Feb 15
From Finland we are heading to Africa. The Republic of Guinea is the next stop in our world tour or reading! Join us as we explore some of what Guinea has to offer in terms of literature and find out which book we selected. We hope you help us to add to the list of recommended reading for Guinea!
Feb 11
The Reader’s Room will be hosting our own version of a bookish March Madness, slated to begin with the start of the NCAA tournament (March 17th). Reading won’t start until March 17 and full instructions won’t be posted until March 1. However, this challenge requires us to do some preparation so it would be very helpful to us to get people signed up early. We hope you join us for this challenge!
Here’s an overview of what you will need to do in the next 10 days:
In the near future:
One grand prize winner will be selected to win awesome bookish prizes!
*NOTE: If you are a non-US reader and are unfamiliar with march madness tournaments, you can read more about what that is, here. It may sound complicated but it should be easy to figure out.
Feb 5
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
First published in: 1984
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by: Jen
Find it here: Nights at the Circus
Picaresque, whimsical, sassy, irreverent, and magical are a few words that come to mind as I try and describe this novel. Nights at the Circus was a magical ride that centers on the life and escapades of circus performer Sophie Fevvers. Sophie is an famous aerialist who claims she was hatched from an egg and abandoned by her parents, raised in a brothel, and sprouted fully fledged wings.
The novel is broken into three parts. Part one is set in London in 1899. Walser, a young journalist who is skeptical about the powers and reality of Sophie, decides to interview her for a newspaper entitled “Great Humbugs of the World” in an attempt to prove her to be a fraud. Yet, after meeting her he becomes enchanted with her and the circus. In part two, we find Walser working as a clown in the circus in order to become closer to Sophie. This section takes us deep into the heart of the circus and centers on an array of colorful characters and scenarios. The final section takes place in Siberia. The circus troupe is headed across Siberia to Tokyo but the train derails and a number of events ensue (I will leave it at that rather than provide spoilers). The novel is filled with magical moments, irreverence, and humor. Carter leaves it up to the reader to decide whether Sophie is really magical or just an excellent con-woman.
Nights at the Circus has a strong feminist message and is a blend of genres with magical realism being central. The heroine is strong and not the sort to require male rescuing. In fact, she is often the one who does the rescuing. She’s crude but in an amusing way and she is constantly defying stereotypes.
Why oh why did I discover Angela Carter so late in the game? I knew very little about Angela Carter before reading this book and when researching her found out that she had taught at Brown University (I have personal ties to the school) for several years. She died from cancer at the age of 52 and was named one of the “50 Greatest British writers since 1945” by The Times. Carter was known for her whimsical and feminist writings.
I really enjoyed this book yet I am struggling to adequately describe or review the book. It’s smart and funny and wonderfully quirky. I will be adding Carter as an author whose works I want to explore in depth. You’ll enjoy this book if you like magical realism with a feminist twist.
Favorite quotes:
As we say in our country: ‘tomorrow never comes’, which is why you’re promised jam tomorrow. We live, always in the here and now, the present. To pin your hopes upon the future is to consign those hopes to a hypothesis, which is to say, a nothingness.
“Perhaps…I could not be content with mere contentment!”
“We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity.”
He would have called himself a ‘man of action’ He subjected his life to a series of cataclysmic shocks because he loved to hear his bones rattle. That’s how he knew he was alive.
Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here: Nights at the Circus
Have you read this book? What did you think? Have you read others by Angela Carter? What do you think of her works?
Feb 1
Have you ever noticed how some books seem to drive a wedge between people? You check the reviews and find almost no middle-of-the-road ratings. Instead people either seem to love it or hate it. Well, welcome to the Love it or Hate it post category! Each month, we’ll pick one book to review and two contributors will battle it out to convince you to pick it up or throw it out. Last time we discussed The Elegance of the Hedgehog. The “Love its” won with 57% of the vote. Many thanks to our reviewers. Linda was our Love it Reviewer and Cindy was our Hate it Reviewer.
This month’s selection is The World According to Garp by John Irving. It is another book that is on Boxall’s 1001 List of Books to Read Before you Die. So the question is… do you Love it or Hate it? Continue reading to find see our two reviews.
Jan 31
Time for our first recap of 2016! Find out which books were favorites, which were duds, and which ones we are most looking forward to in 2016. We’ll end our wrap up with a calendar of book-related events/facts coming up in February and a glimpse of our upcoming content.
One randomly selected follower (email or wordpress follower) will win a $10 amazon gift card. Scroll down to see if you are the winner. The prize is only awarded if you contact us with your email address so make sure to check these monthly recaps each month to see if you won! We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read in January and what you look forward to reading next month. Have you been living up to your new years reading resolutions? Read more
Jan 29
There is no such thing as a universally loved book. Each month, we’ll feature a book from Time’s list of the best 100 English language novels of all time. From the nasty to the snarky to the downright absurd, we’ll highlight some of the strange reasons why some people hate these great reads. This month we’ll be taking a look at reviews for The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Read more
Jan 27
Science fiction is not my favorite genre but this classic had me rethinking my mild aversion. Find out why… Read more
Jan 22
It’s official. It has been one year since we started this blog! We want to give a sincere thank all of you for following us and participating in our challenges. We’ve loved hearing your thoughts on books and discovering all of your creative choices for our challenges. We hope you stay with us through the second year of the blog and we look forward to welcoming new readers!
For our one-year anniversary, we’ve been thinking about ways to improve and expand on the blog. We want to share some of our plans for 2016 and we’d love to get your feedback on the things you like most and least about your experiences here. Without further ado, here are some of our plans: Read more
Jan 12
It’s official, the day that I’ve been dreading for several years has arrived. Amazon, which owns both Goodreads and Shelfari, has decided that it no longer cares to maintain Shelfari. Officially, “Shelfari is merging with Goodreads.” But let’s call it what it is: a shutdown. I feel like I’m losing a best friend and I’m pissed off.
For those of you who don’t know about Shelfari, it is a book cataloguing and discussion site. I’m a member of both it and Goodreads, and they each offer different things that I like and use. What makes Shelfari special is its passionate and supportive community of serious readers. Goodreads is great but ,when it comes to book recommendations, I always turn to my Shelfari friends. Why? Because my Goodreads friend list is populated primarily by Facebook friends — many of whom read relatively little or and have vastly different tastes.
Shelfari is superior to Goodreads when it comes to discussions. The Shelfari site had the ability to “nest” replies within discussion threads, thus allowing for more in-depth and active discussions. It has been my experience that Shelfari members are much more serious about their reading (on average) and also are more courteous and respectful. There’s a lot of shaming that occurs on Goodreads that doesn’t happen on Shelfari. For example, check out this article from Book Riot that came out last year.
The worst thing about the whole “merger” is that Amazon is giving Shelfari members just two months to move all their data over to Goodreads. I actively participate in two Shelfari groups that have been operating since 2008/2009 and have thousands of discussion threads, challenges, and games. The move will likely kill one of those groups completely and severely impact the other. So two months just doesn’t cut it – it is rude and sends a message that Amazon doesn’t truly care about some of its best customers.
I get that Goodreads is a giant compared to Shelfari and it makes economic sense to be prioritized. Yet, Amazon should know that Shelfari members are VERY voracious readers. Last year I read over 170 books, many specifically recommended by members in my various Shelfari groups and I buy most of my books through Amazon. One of my groups has 21,000 members listed on the roster and the other group has several thousand. And those are just two of the groups on the site. That is a lot of potential income. How costly can it be to maintain both sites and keep readers (who spend lots of money on Amazon) happy?
Right now I’m wallowing in self-pity and watching my fellow Shelfari members grieve the loss of a site that has become so special to so many of us. So, thanks to Amazon for destroying something that we all love. From what I’m seeing on the discussion threads, it looks like you have sent a lot of potential business to LibraryThing and Leafmarks.
I know a bunch of my Shelfari friends are follow us here. What are your thoughts?
UPDATE 5/31/16: Turns out that Leafmarks (mentioned above) is also shutting down. Members received an email notifying them of the closure of the site effective July 1. I ultimately migrated to Good Reads since I already had all my books there. I also use Library thing but all my groups are on GR. I feel bad for all the people who decided to migrate to Leafmarks rather than one of the two more established sites. Now they have to make yet another move.
Feeling lost and want to know where to go? Here are some options:
Good Reads: You can track books, join book discussions, add friends/connections, get recommendations. Good Reads has a social media feel and since I’ve been active there it appears that they are making their interface look more and more like facebook. Downsides: 1) It’s owned by Amazon (that can be a plus depending on your outlook), 2) it is huge so hard to maintain those close connections that you likely had at Shelfari, 3) no nested discussions and don’t expect it anytime soon. Good reads users are very vociferous about their dislike of nested discussions. Upsides: 1) Amazon has clearly made it the platform of choice so it will be around for a while, 2) great database with options to add different editions and covers, 3) lots of authors are there so plenty of opportunity to interact with favorite authors, 4) a wide variety of discussion groups, and 5) they have a mobile app.
Library Thing: You can join groups, track books, join book discussions, participate in early reader program to get free galleys/arcs. If what you are looking for is tracking your books, Library Thing is the best site given the extensive number of features for cataloguing. Downsides: 1) harder to use than other sites and requires some playing around to figure out all the features; 2) no nested discussions; 3) no mobile app; 4) small fee if you want to catalogue more than 200 books. Upsides: 1) great cataloguing site with many features; 2) early reader program; 3) only partially owned by Amazon so for those who dislike Amazon; 4) really friendly users and helpful admins.
Litsy: A new Iphone app that is like a combination of instagram and goodreads. Upsides: great visuals, ability to link photos with short blurbs, reviews, and quotes. Downsides: Only available on iphone (for now), not as good to catalogue books and not that conducive to in depth discussions.
Rifflebooks: I just joined this site so I will come back again later to update. Thanks to one of our readers for letting us know about this site. It lets you track books, create lists, make friends, and they will provide reading recommendations. I’m still exploring all its features.
A few other places to check out include:
Book Likes
aNobii
jenp27
The Reader's Room 