the elusive Alatriste

Okay, so I have been pining for this supposed Captain Alatriste movie since I heard about it ( namely through a chance encounter with a youtube trailer .


But I am beginning to think the bloody thing will never be released in North America.


As with the brilliant Arturo Perez Reverte series, we tend to get more than a little late, I guess it is somewhere lost in translation.


So, we speculate:


did Viggo Mortensen REALLY learn Spanish?

does Diego kiss that girl.... you know, the one that turns all the events on the sidelines and makes life a living hell ?

is the movie as high budget as its excellent website?




I'm dying here people!

RIP Challenge

HELP! Everyone is starting to get ready for Carl's RIP challenge, which I thoroughly enjoyed doing last year.


But, I don't know what to read!


Please. I want something tingly that I can read by candlelight on a rainy fall night.


Send recommendations my way!

stardust.

My god this is a good movie adaptation. The book is serenely beautiful and the movie is ever so uber Victorian and romantic.

So, do yourself a favour and indulge. It is delectable.

And.... I applauded ( along w/ my friend ) when Nathaniel Parker showed up onscreen. I was not expecting it and little treats are what life is about.

eclipse.

Eclipse was so bad, I need some pics of some good guys reading to keep my mind from it.

Thus, I give you

Bookish Dr. Who ( a la David Tennant....eep!)

and Gregory Peck.

Really there is nothing more attractive.

bad teenie vampire fiction

I am halfway through Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer.... and, seeing as Bella is the most spineless, useless, weak and woozy female to ever step off a literary page ( the bit I read of Shopaholic falling nicely in close step behind ) , I am not sure why I am going to finish it.

Maybe I won't.


How OFTEN does one weak-minded female have to be rescued by a charming, strong male?


She gets smothered by being "pressed to his chest" ( I would give a notation for this specific description--- but it is mentioned on every other page so forgive me)


Geez Stephenie Meyer. You are a great person, but there are impressionable minds out there.

Why give so many fourteen year old girls such a backless, weakling as a heroine ?


Work on this .


EDIT: It is official. I will NEVER read another Stephenie Meyer book again. I think it was Edward staking possession ( staking: no pun intended) in front of Jacob with "She is MINE!"

and Bella being too weak minded and possessed to assert that she is, in fact, her own person.

Why are all these guys in love with her? Oh yes. I get it. She's a puppet for them to play with. Every guy wants a damsel in distress.


Sheesh.



EDIT:

please read this --- a list of the most commonly over-used things in Teen and YA fiction. Hilarious.


I think she forgot to mention " the incest card"; my friend Karin has not been able to shut up about: " I can't believe Cassandra Claire played the INCEST CARD !! [in City of Bones ] She wrote a YA novel and played the obvious INCEST card!"


It is one of the most hilarious conversations we have. And we have it often.

hermione.

My guest blog at Harper Collins' What Would Harry Read site is HERE !

HARRY! ....erm, what I really mean is SIRIUS !

In bookish movie adaptations, the best one running at the moment is inevitably Order of the Phoenix. What did we do before Sirius Black? Love him!

So, tonight I am laying out my "I Siriusly Love Sirius Black" shirt ( the one Carrie made me on her tshirt press a couple of years ago, my Gryffindor scarf, my lightning bolt temporary tattoo.....smack in the middle of my forehead, my Potter ball cap and my glasses and getting adrenaline ready for another round of Potter madness. This is my fourth Harry Potter as a book seller and I am VERY excited.

On Booking through Thursday's blog we have an exciting questionnaire which I will answer here:

1.Okay, love him or loathe him, you’d have to live under a rock not to know that J.K. Rowling’s final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, comes out on Saturday… Are you going to read it?

Absolutely. I cannot wait. I have been avoiding all of the news AND that leaked NYT review

2.If so, right away? Or just, you know, eventually, when you get around to it? Are you attending any of the midnight parties?

I am of course attending my bookstore's midnight party and I organized a bunch of fun stuff for the kids. I will start reading probably after work Saturday evening .

Working in the book business means you better be done by Monday or you will hear EVERYTHING !

3.If you’re not going to read it, why not?

4,And, for the record… what do you think? Will Harry survive the series? What are you most looking forward to?

I am most looking forward to the depth of Snape ---- we know that JK Rowling has an obvious affection for him, so I would like to see if he turns out to the be the TRAGIC HERO!

I hope Sirius' motorcycle plays a part, I also hope that RAB stands for Regallus Black.

Harry a horcrux? Perhaps !

favourite.

" I have a confession to make, " says bookstore owner Kathleen Kelly in the charming Pride and Prejudice update, You've Got Mail, " I have read Pride and Prejudice two hundred times !I am always in agony over whether Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett will really get together. Read it. I know you'll love it."


Bad paraphrasing aside, I could say the same ( times eight thousand ) for my favouritist of books, The Blue Castle. Selling it consistently to Muskoka tourists at my bookshop this week, I was forced to ponder my history with this book and possibly my future


Will I give it up? Probably not. Do all of my philosophies on life and my conception of romance somehow stem from the well worn pages of my favourite copy of the book I own many editions of? Probably yes.


I was so excited to do my honour's thesis on it ( partly ) and to filter my passion for this novel into a more scholarly funnel. Sure, every "smart" statement I made pertaining to the work and every symbol I found in its deeply feminist construction have fled now. Oh well, I still have the papers to prove my thoughts were once in that state. Right now, school-less, I could care less whether or not I am reading it with critical eye. I am kicking my feet up in the summer sun in the beautiful landscape that so resembles the setting of the work ( it is set about half hour from my house ) , eating chocolate almonds, and dreaming of my own whimsical and mysterious hero.


"Everyone has a Blue Castle", says consumption-ridden Cissy Gay to her aide, Valancy Stirling. Everyone, I think, has a book like The Blue Castle. They may not know it, but for a reader, it's in their blood.


One cannot help but think of how influential this book has been on the Canadian public consciousness. Not only did it put Bala, Muskoka on the map ( Okay. Bala, Muskoka ISN'T on the map, but if it were , I am sure it would be for this book ), it was rewritten by Colleen McCulloch ( renowned for The Thorn Birds) and the start of a major lawsuit and debate on literary validity ( ie. can you claim that you read a book years ago and subconsciously write it again thinking it is indeed far from plagiarism? If your hero's name is John Foster then let me ding the negative, "Wrong Answer" bell ). It also was, according to some essay in some book I don't have time to look up now, the inspiration behind Atwood's Lady Oracle.


If you search amazon, zillions of readers claim The Blue Castle, one of the least known of Montgomery's works and only in print again in the last decade, to be their absolute favourite book of all time. This book inspires literary passion and imaginative emancipation like no other I have ever read.



I could go on about the plot and why it remains ( with the exception of my bridge to the realm of classic literature, Les Miserables ) my favourite book of all time, but I think it is more important to broach the subject of the one book that turns you on your ear.


Why is it that one book for one person surpasses everyone else's passion for the same work? Why is it I can reread the torn and worn pages of this cheesy little mass market over and over again and never tire of what the tattered binding holds?

I think we choose our books like we choose our friends: some glimpse of personality, humour, warmth, a shard of light that reflects ourselves, a hint of something we want to glean and nurture and hold onto. Something that makes us feel more like "us" than we did before it was part of our daily lives.

If so, The Blue Castle is perfectly me ---with its outlandish fairytale plot and its over-the-top ending and its flowery descriptions, obsession with books and deep lights flickering over harbours.

I always give new acquaintances who I surmise will remain forevermore kindred spirits a copy.... just to wait for their assessment, and to hope they think of it as I do ( maybe not as deeply, but to some extent ).

My aunt always keeps copies of A Room of One's Own around her house, so she can bestow them upon worthy readers if need be.

I keep the Blue Castle nearby.

It is the perfect romance. The perfect read.




IN RELATED NEWS:

oh, dear god. Kevin Sullivan has decided to butcher more Montgomery (as if Lantern Hill and that ghastly third Anne movie were not enough) by making an Anne prequel .


Just because Montgomery mentioned the idea doesn't mean she was actually going to write it, Kevin. You must know that most of the Anne series was written to see her through financial hardships and a car lawsuit. Good lord! She would HATE this!


Oh, and the fact that you are casting on youtube(!!!!!), means I dislike this idea even more.

Have fun 12 year old redheads, there is no way this would be welcomed by Anne's creator.

Town House by Tish Cohen

Scored this one from the nice people at Harper Collins. Incidentally, for those who keep up with the industry, HCP has recently acquired rights to most Hyperion and Miramax books so we can look to an interesting future. Confusing,perhaps, because I think Fenn is keeping some of the titles they had before.

Oh well.

On to one of the most charmingly eccentric experiences of my reading life.

Jack Madigan is agoraphobic. ( Don't look it up, it means he doesn't leave his house ) Severe panic attacks and the constantly replaying images of a troubled childhood in a carton ( under the strange eye of his rockstar father, Baz ), keep Jack from stepping beyond the threshold of his crumbling if gorgeously historic Boston Townhouse.

Living off the royalties of his father's songs ( think our friend from Hornby's About a Boy ) his ailment has so far not been a drastic problem.

When the royalties start dwindling, however, and a scatterbrained real estate agent named Dorrie is the line between his comfort-zone and the scary world outdoors, Jack is in more than a pickle.

The crumbling house is populated by a melange of quirky eccentrics: Jack, Dorrie ( thinking the odd little fish from Finding Nemo is apt in this case ), Jack's hippie son Harlan and the little girl who crawls through a hole in the wall and joins Jack each morning at the kitchen table for coffee.

It is a breezy, fresh and well-paced book that screams the best of summer reading.

The house, with its tricky dumbwaiter, and drywall dents and gashes ( from Baz Madigan's many guitar rants ) is as much a leading character as our endearing agoraphobic.

Prepare to be stirred with compassion and empathy for a man whose whole world is set in a four-storey townhouse, charming throughout its drafty discomfort and cat-sized rats.

Prepare also to be reminded of the best Nick Hornby novel: not intrusively, but by a friendly comparitive nudge.

I hope to read more of Tish Cohen's work in the near future !

hoax.

About a month ago, a shipment arrived at my bookstore bearing a copy of the most esoteric and dry looking book known to the world of literary history: An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin by Rohan Kriwaczek.

Well, what does one do with this?...gothic cover et al. Does one shelf it in history? In Music? Nay, one snatches it up and places it in the staff picks section. This book is too good to pass up, mockworthy and full of hours of random page opening.



After my coworker and I used the ireads application on Facebook to "review" this slighted piece of brilliance with high words of praise, I decided to wikipedia the book just to see what I could glean about Funerary Violins.

What I discovered and what remains the best part of the whole experience --- is that the funerary violin book is indeed a complete and utter hoax.

The publisher was hoaxed.

The agent was hoaxed.


Unsuspecting bookstore clerks who chalked it up as yet another strange history book were hoaxed.



I dare you to google it, and to dive into a labyrinth of mistruths. In an age ( *cough* James Frey and the Da Vinci Code ) where readers are forever blurred with lines crossing fact and fiction and an incessant need to read about secret societies and a tyrannical Catholic Church, research into the supposed Guild of Funerary Violinists will definitely stay your thirst.

Search Rohan Kriwaczek's website to find sound snippets of songs that never existed, to read more of Herr Hieronymous Gratchenfleiss, to be directed to the website for the Guild of Funerary Violinists, to read of Kriwaczek's made up credentials in his made-up history, to order famous cd's of funerary violinists to register to fake universities for fake courses dealing with this "forgotten" form of musicianship.


HA!



It is sheer genius, utterly fun and worth a second glance.

Also, it is destined to become a rarity, so buy the book soon. Who knows what limited run this lucky piece of work will have.



BEST WEBSITES INVOLVING the Funerary Violin

http://www.rohan-k.co.uk/

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6202644

Leacock

I was lucky enough to be a reader on the Leacock Humour Award Committee this year. This means I was part of a team that selected a winner from 43 submitted entries. We narrowed them down to a shortlist and decided (along with national judges ) a winner.

Past winners have been W.O. Mitchell, Farley Mowat, Mordecai Richler and dozens of other worthy Canadians.

This year the winner was ( unsurprisingly ) Stuart McLean ( who I , like all good Canadians, love ) for his newest Vinyl Cafe compilation: Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe.

I sat at a table with very interesting people....some who had been to the very first awards ceremony in 1947 and had been coming ever since.

Out of the interesting people I talked to, Stuart McLean and Will Ferguson were the highlights.

I had met both before in passing at author events and signings ( I have been heavy in the bookselling business for almost six years now ), but was glad to have another opportunity.

Will Ferguson is a class act.

I was thrilled to be invited and hope to go again sometime.

Long live Mariposa and thriving literary awareness in small towns.

silence.

I blog not here, I blog not there, I do not bloggeth anywhere.


and I wonder.... why? I used to blog more than once a day over here ----and now both blogs are, well, blogless.

So, I think: has the novelty worn off? It has been three years since I started my first blog; all creatively raring to go. Now with a review job and work on the never-will-be-finished-novel, I think sometimes I should return to my journal-state and let the public sphere be damned.


But, alas, how can I deprive everyone of books THEY MUST KNOW ABOUT !?!?


first.

THE GOOD:

Austenland by Shannon Hale ---usual YA writer, Newbery winner, Austenite----writes gorgeous story about curious heroine who lives out my dream. THREE weeks in a regency-type Disneyworld. With hats and gloves, whist and cricket, too much mutton for breakfast, plays acted, books read, conversations melodiously careful in their construct and consideration---a dapple into lost art, balls and logs and bright eyes and dirty hems.... and, the piece de resistance, men in tight britches a la Darcy.

There are enough heroes to fit every Austen prototype. There are enough plot distractions to fit in every major Austen work. There is enough Ann Radcliffe ( for good measure ) to keep Northanger close in mind.


Side note: the newest BBC Austen adaptations rated by Melrose as such:

Mansfield Park **
Northanger Abbey***
Persuasion***************** ( and 45.7 on the richter scale !! ) Definitive. Delightful. Delicious! Delovely.



The good continues:

The Sun over Breda by Arturo Perez Reverte---Captain Alatriste and Diego and Dutch conflict. Bring it on.



The good continues still......

How often do you decide to read a book due to the author's note or bio blurb on the jacket? Moi? Quite often. 'Twas my initiation to perennial favourite CC Humphreys, and is now the beginning of what I hope will be a long and prosperous relationship between myself and whatever the hell Derek Landy writes for the rest of time !!

Skulduggery Pleasant is a well-tailored skeleton whose banter with 12 year old sidekick Stephanie is a page out of the gumshoe noir genre of the 1940's. They fight evil, oh yes, and not in bits and bites but throughout !! Vampires, trolls, Ctulhus ( see HP Lovecraft) OH MY !!


Still good:

No chicklit lover,I---- I took on good authority ( Courtney of Once Upon a Bookshelf) that Shanna Swensdon was one to behold. So, I read ( gulp gulp .....shhh!) Damsel Under Stress, Enchanted, Inc. and, Once Upon Stilettos. I won't go into the detail of fluff. But, the heroine is useful and has no real propensity to spend her life shopping ( yes that was a derogatory nod in a certain direction ) and the lead guy is brilliant.... the best of nerdy Clark Kent and powerful Superman--- a hybrid of wonderfulness.




Also good: Tithe, Valiant and Ironside by Holly Black. Dark faerie books for teens with an enigmatic hero worthy of Edward Cullen.

Cupcake by Rachel Cohn: the weakest of the Cyd Charisse trilogy but still a good time.

The bad and the ugly: In Search of Mockingbird by Loretta Ellsworth. Bad. Bad. Tedious and cliche, this book is everything I hate about the YA genre.... assuming the reader must be walked through the deepest emotions of its main character blandly and blatently; an assumption that the reader cannot map on their own what is pieced together overtly on the page.
Summation: Teen girl reads her dead mom's journal, discovers mom loved Harper Lee, runs away from domineering brothers and awkward father and travels on the longest bus ride any reader has ever had to sit through. She meets a couple of eccentrics and finally arrives at her destination: Monroeville Alabama, a mecca for Lee enthusiasts. The climax includes a scene in a cafe with an old lady called Nell nearby.

Argh!



BACK TO GOOD :


In the mystery genre, Maureen Jennings continues to knock my socks off.... this time, in Journeyman to Grief, she deals with issues of segregation and racism in a small " coloured" community of 19th Century Toronto.

Murdoch is awesome. Romance threads. Plot is tight.


Fair:

is the teen vampire/werewolf novel Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith ( whose husband, by the way, wrote two great kids' books Tofu and T-Rex and Ninjas, Piranhas and Galileo). I did not really care for the lead character, but the writing was so beautiful and unpredictable I didn't really care.


REVISIT: Lost Laysen : a juvenalia by Margaret Mitchell and the only novella work of fiction we have of the famous Pulitzer-winner. What is most stunning about this edition is the scrapbook type layout that dominates the first three-quarters of the book. I had not read this since high school so was quite absorbed.


For lovers of Isak Dinesen, or just a sumptuous gothic tale, read Winter's Tales which completed my Dinesen collection.



I cannot recount anymore I have read since last we spoke ( there has been a lot.... including new works by Ondaatje and McEwan ) but this is what stands out.

humph.

According to this blog, we can now assume that Dean Priest is one of the great antagonists of children's literature.

It might be rebuttal time.


We shall see.

Arturo Perez-Reverte Rocks my SOCKS

-just returned from fantastic trip to the East Coast ( PEI PEI !!! )

-there really is a Priest Pond ( home of Dean Priest in ...wonderful)

-I am now a member of the LM Montgomery Land Trust ( PRESERVE PEI! )

-I am a slacker who never writes in her blog

-I love Somerset Maugham

-the Captain Alatriste series is very very worth it.....finished Captain Alatriste and Purity of Blood in Nova Scotia. Now reading the latest Sun over Breda. According to imdb.com there is a Captain Alatriste movie that has been shown already in Spain with Viggo Mortensen. Hope we get it here.

back to real life.

shows over. was a tremendous success. got very little sleep. loved singing half of "In His Eyes" every night.

now, I am reading a book.


so.... a treat

some Man of La Mancha lyrics!

DON QUIXOTE (Smiling, sill keeping his eyes averted) Did my lady think to put me to a test? Ah, sweet sovereign of my captive heart. I shall not fail thee, for I know... I have dreamed thee too long, Never seen thee or touched thee. But known thee with all of my heart.
Half a prayer, half a song, Thou hast always been with me, Though we have been always apart. Dulcinea... Dulcinea... I see heaven when I see thee, Dulcinea, And thy name is like a prayer An angel whispers... Dulcinea... Dulcinea!
If I reach out to thee, Do not tremble and shrink From the touch of my hand on thy hair. Let my fingers but see Thou art warm and alive, And no phantom to fade in the air. Dulcinea... Dulcinea...
I have sought thee, sung thee, Dreamed thee, Dulcinea! Now I've found thee, And the world shall know thy glory, Dulcinea... Dulcinea!

film.

Amazing Grace is a fantastic movie.

Won't be updating a lot in the next few weeks because I play a lead role in ANOTHER literary adaptation; that of Jekyll and Hyde the musical version.

some good ARC'S

For those of us in the book biz, ARC stands for Advanced Reader's Copy.

I landed some fun today!


Ironside by Holly Black ( incidentally, I just finished Valiant and Tithe

the new NEIL GAIMAN ( a collection of short stories for release this summer )

Pendragon 8 ---the name which escapes me right now.



good times. good reads.

desert island.

Okay, unexpectedly ( and largely due to facebook and my part in the Spring Musical in my town ), I have been absent. I also joined two committees and finished my role as reader for a Canadian literary award.


That being done, and wanting to come back with a *bang! *, here I am again----with some desert island picks.


I have been skulking in the blogger background and reading some people's memes about the books they cannot live without.

I could never choose five ( are you kidding ) , or ten ( too low, still ) and so fifteen was a challenge for me:


but here it is:


DRUM ROLL:


FIFTEEN BOOKS I WOULD NEED WITH ME/CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT/WOULD DIE SHOULD THEY FALL FROM MY HANDS


In no particular order:

1.) Les Miserables by Victor Hugo--- the size itself would keep my happy for a long while.

2.) The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery----Barney has an island. Perchance if I am stuck on an island he will show up....wishful thinking.

3.)Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte ----funny thing is, from a literary standpoint, I always list Villette as my favourite of her works and one of my top five books, but I cannot imagine being stranded without Thornfield or Rochester

4.)Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen-----we deserted castaways need something representative of Austen, so this is my pick of her works. It is my representation of the whole Austen canon, if not my personal Austen favourite.

5.) The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain ----I love this book. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry. It has that uncanny ability to capture Twain's humorous heart, acts as a perfect YA novel ( we all know how I love those ) and is a riproaring representative of the historical fiction genre.

6.)Vienna Prelude by Bodie Thoene---- not a great work of literature, no. But, it is my Christmas book ---and even we marooned on islands need to celebrate the holidays.

7.) The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ---Do not try to tell me this doesn't count because it acts as a range of different stories....they all come in the same friggin' book . I sell many editions that boast the "Complete" works. So there. It's in!
No cheating.

8.) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens---Once again, this is a tough choice because Our Mutual Friend is probably my favourite of all things Dickensian. However, GE and I have the most history and we go the furthest back. And, like Austen, I feel it is a good representation of his tone, voice, setting....tis a complete package


9.) North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell ---- I need Mr. Thornton. I need Mr. Thornton


10.) Christy by Catherine Marshall. Girl moves to the Smokies in the early 20th Century to teach school to the mountain people and live at a mission there. Upon arrival, she meets two fascinating men who both fall equally in love with her. Every girl's dream.


11. ) According to Jake and the Kid by W.O. Mitchell ----- We outcasts need to laugh and The King of All Country remains one of the funniest short stories in my memory. Further still, the Canadian content on my island needs to be maintained.


12.) HMS Surprise by Patrick O'Brian---- Picking one Aubrey/Maturin book out of the lot is a dismal prospect, but, being thus so, I cho-cho-choose this one !

13.) The Stargazey by Martha Grimes ---You think for one second I would go to my island without Melrose Plant. Humph!

14.) Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers ---- theologically intuned, romantically sprawled amidst gothic spires, lots of Wimsey and that brilliant, fiesty, feminist Harriet Vane, I am packing her in my bag!

15.) Horatio Lyle by Catherine Webb ----a recent acquistion, I have only been Lyle's acquaintance for a year, but he is the embodiment of everything that makes YA literature my passion. Funny, smartly written, filled to the brim with eccentric characters that make my heart leap---and all by a 19 year old.



Hope the hiatus is over. If anyone still reads this, welcome back.



OH ------------and by the way!!! The Lies of Locke Lamora is BRILLIANT !

I am getting the ARC for the second one and anxiously check my mailbox everyday!

bsg.

I have not been reading ( SHOCK! GASP! GACK! EEP! )

because I have been watching an insane amount of Battlestar Galactica ( thanks to my friend James; the stage manager of the musical I am in ).

In essence, it is so brilliantly written, cleverly told and currently relevant, that it is like sinking into a good book.

I do not condone tv as a substitute for literature, but every once in awhile, it is nice to have some escapism.

paris.

If I were in charge of Canada, February 22nd, birthday of one Mr. Morley Callaghan, would be a national holiday.

As the only thing I am in charge of is a little corner of the universe in a little bookstore, I will have to sit here, chin in hand, and ponder the greatness of one of my favourite canuck authors.


Morley Callaghan would have been 100 years old today. And what a jam-packed century he would have had. He already filled more than a lifetime usually allots in the first fifty years. His best writing was done when he was young, his greatest adventures played out mighty early, and all of his literary flings and acclaims came at a young age.



Yes, I have romanticized Morley's early years, what with their splash of Parisian panache ( and what with his clobbering of Ernest Hemingway---- don't make me get into the climax of That Summer in Paris as a Canadian literary metaphor again ), but he defines a golden age of sorts for me. I envision him wandering aimlessly around 1920's Toronto---every snippet of his life reading out of the pages of his novel, A Varsity Story. I imagine him, as I often was, curled up in one of the red leather chairs of the Hart House Library at U of T and looking over the courtyards and spires, slightly interrupted by the pealing of the tower bell.

And then, there is Paris and Morley's dappling into the lives of the Literary Elite. He defines Paris for me. Whenever I think of it with its dazzling life, parties and pizazz, I rarely think of anything I did not read of in the pages of Callaghan's autobiography. Forget We Were all so Young or A Movable Feast. Canadians had their own agent in the flapper years!

Further, my personal conceptions of Fitzgerald, James Joyce and ( especially ) Hemingway, are solely accumulated from Callaghan's perspective. Far be it for me to take anyone else's word on how these literary giants were. Morley Callaghan's word is the definitive one.


Finally, there is the sense of melancholy I feel when I leaf through his brilliant short stories ( soaked in Catholic consciousness and always sewn together with bittersweet nostalgia) and re-read his colourful memoir. I pine for his life lost as if I personally had lived it.

What an author is that who paints life so acutely you feel its triumphs and travails!


Tonight I am at a dinner celebrating Callaghan with a speaker who knows his works more intimately than any of his many admirers could hope for. I am excited and invigorated and anxious to experience That Summer once more.

awol.

I have been busy and boring and facebook is eating my brain.


So, I have decided to send you to other blogs as a little field trip, just until I finish reading the jaw-droppingly awesome The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch which may require a second read.

Hey! Scott Lynch! He has a blog. Go visit it.


And because every day should be a national CC Humphreys appreciation day, you should read his blog too.


Not done? How about newbie blogger Simon Scarrow.
In his profile, he lists I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith as one of his favourite books. Enough said.

I love that authors are jumping on this bandwagon.


Promise to be more diligent. But I have reviews to write and people to see !

snow.

Okay. My town has a lot. The banks are taller than I am in places, and I am 5"9 so that is not always fun.


Here is a reader update.

I have recently discovered FACEBOOK and it has devoured all of my blogging time.


Grania by Morgan Llywellen ( which I know I spelled wrong ). Tells the story of Grace O'Malley the pirate queen paralleling her with Elizabeth I. I read it in an afternoon on the weekend. It is exciting and fun. I loved Tigernan the secretly adoring ship's mate.
( the fact that the latest musical by Boubil/Schonberg entitled the Pirate Queen is almost in previews has had no influence on my recent Grace O'Malley splurge ;)

They Shall Inherit The Earth by Morley Callaghan. One of his better novels I would have to say. I love Morley Callaghan, but his later novels are disastrous. This is one of the first so it was well within the reign of his highest genius.


The Hydrofoil Mystery by Eric Walters. Eric is arguably one of my favourite YA discoveries. He never writes without purpose or the exploration of something scintillating, relative, challenging or new.

Our 15 year old gambling protagonist lands a job at Alexander Graham Bell's Nova Scotian estate in Baddeck. There, he helps unravel a dangerous plot to unfurl every teensy secret about Graham Bell's latest invention: a hydrofoil watercraft that will foil the best laid German uboat plans and rule the waves with its breakneck speed.

Americans always appropriate Graham Bell, but he spent a lot of time in Nova Scotia. I am happy that Canadians are changing the tenuous relationship surfacely seen in our relationship with him and digging deeper into his roots here.



I am very excited about reading The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. It should arrive any day. It was a novel that started on a blog that has been recently optioned for film. Sounds beautiful.


Saw the BBC adaptation of Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke the other night on Masterpiece Theatre. Garland was exactly how I pictured him. Not a strong screenplay despite the excellent source material.

ick.

I hate filling out grad school applications.


So, I have not finished a book lately because I have been tapping away at statements of purpose.


Here is what I am just starting: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

It is gorgeous.


And here is what I will NOT be reading anytime soon, thank you very much:

The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer

genre-stretching.

Okay. Here is a weekend roundup:


The Painted Veil by a relatively new discovery of mine, W. Somerset Maugham, is the perfect thaw to the January chill. Sure, its erudite tragedy unfurls so subtly its climax catches your heart , but the denouement ( a doctor and his unfaithful wife discovering almost absurd grace in Cholera- ravaged China ) is worth a ride.
Walter Fane has not let go of me since I first read of him. The consummate silent mourner, the affair his beautiful (and much loved wife ) betrays him with, cuts deeper than I would have initially thought.
In a catapulting joint suicide-pact, they fall in love ( Walter once more, Kitty for the first time ), amidst illness and strife. Trust Maugham to paint a love story in its perverse " Love in the Time of..." way.




Loving Will Shakespeare by Carolyn Meyer


A renowned historical novelist for the teen age, Meyer crafts a winsome and believable Stratford-Upon-Avon in the years when it housed a budding poet and the comely older girl he would eventually fall for. Setting the stage for an almost preternatural courtship, Will ( a fiesty performer ) and Agnes ( Anne as he likes to call her ) attend the same grammar school and engage in light conversation.

Virginia Woolf ponders "If Shakespeare had a sister...." and this one does. A sister, a mother, a father a thatched-roof house and an existence in a middle-class family of glovemakers , neighbours to the Hathaways. Narrated by Agnes, the tale takes us to the Black Death, the esteemed visit of Elizabeth I to Robin Dudley's castle, and through the heated attraction of Agnes to a swarthy farmhand.

Not lasting literature, in my opinion, and sprinkled with obvious cliches ( Will compares Agnes to a Summer's day) it is nonetheless a picturesque portrait of early Elizabethan England framing two unlikely lovers and setting the stage for the world's greatest playwright.


Dust by Martha Grimes

It is hard to know how best to whet your insatiable Grimesian appetite. Do you gobble in a quick devour, do you slowly chew unthreading the plot by each, colourful and humorous string?
After finishing a Grimes completely satisfied, cliffhanger or not, I bound about in a euphoria I reserve for very few things. The blast of a Jury/Plant romp hits with jubilant force--- I laugh, sometimes tear, and burst on each page with wide-eyed wonderment. To say nothing of her prose ( carefully calculated strokes of a master brush), her palatable wit, her literary flair (Dust is set partly at Lamb House, oft occupied a century ago by Henry James.... and where he penned Golden Bowl, Wings and Ambassadors) and her characters.


Melrose Plant. Melrose Plant. Melrose Plant:

As says The Stargazey: "Melrose smiled his special smile, the one he was not wholly conscious he had, but it was as fetching as the smile of a very young child. It was, like the work of Matisse, Vuillard, and Van Gogh, the real thing on offer. It invited you in"

Melrose and art intertwined. Synonymous, in my opinion.
The kind of character that makes me want to be an author. Remaining one of the greatest discoveries of my literary life. So real, visceral, engaging, I often look up from a Grimes novel shocked that he is not sitting across from me so clear is his image in my mind's eye.

The Dickensian connection so many reviewers make is well founded. The children, dogs, caricatures, setting--- the melange of police procedural, comedy of manners and tea cosy a near-Victorianesque ( because I dwell on it so much ) frothy treat.

If she wasn't so damned smart, I might write her as my guilty pleasure. Happy thought that she can be candy and still a hybrid of Dickens, Sayers and Doyle all rolled into a comfy ball.


I feel proud that I discovered her, like I keep a sneaky delectable secret from the masses yet unitiated---still wandering to Elizabeth George for fulfilment.

Ha! Grimes did it first. And I am onto something oh deprived Non-Grimes readers!

I know something you don't know! And you are missing one helluva literary feast !


Shattered Eric Walters recently won UNESCO International Award for Literature in the service of tolerance. In this mindblowing YA book profoundly interrupted by the horror of the Rwandan genocide, I find myself an acute believer in Walters and his power of pen.
Ian works at a downtrodden soup kitchen inching hours toward a social science credit. There, he meets Jacques, a poignant former soldier who seems most of mundane humanity as butchered as any horror movie; atrocity forever embedded in his mind after his service in Rwanda.
In a series of harsh truths about society's easy dismissal and judgment of the homeless and the derelict, Walters spins a young man's viewpoint at a 360 angle, forcing the reader to come away as the protagonist has: a little saddened, a little wiser, a little better for the experience.
Coupled with an introduction by Romeo Dallaire, endorsing the text with a stamp of worthy validity, readers follow with a glimpse into the brilliant mind of a writer whose agenda deserves highest praise.


Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn.

My friend Cathy recommended this as a lowkey fantasy/romance. It's a very sweet thing with a pinch of faerie magic. Coriel spends her summers at court where the roguish red-headed king-to-be captures her heart and the horsemaster Roderick and ever-present Kentley, secure her sense of adventure and fun. Shinn departs from the convention in the guise of the aliora---beautiful, waif-like creatures hunted from their pixie world beyond the castle walls and subjected to slavery within. In a paradoxical twist, the castle itself undergoes an upheaval of demise.
This book put me in mind of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and the imaginative and forthright Fanny soon (as Coriel is ) disenchanted by her guardians doings and the mass failings of his eldest son. A girl caught in a wbe of dark deceit, while trying to uphold the sense of release she felt as a child with her cousin Edmund.

miscast.

Michelle Williams of Dawson's Creek (egad) is playing Charlotte Bronte.


Now, I am not saying she was horrid in Brokeback, but Charlotte Bronte is sacred territory.


She should tread carefully.


Have been watching Elizabeth I w/ Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons. Quite the screenplay, I assure you.

boats.

There are two things in the world I really love: a.) Aubrey and b.) Maturin. I love them so much that ever since I first stepped onto their quarterdeck and a.) shook Aubrey's hand and b.) threw my arms around Stephen, I have been trying my darndest to find another nautical series that will throw me for the loop they did.


And where have I been and in what strange, exotic waters? Think Frederick Marryatt ( whose name I never spell correctly ), C.S. Forester, Nathaniel Drinkwater, Dewey Lambdin, Alexander Kent and Julian Stockwin ( to name a few ).


And out of the dozens of nautical authors I have read since ( do not ask me to name all of them: I even read through Jonathan Lunn's Killigrew books---a hybrid of mystery and age-of-sail), I have never found my replica. How do you repeat perfection?

Well. Definitely not with Julian Stockwin. Yes, that sounds harsh. But, the irony is, he is the one author of the aforementioned I have followed from the beginning. Now, the seventh book, Command, has recently closed on my nighttable and I am left to ponder the question I always ponder ( atleast through the last seven Stockwins ) Why do I keep reading them? Why do I make sure I order them around publication date and eventually devote a sitting just to them? Someone could easily assert they are bad O'Brian cliches, that even the CHARACTERS are bad O'Brian cliches ( Renzi the philosopher who skulks moodily in a wavy purgatory to compensate for an ancient family sin), that the writing oozes out in such a forced manner that one is put in mind of Jennifer Connelly's sloppy speech in A Beautiful Mind: the film that made me realize people ACHE for Oscar's oft reflected in sentimentalized screenplay.


And the answer I found as I tripped through Kydd's bad dialogue ( I loathe the accented dialect Stockwin tries so hard to give him), the major lack of Renzi, his reappearance, his token " I love Cecilia what to do" scene and the choppy battle sequences was this:

Because I genuinely like Julian Stockwin. I have never met him. I know little about him... save that he served in the navy and donated a scrap of historical wood to a darling little bookshop in Halifax. Yet, I really do like him. I liked him from the moment I first read his author note (Aside: I love author notes. See CC Humphreys for guidance on these as a craft) which was steeped with humility and excitement. He and his wife are thrilled to be writing these books. He is living a dream. He obviously researches impeccably and has first-hand experience to boot.

Further, he started with a generally refreshing take on the world of nautical wonder. Thomas Kydd is pressed into service and learns the ropes and gleefully steps up in the nautical world and a myriad of adventures as he learns to love the sea in the way O'Brian taught the world to.

I see this parallel in Julian Stockwin. After the demise of the master, O'Brian, publishers must have been scrambling over each other to find the next star. Who wouldn't stumble upon Kydd and Renzi? Their friendship, indeed the whole Sharpe-ish climb from the bottom to the top of the mizzen mast seeps with potential.

Aye, but therein lies the problem. I finished book seven and am still flabberghasted by the potential.

This one proved more strongly than others that perhaps this infamous potential may someday be fully realized, but until Stockwin decides exactly what he wants to do and the stories do not seem like a work-out of a revised draft, I will have to close them again and again waiting for next year and admit, as always, that I really really like Julian Stockwin. I just wish I could say the same about his books.

lollipop.

Last night I went to see Miss Potter and believe me, it was well worth the wait.

I am currently up to my nose in a Potter project and will unravel more about her when I finish Linda Lear's scrumptious new biography: Beatrix Potter, a Life in Nature.

Until then, and before I head off to sell books at a J.L. Granatstein (the king of Canadian History ) event, let me leave you with some reviews of Dust; the new Martha Grimes novel.


She is one of the few authors I consistently buy in hardcover. For a soon-to-be peek at the new Grimesean wonder ( hits shelves Tuesday), read this!


The only thing I like better than a new Grimes novel, is a bag full of lollipops. Actually, having them both together is sheer bliss.

quick.

Busy reading and reviewing so here is a list of some YA novels of note I have consumed recently.

The Dashwood Sisters' Secrets of Love by Rosemary Rushton: Sense and Sensibility for teens!

Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman. Pride and Prejudice for teens. Winsome and witty. Smarter than the Rushton.

A Pickpocket's Tale by Karen Schwabach. Little Londoner is sent on a slave ship from Newgate to New York. Lives with a Jewish family while there. Schwabach paints a dazzling canvas of yesteryear while silmultaneously brushing readers up on Jewish traditions. What did a nineteenth century synagogue look like? Equal amounts of yiddish and flash cant pepper the language.


Snowfall KM Peyton. Stifled Charlotte leaves the promise of a dismal marriage and her aged cleric grandfather to hike in the alps with her brother and his Oxford friends. Love in many forms and adventures nearly unfathomable to most Victorian ladies abounds.


Ida B. by Katherine Hannigan. Ida is an irrepressible homeschooled child who spends her days communicating with the trees in her orchard and maximizing the potential of fun ( one of her many plans ). An engaging narrator, Ida B. relays the tale of her mother's sudden illness and her reinstatement into the public school system, not to mention her further relations with the most inspiring grade four teacher in recent literature ( a reason she is labelled Ms. Washington; she is a cornerstone of morality and nobility and inspiration ). Cancer is not sugarcoated here, nor Ida B's many conflicting emotions. Hannigan has given you a shovel to dig into the furthest recesses and cavernous curves of a young mind, and you will be more than happy to explore.


The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie Jaclyn Moriarty: the upper grade librarian's heaven sent for reluctant readers. Funny funny stuff.... and smart.

The Year of Secret Assignments. Also Moriarty. Read this now.


500 Great Books for Teens by Anita Silvey. Brilliant reference that expands on the gap that bridges Young Adults from Adult books. A must for anybody who is interested in this demogrraphic. Silvey was once chief editor at the Horn Book.

because Norman Warne makes me heart sing....

a teeny bit excited about this


Ewan MacGregor looks like Norman---so that is a good thing.


And I am all for authors falling for their publishers. It just adds a little spark to the romance.

Familiar.

Ever see something and shout :" Hey! I know this guy!?"

This author was my first floor manager at my fantastic yellow bookstore job. He was awesome and smart and articulate and driven and no one deserves the success of publication more.

Pre-order this. From my memory, this author is obsessed with achingly beautiful prose and magical realism. Let us hope, then, that his life is a stip of velcro that has somehow accumulated the absolute sparkle of everything he loves and dedicates his time to..........


ECW writes:

Collecting linguistic oddities, scraps of images, bits of text, and hybridized references, Rick Crilly cuts-up and collages, disassembles and recreates an anatomical mystery where a blank page becomes a meditation on grief, and a crossed out word is a librarian’s scalpel. The Tablecloth Trick whips away the artifice between Fiction and fact (that''s Fiction with a capital F — because Plato loved capital letters, after all) to see what, if anything, is left standing.


Ha! Brilliance. I'm going to stock my indy bookstore with it.