Wednesday, August 31, 2011

August 2011



Where, or where, has the month of August gone? Well, here's where it went reading-wise for me.

Burnt Mountain by Anne Rivers Siddons
Rating: 3/5 (Fiction Scale)
Source: Library
Format: Hardcover

A much anticipated book that fell far too short of my expectations. Book blurbs talked of Irish literature and mythology, and they were all represented--Yeats, Tir Na Nog, Oisin, the cattle raid of Cooley, Queen Maeve, and more. But this was Thayer Wentworth's story, and unfortunately for me, the story got away, lost in the dark side of the call to come "Dance with me in Ireland."

First line:  We heard it first on an early morning in June.


Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan
Rating: 4.5/5 (Fiction Scale)
Source: Library
Format: Hardcover 

I laughed and cried with the Kelleher family as the story of their Cape Neddick, Maine, summer home unfolded through the characters of Alice, the matriarch; Kathleen, her daughter; Maggie, her granddaughter; and Anne-Marie, her daughter-in-law. Ms. Sullivan was spot on in her portrayal of growing up Irish Catholic in Massachusetts in the 50s & 60s. Anyone who's been there will see themselves on these pages. Iconic Boston personalities and events are seamlessly and importantly woven into the story. I sat quietly sobbing for an hour after this story faded to an end on the last page.

First line:  Alice decided to take a break from packing.


The Things We Cherished by Pam Jenoff
Rating: 3.5/5 (Fiction Scale)
Source: Library
Format: Hardcover


Heartfelt, difficult decisions reveal themselves through interwoven flashbacks telling the story of Roger Dykmans, a wealthy financier and brother of a Holocaust hero, accused of World War II-era crimes.

First line:  "You know, don't you, that you're looking at twenty-five to life?"


A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
Rating: 4/5 (Mystery Scale)
Source:  Barnes & Noble
Format:  eBook


Another wonderful expose of character by Louise Penny. Armand and his wife Reine-Marie are celebrating their wedding anniversary at remote Manoir Bellechasse and share the beautiful auberge with an eccentric family's reunion. More is revealed about Chief Inspector Gamache's history as he becomes the target of scorn by the Finney family. A Rule Against Murder is not set in Three Pines, but we do learn more about one of that village's well known couples.

First line:  More than a century ago the Robber Barons discovered Lac Massawippi.


The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson
Rating: 3/5 (Fiction Scale)
Source: Library
Format: Hardcover


Two things about this book. Thing 1: Writing was exquisite. Thing 2: Story was disturbing and bordered on the discomfort side of my comfort zone. Perhaps, though, reading this modern gothic tale of love and secrets set in Provence should not have been undertaken under the specter of Hurricane Irene's arrival in New England.

First line:  Some scents sparkle and then quickly disappear, like the effervescence of citrus zest or a bright note of mint.


Kindred Spirits by Sarah Strohmeyer
Rating: 3.5/5 (Fiction Scale)
Source: Library
Format: Hardcover


Yet another, but very readable, group of friends novel. I liked these women and would love to have a copy of their martini cookbook. The book's epigraph summed it up perfectly: "Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief." --Cicero

First line:  Lynne Flannery took it as an encouraging sign that the day of her last martini would be the anniversary of her first.


The library books due tomorrow are all in the bag, read and ready to be returned. I've just noticed that the leaves on the walnut tree outside my window have changed from bright green to a subtle yellow, signaling the imminent arrival of September.  I am going to pull something that has been languishing in my TBR to start off my September reading. Decisions, decisions....

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Joy of Reading ~ The Lantern

...from The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson



I have always been a reader.  As a child, I loved books, though there weren't many at home.  But as soon as I went to school and was given one to look at the lovely pictures, and turned the pages to find more of the same, I was happy.  Such colors and strange and vivid images!  I marveled at how they were all closed up, asleep with their secrets unseen until you reached up and took the book down from the shelf.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Joy of Reading ~ Maine

...from Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

She opened the newspaper, which Arlo had set out for her.  She flipped past the front-page news and the Arts section, landing finally on the Sunday circular.  She didn't clip coupons, but the women in her family had always been so obsessed with them that she could never shake the habit of looking them over, just in case there was something amazing to be found, though of course there never was.  One ad offered free floss with the purchase of five tubes of toothpaste.  As if floss had ever broken the bank for anyone.  Human beings were strange about free stuff.  Her mother was the queen of it--I got four bottles of ketchup for the price of one, Alice had bragged over the phone a few weeks earlier.  Who needed four bottles of ketchup?

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Joy of Reading ~ Burnt Mountain

...from Burnt Mountain by Anne Rivers Siddons


I pattered down the steps and into high June on the river, buzzing with faraway insects and trilling with birdsong and smelling of wild honeysuckle from the river woods and cultivated blossoms from our garden, and fresh-mown green grass.  I twirled around three times on my bare feet and toppled over into the cool, damp grass, head back, face tipped up to the sun, eyes closed under its gentle fist.  It seemed to me at that moment that every atom in my body stretched itself up toward the sun, that my blood sang with the air and the running river, and that I would forever be as happy as I was at that moment.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Frenzied Reading No More!


This morning I rearranged my reading table and surrounding book piles. Today's rearranging was needed to weed out those books due back at the library tomorrow, many of which will be returned partially or wholly unread. Sitting in the midst of book chaos, I realized that a sort of reading frenzy had overtaken me.

Overjoyed with the hours of reading spread out before me as I entered the retired phase of my life a couple of months ago, I went crazy on inter-library loan filling up my request list with all of the books due to come out in May, June, and July. With the proper nod to Murphy's Law, they have all be arriving in large clumps of four's and five's. So I've blown through many of them with the goal of finishing so I could get to the next one. This morning, the backlog burst through the dam. In the resulting flood, I realized that enjoying a book should be my goal, not finishing it on deadline. After all, the day I declared for Social Security, I left 45+ years of deadlines behind me!

So the list of books that tickle my fancy will continue to grow and change, but I will rely more on the serendipity of the books that reach out and grab me as I peruse the library shelves. Add to these unexpected gems my loaded Kindle and Nook together with the piles of books on my reading room floor that have been patiently awaiting my attention for some time, and I'm fixed for book elation until...well, until....

Monday, August 1, 2011

July 2011


After a reasonably temperate June, the great heat dome of 2011 spread across the country and into New England. As temperatures flirted with 100 degrees and the humidity sat consistently in the unbearable zone, reading was the one true relief. Here's what accompanied glass after glass of iced coffee in July.

Folly Beach by Dorothea Benton Frank
4/5 Fiction Scale
Format:  Hardcover
Source:  Library
I was swept away with this mix of the historical story of Dorothy and DuBose Heyward, Porgy House, the production of Porgy & Bess, George Gershwin, and the Charleston Literary Renaissance and the current day story of Cate Cooper and how she puts her life back together after a series of life-changing events and comes to write Folly Beach, a play based on Dorothy and DuBose.
First line: Dorothy: I married an actual renaissance man.

Wild Man Creek by Robyn Carr
3.5/5 Romance Scale
Format:  eBook
Source:  Library via Overdrive
This visit to Virgin River for the story of Colin Riordan and Jillian Matlock has me up to date with this series by Robyn Carr. A good man with physical and emotional damage and a career driven woman with some legal baggage find love and happiness in an old Victorian home as she grows vegetables and he paints pictures. As always, the destination is known, and it's the trip that keeps you reading.
First line:  Jillian Matlock was a natural in the business world and her ability to anticipate surprises and challenges was legendary.

One Night Is Never Enough by Anne Mallory
2/5 Romance Scale
Format:  eBook
Source:  Barnes & Noble
The July 2011 selection for the Barnes and Noble (Burlington, MA) Romance Readers. Regency is not my favorite historical period, and this book about a young woman of the Ton being won in a card game by a Regency rake (not of the Ton) did nothing to change my opinion.
First line:  She needed to slow down.



Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch
4/5 Non-fiction Scale
Format:  Hardcover
Source:  Library
Nina Sankovitch sets a plan to read a book a day for a year all in an effort to assuage the sadness and guilt (the guilt of the living) that overwhelmed her following the death of her sister. This book could easily have devolved into "I read [insert title]", "Then I read [insert title]"; but in the hands of this skillful memoirist, you are taken on a beautiful journey of books, reading, and how "words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living."
First line:  In September 2008 my husband, Jack, and I went away for a weekend, leaving our four kids in the care of my parents.

One Summer by David Baldacci
3/5 Fiction Scale
Format:  Hardcover
Source:  Library
Heartbreak, loss, love, a family's renewal. A good story for reading on a summer afternoon.
First line:  Jack Armstrong sat up in the secondhand hospital bed that had been wedged into a corner of the den in his home in Cleveland.



Rituals of the Season by Margaret Maron
4/5 Mystery scale
Format:  Hardcover
Source:  Library
Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott series is one I've been wanting to get started on for some time. While browsing the library mystery shelves recently, Rituals of the Season jumped into my hands and begged me to just start reading. Dealing with the murder of a friend and colleague of many of the town's residents, this book was an excellent introduction to this popular series. I'm going to read forward from here and catch up on the backlist when I see them on the shelves.
First line:  The white sedan was later than expected, so late that the driver of the nondescript car parked on the shoulder was beginning to wonder if something had already happened to her.

Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister
4.5/5 Fiction Scale
Format:  Hardcover
Source:  Barnes & Noble
The web of friendship and understanding untangles and strengthens in this gem of exquisite writing.
First line:  Life came back slowly, Kate realized.
Epigraph:  Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? --Mary Oliver



Heat Wave by Nancy Thayer
3/5 Fiction Scale
Format:  Hardcover
Source:  Library
Carley Winsted rebuilds her life and family after the unexpected death of her husband (not a spoiler--it's on the bookcover flap). Very appropriate to read Heat Wave as the legendary heat dome of 2011 dominated July in New England.
First line:  Some days recently, Carley Winsted had experienced moments of actual happiness, when her heart gave her a break.


The Last Letter from Your Lover by Jojo Moyes
4.5/5 Fiction Scale
Format:  Hardcover
Source:  Library
This is an artfully drawn story of Julia Stirling and what was before and what happened after the fateful events of the early 1960s. Features one of my favorite themes, but to tell you which would be a spoiler.
First line:  October 1960 - "She's waking up."




A Creed in Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller
3/5 Romance Scale
Format:  eBook
Source:  Barnes & Noble
August selection for Barnes and Noble (Burlington, MA) Romance Readers. First in a trilogy about the Creed men, one further series extension of the McKettricks, Stone Creek, Montana Creeds books--about 26 in all. This may be why explaining the who's who of the secondary characters seemed so tedious. The main story about Melissa O'Ballivan and Steven Creed was ok. The real star of the book was Steven's adopted son, Matt. Of course, there was a loveable dog involved as well.
First line:  Some instinct--or maybe just a stir of a breeze--awakened Steven Creed; he sat up in bed, took a fraction of a moment to orient himself to unfamiliar surroundings.


Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, Joy for Beginners, and The Last Letter from Your Lover hit the reading high notes in July. One Night Is Never Enough was one night too many.

First up in August: Burnt Mountain by Anne Rivers Siddons.

Joy of Reading ~ Joy for Beginners

...from Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister


At first Caroline had seen the job of used-book buyer as a stepping-stone to the more exciting world of the new releases displayed at the front of the store, their words freshly printed, their meanings clean as new sheets.  But she quickly realized she had an affinity for the older books and their muted scents of past dinners and foreign countries, the tea and chocolate stains coloring the phrases.  You could never be certain what you would find in a book that had spent time with someone else.  As Caroline had riffled through the pages looking for defects, she had discovered an entrance ticket to Giverny, a receipt for thirteen bottles of champagne, a to-do list that included, along with groceries and dry cleaning, the simple reminder:  "buy a gun."  Bits of life tucked like stowaways in between the chapters.  Sometimes she couldn't decide which story she was most drawn to.