Review: Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving

Spanning the course of over fifty years, Last Night in Twisted River is the story of Danny Baciagalpo/Angel, the son of a logging camp cook. One evening, he and his father are forced to flee Twisted River, and they spend pretty much the rest of their lives on the run from a crazy and (as it turns out) a not-so-dumb sheriff. The novel takes us from New England in the ‘50s, to Iowa in the ‘60s, then to New England again, and Toronto in 2005.

The quirky plot and characters are pure John Irving. There’s a lot here that he’s visited before (there are the ghosts of boarding schools, bears, and wrestlers in Last Night in Twisted River), but Irving delves into new territory with his latest novel. I’ve always thought of John Irving’s books are being somewhat autobiographical—with embellishments. Danny Angel is a famous author; the plot of one of his novels even sounds suspiciously like parts of The Cider House Rules. As Irving says:

“In the media, real life was more important than fiction; those elements of a novel that were, at least, based on personal experience were of more interest to the general public than those pieces of the novel-writing process that were ‘merely’ made up. In any piece of fiction, weren’t those things that had really happened to the writer—or, perhaps, to someone the writer had intimately know—more authentic , more verifiably true, than anything that anyone could imagine?”

True, but John Irving’s novels, even the parts that are purely made up, are always interesting—so maybe the converse is true as well? Maybe pure fantasy can also be entirely believable?

True, the sex parts of the novel can be a bit off-putting (Irving seems a bit obsessed with the idea of overweight people having sex; Danny has a thing for one of Dominic’s girlfriends). Dominic and Danny’s girlfriends never really emerge out of one dimension (maybe because they don’t ever stay around all that long in the first place). The novel does jump around in time, which can be confusing in some places (especially when it comes to differentiating between what’s happening in the present and what’s being remembered by one or more of the characters. Still, I enjoyed this quirky, offbeat novel. Irving’s novels are always a pleasure to read, and this one is no exception.

Also reviewed by: Book Chase

The Sunday Salon

It’s the Sunday after Thanksgiving here in the United States, and it’s hard to believe that a four-day weekend is already drawing to a close. It was a pretty busy reading week for me—after my last Sunday Salon post, I read Silk, by Alessandro Baricco. After that I read the first book in the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, The Wreath; Fire From Heaven, by Mary Renault (I guess ancient Greece isn’t really my thing); Tracy Chevalier’s new book, Remarkable Creatures (coming out here in the US on January 5th); and The Victorian Chaise-Lounge, by Mrghanita Laski. How did I get so much reading in? Well, to be honest, two of these books were novellas; and I spent about nine hours total in the backseat of a car on Friday and Saturday going to and from Pittsburgh to visit family.

Thanksgiving itself was spent here in Philly, with my family and (nutty) grandmother. Thanksgiving dinner is always really good, but I always feel gross after eating, you know?

I’m currently reading the 11th book in the Morland Dynasty series, The Emperor, set this time between 1796 and 1802. Napoleon is on the rise, and Jemima Morland is still the matriarch of a very large brood back at Morland Place. Another one of those books I started on the Pittsburgh trip, and I’m about halfway through.

I keep thinking about this year, and how quickly its passed by. It’s the last weekend in November, and really, we’ve only got about four, maybe five weeks left in the year—and really, in the decade, to think of it! It’s been a good year, both for reading and in general. How was your month?

Booking Through Thursday

It’s Thanksgiving in the U.S.A. today, so I know at least some of you are going to be as busy with turkey and family as I will be, so this week’s question is a simple one.

What books and authors are you particularly thankful for this year?

I’m thankful for a lot of books and authors, some of which are new to me and some of which are old favorites. Elizabeth Chadwick is an author I “discovered” about a year ago, and since then I’ve read nine of her well-written and researched novels. This year I also discovered the books by Susanna Kearsley, which are always good, creepy reads for a rainy fall afternoon. Along the same lines are the novels of Mary Stewart; a bit trashy, but good fun nonetheless. I’m also thankful for the Morland Dynasty series, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, which I discovered this year as well. And, last but not least, the beautiful books that are published by Persephone: excellent women’s fiction and nonfiction, presented in those beautiful dove-gray covers and endpaper (be careful, their website is dangerous!). So far this year I’ve read The Priory, Monica, Miss Buncle’s Book, and The Making of a Marchioness. Persephone’s books never fail to surprise and delight, and I look forward to reading more from them in the future. I'm also thankful to those publishers who ever so graciously offer me advance review copies (Wolf Hall comes to mind)... or send them to me when I beg them! And thanks also to you (few) readers of this blog... thanks for reading along!

Review: Mary Reilly, by Valerie Martin

Mary Reilly is an alternate telling of the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s told from the point of view of Dr. Jekyll’s housemaid, Mary, an observant young woman who is nonetheless somewhat blind to what’s going on around her. She keeps a journal of her observations, in which she chronicles the increasingly bizarre behavior of the man she calls Master; and her encounters with his new assistant, Edward Hyde.

It’s not a long book, only about 250 pages, but there’s a lot packed in. At first glance, it would seem odd that Dr. Jekyll seeks out the company of a lowly housemaid; but they really have a lot in common, both having gone through, or going through, periods of darkness in their lives—Mary with the demon her father, and Dr. Jekyll with his demon Mr. Hyde.

The tension in this novel, especially in Mary’s encounters with Mr. Hyde, is palpable, as is the London fog, which seems to surround everything. Right from the opening scene (which I won’t describe; you have to read it for yourself), I was immediately hooked into the story May’s language and grammar are colorful, too, and make her voice unique. The end of the book is somewhat marred by the anonymous postscript, but otherwise I enjoyed this novel. It’s been a number of years since I read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but from what I can recall, Valerie Martin stays pretty close to Stevenson’s book. Mary is for the most part knowledgeable about the world; but in several others, she’s a complete innocent.

Pre-Thanksgiving Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to:

--Grab your current read
--Let the book 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!

“Kristin was standing in the bow of the boat with her father and Gyrid, Aasmund’s wife. She turned her gaze toward to the town, with all of its light-colored churches and stone buildings rising up above the multitudes of grayish-brown wooden houses and the bare crowns of trees.”

--From Kristin Lavransdatter I: The Wreath, by Sigrid Undset

Weekly Geeks: Best Of

The Weekly Geeks post

Here were some of my favorite reads from this year, alphabetically:
1. Sacred Hearts, by Sarah Dunant (historical fiction)
2. The Glassblower of Murano, by Marina Fiorato (historical fiction)
3. The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte, by Syrie James (historical fiction)
4. The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver (historical fiction)
5. Wolf Hall, by Hilary Martin (historical fiction)
6. Cleopatra’s Daughter, by Michelle Moran (historical fiction)
7. Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger (contemporary fiction)
8. The Street Philosopher, by Matthew Plampin (historical fiction; not out in the US—at least, yet)
9. Bleeding Heart Square, by Andrew Taylor (historical fiction)
10. The Angel’s Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (historical fiction)

There are a lot more, but these were the most memorable.

Review: The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, by Ian Mortimer

The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England is just that—a comprehensive traveler’s guide to the fourteenth century in England. It covers pretty much anything and everything of day-to-day life, from the people you would have encountered, to the clothes you would have worn, to the kind of medical treatment you would have received if you had gotten sick, and much, much more.

There’s a lot here I already knew, but a lot I didn’t—for example, that pockets were introduced during this century, as were differentiated shoes (left foot versus right, in other words). It’s details like this, that you wouldn’t normally think are important, that really are important in daily life. At first, the present-tense writing threw me off; but, as Mortimer says in his introduction, once you begin understanding history as happening rather than as has happened, then you’ll better understand the complexities of fourteenth-century life.

As the back of the book paraphrases LP Hartley, “the past is a foreign country, they did things differently there…” It’s not that things were bad or wrong with the way that people lived six hundred years ago; it’s just that people back then had different ways of seeing the world. Take, for example, the chapter on health and medical practices. It’s not that medical physicians and surgeons (two different things, up until the 17th century) were ignorant in the sense that we mean it; it’s just that they used different areas of knowledge to make a diagnosis and treat a patient. Doctors and surgeons in the fourteenth century probably had as much knowledge as doctors do today—they just used things such as astronomy, religion, and blind faith in their practice. I wish the author had focused a little more on religion and education, however. In all, though, a fascinating study of medieval social life, and unlike any other history book I’ve read (and much more enjoyable than most). I read this book straight through, but it can also be used a a reference book, to dip into from time to time. This book will be coming out in the US on Deecember 29th.

Also reviewed by: Medieval Bookworm

The Sunday Salon

Another quiet Sunday here (what else is new?). I’ve spent most of the weekend on the couch, read Elizabeth Chadwick’s The Champion, set among the jousting tournaments of the late 12th century. Very good, as always from Elizabeth Chadwick. Also read this week were Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving, and The Scapegoat, by Daphne Du Maurier.

This weekend I’ve also been watching the BBC production of Lark Rise to Candleford (based on the Flora Thompson book from the 1940s), Season 1. I’ve only watched two episodes thus far, but it’s a lovely, bucolic look at a girl’s childhood and the turn of the last century. I've not read the book, but I have it on order from Amazon as we speak.

Other than that, I don’t have much to report. How was your week?

2010 A to Z Challenge

I’ve decided to participate in the 2010 A to Z Challenge. This past year, I read authors from A to Z. I’m not yet done with 2009’s challenge, but I’m having a lot of fun doing this challenge. I’ve decided to stretch myself even further in 2010 and do the Authors and Titles option. Both authors and titles are to be determined. I don't want to commit to anything at this point, as my reading is often subject to change:

Authors:
A: Alexander, Vanessa: The Love Knot
B: Barnes, Margaret Campbell: Within the Hollow Crown
C: Chadwick, Elizabeth: The Love Knot
D: Dickason, Christie: The Lady Tree
E: Elliott, Anna: Twilight of Avalon
F: Ferguson, Rachel: The Brontes Went to Woolworths
G: Glaspell, Susan: Fidelity
H: Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia: The Regency
I: Ingham, Penny: The King's Daughter
J: James, Syrie: Dracula, My Love
K: Kearsley, Susanna: The Splendour Falls
L: Lofts, Nora: The Lute Player
M: McCammon, Robert: Mister Slaughter
N: Norman, Diana: Fitzempress' Law
O: Oliphant, Margaret: Miss Marjoribanks
P: Parris, SJ: Heresy
Q: Quinn, Kate: Mistress of Rome
R: Raybourn, Deanna: The Dead Travel Fast
S: Stewart, Mary: My Brother Michael
T: Thirkell, Angela: High Rising
U: Undset, Sigrid: The Wife
V: Vincenzi, Penny: No Angel
W: Whipple, Dorothy: They Were Sisters
X: Xiaolong, Qiu: Death of a Red Heroine
Y: Young, EH: Chatterton Square
Z: Zeitz, Joshua: Flapper

Titles:
A: Airs Above the Ground, by Mary Stewart
B: Brigid of Kildare, by Heather Terrell
C: The Carlyles at Home, by Thea Holme
D: The Devil's Horse, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
E: The Expendable Man, by Dorothy Hughes
F: The Far Cry, by Emma Smith
G: Gildenford, by Valerie Anand
H: A Hollow Crown, by Helen Hollick
I: Island of Ghosts, by Gillian Bradshaw
J: Jerusalem, by Cecelia Holland
K: The King's General, by Daphne Du Maurier
L: A London Child of the 1870s, by Molly Hughes
M: The Marsh King's Daughter, by Elizabeth Chadwick
N: Nightingale Wood, by Stella Gibbons
O: Of the Ring of Earls, by Juliet Dymoke
P: Paths of Exile, by Carla Nayland
Q: The Queen's Governess, by Karen Harper
R: The Road to Jerusalem, by Jan Guillou
S: Someone at a Distance, by Dorothy Whipple
T: To Defy a King, by Elizabeth Chadwick
U: The Unquiet Bones, by Melvin Starr
V: The Victory, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
W: Wild Romance, by Chloe Schama
X: The Mitfords: Letters Between SiX Sisters, by Charlotte Mosley
Y: The Young Pretenders, by Edith Joy Fowler
Z: My Fair LaZy, by Jen Lancaster

Friday Finds

So much to read, so little time to do it in, you know? Here’s what’s been added to my TBR list recently:

Remarkable Creatures, by Tracy Chevalier. Historical fiction that’s coming out in the first week of the new year. I’m receiving this through Amazon Vine and I’ll be excited when it gets here—I’ve loved some of her other novels.

The Kristen Lavransdatter books, by Sigrid Unset. Actually, I think I heard about it through one of you bloggers, but I can’t remember who—sorry! Historical fiction set in 14th century Scandinavia, written about 75 years ago. This week I bought a copy of the new translation.

The Glass Blowers, by Daphne Du Maurier. This has been floating around on my TBR list for a while, actually; but while at the library looking for a copy of The Scapegoat (also a Daphne book), I came across this one, written about some of Du Maurier’s ancestors in the 18th century.

The King Must Die, by Mary Renault. Bought this cheaply at my library’s fall sale last weekend. Historical fiction set in ancient Greece, a period I’m rather deficient on.

Half Life, by Roopa Farooki. Coming out next spring, I believe; it’s Farooki’s third novel. I enjoyed her first novel, the second not so much, but I’m looking forward to the third.

The Pindar Diamond, by Katie Hickman. Another one of those books I hear about from other bloggers. From the author of The Aviary Gate, coming out next summer.

O Juliet, by Robin Maxwell. Another historical; coming to me through Amazon Vine. It’s a telling of the Romeo and Juliet story.

High Wages, by Dorothy Whipple. Added this to my list after reading the Persephone Biannual. Since I loved The Priory, and have a couple of her other books in my possession, I felt that I must read this… and some point.

Child of the Morning, by Pauline Gedge. Novel about Queen Hatshepsut that’s being re-released in April.

The Botticelli Secret, by Marina Fiorato. It’s being offered through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. I really liked her first book, her second not so much.

Review: The Russian Concubine, by Kate Furnivall

I probably shouldn’t even be writing this review, as I didn’t finish it. Well, I got through 350 pages before throwing in the towel, but only because I had nothing else to read with me at the time. I was intrigued by the premise, about a young Russian girl in China in the 1920s, and her relationship with a native Chinese. But from there, it quickly went downhill.

First of all, the prose is pretty overwrought, littered with one-word, repetitive sentences that were very choppy. There were lots of writing clichés (of the “he could feel into her soul” variety”). The writing actually gave me a headache at some places.

There were also problems with the plot and characters. I simply didn’t feel emotionally invested in any of these characters’ stories, particularly Lydia, who grated on my nerves (and if the author mentioned her flame-red hair one more time, I thought I was going to throw the book at the wall!). She didn’t ever seem to be her age, and I didn’t find her relationship with Chang to be all that believable. Nor did I really believe her mother’s character, which was more cliché than anything; and I though Theo Willoughby’s story was really random and out there, and not truly important to the plot—which I kept searching for, but in vain. Take these characters and put them in a different setting, and you would probably have the same novel, honestly.

A lot of things happen in this novel, but it seems to be more inertia than anything—a lot of it doesn’t seem to advance the plot by much. Plus, there were a lot of inconsistencies—Lydia and Valentina can hardly afford to feed themselves, but the rabbit SunYat-sen is in absolutely blooming health. There’s a lot of gratuitous violence, too. Nor does the author seem to know much about Russian or Chinese culture and history. A huge disappointment, especially since this novel seemed promising.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to:

--Grab your current read
--Let the book 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!

“Nothing was on a grand scale, as it had been in Le Mans. Here were no beasts, no cattle, but trestle tables crammed together in a small space, spilling over with aprons, jackets, mackintoshes, sabots; and the child and I moved leisurely between them, our eyes caught foolishly by the same objects—by spotted handkerchiefs, scarves, a china jug shaped to a cock’s head, pink rubber balls, chunky coloured pencils, red one end and blue the other.”

--From The Scapegoat, by Daphne Du Maurier

Review: Miss Buncle's Book, by DE Stevenson

Miss Buncle is a pretty average, middle age woman living in an English country village. One day, she decides to write a novel about Silverstream, the village she lives in. The books is published, and instantly becomes a bestseller—with adverse effects in Silverstream, for its inhabitants are furious that someone has dared to write about—caricature—their lives.

This is an extremely funny book, poking fun at the provincialism of the average English country village in the 1930s. The characters are a howl: Mrs. Featherstone Hogg, who of all the inhabitants of the village is the most enraged; Mr. Hathaway the vicar; Mrs. Greensleeves, the widow who only chases after the vicar because she thinks he has money; Miss King and Miss Pretty; Colonel Weatherhead, the town’s confirmed bachelor; and others, including Doctor Walker and his wife, and Sally Carter, who seem to be the only people not offended by Disturber of the Peace (sounds like the title of a mystery, but no matter). Miss Buncle’s descriptions of her characters are somewhat cruel, but truthful nonetheless. This novel is hysterically funny as well—I had stitches in my side by the time I got to the description of the film that Mr. Abbott and Miss Buncle go to see.

It’s claimed over and over again that Miss Buncle is a simple creature; but maybe she really does know what she’s doing all along? I think she’s a lot smarter than a lot of people, including Miss Buncle herself, give her credit for. As events unfold, and life imitates art, so to speak, it becomes clear that truth really is stranger than fiction.

This is Persephone #81 (endpaper below)

The Sunday Salon

It’s always a little sad when Sunday comes around. I always feel as though the weekend goes by way too fast, you know? My parents are out in Arizona, enjoying 80 degree weather; and I’ve spent the week here in rainy, cold Pennsylvania. So I’ve been dogsitting this weekend. Amazing to think that last week I broke out my winter coat; and that I go to work in the mornings when it’s completely dark out, and come home after the gym, when it’s nearly dark again (granted, I start work at 7:00 am, and come home around 5:00).

The weather has been better today; beautiful, in fact, so I took the dog out for a long walk on this trail near the house. In the afternoon, I went to the semiannual book sale that my library has, and walked away with: The King Must Die, by Mary Renault; The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett; and Vile Bodies, by Evelyn Waugh. It was the second day of the sale, so there wasn’t much left, but I did manage to pick up some books that have been on my TBR list for ages. It was my first library book sale, and it was a little crazy down in their basement (where the sale was held); but I’ll definitely be going back next year.

It’s been a pretty busy week, in terms of reading. I finished the Helen Simonson book, as well as an ARC of Alison Weir’s The Lady in the Tower (much better than some of her other books). Then I read Mary Reilly, by Valerie Martin, which is a kind of retelling of the Jekyll and Hyde story. Very creepy and very good.

Right now I’m about halfway through Last Night in Twisted River. I’d requested this from the publisher a long time ago and completely forgot about it; then on Wednesday, to my surprise, it arrived in the mail. It’s very characteristic of Irving’s novels, dealing as it does with quirky characters and unlikely situations and coincidences. It’s really a complicated novel to truly explain.

Review: The Fraud, by Barbara Ewing

The Fraud is a novel with a complicated plot. It opens in 1735, and closes in the 1780s, so it covers a lot of ground. Growing up, Grace Marshall had every intention of becoming a Painter; but her brother Philip was the one who was permitted to take his Grand Tour to Europe to study art. Many years later, he comes back from Grace—as Filipo de Vecellio, conquering the world of portrait painting in London. He enlists his sister’s help in his deception, and Grace becomes Francesca, housekeeper to the famous portrait painter. It’s a remarkable self-sacrifice that Grace makes, but she does it for love of her brother—who, in time, she ends up hating.

There’s a whole lot going on in this novel, some of it crucial to the plot, some of it not (I won’t go into specifics, but sometimes I felt as though the author thought “what’s the worst thing that can happen in this situation?” and made it happen to her characters). I also didn’t really believe in Grace’s relationship with James Burke (because honestly, would someone like him really have behaved the way he did in real life?) There are lots of run-on sentences, and the author seems fond of Capital Letters.

It’s a good story nonetheless, well researched, that takes place in the art galleries and auction rooms of London at a time when English art was beginning to be taken seriously. There’s a huge amount of detail here—right down to the very materials used to mix paint! Well-drawn (if I may use the pun) are the characters—Grace’s passion for her art is almost palpable, and Philip’s boorishness is maddening at times. Technically the book is well written, though the jump back and forth between Grace’s narration and the omniscient narrator may be a bit jarring at first (as it was to me). It’s a novel of passion, of obsession, and of money—above all things, money, which drives the motives of most of the characters of this novel.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to:

--Grab your current read
--Let the book 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!

“Writing on the day of her execution, her chaplain, Matthew Parker, had no doubt that her soul was in ‘blessed felicity with God.’ Her body, however, had been consigned to oblivion, for no provision was made for any stone or memorial tablet to mark the place where she lay.”

--From The Lady in the Tower, by Alison Weir

Review: New York: The Novel, by Edward Rutherfurd

New York: The Novel is an ambitious book. Covering nearly 350 years of New York, and by extension American history, this book is the story of about a half a dozen families living in the city at various points throughout its history: the Dutch van Dycks, English Masters, Irish O’Donnells, German Kellers, southern Italian Carusos, Jewish Adlers, and the descendants of the slave Quash, who are given the last name River. The novel opens in 1664, when New Amsterdam is bought from the Dutch by the English and becomes New York, and ends in the summer of 2009.

New York is the third of Rutherfurd’s books I’ve read, after Sarum and London. His previous two books covered all of English history, from prehistory to the present; New York only covers about 350 years. There are good and bad things about focusing on such a (relatively) short period of history. On one hand, it’s a lot easier to keep track of the generations through the years, and there’s a lot more room for character development. On the other, I really wish that Rutherfurd had covered Manhattan history during the time it was owned by the Dutch.

The focus of the novel is on the Revolution and Civil War, particularly the Draft Riots of 1863, and the financial panic of the turn of the last century. The Great Fire of 1835 is ignored, as are the (often confusing) politics of Tammany Hall, the Astor Place riots, the amalgamation of the Boroughs, the General Slocum disaster in 1904, or the building of the subways. I realize there’s a lot to cover in a novel of this scope, but some mention of these defining moments of New York history would have been nice. The longtime tension between the Irish Catholics and native-born New Yorkers is downplayed, and it seemed a little odd to me that someone like Sean O’Donnell wouldn’t have run into at least some prejudice on his way up out of the Five Points. Or that Mary O’Donnell would go from being a maid in the Masters’ house to being one of Hetty Master’s best friends in society.

On the other hand, there’s a lot of territory to cover in this 860-page novel, so it’s also easy to understand why an author might have to be picky and choosy about what to include and what to leave out. The parts of the novel that the author does cover are well-researched, especially the chapters on the Revolution, the Draft Riots, the great blizzard of 1888, the financial bits, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1910, the blackout of 1977, and 9/11.

As I’ve said, because this book covers less time that some of Rutherfurd’s other books, there’s less to keep track of in terms of family history. The Master family, for the most part, are the focal point of the novel. The story follows them, as merchants and Wall Street men, from the early 18th century to the present, so I really enjoyed following their story through the centuries. It was also interesting to witness New York growth through the years, from sleepy 17th century village to bustling 21st century metropolis. It’s also a fascinating story about the American dream, of a half a dozen families living that dream in one of the greatest cities in the world. For an excellent narrative history of New York (at least up through the 1960s), try Edward Robb Ellis’s The Epic of New York City.

The Sunday Salon

Ah, Sunday again. It’s been a busy week, so it’s amazing that I got a surprising amount of reading done. I finished New York: The Novel (coming out on Tuesday), and got about 350 pages in to The Russian Concubine before it became a wallbanger (you know, the kind of book that’s so awful that you throw it against a wall). I’ll still post a review, but it won’t be pretty.

I spent the rest of the week reading The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England, which is coming out in the US at the end of next month. It’s a fascinating look at the fourteenth century.

Then yesterday morning I started Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, a first novel which is coming out in March. I received it through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer’s Program, which is why I’m reading it so soon. It's good, but the Americanizations are a bit distracting.

In addition I’ve got several other ARCs in the pipeline to read, inclusing Elizabeth Kostova’s new book, The Swan Thieves, and Alison’s Weir’s new book on Anne Boleyn. So, lots of potentially good books coming out this fall and winter.

How was your reading week?

Cover Deja-Vu #16

Here are two more: one is the cover of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Shuttle (ReadHowYouWant large print edition); the other is Tasha Alexander's A Poisoned Season. They're not exactly the same, but close enough!

Review: Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle, by Manda Scott

Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle is the fantastic story of Boudica, warrior queen of the Iceni tribe (or Eceni, according to Manda Scott). This novel is the first in a series, and covers Boudica’s (called Breaca) early years, from the age of eight to 21, when she faced the Romans in battle. Other major characters in the novel are Ban, who later goes to the Continent and experiences a sort of rebirth as a Roman citizen; and Caradoc (Caractatus), leader of the Catuvellauni, with whom Breaca has a tentative alliance.

You could say this book is divided into two parts, with the first half devoted to the struggle between the Iceni and Catuvellauni, and the second to the struggle between the native Britons and the Romans.

It must be very tough to write a novel about a people whose culture was oral and not written. The Romans wrote about Boudica, but their opinions were hardly objective. Not much is known about Boudica, and even less is known about her childhood, so a lot of this novel is, as the author admits in her note at the end, fictional. But Scott does a fantastic job with what little information she does have, and her characters seem real and believable. Her information about the Romans is a little more complete, because they, of course, left written records. The historian Dio Cassius described Breaca as having flaming red hair, and boy, does Manda Scott run with that.

I took a real chance when buying this book, because I’d never even heard of the author before and didn’t know if I’d like a 700-page novel about Roman Britain. And, at first I was a little wary of the “dreaming” concept that drives the book. But I was pleasantly surprised. The dreaming isn’t over-the-top, and the animal imagery is simply amazing. The story takes a little while to gather momentum, but reading through the first 50 pages or so yields a really rich, rewarding reading experience. This is a very strong start to what promises to be a very engaging series.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to:

--Grab your current read
--Let the book 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!

“’Your description marked him out quite clearly as a Russian. They’ll search around here in the Russian quarter until they find a man who fits.’”

--From The Russian Concubine, by Kate Furnivall

Review: The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver

The Lacuna is an extremely difficult novel to explain. It covers a lot of territory, and a lot of topics. It’s difficult to know where to start. It’s a novel about a young man named Harrison Shepherd, a Mexican-American who grows up in Mexico and later lives in North Carolina. From the age of thirteen, when Harrison finds himself mixing plaster and cooking food for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, up through his thirties, when he is a famous author and suspected Communist, this novel is, as the back of the book states, a coming of age story. But it’s much more than that as well.

As I’ve said, this is a tough novel to describe. In high school (about 10 years ago), I read everything Kingsolver had written up to that point, and I can say that this book is very much unlike any of her other novels, both in subject matter and style. But just the same, I loved this novel. Lacunae are voids, pieces that are missing; and it’s hard for me to grasp exactly what this means. It’s because of this that The Lacuna is a thought-provoking novel, one that had me thinking about it and its characters long after I’d put it down. It’s definitely bleak in parts, but Kingsolver’s writing is magical, contrasting the warmth of the Mexican climate with the coldness of the United States during the 1950s. There’s also, sort of, an anti-American bias in this book; the United States certainly doesn’t come across very well.

The characters are also amazing and well-drawn, though Shepherd seems to be more of an observer in this novel as opposed to an active participant (much, as he says early on, like viewing the world through a camera lens). But there are other, interesting characters in this book, including the prickly Frida Kahlo, with her morbid sense of humor; and Violet Brown, Shepherd’s middle-aged stenographer, with her archaic grammar. I though the newspaper clippings and reviews to be a little bit too much, but I really, really loved the rest of this novel.

The Sunday Salon

Ah, yes, another Sunday. Hard to believe it’s November already. I was a little thrown off by the clocks changing this morning. Yesterday I went out to lunch with my mom, sister (who’s in town for the weekend) and grandmother. I bought a new handbag at the mall, and spent most of the afternoon reading.

Currently I’m 700 pages in to Edward Rutherfurd’s new book, New York: The Novel (coming out next week). Like his other books, it’s absolutely mammoth-sized (860 pages), but enjoyable. He only covers New York history since 1664, so there’s much more room for character development. He skips out on a lot of events in New York City’s history, but what he does cover, he covers very well. It’s taken a while to get through; I started reading it on Monday. My review will be up on the 19th, when it comes out.

Also finished this week was Barbara Kingsolver’s new book, which is EXCELLENT, by the way. Not to be missed, and probably one of the best books I’ve read all year. My review of this exceptionally complicated novel will be up on Tuesday. How was your reading week?