Sunday Salon - August 22

Mini-me went off to buy his books for college last week. What a shock that was to his poor little checkbook! It got me kind of riled up as well, I must admit. His art history book alone cost $121. It's paperback! How do the publishers even justify that? How can college textbooks cost three of four times more than a regular book of the same size? If you can explain this to me, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I recently read Audrey Niffenegger's "Her Fearful Symmetry" thanks to the kind folks at Regal Literary who sent me a copy. Have you seen what they're giving away? To promote the paperback release of "Her Fearful Symmetry," Regal Literary is giving away a trip to London that includes a tour, by Audrey Niffenegger, of Highgate Cemetery! There are also 350 signed copies of the book being given away and 100 custom "Her Fearful Symmetry" broadsheets. This giveaway is open to any blogger you writes a review, good or bad, of the book and submits it no later than September 17th.

This week kicks off "The Handmaid's Tale" readalong hosted by Trish at Classic Reads Book Club. I'm very excited to finally have had the kick in the rear I needed to get around to reading this book. Which apparently everyone else read in high school. I had English in high school; what the heck were we reading? Oh yeah, I forgot, I'm old. "The Handmaid's Tale" wasn't even published until a really long time after I graduated. Any way, it's not too late to join us!

I'm off to write reviews. By some miracle, I'm actually behind on reviews. See--I told you I was still reading even though I wasn't present in the blogosphere! What's on your reading agenda this week?

Paula Deen's Savannah Style by Paula Dean and Brandon Branch

Paula Deen's Savannah Style by Paula Deen and Brandon Branch
Published April 2010 by Simon and Schuster
Source: the publisher and Pump Up Your Book Promotion

Beautiful photography and writing that oozes the Southern charm that Deen is known for make up this wonderful book that showcases the homes in one of the most beautiful cities in the country. 

The book is divided into seasons. Spring is dominated by decorating your outdoor spaces--gardens and porches; summer is focused on keeping cool with sleeping porches and parlors designed to keep the heat out; fall is time to bring out the good stuff and get more formal yet be comfortable, and winter is about the holidays and making a house a home.

Sometimes the writing can be a bit much (the "g" is left off the end of a lot of words such as fixin') but then if you've ever watched Deen's television shows, that is the way she talks and I found myself picking up a Southern accent as I read the book. In every chapter there are block of Brandon's Style Secrets. Nothing revolutionary here but they are great tips. Savannah is over the top but there are still a lot of great ideas here that anyone could incorporate into their own homes. Except I think that I'll skip on the taxidermy. Yes, there is an section devoted to taxidermy which is apparently big in Savannah. Instead I'll focus on the sections on collecting and book nooks. And maybe bring in some of those fresh flowers that Branch is so fond of.

The Last War by Ana Menendez

The Last War by Ana Menendez
225 pages
Published June 2010 by Harper Collins Publishers
Source: the publisher and TLC Book Tours

Dominican-American photographer, Flash and her journalist husband, Brando, follow the wars, working as a team. But as the book opens Brando, aka Wonderboy, is in Iraq covering that conflict while Flash languishes in Istanbul, ostensibly held up while she's waiting for the necessary paperwork to come through. But Flash is held up more by the idea that her marriage is on the rocks. Then a letter from a person named "Mira" turns up (Flash can't recall knowing anyone named Mira), a letter that seems to insinuate that Mira and Flash are old friends and discloses to Flash past and present infidelities on Brando's part.

Suddenly Flash is packing to return to the U.S. then unpacking the next day; she's unable to work, she's wondering the streets of Istanbul. Her conflicted state of mind isn't made any better by the arrival of Alexandra, an old friend who has known Brando and Flash through some extreme times, or by the sporadic phones calls she gets from Brando who is alternatively angry with her or begging her not to leave him and who can't seem to call from his own room any more.

Menendez' writing is crisp and often poetic throughout most of the book, although I sometimes felt it meandered a bit. Maybe that was just me--I often found my mind wandering off as I read this book. Which might not be surprising given that that is what Flash was doing most of the book; the reader is often pulled into the past or through the streets of Istanbul. But my other problem was that I never connected to Flash. I didn't expect to be able to relate to her (nothing in my own life echoes hers) but I really wanted to be able to connect to her. Yet I couldn't understand why all of a sudden she was questioning her marriage. It seemed to me that Brando and Flash had always had a strange marriage, one where Flash was almost an afterthought even though she seemed to think of them as a team.

"No, my marriage had not been happy. Is anyone's? Everyone thought ours was. But it was just an ordinary marriage, the kind where happiness doesn't even enter into the reckoning. When you first meet, your love is a stranger. Years go by - you are bound together through moves, new cities, shared friends. You travel. You wake up and make love, you go out for dinner, you do the laundry. Beneath the surface of things, everything is changing except the one: the stranger you married is still the person you don't know."

Much is made of Flash's inability, unwillingness, to learn the language in any of the countries to which she has traveled, compounding her inability to feel at home any where. Much is also made of a faulty air conditioning unit and a couple that is constantly fighting in the apartment above Flash. All of which serve to add to Flash's frustration and also to point out the larger turmoil in the world around us.

One reviewer compared the book to a "European art house movie" and I would have to say that description is not far off. If you don't mind a slow paced read that is both deeply introspective while exploring larger world issues, then you will find The Last War of interest. If you are a reader looking for characters you can relate to or a plot-driven novel, you will want to pass on this one.


Menendez is a Pushcart Prize winner and the author of several other books. She has worked as a columnist for the Miami Herald as well as contributed to The New York Times and The New Republic.

Thanks to Trish and TLC Book Tours for including me in this tour. For more opinions, see the full list of reviews.

Sunday Salon - August 15

I hadn't intended on taking an almost week long break from blogging, but some how that's just what happened this week. I've been reading like crazy and trying to keep up to some extent with your blogs but I just haven't had the time or ability to focus on actually putting together a post.

My youngest headed back to school this week. Which means that I had to start getting up earlier in the morning and that's taking some getting used to! Theoretically that would mean I would get off work earlier but that didn't happen until Friday when I came home early, packed a van load of stuff and headed off to help my oldest move. In another week, Mini-me will head off to college. Well, not so much head off since he'll still be living at home and going to the university here but it still means getting books, back to campus activities and figuring out transportation (there's a great bus system to get him there). Needless to say, my house has been in a state of flux this week!

In bookish news, I'm getting excited about the news coming from Dreamworks Studios about the 2011 release of the movie adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's "The Help." A recent press release says that Allison Janney, of West Wing fame, has now been cast as Skeeter's mother, Charlotte Phelan. The website shows the official cast as:

Emma Stone - Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan
Viola Davis - Aibileen
Octavia Spencer - Minnie
Bryce Dallas Howard - Hilly

Short notice but there's still time, through today, to register with iVillage to a chance to visit the set and meet the cast. Check it out at:
To Enter: http://the-help-ivillage-community.fotobabble.com/;
For Official Rules: http://www.ivillage.com/official-rules-help/1-a-218422.

Buttery Books is a great site for book clubs that really like to celebrate the book they're talking about. The site offers suggestions for drinks, food and decor for quite a few different books, including The Help, The Art of Racing In The Rain, and Eat, Pray, Love. For The Help the ladies started with mint juleps and ended with, what else, chocolate pie!

I have no idea what those little boxes are that are appearing on the finished post--can't see them as I compose and can't seem to get rid of them.

Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson

Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson
344 pages
Published June 2010 by Grand Central Publishing
Source: the publisher for the Manic Mommies Book Club

Rose Mae Lolley grew up rough--the daughter of an abused woman who left her behind when she disappeared and a father who took it out on her as soon as her mother left. She left home early but it's been one long string of abusive relationships culminating in her marriage to Thom Grandee. Rose Mae has reinvented herself, partially out of love and partially out of the need to survive, into Ro Grandee, a sweet little wife who wears ballet flats and floral skirts. But a chance encounter with a gypsy in the airport convinces Ro that it's time to get out of her marriage, one way or another, and Rose Mae is just the girl to do it.

"It was an airport gypsy who told me that I had to kill my husband. She may have been the first to say the words out loud, but she was only giving voice to a thing I'd been trying not to know for a long, long time. When she said that it was him or me, the words rang out like church bells, shuddering through my bones. For two days, they sat in the pit of my belly, making me sick. I had no reason to trust her, and I'd as soon take life advice from a Chinese take-out fortune cookie as believe in tarot cards, but I'd lived with Thom Grandee long enough to recognize the truth, no matter how it came to me."

But when Ro can't shoot Thom, she needs to find someone who will be willing to kill for her. She decides that her old high school beau is just the person to do the job--after all, he'd once said that he'd be willing to kill her father for her. But her search for Jim Beverly only serves to make her realize that she is on her own--with only her dog, Fat Gretel, her pawpy's gun, and her desire to survive and maybe find her mother in the process.

Jackson does a fine job of exploring abusive relationships and the lengths the abused must go to in order to survive. I especially liked the way she explored the different personas of not only Rose Mae but her abusers as well. Jackson doesn't attempt to portray Rose Mae's father or husband as good people but she does give them depth by showing the reader what has happened in their lives that may have lead them to become people that would do the things they do to Rose Mae. Likewise, I felt the relationship between Rose Mae and her mother was well developed and I enjoyed the way it changed over time.

Other things I felt happened too quickly but I can't really delve into the specifics without giving away anything. And I had a hard time buying the idea that the first person to whom Ro would turn would be a sometimes boyfriend from ten years earlier who disappeared without a trace while they were still in college. And hidden messages that Rose Mae's mother had left for her, while interesting, didn't seem to really contribute to the story other than to prod Rose Mae along initially. Still, the ending was a surprise and Jackson managed to make me care about Rose Mae even though she wasn't, in many ways, a particularly nice person.

Thanks to Mari, of Bookworm With A View, who wrangles the Manic Mommies Book Club and arranged a phone discussion with Jackson that will allow you to learn move about her process and thoughts about this book.