Teaser Tuesdays: One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina

Posted on May 10, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Would you look at this beautiful, complex cover? Very interesting – perhaps overwhelming, or perhaps thought-provoking, depending on your day! I found it a bit intimidating at first but after just a few pages, I feel that it fits the story. This book is a memoir of the author’s life in Africa, and his growth as a writer. My teaser is a good example of what I’ve found, and like, so far. From page 10 (of my pre-publication proof, so pending change before final publication):

…just when your marble is wheeling along, groovily swinging up the walls of your trough and back down again, challenging the edge, whistling and gum chewing and downhill biking and yo-yo bouncy and American – gravel pounded by rain outside your bedroom window becomes sausages frying, and sausages frying can shift and become squirming bloody intestines or an army of bristling mustachioed accordions chasing you, laughing like Idi Amin.

I am finding this a most interesting read.

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Teaser Tuesdays: The Stronger Sex by Hans Werner Kettenbach, trans. by Anthea Bell

Posted on May 3, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This is a fascinating book that I’m happy to be reading in order to write a review for Shelf Awareness. Quite at random, on page 97, I found a teaser snippet that pretty appropriately handles the themes of this book, including age, mortality, and sexuality.

I longed for smooth, flawless skin. For a dense mop of strong hair, no thin places in it. I longed for the fresh, clean smell of skin and hair like that, a smell owing nothing to any perfume and at the same time not arousing the slightest suspicion that there could be a touch of sprayed urine or the bad odour of wind in it.

It’s quite an interesting, unique read, skillfully translated from the German. I like it.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Posted on April 26, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

OH this is a fabulous book! I love that there are SO many great reads out there. I know that I can keep saying this my whole life: why did I wait so long??

Your teaser today comes from page 36:

I wanted to go back again, to recapture the moment that had gone, and then it came to me that if we did it would not be the same, even the sun would be changed in the sky, casting another shadow, and the peasant girl would trudge past us along the road in a different way, not waving this time, perhaps not even seeing us. There was something chilling in the thought, something a little melancholy, and looking at the clock I saw that five more minutes had gone by. Soon we would have reached our time limit, and must return to the hotel.

I’m adoring this book; it’s delicious. The beginning is mostly in pursuit of romance, and I’m excited for the engagement that is clearly coming (this is not a spoiler; the whole book is about the narrator’s role as Wife). But even in the midst of a budding marriage, the tone is spooky. The story is written from a distance of years, and with the narrator’s knowledge of what unpleasantness is to come – but I, the reader, don’t share this knowledge. I know something unpleasant is coming, but don’t know what. It feels like a ghost story but actually I really don’t know what’s wrong at Manderley! How exciting! I know, I’m very late to discover this enjoyable book, but I am enjoying it now!

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Teaser Tuesdays: A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear

Posted on April 19, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here’s Maisie! She’s following in Maurice’s footsteps, working in intelligence. And the Beales are in for another life change or two that I’m excited about. Here’s your teaser, from page 178:

Maisie turned over the page, then turned it back again. It had been typed with care; not one error, not one misplaced letter typed over.

Sounds like somebody’s pretty clear about what they’re up to, whatever that might be (I’m not that far along yet).

What are YOU reading?

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , | 3 Comments »

Teaser Tuesdays: Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

Posted on April 12, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Ohhh I’m smitten! Thanks so much to Thomas at My Porch for causing me to seek out Anita Brookner. You were so right; she is worth it. My post re: International Anita Brookner day is coming, never fear. For now, I give a teaser, not randomly chosen (although chances are excellent that it would be excellent, even if randomly chosen), but my very favorite lines of the book so far, from page 10:

Milling crowds, children crying, everyone intent on being somewhere else, and here was this mild-looking, slightly bony woman in a long cardigan, distant, inoffensive, quite nice eyes, rather large hands and feet, meek neck, not wanting to go anywhere, but having given my word that I would stay away for a month until everyone decides that I am myself again. For a moment I panicked, for I am myself now, and was then, although this fact was not recognized. Not drowning, but waving.

Not drowning, but waving. I ask you, is that not a poignant and fully evoked image and emotion all in four words? Oh my. I am loving Hotel du Lac.

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: | 11 Comments »

Teaser Tuesdays: The Postcard Killers by James Patterson

Posted on March 29, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I’m listening to this one on audio right now, mostly just in the car as I commute. It’s an experiment; you know I’ve mentioned before that I’m not sure if the audio format is really for me.

My teaser comes from page 19 (I did get my hands on a book for this):

The view from the hotel room consisted of a scarred brick wall and three rubbish bins. It was probably still daylight somewhere up above the alley, because Jacob Kanon could make out a fat German rat having itself a good time in the bin farthest to the left.

I have mixed feelings about this book (aside from the audio format). This is my first James Patterson, and I picked him up so as to broaden my knowledge of the mystery genre – I had some impressions to indicate that maybe he wouldn’t be my favorite, but for my job here in the library it’s ideal that my reading be broad. The jury is decidedly conflicted, but I’ll let you know this week or next how it all ended up for me (and for Jacob Kanon and the others).

Thanks for the Teaser Tuesday!

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

Teaser Tuesdays: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

Posted on March 22, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I am going to revolt and share a slightly longer passage because it’s just too funny (from page 194):

They had gone to the “movies.” The movies were almost as vital to Kennicott and the other solid citizens of Gopher Prairie as land-speculation and guns and automobiles.

The feature film portrayed a brave young Yankee who conquered a South American republic. He turned the natives from their barbarous habits of singing and laughing to the vigorous sanity, the Pep and Punch and Go, of the North; he taught them to work in factories, to wear Klassy Kollege Klothes, and to shout, “Oh, you baby doll, watch me gather in the mazuma.” He changed nature itself. A mountain which had borne nothing but lilies and cedars and loafing clouds was by his Hustle so inspirited that it broke out in long wooden sheds, and piles of iron ore to be converted into steamers to carry iron ore to be converted into steamers to carry iron ore.

If that’s not clever and funny and insightful I don’t know what is.

And in case you need help (like I did) with mazuma, Answers.com tells me it is slang for money or cash.

I’m enjoying Dethroning the King simultaneous with Main Street. Aren’t I a lucky girl!

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: | 4 Comments »

Teaser Tuesdays: Dethroning the King

Posted on March 15, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

You got the book beginning(s) on Friday; today you get a teaser from the middle. I did a fair amount of reading this weekend and am halfway through. I promise this one won’t take me weeks like Mr. Playboy did! I hope to be done by the weekend, because The Paris Wife is here teasing me, along with so many other good ones stacked all around…

“Randomly” selected from page 191, where I am reading today:

When she inherited her father’s Modelo ownership, Maria had been unemployed and raising two children, and had almost no business experience. She decided to throw herself into the family business rather than letting others control her fate, and from an office the size of a broom closet, she made two of Modelo’s bankrupt yeast companies profitable within a year of taking them over.

I liked this quotation because it highlights two things: one, author Macintosh’s attractive ability to treat the players in this nonfiction tale as interesting, engaging characters, painting them as complete people who we learn to care about (one way or the other); and two, the rare female character in this extraordinarily (but not surprisingly) male-dominated story.

I raved about this book last Friday upon beginning it, and I’m no less enthusiastic today. This is a story that fascinates me, both personally because of my relationship with beer and the beer industry, and as an important story in our national history. Macintosh writes in an accessible, narrative style that draws me in and just sneaks all the learning about economics, business, and politics right past without me noticing. I can’t over-recommend this book, really.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Pardonable Lies

Posted on March 8, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I finished An Incomplete Revenge last night, and enjoyed it so much! (My post will be up on Monday, in timing with the Maisie Dobbs Read-Along.) So I started right in on book #3 which I had skipped over: Pardonable Lies. I DO like my Maisie.

So today, from page 149:

Maisie left London before seven in the morning, her clothes, books, and papers packed in a small case of dark brown leather with straps across to ensure her belongings were secure. She carried her black document case and wore a gray-and-blue tweed jacket with a pale gray silk blouse, light gray woolen trousers, black shoes, and, to top off her ensemble, a dark gray hat with a broader brim than usual, a black band and a dark blue feather on the side, which was attached to the band with a deep blue stone in a sapphire cut.

You know, I said earlier in our read-along that the fashion details weren’t my cuppa because I’m pretty fashion-unconscious and all, but I’m changing my mind. I really enjoy being able to picture these details, and I really appreciate Maisie’s style; she’s simple but classy, even elegant, even if Priscilla does think she’s too plain. That’s how I see her.

I think this passage sees Maisie off on her journey back to France for the first time since the war, and I happen to have a fairly strong, foreshadowed feeling that things don’t go well for her there. But doesn’t she look smart heading off? I like the items like the black document case, and her nurse’s watch, that follow her through the series and whose histories we know. It gives a neat sense of continuity; it’s rewarding us for reading the whole series. (And here I am out of order, sigh, what else is new. I like it fine this way though.)

I am enjoying Maisie yet again! Stay tuned!

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

Teaser Tuesdays: By-line: Ernest Hemingway. and, hemingWay of the Day: on tucking in shirts

Posted on February 22, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!


I am so very much enjoying this different selection of Hemingway’s writing. He’s one of my very very all-time favorites, and I’ve read all his fiction, and while I love to reread it, it’s always nice to find something new in his familiar style. Here’s a tidbit for you from page 44:

Bismarck said all men in the Balkans who tuck their shirts into their trousers are crooks. The shirts of the peasants, of course, hang outside. At any rate, when I found Hamid Bey – next to Kemal, perhaps the most powerful man in the Angora government – in his Stamboul office where he directs the Kemalist government in Europe, while drawing a large salary as administrator of the Imperial Ottoman Bank, a French capitalized concern – his shirt was tucked in, for he was dressed in a grey business suit.

I liked Hem’s method here of implying his feelings about Bey using the words of a third party.

I was also pleasantly surprised just this morning to read in my daily Shelf Awareness email about a new book, released TODAY, by Paula McLain. It’s called The Paris Wife, and it is a historical novel about Hadley, Hemingway’s first wife, and the Mrs. Hemingway of his dispatches at least early in By-Line: Ernest Hemingway where I am reading now. I have ordered this for my library and am in danger of being the very first to check it out. I love anything Hemingway and share McLain’s concern that Hadley is not exhaustively covered in studies of Hemingway’s life. I look forward to reading about her even if it’s fiction. Thanks you Ms. McLain.

Filed under: hemingWay of the Day, tuesday teasers | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

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