When I was first approached about reviewing Bonjour 40, I said no, simply because I had already committed to two book tours in November and two in December. But then, I watched the book trailer:

The video, plus the fact that I’m currently taking French with my high school freshman, and that I’m turning 40 in a year, and that I’ve always wanted to go to Paris… Well, my “no” turned into “yes.” Bonjour 40 is a delightful, witty memoir written in bite-sized installments, since it started out as a blog. Karen Chase has taken those blog posts, and added essays that expound on her history as a travel bug and her experiences taking photos, writing, reading, eating, and loving in Paris.

I have to admit that reading this book induced tons and tons of envy – I literally salivated over the descriptions of the food and of her visit to the famous bookstore, Shakespeare & Co. Karen writes beautifully and her descriptions of Paris and the people and sites and smells and tastes allowed me to live vicariously through her. Karen is a self-professed travel bug, and I can only hope that she will continue to write about her adventures, because I would love to read about them.

Bonjour 40 is available in e-book form for Kindle, Nook, iPad, and iPhone. To give you a taste of Karen’s writing, here is an excerpt:

On photography

Until now, I had been sliding in with the rest of Paris, staying up late and sleeping in. But for a photographer, it’s all about finding the right light, and the best time for that is early morning or late evening. I can look at photos now and tell you approximately what time of day they were taken. Many of mine from the first two weeks were taken between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. That had to change.

So that’s when I set aside a few times to capture Paris at sunrise and sunset. Paris is a nighttime city and so no photo collection would be complete without a shot that captures the flicker and the traffic. Early evening brings the ultraviolet blues and purples, paving the streets with lavender and platinum. But her mornings are devoid of the noise.

At sunrise, the city is naked, stripped down, still resting to gear up before another metropolitan, tourist-filled day. The layout of the streets, and the glorious Seine and bridges wake up with her as she becomes the city of morning light. The air is still cool and clear, the only sounds are of the occasional café opening up or a street cleaner going by. Sunrise brings the glorious red end of the light spectrum, which in Paris makes the stone of the buildings glow as if they are painted with gold.

It was then, cycling across her streets with my camera over my shoulder, that I realized it was in my going off to capture the city on film, that I am capturing internal memories. The memory of me gliding down the empty Champs-Élysées, light just barely touching each leaf of each tree, the morning breeze tugging at my hair—it is a feeling that is photographed within me. As if the memories are taken like photos in multiple-shot bursts, I can visually pull up every frame of that single adventure so they run together like a film in slow motion. Riding. Soaring. Free. Peddling. Living. Moving. Creative. Awake. Wonderful, happy memories.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: memoirs, non-fiction, travel memoirs

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Melanie Benjamin has done it again. As she did with Alice Liddell in Alice I Have Been, she has taken a little known historical figure and brought her to life in a novel. In this case, her subject is Lavinia Warren Bump, a proportionate dwarf whose career was launched by P.T. Barnum. Benjamin has taken the facts of Vinnie’s life and given this tiny woman the huge story she deserves. Vinnie is a character who will stay with me for a long time – and Melanie Benjamin now resides firmly on my list of favorite authors of historical fiction. Kim Mai Guest was the perfect narrator to voice Vinnie’s first-person story. She had the tonal quality you would expect from a woman of Vinnie’s diminutive size, but also perfectly captured her gentility and dignity.

Title: Bossypants
Author: Tina Fey
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Source: Audiobook from the public library
Audiobook reader: Tina Fey
First line: My brother is eight years older than I am.

I may not be the typical Tina Fey fan (I’ve never watched an episode of 30 Rock, and I’m more conservative in my politics than she is), but I will be the first to admit that she is a very funny lady. She knows how to write – and in the case of this audiobook, she knows how to read what she has written. One word of warning: do not listen to this book while holding liquid in either your mouth or your bladder, or you’ll be sorry when you start laughing hysterically.

Title: Lucia, Lucia
Author: Adriana Trigiani
Genre: Women’s fiction, contemporary fiction
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Source: Audiobook from the public library
Audiobook reader: Cassandra Campbell
First line: From her window Kit Zanetti can see absolutely everything that happens on Commerce Street.

I owe Kathy at Bermudaonion such a huge thank you for highlighting the work of Adriana Trigiani. It was because of her that I listened to Trigiani’s Valentine series on audio. They were fantastic, and read by the amazing Cassandra Campbell, who pronounces all the Italian words and names as if she were a native. When I discovered that she also read Lucia, Lucia, I downloaded it from our library’s Overdrive site – and ended up loving it even more than the Valentine books. Lucia is a young Italian woman living in Brooklyn in the 1950s, and this is her story, and it is a must-read. Actually, with Campbell reading it, you should listen to it on audio.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, celebrity memoirs, contemporary fiction, historical fiction, memoirs

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This review was previously posted on my personal blog on January 9, 2008.

I enjoyed this, but I wish it had been longer. I’m hoping he’ll write another memoir that picks up where the book leaves off, which is at the end of his stand-up career and the beginning of his movie career.

Martin does a great job of describing his early jobs in entertainment and his stand-up career. His descriptions of the energy a person feels when performing live were spot-on and made me miss my theater days in college. He also deals with the fact that a celebrity’s public persona is not who that person is, and how lonely that made him feel at times. People expected the “wild and crazy guy” – and got a serious intellectual instead. I’m sure it was horrible to feel like you disappointed everyone you met. Unlike a lot of celebrity “authors,” Martin can write. For an even better example, check out his novel Shopgirl. (Two other celebrities who can write very well, and whose memoirs are worth reading or listening to, are Alan Alda and Sidney Poitier.)

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, memoirs

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Tassy Morgan’s Bluff by Jim Stinson – Review copy from the publisher

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme for book bloggers to share their recent acquisitions. If you’re eager to tell the rest of the book blogging world about the wonderful books you’ve received this week, click over and share your link.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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~ Wendell Berry was awarded the National Humanities Medal and Harper Lee was awarded the National Medal of the Arts.

~ The Book of Joel, Billy Joel’s memoir, will be released June 14th. If this man writes prose like he writes songs, it will be brilliant.

~ The cover of Beautiful Chaos, the third book in Kami Garcia’s and Margaret Stohl’s Caster Chronicles series has been revealed. Be sure to check the links under “Book to movie news” for more news on this series.

Discussion starters:

~ Great response to Harper Collins’ decision to limit the borrowing of e-books from libraries. Chrisbookarama: The benefits of borrowing

~ Donna at The Other Day at Portrait thinks we need a new name for novels that consist solely of linked short stories. Be sure to read the suggestions in the comments!

Reviews and blog posts that have me adding to my to-read list:

~ Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer, reviewed by Trisha at Eclectic/Eccentric

~ Lenore has given us a list of upcoming dystopians in 2011 and 2012 – lots of drool-worthy titles, including a sequel to Mary E. Pearson’s The Adoration of Jenna Fox.

~ An Unfinished Score by Elise Blackwell, reviewed by Mindy Withrow

Book to movie news:

~ Fox 2000 has purchased the film rights to Lauren Oliver’s Delirium.

~ There is a Caster Chronicles movie in the works – plus, authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl talk about their fantasy casting.

~ According to Variety, casting of Katniss in the Hunger Games film has come down to three actresses: Jennifer Lawrence, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin (from left to right). What do you think?

Other bookish links:

~ While I didn’t love his performance as Oscar’s co-host, I continue to be amazed at the fact that James Franco is pursuing a PhD in English Lit in the midst of his very busy career as an actor. Franco talks poetry in this interview with the Poetry Foundation.

~ The next Dewey’s Read-a-Thon is coming up, and sign-ups are open!

~ Best part of the Oscars – bet you didn’t know Ron Weasley could sing!

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: book covers, book to film, harry potter, memoirs, poetry, TBR list

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While it was a busy week compounded by yet another cold virus making the rounds of the household, I did manage to save a few links for all of you.

Author news:

~ The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet was one of my favorite reads of 2010. In this video, you can see a grade school boy interviewing author Jamie Ford about the book and his writing process – and upcoming projects.

~ Scott Westerfeld has completed Goliath, the final book in the Leviathan trilogy. The book will be released September 13th of this year.

~ I’m so jealous! Sandy’s book club got to have a speakerphone conversation with Tatjana Soli, author of The Lotus Eaters. Wish I could have been there!

Discussion starters:

~ Debbie’s World of Books: Do you write reviews on ‘meh’ books?

~ Bookalicious: Word to your mother – a reaction to some unflattering remarks about book bloggers in this week’s Twitter YA Lit Chat.

~ There’s a Book: What makes YA so appealing?

Reviews and blog posts that have me adding to my to-read list:

~ Winterland by Alan Glynn, reviewed by Bernadette at Reactions to Reading

~ This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson, reviewed by Vasilly at 1330v

~ The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu, reviewed by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea

Other bookish links:

~ The New York Times: The problem with memoirs

~ The Guardian: Is speculative fiction poised to break into the literary canon?

Book blogger news:

~ The Story Siren‘s six-year-old cousin Kaylea is undergoing treatment for leukemia. Read Kaylea’s story and then do whatever you can to help, whether it is to send books to keep her occupied while in the hospital, or sending finances to help the family. The kids and I went through some books and sent a package earlier this week – Josiah was excited to share his beloved Littles series by John Peterson with her.

~ Presenting Lenore is hosting Dystopian February.

~ I’ve been meaning to read Charlotte Bronte’s Vilette for ages, and Wallace’s read-along at The Unputdownables is the perfect opportunity – especially since it’s spread out over two months. Very doable.

Other links of interest:

~ Tree octopus exposes internet illiteracy

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: author videos, classics, dystopian fiction, jamie ford, memoirs, read-alongs, scott westerfeld, TBR list, YA fiction

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Alice Cohen was at the prime of her life. After a divorce, she had found a new love, a man who loved her and her adopted daughter. Her career as a solo theater performing artist was flourishing. She was teaching a class she loved. Everything seemed to be falling into place. Then she started experiencing bizarre symptoms, symptoms that, because of her age of 44, her doctors wrote off as the beginning of menopause.

After six months of her body doing the strangest things, Cohen was sent for an emergency C/T scan, which revealed the truth – she was six months pregnant. After continually being told she was infertile, this was a diagnosis that she wasn’t prepared for, especially since she had spent the first six months of her pregnancy taking high doses of estrogen. She also had other complications that indicated a high-risk pregnancy and delivery and probable genetic problems with her child. Alice’s diagnosis of pregnancy started her on an emotional journey of epic proportions, as she considered her options and doubted her ability to love the child who was growing inside her.

What I Thought I Knew is a brutally honest memoir of one woman’s journey through medical misdiagnosis and the subsequent fallout. I’m going to be completely honest with you: I don’t think I was a good fit to review this book. Yes, I gave it three stars, and that is because it is well-written and kept me reading to find out how things turned out for Cohen and her family. But, I have to admit, I had a very difficult time with this memoir, and my reasons will probably make some of you angry. Please understand that this will be less of a review and more of a personal reaction to Cohen’s story.

Spoiler alert: my review will contain spoilers, but not any that I think are major enough to take away from anyone’s experience reading What I Thought I Knew.

Cohen is very liberal. While I consider myself moderate in some ways, and anti-politics in general in a lot of ways, there is still one area where I remain staunchly conservative, and that is the issue of abortion. I am pro-life. I understand that many of you may wholeheartedly disagree with me, and I respect your right to your belief, and know that our country is founded on the right for us to disagree with each other on issues such as this.

While I respect Cohen’s right to believe that abortion is a valid choice when facing an unwanted pregnancy, it was very difficult for me to empathize with her as I read this book. When she first discovers she is pregnant, she is six months along. After the C/T scan, she has an ultrasound, during which she can see hands with fingers, feet with toes, and a baby that appears to be waving. Her first response to this is, “Can I get an abortion?”

In all fairness, Cohen had every right to be terrified about this pregnancy. Her own ob/gyn had completely missed the pregnancy, in spite of doing a pelvic exam when Cohen was five months along. She had taken high-dose estrogen, undergone X-rays and C/T scans, and had problems with her uterus due to a drug her own mother had taken in pregnancy. There was a high chance that this baby would be deformed, handicapped, or both. And yet her response to the first sight of her baby in utero made me recoil.

Cohen chooses to go ahead with the pregnancy, and ends up becoming very depressed. She starts to pursue the idea of giving the baby up for adoption after birth, in spite of the fact that her fiance – the baby’s father – wants to keep and raise the baby, no matter what problems the child is born with. As I read, I felt so sorry for him, as he must have felt completely helpless in the face of Cohen’s continued desire to not have this child, to not keep this child.

Ultimately, this memoir ends in a hopeful and life-affirming way, but I had a difficult time liking Cohen or empathizing with her. I completely understand that this is not the book or the author’s fault; it comes from the fact that the author and I come from completely opposite ends of the spectrum on this central issue, an issue that is so rooted in my faith that I can’t separate it when reading a book like this.

Having said all of that, I again want to stress that Cohen is a gifted author. She tells her story with self-deprecating humor, and their were scenes that had me laughing out loud. She uses lists titled “What I Know” to illustrate the thoughts going through her head during each stage of her story, and it works very well. I was also fascinated with the way some of her folk tale-based solo theater work intersected with the issue of desperately wanting a child.

Side note: I don’t want a pro-life/pro-choice debate to break out in the comments section, so if you leave a comment, please keep that in mind. Feel free to express your opinion of the review or my reaction to this book, but I won’t debate the issue and I will close the comments section if it becomes a hotbed of ideological debate.

(Disclosure: I was provided a review copy of What I Thought I Knew from the publisher for this book tour. Many of the links on this site are Amazon affiliate links. If you click on one of those links and subsequently purchase anything, I will receive a small percentage.)

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2010. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: memoirs, non-fiction

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American Widow is a graphic memoir telling of Ms. Torres’s experience after losing her husband in the World Trade Towers on 9/11. He started working for Cantor Fitzgerald on September 10th. On September 11th, he died.

Ms. Torres’s story is heartbreaking, extremely well-told, and important for people to know. She speaks of the struggle to get financial help after 9/11, in spite of the fact that millions of dollars of charity were flooding into organizations like the Red Cross. She tells about the pain she felt when people started turning against some of the 9/11 widows in the press, vilifying them and accusing them of trying to profit from their husbands’ deaths. Most of all, she tells about her grief and the enormous effort it took for her to continue on with her life.

Sungyoon Choi’s art fits this story perfectly. It is simple and moves the story along. Some of the panels of Ms. Torres sitting alone or lying alone in bed are particularly poignant.

In my opinion, there is one weakness in this book. Ms. Torres speaks of being angry with her husband the day before 9/11, and still angry when she saw him off to work on the morning of the devastation. I never understood what she was angry about. I’m not sure if the weakness lies in the art or in the words, but I am still a little confused on that point. Still, that’s a minor quibble with what is otherwise a brilliant book.

This is a re-post of a review I wrote a couple of years ago.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2010. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: graphic memoirs, memoirs

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The Glass Castle is Jeannette Walls’s story of growing up in an odd and completely dysfunctional family. The book’s opening scene is Jeannette in a New York taxi, heading to a party in Manhattan. She looks outside and sees a homeless person rummaging through the trash. Not unusual for New York – except that this particular homeless person is Jeannette’s mother.

She then goes on to tell her story, starting with her first memory at age three. She was standing at the stove, cooking hot dogs in a frilly dress. The dress caught fire, and she spent six weeks in the hospital with burns that needed skin grafts. After she is back home, we find her once again cooking hot dogs for herself. Her mother, who is busy painting, responds with, “Good for you. You have to get right back on that horse.” Did I mention that she was three?

The Walls family lived for the first years of Jeannette’s life in the desert in California and Arizona. They lived in poverty, moving from place to place, sometimes having a home, sometimes sleeping outside under the stars. When they did stay in one place long enough for the children to attend school, Jeannette remembers rummaging in the trash in the girls’ rest room at school so that she could eat the leftovers that girls had thrown away from their lunches.

When her parents get the urge to move again, they end up in Welch, West Virginia, a coal mining town. Their “home” is a rundown shack without an indoor bathroom. The kids again starve, while their mother spends money on art supplies and hoarded chocolate bars, and their father spends their money staying drunk.

I know this sounds like a really depressing book, and parts of it were very heartbreaking, but Jeannette’s spirit and determination to make something better of her life, no matter what circumstances she found herself in, made it impossible to put down. And as abusive and neglectful as the Walls were, Jeannette isn’t bitter. In fact, you get the sense that her parents loved her and the other kids the best way they knew how. They just didn’t know how to be parents. Part of the reason for this is explained when they move to Welch and meet her father’s parents, though I never felt like I understood what made the mother the way she was.

Ms. Walls is a gifted storyteller, and she describes the events of her life from the perspective of her younger self. As she describes the scenes of her life, I could see her and her family in my mind’s eye. I wanted to shake her mother, throttle her father, and hug Jeannette. She writes her story with a clear eye for the reality of the awfulness of her childhood, but also with an affection for her family that comes through on every page.

This is a re-post of a review I wrote a couple of years ago.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2010. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, memoirs

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I liked this second installment in Anderson’s series better than the first. It was incredibly moving and perception-changing to view the American Revolution through the eyes of a slave. For instance, George Washington is continually called, “that slave-holding general.” The irony of a young nation fighting for freedom while denying that very freedom to blacks is heart-breaking. Anderson writes as if he lived at that time – the language, the topics, the settings, the dialogue – all put the reader (or listener) right at the heart of the action. And Peter Francis James is one of my favorite audiobook readers, so this was a great listen.

Title: Torment
Author: Lauren Kate
Genre: YA paranormal fiction
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Source: Audiobook from the public library
Audiobook reader: Justine Eyre
First line: Daniel stared out at the bay.

I had the opposite reaction to Torment, the sequel to Fallen, which I enjoyed. The author followed a similar plot – move the heroine to a new school so she’s not only dealing with the fact that she’s somehow cosmically connected to a fallen angel, but she’s the new girl. Again. It worked well in the first book, but felt old in this sequel. Plus, the author is taking too long to reveal the secrets of Luce’s past lives. She gives out information in a dribble. I don’t mind the idea of secrets being withheld, but if you give out so little that the reader is continually frustrated, you’ve got a problem. I haven’t decided if I’ll continue with this series or not.

Title: American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot
Author: Craig Ferguson
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: It Books
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Source: Audiobook from the public library
Audiobook reader: Craig Ferguson
First line: “I see England, I see France, I see the first lady’s underpants.”

This is a terrific memoir – Ferguson tells his story of growing up in Scotland, his early days as a musician and comedian, his move to the United States, and becoming an American citizen. He’s the best kind of patriot – one who loves his country with his eyes wide open, seeing the faults and problems, but still loving the ideas it was founded on. If you’ve ever watched Ferguson’s late night talk show, you already know he’s funny. He’s also a tad irreverent with a bit of a fowl mouth, but all dirty words sound hilarious when spoken in a Scottish accent.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, fantasy, historical fiction, memoirs, non-fiction, paranormal fiction, YA fiction

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