book beginnings on Friday: The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly

Posted on July 8, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

My current audiobook (for the daily commute) is the latest from Connelly, also the fourth of his books featuring Mickey Haller. Here we go!

Mrs. Pena looked across the seat at me and held her hands up in a beseeching manner. She spoke in a heavy accent, choosing English to make her final pitch directly to me.

“Please, you help me, Mr. Mickey?”

I’ve got to say this narrator may not be my cup of tea; but it’s early days yet and I’m certainly glad to be back in Connelly’s competent hands.

Thanks for stopping by. What are YOU reading this weekend?

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book beginnings on Friday: Two for Texas by James Lee Burke

Posted on July 1, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

I couldn’t resist a historical novel – NOT mystery – by James Lee Burke.

According to the back-of-the-book blurb, this very short little book (under 150 pages) involves two convicts escaped from a Louisiana prison who play a role in the Texas Revolution. It begins:

The first day that Son Holland arrived in the penal camp, manacled inside a mule-drawn wagon with seven other convicts, he knew that he would eventually escape, that he would die before he would spend ten years in a steaming swamp under the guns and horse quirts of malarial Frenchmen with Negro blood in their veins and a degenerate corruption in their hearts. But he was just barely nineteen then, still sufficiently naive to believe that his will alone was enough to win his freedom. He didn’t know that almost two years would pass before his escape would come almost by accident, and that he would have to help murder a man to accomplish it.

Yes, I’m from Texas, and yes, I had to look up quirt: “a riding whip with a short handle and a rawhide lash.”

I feel hooked already! I love James Lee Burke, and a slim little book like this just begs me to devour.

What are you reading?

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book beginnings on Friday: Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

Posted on June 24, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

Back to Jeeves, we are! I so enjoyed Thank You, Jeeves that I picked this up on an evening when I was feeling a little down and not quite ready for bed. Thankfully, Wodehouse will cheer a girl up. Since I listened to the first on audio (and LOVED the narrator), I had that voice (and accent) to read this one in, inside my head. I’m loving it. We begin:

“Jeeves,” I said, “may I speak frankly?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“What I have to say may wound you.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Well, then –”
No — wait. Hold the line a minute. I’ve gone off the rails.

I like it. 🙂 If you haven’t checked Wodehouse out yet, I recommend him for purely silly, clever British humor.

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book beginnings on Friday: The Hard Way by Lee Child

Posted on June 17, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

Welcome back to Jack Reacher’s hard-hitting, fast-paced, intelligent world of good-vs.-evil action. I’m psyched to step into this series again. My last audiobook was Agatha Christie’s Towards Zero which was wonderful, so I’m on a roll now. We begin:

Jack Reacher ordered espresso, double, no peel, no cube, foam cup, no china, and before it arrived at his table he saw a man’s life change forever. Not that the waiter was slow. Just that the move was slick.

Ah, Reacher. YOU’re the slick one.

What are you reading?

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book beginnings on Friday: Towards Zero by Agatha Christie

Posted on June 10, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

I am settling comfortably into an audiobook that I am fully confident in. I love Agatha Christie, and it’s been years since I’ve read any of her. I especially like Hercule Poirot, and have very fond memories of listening to Ten Little Indians (aka And Then There Were None) on audiobook with my mother (both parents?) on a road trip somewhere when I was small. That’s about the only audiobook I can ever remember listening to until recently, in fact. Too much lead-in, sorry, let’s hear from the master. This book begins:

The group round the fireplace was nearly all composed of lawyers or those who had an interest in the law. There was Martindale the solicitor, Rufus Lord, KC, young Daniels who had made a name for himself in the Carstairs case, a sprinkling of other barristers, Mr. Justice Cleaver, Lewis of Lewis and Trench and old Mr. Treves. Mr. Treves was close on eighty, a very ripe and experienced eighty.

A relatively sedate opening, yes, but I can already feel Christie’s pull and I know a good mystery awaits! As a side note, I’m enjoying these British accents accompanying me to and from work (recall, the last audiobook I listened to was Thank You, Jeeves). Happy Friday!

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another book beginning: Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry’s Extraordinary Ride by Peter Zheutlin

Posted on June 3, 2011 by pagesofjulia

There is a book beginning coming up. Bear with me.


This beautiful book was a gift to me from my old friend Fil. Fil has bought me a number of bicycle-related books over the years:


Six Days of Madness tells all about the golden era of six-day bicycle racing in the United States in the 1900’s and 1910’s. It’s got a bunch of racer profiles and stories from specific races. I found it fascinating.


Bicycle Racing in the Modern Era is a VeloNews publication, recapping 25 years of the magazine’s coverage of cycling – road, mountain, track, and cyclocross. (Which 25 years I’m not precisely sure, but it was published in 1997 if that helps.) It was great to read about all the hot new stuff, after it was no longer hot and new. It was also great to read a summing-up of what’s greatest in bike racing WITHOUT being inundated with the greatness of Lance Armstrong. I believe, from memory, that he rated one article in the whole book! That was refreshing. (Yes, Lance Armstrong has done amazing things, but this Texan, for one, is sick of hearing about him.)


Along with Annie Londonderry, this time, Fil gave me both volumes of Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan. The former book references our shared interest in cycle touring; the latter references our shared interest in Mexico, and my (limited, hopefully to be increased upon) travel in the Yucatan peninsula.

Fil gives good gifts! Thank you, Fil! But this is supposed to be a post about a book.

Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry’s Extraordinary Ride tells the story of Annie Kopchovsky, a Jewish immigrant living in Boston, who took on the, ahem, extraordinary challenge to become the first woman to ride around the world on her bicycle, as Thomas Stevens had done a few years before. Aside from being a feat of athleticism, adventure, and international travel, and aside from being an outlandishly independent-woman sort of thing to do in 1894, it was most likely the first time a woman had undertaken product endorsement and sports marketing. She became Annie Londonderry when her first sponsor appeared: the Londonderry Lithia Spring Water Company.

Sports marketing, women doing outlandish things, bicycles, travel, and history! All in one story! I am excited.

The prologue opens with a quotation.

The maiden with her wheel of old
Sat by the fire to spin,
While lightly through her careful hold
The flax slid out and in
Today her distaff, rock and reel
Far out of sight are hurled
And now the maiden with her wheel
Goes spinning round the world

–Madelyne Bridges, Outing magazine, September 1893

This is, of course, not properly the beginning of the *book*, but I’m hoping you’ll allow me to take liberties, because this quotation struck me.

I have a good feeling about this one.

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book beginnings on Friday: Very Bad Men by Harry Dolan

Posted on June 3, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence.

I have been really thoroughly enjoying this thriller from the author of Bad Things Happen. It begins:

There’s a necklace in my office, a string of glass beads. It hangs over the arm of my desk lamp, and any little movement can set it swaying. The beads are a middle shade of blue, the color of an evening sky, and when the light plays over them they look cool and bright and alive.

So far I have nothing but good things to say about this book; but I can’t say too many of them until my review comes out over at Shelf Awareness, so stay tuned.

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

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book beginnings on Friday: Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens

Posted on May 27, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence.

Never Knowing is by the author of Still Missing which I read a few months ago. The book begins,

I thought I could handle it, Nadine. After all those years of seeing you, all those times I talked about whether I should look for my birth mother, I finally did it.

The format appears to follow that of Still Missing, in that it has not chapters but “sessions,” apparently with a therapist.

I like the set-up in these first two sentences. We already know several things: that the narrator does not know her birth mother, that a search for her has been begun, and that the narrator has not “handled it” as she thought she could. Roll: suspense. I’m ready!

(Note: this quotation comes from an Advanced Reader Copy and is subject to change.)

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book beginnings on Friday: Fallen by Karin Slaughter

Posted on May 20, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence.

Karin Slaughter’s newest thriller, Fallen, begins slowly – like for six sentences.

Faith Mitchell dumped the contents of her purse onto the passenger seat of her Mini, trying to find something to eat. Except for a furry piece of gum and a peanut of dubious origin, there was nothing remotely edible.

By page two, you will be reluctant to EVER put this book down again. In other words, I’m enjoying it. That’s all I’ll say for now.

This quotation comes from an Advance Reader’s Edition and is subject to change.

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book beginnings on Friday: Jersey Law by Ron Liebman

Posted on May 13, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence.

Jersey Law looks to be a funny legal thriller with a heavy New Jersey accent.

Reginald Shawn Dupree, inmate number 65392, Camden County Jail, is definitely not liking the situation he has found himself in.

He shrugs as best he can, given that Slippery Williams’s two beefy fellow inmates have effectively strapped him in place, each man firmly grasping Reginald’s muscled arms, just about lifting his feet off the ground.

I like my genre fiction hard-boiled, so we’re off to a fine start!

Note: I’m reading an advanced proof for review, so this book beginning is subject to change.

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