Book Beginning: The Grow by Lindsay R. Mohlere

THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

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YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING

Angelo's Bar and Grill is quiet for a Sunday afternoon. . . . Two fat guys in blue satin bowling shirts and a skinny bleached blond hooker with bad teeth play acey-duecy at the bar.

-- The Grow by Lindsay R. Mohlere.

So what if Oregon just legalized pot? There's still money in illegal dope and still fiction gold in the idea of ripping of an illegal grow operation hidden deep in an Oregon National Forest. The Grow is a great summer read!

Review: Portland Food Cart Stories

In Portland Food Cart Stories, you will find 40 food cart stories, about the owners of 30 food carts, organized into eight parts: author's introduction, Iconic Food Carts, people who moved to Portland to open food carts, breakfast food carts, food cart boosters, vegetarian food carts, ethnic food carts, and comfort food carts.

The book is more than a guide to Portland’s trendiest eating scene. As promised, Shomer tells the stories behind the carts – how the owners decided what they would make, where they got the crazy names, and how to explain the sometimes insanely loyal followings. You will feel like a friend next time you step up to the window.

I confess I'm not as adventurous as I could be about Portland's food carts. I'm here in Food Cart Mecca and I rarely venture beyond my favorite Grilled Cheese Grill. But if anything can inspire me, it is this book. Now I'm ready to venture out.

Shomler is the go-to guy when it comes to Portland's food cart scene. Whether you live here or are planning a visit, prep yourself with his book and go mobile with his social media: website, PortlandFoodCartAdventures.com; Facebook page, Portland Food Cart Adventures; and Twitter @GR8FoodCartsPDX.

NOTES

Steven Shomler's new book, Portland Beer Stories, is brand new this month.  You can find Portland Food Cart Stories at Powell's or on amazon, in paperback or Kindle.

Mailbox Monday: The Grow and McCallandia

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

I got two great looking books last week, just in time for summer fun:



The Grow by Lindsay R. Mohlere.

Just because Oregon legalized pot doesn't mean you can't spin a really good heist story about gang of thieves out to steal a ton of marijuana from a Mexican cartel grow operation hidden in an Oregon National Forest. Just flipping through The Grow, I can tell it's a perfect summer thriller!



McCallandia by Bill Hall.

This alternate history imagines a United States if Oregon's popular, pro-environment governor, Tom McCall, had succeeded Richard Nixon as President when Nixon resigned in 1973. There is some buzz that McCallandia is "the greatest political novel in Oregon history." That assessment comes from the novel's publisher, Matt Love of Nestucca Spit Press, but still, it's pretty big praise!

You can order McCallandia from Nestucca Spit Press or Powell's Books.

Storyline Serendipity: King Arthur

KING ARTHUR SERENDIPITY

IN TWO BOOK I RECENTLY READ

The Lyre of Orpheus by Roberson Davies  (1988 book by a Canadian author)

The Cornish Foundation embarks on an ambitious project -- to finance the completion of an opera about King Arthur left unfinished by the death, in 1822, of the original composer. The lives of the characters in the book start to parallel the opera's plot in this brainy conclusion to Davies's Cornish Trilogy.

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (2015 book by a British author)

In days of yore, elderly Britons Axl and Beatriceres encounter ogres, imps, dragons, and deadly monks when they wander from their misty hamlet in search of their son. Along their journey, they are aided by a Saxon warrior and Sir Gawain, King Arthur's now stooped and rusty knight of the Round Table.

WHAT IS STORYLINE SERENDIPITY?

A ONCE-IN-A-WHILE BLOG EVENT

Have you had the experience of something coming up in a book -- an event, place, idea, historical character, or even an unusual word -- and then shortly after, the same thing comes up in a different book completely by coincidence? I call this Storyline Serendipity.

I don't mean like when you take a class in Russian history and read two books about the Tsar. Or when you read two mysteries and there are dead bodies in each.

I mean random coincidence between two books. I like it when this happens because it makes me slow down and pay more attention to how the event or idea, place or character was treated in each book. I get a little more out of each book than I would have if the universe hadn't paired them on my reading list.

If you experience Storyline Serendipity, feel free to grab the button and play along. If you want to, please leave the link to your post in a comment. Or leave the link to your post on the Rose City Reader facebook page. If you want to participate but don't have a blog or don't feel like posting, please share your serendipity in a comment.

This is a once-in-a-while blog event that I'll post as I come across Storyline Serendipity. If you want to participate, post whenever you want and leave a comment back here on my latest Storyline Serendipity post. If it ever catches on, we can make it a monthly event.

2015 CHALLENGE: Chunkster Challenge: COMPLETED

COMPLETED

I even passed by stretch goal by reading 17 chunksters this year. This is a challenge I often struggle with and I read almost three times as many chunksters this year as I normally do. Several were particularly slow going, ether for good reasons, like Nabokov's Collected Short Stories, or not, like Guard of Honor that may have won the Pulitzer Prize but hasn't stood the test of time.

My chunkster jag this year is part of the reason I am going to fall short of reading a 100 books i 2015, and far short of my usual 110 or so. It looks like I'll come in right around 95.

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The CHUNKSTER CHALLENGE was started by Wendy at Caribousmom and is now hosted by Vasilly at 1330V. The sign-up page is here.

The basic idea is to read books with 450 pages or more. E-books and audiobooks count, as do collections of short stories, essays, or poems. Pretty much the only thing that doesn't count is graphic novels.

This is a self-motivating challenge. Now that audiobooks count, I am going to set a goal of 12 books, with a stretch goal of 15.

BOOKS FINISHED

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1024 pages)

The Collected Stories by Vladimir Nabokov (720 pages)

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert (512 pages)

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (512 pages)

Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi (525 pages)

The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies (480 pages)

The Whole World Over by Julia Glass (528 pages)

Night Fall by Nelson DeMille (528 pages)

Personal by Lee Child (544)

The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington by Gregg Herken (494)

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (771)

Wickford Point by John P. Marquand (464)

A Bromfield Galaxy: The Green Bay Tree, Early Autumn, and A Good Woman by Louis Bromfield (Pulitzer Prize winner) (639)

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall (624)

Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens (Pulitzer Prize winner) (635)

Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding (496)

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (480)

BOOK POSSIBILITIES

We'll see what others pop up.

NOTE: Updated December 24, 2015