, what would it be?
 
I'm asking you to highlight one book.  One book that you adore, that you prize, that changed your life, that you would save from a burning building, that you found serendipitously on a library shelf or at a used bookstore, looking lonely and ignored.  A book that thrills you but that, you have come to realize, no one else has really ever heard of, much less read.  With Reverent Hands is all about those books- the ones that deserve a wider audience than they are given and that you want everyone to go out and read, even if they are out of print.

This week's post is by Rachel, who blogs at Book Snob.   I have liked Rachel's blog for a long time as she reads many books that are slightly obscure and that I wouldn't come across if she  didn't read and review them.  But I also have a great deal of respect and lots of love for her because we once got in a fairly heated argument on Eva's blog about racism in the US and racism in the UK and I am sure I wasn't very nice in all my comments, but our friendship was not affected (at least, I hope not!), and I love that.  I know that I can be very honest with her and that she will consider my thoughts.

What book are you highlighting?
Illyrian Spring, by Ann Bridge, first published in 1935.

Review: Rising Road

Rising Road:  A True Tale of Love, Race and Religion in America, by Sharon Davies, is a bit of a misnomer.  At least, in my opinion.  I noticed no love involved in the story.  Nor was race really a huge factor in the way I thought it would be.  It was almost entirely about religion.

Rising Road documents a murder trial in 1920s Alabama.  Father Coyle was murdered on his front porch, in full view of several bystanders, by a Methodist minister, Edwin Stephenson.  Earlier that day, Coyle had presided over the marriage of Stephenson's daughter, Ruth, to a Catholic Puerto Rican.  Stephenson found out, took his gun, and shot Coyle.  Then he went to trial for murder, pleading not guilty by reason of insanity and claiming that he shot Coyle in self-defense.

Davies spends time setting up her story, describing Ruth Stephenson, Father Coyle and Ruth's racist and very cruel-sounding parents.  She also gives us history about the lawyers involved, some history on Birmingham, Alabama, the Ku Klux Klan, and then recounts the case for readers.

Review: Penhallow

Penhallow, by Georgette Heyer, was my choice for this month's Classics Circuit.  When I heard that Heyer was this month's choice, I literally squealed with excitement as she is one of my favorite authors.  I love to read her for when I am in the mood for a light, happy and fun story.

Penhallow is not light, happy or fun.  It was a very difficult book for me to read and, much as it pains me to say it... I did not enjoy it.  I think it was well written, but the story was hard for me to connect to.  (On a side note, this is one of the reasons I no longer give ratings to books on my blog- how do you rate a well-written book with a storyline you disliked?)

Penhallow takes place in the English countryside, like all Heyer's mysteries.  Adam Penhallow is a horrible autocratic man who keeps his many children (legitimate and illegitimate) close to him, ruling every aspect of their lives with an iron will.  They are all terrified of him, and they all hate each other.  Their lives revolve around horses, getting into massive arguments with one another (and their spouses, significant others, the maids, etc.), sponging off their father, and generally hating their lives.

The murder mystery is a little different than the usual fare because the murder doesn't occur until 2/3rds of the way through the book, and the readers know who did it and why.  The remainder of the story is the fallout from this murder and how it affects everyone's future.

Sunday Salon: Do you fall for the hype?

First things first.  Did I send you a template for With Reverent Hands?  Did you send it back to me?  If not, please do so!  I have none in my arsenal to post in future!

I recently commented on Twitter that there were many blog posts this week all surrounding the book Raven Stole the Moon, by Garth Stein.  When I say many, I mean many.  I am not sure if I just follow all the blogs who participated in the Garth Stein tour, but I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say that for at least five days of the past week, I would see upwards of five blog posts a day around that book- either reviews or giveaways.

For me, it got old really fast.

I know that I said previously that it is only when bloggers come together and form a collective force that we have any true impact in the reading world.  But I also don't like the feeling that publicists or publishers can herd us like sheep and have us read and review books just because they want us to.  I don't like that artificial hype can be created around a book solely by a blog tour being arranged, that hits you over the head with the book over and over again, dozens of times in the same week.

Review: Bellfield Hall

Bellfield Hall, by Anna Dean, is an English country home murder mystery set during the Georgian era (1805). Miss Dido Kent arrives at the hall after her niece summons her there- she soon finds out that not only has her beloved niece's fiancee called off their engagement, but also that a woman no one knows has been murdered in the shrubbery. Dido promises to help her niece discover why her fiancee so abruptly called off their marriage, and in the meantime, she does some of her own sleuthing on the murder.

I enjoyed this story. I don't think it was amazing (and I don't agree with Anne Perry's assessment that the mystery becomes "more urgent with every page," as stated on the front cover), but I think there is certainly room for the series to grow and strengthen if the author continues with it, and I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

Review: The Wee Free Men

The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett, is about Tiffany Aching, a nine-year-old girl with a flair for making dairy products whose family mostly doesn't notice her.  She has a toddler brother, Wentworth, who always wants "sweeties" or to go to "toy-let."  One day, Tiffany and Wentworth are warned by little blue men with red hair that there is a monster in the river by their house.  Tiffany gets rid of the monster with a frying pan, setting of a series of events including her becoming the kelda of the Nac Mac Feegle (the little blue men from the river), learning a great deal about her fabulous grandmother, sharing tales of sheep and dogs, defeating a fairy queen and, of course, coming into her own.

I love Terry Pratchett for many reasons, but one of the biggest is because I have always loved the main female characters in his story.  They are strong, witty, sensible and intelligent women.  I adore Pratchett for his ability to consistently write such excellent characters.  Tiffany Aching is no exception.  I love her.  She's the sort of nine-year-old I wish I had been.  She's the sort of girl I wish that I were now.

Review: Cassandra at the Wedding

Cassandra at the Wedding, by Dorothy Baker, is about identical twin sisters Cassandra and Judith Edwards.  The two were inseparable growing up, insulated from the rest of the world without any other friends, and planned to move to Paris together after college, until Judith abruptly told Cassandra that before they moved together to Europe, Jude was going to spend a year on her own in New York.

Jude went to New York, met a man and fell in love.  Nine months later, Cassandra is on her way home to "the ranch" to serve as the sole bridesmaid at an intimate wedding that she does not want to see happen.  She, in fact, wants very much to stop it from happening.

Cassandra at the Wedding takes place over only one weekend, full of family drama, the pressures of being two very different people who look exactly alike, prescription drugs, marriage and much else.

The Sunday Salon: What Makes You Unsubscribe?

I know I am not the only one with an out-of-control Google Reader.  In fact, I think my Google Reader is not nearly so overwhelming as some other people's.  There is always talk about the possibility of imploding under hundreds- sometimes thousands!- of blog posts to read and catch up on and comment on and all the rest, and it can sometimes be exhausting.

So how do you cull the list?

Some people don't, I know.  Those people are more ambitious than me; I crack under the weight of a Google Reader that is above 100.  I lose the desire to read very many of those posts (especially the memes!!!).  And so inevitably, there will be a time when I think, "Should I really be subscribing to this blog?"

Unsubscription from a blog, for me, is fraught with tension.  It's like a break-up.  I consider it for a week or more, often.  Does this blog really give me what I want?  Do we have the same taste in books?  Have our reading paths diverged and I didn't notice it until just now?  What are the last five books that s/he has reviewed?  What are the last ten posts that have gone up?  Should I give this another go?  After all, a lot of my friends like this blog, and maybe it's me, not them?

I ask this because I have serious guilt over unsubscribing, and I wonder if this is universal.  I do eventually bite the bullet and unsubscribe from some, but it's not often that I will do this.  Everyone puts a lot of effort into their blogs, and obviously, if I became a subscriber, I must have liked something some time.  But with so many blogs and even more posts, sometimes it's hard to remember.

For me, there are various things that might serve as an impetus for reviewing whether I should stay subscribed to a blog or not.  The first is whether the blogger has even posted recently.  If I notice that a blog is inactive (which, frankly, in Google Reader I often do not notice at all), then I'll often unsubscribe.  To me, inactive is no new posts for about four months or so.  Sometimes I'll keep a blog on there if I really, really like the blogger, but often, I will unsubscribe to these blogs.  If that blogger becomes active again later, that's great!  But I won't know unless she tells me.

I also sometimes notice too many memes and not enough original content and unsubscribe from those blogs as well. 

And sometimes a blog will just review a lot of books that I have little interest in.  For example, if a blog reviews mostly romance or more contemporary chick lit or urban fantasy, I might unsubscribe because those are not genres I have much interest in.  And if that's all that is there, then it may not be worth me just going and "marking as read" in Google Reader.  That's not to say that I avoid blogs that review books outside my normal tastes or interests.  But if they review only books outside my general tastes, then I may unsubscribe.

I have never unsubscribed because a blog's reviews are too long.


What about you?  Is there anything that makes you unsubscribe from a blog's feed?

Review: The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, is about Nobody Owens, called Bod, and his life growing up in a graveyard.  When he was less than two years old, his entire family was killed.  Bod escaped death by tottering out the front door of the house, walking up the hill and entering a graveyard.  He is found there by the ghost of Mrs. Owens, a woman who lived over 300 years ago and who never had any children.  She and her husband undertake to raise the boy they name Nobody Owens, with the help of the mysterious caretaker Silas.  But, as one character says, raising a child "takes a graveyard" and every ghost must chip in, teaching Bod his alphabet, his numbers, how to Fade and walk through walls and how to Dreamwalk.

Bod grows up, in between the worlds of the living and the dead, friends with both sides but not quite fitting in with either.  He wants to learn, but his guardians are worried of letting him outside the graveyard.  He goes, anyway, and gets into some worrisome scrapes, inside and outside the graveyard.  He gets abducted by ghouls.  He meets a girl, and becomes her friend.  He meets the man who killed his family.  And throughout the book, he continues to grow and mature, though he keeps his innate and boundless kindness.

With Reverent Hands: The Last Temptation of Christ

 

I bring you with reverent hands / the books of my numberless dreams. 

-WB Yeats, "A Poet To His Beloved"

 

WB Yeats, I'm sure, gave books to his beloved that he valued highly himself, and that he handled with reverence.  If you had to recommend a book you revered to someone, what would it be?

I'm asking you to highlight one book.  One book that you adore, that you prize, that changed your life, that you would save from a burning building, that you found serendipitously on a library shelf or at a used bookstore, looking lonely and ignored.  A book that thrills you but that, you have come to realize, no one else has really ever heard of, much less read.  With Reverent Hands is all about those books- the ones that deserve a wider audience than they are given and that you want everyone to go out and read, even if they are out of print.

If you would like to participate in With Reverent Hands, please comment on this post and I will send you a template! 

I admit that I had a lot of difficulty with this week's post.  When I saw the book that was being spotlighted, I instantly didn't want to post it because I have a lot of trouble with people pushing religion (particularly the Christian religion) on other people.  But at the same time, the whole point of With Reverent Hands is to push books on other people that may not otherwise have considered the book you love.  And the below is certainly a book I would never have considered reading, but of course that doesn't mean it might not resonate with other people.  And just because a reader recommends a book, that doesn't mean she is recommending all the strife and baggage that goes along with the religion.  And I guess this submission proved to me that my issues with religion should not be pushed on other people- just as other people's religions should not be pushed on me.  So thank you to Sumanam, the author of the below post, for bringing my fallacies to my attention.

Review: Last Argument of Kings

Last Argument of Kings, by Joe Abercrombie, is the third and final book in The First Law trilogy.  (See my reviews of the first and second books.)  In this last, violent and dark story, we see characters drift apart, reunite, and then drift apart again.  Sometimes physically and sometimes emotionally.  Often both.  The Union is under great threat not only from Bethod in the north but also from the Gurkish in the south, and everyone is converging upon Adua.  We learn a great deal more about several characters in this book- their spotty histories, their many mistakes and their quests for power.  We see them struggle through their actions, face down their loud and clamoring consciences and try to survive to the end of the book.  It is a dark and deeply troubling novel, but one that lays bare all the difficulties and the trappings that come with power.

I am glad I read Joe Abercrombie's trilogy but I admit a sense of relief that I am now done.  It was hard, even as a reader, to be bogged down in so much corruption and two-timing and despair, and I'm glad to have come up now for a much-needed breath of fresh air.  This book is not a happy one.  That's not to say that there aren't happy moments, or funny ones.  But far fewer than in the last two books.  And it ends on such a teetering note- you aren't quite sure what happens next.  I am an optimist and hope for the best, for a happy continuation of the story, but from my knowledge of the books, I fear that Abercrombie would not provide a road to a weary but somewhat happy ending for me.

Blogsplash: Thaw!

Today I am participating in a Blogsplash for an author!  It is a different sort of post, but it's fun to use the internet and blogosphere in an innovative way, which Fiona Robyn is definitely doing!  Below is an excerpt from her book, Thaw, which you can read online for free!
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Ruth's diary is the new novel by Fiona Robyn, called Thaw. She has decided to blog the novel in its entirety over the next few months, so you can read it for free.
Ruth's first entry is below, and you can continue reading tomorrow here.
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These hands are ninety-three years old. They belong to Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. She was so frail that her grand-daughter had to carry her onto the set to take this photo. It’s a close-up. Her emaciated arms emerge from the top corners of the photo and the background is black, maybe velvet, as if we’re being protected from seeing the strings. One wrist rests on the other, and her fingers hang loose, close together, a pair of folded wings. And you can see her insides.

The bones of her knuckles bulge out of the skin, which sags like plastic that has melted in the sun and is dripping off her, wrinkling and folding. Her veins look as though they’re stuck to the outside of her hands. They’re a colour that’s difficult to describe: blue, but also silver, green; her blood runs through them, close to the surface. The book says she died shortly after they took this picture. Did she even get to see it? Maybe it was the last beautiful thing she left in the world.

I’m trying to decide whether or not I want to carry on living. I’m giving myself three months of this journal to decide. You might think that sounds melodramatic, but I don’t think I’m alone in wondering whether it’s all worth it. I’ve seen the look in people’s eyes. Stiff suits travelling to work, morning after morning, on the cramped and humid tube. Tarted-up girls and gangs of boys reeking of aftershave, reeling on the pavements on a Friday night, trying to mop up the dreariness of their week with one desperate, fake-happy night. I’ve heard the weary grief in my dad’s voice.

So where do I start with all this? What do you want to know about me? I’m Ruth White, thirty-two years old, going on a hundred. I live alone with no boyfriend and no cat in a tiny flat in central London. In fact, I had a non-relationship with a man at work, Dan, for seven years. I’m sitting in my bedroom-cum-living room right now, looking up every so often at the thin rain slanting across a flat grey sky. I work in a city hospital lab as a microbiologist. My dad is an accountant and lives with his sensible second wife Julie, in a sensible second home. Mother finished dying when I was fourteen, three years after her first diagnosis. What else? What else is there?

Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. I looked at her hands for twelve minutes. It was odd describing what I was seeing in words. Usually the picture just sits inside my head and I swish it around like tasting wine. I have huge books all over my flat; books you have to take in both hands to lift. I’ve had the photo habit for years. Mother bought me my first book, black and white landscapes by Ansel Adams. When she got really ill, I used to take it to bed with me and look at it for hours, concentrating on the huge trees, the still water, the never-ending skies. I suppose it helped me think about something other than what was happening. I learned to focus on one photo at a time rather than flicking from scene to scene in search of something to hold me. If I concentrate, then everything stands still. Although I use them to escape the world, I also think they bring me closer to it. I’ve still got that book. When I take it out, I handle the pages as though they might flake into dust.

Mother used to write a journal. When I was small, I sat by her bed in the early mornings on a hard chair and looked at her face as her pen spat out sentences in short bursts. I imagined what she might have been writing about; princesses dressed in star-patterned silk, talking horses, adventures with pirates. More likely she was writing about what she was going to cook for dinner and how irritating Dad’s snoring was.

I’ve always wanted to write my own journal, and this is my chance. Maybe my last chance. The idea is that every night for three months, I’ll take one of these heavy sheets of pure white paper, rough under my fingertips, and fill it up on both sides. If my suicide note is nearly a hundred pages long, then no-one can accuse me of not thinking it through. No-one can say; ‘It makes no sense; she was a polite, cheerful girl, had everything to live for’, before adding that I did keep myself to myself. It’ll all be here. I’m using a silver fountain pen with purple ink. A bit flamboyant for me, I know. I need these idiosyncratic rituals; they hold things in place. Like the way I make tea, squeezing the tea-bag three times, the exact amount of milk, seven stirs. My writing is small and neat; I’m striping the paper. I’m near the bottom of the page now. Only ninety-one more days to go before I’m allowed to make my decision. That’s it for today. It’s begun.

Continue reading tomorrow here...