Get Lost in Literature

Palimpsest is an enchanted city, beyond our own waking world, ruled over by the impetuous Casimira, Queen of the Insects. It's a place where war veterans become chimeras, where the dead are buried in bamboo, and where trains pulse with life. Four people -- Oleg the Locksmith, November the Beekeeper, Ludovico the Bookbinder, and Sei the Train Enthusiast -- are about to earn their passports to Palimpsest, through the magic of a one night stand. Those who've been to Palimpsest return with a tattoo: a map of the place they've been. The only way to get in is by having sex with someone who has been there. But Palimpsest isn't a fairy-world. It isn't a place for those who are happy and content. This is a place where the sad and the troubled, escape to. Oleg is mentally ill; he's in love with the ghost of his dead sister. November, is OCD and alone, caretaker to her beehives. Ludovico is madly in love with his wife, but she's been cheating on him and now she...

My picks for the Tuesday Top Ten, as invented by  The Broke and Bookish . This week's theme is: Top Ten Books If You Like X (tv show/movie/comic/play etc.) I chose to do a list for those who are enjoying ABC Network's Once Upon a Time . This is the list for the young-at-hearted who can never get enough magic in their life. Betwixt by Tara Bray Smith. A group of teenagers who never fit in, find out why they fit in with each other. What-the-Dickens by Gregory Maguire. A dark and stormy night begins the story of a lost tooth-fairy. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly. A sad little boy gets lost in world colored by the darkest fairy-tales. Enchantment by Orson Scott Card. A retelling of Sleeping Beauty. A grad student rescues a princess; an event that takes him through time to a land of wars and witches. Neverwhere by Neil Gaimen. Robert Mayhew reaches out to a young woman in need, and finds himself falling through a crack to a world beneath his own. The Flyi...

...I'm stuck in Jury Duty this week. Everybody's got to do it, but nobody actually likes it. Who developed this ridiculous, miserable concept?

My picks for the Tuesday Top Ten, as invented by  The Broke and Bookish . This week's theme is: Top Ten Characters Who "X" (you fill in the blank)... I chose characters who make me laugh, and although the reasons vary, the result is the same. 1.  Stanley Yelnats. He had the worst luck but the best heart. 2.  What-the-Dickens. The first words an orphaned tooth fairy hears, is an exclamation of "What the Dickens?" and he becomes convinced that that must be his name. 3.  Elphaba. She's green and a smart ass. She loves to read.She's eccentric and a rebel. And if I'd gone to school with her, she wouldn't have rebelled alone. 4. Neville Longbottom. Socially awkward, accident prone, driven to do the right thing...If I'd have gone to school with him, we'd have been socially awkward together. 5.  Gilliam Murray. He's the villian....He's just not very good at it. 6.  Lord of Misrule...He is coming to Indian Mound Downs and ...

Just a little one today, little but powerful. "She was the book thief without the words. Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold the in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like the rain." Quotable Thursday  originally brought to you by  Bookshelf Fantasies .

"I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me." Death has a story to tell about something that happened in 1939 Nazi Germany. A story about newly orphaned Liesel Meminger and her new foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubermann. A story about Rudy Steiner, the boy who wants to steal a kiss from her, and Max Vandenburg, the Jew who lives in her basement. This is one of those books that exceeds expectations by such a degree, I'm left awestruck. This is not what I expected from a book labeled YA. The language in this book is simple yes, which I suppose is for the benefit of the Young Adult, and about a child growing up in Nazi Germany, but the story is complex enough for the Old Adult, with a pile of emotional triggers ( code for I cried...a lot ). The story itself, is narrated by Death. That Death would take notice of anything besides ferrying souls between worlds, lends the ha...

My picks for the Tuesday Top Ten, as invented by  The Broke and Bookish . This week's theme: Top Ten Bookish Things (That Aren't Books) That I'd Like To Own (new bookshelves, bookends, cool bookmark, a bookish shirt, etc. You can add things you DO own if you want).     1. Reading Room/Home Library     2. A Bookcase in every room (I do mean every room!)     3. These Bookends: But they're super expensive, and I'm super cheap.     4. A Prime Membership to Amazon, so I could access the lending library.     5 . I would like a decent book light; I have one that's LED, but the light is too white, and it hurts my eyes to look at the page. Something with a soft yellow glow wouldn't suck.     6 . A purse that could safely conceal my Kindle while carrying my other purse items.     7. A Secret Lair. Seriously, sometimes I just want a place to read where no one can find me and bother me. ...

This week I'm reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The narrator is surprising; the story beautiful and sad and hopeful (so far). While I clearly can't be trusted to present Quotable Thursday to you in any sort of reliable manner, I've got something for you today: "Still in disbelief, she started to dig. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't-- Within seconds, snow was carved into her skin. Frozen blood was cracked across her hands. Somewhere in all the snow, she could see her broken heart, in two pieces." Quotable Thursday originally brought to you by Bookshelf Fantasies . Hope your having a good morning (or night if you're elsewhere).

“They were orphans of war, washed up on that little island in a tide of blood. What made them amazing wasn't that they had miraculous powers; that they had escaped the ghettos and gas chambers was miracle enough.” ― Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs Jacob Portman grew up on his grandfather's stories. Stories of surviving World War 2 by escaping to a mysterious island off the coast of Wales where he met all sorts of peculiar children with special abilities. At sixteen, Jacob hasn't believed the stories in a long time, but that's about to change when his grandfather is murdered by a monster. Now everyone thinks Jacob is losing his mind and his only chance at proving them wrong is to go in search of the boarding school where the the students are most peculiar. As far as concepts go, I thought Ransom Riggs executed his beautifully. Picking out a selection of haunting photographs, to accompany a brave selection of haunted "peculiar...

My picks for the Tuesday Top Ten, as invented by  The Broke and Bookish . Today's theme, Top Ten Most Unique Books I've Read ( maybe the MC was really different, maybe it was the way it was written, a very unique spin on a genre or topic, etc. ). Evan Burl and The Falling by Justin Blaney. The word I would use to describe it: psychedelic. It's like reading about what I imagine a bad high would be like. The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale. An evaluation of humanity by an animal that wants to be human. What-the Dickens by Gregory Maguire. How often do you see books about tooth-fairies? Ursula, Under by Ingrid Hill. Get to know a family by reading the story of their ancestors. Songmaster by Orson Scott Card. A obsessed emperor and an intergalactic singer whose voice is magic. And enough tragedy and betrayal to make Shakespeare proud. Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist. I appreciated how the topic of zombies was handled from the emotiona...

Booklover and scholar, Edward Glyver, starts his story with murder and delusions of grandeur. To his own mind, Edward Glyver should have been a great man, but that future was stolen from him by his arch-nemesis Phoebus Rainsford Daunt. Now nothing will deter him from seeking out vengeance against the man who ruined his life. It was okay. It started great, don't get me wrong. The plot, the long winded descriptions, the well timed confrontations or lack there-of... If you like Victorian storytelling this started in brilliant style, like a firecracker set loose in a library. But by the time I hit page 500 or so, I began flipping forward to see how much longer I had to actually read. I began having to psych myself up to make myself keep going. Instead of being pulled along, I started clawing at the pages, looking for a way out. And when I finally hit the last page, I thought "Thank you God! It’s over!" The problem isn’t that the book was slow. Most of the Victorian-s...

My picks for the Tuesday Top Ten, as invented by  The Broke and Bookish .  Today's theme, Top Ten "Gateway" Books/Authors In My Reading Journey ( so your list could be a mix of a books that got you into reading, an author that got you into reading a genre you never thought you'd read, a book that brought you BACK into read ). Today's list is really small; because there isn't much I don't read...Which makes the books' gateway status  so much more impressive. The Map of Time by Felix J Palma --I picked this book up because the cover was beautiful and the summary sounded intriguing. Historical-fiction meets science fiction. I didn't know at the time, that the prose would be beautiful, the themes intense and well thought out, and I certainly didn't know this would be the book to introduce me too, and get me hooked on, Steampunk .   Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist -- When I was a kid, I gave a Stephen King book a shot... ...