Time Travel Romance

Dreams of Stardust by Lynn Kurland

Amanda is a woman of modern sensibilities, born into the 13th century, which really had to suck for her. Luckily, Jake (of the year 2005) careens into her world when his car goes flying into a time warp that sucks him back into the Middle Ages, providing her with a man she actually could stomach marrying.

Despite Amanda’s family (read: her father) being adamant that she’s got to be getting married within months, this book shows us a family of the Middle Ages that makes that time period seem downright homey. They’re pretty delightful as a family, and it’s really no wonder that Jake decides to hang out there for the rest of his (un)natural life.

I’ve known for a long time that Lynn Kurland is one of the big names in time travel romance; I don’t know why I waited so long to read one of her books. In this one, she’s created a warm and wonderful family environment, a couple that we know belongs together in spite of the 8 centuries that divide them, and a story line that clips right along.

I began to get clues that this book was one of a series, and truly, it is one of a big honking series that includes oodles of books that all interconnect in ways displayed on a chart at the end of the book. (I had a Madeleine L’Engle flashback—remember that kick-a** chart in her books, that showed how the Murry family books and the Austin family books connected? I totally blissed out as a kid, seeing that. Anyway, the Murry books—also time travel. So we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming… See how I did that?)

The only reason that I won’t be reading more books in this series by Kurland is that life is short and my list of books-I-want-to-read is very long.

Booking Through Thursday: Why You Read

At Booking Through Thursday, this week's question is:

I’ve seen this quotation in several places lately. It’s from Sven Birkerts’ ‘The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age’:

“To read, when one does so of one’s own free will, is to make a volitional statement, to cast a vote; it is to posit an elsewhere and set off toward it. And like any traveling, reading is at once a movement and a comment of sorts about the place one has left. To open a book voluntarily is at some level to remark the insufficiency either of one’s life or one’s orientation toward it.”

To what extent does this describe you?

I've thought about this from time to time: how reading a book takes a person away, and how it can seem like a reproach to others in the room (especially, I think, if they're not readers themselves). It's almost as though one is saying, "I'd rather be here in the pretend world of this book than to spend time talking with the likes of you."

And that's not really what I'm aiming for when I read. That's not it at all.

Mainly, I read because I cannot imagine not reading.

I'm told that ever since I learned how to sound out combinations of letters, I was "reading" everywhere we went -- sounding out street signs and labels and logos. I still do this today; if there is printed text anywhere around me, that's where my eyes are drawn. They say that a human face is the main draw for one's eyes, and I suppose that's true. But for me, text wins a strong second place.

Even in a quilt shop, for Pete's sake, I am drawn to fabric with words on it.

So I don't know exactly why I read, but it's not to escape my terrible life, because my life ain't terrible. And it's not exactly to figure out the world, though that's part of it sometimes.

It just feels more like I was born with a switch that got flipped, and that's all she wrote.

Loving... and Hating... Frank

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

I selected this book for our book club, then assiduously avoided reading it.

Not sure what that was about.

Especially since, once I started the book, I tore through it in 3 days, so the author did something right. (Also, the book club was only 6 days away.)

This is that novel about Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney, the woman who left her husband and children to be Wright’s lover. (Note: Guess what? He left his spouse and children, too!) Scandalous, right?

Here, yes, but no, but really: yes.

The book, told from Mamah’s point of view (but thankfully, not first person—the book started out in her voice, and I was really not liking it one bit; the third person viewpoint was a very welcome shift), tries to explain how things happened between them. And OK, she was in a loveless marriage, and that sucks. I just really don’t get how she left her children.

Here’s the other thing: I really dislike Frank Lloyd Wright as a human. He was a womanizer, and he didn’t pay his workers. I really detest those things (though I somehow keep reading about JFK, and somehow he gets away with that womanizing crap).

And Mamah, even though we’re (I think) supposed to “understand” her from this book, was all messed up, too.

(Guess who’s in a judgmental mood this evening?)

So this one of those book club gatherings where we got all excited and kept interrupting each other. Meaning: this is one heck of a book club choice.

ThemeQuest Update

I'll bet you thought I was being a reading challenge bum when it comes to my own darn reading challenge.

Actually, I'll bet you forgot I was hosting a reading challenge at all.

Meanwhile, I've been toiling away in the trenches in silence. It's true.

I write about it over here, and it is not impressive.

But, it's something.

Egads. Another reading challenge.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt: I'm hooked on reading challenges.

I've just joined one more: The "Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction Challenge," hosted by Caitlin at Chaotic Compendiums. The reading challenge has its own page.

Yes, this one's all about nonfiction. I can support that!

Here are the guidelines:

1. Only non-fiction books apply! These can be anything you're interested in: memoirs, history, geography, politics, religion, sports - whatever non-fiction you've put your hands on and your nose into.
2. Overlaps with other challenges allowed!
3. Post a list of choices if you want, or make it up as you go along.
4. Any book format is allowed.

There are four levels:

• Just the Facts - Read two non-fiction books.
• The Scoop - Read four non-fiction books.
• The Whole Story - Read six non-fiction books.
• Nothing But the Truth - Read eight (or more) non-fiction books.

The challenge will run from February 1, 2010 through February 28, 2011.

I'm going to participate at the "Nothing But the Truth" level by reading eight or more nonfiction books.

This page will be my home base for the project. I love this one!

Nonfiction Books I've Read

1. Government Girl: Young and Female in the White House by Stacy Parker Aab

2. The New Frugality: How to Consume Less, Save More, and Live Better by Chris Farrell

3. Apollo: Race to the Moon by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox

4.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
5. The Day Lincoln Was Shot by Jim Bishop

6. Franklin Pierce by Michael F. Holt

7. The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors by Hal Niedzviecki

8. Lincoln's Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers' Home by Matthew Pinsker

9. The Beckham Experiment by Grant Wahl

10. War by Sebastian Junger

11. George Washington: A Life by Willard Sterne Randall

12. The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar

The Good Kind of Plane Crash

Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson by William Langewiesche

You really gotta love this: a plane crashed, and everyone survived. And we even got to watch it on TV and the Internet, repeated over and over and over. And Sullenberger finessed that water landing every doggone time!

OK. So let’s be serious. Geese and an airplane collided, and that is nothing but bad.

Langewiesche, who doesn’t waste a single word (thank you, universe, for such writers), tells the story of the four minutes between collision and landing. When I got to the part where the man seated next to a mom with a baby offered to brace the baby during the impact, oh, I liked that part. Told with as few words as possible, and without drama-ing it all up. I detest “heartwarming,” and this was the only moment that veered close—but he pulled back just in time, and the book was saved.

But most of the focus here in on the pilots and the aircraft—what the pilots did right, and what the aircraft designers did right.

I love books where things turn out well because people have done good work. Life ain’t always like that, and damn, it’s refreshing to read something non-treacly that still comes out right in the end.

This book is not very long. And if you decided to skip all of the mini-stories it contains, about other pilots who totally screwed things up, then it’s even shorter. If you wanted to read a novella-length nonfiction account of an event that was almost tragic, here’s a darn good bet.

Pair it with Down around Midnight, and you can have yourself an survival-of-a-plane-crash reading spree. Tempting, eh?

Historical Romance Bonanza!

The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig

So this is a cool thing. I’ve been sort of reading (actually listening to) some historical fiction novels.

Sort of.

Because… the books in this series (which begins with The Secret History of the Pink Carnation) actually start in the present, but then launch back into the past via the coming-alive of the research done by Eloise, the main-character-in-the-present-day. (She’s having a conflict/flirtation with a guy named Colin, who’s a British chap descended from one of the spies she is researching. Lots of Romantic Tension.)

The story-in-the-past is thoroughly entertaining and is the main focus of the book. It’s all about British spies during that nasty war England had with France back during the Jane Austen days—and about the romance those spies each had with a strong-willed woman (each also a spy, kind of).

It’s light stuff, even though there are some moments where things get all action-packed. These puppies are heavier on the romance than on the espionage, and I think it’s good.

I think I liked this second book even better than the first in the series, which is always a wee thrill.

In the first book, I was certain I had the plot all figured out early on, but I Did Not. (Love that!) This, the second book, also has a who’s-the-secret-spy question, but it felt a bit more homey because it was set in England rather than France. I liked that.

So I’ve been getting in the car and hitting “Play” straightaway and then not driving too awful fast, because I didn’t want to have to leave the story behind. Not too shabby an endorsement, eh?

And I’ve got the third book (The Deception of the Emerald Ring [dear heaven, I love that title—it reminds me of my Nancy Drew days!]) all queued up and ready to go…

Booking Through Thursday: Winter Reading

At Booking Through Thursday, this is the question of the week:

The northern hemisphere, at least, is socked in by winter right now... So, on a cold, wintry day, when you want nothing more than to curl up with a good book on the couch... what kind of reading do you want to do?

It's totally true that I want only to stay inside, curled up in front of a fireplace (which I ain't got), drinking coffee and reading books all day long. Also, eating chocolate. And pizza. Yes, pizza also sounds good.

Anyway, for the reading part of things, the first author that comes to mind is Sue Miller. I like reading Sue Miller books in the winter. They're darn absorbing, and filled with a certain angst, but also with a certain sensibility that appreciates the good things in life. Such as reading in front of a fireplace while eating pizza. A book like The Senator's Wife, which still haunts me.

Also, since I'm, in theory, spending the whole darn day reading, I'll also throw in a cozy mystery that takes place in a yarn or craft shop--maybe something by Monica Ferris or Maggie Sefton.

And, just to mix things up, something nonfiction that's part of whatever nonfiction reading obsession I'm experiencing at the time. For today, I'd pick an astronaut book. But it would have to be about pre-1970s astronauts, because they're the ones I think are the most interesting. Once we hit the '70s, I switch to the Watergate obsession (1974-).

But that's a story for another day.

Book Club, Age 3

In January, our book club hits its third anniversary, which seems amazing--except that it also seems like we've always been getting together to talk books (and other things).

Back in July, I listed our books to that point.

Here's what we've been up to since then:

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas

The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

And, as I mentioned before, I love our book club. Even when I detest the book*, I love our book club.

*see The White Hotel, above, which I selected without adequate research (serious librarian foul; since it's our friends' book club, I was trying to be relaxed, and That Never Really Works For Me)