Review: The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth Silver

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Jenn

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Crown (June 11, 2013)
  • ISBN-10: 038534743X
  • Source: Publisher

Ten years ago, accused of first-degree murder, Noa P. Singleton not once spoke up in her own defense. Now, just six months away from her execution date, Noa is visited by Marlene Dixon, a powerful Philadelphia lawyer and the mother of the young woman Noa was convicted of killing.  Marlene’s view of the death penalty has changed; she is now willing to work to commute Noa’s sentence to life in prison if Noa will do just one thing: share what happened that fateful day.

Up until this point, Noa has refused to share her story. She shares a secret with Marlene, one that ties them both to the murder. Noa feels that Marlene doesn’t deserve the salvation and closure that she so desperately demands.

The author leads the reader through the past revealing Noa’s tumultuous life, raised by her selfish, self-absorbed mother. It isn’t until she’s an adult that Noa ever meets her father.  As the pages turn and the reader learns more about Noa’s life, she develops into quite the sympathetic character. Surprisingly sane despite spending the last decade in prison, the extent of Noa’s intense desire to take the blame for this young woman’s death is truly heartbreaking.

The Execution of Noa P. Singleton is an intense psychological thriller filled to the brim with twists and turns. While the reader knows immediately that Noa is imprisoned, it isn’t until much later in the novel that the crime she is convicted for is revealed.  Learning of Noa’s less than healthy upbringing, readers will want to sympathize with her, but since she is a convicted killer I found myself struggling with who to trust. Both Noa, given her crime, and Marlene, given her emotional connection to the crime, are incredibly unreliable characters.  Through Noa’s flashbacks and Marlene’s letters to her dead daughter, we are slowly given access to the motivations and feelings exhibited by each of these characters. The parallel narratives battle with one another, challenging the reader to come to his/her determination about the culpability and believability of each of the characters.

Silver’s knowledge of the justice system is quite profound. She has her own way of criticizing our current system, particularly on the side of the defendant. Noa had no one to speak up for her when she refused to do it herself, no one to examine the procedures and practices enforced both before and during her trial. Had someone been her advocate, done a little digging around into the crime itself, it is quite possible she wouldn’t be preparing for her own execution.

I found it quite shocking to read that this is Silver’s first novel. Her talent at teasing the reader, revealing information bit by bit and thereby increasing the intensity page by page, seems like it would come from a veteran writer. This skill, and the fact that I was kept guessing up until the very end, has me applauding for this author’s skilled talent.

A completely captivating, intellectually stimulating psychological thriller, The Execution of Noa P. Singleton is the perfect evidence to indicate that this is an author to watch. Highly, highly recommended!

About the author:

Silver, a writer, attorney, and former English teacher, is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, the MA Program in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia in England, and Temple University Beasley School of Law. She studied capital punishment with some of the nation’s leading anti-death penalty attorneys at the University of Texas School of Law at Austin, where she worked on a clemency petition, and later worked as a Judicial Clerk for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. As part of the clemency investigation, she visited death row, interviewed inmates and met with victim family members. While exploring the provocative and polarizing issues of the death penalty, Silver wanted to present both sides of the issue, and thus her novel was born. Silver’s taut writing, which has brought recognition from Glimmer Train, funding from the NEA, and writing residencies in Spain and France, carries the reader forward to the story’s shocking end.

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for providing me the opportunity to participate in this tour. Please be sure to check out the other stops in this tour; I guarantee this book will have people talking!

Posted in Crown Books, Crown Publishers, Review, Thriller | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Review: The Registry by Shannon Stoker

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Jenn

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Original edition (June 11, 2013)
  • ISBN-10: 0062271725
  • Source: Publisher

Years ago, The Registry saved the country from potential collapse. Girls are groomed to be perfect wives and are sold for the highest bid to their potential husbands. Mia Morrissey is about to turn eighteen years old and eligible to be registered. Her childhood was spent preparing for this very moment yet when she receives a warning from her sister who was recently married, her dreams of a fairytale future are destroyed.

Essentially, women are treated as property. They are not allowed to have their own opinions, speak unless spoken to, and must clear every action with their husbands. They are not formally educated, other than instruction on how to sew and cook for their husbands. Marriage is no longer based on love, instead focusing on what the young girl, a piece of property, can give to her husband.

When a husband is found for Mia, she suddenly decides that the life that has been arranged for her is less than ideal and she runs, taking her friend Whitney. Whitney has only a month left on the registry before she’s turned over to the government, living the life of a slave for its bidding. The two enlist (blackmail) Andrew, one of Mia’s father’s farmhands, to aid in their escape. Andrew just has a few weeks left before his mandatory four-year enlistment in the military and he intended to travel around the country, taking advantage of his last days of freedom.

Running from The Registry is rare and deadly, to both the potential wife and any accomplices. Mia’s husband, Grant, will stop at nothing to get Mia back, even if it means killing anyone who stands in his way. While the trio attempts to escape to Mexico where the registry doesn’t exist, Grant uses his influence to track down Mia, leaving several dead in his wake.

While I was intrigued about the premise of The Registry, I couldn’t get over a number of issues that tainted my opinion of this book. No one seems to know much about the origin of The Registry, other than it has been in existence for nearly a century. What was once the United States is now broken up into regions. Young girls are led to believe there is nothing beyond the area in which they reside, not realizing there is an entire world free of The Registry.  Granted, the life that we lead presently is so far from this dystopian world, yet I found it hard to comprehend how and why a nation would continue to practice such archaic beliefs.

Additionally, I found the main character, Mia, uninteresting and frankly quite annoying. She quickly alternates between a strong and independent young woman and a whiney teen who seems to lack in common sense. I felt no connection with her and only found myself rooting for her because I strongly detested the future she was destined to fulfill.

And then there was a love-triangle. That, too, was cheesy, over the top, and immature.  This title definitely leans a little bit more toward the young adult than I thought it would and this could potentially be why I was able to connect or have any vested interest in the characters and storyline.

The Registry is the first in a planned series, the second book due out in Winter 2014. While I can’t say I won’t read it (for I am truly interested in learning more about the origins of The Registry) I won’t rush out to buy it on release day.

I received a copy of this book as part of my participation in a tour with TLC Book Tours.  Check out the other stops in the tour…perhaps others will have a better opinion of this title.

Posted in Dystopian fiction, Review, William Morrow, YA | 3 Comments

Celebrating June is Audiobook Month! Going Public…In Shorts with Dick Hill

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Jenn

June is audiobook month! This year, I’m participating in something really exciting: Going Public…In Shorts, a serialized audio story production!

Spoken Freely, a group of 30+ professional narrators, has teamed with Going Public to celebrate June is Audiobook Month (JIAM) 2013 by offering a serialized audio story collection: Going Public…in Shorts. Each narrator has recorded a short piece from the public domain, including the work of Chekhov, Twain, Chopin, Poe, Lovecraft, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Wilde and many others, even Lincoln’s pivotal Second Inaugural Address. All proceeds will go to the Reach Out and Read literacy advocacy organization.

Throughout June, 1-2 stories will be released online each day via Going Public, as well as on various author and book blogs. Each participating narrator will be hosted by a different blog. As a “Thank you!” to listeners, stories will be available to listen to for free, for one week (online only – no downloads).

 

You can imagine my excitement upon signing up to join in on this fantastic project.  This excitement only grew when I discovered one of my favorite narrators, Dick Hill, had signed on as well. Partnering with Dick has been a true honor.  He narrates Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series, one of the very best thriller series out there.

Rather than interviewing Dick, I asked him instead to contribute a guest post about what he does, as a narrator, to get into the role of the character he is narrating. Without further ado, I give you Dick Hill!!

Photo credit: audiobookstand.com

The truth is, Jenn, not a helluva’ lot.  I’m a fly by the seat of your pants kinda’ guy.  Always have been.  I delight in doing cold reads, and with my wife Susie Breck engineering and directing, I’m able to do those safely.  Susie has won a number of awards, among them an AUDIE, for her own work recording books, and I trust her to keep me from going too far astray.  She preps our books, makes character notes that she gives me to work from.  Age, personality traits, education, accents, etc.   Unless we’re doing a military thriller, I don’t look at the script before recording.  With military books, I’ll skim through, marking dialogue to i.d. characters (often these books have groups of characters engaged in dialogue, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, POTUS, and a dozen others sitting around some table discussing some crisis)  Military jargon is something I’m more familiar with than she is.  

A typical book however, would have Susie handing me one or more lined yellow pages, listing main and secondary characters, with notes about their appearance or general attitude, etc.  I work with that info as a guide, assigning voices as we proceed.  Having read the book, Susie can keep me out of trouble if I choose a voice and approach that will get me in trouble.  Giving someone a nasal tenor voice when on page three hundred umpty seven it’s revealed that he was a rumbly bass, who sounds as if he gargles with ground glass.  That sorta’ thing.

With a character like Jack Reacher, we’ve been together so many times that it is very comfortable and natural to assume the role, but then it was an easy fit from the start, thanks to Lee’s writing.  I think the brunt of the work is done by the author.  Someone as skilled as Lee Child does a terrific job laying out specifics of behavior and persona for his main character.  He also has a very definite rhythm to Reacher’s dialogue that’s remained consistent through the entire series.  All I do is read, tell the story, the best way I can.  I can’t really explain how I arrive at all the decisions I make beyond that.  In fact, I don’t really want to examine my process, if indeed I even have one.  I’ve been getting away with it for a long time, and I don’t want to rock the boat by intellectualizing whatever it is that happens.  

Supporting characters are handled pretty much the same way.  Sometimes a person I know, or a character I’ve seen portrayed onstage or on t.v. or in a movie, will come to mind to guide my choices.  Then I don’t try to exactly mimic that character, but I’ll do my impression of my memory.  It may not seem or sound anything like the character that inspired my take, but in keeping that imagined performance in mind, my offering will at least have a measure of consistency.  (e.g., any book with a sub commander may feature my imagined version as played by Fred Thompson.  More attitude than vocal impression, though there’s a nod to his patterns and inflections.  Similarly, officious martinets may have me keeping in mind William Daniels, and wise, solid, salt of the earth characters will reflect my late father-in-law. ) 

I can’t speak to anyone else’s process, (hard enough to speak to my own) but I think most narrators prefer to work with the script more than I do, reading and perhaps studying it before stepping into the booth.  I love the challenge of cold reads, and perhaps there’s something gained by the sense of immediacy and discovery the approach engenders.  Then again, maybe not.  As I stated above, I try not to examine my process too closely.  I’ve gotten away with what I do for a good long while, and I hope to continue doing so.  I also hope I’ve given some kind of glimpse into how it comes about for me.  Hope it makes sense to you.  I think I’ve laid out, as best I could, the way it comes together.  Then again, I may be fulla’ shit.  Often am.

Learn more about Dick Hill and his contribution to Going Public…In Shorts! Finally, click below to listen to Dick’s contribution to the project: narration of Mark Twain’s Two Illuminating Stories: The Story of The Bad Little Boy, and The Story of the Good Little Boy

Two Illuminating Stories from Mark Twain (read by Dick Hill) by Going Public Project

Be sure to check out Paul Michael Garcia’s visit today at SFFAudio! Also, in case you missed it, Gabrielle de Cuir visited Teresa’s Reading Corner yesterday! Tomorrow, check out Devourer of Books for a new short!

Posted in Audiobook | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

BEA Bloggers Conference Panel Recap: Taking Your Online Presence Offline

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Jenn

BEABloggers_rgb_smThis time last week, I was in New York heading over to the Javits Convention Center for BEA’s Blogger Conference. My role this year, like the past few years, was a panelist in one of the many general sessions.  Specifically, I was one of three panelists tasked to discuss how bloggers can take their online presence offline.

Going in to the panel, I was told I would have ten minutes to speak on my topic and once all the panelists spoke we would open it up for questions from the audience. I was actually worried I wasn’t going to have enough to talk about. Imagine that!? Instead, it was quite the opposite and I had so much more information I wanted to relay, hence this post.

To start off, I’ll give you a brief summary of what the other panelists spoke about.  Tirzah Price (The Compulsive Reader) was the only other blogger on the panel and she spoke about how blogging helped her get a job at Great Lakes Book & Supply in Big Rapids, MI. Moreso, she is incredibly involved in the community, providing creative writing courses to the public. Additionally, she created a Facebook page for Michigan Reader Events.  Pretty awesome, right?

The third panelist was Wanda Jewell, the Executive Director of SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance). She spoke about how bloggers can best work with their local independent bookstores. To start out, the best thing bloggers can do if they have an indie nearby is to introduce themselves, become a customer of the store, attend events, and build up the relationship from there.

Agreeably, this panel did lean a bit toward support of independent bookstores and that appeared to be a bit off-putting to some attendees. I understand that not all bloggers are fortunate enough to have indies close to them. I didn’t have one myself until two years ago, so I get that. So, when I noticed the looks on the faces of attendees, I did expound upon some of the “offline” things I do beyond working with indie bookstores and how easy it is for bloggers to get involved.

Reluctant Readers After School Book Club

First, I created a reluctant readers after school book club at the local middle school and elementary school. The children who participated in these clubs were hand-selected by the teachers and parental permission was required. Additionally, since a lot of time and resources were put into these clubs, parents had to guarantee that their children would participate in these monthly book clubs.

The first year of this club has just recently concluded. Each club had 10-12 children “assigned” to it. Midway through the year, a large portion of the children technically “outgrew” the program, meaning they had overcome their reluctance in reading and were full-fledged book lovers! Obviously, I couldn’t kick them out of the club so we continued as a regular book club.

To select books, I asked my oldest son (the formerly and sometimes reoccurring reluctant reader) to pick a few books that interested him. If the book was out already, the school librarian procured enough copies for each of the children. If the book hadn’t been published yet (this only happened 1-2 times) I contacted the publishers who very willingly supplied the books to the children.

Additionally, each month we would have a big book giveaway. My son and I would pull together books we’ve received from publishers that we’ve read as well as some we hadn’t yet read and hand them out to the kids. I have to say, this was the one thing the kids looked forward to the most! Many of these children don’t have access to books outside of the school library. It was heartwarming to see these children, former reluctant readers, digging through the boxes of books looking for treasure. By far this is the most rewarding “offline” project I am a part of!

How to get started: Contact/introduce yourself you your local school principal or librarian. If you have a child attending that school, you have an easy in!

Hosting a Book Club

I host the fiction book club at my local independent bookstore, One More Page. This is a great opportunity for book bloggers! First, you have access and knowledge about really great books months before publication. In many cases, by the time the books are out you have read them and moderating a book club gives you another excuse to talk about books with fellow book lovers!

Like the middle school & elementary book clubs, I bring bags of books to this book club to hand out. They include ARCs I have read and reviewed and I’m ready to pass on as well as unsolicited books that I do not plan on reading and reviewing. It’s a win-win for all. You clear out all the stacks of books overtaking your homes and book club members get early access to books!

My blogging has really helped out with this book club because it gives me the sort of access to authors that the everyday reader does not have. For example, I use contact information for publicists and can get in touch with them about arranging a visit with the author or, if that isn’t an option, a phone call from the author.  Last night I hosted the June meeting of our book club and we had the opportunity to chat with Nichole Bernier about her book, The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D.  Book club members tend to like these meetings the best: in addition to chatting about the book we get the unique opportunity to talk to the author about the book, asking questions about their motivation and inspiration. A real treat!

How to get started: Contact your local bookstore, library, etc. See if they have an existing book club.  If they do, offer to host every once in a while. If not, suggest that they start one! Specialized book clubs (non-fiction, mystery, spiritual, children’s) are great options as well!

Library Support

The final “offline” project I work on is providing support to my local library. Library budgets have been cut severely and unfortunately they don’t have the level of staff and support they once had. Mine in particular doesn’t have the resources to do a lot of the work involved in running the library book club, so I pitch in. I help pick the book, provide resources and discussion questions about the book (if not available by the publisher) and pretty much do everything but run the book club.  This typically takes me a few hours a month and really lessons the weight and pressure on the librarians to keep running programs with limited resources.

How to get started: Introduce yourself to your local library! Volunteer your time in other ways (offer to shelve books, etc.) and build up a relationship from there.

Reading to Under-privileged children

My county has a literacy council. One of the volunteer opportunities is a program in which trained volunteers read bedtime stories to children in shelters. This one takes a great deal of commitment but by far is quite rewarding!

In addition to these “offline” opportunities, I also mentioned a few online opportunities I’ve gained access to since becoming a blogger. To keep it short, these include several freelance writing opportunities and participation as one of the founding members (and community outreach director) for Bloggers Recommend!

If you have any questions about any of these programs and/or would like more information, please do not hesitate to contact me either via the comments below by emailing me (jennsbookshelfATgmail.com).

Posted in Bookish Chatter | 5 Comments

Review: A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Jenn

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Putnam Adult (May 30, 2013)
  • ISBN-10: 039916216X
  • Source: Publisher

It’s Memorial Day weekend in 1938. Following family tradition, Lily Dane has left her life in New York and returned with her family to the oceanfront community of Seaview, Rhode Island. Her plans for a peaceful, relaxing summer are changed when the Greenwalds return to Seaview. A painful past full of heartbreaking events comes rushing back to Lily.

Nick and Budgie Greenwald once played a big role in Lily’s life. Budgie was Lily’s best friend; they grew up together sharing many fond memories of Seaview. Nick was once Lily’s fiance, their relationship destroyed seven years ago. Nick and Budgie have recently married, an event that raised quite a few eyebrows and stirred up the gossip in Seaview.

Budgie has returned to Seaview in the hopes of reconstructing her family’s old house…and her relationship with Lily as well. Always one to be the center of the social scene, Budgie takes it upon herself to try to set Lily up with Yankees pitcher Graham Pendleton, a “friend” of hers from their college days. Despite this, Lily’s love for Nick cannot be diminished and despite Budgie’s attempts to push her on Graham, Lily can’t stop thinking about Nick. The two are forced to revisit the events that pushed them apart, facing the emotional devastation that ended their relationship. Both are bound by intense emotional obligations, yet when the true circumstances are revealed, both see one another in a completely new light. A a horrific hurricane looms, Lily and Nick must face and overcome their own emotional storms, changing their lives forever.

The setting of this novel plays quite the integral role in this story. A calm, serene beach in the path of a looming hurricane. It’s not hard to draw the connection between what is happening in the setting to that of Nick and Lily’s relationship. This setting is also what will draw readers to embrace this novel. Who can resist a warm beach in the summer, warm sand under your toes?

While I’m typically turned off by love stories in general, the feeling I had after reading Williams’ previous title, Overseas, allowed me to take a chance and dive into this novel.  As I suspected, I was quickly wrapped up, nearly obsessed, with Nick and Lily’s love. Perhaps because it is a love that is true and classic, one that has succeeded in standing the test of time. Using chapters with alternating time periods, Williams so eloquently builds up each of the characters, detailing their transformation and emotional evolution over the past several years.

The characters are extremely rich in this novel. Williams is quite successful at balancing Budgie’s outrageous and obnoxious behavior with the serenity, calm and innocence found in Lily.  How the two could have been friends for so long is beyond me! And the love triangle/square!? Wowser. It was quite intense, I found myself furiously turning the pages to find out what was going to happen.  And the passion? Well, you’ll see for yourself.

My only complaint would be the ending.  I’m ecstatic about what transpired but thought it was an easy means to get to the desired ending. That said, the rich beauty and beautiful writing throughout the novel, the truly dynamic and captivating storyline, really won me over in the end.  If you are looking for a beautiful, rich novel to take you away this summer, this is the title for you. Highly, highly recommended.

Posted in Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Putnam, Review, Romance | 5 Comments

A Month in Review: May 2013

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Jenn

Whew, I’m still recovering from BEA but just had to post about the books I read in May. What a whirlwind of a month!
Books Reviewed

Total books reviewed: 17

Pick of the month: You all know I can never pick just one, right? This month, I’m limiting it to my top three favorite books. Each of these books really stand out as truly outstanding reads:

 

How was your reading month? What were some of your favorite reads?

Posted in Month in Review | 1 Comment

BEA Bound: The Best of Jenn’s Bookshelves

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Jenn

Tuesday I will be heading to New York City for Book Expo America, the biggest publishing conference/exposition in North America.

BEA Bloggers Conference

Wednesday, I will be participating in BEA Bloggers Conference. Specifically, I will be on a panel discussing how blogging, a typically online behavior and experience, has spread offline, offering me numerous opportunities and experiences. These include my relationship with my local independent bookstore, #IndieThursday, and much more.

If you are going to be at BEA and see me aimlessly walking up and down the aisles, don’t be afraid to say hello! Also, if you do want to meet up, I will be checking email messages periodically. Feel free to shoot me an email (jennsbookshelf@gmail.com).

I created a Pinterest board for all the books I’m most excited about that are supposed to be available at BEA this year.  I won’t go as far as fist fights or biting to get my hands on these, but if the opportunity presents me with these books, I’ll be happy!

BEAWatch
Since I will be in NY through Friday, I opted not to run any new content on the blog this week. Instead, I  would like to focus favorite posts from the last year. These post will hopefully give new readers an idea of the types of books I generally review, as well as tide over existing readers until I  return rested and invigorated next week!  Enjoy!

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Frightful Friday: The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black by E. B. Hudspeth

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Jenn

Frightful Friday is a weekly meme in which I feature a particularly scary or chilling book that I’ve read that week.

This week’s featured title is The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black by E. B. Hudspeth:

  • Hardcover: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Quirk Books (May 21, 2013)
  • ISBN-10: 1594746168
  • Source: Publisher

Dr. Spencer Black became relatively comfortable working with cadavers at a young age.  His father, Gregory Black, was a respectful professor of anatomy at the Medical Arts College of Boston in the late 1800s. He performed dissections in a time when medical cadavers were scarce and often had to resort to grave-robbing with the help of his two young sons. So, when he passed away, it was no shock when Spencer followed in his father’s footsteps and went into the medical field.

Spencer had a long fascination and appreciation of death:

When one dies they neither ascend into the heavens nor descend into hell, they instead become cured–freed from an illness and healed from the suffering of mortality.

During his studies, Black became intrigued with mutations of the body, in particular physical abnormalities.  It was difficult for Black to study living people with these conditions as they tended to die relatively early in life or kept themselves secluded from the public.

Like many other doctors, Black would sketch his findings. Unlike other doctors, however, was the extensive detail found in Black’s drawings. Metamorphosis  fascinated Black so he became quite interested in studying insects, in particular the cicada:

They are born once again from the womb of their own body, which is abandoned as an empty shell, and then they live the world…After such a long time in darkness, we can only live for a short while.

 

Still, Black’s interest in birth defects continued. He began a special surgical program at the Academy of Medicine focusing on the research of operable birth defects.  It was his hope that this research could potentially prevent defects in future births. He was granted a separate operating room and laboratory, referred to as Ward C. He had the newest technology making it one of the most advanced research spaces in the world.  His work in Ward C gained Black world-wide attention.

Unfortunately, the success of Ward C was short lived.  An operation on a young girl with a parasitic twin ended with her death, Black never really getting over the grief and guilt. This led him to stray away from his typical studies and instead move on to theories of evolution and natural selection. This way of thinking was completely different than that of others in his field.

His career and life would be forever altered after Black visited a local carnival. There, he witnessed several examples of human defects.  He was drawn to a fawn child, a deceased boy whose knees bent the wrong way and hair covered the entire surface of his skin. He resembled a fawn.  Black was certain that this specimen was integral to his research and so he purchased it for a small fortune. This specimen was the first of many secret dissections he would perform in his attic.

Black began to publish his findings.  Soon after, all of his funding was terminated. He was no longer focusing on studies that would enhance the medical community; instead he focused on his own obsessions. This obsession only grew over time; eventually he began to create his own unnatural creations, creatures that he believed were the ancestors of humankind.

Black’s obsessions destroyed his family and marriage; his wife was severally injured after she attempted to set his “lab” on fire. Still, he continued. He hoped to publish his manifesto, The Codex Extinct Animalia. only six copies were completed before Black withdrew the project and disappeared.

The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black details an elaborate fictional history of Black’s work; just a small sampling is summarized above. The second half of this volume shows the illustrations of these elaborate mythical beasts Dr. Black believed existed, as ancestors of modern humans.  The illustrations are elaborate and intricately detailed:

resurrectionist

This volume is an incredibly unique mash-up of the beauty of anatomical form with the dark and sinister. A truly beautiful piece of art, this book would be a unique addition to grace the library, or even coffee table, of medical students or those interested in mythical creatures.

Posted in Frightful Friday, Quirk Books | 2 Comments

My Experience: And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Jenn

  • Hardcover: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (May 21, 2013)
  • ISBN-10: 159463176X
  • Source: Publisher

In a rural village in Afghanistan in the 1940s, a father tells his two young children, a boy and a girl, a folk story.  The essence of the story revolves around family, sacrifice, and they steps a parent will take to save and protect those they love. The very next day this man, a poor farmer, is forced to sell his three-year-old daughter to a wealthy family with the promise that she will lead a far better life than the one she has now.  The woman who adopts this young girl is struggling to fill a void in her marriage, an absence that no amount of wealth will ever fill.

So begins an epic saga centered around this concept of sacrifice for the sake of love. Spanning decades of time from the 1940s to modern times, each of the characters suffer some sort of loss and spend the rest of their life trying to understand, come to terms with, and regain what is missing in their lives.

I am intentionally vague in my synopsis for the beauty of this novel is the discovery and unveiling of each of these characters and the stories they are destined to share. Additionally, there is no way that I may ever come close to fully describing just how monumental, powerful, and awe-inspiring this novel is.  I’ve read it three times since receiving it last month. Once for a blurb I was writing and the other two times because I just couldn’t shed the attachment I had to  Hosseini’s writing and characters.

Originally, this review was scheduled to post last week. I was devastated to learn that not only did it not post, but all remnants of the review were missing. I was heartbroken, almost more than when I turned the last pages. Yet, when I read this book for a third time, I saw the loss of my additional review as a sign.  In that review, I went into a lot of detail with the synopsis rather than focusing on how much this novel moved me. I saw it as a sign and encouragement to replicate what Hosseini does best: to tell a story about how much this novel impacted me. Countless other reviews of this title are popping up hourly, why add to what has already been done? Rather than focus on what transpired, I needed to instead detail how this novel has changed me.

I don’t need to prove this author’s talent and integrity to you; he himself has done this countless times before. What is truly made apparent in this novel, however,  is his expert talent as a storyteller.  There is beauty in every word he writes, his love for Afganistan and its culture shining through.  I found myself reading passages over and over again, reliving the stories and sagas and characters this author brought to life. One of the characters reflects upon storytelling, describing how it brings him closer to his father, strengthens their connection:

Father never felt more present to Abdullah, more vibrant, revealed, more truthful, than when he told his stories, as though the tales were pinholes into his opaque, inscrutable world.

 

I think this statement rings true for many of us. When our parents tell us stories as children, stories that we pass down onto our own, we are opening up a part of our souls that we often guard and keep hidden. The same goes for authors; with each book they write they allow readers to get a bigger snapshot of their soul, their loves and passions and fears. So, to me, this novel wasn’t simply a story following the lives of characters and their path to their own self-discovery, but a gateway for me to do the same myself. Long ago, my boys stopped asking me to tell them a story, instead opting to pull a book off a shelf. This book has inspired me to return to this, to cultivate a tradition of passing stories down to my children so that they may do so themselves. In return, I am giving them a gift of a part of me that they will never forget, a part of my life they will cherish long after I have passed. A gift that their children in turn can tell to their children, creating and nurturing a tradition that has been absent in our lives.

While this isn’t your typical review in any way, shape, or form, I do still implore you, dare I say beg you, to pick up this novel and embrace it. My only hope is that it will move you like it did me, force you to reflect on your own life and the traditions you keep. Highly, highly recommended.

Posted in Riverhead Books | 8 Comments

Review: Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Jenn

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (April 2, 2013)
  • ISBN-10: 0061950726
  • Source: Publisher

Molly Ayer is in foster care, about to “age out” of the system. When she steals a book from the library, she’s forced to do community service to avoid placement in juvenile hall.  She agrees to help an elderly woman named Vivian clean out her attic, filled with decades of possessions and memories. As the two begin the task, they soon understand that they are more alike than it may appear on the surface. Vivian opens up to Molly, sharing a part of her history she’s kept silent about for decades.

As a child, Vivian was orphaned after a horrendous fire tore through her family’s home.  As a young Irish immigrant with no surviving family, she was sent on a train that left from New York and traveled out west, known as the orphan train. Thousands of other children embarked on trains like this,  their future unknown. Many were matched with warm, inviting families. Others, like Vivian, weren’t treated as part of a family but instead workers or caregivers for younger children.

Told in alternate point of views, switching from present time to the late 1800s/1900s, both Molly and Vivian share the experiences and situations that brought them to their current place in life.  When their relationship begins, Molly sees Vivian as a wealthy senior citizen that couldn’t possibly understand the challenges she is going through. While she is placed in a foster home, the relationship she has with her foster mother is less than inviting. Like Vivian, who was a constant outcast due to her red hair and Irish heritage, Molly (a Penobscot Indian) feels shunned due to her own heritage. As the bond between these two individuals is cultivated, they each see a bit of themselves in the other, an understanding that not many others share.

Orphan Train is a heartwarming novel rich with dynamic, sympathetic characters and rich historical detail. All of the characters, including the secondary, become alive on the pages making the reader easily forget that they are fictional entities rather than actual living people. It is impossible not to form a connection with Vivian and Molly and celebrate the connection they have found in one another.

I originally learned about orphan trains while reading The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty. Since discovering this often unfamiliar part of our country’s history, I have become fascinated with the subject matter. I was pleased to see the amount of information Christina Baker Kline has on her web site about this topic, including the actual journey Vivian would have taken on the orphan train in 1929 to historical background information the author discovered in writing this novel. While this novel is rich with historical detail, the reader never feels like they are being lectured or overwhelmed with historical facts. Personally, I wanted to know more about the orphan train system, a subject matter I plan to do more research on myself.

All in all, Orphan Train is a novel is one that will resonate within me for some time. To hear of the journey taken by these orphan children and what they had to endure to find a home is incredibly heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. Vivian came alive within the pages of this novel. While I am not adopted, she has inspired me to learn more about my own heritage for she has proven the power and importance of honoring and celebrating one’s heritage.

This is a novel that is full of discussion worthy topics perfect for a book club, including love, resilience, endurance and more. Highly, highly recommended.

Orphan Train is the May book club selection for She Reads. Join us Thursday, May 23rd for an online discussion about this title. Click here for more information.

Posted in Historical Fiction, Review, William Morrow | Tagged | 5 Comments