Week Ahead 23/07 - 29/07

The three books I aim to read by the end of this lovely sunny week.

Having read Janet Evanovich's Wicked Appetite earlier on in the year, I was happy to find it's sequel Wicked Business waiting for me on a library display.

Lizzy Tucker's once normal life as a pastry chef in Salem, Massachusetts, turns upside down as she battles both sinister forces and an inconvenient attraction to her unnaturally talented but off-limits partner, Diesel. 
  When Harvard University English professor and dyed-in-the-wool romantic Gilbert Reedy is mysteriously murdered and thrown off his fourth floor balcony, Lizzy and Diesel take up his twenty-year quest for the Luxuria Stone, an ancient relic believed by some to be infused with the power of lust.  Following clues contained in a cryptic nineteenth-century book of sonnets, Lizzy and Diesel tear through Boston catacombs, government buildings, and multimillion-dollar residences.  On their way they'll leave behind a trail of robbed graves, public disturbances, and general mayhem.
  Diesel's black sheep cousin, Gerwulf Grimoire, also wants the Stone.  His motives are far from pure, and what he plans on doing with the treasure no one knows...but Lizzy Tucker fears she's in his crosshairs.  Never far and always watching Grimoire has a growing ,vested interest in the cupcake-baker-turned-finder-of-lost-things.  As does another dangerous and dark opponent in the hunt - a devotee of lawlessness and chaos, known only as Anarchy.
  Treasures will be sought, and the power of lust will be unmistakable as Lizzy and Diesel attempt to stay ahead of Anarchy, Grimoire, and his medieval minion, Hatchet, in this ancient game of twisted riddles and high-stakes hide-and-seek.

Next is Lolita byVladimir Nabokov.   This was a spur of the moment pick, and the copy I have is part of the Penguin Essentials collection that are pocket sized with beautiful covers.

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, frustrated college professor.  In love with his landlady's twelve-year-old daughter Lolita, he'll do anything to possess her.  Unable and unwilling to stop himself, he is prepared to commit any crime to get what he wants.
  Is he in love or insane?  A silver-tongued pet or a pervert?  A tortured soul or a monster?  Or is he all of these?

Last up Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiwan.  This is the first book I've ordered based on a recomendation through Good Reads.  If it's any good, I may have to try more of their suggestions!


To Meridia, growing up with her father Gabriel, who vanishes daily in clouds of mist, and her bewitching mother Ravenna, the outside world is a refuge.  So when, as a young woman, her true love Daniel offers her marriage, it seems an escape to a more straightforward experience.
  Yet behind the welcoming facade of her new home lies a life of drudgery and a story even stranger than that she left behind.  Aged retainers lurk in the background; swarms of bees appear at will; and, of course, there's he indomitable mother-in-law, Eva, hiding secrets that it will take Meridia years to unravel.  Surrounded by seemingly unfathomable mysteries, can Meridia unlock the intrigues of the past, and thus protect her own family's future?


Happy Reading! x

The Week Ahead 25/06

I have a confession to make: I'm running behind schedule.  I finished Down the Rabbit Hole, went to start Open City, and somehow got caught up with Louis Theroux and his Call of the Weird.  Therefore, I've tried to reduce the list this week with books I have already made an attempt at reading, so I can try and catch up.

First up is Tender Morsels.  I've had this for a while after seeing it in a 'fairytale twists' display in Waterstones Norwich, and started it a month ago, but couldn't gain any momentum when reading, and ended up passing it over for other books. This week is Tender Morsels last chance to impress me before it has to be returned to the library.


In her inspired re-working of the fairy tale Snow White and Rose Red Margo Lanagan has created characters that are vivid, passionate, flawed and fiercely devoted to their hearts' desires, whether these desires are good or evil.  It is the story of two worlds - one real, one magical - and how, despite the safe haven her magical world offers to those who have suffered, her characters can never turn their backs on the real world, with all its beauty and brutality.

Next is Atonement.  I saw the film when I was at University, with no knowledge of Ian McEwan,  and then separately started reading other McEwan books (I read Saturday in conjunction with my Modernism and the City module and last year I read and reviewed Solar).  As there was a copy available in the library, I thought, why not?

On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briny Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house.  Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge.
  By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed for ever.  Robbie and Cecilia will  have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination.  Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

Finally, a change from novels I ordered Jo Shapcott's Of Mutability, which happens to be part of the Summer Reads Program '12.

In a series of fresh, unflinching poems, the author movingly explores morality and the nature of change: in the body and the natural world, and in the shifting relationships between people.  By turns grave and playful, arresting and witty, the poems in Of Mutability celebrate each waking moment as though it might be the last, and in so doing restore wonder to the smallest of encounters.



Happy Reading, and here's hoping I don't fall behind. x

The Week Ahead

A little late this week, so it's more the weekend ahead.  This time, I'm going with two books that are part of the Writers Centre Norwich Summer Reads '12 program. 


Down The Rabbit Hole - Juan Pablo Villalobos

Tochtli lives in a palace.  He loves hats, samurai, guillotines and dictionaries, and what he wants more than anything right now is a new pet for his private zoo: a pygmy hippopotamus from Liberia.  But Tochtli is a child whose father is a drug baron on the verge of taking over a powerful drug cartel, and Tochtli is growing up in a luxury hideout that he shares with hit men, prostitutes, dealers, servants and the odd corrupt politician or two.

Open City - Teju Cole

Along the streets of Manhattan, a young Nigerian doctor wanders aimlessly. Walking meets a need for Julius: it releases him from the tightly regulated mental environment of work, and gives him the opportunity to process his relationships, his recent break-up with his girlfriend, his present, his past.  He is navigating the busy parts of town, but the impression of countless faces does nothing to assuage his feelings of isolation.

It is not only a physical landscape he covers; Julius crisscrosses social territory as well, encountering people from different cultures and classes who will provide insight on his journey - a journey which will take him to Brussels, to the Nigeria of his youth, and into the most unrecognisable facets of his own soul.


Happy Reading.x

The Week Ahead...

I'm at my boyfriends for the majority of the week, which makes it is hard to gauge how much reading I'll get done as he likes to be outdoorsy on his days off.  However, with the forecast predicting plenty of rain, I figure I can still pack a few more books than I really should.  I've opted for some of the library books I've had for a while, which include:

Notes On a Scandal by Zoe Heller:  'From the first day that the beguiling Sheba Hart joins the staff of St George's, history teacher Barbara Covett is convinced she has found a kindred spirit.  Barbara's loyalty to her new friend is passionate and unstinting and when Sheba is discovered having an illicit affair with one of her pupils, Barbara quickly elects herself as Sheba's chief defender.  But all is not as it first seems in this dark story and, as Sheba will soon discover, a friend can be just as treacherous as any lover.'

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood:  'Pigs might not fly, but they are strangely altered.  So, for the that matter, are wolves and racoons.  A man once named Jimmy, now calls himself Snowman and lives in a tree, wrapped in old bed sheets.  The voice of Oryx, the woman he loved, teasingly haunts him.  And the green-eyed Children of Crake are, for some reason, his responsibility.'

And lastly, a purse friendly edition of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: 'Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires.  And he enjoyed his job.  He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs or the joy of watching pages consumed by flames, never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid.  Then Guy met a professor who told him of a future in whch people could think.  And Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do...'

Here's to the week ahead! x

P.S Happy World Book Night!