Looking ahead: #dewey's #readathon on October 13, 2012!

I try to join Dewey's 24-hour Readathon every fall for at least part of the day/night (there's one in the spring, too, but my schedule puts the kibosh on that).  It's strange, but I feel oddly comforted knowing that bloggers/tweeters all over the world are all reading for a day at the same time.

In preparation, I've started accumulating a pile of "planned reading" - more than I ever could possibly read in a day, even with no interruptions, but I like the size because I try to pull in a hodge-podge of genres.  I tend to need a little bit of everything in my Readathon pile otherwise Murphy's Law states that I will still end up staring at my bookshelves, wasting time, because I didn't put any lit crit in my pile.  Considering that I finished Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human my first Readathon and The Best American Essays 2011 last year I'm definitely not one of those bloggers who will read just about anything.

I am also, get ready for it, going to hold my first-EVER giveaway during the Readathon.  Yeah, yeah??  Are you excited?  I am.  I recently got lucky in that a favorite author was clearing out a cache and offered the various books and audiobooks up to bloggers, etc. as giveaway prizes.  So, I'll be giving away an audiobook (much as I'd like to hoard it, because it's a favorite book, but I'll be good and send it off to a forever home) - watch your GR, twitter, feedreader, hashtag, etc Saturday!

Now, the only thing left are my snacks....thanks to other bloggers' TSS posts, I've been reminded that I never seem to have food on hand and have to go out to the store on the morning of the Readathon for snacks.  I have a note in my shopping list for Wednesday: buy Readathon snacks!

Bring on Saturday!!

The Sandman, Vol 3: Dream Country

I dove straight into Dream Country and got quite a surprise: it's a story collection.  Four separate story arcs, with Morpheus as a minor or tangential character, as opposed to a much longer novel-length arc.  So cool.

"Calliope" recounts the story of a hack writer, struggling to find success, who is offered a muse.  Not figuratively, literally.  He is literally gifted the Muse Calliope from another writer - as long as Calliope is his captive, he will churn out story after story after story, all successful.  But Morpheus owes a favor....

"A Dream of a Thousand Cats" is a whimsical little tale, about a dreaming kitten.  We meet Morpheus in cat form who tells a story about how cats could once again be rulers of the world, if only enough of them dream...the older cats slink away but the dreaming kitten, he believes.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" is, you guessed it, about the Shakespeare play.  Morpheus contracts Shakespeare to write two plays to his specifications, the first of which will be about the intersection of the human and faerie worlds.  Ultimately, the play is performed for the rulers of Faerie and Puck decides to get in on the action.  This short story won a World Fantasy Award (which makes it the only comic ever to win that, because the rules for the category were changed after that year).

"Facade" is a heart-rending tale about the downside of gaining superpowers.  Element Girl is caught in a crippling depression, unable to present a "normal" face to the world beause of her acquired powers.  Death, Dream's elder sister, is "visiting" upstairs and stops by to offer her help....

Four very disparate stories, but very intriguing each on their own.  I loved "Calliope" - fabulous concept and it offers up a bit more of Morpheus's history for consideration.  The volume I read had the script for "Calliope" in the back and it was interesting to read how a comic is conceived and put together, truly a collaborative effort (as well as Gaiman's notes and reasons for not getting as far as he ought due to creepy phone calls at 2am!).

The Sandman, Vol 2: The Doll's House

I decided to concentrate on reading one graphic novel series at a time, rather than mix them, so I went with Sandman for the time being.

The second trade paperback, The Doll's House, opens with two men in the African desert, a young man undergoing a transitional ritual where the older man passes down an apocryphal story, centered on dreams and a heart made of glass.  This story echoes through the rest of the book.

Rose Walker visits her grandmother, Unity, the famous "Sleeping Beauty", before returning to the US to search for her little brother, who has gone missing.  Interspersed are the stories of three dreams who escaped the Dreaming while Morpheus was incarcerated, particularly the horrifying Corinthian, and the residents of the boardinghouse Rose inhabits.  There is also a disturbance in the Dreaming - a dream vortex - centered on a person and it is Morpheus's job as the Dream Lord to eliminate the threat.

I really enjoy the level of creativity and intertextuality Gaiman displays in the Sandman series.  The serial killer conference sequence was amazingly creepy.  I'm also starting to enjoy how Gaiman is willing to leave plot threads hanging for future issues rather than tie up every, sincle arc in a neat little bow.

The Black Hawk

From Goodreads:
He is her enemy.
He is her lover.
He is her only hope.

Someone is stalking French agent Justine DeCabrillac through London's gray streets. Under cover of the rain, the assassin strikes--and Justine staggers to the door of the one man who can save her. The man she once loved. The man she hated. Adrian Hawkhurst.

Adrian wanted the treacherous beauty known as "Owl" back in his bed, but not wounded and clinging to life. Now, as he helps her heal, the two must learn to trust each other to confront the hidden menace that's trying to kill them--and survive long enough to explore the passion simmering between them once again.

Joanna Bourne's The Black Hawk was one of the Romantic Reads highlighted titles.  And it sounded very interesting.  Two spies, on opposite sides of a war...or not....  I'll give it a try.

And look at that - someone put a spy plot in my romance novel.  A real spy plot filled with a lot of earthy history and grim reality.

I really liked the connected narrative between Adrian and Justine's history and the current ploblem at hand: Who is trying to kill Justine?  Is it someone from their past?  Or just from one of their pasts?  Are they purposely trying to frame Adrain?  I loved little touches like how Justine always "sounded" French, always, or how Adrian felt caught between the worlds of his birth (the gutter) and his achievement (he's been knighted/runs British Intelligence).

Sometimes it felt like there was too much back-and-forth between the "current" plot and the "backstory" plot, but all the historical bits were very interesting to read so I didn't mind much.  The creche idea is very interesting.  I wonder if it really happened.  This is the fourth book in Joanna Bourne's Spymaster series.  I'll keep them in mind for future reads.

A book worth banning...

...is a book worth reading.

Check out this great video from Open Road Media in celebration of Banned Books Week.

Banned Books Week 2012: September 30 - October 6

Banned Books Week is back - celebrating 30 years of advocating for literature and readers' rights.  (They've got great "Banned" and "Forbidden" artwork this year that, for some reason, Blogger thinks the .jpeg isn't an image or video. *ruh-roh* )

I've done individual book posts in the past (my Johnny Got His Gun post is still one of the most visited posts which makes me think that the book is still on school curriculae - good) but I've got a busy week this week and I'd rather focus on reading books.  To that end I intend to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower (which I've never read) and start on Salman Rushdie's memoir Joseph Anton (as well as read Daphne du Maurier's The Doll short story collection for BNBC).  I may also post a bit about my thoughts on book challenges.

So get out there and read!  (Got my "I read Banned Books" button ready on my nametag at the store.)

Current book-in-progress: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Joseph Anton, and The Doll
Current knitted item: Shrug (I think I have a Christmas stocking or two to finish...)
Current movie obsession: Headhunters is streaming on Netflix!!  Now I can watch Jaime Lannister Nikolaj Coster-Waldau all dressed up and clean in a suit.  Yummy.
Current iTunes loop: Mumford & Sons Sigh No More (yeah, yeah, I know they have a new album but I was just introduced to the band so I'm trying the previous album on for size)

Wrap-up the #bloggiesta!

Well, I didn't get near as many posts done as planned.  I had to go into the hospital and work most of Sunday (ugh) but I did clear out my backlog of movie posts, reminded myself that ages ago I had a post footer that I liked (and somehow forgot about) so I rounded that up, and finished my review post for Brazen Reads.

So not nearly as much done as last Bloggiesta, but it was nice to give myself "permission" to sit down and finish things for once.  You have no idea how hard that is some days.

Current book-in-progress: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Current knitted item: Camellia shrug (halfway through second sleeve!)
Current movie obsession: MI-5 has been keeping me company all day.  Finished an entire season (or series, as the Brits put it).
Current iTunes loop: Imagine Dragons, Night Visions.  Love the opening song "Radioactive"

(nice footer, huh?)

Bloggiesta September 2012: Ole!

So it's Bloggiesta time again!  Time to work on the blog! 

I'm a shade late to the party (thanks, work) but I really only have one project this Bloggiesta:
WRITE. MORE. BLOG. POSTS.

Last Bloggiesta I got TONS of stuff done, but no posts.  So I'll reverse that trend and write up some of my backlog of reviews (and a few for Brazen Reads to get ahead, hopefully). And drop in on a few mini-challenges (just lurking).

Ole!

Stephanie Laurens: The Bastion Club (tail-end)

While reading The Lady Risks All (reviewed on Brazen Reads), I was introduced the Neville Roscoe, London's gambling king.  At the end, there were previews for the two previous Laurens books he appeared in: the seventh Bastion Club book and the conclusion to the Cobra quartet.  The Edge of Desire was on sale so I decided to check out the Bastion Club series.

The Bastion Club is a private gentlemen's club with an extremely exclusive clientele: aristocratic men who spent the entirety of the Napoleonic Wars behind enemy lines as spies.  They are all now rich and titled and the target of the matchmaking mamas of the ton - so the Bastion Club was born as their refuge (since the regular gentlemen's clubs like White's are filled with the mamas sons and husbands).  In The Edge of Desire, the last unmarried member of the Club, Christian Allardyce, Marquess of Dearne is summonded to help Lady Letitia Randall when her husband is discovered murdered and her brother accused of the deed.  Christian and Letitia were once lovers, and had vowed to marry when he returned to England after the war, but, for some reason, Letitia married Randall and broke Christian's heart.  As Christian investigates, and enlists is Bastion Club colleagues and enigmatic handler Dalziel to help, he finds that what he felt for Letitia never went away.  The more time he spends with her, the more he wants her.  He only has to discover two things: whether she still loves him and why the devil did she break her vow to wait.  The mystery gets a little complicated (and hair-raising like any good Laurens) but the romance of second-chances was very sweet.

I also discovered that the final Bastion Club book, Mastered by Love, was on sale, so decided to read that, too.  The hero is the mysterious Dalziel, spymaster, and in reality Royce Varisey, now the powerful Duke of Wolverstone (oh, ha! That's where Carling and Eliza wind up after being chased across half of England).  There's a lot of backstory/emotional baggage in this novel: unrequited love, marriages of convenience for centuries, family disappointment, paternal banishment, etc., etc., etc.  Minerva Chesterton was adopted by the Variseys when her parents died (she's some sort of cousin) and now serves as chatelaine - she is the one suffering unrequited love, having loved Royce for years.  The two fall in lust with each other, then something approximating love, and Royce has determined that he wants to marry her when they are caught having sex on the battlements by his sisters' houseguests.  There are some behind the scenes machinations in this book, mostly due to the presence of the mysterious Last Traitor.  I find that Royce is less "dangerous" in this book than the previous book, which is odd since he's the spymaster.  I did like seeing Devil in his pre-Honoria days as well as some other prominent Cynster characters.  I wasn't aware that Laurens had so much cross-over between series.

Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores (mini-review)

Ya'll know I work in a bookstore.  You've seen my "'Tis the Season" posts.

Jen Campbell has a blog where she started posting up things customers said in her antiquarian bookshop (it reminds me of the conversation in Notting Hill where some customer keeps asking questions like "Do you have the new John Grisham?" or "Do you have Winnie-the-Pooh?" to which Hugh Grant always answers "Sorry, travel bookshop").

It got her a book deal: Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores.

You think stuff I posted was weird?  Check out some of her submissions.  I laughed so hard I almost peed myself.

And then I found out there was a volume two in the works and submitted a few tidbits of my own.

Update: Jen accepted one of my submissions!!  Look for More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores in April 2013!

Much Ado About Loving

From Goodreads:
Ah, romantic happiness.You’d think finding it would be easier now than ever before, given all the options modern life allows us. Instead, it’s much harder—because there’s so much to figure out. And we feel such pressure to find someone perfect: soul mate, sexual dynamo, emotional stalwart, and best buddy all in one. And if we do beat the odds and manage to get into something steady, then a new batch of concerns arises—like how to go from a friendship-with-benefits to a full-fledged commitment, how to deal with his overbearing mother, or how to overcome problems in the sack. In our quest to reach romantic nirvana, we turn to self-help manuals, daytime TV, magazines, talk shows, friends, relatives, and shrinks. But we’ve forgotten a far better source of wisdom: the timeless stories written by the great novelists. Jane Austen was around long before Oprah—and though ladies in tight-laced corsets didn’t have to deal with Internet profiles or speed dating, they can help us better understand why first impressions shouldn’t necessarily be lasting (Sense and Sensibility) and why sometimes it’s okay to date bad boys ( Jane Eyre).

Daunted by how hard it would be to mine books like those for the best nuggets? Don’t be. The authors of Much Ado About Loving have done it for you, combining expert dating advice with lit crit as they discuss classics of literature. Avid readers and relationship gurus, Maura Kelly and Jack Murnighan have gone through as many romantic highs and lows as Bridget Jones and Don Juan combined. They’ve also stayed in plenty of nights, comforting themselves with great novels and learning a few lifetimes’ worth of lessons in the bargain. Trading off narration chapter by chapter, they explain the key romantic eurekas that more than thirty books have given them. Whether they’re talking about Moby-Dicks or why brides are prejudiced, each chapter will get you thinking—and keep you laughing all the way to a great relationship.
***
You don’t have to be a bookworm to learn about love from great novels. Jack Murnighan and Maura Kelly have done the reading for you. Their take on life’s greatest love lessons from literature’s most memorable characters will enlighten you about all sorts of questions, like:

* Why shouldn’t a relationship develop too much online before it enters the realm of reality? Love in the Time of Cholera was published long before Match.com went online, but it demonstrates the dangers of getting your hopes too high before you meet.
* Are you more excited about having a wedding than being married? Pride and Prejudice can help you take off those “champagne goggles” and get real.
* Is hanging out at bars your go-to move for meeting dates? Bright Lights, Big City shows why that’s no way to find a new relationship.
* Should you marry a man with a past? There are times when it’s the most principled thing you could do—and Jane Eyre can help you see why.
* Do you have a TMI problem? You should rein it in if you want romance to bloom—as Brothers Karamazov shows.
* Should you cross the political aisle for love? Howards End has the answer.
* Nobody who’s interested in you is ever good enough? Get over your intimacy issues with a look at The Bell Jar.
* Why do men talk so much, and why do women put up with it? Infinite Jest will tell you everything you need to know.

Whelp....I liked Much Ado About Loving but my expectations might have been rather high since I liked Murnighan's Beowulf on the Beach.  I probably would have liked it better from the outset had I NOT started it around Valentine's Day because it was too much advice for someone with a rather pathetic dating life. And I wasn't looking for a dating advice book.  Coming back to it in September was much better.

I like Murnighan's chapters more than Kelly's - probably because I LOVED Beowulf on the Beach and was looking for more of that.

So a good book, a decent read, but not as good as I expected.

The Duke's Tattoo

Summary from Goodreads:

First comes revenge then comes love and marriage in The Duke’s Tattoo, a historical romance set in Regency England.

After being grievously wounded at Waterloo, Jeremy Maubrey returns from war to find his new life as the tenth Duke of Ainsworth painful, dull and full of obligations. That is, until he wakes to find himself indelibly decorated in a mortifying place and mocking manner.

Though he cannot recall much of the hellish night when he was abducted and tattooed, he cannot forget the waif-like villainess responsible or her haunting eyes. Ducal duties must wait till he finds the culprit and takes his revenge.

Miss Prudence Haversham, Bath’s only female apothecary, knows she has a problem. A big, broad shouldered problem. At least she will have, if the tenth Duke of Ainsworth ever discovers she is to blame for tattooing him. Unfortunately, she meant to have tattooed the previous Duke of Ainsworth, who tried to debauch her and disgraced her with his lies. Worse yet, she learns this duke is one of four infamously implacable cavalry officers known as ‘The Horsemen of the Apocalypse.’

No sooner has the vengeful duke traced his abductress to Bath, than Prudence Haversham overturns the duke’s every expectation and intention. In turn, the duke proves himself an honorable and surprisingly forgiving man who earns the wary apothecary’s love.


I generally shy away from self-published work - what I have read previously is spotty at best.

This book, though, is an entertaining, well-thought out start to a new Regency series - "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." Intrigued?  And it came recommended by Lady Wesley, on Goodreads, and she's has pretty good/similar taste to mine.

This first book finds Jeremy Maubrey, tenth Duke of Ainsworth, waking up after a night of, well, who knows - he can't quite remember what happened - to find that he has acquired a tattoo. In a rather sensitive location ("tup a lamprey?" has got to be a catchphrase somewhere). Miss Prudence Haversham has long harbored a grudge against the Duke of Ainsworth for ruining her reputation as a teenager. Not Jeremy, but his elder brother, Phillip. Prudence doesn't know that Phillip has died and when presented with the opportunity to revenge herself on the Duke, she does. Only to take a closer look later and realize she snared the wrong man. Jeremy seeks to take his revenge for his tattoo...we all know where this is heading - it's a romance novel!

I liked both our hero and heroine. Jeremy is a man unprepared to turn himself into a pink of the ton, being used to military life, and Prudence has found her own way - as a trained apothecary - in a society that is unforgiving to women who misstep. And they have the customary trust issues and "helpful" best friends.

I really only have two major quibbles with this book:
1) Prudence's odious brother and sister-in-law aren't very well-drawn. Therefore, I really didn't understand the motivation to essentially throw a teenage girl out of her brother's house. Prudence hints that the SIL doesn't like her, but we don't see much evidence of this.
2) The falling action drags on. Very few romance novels violate convention and fail to deliver the Happily Ever After (this is why On the Way to the Wedding delivered a heart-stopping scene before giving us the HEA - it actually seemed for about 10 pages that it wasn't going to happen). Sending Jem to London where he dithers there for several chapters followed by multiple scenes where Prudence refuses Jem's offer of marriage. Over and over. Needed a bit of tightening up.

That being said, it was as very entertaining and quick read. Best wishes to author Miranda Davis on the rest of the series!