Booking Through Thursday: Winter Reading

For more Booking Through Thursday responses, click here.

The northern hemisphere, at least, is socked in by winter right now… So, on a cold, wintry day, when you want nothing more than to curl up with a good book on the couch … what kind of reading do you want to do?

 I really don't have a preference when it comes to reading in inclement weather or when I'm stuck at home. I'm usually just so glad to be home and have the reading time that I'll read pretty much anything!

Of course, that's assuming that housework doesn't get in the way of my reading time. That's an all-too-common problem for me.

Review: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Title: Wolf Hall

Author: Hilary Mantel

Pages: 532

Source: From the library where I work

Challenges: Read 'n' Review challenge

First Sentence: "'So now get up.'"

Summary (From book jacket):
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power.
England is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and Catholic Europe oppose him. The king's quest for freedom destroys his advisor, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and creates a years-long power struggle between the Church and the Crown.
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell, a wholly original man, both a charmer and a bully, an idealist and an opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: Cromwell is a consummate politician, hardened by years abroad and his personal losses. Implacable in his ambition and self-taught -- it is said that he can recite the entire New Testament from memory, knows Europe's major languages, and speaks poetry freely -- Cromwell soon becomes the country's most powerful figure after Henry. When Henry pursues his desire to marry Anne Boleyn, it is Cromwell who breaks the deadlock and allows the king his heart's desire. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition -- Thomas More, "the man for all seasons"; Katherine the queen; his daughter the princess Mary -- but what will be the price of his triumph?

My Two Cents:

If you follow my Twitter or Goodreads updates at all, or if you've seen my last couple weeks' worth of It's Monday! What Are You Reading? and Teaser Tuesdays, you'll know my fight to read this book. I'm not usually afraid of chunksters, and I love anything to do with England, so this book seemed perfect for me.

The first twenty pages or so were great. I was going gangbusters getting into the world of Thomas Cromwell. Then, it all came to a screeching halt. I'm not sure what happened, because Mantel is such a great writer -- her prose is solid and tight, her descriptions are evocative, her syntax is varied -- but I just couldn't make any progress. It started to feel like a chore. But, I persisted, promising myself at least 50 pages every day (Which was amended to 50 pages every two days), and finally finished.

I really did enjoy this novel and, looking back, I'm so glad I persisted through my struggles and finished the book. Mantel did an amazing job painting Tudor England for me. Her characters were great. I actually really liked Thomas Cromwell. He was funny and caring, especially in regards to his family, but also reeked of ambition, which is what made him so successful at Henry's court. Mantel did a fabulous job making him a very well-rounded character.

I wanted to slap Thomas More upside the head until near the end of the book. He was mean and petty and a horrid misogynist, and he was far too pious for my tastes. Part of what I liked so much about this book was Mantel's ability to turn someone whom history has taught us is a good figure (At least someone who went through primary and secondary Catholic schooling) in More and turn him into a character that we are almost glad to be rid of.

Anne Boleyn was another character that I just couldn't get enough of. She was sassy and tough and out for her own causes. She wasn't about to let anyone or anything stand in her way. I usually don't like these types of characters in books -- the schemers only after power and fame -- but I really liked Anne. It's a big kudos to Mantel's talent.

That all being said, though, I can say this is one book, although I really liked it, I am not eager to revisit. I won't say that I'll never read it again, but it will be a long, long time before I do.

My rating: 9/10

Reagan Arthur Books Challenge

Here we go again! I'm joining another challenge. Good thing is, this is a perpetual challenge, so there's no end-of-the-year pressure to finish.

Hosted by Kathy at Bermudaonion and Julie at Booking Mama, the challenge is meant to celebrate the newest imprint from Little, Brown & Company, Reagan Arthur.

There currently are only three Reagan Arthur books available, but 16 more are slated for release this year. And, boy, do they look good!

This challenge is really simple: Read Reagan Arthur books. There are also prizes, which always makes life fun!

I'm hoping to read two this year (Yes, a small amount) because I'll have to buy them myself. I'm trying to limit the number of books I buy brand-new, so this will be a challenge...

Visit the challenge blog and sign up today!

Review: Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower

Title: Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

Author: Wells Tower

Pages: 238

Source: From Picador, through the Goodreads First Reads program

Challenges: Read 'n' Review challenge

First Sentence: "Bob Munroe woke up on his face."

Summary (From the back of the book):

Viking marauders descend on a much-plundered island, hoping some mayhem will shake off the winter blahs. A man is booted out of his home after his wife discovers that the print of a bare foot on the inside of his car's windshield doesn't match her own. Teenage cousins, drugged by summer, meet with a reckoning in the woods. A boy runs off to the carnival after his stepfather bites him in a brawl. Wells Tower's version of America is touched with the seamy splendor of the dropout, the misfit: failed inventors, boozy dreamers, hapless fathers, wayward sons.

My Two Cents:

I read about this book in Bookmarks a few months ago, and it intrigued me. I've read plenty of contemporary short story collections written about contemporary subjects, but the fact that Tower wrote a story about Vikings caught my eye. So, when it showed up on the Goodreads list, I had to have it. Luckily, I won it!

Overall, this was a really well-written collection with a lot of humor. Maybe it's because I've been reading a lot of Updike lately, but I found myself laughing out loud several times, most notably at "Door in Your Eye," where an old man waves to his daughter from a suspected prostitute's apartment.

Tower's characters are exactly what the back of the book says they are: They're misfits and failures, but they don't really hold illusions about their lives. As a result, we get to see these characters in all their failed glory. There are no heroes here, which I liked. Tower's characters are just your average people plodding along in their lives, but he spotlights them in such a way to make them interesting.

I was disappointed, however, with the title story, "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned." Maybe I just built up my hopes a little too much, looking for a great story about Vikings. I was, overall, underwhelmed by this story. I did, however, like that the Viking characters spoke and acted as if they were in the modern world, but they were living their Viking lives. For example:

So Djarf, whose wife was a sour, carp-mouthed thing and little argument for staying home, was agitating to hop back in the ship and go straighten things out in Northumbria. My buddy Gnut, who lived just over the stony moraine our wheat field backed up on, came down the hill one day and admitted that he, too, was giving it some thought. ... His wife had passed years ago, dead from bad milk, and now that she was gone, the part of Gnut that felt peaceful in a place that didn't move beneath him had sickened and died as well.

In other words, I liked that, just because he was writing characters that existed in a different historical time, Tower didn't feel the need to change his writing style and language to suit that change in history. He made the Vikings a little more real, in my opinion, than if he were to write in language that "seems more Viking," whatever that may be.

My rating: 9/10

Teaser Tuesday: February 2, 2010

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here are mine:

"'I realize you were joking, but we're already hearing from these minorities, from these black organizations and whatnot, the very organizations that have been spreading rumors that we are racist and all the usual sort of rubbish, and now they're congratulating us and looking to us as a sort of ... beacon. That's quite a turnabout in a short time.'" - The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, page 520

"Doubt felled few of his kind, however. More often, if it wasn't a bullet or old age, years of stress delivered the knockout blow via a dyspeptic stomach, ulcers, or worst of all, irritable bowel syndrome." - Last Snow by Eric Van Lustbader, page 200

In My Mailbox (1)

Hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren, In My Mailbox explores the contents of bloggers' mailboxes on a weekly basis.

I'm posting this a day late because my book club took up so much time (Hey, we were having fun!) that I had to rush and get my grocery shopping done and get home just in time to cook dinner.

I got a few things in the mail this week, and one really super-awesome thing.

(Why won't my text align left? Argh!)

I received a copy of Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower in paperback from Picador through the Goodreads First Reads program.

And everything else -- The bookmarks, candles, mug, Hershey's kisses and copy of The Wednesday Letters -- was sent to me by Christy at BeachBrights and was a win from Cym Lowell. I was so excited to win this one! Thanks, guys!!

What was in your mailbox this week?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?: February 1, 2010

Hosted by J.Kaye, It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is open to anyone who wishes to share his/her reading selections for the past week.


This was a really slow reading week for me. Getting sick Monday night and having to stay home from work Tuesday didn't help any because I was not even feeling well enough to read (I know! It was terrible!)

This week, I finished reading:
January by Gabrielle Lord
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower


This week, I reviewed:
January by Gabrielle Lord

This week, I'm reading:
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Yes, STILL!! I only have 100 pages left, so I hope to finish it today!)


This week, I hope to begin reading:
Three Guineas by Virginia Woolf
Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen (For book club)

What are you reading this week?