Teaser Tuesdays- Nov. 24, 2009

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly event hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Here is how it works:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2 or 3) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that others can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week is from Kindred in Death by J.D. Robb:

MacMasters nodded. Eve thought the cop was beginning to fade. His hands trembled, and even as she watched, the lines at the corners of his eyes seemed to cut deeper.

(Page 32)

2010 YA Reading Challenge book list

The is the post where I'll be listing my YA book choices and updating my progress. If anyone has suggestions of great titles that I haven't already listed, please feel free to add it in the comment section!

My tentative beginning list includes:

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
City of Glass by Cassandra Clare
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade
The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

2010 Young Adult Reading Challenge

There are so many YA books on my TBR that this 2010 YA challenge might be a good kick in the pants to start reading them! I'll begin with the Mini challenge in mind but if I can make it to Just My Size, then all the better. Here's the deets:

1. Anyone can join. You don't need a blog to participate.

2. There are four levels:

--The Mini YA Reading Challenge – Read 12 Young Adult novels.

--Just My Size YA Reading Challenge – Read 25 Young Adult novels.

--Stepping It Up YA Reading Challenge – Read 50 Young Adult novels.

--Super Size Me YA Reading Challenge – Read 75 Young Adult novels.

3. Audio, eBooks, paper all count.

4. No need to list your books in advance. You may select books as you go. Even if you list them now, you can change the list if needed.

5. Challenge begins January 1st thru December, 2010.

6. To sign up, click here: Mr Linky

My list will be posted/updated at this link:YA Reading Challenge Book List

Contest! Exit Music by Ian Rankin

From the Publisher:

It's late in the fall in Edinburgh and late in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he is simply trying to tie up some loose ends before his retirement, a new case lands on his desk: a dissident Russian poet has been murdered in what looks like a mugging gone wrong.

Rebus discovers that an elite delegation of Russian businessmen is in town, looking to expand its interests. And as Rebus's investigation gains ground, someone brutally assaults a local gangster with whom he has a long history.

Has Rebus overstepped his bounds for the last time? Only a few days shy of the end to his long, controversial career, will Rebus even make it that far?

Thanks to Valerie at Hachette Book Group, I am happy to offer a copy of this book to 3 lucky winners.

Here are the rules:

Contest is open to addresses in Canada and the U.S. No PO boxes please.

Please leave an email addy below to enter (so I can contact you if you win)

+1 for being a follower here on my blog

+1 for following me on Twitter (@seolmara)

+1 for tweeting/blogging about this contest

Contest ends Dec. 14, 2009

For more Information on Ian Rankin and his book visit his website here: http://www.ianrankin.net/

Review: The Financial Lives of Poets by Jess Walter

Book Description

Meet Matt Prior. He's about to lose his job, his wife, his house, maybe his mind. Unless . . .

In the winning and utterly original novels Citizen Vince and The Zero, Jess Walter ("a ridiculously talented writer"—New York Times) painted an America all his own: a land of real, flawed, and deeply human characters coping with the anxieties of their times. Now, in his warmest, funniest, and best novel yet, Walter offers a story as real as our own lives: a tale of overstretched accounts, misbegotten schemes, and domestic dreams deferred.

A few years ago, small-time finance journalist Matthew Prior quit his day job to gamble everything on a quixotic notion: a Web site devoted to financial journalism in the form of blank verse. When his big idea—and his wife's eBay resale business— ends with a whimper (and a garage full of unwanted figurines), they borrow and borrow, whistling past the graveyard of their uncertain dreams. One morning Matt wakes up to find himself jobless, hobbled with debt, spying on his wife's online flirtation, and six days away from losing his home. Is this really how things were supposed to end up for me, he wonders: staying up all night worried, driving to 7-Eleven in the middle of the night to get milk for his boys, and falling in with two local degenerates after they offer him a hit of high-grade marijuana?

Or, he thinks, could this be the solution to all my problems?

Following Matt in his weeklong quest to save his marriage, his sanity, and his dreams, The Financial Lives of the Poets is a hysterical, heartfelt novel about how we can reach the edge of ruin—and how we can begin to make our way back.

In my opinion:

This book started off slowly for me. The crazy scenario at that beginning, where the main character goes out to buy milk and ends up getting high, had me scratching my head, wondering WTF? Then it seems this poor guy, Matt, was just repeatedly whining about his bad circumstances and not really doing anything about it, except getting high.

During my non-reading moments, I kept thinking about the book and I finally figured it out. This schmuck of a former financial writer is just like everyone else out there that has been hit by hard times. When this happens to you, you do tend to go over and over things in your head, wondering where it went wrong. I gave the book some slack after this realization.

For Matt Prior the beginning of his undoing was his poetfolio.com idea, a website offering financial advice, stock quotes, etc, with a literary twist. Matt's a bit of a dreamer, thinking he's somehow better than his co-workers at the newspaper, He finally decides to take his great ideas and go it on his own, with his website, only to back out at the last minute and go crawling back to his old job. Then cut-backs hit and they hit him hard. Not to mention, his wife has become fond of online social networks, reconnecting with an old boyfriend.

None of this is unusual in today's iffy financial climate, or the online social climate, for that matter. The differences here are the wild ideas that Matt comes up with to try and fix everything (hence the reason I called him a schmuck earlier). There are probably not a lot of people out there that think turning to drug dealing as a viable or successful method of financial recovery.

As I progressed through the story, I felt the character becoming more believable. He suffers a bit of a meltdown, as anyone would, with all of the pressures involved. There are some weird, funny poems placed in various spots in the book also, that almost give credence to Matt's website idea. Almost. More often than not, they just allow for some comic relief in a tough tale.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this book, once my left-brain and right-brain were able to reconcile how this man got into his messes in the first place. Jess Walter does a great job with the story and I would recommend The Financial Lives of Poets wholeheartedly!

Author Bio:
Jess Walter is the author of five novels, including The Zero, a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award, and Citizen Vince, winner of the 2005 Edgar Allan Poe Award for best novel. He has been a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize and the PEN USA Literary Prize in both fiction and nonfiction. His books have been New York Times, Washington Post, and NPR best books of the year and have been translated into twenty languages. He lives in Spokane, Washington.

For more information on Jess Walter, check out his website: JessWalter.com/

Tuesday Teaser: Nov. 17, 2009

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly event hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
Here is how it works:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2 or 3) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that others can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser quote for this week comes from Across the Endless River by Thad Carhart.

Paul sounded weary, and it occurred to Baptiste that he wasn't happy about returning home after his North American adventure. Fatigue from the voyage was surely catching up to both of them as they entered the outlying districts to the northwest of the capital. Tired as he was, though, Baptiste could hardly contain the excitement he felt at the prospect of reaching Paris, the place whose name in St. Louis meant a kind of earthly heaven.

To this I say: God bless the authors who write long sentences where only 3 are needed to complete a paragraph, therefore a whole thought! (Okay the early 1800's language of the book might be catching up to me, lol)

I hope you emjoyed my teaser;-)

Cartoons and Inspiration

I find it amazing the things that can be learned and/or discovered on the big, bad internet. My eyes have truly been opened over the last few months as I've discovered blogs (especially book blogs), the true usefulness of Twitter and other online social networks (I was a big Facebooker before but that was about it) and well, lets just say I'm a big Google/Wiki researcher, lol. The web is great place for connecting with people around the world that you would never normally meet unless you have one heck of a time/distance travelling machine. But what's also cool is discovering things locally that I had never experienced or even heard of, in some cases. Recently, I've been to a reading for the International Festival of Authors and seen Scott Westerfeld, Cassandra Clare and Holly Black for a book signing.

What I found this week through Twitter, I felt was worth sharing here on my blog. Debbie Ridpath Ohi is a Toronto based artist/writer. In checking out her blog, with her NaNoWriMo notes, etc., I found some very cute cartoons, like this one below:



After watching Stephenie Meyer on Oprah yesterday and seeing the effect the vamp phenomenon on the world at large, this one rings so true. My seven year old is psyched about going to see New Moon next week (please don't judge my parenting skills based on this, the Twi books are pretty tame ;-)

Even Debbie's website name speaks to me: http://www.willwriteforchocolate.com/ . I totally wish I'd thought of that one, though mine would be more like "WillReadForChocolate." Some of her work may have even inspired me to join NaNoWriMo for next year (I found out about it too late and have way too many books to read to have considered it for this year). So, go check out Debbie's site, it's well worth the look.

www.WillWriteForChocolate.com
www.inkygirl.com