The Merde Factor by Stephen Clarke - Just What the Doctor Ordered

Title: The Merde Factor by Stephen Clarke
Release date: October 23, 2012; Century
Paperback: 304 pages
Genre: novel, comedy

I've been stressed out lately by several factors and reading serious thrillers hasn't helped calm me down. Luckily, The Merde Factor came in the mail, and loving and hating all things French, I took the book to bed.

It's making me laugh, especially when the French in the novel start hurling one-word insults at each other through the open windows of their apartment building.

I'm going back to bed with this one.

Book description: The hilarious new novel from the bestselling author of 1000 Years of Annoying the French.

Englishman Paul West is living the Parisian dream, and doing his best not to annoy the French. But things have been going very wrong: His apartment is so small that he has to cut his baguettes in two to fit them in the kitchen. His research into authentic French cuisine is about to cause a national strike. And Paul's gorgeous ex-girlfriend seems to be stalking him. Threatened with eviction, unemployment and bankruptcy, Paul realises that his personal merde factor is about to hit the fan.

Book Teaser: One Last Strike by Tony La Russa

"Injuries are part of the game, an adversity you have to get accustomed to overcoming because one way or another they factor into every season." (p. 52)

One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and a Half Game Back, and One Final Championship Season by Tony La Russa
Release date: September 25, 2012; William Morrow hardcover
Genre: sports memoir

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB; choose sentences at random from your current read. Identify the author and title for readers.

Sunday Salon: Library Finds and Giveaway Winner

Welcome to the Sunday Salon!

Congratulations to Beverly S., who was chosen by a random number generator as the winner of:The Twelve Rooms of the Nile.

Another giveaway courtesy of the publisher is open until Sept. 28 for The Shoemaker's Wife.

Yesterday, I returned a book to the library and came away with four books I didn't intend to borrow.

1. The Dead Do Not Improve by Jay Caspian Kang is about twentysomethings being bored and self pitying as they go between real life and the Internet. I like this one so far.

2. Buddhaland Brooklyn by Richard C. Morais is about an elderly priest who moves from a serene village in Japan to bustling Brooklyn, New York.

3. The Incense Game: A Novel of Feudal Japan by Laura Joh Rowland is the latest in the Sano Ichiro mystery series set in early 18th century Japan.

4. The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura is an award winning novel that follows the events in the life of a Tokyo pickpocket.

Sometimes it's a nice feeling to choose books from the library, as opposed to picking up the ones already on my shelves.

Books for Upstairs and Downstairs

I have a mystery novel for reading upstairs, bedtime reading, and for when I wake up too early in the morning. And there is another book downstairs that I'd rather not take up and down the stairs.

My upstairs read is:

Bear Bait: a Summer Westin Mystery by Pamela Beason, to be released October 2, 2012.

A lover of the great outdoors, albeit from an armchair, I enjoyed the first book in the series, Endangered, and am liking this one with Summer Westin as a biologist, volunteer, and amateur sleuth in the National Park Forest in Olympic National Park, the Pacific Northwest.



My downstairs book is quite different.
The Devil Soldier: The Story of Frederick Townsend Ward, the Most Honored and Controversial American in Chinese History is a biography of  an American soldier of fortune from Salem, Mass. who fought in China in the mid 19th century, on the side of the Chinese emperor and against the Taiping rebels.

The book describes The Devil Soldier as a "compelling adventure story and an important piece of Chinese and American history."

It was first published January 8, 1992 by Random House.

Which book will I'll finish first?

It's Thursday - What Are You Reading: Allergic to Death

Quick–what are you reading right now? Would you recommend it? What’s it about? Leave your link at Booking Through Thursday.

Allergic to Death: A Gourmet De-Lite Mystery by Peg Cochran is the first in a new cozy series published August 7, 2012. As I'm allergic to a lot of foods, meds and even animals, except for non-shedding dogs like that Westie on the book cover, I put the book near the top of my TBR pile!

About the book: Restaurant reviewer Martha Bernhardt drops dead from a severe peanut allergy...right after eating one of caterer Gigi's signature dishes. Gigi suddenly finds her diet catering business on the chopping block. Now she'll have to track down who tampered with her recipe before her own goose is cooked.(book description)

What are you reading this Thursday?

Book Teaser: Not My Blood by Barbara Cleverly

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB; choose sentences at random from your current read. Identify author and title for readers. 

 "I'm not absolutely certain, Lydia, but there's trouble with a runaway boy. At Victoria Station. They're holding him until I can get there." (ch. 2)

Not My Blood: A Joe Sandilands Murder Mystery by Barbara Cleverly
Published August 21, 2012; Soho Crime
Setting: England, 1933
Source: publisher

Scotland Yard Detective Joe Sandilands gets a phone call from a distressed boy named Jackie Drummond, who just might be Joe's illegitimate son. Jackie is in trouble at his Sussex boarding school, where a teacher has been murdered. A frightening number of boys, all from wealthy families, have gone missing over the school’s history, but by a strange coincidence none of the families have followed up on their sons' whereabouts. (Book description)

It's Monday: What Are You Reading This Week?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading This Week? This is a weekly event to list the books completed last week, the books currently being read, and the books to be finished this week. It is hosted by Book Journey.

The Voluntourist: A Six-Country Tale of Love, Loss, Fatherhood, Fate, and Singing Bon Jovi in Bethlehem by Ken Budd.

A travel memoir of the author's volunteer trips to New Orleans, Costa Rica, China, Ecuador, Palestine, and Kenya. I don't know how popular volunteer vacations are but they seem to be a growing trend.

The Book of Madness and Cures: A Novel by Regina O'Melveny is set in the Venice of 1590.

Gabriella Mondini helps her physician father with his work, The Book of Diseases, and must fend for herself when he disappears. She searches for him in Europe all the way to Morocco and discovers family secrets while developing her skills in healing.

Two different books, but they are taking me to different countries and back in history too. What are you reading this week?