Half Yearly Review…

I wanted to do Monday Musings this week, but somehow didn’t get the time. So I thought why not do a personal half-yearly review?

Last year I read around 40 books and I remember saying that I would love to read at least 50 books in 2009. And surprise surprise, I’ve already read 49. How cool is that. This makes me more than happy. I’ve also been really good at keeping track of what I read this year, with writing down books read month wise and actually linking them to their respective reviews. It’s really no work at all if you do it immediately.

These are my favorites so far.
There are 3 books with 5 stars (Jackie, I thought I had read the other 2 last year in December )
5 stars:

Mommy I’m still in here by Kate McLaughlin
My Father’s Paradise by Ariel Sabar
A damsel in distress by P.G.Wodehouse

4.5/ 4 stars

Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe
The last Empress by Anchee Min
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Crossed Wires by Rosy Thornton
Dragon’s Keep by Janet Lee Carey
Cutting Loose by Nadine Dajani
Nefertiti by Michelle Moran
Drawers and Booths by Ara 13
The map of a known word by Lisa Ann Sandell
Bad Girls dont die by Katie Alender
Secrets of a Summer night by Lisa Kleypas (Not Reviewed)
Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Havely
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
The Heretic Queen by Michele Moran
Saffron Dreams by Shaila abdullah
The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax

Have you seen Swapna’s Review Database? I can only imagine how much work it must have taken.

What else?

Challenges

I have been so bad at these. When I joined them I did a nice separate page with all the buttons and links and all. But I guess I forgot to keep track. I did add a book to a challenge as and when I remembered.
I’ll just do a quick recap here and update the page along with this if I get the time. The ones not with the reviews have to be read.

• 2009 Pub Challenge

1. A Duke to die for by Amelia Grey
2. The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax
3. Saffron Dreams by Shaila abdullah
4. That Went Well by Terrell Harris Dougan
5. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
6. Falling in Love by Pauline Trent
7. Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
8.
9.

• World Citizen Challenge

1. Mommy I’m still in here by Kate McLaughlin
(Memoir)
2. Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani (Worldwide issues). I really want to read this book, but I don’t know when I’ll get the time.

• The Baker Street Challenge

1. The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
2. The Hound of the Baskervilles

• Chunkster Challenge 09

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
3. The House at Riverton

• Casual Classics 2009

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. Great Expectations
3. A trees grows in Brooklyn
4. Little Woman
(This list could change)

• Orbis Terratum Challenge (I’ve been really lacking in adding the links on the Challenge site. Sorry Bethany)

1. Saffron Dreams by Shaila abdullah (Author born in Pakistan)
2. Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Havely (Author born in Austira)
3. Cutting Loose by Nadine Dajani (Author born in Lebanon)
4. Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe (Author born in Nigeria)
5. The last Empress by Anchee Min (Author born in China)
6. A damsel in distress by P.G.Wodehouse (Author born in England)

• 4R’s Challenge

1.

How are you doing?

The extra tidbits in a review…

Okay, there is this one thing I wanted to ask everyone who reads or writes books reviews.

Don’t worry, it’s not about what should or should not be there in the actual review, but the little things that might or might not matter.

When I started reviewing I did not include any information except the review of course. But as I started reading reviews on other blogs I started to note down what I liked and what I didn’t. I started including information in my reviews what I wanted to read in others.

The title and author: Obviously.
The Publisher and the publishing date: I like to know old the book is.
The number of pages: As I have mentioned many times, I dread chunksters. So if you are reviewing an 800 pages book, I’ll not bother adding it to my wishlist. It will just save me time, rather than to Google it and then realize it’s too huge for my taste. I might exclude Classics from this though.
Author Information: Not necessary actually. I add Author Information only for new authors or review copy authors. I don’t see much point in adding information on Stephen King or Wodehouse.
Rating: I never rated books before, just because I found it really difficult to rate books. But I’ve realized that whenever I read reviews, sometimes it’s not really very clear about how much the reviewer really enjoyed the book unless he/she says, ”Go, get the book now” or “Outstanding”. You liked the book, but how much? Well, you get my point.

Should I include something in my reviews too? I just read on TheKoolAidMom’s site that she likes to see an ISBN. I never really paid much attention to it.

See? Confusion, confusion!!!

What do you expect when you see reviews? Or what extra information do you really wish people should include in their reviews? Something that is to your liking? Or it absolutely does not matter?

My Father’s Paradise by Ariel Sabar

Title: My Father’s Paradise
Author: Ariel Sabar
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Algonquin Books (August 21, 2008)
Hardcover: 325 pages
Rating: 5/5

I read the first 100 pages of this book and then I misplaced it. I was very disappointed as I was really into it. And then after some time I found it again. It had slipped underneath my bed from the tiny space between the bed and the wall. When I started reading it again from the point I left, I couldn’t follow the story, so I thought I would skim the first 100 pages again. But I ended reading them instead of skimming. And I’m so glad I did. I understood the book so much better because of that. For someone like me who didn’t know anything about Kurdish Jews or Zakho, I’m actually glad I misplaced it. This doesn’t mean you’ll have to re-read the beginning too. I know that’s just me. That’s just to say how engrossing the book was even the second time around.

In a small and dusty village called Zakho at the border of Iraq, nestled between the mountains and almost secluded from the rest of Iraq, a boy called Yona Sabagha, Ariel Sabar’s father, was born. Yona was the son of Rahmain and grandson of Ephraim, who was a respected dyer and was known to talk to angels. Yona spent his first 11 years in Zakho, a place where where Muslims and Jews lived in Harmony. But somewhere around the time of the Second World War, things began to change. The Arab Islamic movement took hold in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq, which resulted in conflicts between the Jews and Muslims. Majority of the Jews from the Arab World fled to Israel. Along with the millions of Jews, Yona’s family too had to go.

In Israel, Yona struggled with life and getting a job and studying. What really amazed me was the courage and conviction of Yona and his friends to become something, to pull themselves and families above the poverty line. When Yona was granted scholarship in the States, he decided to take it. There he met his future wife. So in a way his son Ariel did not experience or know what it was like to be a Kurdish Jew. He was an American through and through. Yona could never really accept the American culture, nor could he go back to his past .So he was in a way strange to his son.

After many years Ariel decides to go back to Zakho with his father in the hopes of getting to know him better and also to close the rift that had divided them for so many years.

I absolutely LOVED this book. It reads like fiction where he describes his father and his life and like non-fiction where he writes about the Kurdish Jews and the history of Aramaic. But no where does it get boring or over-bearing. The descriptions of Zakho, what it was like then and now, were mesmerizing. It was like discovering a whole new world.

The journey of a son to understand his father, his past and his own roots was beautiful, heartbreaking, captivating and hopeful. This book felt like a tribute to his father and the Jews from Zakho who are relatively unknown to the world. Author Ariel Sabar has documented history in the most beautiful way possible.

Very highly recommended. Let me know if you need more convincing.

About the author:
Ariel Sabar covered the 2008 U.S. presidential campaigns for the Christian Science Monitor and is an award-winning former staff writer for the Baltimore Sun and the Providence (RI) Journal. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, The Times Sunday Magazine, The Washington Monthly, Mother Jones, Moment, Christianity Today and other publications. He lives with his wife and two children in Washington, D.C. This is his first book.

Hot!!!

Now that summer is here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), what is the most “Summery” book you can think of? The one that captures the essence of summer for you?
(I’m not asking for you to list your ideal “beach reading,” you understand, but the book that you can read at any time of year but that evokes “summer.”)

That is a tough question, the answer of which could depend each person’s perspective of what summer is. I like to read books that will take me away from the hot summer’s here. I would like to read a book that is based in the colder regions or the rainy ones, something like Chasing the monsoon. You get the point.

But if you ask me what books remind me of summer, I would mention books that remind me of lazy days and relaxed evenings. I would put most romances in this category. I don’t like to read anything heavy when it’s too hot, it’s gets difficult to concentrate.

As I said I would put all romances (Lisa Kleypas, Nora Roberts, Jude Deveraux, Sandra Brown etc, etc) as summer reads or even Young Adult books that do not deal with difficult subjects.

I hope I have answered the question correctly. Even if I haven’t, I can think of a cover that reminds me of summer though

I know it says autumn, but for me it’s similar to Summer. This is the book I’m reading currently (which reminds me I have to update the Currently Reading section) and although it’s somewhere between the end of summer and the start of the rainy season here, I find this a perfect distraction

What books remind you of Summer? Or let’s say, What exactly is Summer in your parts like?

Son of the Great River by Elijah Meeks

Title: Son of the Great River
Author: Elijah Meeks
Publisher: Booklocker.com, Inc. (March 12, 2009)
Paperback: 144 pages
Rating: 2.75 out of 5

What do I tell you about the book? Even after 2 days of reading it, I’m still confused. Let’s start with the plot, shall we? Or what I understood of it.

A stranger woman gives Saffu a tiny cylinder with mysterious carvings before her death. All Saffu knows about the woman is that she is somewhere from the South and that the cylinder like thing should be returned to their people because it could be something important. So leaving his love and his people behind, he sets off to an unknown land.

Samhail is another boy who leaves home to go to another city. On the way he helps a girl called Rheem escape from her families clutches. When these two boys meet in the Imperial city, the King sends them on adventures against their wishes. What follows is basically their adventure in unknown lands.

Now the main question is ‘Did I like this book’? Before I picked it up, my younger sis said she wanted to read it. As I was already reading another book so I asked her to go ahead. She left it after 20 pages. I asked her if there was any problem with the book. But all she could say was, ‘The book isn’t bad, but I don’t know, something doesn’t feel right’.

That’s exactly what I thought about Son of the Great River. Have you read a book where you are not quite able to figure out what was wrong with the book? The writing was good; the plot was good, at least for the 90% of the book. The strange lands, the witches’ story was all quite nice. But it wasn’t leading anywhere. Everything seemed unnecessary. I felt as if the story was written in parts and then put together without any order. I was so confused at times that I had to re-read, sometimes an entire page. At one point I got tired of it. Although everything did tie up neatly in the end, it somehow felt weird while reading it. And the meaning of the symbols on the Cylinder because of which everything happened was a let down.

I somehow feel like that this book would have had great potential if it was fleshed out properly.

But there are many people who liked this book. If you go to Amazon or GoodReads, you’ll see quite a few 4 or 5 start reviews. The 2.75 stars from me is for the good writing and a few scenes that were quite good, mainly the witches scene.

Elijah Meeks

About this author (from Goodreads)
An academic studying environmental history and the digital humanities. My literary influences come from a wide variety of sources, some high-brow (Chekhov and Voltaire) some decidedly not (HP Lovecraft and Edger Rice Burroughs). In my first novel, Son of the Great River, I tried to give the feeling of early history without devolving into jargon or patronization. I’m currently working on two other novels, one a ponderous, Russian-style science fiction epic and the other an adventure story with a hero modeled after John Carter, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. [close] An academic studying environmental history and the digital humanities. My literary influences come from a wide variety of sources, some high-brow (Chekhov and Voltaire) some decidedly not (HP Lovecraft and Edger Rice Burroughs). In my first novel, Son of the Great River, I tried to give the feeling of early history without devolving into jargon or patronization. I’m currently working on two other novels, one a ponderous, Russian-style science fiction epic and the other an adventure story with a hero modeled after John Carter, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

Reading meme…

I’ve seen this meme around and find it really interesting. So I’ll give it a shot. I have sort of combined Jackie’s and Eva’s meme.

1. What author do you own the most books by?
Lisa Kleypas. If my library didn’t stock all Sidney Sheldon and Nora Roberts books, theirs would be the max I would own. After Lisa Kleypas, I would say Jane Austen. I own almost 4 books by her but have read only, one Pride and Prejudice.

2. What book do you own the most copies of?
None. I don’t own multiple copies of any books. Fortunately I remember all the books I own, except I sometimes get confused with the classics.
 
3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Nope

4. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
I won’t say I’m in love with a character but I do like Mr. Darcy from P&P a lot and Rhett Butler from Gone with the wind comes a close second. I like all Lisa Kleypas heroes too. There is something about the mysterious outcasts I must say. Other than that I like Elizabeth from P&P and Scarlett again from GWTW.

5. What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children)?
My Girl by Patricia Hermes. I might have read it 4-5 times and cried each time.

6. What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?
I never read when I was young. I started reading somewhere around the 7th Grade.

7. What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Sorry, I’m not giving names

8. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Many actually. Jane Eyre, Legends of Pensam and so on and so forth. Please don’t ask me to name one.

9. If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
ummm…Anne of Green Gables?

10. Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Oh…please, I don’t know. All this prize winning books stuff is tangent to me.

11. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Shantaram. But they are already making a movie on it. May be, Nefertitti by Michelle Moran. It would be fun to watch. Just imagine, you’ll get to see all those pyramids and temples and tombs of ancient Egypt.

12. What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
The Alchemist

13. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
I haven’t completed the most difficult books I had to read. Midnight’s Children and Savitri by Rabindranath Tagore.

14. Roth or Updike?
Haven’t read either. Where should I start?

15. David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Haven’t read Eggers but I like David Sedaris, kind of.

16. Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare, just because I’ve read one book of his.

17. Austen or Eliot?
Never read Eliot but love Jane Austen.

18. Name the last book by a female author that you’ve read.
The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax. I have noticed that most of what I read is by female authors, although it’s not intentional.

19. Name the last book by an African or African-American author that you’ve read.
I think Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe.

20. How about one from an Asian country or Asian-American?
Sushi for one by Camy Tang

21. Why not name an Israeli/Arab/Turk/Persian writer, if you’re feeling lucky?
Does Ariel Sabar (author of My father’s Paradise) count? Well, he isn’t from the above places, but his father is from Israel.

22. Any other ‘marginalized’ authors you’ve read lately?
What does marginalized mean? Please enlighten me people.

Give it a shot if you feel like.

The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax

Title: The Accidental Bestseller

Author: Wendy Wax
Publisher: Berkley (TRD); 1 edition (Jun 2 2009)
Paperback: 432 pages
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Reading this book was like reading a book within a book or reading about how the book was written. Well, kind of. Confused? Keep reading.

It’s a story about 4 friends, their happiness, their loss, their struggles, but most of all their friendship. Four women, Mallory, Tanya, Kendall and Faye meet in a writer’s conference 10 years ago when they were just aspiring writers. 10 years later each is successful in her own right. But even though they have been friends for so long they have things they have hidden from each other and other people closest to them.

Mallory is a New York Times bestselling author but as far as her life is concerned, she is a closed book. She has a compulsion of completing at least 20 pages of writing everyday no matter what. Tanya works 2 jobs, has 2 girls, is a single mother and in spite of being an author of multiple books, the income isn’t enough to support her family. She has always been so independent and the people in her life have disappointed her to the extent that she afraid of relying on anyone again. Faye is the wife of a Pastor and a famous evangelist. She writes inspirational fiction, but underneath all that happiness and success is a secret which will have the power to destroy her as well as her husband’s career.

Finally we come to Kendall. She is the connecting thread between all the individual stories. When her husband of 25 years leaves her for another woman and her career is going down the drains, her friends help her out in the time of need. What results is a book, Sticks and Stones, which had Kendall’s name on it but is ghost written by all her friends. It’s a book about 4 writers who are friends just like they are. As they write their own parts, they struggle with how much to reveal and how much to hide. Finally they end up writing about their deepest secrets, something they haven’t shared with their friends or even family.

When the book becomes a Bestseller, the scrutiny and analyzing that comes with it threatens to destroy their careers and their friendship.

What I liked most about the book was how it handled the individual characters as well as their impact on each other without confusing the reader. There are these 4 friends that are central to the story, but there is also an editor, the editor’s assistant Lacy, besides their spouses, love interests, children and grandchildren. Before reading the book I wondered about how Ms. Wax would keep everything clear and smooth flowing. But all I can say is that the execution is flawless. The publishing process, the life of a writer and the inside tidbits of a publishing house mentioned in the book are fascinating.

The process of writing a book, struggling through it all, making it to the bestseller’s list intermingled with the stories of triumphs and tribulations of four best friends and writers was entertaining, exciting, and unputdownable.

I would especially say that I LOVED the ending, everything neatly wrapped up with an upbeat or happy note, just as I like it.

Highly Recommended.

About the author: Wendy Wax began her broadcast career at a tiny radio station in Athens, Georgia, where she chose to attend college after reading Gone With the Wind one too many times. Over the last twenty years she has written and produced a wide range of corporate and broadcast projects and has worked on commercials and feature films. She is also an experienced on-air and voice-over talent and hosted a live radio talk show called “Desperate & Dateless” in the early eighties.

She lives in Atlanta with her husband and their two elementary school-aged boys. Annnddddddddd, she has written 4 other books, how happy does that make me? Here they are.

Read Melody’s review here. She has some awesome quotes from the book too.

BTT: Fantasy and Sci-Fi…

One of my favorite sci-fi authors (Sharon Lee) has declared June 23rd Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers Day.

As she puts it:

So! In my Official Capacity as a writer of science fiction and fantasy, I hereby proclaim June 23 Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Day! A day of celebration and wonder! A day for all of us readers of science fiction and fantasy to reach out and say thank you to our favorite writers. A day, perhaps, to blog about our favorite sf/f writers. A day to reflect upon how written science fiction and fantasy has changed your life.

So … what might you do on the 23rd to celebrate? Do you even read fantasy/sci-fi? Why? Why not?

I don’t read much Sci-fi. It’s not that I don’t like it; it’s just that I don’t know what to read. The books I remember reading are The hollow Skull (loved it) and The Trechyon Web by Christopher Pike. And I’ve read Uglies too. I used to read a lot of Robin Cook in college. Does that come under Sci-fi? And Congo too. Its one of my favorite book and I love the movie too. This is as far as my Sci-fi reading goes. I might have read others but I can’t recall any at the moment.

I read Fantasy but not as much as I would like to. As always I can’t recall any names. And I’ve never heard of Sharon Lee. I have Un Lun Dun which is an Urban Fantasy and I’ve been wanting to read it for a long time. Lately I’ve noticed there are a lot of Fantasy books coming out in YA.

What will I do on 23rd? I don’t know. I might read or review a fantasy/ Sci-fi. What say?

Do you read Fantasy/ Sci-Fi? What will you do on 23rd?

————————————————————————————-
OMG, I had to mention this. I just found out that the third book in the Hathway series Tempt me at Twilight is releasing in September this year. Yipieeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

I’m at work and I literally feel like jumping but I can’t, so I’m doing the next best thing. Writing it on my blog
I’ve read the first 2 books Mine till Midnight and Seduce me at Sunrise and loved them. Although I wanted it to be on Leo, I’m happy with Poppy too.

Aaaaannnnnndddd I think its high time I start working on my blogroll…

The 4Rs Challenge…recommendations

If you haven’t heard of the 4R’s Challenge, you should definitely check it out. It’s really simple. All you need to do is set up your profile on the Forum; write something about yourself and the kind of books you like. The other members, based on what you have written and your preference, will suggest a book for you. You have to acquire the book from somewhere, read it and review it. See? I told you it’s simple.

The 4 Rs stand for Recommend, Read, Review, and Repeat.

And moreover, the forum is very user friendly and easy to navigate. So I’m hoping to see you there.

Oh and yes, it’s a brain child of Jennifer from Literate Housewife and fyrefly. Read their 4Rs posts here and here.

And don’t forget to join the Forum. I’m sure it will be fun.

oh…and the link to my profile is here

I wanted recommendations for a horror book, something that will really creep me out.

Here are the recommendations on the 4R’s challenge Forum:

1) Whispers by Deen Koontz from Sandy
2) Pet Semetary by Stephen King from Sandy
3) The Other by Thomas Tryon from booknaround
4) Short story collection of Edgar Allan Poe from Dave.
5) The Road by Cormac McCarthy from thekoolaidmom
6) The Road, Life as We Knew It from Nymeth
7) The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson for a traditional creppy story from Nymeth
8 ) Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz from heidenkind
9) The Mummy by Anne Rice from heidenkind
10) Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop from heidenkind
11) The Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill from tokemise
12) The Haunting of Hill House and Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill from Gavin
13) Pet Sematary by Stephen King from literatehousewife

How is a girl to decide?

I own The Road and have been meaning to read it since a long time. I think Stephen King, Anne Rice, Anne Bishop and Dean Koontz should be available in the bookstore or the library. I have been searching for The Haunting of Hill House in bookstores here, but seems like it isn’t available. He said could order it for me but the price is almost 4 times a normal book.

I’m hoping to get my hands on Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill. I’ve been reading his 20th Century Ghosts on and off and really like it. I like his writing style.

I have been wanting to read something by Edgar Allan Poe but haven’t got the chance. I’m not even sure where to start.

The Other by Thomas Tryon is something that I’m particularly excited about. Booknaround says, “I still have nightmares about it and I read it almost 30 years ago.” Sounds cool huh?

I might just go to the bookstore and try my luck or I’ll see if I can get ‘The Other’ ordered at a normal price.

What do you think? Is there something else you would like to suggest?

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I have 2 awards from the Melody and Serena. Thanks girls, I am happy and thankful

Sorry for not acknowledging them early.
Oh and the No 1 Blogger award is from Serena and the Commentor Award from Melody!!!

BTT: What niche books do YOU read?

But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.
What niche books do YOU read?

That’s a tough question with an embarrassing answer. I don’t think I read any Niche books. At least I can’t recall any.
I read books on Business Intelligence, its technical, something I work in, does it count?

Wait…I have a book on Kathak. I haven’t read the entire book but I guess it does count. For those who don’t know Kathak is a classical dance form. This book was given to me by my Dance Teacher; I don’t think it’s available in bookstores. But I do surf other books on Kathak in bookstores.

Oh…yes, one more. I own a couple of sketching books. One I remember is Fundamentals of Drawing. It teaches you how to sketch using pencils and color pencils too. It’s really cool. So yes, I do read such books too.

I have a book on witchcraft spells and occult. Don’t worry I don’t practice it; it’s just something I find very interesting

I don’t seem to recall anything else.

What about you? What niche books do YOU read?