Tag: Books

First Lines Quiz

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Here’s how to play…Identify the first lines of these famous novels by telling me what book it’s from.  Leave a comment with the # of the first line and the title of the book and I’ll cross it off the list.  No Googling, that’s cheating and no fun!   Last chance to earn entries in the giveaway.

HINT:  These books are all on my Top 100 list.

1.  “It wasn’t a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance.”  Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, LuAnn

2. “I was stunned by Mary Karr’s memoir, The Liars’ Club.”  On Writing by Stephen King

3. “The small boys came early to the hanging.” The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, Jane

4. “The last class of my old professor’s life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves.”  Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom, Nicole

5. “A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head.” A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

6. A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind’s forward edge, as if she were a green fleck of the land itself, flung up and sent wheeling away by the turbulent air.”  Wicked by Gregory Maguire, Kathy

7. My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie.”  The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, the word jar

8. You think you know how this story is going to end, but you don’t”  Lamb by Christopher Moore, Donna S

9. Howard Roark laughed.”  The Fountainhead by Ayne Rand, Tonya

10. The naked child ran out of the hide-covered lean-to toward the rocky beach at the bend in the small river.”  Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel

Durable Goods by Elizabeth Berg

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Cover ImageFinished 3-28-09, rating 3.5/5, fiction, pub. 1993

She couldn’t do a whole sentence; it took too much air.  So she would say pieces like that.  Sometimes, even if you were loving her so much, your fists clenched and your heart feeling like it had a tight peel around it, you would get mad like that.

page 13 of the mass market paperback

Katie is a twelve year old Army brat living in Texas with her abusive father and her older sister.Her mother has recently died and Katie crawls under her bed to have conversations with her and even harbors a hope that it was all merely a misunderstanding and that one day she will walk through the front door.  Her best friend, Cherylanne, lives next door and is two years older, so Katie learns about kissing boys and sex and shaving her legs from her,  Their conversation about sex was pretty funny.

Katie is just  a girl trying to make her way in a world without a mother and a sister already halfway out the door.  She is every girl and it is easy to recognize yourself in her, of course, some things are scarier and more painful than others.  When she starts her period she thinks of it as a gift and is excited that she can now have a baby, something to call her own.  When her father tells them that they will have to move again she resists the idea because she would be moving to a place where her mother had never been.

This is a powerful coming of age story.  I read the second book about Katie, Joy School, first, and liked it better than this one.  I understand her father and her sister now that I’ve read this one, but I did not like the story as much.   I still recommend it,  as I do with anything Elizabeth Berg writes,

Behind the Mask…No More, by Byron Nease

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Behind The Mask...No MoreFinished 3-27-09, rating 3.5/5, memoir, pub. 2008

On the difficult days, denial helps, but denial ends.  Forgetfulness helps … a call from a friend helps me, a hug from someone I love, a stiff drink, a wonderful audience, but my forgetfulness ends.  And what I am left with is something I cannot create, cannot fabricate, cannot innovate.  It’s something that my grandmother called Grace.  It’s not about being good or bad, right or wrong.  It’s about being loved, anyway.

page 60

Byron Nease shares his life from the early days of abuse and abandonment, through his Broadway days in New York and Toronto, past his many trips around the world, all with the never ending courage of a man who finds out he  is HIV positive at a time when it is a death sentence.  He is a survivor and an inspirational one.

I agreed to review this book because I love going to the theatre and Nease spent five years in Toronto in Phantom of the Opera and I wanted the scoop. What I found was the heartfelt story of his life told with heartbreaking honesty and vulnerability.  There were stories about his days on Broadway, but the purpose of the book is to paint a picture of a life full of opportunity and hope.

The book is full of photos and family stories.  I also really appreciated Nease’s description of how he reconciled the religion of his youth as a preacher’s son to the reality of his life as a gay man.  He really is an interesting man and this book provides great insight into his over 20 year struggle with HIV and his strained family relationships due to his sexuality.  I think this would be great book if you are interested in either of these topics.

I was a little disappointed in the Broadway part of the book only because it was such a small part.  What stories he does tell are fun and I enjoyed hearing about the wardrobe malfunctions and the antics on stage that the audience is not aware of .

Byron Nease has led an interesting and truly inspirational life.  I am glad that he let us see behind the mask.  I’m better off for it.

An Invisible Sign of My Own, by Aimee Bender

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Cover ImageFinished 3-20-09, rating 4/5, fiction, pub. 2000

The clock said noon so I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator but the food inside looked too complicated and I peered into the cupboards but I didn’t want turkey soup, or garbanzo beans, or tuna, and I wandered into the bathroom, and without even really thinking about it, unwrapped the spare package of soap that I kept in the cabinet beneath the sink.

I bought the same brand my mother did.  A bright white bar, rocking on its back, friendly.  I brought it to the living room couch, and held it for awhile, smelling it, and there was a knife sitting on the side table from the previous day’s apple, which seemed convenient, and after a few minutes of just holding and smelling, I picked up the knife, sawed off a portion of the oval, set it sailing inside my mouth, and bit down.

Chapter 1

Mona Gray is a mess.  She is confused and confusing and bizarre and bizarrely lovable.  She has just turned twenty and decides to buy herself an ax for her birthday, which she takes into her elementary class and hangs it up on the wall.  Not surprisingly, this will lead to a few problems down the road.  She feels separate from the world, almost invisible, and this propels her to destructive and absurd behavior.

All of this, as becomes apparent, is due to her father giving up on life when she was young and pulling her mother into his ever insolar world.  The only person who ever really saw her, flaws and all, was her math teacher, but he fails to see enough and she resents him for it.

But now Mona has a chance of normalcy (the normalcy is relative) with a new job, students who challenge her, and a man who appreciates her unique appeal. 

The book is charming in a twisted way.  It was a fun, quick read.  I think my favorite part was the first chapter which is a fairy tale her father told her when she was ten.  It was wonderful.  The only problem with the book was that all of the central players were so far removed from anyone that I know that it was difficult to really relate to Mona’s troubles.  I was happy to read her story, but not as personally involved as I might have been. 

Aimee Bender has a unique voice and I look forward to reading more from her.

 

Teaser Tuesday- An Invisible Sign of My Own

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teasertuesdays3

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

  • Grab your current read.
    Let the book fall open to a random page.
    Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
    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!

“The ax was clean and bright and manly.  There was a sick feeling in my stomach, this side of throwing up, but it had, within its center, the undeniable bubbling of excitement.  I could change my life, right here.  I could make my whole life different and I would be different that way for my whole life, forever, and this – right here – would be he moment where everything turned.”

An Invisible Sign of My Own by Aimee Bender, Chapter 10

Cover Image

Hosted my MizB.  So, what do you think?

Too Tall Alice by Barbara Worton, an Aunt Betty review

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Too Tall Alice by Barbara Worton: Book CoverPublished March 2009, Hardcover, 32 pages

From the Publishers-

Alice is tall. Not T-Rex or Empire State Building tall. Just four inches taller than the other eight-year-old girls at her school. Her mom says she’s tall. Her dad says she’s tall. But Alice is worried that being tall isn’t okay. She cries and cries and wishes that she was just like everyone else, until her dream takes her to the place where the tall girls live, and she sees, really sees herself for the first time.

Aunt Betty says…
In this story it was refreshing to make Alice and others who feel like they need to “fit in” know that it’s okay to be a little different (whether it’s size, shape, etc.). This book reminds us that we are all unique and special in our own way. We all have our own special gift or talent to do something well. It encourages everyone to discover who they are and to discover your own unique gift or talent that you have to offer. We need more books like “Too Tall Alice” .
Great for ages 8-12.

My Aunt Betty has been an elementary school librarian for 24 years.  This is not surprising because she loves kids and kids appreciate her enthusiasm.  It is because of her that I enjoy a close relationship with my 7 cousins (later, 9).  She always had all of us over for sleepovers and other outings.  All 9 of us would cram into her Rabbit for trips around town.  You never see that anymore

I asked around for words to describe Aunt Betty and these are the words that came back the most…Happy, Caring, and Thoughtful.  As for me, my top three choices are Fun, Kind, and Full of Life.

Mary Doria Russell Book Giveaway

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Cover ImageCover ImageCover ImageCover Image

I will be giving one lucky commenter his or her choice of one Mary Doria Russell title.   She is a fabulous writer and if you haven’t read any of her books be sure to check them out and enter for a chance to win!

Here is how to earn entires…

1 – Comment on part one of her interview here.

2 – Comment on part two of her interview here.

3 – Get a correct answer on quiz one here (closed) and quiz two here (closed). and quiz three here.

4 – Post about the giveaway and leave a link on this post.

 I will draw the winner on March 31st at noon.  I will ship anywhere.

The winner was Renee G.!

9 in ’09 with Mary Doria Russell and book giveaway, part 2

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To read the first part of this interview, click here.

I will be giving one lucky commenter his or her choice of one Mary Doria Russell title.  After reading part one of the interview leave a comment and you will be entered.  Read Part Two and comment  and earn a second entry.  Those who have gotten a correct answer in my Green Title Quiz have earned an extra entry and those who are winners in my upcoming quiz on Monday will also earn extra entries.  I will draw the winners on March 31st at noon.  I will ship anywhere.

And now for the rest of the interview…

5. I’ve read that you became a novelist because you were out of work.  Is that true?

Yep.  There was this big recession at the end of the Bush administration…Wait!  I’m having deja vu…

Anyway, I lost my job and I had an idea for a short story about Jesuits in space.  That turned into The Sparrow and Children of God.

Would you recommend the writer’s life for the rising number of unemployed Americans?

Um.  Only if you’re married to an engineer with a secure job and medical benefits.  Seriously.  Publishing is under severe stress as an industry, and it was brutally competitive even before the latest economic pooh hit the national fan last fall.  The odds of an unknown getting a first novel published were approximately 4 million to one back in 1995 when I got my first contract.  Today, you’ve got a better chance of fame and fortune if you buy lottery tickets.

On the other hand, if you can’t help yourself, and you live to write, and you are talented and have something interesting to say, the blogoshere is an amazing new outlet.  Making money that way is a different thing.  Occasionally a blog will take off, and be parlayed into paying work, but it’s a lot like standing in a field during a thunderstorm hoping to get hit by lightning.

6. I love quotes.  Do you have a favorite?

You probably mean quotes from famous authors or something, but in our household, about 64% of the conversation consists of quotes from movies.  We use any of a hundred lines from the Princess Bride on a regular basis, but we just watched Moonstruck again a couple of nights ago, and I particularly like “Yeah, well, someday you will die, and I’ll come to your funeral in a red dress!”

My husband and I also use “You’re still gonna die, Cosmo!” whenever we see some middle-aged idiot trying to pretend he’s a young stud.

7. What are you currently reading?

At the moment?  Two non-fiction studies of the Kansas temperance movement in the 1870’s – that’s background research.  Also “Born Fighting,” by Jim Webb, about the history of the Scots-Irish, which explains a huge amount about contemporary American politics.  I’m also reading The Last Judgement by James Connor, which is a wonderful art history book that clarifies the swirl of politics, science, art and war that was the Renaissance.  And recently, I loved a book about death called  Nothing to be Frightened of” by Julian Barnes.  Exquisitely written and funny as hell.

I also read stacks of magazines: current affairs, economics, decorating.  And I watch a lot of TV.  I’m not a snob.  Baseball, HGTV, the History Channel.  Just discovered Dead Like Me, on DVD.  Getting into The Dollhouse, by Joss Whedon.  LOVED Firefly!

8. If you were stuck in the life of one of your fictional characters, who would you choose?

Interesting question…I guess I’d choose Agnes Shanklin, in Dreamers of the Day.  Yes.  Definitely.  Agnes.

I like the way she questions everything and slowly takes charge of her life and handles adversity.  I also like that she stays true to her sensible Midwestern self, no matter who she finds herself among.

9. What are you currently working on?

This time, I’m taking on two iconic figures of the American frontier.  Eight to Five, Against is a murder mystery set in Dodge City in 1878, the summer when the unlikely by enduring friendship between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday began.

The novel takes place almost 4 years before the famous gunfight at the OK Corral, but there’s a direct line from the summer in Dodge City to the gunfight in Tombstone that made the Earps and Doc Holliday notorious.

I’m about 8 chapters from having a complete first draft.  Usually Wyatt is the focus of these stories, but I am totally in love with Doc.  That boy just breaks my heart…

He’s often portrayed as a coldblooded psychopathic killer, but he wasn’t like that at all.  At the time of the novel, he was a frail, proud, beautifully educated 26-year-old dentist living on the rawest edge of the American frontier, still hoping to recover from tuberculosis in the warm dry climate of western Kansas.  That summer in Dodge was the last time Doc was well enough to attempt to practice his profession.  He still believed that he was going to get better and go back home to Atlanta someday, but it never happened.

When will it be out?

Sometime in 2010 is my guess.

BONUS QUESTION   What’s next for you?

I’m starting to get interested in Benedict Arnold now, and there might be a book in that.  I seem to be drawn to characters who are unjustly condemned by people who don’t know anything about them, and I do think Arnold got a raw deal from Washington and the Continental Congress.

I like the idea that Arnold could draw me into the Enlightenment and Baroque music, and early American history.  Not sure what the story would be, though.  When Eight to Five is done, I’ll start reading biographies of Arnold and his wife, and Washington, and so forth.  Maybe a plot will emerge.  Maybe not.

On the other hand, and this is a scoop for you: I may go back to paleoanthropology.  I’ve been thinking about the Dark Ages in Europe, and how everybody – including pregnant and nursing mothers – drank beer and wine almost exclusively for long stretches of European history.  The Dark Ages have been described as a thousand years when each generation knew less than the one before it.  It was a great melting away of high culture, and I wonder if endemic fetal alcohol syndrome had something to do with it.  So I have and idea for how to test that idea using skull measurements from cemeteries.

Have to think some more about this, but it would be fun to get back into the bone biz.

Mary

I want to thank Mary for taking the time to participate.  I appreciate it and I’m sure all of you did too!

9 in ’09 with Mary Doria Russell and book giveaway, part 1

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Mary Doria’s first novel The Sparrow and it’s sequel Children of God, combined to win 8 regional, national, and international awards.  She followed with two books of historical fiction, A Thread of Grace, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Dreamers of the Day.  She holds a PhD in Paleanthropology and taught human gross anatomy at the Case Western Reserve University School of Dentistry before becoming a full-time writer.

Mary is a wonderful speaker and you should take advantage of any opportunity to hear her.  Here‘s my post on a book signing I attended last year. Visit her website for more information, http://www.marydoriarussell.net/

I will be giving one lucky commenter his or her choice of one Mary Doria Russell title.  After reading part one of the interview leave a comment and you will be entered.  Come back tomorrow and comment on part 2 and earn a second entry.  Those who have gotten a correct answer in my Green Title Quiz have earned an extra entry and those who are winners in my upcoming quiz on Monday will also earn extra entries.  I will draw the winners on March 31st at noon.  I will ship anywhere.

Without further ado…

1. Dreamers of the Day takes place as the fate of the Middle East was being decided in 1921 and many historical figures play roles in the book. How true to the real players are the characters?

I did my level best to portray all the historical characters with accuracy. My goal with historical novels is never to contradict the facts, but to work with them and deepen the reader’s insight into personalities and events. I will sometimes fudge dates by a few weeks, to make a narrative work, but I really try to keep things as accurate as possible. I’m still an academic at heart.

2. The Sparrow is one of my favorite books and was optioned by Brad Pitt’s production company. What is the status on The Sparrow making it to the big screen?

 Producer Nick Wechsler called me at the end of February (2009) with an update. According to Nick, Mr. Pitt is passionate about getting the film made and “Brad’s been concentrating on doing his own treatment of the novel since finishing up with Benjamin Button and the Oscar hoopla.” The whole project could still evaporate, but it seems more likely now that it is the focus of Mr. Pitt’s attention.
3. Your historical novel, A Thread of Grace, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.  Can you tell us about your personal experience of becoming a nominee?
Well, as everybody says, it’s great honor to be nominated – a heartening validation of a writer’s skill and very nice recognition of a particular work.  It’s also the only thing that impresses people more than “Brad Pitt might do The Sparrow!”
To me, however, the most gratifying recognition is the email I get from families of veterans of the World War II Italian campaign.  These are notes from people whose parents served in the armed anti-fascist resistance, or in the German, Italian and Allied armed forces.  I also hear from children of Jewish refugees whose lives were saved by the Italians, as described in the book.
Veterans and survivors rarely talked about the occupation of Italy, and the novel fills in a lot of gaps for families because the silence of Claudia at the end of the story is typical.  Partly, it’s the difficulty of conveying political and strategic complexity in what is often a third or fourth language for he parent.  But it’s also very difficult to relive those emotions, and most people in the World War II generation believe such memories are better forgotten.
Of course, war trauma is never forgotten – it’s there, and the consequences echo down the generations.  It was my privilege to start a few conversations, even ones that are now posthumous.  The book seems to fill in gaps and connect dots for many in the second generation.
4. Your books must require so much research.  You invented a whole language for The Sparrow…
Two actually!
And Eight to Five, Against, I even ‘interviewed’ horses to get the personalities and capabilities of an intact quarter horse, an Arab mare and a gelded hunter-jumper right!
And since Doc Holliday went to dental school in 1871, I read all the issues of the professional journal Dental Cosmos between 1871 and 1878, so I’d be familiar with the instruments available to Doc and his patients.
This kind of research is just a joy to me.  I love love LOVE this stuff.
…and your two historicals are jammed full of information.  How much research do you do for each book?
Tonnage.  I mean: YEARS of research for each of them.  And I go deep on the main characters.  I need to know what they knew, and I also have to understand their parents’ lives and the kind of relationship they had with their parents.  I know more about Doc Holliday’s family than I do my own, and if I get started on him, I’ll go on forever, so I’ll tell you about the research on the Earp brothers, because I can shut up about them more easily.
I started with all the biographies, but I still didn’t believe I understood their family dynamic.  Just looking at the whole group – Newton, James, Virgil, Wyatt, Morgan and Warren – I knew there was something going on at the home that nobody was writing about.  My guess was that they were beaten as children, but none of the biographers mention it.
Then I dug up a diary written in 1864 by a woman on a wagon train to California that was led by Nicholas Earp, the boys’ father, back when Wyatt was 15.  Sure enough, Nicholas was a mean, profane, violent sonofabitch.  The diarist gave example after example, and this was years before any of the Earps was famous, so I think it’s reliable.  It was a great validation of my developing insight into the brothers’ personalities and was of dealing with the world.
I’m also pretty certain Wyatt was dyslexic, based on descriptions of his attempts to read law, but Morgan was a reader, and that told me something about their relationship – Morg was four years younger, but he and Wyatt were extremely close.  So there’s Morg’s hero worship of his older brother Wyatt, while Wyatt was dependent on Morg’s help with letters and newspapers and so on.
And I’m becoming very fond of their older brother James, who was crippled during the Civil War.  Each of the boys has reacted differently to their father’s bullying, and James is the kind whose reaction is to remain gentle in a quiet existential defiance of the abusive parent.  He’s a remarkable guy…James was in every town where Wyatt served on the police force, but he’s almost unknown to history – I have a colleague digging out James’s war record  right now, to get a feel for where he’d been and the intensity of the fighting he saw.
to be continued tomorrow…

The Zero Hour, by Joseph Finder

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Cover ImageFinished 3-17-09, rating 3/5, fiction, pub. 1996

“I assume you know who I am.”

Baumann shook his hand and nodded.  “Certainly, Mr. Dyson,” he said.  “I do know a bit about you.

“Glad to hear it.”

“I’ve recently had some spare time to do a little research.”

Dyson chortled, as if to share Baumann’s joke, but Baumann was not smiling.  “Do you know why you’re here?”  Dyson asked.

“No,” Baumann admitted.  “I know that I’m not sitting in Cell Block Ninteen in Pollsmoor Prison.  And I know that you made the arrangements for my jailbreak.  But to be entirely honest, I have no idea why.”

Chapter 8

The Prince of Darkness, aka Baumann, is a terrorist for hire and a fugitive American billionaire has just sprung him from a South African prison .  Mr. Dyson has lost his his family and the use of legs thanks to the U.S. government and he has hired Baumann to plant a bomb that will bring down Wall Street.  Baumann gets to work in making his way from Switzerland to the U.S. and finding all of the pieces to the dangerous and complex mission.

FBI Secial Agent Sarah Cahill finds herself involved in this plot because one of her informants has been murdered and she has asked all the right questions.  She is put in charge of a small task force given the large duty of figuring out not only who, but what is going on.  She also has to relocate to New York City with her eight year old son.

This is a fast-paced thriller and I had a hard time putting it down.  This is a good look at international terrorism and national security before 9-11.  There are many references to the first World Trade Center bombing and what happened in Oklahoma City.  So, the the book isn’t wrong, it’s just that the world, especially the US, has changed.

There are a few negatives.  One of the first chapters in the book is a pretty graphic one with a dominatrix and a submissive.  The excruciating detail was unnecessary, but fed into the very macho point of view of the book.  Sarah’s character was easy to root for, but she did something in the middle of the book that seemed so out of character that it was hard to understand her after that.  I was a little disappointed in the ending.  Baumann is the main character, Sarah is given equal time, but she is not nearly as interesting.  The end fizzles out because all the sudden it turns into Sarah’s story.

It does seem like a lot of complaints, but it was well-written and I was anxious to see how it would end, so it probably evens itself out.  I also think that men would rate this higher than women.