TSS – January in Review

The Sunday Salon.comJanuary has come and gone in a flash.  I would think at some point I’d stop being surprised at how fast the time goes by, but it never ceases to amaze me.  This is a month I’m pretty happy to have behind me, though.  It was tough getting back into the school routine after the Christmas break and I am working on a project at work that has tapped me out in a lot  of ways.  I was hoping that it would be finished by the first of February, but it now looks more like the 16th.  The end is near, though.  That’s a good thing.  I’m looking forward to my work getting back to normal.

Blogiversary

I celebrated my 3rd blogiversary on the 17th.  Thank you so much to everyone’s well wishes.  The giveaway, including a 1g iPod Shuffle and books is still open.

Reading

Reading this month also went in fits and spurts.  January began on a high note with Shanghai Girls by Lisa See for a TLC Book Tour.   I followed that up with a near manic reading of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.  I couldn’t read them fast enough.  However, once I was finished with what we currently know about Katniss and Peeta,  I entered a reading dry spell.  I picked up and promptly put back down 8 books, including 3 audio books.  I just couldn’t be satisfied.

Thankfully, my malaise came to an end when I picked up The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom.  She is coming to Southwest Virginia in February and I’m looking forward to the chance to meet her.  I followed The Kitchen House with A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.  I loved it so much that I couldn’t wait to finish it before I posted about it.  Last night I finished Robin Maxwell’s O, Juliet, a novelization of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  In audio, I started Mudbound by Hillary Jordan.  I’m nearly finished.  I’m hoping to finish it today, but it may be early next week.  I am enjoying this novel, but it makes me so mad at times, too.

Reviews

I reviewed the following novels  this month.  Click on the image to go to the review.

Reading Deliberately
This month, I finished nearly seven books.  Of those books, three were books of my own choosing – The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mudbound.  Four were review books – O, Juliet, Shanghai Girls, The Kitchen House, and A Reliable Wife.  The Kitchen House and A Reliable Wife I said yes to this month.  As much as I have enjoyed those books, it shows a lack of  resolve in saying no to review copies.  My initial goal was to only request one book per month.  I requested those as well as Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Small Wars by Sadie Jones, Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd, and The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrel.

So, I have had mixed results with goal of reading deliberately.  I am more aware of what I’m doing, though.  That’s a good start.  Lifestyle changes take time.  On the upside, I did say no to 10 book review requests.  Compared to 3 to 5, that’s progress.

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January 31, 2010 | Filed Under Reading Deliberately, The Sunday Salon | 11 Comments 

#230 ~ Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel’s latest novel first entered my radar through an issue of BookPage, a monthly magazine made available for free from my local library.  From the momemt I saw the cover (H8 may not be displayed prominently on the cover, but you can’t slip him by me) and read the review, this book shot up to the tippity top of my “I want, I want” list.  When it finally arrived from Powell’s, it felt as precious in my hands as gold.  I love it when a book gives me that feeling.

After finishing the novel in December, I haven’t been able to wrap my head around writing a proper review.  Instead, I’m just going to give you my overall thoughts about this novel:

  • After starting this book, the darndest thing happened – I found myself liking Thomas Cromwell. Despite all that I have read about Henry VIII’s reign and his specific place in that history, I was actually fond of him.  I could not believe it.  Mantel did not gloss over who he was, where he came from, or what he did.  What she did so brilliantly was give him a life, one that was worth protecting.
  • I did not read this novel straight through.  I don’t think I could have.  It took me a little under a month to complete it.  I loved Mantel’s writing, but it requires a great deal of concentration.  When my attention drifted even a little, I found I had to reread paragraphs to figure out if the “he” in question was Cromwell or another man.  When I picked the novel back up, I never had any difficulty remembering where I was and moving forward.
  • It was nice to read about this time in Henry VIII’s history from a male perspective.  When much of what I’ve read to date is from the female perspective, the “men of the time” have been much more one-sided than they were in Wolf Hall.  There is a great deal in this novel about Cromwell’s relationship with Thomas Moore and I found it interesting to view Moore from Cromwell’s point of view.  I often found myself comparing his Moore to the Moore of Vanora Bennett’s Portrait on an Unknown Woman.
  • It would not suggest choosing this novel as one’s first introduction to Tudor history.  Despite a rather exhaustive cast of characters at the beginning of the novel, I attribute much of my enjoyment of this novel to the fact that I have a decent overall knowledge of the life of Henry VIII and the politics of his court.  Without that, I could see myself getting bogged down.
  • In equal parts I enjoyed this novel and truly respect it for its craftsmanship.  However, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to everyone.  This is a novel for those who love the Tudor time period, are interested in the Medieval English law, or are interested in the growth of Protestantism in England.  I think those without that background or types of interest would struggle with it.  This isn’t a book I would pick up and read just because it’s a Man Booker Prize winner.
  • I purchased this book in hardcover.  It is, however, available on the Kindle.  I’m not sure how I would have liked the reading on the Kindle, though.  I can’t really put the reasons why into words.  It just wasn’t “that” kind of a book.

Have you read Wolf Hall?  What did you think?

Other Voices:

Boston Bibliophile
Asylum
Fantasy Book Critic
Farm Lane Books
Medieval Bookworm

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January 28, 2010 | Filed Under Henry VIII, Historical Fiction, book review, female author, fiction | 18 Comments 

Where Has This Book Been My Whole Life?

It’s crystal clear that my recent reading blahs are a thing of the past.  Despite knowing that A Reliable Wife was only published last March, I feel like so much time was wasted before I read it.  Hadn’t I read review, after review, after review, after review, after review?  I may have only myself to blame, but I feel like it’s one of those books that has been written just for me.  Have you ever felt that way?

I started A Reliable Wife on Saturday night.  Just before bed, I read the first chapter.  Hadn’t had to get to sleep in order to keep my points for Game On Diet, I would have read more.  Yesterday, I could not stand to put the book down.  This book is dark, mysterious, sexual, and thoughtful.  Today I was reading it in bits and snatches at traffic lights (a bad habit I try my best to fight), on the elevator between the 1st and 2nd floors at work, and any other spare moment I wasn’t working.  I cannot get enough of it.  I can tell right now by the way I’m getting distracted from writing this post to read one page more that I will be finishing this novel before I go to sleep tonight.

As I’m lousy at marking down passages I love to share with you in my reviews, I used a receipt to mark page 191, the page containing the paragraph that I got so engrossed in that my fellow traveler had to beep his horn at me.  Mea maxima culpa, sir.  I have a feeling you might have needed a little prompting yourself if you had a copy of this book in your car, too:

He had meant to be so many things.  He had meant to be a poet.  He had meant to be a lover and collector of art, to encourage young artists and have them gather around him.  He meant to live his life in an orgy of sensation, according to the sensual rules of attraction and seduction.  He had meant to be a father, to have children to inherit his love of the arts and the flesh.  Instead, he had lost his heart’s deepest passions; one day he woke up and realized they were gone, amputated as surely as an arm, cut off by the death of his little girl and the infidelities of his wife, the intractable rage he felt toward his bastard child.  His affections and obsessions had been replaced by clean shirts and half-slept in sheets and polished boots and clear soups.  The world of the body and its pleasures had closed over, as a scab closes over a wound.

The only downer about this reading experience is that I will be so close, but ultimately too far away to attend Robert Goolrick’s book signing at Fountain Bookstore in Richmond on February 11th.  I will, however, be taking part in the bookstore’s Twitter book club on Monday, February 1st at 6pm EST.  Thankfully a good buddy of mine has offered to get the book signed for me.  I’ll be pouncing on the book as soon as it gets back.

So there  you have it.  I have actually torn myself away from this book long enough to tell you to run, not walk, to the library or bookstore and pick this book up.  If you have a Kindle or Nook, it’s even easier.  You won’t regret it and I can’t thank Brittany from Algonquin Books enough for sending me a review copy.

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January 25, 2010 | Filed Under Reading | 27 Comments 

Call For Suggestions & A Reading Update

Yo-Yo Mama stopped by today and asked if I would indicate whether the book is available on Kindle when I write my reviews since I am a Kindle owner.  As I read that comment, I wondered why in the world I hadn’t thought of doing that myself.  I really appreciated the suggestion.  It called to my attention the fact that the format of my reviews has not changed very much at all in the last three years.

If you go to my Library and click on links to my reviews, you’ll find the same three elements: a picture of the cover, a link to Amazon, and my review.  Recently, I tried to be better about adding links to reviews by other bloggers, but that is a recent development.  I’ve also thought about adding a rating to each review, but I just don’t think that’s me – at least not yet.  In general, though, it’s time for a change.   Besides, there’s nothing like the new and novel to get my energy flowing, right.

While I’m rethinking my review format, I would love to hear from you.  What would you like to see?  What would make the experience of reading about books at The Literate Housewife Review more enjoyable or rewarding for you?  While I might not include everything suggested, but I promise to take everything into consideration.

P.S. Speaking of my Library, I just updated it over the weekend.  It now includes all of my reviews, I’ve tested and fixed broken links, and I’ve modify formatting for books beginning with “A” or “The” to be categorized by the second word in the title.  I’m also thinking about creating a page listing books by author.

Follow Up on My Restless Reading

I just started The Kitchen House by first-time author Kathleen Grissom yesterday and I’m eating it up!  Yay!  I guess I just needed a little trip back to the Antebellum South to clear my head.  Have a great weekend, everyone!

January 22, 2010 | Filed Under About Literate Housewife | 7 Comments 

Rantings of a Restless Reader

Restless Reading

Ever since I’ve finished The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (in short, incredible reads), I have been flitting restlessly from one book to the other, never reading more than 100 pages, but mostly no more that 20.  I’ve picked up and set back down the following physical/Kindle books:

  • The Queens Mistake by Diane Haeger (about 4 chapters in, but I’m just not that in to it – probably a touch of Tudor-itis)
  • Magnolia Wednesdays by Wendy Wax (made it to 100, trying to force myself on it – that didn’t work)
  • Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls (made it to 20ish – put it down because I can tell it will be incredible and I didn’t want my general malaise to ruin it)
  • A Second Helping by Beverly Jenkins (made it 20ish pages and thought it would be “the one,” but sadly I just could not get into it)
  • Inglorious by Joanna Kovenna (made it to page 3 before I put it down – the story would be too heavy for me right now for sure)

I am currently reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck for the Classic Reads Book Club.  It’s an interesting story thus far (on page 38), but while I was waiting for Emma’s prescription to be filled, I picked up and started reading True Colors by Kristin Hannah instead.  Hmmm…

This is not just true of physical/Kindle books.  It has carried over into my audio books, too.  I’ve started and stopped the following since early this month:

  • The Other by David Guterson (stopped it maybe 5 minutes in… I could just tell…)
  • The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta (I was really looking forward to this one since I loved Little Children so much.  I got to the “my priest molested me and I kinda liked it scene before I stopped that one)
  • Somebody Else’s Daughter by Elizabeth Brundage (can you say cynical?)

This isn’t the first time since I’ve been blogging when I’ve gotten restless and otherwise unsatisfied with the books I pick up before.  I just wish I blogged about what it was that turned the tide.  I know that this time my work and home life has been so busy that I don’t have the energy to read that I normally do.  Also, my key reading time is after the kids are in bed.  With Game On Diet, I can’t sacrifice sleep for reading without losing points.  I know eventually my desire to read will return.  I just need to be patient.  Patience is not my strength.

Restless Reader Ranting

While I might not have actually finished a book in a long time, over the past few days the little reading I have been doing has driven me up the wall.  I am really, really getting tired of the  bitter, cynical adult narrator or the mildly cynical adult narrator with super-cynical adult friends.  I give a pass here to cynical young adults in literature because those feelings often go part and parcel with the age.  When the character is an adult, I just want to scream “Grow up!”  There was a time and a place in my when I would have eaten that up and begged for seconds.  Although I’m pretty far from Pollyanna myself, they just don’t appeal to me any more.  I think that grew old for me sometime after I graduated from college. If you’ve gotten past the age of 35, which is really pushing it, and you haven’t come to terms with your life, you need to take responsibility for yourself and your outlook.

The Abstinence Teacher led me to the edge of my patience.  I should have known by the title that this would be a cynical look at the wars being waged about sexual education in the public schools.  I tried to stick it out, but the whole priest thing I alluded to completely turned me off.  Still, it was Somebody Else’s Daughter that pushed me over the edge last night.

Claire, an adopted daughter of a prosperous New Englanders, has never gotten over how her father drank away the pain of his wife’s death when she, 13  at the time, needed him.  She rebelled into a world of drugs and moved to the West Coast.  She came back to her family home when her father was on his deathbed.  After deciding to live in her family home, she remains resentful as ever, not satisfied with her father’s final attempt to apologize.  Through it all, I continued to listen, hoping that she would eventually have an epiphany that would let her move on emotionally.  I took her attempting to get involved to help a badly beaten young immigrant from Poland as a good sign, but it just fed her sour world view.  Petra was clearly being abused by someone.  Her huge black eye couldn’t be hidden.  What her first encounter ended up being was a slam at the United States and then Claire ruminating at how others will either ignore Petra entirely or think she had gotten what she deserved.  Really?  I agree that there are many people who don’t want to get involved, but I find it hard to believe that there are enough people who automatically assume that an abused woman deserves it to be a factor.  That was all I could take.  There was enough redemption out there to make the rest of that novel worthwhile for me.

Cynical adults characters, especially the bitter kind with no sense of humor, are definitely a reading pet peeve of mine.  Ahh… It feels good to get that off of my chest.

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January 19, 2010 | Filed Under About Literate Housewife | 23 Comments 

The Sunday Salon ~ It’s My Blogiversary

The Sunday Salon.comToday, The Literate Housewife Review officially turns 3 years old.  I cannot believe it’s been that long or how far this blog has come.

It began its days as “52 Books or Bust” on Blogger, reflecting my New Year’s Resolution in 2007.  At the end of 2008, I’d decided to move to WordPress and I knew I needed to change my name.  I read more than 52 books that first year and it didn’t at all reflect where I hoped this blog would go.  It was my husband who came up with the ‘Literate Housewife” moniker and it fit like a glove.  After my 2009 recap yesterday, the rest is history.

I’m looking forward to what 2010 will bring.  I can tell from over the past month that balance is going to play a key role.  My home and work life have only gotten busier, leaving me less time to think about blogging, let alone writing.  I need to be as deliberate about what I post as I am about what I’ll be reading.  As the book blogging community has evolved and changed over these past three years, so will the Literate Housewife.  I still find the joy and challenges that go along with being a book blogger all extremely exciting.

In honor of my 3rd blogivesary, there are some prizes.  What celebration would be complete without that?  I have three prizes:

Grand Prize: A silver 1GB iPod Shuffle ~ perfect for listening to tunes or a great audio book.

Second Prize: A 3 Book Grab Bag ~ you’ll have to wait until your package arrives to find out what’s inside.

Third Prize: 40 Coraline bookmarks to the local library of your choice + a Coraline bookmark for you along with one surprise book from my bookshelves.

To enter the contest, please leave a comment here and let me know how long you’ve been reading The Literate Housewife Review.  It doesn’t matter if you’ve been reading for 1 minute or 3 years.  I’m just curious like that.

The contest is open until 11:59 pm EST on February 16th.  I’ll announce the winners on February 17th.

Good luck!

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January 17, 2010 | Filed Under About Literate Housewife | 88 Comments 

2009 ~ A Year in Review

Before you say anything, I know it’s taken me long enough to write this post.  January 2010 is half over at this point.  Still, I wanted to take the time to look back on what I read and done with my blog during 2009.

2009 was a great year.  I read more books and pages than I ever had before.  I know that I only scratched the surface of what was published.  We are blessed like no readers ever before.

Here are the statistics:

Books Read: 93

Pages Read: 32,438

Average Pages per Book: 349

Odd Facts: 8 of the books I rad had 288 pages. 7 books had 384 pages and another 7 had 416 pages.  There were several other page numbers shared by 4 and 3 books. Interesting how different books tend to have similar page numbers.  I would have thought that 93 books could easily have had 93 different page numbers.

Challenges Completed: R.I.P. IV, Peril the First, War Through the Generations

First Theme Week: I held my first theme week in August ~ Dog Days of Summer.  It was a lot of fun and I was blown away by the support and participation.  There will definitely by another DDoS in 2010.

Favorite Post: Where I discuss my literary infidelity.  Since writing that post, I have given in to The Hunger Games phenomenon and finished both books this month.  I’m still a tramp at heart, though. LOL!

Award: My review of Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger was selected by her publicist as one of the top 10.  I received an autographed 1st addition, which I adore.

Book Bloggers Met: 14+ (yeah!).

New Look: I moved to self-hosting in 2008, but in 2009 I invested in a new, professional look.  Karen from Simply Amusing Designs really brought my vision to life.  I feel like I now have a brand for my blog.

New Gadgets: I got my Kindle in October and I’m loving it!  I also got a Flip Camcorder for Christmas. My tripod has come in the mail, so I’m hoping to get started with some vlogs very soon.

New Perspective: As the year came to a close, I found myself dissatisfied with the way I was feeling constant pressure to read specific books by a specific time.  This was no one’s fault but my own and it called for a fresh look at my reading.  I became determined that in 2010 I would read deliberately.

Favorite 10 Books I Read: As I did last year, I’m not picking a top book.  I’m listing my 10 favorites, listed in alphabetical order below:

84, Charing Cross Road

Foreign Tongue

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl who Played with Fire

Her Fearful Symmetry

The Graveyard Book

Nefertiti

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Uncommon Reader

The White Queen

Here’s looking forward to a spectacular 2010!

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January 16, 2010 | Filed Under About Literate Housewife | 19 Comments 

#229 ~ The Help (mini review)

Cover of The Help

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help tells the story of the social situation in Jackson, Mississippi* just to the Civil Rights Movement getting started and gaining traction.  If a white woman was able to afford it, she had a black maid to help her run her house.  On the other hand, by hiring maids, the white women of Jackson provided income for the black families of Jackson, meager though it might be.  It was this need for income that compelled the maids to continue working for white families, raising their babies, and putting up with indignities such as having to use “black bathrooms” out in the carport.  Not all white women felt that treating the help like second class citizens was right.  Although the idea was at first prompted by her desire to get a job in the industry, Skeeter Phelan decides to shine a light on the reality of keeping or being the help by interviewing black maids and publishing them in a book.  Even as a fellow Junior Leaguer, this put Skeeter in danger, but that was nothing compared to the risks taken by the help who agree to speak with her.

This was the last audio book I listened to last year and I really enjoyed it.  There were times where I was exasperated by Skeeter, where I want to point out that she’s not that much different from her friends in the Junior League.  She’s using Aibileen, Minnie, and the others for her own gain.  Pushing them outside of their comfort zones and subtly manipulating Aibileen with guilt.  Still, Skeeter has a good heart and is not any more self-centered than any other recent college graduate.  For me, I will forever keep the character of Aibileen in my heart.  She is who made The Help for me.

* A special thanks to A Bookshelf Monstrosity for pointing out a major geographical error. Sometimes I think I need an assistant. LOL!

Other Voices

The Book Lady’s Blog
At Home with Books
Medieval Bookworm
Hey Lady! Watcha Readin?
Presenting Lenore
Rhapsody in Books
I’m Booking It
The Bluestocking Society
So Many Precious Books, So Little Time
Book Journey
I Smell Books
A Novel Menagerie
The Magic Lasso
Redlady’s Reading Room
Farm Lane Books

******

I bought this audio book with one of my credits from Audible.com.

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January 15, 2010 | Filed Under Historical Fiction, book review, female author, fiction | 25 Comments 

#228 ~ The Heretic Queen (mini review)

Cover of The Heretic Queen

The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran

I read Michelle Moran’s first novel, Nefertiti, with my Facebook book club, Historical Fiction Lovers book club.  Nefertiti was our Queen of August.  We all loved the novel so much that we made The Heretic Queen or selection for November.  We all loved it just as much.  This novel tells the story of Nefertari, Nefertiti’s niece.  She loves Ramses, but her ties to Nefertiti, the heretic, both hold her back from life as a Pharaoh’s wife and put her in a great deal of danger.  I found this book so engrossing that I stayed up until 2am one morning because I had to keep finding out what happened over and over again until my eyes could no longer focus.  I may love Mutny from Nefertiti a little more than Nefertari, but this novel is in no way inferior to Moran’s first.

Other Voices

Booking Mama Medieval Bookworm
S. Krishna’s Books
At Home with Books
Book Addiction
Dear Author
Book Nook Club
Beth’s Book Nook
My Fluttering Heart
Violet Crush The Tome Traveller’s Weblog
Diary of an Eccentric
Everything Distils into Reading

******

I purchased this novel from my local independent bookseller.

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January 13, 2010 | Filed Under Historical Fiction, book review, female author, fiction | 7 Comments 

#227 ~ The Little Stranger

Cover of The Little Stranger

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Dr. Faraday, a bachelor with meager beginnings, is a local family doctor. Normally his clients are from or near his own socioeconomic status, so he was somewhat surprised when he was called to an increasingly run down Hundreds Hall.  It is here where his mother worked as a maid in her early years.  Although he was called to tend to a maid when their usual doctor is unavailable and not one of the Ayres themselves, this  house call begins an ongoing association between him, the Ayres family, and Hundreds Hall.  These relationships change the course of his life and the lives of everyone associated with Hundreds Hall forever.

This novel has great Gothic atmosphere.  Hundreds Hall is such a wonderful setting for things that go bump in the night – or day.   Despite a few sections that seem long in retrospect, this novel had my attention throughout.  I wanted to know what would happen to the Ayres family, especially Roderick and Caroline.  That Caroline, born to a privileged family, is not stunning beauty was a relief.  This makes her more real and accessible.  The name Roderick itself set the tone for me.  Is there a more perfect name for a character in a Gothic novel?  I think not.  Best of all, he lived up to his name.

This is the first novel I’ve read by Sarah Waters.  The writing is spectacular and the characters are curious and fleshed out well.  The depth Waters gave to the characters and the house made the reading experience for me.  Once again, my go-to narrator, Simon Vance, hits the mark perfectly. I left this novel not at all sure what really happened in the end.  Sometimes that is exactly what is called for and I love it.  This time, it left me on the fence.  I will need to ponder it for a while.  It, along with The Thirteenth Tale and The Sister, has reignited my love of Gothic novels and prompted me to buy some similar novels, though.  Maybe I’m not so conflicted about The Little Stranger as I think I am.  I look forward to talking to others about this novel and I can easily see myself reading it again to pick up clues to puzzle through the ending.

++++

This book will be discussed by Nicole and Rebecca tomorrow night (1.12.10) at 8pm on Nicole’s Blog Talk Radio show, “That’s How I Blog.”  Be sure to tune in.  I know I will be.

++++

Other Voices

Regular Rumination
Asylum
Fleur Fisher reads
S. Krishna’s Books
literary license
1 more chapter
Medieval Bookworm
books i done read
A Garden Carried in the Pocket
A Bookworm’s Worlds
Shelf Love
Jenny’s Books
You’ve GOTTA Read This!
Farm Lane Books

*******

I purchased this audio book using one of my credits from Audible.com.

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January 11, 2010 | Filed Under Gothic Fiction, Historical Fiction, book review, female author, fiction | 16 Comments 

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