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More books than ever were reviewed this month; I shall be distributing a large stack of free books out to my friends and family in the coming weeks.
Feel free to follow the links and review my reviews… comments keep me in good with the boss, whether good or ill. Happy reading!
Link to all reviews: Click Here
Book Titles reviewed:
The Dancing Plague
Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women
Hands off My Belly! (a pregnant woman’s survival guide)
The American Revolution 100
Do-It-Yourself Organizing for Dummies
Ciao Italia
Bread Matters (bread enthusiasts must have this book)
Photography Unplugged
Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy
The Fallen Sky (poetic research on meteorites)
Marcus Aurelius, a Life
The Alchemy of Color Knitting
The Story About the Story, by J. C. Hallman
Cheers,
Meredith Greene
Several new books reviewed for July.
My favorite: The Illustrious Dead, by Stephan Talty, arguably one of the best books I’ve read in the last two years. It was a fascinating account of Napoleon’s foray into Russia, in 1812 and of what small, overlooked enemy eventually caused the defeat of the Grand Armee.
Click here to see a page of all my latest reviews.
As always the bosses love to see comments on the reviews, so don’t be shy with your opinions. Many thanks to all those here whom have taken a precious moment of their time to gander at my reviews.
Cheers,
MG
As a freelance writer, my professional experience is limited; besides penning six novels (the seventh is currently in the works) I’ve only been reviewing books for a ‘real’ publication for five months. Before that, my expertise was limited to posting blogs on a handful of literature-inclined websites. Upon being hired as a serious reviewer, I felt eager to read as many books as possible; getting free books hot off the press adds to the ‘mystique’ of this, particular industry.
The age-old perceptions of ‘critics’ yet appears to hold true: an elite group of hallowed citizens, whose opinion is sought out by magazines and newspapers nationwide. As appealing the idea of becoming one of ‘them’ someday, I cannot forget what it feels like to receive criticism of your own hard work. A step back when reading any given piece is therefore necessary, to evaluate not only the first impression of the prose but also to hold up the goggles of creativity, to strive to see what the writer(s) meant to write. Thus, as I am reading a certain kind of mutual respect wells up within me, vying with matched force the more critical aspect of the job. The human eyelid is adept at changing perception, however; with each blink my mind’s eye travels back and forth between writer and critic. This almost yin-and-yang struggle produces a unique form of literary stress; where most read for pure pleasure or learning, the reviewer must read with squinted, hawk-like eyes, always vigilant for glaring mistakes, yet all the while striving to enjoy the book as a reader would.
I recently read an encouraging perspective on the issue of creativity VS criticism, one which re-buoyed my enthusiasm for reviewing more books; it came in the form of a prologue for a book I am reviewing for the upcoming August publication. The writer weighed critics against writers and came across so well in his prose that I was immediately at ease and able to soak in his arguments. The main premise put forth was that writers made the best critics, as they understood the anguish and sweat that goes into each beloved piece and feel passion for writing in general, unable to flippantly dismiss a piece without really looking at it… or at least finding something good to say about it.
As one-sided as his– or my own–opinion would be as a writer, reading the few lines on the subject once again affirmed in my mind the responsibility of a reviewer: to give an impression without cruelty, balanced with prior pieces read and bearing in mind the classic pieces of the ages and yet, never forgetting to return to viewing a piece with an inquisitive reader’s eye.
More titles uploaded; this was one of my busiest reviewing months.
Chocolate, olive oil, BBQ, housecleaning, history and weeds… something for everyone:
As always feel free to leave comments on the reviews, for the Web is run by reader opinions. Enjoy.
Meredith Greene
Having one of the most famous opening paragraphs in Literature 
notwithstanding, this long tale stands on three solid pillars… along with a whole host of decorative posts.
Pillar one is the historical detail, accurate to the very last aristocratic cruel glare above a laced, starched collar. The strong, ever-moving plot follows and stitches the bits of London and Paris history together into a finely woven story, one that echoes long-forgotten epic ballads, though in true literary form. The last pillar is the drama itself… not overly done, not poured so fast that the plot drowns as a spindly seedling in a lake; Dickens caught up fistfuls of the rampant emotion present during that tumultuous time, hearkening forth the bloodcurdling bawls of long-maligned peasants whipped into a frenzy by the madness of mob rule. This review will not reveal all but merely attempt to incite curiosity in readers to entrench themselves in this classic book.
It is difficult to remember throughout this story that this is indeed a ‘Dickens’ book… an author known for his rather hopeful stories, whose plots tend to lean heavily on the milk of human kindness. Though Dickens excelled in painting humans as they are with his pen, this tome is by far his most macabre in flavor… yet, I knew as I read it that this was due more to the actual events than to the writer, for historical accounts show that despite one or two literary straying from known paths into storytelling, this piece may have almost been a chronological account of the revolution in question.
The tale begins as most great stories do, with an innocent person suffering an enormous wrong by greedy overlords bent by decades of excess, wont to do as they please. This ‘beginning’ is gradually revealed as the plot goes along similar to now movies use flashbacks to give background filler. I digress: a young peasant girl falls victim to a particular, tyrannical aristocrat; as she is laboring to give birth to the nobleman’s bastard a local doctor, Alexandre Manette, is called in to assist. Tragically, he is unable to save her or the child, and for some reason instead of merely warning the doctor into silence about the scene he’s just witnessed, the aristocrat ushered the good man into a waiting, blanketed carriage and hustles him off to the worst place in all France: the Bastille prison.
Though the good man wishes to decry his chains, Manette’s name is written down in the prison ledger and he is closeted away in one of the foul, stinking cells of stone. There he remains for 18 years, not knowing how his servants or young daughter are or how to contact them. Eventually one of his former servants Defarge finds him and is allowed to care for the man. Defarge and his oddly cold wife Therese run a wine shop and secretly nurture a blossoming secret revolutionary group referred to as ‘Jacques’, a name taken from an actual French Revolution group, the Jacquerie. Therese has her own dark reasons for zealously provoking rebellion, which are revealed later in the book.
Time goes on; Dr. Manette’s daughter Lucie (a lovely, sweet-tempered girl) is cared for by the capable, motherly housekeeper, laboring under the delusion that her father is dead. Eventually Tellson’s Bank in London gets word somehow of Manette’s real condition and in order to verify the information (the reason involved money) sends an astute and dedicated employee named Jarvis Lorry to Lucie, explains that her father is alive and enlists her help; normally a young girl that that time would have been a traveling liability, but Lorry is clever enough to know that 18 years in the Bastille may have thrown a damper on Manette’s reasoning ability, and that seeing his daughter may slowly snap him out of it. This thinking proves correct. They find Defarge, whom leads them to a cell where a half-catatonic, wasted Manette sits, making shoes in a compulsory manner, having severely withdrawn into his own mind. Eventually, the sight of his daughter’s golden tresses stirs a small memory in his mind, and he grows to recognize her and know himself again. Lucie and Lorry liberate him and carry him back to England to convalesce in the arms of family and devoted servants. Thus ends the first third of the book, and one of the few happier moments. Two more parts lead these characters into a web of mystery, love and finally, resolve.
Not only for readers but writers, this tome is well worth the time and energy required to read and enjoy the historical drama, well-developed characters and genteel intrigue overshadowed by the hideous wraith of revolution. Few today write as well or as honestly as Dickens.
The literary publication for which I write book reviews for part time started a new campaign of ‘sponsored reviews’; for just a bit of coin your book, whether self published or not, gets a featured spot and quick turn-around. Here’s a quote from the in page:
“SBR Sponsored Reviews is a paid-review service that allows authors and publishers to receive expedited reviews of their book. You are not guaranteed a spot in the print publication, but a Sponsored Review gets your book reviewed by one of our already established reviewers, and the review will be put into our publication pipeline. If we do not use the review in the paper, we will place an ad for the book in the Sacramento Book Review, and we will place the review in our online edition, post it on Amazon, and make it available in our upcoming book review syndication service. You will also be able to use the review in your own marketing efforts.” – Sacramento Book Review Submission Page
To sign up or for pricing and more information: Click Here for Info
The SBR folks have proven themselves ready and able to promote writers; this just another great tool in the digital arsenal… with a touch of old-world paper publication thrown in.
- Belator Books
Having multiple-yet-light projects in the works is not as burdensome as one might imagine. Besides the normal, diurnal duties of cooking, cleaning and comfort-purveying there is a growing stack of work on the desks in the home-office. However, the stack is not unwelcome and tackling it valiantly has proved to be a deterrent of sloth and of any extra pounds upon the person.
I work for my husband’s company answering phones and light accounting tasks, along with sometimes random meetings to discuss advertising strategies, researching new leads and the ever-present questions of ‘what other venues can we explore?’. There are bills to pay, papers to be printed, collated and stapled, various emails sent out and various calls to be made.
After this comes the fun stuff: we write/research novels for our website of eBooks, edit a bit and then dive into reading this month’s books to review for my other part-time job, begun three months ago. I have six to review for April; they are proving thus far to be excellent and interesting titles. I mainly review non-fiction books so I am almost guaranteed to learn something new every time I open one up. This truth especially accurate with the cookbooks; new mouth-watering recipes to try (and of such a type not previously attempted) always puts a spark into my day… and then to write about the experience. Double bonus…
Typing up said reviews has also sharpened my writing quill as the formidable word-count-limit forces my normally verbose style to flow through the narrow Canyon of Conciseness. To be pithy in less words, or not to be published… that is the question (says the editor).
Last of all the projects is playtime with our children, which in itself is an enjoyable activity whose only fault is the amount of daylight required. When all is said and done, however, I’d rather play and read with my kids grouped around me on the couch than to sit and watch the news. The flurry of work seems not so much like work at the end of the day, but more leans toward the feeling that one has been busy and productive.
Cheers to the hard-working moms and dads worldwide, whether employed, working at making a home, or busy at the home-office.
Two of my book reviews made it to the front page of the SBR website:
http://sacramentobookreview.com/
Just scroll down the page to read them. I reviewed four books this month:
A to Z Storage Solutions
Garden Anywhere
Gordon Ramsay’s Healthy Appetite (Cooking, Food & Wine section)
The Paper Architect (Crafts & Hobbies section)
If you liked the reviews, please feel free to drop my new boss an email praising my skills at the website, or if you are on Facebook they have their own group. I must admit it is an interesting occupation and the books received are of good quality and shall be cherished (and read).
Much obliged,
Meredith Greene
(A grown-up book review… call it a literature moment for brevity, thought and a bit of relaxation in the day. Enjoy.)
A great book… written by born storyteller Robert Louis Stevenson. It acquaints readers even in modern times of a few facets of the human condition… of once-good hearts swayed by greed and power, eventually trying to outwit nobler folks of higher character to no avail.
The book was originally titled: “The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys”; it is regarded one of the finer examples of a young man’s ‘coming of age’ story, representing the virtues of noble-minded morality and an frank appreciation for justice. Unlike some books of this era of writing, this tome contains not only a pit of tragedy, but avoids the trap of the slowly worsening march to destruction… instead providing a realistic way for the characters to climb out, and so as better people. The beginning of the book was written in the frigid Scottish highlands, and once can almost feel the crisp, cutting wind and hear the banging shutters, the waves of the tide and the call of sea birds. It is all so simply told, in easily spoken prose… as if Stevenson is right there, sitting opposite you by the fire, smoking and regaling all within earshot of the tale in full.
The story begins with a fatherless boy, Jim Hawkins, a brave and hard-working young lad whose only concern is to care for his mother; he dreams of going to sea to ‘make his fortune’ when he comes of age. His mother, still mourning the loss of her husband, tries valiantly to keep her small family afloat by running the Inn, the Admiral Benbow, and does so fairly well despite her dwindling finances. They’ve taken in a boarder, a sea-faring wanderer of sorts ostentatiously named ‘Billy Bones’; he’s a drunkard with numerous pirate tales, a bad temper and ailing health. Between pints he roars and laughs, spins yarns and fills young Jim’s ears with tales of his former captain, the notoriously cruel ‘Cap’n Flint’. Despite the outward bravado, Bones harbors a secret fear and pays Jim to keep an eye out for a blind beggar asking too many questions. Jim goes about his chores, not suspecting the man’s fears have any credence… but they do. *ominous music*
Bones is in actually telling the truth in his sea-tales, well partially… he was indeed a mate on Flint’s crew, When Flint ‘expired’ the crew divvied up the unburied treasure and went their separate ways; the first mate a one-legged shifty-minded scalawag named Long John Silver took his share and opened up an Inn in Bristol. Old Pew, a once formidable pirate that had his eyes put out by Flint squandered his money and was forced to beg. Unbeknownst to them, Flint had made treasure map that led the way to the larger portion of the treasure, which Flint had buried years before his death; after it was buried far inland on an uninhabited island, Flint then killed the men six men who’d carried it there, returning to his ship alone. (This treacherous action sealed Flint’s fate as being both feared and loathed by his men for bringing a curse on them.) Ben Gunn, another member of the crew, tried to find the fabled buried treasure after Flint’s death but failed, and was subsequently marooned on the island in question by the rest of the crew.
Billy Bones found and stole the map, before his crewmates could, and high-tailed-it to the cold shores of his native land, coming at last to roost at the out-of-the-way Benbow. Flint’s old crew figured out whodunit and tracked Bones to England. They are lead by Old Pew, a once formidable pirate trusted by Flint; he (not surprisingly) wants the treasure for himself and is a bit irked at Bones for taking the map. The whole ‘no honor among thieves’ bit comes to mind several times as one reads on. Bones flings about Flint’s name a bit too much during his drunken tale-spinning bouts and soon word reached Old pew and the other crewmates. Pew appears before Jim and holds his arm in a vice-like grip, demanding to be taken before Billy Bones. The tough old salt in question pales with fear before the spindly blind beggar and even more so as Pew hurls a bit of paper at Bones, marked with one large spot of black ink. After making a hasty exit the beggar lurches off to plan the nights ‘bit o justice’ on Billy Bones and the Inn.
Bones collapses in a fit of terror (and perhaps bourbon) and is shuffled into bed by the innkeeper and her son. Being a bright lad, Jim Hawkins senses something is amiss and enlists the help of the good doctor Livesey and Squire John Trelawny. These are ideal allies, for not only medical help but also being experienced marksmen, not to mention fine, upstanding citizens. The Doctor examines Bones to a point, and a slight comedic moment ensues with the good doctor lightly berating the salty old pirate for not living a more healthy existence. Ironic inferences are one of the perks of the medical profession, methinks.
In the dead of night Jim takes his mother to safety to the squire’s home, though not before checking on Billy Bones; the man is in the last stages of a heart attack brought on by (take a wild guess) heavy drinking and the nasty shock of earlier. In between gasps he informs the concerned Jim what the near-invaders are after, Flint’s map; he tells the boy to take it before fading away into oblivion, his pistols by his side. A few minutes later what’s left of Flint’s crew descends upon the Benbow, at last finding the expired Bones. After clucking a bit disappointedly for being cheated of giving the death-blow, they search around for the map. Not finding it, Pew shrilly alerts them that it must have been ‘the boy whut tookit’. By this time the Squire and Doctor have rounded up a sizable posse of concerned citizens (thank goodness for gun-toting militia men) and descend upon the Inn in whipped up carriages; in the melee that follows Old Pew is run over in front of the Inn and most (but not all) of the pirates are either shot or arrested; in all fairness, they were shooting at the newcomers and most had warrants on their heads.
From there things roll along at a breakneck pace: Jim Hawkins shows the map to the squire an doctor whom live up to all expectations and decide to give him an equal share and that he should come along on the trip of a lifetime. They hire a boat, a captain and unfortunately the good planning ends there… the for crew hiring is done rather sloppily for such a high-stakes mission, where Long John Silver gets wind of the mission and managed to get hired on as the ships cook, inveigling in as many of his own pirate buddies on the crew as possible. As one can foresee a mutiny eventually happened, though not until the island has been found.
Silver is the quintessential pirate leader, though with a few quirks that seem out of place; he skulks and swaggers, is quiet and brazen… and being a half-educated man he spouts poetry and literature quotes from time to time, swinging from cruel dictator to benevolent peacemaker. In one scene kills several men, while in the next pales at the thought of tearing a page from the Bible. The forgotten
Ben Gunn comes back into play, the man marooned on the island all those yeas ago… he is delightfully insane in a mild way and did in fact eventually locate the treasure; he dug it up and moved it, uncannily knowing that his mates would one day run out of money and come back looking for it. He gleefully toys with his former mates as they scour the island looking for the fabled gold, all the while playing on their superstitious fears of ghosts and curses. Jim befriends the straggly Gunn and with his help the remainder of the good, loyal crew retakes the ship, stows the treasure and sails off with most of the pirates marooned on the island themselves. I do love an ironic ending. For some reason they feel it is necessary to bring Silver with them, despite the fact that most readers agree he should have been left on the island. He gets loose somehow from the brig and makes off in the long boat with a box of treasure, but even that does not work out as the man planned.
Every writer in any genre should read this book as it is filled with all the nuances of the simple, effective artistry of the pen. Stevenson not only proved himself an able storyteller here, but in all his other books as well; to his credit, he made each of them unique a varied despite their similar themes and lessons. And, which of us has not wanted as youngsters to find a buried treasure?
While I wish I could write without err, whether grammatical or spelling, the true facts are surprisingly contrary to that whimsical daydream. The blatant correcting editor has grown in my esteem over the last two years to a place where I resent them not, at least not usually.
I have four beta readers now, in several countries and they constantly edit not only my work but each others edits and thus most (if not all) the mistakes are located and scoured from the surface of my books. Over the last year alone the books for sale on our website have undergone four separate edits for the things that one missed, gleefully pointed out by another and corrected.
Take the humble pill and have others look at your work, and bite back the retorts that bubble up as valid mistakes are pointed out, for thus is the reason they edit…. to make your work as good as it can be. Some great places to put your work up for scrutiny: fictionpress.com, gather.com, livejournal.com and writerscafe.org. All are free and fairly easy to navigate. Join writers/ readers groups and help edit the work of others as well.
Cheers,
MG
