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The Things You Can Read welcomes you and thanks you for your readership. We, here at The Things You Can Read, ask your help, if you visit our site regularly, please follow us either via email or Google Friend Connect. Launched on June 7, 2012, our site has already attracted a great deal of attention. One of the goals of the site is to feature reviews of Children's Picture Books, Young Adult novels and Adult Literary Fiction/Nonfiction. A second goal for the blog is to be a resource for teachers of English and writing--with examples of student created writing, writing tips, resource links, and the opportunity to pick the brain of a seasoned English teacher. To spice things up...every now and then, we'll also include random quotes and thoughts on education and life in general, but our ultimate goal is to reach out into the blogosphere and be a "Book Whisperer" and "Writing Whisperer" to children and adults of all ages. Thank you for your readership. Here is to a lifetime filled with reading and writing.
As a boy, William Bellman commits one small, cruel act: killing a bird with his slingshot. Little does he know the unforeseen and terrible consequences of the deed, which is soon forgotten amidst the riot of boyhood games. By the time he is grown, with a wife and children of his own, William seems to be a man blessed by fortune—until tragedy strikes and the stranger in black comes. Then he starts to wonder if all his happiness is about to be eclipsed. Desperate to save the one precious thing he has left, William enters into a rather strange bargain, with an even stranger partner, to found a decidedly macabre business.
And Bellman & Black is born.
I loved Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale, and I am so happy that after a seven year hiatus, we will be able to read her second novel, Bellman & Black . Publication date for this one is scheduled for November 5, 2013.
Thanks to Breaking the Spine for hosting this event every Wednesday allowing bloggers to highlight a book that they are eagerly anticipating hitting the shelves!
Does Bellman & Black grab your attention? Is it one you'd be interested in reading? Let us know here at The Things You Can Read!
Happy reading to all! ☮
Happy Reading☮
The Things You Can Read!
Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books!
The question for July 30 is: Top Ten Favorite Beginnings/Endings In Books (talk about books
that started or ended just perfectly or with a bang OR you could do specific
opening lines or last lines. Again, I want to thank Rose City Reader for bringing Top Ten Tuesday to my attention.
I started answering this question with the July Classic Club Question [Click HERE]. I only had 4 opening sentences already chosen for their question, so now I'll have to add to it to make it to TEN. My answer will focus on beginnings and why I liked them.
1. "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were." Gone With the Windby Margaret Mitchell
Why?
Folks who have never read the book, but only viewed the movie might never realize this important part of Scarlett O'Hara's character. Vivian Leigh is a beautiful Scarlett, but on the page it was Scarlett's charisma that caused all her men to fall in love with her, which is in part what makes her such an interesting character. [See Picture Below]
2. "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."To Kill a Mockingbirdby Harper Lee
Why?
Most folks don't realize the words spoken in the movie are not the first words of the novel. This one line is key because everything is leading up to the event that caused Jem to break his arm. In other words, by the end of the novel the author has taken us full circle all through Harper Lee's choice of her first line.
An iconic sentence, that many folks may have heard or seen in print, but do they know the meaning?
4. "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home."-The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Why?
I love this opening sentence because this sets the tone for The Outsiders. I read it in 7th grade for the first time, and now I teach the novel four times a year to roughly 100 new 7th grade students. I related to Ponyboy immediately based on this one sentence the first time I read it.
5.“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”-The Bell Jarby Sylvia Plath
Why? The Bell Jar was published in 1963, only a month after its author’s tragic death, and it has been a book I have wanted to read for a very long time based simply on the first sentence. I haven't taken the plunge yet but it I will very soon.
6. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"–Anna Kareninaby Leo Tolstoy
Why?
Why did I like this opening? Because this statement is just as valid today as it was back when Tolstoy first wrote it. Every family has their unhappiness even the ones that you think are perfect. I also got over my fear of tackling Tolstoy when I read this one. 7. "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."–Rebeccaby Daphne du Maurier Why?
This just grabs you! How can you not want to read on? I've read this one twice. Once back in 7th grade and again this year. I loved it just as much as I did the first time.
8. “It was a pleasure to burn.”-Fahrenheit 451byRay Bradbury
Why?
Another one that just grabs you. How can you not want to read on? 9. “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” Middlesexby Jeffrey Eugenides
Why? I loved this book and the first sentence sets the stage for what is to come.
10."A green hunting cap squeezed the top of a fleshy balloon of a head."-A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole Why? This book made me laugh out loud, and the first sentence says it all about the main character.
Vivian Leigh as Scarlett
Again, I didn't think I could get to ten, but I did. As I said last week, I'm sure I'll think of something else later, but this will have to do for now. What are your top ten first lines? Let us know here at The Things You Can Read.
Happy reading to all! ☮
Happy Reading☮
The Things You Can Read!
Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books!
I grew up watching Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live before they shortened it to just SNL and I even remember him performing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I'll even admit to owning the LP AWild and Crazy Guy. I was a kid back when he was making it big, and as a kid, I liked his outlandish comedy. So when I saw this book, I bit.
I have to say as an adult, I don't find Steve Martin's stand-up as enjoyable as I once did, but I do love the writer he became after his stand-up success. Previously, I readAn Object of Beauty, a fictional story by Steve Martin, and loved it! I feel the same about his movies. The earlier stuff doesn't mesh with the person I am now, but his more recent movies like Shopgirl, I loved.
Again, I'll admit, I'm a sucker for pop-culture from the 70s and 80s, the eras I grew up, and this book, like a another book I read a few months ago, Mary, Lou, Rhoda, and Ted, [Click HERE for Review] brought back memories of another time and place when I was much younger and more carefree, so in my opinion, if you don't bring this kind of connection to the table this book might not be for you, I, however, enjoyed the ride.
Steve Martin by his own admission is a bit stand-offish, and his standoffishness comes across in his memoir. If you are looking for The Glass Castle like revelations shared by memoir writer Jeannette Walls this is not the memoir for you. I know Steve Martin thinks he wrote a memoir, but he really didn't reveal the nitty-gritty stuff of memoir writing. What he wrote is an inside look at how he became successful, which is really interesting. Again, I caution the reader, if you are looking for him to let lose a lot of dirt on the cast of SNL forget it. The snarkiest he gets is an anecdote he shares about meeting Dan Aykroyd:
In Lorne's office later that day, the leather clad Danny Aykroyd told me he had been up all night riding his motorcycle, and when it had stalled at four A.M., he had thumbed a ride. When the car got up to speed, the driver pushed him out of the moving vehicle, and he rolled onto the rainy streets of Manhattan. I pictured Danny bouncing down the wet pavement and then said the only thing that came to mind. I asked him if h wanted to go to Saks and shop for clothes. He said, as friendly as he could, 'Uh, man, that's not my thing,' We liked each other, but we were different.-Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
If you are looking for him to bad mouth anyone famous, forget it-it's not happening. He mentions some big names, but nothing of substance is shared. Yes, he walked away from stand-up and you do know why, but he doesn't really share,-like therapy kind of sharing-how he felt about this decision, which is what most readers want in a memoir.
So what is this book? Well, if you are looking for a book that shows how hard it is to make comedy work, and how hard it is to make it in comedy then BINGO this is the book for you. Simply said, in a one sentence summary: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life is a book about dedication to ones craft at the expense of isolating oneself from the world.
I had the impression that Martin enjoyed researching the book more than writing it. Why? Because he stated, "As much as I enjoyed the writing of this book, researching it was a new thrill for me. Finding s photo that confirmed a dim recollection of days gone by hooked me on the detective work, and the legwork-marching form my desk back and forth to the archival boxes-gave me something to do besides type, think, worry, and cry." Martin was methodical in his casting about for old artifacts from his early career. He states in his acknowledgments, "This book has allowed me to contact old friends and dig through their memories and memorabilia. All contacts have been pleasant and some quite moving. The arrival of a package of photos or copies of letters offered by a friend was like having an archaeological dig brought to my own home." He enlisted archival type help twenty years prior to writing the book and later he added to his collection when he retrieved age-worn boxes of memorabilia his mother had saved and found, "...inside sedimentary layers of collected junk, ephemera, snapshots, and yellowed newspaper clippings. Like a geologist, I [Martin] was sometimes able to date items by their position in the stack." The research he expended on creating the book was that the final product appeared-to someone outside looking in-to be a cathartic or shall we say therapeutic experience for Martin, and what the reader receives in return is the closest look inside the mind of an extremely talented man he will allow you.
I'll be honest, I didn't know what to expect with this book, so before laying down real money for it, I sampled the beginning using the Amazon sampling feature. I liked what I read and ended up purchasing Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life. I mention this because using this feature, if you read with a Kindle, is such a good method to experiment with books you might not try otherwise. The sample is free, and it usually gives you enough to really let you know if you will like the book or not. I did the same thing with the other book I mentioned earlier in this review, Mary, Lou, Rhoda, and Ted, and ended up purchasing both. If you hadn't thought of sampling before buying give it a try.
If you have never seen Steve Martin's early stuff, or you've forgotten his brand of early comedy, checkout YouTube for archived comedy sketches. If you want to know how he came up with each of his signature bits for his act, read the book.
In the midseventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away."
Emmy and Grammy Award winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written.
At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory. The dedication to excellence and innovation is formed at an astonishingly early age and never wavers or wanes.
Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times-the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies.
Throughout the text, Martin has placed photographs, many never seen before. Born Standing Up is a superb testament to the sheer tenacity, focus, and daring of one of the greatest and most iconoclastic comedians of all time.
Happy reading to all! ☮
Happy Reading☮
The Things You Can Read!
Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books!
Confused about who is riding or driving, or walking in The Great Gatsby? Well, pop on over toPop Chart Lab and take a gander at their charting of the comings and goings of all the characters in the novel. Way Cool! If you really like it you can even order one up for framing. Really, Way Cool! Let us know what you think of this one here at The Things You Can Read!
Happy reading to all! ☮
Happy Reading☮
The Things You Can Read!
Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books!
We've added two NEW book related Podcasts to our podcast page. Check these out and let us know what you think. If you are looking for podcast checkout our PODCAST PAGE!
Book Riot – The Podcast is a weekly news and talk show about what’s new, cool, and worth talking about in the world of books and reading, brought to you by the editors of BookRiot.com
How do we get folks to read? Well, for one area they have their very own ad campaign to encourage reading. The ad campaigns slogan is "The Right Book Will Always Keep You Company."
Books? Actual printed books? People still buy those things? Apparently so. Otherwise this ACW Grey-created campaign for Israeli bookstore chain Steimatzky is a total waste of money. Whether or not it's wasted ad spend remains to be seen but one thing is clear; this is one very creative ad campaign. The work centers on print which carries the headline "The Right Book Will Always Keep You Company." The visuals then convey the headline quite literally by placing characters from well known novels in bed with readers. - See more at: Adrants
Which image from the ad campaign grabs you? Better yet, what slogan would you use to advertise reading books? Let us know here at The Things You Can Read!
Happy reading to all! ☮
Happy Reading☮
The Things You Can Read!
Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books!
I keep a master list on Goodreads in my Want to Read section. I also keep a list of ARCs and Amazon Samples of books I want to try on my Kindle. I also have a disorganized physical book library of sorts that has never recovered from my move, which I am ashamed to say was three years-ago, so I have no excurse except that I've had three children since I've moved, and organizing books keeps moving down the list, right after changing diapers and cleaning up Legos-BELIEVE me when I tell you, YOU don't want to step on Legos, nor smell stinky diapers.
How do you organize your books to be read? Let us know here at The Things You Can Read!
Book Beginnings on Friday is a great way share what you're reading and find some great books to add to your TBR pile. Here is what you are asked to do:
Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.-Rose City Reader
So far I'm really enjoying this one. It was one of my older ARCs and I thought I'd better get busy and read it. It is set in Iceland in 1829, and I am not too familiar with this era of Icelandic history. It is a historical novel, but is based on a true story. So far so good! I can't wait to see where this one will take me. I'm about 20% done, so I've got a bit more reading to do, but as I said I'm liking it so far.
In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnúsdóttir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men. Agnes is sent to wait out the months leading up to her execution on the farm of district officer Jón Jónsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoid contact with Agnes. Only Tóti, the young assistant priest appointed her spiritual guardian, will listen to Agnes’s side of the story. As the year progresses and the hardships of rural life force everyone to work side by side, the family’s attitude to Agnes starts to change, until one winter night, she begins her whispered confession to them, and they realize that all is not as they had assumed.
Based on a true story, Burial Rites is an astonishing and moving novel about the truths we claim to know and the ways in which we interpret what we’re told. In beautiful, cut-glass prose, Hannah Kent portrays Iceland’s formidable landscape, in which every day is a battle for survival, and asks, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?
What are you reading right now. Let us know here atThe Things You Can Read!
Happy reading to all! ☮ Happy Reading☮
The Things You Can Read!
Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books!
Don Tillman, 39, a successful but odd genetics prof, designs a questionnaire for his Wife Project: punctual, non-drinker, non-smoker. Rosie, a spontaneous, outspoken barmaid, smokes, curses, and adjusts his clock when he complains about his schedule. Yet an unlikely partnership blooms when Don agrees to help Rosie find her biological father-Summary Courtesy of Goodreads
Having read and reviewed The Rosie Project, I am eager to see what others think of this one. It is not going to be released until October 1, 2013, but I could easily see how Hollywood could make this one into a super comedy!
Thanks to Breaking the Spine for hosting this event every Wednesday allowing bloggers to highlight a book that they are eagerly anticipating hitting the shelves!
Does The Rosie Project grab your attention? Is it one you'd be interested in reading? Let us know here at The Things You Can Read!
Happy reading to all! ☮
Happy Reading☮
The Things You Can Read!
Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books!
For all those writers out there here is a very interesting project that actually started on July 15. Check out the description below. If it sounds like something you'd be interested in click on over to Tree of Life: Branching Out for even more information. Our thanks to Blogging A to Z Challenge for brings this to our attention!
Tree of Life: Branching Out is a collaborative writing challenge, where creative minds meet epic movie music. Preselected guest writers representing all genres, from all across the globe, will contribute their own 150 word excerpt (wc is flexible) to a continuing story collectively written over the course of 26 days. Each of the 26 writers will find inspiration in a featured composition from the motion picture music production house, audiomachine'snew TREEOF LIFE album. These clever masters of the craft will spin the story in whatever direction they choose, picking up where the previous writer left off, resulting in the ultimate collaborative tale.
Does this project interest you? Let us know here at The Things You Can Read!
Happy reading to all! ☮
Happy Reading☮
The Things You Can Read!
Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books!
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
Over at BuzzFeed you will find a list of books that will teach you something. How great! I love to learn. I could have been a perpetual student, if only I didn't have to earn a living (wink, wink). I perused the list and the one that grabbed my attention was the very first one on the list: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading. Why? Because I'm always interested in how to make my reading experience even better.
As a boy, William Bellman commits one small, cruel act: killing a bird with his slingshot. Little does he know the unforeseen and terrible consequences of the deed, which is soon forgotten amidst the riot of boyhood games. By the time he is grown, with a wife and children of his own, William seems to be a man blessed by fortune—until tragedy strikes and the stranger in black comes. Then he starts to wonder if all his happiness is about to be eclipsed. Desperate to save the one precious thing he has left, William enters into a rather strange bargain, with an even stranger partner, to found a decidedly macabre business.
