Book Fair Week 2009 (part 2)

As I mentioned in part 1 of my Book Fair Week posts, I was in Quebec City this weekend for the Quebec City Women’s Club Book Fair, which took place on Saturday. All their books are $1 each with the exception of a few they consider special books (usually bestsellers in great condition, art books and other coffee table books), which are anywhere from $2 to $10 each. I stayed away from the special books, so this is what I got for $24:

The books are:

• 3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows by Ann Brashares
  
• A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright
• A Wrongful Death by Kate Wilhelm
• Another Thing to Fall by Laura Lippman
• Bloodless Shadow by Victoria Blake
• Creating a Life Worth Living by Carol Lloyd
  
• Death in the Garden by Elizabeth Ironside
• Factoring Humanity by Robert J. Sawyer
• Ill Wind by Nevada Barr
• Kiss the Sunset Pig: A Canadian’s American Road Trip (with Exotic Detours) by Laurie Gough
  
• Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend by Alison Leslie Gold
  
• Obstruction of Justice by Perri O’Shaughnessy
• Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern
  
• Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde
  
• The Doctor’s Wife by Elizabeth Brundage
• The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
  
• The Genius Factory: Unravelling the Mystery of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank by David Plotz
• The Girls by Lori Lansens
• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Petty Details of So-and-So’s Life by Camilla Gibb
• The Secret Life of a Schoolgirl: A Memoir by Rosemary Kingsland
  
• The Tall Pine Polka by Lorna Landvik
• The Three Miss Margarets by Louise Shaffer
• White Teeth by Zadie Smith

My friend Michelle, who gave me a lift to Quebec City (and bought 83 books at the book fair!), gave me two more books:

• My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

My best finds are A Short History of Progress (recommended by my sister R.), The Enchanted April (which someone at the book fair said was one of the best books she’d ever read) and Old Books, Rare Friends (which sounds great!).

Have you read any of these books? Are there any you’d recommend (or disrecommend)?

A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve (a review)

A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve is the story of newlywed Margaret, who follows her husband Patrick to Kenya shortly after their marriage. Once there, they meet a British couple, Arthur and Diana, who invite them to join a climbing expedition up Mount Kenya with another couple. The trip ends in tragedy, which causes Margaret to reevaluate her life and her marriage.

Last year, I read Testimony, Shreve’s previous novel, and was quite disappointed to find myself not enjoying it because I consider Shreve to be one of my favourite authors (read my review). Unfortunately, I felt the same way about this novel: the story failed to engage me. Although Margaret is a sympathetic character, I never connected with her. It seemed to me that Shreve kept her at arm’s length; I wanted to get into her head more. And the tragedy unfortunately struck me as a bit ridiculous—I felt impatient with the character who felt responsible for what happened, when it seemed clear to me that responsibility lay elsewhere (how’s that for not giving anything away?). Worse still, despite the liberal sprinkling of African words throughout the novel (so much so that I wished there was a glossary included in the book) and despite the fact that Shreve actually lived in Kenya for several years, the country never really came alive for me. Instead, the subplot involving Arthur and Diana’s servants felt predictable and forced. Overall, I wish I’d followed my own advice (which I mentioned in my review of Testimony): skip the latest Shreve book and read one of her earlier ones instead.

To read other reviews (many of them more favourable than mine), head over to these blogs:
A Novel Menagerie • Bibliophile by the Sea • Book Nook Club • Foreign Circus Library • Jo-Jo Loves to Read • Laura’s Reviews • Luxury Reading • Presenting Lenore • S. Krishna’s Books

Thank you to Hachette for sending me this book to review.

Book Fair Week 2009 (part 1)

As I mentioned last year, this week—the last week of October—is “Book Fair Week”: every year, the McGill Book Fair is held on the Wednesday and Thursday (i.e. yesterday and today), and the Quebec City Women’s Club Book Fair is held on the Saturday in Quebec City (which is where my dad lives, so it’s always a great excuse to go for a visit—plus he loves Book Fair nearly as much as I do!).

As you might imagine, I like to get to these events early, so yesterday Linda and I (along with a non-blogging friend of mine) lined up outside the doors at McGill for about 25 minutes before we were let in at 9 am. I managed to snag eight books, then Linda had to go to class. (I recommended two books to her, which she bought, so I hope she enjoys them: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life by Natalie Goldberg.) Almost as soon as Linda had left, Tina called me: she was ready to check out the book fair on her lunch break. I of course had to join her... and I bought another six books!

All these books only cost me $40 and many are in near-perfect condition (although I bent the cover of one book on the way home, which really annoyed me). Here’s all my loot:

The books are:

• A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman by Joan Anderson
• All the Fishes Come Home to Roost: An Indian Ashram Childhood by Rachel Manija Brown
• Being Generous: The Art of Right Living by Lucinda Vardey and John Dalla Costa
• Belonging: Home Away from Home by Isabel Huggan
• Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris
  
• Deafening by Frances Itani
• Hester’s Story by Adèle Geras
• Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
• Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life by Judith Lasater
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
• Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
• Specials by Scott Westerfeld
  
• The Giant’s House: A Romance by Elizabeth McCracken
• The Heart Specialist by Claire Holden Rothman
• The Shortest Way to Hades by Sarah Caudwell

The only one I’ve already read is Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson, which I remember loving.

I’m especially excited about The Heart Specialist by Claire Holden Rothman, which both Cindy and Linda recommended to me, and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, which I’ve read good things about on many blogs. I’m also happy I found a copy of Specials by Scott Westerfeld, as he’s going to be in town next week, but I still need the first two books in that series!

Come back on the weekend for part 2, my report from Quebec City!

Similar Covers: Headless Woman in a Black Dress

I swear I’m not trying to pick on A. Manette Ansay, who has the misfortune of having two books with lookalike covers (see my lookalike post two weeks ago). This time, the culprit is Limbo: A Memoir by A. Manette Ansay and the lookalike is A Good Woman by Lisa Appignanesi. (Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out which book was published first.)

Two other fairly similar covers are The Mystery of Breathing by Perri Klass (which also features a yellow font as on the cover of Limbo) and The Photograph by Penelope Lively.

Teaser Tuesday (October 27): The first rush of an airplane ride

Should Be Reading hosts the Teaser Tuesdays weekly event.

My modified rules are as follows:

Grab your current read. Pick two or three “teaser” sentences more or less at random from the book, anywhere on the page. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your teaser from… that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given! (Please avoid spoilers!) (Read the official Teaser Tuesday rules.)

This is actually my sister Brogan’s teaser:

“Once in a while, however, my parents bought takeout from a Mexican restaurant a few miles from our home. . . . I don’t remember any of the other food. The reason I don’t remember the other food is that their salads were so damned good . . . The dressing was tart and puckery—my mouth always bunched around each bite after I took it in. The oil base beneath it was rich and slithery, like nothing I had ever experienced. And there were layers of taste after the vivid sharpness of the first bite. It tasted like the first rush of an airplane ride, when the wheels lift off the ground” (p. 34).

This is from Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back and How You Can Too by Shauna James Ahern.

Brogan’s comment to me regarding this excerpt was: “It made me think a lot of things are like the first rush of an airplane ride, as in, that moment when you lift and feel half-elated, half-heartbroken, like you might burst into tears at the sheer miracle of being alive.”

(I love her statement at least as much as I love the excerpt she chose.) What is like the first rush of an airplane ride for you?

Mailbox Monday + blogger meet-up (October 26)

Although I’m eagerly awaiting a bunch of book wins (yay!), I only received one book in the mail this week: Dusk by David Doub, another BBAW scavenger hunt win. This one was sent to me by Jackie at Literary Escapism. (Thanks, Jackie!)

Yesterday, I got together with my blogging buddies, Cindy, Donna, Linda and Tina. (I’m still hoping that one of these days we can include Lucy in our gatherings!) There were fewer books exchanged this time, but I still came away with two, both from Tina: Cold Case by Kate Wilhelm (the latest book in the Barbara Holloway series) and Boys, Girls and Other Hazardous Materials by Rosalind Wiseman. We spent a good chunk of time trying to figure out our BEA accommodations (yes, all five of us are hoping to be in New York City next May!). I think some of the other patrons in the tearoom may have found us a bit annoying as we pulled out our computers (thanks to Donna, who had brought two, I had one to play with too) and began calling out the names of various websites of interest in loud, excited voices!

What did you find in your mailbox this past week? For other Mailbox Monday posts, head over to Marcia’s blog, The Printed Page.