2010 Challenges Update
Chris of Book-a-rama came up with this monthly challenge update, which I haven't done for awhile.
Here's how I am doing and some changes I am making.
Completed 2010 Challenges:
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Completed: Audio Books Challenge
Thanks to The Royal Reviews for hosting this challenge.
Here's what I listened to:
Completed: Year of the Historical Reading Challenge
Thanks to Lurv a la Mode ifor hosting.
The challenge was to read one historical fiction book per month, not really a challenge for me. Here's what I read:
The challenge was to read one historical fiction book per month, not really a challenge for me. Here's what I read:
2.The Postmistress by Sarah Blake
3..O, Juliet by Robin Maxwell
4. Our Hart: Elegy for a Concubine by Lloyd Lofthouse
5.Book of Fires by Jane Borodale
6.The Stolen Crown by Susan Higginbotham
7.Mistress Shakespeare by Karen Harper
8.The Founding by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
9.Grease Town by Ann Towell
11. Summer Before the Storm by Gabriele Wills
12. Captivity by Deborah Noyes
13.The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by C.W. Gortner
14. Galore by Michael Crummey
Completed: Themed Reading Challenge 2010
The three themes I chose were books of historical fiction, that are all written by female authors, and are new to me. These are the books I read:
1.Book of Fires by Jane Borodale
2.The Stolen Crown by Susan Higginbotham
3.Mistress Shakespeare by Karen Harper
Monday, June 28, 2010
Completed: The Canadian Book Challenge 3
I completed this challenge just in the nick of time. Here's what I read:
1.The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko
2. From Far Away by Robert Munsch and Saoussan Askar, Art by Michael Martchenko
3. Where is Gah-Ning? By Robert Munsch, Illustrated by Helene Desputeaux
4. Stephanie's Ponytail by Robert Munsch, Art by Michael Martchenko
5. Caribou Song / atihko Nikamon by Tomson Highway
6. Dragonfly Kites by Tomson Highway
7. Fox on the Ice by Tomson Highway
8. People of the Buffalo by Maria Campbell
9. Grease Town by Ann Towell
10. The Summer Before the Storm by Gabriele Wills
11. Galore by Michael Crummey
12. When Stella Was Very, Very Small by Marie-Louise Gay
13. Chicken, Pig, Cow On the Move by Ruth Ohi
I will be signing up for The Canadian Book Challenge 4 as soon as John of The Book Mine Set decides on a banner for it. I do plan to cut way back on challenges for next year but this is a challenge I will keep doing. I hope you come join in the fun as well.
Chicken, Pig, Cow On the Move by Ruth Ohi
Chicken, Pig, and Cow were actually little toys but they didn't know it. They lived in a little toy barn. Their best friend was Dog. He was real.
At times, the barn seemed very crowded so they decided to try to find a different place to live. Pig found a home "but it was too linty. Cow found one "but it was too scary." Then chicken found the perfect home, complete with beds, TV, and a slide. It was actually a doll house.
Can you guess what happens next?
When Stella Was Very, Very Small by Marie-Louise Gay
When Stella was very, very small, she thought she was a turtle, then a goldfish", etc.. When she was small she thought her bath tub was a "olympic-sized pool and raced against her rubber ducks. "Stella always won. She also thought that "words looked like ants running of the pages.
When Stella was big, "she feed the gold fish." She could read and read "to her little brother , Sam.
This is a very cutie children's book. Marie-Louise Gay not only wrote this book but beautifully illustrated it as well. This would be a great book for parents to read with their children.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Agreeable by Jonathan Franzen
I have Jonathan Franzen on my "to try" list for quite awhile and recently came across Agreeable while looking for short stories at The New Yorker. I figure that this would be a good start to exploring Franzen.
Patty grew up in 1970's Westchester County, New York and was the oldest of four children. She was great in school at academics but was an overachiever in sports and was on many different teams. Her mother, Joyce Emerson was a "professional Democrat" and didn't like Patty's competitive streak.
“I'm not sure it's a good idea to be encouraging so much aggression and competition. I guess I'm not a sports fan, but I don't see the fun in defeating people just for the sake of defeating them. Wouldn't it be much more fun to all work together?”
By the time Patty was in high school, Joyce was an state assemblywoman, the Honourable Joyce Emerson and had little time for Patty. Patty's father, Ray was a lawyer and also had little time for his children. When Patty was 17 she had a horrendous life changing event happen at a party.
This was a well written and thought provoking story. The reader is made witness of how Patty's parents act and treat her when the terrible act occurs. It really could happen in any family and actually has. Agreeable seems to be the way Patty takes her parents advise on the issue. As a reader and human being, I must strongly object.
This story makes me want to explore Jonathan Frazen's works further. You can read the story at The New Yorker.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Galore by Michael Crummey
It's sometime in the early 19th century, Newfoundland in a small fishing village called Paradise Deep. The village is anything but paradise and times are tough. The fish are no longer biting and a whale has beached on shore. There is no way to save the whale and the hungry villagers are waiting for it to die before they carve it up and portion it out. They will also harvest the oil for their lamps.
The whale finally dies and the villagers are carving away when all of a sudden a man pours out of its stomach. At first he appears to be dead but then it is discovered that he is alive. The Devine Widow is a healer and midwife and takes him home to nurse him. He is washed but no matter how many times he is washed he still stinks like dead fish. The other family members insist that he is kept in the shed.
He is mute but after a short time, healthy. They decide to call him Judah. many of the villagers decided that it is Judah brought them bad luck and that is why the fish left. They go after him but the widow has him hide.
The next day a bunch of the fisherman go out to try to catch some fish. They are desperate and feel it is they duty to try even though they now they will fail. They start rowing out but can't figure out where that nasty "dead fish" smell is coming from, when all of a sudden Judah comes out from under their gear. They decide it's too far to row back to shore and give Judah a turn at the oars. The men still call him "stranger".
Judah puts a line out and the fisherman think he's crazy they way he is doing it. However, "The stranger struck in then, hauling the line hand over hand, arms straining with the weight. The first pale glove of flesh let loose a pulse of oily ink as it broke the surface." Its squid, so many squid. The men fill up their boat and then hand of the line of squid to the next boat, and the next boat, until they couldn't carry any more. They discover that Judah is good luck, after all. After that they insist that he go with them every day they fish and then the cod start biting again.
This is a multi generational historical fiction saga. It chronicles two rival families, the rich Sellers family that pretty much owns the town and the Devine family, who try to scratch a living from fishing. When Judah is discovered from the whale, Mary Tryphena Devine is only nine years old. When she become of marriage age, she turns down every possible suitor, holding out hope that her secret love, Absalom Sellers will come back home and ask for her hand despite the rivalry between families. Mary Tryphena is finally talked into marrying Judah, to save him from King-Me Sellers.
Though Mary can't stand the smell of him, they consummate the marriage, in the shed and then Tryphena goes back to the house. Nine months later she has their son, Patrick. Later they have another son, Henley but is he really Judah's?
In part two of the book, Mary Tryphina is an old woman and still married to Judah, who still lives in the shed. The book goes on to follow her, her children, and her grandchildren, as well as the Sellers family.
I am a big fan of Michael Crummey. I absolutely loved the River Thieves and really enjoyed his follow up book, The Wreckage. He was born and raised in Newfoundland and it's the setting for his books. He took a departure from his usual writing style with Galore and I wasn't sure that I would enjoy it as much as his other works. He used a lot of folklore and some magical realism.
I am not a fan of magical realism at all. However, when I found out the Michael Crummy was finally coming to Vancouver (a friend of mine and I kept bugging the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival until they finally invited him) I had to buy Galore to get it signed. (See my meeting Michael Crummey post.)
That was back in October and now I finally got to read it. I was quite surprised by it. Even though I usually have a very strong dislike for magical realism, I actually liked this book. Though those parts were not my favourite by any stretch, Crummey is such a gifted writer that I was able to lose myself in the story. He has such strong character development and let me tell you, there were a lot of characters. His poetic prose from his other books was still there and pulled me in. I wonder what his next book will bring?
4/5
Also reviewed by:
If you reviewed this book, be sure to leave your link in the comments.
Friday, June 25, 2010
100 Mile Fitness Challenge (66 miles for me)
April 1 - June 30, 2010
Week 9, (June 18- June24):
Friday - 6 ( Yoga at retreat)
Saturday -10 (Yoga retreat)
Sunday -
Monday -
Tuesday -
Wednesday -
Thursday -
Total = 16 miles
52 miles down, 2 miles over my goal!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Giveaway: PRIVATE by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro- Unabridged Audiobook
Product Description:
Former Marine and CIA agent Jack Morgan inherits his father's renowned security and detective business--along with a case load that tests him to the breaking point. Getting to the bottom of an NFL gambling scandal and an unsolved LAPD investigation into 18 school girl slayings would be enough. On top of all that, Morgan takes on solving the horrific murder of his best friend's wife.
As Morgan fights the urge to exact brutal revenge on that killer, he has to navigate a workplace imbroglio that could blow the roof off his elite agency. And it's an especially explosive situation . . . because the love affair is his own.
The number of entrants to this giveaway will determine how many copies of this book I will giveaway:
1-10 entrants= 1
11-20 entrants= 2
21 or more entrants= 3
Here are the rules:
1. For one entry, leave a comment. Please be sure to include your email address (if it isn't available in your profile), so that I can contact you if you win. If I can't find your email either in the comments or your profile, you will be disqualified!
2. For two more entries, post about this giveaway on your blog and leave link to your blog post in the comments. You will also get an entry for each person who tells me that they learned about this
giveaway from you.
3. For another 5 more entries: Become a Follower of my blog or subscribe to my blog through Google Reader or other subscription service. If you are already a subscriber or follower you still get the five extra entries! Please do not comment that you are a follower five times! I will give you the extra entries myself. I will delete any extra entries that you make as it will just confuse me when I go to pick the winners.
Sorry, the giveaway is only open US and Canadian residents only.
The winner’s mailing address: NO P.O. Boxes.
Only one entry per household/IP address.
This giveaway will end on Monday, July 12th, 11:59 P.M. E.S.T. The winners will be notified by email, so remember to include your email address in the comments, if it isn't available in your profile! Winners must respond within TWO days or will be disqualified.
Giveaway: The Lion by Nelson DeMille- Unabridged Audiobook
Product Description:
John Corey, having survived three bullet wounds on the NYPD, knows that he's used up his allotment of good luck. Nevertheless, he signs on as a contract agent with the Federal government's Anti-Terrorist Task Force, working in the high-pressure Mideast section. Kate Mayfield is John's senior in rank and junior in age - a bad combination for both of them. Even so, she is able to hold her own against John's brash style, his contempt for Federal agents, and his obsession with doing everything his way." "As a bloody trail of terror streaks across the country, John and Kate soon learn that their quarry is more than a man; he has the instincts of a wild animal, the blood lust of a carnivore, and the boldness and speed of a cat of prey. The cunning, violence, and ruthlessness that Corey encounters are like nothing he has ever experienced before, even on the streets of New York. Until this assignment, Corey has always been lucky in dodging the fatal bullet. But luck, as he's learned on the streets, at the gambling table, and in love, always runs out. To survive in a new game with no rules at all, he must invent a strategy that includes no luck at all...
The number of entrants to this giveaway will determine how many copies of this book I will giveaway:
1-10 entrants= 1
11-20 entrants= 2
21 or more entrants= 3
Here are the rules:
1. For one entry, leave a comment. Please be sure to include your email address (if it isn't available in your profile), so that I can contact you if you win. If I can't find your email either in the comments or your profile, you will be disqualified!
2. For two more entries, post about this giveaway on your blog and leave link to your blog post in the comments. You will also get an entry for each person who tells me that they learned about this
giveaway from you.
3. For another 5 more entries: Become a Follower of my blog or subscribe to my blog through Google Reader or other subscription service. If you are already a subscriber or follower you still get the five extra entries! Please do not comment that you are a follower five times! I will give you the extra entries myself. I will delete any extra entries that you make as it will just confuse me when I go to pick the winners.
Sorry, the giveaway is only open US and Canadian residents only.
The winner’s mailing address: NO P.O. Boxes.
Only one entry per household/IP address.
This giveaway will end on Monday, July 12th, 11:59 P.M. E.S.T. The winners will be notified by email, so remember to include your email address in the comments, if it isn't available in your profile! Winners must respond within TWO days or will be disqualified.
The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by C.W. Gortner
Shortly after I finished reading and reviewing The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner, I asked him if I could review The Confessions of Catherine de Medici when he was finished writing it. I loved The Last Queen and I wanted more by this talented author.
I'm so glad that he agreed!
In this fictional memoir, Catherine De Medici, the last of the Italian Medicis, is sent to France as a young woman to marry Henri, the son of King Francois. Henri has no interest in Catherine, as he has a mistress, Diane le Poithers, that he is very much in love with. After years of not having a child together due to lack of trying, Catherine is forced to bargain with Diane to have a heir and secure her future in France. They come to an understanding and Diane even stays in the room while Catherine and Henri have sex, coaching them into different positions that will help Catherine become pregnant.
They finally have heirs but what Catherine doesn't bargain for, is that Diane raises her children. The later come to resent Catherine for that arrangement, even though it was beyond her control.
After Henri dies Catherine seizes power to secure the crown for her sons. Four of her sons became King, in succession but Catherine either served as regent or advisor to each of them.. She tried to broker peace and tolerance between the Catholics and the Protestant Huguenots again and again.
History has labelled Catherine De Medci as an evil witch, as Queen of France however, C.W. Gortner shows a different side of her. He treats her in a much more balanced view, as a mother, friend, lover, and Queen. He pulls this off smoothly and keeps the pages turning in a fury to see what happens next.
A lot of the story focused on the conflict between the Catholics and the Protestant Huguenots. Although Gortner had to do this, I thought the story got just a little bit bogged down with all of the details. This is a very minor flaw and otherwise the story seems flawless.
I don't know what Gortner's next book will be about but I can hardly wait! I'd love to review it Christopher.
4.5
Thanks to Cheryl C. Malandrinos of Pump Up Your Book and C.W. Gortner for this book and for letting me part of the tour.
See the Trailer:
Also reviewed by:
The Blue Stocking Society
Whimpulsive
Devour of Books
A Girl Walks into a Bookstore
See the Trailer:
Also reviewed by:
The Blue Stocking Society
Whimpulsive
Devour of Books
A Girl Walks into a Bookstore
The Maiden's Court
Passages to the Past
Historical-Fiction
The Burton Review
If you reviewed this book, be sure to leave your link in the comments.
Passages to the Past
Historical-Fiction
The Burton Review
If you reviewed this book, be sure to leave your link in the comments.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Winners: The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand
Thanks again to Valerie Russo of Hachette Books for making this giveaway possible.
The winners are:
Sandy Jay
Bethie
Heather
Congratulations! I emailed you, please contact me within 3 days to claim your prize.
Thanks to everyone who entered! I use Random.org to determine winners for all of my giveaways unless otherwise specified.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before by Willy Vlautin
The un-named narrator of the story worked in a chemical plant for six years after high school. He said, "I’m not extraordinarily gifted in any particular way." He then met a girl in a bar. They started out having a casual relationship but then something changed. She started saying controlling things things to him like, " A man shouldn’t sleep all day if he’s going to amount to anything,” and “I’ve seen you guzzle down the beer. Anyway, you don’t know what it’s like for me. If you knew you’d stop just ’cause of that. You’d stop because I’m a blackout drunk."
Then she wants to move, she says, “If you truly love me we’ll move to a real city and not stay in this shithole. Look, don’t I give you everything? Don’t I give you my entire soul?" They move to Portland, Oregon but she is never satisfied. She complains and crys and turns psychotic.
If you would like to participate in Short Story Mondays or just find out about some great short stories, go to John of The Book Mine Set. He has a short story review every Monday and a place for you to link your short story reviews. Come join in the fun!
Mailbox Monday
Here's what I received in my mailbox this week:
Thanks to Annie Paikeday of Second Story Press.
Thanks to Jason Liebman of Henry Holt & Company for both of these books.
I won this book from The Girl from the Ghetto. Thanks!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Mini Vacation
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Guest Author and Giveaway: by Deborah Noyes, Author of Captivity
Yesterday I reviewed Deborah Noyles' new book Captivity. Today Deborah is visiting to tell us more about the Fox Sisters. Welcome Deborah!
Talking Back to Things that Go Bump in the Night
It began on the evening of March 31, 1848. The Fox family was already on edge. The walls of their farmhouse in Hydesville, New York, had been echoing for days with inexplicable rapping and bumping noises. Mobilized by their daughters’ cries, John and Margaret Fox rushed upstairs to find Maggie and Kate in thrall. Kate, the youngest of the two, circled the room and snapped her fingers. “Follow me,” she commanded, and an unseen presence — Kate nicknamed him “Mr. Splitfoot” — obeyed, rapping back in kind.
+the_fox_sisters.jpg)
Astonished, the Fox elders called in neighbors to witness the phenomenon.
Together the crowd cooked up a laborious method of rap-and-response — two raps for “yes,” silence for “no,” working up to an alphabetic code — and the spirit, through Maggie and Kate, identified itself as a murdered peddler long buried in the cellar.
In the days that followed, men trooped downstairs with picks and shovels to excavate. Strangers came on foot, by horse-and-buggy, in rented carriages. Families staked tents in outlying fields, lit bonfires, and loitered outside the farmhouse, peeking in Fox family windows. At night, chairs were lined up indoors, and Maggie, Kate, and Mrs. Fox supervised “visitations.”
By May, so many curious pilgrims had descended on the Fox household that Maggie and Kate were shipped off to stay with to relatives in and around Rochester. Not surprisingly, wherever they went, the raps went too, and communications grew more dramatic and complex.
That November Maggie Fox and her older sister Leah, who’d joined on as business manager, demonstrated their strange abilities at Corinthian Hall. People lined up at Rochester’s largest public auditorium at dawn to catch the show, and by 9:00 o’clock, there were some 700 people milling or scalping tickets the way they do for concerts and ballgames today.
The sisters agreed to three rounds of exacting tests, producing their noisy ghost each time, leaving no evidence of deceit. On the third night, a riot broke out, and the sisters were nearly tarred and feathered.
Defying their critics, Maggie and Kate rallied enthusiasts all over the state. “Tea and table-tilting” and parlor séances became the rage. The movement known as spiritualism spread briskly, attracting mainly women. In mid-nineteenth-century New York State, nearly half of deaths were of children under age five; bereft mothers took solace in the idea of “lifting the veil” to hear from lost ones on the Other Side.
Within years, tens of thousands here and abroad were conducting séances, from politicians to literary lions like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The movement claimed more than a million followers at its peak, though during WWI, detractors like Harry Houdini labored to discredit it, claiming false mediums exploited the grieving and vulnerable.
Forty years after those first weird rappings, Maggie Fox denounced spiritualism before a full house at New York’s Academy of Music. It was a hoax, she said. The Fox sisters had made the raps by manipulating their toe joints. Soon after, she re-baffled her followers by flipping her position again, pledging her faith in a spirit realm.
Were the Fox sisters con artists swept up in the thrill of a childhood prank? Or had they really bridged the chasm between this world and that? Were they true intermediaries, or clever players? We may never know — scientific tests of the day proved inconclusive — but their legacy survives in the guise of celebrity mediums like Sylvia Brown.
On November 23, 1904, The Boston Journal reported that a decaying portion of the old cellar wall of the famous Hydesville “spook house” had revealed “an almost entire human skeleton between the earth and crumbling walls, undoubtedly that of the wandering peddler, who is claimed to have been murdered in the east room of the house and body hidden in cellar.”
The Fox cottage was dismantled in April 1916 and transferred to Lily Dale, a spiritualist community, where it burned down in 1955. A model of the cottage and the Fox family Bible are still exhibited in the museum there, together with spirit trumpets and other spectral paraphernalia.
See Deb’s May 15th Backstory [http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/likefire/] blog stop for more on Lily Dale.
Deb’s website: www.deborahnoyes.com
Deb’s blog: hauntedplaylist.blogspot.com
[Photo caption) The Fox Sisters: Maggie, Kate, and Leah
Thanks so much for the insight into the Fox Sisters Deborah.
Now for the giveaway:
Thanks to Caitlin Hamilton Summie of Unbridled Books I am giving away 1 copy of Captivity by Deborah Noyles to my U.S. and Canadian readers.
Here are the rules:
1. For one entry, leave a comment on what you learned or what you thought was interesting about Deborah's post. Please be sure to include your email address (if it isn't available in your profile), so that I can contact you if you win. If I can't find your email either in the comments or your profile, you will be disqualified!
2. For another entry, leave a comment on my review of Captivity here and then come back here and tell me that you did it.
3. For two more entries, post about this giveaway on your blog and leave link to your blog post in the comments. You will also get an entry for each person who tells me that they learned about this
giveaway from you.
3. For another 5 more entries: Become a Follower of my blog or subscribe to my blog through Google Reader or other subscription service. If you are already a subscriber or follower you still get the five extra entries! Please do not comment that you are a follower five times! I will give you the extra entries myself. I will delete any extra entries that you make as it will just confuse me when I go to pick the winners.
Sorry, the giveaway is only open US and Canadian residents only.
The winner’s mailing address: NO P.O. Boxes.
Only one entry per household/IP address.
This giveaway will end on Friday, June 25th 11:59 P.M. E.S.T. The winners will be notified by email, so remember to include your email address in the comments, if it isn't available in your profile! Winners must respond within three days or will be disqualified.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Captivity by Deborah Noyes
Captivity is actually two stories intertwined that took place mostly in upstate New York in the early to mid 19th century. The first is about the real life Fox Sisters. They were a family of women who were mediums who claimed that they could communicate with the deceased. They had many followers but were also constantly questioned by people who wanted to discredit them. They were put though numerous tests which included improper poking and prodding of the women by men. The Fox Sisters inadvertently gave birth to the Spiritualist Movement.
The second part of the story is about the fictional reclusive Clara Gill. She long ago suffered the loss of her secret lover William. The scandalous affair came out and Clara never fully recovered. Her mother had died in childbirth and she lived with her father all of her life, until his death. She never married.
Maggie Fox is invited in by Clara's father to work. She served Clara tea in her room, which she rarely left. Slowly Clara started to respond to Maggie and they became friends, even though Clara didn't believe in the Spiritual Movement. Because of their friendship, Clara starts coming out of her room and eventually starts going out into the community again.
There are many layers to this story and they are slowly peeled away, layer by layer until the very end. Deborah Noyes shows both sides of the historical Spiritualist Movement/ debate of the time, while crafting interesting characters and plots. At times I found the story dragged and in fact, I had trouble getting through the first 100 pages and almost gave up. However, I was rewarded greatly with my perseverance and I discovered a gem.
If you're looking for a fast paced story with a neat and tidy, all questions answered ending, this is not a good book for you. However, if you are a patient reader you will be greatly rewarded with a thought provoking and insightful story.
4/5
Thanks to Caitlin Hamilton Summie of Unbridled Books for this book. Please look for a guest post here tomorrow, at So Many Precious Books by Deborah Noyes to find out more about the Fox Sisters and for a chance to win a copy of this book.
Have you reviewed this book? Please leave a link in the comments so I can include it in this post.
M is for Maggie Fox.
Monday, June 14, 2010
June Reviews for the ARC Reading Challenge
The Standings:
Diane: 11 ARCs
Kool-aid Mom: 4 ARCs
Michelle: 5 ARCs
Tina: 8 ARCs
Bronze Level Acheived (12 ARCs):
Working Towards Silver Level:
Beth: 20 ARCs
Caitlin: 18 ARCs
Caribousmom: 13 ARCs
Teddy: 17 ARCs
Silver Level Achieved (24 ARCs):
Gold Level Acheived (25 or more ARCs):
Andrea: 46 ARCs
Kristen (BookNAround): 38 ARCs
Nicola: 89 ARCsPlease post all your links in Mr. Linky for your review of books that you read in May, 2010 for this challenge. I hope everyone is enjoying their ARC's this month!
June Reviews for the Books Won Challenge
Here is what participants read have read for the challenge, so far:
Becky:
Jo-Jo:
J.T. Oldfield:
Julie:
1.The Opposite of Me/ Sarah Pekkanen 2.The Island/ Victoria Hislop
Kathy:
2, What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell| 4.Hope for Animals and Their World |
6.Long Lost
7.The Westing Game
Melydia:
1.Heresy by S.J. Parris
2.Hollywood Moon by Joseph Wambaugh
3.Absolute Power by David Baldacci
4.The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
Ninefly:
1. Love is the Higher Law by David Levithan
2.Soulless by Gail Carriger
Tina:
1.Supreme Courtship
2.True Blue
3.Simons Cat by Simon Tofield
4.The Woman who named God)
Wanda:
Please post all your links in Mr. Linky for your review of books that you read in May, 2010 for this challenge. I hope everyone is enjoying their reading this month!
Please enter your name and the name of the book in this format: Name: (Your Name, Book Title and Author's Name) for example: (Teddy, Obsessive Reading by Helen Reader).
Mailbox Monday
Here's what I received in my mailbox this week:
I won this book over at Socrates' Book Reviews. Thanks Yvonne and thanks to the publicist who sent it to me, Megan!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Appetite by Said Sayrafiezadeh
Carol of Carol's Notebook reviewed this story back in March , 2010.
The narrator of the story is a 25 year old underachiever who works as a cook in a busy restaurant. Every time he gets the courage to ask his boss for a raise his boss asks why a customer got a burnt grilled cheese sandwich. He knows not to bring up the raise then.
He thinks to himself that perhaps he could have done something better with his life, as his family expected of him. However, as the valedictorian of his graduating class categorized,he fell in to the "entering directly into the workforce" category.
Once the new waitress entered the story it got a bit quickly. She extremely thin is anorexic however he secretly feels some attraction to her. He doesn't ask her our though because of his obvious lack of ambition in life. It would be too much like work to take the initiative to ask someone out on a date. She however, doesn't leave it up to him after all. At first she calls him " funny boy", then "boy", and then all of a sudden "pretty boy', which surprises him.
Said Sayrafiezadeh's writing is good. He really get's into the narraters head, or as much as the narrator gets into his own head. I liked this story but didn't love it. However, I did take the time to ponder the meaning of the title, 'Appetite'. I think it refers to his appetite for something better, even though he doesn't do anything to achieve anything. I also saw his "appetite" for a woman although again, he does nothing to achieve it. The narrator seems stuck. Perhaps the new waitress will help him but we will never know.
If you would like to participate in Short Story Mondays or just find out about some great short stories, go to John of The Book Mine Set. He has a short story review every Monday and a place for you to link your short story reviews. Come join in the fun!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
