Name of Book:

The Gist:

Ever since Persephone left Henry for a mortal, he has had to rule the Underworld alone. There have been a series of girls that have been selected to try to pass the seven tests; however, they have all been sabotaged by someone lurking in Henry’s realm that doesn’t want any of the girls to succeed. Henry is on the verge of giving up and relinquishing his realm; however, there is one more girl to be tested. Will Kate pass the tests?

My Thoughts:

I have always been fascinated by the story of Persephone, the Underworld, and the six pomegranate seeds that kept her there for half the year. So I was intrigued by this modern retelling.

The story is quick paced and it pulled me in right away. I started the book on the train during my morning commute. I was sucked in by the story and stole more reading time on my breaks and during lunch. I was halfway through the book by the end of the day. I was enjoying the story so much that all I wanted to do was go home and finish it, which I did. I spent the evening curled up on the couch with a  cup of peppermint tea and this book.

The writing itself isn’t necessarily beautiful or breathtaking; however, it isn’t clunky. It’s a little like eating candy—very easy  to consume, consume a lot, and in a short amount of time. The story is mostly plot-driven, however, the characters were fleshed out enough for me to get invested. There were some really tender and beautiful moments between Henry and Kate that melted my heart. I thought the dialogue between them was really sweet and heartfelt. I think Carter does a good job navigating the emotional waters of first love.

Last Words:

Sweet and lighthearted retelling of the Persephone myth.

Author: Patricia Cornwell

Publisher: Penguin Group USA

Format: Audio Book

Number of Discs: 11 CDs/12.5 hours

Read by: Kate Burton

Grade: B for the book/A for the reader

DISCLOSURE: I received an advance review copy from Penguin Audio. I received no other compensation, and the opinions stated in this review are strictly my own.

I am new to the Kay Scarpetta books, and didn’t really know what to expect.  So my views may be quite different from someone who is a long-term reader of the series.

Basically Kay is in Savannah, Georgia, to visit Kathleen Lawler, an inmate at the Georgia Prison for Women. Lawler, when she was a young social worker, sexually molested Kay’s former associate Jack Fielding when he was in his very early teens.  Their daughter murdered him, and but for a fluke circumstance, almost murdered Kay as well.   What Kay doesn’t know is that Jamie Lawler, former lover of Kay’s niece Lucy, is pulling all of the strings, and manages to thoroughly entangle Kay in a series of murders.   There’s a malicious poisoner at work–or is there?–and Kay and her family are in fear for their lives after several suspicious deaths. Furthermore, Kay herself might just be a suspect.  Someone has definitely taken a lot of time and trouble to set Kay up to take the fall. 

My thoughts: There was so much backstory being provided that I found it a little tedious. And yes, I do understand that it’s necessary, in case someone (like me) who has never read the books before decides to start with #19 instead of #1. I knew whodunnit well before the denoument, although I will admit to being surprised by howziedunnit. And there was another plot twist that I didn’t figure out until just before the big reveal.  Did I like it enough to read another in the series? Perhaps, but I’m not sure, hence the B.

My thoughts about the reader: Kate Burton did a fine job. I had to look her up, and learned that she’s a Welsh American actress–daughter to Richard Burton. She has been nominated for 2 Tony awards, and won a Daytime Emmy award. She has an impressive resume. I enjoyed listening to her. If I were debating over whether to listen to an audio book, I have to say that her being the reader might sway the balance.

Book Title: Dirty Minds: How Our Brains Influence Love, Sex and Relationships
Author: Kayt Sukel
Original Publication Date: 2012
Edition Read: Advance Copy
Total Pages: 256
Genre: Non-Fiction
Reason Read: In support of the author, with whom I have a working relationship
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

“If you ever want to make even the most cosmopolitan of your friends speechless, telling them you have voluteered to travel to Newark, New Jersey, so you can masturbate to orgasm in an fMRI is a great way to start. Once they overcome the shock, chances are they will start to ask questions. A lot of questions. Most I was able to answer. To start, no, I’m not kidding. I’m really going to do it. Really, it is not a joke, I promise. Yes, I will be in the scanner, the same sort of claustrophobic tube you got your knee scanned in that one time. Yes, I know it is a very tight fit. Loud too. Yes, I’ll be self-stimulating. How? Clitorally, to be exact, until I reach orgasm. Will I use a vibrator? No, most vibrators have metal, which is a no-no in the magnet. I’ll have to rely on my own hands to get the job done. Yes, technically people will be watching – just the scientists who are running the study, I think. But I will be draped for modesty and the only thing they will really be observing, besides my brain on the computer screen, is my hand signal when ecstasy is upon me. Both Komisaruk and his colleague, Nan Wise, have explained the whole process in detail to me. No, I am not sure I’ll actually be able to do it. But, as instructed, I have been practicing at home and will give it my best shot. It seemed like I was going through the same spiel over and over again. Between Wise’s careful instructions and my repeated parroting, I felt I knew the procedure backward and forward. Or so I thought.

“It occurred to me only the night before I was due to be scanned that I had forgotten to ask the most important question of all: What do I wear to this session?” – Chapter 12

I met Kayt Sukel while acting as her Editor for the UpTake Restaurants Blog online over the past year. When she asked for some time off to complete a book for publication, I said “of course” and then asked what her book was about. When she told me it was a non-fiction look at the neuroscience field my reaction was disappointment that I wouldn’t be able to read and review it for her. Not exactly something the common Bumble can easily grasp and find all that interesting. But Kayt told me not to make that kind of assumption so fast and encouraged me to take a deeper look. When I watched her book trailer a few months later, I couldn’t request an advance copy fast enough. Finding out how our brains operate when it comes to love and sex didn’t sound like a boring science textbook to me.

“Dirty Minds” is far from boring. This is because Kayt has a wicked sense of humor and the ability to translate Ivy League research into rock lyric parallels, making her book highly readable and entertaining. And in those spots where I did find my eyes glazing over due to a jumble of scientific jargon, she would inevitably insert an aside to the reader acknowledging and forgiving the probable tuning out of the prior paragraph. This made me laugh and kept me reading on, knowing this was not material to be quizzed on but rather, stories to be learned from.

Kayt recounts all kinds of neurological studies and research about varying ways to love; parental love, same-sex love, spiritual love and even lust. None of them have a magic solution for lonely hearts or wandering eyes. As evidenced by the passage quoted above, Kayt bravely took part in several of these studies along the way with the hope of giving scientists information to better solve the mysteries of love, sex and attraction. The only thing the studies seem to prove is that love elicits a definite pattern of activity in our brains. But love isn’t just synapses and hormones working like a factory and dictating emotional expression. It is also affected by our culture, environment and often overruled by the reasoning portions of our brains.

I was fascinated by the way researchers discover which pieces of our brains light up during all kinds of tasks – physical or mental in nature. Seeing the way entirely different activities have brain mapping overlaps was an eye-opener. Most encouraging was the knowledge that our brains never stop changing. Every interaction, experience and education causes our brains to evolve. Meaning that love is not finite. It can’t be contained or categorized. It is there – whether we want it or not. And it certainly seems, our brains really really want it. That’s why there are all of those handy rock lyrics for Kayt to parallel.

Reminders: You can leave your review links at our designated review page. Our Forever Readalong will begin on March 1st. I hope you join us!

Discovering the world of book blogging has had some wonderful, positive effects on my reading life. For instance, before book blogging, I never tracked my reading. I didn’t know how many books I read. And because I read so many, I forgot many of the titles I’d read. I would have hazy memories of a particular book or even a cover, but the title would elude me. This was frustrating because some of these books I wanted to revisit or talk about, but without a title it was quite useless. And yet, it never occurred to me to make lists of all my reading.

Once I realized other readers were keeping dedicated lists of their books read each year, I eagerly followed suit. The first year, I was blown away by how many books I read without any effort. It wasn’t quite a hundred books, yet it was plentiful. I had no idea that was how much I read. For the next couple of years, my reading increased quite a bit. At my high point I was reading an average of ten books a month. Then my reading decreased to pre-blogging levels.

At first this bummed me out. It’s not so much that I see myself in competition with others. I don’t. Everyone’s time limits and rates of reading vary so much. I am still amazed by those that can read hundreds of books in a year. But I do feel like I am in competition with myself. I want my reading to be constant. I want to read the same number of books every year. There are so many books to get to, I don’t want to read less.

One result of this internal competition is that I have seemed to shy away from the Big Books. You know, the chunksters. I’m not saying I used to read chunksters all the time, but I never thought much of the size of the book. Big books titillated rather than intimidated. I used to get quite excited by them because that meant I got more time with it. The story wouldn’t be over too soon. I have the fondest memories of the week or two I spent with The Mists of Avalon during the summer of 2001. I spent my late afternoons sitting on the patio, absorbed in the book until the sun was so low I couldn’t see the page any longer. I remember getting trashy V.C. Andrews books for finals week during high school to make good use of the remaining ninety minutes of each exam period. (I finished my exams way ahead of schedule and we weren’t allowed to leave.) Yeah, these books weren’t necessarily chunksters (or actually any good, although yes, deliciously salacious) but they weren’t the skinny YA books of today. The point: big books didn’t scare me.

However, they do the opposite nowadays. I have a ton of big books that I have purchased over the years with big excitement. But they have been gathering dust for some time now, since I suddenly became too intimidated to pick them up. I believe this intimidation is an unintended consequence of blogging and this subconscious competitiveness I have going with myself.

I have always been a fast reader. I think it is a combination of my pages read per minute and also the amount of time I dedicate to reading. I will stay up all night to read a book. I will spend an entire evening reading. I devote certain chunks of my day every day to this beloved activity. In days past, it could take as little as a few hours to one day to read a book if it was relatively short. On the flip side though, I didn’t mind spending a few weeks with a book if it was considerably long. I even derived a sort of pleasure out of this extended visit since my time with any given book was usually much shorter.

At this point in my life, my limited time and the need to have some fresh material on a regular basis combined with this internal drive to keep my reading pace consistent has cast the big books to the wayside. I became very aware of this when confronted with Marie Antoinette: The Journey coupled with my newly arrived The Girl Who Kicked Who Played with Fire (which did not come in the trade paperback size so it is even fatter and longer due to its smaller size.) Both books were on my January list. I really wanted to read this book since I loved Becoming Marie Antoinette so much. I dearly wanted to learn more about her from a nonfiction point of view. However, the heft had me doubtful and reluctant. A happy circumstance of finishing three books in the first nine days of January boosted my reading confidence so I dived right in, picking up MA: The Journey.

I must say, I have been thoroughly enjoying it. I can’t quite put it into words the feeling of having the same book by my side for several weeks—to read at lunch, to read on the train, to spend an hour with in the evenings whilst enjoying a cup of tea. I have forgotten how delicious this can be. Now that I have rediscovered this delight, I aim to include more of these ‘scary’ books in my reading lists as I journey through this next year.

How about you, my lovelies? What are your ‘scary’ books? Do you read a lot of chunksters? Has blogging had any unintended adverse effects on your reading habits?

Photo: personal for QGR

Author

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011

Pages: 163

Genre: Literary Fiction

Reason for Reading: The title appealed to me.

Rating: A+

Award Won: Man Booker Prize, 2011

Summary from NPR (National Public Radio):

Tony Webster is a retired divorced man in his mid-60s who, after receiving notice of an unexpected bequest, is pulled back into a “powerful recollection of strong emotions” from his past. This leads to a reassessment of the accuracy of his memories, a rueful realization of how much he’d gotten wrong, and a harsh re-evaluation of his passive approach to life.

My Thoughts:

Most of us live our lives pushing straight ahead through each day’s activities and pressures. We seldom stop to look back. But there often comes a time, usually after something bad happens and/or after retirement, when we have more time to look back and examine our lives.

Of course, some people never look back, but Julian Barnes fictional character, Tony Webster, does search through his memory base. His life, like ours, was not remarkable. He’s the average citizen who pursues a career, raises a family, and, in general, does the right thing. As he looks back he begins to wonder if what he did was right, could he have done better, or maybe it’s just his memory that’s faulty.

I promise you The Sense of an Ending is fiction, even though, at least for me, it felt like a memoir. It was personal and somehow philosophical. There is so much to think about here. As soon as I finished I had to go back and read certain parts.  I’m sure there will be a re-read of this one in my future.

Julian Barnes’ writing is incredible. Tuesday I quoted the opening two paragraphs here. Today I want to share with you part of the closing.

You get towards the end of life – no, not life itself, but of something else: the end of any likelihood of change in that life. You are allowed a long moment of pause, time enough to ask the question: what else have I done wrong?

About the author:

The Sense of an Ending is Julian Barnes’ nineteenth book. Three of Barnes’ earlier books have been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize: Flaubert’s Parrot, England, England, and Arthur & George. He has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym of Dan Kavanagh.

About the Award:

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe.[1] The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and success; therefore, the prize is of great significance for the book trade.[2] It is also a mark of distinction for authors to be selected for inclusion in the shortlist or even to be nominated for the “longlist”. (from Wikepedia)

Author: Judith K. Ivie

Publisher: Mainly Murder Press LLC

Copyright: April 1, 2009

Number of Pages: 232

Reason for Reading: The Kindle edition was free (IIRC), or else very affordable (as of 2/15/11, it’s $2.99), and it sounded interesting.

Grade: A

“The Henstock sisters have a skeleton in their closet,” she announced.

“Don’t they always?” murmured Margo, still focused on her computer screen, “and it’s the primmest old gals that usually have the wickedest secrets.” She giggled delightedly. “I can hardly wait. Let’s hear it.” She punched Save, crossed one elegant leg over the other, and gave MACK Realty’s third partner her full attention. I stopped making notes to myself at my desk and did the same.

“No, really,” insisted Strutter. She collapsed onto the sofa next to Margo and looked from one to the other of us wildly. “Kate, Margo, listen to me. There’s a skeleton behind a false wall in an old closet in the Henstock sisters’ basement. Literally. It had clothes on, or at least, it used to.” She clutched her briefcase to her chest and swallowed hard. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Kate is really having a rough go of things. Her beau, Armando, is moving in and proposing marriage. Her realty company, MACK, is getting poison pen letters. Someone is following her, apparently with ill intent. One of her partners, Strutter, is keeping a secret.  And the Henstock sisters’ skeleton has disappeared.

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this cosy mystery. It is the third in a series, and I liked it enough that I have added the others to my ever-growing TBR list.

Authors

Publisher: Penguin Audio, 2012 (7 hours)

Genre: Comedic Fiction

My Rating: C

Summary:

Lunatics is the story of two guys, both family men, who live average lives in New Jersey. Phillip Horkman is a happy guy who owns a pet store (called The Wine Shop?). He’s the kind of guy who says “pardon my language” for fairly nice, simple words. He also referees kid’s soccer games in his spare time.

Jeffrey Peckerman is a “forensic plumber” who has probably been a jerk his whole life. He’s a bigot who believes his problems are always someone else’s fault. Everything comes screaming out of his foul mouth all the time.

These two men met at a soccer game. While Phillip is referreeing, he calls Jeffrey’s daughter “off sides.” That call nullifies a winning score. Jeffrey, of course, screams his invectives immediately and during the after-game celebration. They are separated by their families, but the relationship doesn’t end there.

When Jeffrey accidently enters Phillip’s pet store, steals a rare lemur and runs over Phillips foot with his car, the crazy events are just beginning. Soon they are on the run for attempting to blow up a bridge and shooting down a police helicopter. The two are considered part of an terrorist network bent on destroying the free world. They excape via a nude, make that a clothing optional cruise ship, a couple of people are swept overboard and land on an island, and . . . Lord, that’s just the first two CDs. I won’t spoil the rest of the audiobook for you. Needless to say, it just keeps going at a fast pace.

My thoughts:

I expected this audiobook to be funny. After all, Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist and Alan Zweilbel is the winner of a Thurber Prize for American humor. And it was funny, just not over-the-top funny. I was blown away by the first part of the story. The two characters are so normal but yet so outrageous that they fascinated me. But then it began to seem a bit silly and for me it fell down about half-way through.

The story is told from first Phillip’s perspective and then Jeffrey’s. They alternate chapters and the authors take turns reading the story. They did that well. They’re a good combination.

I should warn you that the language is X-rated. It’s a part of the story and how I’m sure these guys talk. But I mention it in case you might want to play the CDs in the car with children present. There also seems to be an unusual amount of what’s known as scatological humor. (That’s an excessive preoccupation with excrement.) Maybe it’s a guy thing or normal locker room humor, but after a while it wasn’t funny any more.

Diane 

I’m reading The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. It’s this year’s Man Booker Award.

I remember, in no particular order:

• a shiny inner wrist;
• steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is

laughingly tossed into it;

• gouts of sperm circling a plughole, before being

sluiced down the full length of a tall house;

• a river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and

wash lit by half a dozen chasing torchbeams;

• another river, broad and grey, the direction of its flow

disguised by a stiff wind exciting the surface;

• bathwater long gone cold behind a locked door.

This last isn’t something I actually saw but what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.

We live in time – it holds us and moulds us – but I’ve never felt I understood it very well. And I’m not referring to theories about how it bends and doubles back, or may exist elsewhere in parallel versions. No, I mean ordinary, everyday time, which clocks and watches assure us passes regularly: tick-tock, click-clock.

 What do you think? Would you keep reading?