Spring Reading, not Cleaning!

Well, my course is finished, my papers submitted and I finally have time to catch up on my reading. If you've been following my growing summer reading wishlist, then you'll know that I'm going to need an endless summer to finish all of these books. I'm getting ready to go digital with e-books (don't cringe, I love the feel and look and smell of traditional paper texts too, but I need to keep my eyes ahead in the digital world), so I'm picking up some of the 200 odd (paper) books I've purchased in the last few years and haven't found time for. Two of these were novels by Adele Geras. The first one I read was Hesters's Story. I loved it. The story takes place over several decades and the cast of characters each have their own story thread. It tugs at your heart, but not in a drippy, overly sentimental way. I'm currently reading Facing the Light. It too takes place over a 70 year time span and has the same formula of hidden family intrigue. Last night, I read until midnight. I think I have predicted "the twist" but that hasn't spoiled it for me. Its the type of book that you race to finish, but then are sad that it came to an end. I think that I must be a fan of contemporary/gothic sagas because this book is similar in format to The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield that I blogged about awhile back. Although Geras is a prolific writer, she has only published four adult novels. That leaves me waiting to read, Made in Heaven and A Hidden Life. The list grows again!


For those of you who enjoy Dan Brown's novels, look for the sequel to The DaVinci Code, The Lost Symbol (previously reported as being titled, The Solomon Key) to be released this September. It took Brown 5 years to research this next Robert Langdon adventure which takes place over a 12 hour timeframe. The novel is anticipated to be a huge hit due to the recent movie releases of The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons with 5 million copies being published in first print.

http://www.danbrown.com/the-lost-symbol.html

Animals are Great Role Models

I'm sure it will not be of surprise to my readers (its my blog, I can pretend that I actually have a following) that I have found yet another book to add to my summer reading list. We forgot to buy a lottery ticket for last night's draw, so I continue to be confined to a summer list. The book is called The Antelope's Strategy: Living in Rwanda After the Genocide. It made me think of a very moving video clip that I watched during a presentation on "Psychic Prisons" in my Organizational Management class (yes, the one I'm still writing a paper on...or as my cousin so beautifully put it, "spending too much time taking those silly, yet addicting facebook quizzes instead of finishing the paper). It seems that the "thing" to do these days in the world of academic presentations is to embed engaging and inspiring Youtube clips into power point presentations. And they are effective. Done well, they are humorous, powerful and thought-provoking. However, many seem to recycle through the loop and you can recite the text as it appears to the music track --- remind anyone of "Geese"?
This weekend, the presenter used a clip I hadn't seen before, about the special relationship between two animals, to illustrate her point on cohabitation and celebrating our differences.
The second clip I'm embedding somewhat follows this theme, except it extends to the bonds of relationships that can occur between animals and humans. I found it in a "most viewed" or "what's hot in google?" RSS feed. It also has a book link, but it didn't make the summer cut.

Two Unlikely Friends!




This clip is the reunion of Christian the Lion with his human friends. Christian's parents were zoo lions and as a cub, Christian was sold to Harrod's department store where the two friends purchased him. They brought Christian to their apartment for about a year before the decision was made to return him to his home, and to freedom.

I found a new author from watching a movie!

We rented a few movies over the March Break. My choice was The Other Boleyn Girl. I like historical fiction, especially the Tudor period. I particularly enjoy when the historical fiction is closely related to the known facts.

Typically I won't watch the movie until I've read the book first, but I didn't know that this movie was based on a novel by Philippa Gregory until my friend's 14 year old daughter told me so. She has enthusiastically read many of Gregory's novels. I had heard of the author but thought she was more in the romantic fiction genre, similar to say, Catherine Coulter. Its not that I don't read books from this genre, I do, but am picky with these.

So, I watched the movie the other evening, and it was very well done, beautiful cinematography, period costumes and settings, well acted. But was it true to the events of the time? I was intrigued and thought I'd check out the author's website. The best part of this site is that for every one of her novels she writes a page of background history surrounding the novel and also some professional research to support her findings. Gregory discloses how she attempts to fill in the gaps that history didn't record or has been unable to reach consensus on to tell the story in a first person narrative. This site alone is very interesting, I spent a long time immersed in reading the history of her characters.

So, my summer reading list expands again! I'm not sure which one to start with - I'm going to go through the novels and piece them together in a chronological timeline. I don't want to read about Queen Elizabeth I before Mary Tudor or their dad, King Henry VIII etc. If you are a Philippa Gregory fan and know which one comes first historically, please let me know.

(I'm sorry to report that I did indeed give up on The Historian. I gave it, for me, a valiant effort, almost 200 pages and finally pronounced it dead. I'm sorry the author spent 10 years researching and writing this book; I felt like I aged 10 years reading the first 200 pages. Just not that into it.)

Third Robert Langdon Novel Coming Soon

It seems that Dan Brown may be close to completing the next Robert Langdon novel, The Solomon Key. My favourite remains Angels and Demons, even though The DaVinci Code received all the acclaim. Maybe that will change when the new movie comes out. I wasn't a big fan of the DaVinci Code movie, even though I generally like Ron Howard's films. They certainly create a buzz of controversy though.
Right now I'm struggling to finish The Historian, " plodding through the pages waiting to "get hooked." I usually give myself about 150 pages with a large novel, and I'm getting dangerously close. (I remember when a friend introduced me to Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series about 10 years ago, she said give it about 150 pages and you won't put it down. So true, for the first four books. Beautiful series, should have stopped there.) I think I'm just not loving the world's latest literary darling, the vampire. I really tried to make it through the Twilight series, for the sake of my daughter who declared they were far superior to the Potter series (yeah, Rowling is a MASTER, not even in same league as Meyer).
I'm giving The Historian 32 more pages before I decide if I'm cutting loose.
One book that I do recommend that has absolutely nothing to do with vampires, but is a nice throw back to the old gothic style, is The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. It has a slow pace as well but is something different than what I've read before. Many interesting twists, some predictable, some not.

More Books to Read.....Need More Time

My summer reading list continues to grow. I believe by the time July comes I will have established a list worthy of many summers. I do read every day, but often can only squeeze in about 30 minutes between work, kids activities, my course work, and the crazy amount of time that I am glued to my computer. I love summer reading because I can languish in a story for undetermined amounts of time. Rainy evenings when the power goes out and we light so many candles (husband never impressed - major fire hazard - I let him be keeper of the flames) that we continue reading late into the night (husband also says this ruins eyesight, I've wanted glasses forever, but to date, eyesight still better than 20/20).

Favourite summer reading memories:

As a child, I spent my summers at a family cottage about a half hour from our home. The cottage is nestled on an embankment overlooking Lake Erie. There was a tiny community library where I obtained lending privileges and took out as many Nancy Drew and Trixie Beldon books as my heart desired. These were the days of suncots that were as thick as a mattress, baby oil and not sunscreen, jumping from the front to the back seat on long car drives - if you were small enough you got up into the back window to make faces at passengers in the car behind you, visiting the corner store to buy penny candy -remember Mojo's?, playing at the beach and someone always getting scraped by that horrid metal protrusion on the tractor tire inner tube that like 6 cousins fit on at a time, simple card games like Hearts and War, sleeping on a veranda, where we thought it was exotic that our Mom's took our clothes to a Laundry Mat and we could get an ice cream at the Dairy Bar and the height of this sophistication extended to driving a ways out of town to the Kentucky Fried Chicken!!!!!!!!!!!! to purchase a Sunday buffet... the salads, the whole loaf of bread (remember that), everything but the white plastic Colonel Sanders bank. These were days that although I was outside from sun-up to sun-down, my books were never out of reach. I have to admit that I probably returned them to the library a little worse for the wear, maybe a bit dusty, grainy with sand, a splotch of baby oil, a dab of ketchup, but no books were more beloved than these.

So, today I will purchase yet another lottery ticket with a big dream of capturing that endless summer where everyday includes a good book. Wish me luck!

Here are my new finds:

In "Leaving India," Minal Hajratwala recounts her

family's journey to five continents.

What do you do when you meet the love of your life when you're six years old? And he's 36, but he's really only eight years older than you are? If you're Clare Abshire, you wait for each of his visits throughout the years until you meet him in real time.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

What's the expression? "Out of the mouth of babes." I came across these in one of my Google Reader subscriptions. I hope they make you chuckle.

March 14:
The link on this blog may have expired. I'm sorry if you can't see these. They were quite cute.

Famous First Lines.......Children's Books, Silly!

Tonight, I just wanted to have some fun. To let my mind wander from the daily atrocities around the globe, my work, essays due, and of course... the impending doom of income tax season. Play along. I'll post the answers underneath "Books I'm Reading".

Famous First Lines:
(Score yourself 1point for the title and 1 point for the author) /24

1. All children, except one, grow up.
2. In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.
3. When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.
4. "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
5. Ba-room, ba-room, ba-room, baripity, baripity, baripity, baripity --- Good.
6. It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips.
7. "Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
8. For many days we had been tempest-tossed.
9. The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it.
10. These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr. Bucket.
11. In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.
12. "Did Mama sing every day?" asked Caleb.

I hope this short quiz put a smile on your face and brought back pleasant childhood memories.