Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King (audio)

Posted on February 17, 2014 by pagesofjulia

Just to review the Dark Tower series:

The Gunslinger (I)

The Drawing of the Three (II)

The Waste Lands (III)

Wizard and Glass (IV)

The Wind Through the Keyhole, written last but fitting between books IV and V.

and here we are with V: Wolves of the Calla.

wolvesThis is a very long one. My library copy of the audio came on 22 CD’s. Off the top of my head, I can only remember Anna Karenina being longer; but where that was a painful experience for me (sorry, Tolstoy fans), this was pleasurable.

The action of Roland’s ka-tet of 5 – Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy – takes up very little geographical space, unlike most of the previous volumes. They leave Topeka and the Wizard of Oz world, and encounter an envoy from a local town, Calla Bryn Sturgis. The locals are tormented by the Wolves from Thunderclap, the neighboring badlands: these “wolves” come about once a generation to the Calla, where a single-born child (or “singleton”) is a rarity. Most children are born in twins, and the wolves come to take own of each set away with them; when they are sent back to their families shortly after, they grow into severely mentally handicapped giants who live short, painful lives. The folken of the Calla have heard that there are gunslingers in the area, and they are struggling to decide whether to ask the gunslingers’ aid in defending their town against the coming wolves – or letting them take half the town’s children, as always.

Among them, to the great surprise of Eddie, Susannah and Jake – all originally from New York City, although of three different whens – is Father Callahan, also transplant from their world, and with terrible stories to tell about the vampires he had hunted in his former life, before coming to the Calla and settling among the people of Roland’s world. He will be an important player, among other reasons, because he is in possession of another piece of the wizard’s glass: the big bad one, Black 13. As he tells his strange life story, and the gunslingers interview the townspeople in preparation to fight against the wolves, Roland worries about this delay of their greater mission, the quest for the Dark Tower. He has a bad feeling about what will befall them here; but a gunslinger asked for his aid cannot demur.

To complicate things further, each of the ka-tet becomes aware on his or her own schedule of another terrifying fact: Susannah is pregnant, or at least one of the women living inside her body is – a result of the fighting-sex she had with a demon in the second drawing of Jake, in The Waste Lands. We recall that when we first met the woman who is now Susannah Dean, wife of Eddie, she was Odetta Holmes – and also Detta Walker. This schizophrenic (or possessed?) double became one, healthier, stronger woman in Susannah; but now she has a new inhabitant, the one called Mia, who is mother to a demon child that threatens Susannah’s life. (Whew. Got that straight?) It is a weakening of the ka-tet that each of them learns this fact separately and is reluctant to share it with the others. Also, Detta appears to be making a comeback within the split body of Susannah Dean. We still haven’t entirely categorized her as being mentally ill, or a victim of black magic… but considering the setting for this fantasy series, I think it’s the latter.

And in a final plotline and complication: the rose in the vacant lot in New York is confirmed as being an important part of the quest as well, being firmly linked to the Dark Tower itself. The ka-tet is now concerned with getting back and forth to New York to buy the lot and protect the rose as well.

As this lengthy (but not wearying) epic plays out, Roland and the reader begin to understand that beating the wolves, seeing Susannah safely through Mia’s pregnancy, protecting the rose, and handling the awful power of Black 13 are all related to the great mission of this series: achieving the Dark Tower. At the end of the story, the wolves are vanquished (at least for now), but Susannah/Mia is off on her own; Eddie is distraught, the ka-tet is splintering, and its efforts are divided between multiple aims.

My praise of the series continues; the strengths of one are the strengths of all. I’m still deeply invested in our ka-tet (and OH, when Oy made his little speech and bow! he still might be my favorite) and in their eventual fate; and I continue to find the shorter-lived characters of each book – in this case, the Calla-folken – worthwhile investments, too. I marvel at the mind of Stephen King that can create such large and involved worlds with all their interconnections. And what a tricky one he is! For Father Callahan comes from another of his novels, Salem’s Lot – one I’ve not read, so I had to have the joke spelled out for me, but it tickled me nonetheless; I can only imagine for the folks who had read it, what a great joke and mindbender this was.

I am now heading into book VI, Song of Susannah. I was on a road trip when the one ended, and just started right up into the next without pause. As we begin this next installment, the integrity of our little group is highly questionable, and I’m anxious for them. Stay tuned!

Rating: 7 sharpened dishes.

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Valentine’s Day in book history

Posted on February 14, 2014 by pagesofjulia

As I’ve done before, I figured I’d note today’s (consumerist, contrived) holiday with some book history, courtesy of A Reader’s Book of Days.reader's book of days

Born today:

Frank Harris (My Live and Loves), Galway, Ireland, 1856. I do not know this man. But I have been to Galway.

Carl Bernstein (All the President’s Men), Washington, D.C., 1944. I know of this one, of course, though I haven’t read the book. Interesting to know he was (is?) a D.C. native.

Died today:

1975: P.G. Wodehouse (The Code of the Woosters and lots of wonderful others, of course), Southampton, NY, at age 93. More’s the pity; would that he had lived to write more and more of those funny books.

2010: Dick Francis (Dead Cert, all those horse racing mysteries), Grand Cayman Island, at age 89. I’ve read none of his books, but I know his fans; I was working in a library where his books were popular at the time of his death, and I remember.

Additionally, I find it amusing that Nabokov features again on Valentine’s Day, since he came up on New Year’s as well!

In 1932, Vladimir Nabokov, in goal as always, played his first match with a new Russian émigré soccer team in Berlin. A few weeks later, after he was knocked unconscious by a team of factory workers, his wife, Vera, put an end to his soccer career.

[Oops.] I am a soccer fan and former player – and Nabokov fan, naturally – so I enjoy this factoid.

And,

1935: Samuel Beckett wrote to Tom McGreevy on Jane Austen, “Now I am reading the divine Jane. I think she has much to teach me.”

Well done, Beckett!

And finally, today in Julia’s personal history: we are typically in the desert wonderland of Big Bend National & State Parks & surrounding locales on this day, and this year follows that pattern. Husband and I are playing on our mountain bikes today, but I’ll check in on you upon my return.

I’m glad I picked today for a historical review in miniature; I learned some things. You?

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The Answer to the Riddle Is Me: A Memoir of Amnesia by David Stuart MacLean

Posted on February 13, 2014 by pagesofjulia

A memoir from within the mind of an amnesiac, in full terrifying color.

riddle
In the opening scene of The Answer to the Riddle Is Me, David Stuart Maclean “wakes up” in a standing position, in a train station, in a place where English is clearly not the first language. He doesn’t know who he is, where he is or where he was going. A friendly policeman tells him that many tourists there do too many drugs and end up confused; Maclean concludes that he is a drug user and follows as he is told.

This scene is only the beginning of the enormous world of what Maclean can’t remember, and assumptions he’ll be led to make that will often turn out to be false. He was living alone in India on a government grant to aid his work as a novelist when an antimalarial drug he was taking overcame the blood-brain barrier and wreaked havoc. The Answer to the Riddle Is Me is Maclean’s story of amnesia and recovery, with all the false starts, depression, despair and small victories that come with such a trauma. Maclean often wishes himself back in a hospital where he’ll be spoon-fed and his decisions will be made for him, but he slowly, eventually resurfaces.

This heartfelt and painfully candid memoir tracks Maclean in real time, in fractured scenes and then in measured, purposeful steps, and comes with research into the medical issues involved. Readers will be mesmerized by the effort, and perhaps feel as rejuvenated in the end as Maclean does.

This review originally ran in the February 11, 2014 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 7 faces.

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on author access

Posted on February 12, 2014 by pagesofjulia

I have done some author interviews, as you may have noticed. I did a handful for a podcast, which was an interesting opportunity that I enjoyed but which came to be a little more work, and stress, than I was looking for in an unpaid gig – although many thanks again to Chris at Critical Wit for the chance, which was great while it lasted! And I do the occasional interview for the Maximum Shelf special editions of Shelf Awareness. For the former, I got to choose my own subjects; for the latter, they are assigned to me. When I go to choose interview subjects, I am looking firstly for authors whose books appeal to me (obviously), and nextly for authors that look like they would talk to me – that look like I could get access to them. Reasonably enough, debut authors who aren’t getting ALL the attention in the world are more likely to take the time to talk to little old me than are the Micheal Connellys of the business. (Not to pick on Connelly and for the record, I never asked him for an interview.) A good measure of this is, when I look at their website, does the “contact me” link take me to the author’s email address? or does it say something like “for speaking opportunities, contact the publicist at xxx and for interview requests, contact the whomever at xxx”? The first instance makes for a far better chance of somebody small-time, like myself, getting access.

But when I’m assigned an author interview at Shelf Awareness, I’m guaranteed access, even to the big authors, because the author (or his/her team) has agreed to the special issue in advance. It does promote the upcoming book, you know. So I get the assignment and I get connected with the author or some representative of the author – a publicist, an agent, or somebody with the publishing company. And when we’re both ready, I get set up with the author him/herself. This is easier for me because I don’t have to go seeking access; and it’s presumably easier for the author, for whom usually an appointment is set up and he/she just has to be available by phone or email at the agreed upon time.

So it was surprising when I had a different experience, some time ago. (I am posting this experience well removed, timing-wise, from the incident in question, to preserve this author’s anonymity. And I am calling this author Jane, and making her a woman because I’ve interviewed more women than men and that seems to help preserve anonymity, as well.) I got the book; I read the book; I wrote my review and my interview questions; and I was in touch with Jane’s representative (listed as a “cataloging coordinator” at the publishing company), who asked for an estimated time frame for when I’d be ready for the interview. I gave this estimate, and right about on time, emailed the representative again that I was ready to set up an appointment. As always, I offered the option to do the interview by phone (to be recorded and then transcribed), or by email (no transcription necessary, and more convenient for all parties, but less likely to get off-the-cuff, conversational answers). And that’s when things went south. This author’s representative said, ok, great! so this is what we’ll do: I’ll send you a list of questions you can ask Jane, and you can pick from that list. Um, no. That’s actually not an interview at all; that’s a press release. It’s not like I was going to ask hard or antagonistic questions – c’mon. I passed this issue along to my “boss” for this project, who agreed with my rejection of this option, and followed up with the publisher herself.

This begun a process. My boss and myself eventually communicated with no fewer than 4 people at the publisher: a Cataloging Coordinator, a Director of Advertising and Promotion, an Associate Director of Publicity, and a Publicity Assistant. The cataloging coordinator also referenced the opinions of an editor and a marketing director who apparently weighed in as well. There was a great deal of concern that author Jane (a fairly well established one, with several bestsellers to her name) just couldn’t possibly talk with me, or couldn’t possibly be asked questions that did not come from an approved list. (They did ask for my questions in advance, and I willingly provided them.)

After dealing with these 4-6 folks over a period of weeks, we did finally end up scheduling an interview with the hallowed Jane – a full 7 weeks after my original interview request, which had been preceded by a 2-week notice of my upcoming need for the interview, which was preceded by the original agreement between publisher and my boss. By this time, boss and myself were thoroughly aggravated with the process and all the players involved, including poor Jane, who we realized may very well have no knowledge of any of these goings-on. In fact, as it turns out in the end, she is very active and friendly via social media, and was so friendly and easy-going in the eventual interview that I’m 100% certain that she was innocent in these proceedings.

I had read nearly a dozen books since I’d read Jane’s, which was less than ideal for the interview, with my memory fading somewhat. And I worried that I would have trouble being friendly with her after all the trouble her people had given me – although that turned out to be easier than expected, because she was a peach. Things came out okay in the end; but just barely, and at a certain cost in terms of hairs pulled out by my boss and myself in the two months (plus) that the entire process took. And poor Jane to this day doesn’t know this story, I feel sure; if she reads this blog post (unlikely) I don’t know that she’ll recognize herself.

Should I have told her? I certainly feel that she’s being poorly served by a team that blackened her name with such unprofessional communications with an organization in her industry who was essentially on her side – trying to help her sell her book. I’m assuming they have some sort of mandate to not harass this well-established author – to not give out her home number to anybody who wants it, for example (obviously). But they handled my boss and myself badly.

I didn’t tell Jane this story, because she was just trying to get through this interview and get back to whatever she had going on on the afternoon in question. No hard feelings towards her in the end. But I wanted to share with you the interesting range of experiences I’ve had in interviewing authors… I’ve never encountered one who was less than friendly, professional, and gracious. But this publicity team seemed determined to shoot itself in the foot. How outrageous do you find these events? And for other book bloggers out there – what are your experiences trying to get access to authors? When I was pursuing my own interviews (cold calling), I never even bothered with anyone who looked unattainable. Maybe I’m a coward, but I didn’t want to have to beg, or bother anyone who didn’t want to deal with me. If it’s this hard when agreed to in advance…

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Teaser Tuesdays: Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King

Posted on February 11, 2014 by pagesofjulia

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

wolves

Hooray for Stephen King as usual! This is a long one, which I appreciate, as I get to lose myself in the Outworld of this novel, the fifth in the Dark Tower series.

For our teaser today: I was struck by these lines.

“But if you get her killed, Roland.. you’ll take my curse with her when you leave the calla, if you do, no matter how many children you save.”

Roland, who had been cursed before, nodded.

Doesn’t bode particularly well, does it?

What are you reading this week?

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Wake by Anna Hope

Posted on February 10, 2014 by pagesofjulia

With expertly written characters and a convincing melancholy tone, Anna Hope brings the aftermath of World War I to life through the lives of three English women.

wake

Anna Hope’s debut novel, Wake, follows three English women over a span of five days in 1920, building toward the two-year anniversary of Armistice Day and the end of World War I.

Hettie works in London as a dance instructor, paid by the dance to twirl with strangers, many of whom are missing limbs. She struggles to support herself as well as her irritable, aging mother and a brother who has not worked–or hardly spoken–since the war’s end. The festive, exotic dance hall where she works presents an interplay between light and dark, and Hettie’s forays with a more fortunate friend to a breathtaking speakeasy emphasize class differences. There, she meets a handsome, wealthy young man who intrigues her, but the distance from which he regards the world seems unconquerable.

Evelyn handles veterans’ pension complaints, a thankless job that keeps fresh the wound left by her boyfriend’s death in France. Asked every day to consider the fates of damaged young men, her bitterness grows. She used to be close to her brother, an officer, but he has not been the same since he returned.

And Ada is nearly mad, haunted by her son, whose death “of his wounds” has never been properly explained to her. Her loving husband feels that he has lost a wife as well as a son. When a young man appears on her doorstep and speaks her son’s name, Ada is staggered; this event threatens to precipitate her descent into mental illness.

Woven among the three women’s stories are brief views of military exhumation of unidentified bodies, candidates for the unknown soldier who will be reburied and honored on the anniversary of Armistice Day. These scenes establish and emphasize a gray, cold backdrop to the lives of Hettie, Evelyn and Ada.

Hope’s strengths lie in nuance and atmosphere, as she gently and subtly reminds the reader of humanity under the worst of conditions. The pervading mood of the novel is reinforced by poverty, an inability to talk about past trauma and the presence of countless maimed and begging young men. As the lives of her three protagonists come together and the unknown soldier nears his final grave, Wake’s deeply moving, ultimately universal story speaks evocatively across nearly a century.

This review originally ran in the February 7, 2014 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 7 dances.

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book beginnings on Friday: Turtle Island by Gary Snyder

Posted on February 7, 2014 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Rose City Reader 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.

turtle island

I’m a little out of order, as I’ve reviewed this book already. But for further musing and perspective, I want to share with you a piece of the “Introductory Note” that explains its title.

Turtle Island–the old/new name for the continent, based on many creation myths of the people who have been living here for millenia, and reapplied by some of them to “North America” in recent years. Also, an idea found world-wide, of the earth, or cosmos even, sustained by a great turtle or serpent-of-eternity.

…Anglos, Black people, Chicanos, and others beached up on these shores all share such views at the deepest levels of their old cultural traditions–African, Asian, or European. Hark again to those roots, to see our ancient solidarity, and then to the work of being together on Turtle Island.

I collected turtles in high school. Stuffed, carved, as pendants and pillows. It’s the animal I chose as my own somehow. They still resonate; I don’t have all those turtles any more, but I’ve kept a small group of small ones, which turn out to be (by coincidence? I doubt it; but not on purpose) to be crafted from natural materials: stone, wood, shell. I feel at home here.

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Turtle Island by Gary Snyder

Posted on February 6, 2014 by pagesofjulia

turtle island

You all may recall that I am NOT a poetry person. I may be a tad too literal; I loved Shel Silverstein but never graduated from there. Clearly it didn’t help that I attempted Gertrude Stein later in life; her poetry is analogous in my mind to modern abstract art. Either I am a hopeless moronic philistine, or these people are making fun of us to our faces with some of this stuff.

So how did I end up here? I didn’t do my homework. I had heard enough good about Gary Snyder from people I respect for long enough that I finally jumped on a title somebody referenced: Turtle Island. I requested it from my local library. (I LOVE this service.) I went to pick it up when they told me to; and sure enough, on the cover, “Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 1975.” Well, heck, I’ll give it a whirl. (Pops and I are planning a readalong of a Snyder essay collection, Practice of the Wild, coming up, so I’ll get the prose, too.)

Snyder’s poems are short – rarely over one page (in a small format book), and often shorter. They tend towards the natural world and our relationship with it, and these of course were the subjects I was looking for. He’s really pretty accessible – for a poet. I don’t follow the stream-of-consciousness sort of thing very well, but I tried to just let his words float over me when I lost the thread. To mix a metaphor.

I liked several quite well. “Control Burn” (not “controlled”) has a clear message, and one I can get behind; and it read fairly straightforwardly. [Actually, as I look again, it would make for a very coherent sentence if you just took out all the line breaks and added a little punctuation. Look at that. I like poetry when it most resembles prose. sigh] I liked “The Call of the Wild” for its message as well; I appreciated a list of “Facts” (including “General Motors is bigger than Holland.”) but again that’s cheating: it is not a poem. Is it? Hm. If a list of facts can be a poem, maybe I’m a little better off than I thought. “The Wild Mushroom” is a more traditional poem with a recognizable meter, and it rhymes! (I am a philistymes.) It could also serve you as an abridged guide to which wild mushrooms are edible, which poisonous and which might “bring you close to God”; utility in poetry is always welcome, yes please.

“Mother Earth: Her Whales” is a lovely ode to all the earth’s inhabitants and indictment of what we’re doing here. And I love the tale of an ancient turquoise ring from Jemez discovered under the ruins of an apartment complex in Kyoto: “The Jemez Pueblo Ring.” I also like when he writes about his family, mostly his young sons; his tenderness shows clearly through.

But naturally, for me, things really get good when he switches to “Plain Talk” (the final one of the book’s four main sections), which is also known as “prose.” Here Snyder identifies problems with our world – we’re talking about the big problems, like population, pollution, and consumption – and recommends big fixes – with actions organized by social/political, community, and “our own heads.” He is concerned with the relationship of humans to the rest of the world: water, earth, dirt, plants, animals, mountains, air. His prose arguments are beautiful, well thought out, well informed (although brief), and resonate with me perfectly. I suspect that they assume certain things (bison on the plains are a good thing. our kids should play in the dirt) that not everyone agrees with; but I’m on his frequency. The people who think the big car, the big house in the big city, kids who wear designer sneakers, and the fancy career are important goals may not follow along here.

Snyder’s philosophies strike me as abundantly obviously correct, but also (sadly) far too simple and hopeful to work in our complex and stubbornly wrong world. He has all the problems described correctly, except that everything is far worse now than it was when this book was published in 1974. In that respect, it’s not good news, but Snyder shows great foresight in predicting the ways in which we’re doing even more poorly now; and further, I think it’s remarkable how relevant and right he still is in 2014. If you read this book today with no knowledge of its publication date, I think you’d find it intelligent, only understated or optimistic.

This prose conclusion to Turtle Island is absolutely the perfect conclusion to the poetry that precedes it. I confess that if I had to rate the poetry sections, I would probably end up giving this book a bemused 5 feathers or some such, with the qualification that I’m pretty sure there’s more here that I missed. But with this conclusion in “plain talk” to tie it all up for me, Turtle Island becomes a philosophical achievement along the lines of Thoreau, Abbey, Jensen, Dillard, and the like. In fact, I was often reminded of Abbey (as when Snyder refers to growth as a cancer); Jensen (as when he refers to a need for total change and starting over), some thoughts I’ve come up with (“on my own,” in theory, but clearly informed by my reading & discussions), and also with Ken Kesey’s band of Merry Pranksters.

This conclusion to the book bodes extraordinarily well for my shared reading with Pops of Snyder’s essay collection. Stay tuned.

Rating: 9 Ponderosa pines.

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movie: Jack Reacher (2012)

Posted on February 5, 2014 by pagesofjulia

To review: I love Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels (no matter how far-fetched); like many “Reacher Creatures,” I was upset to learn that Tom Cruise would be playing him on the big screen. Where Reacher is something like 6’6″ and a looming giant and blonde, Cruise is short-ish and dark-haired. Plus I don’t really like Tom Cruise all that much. Husband is with me on all counts.

therefore this is a little insulting

therefore this is a little insulting

For these reasons we had made a point of not watching this movie up to now; Husband turned it down as the free movie on an airplane last year. But then came a quiet night at home when his channel-surfing was making my teeth grind, and it was free via some sort of movie-playing widget on the television (this is not my area of expertise), so what the hell.

Jack Reacher is based on the Reacher novel One Shot, set in Philly, in which an ex-army guy named Barr is accused in an apparent open-and-shut case: six shots were fired from a sniper rifle in a parking garage, and five civilians lay dead. Barr won’t speak to the police except to ask for Jack Reacher. Retired army cop Reacher is impossible to find, but lucky for the cops, shows up on his own to look into the case. Teamed up with Barr’s defense attorney – despite being rather convinced of Barr’s guilt himself – Reacher investigates, and finds (naturally) that things are more complex than they appear. In fact, there is a conspiracy, something Reacher’s fans will be familiar with. For that matter, Reacher’s fans will recognize all the elements: intrigue – problems with authority – fistfights and gunfights and ex-military camaraderie – explosive final scenes.

I had few and minor quibbles, and my reading of One Shot was so long ago that I didn’t fuss over digressions from the original plot. And despite a slight antipathy for Tom Cruise, Husband and I were both able to sort of …let that go and get into the movie. In other words, I had some hesitations but ended up enjoying this movie more than expected. Reacher’s pithy wit translated well to the screen, and the suspense and action were there and pretty solid – in spite of a totally ridiculous car chase (I mean REALLY ridiculous. besides which, in the books, Reacher is a self-acknowledged poor driver and rarely does it). I especially appreciated the moment when the Marine recognizes Reacher from his shooting skills, and that scene does come from the book.

Conclusion: I had concerns going in, but I confess I enjoyed this film. Cruise was tolerable; the humor, wit, action and suspense were all there; the plot is not to be argued with (says this Reacher fan). Touche, Tom Cruise.

Rating: 7 shots fired.

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Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby by Sarah Churchwell

Posted on February 4, 2014 by pagesofjulia

New research and new angles on The Great Gatsby and its place in history.

carelesspeople

Sarah Churchwell (The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe) takes on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s mythically proportioned masterpiece in Careless People, an expansive study of biography, history, literary criticism and cultural connections. Her inquiries focus on a double-murder involving a socially ambitious lower-class woman and a respected rector, both married but not to each other, found shot to death in each other’s arms. The case captured national attention in 1922, the year Scott and Zelda returned to New York–and the year in which The Great Gatsby is set.

With an appealing, freshly curious manner, original research and newly discovered resources, Churchwell explores the possible connections between Fitzgerald’s experiences in 1922 and what happened at the same time in his most highly regarded novel. She also compares the plot of The Great Gatsby to the real-world action of 1922. In the book, which alternates between the Fitzgeralds’ lives during the period The Great Gatsby came to life with the unfolding of media coverage of the murder case, Churchwell incorporates Fitzgerald’s correspondence, including delightful poems exchanged with Ring Lardner, and lists of slang (including some 70 ways to say “drunk”).

With elements of fun and tragedy–like the lives of its subjects–Churchwell’s study of the Fitzgeralds, The Great Gatsby and the world that birthed it presents new perspectives on a literary icon.

This review originally ran in the January 28, 2014 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 8 unattributed clippings.

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