Opening Sentence of the Day: Discovering Main Street

This book celebrates the small towns of the Northwest as places to spend time and explore.

-- from the author's Introduction to Discovering Main Street: Travel Adventures in Small Towns of the Northwest by Foster Church.

People don't necessarily visit Estacada for its own sake; they come to play in the Clackamas River, which flows through town like green silk.

-- from "Estacada" (pop. 2,700),the first chapter. Personally, I go to Estacada every year to U-Cut my own Christmas tree.  That is a pretty part of the Willamette Valley.

I am lucky to live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest and I love exploring small towns.  This would be the travel book I wrote myself if I had time and talent.

Foster Church was a long-time Oregonian reporter who now writes a blog called Small Town Travels, "celebrating the small towns of the Pacific Northwest."

I was pleased as punch to get this from the Oregon State University Press.



A Few More Pages hosts Book Beginnings every Friday.  The event is open for the entire week.

Review of the Day: Drood

 

Drood is Dan Simmons' creative reinterpretation of the literary rivalry between Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. The two authors were friends and sometime collaborators from when they met in 1851 until Dickens' death in 1870. The factual friendship between the two is rich fodder for Simmons' invented tale.

Simmons takes this relationship and superimposes a fantastic story of mesmerism and murder involving a spooky underworld character called Drood. Drood may or may not be the abandoned son of an English nobleman, a high priest of ancient Egyptian religious rites, a savage mastermind of murder, or a figment of Collins' opium dreams.

The book goes on too long, the plot drags, characters disappear, and storylines fray – the same things that happen in some of Dickens' and Collins' overly long 19th century novels. But Simmons packs so much imagination into the story and maintains such an authentic tone that the book is compelling, no matter several overwrought or sluggish patches.

A Wicked Teaser Tuesday Two-fer: Wicked Autumn and From This Wicked Patch of Dust

Max wondered if Miss Pitchford had been alluding -- in her blushing, genteel, old-world way -- to the true nature of the relationship between her two former pupils.  Looking back, he realized that what she had expressed was skepticism regarding the existence of a girlfriend in Jasper's life.

-- Wicked Autumn by G. M. Malliet.  The title made this a good pick for Halloween week, even if it is too cozy to be scary. Fine with me. I love it.

This is the first in a promised series featuring Max Tudor, a former M15 agent turned Anglican priest. I got my copy from the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program.

The full moon glimmered on San Lorenzo Avenue's new pavement.  Julia unlocked the black metal gate quietly.

-- From This Wicked Patch of Dust by Sergio Troncoso. This is the inter-generational story of the Martinez family, who begin life in a shantytown on the U.S.-Mexico border and struggle with cultural clashes, different religions, and contemporary politics.

Troncoso has many readings and appearances scheduled this fall. Check his schedule here to see if he will be in your area.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 

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).

Serena at Savvy Verse & Wit is hosting in October.  Please go by and visit her wonderful blog.

Because the Friends of the Multnomah County Library had their big fall sale this past weekend, a huge stack of books came into my house.

Not counting the eight Jack Reacher books that Hubby got (he's only just now discovered Lee Child, although I've been raving for years), the stack includes:

Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley



Getting to Know the General: The Story of an Involvement by Graham Greene

The Complete Claudine: Claudine at School, Claudine in Paris, Claudine Married, Claudine and Annie by Colette (one of several omnibus editions I picked up; I read a lot of Colette when I was in college, but don't remember any of it; on my French Connections list)

The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (a great Modern Library edition with dust jacket)



The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934 and The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 3: 1939-1944 (I am in a Paris book reading mood, so got these to add to my French Connections list; too bad I couldn't find Vol. 2)

The Vicar of Wakefield and Other Writings by Oliver Goldsmith (another cool Modern Library edition with dust jacket)



Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf (her last novel; I have an aspiration to read more Woolf)



Cities of the Interior by Anais Nin (in for a penny . . . )



Maurice: A Novel by E. M. Forster

The Beet Queen and Love Medicine by Louis Erdrich (Love Medicine won the National Book Critics Circle award)



The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott (in a nifty boxed set of paperbacks)



Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (I've seen this around a lot -- it looks very good and I want to read it right away)



The Secret Hangman by Peter Lovesey (I've now gathered three of his books but haven't read any of them yet -- must start)



The Complete Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (I've been meaning to get to these; here they are in an omnibus edition)



The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie (I took a flyer on this one)



Toward the End of Time by John Updike (I'm an Updike completist)



Absolute Truths by Susan Howatch (the sixth and last book in her series about the Church of England; I want to read the series and still need the first two)



Brief Lives by Anita Brookner (I was inspired by International Anita Brookner Day)



House Made of Dawn by Scott N. Momaday (this won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969)



Small World by David Lodge (the sequel to Changing Places, which I loved)



The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle



The Avignon Quintet by Lawrence Durrell (a doorstop of an omnibus edition; Monsieur: Or, The Prince of Darkness, the first book of The Avignon Quintet, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize))



Venice: Lion City: The Religion of Empire by Gary Wills (looks great and is going on my Venice List)



The Lion by Nelson DeMille (because I am so loving Cathedral that I am stocking up on his others)

Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween. Halloween done my way, that is, which means nothing scary and nothing ugly. I like pretty, cute, and vintage Halloween -- jack-o-lanterns and little kids in funny costumes. 

Almost every year of my adulthood I've had a dinner party on Halloween for friends who don't live in trick-or-treater neighborhoods.  This tradition has survived through a practice husband, a house with my sister, five years in San Francisco, and two houses with my keeper husband. 

But not this year.  Work demands, including having to leave early the next morning for a work trip, have trimmed my usual shindig to almost nothing.  I have one good friend coming over to use our house for trick-or-treating base camp with her six year old.  But no dinner party.  I'm disappointed.

Good thing the Jazz Cats are excited about their costumes.