Monday Morning

by Carol16 Comments
This past weekend, we went to Camp Asbury for Family Canoe Camp. It was a great weekend. We went canoeing, fishing, hiking, swimming. We ate too much and met some nice people. I didn't get much reading done, aside from listening to The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny while we were fishing, just too much to do and by the end of the evening I was exhausted. And did I mention we got a new computer at home last weekend. I love it! I did get a couple of new books over the past week. Mailbox Monday is taking a blog tour. This month’s host is Staci at Life in the Thumb. Always a Princess by Alice Gaines (from Carina Press via NetGalley) Black Butterfly by Mark Gatiss (from PaperbackSwap) The Lucifer Box series (Black Butterfly is the last) is an off-beat one that I've enjoyed. Always a Princess just sounds like fun. It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey....
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Review: Blood from a Stone by Donna Leon

by Carol6 Comments
I like Guido Brunetti, the lead in Donna Leon's mystery series. He's a commissario in Venice and I have to admit that I tend to listen to these on audio rather than read them. I love hearing all the Italian words and places pronounce. It gives me a fuller feeling for the setting, and I have fallen in love with Leon's Venice. Blood from a Stone takes place just before and during Christmas. Brunetti is called to the scene of a murder, a "vu cumpra" has been killed, an African who sells knock-off handbags from a sheet spread out on the ground. As he investigates the case, despite being ordered not to by his superior, he realizes it is more complex and stretches farther than he could have imagined. I've listened to a couple of Leon's mysteries and this was not my favorite. There was a lot of build up but then ending just kind of fell flat for me. That being...
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Review: The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

by Carol8 Comments
The Westing Game was first published in 1978, but I had never heard of it until a couple of years ago, which is a shame. I would have loved it as a child. Of course, I still enjoyed it and was able to read it out loud with Amber, who's 11, so maybe the timing was perfect after all. It tells the story of sixteen people, mostly strangers, who are all invited to live in an all-new, exclusive apartment building. "Who were these people, these specially selected tenants? They were mothers and fathers and children. A Dressmaker, a secretay, an inventor, a doctor, a judge. And, oh yes, one was a bookie, one was a burglar, one was a bomber, and one was a mistake. (pg. 5) One thin they have in common is that by moving into Sunset Towers, they are all drawn into the mystery of eccentric paper-goods giant Sam Westing.  When Westing dies suddenly, all sixteen residents are invited to...
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Teaser from A Fatal Grace

by Carol9 Comments
Gamache's job was to collect the evidence, but also to collect the emotions. And the only way he knew to do that was to get to know the people. To watch and listen. To pay attention, and the best way to do that was in a deceptively casual way in a deceptively casual setting. Like the bistro. (Tuesday Teaser from A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny.)...
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Review: “Ceiling” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

by Carol8 Comments
I'm developing a true appreciation of short stories. I've only started reading them regularly in the last year or so. I don't feel as connected to the characters of as invested in them as I do with a novel, but each phrase, each action because so much more important in a short piece. I jumped at the chance to review The Best American Short Stories 2011. "Ceiling" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the first selection in the anthology. Obinze is the main character in "Ceiling." He's a married man living in Lagos, Nigeria. He's one of those guys that has it all, beautiful wife and child, nice house, money, fancy car, but he's just not content. He was tired. It was not a physical fatigue—he used his treadmill regularly and felt better than he had in years—but a draining lassitude that numbed the margins of his mind. His feelings are brought home to him by an e-mail from his college sweetheart, the one who...
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