The Little Giant of Aberdeen County

In honor of my bookclub tonight (and to remind myself what the book was about before the really insightful questions start), here is The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County is Truly, a fascinating woman who grows to be much taller than any other woman in Aberdeen, and is taller than all of the men as well. Her mother dies during childbirth (Truly believes because she was an extremely large baby) and her father dies when she and her sister are not very old. Serena Jane, her perfect tiny sister is sent to live with the babysitter who would not watch Truly as a child, and Truly goes to live with the Dyersons, a farming family whose daughter Amelia is Truly's best friend. Truly's life is not easy, but she tries to do her best for her family (both adopted and blood), and finds her place in the world. I'm not doing it justice, but this book was great. Truly is an amazing character, interesting and vivid. Amelia and Marcus, her friends, and Robert Morgan her nemisis/ brother in law are especially well written, and I'm a sucker for a good revenge story. But who isn't, right? You fall in love with a good character, she faces some tough times, is treated badly, and then gets back at those people, while maintaining her goodness? And I didn't find it contrived? That's a hard line to tow, but Baker does it beautifully. It's a wonderful book club pick, full of interesting ideas to talk about, and fun characters to discuss. Next month is Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, which I skimmed the first chapter of while stuck behind a register the other day and looks great, so I'll let you know.

The Postmistress

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake is holding steady on the bestsellers list, and I'm going to tell you a little secret. I read it about a month ago, and didn't post anything, because well... I think it sucked. That's not fair, even as I typed it I thought it was unfair. It didn't suck. It just wasn't very good. In my book pretty much exclusively apparently. Now, the thing is, every single other person I know in the book industry who has read it loved. All of them. A few of which I consider to be infallible sources of good reading material. It's the story of a small town during WWII and three different women. The characters were okay... But just okay. The story line was interesting, I guess, but the ending was completely implausible. I gave this book to a coworker at school, and she didn't like it very much either, but I could have been influencing her opinion by handing it to her and saying something like "it sucked, please read this and tell me why people love it."

Anyway, if you want to read it, I have a copy you can borrow, just ask. And explain to me why it's great...

Blogger Award

So I received this from my friend Meghan Scarsella, of the wonderful

Kitchen Notes blog. I'm not sure I deserve this, since I haven't posted anything in a while, but I'll take it anyway!

Here's how this whole thing works: -Thank the person who nominated you and insert a link to their blog. -Say 10 things about yourself. -Pass on the award to others and let them know. Here are ten things about me... None of them very interesting, sorry. 1. Really great books are better than pretty much anything else for me. Discovering a wonderful new author is like making a new friend, and I am extremely loyal to the authors I love. 2. The reason I am such a devoted reader? Yeah, sure, I'll give some credit to wonderful storytellers, but the real reason is less poetic. I had the worlds worst 1st grade teacher, and as my educator friends know, 1st grade is a pretty important year. I was an extremely shy kid, and I got behind, and was too scared to ask for help, not that Mrs. Isuckatteaching would have been able to help me anyway. My mother was called into a conference and told that I would never read at the level of my peers. Being my Mom, she got me a tutor, started working with me, and by 4th grade I was reading at a 9th grade level. Suck it. 3. The first book I loved was one of those Step into Reading books about the Titanic. I read it by myself, and remembering being so proud that I could do it, and finding the history interesting. I still love good historical books. 4. I'm a super fast typer, so this blog should be easier than it is. I read constantly, but I forget to post books. I keep promising myself I'll be better at it, but obviously I'm not very good at keeping those promises to myself. 5. I'm a character girl. Give me an interesting character and I will follow an alarming number of pages to the end. Great plot with annoying characters? Not so much. 6. I own a lot of Photography books. I mean a lot. I love good photography (especially black and white), and I worship Ansel Adams. Despite that, I am a lazy environmentalist, who is even now thinking about buying a new digital camera. He would be ashamed. But wouldn't it be great to have a new camera for my New York trip? I love new cameras... 7. I love making predictions that have no probability of being true. 2013 there will be a new, crummy J.D. Salinger book. The Passage will be the biggest book of 2010 (it should be, but it won't, stupid James Patterson). 8. I unabashedly love TV. Whatever, it's awesome. 9. I need to read less crap. Seriously, why am I reading the Sookie Stackhouse books? They are okay, but not all that great, though True Blood is a great show. But I am slowly making it through them. I have a stack of what are probably wonderful new books to read, why am I reading something about vampires? I am actually reading the best book of 2010 right now, The Passage, which you will hear more about when I actually finish it this weekend. 10. I get really excited about Cubs baseball, Broadway musicals, gardening, and new free advance reader books, but not really in that order. I came up with 10!

Shades of Grey

So I dorked out about Jasper Fforde weeks ago, and am now getting to reviewing his new book, Shades of Grey. Here is the dilemma folks. I loved this book. But I didn't, throwing books at customers because they dared to mention a book with Eyre in the title love it. Okay, that's a true story, poor customers, poor coworkers, though the coworker it happened to is now reading the series... Shades of Grey follows Eddie Russet as he and his father are banished to the outer fringes of their world after a prank gone bad. The thing about their world is that most people can only see one color, Eddie is a red, pretty low on the social scale, but he can see a lot of red... See? It was easier when the Prince of Denmark was showing up in London lamenting about Ophelia, that was easy for me to understand (Something Rotten), or Jack Sprat and Mary Mary are solving Humpty Dumpty's murder (The Big Over Easy). Well, anyone, Eddie's greatest ambition is to marry some chick who has a long lineage of being high red seers, but then of course he meets Jane, a Grey (Jane Grey, okay, that's a little dorky funny), and figures out that this society based on arbitrary rules and the obsession over seeing colors is ridiculous. I know someone who likes this book better than the Thursday books. To which I believe I called him a moron, but he made a valid point, these are classic Fforde characters, rich, interesting and funny, but this book is more Sci-fi-y than the others. Fforde has created a world completely different from ours in this one (though, you'll have to admit, a land where Ms. Havisham is working for a kind of policing agency is a little different, and AWESOME), and for me, at least, the plot gets lost in creating this world. But Eddie, Jane and the rest of the cast of characters were good enough to make this a good book. Like a solid B+ instead of his consistent A+'s. I think that now that I understand the Grey world, I'll like the next book better (though the next book he's writing is Thurs book, so yeah!). A highly recommended book if you like SciFi, a pretty highly recommended book if you just like interesting novels.

Under the Dome

Oh Stephen King, how I have missed you. I mean, like really really missed you. I'll give you Duma Key, it was a fabulous book, it was almost up to your amazing standards. But not quiet there. And then I start hearing about this new book you have, this time even longer. And then a friend or two read it, and my first question is "Tommyknockers or It?" "No, it's the Stand." I bought it and it sat on a shelf, mocking me throughout the entire Christmas season, during my 70 hour weeks, torturing me. I needed to know if this incredibly long book was as unputdownable as It, or even the Stand. I am not lying to you, dear reader, when I tell you after a very long time away from my new recommendation list, Mr. King has done it again. Under the Dome is fabulous. Creepy, scary, with extremely vivid characters you either completely love or loath. Oh, has he managed a villain as evil as Big Jim since Flagg? And in Flagg's defense, since he did appear in two of my favorite King novels, he gets the upper hand, but like Pennywise in It or insanity (?), or for my money, those moving topiaries (they freaked the hell out of me) in the Shining, he was supernatural. And Barbie is his best hero since Stu in the Stand.

So anyway! In a small Maine town, the residents go about their business until an invisible and completely inpenetrable dome appears surrounding their village. With one doctor, one nurse and a nurse practitioner as their only medical personnel, and 3 village selectmen to run the town, a new Sheriff to replace the one who died the day the Dome came down, and various other concerned citizens King manages to describe a place that is both familiar and terrifying. Big Jim, the town selectman who really runs the show, promotes a yes man to Sheriff, and does all he can to promote chaos in the town. Dale Barbara is the man the Us military would like to take over running the town, but Big Jim stands in his way, and the rest of the people who try to help Barbie restore some sort of reason to the town are slowly dealt with, their standing in town completely destroyed.

Look, it's King, so as a friend pointed out, you read it just to see who will die next, to see what evil will befall these people. But I loved the characters, Barbie, Julia, the teenagers, and everyone who was working against Big Jim, and the pace of the plot was constantly fast (not a small feat considering the page number). It was unputdownable, even when your wrists start to hurt from holding it.

Just... The ending... I won't give it away, but... He explains the Dome, and then it has an ending. Whatever, I'm willing to forgive almost anything because Horace the dog lives happily ever after.

His best book in twenty years. Seriously. I should check out that statistic I keep throwing out. I made it up one day at the bookstore, and now I have several people saying it, and I'm not entire sure that It wasn't late 80's... To Wikipedia!

New York

It occurs to me, as I am planning my trip to New York this year, that I have yet to review Edward Rutherfurd's book about the city. I love Edward Rutherfurd, his insanely long novels make me feel like I've accomplished something when they are done. I usually like his stories and the amazing historical research he must have done to finish a 1000 paged novel, and New York was no different. Perhaps because unlike London, the Forest, and Russia, I've spent some time in New York, and I spent a lot of the early part of the book trying to figure out in my head where that is in relation to places I've been. Or maybe American History is far more familiar to me than the history of other places (shut up, my minor was History, didn't mean I need to retain anything). Whatever the case, New York is not my favorite of his novels, and if you are going to read a couple thousand pages on the history of a city, I would start with London. But if you loved Pillars of the Earth, or just really like historical fiction, Edward Rutherfurd is a great read.

Don't ask just read it.

Tonight I met Jasper Fforde. I know, I'm excited for me too. He's dreamy. Charming, witty, clever and all of it comes out sounding prettier because he's British. He can say works like languid and droll. I don't think I've ever heard an American say languid and not sound pretentious. Jasper did not sound pretentious. He talked for an hour, and it was funny, interesting and no one asked a stupid question (unheard of in my experience of book signings). No, I take that back, one question was stupid, but the guy wanted so badly for it not to be a stupid question, I forgive him. I spent the last two days in a panic that this stupid snow storm would ruin my chance at finally meeting Fforde. But the skies cleared up, he was able to arrive from Michigan (again, I'm not stalking him, I just spent some time ignoring my job to check his website this week), Patricia and I were able to get to Old Orchard (another big worry, Patricia hates snow, I was scared I would have to dork out on my own), have a lovely warm dinner and listen to him talk about his books for an hour! His new book is a departure, so if you are reading this and decided to read him, start with the Eyre affair. But I think it's going to be great. I'll let you know how great when I finish my signed copy (eeeh!). He talked a little bit about how he comes up with stories, basically by coming up with a strange concept, say the murder of Humpty Dumpty, and figuring out how that would work. He wrote the first two Thursday books after the Nursery Crimes books didn't sell, and he wrote them for him, thinking they would never be published. He found an agent, who sold it basically it by copying a bunch of copies and giving it to her staff and then their friends. That's awesome. Because you can't describe these books, even eloquent Jasper can't. So he suggest we just say "Don't ask, just read it." And so, my friends, that is my suggestion to you. The books are amazing, but unexplainable. His next book is going to be another Thursday book! I love Thursday books. This is a writer who writes for readers. Especially the Thursday books, but all of them really. I was surprised to learn he dropped out of school at 18, though his entire family are academics. He's so clever, and his books are so well written and interestingly plotted. I love writers who write for readers. That's something I've heard before from other authors when they are asked about movie deals. Fforde claims his books, at least the Thursday books, will never be made into movies. I hope he sticks with that, and I wouldn't try to put Jack Spratt and Mary Mary on the big screen either. The impression I got, is this is a guy who knows he owes all of his success to 'constant readers' as Stephen King always calls us, and that letting Hollywood take a crack at Thursday and her world would be a mistake.

And he gave out buttons! And postcards! I just love going to author signings! And this means that I have now met all of my favorite living authors. So whatever else 2010 brings, at least I met one great author. BEA, I'm looking at you. Get the good authors to show up, have them sign new books, and don't try to convince me that I will ever care about James Patterson. Now there is an author who can sell the rights to all of his books, written or a movie, his plots will still suck. Christopher Moore, I better see you in New York. And Jasper should come back! I have a feeling his entire rabid following will be there.

I really have to finish Home for tomorrows book club. It's really good, I swear, but unprepared for decently posed questions.