Sunday Salon: Stacking the Shelves

Welcome to the Sunday Salon! I found a new meme, Stacking the Shelves by Tynga's Reviews. List your new book arrivals and link up at the site each week. Other sites are It's Monday; What Are You Reading? at Book Journey, and  Mailbox Monday hosted by Abi at 4 the LOVE of BOOKS.

Seems that bloggers are still a viable means of publicity for publishers and authors, who send out ARCs and galleys as well as printed books to blogger reviewers. I love reading and writing about books and have expanded my book interests, found a lot of very good books that I would not have picked up on my own. Even though every single book I read can't be reviewed, because of time, there are books I feature or profile for readers.

Here are my new books this week:

The Healer by Antti Tuomainen, dystopian crime thriller
The Fame Thief by Timothy Hallinan, crime fiction
The Fallout by Garry Disher, crime fiction
Evil and the Mask by Fuminori Nakamura, literary thriller
A Spider in the Cup by Barbara Cleverly, crime fiction

The Sexy Vegan's Happy Hour at Home by Brian L. Patton, cookbook
The Viagra Diaries by Barbara Rose Brooker, coming of age novel
The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession by Charlie Lovett, historical fiction

I also have a few paperback cozies from Berkely and Obsidian, books to take to a beach or park.
 I take a book almost everywhere instead of my trusty e-reader. E-books are not my favorite way of reading, but the Kindle goes with me on a plane trip this summer. Beats hauling a ton of books along.

The sun is out finally, and the days are getting warmer. We went from winter right into summer, with only a few days of spring, it seems. I think my flowers bushes are confused. The iris are just now coming out when they normally bloom in April. They are plentiful and spread but are being kept in check by the hungry new bunnies and rabbits who visit from next door. I can't complain even though the crocus leaves don't survive, and the tiny tea rose bushes must have been totally consumed and haven't shown up this year. My consolation - the garden is kept from being rampant.

Have a great day and hope your Sunday is sunny!

Travel book: Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light by David Downie

Title: Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light by David Downie
Published April 5, 2011; Broadway paperback
Genre: travel
Photographs by Alison Harris

Paris is only one of the cities called the "City of Light." It was given this name because it was the first European city that lit up its streets with gaslights. Other cities with the title include Miami, Florida; Anchorage, Alaska and Los Angeles, Ca., given for different reasons. The oldest city known as the City of Light is Varanasi (known as Benares) in India, the place where light first entered earth, according to Hindu belief.

For those traveling to Paris, Paris, Paris is the most complete and detailed description and history of Paris that I have seen. With lots of interesting tidbits and historical facts, it also has the advantage that it can be read in sections.

Here is the book/publisher description:
"Swapping his native San Francisco for the City of Light, travel writer David Downie arrived in Paris in 1986 on a one-way ticket, his head full of romantic notions. Curiosity and the legs of a cross-country runner propelled him daily from an unheated, seventh-floor walk-up garret near the Champs-Elysées to the old Montmartre haunts of the doomed painter Modigliani, the tombs of Père-Lachaise cemetery, the luxuriant alleys of the Luxembourg Gardens and the aristocratic Île Saint-Louis midstream in the Seine. 

Downie wound up living in the chic Marais district, married to the Paris-born American photographer Alison Harris, an equally incurable walker and chronicler. Ten books and a quarter-century later, he still spends several hours every day rambling through Paris, and writing about the city he loves. 

 An irreverent, witty romp featuring thirty-one short prose sketches of people, places and daily life, Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light ranges from the glamorous to the least-known corners and characters of the world’s favorite city."

I hope to make it back someday to Paris, which I visited after college during a short ramble through Europe. I'd be sure to read this book first, though, to get the most out of the trip.

Thanks to the author for a complimentary copy of this book.