The May edition of the Bookworms Carnival is up over at Scooter Chronicles.
I hope you’ll have time to stop by and browse through the many great contributions to this month’s theme, which was contemporary/urban fantasy.
Thanks to Scott for hosting!
Next month’s carnival will be hosted by Nymeth.
Her theme is fairy tales.
The deadline for submissions is June 13th.
You can email Nymeth at untuneric at gmail dot com
Yoshitaka Amano is mostly known for his design work for the Final Fantasy video games. But his work is very eclectic: he’s illustrated books, designed book covers, worked in film, ceramics, acrylics, and more.
Book lovers may know him for his work with Neil Gaiman. I myself have so far only read the first book in The Sandman series, but my husband tells me this anecdote: DC Comics asked Amano, among others, to create an illustration of the main character of The Sandman for the tenth anniversary of the series. Neil Gaiman was asked to write another Sandman book for the anniversary. He was willing to do this if he could tell a specific story he had in his head. He loved Amano’s illustration of Morpheus so much that he asked Amano to draw the book. Amano said that although he loves comics, he does not draw them. He was interested, though, in illustrating such a book. So, instead of being in a comics format like other Sandman books, Dreamhunters alternates Gaiman’s text with Amano’s illustrations. It’s gorgeous; although I haven’t read it because I’m not at that point in the series, I’ve glanced through my husband’s copy. The cover is pictured below.
Worlds of Amano is a collection of Amano illustrations from projects of the past thirty years. I was absolutely enthralled by Amano’s work. My son and husband both also picked up this book and became engrossed, even though both of them had been in the middle of something else when they spotted the book. Both of my favorite images are from the first chapter, entitled Beginnings. One is a 1994 acrylic, colored ink, gold pigment and gold leaf painting called Ka-Ten. The other is an acrylic and colored ink painting called Concert. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find either of my favorites on the internet.
You may enjoy browsing through this gallery of Amano’s work.
(If you have also reviewed this book, leave me a link to your review in the comments, and I’ll include it in this post.)
Most of my morning was spent with the New York Times. This is true most Sundays. I was glad to see that the Book Review contained a children’s section, although it was sad to see how many of those “clique” books were clogging up the children’s best seller list.
I’m about 3/4 of the way through Monster, which I read a bit here and there throughout the afternoon. I thought I might be put off by the unique format, which is a movie script alternating with journal entries. But it really works. I still stall here and there, thinking MS (medium shot) means Ms., a woman’s title, for example, but I still enjoy the way the story is being told.
I think I’ll want to mention what the other members of my household are reading in these journal entries, especially when I don’t have much new to say about my own reading. For some reason, I thought I’d finished The Year of Living Biblically, and even listed it as one of my finished books for April, I think. But my son was anxious to read it, and when I went to get it for him, I saw my bookmark about 20 pages from the end. So I think I’ll finish that tonight so he can have it. He’s also waiting for One Piece. It’s a fairly new thing with him lately, to ask for what I’m reading when I finish it. His taste runs more to fantasy and sci-fi than mine, though we do have a bit of overlap. But the school library isn’t checking out any new books this close to the school year, so he hasn’t had convenient access to the books he likes to reread when he can’t find anything new to suit his taste. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen him carrying around the The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide in the past year or so. He does buy books now and then, and borrow them from the public library, but he’s a fast reader, much faster than I am, and he doesn’t get to those other places nearly as often as he can get to the school library. So, suddenly, mom’s books are more appealing. I have to say I like that, because it gives me someone to chat with about books I’ve recently finished.
I have a few library books that are really overdue, so I’ll be reading those next: Harlem Summer, by the same author as Monster, Walter Dean Myers; One Whole and Perfect Day; and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which I’ve been meaning to read ever since it was published.
Happy American Mother’s Day to all you mothers, American or not. My mother-in-law lives in England, where Mother’s Day happens in March, but we’re more tuned in to the holidays here in the U.S., so she receives her gift (books, usually, what else?) in May. This year, I chose for her three of my own favorites: Purple Hibiscus, Year of Wonders, and The Thirteenth Tale. My son gave me a book (what else?) which is startling in its surreality. It’s an illustrated book of yoga positions. But the models demonstrating the positions? They are cats. CATS. Doing yoga. Surely no mother ever received a more amusing gift. There’s a great air of secrecy about the house, indicating the likelihood of a second gift, but when I mentioned this, I was called greedy and there was much shiftiness of eyes and nervous giggling. And truly I am greedy, because in spite of being gifted with a book today, I’m still thinking about more books I’d like to read. Here are a few that caught my interest this week.
Peace by Richard Bausch: I’ve usually tried to avoid war novels, reading them only if a book group chose them, a professor assigned them, and so on. Rarely does even a prestigious prize inspire me to pick up a war novel, without a human being whom I’m hosting at my house or who will assign me a grade insisting upon it. I’m not sure I’ll enjoy this novel, but the article in this morning’s Book Review inspired me to hesitantly consider giving it a try. Here’s part of the reason:
The worst writing about war is either black-and-white or Technicolor. The best, like this, is in shades of gray, evoking the personal equivocations, the doubts, the discomforts and the sheer, crushing boredom and fatigue that constitute the real nature of war.
The other part is that the central event of this novel is the murder of a woman. In war novels, and especially in war films (ugh), women are very rare: maybe the mention of a Girl Back Home or an encounter with someone offering to love the soldiers long time. I realize that women have not historically been huge parts of the day to day lives of soldiers. But women don’t just pack themselves away into boxes to be opened when the war is over, and this is the impression most war novels give me. Books involving war, but which also involve the women whose lives war affects are of more interest to me, and are sometimes even books I love (March, for example, or Half of a Yellow Sun, both written by women). But most war novels ignore women, and I have never been able to dredge up any interest in womenless stories. If this seems a bit prejudiced of me, ask yourself how many books or films the men in your life (or you, if you’re a man) would be willing to read or watch if there were no men in the story. Can you even think of any books or films with no men in the story? For all I know, Peace’s only mention of a female is the prostitute (of course) who is murdered by a soldier, but I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt for giving a woman such a central role in the story at all, as well as for portraying at least one character as calling her death murder, rather than a “civilian casualty.” You can read an excerpt here.
The Fog Mound series by Susan Schade: Book 3, Simon’s Dream, just came out, yet I’d never been aware of this series before. I admit I might have glanced over the article in this morning’s Book Review without taking much notice, but the review was written by the adorable Larry Doyle. It’s about Thelonious Chipmunk, a talking animal from the Untamed Forest who leaves home because his family thinks he’s crazy for believing in humans. What makes this series unique is that its chapters alternate: some are in novel form while others are in graphic novel form.
Ever by Gail Carson Levine: This new novel by the author of Ella Enchanted is about a girl in ancient times who falls in love with a Greek-like god who has disguised himself to be able to mix with mortals.
The Wild Girls by Pat Murphy: In this novel, two pre-teen girls find their own ways to deal with the changes involved in growing up. What interests me most is that they write stories together, win a contest, and are invited to join a summer writing class.
The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer: This novel is set in San Francisco in the 1953. The narrator, Pearlie, is married to a war veteran and mother to a son with polio. Her life is jolted when a stranger (to her) appears at their door. She has to find a way to let this man fit into her family’s life.
I’ve decided to try a new thing here at The Hidden Side of a Leaf. I am admittedly combining ideas I like from John at The Book Mine Set and Deb, who runs the Sunday Salon. I’ve long admired John’s Reader’s Diary posts, in which he will muse about writers or books he’s reading. And I really enjoy the informal chatting-about-reading I do on Sundays for the Sunday Salon.
I want to try, most evenings, to write short, informal posts about my reading that day. There won’t always be much to say, and I won’t always be home and free to post in the evenings, but I want to give it a try and see how it goes. This will be in addition to my regular reviews and other blog activities, so I’ll probably try to avoid giving away too much about any book I want to review.
Today I finished Sharon Draper’s Copper Sun, an amazing book that impressed me mightily. I was grateful to it several times this week, as I found myself spending most of two mornings sitting and waiting. A lesser book might not have been the distraction I needed those days.
I also finished The Optimist’s Daughter, which I’ll be discussing with Nymeth. I don’t usually have two novels going at once, but I lost this one for a few days. I’d left it at work, but I was looking for it at home. I keep picturing Nymeth tapping her foot and saying “tsk” but in reality, I’m sure she’s got other things going on in her life besides waiting for me to finish a book.
I’m in the middle of the first volume of One Piece, my first manga, which was recommended by Renay. My son reads manga, and I’ve browsed through a few, so I knew about the whole reading backwards thing. But this will be the first whole manga book I read. And it has pirates in it! How can it lose with pirates up its sleeve?
And I’m just about to start Monster, by Walter Dean Myers. The three award on the cover (Corretta Scott King, Printz, National Book Award finalist) are a bit intimidating. I feel like, “What if I don’t like it? That will mean I’m just crap.” I mean, one award, I’m fine with disagreeing with that. But three? Surely if I don’t love the book, I’ll be drummed out of bookdom. They’ll confiscate my lit degree, they’ll delete my blog, and good old TBR Mountain will be leveled with bulldozers.
Our current read-aloud is a Lemony Snicket book, The Hostile Hospital, which I think is book the eighth. I’ve read it before, but not much of it really stuck with me, so I’m enjoying a second run through.
This week’s theme comes from Samantha, who suggested that one week we all write about our fond memories of childhood books.
You could approach this several ways. I’ll probably list my favorite childhood books with maybe a paragraph about each book: why I loved it, how old I was when I read it, where I got the book, etc. You could also just pick one childhood favorite and review it as you would any other book. Or, if you’re fast, you could make up a meme other weekly geeks might like to use. It’ll be interesting to see how everyone personalizes this theme. Don’t forget to come back and leave a link to the post in your comment once you’ve written your post. No wrap-up post this week; just the one childhood books post.
If you haven’t done so already, you might like to check out the selection of WG buttons.
Which reminds me! I lost track of at least one button maker and only credited two. If I have one of your buttons there and you weren’t credited, please let me know.
I received several late wrap-up links this week. If you give me yours after Friday, I can’t promise they’ll be added to these posts. I think you’ll understand if I explain how this works. When people leave their wrap-up links, I tag them with del.icio.us. Those tags are then sent to a wordpress blog I created just for this purpose. Del.icio.us sends these only once a day. I have mine set to midnight Pacific time so as to get the latest possible links from the highest number of people, including people who are giving them to me on Saturday their time. If you give me your wrap-up link after I go to bed Friday, it will not be tagged until I get up Saturday, and not sent to me via the blog until Saturday night, midnight Pacific time, hours after the Weekly Geeks post is made. When I see late wrap-up links on Saturday morning, I will tag them, and I will likely add them to the relevant post later in the week, depending how busy that week is. I won’t, though, spend time on Saturday going to individual blogs and gathering up late wrap-up links, because (I hope you understand) the tedium of that would soon fill me with a fiery hatred for this project. And right now, I’m too attached to this project to endanger it. So if you can’t get your wrap-up link to me by Friday, by all means, still give it to me late, but I can’t promise when (or really if) it will be added to the post.
Below is the list of wrap-up posts about last week’s theme, those I received by Friday night my time. As always, please let me know if I missed listing yours (unless you gave it to me late, in which case you can watch for it later this week). I think this list will be very handy, because it tells you who will link to your reviews, if you’ve reviewed the same books they have.
The Weekly Geeks theme this week was to offer to post links to other people’s reviews in my reviews. So if I review To Kill a Mockingbird and so do three other bloggers, at the end of my post, I’ll have links to their posts. That is, if they let me know.
Here’s how that went for me.
First, at the beginning of the week, I enthusiastically looked through some blogs and told the bloggers if I had any reviews in common with them. In some cases, I automatically linked to their reviews in my reviews, but in some cases, I forgot. Some of them reminded me, though, which I’m glad about.
It was a busy week for me at work, and I was not feeling well besides. So I quickly became overwhelmed at the links coming in to reviews that other bloggers wanted to tell me about. I left nearly all of those comments unmoderated (or the emails marked as unread) so that I would remember to deal with them later. Today, I’m home from work early and hope to get to some of those.
I still love the idea, though. I think that it’ll be a lot more manageable when I’m mostly just getting links from people as I post new reviews, rather than links for so many old reviews.
While I was writing my Sunday Salon post last weekend, I started to think about how I have my reading material categorized according to when and where I read it. And I started to wonder if other people do the same thing. So, if you do, and want to write about this, consider it a meme you’re tagged for.
The breakfast table read: I am really not a morning person. Unfortunately, my job requires me to arrive at work by 7:30 every morning. This is clearly unreasonable, right? It’s not just me? Anyway, at the same time, I am a person who takes literally hours (about 2 1/2) to actually feel awake. I get up at 6am, which means I’m not really awake that first hour of work, but hey, they just require me to be there physically. No one said anything about perky. I like to read while I eat breakfast, but I really am not awake enough to search the house for what I’m reading. So I keep a book at the breakfast table. This usually has to be a non-fiction book, because I’m too groggy to dip into a novel and figure out who was doing what when I last stopped reading. It can also be short stories.
The to-go read: I’ve been having some health problems these last few years. So I spend a lot of time in doctors’ waiting rooms. And I’m not about to read those magazines germy sick people have touched. This means I have to have a book with me. I also like to have a book with me in case I’m waiting in the car for my husband or son, or in case I’m meeting someone and arrive first, or in case of encounters with the department of motor vehicles, etc. So I keep a book in my bag. This can’t be what I’m currently reading, or I’ll take it out at home and forget to put it back. This has to be a book that lives in my bag until I finish it. And since I’m self-conscious about people asking what I’m reading only to discover it’s, say, a children’s book complete with illustrations, it has to be a serious, adult book without an embarrassing cover.
The bathroom read: You noticed the germ squeamishness above? Books don’t get left in the bathroom. People might touch them at inopportune times, such as between wiping and hand washing. So my bathroom has a stack of magazines, which go straight to recycling when I finish them. I also forbid myself to read books in the tub ever since that embarrassing incident when I dropped a library book into the bath and had to explain myself to a disgusted-looking librarian.
The read-aloud: There used to be the family read-aloud, which I read in the living room before bedtime. But my son is too big for that now, and often not even home at my ridiculously early bedtime (see above work schedule complaints). But my husband now reads to me at bedtime, to help me fall asleep (see above-mentioned health problems, which include some sort of neurological sleep disorder I don’t quite understand). This is ideally a book I’ve read before, because if he stops reading within the first ten minutes I fall asleep, I wake up and ask why he stopped. So I have to be able to miss chunks without minding. It also can’t be too interesting (Roald Dahl’s Omnibus failed this test) or I will stay awake glued to the edge of my… pillow, I guess. But it has to be interesting enough that my poor husband (who fortunately loves books) isn’t bored out of his mind.
The main read: This is most often a novel for adults, because that’s my main reading interest. Even if I’m reading a non-fiction book beyond the breakfast table read, I have to have a fiction book going at the same time, because I seem incapable of surviving without a fiction injection at some point in every day. The main read alternates in type of fiction, so that I don’t burn out on any one type of book. For example, after a very serious read, I like something light. After a children’s or YA novel, I need something for grown ups. After a graphic novel, I need something text-only. After too many fluffy books in a row, I’ll want a classic.
The work read: Yes, my job involves reading books, so you can see why I’m willing to go there at unholy hours. There are two types of work reads. There are the books I’m reading very carefully for the first or second time and there are the books I know backwards and forwards but must reread. I’ll leave it at that, because I really try not to mention much detail about work in my blog.
The travel read: My job also involves travel a few times a year, sometimes overseas flights, on which I can’t sleep (see above-mentioned brain fail). I like to bring something fairly light to read, something on which I can still concentrate on after being awake for 20 hours and about to face a time change that plops me straight into the beginning of a new day. It should also be interesting enough to help me escape the stress of travel. There must be at least two books in the carry-on bag, in case the first book does not meet (or stops meeting) these criteria. There must be at least two more books in the checked luggage for hotel bedtime reading and the return flight. I doubt I’m the only one with a horror of running out of books and getting stuck with something from the airport bookstore.
New category — the audiobook: I’ve never been able to listen to audiobooks while driving. Driving takes too much concentration and I lose track of the story. Blogging, though, exposed me to so many other ways people use audiobooks, so I tried them again in different situations. After surgery or while ill: they’re great when you’re not feeling well enough to concentrate. Knitting: I usually knit while watching movies, but sometimes I’ll get an audiobook to listen to while I knit, too. Road trips with another driver: My husband can concentrate on an audiobook while driving, so we have In Cold Blood in our car CD player, but we’re not getting very far because we really just like to talk in the car.
So what about you?
Written Saturday, March 19th, 2005 8:59am
Title and author of book?: Property by Valerie Martin. It was the 2003 Orange Prize winner.
Fiction or non-fiction? Genre?: Historical fiction
What led you to pick up this book?
I went to see Margaret Atwood speak, and Martin was with her. I hadn’t read anything by Martin, but she was interesting, so decided to try one of her books.
Summarize the plot: It’s set in the South during the time of slavery, and the main character is a woman married to a man she hates. She’s brought a slave to the marriage; the husband rapes and impregnates the slave couple times. There are slave revolts and cholera and malaria and all sorts of interesting goings-on.
What did you like most about the book? The idea of white women as property as a comparison to slaves as property.
Also, the complexity of the relations between the main character and her slave; the way they just barely don’t form a bond because of their positions, but instead project a lot of their hatred of their social system onto each other.
I also liked the way it ended realistically, though sadly.
What did you like least? I wish the main character had shown more growth. I would have liked to be able to go away liking her.
Which of your readers are most likely to enjoy this book? People who like complex characterization; people interested in women’s history; people interested in a book about pre-Civil War times, which somehow manages to balance both slaves and slaveowners as characters.
What did you think of the main character? Martin developed her well. I didn’t particularly care for her as a person. She was understandably depressed. She was trapped and desperate, but stayed that way once she had an out, probably because what seems like an out to me didn’t to people of her time and culture. I guess she made me sad.
Any other particularly interesting characters? Yes, definitely, Sarah, the slave. She was interesting, but since the story is told from the point of view of the main character, Manon, I was left wanting to know more about Sarah. It’s the kind of book I could read several times just trying to get a better grasp on Sarah. It’s all there, I’m sure; you just have to sift through the main character’s viewpoint.
Share a quote from the book: I’ll share three:
‘Your uncle cautions you that Sarah may be very different when she returns,’ my aunt said. ‘She has passed as a free woman, and that experience is generally deleterious to a negro’s character.’
‘She has done more than that,’ I observed. ‘She has tasted a freedom you and I will never know.’
My aunt looked perplexed. ‘What is that?’ she said.
‘She has traveled about the country as a free white man.’
Unbalanced, I thought. So that was the name they had for a woman who could not pretend a villain was as good as a decent man.
For a moment I almost pitied him. He is so bound by the lies he tells himself; he can only play at feelings he thinks he should have.
Share a favorite scene from the book:There’s a very exciting scene in which a group of revolting slaves come to Manon’s house and take over for a few hours. Manon is shown in her best light in this scene and afterwards.
You can read an excerpt here.
In keeping with the WG theme number two, if you have also reviewed this book, you may want to leave a link to your review in the comments, and I’ll add it to this post.
The Book That Changed My Life is a collection of short essays by well-known writers about books that mattered to them. Some writers insisted on choosing more than one book (how could they do otherwise, I wonder?) and some books received two mentions, with To Kill a Mockingbird justifiably chosen by three writers.
The essays I enjoyed most were either by writers I admire, about books I admire, or both (Alice Hoffman on Catcher in the Rye, for example). I was also interested in reading essays by writers I haven’t read but have been curious about (Anne Lamott, Da Chen). It gave me some insight into them. I especially loved when people chose children’s books. Because when, really, are our lives so changed by books as when we’re new readers?
Sometimes, writers made baffling choices. Nelson DeMille, for example, named three very good books and then chose an Ayn Rand book above them all, though he did admit he read it when he was young and impressionable. And I had to roll my eyes at Carol Higgins Clark choosing one of her own mother’s books.
I appreciated the essays by writers to decided to approach the task with humor, because most of the essays were very earnest and started to sound the same after a while. Michael Stern, for example, chose the Sears catalogue.
And my favorite essay of them all was by Billy Collins who, somehow convincingly, made a comparison between The Yearling with Lolita.
Since most writers picked very well-known books, the book didn’t actually increase my wishlist too much, which was an unexpected relief.
The purchase of The Book That Changed My Life supports Read to Grow, a non-profit literacy organization.
In keeping with the WG theme number two, if you have also reviewed this book, you may want to leave a link to your review in the comments, and I’ll add it to this post.
48hbc BAFAB biography blogging book news Booker bookmooch bookworms Brooks carnivals challenge classics comics contests coveted Crace diversions dystopia education family fantasy feminism fiction film French Gaiman girls giveaways glbt graphic novels health history humor interviews kids marriage Martin Maushart memes memoir memoirs misc Montgomery motherhood mothertalk mystery Newbery nonfiction novels Palahniuk parenting poetry politics Printz psychology quotes readathon reading religion reviews series short stories speculative summaries SundaySalon TBR teens TT war WeeklyGeeks women youtube
