A Reader's Respite

Buffoons, Drunkards, Germans, Dwarfs and Similar Vulgarities

2012-01-18T19:09:00.000-08:00

A Reader's Respite knows well enough that the vast majority of readers out there would most certainly not be interested in the book we are currently reading, The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy. Heck, the dry presentation of material from historian Peter Burke has been enough to put us to sleep on several occasions and into a coma at least once (it only lasted for three days...we woke up).

That said, we are determined to slog through this academic snooze-fest and dig out the few gems buried within. We'll save you the trouble of reading this one yourselves and just give you the gem here....

Consider, if you will, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper.

There is, however, another painting originally titled The Last Supper, this one by artist Veronese, a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci.

When an Index of Prohibited Images was considered in Renassiance Italy in response to the somewhat shocking realism now popular in artwork, Veronese was promptly summoned before the Inquisition of Venice to explain exactly why his interpretation of the Last Supper included "buffoons, drunkards, Germans, dwarfs and similar vulgarities."

Indeed.

Truth be told, A Reader's Respite is inclined to prefer the version that includes buffoons, drunkards, Germans, dwarfs and similar vulgarities. That is, after all, how we like our books.

Review: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

2012-01-09T08:25:00.000-08:00

Jacqueline Kelly's debut young adult novel, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, accomplished a remarkable feat...it became a Newberry Honor Book in 2010, the year following its release. Not bad for a first novel, right? We probably shouldn't be surprised. Jacqueline Kelly is the poster-child for overachievement. Not only did she attend medical school and work in that field for many years, she then decided to try her hand at law and attended law school, as well. After working as a lawyer for some time, she decided that writing novels would be an interesting change and (of course) her debut wins a Newberry.

It's tempting to hate her, isn't it?

But after reading The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, A Reader's Respite simply can't hate her. The book is too well-written. Set in a small Texas town in 1899, Calpurnia Tate is our eleven year old protagonist who, as the only daughter amidst six brothers in her well-to-do family, struggles daily to find a sense of self in her world.

It's only natural with six brothers that Calpurnia would, much to her hassled mother's dismay, grow up with tomboy tendencies. But now that her teen years are quickly approaching, Calpurnia's mother has decided the time has arrived to turn her daughter into a proper, turn-of-the-century young woman. This, you can imagine, wreaks havoc with our young heroine's plans to become a celebrated naturalist in honor of her personal hero, Mr. Charles Darwin.

Callie's only real ally is her reclusive Grandfather, a man everyone else in the family goes to great lengths to avoid, but a man who has taken a shine to his only granddaughter, recognizing and encouraging her curiosity in the world around her. Callie is full of amusing observations and opinions about life as a young girl in rural Texas. Thankfully, the author has taken care to ensure that Callie, as an eleven year old, remains true to an eleven year old. No adult voice coming from a child here. Thank goodness.

It should be noted that the similarities to Alan Bradley's heroine Flavia de Luce are startling. Both are eleven years old. Both have a charming interest in science (Flavia is obsessed with chemistry, Calpurnia a naturalist). Both are largely misunderstood by their families who largely ignore them. Both books were published within a year of each other and both of authors have Canadian roots, which just goes to show how much talent comes from north of the border.

Unlike Bradley's books, Calpurnia isn't part of a series. It's a charming, solo novel that is aimed towards young adults, but like most really good novels of the genre, provide much more enjoyment for the not-so-young-adult audience. At 350 pages and too-large margins, this is a quick read and the perfect book to pick up from the library on a winter day. (That's where we picked up our copy!)

Our Public Service Announcement

2012-01-06T20:52:00.000-08:00

My fellow Americans:

Downton Abby. Season 2. Sunday. PBS Masterpiece Theater.

You're welcome.

Never thought we'd say this but.....

2012-01-03T20:38:00.000-08:00

...but A Reader's Respite really needs to watch a story on a screen every once in a while. We haven't watched television since the first season of Downton Abby ended. We've seen one movie in the past year (J. Edgar....meh....and really, who didn't know that J. Edgar liked girl clothes?). One would think that there was nothing worth while to be seen on a screen...and we know that's just not true.

In our quest to read the existing books on our shelves in 2012, we're also determined to actually watch some of the screen adaptations of the books we'll be reading. First, we'll have to play a little catch-up, though. Last year, we started re-reading the entire Harry Potter series with the intent of watching the movie following each book. You wouldn't think that would prove a difficult task, given that we own each of the Harry Potter movies in DVD. Yet there they all sit...still in their shrink-wrap on their pathetic, little DVD shelf. A Reader's Respite really needs to get on the ball with this if we ever want to see the two finale movies. At the rate we're going, we'll be so old we'll have to use the handy close-captioning features of the DVDs.

Another movie/book combo? Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. We have the book on our shelf and the movie on our DVR. The movie didn't get the best reviews, but it's a fun incentive to read the book, something we've been meaning to do for years.

Since we bravely signed up for the Game of Thrones reading challenge, we want to follow it up and watch the HBO Series. After all, we should do something to justify the HBO subscription that we've had for two years and never once watched. Never. Once.

War Horse is an obvious choice. We just really, really want to see this movie. A Reader's Respite just finished reading the book and, believe it or not, it wasn't all that great. But this is one of those books that is going to make a fabulous movie.

Another World War I book and movie combo we're going to tackle is Sebastian Japrisot's A Very Long Engagement. We bought this book a few years ago and....wait for it....here it comes....never got around to reading it (surprise!). The story of a wheelchair-bound young woman searching for her fiance who was left to die on the battlefield, the movie almost looks more compelling than the book.

And we'd be remiss if we left out the upcoming (May 2012) airing of the BBC's production of Great Expectations. Before you even ask, NO, A Reader's Respite has not ever read this classic by Charles Dickens (*hanging head in shame*). May is really right around the corner, though, so we're thinking about watching the movie first, then tackling the book. Is that breaking a cardinal rule of the Bibliophile's Honor Handbook?

Any other book/movie combos that we really shouldn't miss? Let us know!

On the trail of the 2011 Booker Prize

2012-01-02T03:38:00.000-08:00

As always, A Reader's Respite is about six months behind the pack. This is especially true of our quest to read the 2011 Booker Prize nominees. We managed to snag a copy of A.D. Miller's Snowdrops from the library (there wasn't even a wait list for this one....99% of the occupants of our small town wouldn't even be able tell you what the Booker Prize is, for the love of Pete).

The novel is set in post-Communist Moscow during the days when money was freely flowing in and out and financial whiz-kids were flying in and making small fortunes. Nick Platt is one of those financial whiz-kids and Snowdrops is his story. Told in first-person narrative as Nick looks back trying to explain the debauchery and excess that defined his time in Moscow to his present-day (and anonymous throughout the novel) fiance, the story never loses it's undertone of lost morality and despair.

When Nick meets a beautiful Russian girl, he is immediately drawn into her world...a world that is not at all what it seems. Yet Nick's naivete is, at least in part, quite deliberate, as if his loneliness outweighs any moral dilemmas. The beautiful Russian girl, of course, is not what she seems and in many ways is a symbol of modern-day Russia itself. Beautiful, yes, but corrupted underneath.

Still, the reader is left to grapple with Nick. Although a protagonist, it is difficult to summon any sympathy for his plight. He's not a stupid man. It's left to the reader to decide whether his motivations justify his actions.

Booker Prize worthy? Our first thought was that this novel was far to readable to be on the Booker Shortlist. Our experience with previous nominees has left us with the impression that if A Reader's Respite could easily follow the story then it wasn't worthy of a Booker. So we were pleasantly surprised by the ease with which the pages flew by.

On the other hand, the entire novel left a slight distaste in our mouth. The moral edge on which these characters balance is just creepy enough to make us believe that more people than we'd like to think lack that compass. And perhaps that is entirely what the author intended.

Why Participate in Reading Challenges?

2012-01-01T05:42:00.000-08:00

A Reader's Respite didn't participate in any reading challenges for 2011. We shoved them aside, foolishly believing that they hampered our reading and limited our book horizons. Boy, were we ever wrong. Truth to be told, we missed our reading challenges. Challenges kept us on track and gave us a sense of accomplishment with our reading progress. They also foster a sense of community and although many folks might see reading as a solitary experience, those of us in the book blogging world know differently.

Sharing our love of books via reviews, musings, recommendations and warnings is an essential part of the reading experience. How many bookish friends have you made in the online world? A Reader's Respite has made countless book-minded friends that we might never have met were it not for the bibliophile online community. And reading challenges are a big part of that community.

So this year, 2012, we are returning to our love of reading challenges. Oh, you can be assured that there will be a few that we will not finish and will berate ourselves over at the end of the year. But we'll have a fun time trying and who knows? Maybe we'll meet some new bookish friends. (And perhaps we'll get through some of the 800+ unread books sitting on our shelves....ugh).

Here are the challenges we're signing up for:

Sponsored by Workaday Reads, we're being a little wimpy on this one, committing to 25 e-books in 2012. Considering there are over 100+ books on our Kindle, we have more than enough to choose from. Now if we could just remember what in the hell made us download most of them to begin with....

The death of Anne McCaffrey in 2011 seems like a darned good reason to re-read her classic books in this challenge sponsored by West Virginia Red Reads. A Reader's Respite had no idea how many books are in or related to her original Pern novels. We're committing to reading the original trilogy plus the Harper Hall trilogy. (Oh crap, we've got a book moratorium going on in this house....what if we don't already have them all? A trip to the library may be in order.....)

Hosted by Literary Escapism, we're pretty confident that of the 800+ unread books in this house, at least 25 of them were written by an author new to A Reader's Respite. So it is with a happy heart that we're signing up for the New Authors Challenge.

We're pretty sure that The Hopeful Librarian had A Reader's Respite in mind when they created the Unread Book Challenge of 2012. Or could it be that there are other pathetic, obsessive bibliophiles out there who have a nasty habit of buying more books than they can read? Could it be that we're not alone in the universe?

Ah, The Game of Thrones Challenge. Since The Lit Bitch is hosting it and we just happen to have the entire set sitting here on our shelves (still in shrink wrap, we might add), this must be kismet.

No set of reading challenges would be complete without War Through the Generations. Consistently one of the very best challenges around, this year the focus is on World War I. We're going to "wade" this year and read 4-10 books with a World War I theme.

Traditionally, A Reader's Respite has loved participating in the Chunkster Challenge since so many of our books meet the 450+ page criteria. This year, though, we've decided to forgo the Chunkster because the rules state that Kindle books don't count (what the hell, people? Isn't that the reason we got a Kindle to begin with? So we wouldn't have to lug around a 10lb book anymore?). So instead we're heading over to The Book Garden and signing up for the Tea & Books Reading Challenge where only books over 700 pages count! Since Kindle books are acceptable (thankyouverymuch) we're committing to the Earl Grey Aficionado Level which means we have to find six of these mammoth books here on our shelves to read.

If you're a glutton for punishment and can't resist a good reading challenge, head on over to A Novel Challenge and find one that has your name on it.

Okay, that's it. Now which ones did you sign up for?

2012: The Year of the Book Moratorium

2011-12-31T19:42:00.000-08:00

A Reader's Respite is pulling out the Big Guns and declaring 2012 to be the Year of the Book Moratorium. After taking a look at our Goodreads account and discovering that we have 862 books on our shelves to-be-read (Good God!), something drastic had to be done.

How on earth did we ever amass over 800 unread books in this house? Something has to be done. So what are the terms of our Book Moratorium? We will not be allowing a single book purchase in 2012. No more trips to the used book store where we fill five bags full of old paperbacks. No more random purchases from airport book shops. No more book excursions on Ebay. And worst of all, no more "Download Now" for the Kindle. (Ack, we're dying already!)

Our goal? To read at least 100 of the books floating around this house.

We're counting on you all to hold us to this.

What are your book resolutions?

It's Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T07:56:00.000-08:00

Those of us who generally work on holidays tend to lose track of them. So you can imagine our surprise this morning when we discovered that today is actually Thanksgiving. (Whoops) Of course the first thing that came to mind is, "Where's our damned turkey?", but once we reconciled ourselves to the fact that Thanksgiving dinners aren't traditionally served up in airports, we began to think about the real meaning of the holiday and realized there is something we are very grateful for indeed this year:

We are grateful for Alan Bradley. If you haven't heard of him, allow us to fill you in. Alan Bradley is a retired director of television engineering who lives in Canada. When he retired in 1994, he decided to write a novel. He called his book The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and in it he introduced to the world one of the most creative, witty, precocious protagonists ever to grace the pages of a novel, Miss Flavia de Luce.

Flavia is the smartest eleven year old you will ever meet. The youngest daughter of widower Colonel de Luce, Flavia lives an entirely dysfunctional life in the sleepy English hamlet of Bishop's Lacy in her family's rambling historical estate. Left to her own devices, she spends her days teaching herself chemistry (her one passion in this world) and torturing her elder sisters, the self-absorbed Ophelia ("Feely") and the bibliophile Daphne. Oh, and she solves murders, too.

Just because an eleven year old is the main character is Bradley's series of sharp mysteries, don't mistake these books for Young Adult. They most certainly are not. The Flavia de Luce series is most assuredly written for adults - adults that appreciate whimsy and wit.

Although he was a very great musician, and a wizard composer of symphonies, Beethoven was quite often a dismal failure when it came to ending them. The Fifth was a perfect case in point.

Dum. . . dum. . . dum-dum-dum, it would go, and you would think it was over.

But no--

Dum, dah, dum, dah, dum, dah, dum, da, dum, dah, dum---DAH dum.

You'd go to get up and stretch, sighing with satifaction at the great work you'd just listened to, and suddenly:

DAH dum. DAH. dum. DAH dum. And so forth. DAH dum.

It was like a bit of flypaper stuck to your finger that you couldn't shake off. The bloody thing clung to life like a limpet.

(from The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag)

Flavia's droll wit and astute powers of observation are without peer in the mystery world. If you haven't read the series (there are currently four books), don't get left behind. Track down a copy of the first book in the series, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and be thankful for authors that can write like this. A Reader's Respite is. (Oh, and we're also thankful for the Dunkin' Donuts in O'Hare Airport that is open and serving coffee to the rest of us working this holiday!)

Too much time on his hands.....

2011-10-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

Evidently our blog secretary has found himself with too much down-time on his hands.

We caught him placing ads on Craigs List and are not amused....so.not.amused.....

Have you seen me?

2011-10-16T16:01:00.000-07:00

It's finally happened. Someone has kidnapped author Philippa Gregory's editor. There really can be no other explanation for the content of her latest book, The Lady of the Rivers, the final installment (we hope) of her Cousin's War series of historical fiction about the influential women during England's Wars of the Roses.

Now we understand that the people who took part in the Wars of the Roses were numerous and convoluted. Really convoluted. And everyone had the same damned name. So admittedly, it's hard to keep track of who is who. Gregory chose to solve this problem by inserting everyone's full legal name and title every time she mentioned them.

Every. Single. Time.

So you can imagine the dialog that resulted. For example, here is Jacquetta speaking to her oldest and dearest friend, Margaret of Anjou - a woman who has known Jacquetta for years....

"I think that Richard, Duke of York, is the only man to successfully hold French lands since my first husband, the Duke of Bedford."

Well of course Margaret would know that Richard was the Duke of York. He is Margaret's greatest enemy at court and they've hated each other for years, for the love of Pete. And of course Margaret would know Jacquetta's first husband was the Duke of Bedford. Jeez Louise.

In a similar vein, one doesn't need to reference your brother-in-law's title when speaking to one's husband....trust us, he KNOWS his brother is the Duke of whatever.

And this kind of redundant, see-Jane-run dialog persists through out the entire novel. It's enough to drive a reader mad.

Truthfully, we can't blame Gregory too much for this nonsense. It is, after all, an editor's job is to fix things like this. So ultimately, we can only reach one conclusion:

SOMEONE KIDNAPPED THE EDITOR!

Any information leading to the safe recovery of said editor will, we are certain, result in a huge reward.

We were supposed to be writing about Philippa Gregory.......

2011-10-07T19:08:00.000-07:00

....but we lost the mood required for that level of snarkiness. You'll just have to wait.

In the meantime, nothing says "You're Getting Old" like your teen idol signing a book deal reminiscing about the good ol' days of hard drugs and horny teenaged fans. The biography market is always loaded down with these really-kinda-sad books. How pathetic when you have to earn a few extra dollars by revealing what an absolute shit you were in your glory days.

this was hot

Rolling Stone recently revealed that John Taylor, former bassist for the 80's hit band Duran Duran, has sold his memoirs to Dutton for somewhere in the $500K range. Holy crap, people. As a former card-carrying member of the John Taylor Fan Club (okay, not really, but we could've been) we took notice. In the book, we'll get to read all about his drug addiction (gasp!), depression (surely you jest!), and presumably, all the female fans he bedded in a drug and alcohol-frenzy (the hell you say!).

this is not

The saddest part? We'll probably buy the damned book.

Even-Bigger-Than-Yesterday's-News

2011-09-13T13:39:00.000-07:00

Blogging is a funny thing. When A Reader's Respite announced yesterday that the blog would be retiring, we felt a huge sense of relief...after all, writing snark is more difficult than one might think. It's hard to stay snarky on a daily basis.

You might imagine our complete and utter surprise when we awoke this morning to an inbox FULL OF LETTERS expressing disappointment in our "retirement." We were shocked. We thought it was a hoax. We had to drink a pot of coffee and ponder the meaning of all this.

Well, we are now well into our second pot of coffee and have decided that a few blog posts full of snark each week isn't going to hurt any of us. For those of you who took the time to write a letter, A Reader's Respite's cold, black heart is truly touched. And our blog secretary tells us he would be thrilled to come out of retirement and have some work for a change (since his film career clearly isn't going anywhere these days).

Our new online lit magazine, The Lit Asylum, will forge ahead as planned and we hope you all get a chance to visit. But for the snarky, evil commentary that it would be UNPROFESSIONAL of us to feature in a genuine, lit magazine, you'll have to keep visiting us here at A Reader's Respite.

For now, we're going to see if the enormous amount of hype surrounding the release of Erin Morgenstern's new novel, The Night Circus, was genuine or all a bunch of smoke and mirrors. The Huffington Post called the book "the next Harry Potter," (Really? Are you trying to kill the book before it's even released?) which gave us a horrible case of the shudders. Still, we couldn't help but be vaguely interested in a book that garnered such a huge amount of pre-publication publicity targeting a Harry Potter and Twilight audience while earning Ms. Morgenstern a six-figure advance. This is a big gamble for Doubleday....think it will pay off?

We hope so and we're hoping we love the book....anything to get the bad taste of Philippa Gregory's new release, The Lady of the Rivers, out of our mouth. Ewww. But that's a story for another day....

Big News!

2011-09-12T08:54:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't heard the news, A Reader's Respite is retiring. Sort of. Actually, we've been absorbed (for lack of a better word) into the new online literary magazine, The Lit Asylum!

The Lit Asylum is a monthly, online magazine that explores all things books. Please come visit, say hello, and enjoy some of the great articles we have for you in September!

New YA

2011-05-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

While A Reader's Respite can't claim that John Stephens wrote an entirely original new Young Adult Fantasy/Adventure in The Emerald Atlas, we can tell you that originality aside, this was a rollicking good ride.

Time-travel, dwarfs, evil warloards, benevolent wizards, and one very pissy Russian countess all come together to present the adventure of a lifetime for three young orphaned siblings in this first-book-in-a-series. Shades of Middle Earth and Narnia abound throughout the story, but one can forgive that in light of the well-rounded characters.

Kate, Michael and Emma have been shuffled around various shabby orphanages for as long as they can remember and this latest one is the worst yet. Oddly, they seem to be the only three children there. And when they discover a strange book in a forgotten room, their adventure - and the mystery - begin. Resourceful without being overly-precocious, the children start to piece together the mystery of their vanished parents and encounter a magical world that exists within our own, albeit hidden from view.

Geared towards a YA audience, none of the plot or dialog is simple or insipid which makes this a fun read for adults, as well. And talk about a fast-moving plot....yowza....A Reader's Respite had to stop in our tracks several times and re-read a paragraph or two just to make sure we were keeping up.

But the best part of this novel? The fully-developed and often quirky secondary characters that abound throughout the novel. Stephens didn't skimp in this department and for this reader, it made all the difference between just another Lord of the Rings/Narnia/Harry Potter knockoff novel and a fresh, new voice.

At 400+ pages, this isn't a skimpy book. But it was engrossing and fast-paced enough that we blew through it in about 48 hours. Stephens has our attention.....where's the next installment?

The Weekend Edition: Rated R

2011-05-20T02:16:00.000-07:00

For some strange reason, there has been an upsurge of mentions of Philippa Gregory's old Wideacre Series in and around blogland the past couple of weeks. We're not sure why that is, but it revives old nightmares for A Reader's Respite. This series of three novels (of which we only made it through one and half) might mark the very first instance we can recall of absolutely *hating* a book.

Now you wouldn't think that a book lover such as ourselves would be unable to find any redeeming characteristic of any given book. But it's true. We thought the Wideacre series to be so depraved that it reflected horribly on the author....what on earth could she have been thinking?

And it's recently come to our attention that we weren't the only readers to have to grab a throw-up bowl to make it through one of these novels.....the following video blogs (part 1 and 2) were discovered on YouTube and are, quite possibly, the funniest book rants we've ever had the privilege of listening to.

WARNING: These are rated R for language and content! Do not -- we repeat -- do NOT be listening to these in the work place, in front of the kidlets or the in-laws, or in a public location where you'll get nasty looks. For the love of books, plug in a headset, people! (Then laugh yourself silly....)

A Tempest in a Teapot

2011-05-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

Or rather, make that a tiger in a teapot. For the past six months or so, mothers across the U.S. have been up in arms about Yale professor Amy Chua's memoir of motherhood. You see, Amy is a Chinese-American who raised in the strictest of households and decided to continue that tradition with her own daughters. Here's the game-plan she used:

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
attend a sleepover
have a playdate
be in a school play
complain about not being in a school play
watch TV or play computer games
choose their own extracurricular activities
get any grade less than an A
not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama
play any instrument other than the piano or violin
not play the piano or violin.

Now don't mistakenly believe that Amy believes this was the *right* way to raise her children. After all, this is a memoir and that involves a lot of introspection. But she does it with humor and humility making this one of the most fascinating (and laugh-out-loud funny) memoirs we've read in a long, long time.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother simply oozes controversy. A lot of controversy. But we've found that most of that stems from mothers judging other mothers. Amy has been lauded as an example to parents everywhere, but she's also been accused of child abuse. When taken as the memoir was intended, you'll get a glimpse into another parenting style....one that it's hard to argue with the results, but you question whether the results are worth it.

And when we get right down to it, who amongst us parental-types hasn't reflected whether or not we were furthering the best interests of our child? A Reader's Respite refuses to judge, lest someone (say, for example, child protective services) come along and judge us.

Rarely does a book so controversial live up to all the hoopla. If you're a parent, we'd call it a must-read.

Vacation: The Grand Finale

2011-05-15T22:50:00.001-07:00

At last A Reader’s Respite reaches the grand finale of our three-part vacation saga.

Now for those of you who have ever flown trans-oceanic flights with children in tow (or if you’ve ever been stuck within a ten row radius of children on one of these flights), you’ll understand our reluctance to herd the kidlets on a long flight back to the States.

In fact, the idea was so abhorrent to us that we scrapped our plane tickets and turned our car south towards Southampton, England. Because if you can’t bear the thought of an oceanic crossing in an airplane, your only other option is a boat.

That’s right. The Queen Mary II was leaving Southampton for New York. So we packed up our steamer trunks and herded the kidlets aboard for the seven day transatlantic crossing. And believe us when we tell you: it was worth every penny.

The Cunard Line knows how to do this transatlantic thing right, yes-sir-ee. Incredible dining (yes, you must gussy-up for dinner, but Mr. RR looks pretty darned good in black-tie), entertainment that included everything from Shakespeare productions to lecture series from astrophysicists and historians.

Easter Sunday was spent on board ship. We thought Big Kid’s eyes were literally going to pop out of his head when he saw the desert table.

There’s an incredible planetarium on board and we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the fabulous library. Oh gosh, the library. At any given point during the crossing, at least 80% of the people you saw on the ship had a book or a Kindle in hand. This was one very literary crowd.

The planetarium was fantabulous!

We would’ve slept in the library if they had let us.

They even had their very own book club that met each evening for discussion. *Sigh* It was just a little slice of heaven. And how, you ask, did A Reader’s Respite manage to fit in time for reading? Two words: British Nannies. Oh yeah, baby, that’s right. Fully certified, honest-to-goodness British nannies who convincingly acted like there was nothing in the world they would rather do than entertain your kidlets all day long.

The Grand Lobby. Pretty, no? Chairs were set up for a swanky art-auction that day.

So what did we read? The mood of the ship called for thrillers. So down to the library we tottered (we tottered until we found our sea legs in the 30 foot swells) and browsed until we found The Man from Beijing by the famous Swedish crime writer, Henning Mankell.

This was our first read of a Mankell book, despite his fame for writing the Kurt Wallander mystery series. By and large we enjoyed the story that follows a Swedish judge, Birgitta Roslin, as she tracks down her own personal connection to a horrible massacre that occurs in a desolate, remote village in the northern country. Her single-minded investigation leads her, improbably, to Beijing in an effort to track down the killer. Colonialism and imperialism both figure strongly into this novel and if it’s an indication of how well Mankell normally writes, we can’t wait to finally read the Wallander series.

By the time we finished the Mankell novel, A Reader’s Respite had found our own cozy reading spot down on the second level of the ship:

Now it may not look like much at first glance, but consider the view:

So still in our mystery/thriller mood, we walked (as opposed to toddled) back to library and found another author we’ve been meaning to read….Karin Fossum. Her novel The Water’s Edge was calling out to us from it’s glass-encased shelf.

In retrospect, we wish the cover of the novel had let us know that this novel is actually the 8th in Fossum’s Inspector Konrad Sejer Series, but in this case, what we didn’t know couldn’t hurt us.

We enjoyed this taut thriller in which young boys from a small town start turning up murdered. Fossum knows her craft and now we suppose we’ll have to start the series from the beginning.

Now for those of you interested in the Titanic connection, the White Star Line no longer operates passenger ships. in 1934, they merged with the Cunard Line which has taken over the White Star Service and their transatlantic route still follows the same path which the Titanic took that fateful night in 1912.

On our fourth night at sea at 11:58 pm, the Queen Mary II passed directly over the coordinates where the Titanic sank. Even yours truly, possibly the most un-sentimental traveler, felt a little shiver that had nothing to do with the weather. It was dark, it was cold and the thought of sinking out there in the middle of the North Atlantic was horrifying.

But eerie moments and good reading aside, it was with not a little sadness that we passed under the Brooklyn Bridge after not seeing land for seven days. That’s the poetic way of saying they had to pry A Reader’s Respite off the ship with a crowbar.

So concludes our regaling of Vacation: 2011. We now return to our normal programming…..

Vacation, Part Deux

2011-05-13T02:58:00.000-07:00

A Reader’s Respite’s employer didn’t agree to our request for a vacation from our vacation which would explain the week that has passed since our last post. Whew. This working thing is hard. But on to Part Deux of our vacation, which takes us to Salisbury, England….

If you ever find yourself wandering around in Salisbury and looking for a lovely place to store your suitcase (oh, and sleep), we’d highly recommend the Grasmere House.

This old Victorian manor is nestled up against the River Avon and if you snag a room on the south side, like we did, you get a lovely view of the river and the Salisbury Cathedral beyond.

And what would a good hotel be without a snug place to read a book? A Reader’s Respite shamelessly snagged this little hut down on the river and promptly christened it our Reading Shack.

After a short walk to town to grab some books, we promptly installed ourselves inside the Reading Shack and passed the hours between the pages of our book and this view:

And what book passed the time for us in Salisbury? We couldn’t resist picking up a copy of Anne O’Brien’s novel, Devil’s Consort: England’s Most Ruthless Queen.

The novel features that most famous of English queens: Eleanor of Aquitaine. And we thought it looked particularly salacious. But what really sold us was the seal on the cover of the book:

Yes, it really does announce that this book is “Better than Philippa Gregory.” Granted, that isn’t too terribly difficult to achieve (ouch!), but it made us giggle enough to shell out the six pounds or so for the book. Despite our initial impressions, the novel turned out to be quite detailed and well-written. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that O’Brien subscribed to one of our own personal beliefs: that Eleanor had a little fling with her uncle Raymond in Antioch whilst she layed over there – no pun intended - on her way to Jerusalem on Crusade. Intrigued? Read the book. It will be released here in the States next month under the title of Queen Defiant.

Next door to our hotel was a beautiful stone church. You’ll think it’s creepy, but we have a thing for old graveyards…..

Just a short walk over the river leads you into town, but as seems to be common in England, the things you pass on your way into town so beautiful they distract you from your goal of actually reaching town.

A Reader’s Respite managed to ditch the family long enough to spend an entire morning at the Salisbury Cathedral.

Admittedly, we have a thing for cathedrals. It drives Mr. RR and the kidlets nuts. But there’s something so incredibly serene about them….

For those of you who recently enjoyed the release of Elizabeth Chadwick’s To Defy a King, you’ll recognize this fellow:

William Longespee, the illegitimate son of King Henry II, played a big role in Chadwick’s latest historical novel. He was laid to rest in the Salisbury Cathedral in 1226, although how anyone could ever truly be at rest with thousands of tourists like us gawking at him, we’ll never understand. His tomb was opened in 1791 and they found the corpse of a rat inside poor Willy’s skull. The rat had traces of arsenic….we’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

If the Tudor era is more your thing, there’s also the tombs of Edward Seymour and his wife, the Lady Catherine Grey (sister to the infamous Jane). It’s worth noting that Cate’s tomb lies above Eddie’s….if Cate didn’t wear the pants in the family in life, she certainly had the final word in death.

The final installment of Vacation: 2011 is soon to come (and no, you won’t have to wait an entire week again for this next one)…..

The Mysteries of Stonehenge Solved

2011-05-05T23:10:00.001-07:00

Whew. A Reader’s Respite has officially returned from vacation. We now require a vacation from our vacation. We’ll call it Secondary Vacation and submit our request at work forthwith. (We’ll be sure to let you know what the powers-that-be think of that.)

We’ve realized that for our purposes here, the saga-like vacation that A Reader’s Respite & Family embarked on some two weeks ago will have to be broken into multiple posts in order to encapsulate the entire experience.

Who put the driver’s seat on the wrong side?

After renting a car from Heathrow airport and spending the first hour figuring out this driving-on-the-oppposite-side-of-the-road thing (in a manual transmission, no less), we arrived in Wiltshire. A big thank you to all the kind, understanding and non-gun-toting British drivers would not be out of place here.

There would be no rest for Mr. and Mrs. RR until Big Kid saw Stonehenge with his own two (tired) eyes.

Big Kid loved the audio tour…it really was fabulous

The verdict? Clearly, Big Kid loved it which made the 24 hours with no sleep thing worth it. Mr. RR had him convinced that aliens were really the only logical explanation for Stonehenge.

Little Kid, however, succumbed to the dreaded 8-hour time zone change and slept through the entire experience. We suspect she’s going to be very angry about this someday.

Snarkiness aside, we were quite awed by the experience. The sheer size of these stones which were put into place 3,800 years ago is awe-inspiring. That England has managed to keep the site so serene (sheep were grazing for miles in each direction) is testament to the value they place on their history.

A big thank you to our dear friend Carey, The Tome Traveller, who recommended that we invest the time reading Edward Rutherford’s Sarum before we left on our trip.

Sarum, for those of you who haven’t tackled this monstrosity of a book, is a Michener-esque novel of Stonehenge and the surrounding area. Beginning with the last ice-age, the novel follows the descendants of two families through England’s history ending around WWII.

While it’s the characters themselves that keep you reading this 900+ page (hardback) chunkster, the historical detail of the Salisbury Plain was fascinating and enhanced our visit to no end.

Of course no visit Stonehenge would be complete without a visit to the gift shop where we picked up (of course):

We hear it isn’t Cornwell’s best novel, but under the circumstances we thought it well worth a shot.

Who Says Soap Operas are Dead?

2011-05-02T18:30:00.001-07:00

A Reader’s Respite recently read an article that paid homage to the dying era of television soap operas. With the cancellation of long, long-running daytime soaps such as All My Children and Guiding Light, the article sounded the death knell for the age of soap operas.
And while soap operas have never been a part of our television repertoire, we have fond memories of them. Somehow, they seem connected with our mother, who we remember watching shows like General Hospital when we were just a wee lass. For years we were convinced that Luke and Laura were some distant cousins of ours.

Now this was drama…..

But wait…are soaps really dead?
We think not. A Reader’s Respite has recently become addicted to a relatively new soap opera that has hit the airwaves. Severely addicted (truly, it’s becoming a problem). And just because this soap opera is produced by PBS and cloaked in the disguise of Masterpiece Theater doesn’t make it any less of a soap opera.

Downton Abbey is our latest obsession. We are mesmerized by this British period drama that is really nothing more than a lurid, tawdry soap opera about an aristocratic English Crawley family and their equally fascinating servants.

We *heart* Maggie Smith as the Dowager Duchess

With a stellar cast and clear cut good characters versus the baddies, what’s not to love? There’s plotting, conniving, greed, lust, envy…..just about all the deadly sins make an appearance. Not to mention the stunning setting and glorious period costume.

Highclere Castle, the setting for Dowton Abbey

A Reader’s Respite hasn’t been so interested in television since the first season of Lost premiered (before the show lost us after season three….just sayin’).
Dowton Abbey premiered in 2010 to the very large British audience leading to it’s continuance in 2011. So if you haven’t seen it, it’s not too late to catch up.

Doesn’t Mary just look like a bitch?

And if you’re an Amazon Prime member, it’s free. (Even gooder, right?)
And now it’s time for us to go watch episode four….the Dowager Duchess is about to get her comeuppance…..

Audies Finalists 2011

2011-04-27T09:55:00.001-07:00

It’s that time of year again, folks, and the 2011 Audies Finalists (the best of the best in audiobooks) have just been announced.

There are about a bazillion categories for the Audies so A Reader’s Respite won’t list every category here, but we’ll give you a taste of what’s been nominated for 2011. Each book cover will link you to Audible, where you can listen to a sample of the book narration.

FICTION

Every Last One, by Anna Quindlen. Narrated by Hope Davis.

Fall of Giants, by Ken Follett. Narrated by John Lee.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Steve Hockensmith and Jane Austen. Narrated by Katherine Kellgren.

The Lonely Polygamist, by Brady Udall. Narrated by David Aaron Baker.

The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake. Narrated by Orlagh Cassidy.

Winter’s Bone, by Daniel Woodrell. Narrated by Emma Galvin.

NON-FICTION

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. Narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris.

No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller, by Harry Markopolos. Narrated by Scott Brick, Harry Markopolos, Frank Casey, Neil Chelo, Kavid Kotz, Gaytri Kachroo, Michael Ocrant.

Obama’s Wars, by Bob Woodward. Narrated by Boyd Gaines.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. Narrated by Cassandra Campbell and Bahni Turpin.

THE POISONER'S HANDBOOK: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, by Deborah Blum. Narrated by Coleen Marlo.

LITERARY FICTION

The Beautiful Maria of My Soul, by Oscar Hijuelos. Narrated by Armando Duran.

Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen. Narrated by David Ledoux.

My Life as a Man, by Philip Roth. Narrated by Dan John Miller.

Snakewoman of Little Egypt, by Robert Hellenga. Narrated by Coleen Marlo.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell. Narrated by Jonathan Aris and Paula Wilcox.

Head on over to The Audies for more nominations in more categories! Which were your favorites this year?

A New Audiobook Experience

2011-04-22T00:30:00.000-07:00

A Reader's Respite, as most of you know, has a love of audiobooks. They don't outnumber the books we actually read with our own two Lasik-ed eyes, but we can't imagine a car ride without an audiobook playing.

Testimony, by Anita Shreve, was a bit of a new audio experience for us. It was the first audiobook we've listened to featuring multiple narrators. Our verdict? In this case, we loved it.

Testimony is the story, doled out in snippets of backflashes by various players in the plot, of scandal in an elite private school in Vermont. When a video surfaces of a young freshman girl engaging in sexual acts with three (!) upperclassman boys, the scandal has enormous repercussions that go far, far beyond the media hype.

Shreve, in her trademark fashion, uses this novel to expose perspective. One shocking event, multiple perspectives from different participants. Nothing is as it seems, at least not to the the outsider.

In our sensationalized, media-ticker, Twitter, scandal-obsessed society, Shreve seeks to expose the complicated human beings behind the headlines. Each chapter is narrated by a different player, so no wonder A Reader's Respite enjoyed the multiple narrators...we would ever have been able to keep track of them all with a single narrator.

The story is a compelling one and very much recommended on audio, especially if you can follow our lead and download it from your local library!

Floating Libraries

2011-04-20T02:38:00.000-07:00

Ever since A Reader's Respite learned that the ship we will be sailing across the Atlantic, Cunard's Queen Mary 2, has an honest-to-goodness shipboard library, we've been fascinated by the concept of floating books.

Queen Mary 2 shipboard library

Here's a look at some of the more interesting floating libraries we found.....

Epos is a floating library that serves three small, water-locked communities in Norway. Twice a year in these tiny town, the Epos shows up with 6,000 books aboard for residents to checkout. Just think how long these people's Library Loot list would be!

Celebrity Cruiseline Soltice offers an eye-popping library with back-lit bookshelves for more "wow" factor.

Princess Cruiseline Sea Princess has an on-board library in which the comfy leather chairs are equipped with built-in audio so passengers can listen to the latest audiobooks.

Carnival Cruiseline ships each have their own library theme....check these out:

The Valor's Neoclassical shipboard library. Think The Illiad.

The Monticello Library aboard Freedom. Jefferson would approve!

The Alexandria Library aboard The Splendor

Libraries have come a long, long way, baby.

Move Over, Sookie

2011-04-18T04:10:00.000-07:00

A Reader's Respite is more than a little smitten with Amelia Gray, the heroine of her new mystery-slash-paranormal novel, The Restorer. Amelia, you see, isn't your normal run-of-the-mill cemetery restorer, although this isn't for lack of trying. Amelia sees dead people. She can't help it. Every time she looks around there are the dead people who, for various odd reasons, find themselves stuck in this world unable to move on.

You can't help but feel sorry for Amelia. After all, she didn't ask for annoying ability. What she does have, though, are the rules her father gave her when she first discovered this odd ability as a child:

Never acknowledge the dead. If you do, they'll feed off your energy like parasites, slowly draining your life away.
Never stray too far from hallowed ground, you're safe there.
Keep your distance from people who are haunted. They are a terrible threat and can't be trusted.
Never, ever tempt fate.

Simple rules, really. But for Amelia those rules have prevented her from having any kind of a normal life. Still, she finds happiness in her job as a respected cemetery restorer and has made a happy, if isolated, life for herself.

But when a murder occurs in a cemetery Amelia is working on, she meets Detective John Devlin, a man haunted by the deaths of his wife and child, the rules go out the window and Amelia is faced with the consequences. Big consequences.

This novel, the first of a new series called The Graveyard Queen, is a refreshing change from the ubiquitous paranormal teeny-bopper craze that's permeated bookstores everywhere since the Twilight Series hit town. This is a novel for grown-ups. And while we wouldn't call it dark, it does have shades of gray. Amelia is a strikingly honest character, a young woman who has shouldered an awkward burden - this isn't a trait that encourages a personal life, after all.

The murder mystery Amelia finds herself drawn into is no less compelling than Amelia's relationship with the haunted, broody and mysterious Detective Devlin. The choices she must make are difficult ones and her happiness - perhaps even her very life - is at stake.

So yay for a new series that has such a promising start! Move over Sookie Stackhouse, there's a new game in town.

Vacation, all I ever wanted….

2011-04-14T18:50:00.001-07:00

Wasn’t that a song from the 80’s? It’s been in our heads all week long. That’s because A Reader’s Respite will be out of the office on vacation until the first of May.

Where are we going? We’ll give you some clues….

plus

If you need anything, please contact our bloggy secretary. He’s being left behind to upload some reviews we’re leaving behind and to deal with any catastrophes that may occur…..

Who doesn’t love a good series?

2011-04-10T22:19:00.001-07:00

A Reader’s Respite loves, loves, loves a good series of novels. Yes, getting sucked into a series means your reading schedule goes to hell in the proverbial hand-basket, but if the series is a good one, it’s worth the disruption. In fact, it can be downright bliss.

If you enjoy a good mystery/thriller with sharp, witty dialog and a gritty undertone, you won’t want to miss Dennis Lehane’s Kenzie/Geranno series.

Patrick Kenzie and Angela Geranno grew up as childhood sweethearts on the wrong side of the tracks in Boston. While their childhood romance didn’t quite work out the way they had planned, they do find that they make a good investigative team.

As private investigators, Patrick and Angie get drawn into the dark and seedy underground of Boston. And while their caustic wit creates laugh-out-loud moments, don’t for one moment mistake these novels for a cozy-mystery.

On the contrary, each of the Kenzie/Geranno novels is dark, violent and filled with ethical dilemmas as complex as the characters themselves, often leaving the reader wondering just what you would do in the same situation. This is part of the addiction to this series.

With six books in the series (Lehane says that the latest book will indeed be the last), character development and evolution is a key component to the wild success of this series. Both Patrick and Angela are complex characters. Angie, for example, is one tough cookie…a no-nonsense private investigator. Yet when we first meet her, this gun-toting PI is also an abused wife. The dichotomy is compelling.

Patrick Kenzie has his own demons to defeat. His career as a private investigator has left him so jaded that a normal life is all but impossible. His efforts to find a place of peace are heart-breaking and oh-so-human.

And while the chemistry between Patrick and Angie is at times palatable, it is in no way gratuitous. Don’t be looking for happy endings here. Like the ethical dilemmas they face, Patrick and Angie’s relationship is…well…it’s complicated.

Although many people claim that any of the books may be read as a stand-alone, we don’t recommend that. Start at the beginning and experience the rare series that demands you read each book immediately after finishing the last.

The books in the order written:

A Drink Before the War (1994)
Darkness, Take My Hand (1996)
Sacred (1997)
Gone, Baby, Gone (1998)
Prayers for Rain (1999)
Moonlight Mile (2010)*

*Note the eleven year time lapse between Prayers for Rain and Moonlight Mile.

Genre Fake-Out

2011-04-07T21:16:00.001-07:00

A genre fake-out is, A Reader’s Respite has decided, what happens when a novel appears to fall into one genre, but then pulls the old switch-a-roo on the reader and morphs into an entirely different genre.

Now sometimes this is unintentional on the author’s part and those genre-morphing books generally don’t work out so great. The effect is confusing at best and irritating at worst.

But every once in a while, an author sets out to surprise the reader and the effect is pretty brilliant.

Take Laura Kasischke’s new novel, The Raising. When the reader first delves into this character-rich novel about a young college man who has lost his girlfriend in a car accident, you immediately assume this is a literary fiction young-man-deals-with-grief novel.

But as we learn more and more about the characters, mostly in sharply written flashbacks, it becomes apparent that this literary fiction is wrapped in a good mystery. Questions arise: what part did this young man play in his girlfriends death? Is he as culpable as everyone on campus seems to think he is? What really happened out there on that desolate road that fateful night?

But wait, our literary-fiction-wrapped-in-mystery turns out to have shades of a ghost story. Is our young man haunted by his lost love? Are there other ghosts that roam the campus?

And just as the reader becomes fairly obsessed with this plot, we’re hit with the finale of a thriller. Is anything really as it seems? Who’s the next victim?

That’s right….what we have here, folks, is literary fiction, wrapped in a mystery, touched by a ghost story and tied up in a thriller.

Kasischke hits a home run with The Raising. The pacing and tension is near perfect and the layers are so subtle, you don’t see even see them until they are peeled away. And while we refuse to give away more of the plot than we already have, we will tell you that this is one novel worth your hard-earned book spending money (or at the very least, a trip to the library!).

Meh Monday

2011-04-03T16:40:00.001-07:00

Although Monday isn’t the start of the work week for A Reader’s Respite (today is our Friday, as a matter of fact), there seems to be a collective bad-vibe out there whenever Mondays roll around and we’re not immune to it.

So today will be designated Meh Monday and we can take a looksy at some of the meh books we’ve read lately. Not bad books by any stretch of the imagination, just meh ones. You know, the kind you read and promptly forget about.

The kind we think you should move to your library list as opposed to your spending-good-money-on list.

The Girl in the Green Raincoat, by Laura Lippman. Admittedly, this was our first Lippman read and it probably wasn’t the best to start out with. More of a novella (that part we liked) than a full-length novel, the story features private detective Tess Monaghan, a character Lippman features quite regularly. As mysteries go, this one was just meh for us. The characters seemed weak and we figured out the mystery just a few chapters in….that doesn’t mean A Reader’s Respite is a brilliant mystery-solver, just that the mystery presented in the plot was a tad transparent. Unless someone out there has a good suggestion for a better Lippman novel to start out with, we won’t be likely to pick up another of her novels.

Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick. Yes, another paranormal, teen-angst novel. But this one featured fallen angels and we thought it held promise. Not so much, as it turns out. Of course if features a beautiful but troubled high school girl who falls in love with the dark, brooding and handsome local boy who (did ya see this one coming?) is a fallen angel. Is he there to protect and love her forever or is he a danger to her? We ain’t telling. But the book is the first in a trilogy if that’s any hint. Trilogy or no, we won’t be reading the next two books in the series. It’s not a bad novel, just extremely predictable.

The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff. This meh surprised us. A Reader’s Respite thought for certain that we’d fall in love with this magical realism novel, given that it’s suffused with literary lore and features a healthy dose of diary entries and letters between characters….that’s usually just our style. Instead of love, we fell in meh. The story of a young woman returning to her hometown in disgrace and reconciling with her past, her mother and her ancestry never really picked up steam. The characters never really grew on us and their motivations seemed weak at best. In short, we never really connected with a single one of them. Groff is, however, a talent with words. We’d be highly likely to try another of her works….perhaps her short stories might be more to our liking. Who has read Delicate Edible Birds?

Okay, that’s enough meh for one day. Carry on and remember: tomorrow is Tuesday so it can only get better.

Stuff we need….

2011-03-31T19:20:00.001-07:00

Brilliant, simple, and affordable. Three of our favorite things.

Yes, we realize that despite our impressive collection of bookmarks that we still tend to use a napkin or an airline boarding pass to mark our page, but that doesn’t stop A Reader’s Respite from coveting a little Tiffany’s.

The Closest Thing to Time Travel….

2011-03-30T23:16:00.001-07:00

A Reader’s Respite wants our own time-machine. We want one so badly that we sent our blog secretary out to the garage to build us one, but he claimed it wasn’t in his contract (we have a contract?) and pulled a face that precluded any further discussion on the matter:

So we reached for the next best thing to an actual time machine: the newest Elizabeth Chadwick release here in the U.S. (and winner of the latest RNA’s Best Historical Novel Award), To Defy a King, and we were most definitely not disappointed.

Almost no other historical fiction author can transport their readers to another time like Chadwick. Sights, sounds, smells, and emotions place the reader smack where Chadwick wants them: in this case, early 13th century England where big, bad King John (oh yes, he of Robin Hood fame) reigns supreme.

While King John is busy making his subject’s lives miserable Mahelt Marshal, the strong-willed daughter of the Earl of Pembroke, is busy trying to make a go of her politically-arranged marriage to the Hugh Bigod, the eldest son of the Earl of Norfolk, while keeping her family safe from King John’s evil eye.

If the names Marshal and Bigod sound familiar to you, you’re not alone. While not officially part of a series, To Defy a King is the cumulative result of her previously well-received novels. The story of Mahelt’s father, William Marshal, was told in The Greatest Knight and it’s follow up, The Scarlet Lion (selected as one of the top ten historical novels of the decade by The Historical Novel Society). The story of Hugh’s parents, Roger and Ida, was told in The Time of Singing.

As in each of her previous novels, in To Defy a King you’ll find a magical blend of history, romance and adventure with nary an insipid heroine in sight.

Thoughtful and smart, you can’t go wrong with an Elizabeth Chadwick historical novel.

Bloggy Block

2011-03-29T19:16:00.001-07:00

A Reader’s Respite has been suffering from a wicked case of the dreaded bloggy block. Bloggy block is even worse than writer’s block because at least an author can put forth a veritable fountain of brilliance. Bloggy writers are lucky to put forth a decent review a few times a week and for some of us, even that doesn’t come easy.

*sigh*

What do YOU do to beat bloggy block? C’mon, you can share your secrets with us….we promise not to tell.

Having Trouble Keeping Track of Your English Monarchs?

2011-03-10T22:13:00.000-08:00

Consider, then, this little mnemonic and you'll never forget who's who in English history again.....

William the Conqueror long did reign,
William, his son, by an arrow was slain;
Henry the First was a scholar bright;
Stephen was king without any right.
Henry the Second, Plantagenet's scion;
Richard the First was as brave as a lion;
John, though a tyrant, the Charter signed;
Henry the Third had a weakly mind.
Edward the First conquered Cambria dales;
Edward the Second was born Prince of Wales;
Edward the Third humbled France in its pride;
Richard the Second in prison died.
Henry the Fourth for himself took the crown;
Henry the Fifth pulled the French king down;
Henry the Sixth lost his father's gains.
Edward of York laid hold of the reins;
Edward the Fifth was killed with his brother;
Richard the Third soon made way for another.
Henry the Seventh was frugal of means;
Henry the Eighth had a great many queens.
Edward the Sixth reformation began;
Cruel Queen Mary prevented the plan.
Wise and profound were Elizabeth's aims.
England and Scotland were joined by King James.
Charles found the people a cruel corrector;
Oliver Cromwell was called Lord Protector;
Charles the Second was hid in an oak,
James the Second took Popery's yoke.
William and Mary were offered the throne,
Anne succeeded and reigned alone.
George the First from Hanover came;
George the Second kept up the name;
George the Third was loved in the land,
George the Fourth was pompous and grand,
William the Fourth had no heir of his own,
So Queen Victoria ascended the throne.
When good Queen Victoria's long reign was o'er
Edward the Seventh the English crown wore;
George the Fifth rules the vast realm of England today
And "God Save the King!" all his subjects' hearts say.

Have fun historical fiction buffs!

How to Make Sense of the Norman Invasion

2011-03-02T17:38:00.001-08:00

The Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Battle of Hastings

The Norman invasion of England in 1066 AD was a pivotal moment that changed history forever. We’ve all heard of many of the players: King Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror, and so on and so forth. But making sense of all the people involved and the convoluted events that led up to the invasion that led to England becoming, well, England as we know it, is a tall order even for the more astute history buff.

William the Conqueror. Now there’s a sexy beard.

That’s why we have author Helen Hollick. Her two-book series of historical fiction not only makes sense of the Battle of Hastings and the events that led up to it, but does so in a fantabulous way.

The first book The Forever Queen, originally published in the UK but re-released for American readers courtesy of Sourcebooks, tells the little known story of Emma, the woman who was twice over Queen of England.

Ethelred versus Cnut

now be honest, you’d think Cnut pretty hot ,too, if you’d been forced to share Ethie’s bed for all those years

Now here’s a fascinating gal. Married off to one of the most worthless kings England has ever known, Ethelred the Unready (now there’s a moniker only a mother could love), Emma turns around and marries the Viking invader Cnut who plundered/ravaged/pillaged his way through England and became it’s next king. Guess that’s one way to retain your crown.

Hollick’s follow-up novel, I Am the Chosen King, picks up where The Forever Queen left off (although interesting factoid: the books were originally written in reverse order). Emma’s weak-willed son Edward the Confessor is on the throne and the powerful, bickering Godwin family practically rules England.

Edward the Confessor…he looks like a party looking for a place to happen, doesn’t he?

When ol’ Eddie dies without an heir (revisionist history tried to tell us Eddie was so pious he couldn’t bring himself to do the dirty and produce an heir with his queen, but c’mon…..you do the math here), all hell breaks loose. Harold, the most sensible of the bickering Godwinson brothers steps up to fill the void and, kingmaking being what it was back then in England, finds himself elected as the new King of England.

History doesn’t leave us any portraits of King Harold. This is how we picture him (insert gratuitous Viggo Mortensen photo)

Of course, you know that doesn’t last for long because we all know what happened in 1066 AD.
The genius of Hollick’s writing is her rare ability to combine accurate historical fact with damned good storytelling. Not only does she make sense of the myriad of Saxons, Welsh, Danish and Normans running amok, she manages to create characters that are memorable and sympathetic. And don’t be making the assumption that these books are overflowing with medieval battle scenes….there’s plenty of love, treachery, tragedy and family sagas to go around.
If you’ve ever been interested in learning more about the Norman invasion of 1066, do yourself a favor and get your hands on these books. They really are a stunning feat of historical fiction.

And if you’d really like to round out your education, grab a copy of David Howarth’s 1066: The Year of the Conquest, a superb non-fiction look at the Battle of Hastings

The Fine Print:
Copies of Helen Hollick novels provided by Sourcebooks
Copy of David Howarth book from personal library

The Sea and the Silence

2011-02-20T15:40:00.001-08:00

Every once in a while, a novel comes along to remind us readers that writing is far more than putting words down on paper….it is a craft. Peter Cunningham’s historical novel, The Sea and the Silence, is one of those books.

Set amid the political upheaval that followed the Irish War of Independence in the early half of the 20th century, Cunningham takes the delicate threads of one woman’s life and weaves them into a delicate yet masterful tapestry that reveals not only the historical time period, but how it impacted those who lived through it.

The story is broken into two parts: the first gives us Iz, a local landowning patrician’s daughter who finds herself in a somewhat loveless marriage to a cheating, careless husband.

The fragile strands of her marriage are softly exposed. So slowly and sedately is the story set up that the reader is quite unaware of the roller coaster ride they are about to embark on in the second part of the story. And it is this second portion of the novel that reveals Cunningham to be a master of his craft as he returns in time to Iz’s life before her marriage and how she arrived there, through the chaos of the Irish fight for autonomy and independence.

Cunningham’s format echoes the sedateness of the first half of the novel: quotation marks around dialog are done away with altogether, replaced with dashes. Rather than serving as a distraction, this technique merely enhances the story.

And what a story it is….tragedy, great love, political upheaval…all wound up in one short novel.

If Irish social history interests you at all, we highly recommend you give this novel a shot….you won’t be disappointed.

Is Your Local Bookstore Closing?

2011-02-16T10:18:00.001-08:00

By now we suspect everyone has heard that Borders Books has filed for bankruptcy after losing $168 million in 2010.

They’ve hired a company called Hilco to come in to liquidate and close 200 Borders stores around the U.S….that’s a lot of book store employees out of work, folks.

Want to know if your local Borders will still be around? Go here and see.

In the meantime, find a local bookstore in your town and go buy a book from them this week, please.

Huh?

2011-02-09T13:45:00.001-08:00

Every once in a while, if you’re observant, you’ll find a little gem hidden within those inflight magazines airlines foist on you.

In this month’s Hemispheres (courtesy of United Airlines), you’ll find an interview with famed shoe-man Manolo Blahnik in which he states:

My parents read to us every night – from trash like Gone With the Wind to classics like Cervantes or Balzac.

This from a man who makes shoes that suspiciously resemble a salmon.

Food for thought.

How to become a literary snob….

2011-02-03T21:34:00.001-08:00

Okay, maybe not an actual snob. But editions can matter even for the casual reader. Yes, the story within is the same, but certain editions – especially for the classics – are meant to enhance your understanding and reading enjoyment and it can be worth your time to seek out these editions.

Take, for example, the New York Public Library Collector’s Editions, produced by Doubleday.

These versions of well-known classic novels are delightfully augmented with unique material which makes the text of the novel more understandable and much more enjoyable.

Each edition includes a biography of the author, as well as uber-cool facsimiles of the author’s original letters, diaries, drawings and rough-drafts.

page of the original manuscript of Sister Carrie

Also included throughout the text are drawings and/or photographs of many of the settings found in the novel which is a fabulous way to understand the era in which the novel was produced…..in other words, you’re getting a bonus history lesson.

An advertisement for the play in which Carrie makes her debut in Chicago in the novel Sister Carrie

The books used to be available for purchase at the New York Public Library back when they were first released in the mid-1990’s, but these days you’re going to have to find them at a used books store (you can find a full list of the publications here).

So if you’re going to force yourself to read a classic (and admittedly, we all profess to want to read them), you can induce a coma by ~~slogging through~~ reading this:

Or you can actually learn about the book and ~~suffer less~~ enjoy your time spent reading by hunting up a New York Public Library Collector’s Edition.

Congratulations….now you’re a book snob.

Actors as narrators…..

2011-01-31T18:06:00.001-08:00

A Reader’s Respite has a love-hate relationship with famous actors who try their hands as audiobook narrators. For every narration we love, there are at least two that are disasters because – let’s be honest here – acting a role in front of the camera is vastly different from interpreting the nuances of a novel with only your vocal inflections.

When we heard that the latest much-hyped novel from David Vann, Caribou Island, was being released on audio narrated by Bronson Pinchot, A Reader’s Respite stopped dead in our tracks.

Bronson Pinchot? You do know who Bronson Pinchot is, don’t you?

Any self-respecting child of the 80’s knows Pinchot as Balki Bartokomous, the Balkan immigrant who stole the 1980’s sitcom, Perfect Strangers. And while we recognize the enormous disservice we do by pigeon-holing an actor (he has, after all, appeared on Broadway and in many notable dramatic roles over the years), it was our teen-crush on Balki that led us to promptly cancel our library hold on the hardcopy of Caribou Island and download the audio version instead.

A Reader’s Respite would be lying if we didn’t admit that a small, deviant part of us was hoping to hear Pinchot read Caribou Island in his Balki voice. (Thankfully no one allows us to make editorial decisions in this regard.)

Instead, Pinchot delivers a subtly stunning performance with Vann’s novel….not an easy task when you consider his dark novels are often favorably compared to that master-of-depression, Cormac McCarthy.

This isn’t Pinchot’s first rodeo when it comes to audiobook narration. He also performed Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War (Karl Marlantes) last year and What is Left of the Daughter (Howard Norman), amongst others.

A Reader’s Respite, for one, is very thankful that Pinchot has leant his considerable talent to audiobooks. Even if he doesn’t read in his Balki voice, his narrations are not to be missed.

Mortality (measured by books)

2011-01-24T18:19:00.001-08:00

No one likes to think too much about there own mortality, but there are times in our lives when we are struck by how short this life really is.

Perhaps you realize it when an acquaintance of similar age unexpectedly passes away. Or maybe it hits you on a milestone birthday (never thought you’d be this old, right?).

A Reader’s Respite recently faced our mortality whilst organizing our bookshelves. Here’s how we figure it:

We have approximately 2,847 unread books on our shelves. If we continue at our normal reading pace of approximately 100 books per year, it will take us 28.47 years to read all of the books currently in our abode.

Normally A Reader’s Respite wouldn’t be so quick to give away our age, but with the Grim Reaper inching ever closer, we’ll throw caution to the wind and tell you that we will be 68.47 years old by the time we read every book that we’ve amassed.

And none of these tricky mathematical calculations factor in books yet to come and library treasures.

So it is that we are faced with the grim reality that we may very well pass from this world without reading some very important books.

Of course, we should be disturbed by the fact that passing away without reading certain books that we really want to read is apparently more upsetting than, say, leaving our loved ones behind. But that’s another topic altogether….

In the meantime, someone please promise to bury us with our unread books. Maybe you can take it with you.

Book Sculpture

2011-01-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

In addition to our Etsy obsession, A Reader's Respite is currently going through a book sculpture phase.

This piece was created by Hubertus Gojowczyk....it's entitled Latest News from the Year 1732 and 1733. If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. (We asked, so we know this to be true.)

Still, it might be worth it to display on a shelf in Big Kid's room if only to freak him out a bit. (Parent humor....we can't get enough of it.)

Inauspicious Beginnings

2011-01-02T23:15:00.000-08:00

Just a few days ago, A Reader's Respite was merrily wishing each of you a year of good reading in 2011. Too bad we forgot to wish the same for ourselves. If we had, mayhap we would have been spared the absolute disaster newly released by Delacorte Press, entitled Vixen.

With a glitzy cover just begging for the impulse-buy rack at Barnes & Nobel, Vixen is the first of a proposed trilogy (Dear God, help us) marketed for the Gossip-Girl generation. Set in the 1920s, the storyline follows a rich teen socialite who wants nothing more out of life than to follow her heart and be a flapper. Of course, she has to overcome some obstacles first:

Her evil betrothed (think of him as a 1920s version of The Bachelor)
Her insanely jealous, but not as rich or beautiful, BFF
Her mysterious, but beautiful, cousin who has a deep, dark secret

Any of this sounding familiar, folks?

If you happened to have read any one of author Anna Godbersen's The Luxe Series (a travesty in and of itself), alarm bells are likely going off in your head right about now.

Because Vixen is almost a carbon copy of Godbersen's books, from the main protagonist who just wants to follow her own heart to the conniving BFF. Author Jillian Larkin simply changed the setting from New York to Chicago and cut out some paper-doll flapper clothes and slapped them on her characters.

Similar to The Luxe books, there is absolutely no historical fiction value here. The historical part only serves as a costume for the characters to wear. There is no essence of the time period despite a few catch-phrases of the times ("you're the bees-knees!"), one would assume the setting is present day.

An overload of rich-girl scheming, drinking, and back-stabbing make for an extremely predictable plot (maybe because it's been written before) with awkward dialogue and no historical merits whatsoever.

the incomparable Zelda

If the era of the flappers interests you, you'd do far better to reach for Nancy Milford's excellent biography of the original flapper, Zelda Fitzgerald. Through Zelda one comes to understand that being a flapper wasn't just about bobbing your hair and smoking a cigarette. It was a state of mind and a way of life that women were adapting to break free of the chains (and corsets) that restricted them throughout the Victorian era.

Ultimately, Vixen and its sequels are simply Delacort's effort at a quick cash infusion. And with such a huge marketing campaign behind it, coupled with the truth that trash sells, it will likely meet with large success.

In the meantime, A Reader's Respite is starting our New Year's Resolution List:

Don't be suckered in with a glitzy cover and a vague historical fiction description
(not sure, but we'll be adding to the list as the year goes on....)

Postscript: Our copy? In an unfortunate twist of events, we ended up with two review copies (that's twice the pain). Just because we didn't pay a cent for it doesn't mean it gets a good review. We calls them as we sees them around here.

2011: A Year of Books

2010-12-31T20:22:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year. May 2011 be filled with books. Really good books.

Go Away, Jane

2010-12-27T10:18:00.000-08:00

Most of you already know that A Reader's Respite has an unhealthy obsession with Etsy, the online market place where artists and crafty-like peeps sell their wares.

But if you happen to be looking for literature-related goods on Etsy the cold, hard truth is that you're going to have to wade through about a million and a half pieces of Jane Austen-related ~~junk~~ goods. Looking for a Jane Austen tampax holder? Odds are good you'll find it on Etsy.

randomly quote Jane Austen to me and I'll beat you. for reals.

Just thank your lucky stars that A Reader's Respite is here to separate the wheat from the chaff for you. Because there is good bookish-related stuff to be had for the serious literature fiend.....

Love Chaucer? CTunmasked's shop has gorgeous pendants featuring excerpts from The Canterbury Tales.

How 'bout Tolstoy? Pocketfullofposey makes these stunning engraved silver rings. This one reads: "There is no greatness where there is no goodness, simplicity and truth." *sigh*

For those of us who are card-carrying members of the Grammar Police, Artfulharvest provides us with an outlet for our frustration in the form of a bookbag.

Belong to a bookclub? Beaconbookmarks have the best bookmarks around. Perfect gifts.

So keep on shopping small, independent retailers. Trust us, you won't find this stuff at Walmart.

Merry Bookish Christmas!

2010-12-24T19:20:00.000-08:00

Historical Fiction, Modern Sensibilities

2010-12-20T01:08:00.000-08:00

A Reader's Respite recently picked up a second-hand copy of a 2010 historical fiction release written by author Christy English, entitled The Queen's Pawn. Despite the horrid cover art (really, Penguin Group, what were you thinking here?), the novel features a rather obscure historical protagonist: Alys, a princess of France and daughter of King Louis VII who was bethrothed to Richard the Lionheart of England before he was king. If you are a fan of old movies, you might remember Alys on the big screen in the epic film The Lion in Winter:

Cast of The Lion in Winter, starring Peter O'Toole as Henry II and Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine

Ho hum, you're probably thinking, yet another forgotten royal in medieval Europe, how original.

But Alys had quite a bit of scandal attached to her. When Alys was betrothed to young Richard at the tender age of eight, the custom of the time demanded that she be shipped over to England to be raised in the court of Richard's father, King Henry II, until she was of age to be wed. But by the age of fifteen or so, Alys and Richard had still not wed and rumor had it that Alys had become the mistress of her fiance's father, ol' Henry II, and had even born him a child.

As if that weren't scandalous enough, check this out: Alys was the daughter of French King Louis VII and his second wife. Lou's first wife was none other than the infamous Eleanor of Aquitaine, the woman who divorced him so she could marry, who else, but Henry II of England. That's right, Richard's father. So Alys was getting it on with not only her fiance's father, but the husband of her father's first wife.

Whew. You keeping up here?

So how does The Queen's Pawn measure up? As a historical novel, pretty darned well. Since very little is known about the Princess Alys, the author has a lot of latitude to work with here. She alternates chapters between Alys and Queen Eleanor, imagining a wholly plausible rivalry between the two. But it is the relationship between Alys and King Henry that takes center stage. Their passionate affair fairly smokes right off the pages.

And yet it must be remembered that young Alys was only fifteen or sixteen years old at this time. Lolita, anyone? Historically speaking, of course, women in medieval Europe were married much, much younger than today. (The infamous Lady Margaret Beaufort being the perfect example: she gave birth to Henry VII at the tender age of thirteen....good grief.) But in The Queen's Pawn, Alys is the aggressor and instigator, seducing the forty-ish Henry and fairly dragging him into the sack. Sometimes historical accuracy and modern sensibilities make for an uncomfortable read and A Reader's Respite salutes the author for not changing the ages of the characters just to make a more acceptable novel (and for the comprehensive author's note about this included).

If we had any quibble with the novel it was the habit various characters had of simply looking into someone's eyes and divining far too much information.

"I saw in his eyes that he wanted us to build our own alliance, a love born from our common loneliness." (page 76)

"I saw in his eyes that he had come back for Alais." (page 100)

"His eyes seemed to tell me......" (page 141)

Indeed, with so much information being beamed around the room by expression alone, it was a wonder any dialog at all was necessary.

But medieval telepathy aside, the novel kept us merrily entertained for two days and for that, hats off to the author. If you're in the mood for a good medieval soap opera, pick up a copy and enjoy.

Jennifer Donnelly Rocks Our World....

2010-12-13T10:30:00.000-08:00

Yes, we know A Reader's Respite has been a tad scarce lately. But it is the holiday season and we all know what that means: every person in America feels compelled to jump on an airplane and fly somewhere. Which means that our day job is keeping us very, very busy. And no matter how many times we make the announcement, "We thank you for your business," well, it's a lie. A big one.

A Reader's Respite is, in fact, not very grateful for long airport security lines, overcrowded and delayed airplanes, and people creating their own little Tent City in the airport next to our gate. Go home, please. Go home and stay at home and be merry around your own hearth and tree. Read a book.

In fact, here are two books that might spark your interest. Jennifer Donnelly is perhaps best known for her historical fiction series, The Tea Rose Trilogy. But did you know she also writes young adult historical fiction? And she writes it very well.

Her most recent publication is a young adult novel called Revolution. The story vacillates between present day and the days leading up to the French Revolution. When troubled teen Andi Alpers finds herself unwillingly whisked off to Paris with her father to sort out her angst-ridden life (you know it's fiction right there, when someone is unwillingly whisked off to Paris....), she unexpectedly uncovers an old diary written by a girl, Alexandrine, who is caught up in the Revolution of 1789.

Donnelly does an excellent job of bringing the Revolution to life, both for Andi and the reader. It doesn't ever lose it's YA feel, however, although teens are likely to appreciate Donnelly's understanding of their angst. Moments of humor in present-day Andi's life take the edge off of the tenseness of Alexandrine's diary and as the novel reaches it's climax, the lines between present day and the past become increasingly blurred.

We enjoyed Revolution enough to take note that Donnelly had written an earlier YA historical fiction novel, A Northern Light and of course, A Reader's Respite couldn't resist buying a copy. While we merely enjoyed Revolution, we were blown away with A Northern Light, a novel which made the American Library Association's Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults list.

Donnelly took the 1906 murder of Grace Brown in the Adirondack Mountains (a case that inspired Theodore Dreiser's classic An American Tragedy) and created full, rich historical fiction with some of the most beautiful characters to grace the pages of a YA novel.

Grace's mysterious death provides the backbone for a plethora of fictional characters who leap to life. Young Mattie, who desires nothing more than leaving this small northern town to pursue a college eduction (something that rural young women simply do not do in 1906). Her family, her neighbors and friends are painted so vividly by Donnelly that at times it sweeps your breath away. Mattie's choices - or seemingly lack thereof - are heartbreaking and oh, so real.

Unexpectedly, it is the death of young Grace that leads Mattie to the answers she needs and ultimately, will change her entire life.

Both novels are good reads and well worth your time, but in the end we recommend that you buy a copy of Revolution for your favorite teen and buy the copy of A Northern Light for yourself.

Happy reading. And stay away from airports.

Hey Santa! We Want!

2010-11-29T13:11:00.000-08:00

A Reader's Respite confesses that we've always wanted a hidden bookcase door in our home. Seriously. We really want this....

It's only $3,000 at Opulentitems.com. Please, Santa?

Do you think our mother-in-law would object?

2010-11-26T10:06:00.000-08:00

Because if not, A Reader's Respite has GOT to own this. (Yes, we've been spending far too much time browsing Etsy these days.....)

It's Turkey Day....

2010-11-25T02:38:00.000-08:00

Need a new library loot bag?

2010-11-23T01:02:00.000-08:00

Of course you do....who doesn't?

Check out America Jane Mercantile's A Year of Good Reading tote. Not only is this bag perfect for your library loot, but it's made from 100% recycled cotton.

And it's only $15 from now until Thanksgiving!

Historical-Historical Fiction

2010-11-20T21:32:00.000-08:00

Historical fiction can be broken down into numerous sub-genres, but one of the most important distinctions is between modern historical fiction and, well, historical historical fiction. What on earth is the difference and why should you care? Knowing the difference can make or break your reading enjoyment, depending on your literature taste buds.

Modern historical fiction is generally that which has been written since author Philippa Gregory made the Tudor dynasty uber-fashionable. You can usually recognize one of these modern historical fiction novels by their head-less covers, which admittedly A Reader's Respite believes was originally some artist's attempt at irony that simply became a fashion trend.

What style characterizes modern historical fiction? Broadly speaking, you'll find these novels written in first person narrative with a female protagonist who is usually connected with royalty in some manner, be it legitimately (a queen, a dethroned queen, a misunderstood and maligned queen, a jilted queen, or a soon-to-be-headless queen....you get the picture) or not (a mistress, a discarded mistress, a misunderstood and maligned mistress, a jilted mistress, or a soon-to-be-headless mistress). Descriptive passages are usually limited to royal life, royal fashion and royal sexual escapades and the royal female protagonist is generally searching for some elusive happiness (a nod to modern-day female sensibilities).

None of this is, of course, to say that modern historical fiction isn't accurate. Despite the soap opera presentation, many historical fiction novels published in the past twenty years are a marvel in their accuracy of historical events. One need look no further than Sharon Kay Penman's Eleanor of Aquitaine series for an incredible medieval history lesson, the likes of which we guarantee no college history professor could provide.

Likewise, writers such as Elizabeth Chadwick, Susan Higginbotham and Helen Hollick have done much to further the integrity of their craft, devoting years and years of intense historical research to provide readers with historical details that rival the best non-fiction available.

Historical historical fiction (A Reader's Respite is loving that redundancy so you'll just have to get used to it), on the other hand, is older historical fiction frequently disguised behind book covers that reflected what popularly sold in the day. The 1970's and 80's versions can usually be identified by a seductively clad (period style, of course, no matter what it's wind-swept state) heroine in the clutches of dark-haired hero in manly military dress. Do not be deceived. Underneath that tattered cover you'll frequently find fantastically accurate historical events that every-day, non-royal protagonists find themselves swept up in, changing their lives forever. Instead of royal life, you'll find more day-to-day life of the common citizen. Seriously compelling stuff, if you can find it.

Take author Emma Drummond who published the novel Scarlet Shadows back in 1978. Would you believe that lurking behind this cover is a compelling love story wrapped up in the horrors of the Crimean War, including the Charge of the Light Brigade? Even more astounding than the remarkable history lesson within is the complete lack of sex scenes within? Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. Not. One. Sex. Scene. And yet how many of you would never have even picked this book up based upon it's cover?

(Of course, there is such a genre known as historical romance that offers up the sex scenes for those who prefer a little spice....but that's a different post for a different day.)

So what kind of historical fiction should you be reading? That's entirely up to you. But if you take the time to find a respected historical fiction author, no matter what year they were published, you'll find yourself wrapped up in history. History can come alive in the pages of a novel.

Green Books Campaign: Nobel, A Century of Prize Winners

2010-11-11T00:30:00.000-08:00

This review is part of the Green Books campaign.Today  200 bloggers take a stand to support books printed in an eco-friendly   manner by simultaneously publishing reviews of 200 books printed on  recycled or FSC-certified paper. By   turning a spotlight on books printed using eco- friendly paper, we  hope to raise  the awareness of book buyers and encourage everyone to  take the environment into  consideration when purchasing books. 

The campaign is organized for the second time by Eco-Libris, a green company working to make reading more sustainable. We invite you to join the discussion on "green" books and support books printed in an eco-friendly manner! A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.

A Reader's Respite is pleased as punch to note that Michael Worek's book Nobel: A Century of Prize Winners is printed using eco-friendly paper, but we have to be honest here....this book would be uber-cool even if it were printed on toilet paper.

Not so eco-friendly. And harder to read.

Not only does Worek explain the fascinating history behind the Nobel Prize (did you know Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and his company supplied the German military during WWI and WWII? Neither did we), but he also provides biographies of past winners and intriguing explanations of the work that led to their Nobel Prize. This is fantabulous because, after all, there is a difference between knowing that Wolfgang Pauli won the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the exclusion principle and understanding exactly what the hell the exclusion principle is (evidently it has nothing to do with marital spats...who knew?).

308 prize winners are profiled in this book and each of them are utterly fascinating. Winners in the six categories of Peace, Literature, Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Economics are featured by year and presented by bio and their achievement. This would make a great holiday gift for anyone who loves this kind of "did you know?" information or just wants to win their next game of Trivial Pursuit. It would also make a great gift for school-aged children....no more searching for the next essay topic.

Highly recommended!

Now who's up for a game of Trivial Pursuit?

Ho Ho Ho (ouch, is it too early?)

2010-11-08T20:33:00.000-08:00

Yes, A Reader's Respite knows it's far too early to be doing anything Holiday-related yet. (And a pox on those stores who were playing Christmas music the day after Halloween.) But if you want in on the fun of The Book Blogger Holiday Swap, this is just a friendly reminder that you need to sign up by November 14.

For those who haven't participated in the past, we really encourage you to do so this year. Even A Reader's Respite, who has a history of turning remarkable Scrooge-like as the Holidays draw nearer, thinks that The Book Blogger Holiday Swap brings out the best in all of us.

So head over here to sign up!

Public Service Announcement: 2010

2010-11-07T22:25:00.000-08:00

Books Which May Very Well Induce a Coma

This is a public service announcement, courtesy of A Reader's Respite, which may very well save you from an unnecessary coma induced by a novel. Now this is not to be confused with bad writing. On the contrary, all of the sentences are properly put together, the dialog is snappy, the setting alive. But nothing happens. And if you're not careful, your eyes might glaze over and you'll find yourself slipping into oblivion (and not the good kind).

Read on for our 2010 picks.....

Sacred Hearts, by Sarah Dunant. Oh how we tried to love this novel set in a 16th century Italian convent, where new novice Sarafina has been shunted off by her mean ol' dad in order to break up True Love. Locked in a convent, pining for her lost love. For 432 freaking pages, folks. Pining away. More pining. And just when you think it wasn't possible to pine anymore....yep, more pining. (Note to Serafina: no man in the world is worth all that pining. Really.) If you really must know more, you can see our full review here.

Jerusalem, by Cecilia Holland. Another historical fiction novel that we wanted to adore....what's not to love about 12th century Jerusalem and the Knights Templar valiantly fighting off the evil Saladin and his Muslim hordes? As it turned out, there's nothing to love because nothing actually happens in the novel. We meet a few characters, but have no idea what their goals or motivations are which in the end doesn't matter because nothing happens. Except a battle or two. But no one is even sure what the battles are supposed to accomplish because nothing happens.

The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi. In all fairness, it should be noted that A Reader's Respite tried this 2010 Hugo Award Winner on audio, when we suspect it might read better on paper. But after several hours of listening to a fantabulous narrator (Jonathan Davis), we only knew the novel was set somewhere in the Far East in the Future (we capitalize Future so you know it's a bad, mean place). We heard a lot about genetic engineering (at least, we think that's what it was) and something about Megodonts (evidently a prehistoric mammoth-like creature brought back to life). But again, we ran into that age-old problem: NOTHING HAPPENED. Well, maybe something happened at the very end. We wouldn't know because 19 hours and 38 minutes of nothingness just wasn't going to happen.

Honorable Mention:

Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl, by Daniel Pinkwater. Not to be outdone in the YA category, this adorable little cover packs a big whollop of no-plot, which as it turns out was exactly what the author intended (we're thinking it's an art nouvaux kind of thing). But the cover art is cute, so what can we say? You can read our full length review here and if you're very thorough, you'll even find the author's not-so-happy-response.

So that's are list this year. Disagree? Speak up and say so! We've got our big-girl panties on and we can take it. And because A Reader's Respite never gives up on an author just because of one bad reading experience, feel free to suggest other works by these authors so we can give them another try in 2011!

Book Blogger Accessories

2010-11-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

All book bloggers should have this laptop.

Read more about it at Yanko Design. (Yes, it really is a working laptop.)

A Proper Halloween

2010-10-30T21:34:00.000-07:00

A Reader's Respite originally had planned a whole slew of spooky Halloween reviews throughout the month of October. Due to, ahem, some technical difficulties (oddly enough, not with Blogger this time but within our own short-circuiting brain) it simply did not happen this year. The best laid plans.....

But in the never-say-die spirit (double entendre there....look at us, back in the game!) we do want to share our favorite Halloween read this year.

When we first read about this almost-forgotten mystery first published in 1945 over at Kittling: Books, we ordered it immediately. Really, what's more fun than a proper British mystery, ala Agatha Christie?

And for those of you who love a little mystery with their mystery, you'll be intrigued to know that author Maureen Sarsfield is a bit of a mystery herself. After publishing two successful mystery novels, she simply vanished. No one knows what became of her, whether it was a pen name, or even if she simply passed away. Intriguing, no?

Murder at Shots Hall is a hoot of a romp through the English countryside where a local heart-breaker named Flik is accused of a series of murders occurring around town.

Despite Flik's annoying habit of making every man she meets fall madly in love with her (and yes, it did indeed become annoying after a while), the mystery is a sound one and like most British mysteries, it's the eccentric cast of secondary characters that make this short novel (191 pages) worth reading. From the Detective Sergeant Arnoldson who is out to convict Flik of anything he can hang his hat on, to Camilla Pain-Wentworth who, it is said, would "flirt with a broomstick if it wore trousers," there is a fun array of possible suspects to choose from when local folks start turning up dead.

Our favorite? Sergeant Congreve, local law enforcement with a knack for seeing through the bullshit and making us laugh out loud. His initial written report after the first murder:

"Report from Sgt. Congreve. All except the following, in and around Shotshall, had alibis for the night of December 1st between the hours of 19:45 and 21:00: Capt. Belairs, who said he was in his house reading. Miss Chattock, of Shots Hall, who said she was in her house doing nothing. Mrs. Ashely who said what she was doing but it is not proven. Mrs. Vale who said she was asleep in front of her fire which had gone out. Harry Fewsey the butcher who was cutting up meat in his shop and said anyone ought to have been able to hear him doing it only no one did. Winnie Marsh who said she had one round the corner, which one she would not say, to meet a boyfriend she won't say either as it is not her regular one Bill Ellison, and she said not to tell about it as Bill Ellison would be mad."

What's not to love? Even if you figure out whodunnit, the fun is in the getting there.

Happy Halloween!

It's just one of those weeks....

2010-10-25T20:28:00.001-07:00

A Royal Scandal

2010-10-23T21:16:00.000-07:00

Title: The King's Mistress
Author: Emma Campion
Publisher: Crown
464 pages
ISBN: 978-0307589255
Source: Amazon Vine Program
Grade: B

Royal scandals - even ones that took place several hundred years ago - are a guaranteed way to sell a book. The trick, for the savvy historical fiction author, is finding a royal scandal that hasn't been done over and over and over and over. And over. (Seriously. One more dysfunctional Tudor might send us over the edge.)

Enter new historical fiction author Emma Campion who has capitalized on her medieval and Anglo-Saxon literature education by writing a novel about the villified and scandalous mistress of England's King Edward III.

Eddie, you old goat.

Her name was Alice Perrers and she was a simple commoner who history has largely forgotten. What little is known about her has been anything but flattering and a handful of historical novelists have vilified her even more over the years.

Campion turns it all around and wonders what if Alice Perrers wasn't the evil seductress that history records her to be?

So here's the history: Edward III ruled England for fifty (!) years in the mid 14th-century. He was married to a lovely and popular woman by the name of Philippa of Hainault, who was a baby-making machine, giving birth to fourteen children throughout their marriage.

Queen Philippa

But men being men (and kings being kings), when Philippa became ill and virtually incapacitating (gee, could it have been related to punching out FOURTEEN babies?), Eddie developed a wandering eye. Enter Alice Perrers, a merchants wife that caught Eddie's fancy and became his mistress.

Evidently Alice made Eddie quite happy because he lavished her gifts, land, jewelry and money. Lots of it. And as you can probably imagine, this didn't sit too well with Eddie's kids and other greedy nobles sitting in the corner wanting their piece of the pie. In Eddie's waning days, much was made over Alice's control over the King and her enrichment of herself and her friends.

In fact, after Eddie kicked the bucket, Alice was even put on trial and lost most of her lands.

New historical fiction author Emma Campion takes a new tact....she surmises that Alice wasn't the devil in disguise history makes her out to be and was really a victim in the whole mess. And she's got a good premise here because really, if Alice was just a commoner, how much choice would she have had in the matter if the King of England decided he wanted her to decorate his bed? Probably not much if she valued what little she had in life.

But like all good things, it's possible to go too far and that is exactly what this otherwise well-written novel suffers from: too much goody-two-shoes Alice. While it is indeed likely that Alice wasn't entirely evil, there is usually a kernel of truth buried inside of all historical reputations. As the novel continues, the reader's faith in Alice's saintliness wears thin.

Saccharine aside, Campion has a good grasp of the era and passes that on to the reader in easily digestible fiction. If you have an interest in this time period, we'd recommend this novel. Her writing is solid and interest doesn't wane throughout the book. Worth your time if you're a history buff!

Review Mishaps

2010-10-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

The Literary Guild review went something like this.....

"...what Stephen King would write like, if Stephen King could write."

Even great reviewers step in it every once in a while.

*(For the few who don't know, Richard Bachman is a pen name of Stephen King.)

RIP: Shutter Island

2010-10-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

Title: Shutter Island
Author: Dennis Lehane
Publisher: Harper Collins
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Narrator: Tom Stechschulte
ASIN: B001NJ5XM2
Length: 9 hours, 38 minutes
Source: Personal Copy
Grade: A

A Reader's Respite came close to missing this gem of a thriller. Why? Because some idiots out in Hollywood decided that Dennis Lehane's novels make good movies (well, based on Mystic River, they're probably right). But while we didn't see Shutter Island on film, we did see the movie trailer, which presented the tale as a scary, scary horror-type movie. A Reader's Respite was just turned off, Leo or no.

Is it just us, or does he still look like he's 12 years old? (a 12 year old with a beard, that is)

So now it's time to set the record straight: Shutter Island is NOT a horror story in any way, shape or form. It is, however, a fabulously executed thriller that gets the old heart pumping.

The time? The 1950s.

The place? Shutter Island, a small government island in Boston Harbor.

The set-up? Two U.S. Marshals are sent out to Shutter Island - where the government runs an asylum for the criminally insane - to investigate the disappearance of a female patient. Not all is what it seems to be at Shutter Island and things go very much bump-in-the-night as the two marshals get caught up in a creepy mystery and a hurricane descends upon the Eastern Seaboard, effectively cutting off Shutter Island from the rest of the world.

Sandy recommended this on audio and she was spot on, as usual. Our narrator is pitch-perfect and Dennis Lehane hits another one out of the ballpark.

Highly, highly recommended!

A Reader's Respite Creep-O-Meter:

It's enough to make us want to start a journal....

2010-10-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

Well, almost.

We're not the journaling type. But if we were, A Reader's Respite would have to write in this:

These folks make these in Estonia. Which just makes it even cooler.

Feeling Presidential

2010-10-13T02:38:00.000-07:00

Title: Washington: A Life
Author: Ron Chernow
Publisher: Penguin Press
904 pages
ISBN: 978-1594202667
Source: Publicist
Grade: B+

If A Reader's Respite has been a little quiet in the blogosphere lately, we blame it entirely on renowned biographer Ron Chernow. The wretched man has gone an written another epic-sized biography, this time covering the life of George Washington.

Now you might think that at 904 pages, Washington: A Life caused A Reader's Respite to slip into a coma. But it didn't and that is why we call Ron Chernow a wretched man.....the book was fascinating. Long, to be sure, but utterly fascinating. Chernow didn't content himself with regurgitating the same old biographical information here. Instead, he went after new information and insights contained in a slew of newly released letters and journals written by the Old Man himself.

Still, in the hands of any other biographer the information might be coma-inducing. Thank the book-gods that Chernow is never boring. His respect for America's first President is evident throughout the book, but he doesn't hesitate to reveal Washington's innate flaws: the man was petulant, ambitious and arrogant to the extreme with an inferiority complex borne out of his Colonist background.

We think you can somewhat see Washington's lazy eye in this portrait

In other words, he may have turned out to be an idolized figure of American history, but he wasn't a likable man. Chernow paints a portrait of a brash young man who matured into an astute military leader...one that was needed for America to emerge as a country. In many ways, this portrait of Washington is a portrait of who we are as a nation today (that petulant, ambitious and arrogant thing again).

Don't be intimidated by the books length and scholarly presentation. You do not have to ensconce yourself in a leather chair by the fire, wearing a worn tweed jacket and smoking a pipe to get the most from this biography. Like all of Chernow's remarkable biographies, it's accessible and highly readable for anyone who has ever wondered about our first President. (No, he didn't cut down a cherry tree. Yes, he did have false teeth, but they were ivory, not wood.)

Eeeeeewwwwwww!

And if you've never heard of the U.S. Presidents Reading Project, go check it out. It's a perpetual reading project challenging bibliophiles and history buffs to read one book about each of our U.S. Presidents. Washington: A Life happens to be a perfect way to start.

RIP: The Thirteenth Tale

2010-10-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

Title: The Thirteenth Tale
Author: Diane Setterfield
Publisher: Atria
416 pages
ISBN: 978-0743298020
Source: Personal Copy
Grade: B-

A Reader's Respite has been saving this novel by Diane Setterfield for this Halloween season and we weren't disappointed. A tad creepy, gothic mystery all wrapped up with literary references, it's a good choice for a Halloween read.

Famed and uber-mysterious author Vida Winter is dying. After years of whimsically making up stories about her virtually unknown past, she's decided to set the record straight and recruits a very reluctant biographer, Margaret Lea, to take down the story. Margaret begins to uncover all sorts of creepy things in Vida's past and a story within a story soon unfolds.

And what exactly is Vida Winter's story?

Abandoned English estates, obsession, madness, lost fortunes and lost loves is all we're going to tell you. Those who don't take well to wind-swept moors may find the melodrama a bit over the top but if you're a fan of creepy settings this one's for you. While it may not be the best literary fiction to hit the stands in decades, it's certainly a worthwhile get-in-the-mood-for-Halloween story.

Think gothic Rebecca with a bit of Flowers in the Attic creepiness and a dose of Jane Eyre thrown in for good measure and you'll have a pretty good feel for this novel.

How it fared on A Reader's Respite's CREEP O' METER

Yet Another Fitzgerald Pot-Shot

2010-10-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

As critical as Fitzgerald was of other author's works, he was apparently inept when it came to titling his own novels. Among the titles he floated for his most famous novel:

The High-Bouncing Lover

On the Road to West Egg

Trimalchio

Gold-Hatted Gatsby

Finally convinced by both his wife and editor that The Great Gatsby was the best title, Fitzgerald made one last, frantic attempt to change the title to Under the Red, White and Blue. His editor told him it was too late and later Fitzgerald said, "the title is only fair, rather bad than good."

Make what you will of all the analytic term papers written by students divining the meaning of Fitzgerald's choice of title.

The Acquisitions Department

2010-09-28T02:46:00.000-07:00

Date: September 27, 2010
Prepared by: The Acquisitions Dept for A Reader's Respite
Subject: September Acquisitions

Our blog secretary is on vacation, so we haven't gotten an Acquisitions Report out to you in quite some time. But never fear, A Reader's Respite sent over to the temp agency for a short term replacement secretary. We had high hopes when he showed up for work.....

Despite a British accent that at first seems endearing but later starts to grate a bit on the ol' eardrums, we thought he'd work out just fine. But then he saw the pile of books waiting to be catalogued and shelved and we began to doubt his work ethic.....

He did perk up a tad, though, when he realized the vast majority of our incoming books were at least historical fiction set on his side of the pond.

Gallows Wedding, by Rhona Martin. Published in 1978, this novel was the very first winner of the Historical Novel Prize in Memory of Georgette Heyer (thanks to Reading the Past for compiling a list of these winners). Set in 1500's England, Gallows Wedding is a dark tale that explores the hysteria of witchcraft and a peasant girl's struggle with poverty, plague and ill-fated love.

Trust and Treason, by Margaret Birkhead. The 1988 winner of the Historical Novel Prize went to this novel set in 1558 England. A family finds themselves enmeshed in intrigue that changes their fortunes forever.

A Fallen Land, by Janet Broomfield. This novel won the Historical Novel Prize in 1989 and is set in Victorian Edinburgh. The storyline follows the paths of two girls, one from high society and the other set in poverty and the unusual way in which their lives cross paths.

The Terioki Crossing, by Alan Fisher. Winning the prize in 1984, this novel is set in 1916 Russia as an unlikely group sets out over the ice of the Terioki Crossing.

Is anyone sensing a pattern here?

Farewell, my friend (or how to strain a friendship)

2010-09-27T01:18:00.000-07:00

On September 27, 1929 Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms was published. According to legend, Hemingway sent a draft of the novel to his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald who returned it to Hemingway with nine pages of suggested revisions.

Hemingway made a note at the bottom of the last page of Fitzgerald's suggestions. It read,

Kiss my ass.

We *heart* Hemingway.

Stupid. Times two.

2010-09-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

A Reader's Respite is like a bloodhound when it comes to tracking down out of print books. If there's an obscure, older book you're looking for you can either call on us or the Federal Marshals.

There's a lot less paperwork involved if you chose us.

Recently we caught the scent of an old family-saga-Civil-War series written back in the 1970s by Marie de Jourlet, called The Windhaven Saga. We gathered our book-hunting tools and went to work tracking down affordable copies of the entire 11-book series.

This is where it gets interesting. While tracking down a readable copy of Book #7 (Defenders of Windhaven), we stumbled upon a series of articles written a few years back by Richard Connelly for the Houston Press about the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

You can imagine our surprise when we saw the following book had been banned in Texas prisons:

Yes, the very same Windhaven novels we have been searching for have been banned from prison libraries in Texas due to a rape scene.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, however, did think that this book was just fine for their inmate's reading pleasure:

But you already knew banning books was stupid, didn't you?

Mini Reviews and a Photo Journey

2010-09-25T00:36:00.000-07:00

Summer is always a short affair in the Pacific Northwest and this year it seemed even shorter than most. A Reader's Respite took the past week to have, well, a respite. We escaped to The Mountain for a few days, holed ourselves up inside a cozy little cabin and read, hiked, then read some more when ~~the mood struck~~ Big Kid and Little Kid weren't beating each other over the head with giant sticks.

Mt. Rainier (aka The Mountain)

We thought we'd share some photographs and a handful of the books we've read the past month or so that didn't warrant a big official review.

the historical church in Elbe, Washington (population 21), at the base of Mt. Rainier

With fall comes an entirely new reading mood. We love this. A Reader's Respite isn't an organized reader. By this we mean we read where the mood takes us. Frequently one book will make reference to another which then leads us down a completely new path. We're the flower child of bibliophiles, wandering aimlessly here and there. (Unless it's a series. Then our obscene OCD about reading a series in order comes into play.)

Narada Falls

Fall usually leads us to what we like to call our curl-up-next-to-the-fireplace books. We ease our way into it, this year wanting to start off with Scott Turrow's Innocent, a sequel to his masterful courtroom thriller, Presumed Innocent. Because the original novel was published twenty years ago (who waits twenty years to write a sequel, for the love of Pete?), it was clear a re-read was in order.

Stone bridges rock. Yes, it's a great pun, too...but really, we think they rock. This one is over Box Canyon.

So to shake things up, we listened to the original and it's new sequel on audiobook. What did we learn? That the original is still the best courtroom novel ever written (sorry Grisham) and the sequel was.....well....it was a sequel. Some novels are just best left alone.

Little Kid pretending to be sweet and cute. In her hand she is holding a giant stick she uses to smash into an unsuspecting Big Kid every time our head is turned the other direction.

Harry Potter nostalgia always sets in this time of year, especially when the temperatures drop at night and the leaves start changing color. And we've promised ourselves no more re-reads. It's over and we just have to accept that. So despite the ridiculous back-cover comparisons to Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, we took a chance and bought a copy of Lev Grossman's The Magicians. It was the best magical-fantasy we've read in quite some time. All of the great fantasy elements were there: a school for magic, a group of friends, a mystery to solve. Sounds like it's been done before, you say? Yes, but not when the school is a university and the protagonist is coming of age facing what every college freshman faces....sex, alcohol, drugs, relationships and finding your place and identity in this world. It's hard enough us non-magical folk to get through that phase in life. Can you imagine how dangerous we would have been with magic at our disposal? If you like losing yourself in a world of magic, we'd recommend this one.

Big Kid pretending to be sweet and cute. In his hand he is holding a giant stick he uses to smash into an unsuspecting Little Kid every time our head is turned the other direction.

Moving away from magic, we turned to a National Book Award finalist. Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon was on so many "best of the year" lists in 2009 that it demanded to be read. A literary thriller, the novel fairly teems with overt themes of identity as three apparent strangers find their lives intersecting in the oddest manner. Who we are, how we see ourselves versus how other see us, and the flimsiness of identity prevail here. It was a page-turner, no doubt about that, but in the end felt contrived as if the author was writing merely to enforce his themes.

the Nisqually Glacier

A Reader's Respite was a big fan of Tatiana de Rosnay's novel, Sarah's Key last year. So when we saw a copy of her new book, A Secret Kept, being offered for review via the Amazon Vine program, we jumped on it. The theme of family secrets is revisited here as adult siblings Antoine and Melanie are forced to sort through their dysfunctional childhood memories in search of who their long-dead mother really was. Great premise (we love dark-family-secret novels, but that's a subject for another day), but it fell short by taking just a few concepts and reiterating them over and over until it became tiresome. Still, if you enjoyed Sarah's Key you likely won't be able to pass this one up. Just don't expect the same impact.

1000+ year old Douglas Firs. These trees were here while the Normans were busy conquering England.

Hope everyone out there is sliding into fall as well as we are. May your reading grow cozier, your fireplace burn warm and your hot cocoa be topped with whipped cream. Happy reading.

Literary Smackdown

2010-09-21T00:11:00.000-07:00

That's right folks, it's Literary Smackdown time. No holds barred, it's book versus book and only the strongest survive.

Did you know that Dolph Lundgren (Russian dude) speaks 5 languages and has a Master's degree in chemical engineering? It's true.

A couple of months back, after reading Justin Cronin's much-hyped epic The Passage, A Reader's Respite couldn't help but notice all of the comparisons readers everywhere were making between this novel and Stephen King's legendary epic, The Stand.

The problem for us was that A Reader's Respite had never actually read King's masterpiece. (Pelt us with tomatoes if you must, but it's true. He scared us after the clown-thing in It and we never read a word he wrote again....but you can read about that here.).

As it turned out, we were in good company. Both Jill (A Rhapsody in Books) and Ti (Book Chatter) had either a) never read the book, or b) read it long enough ago that it had been lost to the brain-chasm that eats up minor book details like, say, the plot.

So it was that we formed The Fellowship of The Stand. (Okay, so it was really just a discussion thread on GoodReads, but we're going for the dramatic here, so back off.) We chose the uncut version which basically just means that it included every random thought King has ever had and that his original editor wisely left on the cutting room floor. 1141 pages. Yet we persevered. We triumphed. Around the halfway point, Jen thought we all needed our own t-shirt:

The verdict? The similarities between The Passage and The Stand were indeed remarkable. Both novels feature a post-apocalyptic world that is the result of a government medical experiment gone bad. Both focus on the few groups that survive. And both use the setting of Las Vegas for some very, very bad juju going down.

But really, that's where the similarities end. The Passage is a thriller and adventure story. The protagonists seek to survive and avoid the so-called virals trying to make a meal of them. Who are the "bad guys"? Anyone infected with the virus....former friends, family members, or co-workers. The virus is non-discriminatory. The thrill of the story (the first in a planned trilogy, by the way) is how the non-infected survive. Very tense. Very page-turn-inducing.

The Stand, however, features over-arching themes that go far beyond a storyline of basic survival. King's missive places survivors into one of two camps: you're either a "good guy," drawn to gather with other good guys in Boulder, Colorado or you're a "bad guy," heading off to join the evil cadre who have settled in Las Vegas and plot to destroy all other survivors. The reader immediately knows that these groups represent something. But what?

Religion? Human nature? It's possible. The leaders of each group of survivors are specifically aligned with God and Satan, respectively. We found it fascinating that members of each group didn't migrate from one group to the other. They were immediately and firmly entrenched as either a "good guy" or a "bad guy." King's exploration of each character's background prior to the Apocalypse was key. But is a person born with good or badness within them or are they the product of their environment?

Simply put, King's novel is an epic saga about good versus evil, the choices mankind makes, and what that says about our intrinsic character.

So ends The Fellowship of the Stand and the only question that remains is: who wins the Smackdown?

A Reader's Respite read these novels a mere three months ago. Today, we could give you a bare-bones plot sketch of The Passage. But we could discuss with you for hours the meaning of the themes buried within The Stand. We think King delivered a knock-out punch.

Post Script: Don't miss out on Rhapsody in Books Weblog and Book Chatter's thoughts!

Book Light or Art?

2010-09-18T22:08:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa,

If you bring us a Takeshi Ishiguro Book of Light for Christmas we promise we'll be good for the rest of the year and never, ever ask for anything again. Ever.

Really.

Pleeeeeeeeeease?

Warmest Regards (and hope the toy-making is going along swimmingly),

A Reader's Respite

Is it safe to come out?

2010-09-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

A Reader's Respite has been in hiding for the past week or so. With Book Blogger Appreciation Week inundating blog-world, we thought we'd do you the huge favor of not contributing to your over-flowing feed reader this past week. So go ahead and appreciate that. You're welcome. (Do we get an award for that?)

It appears that a good time was had by all and since that is the entire purpose of BBAW, we can safely declare 2010 a success. Congratulations to all the winners this year!

And if you subject yourself to the random and bitchy musings left on Facebook by A Reader's Respite, you'll know that there was another compelling reason for our absence.....

Yes, we decided to allow a mad scientist the opportunity to shoot laser beams directly into our eyeballs just for kicks and giggles.

Okay, so it wasn't a scientist, it was really a board-certified opthamologist and he wasn't really mad (just a tad cranky). And it wasn't just any old laser beams, it was LASIK surgery. And he transformed our vision from this:

into this:

Technically speaking, the mad opthamologist gave us 20/15 vision, but we won't quibble over details. Anyhoo, we have needed this past week to recuperate from having our eyeballs lasered into. Recovery has included no television (not a problem), no computer usage (tad bit of a problem), and no reading. (GASP!)

So how did we spend our time (besides cheating on the computer thing here and there....shhh, don't tell my mad doctor)?

Audiobooks. We knew we'd have to download about a bazillion of them in order to make it through. We remembered a recommendation written a couple of weeks ago by Reader for Life which extolled the virtues of Danish author Christian Moerk's novel, Darling Jim, and this was #1 on our list.

Audiobooks are really, if the truth be known, two reviews rolled into one. At one end of the spectrum is a review of the actual content of the book itself....plot, characterization, dialogue, etc. At the other end is a review of the presentation, or the narrator.

A Reader's Respite has always found it amusing that while a good novel cannot recover from a bad narrator, a bad novel can certainly be redeemed by a good narrator. Darling Jim is blessed with both a good story with good narration. Two narrators, actually.

Stephen Hoye, a prolific audiobook narrator whose credits include Flags of Our Fathers and The Book of Air and Shadows reads the main of the story here, in which an Irish postal worker accidentally discovers the diary of a notorious murderess who was later herself murdered under horrific circumstances.

Stephen Hoye, winner of 13 Earphones Awards and 2 Audie Awards

The narrator chosen to read the discovered diaries - for more are discovered throughout the novel - was Justine Eyre, who has lent her lilting voice to The Historian and most recently to Dracula, My Love. Eyre won an Earphones Award (her second!) for her performance in Darling Jim.

Justine Eyre

A Reader's Respite thought Eyre's voice one of the most beautiful, enchanting ever piped over the airwaves, making us feel as if we were sitting in a small pub in Ireland, listening to a local tell us the story. Hoye's narration was a tad more dramatic (you can go here to listen to a sample of his narration in Darling Jim), with a tendency to draw out the last syllable of each sentence, but compelling nonetheless.

All nuances of narration aside, author Moerk is simply a damned good story teller. This tale of gothic suspense, set in a small Irish town, requires the reader to suspend disbelief, as do all good yarns. And an old-fashioned story is what this is, keeping you on the edge of your seat just dying (no pun intended) to find out what happens next.

If you're looking for a good creepy gothic-ish tale complete with a handsome, dastardly stranger who mysteriously appears in town only to insidiously destroy an entire family, all wrapped up with a special twist, you'll likely enjoy reading (or listening) to Darling Jim this Halloween.

Title: Darling Jim
Author: Christian Moerk
Narrators: Stephen Hoye and Justine Eyre
Unabridged Audiobook, 10 hours 31 Minutes
ISBN: 978-1400111985
Source: Purchased from Audible
Grade: A

An Arthurian Education

2010-09-14T01:11:00.000-07:00

A Reader's Respite's Official Guide to Arthurian Interpretations that are totally worth your time.....

now this is what we call cover art

Le Morte D'Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory. Completed in 1470 this compilation of Arthurian tales is pretty much definitive. Unless you are a purist, we recommend you skip the original Middle English version. There's only so much

"So torne we vnto sir Lamorak that rode toward Arthurs courte / and sire Tristrams wyf and Kehydyus took a vessel and sailed in to Bretayne vnto kynge Howel where he was welcome"

one can take without wanting to throw oneself on an actual sword to end the agony.

The Constitutional Peasant

Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Okay, so it's not a book. Get over it. It's a legend in it's own right and if you've never seen it, you are depriving yourself of the unique experience of laughing so hard that you pee your pants. Grab and pair of diapers and rent it.

The Once and Future King, by T.H. White. Drawing heavily from Malory's definitive text, The Once and Future King was once required reading for all high school students. There's a reason for that.

Walt Disney's The Sword and the Stone. Scoff if you will, but ol' Walt introduced many-a-generation to the legend of Arthur. And he gave us Mim. We seriously love Mim.

The queen of Camelot herself, Mary Stewart

Mary Stewart's Arthurian Saga. Written in the 1970s, Mary Stewart thrilled Camelot fans with her quintet of books. The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment and The Wicked Day are all still widely available in used bookstores.

Helen Hollick's The Pendragon's Banner Trilogy. Hollick's hunky, yet very-bad-boy Arthur is a must-read for fans of the legend. This is a fairly recent release here in the U.S. and one of our favorites.

The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Focusing on the women of Arthurian legend, The Mists of Avalon has garnered an almost cult-like following since it's publication in 1982. Bradley later collaborated with author Diana L. Paxson and wrote an entire series on the women of Avalon, but none surpass the original.

Twilight of Avalon (planned) Trilogy, by Anna Elliott. Rounding out a superb field, author Anna Elliott deserves to be included for her portrayal of Trystan and Isolde and their role in Arthurian literature. Elliott leaves behind the sappy romance in favor of a strong plot, complex characters and an all-around engrossing story. We fell in love with Twilight of Avalon, the first of the trilogy, and the second installment, Dark Moon of Avalon, hits bookstores today. Trust us, it's pretty fabulous.

DH Lawrence

2010-09-11T02:54:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, DH. You would have been 115 years old today. Had you not died of tuberculosis back in 1930, that is. (Sorry about that, by the way....that had to have sucked big time.)

Anyhoo, A Reader's Respite must admit that we've never been the biggest fan of your novels. We tried. Really, we did. Your penchant for travel (some would call it self-imposed exile) and wanderlust always appealed to us. The fact that you actually traded your manuscript of Sons and Lovers for property near Taos, New Mexico with the intent to set up a Utopian community really appealed to our commie, hippie-loving roots. Sadly, despite multiple attempts, we've never made it past page 50.

handsome young whipper-snapper, wasn't he?

It's not that you were an untalented writer. Clearly, anyone who could write Women in Love and Lady Chatterley's Lover had a bit o' the author in him (and more than a bit o' the repressed homosexuality). It's just that as much as we appreciated the themes of your work, the actual execution left us a tad glassy eyed.

Regardless of our inability to appreciate your actual novels, we do appreciate you, Mr. Lawrence. You took an unpopular antiwar stance during WWI, wrote about homosexuality in a time when even thinking about it was taboo, and were even briefly arrested for being a spy (how very James Bond of you!).

So happy birthday, DH. You're still remembered fondly and really, what more could a person ask for?

Quick, grab a pen and paper....

2010-09-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

We'll wait till you've got something to write with.

*drumming fingers*

Got it? Okay, now write this down:

The novel is called The Human Bobby and it's written by Gabe Rotter.

This is the one book A Reader's Respite wants you to read because....WOW. Just wow. Wow.

Bobby Flopowski has it all. He pulled himself up out of his poor Brooklyn childhood and became a successful, wealthy pediatrician in Los Angeles. He marries well and for love. They have a child. They have it all.

Until one fateful day, everything changes.

And Bobby ends up with nothing. No job, no house, no wife and no child. How does this happen?

We can't tell you more than that. There may be twists, there may not. A Reader's Respite doesn't want to spoil the stunning effect of reading this novel. What we can tell you is that we idly opened the book to the first page, mistakenly thinking this was just another literary fiction novel. Literally we did not put the book down until we turned the last page two hours later. Despite a passel of toddlers beating on each other with trucks and dolls. Despite Mr. RR yakking at us (we don't know about what). Despite a refrigerator repair man dismantling our broken fridge.

Just read it.

We'll wait here patiently until you return here and tell us, "WOW!"

The Small Print

Title: The Human Bobby
Author: Gabe Rotter
Genre: Literary Fiction with a big dose of Psychological Drama
289 pages
ISBN: 978-1-4391-6811-0
Source: Newman PR
Grade: A+

Side Note to Megan: This is one big serving of humble pie. This book will most assuredly rank high up in our Year's Best of the Best. ;)

Streaming Books

2010-09-06T09:20:00.000-07:00

Spanish installation artist Alicia Martin creates stunning works using old, recycled books. A Reader's Respite is still trying to decide:

Is it art or sacrilege?

The Reincarnationist Series Continues.....

2010-09-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

Title: The Hypnotist
Author: M.J. Rose
Genre: Thriller
416 pages
ISBN: 978-0778326755
Source: Meryl L. Moss Media Relations
Grade: B-

It should come as no surprise that author M.J. Rose is continuing her Reincarnationist series based on the success of her previous books. In this third novel several recurring characters pop up again, including FBI agent Lucian Glass (of the Art Crime Team) who continues to chase after uber-bad-guy Malachi Samuels.

This time, Malachi will stop at nothing to get his hands on an ancient list of Memory Tools which he thinks are hidden in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What in the hell are Memory Tools, ask those of you who haven't read one of M.J. Rose's novels? Allegedly, they are keys to unlocking our past lives......hence the previous two books in this series:

Rose's books have garnered quite a following and it's easy to understand why....they are fast-paced with both thriller and historical elements. For those of you who believe in reincarnation (and let's face it, there are anywhere between 300-500 million practicing Buddhists in the world today....that's roughly 6% of the world population) there is the added bonus of exploring the concepts of past-lives.

Even if you're not a reincarnation afficiando, Rose's novels are compelling thrillers. This third book of the series claims to be a stand-alone, but we wouldn't recommend it as there are simply too many recurring characters and too much carry-over of plot to really enjoy the novel by itself.

Publishers Whore-ly calls The Hypnotist a "stunning page-turner." Since we all know by now exactly what A Reader's Respite thinks of that publication, we'll ask you to take their words with a grain of salt. Enjoyable? You betcha. Entertaining? Yes. But a stunning page-turner? We wouldn't go that far.

the cast of Past Life....they're kinda creeping me out here....

All in all, it's an enjoyable series of books and a good beach-type-read. And we aren't the only ones to think so....Fox Television has turned the books into a television series called Past Life, which debuted in February of this year. M.J. Rose has deservedly hit the big time and we are genuinely pleased for her. And fans of the novels will be pleased to learn that Rose is writing a fourth book.....the series will continue.

How to get paid to write book reviews....

2010-09-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

Making a wheelbarrow full of cold, hard cash for writing book reviews is really easier than we all thought. As it turns out, all we had to do was change our name from A Reader's Respite to Publishers ~~Weekly~~ Whore-ly and charge self-published authors $149 for the mere chance of being reviewed in the formerly prestigious publication. That's right. Publisher's Whore-ly is now charging for some of their book reviews.

We'll give you a moment to digest this.

A Reader's Respite has so many objections to this practice, we scarcely know where to begin. It's bad enough that publications such as the San Francisco Book Review ($99 - $299) and Kirkus ($425 - $575) have what they euphemistically call "sponsored reviews," but now Publisher's Whore-ly is apparently legitimizing the practice of preying on self-published/self-promoting authors.

All publications, of course, promise us that the money flowing in will in no way guarantee a positive review. Really? Because for $149, they had damned well better give a GLOWING review.

Here's an original idea: how about if we try reading a fair representation of books from across the spectrum - from big publishing houses to small independent presses to self-published authors - for (gasp!) free and writing an honest, heart-felt review. If Publisher's Whore-ly needs the revenue so badly, perhaps they should give their advertising sales department peeps a swift kick in the ass, rather than preying on self-published authors who are struggling financially to begin with.

But perhaps we're being cynical here. Perhaps these publications really are looking for fabulous novels that went the self-publishing route. And perhaps taking money from these authors is just their way of welcoming new talent to the big world of publishing.

Yeah, and if you belive that, we have a review to sell you. For only a small "processing fee" of $1000. Make checks payable to A Reader's Respite, if you would.

R.I.P.

2010-08-31T22:21:00.000-07:00

A Reader's Respite doesn't often post about reading challenges. But if there's one yearly challenge that sets the standard by which all other challenges are measured, it would be the annual R.I.P. Challenge hosted by Carl of Stainless Steel Droppings fame.

If you've never participated, this is the time to join the annual fun. This year, Carl has added some fun options including a short story challenge and a scary movie challenge for those of you who like your fright on the big screen.

What will A Reader's Respite be reading?

The Acquisitions Department

2010-08-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

Date: August 31, 2010
Prepared by: The Acquisitions Department for A Reader's Respite
Subject: August Acquisitions

"More books? What the hell is wrong with you?"

We haven't released an aquisitions report around here for quite some time. That's because our blog secretary has been up to his (lovely) ass in new-to-us books. He says we couldn't possibly squeeze another book into this house. We say books are like Jello ~~shots:~~ there's always room for more.

If we'd stop sucking these down, we'd probably get more books read. Random thought.

So what books have wormed their way onto our shelves lately? Take a look....

Redcoat, by Bernard Cornwell. It's 1777 in Philadelphia. It was, to quote the back cover, "...a time of bloody retribution, men and women caught in the crossfire of love, loyalty, and ambition. Many survived the warfare - but could they survive their dreams?" A Reader's Respite simply must know if they survived their dreams. Found in a fabulous used bookstore (which, by the by, is for sale if you're interested) in Kent, Washington.

The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver. Despite the fact that we have yet to find a Barbara Kingsolver novel we could actually finish, hope springs eternal. This one is historical fiction in Mexico, so we have high hopes....don't you dare disappoint us, Babs. Especially since we paid full price for this one.

Skippy Dies, by Paul Murray. A coming-of-age novel, this is a boarding school, murder mystery with a humorous bent. We saw it over at Amazon's Vine Program and couldn't resist the snazzy blurb-reviews. Not sure why we always fall for those blurbs, but perhaps this will be the exception to the blurbs-are-always-a-big-fat-lie rule.

The King's Way, by Francoise Chanedernagor. Historical fiction novel featuring the notorious Madame de Maintenon, mistress and queen in all but name to Louis XIV. Our version is the English translation, thankyouverymuch. Published back when trade paperbacks still sold for $8.95 (1981, in case you were wondering), we found this one skillfully hidden in a tower of used books. Squee!

To list the rest of the some two dozen books we acquired this month would only be a lesson in shame for us. We'll quit now while we're ahead.

What Would Scarlett Do?

2010-08-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

A few months back, a new release by Leila Meacham called Roses caught our attention and we rushed to download the book on to the nefarious Amazonian Devil Device. A Reader's Respite then promptly forgot all about it. We do this far too frequently these days. Perhaps it's ~~the booze~~ a degenerative brain disorder caused by mold and dust in old books. Whatever the cause, the result is dozens and dozens of books purchased and then forgotten about, unread, until we stumble across them months - even years - later and find ourselves scratching our head and wonderding, "Now why the hell did we buy that?"

Anyhoo, we recently stumbled across Meacham's Roses and figured we'd better read it quick before Amazon comes up with some small print that allows them to randomly delete unread books from the Kindle. (We're pretty sure that's coming, but we'll save our rant for another post.)

The story is one of those big ol' family sagas that cover a few generations of the same families. Set in Texas (isn't it an obscure literary rule that family sagas MUST take place in Texas?) in the early 1900s, the story follows three families in a small town --- their fortunes, their losses, their loves, their tragedies, two world wars (and one in Korea thrown in for good measure). You get the picture. We've heard it compared to The Thorn Birds and Gone With the Wind.

Meacham gets the saga part right, no doubt about it. Mary Tolliver, Percy Warwick and Ollie DuMont make for a perfect love triangle as the saga plays out....affairs, misunderstandings, untimely deaths. Meacham writes supremely well and gives us no cause for complaint.

So why didn't we like this novel?

Mary Tolliver. We hated her. It's impossible to like a character who makes stupid decisions for stupid reasons. We wanted to crawl into the pages and slap that woman silly. And all her descendants, too. The Tolliver Curse we kept hearing about throughout the book? We'll tell you what that curse was: stupidity.

Like Scarlett O'Hara, Mary had a love of the land and her family plantation...a love that eclipsed all common sense and rational thinking. So why did Mary drive us crazy and Scarlett endear us? Because Scarlett had a compelling reason - twisted, but compelling - for every action she took. We understood Scarlett. We may have been frustrated, but we always understood her.

So what would Scarlett have done in Roses?

She would have dumped the cotton as soon as it was no longer profitable, turned the plantation into a money making machine, shot Percy's dumb-ass wife to get her out of the way, married him and then made his sorry-assed life miserable while she reaped the rewards. No whining.

Scarlett rocks.

A Lifetime of Dystopia

2010-08-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

A Reader's Respite has always been smitten with dystopian literature. There's just something eerie and compelling about imagining how our world might look down the road. There's a moral to every story, so to speak, and we're a sucker for a tale that makes us think long and hard about the direction society is taking.

But dystopia isn't just for grown-ups anymore. In fact, A Reader's Respite has enjoyed a handful of dystopic fiction over the past few months and has discovered there's good reading for every age group.....

Pre-Teen Readers

Author Mark Dunn has written a charming dystopic tale intended for the pre-teen, but entirely enjoyable for anyone of any age who enjoys the complexity of language. This charming story features a protagonist by the name of Ella Minnow Pea who lives in a future Utopian society called Nollop, a fictional island off the coast of the Carolinas that was founded to honor Nevin Nollop who was the first man to come up with the sentence

This sentence is, of course, the first to use every letter of the English alphabet.

Written in the epistolary format (entirely in correspondence between characters), Ella Minnow Pea explores what happens when an oligarchy runs amok. When letters of the famous sentence begin falling off the town's statue of Nevin Nollop, the local government take this as a divine sign that Nevin no longer approves of that letter. Therefore, the letter is subsequently banned from usage.

As more and more letters fall off, the results are immediately evident in Ella's correspondence. Author Dunn is brilliant with his creative use of language and it helps to have a dictionary handy as more and more creative word substitutions are used as the story progresses.

Ella's realization of the horrible consequences of her government's actions make for many thoughtful discussions and ultimately, this book is a wonderful introduction to dystopic fiction while still retaining it's charm.

Teen Readers

If you haven't heard of the Hunger Games trilogy written by Suzanne Collins, you're missing out on the latest Twilight-like phenomenon amongst teens. The trilogy begins with the introduction of a future society in North America where dictatorship reigns supreme and each year, as punishment for a long-distant rebellion, each district subjugated by the Capitol is required to produce two children via lottery who will then be thrown in an arena with the children from the other districts to fight to the death.

All three of the books manage to keep the plot very, very taut and fast-paced, engaging readers immediately and keeping their attention throughout. While not likely to be winning any serious literary awards, Collins' books are to be applauded for their strong characters and strong moral fiber.

Despite the fame and money that came with the instant popularity of these books, the author maintained her writing and character integrity throughout. Unlike other series of books that became teen phenomenons, Collins didn't compromise quality for churning out books. For that alone, she's a winner in our book.

Adult Readers

And so we come to the mother of dystopic fiction: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Only Atwood could combine beauty and fear in such a poetic, yet accessible, novel. The Handmaid's Tale imagines a future society in which religion has been taken to the extreme and governs our society. Specifically, she imagines a woman's role in this future world.

Reduced to highly regulated categories and completely subjugated by men, women are forced into roles chosen for them and their destinies are no longer their own. And because propagation of the human race is of the utmost importance, fertile women are often designated Handmaids: dehumanized baby machines who are passed around amongst important men solely to produce a child.

While the concept is horrifying in and of itself, it is Atwood's telling of this tale that chills the reader to the bone. Told entirely from one Handmaid's perspective, she masterfully reveals only tantalizing details of her life in bits and pieces, leaving the reader to put the puzzle together and realize the full extent of this completely plausible scenario.

Atwood's story is one you simply never forget. Novels may come and go over the years, but the emotional impact of The Handmaid's Tale stays with the reader long after the last page is turned.

If you've never picked up a dystopian novel, any one of these books are well worth your time and reading effort. The genre is an important one and not to be missed.

Good versus Bad

2010-08-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

Good Celebrity Book Deal

Betty White signed a two-book deal with Putnam Group to pen her autobiography to be called Listen Up! We're listening, Betty!

Bad Celebu-tard Book Deal

Spencer Pratt (who is this person anyway, aside from someone with an alarmingly appropriate surname?) is shopping for a publisher for a tell-all book about his short marriage with some other obscure celebu-tard. Why would he want to air his dirty laundry?

According to Pratt, "My last book, 'How to Be Famous,' didn't make the New York Times Best-Seller list because it was in the self-help section."

Hmmm Spencer....are you absolutely sure that was the reason it didn't make the list? Just sayin'.