Just as soon as I start to make headway on my backlog, I pull something like this…
No post today, unless something big happens — yesterday, I received the latest Spenser novel, Kickback by Ace Atkins and well…nothing’s happening ’til I’m done with that.
Even if you don’t like Spenser, or Atkins, if you’re reading this blog, I trust you understand the impulse.
See you tomorrow.
add atkins to the authors, tag this with current reading, etc.
We all know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover (yet, publishing companies spend big bucks on cover design/art). But, the opening sentence(s)/paragraph(s) are fair game. Technically, I’m cheating here — I skipped the first eight lines (Chapter 1), this is from Chapter 2, but it’s my blog so I can ignore my own rules, right?
Dare you not to read the rest of the book
—–
This used to be a city of locks.
Every home, at least five, down the door, like a vault.
Chain lock.
Rim lock.
Fox lock.
Knob lock.
Deadbolt.
Funny name, that last one.
Dead. Bolt.
Neither word exactly conjures security.
But no one bothers with that many locks in New York anymore. City’s safer. Or at least emptier. No end of vacancies. And no one bothers to burgle anymore. Nothing left to burgle. Everything’s picked clean, and anyone who still lives in Manhattan and has something of real value to protect — family, dignity, vintage baseball-card collection — does it with a shotgun, not a deadbolt. So the real problem, for the burglar, isn’t getting in. It’s getting back out.
After all, if you apply enough force, deadbolts give.
Shotguns take.
from Near Enemy by Adam Sternbergh
by David Nicholls 
Typically, I use an “In Media Res” post to check in on a book I’m really excited about, usually about the halfway point. But, thanks to some poor time management on my part, I’ll check in here, as I had to take this back to the library today. I’m on page 120, just a couple pages into Part 2.
In a thumbnail, this is Rowell’s Landline from the male perspective, but without the magic phone. Similarly to Landline, we examine the beginning of the relationship from the protagonist’s present POV, as well as how things progress from the time that his wife tells him she thinks their marriage might be done. In a few months, their child will be leaving home, so she considers their work done — and maybe they will be, too.
This comes out of nowhere (as far as he’s concerned), and strikes poor Douglas like a load of bricks. He latches on to the probability she’s expressed rather than the certainty. He still has a chance, he just needs to make certain changes. He has no idea what those are, but he’s going to try to make them.
At this point, I can see why 1980’s Douglas would be attracted to 1980’s Connie, and maybe why he’d fall for her. I’m not convinced present-day Connie is worth that much effort (but I’m not married to her, so it’s hard for me to say). As for their work as a couple? On behalf of the people of Earth — you’ve done a lousy job. Albie is a questionable human being and a lousy ingrate of a son.
This is well-told — with heart, with wit (frequently a bumbling wit, but that’s Douglas’ charm). As much as I loved Nicholl’s One Day, I couldn’t finish Starter for Ten, so I was a little worried about dipping my toe into this one. But, I have every intention of plowing through this one, as soon as I climb back on top of the library wait list.
When I do, I’m sure I’ll learn to like present-day Connie a bit more, and find out what happened between 1980’s Douglas and present-day Douglas to turn him into someone Connie’s not sure she wants to stick with. I fully expect it to be understandable and may even result in my not liking Douglas too much for a bit. Will he figure out what needs to change and do so? Maybe. I’m not sure Nicholls is going for a happy ending. Who knows? I might even find a redeeming quality in Albie. That will come as a surprise, but I’m open to the possibility.
Good start — I can imagine this book getting 5-stars from me. Also can imagine it getting 3. Who knows?
We all know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover (yet, publishing companies spend big bucks on cover design/art). But, the opening sentence(s)/paragraph(s) are fair game. So, when I stumble on a good opening (or remember one and pull it off the shelves), I’ll throw it up here. Dare you not to read the rest of the book.
Yeah, yeah, I know…another modern fairy-tale intro. What can I say, I’m a sucker for ’em?
Once upon a time, in a land far away, a prince was in rather a pickle. Not a literal pickle, of course— prince-sized pickles are rather hard to come by. No, the type of pickle this prince was in was a thoroughly metaphorical one. To be honest, he might have preferred the vegetable.
from Pickles and Ponies: A Fairy-Tale by Laura May
The “irresponsible” in the blog title is supposed to mean that I read whatever, with only a regard for what catches my eye, not in an effort to better myself or be literary or live up to whatever standard — but it’s not supposed to be a reference to my posting frequency.
So what happened to me this week? Reread Project was up late (2 weeks in a row) and then . . . nothing. I got busy with the non-book part of my life (work, parenting, etc.) and had a hard time finishing that post. Almost decided to give myself a week off, put up a “Gone Reading” sign and let things go silent here. But I decided I needed the pressure of a schedule to get things done — mostly not getting behind again on reviews.
But if you look at the blog, that’s pretty much what I did. I did work on two reviews and one non-review piece that should’ve been up by now (no, really, I did) — the first review, Premonitions by Jamie Schultz is giving me a really hard time for some reason. I really wanted to get that one up, because it’s the kind of book that a lot of people should be saying many nice things about. That one should’ve been up Wednesday afternoon. Maybe, if everything goes perfectly over the next couple of days, it’ll be up Tuesday, with many more to follow next week.
As far as tackling the ol’ TBR pile goes . . . I’m torn between books that I’ve told authors I want to read, books with library due dates, and a few new books I actually bought a couple weeks ago and haven’t even looked at yet. I don’t mean to ignore Jacka’s Hidden. Really. Got it on release day, two and a half weeks ago. Maybe I can start that Thursday of next week. This morning, I technically started M. R. Carey’s The Girl with All the Gifts (read 4 pages before falling in to a much needed coma). Then this afternoon, I had about 15 minutes to sit in my car waiting for my kids at school and realized I forgot to bring it along. Thankfully, I’d just come from the library, so I had something on hand, namely Chelsea Cain’s One Kick. Wow. Just wow. What a beginning. Sure, the first 50 pages or so don’t do much beyond deliver what’s promised on the cover, but they deliver it with a bang. I am so hooked. Expect a rave from me on this one (unless it falls apart in a horrible way).
Anyway, that’s a lot of blather really — mostly about stuff that no one cares about, but just putting this up there will make me feel better about the posting frequency this week. Thanks for indulging me.
as the title implies, I’m in the middle of this book, so this is not a review, just some thoughts mid-way through
—–
I’m on page 153 of 308 — as close as you can get to half-way (at least if you stop at the end of a chapter), and I’m all in on this book. It’s told with Rowell’s trademark warmth and charm. It’s funny, but not hilariously so; tragic, but not heartbreaking (yet); romantic, without being sappy; and real, without being . . . non-fiction?
Yeah, okay, that sentence got away from me.
This is a story about a marriage on the rocks, about the beginning of this romance, maybe about its end, friendship, priorities, and a magic telephone. Most of these are themes not new to Rowell, but that are in constant demand as fodder for stories. Rowell’s doing a bang-up job so far, I’m really pulling for this couple (in both the beginning and at the later part of the relationship). As always, Rowell gives us real people — people we could know, people we would befriend, people we could be.
At this point, I can see a few ways this could end — all of which are entirely justified by what’s come so far, and the vast majority of them end with me risking alcohol poisoning. I’m really liking Georgie McCool that much (and yes, that is her real name).
One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is that I don’t re-read as much as I used to, so I’m making a greater effort to do that, starting in January of this year. Think I’ve managed to reread 1 book before this week. Whoops.
Anyway, I got to talking about Robert Crais with a buddy last week who was wanting to dip his toe in the water, and wanted to know if he needed to read the Cole/Pike books in order or if he could just read which ever he could get his hands on. I’m sure he regretted asking because rather than the 1 sentence answer that he was probably looking for, he got most of a page of text. And if I’d had more time before needing to get to sleep, I’d have probably written pages. And that was just off the top of my head.
I honestly couldn’t stop thinking about Elvis and Joe after that email — I’d read everything up to book nine, The Last Detective, at least twice. But had only managed to reread the first two Joe Pike books since. So the series is ripe for this kind of thing. If I manage myself correctly, I’ve got enough time to read the series before the next novel hits my doorstep in November. Which makes it a bit more appealing — I love a good deadline.
My reviews will be a bit longer (I think) than usual, if the first one is any indication, anyway (1400 words or so) — looking both at the novel and their place in the series, the changes, developments, ties between novels, themes, etc. I don’t think I’ll have time for the two stand-alone novels that introduced characters now part of the series, so we’ll have to rely on my memory for that. These should go up on Mondays — leaving the few “Dusted Off” posts that I have for those weekdays I just can’t get anything else finished.
Once I’m done with Elvis/Joe, I’ll move on to something else. I like the discipline of one reread a week. I did it with the Nero Wolfe series a couple of years ago, and really enjoyed that.
Hope you enjoy this — and if you’ve read the series, please, please contribute to the comments.
—–
Drawing by Kirsty Stewart, chameleonkirsty on deviantART, used with permission.
We all know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover (yet, publishing companies spend big bucks on cover design/art). But, the opening sentence(s)/paragraph(s) are fair game. So, when I stumble on a good opening (or remember one and pull it off the shelves), I’ll throw it up here. Dare you not to read the rest of the book.
—–
The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. Strange!
Sunset Towers faced east and had no towers. This glittery, glassy apartment house stood alone on the Lake Michigan shore five stories high. Five empty stories high.
Then one day (it happened to be the Fourth of July), a most uncommon-looking delivery boy rode around town slipping letters under the doors of the chosen tenants-to-be. The letters were signed Barney Northrup.
The delivery boy was sixty-two years old, and there was no such person as Barney Northrup.
from The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Like any good novel (and this is a very good one), so much of the book is revealed in the opening paragraphs — not that we know that at the time, but in retrospect, it’s clear — we get the voice, we get themes, we get clues to the mystery (not that we know what the mystery is). As a kid, I got to that last line and was hooked. How could there not be such a person when the previous sentence said there was? What’s up with the Towers facing the wrong direction? What a strange book.
We all know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover (yet, publishing companies spend big bucks on cover design/art). But, the opening sentence(s)/paragraph(s) are fair game. So, when I stumble on a good opening (or remember one and pull it off the shelves), I’ll throw it up here. Dare you not to read the rest of the book
—–
I really feel that fewer of modern society’s bits and pieces are sadder—more banal, I guess—than a big office. It’s kinda like, once mankind perfected the assembly line, there was nothing left to do but live on it. Desk after bulky desk, endless rows reaching into the distance like railroad tracks to nowhere; constant monotonous clacks and dings of typewriters and adding machines; tacky marble floors—and maybe columns, in the swankier joints—trying to echo the glories of ancient temples and libraries, and miserably failing at it. Honestly, I dunno if it’s more depressing or more boring.
Unless someone’s trying to rub you out in one of ’em. Then I’m pretty damn confident in telling you it’s a lot more depressing than it is boring.
Right that minute, I wasn’t looking at the desks, or the typewriters, or the pillars, because I was staring blearily at the growing puddle of red soaking into the piss-yellow carpet between my scuffed Oxfords. (Yeah, carpet. This was the second story, so no marble flooring here.) It wasn’t a whole lot of leakage, not yet, but the brick-fisted galoots flocking around me seemed right eager to help me add to it. We were having a friendly little get-together, me and the four of them, wherein I was helping them to relax by massaging their knuckles with my cheeks and my gut. Repeatedly; they musta been really tense. But hey, at least the coppery scent in my nose kept me from gagging on the mixed bouquet of old sweat, typewriter oil, and carpet shampoo.
from Hot Lead, Cold Iron by Ari Marmell
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