The Printed Page

I’m a very visual person and love beautiful, or interesting, cover art. It entices, and invites, me to stop and take a peek instead of walking right on by. This week’s Cover Attraction is: Title: An Invitation to Dance Author: Marion Urch Release date: May ’09

A compelling work of historical fiction which recounts the astonishing life of Lola Montez, a daring young Irish woman who took on the role in life of a Spanish dancer. Set against the turbulent beginnings of the 19th century, An Invitation to Dance sweeps from the margins of the Empire – Ireland and India – to within the upper echelons of society. This is the extraordinary fictionalised story of a woman who danced her way across Europe leaving scandal in her wake – becoming the muse of Liszt and causing the abdication of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. 

♦♦♦

What’s your favorite cover attraction this week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Cover Attraction post.

If you’re new to Mailbox Monday welcome! Thank you to everyone who stops by Mailbox Monday. Whether you comment or visit I appreciate your taking the time to drop in.

*** Nothing new at my house this week. I still have to pick the recipients of last week’s Read It Forward so email will be going out this week. ***

Read It Forward details

***

What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

We’ve all been here at one time or another. Too much computer time and blogging adds up to sore hands and wrists. Mine have gotten to that point, again. My paying job requires 10 hours a day of computer work. Then I play on my laptop nightly and weekends some times for hours. At the risk of being banned from my laptop and blog, by the Doctor, I’m taking a bit of a self imposed break.  Mailbox Monday, Cover Attraction and By the Chapter will still post. Ponderings (my form of a book review) and other miscellaneous book related posting will slow down to a trickle. I’m thinking of it as taking a summer vacation! Curious what I’m reading or what I’ve just finished check out the side bar.

Welcome to By the Chapter. This week’s featured book is Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. Sharing hosting duties with me this week is Elizabeth from As usual, I need more bookshelves.

***

If you’re not familiar with Nineteen Minutes here’s a little background on the book:

Sterling, New Hampshire, 17-year-old high school student Peter Houghton has endure years of verbal and physical abuse at the hands of classmates. His best friend, Josie Cormier, succumbed to peer pressure and now hangs out with the popular crowd that often instigates the harassment. One final incident of bullying sends Peter over the edge and leads him to commit an act of violence that forever changes the lives of Sterling’s residents.

***

When is it almost bearable to read about a school shooting? When it’s fictionalized and the author doesn’t dwell on the event itself but instead chooses to tell the story leading up to the shooting. Usually we only hear about the incident and its devastatingly horrific aftermath. We know little if anything about what leads a kid to kill his classmates. In Nineteen Minutes Ms. Picoult showcases one boy’s turbulent journey from a bullied child to a teenager who sees no escape from this torture except to end it himself. He’s asked for help only to find he’s the one being punished. The instigator escapes and the retaliator is held accountable. A learned behavior has become not to seek assistance from adults because it leads to escalated bullying from his peers. He wants nothing more than for it to stop, just stop. Finally with tragic consequences it does stop, for Peter, those who made his life a living hell and innocents caught in the line of fire.

This story is heartbreaking any way you look it. There’s the Houghton’s naivety – how does one not feel for parents who wake up one morning to find their child has killed classmates. Then again, we question how they could not know. There’s Patrick – the detective who always feels he’s too late, that he’s let someone down. Alex and Josie – they both suffer from Alex’s upbringing at the hands of a father who dealt in facts and not feelings. On so many levels I was emotionally involved with all of these characters. That said I still can’t get Peter out of my mind. He’s haunted me this week. Actually I didn’t sleep very well the first night I read this story. I tossed and turned finding myself thinking about him at the oddest times. While he is far from being the only victim his story is the one I most identify with. While I can’t condone his actions I feel the strongest empathy for him.

Next to My Sister’s Keeper this is my favorite Jodi Picoult book. I admire the way she is able to draw me into the story and write characters I care about. She takes hot button issues and strips them down to their barest human emotion. She knows how to build a story from start to finish including many little details and salient points. As nothing is ever black and white in her stories it’s how her characters deal with the circumstances where her writing shines. There is a twist in this one that I never saw coming. While it initially took me by surprise in mulling over the story line I should have seen it coming. There were more than enough clues and I knew this kid had a secret. I just didn’t know how explosive it was going to be. My one very minor issue with this story is the do-over I felt she gave Alex. Instead of working on her relationship with Josie she was given an easy out.

Unfortunately school shootings have become a reality instead of living only in the pages of a fictional story. In recent years they have left their indelible mark on our world. This is a story that should be read by adults and kids alike. It should be shared and talked about around the family dinner table.

***

If you’ve read, or are currently reading, Nineteen Minutes please share your thoughts with us.

*** This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Wednesday: Elizabeth from As usual, I need more bookshelves Friday: The Printed Page/Elizabeth from As usual, I need more bookshelves

***

Shortly after Alyse Myers’s mother dies, Alyse and her sisters are emptying her mother’s apartment, trying to decide what to discard and what to keep. Alyse covets only one thing — a wooden box that sits in the back of a closet. Its contents have been kept from Alyse her entire life. That box, she hopes, will contain answers to her questions: Who were her parents really, and why did her mother settle for so very little in her life?

Growing up during the 1960s in a working-class neighborhood in Queens, New York, Alyse’s home is not a happy one. Her parents argue constantly and after the death of Alyse’s father, her mother at age thirty-three is left with three young girls. While her mother retreats to the kitchen table with her cigarettes and bitterness, determined to stay there forever, Alyse yearns for more in life, including the right to escape. After a childhood of harrowing fights, abject cruelty, and endless uncertainty, Alyse adamantly rejects everything about her mother’s life, provoking her mother’s infuriated demand, “Who do you think you are?”

***

The childhood from hell is what Alyse Myers survived. First the vicious yelling matches between her parents. After her father’s passing Alyse and her mom start fighting like she-cats. They scream the vilest things at each other. Her mother hangs her father’s belts on the outside of the closet to remind the girls she’s not afraid to use them if they step out line. As the fighting and beatings escalate through her teen age years and her home life deteriorates Alyse’s mom kicks her out the house for the final time. Believe me, like Alyse, I’d have been more than happy to leave. But if you think Alyse’s leaving home improved their relationship you’re wrong. It doesn’t get better just puts more distance between them.

I found this story depressing, very depressing. There is so much hatred in this family. This story brims with it. It’s there between her parents, between mother and daughter. Along with this hatred you experience an overwhelming sense of sadness. It oozes out of the cracks of hatred. Sadness that engulfs these shattered relationships between family members. Believe me my mom drives me nuts but still I can’t imagine having this conversation with my mom that Alyse had with her’s:

She would always ask me the same question before my trip, whether it was for business or a vacation: How could she get in touch with me if something bad happened? My answer would always be the same: “Like how bad?” “Like if someone died,” she would say. I would tell her that if someone died there was really little I could do to help so what would it matter, anyway? What would I do if ‘she’ were to die? she would ask me. “While I was on a trip?” I would ask her back. “Or in general?” You wouldn’t care if I died, she would tell me. “You’ll be around for a while,” I would tell her. “Don’t you worry.” Only the good die young, I would think. Who Do You Think You Are, pages 158-159

I won’t say I enjoyed this book because it’s hard to enjoy reading about this much pain in someone’s life. But I couldn’t look away from it either. It’s what I consider a ‘bad accident’ book. Just as there are some accident scenes that you’re drawn to and can’t tear your eyes away from so was I with Who Do You Think You Are?. I found myself drawn into Alyse’s abusive world. I guess because it’s a world apart from my upbringing. I’m always amazed by people who live through such traumatic childhoods. The determination, resiliency and guts it takes to overcome. What compels me to read these types of memoirs is the silver lining waiting at the end. The sheer willpower a person has not to be defeated by their circumstances. Sometimes you just have to dig a little deeper to find it.

To get better insight into Alyse’s background watch this interview. Check out the chat page and read what others who share a similar mother/daughter relationship have to say. Her website: Alyse Myers

I’m a very visual person and love beautiful, or interesting, cover art. It entices, and invites, me to stop and take a peek instead of walking right on by. This week’s Cover Attraction is: Title: Sand Daughter Author: Sarah Bryant Release date: September ’06

It is the time of the Crusades. The Islamic world is divided and the Franks have captured the Holy Land. As the mighty Saladin struggles to unite the warring clans of Arabia against the invaders, Khalidah, a young Bedouin woman of no obvious importance finds herself a pawn in a deadly plot involving her own feuding tribe and the powerful Templar Knights. Faced with certain death, she runs away with a man she barely knows, towards adventure and the echoes of a past that somehow connect her to the Jinn – the mysterious Afghan warriors who may hold the key to the coming battle for the Holy Land.

US cover on the left, UK cover on the right.

I love the UK cover but the silhouette of the horse and rider and the muted colors on the US cover also caught my eye. Another one for the wish list.

♦♦♦

What’s your favorite cover attraction this week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Cover Attraction post.

Welcome to By the Chapter. This week’s featured book is Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult.

Follow today’s discussion over at Elizabeth’s blog, As usual, I need more bookshelves

***

This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Wednesday: Elizabeth from As usual, I need more bookshelves Friday: The Printed Page/Elizabeth from As usual, I need more bookshelves

***

If you’re new to Mailbox Monday welcome! Thank you to everyone who stops by Mailbox Monday. Whether you comment or visit I appreciate your taking the time to drop in.

*** Fiction ~ Dragon House by John Shors (from the author/I love his other two novels Beneath a Marble Sky and Besides A Burning Sea) (Claimed by Elizabeth)

Set in modern-day Vietnam, Dragon House tells the tale of Iris and Noah—two Americans who, as a way of healing their own painful pasts, open a center to house and educate Vietnamese street children.

Iris and Noah find themselves reborn in an exotic land filled with corruption and chaos, sacrifice and beauty. Inspired by the street children she meets, Iris walks in the footsteps of her father, a man whom Vietnam both shattered and saved. Meanwhile, Noah slowly rediscovers himself through the eyes of an unexpected companion.

Resounding with powerful themes of suffering, sacrifice, friendship, and love, Dragon House brings together East and West, war and peace; and celebrates the resilience of the human spirit.

Memoir ~ Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal by Julie Metz (new-to-me author/Shelf Awareness) (Claimed by Andrea)

Julie Metz’s life changes forever on one ordinary January afternoon when her husband, Henry, collapses on the kitchen floor and dies in her arms. Suddenly, this mother of a six-year-old is the young widow in a bucolic small town. And this is only the beginning. Seven months after Henry’s death, just when Julie thinks she is emerging from the worst of it, comes the rest of it: She discovers that what had appeared to be the reality of her marriage was but a half-truth. Henry had hidden another life from her.

“He loved you so much.” That’s what everyone keeps telling her. It’s true that he loved Julie and their six-year-old daughter ebulliently and devotedly, but as she starts to pick up the pieces and rebuild her life without Henry in it, she learns that Henry had been unfaithful throughout their twelve years of marriage. The most damaging affair was ongoing–a tumultuous relationship that ended only with Henry’s death. For Julie, the only thing to do was to get at the real truth–to strip away the veneer of “perfection” that was her life and confront each of the women beneath the veneer.

Memoir ~ The Islamist: Why I Became an Islamic Fundamentalist, What I Saw Inside, and Why I Left by Ed Husain (new-to-me author/FSB Associates)

Raised in a devout but quiet Muslim community in London, at sixteen Ed Husain was presented with an intriguing political interpretation of Islam known as fundamentalism. Lured by these ideas, he committed his life to them. Five years later, he rejected extremism and tried to return to a normal life. But soon he realized that Islamic fundamentalists pose a threat that most people—Muslim and non- Muslim alike—simply don’t understand.

Based on first-hand experiences and written with pervasive clarity, The Islamist delivers a rare inside glimpse of the devious methods used to recruit new members, and offers profound insight into the appeal fundamentalism has for young Muslims in the Western world.

Suspense/thriller ~ Panic Attack by Jason Starr (new-to-me author/eBook – not available for Read It Forward) Download the eBook from the publisher – right side bar

Dr. Adam Bloom has the perfect life. He’s financially secure and lives in a luxurious house with his wife, Dana, and their twenty-two-year-old daughter, Marissa, a recent college graduate. Late one night, his daughter wakes him up and says, “Somebody’s downstairs.” Adam uses his gun to kill one of the unarmed intruders, but the other escapes. From that moment on, everyone’s life in the Bloom household will never be the same.

Adam doesn’t feel safe, not with the other intruder out there somewhere, knowing where he lives. Dana suggests moving, but Adam has lived in the house all his life and he doesn’t want to run away. As the family recovers from the break-in and the Blooms’ already rocky relationship rapidly falls apart, Marissa meets a young, talented artist named Xan. Adam feels that something’s not quite right with Xan, but his daughter ignores his warnings and falls deeply in love with him. When suspicious things start happening to the Blooms all over again, Adam realizes that his first instinct about Xan was probably dead on.

Historical fiction ~ The triumph of the Sun by Wilbur Smith (new-to-me author/eBook – not available for Read It Forward) Download the eBook from the publisher – right side bar

It is 1884, and in the Sudan, decades of brutal misgovernment by the ruling Egyptian Khedive in Cairo precipitates a bloody rebellion and Holy War. The charismatic new religious leader, the Mahdi or ‘Expected One’, has gathered his forces of Arab warlords in preparation for a siege on the city of Khartoum. The British are forced to intervene to protect their national interests and to attempt to rescue the hundreds of British subjects stranded in the city.

British trader and businessman Ryder Courtney is trapped in the capital city of Khartoum under the orders of the infamously iron-willed General Charles George Gordon. It is here that he meets skilled soldier and swordsman Captain Penrod Ballantyne of the 10th Hussars and the British Consul, David Benbrook, as well as Benbrook’s three beautiful daughters. Against the vivid and bloody backdrop of the Arabs’ fierce and merciless siege these three powerful men must fight to survive.

Serial is a horror novella. Like a deeply twisted version of an After School Special, it is the single most persuasive public service announcement on the hazards of free car rides.

The Serial eBook also contains a Q&A with Kilborn and Crouch, author bibliographies, and excerpts from their most recent and forthcoming works: Kilborn’s Afraid and Crouch’s Abandon.

Serial is located under “Book Extras” in the bottom right-hand corner. Readers can download it either as a PDF file (Amazon Kindle) or there’s also an ePub version of the book (the Sony eBook Reader format). Here’s the link: Serial eBook

***

Read It Forward details

***

What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

Welcome to By the Chapter. This week’s featured book is Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. Sharing hosting duties with me this week is Elizabeth from As usual, I need more bookshelves.

***

If you’re not familiar with Nineteen Minutes here’s a little background on the book:

Sterling, New Hampshire, 17-year-old high school student Peter Houghton has endure years of verbal and physical abuse at the hands of classmates. His best friend, Josie Cormier, succumbed to peer pressure and now hangs out with the popular crowd that often instigates the harassment. One final incident of bullying sends Peter over the edge and leads him to commit an act of violence that forever changes the lives of Sterling’s residents.

***

While this is fictionalized version of a school shooting that event isn’t the main focus of this story. This story focuses on the thoughts and feelings of the kids. The dynamics of group interaction they face once they start attending school from kindergarten on. Two of these kids are Peter and Josie. Each faces insecurities and handle social acceptance, or lack thereof, in very different ways. Peter is viewed as an easy target and he’s repeatedly picked on and bullied, throughout his school years, by other kids including his own big brother. Josie is Peter’s friend and his protector up to a point – the end of sixth grade. Josie pulls away from Peter gravitating toward the ‘cool’ crowd. Peter struggles with Josie’s defection, along with other acceptance issues, and starts down a path of finding darker outlets for his growing hatred. Meanwhile Josie struggles with her own issues of acceptance. She questions her image, her status, her sense of ‘belonging’. She’s starting to question her possible roll in this tragic sequence of events.

In this story my heart breaks for all the characters but Peter sticks in my mind. His feelings, his words, his actions pierce my soul. I don’t see Peter as the personification of pure evil. His statement to his attorney is very, very scary, chilling in fact. And given what is happening in our schools and universities and to our youth today we must look at the truth that lies behind these words ~ I mean, people were crying over them … and they were assholes. Everyone’s saying I ruined their lives, but no one seemed to care when my life was the one being ruined. [Nineteen Minutes, Kindle section 2769-75]. How much pain is this young man harboring within himself?

As difficult a topic as this is to read about I’m thoroughly enjoying this story. Ms. Picoult always manages to dig beneath the surface and bring to light the gray areas. These are moral questions and dilemmas that plague us or they should. Do we presume to know the answers or do we examine motives and underlying issues? She gets me thinking and interacting mentally with the story.

***

If you’ve read, or are currently reading, Nineteen Minutes please share your thoughts with us.

*** This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Wednesday: Elizabeth from As usual, I need more bookshelves Friday: The Printed Page/Elizabeth from As usual, I need more bookshelves

***

Welcome to By the Chapter. This week’s featured book is The Reincarnationist by M.J. Rose. I’d like to thank Amy for co-hosting with me this week..

The format of BTC is changing to 3 days a week with this edition – Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

***

If you’re not familiar with The Reincarnationist here’s a little background on the book from Amazon:

After a bomb explosion nearly kills photojournalist Josh Ryder, he begins experiencing flashbacks—or, perhaps, memories—of events that seem to have happened to him 1,600 years earlier, in another life. Convinced these episodes aren’t figments of his imagination, he enlists the aid of the Phoenix Foundation, a group that specializes in past-life research. Later, when he becomes involved in the unearthing of an ancient tomb—and experiences a connection with its long-buried resident—Josh realizes he has a chance to right a wrong that happened a millennium and a half ago, not to mention an opportunity to solve a series of modern-day murders.

***

This is a great book and I loved up it until the very last page and then ‘that, that’s it’ happened. I’m not telling what ‘that’ is because you need to read this book. Ultimately Josh saves the one he’s supposed to save but its not who you think it is. And not in the way you think it will happen. Now you need to get yourself a copy of this book and settle in for a weekend of great reading. For me I liked this one so much that I’m looking to forward to reading her next book involving the Phoenix Foundation, The Memorist.

This is mystery and lore and love across the ages. This is more than just a case an intense case of déjà vu. Josh lives in present day but he also ‘lives’ in Rome 1,600 years ago and the States in the 1880s. He ‘meets’ the most interesting people in his current and past lives. His lurches, as he refers to them, build the story line. The author weaves past and present together bringing in various story lines until they seamlessly blend into one. There were times when I didn’t know exactly where I was – past or present. When Josh’s past lives collide with present day I got all spine tingly.

I’m purposely not writing a lot about the story line itself because I don’t want to give away the details. Briefly:  Josh is out to secure the Memory Stones, ancient artifacts guarded by Vestal Virgins, which he believes may unlock his past.  He has his hands full as the Memory Stones are stolen from their final resting place and the chase leads him back and forth between the States and Rome, between the here and now and time past. Not only is he looking for the Memory Stones but he’s searching for a woman who haunts his thoughts and he loves deeply without knowing her. His destiny is also to protect and save someone but who that might be isn’t clear until the end.  This book will appeal to a wide audience but most especially any mystery lover, time travel fan, or thrill seeker should read this book. I got sucked right into this one and couldn’t put the book down. I wanted to know the who, what, when, where and why. I wanted to race through it just as Josh was racing through time.

***

The basis of this story is reincarnation. This idea of reincarnation is totally intriguing to me. I know over at Amy’s blog on Wednesday there was some discussion of past lives, reincarnation and readers reaction to the topic. Most didn’t want to be reincarnated and preferred to live only this life and find whatever peace they can once they’ve departed. Personally I think it would be utterly fascinating to live another life in another place and time. I’d like think there might be more than just this – I live, I die. I want to go on. I don’t want this to be my only time – the time I’m given to live this life. There is more for me to explore, experience and learn. The reality of it is probably quite different and I’m most likely approaching it way too simplistically. But just the thought living another life sends little thrills through me. I think it’s topic that I’ll devote more time to learning about.

***

And for those of you who haven’t stopped by before – yes I’m reading this on my Kindle and yes I love my Kindle.

***

If you’ve read, or are currently reading, The Reincarnationist please share your thoughts with us.

*** This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Wednesday: Amy from My Friend Amy Friday: The Printed Page/Amy from My Friend Amy

***