An antique book, bookmarks and more!!!

As some of you may know, my husband and I own a used book store. Some of the books are newer than others. Some of the books that come in are antiques that people bring them to my husband for evaluation purposes.

One such book that came through our door recently was called Annals: The True and Royal History of the Famous Empress Elizabeth. This book is a translation from Latin and was written by William Camden in 1615 under the title Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha. The translated copy of the book that I looked at was dated 1625. The front board is detached and the binding is somewhat damaged but otherwise, for a book that's almost 400 years old, it's in pretty good shape. My husband could not find this book for sale anywhere and only found a reference to it in another book. Needless to say it is indeed rare!

I saw some writing inside (it's pictured in the last photo). I couldn't make out what it says but the hand-written date is pretty clear: 1645. Click on the photo to see a closer view.



Our bookstore seems to be continually in flux. My husband, Pierre, always seems to be building more shelves and staining them, moving book genre sections, adjusting book tag locations and lots of other activity that keeps him very busy. Recently a friend asked him if he would like to have a book- mark collection that he's been amassing for the last 30 years. Of course Pierre said yes. Well, we now have hundreds of bookmarks that hail from all over the world, one as far away as Nairobi. Several date from WW II and are, to say the least, politically insensitive for the world we live in today. Some are downright racist and sexist. All are interesting and reflect (mostly) the culture of the western world through last several decades.

Waiting on Wednesday: Once a Spy by Keith Thomson

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.



I was web surfing a book selling site and came across Once a Spy by Keith Thomson. The description really appeals to me. It's just been released on March 9th. The book description comes from the chapters/indigo book site.

Drummond Clark was once a spy of legendary proportions. Now Alzheimer''s disease has taken its toll and he''s just a confused old man who''s wandered away from home, waiting for his son to fetch him.

When Charlie Clark takes a break from his colossal losing streak at the track to bring Drummond back to his Brooklyn apartment, they find it blown sky high-and then the bullets start flying in every direction. At first Charlie thinks his Russian "creditors" are employing aggressive collection tactics. But once Drummond effortlessly hot-wires a car as their escape vehicle, Charlie begins to suspect there''s much more to his father than meets the eye. He soon discovers that Drummond''s unremarkable career as an appliance salesman was actually a clever cover-up for an elaborate plan to sell would-be terrorists faulty nuclear detonators. Drummond''s intricate knowledge of the "device" is extremely dangerous information to have rattling around in an Alzheimer''s-addled brain. The CIA wants to "contain" him-and so do some other shady characters who send Charlie and Drummond on a wild chase that gives "father and son quality time" a whole new meaning.

With Once a Spy, Keith Thomson makes his debut on the thriller stage with energy, wit, and style to spare. Once you read it, you''ll eagerly await his follow-up, Twice a Spy.

Tuesday Teasers is hosted by Should Be Reading. The rules are as follows:


Grab your current read and let the book fall open to a random page. Share two sentences somewhere between lines 7 and 12 and the title of the book that you’re getting the teaser from. Please avoid spoilers! Read the official Tuesday Teaser Rules.



My teaser this week is from A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks. From page 121:

'Most of the other guests would probably spend the evening trying not to eat, pushing the food round the plate while offering insincere compliments. Someone had to put the stuff in his mouth, and Gabriel was thin enough to eat three dinners single-handed; a week before, he had bought some braces (from the Oxfam shop, he couldn't help noting) to keep up the trousers of his suit.'

Mailbox Monday

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





I received two books in the mail last week, both from Evelyn at Interpersonal Frequency LLC. Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show by Frank Delaney is the first. The description from the Random House web page for this book reads:

“She sprang from the womb and waved to the crowd. Then smiled and took a bow.” And so we first meet Venetia Kelly, the beguiling actress at the center of this new, spellbinding, and epic novel by Frank Delaney, the bestselling author of Ireland and Shannon.

January 1932: While Ireland roils in the run-up to the most important national election in the Republic’s short history, Ben MacCarthy and his father watch a vagabond variety revue making a stop in the Irish countryside. After a two-hour kaleidoscope of low comedy, Shakespearean recitations, juggling, tumbling, and other entertainments, Ben’s father, mesmerized by Venetia Kelly, the troupe’s magnetic headliner, makes a fateful decision: to abandon his family and set off on the road with Miss Kelly and her caravan. Ben’s mother, shattered by the desertion, exhorts, “Find him and bring him back,” thereby sending the boy on a Homeric voyage into manhood, a quest that traverses the churning currents of Ireland’s fractious society and splinters the MacCarthy family.

Interweaving historical figures including W. B. Yeats, and a host of unforgettable creations—“King” Kelly, Venetia’s violent, Mephistophelean grandfather; Sarah Kelly, Venetia’s mysterious, amoral mother; and even a truth-telling ventriloquist’s dummy named Blarney—Frank Delaney unfurls a splendid narrative that spans half the world and a tumultuous, eventful decade.

Teeming with intrigue, pathos, and humor, Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show explores two of Ireland’s great national passions: theater and politics. Writing with his signature mastery and lyrical prose, Frank Delaney once again delivers an unforgettable story as big and boisterous as the people and events it chronicles.

The second book is an ARC called The Season of Second Chances by Diane Meier. This book was accompanied by a lovely not from the author.

I love the cover of this book - makes me want to dive right in. From Diane Meier's website the description of this book reads:

A world of possibilities opens up for Joy Harkness when she sets out on a journey that’s going to show her the importance of friendship, love, and what makes a house a home.

Coming-of-age can happen at any age. Joy Harkness had built a university career and a safe life in New York, protected and insulated from the intrusions and involvements of other people. When offered a position at Amherst College, she impulsively leaves the city, and along with generations of material belongings, she packs her equally heavy emotional baggage. A tumbledown Victorian house proves an unlikely choice for a woman whose family heirlooms have been boxed away for years. Nevertheless, this white elephant becomes the home that changes Joy forever. As the restoration begins to take shape, so does her outlook on life, and the choices she makes over paint chips, wallpaper samples, and floorboards are reflected in her connection to the co-workers who become friends and friendships that deepen. A brilliant, quirky, town fixture of a handyman guides the renovation of the house and sparks Joy’s interest to encourage his personal and professional growth. Amid the half-wanted attention of the campus’s single, middle-aged men, known as “the Coyotes,”and the legitimate dramas of her close-knit community, Joy learns that the key to the affection of family and friends is being worthy of it, and most important, that second chances are waiting to be discovered within us all.

Mailbox Monday February 7, 2011

In February, Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Laura of Library of Clean Reads.






The description of Jasper Fforde's latest installment of his Thursday Next series, One of our Thursdays is Missing, is from Penguin's website:

Jasper Fforde's exuberant return to the fantastical BookWorld opens during a time of great unrest. All-out Genre war is rumbling, and the BookWorld desperately needs a heroine like Thursday Next. But with the real Thursday apparently retired to the Realworld, the Council of Genres turns to the written Thursday.

The Council wants her to pretend to be the real Thursday and travel as a peacekeeping emissary to the warring factions. A trip up the mighty Metaphoric River beckons-a trip that will reveal a fiendish plot that threatens the very fabric of the BookWorld itself.

Once again New York Times bestselling author Jasper Fforde has a field day gleefully blending satire, romance, and thriller with literary allusions galore in a fantastic adventure through the landscape of a frisky and fertile imagination. Fans will rejoice that their favorite character in the Fforde universe is back.

I found If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar last weekend while looking around on the tables and shelves in my bookstore. It's the story of a widow, Thmina Sethna, who (taken from the back cover):

'while visiting her son, Sorab, in his suburban Ohio home, she is being asked to choose between continuing her old life in India and starting a new one in this unfamiliar country with her son, his American wife, and their child. Her destiny is uncertain, and soon the plight of two troubled young children next door will force the most difficult decision she has ever faced. Ultimately the journey is one that Tehmina must travel alone.'

This novel sounds a bit different from what I've been reading lately. I've never read any books by this author before but I've put this one on my TBR list.

Review: BLACK HILLS by Dan Simmons

Thanks to Valerie at Hachette for providing this book to me for review!

When I had the chance to read and review this book, I was excited. I’d just finished Drood by this author and loved it. I wasn’t sure what the Black Hills was about but the author’s storytelling style is so great that I just knew I would find the topic interesting. Nevertheless, before I said yes to the review, I did some research to find out more. It turned this novel couldn’t have been more different from Drood! To be capable of writing on two such diverse topics and in such an in-depth style just solidifies my certainty that Dan Simmons is one great writer.

Black Hills is not only a place in the Dakotas but also a person, Paha Sapa, a young Lakota boy growing into manhood who witnesses the changes to his home as North America moves inexorably into the twentieth century. Progress, which often doesn’t translate into a good thing, can’t be stopped. Black Hills, the place and the person, shows how a people cope and sometimes how they don’t.

It took me about fifty pages before I started really getting into the story but after that the plot became very interesting. There is one scene where the characters are caught in a huge dust storm and the manner in which the author described it made me feel like I needed to spit grit out of my own mouth. The narrative is well-written (which is something I was taking for granted even before I started reading given how Drood was written) and the imagery breath-taking. The story goes back and forth in time following the main character’s experiences with his tribe, General George Armstrong Custer and other military and native warriors, as well as at Chicago’s World Fair in the late 1800’s, and other settings. I’m amazed at the amount of research the author must have done to get just the right sense of authenticity to make the story work. The rituals of Native Americans of the Sioux tribe are described with striking beauty and sensitivity.

I don’t think I would have picked up this book on my own, but now I’m so glad I did read it. I learned much and enjoyed a great story at the same time. In the end it’s just what I expected to experience with this author. I’m a confirmed ‘Simmonite’! I highly recommend Black Hills to anyone who enjoys American history or, for that matter, just a really good story.

Waiting on Wednesday: The Girl Who Chased the Moon

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.



Maybe it's because spring is around the corner but I'm very much in the mood for something light and refreshing. I think that Sarah Addison Allen's new book, The Girl Who Chased the Moon, would be just right. It's being released (in Canada anyway) on March 16th. From the Random House website:

Emily Benedict came to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother’s life. Such as, why did Dulcie Shelby leave her hometown so suddenly? And why did she vow never to return? But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew—a reclusive, real-life gentle giant—she realizes that mysteries aren’t solved in Mullaby, they’re a way of life: Here are rooms where the wallpaper changes to suit your mood. Unexplained lights skip across the yard at midnight. And a neighbor bakes hope in the form of cakes.

Everyone in Mullaby adores Julia Winterson’s cakes—which is a good thing, because Julia can’t seem to stop baking them. She offers them to satisfy the town’s sweet tooth but also in the hope of rekindling the love she fears might be lost forever. Flour, eggs, milk, and sugar . . . Baking is the only language the proud but vulnerable Julia has to communicate what is truly in her heart. But is it enough to call back to her those she’s hurt in the past?

Can a hummingbird cake really bring back a lost love? Is there really a ghost dancing in Emily’s backyard? The answers are never what you expect. But in this town of lovable misfits, the unexpected fits right in.

Teaser Tuesdays

Tuesday Teasers is hosted by Should Be Reading. The rules are as follows:


Grab your current read and let the book fall open to a random page. Share two sentences somewhere between lines 7 and 12 and the title of the book that you’re getting the teaser from. Please avoid spoilers! Read the official Tuesday Teaser Rules.

My teaser is from page 58 of The Seige by Helen Dunmore:

'If they drop a shell on the barn you'll be fine,' goes on Evgenia, 'as long as you've got your blanket round your head. It's just a question of having the correct attitude.'

This book's been around....!

As I've mentioned before on my blog, I own a used bookstore with my husband. He pointed out to me on the weekend that a particular book, Colours Aloft! by Alexander Kent has done the rounds of the bookstores. He knows this because some stores stamp their books (we don't) partly as a marketing strategy and partly to know that a customer is bringing back a book that's already been sold by the store.

I found it a bit funny that this particular book was the British edition and printed there. It made it to Canada and then to a used book store. The first store it landed at (well, of course I can't be sure of the order of the stores) is a store called Nearly New Bookshop. That store's stamp looks a bit outdated so I'm going to assume it went there first. Then it went to La Booktique, twice I presume, since there are two stamps from that store in the book. Then on it travelled to another store called Nova, which is where my husband picked it up to complete a collection he'd already started with this series of nautical stories.

So Colours Aloft! has done quite a bit of traveling which is, I suppose, apropos for a book about traveling - albeit on the high seas and not on the bookstore circuit!