Mailbox Monday, Giveaway Winner, and an Informal Giveaway

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

It was a lot of fun to host MM in January.  This week, MM moved to the Library of Clean Reads for February.

GIVEAWAY WINNER

The winner of my final Mailbox Monday giveaway was Beth at The Crazy Life of a Bookaholic Mom (Random.org pick #21).

Beth won an ARC of Bering Sea Blues: A Crabber's Tale of Fear in the Icy North by Joe Upton.  Thanks again go to Mary Bisbee-Beek, an incredibly diligent book publicist, for providing the bounty.

MY MAILBOX and an INFORMAL GIVEAWAY

I got two books last week:

Honolulu by Alan Brennert. This is for my March Book Club.  It looks good.



Remembering the Power of Words: The Life of an Oregon Activist, Legislator, and Community Leader by Avel Louise Gordly with Patricia A. Schechter.  OSU Press was nice enough to send me this memoir, but I am sticking with my New Year reading resolution to eliminate, not add to, my Guilt List.  So if anyone is interested, leave a comment and I will pass it on to someone more appreciative.

Cookbook Library: Classic Spanish Cooking

Classic Spanish Cooking: Recipes for Mastering the Spanish Kitchen by Elisabeth Luard

I bought this book on impulse because the book itself is so tactilely and visually pleasing.  It is a thick, squat book, only 5" by 7" and 2" thick; filled with adorable illustrations; with cardstock-weight pages; and with two grosgrain ribbon markers, one orange and one brown. I wanted to eat the book itself, it was so pleasing to me.

As it turns out, it is also a great little workhorse of a cookbook.  It features 100 basic Spanish recipes, which is enough to liven up a few daily meals without being overwhelmed.  The idea is to provide the "core recipes that are the building blocks for traditional Spanish fare."  That is all I need.

The book also features Luard's charming little side essays about the culture and cuisine of Spain, where she lived with her family for many years.  She introduces most of the recipes with a general description and a few hints about the dish or how to serve it. 

For example, her recipe for braised lamb shanks (calderera de piernas de cordero) advises that you can leave it in a low oven, tightly covered, overnight and "it will come to no harm." That is really all I ask for when it comes to home cooking.

BRAISED LAMB SHANKS FOR FOUR

4 lamb shanks

salt

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tablespoon diced serrano ham or lean bacon

8 oz. small shallots or baby onions

1 large carrot, "chunked"

1 lb ripe tomatoes, skinned, seeded, and diced

2-3 garlic cloves, crushed with a little salt

1-2 rosemary sprigs

1-2 thyme sprigs

1/2 teaspoon peppercorns, crushed

1 generous glass of dry sherry or white wine (about 3/4 cup)

1.  Wipe the lamb and season with salt. Preheat the oven to 300F. 

2.  Heat the oil in a roomy flameproof earthenware or enamel casserole that will just accomodate the lamb shanks in a single layer. Brown the meat lightly, turning to sear on all sides. Settle the shanks bone-end upwards.

3.  Add the remaining ingredients, packing them around the sides of the casserole. Bring all to a boil, cover tightly (seam with a layer of foil, shiny side downwards, if you're uncertain about the fit) and transfer to the oven.

4.  Allow to cook gently for at least 3 hours -- longer if that's more convenient-- without unsealing, unless your nose and ears tell you that the meat is beginning to fry, when you'll need to add a splash of water. The meat should be tender enough to eat with a spoon and the sauce reduced to a thick syrupy slick -- very delicious indeed.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Review of the Day: G

John Berger won both the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for G, his picaresque novel about the illegitimate son of an Italian merchant and an English intellectual. The plot follows the life and loves of the unidentified hero from his birth in the late 1800s through middle age.

So far so good. Then, like Berger, I have to switch to metaphor to describe the book: Imagine sitting at a table with a watchmaker as he demonstrates to you how to take apart and put back together a complicated watch. He explains each minute process in detail to make sure you understand every intricacy.

In theory, this should be interesting – seeing a master craftsman demonstrate his talents doing something you've always taken for granted (how a watch works) and making you think in a new way. But in reality, it is going to be tedious. The parts are tiny, it takes forever, and no matter how much he explains, you are never going to be able to track it all.

Now imagine that you have to sit there while this watchmaker takes apart and reassembles four or five different watches, explaining the process in the same excruciating detail.

Now, for watchmaker and watches, substitute John Berger describing G's sexual conquests – in excruciating detail, from seduction, through climax, to afterthoughts. Over and over.

Now – yes, it gets worse – add a third person at this table. Interspersed throughout the Don Juan episodes (sometimes interspersed in alternate paragraphs with no transitions and no punctuation to indicate dialog), this omniscient narrator drones on and on about the historic events that are the backdrop to G's adventures. There is a 19th century labor uprising in Italy, the early Socialist movement in England, the Boer War, the first airplane flight across the Alps, WWI trench warfare, and Italy's plotting to free Trieste from the Austrians. But G isn't actually involved with any of these events, so they never become more than a newsreel playing in the background. (Sorry to mix my metaphors – blame Berger.)

G has more plot than many an experimental novel. And, like reassembling a watch, it may involve genius. But I was more than happy to see it end.

OTHER REVIEWS

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

NOTES

This was my "double-dipper" choice for the 2010 Battle of the Prizes, British Version.

The 2011 Battle runs from February 1, 2011 to January 31, 2012.  Sign up here, or click the logo.

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Sign of the Four

"Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel piece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case."

-- The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

This is a pretty startling opener today; it must have been shocking at the time. Although, maybe not. Maybe cocaine wasn't illegal back then, so this would have been tantalizing, but not bear the freight it does today.

This is the second of the Sherlock Holmes books. I am reading them in order because I found a pretty little set at an estate sale last summer.

2011 Battle of the Prizes, British Version

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!

DETAILS

OPTION ONE: Chose three books that you have not read before:

1) One that won both the Booker and the James Tait Black prizes (here is the short list of double dippers);

2) One that won the Booker but not the James Tait Black (Booker winners are here); and

3) One that won the James Tait Black but not the Booker (James Tait Black winners are here).

OPTION TWO: For those who have already read all three of the double-dippers, or otherwise do not want to read one of those three, pick two Booker winners and two James Tait Black winners for a total of four books.

OFFICIAL RULES

• Read all books between February 1, 2011 and January 31, 2012.

• Sign up here by leaving a link to your post in a comment, or the list of your three choices in the comment. I will add the links to the participant list in this post.

• You do not have to commit to your choices now; you can change your mind about books at any time.

• Overlap with other challenges is allowed -- and encouraged! The Complete Booker is a logical crossover. The great thing is, for those working on both these lists, completing the challenge means reading three books, but crossing four items off the lists.

• As you progress, please let us know by leaving comments with links to progress reports and reviews. Reviews are not necessary, but encouraged. If you do not have a blog, put your reviews or reports in a comment on this post.
  

• You can copy and paste the button. Or, if you want me to send you the code, please leave a comment with an email and I will. I cannot figure out the fancy ways of giving directions. 
  

PARTICIPANTS

Participants are listed in order of signing up. Click on the name to get to the each person's challenge page.

Leave a comment with a link to your challenge post to sign up.

Rose City Reader (this is my sign-up post; my wrap-up post is here)
chaotic compendiums
The Tattered Page
Joy's Blog
Remember to Breath
Hotchpot Cafe (wrap-up post, here)

REVIEWS

Links go to the reviews:

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, here on Rose City Reader (Booker)

Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd, here on Rose City Reader (Black)

Our Horses in Egypt by Rosalind Belben, on Hotchpot Cafe (Black)

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, on Hotchpot Cafe (Double Dipper)

IDEAS

The list of last year's participants with links to their reviews is here. 

With the completion of G by John Berger for last year's challenge, I have now read the three double dippers, so I'll be reading four this year.  As with all challenges, my goal is to read books already on my TBR shelves.

My Booker possibilities include:

• Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth
• Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
• Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally

My Black possibilities include:

• White Teeth by Zadie Smith
• The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
• After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley

NOTE: Last updated on January 13, 2012.

2011 Battle of the Prizes, American Version

This challenge pits winners of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction against the winners of the National Book Award in the American Version of the Battle of the Prizes.  (Click here for the British 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 great books!

DETAILS

Chose three books that you have not read before:

1) One that won both the Pulitzer and the National (here is a list of double dippers);
2) One that won the Pulitzer but not the National (Pulitzer winners are here); and
3) One that won the National but not the Pulitzer (National winners are here).

OPTION: For those who have already read all six of the double-dippers, or otherwise do not want to read one of those six, pick two Pulitzer winners and two National winners for a total of four books.

OFFICIAL RULES 

• Read all books between February 1, 2011 and January 31, 2012. 
  

• Sign up here by leaving a link to your post in a comment, or the list of your three choices in the comment. I will add the links to the participant list in this post. 
  

• You do not have to commit to your choices now; you can change your mind about books at any time.
  

• Overlap with other challenges is allowed -- and encouraged! The Pulitzer Project and The National Book Award Project are logical crossovers. The great thing is, for those working on both these lists, completing the challenge means reading three books, but crossing four items off the lists. 
  

• As you progress, please let us know by leaving comments with links to progress reports and reviews. Reviews are not necessary, but encouraged. If you do not have a blog, put your reviews or reports in a comment on this post.
  

• You can copy and paste the button. Or, if you want me to send you the code, please leave a comment with an email and I will. I cannot figure out the fancy ways of giving directions. 

PARTICIPANTS

Participants are listed in order of signing up. Click on the name to get to the each person's challenge page.

Leave a comment with a link to your challenge post to sign up.

Rose City Reader (this is my sign-up post; my wrap-up post is here)
The Story Girl
crazy dumbsaint of the mind
Books in the City
Remember to Breath
J.G. at Hotchpot Cafe

REVIEWS  

(links go to review pages)

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton on The Story Girl (Pulitzer)

Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler on Rose City Reader (Pulitzer)

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier on Rose City Reader (National)

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren on Rose City Reader (Pulitzer)

The Hair of Harold Roux on Rose City Reader (National)

IDEAS

You can find a list of the 2009 and 2010 participants and links to their reviews here and here.

I finished the 4-book option this year because there are only two double-dippers that I have not read yet -- The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter and A Fable by William Faulkner -- and I do not own either one of them.  Since I try to read only books on my TBR shelves for challenges, I chose to read two Pulitzers and two Nationals that I already owned.

NOTES

Last updated on December 5, 2011.

2010 Battle of the Prizes, British Version: Wrap Up Post

The 2010 Battle of the Prizes, British Version, ends today, on January 31, 2011.  The 2011 challenge starts February 1.

This challenge pitted 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.

Thanks to everyone who participated! I hope you sign up for the 2011 challenge. I'll get that post up tomorrow.

Participants could read three books or four -- either one Booker winner, one Black winner, and one that won both prizes; or two Booker and two Black winners.

In theory, the idea was to compare the prizes and the winners, but in practice (at least for me), the point was to read, and hopefully enjoy, three or four books and then scratch them off my lists.

PARTICIPANTS

Rose City Reader

chaotic compendiums 

Musings  (The first to complete the challenge -- congratulations!)

Oh, So Many Manias . . .  

Books in the City 

ExUrbanis

J.G. at Hotchpot Cafe (read her wrap up post here)

Birdie's Nest

REVIEWS

If any one else has reviews still to do, no problem.  Just give me a link in a comment here and I will add it. 

The rest of the reviews, in order of submission, were:

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel on chaotic compendiums 

G by John Berger on Musings 

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro on Birdie's Nest

Without My Cloak by Kate O'Brien on Musings

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry here on Rose City Reader

Something to Answer For by P. H. Newby on Musings

The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch here on Rose City Reader

Personality by Andrew O'Hagan on Hotchpot Cafe

Last Orders by Graham Swift on Hotchpot Cafe

Staying On by Paul Scott on Hotchpot Cafe 

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen on Books in the City

G by John Berger here on Rose City Reader

Mailbox Monday and GIVEAWAY

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! I also have a new GIVEAWAY this week and three winners of last week's giveaway.  Keep reading through the post to find all the goodies.

It has been a lot of fun to host MM in January.  Next week, MM moves to the Library of Clean Reads for February.

MAILBOX MONDAY

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at The Printed Page, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

Please leave the link to your Mailbox Monday post with Mr. Linky. If you do not have a blog, leave your mailbox list in a comment.

GIVEAWAY WINNER

I had three copies of JOYRIDE: Pedaling Toward A Healthier Planet By Mia Birk with Joe "Metal Cowboy" Kurmaskie (published by Cadence Press). These are finished books, not ARCS.



THE BOOK: This is the inspiring story of pioneering transportation leader Mia Birk's 20-year crusade to integrate bicycling into daily life. With a table scrap of funding, Mia led a revolution that grew Portland, Oregon into the #1 American cycling city. Mia then hit the road, helping make communities across the nation -- even her hometown of Dallas, Texas -- more human, healthy, safe, and livable. While many books today extol the pain of our world's problems, Mia's funny, touching Joyride is the antidote, offering hope to any and everyone interested in changing our world, one pedal stroke at a time.

THE WINNERS:

•  Wendi at Wendi's Book Corner
• Apple Blossom at 4 the Love of Books
• Gabe at Reading Local

Thank you to all who participated and congratulations to the winners!  I will contact you shortly.

THIS WEEK'S GIVAWAY

This week, I am giving away an ARC of Bering Sea Blues: A Crabber's Tale of Fear in the Icy North by Joe Upton.  Thanks again go to Mary Bisbee-Beek, an incredibly diligent book publicist, for providing the bounty.



THE BOOK:  This is a white knuckle memoir of a winter season of king crab fishing in the Bering Sea, with relentless 12 to 14 hour days of setting and hauling the pots to catch the crab and searching for elusive pockets on the ocean floor that can yield as much as 70 tons of crab. For the lucky ones there were financial rewards; for others, surviving was the reward. And in the quiet moments, there is reflection on the rich history of the North Pacific, the spectacular empitness of Alaska's remote southwest coast, and nature's maelstrom on the meanest sea on earth.

Joe Upton is a fisherman, journalist, and the author of five books on Alaska. The book is published by Epicenter Press.


THE RULES: The contest is open until Sunday, February 6, 2011. To enter, do any or all of the following, but you must leave a comment for each one:

1. Leave a comment on this post. You must include a way to contact you (email or website address in your comment or available in your profile). If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner. (1 entry)

2. Blog about this giveaway. (Posting the giveaway on your sidebar is also acceptable.) Leave a separate comment with a link to your post. (1 entry)

3. Subscribe to my rss feed, follow me on blogger, or subscribe via email (or tell me if you already are a subscriber or follower). Leave a separate comment for this. (1 entry)

4. Tweet this post on Twitter. Leave me a separate comment with your twitter user name. (1 entry)

5. Stumble this blog, digg it, technorati fave it, or link it on facebook. Leave a separate comment. (1 entry)

There are a lot of ways to enter (maximum of five entries), but you must LEAVE A SEPARATE COMMENT for each one or they will not count. I will use random.org to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is open to entries from the U.S. and Canada only. The deadline for entry is 9:00 PM, Pacific Time, on Sunday, February 6, 2011. I will draw and post the winner's name in my Mailbox Monday post for February 7, 2011.

MY MAILBOX

I got two book last week, both in my mailbox. Mary Bisbee-Beek sent me this one, also distributed by Epicenter Press:

Sunken Klondike Gold: How a Lost Fortune Inspired an Ambitious Effort to Raise the S.S. Islander by Leonard H. Delano.



Even though this is adding to my Guilt List and therefore violating my New Year's reading resolution, I am happy to get it.  For one thing, it looks pretty good and is full of cool pictures and drawings.  But better yet, my husband's face lit up like a kid at Christmas when he saw it.  It is so up his alley.

Oregon State University Press sent me an ARC of the soon-to-be-released Among Penguins: A Bird Man in Antarctica by Noah Strycker.



As fascinating as this looks -- and it really does -- and as much as I liked that penguin movie with the little baby penguins, I'm going to stick with my resolution on this one and will be passing it on to someone who will get to it sooner than I will.

2010 Battle of the Prizes, American Version: Wrap-Up Post

The 2010 Battle of the Prizes, American Version, ends on January 31, 2011.  The 2011 challenge starts February 1.

Thanks to everyone who participated! I hope you sign up for the 2011 challenge.

This challenge pitted winners of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction against the winners of the National Book Award in the American Version of the Battle of the Prizes.

Participants could read three books or four -- either one Pulitzer winner, one National winner, and one that won both prizes; or two Pulitzer and two National winners.

In theory, the idea was to compare the prizes and the winners, but in practice (at least for me), the point was to read, and hopefully enjoy, three or four books and then scratch them off my lists.

PARTICIPANTS

Rose City Reader
chaotic compendiums (read her wrap-up post here)
Musings 
Oh, So Many Manias . . . 
Joy's Blog
Book In Hand
ExUrbanis 
100 Books. 100 Journeys
J.G. at Hotch Pot Cafe (read her wrap-up post here)
Remember to Breathe  (read her wrap-up post here)
Book Psmith
Man of La Book

REVIEWS

Reviews were strongly encouraged, but not mandatory.  Good thing there was that loophole, because I failed to review one of my own Pulitzer picks, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz.

Here are the reviews, in the order submitted:

Morte d'Urban by J. F. Powers on Musings 

World's Fair by E. L. Doctorow on chaotic compendiums

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner on 100 Books. 100 Journeys 

The Adventures of Augie March on 100 Books. 100 Journeys 

Lonesome Dove on chaotic compendiums 

Breathing Lessons on Book Psmith

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson on Musings

The Color Purple by Alice Walker on chaotic compendiums

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann on Musings

The Color Purple by Alice Walker on 100 Books. 100 Journeys

Tinkers by Paul Harding on Musings

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon on Man of La Book

The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter on Hotchpot Cafe

The Optimist's Daughter on Hotchpot Cafe

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann on Man of La Book

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann here on Rose City Reader

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout here on Rose City Reader

Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon here on Rose City Reader

Tinkers by Paul Harding on Joy's Blog

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx on Book in Hand

Herzog by Saul Bellow on Book in Hand

Review of the Day: Lord of Misrule

Lord of Misrule is Jaimy Gordon's back-of-the-house view of small track horse racing. It is not a pretty view – everything is crooked, crippled, rusty, or staved in at Indian Mound Downs. The horses are burned out; the grooms, trainers, and jockeys are barely grubbing by; and even the crooks are two-bit.

The story is vaguely set in the early 1970s and begins when frizzly-haired Maggie crashes through the back gate of a third-rate West Virginia race track, trying to find stalls for her boyfriend's meager string of horses. She falls in with Medicine Ed, an illiterate black groom whose old-school ways include nice touches like braiding a horse's mane as well as dubious tricks like mixing up a batch of "goofer dust" before a big race, and Duecey, a hard-bitten sad sack of an owner/trainer who sleeps in the stall with her horse.

The book was a little hard to get into because Gordon goes for authenticity over clarity, using undefined racing slang and realistic dialog. Also, the point-of-view moves among several characters and the narration switches between an omniscient third-person narrator and second-person narrative by Maggie's boyfriend, the increasingly crazier Tommy. These stylistic choices may trip up the reader but they add to the overall mood and, ultimately, the quality of the book.

Less forgivable is Gordon's choice to omit quotation marks from the dialog. Left unmarked, spoken words mingle with unspoken thoughts in a way that may have been meant to evoke a stream-of-conscious atmosphere but comes off as an annoying distraction.

Despite these obstacles, Lord of Misrule is a terrific book with a story and characters than linger. There is a strong but loosely woven plot that leads to an exciting showdown and a satisfying ending. It is a dark horse that deserved to win the National Book Award.

NOTES

This review was first published on the Internet Review of Books, an indispensable resource for readers.

I read this as one of my two National Book Award choices for the Battle of the Prizes, American Version, Challenge.

OTHER REVIEWS

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

Opening Sentence of the Day: Shipwrecks, Monsters, and Mysteries of the Great Lakes

"In 1679, a French ship called the Griffon, the first sailing vessel built on the Great Lakes, left Green Bay on Lake Michigan, bound for Niagra with a cargo of furs."


-- Shipwrecks, Monsters, and Mysteries of the Great Lakes by Ed Butts.

This is a short book with 10 stories of Great Lakes adventures, just a sample of stories about the 6,000 or so ships lost on the Great Lakes since the Griffon disappeared.

It would be a great book to read with kids ready to learn history. All the adventures and mysteries would make learning about inter-coastal commerce, industrial development, and navigable waterways much more interesting.

This is my latest LibraryThing Early Reviewer book. There are others on that list that I should get to first, but this was too inviting.

Review of the Day: George Passant

George Passant is the first volume of C. P. Snow’s 11-volume Strangers and Brothers series. In fact, this book was originally published in 1940 as Strangers and Brothers. It tells the story of an idealistic, progressive, young attorney in post-WWI England determined to build his career and passionately devoted to helping his group of friends.

Unfortunately for George, his dual aims lead to some questionable financial dealings and he and two of his protégés end up facing criminal fraud charges. It soon becomes clear that George’s lifestyle is on trial more than his business practices, leading to an impressive courtroom finale.

It is a good story, well told. However, it has not aged particularly well. It requires an exceptionally willing suspension of disbelief to be shocked by the notion that a bunch of single twenty-somethings had sex with each other. Free love and communal living (weekends only) may have been scandalous in the 1920s, when the book was set, and even when it was first published. But now it takes a conscious effort to comprehend just what all the fuss is about.

Read it as the gateway to the rest of the series. Read it because Snow is a good author, and what he wrote about relationships among friends and professional colleagues, and the continual need to hone one’s reputation, still rings true. But don't read it as the sensational courtroom drama it originally was.

OTHER REVIEWS

(If you would like your review of this or any other C. P. Snow book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.)

Teaser Tuesday: 365 Thank Yous

"But it seemed uncanny that Grace had written this note just before I'd determined thank-you notes to be my way out of despair.  By thanking me for a Christmas present, she awakened me to something in my life, however small, for which I could be grateful."

-- 365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life by John Kralik.

This is a great little book. I am enjoying it tremendously and am already thinking of notes to write myself.  Of course, I am a huge fan of the handwritten note, so he is preaching to the choir.


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

Mailbox Monday and GIVEAWAY

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! I also have a new GIVEAWAY this week and three winners of last week's giveaway.  Keep reading through the post to find all the goodies.

MAILBOX MONDAY

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at The Printed Page, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here). I am very pleased to host this month.

Please leave the link to your Mailbox Monday post with Mr. Linky. If you do not have a blog, leave your mailbox list in a comment.

GIVEAWAY WINNER

Last week I had three copies to give away of Emotional Currency: A Woman's Guide to Building a Healthy Relationship with Moneyby Kate Levinson, PhD.  The full title gives a pretty good description.  It sounds like a book all women should read.



THE BOOK: Emotional Currency gives women the tools to understand – and challenge – their psychological relationship with money so they can make smarter decisions about their current and future financial responsibilities.

Here’s the book every woman (and most men) need: a clear, thoughtful, and beautifully-written guide for how to cope with the myriad of emotions caused by money. Kate Levinson – practicing therapist and businesswoman –shows how money is both mercilessly public and intimately personal – stirring up our deepest feelings about dependence and independence, status, attractiveness, and terrifying confusion between net worth and self worth. Women in today’s economy are especially vulnerable because of gender biases in the workplace, patterns of parenting and upbringing that assume women do not “handle” financial matters well, and social norms that still disapprove of money-wise women. This book is a wise and important antidote.

Robert B. Reich
Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy
Goldman School of Public Policy
University of California, Berkeley

THE WINNERS: Based on random.org's choices, the winners are:

• J.G. at Hotchpot Cafe
• LKT at The Infusion
• Carol at Carol's Notebook

Thank you to all who participated and congratulations to the winners!  I will contact you shortly.

THIS WEEK'S GIVAWAY

Again thanks to book publicist extraordinaire, Mary Bisbee-Beek, I have three copies of JOYRIDE: Pedaling Toward A Healthier Planet By Mia Birk with Joe "Metal Cowboy" Kurmaskie (published by Cadence Press). These are finished books, not ARCS.

Mia Birk lives in Portland and is available for speaking engagements in the area.  She is also available for blog interviews.  If anyone is interested, please contact Mary Bisbee-Beek via her LinkedIn profile, or leave your email in a comment and Mary will contact you.




THE BOOK: This is the inspiring story of pioneering transportation leader Mia Birk's 20-year crusade to integrate bicycling into daily life. With a table scrap of funding, Mia led a revolution that grew Portland, Oregon into the #1 American cycling city. Mia then hit the road, helping make communities across the nation -- even her hometown of Dallas, Texas -- more human, healthy, safe, and livable. While many books today extol the pain of our world's problems, Mia's funny, touching Joyride is the antidote, offering hope to any and everyone interested in changing our world, one pedal stroke at a time.


THE RULES: The contest is open until Sunday, January 30, 2011. To enter, do any or all of the following, but you must leave a comment for each one:

1. Leave a comment on this post. You must include a way to contact you (email or website address in your comment or available in your profile). If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner. (1 entry)

2. Blog about this giveaway. (Posting the giveaway on your sidebar is also acceptable.) Leave a separate comment with a link to your post. (1 entry)

3. Subscribe to my rss feed, follow me on blogger, or subscribe via email (or tell me if you already are a subscriber or follower). Leave a separate comment for this. (1 entry)

4. Tweet this post on Twitter. Leave me a separate comment with your twitter user name. (1 entry)

5. Stumble this blog, digg it, technorati fave it, or link it on facebook. Leave a separate comment. (1 entry)

There are a lot of ways to enter (maximum of five entries), but you must LEAVE A SEPARATE COMMENT for each one or they will not count. I will use random.org to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is open to entries from the U.S. and Canada only. The deadline for entry is 9:00 PM, Pacific Time, on Sunday, January 30, 2011. I will draw and post the winner's name in my Mailbox Monday post for January 31, 2011.

MY MAILBOX

My New Year's reading resolution was to tackle my Guilt List and to stop adding to it.  Luckily, I keep a separate list for LibraryThing Early Reviewer books, so this one doesn't count. Really.



Shipwrecks, Monsters, and Mysteries of the Great Lakes by Ed Butts.  This is a short book with 10 stories of Great Lakes adventures.  I asked for it because it would tickle my husband's reading fancy, but I am going to tear through it myself.

I also hit the jackpot at Powell's the other day.  I always check the Anthony Powell shelf when I am there (no relation, and the book store name rhymes with "towel," while the author's name sounds more like "pole"), looking for books other than A Dance to the Music of Time.  The Dance books are always there, but it is hard to find his others.  I got lucky.



From a View to a Death, his third novel, first published in 1933, before he started Dance.



What's Become of Waring, his fifth novel, first published in 1939, also before he started Dance.

To Keep the Ball Rolling: Infants of the Spring and To Keep the Ball Rolling: Messengers of Day, the first two volumes of his four-volume memoirs, published in1976 and 1978. They have plain gray covers with no dustjackets.



The Fisher King, a novel first published in 1986, after he completed Dance.

Opening Sentence of the Day: 365 Thank Yous

"On December 22, 2007, I felt my life was at an irreversible personal nadir."

-- 365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life by John Kralik.

The senior partner at my firm gave me this for Christmas.  Then, just the other day, he wrote me a letter thanking me for joining the firm as a partner and saying some very nice things about me.  He laid it on pretty thick, but I have to say that it sure made my day.  He told me he has been writing similar letters to people because he was inspired by this book. I'm intrigued.

Opening Sentence of the Day: G

"The father of the principal protagonist of this book was called Umberto."

-- G by John Berger.

This is one of only three books to win both the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.  I am reading it as my last book for the 2010 Battle of the Prizes, British Version, which ends on January 31.

I am only 67 pages into it and I like it so far.  I am worried that it is going to take a weird or bad turn that will leave me not liking it, because J.G. at Hotchpot Cafe doesn't care for it and we have similar taste in books.

Literary Blog Hop: Hateful

The Blue Bookcase hosts a "Literary Blog Hop" for blogs "that primarily feature reviews of literary fiction, classic literature, and general literary discussion."

Each week, in addition to hopping around and visiting some terrific book blogs, participants answer a bookish question.  This week's question -- answered very well for the BB team by Lucia -- is:

Discuss a work of literary merit that you hated when you were made to read it in school or university. Why did you dislike it?

"School or university" was a long time ago and, looking back, I can think of several books I "hated" while I was reading them. The Grapes of Wrath, 1984, Sister Carrie, and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage come immediately to mind.  But, the thing is, I don't think I would hate them now.  I simply didn't understand them when I read them or was bored by them with the profound boredom of a teenager.  I re-read Sister Carrie, for instance, and enjoyed it tremendously (review here).

But there is one book that I can honestly say I hated -- I hated it then and I am certain I would hate it now:  Waiting for Godot.

I don't care if this confession brands me a literary Philistine.  Irish critic Vivian Mercier famously described Samuel Beckett's masterpiece as "a play in which nothing happens, twice."  I had to read it twice, for two different college classes, and I saw it performed once in London, so in my personal experience, nothing happened six times.

Why did I hate it? I found it excruciating. Absurdist theater is not for those who seek a plot. Or character development. Or clever dialog. Or even just a scintilla of entertainment.

In Annie Hall, Woody Allen tells Diane Keaton, "Never take a class where they make read Beowulf." My advise is to skip any class involving Waiting for Godot.

Review of the Day: One City's Wilderness

One of Portland's many blessings is Forest Park, a swath of green on the city's western flank, covering over 5,100 acres and containing close to 80 miles of trails, including the Wildwood Trail, the longest contiguous trail in a city park in the United States.

In the updated and expanded third edition of One City's Wilderness, Marcy Cottrell Houle provides the quintessential guide to this incredible urban park. The book contains detailed descriptions of 29 hikes covering all the trails through the park. Each description includes a full-color map; useful statistics, including GPS coordinates; an elevation chart showing elevation gained and lost over the course of the hike; a precise description of the trail and what you will see; and useful sidebars providing tidbits on the history, flora, fauna, and geology relevant to that section of the park. There is also a foldout color map of the entire park inside the back cover.

The book is chock-o-block full of photographs of the park, including color pictures of the park's most beautiful features, field guide sections on plants and birds, and a few black and white photos depicting the park's history.

Houle also includes informative chapters on the history of the park, its geology, watersheds, vegetation, and wildlife. These later include checklists of the plants, mammals, and birds to be found in the park.

But the book is primarily about the trails because hiking through Forrest Park is how best to experience and enjoy it. As Houle explains:

Forest Park is not overrun with asphalt, swimming pools, picnic areas, or developed sports fields. Instead, since its inception sixty years ago, it has offered a quiet kind of enjoyment, the kind most cherished by lovers of the outdoors. The eighty miles of trails and firelanes . . . and the hundreds of acres of hills and canyons in between, make Forest Park a haven for hikers, bird watchers, nature photographers, runners, bicyclists, equestrians, teachers, and students – in short, anyone needing close-in inspiration and natural refreshment.

Every reader will be inspired to accept Houle's "All Trails Challenge" to undertake all of the 29 hikes described. Conveniently, the book contains a challenge section listing the hikes and including a place to record the date each one is accomplished.

One City's Wilderness is a must-have guide for every hiker living in or visiting Portland.

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.  Also, if you have hiked any of the trails described in this book and would like your review of that hike listed here, leave a comment with a link and I will list that post.)

NOTES

This is another high quality book from the Oregon State University Press.

Teaser Tuesday: Lord of Misrule

Little Spinoza's head flew up and  the horse plunged forward into the small party gathering at the winner's circle.  A woman screamed and another in a black picture hat sat down in the dirt.

-- Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon, which won the National Book Award for 2010.




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

Mailbox Monday and Giveaway

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! I also have a new GIVEAWAY this week and three winners of last week's giveaway.  Keep reading through the post to find all the goodies.

MAILBOX MONDAY

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at The Printed Page, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here). I am very pleased to host this month.

Please leave the link to your Mailbox Monday post with Mr. Linky. If you do not have a blog, leave your mailbox list in a comment.

GIVEAWAY WINNER

I had three copies to give away of Strange Relation: A Memoir of Marriage, Dementia, and Poetry by Rachel Hadas.  This looks like an incredible book -- a great book club choice, I would think.

THE BOOK: In 2004 Rachel Hadas's husband, George Edwards, a composer and professor of music at Columbia University, was diagnosed with early-onset dementia at the age of sixty-one. STRANGE RELATION is her account of "losing" George. Her narrative begins when George's illness can no longer be ignored, and ends in 2008 soon after his move to a dementia facility (when after thirty years of marriage, Hadas finds herself no longer living with her husband). Within the confines of those difficult years, years when reading and writing were an essential part of what kept her going, she "tried to keep track....tried to tell the truth."

THE WINNERS:  Using random.org, I picked the following winners of this compelling memoir:

• Tina at Tutu's Two Cents
• Serena at Savvy Verse and Wit
• Lori at She Treads Softly

Thank you to all who participated and congratulations to the winners!  I will contact you shortly.

THIS WEEK'S GIVAWAY

Again thanks to book publicist extraordinaire, Mary Bisbee-Beek, I have three copies of Emotional Currency: A Woman's Guide to Building a Healthy Relationship with Money by Kate Levinson, PhD.  I confess I had to read the title twice -- at first I read it as using money to build a relationship, which would be pretty nefarious. :)



THE BOOK: Emotional Currency gives women the tools to understand – and challenge – their psychological relationship with money so they can make smarter decisions about their current and future financial responsibilities.

Here’s the book every woman (and most men) need: a clear, thoughtful, and beautifully-written guide for how to cope with the myriad of emotions caused by money. Kate Levinson – practicing therapist and businesswoman –shows how money is both mercilessly public and intimately personal – stirring up our deepest feelings about dependence and independence, status, attractiveness, and terrifying confusion between net worth and self worth. Women in today’s economy are especially vulnerable because of gender biases in the workplace, patterns of parenting and upbringing that assume women do not “handle” financial matters well, and social norms that still disapprove of money-wise women. This book is a wise and important antidote.

Robert B. Reich
Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy
Goldman School of Public Policy
University of California, Berkeley

RULES: The contest is open until Sunday, January 23, 2011. To enter, do any or all of the following, but you must leave a comment for each one:

1. Leave a comment on this post. You must include a way to contact you (email or website address in your comment or available in your profile). If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner. (1 entry)

2. Blog about this giveaway. (Posting the giveaway on your sidebar is also acceptable.) Leave a separate comment with a link to your post. (1 entry)

3. Subscribe to my rss feed, follow me on blogger, or subscribe via email (or tell me if you already are a subscriber or follower). Leave a separate comment for this. (1 entry)

4. Tweet this post on Twitter. Leave me a separate comment with your twitter user name. (1 entry)

5. Stumble this blog, digg it, technorati fave it, or link it on facebook. Leave a separate comment. (1 entry)

There are a lot of ways to enter (maximum of five entries), but you must LEAVE A SEPARATE COMMENT for each one or they will not count. I will use random.org to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is open to entries from the U.S. and Canada only. The deadline for entry is 9:00 PM, Pacific Time, on Sunday, January 23, 2011. I will draw and post the winner's name in my Mailbox Monday post for January 24, 2011.

MY MAILBOX

I ended up with several new books last week, some that came in the mail, some that I picked up while I was traveling in the Bay Area for work.

The Losing Role by Steve Anderson.  WWII espionage from the German point of view. I got it for Hubby but am going to read it myself first.  See my interview of the author here.



Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. This is my Book Club book this week and will be the first book I don't read before we meet. I had it on hold at the library and realized too late that it wouldn't get here in time.  Neither did the one I ordered.  Oh well.



Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.  This is a fancy, annotated edition.  Apparently Santa didn't remember that I asked for this for Christmas, so I had to take matters into my own hands.  I only recently read this for the first time and fell in love with it (review here).



Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais. I read this in college and am not likely to read it again, but I found this Modern Library Giant edition on the "take one, leave one" shelf at my hotel and convinced myself that I would reread it.  I must have been inspired by staying a block from the Berkeley campus.



The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen.  The Friends of the Berkeley Library bookstore was also only a block from my hotel. I found this one and the Buckley novel, below.



Getting it Right by William F. Buckley, Jr.



Exit Lady Masham by Louis Auchincloss. I also went to Moe's Books on Telegraph Ave. and found this beautiful edition that goes with the fancy books I got for Christmas.

Review of the Day: The Palace Council

The Palace Council by Stephen L. Carter is not what it looks like it is going to be. It has a cover on it like a typical political thriller. And the book descriptions support that supposition with lines like "a suspenseful story of secret societies [and] political intrigue" and "the machinations of spies and assassins."

But political thrillers aren't usually narrated by two-time National Book Award winners or have a plot that stretches over 20 years. The hero is Eddie Wesley, a prominent writer and member of African-American high society during the twilight of the Harlem Renaissance. Yes, Wesley solves a murder mystery, hunts for his missing sister, and tries to discover the secrets of an enigmatic clandestine society, the Palace Council. But he also hangs out with Langston Hughes, writes eight or ten serious novels and a scathing critique of the Vietnam War, and spends decades analyzing the sociology of black intellectuals while mooning over his lost girlfriend.

There is violence and intrigue aplenty, with a plot involving J. Edgar Hoover, Cold War spies, all the Kennedys, Nixon, Vietnam, domestic terrorists, and an elaborate, but never fully explained, plan by the Palace Council to control it all. Someday. There are so many moving parts it is hard to follow them all, and several key pieces never fall into place.

But it is not the shaggy plot that makes the book worthwhile, it is the opportunity to consider Mid-Century American culture and politics from the perspective of African-American academics, politicos, and social mavens. This atypical point-of-view makes The Palace Council stand out from others in the genre.

The Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge

The Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge is hosted by My Reader's Block. The goal is to read mysteries written before 1960. I signed up at the "In a Murderous Mood" level with the goal of reading four to six books, by at least two different authors, by the end of the year.

POSSIBILITIES

Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout

BOOKS READ

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (not reviewed yet)