Teaser Tuesdays: A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel

Posted on April 30, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

As promised in yesterday’s review, I am here today to share a few of my favorite passages with you from A Girl Named Zippy.

zippy

Our dogs never misbehaved, our tires never went flat, and if the people camping next to us needed five gallons of gas, he would just happen to have it. When he was at the wheel, everyone else could sleep, because he never would. In short, he was what it meant to be a father and a man in 1971. Up against his power I could see none of his failings.

I love this image of Man In 1971 and a girl’s adoration of her father. (Also, the longer version of how her father packs up to take the family camping is freakin’ hilarious.)

Christmas was my favorite time of the year, in part because of the excellent speech, “Fear not: I bring you good tidings of great joy…” and because of the song “The Little Drummer Boy.” Anything that involved such persistent percussion was undoubtedly both religious and true.

Such persistent percussion, yes, naturally!

She was sitting at her sewing machine, making curtains for the nursery down the hall. She wasn’t pregnant yet, but would be anytime, because nobody would be a better mother, which was a thing God definitely paid attention to when He was passing out babies.

How about that sarcasm. No emoticons needed.

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Teaser Tuesdays: Out of Their Minds by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite

Posted on April 23, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

outoftheirminds

Among other things, I am charmed by this cover. (And there is more of the same artwork within!) I hope I will be forgiven for this longer-than-usual teaser…

They made their debut at Aunt Yadira’s birthday party. The family was very kind and enthsiastically applauded their versions of “Wildwood Flower,” “Storms Are On the Ocean,” “The Long Veil.” Ramón and Cornelio promised to come back and play at their next party.

Later, Aunt Yadira came up, and in a maternal tone, explained to them that in reality they were very bad musicians and their arrangements were like massive trains wreck. Not just any train wrecks. No. Train wrecks with passengers. Nightmare, pain, irreversible tragedy.

Evocative, no?

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

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: | Leave a comment »

Teaser Tuesdays: Junius and Albert’s Adventures in the Confederacy by Peter Carlson

Posted on April 16, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

junius

The title of this book is both playfully appealing and a little confusing, as some folks I’ve mentioned it to think it might be a children’s book. It is not. It is a history of two young Northern journalists who travel south during the American Civil War to act as war correspondents, are captured and imprisoned for many months, and eventually escape to trek north again. However, the playfulness remains: in the title, in the writing, and yes, in the story itself. Our two heroes share a certain cynical wit that occasionally lightens what is a quite sad story. As in…

Browne might be the only war correspondent in history to describe his near-death experience by quoting Goethe’s grandmother.

I liked this one line for what it says about the book as a whole – both its subject, and its presentation. Don’t you think?

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

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Teaser Tuesdays: Crossing the Borders of Time by Leslie Maitland, again

Posted on April 9, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

crossing

I continue to enjoy this memoir by the daughter of a French-German Jew who fled the Nazis as a teen and thereby lost her love. I did tease you from it last week, but I thought these lines were too evocative, thoughtful and real not to share.

His impromptu recital was a peaceful close to a day that had wakened to the tumult of athletes speeding through narrow Renaissance streets, crowds cheering at corners and loudspeakers blaring. That evening I would leave feeling grateful for the quiet bravery of all the Ficks and the Fimbels, people who risked their lives to wrestle with power in places whose names are not even footnotes in history’s pages.

The setting for this scene is a French town the author is visiting, one of the several towns along her family’s route from Freiburg eventually to the United States. Fick and Fimbel are two men who helped them escape occupied France. The athletes are triathletes in competition, and the impromptu recital is given especially for the visiting Maitland by Fick, now a very old man, on the organ in his church; and I think all together they make a fine sweeping view of this place in time. For one thing (referencing Maitland’s title), the Renaissance streets that now see triathletes whizzing by on what I’m sure are very fancy bikes surely never expected such a thing. And then add the organ music played by a quietly heroic man for the daughter of a woman he hasn’t seen in many decades… there is something profound in this vignette, isn’t there?

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Teaser Tuesdays: Crossing the Borders of Time by Leslie Maitland

Posted on April 2, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

crossing

I am pleased with the early chapters of this memoir, in which the author travels back to Europe to hunt down her mother’s long-lost love, from whom she was separated during World War II. Today’s teaser concerns the mother’s family, Jews who lived on the border between France and Germany in a region that changed hands between those two countries frequently, confusing their sense of heritage.

…for Sigmar, returning to French-controlled Mulhouse after [World War I] – a German war veteran with a new German bride – proved difficult too, with anti-German sentiment in France running so high. Feeling even less welcome as Germans in France than as Jews in Germany, Sigmar and Alice crossed the Rhine once again to settle and start a family in Freiburg.

This is a nuance I had not considered before, and drives home the displacement of Jews in this era.

What are you reading this week?

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Teaser Tuesdays: The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, again

Posted on March 26, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

hunchback

Yes, I just did this one last week. The good news is that there continues to be text worth quoting! I liked these lines of dialogue:

“The gallows lead to hell.”

“That is a rousing fire.”

“Jehan, Jehan! The end will be bad!”

“The beginning at least will have been good.”

There is something Shakespearean, I think, in this repartee. As I said in my mid-way-through review, Hugo is at his best in narrative (or dialogue!), when he is pithy and entertaining. Still enjoying this one, on the whole.

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Teaser Tuesdays: The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

Posted on March 19, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

hunchback

I have begun The Hunchback of Notre Dame as an (unabridged) audiobook. Am I overly ambitious? We shall see. I will say that so far he may be a less-than-ideal gym companion, but time will tell. Here are a few lines I like very much so far…

“Monsieur the Archduke has more than once sought his gloves among my hose.”

A burst of laughter and applause ensued. A witticism or a pun is instantly comprehended in Paris and consequently sure to be applauded.

Oh, so clever. I believe this is a fair representation of some of the humor Hugo has on offer.

What are you reading this week?

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , | 9 Comments »

Teaser Tuesdays: Something Rising (Light and Swift) by Haven Kimmel

Posted on March 12, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

 

somethingrising

I came across this audiobook as I sometimes do, with audio, entirely by accident. I was not familiar with the name Haven Kimmel. It turns out she’s the author of A Girl Named Zippy – a title that rings a bell but still doesn’t tell me much. So I am very pleasantly surprised to say that I love this book and hang on its every word. For example, a phrase like this:

The sun was a violence against Cassie’s back. Sweat ran toward her eyes.

The sun was a violence. That is attention to word choice, my friends. And the sweat didn’t run into her eyes, but toward them. It implies more motion this way, somehow, the suspense of whether the sweat will actually get into her eyes or if we’ll see some action to interrupt it. It’s attention to detail like this, along with an engaging storyline, that hook me. I hope you’re enjoying your reading this week, too!

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Teaser Tuesdays: Released by Amber Polo

Posted on March 5, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

released

Here’s a strange book for you, about libraries and librarians, and werewolves and dog-shifters (those are the good guys). It’s a little paranormal, a little romance, a little fantasy, and a lot of candy for the book- and dog-lovers. Here’s a cute thought for the day:

She read aloud the Alphonse Karr quotation on the back, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change, the more they are the same. She didn’t want change; she wanted the status quo, just better.

This made me laugh, as it’s so apt. I don’t want it all; I just want everything I want right now. 🙂 I’m enjoying Released so far.

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

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

Teaser Tuesdays: The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan

Posted on February 19, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

atomic
I know I just shared with you this book’s beginning, but that’s how good it is! Below you will find a quick picture of life in World War II. The first sentence relates a concept I was already familiar with; but the second was news to me. Here’s my teaser:

Some young women even drew seams up the back of their legs to simulate stockings or hose, much of which had gone to war where their fabric was needed for parachutes. If you were a woman handy with a needle and thread, you might get that fabric back in another incarnation: many young brides had taken to fashioning wedding dresses from the very parachutes that had brought their loves safely back down to earth.

Did you know about the parachute wedding dresses? What an evocative image. Still enjoying this book!

And what are you reading this week?

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

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »