The Strain - Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan

Horrible Amanda. I am NOT supposed to be checking out anymore books from the library but trying to go through the numerous unread books I own.

But then I saw The Strain at the library. And I caved. I mean it's PERFECT for the R.I.P. IV Challenge. And then I checked out even more books for Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon. Ok. I'm weak.

Anway, what a scary book! I had no clue it was a zombie/vampire thriller. I kept on wanting to close my eyes during the gory/scary parts...like in a movie. But that obviously doesn't work with a book.

I'll admit that it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I guess I was expecting a little more, hmmm, originality from the maker of Pan's Labyrinth. That said...it's still a fun book to scare the living daylights out of you.

And I do credit them for making a great merge between zombies and vampires and coming up with an ultra-scary character/monster.

P.S. This is the first book in a trilogy. I had no clue about that. (Apparently I need to pay more attention to these things.) Had I known, I probably wouldn't have picked it up just because I hate hate waiting for the next book in series. But yeah, I'll probably read the next two books when they come out. Because I NEED to know how it ends. Darn you book.

P.P.S. Am I the only one who wasn't too thrilled that the main character's name is Ephraim a.k.a. Eph. Kind of annoyed me in a mild weird way.

P.P.P.S. I LOVE that it takes place in New York City because the whole rat thing was so insanely creepy. If you don't know what I'm talking about...read the book. I seriously get creeped out when I see rats in the park and the dogs try and chase them. Although we have bigger problems with raccoons and skunks (yes...I live in Manhattan). And I also found out, while reading this, about a cool piece of NYC history. I had no clue about the abandoned City Hall subway stop. I had to stop reading and look it up. Check out the cool pictures.

Also Reviewed by:

A Book Blog. Period.
Devourer of Books
Medieval Bookworm
Shelf Love
Minds Alive on the Shelves

Read-a-thon

This year I'm going to try and join in on the Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon. I tried doing it last year and failed spectacularly. This year I'm going to be more prepared. I even told my husband and he's supporting me and going to give me the time and space to do it. It's on a Saturday so while I'm reading he can watch college football.

But I have a question.

I recently received an audiobook of Muriel Barbery's Gourmet Rhapsody from LibraryThing's FirstLook program. And I told my husband that I was planning on popping on the audiobook during the Read-a-thon so I could still go work out and cook dinner, etc. And he said: THAT'S CHEATING!!!

So I'm asking...is listening to an audiobook during the Read-a-thon cheating?

***UPDATE: Consensus is, listening to an audiobook is NOT cheating. Whatever my husband says.

Thursday's Tunes

Thursday's Tunes is a weekly music post started by S. Krishna's blog. Go on over and check out her tune today. Thanks for letting me play along!

My artist today is Tift Merritt. I fell in love with her album Tambourine back in 2004. I'd pick up my nephew when he was a baby and dance with him to the video for "Good Hearted Man." I absolutely LOVE the song "Laid a Highway" from that album.

Anyway, the song "Broken" from her newer album Another Country is just beautiful and I love the black and white video that she did.

I can't embed the videos so head over to YouTube to watch the videos for Broken and Good Hearted Man.

Enjoy!

The Last Dickens & Giveaway!

The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl is another book I've been honored to review as part of TLC Book Tours. This is one of those books that is just right up my alley. It's got historical-fiction, mystery, murder, a literary celebrity, and just plain good characters. And don't worry if you've never read anything by Charles Dickens. After reading this, though, you may want to start.

The story starts off just after the death of Charles Dickens. His death has caused quite the stir, not just because of his popularity but because he left his latest novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished. Back then, many novels were published segments at a time as serials. So everyone knew that the title character, Edwin Drood, had been murdered by his uncle. But how did the story end? This was particularly aggravating to his London and American publishers.

It's left to one of the partners of Dickens' American publishers, James Osgood, to track down and see if Dickens left any notes or papers revealing how the story would end. They are racing against thieves and unsavory characters who will publish their own versions and who will even murder to get their hands on the valuable document.

I enjoyed this novel on so many different levels. First of all, this is a fun mystery adventure filled with thieves, creepy villains, opium dens...all that is great in a Dickens novel. James Osgood and his assistant Rebecca Sands are just an awesome hero/heroine duo. I loved the insight into the cut-throat publishing world of the 19th Century. I had no clue that the U.S. was such a breeding ground for unauthorized printing.

But my favorite aspect of this book was all that I learned about Charles Dickens. There is one segment that flashes back a few years to when Dickens did a whirl-wind American tour. I had no clue how huge of a celebrity he was back then. I mean HUGE. I really want to know more about him. And his story is one of those things where fact really is more crazy than fiction. For instance, he was in this huge train accident and miraculously survived, even helped to save other passengers. But the whole experience haunted him tremendously. Five years later, to the day, he passed away. And this is just ONE of the crazy things I learned about him.

So again, you don't have read any of Charles Dickens novels to enjoy this one. But it inspired me to read some. I'm in the middle of reading The Mystery of Edwin Drood right now and am really enjoying it. It's actually pretty humorous as well.

And now for the giveaway...

TLC Book Tours and Matthew Pearl are letting me give away TWO books. You must do two things: 1) Leave a comment telling me if you've read any novels by either Charles Dickens and/or Matthew Pearl. 2) Some way of contacting you (blog, email, etc).

Contest is open through Friday, October 23rd, and world-wide.

Good luck!

The cover above is the hardcover edition I own. The trade paperback just came out October 6th with this awesome cover:
Here's another cover I found. I think the trade paperback is my favorite.

Matthew Pearl’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, September 28th: Book Chatter and Other Stuff

Wednesday, September 30th: Raging Bibliomania

Thursday, October 1st: Linus’s Blanket

Monday, October 5th: Life in the Thumb

Tuesday, October 6th: The Brain Lair

Wednesday, October 7th: Bookish Ruth

Thursday, October 8th: A High and Hidden Place

Monday, October 12th: Life and Times of a “New” New Yorker

Tuesday, October 13th: Beth Fish Reads

Wednesday, October 14th: S. Krishna’s Books

Thursday, October 15th: Musings of a Bookish Kitty

Friday, October 16th: Stephanie’s Written Word

Monday, October 19th: The Tome Traveller

Tuesday, October 20th: Book Club Classics

Wednesday, October 21st: Luxury Reading

Thursday, October 22nd: Savvy Verse and Wit

Also Reviewed by:

You're History!

100 Mile Fitness Challenge

I've been needing something lately to get me to get my act together and exercise more. I used to run a lot more and I do Pilates and balance ball workouts at home. Our gym membership over in the Bronx is only $10 a month. So cheap!

So when I heard about Trish's (from Trish's Reading Nook) 100-Mile Fitness Challenge, I knew I had to sign up.

If you want to join up, head on over and sign up!

Man Booker Prize

The winner for the 2009 Man Booker prize for fiction is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. The book sounds so interesting since I love historical fiction.

I love the Man Booker prize since so many books and authors I like or want to read are on the list. I'm not going to make this a "challenge" par say but more of a reading list for future TBR books.

I loved The Last Orders, really liked Blind Assassin, appreciated The English Patient, and did NOT like Life of Pi.

Have you read any Man Booker prize winners and did you like it?

*** Update: S. Krishna's Book blog also has a great post on the Man Booker Award as part of her Booker Challenge. Her list includes the winners as well as the ones that were shortlisted from 2009-1990 as well as the Best of the Booker. Go check it out!


Here's the Winner's list:

2009 Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
2008 The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
2007 The Gathering - Anne Enright
2006 The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
2005 The Sea - John Banville
2004 The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst
2003 Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
2002 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
2001 The History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey
2000 The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
1999 Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee
1998 Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
1997 The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
1996 Last Orders - Graham Swift
1995 The Ghost Road - Pat Barker
1994 How Late It Was, How Late - James Kelman
1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha - Roddy Doyle
1992 The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
1991 The Famished Road - Ben Okri
1990 Possession - A.S. Byatt
1989 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
1988 Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
1987 Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively
1986 The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis
1985 The Bone People - Keri Hulme
1984 Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner
1983 The Life & Times of Michael K - J.M. Coetzee
1982 Schindler's Ark - Thomas Keneally
1981 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
1980 Rites of Passage - William Golding
1979 Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald
1978 The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch
1977 Staying On - Paul Scott
1976 Saville - David Storey
1975 Heat and Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
1974 The Conservationist - Nadine Gordimer
1974 Holiday - Stanley Middleton
1973 The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell
1972 G - John Berger
1971 In a Free State - V.S. Naipaul
1970 The Elected Member - Bernice Rubens
1969 Something to Answer for - P.H. Newby

The Return - Victoria Hislop

I recently was able to join the TLC Book Tour by reading and reviewing the new Victoria Hislop novel, The Return. This novel is set during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's and involves bull fighters, flamenco dancers, a bit of romance and a lot of history. I really wanted to read this one. The book is available for sale in paperback tomorrow, October 06, 2009.

They synopsis:

In 2003, two thirty-something friends take a vacation to Granada, Spain to enjoy the town and take lessons in flamenco dancing. Sonia is in a love-less relationship with her husband and has taken refuge in her weekly flamenco classes. During her trip, she meets an elderly waiter who proceeds to divulge the torrent history of Granada and Spain during the Spanish Civil War which started in 1936 in an army coup led by General Franco. The story revolves around one family's tale, the Ramírez family who's daughter Mercedes was a talented flamenco dancer and who's son was a famous bullfighter.

The first part of the story was ok. I'm more of a historical fiction fan so I was impatient to get to the Ramírez family's story. But it did drive home a point that many of us are not too familiar with Spain's story during this time period. Even as a history major, my knowledge is fairly limited. For other novels, check out Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Andromeda Romano-Lax's novel The Spanish Bow.

When it was time for the Ramírez family's story, I almost thought I wasn't going to like this book. The story is definitely laid out as a narrative with few actual dialogue pieces. I'm not used to this type of story telling. I thought it was a bit too removed and distant. BUT...then I got into the story. Victoria Hislop paints the town of Granada with such vividness that I can almost see the streets. Mercedes was such a beautiful character living for two things: flamenco dancing and her love for the gypsy guitarist Javier. Long after the story ended I still think on the Ramírez family, just one of thousands of families who's lives were ripped asunder by the Spanish Civil War and Franco's regime.

Now I want to see a flamenco dance. Take a look over a Victoria Hislop's website for some gorgeous photos of Granada. I also took a couple photos from the internet just because:

Here's a couple of John Singer Sargent's paintings. He painted in the late 1800s so before Mercedes' time, but I thought they were beautiful:

El Jaleo (The Commotion)
The Spanish Dancer
And here's what I imagine Mercedes looking like in her polka-dotted flamenco dress (from this website):
And of course, here's what I imagine Sonia and the waiter looking at, posters of Granada in the 1930s announcing famous bull fighting matches and beautiful flamenco dancers (taken from this website):
Here's the schedule for The Return tour:

Monday, October 5th – Life and Times of a “New” New Yorker
Tuesday, October 6th - Starting Fresh
Thursday, October 8th – As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves
Tuesday, October 13th – Bending Bookshelf
Wednesday, October 14th – All About Me
Thursday, October 15th – The Tome Traveller
Monday, October 19th – The Scholastic Scribe
Tuesday, October 20th – Dreadlock Girl Reads
Wednesday, October 21st – Write Meg
Thursday, October 22nd – Literate Housewife
Monday, October 26th – Diary of an Eccentric
Tuesday, October 27th – Drey’s Library
Wednesday, October 28th – Book Chatter and Other Stuff