Tuesday Intros No. 11: The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend, by Katarina Bivald

Welcome to First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday Intros,

hosted by Diane @

Bibliophile By The Sea!!

Every Tuesday, each participant
shares the first paragraph 

(sometimes two) from a book
they're reading,

or thinking about reading.

The book I've picked this week is...

 The Readers of Broken Wheel
Recommend  
Katarina Bivald
Translated from Swedish by Alice Menzies 
Trade Paperback, 400 pages
Sourcebooks Landmark
January 19, 2013
Bibliophilia, Contemporary Fiction,
Literary Fiction, Women's Fiction

About the Book
  
Once you let a book into your life, the most unexpected things can happen...

Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds that Amy's funeral has just ended. Luckily, the townspeople are happy to look after their bewildered tourist—even if they don't understand her peculiar need for books. Marooned in a farm town that's almost beyond repair, Sara starts a bookstore in honor of her friend's memory.

All she wants is to share the books she loves with the citizens of Broken Wheel and to convince them that reading is one of the great joys of life. But she makes some unconventional choices that could force a lot of secrets into the open and change things for everyone in town. Reminiscent of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, this is a warm, witty book about friendship, stories, and love.



Books 1 - Life 0

The strange woman standing on Hope's main street was so ordinary it was almost scandalous. A thin, plain figured dressed in an autumn coat much too gray and warm for the time of year, a backpack lying on the ground by her feet, an enormous suitcase resting against one of her legs. Those who happened to witness her arrival couldn't help feeling it was inconsiderate for someone to care so little about their appearance. It seemed as though this woman was not the slightest bit interested in making a good impression them. 

Her hair was a nondescript shade of brown, held back with a carelessly placed hair clip that didn't stop it from flowing down over her shoulders in a tangle of curls. Where her face should have been, there was a copy of Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl.  

I was at good ol' Barnes & Noble this past weekend, and this book immediately caught my eye. I love that cover! I glanced through it briefly, but didn't buy it. I was trying to be "good", since I had just spent my money on two books.....However, the memory of this novel has been torturing me since then, so I've looked it up on Amazon, and will order it as soon as my next paycheck arrives!
(I really don't need to ask if I should keep reading it,  because I definitely will!)

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Tuesday Intros No. 10: The Deadly Sisterhood, by Leonie Frieda

Welcome to First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday Intros,

hosted by Diane @

Bibliophile By The Sea!!

Every Tuesday, each participant
shares the first paragraph 

(sometimes two) from a book
they're reading,

or thinking about reading.

The book I've picked this week is...

 The Deadly Sisterhood: A Story of
Women, Power, and Intrigue
in the Italian Renaissance 
Leonie Frieda
Hardcover, 379 pages
HarperCollins Publishers 
April 2, 2013
Biography, Feminism, History,  
Nonfiction, Politics

About the Book
  
The book is one of drama on a grand scale, a Renaissance epic, as Christendom emerged from the shadows of the calamitous 14th century. The sweeping tale involves inspired and corrupt monarchs, the finest thinkers, the most brilliant artists, and the greatest beauties in Christendom.

Here is the story of eight of its most remarkable women, who were all joined by birth, marriage and friendship, and who ruled for a time in place of their men-folk: Lucrezia Turnabuoni (Queen Mother of Florence, the power behind the Medici throne), Clarice Orsini (Roman princess, feudal wife), Beatrice d'Este (Golden Girl of the Renaissance), Caterina Sforza (Lioness of the Romagna), Isabella d'Este (the Acquisitive Marchesa), Giulia Farnese ('la bella', the family asset), Isabella d'Aragona (the Weeping Duchess) and Lucrezia Borgia (the Virtuous Fury). The men play a secondary role in this grand saga; whenever possible the action will be seen through the eyes of our eight heroines.

These eight women experienced great riches, power and the warm smile of fortune, but they also knew banishment, poverty, the death of a husband or the loss of one or more of their children. As each of the chosen heroines comes to the fore in her turn, she is handed the baton by her 'sister'. Acclaimed author Leonie Frieda recounts the role each woman played in the hundred-year drama that is THE DEADLY SISTERHOOD. 


Prologue

She-Wolf of the Romagna

 14 April 1488

During the late afternoon of Monday, 14 April 1488, inside the ruler's palace at Forli, a family party had just finished their cena. Caterina Sforza, the twenty-five-year-old countess of the small state, rose from the table. At the same time, the tall and fashionably slender beauty, whose long, fair hair framed her renowned features, glanced at her mother and two half-sisters, recently arrived from the mighty Sforza dominion of Milan. Her expression told them to follow her lead. Upon reaching the flabby figure of Caterina's husband, Girolamo Riario, Count of Forli, Lord of Imola and nephew of the late Pope Sixtus IV, the three guests each dropped a deep curtsey, taking their leave. Finally, Caterina made her usual elegant révérence and retired. She would not see her husband alive again.
  

I won this book in a blog giveaway a couple of years ago, and can't believe I haven't read it yet! I don't usually read much history, but this one is definitely very interesting. History textbooks don't tell the stories of empires and nations from women's point of view, so I do want to read this one!
What do you think? Would you continue reading? 

Tuesday Intros No. 9: The Bookman's Tale, by Charlie Lovett

Welcome to First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday Intros,

hosted by Diane @

Bibliophile By The Sea!!

Every Tuesday, each participant
shares the first paragraph 

(sometimes two) from a book
they're reading,

or thinking about reading.

The book I've picked this week is...

 The Bookman's Tale
Charlie Lovett
Hardcover, 352 pages 
Viking
May 28, 2013
Contemporary Fiction, Historical Fiction, 
Literary Fiction, Mystery, Romance,
Thriller

About the Book
  
A mysterious portrait ignites an antiquarian bookseller’s search through time and the works of Shakespeare for his lost love.

Hay-on-Wye, 1995. Peter Byerly isn’t sure what drew him into this particular bookshop. Nine months earlier, the death of his beloved wife, Amanda, had left him shattered. The young antiquarian bookseller relocated from North Carolina to the English countryside, hoping to rediscover the joy he once took in collecting and restoring rare books. But upon opening an eighteenth-century study of Shakespeare forgeries, Peter is shocked when a portrait of Amanda tumbles out of its pages. Of course, it isn’t really her. The watercolor is clearly Victorian. Yet the resemblance is uncanny, and Peter becomes obsessed with learning the picture’s origins.

As he follows the trail back first to the Victorian era and then to Shakespeare’s time, Peter communes with Amanda’s spirit, learns the truth about his own past, and discovers a book that might definitively prove Shakespeare was, indeed, the author of all his plays.

Guaranteed to capture the hearts of everyone who truly loves books, The Bookman’s Tale is a former bookseller’s sparkling novel and a delightful exploration of one of literature’s most tantalizing mysteries, with echoes of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind and A.S. Byatt’s Possession.=



Hay-on-Wye, Wales, Wednesday,
February 15, 1995 

Wales could be cold in February. Even without snow or wind the damp winter air permeated Peter's topcoat and settled in his bones as he stood one of the dozens of bookshops that crowded the narrow streets of Hay. Despite the warm glow in the window that illuminated a tantalizing display of Victorian novels, Peter was in no hurry to open the door. It had been nine months since he had entered a bookshop; another few minutes wouldn't make a difference. There had been a time when this was all so familiar, so safe; when stepping into a rare bookshop had been a moment of excitement, meeting a fellow book lover a part of a grand adventure.

Peter Byerly, was, after all, a bookseller. It was the profession that had brought him to England, again and again, and the profession that brought him to Hay-on-Wye, the famous town of books just over the border in Wales, on this dreary afternoon. He had visited Hay many times before, but today was the first time he had ever come alone. 
  

This novel immediately caught my eye
when I saw it on Amazon recently.
I was waiting for a better price, 
when, lo and behold, 
I found it in the bargain section at
Barnes & Noble last weekend!!
At $5.98 + tax, I just couldn't
pass it up!! And I LOVE the subject
matter, of course!   
From what I've posted above, 
would you say that
I should keep reading? 

Tuesday Intros No. 8: Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin

Welcome to First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday Intros,

hosted by Diane @

Bibliophile By The Sea!!

Every Tuesday, each participant
shares the first paragraph 

(sometimes two) from a book
they're reading,

or thinking about reading.

The book I've picked this week is...

 Winter's Tale
Mark Helprin
Hardcover, 673 pages 
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 
September 20, 1983
Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction,
Magic Realism, Romance

About the Book
  
New York City is subsumed in arctic winds, dark nights, and white lights, its life unfolds, for it is an extraordinary hive of the imagination, the greatest house ever built, and nothing exists that can check its vitality. One night in winter, Peter Lake, orphan and master-mechanic, attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side.

Though he thinks the house is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the love between Peter Lake, a middle-aged Irish burglar, and Beverly Penn, a young girl, who is dying.

Peter Lake, a simple, uneducated man, because of a love that, at first he does not fully understand, is driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His great struggle, in a city ever alight with its own energy and besieged by unprecedented winters, is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature. 





A White Horse Escapes

There was a white horse on a quiet winter morning when snow covered the streets gently and was not deep, and the sky was swept with vibrant stars, except in the east, where dawn was beginning in a light blue flood. The air was motionless, but would soon start to move as the sun came up and winds from Canada came charging down the Hudson.

The horse had escaped from his master's small clapboard stable in Brooklyn. He trotted alone over the carriage road of the Williamsburg Bridge, before the light, while the toll keeper was sleeping by his stove and many stars were still blazing above the city. Fresh snow on the bridge muffled his hoof beats, and he sometimes turned his head and looked behind him to see if he was being followed. He was warm from his own effort and he breathed steadily, having loped four or five miles through the dead of Brooklyn past silent churches and shuttered stores. Far to the south, in the black, ice-choked waters of the Narrows, a sparkling light marked the ferry on its way to Manhattan, where only market men were up, waiting for the fishing boats to glide down through Hell Gate and the night.   
  

This is yet another novel
I've owned for years, and have
yet to read! And with such 
a GORGEOUS cover, too!
I ADORE horses, and the color blue!!
I love the vivid, poetic prose,
so I think I'll be picking
this one up very soon!
(After I mentally kick myself
    for not doing so, all this time.)   
From what I've posted above, 
would you say that
I should keep reading?