Month: January 2009

Categories
Orange Prize

Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels

Fugitive Pieces won the Orange Prize for fiction in 1997.

Jacob Beer is a Jewish poet, who was found by Athos, a Greek scholar, after he escaped from Poland. Jabob was ophaned after the Nazis killed his family, so Athos smuggled the 7 year-old boy back to Greece and reared him as a son.

The writing in this book is very skilled, but I felt it fell in to two very seperate sections. The modern section was very normal, but I found the characters quite irrating. They were too perfect, and the fact that Jacob seemed to be equally burdened by the gravity of his intellect, as we was by his memories of the Holocaust made him difficult for me to like.

The interwoven story of the persecution of the Jews was too graphic for me, and I wish that I hadn’t read it, as I’m sure that they will return to haunt me. The juxtapostion of the two stories intensified the emotion, and it was so disturbing that at times I could barely read it.

The character of Ben is introduced towards the end of the book, and I have to admit that it took me a while to realise this was a completely new person. His voice was so similar to Jacob’s that I failed to realise he was someone new. This lead to some confusion, and I still don’t really understand why he was added to the book.

Overall I think the book was just too abstract for me to appreciate. The narrative didn’t flow very smoothly, and although some parts were vividly described, it was too distressing to be a good read.

Categories
Blog Improvement Project Other

Blog Improvement Project – Initial Statistics


I thought that it would be a good idea to note down my blog’s statistics at the start of the project, so that I can see how much I’ve progressed by the end.

Statistics for 29th December 2008 – 4th January 2009

Number of posts: 68
Number of Comments: 142
Number of unique visits per day 125 (min) – 195 (max)
Number of page views per day: 228 (min) – 807 (max)
Technorati Authority: 7
Technorati Ranking: 761,506

I look forward to seeing these improve, as I learn things from the project. Can anyone suggest any other statistics that are worth noting?

Categories
Other Uncategorized

Weekly Geeks is back!

Starting this Saturday, January 10th, Dewey’s Weekly Geeks will resume at a new website, weeklygeeks.com. So come check out the new site, grab a button, mark your calendars, add us to your feed reader and get prepared to join the fun!

Categories
Other Uncategorized

Award! Premio Dardos

I received this amazing award from Beth Fish Reads. Her blog is great, and one of the few I visit every day. If I was allowed to, then I’d give the award back to her too.

I’m thrilled to receive it, as I have never had an award before! I almost feel like I belong in the blogging community now, and it has given me more energy to continue blogging away through 2009. Thank you Beth Fish!!!

This award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his or her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values every day.

The rules to follow are:

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.

2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Unfortunately I have been very bad at visiting people’s blogs regulalry (something I’m trying to address in 2009, partly as a result of the Blog Improvement Project) I have tended to jump from one blog to the next, reading loads of posts, but not returning to the same ones, except in a few cases. So I don’t feel I can award this to 15 different people.

The few blogs that have come to my attention, as great places that I return to again and again are:

An Adventure in Reading

Arukiyomi

Caribousmom

Fleur Fisher Reads

Musings

So many precious books, so little time

The Magic Lasso

Thoughts of Joy

I’d like to thank the above bloggers for inspiring me to add a varied selection of new books to my reading pile – I’ll be back to read more posts very soon!!!

Categories
Chunkster Other

The Chunkster Challenge

I love reading long books – they tend to have more depth, and a more interesting plot, so this is a great challenge for me.
The rules for the Chunkster Challenge are:
*A chunkster is 450 pages or more of ADULT literature (fiction or nonfiction) Don’t complain folks, I read all thousands of pages of the Twilight series and they were good, but not a challenge. A chunkster should be a challenge. 
*If you read large type books your book will need to be 525 pages or more I asked around and  the average LT book is 10-15% longer or more so I think that was a fair estimate.
*No Audio books in the chunkster. It just doesn’t seem right. Words on paper for this one folks.
* You may start any time after signing up. You must complete your reads before or on Nov 15th.
*Short Stories and Essay collections will not be counted. 
*Books may crossover with other challenges (see option 4 for a collaborative effort with TBR challenge)
*Only option 4 requires that you make a set list of books to complete the challenge
Those are the basics. Here are your options:
*The Chubby Chunkster – this option is for the reader who has a large tome or two to read, but really doesn’t want to commit to more than that. 2 books is all you need to finish this challenge. 
*Do These Books Make my Butt Look Big? – this option is for the slightly heavier reader who wants to commit to 3-5 Chunksters over the next ten months.
*Mor-book-ly Obese – This is for the truly out of control chunkster. For this level of challenge you must commit to 6 or more chunksters OR three tomes of 750 pages or more. You know you want to…..go on and give in to your cravings.
 And lastly, in an intriguing collaboration with the wildly popular Miz B of the TBR Challenge we have:
*Too Big To Ignore Anymore – this option is for those chunksters on your TBR list. You may select any number of books over 450 pages but you must LIST THEM to complete the challenge and they must be on your TBR list as well (honor code folk, I don’t have time to be the challenge police)
I’m going to opt for the *Mor-book-ly Obese option, as I love chunksters, and this will encourage me to read more of them.
My Chunky Reads are:
The 19th Wife completed 5th Feb. 2009
The Moonstone completed 21st Feb. 2009
Categories
2008 Recommended books Richard and Judy Book Club

Mudbound – Hillary Jordan

Mudbound won the Bellwether Prize in 2008, for addressing issues of social injustice, and was the first book selected for Richard and Judy’s New Writers Book Club.

Hillary Joran makes writing a novel seem really easy. Everything is written simply, but beautifully. She shows amazing writing skill by taking a relatively simple story, then structuring it in such a way that makes it into a real page turner.

The story begins in the Deep South of America, just after the end of World War II, with a family struggling to bury their father in thick mud, during a storm. The story then progresses through the eyes of several characters, until we finally find the cause of his death. I loved the way that small hints as to what was to come were dropped into each chapter. Seeing everything from each character’s perspective meant that you develop an empathy for them all, and begin to understand the reasons for their actions.

The book is very well researched, with the segragation and racism of post-slavery America coming across very vividly.

My only critism is that the book was a little short for me. I wish that some of the sections, which were skimmed over, could have been filled in. Adding a bit more meat to the bones of this story would have made it into an iconic book, instead of just a great read.

Despite this tiny flaw, it was very well written, and I’m sure that Hillary Jordan will win many more prizes for her writing in future.

Highly recommended.