Get Lost in Literature

  The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann "Storms continued to batter the ships day and night. John Byron stared in awe at the waves that broke over the Wager , bandying the 123-foot vessel about as if it were no more than a pitiful rowboat." Today's review is going to be a short one about The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann . I feel like the book really needs no long-winded synopsis written from me as the author so painstakingly put it in the title with just three words. But in case you need more information, here goes: In 1740, a small fleet of English ships set sail for a secret mission meant to foil the war plans of the Spanish. This mission takes them around the treacherous Cape Horn where disaster strikes one of the ships, the Wager . Eventually stranded on a foreign shore, Captain Cheap is desperate to fulfill his orders and rejoin the fight; his crew, focused on survival, want to turn back. I don't read a ...

  "The hairs stood on the back of my neck. All who were wise feared the god Apollo's wrath, silent as sunlight, deadly as plague." Circe is born to the sun god Helios and the nymph Perse. As far as goddesses go, she is unremarkable in every way; no beauty, no powers, and the insufferable voice of a mortal. She is the shame of her family and seems destined to remain so... Until the day comes when she realizes she can use herbs to bend life to her will. Circe isn't just a goddess, she's a witch and like most witches she must be punished for it and is sentenced to exile by Zeus and her own father. In college I had The Odyssey and The Iliad as required reading for a literature class that I had thought I'd enjoy taking at the time I enrolled in it... Spoiler alert, I finished neither the story nor the class. Thankfully Madeline Miller managed to write a Greek epic that was told in relative time lapse, meaning just because a story spans a thousand years doesn'...

The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained by Colin Dickey "...if you could spin a wild tale with just the right mix of fact and fiction, it would burn itself indelibly in the public's minds..." Colin Dickey, The Unidentified Let me just start by saying I don't believe in Bigfoot. I'm not a Flat-Earther. I don't believe in alien abductions, although I do believe with a universe so vast as the one we have, we probably aren't the only ones living in it. And Area 51? Ok, I admit I can't imagine what they might be doing in there, so hiding a ufo is probably as good a guess as any other, even though I don't think we've ever been visited... But how would I know? I'm on this side of the security fence. As you may have guessed The Unidentified is about monsters, alien encounters, and conspiracy theories, and why we feel like we have to believe in them despite there being no scientific evidence to ...

"...the horse is a living organism and a unique individual that can develop only at his own rate. The horse is the clock, and he provides the calendar of progress." Training Strategies for Dressage Riders by Charles de Kunffy I don't know if this book is still in print, but if it is and you are a dressage enthusiast, or even just looking to improve upon your horsemanship skills, this is the book for you. Like many books written by experts in their field, there are some braggy bits in the beginning, but I am awed by how much the author emphasizes having empathy and consideration for the horse. Too many professionals today are viewing the horse as a means to an end, and we need do better by our animals, be better both as riders and as human beings. Some of the information is repetitive, but the best way to learn sometimes is through repetition. Book includes descriptions of basic, but sometimes confused, equestrian terminology like the much sought after "collection....

"Pa and William could never be on the same flight together, because there must be no chance of the first and second in line to the throne being wiped out. But no one gave a damn whom I traveled with; the Spare could always be spared.”― Prince Harry, Spare I'm not sure how to review a memoir, I don't read many of them. With fiction I can usually pick apart the points be they good or bad, or criticize the shortcomings if they exist, but how do you review the pieces of someone's life? I really liked this book, but is it because I have a curiosity about royalty or because it was a book of substance? Spare opens with Harry's childhood and his mom's early death. First let me just say, I can't imagine growing up with people referring to me as a "spare" like, "Hey, you, you're extra, and probably a little unnecessary." What a toxic way to raise a child, no wonder he needed to get away. His mom's death shatters his world; he makes himsel...

"All the best plans are a bit risky..." Gulo the Savage, ruler of his homeland in the hard and cold North, is searching for a relic known as the Walking Stone, which has been stolen by his brother Askor. The titular character Rakkety Tam and his best friend Wild Doogy Plum are given the task of bringing the stolen royal banner home to the King and Queen in exchange for their freedom. Meanwhile in Redwall Abbey, Sister Armel has had a vision of long dead Martin the Warrior, who tells her to take his sword and deliver it to Tam, who in turn vows to protect the Abbey from those who would threaten it. When I was young, I thought the Novels of Redwall were some of the best advanced-reader children's novels on the market. They have all the hallmarks of a good children's novel. Always including poetry, songs and riddles, Brian Jacques was the master of rhyme. The characters are all talking animals, stereotypically cast again and again in predictable roles: we know mice, squi...

"...you cannot make an animal and not expect it to act alive. To be unpredictable. To escape. But they don't see that." Before I say anything about the book, I need to say Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park: The Lost World  are probably two of my all-time favorite movies so I can’t really help but compare the books to the movies. I’ve probably watched those a thousand times. The movies were perfection and set the bar high; I never read the book because I was afraid it would suck and then how would I view the movie? Alternatively, what if the book was better and then the movie suddenly sucked? The third movie was a total disappointment. It would be a long time before I figured out the third movie had no book to support it, and I would then attribute the bad plot to the fact that the story had been nothing more than box office fan fiction. So I worked up the courage and opened the book. A short summary probably isn’t necessary with the story’s fame, but just in case, here goe...

"I have a life and you have a life, however different they may be. The question is: Who has the power?" Let me start by talking about the very frustrating wait I had for this book. That its original language is Swedish, and I don't know a word of it. And if Swedish publishing was anything like the US: first run hardback, 2nd run paperback, I'd only have 2 years to wait. And then I found out the English edition was only released in Australia! Then I was irritated. No one seemed to know if the book was coming to the US. It was an additional 2 years for that decision to be made. I'm not the kind who likes to wait so I went out of my mind. And now that I've finally read the book... I love this guy! This is the camping trip from hell. Four families wake up to find that the world as they know it, disappeared over night. Nothing connects the unlucky campers, except the endless expanse of grass and the too perfect sky that they find themselves staring at with horror. ...

  "The chill came at him. The corridor he was standing in was several degrees colder than the rest of the hospital. The sweat on his body congealed into a cold film, made him shiver." There's a heatwave in Stockholm and nobody can shut off their electrical appliances. There seems to be an electric pulse in the air and the headaches won't stop. David loses his wife Eva in a car accident and is so grief stricken he can't bring himself to tell his son. Elvy takes care of her vegetable of a husband for years and is slightly relieved by his passing. Gustav Mahler's grandson dies in a tragic fall, leaving him without a purpose. And then the dead wake up. I loved this story. It wasn't just another zombie-apocalypse, running and screaming and hiding from mindless murder machines. It wasn't the kind of horror that made me look over my shoulder, but it left me sinking into my blanket with a chill up my spine. What the dead want most in this story, isn't brai...

Birdie is a flighty, free spirited single mother who drinks too much and despite her love for her daughter, harbors a secret desire for freedom from responsibility. One morning she meets Arthur, a recluse who lives in the mountains. He's a bit odd, talking only in present tense and the townspeople mostly eschew his company with the exception of his father Warren, Birdie and her daughter, Emaleen. As their relationship deepens, Arthur invites Birdie and Emaleen to come live with him in his derelict cabin... But Arthur harbors a dark secret that he keeps from his new family. The setting of the book takes place in rural Alaska and the descriptions of the scenery, flora, and fauna are positively decadent. I've never been to Alaska (although I'd love to visit) but Eowyn Ivey's writing makes me feel right at home there. The characters are flawed in a kind of sad way, and beautiful in their own right. There's Birdie whose desire for freedom makes her somewhat selfish, goin...

"... there would always be darkness. But as long as you kept a light burning, it would be okay." After the coup to steal Daevabad, Ali and Nahri find themselves powerless in Cairo and desperate to get home to save their loved ones. Banu Manizheh finds herself the tyrant ruling a broken world, with Dara trapped at her side.  Unlike the second book, the finale of The Daevabad Trilogy is an action-packed adventure, which is really good news considering the book is just shy of 800 pages. It's super fast-paced, with dramatic plot twists. Magic and murder, djinn and Gods, and pirates. That's right, this one's got pirates. Chakraborty's writing is richly descriptive creating settings and characters that are vivid and beautiful even at the most brutal of moments. And there are plenty of brutal moments because Manizheh's worse than Ghassan - I honestly don't know why she wouldn't marry him; they were perfect for each other. I think my favorite parts of thi...

 So this is the part where I normally drop a quote from the book, but due to restrictions on ARCs, I'm not allowed to do that. Birdie is a flighty, free spirited single mother who drinks too much and despite her love for her daughter, harbors a secret desire for freedom from responsibility. One morning she meets Arthur, a recluse who lives in the mountains. He's a bit odd, talking only in present tense and the townspeople mostly eschew his company with the exception of his father Warren, Birdie and her daughter, Emaleen. As their relationship deepens, Arthur invites Birdie and Emaleen to come live with him in his derelict cabin... But Arthur harbors a dark secret that he keeps from his new family. The setting of the book takes place in rural Alaska and the descriptions of the scenery, flora, and fauna are positively decadent. I've never been to Alaska (although I'd love to visit) but Eowyn Ivey's writing makes me feel right at home there. The characters are flawed i...

"The English are never going to think I'm posh, but if I fit into their fantasy, then they'll at least think I'm royalty."   Robin Swift is a Cantonese boy rescued from cholera and spirited away to London by his new caretaker, Professor Lovell. Professor Lovell impresses upon Robin the importance of words and makes him spend every moment studying language. Robin works hard to impress the Professor and before long he's accepted into the college of Babel... A school designed to study language so it can be translated into magic. I really liked this book. To start with, the writing was absolutely impeccable, including very literal word play, and even though I'm no linguist, the translations seemed well-researched. The setting is designed to mirror our own world, making it easy to imagine the fantasy is real. Within the story, the author included footnotes that added to the story's intrigue rather than slowing it down. The plot had plenty of meat on its bon...

  "What's done in the dark always comes to the light." Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones Today's review is short and to the point. I don't really feel the need to summarize the book as it's blurb is pretty accurate, except where it calls Skeet's dog his "prize pitbull." The dog, China reads as her own unique character, same as the kids her fight and loyalty run strong in her blood. But for those of you who've never heard of it, this is about a family living in rural Mississippi. It's about the kids who rule the household as the father drinks himself into a stupor, at a time when Hurricane Katrina is coming ashore to tear their worlds apart. The opening chapter is kind of weird, detailing the dog giving birth, but afterwards, I couldn't put the story down. The bond between the children runs deep, which is good thing because the father is not Father of the Year. His kids take care of him, rather than the other way around. The hurricane bar...

The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained  by Colin Dickey "...if you could spin a wild tale with just the right mix of fact and fiction, it would burn itself indelibly in the public's minds..." Colin Dickey, The Unidentified Let me just start by saying I don't believe in Bigfoot. I'm not a Flat-Earther. I don't believe in alien abductions, although I do believe with a universe so vast as the one we have, we probably aren't the only ones living in it. And Area 51? Ok, I admit I can't imagine what they might be doing in there, so hiding a ufo is probably as good a guess as any other, even though I don't think we've been visited... But how would I know? I'm on this side of the security fence. As you may have guessed The Unidentified  is about monsters, alien encounters, and conspiracy theories, and why we feel like we have to believe in them despite there being no scientific evidence to back...

  "All the best plans are a bit risky..." Gulo the Savage, ruler of his homeland in the hard and cold North, is searching for a relic known as the Walking Stone, which has been stolen by his brother Askor. The titular character Rakkety Tam and his best friend Wild Doogy Plum are given the task of bringing the stolen royal banner home to the King and Queen in exchange for their freedom. Meanwhile in Redwall Abbey, Sister Armel has had a vision of long dead Martin the Warrior, who tells her to take his sword and deliver it to Tam, who in turn vows to protect the Abbey from those who would threaten it. When I was young, I thought the Novels of Redwall were some of the best advanced-reader children's novels on the market. They have all the hallmarks of a good children's novel. Always including poetry, songs and riddles, Brian Jacques was the master of rhyme. The characters are all talking animals, stereotypically cast again and again in predictable roles: we know mice, s...

  "Pa and William could never be on the same flight together, because there must be no chance of the first and second in line to the throne being wiped out. But no one gave a damn whom I traveled with; the Spare could always be spared.”― Prince Harry, Spare I'm not sure how to review a memoir, I don't read many of them. With fiction I can usually pick apart the points be they good or bad, or criticize the shortcomings if they exist, but how do you review the pieces of someone's life? I really liked this book, but is it because I have a curiosity about royalty or because it was a book of substance? Spare opens with Harry's childhood and his mom's early death. First let me just say, I can't imagine growing up with people referring to me as a "spare" like, "Hey, you, you're extra, and probably a little unnecessary." What a toxic way to raise a child, no wonder he needed to get away. His mom's death shatters his world; he makes hims...

  “The sun sinks to rise again; the day is swallowed up in the gloom of night, to be born out of it, as fresh as if it had never been quenched.”― William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist I would like to start by saying two things: 1. I know using Ex instead of X isn't quite the same thing, Ex being a sound and X being an unloved letter of the alphabet...And at least on my blog, this year, it's going to remain underappreciated because Ex was the best I could do. 2 Do not read this book before bed, unless you're the kind of person that enjoys sleeping with the lights on. The story opens with Father Merrin, who is working on an archaeological dig in Iraq and is overcome with a feeling of foreboding as he discovers a statue of the wind demon, Pazuzu. Miles away, in Georgetown, Washington DC, Chris MacNeil is finishing up the filming of her next movie with director Burke Dennings before going home to her daughter, Regan. A normal life in the day of an actress except for the Jesuit pri...

  “Tell your secret to the wind, but don’t blame it for telling the trees.” ― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns This book was very moving. It chronicles the lives of two women Miriam and Laila, who will become child brides under very different circumstances, to the same man. Takes place from the time of Soviet occupation to Taliban and finally Al-Queda. I feel like I want to focus on some of the more abhorrent character interactions for this review, the things that sensitive readers are bound to hate (and there's nothing wrong with that, if it isn't your cup of tea). Miriam is given to a man significantly older than herself by a family who is ashamed of her, while Laila chooses to marry this man to cover up that she had a family that loved her. Rasheed then proceeds to consummate the marriage, which by our modern day, first world standards, is a crime. By basic humanitarian standards, this is a crime. It's statutory rape, it's legal pedophilia. This is also a th...

  "'It wasn't rabies, if that's what you're worried about," Grace said. "She had some kind of blood poisoning...'" This is the story of Patricia Cambell. Belittled and patronized by a distant husband, subject to the typical abuse that only moody teenagers can dish out, and sick of keeping house and caring for her mother-in-law whose rapidly declining mental health is making life difficult for everybody. She's become a bit of a bored housewife, tired of her regularly scheduled day to day. Looking for a change, she joins a book club that only reads trashy true crime novels and dreams of a mystery in her sleepy little neighborhood...Until she gets one. Believing that there is now a serial killer living in her own backyard, she becomes fixated, so much so that her friends and family write her off as suffering from some sort of hysteria, leaving her to fight the evil alone. I thought that this would be straight up, non-stop horror. And while it o...