The Taker

The Taker
Alma Katsu
Simon and Schuster- review copy from Book Expo
September 2011, $25.00 448 pages

This dark historical fiction, laced with magic, was not what I was expecting from the first scenes in a hospital in rural Maine. Not sure what I was expecting, as a young doctor meets a woman who reveals herself to be immortal. Outtakes from Highlander? A sleek, modern mystery?

The story veers from its beginnings into supernatural historical fiction, blending romance and erotica into flashbacks of the past.

The young woman, Lanny, tells her story of growing up in a rural Maine town, a Puritanical and stifling place in the 1800s. Her first love is Jonathan, a love that ends in the scandal of an unwanted child Lanny is sent away to have. And that's when the story careens into the above-mentioned erotica, as Lanny is appropriated, swept into a decadent life.

Appropriated is the only word for it. Alone and desperate, Lanny is trying to escape her fate. Enter Adair, making promises, offering decadent escape, only hinting at its price. To someone who's read a solid amount of supernatural fiction, it's easy to wonder if Adair and his crowd are vampires. The heavy decadence of Adair's house, ageless partygoers with heightened senses and easy morals in a repressive time of history, certainly seem to set up a vampire reference.

Katsu seems more interested in the psychological aspects of the mystical longevity. The way Adair and his cohorts bring Lanny in, how she reconciles her feelings for Jonathan, and the position she's in, anchored to present-day Maine and telling her story to a doctor. That's where The Taker starts to work for me best, as an exploration of the psychological factors of a vampiric-seeming life.

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For every book I read in 2011, I'm donating $1 to the New York Public Library.

A Good Indian Wife: A Good, Culture-Clashing Read

A Good Indian Wife
Anne Cherian
W.W. Norton 320 Pages


Neel likes his life in San Francisco. He's an anesthesiologist at a busy hospital. His romance with Caroline, a secretary, is kept discreet and uncomplicated. He has a few Indian friends in his social circle, but mostly he's thrown himself into an American life: eating steak, dating a blonde woman, and ignoring his parents pleas that he should marry a nice Indian girl and settle down.
But, when a visit home to see his ailing grandfather turns into a chance for his family to bully/dupe him into an arranged marriage, he's furious, and saddled with Leila, his new bride. Leila, for her part, has to deal with her own innocent romantic notions, traveling to a new country with a husband who falls very short of her romantic ideals. She's been raised to be a good wife, and to expect a good husband in return.

I was uncomfortable reading some of the start of this book. Neel's a jerk. Granted, he's forced into a situation I can't even imagine- suddenly, he's married, against all his wishes, and the life he's created for himself is thrown all askew. But reading about his anger, however justified, and the pre-existing romance he tries to conceal from his wife and family... made me both uncomfortable and furious. I don't like reading about awkwardness or deception. And the situation created plenty of both.
But-- because the author spent plenty of time establishing Neel and Leila, both, as nuanced characters, I found I could stick with the book. (After, I confess, a slow start, and yes, I peeked to the very last few pages to see if things turned out romantically okay for the couple.)

Also, I appreciated the book for its brightly colored, tasty descriptions of Leila's Indian life and culture she grew up with. Spicy, fragrant food, and brightly colored silk saris. Spiced dosas fried in oil, hot pickled mango chutneys. Yum! Written so it's easy to visualize across all the senses, a tasty sort of literary tourism. That was another reason I felt so set against Neel as a character- here is Leila, beautiful and beautifully described, coming from a family life full of wonderful things, to an unwilling union with a bachelor in his surly silences and sparse bachelor pad. From the way Leila was described, I was half ready to fall in love with her myself, and kick Neel liberally in the shins.

Shag/Marry/Cliff: Shag. (But throw Neel off a cliff, or at least dangle him over it a bit to scare him.) Possibly shag after a date for Indian food. I'll be leaving this book here in Edinburgh, because I'm pretty sure I won't be reading it again, though it was fun.

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For every book I read in 2011, I'm donating $1 to the New York Public Library.

The Taker

The Taker
Alma Katsu
Simon and Schuster- review copy from Book Expo
September 2011, $25.00 448 pages

This dark historical fiction, laced with magic, was not what I was expecting from the first scenes in a hospital in rural Maine. Not sure what I was expecting, as a young doctor meets a woman who reveals herself to be immortal. Outtakes from Highlander? A sleek, modern mystery?

The story veers from its beginnings into supernatural historical fiction, blending romance and erotica into flashbacks of the past.

The young woman, Lanny, tells her story of growing up in a rural Maine town, a Puritanical and stifling place in the 1800s. Her first love is Jonathan, a love that ends in the scandal of an unwanted child Lanny is sent away to have. And that's when the story careens into the above-mentioned erotica, as Lanny is appropriated, swept into a decadent life.

Appropriated is the only word for it. Alone and desperate, Lanny is trying to escape her fate. Enter Adair, making promises, offering decadent escape, only hinting at its price. To someone who's read a solid amount of supernatural fiction, it's easy to wonder if Adair and his crowd are vampires. The heavy decadence of Adair's house, ageless partygoers with heightened senses and easy morals in a repressive time of history, certainly seem to set up a vampire reference.

Katsu seems more interested in the psychological aspects of the mystical longevity. The way Adair and his cohorts bring Lanny in, how she reconciles her feelings for Jonathan, and the position she's in, anchored to present-day Maine and telling her story to a doctor. That's where The Taker starts to work for me best, as an exploration of the psychological factors of a vampiric-seeming life.

The Night Circus: Review

The Night Circus
Erin Morgenstern
Doubleday Publishing, September 2011
384 pages, $26.95

I loved The Night Circus even more than I expected I would. And my expectations were set pretty high, when The Night Circus was featured at a Book Expo editors' buzz panel.

The circus appears in a town without warning, and opens only at night: black and white tents, full of wondrous things: trained cats, an ice forest, a menagerie of paper creatures. It's almost frustrating to read such beautiful, dreamlike descriptions. Knowing that I'll never be able to wander between the black and white striped tents, sipping spiced cocoa or eating caramel popcorn.

With such enticing scenes of the circus itself, it's tempting to say the plot doesn't matter- give me any story, any characters, just show me the inside of these tents. But, the story is as carefully crafted, as invested in magic-dream-logic, as the exhibitions inside the tents. I appreciate the way magic works in this world- it's part of what holds the circus together, understandably. And different interpretations of magic and its uses, drive some of the plot. There's a romance, but it feels neither overwrought nor invasive, but woven carefully into the story.

I hear that the script is already going to be turned into a movie. After reading such well-crafted, visually immersive prose, I'm of two minds. I'd love a chance to see the scenes I've been imagining. But I'm dubious of books translated into film. If this works.. it will be glorious. I'd also love to see it as a graphic novel, illustrated by someone like Dave McKean. Which gives you a sense of the aesthetic- dark and dreamy and baroque.

Not to gush... but anything I say about this book won't do it justice. So call this my rave (or Rêves) review.
Pre-order it. Seriously.
I'll be reading it again.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer: A well-crafted scare

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
Michelle Hodkin
Simon and Schuster YA
On Sale Date September 2011 $16.99 450 pages

Thank you very much to Simon and Schuster for sending me a review copy of this book. I had been wanting to read it, because it's in a sweet spot for me, of creatively spooky supernatural YA. And because Michelle Hodkin is really nice to book bloggers.

There's been a lot of buzz about this book. At Book Expo America, there was something like a feeding frenzy for free copies.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is excellently chilling throughout. It's at its scariest, I think, during the less supernatural moments. It's entirely possible that other readers will be less terrified than I was of the opening scenes of the book. Mara wakes up in a hospital bed, a scene described in excruciating detail, so that I can practically smell the antiseptic and hear the beeping machines. Eeek. I'll give Michelle Hodkin credit, here, and elsewhere through the book, for her evocatively scary descriptions, of the ordinary as well as the paranormal.

Of course, the more intentional frights that build as the story progresses deliver excellent chills too. Dealing with PTSD after her accident, Mara loses hours at a time, and has gruesome hallucinations while mourning her friends. So much so, that her entire family uproots itself to start over in Florida. Mara's sinister visions are compounded and expanded by the stress of starting a new high school right before midterms. Add a love-hate-intrigue crush on a new classmate, and it only magnifies the stress on Mara's brittle sense of healing.

The thing is, this book works so chillingly well as a psychological thriller, I almost didn't need the supernatural element. Reading the story of Mara's meltdown, and attempts to grieve and move beyond crippling hallucinations, as a straight psychological exercise gives the horror a deliciously nasty immediacy. The idea of some malicious, but ordinary person working to orchestrate the events that trigger Mara's walking nightmare is the most scared I've been reading a book in recent memory.

The supernatural elements are inventive and richly detailed enough to fit the story. (Also worth noting, probably ready for a sequel... there are unfinished story threads that leave an urgent need to know more!) I just wonder about the way the horror could have played out if it were a case of one person acting to sabotage Mara's sanity. I remember thinking along the same lines when I read Relentlesss,  by Dean Koontz.

This is an entirely solid YA fantasy, well imagined, and honestly worth all the advance buzz. I'll be curious to read what Michelle Hodkin writes next!

Wednesday 5: Ideal Bookshelf

A recent find:

Ideal Bookshelf

Artist Jane Mount paints your ideal bookshelf: the spines of books you love, or books that identify you, or... however you choose them, the books that would be on Your Ideal Bookshelf.

As soon as I read about it... I was pretty sure I knew mine:

1. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. This cover, in particular.

2. Speaker for The Dead- Orson Scott Card. Was pretty much the reason I majored in anthropology.

3. Beauty- Robin McKinley. My favorite retelling of my favorite fairy tale. And an ode to bookish girls everywhere.

4. Poetry's tougher- so many that I love have these skinny spines, hard to paint, I imagine. So... either Omeros, by Derek Walcott, or The Dream Songs, by John Berryman. Both ideal because I love the language, and because of the people who gave them to me.

5. A cookbook.  Jane Brody's Good Food Book. It may not be sexy, but these are my go-to recipes, many I grew up with.

Of course, having made this list... there would be a few others I feel weird having left out. So... use them as bookends?

All Creatures Great and Small- James Herriot. I love these books. If audiobooks count as reading, I've read this almost as many times as I've read The Westing Game, by now.

Gentlemen of the Road- Michael Chabon. The first book I reviewed for the Ledger. Without which, this blog wouldn't be here!

Short Reviews: YA edition

Throne of Fire: (Kane Chronicles #2)

Rick Riordan, and this book, were the jump-up-and-down-excited centerpiece of the Book Expo for me this year. I got this one signed on my birthday! Birthday wishes from Rick Riordan, too! Best birthday EVER! Definitely fun to read, and definitely a sequel. The series continues beyond this book, too. Write faster, Rick Riordan! Please?
Inventive characterizations of Egyptian gods, great magic system. I read this after listening to the prequel as a terrific audiobook, so I still heard the two readers' voices in my head, alternating Sadie and Carter chapters to continue the action.
Definitely works well in both audiobook and text formats. A fast, fun read, for kids,, and enough creative adventure to have adult appeal too I think. Maybe, it even scratches the Harry Potter itch, now that we live in a world with no new Harry Potter anything! (So weird!)

When the Stars Go Blue
Caridad Ferrer
Thomas Dunne Fiction 2010 $9.99 paperback
Another BEA grab. I'm a sucker for well written YA, and good adaptations of classical stories, also a sucker for dance narrative.
This book does a terrific job of hitting my sweet spot. Soledad Reyes, a strong, authentic narrator loves to dance, is close to her grandmother, and it's important to her to stay true to her Hispanic heritage.  After years of training as a dancer,  in ballet and other forms, including flamenco, Soledad gets the chance to be part of an extravagant band performance/competition. They're using her experience doing flamenco dancing and ballet, and her exotic look, to use her as the centerpiece of the performance, and the only girl in the band, really. Reading this, I could almost picture the performance, and I wish I could see more. Maybe this could turn into a movie?

A love triangle between Soledad, and two boys- one an all-American band guy, one a Spanish soccer player builds a reinterpretation of Carmen into character development and obsession/passion along interesting lines.

Stupid Fast
Geoff Herbach
YA fiction, 311 pages.
Sourcebooks

Stupid Fast captures the thoughts and voice of Felton Reinstein, a teenager whose sudden growth spurt catapults him from the dork everyone teased and called Squirrel Nut, to a jock, with a suddenly popular crowd of friends. The most fun part of reading this is seeing so completely inside his head- his scathing observations about his small town, self-deprecating humor about suddenly having hair growing everywhere, even a shy first romance. Well-written supporting characters, like his goofy kid brother, his new football friends, and even his mother, flesh the story out. Told in Felton's wry voice, the mental issues his mom deals with get their due seriousness, without turning into movie-of-the-week mawkish drama.

Delirium- Lauren Oliver
Set in an alternate (future?) America, this dystopian fiction sets up the idea that love is a disease, amor deliria, and it is eradicated completely and scientifically. Teenagers have "the procedure" and then go on to lead placid lives, paired with their ideal mate, peacefully, in a world free of crime... and a world free of passion. There's a definite whiff of The Handmaid's Tale going on here, in the dystopian setting that curtails everything about desire and love as "unnatural." But... it's not as skewed towards stifling women, maybe. Since both genders get the procedure.
It also reminded me of a short scifi story I'd been trying to remember: "A Defense of Social Contracts" by Martha Soukoup. I read it in Nebula Awards 30, ages ago.
Though she's trying to behave and wait for her procedure when everything will be okay, Lena (short for Magdalena, a nice touch) knows that her mother's procedure didn't work... so she's grown up under scrutiny, in case she turns out as "crazy" or rebellious as her mother.
The driving force of the book is, of course, things Not Going As Planned By The Carefully Ordered Society, and Lena finding herself in the center of the upheaval. As well-plotted as this adventure was-- I'm having trouble imagining what will show up in the sequel, which I understand is forthcoming.

Shag, Marry, Throw Off A Cliff: Books

Once in a while, the fannish corners of the Internet erupt in a discussion of Shag, Marry, Throw off a Cliff...

Here's how it works. Pick 3 celebrities. Then, decide what category each fits. Here, John Barrowman explains. Moderately NSFW. British gents discussiong shagging, and all.

Know what else fits into three categories? Books! And... they fall into similar parameters.

Marry: The books I know I want to linger over, keep on my bookshelves, to have and to hold, to read and reread, to pack into boxes and haul around if I move. Books I love, and want to lend. (So okay, either the analogy suffers there... or it's an open marriage? Lord... my parents read my blog!)

Shag: The books I spend time with, then never need to see again. Library books mostly. I read fast enough that some of them are, quite literally, one night stands. Nice, while they last, but don't need to revisit or re-read.

Throw Off A Cliff: I have been known to throw books. Against walls, mostly, as it's quite impractical to pitch them from a great height. Books I really hate, couldn't finish at all, or finish under duress.

There are no flaws with this reviewing system. Of course, there's more to say about each book, most of the time. But this covers the basics. And it amuses me....

Two from the Library: British Whimsy (And Wimsey)

I keep claiming that summer heat is no problem! Sure! Bring it on! Better than winter! I'm all good.

Yeah, last week, not so much. I don't think I posted! I read lots, but... no reviews. I also had An Awesome Librarian Friend In Town, so there were frolics to be frolicked, in addition to books to be read and heat to be avoided.

So here are two British authors people have been telling me to read for ages. Don't know why I resisted! Silly of me!

Feet of Clay- Terry Pratchett. Finished 7/17. Borrowed from the library, electronically, as a test case for the Nook. While I wound up not loving to read on the Nook's shiny screen, I did love this book. I remember reading a couple of Discworld books in college, at the urging of several friends. And they were fun, but not so much that I pursued it.
This, however, was fantastic! I giggled at Vimes and Angua and Carrot, and their silly guard antics. And little turns of phrase by Terry Pratchett slayed me, made me want to underline them, or at least tweet them. I can't remember any of them verbatim now, but I do remember giggling with delight. Must read more Terry Pratchett, definitely! Especially the Guards, I think.

Strong Poison- Dorothy L. Sayers. Finished 7/23. 261 pages. Library book.
Lord Peter Wimsey! And British whimsy! And a mystery. I've been told for years that I need to read Dorothy L. Sayers. To the many people who have said this: Yes. You told me so. I got this out of the library, and now I want to read much, much more! I giggled at Lord Peter's affable upper class goofiness, and his turns of phrase. The fact that I read this, and started watching Jeeves and Wooster, starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, in the same week... kind of makes me want to eat crumpets. And I definitely want a valet.

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For every book I read in 2011, I'm donating $1 to the New York Public Library. Donate now and they'll match your donation!

For Publishers/Publicists: ARCs closed til September 15

One of the best things about having a book blog is getting new books to read and review, from publishers and publicists. Some I request, and some are unsolicited (it's nice coming home to presents of books!)

However, due to a busy second half of my summer, with tons of traveling, I am going to have to be

Closed For New ARCs from Aug 12 to September 15.

Please do not mail books until after September 15. I will do my best to attend to review copies I have currently outstanding, and copies that come in before August 12th.

Thanks so much!

Bookstores Without Borders

It feels weird to mourn the passing of a chain bookstore.

If by "mourn" I mean... "go to the going out of business, 40% off sale."

And then feel like a vulture.

Because... clearly, what I need is more books. The BEA Book-Henge stack is... somewhat diminished? I have library books! I have three boxes of books I'd been storing at my parents' place. I have to find places for them.

So... clearly, not really in need of more books.

However...

UPDATE: The "liquidation sale?" not terribly impressive. 10% off fiction? Please... Talk to the Strand, I mean, the hand.

I'm really going to miss the crossword puzzles

So...

I have tried the Kindle.

I have tried the Color Nook.

I have made lists of all the things that are good about each, hoping to reach a decision.

In the process... I thoroughly confused myself! That was lots of fun!

I sat on a fence, thinking about how a Nook, though expensive, was cost effective... could access Kindle books even, and could use library books.

But... I didn't like the feel of it all that much, to my surprise. I didn't love the feel of reading on it. Too glowing? Too shiny? I know it was tough to read in bright sunlight. Reading in bed felt odd too, like being on the computer too long at night.

I found myself poking around and doing lots of crossword puzzles on it. Lots and lots of lovely touch screen crossword puzzles. I'm going to miss those.

But... I'm a book reviewer and book lover first, even before I'm a book blogger and Internet Scrabble/crossword junkie. And, although the advantage of a Nook is that it gives me access to lots of free books... the Kindle is nicer to read them on.

Watch: just as I settle into the world of the Kindle... some e-reader company is going to come up with a glorious hybrid of e-ink and gadget-friendly touch-screen that can read All The Books In Every Library Ever Instantly. That would be just my luck.

Auto Draft

Trying to be systematic: Nook vs. Kindle continues.

Now that I've had a few days trying out a Nook, seeing what it can do... I'm still undecided.

Well, that was the sound of the Internet (or at least those denizens of it who know me well) being unsurprised. It surprises me how much I like each, for different reasons. I've had a couple of days with the Nook, been reading Terry Pratchett, downloaded from the library. Been poking around Calibre, too, which is a neat e-book conversion software thing, and will be useful no matter which reader/platform I ultimately call home.

Let's try and break this down.
Both have:

• A store I can buy books from, no matter where I am, including free books and bargains on the classics.


• The ability to hold a ton of books and lighten my load. (though who are we kidding, I'll still jam bags with e-Reader + 2 other books on any given day, because WHO KNOWS?)


• Ability to listen to audiobooks on them. (This is why I cannot solve problems with a colorless Nook.)


• Loyal tech support from my friends, who are varied between Team Kindle, Team Nook, and Team iPad.

Incidentally, if you search for "Kindle" in the Nook app store... you get porn. Lots and lots of porn and kinky books. Yikes!!!!

Why I Love the Kindle:

1. E-ink is comfier, easier on my eyes, in a variety of lighting situations. Sunlight, corporate fluorescent, etc. Even with the blinky refresh thing!


2. Better for reading before bed, because it's bookish rather than a glowing screen.


3. I like the position my hands are in to hold the book, and just lean a thumb to one side or the other to turn the page.


4. Although it's a little... angular, and was odd at first, I like the way I can take notes and highlight what I'm reading. This is useful to me as a book reviewer.


5. Fewer apps mean it's just a reader, which is good- fewer distractions! As it is, the Internet and various shiny things get me reading less.

Why I Love the Nook.

1. Versatility- library books and Kindle and Nook and epub! Multiformat is useful to book reviewers as well as financially responsible.


2. Specifically useful to book reviewers in that it makes NetGalley and GalleyGrab plausible for me without too many tech gymnastics. Might cut down on book clutter in my place!


3. Lending books between friends is awesome, and communal, and saves money too. 


4. Touch screen crossword puzzles! LOVE!


5. Portable-computerness: email and Twitter and such, and still lighter than a book, easy to slip into my teeny bag. For someone who doesn't have a smartphone, this is an advantage.

Lingering questions:

Is there a useful way to take notes on things I'm reading on the Nook? Like a text based sticky function?

How, exactly, can you get Kindle to work with other formats, ie for GalleyGrab and NetGalley?

When/how will the library get compatible with Amazon and the Kindle?

I've heard rumors that Kindle's planning a new e-reader... if they release my perfect e-ink + versatile apps combo in 6 months, after I've bought an existing Kindle or Color Nook and dithered my head off, I'm going to be ticked!

Love Story: Didn't Love It

Love Story
Jennifer Echols
Simon and Schuster $11.00 243 pages. YA. I hope.

Erin Blackwell comes to New York to major in creative writing, leaving behind everything familiar- an affluent upbringing among Kentucky's horse breeding elite families. Her grandmother, furious that Erin won't major in business and take over the family farm, cuts her granddaughter off, leaving Erin to struggle to pay for college and hold down a job. Erin has only one familiar face in her creative writing class- the son of the stablehand, bound up in her family's history of secrets and a class divide. Trouble is- she's written him into her first story. And soon, they've got a weird, almost epistolary communication going, as their writing group workshops their overwwrought emotional stories, and in the class is reading between the lines.

Before I go into what didn't work for me about Love Story, I'll say this: I like Echols' writing overall. I like her prose style, whatever trouble I'm having with the narrative itself. I like how Echols describes things. Not too flowery, just easy to visualize. The strong muscles of a horse at the track, Erin absently over-polishing her boots while having a heated discussion, even Erin's odd roommate cutting out thousands of faces for an art project. And I like some of the supporting characters- I would have liked to see Erin's roommate Summer, and class antagonist, Manohar, given more complex roles to play. So, maybe I would like reading something else by Echols, with a different setup.

Additional disclaimer- maybe one reason this book made me wince was that it captured being 18 and in a writing class exceptionally well. Erin seemed bratty and thin-skinned, and self absorbed. Even before her classmates ripped into the story that set things rolling, she seemed defensive and bratty about having written a romance novel. Although she's cut off from her grandmother's fortune, I see a lot of the spoiled rich girl in her narration, and even in subtle actions, from saving her expensive face cream, to being careful to wear thrift shop clothes in order to disguise the money she comes from.

Onto the rest of the story--- Hunter, the stable boy, the love interest, the handsome enigma. Erin doesn't get out of her own head and her worries about writing, money, and one upping Hunter, enough to really pay attention to what Hunter's like, and that there might be a romance there. Or is there? It's hard to tell. Erin's narration overshadows things, casting them as bratty and fake, when maybe they could have been authentic. The artifice of the story's setup makes it feel contrived, and not in the gloriously campy way that makes reading a more traditional romance so much fun. Manipulations and secrets, even a scandal that, when Erin feeds it into a story, the creative writing class shouts down as cliche. Would this book work better for someone younger to read? Would Erin's voice gel perfectly with what a 19 year old thinks and does? I'm somewhat afraid to open my old journal notebooks to check.

I would have enjoyed this book more, if it seemed to be enjoying itself, playing the soap opera rich-girl-stable-boy romance for laughs and camp, or just a bit more arch and less earnest.

Thanks to Erica Feldon, Publicity Manager at Gallery Books, for sending this my way... I'm sorry that it really wasn't a book I enjoyed.

Books explore how technology, gadgets and the Internet shape our lives

Reviewed by Elizabeth Willse for the Newark Star Ledger. Original article here


The following books offer diverse perspectives on the role that technological gadgets and the internet play in our lives. Whether you read them on your e-reader or in printed form, they’re worth a look.

For a meticulous overview of the history of communication technology, there is Tim Wu’s “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires” (Alfred A. Knopf, 336 pp., $27.95). Wu traces the cycle of each technological advancement from innovation to industry to giant, stagnating corporation. Though his analysis gets repetitive, his clear prose is so packed with historical detail that it stays interesting.

“The Offensive Internet: Speech, Privacy and Reputation,” edited by Saul Levmore and Martha C. Nussbaum (Harvard University Press, 304 pp., $27.95), collects academic essays about the legal and social issues raised by internet culture. The dense prose can be daunting, but opens necessary discussions about ethics in the digital age.

In “World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines and the Internet” (Free Press, 256 pp., $26), science journalist Michael Chorost poses persuasive hypothetical situations demonstrating how existing and emerging technology could be used to come close to human telepathy — a concept that becomes even more intriguing considering his own experience growing up deaf, then adapting to cochlear implants.

Accessing the information our gadgets can provide is not as private as we think, as Robert Vamosi makes clear in his sobering, sometimes frightening book, “When Gadgets Betray Us: The Dark Side of Our Infatuation With New Technologies” (Basic Books, 222 pp., $26.99). From car locks to hospital records, he examines the security weaknesses created by our demand for faster, sleeker technology.

Of course, some people build businesses on the accessibility of secrets. Even though he has done jail time for his cyber crimes and credit card hacking, it’s hard not to like Max “Max Vision” Butler, the focal point of Kevin Poulsen’s “Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground” (Crown Publishers, 263 pp., $25). The capers of this misfit genius, and the FBI’s attempts to infiltrate credit card hacking rings, combine to make this a fast, fun read.

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder and central figure of “Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website” (Crown, 285 pp., $23), by former WikiLeaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg, is mercurial and abrasively repugnant. Domscheit-Berg clearly believed in WikiLeaks’ mission; despite Assange’s slovenliness, explosive temper and secretive behavior, the author’s account borders on hero worship.

Two recent books take a closer look at Google as a company. Steven Levy’s “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives” (Simon & Schuster, 432 pp., $26) is a solid view of Google, written by a journalist who has covered the company for more than a decade. It does a thorough, if sometimes dry, job of tracing Google’s evolution as a business.

For a more intimate, chattier view of Google’s rise, read “I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 320 pp., $27), by former Google marketing director Doug Edwards. Joining the start-up culture of Google, Edwards has to toss aside everything he knows about traditional marketing. His sometimes bemused account of server upgrades, keyword searches and gourmet lunches brings Google’s culture to life beautifully.

Clearly written and comprehensive, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosensteil’s “Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload” (Bloomsbury, 240 pp., $26) is an excellent guide to critical thinking and news literacy — and useful to have nearby when considering all these perspectives on technology.

Elizabeth Willse is a freelance reviewer from Manhattan.

Wednesday 5: 5 Chilling Reads for Scorching Days

A lot of the beach/summer book roundups I see focus on light, sunny stories, also with beaches. But what I really like to read on a gorgeous, hot day is a creepy book full of shadows and scares. I enjoy the cognitive dissonance of a sunny day and a dark, spooky tale.

Here are 5 books full of delicious shivers and outright terror.
1. Shadow Ballads, by Matt Spencer. This collection of tales has a seriously Lovecraft bent. The kind of stories that will have you checking under your bed (or your deck chair) for very nasty monsters. Matt Spencer shows himself equally at home with a ghoulishly atmospheric 19th century setting and more modern tales of terror. The contemporary scares in "Lambs of Slaughter in Blue and Gold" and "Voice of Reason" particularly gave me delicious shivers. And the quiet Vermont setting for "The Face in The Flame" gave the supernatural events of the tale that much more scary oomph!

Full disclosure- I've known Matt Spencer since we were both 16, at a writer's workshop at UVa. Even then, I knew he had a talent for the chilling tale, and it's great to see it getting a wider audience.

2. The Dead Path-Stephen M. Irwin I first read The Dead Path around last Halloween, and I can still remember some of the passages that spooked me. Spiders! Nasty, disfigured dead birds. Hallucinatory nightmares! I'll be under the bed if you need me...

3. The Haunting of Hill House- Shirley Jackson. This book is actually what inspired this particular Wednesday 5 theme. I remember that I read Jackson's creepy tale of a house turned evil, on a bright, sunny beach, with the waves lapping sweetly at my feet. Dark, spooky shadows on the page, versus lovely sunny benevolent weather kind of blew my mind, in the most delicious possible way.

4. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer- Michelle Hodkin.It's entirely possible that other readers will be less terrified than I was of the opening scenes of the book. Mara wakes up in a hospital bed, a scene described in excruciating detail, so that I can practically smell the antiseptic and hear the beeping machines. Eeek. I'll give Michelle Hodkin credit, here, and elsewhere through the book, for her evocatively scary descriptions, of the ordinary as well as the paranormal. And will be posting a full-length review closer to the publication date.

5. The Alienist- Caleb Carr. The excruciatingly scary last few scenes of this book made me wish I'd read it on a sunny beach, instead of alone, at night in my apartment. Mercifully, enough time has passed  since I read this that I cannot remember the specifics, but I remember really, really not wanting to turn the light out that night.

Read more Wednesday 5 Lists Here.

The Twelfth Enchantment is Enchanting

The Twelfth Enchantment
David Liss
Random House
August 2011
ARC from Random House, thanks to Lucy Gibson, who sent me a copy.

The Twelfth Enchantment is a combination of things I love. Historical fiction, set at the start of the Industrial Revolution in England, it encompasses a period of social history I find fascinating. Give me a good ballroom dance, a few pelisses and fans, and I'm happy. Even better: there's a well-constructed magic system, with a particularly scholarly bent. I knew David Liss did historical fiction, but I'm thrilled that he's making a foray into the supernatural- and I hope he continues to work with the juxtaposition of the two genres. And there's romance, too. Romance with banter! I feel like this book was made to order, just for me.

Onto the story: Lucy Derrick is a woman of genteel breeding, and really tough luck. Her father and beloved sister have both died, forcing her to live at the mercy of a mean and stingy uncle, with a marriage proposal from the odious Mr. Olson looking like her only escape.
Enter the enigmatic Miss Crawford, who suggests that Lucy might have more power than she knows. Power over her destiny, and those who have stolen what's rightfully hers. Learning magic is the key.

I'm impressed that the magic system Liss sets up is more nuanced than flashy wish-fulfillment. Lucy has to study hard, puzzling over Agrippa and other classical scholars, working symbols and charms carefully, to do what she wants to do with magic. I'm impressed, too, with the carefully constructed symbolism and rules worked into the magic charms. Lucy can only meet an adversary with the charms and spells she's studied and prepared, though she can improvise a little. That lets Lucy be a resourceful heroine, but not all-powerful.

Layers and layers of intrigue surround what Lucy has to do. It's not just a facile black-white quest of girl heroine taking down the big baddie. Much more well constructed as to motivations, and allegiances Lucy has to make, and has to question. Also, a few touches that feel as though they are references to fairy tales and folk lore that I just can't quite name-- they work seamlessly and timelessly.

Setting his story at the start of the Industrial Revolution, Liss uses the role of magic to raise interesting questions about historical attitudes toward industrialization versus nature, reason versus emotion. Having the characters play those out in the context of Lucy's adventure and magic, renews debates and discussions I vaguely remember from history and English classes. There are a few historical cameos as well. I might have giggled delightedly and said "Hi Byron!" to my book, when he entered the scene.

The Twelfth Enchantment is definitely in my sweet spot, with so many elements I know I like. I can see other fans of Lauren Willig and Marissa Doyle snapping this up as delightedly as I did. (Pro tip: clear your weekend. You won't want to do anything but read this, once it gets going.) Although Lucy's story feels decidedly finished by the end of the tale, I'd love to see Liss revisit this magic system and this time period in further novels.

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For every book I read in 2011, I'm donating $1 to the New York Public Library.

Beauty Queens! Pirates! Reality TV!

Beauty Queens
Libba Bray
Scholastic, 396 pages
Library book.

When their plane crashes on a desert island, the contestants of the Miss Teen Dream beauty pageant have to work together to survive in the wilderness. With just that, they'd be out of their congenial, sequined, baton twirling depth. Add a sinister corporation, and a few contestants who aren't what they seem to be, and things really get interesting. Did I mention the pirates? And the reality TV?

If any of the above makes you laugh, or if you've ever enjoyed Buffy the Vampire Slayer's combination of ass-kicking women and snark... this is the book for you. It sets itself up with plenty of pop culture, from a frame as a Corporation-sponsored Reality Show (with commercial breaks), to nods to boy bands and beauty products. The girls' approach to their beauty queen identity, and their reaction to being stranded, will vary from helplessness to awesome ass-kicking... and some transformation from one to the other.
Some of the ones to watch- Taylor, who really buys into the pageant queen ethos at the outset; smart-mouthed Adina, who really does not; Mary Lou, whose evolution is fascinating, and Petra, just because.

I wish this could get another life as a comic book or graphic novel, or even a television series, because there's so much that's visual, and paced like a TV show. With stronger, better female characters, and funnier dialogue, than a lot of what's on TV or in movies.

Great fun, and an ideal, summer read- a goofy adventure with some substance lurking under its snark.

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For every book I read in 2011, I'm donating $1 to the New York Public Library.

E-Reader Cage Match Round 2: Here Comes The Sun!

So, I have almost 2 weeks to test the Color Nook. This afternoon, it had its most crucial test:

Sunlight.

Couldn't have asked for a nicer day for this field test. Gorgeous blue skies, a soft breeze. Exactly the sort of day I'd slather sunblock, pop on the shades, and find a sunny park with my book. I know Kindle's e-ink can handle this kind of afternoon no problem.

So, I fired up the Nook with some good test cases: a Rizzoli and Isles short story and a Terry Pratchett novel. Thus far- no money spent. Hoping to keep it that way for the duration, until I've made a decision.

Shade/Some Sun: Nook functions well in the kind of dappled mostly-shade someone as pale as yours truly should sit in. It's a little shiny on the surface, which takes some getting used to.

Could I get used to it? Not sure! It did sort of make for some squinting while I was setting the book up to read.

Reading was fine, if a little glassy-surfaced.

Direct Sun: Bad news! My favorite sort of lovely, warm, basking sun makes the Nook screen all glassy and mirrored and flashy. I can see myself in this book. And not in a literary interpretation kind of way.

[caption id="attachment_3267" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Self Portrait, in Nook Screen! Boo!"][/caption]

Learning how to tilt and angle the screen cuts down the glare somewhat, but still, it impeded the reading experience.

I hear from Rachel, one of my guides through this Nook process, that there's a special anti-glare screen you can get for $15. Didn't hear about that in the store. Wonder if return policy applies to it + Nook. That might help.

Overall winner: Kindle

Round 3, Special Teams: Although not central to the experiment, I have also learned a few other neat things about the Nook.

There's a free crossword app. I kind of love the touch screen manipulation, and the fake handwriting font.

Rachel just lent me a book! I'll finally read The Hunger Games! (Book Blogger world stops in its tracks.)

So... I have discovered useful things. The shiny screen is very much not my favorite thing, but I do love the workings of the Nook. Remains to be seen if I get too distracted by its shiny toy possibilities to actually, ya know, read on it.

Winner: On the sheer number and variety of accessible options- the Nook Wins! Even before I root it, it has more going on than the Kindle. Not sure, as a reader, whether that's a good thing, though....

Get ready for The Next Test: Bedtime reading!

I have 13 more days- what other tasks should I set myself on the Color Nook to see if it's the e-reader for me? Any other battles I can wage against the Kindle?

E-Reader Cage Match Gets Real: Testing

I have purchased a Color Nook.

Don't get excited, people. It's not like I've become decisive, or anything. No. Here is the plan. I have been test-driving the Kindle, and there are many things I like about it.

So it's only fair to give the Color Nook a chance for a road test as well.

I can return it within 14 days for a refund.

So, let the games begin.

E-Reader Cage Match Time!

[caption id="attachment_3247" align="alignright" width="225" caption="2 E-Readers Enter! The "cage" is my laundry cart. Tina Turner was unavailable for comment."][/caption]

Setup:

A bit cheating, as the Kindle I've been experimenting on came pre-set with my parents' settings. But I'm not loving the setup for the Nook. I had to Google how to put my eNYPL Adobe Digital books on it. (Treat it like a USB device, attach computer).

And now I cannot download FREE Nook books without entering a credit card number, which is finicky to do, hunting and pecking numbers on a touch screen. Free books, people, what do you need my credit card for? Not entirely loving the "enter credit card number, on device I might be returning..." idea.

Verdict: Inconclusive (as did not set up trial Kindle)


But I have books, so time for the next test!

Sunlight!

Road Testing a Nook, and the NYPL!

After about a week of walking around muttering to myself "Kindle? Color Nook? Kindle? Color Nook?" and a couple of weeks really liking the e-ink screen on the Kindle (easy on the eyes!) I realize that there's no way to actually finalize this decision until I get a chance to hold, and read a Nook Color properly, in some form other than the weird tethered setup they have in stores.

"What," I asked at the Barnes and Noble store "is the return policy on Nooks?"

14 days.

This sounds reasonable and solves a lot of problems. It will give me time to do what I did with the Kindle: get hands on, and see whether I can immerse myself in the reading, rather than the device awareness.

The big things I want to know about a Nook are:

Is it nice to read in sunlight, or will I frown and squint?

Will having all those versatile Internet options distract me from reading?

Does the screen glow too much for an insomniac to read in bed?

 

I am also curious about using the library with the Nook, which is one asset it has over the Kindle. Already, I see it could get frustrating. Unlike my mental image of a digital library full of virtual books meaning easy access all the time ever, there's a certain limitation, and even physicality to library e-books. I think it has to do with licensing, and it baffles me.

So picking a book to download made me feel thwarted. There were a few false starts.

But I have lined up ePub editions of a mystery and a YA to serve as test cases of the Nook's library-capability.

And a couple of free chapters of e-books I know I'd like- a Rizzoli and Isles short story, a bit of Rick Riordan. Load those up, add sunshine, test.

Repeat x 2 or 3 days. Will see if I feel bookish enough. What's bookish, and what does it feel like? I couldn't even tell you. It's the reason I like reading, the relaxing, dreamy way a story goes, the way a book is different from the glow of a computer screen.

Because here's where I've been stuck for weeks on the Kindle vs Nook debate:

The Kindle is flat out comfier to read! I never expected to enjoy e-ink, but I do!

The Nook Color, however, seduces me with the whole Android underpinnings. The possibility of Kindle books AND library books AND NetGalley, for a device to access! So, while I'm dubious of a glowing shiny screen, and a reader thing that has the distracting Internet tagging along with it... I persist in thinking of the Nook because it gets me more books, possibly cheaply. A Kindle is just a Kindle, but a Nook can be a Kindle too.

And I think the only way to break out of my endless indecision is to get my hands on a Nook for a few days. I apologize to the store in advance, if I wind up returning it, and joining team Kindle.

And thanks to all on Twitter who have weighed in, as I dithered!

June Wrap Up: Halfway Through The Year

Big news! With Dad's grand total of books coming to 27 and mine at 74... we've raised over $100 for the New York Public Library.  Jaye is setting her book dollars aside for the Brooklyn Public Library, which also needs love.

In June, as the New York budget came under review, with some severe funding cuts in store for the library, I was tempted to write a mid-year check for the money we'd raised. The library dodged a bullet... mostly.

On to what we read:

An interesting bookish month! I read my first book on the Kindle. And liked it! Not that I have any shortage of paper books to read. My Book Expo stack is taller than I am. Still.

Elizabeth's Books: 12

1. The Little Women Letters- Gabrielle Donnelly. 360 pages. Odd chick lit, imagining 21st century descendants of Louisa May Alcott's March sisters. Took a while to grow on me. Finished 6/1


2. I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59. - Doug Edwards. Finished 6/3. 390 pages. Reviewing for the Ledger.


3. Fenced- Jane Yolen, illustrated by Michael Cavallaro. 160 pages. Finished June 8. AMAZING!


4. Fast Times in Palestine- Pamela J. Olson. Finished 6/16. BEA book. 371 pages. A fascinating memoir, taking a different look at life and travel in the Middle East than you might expect. It's not about spiritual realization but common sense experience. Loved it.


5. The Night Circus- Erin Morgenstern. Finished 6/17. BEA book. 384 pages. LOVED it! Amazing, wonderful story. Will not be able to blog til I finish just wanting to hug this book.


6. The Taker- Alma Katsu. 448 pages. Finished 6/20. Historical fiction, woven with the supernatural, about romance and obsession. Rather dark.


7. Stupid Fast-Geoff Herbach. Finished 6/23. 311 pages. YA from the perspective of a smartass kid who suddenly finds himself turning into a popular football jock. Really good grasp of the teenage boy voice!


8. Season To Taste- Molly Birnbaum. Finished 6/24. ??? pages. My first read on a Kindle. Fascinating foodie memoir, about a would-be chef who loses her sense of smell, then has to figure out the new normal.


9. The Throne of Fire: Kane Chronicles, Book 2- Rick Riordan. Finished 6/27. Also, started 6/27. A fast, fun Egyptian adventure.


10. The Future of Us- Jay Asher. 6/29. Meh.


11. When The Stars Go Blue- Caridad Ferrer. 6/28. An interesting take on Carmen, with dance elements, and well written YA.


12. Creating a Meal You'll Love- Mark Chimsky-Lustig. Food essays? Why, yes! Yes I think I will read the heck out of this! 6/27 Loved it. Of course.

Dad's Books:

1. Caleb's Crossing- Geraldine Brooks


2. Tears of Autumn- Charles McCarry


3. Worth Dying For- Lee Childs

Jaye's books:

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For every book I read in 2011, I'm donating $1 to the New York Public Library.

Kindle vs Color Nook: The Dithering

It's coming time to give my mom back her Kindle. Picture me clutching said device to my chest and whimpering "Nooo! We likes our precious!"

I'm even getting used to the blinky e-ink screen. I remind myself to look away. I like turning pages with the push buttons. More than I thought I would.I like the matte screen. I don't mind the dopey toggle navigation.

Soon, they tell me, the Kindle will do library books too.

And yet... a color Nook has more bang for your buck. (Pro tip: you can also read Kindle books on it!) And library books. But... those are prone to reserve scarcity in much the same way as real physical books, in a way that mystifies me. Licensing is a thing, apparently, the number of digital copies, and how often they can be lent. Weird. A Nook apparently cannot buy books internationally, and, I think, needs more computer interaction than a Kindle.

The international thing is only a thing in the later part of the summer, for me... I'll be in Edinburgh for 3 weeks... and this is the first international travel I'm doing in a very long while. Something tells me I can load up enough books to keep me busy, ahead of time, if I commit to the Nook. Reading list: Sherlock Holmes, The Help, Fingersmith... Plus, not like they don't have books there. And an entire book festival.

As someone who spends a good while pondering what color shirt to wear some mornings, I'm somewhat surprised I've narrowed the e-reader debates down to two models this quickly.

Kindle fans and Nook color fans! Argue for your favorites.

 

Wednesday 5: 5 in World War II

I realize my reading has gaps, particularly in the direction of the classics. While World War II is one of my favorite periods for historical fiction, I've read embarrassingly little written in the time period itself. That said, here are 5 modern authors who make the era of ration books, "the boys in Europe" and victory gardens real and readable.

1. A Fierce Radiance- Lauren Belfer. What I loved best about this one was the way it made the scientific climate real and present. In the years before antibiotics, death was everywhere, from seemingly innocent things. A cat scratch, a childhood fever, a scrape from falling off your roller skates. So many people had lost someone, and were living with that loss, when the hope of a cure started to emerge... from mold grown in a laboratory.

2. Nothing But a Smile- Steve Amick- a fun romp of a historical romance. Wink Dutton is discharged from the army, wounded in pride as much as in body. He finds himself boarding with the wife of an army buddy, who's had a daring idea to raise money for her struggling photography shop. Delightful story.

3. Blackout/All Clear- Connie Willis. Technically two books, and written about time travel. Future people conducting research by living in England during the Blitz. Fascinating, intense reads, though. Best to have both when you start reading the first.

4. The Information Officer- Mark Mills. I knew when I was about halfway through this, that it was going to make the list. It's set on the island of Malta in 1942, which got battered by Italian and German bombs. Against the backdrop of a war that isn't going well, grisly murders of prostitutes unfold. Max Chadwick is an information officer, playing fast and loose with the facts to boost morale. But spinning this might be beyond him.

5. The Book Thief- Markus Zusak. The narrative worked more like poetry, with strange and gorgeous images. And the story made me cry.

So many books

Sometimes I think I spend more time plotting and scheming to acquire books, than I do reading them.

Library, Kindle, ARCs, even bookstores.... In my defense, I have plenty of love for indie bookstores. And the Strand. I love reading book bloggers' reviews... with a library browser window open. Lists and lists and lists of books.

My preciouss.... lovely, lovely books.

I still haven't read, or even acquired, the Hunger Games. Or the rest of the Game of Thrones books.

I think I'm waiting for the producers of Hoarders to call me for their all-books special.

Sisterhood Everlasting: Review

Sisterhood Everlasting
Anne Brashares
Bertelsmann/Random House June 2011.
347 pages $25.00

Although I have a stack of books to read, and deadlines to meet with them, I started reading this days after it arrived on my doorstep. Why? Mostly because of a seed this Booking Through Thursday planted in my brain. Got me thinking about the difference between YA novels and "age appropriate" novels, and my draw to read the former.

By taking Tibby, Lena, Carmen and Bee, four best friends through several books, and having them grow up into an adult novel, this book is like a test case. It highlights the different expectations I bring, as an adult reader of YA novels, to YA versus "age appropriate" novels. I read about the friendship between these four girls as teenagers, a friendship among divergent personalities, cemented by a pair of pants. First loves, school woes, finding themselves. College. Honestly, I read YA novels to catch a little respite from dealing with my own grownup shenanigans. There are several ways YA storylines play out in a more straightforward, focused narrative, as opposed to the way adult novels, and adult life, can feel bafflingly cluttered with choices. Not all of which are choices we consciously make.

I felt disgruntled, reading about Carmen the TV actress watching her weight, Lena teaching art classes, Tibby off in Australia. I feel like, as adults, they're living diminished and timid versions of what they wanted as teenagers sharing memories and the mystical pants that fit everyone. With one exception, Bee... was sort of like what she'd been in the previous novels. Flighty, prone to wanderlust. In the first half of the book, I remember wondering if, or why, Anne Brashares had recycled her characters to tell the story she wanted to tell, a women's career and friendship story. I remember having similar feelings about Ender Wiggin and Speaker for The Dead.  In both cases, there were definitely moments that I felt these characters had been shoehorned into the story Brashares wanted to tell, of young women sorting out their adult lives.

Not sure when I felt like this settled down into a proper Traveling Pants sort of book. I can't remember the moment when I felt like the plot felt less forced on the characters, and instead became more of a natural outgrowth of what Carmen, Bee, Tibby and Lena might do. Lena, in particular, is a frustrating character to me-- because over the course of the books, she does a lot of running away from happiness. Even making an effort to run away and hide--- when she could choose a pretty simple way to be happy. Being frustrated at that in a character is possibly easier than changing that in my own character. Or maybe I'm reading too much in.

I get annoyed when a book makes me cry. It's more like being annoyed with myself than the book. And glad that I happened to have a day where I was hanging out at home and reading it. When a book catches me by surprise, it can be all kinds of awkward- wanting to have a good wail of bookish distress, on the subway, for example, or in a crowded coffee shop. But, home, alone, nobody saw me howling and weeping and blowing my nose. Even if it's justified by the plot, I always feel grumpy and manipulated by books and movies that make me cry.

I feel like, in this case, that was my reaction, not the book's fault. I could digress and say other books do a much more gratuitous job of creating a cry-fest. And that seems to be a fixture in fiction marketed to women... like the way to arrange a novel about women and friendships is to make sure someone gets a disease, or dies, or has grieving to do. I know it's not a modern thing... Look at La Boheme, of course. Still, definitely not my favorite scenario. On some level, I acknowledge such thing as a "good cry," but I get grumpy.

Thanks to Karen Fink at Random House for sending me an ARC

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For every book I read in 2011, I'm donating $1 to the New York Public Library.

Reviewing for the BlogHer.com Book Club!

I have a new book review gig! I'm reviewing books for the BlogHer.com book club!

Here's my first review: What A Jane Austen Education Taught Me

Coming soon: My review of What Happened to Goodbye? by Sara Dessen.

Foiled: A Graphic Novel about Fencing

You ever find a birthday present for someone, that's such a perfect fit, you wonder why they don't already have six copies of their own?

Lisa found me exactly such a present. Foiled is a graphic novel combining a story by Jane Yolen with illustrations by Mike Cavallero. Lisa gave me a copy for my birthday.

It is the story of a teenage girl who grew up in New York, went to a private school, and loves fencing more than anything else. Magic weaves through the story, set against the backdrop of some key New York landmarks, like Grand Central.

See what I mean? Absurdly perfect!

Maybe I identify with Aliera, the protagonist, a little. In high school, and for a bit in college, I definitely had the fierce desire to be good at fencing.... I was never as good as she was, though, beating everyone in her fencing practice and heading for nationals. I counted myself lucky, and a little surprised, when I won bouts.

I know I love New York city... I walk around, torn between wishing and believing that the city has more magic in it and more possibilities than can be seen with ordinary eyes.

Mike Cavallaro's illustrations are fabulous, angular, but they have an interesting depth. The colors he chooses are interesting as well. At first, I thought the green-shaded grayscale had to do with wanting to echo the sword themes in color. I didn't even catch on that Aliera was color blind. And then, well...

If you love fencing, or a good graphic novel with a bit of a magical tale--- go read this!

I love this collaboration, and really hope there will be a sequel to Aliera's tale by my next birthday!

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For every book I read in 2011, I'm donating $1 to the New York Public Library.

Short Reviews Roundup

I read these, and I owe them a longer review than I gave them in my Book List For The Year. I'm sheepish that I read some of these in April. Yikes. Catching up.

The Bonus- Georgia Lowe. Set in 1932, after The Great War. America's in the Depression. American veterans, some scarred and traumatized by their war experience, have been promised a bonus by the U.S. government. Promised, but never actually given the money they desperately need. As they march on Washington, this novel focuses on Will Hardy, a veteran turned reporter covering the march. Although I must have studied the Bonus March in AP U.S. History, I didn't remember it, and appreciated the story teaching me about this period in history, through the characters.
Although the first few chapters of the story felt slow to start, and a little dry in the balance between historical background and character development, I got into the story as it progressed. I know the story is based on stories Lowe's parents' told, as well as historical accounts. I have to wonder whether the family connection was what held the initial chapters of the story back.

Another good one to read if you like historical fiction + romance: Nothing But A Smile, which is based on World War II. Thanks to the nice folks at Planned TV Arts for sending this.

Arms Wide Open: A Midwife's Journey- Patricia Harman. After reading, and thoroughly enjoying The Blue Cotton Gown, I wanted more of the story. I know that working as a midwife, even in a smaller community that appreciates having health alternatives, has gotten tougher because of legal and insurance restrictions. In this second volume, Harmon does tackle some of her worries about medical practice, maternal health, OB/GYN insurance, and how that climate is changing. I feel something of a kinship with Harman- because I know that even half that level of worry would keep me awake at night. I just wish I could write about my insomnia-inducing fears as eloquently as she does!

The bulk of this story focuses on her early, hippie life, delivering her first baby in a commune, living in a cabin heated by a wood stove, foraging for food and raising a garden. Feeling that her hippie life was completely alien made me realize what a city girl I am... reading about them choosing a pioneer life and its difficulties, talking about changing the world-- it was anthropologically fascinating, a little perplexing. But always, always well written. Harman's prose and descriptions are sensory and immediate as well as elegantly constructed.

Thanks to Patricia Harman for arranging to send me a review copy.

The Little Women Letters- by Gabrielle Donnelly.
The premise for this one is interesting: Sisters Emma, Lulu and Sophie Atwater are living in London. They can trace their family tree back to the March sisters, of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. The lit ref was enough to pique my interest in what is otherwise pretty straightforward chick lit... not usually a genre I'd choose to read on my own. I like the idea of a family having such a deep and storied history, tracing back to interesting and independent-for-their-times women like the fictional Marches. But I'm not sure the setup worked for the stories that evolved around the Atwater sisters. I caught myself squinting to graft the Atwaters' stories onto their March ancestors, in spots where it felt forced.
Maybe sensible Emma, planning her wedding and budgeting for a new fridge, is a stand-in for Meg. Amy the artist and Sophie the actress-- babies of the family, a little selfish and indulged. No problem there. Frustrated family misfit Lulu certainly identifies with her great-grandmother Jo... and in her case, the analogy mostly worked, especially as she discovered Jo's letters. The letters were well done: riffing on Alcott's original characters and language pretty seamlessly.
I'm not usually a reader of chick lit without a pretty powerful gimmick to draw me in (foodie lit works rather well, or mystery or historical fiction)-- it may be that someone who seeks out the genre more than I do would have fewer reservations about the tie between the Atwaters and their March ancestors.

Thanks to Kaitlyn McCrystal at Simon and Schuster for sending me this.

Open Wounds: Book Review

Open Wounds
Joseph Luinevicz
WestSide Books
350 pages

Joe Lunievicz was one of the authors I met at the Book Blogger Convention on Friday. The cover of his book piqued my interest. Swords, a New York skyline. "What's your book about?" I asked.

"New York in the 1930s, growing up, old movies, fencing, and stage combat."

I'm not sure those were his exact words, because what I heard was: I NEED TO READ THIS!

Before I scooped the book up and clutched it in my eager arms, we managed to have quite a nice conversation about a shared love of fencing. (I fenced, badly, but with great enthusiasm, in high school and college.)

I loved reading this book as much as I knew I was going to. Cedric Wyman, Cid, to his friends, is growing up in Queens, living a pretty grim existence. Ducking his father's fists, and trying to stay on the good side of a severe disciplinarian grandmother.

But then he discovers his grandmother's secret- she goes to the movies, when he thinks she's going to church. And there, Cid is first swept away by swords and swashbuckling on the silver screen. After his family falls apart, the movies help him hang on... until his World War I veteran cousin comes to his rescue. Cid's cousin "Lefty" teaches him fencing history, stage combat, and introduces him to Vavarinski, a mostly drunk, wholly eccentric fencing master. Stage combat and fencing give Cid his place in New York, and an excellent coming of age tale.

I knew I couldn't help liking this, because it has so many elements that appeal to me- New York history, fencing, stage combat, eccentric but goodhearted characters. More than that, though, what I appreciate is that the storytelling stays straightforward. It would be easy to tilt over into flights of fanciful poetry, in terms of language or plot. What Lunievicz does is stand back and let the story breathe, lets emotions and reactions evolve naturally. For the characters, and the reader. Cid and his friends are scrappy, sometimes prickly with each other, wary and toughened by experience. Lefty and the fencing master carry their own scars and mistakes, without being overblown tragic heroes, or overt father figures. There's a subtlety to the craft of the writing, that I appreciate. The prose gets out of the characters' way.

I know so many specific people in my circle of friends who will love this. (Hi, Gomez!) But more than that- pick this up, if you love movies, or swords, or excellent historical fiction.

Buy A Copy from Amazon (Associate Link)

Until Tuesday: Book Review

Until Tuesday:
Luis Carlos Montalván
Hyperion 2011, $22.99 252 pages.

I would have loved this story of the bond between a wounded veteran and his service dog, even without some prior knowledge of the author. I have tremendous respect for the work that soldiers do, and I know that I can only begin to get my head (and my heart) around the impact that serving in battle can have on their bodies and their psyches, years later.

I'm fascinated by working dogs too. Their intelligence, devotion to their person and their task. Yes, I admit that part of me wants to rub their bellies and love them all up, because they are bred to seek love and a close bond as the reward for what they do. I know this is not allowed, and I know it's unprofessional. Can't quite stop the wistful smile from crossing my face when I admire a good looking working dog though.

Combine the two into one insightful memoir, thought provoking and emotionally resonant... I would have bought this book, even if Montalván were not a friend of a friend. I think I met him at some point, through my friend Chris Lombardi. She's just finished a book about soldiers and veterans who speak out against war.

Montalván's narrative begins with imagining Tuesday as a puppy and a young dog, being trained to be a service dog. It's touching enough to make you smile, showing Montalván's bond and respect for Tuesday, without being over the top sentimental. Tuesday's first trainer was a troubled teen. Then he was part of a Puppies Behind Bars program, before finishing the training he needed to be a service dog, to help Montalván navigate his world as a veteran with brain injuries, crippling anxiety and PTSD.

As the story progresses to Montalván's army career, and the horrifying things he experienced... Tuesday is almost like a service dog for the reader, keeping you anchored, giving you some sense of hope to focus on against scenes of overwhelming violence. Chris warned me that I might want to cry. But that wasn't what I felt. Wanted to scream in outrage. And kick things. My heart broke, seeing what soldiers had no choice but to survive.

Montalván's writing about his war experience, and about the day to day experience of PTSD, treated and untreated, has clarity and thoughtfulness. He makes it clear that PTSD isn't about hallucinations, but about not letting go of hypervigilance and the hold that memory can have, even when it's not needed in present day life. He writes with such clarity and self-awareness about the path he has taken, to come to a better sense of peace with himself. And the elemental role Tuesday played, as a companion, as a protector, as a way to stay grounded and present, even though his body and his heart remember the stresses of battle so keenly.

I stayed up until well past midnight reading this, even though I had to be up before dawn the next day to get to the Book Expo early. I didn't want to leave Luis and Tuesday, even after I turned the last page.

So this isn't just a goofy-smiling charmer of a boy-and-his-dog story, but a thoughtful reaction to the war, and Montalván's own battles to reconcile himself with his past experience as he makes a new life for himself, with Tuesday by his side.

The Sloth's Eye- Book Review

The Sloth's Eye
Linda Lombardi
Gale Cengage Learning
$25.00 May 2011 292 pages

It's a mystery set at a zoo! What's not to love? Hannah is a zookeeper, working with the small animals at a busy urban zoo. Almost immediately, we get to know her routines, and some facts about the animals she works with, as well as her eccentric human colleagues. Gruff Caleb, gossipy Margo, and Chris, the handsome blue-eyed zookeeper who turns Hannah's "insides into armadillo gruel." The mystery itself is decent, and gets rolling almost immediately.

But the most fun about this story is the behind-the-scenes routines of the zoo, and the animal descriptions. From the elephants stomping pumpkins in a zoo publicity Halloween event, to Hannah's wry descriptions of the enclosure-cleaning and animal-feeding that she's always behind on, the routines of the zoo are fascinating and informative. Descriptions of the sloths as slightly alien-looking but calm creatures, and the almost-cuddly looking sleepy wombat show both Hannah's love for animals, and Linda Lombardi's own.

One of Lombardi's other projects is her blog- Animals Behaving Badly. Lombardi collects news and videos about animal mischief and mayhem. Everything from peace-disturbing pooches to potentially evil armadillos.

She brings that same exuberant love for animals to her first mystery novel. Zookeepers work together, navigating whatever bureaucracy or interpersonal politics they might have, because the safety and respect for the animals in their care comes first. Showing her characters' love for the capybaras and wombats and chinchillas in their care, it's easy to see Lombardi's own enthusiasm. Combined with snappy dialogue, it lightens the tone of the mystery itself, making it more of a fun romp than a suspenseful thrill ride. By the end of this, you'll be hoping she's going to write more about Hannah and her fellow zookeepers. And maybe you'll be planning a trip to a zoo near you.

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For every book I read in 2011, I'm donating $1 to the New York Public Library.

Already Home- Book Review

Already Home

Susan Mallery

358 pages

Review copy sent by Eric of Planned TV Arts. Thanks, Eric!

Usually, I'm wary of a book that sounds like "chick lit," all about relationships and sadness and true love (or the lack, and aftermath, thereof.) The exception is when it involves some kind of foodie element. Then, I can't get enough, and will probably stay up far too late reading it, and wish I could meet (and eat with) at least one of the characters.

That's what happened with Already Home. After divorcing her chef husband, Jenna moves back home. When she was a sous chef, her ex did a number on her psyche, putting her and her cooking down, wrecking her confidence in her creative abilities. Despite having no retail experience, Jenna decides to open a cooking supply store. Enter Violet, a punky looking young woman with lots of retail experience, coming from a troubled family life that makes her envy Jenna's close family ties to her adoptive parents.

Just when the cooking store is starting to look like a success, Jenna's worldview takes another direct hit. Her birth parents, two aging hippies, have come to find her, wanting to get involved in her life.

I enjoyed this story because of the interesting and yummy food descriptions, of course. Jenna's creative thing as a cook is fusion cuisine, blending flavors in interesting ways. I wish it included more recipes. (There's one for Jenna's Mocha Chili, as a suggestion for a book group. But there's also an enchilada dish that gets mentioned, and some kind of smoky-flavored tomato soup, I'm intrigued.)

Jenna's return to confidence and cooking resonated for me as well. In the aftermath of her heartbreak, Jenna's love for cooking got stripped away, her confidence in improvising flavors utterly shattered. While nothing as dramatic as her emotionally abusive ex has ever happened to me, I've noticed how tied cooking confidence can be to my emotional state. Maybe I should sign up for a cooking class.

Apart from the foodie element, I like that this novel tackled complex family relationships, and seemed to do it well.  The author stays true to sorting out the complexities that come up for Jenna, her adoptive mother and her birth mother.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the way the romantic elements played out. A little bit contrived, maybe, or maybe that's me being grumpy and cynical about a genre requirement. (Or envious?)

Given how much I enjoyed the characters, and the food writing, I'm probably going to put this on the bookshelf next to Comfort Food and The School of Essential Ingredients. Possibly, on a reread, I'll have a different reaction to how the romantic elements played out.

The Company We Keep is Good Company

The Company We Keep
Robert and Dayna Baer
305 pages, library book

The Company We Keep is an interesting spy yarn that balances intelligence gathering and international intrigue with fast-paced danger, and also the slow tedium of day to day relationship building and bureaucracy management, that is a more "real" sense of the CIA's inner workings than any accumulated action-film mythos would have you believe.

In the first two thirds or so of the book, that's certainly true. Especially in Dayna's chapters about learning CIA skills like shooting, and sneaking through buildings, there's a satisfying amount of cinematic action. Particularly in the latter half of the book, it's also a more nuanced discussion of international politics- in the context of informants, missions, intelligence, and what governments are willing to say to one another.

As much as I was delighted to get two interwoven insiders' perspectives, there were elements that felt rushed, or possibly sketched in and glossed over. Sure, you could say some of the vague spots had to be vague so as not to divulge CIA secrets... but it does stand as a contrast to the excellent descriptions of certain missions, certain informant relationships, or aspects of the way their spy training works.
The contrast between Dayna's side of the story and Bob's mission reports highlights the gaps in description- by tracking her training from the start, and having Bob only tell his story of being a seasoned operative on multiple missions, he sounds almost too sure of himself, like the kind of action hero who's so untouchable his danger doesn't feel that frightening. And in some instances, Bob recounts events with such detachment, his perspective is spooker than the events themselves.
I can't tell whether, for him, that's a reflection of his personality, his career, or a choice he's made in storycraft.

Whatever the reasons behind the shift in style, I found Dayna's chapters more interesting. There was more of a sense of her humanness, of her understanding of the dangerous aspects of her mission. I hadn't expected it to be so important to me to read her understanding of consequences and danger. I've come away with an entirely plausible sense that both former agents and their colleagues are a breed apart- the sort of people who seek dangerous situations and thrive on peril. As someone who takes a dim view of roller coasters, I can't even fathom some of the situations the two agents saw as just another day's work.

These Delicious United States

The United States of Arugula
David Kamp
(library book)

"I remain convinced that there are more people interested in knowing where to buy the best bagel than about the latest act of political or corporate corruption, primarily because they personally can do something about the bagel but feel powerless against the rest of the world."- Mimi Sheraton, from her memoir Eating My Words, quoted in The United States of Arugula

The United States of Arugula is a meticulously researched, fun, gossipy and informative look at the way eating well and cooking became a cultural marker, and culture in itself, in the United States. While stepping through a food driven social history of the United States, from Thomas Jefferson (had a garden any farmers' market would envy) to the first cookbooks (mostly written by women) to the era when science and cooking got muddled together and spawned an unholy union of convenience foods (otherwise known as Bad Things With Jello And Soup) all the way to the present: artisanal cheese, celebrity chefs and heirloom fruits and vegetables.

In some ways, the combination of densely packed information with a highly readable, almost gossipy tone, reminded me of Gail Collins' America's Women. Reading provided the same experience of getting fascinated with a deep look into a particular subset of history.

Much of America's food culture owes a debt of influence to the French style- Escoffier's rich sauces and complex preparations for example. Julia Child certainly gets her due in this volume. But, having grown up in a big city in the later part of the 20th century, some of the descriptions of French dishes drowned in buttery sauces were almost too rich and evocative to read. Say what you want about the modern approach to super sized gluttony, that much bearnaise is a little alarming.

For all the ground Kamp has to cover, he takes his time exploring most of the key names in food history- Julia, of course, and James Beard, but also Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, Rick Bayless, and a host of other boldface names of the foodie world. It's a fairly evenly told story-- if some of these chefs, critics and resterateurs get put on a pedestal, it's because they made a name and a reputation for themselves, not because Kamp is getting excessively worshipful. When his research reveals some of what he delightedly calls "bitchery," or moody infighting, he lets these food personas have their moments of grudges, shortsightedness and petty tantrums. They may be part of America's social history and culinary dynasty, but they're human too.

Book Reviewer Theme Song? [VIDEO]

I found this song on Pandora a while ago. Catchy, and even though the band means "unputdownable" in something other than a book sense, I couldn't help thinking it's a great little theme song for book reviewers. It's catchy, references one of my favorite book reviewer cliche words (with a tip of the hat to Books Examiner Michelle Kerns, and her reviewer cliche awards), and is a contender for Theme Song for Book Reviewers Everywhere.

My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors, by Moxy Fruvous, could also be a theme song.

Friendship Bread, a tasty, friendly read

Friendship Bread
Darien Gee
Ballantine Books April 5, 2011 400 pages
Thanks to Sara Wahlberg of Ballantine Publicity for sending me a copy!

Before you start reading this... make sure you have some kind of baked goods handy. Maybe even an Amish Bread starter of your own. If you get a starter or make a starter, you have to wait 10 days and punch it and prep it before you get baked goods. Or, make, or buy whatever other baked goods you like best. Make sure they are on hand. Then start reading. This book should come with an Amish bread starter. But that would be complex and very weird to manage.

As the book begins, Julia is still reeling, grieving the accidental death of her son Josh. When it happened a few years ago, she withdrew from the life of the town. Which, in a small, interconnected town like Avalon, was an impressive feat. She focuses inward, and on her husband and daughter Gracie.

When someone leaves a starter and a gift of a loaf on her doorstep, Julia bakes it just to humor her daughter. But you can't bake friendship bread without having some to give away, and reaching out to people. Gradually, she forges a friendship with Madeleine Davis, an older woman who runs a tea shop in town; and Hannah, a talented concert cellist whose marriage is falling apart. All three need friendship. And recipes for all the friendship bread starters they keep having to  use, or give away. Soon, almost everyone in town has a friendship bread starter going.

I liked this novel much better once it started to open up into an ensemble. Much of the start of the book is tightly focused on Julia, slowly revealing the source of her misery, while she's isolated with the depth of her sadness. I was looking for a little bit more levity (leavening?) some gentleness, or reasons to smile. I was happiest as Julia began to reach out, to form friendships. Also, shifting focus to Hannah or Madeleine... Honestly, the devastating grief of losing a son was more than I could get my head around. I could latch onto, maybe even understand Hannah's loneliness, mourning her marriage and surviving her grief through learning to bake, herself. She began to carry The Joy of Cooking around as the book in her purse, loving every word.

Calling this chick lit sounds too disparaging. It does obey some of the conventions of the genre. It's centered on well crafted women characters and their friendships, and it puts at least one of them through an emotional wringer of family tragedy that's endemic to the genre. I enjoy how the bread brings people together. And I love the short vignettes of peripheral town characters-I wanted to know much more about the motorcycle repairman who loved to bake almost as much as he loved to ride his bike.

Now- back to the baked goods... Between the descriptions of all the tasty Amish bread variations, and the sheer stress-comfort-cookie-eating potential of Julia's sorrow, you really do want to have baked goods on hand while you're  reading this book. If you're not a yeasty-bread baking kind of person, I'm a big fan of quick breads. Or try these muffins!

Even reviewing this book makes me hungry for baked goods. Mmm chocolate chip cookies... mmm pumpkin bread. Mmm, off to read something less stomach driven.

A question of timing

Something I've been noticing- my sequence of choosing books feels skewed.  As a reviewer, and someone who orders books to be put on hold at the library, my reading is a lot less randomized than it used to be.  It's less about, say, browsing and following whims.

There are whims, of course. I have any amount of review books or library books to choose from. So I can pick something up almost at random from the stack. But... having books arrive, as opposed to spending a while browsing aimlessly on shelves for something to read, has put me a little bit out of phase with my book whims.

And I'm very much a whim driven reader. I'll start a book, shrug, set it back ont he shelf, repeat that process a few times, and then, something shifts and I pick the book up and zoom through it in utterly absorbed delight. No idea what the shift is. The planets realigned.

Being not entirely in the right mood for a book makes a difference in how I think about it. Of course, I've learned to adapt to that, and to question any lurking grumpiness or fidgetiness about a book. I can tell whether it's a mood thing versus something about the book.

All this is just to say that I should really pick up a novel or two and just barrel through them. I think i have more nonfiction on hold at the library though.

And-- there's Dewey's 24 Hour Read-A-Thon to think about, talk about zooming through books. I should start thinking about assembling a reading list. And suitable munchies.

Ticking the library books off my list doesn't exactly feel like reading them for school. But, like I said, just a little out of phase with the initial whim.