Feeling Legit

I was in Barnes and Noble the other day and I saw a book on display that I (thats right . . . me, myself, and I) copyedited. It's the first (and hopefully not the last) time that's ever happened to me!

That was exciting.

How an Idea Becomes a Book... an Infographic

This little gem was going around our office last week. We all pretty much agreed that this perfectly represents how an idea becomes a book.

This may be why I'm slowly going crazy. . . .

 



Thanks weldonowen.com

Happy Very Hungry Caterpillar Day!

Today is Very Hungry Caterpillar Day! Let's all celebrate by eating some lettuce... just don't eat too much or you'll get a tummy ache like the caterpillar did.

Oh, and also, happy first day of spring! Although it's not so momentous this year, since it's been feeling like spring since around November...

I'm Weirdly Excited For This Movie

So the other day I read this statement in one of my shelf awareness issues...

"Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. I still vividly remember reading this book when I was 11; it cast a spell on me like nothing ever had before. For days afterward, I felt feverish, disoriented, changed. A sense of simply not knowing what to do with myself. Even today, those symptoms follow after I've finished a great book."

That was author Paul Russell's response when asked to name a book that had changed his life.

I mildly embarrassed to say that I've also felt (although way less intensely) the same way after reading a book before. Now, that statement in itself isn't the embarrassing part, rather, it's the fact that The Hunger Games books are the ones that gave me those feverish disoriented feelings.

But it happened.

Last summer, I finally gave in to the Hunger Games craze and read those books. And when I say I read them, I really mean that I devoured them.... like non-stop, can't put it down, dreamed about them kind of devoured. I got so into them (especially the last book) that I got all cold and clammy (I know embarrassing, right?) and had to go outside to read because I was literally shivering in my only moderately air conditioned house.

Geez. 

Now, there's a trailer for the movie and I'm kind of excited by it. 

Are you?

I Want to Work Here.

Mediabistro (a website/newsletter thing about the book, news, and entertainment industry that I subscribe to) does this really cool thing called "Cubes," which is basically a spin-off of MTV's "Cribs" except they tour the offices of major publishers and entertainment people.

Today's episode featured the SOHO headquarters of Scholastic. Words cannot express how much this made me want to work there.... it looks amazing!

Enjoy!

I Want This Bookshelf!

The Eagles game is really depressing me right now, so I'm trying to distract myself by cleaning out my email inbox... an equally depressing task.

But in the process I found something really cool. I saw this picture in a book-based newsletter that I get and I am in love.

It's a bookshelf made out of antique apple crates. I want one!

Source: cgi.ebay.com.au via Anne on Pinterest

Susan McCorkindale!

Yes. That is a picture of me and SUSAN MCCORKINDALE!

I decided to take a quick jaunt over to the Barnes and Noble in Georgetown tonight for Susan McCorkindale's book signing. I absolutely loved her books Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl and 500 Acres and No Place To Hide, so I was super excited when I found out that she was going to be in Georgetown. This was also my first official book signing (unless you count the time I got Roger Lea MacBride to sign my copy of Little House On The Rocky Ridge at a farmers market when I was 7) so that was fun too.

She's quite hilarious (in person and in print) and when she read the first chapter of 500 Acres we (the people that braved the rain to come to the signing) just about died laughing. Seriously.

I got my copy of Confessions signed and a copy of 500 Acres signed for Jenny, since she couldn't be there in person. Oh, and I also got a Counterfeit Farmgirl t-shirt.

Then, on my way back to my car, I found Georgetown Cupcakes completely by accident. Bonus!

This pretty much made my week.

500 Acres and No Place to Hide

I'm so excited, beyond excited in fact to get my hands on this book. 500 Acres and No Place to Hide is Susan McCorkindale's follow-up to her first memoir Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm, which is quite possibly the funniest book I've ever read.

I guess I have to renew my Barnes and Noble membership now...

Beatrice and Virgil

Beatrice and Virgil

by Yann Martel

This morning I checked off another book from my seemingly endless to-read book list — Beatrice and Virgil, by Yann Martel (author of Life of Pi).

I've been excited about this book since it first came out in hardcover last April, when I immediately put it on my "to buy when in paperback" list. I did buy it, but unfortunately like so many other books I buy it sat for several months on my bookshelf while life constantly got in the way of me reading it. But I did, finally, and it was worth the wait.

Beatrice and Virgil is a novel, about a man (a famous writer actually) who tries to write a book about the holocaust, fails, and gives up writing. Following his failure, this man, Henry, and his wife decide to pack up and take an adventure. "They settled in one of those great cities of the world that is a world unto itself... Perhaps it was New York. Perhaps it was Paris. Perhaps it was Berlin." His wife gets a job as a nurse under a work visa and he began taking music lessons, learning Spanish, acting with an amateur acting troupe, and working at a local chocolateria.

All the time, he's getting letters from people who have read his book (the one he's famous for). His book (as far as I can tell) uses animals to tell the story rather than humans. One day, he receives a letter that is more like a packet... inside it contains a photocopy of Gustave Flaubert's short story "The Legend of Saint Julian Hospitator," a ext from a play, and a short note.

Flaubert's story — a tale about a boy who loves killing animals, eventually kills his parents, repents and then is borne to heaven as a saint — has been heavily highlighted by the sender, but only those sections dealing with the killing of the animals. Henry is intrigued, but only mildly so. The play extract is of a scene where two characters, Beatrice and Virgil, discuss a pear, or more to the point, Virgil describes a pear to Beatrice, who has never seen one before. (This made me want to eat a pear so badly I ached inside.) The note asks for his help.

Henry decides to respond to the letter, and since its writer happens to live only a few blocks away, he decides to deliver it in person, although he's only planning to anonymously drop the letter off. But, the address takes him to a taxidermy shop and he's curious, so he goes in.

What follows that fateful decision is a journey through the twisted mind of an old taxidermist and his play "A 20th Century Shirt: A Play in Two Acts," about a donkey named Beatrice and a howler monkey named Virgil. As the book progresses, we get to read more and more snippets of the play, and start gaining small insights into the taxidermist. What starts out as an innocent examination of a pear, and a strange, yet slightly whimsical story about two animals that live on a shirt, progresses to more sinister scenes and allusions to the holocaust, and we, as readers, soon start to suspect that something really horrible has happened to these two characters and that the taxidermist is hiding something important.

Beatrice and Virgil is an excellent read and very well written. It has no chapters, only small breaks occasionally, but I never felt put off by that. I wouldn't exactly call it a page turner, because the action in the story is more intellectual than anything else, but I certainly had a hard time putting it down. Although, I do feel I should warn you that by the end of the book, I had become so engrossed in the story that even when I did want to put it down, (mostly because I was disturbed or mildly horrified by what I was reading — thank you Boy in the Striped Pajamas) I couldn't because I had to see it through. And, like Life of Pi, which I absolutely loved, it starts a little slow, but it gets interesting much faster.

Can't Get Enough?

Check out these other animal-centric books...

Life of Pi by Yann Martel — young Pi Patel takes two epic journeys in this 422 page book. In the first, an exploration of religion, Pi is searching for a way to get closer to God. He visits several authorities on several religions and gains insight on each. In the second, a journey across the ocean, Pi is trapped in a life boat with an injured zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and a 450-pound bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Book one (the religion one) is pretty slow, but book two (the ocean one) is so worth the effort. Then, the twist at the end of the book makes you question everything.

 Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne — The ultimate talking animals books that aren't just for kids! I love Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, and all their friends. These two books, along with the poetry in When We Were Very Young and Now we are Six, are the perfect way to unwind after the intensity you'll experience while reading Life of Pi and Beatrice and Virgil.

Homer's Odyssey

I first heard about this book while I was at the Publishing Institute at the University of Denver two summers ago and have wanted to read it ever since. Last month, I finally borrowed it from my friend Jenny. Since I'm going to give it back to her when I see her this weekend, I thought I'd go ahead and take this rainy afternoon opportunity to write about it!

Homer's Odyssey: 

A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned 

About Love and Life with A Blind Wonder Cat

by Gwen Cooper

Homer's Odyssey is a memoir about Gwen Cooper, but it's really a story about her kitten Homer.

When Gwen was in her twenties, she was contacted by her local vet about maybe adopting this kitten that had been abandoned at her clinic. The four-week-old kitten had had a virulent eye infection that required the vet to surgically remove both of his eyes, and his family had decided they couldn't handle taking care of him.

When the vet told Gwen about the kitten, she warned her that he would probably never really amount to much. They warned her that he would, in short, be an underachiever.

He was anything but. Without his sight, Homer's other senses sharpened dramatically. He could leap five feet in the air and catch a fly, he could scale seven-foot bookshelves with ease, he could case and memorize a new floor plan in minutes. He was a wonder cat.

What followed was an amazing adventure that would take Gwen, Homer, and her two other cats, Vashti and Scarlett, from their home in Florida to NYC. Together they would survive an attempted break-in, 9/11, boyfriends, sickness, and all sorts of other things. Through it all, Homer's unfailing sense of curiosity and adventure never failed to entertain and comfort.

Homer's Odyssey is not just a book for cat people. Sure, I loved reading about all of Homer's crazy antics because he reminds me so much of Little Kitty (aka Skits), and his love of being scratched and petted (which sends Homer into "veritable convulsions of delight") which reminds me so forcibly of Frisk, and when Gwen describes the interactions between her three cats, it reminds me of when Snickers was a kitten and how she used to terrorize Frisky and Figaro. 

But I think that anyone would love this book because the story is so good and because it helps you remember that miracles are still possible.

Read it! I know you'll love Homer just as much as I did.

Can't Get Enough?

Check out these other pet friendly memoirs...

Grayson by Lynne Cox — seventeen-year-old Lynn Cox was almost finished her training session in the California ocean (she's a big swimmer and at the time this happened, had already swum the English Channel twice) when she felt something strange in about the water. It turned out to be an eighteen-foot baby gray whale who had lost it's mother. Rather than risk the whale swimming towards the shore and beaching itself, Lynne took it upon herself to keep swimming with the whale (named Grayson) until he could be reunited with his mom. This 176 page memoir is a quick read, but a great story about facing insurmountable odds and beating them. 

Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien — a highly informative and enjoyable memoir about a woman who adopts and raises a baby owl. Very similar to Homer's Odyssey.

Water for Elephants

Perhaps one of the best books I read last year, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, has been turned into a movie. I'm pretty excited for April 15.

Got an Extra Old Book or Two?

This article, "10 DIY Projects for Your Old Books" by Sam Schlinkert, was recently featured in an online book newsletter that I get and I thought it was pretty neat. It showcases 10 different ideas for ways to refurbish and reuse old books that you don't feel the need to read anymore.

The DIY projects were collected from different blogs and websites and each project includes a link to the instructions. Some are pretty intense but others don't look so bad.

These two are my favorite...

Check out the rest of the projects here!

The Distant Hours

Well I'm pretty excited about this one. Kate Morton, author of one of my new favorite books The Forgotton Garden, has a new book, The Distant Hours.

Here's the synopsis she recently posted on her website....

*** 

THE DISTANT HOURS

It started with a letter. A letter that had been lost for a long time, waiting out half a century, stifling summer after cooling winter, in a forgotten postal bag in the dim attic of a nondescript house in Bermondsey…

Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives one Sunday afternoon with the return address of Millderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother’s emotional distance masks an old secret.

Evacuated from London as a twelve year old girl, Edie’s mother is chosen by the mysterious Juniper Blythe, and taken to live at Millderhurst Castle with the Blythe family: Juniper, her twin sisters and their father, Raymond, author of the 1920s children’s classic, The True History of the Mud Man. In the grand and glorious Millderhurst Castle, a new world opens up for Edie’s mother. She discovers the joys of books and fantasy and writing, but also, ultimately, the dangers.

Fifty years later, as Edie chases the answers to her mother’s riddle, she, too, is drawn to Millderhurst Castle and the eccentric sisters Blythe. Old ladies now, the three still live together, the twins nursing Juniper, whose abandonment by her fiancé in 1941 plunged her into madness.

Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother’s past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Millderhurst Castle, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. For the truth of what happened in the distant hours has been waiting a long time for someone to find it...

***

Looks good doesn't it! The Distant Hours will be released in hardcover on November 9, in the states. I can't wait.

As an added bonus, Kate also posted a book trailer on her website. It's pretty neat so I'm including it here. Enjoy!

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton from Pan Macmillan on Vimeo.

The Forgotten Garden

The Forgotten Garden

by Kate Morton

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton may be the best book I've read so far this year. I've always had a soft spot for books that weave several different story lines, voices, and time zones and The Forgotten Garden certainly did not disappoint.

The book centers on one main character, Nell Andrews, who was a four years old when she was found sitting alone on a dock on the Australian coast by the dockmaster, who, along with his wife, adopted her and raised her as their own. On her 21st birthday, her sense of self is shattered when her dad tells her the truth about her past, and she becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of who she is and why she had been on the ship that sailed from London to Australia.

Cut to Nell's granddaughter, Cassandra. Who was sent to live with Nell when she was 11, and moved back in with her after a tragedy shattered her life. After Nell's death, Cassandra picks up where Nell left off to finish solving the mystery of her past.

Cut to the early 1900's where we learn about The Authoress from Nell's forgotten past.

The intertwined story lines of The Forgotten Garden were slightly confusing at first, but after three or four chapters I was so engrossed in the story that they only served to keep me wanting more. What's more, Morton engineered the story lines so that, even though they spanned from 1900 to 2005, they flowed together, going from the present to the past as a new secret is revealed and then back again.

The Forgotten Garden is a page turner if I've ever read one, filled with unexpected twists and turns that keep you wanting more. I absolutely could not put it down.

Can't get enough?

The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett - A childhood classic that is one of my absolute favorites! The Secret Garden is all about a wild child who comes to the grand manor house of her relatives after her parents have died and brings her sickly cousin back to life thanks to her fun loving spirit and a secret garden. When you think about it, this book mirrors, to an extent, the backstory of Nell's Authoress in The Forgotten Garden. There is even a clever elusion to The Secret Garden in the book.

Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay - If you love the way that The Forgotten Garden uses different time periods to solve a mystery about the past, you'll love Sarah's Key. For a more detailed analysis, see my previous post here.

Way Better Than Twilight.

I hate to admit it but after seeing the trailer for the final installment of the Harry Potter saga (below), I'm more than a little excited for November 19.

In book form, I've been a fan of Harry Potter from page 1. The same, however, can not be said for the movies. In fact, I pretty much hated the first two and the fourth one. My favorite movie by far is the third one, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, although that could also be because it was my least favorite book.

Anyway, this one (well two actually, since they are splitting the last book into two movies) looks pretty spectacular. Below you'll find the trailer that was featured on the MTV movie awards, which is slightly different than the one they've been showing on TV recently. Enjoy!

Vampires and Werewolves and Pathetic People.. OH MY!

Have you ever read a book gets stuck in your head? It doesn't even have to be a good book exactly, in fact, it could be an awful, horrible book but it's a book all the same and it just sticks there.

This unfortunate situation is happening to me with an unexpectedly and, quite frankly, embarrassingly unwelcome force with a book, well series actually, that I recently started perusing. Maybe you've heard of it...

It's a classic story. Girl falls in love with vampire, girl almost gets killed/turned into a vampire, vampire gets sad and goes away, girl gets super depressed, girl meets werewolf, girl gets a little undepressed thanks to said werewolf, werewolf hates vampire, bad things happen.

Sound familiar?

Yep. That's right. I'm reading Twilight. Start judging. I am.

Honestly, I hate myself a little bit for kinda liking it. The story is silly, the writing is not all that amazing, and the characters are way over the top. But I can't help myself. I'm sucked in (get it... sucked.. like a vampire sucks blood... ok lame. sorry I won't do it again.)

I never wanted to read these books. They seemed silly (which they are) and I can be a bit of a book snob at times, so I found it a little hard to take seriously a book that has its name plastered all over the walls of Walmart and Target and has its own little section in Barnes and Noble and comes complete with an entourage of screaming girls and obsessed middle-aged ladies who wear "I heart Edward" and "I'm with Jacob" T-shirts. It's like Harry Potter (which I did enjoy) on steroids. I mean really, with all this baggage who could possibly take themselves seriously when they read these books.

But, curiosity is a bitch sometimes and I'm ashamed to say that it overwhelmed me, mostly because my mother decided that it would be a good idea to watch the first movie. (It wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that great either by the way.) So I got the book and for about the first half I was basically aghast by the writing and the lack of creativity. Then, to my chagrin, I started getting sucked in.

I still don't know why. The main character Bella is depressingly obsessed with Edward (the vampire) and he is equally possessive and creepy. I was really quite disturbed by the way that he often hopped in her window at night just to steal a peak at her sleeping and listen to what she had to say in her midnight rambles... mostly she just talked about how obsessed she was with him. And then in the next book, after Edward deserts her, Bella befriends Jacob who is pretty much obsessed with her and the cycle continues with Bella in the middle making me feel a little nauseous with her hole in her middle from Edward's absence and her selfish desire to gain Jake's friendship, even when she knows he wants more.

But for some reason, I became attached. And now, I just want to know what happens. I've reached the middle of the second book... I started reading it yesterday on the day of the New Moon (I thought that was kinda poetic, considering the name of the book) and I'm already (sort of eagerly) anticipating the next two. I'd recommend that you read them too but then I'd feel bad about subjecting you to the personal torment I feel whenever I have to check out the next book in the series from the libs and I am paranoid that the checkout man is judging me.

It's pathetic and I'm sorry. Please feel free to mock me.

Alice I Have Been

Alice I Have Been

by Melanie Benjamin

I just finished reading an incredible book about the girl behind the mirror, behind the tea party, behind the magic, the girl behind wonderland.

Alice I Have Been is a fictional story based on the life of Alice Pleasance Liddell Hargreaves. In her book, Melanie Benjamin paints a picture of Alice Liddell's life as she grows from an innocent 7-year-old girl posing as a gypsy girl for her friend Mr. Dodgson to an 80-year-old woman, haunted by her past.

Alice's story is filled with questions, what if's, and could have beens. It is not a happy one, although it started out as such. But as I read it, I found myself becoming deeply attached to Alice, a girl so different, yet strikingly similar to the one I remembered from my own adventures in Wonderland (while reading the book of course). I found myself hoping beyond hope that Alice would be able to find true happiness, happiness that always seemed just beyond her grasp, happiness that was, perhaps, stuck on the other side of the looking glass.

Alice I Have Been weaves fact with fiction so closely that it is hard to know where the truth ends and the story begins. It was a book I was sorry to put down and even sorrier to finish.

For more on this book, including excerpts from the book and interviews with the author, check out this website!

Can't Get Enough?
Read the book that started it all!

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is one of the most celebrated children's books of all time. Full of nonsensical rhymes and crazy characters, this is definitely one you should read over and over again.

"there is no use trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things." "i dare say you haven't had much practice," said the queen. "when I was your age, i always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes i've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Sarah's Key

Recently, what with all the snow and ice and limited travel opportunities, I've taken to brushing up my reading skills.

My first foray back into the world of reading was Sarah's Key.

Sarah's Key

by Tatiana de Rosnay

I've been wanting to read Sarah's Key for just about forever. I couldn't for a while because I didn't have it, but thanks to my amazing cousins (and Christmas) after December 27th, my only excuse was a lack of time and motivation. But then the epic snowstorms of the south hit and what with 4 snowstorms in two weeks, my car pretty much remained parked in my driveway and my bottom rotated between the kitchen, couch, and (fortunately for my figure) the treadmill.

All excuses gone, I finally picked up Sarah's Key... and read it in about 12 hours. It was amazing!

When I first saw Sarah's Key in the bookstore back in August, I was pretty intrigued by the premise. How could the story of an American in Paris in 2002 possibly intertwine with that of a Jewish Parisian caught up in the horrible events of 1942? And then there was the genre... I've been a historical fiction junkie since I was a little girl (thanks in part to my obsession with American Girls and Little House on the Prairie). Books themed around the holocaust are no exception, although since watching "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" I've been somewhat less enthusiastic about that era in history... it still gives me bad dreams if I think about it before I go to bed.

Sarah's Key is a whirlwind of events from the present and the past. It follows a young girl who is betrayed by her country and sent to an earthly version of hell, first in the form of a stadium and then in the form of a camp. At the same time, it also follows one woman as she struggles to discover the story of this girl from the past, a girl that is inexplicably linked to her through the actions of her in-laws.

In Sarah's Key, Tatiana de Rosnay manages to create a story that is gripping, terrifying, exciting, and poignant, but most importantly she creates a story that is unforgettable.

Can't get enough?

Check out these other books also themed around the holocaust...

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy - a book that weaves a traditional fairy tale with the story of two Jewish children who are trying to survive in German occupied Poland. One of the most haunting and amazing books I've ever read.

Joop by Richard Lourie - a story about the betrayal of Anne Frank (originally published in Hardcover under the title A Hatred for Tulips). This book lets you see the other side of the story, from the perspective of the betrayers of the Holocaust.