tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23476581357687325852024-03-12T16:26:51.456-07:00Conceptual Receptionkaren mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.comBlogger172125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-76635690207935977862015-02-24T09:37:00.002-08:002015-02-24T09:38:23.458-08:00Review: The Thing About Great White Sharks by Rebecca Adams Wright<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Title</b>: The Thing About Great White Sharks</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Author</b>: <a href="http://radamswright.com/" target="_blank">Rebecca Adams Wright</a></span><br />
<b style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Publisher</b><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">: Little A</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Date of Publication</b>: February 20, 2015</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Pages</b>: 182</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 18px;">Thank you to </span><a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" style="color: #f04e4e; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours</a><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 18px;"> and the publisher for providing this review copy. To read other blogger reviews, check out the <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2014/12/rebecca-adams-wright-author-of-the-thing-about-great-white-sharks-on-tour-februarymarch-2015/" style="color: #f04e4e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">virtual book tour</a> that's currently running!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d7HS8MJGHF4/VOyyQnAGcRI/AAAAAAAACEI/pZdGuvJXiDQ/s1600/wright-thethingaboutgreatwhitesharks-17621-cv-ft_finalcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d7HS8MJGHF4/VOyyQnAGcRI/AAAAAAAACEI/pZdGuvJXiDQ/s1600/wright-thethingaboutgreatwhitesharks-17621-cv-ft_finalcover.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 18px;">Since reading <i>The Dunning Man</i> in December, I've been on a short story rampage. Kelly Link, Margaret Atwood, Marina Keegan and Jonathan Lethem have all had collections on my nightstand in the past two months. The opportunity to read this brand new collection was perfectly timed.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 18px;">Wright's settings vary in ways that remind me of collections by George Saunders or Karen Russell. One moment we are in a run-of-the-mill suburban duplex with a Herman Melville impersonator. Then we're rocketed into a terrifying scientific arena, where specific personalities are required to forego vicious animal attacks. War-torn countries of the past sit beside war-torn, colonized planets in the distant future. The breadth of imagination in this collection is really inspiring.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 18px;">My favorite piece follows a group of actors that travel from one school gymnasium to the next, reenacting the lives of "Great American Writers." The protagonist, Melville, has fallen in love with a coworker portraying Hawthorne. He works up the courage to invite her to the annual GAW holiday bash. The corresponding progression of their literary relationship, as they see each other out of character for the first time, is funny and sad and incredibly real. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>"I do my best. In the weeks before the Bash, I inject more
flair into my performances than ever before, bolstered, in part, by the warmer,
knowing smile Hawthorne now directs toward me during our brief passing times.
We still don’t chat much before I go onstage, but soon we’ll have an entire
drunken night together. I know for a fact that Ralph Waldo Emerson and Emily
Dickinson made love on top of the wig tubs last year. Who’s to say such a
passion won’t seize Hawthorne and me?"</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-54411363018716086032014-12-01T13:49:00.000-08:002014-12-01T13:49:33.936-08:00Review: The Dunning Man by Kevin Fortuna<h3 class="post-title entry-title" style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Josefin Sans'; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;">
<strong style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Title</strong><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">:<a href="http://borisfishman.com/" style="color: #f04e4e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #f04e4e; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22499671-the-dunning-man" target="_blank">The Dunning Man</a></span></span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: Kevin Fortuna</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: <a href="http://www.lavenderink.org/content/link/268" target="_blank">Lavender Ink</a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Date of Publication</strong>: October 2014</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Pages</strong>: 140</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;">Thank you to </span><a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" style="color: #f04e4e; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"> and the publisher for providing this review copy. To read other blogger reviews, check out the <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2014/10/kevin-fortuna-author-of-the-dunning-man-on-tour-november-2014/" target="_blank">virtual book tour</a> that's currently running!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><b>Summary from the Publisher:</b> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;">"</span><span style="line-height: 1.4;">The six stories in THE DUNNING MAN feature anti-heroes who reject society's rules. Characters from all walks of life-a rogue hip-hop star, a blackjack dealing mom, a middle-aged drunk plowing through his inheritance, and an empty nester housewife trying to make peace with the past. They each exist in the here and now, living for what's possible and what's left-not what they've left behind. Redemption awaits all, but only along the rutted, gut-churning path of honest self-examination. Age quod agis. Set in Atlantic City, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., the Hudson Valley and Manhattan, Fortuna's stories depict the violent clash between society's expectations and the chaotic arc of individual destiny. These are powerful tales of individuals imbued with larger-than-life personalities and the all-consuming need to find something worth seeking."</span></div>
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I was beyond impressed with this small-yet-powerful collection from Kevin Fortuna. Though at first glance the book looks like a quick read, I found myself savoring each of the stories over the course of two weeks. Each moment Fortuna creates in his quiet stories resonated heavily with me, and I think this is primarily due to the "underdog" status of each protagonist. Deemed criminals, or slumlords, or simply a drunk, the characters are imbued with loving complexity, making it impossible not to take a sympathetic ear to the struggles in which they inevitably find themselves.<br />
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I admittedly had to look up the context of the title:<br />
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<span style="line-height: 1.4;">The final story in the collection, which shares the book's title, necessarily uses this definition most literally. (A struggling landlord is attempting to collect on rent from his elusive, tiger-owning, circus-running subletters.) However, the concept is interwoven throughout each tale equally, as Fortuna's characters attempt to collect on lost loves, missed chances, the respect of their peers. These quests have an emotional cost that's incredibly heightened by the setting, and the socioeconomic aspects that come into play are no less import for characters seeking love rather than money. </span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 1.4;">Looking forward to more from this author and his Lethem-esque scenarios. </span><br />
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karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-54464675606354078562014-08-19T14:19:00.001-07:002014-08-19T14:19:47.718-07:00Review: Further Out Than You Thought by Michaela Carter<h3 class="post-title entry-title" style="background-color: white; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;">
<strong style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Title</strong><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;">:<a href="http://borisfishman.com/" style="color: #f04e4e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #f04e4e; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062292377/further-out-than-you-thought" target="_blank">Further Out Than You Thought</a></span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: Michaela Carter</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: William Morrow Paperbacks</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Date of Publication</strong>: August 5, 2014</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Pages</strong>: 320</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;">Thank you to </span><a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" style="color: #f04e4e; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"> and the publisher for providing this review copy. To read other blogger reviews, check out the <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2014/06/michaela-carter-author-of-further-out-than-you-thought-on-tour-august-2014/" target="_blank">virtual book tour</a> that's currently running!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary:</b> Gwen is a 25 year old poet-by-day, stripper-by-night in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots. The novel tracks Gwen's relationship (with a loserish Leo), her friendships (with fellow strippers and former rockstar Count Valiant), and the path to finding Gwen's true self and true desires.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think:</b> It is readily apparent in reading "Further Out Than You Thought" that the author is also a poet. Her writing is thoughtful and imagistic. Unique turns of phrase crop up at unexpected moments. And the protagonist, a young poet trying to pay her way through an MFA program, is lovingly portrayed in a way that makes it clear she is close to the author's heart.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;">What detracted from the plot, for me, was the pacing. The LA riots are an extremely robust topic, so I was expecting a great deal more focus in this direction. Two riveting, fast-paced scenes take place during the riots, but otherwise the action is very much off-stage. There are heavy doses of contemplation and introspection, which are beautifully written but pull the reader away from the heart of the book's plot, time and again. </span></div>
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karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-81341653100524447872014-06-17T13:02:00.000-07:002014-06-17T13:03:48.495-07:00Review: The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Title</strong><span style="color: #444444;">:<a href="http://borisfishman.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #f04e4e;"> </span></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17415882-the-queen-of-the-tearling?from_search=true" target="_blank"><span style="color: #f04e4e;">T</span>he Queen of the Tearling</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: Erika Johansen</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: Harper</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Date of Publication</strong>: July 8, 2014</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Pages</strong>: 448</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 18px;">Thank you to </span><a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #f04e4e; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 18px;"> and the publisher for providing this review copy! "The Queen of the Tearling" will be on tour for the next couple of weeks; check it out <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2014/04/erika-johansen-author-of-queen-of-the-tearling-on-tour-aprilmay-2014/" target="_blank">here</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 18px;">.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>Protagonist Kelsea Glynn, daughter of the former Tearling queen, has been in hiding until her nineteenth birthday. She is then called upon to take the throne, deposing her corrupt uncle and ending the slavery imposed on her people by the neighboring Red Queen. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: </b>This book is the first in what is anticipated to be a trilogy by new author Erika Johansen. There's little information to be found about Erika online, so I'm eager to learn more about her background and current work. Erika, if you're reading this, let's be San Francisco friends! :)</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 18px;">Most interesting about this book is the futuristic setting, which reveals itself subtly as the book progresses. The world in which we find ourselves is "Post-Crossing," alluding to a movement from society as we know it now to an attempt at Utopianism. The Post-Crossing world does not have electricity, modern </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">medicine, or any of the technology we have come to rely on so heavily. Books are a valuable commodity, as most of them were lost when society transferred to digital copies. With horses as the main mode of transport and antiquated weaponry, the world feels very medieval, and the economic climate of the Tearling is comparably bleak. I would have loved more details around this, more attention to this setting aspect, but perhaps these additional context clues are to come in the next two books. </span></span></span><br />
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</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Snippets of magic come into play: a powerful heirloom necklace which grants Kelsea unique powers, or the Red Queen's occult genetic experiments that keep her forever young and beautiful. And I also appreciate that this book defies the genre standards of a love triangle (or heavy-handed love element in any form) and a waify, male-dependent ingenue. Kelsea is book smart as well as politically savvy, and what she lacks in physical strength she makes up for with fierce intuition and unflagging determination.<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-5472648913079359052014-06-12T13:00:00.003-07:002014-06-12T13:00:46.873-07:00Review: A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Title</strong><span style="color: #444444;">:<a href="http://borisfishman.com/" target="_blank"> A Replacement Life</a></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AReplacementLife" target="_blank"><span style="color: #f04e4e;">B</span>oris Fishman</a></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Harper</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Date of Publication</strong>: June 3, 2014</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Pages</strong>: 336</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Thank you to </span><a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #f04e4e; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> and the publisher for providing this review copy! "A Replacement Life" will be on tour for the next couple of weeks; check it out <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2014/05/boris-fishman-author-of-a-replacement-life-on-tour-june-2014/" target="_blank">here</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>Slava wants nothing more than to be a respected writer; he toils at <i>Century </i>magazine (New York) to earn crumbs of recognition, and as a result has distanced himself from his boisterous immigrant family. When Slava's grandmother dies, her funeral brings the family back together and Slava finds his way into a new type of writing project, one that will ultimately change his relationship to his family, to his country, and to his past. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: </b>Fishman's novel reminds me of the first time I read "A Clockwork Orange." (This may be an apparently random comparison, but bear with me.) At first introduction, entry into the protagonist's world seems challenging from a readerly standpoint. But after being ensconced (for a chapter or two) in the vocabulary, the names, the rites and quirks that make up this fictional account, passage through the rest of the tale is seamless and enjoyable. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Though I've been unable to finish the last few chapters (my digital version of the Advance Reader's Copy expired! Ah!), I'm completely enamored with the family at the center of this novel. The characters that revolve around Slava (and his "special writing project") are so colorful, so pronounced, that it's difficult to believe they are fictitious. Slava, too, is endearingly complex, and the trajectory of his belief system makes the book both gripping and personal. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">This is not a quick and easy novel, so don't plan to gobble it up on your weekend off. It's humorous, but dark, and the language is beautiful but densely packed. The read is fully worth the time investment. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-84474783535899255982014-04-30T13:35:00.000-07:002014-04-30T13:35:05.563-07:00Review: The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Title</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: The Serpent of Venice</span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: <a href="http://www.chrismoore.com/" target="_blank">Christopher Moore</a></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">William Morrow</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Date of Publication</strong>: April 22, 2014</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Pages</strong>: 336</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Thank you to </span><a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" style="color: #f04e4e; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> and the publisher for providing this review copy! "The Serpent of Venice" will be on tour for the next couple of weeks; check it out <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2014/01/christopher-moore-author-of-the-serpent-of-venice-on-tour-aprilmay-2014/" target="_blank">here</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">.</span><br />
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<b style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Two Sentence Summary: </b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Remember that one time that "Othello" got really funny, and even more complex, and had a killer mermaid/dragon/sea-snake? Told from the perspective of court jester Pocket (a carry-over character from other novels by Moore), this book is a hilarious adventure story with Shakespearean roots.</span><br />
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<b style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Things I Think: </b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I haven't read a Christopher Moore novel in a few years, when I became obsessed with vampire stories "You Suck" and "Bite Me." (I largely picked them up because I love stories set in my city, San Francisco. But then they turned out to be extremely witty and well-written and I couldn't stop.) Little did I know he had written a book called "Fool," featuring King Lear's jester named Pocket. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">This latest adventure of Pocket's places him in the context of the Othello saga, and as always Moore has successfully taken a classic, understood tenet (in this case, Shakespearean drama) and complicated it in extremely entertaining ways. Character personalities are hyper-realistic / un-fancified. Motivations are deeply rooted in well-described histories. Nothing is sacred and everything is up for a good mocking. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Most of all, I appreciate that Moore has made this comprehensible and enjoyable regardless of one's familiarity with the original play. Having a deeper knowledge of the original context certainly adds flavor to the reading, but a reader could go in blind and still have a great reading experience. </span><br />
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<b style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></b>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-54166424341697765622014-03-06T12:39:00.001-08:002014-03-06T12:40:52.320-08:00Review: The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Title</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: The Enchanted</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: <a href="http://www.renedenfeld.com/" target="_blank">Rene Denfeld</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: Harper </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Date of Publication</strong>: March 4, 2014 </span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Thank you to <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours</a> and the publisher for providing this review copy! "The Enchanted" will be on tour for the next couple of weeks; check it out <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2014/01/rene-denfeld-author-of-the-enchanted-on-tour-march-2014/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>In a crumbling, low-tech maximum security prison, an anonymous Death Row inmate narrates a bleak tale of suffering and corruption,(both within "the system" and in the characters' past) with surreal tinges of beauty and hope. A woman simply referred to as "The Lady," graces Death Row with her insight and empathy, working to investigate the lives of the imprisoned in the hope of saving their lives and illuminating the paths that have led to tragedy.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: </b>The author of this book has a fascinating background: in addition to being a reputed novelist and journalist, she has also worked as a death penalty investigator. This lends her subject matter not only a huge amount of clout, but an impressively realistic vision that books on a similar topic lack. </span></span><br /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Most impressive, though, is the gracefulness with which the plot reveals itself. Amidst descriptions of food so foul it made my stomach turn, amidst senseless brutality, torture and psychological abuse, Denfield has planted tiny seeds of strange beauty. They primarily manifest in the mind of the narrator, a man whose crimes are so horrific that he won't mention them, for fear of promulgating the idea. In fact, he has lost the ability to speak at all. In his solitude, though, he has constructed intricate explanations for the goings-on of the prison system (wild horses living beneath their "dungeon," for example).</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">I was most in love with Denfeld's avoidance of an imposed morality. Even those on Death Row are deserving of The Lady's (and our) consideration, deserving of a second look to identify their humanity, and their trajectory to this terrifying place. There is no enforced alignment of actions with "goodness" or "badness" - things simply are, things simply have occurred, and forward motion (emotionally, mentally, physically if possible) becomes the most powerful response. </span></span><br />
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karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-54754582101026927642014-01-29T15:27:00.001-08:002014-01-29T15:27:20.761-08:00Review: "What I Had Before I Had You" by Sarah Cornwell<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Title</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: What I Had Before I Had You</span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: </span><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.sarahcornwell.com/" target="_blank">Sarah Cornwell</a></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/books/What-Had-Before-You-Sarah-Cornwell/?isbn=9780062237842" target="_blank">Harper</a></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Date of Publication</strong>: January 7, 2014</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Pages</strong>: 288</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>How I Heard About It: </b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Another great find from a tour hosted by </span><a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #f04e4e; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours!</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> Thank you to the publisher for the review copy! You can check out the rest of the tour <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2013/12/sarah-cornwell-author-of-what-i-had-before-i-had-you-on-tour-january-2014/" target="_blank">her</a>e. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><i>"The past, I feel in this moment, is something that parents dangle in front of their children, something hoarded and valuable that we can never touch. They pretend to share, pulling out the old albums at Christmastime, but under their breath, they are saying, </i>This is what I had before I had you."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>Olivia has just gone through a messy divorce and must leave her beloved home in Austin with her two children (a teenage girl and a bipolar 9 year old son). As she returns to her hometown of Ocean Vista, she is haunted by memories of her past there (largely centered around her mother's denial about the death of her sisters and unexplained disappearances), and Olivia's struggles to parent her children become intricately overlaid upon her own childhood struggles.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>[[author Sarah Cornwell]]</i></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: </b>Sarah Cornwell has had several short stories published (and has won myriad awards) but this is her first novel. To use the word "engaging" falls short of the mark in describing the braided plot, with its hints of ... what? magical realism? mania? that perpetually overturn expectations.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">This book is very much of patterns: Olivia's mother, a psychic, cycles through lengthy phases of manic productivity and near catatonia. Her son is officially diagnosed as bipolar. As Olivia reminisces about her mother's sporadic evacuations from their home (with no notice, no way to reach her, and no explanation upon her return), she finds that her son has wandered off on the Ocean Vista boardwalk and can't be located. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Cornwell explores Olivia's position as a seeming "hinge" between these two, unraveling landscapes, and in doing so creates a mesmerizing tension, rapidly transitioning between timelines and trials. The writing is lyrical, but not in a manner that overshadows/grinds against gritty circumstance. I'm on a quest now to find more of this author's work!</span><br />
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karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-53099031840720210962014-01-14T14:22:00.001-08:002014-01-14T14:22:50.931-08:00Review: "Taking What I Like" by Linda Bamber<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Title</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: Taking What I Like</span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: </span><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lindabamberwriter.com/" target="_blank">Linda Bamber</a></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: Black Sparrow Press</span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Date of Publication</strong>: July 31, 2013</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Pages</strong>: 256</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>How I Heard About It: </b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I'm reviewing "Taking What I Like" as part of the book's extended tour, hosted by </span><a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #f04e4e; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours.</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> Thank you to the publisher for the review copy! You can check out the rest of the tour <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2013/11/linda-bamber-author-of-taking-what-i-like-on-tour-january-2014/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>A collection of short stories revolving around well-known literary characters and plots, "Taking What I Like" is a successfully humorous re-imagining of the classics. The relationship of Shakespeare and other authors to each story differs (characters placed in new contexts, or peripheral characters explored more deeply, for example), and when combined with the sharp intellect and comedic undertones of Bamber's voice, these well-known figures are refreshed and gain interesting new dimensions.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: </b>I was immediately drawn to the concept behind this book, it's aim to "reinvent classic texts." It has the feel of a project piece, something I've experimented with and encountered frequently in the poetry world. For this reason, I decided to read and review "Taking What I Like" and am certainly glad to have done so. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">As <a href="http://ajreader.blogspot.com/2014/01/Taking-What-I-Like.html" target="_blank">other</a> <a href="http://cupcakeonbooks.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">bloggers</a> on the tour have pointed out, the author's life as an academic has clearly been influential here. Not only does the nature of the content point to professorial literary love, but settings and characters also reflect an involvement with / interest in the academic scene. And while Bamber clearly has an extensive knowledge of the classics, I feel certain that readers less-versed in Shakespeare, etc. have been provided ample keys to appreciate the stories as well. In "Casting Call," which features the cast of "Othello" as a collegiate faculty, the characters fully recall their sordid previous lives, and as readers we're given glimpses of the past tragedy in conjunction with their current position.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I still have more stories to savor in this book and am greatly looking forward to them. <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/12/30/168151438/author-ben-fountains-book-picks-for-2013" target="_blank">NPR</a> has already featured Linda Bamber for her work in "Taking What I Like" and I anticipate more press for this book in the near future. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-29288831075049122572014-01-07T14:57:00.002-08:002014-01-07T14:57:53.155-08:00Review: "I Take You" by Nikki Gemmell<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Title</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: I Take You</span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.nikkigemmell.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Nikki Gemmell</span></a></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: HarperCollins Publishers</span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Date of Publication</strong>: December 31, 2013</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Pages</strong>: 289</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>How I Heard About It:</b> I've previously reviewed other work by this author, "With My Body." </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I'm reviewing "I Take You" as part of the book's extended tour, hosted by </span><a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #f04e4e; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours.</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> Thank you to the publisher for the review copy!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>After Connie's husband is severely injured in a skiing accident, their relationship (particularly it's treatment of intimacy) becomes increasingly... experimental? Thrilling at first, Connie and Cliff's sexual escapades gain a somewhat alarming momentum and Connie starts to question her role as object, play thing, prop.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><i>"I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard desperate facts."</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: </b>As mentioned in my earlier reviews of Nikki's work, I've been a fan of hers for many years, ever since a good friend recommended "The Bride Stripped Bare." I have loved her poetic diction and unique take on prose, her tendency to divide lengthy tales into tiny snapshots (separated by well-placed quotations.) </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">A key component of the author's works I've read has always been female sexuality; discovery of, exploration of, deviation from... "I Take You" is certainly no different in this regard, but pushes the envelope much further in terms of eroticism. At times making direct reference to "The Story of O" and the more mainstream "Fifty Shades of Gray," "I Take You" holds absolutely nothing back in terms of the erotic (much like its characters). </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Making this book different than its predecessors ("The Bride Stripped Bare" and "With My Body") is the distinctly <i>dark</i> nature of the married couple's eroticism. An opening scene of marital experimentation involves a "surgical" process that truly turns Connie into property of her husband, an inadvertent sacrifice of bodily control at the husband's directive (and for the entertainment of others). The overly of the horrific with the sensual is certainly riveting and disturbing, as is the reader's difficulty to connect with our protagonist's thoughts on the matter. Connie's feelings vacillate rapidly and are relatively unclear from moment to moment; it's unsettling, in that we are driven to react with as much reticence and confusion as the character.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">My concern with this narrative is a concern I experience with many "sexual liberation" tales - Gemmell's characters seem, over the course of the three books I've mentioned, to consistently rely exclusively on men to teach them how to utilize and appreciate their bodies and their lives. While this is an occurrence that can be based in reality, the fact that it is so heavily present time and time again in Gemmell's novels began to feel redundant in "I Take You." I found myself yearning for just one sturdy, take-charge female to break up the pattern a bit. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-31388552465354622872013-11-13T11:03:00.003-08:002013-11-13T11:07:09.695-08:00Review: "The Color of Light" by Helen Maryles Shankman<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Title</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: The Color of Light</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://helenmarylesshankman.com/" target="_blank">Helen Maryles Shankman</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: Stony Creek Press</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Date of Publication</strong>: October 31, 2013</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 18px;"><b>How I Heard About It:</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 18px;">I'm reviewing "The Color of Light" as part of the book's extended tour, hosted by </span><a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #f04e4e; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours.</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 18px;"> Thank you to the publisher for the review copy!</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>It's the early nineties at the American Academy of Art, a school known for its unique adherence and reverence towards all things classical. When a simple sketch by art student Tessa piques the interest of Rafe (the handsome, Byronic head of the school) for reasons rooted in his past, the book takes a exciting turns for both the historical and the fantastic in equal measure.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: "</b>Atmospheric" is the word dying to come out of my mouth every time I think or talk about this book. Shankman has placed "The Color of Light" in the familiar cross-section of an elite art scene and a community's menacing underbelly, but the stunning creativity with which she's infused the plot make neither of these things feel rote. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">From the gorgeous descriptions of the school ("white-washed walls thirty feet high...windows soar[ing] from ceiling to floor...moveable white walls and white drapes... dozens of fluorescent lamps tricked out with reflectors..." to the invocation of two distinct eras (the early 90s in New York City, as well as the Holocaust, the book carries a tangible feeling of suspense (one my mind associates with both the isolation and yearning of autumn). </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">I'm usually a "characters" girl, so it feels strange/new to be this obsessively impressed by a general ambiance. That's not to say that the characters aren't riveting as well. Again, Shankman pushes against a potentially rusty trope of current fiction (vampires) and infuses it with an element of legitimate historicism that makes the topic <i>compelling</i> (HA!).</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">This would be a fun read for the holidays. Despite the epic page count, it's easy to fly through and definitely entertaining.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><br /></b></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-2166019522652042322013-09-24T15:49:00.000-07:002013-09-24T16:22:40.065-07:00Review: "The Explanation for Everything" by Lauren Grodstein<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Title</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: The Explanation for Everything</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: Lauren Grodstein</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: <a href="http://www.algonquinbooksblog.com/" target="_blank">Algonquin Books</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Date of Publication</strong>: September 3, 2013</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Pages</strong>: 352</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><b>How I Heard About It: </b>I<b> </b>found this book through <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/" target="_blank">Netgalley</a>, and publisher Algonquin Books kindly provided a digital copy for review.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Two Sentence Summary:</b> College professor Andy Waite has built his life, his research, and his academic syllabus around a fixation on his wife's murder by a young drunk driver named Oliver. When student Melissa recruits him to advise her independent study on intelligent design (an "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design" target="_blank">anti-evolutionary creationism</a>"), Andy finds that his spirituality and attempts at recovery are called into question and, for the first time, fall under a different type of microscope.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Author <a href="http://laurengrodstein.com/" target="_blank">Lauren Grodstein</a></span></i></td></tr>
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<i style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;">"He had never grown used to her absence, but he had learned to endure it, and to ignore her ghost, who was often waiting for him around the corner, or behind him in the office when he thought he was alone. He used to talk to her; during his first several years in New Jersey he talked to her several times a day. She would smirk or nod or roll her eyes, as expressive in death as she had been in life."</i></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;">Things I Think: </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;">Very rarely do I dive into a new read without any background info. It's a strange delight, but one I don't often feel inclined to experience. (When you have a "TBR" pile as big as I do, taking a risk on the unknown can sometimes be a saddening loss of time.) I also typically avoid books with religious tones (over- or under-), so prior knowledge of the plot would have perhaps caused me to stay away. In the case of "The Explanation for Everything," the risk was well worth it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;">Making morality a key character in a novel is a dangerous choice, but also brave: one false move can drive away 50% of a writer's audience in a heartbeat. So how to straddle, delicately, the infamous fence between creationism and evolution? Grodstein's tactic is to represent both sides equally. Characters in each camp are equally redemptive, equally flawed, perfectly balanced in terms of basic, believable, humanity. Further, characters like Sheila (Andy's friend and neighbor) are realistically indifferent, do not seem affected by or interested in the debate. As a result, there is no silent champion. The space Grodstein creates is safe for a spectator, free from proselytizing or judgment.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;">The individuals, unique in their circumstances, come into focus because of the great debate, instead of the other way around, and this is what makes "The Explanation..." riveting. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>October 16</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Google event with Adam Mansbach<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />345 Spear Street, San Francisco CA<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Time TBD</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>October 18</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Book Passage<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />51 Tamal Vista Boulevard, Corte Madera CA<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />7 pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>October 19</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Women’s National Book Association Panel<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Books Inc. Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco CA<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />1 pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>October 21</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The Booksmith: In-conversation event with Adam Mansbach<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />1644 Haight Street, San Francisco CA<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />7:30 pm</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-35640655319209705892013-09-19T12:17:00.001-07:002013-09-19T12:19:52.028-07:00Review: "The Fountain of St. James Court..." by Sena Jeter Naslund<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Title</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: </span><span style="color: black;">The Fountain of St. James Court; or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Author</strong>: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SenaJeterNaslund?ref=ts" target="_blank">Sena Jeter Nasland</a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="color: #444444;">: William Morrow</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Date of Publication</strong>: September 17, 2013</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Pages</strong>: 448</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>How I Heard About It: </b>My interest was greatly piqued when <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours</a> asked me if I would review this hot-off-the-presses novel by best-selling author Sena Jeter Naslund. Sena taught a creative writing workshop while I was an undergraduate, the first of many roundtable workshop classes I would go on to join. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>The novel weaves together the lives of two female artists in different time periods. Kathryn is a novelist of today in her sixties, living in Louisville, KY and wrapping up the first draft of her most recent creation; Elisabeth is a post French Revolution portrait painter known for her humanizing portrayals of key historical figures from her era. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sena Jeter Naslund</i></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: </b>This is a very different type of review for me, as "The Fountain..." is the first book in a while I can chalk up as a DNF (Did Not Finish)*. There are a few reasons for this. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Naslund's prose is uniquely hers: a lyrical, lengthy treatment of sentences; a quietness of plot and pace; intense dedication to three-dimensional description. These stylistic pieces feel consistent with other work of hers that I've read (primarily "<a href="http://www.booksmith.com/book/9780060838744" target="_blank">Ahab's Wife</a>", which garnered her first big bout of attention and, reputedly, no small amount of money.) </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In the case of "The Fountain..." these elements felt ramped up to a degree that was distracting. The lyricism of the sentences and descriptive pieces, for example, felt almost florid to excess. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The plot, on the other hand, had little meat on its bones. Kathryn's storyline in particular experienced this lack of momentum, a single action or thought often meriting an entire chapter of its own. Coupled with the intricacy of the sentence structures themselves, the story lost its breath and lost its connection with me.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I hate abandoning books, but the length of this novel plus my difficulty finding purchase in its pages made me move on despite reservations. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">*<i>I've decided not to post a rating, since I didn't make it to the end of this one.*</i></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-36052273668411056132013-08-26T13:22:00.001-07:002013-08-26T13:25:32.184-07:00Review & Giveaway: "Mystery Girl" by David Gordon<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Title</strong><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #444444;">: </span><span style="color: black;">Mystery Girl</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Author</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: <a href="http://davidgordonx.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">David Gordon</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #444444;">: </span><span style="color: black;">New Harvest</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Date of Publication</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: July 16, 2013</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Pages</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: 304</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>How I Heard About It: </b></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;">I'm reviewing "Mystery Girl" as part of the book's extended tour, hosted by </span><a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" style="color: #f04e4e; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours.</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"> Thank you to the publisher for the review copy! They have also generously provided <b>one giveaway copy </b>for one of my readers. Leave a comment on this post and I'll enter you into a my super official drawing in which I write your names on post-it notes.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>Sam is a failing novelist, a connoisseur of film and literature, whose life begins to unravel when wife Lala announces that she wants to leave him. In an attempt to land a stable job, he finds himself the (un)-official assistant to genius and madman Solar Lonsky, who sends Sam deep into a case involving a mysterious woman, whose punk rock life and famed underground-artistic-collaborations Sam must retroactively track to untangle Lonsky's mystery.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><i><b>"</b>That's why almost all books about obsession are to some degree artful lies: real obsession, thinking that one thought over and over forever, is so boring it would be unreadable. In this regard, all of literature's great maniacas of love, Stendhal, Miller, Hamsun, Nabokov, even Proust (although he pushes it farthest for sure), distort the endlessness of true fixation, the monotony of pain and desire, as they transform it into pleasure, into art."</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: </b>This book is a treasure trove for the literary nerd. Protagonist Sam is insanely well read, and while his ability to draw Proust parallels has failed to serve him well in life, the referential constellations he creates make this a geekily enjoyable read. I found myself flagging many of the film and book references to follow up with later; they all play a crucial role in the plot, and heavily inform Gordon's stylistic choices. (In press releases, the author calls out Hitchcock's "Vertigo" as particularly influential.)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Gordon's characters are fascinating in their wackiness, and he has successfully fleshed out their back stories with enough intricacy to make their oddities fully believable. Self-appointed detective Solar Lonsky is the finest example of this impressive character work. Morbidly obese and agoraphobic, his choice to hire Sam as his eyes, ears and legs in the outer world makes perfect sense. Lonsky veers in and out of manic episodes (which inevitably land him in psychiatric lockdown) but maintains a firm grasp of the "mystery girl's" case he is so desperate to solve. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;">For a mystery novel to be written with such literary diction and affection for the academic was a definite surprise for me, and it was certainly welcome. I plan to immediately follow up this read with Gordon's award-winning debut novel, "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1439158487?ie=UTF8&tag=davigord-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1439158487" target="_blank">The Serialist</a>."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><br /></b></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-60889899237461463392013-08-19T14:26:00.000-07:002013-08-19T14:26:04.315-07:00Review: "Zinksy the Obscure" by Ilan Mochari<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Title</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: <a href="http://www.zinskytheobscure.com/" target="_blank">Zinsky the Obscure</a></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #444444;">: <a href="http://www.ilanmochari.com/" target="_blank">Ilan Mochari</a></span></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #444444;">: <a href="http://www.fomitepress.com/FOMITE/Home.html" target="_blank">Fomite</a></span></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Date of Publication</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: April 15, 2013</span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Pages</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: 342</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>How I Heard About It: </b>I'm reviewing "Zinsky" as part of the book's extended tour, hosted by <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours.</a> Thank you to the author for the review copy!</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>Narrated by a brilliantly neurotic young man (Ariel Zinsky) with an entrepreneurial spirit (though misguided and dangerous at times), "Zinsky" is a record of massive failure, flux, and fiscal triumphs. The (im-) balance between deep interpersonal baggage with an obsessive desire to create a (football expert's) legacy creates an addictive tension; coupled with Mochari's consistent stylistic choices, it's an impressive read. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>"Oh readers, I must confess - the naive 22-year-old Zinsky still believed the pendulum of romantic karma would swing in his favor! He had a divination of deserving idyllic coupling because of all he'd suffered. Does it sound corny? Naive? Or worse - typical? Perhaps I should have known better."</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>"A successful </i>Guide<i> could make me the Dickensian hero of my own life - could provide indisputable evidence that all my beatings and sufferings and subsequent musings had amounted to something: I'd have risen from my circumstances and triumphed. I'd have earned the right to guiltlessly share my story as a tale of valor."</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Things I Think: </b>The comparisons other reviewers have made to Dickens, or to "A Confederacy of Dunces," are entirely accurate, both stylistically and thematically. Mochari's diction and lexicon in "Zinsky" hearken back to more classic literature, and the bursts of dark humor and self-deprecation continually made me think of similar loops in "Tristram Shandy." To have found a voice like this still exists, in our generation, is as much a relief as it is enjoyable.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;">The narrator is compelling in his realism - nothing is sugar-coated here, readers! Paternal abuse suffered by the narrator, mishaps of puberty and sexual encounters, ultimately selfish decisions that will become closeted skeletons ... We are spared nothing when it comes to gory detail, and though Zinsky sports no shortage of flaws, his willingness to "own up" in his account allows us trust his tales. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-72053784370018392072013-08-05T11:55:00.000-07:002013-08-05T11:55:04.275-07:00Review: "Something Pretty, Something Beautiful" by Eric Barnes<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Title</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: Something Pretty, Something Beautiful</span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Author</strong><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #444444;">: </span><a href="http://www.ericbarnes.net/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Eric Barnes</span></a></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Publisher</strong><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #444444;">: </span><a href="http://www.outpost19.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Outpost 19</span></a></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Date of Publication</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: June 1, 2013</span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Pages</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: 262</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>How I Heard About It:</b>I'm reviewing this as part of the book's extended tour over at <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2013/07/eric-barnes-author-of-something-pretty-something-beautiful-on-tour-july-2013/" target="_blank">TLC Book Tours</a>. Also, Eric's going to be in San Francisco this Tuesday at <a href="http://www.greenapplebooks.com/" target="_blank">Green Apple Books</a> doing a reading and signing, so if you're in the area.... swing by!</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>Brian Porter narrates the intensely dark saga of his high school years, a four year period that wreaks of violence and destruction as his group of friends becomes tangled up with the seemingly sociopathic enigma Will Wilson. The plot weaves between present and past, toying with ideas of memory and perception and landing heavily on the fallout created from years of driving, at hundreds of miles per hour, headfirst into mayhem.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Things I Think: </b>This is the kind of book you read with a constant grimace on your face, gritting your teeth so hard your jaw feels like it might explode by the time you get to the last page. Watching a group of teenage boys self-destruct under the tutelage of a peer pressure master isn't a new topic (think "Clockwork Orange" set in modern day Tacoma) but the eerie quietude, the smiling-ness with which the characters execute atrocity, makes "Something Pretty..." a disaster tale all its own. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;">What's more, Barnes plays with time in a way that makes us uncertain what we know, down to whether or not the characters themselves have been fabricated, drug-induced hallucinations, or if Brian Porter's memories are concrete and reliable. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;">Read this and feel better about the bullshit you pulled in high school. Read this and look around you and be glad you're not dead at the bottom of a gulch because of a dare, a prank, you couldn't refuse. I lost a night of sleep after I finished this, mostly feeling electric with relief to not be any of the people in this book.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-17171474497581002632013-07-22T13:26:00.001-07:002013-07-22T13:27:13.772-07:00Review: "Indiscretion" by Charles Dubow<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Title</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: Indiscretion</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Author</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: <a href="https://twitter.com/CharlesDubow" target="_blank">Charles Dubow</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Publisher</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/imprints/index.aspx?imprintid=518003" target="_blank">William Morrow Paperbacks</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Date of Publication</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: July 9, 2013</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><strong style="background-color: white;">Pages</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: 400</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>How I Heard About It: </b>Thanks so much to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for providing a free review copy. More info about the rest of the book blog tour can be found <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2013/07/charles-dubow-author-of-indiscretion-on-tour-july-2013/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>A group of wealthy friends vacation in the Hamptons for the summer. The dynamic of their social sphere begins a downward spiral when young, gorgeous Claire becomes a part of the infrastructure and sets her sights on (married) author Harry Winslow.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>[[<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-14/hamptons-sex-echoes-gatsby-in-indiscretion-interview.html" target="_blank">via</a>]]</i></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Things I Think:</b> This is not an unfamiliar story: a perfect couple (Maddy and Harry Winslow), completely content in their marriage and revered by their peers; the unexpected entrance of a sweet young thing, who at first worships the pair as mentors but falls decidedly in love with the husband; the husband's seemingly epic struggle to resist, his ultimate failure, and the resultant fireworks of disaster when everything inevitably comes to light.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;">For this reason alone, I nearly failed to complete "Indiscretion." I feel like I've read this story, or seen it performed, dozens upon dozens of times. Little about Dubow's use of this classic formula made it unique from any other rendition of the age-old midlife crisis affair saga, and the unfolding of anticipated event after anticipated event occurred so slowly that sticking with this book was a struggle. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;">In the last fifty pages or so, we are finally granted a left-turn from the plodding plot. But it takes so long to get to this meaty plot point, I almost didn't make it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">The reason I hung on was Dubow's beautiful prose. His sentences are perfectly crafted, his vocabulary impeccable. Additionally, his narration choices (which continue to be compared to those of "The Great Gatsby") are a point of interest. Dubow clearly has an immense amount of technical skill, but in this case, it over-shone the novel's attempts at creativity. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-22683009307859768242013-07-15T18:20:00.000-07:002013-07-15T18:20:34.475-07:00Pulitzer Winner's Newest Novella: Enon<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><strong style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Title</strong><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">: Enon</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><strong style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Author</strong><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">: <a href="http://www.tinkerspulitzer.com/?p=2" target="_blank">Paul Harding</a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><strong style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Publisher</strong><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">: Random House</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><strong style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Date of Publication</strong><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">: September 10, 2013 </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><strong style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Pages</strong><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">: 256</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #444444;"><b>How I Heard About It: </b>When my mom sent me a copy of <i>Tinkers </i>(which went on to win the 2010 Pulitzer Prize) in the mail one day, I had no idea how hard I was about to fall for Paul Harding. Recently <i>Enon</i>, to be released in September, became available for advanced review on <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/" target="_blank">Netgalley</a> and I pounced. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><i>I inserted the key into the keyhole and opened the door. The old air fell out of the clock, dry, held in the cubic shape of the case for who knows how many years until I opened the door and it collapsed out into the contemporary atmosphere, distinct and nearly colonial for a moment and then subsumed, and I wondered how old it was, if it contained any of Simon Willard's breath.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #444444;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>Continuing the exquisite family narrative begun in <i>Tinkers</i>, <i>Enon </i>is a poetic meditation on a year of Charlie Crosby's life as he struggles through a grief that seems endless, cyclical. A violent, life-altering incident instantly destroys Charlie's family, and, left alone to make meaning of the horrific event, the protagonist's pain leads him through a surreal landscape of isolation, addiction, and hallucinatory attempts towards reconciliation.</span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: small;">[[<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/books/19harding.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" target="_blank">via</a>]]</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, FreeMono, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: </b>The master of quietude, "indie darling" Paul Harding has written another book in which atmosphere is king. Beyond the charming but eerie setting that completely invaded my imagination and dreams for days, the mood (equal parts somber and surreal) becomes as crucial to the reading of <i>Enon</i> as any plot point. In essence, this meditation on grief is a one-man ballet of self-destruction. Charlie pushes on the invisible boundary between living and dead, uncertain as to which side he should inhabit. But for a narrative that is so completely devastating, it is wrought with such beautiful prose that the overall effect renders awe in the reader. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, FreeMono, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">A poet's prose-writer, Harding's extended metaphors basically (no hyperbole) slay me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, FreeMono, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><i>The obsidian girl moves through the trees at night. She moves across the fairway of the golf course, near the road, by the stone wall that acts as the hood for the footlights to the stage. She is all but invisible, the girl of black glass, appearing only as a wobbly blur. She is a dark lens. Through her, the dark underpinnings of the world are visible, but they turn whoever might see them to stone, or to ice, or to salt, or to marsh grass. </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, FreeMono, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">This is literary fiction at its finest. Paul Harding, I will forever read anything you ever write. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, FreeMono, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">And I'm just now realizing the last 3 books I've reviewed have been 5's, which is strange for me but also makes me aware of the fact that I'm getting better at "choosing wisely." </span></span></div>
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karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-31908235531764554322013-06-27T13:41:00.001-07:002013-06-27T13:42:27.452-07:00Review: "Flight Behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;">Title</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;">: Flight Behavior</span><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;">Author</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;">: <a href="http://www.barbarakingsolver.com/" target="_blank">Barbara Kingsolver</a></span><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;">Publisher</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;">: <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/imprints/index.aspx?imprintid=517986" target="_blank">HarperPerennial</a></span><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;">Date Published</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;">: June 4, 2013</span><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;">Pages</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;">: 464 Pages</span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;">How I Heard About It: </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;">TLC Book Tours and the publisher kindly provided an advance reader's copy for review in hardback.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>Dellarobia Turnbow, a 28 year old mother of two and farmer's wife, has begun to feel an overwhelming urge to escape her increasingly narrow Appalachian life. Just as she is about to throw in the towel, to seek out upheaval for the sake of mere change, she discovers an environmental anomaly (part miracle, part bleak omen of a failing planet) that unleashes a flurry of media attention, scientific investigations, and unavoidable insight into her community and herself.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; line-height: 18px;"><i>"She was embarrassed to invite these people into her house, that was the long and short of it. A man living in a motor vehicle, the others maybe rooming next to a meth lab, but still Dellarobia couldn't bear how they would see her life. Like the country-music diner they called "vile." If these kids didn't know a zipper could be replaced, they surely had not seen the likes of her Corelle plates and stained carpet and pillow strewn rooms. </i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #777777; font-family: Courier New, Courier, FreeMono, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: </b>For innumerable reasons, this novel is going to be one of the best books of 2013. Prolific writer Barbara Kingsolver (author of 7 other novels, 3 nonfiction books, and even a collection of poetry) has certainly lived up to her reputation as an iconic literary figure of our era. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #777777; font-family: Courier New, Courier, FreeMono, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">From a personal perspective, I was immediately attached to the story because it is one to which I can relate. Dellarobia and I are the same age, and I have spent a great deal of time in the environment in which she exists. The beauty of rural, Appalachian foothill communities, coupled with the stifling lack of diversity and opportunity, is a juxtaposition with which I am both familiar and have occasionally struggled. Kingsolver's capability to illuminate the geographic location is no surprise, as she herself was raised in rural Kentucky. Her ability to write with the voice of a 28 year old "woman of today" was absolutely impressive to me; the author has proven, both within this one book and over the arc of her writing career, that she can convincingly adopt specific lexicons to create realism in her characters. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #777777; font-family: Courier New, Courier, FreeMono, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">There is a beautiful undercurrent of spirituality that runs throughout the novel. Admittedly, I often shy away from "spiritual quest" narratives, but in this case, it evolves with masterful delicacy. Dellarobia's increasing involvement in a natural phenomenon on her family's property is a gateway into a much larger consciousness, both ecological and humanitarian. The escape she needed from her established path arrives, though in a form she would have never anticipated: millions of monarch butterflies, heralding the undeniable arrival of climate change on our planet. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #777777; font-family: Courier New, Courier, FreeMono, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">This is a book I was sad to finish. Thank goodness there is such a vast Kingsolver catalogue which I can continue to explore. </span></span></div>
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karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-82129094726880676032013-06-12T12:50:00.003-07:002013-06-13T11:14:34.956-07:00Review & Giveaway: "Our Love Could Light the World" by Anne Leigh Parrish<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Title</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: Our Love Could Light the World</span><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Author</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: <a href="http://anneleighparrish.com/" target="_blank">Anne Leigh Parrish</a> </span><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Publisher</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: <a href="http://shewritespress.com/" target="_blank">She Writes Press</a></span><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Date Published</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: June 3, 2013</span><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Pages</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: 202 pages</span><br />
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<b style="color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">How I Heard About It: </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">TLC Book Tours and the publisher kindly provided an advance reader's copy for review <b>and </b>a giveaway copy, in ebook format! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>In 12 interlocking short stories, Parrish introduces us to the Dugans, an incredibly dysfunctional family that goes off the skids when matriarch Lavinia leaves to marry a rich local (also her former boss). Each piece turns the lens on a different character in this complicated passel, granting an intimate perspective on the machinery of one struggling family.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: </b>Holy wow. Anne Leigh Parrish is an incredibly talented storyteller and this collection is no exception. I know I've been talking a lot about character development in my last few posts, and "Our Love Could Light the World" is an epic example of three-dimensional, believable humans whose motivations and choices are consistently linked.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">One of my favorite characters is the Dugan's oldest daughter, Angie. We see her growth from a disillusioned, gothy teenager to a caring, independent woman whose job as a social worker suits her sensitivities and intuitions perfectly. Perhaps because she is the oldest, her relationships with parents Potter and Lavinia come to the forefront several times, and we see her become a source of comfort and even protection for her father (who struggles with alcoholism, depression, loneliness, and an undying love for Lavinia even after she has left him for her rich boss). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The family undergoes one ordeal after another, from unexpected pregnancies to torched homes; broken relationships and surprisingly forged internal bonds that come in their wake. The collection twists and turns like a Rubik's Cube, constantly breaking previously established patterns and simultaneously building new alignments. As the stories of Parrish's characters tumble around one another and interlock, the reader is quietly and charismatically delivered insights into loyalty, love, survival. The fact that the author is not heavy-handed with any type of moral makes the message she delivers all the more impactful: You may not have chosen your family, but they're the only one you've got. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I have one copy of this book to give to a reader. Comment on the post to let me know you'd like to enter, and I will randomly select a winner one week from today. </span></div>
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karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-1054652827351018052013-06-11T13:52:00.000-07:002013-06-11T13:52:10.873-07:00Review: "The Wonder Bread Summer" by Jessica Anya Blau<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Title</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: The Wonder Bread Summer</span><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Author</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: Jessica Anya Blau</span><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Publisher</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: Harper Perennial</span><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Date Published</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: May 28, 2013</span><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Pages</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: 288 pages</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>How I Heard About It: </b>TLC Book Tours and the publisher kindly provided an advance reader's copy for review, in conjunction with <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2013/05/jessica-anya-blau-author-of-the-wonder-bread-summer-on-tour-mayjune-2013/" target="_blank">Jessica Anya Blau's online tour. </a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b>Berkeley college student Allie finds herself in a bind when she steals a Wonder Bread bag full of uncut cocaine from her skeezy boss Jonah, who owes her a great deal of money, so that she can pay her tuition. When Jonah sicks his thug crew on Allie, she flees to Los Angeles to track down her absentee parents and finds herself in a series of increasingly unfortunate events.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">You can find more info <a href="http://www.jessicaanyablau.com/Jessica_Anya_Blau/Jessica_Anya_Blau.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/jessicaanyablau" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/jessicaanyablau" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Jessica Anya Blau</i></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Things I Think: </b>There is a whole lot going on here in terms of plot. Stolen drugs, Billy Idol backstage hook-ups, giant birds falling out of the sky, lousy friends and lousier parents, a coke-addicted paraplegic porn mogul overdosing in the back of a van... There is certainly an entertainment quality in the rapid turnover of (literally) unbelievable events that transpire. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">This unbelievability, however, is what lessened the impact of "The Wonder Bread Summer." I don't mean unbelievable in the Coleridge-ian sense, in that I was "unable to suspend my disbelief." I "suspended" all through the first few chapters, let myself ride the chaotic waves the author set in motion. But the wildness of the plot, the sheer randomness of the characters' behavior, so drives the book that it overwhelmed any opportunity for me to connect to the characters. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I think I would have enjoyed this more had there been more three dimensionality to the humans about which Blau writes. Allie could be a fascinating protagonist, were we granted a bit more insight into her choices, her interior monologue. As it is, I have trouble understanding how a girl that is solidly characterized as rather tame and pretty responsible so rapidly veers into a drug-snatching hot mess that has sex with Billy Idol backstage on a whim. Again, not totally out of the realm of possibilities, but as a reader I need to see how and why a huge transition like this occurs. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I'm sure this book will find an accepting audience; after all, it is chaotic with the potential to be shocking. I went into this with high (pun intended) hopes for a unique view of 1970s California and some substance to go with the flash, and sadly did not find it. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-42190988502927316272013-05-21T11:00:00.000-07:002013-05-21T11:00:31.190-07:00Review: "Sight Reading" by Daphne Kalotay<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Title</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: Sight Reading</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Author</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: Daphne Kalotay</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Publisher</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: Harper Collins</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Date Published</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: May 21, 2013</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Pages</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">: 352 pages</span><br />
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<strong style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">How I Heard About It: </strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 12pt;">A review copy of this newly-released paperback was provided by <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/" style="color: #f04e4e; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: blue;">TLC Book Tours</span></a> and the publisher as part of Daphne Kalotay's official blog tour. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Two Sentence Summary: </b><i>Sight Reading </i>closely follows the lives of professional, classical musicians embroiled in the music school / conservatory scene. A student (Remy) and her conductor begin an intricate affair that becomes just one of the many complicated landscapes these dark characters navigate.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FiDW93wFSsw/UZur5hVDY4I/AAAAAAAABa4/t3cBDMVrzyI/s1600/DaphneKalotay.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FiDW93wFSsw/UZur5hVDY4I/AAAAAAAABa4/t3cBDMVrzyI/s1600/DaphneKalotay.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Daphne Kalotay</i></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Things I Think: </b>As a long-time violinist, I was terrified to read this book. The only thing worse than someone fake-playing instruments in movies is someone fake-writing about playing instruments in novels. Research can be done, and people can be interviewed, and performances can be reviewed to glean facts, but conveying the experience of the well-trained musician is something that can easily fall flat, or descend into the realm of the tritely romanticized.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 12pt;">But Ms. Kalotay nailed<i> </i>it. From the descriptions of orchestral collaboration to the intensity of master classes, competition, and rigorous rehearsals, nearly everything about the musical picture felt, from the perspective of someone who has experienced these things, familiar and real. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 12pt;">While the setting of the musical conservatory is what lends the book its most exotic aspect, the plot is a bit less engaging: a young, starry-eyed student falls in love with her older, mysterious (married with a kid) conductor; the conductor's wife is struggling with feelings of loneliness and isolation due to constant intercontinental moves; the conductor's closest work friend is a foil, well-versed in the ways of student-instructor relationships and seemingly unashamed of his affairs. The scenarios are familiar and the plot movements are often anticipated. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 12pt;">The elegance of the prose (as described by novelist Tom Perotta)makes me draw a metaphor between the content and style: like a classical composition, the opening gestures are indicative of how the piece will develop and progress. Because the story's skeleton is fleshed out with such vividly beautiful description and well-crafted dialogue, it matters less that we've heard stories like these before. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-70626778514234757272013-02-19T11:25:00.000-08:002013-02-19T11:33:06.060-08:00Q&A with Author Margot Berwin<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Margot Berwin's recent release "Scent of Darkness" is a delicious young-adult-esque novel with exactly the gothy undertones I love (reference: "The Elementals" by Francesca Lia Block). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Two sentence summary: </b>A young woman named Evangeline is given a scent (from her departed aromata grandmother) that makes her completely irresistible to other human beings. Set in both upstate New York and New Orleans' French Quarter, the story is a magically surreal look at the motivations behind desire, and the extreme means people will go to for something they covet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Thank you so much to TLC Book Tours for the chance to chat with Margot! And now, I give you, the author herself...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">First
I want to give a Big thanks to Karen for having me on her blog! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">My
name is Margot Berwin and "Scent of Darkness" is my second novel. At the top
level it's about perfume, and loving two men at the same time. But underneath
it's also about portrait painting and shaving. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">KB: The dual cities in
which "Scent of Darkness" is set are such a vibrant, engaging part of
the book. What is your relationship to these places? What informed your vivid
writing?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MB:</b> I'm
a New York City girl who's always dreamed of a country house and that may be
why I set the first few chapters in upstate New York. That way I could live up
there...if only in my mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The
second half of the book takes place in New Orleans-and that happened purely by
accident. I was at work, writing websites for an ad agency, bitching about how
I couldn't find a quiet place to write in the city, when a co-worker and
friend, offered me his apartment in the French Quarter. He was swamped with
work and couldn't get out of NYC. He handed me the keys and just like that I
was living in New Orleans--I'd never been there before and I fell completely
and forever in love! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I
was so influenced by the city, the music, the food and especially the twin
scents of jasmine and magnolia that I immediately got one of my characters into
medical school at Tulane and placed the whole second half of the book in the French
Quarter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I
can't wait to go back down there on my book tour and read in the beautiful
Garden District Book Shop!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">KB: How do genre
classifications affect your work? Are you cognizant when writing of
classifications like "young adult" and does this change your
intentions? Or do these things only come into play after the novel is complete?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MB:</b> This
is a very interesting question. I don't write with a genre in mind. I write
what I write. But with this book I was aware that since my protagonist is 18
years old that it might fall into the YA category or maybe New Adult fiction,
which is a new and quickly growing category. These thoughts were in the back of
my mind but they did not influence the writing. I just have to do what I do and
let the chips fall, genre wise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">KB: I recently read
Francesca Lia Block's "The Elementals," which I also very much
enjoyed. She has a similar balance of gothic darkness with rich, realistic
plot. Has work like hers, or others, inspired you? If so, who would you cite as
an influence in these directions? Who are you currently reading? What books
would you recommend to your readers?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MB:</b> I
haven't read The Elementals but now I'm looking forward to it!! Thanks! For
this book I think my major influence was the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.
In my mind he is one of the greatest living writers. He works with magical
realism that is blended with a realistic storyline. He's a master of that. Some
books that he's written are: The Windup Bird Chronicle, A Wild Sheep Chase,
Kafka on the Shore. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">KB: What is your writing
process like? I'd love to hear about this more in the over-arching, long-term
sense and in the immediate sense (as in, do you write in public? alone? do you
listen to music? what is revising like?)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MB: </b>My
process goes something like this: Think, think, think all day for days and
months. Then write and write for 5-10 hours a day after the story is figured
out in my mind. I think of the entire story first, I can visualize it, I'm very
visual, and then when I sit down to write the world goes away for a while and I
become totally immersed. Thank God for my friends who tell me when it's time to
eat and shower.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I
write alone. I cannot write in public. I'm a very social person so I tend to go
out a lot with friends and then come home and isolate in order to write. My
life is split between being completely surrounded by people, and then totally
alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Music
is a big part of my writing. I was recently asked to compose a playlist of
stuff that I listened to while writing Scent of Darkness. It can be found <a href="http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2013/01/book_notes_marg_4.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I
really love revising-it's one of my favorite parts of the process. Also, I tend
to do a big brain dump in the beginning so revising is very important. It's a
lot of fun because I've gotten the hard part, the story itself, done. I like to
go back in and deepen and deepen a little more each time. Of course when a book
is sold to a publisher, there will be many more revisions..heh, heh...</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3Ls3kPC6oJA/USPTXIfddUI/AAAAAAAABWQ/i_AyM4-0nbg/s1600/imgres-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3Ls3kPC6oJA/USPTXIfddUI/AAAAAAAABWQ/i_AyM4-0nbg/s400/imgres-1.jpeg" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Margot's first release</i></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">KB: As a recent MFA
program graduate, I'm curious to know more about your experience at the New
School. Additionally, how did you transition from a writing program into being
outside of an academic community? What advice would you have for others going
through this process?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MB: </b>I
wrote two books before going into an MFA program, neither of which was
published. My agent suggested that I get an MFA because she felt that
publishers use that degree as a sort of weeding out process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I
did use one of my early novels for the application and it won me a scholarship,
one of two given that year, so it validated that book for me even though no one
wanted to publish it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I
did my MFA at night, they let you do that at the New School and that's part of
the reason I chose to go there. It's a great program, but you can also keep
your day job!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MFA
programs are interesting. You get to hear what other writer's of your space and
time are doing and thinking about, but ultimately you are the writer and what
other students or teachers say about your work should be taken with a grain of
salt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Always
stay true to what you want to say and don't be easily swayed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">* * * * </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Thanks so much, Margot, for doing a feature post on my blog today! I am definitely a new fan-girl :)</span></div>
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<br />karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-8050413898221827912013-02-04T10:41:00.000-08:002013-02-04T10:41:25.036-08:00Clarice Lispector (Times Two)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-align: start;">Last month I read and reviewed two Lispector novels for the San Francisco Book Review. I fell intensely in love. (You can find them as originally posted <a href="http://citybookreview.com/2013/01/near-to-the-wild-heart/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://citybookreview.com/2013/01/agua-viva/" target="_blank">here</a>.)</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Yx0mqU93_Q/UQ__hf3zksI/AAAAAAAABUw/gLeXZxCojpc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-02-04+at+10.22.28+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Yx0mqU93_Q/UQ__hf3zksI/AAAAAAAABUw/gLeXZxCojpc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-02-04+at+10.22.28+AM.png" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qXxUjVfKNho/UQ__hUmREdI/AAAAAAAABU0/t0OwVxaiWoo/s1600/Agua+Viva.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qXxUjVfKNho/UQ__hUmREdI/AAAAAAAABU0/t0OwVxaiWoo/s1600/Agua+Viva.png" /></a></div>
<br />karen mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04745132846035417460noreply@blogger.com1San Francisco, CA 94110, USA37.7485824 -122.418410837.6983609 -122.4990918 37.798803899999996 -122.3377298tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347658135768732585.post-10044314231307279192013-02-01T10:04:00.000-08:002013-02-03T13:34:31.643-08:00January is the New February (or, Feeling the Love)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I got totally spoiled rotten this January. My mailbox has been a massive party because of lovely friends from across the country and I wanted to do a big bloggy thank you to everyone. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5UpS5lJU7C0/UQsoWvcqW3I/AAAAAAAABSk/Z2iE8HDQ4G4/s1600/hat+gif.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5UpS5lJU7C0/UQsoWvcqW3I/AAAAAAAABSk/Z2iE8HDQ4G4/s400/hat+gif.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
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<strong>Exhibit A: New blue hat from Mom! -</strong> I lost my favorite slouchy blue hat in September, and after tearing apart my apartment, car, and office, all hope was lost. MOM TO THE RESCUE! She made me a replacement that has all the glory of the original but none of the wear-and-tear.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BIX0rPKt870/UQsy2FAQG3I/AAAAAAAABTM/DIkTYtFjR5I/s1600/Colin+Package.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BIX0rPKt870/UQsy2FAQG3I/AAAAAAAABTM/DIkTYtFjR5I/s400/Colin+Package.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Exhibit B: Care Package from Colin C! - </b>I think Colin said he started this back in September when I got attacked by crazy-mugger-man. It showed up in the middle of a work-filled Friday this month and I tore it open like a little kid. (This is only part of the care package... there were also mix cds which... omg.) That little Kid Robot unicorn is my new spirit animal.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AV8ymH3NlMQ/UQsy427BvaI/AAAAAAAABTU/8i3T5JnI0vs/s1600/Kelly+Fabric.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AV8ymH3NlMQ/UQsy427BvaI/AAAAAAAABTU/8i3T5JnI0vs/s400/Kelly+Fabric.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Exhibit C: Fabric from <a href="http://stitchyquiltstuff.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Kelly</a></b><a href="http://stitchyquiltstuff.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"> - My big sister</a> sent my three chunks of fabric which... let's be real... they're perfect. You can't see it very clearly, but the fabric on the right is dictionary entries for words related to sewing. * dies *</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ugKaiR4PYWo/UQsy7Xv1GKI/AAAAAAAABTc/wuUst7Tv7-E/s1600/Loren+Album.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ugKaiR4PYWo/UQsy7Xv1GKI/AAAAAAAABTc/wuUst7Tv7-E/s400/Loren+Album.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Exhibit D: New Vinyl from Alex - </b>Loren McNames feat. Alex himself! Even the physical record is a piece of art.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lGsyfMsv4zM/UQsy9BVQ_CI/AAAAAAAABTk/vCt5bGyUxdE/s1600/MegMurph+Books.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lGsyfMsv4zM/UQsy9BVQ_CI/AAAAAAAABTk/vCt5bGyUxdE/s400/MegMurph+Books.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Exhibit E: Pile o' Books from <a href="https://twitter.com/MeghanRMurphy" target="_blank">Meghan</a> - </b>Meghan is getting ready to have a baby girl but still found time to pop these book club reads in the mail to me. Each one had a note inside with a special Meghan-blurb :) I can't decide which one to read first, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be "Among the Wonderful."</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VLM0M3wscJc/UQszniBxMCI/AAAAAAAABTs/-_5eQxEOUCg/s1600/Caroline+Necklace+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VLM0M3wscJc/UQszniBxMCI/AAAAAAAABTs/-_5eQxEOUCg/s400/Caroline+Necklace+(2).jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
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<b>Exhibit F: NECKLACE OF MY DREAMS from Caroline - </b>This was one of those "you know me better than I know myself" moments. I saw this piece on Fab.com and died inside with the wanting but found restraint. A few weeks later, a box from Fab.com showed up ... with this inside... sent by Caroline. OVERJOYED.</div>
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I love you all <i>so</i> much. Thanks for making me feel like a million bucks.</div>
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