Best Staged Plans

I know, I know, I've been dreadful about writing book reviews.  I've been dreadful about blogging in general.  But this week I'm having a lovely, restful vacation and one of my goals (aside from doing a lot of reading) is to get some book reviews up.

So, here's the book I read yesterday as I sat outside on the deck in the sunshine: Best Staged Plans by Claire Cook.  It was the perfect vacation read, to my mind:  entertaining, not too complex, reflective on some things with touches of humor.  You might know Claire Cook from "Must Love Dogs" which got turned into a movie (where John Cusack had virtually no romantic chemistry with Diane Lane but oh, well...)

At any rate, in "Best Staged Plans," narrator Sandra Sullivan stages homes for a living but is having a difficult time getting her husband to make progress on the plans they made to sell their home so they can start their post-children, newly-free life phase.  Sandra wonders whether she'd be better off single in the second phase of her life, and while she contemplates this question, she heads off for a property staging job in Atlanta.  She gets to know her new son in law, helps her best friend through a romantic mess, and contemplates how to stage her own life. 

I suppose this book will appeal to middle aged women, and I must say that I related to Sandra's mid-life crisis musings.  Where do I go next?  What am I now?  Who ARE these people I'm sharing my life with? Whether it resonates personally or not, Sandra's voice is funny and charming and many musings on family life will entertain.  I especially liked her thoughts about the art of "assembling" (as opposed to cooking ) which she does by fancifying premade meals from Trader Joe's and hiding the packages. 

It was a good vacation novel.  I'd rate it 3.5 stars out of 5.

Tired of Head Tilting?

This is one of the funniest and most clever apps I've seen in a while.  It's called Shelflook (available at your App Store for 99 cents).  And its whole purpose is to save you from tilting your head when you look at shelves of books at a bookstore or library.

I think I might need this. Not because I'm tired of tilting my neck, but because it's just so funny.  You scoff?  Just wait until you're eighty with a sore neck and I'll be fine.  :-)  

Rules of Civility

I am so far behind in writing about what I've been reading that I thought I'd just start with the most recent and add things in as I get time.  I think it's because sometimes I'm in the mood to talk about books -- and at others, I'm just in the mood to read one after another, in a haze of characters and settings and the continuing mental travel and reading affords.

So here's the book I finished last night: Rules of Civility by Amor Towles.  I found it on the new book shelf at the library, and picked it up based on the cover and the flap but without knowing much about it.  It's set in 1939 in New York, so there's a pervasive sense of life in the big city.  The main character, Katie Kontent (that name made me want to gag every time, it was so K-K-Kute), is a young single woman working in the secretarial pool at a big city law firm, while finding her way into the social world of the young, monied folk.  The story starts with a suggested competitive triangle between her friend Eve and the handsome Tinker, and then a car crash takes place that changes everything. 

So far so good, right?  Promising premise.  It had a vague F. Scott Fitzgerald feel to the story, and the delicious promise of moral doom to come.  But despite a variety of good reviews on Amazon and elsewhere (which I've read since finishing the book), it just feel flat for me.  It hit one of my pet peeves: male authors writing about women from a woman's point of view and just missing things badly.  The tone and the voice was all wrong and it just felt, well, MALE for this woman's voice.  There was a coldness to all of the characters that prevented me from caring much about any of them. 

And that turning point of the car accident?  Yes, the plot line took a turn, sort of, but it was relayed so remotely that it ended up feeling almost irrelevant, more as if the author decided he didn't want to write about the triad any more so he tried to think of a device to separate them.

I was disappointed in this.  You can tell, yes?  Really, if you're tempted to read something like this, go read Fitzgerald again.  It's far better use of time.

Book Cataloging sites

Do you keep track of the books you read?  And if so, do you use an online cataloging site?

I've kept track of the books I've read since I was a kid.  Back when we were in elementary school my sister and I started listing the books we read -- an offshoot from one of our favorite games, "Library."  (Almost all of our childhood picture books have crayon-drawn library "stamps" from when we took turns checking books in and out and recording them accordingly.)  For years, I kept notebooks and dutifully recorded what I'd read, the date I finished it, and my personal rating for it.

But some point some years ago I came across LibraryThing and GoodReads.  Being the exploratory and book-obsessed person that I am, I signed up for both of them and have used them both intermittently.  They are both online cataloging systems, where you can not only keep track of your own "have read, am reading, want to read" lists, but also see what others are reading too.

Lest you think it's odd to catalog books online, there are actually a lot of good reasons to explore these sites.  You can remind yourself of what you've read, and look back to see your own reading patterns, pace, etc.  You can find other readers who like the same sorts of things you do, and you can get book recommendations based on what you've already read.  You can read and write reviews, and keep an easily accessible list (say, from your Iphone when you're standing in the library or a bookstore trying to remember what it was you wanted to look for) of what you want to read.


I've loved both sites, for different reasons.  But really, I'm thinking it's kind of silly to be using both. So which one to choose?

The Gun Seller

I was browsing in a Waterstone's bookstore when we were in England on vacation, and stumbled on "The Gun Seller" by actor Hugh Laurie.  You probably know Laurie from "House" on TV, and maybe the BBC series "Jeeves and Wooster."  My husband adores "House" (me, I can't take the arrogant snarkiness of the main character) and I knew he'd just finished the novel he was reading, so I picked this up for him.

And, after he read it, he raved so much that I ended up reading it too. And my conclusion?  Quite good, very entertaining, a twisty engrossing plot, and great humor.  The plot involves Thomas Lang, ex-officer of the Scots Guard, who has been approached and asked to murder a man for a huge amount of money.  Not only does Lang turn the offer down; he sets out to warn the intended murder victim that someone is offering money to kill him.  Of course, complications ensue, not the least of which is Lang's fascination with the man's daughter, and everyone's assumption that he is in fact trying to kill Lang.  The story connects up art and the military industrial complex and terrorists and romance, all with high wit and genuinely skillful writing. 

It was a great find, and I hope Laurie writes more.

The Uncommon Reader

Imagine, if you will, that a bookmobile visits Buckingham Palace once a week, and on one of those visits the Queen pops in and borrows a book. This is the delightful premise of Alan Bennett's short novel "The Uncommon Reader." It is a charming and funny story of how the Queen's new-found love of reading affects those around her.

Bennett portrays the Queen as wry, intelligent, impatient, and increasingly obsessed with reading. She hides books behind the cushions in the royal carriage and figures out how to hold a book below window ledge level so she can read during processions and keep on waving. Her reactions to various books is very entertaining ('Am I alone,' she confides in her notebook, 'in wanting to give Henry James a good talking-to?' ) but even more entertaining is the discomfort of those around her as the Queen's interest in reading increases. She begins to ask visitors "What are you reading?" at royal events, thereby slowing the receiving lines and causing visitors to panic.

This is a very fun little book ( more like a long short story, really) and well with reading, especially for lovers of books about books. Pour yourself a cup of tea and indulge in this entertaining story.

Summer Vacation Reading, 2011

I'm sorry that this blog has been so silent over the last weeks. I've been having all sorts of wonderful travels and vacation fun, and sitting down to blog has not been a priority. And that's a healthy thing, I figure-- real life should always come before blogging.

But I have of course been reading all the while so I thought I'd jump back in with a short summary of what I've been reading, I should add the disclaimer that when I'm on vacation, I usually read light fluffy stuff. So I know full well that my reading material of late isn't exactly challenging literary material. That said, it was good vacation reading,

Sister by Rosamund Lupton

When Beatrice's younger sister is found dead in an abandoned shed in a London park, Beatrice becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her, along the way, she discovers a lot she never knew about her sister, including participation in a mysterious drug trials and relationships about which she'd not known. Written as an ongoing letter to her sister, this novel is engrossing and beautifully written. It doesn't just provide a thrilling mystery-- it explores the idea of sisterhood and family. I really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading Lupton's new one.

Sweet Temptation by Lucy Diamond

Pure chick- lit fluff. I admit it up front. But Lucy Diamond is one of those good writers who creates characters with a bit more depth to them. Here, three strangers meet in a Weight Watchers-like group and become friends and change each other's lives. This is set in Birmingham, England which was especially fun as I was reading it while I was in Birmingham. I love that. I'm not sure if Lucy Diamond's books are available in the US, but if you like this sort of thing and are in the UK or Canada, I'd recommend giving her a go.

Tahoe Night by Todd Borg

Here's another instance of my choosing my reading material based on my location at the time. I was vacationing with family in Lake Tahoe and my brother- in-law reminded me of this Tahoe writer who sets his mysteries in the Tahoe area. In fact, he has a whole series, all with Tahoe in the title, about Lake Tahoe investigator Owen McKenna. In this one, a tv newscaster has suffered a string of horrifying events (a car crash that left her badly scarred, the death of her husband). McKenna is hired to protect her and stumbles into a painting forgery ring. These are not the best mysteries I've ever read, but the plots are entertaining and of course reading one while sitting at the beach at Lake Tahoe adds to the appeal. The characters are a bit flat, to be honest, but heck, I've read far worse.

Skipping a Beat by Sarah Pekkanen

High school sweethearts Julie and Michael have created more success for themselves than they ever imagined, She is a sought-after event planner; he owns a big sports beverage company. But Michael is starting to want a simpler life, and decides to give everything away to charity... And then he suddenly dies. Julie is left to sort out the practicalities of their life together, but also the implications of what their marriage truly was to her. This was enjoyable to read, thoughtfully written, and gave me a lot to think about.

The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley

I'm a sucker for time-travel novels that aren't too science fictiony, and this one suited me beautifully. It's the story of a woman who goes to Cornwall, to the old estate where she'd spent her childhood summers, to scatter the ashes of her recently deceased sister. While there, she experiences unusual time warps that return her to the estate several hundred years earlier. Not surprisingly, romance ensues. But even with the somewhat predictable plot, this was quite good. It didn't hurt that I was reading it while on vacation in England, either.

So, what do you consider good vacation reading? And what have you been reading lately?