Get Lost in Literature

  Book Beginnings on Fridays  by  Rose City Reader  -  Share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now. "They buried Joe three days after his murder." Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben The first sentence is truly befitting a murder mystery, and I think appropriately designed to draw the reader into the story right from the get-go. I don't usually read a lot of murder mysteries, but a friend dropped off a bag of about twenty or so, so my blog is going to showcase them for awhile. (Don't worry, not every week.) I also won't be participating in the Friday Book Blog Hop  this week or next, so my graphic is a little inaccurate today... and next week as well. Do you like a good mystery?

"It was only seconds, but the moment between seeing Dara thrown in the air and seeing him vanish seemed to last an eternity..." Nahri is a con-artist in Cairo, advertising herself as a faith healer then ripping off her patients. One night, while performing a ritual, she accidentally summons a djinn... and he's pretty angry about it. Dara aka The Scourge decides he can protect Nahri from the forces she mistakenly awakened by kidnapping her and taking her to his world. There she discovers she's the last living descendent of the Nahids, a race of djinn that specialized in healing, and she can either fulfill her destiny or write her own.  I loved the characters in this story. I liked Nahri from the first sentence. It was five little words written to be cocky as hell, and why not? She's a criminal and she's getting away with it. Dara enters the story like a wrecking ball, so it took me a little bit of time to warm up to his character, but I liked how he's not q...

It's Friday!  Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays  and Friday Book Blogger Hop. Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by  Rose City Reader . Share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now. "You can't kill the truth." Mira Grant, Feed   I'm not reading Feed  right now, but I loved the book when I read it and wanted to share the opening line for it. It starts with this ominous statement that completely sets the tone for the whole book, but at the same time the main characters are sarcastic, blasé young adults who keep the story from being too depressing. It's a political thriller with zombies. Book Blogger Hop Q : Can you suggest a book that you believe everyone should read at least once in their lifetime? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer) A : The Call of the Wild by Jack London Let me know what y...

Today's Top Ten Tuesday topic (hosted by  That Artsy Reader Girl ) was listed as 'Relationship Freebie'. I went with Top Ten Literary Animal Friends. 1. Despereaux - from the The Tale of Despereaux  by Kate DiCamillo 2. Black Beauty - from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell 3. Manchee - from The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness 4. Buck - from The Call of the Wild by Jack London 5. Hedwig - from Harry Potter by JK Rowling 6. Athansor - from Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin 7. Ned - from Castaways of the Flying Dutchman by Brian Jacques 8. Rosie - from Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen 9. Richard Parker - from Life of Pi by Yann Martel 10. Jaws - from Jaws by Peter Benchley. (Okay, so this fish didn't make many friends but how cool would it be to have a shark friend. You'd have a swimming buddy for life, and someone to feed your enemies to...) Do you have any favorite animal characters?

"Dimly, distantly, I realize three things: the wind has come up so strongly that the small Meade tent that J.C. and I have been crouching in is flapping and banging like wash hung out to dry in a hurricane (I'd thought the noise was only in my throbbing skull)..." -Dan Simmons, The Abominable Jacob Perry is embarking on the adventure of a lifetime. After four mountain climbers go missing, he and his friends contact the mother of one of the missing men and promise to bring her son home, alive or dead. Their true goal: be the first climbers to reach the summit of Mt. Everest.  Let's start with what I liked about it.  The book was very very detailed. Everything you didn't know you wanted to know about mountain climbing is in this book... and probably some things you didn't care to know. Dan Simmons wrote this adventure in such a way that you'll feel like you are hanging off the face of a mountain, trekking waist deep in snow, and struggling for breath in the...

Happy Friday! I'm trying something new today: Book Beginnings on Fridays  is hosted by  Rose City Reader  -  Share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now. "He was an easy mark."  - The City of Brass  by SA Chakraborty I'm just starting this book, and it starts with one tiny sentence. The first word that comes to mind is: cocky. "He was an easy mark,"  not "He was my mark." The use of 'easy' makes all the difference. The second word that came to mind was: sly. Who has a 'mark' anyway? Hitmen and thieves, and people who are generally up to no good... I've waited all summer to start this book, the anticipation was driving me up a wall and from the first five words, I'm not yet disappointed. I'm also here with my usual: Book Blogger Hop This week's question: Q: What are you...

  “Danny did not think coke and computers were anything alike. But Jude had seen the way people hunched over their screens, clicking the refresh button again and again, waiting for some crucial if meaningless hit of information, and he thought it was almost exactly the same.” ― Joe Hill, Heart-Shaped Box  I've generously given four stars to this novel because I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, but the critic in me suggests 3 is more correct. I'd definitely give a 2 star rating to the book blurb because I didn't find it very accurate. Judas Coyne felt more bored than self-obsessed, excited by his macabre collection of creepy serial killer artifacts. His assistant leads him to an auction site where he can bid on a ghost: who wouldn't want a piece of that action? Unfortunately, the ghost turned out to be the angry stepfather of his manic-depressive ex-girlfriend. And his current girlfriend will have to help him save himself. This is ultimately a ghost story with a lot of actio...

Book Blogger Hop Q: Some people find when the days lengthen in August, they have more time for leisure reading. Do you have a list of books you want to read at the end of summer? If yes, what titles are on it?   ( submitted by Billy @  Coffee Addicted Writer ) A: I actually find I have less time to read in August. As summer draws to a close, I begin packing as much outdoor activity into my life as possible in a desperate attempt to keep the sunshine from leaving. I do however have a list of books I'm hoping to fit in before summer's out. I have two ARC's, Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey  and Elphie by Gregory Maguire. I also have a copy of City of Brass by SA Chakraborty  waiting to be read.

This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic is Ten Favorite Books from Ten Series submitted by A Hot Cup of Pleasure and hosted by   That Artsy Reader Girl . These are my picks. Wicked (The Wicked Years) by Gregory Maguire Feed (Newsflesh Trilogy) by Mira Grant Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter series) by JK Rowling The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking) by Patrick Ness Wool (Silo) by Hugh Howey Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children) by Ransom Riggs A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic) by Victoria Schwab Mattimeo (Novels of Redwall) by Brian Jacques The Island Stallion (The Black Stallion) by Walter Farley The Map of Time (Victorian Trilogy) by Felix J Palma

  Happy Sunday!  The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted by  Caffeinated Reviewer . I will be posting on the first Sunday of every month and I hope you'll join me. July has been a hot and humid month that drove me to do the thing I never do: wear shorts. My legs were so white all who beheld them will have retina scarring for life. It was a slow reading month for me; two of my reviews were recycled (new to the blog, but not new to life) and all the reviews were brief instead of the novellas I normally write. I just started The Abominable by Dan Simmons and   I'm hoping it's as good as his novels  The Terror  and Summer of Nights . So far it's been okay; I keep expecting something scary to happen and it's just been men and a mountain. We'll see. I've still got a copy of  The City of Brass by SA Chakraborty waiting to be read so that'll probably happen after The Abominable . The books I reviewed in July were: Flyboy by Kasey LeBlanc Salvage the B...