Cool Covers

If you've been reading some of my book reviews then you'll notice that I am a sucker for a great book cover. I get annoyed when covers are misleading. For instance, a book with a girl by a pool when a pool is never mentioned in the story. Alternatively, I love when a book cover is given greater meaning after reading the story. That and just the color, the texture....I just love a good book cover.

So while Rachel and I were at the book expo we found a publisher whose covers I LOVE.

Europa Editions

Check out some of my favorites:

Ok. How cool are these? And I really like their titles. I haven't read any of them but I really want to. Have you read any Europa Editions books?

Link to Past Posts

So I asked someone about this and someone just asked me...so I thought I'd just briefly blog about it.

There's a widget called LinkWithin that you can put on your blog that at the end of your posts, picks three of your past similar posts and provides links.

Ok, it's obviously the end of the work day and I feel like I'm not making much sense, but you can check it out on my blog if you view it directly and not in a reader or whatever.

I don't know how they pick which posts to link to. Somtimes they are really relevant and sometimes not so much. But since I've been blogging for over TWO years now...it's kinda fun to see some of my older posts.

100+ Update for June

I'm a little disappointed I only read 6 books in June. Hmmm.

But then I thought about it and some of the books I read were LONG books.

The first two books were very quick reads and pretty good. Perfect summer reads, Shoot the Moon and Made in the U.S.A., both by Billie Letts.

But then again NYC was super rainy ALL THE TIME this June. So a different type of book was needed. I LOVED Dennis Lehane's The Given Day. I have to read more of his stuff. But it was a long long book. I'm serious. 720 Pages.

Ok. Then I was needing a bit more summery feeling book and Kate Morton's The House at Riverton was perfect. It wasn't insanely long but at 480 pages it was almost a chunkster.

Then I read A Madness of Angels. A good book but I took my time with it. A great book for a rainy city day. But it was 464 pages. Not insanely long but not short either.

And finally Alice McDermott's charming book Charming Billy. A good read and quick read. Not long at all.

I'm almost done with Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain and man is it taking me a long time to finish. Not that I don't like it, it's just one of those books that I want to finish it to the end but it's not that gripping. So it's taking me ages to read it.

**How were your June reads? Do you tend to read a ton of short books or just a few chunksters?

Twitter Pics Tuesday

The one good thing I noticed about Twitter is that I love posting photos from my phone. I tend not to have my camera on me a lot, since I go places after work or just forget it. So I thought I'd sometimes post some of my Twitter Pics.

My sister was in town for a conference this weekend and had never been to NYC. So we took her out a bit.

Her hotel was right around Times Square so we braved the madness and met up with her there. By the way, the Marquis Marriott Hotel is really huge and gorgeous. And I love Marriott's beds. Here's the view from where we were waiting.

That night we took her down to the Financial District near Wall street. There's a great restaurant/bar called Ulysses that has tables out on Stone Street so you can enjoy the evening. The food was great and so were the huge margaritas :)The next day as the sun was setting, we took her for a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. A definite must-do if you visit the city.We were going to go to the famous Grimaldi's pizzeria which is under the Brooklyn Bridge. But even for a Monday, the lines were crazy long. So we headed into the Heights and ate at a local Italian restaurant. Super yummy food.

And this is a random photo of Tracks. A great place to grab a pint while waiting at Penn Station. The bartenders usually are super nice with thick Irish accents. It has great fish and chips and apparently an oyster bar (I'm allergic so I can't tell you how they are). Anyway, it was a few days after MJ died and it was blasting his music. Thought it was kinda funny.

Those are my Twitter Pics of the week. Hope you enjoyed!

A Madness of Angels - Kate Griffin

I first heard of Kate Griffin's new book, A Madness of Angels: Or, the Resurrection of Matthew Swift, on Pat's Fantasy Hotlist. And it just sounded awesome. So I thought it would be a fun pick for Carl's Once Upon a Time III Challenge. And for the most part it was.

Here's the story:

Matthew Swift wakes up in London, naked and disoriented. The last thing he remembers is dying. It's been two years since he was brutally murdered.

Matthew Swift is no ordinary person. He's a sorcerer. And in the two years he's been gone, other sorcerers have disappeared or been killed. Who killed him and why? And who resurrected him?

And he's not alone in his body. He says "we" instead of "I" or "me". Who are these "we' who call themselves the blue electric angels?

I love this quote at the beginning of the book which is a running theme. And it seriously sticks with you:

We be light, we be life, we be fire! We sing electric flame, we rumble underground wind, we dance heaven! Come be we and be free! We be blue electric angels. -Anonymous spam mail, source unknown

What ensues is a lot of revenge, retribution, and a lot of death and killing. Which is fun and entertaining because there's a lot of magic.

While I liked this book my mind did tend to wander a bit. I think it's because the action scenes, for me, seemed to be best portrayed visually. This would make an awesome Hell Boy type movie. But that's not saying that the writing was poor. The writing was great! I loved that he took his "magic" from the life in the city. The pulsing of the trains, the whiz of the cabs, the flow of the water and electricity in the pipes and wires...I loved it. Just make sure you're in the mood for tons of action and magic.

House at Riverton - Kate Morton

I heard about Kate Morton's book, The House at Riverton, a while back and wanted to read it. When I found a copy at the library for sale shelf I had to grab it.

In a nut shell, I liked it. It reminded me of Atonement and The Blind Assassin. So if you liked either of those books, well, it's similar themed. That said, Ian McEwan pulled off a great story in a whole lot less number of pages. At almost five hundred pages, it was a tad bit long.

Here's the plot...and I can't give too much away because there's a mystery, well, I don't want to spoil that for you.

Present day: A movie is being made about the legendary Riverton House and the one fateful night in 1924 when a young poet shot himself, witnessed only by the two young wealthy daughters of the manor, Emmeline and Hannah. Why did he do it? Was it over the sparkly celebutante Emmeline or over the beautiful but married elder sister?

Only one person alive knows the truth. Now an elderly lady, Grace was just a girl when she started working at the Riverton House. She was the same age as Hannah and grew up fascinated by the glamorous Riverton children. Grace finally reveals the truth behind a horrible incident that happened at the Riverton House.

It is a beautiful story. The way the story unfolds and flashes back and forth in time. I really felt swept back in time to when young men were going off to fight in the Great War and the loss everyone felt afterwards when a whole generation of young men were gone. And the roaring twenties that Emmeline thrived in. And Hannah. I liked Hannah. She reminded me of my sister, so strong-willed and beautiful.

At times I felt like Grace was just a tad bit obsessed with the Riverton House. But then again I think that was the point. And while the book was a bit too long, it did totally immerse me in the story and time-period. After a certain point, I knew what happened that night...and then there was still a twist!

End of an Era

Some co-workers and I were talking today about how sad it is that Michael Jackson passed away. And how surreal it is. Kind of like his whole life. And how we all grew up with his music and music videos.

So I said, "Yeah, remember that weird movie-thing he made where he was running from fans, there was a couple of kids, and rabbit." (Insert crickets chirping). "Um, what?" my co-workers said.

I'm not crazy. This was always my favorite part of the movie:



And see...the crazy fans!! And the rabbit part is at the end of this clip:


So see there was a movie and I'm not crazy.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Michael Jackson's friends and family. It really is an end of an era.