A Month of Faves: Fave New-to-Me Author Discoveries

Hello, hello everybody. How is your holiday season going? Mine has been busy, and it will remain that way so better not think too much about it. Today's post for #AMonthofFaves is Favorite Authors that you discovered recently. This year I discovered a lot of authors, but none of the following wrote my 3 favorite books of the year. The thing is, even though I really loved those 3 books, they were the first time I ever encounter their writing, and I am not sure yet I would read anything by them. Probably, but time will tell. Here I present to you 3 authors and my reasons why I think I would read anything by them:

Octavia E. Butler: Thanks to the Sword and Laser Book club I came to read Dawn, the first book in the Xenogenesis trilogy. I immdiately loved the style and I then read Adulthood Rites and it was amazing. I only have to read Imago from this series, but I already now I am going to love it. Her world construction, the way she touches humanity so on point...it is amazing, I have no better word. 

Meg Medina: I read Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick your Ass in part because the people from Book Riot kept mentioning it and I was not disappointed at all. But it is more than her writing beautiful realistic Latino characters guys; afterwards I listened to her interview from Our Reading Lives (another BR podcast) and I was smitten. She was so nice and interesting, and I just felt identified, you cannot compete with that! I follow her on Twitter and she is just great.

 

Emily St. John Mandel: One of my last books of the year was Station Eleven (I haven't written my review, but I am on it, I promise) and it blew my mind. It was so different and the narrative was beautiful; I have no idea how she made such an intricate web, but oh boy she had me from the first moments. I already had Last Night in Montreal on my wishlist, but it has recently moved to my must haves 

There you have it, 3 fantastic ladies that blew my mind in 2014. What about your new faves??

The Bracelet by Dorothy Love

I asked and received this book through NetGalley for free. This review is not sponsored nor influenced in anyway. Thanks to Thomas Nelson Fiction for the book. The expected publication date is December 9.

First impression

This is the first book from Dorothy Love that I have ever read. Most of her books are on Historical Fiction and this added to the beautiful cover made me ask for a copy at NetGalley. While the description of the book hints at a mystery, I think this element was not as present as I expected. The bracelet in question only had its appearance 1/3 into the story and the whole mystery was solved ¾ in, which made it feel like that everything after that was a bit too long. However, if you would take just the historical fiction part, it was a very entertaining read.

Final thoughts

The book revolves around Celia Browning, a 19th century Savannah socialite, day dreaming about the love of her life while at the same time taking care of her father and sharing her household with her orphan cousin. Celia has been in love with Sutton MacKay ever since they were kids and now he is coming back from Jamaica to, it would seem, marry her and take over his family business. But not everything is perfect in Celia's life, a nuisance in the form of a reporter stirring stories better left untold, comes to taint her family's reputation and to make matters worse, she starts getting threats from a mysterious origin.

The author does a great job when setting the background; at point I felt like I was watching a period movie, with the description of the city, the dresses and the dialogues. I enjoy when authors manage to build the world this nicely, since it makes the experience much more involving.

The part that I felt was in deficit was the mystery part. Considering that the title of the book is The Bracelet I was under the impression that the mystery would come from a bracelet. In fact, what we have is two mysteries, that at the end, sort of blend together, but not quiet. And even then, it didn't feel that heart gripping type of mystery and the conclusion was predictable for me.

What I ended up doing to review this book, was just remove the mystery part of the equation and that is the reason I ended up giving it a 4. The author gave me what I was expecting: a historical fiction with a sweet love story in a small southern town. No more and no less. If that's what you are looking for, got for it. If you are looking for a page turning type of mystery, I would look for something else.

Life of a Blogger: Where you live

In the words of Jessi from Novel Heartbeat:

It’s a weekly feature. Each week I will choose a subject and talk about that subject in my life. The topics will be non-bookish so that you can get to know me on a more personal level! I definitely encourage you guys to participate, too. I want this to be meme style with a linky for you to add your posts to. I want to know more about you guys as well!

My face says it all

As some of you may know by now, I moved to Canada about 5 years ago. I live in the province of Quebec in the city of Montreal.  I generally love living here, except for winter, I just don't get used to it.

Me one of the first times I skated

But even I have to admit that it is not the end of the world, and to try to keep up the morale we try to keep active, for instance I really enjoy ice skating, although sometimes the cold makes it impossible to stay outside long (at least for me).

The Olympic Stadium

At the entry of the Botanical Garden

Off course winter isn't here all year long, and that's when you can really enjoy the city. It has a beautiful architecture. One structure you might recognize if the Olympic Stadium from and one of the places that I always try to show to people visiting me (when possible) is the botanical garden, because it is so pretty! I am sure it is not an unique event here, but at a certain time of the year you can even see the butterfly exposition. Basically all year long you will find an event, is a very lively city. You will find a lot of music events (Jazz festivals, Classical music to name a few), the Rogers cup  and the F1 for those into sports...oh and off course the Montreal Circus Festival, since Cirque du Soleil is based here.

But I think my favorite part of the city is the amount of parks it has. So much green! It makes me so happy and in summer we always end up in the park, taking the sun, reading and just relaxing.

People will sun bathe in the parks, although sometimes they make a fake beach downtown. But if you have an awesome park nearby, why not, right?

If not in the garden you will probably find me on our terrace, or in our garden. Last year we had a bunch of raspberries and strawberries. As you can see, when the sun is here you take every second you have under it. 

You probably also know this, but Québec is a francophone province, and so the city of Montreal is also francophone. But on of the things that I amazes me the most is the amount of languages I can hear just going to work. Some I manage to recognize, but it is always fun to see how many cultures are at the same place at once.

That's my brief intro on Montreal; honestly is a city that is better lived than described ;)

Why I read: The Serious Pleasure of Books by Wendy Lesser

First impression

On my first shopping spree at Book Outlet I saw this book; I liked the cover and the premise seemed interesting. Wendy Lesser is a critic, a novelist and also an editor so it was appealing to me to hear, or rather read, in the words of someone who is so into the field that is reading, why reading is such a pleasure and I will admit I was curious to see if we had similar points. From the beginning of the book I realised this was more about the serious part rather than the pleasure part, or at least that is what the book made me feel. From sentences such us "real literature" and "[…]to refer repeatedly to murder mysteries, a notoriously trashy form" to afirmations that frankly let me feeling (and I realize this is completely subjective) like the author was disapproving of my reading, I just couldn't find joy in this book.

Final thoughts

I will be honest: every time I thought about writing this review I cringed remembering how I felt reading the book. It read to me like a highbrow lecture that made me feel inadequate with my reading. I am not saying off course that this was in any way the intention of the author; I am just telling you how the speech in the book affected me.

From the beginning, when she used sentences such "real literature" it stroke me as disdain of some sort, disapproval of genres and even of certain readers and while I can be as much as a book as anyone, this just felt wrong. Then there was the situation with the examples she uses to show the alleged pleasure for the first chapter I could not recognize the books or for that matter the authors she was citing. This, I know, is my problem, not hers. Probably I would recognize authors that she wouldn't, and that's ok. But when in all of her examples there is not a single one you recognize, engaging with the book and saying:"Ah yes, I see what your point Mrs. Lesser". If you compare it with What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund you might see what I mean with this. I have never read Anna Karenina, but being such a wide known book I knew and understood what the author meant; this was impossible for me with Lesser's book.

Even in cases where I had read the book or at least part of it, this understanding of the author was not there. For example I tried to read Don Quixote (in Spanish mind you) I made it to chapter 12 I think where he starts having a monologue with rocks, once Sancho Panza has left him alone. I just couldn't go on; there was no pleasure for me reading it. I made it through Swann's Way and In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower but after that I no longer engaged in Proust's work. But even then, when she did use these books at examples I just couldn't see what she was pointing out in them and I would end up with the horrible feeling that it was my fault.

One thing we did agree on was translations and their effects on the reader. I am one of those people that would love to read all her books in the original language, but then again, I am not going to learn Swedish any time soon guys and my German won't allow me to read The Never ending Story any time soon, even if it is a book I already read. So it is important to find someone who manages not only to translate the sentence but the meaning of the sentence, and of course this is hard to do.

I was sad at the end, because I had very high expectations for the book, but it was just not for me.

December, A Month of Favorites!: Introduction Post

This December I will be participating in A Month of Favorites. Don’t know what it is? Well:

All December-long, Estella's Revenge, Girlxoxo, and Traveling with T will be sharing our fave bookish (and sometimes non-bookish) experiences from throughout the year AND we want YOU to join us! The schedule of topics is posted below – in some cases, we’ll be joining with other bloggers' events – and other times, one of us will be hosting a link-up. Plus, there will be 3 GIVEAWAY WINNERS for a book of your choice from Book Depository. Every time you post on one of the topics below, and join the Linky on one of our 3 blogs – you’ll be entered to WIN!

I won’t be able to do ALL the post, but I will sure try to make the most J. Our first subject is:

Faves Month Introduction

This has been such a wonderful year of reading guys! I’ve participated in amazing bookish events and with this I managed to not only read almost double the amount of books I read last year (96 so far and I think I will manage to get to the 100!), but I also managed to read with more variety. Now, as most years, I mostly read Fiction (87%). I do not classify my books by genre, further than fiction vs non-fiction, so forgive me if I can’t give you any more data here.

How have I read? Well, this year 45% has been in paper, 25% as ebooks and 30% in audio. Of this, 52% I own, 30% from the library, 16% borrowed from friends and 2% as Galleys.

When do I read? ALL the time now, thanks to Audio books, because now I can read while doing lab work that does not require my attention (washes for example) But other than that it has to be when I get back home and I want to disconnect.

While some authors have shown up several times this year, I don’t feel like they were necessarily my favorite authors necessarily, is just that I was finishing series, although I think it is safe to say that anything Laini Taylor gets out there I will read from now on, because I so loved the Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy.

And now I am supposed to hint to you which one of the books I’ve read so far was my 2014 favorite, without telling you upright. Well, you know this would be so much easier if I could point just one!

I have narrowed it down to three wonderful books. They are all written by women, 2 fiction and 1 nonfiction. One of the fiction ones and the nonfiction really touched me on a very emotional level, I went to read them with sincerely no expectations other that people that I care for have read them and seemed to love them and I loved the books in return. The other fiction book was a big one, not only in size but also regarding how much talk it got! None of the books was actually published this year.

Very close and I guess runner ups on my favorites this year, would’ve been The Martian, Angelmaker and What we See when we Read. But I will discuss those later this month ;)

So that is my introduction. If you guessed what were my faves this month let me know, and off course let me know of YOUR favorites!!

Have a wonderful week and month!

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed

First impression

I decided to read this book by Shannon's recommendation. I have only one complaint, and that is that no one warned me that I shouldn't attempt to listen to it at work...10 or 15 minutes in I was already fighting the tears. The whole book is full of emotional and very touching subjects that will move you deep inside. If I could recommend this book in one line it would be: It is painful to read, but oh so beautiful!

Final thoughts

I never read Dear Sugar before and now I feel like I missed something truly wonderful. People would write to Sugar with questions that might be pretty straight forward at times and super obscure. She would answer them either way with the best advice she could think off. Sometimes, this advice came with personal anecdotes and when it did...that's when the waterworks came for me. Because you can feel how honest and brutally direct she was being about herself and about the issues on topic.

The fact that this particular version of the book was read by the author probable made it even more wonderful, because there was true emotion on each letter, on each answer. And listening to it goes deep in your heart and beautiful feelings, albeit sometimes sad ones too, nestled in there and after weeks of finishing the book I still choke up remembering certain passages.

I know this is a short review, particularly for a book that I loved, but I cannot put into words how this book makes me feel. It made me laugh, cry, laugh while crying, miss my family like crazy, made me tell people I love them and even took away weight from my shoulders. I would recommend this book to everybody, but get some tissues first. Now go and read it.

Nonfiction November: New to my TBR

I cannot believe that this month is almost gone! And I haven't even send my Christmas cards yet!!! Let's hope they make it on time.

But our topic today is "Which ones have made it onto your TBR?" Well, I have a bunch, and I mean A BUNCH, but I wanted to concentrate on 5 for now, just to keep it relatively simple.

FromTrish@Love Laughter and a Touch of Insanity: She had a great post on Nonfiction and Diversity and from it I got Spirit Boy by Paul Apowida:

[...]Ghana, Paul Apowida tells his story of his childhood amongst villagers who thought he was possessed by the spirit of demons and continually tried to kill him or rid their community of him. His story is not an isolated one and he is currently trying to raise awareness in his home village as well as with other Ghanan villages.

From Shanon  @ River City Reading: Once again from the Nonfiction and Diversity post; she had some kick-ass recommendations (she always does) but the one that I put in my TBR was Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay:

A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay.

Also from Shannon, but this time from my comment section, she  recommended The Emperor of All Maladies by  Siddhartha Mukherjee. I've already had this one considered for A, but I think I will give it a try for myself:

The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence.  

From Becca @ I'm Lost in Books and her post on "Being the Expert" I want to read The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam:

Born in a village deep in the Cambodian forest, Somaly Mam was sold into sexual slavery by her grandfather when she was twelve years old. For the next decade she was shuttled through the brothels that make up the sprawling sex trade of Southeast Asia. She suffered unspeakable acts of brutality and witnessed horrors that would haunt her for the rest of her life–until, in her early twenties, she managed to escape. Unable to forget the girls she left behind, Mam became a tenacious and brave leader in the fight against human trafficking, rescuing sex workers–some as young as five and six–offering them shelter, rehabilitation, healing, and love and leading them into new life.

And then I stumble by accident with Black Milk by Elif Shafak. I was looking for her book Honor and ended up putting both books in my cart. On Black Milk:

After the birth of her first child in 2006, Turkish writer Elif Shafek suffered from postpartum depression that triggered a profound personal crisis. Infused with guilt, anxiety, and bewilderment about whether she could ever be a good mother, Shafak stopped writing and lost her faith in words altogether. In this elegantly written memoir, she retraces her journey from free-spirited, nomadic artist to dedicated by emotionally wrought mother. Identifying a constantly bickering harem of women who live inside of her, each with her own characteristics-the cynical intellectual, the goal-oriented go-getter, the practical-rational, the spiritual, the maternal, and the lustful-she craves harmony, or at least a unifying identity. As she intersperses her own experience with the lives of prominent authors such as Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Alice Walker, Ayn Rand, and Zelda Fitzgerald, Shafak looks for a solution to the inherent conflict between artistic creation and responsible parenting. 

I am very happy with this selection because as you probably noticed it is quite diverse (something I want to work on during 2015) not only in the origins of the authors but also in the type of stories that are being told. It also scares me a bit, because they all touch very "heavy" subjects (well maybe not the Emperor, but it is a heavy book) but I think this is a good thing, I can't just read funny nonfiction.

So there you have it. What about you? did you get a lot of books in you TBR? Let me know in the comments :)