Mini Book Reviews and a Poem About Birds
ini book reviews!
I collated all my book reviews back in June (and also back in 2017), but here I'm collating all my mini book reviews.
I've done a few of these over the years:
2012
I used to do reviews on the One Hundred Romances Project site!
2013
The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey, All My Life Before Me, the diary of C. S. Lewis from 1922 to 1927, When Summer Comes by Brenda Novak, short stories by Stephen King, and Mary Ann Alice by Brian Doyle
The Forest Laird by Jack Whyte, When Summer Comes by Brenda Novak, and In A Fix by Linda Grimes
Yesterday Road by Kevin Brennan, Take Me Home for Christmas by Brenda Novak, A Room Made of Windows by Eleanor Cameron, Clarence Goes to Town by Patricia Lauber, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
2014
Chicken Soup for the Soul: O Canada The Wonders of Winter: 101 Stories about Bad Weather, Good Times, and Great Sports and Beloved Demons by Dr. Anthony Martignetti
Snip, Snip Revenge by Medeia Sharif, The No-Kids Club by Talli Roland, and Once Upon An Heirloom by Kait Nolan
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil Revised and Expanded Edition by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Cruellest Month by Louise Penny, Married by Midnight by Talli Roland, The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman, Hansel and Gretel by Neil Gaiman, and The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer
2015
Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language by Bill Bryson, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie, Absent in the Spring by Mary Westmacott, and The Hook Up by Kristen Callihan
Smoke by Catherine Mackenzie and Occasional Soulmates by Kevin Brennan
Tolkien at Exeter College by John Garth, The Perfect Son by Barbara Claypole White, Death of a Century: A Novel of the Lost Generation by Daniel Robinson, and The Secret Sister by Brenda Novak
2016
No Man's Land by Simon Tolkien, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J. K. Rowling, The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain, and Who We Were Before by Leah Mercer
Boss: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - The Illustrated History, by Gillian G. Gaar, Killer Exposure by Lara Lacombe, Lethal Lies by Lara Lacombe, Colton Baby Homecoming by Lara Lacombe, and The Secrets She Kept by Brenda Novak
Fractured by Catherine Mackenzie, Know Me Well by Kait Nolan, and To Get Me To You by Kait Nolan
2017
Yashim Cooks Istanbul by Jason Goodwin and Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
When You Got A Good Thing by Kait Nolan, Second Chance Summer by Kait Nolan, The Dispatcher by John Scalzi, Various Pets Alive and Dead by Marina Lewycka, and the Grape series by Laura Bradbury
See You Again by Kait Nolan, Once Upon A Campfire by Kait Nolan, and The Prophet From Ephesus by Caroline Lawrence
And Both Were Young by Madeleine l'Engle and The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Vile Jelly by Monica Byrne (short story), Reach for the Sky by Paul Brickhill, and Summer Fire by Sally Wentworth -- the older Harlequin and the only other book that has the same title as mine!
Those Sweet Words by Kait Nolan and Montreal Noir (Akashic Noir)
2021
The Actual Star by Monica Byrne and The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny
Now here is my first mini book reviews post for 2022!
Come A Little Closer by Kait Nolan
"Griffin Powell has avoided his hometown since he left it in the rearview years ago. But the former Marine understands duty and promises, and that means dragging himself back home as part of his brother's wedding party. Which gets him thinking about a promise he made to a woman, after the best night of his life. When she, too, shows up as part of the wedding, it feels like a sign.
Always a bridesmaid, professor Samantha Ferguson is dreading this bachelorette weekend. She’s the one of the lone single ladies, and the matron of honor is her high school nemesis. Sam figures she can suck it up and deal, until she comes face-to-face with the big, sexy ginger mistake from her past. Can this trip home get any worse?
Turns out it can. Not only are she and Griff paired up for all the bridal party bonding activities, forcing her to relive high school hell, but Sam's best friend goes missing. When no one takes her concerns seriously, she starts a search herself--and ends up with an unwanted bodyguard whose very presence reminds her of a hot Vegas night she’s tried hard to forget."
Having read the prequel to this story, I just couldn't imagine Sam and Griff apart. From the moment they meet up again at the Inn, it's obvious they're meant to be together...if only they can reconcile the past that lies between them. I really liked the way they didn't deny their feelings. Of course, that made me wonder what could possibly happen to keep them apart, and it was fun and intriguing to read about their various strands -- their family, their friends and current jobs, and the elements from their past that had to be overcome.
I'd kind of like to see a redemption story even for their nemesis! I'm all for more books about the Inn and Eden's Ridge. I love diving into a series that lets me catch up with the couples from previous books in each new book!
"A girl and her dog navigate their vagabond life in Seattle at the close of the nineteenth century.
Take a step back in time — and to a buried city — with this excerpt from Issue 32, Autumn 2021 of Pulp Literature:
"In the days of the trapping old-timers and prospecting gold miners, when Seattle was a boom town full of timber barons drinking beside lumberjacks, when scoundrels were thick as flies and even upstanding citizens were known to rot like meat in the sun, there was a girl who did not know her name. That girl was me.""
I loved this story! It has just the right feel of a short story -- a little slice of captured time, and characters you keep speculating about long after you've finished reading...
"Are you looking for Middle-earth in the real world? J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth was not in New Zealand, but rather in England and Switzerland. In 1911, at the age of 19, he set out on an adventurous journey through the Bernese Oberland and Valais, heavily loaded and over many high passes. And it was this hike that will later inspire him greatly for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, for Tolkien was a true hobbit who hardly ever traveled.
Some of his sources of inspiration in Switzerland, Tolkien mentioned in his letters himself, but only some. So, on his tracks, I set out into the spectacular mountain world myself in search of his inspirational treasures; and little by little, I became convinced that he was not only inspired by the landscape but also by the stories, myths, and legends connected with it. Slowly, a vivid and mysterious world revealed itself to me in these mountain landscape—the world of Middle-earth.
In this book I would like to take you on this journey and treasure hunt with me; and in the appendix you will find hiking suggestions so that you can explore Middle-earth in Tolkien’s footsteps yourself. You will not regret it, I think. For me, at least, writing this book changed the way I look at the Swiss mountains forever."
I have such a long list of places to visit, after having read this book!
I first heard about this book from Hilary, and then I got to read her copy, thank you, Hilary!
It sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to read Coryate's original writings; it turns out his writing on Constantinople is only available behind a paywall! I did find a pdf of his first book, all about travels in France and Italy, but only a brief mention of Switzerland.
I quite enjoyed the book but, as it went on, I was hoping Allen had discovered a bit more about Coryate; there just doesn't seem to be much information left to uncover, unless someone somewhere in an attic finds some lost manuscripts!
Speaking of travels beyond Turkey, on the way to India, overland, I also just read The Hidden Target by Helen MacInnes, a fictional book that involves a group of travellers taking a caravan overalnd from Istanbul to Bombay in the early 1980s.
Allen didn't go overland the entire way; he took a boat. I think this choice -- overland or by sea? -- is influenced by constantly changing factors. My second cousin took an overland route as part of the Wakhan project by Varial Studio, and that was a couple of years before Allen's trip.
I'd love to see the stars from the desert!
A long long time ago (2006!), there was a blogfest, and part of it involved writing a poem using the following phrases: "yellow house finch" or "cooper's hawk"; "Texas prize"; "hungry hawk"; "snow buntings"; and "wild turkeys".
I wrote this poem!
Wish-fulfilment for a Birdwatcher
On a blustery January morning, I looked out my window
I couldn't believe my eyes:
there on a low-hanging branch, sat a beautiful Texas prize
ruffling his wings and preening his feathers
he looked calm and sedate, despite the snowy weather.
Just then I noticed, high up in the sky
a hungry hawk, all set to fly
down and catch -- no, not the Texan but,
to my surprise, a yellow house finch, just
stepping out from below some hedges,
unaware of the terror now circling low over the edge
of the scene. I had hardly expected this,
so early in the morning, with a storm raging --
and now there were snow buntings, alighting on the lawn!
This is impossible, I cried, what are all these fowl doing here together?
And what are those wild turkeys doing on the snow-covered heather?
I looked from one to the other: the oblivious Texas prize,
the low flying hungry hawk, the tiny yellow house finch,
the flock of snow buntings -- I shook my head, I rubbed my eyes,
I went to take another sip of coffee and suddenly realized:
This wasn't coffee, what was I drinking -- Wild Turkey?
So that's why all these birds had materialised!
Comments
Interesting about Tolkien walking through the Alps when he was 19 - and taking that inspiration into his stories.
You're amazing at all the 'lists' you make, let alone the contents in the lists - an excellent place to check out ideas to read. Thank you - cheers Hilary