Archive | March, 2011

Biblioholic Review: Dolci di Love

31 Mar

In Dolci di Love, our lead Lily looks to have everything, a Manhattan apartment with a view, the most perfect husband and a powerhouse career but as we all know, nobody has everything.  Lily’s veneer begins to crack when she discovers a photo hidden in Daniel’s, her husband, golf shoe.

You see Daniel is posing in the Italian countryside with what looks like this perfect other family, a curvy dark-haired woman with a baby boy on her hip and a young girl who is the spitting image of Daniel.  Lily is flabbergasted, especially after all her and Daniel have been through, trying to have their own family.

Lily, in a moment of “tipsy tourism”, books a trip to the small Italian town where the picture was taken to confront her husband and his other family.  Upon arrival, the beauty of Tuscany begins to have a different effect on Lily. She is momentarily distracted by the troubles of finding a place to stay and maneuvering her rental car around the quaint little villages but it does take long for her thoughts to turn back to Daniel and his other family.  Lily hunkers down in little cafe after little cafe, to think about Daniel but mostly feel sorry for herself.  After one too many glasses of the local wine and fully entrenched in self-pity, her GPS of all things, offers some perspective on her situation.

Meanwhile, a group of meddlesome widows have plans of their own and Lily is unknowingly and unwillingly instrumental to their end goal.  The wealthy, handsome man that seems to always be exactly where Lily is, always rescuing her from one bad decision after the next, is no accident.

Lynch specializes in writing stories of women in far flung corners of the world and has clearly spend some time in Italy to capture the flavor of the small hilly towns and local foods and characters.  Lily is supposed to be a Manhattanite, unfortunately the time in New York rings a little less true but the time spent there is so limited it does little to disrupt the flow.

Lily is a flawed woman who is busy pretending to be perfect and through the help of a colorful cast of townsfolk, she begins to stop pretending to be prefect and as a result starts living a perfect life.  Daniel, the wayward husband is key to Lily’s story but barely makes an appearance until the end and for someone so instrumental, he has very little page time.  However the other supporting characters like Luciana, Violetta, Alessandro and Francesca add depth to the story.

If you want to be transported to the hills of Tuscany, sipping a cool, shimmering glass of Prosecco and nibbling on a heart-shaped cookies, this book is for you.  Really, who doesn’t want cookies and sparkling wine?

Dolci di Love by Sarah Kate Lynch was received for free by Boston Book Bums

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Jack’s Book Previews

30 Mar

Looks like Jack is flying solo this week with book previews. So, here are a pair of books he thinks readers might find interesting.

Padre Pio Under Investigation by Francesco Castelli- As any Catholic will tell you, even those lapsed, the legend of Padre Pio is strong. From his stigmata to his apparent supernatural abilities. In this book we get a look into the early 20th century investigation of this unusual man of the cloth.

The Vampire Defanged by Susannah Clements- Last year we asked, when did vampires and werewolves go from monsterous to monstersously lusted for? Well in a new book, the concept of the greatest villain in history turned heart throb is examined.

Bookish Intelligence Report

30 Mar

  • Perez pens a children’s book (via WSJ)
  • Love book design, then a show arrives in Kansas that will sure to please the eye (via Kansan)
  • A high school benefits from a book donation of over 500 volumes (via Destin Log)
  • After 2,000 years a group of lead leafed Christian books are discovered in Jordan (via BBC)
  • In New Jersey color books are used to smuggle drugs (via The Republicof Columbus)
  • Some designer’s thouhgts on how to display books in your home (via Seattle Times)

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Author Q & A: Sarah Kate Lynch

30 Mar

This week we are lucky to have a review of Dolci Di Love , the new book from Sarah Kate Lynch. Ahead of the Tuesday review we had a chance to chat with the always traveling but New Zealand-based Lynch, author of House of Daughters.

1.  Dolci Di Love is your seventh novel, and in each novel you take your readers to different corners of the World, France, Italy, Ireland and New York. Which comes first, your travel to these locations inspire a book or your book idea inspires travel?

Happily, it is a clever combination of the two. Sometimes the setting inspires the story, sometimes it’s the other way around and sometimes, as with House of Daughters, the two are inseparable. With Dolci di Love, I had the main character of Lily in my mind for a while, with the dilemma of infertility and a secret family floating somewhere nearby,
and then I discovered the gorgeous hilltop town of Montepulciano in Tuscany.

Over the period of a few months, all these things settled into the same slot in  my mind and the heart of Dolci started beating. Then, when I went back to Montepulciano for a second research trip, I came up with the idea of the Secret
League of Widowed Darners after noticing so many little old ladies sitting in their doorways watching the world go by. What if they’re part of a gang, I wondered? What if they are running this town? I don’t know if I would have
invented the League if I hadn’t gone back and spent more time in that particular corner of Italy.

2.  Is the pasticceria in Dolci Di Love based on a real shop in Italy?  If so, what was your favorite pastry to order?

Don’t get me started on pastries in Italy! I might never stop. Funnily enough, the pasticceria in Dolci di Love is the only part of the town that is really made up. It is based partly on a real-life pasticceria in another town called Montalcino where I spent a morning with the baker and although his cantucci was fantastic, his panforte was even better – especially the dark chocolate one. Oh my. Just thinking about it….Anyway, that would be my favorite. Physically though, the pasticceria in the book bears more resemblance to a cafe called Procacci on Florence’s Via de Tornabuoni. It doesn’t serve coffee but encourages a tipple for elevenses accompanied by tiny truffle butter brioche. Oh my. Just thinking about it…

3.  Obviousily travel and food inspires you, but where else do you look for a little creative push?

I look for people. Sitting in a cafe watching the world go by can ignite a thousand stories. Plus you get food. And, if the timing’s right, a glass of Prosecco. This, I am happy to say, is called “working” in my world.

4.  Where are you traveling next?  And can we expect a book soon from that locale?

I am as we speak trying to stuff all my wintry woollens into a tiny suitcase to head off to Hong Kong, London, Dublin and New York, where I am spending a month before heading down to Charleston, South Carolina, then going on a mini book tour to Colorado, New Mexico and the Bay Area. The month in New York is research for my next book
which is about a Southern woman who moves to Manhattan with nothing but a hive of bees and sets about helping everyone in her apartment building using honey and good manners.

5.  What are your reading now?

I just finished The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender about a girl who can taste feelings in food. I loved it and am currently devouring the far less foodie but still very appetizing The Paris Wife by Paula McLain about Ernest Hemingway’s first wife

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Cover 2 Cover: Silja Goetz

30 Mar

Today we chat with Spain-based illustrator Silja Goetz. The German born artist, who studied communication design, has clients ranging from publishers such as Harper Collins and periodicals, like Time Magazine, to upscale clothiers. She provided the starting point illustration for Jerome Charyn’s The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson. We were very lucky to chat via email with Silja recently and here is a view inside her world of art.

1- Who are your artistic influences?

I go to  a lot of exhibitions, whenever and wherever I can. Luckily I live in Madrid, a city full of great art museums. I admire Velazquez, the Flemish and Italian painters of the rennaissance, Dürer, Antonello da Messina, Pieter Brueghel, Hieronymus Bosch…

And of course I love the movies, read a lot, go to the flea market… and all these things impress me and somehow inspire me, sometimes without my noticing. I just try to fill my head with ideas and beautiful sights and see what comes out when I need an idea. Another favourite is Ramon Casas, a Spanish painter who was also an illustrator. And Jacques Louis -David. And Caspar David Friedrich.

2- What is your preferred medium to work in?

I like to change my technique quite a lot. When I get an assignment, I first think of an image and then I find a style that enforces it. I don’t try to bring the same style into every concept. But of course there are limits to my skills, I do not dominate any medium, and those limitations generate partly the so called ‘personal’ touch.

3- Is there a genre of book that you like to work on?

I would prefer to work for books that I would read myself of course. But the assignments that come my way are very mixed and sometimes my clients do not even send me the final result. One can do very smart art work for very silly books. I can only control the wrapping, so that’s what I try to do well.

4- How early in the publication process are you involved?

It’s usually many months before the book hits the stores. I mostly get a synopsis and maybe some samples of the text. Sometimes the publisher’s art director already has thought of a few ideas and I start to work on them and elaborate.

5- Is there a book, past or present, that you would like to create a cover for?

There are so many that I don’t know where to start. But there is one I would NOT want to do, and that is one of my favorites: Alice in Wonderland. For the simple reason that thousands of illustrators through history have worked on it in every possible way. It cannot be improved I think. Too much competition and too many images inscribed already firmly in my brain.

For more of Silja Goetz and her art, check out her website http://www.siljagoetz.com/

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Biblioholic Review: Midnight Riot

29 Mar

Midnight Riot is one part police procedural, another part magic 101, London travelogue and is an overall riotous good time!

Ben Aaronovitch’s Midnight Riot follows Police Constable Peter Grant, who overnight, goes from a smart but unmotivated novice copper to apprentice wizard in the Met’s oddest crime fighting division mandated to keep the ‘Queen’s Peace.’ When a head is popped off a British muckity muck and Grant goes looking for answers, his first witness, a spectral snitch.

Yup, from that point on Grant, the brainy but odd son of a one time jazz luminary, begins an investigation into a paranormal London of river gods, vampires, ghosts, spells, incantations and some painful carnal pining for a fellow PC and a young woman who oozes liquid sensuality.

Aaronovitch smartly meshes pop cultural with the deep veins of occult (as in hidden) history of London as background to the wanderings of Grant and his boss, DCI Thomas Nightingale, coming together to form a sort of weird and real travelogue of London.

While Grant is the story’s heart, the guts and soul of Midnight Riot comes from his superior wizard,  Nightingale. The second Nightingale was introduced by Aaronovitch we were hooked. He was the antipode to Grant, the geeky, slightly insecure cop, to the smooth and skilled Nightingale. They make a perfect pair, master and apprentice, each teaching the other something.

The second Nightingale strode into the story, our mind immediately flashed charm and swagger actor Bill Nighy with Trevor Eve’s Waking the Dead bulldog tenacity.

An important piece to Nightingale is that unlike many other magicians wandering around modern genre fiction, Nightingale, as well as Grant, ‘have a pair.’ They are gutsy, brave and bold. When something serious goes down at a residence in Midnight Riot (we won’t say because it’s spoilerly) Nightingale, an apparently old wizard, doesn’t whip up some convenient magic. No, he instead, kicks in a door and charges into the home like a good cop. But instead of armed with a gun or baton, Nightingale and Grant have a holster full of magic.

Some would be compelled to make Harry Potter comparisons, apprentice wizard and all. But the lil guy with the glasses, even as nerdy comparable to Grant, couldn’t live in this world. Some of the villains in Midnight Riot would steal Potter’s milk money and use his Nimbus to light their meerschaum pipe.

This is a wonderfully cheeky reality. Cops enforce real laws on real people, both normal and paranormal folks. No escaping to convenient misty veiled realms, invisible double-decker buses or far off prep schools. When a copper comes looking for you, magic ain’t giving you an out without consequences.

Midnight Riot’s magic, in many ways, obeys Newtonian laws, with a tweak here or there. Another reason why this was tremendously enjoyable.

Speaking of Newton, in Midnight Riot Aaronovitch also pays homage to Sir Issac Newton, who in addition to being the leading scientific thinker in history as also keenly interested in religion and alchemy.

Also, this is brutal and gruesome real London. There are shocking crimes committed, especially early on in the story arc that are completely gut wrenching. Not gratuitous splatter type of writing, but scenes of magically deranged killing portrayed in plausible and nauseating ways.

Interestingly, Aaronovitch’s style of writing is crisp and clipped in ways unknown in most modern novels. Perhaps it’s his experience in writing for television, specifically the stylized banter of Doctor Who, that provides Midnight Riot an especially engaging, witty and perfectly timed pace. The interplay is authentic, if we knew oddly urbane humans were interacting in a strange off center world of river gods and squatter vampires.

We might be looking back in ten years at a mini-renaissance of British-centric urban paranormal universe, each distinct from the other, crafted by entirely different writers, but all having a consistent quality that could result a truly epic omniverse.

That being said, Aaronovitch has a place at that to be set literary table. By far, Midnight Riot is the most fun, smart and brilliant piece of paranormal fiction we’ve read in ages.

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch was purchased for review by Boston Book Bums

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Bookish Intelligence Report

28 Mar

  • When a San Antonio newspaper reporter hangs up the spurs to write fiction for a living (via My San Antonio)
  • In Pittsburgh, Pa. a pop-up book shop fills the space once occupied by a Borders (via Fleeting Pages)
  • A loving look at one mid-west bookseller’s history (via State Journal Register)
  • This story flew under most Westerners radar, bombs in books in Jakarta (via Jakarta Post)
  • from her kitchen table to her book packed condo, Clan of the Cave Bear writer in Portland (via Oregon Live)
  • The oldest book fair in Egypt was scheduled to shut down for the year, but its success means its open another week (via Ahram)
  • Book clubs crack the whip of conversations on topical matters (via Sacramento Bee)
  • An Arizona school district’s choice of going with e-books early pays off (via Arizona Republic)
  • And in Connecticut, another bookseller falls (via The Day)

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Books in Battle: Reading Soldiers, Sailors & Marines

28 Mar

Soldiers have every square inch of their gear accounted for, packed and filled with everything from rifle magazines to water. And from their ‘battle rattle’ to their rucks, there is always room for a book.

Their lives are one of ‘hurry up and wait,’ followed by a tempo that would test the most hardened athlete, 1% terror and 99% boredom. And while they wait, or find some down time amid their daily service, books have always been there to engage, educate and stimulate soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

The spectrum of books in the lives of service members runs from escapism to helping to build family bonds from afar. From books donated by the public, to base bookstores and libraries, as one Marine said, “An informed Marine makes better decisions,” reading is an important stress reducer for American’s in harms way.

Books Donated

During World War I 90% of the books that ended up in the newly erected camp or ship libraries were donated, according to a Harvard Alumni Bulletin from the period. New Englanders were the focal point of book donations for troopers overseas, in part because Boston and the region was a debarkation point for Doughboys and Devil Dogs.

Spearheaded by the American Library Association, over 2.5 million books ended up in posts around the world. And while services have robust book lending built in, the spirit of book giving remains alive with organizations like Books for Soldiers and Operation Paperback, each channeling books and other items to troops since the 1990s. Operation Paperback has shipped over one million books to posts and personnel.

In 2002, after a nearly 60 years absence, the publishing industry went back to the military with the Armed Services Edition books. First created in 1943, American publishers 123 million paperbacks- from mysteries to biographies- were produced for GIs serving in World War II. Come late 2002 Hyperion, Simon & Schuster and Dover Publications all participated in these “cargo pocket sized” editions of famous works. Henry V and The Art of War were just two of the titles distributed to soldiers and sailors, totaling 100,000 copies.

Reading to Enrich

Each of the services engages their members, both commissioned and enlisted, in reading lists to help with their professional and personal development. In 2009 the Marine Corps Commandant’s reading list for enlisted and officers included non-fiction like First to Fight by Lt. Gen. Bruce Krulak. That same year science fiction work Enders Game by Orson Scott Card made the Commandant’s Read List for Privates through Lance Corporals. Another work recommended for the lowest enlisted ranks in the Marine Corps was 1899′s inspirational essay, A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard.

In Part II this coming Friday, we will cover soldiers opportunities to buy or borrow books; as well as how they can read to their family remotely.

B3 Week in Review

26 Mar

Monday: A pair of Bookish Intelligence Reports start the week, with general book news and one about booksellers. And ahead of tomorrow’s review of The Peach Keeper, we interview author Sarah Addison Allen.

Tuesday: The author who brought you The Girl Who Chase the Moon has followed up with the magical The Peach Keeper, our Tuesday review.

Wednesday: A special feature story about the book community coming together to support victims of the Japanese natural disaster. We also have a Bookish Intelligence Report and a BIR: Book Festival special. And Jack & Jill rounded up some new releases.

Thursday: Famed author Jodi Picoult’s newest book Sing You Home is reviewed by the B3 team.

Friday: A Bookish Intelligence Report: Self- Publishing starts our news day. We follow-up with the entire spectrum of book news in a BIR. We also interview Canadian artist Raphael Lacoste, artist responsible for the cover of The Windup Girl.

Next week we have a special two-part feature on books in the lives of American service men and women, as well as a fantastic interview with artist Silja Goetz, and reviews of Midnight Riot and Dolci di Love.

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Bookish Intelligence Report: Self-Publishing

25 Mar

We here at Boston Book Bums appreciate how many book bloggers and reviewers shy away from self-published works for a variety of reasons. However, we are willing to take a look at a self-published work for a possible review. And with more formerly published author turning the self-route, we feel the opinions are turning. So, today we add a BIR: Self-Publishing with news from around the world of known and unknown scribes turning to and finding success in self-publishing.

  • At one university, the Espresso Book Machine print-on-demand machine isn’t burning with use, but it’s getting there (via The Maneater)
  • A UK teacher sacked for a self-published racy novel featuring some thinly veiled versions of her real life (via BBC)
  • The economic viability of self-publishing as a revenue stream (via Christian Science Monitor)
  • In Canada, one previously published author explains why he went e-book solo (via Ottawa Citizen)
  • How and why ‘big name’ authors walk away from publishing deal to go it alone (via HuffPost)
  • Is a self-published super star heading towards a publishing deal (via NYT)
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