A Bohemian's Book Reviews

A Matter of Abuse

2010-02-02T20:50:00.003-05:00

Ok so it's been a while since I posted anything to my book blog. SO I thought it would be appropriate to start the new year with a little boost for my Dad's (John F. Helgeson's) new book "A Matter of Abuse". I have read parts of it in manuscript form but as of yet have not read the edited / finished version. So book bloggers and readers hold onto your hats for my thoughts on his book. In the mean time here's a little teaser from the editors concerning the book:

"Removed from her home by the agency responsible for abuse cases, Angela Gunnarsen won't be able to physically hurt her daughter Melissa anymore; the child is safe. But now things are harder for working father, Andrew, who is forced to care for his children alone. He hires a new, deeply religious babysitter who soon discovers that one of the agency's social workers has her own evil agenda for Melissa; she pushes Melissa and the other the children to tell their father what's going on. Brought in front of a district judge, the agency must respond to the allegations and deal with legal action now brought by Andrew, on behalf of his children. But when events do not work out for the best, it is Melissa who takes action to end the evil reign once and for all. Riveting and moving, A Matter of Abuse is told from the point of view of each of a number of characters, all of whom reveal a new element to the story's evolving plotline."

If you are interested and want to read this book you can get it on Amazon or from his Publisher's website. I know that he is in the process of developing his website so as soon as that's up I'll put some more information on that up for you dear readers.

Book Review: All the Pretty Horses

2009-09-04T11:32:00.004-04:00

"The desert he rode was red and red the dust he raised, the small dust that powdered the legs of the horse he rode, the horse he led."

Have you ever chosen a book for it's title? Cormac McCarthy's book All the Pretty Horses did just that. It beckoned me to read it. Even before opening the pages I was humming the folk song bearing the same name.

John Grady, the main character, was a naive young cowboy who experienced love, pain, and struggle over his chosen companions. He yearned for a simple life where he could work, love, and co-exist with his horses. Instead he discovered a world of jealousy and deceit. A world that was not so simple.

Mr. McCarthy's words painted a world where life was concurrently moving quickly and slowly. As a reader I felt as if I were watching an independent western film where life seemed simple on the surface. Where cowboys and horses could simply exist without worry. A place where the horses set life’s pace. Where horses were not just property but lifelong companions.

This blog was written in concurrence with the National Book Awards 60th year anniversary.

Teaser Tuesday

2009-07-28T12:14:00.002-04:00

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!

Share the title & author so that other participants can add the book to their Lists if they like your teasers!

"In America" - Susan Sontag

"GOD is an actor, too. He has been getting some bad reviews, though not
enough bad reviews, yet, to close the show." p.59

Book Meme

2009-07-28T10:49:00.003-04:00

Yet another book meme.The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? Put this into your NOTES. Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read. Tag other book lovers.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte -X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - X
6 The Bible - X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - X
8 1984 - George Orwell - X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman -
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy -
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller - X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - (some of them)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - X
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks -
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - X
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot - X
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell -
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald -X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - X
26 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky -
27 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - X
28 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - X
29 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - X
30 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - X
31David Copperfield - Charles Dickens -
32Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - X
33Emma-Jane Austen -X
34 Persuasion - Jane Austen - X
35The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - X
36The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - X
37Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres -
38Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - X
39Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne- X
40Animal Farm - George Orwell - X
41The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - X
42One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - X
43A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving -
44The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins -
45Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - X
46Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy -
47The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood - X
48Lord of the Flies - William Golding -
49 Atonement -Ian McEwan -X
50Life of Pi - Yann Martel - X
51Dune - Frank Herbert -
52Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons -
53Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - X
54A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
55The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon -
56A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - X
57Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - X
58The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon - X
59 Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -
60Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - X
61Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - X
62The Secret History - Donna Tartt -
63The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold -
64Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - X
65On The Road - Jack Kerouac -
66Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy -
67Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding - X
68Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie -
69 Moby Dick - Herman Melville - X
70Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - X
71Dracula - Bram Stoker - X
72The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - X
73Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson -
74Ulysses - James Joyce
75The Inferno – Dante -X
76Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome -
77Germinal - Emile Zol
78Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray -
79 Posession - AS Byatt -
80A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - X
81Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
82The Color Purple - Alice Walker - X
83The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro -
84Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert -
85A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry -
86Charlotte’s Web - EB White - X
87The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom -
88Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - X
89 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton -
90 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - X
91 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint- Exupery - X
92 The Wasp Factory - Ian Banks
93 Watership Down - Richard Adams - X
94A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole -
95A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
96The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - X
97Hamlet - William Shakespeare - X
98Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - X
99 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo -

My friend Amanda from Life and Times of a "New New Yorker" had this list and I thought I would see where I measured up. (I really love quizes like this!)

Drum roll please... I came in with 58.g! Funny I have some of the books on the list in my collection of to read on my shelves. =)

Frank McCourt Memorium

2009-07-20T15:34:00.006-04:00

"F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives. I think
I've proven him wrong. And all because I refused to settle for a one-act
existence, the 30 years I taught English in various New York City high schools."
- Frank McCourt

Mr. Frank McCourt passed away yesterday, Sunday July 19, 2009, at the age of 78 in a Manhattan hospice, confirmed his brother Malachy McCourt. Mr. McCourt certainly did not live a one act life.

Born in Brooklyn in 1931, his family returned to Limerick, Ireland to find work. His father, an alcoholic, had a difficult time finding and maintaining work. At the age of 11 his father moved away and left his mother and siblings to fend for themselves. 8 years later Frank McCourt returned to New York City working various odd jobs and eventually was drafted during the Korean War. After his military deployment he enrolled at NYU to study English. Upon graduation he taught English at various schools with New York City's Board of Education.

Frank McCourt dreamed to write a book but it was not until 30 years later after retiring from teaching that this dream became a reality. He won the Pulitzer Prize and Nation Book Award in literature using his early life experiences to write the book "Angela Ashes". He followed this with the book "Tis" based on his personal struggles to return to the United States and find a place for himself as an Irish-American in New York City.

I was introduced to Frank McCourt through my mom. She has always loved Irish-American literature and found his story telling style accessible. We watched the movie "Angela's Ashes "based on his bestselling book together. At that point I had not read the book but decided to read it immediately following this 1999 hit. Several years later as a resident of Brooklyn, I found a copy of Frank McCourt's book "Tis" at Housing Works's Bookstore Cafe in NYC. "Tis" filled in the gaps where "Angela's ashes" left off. My mother was right, Frank McCourt had a way of weaving beautiful stories out of life's dingy corners and fluoresent lights. So here's to you Mr. Frank McCourt for living and sharing your second act with the world!

Book Review: The Women of Brewster Place

2009-07-10T12:13:00.010-04:00

"The rattling moving van crept up Brewster like a huge green slug. It was flanked by a battered gypsy cab that also drove respectfully over the hidden patches of ice under the day old snow. It began to snow again, just as the small caravan reached the last building on the block." pg 7

The Women of Brewster Place, in one word is beautiful. The book is about 7 different women living in Brewster Place, a New York City housing project. Gloria Naylor crafts each woman's life as a short story and weaves the women's lives together through Brewster Place.

As a woman and a New Yorker I was touched by each woman's plight. Their very existence as a community is a struggle peppered with small successes. It is evident that Ms. Naylor grew up in New York City because she tastefully illustrates the hum, buzz, pace, and rhythm of the city. Their were moments where I felt like I too was a resident fighting, crying, and laughing along side these women in Brewster Place. This is their home for better and for worse, the place where they live, the women of Brewster Place.

This blog was created as part of the National Book Award Challenge. The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor was a 1983 National Book Award recipient.

Tuesday Teaser

2009-06-30T13:17:00.006-04:00

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!

Share the title & author so that other participants can add the book to their Lists if they like your teasers!

"Grief, as I read somewhere once, is a lazy Susan. One day it is heavy and underwater, and the next day it spins and stops at loud rageful, and the next day at wounded keening, and the next day numbness, silence." pg 70

~ Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

Teaser Tuesdays

2009-06-23T11:58:00.005-04:00

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teaser:

"I was put off by the wolf spiders as well but never thought that they were purposefully out to get me. For starters, they didn't seem that organized."

page 210 When you are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

National Book Awards Challenge

2009-06-19T12:37:00.007-04:00

In honor of the National Book Foundation's 60th Anniversary Amanda and I will be participating in the National Book Award Challenge. (I plan on reading The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor, All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, and In America by Susan Sontag.)The National Book Foundation has celebrated more than 60 fictional books and authors. If you are interested in participating join the National Book Award Challenge you can join by following the link. It should be a fun time!

National Book Awards List

1950 The Man with the Golden Arm - Nelson Algren
1951 The Collected Stories of William Faulkner - William Faulkner
1952 From Here to Eternity - James Jones
1953 Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
1954 The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
1955 A Fable - William Faulkner
1956 Ten North Frederick - John O'Hara
1957 The Field of Vision - Wright Morris
1958 The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever
1959 The Magic Barrel - Bernard Malamud

1960 Goodbye Columbus - Philip Roth
1961 The Waters of Kronos - Conrad Richter
1962 The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
1963 Morte D'Urban - J.F. Powers
1964 The Centaur - John Updike
1965 Herzog - Saul Bellow Herzog
1966 The Collected Stories - Katherine Anne Porter
1967 The Fixer - Bernard Malamud
1968 The Eighth Day - Thornton Wilder
1969 Jerzy Kosinski - Steps

1970 Them - Joyce Carol Oates
1971 Mr. Sammler's Planet - Saul Bellow
1972 The Complete Storie - Flannery O'Connor
1973 Chimera - John Barth
1973 Augustus - John Williams
1974 Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
1974 Crown of Feathers and Other Stories - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1975 Dog Soldiers - Robert Stone
1975 The Hair of Harold Roux - Thomas Williams
1976 JR - William Gaddis
1977 The Spectator Bird - Wallace Stegner
1977 Master Tung's Western Chamber Romance - Li Li Chen
1978 Blood Tie - Mary Lee Settle
1979 Going After Cacciato - Tim O'Brien

1980 The World According to Garp - John Irving
1980 Sophie's Choice - William Styron
1981 Plains Song - Wright Morris Plains Song
1982 Rabbit is Rich - John Updike
1983 The Women of Brewster Place - Gloria Naylor
1983 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
1984 Victory Over Japan - Ellen Gilchrist
1985 White Noise - Don DeLillo
1986 World's Fair - E.L. Doctorow
1986 Arctic Dreams - Barry Lopez
1987 Paco's Story - Larry Heinemann
1988 Paris Trout - Pete Dexter
1989 Spartina - John Casey

1990 Middle Passage - Charles Johnson
1991 Mating - Norman Rush
1992 All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
1993 The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx
1994 A Frolic of His Own - William Gaddis
1995 Sabbath's Theater - Philip Roth Sabbath's
1996 Ship Fever and Other Stories - Andrea Barrett
1997 Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier
1998 Charming Billy - Alice McDermott
1999 Waiting - Ha Jin

2000 In America - Susan Sontag
2001 The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
2002 Three Junes - Julia Glass
2003 The Great Fire - Shirley Hazzard
2004 The News From Paraguay - Lily Tuck
2005 Europe Central - William T. Vollmann
2006 The Echo Maker - Richard Powers
2007 Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson
2008 Shadow Country - Peter Matthiessen

Eva Luna

2009-06-17T15:30:00.005-04:00

Two of my all time favorite books are "A Thousand and One Tales of the Arabian Nights" and "100 Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. "Eva Luna" by Isabel Allende captured the essence of both through story telling and magical realism. It wasn't until preparing for this review that I realized I had already read the follow up book "The Stories of Eva Luna". I think that that book would make more sense now than it did before.

Eva Luna, is born under unusual circumstances and quickly learns her mother's trade. At the age of 8 she is orphaned and with the help of her godmother finds work as a servant. On the other side of the globe Rolf Carle is struggling to grow up in a repressive household. After his father dies his mother sends him to Latin America to help his uncle with his business raising pure breed dogs and repair clocks.

Eva grows up serving various households and meeting a number of different people along the way until Riad Halabai finds her on the streets. A tradesman with a heart of gold, he brings her back to his village as an offering to his barren wife. Rolf Carle discovers his passions for youthful flirtations and film. All grown up Eva returns to the city and rediscovers her inate ability to tell stories. Her stories save her from homelessness, starvation, and eventually leads her to great things including love.

Isabelle Allende manages to draw together strong characters struggling against societal norms through love, war, and stories. Anyone who is interested in romance, magical realism, societal struggles, or good old fashioned story telling will really enjoy this book.

BBC Top 100 books 2008

2009-06-17T12:55:00.004-04:00

So a friend of mine found this list on BBC. It is the top 100 all time favorite books of 2008-2009. According to BBC most people have only read 6 of the books on the list. I was curious and wanted to see how many I actually have (and haven't) read. The ones in bold are the ones I've read! Enjoy! (this has been updated from my other blogs listing, Rachel's Rants.)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (this was my favorite book as a teen)

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (we are actually re-reading the series)

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible (I read this front to back when I was in 3rd grade I’m still reading)

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (and I learned the aria from the opera!)

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (wow...seriously?)

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (another one I also learned the aria)

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (if you can believe there is an opera of this)

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (doesn't that fall under #33?)

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert5

3 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (only because I had too…)

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (I was also in this musical)

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (i read it in french & english)

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Tinkers

2009-06-09T12:05:00.008-04:00

While I was down in the Village my husband and I happened upon McNally Jackson Bookstore. What a wonderful independent bookstore! When you walk in you feel like you are home. My favorite feature were the staff picks displayed around the 2 levels of the store. This is where I picked up Jessica's pick "Tinkers".

What initially drew me to the book was it's simple book cover with a recommendation from Marilynne Robinson, award winning author of "Gilead" and "Home". I have enjoyed Ms. Robinson's poignant stories about the everyman. Her recommendation for Paul Harding's book "Tinkers" peaked my interest. If his writing proved to be even half as enjoyable as Ms. Robinson's I knew I would be in for a treat.

I was not disappointed. The story centers around 3 generations of a New England family's men and their struggles with mental health, disease, family, and their inter-relationship to each other. Mr. Harding's writing is absolutely beautiful and creates poetic motion where life can sometimes seem still to the unobservant eye. Each man's life was interconnected with his son's through the things he tinkered with.

I actually would like to sit down and reread this book to immerse myself in Mr. Harding's artistic nuances. (I rarely want to do this with a book I have just finished.) I guess the only word of warning I might have for this book is that it is not written like anything I have read before. Which in my opinion is not a bad thing but it may catch the unsuspecting reader off guard. If you get a chance I highly recommend "Tinkers" by Paul Harding!

Alice in Wonderland

2009-06-02T12:56:00.002-04:00

You're Alice's Adventures in Wonderland!

by Lewis Carroll

After stumbling down the wrong turn in life, you've had your mind
opened to a number of strange and curious things. As life grows curiouser and curiouser,
you have to ask yourself what's real and what's the picture of illusion. Little is coming
to your aid in discerning fantasy from fact, but the line between them is so blurry that
it's starting not to matter. Be careful around rabbit holes and those who smile to much,
and just avoid hat shops altogether.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

This quiz is strange but true! Wow!

BEA

2009-06-01T12:45:00.008-04:00

First off, I have to say thanks to Amanda from The Life and Times of a "New" New Yorker for encouraging me to attend BEA (the Book Expo of America) this past Saturday with her. I'm not sure I would have had the courage to attend by myself. This event was eye opening to say the least! There were so many interesting people, booksellers, publishers, book bloggers, authors, etc. in the book industry there.

During registration I was handed a BEA program book which, no kidding, was the size of the yearly installment of the Entertainment Coupon books. A little overwhelmed, Amanda and I decided to plunge into the heart of the Expo's booth extravaganza. Timidly we wandered the halls taking in the global book contigency; publishing heavy weights; academic presses; independent publishers; non-profit book foundations; author signings; etc.

Around 1pm my stomach started to rumble and we made a mad dash to the Javitz Conference Center's food center. It was a nice break before the 2pm Blogger Workshop downstairs. It was great to hear from more experienced book bloggers about how book blogs can help the industry with reviews of books or bookstores, how they came to book blogging, and various tips on communicating within the book blogging community. If you are interested in hearing the panelists discussion check Book Club Girl's site out tonight at 6pm. Each of the panelists are listed below and have their own (more in depth) insights on BEA:

The Book Blogger Panelists

Stephanie Coleman-Chan from Stephanie's Written Word.

Candace Levy from Beth Fish Reads.

Natasha Maw from Maw Books Blog.

Julie Peterson from Booking Mama.

Dawn Rennert from She is Too Fond of Books.

Amy Riley from My Friend Amy.

Following the workshop Amanda made the rounds to familiar book bloggers in the audience. It was really exciting to meet these people in person. (A special thank-you to Stephanie from Stephanie's Written Word from both Amanda and I!) Then we headed back to the booth mayhem. Not quite so whelmed this time we had the opportunity to chat with some great people in the book industry. I made sure to say hello to the National Book Foundation whom I saw at the Brooklyn Book festival back in the fall, MIT Press my husband's favorite publisher, and AEG my Dad's book publisher. 5pm came too quickly but I was really glad that Amanda and I were able to take in what we could on a Saturday in New York!

New York Reading Hotspots

2009-05-27T12:09:00.024-04:00

The National Book Foundation sponsored by Bloomberg has released a wonderful free pamphlet called Reading Hot Spots in New York City. I received this pamphlet at the 2008 Brooklyn Book Festival in Brooklyn Heights. The National Book Foundation will be at the upcoming Book Expo America in New York City from May 29-May 31. If you can't make it to the Book Expo or to the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival you can e-mail Rebecca Keith and request a copy of the Reading Hot Spot Map.

With that said I wanted to play the game what New York Reading HotSpots have I been to? The list below will only cite the NYC Reading Hotspots that I have been to. If you would like to play along you can copy my list and ammend it based on the National Book Foundation's Reading Hot Spot Pamphlet to the literary hotspots you have been to. Let the fun begin!

Brooklyn

Barnes and Nobles - 106 Court St. Brooklyn, NY 11201

Book Court - 163 Court St. Brooklyn, NY 11201

Central Library - Grand Army Plaza Brooklyn, NY 11238

Crown Heights Library Branch - 560 New York Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11225

Eastern Parkway Library Branch - 1044 Eastern Parkway Brooklyn, NY 11213

Heights Books - 109 Montague St. Brooklyn, NY 11201 (closed)

Waldenbooks - Kings Plaza Mall 5100 Kings Plaza Brooklyn, NY 11234

Manhattan

Barnes and Nobles - 4 Astor Place New York, NY 10003

Barnes and Nobles - 555 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10020

Barnes and Nobles - Citicorp Center 160 E. 54th St. New York, NY 10022

Barnes and Nobles - Lincoln Center 1972 Broadway New York, NY 10023

Biographay Bookshop - 400 Bleeker St. New York, NY 10014

Borders - 10 Columbus Circle New York, NY 10019

Borders - 461 Park Ave New York, NY 10022

Columbus Library Branch - 742 Tenth Ave. New York, NY 10019

Donnell Library Branch - 20 West 53rd St. New York, NY 10019 (closed)

Drama Bookshop - 250 W. 40th St. New York, NY 10018

Housing Works Used Book Cafe - 126 Crosby St. New York, NY 10012

Humanities and Social Sciences Library - Fifth Ave. and 42nd St. New York, NY 10018

Joseph Patelson Music House - 160 West 56 St New York, NY 10019 (closed)

Juilliard Book Store - Juilliard Lincoln Center Plaza New York, NY 10023

Lincoln Center Libary of Performing Arts - Lincoln Center New York, NY 10023

Metropolitan Opera Book Store - Lincoln Center New York, NY 10023

Mid-Manhattan Library - 455 Fifth Ave. New York, NY. 10016

Oscar Wilde Bookstore - 15 Christopher St. New York, NY 10014

Pauline Books and Media - 150 East 52 St. New York, NY 10022

Strand Bookstore - 828 Broadway New York, NY 100038

Strand Bookstore Annex - 95 Fulton St. New York, New York 10038 (closed)

Terrance Cardinal Cooke Branch Library - 560 Lexington Ave. New York, NY 10022

MIT Press Bookstore

2009-05-26T15:31:00.007-04:00

For the first time in my relationship with my husband, I was the one being dragged to the bookstore. My husband is studying Music Technology at the graduate level with an emphasis on microtonal music and mathematics. As you can imagine this is a highly specialized field with only a few people exploring its realms.

In his studies he noticed that most of the research books he was using had one common denominator, their publisher, the MIT press. As luck would have it we were in Boston for Memorial Day weekend and the main thing my husband was interested in seeing was the MIT Press bookstore (http://web.mit.edu/bookstore/www/index.html). Surprisingly it was open on Saturday from 10am-6pm regardless of the holidays.

I really wasn't sure what i would be able to find anything personally interesting in the depths of this specialized bookstore. I was pleasantly surprised and found books on theology (the essential reinhold niebuhr) , religion & economics, writing during the information age, and universal education and its effects. Chris of course found all of the specialized books he was looking for inclduing: "Microsound" by Curtis Roads, and "Musimathics Vol 1 & 2" by Gareth Loy.

It's pretty amazing to pick up a book from the publisher's store that you might not be able to find anywhere else. It is an easy walk from the Kendel T-Stop in Cambridge. The staff was unassuming and quite knowledgable. (We managed to sneak in a conversation about where printed media... books, music, etc. are headed.) So if you are in Boston I highly recommend taking an hour or two out of your trip to visit the MIT Press bookstore. In the mean time check out their website and browse their recent books: http://mitpress.mit.edu/main/home/default.asp.

The Last Mrs. Astor

2009-05-18T16:29:00.007-04:00

As a New Yorker I have to admit that my historical knowledge of the city is somewhat limited to what I learned in American History, tours with extended family, and chance tidbits from friends. My father-in-law once asked what the name of a ship was in the South Street Seaport and I sadly shrugged my shoulders in dismay. (I now know that it is the Ambrose.)

When I saw this book in the library I thought it would be an interesting way to foray into NYC's socal history. I knew that the Astor name had some importance because of Astor place, Astoria, and let's not forget the famous Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue. I also knew that they were wealthy because places do not get named after people unless there is money involved. But that's where my historical sleuthing ended.

Who was this "Last Mrs. Astor"? It turns out her name was Brooke. "Roberta" Brooke Russell the daughter of a military man, John Henry Russell, and her mother, Mabel Russell, an estute social climber. Brooke grew up in China returning to the States as a teen when her father received new orders. Her mother, at the age of 17, encouraged Brooke's first marriage to John Dryden Kruse in 1919. This marriage was an unhappy one but resulted in Brooke's only child Tony Dryden.

Two years after Brooke's divorce from John Dryden in 1930 she married Charles Marshall, the senior partner at Butler, Herrick, and Marshall. Charles Marshall, was described as the love of Brooke's life. Her son Tony changed his last name to Marshall in 1942 prior to his service in the military. During this period of her life Brooke worked as an editor of Home and Garden's, using her husband's social clout and her know how to revive the magazine. Charles Marshall passed away in Brooke's arms in 1952.

In 1953, 11 months following Charles Marshall's death, Brooke remarried for the third and final time, Vincent Astor. Vincent was famous for his wealth and also infamous for his difficult personality. His wealth and family name gave Brooke a boost in New York City social circles. Vincent's health was touch and go and 1959 Brooke became a widow for the second time. After some familial dispute about Vincent's will, Brooke became the primary hieress of Vincent Astor's estate and the president of the Vincent Astor Foundation.

This is where I thought Brooke's life became very interesting. The last Mrs. Astor took it upon herself to learn the ins and outs of being a philanthropist for the city of New York. As the president of the foundation she proved to be a benevolent giver earning the Foundation a new level of respect in the non-profit world. This sudden acclaim for Brooke Astor came with its bumps and bruises but Brooke proved to be able to weather the storm. She made a point to deal with conflict outside of formal meetings and maitain a level of amicablity with most of her staff and board.

Although I did learn a bit more about who Mrs. Brooke Astor and the accomplishments of the foundation I was bit torn by the author's perspective. The author seemed to enjoy the bit of time she spent with the "Last Mrs. Astor" in interviews but maintained that Mrs. Astor was gaining in years and was increasingly confused from one visit to the next. Frances Kiernon did not seem to glean a new perspective from Mrs. Astor's personal writings nor truly respect the source.

Mrs. Astor was a strong woman who survived international moves, 3 marriages, and left a legacy through her work at the Vincent Astor Foundation. "The Last Mrs. Astor" is not a historical document but I enjoyed it for what was, a taste of the upper millius lifestyle.

Life of Pi

2009-04-23T10:20:00.005-04:00

I am usually skeptical when all the book reviews for a particular book are glowing. But the Life of Pi deserves all the positive recognition it has received. Yan Martel effortlessly carries his readers along the waves of a story about man vs. nature through magical realism.

Pi, an Indian 15 year old boy is fascinated with religion, God, and nature. Raised as a zookeepers son he learns the habits of all the animals under his father's care. His father, a man of science, is careful to teach his children that wild animals regardless of their conditions can be dangerous to their keepers. Pi's family is befuddled when they learn that their son is practicing not 1 but 3 religions: Catholicism, Islam, and Hinduism. They gradually accept their son's decision to observe the 3 religious practices as a passing phase.

After some Indian political upraise Pi's family must move to North America. It takes the family about a year to make the necessary arrangements to close the zoo and travel across the ocean to their new home. Unfortunately the ship does not make the journey leaving only Pi surviving the demise of the sea craft. The narrative from Pi's perspective is simple and yet hard to set down. If you need a book that draws you in, I think this is it. In times of adversity humanity can do extraordinary things to survive.

Jacob's room

2008-08-06T11:43:00.001-04:00

Recently I received a free book in the mail from Penguin Publisher's "Jacob's Room" by Virginia Woolf. The only catch is that I need to write a review on my personal web page. You also do not get to choose what book they send you. (A friend received a non-fiction book about 18th century history.) So if you've gotten this far brace yourself for the re-released brief review about Virginia Woolf's book "Jacob's Room". Virgina Woolf until recently has been a void in my classic literature readings. The movie "The Hours" released a few years back intrigued me and the encouragement of Virginia Woolf-heads led me first to "The Lighthouse".

I found the story interesting but could not wrap my head around her style of writing. When Penguin sent me "Jacob's Room" I was both excited and timid about the book choice. But being a good sport I wanted to give Virginia (and Penguin) a second chance."Jacob's Room" is centered around the main character Jacob Flanders. He is the apple of his mother's eye and the quinessential English Upper Middle Class Victorian. Ms. Woolf in each chapter uses a different narrator (through her detailed description of space, smells, and time) to describe what they see and feel about Jacob. I found this choice difficult to follow.

Jacob, his mother, and housemaid were compelling narrators but beyond them the other narrators were characters I generally found myself daydreaming through their perspectives and descriptions. The continuity in the story was lost and I found myself drifting through a sea of stream of conciousness. So despite my best effort to give Ms. Woolf a second chance I still have not been converted to being a Woolf-head. Maybe three time's the charm? I will let you know after I have read Mrs. Dalloway.

Mistress of the Revolution

2008-01-01T13:11:00.003-05:00

Mistress of the Revolution allows a birds eye view of the French Revolution through Gabrielle Monseratte's eyes. Catherine Delors goes to great lengths to remain historically accurate while creating a riveting story. I was amazed and astounded by the literary portrayal of the sights, sounds, and smells of 17th century France. Gabrielle Monseratte not only overcomes all of her life's trials and tribulations but manages to do it with panache. If you are looking for a book with a strong female character leading the charge, this is definetly the book for you!