I’m Mad for Maisie!

Posted on December 22, 2010 by pagesofjulia

I’m getting a little crazy, because I don’t have enough books in my life as it is, and I’m going to go ahead and read a little bit about Maisie Dobbs along with Book Club Girl, who’s hosting the Maisie Dobbs Read-Along.

Courtesy of Book Club Girl: About Maisie Dobbs – The First Maisie Dobbs Novel

The daughter of a struggling greengrocer, Maisie Dobbs is only 13 when she’s sent to work in the house of the wealthy Lady Rowan Compton. A voracious reader who longs to learn, she is discovered late one night reading in the library. Fearing dismissal, Maisie is shocked when she discovers that her thirst for education is to be supported by Lady Rowan and a family friend, Dr. Maurice Blanche. But The Great War intervenes in Maisie’s plans, and soon after commencement of her studies at Girton College, Cambridge, Maisie enlists for nursing service overseas.

Years later, in 1929, having apprenticed to the renowned Maurice Blanche, a man revered for his work with Scotland Yard, Maisie sets up her own business. Her first assignment, a seemingly tedious inquiry involving a case of suspected infidelity, takes her not only on the trail of a killer, but back to the war she had tried so hard to forget.

I’ve never read any Winspear, but it sounds intriguing. I have already requested this book from my local PL and will be looking forward to being involved in the read-along! For now (because, again, of all those books in my life) I’m only committing to read the one, and see how it goes. Thanks Book Club Girl for piquing my interest!

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Tuesday Teaser

Posted on December 21, 2010 by pagesofjulia

Just for fun I’m going to play along with Should Be Reading here and give you a Tuesday Teaser. From page 201 of Faithful Place by Tana French:

“It was late enough that the street was dark and creepily silent, everyone neatly tucked up in their high thread counts. I parked under a decorous tree and sat there for a while, looking up at Holly’s bedroom window and thinking about nights when I had come home late from work to that house, parked in the drive like I belonged and turned my key in the lock without making a sound.”

Beautifully written; I love how much he expresses by writing that the tree is “decorous” and that everyone is tucked up in high thread counts. It says a lot about the neighborhood he’s in.

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!

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finished Faithful Place

Posted on December 21, 2010 by pagesofjulia

I finished this novel last night, and was sad that it was over. That’s always a compliment. I think author Tana French did a great job of creating a world and putting me in it. I don’t know Dublin, or the neighborhood Faithful Place, but I feel like I know it now. The crazy Irish-Catholic family culture was really evocative; although I can’t speak to the accuracy it certainly felt real. And I’m a big fan of Frank as my newest Bosch-style detective. (As I told the Husband the story last night: “there are a lot of Bosch’s, aren’t there?” Excellent observation dear.) And as predicted, French did throw another loop in, after I thought I knew whodunit. This was a great read, and right up my alley: strong sense of place, gory but also sentimental, with the romance between Frank and Rosie, family drama, and all that; and Frank is my kind of detective character. I will definitely look for more of French. I would like to see more of Frank, too, and maybe more of Stephen – it sure felt like he was being established to play more of a role, so I hope he’ll continue in a later book. It looks like French’s first two novels, In the Woods and The Likeness, kept the same detective, so maybe we can hold onto Frank for a little longer. In the meantime I’m going to keep my eyes open for those two earlier titles.

Karma, I was surprised several times over; did she get you too? What were the big surprises for you? I know you’re not done yet. I really cared about Frank and was really upset about Rosie and the death of the ideal. Was it that real for you? Keep me posted. Valerie, I recommend this one when you find the time…

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reading weekend.

Posted on December 18, 2010 by pagesofjulia

Without getting too personal, I’ll say that I’ve got a situation here that has derailed my weekend intentions and instead landed me a whole lotta reading time, which is the silver lining. I started Faithful Place last night, with enthusiasm but also with regret that it required putting down When Christ and His Saints Slept; I was really enjoying it. I’m also feeling the pull of Room and several others… but to get back on topic:

I’m now feeling the need to pause (come up for air) on page 262 at the start of chapter 17, realizing that my friends and fellow readers (Karma) probably have not been quite as full-time as have I in the last 24 hours. So.

I’m really enjoying this book! I was drawn very quickly into the romantic story of Frank and his childhood love with Rosie, who no-showed their elopement date and left him thinking she’d, well, left him. There’s an air of mystery about it from the first (let’s be fair, all the blurbs and the inside of the dust jacket agree that it wasn’t that simple, so no spoilers there) and I care about them right from the first, too. Frank is familiar to me. Am I projecting, are all detectives starting to look like Harry Bosch, or is Frank another loner-type, hard on the edges, who cares deeply about his job (see my last post: job is one of the things he’s die for), but has the very soft spot of a young daughter, complete with estranged baby-mama? I think he is. This is my type of detective. But he’s in the relatively new-to-me setting of modern Dublin, and I’m eating up all the local culture and dialog. (I ❤ Guinness.) There's an interesting interplay of class and culture between his family home and neighborhood, which he hasn't visited in 22 years, and his ex-wife's world of privilege. But I think the best part is the characters and the complications of their relationships. If Frank and his four siblings are types, it doesn't make me love them any less, or make them any less real.

It’s hard for me to go much further than this without revealing plot spoilers, which I’m determined not to do, because I want Karma and Valerie and the rest of you to be able to discuss with me in this blog even if you’re not keeping up with my pace in the book. (I think I’m going to switch back to Christ and His Saints now so as to allow some catch-up time.) So what I’m saying here is that the plot has some interesting twists and turns and surprises me, which of course I love. The revelation on page 205 kind of floored me, in fact. When you get there, let me know what you think.

Now, more than half way through the book, I’m starting to get a fatalistic feeling that perhaps I can see the end and the whodunit, and it’s awfully sad. Poor Frank… the guilt and distant love in this family… but you know, author French has me going, and I won’t be surprised if she has a few more surprises to throw at me in the next 140-odd pages.

For now, as a side story, let’s talk about the character Stephen. I like him! It would be very unlike the “type” that is Frank to make a new friend (and he is resisting it) but I’m pleased to meet this likeable guy. How do you feel about him?

I’m off to take a break now and give my other books some love, and hope that you’ll catch up with me a bit. We’ll get back to Frank & Rosie in a day or three. Thanks for joining me here and I hope your weekend allows for all the action and/or restful reading that you like.

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book beginnings on Friday: Faithful Place

Posted on December 17, 2010 by pagesofjulia

This meme is hosted by Katy at A Few More Pages.


I’m giving in to the temptation here, to give you two book beginnings to the same book: one from the prologue and one from the proper start of the book. I’m also sticking with my preferred quotation parameter of two sentences.

So, from the prologue of Faithful Place, by Tana French:

“In all your life, only a few moments matter. Mostly you never get a good look at them except in hindsight, long after they’ve zipped past you: the moment when you decided to talk to that girl, slow down on that blind bend, stop and find that condom.”

I find this outstanding. It makes me stop and think about which moments have mattered in my life, and have I recognized them in hindsight? I can think of a few. But these first two sentences of prologue really make me want to stop and meditate. I call that a strong beginning.

From chapter one:

“My father once told me that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for. If you don’t know that, he said, what are you worth?“

I’m still interested. I’ve heard good things about this book from several sources, and I have a readalong buddy for this one too, so I’m excited. Stay tuned.

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several pots on the fire

Posted on December 16, 2010 by pagesofjulia

So last night I found myself with some unexpected free time at home, and because it was *unexpected*, I had unfortunately left my current book, When Christ and His Saints Slept, at the library at work. Bummer. I’m already going to have several going at once when I start Faithful Place as planned tomorrow. So I picked up one of the many (many, many) lying around TBR, and started…

The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien. This is not a new book; it was originally published in 1990, and I became aware of it this year with the 20th anniversary republication and various discussions. It’s a collection of related short stories (or a novel, depending on who you ask) set in the Vietnam War, and based on O’Brien’s experiences there. I read only one story/chapter last night before bed; but I can see why this book has been so talked about. This story/chapter that I read is “The Things They Carried,” and I love how he uses those things to tell so much of a story. It’s sort of sparsely written, and using “things” rather than emotions, which to me makes for less telling and more showing. It’s beautiful and sad and evocative. I look forward to more.

I was a little sorry to start another book while reading one and ready to start another tomorrow. But then I realized that I have several going at any one time, as it is… there’s Dust by Martha Grimes on the bedside table, and Frederica by Georgette Heyer in the bathroom, and This Book is Overdue! by Marilyn Johnson on the coffee table. What fun, when a person gets to live like this. Do you read several books at a time?

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finished The Tin Roof Blowdown

Posted on December 8, 2010 by pagesofjulia

Burke sure does know how to be poetic. Check the final paragraph of the epilogue, which I have decided to include here in its entirety (not really so much of a spoiler at all because it is Robicheaux’s *fantasy* ending):

“In my fantasy, I see Bertrand far out on the water, pulling on the oars, his arms pumped with his task, the ruined city of New Orleans becoming smaller and smaller in the distance, a great darkness spreading across the sky just after sunset. The blisters on his hands turn into wounds that stain the wood of the oars with his blood. As the wind rises and the water becomes even blacker, he sees hundreds if not thousands of lights swimming below the surface. Then he realizes the light are not lights at all. They have the shape of broken Communion wafers and the luminosity that radiates from them lies in the very fact they have been rejected and broken. But in a way he cannot understand, Bertrand knows that somehow all of them are safe now, including himself, inside a pewter vessel that is as big as the hand of God.”

I call that rhythmic, lyrical and hopeful, and even I, with my failure to grasp biblical allusions, can see the significance of blood staining the wooden oars.

I find it notable that Robicheaux deals somewhat sympathetically with a character who is a rapist. Some might be offended, I suppose (especially if you take my statement straightforwardly, which would be a mistake), but it’s not simple at all. Robicheaux is disgusted with this individual and the pain he’s caused. But in a very realistically, human, ambivalent way, he recognizes that we are all at least a little bit a product of our environments, and that perhaps everything is at least a little bit relative. The character in question makes some form of amends, at least within the structure of his own understanding. It’s complicated. I’m not particularly sympathetic with rapists myself (!!) but I appreciate that Burke portrays everything to do with human nature and sin and redemption as being complex and not black-and-white (no pun intended, in a book definitely charged with racial tension as all Burke’s books are – probably unavoidable considering the setting).

I confess that Cadillac Jukebox let me down just a bit, but The Tin Roof Blowdown has been so outstanding that I think I’m ready to make a James Lee Burke crusade like I did on Michael Connelly a few months back – and try and read everything he’s written.

But then again, there are so many good books in the world…

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book beginnings on Friday on Tuesday

Posted on December 7, 2010 by pagesofjulia

I’m behind the times and/or I’m a rebel – I just found this blog today and so I’m starting today and will hopefully keep up on *Fridays* from now on!

The idea is to share the first line or two of a book and my thoughts on it. Just my kind of thing.

From James Lee Burke’s The Tin Roof Blowdown:


“My worst dreams have always contained images of brown water and fields of elephant grass and the downdraft of helicopter blades. The dreams are in color but they contain no sound, not of drowned voices in the river or the explosions under the hooches in the village we burned or the thropping of the Jolly Green and the gunships coming low and flat across the canopy, like insects pasted against a molten sun.”

Maybe including two sentences was cheating this time, since they compose the whole first paragraph, but boy does Burke know how to set a scene, hm? I feel it’s fairly obvious that he’s talking about Vietnam, even if you were not familiar with protagonist Dave Robicheaux already, in which case you know he’s a vet. These first lines are atmospheric and set a tone. They make me feel at home with Burke who I love, and I’m ready to settle in for a new adventure with Robicheaux.

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finished Running the Books and more Burke

Posted on December 6, 2010 by pagesofjulia

Well it turns out that Running the Books gets a resounding endorsement. Author Avi Steinberg started a touch slow, but he grabbed me hard in the end. As our protagonist, Steinberg develops as a character and as a human being as the book unfolds, making some real personal discoveries. It’s a very human story, poignant and forgiving and realistically ambivalent in its eventual conclusions (or lack thereof) about the nature of prisons and criminals. I really enjoyed it.

(If you can’t tell in the image at left, his face is made up of lots of date stamps. Like due date stamps. It’s rather an interesting and clever piece of librarian-art if you care.)

I’m now well into another James Lee Burke, The Tin Roof Blowdown, that my mother gave me quite a while ago. That’s the Dave Robicheaux novel set in New Orleans and New Iberia in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and boy, you want to talk about something stark and visceral… putting aside for a moment the beauty that is a Dave Robicheaux novel, the realistic descriptions of Katrina’s destruction are gut-wrenching. The death and suffering, the necessary decisions about who lives, who dies, who a person chooses to save, the morals and ethics involved, the widespread racism, the political neglect, and the gritty reality of the blood and guts and sewage… it’s very real, and those moral dilemmas are evoked expertly. (I expect nothing less of Burke.) This one is grabbing me a lot harder than Cadillac Jukebox did recently. I really like the character of Alafair, Dave’s adopted daughter, too. (Burke has an adopted daughter named Alafair, who like her fictional namesake is also a writer; one wonders where fact meets fiction.) The chasing of the bad guys by Dave and and perennially self-destructive Clete Purcel is as finely wrought as ever, but for me, what’s special about this book is the rawness and realism of Katrina’s destruction. Whew.

I am, as usual, swamped in fine reading material, and don’t think Burke will take me too long, so stay tuned for one of the three books I recently named as coming next! 😉

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a few mysteries and more prison libraries

Posted on December 2, 2010 by pagesofjulia

Well vacation was outstanding and too short as usual. Hope everyone enjoyed. With a total of 22 or so hours on planes and 8 or so hours on trains… I did some reading!

I started with Unhinged, by Sarah Graves, which is “A Home Repair is Homicide Mystery” – one of those specialist mysteries like the quilting or recipe-filled ones, or one of the book-related ones I binged on recently. Pretty interesting as such, but my fear with books of this sort is always that they’ll be sort of simplistic, or rely on their novelty status. This one didn’t do half bad; I was amused and interested and the characters were cute. It wasn’t terribly serious or literary and was definitely a cozy. I might pick up another with the same casual interest for an airplane ride, but it was unremarkable. I’m no home-repair buff, but the related details were light and unobtrusive. Of course if you were a home-repair buff, I’m not sure you’d be satisfied with those aspects.

Next came another Lee Child, One Shot. I am decidedly a fan. I love the Jack Reacher character; those who told me he’d be a good character for me based on my love for Connelly’s Bosch were so right! The fast pace and strong sense of place are great; I stayed up late into the night to finish this one, and have recommended it to the Husband, who likes Connelly, couldn’t get into the more thoughtful pace of Raymond Chandler, and reads just a few pages at a time with long gaps in between, so fast pace is pretty important to him. He likes it so far. One Shot is set in small-town Indiana, which is not an environment I’m familiar with, but Child makes it seem plenty real. I just love the suspense and the loner aspects of Reacher; he has the Bosch characteristics of seeming intolerant of people trying to form relationships, while really being something of a softie inside, though he has trouble giving in to this impulse. Reacher is a little bit of a caricature Rambo-type, but I’m so into it that I don’t mind. I’ll definitely be pursuing this series – and good thing, since I’m all out of Connelly for now.

Finally I picked up the James Lee Burke I found to bring along, Cadillac Jukebox. Classic Burke with Robicheaux going it alone (despite being a member of law enforcement) in renegade cowboy fashion against massive injustice, including the racial and sexual kinds. Clete Purcel makes a few minor appearances, and New Iberia, New Orleans, and the surrounding environs are strongly evoked. Burke writes beautiful, poetic, prose with an appreciation for nature. These are great books. But, I’m noticing that the more time I spend with Connelly and Child, the slower Burke feels to me. His books aren’t slowly paced by any means, but they’re decidedly more leisurely than the other two. Robicheaux is also a bad-boy loner, also with soft spots (the wife in this book is Bootsie and daughter Alafair is present as well), but his self-destructive tendencies almost feel more pronounced to me. Where Reacher is fairly well outside society, completely outside law enforcement, has no ties, and is completely unstoppable in physical combat, Burke is more human and seems to have more to lose. Where Bosch has loyal compatriots in the force and a teflon-like mastery of department politics, Burke feels isolated and more vulnerable. Here in Cadillac Jukebox he gets wrongly accused of sexual assault and is threatened with the loss of his health insurance, both of which somehow feel unlikely with Bosch, who (in the course of the series) leaves and returns to the LAPD without significantly changing his relationship with crime investigation. At any rate, full marks for Burke as usual, but I’m starting to notice that he’s not the perfect counterpart to Connelly I once thought he was – that might be Child – while on the other hand, I just had a patron request Connelly and Burke in the same sentence, so clearly I’m not alone in my tastes!

I was without reading material for the flight home 😦 but I made it anyway, and am now back to Avi Steinberg’s Running the Books and ready to render a verdict on the questions I asked earlier. Not tiresome, but fascinating and engaging! It took long enough, but by halfway through, I’m hooked and anxious to get back into it. The separate story lines have converged, if minimally, but more so, they’re no longer anecdotes but continuing tales involving characters that I really care about. These are real people (literally, but they also feel real) and I mourn them when they die. (This is about prison; not everyone gets a happy ending; just past halfway, I’ve yet to find one happy ending, in fact.) Avi, the narrator, is emerging as a real person with some soulful stuff on the line, too; he gets involved with his inmate patrons and some of the larger issues as well. I enjoyed the tour he takes of past prison and jail buildings and his historical/social/philosophical/literary discussion of them (look for Sylvia Plath). What I called a clever and potentially pretentious writing style I have come to find engaging, contemplative, self-reflective, maybe even slightly poetic. I enjoy the part I’m reading now, about the difference between archivists and librarians, and which of them Avi will turn out to be – bearing in mind he didn’t have a library degree or any background when he took the job, so he’s learning as he goes. I’m giving this book an endorsement, in case you can’t tell.

Stay tuned… next I’m trying to decide between Still Missing by Chevy Stevens, finally starting Larsson’s series with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, or getting into the fat Sharon Kay Penman I’ve got looking at me on my desk, When Christs and His Saints Slept. What are YOU reading?

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