Teaser Tuesday:

The rules come from MizB of Should Be Reading.

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

For this week's Teaser Tuesday I'm choosing The Horse Boy a Father's Quest to Heal his Son by Rupert Issacson

(pg 217) "This had been the first morning he'd woken up and not sad "Lets go home." Instead he had woken up and said "Let's go see the reindeer people. First the water, then we'kk go see the reindeer people.""

Book review: Cathedrals of the Flesh by Alexia Brue

Title: Cathedrals of he Flesh: My Search fo the Perfect Bath
Author Alexia Brue
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Date Published: 2003

I originally received this book from Morsecode as part of the books she sent when my name had been pulled from a drawing that she did on her blog Morsie Reads!. I had put this on my wishlist after reading the blurb when the book was offered in a swap on one of the forums that I read regularly.

When author Alexia Brue visits her best friend Marina in Paris, they both attend a local turkish bathhouse (also known as a hamam). Alexia and Marina decide to research what it would take to open a hamam in New York City. This research took Alexia's curiosity concerning the history of bathhouses and their current status worldwide. Alexia travels from the US to Turkey, where the hamams are frequented by older generations and looked down on by the younger generations. She then travels to Greece and visits the remains of a Roman bathhouse which is being excavated by archaeologists. From there Alexia travels to Russia and Sweden with their Steam baths. Russians show her their love of the banya with it's ritual of flogging the bathers with bunches of birch leaves (a tradition which brings blood to the skins surface, and promises that those partaking won't get old). Sweden shows Alexia the tradition of the sauna where bathers end their bathing experience by plunging into frigid waters. Alexia finishes he travels by visiting Japan, where bathing occurs in the onsen (the author visits an onsen in Tokyo), to the more famous hot spring baths outside of Kyoto.

I found this book a fascinating way of visiting other countries. While the author's travels and research did not end up leading to the opening of a bathhouse in New York, it opened her eyes to the different types of baths found worldwide, and gave her oppurtunities to become comfortable with these traditions. I enjoyed reading about the authors travels as a single woman through parts of the world where being a woman is not the best thing, and enjoyed reading her relavations about herself as she traveled the world.

The Secret Life of Books

A friend shared this amazing little video starring what else but books!

Teaser Tuesday

For this week's Teaser Tuesday I'm choosing The Girl's Almanac by Emily Franklin

The rules come from MizB of Should Be Reading.

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Teaser from page 124

In every country it seemed there was a bitter candy or unusual condiment that appealed only to natives; candied cod, or Marmite spread, jellied passion fruit, or baked twists of lime rinds. In Ecuador, the gourd seeds wern't bitter, but they'd been fried in curdled butter. Gabrielle had liked them raw and wanted to bring some back to share with her father, since she knew she couldn't translate their pugnancy or the way they recalled her whole time in Manta, but of course they'd never let her through customs with them.

food in fiction

when food is portrayed in books are you affected as you read them?

For instance, I found myself buying some Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream the other day while picking up some small sundries at the pharmacy. I blame this on one of the last books I read in 2011. The book in question was Ben and Jerry's: The Inside Scoop by Fred Lager. This book chronicled the birth of Ben and Jerry's Ice cream in 1978 as a one store ice cream shop in Vermont to it's becoming available nationwide in the early 1990's. The book was published in 1994, and left me wondering about the impacts of the company as it continued to grow in popularity and the sustainability of company sponsored charities/event/etc. I don't eat ice cream very often, due to not being able to digest milk very well. However, I do have a fond remembrance of this brand coming onto the market in the Chicago-land area when I was a teenager in the early 90's, and it it one of the few normal ice cream brands I still occasionally buy when buying store-bought ice cream.

It doesn't always happen. When I read the Latest Game of Thrones books, George R.R. Martin's descriptions of feasts didn't leave me hungry. The descriptions of the feasts in The Hunger Games when Katniss and Petta are in the capital did not leave me longing for a suitable snack similar to one I had just read about.

However, Every time I re-read The Lord of the Rings books I end up cooking myself a pan of mushrooms, and every Redwall book that I ever read had me trying to recreat deeper 'n ever pie, and hotroot soup (I was so happy to find the Redwall cookbook - the recipes are not always what I had imagined them to taste like but they are fun to make).

I would love to hear how others are affected by cravings while reading.

2012 plans

On one of the other forums I read we've been talking about what series we want to keep up with in 2012, what our reading goals are for the year and such. I thought I would share my goals for 2012.

* Read 150 books - this is less than what I read in 2011 but I have a very intense course load this spring.
* Take more advantage of the nook. With the longer commute I see more ebooks and audiobooks in my future.
* Continue to read down the tbr pile of bookcrossing books from past trades.
* balance the bookcrossing books I read with my regular TBR pile.
* Start writing reviews again. - I miss the critical writing these made me do.
* post here once a week or more
* Wild release 1-2 books a week

* Start the Culture series that Elengil has been raving about.

2011 wrap up

In 2011 I read 164 books. This count includes all paper, audio book, ebooks, graphic novels, and children's books I read over the year (though I don't keep track of the books I read with the kids at work). The breakdown includes:

164 books read
71 audiobooks
13 ebooks
12 graphic novels
55 bookcrossing books

If you are interested in seeing what I read this past year my 2011 Goodreads shelf

Book Review: The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Diane Setterfield

When amateur biographer Margaret Lea receives a letter from reclusive author Vida Winter offering her a job she is stumped as to why she has been chosen. A lover of nineteenth century literature, Margret has never even read one of the contemporary author’s books. However, when Margaret picks up one of the authors well loved books she finds herself drawn into its prose. The book , one that she has found tucked safely in the safe in her father’s rare and antique book store, is a rare copy titled Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation. This is a collection of short stories by the author that is missing a tale, only having twelve tales rather than the thirteen proclaimed in the title. A fact that causes the early editions to be recalled from bookshops. Leaving readers worldwide to speculate ‘What is the thirteenth tale?

Margaret travels to Vita Winter’s home and finds the woman ill, and facing death. She wants to tell someone the tale of her life before she became Vita Winter the author. Margaret who has her own secret from birth finds herself drawn to parallels in Vita’s story to her own life. As the story unfolds, Margaret finds herself drawn into the history of the Angelfield family. From the beautiful Isabelle, her feral twin daughters Emmaline and Adeline, a ghost, and the governess who comes into the house and changes everything for the girls, Margaret finds the details as gothic and strange as those of her well loved Jane Eyre. But as the tale unfolds, and Margaret researches the facts shared with her, she begins to wonder. What are these ghosts that torment Vita Winters? What happened the night of the fire that disfigured her hand? How did Adeline Angelfield become transformed from a feral and violent girl to the Well loved literary figure of Vita Winter?

I found this story engrossing, and finished it in several days. The mystery of Vita Winter’s past drew me in. I’m extremely glad that I stumbled across it in my TBR pile.

Book Review: The Shepherd's Tale (Serenity, #3) by Zack Whedon, Joss Whedon, Chris Samnee, Dave Stewart (Artist), Steve Morris (Artist)

One of the big storyline mysteries that never got answered due to the show Firefly being canceled was “Who is Sheppard Book?” We are given hints that he is more than he seems throughout the short series. He is a man of great faith, with a shadowed and secret past. In the graphic novel The Shepherd’s Tale, we are shown who this mystery preacher really is, and how he ended up on the firefly captained by Mal, Serenity.

One thing I enjoyed about the book was the fact that it starts at the end of Shepherd Book’s life and goes back down to him being a young man living life on the streets. It peels back the layers composing Book’s past. However, this was short . Zack Whedon stated in the foreword that this was based off of notes/timeline written by Joss Whedon. It feels like that at times when reading. The story is presented in a very bare bones way that while answering the question of who is shepherd Book leaves the reader wondering more about Book himself. While answering the question of his past, the vignettes of his history don’t always feel like they are fleshing out the character. My favorite portion of the story is when Book finds faith in a bowl of soup…

I’ve seen many comments in negative regards as to the artist chosen for this graphic novel. I will say now that I absolutely enjoyed artist Chris Samnee’s interpretation of the Firefly universe. Dark and gritty at times, the images capture the story fantastically. The complaints that I read, where mainly centered around the fact that the few images of the crew of Serenity don’t look exactly like the show. But, I thought the artist captured Book with great depth. The thing I love about graphic novels is that you get to see what the story looks like through the imagination of the artist. While this book does not match the earlier graphic novels it stands on its own for it’s own style of drawing involved in it.

As a fan of the series, I was excitedly waiting for the release of this graphic novel. Despite the reservations I had regarding the story I found myself drawn in to it. I miss this fictional universe, quite a lot, so being able to visit it again was fantastic. This is definitely a book for the fans, and I am looking forward to more comic/graphic novel forays into it in the future from Joss & Zack Whedon.

UBS review: Shake Rattle & Read Book Box

I'm actually taking a cue from one of Morsie's recent posts over on Morsie Reads. She posted about one of the used book stores that she and her husband visited recently. I just found some gems at the used book store by my work and thought that I too would post something about it.


Name of Store: Shake Rattle & Read Book Box.
Location: 4812 N Broadway St
Chicago, IL 60640
(773) 334-5311
Hours: Mon-Sat 12 pm - 6 pm
Sun 12 pm - 5 pm

This store is a small storefront located next to the sadly closed Uptown Theater in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago. The store carries music in the forms of LP's, CD's, and even cassette tapes. There is a small selection of used DVDs, and vintage magazines of all sort of subjects. Then there are the books...

The store is narrow but deep with shelves running up to the ceiling. Books are organized by section, and range from hardcovers to battered and well loved paperbacks. Each section is loosely organized alphabetically, but sometimes books are not where you think they might be. So, it is a browser's heaven of a store.

I've rarely gone in and not left with out a book. The stock rotates rather quickly getting new books on the shelves weekly, and the owner has recently added a new to the store table at the front with the newest selections stacked for people to browse through. The owner is really laid back, enjoys talking to the customers and openly invites patrons to e-mail him if there are particular titles that they are looking for.

Prices for books range from the $1 shelf to half off the cover price. Books in better condition, or some older books are bagged and priced. Sometimes this works out to the half the cover price, but in some cases (usually trade paperbacks or more collectible books) the price is a set one a slight bit higher than that half cover price. The owner also puts a free box outside most days, and I have found some great science fiction and fantasy books in there recently.

Shake Rattle & Read is a store I go to first when looking for more obscure authors. I've found some gems there and have had fantastic luck picking up hardcovers of series such as the Diskworld books for reasonable prices. If you happen to be in the uptown area when they are open and have time to look around I highly suggest it.

It isn't a store that invites sitting and reading, but it is a great place to browse. The shelves are packed with books in a range of subjects and genres.

There is a lovely interview with the owner over at The Gaper's Block from earlier this year.

Welcome to Bordertown

So I'm anxiously awaiting a book I pre-ordered. It's official release date was Tuesday 5/24/2011. If I had waited and bought it at a store I could be reading it right now. But since I picked up two books which I haven't found copies of at the local new book mega store (The several Barnes & Noble's near me have a varying selection when it comes to sci-fi and fantasy), so now I'm looking at the tracking number hoping my books get here tomorrow rather than Saturday.

The book in question? Welcome to Bordertown Edited by Ellen Kusner and Holly Black

I haven't been this exited about a new release in a looong time. You see, when I was pre-teen I stumbled across the original Borderland book. It was a beat up paperback sitting in the fantasy rack. I was drawn to it because of the cover, and the back blurb made me wonder what it had to share. I found an amazing colaberation of short stories set in a shared universe. The premise: The elflands have returned and people (mostly teens) are flocking to see the magic themselves. The stories take place in and around Bordertown, the town that has sprung up on the border between the human and elven realms.

This battered book was my introduction to urban fantasy. I fell in love with the setting and borrowed the three Borderland books frequently from the library. When Borderland and Bordertown were reprinted in the mid 90's I bought copies (which are sadly in storage so I haven't been able to reread the stories while I wait) The bands that were suggested as music that would find it's home in Bordertown were in fact many of the bads I had been introduced to through my father. Bands such as Cat's Laughing, Dead Can Dance, Boiled in Lead. Bands I still listen to regularly.

Here's hoping my books get here tomorrow. fingers are crossed...

Interested in learning more about the series? Visit http://bordertownseries.com/ and explore the site.

small break

I feel so silly posting this as my last two posts were almost one year apart. However, I have some reviews to finish writing, and sharing. But it's that crazy time of the semester known as the last week of classes. so, I shall be diving into my written exams and practicing equations. Hopefully I'll be up to sharing thoughts on what I've read sometime next week-ish :)

Book Review: Son of Darkness by Josepha Shermaan

Curator Denise Sheridan loves her job. She works as head of the Mesopotamian Art and Archeology department of the American Museum of Art, in New York City. Denise Sheridan tries to find ways to showcase the artifacts found from the cradle of civilization and an era of the birth of mankind in a way that honors the civilizations the artifacts have come from. But not everyone agrees with the way she does her job. Her boss wants flashier more dramatic exhibits that will pull in more visitors. She has also been receiving threatening letters from a group called the “Children of Summer”. Unknown to her, the leader of this group has started following her around with fanatical intentions towards her.
Ilarion Highborn is more than he seems. The owner of the Highborn Gallery, he sells ancient and modern day artworks to collectors in the city. However, the man’s impeccable senses of dress including sunglasses at all times hide the fact that he is not human. He is a self exiled noble from the dark side of Fairy. He has abandoned the rule he was born to take having become disgusted with the excessive cruelty performed daily by his people. He has made himself a home here in this dimension, despite the crippling effects on him by sunlight, and the iron used to construct much of the city. He has just been visited by a being from his own dimension. He suspects that this will bring his enemy Kerezar to this dimension in confrontation.
Ilarion is correct, Kerezar crosses into this dimension, allying himself with the ancient demon Lamashtu. Freeing her to walk the city, this ancient demon of plague finds herself in a world full of promise. She is urged to kill Denise Sheridan by the leader of the Children of Summer whose body she inhabits. Denise and Ilarion find themselves thrown together to fight not one, but two evils trying to take control of the city. With Denise’s knowledge of ancient Mesopotamian lore, and Ilarion’s knowledge of magic can they save the city and the world from evil overtaking everything they know and find pleasurable in life?
This is an older fantasy book. Published in 1998, it was written by author Josepha Sherman, national bestselling author known for the book Vulcan’s Forge. It is also a book that I had never stumbled across as a teenager who haunted the library looking for more fantasy books every weekly visit. I was given this book in a batch of books to pass along by a fellow bookcrosser who knows I enjoy wild releasing books into the world, who needed to clear books from her own bookshelves. I was immediately grabbed by the cover art of the book. The two figures dressed in corporate looking suits towered over by a winged lion grabbed my interest. I found a story that pulled me into its plot. It was a little pulpy feeling in parts, but it had a really nice mix of magic and technology. I especially liked the version of New York City that the book was set in. It was nice to be able to imagine the settings as I had seen a few of the places mentioned on my own visit to New York City and I enjoyed placing the fictional museum and gallery into the surroundings I had enjoyed on my visit. This is definately an author whose other works I plan on tracking down to read in the near future.

First line: The shabby little man in the worn brown suit paused nervously on the corner of Madison Avenue and Seventy-Eigth street, glancing about him in the early morning sunlight.

Teaser Tuesday - Oryx and Crake

For this week's Teaser Tuesday I'm choosing Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood

The rules come from MizB of Should Be Reading.

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Book Summery from GoodReads:

Margaret Atwood's new novel is so utterly compelling, so prescient, so relevant, so terrifyingly-all-too-likely-to-be-true, that readers may find their view of the world forever changed after reading it.

This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers. For readers of Oryx and Crake, nothing will ever look the same again.

The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece together what has taken place, the narrative shifts to decades earlier. How did everything fall apart so quickly? Why is he left with nothing but his haunting memories? Alone except for the green-eyed Children of Crake, who think of him as a kind of monster, he explores the answers to these questions in the double journey he takes - into his own past, and back to Crake's high-tech bubble-dome, where the Paradice Project unfolded and the world came to grief.

With breathtaking command of her shocking material, and with her customary sharp wit and dark humour, Atwood projects us into an outlandish yet wholly believable realm populated by characters who will continue to inhabit our dreams long after the last chapter. This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers.

The Teasers:

"The sky darkens from ultramarine to indigo. God bless the namers of oil paints and high-class women's underwear, Snowman thinks. Rose-Petal Pink, Crimson Lake, Sheer Mist, Burnt Umber, Ripe Plum, Indigo, Ultramarine-they're fantasies in themselves, such words and phrases.

Teaser Tuesday - My Year of Meats

For this week's Teaser Tuesday I'm choosing My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki

The rules come from MizB of Should Be Reading.

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Book Summery from GoodReads:

At first glance, a novel that promises to expose the unethical practices of the American meat industry may not be at the top of your reading list, but Ruth Ozeki's debut, My Year of Meats is well worth a second look. Like the author, the novel's protagonist, Jane Takagi-Little, is a Japanese-American documentary filmmaker; like Ozeki, who was once commissioned by a beef lobbying group to make television shows for the Japanese market, Jane is invited to work on a Japanese television show meant to encourage beef consumption via the not-so-subliminal suggestion that prime rib equals a perfect family:

The Teasers:

It was the oddest moment. Sitting on the edge of a polyester coverlet on a king sized bed in the Compasion Inn, I felt an overwhelming sensation, a tremendous shudder that I imagine must have been akin to grace.

Teaser Tuesday - Chindi

For this week's Teaser Tuesday I'm choosing Chindi by Jack McDevit

The rules come from MizB of Should Be Reading.

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Book SUmmery from GoodReads:

Most science fiction seeks to excite and gratify the reader's sense of wonder. Jack McDevitt's hard SF novel Chindi both satisfies and examines this sense of wonder, which inspires not only SF readers and writers, but every explorer and scientist who seeks to understand the universe.

In Chindi, humanity has expanded to the stars and found very few other intelligent races--all but one extinct, with the survivor none too impressive. Humanity has resigned itself to being alone. Then an alien satellite is found, orbitting a distant star and beaming an unreadable signal across the galaxy. Academy starship Captain Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins finds herself piloting a motley crew of eccentrics (one an ex-lover) from the idealistic, ridiculed Contact Society, seeking the signal's destination. Their quest turns deadly as it takes them far beyond the borders of explored space to an impossible planetary system--and a vast and terrifying alien artifact.

The Teasers:

"Images began to flash across the screen. The ships were eerily similar to the kinds of vessels that had roamed Earth's seas until recently. Of course, she thought, that only makes sense. How many ways are there to build a ship? (P. 109)

Giveaway (not mine) For the Swan Thieves

Terra over at Yankee Romance Reviews has a giveaway for 3 copies of the Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova (author of The Historian).

You can find her post about the contest over here:

http://yankeeromancereviewers.blogspot.com/2010/01/swan-thieves-unabridged-3-copy.html

Just leave her a comment before the drawing date of Feb. 7, 2010


As those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile know, I loved The Historian. This new book looks just as good!

Patrick Rothfuss' Worldbuilders 2009

I'm a little late to the announcements with this one, but it is just to cool of a contest/fundraiser to not post about it.

Author Patrick Rothfuss of The Name of the Wind (which is one of my top 10 books read this year) is hosting Worldbuilders 2009. In his own words:

"Well today is your lucky day.

Heifer International is my favorite charity. It helps people raise themselves up out of poverty and starvation. All over the world Heifer promotes education, sustainable agriculture, and local industry.

They don't just keep kids from starving, they make it so families can take care of themselves. They give goats, sheep, and chickens to families so their children have milk to drink, warm clothes to wear, and eggs to eat."

Every donation made will be matched by 50% by Patrick and the really cool folks helping out this year. Also there will be a lottery to win some extremely cool prizes by some fantastic authors (including Patrick). Patrick is also organizing some auctions, and selling merchandise on his page, the proceeds of which will also be donated to Heifer International.

This is a very cool contest. Last year raised over $100,000.

You can find out more info, and see what's been donated as prizes at Patrick's Blog

Or if you want to donate right now click on the duck below which will take you to Patrick's Worldbuilders team donation page.



This is a great way to help out some people who need help during this holiday season.

Book Review: Nocturne The Fourth Book of Indigo By Louise Cooper

Indigo is traveling with the entertainer troupe The Brazabon Players. When they reach the town of Bruhome to participate in the yearly festival they notice that there is something wrong. Townsfolk as falling into a coma like sleep, then disappearing from their homes. When one of the players, Chirya, suddenly falls into this sleep the players are roused to act. Indigo sets off with Grimya and Fort (One of the other players to go get a physician from a neighboring town. Only to discover that an ominous and impenetrable forest has moved into place around the town. Separating it from the influences of the outside world.

When Chirya walks off into the forest, still under the influence of the evil forces controlling her, Indigo watches as Grimya and the leader of the Brazabon Players get pulled into the forest along with the sleepwalking girl. Indigo, and two of Chirya's siblings Fort and Esty themselves follow another sleepwalker into the forest. They find themselves in a world of illusions, and together, the four unaffected players need to work together to shatter the demon's powers and return the town to its rightful state.

In this book Indigo matures a bit more and learns to control her destiny rather than have her life controlled by it. As a member of the Brabazon entertainer troupe, Indigo stumbles into the clutches of the third demon she must face and conquerer before her penance for releasing the evils of the seven demons onto the world is completed.

In this book, Indigo must face her fears of being abandoned by her companion the wolf-dog Grimya as well as face the vampire like demon before it drains the entire town of it's life force and moves elswere in the world.

Book Review: Infanta the third book of Indigo by Louise Cooper

This book takes Indigo to the Eastern Continent. There she rescues a noble woman and her infant to be captured by the warlord that they had been fleeing from. Unexpectedly, the new ruler of the kingdom of Simhara welcomes the infant with the plans of marrying her when she comes of age. Indigo is welcomed into the palace routine as the Infanta's caretaker and companion.

But not everything is as idyllic as it seems. Every year around the Infanta's birthday she and the entire palace are plagued with nightmares of being chased by something evil. Indigo suspects that the warlord is the demon in disguise and over the yearsa of living in the palace treats him cautiously.

But as the Infanta turns eleven, it is discovered that not all is as Indigo suspects. Can she find and conquer the demon before it is too late.

This is Indigo's second demon faced. The plot for this chapter in her story is much slower paced than the first two books in the series. I found myself getting a bit impatient for the story to progress and at Indigo's slothful actions as she is lured into a false sense of security by the drugs she uses to combat the bad dreams and feelings that emanate from the unknown demon. This is probably my least favorite book in the series so far.