Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Today I'm featuring Hot Milk by Deborah Levy.  The excerpts shared are from the hardcover version I borrowed from the library.

 

 

 

Beginning:   2015. Almeria. Southern Spain. August.

Today I dropped my laptop on the concrete floor of a bar built on the beach.  It was tucked under my arm and slid out of its black rubber sheath (designed like an envelope), landing screen side down.

 

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Page 56:  "I had been forbidden to speak so I was silent."

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My thoughts: When I saw this book on another blog, I was intrigued by the title.  I haven't started it yet, but the book flap promises a story with a fraught mother-daughter relationship and the quest for a cure to the mother's mysterious illness.  

The opening scene is any blogger's nightmare . . .

 

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 From Goodreads:  I have been sleuthing my mother's symptoms for as long as I can remember. If I see myself as an unwilling detective with a desire for justice, is her illness an unsolved crime? If so, who is the villain and who is the victim?

Sofia, a young anthropologist, has spent much of her life trying to solve the mystery of her mother's unexplainable illness. She is frustrated with Rose and her constant complaints, but utterly relieved to be called to abandon her own disappointing fledgling adult life. She and her mother travel to the searing, arid coast of southern Spain to see a famous consultant—their very last chance—in the hope that he might cure her unpredictable limb paralysis.

But Dr. Gomez has strange methods that seem to have little to do with physical medicine, and as the treatment progresses, Sofia's mother's illness becomes increasingly baffling. Sofia's role as detective—tracking her mother's symptoms in an attempt to find the secret motivation for her pain—deepens as she discovers her own desires in this transient desert community.  

 

Hot Milk is a profound exploration of the sting of sexuality, of unspoken female rage, of myth and modernity, the lure of hypochondria and big pharma, and, above all, the value of experimenting with life; of being curious, bewildered, and vitally alive to the world.

Which book are you reading now or about to start? 

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . .

                                                      

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea, is where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.

Today I'm featuring The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.  It's my current read, which I'll be discussing at a book club meeting this coming Friday night.  My version is an advance reading copy that I received from the publisher, Doubleday.  

  

Ajarry

The first time Caesar approached Cora about running north, she said no. 

This was her grandmother talking. Cora’s grandmother had never seen the ocean before that bright afternoon in the port of Ouidah and the water dazzled after her time in the fort’s dungeon. The dungeon stored them until the ships arrived. Dahomeyan raiders kidnapped the men first, then returned to her village the next moon for the women and children, marching them in chains to the sea two by two. As she stared into the black doorway, Ajarry thought she’d be reunited with her father, down there in the dark. The survivors from her village told her that when her father couldn’t keep the pace of the long march, the slavers stove in his head and left his body by the trail. Her mother had died years before. 

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?

 

 

This post was originally written and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Today I'm featuring My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman.  The excerpts shared are from a trade paperback version I recently purchased.

 

Beginning:  Tobacco

 

Every seven-year-old deserves a superhero.  That's just how it is.  Anyone who doesn't agree needs their head examined.

 

That's what Elsa's granny says, at least.

 

 

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Page 56:  "She has three scratch marks on her cheek.  As if from claws.  She knows they'll want to know how it all began."

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My thoughts:  The cover and title alone were enough to sell me on the book.  However, I recently read and loved another Backman novel--A Man Called Ove.  Now, I want to read all of his books.  The characters he creates are endearing and unusual, and the description of this story seems to promise more of the same.  

 

From Goodreads:  From the author of the internationally bestselling A Man Called Ove, a novel about a young girl whose grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters, sending her on a journey that brings to life the world of her grandmother's fairy tales.

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy, standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus-crazy. She is also Elsa's best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother's stories, in the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa's grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa's greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother's letters lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and totally ordinary old crones, but also to the truth about fairytales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

 

Which book are you reading now or about to start? 

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Today I'm featuring The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson.  The excerpts shared are from a hardcover version borrowed from the library. 

 

 

Beginning:  Prologue -- Los Angeles, 1997

 

He only wanted just one cigarette.

 

He knew he shouldn't, and not just because both of his ex-wives used to say so or because his doctor still said so.

 

**********

 

Chapter 1

"Why are you staring at me that way?" 

 

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Page 56:  "And then he drove to Heathrow, with the address for the Los Angeles letter writer in his pocket."

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My thoughts:  I am always intrigued by books that incorporate a Sherlock Holmes angle.  In this book--the start of the Baker Street Letters series--two brothers, both attorneys with law offices in a building on Baker Street, are receiving letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes, which according to their lease they are obliged to answer.  My interest is certainly piqued.

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From Goodreads:  In Los Angeles, a geological surveyor maps out a proposed subway route--and then goes missing. His eight-year-old daughter, in her desperation, turns to the one person she thinks might help--she writes a letter to Sherlock Holmes.

That letter creates an uproar at 221b Baker Street, which now houses the law offices of attorney and man about town Reggie Heath and his hapless brother, Nigel. Instead of filing the letter like he’s supposed to, Nigel decides to investigate. Soon he’s flying off to Los Angeles, inconsiderately leaving a very dead body on the floor in his office. Big brother Reggie follows Nigel to California, as does Reggie’s sometime lover, Laura---a quick-witted stage actress who’s captured the hearts of both brothers.

When Nigel is arrested, Reggie must use all his wits to solve a case that Sherlock Holmes would have savored and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fans will adore.

 

 

 

Which book are you reading now or about to start? 

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . .

                                                      

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea, is where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.

Today I'm featuring Enchanted Island by Allison Amend, an upcoming read that I borrowed from the library.  

Goodreads Page

Part One

Chapter One

You're not allowed to read this -- I'm not even really allowed to write it.  But now that Ainslie is gone and I will surely follow before too long, I don't see that much is the harm.  I suppose the government will censor what it will.

A curious effect of childlessness is that your story disappears with you.  Of course, everyone's does eventually, but the suddenness with which my history will be extinguished causes me much consternation.  I am of the generation who came of age in the new century, though my formative years were spent in the last -- I am therefore pulled between the past and the present.

That my life will be of interest to readers I dare not assume.  But it is an unusual one, and for that reason alone record should be made of it.

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?

I am a big fan of historical fiction, and was drawn to this novel because it is inspired by the memoirs of Frances Conway, an independent woman from Minnesota who finds herself living in the Galapagos Islands with her husband, an undercover intelligence officer, on the eve of World War II.

 

 

This post was originally written and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . .

                                                      

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea, where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.

Today I'm featuring Dear Mr. M by Herman Koch, author of The Dinner and Summer House with Swimming Pool.  I borrowed this book from the library.  

 

   

Goodreads Page 

Dear Mr. M,

 

I'd like to start by telling you that I'm doing better now.  I do so because you probably have no idea that I was ever doing worse.  Much worse, in fact, but I'll get to that later on.

 

 

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?

Having read Koch's previous novels, I am eager to begin his latest work.  Koch's stories thus far have centered on flawed characters motivated by self-interest and a desire to preserve their families at all costs.  

 

 

This post was originally written and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.