Duel Review Coming Soon

My husband and I are currently working on a duel review of a book called Swimming Inside the Sun by David Zweig. We thought it would be interesting to give a guy's and girl's perspective of this book. Does this sound interesting?

Here's the synopsis from the back of the book:

On the verge of success, struggling New York City musician Daniel Green has his life’s dream snatched from him. Despondent, Dan seeks solace and answers from the comforts of women, great thinkers from Marx to Kierkegaard, and the security of rice milk. Suffering from a darkly comical state of extreme self-consciousness, Dan begins to lose his grip on reality, and in a meta-fictional twist, the narrative shifts from first to third-person as his depersonalization peaks. All the while, the signs of his existential dilemma become, literally, the writing on the wall, as his studio apartment is increasingly taken over by The Notes he can’t seem to stop writing. Battling loneliness and a mind that can no longer discern between fiction and real life, Dan’s only hope may be the redemptive force of music. In a culture obsessed with tales of winners’ ascensions to the top, Dan Green’s story, defiantly, irreverently, is about what happens when you fail and the roads you take to figure out what next?

Winter Wonderland

I woke up this morning to the lovely sounds of scrape scrape scrape. Yep, it snowed in NYC last night. I love walking to the subway, the sun is just peeking in the sky, and the world is covered with a new layer of pure white snow.

Back in December I asked you all what you'd like to see in NYC during Christmas and winter. A few of you responded and since I am so belated, I thought I'd take the time to post a few photos.

I took this batch of photos before Christmas the day after our first huge snowstorm. I also had some Christmas shopping to do so I grabbed my camera and headed out.

If you're in the city during Christmas, head over to the outdoor shops. This one right near Central Park at 59th Street. Obviously they hadn't shoveled yet. It was funny to see people manouver around the piles. I myself tripped a couple of times:
After snagging a few gifts, I headed into the park (I hope you enjoy some of these Real Librarian!).That is the main road where people jog and bike. I love that once you step into the park the city goes very quiet. Well, relatively quiet.Since this was the first big snowfall, the park was very crowded. This happens on our first nice sunny and warm day in the Spring too.

It's a bit hard to see with the lighting, but there were kids (and some adults) crawling all over these rocks:

I had to snag a photo of these two taking photos. I loved their matching Santa hats: I absolutely adored all the little children sledding that day. I've been searching and searching through Google Reader trying to figure out who else took pictures that day. They said that NYC gave out free hot chocolate and sleds that day. I think I read that. Anyway, isn't this adorable?
One of the things I love about Central Park is the bridges. I don't know why. I just love them. You can just see the horse drawn carriges going over this one:There was this Dickens dressed character with cape and top hat singing Christmas carols underneath. I didn't have any change so I didn't want to take a closer picture:
This is one of my favorite ones. This is the back of the bridge:But if you go around, you get one of my favorite photo stops in the park (Al, I hope you like this frosty pond photo): Once over the bridge, you can head down to the pond. I love this pond. There were these adorable little poofed up birds in the trees. It was so cold I felt bad for them but it looked like they had a nice fluffy coat to keep them warm:And I just love the lamp posts in the park. Although you really have to watch coming up and down the snowy stairs:I was starting to get chilly so I headed back into the city.I grabbed some breakfast and coffee at Cosi and took a few photos with my phone. I just loved the streets with the piled snow on the sides:I find that New York has some gorgeous decorations during the Christmas season. This gate was open so I popped in briefly to snag a photo: I thought this building was awesome with the huge candy cane:

I ended up meeting my husband over at Union Square where there is another Christmas market. I took this as the sun was starting to set:Hope you enjoyed some of thes photos!

**Thank you to all who gave me advice in what to take photos of. I'll try to keep taking more and will keep you all updated.

A Real Librarian asked for "wintry Central Park pics"

Al from Publish or Perish asked for "the pond in Central Park on a frosty morning"

Salinger - What to say...

I know I'm a little bit delayed in putting my two cents into the life and death of author J.D. Salinger. Like almost everyone and their mom, I read Catcher in the Rye for a high school literature class. I'll state here that I loved that book then and I still love it now.

Of course, I owned (and still do) a battered copy of the old red cover version:

I wish I knew where my old paper was that I wrote on it. I compared (I think) Holden's life to my own and I believe I came up with a lot of similarities. Which is odd...because reading a few other people's opinions, it doesn't seem that a whole lot of people still resonate with this classic. But I did. Yes, a teenage girl who played basketball and who lived in Alaska could relate to a fairly affluent Upper East New York City boy.

I think it's because we all hit that growing-up period when you realize that you are at a point of no return. Growing up is scary. One minute you are a fairly intelligent and innocent kid and the next you are one of them. One of those idiotic adults who do stupid things like work at awful jobs for too many hours, or cheat on you wife/husband, or all those mindless things we do as adults. Not that I've DONE those specific things, but you know what I mean.

I think I was smarter as a teenager than I am now. I can only imagine what today's teenagers think of us adults. Being an adult is almost like a descent into madness. Is that what Holden felt? Like we either need to go mad or not, but watching the descent is the terrifying part. How do you stop it?

Anyway, like it, love it, or hate it, The Catcher in the Rye made an impact on a lot of people. I was even more fascinated with J.D. Salinger's removal from the public eye. I never understood that.

That is until recently.

I was asked to read and review a book called Salinger: The Classical Critical and Personal Portrait by More Than Twenty of His Contemporaries...
At first I thought (after wondering about the extremely long subtitle), "Wow, that was fast!". They've already published a book on Salinger. But then I looked closer. This is a reprint from 1962 BEFORE J.D. Salinger removed himself from the public eye. And I thought, "No wonder!". I would retreat too! Can you imagine publishing a few short stories and one novel and then this comes out? A whole book of your contemporaries critiquing you. And not just your work but a CRITICAL and PERSONAL portrait. Wow. No wonder.

So I have yet to read this but will let you know what I think about everyone's critical and personal portraits of one of my favorite authors. And here's to you, J.D. Salinger...I hope you had a wonderful and full life. And thank you.

"That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "F*** you" right under your nose." - The Catcher in the Rye

“I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.” - Franny and Zooey

"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's." - J.D. Salinger

Jack Absolute - C.C. Humphreys

The other night my husband and I watched the movie, The Patriot on blue-ray DVD. He had never seen it before and was totally engrossed in the story. I love books and movies that take place during the American Revolution and even earlier during the French and Indian War. So when I saw C.C. Humphrey's book, Jack Absolute, at a library book sale, I had to snatch it. And I love the subtitle: Officer, Mohawk, Lover, Spy. O yeah.

Based on the character from Richard Sheridan's play from 1775 The Rivals, Jack Absolute is a soldier in the British army during the American Revolution. He had made a name for himself years earlier during the French and Indian War and has sort of adopted himself with the Mohawk people.

The story starts off in London where, to Jack's horror, his reputation as a lady's man is made infamous in Sheridan's play. Jack is then roped into a duel over a lady's honor and wrangled into joining the British army in America as they try to vanquish the rebels. During the voyage to America Jack finds a love interest, of course, and upon reaching America, is enlisted to uncover a spy in the King's army.

This was such a fun book. While there is a bit of comedy in the duel and Jack's reputation, not to mention the love story, what kept me interested was the setting and history. There are quite a few battle scenes, intrigues, spies, and twists in the plot making it very heavy on the history which is something I love in historical fiction. But there is a lot of humor and the scenes are so vivid. I think that's because C.C. Humphreys is an actor by trade and has, in the past, played the character of Jack Absolute in Sheridan's The Rivals, so he knows Jack's character very well and it shows.

Side note: My favorite side character is Ate, Jack's Mohawk friend/brother. He's always reading novels and quotes Hamlet all the time. I'd love to see his character more or maybe have a series all his own. I envision him as Uncas from The Last of the Mohicans, one of my all-time favorite movies.

This is the first book in the Jack Absolute series and I'm definitely going to be reading the rest.

The Good Plain Cook - Bethan Roberts

The cool thing about reviewing books online is that sometimes I get sent random books to see if they are something I am interested in or not. The Good Plain Cook by Bethan Roberts was one of those books. I had never heard of it before but thought it sounded interesting and for some reason I really liked the homey cover.

Set in the 1930's, nineteen year old Kitty Allen answers an add in the newspaper for a position as a "good plain cook" for a wealthier household. Interesting thing, Kitty Allen doesn't really know how to cook that much. Even more interesting is her employers: wealthy Ellen Steinberg, her live-in lover/poet George Crane, and Ellen's teen daughter Geenie.

The book is about relationships. There's some triangles: widowed Ellen, George, and George's wife (yep, he's married). Then George sees a muse in innocent Kitty so there's another triangle. Then there's the gardener who is interested in Kitty but is he glamorous enough when there's a poet in the house? Last but not least, George's daughter Diana comes to stay and becomes friends with Geenie (not really a triangle there but they were my favorite characters).

And that's about it. I have to say one thing: Bethan Roberts can write. It felt like a classic. My problem: I'm not a big fan of those types of classic. While it kept my interest and I loved the writing, I was half-way through the book when I realized not much had gone on. And then when I got to the end I had the same feeling.

So it's really what type of reader you are that will decide if this is a good book or not. I loved the writing and I really enjoyed the side-story of Geenie and Diana. But at the end of the day, for me, it wasn't a bad novel, just slightly forgettable.

**Thank you Meryl Zegarek Public Relations, Inc. for the chance to read and review this book!

I didn't find any other reviews, but Medieval Bookworm reviewed her book The Pools and found it to be a "stunning book".

Love my hubby

I'm just going to take this moment to acknowledge my husband. He's an amazing guy, has great taste in music, does the laundry, got us dance lessons for Christmas, and is just wonderful. Oh. And he reads my book recommendations, how amazing is that? He even read my favorite, The Count of Monte Cristo...unabridged from cover to cover. Wow.

Right now he's out getting groceries so he can make us chicken parmigiana and picking up a movie. AND he signed me up for a walking/photo tour of Central Park tomorrow. Yippee!! I LOVE YOU!

Nephew News

If you've been reading my blog for awhile you may have seen a few posts about my amazing little nephew Cameron. I usually post something on his birthday like here and here.

The first time I wrote anything about him, I mentioned that he has a rare form of diabetes called Monogenic Diabetes (also called Neonatal Diabetes). He was born premature and was so tiny he just ate and ate and wasn't gaining much weight. But he was so happy and alert we had no clue. Here's a photo I took when he was a baby:

Finally, when he was a few months old, he crashed and it was discovered he had, what we thought, was Type 1 Diabetes. So poor little guy got had to get shots all the time and pricked to test his blood sugar level ALL the time. But my sister just didn't think things were right. So after some detective work (you can read more in depth on my other post and his bio on the Monogenic website) it was discovered he had a rare form of diabetes which is caused by a genetic mutation. And now he just has to take the pills a Type 2 person would take. Amazing!!

Oh, I should also mention that my sister and her family live in Anchorage, Alaska. A little while back, Cameron was asked to participate in the Guns N' Hoses hockey event where the New York Fire Department pared off against a team of Alaskan police and firefighters. The proceeds of the event went to the Anchorage chapter of the American Diabetes Association and the Scotty Gomez Foundation.

So here's a photo of my nephew at the event. I am so proud of him:

***Side note: This past summer my sister and I attended the first Neonatal Diabetes Day in London and got to meet the doctors from the UK who first discovered this genetic mutation and how to correct it. They are still working on Cameron's specific type of mutation. His type is even rarer and causes developmental delays.

Here's my sister with Dr. Fran Ashcroft and Dr. Andrew Hattersley

For more information, here's a few links:

An article about Lily Jaffe, the little girl with Monogenic Diabetes who's article my sister read and decided to see if Cameron had the same thing. Lily's Law in Illinois now requires physicians to report certain information to the Department of Public Health if a child is diagnosed with diabetes before 12 months of age. Here's another article about Lily's Law.

A YouTube video about the breakthroughs in Monogenic Diabetes.

An article about a life transformed by this breakthrough.

An article about another life transformed. My sister and I met Niona and she is a wonderful lady.

***Please, if you know anyone who has been diagnosed with early childhood diabetes, have them be checked for Monogenic Diabetes. This research is fairly new and many lives have been changed and improved.***