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Friday Bookshelf: May 17, 2013

I read Room by Emma Donaghue this week.  It’s unfortunately a timely story – by which I mean that it’s unfortunate that we recently heard again of women being kidnapped and held for years.  What makes this novel bearable is that the story is told from the perspective of a 5 year old boy, born during his mother’s captivity, who knows of nothing else.  This keeps the story from rubbing the reader raw, but it’s still tragic and awful.  I was fascinated to discover that she’s also written historical fiction – which I am not buying because I am getting ready to move and must not must not buy any more books.  I recommended them to the library instead.  I would dearly love to know what sort of algorithm the library uses to decide what to purchase.

This is an older article about the demise of Borders, but it was referenced on twitter recently and I think it’s worth examining what the successful bookstores have done to meet the changing market.  I worked at Borders for years, and I have never really taken to Barnes and Noble – no matter how many coupons they send me.  The successful stores I’ve seen lately have had either a mix of new and used books, or new books with tons of other gifty items.

Here are 8 signs you’re a book person.  I score 8/8.

Glad to hear I’m in such august company on this one:

Yeah.

I’m in a bit of a reading slump – lots going on in my life, so can’t sit down and focus.  I have tons of options but I can’t fix on romance, or fantasy, or young adult, or history.  Time for random trivia, I guess, so I’ve pulled this off the shelf –  I have owned it for at least 10 years and have never read it all the way through.

Of course, I should be packing books, not reading them.  Any book packing tips?  The hard part is finding boxes the right size – a copy paper box full of books is too heavy to lift easily.  I managed to part with a sizable stack last weekend, partially by convincing myself that it is ridiculous to own two sets of the collected works of Mark Twain.

While at the more literary minded of the two bookstores I sold books to, a very nice guy walked in with a bag full of John Sanford novels, which the owner made gentle fun of after he left.  It had me thinking about what popular authors I will never read, ever.  I’m clearly not a book snob, but James Patterson, who is at this point barely literate, tops out my DNF (did not finish) list.  There’s a separate list of authors I read once and, they were, you know, entertaining enough, but can’t be arsed to read again – Clancy, Michener, Rutherfurd, Dan Brown.  And then there’s:

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I won’t watch the movies, either.  That’s right – I have never seen The Notebook.

Who tops off your “NO!” list?

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The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig

It’s entirely too easy to describe this book as “Downton Abbey” plus “Out of Africa.”  That isn’t fair to the book, or Downton Abbey, or Out of Africa.  That said, when I handed my copy off to its next reader, my first query was, “How do you feel about Out of Africa?”  Let’s see if I can do better here. 

Clementine Evans – Clemmie – has been neglecting everything else in her life to make partner at a large New York firm. She’s surprised at her 99-year-old Granny Addie’s birthday party to discover how far Addie’s health has disintegrated, especially when Addie calls her “Bea”.  She soon discovers she knows very little of Addie’s history, which is revealed to Clemmie in disjointed conversations with her family and to the reader in flashbacks to Addie’s early life as a poor relation at the grand Ashford estate, then as a London debutante just after WWI, and finally as a young woman in Kenya. 

Orphaned at age 5, Addie lives with her uncle the Earl and his wife at Ashford, clearly on sufferance, but her cousin Bea becomes her protector and best friend.  Bea is a golden child who blossoms into a beautiful woman who intends to fulfill her mother’s ambition to marry well, but soon discovers that the world her mother prepared her for no longer exists.  Addie carefully forges a different life in her shadow, which blows apart when Addie and Bea both fall for Frederick. 

There are a couple of factors that make the multi-generational story structure a difficult thing to balance.  Unless the two stories change over infrequently, the reader will know things before they are revealed in the other half.  I find myself skimming so that I can get to the part where they match up, because otherwise I yell at the characters,  “YOU ARE SO STUPID GO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTION ALREADY.”  (This is why I rarely read in public.)  The other potential problem is when the tension is unequal between the two parts of the book, so that I start skimming again to get to the more interesting part. 

That said, the author does a good job of achieving the necessary balance.  Because we know from the very beginning that Clemmie had a “Grandpa Frederick”, the mystery is not who gets the guy but what happened to Bea, who had every advantage yet apparently lost.  We have a few sections of Bea’s perspective, revealing a girl who is disappointed and unhappy, whose relentless socializing cannot make up for the false and brittle expectations she received as her birthright.  These few sections are thin evidence for deciding whether Bea’s decisions are fully blameworthy, and I could not ultimately decide.

Though the historical section are told mostly from Addie’s perspective, her story is missing a vital piece, because the rest of her story until age 99 are filtered through Clemmie’s and her family’s selective view.  How did the unconfident girl at Ashford become the strong matriarch of her family stories?  Is she culpable in Bea’s fate?  These are mostly answered at the end of the story, but she still keeps a few secrets.

Fredrick is a nice enough guy but wishy-washy and I suspect, has a tendency toward mansplaining.   I had a bit of a problem believing that everyone fell in love with him on sight.  Sounds like a nice Grandpa, eventually. 

Clemmie’s half of the book has the disadvantage of not being set in Kenya, but Clemmie has such a strong hold on the story that she is the only character we ever know completely.  Though she flounders around in the modern half, slowly figuring out what she wants out of life, her real story is about how the members of her family reveal their characters by how they processed the undercurrent of Addie’s semi-secret history that Clemmie is only just discovering.   It is only at the end of the book that Clemmie seems to have any agency, which makes the whole romance element blah – you’ll notice I didn’t bring up pseudo-cousin Jon the  love interest, because he is not very interesting.  My temptation to skim was strongest when Clemmie and Jon were not getting to the point.  They were often meant to be having witty conversations that weren’t terribly witty. 

Okay, so the men aren’t very interesting.  But it doesn’t matter, because this book is about the women – their relationships with each other, their ambitions, their strengths, and their secrets – but mostly about how even the closest relationships are based on incomplete understanding. 

 

I won a copy of this book in a contest at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.  Thanks, Sarah!

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Friday Bookshelf: May 10, 2013

This week, I caught up on my Spindle Cove novellas. Beauty and the Blacksmith: A Spindle Cove Novella is just out and is as delightful as the rest of the series. The most beautiful girl in Spindle Cove is destined not for a duke, but the village blacksmith.  It has all the energetic wit of the rest of the series – her books remind me most of a Tracy/Hepburn movie.  The series is still priced at 99 cents per delightful full-length novel (in e-book format), by the way. Here’s the first one: A Night to Surrender. I’m just going to keep bringing it up until you all buy them (or the sale ends.)

If you’d like something a little more old school, this Daily Mail article is about a 105 year old author of Mills & Boon novels.  (For those of you stateside, the Daily Mail hits the journalistic integrity scale somewhere between the National Enquirer and People magazine, and Mills & Boon is British for Harlequin.)

My entire twitter feed last week was people talking about the RT Booklovers convention in Kansas City, and many of the blogs I read have spent this week talking about how much fun it was and what great authors they met and how many free books they received.  In other words, I am dripping jealousy.  Next year it is in New Orleans, which is within driving distance, so maybe … At any rate, here is John Scalzi’s take on how polite the romance writers were to him, a male Sci Fi author.  Also, this on being escorted up to receive his award, by the traditional hunky romance book cover models:

When it was my turn to queue up, the two men looked over at me, wondering what they should do; my response was to signal to them that, hells yeah, one of them was going to walk me up. Because damn it, I was an RT Reviewer’s Choice Award recipient, and I wanted the full award winner experience. Which included being walked up to the stage by a hunky male romance cover model.

They both walked me up, each taking an arm. I felt very special.

The Baz Luhrmann Great Gatsby movie is out today.  Here’s the trailer:

I’m not sure how I feel about it – I haven’t joined the Baz Luhrmann fan club. Leonardo di Caprio is a great choice, though.

I also have concerns about the new Ender’s Game movie (due out in November but with much buzz over the trailer), but I’m not sure how much of that is fueled by my concerns about whether or not I should be supporting anything involving Orson Scott Card. Cast is very impressive, but you know, OSC still a raging homophobe.

And finally, here’s a book written by a doctor in the local office I sometimes go to:

The sample indicates that it could have used a little editing but might actually be pretty good.

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My Beloved World by Justice Sonia Sotomayor

I would have been happy to see any woman appointed to the Supreme Court at the time of Justice Sotomayor’s appointment, as Justice Ginsburg was the only woman on the court at the time.  Justice Sotomayor’s history made me appreciate her selection even more.  And then there was this:

For your own sanity, do not read the comments on that video.  Also, Maria has not aged since I was in Sesame Street’s demographic.

Justice Sotomayor states in her introduction who her intended audience is – those people who ask her how this or that challenge that they share affected her success. With that general audience in mind, it is a very accessible story.  It would be very well suited for a young adult looking for inspiration and encouragement to dream big.

Occasionally, she addresses those critics who might be looking for ammunition against her, but gently and with humor, noting that beliefs she held as a college student are not what she might espouse today.  She is coy about her current policy ideals, and stops at her first judicial appointment.

I’ve been skeptical in recent years about the more public face that the Supreme Court justices have taken – books, tours, interviews.  This book makes me rethink that, though.  Justice Sotomayor is open about the challenges she faced – poverty, an alcoholic father, diabetes, a distant relationship with her mother, English as her second language.  She is also open about her insecurities and failures.  She discusses the people and events that shaped her moral center and formed her friendships.  Ultimately, her empathy is a gift on the bench, and I think it is useful to hear the story of how she developed it.

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Friday Bookshelf: May 3, 2013

This week, Katie at Kindles and Wine took a suggestion I made on a “Best of 2012″ post and decided to read The Dog Stars.  She sounded somewhat conflicted.  I was rather ambivalent after first reading it as well, but it’s the sort of book that, as I said in my comment, stays with you.  However, it generates such a strong not-immediately-positive reaction that I feel like I should stop recommending it, as I feel guilty about this response!  Unless, of course, a reader specifically wants a book that will give a cognitive workout (and has already read Snow Crash).

I’m always fascinated by different reviews over books that hit me just right, especially when the book is very popular and the reviewer hates it. I recently came upon this review of The Night Circus, which I loved so much that as soon as I finished reading it, I started over at the beginning and read it again.  (Kindles and Wine agrees with me on this one.)  Everything she touches on as negative elements in her review are things that I particularly liked – the hybrid genre of it, the dreamy language, the world building, the setting that is connected to the world but completely apart from it.  I can intellectually accept that not everyone is going to love every book, but I can’t process it completely.  On one hand, I’d love to discuss it with her; on the other, I can’t imagine that we’d be able to communicate our opposite reactions in any useful way:

Me: OMG I love everything about this book and want to live at the circus!

Other reviewer: Yeah, I hated it.

Me:  Oh.  (awkward pause)

Currently, I’m reading Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories, a collection of incredibly odd short stories.  I’d describe them as allegories of the weird.  They contain very human emotions in situations so bizarre they are like dreamscapes after a particularly indigestion-inducing late dinner.  Note: I can’t think of anyone to recommend this one to, even though I think I like it.  Who wants to read something strange and disconcerting?

John Scalzi offers up his blog to other writers to discuss their books, and I love this entry by Delilah S. Dawson.  She makes a great argument in favor the romance genre.

Hatchette is offering their e-books to libraries at a price that sounds reasonable to me.  I can’t wait for all publishers to start playing fair with libraries and offering their entire backlist at reasonably prices on the Overdrive platform (which is what my local library uses.  Penguin, I’m looking at you here.

And finally, I’m particularly excited that I won a contest on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and this is coming my way: Honest question: Should I read Out of Africa before reading another book set in an expatriate community in Kenya? It seems somehow required.  I’m not sure if I’ve already read it or I just saw the movie (that is a great movie).  Argument in favor: it was one of the books I bought at the library sale.

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The Glamourist Histories by Mary Robinette Kowal

“But you said you were going to be reviewing the best Jane Austen adaption today,” you might be saying.

Well, my dear readers, this is it.  Yes, it’s historical fantasy, and it isn’t a sequel, prequel, or retelling of Pride and Prejudice, but it doesn’t get any more Jane Austen than this.

Our heroine is Jane Ellsworth, a spinster of 28.  Unlike Austen’s heroines, she is not  pretty,  graceful, or outgoing.  But she inhabits Austen’s world, where gentlewomen of modest dowries are in pursuit of marriage, even the plain ones.   Kowal developed a dictionary of all of Austen’s words, so that she can excise any word that was not yet in use, and her grasp of the period is thorough but not didactic.  To an Austen obsessive, it’s fascinating to trace this book’s DNA – where it matches, where it fits in, and where it  is completely and wonderfully different. 

Jane is at first glance a bit of Charlotte Lucas, a bit of Anne Elliot, the circumspection of Elinor Dashwood, and with a mother fully as silly as Mrs. Bennet and the father you really wanted Elizabeth to have (noting, of course, that a more responsible father would have eliminated a good portion of the conflict in the plot of P&P.  But still, we all want the best for Elizabeth.)  She also has a sister who is her complete opposite – pretty, young, silly.  Little echoes of P&P in the language and plot made me grin.

What is wonderfully different is the magic – but it is a magic that fits carefully into Austen’s orderly world.  It is a diminutive thing of illusion of light, sound, and fragrance, another artistic accomplishment for gentle ladies.  Jane is a skilled glamourist, as is the hero, who is a bit grumpy (but otherwise un-Darcy-like.)

What’s also different is Kowal’s view of the characters – her irony is lighter than Austen’s.   Austen was, quite frankly, bitchy to her minor characters especially, and as much as we love her, it would be a bit much in a modern work.  The rounder minor characters in Kowal’s books allow relationships that are more complex and natural.

I have a hard time reviewing this book because my response can be summed up so easily: “Squee!!!!!!!!!!!”  This is what I want out of a Jane Austen reboot: historically accurate, but with a twist.  If I see you in person and think you have any interest in fantasy, I will verbally push you until you agree to read it, so consider yourself warned. 

Here’s a video of Kowal at a book signing, if I wasn’t convincing enough.  (Shadow puppets!)

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What Matters in Jane Austen by John Mullen (and other Austenalia)

This book is like the best of my college classes without all the bother of grading and tests.  I hope that description attracts the right sort of reader without dissuading someone who might think it is too pretentious – it is scholarly but not academic.  That said, you really need to have read all of her novels (there are only 6 and some miscellaneous unfinished bits and juvenilia, so that’s not as daunting as it sounds.)   There must be some English majors – or thwarted English majors – who want to not just enjoy Jane or write fanfiction for Jane, but appreciate Jane’s incredible skill and nuances.  In fact, that’s the perfect audience for this book – people who want to swim about in Jane’s world and especially want to write about it.  Please, future authors of P&P sequels – read this book.

To answer the implied question of the title, what matters in Jane Austen is exactly what Jane tells us matters, and the genius ways she directs us to it.   Jane allows her characters – uniquely complex, flawed characters – to reveal their personalities by their thoughts, but not all of them.  Occasionally Jane elbows in to share her thoughts, but generally, her characters’s thought, attitudes, and actions, either revealed or hidden, direct the story and how the reader encounters it.  This book elucidates some of the conventions of her era, but also shows Jane’s skills and methods for the revolutionary developments they are.

Just before reading What Matters in Jane Austen, I read this book:

Technically, I was meant to obtain the first in the series, which was a free Kindle download, but due to an error the text was actually this second book.  The author has written a charming Regency about five sisters who are only superficially like Austen’s characters, and as it’s the latest Austen-themed work I read, I thought about it frequently when reading the critical work.  Of course, it pales next to Jane’s genius, and it’s not fair to evaluate it on those terms, but I happened to read them in the same week, so there it is.  If I  mentally rename the sisters Jessica, Emily, Margaret, Kate, and Laura, it’s a lovely story about five sisters on the cusp of adulthood who must begin making adult decisions to overcome adversity.  It’s well researched, but it’s not Jane Austen’s story or world or characters.  It made me realize how varied the reader’s experience can be, and how Jane’s ironic and indirect style allows those variations; in my mind, this totally misses the point of what makes Jane’s work timeless, but maybe that’s also unfair.  Clearly, the author was inspired by P&P, and who am I to say my interpretation is more correct?  (I will state unequivocally that my reading is more nuanced.)

The BBC is getting back into the Jane Austen business next month with Pride and Prejudice: Having a Ball.  That’s the UK date; who knows when I’ll be able to see it.  It recreates and gives the social context for a ball of the era.

When I heard a few months ago that Kelly Clarkson had purchased a ring owned by Jane Austen, I was impressed by what a large amount of money will allow a fan to accomplish.  I didn’t realize that an even larger amount of money allows someone, specifically a founder of Cisco Systems, to try to be Jane Austen herself.  Sandra Lerner bought Chawton House, once owned by Jane Austen’s brother, started a foundation to study women’s literature, and then wrote a P&P sequel.  Based on the online excerpts, it is well researched as to language and historical details but rather flat in the plot department.  I’d read it, of course, though maybe not at $15 for an ebook or $25 for a hardcover.

Tomorrow, I’ll be reviewing my favorite Austen-inspired book I’ve read so far.

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Friday Bookshelf: April 26, 2013

Author Brenda Novak’s annual auction to raise money for Diabetes research is starting May 1.  Authors, agents, editors, and publishers donate all sorts of things for readers and writers.  It’s one of the largest charity auctions I’ve seen, and has a lot of critique opportunities for writers.

The International Library of Children’s Literature has an incredibly well-documented collection of early children’s literature of Great Britain.

This week, I finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which was very popular when it came out a few years ago and I always meant to read. I’m sorry I put it off for so long, as it was incredible. I loved the voice of the narrator; I never highlight anything on my Kindle but highlighted several sentences in this book because they were so pithy and insightful and true. The story refused to reduce anything to cliches, and the characters were both loveable and real.  I want to visit the Channel Islands now.

I also want to read more about the Blitz, which is probably why I found this story about thefts of rare books from the Lambeth Palace library so interesting – the Blitz destroyed so many books that if something was missing they assumed it had been destroyed by the bombing and didn’t realize it had been stolen afterwards.

Courtney Milan continues to be smarter than everyone else about various things; here, she notices that Avon is dominating marketing of digital historical romance.

The World Without End blog puts together lists of Sci-Fi/Fantasy Award Winners, otherwise known as “Things I want to Read.”  Just as an example, here are the winners and nominees of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

Someone decided to split the list of “American Novelists” on Wikipedia into “American Novelists” and “American Women Novelists.”  What bothers me most about this is that somewhere, a man is saying, “It’s just because the list was getting too long.  What’s the big deal?”

No idea how long the sale will last, but this was a $2.99 Kindle book as of yesterday:

Yes, of course I bought it. And I’m almost done reading it.  It’s a sort of Lit Crit lite, like a Jane Austen course except no test.  Now I want to reread all of her books.

And finally, Tessa Dare is sending me a copy of her latest Spindle Cove book (she gave away several on twitter this week. !!  The others are still 99 cents each as e-books.