Booking Through Thursday: Beginnings

According to the Booking Through Thursday website, it’s not a terrible faux pas if I post this late, so here goes...

The question was: “What are your favourite first sentences from books? Is there a book that you liked specially because of its first sentence? Or a book, perhaps that you didn’t like but still remember simply because of the first line?”

I knew the answer to this question immediately, or at least I knew which book contains my favourite first sentence: The Last Magician by Janette Turner Hospital. The only problem is that I don’t remember the actual sentence word for word and at the moment all my books are in storage (with a few exceptions), so there is no way for me to check what it is. It’s taken me the better part of a week to figure out that maybe, just maybe, the book is available on Google Book Search... and sure enough it is. The first sentence is:

“In the middle of the journey, I came to myself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost.”

Intrigued? Of course this is a paraphrase of the beginning of Dante’s Inferno, although I confess I didn’t know that when I first read the book.

Other first sentences (from some of the novels I have on hand):

“A single line of blood trickles down the pale underside of her arm, a red seam on a white sleeve.” (Labyrinth by Kate Mosse)

“The Wednesday Sisters look like the kind of women who might meet at those fancy coffee shops on University—we do look that way—but we’re not one bit fancy, and we’re not sisters either.” (The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton)

“It is difficult to know quite where to begin this story, but I have fixed my choice on a certain Wednesday at luncheon at the Vicarage.” (The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie)

Mailbox Monday (July 28) – a day late

Here it is Tuesday and somehow I’ve not only let a whole week slip by without posting a single review, but I’ve also missed Mailbox Monday by a day. But I figure better late than never, so here it goes...

Soon after posting my last blog entry, I finally received my Penguins Classics book The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. Way back when (in early May), Penguin Classics was giving away free books (something like 1400 of them) in exchange for a review posted on their blog. Foolishly I thought I might get something by Henry James or Charles Dickens or some other more obscure 19th century writer. Instead, I received an email letting me know I’d be getting The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, which I feel completely unqualified to read, let alone review! But I said I would, so I’ll do my best.

On a happier note, just yesterday I received a beautiful hardcover copy of The Richest Season by Maryann McFadden, which I’d failed to snag from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program. It has been getting good reviews on LT, so I’m looking forward to reading it.

I promise I will post some reviews (and more) here soon!

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

Mailbox Monday (July 21)

Marcia at The Printed Page is hosting a new weekly book blog event entitled Mailbox Monday, so although I didn’t get much in my mailbox this past week, I thought I would mention the two new books that came my way...

The first I received is So Long at the Fair by Christina Schwarz, which is an ARC that came directly from the publisher. I requested it because I enjoyed Schwarz’s first book, Drowning Ruth.

I also met up with a fellow LTer, Nitestar, aka Tina at Bookshipper, who gave me her ARC of The Girl in Saskatoon: A Meditation on Memory and Murder by Sharon Butala. I’ve loved Butala’s non-fiction in the past, so although this doesn’t seem like my usual cup of tea I’m intrigued enough to give it a try.

The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex and Other True Stories by Pagan Kennedy (a review)

I can’t imagine why it took me so long to read one of Pagan Kennedy’s books. I fell in love with her writing voice from the first paragraph of her introduction to The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex and Other True Stories and was more than willing to follow her through the secret doorway “into a strange new realm.” In this collection of essays and articles, she writes about “oddities that [convince] you to expand your notions about what might be possible in this world,” as she says of one of her subjects. Although the promise of the introduction doesn’t quite carry through to the subsequent articles and essays*—some of the magic has leaked out of Kennedy’s writing—this doesn’t mean her book doesn’t make for fascinating (if too brief) reading. I thoroughly enjoyed the 12 vignettes of oddballs of all kinds, from Dr. Alex Comfort (the eponymous Dr. Sex) to a chatty African Grey parrot, not to mention a couple of MacArthur genius award winners. But where Kennedy really shines is when she writes about her own life and reveals that she too is an oddity, in the best sense of the word. Even though these last three stories are no longer than the others, she delves deeper and her writing is richer, more evocative, juicier. I can’t wait to get my hands on the rest of her books now.

This was one of my favourite books in 2008.

Read other reviews of this book on these blogs:
Literophilia • minds alive on the shelves • My Journey Through Reading • Presenting Lenore • Raging Bibliomania • The Tome Traveller’s Weblog

Thank you to the Santa Fe Writers Project for sending me this book to review.

*This is understandable given that most of these stories were originally written for magazines; however, her introduction does tantalize us with the promise of more...

(First posted on LibraryThing on June 28, 2008)

The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton (a review)

The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton is a novel about the power of friendship and the importance of reaching for your dreams. Indirectly, it is also a tribute to the women’s movement and the changes that movement helped bring about in American society. Although in some respects I found Waite’s characterization a bit weak—I had a lot of trouble keeping the characters straight at the beginning and some of them never fully came into focus, particularly the husbands—at the same time, the five main characters seemed very real to me. Clayton successfully captures the tumultuous mood of the late 60s and early 70s, reminding us of how limited women’s options were not so long ago, without being heavy-handed. (The conversation the Wednesday Sisters have about whether or not they’d take their kids to a female pediatrician is sobering to say the least.) She also manages to address a host of fairly serious issues without seeming contrived. The book is not without faults: I did find the shifts from past to present and from first to third person jarring at times. However, ultimately, I cheered for these women, I cried for them and I admired them for pursuing their dreams.

Read other reviews on these blogs:
Bookish Ruth • Caribousmom • I’m Booking It • Jenny’s Books • Leafing Through Life • Library Queue • My Journey Through Reading • Sassy Monkey Reads • Stephanie’s Written Word

For author interviews, visit these blogs:
Booking Mama • Lesa's Book Critiques

(First posted on LibraryThing on June 2, 2008)

Wit’s End by Karen Joy Fowler (a review)

I’ve loved Karen Joy Fowler’s books in the past, so I was mystified by Wit’s End. It has all the elements of a good story: a young woman (Rima, our heroine) who has just lost her father and who has questions about his past; an older woman who happens to be Rima’s godmother as well as being a reclusive mystery writer, who may have the answers to some of Rima’s questions; a box of old letters; a connection to a cult; some old unsolved crimes; even a wacky fan or two. But somehow the story never gels. The dead brother subplot feels forced; characterizing Rima’s loss of her family as just one more example of her losing things seems flippant and almost crass; and the whole fans-taking-over-your-fictional-characters never really gets off the ground (or maybe it just never really gets interesting). I was left wondering where the Karen Joy Fowler of Sarah Canary and Artificial Things fame had gone.

(First posted on LibraryThing on June 2, 2008)

“Booksworms have exceptional people skills...”

According to Hayley Mick, from the Globe and Mail, “A group of Toronto researchers have compiled a body of evidence showing that bookworms have exceptionally strong people skills,” but this only applies if you read fiction.

The Girl with No Shadow by Joanne Harris (a review)

Chocolat is one of my all-time favourite books, so I was delighted to receive a copy of its sequel to review as part of LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program.

The Girl with No Shadow focuses less on Vianne’s story—instead it is told in the alternating voices of Vianne, her daughter Anouk and the mysterious Zozie. Joanne Harris writes each character with a distinctive voice (which was a good thing since the images identifying each section were not always the correct ones in my Early Reviewers’ copy).

While Chocolat could (almost) have taken place in the Middle Ages, this book has a much more modern feel, which contrasts more sharply with the book’s magical elements. It is also darker in tone but as engaging and as full of memorable quirky secondary characters as Chocolat was. Harris writes with her usual flair; however, I felt it took Vianne too long to clue into what was really going on and the ending stretched the limits of my credulity.

Harris has also neatly sidestepped the issue of the different endings in the book and movie versions of Chocolat, so this book works as a sequel to either. And although I generally don’t like it when publishers change the title of a novel to suit a different market, this time I think the American title better captures the darker edge of this book. (The original title was The Lollipop Shoes.)

(First posted on LibraryThing on April 7, 2008)

Sitting Practice by Caroline Adderson (a review)

I was excited about reading an award-winning novel by a new Canadian author (or at least an author I had never personally heard of), but to be honest, I don’t think I would have finished reading Sitting Practice by Caroline Adderson if it hadn’t been an Early Reviewer copy. I got stuck in the first third of the book (the setup before and immediately after the accident)—I found the characters stilted and almost caricatured. The middle of the book (which is actually the section called “End”) is more engaging; the characters are fuller and I was intrigued with the story of Iliana’s emerging sexuality post accident, which I felt the author dealt with very compassionately. Unfortunately, the momentum of that section didn’t carry through to the end, which fell flat, in my opinion.

Writing the novel from the point of view of a multitude of characters worked to a point: it is always fascinating to see the same characters/incidents through different sets of eyes. However, it can also make a novel feel unwieldy, with the plot spinning out in too many directions, which unfortunately happens to some extent here. I also felt that the device of using the wedding as an anchoring point in the novel, returning to it over and over again, didn’t add anything to the story, as it brought about little character development or plot movement. Overall, the novel disappointed me; the ending felt too pat, considering how hard it was to get there.

For other reviews of this book, visit these blogs:
1morechapter.com • carp(e) libris reviews • I Smell Books • Mermaids

(First posted on LibraryThing on March 4, 2008)

Someone Not Really Her Mother by Harriet Scott Chessman (a review)

Someone Not Really Her Mother by Harriet Scott Chessman is a gem of a novel that deserves to be savoured slowly, although I confess I read it all in one gulp. It’s the story of a woman whose present is unravelling (she’s suffering from dementia) as it blends with a tragic past she’s never talked about before. Little by little, her daughter and two granddaughters fill in some of the missing pieces (and the reader fills in some of the rest). This is a stunning book—the segments written from the grandmother’s point of view are particularly moving. My only disappointment was that the back cover blurb led me to believe we would follow the journey of the granddaughter who goes back to France, but that’s a minor complaint. Harriet Scott Chessman is definitely an author I will be keeping an eye on.

This was one of my favourite books in 2008.

Visit this blog for another review:
Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?

(First posted on LibraryThing on February 25, 2008)

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (a review)

I first read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys in university, right after reading Jane Eyre for the first time and I remember loving it. It provides an interesting backstory for the first Mrs. Rochester, as well as fleshing out the socio-political issues of that time. However, upon rereading this book, I’m stuck by how unrelentingly hopeless it is. Any reader of Jane Eyre will know that this story is bound to end badly, but despite the lush setting and beautiful writing there isn’t so much as a glimmer of hope in this book. Nevertheless, I still think this novel should be required reading for all Jane Eyre fans.

To read other reviews of this book, visit these blogs:
Blog a Penguin Classic • book-a-holic • Musings • Random Jottings of a Book and Opera Lover • Rose City Reader • Semicolon

(First posted on LibraryThing on February 13, 2008)

Storming Heaven’s Gate: An Anthology of Spiritual Writings by Women (a review)

Storming Heaven’s Gate: An Anthology of Spiritual Writings by Women edited by Patricia Vecchione and Amber Coverdale Sumrall is a great collection of spiritual writings by American women of all stripes, persuasions and colours. I mostly enjoyed every single piece, with only a couple of exceptions, and was introduced to quite a few new writers. My favourite pieces were those by Mary Karr, Sarah Rabkin, Joanna Macy, Lisa Vice, Sally Miller Gearhart, Agate Nesaule and Martha Gies. My only reservation about this collection is that I found the mix of fictional stories and personal essays a bit jarring at times (I wanted them all to be personal essays); however, some of my favourite pieces turned out to be stories. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in women’s spiritual experiences.

This was one of my favourite books in 2008.

(First posted on LibraryThing on February 13, 2008)

Have You Found Her: A Memoir by Janice Erlbaum (a review)

Janice Erlbaum returns to volunteer at the shelter she stayed at nearly 20 years ago, when she was a homeless teenager. There she meets Sam, a bright young woman who reminds her of herself and who soon becomes her “favourite.” Have You Found Her is the story of what happens next.

This is a compelling and well-written book, with great pacing and a building sense of unease. It has the unputdownable quality of a novel and Janice does a great job of casually hinting that things are perhaps not all as they appear to be. And yet, for a memoir, I found this book oddly lacking in introspection. While Janice is unflinchingly honest about the feelings that Sam brings up for her, we never really find out what compels her to try to rescue Sam in the first place, other than the obvious, that Sam reminded her of herself and that she wished someone had rescued her when she was in a similar situation. Nor does Janice delve into how her obsession with Sam affects the rest of her life; instead, she glosses over her relationship with Bill, who seems too good to be true. Finally, the denouement of the book just happens too fast: I had the impression that she was jumping to conclusions—not that I’m suggesting her conclusions were incorrect; I just needed more details to understand how she came to them.

For all that, this is a fascinating book by a talented writer and I’m curious to read her previous memoir, Girlbomb.

To read other reviews of this book, visit these sites:
Booking Mama • Bookslut • Caribousmom • Leafing Through Life • meeyauw • Musings of the Book Goddess • Pop Matters • The Sleepy Reader

(First posted on LibraryThing on January 28, 2008)

Welcome to my blog!

After much hemming and hawing, I’m finally taking the plunge and setting up a book blog. I’m very new at this, so bear with me if I make all kinds of newbie technical mistakes. For now, this blog will mostly contain my reviews from LibraryThing, a fabulous site I’m just a little bit obsessed with. (If you’re not already familiar with this site, do check it out!) I’ll be tweaking the layout of the blog over the next few weeks as I figure out how this whole blogging thing works...