May Roundup

Books Finished: 10


Favorite May Book:

Aurelia by Anne Osterlund

Aurelia is about the crown princess of Tyralt who is the target of a series of assassination attempts. Her former friend and classmate Robert is brought back from his family's self-imposed exile to help keep her safe and discover the culprit. I really enjoyed this young adult fairy tale/romance. The relationship between the two main characters is charming and interesting. And the dilemma the two find themselves in is sure to resonate with the isolation many teens feel. Certainly worth a read.

Interested? Have some excerpts! Or see The Compulsive Reader's Book Trailer!

Author Encounters

Barbara Quick, author of Vivaldi's Virgins, (check out the book trailer - sumptuous and beautiful) stopped by my Waiting on Wednesday post for a YA novel about Vivaldi and offered to share a podcast of Vivaldi's lesser-known music on her website! There's also a cool webinar (Vivaldi 101) about Vivaldi in the News & Press section.

Books Read:
1. The Big Production (Drama Club, Book 2) - Peter Lerangis
2. Too Hot! (Drama Club, Book 3) - Peter Lerangis
3. Summer Stars (Drama Club, Book 4) - Peter Lerangis
4. The Art Thief - Noah Charney
5. Disrobed and Dishonored - Louise Allen
6. Drood - Dan Simmons
7. The Tory Widow - Christine Blevins
8. Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083 - Andrea White
9. Sonnets - Warwick Collins
10. Aurelia - Anne Osterlund

BreakNeck - Erica Spindler

*** 1/2 - I loved the original spin on the thriller. I've never seen one that dealt with identity theft and kids engaged in criminal hacking of the more mundane variety. What kept it from being stellar for me was the annoyance I felt for some of the characters.

I received a free review copy of Break Neck through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

Erica Spindler's Break Neck is the second story involving police officers and partners M.C. Riggio and Kitt Lundgren. Apparently in the first novel (Copy Cat), Kitt got too emotionally involved in the case, and it was up to M.C. to keep her out of trouble. In this one, the roles are reversed. A series of murders involving young adults uncovers a ring of computer geeks involved in identity theft and criminal hacking - and a professional killer known as Break Neck who is out to silence them all. As the trail leads closer and closer to M.C.'s own family, she becomes ever more personally involved in the case. Soon the question isn't so much whether M.C. will be able to track down the killer, but rather which of her relationships will be destroyed in the process.

There's a lot to like in this thriller - there's a great deal of tension; the suspense is really ratcheted up, but without the gore factor that so many police thrillers use to keep the audience spell-bound. That was definitely a point in its favor. I also really enjoyed the fact that it used identity theft and computer crime as its basis rather than the typical serial killer plot. Added to that was a real sense of inter-relationships and characters with histories and baggage. These women don't exist in a vacuum, and they don't just live for the job. Their careers affect their lovers, their families, their partnership in ways that are complex and difficult.

What diminished my enjoyment of the book was that I was just irritated with a few of the characters throughout the book. M.C.'s utter disregard for police procedure and evidence rules drove me batty. The rules are there for a reason - to actually let you put the guy away! You ignore the rules, you increase the chances that these guys stay on the streets. Plus her unilateral actions really jeopardized both her and her partner's career - considering that she was on the other side of this in just the last book, I would have expected her to be a little more sensible.

Most annoying, though, were the 'kids'. Though they were young adults, they didn't seem to be able to grasp anything beyond their own selfish wants - not even the fact that they were being stalked by a killer. Seriously, even when they were told there was a killer on the loose - and looking for them - they couldn't be bothered to stop being obstructionist, wasting time and going clubbing? It was extremely irritating, and made more so because it seemed like such a caricature of 'young people'. And being young myself, I was a bit insulted.

Despite my issues with some of the characters, I thought Spindler's pairing of Riggio and Lundgren was strong - they are different women with different drives and issues, and I really enjoyed the depth of the relationships shown in this story. I'm also seriously considering picking up Copy Cat, the first in this series although this one wasn't my cup of tea.

Recommended? If you're looking for a different sort of novel than the typical murder police-procedural, or if you like a crime novel with a little more depth to the relationships. But not if you're easily annoyed by characters.

Shakespeare Challenge

I've decided to participate in the Shakespeare Challenge. The rules are simple: Read six books by or about Shakespeare before Dec. 31, 2009. My choices?

1. The Sonnets - Warwick Collins

2. Enter Three Witches - Caroline Cooney

The Sonnets - Warwick Collins

*** - I love Shakespeare, and the sonnets are some of my favorites - heartfelt and beautiful, caught up in emotional turmoil. We once used certain sonnets as monologues in an acting class - there's just so much to them. Unfortunately here, I never got swept up in the emotions Shakespeare was writing about - the narration seemed detached.

I received a free review copy of The Sonnets through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

Warwick Collins' The Sonnets explores Shakespeare's life while he was writing his beautiful sonnets. The sonnets are often cited as the most autobiographical of Shakespeare's work, and here Collins rearranges and weaves them together to form a narrative about Shakespeare's love triangle with his patron the Earl of Southampton and the mysterious dark lady.

I loved the premise - using the sonnets as a basis for a historical novel about Shakespeare's life and loves is a brilliant idea and could really serve to infuse him with emotional life rather than the focus on the playhouse that most Shakespearean novels take. That said, I'm not sure the format wholly works here. In trying to let the sonnets speak for themselves by including so many of them, Collins doesn't give us much of his own interpretation of Shakespeare's emotions - which is problematic in a novel told in the first person. His Shakespeare seems overly detached from the world he inhabits - a characteristic often remarked upon by his patron, but which doesn't seem quite right given the deep conflicting emotions shown in his sonnets.

The method of incorporating the sonnets is also a bit awkward - even jarring. Often times they are introduced with a quick statement that Shakespeare has spent the night 'at his board'. Then the first two quartets (or so) are quoted, then the poem is taken over by one of his patrons reading aloud. This is very effective as a scene transition on film, but on the page it seemed strange and affected - particularly since it happened over and over again.

Writing about Shakespeare is difficult. Writing from Shakespeare's point of view is even more so. There are sections where I thought Collins succeeded admirably. On p. 72, a snippet of conversation:

"Thou art a flatterer."

"No better and no worse."

sounds just like the sort of rejoinder the playwright would come up with - it even scans. And further on that page there are sentences that flow in (almost) iambic pentameter:

"Inside the sullen gloom, his rooms were a scholar's den, with manuscripts piled high on chests and chairs."

Sections like this just sound RIGHT. They sound like something that could come from Shakespeare's quick mind. But all too often, I found myself as detached as Shakespeare was depicted. Partially this was due to differences in interpretation - Collins depicts Shakespeare's love for Southampton as ironic and chaste. I'm not sure I agree with either assessment. But mostly I think it was because Collins' reimagining in The Sonnets didn't offer enough emotional context to bring the poems to life in a new and different way.

Interested in other opinions?

Many a Quaint and Curious Volume

Devourer of Books

The Indextrious Reader

The Asylum

Sally's Book Blog

The Art Thief - Noah Charney

*** - This book definitely has its fair share of puzzles, and I (like many) am fascinated by the world of art and art crime. I learned a lot about both while reading Charney's The Art Thief. The highlights by far are definitely Prof. Barrow's art history lectures. I enjoyed the book, but I ended up pretty confused about what painting went where - and I was a bit irritated when the exact same phrases popped up again and again. A good debut novel, but there's room for improvement.

The Story:

A beautiful Caravaggio altarpiece is stolen from a small church in Rome. A famous Malevich painting is stolen from the basement of the Malevich society - and a similar painting goes on sale at one of London's most prestigious auctions. Although the art thefts seem unconnected, the investigations in Rome, Paris and London begin to intertwine. And through it all, art investigator Gabriel Coffin offers his assistance and expertise in identifying and seeking out the stolen paintings.

Once the story takes off there is a dizzying number of forgeries, overpaintings, double-crosses, and unscrupulous collectors. There's a whirlwind of information being presented about the artists, about the consequences of art crime, and especially some fantastically colorful lectures on art history and certain paintings. There are puzzles and brain teasers - but to be honest it all ended up being a little much. It got to the point where I was writing down what was happening to what painting where...and I just felt jumbled and confused. Not the ideal denouement.

The author mentions in the interview at the back of my copy that he began work as a playwright - and I think it shows. Rather than draw us elaborate heist scenes or action-based chases, most of the action is recounted through dialogue between characters. At times it certainly has its charms, but it did get old when every move forward in Paris was shared over an elaborate dinner rather than getting to accompany the police to the scene. I was looking for a better balance between demonstrating character development and actual action scenes - otherwise many of the scenes can seem like info-dumps. This is especially noticeable when the same striking phrase ('violent ignorance') is used a few times in a similar context mere 50 pages apart.

Ultimately, The Art Thief misses the ideal balance between the thriller (like The Thomas Crown Affair) and a more character-driven story. But some of his characters are spot-on, and where Charney talks about art history and art crime, I was utterly fascinated. I would recommend this to readers who enjoyed the art references and discussions in Dan Brown's thrillers, but want someone who 'gets' art. Noah Charney does, and his Professor Barrow brings it to life AND makes you laugh.

The Art:

Many of Malevich's works can be found here, and here is one of the White on White series discussed in The Art Thief (in MoMA). The blurb about the Suprematist movement at the second link is particularly interesting.





Obviously, the Caravaggio mentioned in The Art Thief does not actually exist, but here is a painting of the Annunciation by Caravaggio. And here are a number of other Caravaggio works, if you are interested (the Bacchus and the Calling of St. Matthew are particularly nice). I've always had a soft spot for Caravaggio despite his tempestuous and pugnacious nature. This one has been my favorite ever since I first saw it in the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth when I was in high school.


And the Dürer engravings mentioned in the puzzles are here:
Melencolia I;
Knight, Death, and the Devil;
St. Jerome in His Study


For those of you interested in Professor Barrow's lectures (my favorite part of the book), here are some of the paintings he discusses from the National Gallery in London:

The Marriage Contract (aka The Arnolfini Wedding) - Jan van Eyck and one of his Self-Portraits
The Ghent Altarpiece particularly Adam and Eve

The Ambassadors - Hans Holbein (the Younger)

And Gabriel Coffin lectures about The Gardner Heist (incidentally I've got a book about this in my TBR pile!).



The Crime:

For more information on art crimes, you can visit the author's website, or the website of the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art (ARCA) - which also has a blog. Or you can read a Publisher's Weekly interview (quite short) with a master art thief.


Interested in other opinions?
Musings of a Bookish Kitty
Vulpes Libris

Art History Challenge

The Rules: Read 6 books about Art History in 2009.

It's really that simple. And since this is a subject I love to learn and read about, this is an ideal challenge for me. I approached my initial class in art history with some trepidation, but it quickly became my favorite course of freshman year in college - and I went on to take many more classes in Art History.

Here is my list so far:

1. The Art Thief - Noah Charney

2. Murder in the National Gallery - Margaret Truman (I wasn't sure whether to include this or not, but it fit in very nicely with The Art Thief's discussion of forgeries and art theft, so I decided I would. Plus there's some interesting discussion about Caravaggio).

3. I Sold Andy Warhol (too soon) - not exactly history as this focuses largely on the contemporary art market, but it was an interesting look at art that I was pretty much completely unfamiliar with.

Anybody have any favorites they'd like to recommend?

Waiting on Wednesday

Sphinx's Princess (Sep. 22, 2009)

Nefertiti was far more than just a pretty face.

Nefertiti may be the dutiful daughter of a commoner, but her inquisitive mind often gets her into situations that are far from ordinary, like receiving secret lessons from a scribe. And she’s the kind of girl who acts first, and apologizes later whenever she witnesses injustice or cruelty. But she is also extraordinarily beautiful. And news of her striking beauty and impulsive behavior attracts the attention of her aunt, the manipulative Queen Tiye, who sees Nefertiti as an ideal pawn in her desire for power.

Even though Nefertiti is taken from her beloved family and forced into a life filled with courtly intrigue and danger, her spirit and mind will not rest. She continues to challenge herself and the boundaries of ancient Egyptian society.

Why I'm Waiting: I absolutely adored Friesner's Helen of Troy novels (Nobody's Princess & Nobody's Prize). Far from being a beautiful, but passive creature, the novels showed her as a strong, stubborn Spartan girl determined to rescue her own self, thank you very much. She works hard; she makes mistakes, and she tags along on some of the greatest Greek mythological adventures. What more could you want?

Well, nothing more than what Friesner is giving us now! I've always been enamored of ancient Egypt. So a novel set in ancient Egypt about Nefertiti? I'm practically drooling - where's the pre-order button?

Waiting on Wednesday

Hidden Voices - Pat Lowery Collins (May 12, 2009)

While studying under Vivaldi, three girls in a Venice orphanage forge their own notions of love in a sensuous, engrossing novel told in three narrative voices.

It is a longing and search for love that motivates three girls living in the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage renowned for its extraordinary musical program. But for Rosalba, Anetta, and Luisa, the love they seek is not where they expect to find it. Set in the early 1700s in the heart of Venice, this remarkable novel deftly weaves the history of Antonio Vivaldi’s early musical career into the lives of three young women who excel in voice and instrument. Under the composer’s tutelage and care, the orphans find expression, sustenance, and passion. But can the sheltered life of the orphanage prepare them for the unthinkable dangers outside its walls?

Why I'm Waiting: Earlier this year I read and loved Vivaldi's Virgins by Barbara Quick, and I think it would be cool to read a young adult take on a similar story. I've always been entranced by stories about artists, and I'm trying to expand into music and musicians - even though I know very little about them. This has Vivaldi and Venice - sounds like exactly what I'm looking for!

Plus, have you seen the cover? Utterly gorgeous!

Interested? Read an excerpt! Or order your own copy at Amazon.

Maritime Monday - Seafaring Challenge 2009

For this week's Maritime Monday, I've decided to join the 2009 Seafaring Challenge hosted by I ♥ Paperbacks. I love nautical books, and it would be nice to see what others are reading on the high seas :-). Hope the rest of you enjoy!

Why this challenge? Because you don't have to post a list of books, and because it fits so well with my Maritime Monday theme! Huzzah!

Here is My List of Books:

1. The Buccaneers - Iain Lawrence

2. Corsair - Tim Severin

Here are the rules:

This challenge is for those who love seafaring tales! And since there are so many types of books out there that feature this theme, your reading possibilities are endless - nonfiction, history, true-life accounts, genre fiction, literature, historical and contemporary works, young adult, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, romance - the list could go on and on!

Although there are a few guidelines for this challenge, the basic criteria for any book is simply that it must feature something nautical.

Here are some definitions that may help you in deciding if your book fits the challenge:
Relating to or involving the sea, shipping, vessels & their operation including living & working at sea.
Relating to or involving ships or shipping or navigation or seamen.
Having to do with boats, ships, or sailing.

There can be naval officers, pirates, buried treasure, U-Boats, submarines, sailors, dragons, fairies! There can even be “fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…”! :) Even spaceships count! What’s not to love about having all that reading room?

Guidelines
1. Read 10 nautical themed books in 2009.
2. You can join at anytime.
3. Overlapping with other challenges is fine.
4. When you sign up using Mr. Linky, please list the direct link to your challenge post/page where your books will be listed. If you just list your blog’s URL, your link will be removed.
5. If you will be posting your challenges in your sidebar, please put a button and link up before you sign up for the challenge.
6. You do not have to list your books ahead of time. If you decide to, you can change them as you go. Feel free to remove or add titles as needed. (love this! This is actually usually what keeps me from participating in challenges)

Other Notes:
Since I have started this challenge after the start of 2009, any nautical themed books you have already read in 2009 can be used for this challenge.

My Very First Award!

And aren't I proud!! Dani over at Confessions of a Romance Book Addict awarded me the I Love Your Blog award here. Thanks Dani!

Now to share the love…

Here are the rules:

1) Add the logo of the award to your blog.
2) Add a link to the person(s) who awarded it to you.
3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4) Add links to those blogs on your blog.
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

My I Love Your Blog Awards Go To: (drumroll please...)

1. Medieval Bookworm

2. The Magic of Ink

3. Angieville

4. Obsessed with Books

5. Historical Tapestry

6. Nineteen Teen (a writer's blog with fantastic posts about what life was like as a teen in the nineteenth century. Well worth a look).

7. Presenting Lenore

Keep up the great work!