Book Beginnings: The Remnants by Robert Hill

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.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING

As True Bliss lay in her bed on the morning of her the eve of her one hundredth birthday, the thought that circled her mind, in the applesauce eddy of her mind, the fist chunk in the applesauce eddy that her mind could sink its teeth into was please don't let this day be my last day on earth.

-- The Remnants by Robert Hill. That's quite a metaphor! Or a mixed metaphor. Her mind is an applesauce eddy with teeth. Eating itself. But I guess if you are a day shy of 100 and just waking up, your thoughts might run to muddled metaphor. We'll see where it goes from here.

The Remnants is the story of a town "peopled with hereditary oddities" preparing to celebrate the the 100th  and 99th birthdays of two of its last citizens. Reviewers praise the writing and originality of the story. It was a Powell's Books staff pick.

Teaser Tuesday: A Week in Yellowstone's Thorofare

In the 1970s, the idea that grizzly bears would be occupying such  far-flung corners of the Yellowstone ecosystem just thirty years hence would have been greeted with amazement and possibly even derision. Bear numbers were so critically low, and their rate of reproduction so slow . . . that extinction from the area seemed more likely.

-- A Week in Yellowstone's Thorofare: A Journey Through the Remotest Place by Michael J. Yochim.

Yochim's book grew out of a week-long canoe expedition in 2014 with two buddies of the Thorofare region in Yellowstone National Park. Also using first-person accounts, archive materials, and his experiences as a National Park Service planner, Yochim argues for the need to preserve "wildness" in the wilderness.

A Week in Yellowstone's Thorofare is a great book for celebrating 100 years of our National Parks, learning more about Yellowstone in particular, or thinking more deeply about the importance of wilderness and wildness in nature.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB at Books and a Beat, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Review: The Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown

When Madeleine's marriage hits a rough patch, she takes inspiration from her grandmother Margie's diary to spend a daring summer in Paris. Madeleine had always thought her grandmother was the model wife and mother – all elegance and reserve. But Margie's diary showed another side: a free spirit who bolted to Jazz Age Paris for the adventure and romance of living in café society.

Inspired by Margie, Madeleine flees her own broken marriage for a summer in Paris. Looking for healing, she reconnects with her grandmother and her own creative self. The book alternates between Madeleine's and Margie's stories. Madeleine's story is set in 1999, which makes it modern without the distraction of current events and technology, allowing Brown to focus on bigger, timeless themes.

The Light of Paris brims with the requirements of a satisfying story – conflict, family secrets, difficult family relationships, new loves, more conflict, romance, courage, self-discovery, and a gratifying ending. And, of course, Paris. Paris, Paris, Paris. Jazz Age Paris and Paris in the more recent past.

Eleanor Brown’s prose glows and sparkles like a glass of champagne and her book is a toast to independence, self-discovery, and the never-ending allure of Paris.

NOTES

Eleanor Brown wrote the bestselling novel, The Weird Sisters. She drew on the true story of her own grandmother's romantic trip to Paris in the 1920s in writing The Light of Paris.

I just added The Light of Paris to my French Connections list.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of The Light of Paris listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will list it.

BookPage by Karen Ann Cullotta
Kirkus Reviews
Minneapolis Star Tribune by Laurie Hertzel

Book Beginning: A Week in Yellowstone's Thorofare

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.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING

It is an unlikely name for the most remote point in the contiguous forty-eight states: the Thorofare.

-- A Week in Yellowstone's Thorofare: A Journey Through the Remotest Place by Michael J. Yochim.

In 2014, Yochim and two friends spent a week exploring the Thorofare, a remote region in Yellowstone National Park, and that expedition became the backbone of his book. He also draws on the first-person accounts of the rangers who patrol the area, historical documents, and his earlier personal experiences working in Yellowstone and Yosemite.

A Week in Yellowstone's Thorofare is a great book for inspiring summer adventures or celebrating 100 years of our National Parks.

Teaser Tuesday: Sensing Light by Mark A. Jacobson

"I stuck myself . . ."

She had begun calmly but now lost control.

"With a bloody needle,' she sobbed, "from a GRID patient."  

Sensing Light by Mark A. Jacobson. This debut novel is by a doctor who worked himself at San Francisco General Hospital in the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, before the disease even had it's now-familiar name.

Sensing Light is the story of three doctors working in San Francisco at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, trying to figure out why gay men were getting sick and dying. Jacobson effectively mixes medical history with a powerful story of the personal and professional lives of the people living through the confusing early days of a new era.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB at Books and a Beat, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.