2010 in Review

Yikes....I haven't posted since the end of November! My excuses are fairly common, I've been traveling for work, the holidays took up a fair amount of time and I've become quite addicted to Netflix. Specifically, I've become hooked on a few television shows (Firefly,  Damages) and as a result have spent most of my free time watching television.

I've also been flitting between a few books at once, which can be enjoyable, but I rarely make any progress. Luckily I finished an excellent novel last night by my new favorite author Sarah Waters so hopefully I will be posting on it shortly. 

For now I thought I'd take a look back at all my posts and highlight a few of my favorite books of 2010: 

Freedom: A Novel

by Jonathan Franzen

 Franzen remains one of my all-time favorite novelists, and it was worth the wait for his latest. 

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

By John Le Carré

My first time reading Le Carré and I have a feeling he too will be in my list of favorite writers. A fantastic spy novel, but also just a fantastic novel period. I recently picked up A Perfect Spy and hope to start reading it soon.

Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair with Jewelry

Edited by Ruth A. Peltason

Not just another book filled with pretty pictures! Taylor gives an in-depth account of her favorite pieces and allows the reader to get an up-close look at an amazing collection of jewelry. 

Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century

By Sam Kashner & Nancy Schoenberger

Sometimes one good book leads you to another. A fascinating look at one of old Hollywoods most famous couples. 

Suite Française

By Irène Némirovsky

Beautifully written with an even more amazing back-story. 

Fingersmith

Sarah Waters

Waters has become another writer I've loved and I will be forever grateful for finding another master of historical fiction (and suspense). 

Beautiful Public Libraries (in the U.S.)

Salt Lake City Public Library

Parkway Central Library, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

New York Public Library

More here. 

Thanksgiving Poem

“Listen” by W.S. Merwin

with the night falling we are saying thank you


we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings


we are running out of the glass rooms


with our mouths full of food to look at the sky


and say thank you


we are standing by the water looking out


in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging


after funerals we are saying thank you


after the news of the dead


whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you


in a culture up to its chin in shame


living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you


in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators


remembering wars and the police at the back door


and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you


in the banks that use us we are saying thank you


with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable


unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us


our lost feelings we are saying thank you


with the forests falling faster and faster then the minutes


of our lives we are saying thank you


with the words going out like cells of a brain


with the cities growing over us like the earth


we are saying thank you faster and faster


with nobody listening we are saying thank you


we are saying thank you and waving


dark though it is

"I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf."

“Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.”


Patti Smith wins the National Book Award for nonfiction for her memoir Just Kids. 


Jaimy Gordon wins for fiction with his book Lord of Misrule.

November Poem

My November Guest
Robert Frost


My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
  Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
  She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
  She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grady
  Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
  The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so ryly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
  And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
  The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell he so,
  And they are better for her praise.

In the Shadow of Gotham

By Stephanie Pintoff

Winner of the Minotaur Books/MWA Best First Crime Novel award, In the Shadow of Gotham begins with the brutal murder of a young woman in the middle of a cold November day. The year is 1905 and Pintoff manages to incorporate the General Slocum steamship tragedy, New York City politics, and the growing field of criminal psychology into the murder investigation. 


The book was well-written and entertaining, and like other reviewers have noted, her writing does remind me of Caleb Carr's work. Truth be told, I think Carr is better, but overall In the Shadow of Gotham was a a fun, entertaining read. 

A Cold Treachery

By Charles Todd

I was traveling this past week, and there's nothing I hate more than being stuck in an airport (or hotel) without a good book. This mystery was another Bas Bleu find and I really enjoyed it. Charles Todd is the nom de plume of a mother and son writing team who live in America, but whose books take place in Britain. Click here to see their website. 


The year is 1919 and Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge is sent into a snowstorm to investigate the murder of an entire family in northern England. After arriving in the remote town he discovers that a young boy may have survived and may hold the clue to what happened. Shell-shocked and haunted by his past as a soldier in WWI, Rutledge is a recurring character in Todd's novels and makes for a richly drawn protagonist. 


If you love mysteries or just want a good read definitely check out A Cold Treachery or another Charles Todd novel. 


Ian Rutledge Mysteries: 
A Fearsome Doubt
A False Mirror
A Long Shadow
Watchers of Time
Search the Dark
Legacy of the Dead
A Pale Horse
A Matter of Justice
A Test of Wills
The Red Door
A Lonely Death