Booking Through Thursday: Quickies

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On Thursday, July 23rd, Booking through Thursday asked:

Which do you prefer? (Quick answers–we’ll do more detail at some later date)

Reading for me is just as much an escape as rv camping is for other people, but just as the perfect starry summer night should never be spent alone, reading preferences should be shared. That’s how you find kindred spirits, after all. Here, then, are my preferences:

* Reading something frivolous? Or something serious? It depends. Does Chris Moore count as frivolous? I’ve been reading a lot of his stuff lately, but when I was going through heavy stuff, I read all of the Holmes/Russell series, which are hardly light and fluffy.
* Paperbacks? Or hardcovers? Paperbacks in the bath, hardcovers in bed. I’m more likely to let others borrow/keep paperbacks.
* Fiction? Or Nonfiction? Fiction, but I do love biographies, and non-fiction has it’s place.
* Poetry? Or Prose? I read more prose than poetry. I think poetry is meant to be heard more than read.
* Biographies? Or Autobiographies? Either, as long as the subject is interesting and the writing is good. Some really fascinating people just aren’t good writers.
* History? Or Historical Fiction? Either. Both. It depends on the period and the writing.
* Series? Or Stand-alones? Both. Stand-alones are great when you want to try many different authors. Series are good if you want to immerse yourself in another world.
* Classics? Or best-sellers? Actually, I prefer contemporary fiction that isn’t quite onto the best-seller list, but is still good. Though I was raised on classics, and I certainly think all well-rounded people should have a working familiarity with them.
* Lurid, fruity prose? Or straight-forward, basic prose? It depends. In a bodice-ripper lurid prose is necessary. Generally, I prefer basic prose, but good word choices.
* Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness? Plots, please. James Joyce and his ilk make me fall asleep – their style is too much like my drowsy brain.
* Long books? Or Short? The longer the better. Although I do enjoy short stories.
* Illustrated? Or Non-illustrated? No illustrations, please. I prefer to create my own mental images.
* Borrowed? Or Owned? I like to borrow books from friends who are serious readers, especially if a book has really touched them. I don’t like library books, though, because those funky plastic covers drive me crazy.
* New? Or Used? New is preferred. I don’t like books that smell musty, or have absorbed cigarette smoke.

Review: Water Witches by Chris Bohjalian

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Water Witches
by Chris Bohjalian
Get it from Amazon >>

Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight can tell you that water is one of the best diet supplements. Anyone who knows me can tell you that water is my element, even though by birth I’m a fire sign. What can I say? Opposites attract.

It should come as no surprise, then, that when I saw a novel entitled Water Witches staring at me from the shelves at Barnes and Nobel, I HAD to take it home, and yet, I left it on my own shelves for months before cracking it open earlier this week.

What I found was a gently comic novel with a hint of fantasy, about dowsers in Vermont trying to fix a drought, while the protagonist of the novel, who was father, husband, and brother-in-law to these dowsing women, was working to aid a ski resort in gaining the proper permits to tap a local river in order to make snow.

As is to be expected in a novel about rural Vermont, there were colorful characters, cozy home scenes, and talk of maple syrup. What I did not expect, what surprised and delighted me, was the way the politics of environmentalism were worked in without the novel ever feeling preachy.

I don’t think I’m likely to pick up a divining rod and go searching for hidden springs under my front lawn, but I did, after reading this lovely little novel, spend a happy hour poking around the website for the American Society of Dowsers.

Review: Fluke, by Christopher Moore

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Fluke
by Christopher Moore
Get it from Amazon.com >>

Nothing makes you want to lose belly fat like a Christopher Moore novel about whales and swimming and Hawaii. This is both because his writing makes you want to be the one diving into the water, and because you will laugh so hard that any jiggling bits you may have will eventually become painful.

Fluke like many of Moore’s novels, is an adventure comedy. This one is about whale biology, and the main character is Nate Quinn, who turns around one day to see a whale with “Bite Me” painted on it’s tail. Or so he claims. Strangely, the frame of film with the proof is missing when the film is eventually developed, and he is greeted by a vandalized home and office upon he returns from his voyage.

As with all of Moore’s offerings, to elaborate would be to spoil the plot. Just know that Moore has managed to combine the study of humpback whales with enough laughter, sexual innuendo, and preposterous misadventure, and to do so in such a way that the reader can almost feel the ocean spray.

Read this novel poolside, or better yet, take it to the beach.

Booking Through Thursday: Unread

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On Thursday, July 2nd, Booking through Thursday asked:

“So here today I present to you an Unread Books Challenge. Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf – the books you have not read, but keep meaning to. The books that begin to weigh on your mind. The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, ‘No! Don’t give me another book to read! I can’t finish the ones I have!’ “

Right now on my nightstand I have too many books by Vonnegut, Murakami and Chris Moore. Too many because while I enjoy all of those writers, I don’t really like immersing myself in them, the way I immerse myself in Maeve Binchy or Anne Rivers Siddons, or Laurie R. King. Those women, I could read forever. Without a break. As long as they kept giving me new stuff.

Vonnegut, on the other hand, is weird. A writing coach I’ve worked with called him quirky, and encouraged me to embrace my own quirkyness. The problem is that Vonnegut’s quirkiness involves breaking the fourth wall of his novels. He’d have no compunctions, for example, about moving from a chapter about two guys going fishing, to explaining how insurance plans work.

(Disclaimer: As far as I know, Vonnegut has never written about fishing. Of course, I could be wrong.)

In any case my Unread books include:
The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, by Christopher Moore
Timequake, by Kurt Vonnegut
Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins
The Electric Michelangelo, by Sarah Hall
The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, by Joshilyn Jackson

At this point, you’re probably thinking, “Wait, that’s only one each from Vonnegut and Moore, and no Murakami.” That’s because this list only represents the books I can reach without waking the dogs. It’s 4:41 AM – what DO you expect?

Booking through Thursday: Kiss and Tell?

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On Thursday, July 2nd, Booking through Thursday asked:

Do you read celebrity memoirs? Which ones have you read or do you want to read? Which nonexistent celebrity memoirs would you like to see?

I don’t really read that many celebrity memoirs, unless the celebrities are politicians. For example, I read Living History by Hilary Clinton, and Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life, by Queen Noor, but when it comes to kiss-and-tell memoirs from actors and such, I’m not all that interested. Frankly, chasing down leads for insurance articles is more interesting than most hot celebrity tell-alls.

I did quite enjoy My Life in France, by Julia Child and Alex Prud’Homme, and I had a blast reading Anthony Rapp’s offering Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent, but the first was more a true autobiography than a celeb memoir, in the sense that there was no name dropping, and the second was so simple and sincere, that it was hard to count it among the carefully calculated, polished, publications that the folks on People‘s “most beautiful” list are giving us.

In Progress: Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami

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Norwegian Wood
Harumi Murakami
Get it from Amazon >>

I’m about half-way through Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami. I had the book on my wish list forever, and then finally bought after last summers writing conference, because so many people there were talking up Murakami. Honestly, I’m not impressed.

I mean, I don’t hate the book. The characters are well written, certainly the protagonist is every inch an unfocused college student, but I’m finding his story more frustrating than compelling, perhaps because I have no focus of my own right now.

Part of my negative response, I think, is that there’s about as much romance, even in the “romantic” scenes of this book as there are in lists of Ferrari parts. Actually, considering that the Ferrari bits eventually lead to a working Ferrari, the list is probably more compelling.

And that’s the problem. With this book, there’s no real, driving, plot. There’s no “there” there, and there’s no motivation to take the journey.

I’ll finish the book, because I’m trying to not buy new books (except dog training manuals) until I’ve finished my existing stack, but unless something changes drastically, I’m afraid I won’t be burning to read any more Murakami in the near future.

Sunday Salon: Shark Infested Waters?

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The Sunday Salon.com

I have a “thing” for sharks, so when the weather stayed in the triple-digits for yet another week, I was already thinking about rereading The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks by Susan Casey.

On Saturday, I came inside from swimming feeling too hot, strangely exhausted, and dehydrated to the point that my skin felt like chalk. I drank a bottle of water, and went to bed, sleeping away the late afternoon and early evening. When I got up, I grabbed Devil’s Teeth from my studio shelves, and took it with me into a warm bath laced with pleasantly fragrant moisturizers, and sipped more water while I soaked and read.

After my bath, I took the book with me to bed, losing myself in this story of a woman who, like me, is obsessed with the elegance and power of great white sharks – to the point where she was willing to spend several days on an island, and later on a sailboat, where not only was the water not flowing from a Grohe faucet, but on some days, not flowing at all – and certainly never hot!

The first time I read this book, two years ago, it was in March, and the weather was much cooler. Reading it in the heat of summer, I felt myself imagining waves rocking me to sleep, about spending a day surrounded by fog and water, and about being close enough to see white sharks swimming in the wild.

I’ve always loved the sea – it’s in my blood, and my heart – and I’ve liked sharks for years, but rereading this not only kept me sane all weekend, but also cemented my desire to cage dive with great whites…someday.

Booking through Thursday: Hot

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On Thursday, June 25th, Booking through Thursday asked:

Now that summer is here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), what is the most “Summery” book you can think of? The one that captures the essence of summer for you?

(I’m not asking for you to list your ideal “beach reading,” you understand, but the book that you can read at any time of year but that evokes “summer.”)

For me, it’s not just one book, but the works of one author, Anne Rivers Siddons, that give me that summery feeling. I consider her a “guilty pleasure” author at times, but I love her books because she’s an excellent storyteller who writes great women characters, and blends enough detail about things like clothing, jewelry, and room decor, with plot, setting, and subtext.

While I’ve enjoyed all of Siddon’s work, my favorites are the novels that take place at the coast – either in the Carolinas (Low Country, Up Island), or New England (Colony, Off Season) that draw me most, at least in part because I miss the shore so much.

Review: Lulu in Marrakech, by Diane Johnson

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Lulu in Marrakech
Diane Johnson
Get it at Amazon >>

I had just finished re-reading The Eight. which had some lovely scenes set in Tangier, and wanted something similarly exotic. I was standing in Barnes and Noble, talking to my friend Deb on the phone, and I saw the lovely red cover with Lulu in Marrakech, across the center, and thought, “Ah, just what I was looking for!”

While I’ve read and enjoyed many of author Diane Johnson’s other novels, those involving an out-of-place American trying to navigate Parisian society, this novel seemed to be penned by a completely different woman. Sure the cover was pretty, and the concept – an American spy called Lulu is sent to Morocco to observe and report because she has a well-connected lover – was intriguing, but the book lived up to neither.

Instead of a bold heroine, Lulu (not her real name) was a meek, constrained, self-deprecating young woman, who wouldn’t even confront her lover when she suspected an affair. The supporting characters could have been cut from stock cloth, and while her observations of local life and culture were interesting, there was no sense of BEING in Morocco.

I don’t like to give bad reviews, and I always try to find something nice to say, but the best I can do about Lulu in Marrakech is this: it’s made me appreciate Johnson’s other works, like Le Divorce all the more.

Teaser Tuesday: How the Other Half Hamptons

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked 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 7 and 12 lines.
  • 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.

My teaser this week is from an ARC of last summer’s How the Other Half Hamptons, by Jasmin Rosemberg, page 158:

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, touching her face like if he pressed too hard, it might break.

This was a compliment Jamie was accustomed to hearing, almost to the point that she wondered if it was something guys learned to say in Hooking Up 101. Though hearing it at that moment, from this guy, was pretty much the icing on the cake.