BBAW - Getting To Know You

Day two of Book Blogger Appreciation Week is all about shining the light on our fellow bloggers. For me, this meant getting a chance to know Erin, of Erin Reads, better. I'm already a huge fan of Erin's blog. She writes wonderful reviews and has a couple of things that are unique to her blog that are very cool. Please take a few minutes to get to know Erin and then head on over to her blog to see how great it is for yourself.

1. You have two unique features on Erin Reads: Reading Buddies and Classics Reclamation Project. Can you tell my readers a bit about each of them?

Both projects grew out of personal reading goals I really wanted to emphasize: reading with other people and reading more classics.

Reading Buddies grew out of my desire to read and discuss books with other people while tackling my ever-growing TBR list. Eight months in, it has taken two forms. Each month, I read a poll-selected book very informally with anyone who is interested. I post about each book twice, and participants are free to comment, post, and read whenever and however often they wish. I've also done some even less formal reads, where participants have discussed a book via email or on Goodreads without any concrete timeline. I love formal readalongs, but they tend to stress me out, so my goal with Reading Buddies was to create a relaxed environment in which to read together. I love knowing other people are reading the same thing I am but without the pressure of having to reach a certain point by a specific day, and reading with other people is such a rewarding experience.

The Classics Reclamation Project is my personal project to read more classics. Prior to 2010, when I started the project, the last time I had voluntarily read a classic was in high school. Being forced to read books for school left me with the feeling that such books were difficult and unenjoyable, and I spent a good ten years avoiding them. As I got into book blogging, though, I began to see more and more bloggers posting about good experiences they had with various classics, and I started to think that maybe I should give those books another chance. I started out always making sure I had a classic going, sharing my thoughts in a weekly post about whichever classic I was reading at the moment. At this point, I am no longer posting weekly, but I continue to make a conscious effort to include classics in my reading diet. It's working -- I'm much less frightened of classics than I used to be, have worked them into my regular reading diet, and have even enjoyed a few!

My Projects page (http://erinreads.com/projects/) has more information on both.

2. I see that one of your goals is to read books by Indian authors. Do you have any favorites?

That particular goal is new this year, so I haven't actually read enough books by any one author to choose favorites! I have encountered some excellent novels in pursuit of this goal, though. (I should note that I've included authors of Indian descent as well as Indian authors.) One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni was my favorite book from last year. I also enjoyed The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri and Half Life by Roopa Farooki. I've been trying to read books set in India but not necessarily by Indian authors as well, and my favorite thus far has been E.M. Forster's The Hill of Devi, an account of his time spent in India during British rule. I have several others on my shelf that I hope to read soon: Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (the current Reading Buddies selection), A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, to name just a few.

3. Do you have any literary crushes?

Only one, and that is Po in Kristin Cashore's magnificent young adult novel Graceling! I also have a bit of a voice crush on Humphrey Bower, an audiobook narrator with a glorious Australian accent.

4. What's your favorite part about blogging?

Definitely the community. I turned to blogging in earnest after moving away from my job at an independent bookstore last year, and it has taken the place of talking books with coworkers and customers. I love turning on my computer and instantly being able to read and write about books alongside so many kindred spirits I've never even met in person. My fellow bloggers and readers are overwhelmingly diverse, supportive, positive, and accepting, more so than any other community I've encountered, and they make book blogging an amazingly rewarding experience.

5. Like most bloggers, I see you've been a reader since you were little. What is the first book you remember reading that really stuck with you and why do you think it had such an impact?

I am notoriously bad at recalling early childhood memories, so this is an especially hard question! The first book I can honestly say I remember reading is probably Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. It's the first literary world I recall being completely swept up in, its characters and places so real and so fascinating to me, and I think that experience of losing myself in a book stuck with me. I don't necessarily read to escape, but I do love books that draw me in with the realness of their worlds.

Erin used to work in an independent book store. When she quite working there, she really missed talking books with other book lovers; blogging has allowed her to find another group of people to do that with. Her interest in Indian authors stems from the fact that her husband is Indian. She has recently returned from India; be sure to check out her post with pictures from that trip. What fun!

Thanks, Erin! I'm looking forward to having time to join you in Reading Buddies soon!

Just My Type: a book about fonts by Simon Garfield

Just My Type: a book about fonts by Simon Garfield
356 pages
Published September 2011 by Penguin Group
Source: the publisher and TLC Book Tours

The front of Just My Type says that it is an international bestseller. Really? Don't get me wrong, I liked this book a lot. But I had no idea there were that many people that were interested in fonts. But then, until I read Just My Type, I had no idea that people actually had jobs creating fonts. Don't laugh. I know someone has to create them. It just never occurred to me that someone could actually make a living creating new fonts, let alone become well known (well, relatively speaking).

In Just My Type, Simon Garfield introduces readers to the creators of many of the most well known font creators, including both their personal and professional backgrounds. My favorite part of meeting these people was learning about their personal lives. Eric Gill, creator of Gill Sans? Kind of a creepy guy. John Baskerville, creator of the, oddly enough, Baskerville font? Before she married John, she was married to a man name Eaves who deserted her with five children. She was Baskerville's live-in housekeeper before she became so much more. But until Mr. Eaves died, she wasn't able to marry Baskerville. It was kind of a scandal at the time.

Garfield also gives the history of most fonts. The earliest fonts are over 500 years old but most of the fonts we use on a regular basis are no more than 100 years old, with many of them being under 50 years old. Of course, the advent of the personal computer and the development of word processors has really sparked a surge in the development of fonts.

How aware are you of fonts? I didn't really think I was, except when I'm choosing one for my own works. But after reading Just My Type I think you are more likely to be aware of the font if the wrong one has been used. You wouldn't want your physician to be using Comic Sans, for example, on his or her materials. It doesn't really say "I'm serious and you can trust  me." You are likely to notice a change in font whenever a product makes a design change. The next time you see that your favorite product has changed the packaging, see if you notice the change in font.

You probably need to be something of a word or print junkie to really love Just My Type, but using a bit of humor, plenty of personal stories, and examples readers can really relate to, Garfield has crafted a book that will appeal to a wide audience.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. For more opinions, visit the other sites on the tour.

Simon Garfield is the author of twelve acclaimed books of nonfiction. He lives in London and St. Ives, Cornwall, and currently has a soft spot for Requiem Fine Roman and HT Gelateria. For more information about Simon and his work, visit his website at www.simongarfield.com.  Connect with Simon on Twitter.

Book Blogger Appreciation Week - Community

Today marks the kickoff of the fourth annual Book Blogger Appreciation Week. For those of you who don't blog, particularly for those of you who don't blog about books, this week might go one of two ways for you. Perhaps you'll largely skip over most of the posts from your favorite bloggers. But maybe, just maybe, a little bug will bite you. You'll start to think "Wow, this is so much more than just writing about books. These people really have fun with this. Maybe I should give it a try." You'll be right. Blogging is about so much more than writing book reviews and we really are having fun. A huge part of the reason that blogging is so much fun is because of the wonderful sense of community that book bloggers have.

When I started blogging in May of 2009, I had no idea who might actually read my little blog. I hoped that my family might, I suspected that some of my book club friends might, and I was fairly sure that some of my friends from Goodreads would. But would anyone else every see my work? Imagine my surprise, on my second post (and I hadn't even written a book review yet), when I got an email notice that Mel of The Reading Life had left a comment on my blog. Someone I didn't even know and had never communicated with before had actually read something I had posted. My confidence soared.

One sentence, one little acknowledgement that I had written something that was interesting enough to respond to - sometimes that is all it takes to change a person's life. Mel did that for me. If that bug should just happen to bite you this week, if you should decide that maybe you'd like to jump in and join this community, know that there are people out here who will be more than happy to leave you that one sentence, who will become your first follower, who will be more than happy to mentor you along the way. Let us know you've joined us and this community will reach out and wrap its arms around you.

Wherever You Go by Joan Leegant

Wherever You Go by Joan Leegant
243 pages
Published July 2010 by Norton, W.W. & Company, Inc.
Source: the publisher and TLC Book Tours

An apology upfront to TLC Book Tours; this review was supposed to have been posted on Wednesday, September 7th. I've had limited access to a computer this week and did not get it done.

Three main characters, three story arcs, are the driving force of Joan Leegant's latest novel.

Yona Stern is a woman who had a falling out with her sister a decade ago. In an effort to try to make amends, Yona travels to Israel, out to one of the settlements where her sister, Dena, lives with her five children and militant husband. The Ben-Tzions are amongst the group of Israelis who believe that their country to should not concede any land to the Palestinians, a group which looks down at the U.S. and European efforts to try to make peace in the Middle East. The past decade has seen Yona punishing herself for her what she did to her sister and she is desperate to be able to stop.

Mark Greenglass is the son of two non-practicing Jews who has lost his way, once again. After a long period of abusing drugs with the woman he loved, years ago Greenglass found himself swept into a deep love of the Jewish faith. It saved him then, and he's been able to make quite a name for himself as a teacher and lecturer, but now he is having a crisis of faith. What is it that God has in mind of him? Will he be able to leave New York and go back to the life he has been living in Jerusalem?

Aaron Blinder is the son of a writer who has become famous for writing fictionalized accounts of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. His mother died of cancer and Aaron and his father have found themselves unable to relate to one another every since. Now Aaron has traveled to Israel and connected an ultra-militant group of Israelis bent on driving the Palestinians out of the land they believe belongs to the Jews. As part of this group, Aaron hopes to be able to tell a new story about the Jews, one his father could never hope to be a part of.

Three characters, three story arcs. All will converge when Aaron makes his move to make a name for himself.

Leegant's writing is beautiful; the country of Israel came alive for me as I was reading the book. The subject matter was utterly new to me, not being of the Jewish faith and not being familiar with the extremist movement in Israel, and this both worked for and against the book as I read. I'm always eager to learn something new in my reading but sometimes I felt like only someone of the Jewish faith could truly relate to this story. There was a lot going on in this book, a lot of characters to keep track of, and some of the characters lost some of their appeal to me along the way. It felt a bit like they got watered down in all that was going on. So it was a bit of an effort to get through the book. But when Leegant brought all of the story lines together, the book pulled me in and I had to keep reading to see how politics might affect these characters lives in ways that I would never have thought possible. Might an innocent bystander really get caught up in a crime and be convicted of being a part of the plot?

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour and, once again, opening my eyes to a part of life of which I was woefully unaware!

Fall Feasting

For some reason as fall arrives every year, it seems that we are prone to start thinking more about "comfort" foods, the kinds of things that will help us put on that extra weight we used to need to help survive the cold winters. Sure we don't need it any more but our bodies just don't seem to have evolved far enough to figure that out yet.

Maybe that's why I suddenly found myself accepting not one but two new books about food for review. Sensing a theme (I'm quick that way), I realized that I have several other food related books waiting patiently on my shelves. So, while the rest of you are reading the scary books that are more commonly read this time of year, I'll be devoting the next few weeks to books about or featuring food. On the agenda:

Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kat Finn

Four Kitchens by Lauren Shockey
Julie and Julia by Julie Powell
My Life In France by Julia Childs
Table of Contents by Judy Gelman & Vicki Levy Krupp
Sugar Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke
The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

With my other commitments, that should get me through the fall. But if you've got another book I absolutely must read that is food-related, please let me know what it is and why you love it!



Winner of "Safe From The Sea!"

Congratulations to Teri, winner of a copy of Peter Geye's Safe From The Sea! Teri has a beautiful blog, Quinceberry, that primarily explores her artistic side but also give the reader a great idea of what it's like to live in New York City.

Enjoy the book, Teri!

Coming Soon To A Bookstore Near You! And A Giveaway!

In April I read and reviewed Peter Geye's debut novel Safe From The Sea (my review here). At that time I said:

"I thought perhaps if I waited some time after finishing this book to write this review, I could be more objective. I thought wrong. Weeks after finishing this book, the first word that pops into my mind to describe this book is "brilliant.""

Five months later, I still stand by that assessment. So I'm happy to be able to tell you that if you haven't already read it, on September 6th Unbridled Books will be releasing Safe From The Sea in trade paperback. And if you haven't already read it, run, do not walk, to your local bookstore.  Because this is what happened to me when I read this book:

"I rarely cry when reading a book; I can't remember the last book that brought me to tears. This one did...twice. That despite my knowing well before the book was done what was going to happen."

To celebrate the book's paperback release, Unbridled is letting me giveaway a hardcover copy of the book to one lucky reader. To enter, just leave a comment with a way to contact you. Winner will be drawn on September 6th; U.S. residents only.