Reminder: Last day for giveaways!

Contests, like all good things, must come to an end. If you'd like a chance to win Julie & Julia by Julie Powell, The Impostor's Daughter by Laurie Sandell or the set of Bobbi Brown Living Beauty and How Not To Look Old, you have until midnight EST to enter. Everyone interested in The Link by Colin Tudge has a bit of a reprieve; that giveaway will end tomorrow, September 1st at midnight EST.

Good luck to everyone who has entered, and I will announce the winners a little later this week!

It's Monday! What are you reading? (August 31, 2009)

It's Monday! What are you reading? is a weekly event hosted by J. Kaye's Book Blog; participants discuss what they read the previous week and what the plan to read in the coming week.

Last week was slow, and no excuses about that. However, the upcoming weeks are shaping up to be interesting; I have a number of review books on deck, and they all seem pretty varied in type and intended audience.

But between a dentist appointment with sedation that will conk me out for all of tomorrow, an appearance by my husband on the Today Show on Wednesday and our one-year anniversary on Sunday, I expect my amount of reading this week will match my amount of reading last week.

Last week's action:

*Nothing finished--shame on me!

Perusing now:

*Playing House by Fredrica Wagman (and the end is within spitting distance, as my grandmother would say)

Stay tuned for:

*Benny & Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti
*Everything Sucks by Hannah Friedman
*Friends Like These by Danny Wallace

Sunday Salon (August 30, 2009)

For the second week in a row, I feel obliged to make excuses for my small reading amount. I had a dental appointment on Wednesday, and because I'm a huge wimp when it comes to dentists, I requested a sedative. I still don't remember anything between 9:00AM and 6:00PM that day. Saturday was spent preparing for an interview today (yes, on a Sunday) for an editorial internship which labor laws apparently precluded me from taking. In the words of Liz Lemon: blargh.

However, the book I did find time to read--Playing House by Fredrica Wagman--is just absolutely amazing. Wagman writes in flowing yet abrupt sentences that blend into impressionistic paragraphs, and even though it's difficult to keep up with her, I am able to immerse myself in her words and let go of the front of my mind that is always wondering, "What next?"

That "What next?" is something which constantly nags me, no matter which reading direction I go. I wonder, are other people experience this? Does anyone else feel the gravitational pull that an unread book can possess even as you are enjoying the book in your hands? The power that books have is incredible: one can spur our imagination while its brother tantalizes us.

Sometimes it's nice have a lot of new review books. It helps to prevent my wandering literary eye.

Weekly Geeks (August 29, 2009)

Weekly Geeks is a weekly event that presents a theme (such as "redecorate your blog week" or "organize your challenges" week or "catch up on your reviews" week) each week. Here is this week's theme:

Last year, I saw a movie, I think it was called Definitely, Maybe, that got me to thinking. In this movie, one of the girls was on a quest to find a particular copy of Jane Eyre, I forget now the specific reason why. But in the process of her search, she ended up with this massive collection of Jane Eyre books, from all sorts of places and years and styles. She had a shelf that went all the way around her room, filled with these wonderful Jane Eyre books.

It made me wish I had a collection like hers, a collection of one particular title, in all it's various versions.

So, Weekly Geeksters, tell us, do you have a collection, (or are you starting a collection,) of one particular book title? If so, what's your story? Why that book, and how many do you have, and what editions are they? Share pictures and give us all the details.

Or perhaps you dream about starting such a collection. What title would it be and what would it take for you to get motivated to start collecting?

Or maybe it's the works of a particular author you collect (or want to collect) instead a certain book title?

Unfortunately, I'm not in a place where such a project would be at all fiscally responsible, but it is certainly something of which I dream with fondness. I would fall into the class of those wanting to collect early editions of their favorite books, regardless of author, but which in my case tend to come from a few authors. Unfortunately, these authors are ones such as Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Milan Kundera, who are all hugely sought after for obvious reasons. In other words, I would need a rather large cash reserve to do establish my collection as I envision it.

However, thanks to some wonderfully beautiful gifts from my husband, I'm inching along the way. I have a first edition and first printing of The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, and I have a first edition and early printing of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I also snagged a first edition of Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Garcia Marquez.

But all of this doesn't touch on the books I have multiple copies of through sheer accident. Off of the top of my head, I know I have paperback and hardcover versions of Atonement by Ian McEwan, The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen and Underworld by Don DeLillo. These books aren't particularly important to me, but I get rather excited at library sales. In my defense, I would love to convert my entire book collection to hardcover editions. Still, in the process I losing sight of both my limited book budget and, even more pressing, the limited space in my Manhattan apartment. Not that the realization of any of that will cure me, of course. I'm sure others share my syndrome, right? I can't be the only inanimate object version of the crazy cat lady, right?

Book Review: The Blue Pen by Lisa Rusczyk

In The Blue Pen, Lisa Rusczyk explores an unlikely relationship with a chance beginning that ultimately leads to significant personal revelations. Parker is a star journalist, relentless in his pursuit of a story. Cleo is a middle-aged homeless women who happens to appear one morning in the backseat of Parker's car. Something Cleo says spurs Parker to find her--and her story. But Cleo's story is more unusual than Parker could have ever anticipated.

In most books that revolve around two characters locked in a head-to-head encounter, be it hostile or friendly, one character is more fleshed out and shines brighter than the other. In The Blue Pen, where Parker and Cleo make up the story's dichotomy, Cleo becomes the foreground figure as Parker provides the background necessary for the story to unfold. The reader gets glimpses into Parker's work and personal life, as well as some sense of his personal taste, but I found Parker to be the conduit for Cleo's story rather than a significant player in it.

And indeed, the heart of the story for me and what really kept me turning the pages was Cleo's story and how Rusczyk portrayed it. Cleo's ending point is clear from the first two pages--she is a homeless drunk--but as Cleo tells Parker the beginning of her story, she reveals a canyon between her ending and her beginning. From beginning to end, Cleo's life takes sharp turns, and I was always anxious to see what would be around the next corner.

I found Cleo's story and the development of her character to be where the merit and interest of The Blue Pen lie. I genuinely felt for Cleo, and more importantly, I was desperate to see where her story ended. Rusczyk is an extremely talented storyteller; she knows how to hook and pull along the reader, to give him enough of a taste so that he wants more. More authors should be this way.

However, Rusczyk's writing is not without flaws. There are places in the book where I feel the phrasing is inelegant as compared to the whole, and this occurs often enough to have become a minor distraction to me. Specifically I am referring to passages describing bodily functions or foul odors; these sections are not superfluous to the story, but I felt that the presentation caused me to feel offense toward to the wrong things. Similarly, but less bothersome, I felt Rusczyk relied on similes quite a bit, and that these similes were sometimes rather clunky. In contract, her straightforward passages conveyed the same amount of information in a more artful manner.

I certainly don't wish to overstate either of these shortcomings. Believe me, I would not have lasted ten pages if I thought Rusczyk's writing were not generally good. But every author has room for improvement, and these are areas that I hope Rusczyk will focus on; I sense that she has the writing talent to match her storytelling ability.

In short, The Blue Pen is an extremely enjoyable and well-told read, and I would particularly recommend it to those readers who enjoy suspense novels but are looking for something with a bit of a unique twist. Beyond that, anyone looking for a great gather-round-the-campfire story can definitely find it here!

Booking Through Thursday (August 27, 2009)

Booking Through Thursday is a weekly event that poses a new book-related each week. Here is this week's question:

What’s the lightest, most “fluff” kind of book you’ve read recently?

This question is really a toughie for me. I don't know if I'm just pretentious in my choice of books--which I sincerely hope is not the case!--or if it's that the only books I view as fluffy are the ones that I don't like, and since I never finish books that I'm not liking by the fiftieth page or so, there's little likelihood of finding the fluff. If forced to pick, I'd go with The Impostor's Daughter by Laurie Sandell. The book was very good, but it was extremely easy, light, fun reading, even in the places where the material became darker.

I suppose that, at the end of the day, I'm reluctant to make distinctions between light and heavy books because the words carry an inherent judgment to them. A "light" book can be meaningful and affect the reader deeply, just as a "heavy" book can simply be a wolf in sheep's clothing. (On that point, Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller comes to mind.) But maybe that's just me!

Book Review: I Used To Know That by Caroline Taggart, I Before E (Except After C) by Judy Parkinson, My Grammar and I by Caroline Taggart / J.A. Wines

For those who fondly remember their school days (as well as those who don't remember anything about them at all), Reader's Digest has produced three books with a whiff of childhood: I Used To Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School by Caroline Taggart, I Before E (Except After C): Old-School Ways To Remember Stuff by Judy Parkinson and My Grammar and I...Or Should That Be Me? by Caroline Taggart and J. A. Wines.

If, like me, you go ga-ga over anything trivia-related, I Used To Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School is a sure-fire winner. As the title suggests, the book covers basic information that we all learned in school, from the names of Greek gods to the Pythagorean theorem. Yes, the information is all readily found via a Google search, but it is the arrangement of the information and the conciseness of presentation that are at the heart of the book's usefulness.

But having said that, in the end, I Used To Know That is more about entertainment than information anyway. If you need to know who wrote Moby Dick, you probably will go to Google rather than to the chapter on literature. On the other hand, if you like seeing how much you remember from your school days (and, more likely than not, the much larger amount that you forgot!), Taggart's book fits like a glove.

Similar to I Used To Know That, I Before E (Except After C): Old-School Ways To Remember Stuff recalls information--this time in the form of memory-helping mnemonics--that you may have learned in school. The major difference, at least for me, is that this book is not a practical guide to remembering information; the acronyms, rhymes and other mnemonics given are harder to remember than the information they are supposed to recall.

However, helpful memory tips don't seem to be Parkinson's actual aim. In her foreword, she notes that she compiled a group of "quirky and amusing ways that people have devised to remember tidbits of information." Unless you are made of drastically different stuff that I am, "Sally Made Henry Eat Onions" won't ring any bells for you. (It's an mnemonic for the acronym for the five Great Lakes, incidentally.) But precisely because these mnemonics are so completely absurd--seriously, the number of letters in each word of "I sighted Thomas's rights" will help you remember the year America was founded?--I Before E (Except After C) is good geeky fun.

Now for the one slight clunker in the bunch: My Grammar and I...Or Should That Be Me? is a grammar primer and reference, much like Shrunk & White's classic The Elements of Style. Unfortunately, when your book can be compared to the paragon of English style guides, your book is also facing enormously stiff competition. Even more unfortunately, Taggart and Wines write in a very clear and economical manner; normally this would recommend the book, but in this case, it means there is little to differentiate it from The Elements of Style. To be fair, this book is a well-written grammar guide, and if you don't own anything similar, My Grammar and I...Or Should That Be Me? is a perfectly good choice. However, Taggart and Wines introduce nothing new, and there is no need to double up on books about grammar.

Last but not least, a note about the books' cover material and design: I normally don't factor the aesthetics of a book into my judgment of its quality, but these books present a special case. The subject matter is a throwback to grammar school, and so, in a brilliant move, is the books' design: the covers recall the classic composition book, and the material has that same matte gloss that laminated school library books have. These touches are like the cherry on a sundae, and the substantive material of the books is truly enhanced through them.