The Thirteenth Tale

What I Read: The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. 408 pages. Anchor Canada, 2007.

Rating: 5/5!


Happy coincidence! I finished Diane Setterfield's stunning book, The Thirteenth Tale, this weekend, on Friday the thirteenth. How mysterious: the first of three verrry mysterrrious things to be found in this blog post.

The second mysterious thing is this: how, with less time to read and more pages to get read, did I manage to devour The Thirteenth Tale so must faster than Red China Blues, you may ask? Well, you should have seen me! And in fact if you're reading this you probably did. Quickly and at every opportune moment (and at a lot of very inopportune moments, as is my very bad habit), the pages slipped by and the weight of paper in my right hand became less and less. The story grabs you, makes you read on, constantly engaging your mind and making the clogs of your brain turn wildly, trying to solve the mystery of the novel.

That mystery is the third verrry mysterrrious thing. There is so much to uncover and piece together in this twisting novel of twins, bookstores, creaking old houses, and the foggy, melancholy Yorkshire moors. I could go on and on and on about this book: suffice it to say that I loved it, and felt completely at home in it. And I now have a fierce desire to book a ticket to England and go roaming about the moors with an old copy of Jane Eyre! Read this book and let's talk books and ghost stories!

Happy reading, and have a great day!

Erin

What I Read: The Body Farm by Patricia Cornwell

Genre: Mystery

Rating: 3.5/5

Hello All of you out there! Hope you are all doing well in this hot weather :) Some suggestions to help you may include eating frozen yogurt, drinking a nice smoothie or running to the nearest fountain you find and jumping in to cool off (Joking! or am I?)hehehe...

OK, so lets begin with the novel I am reviewing for this particular blog. The Body Farm was an "O.K. - Good" reading. I say this because i quite liked it yet it didn't satisfy my mystery hunger like Mary Higgins Clark or Agatha Christie Mystery novels usually do for me. Patricia Cornwell has always been on the top of my list for Mystery/Crime authors but i can for sure say that she has written more intricate and satisfying novels than this one. The Body Farm started off great and ended off great but i found the middle to be kind of slow and hard to get through. There was some of what I felt to be unnecessary events that took away from the main plot. If it was not for the great start off and the awesome finish I would not have recommended anyone to pick up this novel and read it. All in all I was not disappointed but I was also not fully satisfied.

The Novel follows Dr. Katie (Kay) Scarpetta who is a forensic pathologist for the FBI's Behavioural Science Unit. (Side Note: She is my favourite reoccurring character that Cornwell has written about in many of her novels). So this Dr Kay with the help of the FBI team set out to North Carolina to help solve the mystery of the brutal murder of eleven year old Emily Steiner. long with the main plot, other smaller plots are taking place in Dr. Scarpetta's personal life like her relationship with her niece Lucy who she treats like her own daughter and her relationship with her family and job in general.

One thing I loved about this book was the way Cornwell went into great detail to describe how a group of people like the FBI can profile a criminal and solve a mystery with very little evidence to go on. She describes what the term "The Body Farm" actually refers to and the feelings of the a woman (Dr. Scarpetta) who had seen so many dead bodies and so much violence in the world and is desperately trying to believe that there is still good people in this world and that not everyone is out to get everyone else. Overall, the novel had a surprisingly good ending just like its beginning and I am looking forward to reading other books about Dr. Kay Scarpetta in the near future and hopefully they will be as good as this book was if not better :)

One book I am stoked about is the third trilogy to Candace Camp's romance novels. I have already written two different blog reviews about the first two books and am waiting for the third on to come out so I can read it and do a review on it. I am quite sure it will be a dashing success just like the first two were for me. For now, I wish you all a great day and we will meet again in my upcoming blogs but for now,

Toodles,

Rasha

Red China Blues

What I Read: Red China Blues, by Jan Wong. 405 pages. Doubleday, 1996.
Rating: 3/5.

Well!

That took a lot longer than I expected. When your bus driver starts to comment that you're taking a long time to finish a book, you know you're reading too slowly. I've become the Red China Blues girl to my public transportation officials, since I've boarded four buses each day for the last few weeks with this book in my hand. But my bus route has become the only time I have free to read, other than the times when my sweetheart of a boyfriend lets me cuddle up with him and a book on a date. (Hi, Nick. Have I told you lately you're fantastic?) Obviously I am a super fun girlfriend: such are the consequences of dating a book geek, I'm afraid.

So this book took me a few eons to finish. And now the looming question: Was It Worth It? Hmm. Not so much. And yes, it was. Clear as mud, right? The book starts off with Jan Wong, a Globe and Mail journalist, recounting her move from Montreal to China in 1972 to work and study under the Maoist Cultural Revolution. She moves with high hopes and expectations of a country she sees as being as close to perfection as possible. In reality, people live in fear of speaking honestly about the hardship and frustrations they face. Jan takes a long time to see behind the veil of Maoist rhetoric and idealism, even turning in a fellow student at Beijing University for unpatriotically wanting help to get out of China. This section should be interesting, and at times it is, but for the most part it drags, and I constantly wanted to shake her and shout "Looook! Your letters are read, you can't date who you want to, they keep pulling you out of class to work in factories, and everybody speaks in Maoist slogans instead of actually communicating. Do you see a problem here???" Eventually she does indeed see a problem, thank goodness, right about the point where I almost gave up on the book.

And then it gets goooooooood! She goes into reporting (actual reporting, as opposed to her initial attempt to get pro-Communism propaganda printed in the New York Times), and the book becomes suddenly fascinating. The twists and turns of Chinese history that Jan was witness to are well worth the read, and the tragedy of her account of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 is overwhelming. She writes beautifully and powerfully here, and her testimony will break your heart.

So, no, at first the book is not worth your time, and then suddenly yes, it is. After witnessing the tragedy of Tiananmen Square, she determines to examine more about the dark underside of China. She covers topics like the brutality of Chinese executions (the sentence even for copyright infringement is the death penalty), the failure of the justice system (police stole one of her car for their own use and rammed her replacement car while she was 8 months pregnant), and the tragedy of the booming trade in women (trafficking, incidentally, is only punished with 5 years, the same sentence for stealing two cows).

I won't be hanging on to this book, but I'm glad I read it. I could have just read a history textbook and saved myself the frustration of her being a naive ninny for the first half, but there is so much here that only a firsthand, personal account could touch on, and no history text could convey the emotion that makes sections of the book come alive.

Hopefully my next book doesn't take so long: I have four started in various cities right now, so we'll see which one gets done first. Thanks for your patience, and have a great and glorious day!

Happy reading,

Erin

What I Read: A Gentleman Always Remembers by Candace Camp
Rating: 4/5

Before i start writing about this very cool novel, i would like to take the time to apologize to you all out there for being a lazy bum and neglecting this blog for a while. I have actually read three books since my last post but i will only review the first one because i think it deserves a blog post all on its own.

The novel A Gentleman Always Remembers is actually the second book in a trilogy following Candace Camp's first novel of this series titled A Lady Never Tells which i have already reviewed in my last post.

Unlike the first novel in this trilogy the heroine, Eve Hawthorne who is a widow, does not have any sisters and has to deal with a very infuriating step mother who you want to strangle from the get go. ( I had to restrain myself there for a while since i was thinking of much worse words to describe her and if it hadn't been for Erin, i think i would have had to put a rating of 14+ on this post). Whats so cool though is that she manages to get away from this horrible step mother by agreeing to become a governess to the Earl of Stewkesbury's cousins which are the four American sisters that we were introduced to in the first novel. But, being a governess can apparently open up many doors... one of them being able to meet the Earl's brother, Fitz :)

Fitz to me can only be described as a British 18th century version of Chuck Bass.....and for all of you out there who don't watch Gossip Girl, he is pretty much a Ladies' man (Erin just happened to glance over at this moment and read this and we just died laughing. So.... i moved her sofa and told her to stop reading since i wasn't done!) lol anwayz back to our novel; so yeah we have this very proper nice woman who wants a life of quietness and everything in order and a man who doesn't want to settle down..... don't get me wrong he is nice and charming but he just does not understand the big deal about marriage.... and if you want to know what happens from there then you have to borrow, buy, or steal (Joking....or am I? lol) this book and figure out what happens in the end. Oh and i promise that it is a good ending and you wont be disappointed!

Intrigued? not yet? I forgot to add that there is also something about a mysterious watch, an attempted murder, jail, a maze in the backyard, threatening letters, being a widow and a virgin at the same time, a snotty neighbour named Sabrina who sleeps with about anyone out there and many many more random yet mysterious things you will understand once you read the book!

Overall, a really good continuation and i cannot wait until the third one comes out so i can get more mystery and romance and hopefully be satisfied? never! lol....Anywayz enough rambling and hope to blog soon about the other two books i read but for now.....

Toodles!

Rasha :)

A Fine Balance

What I Read: A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry.
Rating: 6/5! :)

So, I've never been really good at math (i.e. I was beyond terrible and the bane of my math teachers' existence), but for some reason when Rasha and I started this site we chose to use a fractional scale to measure our like, dislike or indifference to a book. Why would we do such a thing? Does it suit either of our natures to say that we love a Salman Rushdie book with four fifths of our being? That out of our capacity to like we only like Breaking Dawn to the second degree of five? I think not. I bore myself just writing those two lines. So with Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, I chose to break the laws of math and fractions and maybe even of book reviewing and give this book a 6/5 because, to put it in language that suits me, I really really REALLY love this book and think that every literate person should be given this book for free to read. I love this book so much that I would volunteer to be the supplier of said free books, if my bank account didn't just reprimand me for even thinking such a thing.

There was SO much pressure on me to love this book. Everyone I met, from family members to friends to random strangers who approached me and wanted to talk about the book I was reading, said the same thing: this book would change my life. Which was kind of dramatic, I thought. Don't get me wrong, books have changed my life before, but usually because they caught me by surprise and opened me up when I wasn't looking for it. It seemed too easy to get a book that promised to change my life that actually would change it in some way. Am I making sense? In any case, I won't tell you that this book will change your life. I don't want to put the fear of letdown in you, or make you skeptical and guarded. But even if I do, even if you approach this book the way I did, extremely on guard against life-changing influences, then this book is hard to resist.

Mistry writes so cleanly and elegantly. The book is full of vivid description, yes, and of complex characters, scenes and stories, but the writing is never flowery or pompous or self-aware of its life-changing potential. Mistry tells stories, Canterbury Tales-style; he tells the histories of four people living in India in the 1970s, and then weaves together their lives to show how their stories change on contact and how they run parallel and intertwined with each other. Through four stories Mistry takes his readers on a carefully constructed but seemingly effortless whirlwind tour of every possible facet of humanity; we see the depth of the human heart, with all its capacity for anger, hatred, cowardice, cruelty, courage, love, hope and faith.

AND (I promise, no spoilers follow), the last five pages... talk to me when you've made it to the end, and you need someone who understands how you feel. Seriously. :)

In other words, think about reading this book. (It just took all my willpower not to write REEEEEAD THIS BOOOOOK, but I don't want to pressure you.) (I guess I just did by telling you what I really wanted to write. Sorry!) Thank you to those who finally talked me into tackling this 700+ page book! :) And thank you, Mom, for the too-brief debriefing session after the last five pages were read.

So, while you all get on A Fine Balance, I'll be working on Jan Wong's Red China Blues and James Clavell's Shogun, both of which are currently making my bus rides very enjoyable. Happy reading,

Erin

A Fabulous Find and Fugitive Pieces

What I Read: Fugitive Pieces, by Anne Michaels

Rating: 5/5!

Okay, this post is partly to share the excitement of a fun book room find and partly to rave about a book I read years back but just recently recommended to Sonya (Hi, Sonya!). First, you must hear about this fabulous find we, well, found. Rasha and I were going through book donations as per usual, oohing and aahing as is to be expected when two bibliophiles are paid to sort through books all day, when we came across a rather strange offering. A book called Steamboat Gothic by Frances Parkinson Keyes, which Rasha picked up, oohed and aahed over, and tried to open… but the book wouldn’t open! (Duh duh duh…) She tries again, but only the first few pages move at all, and then I clue in, because I watch a lot of old movies where the characters have to… but I’m giving it away too soon. Anyways, so I clue in. She passes me the box, I shake it around a bit, and out comes a card, reading: “We hope you enjoy this book. We found the contents inspiring and relaxing during times of stress. Put this book on a shelf at the school. You will find it very handy. Have a good summer, thanks for your help and advice.” And it turns out that the inspiring and relaxing contents of this book are… a bottle of aged Canadian Forty Creek premium whisky! In a sealed bottle! And so, Watson, that is how old films about bootlegging and hollow Bibles helped to solve the case of the book with the really stuck pages.

After more sleuthing we found out that the book was made by this really cool Canadian company called The Book Box, which sells books to the public at www.secretstoragebooks.com. Normally I greatly disapprove of book vandalism, but this company seems to take fairly new antiques (which is kind of a contradiction of terms, I know) and books that have multiple copies of that edition in print. They also do a lot of newer books that have a wide circulation: I guess books like The History of Golf blend in better on some people’s shelves. The copy of Steamboat Gothic we found was from 1954 but looks like it’s older… I’ll have to see if I can get a picture of it on here. Anyways, the company advertises itself as “Recycling for Book Lovers”, which I think is adorable and makes me look more kindly on the destruction of the book for the sake of storing booze. If you have a book lover in the family, this would probably make them an amazing gift! No, that is not a hint.

To my second order of business: Fugitive Pieces. I’m still reading Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, which, by the way, is AMAZING and has already inspired two strangers to approach me to talk about how much they loved the book AND made me miss my bus stop once AND caused me to almost walk into a parked van on my way home. It’s a dangerous book. But so worth it… pick it up, you won’t regret it. But I digress. Fugitive Pieces was recommended and lent to me by my beautiful sister Sarah a couple of years ago, and she couldn’t have picked a more perfect book for me. It is so lyric and poetic in its writing style (Anne Michaels published poetry before this book, her first novel, which I must get my hands on), but the images are still so vivid and relatable that you can’t forget what you see through her writing. It tells the story of a poet who lives through the Holocaust as a boy, and tells of his journey from there through Greece to Canada to Greece again. It is a love story, a story about survival and endurance, a story about poetry and art, a story about the past and the changeability of the past, a story about family and history. I cannot recommend this book highly enough: you will lose yourself in her beautiful writing and the beautiful story.

And once you’re finished, read her newest book, The Winter Vault. She made us wait for years between Fugitive Pieces and this latest masterpiece, but it was well worth it! Anne Michaels, teach me your ways! And take all the time you need on your third book, we’ll wait.

As a note, I’ve been recommended to read Shogun by James Clavell and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (which I’ve found at the book room, yay!), so I’ll be diverting from the reading list I posted to read these two (thank you Dan and Katrina!). And yes, Jon, to finish Jim Butcher’s fantastic Alera series. (I promise you you’ll get those back, although I like them, so you might need to sneak them off my bookshelves.) And also The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, which I started too (will I ever learn?). I have waaay too many books going right now, but that makes me quite happy: during the year we English majors have surprisingly little time to read books that we want to read outside of our school texts. For now I’m going to finish A Fine Balance, because it is just so good. Here’s hoping I don’t walk into traffic or into a stampede of rampaging elephants because I’m so deep into my read!

All the best, and happy reading!

Erin

What I am reading: A Lady Never Tells by Candace Camp

Status: just finished

Rating: 4.5/5

For those of you who don't know me, my favourite genre of books is Regency Romance. I love love love the romance novels that take place in London during the early1800s! I adore everything from the way the scenery is described, the fashion that was worn and most importantly, how two people can fall in love and beat the odds that either society or life in general presents them. The male lead is usually from a high social circle and very aristocratic in behaviour but with a heart of gold and the female is beautiful yet headstrong and different from what women were supposed to be like during that time. OK, i can go on and on describing my love of regency romance so i will force myself to stop right here and actually review this amazing book i read :)

To begin with, I was very excited to grab a copy of Candace Camp's A Lady Never Tells since i believe that i have never read a novel written by her before that i didn't like before. And again, she didn't disappoint. This books gives the reader a little of Adventure mixed with Drama mixed with wait for it, Romance! It was a very interesting read for me mainly because it involved four sisters: Mary, Rose, Camellia, and Lily. These four fictional sisters reminded me so much of my three sisters and I and how, like them, we always stick together and help each other through difficult times. The novel revolves mainly around the eldest sister Mary and the dashing Sir. Royce and the rest is history :) Other than the romance, you will discover how a lady was supposed to dress, talk and behave at that time and how easily a woman`s reputation was tarnished if she didn't stick to society`s rules. All in all, if you have any interest in Historical Romance and fashion then this book is for you :)

Toodles,

Rasha

What I am reading: Daddy's Little Girl by Mary Higgins Clark
Status: Just Finished
Rating: 4/5

Mary Higgins Clark, one of my favourite mystery writers of all time, always seems to amaze me with her breath holding always on the tip of your toes plot lines. This book is just awesome! I love the fact that while being a very interesting read, the story tries to tackle real issues such as watching a very happy family fall apart due to the death of one of their family members. It truely shows that not talking about things and blaming everyone but yourself never helps make the situation any better and sometimes, like in this case, play a very negative role in your life.

All in all, a good story and a I enjoyed it a lot. Hope all of you mystery fans will get the chance to take a look at it and enjoy it like I really did!

Toodles,

Rasha

What I’m Reading: In the Skin of a Lion, by Michael Ondaatje.
Status: Finished!
Rating: 4/5

Oh, this book! A couple of years ago a poetry professor of mine got talking about Ondaatje’s work (we were reading The Collected Works of Billy the Kid), and when she remembered this book her eyes went wide and she started to rave. This book was the book, she said, that she had read in university and which made her fall in love with Ondaatje. She was a VERY enthusiastic teacher, so I filed the book title away for my list of books to read but didn’t completely believe it would be as fan-crazy-TASTIC as she made it sound.

Buuut… when the book was donated to the book sale where I work, I set it aside and bought it for myself. And, much to my surprise, I am now in love with Michael Ondaatje! How did that happen? I was bored for the first thirty pages or so, lost in the beautiful, but dense and slow-moving, description. And then all of a sudden I was reading huge chunks without stopping when I should, burning the midnight oil and almost missing my bus stops! Where? Why? How? I tried re-reading the first part of the book to find where it changes to get good (read: fan-crazy-TASTIC), but now that I’m done the book the initial part seems more beautiful than slow to me and I can’t get the bored feeling back to find where the enthralled feeling begins.

In other words, please read this book so we can discuss! It’s all about Toronto at the turn of the 20th century, into the late 1930s. I had no idea that Toronto had such a rich, storied, and at times seriously crazy past! The Torontonians of yore that make this story so vibrant and startling are a mix of city officials, immigrant workers, and rural Canadians trying to build a life in the city. Nicholas Temelcoff is my personal favourite: we first meet him as a daredevil bridge builder trying to learn English, and we leave him as a baker who will only work in a black suit. The stories of the immigrants living in Toronto are the most memorable, so compassionately and vividly written. Ondaatje himself immigrated from Ceylon to England in 1954, and then relocated to Canada in 1962, which makes his approach to the immigrant community in the book, particularly that community’s relationship to the English language, particularly compelling.

Such a good book. I can’t wait to read The English Patient! But the next book on my To Read list is Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, which comes very highly recommended by my mother… apparently this is one of the best books I will ever read, so I’m excited. Although finding a book to read next after reading The Best Book Ever is always a challenge! If you have any suggestions for other Best Books Ever, send them on over. And enjoy In the Skin of a Lion!

All the best and happy reading!

Erin

What I'm Reading: The Bitter Taste of Time, by Béa Gonzalez.
Status: Just finished!
Rating: 4/5

I was so excited to get a copy of Béa Gonzalez's first novel, The Bitter Taste of Time: I read her second book, The Mapmaker's Opera, a couple months back and it instantly became one of my favourites. She has a way of filling your head with images, painting landscapes of words so finely detailed you can't see the brushstrokes. The Bitter Taste of Time is full of sights and smells and sounds and colour. Gonzalez takes us into the beautiful region of Galicia in northern Spain, writing into life a land of green, rain-soaked hills, populated by strong, sorrow-drenched people. We follow a house of extremely memorable and vivid women through four generations, watching as all around them certain things change with the passage of time and others remain unalterably the same as always.

At the heart this novel is a series of tragedies, but the beauty of the book is in the multiple heroines' multiple reactions to those tragedies. These women are so strong, so fierce, and so unique: Gonzalez's storytelling feels so intensely intimate, by the end of the book you feel like you have been reading the histories of women in your own family tree. You will miss and remember these women! Maria la Reina and the bookish and big-hearted Matilde are the ones who make the book for me, along with Matilde's dear Don Miguel.

In short, read this book! It is absolutely beautiful, both in construction and in content. It's a fairly small book, so you can read it quickly or take the time to read it slowly and savour it. :)

Happy reading! All the best,
Erin

Hellooooooo Everyone!

I Would like to thank Erin for her more than amazing "Welcome" piece. I would like to add a few words myself to make up for the few things she forgot to mention.......

like how awsome of a person she is. She is smart, caring and has a more wicked fashion taste than i do. She is a great listener and is always there for you when you need her..... plus, the fact that she loves Medieval History makes me adore her so much more.

Ok, now that i said my piece about her since she left that out in her post, i would also like to welcome all of you and hope that in time, we will laugh, learn new things and live through new adventures (or just dream about them while we are working in our book room)Thats all for now and stay tuned for more book and fashion posts to come :)

Toodles,

Rasha

Welcome to our corner of the web! We like to think it smells of book dust, chocolate, chai tea and perfume. We hope you leave your visits here with that smell lingering on your clothes, the sound of words and dreams of books to be read in your head!

The purpose of this blog is to answer, as best as we two can, that age-old question: read any good books lately? We certainly have, and we plan to continue doing so long into the future! We would like to share our recommendations with you, and to get your recommendations in return. The book community has always been one of sharing, with good books changing hands, getting worn and torn and loved and discussed. This blog is our way of contributing to the discussion.

Introductions are in order, first. Rasha is the definition of fabulous: she has a wicked sense of style and impeccable taste. She has a quick sense of humour, an infectious laugh and a love of life that lights up a room. She is drawn to mystery, romance, and the great classics, especially Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. She loves Agatha Christie, Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer, Francine Pascal, Tom Clancy, and a host of others.

I (Erin) love poetry, literature, medieval texts, history, fantasy, and absolutely anything else that strikes my interest. My favourites are Thomas Hardy, Neil Gaiman, John Donne, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Pablo Neruda, Béa Gonzalez, Douglas Adams, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe, C. S. Lewis, the ever-fantastic Tolkien, Jorge Luis Borges, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and so very many more! The list could go on and on (and on), but I'll restrain myself for now. :)

Together Rasha and I cover quite the wide range, so you'll get different recommendations from both of us. Hopefully we can get some discussion going back and forth: we'd love to hear what you love and recommend, and we'd love to hear what you think about the books we're reading!

All the best, and happy reading!

Erin