Catching Up - The Blackhouse

The list of books I have read but not gotten around to reviewing has grown.

To clear out that backlog, I offer the following mini-review:

The Blackhouse is actually the first book in the Lewis Trilogy. It is dark and drear and absolutely compelling. The remote Isle of Lewis is still attached to the old ways including the hunting of the gugas.

Gannets - Gugas are the chicks

Book Two is The Lewis Man and reviewers on Amazon say it is even better than the first book. Book Three is The Chessmen. Neither title is available directly from Amazon, only third party sellers. They have been requested to be purchased for the Jackson District Library.

Fin Macleod escaped his childhood on this isolated island and now serves as a police detective in Edinburgh. When a brutal murder on the island has similarities to a crime Fin is investigating, he is ordered to return to the island and is plunged back into his unhappy past.

Author Peter May is well-known in the United Kingdom as an "acclaimed author and television dramatist".  His description of the bleak environment and the lives of the people is mesmerizing. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Book I Should Be Reading

I won a copy of Where'd You Go Bernadette a while back and carefully placed on the shelf with every intent of reading it in a timely fashion. There it has languished while lesser (and greater) books have consumed my attention.

Then I see today that it has been optioned for a movie! Read the details HERE at Huffington Post.

A Couple of Independent Bookstores Close

Archivia Bookstore in New York City

This isn't the best way to start off a New Year where I pledged to visit independent bookstores and see what I could discover.

Go check out the Shelf Awareness page and read about Archivia (NYC) and Pudd'nhead Books (Webster Groves, MO) closing.

What Happens to Your Brain When You Read

Benjamin K. Bergen has written a book called Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning (Basic Books, 2012). It's fascinating stuff. You can read an article about it on the Huffington Post.

The Christmas Star (2012)

The Christmas Star by Christopher Fahy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This short holiday novel ends the way you expect and hope it will. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

A wealthy developer has just bought a fantastic property he plans to turn into a huge resort. It's right before Christmas and an accident strands him in a snow storm. Taken in and sheltered by locals, who don't know who he is, he emerges a changed man. It's a familiar story but there is a twist.

The story is as much about the reader's journey as it is about the wealthy businessman's. It is a tale to be rediscovered each year and would make a lovely gift. If you read it you will question the way you are living on your journey to Christmas.

Charming black and white drawings and a quote from the Tao Te Ching begin each chapter. The illustrator, Cortney Skinner, has even merged a relevant Chinese character into each drawing.

If you are looking for a new, meaningful, and moving story for the holidays, consider "The Christmas Star".

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The Big Red Christmas Book

My second guest blog was posted today on Girl Who Reads. Take a look and post a comment about Christmas books or stories that made a difference in YOUR childhood.

AUDITION FOR MURDER (1985)

Audition for Murder (Maggie Ryan, 1967) by P.M. Carlson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What I especially loved about P.M. Carlson's AUDITION FOR MURDER is that she really knows her theater and she really knows her Shakespeare!

That being said I'd have to agree with one reviewer who wrote that people who understand theater and have been exposed to Shakespeare's Hamlet would love this mystery while others would not enjoy it at all.

The author's insightful descriptions of how directors and actors approach a part would probably strike the general mystery reader as obtuse and unnecessary. It drew me in and made the story special.

Maggie Ryan, a student who is running lights for a production of Hamlet, is an extraordinary sleuth. A gymnast and math major, she impresses from her first attention-drawing entrance. Setting the story on a college campus in the 1960s of Viet Nam protests is clever too. It allows for a clearly defined group of suspects, all well-drawn by the author.

Married professional actors Nick and Lisette, with problems of their own, sign on to spend a semester as artists-in-residence at a small upstate college. But someone apparently isn't happy with Lisette playing Ophelia and strange and sometimes dangerous things start to happen.

Besides beautiful use of language, I look for inventiveness and surprise in books and love those the best. P.M. Carlson has managed to do both things while writing quotable sentences!

Here are a couple of quotes that caught my fancy.

"Excellence is often unwelcome and difficult to forgive."

And on acting:

"The perfect detail, the instant that sends shivers down your spine...Those performances when somehow for an instant or two we connect with the universal. With eternity. When it happens, if it happens, it's worth any amount of time. It's worth your whole life."

Unfortunately there is only one other Maggie Ryan mystery. MURDER IS ACADEMIC. Both titles have just been reissued by The Mystery Company/​Crum Creek Press trade paperback and Ebook, 2012.

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Take Your Child to A Bookstore Day is December 1st

Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day is set for this Saturday, December 1st!

I just saw this today but over 400 bookstores are participating. If you don't have a bookstore in your community, you could still take your child to a store that sells books to browse and purchase.
In Jackson, Michigan The Book Exchange would be a great choice. Located at 130 E. Washington, they have plenty of parking.

Mysterious Sculptor Strikes Again!

JM Barrie's Peter Pan Photo: Chris Scott

The unknown sculptor has struck again. All anyone knows is that the person is a woman who loves books. Once again she has left new works in random places around Edinburgh, Scotland. Read more about this wonderful mystery at The Guardian.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Best Books of 2012

It's that time of year when everyone starts publishing lists of the best titles of the preceding year; and some of us realize that even though we've read many and wonderful books, they aren't on the lists.

Here's one from Kirkus, which bills itself as a tough reviewer. The link is to fiction but feel free to wander around and see what else they liked.

Leave a comment if you'd like to brag about how many books on the list you have read or reassure me that I am not alone.

Disclosure: I have read Beautiful Ruins and Gone Girl.

Grace: A Memoir (2012)

A rather recent fascination with fashion and style has led me to purchase Grace Coddington's book Grace: A Memoir.

As creative director of Vogue, she has become an international icon of the industry.

It's a hefty book with large print, pictures, illustrations, and an orange jacket that is even more vivid in person.

In her acknowledgements she writes: "Given that I've barely read two books in my life that aren't picture books, no one is more surprised than me that I have produced a memoir."

I hope it will surprise me.

Stuff and Nonsense Has Posted My Review of TRUST YOUR EYES!!!!

Please visit Stuff and Nonsense, the book blog of my friend Marlyn Beebe, who asked me to write my very first 'guest' blog after reading Linwood Barclay's TRUST YOUR EYES. It would be wonderful if you would comment (as long as you are kind).

New Titles from Linwood Barclay!

Reading here and there I have picked up the following information: Linwood Barclay has two new books coming out! When I searched for Never Saw it Coming on Amazon, I discovered that although it is due out in February 2013, it's available as an ebook right now for $2.99! I will definitely be checking that out later.

The other title is A Tap on the Window due out in the fall of next year. You can read more about them HERE.

NEW BOOKS IN THE MAIL!

Surprisingly there is another family named Holt (no relation we know of) on our road and today they dropped by to re-deliver my books from Amazon, which were correctly addressed.

After discovering and reading the Images of America book about Roxborough, the community in Philadelphia where I grew up, I spotted another on Germantown, Mount Airy, and Chestnut Hill that I had to have. That came today as well as Nate Berkus's The Things That Matter.

I try to use the library, but my one in Michigan would not be inclined to buy a book about neighborhoods in Philadelphia. When they get around to ordering the Berkus book, there WILL be a waiting list. Those are my excuses for purchasing from Amazon and I'm sticking to them!

TRUST YOUR EYES (2012)

Trust Your Eyes by Linwood Barclay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Writing a guest review. I'll post the link when I'm finished.

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The Rocks Don't Lie (2012)

The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood by David R. Montgomery
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can't recall where I read about this book, but I put it on 'hold' at the library and suddenly there it was! I guess the biggest surprise was how recent the study of geology is and what discoveries have been made just during my lifetime. Growing up I remember being fascinated with Noah's Ark and involved in some of the debates that author David R. Montgomery discusses in his very accessible exploration of the tug-of-war between religion and science over the years. Laying out a plausible theory to account for the 'second coming' of young earth and creationist ideas, he counters ideas that had been laid to rest a century ago arguing for "redefining the boundary between science and religion."

A fascinating introduction to a topic that affects us everyday of our lives whether we acknowledge its importance or not.

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Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures (Tweet Chat)

Last night I got a message from Penguin that the next tweet chats would be with the author of Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, which is high on my list of books to read. This is Emma Straub's first novel although she has written lots of other stuff. So I went to Amazon on my Kindle Fire and downloaded a sample. That hesitation to purchase on my part turned out to be a good thing; because when I went to my friendly branch library today to pick up the two books waiting for me, there was a third.

I've never fully participated in a tweet chat so I am really looking forward to the opportunity. There are three times and that is a relief since I am in the middle of a wonderful mystery by Dennis Palumbo. But more about that later. Details below if you want to join me. There is actually a reading guide. Click HERE.

Tweet #readpenguin

Join @PenguinUSA on Twitter for a chat with the author on these Wednesdays:

Sept. 12  4:30-5 pm EST   
Sept. 19  3-3:30pm EST   
Sept. 26  8-9pm  EST

Beautiful Ruins (2012)

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had to leave the room and find a private space to finish this book because I found it so moving.

What attracted me to the story is not, in the end, what affected me so deeply.

Italy has been a theme in my life recently and that, connected with Hollywood and theater, sounded passingly interesting. But, of course, as is often the case, the story was nothing like what I expected and that alone was worth the time.

In 1962 a young actress falls ill on the set of CLEOPATRA, the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton fiasco. She arrives by water taxi at the fictitious Porto Vergogna to convalesce at the 'Adequate View Hotel'. The owner is smitten.

Covering fifty years, the story jumps between the past and the present and involves a myriad of characters, but we are never lost. I worried about reading a book that mixes truth and fiction but it is handled seamlessly and logically here.

And after caring about so many people who are woven through this story of love, life decisions, and unfulfilled dreams, I was grateful the author answered the questions in my mind making this an incredibly magical book.


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2012 Winners - The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Thirty years ago the English Department at San Jose State University started a little contest where people could compose an opening sentence (often quite long and involved but not always) for "the worst of all possible novels."

There are winners in many categories including your favorite genre. Check out this years' winners of the the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest by clicking HERE. (Warning: This site is addictive!)

Tana French's Broken Harbor (2012)

Tana French's new book is out and I immediately caved and downloaded it to my Kindle Fire. Usually I am willing to wait for a library copy but not this time! Read more about it HERE and notice the comparison to Gone Girl.You can see an interview with that book's author, Gillian Flynn, HERE.