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- Book Review: “Between Shades of Gray” by Ruta Sepetys
  
  Posted at 4:17 pm by Laura, on November 28, 2012
  
  Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
  
  Publisher: Speak
  Publishing Date: April 2012
  Genre: young adult, historical fiction
  Goodreads: 4.32
  Rating: ★★★★★
  
  It’s 1941 and fifteen-year-old artist Lina Vilkas is on Stalin’s extermination list. Deported to a prison camp in Siberia, Lina fights for her life, fearless, risking everything to save her family. It’s a long and harrowing journey and it is only their incredible strength, love, and hope that pull Lina and her family through each day. But will love be enough to keep them alive?
  
  How do I write a book review when I’m utterly speechless? How can I persuade a stranger to take a look at a book that has left me reeling, questioning, loving, weeping, aching? I am utterly silent, and this book speaks volumes.
  
  What is there to say about a work of fiction based on historical fact, kept hushed through history? What is there to say when this fictional piece is a conglomeration of true stories?
  
  You must read this. If the summary does not persuade you, if my inability to come up with the right words does not persuade you, if the quotes and excerpts below do not piqué your curiosity, then surely this video will push you.
  
  Everyone needs to know about this book. Everyone needs to know their history.
  
  Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother’s was worth a pocket watch.
  
  ~
  
  The door to the shack blew open. The NKVD pushed inside, pointing guns at us.
  “Davai!” yelled a gaurd, grabbing the man who wound his watch. People began to protest.
  “Please, it’s Christmas Eve,” pleaded Mother. “Don’t try to make us sign on Christmas Eve.”
  The guards yelled and began pushing people out of the shack. I wasn’t leaving without Papa. I scrambled over to the other side of the table. I grabbed our family photo and stuffed it up my dress. I would hide it on the way to the kolkhoz office. [The NKVD guard] Kretzsky didn’t notice. He stood motionless, holding his rifle, staring at all the photographs.
  
  ~
  
  How much food was there in America that a ship could drop such an enormous supply for fewer than twenty guards? And now the Americans had sailed away. Did they know the Soviets’ gruesome secret? Were they turning the other cheek?
  
  ~
  
  “To the Soviets, there is no more Lithuania, Latvia, or Estonia. Stalin must completely get rid of us to see his vision unlittered.”
  Litter. Is that what we were to Stalin?
  
  ~
  
  When I imagined sketching the commander, I had no problem, until I got to his head. My mind saw a clean and pressed uniform, with a nest of wicked snakes sprouting out of his neck, or a skull with hollow black eyes, smoking a cigarette. …I needed to draw them. But I couldn’t, not in front of the commander.
  
  ~
  
  Andrius turned. His eyes found mine. “I’ll see you,” he said.
  My face didn’t wrinkle. I didn’t utter a sound. But for the first time in months, I cried.
  
  Posted in books, Link, Reviews 2012 | 2 Comments | Tagged book review, books, genre: history, genre: young adult, goodreads, history, review
- ARC Book Review: “Beneath the Abbey Wall” by AD Scott
  
  Posted at 5:07 pm by Laura, on November 5, 2012
  
  Beneath the Abbey Wall by AD Scott
  
  Expected Publication: November 13
  Publisher: Atria Books
  Goodreads: —
  Rating: ★★★
  
  In a small Scottish town, the local newspaper staff doesn’t see much excitement. But that all changes when their no-nonsense office manager Mrs. Smart is found murdered one dreary autumn night. For the staff of the “Highland Gazette,” the investigation becomes personal when the deputy editor, is accused of the crime.
  
  It’s the late 1950s, the decade of rock n’ roll and television, and change is coming, but slowly. It’s up to budding reporter Joanne Ross to step into Mrs. Smart’s shoes and keep the newspaper office running, all while raising two girls alone. But newcomer Neil Stewart proves a major distraction for Joanne.
  
  And what does the tragic tale of children stolen from the Travelling people more than thirty years previously have to do with this murder? In a mystery with twists and turns and no clear-cut solution, the secrets of the past must be unravelled before justice can be found.
  
  I am not sure what I expected from this mystery novel, and I’m still left hanging as to whether that helped my rating for this.
  
  “Beneath the Abbey Wall” contained all of my favorite elements for the perfect gothic mystery: historically placed, set in Scotland, small community, a mysterious death that throws everything off-balance. The characters were nothing spectacular, which is excellent: no one wants to read about the most perfect person on the planet. We have the traditional commanding McAllister, lead editor of the newspaper, who is great at divvying tasks but poor at expressing his emotions; the battered Joanne, fresh out of a violent marriage and devoted mother of two daughters; the charming Rob and aloof Hector; and the near-constant sobbing Betsy. Watching these employees interact, racing to share the stories with their town even when it’s a negative case about one of their own, was very entertaining and warming.
  
  The downfall could be pointed to the characters the murder centers on: Mrs Smart, Mr Smart, and Don McLeod, the one blamed for Mrs Smart’s murder. Scott surely meant for the readers to care about Mrs Smart’s death — but not once did I feel any sadness towards her character. All that was ever said about her was that she was a good woman. What made her good? Her personal story when she was young woman was revealed, and I was sympathetic to her for that situation, but I lacked sympathy for her older character. What was it about her that people liked? This question was never fully explained. I was also supposed to resent Mr Smart, but instead I found him to be the annoying character who would pop up only once in a while to remind you of his existence, and then disappear again. And Don lacked personality. He was a drunkard, and it was all people could describe him as. How am I supposed to root for his freedom from prison if that’s the only thing the characters can say about him?
  
  Joanne was a character that I could easily relate to It was quite eerie. I would feel bothered by her sudden fantasies over Canadian newcomer Neil Stewart — dreaming up romantic get-aways and wishing he’d say he loved her — but before I could go and judge her, I realized I’m quite similar. In fact, most women are, especially if they’ve undergone neglect. She wanted someone else to validate her existence, to make her feel wanted and cherished. When no one — apart from McAllister, which is clear to everyone else except for Joanne — offers this and a new man arrives on the scene, of course she’ll jump on the opportunity.
  
  As far as the plotting for the mystery, I felt it dragged. At some moments, I forgot this was a mystery novel instead of a love story. Another aspect is the lack of empathy I felt for the murdered and the accused. The writing was beautiful, the relationships between the characters entertaining and exquisite, the descriptions of life in the office and life out in the Highlands lovely. But the mystery itself was left wanting.
  
  [Read for a graduate course. Thank you to Atria Books for the ARC.]
  
  Posted in books, Reviews 2012 | 0 Comments | Tagged advance reading copy, ARC, book review, books, genre: mystery, goodreads, history, review
- Byron Treasure Found — The Independent
  
  Posted at 9:19 am by Laura, on October 29, 2012
  
  Byron treasure found in gift to used bookshop — The Independent — Paul Gallagher
  
  Now a donation to the second-hand bookshop at Harewood House, in Yorkshire, has provided a unique insight into the Leigh family history and Augusta’s place in one of the biggest scandals to rock Georgian society. Although condemned to poverty for the last 33 years of her life, Augusta, the only daughter of Amelia Osborne and John “Mad Jack” Byron, the poet’s father, retained a passion for reading. Her rediscovered literary treasures, inscribed by Augusta and members of her family, belonged to a woman in her 80s who had had them for 40 years without realising their provenance. She acquired the books with a London house in the 1970s Ω the bookshelves were too large to move, so the seller left them, and their contents, behind.
  
  Volunteers at the bookshop were intrigued by an inscription in The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington, reading: “Augusta Leigh, St James’ Palace.”
  
  “That raised my eyebrows,” said Audrey Kingsnorth, the Harewood volunteer who led the research. “I had no idea who Augusta was… That’s when I started looking into the family and saw the [Byron] connection.”
  
  I think the funny part is that the donor was so excited about what the volunteers told her that she donated more rare books (Lilliputian books, small volumes to show off printers’ ability).
  
  Posted in books, Link, Update Post | 0 Comments | Tagged authors, books, genre: classics, genre: gothic, genre: poetry, history, news, personal
- In ‘The Brontes,’ Details Of A Family’s Strange World – NPR
  
  Posted at 2:20 pm by Laura, on August 27, 2012
  
  In ‘The Brontes,’ Details of a Family’s Strange World — NPR — Maureen Corrigan
  
  For roughly a century and a half, the Brontes have been the subject of biographies that, much like poor Branwell’s painting, cover up more than they reveal. When Barker’s monumental family biography of the Brontes was published in 1994, it was as though a skilled restorer had come along to work on the group portrait, gently rubbing off the lurid colors of myth and gossip, and revealing the bones of truth underneath.
  
  Now, Barker has updated the biography — which has become the standard Bronte biography — with new material. The footnotes alone, in this new edition of The Brontes, run to 136 pages. It’s rare that I have occasion to say this, but, taken collectively, those footnotes are thrilling. Referencing sources as diverse and dry as the daily engagement diaries of obscure Bronte neighbors, Barker attests to the fact that with steady scholarly detective work, the truth of the past can slowly be approached.
  
  I recently bought this tome, and I’m beyond thrilled to finally read something from a scholar who has worked in the historical and literary fields. The myths and legends are slowly but surely diminishing thanks to Juliet Barker’s knowledge!
  
  Posted in books, Link | 0 Comments | Tagged authors, books, history, news
- Book Review: “Romancing Miss Brontë” by Juliet Gael
  
  Posted at 11:02 pm by Laura, on June 29, 2012
  
  Romancing Miss Brontë by Juliet Gael
  
  During the two years that she studied in Brussels, Charlotte had a taste of life’s splendors—travel, literature, and art. Now, back home in the Yorkshire moors, duty-bound to a blind father and an alcoholic brother, an ambitious Charlotte refuses to sink into hopelessness. With her sisters, Emily and Anne, Charlotte conceives a plan to earn money and pursue a dream: The Brontës will publish. In childhood the Brontë children created fantastical imaginary worlds; now the sisters craft novels quite unlike anything written before. Transforming her loneliness and personal sorrow into a triumph of literary art, Charlotte pens her 1847 masterpiece, Jane Eyre.
  
  Charlotte’s novel becomes an overwhelming literary success, catapulting the shy and awkward young woman into the spotlight of London’s fashionable literary scene—and into the arms of her new publisher, George Smith, an irresistibly handsome young man whose interest in his fiercely intelligent and spirited new author seems to go beyond professional duty. But just as life begins to hold new promise, unspeakable tragedy descends on the Brontë household, throwing London and George into the background and leaving Charlotte to fear that the only romance she will ever find is at the tip of her pen.
  
  But another man waits in the Brontës’ Haworth parsonage—the quiet but determined curate Arthur Nicholls. After secretly pining for Charlotte since he first came to work for her father, Arthur suddenly reveals his heart to her.
  
  Usually when an author takes liberties to devise a fictional account of another’s life, it’s poorly written, cheesy, and extremely wild and romantic in its imaginings. Sometimes the truth is twisted to fit the author’s wish for a better outcome. This happens constantly with Jane Austen, but so far I’ve read two books (including this one) that portray Charlotte Brontë as true to life as possible based on literary and academic scholarship (the other: Jude Morgan’s Charlotte and Emily), no frills added, and so strikingly similar to one another and all the research that, to a fan and Brontë scholar, must speak the truth.
  
  And for that, I have to say this is one of my favorite books.
  
  Charlotte led such a hard life and I find her and the family utterly fascinating. They each desired love and affection, passions that would throw them off their feet, and yet also desired to be reclusive and alone. This duality speaks to me as an individual – and for someone who may not feel the same, Gael did an excellent job describing Charlotte’s dilemmas. Not a moment of the book was rushed, which is such a blessing. This spans across a decade of Charlotte’s life, and everyone who shaped her eventually shaped her novels. The influence is key to every moment of her life, and any subject – such as her crush on her publisher, the way she snubbed the curate and later fell in love, the way she portrayed herself to various friends in her letters – was given its proper justice and detail.
  
  Academic and literary truth aside, it was still vastly entertaining! We learn more about Emily, Anne, and Branwell; the insecurities Charlotte felt about her appearance; the overbearing clergyman father; the duties of the curate Arthur; the stardom the “Bell brothers” faced and who they met – far more interesting than reading a biographical description! The language is beautiful as well, and truly mimics the way Charlotte wrote in her letters. Each character had a distinct personality without exaggeration, and despite knowing how everyone’s story ended, I was anxious to see how it would be written. An author that tackles a topic wherein the reader already knows the ending is certainly an author to admire – the fact Gael kept me on the edge of my seat deserves an award!
  
  Finally, I’m so glad Gael gave life and breath to Arthur. She had little information to work from, but what information she had were derived from first-hand accounts recorded by Charlotte and Arthur’s friends and neighbors. The language of the time would suggest criticism or flattery, and I think Gael did a wonderful job of shaping just the right kind of man he must have been. He was no random, ordinary man who waltzed into the home and asked for her hand in marriage; no, he was there throughout all of her joys and sorrows, on the edge, waiting for the perfect moment, and gave her the happiest last few months of her life.
  
  Fantastic book. Utterly beautiful.
  
  Rating: ★★★★★ of 5
  Goodreads: 3.81
  
  Posted in books, Reviews 2012 | 0 Comments | Tagged authors, book review, books, genre: adult fiction, genre: classics, genre: fiction, genre: history, history, review
- Upcoming Books! [9]
  
  Posted at 3:35 pm by Laura, on March 18, 2012
  Title: Stay Close
  Author: Harlan Coben
  Genre: mystery
  Publisher: Dutton
  Publishing Date: March 20
  Summary: Megan is a suburban soccer mom who once upon a time walked on the wild side. Now she’s got two kids, a perfect husband, a picket fence, and a growing sense of dissatisfaction. Ray used to be a talented documentary photographer, but at age forty he finds himself in a dead- end job posing as a paparazzo pandering to celebrity-obsessed rich kids. Jack is a detective who can’t let go of a cold case-a local husband and father disappeared seventeen years ago, and Jack spends the anniversary every year visiting a house frozen in time, the missing man’s family still waiting, his slippers left by the recliner as if he might show up any moment to step into them.
  Three people living lives they never wanted, hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect, will find that the past doesn’t recede. Even as the terrible consequences of long-ago events crash together in the present and threaten to ruin lives, they will come to the startling realization that they may not want to forget the past at all. And as each confronts the dark side of the American Dream- the boredom of a nice suburban life, the excitement of temptation, the desperation and hunger that can lurk behind even the prettiest facades- they will discover the hard truth that the line between one kind of life and another can be as whisper-thin as a heartbeat.
  
  ~
  
  Title: The Good Father
  Author: Noah Hawley
  Genre: fiction
  Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  Publishing Date: March 20
  Summary: An intense, psychological novel about one doctor’s suspense-filled quest to unlock the mind of a suspected political assassin: his twenty-year old son.
  As the Chief of Rheumatology at Columbia Presbyterian, Dr. Paul Allen’s specialty is diagnosing patients with conflicting symptoms, patients other doctors have given up on. He lives a contented life in Westport with his second wife and their twin sons—hard won after a failed marriage earlier in his career that produced a son named Daniel. In the harrowing opening scene of this provocative and affecting novel, Dr. Allen is home with his family when a televised news report announces that the Democratic candidate for president has been shot at a rally, and Daniel is caught on video as the assassin.
  Daniel Allen has always been a good kid—a decent student, popular—but, as a child of divorce, used to shuttling back and forth between parents, he is also something of a drifter. Which may be why, at the age of nineteen, he quietly drops out of Vassar and begins an aimless journey across the United States, during which he sheds his former skin and eventually even changes his name to Carter Allen Cash.
  
  ~
  
  Title: Titanic Tragedy: A New Look at the Lost Liner
  Author: John Maxtone-Graham
  Genre: nonfiction
  Publisher: WW Norton & Company
  Publishing Date: March 19
  Summary: This is a book unlike any other. Rather than offering simply a detailed retelling of the Titanic sinking on her maiden voyage, John Maxtone-Graham devotes his considerable knowledge and impeccable prose to a discussion of salient, provocative, and rarely investigated components of the story, including dramatic survivors accounts of the events of the fateful night, the role of newly in-vented wireless telecommunication in the disaster, the construction and its ramifications at the famous Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, and the dawn rendezvous with the rescue ship Carpathia. Richly written and vividly detailed, this is the book Titanic buffs have been waiting for.
  
  ~
  
  And now for some really big news of the week about upcoming 2012/2013 books!
  - Cassandra Clare (of The Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices fantasy series) has announced a new Shadowhunter series set in 2015 LA, The Dark Artifices. This week she was answering fans’ questions on her twitter @cassieclare about the possible TMI movie, the next ID book, and the future TDA.
  - Lisa Jewell’s BEFORE I MET HER, connecting 1920s Jazz Age London and 1990s Soho
  - Rachel Urquhart’s debut novel, THE VISIONIST, the story of a 15 year-old girl who sets fire to her family farm and finds refuge in an 1840s Shaker settlement
  - A Game of Thrones graphic novel (available March 27)
  Happy reading!
  Posted in Upcoming Books | 0 Comments | Tagged genre: adult fiction, genre: fiction, genre: history, genre: mystery, genre: nonfiction, history, upcoming books
- PW Tip Sheet: This Week in History
  
  Posted at 11:31 am by Laura, on March 10, 2012
  
  Publisher’s Weekly – Marc Schultz
  
  The historical novel is a perennial fixture in the book business, a nimble genre that works its way into all corners of the storytelling ecosystem: bestseller lists, hot new subgenres, movie adaptations and, of course, the literary canon. Historicals make up more than half of the just-released longlist for the UK’s Orange Prize for woman-penned fiction, and scripted historicals are in full force on TV (Downton Abbey, Mad Men) and at the movies (2011 Best Picture winner The Artist was one of four historicals nominated for the honor—five, if you count Midnight in Paris). This week, they’re also all over the On-Sale Calendar.
  
  I’m a huge fan of historical novels! There’s something fun and thrilling about taking historical fact, throwing in fictional characters or turn-of-events, and creating a new piece. Sometimes the novels can be silly, and other times there are gems that convince you of plausibility.
  
  This list contains historical paranormal, historical romance, historical fiction, historical mystery, and even “straight-up” history in the nonfiction list. Michael Morpurgo (author of War Horse) is also mentioned in his latest young reader book about a cat on the Titanic.
  
  Posted in books, Link | 0 Comments | Tagged books, genre: adult fiction, genre: children, genre: fiction, genre: history, history, magazine, news
- Charlotte Brontë’s lost manuscript “L’Ingratitude” to be published
  
  Posted at 8:23 am by Laura, on February 29, 2012
  
  London Review of Books: Charlotte Brontë’s lost manuscript L’Ingratitude – available to read in French and English
  
  The Guardian: Charlotte Brontë’s lost short story to be published
  
  A long-lost short story written by Charlotte Brontë for a married man with whom she fell in love is to be published for the first time after being found in a Belgian museum a century after it was last heard of.
  
  The tale, written in grammatically erratic French and entitled L’Ingratitude, is the first-known piece of homework set for Brontë by Constantin Heger, a Belgian tutor who taught both her and her sister Emily, and is believed to have inspired such ardour in the elder sibling that she drew on their relationship for her novel Villette.
  
  Posted in books, Link, publishing | 0 Comments | Tagged authors, genre: children, genre: classics, history, magazine, news, newspaper
- A Publisher’s Menagerie: Stories behind Publishers’ Animal Logos – PubTrendSet
  
  Posted at 4:39 pm by Laura, on February 8, 2012
  
  A Publisher’s Menagerie: Stories Behind Publishers’ Animal Logos – Publishing TrendSetter – Elisabeth Watson
  
  Discover the interesting histories behind the animals and logos to some of your favorite publishing houses!
  
  This idea sprang from a phone conversation overheard a few months ago in the Market Partners International offices, in which one of the partners was reminiscing with an old friend about publishing animals past and present. Although heavy on whimsy, the stories behind these animals are one of those peeks at “vintage” publishing trivia that most of us, deep down, have difficulty getting enough of.
  
  Posted in Link, publishing | 0 Comments | Tagged history, publishing
- Bronte church in Haworth sees repair bill jump £50,000 – BBC
  
  Posted at 1:07 pm by Laura, on January 21, 2012
  
  Bronte church in Haworth sees repair bill jump £50,000 – BBC
  
  St Michael and All Angels Parish Church in Haworth, West Yorkshire, had raised the £65,000 needed to secure £100,000 in funding from English Heritage.
  
  But rising costs of building work now means it requires up to £50,000 more.
  
  …
  
  John Huxley, secretary at Haworth church, said: “We were overjoyed to learn we had reached the total, then knocked sideways by finding out building costs had gone up by so much.
  
  “The reaction from the public to help raise funds has been absolutely phenomenal.”
  
  The church said a meeting would be held on Tuesday to discuss further fundraising options.
  
  I was thrilled to hear they met their goal yesterday! But how are they going to get the rest of the money?
  
  Posted in Link, Update Post | 0 Comments | Tagged authors, history, news
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- Hello, I’m Laura!
  
  I'm a bookish bookworm and book hoarder. By day I'm a literary agent, and by night I'm forever rearranging my bookshelves. I could talk your ear off about Gothic literature, and in my past life people thought I'd become a professional musician. I have a fluffy black cat named Rossetti, I love to knit, tea is my drink of choice, British TV is the best, and I'm obsessed with popcorn. Welcome to Scribbles & Wanderlust! Grab your favorite hot beverage and let's chat books!
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