Sunday Salon: Rainy Days

Welcome to the Sunday Salon! Also visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer; Showcase Sunday at Books, Biscuits, and Tea; and  It's Monday: What Are You Reading? at Book Journey. And Mailbox Monday hosted this month by Gina at Book Dragon's Lair.

It got colder, rained almost all day today, and washed out a day of events planned by local businesses in one area of town. The late night music scene was still going on though as the skies cleared at 4 p.m. though I didn't see many people around even at 5 p.m. Maybe we were spoiled by previous warm days and aren't used to the sudden drop in temperatures.

I finished reading a Soho teen novel, Dancer Daughter Traitor Spy by Elizabeth Kiem, and found it just so-so as a mystery novel. I was interested in it most of the way through but didn't like how the plot took you through several thrilling possibilities but then let you down at the end. This was Kiem's first novel.

My current read is Killer Librarian, the first in the mystery series by Mary Lou Kirwin, and plan to read the follow-up, Death Overdue, both in paperback to be released in November. I like the bookish setting.

Last week I received two ARCs for review:
The Bird Skinner by Alice Greenway, fiction: "the story of Jim Carroway, a World War II Vietnam Vet once called Jungle Jim, who has moved to a tiny island in Maine to seclude himself from his former life.  Once Jim was a noted ornithologist collecting and skinning birds as specimens he sent back to the Museum of Natural History in New York where he worked. Since his amputation, his lifelong work has become impossible. Now hiding out on Fox Island, away from his adult son and grandchildren in Connecticut and his colleagues in New York, he is depressed and in pain.

Jim’s slowly deteriorating mind unravels memories that take him back to the war in Guadalcanal, where he was with Naval Intelligence, spying on the Japanese for Admiral Halsey on a remote Solomon Island. There he became friends with a young native, Tosca, who taught him about the islands. Now in Maine, Jim finds out that Tosca, whom he hasn’t heard from in thirty years, is sending his daughter Cadillac to stay with him for a month before she starts Yale on a scholarship. Cadillac arrives to Jim’s consternation, but she is utterly captivating, totally original. She will capture his heart and the heart of everyone she meets."

The Girl With a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson, mystery
and two finished review books:
The Unidentified Redhead by Alice Clayton, romance
Unthinkable by Richard Cibrano, historical novel

A couple of these I requested and a couple were unsolicited.
As for book tours, I have a few left this year and scheduled a children's book for January. I hope to keep the number down to a minimum in 2014, one of my blogging resolutions for the new year!

What are you reading and what books arrived last week?

Book Beginnings: Fixed: A Gin and Tonic Mystery by L.A. Kornetsky

Friday 56 Rules: *Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. *Post it. *Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice.

Also Book Beginnings by Rose City Reader.

Title: Fixed: A Gin and Tonic Mystery by L.A. Kornetsky
Published October 8, 2013; Gallery Books
Genre: mystery

Opening sentences:

The dogs were gossiping. The grey tabby paused, halfway down the fire escape, and surveyed the sidewalk below her. It was late afternoon, the sun cool and fading, dappling the pavement with shadows. The humans she could see from her vantage point were walking faster than they did in the evening, heading somewhere important. And the two dogs out in front of the Busy Place, one a shaggy black mutt of dubious Labrador ancestry, the other a fawn-coated shar-pei, were paw-to-paw, sprawled next to the bike rack, which tended to hold more leashes than bikes.

Page 56:

...when her gaze went from Ginny to Tonica and then down to the dog standing alertly between them, her poise slipped a little. "Oh. Hi. She's beautiful." The tone of the girl's voice went from welcoming to slightly accusatory in those short sentences.

Publisher description:
"In this second Gin & Tonic mystery, the stakes are raised when someone connected to missing funds Ginny Mallard and Teddy Tonica are investigating is found dead. When someone from the local animal shelter approaches her about finding grant funds that have gone missing, Ginny Mallard convinces her bartender friend Teddy Tonica to help her investigate once again. They soon discover that something is disturbing the animals at the shelter at night...and then a dead body shows up. With the help of Ginny’s Shar-Pei puppy and Tonica’s tabby cat, this unconventional crime-solving team has to figure out what’s going on before the shelter—and more people—lose everything."

What do you think? A book you could read?

Library Loot: The Translator by Nina Schuyler

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. 

Because I read translated books, such as Scandinavian and other international mysteries and also Japanese literary novels, I was attracted to the cover and title of this book at the library. Here is the book's description:

When renowned translator Hanne Schubert falls down a flight of stairs, she suffers from an unusual but real condition—the loss of her native language. Speaking only Japanese, a language learned later in life, she leaves for Japan. There, to Hanne’s shock, the Japanese novelist whose work she recently translated confronts her publicly for sabotaging his work. 

Reeling, Hanne seeks out the inspiration for the author’s novel—a tortured, chimerical actor, once a master in the art of Noh theater. Through their passionate, volatile relationship, Hanne is forced to reexamine how she has lived her life, including her estranged relationship with her daughter. In elegant and understated prose, Nina Schuyler offers a deeply moving and mesmerizing story about language, love, and the transcendence of family. (publisher)

I've just started the novel, The Translator: A Novel but have learned something about the translator's art, how this translator says she has to be a writer as well as a someone who turns words into those of another language. She has to interpret meaning and convey them adequately, into English in this case.

Looking forward to reading more and getting into the main plot.

What books have you gotten from the library recently, and which are you really enjoying?

Book Review: I Am Venus by Barbara Mujica

Title: I Am Venus by Barbara Mujica
Published June 13, 2013; Overlook Hardcover
Genre: historical novel

I know Velasquez didn't paint Venus in Italy, of course, but I bite my tongue. How can I tell her I know for certain the model is not Italian and is not the mother of Velazaquez's son? (ch. 15)

My comments: Read this book for fascinating information on the life and work of the 17th century Spanish painter Velazquez - his rise to fame at court and the history behind his paintings. The painting I know best is his Las Meninas or The Maids of Honor which features the Infanta, daughter of the King and Queen of Spain.

I Am Venus surrounds the question of the model for Velazquez's other famous painting, the Rokeby Venus, the painting shown on the cover of this book. Mujica writes about the woman, the real model, whom she has created for the purposes of her fiction.

Culturally rich, and a good mix of fact and fiction, I enjoyed the book for it's detail that evokes the time, the painter, and the model. It will appeal to lovers of art as well as those who enjoy the craft of historical fiction.

For more reviews, visit the book tour schedule organized by TLC Book Tours.

Barbara Mujica is a novelist, short-story writer, essayist and professor of Spanish at Georgetown University. I Am Venus explores the identity of the model for the famous Rokeby Venus, the only extant female nude of seventeenth-century Spanish painter Diego de Velázquez. Her previous books include Frida, based on Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and Sister Teresa, about the life of Saint Teresa de Avila.

Mujica has won numerous prizes for her stories, and writes extensively on Spanish literature. Please visit  www.barbaramujica.com.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours and the author for a review copy of this book.

Sunday Salon: Only Four More Book Tours to Go

Welcome to the Sunday Salon! Also visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer; Showcase Sunday at Books, Biscuits, and Tea; and It's Monday: What Are You Reading? at Book Journey.

I have four more book tours through November, and am gratefully free in December and after.

In between, I hope to feature and review books from my TBR list, and have decided to read not only stories by the Nobel Prize winner for literature, Alice Munro, but also books by Nobel contender, Haruki Murakami  - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, and others.

Our backyard zinnias are dying out with the cool weather. Here is an orange one that bloomed most of the summer. They are very hardy and the flowers last a long time.

Enjoy Sunday!

Book Beginnings: Poisoned Prose by Ellery Adams

Friday 56 Rules: *Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. *Post it. *Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice.

Also Book Beginnings by Rose City Reader.

Book beginning:

"Death by chocolate. That's what the coroner's report will read," Olivia Limoges said to the woman sitting next to her. She pushed away a plate still laden with a caramel brownie, a hazelnut petit four, and a square of peanut butter fudge. "I'll have to be rolled home in a wheelbarrow."

Page 56:

Violetta waited a few heartbeats before speaking again. "I'm the last true Devereaux. When I die, the whereabouts of a certain treasure will die with me. That's a relief to me and a source of mighty vexation to others."

I am waiting to read the book to see what the title refers to. Death by chocolate and a mystery treasure do not explain the title, on first impression. "Poisoned prose" suggests to me a will, a letter, a written threat, or something along those lines. Can't wait to see!

Title: Poisoned Prose: A Books by the Bay Mystery #5 by Ellery Adams
Published October 1, 2013; Berkley
Genre: mystery
Source: review copy from publisher

Publisher's description of the book:
When Olivia Limoges and other Oyster Bay patrons of the arts sponsor a retreat for famous storytellers, one of them is going to have a very unhappy ending…Olivia thought gathering some of the most renowned storytellers in one place would be a nice, simple way for herself and the Bayside Book Writers to appreciate their talents. But things take a dark turn when the most famous storyteller in the nation—the captivating performer Violetta Devereaux—announces onstage that she will meet her end in Oyster Bay.

The Creative Compass by Dan Millman and Sierra Prasada

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted weekly by Jill @ Breaking the Spine. Let us know what new releases you are eagerly waiting for. Link your post to Breaking the Spine.

Here's another book for would-be or beginning writers. Hope it will have some valuable tips to get me beyond the first ten pages of my scribblings.

The Creative Compass: Writing Your Way from Inspiration to Publication by Dan Millman and Sierra Prasada, to be published October 15, 2013 by H.J. Kramer/New World Publications.

Book description: How can I become more disciplined? How do I know if I’m talented? Should I self-publish? These are just a few of the perennial and contemporary questions addressed in this delightfully different guide. The authors — from different generations and writing genres — first help the reader assess where they are on their path. They then walk aspiring writers through five universal stages — Dream, Draft, Develop, Refine, and Share. While these stages apply to writers of every stripe, the emphasis is always on the reader navigating his or her own challenges, process, and goals. Insight-producing prompts and the wisdom of diverse artists (from Steinbeck and Thoreau to Spike Lee, Marilyn French, and Tom Clancy) help make every writer’s journey of creation as rewarding as its destination.

What book or books are you waiting for this week?