Bookgirl's Nightstand | When I'm not reading books, I'm making them.

A Bookish Meme

iliana Nightstand June 8, 2009

It’s been a while since I’ve done a meme and when I saw this one over at A Reader’s Journal recently, I thought it’s time for me to play. So here are my answers:

1. What author do you own the most books by? That would be authors Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson, and Martha Grimes. I love their series so I have a lot of their books. Some I’ve read and a bunch are waiting for me.

2. What book do you own the most copies of? No double copies here unless it happens to be a book I have in Spanish and English but I only have a few of those.

3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions? Nah.

4. What fictional character are you secretly in love with? I can’t think of one right now.

5. What book have you read the most times in your life? I’m not much of a re-reader but I have read Love In the Time of Cholera, The Handmaid’s Tale and Remains of the Day twice.

6. Favorite book as a ten year old? I would have been in fourth or fifth grade so I’m sure it was Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume.

7. What is the worst book youâ€™ve read in the past year? This is tough because if it’s a book I’m really not liking then I won’t finish it. That said, I was disappointed by some books mainly this one because I love novels set in Victorian England and this one just didn’t live up to my expectations.

8. What is the best book youâ€™ve read in the past year? I read some great books last year so I’ll narrow it down to In the Woods by Tana French

9. If you could force everyone you know to read one book, what would it be? I’m always recommending The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

10. What book would you most like to see made into a movie? I think some of Georgette Heyer’s books would make wonderful movies. In particular, Regency Buck.

11. What is the most difficult book youâ€™ve ever read? North by Louis-Ferdinand Celine. Read it for a book group and it was a most confusing book.

12. What is your favorite book? This changes all the time but for today I’ll say The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

13. Play? Romeo and Juliet

14. Poem? Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins is a favorite.

15. Essay? Not much of an essay reader so I can’t think of one.

16. Who is the most overrated writer alive today? I can’t name names! It could be someone’s favorite author.

17. What is your desert island book? It has to be something big so maybe The Complete Novels of Jane Austen so I can finally read them all.

18. And . . . what are you reading right now? I’m almost finished with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. So off to finish it!

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This & That

iliana Nightstand June 7, 2009

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Ours was very good and I’ll tell you about it in a minute but first let’s find out who won a copy of The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff.

Drumroll:

The winner is Lori from She Treads Softly. Congrats, Lori! Thanks again to everyone who commented and stay tuned as I’ve got a couple of other books to giveaway soon.

So what did we do over the weekend? We went to Borders so I could use my Borders Bucks. Of course I was tempted by lots of books but I was in the mood for a mystery and I found Poison Pen by Sheila Lowe. I remember Literary Feline and Tanabata both mentioning they enjoyed the book so that’s all I needed to know.

Aside from making smoothies, I went to yoga, read some in the manual of my new camera (which is actually my husband’s old camera as he got a new one), took pics of some new books for the shop, and have been having so much fun reading one of my birthday books, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

Now, back to weeding out some books. Yep, it’s time to make room in the shelves for more books. I’ll let you know how that’s going.

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Book Tour & Giveaway: The 19th Wife

iliana Nightstand June 4, 2009

I’ve just turned the last page of The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff and have to tell you that you must add this book to your radar if you haven’t already. I first heard about the book at the Texas Book Festival last Fall when heard the author speak about the book. Since then I’ve been meaning to read it and am so glad I was able to participate in this virtual book tour. Let me tell you a bit about the book first and then at the end of the post find out how to win a copy.

“I promise my Dear Reader I shall recount my story truthfully, even when it distresses me to do so. In these pages you will come to know my mother, who by religious duty welcomed four wives into her husband’s bed. You will encounter the old woman forced to share her husband with a girl one-fifth her age. And you shall meet the gentleman with so many wives that when one approaches him on the street, he answers, “Madame, do I know you?”

Blending fact and fiction a tale of polygamy, religion and history opens before the reader. Ann Eliza Young was the 19th wife of Brigham Young and she was a woman who defied everything she’d known to gain a divorce from her prophet husband and managed to be a moving force of women’s rights and spoke against the practice of multiple wives. To illuminate what it means to be a multiple wife, the author introduces the fictional tale of another 19th wife who is assumed to have murdered her husband.

Set in present-day Utah, Jordan Scott a young man who was thrown out of his church and community, is one day surfing the net when he finds a picture of his mom and the headline, “Wife #19 Kills Husband.” Despite having been excommunicated and tossed out on the side of a highway with just $17 and some sacred underwear, Jordan still feels compelled to see his mom so he does what he didn’t expect to ever do again, he goes back to the compound to find the truth.

Jordan’s mom, BeckyLynn, insists that she didn’t kill her husband and asks her son to help her. For Jordan this means spending more time at the compound and trying to learn about his father’s wives. Jordan’s feelings about all of this are so mixed as he’s still upset about what religion did to him and continues to do to others. It’s not just the wives but also the children who suffer as boys are sometimes cast out for minor transgressions all in the name of religion.

Along the way of Jordan’s investigation we meet other characters who are also victims of this religious practice and one in particular, Joey a young boy, is charming with his tough-guy persona which hides the innocence that was lost when he was also thrown out of the group.

What I found so interesting about this book is that I expected to of course feel bad for the women but what this novel shows is that it could also be a difficult time for a husband who maybe didn’t want another wife, or a young boy who couldn’t understand why they were thrown out of the community. I thought the historical details that were interspersed with the fictional narrative were absorbing and I also liked the murder mystery aspect of the fictional part as Jordan works to save his mom.

I hope you will now be tempted to read The 19th Wife. You can find out more about the author and the book on his website and of course don’t forget to stop at the other TLC Tour Stops.

As I said, there’s a giveaway. It’s easy, if you’d like your own copy then leave me a comment and I’ll pick a winner over the weekend. Good luck!

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