More books to read (and some I'd like to re-read)

Today on my lunch break I went to the Strand to browse. Well, browsing usually turns to buying, and I ended up with two more books to add to my library. They are: The Queen of Bedlam, by Robert McCammon, about a murderer in New York in the eighteenth century (I seem to be going for lots of books set in New York’s past these days); and Blood and Roses, by Helen Castor, about a family during the War of the Roses. I’d originally gone into the Strand in search of a copy of A Passage to India, but ultimately wasn’t successful (but they did have multiple, numerous copies of A Room With a View).

So here are some books I want to re-read: Sin in the Second City, by Karen Abbott; The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfeld; and Devil in the White City, by Erik Larsen. I’d love to get around to re-reading some of the classics, like The House of Mirth, The Woman in White, and Sister Carrie. I’d also love to re-read the Meaning of Night, but as a rule I don’t re-read books back-to-back.

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Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...

Review: The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee

The Piano Teacher is a complicated novel. On the surface, it’s about a love affair between two British ex-patriots in Hong Kong in 1952-3. Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong with her husband Martin at a time when the world is still recovering from WWII; Claire takes up work as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family, where she meets Will Truesdale, the Chens’ enigmatic chauffeur. The book jumps back in time between the 1950s and the beginning of WWII, when Will is interned in Stanley, a Hong Kong camp for enemies of Japan. On “the outside” is Tudy Liang, Will’s beautiful Eurasian lover. There’s no doubt that Lee’s writing is beautiful. But there’s something lacking in this short, terse novel that I can’t quite put my finger on. First, I think it’s the tenses she uses when taking about each story: that which is set in the 1950s is in the past tense, while the war scenes are talked about in the present tense (confusing, no?) The interpersonal relationships of the m...

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