Category / E-books

by Sharlene

Quincredible Vol 1

A fun read. After a strange meteor shower, Quinn is invulnerable and can’t be hurt. He thinks it’s a lousy superpower at first. Then he meets Glow, who also has a meteor-given superpower and she encourages him to do something to help his community.

I like Quin and how relatable he is, and I like how his parents are a part of the story too. The rest of the diverse cast of superheroes is great too – like Quin, many of them are just trying to figure things out as they go. The villain in this case was a bit forgettable but hopefully in future volumes that can be improved on.

I appreciate how the comic was optimistic and hopeful, and has a great young superhero for our times.

*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free ARC of this book*.

by Sharlene

Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow

Kiffe Kiffe what?

Well, the title is a play on words. Kif-kif is Arabic slang that means “same old, same old” and kiffer (used mainly by young teens in France) kind of means ‘to be crazy for’.

“…it’s just kif-kif tomorrow. Same shit, different day.”

 

This book is a different look at life in France, one from the perspective of a teenager of Moroccan descent. Her father has returned to Morocco to start a different family there – i.e. one with a son. And so  her mother has to work desperately hard at a housekeeping job in a crappy motel.

“Everyone calls her ‘Fatma’ at the Formula 1. They shout at her all the time, and keep a close watch on her to make sure she doesn’t steal anything from the rooms.

Of course Mom’s name isn’t Fatma, it’s Yasmina. It must really give Monsieur Winner a charge to call all the Arabs ‘Fatma’, all the blacks ‘Mamadou’, and all the Chinese ‘Ping-Pong’. Pretty freaking lame.”

Doria is 15 so you can expect all the usual teenager problems and angst. And being abandoned by her father, she feels lost.

“What a shitty destiny. Fate is all trial and misery and you can’t do anything about it. Basically no matter what you do you’ll always get screwed over.”

But it’s an especially interesting one as she is a young Muslim girl in France. For instance, she has to get her mother to write her note explaining that she won’t be eating in the school cafeteria because it’s Ramadan, and the principal thinks she forged it because her mother’s signature is a poor one.

Her family is poor and they survive on help from their neighbours, the grocer letting them rack up a bill, and this being France, help from the government – social workers come by and Doria even gets access to a psychologist. But it’s not an easy life for Doria, who doesn’t do well in school, doesn’t seem to have many friends, and has to wear horrible hand-me-down clothes. TV is her main escape.

It is perhaps the ordinariness of her life that appeals to me. That she is just a regular teenager living in France, her life isn’t terribly full of drama in the YA sense – some stuff happens to people in the neighbourhood but you wouldn’t find it hard to believe that this happens out there in the world today.

“Once, he told my mom that in ten years on this job, this was the first time he’d seen ‘people like you with only one child.’ He was thinking ‘Arabs,’ but he didn’t say so.”

I don’t read much translated French literature. And I find it difficult to name any contemporary French writers. Muriel Barbery is the only contemporary translated French author whose work I have recently read. (Please enlighten me!).

And perhaps because of this, I felt that it was rather refreshing reading this authentic teenager’s voice by French-Algerian writer Faïza Guène. This first book of hers was published in 2004 when she was just 19 years old. It’s been translated into 22 different languages. Kiffe kiffe demain was translated into English in 2006  under the title Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow.

She’s had another of her books translated into English, it’s called Men Don’t Cry.

by Sharlene

Flight by Oona Frawley

“She wonders if these same business people, these men and women that she pushes past on the paths – did they vote yes, vote to change the constitution and keep people like Sandrine out? It scares her, in a way, that this baby is about to arrive in a country that only this week has voted to disallow her citizenship. She will be born placeless on this day, an unwelcome baby.”

 

This book is set in Ireland in 2004 (and written in 2006) but could not be more relevant today, in the time of the Brexit referendum, and Donald *ass* Trump’s call for the removal of birthright citizenship in the US. 

Sandrine is from Zimbabwe. She’s in Ireland on a student visa, supposedly to learn, but she is really there to work, to find a better life for herself, her husband and child back home, and her unborn child that she is keeping secret. She finds a job caring for Tom and Clare, an elderly couple who can no longer manage on their own. Their daughter Elizabeth doesn’t live with them and has a bit of an awkward relationship with her mother. The family used to live in Vietnam and America, where Tom worked in the spice trade.

It’s a very emotional read. It’s hard to see one’s parents fade away in terms of health, both physical and mental. As Tom becomes a mere shadow of himself, his story is unraveled through his memories and recollections of their time in Vietnam and America. My late grandfather had dementia and the last time I saw him, I don’t think he knew who any of us were. I was living away from Singapore by then, and learnt of his death via Skype. So it was hard to read of Tom’s decline.

“His hair is softer than she expected, thinning, and the scalp pulses like a newborn’s. She senses this pulsing in her hands. He is living, his mind is moving, and he is looking up at her with surprised, glazing green eyes. Her tears are for nothing. There is nothing to weep for, since he is unaware, gazing at her crying or laughing with the same indifferent emptiness in his look which seems always surprised now, because everything lacks for him the context of memory.”

 

This is also Elizabeth’s story, one of belonging and fitting in – or not. Her childhood in Vietnam and America, then moving back to Ireland, then back again to Vietnam. Where does she belong? Is she Irish? Is she American? It’s similar with my own family. We are from Singapore, but the kids, being born in the US, are American citizens. We travel to Singapore once a year, and both sets of grandparents travel up here at least once or twice a year. My five-year-old once described himself as a Singapore American. I wonder how he will feel in the future. Will he still have a connection to Singapore?

Although we don’t really learn much about Sandrine’s life in Zimbabwe, her experiences in Ireland are the key to this book. Her struggle to adapt to life in Ireland, to learn to be a caregiver for these elderly people she now lives with. The racism she experiences, because of the colour of her skin.

“She does not know that it doesn’t matter how she perceives herself to fit in. What she feels, how she might work to become part of this new society, it makes no difference. Sandrine has been spat and cursed at, has peered with shock into women’s faces as they have sneered at hers – she expected better of women, and has been disappointed. At moments the desire to commiserate with another black Zimbabwean is overwhelming. She knows of the news that instances of assault are on the rise, the country is increasingly angry about non-nationals, and there is a referendum coming up that scares the life out of her.”

Flight takes time to get into. But when you do get into it, it is a gem. It is a story about feeling lost, both within the world and within themselves. It is unsettling, it is emotional. It is a thoughtful story that makes you examine your own life, your own situation, and where you belong.

Flight by Oona Frawley is published by Tramp Press, an indie Irish publishing company. 

 

 

 

by Sharlene

The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories

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It is times like this that I wonder what I was reading as a child. And why did I never read any Joan Aiken?

Would the child-me have enjoyed the Armitage family’s antics as much as the adult-me does today?

Because it was such a fun, silly, charming and enchanting read that I so wished I could share with my kids.

(They’re 2 and 4 and while they are developing their own sense of humour, I don’t think they’re ready to appreciate this book quite yet.)

What is an Armitage Family story?, you may wonder.

Well, there is Mark and his sister Harriet, and of course their parents, Mr and Mrs Armitage. Mark and Harriet are very likable, rather sweet kids, to whom delightfully odd things happen. Their parents often get turned into things, but react in very straitlaced manners. Like fundraisers and business meetings. Although the fundraiser is for the Distressed Old Fairy Ladies and Mr Armitage takes his meeting as an insect. As in, oh I am an insect, oh bother, here, son just take me to my office so I can conduct my meeting anyway.

You know, because these things happen. And mostly on Mondays. Because on Mondays, “unusual things were allowed, and even expected to happen at the Armitage house”.

One of my favourite stories involved Brekkfast Brikks, a dusty kind of cereal with a cut-out garden on the back. A magical cut-out garden that is!

And the one where Mr Peake, the ghost who lives in the house, takes Harriet out from school for the holiday weekend.

Or maybe it’s the one where the unicorn makes its appearance.

It’s just full of wonderful stories to read, reread and share. Whether it’s a Monday or not.

“Well,” she allowed, “we could have a special day for interesting and unusual things to happen – say, Mondays. But not always Mondays, and not only Mondays, or that would get a bit dull too.”

by Sharlene

The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie

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The Mousetrap is the world’s longest running play. This year will be its 63rd year. 2012, its 60th year, also marked its 25,000th performance. Its author, Agatha Christie, didn’t expect the play to last more than eight months.

In a Guardian article, Ian Watt-Smith, director of the touring show, said about the play: “You have to concentrate on the reality of the situation. Everyone is trapped in this guesthouse – they have no means of contacting the outside world, and the murderer is among them. No one is quite what they seem. They all have secrets. You have to encourage the characters to play the real backstory and then cover it up, which is a challenge.”

I’ve never seen the play, nor did I really have much of an inkling of the story except that since it was written by Agatha Christie, it had to have a murder mystery within.

And ah there it was, in a snowed-in rooming house, where a young couple has just opened their house to their first guests, someone is found dead. And they’re all a little odd and suspicious in some way.

(While tapping my fingers on my keyboard, thinking what to write next about this play, I did think of something else, Kate Milford’s Greenglass House,  a book I thoroughly enjoyed last year. A book also set in a snowed-in inn, a mystery and more. So one good thing coming out of my having read The Mousetrap is now being able to nod and say sagely, ah yes, Milford was likely to have been inspired by The Mousetrap and other similar type mysteries).

There’s Mrs Boyle, an uppity older woman critical of everything at the rooming house. Major Metcalf, retired from the army. The rather odd Miss Casewell. Mr Paravicini, an unexpected guest who claims his car is stuck in the snow. Christopher Wren says he’s an architect but he’s acting suspiciously (not to say that architects can’t act suspiciously). Mollie and Giles Ralston, husband and wife, run Monkswell Manor. Then there’s Sergeant Trotter, who’s trying to find out what’s going on.

Everyone is a suspect. And it’s fun to try to come up with your own guesses at whodunnit.

Of course there is a twist at the end. This one, I don’t know, it just felt a bit odd and unsatisfying. Just in case you haven’t read it before or seen the play, I’ll just leave it at that. Maybe it really ought to be seen as a play, to be part of the experience of watching this murder-mystery unfold ‘live’ before your very eyes. It was still a fun read though.

 

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I read this for the Back to the Classics Challenge – A Classic Play

by Sharlene

Comics round-up: Underwater Welder; Adventure Time; Jem and the Holograms; Hexed….

This post is just getting longer and longer. I really have to run it soon.

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Underwater Welder – Jeff Lemire

Lemire excels in taking ordinary people, those living in small towns, their lives a little bit lost and their hearts a little bit broken, and turning it into an emotional, unforgettable, moving story. I loved Essex County, and Underwater Welder was just as excellent. It’s kind of weird to say, hey, you should read this comic about an underwater welder but luckily it s more than that. Jack and his wife are expecting a baby in a month when he goes off to the rig to work. He sees something in the water that makes him think of his dead father. Not just think but more like return to that time when he was a child and his father was still alive, and as that happens, as his memories creep into his life, they pull him away from his wife and his unborn child. It’s a story of how the past can affect, can take hold of the present.
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Lucille – Ludovic Debeurme
A painful read this one. Lucille is an anorexic teenager. She is slowly starving herself so that she can look like the other girls. Arthur is a boy with OCD, the son of an alcoholic fisherman. And they somehow meet and become friends, then more than friends. The illustrations are spare and panel-less, which makes for a rather different flow from the typical comic. A moving, minimalistic read.

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Borden Tragedy – Rick Geary
I didn’t know anything about Lizzie Borden except that children’s rhyme which I probably might be familiar with from watching TV/movies? So why did I read this? Still have no idea.

I did like the black and white illustrations. And the whole story, despite the potential for gore and bloodiness, is simply and effectively told, although we are not given any answers
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Pride and Prejudice (Marvel adaptations) – Nancy Butler and Hugo Petrus

This is one book that really shouldn’t be judged by its cover. Because I really adored the cover art – by Malaysian-Singaporean artist Sonny Lies – but I definitely did not like the artwork within. So it was very disappointing. Elizabeth Bennet always looks so harsh and angry. I don’t think I would recommend it, unless you’re introducing Jane Austen to a reluctant reader who prefers comics to classics.

 

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Adventure Time: Banana Guard Academy  – Kent Osborne (Writer), Dylan Haggerty (Writer), Mad Rupert (Illustrator), Britt Wilson (Illustrator), Whitney Cogar (Colorist), Leigh Luna (Letterer)

Ah what can I say, I adore Adventure Time. I never thought I would as it seemed rather cutesy. But it’s just such fun.

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The Cape – Joe Hill, Zach Howard, Jason Ciaramella

One of the more disturbing comics ever. I mean sure, having read Locke and Key, as well as two of Hill’s novels, I know that he’s got a strange mind, wandering towards the macabre, the creepy, the disturbing. But with Locke and Key, while it was violent and morbid, it had a lot of heart. Those were some awesome kids. Here in The Cape, it’s a superpower gone wrong story. A deadbeat guy who seems to hate everything and everyone and thinks the world has done him wrong. I felt so angry reading this.
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Jem and the Holograms – Kelly Thompson, Ross Campbell (Illustrator)

I hadn’t heard of Jem and the Holograms before Andi’s post. I guess this was one American TV show that didn’t make it to Singapore? It’s a fun read, mostly for its colourful outfits and big hair. And I love its diverse characters. That is, not everyone is skinny and white and straight.

 

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imageHexed – Michael Alan Nelson  (Writer), Dan Mora (Artist)

So Lucifer is a thief and there’s a lot of artwork involved and something about a Harlot and spirits and a necromancer. Ok I don’t really get it either. But compared to another recent read, Pretty Deadly, it was a little more easily understood (although still puzzling) and had some decent and relatable characters. One thing I did appreciate is that this comic written and drawn mostly by men has females as its main characters. And they’re tough and strong. I was just disappointed that Scribd only has seven issues.

(I really liked that page above where they wandered through several different art styles)

 

by Sharlene

Can’t wait to read these Library Loot books

badge-4Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

 

 

With grandma around to read to the boys for a bit, I got to wander among the fiction shelves and pick up some goodies.

 

Fortunately the Milk – Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Skottie Young 

Yup this was more for me than the kids! Hee hee!

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“I bought the milk,” said my father. “I walked out of the corner shop, and heard a noise like this: T h u m m t h u m m. I looked up and saw a huge silver disc hovering in the air above Marshall Road.”

“Hullo,” I said to myself. That’s not something you see every day.” And then something odd happened.

Find out just how odd things get in this hilarious story of time travel and breakfast cereal.

Mildred Pierce – James M Cain
I just realized this would be perfect for Back to the Classics. I’ve watched a little of the HBO series via Amazon Instant Video and Kate Winslet is amazing as always, even playing an American housewife.

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Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness. She used those attributes to survive a divorce and poverty and to claw her way out of the lower middle class. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men, and an unreasoning devotion to a monstrous daughter.

Out of these elements, Cain creates a novel of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence, with a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable.

 

Four Souls – Louise Erdrich

Ok I did not know that this was a continuation! Hopefully it will work reading it on its own.

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Four Souls begins with Fleur Pillager’s journey from North Dakota to Minneapolis, where she plans to avenge the loss of her family’s land to a white man. After a dream vision that gives her a powerful new name, Four Souls, she enters the household of John James Mauser. A man notorious for his wealth and his mansion on a hill, Mauser became rich by deceiving young Indian women and taking possession of their ancestral lands. What promises to be a straightforward tale of revenge, however, slowly metamorphoses into a more complex evocation of human nature. The story of anger and retribution that begins in Tracks becomes a story of healing and love in Four Souls.

Children of the Sea #1 – Daisuke Igarashi

I kind of love these covers

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When Ruka was younger, she saw a ghost in the water at the aquarium where her dad works. Now she feels drawn toward the aquarium and the two mysterious boys she meets there, Umi and Sora. They were raised by dugongs and hear the same strange calls from the sea as she does.Ruka’s dad and the other adults who work at the aquarium are only distantly aware of what the children are experiencing as they get caught up in the mystery of the worldwide disappearance of the oceans’ fish.

Children of the Sea #2 – Daisuke Igarashi

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The sea has a story to tell you, one you’ve never heard before. Umi and Sora are not alone in their strange connection to the sea. Forty years ago, Jim met another young boy with the same powers. As penance for letting the boy die, Jim has been searching the world for other children with those same ties to the ocean. Anglade, a wunderkind who was once Jim’s research partner, lures Sora away with the promise of answers. This leaves Umi severely depressed, and it is up to Ruka to help her new friend find his brother. But time is quickly running out… When Ruka was younger, she saw a ghost in the water at the aquarium where her dad works. Now she feels drawn toward the aquarium and the two mysterious boys she meets there, Umi and Sora. They were raised by dugongs and hear the same strange calls from the sea that she does. Ruka’s dad and the other adults who work at the aquarium are only distantly aware of what the children are experiencing as they get caught up in the mystery of the worldwide disappearance of the ocean’s fish.

 

 

E-books:

Black Water Rising – Attica Locke

I’m supposed to read Locke’s latest, Pleasantville, for an upcoming book tour. But didn’t know that it had the same characters as Black Water Rising. So thought I would try to read this first! Also, I enjoyed reading her previous book, The Cutting Season. 

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Writing in the tradition of Dennis Lehane and Greg Iles, Attica Locke, a powerful new voice in American fiction, delivers a brilliant debut thriller that readers will not soon forget.

Jay Porter is hardly the lawyer he set out to be. His most promising client is a low-rent call girl and he runs his fledgling law practice out of a dingy strip mall. But he’s long since made peace with not living the American Dream and carefully tucked away his darkest sins: the guns, the FBI file, the trial that nearly destroyed him.

Houston, Texas, 1981. It is here that Jay believes he can make a fresh start. That is, until the night in a boat out on the bayou when he impulsively saves a woman from drowning—and opens a Pandora’s box. Her secrets put Jay in danger, ensnaring him in a murder investigation that could cost him his practice, his family, and even his life. But before he can get to the bottom of a tangled mystery that reaches into the upper echelons of Houston’s corporate power brokers, Jay must confront the demons of his past.

With pacing that captures the reader from the first scene through an exhilarating climax, Black Water Rising marks the arrival of an electrifying new talent.

Kids’ loot:

 

by Sharlene

The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai: Four Girls and a Compact

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The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai deserves a better reader than me. It required three renewals – easy enough as it was an ebook and no one else was interested in it. There was quite a bit of glancing through of passages. And I really got confused by the very many characters in this book. The lack of a true story arc didn’t really help matters. In fact, it seems that few Chinese have read this tome – The New Yorker said that it may be “China’s ‘Ulysses'”!

But while it is lengthy and not the easiest of reads, it is a fascinating look into a time that is hardly written about. Brothels in 19th century Shanghai, specifically, in the foreign settlements outside the city.

It begins with a young man arriving in Shanghai, fresh from the country, and falls for a courtesan who turns out not to be a virgin despite his having forked out plenty to ‘deflower’ her. It is a cutthroat business after all! The story is more episodic than most, so we catch glimpses of this young fellow throughout the book. The focus here is on the (many) girls instead.

Here’s what I did gleam from the book:

– there are different classes of prostitutes. There are girls and there are “maestros” who sing and don’t play finger games. The ones called ‘prostitutes’ are something else altogether. More like streetwalkers. Likewise, there are different ‘classes’ of sing-song houses, and within those houses, the girls were ranked. Although all of these girls really do provide more than entertainment, it is only hinted at in the book. Nothing hot and heavy here!

– there is a ‘humble’ side to a divan

– opium opium opium. All the time!

– Besides opium, plenty of drinking  and finger games. Having watched my share of Chinese movies, I can guess at what the finger games are like but I wish there was more description.

– To “call” a girl, you send a servant out with a ticket
– They did eat “western” meals and drink coffee, probably because they were in the foreign districts. I wish the western-style meals were described though. There were also ‘foreign’ policemen.
– Girls are bought at ages 7 or 8. And they can “do business” at age 16.
– The Shanghainese thought the Cantonese uncouth. Cantonese prostitutes are described as having “terrifying” physical strength.
– bound feet can make a “rickety noise”. Yikes!
– Although most of the girls, especially those who have been in the trade since young, are skilled in music and singing and charm, they were almost always illiterate
– Courtesans were not supposed to go anywhere on foot. They were usually transported from party to party by sedan or rickshaw, or even carried by manservants

– Plus, it was first translated by Eileen Chang, of Love in a Fallen City fame. The translation was discovered among her papers after her death.

Here’s the New York Times’ review for a more complete picture.

Also some background to how prostitution transformed Shanghai’s Old City in this article from CNN Traveler.

 

 

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2015 Translation

I read the Sing-song Girls of Shanghai as a Translated Classic for Back to the Classics Challenge

And for the Books in Translation Reading Challenge

 

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In contrast, the novella Four Girls and a Compact was light, breezy and easy to read. But also quite forgettable.

The girls are tired of work and life in the city. They’re ready for a break out in the fresh air. They send one girl out to seek their El Dorado.

“To get out of the hot, teeming city and breathe air enough and pure enough, to luxuriate in idleness, to rest—to a girl, they longed for it. They were all orphans, and they were all poor. The Grand Plan was ambitious, indefinite, but they could not give it up. They had wintered it and springed it, and clung to it through bright days and dark.”

The girls are a little indistinguishable but otherwise it’s a cute little story. It’s available to read online or as a free download at Project Gutenberg

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I read Four Girls and a Compact for the Back to the Classics Challenge – Novella

by Sharlene

Library Loot

badge-4Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

 

The Guild – Felicia Day

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Internet phenomenon The Guild comes to comics, courtesy of series creator, writer, and star Felicia Day (Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog)! Chronicling the hilarious on- and offline lives of a group of Internet role-playing gamers, the Knights of Good, The Guild has become a cult hit, and is the winner of numerous awards from SXSW, YouTube, Yahoo, and the Streamys. Now, Day brings the wit and heart of the show to this graphic-novel prequel. In this origin tale of the Knights of Good, we learn about Cyd’s life before joining the guild, how she became Codex, her awful breakup with boyfriend Trevor, and how she began to meet the other players who would eventually become her teammates.

 

Mastering My Mistakes in the Kitchen: 55 Great Chefs Teach Me How to Cook – Dana Cowin

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An uproarious, inspiring cookbook from the longtime editor-in-chief of Food & Wine magazine, in which the first lady of food spills the secret of her culinary ineptitude, while learning—finally—to cook, side-by-side with some of the greatest chefs working today, from David Chang to Thomas Keller

For years, Dana Cowin kept a dark secret: From meat to veggies, broiling to baking, breakfast to dinner, she ruined literally every kind of dish she attempted. Now, in this cookbook confessional, the vaunted “first lady of food” finally comes clean about her many meal mishaps. With the help of friends—all-star chefs, including David Chang, Jacques Pépin and Tom Colicchio and many others—Cowin takes on 100 recipes dear to her heart. Ideal dishes for the home cook, each recipe has a high “yum” factor, a few key ingredients, and a simple trick that makes them special. With every dish, she attains a critical new skill, learning invaluable lessons along the way from the hero chefs who help her discover exactly where she goes wrong.

Hilarious and heartwarming, encouraging and instructional, Mastering My Mistakes in the Kitchen showcases Cowin’s plentiful cooking mistakes, inspiring anyone who loves a good meal but fears its preparation. Featuring gorgeous full color photography, it is an intimate, hands-on cooking guide from a fellow foodie and amateur home chef, designed to help even the biggest kitchen phobics overcome their reluctance, with delicious results.

E-books!

The Ghost Brigades – John Scalzi

I just finished Old Man’s War, the first in this series, and it was quite an interesting book. I realize that I don’t read that much SF as it tends to be more fantasy that I read. There was some technicality involving skip drives and a variety of other things like colonizing planets and war and stuff. But generally it was a fun read. And I had this desperate need to read the next one.

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The Ghost Brigades are the Special Forces of the Colonial Defense Forces, elite troops created from the DNA of the dead and turned into the perfect soldiers for the CDF’s toughest operations. They’re young, they’re fast and strong, and they’re totally without normal human qualms.

The universe is a dangerous place for humanity—and it’s about to become far more dangerous. Three races that humans have clashed with before have allied to halt our expansion into space. Their linchpin: the turncoat military scientist Charles Boutin, who knows the CDF’s biggest military secrets. To prevail, the CDF must find out why Boutin did what he did.

Jared Dirac is the only human who can provide answers — a superhuman hybrid, created from Boutin’s DNA, Jared’s brain should be able to access Boutin’s electronic memories. But when the memory transplant appears to fail, Jared is given to the Ghost Brigades.

At first, Jared is a perfect soldier, but as Boutin’s memories slowly surface, Jared begins to intuit the reason’s for Boutin’s betrayal. As Jared desperately hunts for his “father,” he must also come to grips with his own choices. Time is running out: The alliance is preparing its offensive, and some of them plan worse things than humanity’s mere military defeat…

Living by Fiction – Annie Dillard

A book about books! Those are the best.

livingfictionLiving by Fiction is written for–and dedicated to–people who love literature. Dealing with writers such as Nabokov, Barth, Coover, Pynchon, Borges, García Márquez, Beckett, and Calvino, Annie Dillard shows why fiction matters and how it can reveal more of the modern world and modern thinking than all the academic sciences combined. Like Joyce Cary’s Art and Reality, this is a book by a writer on the issues raised by the art of literature. Readers of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Holy the Firm will recognize Dillard’s vivid writing, her humor, and the lively way in which she tackles the urgent questions of meaning in experience itself.

Worn Stories – Emily Spivack

I’m curious about this collection of short essays about clothes! The contributors are rather diverse, although I wonder if they can all write well (plus I don’t recognize all the names… probably cos I’m not really in tune with the style world? But oh well, it’s a short read).

 

wornstoriesEveryone has a memoir in miniature in at least one piece of clothing. In Worn Stories, Emily Spivack has collected over sixty of these clothing-inspired narratives from cultural figures and talented storytellers. First-person accounts range from the everyday to the extraordinary, such as artist Marina Abramovic on the boots she wore to walk the Great Wall of China; musician Rosanne Cash on the purple shirt that belonged to her father; and fashion designer Cynthia Rowley on the Girl Scout sash that informed her business acumen. Other contributors include Greta Gerwig, Heidi Julavits, John Hodgman, Brandi Chastain, Marcus Samuelsson, Piper Kerman, Maira Kalman, Sasha Frere-Jones, Simon Doonan, Albert Maysles, Susan Orlean, Andy Spade, Paola Antonelli, David Carr, Andrew Kuo, and more. By turns funny, tragic, poignant, and celebratory, Worn Stories offers a revealing look at the clothes that protect us, serve as a uniform, assert our identity, or bring back the past–clothes that are encoded with the stories of our lives.

Kids’ loot:

What did you get from your library this week?

by Sharlene

Library Loot

badge-4Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

I’ve been in a state of figuring out what my next read is to be. I browsed my library’s Overdrive (e-books) catalogue and page after page nothing really jumped out at me. Until I saw the latest Patrick Rothfuss. And ARGH I had to put a hold on it! But hooray! That hold came in the very next day. And I made sure to borrow it.

 

 

Peter Reinhart’s artisan breads every day : fast and easy recipes for world-class breads – Peter Reinhart; photography by Leo Gong

I am writing an article on Panettone and was trying to find a recipe for this Italian traditional bread, and this book has one. I’m curious!

 

artisanbreads

Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day distills the renowned baking instructor’ s professional techniques down to the basics, delivering artisan bread recipes that anyone with flour and a fridge can make and bake with ease.

Reinhart begins with the simplest French bread, then moves on to familiar classics such as ciabatta, pizza dough, and soft sandwich loaves, and concludes with fresh specialty items like pretzels, crackers, croissants, and bagels. Each recipe is broken into “Do Ahead” and “On Baking Day” sections, making every step–from preparation through pulling pans from the oven–a breeze, whether you bought your loaf pan yesterday or decades ago. These doughs are engineered to work flawlessly for busy home bakers: most require only a straightforward mixing and overnight fermentation. The result is reliably superior flavor and texture on par with loaves from world-class artisan bakeries–and all with little hands-on time.

America’s favorite baking instructor and innovator Peter Reinhart offers new time-saving techniques accompanied by full-color, step-by-step photos throughout so that in no time you’ll be producing fresh batches of: Sourdough Baguettes • 50% and 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Loaves • Soft and Crusty Cheese Bread • English Muffins • Cinnamon Buns • Panettone • Hoagie Rolls • Chocolate Cinnamon Babka • Fruit-Filled Thumbprint Rolls • Danish • Best-Ever Biscuits

Best of all, these high-caliber doughs improve with a longer stay in the fridge, so you can mix once, then portion, proof, and bake whenever you feel like enjoying a piping hot treat.

 

Recipes From My Home Kitchen : Asian And American Comfort Food – Christine Ha

I’m not a fan of Gordon Ramsay but I sometimes watch MasterChef. The season with Christine Ha really moved me – and I’m sure countless others.
recipeshomekitchen

In her kitchen, Christine Ha possesses a rare ingredient that most professionally-trained chefs never learn to use: the ability to cook by sense. After tragically losing her sight in her twenties, this remarkable home cook, who specializes in the mouthwatering, wildly popular Vietnamese comfort foods of her childhood, as well as beloved American standards that she came to love growing up in Texas, re-learned how to cook. Using her heightened senses, she turns out dishes that are remarkably delicious, accessible, luscious, and crave-worthy.

Millions of viewers tuned in to watch Christine sweep the thrilling MasterChef Season 3 finale, and here they can find more of her deftly crafted recipes. They’ll discover food that speaks to the best of both the Vietnamese diaspora and American classics, personable tips on how to re-create delicious professional recipes in a home kitchen, and an inspirational personal narrative bolstered by Ha’s background as a gifted writer. Recipes from My Home Kitchen will braid together Christine’s story with her food for a result that is one of the most compelling culinary tales of her generation.

The Raven Boys – Maggie Stiefvater

ravenboys

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

 

Here are the e-books I downloaded

The Slow Regard of Silent Things – Patrick Rothfuss

I’m so excited to read this!

Untitled-14

Deep below the University, there is a dark place. Few people know of it: a broken web of ancient passageways and abandoned rooms. A young woman lives there, tucked among the sprawling tunnels of the Underthing, snug in the heart of this forgotten place.

Her name is Auri, and she is full of mysteries.

The Slow Regard of Silent Things is a brief, bittersweet glimpse of Auri’s life, a small adventure all her own. At once joyous and haunting, this story offers a chance to see the world through Auri’s eyes. And it gives the reader a chance to learn things that only Auri knows…

In this book, Patrick Rothfuss brings us into the world of one of The Kingkiller Chronicle’s most enigmatic characters. Full of secrets and mysteries, The Slow Regard of Silent Things is the story of a broken girl trying to live in a broken world.

I Married You for Happiness – Lily Tuck

I’m curious about this one. Marriage and mathematics?

marriedyouhappiness

Throughout Lily Tuck’s career, she’s been praised by critics for her crisp, lean language and sensuous explorations of exotic locales and complex psychologies. From Siam to Paraguay and beyond, Tuck inspires readers to travel into unfamiliar realms, and her newest novel is no exception. Slender, potent, and utterly engaging, I Married You For Happiness combines marriage, mathematics, and the probability of an afterlife to create Tuck’s most affecting and riveting book yet.

“His hand is growing cold, still she holds it” is how this novel that tells the story of a marriage begins. The tale unfolds over a single night as Nina sits at the bedside of her husband, Philip, whose sudden and unexpected death is the reason for her lonely vigil. Still too shocked to grieve, she lets herself remember the defining moments of their long union, beginning with their meeting in Paris. She is an artist, he a highly accomplished mathematician—a collision of two different worlds that merged to form an intricate and passionate love. As we move through select memories—real and imagined—Tuck reveals the most private intimacies, dark secrets, and overwhelming joys that defined Nina and Philip’s life together

 

Anatomy of a Misfit – Andrea Portes

It’s a ‘Big Library Read’ on Overdrive, so I just downloaded it to have a peek.

 

anatomymisfit

Outside, Anika Dragomir is all lip gloss and blond hair—the third most popular girl in school. Inside, she’s a freak: a mix of dark thoughts, diabolical plots, and, if local chatter is to be believed, vampire DNA (after all, her father is Romanian). But she keeps it under wraps to maintain her social position. One step out of line and Becky Vilhauer, first most popular girl in school, will make her life hell. So when former loner Logan McDonough shows up one September hotter, smarter, and more mysterious than ever, Anika knows she can’t get involved. It would be insane to throw away her social safety for a nerd. So what if that nerd is now a black-leather-jacket-wearing dreamboat, and his loner status is clearly the result of his troubled home life? Who cares if the right girl could help him with all that, maybe even save him from it? Who needs him when Jared Kline, the bad boy every girl dreams of, is asking her on dates? Who?

Anatomy of a Misfit is Mean Girls meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Anika’s hilariously deadpan delivery will appeal to readers for its honesty and depth. The so-sad-it’s-funny high school setting will pull readers in, but when the story’s dark foreboding gradually takes over, the devastating penultimate tragedy hits like a punch to the gut. Readers will ride the highs and lows alongside funny, flawed Anika — from laughter to tears, and everything in between

Men We Reaped: A Memoir – Jesmyn Ward

It’s been far too long since I’ve read non-fiction.
menwereaped

In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life—to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: Why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth—and it took her breath away. Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships. Jesmyn says the answer was so obvious she felt stupid for not seeing it. But it nagged at her until she knew she had to write about her community, to write their stories and her own

 

 

French Kids Eat Everything: How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters – Karen Le Billon

So I am a sucker for books like this, on how kids eat. My two littles do quite ok in the eating side of things. The older one recently discovered tandoori chicken and is happy to eat things like Brussels sprouts and kale, and the younger one always wants to try what’s one our plates (although he might spit it out later). Oddly though he doesn’t like avocados and bananas and in general other soft fruits and vegetables that I thought most kids would eat. But I’m always interested in reading others’ experiences.

frenchkids

Moving her young family to her husband’s hometown in northern France, Karen Le Billon is prepared for some cultural adjustment but is surprised by the food education she and her family (at first unwillingly) receive. In contrast to her daughters, French children feed themselves neatly and happily—eating everything from beets to broccoli, salad to spinach, mussels to muesli. The family’s food habits soon come under scrutiny, as Karen is lectured for slipping her fussing toddler a snack—”a recipe for obesity!”—and forbidden from packing her older daughter a lunch in lieu of the elaborate school meal.

The family soon begins to see the wisdom in the “food rules” that help the French foster healthy eating habits and good manners—from the rigid “no snacking” rule to commonsense food routines that we used to share but have somehow forgotten. Soon, the family cures picky eating and learns to love trying new foods. But the real challenge comes when they move back to North America—where their commitment to “eating French” is put to the test. The result is a family food revolution with surprising but happy results—which suggest we need to dramatically rethink the way we feed children, at home and at school.

Wow, that’s a lot of books for me this week!

Here’s the kids’ loot:

What did you get from your library this week?