In 1861, the silkworms begin to die. Herve Joncour and the rest of the citizens living in his small town in France have made their living from silkworms and aren’t sure what to do next. Trips just to Syria and Egypt will not bring back the healthy, thriving silkworms to fuel their economy. Businessman Baldabiou then tells Herve that the silkworms in Japan are still thriving, legendary for the quality of their silk. Bidding his lovely wife Helene good-bye, Herve sets off for Japan a total of four times, finding not only silkworms but also a quiet, passionate love in exotic, closed-off Japan.
This book is very short, less than 200 pages long, but the amount it packs into those 200 pages is truly breathtaking. In the space of page-long chapters, Baricco successfully conveys such strong emotion that as a reader, I was deeply moved. Without speaking, Herve falls in love with a mistress of Hara Kei, his silkworm contact in Japan. The mistress stands out because of her distinctly non-Japanese eyes which linger on Herve throughout the interview. With both elaborate and quiet gestures, the couple make their love known to each other, but they will never be able to express it. Through it all, what part does Herve’s wife Helene have to play? They love each other but how will Herve reconcile his two passions?
I was particularly surprised by how erotic this book became towards the end. There is a letter exchange which had me blushing, especially as I was reading the book while making dinner in my communal kitchen! Despite that, however, what this novel does convey is that beauty of simplicity while implying a great deal of depth. Except for a few times, Baricco doesn’t have to spell out what his characters are feeling. The beauty of his words, his descriptions of their actions, and the build-up of the characters themselves show us how they are feeling. I love when an author can do this. Showing consistently and never telling is, to me, one of the marks of a great writer.
Something else I liked was the way this book taught me about cultures in the latter half of the 19th century. Through these characters and their interactions, we learn about the culture of wealthy French people, about the east-west divide through all that Herve has to surmount not just to get to Japan but to even talk with the people who live there, and about the silkworm business and trade. I knew little about any of these topics and I found the little bits included to be very interesting. The deliberate foreignness of Japan, which had closed itself off to westerners, added something to the quality of the forbidden romance between Herve and the girl with the round eyes.
For such a short book, this one packs in a lot. It can be read and carefully considered in the space of an afternoon. I’d recommend it for those looking for a thoughtful but emotionally impacting read.
Well, it’s Sunday afternoon now and I think the Bloggiesta is officially over. On Friday I decided not to officially participate. I had a blog tour review up, so I didn’t want to knock it off the top by posting again, and to be honest I didn’t really feel like catching up on my reviews, which is the task I really need to get on top of. I wrote one and that was about it. Regardless, in the proper spirit, I have been making some improvements this weekend. I added a few widgets to my sidebar, updated my meta tags, finally switched to feedburner, and signed up for sitemeter, which is looking pretty pathetic right now given that I only put it on a couple of hours ago.
So, I don’t actually know if all of my normal subscribers will be seeing this, I will be publishing a sticky post to remind anyone who hasn’t seen a post from me lately, but please click here to switch to my new feed!
I haven’t been doing much reading this weekend. This week I did manage to keep to my new reading schedule of library book, review copy, and then oldest book in my current possession. I’ve been reading Land of Marvels by Barry Unsworth, which has proven to be much better than expected. Perhaps it’s because I like archaeology, but I’m also finding the character interactions to be very engaging. I’ll be finishing it tomorrow and starting Crossed by Nicole Galland. I’m hoping for a number of books in the mail this week so I’m likely to break my pattern then, but since I’m expecting among others The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, I don’t think I will find myself regretting the change!
When Josh was almost killed by a bomb in Rome, it triggered a sequence of past-life memories from which he cannot escape. He realizes that he has been reincarnated and nearly two thousand years ago, he was a priest named Julius in love with a Vestal Virgin named Sabina. He feels a need to find her and save her, but he doesn’t know how. On a trip to Rome, his feet land him at an archaeological site where Sabina lies buried, leading to a murder, an investigation, and a desperate search to figure out what his memories are telling him and why.
This was a racing read and I had a hard time putting it down. I originally won it to participate in By The Chapter, so I decided I would read it over the space of the week. That definitely did not happen because I am not a patient person. By the time I was halfway through I just had to know the ending, so I ended up finishing it in two days instead of five. Oops. It’s certainly addicting.
While Josh’s version of reincarnation sounds interesting, I don’t think I’d like to experience it in the same way that he does. It sounds painful and I certainly wouldn’t want to long for a woman who had been dead for many years, knowing that I was looking for her in every face I saw. It was quite curious how many people had been reincarnated, but I suppose we’d have to take it as a matter of course. Many, many people have walked this planet before. I thought the list of sources at the back even more interesting. I had no idea that anyone studied this, and while I don’t believe it myself, I almost want to pick up one of those books just to learn more.
I don’t want to give anything away, but I did feel let down by the ending of this book. While some loose ends were tied up, it felt like something of a cop-out and diminished the appeal of the rest of the work. Despite that, I’d still love to read The Memorist, which is the sequel to this book. I think the ride to the ending mattered more to me in this case.
The orphan Moth has grown up in Calio, a city so high up on the mountains that it’s nearly in the clouds, watching Skyknights and dreaming of flying in a dragonfly of his own. As a peasant orphan, though, all Moth can do is work at the aerodrome and dream while he lives with his elderly friend Leroux and Leroux’s pet kestrel Lady Esme. Leroux often tells tales about the land beyond the Reach, an sea of fog nearby that never seems to end, which only grow more fantastical as the old man gets sicker. Moth’s friend Fiona is also an orphan but lives with her rich grandfather, the Governor of Calio. Neither are content with their lives, but are soon to find that the tales Leroux told are much closer to the truth than either of them would have imagined.
This book took a few pages to absorb me, but once I was hooked, I was really hooked and the pages flew by. This is certainly a hallmark of YA fiction; kids have limited attention spans, so the story has to be great and fast-moving to compel them to keep reading. Once Moth and Fiona go through the Reach, this is certainly the case with this book. We don’t know much about anyone who is helping them or anyone who is chasing them, so there is a lot of mystery surrounding their journey, especially given that they are hardly sure of what they are going to find.
The characters were also very sweet. Both of them are young teenagers. Fiona is an uncertain girl who, with unconventional red hair, believes that not only is she ugly, but that everyone in her life will leave her. Her parents’ death left her with deep scars. Moth is still a child at heart, which plays a big part in his actions in this book, convinced that everything can work out and even though he knows he isn’t going to be a Skyknight, his head is full of dreams. Both of them are orphans, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have people who love them. I think Fiona’s grandfather turned out to be one of the surprise great supporting characters in this book. Most of the rest are similarly noble, kind, and care for Moth and Fiona, willing to put their lives on the line for these two. Even the evil characters, for the most part, are ambiguous and not purely evil. Moth is particularly talented in bringing out the good in people with his innocence and his soaring ambition.
I thought the world was well done as well. While not terribly different, in that there are regular fantasy beings like dragons, mermaids, and centaurs, Marco adds some clever new ideas into the mix and I never felt like I was reading something that has already been done. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so I can’t give too many details away, but I did like the world and I hope that we will see more of it in the rest of the series.
I definitely enjoyed this YA fantasy novel. It was a touching journey for me as well as the two main characters. I would recommend it to both adults who might be in the mood for something fast-paced and exciting as well as for young adults.
So! In my Official Capacity as a writer of science fiction and fantasy, I hereby proclaim June 23 Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Day! A day of celebration and wonder! A day for all of us readers of science fiction and fantasy to reach out and say thank you to our favorite writers. A day, perhaps, to blog about our favorite sf/f writers. A day to reflect upon how written science fiction and fantasy has changed your life.
So … what might you do on the 23rd to celebrate? Do you even read fantasy/sci-fi? Why? Why not?
Well, I suspect I will be working on my dissertation on the 23rd, but I love fantasy. Perhaps I will do a post on how I became a fantasy reader. I’m also discovering that I enjoy *some* science fiction, as long as it focuses on character more than technology/world-building, but that is all very new, so it’s not as easy to think about as my fantasy background is.
I read fantasy for many, many reasons. The most prominent one is probably because I love to escape into a different world. Fantasy worlds are often based in some fashion on medieval or early modern history, which immediately makes me feel partly at home and better able to cope with whichever other oddities are thrown in there. It’s easier for me to imagine magic in a setting I’m already comfortable with. I also find that because fantasy series are gigantic, I can become immersed in this world for a very long time. I get very attached to the characters, who are often similarly well-drawn. Obviously, epic fantasy is my favorite here. I’m also coming to appreciate urban fantasy, but I don’t think it will ever come close to how I feel about fantasy epics. There is little better in the world than sitting down with several gigantic brick-sized fantasy novels and reading straight through them for a few days. It’s almost enough to make me wish I had wisdom teeth to take out again just so I could have those few days away from the world. (Okay, the aftermath of surgery was really painful. But at least I didn’t have anywhere to be!)
Something else I love about fantasy is its ability to comment on societies and play with assumptions which might not be politically correct in, say, literary fiction, because if it’s not our world, it’s not as offensive. Not all fantasy does this, but one recent example I can think of is Robin Hobb’s Soldier Son trilogy. She likes to torture characters anyway, but this series definitely explores the effect that a person’s appearance can have on his reputation and entire life, fair or unfair, and different perspectives on this appearance from different societies. It made me stop and think. The series is HARD to read and not as spectacular as her other ones, but it’s nice to point out when people tell me that fantasy is all just fluff reading.
This challenge is hosted by Beth Fish Reads! I completely fail at challenges in general, and I actually just failed one this month, but I can’t resist this one. I started reading the first book, Dead Until Dark, during the Read-a-Thon and liked it so much that I immediately started the second. I have the third at home waiting for me. That leaves me with 6 to acquire, but I really like this series and I have a whole year, so I’m very hopeful that I can read them all! Since I would ordinarily enjoy completing a series (well, as it stands), I don’t think I will get the same rebel issues that I normally have when I make arbitrary lists for challenges. We shall see!
Here are the rules:
Between July 1, 2009, and June 30, 2010, catch up on Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire series. No matter if you’re starting with book 1 or book 8, you have a year to read all about Sookie. Read Sookie in print, listen to the audio, read an eBook — format is not an issue.
Head on over to the post to see what you have to do to sign up and join for me for a year of reading Sookie!
In college, Donovan Campbell went to a training camp for the US Marine Corps. He thought it would look good on his resume and provide him with some experience. He never had any intention of joining the Marines in actuality. When he graduated from Princeton, Donovan realized that he wanted to do something more with his life than work in an office. He wanted to do something that mattered. So he joined the Marine Corps for real. Leaving his young wife Christy behind, Donovan was required to train his 40-man infantry platoon in record speed as they prepared for their deployment in Iraq. The platoon, named Joker One, was relieved when they were stationed in Ramadi, as it had been relatively quiet. Ramadi did not stay quiet. During his months in Iraq, Donovan’s leadership and quick thinking were tested and questioned time and time again, but his greatest constant remained his love for his men. This book is in part his tribute to them.
I was amazed by how this story of war in Iraq could pull me in. Even when, at times, terminology was confusing and I had to flip to the glossary at the back, I never regretted picking it up and perhaps most surprisingly, I didn’t want to put it down. It would be wrong to call this an exciting book, given the horrific events that happen herein, but it was a moving, astonishing memoir. The love shared between Donovan and his men, their extremely strong friendship, is what powers their mission and this narrative. I was with them when they met, during their training, and while they fought for their lives against insurgents they could hardly distinguish from regular Iraqis.
Joker One is a way for those of us who have never experienced war, who may even be against the war (though never against the soldiers), to get a hint of what living in Iraq must be like. Donovan describes in detail the 50-80 lb gear that they are required to wear, the constant heat in mid-summer, the indifference and sometimes hatred that the Iraqis feel towards the American soldiers, the fear of running for his life and the anguish when one of his men is injured or killed because of a decision he made. The Marines hardly sleep and their lives are in constant danger from bombs tossed against their compound. Men are injured and killed and the platoon shrinks, week by week and month by month. I am more than ever astonished by the courage and strength it must take to volunteer for this and I admire the men in this book for their fortitude and honor.
With all the strife and pain in this book, I was frankly amazed by how easy it was to read. I suspect the author has a gift; he is educated and it shows. He is a worthy choice to put a voice to this compelling story and to reveal to us the sacrifices that men make every day in Iraq as well as the friendship, respect, and love that can grow between them. I am glad I chose to read this book. Ignorance is never a virtue and it is extremely important to understand what is happening in the world around us. Joker One was a fabulous choice.
I love the quote on the back of this book, it’s why I picked it up, so I’m just going to stick it here:
Sophie came to Temptation, Ohio,
to help her sister make a movie.
Now she’s making trouble for the town council,
love with the mayor,
and lemonade for a murderer …
Welcome to Temptation.
Population 2,158.
And falling.
I don’t know why that appeals to me, but it’s catchy somehow! Sophie is a straight-laced thirtysomething who is happy with the success of her wedding filming business and less than excited to head to Temptation to make a movie with Clea, a former porn star who has connections with her brother. Amy, Sophie’s sister, is thrilled, and try as she might, Sophie can’t really deny her little brother and sister much of anything because she wants to protect them and help them be successful. The mayor, Phineas Tucker, is in for it when Sophie and Amy arrive in town. He’s young, attractive, and rich, which to Sophie sends warning signs every time. He can’t help his attraction, though, and in the end, neither can she.
What I really liked about this book is that there is so much more to it than the romance. The romance becomes comfortable because the other issues are a little stressful, like Phin’s difficult mother, adorable child, and struggle to remain mayor and somehow keep his town happy, as well as Sophie’s trust issues and family hang-ups. There is a lot of sex, but unusually it actually furthers the plot, reveals a whole lot of Sophie’s problems, and once the first couple of scenes are past we don’t get much more description; they think about it, though. I guess that’s normal, but this is one of the racier romances I’ve read lately.
Once Sophie and Phin have a thing going on, the book sort of switches over to a murder mystery and all the small-town rivalries and obsessions are revealed in the search to figure out who did it. Sophie is victim of a few attacks and that only complicates matters more. Like I mentioned earlier, I was actually quite into the plot of this one and not just because I wanted to see how the couple got together in the end. We knew that was going to happen, but we didn’t know who was a murderer. I even enjoyed the little side story with Rachel and her struggle for her own independence.
Best of all, this book is funny! I’ve found that my favorite romance authors are those who can pull off banter between the two main characters and leave me smiling, too.
“I love this,” Sophie said, beaming at him. “I look like hell and you’re chasing me around the kitchen. This is great.”
“I am not chasing,” Phin said.
Sophie undid the top button on her blouse.
“I’m chasing,” Phin said. – p. 190
It’s just cute! I did have trouble picking an excerpt, though, because there are a lot of expletives in this book. Not used in a derogatory way, but they’re there. It’s very playful, like the rest of the book, but it’s definitely there.
I’d recommend this absolutely. I’ll also recommend this even if you’re not looking for a romance. I think there is enough here to make it a great, fun summer read beyond that. It’s flirtatious, witty, endearing fun.
As a poor orphan, Eleanor Courteney figured that she was safe from marriage and would be spending the rest of her life with her friend Belle in the home of the earl of Somerset. Lord Edmund has bigger plans for her, though, and sends her off to be wed to Robert Morland, the son of a wealthy Yorkshire sheep farmer. At first deeply unhappy with her father-in-law and new husband, Eleanor soon starts to appreciate her husband and assert her own independence and influence over her household. When her father-in-law dies, Eleanor virtually takes his place as head of the family. This family witnesses the events of the close of the Hundred Years’ War, the Wars of the Roses, and Bosworth Field, always on the side of the Yorkists.
The Morland Dynasty is a huge, huge series of books that is still not finished. Each volume covers a bunch of years in the family’s life and I’m pretty sure they each have a separate story and don’t leave us with cliffhangers. Or so I hope! Anyway, as you all know, I’m a fifteenth century England nerd. I have pretty strong opinions on the history here. This book, for anyone who is interested, is really a romantic image of Yorkist England. I was particularly amused by the constant emphasis on Richard, duke of York as a soldier. Every noble was supposed to be a soldier. Obviously not everyone was inclined to enjoy martial pursuits but they were supposed to and made an effort to appear soldierly, except maybe Henry VI. This doesn’t make Richard special. Also, some outdated history; there’s no chance that the princes in the tower actually made it to Yorkshire, much less were killed by Henry VII. It’s tremendously unlikely that no one anywhere would have reported their existence in those two years. The author provided an author’s note in the front of the book with her bibliography list, so I do know just how outdated that history is – I have read every single one of the books in question! I give her a ton of credit for doing that research, though, and I don’t want to take that away. It’s just that a lot has changed in the past 30 years.
Okay, on to the book itself. The prose reminds me of books I used to read when I was a kid, which might make sense because it was written in the 80s. It has that idealized feel which makes me realize why everyone wants to live in the past. It’s just lovely in this book. Even though there are battles and people die in horrific ways, everyone moves on fairly quickly and continues with their happy, usually long lives. It’s a nice story, a saga through years of turmoil that still manages to make it all sound rosy. I don’t know how Harrod-Eagles manages that, but she certainly does. To be honest, I like it. It didn’t really bug me that the history was old because this doesn’t really feel like the Middle Ages I know; it’s an idealized period that never actually existed.
I liked the characters, too. Eleanor is a strong, independent woman. It’s also interesting to see how she goes from young, impressionable girl to strong, old-fashioned grandmother and head of the family. I like how the affection between her and her husband grows very slowly over time. I think it’s a nice example of what might actually happen in arranged marriages. There are, of course, bad examples of that in this book too, but the initial Morland marriage is the foundation of the entire dynasty.
I’m really looking forward to the next book in the series. Maybe this isn’t great, thoughtful reading, but I found it to be very enjoyable. I would recommend it to those who enjoy historical fiction in particular.
As some of you are probably aware, I joined the Summer Reading Blitz challenge hosted by Shauna at Reading and Ruminations. Our goal is to read 30 books in the 30 days of June. I’m very pleased with my progress; I’ve already completed 15 books and it’s only the 14th. Some of these were even slow, somewhat painful chunksters. How am I doing this, you ask? Well, my classes are over and I’m just writing and researching my dissertation. I haven’t found a part-time job and since I’m getting married and moving away at the end of September/beginning of October, it’s getting to the point where it would be pointless to keep searching for 2-3 months of work just to search again when I get there. I’ve already done most of my research, so at this point I am just writing 500-1000 words a day and then getting on with my reading!
I’m trying not to read short books just for the sake of the challenge. Instead, I have been following through on last week’s mission of reading an ARC or review copy, a library book, and then the oldest TBR that I have. I did have to cheat a little. I knew I needed to get My Lord John by Georgette Heyer read for next week and Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea read for online book club today, plus I got a Harlequin survey that I needed to answer so I snuck in Married by Mistake by Abby Gaines. That’s too many ARCs! I’m going to stick with the plan this time, though. I have found a great satisfaction in going way back through my LT catalogue and finding the oldest book that I have on my shelves and reading it. I’ve had so much fun figuring out what I’m going to read next according to my new system that I arranged all the books for the next couple of weeks in a pile:
While putting together that pile and thinking about my new goal to read my oldest books, I have realized that the reason many of them are the oldest is because they are chunksters. In the interests of speed and number counts, I have been passing over chunksters in favor of shorter, quicker books for the past couple of years. I think it’s been mostly subconscious. I will look at my shelves and think about what I really want to read, books like Possession and Crossed which you can see in the pile, but when it comes down to it I will pick up the smaller book. I no longer want to do this. My projected total for this year is almost 300 books. I don’t need to read that many. After June, I am going to read all those chunksters that I have been putting off.
Let’s take the two books I have read from the past this week, The Lieutenant’s Lover by Harry Bingham and Shadows and Strongholds by Elizabeth Chadwick. The first is 500 pages, the second is 564. I loved the first and I read half of the second last night instead of sleeping. These books are fabulous and I shouldn’t shy away from the just because they are long. Reading books I love should be more important than seeking the fastest read that will knock one off my TBR pile and add one on to my yearly total.
What about you? Do you find yourself putting off longer books in favor of shorter ones? Why? Is it for your yearly count and TBR pile like me or do you have other reasons?
In 1861, the silkworms begin to die. Herve Joncour and the rest of the citizens living in his small town in France have made their living from silkworms and aren’t sure what to do next. Trips just to Syria and Egypt will not bring back the healthy, thriving silkworms to fuel their economy. Businessman Baldabiou then tells Herve that the silkworms in Japan are still thriving, legendary for the quality of their silk. Bidding his lovely wife Helene good-bye, Herve sets off for Japan a total of four times, finding not only silkworms but also a quiet, passionate love in exotic, closed-off Japan.
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