EXCITING NEWS!!!

After talking about it for many years, my husband and I are about to open a used bookstore.

We have owned a retail business before – an ice cream parlor – so we know what it’s like to own your own business. A lot of work! A food-based business takes constant attention. We had to make sure we didn’t run out of the product – soft and hard ice cream of course, but also all the by-products such as cones, dippings, toppings, candy sprinkles and other ingredients. And since in our shop we also offered frozen yogurt and a variety of cold drinks, we had to have fruit, milk and products to make smoothies and slushes. And those are just the food items. Also required are the bowls, napkins, spoons, cups and lids and the list goes on and on..

I haven’t owned a bookstore yet (opening is in September) so I can’t swear that it will be that different from owning an ice cream store but I suspect there will be vast differences. For one thing books don’t have an expiry date (at least the good ones don’t!) We won’t be visited by food inspectors or have to calm crying children because they dropped their cone. (Yep, that happened a lot!) We’ll still have to buy the product to re-sell but we won’t have to drive a long way several times a week to a crowded wholesaler to get it. Most of the product will come right to our door!

But to actually get the thing opened and running is another thing. As it was for the ice cream shop, we will be very busy getting every little detail taken care of so that we can start selling books as soon as possible when our lease starts on September 1. There is a business at the location until then so we can’t sneak in a bit early to get a jump on things. We need to hire staff, get signage done, a phone and the internet hooked up, shelves built, cash register bought, not to mention renting a truck and hauling furniture and books to the store and do all this while the front door is open to attract book lovers. Oh, this will be fun!

I’ll be sure to write a progress report soon on this new adventure and post pictures as soon as I have them!

Review: RAVENS by George Dawes Green

After a family wins a big lottery, they are threatened by a pair of drifters who want to share in the winnings. The leader, Shaw, inveigles himself into the family’s life while the other, Romeo, stays on the outskirts ready to pounce on unsuspecting family members living in the same small town as the lottery winners.

I was a bit disappointed with this book. I found that the antagonists, Shaw and Romeo, were just not that scary. Romeo was actually soft-hearted and it was too difficult to believe that he could be a cold-hearted killer. He spent most of the book trying to get up the nerve to shoot somebody if it proved to be necessary. Shaw was more believable. His character was skewed and nasty and I could see someone with a personality like his causing a situation as described in this novel. The family members were a bit flat even given their peccadilloes – mother alcoholic, father religious, young son spoiled. The only level-headed family member was Tara, a clever young student, and I thought she could have figured out a dozen ways to extricate her family from Shaw’s clutches. Also, I found Tara’s relationship with her best friend Clio a bit odd. Do small town girls really speak the way they do to each other? It had me questioning the true nature of their friendship. Clio seemed to hold sway over Tara the same way Shaw did over Romeo but Tara’s relationship with her friend appeared out of character. From page 26:

“Oh shut up. You’re not gonna lose me. Who’s my bitch?”
She put her hand on Clio’s neck.
Said Clio, “Let go of me now, degenerate.”
Tara said, “You’d love it.”

This dialogue is also an example of the slightly off-putting use of the word, ‘said’ in several instances. I found it a bit awkward since it lead me to re-read the dialogue several times wondering why the author did this. As a result, it took me out of the story - which for a word used only as a necessary literary tool is not a good thing. I think the reader is not supposed to notice words such as ‘said’, ‘the’ and ‘he/she’. But perhaps it’s just a form of writing that needs getting used to.

Despite all of this the plot wasn’t so bad that it didn't keep me reading. I wanted to know how it would all turn out and I did like the ending. It may be that I simply caught this book at a bad time, and I would have found less fault with it if I had read it in a different frame of mind.

Review: THE BLUE NOTEBOOK by James A. Levine

There are some books that I just can’t wait to read. I’m excited about them and I know I’m going to love them just for their pure entertainment value. The Blue Notebook is not one of those books, though since it was hugely enlightening I am very glad I read it.

The story follows a 15 year-old prostitute in Mumbai who finds a pencil and begins writing the story of her life. Batuk manages to find a level of comfort through writing her thoughts and experiences as she goes about her work. Her life changes when the emissary for a wealthy businessman negotiates for her services. She records everything she goes through.

This book is beautifully written and heart-piercingly difficult to read. I found myself reading a few pages ahead looking for assurance that the protagonist would come out of the latest incident without too much trauma. This practice is perhaps a form of denial – bad things only happen to bad people and in the end only good happens to the innocent.

Child prostitution is a way of life for many children around the world. I know that. But reading about one child’s story brings the issue to the fore of my consciousness and that makes the problem all the more real and vivid for me. I’m glad I read this book but don’t know what I can contribute to the problem other than being aware that it exists. On the back of the book it says:

All of the U.S proceeds from this novel will be donated to the International and National Centers for Missing and Exploited Children (http://www.icmec.org).

So, I suppose buying the book contributes a very small amount to a very worthwhile cause. Still it is definitely worth it. I highly recommend this book.

Books Bought and Blogger Meet-up

My friend Cindy hosts this meme of books bought during the past week.






Cindy and I decided to go on a field trip to research local documentation. In other words we went to Chapters to browse the books. Needless to say we realized some books required further study so we had to purchase them. This is what I brought home:




In the photo there are six Sookie Stackhouse novels. One snuck in there from my current collection - I didn't buy it last week. The other books are A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray, The House at Midnight by Lucie Whitehouse, Deaf Sentence by David Lodge, Pavel & I by Dan Vyleta, Red Blooded Murder by Laura Caldwell and Lord John and the Private Matter by Diana Gabaldon.

Yesterday was the blogger meet-up with the Book Bloggers Association of Montreal (BBAM) which included Tina, Cindy, Avis and our newest member Linda Ellen. Representing the BBAM's junior division was Cindy's son, Michael. We chatted about books, authors and our blogs and laughed a lot! These great ladies gave me six books:




The Overlook by Michael Connelly, Deadfall by Patricia H. Rushford and Harrison James and When Darkness Falls by James Grippando are from Linda Ellen; Hollywood is Like Highschool With Money by Zoey Dean is from Tina; Honey, It's All in the Shoes by Phyllis Norton Hoffman is from Cindy and Tethered by Amy MacKinnon is from Avis. I'm looking forward to our next meet-up in September and in October it'll be our one year blogger meet-up anniversary! We should plan something special for that...maybe a trip to a local book research centre, perhaps?

Review: THE MONSTERS OF TEMPLETON by Lauren Groff

Templeton is the quintessential small town – everyone knows everyone else - except for the tourists - and it does draw a fair number of those to its baseball museum and other sites.

Wilhelmina Sunshine Upton escapes to the hometown she’d thought she left behind for good when an already doomed relationship with her PhD advisor goes sour and she finds herself pregnant and running from a potential attempted murder indictment for trying to run over the professor’s wife with a biplane. Willie gets an earful from her mother, Vi, who seems more sympathetic to Willie’s best friend’s problems than her own daughter’s. As it happens the day Willie returns to Templeton a large ‘monster’ is discovered floating belly-up in the town’s lake. The locals, enthralled, also feel a bit sorry for the monster, who obviously has lived for many centuries unbothered, but also giving truth to the many rumours that have circulated about its existence. Willie also feels the monster’s demise is on an equivalent plane to her own, as she takes her mother’s advice about forgetting the past and focusing on a project - finding out who her father is. Vi will not tell her – having not even informed the oblivious other parent about his daughter’s existence. All Willie knows for certain is that she knows him and he knows her – just not that they’re related.

I had really high hopes for this book but somehow it didn’t live up to my expectations. I’m not sure exactly why. Parts of the book were quite good and I wanted to know what would happen, but other parts were just so-so. It wasn’t the writing that bothered me and I found the premise of the story very interesting. Maybe that had something to do with it. It’s like seeing a trailer to a movie and you find out afterward that you’ve seen all the best parts. I already guessed half way through the book who Willie’s father is. Also the allegory for the monster’s existence wasn’t plain and for me it should have been. As a matter of fact the existence of the monster in the story fell flat for me.

Despite my feelings for the book I would give another novel by this author a chance, but I would wait for the library copy instead of rushing out to buy one.

Mailbox Monday

This meme is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page and Kristi at The Story Siren.




I received just one book last week:





Undone by Karin Slaughter is also published under the title, Genesis. Karin Slaughter's website says that the two books are exactly the same.



The blurb on the back cover says:

Sara Linton, last seen in Karin Slaughter's sensational bestseller Faithless, has fled to Atalnta seeking refuge from the terrible act that ripped her life apart in rural Grant County, Georgia. But when a tortured young woman becomes a patient in her ER, Sara will find herself ensnared in a case that tears the lid off secrets as dark and complex as they are disturbing. When Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents Will Trent and Faith Mitchell, last seen in Fractured, join forces to probe into the life of the victim, they're drawn into a mystery that will change all of them forever.

It looks really good, but I wish publishers did not publish books under different titles!

Book Gadgetry

When I was in New York at the end of May for the BEA convention, I picked up a couple of items that I use for reading. It made me think of things that come in to play when I read, things that make the experience of reading even more enjoyable than it already is.

Many readers have their own way of reading: they take the dust jackets off hardcovers, they have a favourite chair to sit in, they only read before bedtime, etc. Well mine are reflected by my book gadgets. Here are a few of my favourites - and some I thought I would like but don't so much:




In the above photo there is a 'book peeramid', a book light, a bookmark, two different types of book covers, an ipod, earphones and a tote.

I got the tote when I bought a Taschen book at my local indie bookstore. I was asked if I wanted a bag for the book, said yes and they gave me this nice tote. I was expecting the usual plastic so that was really nice. I have a lot of book totes - a couple I picked up at BEA, another I bought at The Strand, and the rest I got closer to home.



I got the book peeramid while on a visit last year to Niagara Falls. I saw it in a tourist shop and couldn't resist it - even though I thought at the time it would be one of those things I would never use. But that turned out not to be the case - happily I do use it a lot. It's much more comfortable if you're sitting back on a sofa and using it to prop up a book.




















I bought the book light at The Strand bookstore in NYC. This is something that I thought would come in handy but it really doesn't. It's awkward and I have to be sitting at a desk to read to use it. Not a great choice for a gadget but it was less than $4 so it was not a big investment.



The bookmark, called xmarkit, is really fun. I got that at the BEA convention. I was given a demo on how to use it but really didn't need one, it's so easy. You just place the 'X' with the circle pointing at the spot where you just left off reading and when you pick up your book again the book naturally falls to the page where the mark is and you know where you left off.




The last two items are the book covers. One type is for hardcovers and the other is for paperbacks. I'm a bit particular about my books - I prefer that they stay in good condition if possible so I cover them. Not all of them, but many of my hardcovers are covered with Brodart jacket covers which are usually seen in libraries and the homes of wanna-be librarians such as myself. The photos show a dust jacket being covered.






















The paperback covers are re-usable. They have a sticky part which can be un-peeled and re-stuck if I decide I no longer want to protect a particular book. All you have to do is fit the book's front cover into one side of the clear plastic protector, separate the plastic along the seam, fit the back cover into the separated section and press the sticky part down onto your book. The book itself isn't touched by glue or tape. It's great!





























I use the iPod and earphones for talking books. The iPod was a gift from my husband and I picked up the bright orange earphones at a booth at BEA. I have downloaded a couple of novels to my iPod and have listened to them at work (I can do that with my job).

There are plenty of gadgets missing in my list (the most obvious perhaps is an e-reader?) but these are just some of the book gadgets that I use. Right now I can't think of anything I'd like to have and don't own. What kind of book gadgets do you use?

The Heartfelt Award

Michael at A Few Minutes With Michael" won the Heartfelt Award and has passed it on to me. Thanks, Michael!

The general premise for this award:

Do you reach for a cup of cocoa or tea when you’re relaxing, seeking comfort, sharing a plate of cookies with family & friends? You know that feeling you get when you drink a yummy cup of cocoa, tea ~ or a hot toddy? That is what the Heartfelt award is all about – feeling warm inside.

To accept the Heartfelt Award, here are the rules:

1) Put the logo on your blog/post.
2) Nominate up to 9 blogs which make you feel comfy or warm inside.
3) Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4) Let them know that they have been nominated by commenting on their blog.
5) Remember to link to the person from whom you received your award.

There is a nice feeling about the image of curling up with a cup of tea and book in hand. The same can be said with sitting at your computer with tea and going through your favourite blogs. The blogs that bring that to mind belong to:

• Tina
• Avis
• Cindy
• Kathy.

I'll have to think about five more though and make sure they haven't already been awarded this one!

Review: THE PHYSICK BOOK OF DELIVERANCE DANE by Katherine Howe

In 1991, Connie Goodwin is a grad student about to take her qualifying orals for her PhD candidature. She passes the orals and while searching for her thesis topic she stumbles on a reference to a hundred years old ‘physicks’ book. Connie is encouraged by her mentor and thesis advisor, Professor Chilton, to look for the book and its connection to the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. At the same time, Connie’s mother asks her to close down and sell her grandmother’s neglected house in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Connie begins to feel pressure from both Chilton and her mother, and finds herself caught between two worlds as she gradually realizes that the house and the trials may be connected.

There are two aspects of this book that stand out - the story and the writing. One I enjoyed and the other I did not. The story had action, romance, history and some paranormal activity. These are all things I enjoy in a novel and so the plot had all the essential ingredients of a very fun read.

The writing was something else entirely. It’s possible that the book was intended for a younger audience, and therefore what I think of it the writing doesn’t apply, but I’m not completely convinced. I thought it comparable to the Da Vinci Code (ok, maybe not quite that bad) and found it difficult to ignore the writing and stay involved in the story. There were (for my taste) too many adjectives used to describe actions when simple words would’ve sufficed. From page 37 (keep in mind this review is from an advance reading copy):

”Connie!” Liz puffed. “I think that we might have found the house!”
“Yeah! Arlo spotted the gate,” she grunted, hauling aside another armful of undergrowth.”

They grunted, puffed, spotted and hauled in only two lines and managed to exclaim three times as well. My disappointment with the writing was probably more acute because I had been looking forward to reading this book.

That said, the story was enjoyable enough for me to give Katherine Howe’s next novel (will there be one?) a shot. Perhaps her writing will mature; I hope so – I hate it when a great story is brought down by bad writing.

This meme is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page and Kristi at The Story Siren.

I received one book last week:



I think South of Broad by Pat Conroy has been showing up in a lot of mailboxes. The blurb on the back cover says:

"Against the sumptuous backdrop of Charleston, South Carolina, South of Broad gathers a unique cast of sinners and saints. Leopold Bloom King, our narrator, is the son of an amiable, loving father who teaches science at the local high school. His mother, an ex-nun, is the high school principal and a respected Joyce scholar. After Leo's older brother commits suicide at the age of ten, the family struggles with the shattering effects of his death, and Leo, lonely and isolated, searches for something to sustain him. Eventually, he finds his answer when he becomes part of a tightly knit group of high school seniors that includes friends Sheba and Trevor Poe, glamorous twins with an alcoholic mother and a prison-escapee father; hardscrabble mountain runaways Niles and Starla Whitehead; socialite Molly Huger and her boyfriend, Chadworth Rutledge X-and an ever-widening circle whose liaisons will ripple across two decades, from 1960s counterculture through the dawn of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s."

The ARC has 512 pages and the tentative on-sale date is September 15, 2009. It looks really good!