You Can Never Have Too Many Books

new books, second-hand books, how did you get books into your house this week?

2012-01-28T13:52:00.000-05:00

So, this is how you can tell when a hardcore bibliophile is on the way to health again: on my first day out after surgery (surgery was Mon 16, Friday the 20th my first day out), I ended up at a second-hand store looking for books. Specifically science fiction books for the Damon Knight Grandmasters Challenge. I didn't find any books for the challenge, but being completely in love with books, that didn't stop me from finding other books, including ones I can use to increase my reading totals in the Nebula and Hugo award catagories. Here is what I found:

Sunshine - Robin McKinley (I owned a copy of this, gave it to a friend to read, and have decided it's found a home there and picked this one up. One of my favourite vampire novels of all, I will be rereading this sooner or later!)
The Murder Stone - Charles Todd (My friend Lee in Dallas just read this and really liked it. I have many in the other series by this author-duo)
The Time Machine - HG Wells (I've never read this! Seen different movie versions, and thought, hey! classic science fiction!)
The Dragon in the Sea - Frank Herbert (one of the ~~dis~~abilities of being a hardcore bibliophile is that everything looks interesting. I love Dune, so why not try a book by him I've never heard of???)
Dhalgran - Samuel R. Delaney (for the Nebula nomination reading. Another classic to catch up with.)
Chasm City - Alistair Reynolds (a sequel to Revelation Space, which still eludes me. It was $1.50, so couldn't really go wrong here!)
December - Phil Rickman (not part of the Merrily Watkins series, a stand-alone horror novel by him. I have to try it!)
Tales from the White Hart - Arthur C. Clarke (I have nothing by Clarke, who is on my Grandmaster reading list. A collection of short stories sounds fun while I try to find some of his novels)
The Golden Key - Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, Kate Elliott (this book caused a big stir in the fantasy world when it came out. It made the nomination list for the Nebula award, too.)

Except for Alistair Reynolds, all the books were 3/$1!!!! So you wouldn't blame me, right?

Then, because it was January and a new month and I had a gift card to use, I bought these:
The Alien Shore - C.S. Friedman (classic sci-fi, not on any nomination list though)
Timescape - Gregory Benford (Nebula Award winner! yaaay! and it's a time travel book back to the 1960's. Looks very fun)
Psychic Tarot - Nancy Antenucci with Melanie Howard (I have been studying the tarot again, and this book came up on several lists as a good new book with some insights on how we use our intuition while reading the cards)

And then, just because I wanted something science fiction to read from my favourite bookstore Collected Works, I found a copy of
- Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (Nebula-nominated), which I then proceeded to read that weekend, and it is FABULOUS!!! I will be writing a post on it tomorrow. End of the world disaster novel that is so very good.

Wow, and there I was, convinced that my binge over the holidays was enough to stop me buying books for a month or so - or failing that, surgery would prevent me from buying them. Not so!!!!!

So far, Cath at Read-Warbler, Geraniumcat at Geraniumcat's Bookblog, and Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made Of have confessed to bringing books into their house this past couple of weeks. I've linked you to their book posts. Of course, as is our way here in book-blogging land, I've now added 5 book to my to-buy list because of their posts. We do ~~egg each other on~~ spread the joy about books so very well here! How did you do, dear Gentle Reader?

Somewhere it is spring in the world:
By the way, Chris also has a fabulous post with pictures from his garden. I am desperately craving some green - we've had freezing rain for a month now, which means everything is dangerously slippery, and grey, and the signs of spring are still months away for us. Chris's post and pictures cheered me up tremendously. He's even got broccoli growing now!!!

Surgery update
Speaking of which, I've fallen already in the past week, slipping on some ice last Friday as I came home on my first outing. I landed right on my knees, and for a moment couldn't believe the irony of falling right after surgery. Luckily (though I didn't think so at the time) I landed right on my knee cap, rather than twisting my knee or leg at all, so I didn't do any damage to my tiny incisions. For those who don't know, I had arthoscopic surgery on my knee, as I had torn cartilage in it last March in our last big snow storm. Except when outside right now, I am able to move around very well, the pain deep in my knee is gone, and soon I won't be limping at all. It was successful, and I can look forward to getting into my garden more easily this summer. I am so relieved and thankful to have the surgery done. Now if only the freezing rain would stop and it would snow. Snow is much less dangerous to walk around in than ice. I know of two other people who fell in the last week also. We've had freezing rain every week for the month of January. Ice is everywhere. Personally, I am using this as my reason to stay indoors as much as possible and read!!

Among Others and some science fiction thoughts on reading science fiction

2012-01-21T18:15:00.001-05:00

Among Others by Jo Walton is an extraordinary novel about a Welsh teenage girl who is sent to a boarding school in England after she runs away from home. Her twin sister is dead as the result of a car accident which has left Morwenna crippled, able to walk, but never to run or move freely again. Her mother is.......strange, her grandfather had a stroke, and the courts have deemed that Morwenna is better off with the father who abandoned the father shortly after the girls' birth, rather than force her back to live with her mother. You would think this would make the book a downer to read, heavily depressing, but it doesn't. Most of it is because Morwenna is so matter-of-fact about everything. At one point while reading it I found myself dissatisfied with the lack of emotion she shows. Why isn't she grieving over the loss of her twin? Why isn't she furious with her mother, who caused the accident that killed her sister? I realized that Morwenna is simply trying to survive the best way she knows how. And her way is the same way I did, when I was a teenager and my life was in complete shambles - books. Morwenna reads voraciously, almost anything she can find, and most particularly science fiction. Morwenna reads to escape her life, of course, however she also reads to explore different ideas - she's captured by what could be, by changing things, by possibility. And this sense of discovery is what I love about science fiction so much. Along the way of reading this novel, watching her discussing the books she was reading, I rediscovered something I had forgotten growing up: how much I enjoy science fiction. In Among Others, Morwenna finds a book club at her local library, where they discuss science fiction. One of the questions they ask each other one meeting is, Which would you rather meet, an elf or a Plutonion? I'll ask that now of you, Gentle Reader, and at the end of my post I'll tell you what Morwenna thinks it means, and what my answer was.

. Among Others is much more than just a discourse on science fiction. Plato, Mary Renault, and Susan Cooper (yes! The Dark is Rising is mentioned!) are some of the other books Morwenna reads. Elves feature, and they are imagined in a way that I really like. I am happy that fantasy feature here in this novel. It's not quite as large of course, because other than Lord Dunsany, Tolkein, Anne McCaffrey, The Earthsea Trilogy by LeGuin, and CS Lewis (all of whom Morwenna reads), there was no fantasy being written before1979, the year this book takes place in. It's significant that it's this year, since it's just before the 80's and the explosion of fantasy and science fiction as a viable genre of literature, with all the conventions and book tours and famous authors coming into the public sphere. During the novel Morwenna hears about conventions in the US, and that there is going to be one in Glasgow the next summer, and she plans to go. Her discovery of other people who read science fiction, and the chance to meet science fiction authors, blows her mind in the novel. It's kind of refreshing to read about a character who is excited about the possibilities of the world, instead of the jaded youth who have seen and done it all that people our YA novels right now. The fantasy element is important, because Morwenna can see elves. It's part of her family, and something that interestingly is part of her nature, and not something that she fights against, as you would normally expect in a teen coming of age novel. Instead, Morwenna must think her way through the repercussions of using magic, using her intelligence and reasoning. She is very perceptive, which is why the period when I wondered if she was crazy, was so distressing - though it made sense, especially given that no one else can see the elves. She is alone, among others.

I really enjoyed Among Others, very much. It's well-written, well-researched historically (walkmans are just coming on the market in 1979 in the book), and despite the reserve of Morwenna, there are times when it is extremely moving as well. The ending is particularly good, as Morwenna faces what she fears most. I haven't written about the idea of her mother being a witch, which Morwenna talks about through the book, and how she thinks she is like her mother, because it seemed an odd fit to me. At one point I wondered if Morwenna herself was crazy and had imagined everything in her past. I didn't want Morwenna to be an unreliable narrator because that would have been too easy to do. I'm happy to report that she isn't crazy. I don't want to say any more, because the ending and what she does is truly remarkable and powerful, and I really liked it. Walton has made fantasy and science fiction fit together, and that's remarkable also.. I love the use of books to illustrate what Morwenna is going through, and how she uses books to find her way to her own future. I love that her love of books brings her together with her father, her grandfather, her new friends at the bookclub, and eventually her first boyfriend.

The novel is set in Wales and in England. For anyone who knows anything of these two countries, Wales is not and never will be English. Morwenna (and her twin sister Morganna) are the product of a mixed heritage, Welsh, English, and eventually she discovers other cultures in her background. Her boarding school is in England, so Morwenna goes from her childhood idyll in Wales, running free among the hills, to being tightly monitored in an English boarding school, where she faces racism for being from a poor family and not from England. Among Others is a layered title, playing on science fiction idea of being a stranger in a strange land, of being not like those around you, of being Welsh when everyone around you is English, of having your mother crazy but no one protecting you, of losing a sibling, one who knows you better than most, and that sense of aloneness that comes with all these things. Morwenna has no one to talk to, no one she trusts, in this strange new place, so the novel is told from a diary perspective over one year. Among Others is also about how Morwenna has to learn to live among others without her twin, the person who finished her thoughts, and discovering that she and her twin were not the same person and she would have to live her own life after all. It's quite a clever novel, and I liked it.

By the way, to Morwenna's question: would I rather meet an elf or a Plutonion? I would rather, always, meet an elf. Especially an elf like in Lord of the Rings. I always wanted to sail away with them at the end of LotR. I thought and always have thought, they were beautiful and powerful and courageous, like the very best we could aspire to be. Not the faerie, who are completely different, and frightening (and should be), just the LotR elves. The point of the question is, to meet an elf or to meet a Plutonion is to meet the past or embrace the future. Maybe the Plutonion is wandering around here already on earth, among us.....that wouldn't be so bad, right? And this sense of discovery is what I love about science fiction so much. Along the way of reading this novel, watching her discussing the books she was reading, I rediscovered something I had forgotten growing up: how much I enjoy science fiction.

Reading science fiction leads to.....
So, on to my science fiction thoughts: reading Among Others awoke those memories of possibility in me, that I remember from the science fiction conventions I went to in the 1980's, from the authors I heard talk, from the buzz of so many people coming together to discuss books and ideas and what they loved. It reminded me that the reason I join Carl's Sci fi experience very year is to read science fiction more often. I always pick fantasy first out of a choice of fantasy and science fiction, because I find myths and fantasy easier to relate to imaginatively......but I am a person of contradictions, as we all are, and I have always looked up at the stars and wondered what's out there. I desperately wanted to be an astronomer but couldn't do the math. You, my Gentle Reader, know of my love for so many things science fiction - Dr Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, Fringe, X-files, Firefly, etc. Reading science fiction though, has sort of lurked at the corner of my life for the past several years (ok, truthfully, at least a decade), the neglected genre that I mostly read for Connie Willis. I think that over the years, because I couldn't keep up with the science end of things, I let my enjoyment of science fiction slide until I was barely reading any at all. I felt like an imposter when I talked about science fiction because I couldn't understand the truth of the science behind it, when realistically, I never read it for the science, I read it to know what was possible for us to do as people of earth. That's what I miss, imagining the future that is possible, that fantasy doesn't give me. Lately I've been wandering through the science fiction and fantasy aisles, looking for something new to read. I have been trying to find a copy of Alistair Reynold's Revelation Space to buy for well over a year, and it's not available (not out of print, just not available). It's one of the classics of the new space opera science fiction story that I find interesting.

So when Carl posted earlier this week about a new science fiction challenge, on Worlds Without End blog, I read it through curiously. On the blog, laid out in easy to use format, is a booktracker program where you can input all the science fiction, horror, and fantasy you have ever read, and see how you are doing on reading the best of (or all anyone has written) in science fiction, fantasy and horror. Well, it was like a light bulb lit up for me! I did the book tracker and realized that I have read a little of everything, but not lots of any one thing. I'm pleased to note I have read some Hugo and Nebula winners, which I do try to keep track of.

So......*takes deep breath*

I have decided to join the Grand Masters Challenge, and read one classic science fiction novel by one of the Grand Masters, every month for a year. I'm excited. I want to go back now and rediscover what's good and the best of it again. Here's my chance to reconnect with the roots of science fiction, and to read the best, and see if I can find some new favourites.

The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award reads like a who's who of science fiction: Robert Heinlein, Robert Silverberg, Isaac Asimov, Ursula K LeGuin, Anne McCaffrey, Connie Willis, Jack Williamson, L Sprague De Camp, Fritz Leiber, Andre Norton, Alfred Bester, Ray Bradbury, Arther C Clarke, Clifford D Simak, Lester Del Rey, Frederick Pohl, Damon Knight, A. E Van Vogt, Jack Vance, Hal Clement, Brian Aldiss, Philip Jose Farmer, Poul Anderson, Joe Haldeman, Harry Harrison, Michael Moorcock, Harlan Ellison, James E. Gunn

So far I've signed up to read -
-yes, Connie Willis was my first choice! Luckily I have one new one to read, All Clear :-) because I've read everything else by her.
- Robert Silverberg (and Cath just reviewed a book by him on her blog, that was quite interesting),
- Ursula K LeGuin - at last! I can't believe I haven't read The Earthsea Trilogy yet.
- Isaac Asimov (who I grew up reading) - I honestly can't remember how many of the foundation books I've read, so I need to reread the first one and I, Robot (which I recall really liking when I first read it as a teenager), just to start catching up
- Anne McCaffrey (I have Dragonsinger sitting right here on my shelf. Again, an unread classic...)
- Alfred Bester (if I can find it, The Stars My Destination is a classic)
-Poul Anderson (happily, I just picked up two by him, Hrolf Kroki's Saga and The Midsummer Tempest. Though technically these might qualify as fantasy, so I need to look more into what he's written)
- Arthur C Clarke (I want Rendezvous with Rama! there must be something we can do to get these classics back in print)
- Robert Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land is a possibility, though I want The Moon is A Harsh Mistress, I think)

By the way, I'm under the challenge on the site as bookgirl if you want to look at how I'm doing on the challenge. I was still on painkillers for my knee and thus couldn't think of a name when I signed up. I think I like it anyway! I will keep you posted through here too, as we have to write 6 posts through the year on 6 of the 12 books we are reading. I'm feeling excited and a little challenged, since I haven't read most of the authors, and it's a feeling of discovery all over again. So I'm eager to find what's new - and old and good - in science fiction again.

Even though it's counted as fantasy in my book section at Chapters bookstore here, I'm counting Among Others as science fiction because so much of the books it covers is science fiction literature up to 1979. So this is my first book for Carl's Sci fi experience.

Among Others showed me, reminded me, that science fiction is about ideas. People need connection and emotion to make that journey into the future possible. How can we create the best possible future for future generations, if we can't imagine what it would be like? what kind of future do we want? Where will we go? Where could we go? I loved Star Trek for that possibility, and I love Among Others for reminding me that science fiction literature is the home of the future for us. This genre is a way we have of exploring what the human race is capable of, what we imagine we could do if we were freed to explore, and what we bring along with us everywhere in the galaxy we go.

Surgery and home again, and Babylon 5

2012-01-18T10:32:00.001-05:00

Hello, everyone! I have been home recuperating since early Monday evening, from my surgery on Monday afternoon. Everything went very well. My knee hasn't swollen up too badly, and most importantly, it can bear my weight, so I don't have to use my crutches around the house. The surgery went as well as it could, and the torn cartilage was removed without any problem. Already I can feel a difference in my knee, in spite of the pain from the stitches and bone and flesh healing.

I had planned to write every day here, but I'm on morphine as that is one of the few painkillers I am allowed to take (kidney weakness). This makes me unable to be coherent for an extended period of time - I feel great, whee! however constructing careful deep thoughts about anything just doesn't happen while under this medication.

I am able to read sometimes, near the end of each dose, and have managed to read half of Among Others, although much of this was at the hospital in the waiting room before my surgery. I was lucky, I got to keep my book with me and read right up until they wheeled me to outside the operating room.

I haven't been able to read since, until late yesterday evening, and I'm finding the same thing already this morning.

So, I have been watching tv. I have been in the mood for Babylon 5 every since Becky reviewed this book last week on her blog. I watched Babylon 5 religiously when it was on in the 1990's. My eldest son Duncan and I (I was a single parent at the time) would watch this every week. He was 5 when the show began, and we watched all 5 seasons together. There was a spin-off in 1999 when the show ended, but at the time I was going through many changes in my life, and I didn't follow the spin-off in the same way as I followed the original series. The book Becky reviewed is about the shadows, and Z'ha'dum, which is one of my favourite parts of the series. I only own Season 1 at this time (something I realized to my horror yesterday when looking for it to watch), though luckily this included one of the best Babylon 5 episodes, "Signs and Portents". So, for my first official Sci-fi experience this year, I watched "Signs and Portents" yesterday afternoon.

In this epidode, we are treated the the mysterious arrival of Mr Morden, who goes around asking the various ambassadors 'what they want'. This question really intrigued me when I first heard it 19 years ago (oh my, it can't be 19 years ago that this aired, can it????) and ended up helping me with my own writing. I thought it was a powerful question in general, one that people in real life have problems answering, and here on this tv episode, the reactions of the various ambassadors lay the ground-work for the following 4 seasons and the eventual war with the Shadows to come. Now, the shadows are slowly revealed to the viewer over the next season, as many-legged dark creatures that resemble huge spiders, minus the eyes. They are creepy and sinister and horrifying, just as they are to the peoples of Babylon 5's world. In this episode, though, they are only referred to by the seer and by Delenn as "the shadows are come".

The seer also fortells the fall of Babylon 5, although she cannot say when, just that it is in the future. She tells Commander Sinclair (commander of the station) that it is not written in stone, that the future is always changing depending on the actions today. It is a possible future, she says. And that's how the episode ends.

There is also the ongoing rivalry between two of the ambassadors (which eventually becomes key to the series), the revelation that the Minbari chose Sinclair to be commander of the station, and that Delenn herself is more than she seems.

Babylon 5 is about power, and hope, about life in space, the ordinary people who work on it as well as the heroes and villains who come through. I've always thought it was well-written, well-directed, and even though a few of the sets seem a bit sparse in comparison to what we can do now visually on sets, the story holds up as well as it did then.

Because of Babylon 5, I have always wanted to write my own space station story, and the show introduced me to space opera, the kind of science fiction story I most enjoy - people exploring space.

I love looking at the stars, and wondering what life is out there. I like imagining voyaging among the stars, and the many wonders and beauties out there. As well as danger, and the unknown. Babylon 5 hangs out there in space, close enough to be monitored by earth, but far enough away that it is the last outpost between civilized space and the unknown. To me, any story could be told on a station like that, and Babylon 5 manages to tell many different ones. It was a fascinating show that explored all the ways it is to be human, and how we could recognize ourselves in strangers (aliens) if we let ourselves be open and honest. I love the psi corps, the group of psychics that are harnessed by the government on earth to ferret out secrets and make sure various contracts and meetings and councils are on the up and up. Of course there is a secret agenda behind the psi corps....this is the role that Walter Koenig also became known as, Bester the twisted psi corps cop, who had an agenda all his own. He was great in his role, sinister and bad, though he is revealed to have his own reasons for his darkness.

I can't do justice to the many layers of storytelling on Babylon 5, to the wonder of Michael York guest-starring as a man tortured by his past, who caused the war between the Minbari and Humans (which ended 10 years before Babylon 5 starts), and how he seeks forgiveness. It's haunting, and beautiful, and involves a sword and a lady.

I could go on and on. I think it's the morphine in me too! I'm going to go put my leg up, and watch some more until I can read again. If you've ever watched Babylon 5, you will know how good it was. If you haven't, then I hope one day you give it a try. It's science fiction, and it's fun, and it's good.

Classics and other reading goals

2012-01-13T00:12:00.000-05:00

Nymeth over at things mean alot had a wonderful post on her reading goals back on Dec 29, which I somehow missed. I caught up on it today, and it has inspired me to think about some of my reading goals for this year. Care also has a post up today on her blog, Care's Online book Club, about new to her authors that she wants to read this year. This is also something I want to do. I have, at last count, 32 first books in series that I haven't read yet, on my shelves. That's an awesome figure of books I've been collecting over the years! Obviously I am a sucker for series. And while they aren't all new to me authors, many of them are.

One of my main reading goals is to continue to read whatever I want, when I want to. I discovered that I had been hoarding new books coming into the house, for a rainy day I guess, and I decided last year to read the new books I was really anticipating. It worked wonders for me, and even better, I haven't run out! There are even more new books I want to read!

Another reading goal: read more classics. Period. I was really ashamed to see I had read only one classic last year! And that was at Christmas - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (which I loved, by the way. One of many reviews to come).
1. Ulysses - James Joyce (I bogged down last year after I hurt my knee. I can blame the pain for only so much, though!)
2. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (I was really enjoying this two years ago, and then I got sidetracked)
3. Bleak House - Charles Dickens - I love, love, love the BBC series and got it for Christmas last year. So let's just read the book now, Susan!!
4. North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell (I love love love the BBC series of this one too. I watch it every year. So I have got to read the book and compare. Surely the book is better, it usually is, so more of Margaret and John can only be good, right?)
5. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - (my mother loves this book, everyone in the blogging world loves it, what am I waiting for?)
6. Foundation - Isaac Asimov
7. Hrolf Krakis Saga - Poul Anderson
8. The Famished Road - Ben Okri
9. Oh Pioneers - Willa Cather
10. The Gathering - Anne Enright
11. The Mabinogion
12. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
13. The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
14.Where Late the Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm
15 Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope
16. Montaigne's Essays
17. Sir Thomas Wyatt - poems (am looking for an edition of his work currently)
18. Voltaire - Letters on England
19 Shakespeare - anything

I'd better stop there. Considering I've never read more than 5 classics in any one year willingly, if I complete half of what I've listed, it will be fabulous. I have a hankering for Thomas Hardy, who I haven't read since my university days. So the above is a tentative list of classics I'd like to read this year.

It's late so I will save the "new to me authors first in a series" list I was planning. The 32 books I'd pulled out two weeks ago were awesome!!! and kind of frightening. Seconds in a series I was expecting, but I didn't have many. Apparently when I get through book one, if I really like it, I continue to read the series through after. So I think it's time I looked at those first books in a series! List to come later this weekend.

two challenges for 2012

2012-01-12T00:23:00.001-05:00

Well, Carl's Sci fi Experience doesn't count as a challenge so much as an experience, though it's the same: to read some science fiction sometime between now and the end of February. I join this challenge every year, and this year I am happy to say I plan on reading at least one of the books I'd like to read in science fiction this year!

The books and tv shows I am considering are among, and this is by no means final list:
All Clear - Connie Willis
The New Space Opera - edited by Gardner Dozois
Revelation Space - Alistair Reynolds - if I can get my hands on a copy in time!
Boneshaker - Cherie Priest
Charles Stross - something
among Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury,
watching some Babylon 5
watching some X-Files - currently going through Season 1 (post to come shortly)

The other challenge I am joining is the Tea and Book's Reading Challenge, hosted by Brigit at The Book Garden.

I am determined to read some chunksters this year! I did read The Passage by Justin Cronin and Under the Dome by Stephen King last year, so I am not slouching in this department, I want to read more. Luckily I have more just waiting to be read. I am going for level Earl Grey Aficianado, six chunksters.
I will be choosing among the following, although this is subject to change:

London, The Biography - Peter Ackroyd
Ship of Magic - Robin Hobb
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
The Brontes - Juliet Barker
Ulysses - James Joyce
Drood - Dan Simmons
Wizards First Rule - Terry Goodkind
Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

New books and year end totals

2012-01-11T00:15:00.001-05:00

Yikes! How did it get to be Jan 10? I didn't get to wish you, my dearest Gentle Readers, a Happy New Year!

I do know that one reason I wasn't posting was that I was trying to pick my book of the year. I am finding that I don't have just one.....and the other reason is I am distracted by my upcoming surgery next Monday. In trying not to ~~worry~~ think about it, I end up not being able to do much else in the way of focusing my attention!

2011 book totals
I read many very good books last year. I read 97 books in all, my best year ever for reading. And I was so close to my goal of 100, that it's now my annual goal until I get there! I'm going to try for 10 books a month, to see if this will help me get to my goal this year.

I also had the goal of reading 50 mystery books last year. I didn't make it - I read 38 only. I was a bit mystified at what I had read instead, until I realized that I had read an astonishing 15 horror books last year! Here is the breakdown:
mystery: 38
fantasy:17
horror: 15
graphic novels: 7
non-fiction: 6
poetry: 4
fiction: 3
classics: 1 *hangs head in shame at this total!*
children's/YA: 2/4

Looking at these totals, the biggest jump is horror. I can only explain this by saying it was one of the most difficult years of my life so far, and it looks like at the worst of it, I turned to my old standby, horror. Possibly because the terror of the characters and thrilling of the horror makes my life not seem quite so bad? Or, possibly I found some new horror that was very good, after a long stretch of the awful slasher books in the genre. There is good horror, and ghost stories, and I'm happy to be reading them again. I do still want to read more of everything, though. Especially mystery and fantasy. So I'm going to try again for 50 mysteries this year, and 25 fantasy novels. Classics: at a minimum, 5. I'd prefer 10, but considering the year ahead of me, which I have to take in small leaps ahead: surgery next week, more surgery possibly late in the year, and at some point a final decision on what to do about the state of my separation from husband. I can see a few horror books creeping in again!

So that was the year that was, 2011. I don't know about you, but I am so happy to see the end of 2011, that I think if I could have touched the year, I would have kicked it into the back of beyond. Goodbye, 2011! *wipes hands off*

Another round of binge buying

Yes, you read that right! I went to Nicholas Hoare (I can't link to them, their site is down tonight) on Saturday, looking for a hard to find first book in a new mystery series set in 1950's Scotland: A Small Death in the Great Glen by A.D. Scott. They had it! I was so delighted. I also found in my hands a copy of:
Mind's Eye - Hakan Nesser (Swedish mystery series, book one)
How to Live - A Life of Montaigne in One Questions and Many attempts to answer - Sarah Blakely (biography of Montaigne, using his twenty questions in his essays to attempt to show his life, and the influences on him, and how Montaigne influenced so many others. I'm making this sound boring, when it's a fascinating book on how ideas, and thoughts, in essay form, came to influence Western thinking all the way down to the form of personal essays we use on blogs, here.)
The Country Diaries - edited by Alan Taylor - (journal entries from the past several hundred years, in the British countryside, for almost every day of the year. Fascinating)
(I'm sorry, but Amazon isn't letting me in right now. I can't query any titles with them.)
Lots to dip into with these books, while I recover next week.

Gift Cards are the next best thing to books
I also used two gift cards to pick up books that I badly wanted, so now I feel able to cope with the surgery next week. I'm not sure if I will read all of these while I'm home next week, though these books do make me feel like I won't mind being housebound for a few days. I have the week to recover, so unless the pain is very bad, I plan on reading every day!
Among Others - Jo Walton (yes! finally! I'm so excited....)
The House at Sea End - Elly Griffiths - ditto. (Not sure which one I will read first. I think I will read The House at Sea End this weekend, though I do have The Snow Leopard (Harry Hole!!!!) also vying for my attention.)
Snow Angels - James Thompson (set in Finland, getting rave reviews)
The Spellman Files - Lisa Lutz (special mention to raidergirl3, who mentioned them to me on a post somewhere that I can't find now. The character is like Bridget Jones Diary as a detective, only a tiny bit more together. It looks hilarious. I will need to laugh next week to help me in my healing, so I look forward to this one! )
A Florentine Death - Michele Giuttari (one of the things I want to do is read more mysteries set - and translated from - other countries. This is another new series, set in Italy, and getting very good reviews.)
Bellfield Hall - Anna Dean (described as if Jane Austen wrote mysteries....this would be it. Set in 1805 England, spinster Dido Kent must solve a mystery or two....billed as a regency mystery, it looks delightful and fun. )

So now that we are in to week 2 of 2012, how are you finding it, Gentle Reader? Are you happy that 2011 is over with now? have you found anything good to read yet in this new year?

I am also hoping to catch up on some of my reviews from last year, so that I can name my best of the year books. Before we are too far gone into 2012....Happy belated New year, everyone.

The books I received for Christmas......

2011-12-30T20:19:00.000-05:00

Here are the books I bought all autumn for my gift box to myself. I had so much fun! I would see a book, and instead of feeling guilty for buying myself a book in the midst of shopping for others, it became a present to myself. In the end, the family 'gave' me the box, and it became my big present because I bought so many books! They all shook their heads, not quite believing that this was all I really wanted. It was most delightful to open the lid and see all the books waiting for me. My children for the first time selected gifts at their school fair for us, and next to their carefully chosen gifts, my books are my favourite gifts of this season.

The titles:
The Secrets of Pain - Phil Rickman
All Clear - Connie Willis
Winter of Secrets - Vicki Delany
Right-Hand Magic - Nancy A. Collins
The Curious Gardener - Anna Pavord
Graceling - Kristin Cashore
Ashes to Dust - Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Real Cooking - Nigel Slater

Smokin' Seventeen - Janet Evanovich
The Shadow Woman - Ake Edwardson
Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop - Otto Penzler
Dark Matter - Michelle Paver
The Hanging Wood - Martin Edwards
Die With Me - Elena Forbes
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent - Galen Beckett
The Whale - Philip Hoare
******My son gave me three books for Christmas, and even asked me for a list. I was thrilled! They are the ones lying in the front:
The Face of a Stranger - Anne Perry
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction - Alan Jacobs
Ship of Magic - Robin Hobb

I am also the very lucky recipient of some book gift cards, to Amazon.ca and to our Chapters store here in Ottawa. I haven't finished using them yet, so I will let you know what else I buy for Christmas in books!

Using surgery is a fine excuse, don't you think?
As I am facing my knee surgery (just a day operation, a scope to remove the piece of floating cartilage) on January 16, I am facing a week at home, on crutches for the first two days. I think that's a perfect reason to be buying books, don't you? For my layover....plenty to read then! With that in mind, I confess that I went second-hand book shopping today, after my pre-op visit to the hospital this morning. It was to the Book Market, a second hand bookstore which has several outlets in the Ottawa area. My first job when I moved to Ottawa was at the main store in the downtown area, which sadly recently closed. However, close to the hospital I was at this morning, I saw there was one of the other outlets I had never been to before. So what's a girl facing surgery going to do? More book shopping!! Here is what I found today:

The Museum of Horrors - edited by Dennis Etchison
Brimstone Kiss - Carole Nelson Douglas
A Sudden Fearful Death - Anne Perry
Borderline - Nevada Barr
Condition Purple - Peter Turnbull
The Wisdom of Father Brown - G. K. Chesterton
Playing with Bones - Kate Ellis
Evil Angels Among Them - Kate Charles
Graveminder - Melissa Marr
Thirty-Three Teeth - Colin Cotterill
Bryant and May on the Loose - Christopher Fowler
Ae Fond Kiss - The Love Letters of Robert Burns and Clarinda
Identity Theory - Peter Temple
Just After Sunset - Stephen King

I even got a discount today, because I bought so many at once! She said it was the season....

Advent Calendar of Books
By my count, that's 33 new books in my house this month! Counting the ones my son bought me. If I don't count them ( I didn't buy them!), then that's one book per day.....with one day off for Christmas. It's like having my own advent calendar of books! Only I 'bought' one every day, instead of opening a calendar. I like it, what do you think?

Boxing Day smorgasbord

2011-12-27T00:45:00.000-05:00

Good evening my Gentle Readers. Here I sit, full of turkey and peace. I had a lovely quiet Christmas, and hope you did too. I will be posting about the books I ~~picked out~~ received in the mystery box of books I filled all fall, tomorrow, when the pictures are loaded from the camera onto the computer. At the moment there are several little films of Holly-Anne performing in her school play on the camera also, and it takes quite a while to download onto the computer. It's late here, so for now, I am eating chocolate and just about to start one of the books in that box: The Secrets of Pain, by Phil Rickman. It's a hardcover, so I can't carry it with me, and just the thing to take me through more snow falling tomorrow night. Ghosts and snow, chocolate and on holiday, what could be more perfect?

I came across this lovely interview with Elly Griffiths, author of the Dr Ruth Galloway mysteries, here on Kittling Books. It's just the interview to get me ready for ordering her House at Sea End, which is out in softcover next week. Yaaay!

Mystery Challenge or, how to make your mouth water over mysteries.

Wendy over at Musings of a Bookish Kitty is hosting a challenge. And not just any challenge: a mystery challenge. Irresistible! It's called Merely Mystery Reading Challenge 2012. The sign-up Link is here. I have been thinking and thinking about what challenges to join, and here is one that I'm leaping at. I can read in 12 categories of mysteries to choose from! This is like a cornucopia of mystery books for me. Any kind of mystery I want, as much as I want. A smorgasbord of mystery reading. Since this is what I read most of, this is like a tiny piece of heaven for 2012. Of course I'm going to overdo it - who doesn't at a feast??? even diabetic me has been eating too many chocolate biscuits the past two days, - so I'm going for Shamus who Has Seen It All.

This means reading at least twelve books, one from each category. The hard part isn't finding the mystery books - 9 of the books I put in my mystery box, are mysteries!!- it's putting them into their categories. So I will do a longer post with the books I am thinking of, though here is a rough initial list:

Shamus Who Has Seen It All
Cozy:      Bury Your Dead - Louise Penny
   Death of a Celebrity - MC Beaton
               Death of a Perfect Wife - "    "
Historical WhoDunnit -   any of: - Sovereign by CJ Sansom
                                                    - The Face of a Stranger - Anne Perry
                                                   - The Janissary Tree - Jason Goodwin
Police Procedural - any of: Deadlight - Graham Hurley
                                        - Roseanna - Maj Sowall and Per Wahloo
                            -   Looking Good Dead - Peter James
Whodunnit:                 - The Hanging Wood - Martin Edwards
Locked Room Mystery:       Bloodhounds - Peter Lovesey
Caper Stories:   any of:        Dancing Aztecs - Donald Westlake
                                              Doors Open - Ian Rankin
The Spy Novel:                   Our Kind of Traitor - John Le Carre
The Professional Thriller: any of:      Winter Study - Nevada Barr (Anna Pigeon is a Park Ranger)
                                                   -       Ashes to Dust - Yrsa Sigurdardottir (lawyer)
                                                   - House at Sea End - Elly Griffiths (archaeologist)
Hardboiled/Noir: any of:          - The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin
- The Snow Leopard - Jo Nesbo
                                   - Devil's Peak - Deon Meyer
Inverted Detective Story - can't think of any at the moment, need to look through my shelves when I can get off the chair.
Psychological Suspense: any of: - The Private Patient - PD James
                                                     - Nightlife - Thomas Perry
                                                  - Truth - Peter Temple
Spoofs and Parodies:      another hard category for me. Something by Jasper Fforde, most likely. I think I have the last one in the Thursday Next series to read.

Isn't that a list to make your mouth water??? I'm so excited! some titles may change, this is from a quick survey of my book shelves and books I had previously lined up to read.

The sign-up is open all year, so if you aren't decided on joining this, there is lots of time. There is also a category for reading at least two books only, from any sub-genre. So if you wanted to try a mystery, here is a challenge to get you to try it.

Well, this was unexpected, like unwrapping a late gift!!

Now I'm off to see if I can finish another book tonight and creep ever closer to my goal of 100 books this year. 92 books read, 8 left to read, and 5 days. Nothing like a challenge, right??

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T22:48:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year, gentle Readers. Time to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a very happy 2012. I wish for each and every one of you, new books to read, gift cards to go buy books you really want to read, and a joyful holiday, whether you are with family, friends, or enjoying some solitude. Wherever you are, may peace be part of your day.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Girls who read are COOL

2011-12-23T21:02:00.000-05:00

I should be writing my list of favourite books I read this year, which I promised in my last post. Sadly, I find that my brain has shut down for the evening. We are finally ready for Christmas - more or less, all the wrapping still awaits, and I'm about to watch A Christmas Carol (Alistair Sims version) with my daughter. I love the creepy effects.

In the meantime, I thought I would give you this link to a wonderful post on why it's good to date a girl who reads, here. I have to thank Terri Windling for the original link, it was on her post a few days ago. I wish I had had this post to read when I was younger. It would have saved me when all those people rolled their eyes at me when I said I like to read. Or who asked what I was reading and yawned as soon as I showed them my book. I have never been ashamed of reading, good heavens no! It's others who have turned away from me because I read, that startled me. I have often felt alone in my reading habits, especially as a teenager and young adult, before I began working in bookstores and discovered there was a whole world of readers out there, book lovers like me. Now I find through here that there are so many of us who love the pages and bindings and words as much as I do. How many of you had your own library card when you were twelve? How did the writer of that post know that I did?

May you find a book you've always wanted to read, under YOUR tree this year, my Gentle Readers!!! And remember: it's easy to buy gifts for girls who read. All we want are books!

Folktales to begin the new year, and the books I didn't read (again)

2011-12-18T15:22:00.001-05:00

Books I Can't Wait for in the New Year
So there I was on Friday, looking through the Guardian book site on my lunch time at work. This is always a dangerous thing to do, since I am always finding out about books I haven't read yet. This is what happened

on Friday.

It's not out here until the beginning of January, but honestly, after reading in the Guardian this review by Neil Gaiman on this Alan Garner new book, who could resist this? It looks so good, so perfect, a lovely way to begin the new year.

Among Others by Jo Walton is out on Jan 3 in softcover. I've been waiting 8 months for this. All of you who've read it - Carl, Memory, Nymeth, have loved it. I so want to read it too! Two weeks now, and counting......
The House at Sea End by Elly Griffiths is also out in softcover Jan 3. I think I like this day already. This is part of the ongoing Ruth Galloway series which I am really enjoying.

Since I don't own these yet, I thought I'd ask you, what books are you waiting for to come out in the new year?

Random thoughts from other people's blogs:
In news around the book blogging world, Carl has a wonderful post up on books he thought he would have read by now, and hasn't, and ~~wants~~ plans to read next year. If you have some of your own (and I dare any book reader to not come up with a list of those!), let Carl know what they are. My post today is in answer to some of the questions he asked in his wonderful, thoughtful post.

Nymeth also has a wonderful post on books she wants to read as soon as they are out next year. I've already checked out the Diana Wynne Jones book on writing, which Amazon sadly isn't even listing here yet.

****Edited to add: I had to get off the computer in a hurry as the children were waiting to use it to search for cheats for their Star Wars Wii game. While I was off, I remembered I had read Care's lovely post about how she failed at reading certain books this year, and challenges, here. So if you are like us, drop us a line so we don't feel quite so ~~guilty~~ alone about not being the kind of readers we think we should be. It's all in fun, I know, both wanting to be more well-read, and the plans we make for reading. It's awfully fun to cross books off the to-read list!!!*******

Some books I thought I'd read this year, and haven't:
Certainly I have books I thought I would have read by now - indeed, Ulysses is top of that list, since I started it last winter, and it languishes on my to be read pile, along with Samuel Pepys Diary, which I also really want to read, started two years ago, and then got sidetracked. That's only two. Any Charles Dickens this year - and I'd better finish A Christmas Carol this year, or I am in trouble with myself! **I just checked, and I now own 4 novels by Dickens, PLUS Drood by Dan Simmons, which I also haven't read. Points finger at self: read Charles Dickens in 2012, Susan! I haven't read either of the annotated Jane Austens I picked up, nor have I finished the House by The Thames by Gillian Tindall, which I started reading when I got it out of the library, went out and bought my own copy, and now it sits on the same shelf. I wonder if it's possible to have ADHD when it comes to reading??? Kraken or Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I really can't believe I haven't read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest yet. Or Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb - I have loved the other two series. So how have I missed this series? Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. Oh, there is so much I planned to read this year and haven't yet! The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Settlefield. A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan.

Books I thought I'd read by now in my life, and haven't. That's a harder question to answer. Ulysses, certainly. Any novel by Ursula K LeGuin. The Gentleman's Daughter by Amanda Vickery. London the Biography by Peter Ackroyd. Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Anything by Neal Stephenson - I own Cryptonomicon, Anathem, and Quicksliver. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein. I can't believe I haven't read Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist, when I loved the Swedish version of the movie so much that I bought it, and everyone who has read the book says it is one of the best vampire novels ever, and I loved his Handling the Undead earlier this year. I really can't believe I haven't read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest yet. Anything by Anthony Trollope. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. War and Peace, on every 'I will read this year' list I've ever done. Emily Dickinson.

100 books?
So for the next week, I am setting some reading goals for 2012. I've been looking at all the challenges surfacing, and thinking over joining some. I did discover that I read more when I have lots of room for spontaneity. While it's still in question if I will reach 100 books read this year - 10 books in 10 days, more or less....Christmas and New Year's in the midst of that......I remain optimistic that I will. I already have had the best reading year in the past 15 years that I've been keeping a book list. That is something, my friends, something indeed. So I am very proud of what I've accomplished, even if I might fall just short of my goal. My next post will be on the books I did manage to read this year and there are some that I am delighted I did get around to reading, and some new ones that thrilled me.

Meanwhile, Gentle Reader, let me know - are you happy with your reading year? Is there anything you are really looking forward to coming out in 2012?

I hope you are finding some reading time today, on this Sunday before Christmas!

Mortal Love, Peter Lovesey, and The World's Wife - reviews!

2011-12-15T00:26:00.001-05:00

I have been remiss at writing on here. I plead shopping for birthdays and Christmas. And another trip to the emergency room last week. All that aside, I have so many books I want to write about that I've read this year! I've debated on writing about each book separately, or choosing a character series, or grouping them. I still can't decide, so meanwhile, here are 4 that I have wanted to write about for the past couple of weeks, all of which I highly recommend and really enjoyed.

Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand. Remember when I wrote about this book in November, and I was disappointed in it about halfway through? I am here to say that this is probably the number one reason I don't often blog about a book while reading it - I am often wrong in my assessment, and I am delighted, completely thrilled to say now, I was wrong. Ok, the beginning of the book is slow, and feels muddled because we are getting viewpoints and stories set in different times. It all works so very well at the end. What the book is about, is art, and faerie, and myth, and how when we get a glimpse of the Otherworld, it can shatter us for our daily reality. It's about how some people spend the rest of their lives trying to capture that moment, that beauty, over and over again. It's also about how other people find a way to hang on to their sanity, to let the strangeness of the glimpse of the other realm wash over them, and change them so that daily life is enriched, vibrant, and tinged with melancholy because it's not what was glimpsed. It's about art, and how art changes our perceptions. And it's brilliant. I don't want to say who the myth is who is brought to life, because that is part of the mystery and enchantment of this story. The myth is so well written and brought to life so beautifully that it works. The reason myths are so powerful is because somewhere deep within us, we know them, we relate to them - this is what gives the myths their power. It's an archetype we instinctively, deeply in our minds, know without having words to fully explain how and what we know. Mortal Love is about this deeply held knowledge, and how it inspires longing for whoever glimpses the myth. I highly recommend this book, especially for anyone who enjoys art and wants a glimpse of what it is like to have to write, to paint, to sing, to create. Once again, here is Nymeth's excellent review which convinced me to try the book. Thank you, Nymeth!

This leads me to The World's Wife, by Carol Ann Duffy. This is a collection of poems that take the myths we all know, Greek and Roman and Norse, and give the woman's point of view - the hidden voice, the other, the silent one. The wife. The one we never hear about. What was it like to be married to Aesop? to Darwin? to Midas? to be Penelope, waiting for Odysseus to return - or maybe not. The poems are filled with the voices of real women. Penelope isn't waiting for Odysseus, pining away - she is enjoying her solitude, and using her cunning in weaving to keep all the suitors away, so she can be alone. How clever! and then she hears Odysseus' footsteps and her precious private life is gone. Mrs Midas is about what it was like after Midas made his wish to turn everything to gold. Of course he can't touch her, he can't touch anything. She misses the touch of his skin so much. One of my favourites is Little Red-Cap, which opens this book of poems. I love how the wolf lures her by holding - what else? a book of poems. Poetry. And how he has a wall of books, and how in the end she becomes free. It's a true poem, about how knowledge is always the lure, and with enough wits and courage and hunger to know, you can survive the wolf and the woods. Brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed this book of poetry. It has given me a new way to look at the fairy tales and myths. It reimagines the world through the eyes of the women who don't explore (or make) the world but who through loving men, and determining if they stay or go in the marriage, find that determination is just as exciting as anything their more famous husbands have done.

The last book I want to talk about is really an ongoing mystery series by Peter Lovesey, featuring Peter Diamond. Last year I reviewed The Last Detective, here. Now I want to talk about the next two in the series, Diamond Solitaire and The Summons. In Diamond Solitaire, Diamond is on his own. He quit the force at the end of The Last Detective, and we see him struggle to find his place in the world. He tries being a Santa Claus, one year! And it's being a security guard that leads him to find a silent girl asleep in the department store he is guarding. He is fired as the security guard since he didn't notice her before, and of course it is not as simple as the girl wandering away from her parents. This little girl is from Japan, and very special. It is delightful to see how protective and caring Diamond is of this abandoned little girl, and when his suspicions are aroused by the people who claim her, he follows them all the way back to Japan. A very solid second book in the series. The Summons opens with Diamond depressed because he has not been able to find any permanent work It's been two years now since he left the force. Unexpectedly, a summons arrives: a criminal Diamond helped put away, has escaped, and is holding the daughter of the ACC hostage and has asked specifically for Diamond. The criminal claims he is innocent of the charges. This is the book about how Diamond discovers he made a mistake, and that he is a policeman through and through. How he gets his job back, and what he learns while going back over the case and reinvestigating the original crime, makes for a solid mystery with excellent characters and very good dialogue. It's fast-paced and while I spotted who was involved early on,I didn't know for sure, nor why, and I was thrilled when I was right at the end! which makes for a feeling of being clever (and a really good mystery writer makes the reader feel clever, I find). I really like this series. This has to be one of my favourite discoveries in the past year, and I thank Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise for reviewing the 10th book in the series - Skeleton Hill - last year and pointing me to this character. I also find it hard to resist a series that uses the real life author Jane Austen as a sort of ongoing backdrop to the series. In The Summons, it is one of Jane's supposed houses that she lived in while in Bath, that plays a part in the book.

If you have reviewed any of these, let me know and I will link to them.

I hope you are ready for Christmas, and enjoying the season. We are planning a games party for the children on Saturday, as a way to give them something to do and share in the excitement leading up to the holidays. As it's my daughter's 9th birthday on Christmas Eve, the ~~tension~~ excitement around here is so high in the final weeks to her birthday that this is when we build our gingerbread houses and try to keep them busy. We don't have any snow yet, so there is no playing outside and making snowmen. I am enjoying the lack of snow, utterly content to not see any this winter, while my knee continues to heal. No snow means no slippery patches.......no hats, and no boots either! I could get used to this!

Happy reading moments for you, my Gentle Reader, in the build-up to the big day.

Book covers - art for story's sake

2011-12-03T00:19:00.000-05:00

I don't usually buy different editions of books. I'm happy with one good edition - normally. However, lately Penguin have begun really tempting me with new illustrated covers on their Penguin Deluxe Classics that are beguiling, intriguing, artistic, and totally fabulous. Today I found at Books on the Ceiling blog two more covers of books that I really want:

Sense and Sensibility has this gorgeous pink cover with a tea cup.

Persuasion has this cover by the Audrey Niffenegger: I love it too.

Then over at the Penguin site (I linked it above) there is this one for Pride and Prejudice, which I think is perfect:

and then just because it's gorgeous, here is Jane Eyre.

This cover of Wuthering Heights might make me dare to face the boring Catherine one more time - I read it for Heathcliff and the descriptions of the moors and the weather, NOT for Catherine. I once yelled at her out loud I was so mad at her wimpy teary character.

This cover though, could tempt me.

So what about you? Have you ever been tempted by covers? Do you own multiple copies of a book simply because the covers were beautiful? I could really do with owning all of the above!!! They are so pretty, so moody, so interesting and lovely. I wonder if one or two might find their way into my Christmas box of books?

And why not dream over owning beautiful editions? That's partly what makes books so irresistible - we can change the cover, and illustrate some part of the theme or text or character, differently than other editions do. I've often bought specific books over other editions because of the artwork on the cover. And then referred back to the cover often, to gaze at it while I mull over something I'm reading in the text. Covers are - can be - part of the experience of reading the book, when they are done right. I think that is one reason why I am against the kindle - I don't get that experience of the book from cover to cover, from seeing the front and letting it work it's way through my imagination while I read the story itself. Artwork and storytelling build on one another, at least in books, or they ought to. Even though the above covers are more representational than representing an actual scene in each of the texts, to my mind each of the covers instantly reminds me of the story in some way. That's what great artwork on the front of a book can do.

So, are there any special editions you are dreaming of for Christmas? Any covers you've seen recently that tempted you, or were irresistible? Do you agree with me about covers, or could you care less, so long as the story inside is good?

'Tis the season for the sense of wonder - Virtual Advent Tour 2011

2011-12-01T01:38:00.000-05:00

2011 Virtual Advent Tour: Day 1

Welcome to Dec 1, and the countdown is on!

I love the season of Christmas and the New Year. The snow, the tree, the lights, the music, they fill my heart with beauty. What I also love is the sense of comfort that the traditions around Christmas bring. It's funny, for I am 48 years old this year, and I find I am creating more new traditions for this time of year than I did twenty years ago. Back then, I wanted to keep everything the same as my original family did. Right up to opening stockings only on Christmas morning, and all presents after breakfast. As I've grown up and away from my first family of childhood, though I am creating traditions that are for now. I like the mix of the old and the new, I am discovering.

Here is a tradition that I started last year: I found this right before Christmas, a tiny wood tree with ornaments to hang in it. This year, the kids put the ornaments on. It's so adorable.

A few years ago, a friend at work gave me these three lighted houses. As you can see, the village is growing:

One year, the people kept turning up on top of the houses. I asked my daughter - she was 3 or 4 at the time - if she was moving them. She said yes, and I asked why they were on the roofs. "Because there is a flood coming, Mommy!" she said seriously. We love this little village, and add to it every year. This has become a new family tradition now.

One of the things the kids like most is their advent calendar. My mother is a quilter, and she made them each an advent calendar when they were babies.

Now, the kids rush every morning to see what is waiting for them to start that day. That's a lovely way to start any day, isn't it? With a little present waiting for you? It's usually some chocolate, as the squares are small and its' difficult to find anything small enough to fit in. My kids don't really care - it's the surprise they like.

The new tradition for this year is a surprise: the kids don't know. Holly-Anne and Graham will wake up tomorrow to find this waiting for them.

Yes, that's right, the Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar. I really bought it because of the Yoda Santa Claus figurine. I love it! I'm really excited. I know my kids won't let me build it with them, though I will be right alongside with them each day as they open each door. One day when they are older and beyond this, I ~~think~~ hope that the calendar will stay with me - I know I will love putting this together every year. I'm so excited for tomorrow, to see their faces!

And this is what makes me think about what I also really love about this time of year: surprises. I used to lay awake before Christmas when I was a child, thinking about what I wanted, wondering what would be under the tree for me. If I get a present early now as an adult, I keep it wrapped and save it for Christmas Day with NO peeking!, to open and so really, I can savour that sense of surprise and waiting and anticipation. That's what I think this time of year really means for me: a sense of wonder. Anything can happen. It's the closest time for all of us to be that little child again, and let that little child come out and play, and no one bats an eye. So you might find me playing with Yoda Santa Claus when no one is looking.......

And because this is a blog about books and you know that it wouldn't be Christmas for me without new books, I decided a couple of years ago to give myself a box of books every year. Through the autumn, I buy books that I want to read, and into the box they go. Even though I know the titles, I'm not allowed to read them, or to look at them once they're in the box. Just knowing that the latest Phil Rickman - The Secrets of Pain - in hardcover no less! -

is among the many books waiting for me on Christmas Day, makes me excited. The joy I feel opening that box, the sense of wonder and yes, a little greed as I hold all the new books in my hands and wait for Christmas dinner to be over (I'm the one cooking it so I have to wait until it's all over with!) so I can read, deciding all day which of them will be first. There's nothing quite like knowing there is a whole boxful of new books waiting to be read, is there? Some others I've added are Michelle Paver's Dark Matter in paperback, and Yrsa Sigurdadottir's Ashes to Dust (finally! I waited most of the year to find this!), Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop, among some ~~did I say greedy? no, I'm not greedy or I'd add more books to the box!~~ others.

I think this is a most lovely time of year, when we remember to look in the faces of the ones we love, and share in their delight, when we make memories that become suffused with love and tenderness as the years go by.

May your holiday season be bright, and filled with love, and joy, my Gentle Bloggers. Thank you for stopping by. I'll see you tomorrow as we go through Day 2 of this lovely Virtual Advent Tour. I can hardly wait to come see what you like or want to talk about, this year! Happy Holidays!

Advent Virtual Tour 2011

2011-11-26T23:36:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again. Perhaps it was the snow that fell on Wednesday, that has brought Christmas to mind. I think it was also seeing Arthur Christmas today with my children.

A very sweet, fun movie that reminded me that Christmas - or this season for those who celebrate something different, this time of year as the old year winds down and the new year is just on the horizon - this time of year is filled with love and looking both forwards and backwards. I came out of the theatre and quite suddenly, felt ready for Christmas in our home. Tomorrow we are putting our tree up, and I have been baking tonight to get ready for it. I won't say any more, because I am still working out all I am going to put in my post for the Virtual Advent Tour.

Yes, it is also that most fun time of year, here in blog world, time for the Virtual Advent Tour 2011. I am excited to once again be participating in this most fun virtual tour of Christmas on all of our blogs. I love going to see what each of the participants has chosen to write about for that year. Recipes, tree decorations, Christmas ties, riding on the snow, music - whatever we like, and are in the mood to celebrate for that year. I have signed up for opening day for the Advent Tour. Stay tuned, Dec 1 is almost here! It's not too late to sign up, either.

I haven't been reading very much for the past few weeks. I am making my way through Mortal Love, by Elizabeth Hand. I like parts of this book, though parts are also bothering me - not all artists are mad! Art isn't crazy making! - so I'm finding a bit of a tough go, because I love, absolutely adore the Pre-Raphaelites, who are in the background in this book (so far anyway, I'm a little over halfway through). I wish I loved it, like Nymeth did (her review is splendid, so I linked to it), and the book reviewer at the bookstore I picked the book up at - she adored it too. Perhaps going through the emotional states of a separation is not the best time to be reading about madness and art! As I am a writer and poet, some of what this books says is interesting about how the creative urge attracts hangers-on, too, and how it is difficult to draw the line between having a life and giving one's all to art - is there a line? what happens when we draw one? or don't draw one? Questions that I ask myself as I try to do both. It is good, I'm just not in love with it, and that I find disappointing.

I did pick up Howard's End is on the Landing by Susan Hill. I have just started it. I have to say I had a very odd reaction when I started reading it: I imagined doing what Susan Hill did, not buying any books for a year. A whole year! I think I panicked.

No books - and so many I am waiting to come out in paperback in the spring!!! I think I almost had an anxiety attack at not buying any books for a year. So, while I love the idea of just reading what I own and I know I have enough books on my shelves to keep me busy for at least a year without any new ones, it's not the right time for me to do it yet. So it got me thinking.....Have any of you thought of not buying any books for a year, and reading what is on your shelves, instead? Not just for a month, or a season, but a whole year? Are any of you feeling a little wiggly and uncomfortable at the idea of not buying any books for a year?

46 days left.....

2011-11-15T23:24:00.000-05:00

That's right. 46 days left until this horrible year is over with. I shouldn't say horrible, I should say 'year that challenged me and stretched me and made me realize what I needed." In other words, one of those years where so many things fall apart. I wasn't going to say anything here, but I see now of course that it's affecting even my blogging. My husband and I separated in the summer. We are still in the midst of sorting everything out. I am trying valiantly to get to my 100 books total, and write fabulous reviews of the really good books I've been reading, but I'm a private person, and as much as this separation is good in the long run, it's emotionally draining and I can't think of bookish things to write about yet. I love my books, I just can't write much at this time. So please bear with me, I miss all of you and will be back as soon as I can. I won't say I'm taking a blogging break! I'm not! I'm sorting my life out, and reading as much as I can to help me stay as centered as I can. I really wish it weren't affecting my blogging, but it has.

So stay tuned. In the meantime, Nymeth has a lovely post up today on Christmas bookish shopping. It's fabulous. I want it all! those mugs with books! and I will be back as soon as I can.

RIP VI round-up - 4 novels of thrills and chills, and one fairy tale

2011-10-23T14:46:00.001-04:00

Happy late blogversary to me!!
I am dismayed to see that it has been two weeks since I last posted. I am chagrined, since I meant to post more often these past few weeks, and get back into some semblance of regular writing here. However, my life is beyond topsy-turvy this year, it is whirlwind of change. And somehow, I have passed my anniversary again! Every September I get ready to celebrate blog cake and drink with you, and every mid-October I suddenly realize it's gone past, slipped by in the annual frenzy that is October for us. For today, happy late 4th anniversary to me! October 1, 2007, was my very first blog post, here. I've come a long way since then, and not so far, either. I've made some very good friends, I've learned about Christmas customs around the world thanks to Kailana and Marg's annual Christmas Advent Tour, and most of all, I've discovered that the love of books is indeed the world over. This love of reading, and sharing the books we love, talking about and discussing ideas that books hold, is what I cherish the most - our book blog community. So even if my posts are a bit far between, it's not because I love you any less, my dear book community, it's that so much is occurring in my personal life that I am not able to come here to talk about books as often as I would like right now.

RIP reviews: books I really enjoyed
So, because despite my wish to talk about each book I read in its own post, in order to get these reviewed in this last week of Carl's RIP VI challenge, here are five more books I have read for RIP this year:
Winter House - Carol O'Connell
   Long-time readers of this blog will know of my love for Detective Kathy Mallory, fictional police detective in the ongoing Mallory series by Carol O'Connell. Mallory is a detective unlike any other. She was kidnapped as a child and sold to a child snuff video maker. She escapes, but what this has done to her, has made her into a beautiful, feral person, completely amoral, and yet with her own sense of right and wrong. She is also highly intelligent, and the way O'Connell writes about her, surprisingly vulnerable as well as loyal.

Now onto the book - Winter House is a gothic mystery. Winter House is the name of the house where a most famous massacre in NYC history took place. The Winter family, whom of most were massacred nearly 60 years ago, consisted of 9 children and 2 adults, plus two servants (a cook and nanny). Only 4 children survived, two of whom disappeared shortly after. They were all killed by an ice pick stabbed in the heart. The case is unsolved though generally believed that one of the surviving children, Nedda Winter, who was 12 at the time, and one of the ones who disappeared, is the killer. Winter House opens with the discovery of a burglar who is dead in Winter House, stabbed through the heart with an ice pick, and the discovery that Nedda Winter has been found and brought home secretly by her niece, for a reconciliation with her two surviving siblings. Kathy Mallory picks up on the case because it is set in such an infamous locale, unsuspecting that Winter House is more than just a house darkened by its tragic past. This is a case that will threaten her and her friend Charles Butler's sanity. Is Winter House haunted? Maybe. It's a house where nothing is what it seems, where no one appears as they are, where murder is only the worst of the crimes committed on and by the Winter Family. It's a very good mystery, though a bit convoluted in how Nedda Winter goes undiscovered for so many years. Tarot cards play a part, as does jazz, and a bird. Very very gothic mystery, and perfect for RIP. 4.5/5

Tricks - Ed McBain
I just finished this mystery last night. I am really glad I read it, after putting it on my RIP list for the past 2 years. This is a pure police procedural. It is set in New York City also, like Winter House, and is one of many books in the 87th Precinct series by Ed McBain. It takes place in a 12 hour period, on Hallowe'en night, covering the different crimes that take place for the evening shift of the 87th precinct. There's a cut-up corpse whose body parts are found in different locations of the city; there's the police set-up to try to catch a serial rapist/murderer, and there's a gang of children raiding liquor stores and shooting the owners. I really enjoyed this mystery. I liked the blunt cop talk, the realism of policing the streets, of working with partners, of talking with civilians, of trying to solve crimes in the midst of facing dangers, and of the risks and payouts men and women of the badge take and face every night. There are several deaths in this novel, most by gun, and a chilling cat-and-mouse game between the policewoman set up as a decoy for the serial rapist, and the rapist. Good plain policeman's work, and little bit of luck: very enjoyable novel to read, and sets the mood for Hallowe'en next week. 4.5/5
Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror - Chris Priestley
I have been on a reading spree this weekend, as I suddenly realized October was almost over and I was nowhere close to my goal of 80 books read by the end of this month. That will leave me 10 books each for November and December to make my 100 books read in a year. Luckily it's a break in between birthdays and seasonal events, and cloudy enough outside that I don't feel guilty AT ALL staying to read as much as I can.

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror is absolutely delightful. It is a young adult novel of ghostly terror tales, told by Uncle Montague to his great-nephew (or great-great, or even further back, no one knows for sure) Edgar, in his great old dark house all by itself in a corner by some woods. Edgar goes to visit him when he is home from school, to hear these ghostly tales of eerie horror, even though the woods slightly frighten him, even though his Uncle lives only with the mysterious Franz who Edgar has never ever seen, even though the house is so dark and so cold, that Edgar goes - and has seen only - the study, where they spend all their time in front of the fire drinking tea and eating biscuits, and the lavatory for when Edgar has had too much tea. In this darkly thrilling house - because I don't know about you, Gentle Reader, but I would love to see this house, and go into it, because of the ghostly presences we become aware haunt it. The tales themselves are everything good ghost stories are: filled with all kinds of children who never quite fit in with their surroundings, who find mysterious girls and boys appearing to them, who lead them to danger, to horror, and sometimes to death. Haunted trees, paintings, macabre items, and terrifying glimpses of madness and horror - these stories have them all, told delightfully by Uncle Montague to lonely Edgar. When we finally reach the ending, as Edgar starts his walk home through the same forest that still makes him uneasy, Uncle Montague reveals his terrible secret, and it is so satisfying. This is one of the best ghost story novels I have read in a long time. I can hardly wait to read it to my children. The illustrations are eerie and fabulous, reminiscent of Edward Gorey - down to the pen and ink black lines and off-kilter subjects - and I am totally in love with both. 5/5

Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs - retold by Randall Jarrell from the Brothers Grimm, illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert
I put all that down for the author/illustator, because they are both important for why this retelling of Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs is so enjoyable. Many of you know that while I read the Disney versions of many Grimm tales as a child, I am not a big fan of Disney. I discovered this edition of Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs sometime this year, in a second-hand bookstore. I picked it up because the illustrations are lovely. I really just grabbed it without looking at it closely, because of the pictures. I didn't know that Randall Jarrell was a poet, and I didn't know that he kept the original ending of this fairy tale. I was shocked, thrilled and a bit disturbed by the ending which is what a fairy tale is really supposed to do to us. The Evil Queen Stepmother is made to put on a red-hot iron pair of dancing shoes and dance until she dies. I was disturbed in part because I think of this ending as the ending to the Red Shoes, and shocked because I still think it is too good a death for the wicked stepmother. That got me thinking to what Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs might really be about: beauty. In some versions of Snow White, she is kind, so kind and soft-hearted and sweet that the Huntsman spares her life, that the animals love her, that the dwarves love her, etc. What this retelling - and I have to go back and reread the original Grimm, too - makes clear, is that it is Snow White's beauty that affects how everyone treats her. Several things occur to me here: where is Snow White's father, the king? Nowhere. This isn't a story about parents and children (because he doesn't look for her either, does he? Does he even notice she's gone? what kind of father is he?); it's a story about women and beauty. From the opening lines when her mother asks for a daughter as beautiful as the red blood on the snow when she pricks her finger: "a daughter as white as snow, as red as blood, as black as the wood in her window frame."
Nothing about her character, her personality, nothing about being good or pure or kind or loving. It's about looks.   Snow-White - named because she looks as pure as white snow, another image of purity and beauty- is shaped by her looks, from her name, to why she is cast out (jealousy), to why the huntsman saved her , to why the prince falls in love with her, to why the dwarves don't stone her or drive her out: her beauty. It is the making of her doom, and also her future happiness, with the making of her place in the world beside the prince, because she is beautiful. As an illustration of how we judge others by how they look, this book is perfect. As a book about how Snow White's goodness outshines her beauty, we see this by how the animals don't eat her, and how she bargains with the dwarves for her livelihood : not through sex, but through keeping house. It is fortunate for her that she is a child, and not a teenager, when she is cast out! It is why I love fairy tales too, and having read this version, I am reminded that the best fairy tales are dark, and about the good and the bad in the human heart. I loved this version, and can see myself rereading it many times in the future.

The illustrations are superb. The dwarves, wonderfully, magically, are not rendered boyish or non-sexual, but are true dwarves, each with their own face and body, short men. Each with their own personality and character clearly designated - not happy, or sleepy, or another stupid name like that, but real people. I wonder if the dwarves serve a deeper purpose in this tale than I ever suspected, in that once they get over her beauty, they tell her she must do - she must earn her keep. It is this that makes this fairy tale so magical for me, not just that the animals love her so, but that she makes her way willingly in the world and earns her way not through her beauty, but by working. I love the fact that in this version, the dwarves are there at the end, making music in the castle as the prince and princess (because Snow-White is a princess after all) marry. The other picture I absolutely love, is the one of Snow White fleeing in the forest: all the animals have come to watch her, drawn to her beauty, and they are partially hidden in the drawing, so it draws your eye in to the scene. It's a lot of fun picking out all the animals, all rendered true to their forms, too. Wonderful. 5/5

Poltergeist - Kat Richardson
The final book I have read for RIP VI so far - because I am reading two more this week, I hope - is the second in the Greywalker series.   My review for the first in the series, Greywalker, is here. I read it last year for RIP 5. (and look, I missed blogging about my anniversary last year too!) Poltergeist is about just that, a poltergeist. It's not so simple though, as it is also the result of collecting a group of assorted people for a psychological project on what happens when you gather a group to see how far the group will go when they believe they have created something for which they are not responsible for the subsequent actions of. In this case, paranormal research: if you create an entity from scratch, a personality, will it begin to have a life of it's own? What if someone in the group does have latent psi skill of some kind? And all the members are carefully chosen for their strength of will or suggestibility? What if they do pool their collective mental and emotional energy, who is responsible for the entity? It's a fascinating premise. PI Harper Blaine is recommended to come examine if there is something 'fishy' with the experiment, as there is more poltergeist energy than the coordinator things there should be, and he is wondering if someone is sabotaging the experiment. One person involved in the experiment dies shortly after. PI Blaine is not your usual private investigator, though. She died for two minutes, and ever since she can see spirits, talk to ghosts, and walk in the world between this world and the next; the gray world where vampires, zombies, the undead, the ghosts, hang out. She's also smart, and wary, and soon comes to the conclusion that she is being set up to take the fall for the experiment if it fails or more people die.
I really like Harper. She is still coming to terms with being able to see the dead, the undead, and everything else, and what it means for her life. The series is set in Seattle, and the author, Kat Richardson, uses some real settings - houses, streets, events - to ground this series in the here and now. I love how the supernatural affects - intersects - with reality, with how Harper has to learn how to ignore the supernatural around her, because they are everywhere. This novel also involves theories about what causes poltergeists, and hauntings, and how people can be the agents allowing them in, and how this would work. There is a groundedness to this series that makes it viable - she has a ferret names Chaos, who when is let loose in the house, creates pandemonium and chaos much like a poltergeist would. She has a few friends, who give her space and who also have their own unique talents - like calling to like, as it were. I really enjoyed the theory about how ghosts can seem to walk through walls - its because for them, they are stuck in their time period when they lived, where most likely there wasn't a wall or door there. In other words, ghosts walk and see what they know from their lifetime, not from what exists in the now. I enjoyed this book a bit more than the first, as I like the supernatural a bit more than sorcery which the first book featured. Highly recommended, a lot of fun, and very good. 4.7/5

This is also an eerie series, with encounters with the undead, the supernatural, evil, filling both books in the series so far. I've run out and bought the next two, Underground and Vanished. I hope to catch up soon, as Labyrinth, the one from last year, has a lot of good reviews.

So how is your RIP VI reading coming? Have you been enjoying this challenge? Are you in a mood for Hallowe'en in a week's time? I can't believe it's only one week away.......

Feed - Mira Grant, plus some more horror stuff

2011-10-16T11:54:00.001-04:00

Feed by Mira Grant is a fabulous zombie book. Think of a modern, socially relevant novel that features blogging as part of how the story is told, while all around the storytellers are zombies, and zombie attacks. Think of a political event, an election, and trying to run an election while avoiding large crowds because they attract zombies.And then think of that hidden fear we all carry around, you know, that fear that the government is NOT telling us what we need to know to survive, and indeed, in this novel, discover that the government might be working for maintaining the fear instead of solving it. Relevant to today's world? Oh yes. And then throw in two of the cleverest, questioning-everything twenty-something main characters, and you have Feed. It's about media too,which the word 'feed' plays into - how news is reported, and how to find who to trust to tell the news. Who do you trust now? Who would you trust in the event of a world calamity?

In Feed, we learn how the world has changed 20 years after a virus has been released that changes its victims into zombies. It is riveting reading, full of surprises, including one at the end that found me crying while I was standing in line waiting for a bus. That's how good Feed is. Even if zombies scare the dickens out of you like they do me, get this book. It's really good. If the tv show The Walking Dead is about how the world ends now with zombies, Feed is about how we have survived the collapse of the world. It's a very good horror novel, and one that even those who don't read alot of horror can read, I think. The gory parts aren't as bad as the tension of waiting for the attacks, because just knowing zombies are lurking everywhere creates its own tension.

As I said, zombies are my 'thing' that I am terrifically horrified by. I can't even get through 'Night of the Living Dead', which I've tried to. I can watch 'Sean of the Dead' because of the humour, but not 'Night of the Living Dead'. I mention this because 'Night of the Living Dead' is referred to in Feed, as is George Romero, the director of this movie and most of it's sequels. Oh, I have seen 'Dawn of the Dead', barely - stuck in a shopping mall with the undead is kind of like how I feel on most shopping days. Most of the time, the lurching mindless bodies of the brain-dead fill me with a suffocating panic. I dream of fighting off zombies, when I do dream of them. Not werewolves, not vampires - interesting that two of my children have dreamt about vampires, but not zombies, I think. It's my fear, and that's what I think fear is - intensely personal, a visceral reaction to something that comes deep from my gut, an instinctual 'run away' as fast as I can. So I know there's an important truth there for me too.

What do you think? Do you have a personal horror or nightmare figure that seizes you when you come across it? Do you avoid certain types of books or movies because of this type of figure? have you ever wondered why you are afraid of something? I have! and now you know - zombies are my thing. And I still think Feed is an excellent horror novel, despite the eating of flesh. I'm currently looking for Deadline, the second one in the series.

Look! I bought another book for RIP!!
I read this for Carl's RIP VI challenge. I am having so much fun with this challenge. I also bought a new Hallowe'en short story collection that is just out:

Hallowe'en, edited by Paula Gunn. I found a link to it, here, on Amazon.com, although they are saying that it's only available as an e-book for Kindle. Since I'm holding a real book in my hands, they're wrong! lol it's a collection of hallowe'en short stories, featuring all the wonderful scary authors you would hope for: Ray Bradbury's October Game, Peter Straub, Charles de Lint, E. Nesbitt, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Sir Walter Scott, Norman Partridge, Caitlin Kiernan, Edgar Allen Poe, and many more - a wide range of authors from several centuries, all featuring hallowe'en in the story. I've already read the first story, and plan to ~~indulge~~ to read more to get ready for Hallowe'en in two - 2! - weeks. Since I'm currently in a mini-slump of reading, despite being so close to my goal of 100 books read this year, I'm hoping this will charge me up for the final run.

Scary images to get into the mood for Hallowe'en:
Over at Book Chick City, Carolyn and Laura (the Book Chicks) are featuring a lovely scary collection of scary art to chill you. I also love how they managed to decorate their header with hallowe'en items! I want them too! The very first image featured in the photos is one that we also have in front of our National Art Gallery here in Ottawa, and I hate walking underneath it. The scary art also features the previously-mentioned zombies. They really are everywhere! Is there anything featured in this collection of art that scares you? Let them know! and me. I want to know I'm not the only one scared of spiders and creaky noises in the night and the shambling, walking dead.

A Fine and Private Place - a book and an anxiety attack, RIP VI reading....

2011-09-27T22:42:00.001-04:00

A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle is not the normal sort of ghostie/ghoulie horror story that would incur a nightmarish anxiety attack. But it did for me. On the surface, this is a sweet ghost story - it's slow and meandering and wonderful to read on a warm autumn day with golden sunlight falling all around you. It's the story of Michael Morgan, newly deceased and waking up as he is buried. It's the story of Laura, who is buried two weeks later. It's the story of Mr Jonathan Rebeck, who has hidden in the cemetery for almost 20 years, subsisting on food a raven brings him. Rebeck is a living man, he can talk to the raven, and he can also talk to ghosts. Why he's hiding out, and what happens to him, is as much fun to watch as what happens to Michael and Laura as they share the experience of being dead together. It's a sweet story full of love and gentle wisdom about death, and the more I read it, the more I enjoyed it. Except.......

Except I woke up the night that I finished reading the book, in a panic attack. I'd had a dream that my eldest son was going on a trip to Thailand - a gap sort of trip - and I was worried about his job, if it would be waiting when he came back. I woke up at this point and felt terror seize me. I'm going to die and fade away like the ghosts do in A Fine and Private Place! I thought. It's my worst nightmare, it's a fear that I've struggled with for many years while I searched out my spiritual faith. For a moment or two I was frozen, seized with horror because I absolutely dread the idea that we don't exist after death. I had to tell myself it was ok, that it's not what I believe - I believe we continue on in some way after death, that our spirit does come from something and goes somewhere afterward. I will admit that in A Fine and Private Place, how the ghosts talk about how most of the dead simply go to sleep and drift away until nothing of them remains seems peaceful, and then I remember that it's one thing to read it in a book, it's another to contemplate as reality for you and me here.

In a funny kind of way, A Fine and Private Place helped me heal where I still had some work to do around this area. I have had incidents over my life that have shown me that there is a 'me' that goes on, and it was putting this belief to the test with the fear that made me realize that it's ok, that both beliefs can exist. Some people think there isn't anything after death, that this is all, and then there is the long darkness. Some people like me think that there is much more to life than this, that this is one important stage in life, but that the spirit exists beyond and through this, that the universe is spirit and that we do continue on after.

It's funny what reading ghost stories and horror can make one understand about one's self, sometimes!

And despite my waking fear, I really enjoyed A Fine and Private Place. It's sweet and gentle, and filled with unexpected tenderness about life, and wondrous thoughts about how a ghost might want to try to remember what it's like to be alive. It certainly makes me appreciate all I can do just by being here, in this moment, feeling the wind blow, waiting for the rain to come, enjoying the windows open on one of the (probably) last warm evenings of the year. It's harder to warm up to Jonathan Rebeck - I really wanted him to stop being so afraid! - and wanted a little more of the raven, who was very interesting. I really like how Michael and Laura fight to stay ghosts and not just dissipate into nothingness. This is a very interesting ghost story with a philosophical bent, just like a conversation you could have if you found yourself wandering in a cemetary one day. I really like it.

This is another book read for RIP VI. I am over my total of 4 books to read for the challenge, and I have a whole pile of books to read yet! Despite my anxiety, or in spite of it - I don't care, I'm reading horror still!

So how about you, have you discovered any gems yet during this RIP read?

Two great bloggers wrote about horror reading.......
I am thrilled to announce that as well as Emily's wonderful post on why she reads horror, Geraniumcat has also joined in, and posted this last week: her fabulous thoughts on why she reads horror. I am excited that they took my questions and wrote about horror and ghost stories, that's part of what blogging is for me, sharing our thoughts and ideas about why we read, and about what we read. They both wrote thoughtful, serious posts about horror. If you have any thoughts as you go through Carl's challenge, please write about them - I would love to see why you read ghost stories/horror/thrillers, dear Gentle Reader. Or let me know in the comments if you are shy (and a surprising number of us are shy about why we like what we do).

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - RIP VI

2011-09-22T00:37:00.000-04:00

Lately I have been having a little Buffy nostalgia. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was one of my favourite tv shows in the 1990's. My eldest son grew up watching it with me. Every week we would wait for our next episode of what danger Buffy and the Scooby gang could get into, fighting vampires, demons, monsters, and the dangers of growing up in Sunnydale California. I loved the mix of humour, teen angst, horror, scariness, and fabulous monsters week in and week out. I enjoyed so much watching the characters grow and evolve, all the while facing dangers and temptation and learning about what they could do. Buffy is one of the few tv characters I have dreamed about. This is an awesome tv show, that even when I rewatch it, has aged well - it's timeless, magical, scary fun. With a group of friends who share the scariest moments in life: Willow and Xander, and Giles, Buffy's Watcher, and Angel, the vampire who is Buffy's love of her life. Plus the adorable bad vampire frenemy Spike, who is so bad that he's good. Yes, there were cheesy moments and so-so storylines, but on the whole the writing and dialogue were superb. The acting was good, and sometimes the show could be dark and terrifying and haunting and beautiful.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that there were graphic novels out now, with the approval and some assistance of the chief creator and writer himself, Joss Whedon. In 2009 I read vol 2 No Future for You, and vol 3 Wolves at the Gate. In 2010 I read vol 4 Time of Your Life. I wondered, each time, would it be as good as the tv show? Would the characters be true to themselves? What were they doing, after the 8th and final series ended on tv?

I have no fears now. The graphic novels pick up from where the tv show ended. All the characters are there, Willow, Xander, Faith, Giles, and Buffy herself. At first it was odd seeing them on the page, after spending 8 years watching them on tv. Then, magic happened. I heard the snarkiness in Xander's voice, the softness of Willow as she screws up and saves Buffy in the nick of time, and most of all: Buffy. Buffy, a little more grown-up, a little world-weary, and never ever giving up. She's still feisty and running around saving everyone, still irrepressible and beautiful.

Peril the First
So for this year's RIP VI challenge I borrowed another book in the series, Predators and Prey, from the library recently. I read it this past weekend, enjoying it immensely. The art and the storytelling are prime Buffy writing, and the imaginative use of toy kitties is fun. They never will be quite the same for me, either. Plus it has a monster that if ever brought to the screen I would have to run screaming from the room. And it still manages to have tender moments, friendship, and humour. Amazing. I think I might end up buying this series.
Verdict: I highly recommend this graphic novel series for anyone who is missing Buffy, or needing some fun and slightly creepy vampire novels to read. .

Perils of the Screen
That's not all - reading Predators and Prey vol 5 (which indeed features a scary monster that is nightmare -inducing) made me want to see some Buffy again. I happen to own the first four seasons, so I watched "Fear Itself", episode 4 of Season 4: the Hallowe'en episode about trick or treating at a frat party. Only it's not just a frat party, a monster has been summoned and the frat house turns into a house of fear for whoever enters. Each of the Scooby gang have to face their own personal fear, before they face the monster at the heart of it all. Very well done, and exactly right for RIP. It's a perfect mix of humour - Anya the demon dressed in a bunny costume is hilarious! Oz as God! - and the scenes in the house are delightfully shivery. Next up: "Hush", from this same season 4, which won Buffy the Vampire Slayer an Emmy award. This episode is very frightening and magical and even funny at moments. It is truly terrifying in the best way that fairy tales can be, very dark, very scary, and fabulous. The episode says: " They are creatures from a fairy tale, first they steal your voice, then they start stealing hearts." It's also perfect for RIP, and I'll write about it when I see it, hopefully by this weekend.

apologies (~~blogger is being bad!~~)
I do apologize, Blogger is not allowing me to add any photos tonight, of Buffy or the Peril of the Screen photo. I am sad, I love this photo and was looking forward to using it! Next time then.....

RIP VI - Anya's Ghost and The Thirteen book reviews, plus Under the Dome and The Strain

2011-09-10T12:35:00.002-04:00

I am feeling so proud of myself: I have already read two books for RIP VI, and I'm working on book #3!! Plus, for fun, at the end, I'm going to throw in book reviews for two other horror books I read just before the challenge started.
Anya's Ghost - Vera Brosgol.
This is a YA graphic novel, newly published this year, and a terrific read. It's about Anya, who falls down a well, and what she finds at the bottom. It's about high school, and fitting in, and discovering that no one is exactly as they appear. And it's about discovering that even ghosts aren't all that they appear to be, either. The characters are all fun and wonderful, from Anya herself, a teen Russian emigre who has done everything she can to fit in, including shortening her surname to something pronounceable, to all the teens at the school - the author has taken the popular girl, handsome boy, gym class, and made them universal figures: we all knew a girl in school like Elizabeth, beautiful and graceful, and her boyfriend Sean, good at sports and gorgeous, who Anya has a terrible crush on. Anya's family - her round mother who feeds her and younger pest brother seem familiar, from the first page. Yet, Anya's mother with her round smiling face and 'eat, you're too thin' jump off the page like concerned, loving mother she is. They are real people caught on the page. Anya's ghost is the other main figure, and it's so much fun to watch how the ghost moves around Anya, and what Anya learns from the ghost. This is a little darker than you would expect, which makes it all the more believable and fun to read. Including myself, every teen I know comes up on the dark in their teen years, in themselves and in others. Anya's Ghost is a graphic novel about the truth behind the image, just like the ghost who is more than she seems. Plus, it's a ghost story. I really liked Anya, and I'm really glad she did what she did at the end. Lovely graphic novel, a little bit eerie, and very enjoyable. 4.7/5

The Thirteen - Susie Moloney
Susie Moloney has published three other horror novels: Bastion Falls (which I haven't read yet), A Dry Spell (read quite some time ago), The Dwelling, and just this month, The Thirteen. The Dwelling scared me so much - a true haunted house story, with an ending that still bothers me (in the good way, that I'm still thinking about it) now, several years after reading it. Susie Moloney is Canadian, and it's lovely to have a really good horror novelist in Canada. That's not to say we don't have lots of short story writers in horror, we do, but a consistent good horror novelist - Susie Moloney is one of our best. Plus, she shares my name, sort of (I've never been a Susie). So, onto The Thirteen:
The premise of The Thirteen is that a circle of women have a made a deal with the devil in order to get all that they want. Now, being someone who knows quite a few pagans, many of whom are practicing wiccans, normally I wouldn't give this book another look. I get tired of the idea that witchcraft and wicca are 'bad' and evil. Certainly you can use magic for ill, to harm another - and in a way, what these witches in The Thirteen find out is that even with the best intentions, if you make a bargain with something that is inherently evil, all your good intentions turn on you in the end. The price they pay is high, and that's part of what makes this book so satisfying. The other part is that the heroine, Paula Wittmore and her daughter Rowan go home because Paula's mother is in the hospital, and what they find in Paula's old childhood suburb Haven Woods, is anything but a haven. This is a fun read, with magic shown properly - the bad uses of it, and the good. It's creepy, and it's fun too - Paula finds love in the most unexpected place, and in the end, it comes down to family. Even the ending, which is a bit of a shocker, makes sense. Very well done 'witchcraft gone bad' book, a lot of fun to read, and makes good use of those soulless places, the suburbs. I think this might be the most satisfying of all of Susie Moloney's books to read. Highly recommended. 4.5/5

So, my two freebie reviews for this RIP VI challenge, are for two books I read just before the challenge started. I couldn't wait! One really good read, and one so-so.
Under the Dome - Stephen King.
Unputdownable. This is the most recent of King's novels, a hefty 1,072 pages. It is good. One of his best novels, for me. I loved his resolution - it sounds preposterous, and yet, who among us hasn't had that very same thought? I can't reveal it for those who haven't read the book yet, but it's a thought I think everyone has had. It's all to King's credit that he makes this a good horror novel from two angles: from the mystery of the dome that is placed over the town, and if they can solve it, and from the townspeople themselves, especially the awful family of Jim Rennie and Junior Rennie. It even had moments that made me laugh out loud, in the midst of horror and nightmare scenes - pantries were never my favourite place to begin with, but now they will carry with them an unforgettable image of Junior and his girls. It's good to see black humour in a novel of Stephen King's, and Under the Dome has it. Which didn't detract from the horror or the believableness of the book - I found the laughter good, like King had taken time to be with his characters and see that in the midst of terror, there can be moments of hilarity and humanness. All of King's strengths are here: his amazing realistic characters, the way a small town works - the power of the town council, how most people try not to think too hard about what's going on, about how terror can be used to control a population. I found the last particularly satisfying given the last 10 years of Western culture and the feeling of terror that we've never managed to let go of (I have my own cynical reasons for why this has happened). The heroes - Barbie, Julia, Andrea, Scarecrow Joe, Norrie, and all the one who act bravely and still die - they are ordinary people who could be any one of us. That is Stephen King's greatest strength in his writing, his characters and how they talk, that they are just like you and me, caught on the page. I started reading and I couldn't look away. The horror is good, and creepy in places, though this is not a 'ghost story haunted house' book, this is about the horror that we do to one another when under stress. And that makes it one of his most frightening and realistic horror novels of all. 4.7/5 (because throwing in a haunted house would have been so cool! lol)

The Strain - Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

I wanted to like this book. I really did. I picked it up with all good feelings, because Bride had bought it - she is usually a good judge of horror books. The sequel is out in paperback too, so I thought cool, I could get in on the series. Alas, I didn't find much that was believable in this vampire novel. There are moments that are very good, and very eerie, and how the vampire plague spreads was quite good. But the premise - that some old guy from ancient history revived itself during the Holocaust, and has somehow eluded any notice until a dead plane lands, with a mysterious big box aka the coffin, arrives and 'disappears' on video - and no one thinks, hmm, Dracula even - that bothered me. Dracula and the box of earth have filled our literature since the beginning of the 20th century. I'm not saying the old creature couldn't stay hidden, I just found the idea that someone else wanted him brought over in order to start a plague, a bit iffy, AND how did the vampire know to start a plague in New York City? Was he hired? If so, what could a vampire possibly want that anyone human could offer him? (except the way over the ocean, but as Stoker showed, pretty easy to arrange.....) So, I had struggles with this book. I kept seeing it as a movie, and I think that's exactly how it was written, as Guillermo Del Toro is a movie maker first.
The characters are good, the setting - New York City - very believable, especially the infighting amongst who had responsibility for the flight, the bodies afterward, though why only four survivors - again, not explained. If you need to escape completely for a day, this would be a good book to do it in, as it is well-paced and full of action. Just not entirely believable. I will say though, how the plague expands - that's the best part of the book, the horror part. I wish we had more of the horror, the being stalked by the newly made vampires, that eerie feeling of being watched, and the slow realization that something is wrong, in your house, in your street, in your neighborhood. Maybe Bk 2 will have it..... 3.5/5.

So, how has your RIP VI reading going? Have you read anything good and satisfying so far?

If you are in the mood to discuss horror, Emily over at Telecommuter Talk has a post on why she reads horror, here. She took it from my previous post with questions I asked at the end, of my thoughts on why I read horror, here. Do you have any ideas about why you enjoy reading ghost stories or horror, that you are discovering while you make your way through this challenge? Why do you look forward to this challenge so much? What have been your favourite discoveries over past RIP reads? Please let me or Emily know, we both love to discuss horror, as you can see! (Thanks Emily, too, for doing a whole post on this subject!)

My favourite RIP reads
I've been a part of RIP for three years now. I have read some really good ghost stories, been thoroughly scared, and discovered some very good novels. In fact, one of my RIP reads became my books of the year:
Lonely Werewolf Girl(actual book review here) - Martin Millar - 2008. I see that The Woman in Black - Susan Hill, and The Terror - Dan Simmons, and The Night Country - Stewart O'Nan, were all read that year. No wonder I couldn't decide which to pick - in looking back, these all could easily be my books of the year. In fact, I thought The Terror was, I loved it so much also, for a separate year. I think in my mind they are tied now, both are so good. 2008 was a banner year for me. Coraline by Neil Gaiman - another YA horror book that lingers. Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle. They were all on my top 10 books for 2008. I've linked to all my reviews in case you are looking for something to read for RIP, or just want to see what I thought about the books. Those are all my favourite reads, too, now. Books that are permanently on my shelf, along with The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff, and The Passage by Justin Cronin. I couldn't wait for RIP to read the last two, but if I had, they would be part of this select group.

Last Friday I went book-shopping......

2011-09-07T00:01:00.000-04:00

Last Friday I went book-shopping, specifically for a couple of books for RIP 6, and because it was one of the last days of my holidays and it doesn't feel like a holiday until I've bought some books - buying one in Montreal doesn't count as fulfilling my holiday book shopping! I did find what I was looking for, and whole lot more. Pure pleasure. I also discovered a bookstore that I have walked past for the past oh, 3 years at least, and never gone in. I don't really know why, except I thought it was tied to the Canadian National Gallery across the road, since the book store featured a lot of Canadian art books in the windows. When I decided to explore some of Ottawa's few bookstores I haven't been in, last week, I thought I would try Nicholas Hoare. I was absolutely delighted and thrilled and felt right at home within minutes of walking in. I only had 15 minutes and found 5 books in that time, though I had cheated and gone to their new online site, here and had a list of titles I was looking for already in hand. Which is a good thing since I only had 15 minutes, and once I started browsing, I got immersed and had to keep reminding myself that I wanted to look at this and that, too. Stuff dreams are made of, a book store where I could happily spend many hours discovering books only available in England, or featuring English and Canadian authors. I intend to go back as soon as possible. Unfortunately they close at 5:30, which is 1/2 hour before I get to their store from work, which is the top reason really that I've never gone in. It's always closed when I go by!

So this is what I found last week:
-The Lore of Scotland - Westwood and Kingshill. I've had my eye on this one for a couple of months, and finally I just couldn't resist it any longer! It's a thick book, and looks well-researched, and covers so much myth, folklore, tales from Scotland.
-The Morville Hours - Katherine Swift - I bought it because Nigel Slater (my favourite English cook) couldn't resist reading it twice. Ok, I'm only partly kidding! I also bought it because it's the story of the house she comes to love, and the history she uncovers while she is gardening, of the people who lived there before. Time and gardening, past and present, the hours of living - perfect for winter reading, I think.
-South Riding - Winifred Holtby - I hadn't even heard about it until finding it on Nicolas Hoare site. Now I find it's been in print in England ever since it was published in 1936! It's set in South Yorkshire, and is the story of a teacher who promotes modern ideas in the school she comes to teach in, and runs into the lord of the manor across the way, and of course they disagree on everything. It's also one of the first novels to try to show how putting responsibility onto the local councils changed politics especially at the local economic level, in Britain. Plus, it's set in Yorkshire, where I lived when I was there. Since we have our own maddening city council here in Ottawa (guaranteed to put your blood pressure up every time they make an announcement these days it seems), I can also relate. It's sounds boring and political, and it's not. The heroine is a woman fiercely determined to improve the lot of her students, and this is what gets her into the business of the local council and eventually to the landowner who owns everything.
-The Dirty Life - A Memoir of Farming, Food and Love - Kristin Kimball - I love her sweater on the cover! Really, I bought it because I love the idea of how the author meets her husband and leaves everything behind in order to start up an organic farm, selling locally. They've made it work, and this is the story of how they did it, and what they learned. In my wildest fantasies I run away to the countryside too and become self-sufficient on the land as well, and of course we've already been organic for over 20 years, so this book is like my alternate life if I had a husband with the least inclination to farm. I don't, and he never will, whereas Kristin's husband is the one who was completely into farming which is how they met (she came to interview him for a magazine article)
- and a Christmas present for my husband, which I can't list here in case he sees (but very British and appropriate for him!)

I still have a list of books I wanted to look at there, so the question is not if, but how soon I shall return......

I also made it to one of my regular and favourite independent bookstores on Friday, Collected Works. They are in the midst of renovating, and are waiting for their Christmas stock to come in, so stock is a little bit low at this time, and I still managed to find two books!
Anya's Ghost - Vera Brosgol - thanks to Chris at Stuff Dreams Are Made Of, for his review here. For RIP VI
Woods Wolf Girl - Cornelia Hoogland - This is a book of poems, just out this year, by a Canadian poet. It is a collection about - you guessed it, Red Riding Hood, The Wolf, and the Woodsman. The poems are about all the ways Red Riding Hood walks into the woods, and what (who, the Wolf of course) she finds there. It is also about how we are Red Riding Hood in our lives, and the places we might find the wolf lurking, and where the woods might be in our lives. It looks fascinating, and I had to have it. I'm on a fairy tale themed poetry reading kick right now, and this looks perfect. For RIP VI

Then, because this was what I set out for (and resigned to never finding a copy of the first book anywhere else in the city) I headed out to Smithbooks, a subsidiary of Chapters (our version of Barnes and Nobles here in Canada), to finally, finally, get my hands on a copy of:
Feed - Mira Grant. For RIP VI. Yes! I was victorious! A zombie book that I've been hearing about on and off for a year now. Deadline is the sequel, out now, so if I like this one, I can see the sequel under my Christmas tree, possibly.....
As they had a buy 3-get 1 one free event on that weekend, I had to fulfull that promise and bought two more for me, and 5 books for the kids (not named here, all learning readers for them):
Magic Bites - Ilona Andrews - I keep seeing this written up in places, and it looks like an interesting and fun urban fantasy
Midnight Fugue - Reginald Hill. I saw a review of this lately, considered one of his best ones in the Dalziel and Pascoe series, so when I saw it was out in softcover, I grabbed it.

Now I feel like I've been on holidays!

Neil Gaiman story for RIP VI

2011-09-06T00:47:00.000-04:00

All my plans for a lovely long post about all the books I bought on Friday (including 4 for RIP!) have been put aside until tomorrow. My youngest son and I played Uno instead today, followed by bowling on Wii (until my injured knee started clicking, a bad sign) and then archery (no bending of said knee required). Tomorrow is the first day back to school, and he is nervous - he and his sister are going to a new school this year. Our daughter is currently in England attending a family funeral with her father, otherwise it would have been a family Uno game and Wii events.

Instead of books to drool over, I found something even better: at Neil Gaiman's blog, back in July, he posted here about a collection of new short stories he and Al Sarrantino had coming out, entitled Stories (they are both editors of it). His story in this collection, he says in this post, was also nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award at Readercon. He won. He invites everyone to go read it online, for free, here, at 52 Stories. As we are now in RIP, this is like getting free candy for us horror fans: a free dark short story (and not outright horror, no gore, so safe to read for the shy of heart), by the one and only Neil Gaiman, AND the story won the Shirley Jackson Award for best novelette. So we get an award-winning dark short story to read for RIP! Let me know what you think, my Gentle Reader.

I've just finished reading it - entitled "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains", and it is good. Much better, and much more moving, and much more thoughtful than I would have expected. Actually, I didn't know what to expect, which is good, because I have read Fragile Things, and Smoke and Mirrors, and I am happy to find I am still, always, surprised by his short stories.

While I'm on the topic of Mr Gaiman, I have to add that I have not commented on his Dr Who episode, "The Doctor's Wife", that aired earlier this spring here. That wasn't because I didn't love it, on the contrary - it is an episode that the more it sits in my brain and heart, the better it gets, like there is old Dr Who and time travelling wisdom in this story that takes time to sink in. The Tardis as a woman, ever so briefly, and the Doctor's true love. An amazing episode, by an gifted writer, who can go from dark to funny to bizarre without really blinking at all. The episode is unlike almost any Dr Who episode ever, yet it is perfect for the Dr Who mythology. In one fell swoop, we learn how the Doctor and the Tardis chose each other to run away with. It is romantic and beautiful and ethereal, like the most romantic part of the Doctor's soul has been revealed, the reason why we all love him so, because he is mad, and he does care, so very much.

Enough of the fan-girl stuff, I have to go off to bed so I can be ready for the morning angst about starting a new school. Fall is definitely in the air, it's school time again, and I have now read a short story and a book for RIP!!!! Review of book to come.

Happy Labour day everyone!

RIP VI - Horror, ghosts, spookiness, my favourite time of year

2011-09-01T01:11:00.000-04:00

It's here! It's here, it's here, it's here! RIP VI, the annual horror/ghost story/suspense reading challenge hosted by Carl over at Stainless Steel Droppings. I am, you can tell, so very excited. Not only that, but it's the angel from 'Blink', only one of my favourite Dr Who episodes, EVER!!!! *happy sigh from Ottawa*

I do have to apologize, I meant to do at least two posts while waiting for RIP to start, but life got in the way. It's been one of those years, I think, where I am barely hanging on. I think about posting quite often! I've started many in my head, on my way home from work. Posts on books I've read, books I should have reviewed but didn't get around to, books I got out from the library, super reads.......one day they will get done. Right now, I'm reading, my way of keeping sane in a year that making me look at who I really am, and where I want to go from here.

Before I post my list for RIP, I have to add this very short funny story: I went to Montreal last weekend, a quick family get-away. Because of my knee, which is still not healed all the way, I can only do short trips right now. So off we went on the train for a weekend holiday. Around the corner from our hotel, was a Chapters. Convenient, you say? Yes. Planned? No, I did not know until after we booked it! At this Chapters, I discovered the Ellen Datlow ghost story anthology I have been looking for for almost a year: The Dark.

A sign? Yes, I think so. I snatched it up and held it close to my chest. It was the only book I bought last weekend, a rare event in my book-buying life. So I am treating myself to a RIP book-buying ~~binge~~ quick trip at some of my favourite Ottawas bookstores this Friday. A girl needs some good ghost stories/mysteries to cheer her up, right?

I have picked more mysteries this year, partly because they are all sitting on my shelves, partly because one of my reading goals is to get to 50 mysteries read this year.

SUSAN'S RIP VI LIST ***partial only, despite the long list
The World of Charles Addams - collection of Charles Addams illustrations
macabre drawings, creator of the Addams family, black humour that is witty
Kraken - China Mieville - Giant squid! Just on that alone, I had to read this book.
The Dark: New Ghost Stories - Ellen Datlow - see prev post.
Blackwater - Kerstin Ekman - a Scandinavian mystery that I keep hearing about, dark and terrifying, that took me several years to find. I found it during my first visit to Book Bazaar, a second-hand bookstore here in Ottawa, last week.
Birdman - Mo Hayder - another mystery I have been almost too scared to read. Grisly is one word I keep coming across. I will try it, anyway, though graphic descriptions are not what I find scary (and tend to bother me since I am a visual person). The series is supposed to be very good.
Grendel - John Gardner - I've wanted to read this for a very long time. From the point of view of the monster in Beowulf.
The Surgeon - Tess Gerritsen - another creepy mystery thriller. The first in the Rizzoli and Isles series.
Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror - Chris Priestley - so many of you bloggers have enjoyed this one! Specifically Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made of. The House With the Clock in Its Walls - John Bellair - I read Face in the Frost last year, and really enjoyed it. This book is for children, and looks deliciously spooky.
Chill of Fear - Kay Hooper - Just sitting on my shelf. Spooky Crimes unit special, FBI plus heroine with psi powers.
A Fine and Private Place - Peter S. Beagle - I have never read this classic ghost story by him.
Tricks - Ed McBain - I know, this has been on my list for several years. Now is the time! Set during Hallowe'en, it's perfect for RIP.....
Winter House - Carol O'Connell - a Mallory mystery, this one is called a family gothic.
Mallory is one of the most fascinating main characters in modern fiction. I can hardly wait to read this one. I'm two behind in the series, so this will start to catch me up.
Dark Harvest - Norman Partridge - Can't resist a book with a pumpkin on the cover! Plus, Chris again recommended this one.
The Keeper - Sarah Langan - her debut horror novel, by all accounts very scary. The titular figure is also named Susan, so how could I resist?
A Dark Matter - Peter Straub - a horror story par excellence, about a ritual gone badly wrong many years ago and the hero's quest to find out what happened that night.
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters - a classic ghost story, one I've been meaning to read, and I think it's time has come. I'm the last person in the world to NOT have read this yet.
Midnight Riot - Ben Aaronovitch - he discovers he can talk to ghosts, and he is on the police force. Recommended by Bride of the Book God. (Yes, the book has a different title over here than in England).
Manitou Blood - Graham Masterton - I wrote in my last post that I didn't know he had a vampire novel out. I read his The Manitou years ago, and it was so frightening. It was about the aboriginal spirits called Manitous, and if you can find it, it's worth it. I'm hoping Manitou Blood will be as frightening.
this one a paranormal mystery complete with an 'entity' who means no good for our heroine.
Angel Cafe - Jill Morrow - another book lurking on my shelves,
Falling Angel - William Hjortsberg - a mystery that features voodoo, black magic, and murder. Highly recommended when it first came out in 1979. About time I read it, right?
Every Dead Thing - John Connolly. The first book in his Charlie Parker series, he sees ghosts. Supposed to be gory too, certainly the description of the first bodies was. I tried to read it a few years ago, and stopped after a few pages. I'm hoping this time it will go better, as the series does look really interesting. Intense and terrifying is what I've heard about this book. Have you read it?
Poltergeist - Kat Richardson - 2nd book in the Harper Blaine, PI, paranormal mysteries. She can see ghosts and spirits and the undead, all that hover between this world and the next. I enjoyed the first one, Greywalker, very much.

Have you read any of these? What are you looking forward to reading this year?
I am going to be doing RIP the first, of course. I'm also going to do RIP Screen, since I love ghost and horror movies. I am not sure yet what I will be watching for this challenge.

Musings on horror books

2011-08-13T20:12:00.000-04:00

So, this year, for the first time in a few years, I have been reading horror fairly consistently. I say to myself - RIP challenge - and then start reading the book.

Currently on the pile to be read I have:
Manitou Blood by Graham Masterton (his version of vampires, I haven't seen this before. The Manitou by him was one of the scariest books I read, a few years ago)
The Best Horror of the Year Vol 1 - ed Ellen Datlow (it comes highly recommended, replaces the horror part of Year's Best Horror and Fantasy collection she did with Terri Windling. I just bought it this week, and not sure I can wait for RIP!)
Swan Song - Robert McCammon (reread from 20 years ago) - very excited to reread this again.
Darkness - Two Decades of Modern Horror - ed Ellen Datlow - another collection, this time of her collection of the best horror short stories published between 1984 and 2005
Under the Dome - Stephen King - Uncle Steve! horror! big book to get lost in!
Drood - Dan Simmons - Dickens, madness, and terror. Yum.
A Dark Matter - Peter Straub - a magic ritual goes wrong, and twenty years later someone tries to find out what really happened. Another yum.
Hell House - Richard Matheson - I've seen the movie several times (The Legend of Hell House) but never read the book. I decided it was time to right this wrong. I know it will scare me, as the movie scares me (most delightfully and shiveringly). How long until RIP starts???

Out of the library I currently have:
Haunted - James Herbert - a reread, it turns out, but again it's been at least 15 years since I read it
The Ghost Writer - John Harwood (based on Daphne's review a few years ago)

I have read this year:
The Unseen - Alexandra Sokoloff (review here)

The Red Tree - Caitlin R Kiernan - This is a chilling haunted house read. Actually, haunted tree by a house book. Young woman escapes unhappy romance to hide out in house in the woods.....a house with a terrible history of people disappearing in and around it. This book features a scary relationship with a roommate and downward spiralling of insanity. Very scary in places. Highly recommended.

Handling the Undead - John Ajvide Lindqvist - one of my favourite books this year so far. A book about zombies, but also about the loved ones who try to cope. What would you do if suddenly the dead started to come to life? What if your loved dead ones were stirring? This book is about three recently come back to life people, and the repercussions on their families. It's also about Stockholm, and society, and how they cope with the dead and newly returned. It's also about what makes a person a person, that mysterious living part of us that goes when we die. The worst things about zombies is that they are shells because this mysterious part is not brought back (in any zombie fiction.) But could you resist seeing your loved one, one more time? Just to touch them? Hope that spark is there?

Apartment 16 - Adam Neville - I just finished reading this last week. What a fun horror novel, and so very frightening. A lot of horror fiction relies on the unstability of the narrator. It's as if horror can't come into our sphere until we give it an opening, usually because of madness in some form. I disagree with this. I don't think instability is a precursor to good horror fiction. I think there is horror all around us, and in our natures, and the trick is to make it believable without relying on madness. That said, in Apartment 16, madness is at the center of the horror. An artist long ago created obsessively pictures of the vortex, the swirling darkness that we go to when we die (that he believes anyway). It's a disturbing vortex, filled with the true faces of people, all hideously deformed and distorted - their vices and desires, their lack of spiritual light, becomes their consignment to this swirling hell. What he eventually creates though, is an entrance for that hell, in his apartment - Apt 16. Apryl, the niece of an aunt who turns out to have a connection to the artist, inherits her aunt's apartment in the same building where the artist lived. The book is about how she learns about the artist, and her aunt, and how the power of evil, and that morbid fascination does have its own strength. This was a horrifying picture of madness, gripping, and sad in some ways. Mostly, a book to read with the lights on and someone around to remind you things are normal where you are......I will not forget how mirrors are used in this book, for a long time, either.

The Passage - Justin Cronin (review here)

Button, Button - Richard Matheson (short story collection) - The title is from the first story in this short story collection. It was made into a movie recently called The Button. I didn't see the movie. I did enjoy the short story very much - it is perfect, the story of what happens when a stranger calls and offers money in exchange for a life. Would you push the button? Eerie. Most of the stories are not quite as frightening as this one, which calls up the dark side of human nature, but the collection is enjoyable and nerve-tingling in places.

Horror books I would like to get for RIP:
Koko - Peter Straub
Feed - Mira Grant
The Dark - ed Ellen Datlow
Haunted Legends - ed Ellen Datlow
The Thirteen - Susie Moloney ***Canadian author, wrote The Dwelling a few years ago, a disturbing and very good haunted house book that has scenes that still bother me today. The Thirteen just got published and I'm on the library waiting list, so I might see this next year.....

I'm not sure what has me reading horror this year, though I am enjoying it very much. Apartment 16 is really terrifyng. The Unseen is one of the best haunted house books I've read in a long time. Handling the Undead took the zombie story and turned it upside down. It is haunting and beautiful and exactly what examining horror should be, from all sides - the victims and the zombies, who are also accursed. The Passage is excellent.

I have a few other books ready also for RIP, but I want to save them for a surprise so when I go to do my post in the next few weeks, I will have something to add to the list!

Are you busy getting ready for RIP? What are you thinking of reading? Are there any horror or ghost story books you really recommend for this challenge? Let me know. As you can see, I'm always looking for new and good horror to read.

As we head into fall soon - and already our leaves are starting to change colour here, which is very early for us - I'm thinking about ghost stories and horror, and what I really enjoy about them. Why do I read them? Why do you, dear Reader? Do you like being thrilled? Scared, safely in the comfort of your home? Do you like that eerie frisson of chill running over your skin when you read a particularly scary line or scene? I know that I am always on the lookout for this. It's delightful and shivery at the same time. There is nothing like a good chill.

I also find that horror tales are cautionary. They remind me of what not to do. Don't go into the unknown house alone. If lights keep flickering on and off and you get chills and the sense you are not alone, you're not! Horror also tells me what to do/not to do when I find myself in a scary situation. The edge that horror has though, is that often it's from deep within our subconscious, so we can't control these deeper urges, or we are overtaken by events that we are powerless to do anything but try to survive. The best horror shows us a way out, reminding us that there is a price to pay for going to the edge of the dark, where terror and truth lie. It's also exciting, and a safe way to confront our darkest fears.

84, Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff, or once upon a time before the internet

2011-08-06T01:50:00.000-04:00

I've been reading a lot of mysteries and horror lately - reviews will come shortly - and yesterday I wanted to read something different. I grabbed 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff off of my books to be read shelf. I read it once long ago, and I've seen the movie with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. I prefer the book version, because the sense of the relationship, the love of books, the love of selling books to the right people, comes through this series of letters over 20 years between Helene, an American writer, and Frank, who works in a used book store on Charing Cross Road in London. This was my introduction to London, that there was a street devoted to selling books. This is no longer true of Charing Cross Road, although many good bookstores are found in and around the area, both new and used. I know because whenever I go to London, that's always one of my destinations. I came to Charing Cross Road because of the book 84, Charing Cross Road.

I love the generosity between these two people, and the lives that are touched by this correspondence. Helene writes because of an ad the book store - Marks & Co - have put in a paper, advertising they specialize in out-of-print books. As I read about her request for books, I was thrilled to see that in the 15 or so years since I read this book, I have read some of these books now myself! Helene is always searching for a particular edition of a book, and Frank is both the buyer for the store, as well as book seller and correspondent with Helene.

This is a fine meeting of love of books and kindness, and it is becoming a book I love. My edition is the new Penguin edition with a photo of the bookseller on the front cover. I see only the books, though. .And the street in London.

Last week I finally took the plunge and ordered some out of print books from the Book Depository in the US. You can find them through Amazon.ca/com/co.uk. They will hopefully arrive next week - I'll do a post when they arrive, but really what has struck me is how different the world is now from 60 years ago when Helene first wrote to Marks & Co with her list of books. Back then, there was only mail, and letters written and sent, and long waits for replies. Now, it's the internet - in some ways magical, with book ordering at my fingertips, and I do love the internet for this!! And being able to see at any time what's in print, what's available, what isn't. But I don't write letters any more, and unless I go to my local bookstore - which I do regularly - I don't get to meet and talk with my local bookseller about books.

What some of you may not know, is that once upon a time I worked in bookstores also. Both new bookstores, and used bookstores. I like them both, for different reasons. I miss spending my days among books, helping customers find the right books, ordering for them, and just being surrounded by books. 84, Charing Cross Road made me long to be back in books again! So I said to my husband that when I have my holidays at the end of this month, I really want to take a day to just go wander in the used book stores in Ottawa. Because we have two universities here, we have more used book stores than many cities do, which is a secret pleasure of living in Ottawa. Many have gone out of business now, including The Book Market on Dalhousie St, where I got my very first job when I moved to Ottawa 26 years ago. There are still many fine ones, and I always, always find books when I go into them.

84, Charing Cross Road is all about the magic of reading, and the sharing of good books.

Here is a small list of some of the books that are currently out of print or very hard to get, that I am looking for, because part of talking about books, is talking about what we really want to read and just can't find yet, as well as what we love.
- Winds of Marble Arch by Connie Willis - put out by Subterranean Press, only the hardcover was published so far. I held a copy of the hardcover in my hands, and put it back as my birthday was approaching and I wanted my husband to get it for me. Sadly, when I went back to get it, it was already gone and any more copies have been unavailable since.
Forest of Souls - A Walk Through The Tarot by Rachel Pollack. I recently found a copy at our library and read it. It was a revelation to me, and I have since bought all her books and am restudying the tarot. While some are available used on line, I want to wait and see if I can track it down here before risking the mail.
The Spiral Dance - Gabriel Garcia Y Robertson - I had a copy of this book, read it and loved it - time travel romance set in England and Scotland, it was amazing. It's also out of print.
Raising Demons - Shirley Jackson. I once saw a copy, I might even have owned one. I sillily gave it away and have been looking for it ever since. It's the hilarious story of raising her children, à la Erma Bombeck.
- any book by Charles Addams, who is the creator of the Addams family in cartoon sketches. I once owned several books of his illustrations, which are gorgeously creepy and deliciously hinting at darkness in humans. Absolutely the best and I finally found one of his books online at Powell's, so this is one of the orders I am waiting to see how it gets here, and in what condition. I'm so excited! Here is a link to one of his on my wishlist.

What are you looking for, dear reader, that you haunt used book stores for, or pine away on Amazon looking for a copy suddenly appearing?

The Power of Poetry

2011-07-17T01:19:00.000-04:00

We are down to one computer now, and as the children are now able to play games online, my time to be here is less than usual until we can afford a new computer. So I haven't been on as much as I hoped the past two weeks, and right now it is 1 a.m. and I am heading to bed. Before I go though, I wanted to ask a question:

If you read poetry, do you have a poem, a book of poems, or a poet, who saved your life?

I ask this because over at Terri Windling's blog, she has some Friday recommendations, among which is a link to a post by Michael Bourne, called Embracing the Other I Am, Or How Walt Whitman Saved My Life. This is a wonderful post, about how at the bottom of his despair, he discovered the original poems Whitman published back in 1855, and they literally saved him.

This has got me thinking about the power of words, of writing, of poets and poetry. As many of you know, I read some poetry - Mary Oliver is my current favourite poet, teaching me how to bring my love of nature into my own writing even as I fall in love with hers. There is something about poetry that lets our souls talk to one another that I've only found rarely in novels or other writing.

The poet that comes to my mind who saved me, is Sylvia Plath. I found her at a difficult time in my life, when I was young and just leaving home - I left when I was 18, so very young it seems now looking back! Her poetry was angry, and it was a revelation to me, that poetry could be powerful and say things that weren't nice. Sylvia's poems are full of difficult ideas and themes, alienation from herself as well as her family, struggling to be an artist and to trust herself, and it was as if I suddenly saw myself reflected back to me in her words. I could be angry, I could feel grief, I didn't have to be nice and pretend to be happy all the time. It was shocking, and if now there are many more women poets who also write about what it means to be a woman today, for me Sylvia writes about what it is to be young and angry and trying to find out why, what it all means. Because of her I dared to begin writing poetry about how I really feel, and to stop hiding from even myself. I think she saved me, also. Ariel was her book of poems I discovered this way.

So, is there a poet whose words reached out to you and showed you yourself, or life, in a new way?

The wonder of books, is that they are just waiting for us to find them, no matter how much time passes. This is a miracle I am grateful for, this very early Sunday morning at 1 a.m. May we always find the books we need, when we need them.

Happy reading, everyone!

Some book reviews and some more garden fairies

2011-06-29T00:04:00.001-04:00

So, what are some of the fabulous books I read the past two months?

The Broken Shore - Peter Temple. Winner of the Duncan Lawrie Dagger from the UK for foreign crime fiction, it is set in rural Australia, far from the lights of Sydney. Peter Cashin has taken a post near the seaside where he grew up, on semi-permanent leave from the Homicide Squad after getting a colleague killed and almost dying himself in a stake-out that went horribly wrong. The book opens in Port Munroe, the seaside town where nothing happens, except the background racism of 'accidental' beatings and deaths of the nearby Aborigine community. Joe's broken heart haunts this book; he is unable to move comfortably, almost permanently disfigured by the accident in a back injury. Then an old rich man, the richest man in town, is found unconscious in a robbery gone wrong, and the seedy side of Australian life is exposed. Countering this are two new people entering Joe's life, and he comes to recognize that he can feel, and live again. Wonderful characters, superb setting, solid mystery that is sad and haunting when the truth is finally revealed. Worth every word of acclaim it has gotten. 5/5

The Ghosts of Belfast - Stuart Neville. I finally ordered this book a few weeks ago when I looked and looked and couldn't find it. It was worth the effort. Set in Northern Ireland for once, in Belfast, it is the story of an IRA killer who is seeing the ghosts of the people he killed. Twelve ghosts haunt him day and night. One day he can't bear it, and sets in motion the events of the book by telling the mother of one of his victims where the body is buried. Gerry Fegan is a fascinating character. As the story unfolds, we see how he has discovered in jail remorse, that he has always carried guilt for the victims of his crimes. He sets out to kill the men who gave him the orders - this is what the ghosts request over and over - like Ireland is trying to wipe the slate clean by not talking about what happened during the Wars. What happened then, happened then, is the attitude, though plenty of people in the novel are benefitting from the new peace in Stormont. Neville shows how unstable the peace process always is between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and how the new 'war' is the money coming in to line the same pockets as those who got rich during the War years. All this is shown in counterpoint to Gerry's eliminating those who ordered him to kill. It is another haunting mystery, one that presents the people of N Ireland as the real victims, always, of those in power. I really enjoyed the ghosts also, as well as Gerry discovering that he can feel again, after all, although he doesn't feel like he deserves to. Highly recommended mystery. 5/5
Read for the Ireland reading Challenge

Crime Machine - Giles Blunt. The fifth John Cardinal mystery, it takes place a year after John's wife has died. This is quite an interesting mystery, not the least of which is because part of the book is about the crime machine itself, a 'family' of criminals who are bizarre and scary and very very violent. The book opens with things being quiet in Algonquin Bay, and the police team are given old cold cases to work on. ATM's start being robbed, then the beheading of two people in an empty house starts the real mystery in the book. Who killed them? There is one witness, and her story - she is aboriginal, young, and very foolish - gives the heart to this mystery. Her freshness is counterpoint to the very different life led by the killers, the hardness, violence and manipulation masking as love - it's all very dark, very noir, and very very good. John is in the grips of recovering from his wife's death, and I enjoyed seeing how he was coping with the changes in his life. I really enjoy this mystery series, it's one of my favourites, and I'm glad to see John back after a two year wait. 4.7 /5
Read for the Canadian Book Challenge.

The Brutal Telling - Louise Penny. This is the darkest mystery yet from Three Pines and Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Louise Penny is beginning to develop a theme of exploring the darkness that lies in human hearts and what it drives people to do. She is specializing in the darkness at the heart of families, and this mystery deepens this theme. It is gripping, and very difficult to put down. An unknown man who is a hermit living in the woods behind Three Pines is found murdered in Olivier's Bistro, the wonderful bistro which is filled with Gabri's fabulous cooking. Yum! I always find myself drooling over the food that Penny describes so lovingly. I want to eat there. Despite all the murders, I want to live in Three Pines too. Ok, back to the mystery: I find it hard to write about because this mystery involves one of the central characters, and something is revealed that literally pulls the mask off to reveal what can lie hidden in a person. I really enjoyed this mystery. I liked what the Brutal Telling was about, the wood carvings, Gamache's search out to the Queen Charlotte Islands where the wood comes from that the victim carved, to meeting some more of the people who live in and around Three Pines. The Brutal Telling is the story that the murdered man told his killer, and carved in pieces of wood, which eventually reveals why he was killed. This is another mystery that you really won't want to put down until you know it all. we have more of Gamache and his wonderful idiosyncratic police team. Inspector Beauvoir, the impeccably dressed fastidious man, is central to this story. He is given lines of poetry, which when he finally puts them together, has an effect on him that shows what effect words can have on a person, whether in the form of a story or poem. I'm really happy I already have the next one already lined up to read. This series is addictive, and I think it's the place of Three Pines that really pulls me in. Wonderful mystery. 5/5
Read for The Canadian book Challenge

The Janus Stone - Elly Griffiths. I couldn't wait to get to this one. I'd been waiting for it to come out in paperback for almost a year. The Crossing Places was evocative and gripping and I was hoping this one would be too. It is. The Janus Stone is about the discovery of a child's skeleton under the doorway of a Children's home that is being demolished to make way for new condos. Two children disappeared many years ago, and one of the children was the same age as the skeleton. Ruth Galloway is the forensic archaeologist called in to examine the bones. The Janus Stone is the stone set in the archway over the doorway, Janus the Roman God of looking forwards and backwards in time. This mystery is about that, discovering the history of the land beneath the Children's home, the story of the people who lived there before, and of madness. While the mystery is quite good, the best part for me is Ruth herself, her lovely home by the saltmarshes in Norfolk, and her growing pregnancy, the result of a one-night stand with DCI Nelson during the previous book. It's fun watching Nelson and Ruth dance around the truth, and to see how Ruth copes with it all. The secondary characters are well-done, from Shona the friend who is gorgeous and irresistably drawn to married men, to the various weird characters Ruth gathers around herself, especially Cathbad the Druid. I really like this series - I want to live where Ruth is living! Maybe I could divide my time between Three Pines and Norfolk England? - and am trying to talk myself into the buying the hardcover of the next book in the series, The House at Sea's End, since I'm not sure I can wait until it comes out in paperback.
Delightful series, 4.7/5.

The last book I am going to review tonight is not a mystery. It is a horror book. I have been reading more horror this spring, I'm not exactly certain why, although it has been a long-time interest of mine. I'd been waiting for The Passage to come out in softcover ever since Stephen King mentioned it last year in his Entertainment Weekly column that it was a must-read for 2010. So at last, it came out in paperback:

The Passage - Justin Cronin. Everything Uncle Stevie said it would be. I read it in less than two days. I could not literally put this book down. It is the story of what happens when a bat is discovered that supposedly can cure illness.....only it's really wanted for secret experimentation that goes horribly, terribly wrong, and wipes out most of the world's population, turning the victims into vampires. This is an incredibly cool book. Not because of Stephanie Myers and Twilight, not even because of Buffy (I'm a Slayer girl from way back!), or even Dracula. This is dystopian end of the world is here, and what happens to the enclaves that are left behind, the survivors who didn't turn. What would the world look like 100 years after this devastation? Who would be left? How would history be transferred? How would society evolve in these enclaves? This is a terrifically imagined story. It's also the story of the Girl Who lived - who survived the vaccine that turned the other victims of the experiment into monsters. Who she is, and the people who try to help her, makes a fantastic ride. This was fun, and enjoyable to read, and it was creepy and nightmarish in many places, and sad, too. One of my favourite reads of the year, and really, most of these books might end up on that list, they are all so very, very good. 5/5

So that's some of what I read while I lost myself in books these past few months. More reviews will be forthcoming, because there are some more excellent books that I read. What have been some of your favourite reads of the year so far? Have you lost yourself in some books too?

Just for Chris, and Cath, and the other gardeners out there, here are some more of the fairies etc who fill odd corners and under leaves in my garden. My new header is from my garden also.

Missed You All

2011-06-26T02:23:00.000-04:00

I have been gone from here much longer than I expected, my dear Gentle Blogging friends. I thought I was handling this year quite well, coping with my knee injury and the death of my friend David. Then my son was hospitalized at the end of April for a skin infection, and I found myself doing what I always do when I am under severe stress: I start reading voraciously. I plunged headlong into so many good books over the past two months, and slowly, as it always does with me, all the emotions I was putting off feeling, started to surface. I'm not sure why it works this way with me, I have just always been so very glad that I can read, and have this outlet. I think reading has kept me sane for many, many times through my life, and this was one more added to the tally. Thank you, books!

So I have been busy reading. I've also been busy in my garden, a tremendous relief and another healing sanctuary for me. I love growing flowers, and spend many happy hours in my garden in our growing months up here in Canada. I was tremendously worried with my torn knee cartilage if I would get in the garden at all this year, and I am thrilled to say I can. It's not always graceful since I can't kneel yet, but I can sort of half lower myself closer to the ground so I can dig holes for planting, and weed. So between my garden and my books, and my family, I am starting to feel much less overwhelmed with everything.
A fairy in my garden.

I was really unable to do anything for about two months, and looking back, I see what a shock it was to me to suddenly be so helpless. I don't do helpless very well. I like being independent and not needing any help, and it was so hard to only be able to go to work and come home by car. No bus. No shopping for groceries or anything else we needed. It forced me to really feel shut in and shut down while I waited for my knee to heal.

What I did find was that I suddenly wanted to read all the good books I'd been saving, now. No more waiting and doling them out to myself once in a while. I decided to read all the latest by my favourite authors, if I had the books already. And since I've been able to take the bus again, since the end of May, a month now, I've been on one long book-buying spree. Every week I've been picking up books. I love it! I feel set free! I can't carry very much, and my knee is nothing like strong enough yet, but it is getting better. I can even do my walks again, and am up to a mile and a half every morning. I love being in nature, and hearing the morning sounds and seeing the green light of day and just being where it's quiet and me alone, is tremendously powerful and healing for me. In every way I can, I've been taking care of me during this horribly long spring, and my family have been wonderful and helping, even the kids, to pick up their belongings since I can't really get to the floor all the time.

I've missed you all. I want to thank you for waiting so patiently for me to come back here. I really want to thank you for all the books you talk about on your blogs, because over the past three months, I've either read or picked up books because you read them first and loved them:

Bybee, because of your post last year - OMG, I just checked, it was 3 years ago!! - because of your post three years ago about this book, I finally, finally found a copy just this week, and picked it up: my very own copy of The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread by Don Robertson. ***It helped that there was a little blurb that Stephen King named him one of his important influences on him. ****It does look really good.

Mariel,(***I think it's you.) because you said once that I should check out this series: Alison Croggan's The Books of Pellinor Series, I now have all four books, having found the last two earlier this week. ***just discovered that Andi at Andilit has read the first one, here.

Kay at Home Girl's Book Blog: because you said that Louise Penny's The Brutal Telling was better than The Murder Stone, for my birthday I read The Brutal Telling. You were right. It was far better than The Murder Stone. Dark, really dark and disturbing and mournful mystery. Thank you!

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise, thank you for talking about Peter Temple. I read The Broken Shore last week, and it was amazing. I ran out and bought the sequel, The Truth, halfway through reading The Broken Shore. I also have to thank you for talking about The Skeleton Hill by Peter Lovesey last year, because of that post I have started reading the Peter Diamond series from the beginning. I really enjoy this series. I just bought Skeleton Hill, which I think I will have to read out of sequence since I can only get two books in the middle from the library.

I will be reviewing these and others read over the past 7 weeks of silence from me. Someone read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi - Nymeth? why do I think it's you? here, or Bybee, here, or Chris, here - in the past year or so ****2008! three years ago! See? mention books, and sooner or later we find them..... and maybe all of you convinced me I could try it, and I finally did during this month of awesome books I read. It was. Awesome. It made me cry, and laugh, and look at my Turkish and Iranian neighbors in a new light. A Companion To Wolves (amazing! brilliant! and I've felt like a wolf ever since), The Janus Stone (creepy, why does Ruth keep going to the site at dusk and putting herself in danger? love that she's unwed and pregnant), and so many others.

I'm not quite at my count for 50 books half-way through this year, but I'm close - at 45, and trying to convince myself I can read a book a day over the next week so I can catch up. I am going to get to 100 books this year!

Here's hoping that all of your springs has been good to you. I will be coming to visit many of you over the next few weeks to catch up, and say hi. It's good to be back, and talking with you about books.

New Books in April

2011-05-02T00:49:00.000-04:00

Books I bought in April, in my one and only excursion to a book store. I had to restrain myself, partly due to my husband and daughter's then upcoming trip to England, and partly because my birthday is in May, so I was saving many for my birthday list. Here is what I did buy:

A Dark Matter - Peter Straub
The Merry Wives of Maggody - Joan Hess
Enchanted Glass - Diana Wynne Jones
Midnight Riot - Ben Aaronovitch

Books my husband brought back from England at my request:

I can't get either here in Canada, I've been trying for some time. I've already read Handling the Undead, review to follow shortly (it was so very good, too). I was so excited and pleased to see these! Can you see the bookmark in The Gentleman's Daughter?

I'm able to get around a little more now, and it's my birthday month, so I think I have to make up for missing some book shopping while my knee healed, don't you? I have quite a list of books I'd like to get, starting with:
Kraken - China Mieville
Smokin' Seventeen - Janet Evanovich (out in June)
Disturbance - Jan Burke (new Irene Kelly, out in June)
Among Others - Jo Walton
Feed - Mira Grant
The Janus Stone - Elly Griffiths
Ashes to Dust - Yrsa Sigurdasdottir
Bury Your Dead - Louise Penny
The Hanging Woods - Martin Edwards
Crime Machine - Giles Blunt
Let the Dead Lie - Malla Nunn
Thirteen Hours - Deon Meyer
Truth - Peter Temple
Silent Land - Graham Joyce
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Sacks - Rebecca Sklort
Harbour - John Ajvide Lindqvist
Passion - Jude Morgan
Curse of the Werewolf Girl - Martin Millar
Ghosts of Belfast - Stuart Neville
Blacklands - Belinda Bauer
Seventy-Seven Clocks - Christopher Fowler
Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft - Claire Tomalin
Faithful Place - Tana French
Cheek by Jowl - Ursula K LeGuin
The Passage - Justin Cronin
Winter of Secrets - Vicki Delany

Well. I have been busy compiling lists of books I want to read......and this isn't really more than an immediate list of what I would like to read this summer. Sad to say, most of these I'm waiting to be in soft cover so I can carry them around, so they've been out for a while now. There's all the Kerry Greenwood, Carola Dunn, Margaret Maron, Graham Hurley, Susan Hill, just to name a few, mystery series that I follow, most of which I have to read copious amounts of books to catch up with. Happily! C. J. Sansom....... Some of these I have been searching for quite some time now - Ghosts of Belfast, I'm looking at you! I forgot to ask Toby to look for this in England. This isn't even counting the Persephone Catalogue, of which I want to buy just about every book in it. The fun thing is, I will read most if not all of these books. I know this. So now it's like a treasure hunt: what will I find when I go to the bookstore, which books are waiting for me, and which ones do I have to hunt further for?

Carl's Once Upon a Time challenge - A Madness of Angels

2011-04-27T13:41:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I reviewed Charles de Lint's Moonheart, and today I'm going to review A Madness of Angels, both of which I read for Carl's Once Upon a Time Challenge. They are both excellent fantasy books, different kinds of fantasy, though they share one thing: an urban setting. Moonheart is set in Ottawa, Canada, where I currently live. A Madness of Angels is set in London England, where I'd like to live. I don't know if it is being classified as steampunk fantasy, but that is what came to mind as I was reading it. I had picked it up last year, but it was Geraniumcat's review here that convinced me I should read it soon. Then my current Locus magazine (unfortunately the review is not available online yet) arrived with a review of all three of the books in the series. I am so glad that I picked it up to read last week.

A Madness of Angels is an amazing look at the darker magical side of London - a London that is slightly seedy and noirish, but mostly magical. As Geraniumcat says, it's like Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman; both books make you look at the London Underground and the train stations with different eyes. Graffiti are messages, and you can see London through eyes other than humans', in A Madness of Angels. The main character, Matthew Swift, is a sorcerer, and able to see through the eyes of creatures inhabiting the city, among his many and varied talents.

A Madness of Angels opens up with a change frequently in 'I' to 'We' point of view, which like Geraniumcat, put me off slightly at first, though this quickly resolves itself into who is telling the story. Matthew has been dead, for 2 years, before his resurrection, and this is the story of why he is summoned back to the world of the living, and the new 'we' who are experiencing life for the first time. It's fascinating and I found compelling reading, the mix of Matthew's soul with the angels, and how they see London becomes our view through this mix of old and new eyes. I loved it. I enjoyed the mix of characters, and how they suspected one another, the various magical factions, and especially, the menacing evil and danger of "Hunger", the creature that is stalking Matthew. This is dark fantasy with almost a gothic feel, with the dark areas of London, the hidden magical areas and arcane sources of knowledge creating a deeper space for the city to take on a layered personality also. There are varied groups of people - bikers, witches, magicians, other sorcerers, beggars, and most of all, the city of London itself, with its vitality and energy and millions upon millions of thoughts, feelings, and energy of the people inhabiting it creating a vibrant place that for people who are sensitive to it, becomes a form of magic also. This is a fascinating way of looking at the energy of a city. I wonder what New York City, or Paris, or Hong Kong would be like for mages, how their magics would work there. It's also the story of how technology becomes more than the sum of its electronic parts, and this is what gives it it's steampunk feel. Matthew says often, life is magic, and this feeling lifts this book above much of modern urban fantasy, for me. It's a wonderful, fantastic read.

For the story itself, Matthew is a likeable, intelligent, humourous (as in he has a sense of humour) character, as we see him search for who summoned him, and the discovery that becoming one with the angels in the telephones - with the electric blue fire - holds its own dangers for him. "Be Free' has a whole new meaning after reading this fantasy book. I enjoyed it tremendously and have already added the sequel, The Midnight Mayor, to my to-buy list.

Please let me know if you have read this book, and I will add your review below.

Other Reviews:
Geranium Cat's Book Shelf

Where did the time go?

2011-04-26T19:36:00.001-04:00

Things I did this past month:

1.Picked up countless books to read, started them, put them down again.
2.Went to physio. Advised might need surgery eventually. Confirmed meniscus (cartilage) tear in knee.
3. Two setbacks with healing knee. Enjoy healing techniques at physio tremendously. Discover might need to buy exercise bike after all, if only for knee recovery. Have not told husband yet.
4. Bought a cane.
5. Bought plane tickets to England for 10 days for husband's 40th birthday, sent daughter along with husband for grandparents to hug and cuddle on April 14.
6. Heroically survived 7 days without spouse, with wounded knee and six year old son. Managed to do laundry, dishes, make lunches, get to work. Knee gave out once.
7. On the 7th day (last Thursday), son woke up with pain. Ended up in Children's hospital emergency department, and then with 3 day stay at hospital while son was intravenously fed antibiotics for a skin infection called cellulitis.
8. Discovered at hospital that not having a cell phone and being alone with child meant limited and collect phone calls anywhere. Decided cell phones were required after all. So is laptop. Have not told husband about desire for laptop.
9. Discovered that the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario is an excellent caring facility for sick kids, with warm and caring nurses. Realized after one night that torn meniscus + pull-out cot for parents = pain. Slept in chair for other two nights.
10. Arrived home thankful for recovering child, to greet returning husband and daughter the next day.
11. Somehow a month has passed without blogging. How did this happen? Wonder how life is speeding up as I age, instead of slowing down.
12. Feel need for holiday.

What I am learning as I have now not been shopping (even groceries) for 6 whole weeks: what I really need to be happy is my health, my family (and their health), some books, and some chocolate, and to be able to go for walks again.

Books read that saved the day: 3
The Tapestry of Love - Rosy Thornton. 4.5/5 I really enjoyed this book. I especially loved the first half, when Catherine moves to a new home in the Cevanne mountains and begins her life over again after a divorce. I loved the evocative rhythms of life in the mountains, the slowing of everything down to the movements of the days and seasons in the Cevannes. It was like a rural retreat for my soul, too. My biggest problem with the novel is Catherine's sister, and what happens with Catherine's new friend down the road, Patrick. In my family, with us sisters, what happened would be almost unforgiveable. It is explained in the book, but it still troubled me after. I don't want to give it away as a spoiler, and it didn't detract from the wonderful setting and life Catherine is creating, or the book. It was more a distraction that I didn't feel was needed. I could have a read this story all about Catherine in her new village and it would have been terrific just with that. It really is a lovely novel. Just what I needed to help take my mind of my hurt knee and inability to go anywhere at all.

Moonheart - Charles de Lint. 4.7/5. This was a reread for me. I first read Moonheart 20 odd years ago. It was the first book by Charles de Lint that I read. I fell instantly in love. I really of course, loved Tamson House, the mysterious, wonderful, magical house that protects everyone within, that is set square in the middle of Ottawa, in a neighborhood called the Glebe. The Glebe really does exist, and is one of my favourite parts of town for shopping in. Tamson House, sadly, doesn't exist, although even knowing that, reading about it's location - and it is set is specific parts of the Glebe that could be Tamson House, only makes me wish more desperately that it did exist.
Upon rereading it, I found I loved it as much on this time around. I see things now in the book that I didn't see before, such as recurring themes in Charles' work as the other worlds that mythic beings inhabit, that certain magical items in ours can transport characters to for encounters with these beings. Celtic myths are entertwined with Native American mythology, a big recurring theme in the Charles's works. One of the more unusual features is the presence of the police (in the form of our RCMP), and government officials, and a criminal element that is frightening, violent, and makes for an interesting mix. The main characters are Charles' wonderful mix of fun and realistic and just a little bit fey. Highly recommended fantasy book, that was among the first that started the urban fantasy books of the 1980's. 4.8/5
I really want to find Tamson House, still!!!

I can't write more, electrical storm is suddenly come around the house, so I will be back with more reviews and catch up in the next couple of days. I have to talk about the new Dr Who season premiere!!!

From a Death of a Joyce Scholar to Joyce's Ulysses, how one book leads to another.....

2011-03-27T17:29:00.000-04:00

I guess my title of this post gives it away, doesn't it? The Death of a Joyce Scholar by Bartholomew Gill is the first book I've read for the Irish Reading Challenge for this year. I've read a couple of the Peter McGarr mysteries before, many years ago, but this is my first one in some time. I found it second-hand, and grabbed it because I thought, well, it's about Joyce and Ulysses, and once upon a time a very good friend of my father's loved Ulysses and thought it the greatest book ever written in the English language. I think that was supposed to encourage me - me, an English Literature Honours student! - to pick it up, but sadly it made me afraid to read it, because if it was the best novel ever written, what hope was there for me as a hopeful writer to even bother writing? So I plugged on with my writing and kept Ulysses on the back burner. But I never forgot it. Who knows what Fate had in mind when I picked up The Death of a Joyce Scholar in early February?
In The Death of a Joyce Scholar, Kevin Coyle, a professor of James Joyce and Trinity Professor, is found stabbed to death on Bloomsbury, the annual June 16 celebration in Dublin , the day that Ulysses occurs over in the book. Kevin is such a James Joyce scholar that he has had one book about Joyce published, and a new one just about to be - 5 days before his death. He also has such a fine voice and good memory that he is able to quote pages and scenes from the book, and plays the role of Stephen Dedalus from the book on a tour he runs with his colleague, Fergus Flood. It was at the ending of this annual night's tour of Dublin following in the footsteps of the two characters in Ulysses as they move through Dublin over an 18-hour period, that Kevin is killed. His body is discovered in the night, and moved, and it is only when Kevin's wife seeks out Peter as 'one of us' that his murder is discovered. For she has his body at their home, propped up on their bed.

And this is the beginning of a remarkable book. Not just because it's a good mystery, but because the author has managed to write themes from Ulysses into the characters and themes and of course, the setting. Chief Superintendent Peter McGarr has not read Ulyssess, but after the first couple of days of investigating the case, so many of the people involved in and around Coyle are Joyce specialists - his colleagues, past-over student, publisher, who all quote James Joyce and Samuel Beckett to McGarr and the investigating team as a way of showing their superiority and intellectual prowess - that after his own wife guesss that McGarr hasn't read Ulysses, he decides he should, if he is going to understand the myriad threads that make up the motives of the characters.   So we see him settle down to read Ulysses, one night well into the investigation. Along the way, he stops to think about what he is reading, and says:

        "In his earlier attempts to read Ulysses, McGarr had discovered that the only availing approach for the novice reader was to consult the 'guide' often and in depth. But he now found himself forgetting the many allusions to symbol, history, and myth and merely "listening" to the words on the page, much as he would listen to a piece of music.
     "It was a particularly Irish song, he understood from the first page, and a particularly Dublin ditty - now melodic and fine, later rough and raspy, then rambling and vague and what McGarr thought of as ethereal, counterbalanced by a focus as sharp and unsparing as any microscope.........
      "The novel reminded him of the complex weave of voices raised in complaint, laughter, song, noise, and lament that he had heard all his life in one or another Dublin licensed premises, which could not have changed since Joyce's era."

It is that last sentence that caught my eye, and above all, convinced me to haul down my own copy of Ulysses, and open the first page. There were Stephen Dedalus, and Leopold Bloom, the originals, on the morning of the day in question, June 16, shaving in the early light. And on page 7 I had to stop and catch my breath, for a phrase leapt off the page and I saw it, the way I've seen it so many times back when I lived on the sailboat, the light of the sun and the clouds on the sea's surface: "A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, shadowing the bay in deeper green." I know exactly what that looks like, what it feels like. That's when I knew I have to read this book now, finally.

So The Death of a Joyce Scholar is a mystery that has become much more than just a mystery for me. The way the book ends also is deliberately written to echo the ending of Ulysses, with a modern woman in a soliloquy over a man, and ending with the very end of Molly Bloom's soliloquy about yes, which is a fine way to end both this mystery and a novel about a day in the life of Dublin.

I can hardly wait to read Ulysses now, even though I am still nervous. I like the idea of it as a novel about the song of life pulsing through Dublin, all the lows and highs and thoughts and memories, songs and faith and tears that make up a city where people live together. I think it will be interesting to see how much this novel is of Ireland, and if I understand any part of the melody, if being Irish isn't just being born in Ireland, but is something we carry in the soul, too. So all of us with Irish ancestors, carry some of this song too. That the enormous flux of Irish people from Ireland took the song of being Irish out into the world, though the eternal song is always back there in the green hills of the country, and noisy streets of Dublin. I'll see, and let you know.

Meantime, I really enjoyed The Death of a Joyce Scholar. I think every character lied, or hid the truth - certainly, this mystery was written in homage to Joyce, as every main character has thoughts and impulses in their part of the song of the investigation, thoughts they barely notice, impulses they act on, instincts that they use, and as the story unfolds, each of their movements help propel the story along, until each character, with a tiny moment in view or taking up chapters, is firmly in place in the mystery. Every character is Irish in some way, from the lesbian Mary to the beautiful and free Catty who causes her own misfortune, from Coyle's wife who as a large woman looks like Joyce's own Noreen (commented on a few times in the mystery), to the way all the characters lie, whether evading questions from their spouses or hiding what happened to Ward's gun from the press, to the mystery surrounding who exactly plunged the knife into Kevin's chest. It's funny, the amount of liars, innocents and cheats, there are in this book - in a way, The Death of a Joyce Scholar is a miniature mystery slice of Dublin with echoes of Ulysses all the way through, and all the more enjoyable because it's a mystery that discusses books, literature, and the meaning - or not- of words. It's also funny, with macabre moments and hilarious lawyer double-talk.
4.7/5, and another half-star for convincing me that I could read Ulysses, at long last.

Read for Irish Reading Challenge

Carl's Once Upon a Time V Challenge: Book Madness is Upon Me!

2011-03-23T00:33:00.000-04:00

Once again it is that wonderful time of year, it's time for Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings' fabulous book challenge, Once Upon a Time V. As if reading fantasy, fairy tales folklore, mythology wasn't magical enough, there are the artists that Carl introduces us to also. Once again it is Anne-Julie Aubry, and her artwork this year is stunning. I want this picture so much, I fell in love instantly with it:

And, of course, I can't choose just one level to participate in, because I want to be part of all of it. I am throwing myself into fantasy for the next three months, with some side trips into mysteries for the occasional breather.

I am doing the Quest the Third, which includes:
Fulfill the requirements for Quest the Second AND top it off with a June reading of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream OR a viewing of one of the many theatrical versions of the play. Love the story, love the films, love the idea of that magical night of the year and so this is my chance to promote the enjoyment of this farcical love story.
Quest the Second is:
Read at least one book from each of the four categories. In this quest you will be reading 4 books total: one fantasy, one folklore, one fairy tale, and one mythology. This proves to be one of the more difficult quests each year merely because of the need to classify each read and determine which books fit into which category. I am not a stickler, fear not, but I am endlessly fascinated watching how folks work to find books for each category.

I am also doing the Short Story Quest.
This quest involves the reading of one or more short stories that fit within at least one of the four genres during the course of the any weekend, or weekends, during the challenge. Ideally you would post about your short story readings on Sundays or Mondays, but this is not strictly necessary. I do this quest every year, with varying success. This is part of my goal to read more short stories.

I'm also doing Quest the Screen. Stories are not just limited to the printed page. Many entertaining, moving, profound or simply fun stories are told in the realm of television and film. To participate in this quest simply let us know about the films and/or television shows that you feel fit into the definitions of fantasy, fairy tales, folklore or mythology that you are enjoying during the challenge. Fantasy on the television or movie screen! I can easily accomplish this one. I'm not sure what I will watch yet, but I will be watching more than one fantasy between now and June 22.

I am calling this post Book Madness, because for those of you who know me, Gentle Readers, will remember that during the past three years that I have participated in this challenge, I have had many more books on my list than I could possibly read in three months. Last night I started with 8......tonight I went through my shelves after seeing what some of you (Cath, Chris and Pat are especially guilty here) are going to read, and this is now what I have in my momentary fit of I-Can-Read-All-Of-These, Yes-I-Can euphoria. Or as Chris put it happily to me one year, half the fun is in choosing the books! Since he posted a rather large list of possible books he is contemplating reading this year, I don't feel half so bad at my enormous list. Thanks, Chris!

Susan's Euphoric Fantasy List:
Dragonhaven - Robin McKinley
The Blue Sword - Robin McKinley
Muse and Reverie - Charles de Lint
Moonheart - Charles de Lint ***myth and folklore!
Silver Borne - Patricia Briggs
The Changeling - Terri Windling ****fairy tale
The Wood Wife - Terri Windling
First Among Sequels - Jasper Fforde
The Manual of Detection - Jedediah Berry
Boneshaker - Cherie Priest
A Madness of Angels - Kate Griffin
The Iron Dragon's Daughter - Michael Swanwick

A Storm of Swords - George RR Martin
The Mabinogion - ****myth
A Matter of Magic - Patricia C. Wrede
Beauty and the Beast - Max Eilenberg ****fairy tale
The Ill-Made Lute - Cecilia Dart-Thornton
Horns and Wrinkles - Joseph Helgerson
The Light Ages - Ian R MacLeod
Magic for Beginners - Kelly Link ***short stories
Kissing the Witch - Emma Donoghue ***Fairy tale/short stories
The English Year - Steve Roud ***folklore
Her Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Novik

A few other books should wander into here too, since I don't have Diana Wynne Jone's most recent one, and .......so many books! Happy reading, everyone, I hope to read many of these books and discover some new fantasy treasures again this year. Moonheart, by the way, was the first Charles De Lint book I ever read, and it's always held a very special place in my heart. This is a reread for me, and like with Dreams Underfoot two years ago, I am looking forward to revisiting this very dear book.

The Sunday Salon - The Snowman by Jo Nesbo

2011-03-20T20:07:00.001-04:00

I was in a reading funk last week. I picked up four or five books, read a few pages, put them down again. I knew my knee was distracting me, and sorrow, so I waited while I went to work and came back, some reading time lost because I am not taking the bus while my kneee heals. Finally, I got so impatient on Thursday, I looked around me and thought, what do I want to read? My eyes lit on The Snowman, the latest Jo Nesbo thriller featuring my love, Harry Hole. Harry! I thought. Harry can save me! And indeed, he did.

For two days I read it, yesterday lost in bliss for most of the afternoon. The Snowman is chilling, eerie, creepy. Harry is back to his old self, that is, the self we met in The Redbreast before he went on his drinking binges over the next few books. He is without his protector and former boss Byarne Moller, who has joined the ranks of the Dead Policeman's Society gracing Harry's wall: Ellen Gjelten, and Jack Halvorsen, Harry's previous colleagues, and Byarne Moller, all dead over the previous books in the series. Harry is now alone in his police force, and he knows it. Even though he has two new colleagues assigned to work with him, he is not liked, although he is respected for his detective work, he is feared because he is that worst of policemen also, an alcoholic who regularly goes on drinking benders.

And yet, be still my heart. For he is Harry Hole, who has love and loyalty too, to give, and who when he is not drinking, is the keenest detective alive. He makes brilliant leaps of deduction, but can't see what is in front of him until it's almost too late. He is also clever enough to realize that the plight of the motherless children reminds him of how he felt when his own mother died, which we get to see in this novel. He may be a lone wolf, but it's not because he doesn't care, it's because he can't find his right home outside of the police work he does. At the end of the novel, when he is offered what he thinks is a choice, and he accepts. It means that for the first time, he has realized he has to find more in his life, more to his life. That seeking justice and the thrill of the hunt are not enough to sustain him any more. I for one am terribly anxious now to read his next book! Will he be in North Africa? What will Harry do next? If he stays on the force, what next for him?

So, the plot: is it good? Yes, very. The Snowman is about a series of missing mothers. All of them are linked by a snow Man built near the house. The first snow fall of the year. And yet, the children in the house didn't build the snow man. When one woman's head is found on a snowman, and another has the missing woman's scarf tied around it, the police realize the cases are linked, and that a serial killer, one of Norway's first, is among them.

Harry is put in charge of the investigating team as he is the only one with experience with the only other serial killer in Norway. He has also been on a serial killer FBI course in the USA because of this experience. So he is the logical one to put in charge. As always, the clues are in the details, and following Harry as he finds each clue and puts them together makes for riveting reading. This is a very good police procedural. It's also a very good mystery, even though I had narrowed the possible killers down to two, by 2/3 of the way through the book, this in no way took from the mystery - instead, I kept urging Harry to find the one thing that would confirm what I suspected! And when he does, it is still almost too late.

This gets 5/5 from me. Highly recommended, just make sure you have some hours free when you sit down with it, because you really won't want to do anything else but follow Harry as he uncovers the secret behind The Snowman.

Other bloggers and reviews:
Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise

some favourite Dr Who episodes at our house

2011-03-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

After writing my post last night, I thought, what a plethora of sad news I've been writing about since Christmas.
So I thought I'd share with you something fun that has happened at our house: The Doctor has taken over. With the exception of my husband, who falls asleep during most tv shows, we all have favourite Dr Who episodes.
This came about because our daughter, Holly-Anne, who you will remember from this post a few years ago, has developed a serious crush on Matt Smith as the current incarnation of Dr Who.

This week, we have watched/listened to " The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang" many, many times. "I have to watch this every day!" she says, when asked why we are watching it for the 12th time in a weekend. It's Spring Break for us, so this has meant that last weekend, "The Pandorica Opens" and " The Big Bang" played over and over for a whole day. We finally, after many hours of listening to these same two episodes, insisted she watch something else. So she put on the episode before it, "The Lodger". Now, "The Lodger" happens to contain a soccer game. Graham is a tiny ball of soccer fever, at age 6. We are even playing Monopoly because my in-laws sent us a version of Monopoly from England that featured the current English Premier League teams (in 2002) as the properties we could buy. So for the past two days when it hasn't been"The Pandorica Opens" and " The Big Bang", it has been "The Lodger". (This just finished playing recently this evening.) We turned on the tv to find Space Channel playing the very first Dr Who episode of the recent series, the one featuring Rose and The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston). This one, "Rose", with the mannequins, is my youngest's oldest favourite, that we also have had to watch over and over, through the past year. He also made us watch
"The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances" , and "Midnight"
over and over. There is something about Dr Who episodes that makes them stand up very well under repeat viewings.

Along the way of watching Dr Who in this household, we have had to discuss so many things the show brings up: time travel, history, how the doctor comes back, where Rose currently is (in a different dimension sealed off from ours), why the doctor never dies, extraterrestrial life, who Van Gogh was, how important memory is (Amy recreates the world because she has such a powerful memory, stronger than even the Doctor guesses). We've met Charles Dickens, Queen Victoria, the Titanic, Romans in early Britain, how dangerous angel statues really are (I like to scare the children too), and all through the 5 glorious years of Dr Who so far, seen so many examples of love, and faith, triumph. We've seen Rose try to save her father from his early death, and how it nearly wipes the world out. Loss, and grief, are part of Dr Who too. He can't save his family, or his world that was destroyed in the Time Wars, even though he is a time lord. We've met his mother, and we've met another Time Lord who went mad - the Master. Dangerous, these time lords are. It might be only science fiction, but I think it's the best kind of science fiction.

And, we've met the Angels. The stone angels, the lonely assassins. Those are my favourite episodes: Season 3/ 10, "Blink", and Season 5: "The Time of the Angels" and "Flesh and Stone", a two-part series. Here is a link to a page about the Weeping Angels on the BBC Dr Who site.
I love "Blink" because it is about so much. There are the names - Sally Sparrow, Kathy and Larry Nightingale. There are the angels who steal your life energy, but at the same time send you backwards, where love is still found - Kathy marries the first man she happens to meet in Wales, and Billy marries her daughter, if I'm not mistaken (one thing with the Doctor is you have to be on your toes and listen to every piece of dialogue - it all matters. Another reason I love this show. No wasted space or energy.) There is the old creepy house, and the statues that you can't look away from, or they move.
Now tell me, haven't you had the feeling sometimes that things were moving at the corner of your eyes? That things were happening just there, where you couldn't see, and if you turned your head fast enough, you could see it? I have, though thankfully not often! There's also movies, and seeing her friend's brother accidentally naked, and a grown over garden, and statues that move.
I love this episode because the ordinary is taken, and turned inside out. Sally and Larry fall in love because when the angels threaten them, at the very last moment Larry throws himself over Sally to protect her. It's romantic. At it's heart, Dr Who is a romantic show, in the old fashioned sense that gallantry and rescue in the face of danger and braving terror for knowledge and adventure are romantic. All the companions are allowed to be heroines, to have strengths and sensitivity and make errors and cry, and be open. How could I not let my children watch this show? They've seen me cry over and over during "The Parting of the Ways", when Rose looks into the heart of the Tardis,

and we see the power of time, space and knowledge pour through her as she is momentarily like a Goddess, like a Time Lord, looking into all of time and space simultaneously. I love the powerful imagination let loose in this series, and the story telling is glorious adventures in time and space.

Here is another link to the "10 Scariest Moments in Dr Who". Do you agree? Do you have a favourite Dr Who episode that you return to again and again?

Hopping along on crutches

2011-03-14T21:02:00.001-04:00

So, there I was, last Thursday evening, trudging along in the snow/slush/ginormous puddles left by 11 cm of snow followed by 20 mm of rain. It's dark out, 5:30 pm. An enormous puddle faces me on the opposite corner. Too deep for my winter boots. I'll be flooded if I try to cross there. So I skirt the ~~lake~~ puddle until I get close to the other edge. Oh no! A car approaches - St Joseph Blvd is one of the major roads in ~~Hull aka Hell~~ Gatineau. Hastily I lift my leg to try to leap onto the ~~mountain~~ snow piled at the edge of the sidewalk. Crack! went my knee. "Oh, that can't be good," I thought, wondering if I could move it as the car lights approached. Somehow I scrambled over the ~~bloody snow Gatineau refuses to remove from the sidewalk edges~~ slushy snow pile onto safety of the sidewalk. Stand there wondering if my knee will unlock. After a few minutes, I can walk. Get to bus stop, limping badly. After many bad moments over the next 30 minutes, of my knee locking, including trying to get off the bus in Ottawa - another snow pile! gah! - and waiting it out, I eventually arrive at home. To have my knee click one more time, with a dreadful sound and instant pain.

Cue two hours later: at the hospital, where the nice doctor informs me that either a piece of cartilage has broken off, or the meniscus lining in my knee is torn, but the result is the same: can't x-ray my knee because it's already swollen. "Here, you're going to need these," she says sympathetically, writing out my first prescription for crutches. Ever.

You would think that lying around on the sofa or propping my leg up by the computer would prompt much reading time and deep bookish thoughts. Alas, the tylenol 3's that I take for pain ~~are laced with heavenly happiness I float away on~~ contain codeine, that makes it difficult for me to focus enough to read. No books read in the past week.

Winter - 1, Susan - 0.

Will this winter ever end? I did hear a cardinal singing ~~in the darkness once again because we just have to mess with the clocks, don' t we?~~ as I was picked up by my caring and kind friend from work ~~so I could avoid the 4 buses from hell~~ and arrive to work safely with my crutches in hand. Back to working 7:30 to 3:30 for this week while my knee heals enough for xrays.

At the same time as I injured my knee, I arrived home that evening to learn of the death of David Gehue, my spiritual advisor and medicine man, that occurred the Sunday before. Before I had time to begin to understand this, I woke up - as we all did here in North America - to the news last Friday morning of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. This weekend, while I have been sitting with my leg up on a cushion, I have been watching events unfold in Japan, feeling the enormous loss of life over there, and praying that somehow, miraculously, there isn't going to be a nuclear meltdown on top of everything else.

Sometimes, rarely, and this is one of them, there are no books, and no book thoughts. There is life, and being in this world, and painful, sorrowful, loving and kind and beautiful as it is.

Sometimes, even humour fails me. My thoughts are with Japan, and the Japanese people. And also with my medicine man David Gehue's family and Aboriginal community, at this time. I think of the cardinal I heard this morning in the darkness before the dawn, and I think that even in the darkest hour and time, there is still life. There is memory, and love, and laughter, and prayer. That's what David taught me. Even in the darkest hour, the cardinal sings.

The Universe has a terrific sense of irony

2011-02-28T23:18:00.000-05:00

So, I love books. A lot. More than just about anything on this earth. You know that about me by now. Imagine growing up surrounded by all these books I own. Heaven, right? to you and me, a definite exuberant shout of yes.

Remember when you were learning to read? If your brain sees a word it doesn't know, we stop and recognize that we don't know it, and try to figure it out. Imagine if your brain just put a word in place of that, that it already knew. Without you knowing. So what you read isn't what is there before you, but you can't see what's different unless someone shows you. That's part of what my daughter is facing, we know now. She has a memory retrieval problem, a learning disability.

She also has an auditory problem. She misses cues in class, and she can't absorb much information through her ears. She has normal hearing, but something happens to the word on the way into the brain, and it doesn't get placed in her auditory center, it doesn't quite reach it. So in a world where most schooling is through sound, it's all confusion and noise for my 8 year old. She doesn't hear explanations, and ideas have to be broken up into visual clues for her to understand them. This is another learning disability, called Auditory Processing Disorder. She was just diagnosed two weeks ago, as soon as she was old enough for the test to confirm what her amazing support teachers at school have suspected.

Combine the two, and ask her what it means when in a story a boy is travelling to see his mother, the question how he feels, and she doesn't understand what the question is. She missed the idea that he was nervous because he was travelling alone, and that his gift to his mother was his way of showing he loved her. It means we have to find another way of showing her what the words mean, and try to find a way to explain the meaning behind the words, the idea they are trying to express. Before now, I never even wondered how we do it, because I always knew it. This extends to her math, her science, her social sciences: everything that uses words, has to be explained in two or three different ways before she begins to grasp what is being presented. I'm not complaining, I'm puzzled and bewildered at the enormity of having to make sure my daughter understands her homework every night before she starts it, and usually having to read it myself so I can find yet another way to show her. I am beginning to realize how much our world relies on knowledge and understanding of the written word, and how much we convey about everything, through writing.

It means that the learning that I love to do, the experiences I know from school, the challenge of learning that I loved and exceeded in (except in math), are not experiences my daughter knows. She is making huge improvements this year in her reading, and she is trying very hard. She is learning how to read in two languages also- English and French. She is bright, and funny, and sweet, and caring, and kind.

But she doesn't pick up a book for fun to read, and neither does her older brother except occasionally - he also has a learning disability, that he has mostly learned to work around. The youngest one is already being tested along the same lines.

So, I look around me at all these lovely books, and I wonder, how can I get my daughter (and my son eventually) to want to read? Can I do more to create a love of books? Or is it something one finds spontaneously, within one's self?

How ironic is it that in a house full of books, which the child experts on literacy all recommend, and the library cards each child got as soon as they were born, I am the only one who loves to read for pure pleasure, all the time? The universe has a strange sense of humour, to give me three children who struggle to make sense of the written word. They all love to buy me books! Which I love. I think I would love it even more if one of them came running to me and said, "Mommy, there's a book I saw that I want......." I still envision my children all reading for pleasure one day. We have found with both of them that if we can find a book in the subject they like, they will look at it - animals for Holly, and soccer for Graham. My son loves sports, so we've tricked him into letter recognition by getting World Cup albums.

I don't think I will take the ability to read for granted ever again.

Sunday Salon: The Laughing Policeman

2011-02-27T15:20:00.001-05:00

The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo is the fourth book in the Martin Beck mystery series, and the first one I've read. I read it because Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise wrote this review back in January on one of the books in the series. Edited to add****I also read a review at An Adventure in Reading featuring the book The Man on the Balcony, #3 in the series, in January. I realized I had seen references to this series for years, and decided it was time to pay it a visit and try one. I was thrilled that the one that is considered the classic of the series, The Laughing Policman, my library had a copy of.

I don't know how I've missed this series! I really enjoyed The Laughing Policeman. Written by husband and wife team of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, who wrote a total of 10 books in the series, this was Sweden's first police procedural series. The mystery is set in 1968. The Laughing Policeman opens with the discovery of a crashed double-decker bus, which contains 9 people on board - 8 are dead, one is dying. They are victim's of Sweden's first mass-killing.

When they discover one of the victims is one of their own detectives, the case takes on a personal note for the investigating team of detectives. The fascinating thing about this book is we get to see inside the criminal investigating team and how they organize themselves to investigate this seemingly clueless crime. I enjoyed watching the thoughts as the case progresses, as they search for the clue that will lead them to the killer, who is still out there in the city, in Stockholm. Who killed these 8 - and when the 9th victim dies, 9 victims? Why? Why was Stenstrom, who wasn't known for riding the bus, on the bus in the first place?

The Laughing Policeman is the best kind of police procedural, where each piece of the puzzle is given to us, and we race with the police - well, plod slowly but surely, as the investigation takes well over a month before the break finally comes - to discover who, and why. The ending is one of those bittersweet ones where everything is resolved, but with the sense of chances missed, that if only Stenstrom had done this thing instead of that, then he would still be alive. Even though we never meet him, we get to know him through the eyes of his long-time girlfriend and his colleagues.

Martin Beck is the main person we see the book unfold through. He is quiet, with a stomach ailment that creeps through the book as the only sign, other than his sleeping on the sofa so as to not disturb his wife, of the toll his job is taking on him. He likes his work, most of his colleagues, and his quiet determination is what guides the team, although the assignment of work is equally distributed by others in the team too. It's more of a partnership in the squad, which is interesting given how modern police procedurals focus on hierarchy now. I like both, it is refreshing to see the different personalities fit on this squad.

Very, very good. This is one of the best police procedurals I have read in a long time. I enjoyed getting to know Martin and his squad, and am definitely going to seek out the other nine books in this series. Highly recommended. 5/5

Some book reviews! Really! - The Limits of Enchantment, and St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

2011-02-22T00:24:00.000-05:00

St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves - Karen Russell

I had been hearing about this book here and there, and finally picked it up over a year ago. When Stephen King said that Swamplandia!, Russell's new book, was one of the anticipated books of the year, I thought I'd better go back and read her first book. I also love the title. I love wolves, and it's an irresistible title.
St Lucy's Home For Girls Raised by Wolves is a book of short stories, and they are fantasy in the way that is fabulous, in the old original sense of fabulous being strange and wild and wonderful. Almost all the stories are set in Florida, in and around the water or the forest or the swamp. The two that are not, From Children's Reminiscences of the Westward Migration, and Accident Brief, Occurrence # 00/422, are set in the prairies/desert (Children's Reminiscences) and the Arctic somewhere (Accident Brief). All the stories feature young people, usually around 8 or 10 or 12, who are on the cusp of reaching for the adult world, not quite knowing what they are missing, but they are missing it, even as they explore childhood and the darkness around them. Almost every story features loss, absent parents, mothers who abandon their children to make a living in the way that the very poor do. These aren't pretty people, neither are they terrifically bad - they are children and the freaky adults they find themselves surrounded with. If I had to describe the theme of this book, it would be what life would be like if it were a circus - that extraordinarily twilight zone feeling that we get going to the circus, where certainly I want to laugh at the clowns, but at the same time I'm aware there are people underneath and are they happy? do they want to be laughed at? (of course they do, but I always worry about what people are really feeling, and not what they are pretending to the world.)This collection of stories is like looking through a fun house mirror, where the carnival aspects of childhood get twisted in ways we know are, even though they shouldn't be. They are gothic without any of the nonsense about death - surreal stories, almost. And fascinating. I really enjoyed this collection.

I love Russells' flights of fancy, her awareness of nature and the children being the ones taking the time to see the stars and trees and being intimately connected with life around them, before adulthood comes to sweep them away. There are ghosts and convicts and dream camps (I wish I could go to that one!), a minotaur as a father, and gator-wrestling Ava Wrestles the Alligator, which the new book Swamplandia! is set in the same swampland attraction as the short story is. One of my favourite quotes is on my sidebar; "Haunting Olivia" is one of my favourite stories in this collection. It's told by the older brother who searches endlessly for her in the ocean, hoping to find her ghost among the ghosts of all the other creatures that died, but even when she seemingly contacts him, he still can't find her. That sense of loss, of searching for something gone, permeates all the stories in this book. Olivia was sliding down the sand on the back of a very huge crab sled and slid out into the waves, but the tide was going out and the boys didn't wait around to see her come back in. Just like in real life, tragedy and loss, big changes and small. "St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" is about werewolves who are taken by nuns to be raised to be like humans. It's very good, especially as the girls learn how to not think like pack, and how they lose their sense of connectedness when they do that. Who says being human is the highest realization? Only humans do. These stories are weird and wonderful, like the old time circuses and men calling, "Step right up! See the Bearded woman! One night only!" Like Ray Bradbury if he had grown up in Florida, there is a sense of him in her writing. I highly recommend this book. 4.5/5

The Limits of Enchantment - Graham Joyce

I love this novel. It's the story of Fern Cullen, a young woman who lives with her mother in a small village in 1966 England. Mammy Cullen is a midwife, but not of the new school of hospital approved midwives. She is old-school. She knows the herbs and small magics that midwives traditionally know since women began having babies and needed help giving birth. She might be a witch, she might not. And Fern is on the cusp of asking what she wants to do with her life. Then Mammy is roughed up by some men - really, just knocked over roughly - and she gets weaker and ends up in the hospital. Fern has to contend with a group of hippies who move into the neighborhood, the advances of Arthur, and deciding if she wants to carry on her mother's work. She has the gift, but before she does more than take a few steps for the future, the local gentry who own the land decide she must move out because they are in arrears. And The Limits of Enchantment is about how Fern discovers who are her friends, and who isn't, and how she learns to ask and to listen and to judge on her own.

The Limits of Enchantment is written from Fern's point of view. She is engaging and frank, seeing through most people around her. But she is young, and she has to learn that she can't practice her midwifery without the support of the community around her, and when they initially don't respond to her requests for help, she faces being forced to leave. How she fights back and how the community rallies around her, is particularly funny and tender.

This is a really enjoyable book. Fern is a strong character as is Mammy. All the characters are interesting and idiosyncratic - they are really vividly drawn. I liked the setting - 1966, a small village, and I especially liked the midwife and magical aspects of the story. I highly recommend this book, especially to anyone interested in folklore and herbal lore, and changing society. 5/5

Science fiction at its 'alternative' best - Fringe, Roger Zelazny

2011-02-19T18:26:00.002-05:00

Carl's Sci Fi Experience (see my side-bar for the link) is a wonderful time to bring some science fiction into my reading life. My friend Lee in Dallas sent me for Christmas a collection of Roger Zelazny's stories, Frost and Fire. I did read one of the Amber novels many years ago, but I haven't read any of his short stories. She was reminded of his Hugo-Winning short story "24 Views of Mt Fuji, by Hokusai", which is in this collection, from an episode of Fringe. So, last week, we read "24 Views of Mt Fuji". It is beautiful. The story opens with Mari, standing at a view of Mt Fuji, discussing a little bit of love, and that she is on a pilgrimmage. "Having viewed this scene, and thought my thoughts, and felt my feelings, I have begun." She carries a book that has reproductions of 24 of Hokusai's 48 paintings of Mt Fuji, and the story follows her as she walks around the mountain, finding current scenes that recreate as closely as possible the original illustrations in her book. At each stop, she releases more of herself, more of her thoughts and feelings, as she is also chased by unknown assailants, and we see different views of Mt Fuji. It becomes a layering of impressions and reminisences, of the way memory circles and swirls around and around, until we discover that we have been looking at one thing through different landscapes. It is hauntingly beautiful. One of my favourite parts caught my eye: "Twenty-four ways of looking at Mt. Fuji. It struck me that it would be good to take one thing in life and regard it from many viewpoints, as a focus for my being, and perhaps as a penance for alternatives missed." As I read this, my thoughts flew to Fringe, my favourite tv show for two years now.

Fringe is SF tv at its best. You have seen me rave in the past about Fringe here, and here, and here. This season, we have been alternating (ha!) between the alternate world and this world, as Olivia as made her way back and the team has discovered what the alternate Walter wanted from our side. What is gripping me most about this show right now is how one man's actions have had repercussions in everything. One world, the alternate, is literally falling to pieces, breaking open to threatened vortexes. Last night we discovered that this world is beginning to show signs of the vortex spreading to here. We also discovered that Walter has been haunted by what he saw when he was in the Alternate Universe last season, the broken places of the world.

All because he took Peter to save his life, and didn't return him after. It is stunning storytelling, extremely powerful and moving, and we have no idea what comes next. So when I read the lines above from "24 Views", I thought that's what the writers of Fringe are doing. They are meditating on what Walter did. We are getting 24, 48, even 64 views of the 'Zero Event" (as the Alternate Universe calls it, the day Peter was taken, because everything started from then), of how one action is spreading ripples through that world, our world, and who knows how far beyond.
How many ways can we view what Walter did? As many ways as there are to explore the mysteries of the human heart. Because what Walter did was out of love and grief, this is a human-oriented science fiction story; no matter how unusual or fascinating the science, the exploration of faith, love, and loss, are at the heart of this show.

Roger Zelazny's story is wonderful, and while I don't describe it in SF terms, that was because I didn't want to give away a key plot point which is very SF. Fringe is fabulous (in both senses of the word) tv. Science fiction isn't just about rocket ships and space - though as you all know, I'm a Trekker through and through, I love my space stories! - it's about where humanity meets science and how we experience the world, the galaxy, the universe through the lens of our human heart. I don't read as much science fiction as I want to, and I'm grateful for Carl's Sci Fi experience for pushing me to read some science fiction now, and not later, like I always say. I will be reading the other award-winning story from the Frost and Fire collection, "Permafrost", and I picked up Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century edited by Orson Scott Card, from the library earlier this week. I might only have one week left in this challenge, but I am reading and enjoying some science fiction!

Are you, my Gentle Reader? have you discovered - or revisited - a favourite science fiction author or story for this 'experience'?

some fun posts around the book blog world: cover art, libraries, mysteries and stealing the TARDIS

2011-02-09T22:18:00.002-05:00

Memory at Stella Matutina has a fabulous post - Bibliophiles Steal a TARDIS. She asks if you could travel through Time and Space to an author in the past, what would you tell them? She has made it more interesting by imagining you give them a suggestion that leads to their greatest works. I picked Shakespeare and imagined I would go back in time and encourage a poetless playwright to try his hand at the sonnet......Memory did pick Jane Austen, so I joined her on that one, since I could never resist getting a chance to meet one of my very favourite authors. Who would you go to? Let Memory know! PS I would have to bring my daughter along, you will have to read my comment at Memory's post to find out why......

Ana at things mean alot has a thoughtful post on libraries: Books Are So Cheap! Who needs Libraries?. Because a couple of you, my Gentle readers, left comments on my recent book library post about the fees different libraries are charging just to request a book, I have been thinking about the differences in library systems (having lived in England for a year), and why libraries are important. Ana's post is interesting. Do you use the library? Do you buy books second-hand? Weigh in on the debate at Ana's post. Let her know what you think. I left a lengthy comment and still didn't run out of things to say. I think libraries are so important to the health of a community as well as a city and a country. It's a place for people of any background to gather to learn, to share, to explore all the sum of knowledge their library contains, and has access to. They frequently offer classes to help the disadvantaged learn how to write resumes, job-seek, type, use computers, and in our case here in Ottawa, the Ottawa Public Library also has frequent guest writers speaking out on various topics, from investing money to bird-watching, depending on how local/Canadian the writer is, and their recent book topic. And it's free. So anyone can attend. It's that freedom that I think is so very important, and I don't like that libraries are so often the target of budget-conscious city councils. Most especially (and this comes up over and over from Ana's commenters as well) the library is a place for children to explore the world of books and read far more widely than their parents, no matter how much money they make, can give them. I certainly used the library from a young age, and read so many books that we didn't have at home. I read the ones at home too. The library offered so much choice and variety, I could try anything I wanted and learn whatever I wanted. It's like a tiny slice of heaven for book-lovers, and I don't think of it as a pleasure or frivolous. It is far more important than that. What do you think? Let her know.

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise ( I love this blog name!) has a fun post: When did you begin reading Crime fiction?. You will have to go there to see what my answer is, and please let her know. I will say that I began early, and it was among the very first kind of books I read, and I have never really looked back, although fantasy is my next favourite genre. I thought I read them equally until I began keeping a books read journal in the 1990s, and realized that I read more mystery than fantasy at about a 2:1 ratio. That was quite shocking at first, since I was spending my time at the local fantasy store, going to science fiction conventions, and immersing myself in fantasy reading. To know that I naturally read mystery more than anything else - once I got over that surprise, I began, in the past several years, letting myself read and discover all the mysteries out there that I didn't know about before. It wasn't that I wasn't reading mysteries during my fantasy years, it was that I wasn't thinking about how much I enjoyed them consciously. Once I understood my reading history and how far back it stretched, I realized I had my home in mysteries early on. I also let myself read as many mysteries as I want to, instead of thinking I should be reading more classics, or biographies, or whatever. I am of course free to read what I want to! but sometimes we put barriers on ourselves about what we can read, for various reasons, and I always thought I should be a widely-read reader, rather than reading for love. I'm not sure if it's time, or my health concerns, but something changed in my late 30's, and I decided to read what I loved, and much more of it. No one is judging me for what I read, except me!

The funny thing is, now that I'm reading for love, I've discovered other books in other genres that I do love - Mary Oliver, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Jasper Fforde, as well as many, many wonderful mysteries........so what do you love to read? And if you do read mysteries, let Kerrie know when you began.

For those of you who do read mysteries, Peter over at Detectives Beyond Borders has a fun post: The BBC Gets It Wrong on Hard-Boiled Fiction. Did Hemingway publish the first hard-boiled detective story, or was it Hammett? The critic at the BBC asserted it was Hemingway. I would have said Dashiell Hammett, myself. I did a History of Mystery Novels in university (now long ago!) and I am sitting here trying to remember: we covered Philip Marlowe and Raymond Chandler, and Dashiell Hammett, but I don't believe Ernest Hemingway even came up in this course. We were studying who was important in the development of the mystery novel, not just big names who wrote mystery fiction. I think that might be where the BBC critic got mixed up. It also depends on your definition of hard-boiled fiction - hard-boiled I think of as pertaining to detectives and a certain world-weary way of looking at the world and crime. Hemingway certainly wrote in this manner - world-weariness - for much of his fiction, but not in crime terms. It's interesting that I can read hard-boiled detective fiction, but I can't read Hemingway with much enjoyment. What do you think? Let Peter know, they have a very interesting debate going in the comments on this post.

Amy at My Friend Amy has a very fun post in "A Cover Trend I Enjoy.' Now, I don't read many romances unless there is a mystery or fantasy element to it, but I do admit that I like looking at the covers of historical romances. I like the pretty gowns too, dresses that only socialites and princesses wear today. However, this post title got me to thinking about trends in book covers. I have to admit I am a sucker for photographed covers - I almost always pick the book up to admire! like this one purchased last month:
as well as artistic rendered covers, such as this one on the latest book by Rosy Thornton:
Looking closely at them, I can see right away that as is usual for me now, there are no people. Isn't this interesting? I don't like people in my photographs, only in art. I really like both of these covers, too. I am thrilled to finally have a copy of The Tapestry of Love - the author asked if I would like a copy to review, and I said yes because I've seen her book around on the blogs and I fell in love with both the story idea as well as the cover (and haven't seen a copy in paperback over here yet). **I generally don't accept copies to review from anyone. I'm not interested in arcs since I worked in bookstores before, and I'm not interested in being the first to read a book. It's just how I am, these days. So I did caution the author that I have to be in the mood for a romance, but this cover is so irresistible and the premise - a middle-aged woman after a divorce begins life anew in France, opening her own business, and well frankly, most of my daydreams are about escaping (with my family!) to anywhere that isn't in a city these days, so I'm finding I want to read the book now. So I said yes. It arrived today and I opened it up, all excited. This lovely cover is now mine!!!! and as soon as I read the story I will let you know how it is. Stay tuned.
*****Edited to add later same night: OMG! Look at these book covers that I found over at Jane's blog, Reading, Writing, Working, Playing, in her post: My Penguin Classics.....All Mine! These are beautiful, gorgeous, fabulous, wonderful covers. I want these books! So I went to Penguin Books.com to check them out, at the Penguin Classic Deluxe Editions, which these editions turn out to be part of. I love the covers by Ruben Toledo. So I went to Penguin Canada, where our Classic Deluxe Editions are listed here. I am so happy they are available here! Sometimes there is a problem with the Penguin copyright, so I have some books to look for now. I did find something else totally new: the Penguin Classics RED editions, which are the same price as other Penguin editions, but 50% of the cost goes directly to fund Aids recovery. Not research, but medicine for a person. The art is very different, but it's also very cool (except for Dracula, I'm still figuring that one out.) Did I say I am lured by cover art? Hmmm, I think I have to admit that yes, it does it's job very well (when it's well done). And I don't mind!

And that's what got me thinking from the book blog world today. Have any posts inspired you?

Guardian of the Dead - Karen Healey - the most amazing myth journey

2011-02-06T23:04:00.000-05:00

Well, I have Chris from Stuff As Dreams are Made Of to thank for his comment he left on my previous post. He'd been looking to read Guardian of the Dead, so I pulled it from my ~~towering~~ " it's not so big if you put it into smaller piles" stack of library books today. It's seven hours later, and in between making meals and doing the housework, I read this book today. Trust me, you won't want to put it down. It's unbelievably fantastic and good. I love this book. I think it's safe to say it's one of my books of the year.

The book is about Ellie Spencer, a 17 year old girl attending boarding school on the South Island of New Zealand while her parents go around the world on a cruise. It's not what you think, because her mother has just survived her treatment for breast cancer, and they are doing this in celebration. Ellie has to finish school, and she chose Mansfield because it is on South Island, far from her home on the North Island; she couldn't go live with her sister in Sydney because her sister is gay and her parents don't want her lifestyle to rub off on Ellie. Very normal, nothing unusual in that. She thinks she is a normal 17 year old girl, and that is part of the delight of this novel: all her reactions are, from her dislike of her body to her crush on the loner Mark, to her best friend Kevin who is hiding a secret, to the descriptions of the world around her, are satisfyingly real and prosaic. And then she bumps into Mark by accident, and everything changes. It's not what you think, though it is that too: Mark is not what he seems to be, and in touching her, he awakens a latent talent in her for seeing the magic things around her. She discovers she can use magical items, too.

If the book just contained that story, it would be a good solid fantasy novel. It contains much more though, and this is where it hums and sings like the best novels do. Healey has woven New Zealand's myths into this story, so we meet some gods and goddesses, and other spirits, the guardians of places, hence the name of the book. What is even more wonderful than having Maori myths brought to life, is that New Zealand, like any continent settled first by the First People (Aboriginals, we white people name them), and then by white settlers, so there is a mixing of peoples, languages and myths now. Guardian of the Dead is about the ancient New Zealand myths stirring, but it's seen through the eyes of a non-aboriginal girl who loves the Classics. So we get a fabulous mix of Classical mythology with Maori mythology. It's magic. Every magical form we meet, every old creature, the Guardian of the Dead herself - are believable and true and awesome.

This is a story about discovery: Ellie discovers who she is and what she can do. She discovers love, she discovers friends and friendship. She is betrayed, over and over, and stumbles along with only her determination and faithfulness to guide her. I liked Ellie, and I wanted to be Ellie. I liked her that much. She discovers magic. She discovers that the world isn't about her. She discovers how to control people, and how it makes her feel. She discovers myths are real. Her friends are interesting, and she is practical, down to earth, partly because her mother did have cancer, and Ellie spent a lot of her time helping her mother when she could. She makes the story work because she is just a 17 year old girl who mostly wants to be loved.

The journey in to myth is fraught with peril, and it is dangerous to meet myths themselves; humans are never the same afterward. So it is for Ellie, and Mark, as they learn the surviving putapaiarehe are trying to regain the immortality they once had long ago, and join in the attempt to stop them, for it means the destruction of the North Island all together if the ancient creatures succeed.

This is one of my favourite moments in the book, when Ellie is in danger from Mark's mother, Reka, who is a Maori fairy, or patupaiarehe, but really she is a species that is not human:

I wasn't moving. My feet were rooted as Reka's song rose. Numbed, I heard my fate in her voice - not death, but the long, wooden life of tree and bush, sleeping away winters and rising in the spring to thrust mindless to the sun. I might live a century or more until the rot claimed me, and never remember that I had once been a girl, with limbs instead of branches, who had fought, and run, and kissed.
Anger faded into placid acceptance as her voice sang out the final phrase and hung, questioning, on the last word.
I began to sigh my consent.

One of the myths I like is the story of Daphne and Apollo, which this little scene reminded me of very much. How did Daphne feel, when she turned from Apollo's advances, and her father rescues her by turning her into a tree? Much like how Ellie feels as Reska enchants her, I imagine. However Ellie is not fleeing from a boy, and she chooses to stay alive as a girl, before she is saved. This book is about empowerment too, for women, with several very strong female characters like Ellie, to Iris her new friend who is running the school play, to Ellie's teacher Miss Lagribaldi, to the Guardian of the Dead, to Mark's mother who is a dark enchantress. They are all powerful in their way, and for me, I found fascinating and energizing. It's not myths for women, it's women who happen to be powerful encountering and working with or within myths, becoming guardians of secrets. It's a fascinating glimpse into myths that are real because we believe. It really is an extraordinary novel.

The Guardian of the Dead is a marvelous journey to a mythic world. I can't recommend this book highly enough. 5/5.

Library haul *Or, the madness of wanting to read everything

2011-02-02T21:53:00.001-05:00

I was busy in January, reading 10 books. 10!!! I am so proud. A lot of my tv viewing has gone down, and I've been enjoying reading more. This is not say I'm not watching my favourites, I could never miss Fringe! Mostly, I am enjoying reading, and making time to read more That is really what my resolution is about, making more time for books. I know I can't read everything out there, though I really want to.
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

It seems I am finding almost every book interesting and irresistible. Actually, I think I always have, but between all the books I bought in January (that's the next planned post) and the 20 + books out from my library, I'm pretty well feeling like the next six months of reading is covered!. Ok, I can hear you all wondering, what books did I haul from the library?

Here is a photo of my Library loot:

The Library Loot (with Blogger responsible beside it)
The pile on the left:
-Spellbent - Lucy A Snyder
- Death at Wentwater Court - Carola Dunn (Cath at Read Warbler, her post here)
- Sweater Quest - Adrienne Martini (Terri Windling, post here, Delia Sherman, post here)
- Life and Fate - Vassily Grossman
- Sepulchre - Kate Moss (because of Bride's review of The Winter Ghosts, over at Bride of the Book God), and this one features a tarot deck.
- The Westminster Poisoner - Susanna Gregory
- Guardian of the Dead - Karen Healey (a blogger somewhere)....
- Well-Witched - Frances Hardinge (Locus magazine review)
- Visitation - Jenny Erpenbeck
- Juliet, Naked - *Nick Hornby*
- How To Make Friends with Demons - Graham Joyce (Locus magazine - see my sidebar)

The pile on the right:
- Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell - BBC production, dvd. (score!!)
- The Cold Light of Mourning - Elizabeth J. Duncan (Mystery Scene Magazine review)
- The Laughing Policeman - Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo (Detectives Beyond Borders blog, post here)
- Dangerous Angels - Francesca Block (Chris at Stuff as Dreams Are Made Of, post here)
- Murder on the Rocks - Karen MacInerney (Mystery Scene Magazine review)
- Dead Witch Walking - Kim Harrison
- Silent in the Grave - Deanna Raybourne (Bride at Bride of the Book God, post here)
- Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading - Maureen Corrigan (Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings, post here)
- The Burning Land - Bernard Cornwell (Mariel at Where Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops, post here - it led me to all her reviews of The Arthurian Cycle by Cornwell)
- The Limits of Enchantment - Graham Joyce
- A Chance Meeting - Rachel Cohen (Nymeth at Things Means Alot, post here; it's actually Litlove's comment to Nymeth that caught my eye, but the entire post made me add 4 books to my reading list!)
- The Outlander - Gil Adamson

I forgot to put in the picture the library book I'm currently reading:
- Valley of the Lost - Vicki Delany (Kathleen at Boarding in My Forties recommended this author to me, how I missed a new Canadian mystery series I have no idea, but I am very much enjoying her. Lesa at Lesa's Book Critiques has reviews of all the books in the series, beginning here.)

I can hear you all laughing. I know I won't read all of these, though I'm going to try! It's so much fun to click that button online and request a book from our library. If only we could click a button and order more time just for reading, too!!

I'd say there are a lot of very bad Bloggers out there too, though really I thank you from the bottom of my heart for pointing me towards some excellent books to read.

Happy reading, happy library loot!

Complete and Utter Book Lust

2011-01-27T23:03:00.001-05:00

All about Book Lust:

Ever since Jane posted about this over at Reading, Writing, Working, Playing, I've wanted this:
Pride and Prejudice, the Annotated version.

I want this so much!!! Annotated Jane Austen! One of my favourite books! I didn't even know she came annotated. Oh priceless treasure! It's on the books I'm about to order. O sweet joy!! This is complete and utter book lust, my Gentle Readers. Oh my.

I also have to advise you that Edward Gorey's The Unstrung Harp, which I reviewed here, is available in Amphigorey.

Can you feel the longing?

I confess, I really want to read this: The Passage by Justin Cronin.
I hope it lives up to the buzz. It comes out in paperback right before my birthday, so that's lovely timing! My only question is, can I wait that long? I can't carry hardcovers so I try to not buy them too often.

I have Margaret at Of Books and Bicycles to ~~blame~~ be thankful for this: ever since she reviewed The Gentleman's Daughter by Amanda Vickery, I've wanted it.

I finally have tracked it down at Amazon.ca, and it's on the books I'm about to order. I'm so excited!! Women's life in 18th century England! It's like reading what the world was like when Jane Austen wrote, when the Bronte sisters were getting ready to write.

Bride of the Book God talked about Leviathan, which is being released over here as The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea by Philip Hoare.

A year and a half now since her post, and I've been watching for this book all this time! It's coming in soft cover in two weeks, since I somehow missed the release in Hardcover over here (I still can't believe this). I have loved whales, since I was a child. Does this book qualify as a need then, instead of a want? how about Jane Austen then?

And as soon as I can find a copy, Patricia Brigg's Silver Borne is finally out in paperback.

Mercy Thompson #5. How does she settle into the pack? Does Adam try to cramp her mechanic don't fence me in lifestyle? Her nose for danger?

And finally, because it's the second half of one book, and because it's Connie Willis: All Clear.

This will count for Carl's Sci Fi Challenge, as well as the British Challenge. And she is one of my favourite writers. It's in hard cover, but I can't wait until next winter some time. I have to find out what happens.

Of course, this is just the temporary I Need to get as Soon as Possible List, not to be confused with I Always Buy The Latest Book By This Author List (which is permanent book lust), or the Show Me A Good Mystery and You Know I'll Want to Try it List. Or the Still Missing a Few Titles in this Series List. Or the Brand New To Me Because Of Bad Bloggers Reading Lists, list........

In other words, you really can't ever have enough books, my Gentle Readers!

Is there a particular book you are anticipating this year, Gentle Reader?

The Unseen - Alexandra Sokoloff - Very Frightening Haunted House novel

2011-01-25T00:07:00.001-05:00

So, you know I am a sucker for horror stories. I love being scared - in the good way, safely, through a book. Not in the bad way, which is in real life. I've found that the very best frightening books spill over into my life so that I become unable to read them at night. I become too nervous, too jumpy. Now, I like this feeling or I wouldn't read scary novels. The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff is one of those novels. It is so good and so frightening that I had to stop reading it last night and wait for the safety of daylight to read it. So imagine this: sitting at the kitchen table, cup of tea at hand, children on Wii, sun streaming in the window, and I am still scared. That's how good and scary this book is.

The premise:
Dr Laurel MacDonald flees from the West coast and ends up in North Carolina at Duke University, desperately searching for a proposal for a book so she can keep her job as associate professor and tenure. She discovers that the University used to have a psychic research facility on campus, that suddenly shut down in 1965, the year her mother left Durham for the west coast. Laurel knows she has family back east, but it's only after she buys her house and tells her mother what she's done that her mother reminds her that she has relatives there: her aunt and her uncle. From the time she discovers that the 700 boxes from the old psychic research faculty have been released a(from where they were hidden in storage), to when she makes the link to her uncle's mysterious mental disability which came from the same psychic research program, I found a real sense of unease growing. We follow the set-up that leads to her and her associate professor Brendan Cody to Folger House, where an experiment to see if a reported poltergeist experience could be uncovered to be true, first done in 1965 and that led to the mysterious shut down of the department. They discover the house, and this leads to them deciding to recreate the experiment again using psychological and personality profiles like Myers-Briggs, combining them with tested psychic ability to see if there is a link between personality profiles, psychic ability and expectation of psychic phenomena (which I think would be an interesting subject to study, by the way). There is a palpable sense of unease that grows into real terror as Laurel, Brandon and their two test students enter the supposed haunted house.

There is a little similarity with Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House: two observers, and two test subjects who test high on evaluation tests for psychic abilities; an experiment at a haunted house, where they stay for a period of time to record what happens. These are the only similarities, but I did want to point out they were there. The Haunting of Hill House is one of my favourite and all-time frightening ghost stories, and it is to Ms Sokoloff's credit that the similarities are only in the set-up, not in the execution at all. The Unseen stands on its own, and is in its own right it's very own ghost story. And it as unsettling and frightening as The Haunting of Hill House is.

It is terrifying in places, and I am very glad I read most of it during the daylight, and with people around me. I'm really glad I'm not alone tonight! That's how scary I found some of this book. I think it's one of the best horror novels I have read in years. So if you are looking for something to scare you, if you want that delicious frisson of fear running up your spine and tingling in your scalp, making the hair stand up on your arms just in reading about ghosts, then pick this one up.

5/5 and most highly recommended.

I could only find this in hardcover at my library. Even now, Amazon.ca says the paperback isn't available in Canada at all. I also discovered at her website that she has a new book just being released: The Book of Shadows. It combines a detective with a witch as a team. Sounds good!!! I'll be looking for this one now.

******Edited to add: I forgot to add that I have been aware of this writer ever since I reviewed Ms Sokoloff's first novel, The Harrowing, here two years ago. I am thrilled that The Unseen is better than The Harrowing (at least in my opinion it is) - because as frightening as The Harrowing was, I thought it could be more, and The Unseen does that. This is a horror writer to watch, and I hope that The Book of Shadows is as good as either of these two.

Sunday Salon: Where around the world do you read?

2011-01-23T16:48:00.000-05:00

So Memory over at Stella Matutina has a post today about books she's read by authors from different countries. That got me thinking. How widely do I read? Is as widely as I hoped? What do I want to read, and from where? So today I'd like to take a little trip around my bookshelves and the world, to talk about:

THE WORLD OF BOOKS

You and I know, Gentle Reader, that there is a whole wide wonderful world of books out there. Published in almost every language (because some are only spoken languages, they can't be written in words and therefore no books exist in that language), books come from every corner of the lovely planet. They cover every genre, every possible idea that has flitted across man's mind. What I'm interested in talking about is fiction, and because I'm me, particularly mystery, and fantasy/science fiction, my two main interests in fiction.

Last year this is where I read from:
Canada (my home country and nationality): 14
USA: 26
Britain: 24
Scandinavia (including Iceland): 7
Russia: 2
New Zealand: 2
Ireland: 2

Well, not nearly as world covering as I would like! I am thrilled that I have read so many from Canada, which is one of my personal challenges every year any way. I am delighted that I am expanding my reading to Ireland, to New Zealand, to Russia. There are so many other countries to try. I usually have Fred Vargas for France, but I haven't seen her new book yet. One country in particular I do want to read more from is Australia, which hasn't made it on my list yet for several years now.

I want to explain here that I do sometimes base my reading on where books come from. I have a finite amount of time, so I do look for books from other countries, authors who write mysteries that sound interesting. I like to read good books. I guess I'd say that I don't care where a book comes from, so long as it is good, but that makes it sound like I'm in search of the book, without the flavour that a different perspective and setting gives. I am interested in the differences in viewpoints, in how we see the world, and what living somewhere else means when we tell stories. I want to read more fiction set (or from) Central and South America, as well as Africa. I do have on my to-read shelves books by Deon Meyer (South Africa), Andrea Camilleri (Italy), Alexander McCall Smith (Zimbabwe), Karen Healey (New Zealand), Jenny Erpenbeck (Germany; the last two are library books), Tolstoy (Russia), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Argentina)......As our world grows closer in ability to communicate, I'd like to know what mysteries, what poetry and literature is like in other countries. I think how we tell stories is one of the best ways into a different culture. It's like where we stand in the world does affect how we perceive the world, our relationship to it. So a writer in Canada has a different perspective than a writer from The Netherlands, or China, or New Zealand. I like that. There is always room to read more from other places, so my question to you is:

Do you, my Gentle Readers, read around the world? Do you have any favourite authors that are from another country? Who are they? What do you look for? Tell me who you recommend - from your country, or who you love from another one.

Here is my list - because fair is fair, and these are writers that I've come to love and seek out, whose books are imprinted on me and inform me about the world and the times they were written in - it is only a partial list, representative only for the UK and the US, where I read most widely from:

Artur Indridason - Iceland
Fred Vargas - France
Isaac Babel - Russia
Henryk Sienkiewicz - Poland
Henning Mankell - Sweden
Jo Nesbo - Norway
Peter Hoeg - Smilla's Sense of Snow - Denmark
Kerry Greenwood - New Zealand
Ian Rankin - Scotland
Phil Rickman - England
Jane Austen - "
Charles de Lint - Canada
Robin Hobb - USA
Giles Blunt - Canada

Poets
Mary Oliver - US
Nikki Giovanni - "
Evgeny Yevtuschenko - Russia
Wendy Cope - England
Carol Ann Duffy - "

Books I have to take with me wherever I go

I also asked Memory if she had taken any particular books with her when she moved to New Zealand - books that she had to have with her, that she had to know were safe, and were with her to read, while she waits for the rest of her books to arrive. I asked her because when I moved to England 10 years ago, I sent most of the books I couldn't replace ahead of me by boat (after dispersing much of the rest of my library), and I kept a few special books with me to bring in my luggage on the airplane. At that time, they were:
The 2000 move - Books I Brought in my Luggage
*If You Want to Write - Brenda Euland
In the Garden of Iden - Kage Baker
*Bellwether - Connie Willis
*Black and Blue - Ian Rankin
Immortal Poems - Oscar Williams
Writing Down the Bones - Natalie Goldberg
*The Encyclopedia of Dreams - Rosemary Ellen Guiley
Animal Dreams - Barbara Kingsolver
*Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg
*Persuasion - Jane Austen
*Pride and Prejudice - "
*Dreams Underfoot - Charles De Lint
Tea With The Black Dragon - R.A. MacAvoy
*The Language of the Night - Ursula K. LeGuin
*The 20th Century North American Ephemeris
Secrets from a Star-Gazer's Notebook - Debbi Kempton Smith
The Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb

I know, that was a lot to pack into two suitcases! In 2000, of course, pre Sept 11, we could have two heavy suitcases.

Now though, I look at that list, and I wonder, would I take the same books with me if I had to move to another country? Some I would, and some I wouldn't. I marked the ones I think I would take with me still, on the plane, with at asterisk *. The rest on the list would be shipped instead! I still love them all......The astericks ones are mostly because I know it would be cheaper to bring them with me than to replace them, and these are ones I would replace, absolutely. This post is so long now that I will save the other books I would bring with me now, for another post. Because of course in the interim, I have new books and authors that I've discovered and love (Jo Nesbo, Phil Rickman, Gile Blunt, Louise Penny, Mary Oliver....the list goes on!) that I would have to take my favourites with me on the plane, to keep them safe with me.

Carl's Sci-Fi Experience

In one of those amazing coincidences that fill our lives, I just finished re-reading In the Garden of Iden by Kadge Baker, this morning. I read it for Carl's Sci-Fi Challenge, and now realize it also falls in the Historical Challenge since most of it is set in 16th Century England, in 1555 as Mary takes to the throne. I read this also to honor Kadge, who passed away last year. She is one of my favourite female SF writers, and I wanted to see if I loved her first book as much as when I first read it. Well, while I was upstairs looking at my books to see what I had brought with me 10 years ago, I came across some old journals that held, of all things, lists of books I'd read, going back to 1993!! So that's where they are! I said to myself, and then started flipping through, to see if any titles jumped out at me for what I'd bring over. I found that it in 1998 I read In the Garden of Iden for the very first time, and this is what I wrote:
"1st novel, very good! Wonderful SF, interesting characters, great history. Solidly good!"
So I'm going to let that be my review today, because the book is just as good today for me as it was then. Highly recommended.

The Year of the Ian Rankin re-read
So, this is by no means an exhaustive or even complete list of books that I love from around the world. I keep wanting to put Alexander Pushkin on, but I haven't read him in years. This just reminds me that the more I read, the more I find to love, but also that there are old favourites wanting to be reread, and I have decided that this will be the year I revisit my favourite Scottish writer, Ian Rankin, and his detective John Rebus. I miss reading new Rebus! I know he's retired (and personally I am glad Rankin left him alive), but I had years and years of reading him, and I miss him under my tree. There is only one John Rebus, and so this year I am rereading him in order. I have no set date for starting, and it's very loose - no schedule. I'm not sure if I will get done reading the 16 books in the series, this year. If you are interested, drop me a line or let me know in the comments, and we can read the books together and talk about them here whenever we are ready.
** I have just discovered I am missing the first 4 books in the series, so I have to go buy them and then I can start.

Happy reading wherever you are in the world, Gentle Reader!