BOOK: Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones

Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones, 266 pages

What's in a Name 3: jewelry or gem in title

I should have read this when I was a child, but then again, I didn't read much fantasy type stories. Diana Wynne Jones wrote an afterward in 2001, twenty-five years after Charmed Life was written, explaining how she came to write it.  Reading this now, after Harry Potter and the magical phenomena in books, it's easy to see that this must have been an inspiration for JK Rowling.

Overall, it was okay. I'm glad to have read a DWJ book, but don't imagine I'll read another in this series. Without having read it as a child, it didn't appeal to me in the way that Harry Potter did. But then I'm not a big fantasy reader in the first place. I'll put this one where my kids might find it.

CHALLENGE: Once Upon a Time Update

I signed up for the journey, hoping to read one book, and I ended up reading eight. And the best part? Besides the great books? Five of them were books I've had for a long time and wanted to read.

Books I Read:

1. Waiting for Gertrude by Bill Richardson
2. The Tales of Beedle the Bard - JK Rowling
3. The Sugar Queen - Sarah Addison Allen
4. The Night Wanderer - Drew Hayden Taylor
5. Pomegranate Soup - Marsha Mehran (look for the sequel)
6. Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan
7. The Little Book - Seldon Edwards
8. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
and have started Charmed Life by Diana Wynne-Jones but won't finish it completely

Three were books I had read the author once before and wanted to read another. The best book was Tales of Beedle the Bard. Just an excellent, delightful read, absolutely perfect for this challenge. But I can't complain about any of the books and all were enjoyable.

New authors: Marsha Mehran, Rick Riordan, Seldon Edwards, Ransom Riggs, Diana Wynne-Jones

Two humorous Canadian authors - Bill Richardson and Drew Hayden Taylor. Everyone should read Bill Richardson. Stupidly, I watched the movie of Percy Jackson before I read the book, but the book was still good. Eventually I'll get to the other books in the series. It certainly helped me learn about my Greek gods.

I would recommend Pomegranate Soup to fans of Sarah Addison Allen. Both are whimsical and magical with strong women characters.

And for something completely different, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is not to be missed.

Here's the link where participants have been posting links to their reviews.

Thanks for hosting another round Carl!

BOOK: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, 348 pages

Once Upon a Time Challenge

I've been wanting to read another book like The Invention of Hugo Cabret  (one of my favorite recent reads) which combined story with pictures, more than a graphic novel. This book comes close. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is a most unique book that takes old, unusual photographs and builds a world and story around them. The pictures, salvaged by collectors from yard sales and garbage are unique, to say the least. The girl on the cover, for instance, is hovering. The book itself is wonderful.

The premise of the story is a young boy has been entertained by stories from his grandfather, a Jewish orphan from the second world war who spent time on an island off Wales. The stories include very unusual children, the kind you'd expect to see at the circus. As the boy grows, he figures the stories are fairy tales, but one awful night, he discovers there may be more to the stories than he first suspected. What follows is a scary, spooky, creepy ride, part fantasy, part science fiction, with a dollop of gothic. I don't want to give too much away, and the story on its own would be just okay, geared to teenagers, but the addition of the photographs made this a great read for me. I often peeked ahead at the pictures, and was impressed with how they would be incorporated into the story.

The story ended on what clearly felt to me like a "to be continued", although there was a ending of sorts. My other nit-pick was the point of view. It was told from the boy's first person, but it included too much description for that. Either cut some of the setting descriptions, or change it to third person and really set the mood. I loved the island setting, and felt the creepy, ancient feel of the location. The 'peculiar children' were well defined, and fun to spend time with. I've already passed the book on to my eleven year old daughter.

thanks to randomhouse for the review copy.

also reviewed : Carl at stainlesssteeldroppings;

CHALLENGE: Canadian Book Challenge 5

Hosted by John Mutford of The Book Mine Set, the Canadian Book Challenge 5 is one of the hottest, most sought* after book challenges to participate in, in the northern hemisphere world. Beginning on July 1st, Canada's 144th** birthday, the goal is to read 13 books in the year, one to represent each province and territory in Canada.

I am celebrating Canada Day in St John's, Newfoundland this year, so will be among the first people to be able to begin the CBC 5. To join in the challenge, simply email john with the subject "Sign Me Up" at jmutford [at] hotmail (dot) com.

(* I'm just assuming. What could be more hot or sought after?)
(** I was born during Canada's centennial, so I'm always exactly 100 years younger than Canada)

The Book List of Ones I Want to Read:

Doing Dangerously Well by Carole Enahoro
Rockbound by Frank Parker Day
Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill (Orange Prize shortlist 2008)
Annabel by Kathleen Winter (Orange Prize shortlist 2011)
Larry's Party by Carol Shields (Orange Prize winner 1998)
The Box Garden by Carol Shields
Extreme Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories by Alistair MacLeod
The English Patient by Michael Onjadte (Man Booker winner 1992)
Diamond Dreams by Stephen Brunt
Getting Over Edgar by Joan Barfoot
The Calling by Inger Ash Wolfe

The Wife's Tale by Lori Lansens
Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

The Books I Actually Read:

1. Lullabies for Little Criminals - Heather O'Neill
2. Annabel - Kathleen Winter
3. The Wife's Tale - Lori Lansens
4. The Box Garden - Carol Shields
5. Bury Your Dead - Louise Penny
6. Coventry - Helen Humphreys
7. As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories - Alistair MacLeod
8. The Widows of Paradise Bay - Jill Sooley
9. The Reinvention of Love - Helen Humphreys
10. Twelve Drummers Drumming - CC Benison
11. Moonlight Sketches - Gerard Collins
12. Tide Road - Valerie Compton
13. Small Ceremonies - Carol Shields
14. The Staircase Letters - Arthur Motyer, Elma Gerwin, Carol Shields
15. Christmas With Anne - LM Montgomery
16. An Island Christmas Reader - David Weale
17. The Canterbury Trail - Angie Abdou
18. The Sisters Brothers - Patrick deWitt
19. Half-Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan
20. Happenstance - Carol Shields
21. Extreme Vinyl Cafe - Stuart McLean
22. A Trick of the Light - Louise Penny
23. Swann - Carol Shields
24. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
25.

BOOK: The Little Book by Selden Edwards

The Little Book by Selden Edwards, 364 pages

What's in a Name Challenge: size in title; Once Upon a Time Challenge

Very interesting book with time-travel to 1897 Vienna. Wheeler wakes up in Vienna, a city and time he's heard about in depth from one of his boarding school teachers. Esterhaze was a young man in the heyday of Vienna, before the wars, but in a time of great discussion and ideas. Sigmund Freud was part of the city. Wheeler is a forty something character who has always marched to his own beat. Relatively unfazed by his appearance ninety years earlier, the story backtracks to find out who Wheeler was, how he first met Esterhaze and how he came to be in Vienna.

As with all time-travel books, if I start to think about who and when I get confused, so I just read a long and go with it. The family and characters were well developed, and the epicness of Wheeler's family is a big part of the story. Edwards worked on this book for thirty years and the loops and historical times and implications were cool.

The idea of fixed history, and whether you can change what happens in the future is always a part of time-travel books. In this case, Wheeler travels back to a time when Adolf Hitler is a boy. Hmm, what would you do? Overall, good read. It started a bit slowly, but then books with a lot of story and layers take time to develop. I thought the end was well worth the journey.

CHALLENGE: Orange July

Once again, it's that time of the year when fans of the Orange Prize celebrate by reading, at least one book from the short or long lists or a winner. Jill keeps up organized, if you like that sort of thing, on Facebook and at Librarything. These are places to chat with other readers, and discuss the books we've read. Need to talk to someone after reading Fingersmith? Need to vent to someone after reading We Need to Talk About Kevin? Someone at librarything has probably read it and would love to discuss it with you.

For more information about Orange July, visit Jill at her blog, The Magic Lasso

I'll read before July even starts: (feel free to start early)

The Memory of Love by Aminnata Forma (shortlist 2011)

Book I Own

Larry's Party by Carol Shields (1998 winner)
Annabel by Kathleen Winter (2011 shortlist)
Prep by Curtis Sittenfield (2006 longlist)
A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore (1996 winner)
Lullabies for Little Criminals (shortlist 2008)

The Colour by Rose Tremain (2004 longlist)
Love Marriage by VV Ganeshananthan (2009 longlist)

The books I actually read:

1. Prep - Curtis Sittenfeld
2. The Memory of Love - Aminnata Forma
3. Lullabies for Little Criminals - Heather O'Neill
4. Annabel - Kathleen Winter
5. A Spell of Winter - Helen Dunmore
6.

BOOK: The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan, 211 pages

adorable: a book written completely in dictionary entries, alphabetized, about a love story

charming: told from the male perspective, and not in the order that it occurs. One of the entries discusses how we gradually tell the story of our lives with new partners, not in the order they occur, but as they occur to us. They eventually fill in the biography of our lives, layer by layer.

favorite: Levithan has written several books with Rachel Cohn, including one of my favorite reads of this year, Dash and Lily's Book of Dares. Although he has written many young adult books, I don't think this should be classified as YA. Not that teens wouldn't like it, but it follows two twenty-somethings who meet through an on-line dating service.

poetic: with brief entries, the piece takes on a poetic-ness. Some are funny, some serious, some profound, some philosophical. The reader has to construct the characters, and the timeline, into a narrative

recommendation: a realistic love story, with warts and hurt, written in a unique style. With one entry on each page, the read was very quick, perfect for a readathon. In many ways I wanted it to last longer, to tell me more, to get a deeper look at the characters. I wanted to know them better.

summary: sweet, love story, charming, short, impressive

BOOK: Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran

Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran, 314 pages

Once Upon a Time; Ireland Reading Challenge

For people who have read Sarah Addison Allen and liked her books like The Sugar Queen or Garden Spells, I would suggest Pomegranate Soup. Set in Ireland, it follows the story of three sisters from Iran who set up a cafe in the mid 1980s. One of the sisters has a way with food, and their exotic offerings bewitch some of the residents of the small Irish village. Nothing big or magical, just a small hint of the mystical, much like Addison Allen adds to her books.

The sisters were wonderful characters, and the story that gradually comes out of their leaving Iran during the revolution adds a depth to the novel, which begins rather lightly, with some stock Irish characters from the village. The nosy old lady, the bully who owns most of the town, the drunk. But then, I like my Irish stories as well, stock characters or not, so Maeve Binchy fans might also like this book. It's a nice, light read, with a sequel that is also available to read, Rosewater and Sodabread. So much of the story revolves around food, and there are recipes for all the Iranian delights at the back of the book. Really, it hits all my 'likeable' points about a book, and I quite enjoyed it.

Mehran was born in Iran and, after escaping during the Revolution, has lived in several countries before settling in Ireland.

BOOK: Southwesterly Wind by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza

Southwesterly Wind by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza

book 3 of 7; next in series: A Window in Copacabana

Inspector Espinosa, the police man who nobody thinks is a policeman. The bookish, introspective detective who lives in the same apartment he grew up in, with a wife and son long gone to Washington, DC. The warm, wild streets of Rio de Janeiro as the southwesterly winds roll in, bringing change.

A young man comes to Espinosa, worried. A psychic told him he would commit a murder before his next birthday. He's now a complete wreck. Espinosa listens patiently and entertains him, assigning an old friend unofficially to the case. But when two people connected to the young man turn up dead, they have to look a little more seriously at the quiet young man.

I've been reading this series quite out of order, so keeping track of what is going on in the personal lives of Espinosa and the people around him is tricky. (I hate reading a series out of order, but I blame my library.) Espinosa is beginning to think he might like a relationship with a woman, but he really likes being alone as well. His friendship with 13 year old Alice in his building is touching, and clearly replaces the one with his son he never sees. Having already read the seventh book, Espinosa is still evolving and I'm looking forward to the next couple of books to see how he gets where he ends up.

This week in the Crime Fiction Alphabet we are up to letter S, and my reading matches the week! Yah-hoo! So S is for Southwesterly Wind by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza. Other books in the series:
The Silence of the Rain
December Heat
Southwesterly Wind
A Window on Copacabana
Pursuit
Blackout
Alone in the Crowd
For more participants in the Crime Fiction Alphabet for this week and the letter S, check here.

CHALLENGE: Paris in July 2011

Paris in July is being hosted again by Karen at BookBath and Tamara from Thyme For Tea . I participated last year, reading and watching a variety of genres.The best was watching Ratatouie. I can't believe I hadn't seen it before.
The idea is to read or watch or cook or bake or anything else that you dream of posting about France. Bonne Chance!

Possible Ideas:

Nonfiction: Lavoisier in the Year One:The Birth Of A New Science In An Age Of Revolution (Great Discoveries)
Watch Coco or La Vie en Rose
Fiction: Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier
a mystery by Fred Vargas
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (some year I'll get this actually read!)
Madame de Stael: The First Modern Woman by Francine Gray (I started reading this on dailylit.com last year)

What I actually did:

1. watched Midnight in Paris at the theatre
2. read The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier
3. read Lavoisier in the Year One by Madison Smartt Bell

BOOK: Tigerlily's Orchids by Ruth Rendell

Tigerlily's Orchids by Ruth Rendell, 280 pages

Mystery and Suspense Challenge; review book from Randomhouse.ca

As mysteries go, this was a quiet one. No detective called in to solve the case, no amateur sleuth who just happens to be around. No, this is not a cozy mystery nor a police procedural both of my usual mystery fares. There's not even a death until well over halfway through the book. It reminded me of Rear Window, the Jimmy Stewart/Hitchcock movie where the man across the street, bored with a broken leg, begins spying on his neighbours across the street. There actually is a bored man across the street who 'keeps an eye' on his neighbours in the apartment of flats across the street, or whatever those are called in London. He likes to give names to everyone and imagine their relationships. As the reader, we get to see the truth about the people, and how wildly off he is in his nosiness.

No, it's not a classic mystery, but it was a great story. Seeing how the tenants were connected, and what was going on in their lives - some sad, some cute, some tragic, made for great reading. As the characters got more and more entwined, as people who live near each other are wont to do, I was kept on the edge of my seat. It wasn't scary suspense, but there was a feeling that something would happen to someone, and soon. There were some surprises and the plot moved quickly in the second half. I enjoyed the characters although they weren't all good people. It's a story with characters that lie to the police because they have something to hide, but not related to the case usually. Sigh, it must be tough to be a police officer investigating a case.

Great writing, interesting characters, and a that plot meanders for an enjoyable read.


This is my contribution for this week's Crime Fiction Alphabet. Ruth Rendell for the letter R. Rendell has written a pile of mysteries, prolific would be the term. How have I never read any of her books? There is a series with Inspector Wexford, and a large number of stand-alones, plus even more written as Barbara Vine. I managed to pick up another book at the used book sale: The Water's Lovely. Can't wait.

Rendell has been winning awards from the Crime Writers' Association  since 1976, up to the 1991 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger and the 2004 Gumshoe Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Hosted by Kerri at Mysteries in Paradise

By Friday of each week you have to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.
Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname.
So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow. 

MEME: One Book, Two Book, Three Book, Four.... and Five

I aw this meme around a few places this weekend, most recently at Lizzy's Literary Life. I guess it started at Stuck in a Book. (I have recently discovered that I can copy a link location in the 'right click' menu. I used to follow the link and then copy from the address bar. I'm sure I'm the last person to figure this out, but it has made linking posts sooo much easier.)

1) The Book I am currently reading
 I've been reading The True Story of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, and now have just started Tigerlily's Orchids by Ruth Rendall.

2)  The Book I finished last
 I just finished Bannock, Beans and Black Tea by John Gallant, an  memoir of an Islander from the 1930s that will give you an idea of life on PEI that is not much like Anne of Green Gables. It put me to mind of books I've read set in Ireland,  like Angela's Ashes. When people in the Depression say they were poor, they were really poor. No social assistance, no help of any kind.The title refers to the most common meal, when they had one. I liked recognizing the locations, as I live about a forty minute drive from the setting of this book. It was called a graphic novel on library thing, but it was mostly just written stories, with a few pictures drawn in. I'm hoping to get my kids to read this book, to maybe have them appreciate what all they take for granted.

3) The Next Book I want to read
A mystery of some sort - probably The Devil's Whisper by Miyuke Miyabe

4) The Last Book I bought:
Isaac Newton by James Gleik. I teach about Newton everyday - I should learn more about his history. I'm looking forward to reading about his feud with Robert Hooke. That's the kind of stuff that makes some of the scientific names come alive.

5.) The last book I was given: 
The Music of Pythagoras by Kitty Ferguson was lent to me by a student, so I have until the end of June to get this one read. I'm always pleased to share reading ideas and books with my students.

BOOK: The Night Wanderer by Drew Hayden Taylor

The Night Wanderer: A Native Gothic Novel by Drew Hayden Taylor, 215 pages

Gothic Reading Challenge; Once Upon a Time; 4th CBC

I read Taylor's Motorcycles and Sweetgrass last year (and loved it), and this book, The Night Wanderer, feels like the practice run for Motorcycles and Sweetgrass. The Night Wanderer is classified as young adult, and tells the story of Tiffany Hunter, a native girl in Otter Lake who is suffering much teenage angst. (Otter Lake is the same location as M&S) Her mother has run off, leaving her with her bitter father and her charming grandmother. A mysterious stranger from Europe arrives and boards at their house. (A stranger comes to Otter Lake and shakes up the town in M&S)

In both books, the stranger introduces a supernatural/mythological aspect to the story. The Night Wanderer isn't as consistently funny as M&S, but the hints are there that Taylor has a comedic novel in him. Taylor manages to tell native stories that are accessible to non-natives, without being depressing, while conveying the vast history and traditions, and illustrating the conflicts that exist. I felt like I got a little history in my entertaining story, and combining native mythology with vampires was a nice touch. The teenage stuff was okay, showing the typical "woe is me" teenage angst when families and boyfriends aren't working out. Overall, good read, especially for readers who like vampires in small doses, and I'll be waiting for another book by Taylor.

BOOK: The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny

Hosted by Kerri at Mysteries in Paradise

By Friday of each week you have to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.
Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname.
So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow. 

This week is the letter P, represented by Louise Penny. Louise Penny is a Canadian author and her Inspector Gamauche series has won her many awards - three Agatha Awards for best novels in 2007, 2008, and 2009. The series is set often in the small village of Three Pines in Quebec.
See more P entries here.

The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny, 460 pages

Book Awards V: The Agatha Award 2009; 4th Canadian Book Challenge

book 5 of 6 in the Three Pines Mysteries

Another murder in Three Pines brings Inspector Gamauche back to the village with all the village gang - Peter, Oliver and Gabriel, and poet Ruth. The body of a man has been found in Oliver's Bistro, but who is he? No one in the village recognizes him. Is his death related to Oliver? Or is there a connection to the new Spa being developed in the old Hadley house that had the first murder in the series?

This book delivers the usual strong murder, with Gamauche keeping his eyes and ears open. There was less about the political intrigue in the Surette and Gamauche and his boss. Also, his team seemed somewhat less involved. I think overall, this volume has a different feel than the previous book - more with the characters of the village and the mystery, less with the police themselves. I think I liked this one better, without the other side stories.

Next up - Bury Your Dead, then I am up to date.

also reviewed: kerri at mysteries in paradise; booklogged at a reader's journal;

BOOK: Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie, 284 pages

Vintage Mystery Author Challenge; Mystery and Suspense Challenge

On an isolated archaeological dig outside Baghdad, the leader is worried about his wife's health, so a nurse is brought in to keep an eye on her. It appears she is afraid of something, or someone. Once she turns up dead, Hercule Poirot, who just happens to be in Baghdad awaiting passage back on the Orient Express, comes to the site to investigate.

One of the things I enjoy about Christie's writing is she often takes a different perspective of the mystery. For this one, it is the nurse who was asked, after the fact, to record the events that occurred at the archaeological site. So the whole story, including all the Poirot interactions are what the nurse saw, and how she understood what happened. Poirot is at his logical, methodical best, using the nurse as his assistant. I liked how he left this murder to take the Orient Express back across Europe, which just happens to be the most recent other book of Poirot I've read.Christie writes tight, well-plotted mysteries with clues and many suspects. I never know who or what happens, but I always enjoy the story.

also reviewed: kerrie at mysteries in paradise;

BOOK: The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo, 618 pages
Book 3 of 8 in the Harry Hole series

Criminal Plots Challenge: book blurbed by an author; Mystery and Suspense Challenge

I picked this book for the Criminal Plots Challenge. One of the categories was to read a book by a new to you author who has blurbed on a book you've liked.  I read The Man on the Balcony, and Jo Nesbo wrote a blurb on that cover. And now I've found a new series to follow - Harry Hole.

Jo Nesbo is a Norwegian author, and Harry Hole is the down-on-his-luck detective. A struggling alcoholic who gets moved around the Oslo police department because of events that happen to Harry. The cover hints at an espionage/world war 2 type of story, but it's much more a detective story. There are lots of characters, but it doesn't take too long to like Harry a lot, and root for him. This was a long book (over 600 pages) which means it took a long time to set up the story and realize what exactly the mystery was. I was a bit confused with the past and present stories, and all the Norwegian names, but I often have that issue, and just read through it.  Once I hit the half way part though, I couldn't put it down.

Loved the setting, loved the characters, even the ones I hated. My library doesn't have the first two book, both of which are referred to - something that happened with Harry in Australia, and something that happened in Thailand. I'll keep reading this series as one of the characters and his duplicity have not been discovered yet - looks like a long-term story arc for Harry.

 also reviewed: kerry at mysteries in paradise; susan at you can never have too many books;

BOOK: The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling, 105 pages

Once Upon a Time Challenge

What a delightful book of wizarding fairy tales! I think I liked the concept as much as the fairy tales, but they were well done too. Having Professor Dumbledore annotate the tales after each story was a great idea. The book itself deals with the history of fairy tales, and how they were written to teach lessons and morals to children, probably before there were many books available to the general population. Thus, the oral tradition of stories was passed down.

Apparently, the wizarding world was no different. Beedle the Bard, much like our Brothers' Grimm, collected and wrote many fairy tales. Five tales are collected here, and much like the old Brothers' Grimm,  were more graphic and scary than some of the more sanitized versions that survived. (Hermione has translated these from the original runes.)

One of my favorite parts of the last Harry Potter movie was the animated version of "The Tale of the Three Brothers". The visuals were so unique and flowing; they looked like a story but in picture version. Finally, I even really liked the edition, with its small size and hardcover, it feels like a truly old book, or one at least that has come from Diagon Alley.

also reviewed by jenny at jennysbooks;  michelle at 1morechapter; trish at love, laughter and a touch of insanity;

BOOK: Affinity by Sarah Waters

Affinity by Sarah Waters,  352 pages

Gothic Reading Challenge

Sarah Waters An author I've almost read everything of now, just Tipping the Velvet to go. Waters is a reliable author who tells good stories with good characters in great settings

Characters Margaret Prior, an upper-class spinster, recovering from some incident and the death of her father
Selina Dawes, a spiritualist, who is in jail
Plenty of jail matrons and a bossy family to keep Margaret in line

Plot Margaret meets Selina in her role as a Lady Visitor at Millbrook prison. Can't tell much more in a Sarah Waters book!

Setting Victorian England, women taking chloral and dilaudid and becoming weak, literal swooning, dark and dreary and Dickensian, seances and ghosts and medias

Gothic-ness A pleasing sort of terror, supernatural, secrets, castles (jail), darkness, romance

Verdict Not quite as mesmerizing as Fingersmith, nor as twisty, but still, a great suspenseful book

BOOK: First Love by Joyce Carol Oates

First Love by Joyce Carol Oates, 86 pages

Gothic Reading Challenge; 2nds Reading Challenge

I'll confess, I only took this from the library because it's a Gothic love story (which I'm not sure about after reading it - just because you call it gothic and use gothic fonts?) and because it was short. So essentially, it's just a short story, because the 86 pages are small pages, smaller than a paperback. And then it is a pretty disturbing short story. My sampling of Oates writing is beginning to have quite the disturbing angle - the only other book I've read was Zombie.

Eleven year old Josie and her mother Delia move in with a great-aunt and her grandson, Jared Jr. who is on a sabbatical from the Presbyterian seminary. The house is old, the town is old and Josie is left to her own devices by her mother, who is enjoying her new freedom. Most of the story is then about Josie and Jared and their disturbing relationship. It's told from Josie's point of view, but in second person well after the fact. There are lots of religious questions and symbols - many different versions of paintings of Jesus, the actual snake in the grass, to the hypocrisy of religious leaders. The writing is good, and visual, and there are lots of points of discussion, but I'll not be remembering this book.

My biggest question is why is this considered gothic? Wikipedia to the rescue. The most basic definition,  "a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance" seems to answer my own question. This was a questionable romance, as child abuse is clearly horrorific.

BOOK: Waiting for Gertrude by Bill Richardson

Waiting for Gertrude by Bill Richardson, 182 pages

Gothic Reading Challenge; 4th Canadian Reading Challenge; Once Upon a Time

I remember listening to Bill Richardson on CBC one summer in the early 90s. I had a job where I had to drive around to different job sites, and his program, Crosswords was a wonderful show to listen to while I drove. Listeners from across Canada, and the world, would write letters and Bill would read them, and play some wonderfully eclectic music. Very CBC. I later read his delightfully funny Bachelor Brothers Bed and Breakfast,{reviewed here by eva at a striped armchair and here by Nan at letters from a hill farm) so when I saw this book come up in my library search for Gothic read, I knew I would be reading it. After the fact, I think it could count as a Once Upon a Time book, as surely, cats talking makes it fantasy?

In the Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, there are oodles of famous dead people. Imagine, as Bill Richarson did, if they were reincarnated as cats, and the cats still lived in the cemetery. So there would be Jim Morrison, the silent, brooding tomcat exceedingly well-endowed; Sarah Bernhardt, the dramatic actress; Maria Callas, the singing diva; Marcel Proust, the sleeping private detective; Oscar Wilde, being Oscar and infatuated with Jim Morrison and Chopin is the postman who delivers the letters to the cats. And Alice B Toklas, who is waiting for her love and husband, Gertrude Stein to arrive at the cemetery, translated.  So it's a graveyard gothic, but also a touch comedic, because it is Richardson after all, and he can't turn that off.

There was never such a ratter as Sarah Bernhardt.

So, the book was fun. It made me wish I knew more about many of the characters. Richardson has each cat write and speak distinctively, so I liked some cat's voices more than others. The concept is so unique, and the love between Alice and Gertrude comes through. (Memo to self - find one of their books to read?) The first part of the book introduces all the characters and sets the scene. The second part of the book develops a bit of a plot - objects are going missing, and the cats are putting on a revue. With a concept book, the first while was just the fun of seeing how it all worked. Then the mystery arrived and the action picked up. And then it ended.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the poetry, and the fun Richardson has with his writing. Play on words abound, plus, nearly each character gets a poem as part of La Fontaine's Versified Walking Tours:

Attention, please, cats square and hep-
Before we take another step,
May I address a word to those
Who'd rather have their tour in prose;
Who'd rather hears dogs caterwaul
Than hear a cat spout doggerel.