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? 

The Cozy Book Corner No. 6: Sudden Book Love, Part I

Welcome to my Monday 

bookish feature!

In each weekly post, I explore 

my thoughts on several 

book-related topics.

Love at first sight. Who has not experienced it? Who has not felt their breath catch in their throat when first beholding someone who has suddenly, inexplicably, become The Center of the Universe?

The very same thing can happen with a book. It's happened to me on several occasions throughout my life. Whenever it has, I have felt as if suddenly Life had meaning.....I have felt such a blast of "book bliss" that I could hardly contain it, and have actually had to stop myself from running down the street, shouting to everyone within earshot, "Hey!!  You MUST read this book!!" 

It can happen anywhere -- in a bookstore, online, overhearing a restaurant conversation (although not that many people discuss books in restaurants, I think, unless they live in Greenwich Village). Maybe a book catches your eye as you're getting into a crowded elevator or bus, or maybe you see someone totally absorbed, while standing in the subway, and you want to ask them to sit next to you, just so you can find out what they're reading, what's holding their attention so fiercely. Except, sadly, there's no room in the seat next to you. Besides, you feel guilty about interrupting their little corner of Book Nirvana, so you surreptitiously peek at the book cover. If you are able to catch the title, then you pull out your cell phone to get to Amazon (or B&N, or The Book Depository), and then, when you've finally found out just how wonderful the book in question is, you feel as if all the trials and tribulations in your life have suddenly vanished, in the wake of finding such a Wonderful Literary Treasure.

Books can lovingly ensnare us in two ways: either through the cover, or through brief immersion in their prose. And it's sheer bliss when a book actually combines the two! This doesn't happen that often, though, at least, not for me. Ah, but when it does.....I can actually get high. And float on clouds 9, 10, 11 or whatever other numbers there are! Book highs, when they hit you, are the most wonderful  highs in the world, right along with art and music highs!!

Well, just yesterday, I fell in love with a book I saw on Goodreads. Just like that. Actually, it wasn't really the book itself that caught my eye, but a quote from it. This quote gave me goosebumps when I read it -- the kind you get not when you're scared half out of your mind, but the good kind, the ones you get when something really resonates with your inner being. I read it over, three times, savoring it carefully the last two times.

Here's the quote:

“Some of us are fated to live in a box from which there is only temporary release. We of the damned-up spirits, of the thwarted feelings, of the blocked hearts, and the pent-up thoughts, we who long to blast out, flood forth in a torrent of rage or joy or even madness, but there is nowhere for us to go, nowhere in the world because no one will have us as we are, and there is nothing to do except to embrace the secret pleasures of our sublimations, the arc of a sentence, the kiss of a rhyme, the image that forms on paper or canvas, the inner cantata, the cloistered embroidery, the dark and dreaming needlepoint from hell or heaven or purgatory or none of those three, but there must be some sound and fury from us, some clashing cymbals in the void.”

This quote is an absolute jewel. Some readers might not like it because of the very long second sentence, but I totally disagree with them. The sentence is as long as it is on purpose; it has a flow, a rhythm to it, and this flow, this rhythm, just builds and builds in its intensity, until it becomes a passionate lament, a heart-felt plea for justice, for fairness, as well as an urgent call to be and express oneself, no matter how, to bring to birth everything that's bottled up inside, that's bursting at the seams to come into the world. It's also an urgent call to experience Life to the fullest, in each artistic gesture, each inner creation, each fleeting, precious, living second. It is the cry of an artist, seeking self-expression, yet, thwarted by the limits imposed by the circumstances surrounding her, by the indifference of her fellow humans.

When I first read this passage, I literally froze, even as I continued to read. Every word, every vivid word picture, pierced my heart, lifted it, and gave it wings. This is an author who KNOWS, who has fully experienced the things she writes about. This is an author who knows the silent tears in the night.....

Her name is Siri Hustvedt, and I have never heard of her before. This quote is taken from a book published in 2011, and titled The Summer Without Men. The plot is rather sad, so it's fitting that the quote above should rail against the injustices of life, the illusion of total freedom we humans love to wallow in. This book sounds like it has an existentialist undercurrent to it. According to the synopsis, however, there's a note of hope in the female protagonist's life.

I need to read this book. I need to buy this book and devour it as soon as possible. No further explanations are necessary. When a writer can touch a reader as this woman has, with just one quote, that writer's work is to be sought out and speedily ingested, and then, savored more slowly a second, and then a third, and perhaps a fourth, time. Or perhaps, and even better, as one reads, one should pause when encountering passages of such incandescent beauty, and savor them several times, if only to remember how heavy, and yet, how beautiful, is the burden of being a sensitive, creative human in this shallow, imprisoning world.

I have more to say on this subject, so I will return with more ponderings next week. Meanwhile, I'm rushing over to The Book Depository to order this book! It has to be this edition, too, which I'm ordering from TBD. I prefer this cover to the one of the edition being sold on Amazon.

  

What are your thoughts 
on this subject?
Have you ever fallen in love
with a book at first sight?
What drew you in?

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? 

The Cozy Book Corner No. 5: Balancing Fiction and Nonfiction

Welcome to my Monday feature!

Note

I have moved this feature

from Friday to Monday.

In each weekly post, I explore 

my thoughts on several 

book-related topics.

Note

This post might sound a bit 

like the one from last week.

Please bear with me. I think my 

subconscious mind simply decided to

expand upon the topic presented in 

the previous post.   

Book blogging is such a delightful venture! All of us who blog about books do so because we love to write book reviews, post other kinds of book articles, and, of course, also love to meet other passionate bookworms. 

Most book bloggers, I've noticed, blog about fiction, and prefer specific fiction genres, as well. However, there's a number of book bloggers who also, or even exclusively, blog about nonfiction. The first example that comes to mind is that of Brian Joseph, whose blog, Babbling Books, contains fascinating posts about both fiction and nonfiction books. I'm not sure whether he consciously strives to keep a balance between these two broad categories, but I do see a nice mix of the two on his blog.

In the years since I began to blog about books (2010), I have often resisted specializing in one specific genre or category, preferring to have an eclectic blog, instead. However, I have also noticed that, whenever I have posted a review about a nonfiction book, I usually got very few or no comments. This was very discouraging, as I wanted -- and still want -- to be able to read and review all the genres I love, and these definitely include nonfiction books. 

One day, I decided to start a blog specifically for classics, literary fiction, adult fantasy, science fiction, and nonfiction. I also wanted to include Christian fiction. Thus, MindSpirit Journeys was born, in 2012. Meanwhile, I decided to dedicate my first blog, A Night's Dream of Books, exclusively to the Young Adult Fiction genre, with perhaps an occasional adult title (historical romance, for instance) every so often.

I soon began to feel the pressure of having two blogs, so I abandoned MindSpirit Book Journeys for quite some time. I didn't think I'd ever return to it, but eventually, I did, for the simple reason that I wanted to review books I knew my YA audience wouldn't be interested in. Most of these were nonfiction books.

Then the tug-of-war began.....it took me a long time to actually acknowledge it, but now I am doing so. Both fiction and nonfiction are interesting to me; both draw me in, and there are times I prefer to read one more than the other. So it's quite impossible for me to attempt to make sure I read an equal number of books in each category, much as I would love to! I simply "go with the flow", at least most of the time.

Even when I begin reading a novel that keeps me turning pages, there are times when I fall into certain moods, or some topic catches my interest. At such times, I frequently will abandon or "leave for later" whatever novel I happen to be reading, and reach for a nonfiction book.

A case in point: for several days now, I've had the novel Water For Elephants in my sidebar, posted as the next book I'll read. Well, sure enough, a nonfiction book has caught my attention, and this is the book I'm actually reading.... I'm not sure why I got into it, except that the topic involved -- the Kaballah -- has been an interest of mine for quite some time, even though I haven't read about it consistently, or extensively. The reason for this, ironically, is that I've been pulled away by either other nonfiction books, or some very compelling novels! Now I'm feeling a pull in the opposite direction, and so I have started (I'm currently in the middle) Kaballah: Key to Your Inner Power, by Elizabeth Clare Prophet.

I have already changed the picture in the sidebar to reflect my real current read. So now I'm feeling somewhat "guilty" for not reading the other book at this time, when I was "supposed to". I almost feel as if I have to make it up to this book, as if its feelings had been hurt.... Kinda funny, right?

I do want to read Water For Elephants. I will probably do so after I finish the Kaballah book. Well, that will happen unless another nonfiction book happens to catch my eye.... Could there possibly be such a thing as "fickleness" and "unfaithfulness" in reading?

I wonder if other book bloggers also experience this tension between reading fiction and nonfiction. I wonder if any of my fellow bookworms agonize over their decisions to read one or the other of these two categories...

Compounding the problem, in my particular case, is the fact that I do have two blogs, AND, on top of that, am a pretty slow reader, usually managing to finish 2 or 3 books a month. This means that, if I read a book that I know I will review on one of my two blogs, that's time I cannot spend reading a book that I will review on the other blog, because of the different target audiences.

What to do?! I'm seriously thinking of flipping a coin the next time I get ready to start reading something!  I consider myself a fairly intelligent person. I should be asle to decide, in a logical, non-emotional manner, which book -- as well as genre -- I should read next. Well, perhaps Mr. Spock would calmly be able to do so, but I have emotions, and it's frequently my emotions that influence my choice of fiction vs. nonfiction. On the other hand, intellectual interests do influence my decision to read nonfiction (although these interests are tinged with emotion, as well, albeit one of intellectual fascination). There are many topics that utterly fascinate me. Most of them have to do with psychology, art, literary criticism, theology, and even some philosophy and science. History is another topic I want to read more about, as well.

The thing is, when I am caught by the pull of a particular interest, I am unable to ignore it, and stick with the book I had previously chosen to read. Whether the pull is an emotional or intellectual one (or a mixture of the two), actually doesn't matter at all. I feel compelled to abandon my previous reading plan, and go with the one that has unexpectedly presented itself....

Meanwhile, my mind and emotions are usually torn; I want to go on with my original intent. But there are other times in which I feel no regrets whatsoever, and happily go on with my revised reading plan.

So the struggle continues.... As I look over my bookshelves, here in our living room, my eyes lovingly caress all those fascinating book spines, and I sigh with a mixture of love nd despair.....I love all of these books, and want to read them all, but don't know if I'll EVER be able to, especially when there are times I can't decide between reading fiction or nonfiction, and, even when I make a choice, I still look longingly at the book I have "left behind" for later, wondering if perhaps I never will get back to it....               

What are your thoughts 
on this subject?
How do you balance fiction and nonfiction in 
your reading life?