Books and Books and Books
The next volume of Scott’s alternate history/thriller series, Uncivil War, is now available for Kindle. A collection of five short stories, on sale for 99 cents. If you’ve read Vol. 1, The Island, and are eager to hear more about Harry and Buttercup, you’ll have to wait… 🙂 This volume, After the Fall, features new characters, new story arcs (and is decidedly not YA, I should add, in case the first installment gave that impression).
More books I wanted to mention: Sarah Elwell’s The Memory of Light and Otherwise. Sarah’s writing has been some of my favorite on the internet since I discovered her old blog, Homespun—way back in 2005, was it? She blogs now at Knitting the Wind and Gnossienne, and writes poetry and fiction as well. I have a special hand-bound edition of Otherwise that I cherish. Both books are available as ebooks, and Sarah is offering them on her website, asking a small donation toward her daughter’s athletic training. (She is a serious—and seriously talented—windsurfer, working toward Nationals.) You can find out more at Gnossienne.
Thanks to my pal Karen Edmisten, I recently read Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple, and loved it, couldn’t put it down. Made Scott read it immediately afterward so we could discuss. (He’s very obliging that way.) Have you read it? Want to gab?
I’m still reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things, which, since it’s about a nineteeth-century lady botanist, is the very definition of had-me-at-hello. I’m not very far in yet; got waylaid by the aforementioned Bernadette and then a sudden inexplicable need to reread Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time. These things happen. But Alma’s a mighty captivating character and I’m looking forward to following her farther into the century.
What are you reading right now?
ebooks, Maria Semple, Memory of Light, Otherwise, Sarah Elwell, Scott Peterson, Uncivil War, what I'm reading, Where'd You Go Bernadette
selvi says:
I’d just put Bernadette on my hold list. And now I’ve added Signature.
I just finished Ex Libris: Confessions of A Common Reader by Anne Fadiman , on your recommendation. I liked it very much. To me the language did not sound completely natural. I just noticed, but did not hold it against her because I liked what she was saying so much.
I’m also just finishing The Middle of Everything by Michelle Herman. I’ve really been drawn to memoirs recently and was enjoying this one about motherhood, well about the mother more than anything else. But the last chapter changes everything. It increases the emotional depth several notches and ties up all these little red threads in the preceeding pages. It’s a bit like the ending of 100 years of solitude. It makes you see everything else you’ve been read so far in a new light. I am pretty amazed that she wrote it.
O, also Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier and Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks.
On November 7, 2013 at 12:24 pm
Julia says:
I have recently finished Bernadette and loved it! The quirkiness of Bernadette played over so well in the quirkiness of the book’s layout. I usually don’t like books that are told through letters but this one is different. I am currently reading Night Film by Marisha Pessl–another book that is told a bit through letters and newspaper clippings. I am in the middle of it so I am still not sure whether I like it. It is tiptoeing into the world of the occult and I can’t tell yet if it is going to go further so the jury is still out.
I have also just finished The Peculiar by Stefan Bachman–a children’s fantasy book written by a 16 yr. old young man who was homeschooled. I liked it.
On November 11, 2013 at 4:19 am