Book Blogger Appreciation Week - Interview

Please help me welcome Serena, of Savvy Verse & Wit to Lit and Life! I'm delighted to have, as my Book Blogger Appreciation Week interview partner, a blogger who is very instrumental in convincing other readers to read outside of their comfort zones. Serena is the co-host of the War Through The Generations Challenge (now seriously, how many of us would have thought: "I know - let's get people to read books about war!"). I'm in my second year with this challenge and very glad that Serena and her partner-in-crime, Anna (Diary of an Eccentric), had that very thought. Serena is also the host of the Fearless Poetry Exploration challenge, is a poet herself and is a new mother.

1. With your writing, photography, all of the things you're involved with in the blogosphere plus a little person to care for, you've got a lot on your plate. How do you find a way to balance everything?

Gosh, I have no plan whatsoever.  I try to keep a calendar of hard dates for certain books, but lately, it's been fly by the seat of my pants.  The War blog is a toss up between Anna and myself and who has time to get some posts of reviews scheduled and linked on the reviews pages...we tried to have a schedule, but life gets in the way and we just take over for each other when the time comes.  Photography is more on the back burner these days, unless its photos of the little one, and those get posted on Facebook for the families to see, etc.  I miss photography, but I have little time for it, but I do take the camera out with us when we go places.

Property of Serena Agusto-Cox

2. War Through The Generations is such an interesting challenge. You and Anna always have so many resources for participants to draw from - how far ahead do you start working to plan the challenge for the coming year? Where do you find your book suggestions? Can you give us a hint about next year's challenge?

When we started the blog, we knew the first year would be WWII and the second would be Vietnam War because those are the wars we were most interested in.  For the third year, we wanted to have the participants decide and Civil War won the poll.  For this year, we went with the other big war, WWI, which we figured out a couple months before.

As for book suggestions, those actually come from a number of places, recommendations from participants, publicists who email us books about wars we aren't currently doing, and our own shelves.  We've also done Internet searches to find book titles, and for Vietnam, we asked a former professor from Suffolk University, who taught our Vietnam and Literature seminar, for suggestions.

We've decided on next year's challenge, but will not announce it until mid-November.  We'll definitely be doing another read-a-long, but that's up in the air as to which book.

3. As the host of the Fearless Poetry Exploration challenge, are there any suggestions you might offer readers for getting the most out of a collection? For example, do you read straight through a book of poetry or do you prefer to read a few poems a day? Some people think that it's not necessary to "get" what a visual artist is trying to say in their work as long as it speaks to a person. Do you think poetry is the same way? Do you have any poets or collections that you always find yourself going back to?

To get the most out of a collection, I always suggest reading the first poem out loud.  I know that sounds funny, but it really helps to hear the rhythm of the poem, which often can lead you to feel the poem's meaning and understand it better.  I personally read poetry collections straight through the first time and mark certain poems that strike me when reading them, and those I go back and read first to find out why I liked them best or why they resonated with me.  Then I'll reread others to see what I missed on the first pass.

I think poetry can be about getting what the poet is trying to tell you, but also about what the reader understands about themselves by reading the poem.  It is a reciprocal relationship with poetry, which in its earliest forms was an oral tradition. 

Collections that I often return too are Dien Cai Dau by Yusef Komunyakaa, which is about his time in Vietnam during the war, etc.;  Blake's Poetry and Designs by William Blake, which has the original sketches he did with his poems and it includes criticisms of his work that I used when I began reading poetry before reading it in school; Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser, a collection I love to recommend to beginning readers because he has some great observations about life and death that don't get lost in technique; A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who in my opinion was the better Beat poet; and City of a Hundred Fires by Richard Blanco, which is an excellent look at the Cuban immigrant experience through the eyes of a younger generation trying to fit in with American society, while an older generation is trying to keep traditions alive.

4. You live right in the hot bed of politics. Does your interest in books include books about politics or those written by politicians?

Ah, yes.  Politics.  I do read some political books, but rarely review them.  They are more to inform me of the political world around me and to make more informed voting decisions.  I'm originally from the hot bed of Democrats in Massachusetts and loved reading about local Mass. politicians like Tip O'Neill, Ted Kennedy, JFK, John Kerry, etc.  I still love learning about the Kennedy mystic, etc., but I also have a greater sense of how flawed politicians are and how their ideals are less than ideal after being in office for a long time.  I'm not a registered Democrat and do read Republican books as well.

5. You read a lot of different kinds of books. Were you raised in a household of readers? Are there books that you find yourself recommending again and again?

I was not raised in a house of readers.  My nana was a reader and encouraged me to read by letting me pick out any book I wanted when we went to Spags, a local store, and she always made sure she bought me books for birthdays and holidays, etc.  My mom actually did not read much in front of me and my father does not read.  My mom does read more now that she's retired, and I always thank James Patterson for that because had she not picked up one of his books one day, she might not have read.

I recommend tons of books based on the person's likes in dislikes, but I'll mention some of my more recent favorites in poetry, YA, short story, and fiction:

Beth Kephart's Small Damages or Undercover
Thrity Umrigar's The World We Found
Alma Katsu's The Taker and The Reckoning
Carolina De Robertis' Perla
Joshua Graham's DarkroomPatricia Falvey's The Yellow House
Sarah McCoy's The Baker's DaughterEric D. Goodman's TracksJanel Gradowski's RevengeSusan Dormady Eisenberg's The Voice I Just HeardLaurie Soriano's Catalina
Osip Mendalstam's Stolen AirErica Goss' Wild PlaceNatalie Diaz's When My Brother Was an Aztec

Not only has Serena added to my list of books to pick up, I think she's talked me into giving poetry another chance. Of course, I hope she understands that if I don't "get it," I know where to find her now! Thanks, Serena, for the interview and for all you do to make the blogosphere a more interesting place!

Book Blogger Appreciation Week

Today kicks off Book Blogger Appreciation Week 2012 and today we've been asked to talk about some of the blogs we enjoy reading daily. If you read this blog regularly, you already know about some of the blogs I read on a regular basis because I've linked to them or talked about them a lot.

I like to think that book bloggers provide a great resource to readers but sometimes it can be hard to find blogs that speak to you. I follow a lot of blogs, a list that is constantly changing as I find new bloggers to connect with and sometimes make the hard decision to stop following others. I'm looking for a few things when I add new blogs to my reader: a blogger with similar reading tastes, particularly those who will also push me to look at books out of my comfort zone; a blogger I can establish a relationship with - a big part visiting blogs is about establishing relationships; and blogs that have that something extra to offer. That last one is hard to define - it may be a blogger that has a unique feature I enjoy, a fantastic voice coming through in the writing, or a particular style of writing that speaks to me. 

All of that being said, here are some of the blogs I enjoy regularly that I might not have talked about before and wanted to make sure you were aware of:

Diary of An Eccentric: Writings of An Eccentric Bookworm:  Anna reads a lot of historical fiction, with an emphasis on Austen-related writings and war-related writings. She is also the co-host of War Through The 

Generations. Anna's daughter also writes great reviews of childrens/young adult books.

Lakeside Musing: JoAnn and I almost always agree on books that we've both read so when she writes a review on a book I haven't read it, it's definitely getting added to my wish list. She brings "new" classics to my attention and definitely has a taste for literary fiction.

SurLaLune Fairy Tales Blog: One of my go-to fairy tale blogs. SurLaLune explores the tales, has articles about what's new in fairy tales, offers fairy tale-related products and even compiles books of fairy tales. It's an excellent resource! 

Mystica: In the world of book blogs, it's easy to get overwhelmed by all of the new books being reviewed. Here I get to find new-to-me older books and I love that. Even more fun, Mystica is located in Sri Lanka and she shares wonderful things about her life and the culture. One of my biggest surprises when I started blogging was the fact that I was going to get to know people internationally. 

A Bookish Way of Life: Another blogger who has very similar reading tastes, I really enjoy Nadia's reviews. She always tells it like it is; she is not afraid to gush nor is she afraid to tell you straight out if she doesn't like a book (but she is always very clear on why and never mean). 

If these are new to you, please stop by and say hello!

Sunday Salon - September 9

Not much reading done at Casa Shepp this past week - our air conditioner has blown its last blast of cooling air and I'm here to tell you that it was too hot in my house much of the week to focus. Thank heavens the temps are going down some. With football season now in full swing, that's going to cut into my reading time as well. Nevertheless, I have high hopes for my reading and blogging this fall.

This week is Book Blogger Appreciation Week. As usual, there will be interviews, guest posts, and a lot of talk about what makes bloggers tick. Later this month, bloggers world-wide will come together to work on their blogs and support each other during Bloggiesta. And coming in October, one of my favorite things, Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon.You and I both know, after all of the times I've done this one, that there's no way I'm going to stay awake reading for 24 hours and stay focused for that time I am awake. But that never stops me from trying every six months!

Sadly, I'm going to miss one of my favorite things to do in the fall as a reader, the Omaha Lit Fest. I can't tell you how bummed I am about that, especially now that I've seen the authors who are coming.

Throughout September and on into October, I'll continue to read for R.I.P. VII (Readers Imbibing Peril). Also in October and throughout November, I'm going to be doing my Fall Feasting reading again - the books I'm going to read in these months will, for the most part, be tied into food. I've got some books lined up for that I'm really looking forward to, some that I've been wanting to read for a while and a couple that have only recently landed in my mailbox, including Thomas Jefferson's Creme Brulee from Quirk Books.

The first week in October marks two events I'm looking forward to: Seasons of Reading's  "Frightfall Read-a-thon" (and since I'm reading scary books already for R.I.P. VII, this one should be easy, right?) and "Jump On The Banned Wagon" hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. I don't know that I'll have time to read a banned book before that week but I'll definitely be going on a rant against book banning again!

This week I'll finish Tana French's Broken Harbor and start either Sarah Water's The Little Stranger for the R.I.P. readalong or Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken for the Omaha Bookworms September meeting. How did I manage to "need" to read so many long books this month?? I'm going to have to work in some short stories for R.I.P. to mix things up a bit. Hello there, Angela Carter and Mr. Poe!

What are you reading this week?

Something To Think About

"For her part, my mother was probably more alike him than he suspected, the chief difference being that showing her husband affection was among her duties. Though she might harshly reprimand a servant or child, in his presence she was always soft-spoken and demure. She deferred to his opinions, flattered his vanities, and endured his rebukes with meekness. Love was a choice she made, and then made again daily for the remainder of her life. From her I learnt that a woman should not expect her happiness to come from the man himself, but from those acts of devotion she showed him." - Debra Dean The Mirrored World


You've often heard me say "this book really made me think" but I'm not sure I always do my job in explaining what it was in the book that made me think. Sometimes it's an entire concept or theme, as in The Book of Job. Just as often it's likely to be a particular passage that really strikes me, a passage that's not always the one that makes it into my review.

Then the other day I read the above passage in Debra Dean's The Mirrored World that really lit up my brain and made me wonder what you would think about it. The first three sentences raised my hackles; I am not a wife who walks on eye shells around her husband. Those last two sentences, though, I wonder if they wouldn't resonate with all married women. In all things, I truly believe that our happiness must come from our own actions, our own choices. What do you think?

I'm hoping to bring you "Something To Think About" periodically, as I come across other passages that I think might make for good conversation. I hope you'll join me!

The Bookie's Son by Andrew Goldstein

The Bookie's Son by Andrew Goldstein
Published May 2012 by (sixoneseven) books
Source: the author and TLC Book Tours in exchange for this review

In the Bronx of 1960, life is tough for 12-year-old Ricky Davis. He can't remember his Hebrew lessons with his Bar Mitzvah bearing down on him, his mother is so unhappy that she is rarely at home, and his father is forever chasing a dream that never seems to come true. Now his latest dream gone bust has gotten him into serious trouble with a local mobster who wants his money...now.

While his father is at working as a cutter in the garment district and his mother as a secretary to a big-time promoter, Ricky is left in charge of his father's bookie business. Ricky would love to be out playing with the other kids but if he leaves the apartment, his crazy grandmother is liable to take a bet, something that is bound to cause problems for Ricky. Harry Davis is a man with a mean temper and living on the edge is making him even worse. Ricky spends much of his free time trying to figure out ways to get his father out of trouble. If only they can pay off their debt to Nathan Gluckman, Ricky hopes things will finally be better and his mother can finally be happy with the way her life has turned out. A bake sale, an attempt to convince his "girlfriend" to dance for the neighbor's for money, even an attempt to place a bet on a fixed race - Ricky is as busy trying to make a quick buck as his dad.

In his debut novel, Goldstein has done an incredible job of making the Bronx come alive, surrounding Ricky with a neighborhood full of real characters, a family of complete nuts (his grandmother is an extortionist, his mother concocts a plan to steal from Elizabeth Taylor), and descriptions of life on the Davis' street that gave me the feeling of a time and place that no longer exists. Despite all of their flaws, family and friends demonstrate loyalty and love that endear them to the reader. Goldstein manages, for the most part, to avoid the pitfalls of many first-time authors (repetition, an excess of adjectives, too many story lines), crafting a story based on his own real-life experiences that is clean and believable.

This is a book I knew nothing about, a book I took a chance on, the kind of book that makes me happy that I'm willing to reach out of my usual genres and to give new authors a chance. SixOneSeven is a micropress, where authors must take on more responsibility for their books than they might have with a larger publisher. Occasionally, this was obvious and distracted from my reading - the cartoon drawings at the start of each chapter, for example. Overall, though, I was impressed with this debut. Goldstein has mentioned that this is a book he's been writing for forty years. One can only hope that it won't take him that long to pen his next novel.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for including me in this tour. For other thoughts on this book, check out the full tour.

The Mirrored World by Debra Dean

The Mirrored World by Debra Dean
Published August 2012 by HarperCollins Publishers
Source: my source courtesy of the publisher and TLC Book Tours in exchange for this review

St. Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg, the patron saint of St. Petersburg, is said to have given all her possessions to the poor after her husband, Andrey Fyodorovich Petrov, died. After he died, tradition holds that Xenia became a fool for Christ who wore her late husband's uniform and wandered the streets of St. Petersburg. Her grave is in Smolensky Cemetery where an ornate chapel has been erected in her honor.

In The Mirrored World, Debra Dean has taken what is known about Xenia and crafted a novel around it, narrated by a fictional cousin, Dasha. When a fire forces Xenia, her mother and sister to seek shelter with Dasha's family, where Xenia and Dasha form a bond that will carry them through marriages, loss, and poverty. Along the way Dean takes the reader into the courts of Empress Elizabeth and Grand Duke Peter and Grand Duchess Catherine (who would later become Catherine the Great) and out onto the streets of St. Petersburg and the depths of poverty.

I have long had a keen interest in Catherine the Great (since reading a biography as a child) and this time in Russian history so I jumped at the chance to read this book set in that time. Dean did not disappoint, exploring what life was like in the courts of the time, with the politics and intrigue that come along with the wealth and privileges. The excesses of the wealthy juxtaposed against the extremes of want are both vivid as Dean takes us along on Xenia's transformation from a privileged young woman who attends court functions to a woman who gives away all of her worldly possessions, wearing nothing but the tattered remains of her husband's uniform. The Mirrored World is a novel primarily about passion and love that works on many levels, the love of family, the passion between men and women, religious passion. It is written beautifully with many passages that resonated with me.

"Whatever we know as children, this is the world, eaten whole and without question."

Another passage gave me pause...and sparked an idea for something new I want to explore on Lit and Life. More on that later this week.

I did have a few quibbles with this book.For a novel that is marketed about being about Xenia, she is remarkably absent from much of the book.Dean focused more on Dasha for a good part of the book, particularly once Xenia disappears, presumed dead. The reader already knows, though, that Xenia is not dead and since Dasha is telling the story looking back in time, it felt like some of what happened to Xenia might have been explored.

This is one book that might have benefited from being longer, a complaint I rarely have. Some story lines are not developed as fully as I might have liked. A son comes into Dasha's life late in the book and within pages is a grown man. I'm sure that the point Dean was making had been made merely by putting the boy in Dasha's life; but it seemed, to me, abrupt to skip on so quickly.

I'm looking forward to picking up Dean's debut novel The Madonnas of Leningrad for another look at Russia through Dean's eyes.Thanks to the ladies at TLC Book Tours for including me in this tour. For other thoughts on this book, check out the full tour list. To connect with Dean, find her on Facebook.

Sunday Salon - September 2

Happy September! I can't tell you how happy I am that fall is here, or will be soon. We have battled heat in the high 90's again this week and I am so ready for cooler temperatures to finally arrive.

I didn't get much reading done this past week. My sister and her husband celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary last week so their kids, my parents, my brother and I hosted a surprise party for them at our house Friday night. Well, sort of a surprise. My brother-in-law bought a boat this summer and was bound and determined that he was taking advantage of this long weekend for a good boating trip. We finally had to break down and tell him about the party - but at least my sister was surprised. We had a great turnout and I think they both really enjoyed themselves!

After my utter failure with Carl (of Stainless Steel Droppings) this spring (how could I NOT have succeeded at something that required reading fairy tales and folk tales???), you might be surprised to find out that I'm jumping on into R.I.P. VII (Readers Imbibing Peril) with Carl and about 100 of his closest friends. When the gals at The Estella Society announced a readalong of Sarah Water's The Little Stranger in conjunction with R.I.P. VII, I decided to jump on in.I've been wanting to read this one for a long time.

Once I decided to join the Group Read, I decided I might as well explore the rest of the options for R.I.P. VII. Since I've been wanting to read some Angela Carter for a long time as well, I've decided to also read some short stories.

While I was signing up, I noticed that there is also a Peril for the screen and Carl mentioned the original "Dark Shadows" series. I have steered far and wide away from the movie of the same name but now that Carl brought it up, I'm going to track down the series and take a trip down memory lane.

Since I'm working hard to make everything in my life, including blogging less stressful (and more fun!), R.I.P. VII is in, even if it does mean that something else has to be dropped. 

This week I've got reviews of The Mirrored World by Debra Dean and The Bookie's Son by Andrew Goldstein coming up. then my schedule is clear for October except for Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand for the Omaha Bookworms and The Headmaster's Wager for a TLC Book Tour at the end of the month. There will be plenty of time to read The Little Stranger and I'm also going to work in a couple more books that I have for review which just happen to also fit in with R.I.P. VII. What are you reading heading into fall?