Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

Lady Q at Let Them Read Books is hosting in December.  Be sure and visit her terrific blog!

I got two books last week, both on a whim:

The Gospel According to Chanel: Life Lessons from the World's Most Elegant Woman by Karen Karbo.  This looks like a great first choice for the Non-Fiction Non-Memoir Challenge I am going to sign up for.



The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville.



This is his debut novel, published by Soho Crime, publisher of several great series set in foreign lands.  Neville's series (two now) is set in Ireland, other series are set in Greece (Jeffrey Siger), Iceland (Yrsa Sigurdardottir), London (Dan Waddell), and Paris (Cara Black) -- any of which would be great picks for the European Reading Challenge.

20 Days to Christmas!

Review of the Day: The Hair of Harold Roux

Thomas Williams won the 1975 National Book Award for The Hair of Harold Roux, a novel within a novel about balancing a writer's creative impulse with the domestic needs of family life. Specifically, Williams wrote a novel about a college professor writing a semi-autobiographical novel about a college student writing a novel about a man who wrote a novel.

It sounds more confusing – and more experimental – than it is. Williams uses this nested structure to ponder big issues like love, fame, violence, responsibility, and madness, and fills in the spaces with anecdote, humor, and astute observations. But the story rattles right along and makes perfect sense as it goes.

The main story takes place over two days, as professor Aaron Benham struggles to write his novel while his family is out of town without him.  Telephone calls, a friend in trouble, guest teaching a creative writing seminar, a motorcycle crash, memories of old loves, current flirtations, and a faculty meeting distract him from his work.  The short story he reads the seminar students, memories of a long fairy tale he told his children, the first chapter of a novel by Harold Roux (the toupee-wearing character in his novel), and other stories deviate from the plot, but, along with the plot of his novel, combine to tell a full story of Aaron's closely examined life.

Williams is an incredible writer. This is a first-rate novel that deserves a wider audience. Kudos to Bloomsbury USA for reprinting it.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

I got my copy from LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.  It counts as one of the two National Winners I am reading for the Battle of the Prizes, American Version, Challenge.

21 Days to Christmas!

2012 Challenge: Battle of the Prizes, British Version

This is the third year Rose City Reader has hosted the Battle of the Prizes, British Version, Challenge.

This challenge pits winners of the English Man Booker Prize against winners of the Scottish James Tait Black Memorial Prize in a British Version of the Battle of the Prizes. (Click here for the American Version.)

Does one prize have higher standards than the other? Pick better winners? Provide more reading entertainment or educational value? Maybe challenge participants will be able to answer these and more questions – maybe they will simply read three or four great books!

For details and sign up, please go to the challenge page, here, or use the challenge page tab in the bar at the top of the blog.