Posts tagged ‘books’

Feb 5

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

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 2

8 Comments

1001 Book Review: The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye was my favorite read of January and my first 5-star read of 2016. Find out why and let us know what you thought of the book. Read more

Feb 1

17 Comments

Love it or Hate it? The World According to Garp

love-hate-baby

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

15 Comments

January Monthly Recap

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

15 Comments

Terrible Reviews of Great Books: The Catcher in the Rye

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

9 Comments

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Science fiction is not my favorite genre but this classic had me rethinking my mild aversion. Find out why… Read more

Jan 26

3 Comments

Non 1001 Book Review: Not If I See You First Eric Lindstrom

Not If I See You First by Eric Lindstrom
Published in: 2015
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★
Find it here: Not If I See You First

This ARC was provided by Harper Collins UK (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis from Goodreads:
The Rules: Don’t deceive me. Ever. Especially using my blindness. Especially in public.

Don’t help me unless I ask. Otherwise you’re just getting in my way or bothering me.

Don’t be weird. Seriously, other than having my eyes closed all the time, I’m just like you only smarter.

Parker Grant doesn’t need 20/20 vision to see right through you. That’s why she created the Rules: Don’t treat her any differently just because she’s blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances. Just ask Scott Kilpatrick, the boy who broke her heart.

When Scott suddenly reappears in her life after being gone for years, Parker knows there’s only one way to react—shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough on her mind already, like trying out for the track team (that’s right, her eyes don’t work but her legs still do), doling out tough-love advice to her painfully naive classmates, and giving herself gold stars for every day she hasn’t cried since her dad’s death three months ago. But avoiding her past quickly proves impossible, and the more Parker learns about what really happened—both with Scott, and her dad—the more she starts to question if things are always as they seem. Maybe, just maybe, some Rules are meant to be broken.

Combining a fiercely engaging voice with true heart, debut author Erid Lindstrom’s Not If I See You First illuminates those blind spots that we all have in life, whether visually impaired or not.

Book Worm’s Thoughts: I have given this book a solid 3 stars. It is a good read, but for me it lacked that extra something that makes a good read great.

Parker, the narrator, is blind and she makes it into her trademark rather than letting it hold her back. Being blind is both good and bad for Parker. On the one hand she can speak her mind without having to worry about what people think because she can’t see how they react. However the lack of visual information also puts a barrier between herself and others and allows her to live in an enclosed world. As Parker is not aware of the subtle visual clues that we all take for granted. She decides how to interpret everything she cannot see and sometimes her interpretation is entirely wrong — something she is just beginning to realize.

I enjoyed the dynamic between Parker and her friends and I liked seeing how things would work for her at school, especially how the school buddy system allowed her to maintain her independence. I really liked the section where she starts running track and the solutions for how to allow this to happen, and her method of shopping to avoid being ripped off. I also appreciated the fact that Parker could be and often was a bitch.

This is probably my favourite moment in the whole book as I could just visualize it and it would be hilarious;

“The show begins. For the next eleven hours it’s the Lord of the Rings trilogy with Descriptive Audio turned on. It’s hilarious. Listening to the narrator quickly and dispassionately give deadpan descriptions of Frodo’s weepy expressions, arrows penetrating eye sockets, Arwen’s soulful looks of immortal love and the decapitations of countless orcs have us roaring with laughter one moment and shushing each other the next”

So who would enjoy this book? This is a young adult book and I think the target audience will really enjoy it. Among those of us who left school several years ago it will appeal to readers who like a good tear jerker. It doesn’t meet the weepy standard set by The Fault in Our Stars but there were a few moments when I felt myself tearing up. It will also appeal to those who like strong female characters, friendships-focused books and romantics who love a happy ending.

Added Bonus – This fulfills my scavenger hunt item #21: a book with no images on the cover.

Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here: Not If I See You First

We want to hear from you! Do you think this book is for you and do you plan to read it? Why or why not?

Jan 22

20 Comments

What to expect from The Reader’s Room in 2016

piktochart

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 21

6 Comments

Non 1001 Book Review: My Name is Lucy Barton

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Published: January 2016
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: 4 Stars
Find it here: My Name Is Lucy Barton

This ARC was provided by Penguin Books UK (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis from Goodreads; A new book by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout is cause for celebration. Her bestselling novels, including Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys, have illuminated our most tender relationships. Now, in My Name Is Lucy Barton, this extraordinary writer shows how a simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender relationship of all—the one between mother and daughter.

Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable.

Book Worm’s Review: This is a book about family relationships and how even when estranged for many years, family will be there when needed.

While in the hospital, Lucy is visited by her estranged mother, while Lucy wants definitive answers about her childhood, her mother is only prepared to reveal details about their life through stories about other people.

Lucy is a complicated character. She is trying to get her head around the idea that despite her childhood poverty she is lovable. While she questions if she can be loved, she has no problem with loving others. In fact, she loves most people she meets, including her doctor. She loves in all the different ways that love can be shown, and yes sometimes her declarations of “I love him” can get annoying.

Although Lucy is only in hospital for 9 weeks, those weeks have a profound impact on how she sees her past and ultimately how her future turns out. While these weeks bring her closer to her mother, her own relationship with her children suffers through her absence.

This is a first person narrative so its really important that you like the narrator and I had no problem liking Lucy. She is human. She bettered herself at the cost of her family relationships, but she still did it and succeeded. She is self-conscious. She has questions about her life, about what she thinks she remembers, and about her present and why things turn out the way they do.

Lucy is the reason I enjoyed this book. In some ways she reminded me of a Steinbeck character. Even when describing her impoverished childhood, Lucy doesn’t ask the reader to sympathize. She just tells you how it was.

I would recommend this to those who enjoy slow moving, subtle, character driven books.

Some of my favourite quotes;

“She was as beautiful as her face, I thought, and I loved New York for this gift of endless encounters.”

“But once in a while I see a child crying with the deepest of desperation, and I think it is one of the truest sounds a child can make. I feel almost, then, that I can hear within me the sound of my own heart breaking, the way you could hear outside in the open air- when the conditions were exactly right- the corn growing in the fields of my youth”

“I fell silently, absolutely, immediately in love with this man. I have no idea where he is, if he is still alive, but I still love this man”

“I stopped listening. It was the sound of my mother’s voice I most wanted; what she said didn’t matter”

“Both my parents loathed the act of crying, and it’s difficult for a child who is crying to stop, knowing if she doesn’t stop everything will be made worse. This is not an easy position for any child. And my mother-that night in the hospital room-was the mother I had all my life, no matter how different she seemed with her urgent quiet voice, her softer face. What I mean is I tried not to cry. In the dark I felt she was awake”

“Sarah Payne, the day she told us to go to the page without judgement, reminded us that we never knew, and never would know, what it would be like to understand another person fully”

“This is not the story of my marriage. I cannot tell that story: I cannot take hold of, or lay out for anyone, the many swamps and grasses and pockets of fresh air and dank air that have gone over us”

“But this is my story. This one. And my name is Lucy Barton”

As an added bonus this counts towards my scavenger hunt. It fits clue #31: read a book published during our challenge months.

Want to try it for yourself? You can purchase your copy here: My Name Is Lucy Barton

We want to hear from you! Have you read this book? Do you plan on reading it? What do you think of Elizabeth Strout’s books?

Jan 19

8 Comments

Featured Author: Julian Barnes

It’s been a crazy week for our blog and our reading lives. Our beloved Shelfari is shutting down and we both spent the week scrambling with group administrators to move our 1001 discussion group over to Goodreads and to transfer years of data over to GR and LibraryThing. Add that to the insane amount of traffic our last post generated — a post I wrote largely in the heat of the moment when I was angry — and our regular posting schedule ground to a halt.

So we are happy to get back to normal (albeit a little late) with our Featured Author post.

January’s featured author turns 70 today and will be releasing one of the most anticipated books of 2016. Read more