Better Late Than Never--I Just Can't Pass Up Armchair BEA!

Two years ago,at about this time, I started to hear a lot about a little thing called Book Expo America (BEA) being held in New York City. Okay, BEA is definitely NOT a "little" thing. It's a huge deal, with hundreds of publishers and publicists showing off their upcoming offers to librarians, book store buyers, reviewers and bloggers alike. It seemed like every blogger I follow was there, posting pictures and writing about the glorious fun they were having. A week or so later, posts with pictures of all of the books they had picked up at BEA began appearing. I was feeling mighty left out. But I had only just decided to write a book blog so I had no idea that people like little 'ole me could even go. Last year, my envy grew by leaps and bounds when I realized that I could, in fact, go to BEA (assuming it were financially and logistically feasible, which it wasn't). To make matters worse, I was missing the first ever Book Bloggers Convention.

This year I was definitely going to go. A friend, who is also a blogger, has moved to New Jersey. I could stay with her and it was only a short train ride to get into the city. Perfect. Except that life interfered. Things in my house are not conducive to me being gone and my friend is going to Italy with her husband this week. Hurray for her! Not so much for me. My life is insane right now and I didn't think I'd be able to join Armchair BEA as a consolation but just today I decided to make the time. Because maybe, just maybe, it will allow me to keep that green-eyed monster at bay.

Day One Assignment for Armchair BEA: Introduce Yourself

Lit and Life kicked off on May 28th, 2009 with a small post that no one read because I hadn't even told anyone I was doing it yet. On May 31st my first book review, The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt. With every post, every day for months afterwards, I drove my husband crazy with my squealing as I learned new things that could be done on my blog. Not long afterward, I began driving him even crazier when I start squeeing every time a new book arrived in my mailbox (I'm sorry to say, it's not a condition I've outgrown).

So who am I? Those of you who follow me regularly already know more about me than you could ever wish to know. For the rest of you, I'm a mother (three of my own and a couple of dozen who I'm proud to say call me Mama Shepp) and a wife (we've been married since dinosaurs roamed the earth). I read (duh), love musicals, enjoy cooking and baking, and am, I must admit, something of a control freak (stop laughing, family). Clearly I'm also a fan of the parentheses! I'm part of a family of readers and you can expect to find period guest reviews from some of them as well as book recommendations from several others. If I could put one book in everyone I meet's hand's, it would be Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale because it's a brilliant, thought-provoking and prescient piece of literature.

Sunday Salon - May 22

Happy Sunday, everyone! It's been a busy weekend for us, trailing a busy week, but we were so happy to be able to share in the celebration of my brother's youngest's graduation from high school. Congrats, Tigger! Part of the fun of any of these kinds of celebrations is getting to be with family and we're very lucky to get the chance to be with most of them again next weekend when my sister's youngest graduations as well. Looking forward to sharing that with her!

The drive there and back gave me a great chance to get some reading in which was a good thing because I couldn't put down Tom Franklin's "Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter." For me, it's definitely worthy of all of the praise it's received.

Now it's on to Henry Kissinger's On China.  I've mentioned before that my dad used to teach current events classes and always had the news on every evening. Growing up in when I did, that meant that Henry Kissinger was a person that I heard a lot about. I'm not sure I'll agree with him (we have pretty different political viewpoints) but I do respect his experience and knowledge and I'm looking forward to his thoughts on a very power country.

Mercy arrived in my mailbox this past week. I've been really cutting way back on taking on books for the coming months but being of Danish descent, I couldn't pass up this one by Danish author, Jussi Adler-Olsen.



Think I'll be reading this one only when it's light out!

Timothy Schaffert, author of The Coffins of Little Hope has created a companion site for the book. As you may recall from my interview, part of the book revolves around a children's book series and this site is the site that the publisher of those books would have set up. The Coffins of Little Hope has now gone into it's second printing!

I've recently learned that Rainbow Rowell's Attachments is also available in audio form for those of you who also enjoy audio books. I'm also hoping to be able to post an interview with Rowell soon--we're trying to put that together!

What's on your agenda for the coming week? Do you have big plans for the holiday weekend?

Cat Thursday

 

 

Looks like my son's kitten has been playing entirely too many video games!

Cat Thursday is hosted by Michelle of The True Book Addict

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
262 pages
Published March 2010 Simon & Schuster Adult
Source: bought this one to read with the Omaha Bookworms

In Enniscorthy, Ireland in post World War II, jobs are tough to come by so when Eilis Lacey is offered a part-time job at a local shop she can't turn down the opportunity despite the fact that neither her mother nor her sister approve of the owner. Not long afterward, Eilis' beloved sister, Rose, tells Eilis and her mother that she has invited a Father Flood to tea. Father Flood is originally from Enniscorthy but is currently living in the U.S. His purpose in coming to tea is to invite Eilis to come to Brooklyn; he will sponsor her and has already lined up a job and housing. As she sits there listening to the good father, Eilis realizes that both her mother and sister are being unusually quiet and it comes to her that it's really already been decided that she will be going to America.

After a horrible journey across rough seas, Eilis arrives in America to begin her new life and soon settles into a routine that is, well, routine and a little boring. Despite living in Brooklyn in a very exciting time, Eilis lives a very insular life. She goes to work, she goes to night school, she spends what little free time she has almost exclusively at the boarding house. And in all of those places, Eilis makes almost no effort to befriend anyone. She can't seem to find the place where she fits in and the things that happen around her seem to affect her very little. Perhaps the only thing that she is at all aware of is all of the discrimination rampant in the ethnically diverse borough.

Finally Eilis meets a nice Italian boy and discovers first love and finally becomes more a part of America. Then a terrible tragedy takes her back to Ireland. Once there, Eilis begins to feel the draw of a real home, unsure whether she will ever return to America.

I read this book with the Omaha Bookworms for our May selection after it was recommended by one of our members (Mari of Bookworm With A View). Mari loved it, in no small part because it evoked memories of stories she had heard from her grandparents who were Irish immigrants who settled in Brooklyn at about the same time. Only half of the ladies had actually finished the book so it was hard to talk too much about the book but even those who had only gotten part way through the book were really enjoying it.

Time moves at quite a pace in Brooklyn; Toibin bypasses long periods of time between episode and vignettes. Toibin compares his writing style to Ernest Hemingway with good cause; he knows how to tell a story with just what is necessary to tell the story perfectly. Nothing showy or lush about Brooklyn. All of the emotion is just under the surface and yet it is palpable and the characters are believable and realistic. This book was twice short-listed for the Mann Booker Prize and now I know why.

Island Girl by Lynda Simmons

Island Girl by Lynda Simmons
448 pages
Published December 2010 by Penguin Group
Source: the publisher and TLC Book Tours

Ruby Donaldson has known she has Alzheimer's disease (or Big Al as she calls it) for a year but lately the disease has really begun to accelerate and it's time for Ruby to set things in order with her daughters.

Daughter Grace has a "mild intellectually delay" and, after a terrible tragedy two years ago, Ruby has brought Grace back to the island the family has lived on for three generations, an island in Toronto Harbor, so that Ruby can protect Grace. The only way to reach the island is by ferry; once there the only ways to get around are by foot or bicycle and the residents of the chain of islands only number in the hundreds so it's an easy place to protect someone. But now Ruby needs to find someone to take care of Grace when she is gone. And she will, indeed, be gone. Ruby's plan is to commit suicide before the disease progresses too far.

Enter Ruby's oldest daughter, Liz. The tragedy that brought Grace back to the island, also tore Liz and Ruby apart. It also caused Liz to abandon her law career and sent her careening into alcoholism. When Ruby tracks down Liz and appeals to her to return to care for her sister, Liz wants none of it. She firmly believes that Grace should be allowed to live her own life and Liz is feed up with doing things Ruby's way.

Ruby has held her secret for a year. But when she seeks out one-time love, and father figure to her girls, Mark, things begin to happen in ways that Ruby could not have predicted.

When I was approached about reading and reviewing this one, I jumped at the chance, in no small part because Simmons is Canadian. This is a country that has given us Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables), Yann Martel (The Life of Pi), Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient) and Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale). Any time I have a chance to discover a new Canadian author, I'm in.

Each of the women is well-developed and I enjoyed learning to like Ruby and Liz as the book progressed. At first I really didn't care for either of them and had a hard time understanding them. I really enjoyed the supporting cast of island inhabitants; they were just the kind of quirky group of characters that I enjoy.


While there was much in Island Girl that I liked, ultimately I felt as if Simmons may have tried to do too much in this book. The story is told in alternating first-person narratives from Ruby, Liz and Grace and each of the women has much more going on than just the story line of dealing with Ruby's Alzheimer's diagnosis. Although I understood that Simmons purpose with these story lines was to develop each character, I think I would have enjoyed the book more if it had concentrated more on the relationship between the women and about the progression of Ruby's disease.

"The memory blanks have been coming more frequently lately, lasting longer. Before the diagnosis, I'd shrug and put it down to menopause or overwork. Convince myself that losing my keys a half dozen times a day was perfectly normal. And hadn't everyone put the toaster in the freezer at least once? Now, of course, I knew the truth. The sad and ugly truth. And the color of that bill would haunt me until I got home. Or until I forgot, whichever came first."

There is a lot about this book that would make it a great book club selection: family dynamics, the choices that we make in regard to our health and lives, progress (Ruby is an rabid activist against a nearby airport), and the rights of the mentally challenged. And that ending--that ending will definitely have people talking!

To learn more about Simmons and her books, check out her website.

Island Beneath The Sea by Isabel Allende

Island Beneath The Sea by Isabel Allende
480 pages
Published April 2011 by HarperCollins Publishers
Source:  the publisher and TLC Book Tours

Toulouse Valmorain, in powdered wig, buckles on his shoes and the latest fashions and ideas from France, arrived in 1770, at age twenty, on the island that will eventually become Haiti. He has come to help his father but when he arrives, ill prepared for the conditions and the responsibilities of running a plantation, he finds that his father is dying and the plantation in shambles. Over the next few years, Valmorain manages to turn the land around but it is not until he finally finds, in Cuba, a Spanish bride, that he rebuilds his home.

To prepare for her arrival, Valmorain calls on the services of his friend, and former lover, VioletteBoisier. Violette literally puts his house in order. She hires for his wife a young slave girl, Zarite. Born into slavery to a white sailor and a slave mother she never knew, Zarite has lead a difficult life. In Valmorain's house and under his protection, Zarite (Tete) will no longer be beaten but will give birth to his children, be required to tend to his wife's every need as she is consumed by madness, and be denied the freedom he promises her for years.

The two will be tied together for decades to come as they flee the bloody slavery rebellion, seeking refuge in New Orleans. When Tete has the opportunity to escape Valmorain during the rebellion, she can't take it, knowing it would mean abandoning their daughter and his son, who she has raised as her own. In Louisiana,  Valmorain will try to establish a plantation using more humane methods to treat his slaves as Zarite will fight to retain her own humanity, despite new humility, and to protect those she loves while trying to find love herself.

Through the arc of their lives, they are influenced by a huge cast of characters including Dr. Parmentier, Valmorain's abolitionist friend; Sancho Garcia del Solar, Valmorain's vice-loving brother-in-law; Tante Rose, a slave who is natural healer and voodoo leader; and Hortense Guizot, Valmorain's second wife, a woman made the lives of all around her miserable.

Allende is the queen of the sweeping historical sage about people you come to know intimately. This is the fourth book by Allende I've read and I went into it with high hopes for the kind of story that I have come to love. Before Allende writes a book, she clearly does a massive amount of research. Sometimes the book can get bogged in all of that research. Publisher Weekly's reviewer had a major problem with this, stating that Allende was offering nothing new. That well may be true in general, but there was a lot here that was new to me. I wasn't reading the book for new insights into history; I was reading the book for the story set in an historical context. Like Barbara Kingsolver, Allende can slip into moral lesson mode and occasionally falls back onto stereotypes. 

All of which I forgive Allende because her story telling simply sweeps me up and carries me along. Her descriptions of place are beautiful, her characters (for the most part) are well-rounded, and there is an underlying tension throughout the book. Those of you who are regular readers know that I have a hard time with magic and spiritualism in a book, but when Allende does it, it works for me (in this book, it appears in the form of voodoo).

Most of this book was told as a third person narrative, but periodically Allende switched to Zarite's voice which was honest and poetic.

"This is how they told it. This is how it happened in Bois Cayman. This is how it is written in the legend of the place they now call Haiti, the first independent republic of Negroes. I don't know what that means, but it must be important because the blacks say it with applause and praise and the whites say it with rage."

Island Beneath the Sea is filled with passion, sadness, hope and heartbreak in the way that only Allende can do it.

"Many [newborns] died of tetanus, paralyzed, their jaws frozen; that was one of the island's mysteries, because whites did not suffer from that disease. The masters did not suspect that those symptoms could be provoked, undetected, by sticking a fine needle into a soft part of the baby's head before the cranial bones hardened. In that way the baby went happily to the island beneath the sea without ever experiencing slavery."

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. For other reviews on this book and several others by Allende, please check out the full tour. My apologies for not getting this review posted on Thursday--thanks, Blogger, for being down most of the day!

To learn more about Isabel Allende and her books, check out her website.

Sunday Salon - May 8

Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers out there, what ever form that may take! I'm looking forward to a lovely quiet day; I'm not sure what the kids are planning though (assuming they've thought that far ahead!). Reading on the patio will be a big part of my day, I'm sure.

I haven't been getting nearly enough reading in. Generally I'm not much of a television watcher, especially once football is over, but I've really gotten into "American Idol" this year so that's eating into some of my reading time. Are any of you fans? Do you have a favorite?

Yesterday I made a Half-Price Book Store run. Took a giant bag of books that was mostly kids books and came home with a new pair of reading glasses (they are soooo fun!) and Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop. At the Omaha Lit Fest last fall, there was a lot of talk about Carter and this is the second of her books that I've picked up. I have yet to read the other but they don't show up there very often so I couldn't pass it by.

I had to make the terrible decision to hit the "Mark All As Read" on my Google Reader today. I was at nearly 900 unread posts and there's no way I'm going to even have time to read through all of them, let alone comment. Hoping that now I'll be able to at least keep up with the reading.

Must get reading this week. I've got several books that need to be done in short order. It's finally gotten warm out so I foresee a lot of reading on the patio this week. What's on your reading agenda for the week?