nonfiction / reviews

Release Day Review: 1913 by Florian Illies

Title: 1913: The Year Before the StormAuthor: Florian IlliesPublisher: Melville HouseReleased: October 29, 2013Source: publisher (Edelweiss)Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodreadsSynopsis (from publisher):It was the year Henry Ford first put a conveyer belt in his car factory, and the year Louis Armstrong first picked up a trumpet. It was the year Charlie Chaplin signed his first movie contract, and Coco Chanel and Prada opened their first dress shops. It was the year Proust began his opus, Stravinsky wrote The Rite of Spring, and the first Armory Show in New York introduced the world to Picasso and the world of abstract art. It was the year the recreational drug now known as ecstasy was invented. It was 1913, the year…

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October 28, 2013
nonfiction

Book Beginnings: 1913 by Florian Illies

Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Use hashtag #BookBeginnings and link up at Rose City Reader. Quote:The first second of 1913. A gunshot rings out through the dark night. There's a brief click, fingers tense on the trigger, then comes a second, dull report. The alarm is raised, the police dash to the scene and arrest the gunman straight away. His name is Louis Armstrong.My thoughts:These opening sentences are a great example of the kind of non-fiction writing that pulls me right in. It has the engaging style I look for when selecting history titles, especially.…

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October 17, 2013
Music

Little Women

I'm playing in the orchestra for the local university's production of the musical Little Women. Tomorrow is opening night! The singers sound fantastic. I'm impressed by how talented these students are.The music is quite beautiful, with undertones of that "new age piano" kind of sound, which I admit I'm a sucker for! Here's a video of a song that had half our orchestra in tears — even a couple of the guys. This is Beth's final scene (featuring Broadway stars Sutton Foster as Jo and Megan McGinnis as Beth):From the pit, we can't see what's happening up on stage. Listening to the dialogue, I realized I remember little to nothing about the book. I read it in early elementary school, and I think…

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October 16, 2013
nonfiction / reviews

Review: Mind Without a Home by Kristina Morgan

I'm part of the blog tour for Kristina Morgan's Mind Without a Home: A Memoir of Schizophrenia. Thanks to TLC Book Tours for supplying me with a review copy. This tour began September 30 and finishes up November 1; be sure to check out the complete tour schedule and read the reviews posted on other stops for other perspectives!Title: Mind Without a Home: A Memoir of SchizophreniaAuthor: Kristina MorganPublisher: HazeldenReleased: September 3, 2013Source: publisher (TLC Book Tours)Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodreadsSynopsis (from publisher):Experience the inner world of a woman with schizophrenia in this brutally honest, lyrical memoir. Have you ever wondered what it is like in the mind of a person with Schizophrenia? How can one survive day after day unable…

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October 15, 2013
Fiction / reviews

Review: Astor Place Vintage by Stephanie Lehmann

Title: Astor Place VintageAuthor: Stephanie LehmannPublisher: TouchstoneReleased: June 11, 2013Source: authorAmazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodreadsSynopsis (from publisher):Amanda Rosenbloom, proprietor of Astor Place Vintage, thinks she’s on just another call to appraise and possibly purchase clothing from a wealthy, elderly woman. But after discovering a journal sewn into a fur muff, Amanda gets much more than she anticipated. The pages of the journal reveal the life of Olive Westcott, a young woman who had moved to Manhattan in 1907. Olive was set on pursuing a career as a department store buyer in an era when Victorian ideas, limiting a woman’s sphere to marriage and motherhood, were only beginning to give way to modern ways of thinking. As Amanda reads…

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October 14, 2013
Uncategorized

Dewey’s Read-a-Thon

It's time for Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon! I'm not going to be able to participate as fully as originally planned because I have 7 1/2 hours of rehearsal today for the musical Little Women. But hey, at least it's literature-based, right? And I'll be reading... music. ;)Usually there's some downtime in the orchestra pit, so I'll be reading whenever I can. I'll probably be putting my current book (The Panopticon) on hold since it's a physical copy and the lighting will be dim. However, I have my Nook armed with two CCLaP novellas (four sparks fall and Life After Sleep) and a non-fiction history title (1913) that clocks in at 272 pages. Definitely enough options for the amount of time…

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October 11, 2013
Fiction / reviews / Short Stories

Review: Long Live Us by Mark R. Brand

Title: Long Live UsAuthor: Mark R. BrandPublisher: CCLaP PublishingReleased: September 9, 2013Source: CCLaP websiteCCLaP | Amazon | GoodreadsSynopsis (from Goodreads):A family tensely waits out a meningitis scare in a quarantined home during the Great Recession. Small-town farmers in pre-war America battle a tree the size of a skyscraper. In a day-after-tomorrow dystopia, the new naughty contraband among rebellious teenagers is starchy carbohydrates. And in a barely recognizable far future, enlightened humanoids debate the implications of a mother who has smothered her child. These are just some of the speculative visions collected in the new "Long Live Us" by Chicago writer Mark R. Brand, author of the previous CCLaP hit "Life After Sleep." Known primarily as a science-fiction author, this new collection will certainly…

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October 9, 2013
Fiction / reviews

Review: Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Title: Burial RitesAuthor: Hannah KentPublisher: Little, Brown and CompanyReleased: September 10, 2013Source: friend (Shannon at River City Reading)Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodreadsSynopsis (from Goodreads):A brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829. Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the…

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October 7, 2013
nonfiction / reviews

Review: The Amazing Monarch by Windle Turley

Title: The Amazing Monarch: The Secret Wintering Grounds of an Endangered ButterflyAuthor: Windle TurleyPublisher: BenBella BooksReleased: October 2010Source: publisher (NetGalley)Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodreadsSynopsis (from Goodreads):In "The Amazing Monarch," author and photographer Windle Turley chronicles the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. Replete with page after page of full-color photographs, the book shows the monarch’s rarely captured destination wintering grounds. The contrast of the orange and black pops off the page as the reader goes on a visual tour in the high mountains of Mexico. The multifaceted work also contains poems and quotations focusing on the beauty of these tiny animals that weigh only .02 of an ounce.Granted almost unprecedented access by Mexican wildlife officials, Turley photographed the…

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October 6, 2013
Walker Memorial Library in Westbrook, Maine
Uncategorized

Walker Memorial Library in Westbrook, Maine

My late grandmother lived in the heart of downtown Westbrook, Maine in a beautiful house on Main Street. We lived with her off and on throughout my life, mostly when I was in elementary school and while my dad was at sea (Navy) for long stretches of time. I have many happy memories from my childhood in Westbrook, usually having to do with cold and snowy weather, the early morning aromas of Dunkin' Donuts wafting from across the street ("time to make the donuts!"), and the freedom to walk around downtown on my own. I checked Google Maps on this: Everywhere I went was inside a 1/2 mile radius, with very good sidewalks the whole way. But in my mind, it felt…

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October 4, 2013

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