Thursday, December 30, 2010

My Reading LIfe by Pat Conroy: Review & Giveaway

You don't have to be familiar with Pat Conroy's books to enjoy  My Reading Life I was drawn to the book by it's title and description.

My Reading Life
My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

The blurb:
Pat Conroy, the beloved American storyteller, is a voracious reader.  Starting as a childhood passion that bloomed into a lifelong companion, reading has been Conroy's portal to the world, both to the farthest corners f the globe and to the deepest chambers of the human soul.  His interests range widely, from Milton to Tolkien, Philip Roth to Thucydides, encompassing poetry, history, philosophy, and any mesmerizing tale of his native South.  He has for years kept notebooks in which he records words and expressions, over time creating a vast reservoir of playful turns of phrase, dazzling flashes of description, and snippets of delightful sound, all just for his love of language.  But for Conroy reading is not simply a pleasure to be enjoyed in off-hours or a source of inspiration for his own writing.  It would hardly be an exaggeration to claim that reading may have saved his life -- and if not his life, then surely his sanity.

In My Reading Life, Conroy revisits a life of reading through an array of wonderful and often surprising anecdotes: sharing the pleasures of the local library's vast cache with his mother when he was a boy, recounting his decades-long relationship with the English teacher who pointed him onto the path of letters, and describing a profoundly influential time he spent in Paris, as well as reflecting on the other pivotal people, places, and experiences.  His story is a moving and personal one, girded by wisdom and an undeniable honesty.  Anyone who not only enjoys the pleasures of reading but also believes in the power of books to shape a life will find here the greatest defense of that credo.

Review:
As I read My Reading Life, I started out flagging the passages that spoke to me.  My copy had so many flags that my seatmate on the train asked about the many colored flags sticking out of the small book.  As I explained that I marked the parts that I particularly enjoyed and wanted to revisit, he looked amused and curious.  Did all my books look like this? No, just the special ones.

 In the first 13 chapters,  Conroy writes about the people and books that played pivotal roles in his life.

He begins with his mother, how she encouraged his curiosity and love for books. "Books permitted me to embark on dangerous voyages to a world of painted faces of mandrills and leopards scanning the veldt from the high branches of the baobab tree.  There was nothing my mother could not bring me from a library...Whenever she opened a new book, she could escape the exhausting life of a mother of seven and enter into cloistered realms forbidden to a woman born among the mean fields of Georgia."
Conroy goes on to describe how Gone With the Wind was changed his mother, the life she led, and the South that Conroy had grown up in.  

In the chapter The Teacher, Conroy shares how his English teacher Gene Norris served as a generous mentor, father figure and friend.   In writing about the friendship that began in high school and grew over 40 years, Conroy gently shows us on how to treat other people and to be true to ourselves.  Conroy shares how Norris and the censorship of Catcher in the Rye taught him that "Literature teaches us to be brave. It demands it of us."  This chapter had me crying in the subway - it's a nod to dedicated and effective teachers everywhere.

In My Reading Life, as I read about the books and people that played pivotal roles in Pat Conroy's life and I thought back to the people that played similar roles in my own life.   It's a book to share - and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys reading.

ISBN-10: 0385533578 - Hardcover $25
Publisher: Nan A. Talese; First Edition edition (November 2, 2010), 325 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.

About the Author:
Pat Conroy is the bestselling author of nine previous books: South of Broad, The Lords of Discipline: A Novel, The Water Is Wide: A Memoir, The Great Santini: A Novel, Beach Music: A Novel, The Prince of Tides: A Novel, My Losing Season: A Memoir, The Boo, and The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes and Stories of My Life.  Several of his books have been made into successful films. He lives in Fripp Island, South Carolina.

CONTEST DETAILS:
To enter,  please share a person that was important to your love of reading and the book that they'd shared with you. 

Rules:
1. Please include your email address, so that I can contact you if you win. No email address, no entry.
2. You must be a follower to join the contest.
3. One entry per household.

The contest is limited to US only. No P.O. boxes. The contest ends at noon on Jan. 20, 2010.
 

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Signing up for the Maisie Dobbs Read-Along

Maisie-Dobbs-read-along
I just heard about the Maisie Dobbs Read-Along to celebrate the paperback release of The Mapping of Love and Death in February 2011 and the newest Maisie Dobbs mystery, A Lesson in Secrets.

I hadn't read any of the Massie Dobbs series previously but it sounds right up my alley. Here's how the series was described to me: "Maisie Dobbs is a female investigator living in London in the 1920s and 30s, and whose stories and cases find their roots in World War I." 

Doesn't it sound fun? Intriguing? Learn more about Maisie Dobbs, the cast of continuing characters in the novels, and her creator Jacqueline Winspear at http://jacquelinewinspear.com

I've just signed up for the Maise Dobbs Read-Along organized by Book Club Girl.  Book Club Girl invites us to join her in reading Maisie Dobbs books and to discuss as we go along. The author, Jacqueline Winspear is scheduled to answer questions in April.  The Read-Along runs from Jan 14 to April 25.  Sign up at Book Club Girl's blog.

Giveaway of The Imperial Cruise by James Bradley

The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War

Hatchette and Back Bay Books are generously sponsoring a giveaway of 3 copies of James Bradley's The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War.  

Does the book sound interesting?  Read  my review of The Imperial Cruise below.  To enter the giveaway,  comment on my review.  Please mention why you'd like to read the book and your email address so that I can reach you if you win. 

The contest is limited to US and Canada only.  One winner per household.  The contest ends at noon on December 31, 2010.

Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol - a Pop-Up Book by Chuck Fischer

Remember Chuck Fischer's Angels: A Pop-Up Book last Christmas? This year, Chuck Fischer's come up with a detailed depiction of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol with A Christmas Carol: A Pop-Up Book (Pop Up Book).  

A Christmas Carol: A Pop-Up Book (Pop Up Book)

The book includes a small and beautifully illustrated insert that recounts Charles Dickens' life history and how he came to write A Christmas Carol in 6 weeks. The book was published on December 19, 1843 - one day and 177 years ago.   Mark Twain credited Charles Dickens as the author who invented the book tour since Dickens would travel to present his literary works.  This book, A Christmas Carol, is said to have helped transform Christmas from a regular holiday to a celebration of good will and holiday cheer.  


A Christmas Carol was my introduction to Charles Dickens when I was in elementary school.  And it remains one of my favorite books and Dickens one of my all time favorite authors.

As Dickens had written in installments, A Christmas Carol: A Pop-Up Book (Pop Up Book) presents the story -- Dickens' actual words -- in five staves: Marley's Ghost, The First of The Three Spirits, The Second of the Three Spirits,  The Last of The Spirits, and The End of It. Each section magically recreates the important and unforgettable events in each of the five parts. 

The first recreates Dickens and Marley's London with the lamp lighters and gas street lights, horse drawn carriages, urchins warming by an outdoor fire, Scrooge & Marley's office with old Scrooge stepping out and tightly grasping his briefcase.  The second gives us the grandfather clock, the luxurious interior of Scrooge's townhouse, and Scrooge and Marley.  Scrooge's expression captures so well the moment that Marley appears.  I loved the third part best. Fischer didn't just describe the visit of the Ghost of Christmas Past. He recreated several of the pivotal moments in Scrooge's life.  This section will surely make the book a family favorite.  The fourth shows us the Cratchetts' at dinner with the Christmas pudding, a depiction of  the feasts that Scrooge refused to join, and Scrooge as he is affected by the visits.  The fifth shows Scrooge confronted how his life might end and his horror at this.  The book ends with Tiny Tim Cratchett and his famous line, "God Bless Us, Every One!" and the new shop, Scrooge and Cratchett.

A Christmas Carol: A Pop-Up Book (Pop Up Book) is the beautiful sort of book that a child would love.   The pictures will capture the child's attention.  The story and Dickens' writing will captivate.

ISBN-10: 031603973X - Hardcover $30.00
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; Pop Har/Bk edition (November 10, 2010), 12 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War by James Bradley

The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War
The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War by James Bradley

The blurb:
Following the success of his two bestselling books about World War II, James Bradley began to wonder what the real catalyst was for the Pacific war.  What he discovered will forever change the way you think about American history and the origins of war and empire in Asia.

In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Taft, his own daughter Alice, and a team of congressmen on a mission to Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea with the intent of forging an agreement to divide up Asia.  This clandestine and wholly unconstitutional pact lit the fuse that would -- decades later -- result in a number of devastating wars: World War II, the Korean War, and the Communist Revolution in China.

In 2005, James Bradley traveled in the wake of Roosevelt's cruise and came face-to-face with the remarkable truth about America's imperial ambitions, a story that has been effectively erased from our history textbooks.

Review:
When I first heard about Imperial Cruise, I was so excited to read it, find out the revelations that the blurb mentioned.  I figured that I had more than the usual reader's familiarity and interest in the US's imperial ambitions.  I'm from the Philippines and had lived there during the strong "anti-US imperialist" rallies.  I'd always been fascinated by history and took whatever classes Yale had that touched on Southeast Asia, Empire, Imperialism, Nationalism. As a political science major, I enjoyed learning about government, transitions, the rise of nationalism, and national identities.   Loved those cultural criticism and anthropology classes that dealt with the rise of nationalism, national identity in India, Southeast Asia, Latin America.  I've long outgrown whatever radical, left wing tendencies I might have had.  But I'm still fascinated with history.

I devoured The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War.  It opens with James Bradley giving us the background of his own interest in this period. His father was one of the men that raised the flag in Iwa Jima.  Bradley tells the story with considerable emphasis on the personalities involved.  Did you know how popular Alice Roosevelt had been in her time?  Known as Princess Alice, she was an it girl and a princess rolled into one -- a Princess Diana of sorts -- the press and public followed her devotedly.  Bradley delves into her family politics and we get a fuller sense of the pressures that she was under and her escapades.   He gives us a window into the lives of the Roosevelts, Tafts, and McKinleys.

The book doesn't skim over what must have been private and secret discussions.  The sections on the Spanish American War and the Philippine Insurrection, which is known as something else - one of the chapters in the War on Independence - in the Philippine History, Bradley examines the way that McKinley injected "benevolent intentions into U.S. foreign policy" and the ways that the decision to colonize the Philippines was discussed on the Senate and in the press at that time.  I'd never studied how the U.S. took possession of and established control of the Philippines.  In school, we used to compare the Spanish colonial period with the US colonial period and this was always ended up with everyone grateful to the US for the schools, type of government, infrastructure, etc.  We later studied the treaties and trade advantages given to the US as a condition for Philippine independence but the brutality of the wars were never touched on.  Bradley showed that the Philippines didn't just surrender to the US - there was a bloody and brutal war to gain control as well as other atrocities of war.

The section on the annexation of Hawaii entitled Haoles is also fascinating.  Bradley goes into the depiction of Hawaiians in the press, the popular opinion, and what was going on behind the scenes.  Quotes from Mark Twain and others make the period come alive.  In this section, Bradley examines how American missionaries were able to acquire valuable Hawaiian land.  All of this tied to the cruise with Princess Alice Roosevelt and Secretary of State William Taft.  Then in the sections The Japanese War Doctrine for Asia and Honorary Aryans Bradley goes into how a US President had agreed to Japan's colonization of Korea and other Asian countries, in part contributing to Japan's expansion through the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere - the Japanese invasion during World War II.

I highly recommend The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War.    Bradley touches on a period that isn't often explored and does so in a fascinating and entertaining way.  Well researched and a good read!

ISBN-10: 0316014001 - Trade paperback $16.99 
Publisher: Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (November 8, 2010), 400 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.



About the Author:
James Bradley is the son of John Bradley, on eof the men who raised the American flag on Iwo Jima. He is the author of Flags of Our Fathers and Flyboys: A True Story of Courage.
Flyboys: A True Story of Courage  Flags of Our Fathers (Movie Tie-in Edition)

Friday, December 17, 2010

Friday 56: Week 62 - Everything is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour by Rachel Shukert








Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions
on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog.
*
Post a link along with your post back to this blog and to Storytime with Tonya and Friends at http://storytimewithtonya.blogspot.com/
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.


Everything Is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour by Rachel Shukert


Everything Is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour

 
Here's the blurb:
When she lands a coveted nonpaying, nonspeaking role in a play going on a European tour, Rachel Shukert -- with a brand-new degree in acting from NYU and no money -- finally scores her big break.  And, after a fluke at customs in Vienna, she gets her golden ticket: an unstamped passport, giving her free rein to "find herself" on a grand tour of Europe.  Traveling from Vienna to Zurich to Amsterdam, Rachel bounces through complicated relationships, drunken mishaps, miscommunication, and the reality-adjusting culture shock that every twentysomething faces when sent off to negotiate "the real world" -- whatever that may be.

About the Author:
Rachel Shukert is a playwright, performer, and the author of Have You No Shame?: And Other Regrettable Stories.  Her writing has appeared in McSweeney's and Heeb, and on Salon, Slate, Gawker, Nerve, and The Daily Beast, as well as featured on National Public Radio and in numerous print anthologies.  Shukert was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, and now lives in New York City with her husband and her bipolar cat.

Here's my Friday 56:
"I realize you have your feminist principles," said Daphne, "but he told me that you crashed some party he was at in the middle of the night, went home with him after five minutes, and snuck out in the morning before he woke up.  Are you saying that he didn't do it?  Because that sounds like you."

Friday 56: Week 61








Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions
on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog.
*
Post a link along with your post back to this blog and to Storytime with Tonya and Friends at http://storytimewithtonya.blogspot.com/
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.


Songs of Love and Death: All-Original Tales of Star-Crossed Love George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois 

Songs of Love and Death: All-Original Tales of Star-Crossed Love 
Here's the blurb:
In this star-studded cross-genre anthology, seventeen of the greatest modern authors of fantasy, science fiction, and romance explore the borderlands of their genres with brand-new tales of ill-fated love.  From zombie-infested woods in a postapocalyptic America to faery-haunted rural fields in eighteenth century England, from the kingdoms of high fantasy to the alien world of a galaxy-spanning empire, these are stories of lovers who must struggle against the forces of magic and fate.

Award-winning, bestselling author Neil Gaiman demonstrates why he's one of the hottest stars in literature today with "The Thing About Cassandra," a subtle but chilling story of a man who meets an old girlfirned he never expected to see.

International blockbuster selling author Diana Gabaldon sends a World War II RAF pilot through a stone circle to the time of her Outlander series in "A Leaf on the Winds of All Hallows." Torn from all he knows, Jerry MacKenzie determinedly survives hardship and danger, intent on his goal of returning home to his wife and baby -- no matter the cost.

New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher presents "Love Hurts," in which Harry Dresden takes on one of his deadliest adversaries and in the process is forced to confront the secret desires of his own heart.

Just the smallest sampling promises unearthly delights but look also for stories by Jo Beverly and Mary Jo Putney, and by such legends of fantasy genre as Peter S. Beagle and Tanith Lee, as well as many other popular and beloved writers, including Marjorie M. Liu, Jacqueline Carey, Carrie Vaughn, and Robin Hobb.  This exquisite anthology, crafted by the peerless editing team of George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, is sure to leave you under its spell.

Here's my Friday 56:
"You're home with your bride."
from "The Marrying Maid" by Jo Beverley